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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.”

10

Ghosts
    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