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

15th December
15:53 GMT

I look around at the Hny'xx facility's command centre. "How are the new guests fitting in?"

Karsta Wor-Ul shrugs. Now that she no longer feels the need to feign humanity she's gone back to wearing her old kryptonian military uniform. Including a patch of Krypton's weird flag and another of her House emblem. It's a near-recreation of her dress uniform, which historically wouldn't have included the sunstones she's wearing on her belt. The image of what looks like a black sun with an inverted 'S' stitched in silver on it is original, too.

"I think that you wiping out the rest of their species is motivating them rather well." She waves her right hand over a crystal, a Kryptonian addition to an otherwise still largely Citadel installation. A holographic image of the team appears, hard at work directing the g-elf work crew as they remodel the interior. "I've got Ecksey keeping an eye on them, and g-gnomes are monitoring their thoughts full time." She turns her head in my direction. "How long am I supposed to have them here for?"

"Until you've got a large enough defence force that a security leak isn't so important."

"If it's in anything like working order, the Doomsday is powerful enough to destroy anything this region of space has to offer. And then some."

"Certainly, but it's still one ship. The local powers might not be a match individually, but their fleets-."

"I was talking about fleets. Krypton was the pre-eminent power in our region of space for a reason."

Worth knowing, with the Spiders almost certainly heading this way. "Can you build more?"

"No." She turns fully around, shaking her head. "The species comes first. And Kryptonian ships need Kryptonian shipyards, which need all kinds of infrastructure I don’t have and don't know how to build. Hopefully, Dru-Zod put a full database on the Doomsday, but if sending it to Earth was a spur of the moment thing he might not have thought about it."

"That.. seems…"

"It's not like we knew the planet was going to explode. It was just supposed to be a symbolic display of defiance to the.. Science Council. It's possible that he even set the central computer to wipe itself once it reached its destination."

"And if he did?"

"Then it's a hulk. I don't have the programming skills to program it and the computer on my ship isn't adaptable enough to work in its place."

"So, we'll need programmers."

She raises her right eyebrow. "Do you have a time machine?" I hesitate, and she notices. "Do you?"

"Not.. immediately to hand. Getting one would.. require me to devote significant resources to the task, and I'd really rather not unless it's essential." Human technology can do all sorts of things, but the fact that even Doctor Sivana appears to be shying away from two-way time travel suggests that there are very good reasons why it isn't more widely employed.

Ping.

Shit, really?

Ping.

Rrright, I'll bear that in mind.

"So, yeah, sorry, but unless it's that or the destruction of the universe, no time machine. But I can probably get you someone who can learn to program Kryptonian computers."

She frowns. "Like who?"

"More Coluans? They're pretty good at that sort of thing. We're probably going to have to fight the Machine Tyrants eventually anyway, and I'm sure that Dox is looking forward to remonstrating with his father. Or.. there's Daxam-."

"Pff. Those primitivists probably don't having anything more sophisticated than a spoon. They certainly won't have anyone who knows anything about spacecraft."

"Okay, but isn't it worth checking? It's not like you'll have to undertake a long flight; just step through a boom tube-."

"Okay." She closes her eyes for a moment. "I think this is one of those differences between Earth culture and Krypton culture. If an entire bloodline decides to do something completely stupid, you leave them to their folly. I'm not talking about one guy; every family has its black sheep. But everyone who went to Daxam followed their moronic anti-technology belief system and I'm not prepared to deal with their descendants at all."

"Alright. I.. don’t really understand, but this is your project." I tap my left arm with my right forefinger. "What's with the.. black sun and… An upside down 'S' is 'resurrection', isn't it?"

"We're trying to resurrect my species. As for the sun… You've heard of Black Zero?" I nod. "Black Sun was their less well known political.. wing. We're not using exactly the same techniques here, but it.. felt appropriate."

"What..? Ah… What did you decide about their..? I don't want to say 'life cycles', but you know what I mean."

