Guessing what was going on, I shouted, “Grain elevator explosion! Retreat!”
Even if not everyone understood the details, they understood “explosion” and “retreat” and Jaclyn wasn’t wrong about how quickly we could move if we had to.
We’d practiced retreats. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 39
Having talked through our battle plan in a dark garage lit mostly by the lights on the far end, we started on stage one of the plan.
By moving to the far end of the room and letting Izzy passively construct a picture of what was ahead, we learned that we had one level between us and the main event. That level, so far as we could tell was empty—which was an interesting choice.
To my mind, that meant that it was empty to make it more obvious when someone attacked or maybe because they had an area of effect weapon they planned to activate on intruders. Tara thought I had a good point. So, we waited. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 38
“Huh,” I checked around us again for hostiles with the suit’s sensors and didn’t see anything while my mind raced.
How much could they get out of Arete at this point? He’d been dead for a bit by now. On the other hand, your opponent always did things for a reason. Best to assume that they were going to copy his voice, add it to the telepaths, and create some kind of super-influencer or add it to every fungus construct they could.
“Does everyone have buzzers? As in anti-voice control buzzers? Preferably my design?” I looked around the group for responses. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 37
“Maybe we should ask him to get them out? I think he would,” I said.
“I’ll do it,” Haley said. “We’re stuck here until you and Paladin reach us.”
“Do that,” Cassie added, reminding me that we were on the group channel. “It’s crazy to leave them there if you’ve got a choice.”
I frowned, “I just hope Control won’t be stuck there alone.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 36
She let out a breath and moved her hand up the spear, adjusting her grip. A little bit of red sparkled on the spear’s blade, traveling in a line of sparks down her arm.
Taking another long breath, she looked at me, “I’m fine. I will want to use the spear to build up energy, but we’re not fighting anything I’ll feel guilty about using it on.”
She glared at me, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m not taking donations. I don’t want to explain it to Night Cat.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 34
I’d deliberately chosen to be our right flank, knowing that I’d be in the front line. As they came toward us, I opened up with sonics, trying a medium width beam and aiming for their legs.
My plan? Slow them down.
While imperfect, it worked okay. Though a wider beam might not do as much damage as a narrow beam, it allowed me the luxury of poor aim. I wasn’t terrible at aiming, but I was running, trying to keep aware of my teammates’ positions, and also trying to point the sonics under each arm at something useful. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 31
You know how I’d said that a mass attack from all directions would be a bad thing? That’s more or less what happened.
The smaller room where we’d met Bouman had been the point where the parking garage under City Hall connected to the basement levels of the parking garage next door that were reserved for staff of the city, county, and federal buildings.
With more understanding of our psychology than I’d realized they had, they’d filled the smaller room with a mix of tendril monsters and office workers from City Hall and maybe other buildings too. I could tell from the business casual slacks and button down shirts combined with name tags hanging from lanyards. Between the name tags and the film of mushroom skin over their bodies and faces, I understood the whole situation.
If we wanted to escape by way of City Hall, the way we’d come, the most efficient methods to use would be Izzy’s scream, my bots, and Sean’s buzzsaw of ball bearings. All of those would straight out murder other human beings now. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 30
“I stopped it!” Bouman shouted back, his TV host handsome face showing more emotion than I’d ever seen on it.
I used my implant to think through to the League channel, “Portal, you should be able to get through now.”
“I know,” Brooke said, her voice a little louder than I’d expected. “I’ve been watching you. Give me a second.”
That made sense. In her position, I’d have been watching my camera stream too. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 29
It was good that I’d improved the Rocket suit since we’d first faced the Cabal because if I’d been wearing the old suit that hit would have killed me.
As it was, I still saw a slew of error messages run through my HUD, but not the kind that told me to expect an imminent systems failure—the kind that meant that the suit was repairing itself, but still intact. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 28
That was not something I wanted to hear in that moment. He sounded angry and I could guess why. Since we’d defeated them, we’d seen Cabal soldiers a few different times—guarding armored trucks, working for the Nine, and now working for the government.
We had not seen them working together.
Lee had set them up for a trap and put them in a situation where they had a choice—agree not to fight us for a year or die. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 27