Issue #90 – Just Us Sidekicks

This entry is part 6 of 12 in the series The Descendants Vol 8: The Weaver's Web

Just Us Sidekicks (Part 5)

A lunging kick made short work of the main door of the IT building and Troy stormed through them into the lobby. He had his palmtop out, checking the security feeds as he went. Aside from new alarms from where he’d broken in, there were no new alerts, but he knew whoever broke in earlier was still there.

And if they disabled the communications block, he’d go from having all the time in the world to doing all the time in the world.

He reached the elevator and hit the call button while bringing up the camera feeds from inside the communications hub. The room appeared clear, but he knew that if he were going up there to restore the campus’s internet and cell service, he’d most certainly spoof the camera to make it look empty as well.

The elevator arrived and he stepped in, pressing the button for the eighth floor. On the ride up, he checked the hall cameras too, finding all the halls leading to the hub empty as well.

Something didn’t smell right to him. Stowing his palmtop, he stepped out cautiously when the doors opened on the eighth floor. There was no one around at the first T intersection. “Hmm… I’m not going to rule out them being smarter than me, but I’m stronger and faster now.” He raised his voice, “Come on out, whoever you are! I’ll find you eventually anyway.”

No answer.

Not that he’d expected one, but it didn’t hurt to try. Moving as quickly as he could while still being observant, he started down the now-familiar corridors to the communications hub. It was actually starting to bother him that nothing seemed out of place b the time he reached the last hallway and the door with its clear-walled surrounding became visible.

But then he heard it: muffled voices coming from inside the server room. More than one voice from the sound of it and at least one was female.

Troy flashed back to all the girls in his computer science courses. Could one of them be counter-hacking him? The possibility was becoming increasingly likely. As he reached the door, he grabbed the security box, intent on ripping it off with main strength, but hesitated.

He liked most of his classmates. Really, he only actually hated Mike. If he barged through that door, there would be a confrontation—and he was armed and lethally strong. That hadn’t occurred to him while attacking Mike and his friends, but now in the quiet of the hallway, it was starting to settle in that he could have killed someone—that he might have to do to secure his future.

That was the thing though, wasn’t it? His future. Did he even have much of one if he didn’t follow through? If he just stopped right there, ran back to the dorm and hid the Hack and Slash costume forever, what would happen to him?

His scholarship would run out in three weeks, he’d never get his foot in the door with any serious computer firm, and then he’d end up wearing kinetic arm and leg bands to make ends meet, applying for the Universal Minimum Wage and maybe doing small, non-steady jobs just to have more money than was necessary just to barely stay alive. He’d never be able to use his hacking talent legally again, that was for damn sure. All his skill, talent and learning would just go to waste.

Or maybe he could beg and plead his way back onto the baseball team. Get the scholarship back, then throw out his back or arm or tear an ACL before he was 25. No way he’d be able to afford cybernetic replacements. IF he was lucky, it’d happen after he had the credits to graduate—so he could go into the job of his choice in a wheelchair.

His expression hardened. Orb Weaver was right. No one was going to help him. He needed to take what he wanted. Because he really did have a talent above others and deserved better than what the common man got.

And if the little people got hurt or died, it wasn’t all that big a loss.

Metal squealed under his fingers as, with a mighty grunt, he tore the security box asunder and shoved the door inward hard enough that the internal locking bolts snapped.

Troy strode to the top of the stairs and had just enough time to find there was no one there before he heard the pop of a gas gun being fired. He started to turn, but something was tangling his legs and he fell to the tiled floor, his jaw striking the ground and making his vision swim for a few seconds.

***

The sound of the door being demolished was more than enough to cover up the sounds of the door to the office just down the hall opening. JC took the lead stepping out because he was the one holding the grapnel gun. He saw Hack and Slash stomp into the server room and took careful aim with the hand-me-down weapon before launching a line-trailing grapnel into the floor between the villain’s legs.

