Sidekick by Carl Stubblefield (10 best novels of all time .txt) 📗

He made it to the beach and took out his energy bar, hiding in the leafy bushes nearby. His stomach was in knots, and after a couple bites, it was hard to tell how much was anxiety and how much was due to the stale, sawdust-like concoction. The life of a super. So glamorous. He licked his teeth, trying to remove the residue the dry bar left.

Gus could see the two supers approaching through Psi-bond as the sun crested the horizon. They looked like the projections in the training arena, as he could only see the web of Nth scattered through their bodies, moving like red constellations in the brightening sky. As they approached the beach, Gus saw that the rest of their bodies were not only translucent, they were invisible as they moved from place to place. Gus saw no Predator-esque warping of the space as they passed through it to hint where they were.

Rather than totally settling on the sand of the beach, they continued to hover, a foot off the ground, to maintain their stealth. Mentally, Gus asked Nick if he could extrapolate and put a skin on the figures so that it would be more readily apparent where they were looking and what they were doing. A mannequin-like appearance formed over the wispy Nth framework and Gus could tell that one super was male, the other female. Their hand signals became more apparent as well, but Gus could not decipher their gestures.

Silently, they glided towards the manor but stopped just short of the grass. The bigger super pointed at two tiny emitters that Gus had never noticed before. They must have been some kind of proximity detector that would wake the manor interface. They floated even higher, skirting the range of the sensor. From here, one broke off towards the front door and the other explored the patio.

They joined back up and the one from the door shook her head. Then they took up positions above the shady patio, making sure that the sun would not cast visible shadows, and waited. It was almost entertaining to watch until Gus remembered they were waiting for him. He had no idea of the extent of their abilities, but worked out what he was going to try, and hoped it wouldn’t get him captured or killed immediately.

Gus skirted the manor, staying out of the line of sight of the super-stakeout and headed to the jungle to access the manor remotely. Moving so slowly it was almost painful, he took care not to arouse their suspicions until he had made it to the clearing and onto the path.

Luckily, the birds and animals in the nearby forest were chittering, warbling and carrying on in the early dawn. Only once he was sure the ambient noise would mask his movements did he run back to the tunnel entryway. From there, he returned through the tunnels using Dash.

Gus found the same room he had used to attack the zombies en masse. With care, the large door to the balcony slid silently open. Peeking outside, Gus could see the two supers below, perched on the edge of the roof like creepy mannequin gargoyles.

The Leech skill description had no clear definition of proximity or physical contact, but his gut told him the closer the better. He also didn’t know how well it would work against two combatants simultaneously. No cooldown was mentioned, but he was working on guesswork until he tried it.

He was getting used to life being complicated though, so he forged ahead on his plan. He assumed one or both had a cloaking or camouflage ability, and they both seemed to fly pretty well. So Gus was going to attempt to Leech these abilities if he could.

He climbed up on the balcony and prepared to jump. The plan was to grab them from behind and activate Leech, but that was not what happened. As he crashed into the two bodies, the roof—which was merely a sturdy pergola with clay shingles—did not support his two-story fall along with the weight of the other supers. They all fell in a heap of orange dust, broken wooden lattice, and the clunks of breaking terracotta shingles.

Gus reached out and touched both of the supers before anyone got their bearings, while they all scrambled and struggled to get to their feet. Gus found that both supers had a camouflage ability, and he activated the first prompt of his Leech skill. As he quickly chose these, a yellow bar filled along the bottom of his display. He added advanced flight which overfilled the bar, turning it to red and it pulsated in warning.

The larger super gave Gus a hard backhand that glanced off the side of his head.

Gus struggled to hold on as he tried to manage his display, reeling a little. He found he could adjust how much of the flight skill he could absorb and quickly adjusted the slider down until it fit within the field at the bottom of his display, turning yellow again. Leech had its limits; he couldn’t just copy everything.

The man growled and Gus barely held on as the man threw off a large section of lattice, freeing himself to fight.

You have chosen to leech Camouflage (Level 21).

You have chosen to leech Phase-Shift (Level 18).

You have chosen to leech Advanced Flight (Level 3) [Adjusted from 24].

You have chosen to leech Vivid (Level 12).

You have chosen to copy and erase skills, are you sure? (Y/N?)

As Gus was about to move to the next prompt, a sharp elbow to the groin from the other super distracted him and he selected yes before collapsing to the ground. The invaders spasmed on the ground like they were having seizures or being tased.

Gus rolled on the ground with his attackers as disabled as they were. When the process was finished, the supers laid there prone and unconscious. Gus had to lay beside them in the fetal position until the pain