[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

8th January
19:18 GMT +3

She's a little bit shorter than me, but not by much. She's not much less muscular than me either, though since her body has been formed by hard work rather than by a power ring it only becomes obvious when she bends her right arm to mop her sweat-jewelled brow. Her hair's brown and it's cut short. She's wearing an orange cloth around her head as a sweat band, a tough looking leather apron, leather gloves and.. leather trousers.

"No, I'm afraid I'm the other one. Orange Lantern two eight one four." I offer her my right hand. "Pleased to meet you."

She takes a moment to look me over then steps out of the forge, reaching past my hand and clasping my arm around the elbow. Oh, right! I reciprocate. It's the equivalent gesture, 'I'm comfortable letting you inside my guard' rather than 'I'm either not carrying a weapon or I'm left handed'. "Greetings, Orange Lantern. How did you like the bow?"

"Artemis loves that thing. Thank you so much for taking that commission. What do I owe you?"

She mops her brow again and stretches her back, enjoying the cooler air outside the forge. "There was some mention of food?"

"Oh, of course." I float the plate and mug around. She takes hold of the mug in her right hand, raising it to her lips and tipping her head back. "You know, you are invited to the party. And.. if you've got time I'd.. quite like to talk to you about your work?"

She tips the mug back slightly as she pauses for breath. "Busy." Then she goes back to drinking.

"Is it.. something I can help with?"

Glug glug slurp and she lowers the mug. "Are you a smith?"

"… Engineer."

She looks at me for a moment, glances back through the doors and then back to me. "You may as well. There's no way I'm going to finish it before Prince Kon leaves tomorrow."

"You were making him a gift?"

She nods, then grabs the plate with her left hand and turns around to lead the way back into the forge. "Yeah, but I was too optimistic about how fast I could work. It's been too long since I've made something that's just decorative."

My environmental shield is preventing me from feeling the heat, but it's like a furnace in.. here. Right. Io plonks the mug down on a work bench, takes a wedge of bread from the plate and bites into it. "Ish iss-" She gestures at a lump of dull yellow metal resting on an anvil with her right elbow. "-wrot-" She swallows. "-I've been working on."

"What's it supposed to be?"

"Pure gold."

!I can help with that!

"Our mines here get stuff that's reasonable, but to turn it into orichalcum it has to be nearly completely pure. Even with magic that takes so long…" She sags slightly and uses the wedge of bread to pick up some vegetables and put them into her mouth.

"And… That's what orichalcum is, is it? Pure gold, transmuted?"

"Mhrow." She chews rapidly, then swallows. "Ten parts gold to one copper, then you can start the transmutation magic. And even that's not exactly fast."

I take a single gold coin out of subspace and offer it to her. "Any good?"

She frowns, studying it, then returns her bread to the plate and puts the plate on a bench. "Doubt it, but I'll take a look." She takes the coin from me and puts it down on a metal plate set into the work surface. There's a small collection of tools laid out and she picks up a delicate looking hammer, tapping the pointed end onto the coin. Then she blinks. "Oh." She turns her head to me. "What purity do you think this is?"

"One hundred percent."

She gapes slightly before regaining control. "How?"

I hold up my hands. "Power rings are awesome."

"Do you have more?" I nod. "How much?"

"How much d'you want?"

Her eyes widen. "Heph-aestus."

"To be more specific, I can purify elements and mix them in whatever way you want. Ten to one by mass, was it?" She nods. I float the lump of metal sitting on the anvil up and run a wave of orange light through it. Huh. Considering what she has to work with, that's a fairly high purity. I pull out everything that isn't gold, cool it and then drop the mass of it on the work bench. Next, I take a small copper bar out of subspace, weigh them both and slice off the amount of copper I need and return the excess to storage. "Do you need to do something while they're being merged, or does the magic happen afterwards?"

"A-afterwards."

"Right." An orange bubble forms around the ingots, then I melt them both and run them together. Layers or evenly mixed? I'll assume evenly mixed. That done, I remove the heat, drop the bubble and pass the alloy ingot over to Io. "Any good?"

She takes it, puts it down next to the coin and taps it with the hammer. Then she drops the hammer and staggers back a step. "Perfect. It's perfect. I can.. finish in a couple of hours…"

"What are you making, anyway?"

"A simple diadem."

"Great! I don't have much copper on me, but I can give you-" I deposit a small chest of gold coins on the floor. "-these now. Incidentally, I'd like to commission quite-"

"I could.. give every woman on Themyscira orichalcum armour inside…"

"-a lot of stuff. While we're on the subject, what's the ratio for mithril?"

"Huh?" She shakes her head and looks around. "Two parts titanium to one silver."

"And the transmutation effect?"

"That's just.. something… Um." She makes a visible effort to pull herself together. "I got seriously religious a few.. centuries ago. Lord Hephaestus showed me some of the secrets of divine smithing, like how to change the properties of certain metal alloys. The impurities in what I usually work with means it can take a while, but…" She picks up the alloy ingot. "With this? The transmutation shouldn't take more than a few minutes." She takes the ingot over to the anvil and sets it down before picking it up with her tongs and thrusting it into the furnace. "Are you a Hephaestus worshipper yourself?"

"No. Eris." That gets a raised eyebrow. "I bring change and innovation. She seems to like my work."

"Really." She returns her attention to the metal. I seem to remember that gold's fairly soft. Probably doesn't need all that long. "What exactly did you want to commission?"

"I'm not…" I exhale through my lips. "For a start, improved armour for myself and my team mates."

"I was going to make something like that for Prince Kon eventually anyway. Anything else?"

"Oo-oh yes."

 

8th January
20:01 GMT +3

I'm panting. I'm not tired or exhausted. It's excitement. When I got the ring I wasn't really in a position to enjoy the experience, but for this? I'm fully lucid. I can't catch my breath. I don't even really want to. "That was incredible. It's… Oh whaw."

Io presses up against my back, her chin on my shoulder. I remember reading on Wikipedia that she's supposed to smell of the forge but I'm just getting sweat and whatever was in that gruel stuff. Smells.. good, actually. "It's been a while since I got anyone that excited."

"They have no idea what they're missing." My heart's racing. "Oh my. I'm going to need a moment here." Mwhahwhah.

"I like your.. tattoos." She pulls back slightly and runs a finger down one of the ones on my back. "They're.. magical, aren't they?"

I nod, pulling away slightly to turn around and face her. "Yes. One set to give me a soul, and a second to stop anyone spying on me with magic."

"Oh? How well does it work?"

"Perfectly."

"Where did you get them done?"

"London. There's a guy in London who-. Oh, I can introduce you sometime. Do you think we've got time to try agai-?"

There's a knock on the door of the foundry and we both look around. Io chuckles. "They probably want to know what's taking you so long."

"Oh, time well spent." I move away from her and walk towards the door. "You just stay there, I'll get it." Ring? Who is-? Ah. Two more knocks in quick succession, but quieter. Almost reluctant. Can't imagine why. I pull open the door and stick my head and upper torso around, grinning like a loon. "Diana, hi!"

Diana looks me over and with a slight exhalation averts her eyes. What? She's seen me without my shirt on before. "We were.. wondering where you'd got to."

"Oh, right here." I nod for emphasis. "Right here."

"I-" She nods. "-see that. I didn't think your first meeting with Io would go.. quite so well as this. I'll.. leave you both to-."

"No, no-" I push the door open a little wider and grab her left hand with my right. "-come on in!"

Her eyes widen slightly. "I really don't need-" I extend my environmental shield around her and pull her in. "-to see…" She trails off.

Io detaches the amazing metal rod out of the test frame we built and then looks around. "Princess. Your student has been a great help." She picks up Kon's diadem. At my urging she went for a simple design, two metal bands bending down at the front to form Diana's signature double 'W'. Yes, I know her tiara has a star on it but where do most people actually look? "I was making this for Prince Kon and would never have finished but for Orange Lantern's help."

Diana's face stills and.. is that surprise? "Ooh."

"He's also very interested in-" She waves the rod. "-Jovium."

"He.. is..?"

"I don’t quite understand why. You know Man's World, perhaps you can explain it in a way that makes sense to me."

"It's a-" Diana turns to look at me. "-good conductor of heat? Did.. you.. plan-?"

"Good conductor of heat! Good conductor of heat! No. Noooooo It isn't a good conductor of heat."

"We-" She frowns, thinking it through. How did she not spot this! "-use it in the bath houses to conduct heat from the furnaces. And in lightning rods." She shakes her head. "I really don’t know-?"

"It's a perfect conductor of heat. And -and this is the important bit- electricity." I stare into her eyes but I don't think she's getting it. "No loss in transmission. No heat. No electromagnetic radiation. No light. One hundred percent of what you put in comes out again in a useable fashion." She gives me an uncertain nod. I don't think she's quite getting it. "Something like six percent of electricity generated in the US each year is lost in transmission. Nearly five hundred kilowatt hours just gone, per person. A hundred and sixty billion for the country as a whole each year. To say nothing of the disruption to radio signals copper cables cause. And that's ignoring the possible applications it has in communications or computing."

"You.. seem.. fairly excited about this."

"Diana, no one has this. No one."

"Well, no? I haven't seen it produced anywhere else."

I hold up Lantern Stewart's ring. "No one. No species. Oh, they've got all sorts of clever ways of moving power around that bypass resistance to a degree, but this is better." I throw up my hands. "You can't get better than one hundred percent."

"I though you wanted armour."

"I do. Orichalcum's good and we're-" I glance at Io. "-going to be trading notes with Sephtian, see what we can do with it. We might be able to make you trousers at last!" I look her over and a few ideas almost immediately come to mind.

Diana pauses for a moment. "Paul, why did you take your shirt off?"

"Io wanted to see my tattoos."

Io nods. "Orange… Paul?" I nod. "Paul asked me about putting spells on the armour as Lord Hephaestus did with yours. He said that he worked with.. Sephtian..? The Atlantean crafter, who may be able to help."

"And this is what the two of you have been working on?"

"Yes..? Why, what did you think we were doing?" Io raises her right arm to her nose and sniffs. "Ugh. I need a wash before I can give Prince Kon his gift."

"No problem, one orange hygiene beam coming up." A wave of orange light passes over her, removing sweat and grime. Her hair's actually not quite as short as I thought it was, it was just all matted together. "Party frock?"

"I'm not sure anyone would recognise me if I took my apron off." I raise my eyebrows. "Still, I suppose I shouldn't present myself to the queen like this. I'll throw a tunic on. Or something."

I extend a filament to pick up the Jovium. "Can I..? Keep hold of this? There're some people I'd like to show it to."

She shrugs as she reaches behind herself to untie the apron. "Go ahead. I make it with tin. We've got all we could ever need already."

You really don't. "Thank you. You want us to-" I turn away as she removes the apron. "-wait for you?"

"No, I've kept you away long enough already. I'll follow you up shortly."

I nod, look at Diana and hold my right arm out towards the door. She looks at Io, then at me, shakes her head then walks towards the door and out of the room. I follow along and close the door behind us. "I didn't have a chance to ask earlier, but did the prisoners give you anything useful?"

She shakes her head. "No. They confirmed what Johnny Sorrow told you about where they come from but they didn't know much else about who organised the attack. I plan on speaking to the Saremian Ambassador to Poseidonis on Monday and I'd like you to accompany me."

I nod. "Of course." Then I remember that she didn't answer Io's question. "So.. what did you think we were doing?"

 

"Alert!"

Whu?

"Connection made to monitored telephone line from-"

I sit up in bed. Internal mode!

9th January
06:32 GMT +3

-priority source. Location: second public telephone, BP, Happy Harbour branch.

Who?

John Constantine.

I glance over to Kon's bed. Did he wake-? No, he's already up. Bit lucky. I push the sheets off me and swing my legs off the side of the bed. Wool stuffed mattresses are more comfortable than I thought they'd be but I don't think I'll be giving up springs any time soon. The.. chambermaid..? That can't be the right title. Anyway, she mentioned that they might have water beds if we preferred but they hadn't been used for a while and might leak. Neither of us went for it.

I raise the ring to my ear. Answer.

"-us a bell when you get-."

"I'm here John. What is it?"

"You sound a bit rough, mate. Just got to sleep?"

I shift my weight to my feet and stand up. "It's half past six in the morning where I am."

"Oh? Where's that?"

"Themyscira." I amble in the direction of the balcony. "The Amazons know how to throw a party." Heh. "And I think I may end up getting one or two of them pregnant before I leave."

"Oh, fuck right off."

"Hey, power rings are awesome." I send my pyjama top back into subspace and dial down my environmental shield so I can feel the breeze on my chest. "Did you actually want something?"

I hear him take a deep breath. "Yeah. Got a bit of a problem on my end. Think I've worked out all the angles.. but, given you've got 'special knowledge' and all that…"

I lean on the balcony overlooking the stables. "Ask away."

"You know anything about a thing called 'Kua I'ipa'?"

I think for a moment. "Is it a drink?"

"Nah. That's supposed to be the name of this big magic monster thing that broke through from.. wherever. You know how it goes." I nod. "Angie and me went to Tasmania to try an' get information about it. Kua I'ipa, the Shadow Dog. It's supposed-"

I blink in shock. Did he just say Shadow Dog?

"-to cause all kinds of havoc if it gets-"

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Fuck.

"-loose. I mean, I think we're all set up here but there's something-."

"John, whatever you're doing, stop it. Stop it right fucking now."

"I'm gunna need a bit more than that, mate."

"I've seen this. You kill the Dog, we lose about a quarter of the species. Maybe everyone."

"What? Y'mean, some sort of sympathetic death eff-?"

"THE DOG IS NOT THE FUCKING PROBLEM!" Ring, find him. "Think about it, John. Dogs. Mankind's oldest friends. Protectors and hunting companions. Why would an ancient primordial evil take the form of a Dog?"

Unable to locate.

Fuckfuckfuck-.

"So.. what's actually-?"

"The Shadow Dog was created by.. God, capital G, or something, to protect mankind from the actual problem. This weird quasi-demonic thing called The Beast."

"Alec did say two things came through… But Angie said-."

"That the Dog came after her on the train. It wasn't after her. John, is she there?"

"Yeah."

"Is her brother?"

"Yeah, he's been helping us with… Here, Jason mate, you got superheroes askin' about you. Didn't know you moved in those sorts of circles."

"John, listen to me very carefully. Jason is dead. The Beast is controlling his body. He cannot be recovered. The Beast is trying to help you destroy its gaoler. Then, it will kill every Human… Maybe every intelligent creature, I don’t know. At the moment it's limited to causing a few bouts of insanity. If anything happens to the Shadow Dog, it'll be able to access the collective unconscious of the Human species. Mass suicides at best. I might be okay, but there's a good chance I'll be the only living thing left on the planet when it finishes."

"This thing we're fighting… I'm assuming it knows magic?"

"Yes. John, tell me where you are. If Nabu-."

"But if we could get it to the same place as something that could fight it…"

"Yes, like the Ophidian. John, tell me where you are."

"Gotta go, mate. Cheers for the help."

"TELL ME WHERE YOU FUCKIN-!" He's gone. He's gone. Ring?

Unable to locate.

Fuck. The Beast might be about to get free, and… I don't remember if Beast Jason was much of a physical threat. I know John isn't. Could they kill him? Physically at least? Chance of me being able to find him? Next to none. I remember from the comic that they warded the site. Fuck. I look back into the bedroom and remotely open the box containing my lantern before calling it across to me. Ophidian, can you feel John Constantine?

No.

Damn iiiiit!

There is something squatting in the soul of your species. I cannot determine what it is. That should not be possible. All things are known by their desires!

Prepare for emergency deployment.

We will become one once more?

If we need to. Alright, in the brief time I've got left before the shit starts occurring… If anywhere's safe, it's here. If nowhere is… I take my Spell Eater out of subspace. Where's Kon? Right. I transition to the main plaza, two Spell Eaters in hand. "Kon, my queen, I sort of need you to put these on."

Hippolyta turns to greet me. She's wearing a slightly different robe dress to yesterday. And Kon's fully dressed as well, Io's diadem in place around his head. "Paul, good-" She gets a better look at me. "-morning." She frowns slightly. "Is there some sort of emergency-?"

"Yes. Please put this on-" Kon takes his and puts it around his neck before turning back towards the east. "-right now, it's really quite important." I pause. "Sorry for not being properly dressed."

"Very well." She takes the thong and puts it over her head. "What is this emergency, exactly?"

"Quasi-demonic superbeing about to possess the entire species. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Our last line of defence is a bunch of halfwit hedge wizards who aren't answering their.. b.. blooming phone. I'm basically reduced to hoping they can come up with something."

"If you aren't able to help it seems unwise to let yourself become distraught."

"I don't think wisdom really comes into it. Ring, message Nabu."

"Warning sent."

"Kon and I were about to watch the sunrise. Lord Helios appeared to him in his dreams last night. It seems that his gift to Kon is dependent on him observing the dawn of each day."

Kon glances back at me. "I'm glad it is. I don't think glowing at school would be a good idea."

No, I suppose not. Ring, armour. No helmet.

Compliance.

But she has a point. I can't do much until the Beast makes itself known or John phones back. Hippolyta's gone back to watching the sun as it peeks over the ocean. "My queen, may I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"Did you hear about what I offered to do? For anyone who wanted it?"

"Super strength or pregnancy." She looks back towards me. "Yes, I heard. You do like to make our lives interesting, don't you?"

"I knew that would be a big change. I thought people would be interested. That or offended." I take a closer look at her, taking care to avoid looking at anything other than-. Yep, there it is. "I don't understand. Everywhere I look..." I shake my head, frowning. "Queen Hippolyta, why are you all afraid of wooden dolls?"

 

9th January
06:37 GMT +3

She gives her head a slight shake. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"I don't know if it's.. part of Amazon culture or something. I didn't see anything about it in Diana's library, and she didn't say anything." I look at Kon and raise my eyebrows.

"Not to me either."

I shrug. "I'm sorry if this is some sort of taboo subject, but…" I hold out my left hand, generating an orange construct image of what I've been seeing. "It's always there, it's just-" Hippolyta's pupils dilate slightly. "-hard.. to sssee… In some. It got particularly bad when-."

She looks away. "Get rid of it." I frown, but close my left hand and dismiss the image. "Grandson, how long do we have until dawn?"

Kon looks puzzled. "About an hour?"

She puts her right hand on his shoulder. "I will return shortly." She turns back to me. "Orange Lantern, please transport us to the palace dungeons."

Still not.. really sure what's going on. "Alright. One moment." According to the books I read the dungeon proper is warded, but I can… Yep. I attach a filament to Hippolyta and our surroundings flicker.

Hippolyta looks around for a moment, confirming our location. "It is called a.. whittle-baby. I ask that you do not mention it to anyone here again."

"Al.. right… But I still don’t understand-?"

"When you pledged yourself to Eris you declared your intention to change us. Our life here. By your actions you are forcing me to decide whether I wish to assist you or call for moderation. Amazon society does not change readily but I am hard pressed to find fault in your offers to us so far. Usually in a situation like this I would pray to Hera or Zeus for guidance. Unfortunately…" She looks at me sternly and I shrink back slightly.

"I'm really sorry about that. But.. maybe I can help?" She seems dubious. "It would take my mind off the fact that the Human race is in the hands of John Constantine, a man who committed his first murder before he was born."

"Oh, how could you have chosen any god but Eris?" She takes a moment to gather her thoughts. "Simulacra of real babies.. dolls, you call them. They are still a popular toy for young girls in Man's World?" I nod. "But not with adult women. An adult woman who wants a child can have one of her own or -if she is unable- adopt the natural child of someone who was unable to care for it." She pauses again. "The youngest Amazon born on Themyscira -save for Diana- is Glykeria. And she is-" She tilts her head back slightly. "-two thousand seven hundred and eighty four years old."

I nod slowly. "You can't have children.. or adopt."

"That would be a hardship in itself, but it is more than that. There is no continuity to our society. We have no schools. They would serve no purpose. Mistresses of their professions have no apprentices. At this time there is no one to teach who has not at some point attempted every profession which we practise here. And there are no children." She turns away from me and walks towards the fortified doors of the dungeon proper. "And so.. these.. things became commonplace. Substitutes. Vessels for maternal affection we could never express in the conventional fashion."

"But you.. could… The Greek mainland's only-."

"Yes. We are aware of that." She exhales. "Do you know how long it took our isolation to become total?"

"About eight hundred years, wasn't it?"

"No, that was just when we stopped… When we stopped openly trading. There was still another century of more covert contact. It wasn't until after the conquest of Greece by Rome that the Senate moved to cut contact completely."

The guards on the door salute their queen and open the doors. "Were they.. worried that the Romans would flood the Aegean with so many ships they could.. brute force the wards?"

"Herakles managed it."

"Herakles had two hundred ships, a good idea of where you were and demigod resilience and he barely survived doing it. All he had left when he made landfall was.. what? Twenty men?"

"Twenty three, and for many that event ended any hope we had that our vengeful masculine pursuers would ever cease in their attempts to return us to bondage. Those among our sisterhood who desired for us to return argued that we could not afford to be blind to events in the outside world. Contact was strictly limited and procreation absolutely forbidden."

"How well did that work?"

"I doubt I will ever know. Sometimes I wonder how many of those sisters I mourned as dead simply decided that they would rather remain with their child's father than return home. It wasn't even much of a secret. And.. so, the idea that having a child meant leaving, meant the dissolution of the community we have here gained popular support. Slowly… No one thought that abandoning the patrols was wise..."

"Until eventually they did, and Eris' followers went in for 'civil disobedience'."

"You can still see the stains if you know where to look." She shakes her head. "It had the opposite effect to the one they wanted."

"Once your men died off, anyone who wanted children had to leave. Therefore, children are bad, because they undermine the community. Until Diana." And.. me. "So… Amazons fear their own maternal desires?"

"Creating Diana… I think that was the closest I ever came to being overthrown. I had to involve so many Amazons in her upbringing that at times I don't think she was sure who her mother actually was."

"Queen Hippolyta, why are we in the dungeons?"

"Whittle-dolls at present are taken as a sign of psychological illness. Our form of self harm, causing pain to the mind rather than the body. One of our sisters, a woman named Gennes, took the habit to its logical conclusion. Her delusion was so strong that she treated her.. doll.. in every way as if it were her child. The prisoners we are here to see are her murderers, though it was not until long after the event that we discovered that. When they also tried to murder Diana."

"And she beat them unconscious?"

She gives me a bitter smile. "She was not even a week old. My daughter is an able warrior, but that would have been too much to ask even of her."

"Murder and treason? I.. thought…"

"They are also some of my oldest friends. My former bodyguards. Even after what they did I could not bear to order their deaths." Another door approaches, even more heavily reinforced than the first. Hippolyta stops. "Myrto-" Inside her I see a face, picked out in violet and indigo. "-Charis, Philomela and their leader, Alkyone. It has become my custom to visit once each year and ask them to repent, to accept Diana and seek forgiveness for their misdeeds. Every year they refuse. I hold out little hope that you would be able to change their minds where I have failed, but perhaps speaking to them will grant you some measure of the wisdom your rampage across our society so far has indicated that you so sorely lack." She nods to the guards and the door is unbarred.

"About that. I know I said.. sorry, but honestly? I was sorry for the offence I might have caused you. I respect you and don't want to cause you unnecessary hardship. For not thinking the whole thing out. I'm not sorry for having done it. Necessary hardship I'll dump wherever it needs to go." I nod to her, then start forwards through the door. "I'll see what I can do for them, majesty."

"The gods go with you."

I look at her a little nervously. "Given who I worship, are you sure that's a good idea?"

 

9th January
06:42 GMT +3

The great door moves aside easily enough and I walk through into a short corridor terminating in another equally heavy door. Hippolyta may only come through here once a year but the prisoners need to be fed and watered. I wonder what… If they've been in here since Diana was little then they've basically been in isolation for around eighty five years. Damn. What have they been doing with themselves? They can't risk them getting weapons so martial drill is out of the question. I suppose there's books and board games.. if there's anything on Themyscira they haven't already played to death or read a hundred times. Maybe that could be my in? Also need to find out why they did any of that stuff. Why would they kill Gennes? Alright, she was going a bit mental and clearly children are a very sensitive issue here. But they'd have known her for over a thousand years, probably longer. I don't know.

