No Master Plan Here (Madness Runs in the Family) by Joel Burdick

Author:Joel Burdick
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2014-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

-~-~-

Anansi opened one of the doors in the southern hallway, leading the members of SHIP inside. As in the rest of the base, the walls were white and mostly featureless, however, here the ceiling was much higher and had an unfinished look to it, lacking the white plating in favor of steel girders and framework. A seam ran down the center of the ceiling. On the floor was a series of concentric circles painted in red, and in the center of the circles rested a vehicle of the likes that Denise had never seen before.

It had wings, a fuselage, and a tail, so Denise assumed it was some sort of plane, but she couldn't see any apparent engines on the wings or body. The body seemed to resist attempts to look at it directly, like it was a mirage of some sort, but it appeared, for the most part, white. Denise wasn't sure if it was because the rest of the room was white or not. It looked sleek, smooth, like something from an 80s cartoon about the future.

“What do you think,” Anansi asked, gesturing to the plane. Spark blinked several times, trying to get her eyes to focus properly on it.

“It's weird. Is it supposed to be all fuzzy like that?” Spark said, rubbing her eyes. “Hurts my head.” Anansi nodded.

“Yeah. It's a sort of refractive camouflage. It works on the part of the brain that overlooks things, convincing it that you don't need to recognize what is there. Just look off to the side or not directly at it, it'll stop hurting your head.”

Anansi started walking across the hangar towards the plane. Denise noticed that he walked differently, now that he was wearing his...costume wasn't the right word. When Jacob put on the outfit, the equipment, the gear that was associated with Anansi, especially the helmet, he almost became someone else. Someone more confident, ready to take on the world. He was always joking outside of the mask, but there had always been an underlying nervousness to it, like he wasn't sure how else to react to people.

She wondered if she had ever noticed it before.

When Anansi came within arm's reach of the plane, a hole opened in the side and a staircase lowered. He stopped at the door and turned back. “Hey, Stone, you're going to need to change back to your less massive form. This isn't rated for quite that much weight.” Stone nodded, closing his eyes in concentration. The transformation from Stone seemed smoother than to. The rocky texture of his skin receded, eventually evening out and becoming pink, then the tan of his normal skin color. Stone adjusted his bodysuit and rolled his shoulders, the joints popping loudly.

“That's much more like it.” Anansi hopped into the plane. Denise followed, with Spark and Stone in tow.

The inside of the plane continued the theme of smooth lines and curves, but instead of white, it was warm browns and tans. To the left of the doorway was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.