Tag Archives: Marcus

Arc 6.6: The Battle of Grand Lake

The Battle of Grand Lake: Part 5

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Gerald snorted. “Bet we could get in.”

Kayla felt her jaw drop. “I don’t think that would be—“

“I know. I know!” Gerald shook his head. “Even if they helped it wouldn’t be worth it. I saw what they did to people in the end. We’re all better off dead than that. I was speaking hypothetically. I saw the fight with the robots on the news. Nick’s been working with his grandfather’s mono-molecular blade tech. Chances are he’s got a prototype lying around.”

Marcus smiled, and leaned forward at the table. “He made a jackknife. I came down here once when he showed me. That wasn’t the best part though. The best part was when he forgot it was on and it cut through the table. He grabbed it before it went through the floor.”

Haley shook her head. “At least he didn’t cut his fingers off.”

Continue reading The Battle of Grand Lake: Part 5 →

Arc 6.6: The Battle of Grand Lake

The Battle of Grand Lake: Part 3

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“The ship?” Kayla glanced across the room toward the big, metal doors to the hangar.

“Might be,” Haley said, and sighed. “There’s a lot of stuff in the base, and I don’t know what a quarter of it is. The Rocket would know. Oh… Could you ask the jet to check out the ship?”

Kayla said, “Ok,” and began to move her mouse pointer toward the jet’s icon.

She only made it halfway when the jet’s square started blinking, and a message appeared.

Continue reading The Battle of Grand Lake: Part 3 →

Arc 6.6: The Battle of Grand Lake

The Battle of Grand Lake: Part 1

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Kayla sat in a chair in front of a computer screen inside one of the most famous secret bases in the world, and tried to stay awake.

It had sounded more fun when Cassie pitched it to her last summer. Cassie had been grinning the whole time. “We need someone back in the base to do research or call for help or whatever. You need money for college. This way you’ll be able to help, but you won’t have to be in danger, and we’ll be able to hang out all the time like we did before.”

“Before” as in before Cassie got her father’s superpowers, turned cape, and revived the Heroes League.

It was also “before” (though Cassie didn’t know it then) as in before the Nine targeted Cassie, forcing her to relocate to Washington D.C.

Continue reading The Battle of Grand Lake: Part 1 →

Arc 6.4: Stardock

Stardock: Part 15

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I’d noticed clouds forming since the fight started, and as I was about to press Theo on exactly how bad he felt, lightning erupted in front of the building.

Travis had told the glass cannons (mobile artillery, if you wanted to be formal) to help us, and now they were. I’d have taken help earlier, but Daniel was in the group, and he’d probably been responsible for the timing. That meant that this was probably the best possible moment, whatever I might think.

Thanks to my observation bots, I had three different perspectives available. All of them showed essentially the same scene.

As our group dived behind the old factory to get out of the machine race soldiers’ line of fire, the remaining robots split into two groups, some of them heading for the building that we’d started at, and the rest spreading out as they aimed for our building. No matter what direction we turned toward we’d be in some robot’s sights.

At least that’s the way it would have gone. Continue reading Stardock: Part 15 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 6

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“Wow,” I said, “you’re early.”

Mindstryke shook his head. “Not really. I told you the latest we’d be here was ten, and some of us happened to finish up earlier than expected.”

He was right. Now that he’d mentioned it, I remembered him saying that. I also remembered a couple other things he’d said.

“We’re still waiting on part of the current League, and one member of the board.”

I was about to ask him who that was when the words, “Entered: Accelerando, C. Retinal scan confirmed,” appeared on the bottom of my screen.

Shortly after that one of the tunnel doors swung open, and Jaclyn walked through with her grandfather. She wore her purple costume—not really more than a jumpsuit, but she didn’t need it for protection. The hard part was creating a fabric that could handle hitting the speed of sound. Continue reading Spin: Part 6 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 10

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The flunky started hitting himself, and screaming, his voice reminding me again that this was Davis, the guy who’d made the offer to Courtney.

I wondered for a moment how much damage I wanted to do to him. I had questions for him, after all, but that didn’t matter as much as I’d have thought.

Rook’s suits were pretty well constructed.

The bots wedged themselves into cracks, but they did a lot more damage to the powered armor than the person inside. Plus, after the first wave, I brought in a wave of EMP bots.

The first wave withdrew as the second settled on him. He stopped hitting himself for a moment, and adjusted his footing, probably in preparation for attacking me—or possibly escaping.

Then the EMP bots exploded. Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 10 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 2

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I wasn’t worried about the communicators’ encryption. I’d only put them together last spring. It wasn’t as if they were old League technology that everyone had analyzed thirty years ago.

Maybe I should have been worried more. The communicators were based on the roachbots, and Grandpa had designed the first versions of the roachbots in the 1950’s as mobile bugging devices.

I’d updated them substantially over the past year though. Grandpa’s design survived only in the most general terms.

All the details of the current systems were mine.

Of course, the communicators still connected to the League’s old alert system. That might be a vulnerability.

Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 2 →

Arc 5.0: A Kind of Small Crow

A Kind of Small Crow: Part 1

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As always, Jefferson Street was a zoo. It probably had the most fast food restaurants and chain stores of any street in the city. At ten or eleven at night, the traffic became bearable—it wasn’t bumper to bumper anymore.

I brought the van to a stop on the other side of the road from the one with Lakeside Lounge–four lanes worth of cars and semi-trucks away.

We were next to a Subway, a shoe store, and Grand Lake Marina Supplies. That last store took up most of the space. Even though the store had closed, the lights were still on, and I could look in at speed boats, engines, water-skis and other gear.

Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 1 →

Arc 4.6: Settling In

Settling In: Part 5

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Lightning hit the leader again, and while his body shook, the paralysis gun dropped out of his hand, falling to the roof with a clunk.

Part of me hoped it still worked by the the time I could move. I planned to grab it. A more practical side of my mind hoped it had been destroyed in the first lightning strike.

Near me, Cassie stood up, entering the edges of the helmet’s peripheral vision. She didn’t waste any time. Once she was on her feet, she ran straight at the leader as he bent over to grab the gun.

Continue reading Settling In: Part 5 →

Arc 4.6: Settling In

Settling In: Part 4

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He didn’t get up easily. He pushed himself up one hand at a time, swaying as he made it up on two legs.

Taking an experimental step, he spied something on the roof, and bent over to get it—the automatic pistol. When he came up the second time, he seemed stronger. He stood up normally.

Quickly, he pointed the gun past me—probably at Vaughn.

This time the wind came up as a roaring, howling blast that drew the man into the air, and threw him off the building. Continue reading Settling In: Part 4 →