Chapter No.62. Bad Day Afternoon.

James arrived at his morning gym class at Freemont High. Derick Stram, a biology teacher, serves as a gym instructor. He's an uncompromising egotist that likes to needle his students.

James and some of his friends were shooting baskets. Stram decided to put his two cents in. "Hey Steris, why don't you join the basketball team?" He laughed. "Oh yeah, I forgot. You can't hit the basket."

James was standing at midcourt holding the ball with his back to the basket. Stram was facing him. James gave him a smirk. "What's the big deal about hitting the basked?" James tossed the ball over his back without looking at the basket. The ball swished in it.

"Ha! You just got lucky. Let's see you do that again." Another student tossed the ball back to James and he dribbled the ball before repeating the trick.

"How could you be that good?" Stram asked. "You can't see the basket."

"I don't have to. It's right over there."

Stram gave him a mocking smirk. "Wise ass!"

The students laughed.

Sylvia gave James a mocking grin when they met before entering English class. They settled into adjoining seats before Mary Ames, the teacher appeared.

"We could go to the mall," Sylvia said. "I could use some new jeans."

James chuckled. "Sounds like a plan."

They appeared outside the Westgate Mall's main entrance and immediately sensed that something was wrong.

"That truck is loaded with explosives," James said. He turned around to survey the parking lot. "And I think that the guys who are going to detonate it are in that BMW over there."

"Why in the hell would they want to blow up a mall?" Sylvia asked, her face twisted with disgust.

"Who knows. I deactivate the detonator. Let's go over there and see what's up."

"Let's get into our uniforms," Sylvia said. "I'll go in the mall and chase people out."

"And I'll go over there and kick some ass," James said before he sauntered over to the car. He pounded on the hood, alarming the three guys inside. They got out and began shooting at James.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but you're wasting your time."

The men were dressed in black suits and were wearing turbans, which James thought weird, considering that they were attempting a terrorist act. Why would they want to advertise it?

People began running out of the mall and police cars roared into the parking lot. James kept the three terrorists from fleeing.

"There are explosives in that truck over there," James told the police. "I've deactivated the detonator. These three idiots were obviously going to blow up the mall."

Sylvia walked over. "Did they say why they were going to do this?"

"Nope. This could be part of a 911 style attack."

The police officers cuffed the terrorists and hustled them into a police van.

James and Sylvia decided to vanish.

Robert was home as usual doing some painting when he knew something was happening. Janet joined him. He shook his head. "Yeah, I sensed it."

They teleported to a Delta Airlines Boeing 375 near the cockpit of a plane that was approaching the airport. Two distressed stewardesses were there. Their faces advertised the severity of the situation.

"They stabbed the pilot and copilot!" the head stewardess blurted. We can't get in the cockpit."

"How did they smuggle knives on board?" Robert asked.

"We don't know," she said with tears running down her face.

"Okay, we'll take care of this," Robert said before he and Janet appeared inside the cockpit. The two terrorists had taken over the controls and when they saw the two superheroes the would be pilot tried to push the stick to make the jet dive, but he couldn't move it.

Robert turned to his wife. "Resurrect the pilot and copilot."

Janet immediately went to work repairing their wounds and bringing them back to life. Robert waited until the terrorists got up and tried to stab him. He made them freeze in place. They couldn't move but they could hear him.

"You two have made a grave error. We don't allow nonsense like this in this country. You're violating the law that says; 'Do not kill.' International disputes are handled by diplomacy not war or terrorism."

The pilots took their stations and got the plane under control. The two terrorists were bound with plastic strips that the airline has available to handle unruly passengers.

"Report what has happened," Robert told the pilot. "These two idiots won't move until you land this plane and the authorities take
them into custody."

"Thank you for this," the pilot said. "They caught us by surprise. I don't know how they got knives on board."

"I think they're made out of a matrix material that's virtually invisible to x-rays."

"Oh, that's not good," the pilot said.

"Give the weapons to the authorities. They'll come up with a solution to that."

Robert and Janet teleported back to their former locations. Janet was at the credit union and had been doing her job the entire time. Robert had been doing some painting. It wasn't long before he got a call from the FBI.

"We see that you prevented terrorist attacks," Mark said.

"It's all in a day's work," Robert quipped.

"Our superiors keep asking us how you know these incidents are going to happen. We've told them that we don't know, but they keep asking us."

"We're not sure ourselves, but it seems that God is alerting us to these attacks, which we believe proves that God is using us. We believe that God works through people to achieve His goal of saving mankind, even though we don't deserve to be saved. Think of it as a gift."

"We fully appreciate that explanation, but it's spiritual, which means that many people won't accept it. They assume you have an agenda and will exact payment by force."

"I understand why people think that, but we have no agenda other than to obey God. It does no good for people to attack us. We can't be captured or killed. We have been given the power to be anywhere and everywhere. We could easily go somewhere in space that no one can get to, but our mission is here on Earth, so the world is stuck with us whether they like it or not."

"We understand. We're grateful for all the help you've given us. I hope that we can maintain our relationship."

"We are always available to help you."

"We appreciate that."

Robert hung the phone up. "It seems that people don't understand that we're just doing God's work. They think we have our own agenda. I suppose it's inevitable, but the attacks against us will continue."

"I suppose that they will reveal our true identities, which will make our task more difficult," Janet said.

"Even that won't work," Robert said. "We could morph into completely different people with different backgrounds."

"I would hate that," Janet said.

"I agree, but it would be our only course of action."

"The only other way would be for us to exert our superiority over them," James said. "The threat of retaliation would make them back off."

"I'm not sure that would be acceptable," Robert said. "It might involve us killing."

"We need some advice concerning this," Janet said. "It's too bad that the Vestal Virgins left us on our own."

"That could be part of the experiment," Robert said. "God's trying to determine what we would do in this situation when we don't have advice."

"As much as I don't like it, I think our only course of action is to overwhelm them with deception," Janet said. "We have the ability to do all sorts of tricks to fool them. We have to keep in mind that even though we've become comic book superheroes, we are just ordinary people with extraordinary powers. We never had an agenda. We save people because we can. I think that it would be counterproductive if we resort to violence as our only weapon."

"I agree," Robert added. "Let's just lay low and continue doing what we can to save mankind without destroying them. I believe it's what God wants us to do."

James and Sylvia didn't object, and even Sparky gave them a positive bark.