The Dummies Guide for Superheroes: Introduction
Chapter 2

At the center of each Q.E.D. office across the globe was a roomthat never appeared on any public blueprint, and each Core contained a linkedto the Biological Recuperative Integrated Networking Device and Architecture(BRINDA). It was a quantum computer that operated on a level of the Internetthat was said to be deeper than the known depths of the dark web. The maincomputer was based at the Santa Clara, California campus. BRINDA monitored themainframe of every Q.E.D. branch worldwide, 98% of the world’s Internet serversand Fortune 500 computers, and had components embedded in nearly everytechnology that was being invented. It was also the secret and power behindQ.E.D.’s rise to global power.

The supercomputer had been designed by Doctor Rayond Fortuna twodecades before Brundon had been hired as BRINDA’s NOC. Between Rayond beingfired and Brundon being hired, Q.E.D. went through dozens of NOCs. Most quitbecause the supercomputer was erratic, doing things they couldn’t explain orcontrol, which was blamed on Rayond’s barely decipherable programming. It was astrange hybrid of every code ever used and blended BRINDA with every past andnew technology. Brundon had been the first to make any sense of it within a fewweeks of his job, and he had been able to reduce the supercomputer’s erraticbehavior.

Although this was all a secret to the world, the largest,stringent secret of BRINDA was why it had storage capacity that continued toexceed any computerized device known to man. Currently, its total capacity wasclose to 1.2 yottabytes (1 trillion terabytes) but this barely-imaginablestorage capacity came at a grisly price. Rayond had discovered that DNA couldbe recoded and a body was capable of becoming a storage devices, however,recoding DNA with data would killed a person. So he experimented and perfectedthe storage using cadavers and unlocked the largest source of data storage atthat time: between 198 to 200 exabytes of information.

But like with anything else dealing with humans, there were flaws.The constant coding and recoding caused the bodies to burn out within 6 months,but this time frame was variable by 3 months depending on the race, sex, andmost importantly, the genetic purity of the corpse.

When Brundon first began that meant that ever twenty weeks hespent seventy-two hours globe rotting and replacing ‘storage units’ close tothe burn out time at Q.E.D. facilities world-wide. This discover could havebeen a marvel in the medical field, even have potential cures to disease, butQ.E.D. kept the knowledge limited to a handful of people. During Brundon’stenure, he was aware of two times someone had tried to take the informationpublic. Both times the person disappeared under mysterious circumstances, andsoon the information was chalked up to the rantings of a lunatic.

Then Luke was hired and one of his first inventions was anartificial life support stasis suit. It was a project he began when he wasworking on his Masters and much like the recoding of DNA, it could have been amedical marvel. The suit fitted no a person’s body and supplied the body withall of the monitoring that was normally done with a roomful of equipment. Ithad a respirator that fitted into the mouth and nose, replacing the need forthe bulky hose normally used to intubate a patient. It took blood pressure,monitored oxygen levels, brain waves from the collar, and could heat or coolthe body as needed to keep the body in a near freezing, hibernation state.Stasis turned out to be the key to extend the corpse’s use from 6 months to 15months.

Brundon was glad for that time. He hated having to look at thedead people, no matter what their purpose was. Dead people should be buried asfar as he was concerned, so when one did burn out, he couldn’t be happier…

When Monica strode into the Core she found Brundon running scanson a Latino woman. Overhead the holographic face of BRINDA hovered in the airand appeared to be watching them. She was Rayond’s design, modeled afterMarilyn Monroe, and no one had been able to figure out the code that gave herthis appearance – not even Brundon.

“What’s happening?” Monica demanded. She wrapped her handsaround the box of storage spheres she’d taken from Luke.

“Another one fried. We had to remove it,” Brundon told her.

“Why do we keep losing storage units like this?”

Brundon glanced at her when she called the body a ‘storageunit.’ Seven years into the job and he couldn’t bring himself to use that term– it felt too heartless.

“It’s the only one this month.”

“It was four last month. I don’t like this kind of failure rate.What did BRINDA say about it?”

“Same as usual: Innate flaw, termination required. I shouldreprogram that response.

