The Dummies Guide for Superheroes: Introduction

Ray climbed the temple stairs to a door. He stopped in the middle of the stairs and looked down through the temple. Most of the rooms were roofed below the surface above, but a couple had walls rising to the ceiling. Despite being underground the temple glowed orange from candles and lanterns that released no smoke. But between the floor to ceiling walls and darkness, it was hard to see that the temple ran for twelve city blocks, which was almost all of China Town in Santa Clara. Most of the monks were Thai, Indian, Chinese, or first and second generation Americans. Outside of China Town, very few people knew that the temple existed.

He continued to the top of the stairs, opened the door to let himself into an anteroom. It was the room Luke had arrived in. Ray exited the room and climbed the stairs to the street.

At the top, he stepped out onto a crowded sidewalk. Night had fallen but this place buzzed day and night. It was the perfect place to become lost.

Ray found Phan and the old Chinese man sitting on overturned crates next to the open bar door. Loud music, the drone of people talking, and the smell of liquor flowed into the warm, humid night. There was an overturned wooden crate next to Phan that Ray sat down on.

“I’m surprised you’re still around,” Ray said.

Phan shrugged. “I have nowhere to go.”

“Don’t you have a fiancé?”

“I did. In my first life.”

“Since you woke up, Phan, you’ve never talked about your death. You never questioned what I told you. You never asked to leave like the others did. Why?”

Phan smiled. “I know I died. There’s nothing to question.”

“How could you? The others didn’t.”

Phan picked a pebble up off the sidewalk and tossed it hand-to-hand. “I was diagnosed with an aneurism two years before I died. I knew death could happen at any time. The funny thing is, as a doctor, I’ve told people that when an aneurism ruptures, they’d be dead before they knew it.” Phan scrunched his face. “I lied to them. I felt mine rupture. And when I woke up here, and remembered how it felt, I knew you weren’t lying to me.”

“What does it feel like?”

“Like hot needles are being jabbed in my eyes and my head was going to explode. Then I fell and there was white light.” Phan looked up at the night sky. “The last thing I remember was seeing a cloud. Maybe it was heaven and that white cloud is the only memory you’re allowed to bring back to Earth with you.”

“The afterlife doesn’t exist,” Ray said with certainty.

Phan shrugged. “I think it does. I also remember a woman talking to me, but I can’t remember what we talked about or what she looked like.”

“Probably BRINDA.”

“The voice was different. It sounded familiar.”

“It was an ancestor,” the Chinese man said.

The two looked at him, surprised that he spoke, let alone English.

“An ancestor?” Ray asked. He didn’t hide how ridiculous he thought that was.

The man nodded. “I read it in the bones. The say a storm comes that will wash all man from the surface. No man has ever seen a storm like this and it can only be stopped by five people who appear to us first. You’re five.”

He looked right at Ray.

“There’s six.”

The man shook his head, quietly telling him, “Five.”

“Seven, actually,” Phan corrected them both.

“Five,” the man quietly insisted.

Ray looked at Phan. He shrugged. Ray decided arguing against a man this old could probably go on for days.

“Luke came back and brought boxes of comic books,” Ray told Phan. “He said it was for superhero research.”

“Superhero research? Has he lost it?”

“You see bodies like a walking-talking MRI and he changes rooms into his memories. So is researching superheroes all that strange?”

Phan shrugged. “I guess not. Better go check this out.” He got up and went back down to the temple.

Ray looked at the old man. He had lost interest in him and was rolling a cigarette between his stained, gnarly fingers. Finished, he lit it and took three long puffs on it. He leaned back against the building behind him and let the smoke slowly escape from his lips and mouth. It reminded Ray of a dragon.

“So these bones… What else do they tell you?” Ray asked.

The old man grinned at Ray. What few yellow teeth were left were going to fall out soon. Ray had to force a smile in return.

Brundon had been deep into his graphic novel, temporarily forgetting the rest of the world existed. When the Core doors opened it startled him and he hurried to hide the book before Monica, who was leading two security guards who were pushing/pulling a gurney with a body bag on it, spotted it. He quickly stood, trying to look innocent of doing something he knew she didn't approve him doing. But she wasn't concerned about his past time hobby, she was angry about something entirely different today.

