Chapter 1

The smell of damp newspapers and mold wafted through the stale and stagnant air of a poorly maintained bomb shelter. Although it was called a shelter, it was little more than a glorified basement. After 1963, all apartment building were required by law to have a bomb shelter. But after long years of being unused, the landlord had begun using it as extra storage for his useless trash hoarding.
*Clang*
Darius teetered on a stack of old Life magazines, each bundle denoted a full year. By the guess, he was standing on almost 20 years of history. His left hand clasped desperately to a pipe jutting from the ceiling in an attempt to help keep himself balanced. With each small movement, he could feel the stacks shift and sway under his feet. The strings that held the magazine's bundles together had weakened dramatically since they had first been tied decades ago.
*Clang*
“What time is it?” A middle-aged man halfway across the room asked.
He too was standing on bundles of what looks like Meta Weekly Magazines. Just like Darius he was steadying himself by hanging onto a pipe and was busy hitting another with a screwdriver. They had luckily found a toolbox that had only been mildly rusted shut.
“It’s… About 2:35 in the evening.” An older lady who was in her mid-sixties said out.
She was sitting on a cot along with two others, intermittently looking at her phone. Since they didn’t know how long they would be trapped down there, they had all agreed to turn off their phones except for one. That way they can save their batteries. It had been a pretty easy decision for everyone as none of them seemed to get a signal anyway. Darius sighed as he reaffirmed his grip and hit another pipe with the wrench that he had in his right hand.
His hand had already gone numb a few hours ago and it had gotten to the point to where after a few minutes he had to make sure that he was indeed still holding the tool. It had almost been two days since they had received the Beta Helbert Alert on their phones and rushed down to their apartment building bomb shelter. It had been no longer than 5 minutes before the electricity went out and they began to feel vibrations through the concrete walls, and seconds later a loud boom echoed throughout the shelter. That was the sound of the roof caving in, blocking the door to the shelter. Their only hope of getting help was to bang on as many pipes as they could and hope they carried the sound to the surface and alerted someone to the fact that they trapped.
They wouldn’t have been in such an urgent need to be rescued if their lame duck of a landlord had been keeping the supplies in the shelter up to date. The most current can of food had expired 12 years prior and none of them had the balls to try it and see if they would still be edible. They had more luck with water as they had a faucet hooked up to the city water supply that they used to fill whatever they could find. But even the water stopped after running after about a day. All in all, there were twenty-three people in the shelter. If they rationed the water they had they could stretch it for three more days. While Darius knew that he could tough out another day or so with no food, a big problem was that there were children in there with him.
*Clang*
Darius brought the wrench down on the pipe yet again but then suddenly yelled out in pain. He lost his footing and fell off the stack of magazines and onto the cold floor with a thud. The wrench clattered to the ground which caused just about everyone to jump up.
“What was that? What's wrong!?” Someone yelled out in the dark.
“My fucking hand!” Darius yelled out, gripping his right wrist tightly.
Light flooded the room as people began turning on their phones and activating the flashlight function to see. People began gathering around Darius to see what had happened. He opened his hand that he had clenched shut. Blood was pooling from a large open sore on his palm. One of the older gentlemen took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into his hand.
“Why didn’t you say you had a blister that huge? I would have traded places with ya!” He said to Darius.
“I didn’t even realize I had one. My hand has been numb for a while now. Fu... Shit.” He said trying to censor himself as he saw some the children had gathered.  “Sorry… Can you take over now?” Darius asked as he was helped back up to his feet.
“Sure.” The man said and began to look for where the wrench had fallen.
As everyone who too had been hitting on pipes checked their own hands for blisters, they made way back to where they had been before. Darius walked over and leaned against the wall just left of the shelter entrance. He lifted the cloth from his hand and grimaced. He thumbed his palm right below the blister. Even in the dark of the shelter, he could see the upper layers of his skin peel back exposing the pink, bloody flesh underneath. Darius almost gagged and then averted his eyes upwards. After catching his breath he looked down again and began straightening the handkerchief. He wrapped it around his hand and tied it tightly in place and leaned his head back against the wall.