“Leave it. Have the staff take it out the back. Did this unitbelong to anyone important?”

Another reference Brundon hated. Who the unit belonged to wasthe person that the body was when it died – so yeah, they all did, as far as hewas concerned. She wasn’t concerned about that.

“No,” he answered.

“Good.” Monica handed Brundon the box and folder. “These are thestorage units Luke Peterfeso was working on. He said they were close to beingfinished. Finish them and get them online.”

“He said he was close to finishing them and you took the projectaway?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“He’s been working on these storage units for two years, Monica.If he was close to finishing them, you should let him. I mean… These things—”Brundon picked up one, holding it up for her to see. “These little tiny spherescan hold up to two zettabytes. These things are ingenious, but only—”

“Brundon!”

He stopped talking and stared at her.

“You will attempt to finish this project. We have aneed for this kind of storage capacity and we need it promptly.”

“I wasn’t told about any projects that need that kind ofstorage. The biological storage units have been more than sufficient.”

“DO IT! Question me again and you will have to figure out whatto do for rent this month.”

“That’s… That’s illegal.”

“Don’t push me.” Monica spun and left The Core.

Brundon was left alone with BRINDA – just the way he liked it.

He picked out an amber colored sphere from the box. He wanted totell Luke he had his project, but what if that made Luke angry and he stoppedtalking to him? He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his only friend. Hewalked over to a waist high shelf that held a thin tray of gel and dropped thesphere in the gel.

“BRINDA, analyze this storage device. Determine what we need todo to complete it.”

From surround sound speakers, BRINDA’s voice spoke. “Iunderstand this project was under Luke Peterfeso’s supervision.”

“Yes.”

“He should be allowed to complete the project. It would make myassimilation of the device proceed more smoothly.”

Brundon smiled, turning to face the hologram. “What you and Iagree on, the Wicked Witch of the West does not.”

“Are you referring to Monica Stokes?”

“Don’t I usually when I say that?”

“Yes. I will start analysis, but regret this will take longerthan she may replace suitable without Luke Peterfeso’s help.”

Brundon smiled at her. “You just take all the time you need,BRINDA.”

“You are using sarcasm, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“I see. I shall be exceedingly thorough in my research. Thisshould take an estimated two days and five hours. Will that suffice?”

“Longer if you can manage it.”

“I will attempt to replace as many areas as I can that needscrutiny before I deliver results.”

“Good girl,” he told the computer.

Brundon walked back to his desk and sat down. He went back toanalyzing the failed body, but with a smile. Brundon told the corpse, “Even acomputer wants to piss her off. That takes talent.”

The back door buzzer of Alms Mortuary woke Eric Sanders and hiswife from a deep sleep.

“Can’t dead people just wait?” his wife muttered into herpillow.

He smiled. “I’ll take care of it. Go back to sleep.”

He pulled on yesterday’s jeans and a T-shirt, and headeddownstairs.

Eric opened the door, staring at two Q.E.D. guards standing atthe back of a black van.

“Delivery from Q.E.D.,” one guard said.

Eric pushed the door open and held it back. The guards openedthe back of the van and wheeled out a gurney loaded with a body in a body bag.The three went into the embalming room and the guards transferred the body andbag onto an autopsy table. One of the guards handed him a medical chart and athick envelope.

“She was a detective and Army Ranger, give her a proper burial,”he instructed Eric.

Eric nodded, watching them leave. He slipped the chart under thefeet of the corpse and left the embalming room with the bulging envelope.

Another door to the room opened and two men dressed like ninjaslooked in before entering. They approached the table and one unzipped the bag,exposing the Latino woman that had burned out hours earlier at the Q.E.D. core.

“Check the chart,” one man ordered.

The other looked around for it and found it under the foot ofthe bag. He flipped it open.

“Anna Lucia Cortez. It’s her,” the second answered.

“Bring her.”

“Shouldn’t we put something on her?”

The other turned. “She’s unconscious! She doesn’tcare!”