"Grow them to late childhood, then decant them so they can experience all of the joys of adolescence naturally. Basic implanted education, they can learn the rest as part of their socialisation and if they really need something the g-gnomes can implant it later. And I don't intend for this to be a long term thing; once we get enough to form a stable population I won't be making any more."

I nod. "How large is the first generation?"

"Ten individuals. One of them is even an El. I'm.. probably going to need some help. I haven't ever had to-."

I nod. "Not a problem. I'm sure Tamaran will be happy to lend you a few childminder.. s…" Wait a moment. Which version of Kara-El is this universe using? I didn't.. think to ask… She's not on Earth… Might be worth looking in to. An actual Kryptonian-kryptonian would be more than a little helpful. "And we can hardly leave it to the psions."

"I was slightly worried that was what you intended for me to do when they said they were child education specialists."

"I'm not going to give you a thing to run and then tell you how to run it. I'd never get anything done if I acted like that." She nods. "How long until the first batch are ready?"

"Three months. We're taking it slowly to start with. Once we know that the tissue scaffolding technique works on whole organisms like we think it does, we'll probably be able to reduce that."

"Makes you wonder why anyone gives birth naturally at all."

"Hormones. Bad planning. Built in biological triggers designed to make parents bond with their offspring. Exowombs were used on Krypton for a while, but then the technique got associated with cloning and fell out of fashion. Some of the Possession Worlds used it, but it never really caught on for wide scale use."

I nod. "Okay, well, thanks for bringing me up to date. How about we take a trip to Texas?"

She nods, and picks up a small Kryptonian personal communicator. "Ready."

Mother Box.

Ping.

15th December
09:57 GMT -6

We step out inside of the small prefabricated office block attached to the dig site. Having a kryptonian naval officer spotted here would be a little awkward, but with a quickly-donned set of overalls Karsta Wor-Ul looks just like another site manager. I'm using my illusion ward.

She looks around for a moment. "Lot of lead around here."

"Lex Luthor has a bit of a thing about kryptonians."

She looks up at -and presumably through- the plasterboard ceiling. "Does some guy called 'Wayne'?"

"Ah… Why do you ask?"

"A couple of satellites with his name on them are watching the site." She blinks twice and then returns her attention to me. "Problem?"

"I… Really hope not."

 

15th December
10:07 GMT -6

Karsta Wor-Ul glances away from her personal communicator as a security patrol walks past. "Are those kryptonite weapons?"

"Probably." I shrug. "Problem?"

"Not so long as they don't fire them. I can get treatment. Humans get cancer."

"How do you even know about kryptonite?"

She shrugs, returning her full attention to her communicator. Except obviously not; she's a kryptonian who has had decades to get used to her enhanced senses. Bit of a shame she wants to avoid Kal-El, actually. He could learn a lot from her-. And now Kon and Match can't because I recruited her. Huh. Feel.. a little bad about that, but I think the ends justify the means if it means the kryptonian species comes off the 'endangered' list.

"Kryptonite turned up on Krypton sometimes. Something about our planet's core…" She shrugs. "Sometimes geologists found tiny amounts in metamorphic rock samples. I only know about it because it was a radiological hazard." She shakes her head. "I can't make contact with the Doomsday. Not from here."

I extend my left hand, making my ring glow. "If you need a more powerful broadcaster..?"

"No, that wouldn't be it. Dru-Zod would have known that the Science Council might have sent a ship or an Eradicator after the Doomsday. He wouldn't want them to be able to just signal a recall."

"If we got you on board, what could you do?"

"I worked with Dru-Zod for years, but he didn't give me any warning about this stunt. If the computer is still set up properly it should respond to my commands… There must be some reasons why he didn't tell it to fly right into Rao. But without knowing why he did it or what else he did, I don't know."

"How fast could you make an assessment?"

