Supers Incorporated Read online

  SUPERS INCORPORATED

  Scot C Morgan

  Hero Street Press

  Copyright © Scot C. Morgan (2020).

  All rights reserved.

  https://scotcmorgan.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, or for personal use of a purchased copy on the purchaser’s various devices.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover illustration by Deranged Doctor Design.

  https://www.derangeddoctordesign.com/

  To the heroes of the world.

  Contents

  Note to the Reader

  Remarks from the Mayor

  Hero City Action News

  Hero City Herald

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  12. Chapter 12

  Findings on the Whereabouts of the Supers

  13. Chapter 13

  14. Chapter 14

  15. Chapter 15

  16. Chapter 16

  17. Chapter 17

  Note from Franklin

  Supers Inc Building

  Thank you for reading

  If you like sci-fi

  About the Author

  Note to the Reader

  If your are reading this, please know there is a later version with additional bonus content and the final edits and proofread corrections. It should have replaced this file. You may remove this book from your device and re-download the title to get the new file. If you have any trouble do so, please email me and let me know. I can send you the new file to replace one you have already purchased.

  -Scot

  [email protected]

  Remarks from the Mayor

  "It is with great enthusiasm that I am here today to announce to the people of our wonderful city and to the world, that by unanimous consent of the city's governing board, and with my full support, our fair city of West Keller will from this day forward be known as Hero City, the proud home to Supers Incorporated, whose headquarter building will soon be constructed downtown at the intersection of the newly renamed Liberty Street and Freedom Avenue. Hero City is proud to have been chosen as home to the world's first superheroes!

  Over the next few weeks, our beloved citizens can look forward to more information about the ongoing city revitalization efforts already taking place and soon to come, thanks to the generous support from the Supers Incorporated Public Improvement Fund."

  -Mayor Blake, Hero City

  Hero City Action News

  "As you can see from the crowd behind me, the streets around the new Supers Incorporated building have been blocked off to normal traffic, so people can walk around safely and enjoy the event.

  The Mayor pulled out all the stops to celebrate the opening of the headquarters building for the world's first and only superheroes, and it seems like half the people in Hero City are out here taking part in the festivities. We have live music on two stages, jugglers and balloons for the kids, drinks for the adults, lots of different food trucks, including my favorite, Fluffy's Tacos. That's where I'm going right after this report.

  The superheroes are due to make an appearance in about an hour. So, get down here soon and join in the Hero City fun!

  I've always been a West Keller girl, so I'm still getting used to saying our new city name, but I've got to say, I love it!

  Reporting live from just outside the Supers Incorporated building, this is Christina Kent for Hero City Action News.

  Back to you, Terry."

  Hero City Herald

  "Thanks to the work of Voltbolt, courtesy of the generosity of Supers Incorporated, repairs of the damage caused to Hero City's power station by the unexpected meteor impact will be completed by Tuesday. As the mayor said in this morning's press conference, "Hero City's electrical supply will soon be back to normal. We couldn't have gotten through this without the literal helping hand of Voltbolt, who spent all weekend sending electricity into one of the main power trunk cables."

  -Lana Lois, Hero City Herald (May 17)

  Chapter 1

  Thad smiled and nodded to Sarah, who was waving to him through the storefront window of her bakery as he walked by the shop like he did every weekday. He squinted to deal with the glint of sunlight reflecting off the glass, so he could get a better look at her long blond hair. Some days she still had it in a ponytail, keeping it out of the way while she baked, but this morning it was down, adding a little more pleasantness to his morning commute. He looked forward to stopping in after work to pick up one of his favorite bagel sandwiches for dinner, before hitting the gym.

  Spinach bagel with salmon cream cheese.

  His mouth watered at the thought of biting into it, but a few more steps and a slight breeze brought the morning offerings to his attention. He savored the smell of the breakfast pastries coming out through the front door, which she'd propped open, same as she did every time the weather was nice enough.

  Thad nodded to himself, agreeing with her assessment. He looked up at the near cloudless sky, which already glowed from the morning sun rising slightly over the buildings to the east. He glanced around the block, marveling at how the golden light played on the polished metal and squeaky clean glass of the skyscrapers and shorter brownstones, which had been converted from residential structures to trendy retail and high-end professional buildings a little over a year ago.

  The sounds of the cars creeping along bumper-to-bumper, almost at idle, and the half-conversations behind and in front of him as people walked with their phones to their ears were familiar and calming. The city was working, and everyone seemed to take it for granted that it would keep doing so.

  "And you're a part of the reason they carry on without fear," he said to himself.

