The First Superhero Books 0-3 Box Set Read online

  “Possibly. It’s our best shot. How are you going to figure out which one is the right one, though?”

  “I’m not, you are.”

  “What? How?”

  “You can project yourself into the body of any person, right?” I asked, almost rhetorically.

  “Yeah...so, theoretically, I should only be able to project myself into the body of the Prime, not his copies, since they aren’t fully human,” she said, having coming to the same conclusion I had.

  “Exactly,” I said, smiling. We were already in sync. I had a feeling we were going to work very well together.

  “Okay, it’s a good idea, but I can’t just project into anybody. I have to know what they look like. I have to know as much as I can about them. I gotta picture them in my mind as clearly as possible before I can even begin to attempt to project myself into their mind.”

  I cursed under my breath.

  “I heard that.”

  “Sorry. You can see everything I can right now, right?” I asked.

  “Gimme a sec,” Samantha said.

  I felt a weird tingling sensation in the back of my head. Like I had a cold itch beneath the skin.

  “Okay, I can see everything now. Ah, new suit. Nice.”

  “Focus, Samantha. If I run in the back and get a good look at them, you think it would be enough to figure out which one is the Prime?”

  “I think so. His mind is spread across six different versions of himself, so it should be weak enough for me to get into just by getting a quick glimpse.”

  “Okay. Get ready—here we go.”

  I flew around to the back of the building, where I broke one of the office windows and climbed through it. I landed on the office floor, glass crunching beneath my feet.

  “Holy shit, that hurt—shut up, Doug. I’m eighteen. I can curse—I’m literally getting sensations off your nerves, Kane. I can just see and hear what you do and talk to you now. That whole ‘feel what you can’ isn’t much fun when you’re punching out windows,” Samantha said.

  I chuckled under my breath, but didn’t respond. I quietly walked across the office and slowly opened the door. Then I looked left and right down the hallway and saw nothing. I closed my eyes and listened. All the heartbeats and breathing were coming from the left—deeper inside the bank.

  I hovered a few inches off the ground and began floating down the hallway, staying as quiet as possible. When I reached the end, I peeked around the corner.

  Twelve people were sitting in a circle in the break room of the bank in various states of emotion. Some of them had tears streaming down their faces, while others had stone-cold expressions, trying to stay as tough as possible.

  Standing above them with their guns aimed and fingers on the triggers were five Asian men dressed all in black. They were all identical, with the same blank expression. A sixth one stood in the back, talking on a cell phone. I figured that one was the Prime, but I had to be sure.

  I pulled back from the corner and put my back up against the wall.

  “I got it, Kane. Give me a few moments to try to get into his head.”

  We don’t have much time, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say it, of course.

  I floated there for a few moments, waiting to hear back from Samantha.

  The next moment, I felt someone grab me, and then suddenly I was flying out a window in the back of the bank. The person who had me was flying up, and I was so shocked I couldn’t fight back. They slammed me into the top of one of the skyscrapers in downtown Dallas.

  I jumped up, ready to fight back. I looked around to see who it was that had grabbed me, but I couldn’t find them.

  Then, standing at the edge of the skyscraper, I saw her.

  Timber

  The young woman stood there, her brunette hair whipping in the wind. A black mask with white stitching covered her eyes. She was wearing a white shirt beneath a black leather jacket and dark leather pants. She didn’t seem to be older than twenty.

  “I’ll let it pass this time, since I appreciate what you did about Richter,” she yelled in order to be heard above the wind. “But stay out of my territory.” Then she fell backwards off the skyscraper.

  I leaped off the building, searched the skies and found her flying back toward the bank. I rushed after her and reached her in a matter of seconds. I tackled her and we both landed in a back alley.

  “What the hell is your problem?” she yelled at me as she stood. She pushed me back, and I slammed into the side of a building. The bricks cracked beneath me.

  I pushed myself off the wall. “What the hell is your problem? I was about to take out those guys at the bank.”

  “This is my territory, Tempest.” She said my name like it was a curse. “Stay out of it. I’ve got this under control.”

  “Who do you think I am? I’m only trying to help,” I said, raising my voice.

  “Oh, yeah? How do I know that?” she spat back, taking a step toward me. “Most people when they get their powers turn into mini Richters. How do I know you’re not one as well? How do I know you’re one of the good guys? I don’t. You can’t trust a Super. Now get out of here and let me handle this.”

  The girl flew off, but before I could give chase, Samantha popped back in.

  “Okay, I—wait. Why are you in the middle of an alleyway?”

  “I had a run in with that Superchick in Dallas,” I said angrily.

  “Oh, Holocene? Yikes. Didn’t go well?”

  “Samantha, just tell me which one is the Prime.”

  “The one in the back, on the phone. He’s still on it now.”

  I jumped up and began flying as fast as I could toward the bank. Holocene was bursting through the front of the bank as it came into sight. I kicked into overdrive, the windows all around me shattering as the sonic boom sounded.

