2005-07-26

(no subject)

43.

Maria tightened all her muscles, looked above to get her bearings, and with a yell that would have shamed rebel mounted cavalries, pushed her hands through the shell and grasped the device. In what was almost the same movement she lifted it and shot up the passage through the base up into the untouched sky.

Mickey smacked his brother on the shoulder to get the dumbfounded look off his face, and the boy followed a second later.

Maria was in the clouds as she felt the thing begin to throb. The device was reacting to being removed from its station. Some internal security system was in place.

The woman sped up and was in the first clouds when the sound began. It was as if there were a smoke detector made to alert the fire station miles away by using its sound alone. She almost dropped the thing out of the pain it brought to her ears.

Instead she continued to climb, more rapidly by the second.

The winds were brutal, the air was thin and cold. She had never climbed so far so fast. She now noticed a shell of frost forming on herself and the device.

Then the scariest thing of all happened.

The sound stopped.

She looked ahead of her and could actually see the Earth’s corona, like a minor aurora, in the far distance.

Then with a power that surpassed anything she had ever experienced before, the thing exploded.

A ring of concussive light expanded in every direction. And that was all she saw, the world around her grew dark.

(no subject)

44.

His mother had just gotten out of his sight, up through the clouds, but not so far that he couldn’t estimate where she was.

And then the shockwave hit.

It was like someone had dropped an SUV on his head. David must have fallen 1,000 feet before recovering his senses. He shook it off and then remembered his task at hand.

He shot up into the sky as fast as his ability allowed and ran right into the falling form of his mother.

She was naked, with a layer of black soot covering her now hairless body. He caught her, but had to roll with the impact to avoid being knocked out of the sky himself.

He couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

He reversed his energy and shot back toward the ground and Thunderbase.

It took him several of the longest minutes of his life to get there.

“Infirmary!” He screamed with his mind, hoping one or more of the Psi’s would pick it up. When he reached the tower, there were teams waiting.

He turned over his mother to the hands of the doctors and nurses who had saved his life not so long ago.

As he walked from the clinic he all but ran into his brother.

“Is she okay?” Mickey asked.

“I don’t know, kiddo,” The elder sibling said honestly, “but they are going to do all they can.”

Madame Mimic walked up. She had been one of the panel, and she tried hard to consol the boys. Her real name was Elizabeth Pelly and her power was that she could take the form of any organic being. She had toyed with the idea of appearing to the boys as their mother to bolster their spirits, but was wise enough to know it would not be appreaciated.

Jeremy ran up to the trio shouting, “Guys, you’ve got to see this!”

With less enthusiasm than their comrade, the pair left Madame Mimic and walked into the central bay.

There were dozens of Inheritors there, and they were all looking up through the open bay.

There, in the sky were 5 crossing rainbows stretching out to any horizon you cared to look at, and meeting at the point of the sky that David had just returned from.

The boys silently prayed that it was an omen of something beginning, and not the end of something important in their lives.

(no subject)

Knowing that I have, and have always had, only one partner, and this is just a game.
All right, here they are (and those who know me will find nothing to surprise them.)
1. Laura Petrie - - "The Dick Van Dyke Show"
2. Emma Peel - - "The Avengers"
3. Ororo (Storm) - - The comic book "The X-Men"
4. Lois Lane - - "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman"
5. Maria Belle McCauley - - "The Inheritors"
6. Kaywinnit Lee 'Kaylee' Frye - - "Firefly"
7. Guinan - - Star Trek: The Next Generation
8. Col. Kira Nerys - - "Deep Space Nine"
9. Chiana - - "Farscape
10. "Sugar" Kane - - "Some Like It Hot"

(no subject)

45.

Before the boys were twenty steps from the clinic they were confronted by a parade of well wishers. It looked as if every corridor in every direction was filled with Inheritors who were in silent gratitude for the heroism of the boys and their mother.

The quiet crowd let the boys move through them with a clap on the shoulder or a whispered word of “Thanks,” or “She’ll be okay.”

When the boys got back to the room they found Hank and Jeremy there, with Doctor Thursday and a girl they both knew as “Shadow” (So named because she could disappear in any shadow and not been seen.).

Hank met the boys at their door, and walked them to the kitchen, like an Uncle who reigns in the house of sorrow.

After they boys had gotten a glass of lemonade from the fridge, they moved to the living room area.

Hank spoke in soft spoken terms.

“Would you like me to jump forward?” He asked, and they knew the reason he would be looking.

“I want to know, and I don’t” Mickey said.

“Yeah,” David agreed.

“Sometimes it is better to wait for what has really happened, rather than what might be in one of many futures,” assured Doctor Thursday.

The group sat in the room, without a word.

Mickey understood for the first time how important companionship is in time of trouble.

He had felt so alone when his father died, and he didn’t think he could survive it if something happened to his mother.

Having all these friends to assure him that she would be alright was very important to him.

Suddenly the depressing calm was shattered by the words of Colonel Stonedragon, coming over the loud speakers.

“David McCauley. Micheal McCauley. Come to Colonel Stonedragon’s office at once. It is of the first priority. Come at once.”

The boys looked at each other.

This could not be good.

They had no idea just how bad it could be.