In a dark room, a single spot light turns on, illuminating a large, muscular man in a black super suit. He's sitting on a rather uncomfortable looking plastic chair. "I don't know how to move forward. What to do or where to go from here" he begins, sighing and looking at the floor. "My family is all dead, all my friends and coworkers have seemingly disappeared, likely suffering the fate as my family. I don't know what to do, what I know I must keep moving forward."
As the light shuts off, Bob sighs again. He presses the "Stop" button on a small remote. He's documenting his psychological state. After everything that's happened, the fact he's still going is impressive, but also worrisome.
Standing up from his chair, he turns the lights to the main room back on. The new house built where his old one was. He does to the kitchen to grab a drink of water. On the way, he checks his phone for messages from other Supers. Nothing. Scrolling through, he sees Lucius, Helen, and Violet, all gone completely silent. He messages Lucius in a hopeless attempt at a response. "C'mon, what happened to you all?" He says under his breath.
Suddenly, there was a quiet creak of the front door. Bob knew what was coming. He was being hunted. Somebody out there has been killing off all the Supers, and he was their next target. He crept through the door into the laundry room. The man hunting him was rather tall and gangly. Clearly someone seen as expendable. Bob realized that the glass of water would give him away. He could hear the man searching through the house. The water was still cold. The man knew Bob was still here, or else very recently. Bob listened closely, ear to the door, listening for the man to get closer. As the man walker over to the laundry room, Bob could see his shadow under the door. He waited for the gangly man to get closer. Bob slammed the door into the man, just hard enough to knock him out.
Exiting the laundry room, Bob checked the windows to see if there were any more coming for him. Nothing. Not even the sound of birds or cats in the night. This neighborhood became a ghost town after the explosion last year. The only car on the street was an old beater on its last leg. Not reliable enough to get him very far, and with the likelihood of there being a tracking device, he wasn't going to risk it. Bob had an idea. There was still one person he hadn't done a wellness check on. Edna. She wasn't a Super, so she likely wasn't hunted down. Of course, she'd likely be mad at him for getting a suit from someone else. It was worth the scolding for the safety and comfort of her mansion.
He called Edna that moment. "Hey E, I got a favor to ask. I know it's been a rough time, what with all the other Supers disappearing, but I'm okay and could use a place to sleep for the night."
There was a brief moment of silence. "Robert, you aren't wearing the suit I made you" she said in a passive aggressive manner.
"How could you possibly know that?" Bob asked.
"There's still a tracking device in it, and after tracing your call, I can see that you are very very far away from it" she replied.
Bob sighed. "E, I know, I'm sorry. It got stolen, and-" Bob realized what she had said. "Wait, you know where it is?" He asked with urgency.
"Yes of course, darling. I keep up to date on the locations of all the suits I make. I thought it was unusual that everyone was all in exactly the same place. You know, before the news broke" she said.
"E, if you can help me, I can get back all those suits and the ones made by other designers. I'll never even look at another designer's suit again" Bob said with hopeful excitement.
"You promise?" Edna asked.
"I swear on my old suit's reputation" Bob said.
Bob waited at the house for the chauffeur that Edna had sent. When he arrived, Bob was relieved to have the opportunity to get some real rest on a real bed, instead of the air mattress he'd been sleeping on. The drive was long and quiet. Not a single word out of either of them. The street lights illuminating the inside of the car briefly as they passed under them. He kept wondering how he was going to stop whoever had done all this, and who exactly could've pulled this off. As he thought through all his enemies, he couldn't think of a single one that could've taken out so many Supers that isn't already dead or in maximum security. One name kept coming back. "Buddy". He had died last year, though, so there's no way he could've done this. Still though, he had the technology, passion, and motivation to pull it off. He just lacked the man power and support.
When they arrived at the mansion, Edna greeted Bob with a disgusted look.
"Black, darling? You really went with all black? What are you, some edgy teenager wannabe?" Edna said.
"Nice to see you, too, E" Bob shot back.
"So what's your plan? You can't just go diving in head first with this one, Robert. You'll need to have a good plan if you hope to pull this off without suffering the same fate as your family" Edna said.
"Well, at the moment, I'm kinda rolling with the punches. Might be a little easier if I knew what I was up against" Bob said.
"Oh yes, that is something I wish I had implemented before all this. That Deavor girl's built in camera, that was a good idea, but I could never get a camera small enough" she said.
"Yeah, that would certainly make this task easier" Bob replied. "Hey, where did you say the suits were located again? Maybe we can determine who's behind this based on where they are."
Edna pressed a button on her remote and a map of the world appeared on the monitor in the main room. There was seemingly one big red dot. Right in the middle.
"That's strange. There's only one dot. Did the other suits get shut down?" Bob asked.
"Of course not, they're all just in the same spot, making it look like there's only one online. The location, that's the strange part. Out in the Atlantic where there's seemingly nothing. Suppose maybe it's an underwater base?" Edna suggested.
"No, if anything, it'd be a flying fortress or something. Whoever did this is smart enough not to put a base underwater, what with all the risk involved. They don't seem to be moving even in the slightest, so a flying fortress or a ship is out of the question since they drift even a little bit" Bob trailed off, muttering to himself.
"It's probably best to sleep on it, let the unconscious mind solve things while one gets a full night's sleep" Edna said.
She had a guest room prepared for him long in advance. There was a queen size bed, a ceiling high bookshelf, a dark oak desk that matches the bookshelf with a computer on it, and a baby's crib. Just the sight of it made him tear up. He laid down and tried to go to sleep. The soft memory foam bed was the biggest relief of the day. Regardless, he struggled to fall asleep. He kept thinking about his family.
Bob returns home to see a package left for him on the counter. Helen and the kids nowhere to be seen. He shook the package and listened to it. Silence. No ticking, buzzing, humming, or even rattling. No strange smell and the package was completely intact. It didn't have a return address, nor a mailing address for that matter. This wasn't delivered by the mailman. It didn't appear immediately dangerous, so he opened it up. Inside was a set of photographs. In each one, a picture of a different Super dead in a dark room with a spotlight on them. Including his family. Some Supers he didn't even recognize. Nothing in any of the photographs shown any indication of who took them or where they were taken. The last picture was one of him from his glory days. On the back, in bright purple ink, it read "You're next, Bob".