His mind went back to the moments before the text alert. He had gotten out of the shower only 20 minutes before. He had put on his slacks that were part of his work uniform and a white undershirt. He usually waited till he got to work to actually put on his blazer and hat to avoid getting it wrinkled. Darius worked for the Carver City Transport System as a public bus driver. While he would be the first to say it wasn’t the most glamorous job in the world. It did allow him to see and meet all strange manner of people. Every now and then his shift would be moved around with the other drivers and he would have to work the late route that ended at 1:30 AM.
Darius didn’t particularly like that shift as it could be a bit dangerous. He himself had been robbed on two occasions. Two experiences that taught him to leave his wallet in his locker at the bus depot. But what made that shift at all bearable was every now and then a wannabe hero would ride the line. Their outfits were of such low quality most of the time that he wondered how they even expected themselves to take on thugs. Half of their masks were so unpractical that many would often trip on the steps of the bus as they entered because they would have to keep their heads upwards or else the cheap fabrics would drop down in front of their eyes. Darius always had to warn them not to try anything heroic while on the bus, even if he was getting robbed.
The thing about Carver City was it had strictly enforced Anti-Vigilante laws. The city is home to the headquarters of the UHA, aka The United Heroes Association was the US-appointed governing body of Metahuman law enforcement. Practicing Heroism without being a licensed UHA member was akin to impersonating a police officer. The criteria for becoming a member was apparently strict so many people never make it past the interviewing portion.  Consequently, the city had an unusually high level of disgruntled wannabes that lead to Carver City having the nation's highest Metahuman crime rate. Due to this, it wasn’t uncommon for a Hilbert Alert to be sent out via Text.
A Delta Hilbert Alert was the most common. It was usually the result of a Meta getting a bit drunk and having a fight in a bar. Unless you were witnessing this in person you were safe to ignore it. A Gamma Hilbert Alert was something to get concerned about. This was when the UHA would get completely involved and there was a huge possibility that casualties could happen if things went badly. The only reason Darius had run to the shelter this time was that it had been a Beta Hilbert Alert. A Beta Alert could be equated to a natural disaster, albeit one caused by a living person.
Darius opened his eyes and sighed, he wished he could get some sleep but that was impossible with this noise. He heard some dirt being shifted beside him and looked but noticed nothing, even in this low light environment. He closed his eyes and tried to rest again he tried to push the fact that he was likely homeless out of his mind. His eyes shot open as he heard dirt and rocks shifting again. He looked to the side once more, and then looked at the ceiling hoping to god that all the banging on the water pipes wasn’t going to cause a cave in. Darius looked to the side again and remembered he was right next to the door. He inched himself over and placed his ear to the cold metal. At first, he didn’t hear anything but then he heard it! It was unmistakable, the sound of concrete being moved and shifted.
“Sh... Shit! Everyone be quiet! I can hear something!” Darius yelled out.
The room became deathly still as everyone seemed to look at him. Darius pressed his ear to the door yet again and for a few seconds, all he could hear was the rhythmic beating of his own heart. Then he heard it again.
“I can hear it! Someone is digging us out!” Darius yelled to the rest of the group.
“Are you serious!” Someone yelled out as everyone stood up.
Darius couldn’t tell who it was that asked but almost as soon as he could reply to him everyone had rushed to the door and began beating on it with whatever tool they had in their hands. The sound became deafening as it reverberated off the walls.
“Were this way!” Someone screamed.
“Hurry, we have children in here!” Yelled someone else.
After a few more minutes had passed, two loud bangs hit the door. All the clanging of tools stopped in an instant.
“Stand away from the door!” They all heard.
Even though it had been muffled through the steel and concrete, it was still as clear as day. Whoever yelled that had to have one hell of a pair of lungs. Everyone stepped back and waited. They could hear scratching and ruffling at the door. Then another bang, everyone stepped back in response thinking that the door would fly off the hinge. Darius thought that the door frame must have become warped when the building had started to collapse, otherwise they would have been able to open it after clearing the rubble. Another deafening bang filled the room and light began to peek through the seams around the door.
“Go to the back of the room!” They heard from the other side of the door.
Without saying anything they all rushed to the back, and a minute later there was another bang. The door bent and with one more kick the door hinges broke and it fell inwards. A hulking man that by Darius rough estimate must have been 300 pounds of pure muscle stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light pouring in behind him.
