I flew up to the skyscraper I’d left my belongings, and put on my clothes over my Tempest outfit. I heard someone land behind me, and whipped around.
“That was a good thing you did this morning. I’m impressed,” Holocene said, looking me up and down with an approving smile.
I gave a facetious bow and smirked. “I’m glad the Queen of Dallas approves.”
Holocene glared at me, and I got the message that we weren’t on the “joking with each other” level yet.
“Look, you’re a step closer to me not trying to kill you anytime you set foot in my city. If you really want to prove you’re a hero, though, I could use your help with something."
I was taken aback a bit, but recovered. “Yeah? What with?”
She hesitated. I could tell she wasn’t entirely sure about me, but she finally began to spill. “There’s a drug that started popping up here and there. It’s called Delvin. One of the ingredients is Super blood.”
“Shit, are you serious?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine what Super blood would do when mixed with a bunch of narcotics.
She nodded. “It’s giving people an extreme high, and they begin to hallucinate that they’re a Super, and have powers. The hallucinations are extremely realistic and addictive. Last night, I rescued a guy who thought he could fly and jumped off the top of his apartment building. I was able to catch him, but it’s only a matter of time before people get themselves or others killed from it. If you want to win my trust, help me track down the Super who’s using his blood for this drug, and take him down.”
I thought about it for a moment. Delvin sounded like it was a very bad drug, and I was definitely up for taking it out. Besides, I’d be taking down a bad Super as well. That would definitely help my hero credibility, and get Holocene to trust me.
“Okay, you have a deal.”
Enhanced Interrogation
“You see him?” Holocene asked me. We were floating high above downtown Dallas, unseen by all the people passing by below.
“Red hoodie, right?” I asked.
“Right.”
I scanned the sparse crowd of people walking down the street until I found the guy. He was wearing a bright red hoodie, and was walking like someone was following him. He kept looking over his shoulder. If only he knew that the people who were after him were up above him, not behind him.
“Okay, I got him,” I said. My eyes were locked on him. He wasn’t leaving my sight.
“If what my contact says is true, he should be heading into an alley a couple of blocks ahead,” Holocene said.
I nodded, my eyes still on the target.
He picked up his pace as if he knew he was being watched; he just couldn’t figure out from where. He reached a crosswalk and jogged across the street, even though the pedestrian crossing sign was flashing an upheld hand, signaling it wasn’t safe to cross.
“He’s sure in a hurry,” I said. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just grab him now?”
“No, stick to the plan. We have to catch him red-handed, or else he’ll just deny everything.”
I was sure I could come up with a couple of ways for him to tell us what we wanted to know, but this was Holocene’s plan. I had to follow her lead.
Our target reached an alley between an apartment building and an Indian restaurant, and disappeared between the two.
Holocene flew over to the space above the two buildings without saying a word. I followed close behind, my heart racing. I wasn’t nervous because I thought we might be in danger, I was just afraid we weren’t going to get from the man what we needed. My heart was also racing for another reason, and that was because I was excited to see how Holocene worked. I looked forward to learning a thing or two from her—maybe even about her. Even though my ego hated it, I had to admit that Holocene knew more about being a superhero then I did. Sure, I’d been the first one, but she’d been at the whole thing for a lot longer, and I had a lot to learn.
The man practically ran to a pile of moving boxes and pallets in the alleyway. He dug around in them until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a red and black duffel bag and unzipped it, then pulled out the contents of the bag, and our suspicions were confirmed: inside the bag were many pouches of blood.
“Alright, I’ll grab him,” Holocene said.
Before I could respond, she had whipped down and grabbed the man by the back of his hoodie. She flew up toward the top of a skyscraper, zooming past me. The guy she’d grabbed hadn’t even screamed. He was too busy trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
I flew up toward the building Holocene had disappeared on top of. I could hear the man’s screams before I reached the top. I landed on the building and saw the man in the red hoodie backing away from Holocene as fast as he could, screaming for help.
“No one can hear you,” she said calmly as she walked forward.
His gaze flashed to me, and his face dropped. “Please!” he shouted. He looked back and forth from me to Holocene. “Please don’t hurt me!”
“Tell us what we want to know,” Holocene said.
The man backed into the edge of the rooftop. He had nowhere to go but down. He looked over his shoulder and almost passed out. His entire face went white. He looked like he was about to need some of the blood he’d been carrying in that duffel bag.
“I’ll tell you anything,” he said, his voice weak.
Holocene looked over her shoulder at me. “You’re up.”
I nodded, ready for action. I remembered the questions she’d told me to ask. I stepped forward, and the man shrank down even more. I was a few feet away from him, trying to stand as tall as I could. His fearful eyes looked into my glowing ones. “Is the blood from a Super?”
“Y-yes. I don’t know who, though, I swear! I was just supposed to pick it up and bring it down to Houston,” he said as fast as he could.
“What’s in Houston?”
“Rey Krev. He mixes the blood with his own concoction of drugs. Makes a new one. Calls it Delvin.”
