Ultimate Warriors (31 page)

     
She
caught them and dressed while he placed a cell call to Captain Marvelous. He
updated the Captain as to Blossom’s... uh... progress.

     
The
Captain chuckled.
"Good for you, son.
I knew you
had it in you."

     
Clark
stood a little taller. "Thank you, Captain."

     
Blossom
practiced teleporting from the bedroom to the kitchen several times, then into
the hall.
First alone, then with Clark in tow.

     
"I
can never get to the exact spot I want," she grumbled.

     
Clark
wasn’t too thrilled about that, but he didn’t want to alarm Blossom by telling
her so. She was already freaked out enough as it was.

     
"We
can’t delay much longer," he said. "The Captain wants us to report
ASAP. Lex’s bomb is set to blow in--" He checked his watch.
"Six hours, forty-nine minutes, and counting."

* * * *

     
Saturday, 5:17 p.m.

     
Six
hours, forty-three minutes, and counting...

     
Blossom
grasped Clark’s hand, closed her eyes, and tried to teleport into the HI ready
room.

     
They
landed in the dumpster behind the fake sub shop.

     
"Great,"
Blossom muttered, pulling unidentifiable muck out of her hair.
"Just great.
At this rate, all I’m going to do is get
us killed."

     
Clark
lowered his laptop to the asphalt, then jumped over the side of the dumpster
and offered Blossom a hand. "No, you won’t," he told her, but she
could tell he was worried. "You’ll do just fine. You’re only a little off.
The briefing room is directly below us."

     
"How far?"

     
Clark
hesitated.
"Thirty-six feet."

     
"Oh, God."
Blossom’s knees buckled.

     
Clark
caught her before she could hit the ground. "Your long-distance accuracy
is improving, you know." He steadied her on her feet, keeping one hand on
her elbow and the other on the handle of his laptop case. "Come on. Try
again.
Thirty-six feet.
Straight
down."
He described Captain Marvelous’ briefing room.

     
Blossom
sighed. "Hold on." She shut her eyes and pictured it.

     
They
landed right outside the door. "Not bad," Clark said, but Blossom
wasn’t so sure. There was more to this teleporting business than one would think.
It required a heck of a lot of concentration.

     
Clark
guided her across the threshold. The room was small, just big enough for a
round table and a few chairs. A tall, elderly man with a shock of white hair
rose to greet them.

     
"Clark.
You’re right on time, son. Good work with the ... ah ... recovery of Ms.
Breeze."

     
Good
work.
Sheesh.
Blossom rolled her eyes. As if taking
her to bed had been some kind of chore.

     
Her
stomach twisted a little. Maybe it had been.

     
After
all, Clark was a superhero. Oh, he may be a little on the underdeveloped side
physically, but a lot of women wouldn’t care about that. They’d be looking for
the prestige of dating a superhero. Clark probably slept with a different woman
every night.

     
Her
stomach twisted some more. She didn’t like thinking about that.

     
"Ah,
Blossom," Captain Marvelous was saying. "Good to meet you, my
girl." He wrinkled his nose. "What is that smell?"

     
"We
had a small mishap, sir," Clark explained.
"Nothing
to get alarmed about."

     
"I
see. Well, get cleaned up. The faster you get into Lex’s lair, the safer the
world will be."

* * * *

     
Saturday, 6:22 p.m.

     
Five
hours, thirty-eight minutes, and counting...

     
"I
don’t know if I can do this," Blossom told Clark. They were standing in
the middle of a
very
closed Megalopolis Museum of
Natural History, in front of an enormous Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. "I
was supposed to land us next to the Triceratops."

     
"That’s
only a few feet away," Clark pointed out. "And it could have been
worse. You might have teleported us into the men’s room."

     
She
frowned at him. "Don’t joke. We’ve been practicing for hours, and the best
I’ve done is three feet from the target. According to the Captain, Lex Loser’s
underground lair is a twisting maze of narrow passages. I’ll never hit one.
We’ll materialize right in bedrock."

     
"His
central lab is a large room. We’ll go for that."

     
"And
lose the element of surprise," Blossom grumbled. "He’ll see us coming
and blast us before you get a chance to defuse the bomb."

     
"Jeez,"
said Clark. "Are you always this pessimistic?"

     
"I
don’t know," admitted Blossom. "I’ve never done anything this
important before."

     
"Welcome
to the wonderful world of superheroes," Clark said.

* * * *

     
Saturday, 8:30 p.m.

     
Three
hours, thirty minutes, and counting...

     
"Ready?"
Captain Marvelous asked.

     
Clark
glanced at Blossom. She didn’t look the least bit ready, but unfortunately,
their time had run out.

     
"Ready,"
Clark said.

     
"Go,"
the Captain said.

* * * *

     
Saturday, 8:33 p.m.

