I didn’t even think about what I’d be hitting. I fired, holding the button down even though I knew it used more power.
I don’t think I panicked, but I can’t say I was thinking clearly.
Being rushed by someone who you know can kill you does that. Continue reading Targets: Part 24
Alex pushed the man’s hand off himself, rolling his body to the right and standing up.
I didn’t get a chance to see what happened to him after that because the next group of Cabal soldiers had also jumped out of the forest.
One of them landed directly on the hood of Haley’s car–which didn’t dent, though it did bounce a little.
I didn’t have time to point and aim the laser in the neck at him, but I had been holding the guitar.
I pressed the button that set off what I thought of as the “light show lasers.” Continue reading Targets: Part 23
Haley parked the car by the side of the road. As we got out, I couldn’t help but notice who wasn’t there–Jaclyn, Cassie and Julie. And that sucked because Cassie could have chopped them to pieces, Julie could have told them to stop, and had a pretty good chance that they’d listen, and Jaclyn…
Jaclyn could have done something. Physically, she was the only one of us who was in Prime’s army’s league. Plus she was a whole lot faster than any of them.
I couldn’t say that we were doomed, but part of me would have felt better knowing they were with us.
Continue reading Targets: Part 22
“Ask him if he can use the underwater entrance,” I told Cassie.
I was pretty sure the Defenders’ jets could.
Cassie passed it along.
“Right,” Alex said, “I remember that from when I was a kid.”
Continue reading Targets: Part 13
We managed to escape reporters only because crossing the street had gotten Brooke out of range of the devices that stopped her from opening a gate.
We couldn’t go immediately because we couldn’t leave the mech operator — both because Alex wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and because we didn’t want the mech operator to wake up and run off.
The Defenders took out the remaining Syndicate L people within a couple minutes. Blue Streak and several SWAT teams arrived while they were still fighting and joined in.
Continue reading Three: Part 17
When the brightness and the thundering boom of the explosion ended, I saw that the guitar’s charge had turned a chunk of the mech’s chest into a smoking ruin.
It fell backwards, crashing onto the street.
The left arm beat the ground with jerky flailing motions. The shell muffled the sound of screaming, but I could still hear it.
“Oh God, oh God, it hurts…”
Continue reading Three: Part 16
“Lumbering” wasn’t quite the word to use though.
It looked slow and clumsy, but it moved. Within seconds it had gotten past the piles of concrete on the street and caught up to us. It swiped at a line of Jennys with its arm, knocking some of them over, hitting others hard enough that Jenny discorporated them, probably just to stop the pain.
A few more Jennys appeared to replace the ones that were gone, but not as many as there had been. I noticed that none of the new ones had copies of my guitar and all of them seemed tired.
Continue reading Three: Part 15
They were in front of the building but beginning to run down the street. I landed next to them.
I ran around a couple Jennys to join the core of the group.
“This is bad,” I said. “They’ve got snipers and supers on the shops over there and a giant robot hiding off to the side of the Syndicate L’s building. Can you teleport yet?”
Continue reading Three: Part 14
Four of them came through the door. They wore black, powered armor and helmets with wide, transparent facemasks. The armor made me think of police riot gear except riot gear generally included padding. This armor appeared be hard from top to bottom.
An automatic rifle hung under the right arm. Another weapon hung under the left. It reminded me of the Executioner’s paralysis gun.
Continue reading Three: Part 10
“Great,” Alex said. “Let’s put a plan together and get in there. It looks like simple get in, get out sort of mission to me. Anybody else?”
Brooke shook her head. “I don’t know… Something’s not right. Why do they think they can take on the Defenders?”
“You think it’s more than just the hostages?” Jenny said.
“How often do hostages work against people with powers?” Brooke said.
Continue reading Three: Part 9