“Everyone single file! And hurry! I don’t know how much longer we can keep the building up.” The man said in a deep and commanding voice.
Everyone did as he said and were led out onto the street. It was a bit surreal, walking through a tunnel of broken concrete, steel and wood. No matter how he looked at it, the tunnel should have been caving in on them. As he made his way onto the sidewalk in front of his apartment building he had to shield his eyes a bit from the sun. There was a man staring intently at the building. Both of his hands were outstretched and his palms were upturned as if he was holding a bowl. His clothes and hair were drenched in sweat and clearly see a throbbing vein of the temple of his head. Darius could tell he was with the UHA. Putting two and two together he figured he was some sort of telekinetic and was responsible for the hallway out of the building.
After the last of the tenants made it out of the building the Man o’ Muscles from before finally exited. He motioned to the telekinetic with a thumbs up and the man suddenly lowered his hands. A rush of air and dust rushed out of the tunnel as it collapsed. The telekinetic breathed out heavily and ran his hands through his hair and then shook the sweat from them off to his sides. Darius looked at the building and just as he had suspected in the shelter the building was a complete loss. “Listen up! There is a Shelter in place on 23nd Street. If that is filled then head over to Wallers Avenue. If any of you are Metas then please report to the Heroes Association tomorrow morning at 10AM. I would recommend getting to the shelters as soon as possible. There is a strict curfew in effect at 6:30 tonight!” The large man said.
“Technically you can do whatever you want till curfew but police and fire response is pretty much at zero right now. It's far safer to just head to a shelter.” The thinner telekinetic added.
Darius looked around and could see rubble in the streets and other building that had heavy damage. The air smelled like a mixture of dirt, oil and burning sulfur. Looking further down the street he could see that the air was smokey and filled with who knows what. He took the collar of his shirt and pulled it up over his nose. All it accomplished was to add a musty smell on top of what was in the air.
“What the fuck happened?!” Someone yelled out, followed by a bunch of other voicing echoing the same question.
“I don’t know all the details but we were attacked by what looks like extraterrestrials.” The large man said.
The crowd quieted down and looked at each other. Darius let his shirt fall from his face.
“You're kidding?!” Darius asked.
“No… I don’t kid. There were about 24 hours of fighting, then they all stopped.” He said back.
“They just left?” Someone asked a bit confused and still skeptical that he was telling the truth.
“No. Their ships just fell out of the sky. I told you I don’t have all the details. Now I would suggest you all go to the shelter, get some food, and rest up. Mindrome and I have more people to rescue.” He said and made his way through the crowd.
Darius stepped out of the way, almost tripping on a small patch of uprooted asphalt. Everyone else was watching them walk away as well. They were waiting for them to say anything else or to turn back around and start leading them to the shelters themselves but they just kept on walking. They watched as they walked down the street and began surveying another half collapsed building a block and a half away.
Darius blinked and looked back over his shoulder at his own apartment building. He had been living on the third floor, the keyword being had. The building was only four stories high and the top two stories had completely collapsed inwards to the second story, then when the weight had proven to be too great and then fell into the first floor. All that was left was a two-story shell of a building.
Darius ran his good hand through his hair and sighed. He looked around and saw that other residents of the building were taking it far worse than he was.  A few of them were bawling their eyes out, others were sitting on the ground as they tried to process the fact that everything they owned had just been destroyed. The rest were on their phones trying to contact loved ones. Darius widened his eyes and reached into his own pocket and brought out his phone. He began to thumb through his contacts to find his Mother’s number and hit the dial button. He placed it up to his ear and waited. After a few seconds of silence, he pulled his phone away and looked to make sure he had hit the dial button. It was then he saw the words at the top of the screen.
“No service? The hell?” Darius said as he held his phone up higher as if that would solve the problem.
“Do you have a signal? Mine isn’t working.” Darius heard someone ask him.
“Mine can’t get a signal either!” Someone else said.
“No… No signal on mine.” Darius said back to them as he looked down at his phone.
Maybe the lines are tied up with everyone trying to call at once. Could cellular networks get tied up like that? Darius sighed again and placed his phone in his pocket and then taking one last look at his apartment building, he began walking down the street. 23rd Street was about six blocks away and as long as he didn’t have to take any detours, he figured he could walk there in about 15 minutes.
