Chapter No.49. Reality

The Steris family enjoyed a week with no excitement. As was their custom, they were enjoying an evening together watching TV while James and Sylvia were playing video games.

The Vestal Virgins appeared, causing them to gather to listen to them, and that included Sparky, who was reclined on the floor.

"We will give you your final gift, perpetual life and mortal combat. Use them wisely."

With no further ado, they vanished,

"What the hell did that mean?" James said.

"I get the feeling that we're in this for the long hull," Janet said.

Robert sighed. "Yes, it appears that way. Open your surveillance app and see how it recorded their arrival."

Janet grabbed her phone and touched the app's icon to activate it. She noted that the app had sent a notification of an event, so she played it.

"It doesn't show them," she reported. She showed her husband the video.

"Interesting," Robert said after viewing it. "They don't show up, and yet it shows us looking at them."

"They have an invisibility cloak," James said. "Maybe we have that too."

"We know that they're visible to other people," Robert said. "Old Bob saw them, and the soldiers in Afghanistan did too."

"What do they mean by perpetual life?" Sylvia asked.

"Good question," Robert said. "It could mean that we won't age."

"That would violate the laws of physics," Sylvia said. "Especially when it comes to entropy."

"Evidently, we have been separated from the laws of physics. Consider the fact that we can fly around in space without space suits."

"Not to mention that we can instantly be anywhere we want," James said.

"All of this seems as if we're living in a dream," Janet said.

"A DC comic dream," James added with a grin.

His mother frowned. "You know what I mean!"

"Maybe that has something to do with the mortal combat gift," James said.

"Yeah, I get the impression that we may actually be doing physical combat with super beings," Robert said.

"We're not trained to do that!" Janet blurted.

"I suppose we'll have to learn," Robert said.

The land line phone rang, and Janet answered it. After a brief conversation, she hung it up. "Looks like it's back to reality. The FBI wants to talk to us."

"I'll go check it out," Robert said before he teleported to the FBI office of the two agents, Mark and Joe.

"What's the problem?"

"This case is driving everyone nuts. Some idiot or idiots are sending out envelopes with an extremely lethal nerve agent, one that is only known to the military."

"I thought that nerve agents violate International laws," Robert said.

"Nobody cares about the UN. It's just a token organization."

"Well," Robert reacted. "We have the advantage of not being susceptible to any chemical or biological weapon."

"That's why we summoned you. We've already lost two agents to this damn stuff."

"Who are they sending these to?"

"So far, we've been lucky. The warning went out to all of the federal and state agencies. They've intercepted at least seven attempts to kill high officials."

"How high?"

"Supreme court."

Robert rubbed his chin. "Yeah, that's bad. You have to wonder how the perpetrators are handling it."

"We're still trying to figure out how they've obtained any of it. It's highly classified."

"That would suggest that they're agents from a radical country. Now that most leaders realize that using conventional war is not feasible, they've resorted to clandestine methods."

"We're working with the CIA on this," Joe said. "Mostly because the attacks have come from inside the US."

"This is a Novichok type agent and it's really deadly in tiny quantities," Mark said.

"Does that mean it's from Russia?" Robert asked.

"We don't think so, but it could be."

Robert rubbed his chin again. "Hmm, this is going to take some thought. What we need to do is detect the stuff so that we can find out where it's being produced."

"Unfortunately, there are no instruments that can detect it," Joe said. "We have access to devices that can detect poisons and opioids, but not this stuff."

"I think I know who might be able to detect it."

"Who?"

"Sparky, the Wonder Dog."

They stared at him as if he had flipped.

"We will fly around the city and its environs to see if Sparky can find where it's being produced. I'll get back to you if we find something."

After he vanished, Mark and Joe exchanged confused expressions.

When Robert arrived back home, he summoned the superheroes.

"What's up, Dad?" James said.

"Someone is sending envelopes with a deadly nerve agent to prominent people. Our job is to determine where they are producing it."

"How are we going to do that?" Janet asked.

"We are going to use Sparky, the Wonder Dog," James said, smiling.

"I assume that we'll just fly around and wait until he gets a sniff of it," Janet said.

"Yep!"

They changed into their superhero uniforms and teleported into the air to begin a leisurely fly over the city with Sparky at point.

After an hour of cruising, Sparky suddenly barked and dived down to an old warehouse in a seedy part of the city. The superheroes followed him and began to scan the building using their X-ray vision.

"Are we going to go in there and stop them?" James asked.

"No. We'll allow the FBI to do that. Our job was to locate the production location."

The superheroes appeared in the FBI office.

"We found the place where they're making the agent. It's in an old rundown warehouse." Robert said before handing Mark a paper with the address on it.

"We really appreciate this," Mark said. "This is on the top of the mission list."

"Have fun," Robert said before he and his cohorts vanished.

Upon returning home, the Steris family could relax and enjoy the rest of the day.

Well, not quite.

A loud noise alerted everyone, and when they felt the vibrations, the superheroes realized something had blown up. After changing into their outfits, they flew up into the sky to search for the source.

"There's a smoke plume over there," James said, pointing to the south. Within a few seconds the superheroes were over the location and immediately realized that this was not just some industrial explosion. It had the markings of a weapon. What was even worse was the fact that several people had been killed and many more wounded.

With the help of their Wonder Dog, the superheroes immediately went to work pulling people out of the wreckage and resurrecting them or healing their wounds.

Emergency crews soon showed up, but they realized that the superheroes had things under control.

"What caused this?" a police Officer asked.

"I think it might be something like a Scud missile," Robert replied. "The question is: who fired it?"

"I think we've recovered all the victims," Janet said.

"Okay," Robert said. "Let's go see if we can find out who fired this missile."

They flew up and began an arial search to locate the culprits.

However, they didn't find anything.

"What the hell is going on?" James said. "Where did the missile come from?"

"It might have been dropped out of orbit from a satellite or space plane," Robert said.

"Let's go see if we can locate it," James said.

Robert smiled. "Good idea."

They flew up into space and began a meticulous search for the source of the missile, which involved avoiding lots of satellites and space junk orbiting at high speed, some over 17,000 miles per hour. Eventually, they caught up to a device that held several missiles. The markings on it didn't make sense.

"Let's deactivate the missiles and then take it down the CIA and let them determine who put it up here."

The CIA was surprised to see the superheroes bringing a space device down to their location in Langley Virginia.

Carl Burns, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, came out to see what was going on.

"We found this thing in orbit. It launched a missile onto a government building, which killed and wounded people. We resurrected those killed and healed the wounded. We have no idea why they, whoever they are, launched it."

"Thanks for doing this. It'll save us a lot of time trying to figure it out."

Robert saluted and he and his superheroes flew away.

After they arrived back home, James began a conversation about the event, "I hope this wasn't someone trying to get at us."

"It's a possibility, but I doubt it. I think they were trying to target someone in the government building."

"What agencies use that building?" Janet asked.

"I think it's mostly Homeland Security. There might be some other agencies that are not germane to this event."

"So, you think it might be the prelude to an attack on infrastructure," James said.

"Yep, it makes sense. We'll have to stay alert."

"Maybe we need some personal combat experience," Sylvia said. "Who's going to want to train us?"

"I think I know someone," Robert said.

The others couldn't imagine how he could know someone they could trust.