The First Superhero Books 0-3 Box Set Page 24
I was hoping that I could use the couple of hours we had to kill to learn more about Holocene, but she said she had to take care of some things and that she would meet me in our usual spot in downtown Dallas.
So by the time the two of us were standing in front of the doors of Purple Venus in Deep Ellum, I still was none the wiser about who Holocene really was.
We marched up the steps, Holocene in the lead. She kicked open the doors to the club, and there, standing in the middle of the dance floor, was Bruce, waiting for us.
The main fluorescent lights were on instead of the party lights, so you could really see how dirty and nasty the club Bruce was standing in the middle of really was.
Bruce looked at us, flashing a dirty, toothy smile. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
I looked at Holocene, confused. Bruce didn’t look like a Super. All the Supers so far were under the age of 25, and Bruce looked to be way older.
“So you’re the guy who makes Delvin?” Holocene said, taking a step forward.
“That’s right,” Bruce said. But that was it. Nothing more, nothing less. I could hear his heart beating faster and could see sweat dripping from his hands.
“Samantha,” I said as quietly as I could. “Tell Holocene something’s wrong.” Bruce was nervous. Too nervous. I didn’t like this one bit.
“Are you going to let us take you in the easy way or the hard way?” Holocene asked, getting into her fighting stance.
I looked closely and saw something in Bruce’s ear. An earpiece to a walkie-talkie.
Holocene turned and looked at me, her eyes questioning. I looked over her shoulder and saw Bruce give a slight nod.
I could hear soldiers stomping up the stairs behind us.
“Holocene, run!” I yelled.
Holocene saw the soldiers coming over my shoulder, and leapt into the air. They fired a flurry of purple lightning bolts into the room, and I jumped out of the way.
One of the bolts clipped Holocene as she launched herself through the ceiling, sending her flying, of course, disappearing into the night.
I jumped up into the air, ready to fly after her and escape, but before I could, a searing pain hit my calf and I fell to the ground.
Electricity coursed through my brain as two more bolts hit me dead on. I felt more and more crash into me within a matter of seconds, and before I knew it, I found myself slipping into unconsciousness.
The Name of a Hero
My eyes fluttered open. Light flooded into my vision, and I squeezed them tight. My head pounded and buzzed, like bees were flying around in my skull, stinging as they did so.
“Hello, Tempest,” a voice said.
I cracked my eyes open and my vision adjusted. A bright light sat above me, shining directly on me. My eyes adjusted more and I saw I was in a dark room, sitting on a metal chair. My hands were restrained to the armrests of the chair by a silver band that went across my wrists and another just below my shoulder. Similar bands wrapped across my ankles and above my kneecaps. The only source of light was one shining directly on me.
“Are you comfortable?” the voice said, clearly amused.
I looked to its source and recognized the face of the government woman I’d worked with months ago during the Richter crisis. “Agent Loren?”
“It’s Director Loren now,” she corrected me. Her once long black hair was now cut into a bob. Her eyes looked tired and worn from months of intense stress. “Director Loren of the STF—the Super Task Force.”
“So you’re behind the all the Supers disappearing,” I said, my voice weak. I licked my dry lips, but my tongue offered little saliva to soothe my sore, cracked skin.
“That we are. And soon we’ll be known as the ones behind the eradication of the Supers,” she said with a sly smile.
I yanked on my restraints. I’d show her that it wasn’t going to be that easy. But when I jerked, the metal bands didn’t come flying off. I wasn’t suddenly free, bursting through the roof to freedom. I yanked some more, the panic within me increasing. What was going on? Why weren’t these bands as fragile as tinfoil?
“Having trouble?” she asked.
“What did you do?” I screamed.
Loren laughed, and teased, “Come on, Tempest. You can do it.”
I grew tired from the struggle. I stopped to catch my breath, trying to hold back the panic that threatened to explode inside me.
“I simply brought you down to our level. Beneath our level,” Loren said with a satisfied smirk. She took a step toward me. Her face blocked the light, silhouetting her figure. “Do you feel a buzzing in your head? Can you feel the static?”
I didn’t answer. I stared into her eyes, trying my best to remain as stone-cold as I could be. But I was slipping.
“We’ve implanted a device beneath the skin in your neck, attached to your spine. It’s constantly putting out a low charge of what we like to call Eximus energy. You’re familiar with the Eximus, when it takes the form of purple lightning. It’s blocking certain receptors in your brain that are part of what provides you with your powers.” She took a step back and pulled a device from her pocket. “In fact, I can control how much energy you’re receiving.” She tapped on her screen. “A little.”
I felt the static receding. My thoughts were becoming clearer and I felt my strength returning. I pulled up on the bands and felt them bending from the force. I was almost free.
“Or a lot.”
The Eximus shot through my head in powerful waves. I screamed in pain as the electricity coursed up from the back of my neck and into my brain. All my strength left, replaced by utter weakness. I didn’t even have the strength to think. Just scream.
The pain receded and the waves decreased from a tsunami to small breakers.
