The Siege of the Supers (The First Superhero Book 2) (5 page)

D
irector 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 some
thing
. This new Super, coming from Dallas. A Duplicator, if she remembered correctly.

The more the merrier,
she thought as she grabbed her coat from the back of her chair. She slipped it on and exited her office.

L
eopold Renner tried
to think back to the events that had led to his bleeding out on the floor of Tempest Memorial Museum. It was all he could do to try to stay awake. The darkness was always there, pulling him in. But he had to fight it. He didn’t want to die. He couldn’t die.

And it seemed like someone was trying to save him.

Leopold’s eyes grew heavy. He’d barely had any sleep last night. Just a bit here and there. Nothing substantial, though, and he felt the drowsiness hitting him in waves. It felt like he was being washed out to sea by the rip currents. He was fighting to stay afloat, even though in the back of his mind he knew the best thing to do would be to relax. To let it take him.

The young woman he’d heard called Cassidy fell to the ground next to him. He looked into her eyes and saw fear. She reached up, clicked something behind her ear, and screamed, “GAMMA BASE INFILTRATED BY TEMPEST. HE’S TAKING EPSILON. SI—”

A gunshot rang out, causing Leopold to jump. The smell of gunpowder brought back memories of his own injuries, and the pain in his torso roared to life.

He looked into Cassidy’s dead eyes as blood dripped onto her face.

Her body disappeared.

Leo wanted to yell out in shock, but instead, he yelled in pain.

Kane Andrews picked him up, sending flashes of pain searing through his body. Kane threw Leo over his shoulder and began to run out the front door of the museum as fast as he could.

“Door, open!” Kane shouted.

Leo heard the hiss of a car door opening, and his world tumbled around as Kane put him down in the backseat of a car.

The face of a beautiful woman with brunette hair filled his vision. He recognized her from somewhere, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Go, Kane!” she shouted as Kane got into the driver’s seat.

The car jerked forward as they took off. Leo heard bullets ding off the side of the car as they sped to God knew where.

The woman ripped open Leopold’s shirt, exposing his wounds. “He’s not looking good, Kane. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“We can’t lose him, Selena!”

“I’m trying!”

“Samantha! We’re heading for the extraction! We’ve got him, but he’s been shot!” Kane shouted.

“Just keep him alive until you’re out of there!” the girl Leopold assumed was Samantha replied.

His vision flickered.
Sorry, guys,
he thought.
Don’t know if I can do that.

He closed his eyes, and let the riptide take him out to sea.

I
t’d been
a week since I destroyed the First National Bank in downtown Dallas. A week since my discussion with Holocene. A week of being scared out of my mind. I couldn’t help but think about what she’d told me. Hero, or villain? I
wanted
to be a hero, but so far, I’d only caused destruction. Not just the bank, but back in my battles with Richter. Not to mention the fact that I’d killed Richter. Could I call myself a hero if I killed my enemies?

I looked up at the bronze statue of myself. At my feet, fountains shot into a pool. The statue had been put up on the UCLA campus shortly after my disappearance, once everyone knew Richter was gone for good. Apparently, there were several of them around the country. This one was the only one I’d seen, though. The only one I’d wanted to see.

I wasn’t sure if I deserved it. Holocene had said I was a hero because I had to be one. I was forced to. She didn’t know that I hadn’t even killed Richter myself. I wouldn’t have known what to do if it weren’t for Samantha. Had Holocene known that, she
really
wouldn’t be a fan of Tempest.

“Hey, there. Looks like they went a little generous on the jaw line, don’t you think?” I heard a familiar voice say. This time, it was behind me, not in my head.

I turned around and saw Samantha bundled up in a coat. It was dark out, and Los Angeles could get surprisingly chilly at night in the winter. I smiled and patted the seat on the bench next to me. She came and sat down.

“Sorry I haven’t checked in lately,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it. I can only imagine what you’re going through,” Samantha said as she rubbed her hands together.

“How’d you know I was here?”

Samantha looked at me with an expression that said,
‘How do you think?’

“Right.” I tapped my temple. “You shouldn’t get into people’s heads without permission, you know,” I said, half-joking, half-serious.

“You shouldn’t go a week without checking in with your friends, you know,” she fired back.

I conceded. “Fair enough.”

“Speaking of which, have you been back to Ebon yet? I’m sure your friends would like to see you.”

I got the sense she was ignoring the elephant in the room, like why I’d been gone for a week, or why I was staring at a statue of myself.

I shook my head. “I’m going back to school tomorrow, so I’ll see them then.”

“That should be fun, although probably a bit awkward.”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure what else to say. I was expecting the worst at school the next day, that’s for sure. Dad had had all the homework sent to him while I was gone, and had done the work for me. I’d spent a lot of the past week going over everything so I would be as caught up as possible, but it had been difficult, since my mind was either on what Holocene had said, or on school itself, not the work.

“You know, I think we can do good together,” Samantha said. “And, no, I didn’t mean
well.
I mean we can actually do some good. We can be heroes.”

I sighed and turned back to the statue. It showed me giving an uppercut to the air. Everybody knew who I was really giving the uppercut to: Richter. That was the first punch I ever dealt to him: that uppercut in the parking lot of Ebon High School. I remembered every second of it, the way it had felt to finally hurt someone who everyone said couldn’t be hurt. To do the impossible.

I liked that feeling. The feeling of giving people hope.

“I think we can, too,” I said.

“Yeah?” Samantha said. “Well, good. Besides, no one knows you’re back yet, anyway. No one knows it was Tempest who brought down that building.”

That brought the idea that I’d been mulling over in my head back to the forefront. It was something I hated to do, but if I was going to prove to Holocene, the world, and to myself that I was a hero, it needed to be done. “Not yet, at least. I’m going to take credit for it, though. I’m going to apologize, and do whatever I can to help clean up and rebuild.” It was just a small building. Small potatoes compared to what Richter had done. Still, it was the right thing to do.

“Good, I’m glad. I was hoping you’d say that,” Samantha said. She stood up. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m starving. I’ll call Doug and the three of us can go get something to eat.”

I stood up and nodded. “Sounds good to me. Will your parents let Doug come out, though? It’s getting kind of late.”

Samantha’s expression turned sad. “I’m his legal guardian. My parents… They, um… They died. So…”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Samantha,” I said. Heat rushed to my cheeks from embarrassment.

“No, no, it’s okay. I should’ve said something sooner.” Samantha tried to laugh it off, but I could tell she was uncomfortable. “Actually, you know what, it is kinda late. Doug has school tomorrow too. I should get going.”

“Samantha, I’m sorry I—”

“Don’t worry about it, Kane,” she said. She put a hand on my arm. “Have a good day back at school. If you get bored during class, or need the answers to something, send me a text. I’ll see what I can do,” she said with a sad smile and a wink.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll do that,” I said.

Samantha turned around and walked away. I saw her wipe something from her eyes, and I knew it was tears. I felt a pit in my stomach. I felt miserable, and the thought of having to go to school tomorrow made it worse.