I lift the bar on the inner door myself and push it open. There's no natural light this far inside the palace and the traditional burning torches would create dangerous levels of smoke. Instead they use simple-

"My queen?"

-bound spells to illuminate the room. Quite a lot of them, too.

"Has it been a year already?"

The voice is a little gravelly, and there's something… Something off about it. As if she either just woke up or -more likely- hasn't had cause to speak for a while. I blink and have the rings show me the layout. It isn't really a cell cell. It's more of a secure dormitory, with a bedroom, a small kitchen, a bathroom and a living area. There isn't direct access to the inmate area from where I am. Rather, there's a sort of interior window with orichalcum bars embedded into the stone. I assume that whoever is speaking is standing close to it, but there's no direct line of sight from there to the door. Food appears to get lowered down through a hole in the roof inside the inmate area which is far too small for them to try climbing up. Water comes in through a similar opening and they have the standard garderobe toilet arrangement.

"If you are not Queen Hippolyta then state your business or depart."

"Good morning." A moment's shocked silence as I walk around the interior wall towards the 'window'. "Queen Hipp-."

"Get out."

Being careful to stay further than arms’ reach from the bars I move slowly into view. The woman staring at me in shock and disgust is bald, heavily scarred and possesses a pronounced aquiline nose. "Queen Hippolyta asked me to speak to you. I don't intend to disobey her."

Her eyes narrow. "Why are you even here, Man?"

"On Themyscira? I'm one of Princess Diana's students." Her face tightens. "Since I was stateless, Queen Hippolyta offered me Themysciran citizenship."

"Bhekrr." Her head jerks to the side for a moment before turning back to me, her eyes assessing me for my threat potential. Her eyes linger for a moment on the sigil on my chestplate but only for a moment. She would have already been locked up when Alan was visiting and I can't think of any reason for her to have ever met the Green Lantern Corps members.

I create a construct chair and sit down, setting my lantern down on the stone floor next to me. "May I ask whom I'm addressing?"

She draws herself up slightly. "I am Captain Alkyone of The Circle."

"Hello. I'm… Ah, call me Pavlos." I can think Pavlos without collapsing, probably because I don't associate it with my actual name. I've also instructed the rings not to translate it. They usually don't with names but I don't want to take any silly risks.

"How many more of you are there on Themyscira?"

"More of me?" I smile. "No, I'm uniq-."

"Other men."

"One." I look at her for a moment. "Does that bother you? "

"Neither of you should be here. Another attempt by the Dragon to weaken us."

Alright, I'm here on royal business and there's an even chance that the world's about to end. No reason not to look deep inside her. And the Dragon is.. Diana, apparently. Lots of red there. Links to her hatred of Herakles.. and… Invasion? She thinks of Diana as an invader? Odd… What does she want? A smiling face, and… She and the other four members of The Circle standing around Hippolyta. Her old job? Would she-? No, she doesn't want to do the things which she'd need to do to create that situation, she literally wants to go back to how things were.

"Why do you think that the Princess-?"

"She is no Princess. She is an abomination."

She fears.. Hippolyta's corruption at Diana's hands. By her presence. More red as she and her comrades murder Gennes, anger at her.. weakness? And the doll image. Whow! That's.. a.. complicated mess. Yellow and orange, each with dozens of associations leading away. Babies are.. betrayal, change… No, change from the ideal. And weakness. Wanting is a moral failure. Yikes. I thought that Clyemne was conservative but she was at least capable of discourse. And the orange? Oh. I shouldn’t be surprised I suppose. Alkyone wants a child herself. Odd. Given the closeness of her prior relationship with Hippolyta she'd almost certainly have been heavily involved in Diana's upbringing if she hadn't tried to kill her. How does she feel about Philippus? No, not seeing any strong associations there. Alkyone loves Hippolyta as a loyal aide, not as a want-to-be paramour.

"What makes you say that?" She glowers at me. "Come on. If she's got some sort of treasonous plot, I'm a citizen now. It's my responsibility to stop it reaching fruition."

"It is not. It may be the responsibility of your mother or your sister but it is not yours."

"Oh please, I'm far better positioned to investigate and take action than you are. I mean, I'm not in prison for a start. And unlike you I'm physically capable of hurting a demigoddess-."

"That thing is no goddess!"

"You keep shouting, but until you give me some actual content I can't help you." I shrug. "Assess your situation rationally. If you haven't escaped in eighty years then you're probably not going to. Barring some total cataclysm -we nearly had one yesterday and there's-."

She suddenly looks more alert. "What happened yesterday? Is the Queen well?"

"Scylla, Circe, a load of Fishmen and a fellow called Johnny Sorrow attacked. No fatalities on our side though they.. probably achieved their primary objectives. Diana and Prince Kon dealt-."

"The.. thing has chosen a mate?"

"No, she adopted. Third in line to the throne is a man, so.. you may want to reconsider the whole 'killing Diana' thing."

"Never."

"You know.. you're coming across as some sort of crazy jealous stalker. If you have a real problem with her-."

"I am finished with talking to you." She pulls back from the bars and starts to turn away.

"What happens to the members of a group when the group is destroyed?"

She frowns. "What?"

"Societies change. Certainly, what existed before no longer exists but the people -or at least their descendants- still live. And.. their lives may well be better for it. Having children doesn't necessarily mean the end of Amazon society, Alkyone. It will simply change it to a new form."

"Their desire to reproduce cost me two blood sisters on the mainland and caused my queen to use foul magics to create a.. living simulacrum. I took no pleasure in putting Gennes down-."

"But you want what she wanted." Her eyes widen. "You want a child. Look, if the magic involved was the problem-."

"You lie. Do you see women simply as-?"

"Hush, dear one, your mother is-."

"GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!"

 

9th January
07:46 GMT +3

"I give thanks to you, Lord Helios, for the life your sun brings to the world." Kon looks towards the sun as it rises over the sea. "And…" He looks at Menalippe for guidance and she nods encouragingly. "For the whole.. glowing.. thing? That's going to be really use-" There's a flare of light from him as the glow reappears. "-ful." He checks himself over and then looks back at Menalippe. "He's not gunna be annoyed if I don't pray tomorrow morning, is he?"

She shakes her head. "You have a pact with him. If the glow he has granted you would be a distraction I am certain that he will understand. That said, I would not recommend ignoring him indefinitely. Empowering you is an extremely significant act for him."

"No, I wasn't going to." He turns to me. "World ended yet?"

"Ring, try John again."

"Compliance." I hear a dial tone.

"Diana, has Nabu-?"

She shakes her head. "He's in London now, but he hasn't been able to locate anything. I still don't understand why you didn't warn us about this earlier."

"I didn't know what John was working on until he-."

"Ah, Christ, this better be-."

I clamp the ring hard against my left ear. "JOHN WHAT THE-!! THE HECK?!"

"He was right here, alright? Couldn't tip my hand."

"And now?"

"Gone. Dead. I dunno."

I slump against the wall. "What happened?"

"Original plan was to use me as a focus when we blasted it. I managed to convince the others that Jason would work better. Friggin' Beast was all for it. When we started the Dog felt it right off and swam up the link. Beast tried to steal the power from the ritual so it could finish off the Dog, but I'd already put it into a binding spell so he couldn't try legging it. No power to fight, no way to escape… Dog tore him apart."

"Anyone else hurt?"

"Angie broke my nose. Part from that? No."

"Okay, that's… Okay. I'll.. fix it for you. You might want to watch out when you leave, Nabu's looking for you."

"What does he know?"

"That you got involved with a planet killing entity!"

"You t-? What the fuck d'you do that for?"

"Because you wouldn't tell me where you were! I couldn't take the risk!"

"Fuck."

"Okay, give me a minute here. I need to tell the League they can stand down." I lower the ring and look at Diana. "They tricked the Beast into summoning its own gaoler and then snatched back the power it was planning to use to kill said gaoler. Problem.. over until next time."

"Could you please impress upon Mister Constantine that dealing with creatures like the Beast is the Justice League's job. At the very least he should have informed his government." I nod, and she rises from the ground to fly back to the communication system in the invisible plane.

I lift the ring back to my ear. "What did you tell the others?"

"Managed to convince them it was a double blind trap. Couldn't risk tellin' them in advance in case the Beast picked up on it. I'm not exactly Mister Popular at the moment but, aghh, no one died and I wasn't on their Christmas card list anyway."

That didn't sound good. Queen Hippolyta and Menalippe start back towards the palace. Kon looks at me curiously but I wave him away and he follows after them. "John, are you alright?"

"Angie got a few kicks in before the others pulled her off me. Only hurts when I breathe."

"Okay, tell me-."

"The thought does occur that a lot of this could have been avoided if we'd had a chat about this sooner."

"Well… Yesss. I mean, I didn't know this was what you were doing-."

"That's why I'm not shouting your bloody ears off, mate. Any more of these lined up?"

"I don't know. There's a bunch of things that might happen. Nothing… You know, here, is quite what I expected. There are some people I'm monitoring just in case…"

In the background I can hear ambulance sirens. "Right. Give me a day to talk my way out of this, then we can have a bit of a chat about these up and coming doomsdays."

I nod. "Okay. That's… That's probably a good idea. Just to be clear, my recollection isn't perfect and there's no guarantee-."

"Never is, mate. Yeah, I'm in here! See you at the Northampton Arms Monday night."

"Bit public, isn't it?"

"They're used to all sorts of nut jobs in there. Alright, yeah, okay-." The phone cuts off.

Well then. I take another look out over the city. At the dock the morning catch is being landed and I can just about smell freshly baked bread. Heh. Wonder what Amazons do for a hangover cure?

"Excuse me?" I turn around. Two Amazons - Tekla and another wearing robes who I don't recognise- are standing nearby.

I smile at them. "What can I do-" Robe Amazon was the one who asked how double female reproduction was possible. I didn't get her name. "-for you?"

They hesitate and look at each other. After a moment Tekla turns back to me. "I wanted to thank you again for my eye."

"No problem at all. Try not to lose it again. Once is unfortunate but twice would suggest carelessness."

Her face suggests that she isn't quite sure how to take that. After a moment she decides to ignore it. "Iola told me you claimed to be able to.. allow two women to conceive a child together."

"That's true. It's not even that hard. The mother would still have to carry the child to term of course."

The other woman -Iola presumably- nods. "We know. We'd like.. you to do that. For us."

This is probably something Themysciran society should debate at length.

"Of course. Which of you wants to be the Fama?"

Tekla frowns. "The what?"

"The one carrying the child. I could make you both pregnant by each other at the same time if you really want but it would probably be a better idea if one of you does it. In the later stages, having you both waddling around…"

"I do!" For a moment Iola looks surprised by her own insistence. She looks at Tekla. "If that's alright..?"

Tekla pulls her close and kisses her on the forehead. "Of course it is. What was the word for the.. woman.. father..?"

"Oma." I raise my hands towards them, connecting visible filaments from my fingers to both of them. Rings, data.

Compliance. / Data available.

"You're at the wrong point in your menstrual cycle for a zygote to implant-."

"Oh. Well. We can-."

"So I'll have to change that. DNA scan… No obvious abnormalities. Is it alright if I set the gene matching program to random or do you want to try selecting characteristics?" They both look a bit blank. I don't have a full break down of Human genetic expression anyway. "Random it is." The filaments disconnect from Tekla and in my mind's eye the Stewart ring shows me an image of Iola's uterus. "This should only take a few minutes."

 

9th January
09:44 GMT +3

The last resting place of the late Baroness Paula von Gunther is really quite beautiful. It lies in a small garden on the western side of Mount Skybreak, a short distance from the main road from the city of Themyscira to the farming village of Syrsana. Surrounding the garden is a low wall decorated with swastika symbols, though I note that they are mirror images of the version which the Nazis used. The marble sarcophagus inside is similarly decorated and bears the inscription: 'Baroness Paula von Gunther, 1907-1981. May she finally know peace.'

I suppress a growl. "Only woman worth knowing on this whole island and she had the temerity to die thirty years ago."

Orana's expression doesn't change. Since I managed to make it through yesterday without taking a shit in a baptismal font -or whatever the Themysciran equivalent is- Diana decided that I could be let out with only a single escort today. Not sure who Orana got on the wrong side of to earn that duty. This visit hasn't -quite- been a total waste of time but it's been perilously close. At least Kon and Match are enjoying themselves.

The Baroness came to Themyscira after the Second World War following Wonder Woman's rescue of her from a Russian prison. I suppose that if you rape your way across a country you shouldn't be too surprised if it puts you on the bad side of the Amazons. She hadn't been involved in any of the serious war crimes and was a decent enough person to be thoroughly disgusted by the excesses of fascism. The Purple Healing Ray appears to have been developed here as a way to sort of burn off some of her acquired bad karma. Certainly there wasn't much opportunity otherwise to apply her skills here. She never converted to Hellenism and as a result wasn't included in Themyscira's agelessness effect. Her death was peaceful enough but it still makes me grit my teeth. A repentant malign hypercognitive! I dread to think of all of the wonderful things she could have achieved if she'd been picked up by the Americans instead!

I shake my head and turn away. Ah, there we go: an empty patch of soil. Diana told me that Amazons would regard putting cut flowers on a grave as somewhat ghoulish but that I was free to add live flowers. I kneel down, form a construct trowel and start digging a hole.

"Why do you hate us so much?"

I pause for a moment. Perhaps I should try diplomacy? We are near the grave of someone I respect. "Are you sure you want me to answer that?"

"If I didn't want an answer then I wouldn't have asked the question."

"Why do you care?"

"What you said yesterday in the market; you offered to make us as the gods are then said everything you could to make us despise you. When I went home and talked it through with my friends I realised that if I took all the you out of what you said then the offer became a good one. I want to know why you did that."

"Alright. There's a phrase in Man's World. 'Who are you in the dark?' What it means is: if there was no one checking what you were doing, if you knew for certain that there would be no punishment for your actions… How would you behave?" I dismiss the trowel and take the Monkshood out of subspace, depositing it in the hole before levelling the soil with my hands. "I seem to remember there was some Chinese cop out… Something like: 'I would know, you would know and Heaven would know."

"What does that have to do with Themyscira?"

"I myself am perilously close to finding out what I am. If I'm prepared to be even slightly subtle about it, between this ring and my own innate abilities… There's basically no one who can stop me doing whatever I want. My actions are no longer moderated by the common herd of humanity… And after the sixth of July this year they won't even be moderated by Princess Diana or Batman. I will fully own my every success or failure." I turn away from the flowers and look at her. "What is Themyscira in the dark?" Listen.

She shakes her head in incomprehension. "It's.. Themyscira…"

"Most nations must contest with their neighbours in some fashion, in full view of them. They must maintain their strength, their culture and their technology in order to avoid being overtaken. If they fail they risk being conquered or absorbed by a more powerful or more vibrant state. Themyscira has been in near perfect isolation for near enough two thousand years. It had no need to worry about someone watching… What have you done?" Open your mind.

"We've built, we've.. farmed…"

"And you're about.. eight hundred years behind the rest of Europe. Technologically you've changed.. not at all, as far as I can see. You've applied it a little better, you've had time to build up... But that's it. You were given lives free of conflict and you did.. nothing. You failed to grow and you failed to grow because you had no external pressure forcing you to grow." She frowns. "Where is your science? What feats of engineering have you achieved that could stand against those of Man's World? For goodness sake, you pride yourselves as warriors. Where are your weapons? At one time Themyscira's armies were feared across Greece. Now? Save for the gods' wards I don't think there's a nation on the planet who couldn't conquer you. You've become complacent and stagnant and that's why I hate it here." Understand.

"You think we are that weak?!"

"I'll show you." I walk past her, out of the garden. Once I'm standing a little way outside I hold out my right arm, gesturing for her to join me. Face hardened, she does so. "You know how to use that bow?"

"I've had three thousand years of practice."

I wiggle my right forefinger and deposit a shooting range target onto the hillside twenty metres away. Then I move an AK-47 from subspace to my right hand. "This is an AK forty seven. First designed sixty three years ago for the Soviet Union it remains the most popular gun on the planet, mostly due to its mechanical simplicity. Thirty round magazine, single shot and full automatic modes. If it had a hundred rounds in the magazine it could fire them all in a minute. I have practised with it once." My strength allows me to keep it more or less on target on full automatic, something no normal man could. I point to the target with my left forefinger and look at Orana with my eyebrows raised. "First to hit it fifteen times wins?"

She unslings her bow and takes hold of it in her right hand before reaching back and taking five arrows in her left hand. She takes a deep breath, stills herself and focuses her mind. She keeps the bow pointing down and the arrows close to but not on the string. "Ready."

I carefully take hold of the gun, left hand on the barrel grip and right hand on the pistol grip. The gun I'm holding has no trigger guard as my fingers are too large to get inside it. I can't use the stock for similar reasons, it just wouldn't fit. I point it down at the same angle as her bow. "I will count down 'three, two, one, go'. On 'go' you may loose your first arrow. Three. Two." A slight tension enters her shoulders. "One. Go."

My gun's up slightly before her bow but in all honesty there's little in it. Her first arrow is on string as I squeeze the trigger and the gun starts firing. The AK has already punched three holes in the target by the time the first arrow strikes home. Eleven by the time her first handful have been used and then she has to take another five from her quiver. By the time she looses her sixth it's fifteen bullet holes and I've won, but I keep the trigger squeezed until the gun clicks empty. At that point the brutalised remains of twelve arrows stud what's left of the target. I lower the gun, disintegrate the magazine and take another out of subspace before slotting it in place. Orana is still watching the target, breathing hard, eyes wide.

"Other weapons are more powerful still." I return the AK-47 to subspace and create a minigun construct. Should I ever need it I have an actual minigun modified to my dimensions in subspace but for the point I'm making a construct will do just fine. "The AK fires a hundred rounds a minute. This fires six.. thousand." I give her a moment to take that in. "Still can't do much to hurt someone as resilient as the Princess or myself, but if you compare either of them to a bow…"

"I.. hadn't realised."

I allow the construct to dissipate. "Have you ever seen a bucket of crabs, Orana? The way they struggle against one another and in doing so prevent any of them escaping? Ignore your sisters. Ignore your queen. Think upon what you have seen, what you know, and make your own decision. My offer still stands. If you -or any of your sisters- wish to escape this place, I will help. Power, divinity, equipment, guidance. Whatever you want, at no obligation to me. Or -if you prefer- you can continue to sit life out as the world passes by and you slip further into irrelevance. What I will not do is sugar coat this for you. Themyscira is weak. You, can be strong. What do you want?"

She says nothing for a moment, closely examining the grass at her feet as she mechanically returns the arrows still in her hand to the quiver. "I.. want to be strong."

For the first time since coming to Themyscira I find a genuine smile coming to my lips. "Then by all means, let us make you strong."

 

10th January
10:04 GMT -2

The Triton civil servant bows his head to Diana apologetically. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, but His Excellency has been somewhat delayed."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Saremites require special equipment to travel at this depth.. and… Well, someone appears to have stolen Prince Or-" Though the effect is rather lost underwater, I flop face first into the surface of the table. "-m's body. The security services are…" He looks past her at me. "Is he alright?"

"Fiiiine."

"Um. Right. Once the theft was discovered and.. you reported that Saremites had been involved in the attack on Themyscira, King Orin ordered us to check all of their equipment and it's.. taken a while."

"Thank you for letting us know. Do you know how much longer the delay will be?"

He shrugs helplessly. "I'll.. see if I can find out for you."

He backs out of the room and with a wave of his hand activates the door mechanism, causing the portal to be blocked by a wall of solid water. Hm, that's new. Diana turns around a little awkwardly in the water, a dim orange glow around her from the environmental shield. "I wonder why someone would-?"

"I thought you told me that resurrection was hard here!"

She blinks in surprise. "It is. I very much doubt-."

"He was in a team with two guys who can resurrect themselves! Orm was an expert battle mage! He probably understands the magics involved in Lazarus Pits better than Ra's did!"

"It's not that simple." I give her a look of utter incredulity. "It may be disturbing to think about, but magic suffused corpses have a number of uses in necromancy."

My face goes back into the table. "This is Atlantis. They'd have more trouble finding a corpse that wasn't suffused with magic."

"That…" She dips her head slightly. "I suppose you could be right. I'll ask Batman to create a list of potential Lazarus Pit locations."

"Does Talia even know whether or not Pits can be created underwater?"

"I doubt it."

"Okay, well, we've got all his equipment, his supporters are either dead or in prison and we know what he looks like. Even if he does come back it shouldn't be that hard to deal with.. him…"

I trail off as I see movement on the other side of the water membrane. Three figures, two large and one smaller, are lurking outside the room. I sit up. Can't hear what they're saying-. The barrier drops and the civil servant waves the other three in.

"Presenting Ambassador Lycorax and... Retinue."

A Saremite with a strong physical resemblance to the warriors who attacked Themyscira shoulders his way through the water into our room, takes a quick look around and then steps aside. There's a slight distortion in the water around his body, presumably both allowing him to exist at this pressure -Sareme is at the bottom of an ocean trench- and move around more easily with a form that looks poorly adapted to aquatic life. Unlike our attackers yesterday he's wearing armour, serious looking armour at that.

The Saremite behind him is much smaller and albino, his large eyes covered with goggles and his skin white and cream. There are what look like ribbons tied around his upper arms, streamers trailing along behind him. He isn't wearing any armour but there is some sort of neck brace looking thing clamped around his neck, covering the area where I would expect his gills to be. He reminds me a little of Abe Sapiens from Hellboy, actually. Another large bodyguard comes in behind and waves the portal closed behind him.

Diana approaches him and bows her head. "Ambassador."

He locks eyes on her face. "Princess. I will be clear from the outset: the ruling council of Sareme had no foreknowledge of the actions of those who attacked your home. So far as we are concerned you are free to dispose of any survivors as you wish. Their fate is of no concern to us."

"We.. had intended to send them back to you once we had some sort of explanation as to why they attacked us."

"If you wish. We will dissect their brains for information and then kill them. Should we learn anything pertinent we will inform you."

Diana recoils slightly. "That seems rather severe."

"They are criminals and outcasts. We don't make a point of hunting such people down but we will not protect them from the consequences of their actions."

Diana moves away slightly, coming around to my side of the table. "Please, take a seat." The first bodyguard moves over and pulls one out for him. I note that none of them are really swimming as such, being content to walk along the lower surface. Lycorax lowers himself delicately into the chair and Diana sits down next to me. "Would you have any objection to us keeping hold of them?"

"If you wish, do so. Their lives have no value to us."

"Why do you say that?"

"They are Oceanus worshippers. Water breathers. They have made-" Wait a second, water breathers? Ring, scan. "-themselves anathema to us."

"Ooh." He turns his head to look at me. "I'm.. sorry, I'd rather got the impression that you were altered Humans."

He leans back in his chair, his chin jutting forwards for a moment. "A common enough misconception."

Diana frowns. "The people who attacked Themyscira had gills."

"With the gas mix and density we use in Sareme it is far easier to breathe with gills. Our distant forebears were amphibious, the gene surgery required was slight. The.. Trench Cultists replace them with Atlantean style gills."

"Do you have any idea where they might have gone?"

"No. As I said, we do not concern ourselves with them. The.. oceans, are vast."

"Do you know of them having any previous contact with Circe or Scylla?"

"We have little engagement with Atlantis and none with the shallows. They may have done. Certainly, we have no knowledge of it if they did."

"Do you recognise-" I create an image of the object Mister Sorrow took. "-this?"

He studies the image for a moment. "It looks a little like a vault key. Did you check for neutrino circuitry?"

"Ahh… No. What's a vault key?"

"My people's civilisation once controlled the surface of the world. The vaults were where we stored our equivalent of schizotech. If that is what it is I have no idea how it came into your hands."

"Do you know what might be in the vault?"

"None. Given the time that has passed I would be surprised if it still existed. Even more so if whatever was inside still functioned."

"Events do rather suggest that the trench people know something we don’t."

"Perhaps. Is there anything else? I am needed to deal with more of King Orin's baseless accusations concerning the theft of his treacherous brother's remains."

"You said your people ruled the surface, but I have never heard of you." Diana pauses for a moment. "When was this?"

