Tag Archives: Haley

Roll the Dice: Part 16

South Beach Surfer blinked and pulled the bracelet up to her lips, talking into it.

As she did, a lone zombie ran into the charred area below us and spat a glob of something out of its mouth. South Beach Surfer saw it even as I said watch out, pointing my laser at the zombie and cutting it in half and then widening the beam to burn more of it at once.

The glob didn’t hit her. Like Gordon and Gifford, she controlled air, aiming the gooey mess away and into my beam where it burned away. Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 16

Roll The Dice: Part 14

Major Justice sputtered, “We… We don’t have anyone in reserve. Every available person is in the fight.”

Except for the first word or two, he sounded honest. I said, “Great, but if someone new arrives, please send them in. I’m not sure how we win this.”

“We’re all here,” he grunted. “We’ll win this.”

Then he closed the connection. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 14

Roll The Dice: Part 9

“Self-replicating?” I stared at the cloud of spores obscuring the baseball diamond.

Supers emerged from it, most of them covered with a light dusting of spores. By most, I meant almost everybody but Jaclyn. Jaclyn wasn’t covered because I’d designed her suit to be as close to frictionless as I could.

The other two exceptions were Bullet and Theo. Bullet flew out. He wasn’t covered with spores because he floated upward in a bullet-shaped force field. Theo was spore-free for a more obvious reason—almost anything that touches superheated plasma burns. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 9

Roll The Dice: Part 8

The goobots did what I’d intended them to do—hit and explode into goo that covered her suit, and most important, the symbols that glowed on the armored plates, all of them.

I’d switched off direct visuals the moment I saw the glow, viewing her with a composite of sonics and thermal. She was a bit fuzzy, but goobots, much like hand grenades, didn’t demand precision.

After she fell, I asked my implant if it could obscure any symbols on her while allowing me to see the glow. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 8

Roll the Dice: Part 2

Nodding, I said, “Then I guess we’d better go do something that’s obviously stupid.”

“It’ll be fine,” Cassie said, “Mr. Sparkles is looking forward to it. I don’t think he quite understands that we’re not going out there to slaughter them.”

I eyed the alien gun in it’s holster on her belt. Using it to its full potential would get us in more trouble than I wanted to imagine.

Haley’s mouth twisted as she glanced down at it, but she said, “I think we need to get out there. Is everyone ready?” Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 2

Isolation: Part 12

“Uh… Yeah. I can see how you’d feel that way and, honestly, you’re right,” I stood up, feeling the beginning of a headache and some pain as I stood, the spots where I hurt corresponding to where the creature bit me.

Unlike almost everyone else, I’d been too busy to throw on my costume, making me tempted to pull up my shirt or pull down my pants to check for physical marks.

This wasn’t the moment for checking. I could do that before I put on the Rocket suit, but I did want to know. Continue reading Isolation: Part 12

Isolation: Part 11

The problem with being more or less as powerful as a “baby” Artificer was that I wasn’t yet powerful enough to hurl energy at whatever that thing was and also snap back to my body.

Unsure what good it would do, I moved as much of me as possible behind the strand, thinking it was better than nothing, and betting I wouldn’t be able to do any of the defensive exercises I knew either.

Pushing whatever of me was in this place out, I felt the barriers begin to thin as the blob came into my vision. It had left the security of its own strand to swing out to the side and fly in my direction. Continue reading Isolation: Part 11

Isolation: Part 9

Jaclyn stepped forward, “I don’t want to be ‘that guy,’ but weren’t we going to try to see what we could do to slow things down and give the Nine’s puppets some space so they could be flexible? That was the plan last night.”

“I know. You’re right. We were going to do that,” Haley said, “And that’s not the only thing we need to think about. Lim called this morning… If we go in and people die, the public could end up on Major Justice’s side just because they don’t expect us to kill people.” Continue reading Isolation: Part 9

Isolation: Part 8

I thought about it a little longer and realized that it might be easy. Using my implant, I asked Hal, Do you have any data on camouflage or invisibility devices that Major Justice made for the military?

Hal’s reply appeared in my HUD.

[I have access to records of every device Major Justice made for the military. I can send you the specifications and testing data.] Continue reading Isolation: Part 8

Isolation: Part 7

I could see how Major Justice or the Nine might have come up with the idea though. Having people barrage you with requests that you surrender, some of them people you know… Well, it didn’t feel good.

Knowing that it had to be a ploy took a bit of the edge off, but I wondered if they’d done this before and to whom.

Then another thought hit me, “If you all are getting deluged with texts like I am right now, forward them all to Hal.” Continue reading Isolation: Part 7