Just as he hoped, the sound of the gas gun made the man turn and tangle his legs in the line. All JC had to do was pull at the right time, and gravity did the rest, sending the guy right to the ground. “Got him!” he crowed.

By then, Kay was already rushing forward with a fire extinguisher in hand. As Hack and Slash started to shake off his fall, she hit him with a face-full of fire-suppressant gas and charged over his coughing form, stepping on his back as she bolted into the room.

Not even pausing to see if the hit from the extinguisher had any greater effect, she slid down the railing flanking the stairs and into the communications room proper, heading for the main terminal.

This left JC and Meghan with the unenviable task of keeping Hack and Slash away from her and preferably down.

JC did his part by planting a charging soccer kick in the guy’s ribs while Meghan came up behind with the bat.

Her downswing, however, was blocked by a katar and Hack and Slash performed a one-armed push-up to bring his shoulders up into JC’s knees, overbalancing him and causing him to fall into the swirling remnants of the suppressant gas.

As JC lay gagging, Meghan took another swing with her bat, which Hack and Slash dodged by rolling way from this time, then rolled back, turning so his legs caught hers and tripped her down as well.

This finally gave him time to reach down and snap the grapnel line binding his legs, and he stood with a wordless roar of fury. Looking around, he spied Kay at the terminal and charged the stairs. He didn’t get far thanks to a flying tackle from Meghan, who slammed him back against the rear of one of the servers.

Hack and Slash bared his teeth and shoved her back before striking out with one of his katars. The blade bit deep into her arm, slicing through the false flesh covering and plastic housing before becoming embedded in the inner workings. His eyes widened upon seeing that he’d stabbed a prosthetic and he completely missed the look on Meghan’s face.

She ground her teeth. “Do you know what I have to go through to get this fixed? My family isn’t rich; this is hours of insurance forms and getting second guessed by their doctors.” She seethed, twisting her arm to the side until the katar snapped. “I. Am. Having a really bad day right now.” All black hair and fury, she then buried her fist in his gut, grabbed him by the shoulder, then flung him hard against the transparent wall next to the door.

Meghan followed after with a ringing blow to his jaw, but when she took her next swing, Hack and Slash ducked under the blow and gut-punched her, avoiding delivering a fatal blow only by virtue of forgetting that the katar on that arm had been broken off.

As she stumbled back, JC tried to fill the gap, only to be shoved into Meghan, knocking them both down.

Now he had a way clear to Kay, leaping down the stairs prepared to protect his future.

***

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. This stupid thing gets hacked by a guy that can’t even make up a decent name for himself, but the password protection is still up?”

Kay glared at the terminal before her. Even though she had no idea what she was supposed to do once she got to the terminal to get communications back up, but she’d kind of assumed she’d be able to do something. Shifting the fire extinguisher to her other hand, she tried typing in ‘communications’.

‘ACCESS DENIED – 2 LOGIN ATTEMPTS REMAINING’ replied the computer in large letters beneath the password form.

‘swordfish’

‘ACCESS DENIED – 1 LOGIN ATTEMPT REMAINING’

“Okay, those two were probably a stupid idea,” she admitted to herself. Glancing behind, she was just in time to see Hack and Slash push her two friends down and head her way, his remaining katar at the ready.

It took only a split second for her to come up with a plan. Backing up to the terminal, she raised the fire extinguisher and let loose with the last of the suppressant gas. Hack and Slash bulled through it, punching with all his might with the katar.

But Kay had already thrown herself to the ground behind the cover of the gas. What he ended up punching was the casing on the terminal itself. The katar punched through the plastic case and into the computer’s innards, slicing through wires and entering the power supply.

Electricity surged back up through the blade and into Hack and Slash, leaving him screaming and convulsing for the fraction of a second before the server room’s circuit breakers tripped, plunging the entire room into darkness.

There was the sound of a body hitting the floor amid rapid, shallow breathing, followed by three palmtops beeping as they re-established their connections to the outside world.

