First Superhero 1: The Second Super (13 page)

“I know, son. I know. We're just going to have to see where this takes us. Everything will work out. Hey, who knows, maybe they do have some way of beating Richter. Then you wouldn't have to worry about anything at all!”

“Yeah, maybe,” I mumbled. It all seemed like wishful thinking to me.

“Your father's right,” Mom said. “Tempest and Richter have clashed in this city twice now. Maybe they're just wanting to be ready for the next time it happens.”

I pondered what she said for a moment. It made sense. If they did have a way of defeating Richter, they'd go to the place where the both of us had encountered each other multiple times.

“Maybe they're just using me as bait,” I said.

Mom sighed. “I don't like the idea of that. Not at all.”

“Yeah, well, neither do I. But if it helps them defeat Richter so I don't have to do anything, that's fine by me.”

Dad raised his hands, stopping Mom and I before we got into a fight. “The fact of the matter is that we’re not one hundred percent sure with what we’re dealing with here. Until things become more clear, your only option is to continue what you’re doing and lay low.”

I sighed. Yeah, I didn’t want to become an Enemy of the United States, but still, I wasn’t so confident in their ability to take down Richter. They hadn’t shown their capabilities before, I wasn’t positive they had it now. Not that I was all that confident in my own abilities either, but the
real
fact of the matter was that I was the only one who’d ever hurt Richter. Now I was just hiding in my house, afraid of what the government might do to me.

An idea began to formulate in my head, but not one I would dare say out loud. My parents would kill me if they ever found out what I was thinking about doing.

“Well,” I said as I pushed myself off the countertop. “I’m gonna go to bed now. It’s been a long night.”

Dad patted me on the back. “You’re right, kid. Go get some rest, I’ll stay up for a bit and keep an eye on the news; see if I can learn anything else.” I smiled at him, and realized how thankful I was to have someone like my dad on my side. “Alright, sounds good.”

I gave Mom a hug goodnight and then went upstairs to my room. The lights inside it were turned off, but I knew exactly where my bed was. I fell on top of it, and lay there, waiting. I would have to wait a while before the coast was clear for me to sneak out.

I know the smartest thing to do would be to do exactly what Dad wanted: to lay low. But when you’re the only person who can stop a madman from destroying the world, laying low just wasn’t an option.

I
JUMPED
out my bedroom window—sans Tempest outfit—and took off flying before I hit the ground. Flying was still such a weird, amazing sensation to me. One I doubted I’d ever get used to.

I slowed down once I got close to Ebon Middle School, and flew a few thousand feet in the air. I flew to a spot above the school and hovered there, surveying the area. Using my eagle-like vision, I could see everything on the ground clearly. There were large generator lights spread out around the parking lot, as workers unloaded box after box of equipment from vans, and brought them inside the Middle School Gym.

The middle school was right across the street from the high school, which I found amusing and ironic since the high school is where all of this began, just a short time ago.

Large Humvees pulled into the school parking lot, and once they came to a stop, soldiers decked out in dark clothing with assault rifles slung across their shoulders unloaded from the back. They joined the few soldiers that were already there and began to set up a perimeter. Most of them stayed in the front to help unload, some began setting up road barriers to keep people from entering the parking lot, while others began to spread out around the school, keeping watch over the back and sides.

One thing was clear: the government wasn’t holding anything back.

I hovered over the school watching everything unfold. A pit began to grow in my stomach and I began to feel light headed. They looked as if they were preparing for a war, and I wasn’t sure if I was friend or foe.

But I wasn’t going to leave until I found out
exactly
what was going on.

24

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

I
FLEW
down closer to try and get a look inside the gym where the main base of operations was being set up. I landed behind one of the large generator lights set up that had the letters
D.H.S.
printed large on its side.

I poked my head around the corner of one, and looked through the open doors that people were filing in and out of. Even though I was a good distance away, I could see what had to be hundreds of yards of wires being hooked up to various computers that were spread out across many individual desks and tables. The tables were set up in a series of squares; the largest was on the outside, and they got smaller and smaller. There was a gap on the four sides of the squares that led to a podium in the center of the basketball court, where I assumed someone would stand up on and give mission updates and briefs.

Most people were still transporting items into the gym, so most of the laptops that had already been set up were left unattended. I knew that if I could get my hands on one of those, they were bound to contain loads of information pertaining to their mission. I couldn’t just run through the front door and grab one of the laptops, however. Yeah, I’d be moving fast enough and it was dark enough that they probably wouldn’t even see or notice the blur that ran past them, but the wind that would be caused by me running so fast would be sure to tip them off that something was up.

I decided to instead go in through a side door. I ran to the side of the middle school, and pulled on one of the doors. Thankfully, it was unlocked. However, that meant that someone had to have gone through it, which meant that there could be guards in any of the classrooms down the long corridor that led to the gymnasium. Just to be safe, I decided not to run down the hallway fast. I needed to be extra-cautious, which meant crouching low to the ground, and sneaking down the corridor keeping my head below the classroom windows, and my senses on alert for any sign of soldiers patrolling the perimeter.

I began to sneak down the hallway, staying close to the wall. However, with every step I took, either my shoes squeaked, or my footsteps echoed around the empty hallway. They weren’t that loud, but when you’re sneaking around the makeshift Top Secret base of the Department of Homeland Security, they might as well have been as loud as gunshots.

Then I started thinking like a superhuman, and realized I could just fly down the hallway. I laid down flat facedown on the ground. I then willed my body to float just a few inches off the ground. I began to fly very slowly down the hallway, still sticking close to the walls. My eyes focused on the doors to the gym, and I concentrated on nothing else but reaching them.