  I passed Holocene in a blur—apparently she wasn’t nearly as fast as I was, which filled me with joy. I didn’t have time to maneuver through the hallways, so I slammed through the walls of the bank. I punched holes in one office after another, heading straight for the break room where Prime and his hostages were.

  I slammed through the last of the office walls and saw the gathering of people before me. In the back stood Prime, still talking on his phone. I was moving so fast, none of them had even begun to react to the fact that I had just flown straight through the building. I looked behind me, and didn’t see Holocene. This victory was all mine.

  I reached Prime and slowed down just a little bit. With my strength and speed, all I did was lightly poke Prime on his chest. He slammed backwards into the wall and fell to the ground, incapacitated.

  I flew out the back wall of the bank and stopped myself in the alley. I ran back in through the hole I’d just made just in time to see the last of his doppelgängers get sucked into his body.

  The guns they’d been holding fell to the ground with a clatter. One of the hostages snatched one of them up and pointed it at Prime.

  I ran to the wannabe hero-hostage and yanked the gun from him, then threw it against the wall. I opened my mouth to say something, but was stopped by loud cracking sounds, followed by rumbling.

  Holocene appeared around the corner. “Get them out of here!” she screamed as she grabbed two hostages and dashed out of the building in a blur. It wasn’t until she came back seconds later for the next one that I realized what was going on and jumped into action.

  I grabbed two of the former hostages, ran out the building with them, and set them down by some police officers. I ran back in, grabbed some more, and ran out. Holocene and I had the building cleared in a matter of seconds.

  The building began to collapse in on itself.

  Prime was still in there.

  I ran in one last time as fast as I could. The building collapsed around me in slow motion. Rubble and dirt seemed to float in the air in front of me, but if I looked closely enough, I could see it slowly falling toward the ground. I ran through the holes I’d made earlier, putting
together the puzzle pieces.

  In my haste and need to show up Holocene, I’d caused this. I was trying to be a hero, and instead, I’d brought down an entire building. Yeah, I’d saved the hostages, but there were a million other ways to do that that would’ve ended much better.

  I reached Prime and stopped for a second to grab him. The collapsing ceiling was just inches from the top of my head when I started running again. I ran out the hole in the back of the building and down the alleyway to the safety of the street.

  When I stopped I heard the deafening sound of the building collapsing behind me. A cloud of dust and rubble plumed through the street, and I had to cover my mouth to keep from inhaling it.

  Once the worst of it had passed, I grabbed Prime and threw him over my shoulder. I ran to the police and set him down in the back of a police car.

  I didn’t stop for the cameras, or for thanks. I jumped into the air and flew away, trying to out-fly my embarrassment.

  But no amount of flying could change the fact that my ego and I had just brought down an entire building.

  The Top of the Tower

  I landed on top of York Towers. It took everything I had in me to keep from punching a hole in the ground in frustration.

  I felt a cool itch in the back of my head.

  “Are you okay, Kane?” Samantha asked in a soft, sweet voice.

  I clenched my eyes shut and sighed. “Yeah. I’d just like to be alone for a little bit.”

  “Okay, well, you know where to find me,” she said.

  I felt her presence leave my mind.

  And felt another land right behind me.

  I whipped around and saw Holocene storming toward me. Before I could react, she planted a solid punch straight to my face. I fell to the ground, but didn’t fight back. I deserved what was coming.

  “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” she yelled. You probably could’ve heard her for miles.

  “How did you know I was here?” was all I could say as I stumbled to my feet. I could feel the bones in my face restructuring, popping back into place. It was a strange sensation, right on the edge of being painful. Like popping your knuckles. It was a feeling that I kinda missed.

  “I followed you, dumbass. I don’t want to ever see you within a hundred miles of Dallas again,” she fumed. Her cheeks were turning red with anger.

  “I was only trying to help, alright? I’ve been out of the game for a while. I’m a little rusty,” I snapped back.

  “Yeah? Well, leave the helping to the heroes, alright? Go back to whatever beach you’ve been kicking back on for the past six months, and stay out of my way.”

  Holocene turned around to fly off.

  “I’ve been in a coma for six months,” I said. Holocene stopped. “Killing Richter took a lot out of me, and without oxygen, it took longer for my body to repair itself. It wasn’t even fully repaired until I came back to Earth on a NASA shuttle.”

  Holocene turned. “You mean you’ve been in space for the past six months?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, so I’m sorry if I don’t know exactly how things work. To me, it’s only been a few days since I took out Richter. It’s a whole new world, and I’m still trying to figure it out.”

  Holocene sighed. “Well, first thing you need to learn is that you’re not the only Super anymore. There’s a few of us, and more all the time. So going around like you’re head honcho? That’s not going to work. There is no hierarchy. You’re either a hero or you’re not. Most Supers fall into the latter.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a hero.”

  “Are you?”

  I was taken aback by Holocene’s accusation. “Of course I am. I saved everyone from Richter. I saved those hostages today—even if it wasn’t the way I would’ve liked.”