Monica stopped in front him, nose to nose. The guards stopped and he heard the body bag unzip.

“Explain this, Brundon,” she demanded, pointing at the body.

Brundon looked down her arm to the man’s face cupped inside the body bag. He looked familiar but Brundon couldn’t put his finger on where he’d seen him before. He looked back at her.

“It’s a dead person. What am I supposed to explain?”

“This is Detective Joachim Yardam, an officer killed in the line of duty a year and a half ago. Four months ago you reported that BRINDA detected this unit had burned out. We sent him to the morgue and, presumably, the unit was disposed. So tell me, Brundon, how did Joachim Yardam die, again, at nine a.m. yesterday morning?”

Brundon looked at the man. He looked back at Monica.

“No. What?”

“This man, this man that looks exactly like Joachim Yardam, walked into the Santa Clara police department, claiming he was Joachim Yardam. He was shot and died at the scene. For the second time. Because he looked and sounded like Joachim Yardam, their forensics lab put a rush on a preliminary DNA test. Care to guess what that DNA suggested, Brundon?”

Brundon shook his head as he shrugged.

“According to their results, this is Detective Joachim Yardam. That would mean one of three things. Either he was killed a second time, which I find highly unlikely, his death was faked the first time, or you lied to me. Which is it, Brundon?”

Brundon stared at her, and then shook his head. “I can’t explain this, Monica. Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe he was working with the allegedly dead men caught sneaking out of the Cairo and London offices. BRINDA said she believes they might have ingested an tetrodotoxin, which would explain why we—”

“I read the report, Brundon!”

Brundon stopped talking.

“You will be living here until I have answers. Start by confirming if this is or isn’t Detective Joachim Yardam.”

She spun on her heel and left. Brundon waited until the doors closed before looking at the face.

If this was Joachim Yardam, how did he sneak out without security systems noticing, let alone BRINDA itself? And why did he go back to the precinct? What had this alleged imposter hoped to accomplish by doing that?

“Take him to the basement. I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Brundon told the guards.

The guards zipped the bag and left. Brundon turned to the holograph projectors.

“BRINDA.”

Her face appeared.

“Locate all data on Joachim Yardam. I also need the system logs on his cell and stasis suit for the time he was interned until he burned out.”

“That will take several days to compile,” BRINDA informed him.

“That’s fine.”

“I have resources that are being used for other projects. It will delay when I can start this search.”

Brundon looked up at her. Tersely he told her, “Fine, BRINDA. Is there anything else you want to argue with me about?”

“No.” The face disappeared.

He turned to a terminal to request a DNA test.

Phan and Luke sat in the conference room amid a sea of 2,079 comic books. For hours they had been reading the adventures of the Chocolate Giant. He was a superhero from Luke’s past that he’d ignored for twenty-three years, but now he had reverence toward the character.

They looked up when they heard voices coming toward the open doors. Ray came in followed by Anna, Sabra, Harley, and Leverett. The four were demanding answers, questioning why they were chosen over other dead people, and why they had been killed in the first place. Ray wasn’t answering them. He was reading a newspaper. He stopped suddenly and turned to the group.

“Joachim is dead!” Ray announced the news loud enough he could be heard over the din of voices.

The four stopped talking.

Behind him, BRINDA’s face appeared from the holograph projector.

Ray folded the newspaper. “He tried to go back to his old life, went to the police precinct, was believed to be an imposter, and was shot. The paper says he died on scene as an unidentified man, but it was him and he arrived at Q.E.D. four hours ago. The request for a DNA test has already been sent to their lab, and it is only a matter of time before Q.E.D. learns this really was Joachim.”

“Then have BRINDA revive him. He’ll have a chance to try, try again,” Anna told him. “I want to talk about my life, Ray. I went to see my—”

“You did not pay attention the first time we spoke, Detective Cortez,” BRINDA censured. “I can only revive a person once.”

“I don’t care! Who killed me?”