     
Three
hours, twenty-seven minutes, and counting...

     
Well,
the good news was, Blossom didn’t teleport them into bedrock. The bad news was
,
Clark had no idea where they were. They’d materialized in
a narrow channel enclosed by rocky walls. He raised his flashlight and shone
the beam first in one direction, then the other.
Nothing.

     
A drop
of water splashed onto his nose. He sneezed. The sound echoed like a
thunderclap.

     
"I
hope Lex didn’t hear that," Blossom said.

     
Clark
unzipped his laptop case and powered up the machine. If he could get a
satellite signal, he could triangulate their location with his GPS receiver. He
punched in the required keystrokes. "Come on..."

     
A
"no service" message flashed onto the screen.

     
"Damn,"
Clark said. "I guess we’re on our own."

     
"Not
what I wanted to hear," Blossom said. She’d found out during her practice
sessions that if she didn’t know where she was, it was much harder to get where
she wanted to go.

     
Clark
zipped up his laptop,
then
swung his flashlight to the
front and rear. "Which way do you think?"

     
Blossom
closed her eyes and pointed.
"That way."

     
Clark
clipped the flashlight onto his belt and put his arm around her waist.
"Ready when you are," he said.

* * * *

     
Saturday, 11:46 p.m.

     
Fourteen
minutes, and counting...

     
"Ah, Clark.
I knew they would send you."

     
Lex’s
voice was casual, but the way his fingers stroked the buttons and levers on his
futuristic-looking control panel was anything but. Clark swallowed hard. He’d
hoped to defuse the bomb before Lex noticed anything was amiss. Unfortunately,
after three frustrating hours of bouncing through caves and tunnels like human
ping pong balls, Blossom had finally landed them right at Lex’s feet. Within
seconds, they’d found their arms stretched overhead, restrained by robotically
controlled shackles. And not just your regular, everyday, run of the mill
titanium shackles, either. No. Lex had imprisoned Clark with...

     
"Magnets,"
Lex said, sounding inordinately pleased with
himself
.
"Your one weakness.
Your psychic computer tampering
powers are useless, Clark."

     
Clark supposed
it was better than materializing in bedrock, but not by much.

     
"Only
a few minutes until detonation," Lex said, squinting up at the foot-high
digital clock on the wall above his head.

     
11:48:23
Eleven
minutes, thirty-seven seconds and counting. And
Clark was strung up like a side of beef, powerless to stop humanity’s
destruction.

     
Lex
chuckled as his fingers danced over the control panel. "We’ll want to
watch, of course." He pushed a button and a picture appeared on the flat
screen overhead.
Downtown Megalopolis, bustling with
nighttime activity.

     
"You
don’t want to go through with this, Lex," Clark said.

     
Lex ran
a hand over his bald head.
"Why not?"
He
seemed genuinely puzzled.

     
Clark eyed
his laptop, lying useless on the floor at his feet. "Say your scheme is
successful. Say you kill everyone in the world. What will you do for fun when
there’s no one left to terrorize?"

     
Lex’s
brows drew in. "A good point," he said, tapping his finger against
his lips. "I didn’t consider that." He laughed. "I guess I’ll
have to keep your girlfriend. That should be amusing."

     
Clark
felt Blossom go stiff beside him. "Not an option," he told Lex.
"You’d have to kill me first."

     
Lex
smiled broadly. "That can be arranged." He reached under the counter
and drew out a small caliber pistol. He leveled it at a point midway between
Clark’s eyes.

     
Beads of
sweat broke out on Clark’s forehead.

     
The
trigger cocked.

     
"No,"
Blossom whispered.

     
"Oh,
yes, yes, yes!" Lex said with an evil, maniacal laugh.

     
Clark’s
closed his eyes and braced for the end, a sharp sense of failure slicing
through him. Some superhero he turned out to be. He should have let Bruce
handle this one. Maybe then, humanity would’ve had a chance.

     
The
gun’s blast sounded in his ears. Clark’s body went rigid, waiting for the pain.

     
It
didn’t come.

     
What
the...?

     
He
opened his eyes,
then
blinked to clear his vision. Lex
Loser was sprawled on the ground, unconscious,
his
gun
loose in his fingers. Blossom sat on his back, a startled look on her face.

     
"I
did it," she said. "I really did it. I hit my target."

     
"Hit
it hard, it looks like," Clark said.

     
"He
smashed his head on the way down," Blossom said. "That part was pure
luck."

     
Clark
rattled his shackles. "The key," he said. "Find it. We’ve only
got--" He checked the digital clock. Shit. "Nine minutes, seventeen
seconds."

     
Blossom
sifted frantically through Lex’s pockets.
"Got it."
She lunged to Clark’s side. Going up on her toes, she slid the key home--first
one wrist, then the other.