“What I’m trying to say, Tempest, is that I hold the power,” Loren said as she slipped the device back into her pocket. “Why don’t we get started with a few questions, shall we?” she said, her tone changing as if she were giving an interview for employment. “Let’s start simple: what is your name?”
I looked at Loren, a weak smile growing across my face, and let out a small chuckle. “Really? That’s your first question?”
“We’re just trying to get a baseline. Something simple to make sure the Eximus isn’t messing with your brain in ways we don’t want it to,” Loren said. Her expression turned dark. “Your name.”
Since when did the government care about what the Eximus did to my brain? It was already messing with it in ways that terrified me. They seemed not to care at all what their invention did to Supers. “John Doe,” I said with a smile.
Loren reached into her pocket and without looking, dialed up the dosage of Eximus.
My whole body went rigid as it seized with pain. The electricity coursed through me for a split second before it was dialed down. My breathing was fast and weak. I wasn’t sure how much of this I could take.
“Tempest, your name,” she said, her frustration growing.
It was fun seeing Director Loren getting upset, especially since I was the cause of it. In my own passive-aggressive way, I currently had the upper hand. “My name is Neil Armstrong.”
Loren bumped up the Eximus again, sending another torrent of pain and misery my way.
“I could do this all day, Tempest. I quite enjoy this,” Loren said. I could tell she wasn’t lying about enjoying torturing me, but her anger and frustration at me for not correctly answering her question mounted. Her right hand was squeezed tight in a fist at her side, while the other was in the pocket of her coat, ready to turn up the voltage once again.
“Okay, okay,” I said. I was trying to hold back a laugh. “My name is George Lucas. I was kidnapped by Tom Cruise a—” A hit of Eximus interrupted me, filling my body with pain. I couldn’t speak, but my joke mixed with the frustration I was causing Loren caused me to laugh. I laughed uproariously through the pain. If I could see myself at that moment, I was sure I’d look like a madman. And maybe I was one.
The answer hit me and I found myself laughing even harder. “You don’t know, do you?” Hearing myself say the words caused more fits of laughter to rush through me, followed by waves of the Eximus. “You don’t know!” I screamed.
Director Loren let out a grunt in frustration and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. I continued laughing, turning my laughter partly into screams, hoping the sound would follow Loren down the hallway. I imagined the sound of my laughter following her down the halls, haunting her.
I settled down and chuckled to myself. “They don’t even know my name,” I mumbled. Another chuckle escaped my mouth. But then it hit me. I stared at the ground, confused. “How the hell do they not know my name?”
I’d been in their possession for who knew how long. I didn’t have my powers. I had no way to fight back. How had they not taken blood samples, hair samples, pictures, fingerprints, every bit of identifying information they could take from me and run it through the government database? How did they not already know everything about me, my friends, family, where I lived, went to school—everything?
Something wasn’t right, and it was more than just the fact that I’d been captured and didn’t have my powers.
Welcome to the STF
I looked down at the grey shirt I was wearing. Across the front in big black letters was the word TEMPEST. Below it were the letters STF in large bold letters.
It might as well have been a bullseye.
I looked across the commons room. There were three lines of tables, some couches in a corner, a bookshelf filled with the latest books along with some classics, and a TV with game systems hooked up to it. I looked up at the high ceiling where large stage lights were hung. In a ring around the ceiling were glass windows, behind which scientists were taking notes on clipboards, monitoring readings on computers and watching us like the lab rats they saw us as.
I scanned the room and searched for anybody that I recognized. Specifically, I searched for Brian. He was about to find out who I was. It was inevitable. I just wanted to get to him before he was able to shout my name. He had to know that he had to pretend he had no idea who I was. If he gave my identity away, I’d lose what little leverage I had over Loren and the STF.
“Holy. Shit,” someone said. It was someone sitting at the table closest to me, a young boy with dark skin. His shirt didn’t have a name on it like mine; his simply had the numbers 10927 printed across the front.
He stood from his seat. The people around him stopped what they were doing and looked at him, trying to figure out what was going on. They followed his gaze, and it led straight to me.
Soon, the whole room was looking at me. Staring. Reading the name on my shirt and then dropping their jaws. It was like clockwork.
I stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. Everybody was just staring at me. It was like they were waiting for me to start flying around the room. To burst a hole through the roof and lead everyone to freedom. It was miserable. I could feel the eyes of the scientists watching me from behind the glass up above. I wanted to rip my shirt off and tear it to shreds. I wanted to say it was a joke, that I wasn’t really Tempest. This was just some sort of test.
Instead, I finally walked over to a water fountain nearby and got a drink. I heard whispers behind me as people began to speculate what I was doing there.
“Well, shit,” I heard someone say. “I was counting on him to save us. Now I’m gonna die here.”
“You think he’s strong enough to overpower the Eximus?”
“I thought he was working with the government the whole time.”
“You son of a bitch.”
I turned around after the last one and saw Brian Turner standing inches away from me. His face was red with anger. He looked like a bull that was about to charge.