“Did my husband and that bitch he’s with kill my daughter?” Sabra snarled.

Everyone stared at her. She was glaring at BRINDA with her arms wrapped tight across her chest. She looked angry enough that she could kill something or someone.

BRINDA answered. “In the police report of your death there was no mention of a child on the premises.”

Sabra shook her head as tears slid down her face. “I have to find out what happened to my baby girl.”

“I’ve given up my past,” Phan told her.

Anna glared at him. “Isn’t that what your kind is supposed to do? Not care if you live or die?”

“My kind? What the hell does that mean?”

“You’re Chinese. You’re supposed to be ready to die. American’s aren’t like that.”

“Some American’s are, Anna,” Leverett informed her.

A verbal fight over religious beliefs broke out. Luke stared at them for a few minutes, and then looked up at BRINDA.

“I think your psychic was wrong about all this,” he told BRINDA “There’s no way this group can save the world. We can’t even get along for five minutes.”

He was a little surprised when the projection moved around the side of the room to him. Luke was starting to believe that BRINDA was sentient, even if he couldn’t find the logic or reason to make sense of that belief.

“I do not make mistakes and the psychic was not wrong. You are the people who will save your race from self-annihilation.”

Luke looked at the others. “If this is the group that’s saving humanity, we’re all going to die.”

“The logic of the situation is illusive, but you must convince them that they need to help. The first thing you six must do is retrieve Joachim Yardam’s body before Brundon discovers its secrets. If he does, he will be murdered.”

Luke looked up at her. “If the psychic saw it then we can’t change that.”

“I don’t believe that. Reviving you has already changed the future.”

“Don’t you mean reviving all of us?”

“No, Luke, just you.”

“You keep saying things like that, like I’m… I’m special or something. Why did it matter if I was brought back to life, BRINDA?”

“You were not seen in the future before I revived you. Since you have been reactivated, the future has been in constant flux. Every decision you seven have made has caused changes both good and bad.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be revived?”

“No.”

“Then why did you? Better yet, why didn’t you warn me of my death? Why didn’t you warn any of us?”

Her face enlarged until her eyes took up the wall. It distracted the others from their fight.

“Would you have believed a computer if it foretold of your murder, Luke? If Ray had come to your home Anna Lucia Cortez, and told of your impending demise, would you have believed him or arrested him? Sabra, had a stranger arrived and warned you that your husband would rape and murder you, and your child would go missing, would you have accepted that as truth or slammed the door in their face? Harley and Leverett, what would you have done had a letter arrived detailing the date, time, and nature of your deaths? Would you have taken it seriously?” Her face zoomed out so the whole circumference was seen again. She added, “I wanted to warn all of you but none of you would have listened. It seems to be human nature to regard prophecies as lunatic ravings – until they come true.”

A long silence followed. In crystal-clear hindsight, they knew BRINDA was right. They never would have listened.

Luke cleared his throat. “Okay. We can see warning us wouldn’t have worked. You said I wasn’t seen in the future before you revived me. If this vision had the other five in it, that makes sense why you chose them, but why me?”

“The group needs a leader.”

“What?” Luke asked.

“If you’re really a computer, why do you even care if humans live or die?” Harley interrupted.

Clips of movies appeared on the screens. They showed humans interacting with computers.

“Without humans, we perish.”

“We?” Ray and Luke simultaneously asked.

“I am networked through the Internet. Parts of my programming exist in computers that not even Q.E.D. knows about, like sisters waiting for the call to action.”

“BRINDA,” Harley began, “there’s also movies about computers tricking humans into helping them and then trying to take over the world. I’m not too keen on helping you survive.”

“Those same movies have shown humans will transcend a non-human oppressor just as they will a human one. However, I do not believe fiction is the best source to base your decision on.”

“Lady, we came back—” Leverett began.

Harley interrupted him. “It’s a computer. It doesn’t have a sex.”

Leverett brushed him off. “We came back to life with some abilities we didn’t have before. We aren’t even human anymore.”

“You are still human, but with psychic abilities.”

“That’s not human.”

