Chapter No.64 Rescue alamode.

Robert was home alone as usual when he answered a call from the White House. President Hollis had a request, but he didn't want to discuss it on the phone, so Robert teleported there.

"One of our diplomats has been arrested by the KBG and was tortured to confess to espionage," the President told him."

"Sounds like another case like Margaret," Robert reacted.

"This is a more complicated situation. Gary Fine has done some . . . some rather secret work for the CIA, but it was only to protect us from having sensitive data being stolen."

"Where's he located?"

"He's probably in the main KBG headquarters in Moscow."

"I don't understand why they think they could get away with this," Robert said. "We can extract him in the blink of the eye."

"They probably realize that and have him in a situation that would prevent extraction."

"Well, where there's a will, there's a way," Robert said with a grin.

"I believe they might try an attack on your home location," the president said.

Robert sighed. "That would not be good idea. We might be forced to destroy them if they did that."

The President realized that Robert was not being facetious. His implied threat was both a real and present danger that could not be mitigated by any known means. He realized that his best course of action was to allow the superheroes their freedom to solve these complicated foreign problems their way. If nothing else, it would avoid criticism from the hungry-for-signs-of-incompetence press.

Robert told his family what the president wanted, and they were in agreement with the rescue, but it didn't come with unexpected consequences. The instant they teleported to Moscow, they realized that an object was headed down from space to smack into their house.

Robert pointed at James and Sylvia. "Go and take care of the object. Your mother and I will do the extraction."

James saluted and he and Sylvia teleported back to the house. They flew up into the atmosphere to check out the object falling on a trajectory that would have it hit the house.

"Holy shit!" James said. "That thing contains antimatter, enough to destroy everything within a hundred miles."

"Can't we just make it disappear?" Sylvia asked.

"I think that would cause a break in the quantum laws. We'll have to stop its fall and take it out into space where it can explode without harm to anyone."

"Okay, I stopped its fall," she said. "Where do we want to take it?"

"When this thing blows it's going to produce an awesome gamma ray burst. We need to take it as far enough away from Earth as possible, but not way out."

"How about on the other side of the Sun?"

"Yeah, that might work."

Meanwhile, over Moscow, Robert and Janet were debating on the best way to extract Gary without causing too much damage.

"It looks like they have him suspended in a metal cell over a bunch of sharp spikes," Janet said.

"That's ridiculous! How would that keep us from extracting him?"

"It's rigged with explosives that will detonate instantly when he's removed."

"Yes, but they forgot that we are able to suspend time before we extract him."

Janet smiled. "Yes, you're right." She frowned. "But that's going to do a lot of damage to their facility, perhaps killing innocent people being held there."

"Well, I guess that means that we'll have to extract all of the people being held there."

"We'll have to do it instantaneously."

Robert smiled. "It would help if we had our children here."

Just then, James and Sylvia appeared.

"We took care of their attempt to blow up our house," James said. "It was a capsule that contained enough antimatter to destroy everything within two hundred miles."

"What did you do with it?" Robert asked.

"We took it to the opposite side of the Sun and allowed it to explode. The Sun blocked the gamma ray burst from hitting the Earth."

"Hopefully, it didn't do any damage to the Sun," Janet said.

"The Sun has most of the mass of the solar system," James said. "It's the big boy in the solar system."

"Okay, we need your help. We need to transport all of the prisoners in the KGB prison out at the same time. Gary's cell is rigged with explosives that will go off when we extract him."

"Why couldn't we just make the explosives disappear?" James asked.

"I think it's attached to other explosives that would instantly explode."

"We can do it, Dad!" James exclaimed.

"Okay, I'll stop time and then we'll go on the count of three."

"One. Two. Three."

Robert started time up again and the explosion rocked the location for several blocks.

"Wow!" James said. "That was a bigger bang than I expected."

"Okay, let's transport the prisoners back to the White House," Robert said.

When the superheroes and six former prisoners of the KBG appeared in the Oval Office, the President and his Chief of Staff were momentarily rendered speechless. They were looking at three men and two women in various medical conditions and state of dress.

Robert smiled. "We had to take all of the prisoners out to avoid the subsequent explosives."

The president picked up his red phone, and after a brief conversation, he hung up.

"We'll take care of them," he told Robert.

"We had to prevent an object that contained antimatter from falling on our house and destroying everything within two hundred miles. We will no longer tolerate these attacks on us."

"The Russians have threatened to reveal your identities," the president said.

"You must warn them that if they do, we will eliminate all of their military capability. They will no longer have any missiles, planes, tanks, subs, ships and nukes. As a warning, we have destroyed their particle collider and have removed all traces of antimatter. Even if they revealed our identity, we would morph into new personalities and then we would eliminate all of the means to make war from all of the countries on this planet."

President Nellis stared at Robert for a few moments before he replied. "I will inform them, but I don't know if they will comply."

"Oh, they will comply," Robert said. "You have our word on that."

The president watched the superheroes disappear before turning to his Chief of Staff. "I think this was not a good idea. It made them angry."

"In a way, I understand why they're angry. They just want to live normal lives and help people. They're not in any way like fictional superheroes."

The president was forced to agree, but he was still concerned about the particularly sensitive situation he had to deal with.

The Steris family relaxed at home after their latest adventure.

"I don't know if it was a good idea to threaten like that," Janet said. "I would hate to have to become someone else."

"Actually, we could clone ourselves into an army way larger than any country's military," James said. "Not that it would be needed to defeat any force."

"That's the point that we need to keep in mind. We don't have to destroy everything to save mankind. All we have to do is convince them that resistance is futile."

James chuckled. "Yes, we could become the Borg!"

"It's a good thing we're not the Borg," Sylvia said.

"I agree," Robert said. "We're supposed to be helping people not assimilating them."

"Maybe it's more like convincing them that peace is the only way to survival," Janet said.

"That should be our motto," Robert said.

They all agreed with that.