That’s what we needed a new mystery attacker, “Do you know what it is?”
Izzy shook her head, “I don’t even know if it’s coming in this direction. It feels extremely spread out.”
“That’s not good,” I said. “I think we need to be ready to take to the air at any second. If there’s even a hint that it might be coming this way, tell everyone.”
The curl of her lips hinted that I might have said something obvious, but she only said, “Relax, I’m watching.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 4
Major Justice stumbled, but then recovered, putting his arm out and grabbing Arete’s shoulder, steadying himself, but putting more force into the gesture than seemed necessary.
Arete stumbled, turning his head and opening his mouth to shout something. His words made no sense to me, but my buzzer went off along with the buzzers of everyone on my team including Justice Fist—plus Major Justice.
It was too bad Major Justice hadn’t used one whenever he’d first encountered Arete, but using one now might mean Arete’s influence was waning. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 3
My mom had been depressed and unwilling to talk about the fact that Rachel and I were following in our grandparents’ footsteps for months after her block had fallen. Of course, part of the process had included being kidnapped by Ray and the Cabal and freeing herself so that she couldn’t be used as a hostage against Rachel and me.
Linking mental manipulation with traumatic events couldn’t be good for someone. Life as a superhero was filled with traumatic events and Major Justice had to live with that.
Realizing that I had an expert on the call, I said, “Kals, if you can see this, what do you think of Major Justice?” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 2
As Jaclyn finished, Vaughn frowned. Unless I missed my guess, he wanted to say something and couldn’t because he was in the middle of the same crowd I was. Without a Xiniti brain implant, it’d be as obvious as taking a call on a cell phone.
“Hey,” he said to Arete, “can we have a second? You’re asking us to hide something really big. We’re going to need to talk amongst ourselves for a second—which includes talking to people who aren’t here and are just watching.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 1
“Wait just a second,” he began, but then lapsed into silence.
From the way Major Justice’s gauntleted right hand clenched, I guessed he wanted to say something, probably something loud and angry. Did he want to say that on a recording though? Did he want to say it when he knew that the board governing Defenders units would be watching it later?
His career might be crumbling around him, but did he want to add gas and a lit match? Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 20
I resisted an urge to shake my head. He couldn’t know. It’s not as if we’d added him to the League’s comm channel. Not looking over at Hunter, I said, “Menagerie added some new features to his… fungus things and they got out of control.”
Even though I wasn’t looking directly at him, I could still see Hunter standing with the rest of the Coffeeshop Illuminati. He didn’t scream it out, but I still heard him say, “Shroomoids. I call them shroomoids.”
Jody snickered. Dayton nudged him, “C’mon man, I’m sure he feels bad enough already.” Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 19
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
When the lightning stopped, I could see smoking zombie bodies all the way down the road. Many of them were charred to the point that they were unrecognizable or at least they would have been if they were human.
Had they been human, I’d have been horrified at the devastation. Given that they weren’t human, I could only feel disappointment that it wasn’t worse. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 13
Major Justice made a grunt that I nearly missed in the roar of my rockets shooting me skyward and then closed our connection.
That was fine. I didn’t want to talk to him either.
Once in the air, I noticed something I hadn’t from the ground—a lot of things. For one, I noticed the helicopters in the air. That’s helicopters as in the plural version, specifically three of them. There were two different news crews and a police helicopter.
Also, police cars were rolling down the streets in our direction which was great. Maybe they’d be able to keep the civilians safe.
I called Kayla, telling her what I’d learned in as few words as I could. I suggested that she might want to contact the offices of Major Justice and superheroes he led. He wasn’t going to listen to me.
Then she should make a more general announcement to regional and national groups about the situation and give them footage along with what Hunter said in our conversation.
“I’ll try,” Kayla let out a sigh, “it’s not as if he likes me either, but maybe someone else will show up and make him see reason.”
“I’m not optimistic, but if more people show up, we’ve got a better chance to control it,” I said, firing off a boombot at a new cluster of mixed humanoid and T.Rex zombies. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 11