"So let me get this straight…" Agent Davison was rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. It felt like someone was trapped on the inside of his skull and using hand grenades to blast their way out. He let out a long sigh and looked at the laptop screen. There were only three red dots left. His teams had found, evacuated, and secured one hundred and six buses; and found one hundred and six live devices. The up-side was that all the busses had been safely evacuated. The downside was; for all intents and purposes, each bus had a live device.

The small counter in the upper corner of the laptop screen showed "00:06:37" remaining, but time was the enemy. And every second counted.

"You're telling me that every one of those busses is wired with a live explosive?!"

"Roger that!"

"Alright..." He breathed. "Stay focused! We got three buses to go and five minutes on the clock. I want a perimeter of seventy yards set up around every bus we've tagged so far. The threat said that only one was the real deal, and the rest were decoys, but I don't want to take any chances. When the clock hits zero, I don't want anyone hurt if all these things go bomb. Clear!"

"Clear, sir." All units call back.

"This is fifty-one!" a Unit called in.

"Go ahead, fifty-one."

"We just located another bus. Seven forty-five. St. Johns School for Boys. We're routing it to a parking lot two blocks down. We'll evac the kids there!"

"Roger that!" Agent Davison responded. "Get that bus and the device secured ASAP! And I want a head count of those kids!"

"Copy!" Unit fifty-one answered.

Two buses left.

"This is unit seventy-two!" The call came in. "We have bus thirty-eight fifty-one! Jefferson Elementary School. The bus driver has already pulled into a park and got all the kids off the bus. Bomb-squads en-route; ETA: two minutes."

"This is unit Ten!" the final call came.

"Ten!" Davison shouted, his voice holding more excitement than he would have liked. "Tell me you have the last bus!"

"Negative, sir!" the answer came. "We have the GPS coordinates, and according to dispatch, we should have tagged it by now, but all we've been doing is following around a '63 Chevy Impala for the last three minutes."

Davison cursed. "Check your readings, Ten!" He snapped. "Have dispatch double check their signal and re-route you…"

"We did that, sir. Twice." Unit Ten responded. "We've pulled the Impala over and searched it sir. We found the transmitter hidden among the hydraulics. It was hardwired into the electrical system."

Agent Davison let the information sink into his head. Then he covered the mic on his headset and let out a string of curses that left his mouth sore! When he was done, he cleared his throat and spoke very clearly.

"Attention all units! We have a rogue bus. Repeat: we have a rogue bus. Somewhere in Metropolis, there is a school bus, minus one tracking unit, filled with kids and a highly explosive device. I need anyone that's not helping with securing a bus, crowd control, or are disarming, to set up a grid—"

"Sir," Ten cut in.

"I-I want a grid set-up…" Davison continued, his voice a little more shaky than he intended. "A-a car on ever street… Run units north to south, and parallel units east to west…"

"Sir!" Ten cut in again.

"WHAT!" Davison snapped.

"Sir," Ten responded reluctantly. "Sir… there's no one left…"

Agent Davison's heart was beating like a jackhammer. His head was throbbing and his eyes were burning. He pulled the headphones from his head, the thunderous sound of the helicopter engines assaulting his ears with actual physical force.

He pushed the laptop to the floor of the small cabin interior and cursed again.

The laptop remained open and active, the single red dot on the screen mocking him. He looked out at the city below, and for the first time since he had climbing into the small aircraft, he took a moment to appreciate the landscape beneath him.

Metropolis, the city of Tomorrow! Five hundred square miles of the most innovative architecture, new age design, and unparalleled style.

And somewhere, amidst the towering skyscrapers, trendy high-rises, and rolling hills, there was a school bus full of kids with a bomb on it; a bomb that was going to explode in less than three minutes.

And there wasn't a damned thing Special Agent Davison could do to stop it.

00:02:53

Six days ago, Jessie Bradshaw celebrated his eleventh birthday. His gift: a brand new digital music player with a large touch screen display, and a one hundred dollar gift-card for downloading songs, videos, and games.

The first thing he did was download every song by his favorite band, the Flaming Love Monkeys. Then, he downloaded his favorite action movie, "Landaar and the Ice Sword of Doom." He and the device had become inseparable ever since. He listened while he did his homework, while he ate dinner, while he bathed, and had even fallen asleep with the earphones nestled snuggly in his ears more than once.

The only stipulation his parents had given him: Under no circumstances was he to take it to school.

As is was, Jessie was sitting next to the window on the school bus, listening to his fifth favorite song by the Flaming Love Monkeys: "Be careful! I have a hammer!" The earphones nestled snuggly in his ears, the combination of heavy bass and horns filling his ears, oblivious to the rest of the world; he had no idea why Jordan Winslow suddenly decided to sit neck to him.

He looked at her, half startled, half bedazzled.

Jordan was twelve years old and in the seventh grade. Her mom was Caucasian and her dad was African American; Jordan in turn had a skin complexion that Jessie would describe as "the color of 24kt gold". Her eyes were chestnut in tone, a contrast to her long curly raven hair. She had smooth skin and fully lips, currently held firmly in the "pout" position.

"Billy Turner is a butt-head!" she said matter-of-factly, her eyes full of fury.

Jessie just blinked at her; the ability to speak, or even think, lost to him. He could only stare at what he considered the most beautiful girl in all of Oakridge Middle School.

"And he smells like a bag of wet socks!" she added.

Jessie laughed slightly, but still didn't speak.

