Hot Mama

  Erica Songe was Siren.

  “Hold on a minute, let’s see if I can get the sister too.”

  Lulu hit more buttons on her computer.

  A photo of Irene popped up on the monitor. Lulu compared it to one of Intelligal. Same black glasses. Same sour expression. Same disdain for Siren and everyone else. I wanted to laugh. Carmen was right. Spandex costumes and bright masks really were very thin disguises. We all might as well go around with our real names tattooed on our foreheads.

  “That’s her! She’s the one who killed my son!” Bobby pounded his fist into his hand and let out a long string of curses. His face turned red then purple with rage and fury.

  Bella put her arm around her grandfather’s shoulder, trying to comfort and calm him down before he had a heart attack. I turned to Lulu.

  “It’s them. We agree that it is. Now, let’s figure out how we’re going to stop them,” I said.

  27

  “The first thing we have to do is figure out how to resist Siren’s voice, especially now that she’s going to be plugged into that TRAMP machine,” I said. “I can’t very well smash it to bits and throttle her if I’m under her spell.”

  “It’s actually called a VAMP machine,” Lulu corrected.

  I waved my hand. “TRAMP, VAMP, whatever. They both describe her.”

  “I might be able to help with that,” Lulu said. “Henry and the chief were working on some earplugs to block Siren’s voice. They’re not perfected yet, but they might work well enough for us, since we’ll be in the van.”

  “In the van? I don’t want to stay in the van,” Bobby protested. “I want to go inside and save my grandson with you.”

  “You’ll need all the help you can get, Fiona,” Bella added. “Why don’t you let us come with you?”

  “Because it’s too dangerous. I can’t take a chance on one of you getting hurt. I can handle Siren and Intelligal by myself.”

  Probably.

  “But you can’t handle Angel, Hermit, and Mr. Sage too,” Bella pointed out. “You’re going to need some backup.”

  I paced back and forth. “I need Carmen and Sam, or rather Karma Girl and Striker. Where are they now, Lulu?”

  “Carmen called me yesterday before all of this went down. They’d just flown into Rome on Sam’s private jet. There’s no way they can get back here in time.” Lulu looked at the Bullucis. “I think they’re right, Fiona. You’re going to have to take us with you, whether you like it or not.”

  I stared at the three of them, eyes shining, faces tight with hope. They were all so ready, willing, and eager to wade into battle and probably get themselves electrocuted or worse. Sending them up against Siren and Intelligal would be like throwing tender steaks to wolves—or to me.

  The ubervillains would gobble them down without a second thought. I saved innocents. That was my calling, my duty. I didn’t put them in danger.

  But I didn’t have a choice. Not if I had any hope of rescuing the others. Bella was right. I couldn’t fight Siren and Intelligal and save the others at the same time. Even Swifte would have been hard-pressed to do it, no matter how speedy he was.

  So, I thought about my three new teammates and how to minimize the danger to them. There wouldn’t be any radioactive goo around, so they wouldn’t become horribly mutated by going with me. At least, I didn’t think they would. You could never tell what sort of effect something like that stupid VAMP machine might have on regular folks. Carmen was proof of that.

  Besides, Bella had a power that might come in handy. If luck was really a power, instead of just some weird, wild mojo, and if she could get it to work in our favor.

  No radioactive goo and a little luck. Maybe things wouldn’t go too badly. I snorted. Yeah right.

  “Fine, you can come with me, but you have to stay out of the way. Agreed?”

  The three of them nodded their heads.

  “I mean it,” I snapped. “I’m not bringing you along so you can do something stupid, like die a noble, bloody death in order to save the others and the city. That’s my job. You’ll do what I say, when I say it. Or else I’ll lock you in the van and take the ubervillains on by myself. Got it?”

  They nodded again, a bit more reluctantly this time.

  Bobby, in particular, shot me a sour look.

  I resumed my pacing. “Even with you guys tagging along, I’m still going to need some extra help. Siren, I can handle no problem. It’s Intelligal’s chair and her stupid missiles that always have me ducking for cover. I need to get her out of that chair, or at least neutralize it, if we have any hope of freeing the others and destroying that VAMP thing.”

