The Library of Powers

Chapter 16 - part 3

Soon they arrived at Bernard Harbour. It was a condensed town, residing in a small clearing less than a mile across, surrounded by forest on all sides except the one facing the ocean. Despite its constraints, it was bustling, with two distinct districts. Beachside, where shingled structures adorned with driftwood and seashells reigned supreme. Where the tourism for Bernard Harbour operated. Further inland was Woodside, where taller structures of old brick held boutiques and high-end dining. According to their directions, the public libary was just barely woodside, so they decided to get out of the car at the pier, where there was ample free parking.

Jackson stepped out of Melanie's bright blue jeep and into the crisp air, caused by the temperature and seawater. It was high tide. As Melanie and Ivory hopped out of the car, Jackson examined a nearby sign. "Enjoy your stay in Bernard Harbor!" it read in swirling white letters.

"Hey, how come the sign doesn't have the U?" Jackson asked to no one in particular.

Melanie glanced over at it. "I think it's talking about the boat harbor itself. The city has a U, the docks don't."

He swept his eyes over the large pier. Perpendicular to it were shorter docks, where boats that didn't want to spend the exorbitant fee to moor in Vera City stayed. "That's not confusing at all," he joked.

They started to advance on the public library. Passing surf shacks and a long line of uninteresting retail stores, they made it to the start of Woodside. Sandwiched between a vintage store and apartments, the public library took up the first two floors of a turn of the century buildings that exemplified the area.

Though a door under a green arch, they had finally reached their destination.

"Okay," Jackson said, "It should be halfway between the front-right and back-right corners of the Library. It shouldn't be too hard, but things have definitely moved around. I couldn't make sense of the new floor plans from the images I had."

"Let's do this!" Ivory encouraged.

They entered the public library and passed the metal detectors. Or, book detectors? Jackson wasn't exactly sure what they were, but every library (except the Library of Powers) had them. They were in a hallway with checkout stations on one side. A young Librarian smiled at them. Jackson took the first doorway to the right. It was a reading room, magazines lining one wall. Luckily, the Library was fairly open air, so he could see right into the main stacks. He made a beeline for the side and followed it all the way from the front corner to the far back wall.

There was nothing. The wall just kept going, without doorways or windows or any sort of opening at all. Ivory looked at Jackson, concerned. This couldn't be right. Perhaps it was on the second floor?

They checked the second floor, finding a similar situation. Then the other walls, then they split up to check the rest of the library. Nothing. Nothing at all. It was like the locked door had been airbrushed out of existence.

They met back up in the reading room. Melanie first, then Jackson, lastly Ivory. Ivory held in her hand a book. Handing it to Jackson, he read the cover. "From Lobby to Cell, The History of the Real Super's Trust."

"How much do you know about FRST?" she asked him.

"Not much," he admitted, "I tried to stay away from books about real-life tragedies when I was younger. I remember that they were a terrorist organization that operated around the country, but mostly in Vera City. Sometime in the 80s, right?"

"Flip through this. If what Phoebe said was true, we need to be informed."

Jackson could do her one better. He made himself comfortable and slipped into The Library of Powers. It would take him a few hours to finish it, but to them that was nothing.

***

If you had to describe the Real Super's Trust (RST) in one word, it would be troubled. Formed in 1954 as a PAC advocating for altered human rights, at some point in the 70s it was radicalized, shifting its focus from rights to the superiority of Altered Humans. This was uneasy, but not unheard of. Inside the Trust, talks of nationalism were common. It was the opinion of many board members that Supers were the largest ethnic group without a state. 

Slowly they shored up money for the purpose of forming their own country, one where they could discriminate against the much more populous unaltered humans. By 1985, they had embezzled half a billion dollars. They became impatient. There was a plan by this point, to build an island off the western shore of the US, far enough out to be in international waters. They knew that the US would never allow this, so the Friends of the Real Super's Trust (FRST) was formed. It was an organization of Superheroes who promised behind closed doors that when the time came to found their country, they would defect from the US and defend the new nation from inevitable international backlash. This country was to be called Librus, after The Library of Powers, where each of them had visited to receive their powers. (Editors Note: Librus was supposedly Latin for Library. This is incorrect, the correct translation is Bibliotheca. The closest translation would be Liber, which means book, but even that is incorrect.)  They thought that with enough high-powered superheroes, they could big stick diplomacy themselves from being attacked.

Fortunately, the US government had been tracking the dealings of The Real Super's Trust for some time and had enough evidence to convict them of fraud. The news hit in September of 1986, the entire board of directors of the RST had been arrested. What the FBI didn't expect was that the RST had a plan for this eventuality. The Freinds of the Real Super's Trust mobilized, and within twenty-four hours had an ultimatum. Release the board or a bomb would explode in a random city, every day until they had what they wanted.

Local police and members of the Adjusted Human Bureau (AHB) were set to the task of finding and arresting FRST members, but most of their rank were Superheroes, so who could be trusted? A total of forty arrests were made, with twenty-three later confirmed as members of FRST. It wasn't enough. The next day, the first bomb went off in Portland. Two hundred casualties. The next, New York City. A thousand. The third day would have been Houston, but the FBI had caught the lynchpin of the entire operation. A teleporting superhero, Vortex. She was manufacturing the bombs and giving them to other members of FRST to be set off. They thought they had solved the problem.

On the fourth day, seven bombs went off in Vera City. The tragedy took over ten thousand lives. Someone still had explosives and used it all in one large attack. And in a surprise to law enforcement, the perpetrators turned themselves in. Local heroes, The Calypsos. The five super team, once a herald of the city with the largest Altered Human population, now terrorists. Three members of the team confessed, explaining how they were forced into committing the atrocity by their team leader, Phoebe Winter. Phoebe Winter was promptly arrested, and the three who confessed were pardoned when they provided a list of all the members of FRST they could find. The pardoned were put in witness protection, and that was the end of FRST.

As for Phoebe Winter, she has escaped prison seven times as of 2006. She's always promptly re-incarcerated. No further FRST attacks have been threatened. The Real Super's Trust board will be released from prison in 2043. For now, the world goes on.