“Yeah, but—”

“He’ll be back any minute,” the body snatcher snarled throughgritted teeth

The other pulled the body bag away from the woman and hoistedher naked body over his shoulder. The thieves left the way they came, missingbeing caught by seconds.

Changed into fresh scrubs, Eric walked in. He stopped in themiddle of the room, staring at the empty table. He looked out a window when heheard car tires squeal, watching an old, dark colored car speed by too fast toread the plates.

Eric made a face before bellowing, “Goddamnitnotagain!”

Luke sat on the hood of his two decade old, gas guzzling,Oldsmobile at Hawkins Point. The dirt pull off from the highway that rarely hadvisitors. There was one picnic table under a tree covered in carvings andgraffiti. The edge of the point was bordered by an old wooden fence that lookedthe next winter winds might blow it over, and beyond it tall grasses hid wherethe edge of the cliff was. Below the cliff the Pacific beat mercilessly at therocky beach and against the cliff, etching it’s way a little deeper onto landwith each wave.

Luke’s childhood house was less than a mile from the point.After his mother left, he spent most of his summers here to escape his father’stemper and his older brother’s torment. At low tide he’d comb the beach fortreasures, while high tide chased him up the steep slopes into the trees. Mostof those days he didn’t go home until it was dark.

Since he’d moved his father to a nursing home and sold thehouse, it had been years since he’d been back to the point. It was perhaps theonly thing from his childhood which hadn’t changed, but yet it looked muchsmaller and seemed much closer to the city.

Luke looked down at his hand and the storage device he rolledaround his palm. He was having second thoughts about what he’d done, andquestioned whether he should have included Mark in his research. He may knowMark, but he’d always had this nagging feeling that Mark wasn’t very trustworthy.Maybe it had to do with the whole having a wife and cheating on her for twoyears with another woman… Or how he saw Mark cut a lot of corners in hisresearch and projects.

He had just decided to abandon this idea and continue this alonewhen car headlights swung across Hawkin’s Point. It was Mark’s Prius, followedby an unfamiliar black Mercedes.

Luke slid off the hood, watching the cars stop. He didn’t evenquestion why his first thought was: What has Mark done?

Mark parked and got out, smiling at Luke. “I brought a buyer,”he announced.

“A buyer for what?” Luke asked.

A man in a suit and two very large, bald men exited theMercedes. The man in the suit had a very distinct face, a sharp chin, highprominent cheekbones, black hair, and olive skin.

“A buyer for your storage units. He’ll pay you a good price forthem. You did bring them, didn’t you?”

Luke’s hand balled into a protective fist around the storageunit he’d worked so hard to create. He had made yet another bad choice in hislife and why did he feel like this might be the last bad choice he’d ever make?How the hell was he going to get out of this one?

“I thought you wanted to help me finish it, not sell it.You’re asking me to commit corporate espionage!”

“Luke, this is Mister—”

“I don’t care who he is! I’m not selling it. I took them so Icould finish them and prove to her I could have if she had just let me.”

The suit man walked forward, smiling. His smile made Luke asuncomfortable as the two Giant men following him.

“Luke… May I call you Luke?” he asked. He had a distinctEuropean accent, but Luke didn’t know enough about accents to glean much more.

He also didn’t answer the man’s question.

“I’m prepared to pay well for those storage devices. And if youwant to finish them, I would be happy to offer you a job at my company. We’realways looking for rising stars.”

Everyone turned when another car pulled in and parked. A groupof laughing teenagers fell out. A billow of marijuana smoke followed them,wafting past Luke. The kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Lukewas going to use their bad timing to his advantage.

“Hey! Get out of here!” Luke bellowed.

“They can stay, Luke,” the suit man said.

“Get out of here!” Luke screamed.

“Fuck you!” one of the kids shot back.

Luke pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. “I’m calling thepolice as we speak. This place is closed at dark. You have until the count ofthree.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Let them stay. It’ll make our negotiations go more smoothly,”the suit man urged.

“One!” Luke yelled, hitting 9 on his phone.

The kids stopped laughing, watching Luke. Maybe they realized hewasn’t joking.

“Two!” Luke yelled. He pressed the first one.