  “You know who you should talk to if you want more firepower,” Lulu said.

  “Who?”

  “Why, Jasper, of course.”

  Jasper was one of Lulu’s more notorious friends and Bigtime’s underground bomb expert. If you needed something that went boom in a big way, you went to Jasper. What he did wasn’t exactly legal, of course. The chief had thought about busting him many times, but since Jasper had helped Carmen rescue us last year, he’d given the demolitions expert a free walk. For now.

  “Jasper?” Bobby asked. “The Jasper who lives downtown in that big brownstone?”

  Lulu nodded. “The one and only.”

  “You know him?” I asked.

  Bobby shrugged. “I’ve had use for a few of his items over the years.”

  “Oh really? Like what?”

  Bobby winked. “Oh, this and that.”

  I opened my mouth to question him further, when Lulu interrupted.

  “We should get going,” she said. “It’s after four now. Erica, I mean Siren, is set to go on the air at seven-ten sharp.”

  “Then, off to Jasper’s we go,” I said.

  ———

  Lulu and I went to the equipment room. I changed into a fresh superhero suit, one that didn’t smell like frozen fish sticks, while she gathered up a couple of things we might need, including the earplugs my father and Henry had been working on and some more of the gas-blocking and RID pills. Then, we went back to the library, grabbed Bella and Bobby, and loaded up the van.

  Just after five in the morning, Lulu and I found ourselves in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Bigtime. A massive brownstone that even finicky Joanne James wouldn’t have minded owning towered above us. Bella waited in the van, keeping the engine warm. Bobby sat in the passenger seat and peered out the window. The streets were still and quiet, and the air was cool and smelled of impending rain. The streetlights flickered on and off, confused by the grayish dawn.

  Wide, shallow steps led up to the brownstone. Lulu hit a button on her wheelchair, and four jacklike devices sprang out from the sides. The devices hissed as they planted themselves on the sidewalk. They lifted the wheelchair several inches off the ground—high enough so Lulu could roll herself up onto the first step. She started to repeat the process, but I was too impatient to wait. I picked up Lulu, chair and all, and carried her to the front door.

  “I can make it up and down stairs by myself,” Lulu protested. “I’ve been doing it for years.”

  “We don’t have time for you to be stubborn and independent,” I said. “Now wake up Jasper.”

  Lulu punched a box on the wall, and a security camera swiveled over to see who was calling at this early hour. I could almost see the lens in the camera widen at the sight of me. I wore my costume, and my hair cracked and sparked with fire. I didn’t think Jasper got many visits from the members of the Fearless Five. Well, except from Carmen and Lulu.

  The box clicked on.

  “What’s the word?” a male voice asked over the static.

  “The word is silent night,” Lulu replied.

  The camera lingered on us. Jasper wasn’t going to let us in. I clenched my hand into a fist. Sparks and smoke hissed out from between my fingers. We’d get in one way or another.

  I’d make sure of that.

  The door buzzed open.

 
“I thought the word was boom-boom,” I whispered.

  “He changed it right before Christmas.” Lulu shrugged.

  “Jasper has a strange sense of humor sometimes.”

  No kidding. We entered the brownstone. A tall, thin man appeared at the far end of the hallway. A bathrobe hung on his bony figure, and his hair stuck out at those weird angles that were only made possible by a good night’s sleep.

  We made our way toward him. I moved slowly, keeping my hands in sight and the fire to a minimum. I’d been in the vicinity of one of Jasper’s bomb blasts before, and I’d been sore for a week as a result. So, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to startle the bomb guru. He might do something stupid, like try to blow us up.

  “Lulu, how it’s going?” Jasper asked in a cautious voice, his eyes flicking over me.

  Lulu extended her hand, and she and Jasper engaged in a series of slaps, high-fives, and other strange finger signals.

  “Fine, Jasper. Just fine. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry about ole Fiera here. We didn’t come here to bust you. In fact, quite the opposite. We need some supplies.”