"About a minute, probably. The computer will either respond to me, or it won't. Then I can see whether he sabotaged the core. If he did that…" She sighs. "I don't want to just leave it here, but there won't be any sense prioritising it."

I nod. She's right, of course. Getting this thing out of the ground involves a lot of money and a moderate amount of risk, and if we can't get a capital ship out of it then it really isn't worth it. Worse, Lex will probably want to find a way to rig it to explode just in case Dru-Zod Junior knows about it.

Another security detail enters the room. "I don't suppose you can do any sort of super-drilling, can you?"

"I could probably punch through the rock, but the shockwaves would flatten-."

"Ma'am? Sir?" The head of the detail approaches us, while his colleagues stand back with their guns pointed at the floor, safeties off. "Can I see your identification, please?"

"Certainly." We're far enough underground here that I should be alright. I pull off my ward and put it in one of my pouches. Immediately the man stops looking at my chest and turns his face up to where my head actually is. "And this-" I hold out the keycard Lex gave me. "-and you can phone Lex for confirmation."

"Ah… I'd say I don't need to, but we're under orders to run random checks on everyone in case of shapeshifting or telepathy. Sorry, sir."

I nod, smiling. "I approve of your thoroughness. Please, go right ahead."

"Alright. Please wait here. Ma'am?"

Karsta Wor-Ul sighs quietly, but hands over her card as well. "I'm afraid I'm not wearing a magic disguise, but I-" She reaches for the zip of her overalls. "-had a tattoo done on my-."

"That's fine, ma'am. Excuse me."

He walks off, his subordinate staying on station just in case. "I thought Luthor had a thing about kryptonians."

"He has a thing about one kryptonian. If Kal-El had never gone to Metropolis and Lex had heard about him, he'd probably have offered him a job."

"Giving security guards kryptonite weapons is a bit extreme for a man with a grudge against one kryptonian. Aside from anything else they probably wouldn't hit him."

"Light speed weapons stand a better chance than anything else he could give them, and… K-lasers have the advantage of working on humans perfectly well as well."

"And on gods?"

The left side of my lip rises in a mini-gurn. "Eventually. Anyway, point is that LexCorp security guards are mostly just normal security guards."

"Yeah, thanks."

I don't look at the mutterer. "In the nicest possible way. Lex doesn't bother indoctrinating at this level. Now, if we were in Metropolis-."

The head of the detail walks back in, our keycards in his outstretched hands. "Thank you both. Ms Graves was able to confirm both of your identities."

Karsta Wor-Ul and I take them back. "Thank you. It's nice to see that you're so diligent. Had any trouble so far?"

"Not much. We're far enough away from everything that no one's really bothering us. Had a bit of a scare when one of the researchers got a high reading with a Geiger counter and there was a camera drone with a holographic disguise, but that's it so far."

"You get radioactive sand here?"

"It could happen, but it turns out the guy just hit the 'test' button by mistake. Bit of a relief all round when he realised. I'm a big John Wayne fan, but not that big a fan."

"And the drone?"

He shrugs. "No one's claimed it. If it wasn't for the hologram I'd think it was some kids playing around. Maybe a journalist? If it was kids we'd give it back after having a talk about respecting private property, but no one's come forward."

"And if it was a journalist?"

"Hold it while we get instructions from head office." He exhales with amusement. "We're digging a big hole. We don’t even have explosives on site. We'd probably get told to let them look around then kick them out."

"No explosives? This is Texas, isn't it?"

"Hey, we're a guns state. You want bombs, that's Nevada!"

I nod, smiling. "I'll bear that in mind. Are we authorised to see the drone? I might recognise the more advanced components."

"Of course, sir. Ma'am. This way, please."

A short walk through the facility later, the guard shows us into an electronics workshop. The woman working there stares for a moment, her eyes widening in shock. The guard nods at her. "Katherine, you mind showing Mister Grayven the drone?"

