Tag Archives: Haley

Arc 5.1: Ready or Not

Ready or Not: Part 3

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Haley barely let him finish before jumping in. “What do you mean, ‘no?’ You’re not going to do anything. You just told us so, and we can’t leave her there.”

Guardian’s jaw tightened, and he said, “We’re going to do something, but we’re going to do it right. Even if you know where she is, and it isn’t a trap, they’ll still be expecting an attack. I’m not going to throw high school students up against Rook and possibly more of the Nine’s people. If anything, I’m going to send in experienced people. Time to stop talking, and give me her location, I’ll get as far as I can.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a part of me wanted to remind him that some of us were college students, but I doubted that arguing technicalities would get me anywhere.

Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 3 →

Arc 5.1: Ready or Not

Ready or Not: Part 2

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I clicked for more information, and realized that it wasn’t Cassie’s new communicator sending the signal. It was her old one.

The old League had alert signals that allowed them to show status using green, yellow, and red like ours did, but didn’t allow them to send sound or pictures—just location.

They’d been great at what they could do, but I’d replaced them last spring. Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 2 →

Arc 5.1: Ready or Not

Ready or Not: Part 1

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Haley and I sat in League HQ. The League’s twenty foot high TV screen showed nothing—just blackness.

Nothing had worked out.

OK, nothing might have been stretching it. We’d brought Marcus, Travis, Vaughn, and Courtney to one of Haley’s cousins, a doctor, who did what he could for them. Then we left, and they stayed.

None of them were unconscious, and if we got into the air, we might be able to detect Rook’s plane with the League jet’s sensors.

We couldn’t. So after a few circles around Grand Lake, we landed the jet, and went back to HQ’s main room, and sat there in a room the size of a basketball court, calling people and leaving messages.

Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 1 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 10

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The flunky started hitting himself, and screaming, his voice reminding me again that this was Davis, the guy who’d made the offer to Courtney.

I wondered for a moment how much damage I wanted to do to him. I had questions for him, after all, but that didn’t matter as much as I’d have thought.

Rook’s suits were pretty well constructed.

The bots wedged themselves into cracks, but they did a lot more damage to the powered armor than the person inside. Plus, after the first wave, I brought in a wave of EMP bots.

The first wave withdrew as the second settled on him. He stopped hitting himself for a moment, and adjusted his footing, probably in preparation for attacking me—or possibly escaping.

Then the EMP bots exploded. Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 10 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 9

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Too quickly for me to see anything but a blur, Travis punched the guy in the face—if you could call a beaked helmet a face.

His punch hit the right cheek, denting it, and twisting the beak. The helmet made a crunching noise, and bent backward. It didn’t seem to bend further back than a human head could, but it didn’t seem to be capable of bending forward anymore.

Not that that mattered. Travis’ punch had knocked the guy backward. Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 9 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 8

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I couldn’t see it happen, but at least one of the bullets hit. Vaughn fell, or maybe more accurately, lost control.

He flipped over a few times, dropping dangerously low. I would have lost track of him if it weren’t for the sonar built in to the stealth suit’s helmet.

His black costume blended into the night, but the helmet outlined his body, showing him as he nearly hit Grand Lake Marina Supplies. I say “nearly hit” because he didn’t.

He swerved right just as he was about to hit the “G” in Grand Lake.

Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 8 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 7

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Unfortunately, it was also an idea that I had to use quickly instead of thinking through the implications.

The last time I’d pointed the guitar’s explosive end at a guy in powered armor, it had nearly killed him. Only Alex’s ability to heal had kept the man from bleeding out.

Alex wasn’t anywhere around here. I definitely wasn’t going to have time to fly to California to pick him up.

But still… Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 7 →

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 4.9: What She Asked For

What She Asked For: Part 6

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“Huh,” I struggled to come up with some way to deny it. What exactly had we said? Haley had mentioned Storm King. That linked us directly to the Heroes League without question. Plus everyone knew Travis was Haley’s older brother, and she had to have heard him if she heard Haley.

Crap.

Well, maybe I’d gotten lucky and she’d missed that part?

“You’re with the Heroes League?” She said slowly. She stopped walking, and so did I.

I checked around us—again, seeing only the porch lights of the houses around us, the streetlights, and campus directly ahead. If someone were around, I couldn’t see them.

Given the powers of people I knew, that meant nothing. Continue reading What She Asked For: Part 6 →