Tag Archives: Travis

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 1

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The price of maintaining a group is meetings—two hour long, soul sucking meetings.

We’d landed in the mid-afternoon, a little later than two. I’d sent everyone a text on their League phone saying what we’d done and that I planned to email them a report of what we’d found.

I got replies from just about everybody that hadn’t gone—essentially saying, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

And that led to an online meeting where we all got to discuss what we’d learned and decide what to do about it now. Worse, not all of us were in one room. Most people were attending via online video, which meant that everybody had to attend via online video in effect.

Haley, Vaughn, and I sat at the main table in the middle of HQ staring at our monitors while everyone else sat in their dorm rooms, bedrooms, or in Travis’ case, his car.

Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 1 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 7

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Then Travis turned his attention back to Daniel’s dad. “OK, you said that your dad, the Mentalist saw this coming. What did he see?”

Quickly shaking his head, Mindstryke said, “It’s not exactly like that. For my dad, Daniel, and I, precognition comes without a lot of control at first. Seconds in the future are easiest. Everything else comes unasked for, but over time you become better at directing it. The problem is that there isn’t just one future, there’s an infinite number. Some of the differences aren’t much, but they’re there.

“My dad got to the point that he could see futures as collections of connected events, and even look for specific outcomes. He gave us patterns of events we should look for and a few spots where we can intervene. Mostly though, we can’t. We guess it’s because you’ll become too reliant on us, and unprepared when you need to handle things yourselves.

“And that leads us to today. We were going to wait on handing over direct control to you, but we can’t. You’ve just gotten too much attention. As of now, the League’s business issues need you to have the power to make decisions. We won’t have time to handle it. The staff doesn’t have the authority.”

“The staff?” Travis sounded confused. “The only staff I know about is Kayla.”

Continue reading Spin: Part 7 →

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 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 22

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“Hey,” I said.

She held up her left arm, looking down at the League communicator on her wrist. It looked just like the ones Nick made for us when we were in costume.

She tapped on the screen, waited, and then said, “It’s her. Thank God.”

Then she pulled a roll of duct tape out of her utility belt, floated down, and taped Julie’s mouth shut.

I laughed. “Duct tape? Did Nick put that in there?”

She froze. “No. I… Wait a second.”

She pulled up the communicator again, and this time she pointed it at me. After tapping the screen she said, “OK, this is going to be weird, but we split off early last summer—your time.”

“My time?” Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 22 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 20

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I had to shut her up long enough for us to escape even if it meant shutting her up permanently. As much as I hated everything she wanted to do to us, I still didn’t want to kill her.

I flew across the street, passing the True, sometimes flying through them. They weren’t moving.

I looked back—no one was moving. Looking forward I found one exception—Julie. Even the True running with her had stopped.

I thought about that. She’d been hired to catch Tara, but maybe she didn’t get paid if the Blues caught her themselves?

Julie ran across the laundromat’s parking lot, still shouting. I couldn’t hear her, but from her lips, it looked like, “Don’t move! Don’t move! No one move!”

Then she smiled.

Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 20 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 19

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I pulled my finger away from the screen, and the button changed from “Red Alert” to “Alert Sent.”

I was just about to call Travis to ask what Tara wanted me to do when the situation changed again. In the moments between noticing the Blues with the motorcycles and the Greens jumping out of their vans, and sending the red, the Blues had jumped off their bikes to join their fellow Blues in firing shots at Rod. At the same time, the Greens had taken a position off to the side, and they weren’t carrying handguns like the Blues. They had automatic rifles—specifically AK-47’s.

One of them had a grenade launcher.

I didn’t know how much trolls could take, but Rod couldn’t stand there forever.

As I came to that conclusion, one of the Blues stood up, waved his arms and all the True stopped firing.

He started talking, and taking the chance that Julie wasn’t in range, I listened in.

Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 19 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 18

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I stared at the phone’s screen, trying to remember what Nick had told me about his design. He’d put the phones together last spring when we’d been facing the remnants of the Cabal. After a moment, I remembered everything.

Nick had used the the Defenders teams’ communication protocols for our communicators. They were based on protocols Grandpa designed, and they’d become a standard. It wasn’t much of a jump to guess that he’d designed them to work here too—especially when I remembered that Dixie Superman got lost and came through Infinity City to our world. Grandpa successfully visited Dixie Superman’s reality once, and he would have needed a way to get back.

I could easily see Nick throwing in a way to detect which reality we were in if he had access to Grandpa’s plans.

This was the best news I’d had in hours, and I might have screamed in relief—except I didn’t—and that was good, because as I floated there, another name appeared on the team list:

∞ Red Lightning

And that put a whole new spin on everything—what with Red Lightning having betrayed the original Heroes League, and being, well, dead.

Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 18 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 17

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Samita didn’t say anything, and honestly, I had been kind of rude. Not that Tara seemed to hear.

She waved us forward, following Travis toward the corner—though not too closely. She didn’t have a death wish. Travis had already reached out, stuck his claws into one of the wooden beams that held up the floor above us and ripped it down.

He didn’t even act as if there were any resistance. In one moment, the beam was holding up the floor. In the next, it was in two pieces, both of them dangling from the ceiling. In the moment after that, Travis ripped a hole in the floor large enough for any of us to crawl through.

Tara turned toward us, and said, “Quickly, now. Samita and Rod, please climb through. Travis help them up. I’ll go last.” Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 17 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 14

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So, Julie was awake, and what great timing. What would happen first? Would her friends notice that it hadn’t been her shouting back, or would Julie manage to take off her gag?

It’s days like that that made me want to get out of bed in the morning.

“Time to move,” Travis said, “grab her keys, and get us out of here.”

I looked down at the door. It had a key, and a dial—like on a combination lock or a safe.

That explained all the clicks when she’d opened the door.

“Not that simple,” I told him. “I don’t know the door’s combination.”

“Combination?” His mouth twisted, probably in frustration. “You’ve got Julie, right? Make her tell you.”

I looked at Julie. She didn’t say anything. Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 14 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 13

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Remembering the lion’s advice, I stayed as close to the reality I was in as I could. I didn’t make an effort to let sound reach my ears, and so I floated through the wall in an eerie silence.

I happened to check the other side of the wall as I floated through. The cheap, fake wood paneling turned out to be just as fake as I’d guessed. Wooden beams and plywood held it up. The real, concrete basement walls were three feet further back, and between them sat machines. Maybe my brother would have been able to name each one instantly, but I couldn’t.

On the other hand, maybe Nick wouldn’t have been able to recognize them either. They didn’t look high end. Improvised would have been a kind word for it. Think computer desktops without the covers, and circuit boards with wires soldered on and leading from the boards across the floor and into the wood paneled walls.

I recognized the electrical outlets at least. Every plug was filled, and each electrical cord led to a surge protector filled with a spaghetti mess of more extension cords.

Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 13 →