Jack Maniac seemed to get a big kick out of the name. He laughed hard enough that he wobbled in the air. “The Power? Don’t you think that’s a little fucking pretentious? What happened to the first Power?”
“I don’t know. It was available two days ago.”
“Two days? Oh that’s rich. Do your worst, kid.”
Continue reading Rivalry: Part 12
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t sleep very well after that.
I dragged myself through the next day, almost falling asleep in study hall, barely staying awake during lectures. When it ended, I could at least console myself with the fact that it was Friday and I didn’t have any other demands on my life — probably.
Something did nag at my mind though. I thought I might have forgotten something. I just hoped it wasn’t important.
Continue reading Rivalry: Part 11
I’d gotten used to the aftermath of a fight. This one had the same components as the others — curious bystanders, police, firemen, ambulances and the arrival of a “box,” one of the vehicles specially created to contain supers.
They took Logan away in it. He wasn’t doing much, but better safe than sorry, I supposed. Melanie wanted to follow, but the police took her home.
Continue reading Uncontrolled Substances: Part 13
The water didn’t help at all.
Both Grandpa’s design and my redesign assumed that the flying bots would be operating outside and made them water resistant, but they were still small. Getting hit knocked them to one side or another, making the swarm move more slowly because of the constant course adjustments.
That meant that they didn’t instantly leave the steel beams near the ceiling of the gym where I’d sent them earlier. It also meant that that Logan, Dayton, and Jody fought longer than they might have after I summoned the roachbots.
That gave Jody time to try some different attacks — a lot of them, actually, thanks to his speed.
Continue reading Uncontrolled Substances: Part 12
The chaperone backed away from the table as Logan, now considerably furrier, looked at him as if he were the snack.
A brush cut, blond guy I’d seen talking to Logan said, “Logan? Hey! Are you in there? Leave the guy alone.”
Joshua. That was the guy’s name.
He pushed his way around the table, standing between Logan and the chaperone. If Joshua hoped to intimidate Logan, I couldn’t see how it would work. The guy stood only a few inches taller than Haley, and she was only five feet tall.
He pulled a flask out of an inside pocket in his tuxedo jacket and chugged a few swallows.
Continue reading Uncontrolled Substances: Part 11
I flipped through the roachbot’s viewpoints, watching them scuttle up walls, through windows to the outside, or into vents.
I had a brief moment where I thought that the best thing I could do would be self-destruct all of them, but I’d just made them last fall. I didn’t want to do it all over again.
I waited on the top of the roof.
Silently, Rachel faded into view next to me. “They both chugged some juice and they’re coming outside. We’d better go — unless you want to fight them.”
Continue reading Uncontrolled Substances: Part 4
In fairness to Sean, he didn’t try to claim credit for taking them out. He didn’t have to. The cameras lied.
Good visuals are crack for news crews. Explaining that Daniel mentally blasted Spike and Skewer into unconsciousness is hard to show on screen. Bashing them together in the air looked great even if it didn’t do anything to them.
Not that Sean got all the credit. Punching people into walls also made for great footage — as did shots of Jaclyn and I shattering the ice around us, or Vaughn blasting Payback with a lightning bolt.
Cassie and Haley barely appeared except on those stations that ran the fight straight through.
Continue reading Uncontrolled Substances: Part 1
Sean looked over the oncoming crowd a little nervously, and asked me, “What are we supposed to do now?”
“No idea,” I said.
Then I turned on the loudspeaker.
They were halfway across the lawn, and the growing darkness gave the group a “Night of the Living Dead” feel. Not that they were really zombies, but a crowd of people walking toward you isn’t a normal situation.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 9
Payback screamed and fell over, his body outlined in electricity.
The air smelled of ozone, and smoke.
When the lightning stopped, I could see Payback more clearly. His chest still moved, but he wasn’t doing much more than that. His right arm looked uncomfortably red and blistered.
From behind me Vaughn shouted, “I got him, right?”
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 8
The next day we stepped out of school and into a media circus.
Sometime between last night and that afternoon, the reporter’s story had been taken up by the Associated Press and a video of Keith’s transformation had gone viral. Reporters stood at the bottom of the steps. Vans with satellite uplinks parked alongside the sidewalk. Photographers and cameramen stood waiting.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 1