"Something in the region of nine hundred thousand years ago. Sareme was the deepest of our aquatic settlements. One day my distant forebears received emergency orders from our capital to shut down all operations and enter suspended animation. They did so and awaited reactivation. When the first of them were finally awoken, millennia had passed and the suspension system was undergoing mechanical failure. They restored it as best they could and -since the standard wait period had already elapsed- attempted to make contact. They could not. Eventually they sent probes to one of the shallow colonies only to find it had been destroyed. From what remained they were able to determine that the rest of our civilisation had suffered a similar fate."

"Was there a violent conflict?"

"With whom? We were supreme on this world, and unified in ourselves. The possibility of alien visitors was considered but really we have no useful evidence. In an attempt to avoid contact with whatever power destroyed us we remained isolated until comparatively recently, when the Atlanteans made contact with us."

"Nine hundred thousand..?"

"At the time Sareme was only a small research settlement, not designed to sustain itself without resupply. The first generation were forced to spend a significant proportion of the time in stasis to preserve resources and to avoid the possibility of attracting whoever killed the rest of our species. They could not even try to contact other survivors in case that doomed all those who remained. Later… After adapting ourselves… We were no longer the people who had left the surface." He rises to his feet. "If there is nothing else?"

Diana shakes her head. "No, thank you."

He turns to leave, his bodyguard once again taking station fore and aft.

Something destroyed a world spanning civilisation and now the bad guys have one of their keys. That isn't ominous at all.

 

10th January
19:54 GMT

I take another sip from my glass and take another look around the pub. I -very vaguely- remember there being a pub in Hellblazer that was destroyed by arsonists. Being Hellblazer, the result was the ghosts of the proprietress and her late husband taking revenge on those responsible until John talked them out of it. Did they rebuild it afterwards? Place looks fairly new, though I haven't seen any poltergeist activity as yet.

"You wanna go easy on that stuff, mate."

I raise my glass to the grinning barman. "Don't worry, I know my limits."

"Yeah mate." He grins at me for a moment longer and then heads towards the other end of the bar to serve another customer. Friendly enough chap, though in the old days I'd probably have found his tattoos and piercings a bit unnerving. I'm wearing a vest and the tattoos on my own arms are on display so.. maybe he thinks that we're part of the same tribe or something?

"Hitting the hard stuff, are we?"

I turn to my left. John's sporting a bandage over his nose but otherwise doesn't look too much the worse for wear. Ribs.. cracked rather than broken. "They don't serve milk here." He starts to smirk as he moves his eyes from my first empty orange juice glass to the second and then the one I'm holding. "Plus, I didn't know exactly when you were turning up. Can I assume that if I can't detect you any more Nabu didn't have any better luck?"

He takes a moment to look around the interior of the pub. "Nah. Givin' people like Nabu the run around's part of my job, isn't it?"

"No, it's… A bit of a shame, really." He frowns for a moment, then turns his expression to one of amused incredulity. "I mean, I assume Mister Zatara's a bit more up to speed with your tricks." His face relaxes and he nods. "Alright, where do you want-. Oh, sorry, what are you drinking?"

"Oi, Keith! Pint of Carling." Keith the barman looks around from the young woman he's chatting to and gives John a wave. "In your own time, then." Keith nods, then turns back to his conversational partner. "Friggin… Come on, let's grab a booth."

I get up off my stool and follow him over to a booth in the far corner. John gets friendly waves and salutations from the other patrons. I suppose this must be his local and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he spends quite a bit of time in here. He takes the seat on the far side, the one that gives him a view of the whole room and affords him an unobstructed dive to the fire exit. I sit down opposite and set down my glass. "Don't I.. remember something about this place burning down?"

He nods, looking past me towards the bar. "Yeah. Got the bastard who paid the thugs who did it to pay to have it rebuilt. Course, the sodding ponce couldn't resist tarting it up a bit…" He looks around the whole of the room, studying it in detail. "Did an alright job I suppose. Old place could probably have done with a bit of paint."

"And the ghosts of the former..?"

He wrinkles his nose. "They tend to stay quiet unless someone gets a bit rowdy. Best way, really." I nod. "What'd you get up to on Themyscira, then?"

"Pledged my allegiance to Eris, persuaded Hera to divorce Zeus, fought a load of fishmen led by a former silent film star who's merged with an eldritch abomination,-" He's starting to look torn between incredulity and amusement. "-found out that the Amazons can mass produce mithril and orichalcum and have a room temperature super conductor, nearly got the shit scared out of me by you-" That does get a chuckle. "-and impregnated-."

"Bullshit."

"No, really." I hold out the left ring. "It's a simple-."

"No. You and Eris, sure. Oh-" Keith puts a pint down in front of him. "-cheers, mate."

"You wanna watch this one, John. Bet he's a mean drunk."

"Actually, I'm a sleepy drunk."

"Just don't leave your glass unattended, John. Bloke like you can't be too careful."

John rolls his eyes. "Push off back to the bar, you nonce." Keith has another chuckle at my expense before leaving us in peace. John takes a careful sip from his pint and then puts it back down. "You and Eris? Yeah. Bit surprised about you picking any god, but no sense turning down help."

"I actually met her. You know, in person."

"Explains the divorce thing. Hera's got more cause than most to tell her man to sling his hook. Weird fights? Sure. I was there for the Nazis and Vikings. The magic metals are a bit of a stretch-." I drop small disc shaped samples of each onto the table in front of him. He looks at them for a moment before sweeping them into his coat pocket with his right hand. "What do they do?"

"I don't really know. I'm going to drop off some samples to Sephtian tomorrow and try and get an appointment with Ted Kord next week."

"Who?"

"Head of Kord Tech. Super conductors are a technology thing rather than a magic thing. Probably… I don't think it has anything to do with our project."

He nods. No need to spell it out. "But that last one. You're not a bad looking bloke and they haven't seen a man for hundreds of years. I could see some of them bein' interested, I just don't see you jumping into bed with them."

"Never said I made them pregnant by me. A power ring can merge genetic material-."

He grins. "Yeah, that sounds more like it. How many went for it?"

"Just one couple, but I'm going back later this week and there might be more people who are interested."

He leans forward. "I got t' ask, on behalf of men everywhere: are they all just into girls, or…"

I shake my head. "I didn't ask. There are a lot of married women on the island and no men. They don't actually have a tradition of heterosexual marriage… Though they do have polygamy."

He takes another gulp as he works out how to respond. "Blimey." He pauses for a moment. Is he trying to imagine..? "Right, on to more serious stuff. How long have you known about the Beast for?"

"Years." He looks decidedly unimpressed. "If I'd known it was happening-."

"Let's just not worry about that." He pauses again. "If.. I hadn't talked to you..?"

"The Beast would have killed the Shadow Dog and transferred itself into the collective unconscious of humanity, gaining the ability to take control of anyone. It then started killing people for fun. You killed yourself so it couldn't read your mind and used the wood you took from Eden to give Swamp Thing the ability-."

"How bad?"

"The worst general outcome of anything you've ever done."

He nods solemnly. "Anything else coming up?"

"Chas's granddaughter gets her soul yoinked by a demon who holds it hostage to manipulate you into killing its competition."

"Geraldine's nine."

"It may not happen. I did say." He nods. "Plus I gave the whole family wards for Christmas. I remember her having a daughter inadvisably young… May want to give Mister Chandler a nudge about that."

"I best not. Anything more near by?"

"Dark Druid might have something to do with Nekron and the Black Lanterns. Those are.. super zombies armed with power rings." I sigh. "And I found out this morning that the fishmen I fought on Saturday are descended from a civilisation that was probably wiped out by the Sheeda."

"Fairies?"

"No, the inhabitants of Earth in the far future. Some of them look a bit like fairies and they can use magic… They loot past civilisations to keep their own going." I think for a moment. "There are other things, but those are the ones I've had warning signs about. Do you want more detail on those, or shall I just keep talking about stuff like that in general?"

He shakes his head. "No rush mate. Best not to miss anything out."

 

12th January
15:26 GMT -6

"Can't believe they made two of them." Ms Wor-Ul leans back against her kitchen table watching Kon and Match get to work on dinner. Match is chopping some sort of Kryptonian tuber and Kon is pressing a nut like fruit for its oil. "Are you sure there aren't any more?"

"I'm sure there aren't any more in Cadmus."

"Hm." She glances at me and then goes back to watching the lads. "After your first visit I started actually paying attention to the news. There's that guy in Fawcett City-."

"Captain Marvel. Empowered by a magician. No heat vision."

"Icon."

"Terminian. His original form wasn't even humanoid."

"Anyone else?"

"Phantom Zone prisoners." She curls the left side of her lip. "Maybe a few like yourself, though if they exist I don't know where they are. Perhaps Kara Zor-El…"

She shifts her weight slightly and rolls her eyes. "More El's. Great. Just what we need."

Match looks up. "Hey!"

The Sub Commander straightens slightly, glaring at him. "Back to work, soldier." Match gets a truculent look, then makes eye contact with Kon for a moment before returning his attention to deseeding. I've noticed that he appears to be far less into the whole 'Kryptonian' thing than his brother. Certainly he point blank refuses to be called Match-El.

"Ever regret not having your own.. soldiers?"

She snorts. "Hardly."

"Because it wouldn't take too much effort for me to create a Kryptonian sperm-."

"Stop talking if you want to live." Match smirks, glances at her and then straightens his face.

"Hush tube working out alright for you?" She grunts. "And the new armour?"

"It doesn't move quite right. I feel the resistance whenever I move my arms over my head." She pauses. "Tough though. And I think it's faster in the air than my old gear."

Hmm. I had been trying to create something that would mesh with Kryptonian nuclear force control in the same way Apokoliptian armour does with a god's divine resistance. Seems that I'm not quite there yet. The Sub Commander grudgingly allowed me to access her database in return for first dibs and having her available to Guinea Pig is no bad thing. "I'll work on the articulation system some more. No problem with the altered sunstones?" She shakes her head. "I should have something for you next week." She nods. "You really think you need it?"

"I'm still alive because I never assumed that I didn't." She looks pensive for a moment. "If you do find any-." She suddenly winces, an action mirrored by Kon and Match. "Oh, not again! Can't you people get phones!?"

Ring, what does Luthor want this time?

"-the mechanism, Brothers, but I must ask for your assistance." That's not Luthor. That's Dubbilex. I know he has undetectable access to telecommunications, I installed the system myself. Oh, right, Kon and Match left their phones behind to avoid having them tracked. "There is someone in Project Cadmus who would like to meet you. Please pay us a visit when you have the time."

There's a slight ring as the message ends. Kon and Match both look at me. Ring, where's Kal-El?

Kal-El is presently located in the offices of the Daily Planet newspaper.

So he heard that. I suppose they don't have Luthor's monitoring system. Either that or this is really urgent. "I can go and see what that was about. You can stay here."

Match puts his knife down. "I'll come with." He looks to Kon for approval. "He did ask for us."

"You go on. I'll stay."

"Imagine that, an El wandering off rather than sticking at the job he's got." Match looks at her with self conscious awkwardness. Ms Wor-Ul has developed a bit of a thing about him being a full blooded El, hasn't she? She waves her right hand. "Go. Just don't lead anyone back here."

Match comes out from behind the work surface as I signal the Hush Tube below us to open a portal to Titan and extend an environmental shield around him. We stride through, shut the portal down and then transition back to the middle of the Australian bush before opening a Boom Tube to the Mountain's hangar.

12th January
16:29 GMT -5

We've completely replaced both Zeta Tubes in here with Hush Tube generators, though the upstairs Zeta Tubes are still in place. I wanted to modify the system further, to make one tube that could fit the Bio-Ship. So far Batman's not convinced. I tried to sweeten the deal by offering to install one in the Watchtower but if anything that seemed to make him even more cautious. Oh well, his loss.

"Hey, um…" I look at Match. "Did you get in any trouble with Mom about that British Parliament thing?"

"Oh, don't worry about it. Having to deal with the committee was supposed to be the punishment but.. you just have to know how to talk to these people. It was actually quite a productive meeting." Denied the ability to score points off me, Missus Abbott decided to sound off about vigilante accountability and organisation in general. Not that she dared while I was in the interviewee chair but I don't think that Sir Cyril had a particularly fun time of it later. I wonder if she knows about Chester and company? "And Diana knows that what we did was necessary. Hush Tube, take us to Genomorph City!"

A distortion appears in the air, then stabilises into a portal into the cavern's embarkation area. I see Dubbilex, a couple of G-Elves and a Genomorph type I don't recognise. What would it be I wonder? A G-Dryad for gardening? A G-Naiad for environmental regulation? He had spoken admiringly of M'gann's multifaceted abilities, so perhaps a phasing G-Wraith? A shapeshifting G-Doppleganger? A telepathic illusion casting G-Shee? I snort with amusement at the idea as I wave Match forwards, then stride through the Tube myself.

"Brother. Grayven."

"Hey Dubbilex." Match nods at the new Genomorph. "Who's this?"

Now I get a closer look at it I see a marked resemblance to Dubbilex himself. The new Genomorph is a little shorter and her… Not strictly her, Genomorphs don't have reproductive organs, but the general appearance is more rounded and feminine than most Genomorphs. Her horns are thinner and curved rather than thick and kinked as his are. Her ears point up slightly more than his do and where he has long dangling protrusions from the rear of his jaw she has tiny horn stubs. There's also a bit more flesh to her as opposed to Dubbilex's lanky body shape. I think her eye orbits are a little larger as well. She's wearing the same type of white overalls as Dubbilex, but cut in a slightly more feminine shape. As I study her, her right ear flicks nervously.

Dubbilex gestures to her. "This is Ixy, one of our new generation G-Goblins."

Match smiles at her. "Hey Ixy. Wait, Ixy as in X Y?"

She smiles at him. Ah, flexible facial features! Good move. **Yes, Brother. I have been engineered with improved empathic understanding and my physical features have been redesigned with the intent of provoking a less hostile response from any Humans I may encounter.** Her mental voice certainly sounds feminine to me. She takes a step forwards. **What do you think?**

**I'm not really much of a judge. Grayven? What do you think?**

"Masterful." I look at Dubbilex, grin on my face. "You've bred a PR specialist."

"In a manner of speaking."

"You've even made her cute." She doesn't manage to blush, but she looks down slightly and wiggles her tail. Oh, the Japanese are going to love you. Perhaps even in a way that isn't eighteen rated.

"There is more to.. her than that, but it is our hope that when the time is right Ixy and those like her will be able to serve as ambassadors to the outside world."

Match nods. **Okay, so what do you need help with?**

**To fully develop my abilities I have to spend time around Humans.** She blinks. **And people who are like Humans. We were hoping I could spend some time in your Mountain with you and your friends.**

**Um, I don't know. I mean, I think it sounds like a good idea but I'm not sure Batman would be okay with it.**

"Oh, come now. The Genomorphs already know where it is and who lives there. And who would they tell?"

**I know, but…** He turns back to Dubbilex. **I'll ask our superiors. I should be able to get you an answer by Sunday, one way or another.**

**Thank you, Brother. Your help will be invaluable.**

I reopen the Hush Tube behind us as Dubbilex and his escort turn to leave. Ixy hesitates for a moment and then darts forwards to hug Match around the chest before scurrying after them.

"Huh."

I look at the departing G-Goblins with a frown. "Let me get this straight: they called the male seeming one Double X... And her.. X Y. Do you think that maybe they aren't as good at genetics as we thought?"

 

13th January
21:13 GMT -5

I watch from across the training area as Match explains the situation with the Genomorphs to Batman. I get a brief glare when Batman hears how much technology I've been supplying them with but he can't complain too much about that, not after he was complicit in their continued enslavement. Kon and Diana are standing with Match for moral support but this is very much his.. thing. I hadn't appreciated quite how strongly he feels about the Genomorph situation, not until he asked me to help him go over the arguments he'd need to make to convince Batman to let Ixy join us. I really don't know how Batman will respond to the idea.

How do I want him to respond? Hmm. A second telepath would be useful, certainly more useful than another brawler. I doubt that she'd be a security risk; the only people she would be in communication with would be the other Genomorphs and I'm struggling to come up with a situation where they'd be at odds with us. No. Orange light. How do I want the Genomorphs to respond to me? Direct access to Ixy would allow me to shape their relationship with Humans far better than my occasional visits to their city. As far as I know my telepathic shields are good enough to keep her out so there's little risk of her hearing something inopportune. If they're not, what might she hear? I've already told the Genomorphs that I'm not helping them out of the goodness of my heart. I don't have any plans to misuse them. I am interested in whether they are compatible with the Terrors' Formula or not but that's hardly anything to be afraid of. Infiltration risk? Hardly. The Hush Tube they've already got would allow them access to the Mountain. If they tried using it like that it would alert me but so far they haven't. Improved relations with Humans in general might end up reducing my influence a little… No. I don't need to control every little thing they do. I'm not like Fath-.

I squeeze my eyes shut and rub my brow with my right hand. No. My father is a college biology teacher from Ipswich. Colin John Flockton Surname-I-Can't-Think. My mother's name is Linda Barbara Surname-I-Can't-Think. I come from a parallel Earth, Earth Prime. This is getting tiresome. I can barely believe that I didn't notice until that rant on Themyscira! That shouldn't have happened, I shouldn't… Ugh, it's like when I started out with the ring. I have to watch every little thing I think… I'm not sure that the little mental slip I just had was Father Box's fault, or if so whether it was deliberate or a simple consequence of my desire for Grayven's -actual Grayven's- more beneficial characteristics. Pretending to be him is no great burden but I don't want to start remembering his life as my own! I concentrate for a moment on some of my older memories: playing Off The Wall at my Primary School, that time I took the schmuck bait and guessed my Secondary School art teacher's age in her hearing. My Granny's d-. Agh, no, not Heggra. My Granny's Chihuahua, Fang.

I turn away from my team mates and elders and walk down the corridor towards the kitchen. I'm going to have to incorporate some technique for reminding myself who I really am into my meditations. And I'm going to have to come up with some way to tell Jade. She must have noticed the inconsistencies in my story: a bastard son of an alien tyrant whose parents had been married for thirty three years after a seven year courtship! Lying to her, that's just.. wrong. Like-. Like Darkseid's relationship with Suli, one person with whom you can just be yourself and not worry about it coming back at you. She told me that she'd be on some sort of mission until next weekend at least, but perhaps I can create or locate some sort of observation proof zone in the mean-.

"Grayven." Tao slows, walking down the corridor towards me.

I give him a polite smile. "Tao. What can I do for you?"

"I wondered..?" He frowns slightly and takes a deep breath. "I have been spending a great deal of my time in this mountain of late. Now that I have finished my reading material…" He looks down and shakes his head slightly. "Is there..?" Another pause. "Would you please tell me how to apply for field assignments?"

I face shrug. "Field assignments? Do you mean missions?"

"No. I understand that it is Batman who determines the parameters of our missions as a team. But, Kid Flash frequently accompanies the Flash, Robin is mentored by Batman and.. most of our other team mates have similar arrangements. You do not appear to work with Wonder Woman but nonetheless you have official tasks to perform. Is there a list I should put my name on?"

"No, there's no list. I.. don't think the things I do are official. I just decide to do things and then do them."

He frowns in puzzlement, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Then how do you know they are the things you are supposed to be doing?"

We stare at each other for a moment. "Tao, I think this is part of a larger discussion we should have had some time ago." I walk up to him and put my right arm around his shoulders, leading him back towards the kitchen. "Do you mean to tell me that you're not getting missions from the Great Ten?"

"No. I stopped receiving work assignments once my transfer was complete. I can be recalled, but unless I am I will receive no routine tasks from China."

"I hadn't realised."

"My superiors want for me to be the first Chinese member of the Justice League. It was felt necessary to show the existing members that I would cooperate with them above short term nationalistic calls on my loyalties."

I nod and gesture for him to take a seat at the dining area table. He does so, looking at me expectantly. "Okay. I'm just going to throw stuff out here. If anything confuses you, ask, okay?" He nods. "In America, if you wear a funny costume and don't actually kill anyone, you can pretty much walk into any city and start beating up criminals.. and no one will mind." His mouth opens slightly in shock. I wave my right hand at him. "I know. I know. Sounds ridiculous, but there it is. Most members of the Justice League started out like that, it's a tradition going back to Hugo Danner in nineteen ten. It's just how things work here. If you're going to spend significant time in any one city it's worth setting up a line of communication with local authorities but you're not actually obliged to do what they say." His mouth is still open and now he's leaning forwards slightly. I think his eyes are glazed over. "Tao, it can hardly be a surprise that the Chinese Government is rather controlling. America prides itself on granting its citizens great personal freedom-."

"But that is absolute anarchy!" He looks physically pained. "Why does the government not.. not at least organise things?"

"Habit. Plus, the current system is quite popular with the public at large. And it's cheap. Never underestimate the American public’s unwillingness to pay taxes. It's this sort of 'can do' attitude which is why the Justice League is largely American. Don't wait for the police; put on your pyjamas and a tiny mask and bring the ne'er-do-wells down yourself!"

"I see." He looks aside as he considers the situation. "I am.. unused to working in that way." He looks up at me hopefully. "Is there some guidance on which city would be an appropriate choice?"

"Think you may be missing the point a bit there."

"I cannot just.. turn up somewhere! That would be a completely irresponsible way to behave!"

"Incoming transmission."

A phone construct appears in my left hand. "I'm really sorry, Tao, but I need to take this."

He gets up out of his chair a little unsteadily. "I will.. think on what you have said."

I nod and smile before raising the construct to my ear and creating a sound deadening field around my head. "This is Grayven."

"You bin bein' a naughty boy?"

I smile. "Chester, me ol' mucker. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Some fancy lad from the Home Office came down here. They want me to come up with a way to top yeh. Is there something you want to tell me, mate?"

"I might have let the British government know that I had some truly class A blackmail material on.. pretty much everyone in high public office."

"How good we talking here?"

I look around to ensure that no one is close enough to hear me. "Want to see a video of Danielle Goldsmith fisting a donkey?"

"Augh. I didn't need that in me head." There's a slight pause and I imagine him blinking heavily, unable to prevent himself imagining it. "I don't think they call me in over a few dirty magazines. They've got that Cyril twit fer that."

"Oh, there's more serious stuff. The highlights include kidnapping, paedophilia, foul magics, murder and cannibalism."

"Fook.. me. Don't do things by half, do yer?"

"I just used the threat to get an edge… To be honest I'm probably going to end up releasing it anyway once I'm sure it'll stick." I think for a moment. Chester does -in his own imprecise and rather bloodthirsty way- try and focus on targets who more or less deserve it. How does he weigh things? Do I count? He knows exactly what sort of person I am from our early sessions. On the other hand… "So. Are you actually going to have a go?"

"You're just scared because you know I'm not like those pansies you usually hang around with."

"True. I'm not completely sure I could beat you." I'm really not. Given his visible frustration when he lost the ability to make me soil myself I'm going to assume that he wasn't faking, but that took everything I could. His telekinetic power is incredible. In a fight, even if he didn't get the drop on me? Dodgy one. "On the other hand, iff.. some of the people on this list suffered.. unexpected strokes…"

He pauses a moment before responding. "Wouldn't want anything like that to happen, would we? Best you send everything you've got over to me so I can keep an eye on the wankers."

 

14th January
16:57 GMT -5

Kaldur smiles down at our new mountainmate. "Now that you have been fully introduced-."

"We need to find you something else to wear." M'gann looks over Ixy's overalls with barely concealed distaste.

Ixy turns slightly to meet M'gann's eyes, blinking twice. Her tail swings from side to side. It functions almost perfectly as an indicator of her mood, a trait I can only assume is designed to enhance her earnest appearance. Slow swings indicate uncertainty or nervousness. Straight with tremors indicates excitement, curling up around her own legs or torso indicates genuine fear. Batman didn't warrant that when he interviewed her in person. She seemed to find him fascinating, though I'm going to assume from the fact that she's here that she managed to restrain her impulse to probe him telepathically. Red Tornado on the other hand had her hiding behind Match. Probably the first time she met someone whose mind she couldn't feel.

**Are my clothes wrong? If they are I am very sorry but we do not have any Genomorph tailors yet.** Ixy pulls the bottom of her t-shirt out to take a look at it. **These are a spare set that were issued to Dubbilex and then altered to my dimensions by a G-Dwarf.**

Artemis nods. "Yeah, we could tell."

