The God Experiment

Chapter No.40. Back out again.

Chapter No.40. Back out again.

A week later, the Steris family received a call from NASA to discuss their recent discovery. Robert, Janet, James and Sparky teleported to the JPL Mission room. Jason and Sing were surprised to see them with a dog.

"You brought your dog?" Jason said, suppressing a grin.

"Yeah, he has smell abilities that are much better than ours," Robert replied.

Sing interrupted. "The reason we called you is because of this photo." She pointed at a screen displaying one of the photos of the inside of the alien structure. "This stone tablet has symbols on it, but that isn't the reason we're interested in it. If we had that stone tablet, we would be able to do an isotope analysis that would allow us to establish that it came from outside our solar system."

Robert looked at the photo before turning to her. "Yeah, we can get that. I assume that your probe is still functioning."

"Yes, it's fine."

Robert turned to Janet and James. "Okay, let's go get it done."

They, along with Sparky, teleported to the structure on the planetoid. They noted that Sparky was able to endure the atmosphere of the alien planetoid without stress. He went about his usual sniffing out things.

Robert and James found the stone tablet that Sing wanted, but before they prepared to return, they were interrupted by Sparky's bark. The dog was over near where several boxes were stacked.

"What are you telling us?" Robert said. He turned to Janet and James. "I think these boxes have skeletons in them." He grabbed one of the boxes and lowered it to the floor. After studying it, he was able to remove the lid.

"No doubt about it," Robert said. "It's an alien skeleton."

"We can take one of these back with us," James said.

"Yes," Robert said. "Let's go."

They teleported back the JPL Mission room with the stone tablet and the box.

Both Jason and Sing stared at the box. "What's this?" Jason asked.

"It contains an alien skeleton. Our dog sniffed it out."

Sing glanced at the dog before turning back to him. "No one will believe this."

"That's okay. We realize how crazy all of this is, but it's what we found."

"Thanks for helping us," Jason said.

"You're welcome," Robert said before he and his family returned home.

Robert petted Sparky, who replied with few short barks. "Good boy!"

Janet turned on the TV. "Oh, oh! Looks like we might be needed."

The Steris family watched as the reports of 7.5 earthquake near San Francisco were on all of the local stations and National News services. Some building had collapsed, trapping people.

"Let's go," Robert said.

They materialized near a large building that had partially collapsed, trapping people. Sparky led the effort by sniffing out the location of people under the debris. Robert and James began by lifting large cement sections to allow Janet, with Sparky on point, to get to people who had been trapped. She pulled them out and repaired their injuries or resurrected them if they had died.

People gathered to gawk at their operation. Safety crews arrived and began helping pull people out while Robert and James lifted up the building sections to allow them to get at the victims. They were amazed by how a dog was able to lead them to trapped people even though it was the practice in more primitive societies.

After several hours of work saving people, the superheroes stood together, allowing people to record and photo them before they flew away. The internet went wild when it saw that the superhero family now had a super dog. It was as if Marvel or DC Comic characters had become reality, a reality that was beyond the imagination of the illustrators that create all of the superhero fantasy that has dominated the comics, TV series and Movies for decades. It seems that reality had popped out of all of this, something that no sane person would even imagine.

Even wilder, NASA released the findings that they had acquired with the help of the superhero family, were driving people wild with the realization that a family of humans and an animal had achieved something that was considered impossible. These superheroes could go anywhere and help mankind determine that they we're not alone, that there were extraterrestrial intelligent species out there. It was mind boggling.

Despite all of this media attention, no one realized their true identity. It was as if reality had become warped into a new dimension. What people didn't realize is that all of this was the result of a God experiment, an experiment that was ongoing. People had forgotten that God rules the universe and is responsible for everything seen and unseen. However, the devil is still around causing trouble. That was the ultimate dilemma, a situation that the Steris family was created to mitigate. It was God's way of handling humans. He preferred to do it with helpers, but that wasn't always successful, so God continued to experiment with humans to discover the best way to help them without His personal intervention.

So far, His experiment was succeeding. However, the new superheroes had only completed phase one of the experiment.

While the Steris family was lounging around in their living room, the Vestal Virgins appeared.

"We are satisfied with your performance so far, but the real test is to come. You must prepare to do battle with the Sons of Wickedness. They are coming to subjugate the human race and take over this planet."

"How are we going to do battle with them?" Robert asked. "We're not permitted to harm anyone."

"You are free of that restriction."

The Steris family exchanged confused glances before James submitted a complaint. "We're only a man, a woman, a teen and a dog. How are we going to take on an army of demons? We're not the Justice League."

Robert suppressed a grin.

"You have the means to defeat them. You are free to do as you wish."

They vanished.

"I like that 'we're not the Justice League' comment," Robert said with a grin.

James snickered.

"What the hell are we going to do to fight them," Janet blurted. "We don't have any weapons."

"I believe I could come up with powerful swords that can cut through metal like a hot knife through butter," James bragged.

"Yeah," Robert said. "They'll go well with our shields. "I think we should give your mother wrist braces that could deflect bullets."

"Great idea, Dad."

Janet huffed. "You two are nuts. We don't know how to fight a demon army."

"I think we do," Robert retorted. "We saw what the Vestals did in Afghanistan."

"Are you suggesting that we can fire laser beams out of our eyes?"

Robert gave her a stern look. "I don't see why not. We should go somewhere remote so we could practice our tactics."

"How about one of the Towpath-gunnery sites," James suggested.

Robert rubbed his jaw. "Yeah, but I think we should get permission to use a military site after we explain what we're going to do."

"I agree," James said. "But I don't know if they'll believe us when we claim that a demon army is about to take over Earth."

Well, I guess we'll just have to give it a try."

They teleported to the White House to present their request. What happened was not what they expected,