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  The Second Super

  The Second Super © 2015 by Logan Rutherford

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Damonza (www.damonza.com)

  Copyedited by Gabriela West (www.editforindies.com)

  Proofread by Carol Davis (www.caroldavisauthor.com) and Donna Rich.

  Fragments & Fictions

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Interview

  Broken Windows

  The Last Supper

  Genesis

  The Second Super

  The Aftermath

  Excuses

  A Surprise Visit

  A Happy Accident

  A Terrible Mistake

  Cleared for Liftoff

  The Calm Before the Storm

  Suiting Up

  Richter Returns

  The Mountaintop

  Two Sides to the Truth

  Interference

  Performance Anxiety

  Enemy of the State

  Confident Confessions

  Party Crashers

  Drives

  Breaking Curfew

  Searching for Answers

  A Few Questions

  To The Stars

  Richter’s Game

  Crossroads

  A New Resolve

  The Lion’s Den

  A Plan

  The Fight Begins

  Detonation

  Plan B

  Flight

  Asleep at the Wheel

  Born for the Grave

  The Siege of the Supers

  The Return of Tempest

  The Man at the Door

  Crash Landing

  Homecoming

  Q&A

  Floor 24

  Comeback

  Teamwork

  Timber

  The Top of the Tower

  Ghosts

  The Rise of a Hero

  Riptide

  The Statue

  The First Day

  S&T, LLC

  Weak Secrets

  Party Crashers 2.0

  Theories

  Speech Therapy

  Second Chances

  Enhanced Interrogation

  Shocking Revelations

  Standoff

  Heavy Silence

  The Docks

  Purple Venus

  The Name of a Hero

  Welcome to the STF

  Doctors Orders

  Familiar Voices

  Brawl

  Promises

  Brainstorms

  Friendly Fighting

  Pseudonyms

  Enter the Dome

  The First Battle

  Escape

  The Name of the Enemy

  The Siege of the Supers

  Waking Up

  Detour

  Hello World

  Only the Beginning

  Called Out

  Introductions

  Full Circle

  Clouded Judgment

  The Siege Begins

  Tag Team

  Home Field Disadvantage

  Red Steps

  Regroup

  The Siege of Dallas

  Reinforcements

  Just the Beginning

  Ultimatum

  Down but Not Out

  The War of the Supers

  The Long Day

  Freefall

  Choked Up

  Distraction

  A New Assignment

  A Few Questions

  Twisted Words

  Street Fight

  Table Talk

  Prisoner of War

  Attack on Dallas

  Headcount

  The Human Elevator

  Tea Time

  The World of the Supers

  Making Luck

  A Familiar Voice

  Pub Stomping

  Half-Truths

  A New Plan

  Goodbye for Now

  Johannesburg

  A Rushed Plan

  Window Breaker

  Into the Darkness

  Asthenés

  Backseat Driver

  Distraction

  Plásma

  Rendezvous

  Burying the Lead

  Storm the Tower

  The 55th Floor

  High Dive

  Homeward Bound

  Asthenés Plásma

  The Board

  Seven Days

  Shots in the Dark

  Always a Super

  Breakthrough

  Athena

  The Only Way Out

  The Messenger

  Return

  Struggle

  The Library

  The Amulet

  Samantha

  V.M.I.

  Richter: A First Superhero Story

  Authors Note

  Awakening

  Ignorant Strides

  Broken Ornaments

  Bodyguard

  Everything Surreal

  Blood & Dirt

  Face Down

  Game Plan

  Discovery

  Familiar Faces

  No Going Back

  Planting the Seeds

  Investigation

  Nature

  Confrontation

  Interrogation

  Legacy

  First Blood

  Superhero

  Closing In

  Base

  Thin Air

  Legacy

  The Second Super

  The Secret is Out

  The Interview

  September 19th, 2078

  Leopold Renner barely registered the sound of his car’s autopilot telling him he’d arrived at his destination. He was distracted by the possibilities of what he was about to learn, so it wasn’t until the friendly female voice told him a second time that he’d arrived at the Tempest Memorial Museum that it finally registered with him.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled as reached over to his driver’s seat to grab his tablet.

  Leopold climbed out of his dark blue car and closed the door behind him. The car drove off on its own, going to find a parking space. Leopold wished it hadn’t gone so fast. He wanted to look at his reflection in the car’s smooth skin to make sure he looked nice. However, he would’ve found nothing wrong. He would’ve seen that each curl of his brown hair was placed perfectly, just like it was every day thanks to his genetically modified follicles. He would’ve seen that his green eyes were piercing as always, and that his early-thirties face looked not a day over twenty.

  Still, despite looking so meticulous, Leopold felt as if he should’ve brushed his teeth himself instead of using his personal hygiene robot, just to be sure everything was perfect.

