Meet Legacy

This is the last day of the blog tour for Flashpoint: Book One of the Underground by Frank Creed. I hope you have found my blogs and those of other participants both entertaining and interesting enough to move you to get the book! Once again, if you leave a comment on this post or the past few, your name will be entered in the drawing tomorrow. At Lost Genre Guild's blog (blog.lostgenreguild.com), one person will win a copy of Flashpoint plus four other books.

So far I have shown a book trailer, a silly testimonal, shared snippets of reviews, shared my own review, and given you an interview with Frank Creed. Today I am leaving a sneak peek at my favorite character, Legacy. Below is Chapter 2, where he first appears in the story.


CHAPTER TWO

POWERFUL BIOFUEL ENGINES SOUNDED, AND GREW LOUD
fast. In as much time as it took me to sit up straight, four peacekeeper Humvees jerked to a stop under the bridge. Jen's tear tracked face twisted in panic's horror. Hugging our knees, we flattened ourselves against the girders, trying to become part of them. A door squeaked open to eject a uniformed man, his face glued to a flip-com screen. He paused for a moment before looking right up at us. My stomach did ugly things as he pointed, yelling in German. Green uniformed peacekeepers poured from the vehicles to line up on our side of the road. Captain Flip-com barked an order and six of them started up the stony slope. Save Jen! Defeated, I stood. "You found me." I started toward them, hoping they'd somehow miss her.
Then movement from the corner that Dad had turned. A figure in an oilskin duster and thick-soled boots strolled down the sidewalk toward the scene. The rain fell in a light mist, but his hood was down. A black Samurai-style ponytail swung with his every stride. His face betrayed oriental blood even though mirror-shades hid his eyes. Walkin' in the rain. Wearin' sunglasses. You know--just in case the sun rose in this overcast pre-dawn sky.
A few peacekeepers turned rifles in his direction. Waving their freehands, they ordered him away.
To my disbelief he actually smiled and continued right toward them.
I decided this was either the first time he'd left the desert island he'd been raised on, or he'd lost his mind and was out looking for it.
More peacekeepers noticed him and fanned out to face the newcomer.
Captain Flip-com shouted orders, and the soldiers coming toward us stopped. One close to the stranger yelled an English word known by all peacekeepers: "Freeze!"
Lured by sounds and my surprise, Jen slid from her perch.
Still smiling, the stranger stopped, folded his arms, and said something in their own language. They looked to each other, muttering in angry tones. Three started toward him. All held their rifles more seriously.
The stranger touched the fingertips of both hands to his forehead and spread his arms. Air between the stranger and the soldiers shimmered--heat off a July blacktop. Peacekeepers flew backward as though a truck had plowed through them. They tumbled to a stop and lay still. Whatever he'd done had downed nearly half of them, including the six on the slope.
Captain Flip-com barked an order and rifles cracked, but bullets passed through empty space. The stranger leapt as though he'd been launched from a trampoline. Turning somersaults in the air, he landed on his feet near the top of the slope between them and us. He'd just jumped more than ten meters. Uphill.
Again, he touched his forehead and swept his arms wide, cartwheeling more soldiers into another time zone. Only a handful remained. By the time the survivors swung their rifles he was dive rolling down the slope, a human cyclone, his duster and ponytail whipping behind him. Peacekeeper rifles tracked him, but without warning the stranger came up in a crouch, a pistol in each hand. Twin guns gave off quick dull thumps and soldiers spun to the ground without getting off a single shot.
He stood and the guns were gone from his hands as though they were never there. "Call off the heat 'cause you guys are done," he announced, polishing fingernails on his coat's lapel. Wit died on the deaf ears of senseless opponents. It looked as though some giant child had left his green army men strewn across the driveway.
The stranger stared at one of the empty Hum-Vees they'd left running. It drove out from under the bridge to park sideways in the street just beyond the fallen peacekeepers. Then the next one did the same. One at a time, the other two vehicles blocked off the street on the other side of the bridge. All at once, their light bars lit up the area in wildly flashing blue. He turned and made straight for us, smiling again.
"We don't want anyone to get run'ded over," he explained.
The last vehicle had parked just in time. A yellow rental truck pulled up to the intersection, paused a long while, then turned away.
The stranger stopped before us, and bowed deeply at the waist and neck. "David and Jen Williams, you may call me Legacy. I'm sorry but the closest thing I have to a password is: Your Flashpoint was dirtcheap."