Tag Archives: Nick

Arc 8.5.5: Splits

Splits: Part 4

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Amy froze. Then she all but spit as she talked. “Fuck! They didn’t tell me. It does that kind of thing all the time. In my world, we’ve had a lot of creatures come through interdimensional portals. They’re mostly magical creatures, but every now and then we’ll see some strange mixture of magic and science, and sometimes… Sometimes we’ll see something purely scientific.”

Her face twisted, and then she sighed. “I’ve told you that we’ve fought The Thing That Eats for years, but what I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t know, was that it collected them. We’ve got humanoids called the Elder. Think of them as a cross between vampires and elves. The Thing collected them—along with anything else it could get. Cyborgs? Sure. Centaurs? Definitely. It took anything it could get. Continue reading Splits: Part 4 →

Arc 8.5.5: Splits

Splits: Part 3

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Haley frowned. “I wish I’d heard a real conversation with him. Then I might have better sense of what he’s like. You can learn a lot about who someone is by what they’re nervous to talk about.”

“What I’m wondering is if you could tell who’s in control? Andronicus or The Thing That Eats? That would make this a lot easier.”

She tilted her head, obviously thinking. “If I had some time to observe him, maybe. It’s a good idea. It seems like the kind of thing I ought to be able to do.” Continue reading Splits: Part 3 →

Arc 8.5.5: Splits

Splits: Part 2

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Keeping her voice low, Haley leaned in. “It’s picking people with powers and one of the first is a speedster. I think it’s got a plan.”

I nodded. “Of course, it did. A lot of my calculations are dependent on speed.”

At the same time, my stomach sank. The League’s parents (including mine) were mostly still inside the circle. We did need to find a way to get them out—them and everyone inside.

Something of that thought must have shown in my face (or my smell or the speed of my heartbeat…) because Haley said, “What?” Continue reading Splits: Part 2 →

Arc 8.5.5: Splits

Splits: Part 1

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The first thing that came into my head was, “Can you see where he is, or where he’s gone?”

“No,” Kayla’s voice paused and a mouse clicked in the background. “There aren’t very many spybots around here. I mean, except for the ones you just released.”

She was right. I’d mainly focused on major intersections, and there weren’t many of those around here. Worse, there were longer than normal blocks this far out, making corners even easier to avoid.

“I might be able to track them,” Haley’s voice trailed off. She knew, as we all did, that a long jump could throw off her sense of smell. We’d need all of us to pull that off. Plus, The Thing appeared to be good at sneaking around.

“We could try looking for a little while,” I suggested, and we did, but we didn’t find anything. Continue reading Splits: Part 1 →

Arc 8.5.0: Crisscross

Crisscross: Part 11

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“If you value your lives and the lives of those you care about, you’ll intervene from a distance if at all. If that creature bites you, you’ll be linked to it, or worse, become part of it.”

She watched me, waiting, I guessed, for my response.

“We won’t, at least most of us. We’ve been warded against it. I know you don’t like the source, but it works, and if you think about it, I’d bet that the blood magic you’re familiar with can’t do that.”

Shaking her head, she backed away. “Remember that I warned you. If we have to, we’ll kill anyone infected by the creature.” Continue reading Crisscross: Part 11 →

Arc 8.5.0: Crisscross

Crisscross: Part 10

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The bounce threw me into the air. Unlike Haley, who had the reflexes necessary to land on her feet, I had the reflexes necessary to slam into the road, and didn’t want to.

I tapped my palm, giving the “hover” command, a command that told the suit to calculate the best way to kill momentum and bring the suit upright. The world blurred around me as the rockets fired in a pattern I couldn’t have come up with on the fly.

Instead of bouncing off the Thing, flipping in the air, and flying off in some random direction dictated by the way my arms and legs flailed in the air, the rockets shut off for a moment. Then as I began to flip over they fired, stopped, and fired again. By the time they were done, I found myself fifty feet in the air, and about thirty feet past the Thing. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 10 →

Arc 8.5.0: Crisscross

Crisscross: Part 9

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Before anyone could move, he nipped Philo’s shoulder, and lunged for me. I held up my arms, one forward in a block, and pulling the other back, ready to punch.

It bit my blocking arm, completely surrounding it from the elbow up, but that didn’t last. Warmth suffused my body, and a red glow tinged my view of the scene. The view from one of my spybots showed that the entire Rocket suit glowed red.

At the same moment, The Thing That Eats spit my hand out of its mouth, yelping in pain. Not wasting the moment, I punched it with all the strength the Rocket suit had, aiming a little upward. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 9 →

Arc 8.5.0: Crisscross

Crisscross: Part 8

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I’d never seen the new guy before. Aside from fitting my profile for the Cabal, he had dark, curly hair, light skin, and at least at that moment, a wide smile. He wore an oversized sweater and jeans.

Philo turned back to us. “This is Andronicus. I haven’t seen him in more than two, maybe three hundred years.”

Andronicus nodded to the group of us. “I have been busy this last little while.” Continue reading Crisscross: Part 8 →

Arc 8.5.0: Crisscross

Crisscross: Part 7

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My HUD showed my armor’s status as 89%—as in 11% of the armor’s cells had been damaged and no longer responded to commands. Even though the anti-tank mini-missile hadn’t hurt me, that counted for something.

If she had more of those, I might be forced to use the laser or the killbot.

It did strike me though that she was clearly in a mood to talk. If I could keep her talking, it would be better than killing her. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 7 →

Arc 8.5.0: Crisscross

Crisscross: Part 6

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“Getting people out of the way,” Haley said. “That’s what we’re doing.”

The woman in the Eagle suit was standing up, but not doing anything yet. I pointed my arms in her direction, saying, “Don’t move!” The Rocket suit’s PA system made sure she heard me.

I was about to tell Kid Biohack that as long as he was getting civilians out of harm’s way, he might also watch for Alden. He was the only one of us with a realistic chance of catching the guy. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 6 →