The scene froze, leaving Prentkos, Colette, and Magnus standing within the circle, caught in a moment where none of them were looking each other in the eye, a picture without much visual appeal.
Spark asked, “Do you want to see more? There’s no more conversation except for Colette giving the command. Instead, they disappear, and I’m not allowed to show you where they reappear.”
“You can’t tell me unless you’re in my presence? Why? Because he told you not to tell?”
The picture of Prentkos in my mind frowned. “I,” he said and paused. “I can’t say… It’s difficult. I know the Nine has me. His assistant—the blond woman who’s with him—she talked to me, and I can’t repeat anything she said.”
“His assistant,” I said. “Do you mean Colette? She’s good with a crossbow?”
I reached out to the systems that surrounded me, trying to figure out what I could use.
Though I couldn’t say that I was a massive X-Men fan, I remembered Cerebro from the comics. It was a device that allowed telepaths (or maybe just Xavier) to detect mutants.
This wasn’t the same thing, but for Artificers. I knew this because I connected with it, specifically with its systems. One allowed messaging of other beings connected to the device. That included visitors who weren’t Artificers. Another system was the life support, which allowed me to request various forms of support ranging from the energy Artificers fed off of to air and food for physical needs. I noted that one. I might be able to pinpoint Magnus’ location by tracking life support use if it came to that. Continue reading The Core: Part 9→
Using the model I’d made of the space, I followed the trail of whatever the CDPS was detecting in my head. It originated near three different spheres in a cluster.
With a glance toward Spark, I flew toward the cluster, guessing that by the time I got down there I might be able to sense something.
With my rockets firing, it didn’t take long to reach the spheres, all three glowing. While they weren’t blinding, my helmet did dim their intensity as I looked them over. Unlike a number of the spheres, I couldn’t see the inside of any of these. Continue reading The Core: Part 8→
I’d expected the primary thing I sensed to be empty space or perhaps distant hints to chase, but that wasn’t what I found.
This place pulsed with energy. The Core device kept these worlds alive. I didn’t know what was in them, but I could sense energy traveling to each one and a smaller amount of energy leaving each sphere.
The energy output might be worth investigating, provided they generated enough that I could sense it from a distance. Another idea might be cutting off energy if I could do that. Making the assumption that the pocket universe would disappear and the original League would pop out, it might even be the best option. Continue reading The Core: Part 7→
If I weren’t already prepared to notice the differences, I might have thought I’d appeared in outer space. Within the last few days, I’d traveled to the Moon, Mars, distant future Mars, an alternate Mars, and the orbit of a satellite around distant future Mars.
In short, the differences stood out.
To start? My suit’s location in time and space still showed as an error. If that weren’t enough, it did detect an atmosphere—oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen in Earth standard percentages.
“Wait,” I said, adjusting to that information, “what was he doing with them? Are you saying he brought them through to train them or to use them as guinea pigs to test the system?”
I looked over the faces. There were at least ten or fifteen people.
“Both,” she said. “You both can bring guests, but you’ve been taught what you are and trained to begin to use your abilities. He hasn’t and hasn’t always known what he was.”
“Interesting,” I said. “I guess I’m stuck with them then, but if I had my own allies, that would help.” Continue reading The Core: Part 5→
Meeting my eyes, she continued, “That’s not all. A new owner has the option of flushing everyone who’s entered in between owners from the system or selectively allowing specific entries.”
“Oh,” I said, realizing as I said it what that meant. “So, if Magnus were to gain control, he could wipe everything that’s happened in the meantime, but he could also allow the specific entries that led to him controlling the system.”
In this case, that meant that Magnus might be able to remove the original team, and we’d be forced to find out what would have happened if they’d never entered while keeping Lee and Nataw’s respective entries that accidentally allowed him in. Continue reading The Core: Part 4→
Grandpa wore the late 50s and 60s version of the Rocket suit. Giles Hardwick wore the final version of his costume—red with a lightning bolt under an arch decorated with hieroglyphics. He’d always been fascinated with Egypt.
Captain Commando’s blue costume with a US flag on it echoed Cassie’s, or more accurately, vice versa. Grandma wore a white jumpsuit, which seemed closer to skintight than I imagined for that era. Night Wolf’s black-accented grey costume with wolf head symbol had been the model for both Haley and Travis’ designs. Continue reading The Core: Part 3→
She shrugged. “My apologies. I have to follow the rules set out for me by the system I exist within. I think you’ll understand what that means and how to work within it.”
“I get it,” I said, and I did. “You’re a thinking being, but you’re also a program running on a kind of hardware, not so deeply integrated into it that you can reconfigure every piece of it at will. So… What can you tell me? What resources do I have access to by default?”
“You have access to this construct’s life support systems and certain informational resources. There are triggers set up that give you limited control of the device.”
