Tag Archives: Cassie

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 2

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I wasn’t worried about the communicators’ encryption. I’d only put them together last spring. It wasn’t as if they were old League technology that everyone had analyzed thirty years ago.

Maybe I should have been worried more. The communicators were based on the roachbots, and Grandpa had designed the first versions of the roachbots in the 1950’s as mobile bugging devices.

I’d updated them substantially over the past year though. Grandpa’s design survived only in the most general terms.

All the details of the current systems were mine.

Of course, the communicators still connected to the League’s old alert system. That might be a vulnerability.

Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 2 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 1

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As always, Jefferson Street was a zoo. It probably had the most fast food restaurants and chain stores of any street in the city. At ten or eleven at night, the traffic became bearable—it wasn’t bumper to bumper anymore.

I brought the van to a stop on the other side of the road from the one with Lakeside Lounge–four lanes worth of cars and semi-trucks away.

We were next to a Subway, a shoe store, and Grand Lake Marina Supplies. That last store took up most of the space. Even though the store had closed, the lights were still on, and I could look in at speed boats, engines, water-skis and other gear.

Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 1 →

Arc 4.8: Being Watched

Being Watched: Part 2

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“Great,” Cassie said, “Is he a Nazi too?”

“Dunno,” I said, and tapped away at the computer, heading for the Feds’ supers database.

Vaughn said, “Aren’t you the guy who knows this stuff? You’re on the Double V forums all the time.”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know everything. The Nine keep a low profile. Everybody knows they do stuff because sometimes they take credit for things, but they employ supers, and they’re an organization. So when supers show up, you never know if it’s one of the higher ups or some mid-level guy.”

I watched as our system passed our key, and then got an encrypted response from the other server. When it verified that it came from the Feds, we could assume that we’d logged into the real server instead of some impostor.

A little later, I’d searched out the Nine’s entry. I displayed it on HQ’s twenty foot tall screen. Continue reading Being Watched: Part 2 →

Arc 4.8: Being Watched

Being Watched: Part 1

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On Monday night, Vaughn, Cassie, and I sat together in “Criminology 101.” We weren’t alone. Julie and Shannon were with us.

We sat in a darkened room, looked up at the screen, and watched the professor talk. This would have been normal for a distance learning class except for a few details. First, we were sitting in League HQ. We could have been sitting in a room at the University, but then we’d have been sitting together with Sean, Dayton, and Jody.

It would have been a little awkward for all of us in a variety of different ways. Awkward for me, because Sean and I didn’t get along especially well. Awkward for Cassie and Vaughn, because they were friends of mine and knew Sean. Awkward for Julie and Shannon, because they had been on a team with Sean. Continue reading Being Watched: Part 1 →

Arc 4.6: Settling In

Settling In: Part 5

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Lightning hit the leader again, and while his body shook, the paralysis gun dropped out of his hand, falling to the roof with a clunk.

Part of me hoped it still worked by the the time I could move. I planned to grab it. A more practical side of my mind hoped it had been destroyed in the first lightning strike.

Near me, Cassie stood up, entering the edges of the helmet’s peripheral vision. She didn’t waste any time. Once she was on her feet, she ran straight at the leader as he bent over to grab the gun.

Continue reading Settling In: Part 5 →

Arc 4.6: Settling In

Settling In: Part 4

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He didn’t get up easily. He pushed himself up one hand at a time, swaying as he made it up on two legs.

Taking an experimental step, he spied something on the roof, and bent over to get it—the automatic pistol. When he came up the second time, he seemed stronger. He stood up normally.

Quickly, he pointed the gun past me—probably at Vaughn.

This time the wind came up as a roaring, howling blast that drew the man into the air, and threw him off the building. Continue reading Settling In: Part 4 →

Arc 4.6: Settling In

Settling In: Part 3

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I tried to dive to the right, but I’d already lost control of my legs.

I crumpled, and fell to the roof of the building. I fell sideways, and then rolled halfway on to my back—”halfway” because I was mostly on my arm and right side of my back, and partly on my rocketpack. It wouldn’t let me roll all the way there.

The other guy—the only guy with an exoskeleton still standing—had pulled out a paralysis gun too. Continue reading Settling In: Part 3 →

Arc 4.6: Settling In

Settling In: Part 2

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Marcus followed them, lengthening his legs as he jumped, and stretching his arms to grab the ledge on the other side. His leap reminded me of a frog somehow.

If it weren’t night, I could have blamed it on his green costume. I only recognized him because I knew he was coming, and because no normal human could stretch like that.

Frog-like or not, the way his shape briefly blocked the stars made me think of Batman cartoons—which ironically brought me back to reality. Continue reading Settling In: Part 2 →

Arc 4.6: Settling In

Settling In: Part 1

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Even three nights later, I still found myself thinking about the conversation. I’d talked about it with Haley, (and for that matter Daniel, Cassie, and Vaughn) and we all agreed it wasn’t likely that Courtney would be able to recreate the power impregnator on her own.

Despite what you might see in the movies, being a chemistry major doesn’t automatically qualify you to construct a device that activates powers hidden in a person’s DNA.

I mean, honestly, it would have been a lot of work for me to construct one, and I had Grandpa’s documentation.

I knew that, and yet on Thursday night I lay in my bunk, staring at the ceiling, and wondering what she planned to do with her powers anyway.

She could already pass for a model. What else did she want? Continue reading Settling In: Part 1 →