The Legion of Nothing

"Are you getting anything?" I asked Daniel.

We stood about twenty feet to the side of the main table where everyone else sat, quietly talking.

"Almost," Daniel said. "I'll pull you in when I've got it."

The grownups hadn't been gone for long.

My vision blurred. Superimposed upon the League HQ's main room, I saw the lab with it's collection of machines and spare Rocket suit parts. Larry (his helmet off) fiddled with the controls of one of Grandpa's more advanced fabrication machines. Daniel's dad and C, Jaclyn's grandfather, faced each other next to the counter on the left side of the room.

I'd left a lot of tools and a spare right arm on the counter while doing maintenance on the suit earlier.

I hoped they wouldn't touch anything.

"-- I don't like this plan at all," Daniel's dad said. "You don't tell teenagers that it's okay to kill people. You don't send them up against trained soldiers. This isn't the League you remember."

Jaclyn's grandfather leaned against the counter. His arm pushed a wrench into the soldering iron and some of the smaller tools.

"Whoops." He pulled his arm back. "If the boy's grandfather were alive, I'd never have heard the end of that."

The tools floated back to almost the same position they'd been in.

"Thank you. Do you remember," Jaclyn's grandfather asked, "what your father was doing at their age?"

"Yes --"

"He was lying about his age so the army would take him."

"We're not at war," Daniel's dad said.

"We're always at war. The venue changes."

"I've heard that line before. It makes it far too easy to justify --"

"It's a good line. It's a true line."

"There's a difference between trying to stop Hitler and whatever's going on here. Equating the two lets you guys set up things like the block. I spent my childhood with half of my friends practically lobotomized and you didn't even stop when they got married. You had my dad block their spouses too."

Jaclyn's grandfather barely raised his voice in response. "I didn't do it. The League did it. We did it, and it's the only reason you're around to complain. We weren't fighting good men, David. We were fighting killers. Men who would go after wives and children. The block meant our kids never noticed our hours, our strange disappearances, or any hints about what we were. It freed them to have normal lives. It freed us from worrying about them. It freed you to experiment with your powers and not worry if your friends would ask questions."

"I'd have rather had the questions."

This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Not at the expense of your life."

Daniel's dad stood quietly. "Let's get back to the main topic," he said after a moment.

Then he turned toward us, concentrating. The room disappeared, leaving the two of us standing next to each other in HQ's main room.

"I didn't know he could do that," Daniel said.