The Dummies Guide for Superheroes: The Basics of Re-Coding

By A. Rhea King

Technology colossus, Quantum Electronics and Devices (Q.E.D.), has a stranglehold grip on the world economy, forcing its technology into every home and business around the world. The company board of directors, president, and CEO, Monica Stokes, will go to any length to keep the company profitable and on top, sacrificing anyone who can do that for them, or gets in their way.
This has been a hard lesson for a meek person like Luke Peterfeso. He is five years into a 10-year contract with the company and hates the company. Every time he’s about to finish a product that would get the attention of the board, CEO Monica Stokes swoops in to steal it from him and take his credit. When she orders him to hand over his latest product, he swipes a couple of the devices and agrees to team up with his lab partner to finish the project and prove himself to the board.
But his partner betrays him, and he is murdered. When he wakes seven months later, he learns that he and six others have been revived from death by the one thing that has helped Q.E.D. control the technology market – a quantum computer called BRINDA. The machine has become sentient and has foreseen Q.E.D. destroying humanity. She has brought these seven together, with their new superpowers to save the world.
Before they can do that, they must first believe her and work together. That may prove more than this dysfunctional team of superheroes is up for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. Rhea King
• Release date: Jan 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370190546

A. Rhea King

A. RHEA KING has been a struggling writer for three decades. While most authors put something interesting here, she prefers to leave that up to the reader’s imagination with minimalistic description. She has always lived in Colorado, she has a service dog, and she is not a fan of menudo (dish or 80’s boy band).

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The Dummies Guide for Superheroes:

The Basics of Re-Coding

By A. Rhea King

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 A. Rhea King

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please buy an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not buy it, or it was not bought for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Creating a Coding Plan

Chapter 3: Welcome to Your BRINDA GUI

Chapter 4: Knowing When Code Has Gone Bad

Chapter 5: Coding Secrets

Chapter 6: First Code Project

Chapter 7: Cache Is the Bad Wolf of Coding

Chapter 8: Finding Like Coding Minds

Chapter 9: When Dead Code Isn’t Really Dead

Chapter 10: Chasing Hamsters out of the Code

Chapter 11: Second Code Project

Chapter 12: Knowing When to Start Over Again

Chapter 13: Tips on Learning Idi Code

Chapter 14: Tips on Learning Leverett Code

Chapter 15: Tips on Learning Anna Code

Chapter 16: Tips on Learning Harley Code

Chapter 17: Tips on Learning Luke Code

Chapter 18: Tips on Learning Elemental Coding

Chapter 19: Legacy Coding Is for Chumps

Chapter 20: When Clone Coding isn’t Cloned Coding

Chapter 21: Dealing with Coding Snafus

Chapter 22: Who is Your Daddy? When the Code Doesn’t Make Sense

Chapter 23: Learning the Dead Guy Coding

Chapter 24: Dealing with Wonky Code

Chapter 25: When Your Coding Plan Fails

Chapter 26: Finding Lesson Links in Coding

About the Author

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Six people stand on the crest of a San Francisco street. They wear ski masks and costume masks and street clothes. They look more like bank robbers than the superheroes. Despite their fight to protect the people from the peccant and deleterious Q.E.D. Corporation, they have earned the moniker The Runagates.

The six face off against an army of frightening numbers. Many of the soldiers possessed superhuman powers of their own and are trained to fight and die for their country. They have been led to believe that the six vigilantes will destroy that country and all of humanity if they are not stopped. Behind them is a line of soldiers in mech suits that are nearly impenetrable. Helicopters armed with missiles and guns buzz overhead. It is like six David’s facing off Goliath, his wife, children, relatives, in-laws, closest friends, neighbors, and whoever else Goliath had ever known.

Anna Lucia begins, So… This whole knowing that we’re walking into a trap and being okay with it—

Shut up, Anna, Luke growls.

All I’m saying is we could have thought this through some, she insists. You know, maybe—

Is this really the time? Idi hotly interrupts. She told us this was going to happen, no matter what we did.

Yeah. And one of us dies. I refuse to let that be me.

I second that, Harley says.

Luke smiles. We can all agree on that, so let’s go hand them their asses and call it a day. Sound like a plan?

With only a gust of wind to prove they were ever there, Luke and his team rush headlong into battle. The six steamroll into the army waiting for them, throwing soldiers left and right. The superheroes uphold their short list of superhero rules and are careful not to kill even one man or woman.

The fight rips apart buildings and demolishes cars. Powerful psychic explosions leave craters in the asphalt and cement.

The soldiers have the numbers, but The Runagates have years of using their psychic powers. They know how to use each other’s strengths to make themselves more powerful, and how to use the weaknesses of the soldier’s abilities against the men and women.

Luke hears someone scream his name and turns. Through the fighting and destruction, he sees the masked face of a traitor.

Asshole! Luke snarls before speeding toward the man.

He is about to hit the traitor, prepared to knock him ten blocks away when his bête noire yanks a teenage girl in front of him. That doesn’t stop Luke. He knows he can pull her safely away before he attacks his adversary.

Luke grabs her arm, and a sudden, intense pain burns into his chest. Her eyes widen in surprise and shock. She tries to scream, but it is only a gurgling noise. Luke loses his speed and comes to a tumbling stop. But there too much momentum left in his attack, and he crushes the girl against a wall before they both fall to the ground.

He looks down. A sword has skewered him and the girl. This is the only vulnerability that The Runagates have. If an object moves slow enough, it can slip between the molecules which usually gives them invulnerability. Since throwing a weapon was still too fast to penetrate, this vulnerability had to be used by someone with superhuman strength who could push it through a Runagate’s body. The traitor did have that strength, but he was never close enough to one of the Runagates to kill them. Several attempts taught him and the Runagates this was so simple. With their superpowers mastered, it was impossible to get close to them without them knowing.

