“Camouflage setting,” I said over the comm, flipping mine on.
It wouldn’t make me invisible, but it matched my surroundings. Haley and Vaughn’s suits had it too. Tara wore her own (not of my design) and hers didn’t as far as I knew.
We all squished our bodies next to the wall of the building. That might be enough on first glance. Protection Force’s suits’ night vision wasn’t likely better than night vision goggles—which were often monochrome. Continue reading Mere Anarchy: Part 1
Were all of the True newborns? If they were, it made sense. Based on what I remembered from accessing the birthing chambers’ library, they could crank out a generation a day or maybe less than a day. They had 24 there and were working on another twelve.
The ones they had guarding the doorway had to come from a previous batch—which made me wonder where the other ten were. Were they outside walking the perimeter? Guarding some other location? Continue reading Who Are the True?: Part 10
I shook my head. “We need to stay long enough for me to get a look inside the lab. We’re close right now and it would be a wasted opportunity even if it turns out to be something we can’t handle.”
Haley frowned. “I get it. I know you want to know what’s in there. I want to know too, but if we get out now, you might be able to move the bots into position and look inside tomorrow. You’ve already got bots that are close.”
Vaughn nodded. “That’s a pretty good idea.”
I thought about it. I didn’t want to argue, but, “It is, but I don’t think we’ll get to find out tomorrow. I’m betting that after tonight they’ll move anything can somewhere else and I have no idea where. They’re a billion dollar company. They can hide things all over.” Continue reading Who Are The True?: Part 9
Walking down the hall toward the door but stopping before he reached the lobby, Hardwick peered out toward the parking lot. “I don’t see them. They might have left.”
He reached out to the wall and turned up the light from almost nothing to a moderate brightness.
Turning back to Ryan, he asked, “Do you have a gun?”
Ryan shook his head. Continue reading Who Are The True?: Part 8
We stood in the parking lot. Haley looked up at me. “So, where are we going?”
The two buildings stood next to each other, the main one well lit with the glassy front office illuminated to the point that I didn’t need my helmet’s night vision to see Emmy’s desk inside.
The second building was a twin in size, but nothing appeared to be lit at all from the outside. It loomed above us, dark and windowless.
“The other building. The dark one.” I pointed at it. Continue reading Who Are The True?: Part 7
The claw had penetrated at least an inch deep and while the other four hadn’t penetrated as far, they were all bleeding—a lot.
Aiming the sonics of my left arm at Art, who’d begun to get up from the floor,I fumbled with a can that hung on my utility belt, pulled it out, and sprayed, covered the wounds with foam.
Vaughn threw a bolt of lightning at Art and he convulsed, going down for good as a crack of thunder echoed in the room. Continue reading Who Are The True?: Part 6
I set the implant to take an image of each page and flipped one after another until they were all in the implant’s memory, not even bothering to read them. I’d have time for that later. What we needed to do now was to get the information and get out.
“Oh, man,” Vaughn had opened one of the folders he’d pulled out of the filing cabinet and stood looking at the pages inside. Then he reached into the folder and pulled out a small object. “Remember this?” Continue reading Who Are The True?: Part 2
“I could just stop above the building, engage the gravitics and float down. Then you could walk out.” Haley checked the screens on the instrument panel and then glanced back up toward the windshield.
“I’d like that.” Stephanie’s mouth twisted as she glanced in my direction.
Shrugging, I said, “I was thinking that if anyone was watching upward, we’d have a better chance for the jet to avoid detection if we floated down. I mean, yes, it’s hard to see, but if they know what to look for, they’ll see a jet shaped spot of nothing that turns into a jet in a blacker than black energy shield hovering above the building. If we drop out of it high enough, it won’t notice the jet or any of the three of us unless they’ve got phenomenal senses or exactly the right kind of Abominator tech.” Continue reading Truth and the True: Part 15
Haley raised an eyebrow. “But for real, who are they?”
Crossing her arms across her chest, Stephanie said, “They really are in the Marketing Department. Zola’s a graphic designer except she also writes—which means she writes a lot of internal memos from management to the masses. She’s not a bad person. She’s artsy—likes to talk about different periods in graphic design. I went out with her to a few bars when she worked in the lab. I haven’t seen her much lately. She’s been busy with work and learning to use her powers, I guess. Continue reading Jekyll Or Hyde: Part 18
Flipping through the people I could remember from work, I couldn’t think of any that had even hinted that they might be Feds or in any way on my side. To be fair, that was probably a mark of competence.
That in turn reminded me of Stephanie. I needed to show her this video. Even though I wasn’t quite sure she was trustworthy, we were in this together now and she deserved some warning if they somehow caught on to her.
You could make an argument that she might be better off not knowing given Zola and Art’s senses, but I couldn’t quite make myself believe it. At core, the more a person knew, the better they could adjust their actions to match their situation. Continue reading Jekyll Or Hyde: Part 17