Sight returned as security lights came up, bathing the room in dim light. Kay fished her palmtop out of her pocket and slid her finger along the screen until the image of a red button marked ‘PANIC’ appeared, which she pressed without delay. Every member of the Descendants would be notified within moments.

Then she sat up with her back against the terminal. “JC? Meghan? You guys okay?”

“I’m alive.” JC groaned, appearing at the top of the stairs.

“Same,” Meghan added, coming up behind him, “Is he… did that kill him?”

Kay looked at Hack and Slash. “He’s alive, but an ambulance would be a good idea.”

While Meghan whipped out her palmtop to make that call, JC made his way over to where their fallen foe lay and knelt down, hastily pulling off the man’s gloves and throwing them out of reach. “Wanna see who he really was?” he asked the girls.

“Go for it, Scoob.” Kay was really too busy trying to regain her breath to even work up her curiosity.

JC made a face at her, then pulled off the mask. :”Troy Clayton?” He was the only one to say this because he was the only one present that knew the guy. “That’s… not who I expected. Kay, this guy played Deathgate with us some nights. How… jeez.” He cut off with a groan and sat back on his heels.

***

“Where’s Kay?” Warrick asked a few hours later after Alloy, Facsimile and Vamanos had arrived on campus to aid the police in canvasing the campus for any potential surprises or accomplices left behind by Troy, seeing as he was in no condition to be questioned at the moment.

“She and Meghan decided to head over the Burger Builders to get some food before we settle in for some movies. Where’s Cyn?”

Warrick shrugged and took a seat on his bed. “Headed back to Ollie. She’d just made up some lame excuse to leave, so she’s trying to catch up to him before he heads home.”

Nodding, JC swiveled his seat around to face his roommate. “So did you find out anything about what the hell happened here tonight?”

“Yeah. They found some stuff in his room: pills with instructions that say they’ll give you super-strength and reflexes—and a box with a spider logo on it—and orb weaver spider.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. The EMTs say whatever was in those drugs reacted badly to him being shocked—they don’t know what it’s going to do to him.” He lay down and squeezed his eyes shut. “There’s nothing concrete about what he was doing, but he did hack the admin building so all the doors leading to the billing department’s server were unlocked. Stealing personal information sounds like a good bet—maybe to sell it to the Orb Weaver. The cops did say he stood to lose his scholarship this year. That’s a hell of a motive.

“I also had to go over to the theater and free Mike from where Troy pinned him to the ground with a bumper. I felt a little dirty helping him, I won’t lie.”

JC sighed. “I still can’t believe he’d do such a thing. We weren’t friends or anything but… you think you know a guy…”

“Speaking of: you guys were pretty badass from what I hear. That’s two, bro. One more and you get a costume.”

“Heh. That was mostly Kay. She really managed to put a good plan together. She even outed her sound powers to to Meghan to make sure it happened.”

“Oh yeah, Meghan… she was hanging with you guys why?”

JC made face. “Let’s just say really bad date.” He tipped his head back and studied the ceiling. “Ugh. I ache all over.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I think I’ll leave that to you, bro. I’ll stick to being a sidekick. Maybe the handsome mission control.”

Warrick closed his eyes. He still had work to do, but a little nap before heading back to Freeland House wouldn’t hurt. “Glad to have you aboard, JC.”

End Issue #90.

 

Series Navigation<< Issue #89 – All That GlittersIssue #91 – Rock and Roll Lifestyle >>

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Landon Porter is the author of The Descendants and Rune Breaker. Follow him on Twitter @ParadoxOmni or sign up for his newsletter. You can also purchase his books from all major platforms from the bookstore
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18 Comments

  1. In a fantasy world Mike’s heading for an unpleasant comeuppance. In the real world he’d be heading for a successful career. I hate the real world sometimes.

    Typos

    fore a supervillain,
    for a super villain,

    shook hi head.
    shook his head.

    to lame to break
    too lame to break

    orb Weaver’s Dark Network,
    Orb Weaver’s Dark Network,

    free drop them
    free to drop them

    • supervillain was autocorrected to super villain by the computer I’m on. That wasn’t meant to be a typo for the list.