  As he stepped to the corner of the intersection of Liberty and Freedom, he paused, filled with awe and pride, to take in the massive tower across the street, his destination, the world headquarters building of Supers Incorporated.

  Rising one hundred and one stories above street level, the granite building took up an entire city block. Built over the course of six months and completed a year ago this week, the Supers Building, as the locals called it, ushered in the era of superheroes in the world, and with it the security and peace they helped to ensure greater prosperity spread to cities and neighborhoods throughout the country and around the globe—at least to those places whose officials paid to take advantage of the extraordinary services Supers Incorporated offered.

  He felt thankful and humbled, knowing for the past year he'd been playing a part to improve the lives of not only the people of Hero City, this place he called home, but also the lives of citizens worldwide.

  He'd seen the transformation downtown and in the neighborhood of his youth, on the outskirts of West Keller, as Hero City used to be known. In his early teen years, still living at home with his mother, Thad had spent afternoons and, all too often, evenings roaming the unkept streets and narrow, shadowed alleys with his two childhood friends, Jenny and Peter. Crimes happened daily to someone he knew in the neighborhood—Carlos, owner of the corner convenience store, getting robbed, or muggings, even in daylight, like what happened to Mrs. McDunney, the woman who taught him english in fifth grade. Life was rough, but he'd never known
it to be otherwise.

  The three of them had each other at least, and that, along with his mother, made the situation tolerable, sometimes even enjoyable. But that changed one day, when Peter became one of the victims, taken from Thad and Jenny forever. That was three years ago. Jenny's parents moved shortly after, and Thad hadn't seen her since.

  For the three years since Peter died from the random gunfire of a drive-by shooting and Jenny moved with her parents to somewhere in the countryside—at least that was the rumor—Thad gave up on life. Instead of prowling the neighborhood after walking five blocks home from school, he stayed in his room, sitting in his tattered overstuffed chair beside his window. Every afternoon and evening, and all day during the summers, until his mom returned from her double shift at Mel's Cafe, the local diner she'd worked at since before he was born, Thad watched his patch of the dying city from the relative safety of his second-story perch.

  He saw crimes being committed, but knew the authorities wouldn't bother to come if he called them. So he didn't bother either.

  He kept track of how many bags of garbage accumulated before the city's waste management truck showed up to claim them. Some months he counted sixty or more in total in the five piles on his side of the street and the five on the other side. A few were always left behind too, usually torn, spilling their rotting indiscretions onto the sidewalk.

  For three years, since Jenny left and Peter left this life for good, Thad's world fell more and more into a shadow. He finished school and turned eighteen the following Spring, but there didn't seem to be any point in making a plan for his life.

  But one day that changed, though he wouldn't realize exactly how for several more months. His mother told him they were going to move closer to the center of the city. She'd gotten a new job at twice the pay, before tips, at a large diner that just opened. It was part of a revitalization effort, and to support new businesses, low-cost housing was being made available to workers who wanted to move into the area. The place was smaller, but newly remodeled. Thad had no reason to want to stay in his old neighborhood, and his mom seemed to think it might be a chance for him to find his first job, so they went for it.

  A month after they had settled into their new place, the demolition at the end of their new street began. He hadn't gotten a job yet, but his mom wasn't pressuring him. Many of the buildings in the area were still being built out for future businesses. He promised her he'd keep an eye on the neighborhood and find work before the end of summer. It took several days to uncover what was planned for the area being cleared to the ground. When he learned that a single building would be taking up the entire city block at the end of the street, he wondered what it could be.

  Every day he'd walk to the end of the street, which terminated into a perpendicular road in front of the construction site and wrapped around the block on either side. For the first several weeks, when he could get one of the workers to come to the safety fencing and talk to him, Thad got vague answers. The workers didn't seem like they were being vague on purpose, more like they really didn't know what they were building, or at least who or what company the building was going to house. But after numerous brief conversations with different workers over the span of several weeks, Thad finally got the answer that would change the course of his life.

  "I don't know if I believe it," the man said, tapping the top of his hardhat as he stared at the base of the building now under construction. "But supposedly somebody figured out a way to make superheroes, like in comic books." He chuckled, then shook his head before turning to Thad. "Sounds ridiculous, I know. But this thing." He looked at the partially raised building again. "This thing is supposed to be the headquarters for the company. Super Company, or something like that." He turned to Thad again. "Crazy, huh? Never thought I'd live to see something like this."

  "Yeah...crazy." The gears in Thad's head were already turning. He could hardly believe what the man was telling him, but he knew he had to be a part of it, if it was true.