Zatanna looks thoughtful. "The clothing stores in Happy Harbor should still be open. I could put a disguise spell on you-."

Ixy's eyes widen and she shakes her head. And her upper body as well. Articulation problem, perhaps? Or maybe she just wants to be extremely vehement. **Oh no, I am not ready for that level of societal immersion yet. Could I not just take them off?** For a moment no one says anything. **Most Genomorphs do not wear clothes and-** She goes to pull the shirt up higher. **-my epidermis is nearly as resilient as that of the G-Elves.**

**No.** M'gann steps right up to her and pushes her arms down in a friendly but firm manner. **Clothes… With Humans, clothes are kind of mandatory.**

**Thank you.** I notice Ixy's tail snake around M'gann's leg. **I hope you do not mind helping me not to make silly mistakes.**

**Of course not. I still remember what it was like being around Humans for the first time.**

**You mimic them very well. I want to learn as well as you have.** Ixy sounds earnest while M'gann suddenly looks a little less certain. She has long since internalised Human body language and facial expression. Is Ixy implying that she thinks M'gann merely pretends..? Or that Ixy would merely be pretending?

"Why don't you come to my house?" Ixy and M'gann look at Zatanna. "It's just me and my dad, and I've got a ton of clothes I've grown out of but never got around to throwing out. I'm sure we can find something that fits you."

Ixy beams. **Thank you. I would like that very much!**

Miss Ervin raises her right eyebrow. "Don't you live in a haunted house?"

"Shadowcrest isn't haunted." A sly smile appears on Zatanna's face. "We keep all our ghosts carefully contained in clearly marked rooms. You can all read Enochian, right?"

**I am not afraid of ghosts.** Ixy blinks, then looks down as she thinks for a moment. Once she has a conclusion she looks straight at Zatanna. **What are ghosts?**

"We can show you when we get there. Hsuh Ebut emoh."

The shimmering portal appears and Wallace looks around the group. "'kay, so, we all relocating to-?"

Artemis pokes him in the stomach as the female members of the team head through the Tube. "Girls only, Wally."

Ixy smiles winsomely at her escort as she is carried along. **Strictly speaking, Genomorphs do not have gender. We reproduce using-.** Her mental voice cuts out as the Tube closes.

Tao watches the space where the Tube disappeared. "She seemed friendly. Will she be joining us on missions?"

Kaldur glances at Robin for a moment. "That has yet to be determined." He transfers his attention to Match. "Match, what else can you tell us about her?"

"She's a telepath and a telekinetic. Actually, I don't think I've heard her speak with her mouth yet." He looks at me. "She can, can’t she?"

I tilt my head to the right slightly. "So far as I can determine, yes. She has vocal cords and the nerves that would be required to use them."

Richard frowns. "You said you told Dubbilex that he should make more G-Goblins back in December, right?"

"Yes." I think back for a moment. "I think I also suggested that we could host her here."

Wallace spots the implication. "They grew her in a month?"

Match nods. "Genomorphs can grow pretty quickly, and since they learn telepathically they don't need to spend a whole lot of time growing up. I know-" He glances at Kon. "-we didn't."

Kaldur looks unconvinced. "I realize that you and Kon were capable fighters immediately after you left your pods, but she seems far less robust than you."

Kon shrugs. "She's got the same strength and agility as G-Elves, and Dubbilex told Match that they used the G-Gnomes to give her their skills as well. She's not as tough as we are but she can still fight."

"Perhaps we can use this weekend to put her through her paces."

Richard shakes his head. "I don't think we'll have the chance. Batman said something about wanting us to spend this weekend helping him investigate some new meta drug Kobra's been using."

Wallace punches the air. "First real mission of the year!"

I rub my chin with my right hand. "We might be able to bring her along anyway. Her telepathy has a decent range to it. As long as she avoids direct combat…"

Kaldur nods. "Perhaps. I will wait until Batman informs us of the nature of our part in the investigation before deciding."

Richard looks at me suspiciously. "How come you're being so nice about her?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

Kon frowns, then nods. "He's got a point. You were pretty rude to people on Themyscira."

"I didn't sugar coat what I told them, if that's what you mean."

"Zeus shot you with lightning." That gets a few stares. Thanks, Match.

"The Genomorphs are a fascinating species. Biologically task adapted bodies with a gestalt consciousness? Themyscira's done basically nothing but rest on its laurels for two thousand years. The Genomorphs build their own city -and developed the ability to live independently- in a few months." I pause for a moment, wondering how to continue. "Though.. I'll confess… I do have another motive."

Richard snorts. "Big surprise."

I look directly at him. "Did you ever wonder where the Genomorphs came from?"

Wallace looks around the group. "Ahh, Gray? It's called Cadmus?"

I shake my head. "Everything I know about Human technology tells me that you aren't anywhere near advanced enough to create an entirely original species, let alone one with the abilities which the Genomorphs possess. At first I thought that perhaps they were heavily modified Humans.. or metahumans. But that's not it. I've checked. Your two species share some organic chemistry but you're not related. Not in any significant respect, anyway."

Kaldur frowns. "Atlantean biomancers are capable of performing significant alterations to existing species. My friend Blubber does not look Human."

"I can always tell. To a power ring Atlanteans scan as Human. In the case of plexed lifeforms I can pick out the DNA of the constituent parts. No, Genomorphs are new. Original." I sigh. "But… Morrow built A.I.s in the forties. The fact that it doesn't fit the curve doesn't mean that some sufficiently brilliant scientists couldn't have done it. But if so, where are they? I've investigated the people who worked on the Genomorphs in great detail. Intelligent, yes. Leaders in their fields, some. But Morrow was building servo arms in his father's garage when he was nine, none of them show that precocious level of ability. Especially not Doctor Desmond. Maybe they're just better at hiding than I am at finding, but it's far more likely that they got a start from somewhere else. And I'd be very interested to know where."

 

15th January
06:58 GMT -5

"I was thinking.. perhaps… Star City?" Tao and I walk towards the training area for the scheduled seven o'clock briefing by Batman. "I believe that I would feel better about the situation if I had.. a degree of oversight."

"Green Arrow can be a bit competitive and.. Star City actually has a fairly low crime rate."

"It would also be an opportunity for me to gain experience in working alongside Artemis."

I flash him a grin. "Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"

He frowns slightly. "Calling.. what?"

I snort and shake my head. "Tao, if you want to go to Star City, do it. Green Arrow will probably be fine with that. He may even offer to show you around himself."

"I think I would prefer that."

"And he can chaperone the two of you so her mother doesn't get worried."

"Um. That… I… Ahh..."

I pat him on the back with my right arm. "I had access to the Watchtower's internal monitoring at New Year. Quick work."

"Oh. I.. was.. not sure it was appropriate."

"No rule against it. And -come on- you’ve seen M'gann and Kon together."

He nods, managing a small smile. Ahead, I see Rocket emerge from a Hush Tube and walk over to join our other teammates. Looks like it'll be a full line up. Richard will be arriving with Batman and we're including the Sphere and Mister Tawny. Oh, no, silly me. Nearly full; and I haven't seen Red Arrow since New Year. Not that I think for a moment that we'll miss having a mundane pointy stick launcher guy on the team.

Interesting to see that William's coming along on this one. He was a little concerned when he discovered that the Apokoliptian armour I made for him was capable of making the transition from William Batson to Captain Marvel mode. He seems to think it makes him look a bit too grim, plus it creates an obvious visual link between William the boy and Marvel the superhero. Maybe I could try making him a suit with the main colour being red rather than grey? No, the visual link would still be there.

"Hey Tao."

"Artemis." Tao walks past me as I slow and takes up position next to her. Nearly next to her at least, he's left a respectful and proper space between them. She looks at him, then at it, then grins a grin I know well from Jade before closing the gap herself, intentionally bumping into him. For a moment the superfunctionary who's killed fifteen men that I know about is replaced by a chess club nerd working up courage to ask out a cheerleader. Oh, she's going to have fun with him.

Mister Tawny looks around as I take a position on the near side, next to Match and Kon and slightly behind Ixy. With twelve of us on the team -thirteen if Ixy joins the mission, fifteen if we count the Sphere and Mister Tawny- we're starting to get to the point where we become a little unwieldy. Alternate team leader tryouts are scheduled… Had been scheduled for today, though they'll have to be moved to next weekend now. Still not sure if I want to go for it or not. I like my team mates but I'm not sure that I see a place for myself as part of a training team going forwards, to say nothing of the time I intend to spend away from Earth. On the other hand, would me not taking part turn it into a sham? I have the skills these days, as well as the strength of personality. Making the team's token evil teammate the overall leader would be unthinkable, but as second in command? That could work. Have to ask the others-.

"Recognised, Batman, zero two, Robin, B zero one."

Tao and William come to attention and the rest of us straighten a little as well. Even Mister Tawny adopts a more alert posture. Richard walks over to take up position on the opposite end of the line to me while Batman strides to the fore, summoning a holoscreen of police -Gotham police by the looks of things- escorting some people in Kobra Cult robes into a police van.

"Earlier this week I located a Kobra cell setting up in one of the Joker's former chemical plants in Gotham City. They appeared to be working on production of both Kobra Buster and a new substance."

An image of a labelled vial of the stuff and another of its chemical structure flash up. Ring, analyse.

By your command.

In my mind's eye the ring shows me-. Oh, that's a little worrying.

"The substance appeared to grant its users enhanced endurance and healing abilities. Fortunately Robin and I were able to intervene before they could try combining it with Kobra Buster."

Wallace is staring intently at the molecular structure. "Do we know where they got it from?"

"The substance shares a number of similarities with a commonly used anti-miscarriage drug treatment which retails under the name 'Unception'. It's widely used across North America, Central America and in Europe."

I shake my head. "With respect sir, the drug you encountered sounds far more like Argonate."

Wallace's eyes widen as he recognises the name. "The explosive cancer drug? I thought that got banned!"

Batman gazes at me levelly for a moment before moving his eyes over the rest of the team. "It was, and the few remaining stocks are kept in secure locations." The drug actually worked extremely well at its intended role, stabilising and healing mortally injured recipients. Even after General Sunderland's research project crashed and burned and they lost the ability to manufacture more of it the stuff remained in use until one of the recipients suffered a very public adverse reaction. The fact that he'd have died months before anyway without it was rather ignored. "The only group of people who might retain the ability to produce the substance operate out of here." The other images disappear, to be replaced with one of the entrances to-. "Aberrance, Nevada." Haaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Are we actually-? "It's about sixty miles north west of Las Vegas."

Wallace tilts his head to the side slightly. "Isn't that near the Nevada Test Site?"

Oh, I wouldn't say near exactly.

Batman dips his head slightly. "Aberrance was founded in nineteen ninety five in the grounds of the former Nevada National Security Site and is now home to-."

I can't help myself. "A motley collection of circus freaks, tourists, hangers on and the Uncorporation." I grin. "Are we really getting sent there?"

Batman pauses for a moment as he regards me. "I take it that you're familiar with the place."

"I'm familiar with everything about it. Including the personal history of the management. I'd be surprised to find that they were working with Kobra though. Doctor.. von Schadel is known for being extremely possessive of his proprietary technologies." Hardly surprising when they are usually extracted from the living bodies of his brethren.

"I agree. It's more likely that Kobra has infiltrated Aberrance, possibly with the assistance of a local contact in Uncorporation itself. The team will travel to Aberrance this morning and attempt to locate the source of the leak while I investigate the possibility that Sunderland or someone associated with his research project is responsible."

"The team is capable of handling that as well." Kaldur looks down the line up. "We easily have sufficient manpower to cover both parts of the mission."

"American authorities are obliged to cooperate with the Justice League on matters of international terrorism. We have protocols in place to allow League members to see classified material. However, those protocols do not cover the team." We avoid looking at William as a minute smile appears under Batman's mask. "Sometimes, acting openly produces the best results. Aberrance opens its front gates to the public at eleven hundred, Mountain Time. You have four hours to plan your mission. Data on the town and on local notables has been added to your database but-" He looks at me again. "-it seems that Grayven may well be a better source."

"Batman?" I look around to where M'gann stands. "Are we able to get access to the prisoners? I could probably get information from them using telepathy."

Richard turns his head aside as Batman calls up a new holoscreen. What is tha-? Oh. Oh dear. It seems that they haven't quite worked out the bugs in their formula. "Unfortunately, none of the prisoners are in a fit state to speak with anyone, and I would not recommend attempting to contact them telepathically."

M'gann nods, visibly shaken.

Miss Ervine's mouth is open. "What.. happened to them?"

"When Robin and I fought them they all injected themselves with the new substance. A few hours later they looked-" Like Un-men. Curious. "-like this. Find the people responsible for this." He makes eye contact with us each once more and then strides away towards the Zeta Tube, leaving us with the image of a sad and broken monster that was once a man.

 

15th January
07:06 GMT -5

"Recognised, Batman, zero two."

**I do not think Humans are meant to look like that.**

"That man is.. no longer precisely Human." I step around Ixy and look at Kaldur with raised eyebrows. "May I?"

He raises his right hand towards the lecture space. "Please."

Wallace looks at me with concern. "What do you mean, 'no longer precisely Human'?"

I move out in front and interface the ring with the display. "Where to start. Ah! Kaldur, to the best of your knowledge, who is the greatest biomancer in Human history?"

He thinks for a moment, his eyes unfocusing slightly. "If I were asked in any other circumstances I would have said Ahri'ahn. Presumably you disagree?"

"For those of you who haven't heard of him, Ahri'ahn is the Atlantean magic user who devised -among other things- the biomantic spell which created the first of those who are now called 'Pure Bloods', Atlanteans who are physically identical to surface dwelling Humans but can breathe water and possess enhanced strength and endurance. But he isn't the greatest biomancer ever. He does have a decent claim to be the greatest all round magic user in Human history: he never bartered with any sort of god or spirit for more power, everything he achieved was with the might of his own spirit and that set the tone for Atlantean magic use even to the current day. But though it is biomancy which has become his lasting legacy, it was never really his focus." I bring up a recording I took from a newsreel dating from nineteen thirty seven. A surprise visit to the Hadamar 'clinic' by the man running the Nazi eugenics program. It's the only news footage I've been able to find of-.

Richard frowns. "That's Philipp Bouhler, the Nazi war criminal."

"Yes. Dreadful man." I pause the footage and expand one of the doors behind the area the meet and greet is happening in. A moment later the door is pushed open and an elderly man in a lab coat walks through before realising what is happening and starting to turn around. I freeze the image. "That.. is as far as I can tell the only surviving image of the late and entirely unlamented Doctor Anton Arcane. He was seventy four when this was taken."

Miss Ervine studies the image. "Was he a Nazi?"

"He wore the armband, but the intelligence files I read seemed to indicate a very low political commitment. The NKVD noted after the war that he was authorised to remove the bodies of those who were murdered there so that he could use their organs for research into transplantation. He was actually doing something rather more interesting. Creating life forms." I bring up a new image, showing a few of the first generation Un-Men. "Early Un-Men appear to have simply been sewn together cadavers. Additional joints-" I point one out. "-elongated limbs, novel limb placement… He later moved on to more creative works."

Kaldur is visibly disquieted. "That is.. disturbing, but I do not think it causes him to qualify as the greatest biomancer ever."

"Kaldur, he wasn't working within an existing tradition. Every work of science or magic he used in their creation he had to invent himself from scratch." Though there are similarities between his work and that of Victor Frankenstein. Might be worth further investigation.

"Undead creatures-."

"Ah, but they're not undead. Creatures that are genuinely alive created from the remains of the dead. They breathe, they eat, they excrete… Some of them can even have children."

Miss Ervine is visibly repulsed. "Oh, ew."

"At some point during the seventies Arcane lost a fight with Swamp Thing-" His image from back in the 'shambling moss man' days was easy enough to find. "-and died, leaving his creations directionless. Those who had accompanied him to Louisiana either went into hiding or were picked up by the American military. Perhaps the name 'David Manguy' sounds familiar?" A glimmer of recognition from Richard. Everyone else looks blank. "General Avery Sunderland?" Who was lucky to be allowed to retire. Right up until Swamp Thing planted a rose garden in his chest. "Damien Kane?"

Miss Ervine nods. "I remember hearing about him from Icon. Wasn't there some sort of messed up military experiment that made him mutate into a…" She looks back at the screen, realisation dawning. "One of those."

"Quite the reverse. Damien Kane-" I bring up the before and after images. "-was a second generation Un-Man. Both of his parents were creations of Anton Arcane. Sunderland's people forced them to breed entire batches for them to use as experimental subjects. The researchers were told that they were attempting to find a way to prevent the expression of genetic flaws in developing foetuses. 'Unception' -or at least one of its early forebears- was the result."

Match's face appears to have frozen. "What happened to the others?"

"The attempts of the scientists working on them to halt their mutation failed. They were destroyed in infancy. Damien Kane -not that he had a name until later- received what later became the release version of the drug and remained asymptomatic until he was twenty three."

I shift the image of the first generation Un-Men upwards and create one of all other known second generation Un-Men. Scylla, the vaguely dog-headed Brontes, shockingly tall and thin Daedalus -he had a minor acting career playing Grey type aliens before his death-, the woman with four arms… Never could find out what her name was. And the rest that I'm sure about. Early Aberrance had a fairly good registration process but unlike Aberrance now they didn't particularly care whether a person with deformities was an Un-Man or not.

**What happened when he was twenty three?**

"His body started mutating in earnest, the drugs no longer effective. They never found out why. His handler reported that he was experiencing signs of ill health, he returned to the laboratory where he was created… Doctor Manguy explained his circumstances, then he just.. disappears. He next turns up in Romania, as part of a freak show. He appears to have incited a riot which resulted in the death of the proprietor and most of the guests-" I put some newspaper cuttings up on the holoscreen. "-then returned to the United States with several other second generation Un-Men. Their next action was to attempt to free the first generation Un-Men still in captivity. It.. didn't go particularly well, but the deaths and the publicity the situation attracted were enough to both ensure that the program was shut down and ensure their safety." The simultaneous containment failure from the other part of the research project was rather more dangerous. Arcane created combat 'insectoid' Un-Men as well as simple servitors and the US military had been far more interested in those. Right up until they ate two platoons and demonstrated the ability to convert the fallen into more of themselves.

I add a video clip of one of the television interviews the survivors gave to the holoscreen. "The survivors were given a disused nuclear test site to live on." There's a small intake of breath from my audience. "Not quite as bad as it sounds. Un-Men are far more resistant to being mutated by external forces than baseline Humans. Anyway, Damien Kane became the nominal community leader until…" I add the image of Doctor Otto von Schadel and his.. escort. "A small group of first generation Un-Men who'd avoided detection by the military arrived. They had a rather.. different view of their circumstances. Von Schadel was convinced that Arcane's techniques could be harnessed for the greater good without the monstrosity of the earlier attempts. That might have gone nowhere but for this man. His name is Rupert Jameson, but these days-" I rotate the image so my teammates get a look at his back. "-they go by Janus and Janus Junior."

Wallace gags. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Janus had money and connections. He turned Aberrance into a circus freak themed theme park while lobbying for all the results of the US military's studies to be signed over to the Un-Men. He's been successful in both endeavours and has been enthusiastically backing Doctor von Schadel's work with Uncorporation ever since."

**Is he an Un-Man? Is that why there is a small man sticking out of his back?**

I bring up an old photograph of Janus with his late wife. "That isn't entirely clear. He certainly used to be Human, but von Schadel's surgical creation of 'third generation' Un-Men suggests that they can integrate Un components into baseline Humans without too much difficulty."

Kaldur shudders. "What has become of Damien Kane?"

"He's dead. Natural causes… Or what passes for natural causes in Un-Men. His mutations broke his body down almost completely. These days Aberrance is a company town firmly under Uncorporation's control and they strongly resent all outside interference. If we want any sort of cooperation, we'll need to convince them that we're people they should want to work with."

"Do you have a way to achieve that?"

I smile, radiating confidence. "Of course I do."

"And what is that?"

I grin. "Bribery."

 

15th January
15:16 GMT +3

I stride confidently through the Hush Tube and into the great hall. "Welcome to Castle Arcane."

Zatanna and Richard follow me through as I take a look around. The ceiling has long since caved in and from the looks of it the people from the village below have been looting the tiles employed in its construction. Drifts of snow have built up in places not sheltered by the remaining walls, illuminated by the weak fragments of sunlight able to pierce the stony grey sky. Off to my right the stone is blackened where someone once made a bonfire of wooden furniture. It must have been some time ago; water has gotten to it since and left a trail of black ash across the brickwork where it drained away.

Richard comes up besides me. "You really think we'll find anything here? It's been forty years."

"After his encounter with Swamp Thing, the surviving Un-Men recovered his head and attached it to a new body before using his own techniques to restore him to life. He then took virtually all of them off in pursuit, taking only the equipment they could carry. It was.. months after that when the villagers dared come up here." I take a look around and match what I'm seeing to the description I received. "This way, I think."

I lead the way up some stone steps towards the inner keep, Richard and Zatanna following cautiously behind me. "Htmraw. Dna, eltsac? T'nod espalloc no su." I feel a gust of warm air blow in from behind us. "What makes you think there's anything left here?"

"After that business with The Beast I had a chat with one of Mister Constantine's colleagues, one Nathan Arcane. He's Anton's.. great great nephew. Or something like that. According to him, any really valuable materials would have been disguised by magic. Now, there's a chance we've missed it anyway; this place has been looted three times over."

Richard pokes at a doorframe, which crumbles away at his touch. "I'm surprised there's anything left at all."

"Too much effort to cart the stone down the mountain. But don't let the state of this part of the castle fool you; Arcane's laboratory, workshop, his library and his personal chambers are a good deal further in. When the villagers started looting the place they left those well alone after one of their number stole a silver coloured ring from a cabinet and rotted to death over a period of a week. General Sunderland managed to get an agent up here in the seventies but he could only grab a few of Arcane's books. Nothing that he found particularly helpful. Cooperating with the communist authorities was an impossibility and his project was shut down well before the end of the Cold War."

"And the third time?" I note that he's keeping his voice down slightly, rather than using his slightly raised 'arguing with Grayven' tone.

"Janus led an Uncorporation expedition here in ninety eight. They hired some villagers and carted away the rest of the library. Literally, actually. They couldn't hire a lorry which could handle the load and the mountain track."

"Weren't they a bit freaked out by the little guy?"

"The power of the almighty dollar at work." We come out into another room with a missing roof. From the broken glass underfoot and the iron skeleton above I'm going to assume that it was a glass dome. They probably constructed it up here in the castle's long forgotten heyday. "Janus was more interested in seeing if there were any surviving Un-Men here. He appears to have gone home disappointed."

"After thirty years?"

"Unlikely, I agree, but there were second generation Un-Men in the area when Damien Kane visited. It wasn't impossible that there were others as well. Reuniting the 'Arcanian Diaspora' is one of Uncorporation's goals."

"How many of them are there?"

"No one really knows. Visually, they can look near normal, or like a person with conventional disabilities." I pause, making a show of looking at my own right arm. "Or a metahuman. Or an alien." I look around before starting towards an exit. "The library's through here. Zatanna, feeling anything?"

Her eyes glow faintly gold as she stares through the walls. "There's magic here, but no spells have been cast recently. Are you sure there aren't any booby traps left?"

I push open the door. Wood and iron, it's survived the decades surprisingly well. "Not at all. You'll need to thoroughly study anything we want to take away before we do so." The library's gutted, as expected. Empty bookshelves and cobwebs, the intact roof giving shelter to spiders as it once did scholars. The library used to be on two levels but the upper balcony has crumbled to nothing I'd want to put weight on. All of the desks but one have been shoved to the sides of the room, and that one has two charred skeletons with their hands clamped onto each end. I note that there's also a ring around it into which dust has not intruded.

Richard nods at the remains as I scan them. "Who were they?"

"Genetics say 'local'. Romanian, at least. Probably from Janus' expedition." Wouldn't hurt… "Zatanna, could you please try removing whatever spell is on that desk?"

She looks at me a little sceptically. "One that was put there by the greatest biomancer ever?"

"I doubt the spell is biomantic. It looks like fire damage." I give her a little smile. "Besides, you shouldn't underestimate your abilities. Not when he's been dead for fifty years."