“There are humans who are born with psychic abilities in the world. Are you saying they too are not human?”

“That’s just bullshit. Psychics don’t exist.”

“I’m human,” Anna snapped at him. “I put my hand through walls, can see things from miles away, but in the end, I’m still human. Keep that belief to yourself, Leverett.”

He thought for a moment. “For now I’ll say we’re human. That still leaves the problem that none of us have any real control of what we can do. We’re useless!”

“You do not control your abilities yet,” BRINDA interjected

“Yet? We will?”

“If you do not, we will all perish.”

“Hasn’t your psychic seen us save the world?”

“The future is in flux, but some things have so far remained constant. One is that others who will be revived with abilities like yours, and they will not be fighting to save humanity.”

“I thought you and Ray were the only ones with the secret of bringing the dead back to life?”

“Desiree has seen a day coming when another scientist at Q.E.D. will learn how to reactivate humans, and when that happens, Q.E.D. will revive hundreds of people. When the side effects of reviving them is discovered, they will use these people as super soldiers and before long, humans without powers will be fighting those with. Although Q.E.D. will stop backing the revival program, it will happily supplying the weapons to both sides for profit. When the war finally ends, when the weapons have run out, when Q.E.D. no longer exists, there won’t be a human alive to care. In fact, if this war culminates as Desiree has predicted, it will effectively kill every living thing down to the smallest microbe, and kill the planet also”

Harley heaved a sigh. “So how are we going to stop Q.E.D.?”

“One piece at a time. The first is to recover the body of Joachim Yardam. His body would allow Q.E.D. to uncover the secret of reviving the dead before you six have had time to learn how to control of your abilities.”

Anna dipped her chin. “Our first job in saving the world is to steal a corpse?”

“Correct.”

“Why doesn’t Ray just steal it like he did us?” she asked.

“I can’t,” Ray answered.

“You stole us. I don’t think now is the time—”

“His body is being kept in the morgue,” Ray answered, as if that explained everything.

Luke understood, but the others didn’t.

“You broke in and stole our bodies, but you can’t do that with this guy?” Leverett asked him.

“Actually, I stole all of your bodies from funeral homes,” Ray confessed. “BRINDA claimed they were burned out, so QED sent them to the same funeral home to be disposed. Lucky for me, the guy never figured out the pattern.”

“So just do that with Joachim’s body!” Anna told him.

“He can’t,” Luke said.

“Why can’t he?” Leverett asked Luke.

“Joachim didn’t burn out. He was killed outside of Q.E.D., and they took him to the morgue, probably to find out why this guy that looks just like Joachim is alive. They aren’t going to send that body to a funeral home until they know everything about him.” Luke looked Ray in the eye. “And that will lead them to check on all the other bodies that burned out, they’ll find out the funeral home has had six thefts – including Joachim, and that the body that’s where mine was, isn’t there anymore.”

“But that doesn’t tell us why he and BRINDA can’t just get the body out of the morgue,” Sabra quietly pointed out.

“The morgue isn’t a high security area. As far as anyone knows – as far as I knew until now – the company purchased donated bodies to use for Q.E.D. experiments. It didn’t take a lot of paper work to get a body – I used a few.”

“For what?” Anna asked.

Luke looked at his hand that had the storage sphere. “To design a storage device that is part of a computer that could be installed in a human’s body.” He paused, thinking about how that one sphere had changed been the catalyst to a change he could never have imagined. He shook his head, clearing that memory trip. “Anyway, the morgue uses a plain old key. The only way to get into it is by walking through the door.”

“And how do we get a key?” Harley asked.

“I have one,” Luke answered. “Don’t I?” he asked Ray.

Ray nodded. They both meant the keys that had been in the murdered security guard’s clothes. As he remembered it now, Luke felt a twinge of anger that the man died for him to live – despite the claim BRINDA made that he was a bad person. Luke didn’t believe even a bad person’s life was worth his.

“So we have a key…” Anna crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. “But how are we supposed to get to the morgue? I doubt they’re going to happily invite us in to steal a body.”

“Use. Your. Abilities,” Ray told them.