  2. Making a career in digital security with a degree from a university that can’t keep students from accessing it’s computers and doing whatever they like without needing physical access? Oh well, I guess it’s normal considering that I’ve yet to hear of any fiction where computers and hacking exist where it isn’t normal for teens to crack every database in existence any day they like.

    • Terrifying truth in a lot of private ecosystems. Everything is online so that can make their employees Bring Your Own Device. The only thing that requires physical access? Payroll.

      This is exactly how the big Sony hack happened. There’s literally no reason the company intranet is online aside from cheapness.

      I’m not even a hacker of any sort, but I’ve accidentally wandered into so many employee intranets via wifi since I got the new laptop, it’s not even funny. The login and password are always stills set to admin too >_<.

  3. >“Powered Combat League. Descendants versus Spark-jockeys versus Powered armor or anything people can come up with—it’s awesome!”

    This HAS to be your next mini-series.

  4. And the moral of this story is: never lie to yourself about what your real motivations are.

    No, the real moral is that people can fall in love with colons.

    Typos:

    a class tarting
    a class starting

    tot he game
    to the game

    or go caught
    or got caught

    path. “let’s get
    path. “Let’s get

    we wont’ be
    we won’t be

  5. IÄ! SHUB-NIGGURATH!

    Red dice with green numbers sounds pretty horrible though. Christmasy, but horrible.

    And speaking of colours, don’t they teach about Cherenkov radiation in schools anymore? It’s blue, not green.

  6. Typos

    “From what war says
    “From what War says

    face out shark girl’s
    face out of shark girl’s

    fore Desiree.
    for Desiree.

    my arm’s supped up
    my arm’s supered up

    snap sending the doors
    snap, sending the doors

    stomping of from
    stomping off from

    JC, the beam of his flashlight almost blinding Kay.
    I think there’s a word missing after JC, but I don’t know what it is.

    guys haven stuff
    either:
    guys have stuff
    or:
    guys have any stuff

    “Heel yeah, Kay.
    “Hell yeah, Kay.

  7. Meghan could have could have braced her elbow against the wall to use only her mechanical arm to pull the security grate, that way there wouldn’t have been strain to the wetware.

    • If the artificial muscles are linked the way real muscles are then it’s hard to use just one muscle group. Even when you think you are; there’s nothing like a back injury to tell you that.

      Typos

      their assailant leaps up
      their assailant leapt up

      next tot he
      next to the

      & probably more, I’ll take another look when I’m less tired.

  8. More typos

    in place was made of
    in place were made of

    off the hood of the car,
    I think he’s on the roof of the car prior to this, not the hood.

    And that means I’d got a plan.
    And that means I’ve got a plan.

  9. I wonder what bar you need to meet to be a superhero? A discarded grapple gun and a fire extinguisher is something that you could issue en masse.

    Typos

    main door of the IT building and Troy stormed through them
    either:
    main doors of the IT building and Troy stormed through them
    or:
    main door of the IT building and Troy stormed through it

    he might have to do to
    he might have to, to

    rolling way from this time, then rolled back,
    rolling away from, then rolled back,
    (there may be other ways of fixing this too.)

    aid the police in canvasing
    aid the police in canvassing

    :”Troy Clayton?”
    ”Troy Clayton?”

    and orb weaver spider.”
    an orb weaver spider.”

    powers to to Meghan
    powers to Meghan

    JC made face.
    JC made a face.

  10. Ahh, the good old “stand in front of something electric to get your opponent to hit it and electrocute themself”-trick.
    You’d think villains would learn and put insulating handles on their weapons, but no. Then again they always fall for the “electrified puddle”-trick too, even while just about every normal person has insulating soles in their shoes.

    • But arm blades look so cool!

      I don’t think I’ve electrified a puddle yet–even given 91 issues in the can. I have been looking into whether you can electrify ice or snow though.

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