  He walked up the steps to the museum, which was an old white house that was taller than it was wide. Leopold walked across the porch, the creaking boards beneath him giving him an uneasy feeling. He wasn’t used to sounds like that. Sound of age and strain.

  He knocked on the dark green door and waited. While he waited, he checked around, looking for signs of anyone else. He found it strange that the place wasn’t bustling with activity. This was, after all, the Tempest Memorial Museum. The news had just broken recently that the museum c
urator was in fact the widow of Tempest, who she said was a man by the name of Kane Andrews. Leopold, being one of the top reporters in the country, had packed up his vehicle and sped to the museum as fast as he could. So the fact that there was no one else there before him, Leopold found peculiar.

  The door opened, and bells jingled from within the museum. Standing on the other side of the door stood the museum curator, Mrs. Andrews. She looked up at Leopold with sparkling eyes and a smile that was as bright as it was warm. Wrinkles shifted and spread across her face, a rarity in a world where people could live to be almost a hundred and fifty before wrinkles even began to show. “You must be Mr. Renner,” she said as she looked Leopold up and down, her stark white ponytail bouncing around with the movement of her head.

  Leopold gave her a genuine smile and reached out his hand. “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he shook her frail hand. “And you must be Mrs. Andrews.”

  At the mention of her name, Mrs. Andrews smiled even bigger and her eyes brightened even more. “You betcha,” she said with a wink.

  Leopold already adored the woman’s charisma, and his excitement grew that much more.

  Mrs. Andrews stood to the side, gesturing for Leopold to come in. “Come on in, Mr. Renner. What’ll it be, tea or coffee?”

  “Coffee,” Leopold said as he walked into the foyer. His mouth hung open from the last syllable, though. He couldn’t find the strength or will to close it as he looked upon the headgear of his hero. The hero.

  Tempest’s crimson headpiece with navy stitching around the eyes sat on a bust underneath a glass case.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Leopold asked.

  “That’s a question I can’t answer,” Mrs. Andrews said with a sly smile.

  She disappeared through a door, which Leopold assumed led to the kitchen. He gazed around the room for a moment, looking at all the things in the cases. A piece of steel girder from Tempest’s and Richter’s first real battle, a duplicate of a sealed Scroll of Power from the Vespa War, a bronze serpent’s head from a terrorist organization that had taken Tempest years to bring down... Leopold was overwhelmed by it all.

  “This way, Mr. Renner,” Mrs. Andrews said from behind him.

  Leopold turned around and followed Mrs. Andrews—who held a tray with a mug and a teacup on it—through a set of French doors. She led Leopold to a library that housed tons of books, most of them about Tempest or the other Supers that had come in his wake—both good and evil. Or worse, a chaotic neutral.

  Mrs. Andrews set the tray down, then sat herself down in a faded blue recliner. “Have a seat, Mr. Renner,” she said as she took the teabag out of her cup.

  Leopold crossed the room, noting the musty book smell in his head, and in turn it appeared written down on the screen of the tablet he held in his hands. He sat down on the faded blue love seat that matched the recliner Mrs. Andrews was sitting in.

  “Will you be using that tablet?” she asked as nicely as she could, but Leopold could still hear a hint of a condescending tone.

  “Yes, ma’am. Is that all right with you?” Leopold asked, not wanting to offend her.

  “Yes, of course. Whatever it takes,” she said as she put down her teacup. “But in case you couldn’t tell, I have a liking for the archaic,” she added with a discreet chuckle, as if she’d just shared an inside joke with a friend.

  “Well, using a tablet is considered archaic by some people’s standards,” Leopold said, trying his best to be in on the joke.

  Mrs. Andrews gave an innocent laugh and nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  Leopold reached for his coffee and took a sip. “So,” he began as he set down his mug, “Mrs. Andrews. I guess the question that I think is on a lot of people’s minds is simple: Why?”

  Mrs. Andrews burst out laughing. “Oh, my, Mr. Renner. That is a simple question, yet very complicated. Could you be a bit more specific?”

  Leopold sat for a moment, thinking. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, he didn’t know where to begin. He was hoping Mrs. Andrews would just start going and he could just be a note-taker, relishing the information he was being given. He wiped his clammy hands on his khaki pants and thought of his second question. “Why is there no one else here?”

  Mrs. Andrews’s smile turned sad. “Because most people have forgotten. My husband is now a mere memory in most people’s minds. A legend. He and the other Supers brought humanity into a new age, but they all died off along with the times.”

  It made sense to Leopold. He only knew so much about Tempest and the other Supers because of what they’d done for him personally. Studying them was a bit of an obsession for him. Time moved so quickly nowadays, and people’s attention spans were notoriously short. They didn’t care about the Supers of the past, and after the events that had led to the end of the Super era, most were eager to forget.

