Alien Diplomacy

was great. But I still had no idea how to work it.
    Considering how the supersoldiers had reacted when the other remote had been destroyed, I knew it had to be protected. Plus, it was the only thing that would control them. I didn’t want to lose it again, either. I considered my options and dropped it into my clutch, where I probably should have put it in the first place.
    The Poofs weren’t in there anymore. I had no idea where they’d gone, but clearly handling metallic superbeings was beyond them, and they’d wisely headed for the hills or the nearest Poof Condos.
    Standing still had given Bryce and Leslie time to reach me. They both slammed into me and tackled me to the ground. They reared back, presumably to start the android version of ground and pound, but they were ripped off of me before any punches landed.
    Jeff was roaring, already at “lion takes over the veldt,” but I hadn’t heard him because the supersoldier fight was making so much noise I couldn’t hear anything else. I knew he was roaring, however, because of his expression, which was seriously pissed.
    He had each of them by their necks and slammed their heads together repeatedly until I saw them both essentially short out. He was moving so fast he was blurry, meaning he was functioning at his super-duper level. His jacket was off and his shirt was open. I didn’t have time to try to figure out why or enjoy the sight of his awesome pecs and abs. Fugly fighting was so rarely fair.
    I could tell that someone else was in here, beyond Marling, who was still out, and the supersoldiers, which were still blasting and slamming into each other. He was moving fast, faster than Jeff, but I could just tell it was Christopher.
    Well, Superman and the Flash were here, and just in time. I looked around for Batman. Sure enough, I spotted Chuckie, coming in with the rest of the humans. I got up, ran to him, and shoved the remote into his hand. “It controls them. I have no idea how. They won’t hurt you if you’re holding it.” Then I ran back to Jeff.
    I arrived in time to see metal pipe wrapping around three of the supersoldiers as if it were a really fast snake. The one whose head I’d ripped off was down, twitching. The two it had been fighting were down as well, but they weren’t out.
    Jeff and I went to these and started ripping parts off. “How do we get rid of these things?” Jeff asked.
    “I poured hairspray into the Headless Horse Thing. Which I think killed it. It at least hated it a lot. But Marling said they’re uncontrollable out of the suits, so I don’t know that we want to pull any other helmets off unless we have some of those snazzy self-contained nukes loaded with alcohol handy.”
    “Coming right up,” Tim shouted from behind us.
    Christopher joined us. “No more pipe,” he said. “But I have party favors.” He had two of the nukes.
    “We just carry these things around all the time?”
    “No,” Christopher snapped, Glare # 5 in place. “Doreen insisted we needed to call for some.”
    I took them while he and Jeff ripped heads off. Helmet off, nukes in, helmets slammed back down. Then the three of us dashed off and stood in front of the others.
    The explosions were interesting in that the metal didn’t dissolve or anything. But it was clear from the weird movements of the metal that whatever was inside had been blown to smithereens. Icky crud exiting through the cracks the supersoldiers had made in each other’s armor was also a clue.
    “Creepy.” The remaining supersoldiers turned on us as the three Christopher had tied up broke free. We all ducked as pipe shrapnel flew all over. “Oh, good.” The supersoldiers went into formation and started for us.
    “Dammit, that’s wrong,” Chuckie snarled under his breath as he ran in front of us. The supersoldiers stopped. They seemed confused. Chuckie fiddled with the remote, and all of a sudden they looked the way they had when Adriana and I had first found them: turned off. We all breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Is there a way to stop these things other than that remote or us shoving self-contained nukes down their necks?” Jeff asked.
    “No clue,” Chuckie said. “I’d assume their creator knows, though.”
    I looked down. There was water on the floor. “The supersoldiers have rubberized soles. We can’t electrocute them.”
    “But we can be electrocuted,” Jeff mentioned.
    As he said this, I saw Marling stagger to his feet and grab somewires the