"Ah..? Sure, no problem." She walks over to a chest of drawers and uses her own keycard to unlock one of the lower drawers. Pulling it fully open she picks up what looks like a commercially available four-rotor drone and turns around to put it on the workbench. "There's not a lot to it."

I gesture to it with my right hand. "May I?"

She steps back. "Sure, go ahead."

I raise my left hand and scan it.

No sign of Doctor Palmer, which is a major relief. Yes, he'd have to grow to a detectable size to see anything and there are three different types of sensors monitoring every part of this facility, but he's basically impossible to keep out of somewhere. But the drone itself…

Batman has two basic types of drone. First, the bat-themed ones. They're pretty high end and have unbranded custom made components. The new versions also contain a minibot, on the assumption that they might get brought down by someone who'd keep it for bragging rights. This isn't like that. The second type are designed to look like commercial drones, though they mostly use parts from smaller Rhelasian companies rather than WayneTech or LexCorp stuff like most commercial drones in the US actually do. He uses these a lot more these days because putting them together is less of a pain.

This is built almost entirely of LexCorp parts. Which means that either Lex was testing his people…

Or we're being Robinned.

 

15th December
15:22 GMT

"That's easy, Mister Chairman. Because she's lying."

This causes a certain amount of muttering in the public gallery, and a none too pleased stare from the representative of the plastic cheese merchants. With public opposition to the bid rampant and my counteroffer edging up the price, Irene Rosenfeld herself is sitting only a few metres from me. That was dumb, but it's not as if any of them have any idea how to cope when your opponent is a superhero. I checked, and while superheroes have acquired companies in their public identities before none have done so in their secret identity and none have done so while openly superheroic.

On my left, Mrs Loudon suppresses a smirk.

Mr Luff doesn't seem particularly perturbed. "And what exactly do you mean by that?"

"She told you that Kraft will keep the Somerdale factory open. She's lying. Under Kraft it will be closed within two years, while I actually will keep it open. She told you that Kraft will continue Cadbury's ethical sourcing practices. She's lying, they'll be breaking with the Fairtrade brand within five years in a frankly disturbing race to the bottom. I won't. In point of fact, I will go to war torn countries, bring the wars to a close, and lend my own money to the locals if they want to start farming cocoa."

On my right, Mr Queen groans quietly.

"I will pay corporation tax because I'll buy Cadbury's with money and not debt. Kraft will use every dodge it can to avoid paying tax. Kraft will mess about with the recipes and quantities in order to lower their costs. They will switch from cocoa butter to palm oil, and I hope I don't need to explain the environmental consequences of that. I won't. She's lying."

"And you're not."

I smile. "No. With regard to Cadbury's, and in consultation with the management, with Unite-" I gesture towards the gallery where the Unite representative is sitting. "-and with the general public, I don't feel the need to change much, to be honest. The management has a good growth strategy… Heck, their distribution chain is why Kraft are even doing this, clearly the strategy is a good one. The only thing I plan on changing is buying a few dolmen gates to speed up travel between factory and distribution centres."

"And you're guaranteeing that?"

"Of course. My complete, one hundred percent guarantee. Personal integrity is vital to my public work. Heck, I can remember when my parents banned my sister and I from buying anything from Nestlé because of their powdered milk sales practices. And despite the money I could have made, I stopped handing out Bleed Torsion Generators when LexCorp premiered their thaumokinetic generator and Stagg Enterprises revealed their cosmic converter." No idea how a pharmaceutical company got the rights to Dr Knight's work, but it's nice to know that someone is finally using it. "If you want me to post a bond somewhere, I'm happy to do so."

"That won't be necessary, thank you. Mrs Rosenfeld?"

"I.. can't stop wars, but I completely deny that Kraft will-" I reach down and pick up my briefcase. "-go back on the guarantees we have already-" I put my briefcase down on the desk in front of me. "-given. Orange Lantern has offered no evidence in a spurious and frankly insulting manner."

"Okay." I open my briefcase, revealing the Lasso of Truth. "I borrowed this from a friend of mine this morning. Would you mind putting the loop around your wrist and repeating that?"

