“We had to change,” Sam said. “You don’t want to risk exposing who you really are. And then I set up a ward that stopped people from noticing that we were here. That’s why no one else came down the alley.”
“It’s really cool,” Rod said. “Think of it as a Someone Else’s Problem field from Hitchhiker’s Guide.”
So right, another guy who would assume that I’d read that book—because Nick and Marcus weren’t enough.
“My best guess? Teleportation gone wrong,” Nick replied.
A sphere shaped chunk of reality–approximately 10 feet in diameter–had been carved out of the floor, wall, and several exhibits, then summarily replaced with another sphere shaped chunk of reality from elsewhere. Within that space, a carpeted floor had collapsed into the crater created by the effect. Half of a bed had tipped over near the edge; the part where it had been ‘cut off’ smoldered.
Within this space, there were two girls. Continue reading The Omnisphere: Part 2
Lee leaned his arm on the monitor, pushing the keyboard backward to create more room to sit on the table.
“When I try to work out how to handle situations like this, I ask myself who’s got common interests? More often than not, I’m not the only one asking the question. For example, the League’s got common interests with Hardwick’s group and Justice Fist. They’re both probably running given what’s happened lately, but you might be able to pull in a few. Continue reading War: Part 5
Hardwick pushed back his chair, and stood up behind the desk. “Don’t threaten me, George. Ray’s got nothing to offer me that I can’t buy.”
Small flickers of electricity arced between the fingers of his left hand.
Mr. Drucker said, “Yeah? Good, but I wasn’t threatening. I came here to tell you what would happen if you side with these people instead of our kids. I’ll see you at the next meeting.”
He touched his hand back on the beam, and the metal flowed back into position, slightly more shiny in the spots Mr. Drucker had melted.
Then he left. Continue reading Graduation: Part 20
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
Me: Crap. I thought we might have more time.
Daniel: I don’t know. It seems about right to me.
Me: Do you know where he is?
Daniel: No. It’s hard to get much of anything. I get snippets, but not much more.
I paused, wondering how many of us would be alive a week from now. Continue reading Graduation: Part 13
In my mind, I tried to get Daniel’s attention, and succeeded.
+++
Me: Don’t tell him about the Impregnator. Pass it on.
Daniel: Got it.
+++
He did, and everyone looked at me.
Continue reading Decisions: Part 11
“Where does he work?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Vaughn said. “Something medical.”
We started talking about the fight again for another thirty minutes or so. Somehow the conversation turned to Lee, and I reminded people that he wanted all of us there the next day and ideally every practice thereafter.
“And that’s why I need to go,” Jaclyn said. “If I want to have time for that, I can’t stay here all night.”
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 10
I was about to explain when the news scanner program started beeping at me. I sent the results to the big screen on the wall.
Titles of articles that linked to websites cascaded down half the screen. The other half showed pictures of ongoing news stories on all major networks. I clicked through them, staying just long enough to get the gist of how each one was reporting the story.
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 3
On the one hand, he’d said he didn’t think organized crime had infiltrated the Bureau. On the other, he’d just told me not to send him information via the government owned and installed communication systems that pretty much only the government had a reasonable chance of bugging.
Uh-huh.
I decided not to say anything, but he obviously wasn’t telling me the full story.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 7