  Jasper looked at me. “You need supplies?” he asked in a rather disbelieving voice.

  I shrugged. “I’m going up against a couple of ubervillains bent on taking over Bigtime, and I’m four team members down. I can use all the help I can get. Or rather, all the bombs you can give me. And anything else you think might come in handy.”

  Jasper stared at me. Suddenly, a smile creased his face.

  “Well, then, who am I to turn away a potential customer? Plus, any friend of Lulu’s is a friend of mine. Come in, come in.”

  He turned and led us farther into the dark brownstone.

  “You know I’ve long been a fan of your work, Fiera,” Jasper said in a conversational voice. “Your fireballs are most impressive. The intensity of the heat, the explosion on impact, the massive damage they cause. I’d trade my explodium bombs for them in a second.”

  The odd praise pleased me, even if it was coming from a somewhat mad bomber. “Thanks. Lulu’s told me a lot about your work too.”

  Jasper gave the computer hacker a pointed look that would have cut glass. “Not too much, I hope.”

  Lulu patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry, Jasper. Your trade secrets are safe with me.”

  “Good to know,” he said. “Good to know.”

  Jasper punched in a security code and went down a flight of stairs. I picked up Lulu and her chair and followed him. It looked like Intelligal’s lair, except it was much tidier. Wires and bits of metal were stacked in neat piles on top of several worktables. Soldering irons, pliers, and other tools hung from slots in a tall rack attached to one of the thick walls.

  “You’ve done some redecorating, Jasper,” Lulu said. “The last time I came here, this place was a mess.”

  Jasper shrugged. “I decided to get a little more organized. It was either that or blow myself up tripping over things.”

  Lulu and I froze. We stared at each other, then Jasper. The bomb guru paid no attention to our sudden nervousness.

  Jasper pulled out a legal pad and a pencil from a desk in the corner. “So tell me what you need.”

  Lulu outlined Siren and Intelligal’s scheme to take over Bigtime and, subsequently, the world. “So as you can see, Fiera here needs some help.”

  “What I need, specifically, is a way to disable Intelligal’s chair. Of course, I’ve tried many times myself. Fireballs, superstrength, collisions. Nothing seems to put much of a dent in it, except whatever Intelligal used to make it selfdestruct.”

  “It’s probably made out of solidium,” Jasper said. “It’s very rare and very expensive, but it’s the strongest, toughest metal known to man. Explodium won’t even scratch it. At least, not by itself. You have to mix some other explosives with it.”

  “I don’t want to scratch it,” I snapped. “I want to completely destroy it. Think big fireball. Think catastrophic damage. Think crumpled lump of charred, twisted metal. That’s what I’m aiming for. First the chair, then the VAMP device. Maybe even the ubervillains if they get in my way.”

  Jasper looked at me as though I was the love of his life.

  His eyes went all soft and warm. “Ah, a woman after my own heart.” He took my hand and pressed a kiss to it. “For you, my lady, only the best.”

  I stared at Lulu. Her lips twitched, and I could tell she was trying to keep from laughing. I rolled my eyes.

  Jasper spent the next few minutes puttering around, grabbing strange-looking objects out of various safes and lead boxes hidden throughout the room. Finally, he pulled out a small square box. He bowed to me and cracked open the lid. Nestled inside were ten round, brown-colored objects.

  They reminded me of chocolate-covered bonbons, although I doubted they tasted as good. My stomach rumbled.

  I’d have to eat some more food before I went toe-to-toe with Siren and Intelligal.

  “For you, Fiera, only the best. This is something new I’ve been working on. Explodium has become rather passé this last year. Everybody’s working with it these days, and you can practically buy it on the street corner,” Jasper said. “But this, this is something special. I call it obliteron.”

  “Obliteron?” I asked.

  “Obliteron, because it not only destroys matter, it pretty much obliterates it.”

  I nodded as if I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  As a superhero, I’m used to the creative, colorful, and sometimes ridiculous names my fellow heroes and ubervillains call themselves. Halitosis Hal was a prime example. But obliteron? For a bomb? Oh my.