I was so focused, I almost didn’t realize the door to the classroom in front of me had swung open. I stopped hard, my face just an inch away from the wooden door. Two men walked out of the room, and I was frozen with fear. I had no idea what I would do if they turned around and saw me. I held my breath, not daring to make a sound.

Thankfully, the two men turned the other direction and walked through the gym doors. The sounds of the doors slamming echoed through the hallway like an explosion.

I let out the breath I was holding, and never felt so relieved. I decided that I should probably pick up the pace a little. Even though I wanted answers, I would be glad when it finally came time to get out of there.

I reached the doors at the end of the hallway and lowered myself to the ground. I crouched up against the door and slowly slid my body upwards, stopping as soon as the smallest sliver of the room came into view.

From this angle, I could tell that most of the people were toward the front of the room, as they’d finished setting up the back of the room. That meant they were almost through, though, which meant I was running out of time.

In the back corner sat an unattended laptop that was turned on and set up. It was the farthest away from anyone, and the closest to me, so snatching that one would be my best bet.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. I counted to three, and then ran as fast as I could through the double gym doors. I made a beeline for the laptop, running as fast as I could. I looked to my right and caught a look at the government workers who seemed to be frozen in time. All of them were either making their way outside, or getting computers and televisions set up, so nobody paid any attention to the back of the room. No one would see a blur run in and out, or notice the missing laptop.

I grabbed the computer, turned around, and ran back out the doors that I came through. I slowed down and came to a stop in the middle of the hallway. I snuck back over to the double doors that led to the gym, and sat down next to them. I wanted to be close by so that if I heard or saw anyone making their way to the back, I’d be able to see them in time and get the laptop back hopefully before they noticed, and hopefully without them noticing me.

I got to work. I opened the documents folder of the laptop, and was met with a sea of files that would take forever to go through. I clicked on the search bar and entered
Tempest.
I was surprised at how few files popped up, but then again, I’d done a pretty good job at covering my tracks.

I opened the file that was called
Tempest Possible Locations 7_15_15 Revision.
When the file opened, there were only the names of a few towns—Ebon, Indiana, right at the top, of course. There were no specific names, though, which was good for me. They just had an idea of what town I lived in, nothing more.

I exited out of the file. I checked to make sure no one was going to the back of the gym, but everyone was still unloading/setting up. I knew it was only a matter of time, though, so I had to work fast.

I searched for
Richter
next, and tons of files popped up. One that caught my eye, though, was called
Richter Known Locations.
I double-clicked on it, and when it opened, I couldn’t help but smile. It was a list of exact known hideouts of Richter. The one at the top was the Statue of Liberty, one of the only objects left standing in New York City. The rest of the locations on the list were places like the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Eiffel Tower, the Burj Khalifa, and a couple of other really luxurious and exotic places.

I exited the file and was about to open one called
Richter Known Associates 6_30_15,
but approaching footsteps broke my concentration. I looked through the window, and saw a lady who had her black hair pulled back in a ponytail and her head buried in a tablet approaching the back of the room. I panicked. I got up, and after double checking to be sure that she had her attention on her tablet, I ran through the door as fast as I could, put the laptop back, ran back through the doors, and came to a stop in the hallway.

I ducked into one of the classrooms and crouched down behind the door.
I felt the euphoric sensation of almost getting caught, but not, as I tried to catch my breath.

After a couple of minutes of sitting there, once my nerves had calmed down, I begin to listen closely. I wanted to see if I could hear anyone discussing what they were doing here, so I could get more of an idea what exactly was going on. The result of my listening was eerie, though. Nobody was saying a word. The only sounds were that of shuffling feet and clicking keys. Nobody said a thing.

I listened for a few more minutes, hoping that someone would get bored and let something slip about
anything.
But there was nothing. That is, until someone cleared their voice and began to shout loudly. The sudden noise almost made me jump, but I recovered quickly and began to listen as carefully as I could.

“Everyone pay attention,” a woman shouted. All sounds stopped at once as everybody listened closely, myself included, from my spot in a classroom a couple of rooms away. “If your workstation is set up I want you to go to it immediately. If it is still being set up, once I am done speaking you have five minutes to get it finished and ready to go.” The woman paused for a few moments, letting everyone acknowledge what she’d just said. “Now, many of you know why we are here, but you do not know the specifics. I will tell you our main mission goals, and then your Commanding Officer will tell you the specifics of what he or she wants you to do. Understood?”

Everybody in the room shouted “Understood!” in unison. I brought my hands to my ears, and pulled back on my listening as my ears ringed in pain at the sudden shouting. I quickly expanded my listening reach back though, not wanting to miss a thing.

“We believe that Ebon is the most likely candidate for towns that Tempest is hiding in. There are a few other possibilities, and smaller teams have been deployed to scout out those locations. However, you all here are working at the largest branch of this operation. If you’re here, it’s because I wanted you here. It’s because you’re the best at what you do. And I expect nothing less than excellence. There are many lives on the line here, and many have been lost already. The sooner we take down the superhuman menace, the sooner the world can return to normal.

“Tempest is our primary target. You are to find him, and capture him. This will not be an easy task, but given what we’ve learned from studying Richter and now Tempest, we believe that Tempest is weaker than Richter. Therefore, tactics that did not prove useful on Richter may work on Tempest. Some of you are here to figure out which ones will work best, while others are here to execute the missions. It’s important, however, that we bring Tempest in alive. We must study him in order to find out what weaknesses these bastard Supers have, so that we can put an end to them. We only may get one shot at this, so I will accept no failures. Every failure is a life lost due to one of Richter’s rampages, or a battle between him and Tempest.”

I heard someone’s sleeve brush against their shirt as—I assume—they raised their hand.