After having to sidestep so much debris and rubble on the sidewalks, Darius just stepped into the street to walk. He wasn’t the only one to take this easier route as there were more people in the street than not. They all had to part every now and then when some asshole would actually try to drive through with the city in this condition. Darius had little pity for them when they had to stop and start walking themselves due to a large blockage on the road. He sighed wishing people had a little more common sense. Darius turned a corner only to see a large crowd of people blocking the road. He began to turn around to go around the block thinking that the way through was probably blocked completely due to some collapsed building. He then noticed everyone seemed to be looking upwards.
A good portion of a side of an insurance building was destroyed. A strange thought if whether an insurance company can insure themselves until he realized what everyone was actually looking at. Three people were hovering in a semicircle around something jutting out from the building about twenty stories up. A man in his forties wearing a red and orange uniform and sporting a short buzzcut and a scar over his left eye was talking to a woman with long blond hair. She was wearing a pair of baggy jeans and a tank top. She seemed to be at least  20 years younger than the other man and looked to have been on her day off when the shit hit the fan. The last man floating beside them was wearing a winter coat despite it being somewhat warm out. His feet kept making slight adjustments and his floating was slightly more wobbly than the other two. The fact that his boots were glowing gave away that he didn’t actually have the power of flight. He typed away on a tablet and the hovered over to the object they were in front of.
What Darius could only describe as a large metallic bean, sporting one of those gaudy paint jobs that seem to change color depending on the angle you're looking at it was sticking about a quarter of the way out of the building. The man with the glowing boots hoovered up to it and placed his hands on the thing. After a few moments, he looked over at the other two and shook his head.
“You sure?” The scarred man asked.
“Yup, It's a bit hard to read the tech but I know for certain it's de-powered completely.” The man in the glowing boots said.
“Alright. Cynthia, could you go and get all those people to move back?”  He asked the young women to his right.
“This is why you're not that popular you know? You never talk to your would-be fans.” She sighed with a shake of her head.
“Like I give a shit.” He said back to her.
“Fine, I’ll go and talk to the commoners!” Cynthia said in a terrible British accent as she gave a salute and then began to plummet from the sky.
The crowd gasped at the falling woman. She quickly flipped herself around in the air and then began to slow her descent. Her hair acted as if she was underwater and was floating in every direction but then straightened back out towards the ground. She stood there floating a good 5 feet above everyone else's head. Being as she was now so close to the ground it was far easier to see who she was. Cynthia Hillcox, AKA Galvity was a very popular hero. Although her power wasn’t anything rare, the ability to manipulate gravity, she was what you would call a 10 out of 10. She was wearing civilian clothes right now but her costume was well known for how form fitting it was. And to the delight of many teen boys she never wore a bra, instead, she relied on her powers to keep herself nice and perky. Seeing her in person, even Darius could see why she was ranked so high in the polls.
“Okay, everyone! Listen up! We are going to be moving that alien spaceship thing now. So we need you all to move way back! A lot of stuff will probably be falling out with it so we don’t want any of you getting hurt!” She shouted over the talking crowd.
“So please move back at least to the end of the block.” She added.
Darius looked up at the thing again. That was an alien ship? It didn’t look aerodynamic, but then again it didn’t need to worry about wind resistance in space he guessed. He walked with the crowd as they moved to the end of the street. Darius watched as the surface of the craft changed from a dark blue to a greenish yellow, then to a deep red as his position moved around it. Darius wondered if that was decorative or just some property of whatever material it was constructed from. When the road was clear the man with the scar grabbed the ship by a groove in surface and began to pull it outwards. He quickly pulled it out to the halfway point and stopped.
“What’s wrong?” The man with the boots asked him.
“Nothing… It's just lighter than I thought it would be.” He said back as Cynthia floated back up to them.
“How much do ya reckon it weighs.” The coated man asked.
“I don’t know only like 6 or 7 hundred pounds?” He replied.
“Wow!” Cynthia exclaimed.
“Maybe some sort of aluminum alloy? Oh well, I’ll figure it out later. Right now just bring it to the shipyard.” The man with the shiny boots said.
“Got it. See you later Whitley.” He said back to him.
