Ultimate Warriors (22 page)

     
Sighing,
Blossom logged off and shut down. Bernie wasn’t a bad guy, really. You could
even make the case that his brain made up for what he lacked in physique. Of
course, that was pretty much true of all the guys lurking in the bowels of the
MPI computer department.

     
Call her
shallow, but Blossom just couldn’t seem to get past appearances when it came to
men. She liked them with muscles.
Lots of muscles, bulging
out all over.
She drooled over sculpted pecs and corded biceps. She spun
elaborate fantasies starring men who looked like the superheroes on her apartment
walls.

     
Which
could only be termed an ironic twist of fate, since Blossom’s off-the-charts IQ
had dumped her squarely into geekdom. In her world, men who fit the superhero
mold were very few and far between.

     
Life was
a bitch sometimes.

     
Thursday, 12:13 a.m.

     
Two
days, twenty-three hours, forty-seven minutes, and counting...

     
Clark
couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Captain Marvelous looking so grim.

     
In his
long and illustrious career as CEO of Heroes Incorporated, the Captain had
faced down more no-win situations than a marriage counselor. He excelled at
snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. His keen mind and unerring instinct
invariably chose just the right superhero to neutralize each dire threat that
came across the hotline.

     
Clark
shifted in his seat, trying to catch the faint breeze wafting from the overhead
vent. When you crammed twenty-seven muscle-bound superheroes--and a few
superheroines--into a small conference room, you tended to overload the air
conditioning system. Too bad the ready room was three levels underground. Clark
would have emptied his bank account for an open window. A little air freshener
wouldn’t come amiss, either.

     
Bruce
Wynn sat right up front, of course, shooting the room’s testosterone level
right off the scale. As far as Clark was concerned, the guy didn’t even belong
in HI. Bruce didn’t have any real superpowers. He was all cash, flash, and
gadgets. Without his fortune and his technology, he’d be just another pretty
face in the unemployment line.

     
Clark
unzipped his laptop case and eased open his computer. He was HI’s official
secretary, partly because he was the only superhero in the organization capable
of stringing words into coherent sentences, and partly because his specialized
psychic superpowers made it easy for him to take notes. He sent a burst of
mental energy into the computer, causing the hard disk to whir in response.
Bruce looked over, as if the sound irritated him.

     
Captain
Marvelous took his position at the podium. Clark sat up straighter in his seat
and gave HI’s fearless leader his full attention.

     
"Thank
you all for arriving at such short notice," the Captain said. "I
won’t beat around the bush, because frankly, we haven’t much time. Our
operatives in the field have just uncovered a DP of massive proportions."

     
Clark
and the entire assembly of superheroes gave a collective gasp. DP was superhero
slang for "Diabolical Plot." DP’s were perpetrated by EMG’s, or
"Evil Maniacal Geniuses." Clark shook his head. You just never knew
when an EMG would snap. When one did, it wasn’t pretty.

     
Captain
Marvelous cleared his throat. "According to my sources, Lex Loser’s
tenuous hold on sanity has finally crumbled. He’s retreated to a secret
underground lair to detonate a computerized neutron bomb. He intends to kill
the entire population of Earth--without damaging its resources. After the
explosion, he’ll live in luxury, attended by an army of robotic servants."
The Captain exhaled heavily. "The bomb is set to go off Saturday at
midnight."

     
A buzz
of horror zapped back and forth across the room. Lex Loser was an EMG capable
of perpetrating the worst atrocities, but this DP far surpassed any evil he’d
previously conceived. Clark concentrated on thought-streaming his notes onto
the computer even as his blood turned to ice in his veins.

     
Back in
the last row, young Peter Parkington jumped up so quickly he almost dropped his
camera. "I volunteer to take Lex down, Captain!"

     
Captain
Marvelous shook his head at the kid. "I’m sorry, Peter. Superhuman speed
and arachnid reflexes are not going to help with this one."

     
Dr.
Banning stood up next, already looking a little green around the edges.
"I’ll rip him limb from limb," he growled. His chest expanded,
snapping the buttons off his shirt.

     
"Uh,
I surely do appreciate the offer, Doctor," the Captain said. "But I’m
afraid superhuman anger’s not the answer, either." He held up one hand to
stop the verbal onslaught coming at him from every corner of the room. "In
fact, no physical superpower will solve this dilemma. According to our latest
intelligence, the computerized detonation device is so sensitive the slightest
touch will set it off. We need someone with psychic skills to defuse it."
Clark looked up from his laptop to find every eye in the room on him.
Psychic skills?
Hot damn! That was his department. Finally,
he’d get a chance to prove brains beat brawn any day of the week.

     
He
pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I’ll be happy to take on
the assignment, Captain."

     
"That’s
good of you, Clark, but not quite good enough, I’m afraid."

     
"But
sir-- I can psychically defuse any computerized bomb. All I have to do is get within
ten feet of it."

     
"Yes,
well, that’s just our problem. Lex Loser’s lair is three hundred feet
underground, and it’s impenetrable."

     
Bruce
Wynn stood. "Nothing’s impenetrable. I’ll blast my way in."