She carefully approaches the desk, stopping just this side of the line on the floor. "Wohs em siht suoredrum lleps!" The blast of air created by her magecraft pushes the dust away from her as well and a golden triquetra forms as she pushes her right hand towards the invisible barrier. I can just about see the dim outline of the dome around the desk. "Eb edamnu!" Her eyes and armour glow gold as Zatanna pushes her triquetra forwards. The dome wobbles, then shudders and disintegrates, releasing a burnt smell into the air. Zatanna lowers her hand with a satisfied smirk, the golden glow of her armour dropping back to its resting level.

Richard looks over the bodies once more. "We should probably see about getting those to their next of kin."

I shake my head. "A nice idea, but they won't take them. Too much risk to touch anything that's been affected by Arcane's magic." He looks like he wants to protest. "We can bury them ourselves instead." I delicately pick them up with a construct and move them aside, rearranging them into a resting pose.

He looks uncomfortable for a moment, then nods in acquiescence. "So. Where do we look that no one else has?"

"None of those groups had a magic user with them."

"Seriously?"

"Reliable magic users are hard to come by. Zatanna?"

"Wohs em eht sdaerht fo eht cigam fo Notna Enacra!" Her eyes shine even brighter for a moment and she blinks heavily. "Whow."

Richard walks around in front of her. "Zatanna. You alright?"

"Yes, it's just…" She gazes around the room. "I think I'm.. seeing every spell he ever cast. I don't.. understand it all…"

Worth bringing her back here later? I'm sure there's a wealth of useful knowledge to be gained here. On the other hand, I have no interest in creating Un-Men myself. I mean, what would be the point? "Can you see anything that looks like-."

"A hidden book of spells?"

"It would be nice."

She flashes me a lopsided smile before floating into the air in the direction of the far window. Its small size and thick glass appear to have allowed it to survive where its brethren have fallen, though one of the smaller panes near the top has been broken. Zatanna comes to a halt just before it and holds out her right hand. "Gnikcehc eno meti tuo, esaelp."

The space around her hand glows gold as it warps and breaks, then comes together again in the shape of a black, leather bound book. Ring? Ugh, Human skin. I hope that's just the binding and not the pages, Human skin makes a rubbish writing medium.

The book continues to float just over her hand as she peers at it. "Evomer lla ytsan slleps." A puff of air erupts from the book, then she takes hold of it and floats back down to us. "There we go. Think this is something they want?"

I look at the gold lettering on the cover. 'AA' in stylised lettering. "I rather think so. Nice work."

Richard takes in the book as well. "So, you're sure Doctor von Schadel will cooperate if we give this to him?"

"Sure? No. But delivered by the right hand this should earn a great deal of good will."

"Would that 'right hand' be yours?"

I smile at him. "What do you think?"

 

15th January
07:26 GMT -5

"…there a reason we couldn't just open a tube directly to where we wanted to go?"

I nod as the three of us stroll back into the cave. "Yes, R-Robin. I haven't studied the effect of defensive magics on Tube physics. I already knew that there wasn't a ward over the whole of the castle but I didn't want to take the risk on us getting flambéed." I shoot him a sidelong look as we walk into the meeting room we've turned into a planning area. Three settees flank a central table with a holographic projector in the centre and there's a boss chair for team leader Kaldur at the end with the Sphere and Mister Tawny on either side. Match, M'gann and Kon sit to his right, Artemis, Miss Ervine and William to his left and Ixy, Tao and Wallace are opposite him. "Though I rather suspect that Zatanna and I could take it. I don't suppose you've reconsidered-?"

"No. Thanks."

Wallace looks around as we enter the room. "Hey guys. Find anything?"

Zatanna holds up the book and shakes it. "One book of evil magic."

Miss Ervine grimaces. "How evil are we talking here?" She looks around our other teammates for support. "'Cause.. we've been reading up on these guys-."

I shake my head. "I don't believe any magic is innately evil. Anton Arcane used his abilities to ruthlessly serve his own desires. Doctor von Schadel is a.. somewhat.. idiosyncratic man-."

Artemis waves her pad at me. "Who hates disabled people and doesn't like normal people much either."

"Hands up everyone who's normal." For a moment no one moves. "Wallace, you replicated the Garrick Formula when you were twelve. Kaldur, your father's body was altered to give him gills when he gained Atlantean citizenship, a trait you inherited from both him and your mother."

"Ah…" William goes to raise his hand.

"William, you were blessed by the wizard Shazam with the ability to turn into a superpowered version of your father. But even that wasn't sufficient for you. Like Prince Adam in He-Man you wanted to adventure as yourself, so? You took up the Sword of Beowulf."

Richard crosses his arms. "And what about me? Or Rocket?"

"I'd hardly call your circumstances 'normal', but yes, you are physically an extreme example of baseline Human athleticism. Look, I'm not trying to say that von Schadel is a nice man. But look at what he's done with the parts of Arcane's knowledge he currently possesses: mass produced drugs which allow women who could not hope to reproduce to do so and which accelerate the healing of people with crippling or mortal injuries. He already has the ability to perform mass augmentations and desires to do so. If he's a bit of an arse as well? I can live with that."

Kaldur rises from his seat. "Zatanna, have you reviewed the contents of the book?"

She shakes her head, then takes a seat next to Artemis. "No, not yet. And since I'm not really all that familiar with either biomancy or whatever notation Arcane used, I'm not sure I'll be able to tell for certain exactly how dangerous this is."

Richard takes a seat next to Wallace opposite Kaldur and I sit down next to Match, on the opposite side from Zatanna. Match looks over to the book. "If Arcane's dead, shouldn't the Un-Men get it anyway? That's pretty much what the US government decided to do with everything from Sunderland's research project."

Kaldur nods. "The idea is not inherently unreasonable, and Uncorporation's willing cooperation would make our investigation much easier. Grayven, how did you plan to approach him?"

I shrug. "More or less walk up to him and hand him the book. Naturally, he'd be curious about where I got it from and my.. obvious physical differences from the Human norm mean that he wouldn't reject my output out of hand." My eyes drift to his bare neck. "Originally, I'd.. assumed that you would be just as capable of performing that role, but with your gills gone…"

"I am still not a 'baseline' Human."

"No, but you look like one. That counts with the Un-Men. As we are now… If I were to take M'gann and Match with me, that would be a credible 'investigation'."

He nods. "You could investigate from within while the rest of us blended in with the tourists."

Kon flicks through pages on his pad before coming to the one he wants. "Looks like these 'gaffs' have reason enough to hate Uncorp. Think maybe Kobra have set up a recruiting station?"

Kaldur shakes his head. "I do not want to prejudge them. The fact that they have a justified grievance does not mean they would seek to remedy it by joining Kobra. M'gann, what is the longest range over which you can maintain telepathic contact?"

"It depends. Over open ground it's about eighteen miles but that gets reduced a lot if you go underground." She looks at me. "And I can't contact Grayven at all beyond about thirty feet."

"Nothing personal."

**Eighteen miles? Oh, that is amazing!** Ixy leans so far in M'gann's direction that I'm a little concerned that she'll fall off her seat. **Have you always been able to do that?**

**Not-** "-that far, no." M'gann looks at Kaldur. "If Ixy came along I could probably maintain contact over a longer distance."

**We could bring some G-Gnomes! I can maintain contact with them over almost any distance!**

Tao looks at her, shaking his head. "I am sorry Miss Ixy, but G-Gnomes would stand out too much for a covert investigation."

Kaldur makes eye contact with me. "Do you believe that the Un-Men would be as accepting of Ixy as they would of M'gann?" Would they? Probably. She's physically unique, looks nothing like a baseline Human… Created in a laboratory… I nod. "Ixy, you can accompany Grayven and Match when they speak to Doctor von Schadel. Grayven, in the event of hostilities you are to send her somewhere safe immediately." I nod again. "Try to find out if there is any Uncorporation involvement in Kobra getting access to Uncorporation materials. Robin, Artemis, Kid Flash: I want you to try to talk to 'Bertoldt the Gill Man'." He triggers the holographic display in the middle of the table, showing a middle aged man with flippers instead of arms or legs. No gills in evidence. "He's a community leader among Aberrance's deformed residents. I believe the task will be best handled in your civilian identities. Saying that you want to write an essay on the situation in Aberrance should be enough to make him open up about their grievances." Nods from the three of them. "Rocket, Superboy. You and I will attempt to speak with Mister Inkabod, a tattooed man known for his outspoken opposition to Uncorporation activity in Aberrance. Celestial Archer, Zatanna, Miss Martian: attempt to infiltrate the Uncorporation's production facilities. If anyone working there is assisting Kobra we need to know about it."

William looks around at the group as if expecting something. Oh, he didn't-. "What do you want me to do?"

"We.. need someone to stay with the Bio-Ship. I understand that your piloting skills are quite good." William crosses his arms.

I sigh. "Be honest with yourself, William. Do you have the training for an undercover mission? Without Solomon's Wisdom guiding you?"

"But Celestial Archer only just joined up too!"

Tao inclines his head slightly. "Covert operations were the focus of my training with the Great Ten. I am confident of my ability to provide Miss Martian and Miss Zatara with the support which they require."

"Fine."

I look over to where Mister Tawny lurks next to Kon. "I'll take Mister Tawny along as well. There are such things as Un-Animals so he should be acceptable. I suggest that Tao and M'gann have the Sphere with them in case they need close fire support or rapid extraction."

Tao raises his left eyebrow. "I am unclear how a large metal ball will aid us in a stealth mission."

I fan out my hands. "We can't keep leaving her here. It isn't fair to her."

Kon looks around. "She could come with us." His eyes stop on Kaldur. "We're going in costume, right?"

Kaldur nods. "Given Inkabod's psychological profile I think that he would respond best to a direct approach."

"Right. So the Sphere won't be a problem."

Kaldur nods again. "Does anyone have any further observations before we get into the detail?"

 

15th January
10:43 GMT -5

I hold the Purple Healing Ray up to the roof of the Bio-Ship and M'gann's eyes glow as she directs it to begin the interfacing process. It oozes out a pseudopod and starts making a connection. "This can really heal.. anything?"

"Any unhealed injury. It does nothing if the damage is already healed, even if the bone healed crooked or the hand healed with the finger missing. It can't remove viruses or bacteria, can't remove cancer…" I think for a moment. "And it's only been tested on Earth native life forms."

Her eyes dim and she looks at me with outraged astonishment. "But.. this should be in every ambulance on the planet! Why were the Amazons keeping it to themselves?"

"They weren't really using it either." I gingerly remove my hands and the Ship's connection to the gun holds it in place. "I don't think sharing it occurred to them. Their understanding of modern technology is almost nonexistent. To them, it's a magic ray devised by a great sorceress, and since she had no apprentice it would remain one of a kind."

She smiles at me. "Two of a kind."

"Now, yes, but to be fair I'm not sure anyone in America could have replicated it either. Arcanotechnology has been allowed to become a forgotten discipline since the fall of the Third Reich. There's maybe a handful of people across the world who could have made another."

"You have.. told her you've done this, right?" Um. "Grayven."

"She was the one who brought the Baroness to Themyscira! She knew what the Purple Ray could do, was the only woman there with any contact in the outside world and she did nothing to bring-."

"Have you talked to her about it?"

…

"Noo."

"What would Lantern Gardner say?"

I lower my gaze and shuffle my feet. "He'd say I.. need to discuss my feelings of frustration with the people involved or they can't possibly answer my concerns." She keeps staring at me expectantly. "Okay, I'll.. talk to her about it after the mission."

She smiles at her recalcitrant student. "There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

I walk past her towards the ramp. "It will be if she finds out what else I've done with it."

"What do you mean?"

She follows me out as I take a somewhat larger gun shaped object out of subspace. The metal of the casing is a silvery grey colour and it emits a purple glow from inside. "The Purple Ray works by temporarily supercharging the vital force.. chi, if you like, of the target. When I saw the design I realised that it would only take a modest adjustment to create something which suppressed it instead."

She puts her hands on her hips and sighs at me. "You made a Purple Death Ray."

"I made a yes." When she puts it like that it does sound a bit… "It has a narrow beam mode. You can shoot to maim. And it's not like the plasma cannons we've already installed make a person any less dead."

She turns to look at the location of the Bio-Ship's weapon mounts. "I suppose… Can you make a version which doesn't work on organic tissue?"

"No, that's… It affects a target's vitality. Unliving things don't have vital force." I raise my right hand to my chin. "It.. might be.. possible.. to make some sort of chi based targeting system…"

"We can.. worry about it later. For now, put that back in subspace?"

I do. "You know, it's a shame you're not taking part in my section of the operation. I was planning to ask you to walk around in full Martian mode."

"In that case it's definitely a good idea-." She cuts off as the lift opens and Richard, Wallace, Artemis, Kon and Match walk out. Wallace made some comment earlier about replacing the lifts with Tubes but we're either going to need a much better generator than I can currently build or build a lot of lesser generators and a truly huge capacitor.

Wallace waves to us. "Hey guys. The others not ready yet?"

M'gann shakes her head. "Ixy and Tao are already onboard and Mister Tawny-" The Tiger in question erupts from the water and hauls himself onto the land. He takes a look around and then starts shaking himself dry. "-went for a swim."

I look down at him as he begins padding in our direction. "I'll dry him off before he gets in the Ship."

M'gann nods. "Thank you. Zatanna was still trying to work out what Arcane's book was about, and Rocket and Bi-Beowulf don't keep clothes here."

Match walks up to me. "So, you going for it, then?"

"I'm sorry? Going for what?"

"The.. second in command thing?"

I glance at Richard and Wallace. "Yes. I feel the contest would be a rather empty one if I did not. Whoever wins should be able to command my respect, as Kaldur does. Otherwise they're just another nuisance for me to ignore." I smile at him. "How about you? Throwing your metaphorical hat into the ring?"

"Ah, I don’t think so. I don't really think I've been here long enough."

"I will be." Richard stares at me in what I assume is the most confrontational manner he can muster. Aww. Sweet. "No way am I letting you get it."

"Not the best of motives, really. But I'm glad. I'd hate to walk in unopposed. M'gann?"

She shrugs. "My name's already down. I don't know if it's.. becoming Red, but I feel ready to handle the authority. Conner? How about you?"

He shuffles awkwardly. "I don’t know… All my programming was to teach me how to fight by myself."

M'gann walks up to him and puts her right hand on his left arm. "No one expects you to be as good as Kaldur right away. It's more about assessing how good you can be."

"Okay." He smiles down at her and puts his free arm around her. "If it makes you happy."

I pat him on the back as Mister Tawny reaches us. "Good show. Wallace? Artemis?"

Artemis shakes her head. "I don't.. think so. I've got zero experience leading teams. Maybe next time."

"Yeah…" Wallace looks uncomfortable. "Having seen Kaldur in action, I'm.. really not sure I'd be able to measure up. You know if the others are?"

"Tao is, because he doesn't think they'd ever let him back in China if he didn't. Zatanna isn't. Don't know about Miss Ervine. Dry." Mister Tawny sniffs at me as his coat not only dries but goes all the way into fluffy. M'gann giggles and Artemis snorts in amusement. He tosses his head and walks up the ramp and into the Bio-Ship. Richard and Kon follow him. Artemis starts to board as well, but I stick out my left hand to stop her. She gives me a puzzled look and I hold up my right forefinger in a 'one moment' sign. "Ah, Wallace?" He looks in my direction. "There's some.. chocolate cake left in the cupboard. We were going to have it this evening, but this sounds like it's going to be an all day thing. If you want it, you may as well eat it."

"Aah…" He thinks for a moment. "No, I'm good, thanks. Ate before I came out."

"Right ho." He carries on into the Bio-Ship, oblivious to the stare from Artemis and the smug grin from me.

"Did he just-?" Artemis' gaze flicks from his retreating back to me and then back again. "Did Wally just turn down food?"

"I had wondered if that would happen."

Kon frowns at me. "Why? Did you do something?"

"The Awakening. After the Shadow Dog gave us all that nightmare-" Artemis shivers at the recollection. "-Kaldur's gills disappeared. I realised that Wallace might experience a similar result, with the process 'correcting' the flawed alchemy he used to give himself super speed. He's gotten slightly faster than he was in my tests before the incident, but according to his own reports the largest change is in his calorie intake. It's noticeably down. Mostly because he's cut out snacking rather than cutting down on what he consumes during meals… I don't actually think he's noticed the change yet."

Artemis hits me in the left arm. "You haven't told him?"

"No, of course not. You know how much his diet bothers him. I don't want to say anything until I'm sure." She pauses, then nods her head to the side in reluctant approval. I think for a moment. "Tell you what: keep an eye on what he eats today. If it's down to Human normal I'll say something when we finish the mission." She nods. "How about you? Noticed anything odd you haven't thought to mention?"

She thinks for a moment, then her eyes widen and her cheeks colour slightly. "No. Nothing at all." Straight backed she strides past me into the Bio-Ship.

I frown at her retreating back. What was that about?

 

15th January
10:51 GMT -5

I generate a phone construct and hold it to my ear as Kaldur and the Sphere take their places. As the lead 'face' for this mission I get the job of convincing Uncorporation to tolerate our intrusion. Shouldn't be too difficult; the last thing they want is anything associating Aberrance with that sort of malfeasance. The Sphere warbles at me before rolling to the front of the Bio-Ship. Hm. Wonder if I could use her to jump start Barda and Scott's Mother Box? She's had a little bit of difficulty adapting to there suddenly being a whole group of New Gods around the place. So far only Zatanna and Tao have shown the same ability to understand her that I have-.

"Niko here, what is it?"

I find myself involuntarily smiling. "Miss Parish, good morning. My name-."

"How did-?" Her voice is replaced by a buzz as she hangs up. Hmm. I watch through the front screen as M'gann takes us up and out. Redial. "Niko."

"My name is Grayven-."

"I've already got security people going to the exchange. Uncorporation takes its security very seriously, Mister..?"

"Grayven. And they won't find anything, I'm accessing your phone systems remotely. I wanted to have a word with you."

She exhales sharply. "I'm a busy woman. Make it quick."

"Evidence has come to light which suggests that someone is using Argonate again." Silence from the other end. "Curious?"

"Argonate? It's certainly not us. Given the adverse publicity Uncorporation shelved the whole project."

"Do you have any stocks remaining?" I know they do, but it should be interesting to hear-.

"Yes, in the vaults. What is this 'evidence'?"

I take in the view through the windows as we fly over Happy Harbour. My Boom Tubes can take us directly to Aberrance but they aren't exactly quiet. If we keep using them around Happy Harbour someone might get curious so we usually make sure to go a little way inland first. "Batman bumped into a Kobra nest in Gotham last Tuesday. The cultists injected themselves with something and a few minutes later started mutating. They're still alive at the moment but they looked like… Did you ever see pictures of what happened to Damien Kane's unsuccessful siblings?"

"Yes, I.. did." Ring, send her the pictures. "But there are other mutagenic agents that can produce the same results."

"I'm sure that your people can recognise the effects of uncontrolled Un-Men type mutations better than I can. The pictures should be in your inbox now."

"One moment." I hear a very quiet clicking as she opens the files. "No, that's… I see the physical resemblance, but Argonate never produced those sorts of results. If it had it would never have been approved for Human trials."

"I have a sample-" I hold out my right hand towards Richard and make a beckoning motion. After a moment's reluctance he hands over a vial. "-of the substance they used. Took a while to analyse it, which is why I'm talking to you now and not four days ago. Chemically, it's similar but not quite the same as Argonate. My working assumption is that it reacted poorly to something else they were using."

"Uncorporation isn't supplying Kobra, if that's what you're implying."

"No, I don't believe for a moment that you are. Certainly, you wouldn't risk it this close to the first broadcast of American Freak. But we have to che-."

"Who's 'we'?"

I smile at Richard. "Batman's little helpers." He scowls at me.

"You'll forgive me if I'm a little sceptical."

"Naturally. If you go to W W W dot supersidekicks-" Two winces and a sigh. "-dot com slash Justice League… You there?"

"Yes, but it's just a fan site."

"They put in links to video footage. For some reason I'm listed as assisting Green Lantern rather than Wonder Woman. Look for where it says Orange Lantern."

"Okay, I'm… Oh."

"Most of that was taken after Roanoke Island, during the clean up. I can present my official documentation when I arrive."

"While I.. can understand your concern, the Justice League has no authority to investigate anything in Aberrance. If you send me the chemical I can have our internal security people-."

"Miss Parish. Batman has been able to persuade Commissioner Gordon to sit on what he has for a little while, but there are limits here. If Uncorporation is implicated he'll have to refer the matter upwards to the Federal Authorities."

"Uncorporation is happy to open its doors to our partners in the Department of Energy. We don't like vigilantes here, Mister Grayven."

"Miss Parish, please. I'm not trying to strong arm anyone."

"I'm glad to hear it. I'm still not sure why you expect us to cooperate with you, though."

"Miss Parish, after Roanoke and the attempted Belle Reve break out -which may I remind you resulted in the head of Kobra absconding from US custody- politicians of all stripes are looking to look tough on paramilitaries and supervillains both. Given the existing relationship between Uncorporation and the DoE, how long do you think it will take for Senators and Representatives -maybe even Nevada State officials- to demand that someone else investigate you? How long before the news channels pick up on the possibility of a link between your people and Kobra? Gotham police are notorious for their bribability-" Though not for serious stuff, not these days. "-and I would presume that the only reason this hasn't leaked already is that they don't know where they should be looking for the pay off. And when the investigation does happen, when you're up to your eyeballs in the FBI and the CIA and the NSA and whoever else… What's that going to do for business?"

"Are you threatening us?"

"No. I'm nearly as excited about Uncorporation's work as you are. You can see my picture; do I strike you as a man who's precious about Human modification?"

"I suppose not."

"No, I want to give you the opportunity to avoid all that. Let me and a few of my associates come in, have a look around and talk to some of your staff. If we can't find anything by the end of the weekend? We can tell Batman and the Gotham police that the problem isn't at the Uncorporation end." I pause for a moment. "And, naturally, we would share any information relating to.. someone else using Uncorporation's proprietary technologies.. with their rightful owners. If it isn't you it is someone, probably with an advanced laboratory."

"We.. would.. appreciate that."

"And just because it isn't the Uncorporation as a body, that doesn't mean that someone in your employ isn't leaking." Unlikely though. Everyone directly employed in the medical research side of Uncorporation is an Un-Man. Anyone prepared to go through that… "I'm given to understand that you've had a degree of civil unrest of late."

"There have been some protests. We don't stop the… Aberrance's unmodified-."

"I call them 'baseline' myself."

"Most of them aren't really that. We don’t break up peaceful demonstrations. People have the right to protest, within certain bounds of course. Uncorporation is a powerful force in people's lives here. It shouldn't be a surprise that some.. people feel resentment towards us. Though I'd be surprised if any of them would go so far as to join Kobra."

"So? Am I allowed in, or do I have to try and sneak in with the tourists at opening time?"

"How... How big a team are you looking to bring in?"

"Oh, not that big." Ring, book tickets for my teammates. Make it look like they were booked weeks ago, but not at the same time. "I'll be coming in with three associates. Minimal disruption."

"I'll need to talk to Janus, but… Looking at these pictures… How quickly can you get here?"

By your command.

"I can be with you in five minutes."

"Come to the heavy goods vehicle entrance to the Uncorporation compound. I'll have someone meet you."

"Thank you, Miss Parish. I appreciate your cooperation."

 

15th January
07:58 GMT -8

M'gann sets the Bio-Ship down near the Nevada town of Mercury. Route 95 is well served with busses and that's how my plain clothed team mates will make their arrival. We've already dropped Miss Ervine, Kon and Kaldur near somewhere called Beatty and Richard, Artemis and Wallace will be heading in from the opposite direction.

Wallace stands and picks up his backpack. "Good thing we're not doing this in August. I don't think we'd make it to the bus stop." He looks at me. "We clear?"

Ring? "Clear vistas all round."

The rear door oozes down and Team Bertoldt disembark. They have their basic costumes and equipment in their bags, though Artemis had to leave her bow behind in favour of a crossbow pistol. Their usual gear -including their Apokolips tech armour- will be kept on the Bio-Ship in case they need to arm up. I can't imagine that we will, but I suppose that contingencies are for things you didn't anticipate. Richard looks back at me for a moment as he reaches the ground before following Artemis and Wallace into the town. You know, I can't help but think that he's taking his self-appointed role of 'guy-who-keeps-an-eye-on-Grayven' a bit far. I don't actually have a subversive motive here.