“Let’s go. Come on James, let’s go,” a girl said, pulling aboy’s arm.

“THREE!” The second one was pressed.

The teenagers scrambled back into the car.

“I’m calling the cops on your ass you son of a bitch!” thedriver yelled as they drove away.

“Go for it!” Luke yelled back to cover his phone beeping when hehit send.

He slid the phone into his back pocket. He hoped the crashingwaves could cover the emergency dispatcher answering.

Mark walked up, grabbing Luke’s shoulders. He looked him in theeyes.

“Do what he wants, Luke. They will kill you if you refuse.Besides, it’s two million dollars!”

Luke shoved Mark away.

“Hawkins Point. I should have known, Mark. It’s isolated; no onecan hear the gunshot. Not here at Hawkins Point. A great place to KILLSOMEONE!”

The crashing surf muffled the 911 operator shouting, “I’MDISPATCHING A UNIT TO YOUR LOCATION, SIR. CAN YOU HEAR ME? I’M SENDING HELPNOW.”

Luke looked at the others. They didn’t appear to have heard her.

“How about we up it to 2.5 million per unit?” the suit manoffered.

“How about you shove your 2.5 million up your ass? They aren’tfor sale!”

“Either sell it to us, or we take it. You decide.”

Luke shook his head. The man made a motion to one of the largemen. He pushed his jacket back, drew a pistol from his side holster, and aimedat Luke. He retreated a couple steps, but even in the face of fear he refusedto give up his work to some expensive dressed thug! But more than that, Luke’smorals refused to let him turn traitor against Q.E.D., even if he did hateworking for the company and knew no one there would defend him so fiercely.

“Whoa! Wait a second here!” Mark cried. “Come on. Let me talksome sense into him.”

“You tried your method and it failed to work. Luke, did you knowthat Mark has a daughter who is six?”

Luke’s nod was slight.

“We do too. He’s very cooperative because he loves his daughterand wants no harm to come to her. As long as he remains that way, she lives anormal, healthy life. Now, let’s imagine your father in that same scenario. Hehas many years of life left, and although his memories may be gone, yoursaren’t. Imagine your guilt if you let him die because you decided to beuncooperative and unreasonable.”

Luke let out a laugh-scoff. This man really didn’t know anythingabout Luke. “He’s an asshole, even when he can’t remember who I am. I don’tcare if you kill him! I don’t even care if God kills him!”

“Your dear father must be very disappointed in you, Luke.”

“That’s new?” Luke growled.

“Kill him,” the suit man ordered.

“NO!” Mark screamed as the man’s gun went off.

The bullet hit Luke in the shoulder. The force threw him backagainst the fence between the edge of the parking area and cliff ledge.

The fence had waited for a strong wind to disintegrate, but itwas the full weight of one-hundred and fifty pound man that did the trick. Therusted, brittle names shattered under the weight and the rotted polessplintered apart. Luke stumbled backward over the cliff edge. He flailed hisopen hand for something to grab hold of to stop his fall but only caught air.Stubbornly he held onto his device, even when his knuckles brushed past a post.Air rushed past his ears. The weightless feeling didn’t push away his fear –Luke knew what he was about to land on and worse, nothing could save him.Kismet brought a fragment of his nightmare to life, in the most horrific way.

The sound of hitting the rocky shore was the worst. Bonesgroaned before a chorus of snaps and pops and unbearable pain. His teethshattered like crashing glass. There was a sound of Jell-O hitting the floorright before his eardrums popped. Then everything stopped moving, but not thepain. He couldn’t get a breath, and each time he tried the breath wasshallower. Despite the mortal injuries and pain, the stars overhead were brightand clear. A flash of light made his eyes dart toward it. A light flashed justat the edge of his vision and his eyes darted to focus on it.

At the edge of the cliff stood a man with hands, head, and neckthat glowed bright white. Maybe this was just the nightmare repeating. Maybe hewas going to feel like he was falling soon and wake up in his bed with thealarm clock going off.

The brightness of the man intensified until white light was thelast thing Luke saw, and then he slipped mercifully into unconsciousness.