“Tell me something we don’t already know!” Holocene yelled from behind me, sending the man into another wave of shaking and cowering.
“There’s a shipment of supplies coming into port the day after tomorrow from China. It’ll be at the Houston docks. That’s all I know, I swear. I’m just someone trying to get by. Please don’t kill me.”
“We’re not going to kill you,” Holocene said. She walked over to the man and picked him up. He started screaming as loud as he could, pleading for his life.
Holocene jumped off the building, leaving me up there alone.
“Did you get that, Samantha?” I asked.
“Sure did. Doug is looking up all the ships coming into the Houston docks from China on Monday,” she said in my head.
“Alright, good.”
“Kane, isn’t this all kinda petty? Don’t we have bigger things to take care of, like the government kidnapping Supers, keeping an eye on the ones still out there, taking out the bad Supers, stuff like that?” Samantha asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“Samantha, this drug is the most powerful drug there is, and part of it is coming from a Super. A very bad Super. We are taking him down, and this will get Holocene on our side while we’re at it. He’s just very smart. He’s not robbing banks, or destroying cities. He’s staying hidden, in the dark. But don’t worry, we should figure out everything we need to Monday night at the docks.”
Holocene flew up and landed on top of the building. “Still talking to the voices in your head?” she asked with a smirk.
“Just filling Samantha in on a few things. Where’s Mr. Hoodie?”
“Dropped him off at the police station. That was some good intel we got from him. You did some good work, too,” she said, smiling.
“Well, it wasn’t anything you couldn’t have done on your own,” I said.
“Yeah, but company’s nice, and we don’t all have voices in our heads.”
“You’re not w
rong about that,” I said with a chuckle. Samantha always having my back and being there to talk to was pretty sweet. “So, what next?”
“Meet me here Monday night. We’ll fly down to Houston and be there when that shipment arrives. Someone will know who it’s going to. If we can find them, we can find the Super behind all of this.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”
I took off into the air, leaving Holocene and Dallas behind. As I flew back to Indianapolis, I couldn’t help but feel like I was really becoming a hero.
Shocking Revelations
My phone buzzed on the table next to my bed, waking me from my sleep. I picked it up and saw that it was Drew calling me.
“Hello?” I said into the phone.
“H-hey, Kane? You busy?” Drew asked. I could tell by the sound of his voice that something was wrong.
“No, man. I’m free. What’s up? Is everything okay?” I asked, sitting up in my bed. I looked over at the clock and saw that it was nine-thirty in the morning.
“I just need to see you right now. Can you meet me behind the home bleachers at the football field?”
I cocked my head to the side, taken aback by Drew’s strange request. “Are you sure? You don’t want to meet at the Burger Shack or something?”
“No! I-uh-no. Sorry, I just gotta show you something.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in fifteen,” I said.
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Drew said. He hung up.
I sat in bed for a moment, playing over the conversation we’d just had in my head. What could Drew possibly want to show me that he had to do it in such a weird location? From the sound of his voice, it wasn’t anything good. Drew had sounded afraid—an emotion I wasn’t one hundred percent sure he knew until just now.
I could get to the bleachers behind the school in less than a minute, so after getting ready, I spent the next twelve minutes pacing around my room, trying to figure out what could be going on.
Once it was time, I raced outside—maybe a little too fast—entered my alleyway, and took off flying toward Ebon High School.
I landed behind some trees near the school and began walking toward the bleachers of the football field. Using my super vision, I could see Drew pacing back and forth underneath the seats, waiting for me. I picked up the pace a little bit and reached the bleachers in no time.
“Thanks for coming, Kane,” he said when he saw me.
I gave him a fist bump. “What’s going on? Why’d you want to meet here?”
“Something crazy’s happening, and I don’t know what to do. I couldn’t meet you at home because my parents would freak out.”
“What is it?”
“Well, when those guys rolled up at Zach’s party and started shooting those purple electricity bolts at Tempest?” Drew began. Already I didn’t like where this was going.
I nodded. “Yeah, I remember hearing about those.”
“Well, one of them nicked me. It wasn’t a direct hit, but it was enough to make my hair stand up, that’s for sure.”
“Jesus,” I exclaimed. “Are you alright? It didn’t hurt you, did it?”
“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”
“You know what I mean. Did you get any help?”
He shook his head. “Everybody was freaking out about Tempest, and then the house on fire, shit like that. Besides, the pain went away almost instantly. I was perfectly fine—or so I thought.” Drew looked around, making sure nobody was spying on us. “This is why I wanted to meet you here.” Drew rolled up the sleeves on his shirt. His arms were covered in white scars. They looked as if they were roots from a tree spreading from his fingertips all the way up his arms and disappearing into his sleeves.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It looked incredible. Like some sort of elaborate tattoo done with white ink. “Holy shit, Drew,” I began, but I couldn’t find any more words. My mouth hung open and I found myself unable to look away.