  Jasper picked up one of the bonbons and rolled it around in his hand. “Obliteron is a special form of explodium, a mixture of it and a few other key radioactive isotopes. I’ve managed to put my own stamp on it with these little beauties. Inside each of these thick, plastic shells is a liquid ball of obliteron.”

  I eyed the bonbon. “If it’s as dangerous as you say, do you think you should be tossing it around like that? I don’t want to get blown up before I get to the ubervillains.” That wouldn’t help anybody, especially not Johnny, my father, and Henry.

  Jasper waved his hand. “Oh, in this form, it’s perfectly harmless. You see, I’ve encased it in a special highly protective plastic shell. You could even play baseball with it, and it wouldn’t detonate.”

  “So how do I arm it?” I asked, reaching for the small ball.

  Jasper held it out of my reach. “All it needs is a little heat to fire it up. The plastic disintegrates, and the obliteron becomes active. There’s a twenty-second fuse, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. A flare-up from you will more than do the trick. Along with a stabilizing agent, the outer shell also contains a form of heat-activated superstrong glue. Once the shell starts to melts, it will stick to any surface you throw it at. So once it’s hot, let it fly. When it blows, well, let’s just say that you don’t want to be anywhere near it.”

  I thought about the observatory. Some of the rooms were cramped, and I had no idea where Siren and Intelligal would set up their VAMP device. I didn’t want the others to get caught in the crossfire. “What’s the blast radius?”

  “Like explodium, obliteron produces a limited blast range, about thirty feet or so. But it packs a hell of a punch and it burns superhot. A couple of these balls would be more than enough to bring down any building, any structure in the greater Bigtime area.”

  I eyed him. “Like, say, the new paper mill they were going to build out next to the ice cream factory? The one that was going to infringe on part of the observatory’s wildlife sanctuary? There was some sort of explosion out there a couple of weeks ago late at night when nobody was around. The damage was so severe that construction was halted. Permanently, I believe.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Jasper said in a hurt, offended tone.

  I kept staring at him.

  “I might not be as heroic as y
ou are, Fiera, but I’m not a bad person. I might blow things up, but I never sell my goods to anyone who’s going to use them to hurt other people.”

  “So who do you sell your wares to then?”

  He shrugged. “People who want to collect on insurance, mostly. I also get a lot of business from the construction crews in town. A few of the more radical environmental groups. Sometimes, the bomb squad even calls me in to consult on cases. Now, do you want the obliteron or not?”

  “I do.” I didn’t really have a choice. Not if I wanted to save the others and the rest of Bigtime. Besides, I could always come back and bust Jasper later.

  Jasper nodded. “Good. Let me package them for you. Don’t fire them up until you’re absolutely sure you want to blow something up. Unlike some of my other work, these can’t be diffused.”

  He rustled around the underground laboratory, fishing a heavy lead briefcase out of one of the safes. Jasper carefully put ten of the obliteron bonbons in the dark, foam-lined depths. Then, he turned and handed it to me.

  “Let me carry them. Better not to take any more chances than necessary. I’m not as hot under the collar as other folks around here.” Lulu shot me an amused look out of the corner of her eye.

  I gritted my teeth at the bad pun and tried to remain calm. Now was not the time to set Lulu’s hair on fire. I would do that later. After I’d rescued everyone and reduced Siren and Intelligal to weeping, wailing heaps on the floor.

  Lulu took the case from Jasper and set it on her lap. I eyed a clock on the wall. Just before six. Time to go.

  “Ah, before you leave, there is the matter of my fee,” Jasper reminded us in a soft voice.

  Lulu and I looked at each other.

  “How much?” she asked.

  Jasper tapped his finger on his lips. “For ten of my obliteron delights? I’d say an even two million would cover it.”

  I winced. There went my fat fee for designing Joanne James’s latest wedding dress. Unless… The bomber wore a tattered bathrobe that had definitely seen better days. The slippers on his feet had holes on them, and his socks were threabare. Plus, everything was the same drab gray color.