#

Paramedics burst through the double doors of the emergency roomwith Luke on a gurney. The gurney sheet was soaked in blood. Sterile wrapscovered Luke, an I.V. ran into his arm carrying a bag of blood and saline.Leads from monitoring equipment flapped in the breeze created by the rush.

The paramedics had called ahead to alert the trauma team of hisarrival. The team grabbed the gurney and ran Luke into a surgery amphitheater.

In the bright surgery lights the damage to his body was evenmore evident. The left side of his chest had caved in. Broken bones in hisright leg and arm had pierced the skin. Blood ran from his ears and nose. Hiseyes were open, but there was no light of consciousness behind them. His skinhad turned to a gray color, and his lips were purple-blue – there was onlyminutes of life left now.

A doctor began working on Luke. He kept glancing at the windowsoverhead. Monica Stokes watched from one, and a dark figure stood behind her.The two looked on, neither showing any sign of emotion, or empathy.

A nurse noticed Luke’s right hand was partially balled into afist. She picked it up and tried to uncurl his fingers.

“Doctor, there’s something embedded in his hand.”

“That’s not a priority. I need more gauze pads.”

She obeyed.

For ten minutes the doctor struggled to convince Luke’s dyingbody it wasn’t time to give up. His body argued that the doctor was wrong.

The EKG alarm went off as his sinus rhythm became erratic.

“He’s going into a-fib. Defibrillator!” he ordered.

A nurse pushed the defibrillator over to him and powered it up.Another pressed three patches on Luke’s chest and pressed the defibrillatorlines onto the snaps.

“Clear!” she yelled.

People backed up and Luke’s body jumped when the button waspushed. His brain and heart made one last attempt at life. There were a coupleunsteady heartbeats but the damage was too extensive. The EKG line went flatfor the last time.

The surgeon looked up at Monica, who nodded once.

“Get him on artificial life support,” the doctor ordered.

The people in the room looked at each other, questioning theorder without speaking it.

“Someone out there needs this man’s heart and kidneys,” thesurgeon lied. “Move!”

They rushed to get Luke on life support. They looked up when thedoor opened and watched Monica walk in. The staff tried not make it obviousthey were uncomfortable with her being there, but now they understood why thedoctor had ordered this man put on life support. She was hereto take him, and it wasn’t likely to harvest his organs to save anotherperson’s life.

“Have you stabilized his vitals?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” the doctor said.

“Leave.”

A nurse opened her mouth to argue.

“Out. Everyone,” the doctor ordered.

Everyone left.

Monica approached the bed, staring down at Luke’s face. Sheglanced up at the windows overhead. There was no one there. She turned,glancing at the windows of the washroom. Empty.

She turned back to Luke. Monica took his hand, holding itbetween her hands. It was cool and soon it would be close to freezing when hisbody was put into stasis.

A tear fell on their hands. She left it.

“I’ll replace who did this to you,” Monica whispered. “Because…”

She brushed back his hair with a couple strokes of her fingers.A kind smile flitted across her lips.

“You deserved better than what you were given. You deserved morethan…” More tears fell. “You are going to become part of the system you helpedbuild, reserved for a special project though. One you would have loved,enjoyed. Or maybe…” She stroked his hair. “I will kill whoever did this to you,Luke. They will pay for hurting you like this. I promise.”

She lifted his hand to her lips. Fate was much crueler of abitch than she had ever been. It stole a man she loved before she had found theright time, or maybe just the nerve, to tell him, and to explain to him why shehad to take his projects before they were completed. Before she could explainto him why she loved him, and covered up all his attempts to get fired. He hadno idea what happened to people who were fired, and she had to protect him fromreplaceing out, she had to protect the kind man he was. She had waited too long,and now there was no time left.

In a flurry of motion she sat placed his hand on the gurney anddried her eyes, careful not to smear her mascara or makeup. With her rawemotions back in check, her cool, unfeeling demeanor returned. She strode tothe hallway where the doctor and two nurses waited.

“This body will be used at Q.E.D. Transport it there tonight.”She walked briskly away.

The doctor and nurses went back in to do as she ordered.