Zooming in on Yoselin, I noticed that she held something in her hand. From this distance, her hand covered most of it, but I could tell that it glowed. In my head, my implant told me, “probable Abominator origin.”
On the one hand, that wasn’t good news, but on the other, it didn’t seem to be harming anyone. The woman laying on the ground in front of her mech pulled herself up and stood as I watched. She walked up to Yoselin and started talking. Continue reading Holes: Part 3
Jaclyn and Izzy stepped into the warehouse as the red beams of lasers appeared in the smoke. Izzy grabbed a missile out of the air, crushed it, and threw the pieces to the ground before smashing through one of the building’s undamaged bits of wall.
I’d have fired off the anti-personnel lasers to give them cover, but between the explosions, smoke, fire, and moving figures inside, I wouldn’t be doing them any favors. Continue reading Transitions: Part 9
Minutes later, I was running through the plan with Jaclyn and the Probationers. Jaclyn had heard all of what we had in the process of keeping the rest of the team involved, but she was listening in as she ran to Indiana.
Not only couldn’t I see her face, but I only saw one of the Probationers as he sat in the jet they were flying. All I could see of the Atoner was his red and white costume, the metallic gray of his exoskeleton, and the gadgets that hung from it. His helmet covered his face, giving a hint of light brown skin and dark, black hair.
Even though Grandpa had helped train him, all I knew about the man was that he’d killed his team while under mind control and changed his name to the Atoner afterward. Continue reading Transitions: Part 8
“I’m most worried about the mechs,” I said. “If we can do it without killing anyone on the floor, I’d like to start this thing by aiming the main gun at the lower level of the warehouse. Plus, as much as I’d like to investigate the Abominator generator, destroying it might be the better choice. If you think about it, if they’ve got one Abominator artifact, they might have more.”
Raising an eyebrow, Daniel said, “I didn’t even think about that, but you’re right. If they managed to find something like that and get it working, they’ve probably got more working.”
“Yeah,” Cassie nodded, “exactly that. The lab I grabbed the gun from didn’t just have the gun.” Continue reading Transitions: Part 7
Cassie tapped her comm, “Can you see if they’re Tara’s clone or do they look like me?”
Talking over the wind blowing in the background, Izzy said, “No. I’m only guessing it’s the True because of their height. That’s about all I can get.”
“Huh,” Cassie stared out the window toward the campus and shook her head. “They’ve got enough copies of Dad, male and female. It’s messed up.” Continue reading Transitions: Part 6
Through my implant, Hal showed me the two buildings on Eden Tech campus only with a kind of mist that seemed to be centered around the lower level of the corporate building.
Cassie’s gun absorbed ambient energy to work, mostly electromagnetic and gravitational from what I could tell. What this absorbed, I wasn’t sure yet. It might be the same but on a bigger scale. It might be something that I couldn’t imagine until I studied it.
Daniel thought at me, That’s interesting. Abominator tech. No wonder they’ve set up telepathy blockers.
I thought back, Seriously? Crap. Continue reading Transitions: Part 5
“Hey, everybody,” I raised my hand to get their attention, “Hal just told me where my cousin Anastasia works. I think I told you all about her—well, except for Izzy. Ana’s the cousin who told my Uncle Steve about a contract to work with Armory, the guy who Cassie, Daniel, Yoselin, and I gave to the Feds. So, she’s got some kind of connection to all of this and it’s probably through work. She’s also an engineer. Oh, and it sounds like wherever she’s working is trying to duplicate the self-repairing feature of my armor. I don’t know what’s up with that.”
Vaughn raised his eyebrow, “I don’t think you mentioned the bit with how they’re trying to duplicate your tech, but what do you want to do about it? Break in or, I don’t know, make an unexpected visit as yourself?” Continue reading Transitions: Part 4
I wasn’t sure I liked how he phrased his last sentence, “Uh… Check on it? Did you lose it or something?”
He laughed, “Not exactly. We sent it to a safe place. You’re not the only person who’s ever asked us to pick up a bad guy’s stuff. In fact, we encourage it. Legally speaking, it’s the best choice. If you take it, you’re stealing evidence. If we take it, the prosecutor can use it at trial—which is much better.”
“I know. My grandfather told me about that. Plus, it was covered at Stapledon. So, where is it? Can we visit or is it so top secret that nobody can know the location of the vault?” Continue reading Transitions: Part 3
Master Martian went for it. From the tension in his shoulders and the tightness of his face as he said, “Yes,” I got the impression that he might not fully trust Daniel in his head, but he also knew that we didn’t have a record of treating villains any worse than any other hero group.
Plus, if he calculated the odds, it was obvious that we could do anything we wanted to him whether he said yes or no. So it wasn’t as if we had to lie about having a way home to get him to do something. Continue reading Transitions: Part 1
Yoselin frowned, likely not even knowing who that was, but I’d told everyone else long ago—except maybe Izzy and Tara. At that moment, I couldn’t think if there’d been any reason to bring him up.
Vaughn, Cassie, Daniel, and Haley all knew the name, however, and Master Martian had their full attention.
Since I was the only one who’d talked to the man, I jumped in, “Martin Magnus? Do you know much about him?” Continue reading Conversations & Interrogations: Part 4