“Alright, I’ll radio you when we get to another one.” Whitley said back to him.
“See ya, Tom!” Galvaity said with a salute and began floating away with Whitley.
The man with the scar, Thomas Alexander, more widely known as Stalwart slowly moved underneath the craft and began to lift it. Glass, concrete and thousands of sheets of paper began to pour out of the building as he began to remove it. Darius watched in awe as a man no bigger than himself was lifting a tank sized alien bean into the air. He watched as he flew away till he lost sight of him over a building. He sighed and then turned to continue on his way to the shelter. Darius ran his hands through his damp hair, wincing at the pain in his right hand. He sighed and took out his phone and confirmed that there was still no signal. He pocketed it and looked back up at what looked like people waiting in a line. Darius walked up to the last person and waved his hand. An older gentleman looked at him as he walked over. His clothes were dirty and had some blood stains on his left shoulder. He at first seemed confused if Darius was waving at him but then turned to meet him.
“Whats up with the line?” Darius asked.
“Uh… Waiting to get into the shelter on 23rd. This is the back of the line.” The man with a small bandage on his forehead said to him.
“What?! We’re still like three blocks away! How many open spots are left? ” Darius asked.
“Don’t know.” The guy said back with a shrug.
Darius looked at the man, and then to the line that to disappeared around the corner. Darius nibbled on his lower lip as he began to think to himself.
“By the time I get to the door, I’ll probably just be turned away. Maybe I should just try my luck at the next shelter?” He contemplated.
“Well… Good luck!” He said to the man and just kept walking. “Wallers Avenue it is then.” He said to himself and turned to take a new route.
Darius walked down the sidewalk, occasionally stopping to look at a damaged building. He pulled out his phone and took a picture of a stone gargoyle that had falling right-side up unto the hood of what had been a beautiful Maserati. It hurt his soul a bit but then chuckled to himself as he set it as his wallpaper.
“God’s driving you in heaven now.” He said and walked past it.
He watched as there were people crying as they sat on the curbs in front of their ruined homes. He stopped and wondered why he wasn’t feeling too sad himself. After all, he had just lost everything he owned, his home of seven years was gone. He thought about this and just as he was on the verge of suddenly fully realizing the situation he was in he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey! We need your help over here! We…’ The man said as before he took a deep gulp of air. “We found someone. They're buried and hurt!” The man said.
His face was covered in soot, caked on by his sweat. Darius looked at him for a few seconds before blinking and looking around.
“What?” Darius asked him.
“We need more people to help free someone trapped under some rubble! Come on!” The man said in a bit of a shout and turned to run down an alleyway.
Darius processed the information he had just received and ran after him. It wasn’t till little ways into the ally that the thought of himself walking into an ambush had crossed his mind. But luckily for him, there really was a trapped person. The building had collapsed and was blocking the rest of the alleyway. He saw two other people on top of a pile of rubble trying to lift a slab of concrete. One of them had a large pipe under it and trying to winch it up and off of the poor soul.
“One… Two… THREE!” The man yelled as they lifted and managed to get the large slab sliding down the pile.
They all began breathing heavily as they could now see the person trapped. Darius made his way up the pile with the man that had found him. They stopped and looked at the man half buried.
“Shit… Is he still alive?” Darius asked.
The man let out a gurgled gasp of air and reached out with one of his arms, the other of which was clearly broken.
“O-Okay! You two grab him by the armpits and pull.” The man with the pipe said motioning to Darius and the man that had brought him.
“We will lift up the slab pinning his legs. On the count of three!” The man said.
Darius and the other man got into position. Darius struggled a bit thinking of how to grasp the man with his hurt hand.
“One!”
“Fuck it…” Darius thought to himself and put both hands under his broken arm and tried to ignore the sharp pain.
“Two!”
Darius steadied himself and looked at the man. He was covered in blood, he could feel it soaking into the bandage on his hand. It was a surprise that he was still alive. It was then he realized that he was wearing some sort of uniform.
“Three!”
They all lifted and Darius pulled. A shot of white-hot electricity jolted through his arm. Darius felt like he was falling upwards. Lights of technicolor exploded in front of his eyes as he felt something in his brain snap like a twig. Then there was darkness.