Tag Archives: Daniel

Arc 7.4: Burning

Burning: Part 4

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Camille grimaced. “That’s horrible. That shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

She turned, following Tara with her eyes to where she sat. Gordon stood next to her. I couldn’t hear him, but from the expression on his face I guessed he must be apologizing.

Tara’s face didn’t show any emotion, and after a moment Gordon left.

Camille let out a breath, and shook her head. “We should do something for her.”

I found myself imagining it as an episode of a a children’s cartoon–“My Little Pony” or something. Camille would throw a party for her, and Tara would say, “Thanks Camille, now I don’t feel bad about my dead parents anymore!”

Come to think of it, that sounded more like the Simpsons satirizing children’s cartoons.

Continue reading Burning: Part 4 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 6

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Gunther glanced back to the field, and then turned back toward everyone watching him. “But here’s one of the major things you need to get out of this. Fairness is completely irrelevant. This is combat. Fairness is for games. The whole situation is unfair from the beginning. You’re all a bunch of heroes in training. Chances are, you’re not trying to kill them, but they are trying to kill you. Sure, some of them won’t be. Many, even. No matter how many jewelry stores a guy breaks into, he may still have a set of morals that means he won’t kill, but you know what? That doesn’t matter.”

Despite his topic, Gunther managed to sound slightly amused.

Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 6 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 5

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Calvin flew toward us in the air in a leap that had to be getting extra force from the wind behind him, and he wasn’t alone.

Cindy and Paula jumped after him.

It didn’t work out as well as any of them would have expected.

A beam of iridescent light hit Calvin in the air, surrounding him with sparkles that kept on glowing as he flew toward us.

Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 5 →

Arc 7.3: Entry Assessment

Entry Assessment: Part 4

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Gunther continued, “The paintbot rounds stand in for the suit’s lasers, and for the explosive rounds which take out most people. Non-lethal rounds are perfectly allowable for this fight, Rocket. Captain Commando, your gun counts as a laser for this. Paint them with light, and you’ll take them out. The sword works too, but don’t turn it on.”

Gunther took in the group of us standing together. “Here’s how this will work: each group fights until there’s a clear winner between the two of you. You’ll need to think about how to do that, but I’m not going to give you time to talk about it.” Continue reading Entry Assessment: Part 4 →

Arc 7.1: Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat: Part 5

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“No way,” I said, wondering how he’d gotten his powers activated. It wasn’t exactly a casual thing. The League had the first known working device to do it. It hadn’t been hard for me to make it work, but I’d had the benefit of my grandfather’s documentation.

I knew that the government had their own devices. From the news and personal experience, I knew that criminal organizations also had them. I wasn’t aware of anyone outside of those two groups owning any, but almost everything they needed was available on the internet now.

Corporate devices couldn’t be far away if they weren’t already out there.

Jaclyn’s mind obviously went along the same track mine did. She put down her hamburger, and said, “He can’t still be using power juice his uncle brewed. It’s illegal, and they wouldn’t allow him into the program, would they?”

“He’s not,” Courtney said. “I asked him.”

Continue reading Fresh Meat: Part 5 →

Arc 7.1: Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat: Part 4

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Haley’s brow furrowed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”

She took a piece of steak and a spoonful of a salad that appeared to be a mixture of corn, tomato and avocado.

“I had no idea. How did you know?” I kept my voice a little lower than normal. No need to broadcast this. Well, more than it must have been already. Haley wasn’t the only person with enhanced hearing, and Daniel couldn’t be the only person with telepathy or clairvoyance.

Hopefully everyone would be too occupied by eating and meeting people to eavesdrop on us.

Just ahead of me on this side of the buffet table, Jaclyn grabbed food without saying anything. I wondered if she was deliberately ignoring us. In her position, I would have. Continue reading Fresh Meat: Part 4 →

Arc 7.1: Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat: Part 3

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“It’s not impossible,” Jaclyn said. “But, I can’t say I’m excited to find out whether they’re ultimately more loyal to humanity or themselves. Lee’s deal with the Cabal gives us a year where they’ll leave us alone.”

Haley bit her lip. “That was last June.”

Jaclyn nodded. “Do you think they’ve been counting down the days?”

Haley sighed and her eyes darted between the two of us. “I hope not. I don’t even know what day it was. Do you?”

I looked over at Jaclyn and she shook her head.

“No,” I said, “but I’m sure I could figure it out. Anyway, I bet one of us knows.”

Jaclyn nodded. “Even with their descendants here, I’m not that worried about us, but Marcus and Sydney are still in Grand Lake. Even if they weren’t, all of our parents are.”

Continue reading Fresh Meat: Part 3 →

Arc 7.1: Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat: Part 1

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Reed showed us to our rooms, let us drop off our luggage, and led us to the cafeteria before leaving us to meet the buses.

“Find a table,” he said as he opened the door to walk out, “the buses are here. You’ll be seeing all your friends in minutes.”

I believed him. Except for us, the room was empty of students, but it was full of staff. The tables had been set. The staff were placing food on four different tables that barely seemed to have room for more.

On the stage in front of the room, a man said, “Testing, testing?” into the microphone on the podium until someone called him on the phone. Then he said, “Good,” and left the stage and room. Continue reading Fresh Meat: Part 1 →

Arc 6.5: Glory

Glory: Part 7

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Lim walked a couple steps more up the ramp, and joined me. “Keep on moving. I’ve got to get in there to thank everybody in person, and to assure them that their friends are getting the best medical care available—which is true by the way.”

I turned around, and started following Daniel for a few steps before turning back toward Lim to ask, “About those rights and responsibilities—“

Lim interrupted me. “We’re looking into it, but in the end you may have to flat out ask them. Of course, you may have a few more resources than most of us. Use them and you’ll have a head start.” Continue reading Glory: Part 7 →

Arc 6.4: Stardock

Stardock: Part 30

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Unshielded engines were a spaceship’s weak point in combat. That and anyplace they predictably thinned the shields—like weapon hardpoints. Anyone who’d trained on spacecraft knew it. There were a host of techniques to minimizing your chances of dying—ranging from special shields to keeping changes of direction brief. It wasn’t as if you slowed down very quickly in space.

Most of the defenses were oriented toward spaceships though because any living being that attempted to sneak past working engines would quickly become well done.

I had every reason to hope that didn’t apply to Izzy. Continue reading Stardock: Part 30 →