The Legion of Nothing

Inside the room, we found the welcome committee. They were prepared for us, but there's a difference between sending a bunch of guards to stand in the entrance in case someone gets through and executing a well-planned ambush.

This was not a well-planned ambush.

The guards here, and there were more than 20 of them, all of them with automatic weapons, weren't in the best shape.

They might have been prepared for normal people, but they weren't prepared for the doors to be smashed and thrown to the side in one movement and for all of us to blow through after, partially invisible and followed by a series of explosions that shook the room.

The explosions also shook us, blowing us around, but the anti-gravity collision protocols and inertial dampers meant that we weren't thrown into walls or each other. Our movements didn't even mess up Jaclyn.

She'd moved to the side of the room, out of the direct blast from the shaft behind us.

The guards were trying to do that themselves while simultaneously firing at where they suspected we were.

My idea had given them a gigantic hint. We might be camouflaged, but we were all still stuck to each other, and I'd never bothered to make chameleon-style goo. That might be a project for future me. There must be use cases for sticking people to something with a substance viewers couldn't see.

For example, being pulled invisibly into a room filled with armed guards and all too visible connective substances. Mind you, the guards dove for cover to avoid the explosions, landing on either side of the door as shattered bits of concrete and fire blew in.

That meant that coordinated fire on us wasn't easy. First, it wasn't easy because many of the guards had to either get up from the floor or pull their rifles into place after hitting the floor. Second, Jaclyn had moved to the left side, using the group of guards who jumped to the left of the door as cover for us.

As she did, she talked to us through her implant. "Can you get yourselves unstuck, or should I clear the room? I can do it, but they'll be more hurt in the end."

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Daniel said, "The Power can grab the guns. I'll start."

The group on our side of the door pulled their guns to their shoulders as one of them shouted that they should, "Fire!"

Except as they started firing, an invisible force picked up the entire group, moving them into their fellow guards on the far side of the door.

The groups changed from two groups of somewhat organized resistance to one group that looked as if it had been dropped into a jar and then shaken or possibly tossed like a salad. People sprawled all over each other, rifles sticking out underneath backs, arms, and legs.

That would have been bad enough, but then the rifles flew upward toward the ceiling, knives, bullets, and belt buckles flying with them. Though it looked for a moment as if a few people might be taken along with their belt buckles, the belts freed themselves from their owners' pants before they hit the ceiling.

"When you've got the guns, move them away from the group," I said, "we can goo them up."

Sean said, "Got it," and the guns moved down the ceiling to the end of the room.

Some of the guards pulled themselves up, running toward their lost weaponry, but hit an invisible wall. Others appeared to be pulling themselves up to sprint toward the doors.

None of us hesitated, firing off lines of goo or goobots that exploded, snaring everyone around them in sticky stuff.

With that done, we finally had a moment to breathe—sort of. Crashes from the shaft outside the room continued. In the seconds we'd been inside this room, the door outside had already been blocked by rubble and identifiable chunks of the stairway outside.

Some had even fallen into this room—not that this room was a great loss even if it came to be filled with rubble. It wasn't more than a concrete box on all sides with two sets of double doors. One lead into the stairwell we'd come from. The other two, which were also black painted metal, led deeper into the bunker or whatever complex we were about to enter—Magnus' most secret hideout.

They couldn't possibly have expected these guards to take us out. Assuming they knew who it was, and that seemed likely, these people were sacrificial lambs placed here to buy the rest of them time, even if it meant burying them under tons of rubble.

Cassie spoke to us over her implant, "How do we get this stuff off us? I thought it wasn't supposed to stick to our suits anyway."

"That's a coating on the armor," I said, "but it's not hard to make spots without coating accessible. The cool thing is that I can switch that back, releasing everyone."

"Good," Cassie said, pulling at one of the goo strands. "Please do."

Jaclyn shook her head, "I can't believe that worked."

"Me neither," I said, setting the suits back.

Forestalling more conversation, a voice blanketed the room, and I knew it—Rook's. "Heroes' League, if that's you, you're going to love what comes next. The Rocket's been digging into the technology of the Abominators, and from what our devices are sensing, so have the rest of you. I've come to truly understand it in the last few months. I think you'll be impressed."