  The man in the hardhat leaned a little to look past Thad. "They're funding all this." He shrugged. "So, crazy or not, real or not, if they're willing to pump this much money into the neighborhood, I say let 'em do it."

  Thad, still trying to imagine what it would mean for superheroes to be real, looked back over his shoulder at the street and all the new stores and apartments being built or already open, including Champions Cafe, where his mom was working. "I have to."

  "Excuse me?" the worker said.

  Thad faced the man again, but actually was looking past him to the tower under construction. "I have to work here."

  The man chuckled. "Yeah, well. Good luck, kid. I hope you get the job. Building should be up in another month." He nodded to Thad, then said, "See you around. I'll keep a look out. I guess you'll be one of the guys wearing a cape."

  A bus pulled in front of Thad, blocking his view of the Supers Incorporated headquarters building. He stepped back from the curb as the bus braked with a squeak and dust from the street kicked up into a thin cloud in front of him. He knew the bus was full of some of his fellow co-workers. Like him, they commuted to work the same way everyone in Hero City did.

  No capes.

  He glanced at the four-color advertisement on the side of the bus as the door opened to let people out.

  "Except for you, Mr. Awesome."

  Thad nodded toward the image of Mr. Awesome out of respect and admiration. As the literal poster boy, or man, for Supers Incorporated, Mr. Awesome—red-caped, red-booted, and suited from the neck down in gold proprietary Super Threads, which resembled spandex, but were a thousand times more durable—was the first superhero introduced to the world. No one was as strong and no other superhero had accomplished so much for the people of the world, and in only the short span of a year. He was an inspiration to children, a fantasy for women, and an aspirational role model for everyone.

  Thad briefly recalled the one exchange he'd had with Mr. Awesome in the service elevator. He'd been surprised to see his hero in it, but Mr. Awesome had explained he was avoiding the usual fawning he always got when he used the hero elevator, which always seemed to stop on several floors filled with office staff, despite the lift being for heroes only.

  "Just needed a moment of quiet," Mr. Awesome said, looking only slightly downward at Thad, who at six feet one inch, stood nearly as tall as his hero.

  "Yes. I get it," Thad said. "I need that too sometimes."

  Thad remembered how Mr. Awesome had chuckled in response, and that he'd then given Mr. Awesome the bundle of letters addressed to him, held together with a giant rubber band stamped 'Awesome', pulling the hundred-plus from a box on the bottom shelf of his cart. "Your daily. Since you're here. I guess I don't need to drop them with your secretary."

  "Thanks, er..." Mr. Awesome said, paying more attention to his fan mail than Thad, as Thad placed them into Mr. Awesome's hand.

  "Thad. Thaddeus. No. Just Thad."

  The elevator door opened onto the heroes floor and Mr. Awesome gave Thad a pat on his back. "Thanks, Tad."

  Thad couldn't bring himself to correct Mr. Awesome on his name as his hero stepped out of the elevator and the door began to close. He knew Mr. Awesome probably had major hero business on his mind.

  "Keep up the good work...you," Mr. Awesome said just as the door slid shut.

  The bus pulled away and the crowd of fellow non-powered, Supers Incorporated personnel crossed the street. Thad took another satisfying look at the colossal granite and reinforced glass tower, a beacon of justice for the world.

  "Time to save the day," he said before glancing around and realizing he was the only one left on the corner.

  "Yes, sir," he said, then walked the crosswalk and headed for the wide cascading stairs feeding upward to the front tower's only entrance.

  Chapter 2

  Thad had a bounce in his step as he climbed the stairs alongside his co-workers, heading for the oversized double doors, the only entrance into the Supers Incorpora
ted building. Made of bulletproof glass set into heavy steel frames, the doors stood twice the height of ordinary ones—an intentional design element meant to signify the entirely non-ordinary world beyond them.

  A few civilians walked among the dozens of fellow employees heading inside, as Thad was. He knew some of the civilians were there on official business, likely on there way to the Public Relations desk to request a superhero appearance for their town's upcoming festival or go over a contract for ongoing superhero protection services on behalf of their city's mayor. Thad could see that others, such as the mother guiding her young son up the steps by the hand, were there for the gift shop, and for the chance to see one of the supers up close.

  Thad smiled when he saw those two. He loved the fact that the boy was growing up in a world filled with the hope and security superheroes provided.

  Much better than I had it.

  Thad wasn't bitter, though. His life was too good now to be resentful of the young boy. No, he was happy for him, and he couldn't help but feel a little pride in knowing he was a part of the organization which was giving that boy a better life than he had.