The comm clicked and I heard C’s deep, bass voice. “Critical Mass. Please go to Gateway B. They’ll need your help.”
Taking a last look below, I let more power in. The sheath around me glowed with more energy and I flew upward, flying over the line of 19th century buildings with their carvings and decorations. Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 19
“You know what I’m saying,” C said. “You’ll have to kill them. There’s no way around it. Do what you need to do.”
They did.
There were two gates. One now stood where a street deadended into a small park in the middle of downtown. Though there were trees and grass in the park, an open air amphitheater filled most of it. Five levels of seats faced a concrete stage. The banner hanging above the stage proclaimed “Sponsored by Rhino Breweries.” Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 18
Just as it had earlier, Blue’s yell caused chaos. The giant winged dinos dove to avoid her voice despite anything their riders did with their reins. As they dove, the League jet circled around from over Grand Lake to appear behind us even as we dove to follow.
“I’m thinking we should use Blue to herd them,” the Rocket said. “If they stay low, it shouldn’t be hard to hit them from the side.”
Blue’s voice came over the comm. “I’ll try, but you’re going to lose a lot of windows.” Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 17
There’s only one thing I’m better for in a fight than being a distraction, and that’s a weapon of mass destruction, but this wasn’t the time for a WMD.
I roared toward the flying dino, light flashing on my front to keep me in the air and from the bottoms of my feet and hand to keep me moving forward. With each flash of light came an accompanying pop or explosive booming noise.
I sounded like the Fourth of July—the end of the fireworks display when they’re sending off everything they have left.
From video footage, I knew what I had to look like—a vaguely human shaped being of blinding light. When I fly toward you, you’ll see me even if you shut your eyes. Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 16
Railgun flipped through channels on the big screen. The local NBC News 10 already had the flying dinosaur in view of its helicopter, but that wasn’t all. Many of the cable news stations followed the same feed. It wasn’t the News 10 feed.
One station labeled it as “Invaders Live Feed.”
I checked on internet news sites. The invaders were making the feed available online. They were that confident of destroying us? What else did they have? Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 15
Shadow and Voice led me over to the locker rooms to change. If you’re imagining a futuristic locker room, stop.
It looked like the locker room of every high school sports team in the United States—rows of toilet stalls with metal dividers for privacy. A roomful of metal lockers for each person on the team and wooden benches for people to sit. The far end of the room opened into a tiled room with showers.
I read the names on the lockers—Accelerando, Captain Commando, The Mystic, The Rocket, Storm King and the others—realizing, “There’s only one locker room?”
Voice, a thin, blonde woman, shucked her grey Stapledon uniform, laughed and grunted, “You got it.” Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 13
“I hope my personnel files made entertaining reading,” I told him.
“Listening,” he said. “And I didn’t do it simply to invade your privacy. I needed to know how you’d handle it if the unexpected came up. It happens frequently around here. Now though, I need your answer. We’ll need more people in the next fight and I have an idea about how your specific power can help us.”
Ideally, a journalist reports the truth and nothing more. Everyone knows that perfect objectivity is impossible, but you try your best because the alternative is worse. I knew that, and I also knew that I could never be truly objective about people I’d fought beside.
These are people you have to trust with your life. Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 12
“As if we’d surrender,” Storm King said, “we can take these guys.”
Next to him, Gravity Star stared at the screen. “But who’s the man next to him?”
“Soon,” the dinosaur said, looking deeply into the camera, “we will give you an example of the price of refusal.”
The feed cut off, going back to CNN. Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 11
The Rocket clicked away from the spybot’s view of downtown to a map “We’re not near any of those bases. Our National Guard base and training grounds don’t rate an attack. Uh… Wait. Selfridge Air National Guard base is being attacked.”
Everyone turned as he zoomed in on the base. From above, it wasn’t much more than green grass, buildings and several long runways.
The Rocket peered up at the wall screen. “I don’t think they expect us to help. We’re on the other side of the state and it’s looking like Detroit’s Unity team is working with the Canadian team in Windsor to defend the base.” Continue reading A Day in The Life: Part 8
She pushed the button.
All the voices disappeared into static along with the displays in the helmet and every light in the armor. As of that moment, she was alone in front of the exit to HQ, and not standing either.
She didn’t know what the suit did to help her stay balanced, but whatever it was, it had to be electrical because moments after the lights faded she fell over backwards.
Taking stock of the situation, she stared upward. Stars peeked through the leaves and branches, visible in the dusk.