Match rises from his seat and walks towards the exit. He is in his Apokoliptian armour with blue 'S'. He knows that I'm working on Kryptonian armour for him but he said that he'd rather use the suit he was used to on this mission. Need to talk to him about the colour scheme. It won't be as hard to make in blue, red and gold as Diana's was -if that's what he wants- but I'd like to know what sort of pattern he wants before I waste time on it.

I give the Sphere a last pat on the.. top, then get out of my chair, making eye contact with Ixy as I do so. She shoots out of her seat and hurries after Match. She's wearing an old and slightly too large t-shirt of Zatanna's. It's pink and has a print of a classical grey alien on the chest with the legend 'Believe' underneath. The girls quickly decided that she didn't really have the figure for skirts or the right leg-shape for trousers so most of her leg wear is made up of long shorts or culottes. She's in tight fitting white denim shorts at the moment and opted to leave her feet bare.

Haven't got around to designing armour for her yet, and since she's under very clear instructions not to get into any fights anyway it shouldn't matter too much. I stroll forwards as I think about the problem. Given that she's an agility fighter it couldn't be anything heavy or confining… Perhaps an energy shield? Projected by multiple devices spread out across a tough fabric?

What? I stagger forwards a pace as Mister Tawny nudges me in the back of the legs in an attempt to make me go faster, prompting William to let loose a burst of laughter and Zatanna and M'gann to hurry to conceal their smiles. Hmpf. I stride the rest of the way onto the stony but surprisingly well enshrubbed ground. "Alright, just to reiterate: ask questions, be polite, don't push too hard."

Match gives me a puzzled frown. "Why are you so sure it isn't Uncorporation? You said Kobra often recruits the disenfranchised and.. the Un-Men are about as disenfranchised as people get."

"Simple, really. Life is -currently- good for the Uncorporation. Virtually all of those who lived through General Sunderland's project are dead and the third generation Un-Men who make up the majority of their workforce have no reason to bear a grudge. Uncorp's Un-Men believe that their modifications make them superior, they don't resent their outsider status at all. If they did, the corporation is working hard to improve their lot so there is already a channel for those feelings. And Doctor von Schadel is far too arrogant to work for an organisation like Kobra."

Match nods. "I suppose that makes sense. Do you think he could be using them as guinea pigs?"

Possibly… No. "People have gone to him to have perfectly functional Human arms replaced by crab claws. He might be prepared to use cultists as test subjects, but why bother when people are willingly coming to him? No. I think he'd rather test things in places where he can have complete control, as well as the ability to conceal it if things go drastically wrong."

Match smiles at me. "Should I be worried about how much thought you've put into working out how a mad scientist thinks?"

"In the sciences, madness and brilliance are separated only by success. Ixy? Any last minute questions?" She shakes her head. I notice that she's standing slightly hunched forwards, as if ready to dive or lunge. She was standing straight perfectly well back in the mountain. Part of her G-Elf programming, perhaps? "Mister Tawny?" He just looks at me. "Right ho then. Father Box, Boom Tube if you please." With a loud 'bang' the portal appears, our end pointing away from the Bio-Ship. The other end opens out on the empty plaza at the rear of the Uncorporation headquarters. Any unpleasant surprises waiting for us? Apparently not, though there are a couple of Un-Men in guard uniforms hanging around near the still locked delivery entrance.

The female guard with snakes for hair notices the hole in space with a start. Much like superheroes and New Gods, Un-Men like to pick new names when they join the community. Hers is Petra, presumably either an abbreviation of petrify or at least a reference to it. She doesn't actually have a petrifying gaze though; her eyes are unaltered and a rather brilliant shade of blue. Her partner is a bald man with dull red skin and two small upwards curving horns sticking out either side of the rear of his head. For some reason he changed the perfectly serviceable name 'Gareth Evans' to 'Muzuk'. Both are dressed in pale brown Uncorporation guard uniforms and caps and carry automatic weapons.

I note the 'NO GAFFS' sign on the fence behind them.

I stride forth to meet them, Match close behind with Ixy and Mister Tawny bringing up the rear. Muzuk looks at us with an expression of mild disbelief, then turns his head slightly to Petra. "Is that.. Superman?"

"Not unless he shrank in the wash. And look at his eyes."

I raise my right hand in greeting as we cross the paved surface. "Good morning! I assume that the two of you are our guides?"

Petra takes a step forwards. "Mister Grayven?" I nod. "If we could please see your identification?" I nod and extract my Justice League identification card from subspace. Petra takes it from me and gives it a quick look over before nodding. "This seems to be in order." She hands it back before holding out her right hand to Match.

Interesting. Her snakes don't face the same direction as she's looking in. Rather they shift slightly but at least one is facing in every direction at all times. I wonder how her brain processes the input..?

"Oh. It's right-" He flips open the pouch on his right thigh- "-ah…" -and fiddles around a bit before pulling his own card out. "Here."

Petra looks him over again before taking the card. Of course; he sounds like Kal-El as well. Still a little bit shorter but I imagine he'll make up the difference over the next few years. Petra frowns as she looks from the card to his face. "'Match'?"

Match nods. "Superman's match."

"Really?" She raises her eyebrows as she hands the card back.

"Well, I'm his clone, so, yeah. I'm almost exactly his match." Her eyes linger a little on… Really? Match, she's the sort of woman your mother would warn you against. "Have you.. finished with-?"

"Yes! Yes, it's fine." She hands the card back before turning to Ixy and Mister Tawny.

Ixy smiles at her. **Hello.**

Her expression stills slightly. "Do you have-?"

I shake my head. "Could we vouch for them? Ixy's only joined us recently and Mister Tawny is an augmented Tiger."

"Yeah, that'll be fine." Mister Tawny pads forward to give her an exploratory sniff. "We'll escort you up to Ms Parish."

No, no good. "I'm sorry, could you just hold still for a minute." I light up the tip of my right forefinger and move it around the side of her head. The Snakes track it so clearly they can respond to external stimulus. I stop the finger with a slight frown. There's no way that the human brain could put together that much-. They've lost interest! I jerk my finger sideways a bit and three snake heads reorientate. "They track motion! Of course!"

Petra smiles at me. Something I realised about Aberrance early on: Un-Man or 'gaff', everyone here likes to talk about their abnormality. "Yeah, the Doc had to grow them special then connect them up to my perirhinal cortex." Now that I'm looking closer I realise that beneath the Snakes her head is actually thicker between her skull and the scales, presumably to cope with the extra blood flow. "Four hour operation. Now I'll never need a haircut again."

Muzuk points towards the gate with his left thumb. "We going or what?"

Petra turns and begins slowly walking towards the entrance. I follow on behind, only for her to drop back slightly so as to be next to Match. "So, what's with the eyes?"

Oh, of course she'd ask that. Match shrugs. "The people who cloned me didn't get it quite right. When Grayven fixed me he left my eyes the same. They don't hurt or anything."

"Why'd he do that?"

"So I'd look different from my brother. And from Superman, I guess. Being so much like Superman was a big deal for my brother and I.. don't really want that baggage."

She nods. "I totally get that. Five siblings, and now I'm the only one with snakes coming out of her head."

For a moment Match isn't quite sure how to respond. "That must be a.. pretty hard act for them to follow."

 

15th January
08:05 GMT -8

I know my way around the Uncorporation building from the scans which I've already taken-

**Why are you red?**

-but I make a point of letting our escorts lead the way.

"Miss, could you.. please not.. do that?"

**Not do what?**

The building itself is.. fairly bland, really. Doctor von Schadel's Mad Science Dungeon is well below ground level but the rest of the place is straight out of Bland Corporate Decoration Monthly. At the moment we're on white floor tiles with sandy yellow walls and white ceiling tiles. Since this appears to be the employee section they haven't bothered with corporate art-

"Talk in my head."

-though the air conditioning systems appear to be 'Nevada Safe'.

**Oh! I am sorry, I had not realized-.**

"Ah, Ixy?" Match gets her attention, then shakes his head.

She tilts her head to the side in puzzlement, then her eyes widen. She turns back to Muzuk, straightens her posture slightly and takes a deep breath. "I. Am. Sorry." She exhales the rest of her breath and then breathes in again. "I. Do. Not. Use." Breath. "Audit. Ory. Commun." Breath. "Ication. Often."

Match gives Petra a puzzled look. "Why is her telepathy a problem?"

"Doctor von Schadel gives everyone who wants to 'join the company'-" Her snakes writhe. "-a telepathic interview before operating. It's not a lot of fun."

He's telepathic? I didn't know that.

Another deep breath from Ixy. "All. Genomorphs. Use."

Muzuk raises his arms in surrender. "Okay, okay! Just.. whatever."

**Thank you!** She drops back to her half crouch. **I am sorry that I have not learned to speak well yet but it is a skill I will get better at.**

"Seriously? You don't know how to speak? How old are you?"

**Now I am two weeks old! How old are you?**

"I'm-. Wait, what?"

"How. Old. Are-."

"No, I mean, you're two weeks old?"

**I have been growing for longer than that in my birth tank but two weeks ago in…** She appears to think for a moment. **Four hours, I was taken out of the tank for the first time.**

Petra's eyes widen. "Really? Wait." She looks at Match. "You said you were cloned. How old are you?"

"I got out of my pod on the 4th of December last year, so.. forty two days old." Petra pulls away from him, looking slightly embarrassed. Hah hah.

**We were physically nearly mature when we were taken out of the pods and the G-Gnomes implanted as much knowledge as they could in our heads and that's why I like using telepathy.** She blinks twice. **You still haven't told me why-.**

"Because the Doc hadn't been watching the National Geographic Channel when he 'Unvolved' me. No operation for me, just a couple of injections and a 'Call me ven somsink interesting heppens'." He reaches back and runs his forefingers along his lower horns. "You would not believe how much these itched coming through." He takes another look at her. "Or, maybe you would."

**I don't remember my horns emerging because I was still in the pod.** She brightens up as we come to a lift. **But you can show me the memory if you like.**

"I'll pass." Muzuk scans a keycard and then presses the 'call lift' button.

I give him a scan. "Aside from turning you red and giving you horns, what else does it do?"

He shrugs. "Not all that much. My skin's tougher than it used to be and I haven't lost any sensitivity. Think I'm stronger too, but only by a little." The doors open and we step inside. I'm not sure if it does double duty as a goods lift or if it was just designed to be able to carry 'huge' Un-Men but I can get in without difficulty. "Who did you? Or did you grow up in a tank too?"

"I'm a self made man-"

"Ploong."

"-with a little help from a power ring and a mouthy AI." Muzuk presses a button near the top of the panel. "Baseline Human to New God in a little over four months."

"Tchss." Petra gives me a look of incredulity. "God? Really?"

"Certainly. There are levels of divine power. A Human mage may achieve the lower ones, a young god like me is a little further on, an established god like Zeus or Ahriman further on still… With the Source sitting comfortably behind its great Wall at the top."

It takes her a moment to realise that I'm being serious. "If you're a god, what can you do? Can you throw lightning?"

"Any fool with a taser can throw lightning." Suck it, Zeus. "So far, I've got agelessness, disease and poison immunity, I've become strong enough to arm wrestle Match,-" Match nods. "-tough enough not to get pasted brawling with him and I'm pretty resistant to magic these days." "And, of course, I know the God Speech."

"Can you.. fly?" I tilt my feet slightly to activate the aero-discs built into my boots, lifting myself off the lift floor slightly. "Hm. Still not seeing anything a Kryptonian couldn't do."

"In my defence, there isn't much a Kryptonian can't do. Stupid strong nuclear forces." Though she's sort of -in a vaguely insulting way- got a point. Tao can use his divine might to send an arrow around the world. Compared to that, I do seem to have got the short end of the stick. Maybe I should test myself, just in case. If Kaldur and Wallace developed noticeable changes after the Beast… Ah, Barney the Dinosaur incident, might not something similar have happened to me? I haven't been keeping track of my precise strength since Father Box debouldered me, mostly because I can't. I'm just too strong. I don't think that my appearance has changed, not noticeably at any rate. I suppose I could find a small army somewhere and try blessing them in the name of conquest… Except that I'm not God of Conquest, real Grayven is. Would I be becoming New God of Avarice? How the heck would I be able to tell?

My growing theological disquiet is interrupted by the lift door opening. Muzuk leads the way out. This part of the building is far better decorated than 'below stairs', blue carpet on the floor and framed Picasso prints alternating with the framed Uncorporation 'U and arrow in a circle' logo on the walls. They really like that logo. At the end of the corridor there's a waiting area. The exterior wall is made of glass -bullet resistant by the looks of things- and offers a superb view out over Aberrance. I walk closer to get a better look.

"I'll tell Ms Parish that you're here." I nod absentmindedly to Petra as she heads towards the door on our left before waving my right arm from left to right and covering the window in orange light.

"A great many biotech research companies have set up shop here in recent years." I grant each of them coronas. "For obvious reasons local laws relating to research are somewhat more relaxed than just about anywhere else in the US. Aberrance is also quite a good place to be registered for tax purposes."

Match and Mister Tawny come up alongside me. "Yeah, you said."

"Those companies are also our primary suspects." I flash a corona. "LexCorp Pharmaceuticals." Another flash. "Triple Helix. Doctor Thaddeus Savana Senior used this one as a front company at least twice. Nothing proved in court, mind you." Two more flashes. "And these have some quite fascinating accountancy irregularities." I try to glance at the spy camera in the ceiling without it being obvious what I'm doing. "Yes, we're going to be well occupied during our time here."

 

15th January
08:10 GMT -8

The door opens and the four of us look around as Petra walks out. "Ms Parish and Mister Janus.. and Mister Janus, will see you now."

I smile at her and give her a nod. "Thank you. Gentlemen and lady?" Mister Tawny rises from where he was lying on the floor and he, Ixy and Match fall in behind me as I walk into the office. Same wood panelling as in the building's other executive offices and the same brown painted walls. I know from the plans that the office which the Januses occupy is huge. Penis extension huge, which shouldn't be too surprising given that they have to share one between them. From the look of this office Miss Parish apparently doesn't feel the need for that. Given what I remember about the Magna Mater I suppose I should probably feel glad about that. The wall behind us is the same glass as the waiting area with curtains at either side tucked behind wooden guards.

Miss Parish is sitting on a low backed chair behind her desk. Two of the other industries that thrive here are the manufacturers of custom furniture and clothing. Miss Parish needs clothing that will accommodate her wings and that can easily be put on and taken off with one hand. I'm not sure whether her right was always her primary hand or if Doctor von Schadel had to reassign the nerves as part of her Unvolving process. I mean, if I was in her position when she stabbed her sexually abusive father to death I'd want to use my primary hand… Probably both hands, actually. She's wearing a blue jacket with a white blouse and gold ear studs.

Next to her stand the Januses, Janus Senior facing us. He's wearing a suit of dull green and a expression of considerable irritation. In their own office they have a chair with a section of the back cut out and a small desk attached to what remains so that Janus Junior can carry out his work as Head of Security while Janus Senior performs his functions as Chief Executive Officer. Despite his small size Janus Junior is actually in his early fifties and his father is pushing ninety. You wouldn't know it to look at him, though. I wonder how much they could make if they bottled that?

"Mister Grayven." Miss Parish rises to her feet and holds out her hand towards me. A remarkably well endowed woman, though the cut of her jacket plays it down. Too much office work resulting in her gaining 'padding' or the effect of her flight muscles? Or perhaps she's naturally well endowed. In the few pictures of her I was able to find of her before she came here she was either malnourished or using heroin. Aberrance has been good to her. Her eyes are a striking violet colour that can't be natural.

I stride forwards and take it. "Miss Parish. A pleasure to meet you in person."

Janus Senior curls his upper lip. "I would hardly call this a pleasure."

Miss Parish's face stills for a moment before she gestures to his. "This is Janus Senior, our Chief Executive Officer." I offer him my right hand and he gives it a brief and business like shake.

"Don't forget about me, toots."

She really does have good control of her facial features. "And Janus Junior, Head of Security."

The Januses turn around, revealing the midget torso of Janus Junior. He poses for a moment, probably hoping to extract some sort of shocked response from the 'norm' visitors. Since we've all seen his picture the effect is rather muted. I'm not sure that Match or Ixy would react anyway; their upbringing is easily weird enough to allow them to take most of Aberrance in their strides. For me, I find his existence fascinating. He most certainly shares his father's nose and eyes but the rest is.. shrunken, compacted. The outstanding veins on his receding hairline remind me rather of the Doctor rather than his father. Overall he looks a little like a shaved monkey, or those disturbing Indian rat children. Certainly he is fully intelligent, if not exactly pleasant company.

"Mister Janus Junior." I offer him my hand, which utterly envelops his.

"Was the Doc' makin' giants today or somethin'?"

"No, but I will be happy to provide him with samples of the chemicals I used." I pull back and point to my team mates. "These are my colleagues Match,-" He raises his right hand in a wave of greeting. "-Ixy,-" She blinks heavily and smiles at our hosts. "-and Mister Tawny." He curls up next to the window, ignoring them. Must be nice to be a Cat sometimes.

"Hey, Pops? Reckon we could carpet our office with that thing?" Mister Tawny repositions his head and gazes at the bite sized torso through narrow eyes.

"Now, Junior-" Janus turns back around. "-that's no way to speak about a guest. Mister Grayven, I apologize. Please, take a seat."

"Thank you." They were thoughtful enough to put four seats out, high backed well padded leather numbers. I take a moment to check that they're large and resilient enough to survive me sitting on them before taking my place. Match takes his place on my right and Ixy occupies the one next to him.

"Now…" He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. "This.. incident in Gotham…"

I extract a data stick from subspace and put in on the desk in front of Miss Parish. "A copy of all reports, tests and interviews conducted as of.. first thing this morning."

Janus nods. "We will need to send our own people to Gotham to confirm all of this. Whether these.. cultist people have truly become Un-Men. Distasteful as the idea is, we don’t turn our backs-"

"Ah..?"

"-on our own family."

Miss Parish nods. "Of course, the other possibility is that they already were. Though we've tried, we've never been able to track down every first generation Un-Man who Doctor Arcane brought to America, to say nothing of the first and second generation Un-Men who ended up in other parts of the world."

I nod. "The initial physical examinations performed on them before they began changing didn't reveal any physiological oddities, but I suppose that it's worth investigating if they may have done a Damien Kane."

"I wanna read that." Janus Junior has a mirror out to let him look at us, and he uses it to point at the data stick. "If there's bin some kinda security breach I'm gettin' all up in that."

I create another three copies. "Be my guest." Janus Senior picks one up and slides it into his jacket pocket. "Though may I respectfully request that you attempt to keep any investigation quiet? Having the perpetrator go into hiding would make things unnecessarily difficult."

"Hey, I don't come on your pitch an' tell you how to do your job, cowboy. Howsabout-."

"He does have a point, J.J. All of our enhanced employees are thoroughly vetted of course, but the checks we do on our mundane workers are far more cursory."

I nod. "To say nothing of those not in Uncorporation's employ. Oh, I meant to ask: third generation Un-Men. Do all of those the Doctor has Uncreated still work for Uncorporation?"

Miss Parish thinks for a moment. "We've had.. occasional disciplinary issues. We're very reluctant to let someone go completely once they've been through Doctor von Schadel's Unvolve process." She shakes her head. "A few people have been reassigned, but I don't think we've ever had to fire anyone."

"And second generation?"

She shrugs. "They aren't forced to work with us, though we do try to stay in contact. Some of them have unique medical problems and we're often the only people with the knowledge to help them. Why do you ask?"

"Because it occurs to me that Kobra wouldn't be above experimenting on them in the same way General Sunderland did. It may be worth having your personnel department try and make contact in case there have been any disappearances." I know there haven't, but I feel that I should give Uncorporation something to do.

Miss Parish nods. "We'll get on that. Will you want to set up an office here while you work?"

"No. Thank you, but that won't be necessary. I'd rather talk to people in situ if at all possible. And if you could notify your tenants..?"

"We can do that."

"I will also need to speak to Doctor von Schadel at some point."

"Good luck with that."

Janus Senior narrows his eyes. "The doctor does not give interviews and is extremely busy with the preparation for our new television series. If you would rather speak to one of our laboratory team leaders-."

"I'm sorry, but that won't be sufficient. The records which Uncorporation submitted to the FDA indicated that Doctor von Schadel was head of the team here working on modifying Argonate before development was abandoned. I will need to undertake an inventory of all remaining stocks as part of my investigation, something I can't very well do without his assistance. Furthermore, I understand that anyone visiting the Omega Vault is obliged to be escorted by him for reasons of safety."

"Hrm." Janus Senior looks down for a moment. "I suppose you have a point. I'll see what can be arranged. In return, I must ask you to play down any-."

I raise my hands. "I understand how sensitive this is. I have no desire to harm Uncorporation, but the damage that could be caused by Kobra using-."

"And that is the sole reason why we are allowing this." Janus Senior takes a deep breath. "We've arranged for an escort for you, someone who can show you around."

I nod. "I'm sure that Petra and Muzuk will be…"

He shakes his head. "Someone more in your weight class." Miss Parish covers her eyes with her hand as he presses a button on the intercom. "Face, my boy, why don't you come in?"

 

15th January
08:15 GMT -8

The door on the other side of the room is pushed open and-.

…

What the fuck is that?

"Alwight, bitches!"

…

What the fuck is that?

"Face, buddy!"

What the actual fuck is that?

"J.J., my man!"

Alright, Grayven, get it together. I'm looking at what I can only assume was once a man, because I really hope it wasn't a woman. Two well muscled arms on either side, two muscular legs inside loose fitting jeans. The lack of a head in the conventional location doesn't trouble me. Plenty of species don't like to put all of their metaphorical eggs in one body location. What's freaking me out right now is that his face is on his chest! Not, like, stuck in the middle or something. No, that would be too simple for the heir of Arcane! His huge eye orbits are where his pectoral muscles should be, the eyes themselves each being at least three inches across. In the centre of his chest sits a nose in proportion to the eyes, and a little lower than that a colossal mouth.

What the fuck am I-?

He tosses back his torso and belches a fireball into the air.

What! The! FU-!

"Grayven, I'd like to introduce you to The Face, our own home grown superhero." I look at Janus Senior. He appears to be completely serious. I should.. say something.

"I wasn't aware that Doctor von Schadel was able to induce metahuman traits. Or is.. the.. fire belching.. chemical..?"

"Nah, man!" The.. Face.. sits down in the free chair, crosses his legs and folds his arms behind his.. back. "I was born meta!"

"Hey!" Janus Junior holds a cigar out to the side. Face squints, purses his lips, inhales, then gets shot in the mouth by Miss Parish's fire extinguisher.

"Not In My Office."

Face wipes the water away, coughs- "Frigid bitch." -and then coughs again before looking Ixy over. "How you doing?"

**I am fine. How are you?**

"I'm on f-." Miss Parish raises the extinguisher again. "I'm real good, yeah."

Focus. "Mister The Face, I'm-."

"Nah, man. Call me 'Faceman'! 'Cause we're like the A-Team!"

So much wrong with that… "I'd.. rather not. Do you have any experience with criminal investigations?"

"Nah. Way I see it, I'm here for my brawn-" Kryptonian and New God here. "-and my stunning good looks." Oh bugger me sideways. He squints at Ixy. "So are you actually a girl..?"

**For a Genomorph matters of gender are-.**

"Ookay. Okay." I catch Miss Parish's eye. Sympathy and.. amusement. Thanks. I had hoped they'd assign us a plant but it looks like… They aren't going to try and use this fellow for good publicity, are they? "Glad to have you with us, The Face." How can I get out of this? No one can override Janus Senior… I need to talk to von Schadel first. Maybe he can get this sorted out. I rise from my chair. "Miss Parish, Mister Janus, Mister Janus? If there's nothing else, I'll get started right away."

Janus Senior nods. "Make sure you-." He looks at his watch. "Damn it, my son and I have to go and baby sit that Toddson person. Niko, I want you to liaise with Grayven on this one. Junior, have our security people do random checks on incoming and outgoing vehicles with sniffer dogs, and start doing searches of empty lots, storage warehouses-."

"Got it, Pop."

