Tag Archives: Joe Vander Sloot

Arc 14.9.0: Engine

Engine: Part 5

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The dog observed the hand and sniffed it, but didn’t lick it. Tiger was smart enough to know he didn’t want to taste the metal-and-ceramic gauntlet.

Within a few moments, everyone had arrived: the old Heroes’ League, the new, Prentkos, and both Jody’s and Colette’s unconscious bodies. Talk about not being able to save everyone. Being turned into Rook’s mind-controlled cyborg was still in this Jody’s future. Though I didn’t need to, I made a check, changing that future had the same problems as saving Travis. I checked on Colette, too, but hers wasn’t any different.

I could do it, but it wouldn’t be worth the price. Continue reading Engine: Part 5 →

Arc 14.9.0: Engine

Engine: Part 3

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“Good,” Grandpa said. “I’m sure I must have told you how I met him. He’d been summoned by a Nazi sorcerer and trapped. We later came to suspect he’d allowed himself to be trapped, simply so that he could meet me. He never fully explained why.”

I nodded, “I don’t know either, but I think I’ve got enough of a picture of his long term goals that I can guess.”

Grandpa laughed. “I’m in the same position. Too bad comparing notes might have disastrous consequences for both of us.” Continue reading Engine: Part 3 →

Arc 14.9.0: Engine

Engine: Part 2

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Hoping that if Ray realized he’d been manipulated by telepaths, he wouldn’t decide to come back and kill me, I connected with the device and instantly understood how to send him back to his own time.

It was actually simple. Ejecting him to anywhere else would be hard and not just hard. It would also have consequences, changing the past in ways I couldn’t predict.

I hadn’t been wrong about my earlier guess about obvious subsystems to include. The GCD did include subsystems for predicting what would happen based on what someone had experienced in here and being sent back to their own time.

Using them, however, was another thing. Continue reading Engine: Part 2 →

Arc 14.8.0: Singularity

Singularity: Part 20

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On a completely theoretical level, you could imagine that with me pulling power from the device to cut and Magnus pulling power from the device to protect himself we’d be equal. 

Anyone who’s ever designed anything knows that’s utter garbage, though.

The amount of power you can get out of something depends on where in the system you’re pulling it from, how you’re using that power, what you’re using it on, and too many details to list. With more complicated devices, your access level to the control systems and your level of skill matter, too. Continue reading Singularity: Part 20 →

Arc 14.8.0: Singularity

Singularity: Part 19

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“Wow,” I said, turning and doing a quick scan of Power Burst with the suit’s sensors along with “Artificer vision.”

Grandpa glanced down toward Power Burst and then to the middle of the room where Magnus and the throne stayed. He shrugged, “It worked on Dixie Superman the second time we fought him and this guy seemed to have the same powers. Did the bastard have kids?”

Following his eyes, I watched Collette, Magnus and Ray as they watched from behind the glowing golden barrier. “I assumed Power Burst was a clone.” Continue reading Singularity: Part 19 →

Arc 14.8.0: Singularity

Singularity: Part 18

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No first aid I’d been taught included how to handle how to save someone you’d stabbed with a sword made out of your soul (or whatever), and I didn’t have time to take off Scream Eagle’s armor to see if I could help him anyway.

I could only hope that if he did die, it didn’t make much of a difference in that fight to steal Jody.

Flying closer to me, Grandpa asked, “Did Lee teach you that?”

“Uh… Future stuff.” Continue reading Singularity: Part 18 →

Arc 14.8.0: Singularity

Singularity: Part 17

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“Two Rockets?” Scream Eagle shouted, faking an English accent just like he had the last time we fought. “Wouldn’t it be funny if you fought each other?”

My suit’s computer informed me of the growing magnetic field, but I didn’t need it. I’d already seen the True’s guns begin to float upward, some dragging the unconscious bodies of their owners across the floor toward us by the strap of their rifle or belt and holstered pistol.

You know what didn’t move toward him? Grandpa and I. Continue reading Singularity: Part 17 →

Arc 14.8.0: Singularity

Singularity: Part 16

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Energy built and then spread outward in an explosion of power, but fortunately not a physical one. Well, sort of fortunately, in the sense that it was a lot of energy that I’d rather not be hit with. It was less fortunate in the sense that Power Burst, Jody, Amnesia Angel, Artemis, Scream Eagle, and maybe again Ray had absorbed a lot of energy and I had little doubt they intended to transfer it in my direction.

If I hadn’t been flying and aiming lasers at the Cabal, I might have tried to reach in and cut off Magnus’ power. That might end the fight, depending on how giving out powers worked. If empowering minions were more like lighting a candle than plugging in a radio, it would be harder. Continue reading Singularity: Part 16 →

Arc 14.8.0: Singularity

Singularity: Part 15

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Red Lightning grinned, “I’ll be ready. We can’t lose. We’ve got two of you.”

Grandpa laughed. “Glad you think so. I’m feeling behind the times, myself.”

It felt good to see a whisper of the friendship I knew they had. They might have had a conversation, but that’s when the Cabal soldiers all jumped in our direction—not directly at us but close enough that they’d figure it out soon enough.

And that meant that the time to start was before they figured it out. Grandpa had come to the same conclusion. Continue reading Singularity: Part 15 →

Arc 14.8.0: Singularity

Singularity: Part 14

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Magnus leaned forward and as he did, I could feel energy moving around him, and remembered being told that despite losing the ability to influence with his voice, he could still do it somehow.

He could. As he spoke, everyone within the shimmery glow responded. Some turned to watch, but other reactions were more subtle—a pause before the next step, a blink, an indrawn breath.

As he did though, I saw energy move from the spheres above into the throne and to him. In the same instant I realized something else—the throne wasn’t real. Continue reading Singularity: Part 14 →