When it was clear that the fighting was over, I resigned myself to going back in and picking apart the technical details of the movie version of the Rocket suit. I stepped toward the door only to find Haley stepping out and shutting it behind her.
“What happened?” She asked, keeping her voice low. Continue reading Precision: Part 6
When I opened up the pictures on my laptop, it was the speedster I’d seen first—the one that wasn’t glowing—the guy. He’d run back to his origin point, but there was no sign of the woman.
I stayed up for another ten minutes, waiting to see if she’d show up too, but she didn’t. When I woke up the next morning, there hadn’t been any further alerts. Maybe the north end of the route was where she lived.
Maybe she’d taken a cab back? I had no idea. Continue reading Precision: Part 4
“I didn’t beat them. You were there. Everyone here was there. And when it comes down to it, Lee planned and directed the final battle with the Cabal.”
“I know,” Sydney said. “I fought, but I wasn’t involved–not the way you were. You let yourself get taken captive to help rescue our families, and Lee planned. Sean and I and the rest of Justice Fist followed.”
Camille shook her head. “Justice Fist. It was a nice try, but it was such a mess. You had Lucas, heir to millions or billions and already a doctor saddled with us, a bunch of high school kids who were full of hormones. And then there was Sean who didn’t like playing second fiddle to Lucas and also didn’t like how Julie and Shannon both were seriously crushing on the guy–not that Lucas pursued either of them.” Continue reading Super Social: Part 9
Marcus put his hand up to his chin, thought for a second, and then said, “It doesn’t sound that big brotherish. You’re only planning to watch for speedsters, right? It’s not like you’re going to watch everyone in town and monitor whatever they’re doing.”
I nodded. “That’s the plan. The idea is that the spybots would detect someone moving faster than normal humans can and watch them, and only them.”
Marcus sat up a little straighter. “I just thought of something. What about friendly speedsters like Jaclyn, for example? It’s not like she’s here all the time anymore, but if we need help, she’ll come. Plus, what about her older brothers or Grandpa?” Continue reading Super Social: Part 8
It was nice to know that Chris had been maintaining the equipment when I wasn’t around to do it, but I felt a little funny anyway. I would have done it if anyone had mentioned that people needed it. For all I knew, no one was using the mini-rocket packs.
I knew it was completely stupid to care, but it was one more thing that I hadn’t known about—like redecorating the main room in the base. I couldn’t deny it looked better, but it had been a shock the first time I saw it.
It made me wonder what else had changed. Continue reading Super Social: Part 7
There were other metahumans out there in the Cabal’s league in terms of strength and toughness, but the Cabal’s toughest soldiers had all of that plus regeneration—the quick kind.
My heart started beating, and I quickly scanned the area around us, all 360 degrees of it. More cars were stopping, and even more slowing down, but not in the kind of way that made me nervous. No one was running to join us or crossing the distance in a single jump.
That was the other thing about the Cabal—they’d agreed to leave us alone for a year last spring. It was now the end of the summer. By their own promise, they were free to kill us now. Continue reading Super Social: Part 6
Then I realized why I could see inside the van—the back door was open. All the doors were open. They’d been wrenched open by someone strong enough that reinforced metal, and whatever metahuman precautions the van’s designers had included, were useless.
That level of strength, coupled with my guess that a speedster had been involved, gave me a very uneasy feeling. If we were dealing with someone at Jaclyn’s level of speed and strength, we were going to have to be very careful. Actually, we were going to have to do more than that. We were going to have to have Jaclyn or Izzy along almost any time we went into action.
Most of us couldn’t survive even one punch from Jaclyn when she wasn’t holding back. Fortunately Marcus and I were the exception to that.
As we neared the van, Marcus said, “I’m letting go. Landing behind the rear end.” Continue reading Super Social: Part 5
“Right,” I said. “Not getting your name right isn’t a good sign. I mean, to be fair, when you’re talking in front of a bunch of people, it’d be easy to get something wrong.”
Haley made a tsking noise. “You’d have to be extremely distracted to get our names wrong. When we’re in costume, it seems like we can’t even breathe without it being covered by the press.”
Marcus looked up at me from the computer screen. “If you’re going to talk about Biohack instead of boyfriend/girlfriend stuff, would you mind bringing me in?” Continue reading Super Social: Part 4
“Metahumans,” I said, “but not metahumans that you’ve seen yet.”
“Or that anybody has,” Marcus said. “Whether they’re metahuman or plain, vanilla human, human, they’re good. I’m thinking that they’ve got to be training all the time. Well, I’m mostly thinking that because Gerald Cannon—Man-machine himself—said they had to be.”
I nodded. “Cannon ought to know. I’m sure he ran a few heists. I got the impression though that he was more about showing my grandfather up than actually stealing things.” Continue reading Super Social: Part 3
The video went straight up to the part where Amy and then Lee appeared (as Gunther, the form he’d used in World War 2), the dragon Artaxus ran away, obviously terrified, and all the attacking forces followed him through a gate and out of our world.
I couldn’t help but notice that the video had been drawn from different cameras and different angles. It made me wonder if it had been taken from security cameras (or maybe drones) at the compound where we’d stayed last summer.
That brought me back to wondering who had released it. It made our team look good, while the Stapledon program, the teachers, the Feds, and the Castle Rock compound where we all stayed look bad. At the least, it didn’t make them look competent at security.
“How long has this been out?” Continue reading Super Social: Part 2