“They showed up this morning, right after I did this for the first time.” Drew thrust his arms out at his sides, and they exploded with purple lightning. It coursed up and down his arms, crackling and popping. The sudden electricity caused my hair to stand on end. The whole underneath of the bleachers lit up purple, the faint shadows dancing all around to the rhythm of the lighting that pulsed up and down Drew’s arms.
“Oh my god,” was all I could whisper.
Drew stood there smiling at me. “I think I’m one of the Supers,” he said with a laugh.
My heart raced and my knees felt week. It sure looked like he was one. His eyes weren’t glowing like those of most of the other Supers did, but I couldn’t deny the fact that purple electricity was dancing up and down on his body.
I found myself taking a small step back. If it was the same type of electricity that the government agents shot from their guns, one zap would send me into convulsions, taking away my powers until I could recover.
“Is that all you can do?” I asked.
“So far. Who knows if I’ll get anything else?” Drew stopped the electricity, and I held back a sigh of relief. The air felt crisp and smelled burnt as the electricity lingered in the air.
“That’s crazy, man,” I said, trying to act as excited as I could. My eyes lingered on his arms. Just underneath his skin was the electricity that took away my powers. That made me feel pain. That terrified me. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I’m still kinda freaked out by it all. I just wanted you to know about it,” he said with a weak smile.
I thought I was going to be sick. Guilt washed over me. I was the first person he had told after he got his powers. I’d been Tempest for months, and had never said a word. I wasn’t sure if I was being smart, or Drew was being stupid.
“Kane, we’ve got a very bad situation with a Super in Chicago,” Samantha said in my head.
I felt my pocket, like my phone was vibrating. I retrieved it and looked at the screen, making sure Drew couldn’t see. “Oh, dammit, my mom’s calling. I gotta take this.”
Drew nodded. “No problem.”
I swiped across the screen, and put the phone up to my ear. “Hey, I’m with Drew. What’s up?”
“There’s a Super who just showed up in Chicago. He’s in the middle of a standoff with the police. He’s a teleporter, and is just toying with them. Once he gets tired, though, he could take them all out easily,” Samantha said in a panic.
“Okay, yeah. I gotcha. I’ll be right there.” I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
Drew raised his eyebrows, curious as to what was going on.
“Yikes. Mom went into my room. Didn’t like the mess she saw. She said I had to get home or else I’m grounded,” I said, taking a step back.
“Can’t you stay a little little longer? I have some stuff I wanna talk about.”
“Yeah, sorry, bro, I really can’t. Mom’s been on a tear lately. She means business. I could be grounded for a month if I don’t get back ASAP.”
Drew nodded, but his face grew long. “Yeah, okay. I understand.”
“I’ll text you as soon as I can,” I said as I backed out from underneath the bleachers.
“Okay, thanks for coming.”
“Anytime,” I said. “See ya.” I turned and ran toward the parking lot. As soon as Drew was out of my line of sight, I took off into the air. “Samantha, can you get Holocene? I could use her help,” I said once I was in the air.
“I don’t think she’d appreciate my voice in her head,” Samantha argued.
“Samantha, come on. This will help get her on our side faster.”
“Fine. I’ll see if I can get her.”
“Thanks. Tell her to meet me on top of our usual building.”
“Okay, but be quick about it. No telling when this guy’s gonna snap.”
Standoff
I landed on the rooftop in Dallas seconds before Holocene did. I barely had time to pull the Tempest hood over my head before she landed.
“I’ll be sure to relay the message,” I said. “Look, there’s a guy who can teleport who’s playing around with the police up in Chicago. I could use your help.”
“How do you know you need me? The great Tempest can’t do it on his own?” Holocene asked with a smirk, clearly enjoying the fact that I was asking for her help.
I sighed. “Look, the last time I went into a situation thinking I had it under control, it went poorly. I’m just trying to keep my ego in check. I may be overcompensating, but whatever. You in or not?”
Holocene nodded. “Yeah, I’m in.”
“Race you to Chicago,” I said with a smile. I launched into the air, flying as fast as I could to the Windy City, Holocene hot on my tail.
We reached Chicago in no time. We came to a stop over the Sears Tower and scanned the area.
“There, I see the police cars,” Holocene said, pointing to where the standoff was taking place. Police and SWAT cars surrounded a construction site where new apartment buildings were being built.
There was a flash of light behind one of the officers, and a man so pale he was almost white appeared. His head was shaved, and an evil smirk marked his face. He grabbed an officer and the two of them disappeared in another flash.
I looked around, trying to see where the two of them had gone. I heard the officer scream and searched for the source of the sound. I saw the teleport holding the officer over the edge of the building. With a laugh, the man let go, and the officer fell. He screamed and writhed in the air, and I flew into action.
I reached the police officer and grabbed him by his bulletproof vest. I slowed his descent as fast as I could until he came to a stop just a few feet from the ground. Then I flew him behind the line of officers and turned my attention up to the teleport.
A gunshot sounded in the air, and an explosion of blood shot from the teleport’s chest. Seconds later, Holocene appeared from behind him and kicked him off the building.
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