Until now.

The traitor knew Luke would slow down enough to save the teenager. At the exact moment, Luke’s speed was slow enough, he drove the sword through the girl and Luke. He had finally succeeded in killing one of The Runagates, and escape before the others could catch him.

Luke looks at the dying girl’s face.

I’m sorry, Luke whispers.

She tries to talk a couple times. It’s difficult for her to breathe – the sword in her lung.

On her last breath, she whispers, I got to meet… You. She has time for a slight smile before dying.

Something flew overhead through the building window above him and fire explodes from inside. Luke stares at the flames licking out of the window. He is dying too, but it is taking longer for his altered DNA to shut down.

The old, withered face of Leverett comes into view. I’ve got you, Luke, Leverett tells him.

The world looks strange. Streaks of light and dark fly around Luke, creating a bizarre mosaic. In the distance, a car alarm goes off. Even in death, it is an annoying sound.

Luke feels like he is falling. He blinks, and everything around him suddenly changes.

A sharp rocky shoreline is rushing toward him.

He doesn’t scream. Instead, he thrusts a hand out to break his fall, while his other hand balls into a fist, clenching something very precious to him.

And then…

JUNE 1, 2130

Luke Peterfeso jerked awake. One hand slammed against the mattress to break his fall, while the other curled into a tight fist to hold onto his precious item.

Several minutes passed while his confused mind struggled to separate his nightmare from reality. When it did, Luke sighed and rubbed his face with both hands.

When he was seven, he had an unusually resilient case of Scarlet Fever. It was strange both because it was unresponsive to antibiotics, and because he had the first case of Scarlet Fever in fifteen years.

That was when this nightmare began. While Luke was sick, he saw it every time he closed his eyes. He told his father about it, but he believed that Luke had just read too many of his father’s superhero comic books. Afraid he might start an abusive rampage, Luke never told his father he had never read even one of his father’s stupid comics about The Chocolate Giant.

Once the illness passed, the nightmare recurred each time he became stressed or depressed. As his life slowly filled with regrets, missed opportunities and disappointments – better known as adulthood – the nightmare plagued him.

Luke looked over at the alarm clock next to him, realizing it was the car alarm he’d heard in his nightmare. He sat up on the edge of his bed and stared at his reflection in the full-length cheval mirror. Luke hated the mirror, but his ex-wife insisted on having it, but then refused to take it when she left him. He hadn’t gotten around to selling it, giving it away, or better yet, breaking the damned thing until it was slivers of wood and glass. His reflection made him feel worse about himself. All he saw looking was a pathetic, tall, dumb looking man, as his ex-wife and deceased older brother described him.

He didn’t realize both were wrong.

With bright blue eyes, chestnut hair, and a clean shave, Luke was distinctly handsome. He wasn’t athletic, but that didn’t keep him from being tall, sinewy, and strong. He disliked most junk foods and fast food and drank water when he could afford to buy it.

He was not dumb. If he’d ever been asked to take an Intelligent Quotient test, his score would have placed him among historical geniuses. He saw things in ways that the rest of the world couldn’t, and his passion for technology fed his ravage desire to push known boundaries until they broke. Then he’d put them back together again, figure out what went wrong, and do it again.

With a sigh, Luke smacked the reset button on his alarm clock and staggered into his bathroom for a hot shower.

Chapter 2

Creating a Coding Plan

Luke was recruited by Quantum Electronics and Devices (Q.E.D.) at twenty-three, just as he began his Engineering Ph.D. at Berkley. For the last five years, he shared a lab with the same person: Mark Trundle.

Mark was a long-term employee, having put in sixteen years. He was always complaining about how little he was paid, although Luke was sure that was a lie. Q.E.D. gave raises to most employees every year, so Mark was making four or five times more than Luke by now. Luke decided years ago that Mark was perpetually broke because he was married to a wife he hated, having a teenage daughter he never said no to, and two high-class mistresses on the side. For five years they were all Luke endured listening to him complain about all these women and talk about any sport that involved balls or cars, neither of which Luke cared anything about. Usually Luke tuned him out with headphones just to get his work done, but today Mark was unusually quiet. Luke’s mind was still mulling over the recurring nightmare, and he didn’t notice the rare silence.

His concentration did break when he heard a Q.E.D. advertisement getting closer to him. He smiled, watching Brundon Doughtry walk into the lab and up to him. Brundon held up his iPad so Luke could see the advertisement.

The dumpy, balding man was twice Luke’s age and Luke’s only friend. They never met after hours, but they did call and text message each other. Yet, Luke couldn’t entirely trust Brundon. It wasn’t anything Brundon had ever done. Luke stopped trusting people in general long before the two met.

Their friendship, however, is why Luke pitied Brundon. Brundon was a gentle soul who was kind and generous. But no one else realized that about him because no one at Q.E.D. liked him. This dislike wasn’t just in the Santa Clara office, it extended to all the Q.E.D offices, and was based on vicious rumors and gossip about Brundon. Some of it was fueled by jealousy because Brundon was the only System Administrator (sysadmin) for the technology that had made Q.E.D. the superpower it was – a quantum computer known as BRINDA, located in the Santa Clara Network Operations Center, or The Core as everyone, even the media, called the area.

The other dirt on Brundon’s image was CEO Monica Stokes. The woman was an effective CEO who somehow knew everything that was happening in her company, but she was also a complete cunt. Because he answered directly to her, people often referred to Brundon as Monica’s lap dog. Brundon did everything she told him to do, even if he didn’t like or agree with her orders.

Between the hostile