“God, yes,” Cassie stared up at the screen. “It was every bit that bad and they didn’t do the worst of it. That was Adam—remember Dark Cloak? He made some kind of deal with the fey that turned lets him call on weird shit out of faerie for help. Plus, you know what? They deserved it. They weren’t holding back. They were going for the kill.”
“Except,” Daniel caught her eye, ”they were under someone else’s control when they did it. They might have done the same thing on their own, but they didn’t have a choice.” Continue reading Transitions: Part 2→
Master Martian went for it. From the tension in his shoulders and the tightness of his face as he said, “Yes,” I got the impression that he might not fully trust Daniel in his head, but he also knew that we didn’t have a record of treating villains any worse than any other hero group.
Plus, if he calculated the odds, it was obvious that we could do anything we wanted to him whether he said yes or no. So it wasn’t as if we had to lie about having a way home to get him to do something. Continue reading Transitions: Part 1→
Yoselin frowned, likely not even knowing who that was, but I’d told everyone else long ago—except maybe Izzy and Tara. At that moment, I couldn’t think if there’d been any reason to bring him up.
Vaughn, Cassie, Daniel, and Haley all knew the name, however, and Master Martian had their full attention.
Daniel’s smile was visible under the black and silver mask over the top of his face, “Nothing special. You know what you could do if you could use your powers. We used blocking devices that you should already be familiar with—I know I am—the kind that prevents mental powers from working.”
Damon looked away from us and toward the dismembered bodies of True and Cabal soldiers, “Good luck,” he said. “And I mean that. He clearly wants you for something and from what Accelerando tells us, I don’t think you’ll want to help him—which means that you might be on the receiving end of what we just saw.”
Cedric nodded, “She told us that you’ve got a wizard on the team. You’re going to want her help on this.”
I jumped out first with Yoselin following after me. We landed on the balcony and didn’t even have to smash through the balcony’s sliding door. Daniel slid both the screen door and the glass door open. Even though we’d opted to turn on our telepathy and teleportation blockers for the initial assault, Daniel’s telekinesis worked perfectly.
Thanks to the stream, I could see Master Martian’s eyes widen and his antenna shoot straight from his head as he pushed himself, stumbled, and then flew off the couch. Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 9→
Telling the jet to throw the streams on screens in the passenger area so that people without implants could see them too, I announced, “This looks bad. At least one of these people is one of the True and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more. We should probably assume that, actually. The big question is if they have backup and how close it is.”
I flipped through the various accessible video streams that Hal’s friend (I guess?) had made available. There were more than I would have predicted, but most of them were either through laptops or security cameras that computers could access. Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 8→
I held up my hand and waved it, “Hey everybody, Hal’s already got the location. Master Martian’s in Washington D.C. More precise information is on its way.”
Though we didn’t feel it thanks to the gravitics and inertial dampers, we could see through the windows as the jet spun around in the sky, changing direction and altitude, clouds and the blue sky a blur as the jet shot upward. Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 7→
Slumping into her seat, Tara shook her head before turning to look around at the group, “I’m sorry. I need to get out of True headspace for a little while. It’s exhausting to look at the world that way even though I know we need it. We need to find Master Martian first, though, and from what I was seeing, we need to find him today. When the Dominators know we met with Bullet, they’ll go after Master Martian and maybe after the woman too.”
We followed Stephanie down the hall toward the exit while she asked us questions that pointedly weren’t about what we were doing here. Except for her hint, they didn’t make any other reference to the last time we’d been together either. I followed her lead, answering her questions and choosing not to go in directions that might make her listeners suspicious.
As we reached the room we’d first entered—the one with the big TV and the two long couches facing it—she stopped, “I heard about what Cassie’s been doing—organizing multi-team training sessions at your property in the U.P. I think you’ll find plenty of people here who will be interested in working out with you. Personally, I think you’ll want to be careful about who you invite. Some people around here hold grudges. You know how that is.”