  “Why did you just now come forward with Tempest’s identity?” Leopold asked next.

  Mrs. Andrews sat for a moment, staring into her tea as if the dark liquid held the answer to his question. “Because,” she began. “I miss him.” She looked up at Leopold with watery eyes. “And he deserves for people to know who he was. How great he was. I don’t have much time left on this Earth,” she said, examining her frail, wrinkled arms. “I’ve stayed away from anything that would extend my life. Those things would just prolong my time away from Kane, who’s waiting for me up above.” Her face brightened up. Leopold could only imagine she was thinking about seeing him again, which struck a sad chord within him. “I’m the only one left who knows the story of Kane Andrews. And it’s about time that story was told.”

  Now it was Leopold’s turn to smile as big as he could. “Well,” he said, doing his best to contain his childish glee. “I’m ready to listen.”

  Mrs. Andrews nodded. “Well, then, Mr. Renner, let’s begin.”

  Broken Windows

  July 7th, 2015

  I sat on the couch in my ranch house in Indiana, watching the television as the person referred to as Richter went on his rampage through New York City.

  “The eighteen-year-old Patrick Henry—referred to as Richter—is continuing his seventh rampage in New York City,” the newscaster said in a voiceover of the shaky footage that showed Richter standing in the middle of the road, picking up cars and throwing them to see how far they could go. He was acting like a kid in a candy store.

  I watched as each car flew farther and farther, going until they were tiny dots in the distance.

  “Kane, turn that off,” my mom said from the front door entryway next to the living room. “I don’t want to see anybody getting killed.”

  “He’s not going to kill anybody, Mom,” I said. “The city’s evacuated. He’s just dicking around.”

  “Turn it off, and watch your language,” she said, her fiery red hair matching the tone of her voice. She walked out of the room, and I continued watching the news.

  On one hand, the fact that I was watching someone with superpowers was cool. On the other, the newscaster’s monologue was reminding me why Richter had the entire world in a state of fear and panic.

  “All attempts to subdue Richter have been met with failure. The number of lives lost totals in the tens of thousands, and those missing easily top that. We are witnessing someone barely out of high school turning the world into his playground, having no regard for the safety and lives of others.”

  My stomach twisted. I couldn’t even imagine what Richter’s appearance meant for the future. If no one could bring him down, I didn’t even want to think about how many lives would be lost. All I knew was that for the immediate future, the Earth was in gridlock. Always watching for any sign of Richter and the destruction that would follow.

  “We are getting reports of two high-speed bogeys heading toward Richter’s location. We are getting confirmation that the United States military is launching missiles at Richter. I repeat, missiles launched at New York City, in an attempt to stop Richter.”

  My attent
ion turned from my thoughts and back to the television screen. As one of the missiles neared, Richter picked up a green SUV and threw it at the missile. The car and the missile both exploded on impact, just a few hundred feet from where the guerrilla-style cameramen were positioned, sending them flying backwards.

  The camera flipped and rolled, sending images of a burning New York City rolling across the televisions, phones, and computer screens of billions around the globe. The camera settled on a shot of Richter, right before the second missile reached him. He flew toward it, meeting it in the air. He grabbed hold of it and sent it flying into a building down the street, causing a massive explosion.

  The camera moved as the cameraman regained his composure and went back to filming.

  Richter’s glowing blue eyes turned straight toward the lens of the camera, looking into the eyes of billions. His brown hair blew in the wind, and he raised his hands as if challenging all those watching. He lowered his hands and jumped into the air, and flew toward the building right behind the cameraman. A sonic boom erupted as he slammed into the building faster than the speed of sound.

  The cameraman pointed his camera up, trying to follow Richter, but all the camera could capture was the building beginning to crumble as it collapsed on top of the cameraman.

  The feed went black and cut back to the shocked faces of the reporters in the newsroom. I glanced away from the television, looking outside. I regretted not listening to Mom and not turning off the television sooner. My stomach turned, fear gripping it. But then something even more terrifying happened, drilling home the fact that nowhere was safe.

  Richter himself flew past the windows of my two-story ranch house at such a high speed that the windows shattered, and I was thrown to the floor.

  Mom let out a scream. “Are you okay?” she shouted. She ran into the living room, came to my side and helped me up.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” I said.

  “What was that?” She turned and looked out the window, trying to piece together what had happened.

  “It was Richter,” I said.

  My mother’s face turned white. She wasn’t able to say anything, she was so shocked.

  “Don’t worry, he’s probably somewhere in California by now,” I said, answering one of the questions I knew she was going to ask.

  “You mean he got from New York to Indiana in seconds?”

  I nodded.

  “Holy shit,” she cursed, which was something she almost never did around me, even though I was a senior in high school and heard things ten times worse every day at school.