Tag Archives: Vaughn

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 4

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“That, and I suppose when you kill as many people as he has, the enemies add up.” Plus he wasn’t exactly nice about it. The few times I’d seen him fight outside of training, he’d pushed people’s buttons deliberately.

That’s the kind of guy who would end up on the run from his entire species, leaving them pissed off enough that they destroyed any planet they found him on. Granted, it wasn’t just because of that, but it put things in perspective.

Normally they committed genocide over the long term. When they found he’d influenced a planet, they did it immediately.

“Exactly. You need someone to balance out the crazy.” She sounded amused.

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 4 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 2

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Cassie had mentioned that he’d been feeling left out. It wasn’t as if I’d been ignoring him though. Anyway, technically I’d seen him most weeks—Stapledon program stuff every other weekend, (officially credited) Stapledon distance learning classes each week, and sometimes additional team practices midweek.

Of course, Lee had taken a couple weeks off from that recently—apparently so he could arrange accidents with blenders.

How did that even work?

“Nick?” Vaughn asked. He sounded a little irritated.

“Sorry. Lee killed a bunch of people, and I’m a little distracted.” Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 2 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 1

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Vaughn and I stood inside DePuit Hall’s lobby. Not much more than an entrance that opened into the TV room, it wasn’t as nice as anyplace I’d been for a Stapledon weekend. The dark carpet in the TV room had to be at least ten years old, and might have been pushing twenty for all I knew.

We’d happened to run into each other—almost but not quite literally.

I’d walked down to buy something at the pop machine while he happened to walk around the corner. Since the row of snack machines happened to be just around the corner, I leaned down to pick up the can of pop as he dodged me.

I stood up, and we looked at each other.

Vaughn said, “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Pretty much okay. I’m kind of surprised to see you here.” Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 1 →

Arc 6.0: The Unusual Suspects

The Unusual Suspects: Part 2

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In the distance, a muffled voice said, “Dad? Are you up there?” The voice sounded like it belonged to someone male and around my age.

Lim said, “I’ll be down in a second.” Looking back at the camera, he said, “Do you have anything else? I should stop working for the day.”

“Nothing,” I said. I’d never even thought about whether he had a family. He was old enough to have kids around my age, and it was easy to imagine he might be married, but it hadn’t come up.

“Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if something important happens,” he said as we hung up.

From all the places I’d seen in the background when I’d called him—spaceships, naval vessels, wilderness, and cities nowhere near Washington D.C., I wondered how often he saw his family, and how much he could say about his job.

Continue reading The Unusual Suspects: Part 2 →

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 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 4

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Quickly Haley said, “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but were you planning on going in costume? I don’t think any of us have real clothes along.”

I thought about that, imagining going into restaurant as we were. For all I knew, Izzy might sometimes use what she was wearing as workout clothes. Plus, eating with the Rocket suit’s helmet on was possible, but ugh…

Then I said, “Do you think IHOP does take out?”

She said, “Nick, everybody does take-out.” She straightened up in her seat. “So let’s go. I’m hungry too.”

From behind us, Cassie said, “Good. Because if you were going to say that we shouldn’t get food, I was really going to argue.”

Continue reading Spin: Part 4 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 3

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Mindstryke nodded. “She’s right, but it’s not going to be all bad. It’ll be hard to deal with at first, but it could be worse.”

He glanced to the right, toward something off camera. When his eyes were on us again, he said, “You’ve just experienced what would be a life changing event for some capes. You stopped St. Louis from being destroyed and did it with minimal loss of life. If you want, you’ll be interviewed every day of the week. People will want to pay you thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars for product endorsements. You’ll be celebrities.”

He stopped, gave a sigh, and continued. “I’ve known a lot of people who used events like this to change careers. They stayed in just far enough that they were visible vigilantes, but they spent the rest of their time being ‘the man who saved St. Louis.’” Continue reading Spin: Part 3 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 2

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I stared at the screen. “The board? As in the League’s board or the Defenders’?”

Mindstryke shook his head. “Not the Defenders’ board, the League’s. But that’s for later. Right now I’d like you to explain what happened from the point where you first became aware this was possible through to your response.”

We did. Rachel told him about first hearing about the possibility in Infinity City. I described how I’d recognized a clue after months of searching. Then everybody explained their individual part in the plan.

He nodded as we talked, no longer smiling, but taking notes, and asking questions.

After we were done, he said, “Ok, I’ll summarize this, and then we’ll go over what to talk about and what to skip if someone asks you about it.

Continue reading Spin: Part 2 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 1

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Haley landed the jet in the parking lot between the storage building and the factory.

We’d arrived less than an hour before, and aside from a little debris from the bombs, it didn’t look much different. It was lighter (past the factories and warehouses, the eastern sky glowed), and the tornado sirens were still going, but it was close to the same.

An inch of snow still covered the ground, and the temperature felt cold—if not as cold as Michigan.

For that matter, all the buildings that had been standing when we arrived were still standing. The ones that weren’t visible from here.

Still, it felt like we’d been there a week.

Continue reading Spin: Part 1 →

Arc 5.8: Chance & Fate

Chance & Fate: Part 11

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Tapping my fingers on my palms, I brought up our group’s location. Daniel and Izzy’s location came up as “Unknown”—which didn’t necessarily mean that they were dead. It could mean that the bomb had kicked out enough of an EMP that it killed their comms.

For that matter, if their signal came through, I realized, it didn’t necessarily mean that they were alive.

The thought that I needed to include people’s health in the next iteration didn’t distract me enough. I was still aware that Izzy and Daniel might both be dead or near to it.

The bombs weren’t nuclear, but they obviously included materials that I wasn’t familiar with. Even if they were only briefly radioactive or poisonous, they could still kill.

Then Daniel and Izzy’s status flickered from red to green. A good sign.

Continue reading Chance & Fate: Part 11 →