"Very good. Mister Grayven? Good luck and Godspeed." He strides out from behind the desk and heads to the door we entered through. I watch Janus Junior pull out a mobile phone and start pressing numbers as the door closes behind them.

I really really hope Doctor von Schadel likes that book. I can deal with regular Un-Men, but Meta-Un-Men are where I draw the line. "Miss Parish-."

She stands and gives me what looks like a genuinely warm smile. "Please, call me Niko." The Face rolls his eyes. "Do you have a first name, Mister Grayven?" The smile turns a little predatory. "Or does your girlfriend just shout 'Mister'?"

"She doesn't really shout." I think back for a moment. Sitting position, facing one another, her face pressed into my chest, sweat coating... Ah, good memory. "It's more sort of a moaning grunt." Her eyebrows go up as I gesture to my body. "It's all in proportion. Frankly, it's quite impressive that she can-."

She holds up her hand. "That's.. more than I need to know."

"You can keep talkin' far as I'm concerned!"

I ignore him. "Shall we meet up for lunch? I doubt I'll have much for you…"

"That sounds like a good idea." I nod to her and then start towards the door through which we entered. "Where do you intend to start?"

"With von Schadel, of course. The Omega Vaults are the only place where you store Argonate."

"Agg, about.. von Schadel…"

"Don't worry, I'll be polite." I open the door and step aside. "Come, Mister Tawny." He makes a rumbling noise as he rises to his feet and pads-.

"Hey!" The Face back flips over his chair and lands next to Mister Tawny. "Is he trained? Can I ride him?"

Mister Tawny looks at me and.. I think he's raising his eyebrows. I didn't know he could do that. "I'm afraid that would be unwise. He isn't.. good with-" Total morons. "-new people. Also, the feline spine isn't really-."

"Didn't ask for the National Geographic low down, buddy." He strides past me into the waiting room. "Follow me, cake eaters. I'll get you to the Doc, nooo trouble."

Mister Tawny stalks after him as Match taps me on the shoulder. "Is this guy-?"

"Just-. Put up with him.. for now." I pat him on the back and he follows after The Face.

**Why did he want to know whether or not I was female?**

Niko puts her hand on Ixy's shoulder. "Because he's an oversexed Jackass."

**My physiology does not lend itself to copulation. I think he would be disappointed by my naked form and it is quite likely he would be repulsed as well.**

Niko makes a wry smile. "Turnabout is fair play."

**I am not certain that I understand-.**

"Ixy."

She looks at me, eyes wide. **Oh. Yes. Goodbye, Miss Parish.** She hurries past me and I walk through the door, shutting it behind me.

The Face is already halfway down the corridor. Doctor von Schadel is probably in his rooms below us and I know I can't reliably scan it. A flicker and I catch up with The Face. "So, what exactly do you do around here?"

"Me? I'm a superhero. Can't you tell!?" He strikes a pose, fists pressed against his sides. When I don't react he sags slightly. "Doesn't really work without the cape, does it?"

I shake my head sympathetically. "It doesn't work, no."

 

15th January
08:22 GMT -8

"…about Wonder Woman? You know her?"

The one mercy provided by The Face's physiology is that he can't make eye contact while he talks if you aren't directly in front of him and facing him. Match nods in response anyway. "Yeah? We know all the League members."

"Ever see her in the shower? Or getting changed or something? See, the way I figure it-."

"She's my Mom."

The Face stops dead and then turns to face us, a look of utter incredulity on his chest. "You're shitting me? Some guy was putting it to the Wonder Pussy and kept quiet about it? Who the fuck was it, The Question?"

I think Match may be losing his patience. "No, I'm adopted. Why would you think The Question-?"

The Face waves his right hand at his mouth. "No mouth, right? Only thing I could think of that'd stop-."

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Mister The Face, are we anywhere near to-."

At the end of the corridor a large man with an oversized torso and arms that would reach to the floor knuckle-walks across our path. Clasped to his right shoulder by his free arm is an emaciated looking man wearing a pair of grey jogging bottoms and no other clothing. A faint moaning noise is coming from his mouth and he struggles to turn his head to look at us before he disappears down the adjacent corridor.

Stalking along behind the Ape-like Un-Man is another example of Doctor von Schadel's art, and one with far more commercial potential. The blonde shoulder length hair is all her own but the Tiger-pattern body fur, razor edged extendable claws and catlike ears and tail are the product of Doctor von Schadel's tissue cultures. Human endurance mated to feline burst power! Much as Petra lacks her likeness' petrifying gaze Miss Peterson lacks Doctor Minerva's arcane celerity but who cares about that when I have the Garrick Formula? This is mass producible biotechnology!

I need to find out if there are other side effects. Oh, and I should.. probably ask about that man as well. "Excuse me-?"

"Hey! If it isn't the best pussy in Aberrance!"

And The Fucking Face goes and ruins it again. The Cat Un-Woman turns in our direction with a barely audible hiss. "Face. Get the fu-." Her slit pupils flick between us. "I don't know you. Are you.. new?"

"Miss-" Ah, what does she call herself these days? Oh, right. "-Tigira-" No Marvel Comics on the parallel, thankfully. "-my name is Grayven and I'm here to see Doctor von Schadel."

"Do you have... Like... An appointment?"

The Face puts his hands on his hips and thrusts his groin confidently in her direction. "Since when do I need an appointment?"

"Since he told you he'd break you down for parts if you interrupted him again while he was working."

"Nah, nah, straight up! The Januses… Heh. Anuses. They wanted me to show him around while he does some sort of investigation thing."

Match points down the corridor in the direction the Un-Ape walked off in. "What was going on with that man?"

She looks from Match to me and then briefly to The Face. I think that in other circumstances she'd like to ask the Uncorporation employee she recognised what was going on, except it's The Face. And our grey, furry and weirdly-eyed faces fit. Ingroup-outgroup -or should that be ungroup- identification is very strong amongst Un-Men. "Some homeless guy who volunteered to be the Doctor's new playmate."

"If he's a volunteer, why are you dragging him back here?"

"He went out looking to get a fix." She snarls for a moment, lips pulled back revealing sharp teeth. The felinisation of her face is relatively subtle, but the internal changes appear to be somewhat more significant. "Dumb fuck. He's supposed to be getting Unvolved this week and he wants to stick that crap in his system now? Ugh."

"Are narcotics a major problem in Aberrance?"

"Ask someone whose job it is to care." She turns away, her tail twitching, hair standing up slightly. "The Doctor said he didn't want to be disturbed."

The Face starts to go after her. "Ah, come on! The Doc's gunna wanna hear this. And while he's talkin' to big and grey over there maybe you and I could hit the broom closet. Uh? Uh?" He come up alongside her and his hand-. I see her tail suddenly straighten in shock. She turns around in a blur and jams her claws directly into him. "AGHMOTHERFUCKAH!" He jumps back and raises his hands into a defensive stance. "You wanna try that again, bitch? Imma-!"

Oh for fuck's sake. I step forwards and place my left hand on his right shoulder, sigil downwards. Ring, brand.

By your command.

The orange light flares brilliantly, causing Tigira to jump back. The Face himself just stiffens. "What is this shuuuuoooomm."

"Mister The Face, you want to shut up and you want to behave yourself."

"Mpf."

Tigira looks him over. "Nice job. You charge by the hour?"

"I feel I should apologise, but I don't think that his appalling manners are actually my fault." I step around The Face and hold out my right hand. "Perhaps we could start again. I'm Grayven. I work for the Justice League and I'm here to investigate a possible theft of Uncorporation technology by a rather unpleasant paramilitary group."

She looks at me carefully for a moment before taking hold of my hand. "Tigira, Uncorp Security. The Doctor's down this way, but he ain't going to want to talk to you."

"Nil desperandum, Miss Tigira. If he won't talk, he won't talk." I shrug. "But given what I know about his character I'd be astonished if he didn't take personal affront at what has been done with his technology."

"Yeah, he would, 'cept he's not going to listen for long enough to find that out. Tell you what: I'll show you to his lab.. if you wait outside for a few minutes before coming in and don't tell him I'm the one who brought you."

"Deal. The Face gets the blame." We start walking in the direction her partner disappeared in. "The Face? Follow."

"Mpf."

Ixy scampers forwards and looks back at The Face. **What is that? Why is he quiet and not annoying and why does he have a glowing orange shape on his…** She blinks. **I do not know what the word is for the top of someone's torso when there isn't a head there.**

Neither do I, actually. "One of my abilities is branding. Currently, Mister The Face wants to do exactly what I want him to want." I lean towards Miss Tigira. "I could.. leave a thing or two in there when I take it off. If you liked."

"Tempting, but the Doctor might find out."

We follow her along the corridor for a few moments, as the blandly decorated corridor gradually gives way to bare brick and then stone. It actually.. looks like he was trying to copy the décor of the castle. I suppose that he… I don't actually know how old he is, but if I assume that he was created after the Second World War… Perhaps twenty years in the Castle? Another thirty traipsing around the US before reaching Aberrance? And even then, it would have been some considerable time before he could start on his work.

"Tigira! I heff need of you! Where are you?!"

"Ooh, great." Tigira hurries towards the end of the corridor and the slightly open wooden double doors that would look right at home in the old castle. As she reaches them she looks back at me with her eyes wide and holds up her right index finger in a 'one' sign. I come to a full stop and nod then she disappears inside, pulling the door closed behind her.

 

15th January
08:28 GMT -8

"…ungrateful wretch!"

For a man with a very limited lung capacity, the Doctor could certainly shout for Romania.

"Ah-I'm sorry, Doc.. Doctor von Schadel. I just can't help-."

Funny, I thought that it was entirely possible that the Doctor would have had this part of the building constructed of stone. He hasn't. He's just had plastic moulded to look like stone. It's pretty realistic, but when you touch it-.

"Does your drug addled brain even begin to comprehend what could heff happened if you het found zhe poison you sought!"

I make eye contact with Match, Ixy and Mister Tawny. That should be long enough. I step up to the door -which is actual wood- and knock twice, hard. Then I step back and motion The Face forwards.

"Eh?"

I step back from the door. Straining my ears I hear a faint pad-tap, pad-tap, pad-tap noise, as if someone were crossing the floor towards the door with the aid of a crutch. Odd. I know the door isn't locked. If he wanted me to come in he could just have shouted 'enter'. The noise stops just on the other side of the door and a moment later the wrought iron handle slowly starts to turn. The door is pulled inwards slightly and a face… No, two faces, peer out at us with dull and lifeless eyes. Ah, this is one of the first generation Un-Men. I don't think he… It? Has a name. Its hair on both heads is a pale grey and very greasy while its skin is an unhealthy green-gray colour. Its arms, shoulders and the upper head have the normal Human proportions while the trunk of the body is unusually short, though not beyond the realms of Human morphology. The right leg is stunted -though well muscled- and the left… In place of the left a second head looks up at me. Under its right arm is the crutch it uses to get around and with one hand on the door it is forced to put more weight on it.

I struggle to imagine why Arcane would have created such a creature.

"Face! Zhis is not zhe time to be bringing in your friends for a visit."

Speak.

"These ain't tourists, Doc! They're from the Justice League! Someone's been stealin' your stuff and they-."

"Feh! Leave! I am working!"

I take another moment to look at the dull-witted servitor before directing my attention to the little of the lab I can see through the opening in the door. "Doctor von Schadel, it really is quite important-"

The Un-Man before me starts to close the door. I stick my right foot in it. It keeps pushing for a moment before the lower head spots what I've done. Then the upper head meets my eyes. "Uuuurrrrhhh."

"-that I speak with you."

"Janus Junior is responsible for security! Deal with him if you must-" Transition. "-talk to someone."

The Doctor stands next to a wooden gurney straight out of Hammer Horror. The emaciated man is strapped down at the ankles, wrists, across the chest and around the forehead. The Doctor himself is dressed in surgical whites with a cap, surgical mask and goggles covering most of his face. All I can see of his flesh is a narrow band between cap and mask. He appears to have the skin tone of a Caucasian who's spent a good deal of time in the sun, only the uneven texture and prominent veins in places normal people don't have veins hinting at his unusual origin. The Ape Man and Tigira are on the other side of the room tending to a horse that is being housed in a small stall.

The Doctor turns suddenly to face me, waggling a syringe at me. "You heff invaded my laboratory now?! I will heff you arrested!"

"Doctor, please! I am a great admirer of your work-" There's a.. pressure against my mental defences. He's a telepath. Interesting. Not a particularly strong one though, not compared with Chester or M'gann. "-in the field of xenografts, and I wished to present you with a small token of my esteem."

The book appears in my right hand and I proffer it towards him. For a moment he's too focused on trying to scowl me to death to pick up on it, then I notice him glance down before returning his attention to me. Then his eyes widen and he looks back to the book. His hands come up suddenly and grasp it by either side, snatching it from my unresisting grip. He pulls it to his chest before carefully -almost nervously- opening the first page. He lets out a small gasp as he sees the writing. "Zhis… Zhis was Arcane's." His eyes come back up for a second. "How did you come by it?"

I smile at him. "I.. may have held Nathan Arcane upside down by his ankles and shaken him a few times. A short sojourn in Castle Arcane…"

"Bah, zhet boy was always…" He scans another page. "Zhet fool Janus." He doesn't stop turning pages as he talks to me. "I knew I should heff accompanied zhe expedition."

"The book was disguised by magic. It would have been near impossible for him to find it."

"Meh.." He flicks through a few more pages to authenticate it before snapping it shut. "Why..? Why heff you given zhis zhing to me?"

"I'm a fan, Doctor.. von Schadel. Your work is simply revolutionary. May I assume that-" I gesture to the book with my right hand. "-will assist you in it?"

"Yes, yes. Wunce I heff had time to.. properly study Arcane's writings." He looks me over briefly. "You are not my work, or zhet of Arcane…"

I take a vial of Venom Buster out of subspace and pass it to him. He examines it with a critical eye. "Last year's combat stimulant. We call it Venom Buster. That, and a great deal of perfective maintenance since."

"H-mmm." He puts the vial into his coat pocket, then lifts his goggles away from his eyes. They're a pleasant shade of blue, though slightly mismatched. Grave robbers can't be choosers. "So, my new friend. What is your name?"

"Grayven, Doctor."

"And what was zhet half whit Face babbling about?"

"Are you familiar with the Kobra Cult?" He gives the shallowest of nods. I suppose he can't really nod normally. "They appear to have gotten their hands on an Un-Man derived drug from somewhere. I knew that if the source was here in Aberrance and the matter were brought to your attention-."

"Ak, it is sheer folly! I heff zhe greatest knowledge of zhe physiology of zhe Un-Men of anyone alive! You cannot simply plug bits of us in to a natural man wizhout-." He cuts himself off, hard in thought. "God in heaven, tell me zhey haven't got an insectoid?"

"It doesn't look like it. What they used appears to be closer to Argonate, though there were some alterations. From the fact that they were discovered in a chemical plant it seems likely that they were going to try to produce more."

"We cannot have zhet, not zhis close to our television debut. Zhe negative publicity from being associated wizh a terrorist organisation alone might cause zhe network to pull out."

"Just so. Can I assume therefore that you are prepared to give this your attention?"

"Though I am loath to put down zhis tome of zhe former master's knowledge for even a moment, I will curb my enthusiasm for now. An inventory check should not take too long; given zhe FDA's ruling we've hett little reason to keep working on it." The twitch of his facemask suggests that he's smiling. "Mine own 'Compound K' is far superior for my purposes."

I glance at the man on the gurney. "Are you able to spare the time now? I don't wish to be rude, but if Kobra are dissecting a-" I gesture to him with my right hand. "-brother or cousin of yours…"

Doctor von Schadel looks towards the door and the grey skinned Un-Man hobbles aside. Whoops, cancel brand. The Face barges in a half second later, giant grin back in place. "What's up,-?"

"Silence, cretin." Doctor von Schadel looks past him as Match, Mister Tawny and Ixy follow The Face in. "And zhese are your friends?"

"A cloned Kryptonian, an augmented Tiger and a G-Goblin type Genomorph." He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. "A synthetic species produced by Cadmus Labs."

"I see…" He takes a moment to study each of them carefully. "Perhaps, Mister Grayven, you could tell me of your own work while I begin my search?"

 

15th January
08:37 GMT -8

"…seldom zhet I get to work on zhose with.. ah… Pre-existing enhancements. I could hardly turn him away."

We're following the Doctor into the main laboratory area of the Uncorporation building. He told The Face to stay behind and babysit the new inductee -a down on his luck drifter, apparently- while the rest of us get down to work.

Match frowns. "You mean he's a metahuman?"

"Nature is zo careless upon whom she bestows her gifts." I note that the Doctor doesn't shrug, nod or turn his head beyond a very small amount. Though if I wasn't looking for it I'm not sure that I would notice.

"So… Why did..?" Match trails off uncomfortably, not sure how to voice the question.

"Why did I remove his head unt create a new face on his torso?" Match nods. "His original head was somewhat damaged when he was brought to my attention. An accident with a shotgun, I understand. Quite a few of my third generation Uncreations come to us as crippled or mortally injured."

"Couldn't you just.. put them back how they were?"

Doctor von Schadel's right hand touches his chin. "Perhaps. But zhet is not a service I offer. I have devoted my life to enhancing zhe Human condition, not to resetting it to its current banal level."

I nod. "I was impressed by your ability with xenografts. I assume that they're cultured?"

"Naturally." He smiles. "Or Un-naturally, if you prefer. In zhe case of Zhe Face I had to almost completely redesign his internal organs. His mouth now doubles as his stomach, parts of his spine as his skull… His eyes have no eyeballs but instead use a type of organic plastic barrier…"

"Why is he such an ass?"

"Akkh. Mister Match, I like to think of the Un-Men as my family. And, every family throws up a complete idiot or two eventually. His personality is.. simply.. his personality, and I am reliably informed zhet he was exactly zhe same before he came here."

I narrow my eyes slightly. "You do have other family, you know."

"The wider metahuman community, you mean? I suppose-."

"No. The ring shows me genetic material taken from thirty seven different people in your body-."

"Bah. The donors of zhe source material are of no consequence."

**Why does his brain not overheat?**

The Doctor's smile goes from broad to positively manic. "Ah, my little Goblin! It has been so long since I heff heard someone else's voice in my head! Let me see if I can-" His face strains. **-return zhe favour.**

Ixy gives him an odd look. **Your mind voice sounds strange.**

Von Schadel waves his right hand in a dismissive motion. **I may be a little out of practice. But to answer your question! The Face has a natural ability to manipulate heat. I could not understand zhe underlying organic mechanism, but, I could clone unt implant more of zhe little nodules which appeared to control it. By attaching them around his brain I was able to not merely allow him to control his body heat, but enhance his natural abilities!**

We come up to a secure door and he leans forwards to allow his retina to be scanned. I note that he bends his knees so as to keep his head and shoulders upright, rather than simply sticking his neck out. There's a beep as the magnetic door unlocks and the Doctor pushes it open. **Come, come.** He pauses, giving Mister Tawny a hard look. "Tiger, as one freak of science to anozher I am trusting you to behave. Do we have an understanding?" Mister Tawny gives him a throaty rumble in response. The Doctor frowns. "Not.. having studied Tiger communication, I will choose to believe zhet was a 'yes'. Zhis way, please."

He leads us into the laboratory. There's a raised observation area around the edge of the room while below us Un-Man scientists are hard at work on.. something. I count off their adaptations: one has enlarged eye orbits for larger eyes, another has four arms, a third has an enlarged cranium and a fourth has an additional joint in each of her long arms. Four arms are actually quite common around here, I assume because it was simple enough to copy the physiology of.. whatever her name was. The second generation who was born like that.

The Doctor stares imperiously down at his subordinates until they look up at him and give him a deferential nod. Then he leads us in the direction of a glass walled office in the corner. If I remember correctly this part of the building is devoted to more mundane applications of Un-Man derived biotechnology. It struck me when I first began finding out what the Un-Men were up to that while Doctor von Schadel appeared perfectly happy to let his subordinates do basic checks on the cultured tissue he intended to use for Unvolve procedures, he did the majority of the work himself. Does he not like delegating or does it require a much higher level of expertise than any of those working here possess? No retinal scan here, a simple keycard swipe is enough to gain entry.

He walks over to his desk. "Now, if I can call up-."

"Doctor?" I look pointedly at the odd stand positioned near the computer monitor. It has a small set of steps leading up to it. "Despite what I've told you… Do you think that I'm some sort of tourist?"

"No, why..? Aaaaah." The shallowest of nods and a sly smile. "Your companions, are zhey..?"

"I thought it more amusing not to tell them."

"Tell us.. what?"

"Zhe simple truth of my physical state." He sits down a convenient distance from the stand. "It is no secret from my brozhers and sisters but.. Janus tells me zhet zhe world is not yet ready for truly revolutionary transformation."

Match frowns. "You don't look all that different to me."

"My boy, Doctor von Schadel is an illusion. My true self?" His scarf twitches aside as his head leaps from his shoulders and lands on the platform. "I am Cranius!" Match actually recoils. Ixy's eyes widen slightly and Mister Tawny looks thoroughly bewildered. "This is my assistant Otto." The headless body waves at us. "Otto as in 'Ottoman'. Otto man?" We don't react. "Egh."

**How does your head work?**

"Very well, actually." He turns so that he can get a view of the screen. "Zhe former master created me as his personal assistant unt.. gave me zhe ability to direct other Un-Men with my thoughts. My brain is custom built, parts I wouldn't need excised and zhose I do need improved."

"How do you eat? Or.. breathe?"

"Zhere is a small aperture in my palm through which I may ingest liquefied food. In former times Arcane would simply drop me in a bucket of rotting fish heads…" His face momentarily assumes an expression of distaste. "Well. I have little sense of taste. For breathing…" He flexes his head muscles, causing his skin to undulate in a surprisingly unsettling way. "My whole head can act as a diaphragm, constantly moving air through zhe small slits at zhe back of my head."

"And… Otto..?"

"Oh, he's always been like zhet." Otto's busy typing an enquiry into Uncorporation's database. "Ah, Argonate. It showed such promise. Our stocks were last inspected a little over four months ago. I will send someone down to check again momentarily. You have zhe formula used by our unfortunate new kinsmen?"

I take another data stick out of subspace and hold it out to Otto, who takes it without… Not looking around, obviously. Without turning around. I suppose he doesn't have his own sensory organs… He slides it into a drive on the desktop.

"Examining what you have gathered for me will mostly likely take zhe remainder of zhe day. You are welcome to wait here, but I zink you would do better to continue your investigation elsewhere until I have somezhing for you."

"Thank you, Doctor. We'll do just that. Oh, but before I forget…" I take a primer on Atlantean biomantic techniques out of subspace and set it down on the desk. "I'm sure that in the fullness of time you'll develop your own techniques, fully removed from those of your creator. But perhaps you'll find this interesting as well."

 

15th January
13:06 GMT -8

Niko puts her tray down on the edge of the table before walking to the chair the unaugmented counter peon fetched for her, picking it up and bringing it back. The seating here is arranged in benches and there's no way she could fit her wings around it comfortably. Muto Burger isn't the most salubrious of eating establishments but I can't deny that it does lend the meal the genuine Aberrance touch. Right down to the wall-mounted pictures of smiling burgers with tentacles fighting to get out from the meat layer. Take something as normal as a fast food restaurant and add a bit of extra weirdness.

I watch as a small girl a few tables over opens up her bun and starts demanding that her father explain why there aren't actually tentacles in it.

"Place looks a bit empty." I'm eating chic-. Sorry, Freaky Fowl nuggets. I actually quite like American gourmet beef burgers but there's no way I'm risking one from a place like this.

"We're off season." She unboxes her burger and shakes out a few fries. "Once the Holiday period is over things get quieter until March."

Huh. Turns out her father actually did order a Tentacle Burger. From a small Octopus by the looks of things. She's now loudly demanding that they swap.

"I have to ask… The constant references to the 'creepy mutant' aesthetic..?"

She chews for a moment before swallowing. "Janus sets Aberrance policy on matters of branding."

"Which.. Janus?"

"The one who's worth listening to." I nod and we both smile. "I think that maybe the commercial implying that Tentacle Burgers feed on tourists who wander away from the main park was a bit much." She puts a couple of fries into her mouth.

