After they hung up, I sat back and thought about it. If I were going to skip, when and how would I do it? I wasn’t going to be able to get my parents to write a note. The block only prevented my parents from recognizing what was going on, or stopping me from doing it.
I decided I’d skip tomorrow. Maybe Rachel could call the office and pretend to be Mom? She’d probably get a kick out of it. Continue reading Graduation: Part 18
On Friday afternoon, as planned, the Heroes League landed on Central High’s lawn.
The Rocket looked exactly right. The Feds had the original design for the World War 2 era Rocket, so it probably hadn’t been hard to come up with something similar looking to the current version.
Continue reading Dupes: Part 1
I’d gotten used to the aftermath of a fight. This one had the same components as the others — curious bystanders, police, firemen, ambulances and the arrival of a “box,” one of the vehicles specially created to contain supers.
They took Logan away in it. He wasn’t doing much, but better safe than sorry, I supposed. Melanie wanted to follow, but the police took her home.
Continue reading Uncontrolled Substances: Part 13
I couldn’t quite understand what any of them were saying, but the tone of the conversation sounded ugly.
“Ugh,” I said, “I can’t make out who it is. Can you?”
Haley listened and frowned, “I think it’s the agents from the coffeehouse. We’d better hurry.”
We both stood up and she looked over the side of the railing as if she were considering jumping over.
Continue reading Rattling Cages: Part 12
“Well,” I said, “it turned out that you could find uranium on Amazon, but they sold it in such small amounts that if you wanted to do anything interesting you’d have to buy a lot of it and I don’t think we really have the facilities for working with it anyway.”
I started to tell her exactly what sort of things I’d need to buy, but then I stopped, because sometimes I do notice when I’m telling people more than they’ll ever want to know.
Continue reading Rattling Cages: Part 10
Two police cars came roaring up the street soon after that. The FBI came with them. Two of them came in a nondescript white van followed by two more in a separate car.
The men in the van started collecting pieces of the destroyed robot.
The police and FBI agents started another round of questioning while Solar Flare stepped up to the counter and ordered a latte.
Continue reading Rattling Cages: Part 5
Inside the police department looked like most institutional buildings — beige walls, tile floor, cubicles — but with the obvious addition of men and women in blue carrying guns.
We ended up standing inside a conference room. “We” in this case meant new and old Heroes League members, the Midwest Defenders, the FBI representatives, PsyKick, Larry, and a few police.
It was a big conference room — two, actually. They’d taken out the divider between two rooms as we came in.
The tables had been pushed to the wall and the sleeping bodies placed in the middle of the room. All the rest of us stood around the edges while Daniel, his dad, the Fed with the psychic helmet, and PsyKick deep probed their minds.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 59
“No. There’s no way I’m doing that,” I said.
“That was a joke. I wasn’t suggesting you let Mindstryke take over, but you need to listen to the guy. No one thinks about it when they start, but managing your image is a major piece of the job.”
Guardian pulled a couple pieces of pepperoni pizza onto a plate.
Flick leaned in toward the table and smiled briefly. “He’s right. Some of you have heard about what happened when I joined the Defenders. I think the most important thing I’ve learned in the past two years is how to handle myself in public.”
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 58
We descended toward the house. Daniel and his father floated down with no visible means of support as if they were riding an invisible elevator. The wind held Vaughn in the air, blowing his hair wildly as he rode it down. Marcus circled down, gliding like a hawk. I followed Daniel, my jetpack set to give slightly less force than it would take to hover.
OK, Daniel’s dad thought at us, Bouman’s in the basement with his wife and kids. He’s armed with some kind of gun, probably equipment confiscated by the police. I have no idea what it can do so be careful and keep the violence to a minimum. If we can manage to capture Bouman without beating him unconscious in front of his family, I’ll be happy.
A burst of thought from Daniel: We’re going to be attacked shortly… um… now.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 50
I appear to have become one of those people who updates the day after the official due date. This annoys me.