I walked past him, toward a guy with large round glasses and shaggy brown hair. He was drawing something on the pages of a notebook.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Brian yelled after me. People were starting to turn their attention back to me. I needed to act fast.
I ripped a piece of paper from the notebook.
“Hey, what the—oh, shit.” His face went white when he saw the name on my shirt.
“Can I borrow your pen?” I asked. I looked over my shoulder and saw Brian sauntering over toward the two of us. I had a feeling things were about to escalate very quickly. And I didn’t have my powers to help me.
The guy with the glasses stumbled over his words, not sure how to respond. I grabbed the pen from his hands. “Thanks,” I said as I started writing.
Identity secret. They’ll go after Macy.
I thrust the paper into Brian’s chest when he reached me. He grabbed it and was about to throw it aside when something caught his eye.
He gave me a disgusted look and shoved the paper at me. “Watch your back, Tempest.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and handed the pen back to the guy. “Thanks again...?”
“Hank.”
“Thanks, Hank. I appreciate it.”
I realized everyone was still watching me. I looked around, and wherever my gaze went, people averted their eyes. Everybody pretended that nothing was up and that it was just a regular day.
I looked down at the piece of paper in my hands. It was incriminating, to say the least. Brian’s confrontation could be explained away as someone who didn’t like Tempest confronting him, but if they saw what was on the note, they’d know that the two of us were connected.
I tore the small section of paper that I’d written on off the rest of the sheet and crumpled it up into as small of a ball I could. Then I tossed the ball of paper into my mouth. I gave it a good hard swallow and the little ball of paper went down.
“Huh,” Hank said.
I opened my eyes and looked down. Hank was sitting there staring up at me.
I chuckled nervously. “Oh, uh, sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry, we all need our fiber,” Hank said, returning to his drawing. I noticed his hand was shaking and he was trying desperately not to call attention to it.
I sat down across from him. He looked at me over the top of his glasses and went back to drawing, trying to ignore me.
“So, Hank, any pointers?” I asked, trying to start a conversation. It felt awkward and forced, but I didn’t want to just sit in the corner feeling everyone staring at the name printed across my chest. I wanted to at least try to fit in.
“Well, if I were going to give anybody else any pointers, it’d be to not hang around with the most hated guy in the room,” Hank said, not looking up from his paper.
I laughed nervously. “I guess my reputation precedes me?”
Hank frowned. “Most of the people here aren’t one of the good guys like you. The good guys are better at not getting caught, usually because they’re not the ones trying to rob banks. Some of the guys are even here because of you—or at least that’s the way they see it. Hate and fear make more noise than anything.”
“So which one are you?” I asked.
Hank frowned again. This time he looked puzzled. “I’m sorry?”
“What are you? One of the good guys, or one of the others?”
“I’m just a sixteen-year-old kid who’s trying to draw.”
I moved around in my seat, repositioning myself so I could see what Hank was drawing. I opened my mouth to ask him a question, but what came out was a yelp of surprise.
I was pulled backwards from my seat and thrown to the ground. I scrambled up, trying to figure out what was going on.
“Hello there, Tempest,” my attacker said. One look at his pale, scarred skin and I recognized him instantly. It was the teleport from Chicago, the one Holocene and I had taken down. “My name is Sven.”
“Hi, Sv—”
Sven slammed his fist into my face. My nose cracked and my head snapped back. Blood poured from my nose and a cacophony of ooh and
aahs came from the people watching.
I tried to regain my composure, but another punch hit my stomach, sending my air flying from my lungs. I dropped to my knees, gasping for air.
Sven smashed his elbow into my back, throwing me to the floor. I was desperate to feel the popping sensation of my body healing itself, but all I felt was pain and the warmth of the blood pouring from my nose. I searched within me for my powers, trying to coax them out. All I found was static and pain.
Sven got on top of me and punched me in the face as hard as he could. I felt the bones in my face give a little and after a few more punches, they cracked. I screamed in pain, but could do nothing to fight back. Sven held me down and pummeled me, his face filled with calm rage. He had every intention of killing me.
Could he kill me? If my body couldn’t heal itself, it was certainly possible. Surely the STF goons wouldn’t allow that. They couldn’t. Could they? I did make Director Loren very upset.
As if in answer to my question, the crackling of electricity sounded from Sven. His body went rigid and began convulsing as he fell in a seizing heap on the floor next to me.
I lay there moaning in pain. I could feel my face begin to swell. My vision began to blur and the black stars in my vision weren’t going away.
I felt myself being lifted into the air, the sudden movement sending waves of pain crashing through me. The hands set me down on a gurney and my gaze fell on Hank.
He was sitting in the same position, drawing. I caught a glimpse of the image on his paper.
It was my own bloodied face.
The guards rushed me out of the room and once again all I could focus on was the immense pain.
Doctors Orders
The guards wheeled me into a room filled with bright lights. I looked around as best I could and saw the room was lined with people in suits, watching everything that was happening very closely.
“Is this his first time?” I heard one doctor say to another.