A long moment passed. Several long moments. Several long, silent moments.

In his head, Jessie was trying desperately to re-learn how to speak; but all he could manage was a smile that bordered on creepy and a series of rapid blinks.

Jordan looked at him, noticing the ear phones attached to his head. "Whatcha listening to?" she asked, turning to face him.

"T-t-the Flaming Love Monkeys…" Jessie heard the words as if someone else had spoken.

Jordan's face lit up. "I love the Flaming Love Monkeys!" she beamed. "There my ATF (all time favorite)! Me and my BFF (best friend forever), Hailey, tried to get tickets to their concert last year, but then Hailey broker her ankle doing a round-off back hand spring in gym class, so we couldn't go, so we downloaded the whole concert online and turned off all the lights in my bedroom and hung a mirror ball from my ceiling and then shined a flashlight at it, but covered the flashlight with a pink scarf, so the light would be pink, and it was just like we were at the concert!"

Again, Jessie just blinked.

"Can I listen with you?" Jordan asked. "The bus driver said something about the radio being broken and if I have to listen to Kelly Henderson say one more thing about her new hair bow, my brains going to explode!"

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Jessie shouted over and over in his head.

He nodded in response, removed one ear bud from his ear, and handed it to her. To his great joy, the cord was too short to reach, forcing Jordan to scoot close to him, and place her head right next to his, to get it to her ear.

Jessie was in heaven.

00:02:06

"Dispatch!" Davison shouted. His headphones were back securely on his head and the laptop was back in his lap. "Compile a list of every bus in service today, cross-reference every bus we have tagged and you tell me which one is left!"

"That's going to take a few minutes." The dispatch operator replied.

"In a few minutes," Davison roared. "We're going to putting what's left of a school bus full of kids in a bucket! You got ten seconds!"

Ten seconds later, the operator was back on the line. "Bus seventy-four!" she shouted. "Oakridge Middle School. It's in the Oakridge sub-division!"

"Contact the driver!" Davison ordered. "Tell him to get that bus stopped and evacuated NOW!"

"We're trying, sir." The operator answered. "We're not getting any response. I think his radios out!"

Davison cursed, loudly. "Get me to that school now!" he shouted to the pilot.

The helicopter dipped, and then lurched forward, the landscape below sweeping by.

00:01:47

Jessie and Jordan were singing loudly and somewhat off key when the bus pulled in front of the school. Neither noticed the lack of other students that usually filled the quad around this time of morning. Neither noticed the absence of all the other school buses. Neither noticed the crowd of parents and teachers shouting at the bus driver and students alike to get off the bus. They just sat and sang and laughed as the other kids began to get off.

"Want me to carry your books?" Jessie asked, his own courage a shock to even him.

Jordan smiled at him and his heart melted. "Sure." She said. She took the ear-bud from her ear and snuggly replaced it in his. And with a smile and a toss of raven hair that smelled like cinnamon and honey, she stood up and headed for the exit.

Jessie was right on her heels. It was Jordan, Jessie, and the Flaming Love Monkeys, and as far as Jessie was concerned, this was the best day of his life.

00:01:08

The school was the size of a match box from the helicopters current height and distance. Davison could just make out the school bus as the aircraft drew closer. He could even begin to see the first of the students starting to emerge from the bus itself. He could just now make out the crowd of parents gathered in the quad, held at a safe distance by school security. He could even see the line of emergency vehicles, their lights flashing brightly as they sped towards the school.

And one look at the laptop screen, the minutes now reduced to zeros, the seconds ticking away, told him that none of them would make it in time.

00:00:36

Jessie, right behind Jordan, was the last one off the bus. He wasn't walking, so much as floating. The Flaming Love Monkeys had just started their ballad; "Love is a broken windshield", as he stepped onto the walkway, his eyes only for the vision of loveliness that walked in front of him. He didn't see, nor could he here, the dozens of adults screaming for him to run. He didn't see their gestures or frantic faces. All he could see was the long black hair of the prettiest girl in Oakridge Middle School.

The gentle breeze blew the scent of cinnamon and honey to his nose once more and he smiled. He couldn't believe his luck. Not only had Jordan Winslow sat next to him on the bus, not only did she share his love of the Flaming Love Monkeys, and not only had he spent nearly the entire bus ride head to head with her, listening, and then singing to, their favorite band together. Now, he was walking beside her… okay, slightly behind her, carrying her books! For all the school to see!

And it was at that moment that Jessie realized he left his backpack on the school bus, and turned around.

00:00:09

The world seemed to slow to a crawl; the way it does when something truly horrific is about to happen and all you can do is watch.

The roar of the helicopter engine turned into a slow constant "thump". Agent Davison couldn't tell if the sound was the spinning of the blades, or the pounding of his heart.

The birds that curiously passed the copter seemed to linger in his field of vision longer than they should. His mouth began to open; the sound of a scream of "No!" took far longer to build than seemed possible. The ground seemed reluctant to rise up to meet them as the aircraft lowered.

And through it all, a small boy carrying a small stack of books, turned around, and ran back onto the bus.

Had Agent Davison been looking at it, he would have seen the laptops counter final clicks before it came to a rest at 00:00:00.

What he did see, however, was all the more terrible.

Two things happened at once: A blur of crimson and blue streaked past the helicopter, nearly faster than the eye could see, and punched into the roof of the bus with the speed and force of a missile.

And less than a fraction of a second later, it exploded!