Over to my left, Cassie pulled herself up from where she’d been lying—on a desk in one of the cubicles and partially into one of the walls. Then she jumped over the next cube and into the next. For a moment I wondered where she was going, but then I knew. She was going after her sword.
I’d added tracking devices to it and other pieces of equipment that were likely to get lost. She could see it in her HUD just like I could if I wanted.
The mechs on the left side on the far side of the cubicles next to the windows fired at her, but not soon enough to hit. Pieces of the cubicles exploded outward as the bullets blew through. Continue reading Holes: Part 2→
Cables popped out as I pulled the panel away and threw it on the floor. The man inside was screaming and trying to untangle himself from the harness. Meanwhile, the mech’s arms drooped and the mech stopped moving.
It had taken more effort to knock it on its back than I would have expected. On the other hand, as mechs went, it was squat and had wide legs. The center of gravity might be low. I supposed that might be a plus if you were expecting to protect your base with barely trained, mind-controlled civilians.
Seeing as how the mech didn’t appear to be about to explode, I pointed my arm at him and activated the paralysis ray. Continue reading Holes: Part 1→
Firing off several goobots, I saw them race around my teammates and explode into a gooey mess that hit the older man with the Swiss Army knife along with two women in suits, a short blond woman in her 20s and a freckled woman in her 40s.
The strands reached into the crowd, hitting a few more people I couldn’t see as well along with the ceiling and the floor. I’d designed the bots to spread out and hit something that wouldn’t move. Continue reading Transitions: Part 10→
Jaclyn and Izzy stepped into the warehouse as the red beams of lasers appeared in the smoke. Izzy grabbed a missile out of the air, crushed it, and threw the pieces to the ground before smashing through one of the building’s undamaged bits of wall.
I’d have fired off the anti-personnel lasers to give them cover, but between the explosions, smoke, fire, and moving figures inside, I wouldn’t be doing them any favors. Continue reading Transitions: Part 9→
Minutes later, I was running through the plan with Jaclyn and the Probationers. Jaclyn had heard all of what we had in the process of keeping the rest of the team involved, but she was listening in as she ran to Indiana.
Not only couldn’t I see her face, but I only saw one of the Probationers as he sat in the jet they were flying. All I could see of the Atoner was his red and white costume, the metallic gray of his exoskeleton, and the gadgets that hung from it. His helmet covered his face, giving a hint of light brown skin and dark, black hair.
Even though Grandpa had helped train him, all I knew about the man was that he’d killed his team while under mind control and changed his name to the Atoner afterward. Continue reading Transitions: Part 8→
“I’m most worried about the mechs,” I said. “If we can do it without killing anyone on the floor, I’d like to start this thing by aiming the main gun at the lower level of the warehouse. Plus, as much as I’d like to investigate the Abominator generator, destroying it might be the better choice. If you think about it, if they’ve got one Abominator artifact, they might have more.”
Raising an eyebrow, Daniel said, “I didn’t even think about that, but you’re right. If they managed to find something like that and get it working, they’ve probably got more working.”
Cassie tapped her comm, “Can you see if they’re Tara’s clone or do they look like me?”
Talking over the wind blowing in the background, Izzy said, “No. I’m only guessing it’s the True because of their height. That’s about all I can get.”
“Huh,” Cassie stared out the window toward the campus and shook her head. “They’ve got enough copies of Dad, male and female. It’s messed up.” Continue reading Transitions: Part 6→
Through my implant, Hal showed me the two buildings on Eden Tech campus only with a kind of mist that seemed to be centered around the lower level of the corporate building.
Cassie’s gun absorbed ambient energy to work, mostly electromagnetic and gravitational from what I could tell. What this absorbed, I wasn’t sure yet. It might be the same but on a bigger scale. It might be something that I couldn’t imagine until I studied it.
Daniel thought at me, That’s interesting. Abominator tech. No wonder they’ve set up telepathy blockers.
“Hey, everybody,” I raised my hand to get their attention, “Hal just told me where my cousin Anastasia works. I think I told you all about her—well, except for Izzy. Ana’s the cousin who told my Uncle Steve about a contract to work with Armory, the guy who Cassie, Daniel, Yoselin, and I gave to the Feds. So, she’s got some kind of connection to all of this and it’s probably through work. She’s also an engineer. Oh, and it sounds like wherever she’s working is trying to duplicate the self-repairing feature of my armor. I don’t know what’s up with that.”
Vaughn raised his eyebrow, “I don’t think you mentioned the bit with how they’re trying to duplicate your tech, but what do you want to do about it? Break in or, I don’t know, make an unexpected visit as yourself?” Continue reading Transitions: Part 4→
I wasn’t sure I liked how he phrased his last sentence, “Uh… Check on it? Did you lose it or something?”
He laughed, “Not exactly. We sent it to a safe place. You’re not the only person who’s ever asked us to pick up a bad guy’s stuff. In fact, we encourage it. Legally speaking, it’s the best choice. If you take it, you’re stealing evidence. If we take it, the prosecutor can use it at trial—which is much better.”
“I know. My grandfather told me about that. Plus, it was covered at Stapledon. So, where is it? Can we visit or is it so top secret that nobody can know the location of the vault?” Continue reading Transitions: Part 3→
The Legion of Nothing: A Series of Online Superhero Novels (Updates Monday and Thursday)