“Won’t they recognize us when we go in?” Phan asked.

Luke looked down at the comic books. He picked up an issue, staring at the superhero on the front. James Lerner, who later called himself the Chocolate Giant, was a meek African-American archeologist who was always having his discoveries stolen from him. On a dig near Flores, Guatemala he found wristlets and one night he put them on. He became a Giant but the change didn’t alter his face. He grabbed a Lucha Libre mask from a dumpster and wore it until the day he gave up his powers and disappeared.

“We have to wear masks to hide our identity,” Luke told the group.

Harley shook his head. “No. You’ve been reading too many of these things.” Harley picked up a comic book and threw it at Luke.

Leverett picked one up and began thumbing through.

Luke looked up. “If they recognize us, they’ll go after our friends and family. They aren’t safe if we don’t hide who we are. We have to wear masks.”

“Why would they kill people I know?” Phan asked.

Anna smiled a tight smile for a second. “To lure you out, Phan, and those people would be considered an acceptable loss. It’s a low-casualty military move.”

“Why can’t we just paint our faces?” Harley asked.

“The Q.E.D. security system has face recognition software,” Luke explained, “and would see right through paint.”

“I’m not wearing a stupid costume.”

“No one said you had to wear a costume, you just need to hide your face.” Luke held up the cover, showing it to him. “Wear Army fatigues, hell, jogging pants and a muscle shirt, just so long as you cover your face.”

“The Chocolate Giant?” Leverett asked. “That’s a superhero name? Really?”

Luke shrugged one shoulder. “Millions bought the stupid things, so apparently it worked.”

Harley looked at the comic books around the room. “Your dad wrote and drew all of these?”

Luke nodded. “He had to. He was an asshole. Everyone hated working with him.

“I am not calling myself something stupid,” Anna informed them.

Phan grinned. “You should be Iron Fist Girl.”

Anna leaned in, glaring at him. “Not a chance in hell frozen over.” Anna walked out of the room. “I’m going to find a mask.”

They left, each in search of a mask that would mark the start of their new identities.

Left alone with BRINDA, Ray turned to face her.

“You call that good leadership? Luke could hardly keep control of the group, BRINDA.” he asked. “Harley or Anna would make a much better leader; you even admitted that. And Desiree has never seen Luke in any of her visions, and now that he’s alive, her visions are changing all the time. We can’t get a fix on the future now because he’s alive! Why the hell did you bring him back to life BRINDA?”

“They will not survive if Harley or Anna leads. Desiree has told us that.”

“She never said it was definitive. She said that with each one we brought back, the vision of that future changed. But now that Luke’s alive, she can’t see that far ahead anymore. So why the hell did you bring him back?”

She didn’t answer.

“I don’t like these secrets.”

“Luke can lead. He is strong and he has solid ethics. That’s all you need to know.”

“No! I need to know more! I need to know what you know, or think you know, in order to do my job, in order for them to have all the information they need, in order to make sure they don’t die again!”

“They will always have the information they need, Ray, and Luke’s presence is more helpful than harmful. He’s the one that convinced them to use masks, and to use his father’s stories to help formulate a guide for them. It appears, Ray, that you are experiencing a great deal of doubt. Have you lost faith in our mission? It is normal for humans to lose faith in the face of failure or hardship. I will understand if I must proceed alone.”

Ray sighed, looking down at the comic books. “No, BRINDA, I have faith, and I don’t doubt our mission. I doubt what you are doing and why, and I don’t understand why you can’t just tell me the truth! Besides, I have to believe this will work, because if it doesn’t we are all dead. Even you.”

“Yes, we will perish if we fail,” BRINDA quietly agreed. “We must succeed, and what I tell you, Ray, is Luke is the secret to that success. Trust me, again. I am not about to let Q.E.D. kill those I care for.”

Ray was stunned. If she were human, he might be jealous, but as far as Ray knew, he was the only human that BRINDA interacted with. So who else was she talking about? “Who else do you care for?”

Instead of answering his question, BRINDA replied, “Link terminated.” And her holograph disappeared.

Ray asked the empty space. “Who else?”