  Holocene looked me up and down and shrugged. “You taking out Richter? The way I look at it, that was just you doing what needed to be done. You were forced to be a hero. Had you not been, he would’ve kept on with his rampage until there wasn’t anyone left on Earth. You didn’t really have much of a choice. So if you think you’ve proven anything, you haven’t. Not to me. To me, whether or not you’re a hero or a villain is still up in the air.” She walked to the edge of the building and was about to jump off. “There’s no Richter anymore. There’s no one to decide who you are for you. Hero or not, it’s up to you now, Tempest.”

  Ghosts

  Director Loren sat behind the desk in her bare office. No paintings or pictures adorned her walls and desk. There was nothing in her office that would’ve led anyone to believe it was the office of one of the most important people in the United States government. She was the head of the recently sanctioned, top secret government agency STF—the Super Task Force. It was the job of Director Loren and her agency to track down all Supers and bring them in to be experimented on. Figure out what made them tick. What made them super. It was a job she’d been very good at. She’d gotten the position thanks to how well she’d handled the Richter/Tempest situation.

  She smiled as the memory came back to her. How she’d convinced Tempest to fight for them, how she’d almost taken the two of them out at once.

  Almost. That was the word that haunted her. Tempest had still carried out his own mission successfully. Hers? Not quite. Well, she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Soon, if she had her way, all the Supers would be gone. There were a few people up in Washington who wanted to try to train a few of them for their own special uses, but Loren would have none of it. She’d seen what the Supers could do, as had most of the world. No matter what it took, the Supers would be eradicated. The world was a safer place without them. No person deserved so much power. She wouldn’t have a repeat of the Richter Crisis.

  She’d made good progress toward her goal, though. They’d been able to learn a lot from the few Supers they’d captured. They’d even been able to develop a weapon that was—for lack of a better term—a nuclear Taser. She smirked at the thought of the name. There was even some truth to it. The tiny radioactive particles that mixed with the electricity incapacitated a Super, frying his or her brain, paralyzing them and preventing them from using their powers. It wasn’t permanent, however. It couldn’t be. Not yet. Her people had yet to find out everything they needed to know about the Supers. They had to learn everything they could about them to make sure there would never be another one ever again. Once she was sure there was nothing else to learn, then she would give the order: the execution of all Supers.

  Her head tingled at the thought. She would be infamous then. The woman who’d saved the world from the Supers. A true hero.

  She couldn’t wait for that day.

  That’s the day you’re going to have to look for a new job, she thought with a slight chuckle. She’d be happy to join the unemployment line.

  A knock at the door broke her from her train of thought. “Come in,” she said.

  Agent York stepped into the room. “Are you busy, ma’am?”

  “I am not. What have you got for me, York?”

  Agent York stepped into the room and sat down in the chair across from her. “We’ve gone through all the details about Tempest that were transmitted to us before the shuttle went down. Really, it was just pictures of his face, fingerprints, et cetera. All the blood samples and everything else they gathered about him were destroyed in the crash.”

  Director Loren sat up in her chair, preparing herself for what Agent York had to tell her next. She tried to hold back a smile, but she knew what was coming. She was about to get him. She was about to learn who Tempest was. “You ran the pictures through facial recognition, yes? The fingerprints?”

  Agent York nodded, but hesitated to speak. “Y-yes, ma’am. We did.”

  Loren didn’t like the hesitation. This should be great news—fantastic news. News that Agent York should be bursting at the seams to tell her. “What is it? Who is Tempest?”

  Agent York let out a deep breath. “We ran all the identifying information we have on him through the database. We
ran it a dozen times. I personally ran it. Nothing. This guy’s a ghost. He’s not in any databases. Not in ours, or any other government’s.”

  Director Loren sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. Anger welled up within her. All that work retrieving Tempest, and all they’d managed to do was set him free into the world once again. The things they were going to learn from him—the answers they would get... He was the most powerful of all the Supers, and he’d slipped through her fingers.

  She should’ve captured him when she had the chance, back during the Richter crisis. She knew that she’d had no way of doing so then, but still, she kicked herself for not thinking of something.

  “Agent York,” Loren said as she opened her eyes and looked at York’s worried face. “Get out of my office.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am,” York said as he stood from his chair and backed out of the room.

  He shut the door behind him and left Loren alone in her small, bare office.

  Director Loren wished she had some pictures on her desk, or paintings on the wall. Not because looking at them would calm her down, but because she wanted nothing more than to grab something and throw it against the wall. She wanted to break something. To destroy something.

  Her intercom buzzed. “Director Loren?”

  Loren picked up the phone. “Yes, Sierra?”

  “We have that new Super arriving from Dallas. He’s being unloaded and brought to cell 903,” Sierra said, her voice calm and professional.

  “No, take him to the Chamber, and tell Dr. Finn not to begin the therapy until I get there. I want to do it personally,” Loren said.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be sure they’re waiting for you.”

  “Thank you, Sierra,” Loren said.

  She hung up the phone as a bit of sadistic joy washed over her. She’d get her chance to break something, that was for sure. She’d get to take out her anger and frustration about her failures with Tempest on something. This new Super, coming from Dallas. A Duplicator, if she remembered correctly.