     
"Oh
right," Clark said, not even trying to hide his sarcasm. "Blow up the
bomb. That’ll work."

     
A
collective twitter swept through the room. Bruce’s face turned scarlet.
Luckily, looks couldn’t kill, or Clark would be writhing on the floor, gasping
for air.

     
The rich
playboy turned on him. "What do you suggest, Geek Man? That we just beam
over? Like on Star Trek?"

     
Captain
Marvelous cleared his throat.
"Now, now, boys.
Petty rivalry won’t save the day. I’m not exaggerating when I say the situation
is bleak and getting worse by the second. The bomb is set to detonate in two
days, twenty-three hours..." He checked his watch.
"...and
sixteen minutes."

     
That
quieted everyone down in a hurry.

     
"Unless
we can come up with a plan of action," the Captain said, "life as we
know it..."

     
will
... cease ... to ... exist, Clark mentally typed into
the meeting minutes. Bingo. The superhero buzz phrase set off a renewed wave of
furious whispers.

     
Clark
frowned as he considered the various superpowers currently claimed by HI
personnel. There were the mundane powers of strength, speed, and flight, and
the rarer ones of x-ray vision, magnetic levitation, and setting oneself on
fire with no untoward consequences.

     
And then
there was teleportation...

     
Clark
blinked. That’s it. If he could beam into Lex Loser’s hideout, he could defuse
the bomb. Well, what do you know? For once in his life, Bruce the
feeble-brained superjerk had said something intelligent.

     
Teleportation
wasn’t a common superhero skill. In fact, it was the rarest. Currently, no one
in HI claimed it. The last teleporting superhero, The Disappearing Man, had
died twenty-four years ago while trying to teleport onto a stolen nuclear
submarine. He’d accidentally materialized underwater and drowned.

     
That
embarrassing incident was rarely spoken of. But recently Clark had uncovered an
interesting addendum to the story.

     
Using
his laptop for a launching pad, he shot his mind through the wireless link to
the HI mainframe, racing along a complex web of pathways. He ricocheted into
the database, plunging deep until he’d found the snippet of information he
sought.

     
When he
had it, he stood and waved one arm at The Captain.

     
"Yes, Clark?"

     
Clark
pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Sir, I believe I have our
answer."

* * * *

     
Thursday, 1:02 a.m.

     
Two
days, twenty-two hours, fifty-eight minutes, and counting...

     
When
it’s too late for dinner and too early for breakfast, the only possible meal is
ice cream.

     
Blossom
snagged a quart of mint chocolate chip from the freezer. Tucking her feet
beneath her on the couch, she hit the play button on the remote and settled in.
The familiar intro music crooned. She dug her spoon into the cold, sweet cream
and sighed with pleasure.

     
Faster than a speeding bullet...
More
powerful than a locomotive...

     
She
looked over at the aquarium. Lois and Jimmy, the twin goldfish she’d won at the
MPI Spring Fair, waved their fins at her.
As if to say
"Get a life."

     
Able to
leap tall buildings in a single bound...

     
Okay,
maybe it was pathetic to spend the wee hours of the morning curled up on the
couch watching 1950s Superman TV episodes, but hey, everyone had to have a
hobby, right?

     
Look,
there in the sky... It’s a bird... It’s a plane...

     
Blossom
spooned the ice cream into her mouth and let it melt on her tongue.
Aaaah.

     
It’s
Superman!

     
The
episode was one of her favorites--#24, Crime Wave, in which Superman fights a
mysterious rash of crime sweeping Metropolis, only to be nearly done in by atomic
rays. So, okay, it was a bit corny, but satisfying nonetheless. Superman
rocked.

     
He
graced her walls in endless poses, both animated and via the actors lucky
enough to portray the Man of Steel in TV and film. Superman’s chiseled jaw,
bulging biceps, and cute forehead curl greeted her at every turn. She’d spent
literally thousands of dollars on Superman collectibles.

     
She
refused to apologize for what some people might term an obsession. So what if
she had to eat spaghetti every night for a month to afford her latest purchase?

     
When you
spent your life surrounded by wimpy geeks, you did what you could to survive.

* * * *

     
Thursday, 1:32 a.m.

     
Two
days, twenty-two hours, twenty-eight minutes, and counting...

     
"She’s
what?" Captain Marvelous asked.

     
"Half-human,
half-superheroine," Clark explained patiently.

     
"Then
why don’t we know about her?" Bruce demanded. "Every superhero
offspring is supposed to be evaluated for superpowers at puberty."

     
"Well,
usually that’s true, but this is a special case," Clark said.
"Blossom Breeze was born after The Disappearing Man’s fatal accident. With
all the confusion and embarrassment following that event, she was never
registered in the HI database. I only stumbled across her birth records last
month, when I hacked into Megalopolis General during the Dr. Squid incident. I
made a note to check it out, but we’ve been so busy lately, I forgot."

     
"You
forgot," Bruce sneered.
"Isn’t that special.
What if I’d forgotten to stop city bus #64 from plowing into that Girl Scout
troop last week?"

     
The
Captain shot Bruce a quelling look. "Are you sure The Disappearing Man is
Blossom’s father?" he asked Clark.