"I suppose that if a person doesn't like weird then they've little reason to come here in the first place."

"We all hate the idea of pretending to be someone else. Our uniqueness is something we value."

"This from the woman with the world's greatest Hawkwoman Halloween costume."

Her mouth falls open for a moment, then she exhales with laughter. "It seemed appropriate. I mean-" She stretches her wings out to the side slightly. More than a few of the restaurant's other patrons stare and a couple of camera phones get held up. "-who else can pull off the winged look quite like me?"

"Oh, hardly anyone."

"How does..?" She hesitates, stops and then takes another bite of burger.

"How does what?"

She weighs up continuing with the subject while she chews. "How does she.. fly? I can glide.. a bit, but there's no way for me to get enough lift to fly properly."

"Tiny amounts of Nth metal throughout her nervous system. It lets her fiddle around with gravity and mass…" She nods, and I get a clear view of how incomplete it makes her feel. "Sorry, but I'm not sure I could replicate the effect even if I had Nth metal to spare. Which I don't." Though Awakening might do it. Have to think about that. I put two nuggets into my mouth. Ah, a slight crunch and then chicken flavoured probably-meat. Everything I was expecting.

She nods, her face tilted slightly downwards. Her mask is back in place a moment later as she looks up. "Where's the rest of your team?"

"Taking in the sights." Checking in with Kaldur, actually. Since Cranius is telepathic the risks involved in wide area broadcasts are simply too great to keep us all patched in. I have a list of the physical changes wrought upon the third generation but I don't know whether any of them share his mental abilities. "Ixy hasn't interacted with more than a handful of people her entire life. I thought she might feel at home here."

"Turned up anything yet?"

"No, not really. Oh, Triple Helix is keeping a close eye on the Doctor's work for potential commercial applications, but none of them are actively intriguing against Uncorporation on the company level."

"How can you be sure?"

"Oh, you know. I go in, stomp about, get everyone thinking about everything they've done wrong… Then Ixy has a good listen and reports back. Nothing admissible in court, but we could easily just 'happen' across physical evidence later."

"Are you sure that's reliable? The Doctor said that he couldn't read you."

"I've had quite a bit of specialist telepathy resistance training, and while the Doctor may not be able to read my thoughts I couldn't hide the fact that there was a mind there. If anyone was blocking Ixy we'd have marked them for further study. No one did. Has the Doctor finished his inventory yet?"

"All of Uncorporation's Argonate samples are exactly where they're supposed to be."

"And potential living sources?"

"We haven't been able to reach everyone by telephone yet. We'll keep trying, but it's hardly a surprise that they wouldn't respond immediately. There haven't been any disappearances reported." She shrugs. "It looks like the problem isn't here."

"I hope you're right. We will need to speak to everyone who could have accessed the samples, buuuut hopefully we can be out of your hair by the end of the day."

"How did you get Doctor von Schadel to cooperate with you?"

"I had a notebook written by Doctor Arcane." Her eyes widen, her head juts forwards in astonishment and her tightening hand squeezes a slice of gherkin out of her burger and into the burger box. "Once I handed it over he became much friendlier."

"Where did you find that? We've been offering-!"

"Castle Arcane. Janus should have taken a wizard with him when he intruded on another wizard's sanctum."

"That… I.. don't even know what that will do for our development program."

"Help it along, I hope."

"Yes. Unless we just lose the Doctor for a few months while he experiments with it. Why.. did you..?"

"Hand it over?" She nods. "As opposed to what? Sell it? I have all the money I will ever need. Destroy it? Would that bring back those Arcane killed? No. I gave it to the people who will use it to the benefit of humanity." While she absorbs what I've told her I take the opportunity to take a look at her own altered physiology. It's fascinating how Cranius was able to do this with such primitive equipment.

"Thank you. Uncorporation is… I am…" She moves her burger to the side then gives me a wry smile. "My face is up here."

"Yes, and your wings plug into your spine just…" Wait. Cancel. "I wasn't staring at your-. Well, alright, momentarily, but I was really interested in how your flight muscles interact with your.. bones, your other muscles…"

She sits back, her right eyebrow arched. "The girls and I will try not to be too offended."

"I see he repurposed the nerves from your missing arm."

"Yes, though he had to add a little something to my brain so that I could handle the input."

"Did it take you long to learn? I mean, how to use them?"

"Um, simple movements only took a few hours. It was about a month and a half before I could use them precisely while under stress." I've finished my meal and use the ring to clean off my hands. "You're.. really into this stuff, aren't you?"

"Let me show you something." I take a small hologram projector out of subspace and put it on the table. "Seven months ago I looked like this." An image of my pre-earth.. whatever-number-this-is self appears. "Six months ago." My post arrival self, Human looking and buff as someone who actually takes serious exercise. "Five months ago." Boulder the Rock Monster. Seeing it next to my other incarnations really brings home just how big I was.

"How..?"

"That was a drug called Venom Buster. I gave the Doctor a sample. And then, as I am now." The last image joins the other three.

"That's a remarkable transformation."

"Yes, it is. But I'm no scientist. I did it by using other people's work and I can't.. innovate with it. My uniqueness is not the uniqueness of everyone else. I want the Uncorporation to succeed in bringing physical augmentations to the masses." I lean forwards slightly. Touching her hand now -entering her personal space with her disposition this favourable- would help persuade her to accept me, buuut it would also imply a degree of interest that I don't have. Since I want to work with the Un-Men in the long term.. that's a no. "You may see Uncreation as the next great step in Human development, but the things I've seen… Uncreation is as the first primitive petrol driven engine. An improvement on what came before, a necessary step, but very very far from what may ultimately be achieved. I don't want you, the Doctor or anyone else to be limited by their own physical restrictions. Why shouldn't everyone enjoy the advantages I have?"

She smiles at me. "No reason at all."

 

15th January
13:26 GMT -8

Zatanna frowns at me. "I didn't know tattooed men were still a thing."

I take a moment to look around the 'Livin' Lot'. Cheap, prefabricated housing that looks like it would come apart in a strong wind. Low rent housing, Aberrance style. I realise now that I don't really know how unemployment benefits work in America, let alone in somewhere as divorced from normal civil government as Aberrance.

"From the looks of the place, I'd say they're not."

Raquel nods. "Leading a civil liberties campaign against the main local employer doesn't usually pay all that well. Is this 'Inkabod' guy inside?"

Not like a few millimetres of cheap wood does anything to stop my empathic vision. "Yes. Think I may be over egging his 'consultation fee', though." Mister Dylan 'Inkabod' Williams' desires revolve around his hate of the Uncorporation -including but not limited to its first and third generation Un-Men- and his own drive for self aggrandisement. I honestly think the three of us showing up in uniform would be enough for him. Not that I think he'd turn down a gourmet meal but it took time to put this together.

From the comics I remember him becoming pregnant after having sex with the Magna Mater and needing Cranius' help to survive delivery. I'm regretting not looking for the comics before that now, the ones that might actually have some relevance to our situation. I was able to advise Kaldur that he, M'gann and Kon were most likely to get a polite reception from Uncorporation itself but I don't have any other insight here. A quick scan of the town didn't show me any obvious Kobra-related desires though the civil unrest was obvious. The Un-Men hate the Gaffs and the Gaffs hate the Un-Men. It's American as apple pie.

And we can't fix it. And it isn't our job to try.

"May as well get on with this." I walk up the four steps onto the porch and knock on his door. Looking through the wall I see him jerk up from where he's slouched on his sofa and stare at the door. I.. don't.. think he's got x-ray vision. No, there's no way he wouldn't boast about it if he did.

Looking at the door as if it might burst down at any moment he sidles across the interior of his house and takes a heavy looking mug… A mug designed to look like a breast, down off the top shelf of his bookcase. Then -making as little noise as possible- he creeps towards the door, stopping right next to it with the mug raised. "Who is it?"

That wasn't his normal speaking voice. What little information I was able to find on the man did suggest a carnival background, presumably he picked up a few skills. "Mister Inkabod, I am Orange Lantern two eight one four. I'd like to speak with you about the Uncorporation-." He hides the mug behind his back while undoing various locks and yanking the door open with his free hand.

I raise my left hand to give him a small wave and he responds with a maniacal grin, tossing the mug away before spreading his arms wide in celebration. "Finally! Someone's taking an interest! The foul and malevolent criminals of the Uncorporation-!"

"Mister Inkabod." I lay my right hand on his left shoulder. "I wouldn't want to put you at risk by talking to you in public. May my colleagues and I speak to you inside?"

"Colleagues?" He leans around me, looks blankly at Raquel but lights up when he sees Zatanna. "Hey, you're Giovanni Zatara's daughter, right?"

"Ah, yes?"

"Worked as a back yard boy at his Vegas show back in…" He thinks for a moment. "Hmm, must be eleven years ago now. Or maybe twelve. Great guy, great guy. What's he up to these days?"

"He's.. taking a leave of absence. Superhero work.. takes a lot out of you."

"Sure it does. So you guys here for that evil-?" I put my arm around his chest and pull him inside his house. "Oh. Right. You want an inside talker."

Raquel and Zatanna come up the steps and follow us inside, Zatanna pulling the door shut behind her. "Mister Inkabod, we find ourselves in need of information about the Uncorporation and Aberrance in general, and I understand that you're the man to ask."

"You here to clean house, right?"

"We're here to investigate a specific criminal activity. Uncorporation may be involved. If other crimes should come to light during our investigation we can either take action ourselves or refer it to the relevant authorities."

"Eenyh." The wind leaves his sails somewhat. "If you're not going to stick it to them, what's my percentage on this?"

"Dinner's on me." A plate of beautifully cooked lamb ribs with… No. Not going to think about it. I close my eyes for a moment as I take a knife and fork out of subspace. He grabs the plate and heads back to his sofa. I'm trying to get his attention by sending the cutlery along in front of him but it looks like he prefers to use his hands.

"Sorry I don't have any other chairs. Maybe we could do this Indian style?" I take three chairs out of subspace and deposit them near to him. He's picked up a rib with his left hand and is chewing on it, but his reaction to the chairs appearing is to take on an expression of disgruntlement. "You know-" He points at the chairs with the rib. "-I reckon it was things like that that killed travelling shows. When you can see guys flying through the sky in just about any big city sideshow freaks are much less of a draw." Zatanna sits down opposite him and I occupy the chair to her left. Raquel remains on guard by the door. "That was why I pitched up in Aberrance soon as the place started up, before von Schadel got here. Way I saw it, if enough freaks and weirdos got together in one place? A whole town midway? People would come from far and wide to see it! Hell, people weren't shy about coming to look around when it was just a few Un-Man freaks living in old bomb test buildings. And with Uncle Sam picking up the bill for the construction, it was a fix! When I first moved here, this was all basically wasteland. I got in good with Damien… I was basically his talker, especially when his voice started to go."

Zatanna nods. "Did something go wrong?"

"That… Those Janus freaks. They drove in here one day, started talking to Damien's… You know, his people."

"Second generation Un-Men."

"Yeah, that's it. Janus Senior… He's got the talk, knows about Arcane and the Romania connection. He's got the money to invest and the connections to make it happen. And he's got the anatomical wonder on his back." Mister Inkabod shrugs. "I figure, he's a guy we need. Damien wasn't keen, but it wasn't like the town as was was any sort of place to live long term." His face curls with distaste as he chews the asparagus tart. "I was the guy who talked him into going along with it. I mean, everyone respected him but it wasn't like he knew anything about plumbing or electrics or how to run a business."

"And Janus used that to take over?"

"He knew how to organize stuff. I've seen lot managers at work before, but he was something else. Roads, sewage, even a couple of cake eater companies started setting up. Life was pretty good. Even Damien cheered up a bit…" He trails off, looking a little less pleased about it. "Though, that may have been the medication. He was in a lot of pain towards the end, and Janus wanted to keep him on-side. Anyway, everything was coming together. Then von Schadel and the others got here. At first, I figured he was just another T an' K medicine show. He even had his own wagon. Janus.. recognized him, or something. They had a private chat, and after that? Things started changing. Old school carnival folk getting frozen out of our own town."

"Was that when he started making new Un-Men?"

"No, he didn't start doing that until after Damien died. Maybe he knew Damien wouldn't stand for it. That was what Janus wanted, though. More 'improved' freaks. Now, the rest of us are ghettoized inside a place that was set up as a ghetto! We can't use the rail, can't use the amenities and if we want a job with Uncorporation we have to go under the Doctor's knife!"

"I'm guessing you're not too happy about that." Raquel has her arms folded across her chest. I don't need empathic vision to know that she's going to be referring this to Mister Arnus.

"You bet I'm not." He brightens slightly. "But in just a little while it's not going to matter."

"Oh? Some sort of.. class action lawsuit?"

"Lawyers? Nah. My buddy Bertoldt tried that and the DoE had them on the ropes before the bell stopped ringing." He puts the empty plate down on the cushion next to him and leans forwards, grinning in a manner most sinister. "Von Schadel came to Aberrance with five others like him. Only one left now. The others had.. ahh… 'Unexplained accidents', all in the last few months. He's keeping the last one close by him. That won't save him."

"Accidents? Is someone going after them?"

He sits back. "No idea. But, ah, if you want to talk to some folks about what Uncorporation's been doing… Come back here this evening. Might be you'll see something interesting."

 

15th January
13:33 GMT -8

"…give you Nth metal, but there's no reason why I couldn't create something else for you. Some sort of gravity reduction system?"

Niko smiles at me as we walk down the pavement on the edge of one of Aberrance's main thoroughfares, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind one ear. "That would be extremely generous of you."

"And perhaps a few more tomes on Atlantean biomancy for the good doctor?"

"I'm.. not.. sure. He's always been a bit.. snippy about Atlantean techniques."

I drop back slightly to get a better look at her wings. I know perfectly well how they came into being, but it's always worth giving Un-Men the opportunity to talk about themselves. "How did he make these? They're too big to be swan. You didn't cut up an actual Angel, did you?"

She chuckles. "I-I don't believe in Angels, Grayven. These were grown in our labs. Synthetic flesh crafting. I think the feathers are mostly Swan and the wing structure was taken from an Albatross."

"You have the ability to just.. put stuff together like that?"

She shakes her head. "It's not easy. A lot of the time something goes wrong and whatever the Doctor was trying to grow comes out wrong. I've floated the idea of offering to grow replacement body parts for people before."

"I would have thought that the market for that-."

"Uncorporation isn't hurting for cash flow. Given what we're trying to achieve, tying the Doctor to a single project that doesn't teach us anything for an extended period of time just isn't worth the opportunity cost."

!Touch her wings!

No, no good. I can't resist. I gently run the very tips of the fingers of my right hand along the edge of her left wing while taking a closer look at their internal structures. Hollow avian bones of course, as well as the tiny glands which keep the feathers coated in oil-. The wing I'm touching shivers and Niko draws it in more closely, slowing so that I come up alongside her.

"Could you, um, not do that?"

"I'm… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause you any discomfort."

She looks a little oh. Whoops. "It's.. not uncomfortable."

"I'm.. really-."

"It's fine. Don't.. mention it." She clears her throat and I move forwards to walk alongside her with a clear gap between us. "I'm, ah, I'm a little surprised how delicate you are. Given your size…"

"Trained masseur." She raises her eyebrows. "Jade -my girlfriend Jade- mentioned that my spatial coordination could be better. That was back when I was in my third form."

"The giant rock man form?" I nod. "I can see how that might have been a problem."

"She's one of the reasons why my current form is smaller."

"Is she altered as well?"

"No, not yet. She's interested, but she hasn't picked out what she wants done yet."

"If she came here I'm sure the Doctor would be happy to see her."

"I'm sure he would as well, but… One of the problems with the Doctor's inspiration based method is that the subject never quite knows what they're going to get. Plus, unless the Doctor has mastered biotechnological teleportation what he can offer is almost certainly worse than what I could give her." Teleporters can be rather tricky to track down. That Baez woman is useless for Jade's purposes due to the explosions it tends to generate and I've made little progress in tracking down other viable sources.

"You can give people the ability to teleport?"

"No, but she was torn between that and super speed and I can give super speed."

"Super speed? Like.. the Flash?" I nod and her eyes widen for a moment. "I see what you mean about combustion engines."

A couple of tourists come to a halt as we approach and bring up their cameras. Niko stops, smiles at them and spreads her wings out while they take pictures. Hmm. I slide my sword out of its sheath. Ring, subspace my armour and give me glowing horns.

By your command.

I strike a pose, clenching the muscles in my chest while setting my eyes to full glow. All around tourists take the opportunity to capture the moment while Niko gives me a sidelong glance. "Hey. Stop calling my marks."

"I was wondering why you came out to eat. Is this part of your job?"

She pulls her wings in and gives the tourists a cheerful wave as I re-equip my armour and sheathe my sword. "Not exactly, but I know that I'm one of the more photogenic Un-Men. We want people to accept our work, and sometimes the best way to do that is to entertain the crowds."

We start back towards the Uncorporation building. "You know, it strikes me that if this television thing takes off, the Doctor would find it very difficult to find the time to both entertain the audience and carry out the Unvolve process on all of the new volunteers."

"I don't think that the increase in interest will be all that much. They'd have to come here and.. society.. hasn't quite adapted to people with our sorts of abnormalities living in other places yet."

"I find it hard to believe that you'd have trouble anywhere."

She makes a sort of chuckle-cough noise. "Perhaps. But the Doctor doesn't like to repeat himself."

"Has he considered training up one of your third generation employees? I doubt they'd share his reservations about following an already trodden path." She looks uncertain. "He can't keep doing everything himself indefinitely. There will come a point where he needs to teach someone. And… What if something happened to him? I'm not unaware of the level of civil unres-."

Her mobile rings. "Excuse me." She pulls it out of her pocket and answers it. "Niko here." Her face goes still and grim. "No. That's… Has someone told von Schadel?" A short pause. "Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes." She ends the call and reholsters the phone and strides in the direction of the Uncorporation building. "We need to.. to hurry."

"Why? What happened?"

"Someone killed Tomas."

"Who?"

"The first generation Un-Man with the head where his left leg should be?"

"Ah. Where precisely are we heading?"

"Back to the Uncorp-."

"No, precisely."

She stops. "He was in the Doctor's private lab."

"Right. Ring, scan. Father Box, Boom Tube."

The glowing hole in the air opens to the faux stone clad room and after a moment's hesitancy Niko strides through. Tigira and the Ape-Man are standing over the broken body parts of the late Tomas, brown and grey fluid oozing slowly from the severed ends. The Face is slumped unconscious in one corner of the room and the horse is struggling to escape its enclosure. Niko hurries over to Tomas' heads. Someone.. actually shoved his crutch through both skulls. That must have taken considerable amounts of both strength and hatred. He'd already have to have been dead at that point. Sure, the Un-Men aren't popular at the moment but Tomas was barely sentient. And if it happened inside the building…

Niko looks up from the remains, tears and fury in her eyes. "Get internal security to seal the building. We're not letting whoever did this get away again."

 

15th January
13:38 GMT -8

Ah, a locked building mystery. I'm actually.. trained for those. Ring, scan the building. Anyone here who shouldn't be?

M'gann detected.

Anyone else?

No further unauthorised presences detected.

"Find Janus Junior!"

Hmm. If they can hide from a power ring I'm a bit stuck. Ring, scan this room for unauthorised genetic material.

No recent residues detected.

I attach orange threads to each of the body parts and float them up-

"What are you doing!?"

-into their original shape. "I am performing an investigation." Curious. The splits between parts are slightly ragged. Not clean enough for a sword or saw but not messy as a straightforward ripping would be. But the bone was snapped..? "Tigira, may I see your claws for a moment?"

"W-what? Why?"

"I'm curious as to what made these cuts." I point to the one that went through his upper arm. "See?"

"I didn't-" Ophidian's Gaze. As expected. "-attack Tomas."

"Humour me." Niko turns her angry gaze on her employee and the Ape fellow looms behind her.

Clearly alarmed, Tigira holds out her hands and extends her claws. A clever biological mechanism, quite unlike those of an actual cat. Hers are more like Human nails that have been reinforced, though her rear claws have the more realistic curved blade version.

I walk over to take a closer look. "Riddle me this: how do you betray a secret you don't know?" Yes, it's hard to see but there is a little Tomas goo under the nails.

"I… I don't know but I didn't-."

"Miss Tigira, I know that you had no desire to harm Mister Tomas. Unfortunately, we live in a world with telepaths, ghosts and magicians, all of whom can compel others to act as they would want them. Tell me, what were you doing when you discovered his remains?"

"I was.. on guard outside. Doctor von Schadel didn't want-."

"And then?"

"There was.. some sort of noise…" She looks back to the Ape Man for confirmation. "And then I… I.. I can't remember."

"Niko, could you call Doctor von Schadel down here. We'll need to see if we can get a trace from her mind."

"The.. Doctor can't read the minds of people he's Unvolved. Are you saying someone's been controlling the murderers?"

I frown. "There have been others?" Her eyes widen slightly. She wasn't meant to tell me that. "I can't help if you won't give me information. And I want to help."

She hesitates for a moment, then nods. "Several other members of the first generation, all in places they should have been safe. But… Why? They were all Arcane's earliest work, barely intelligent. They meant no harm to anyone."

"Swamp Thing might argue that point with you."

"The early ones only attacked when someone directed them to."

"Such as?"

"Cranius, or Arcane himself." I nod. "Cranius would never endanger his brothers and Arcane is dead. Unless you think he survived being ripped apart."

"Reanimation is possible, though not particularly likely. Spiritual possession…" I place my hands on either side of Tigira's head. Analysis. Hmm. "Your neurotransmitter levels are slightly off. I'm not an expert, but-."

The door flies open and Otto storms in, Cranius mounted on his left shoulder. He makes it three paces before seeing the remains of his brother- "Tomas? No." -and stumbling to a halt. Otto makes a sharp right turn, driving his fist through the plastic fake stone and into the wood beneath. Cranius himself flicks his eyes back and forth between the rest of us before alighting on Niko. "How..? How has zhis happened?"

"Cranius, I believe that someone is using a form of remote control on your employees-."

"Zhen I will dissect zhem and learn zhis person's secrets directly from zheir brain!"

"Doctor, I understand that you're distressed, but-."

I get a fraction of a second's warning as The Face opens his eyes and mouth, his expression malicious in a way quite alien to his nature. I erect a barrier between him and Cranius just in time to prevent the scientist becoming char grilled. The Face pushes off the ground with his legs, flame cutting out only as he brings his fist around to strike it. He's strong for a Human but I've blocked hits from Kon and Diana. Ring, brand.

Unable to comply. Subject is already being remote controlled.

He crouches on the ground, braces and huffs out a stream of blue plasma. I send construct cables around and behind, grabbing his arms and legs and pulling him against the far wall. Physiology scan… "Doctor, I can't tell what I can safely do to stop him."

"Save zhe brain. I can rebuild zhe rest."

The plasma stream cuts out abruptly. Concern for the host? Is he being used as some sort of base station? The Face's eyes focus on Cranius, his right hand spasmodically opening and closing. "You."

"Who are you?!" Otto walks right up to my barrier. "Why have you murdered my brozhers!?"

"To hurt you. You stole this place, this sanctuary, from the very people who built it."

I lean closer to Niko. "I can call in telepaths and magic users both. Just give me the word."

She turns to look at me, irises red and the veins in her eyes clearly visible. "Why would I want you to do that?"

The voice isn't hers. Quick check and yep, the other two are like that as well. New constructs press them into the walls across from The Face. Ring, charge remaining?

Ninety one percent power remaining.

"Doctor! He's got the others! I'll need to call in additional help to-."

"Why? Aberrance was built on zhe suffering of my people! Zhese.. Gaffs.. cling on our coat tails! Heff you any idea how many brozhers and sisters I lost to Sunderland?!"

I cover the space between us in two strides, pick him up off Otto and forcibly turn him to face me. "Doctor. I need to call in extra help to remove whatever is possessing them. Do I have your permission?"

The back of his head pulses… Gasping for breath I suppose. Then he snaps out of his rage fit sufficiently to notice the condition of Niko. "No, not my Angel as well." He refocuses on me. "Yes, Grayven, summon your allies. Purge this foul presence from their minds!"

I nod. Ring, connect to the mountain's Hush Tube, then have it portal Ixy directly here.

Connection established.