As if to illustrate how many people we had to work with, Cassie and Travis stepped out of one of the tunnel doors on the wall of the main room. They’d come through the forest entrance. Both of them were in civilian clothes, Travis, at least a foot taller than anyone in the room, had muscles to match. Somehow, he still managed to give the impression of an ambitious young businessman as opposed to a thug. It was probably the combination of his button-down shirt and short hair.
Cassie wore a Georgetown hoodie and jeans, her blond hair in a ponytail. I wasn’t sure what she did when she wasn’t at the League and I suspected that being a superhero was all she did. Continue reading Friends & Family: Part 7→
Haley’s lip curled, “Then I think you need to get out of here and let us discuss it. You know that we’re not the whole League. Some of us who aren’t here are going to need a minute to talk about this.”
“Some of us who are here will too,” Cassie’s hand brushed her gun.
Adam glanced down at it, his face hidden in the shadows, but his mouth seemed to tighten, jerking into a smile, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“We might want to consider it,” Daniel said, looking around the group.
I knew what that meant. His loose sense of possible futures included better ones if we allied with this guy. Of course, even knowing that, Daniel would admit that inevitably in an infinity of futures, Adam would betray us in an infinite number.
But a smaller infinity, Daniel thought at me, and the sense I’m getting is that even if he does we’ll be better off than if we never allied with him.Continue reading Distractions: Part 10→
They left. Major Justice grunted as he stood up and grabbed a powdered donut. The sugar puffed into the air, leaving white spots on his fatigues.
South Beach Surfer turned toward Cassie and I as she followed Major Justice out, “You’ll regret this. Remember later that we tried to talk you out of it.”
I thought back to yesterday and what happened to Ana and Colette. Implanted commands might have unexpected side effects.Is Kals confident she can get to us if something goes wrong?
We’re only upstairs, Daniel thought back at me. Kals says she’ll contact you via implant with the words.
Cassie smirked, “Are you saying that you think the first Captain Commando was a quiet, subtle guy? Because that’s not how I remember him. I remember him as the kind of guy who’d go after the Nine and not give a damn what happened because they’re a danger. He’d be smart about it, but direct and he wouldn’t wait for permission.”
Major Justice’s thin lips tightened and for the first time, I thought about how much of his face his helmet showed—almost all of it by way of a transparent faceplate. I pegged him as being in his late 50s, maybe early 60s, from his white hair, and lined face. Continue reading Distractions: Part 7→
To the degree that they were a multi-team delegation, they weren’t from what I’d think of as the upper-tier teams. The Arizona Defenders had a reputation for being retirees from other teams. This wasn’t all true. Probably half of the team was younger people. This wasn’t all bad since the younger heroes would have competent advice, but also, Arizona wasn’t a hotbed of supervillain activity either.
Shifter’s private team and Mime’s circus-themed team? They were big in Oklahoma City and Tampa respectively but didn’t make national news. I knew that Mime regularly fought someone named Florida Man, but couldn’t name anyone else in their rogues’ galleries. Continue reading Distractions: Part 6→
I explained it all to her. Her response was somewhere between a grunt and a growl, followed by, “That’s insane! He’s got no right.”
Taking a deep breath, she shifted back, her eyes becoming fully human and her claws disappearing. She pulled her phone out of her purse where it lay next to her yoga pants on the floor, “I’m going to send a yellow to everybody and see if anybody can make it in with us. How many do you think we should have?” Continue reading Distractions: Part 5→
Over the team connection, Travis said, “That’s got to be the Cabal. Big? Strong? Messy? That’s their MO.”
In her dark grey costume balanced on the top of a building downtown, Haley said, “At least it’s not that guy who burned everybody.”
I felt Daniel’s queasiness at the memory of the burned bodies the man had left behind. I couldn’t criticize him for that. I tried not to think about it very often myself.
Connecting to my comm through my implant, I told him, “No worries. We see you. We didn’t know it was you, but we do try not to shoot when we don’t know what we’ll hit.”
I looked over at Cassie and she rolled her eyes at me.
Unaware of that, Lim replied, “Good. I’m contacting D.C. to get people there up to speed about all this. Did you recognize the missiles?”