Her mouth sort of wiggles.

Mr Luff sighs. "Orange Lantern, we don't habitually tie up our witnesses."

"Of course, but it seems to me that if this whole thing hinges on which of our guarantees are actually believable, using the Lasso of Truth could simplify matters considerably. Since it's literally impossible to lie while bound by it. I've given evidence with it before personally, and no one affected by it has ever suffered any sort of long term consequences." Mr Luff leans back slightly, whispering something to one of his colleagues. "I'll go first?"

One of Mrs Rosenfeld's lawyer-beasts leans towards his microphone. "Testimony derived from magic isn't reliable, and it can't take into account changes in the market."

"And? I'll be undergoing the same process."

Mr Luff nods. "There isn't a statute-defined standard on what sort of magic can be used in court, but this isn't court. I think I'd quite like to hear from both of you."

I pick up the loop of the lasso and pull it tight around my right forearm, then use my ring to float the opposite end over to Mr Luff. "Take hold of that and state a question."

He somewhat cautiously takes hold of it with his right hand and I release it from my construct. "Orange Lantern, is the testimony you have given here today honest?"
Truth
"For the most part. There aren't that many wars going on in places where it makes sense to try growing cocoa, and if the market was getting totally oversaturated I'd probably encourage them to grow something else instead. But I wouldn't alter the recipe or weights, dodge taxes or close the factory long term, or let my employees or other agents do it."

"'Long term'?"
Truth
"It might make sense to close it short term for refurbishment or if there was a fire or something."

"Fair enough. Mrs Rosenfeld?"

Lawyer-beast leans forward again. "I'd be happy to-."

"Thank you, but I'm not asking you. Mrs Rosenfeld?"

She turns to me. "I'd like to know how you came to the conclusion that Kraft has misrepresented its true intentions."
Truth
I'm still wearing that Lasso, but this is as good a time as any. "Kraft did the same thing in the parallel universe I originally came from. Also, I hacked your computers and stole your business plans." I take a print out version out of subspace and deposit it on my desk. "I'll be handing a copy over to the committee and such newspapers as want one. It's remarkable how different-."

"I completely deny the authenticity of anything you claim to have stolen."
Truth
"Oh, I totally stole them from you. I needed to show the world what a pack of lying liars you are, and I have a diplomatic passport. Which means that I can't be arrested or charged unless Queen Hippolyta withdraws it. And I thought, I should use that ability more."

I take the loop off my arm and toss it over to Kraft's desk.

"Your turn."

 

16th December
09:11 GMT -5

Lex shrugs. "I'm.. not really sure what you expect me to do about it."

I lean back in my chair. "I'm not sure what I want you to do about it. As you may have noticed, I'm a bit more direct. You -on the other hand- toed the line of legality and snuck around the Justice League for years. I'm hoping that you have insight that I lack."

"Grayven… I don't know what you think LexCorp actually does, but only a very small proportion of what we do is in direct defiance of the law. It's always proven far simpler to employ lawyers to work at a.. potentially profitable avenue until they find a way to do it legally. It saves trouble and preserves plausible deniability for me personally. In.. this case… We have a hole in the ground. A very secure hole in the ground, but until we actually get access to the ship that's.. all it is." He leans back, looking thoughtful. "It might actually be preferable if the children did break in at this stage. There really isn't anything for them to see, and if they discovered that for themselves they'd be far less likely to go back at a more critical juncture."

"It's… Your site, but I'm not comfortable with that level of risk."

"If it came to it, I could have a convincing case made that LexCorp owns it legitimately. Or that Ms Wor-Ul does."

"Except that gets you shot. Or results in the League or the government sharing data on the Light and destroying your reputation."

"I have.. contingencies for that. Though they're not exactly pleasant." He raises his eyebrows slightly. "Not concerned about your own reputation?"

I shrug. "Not over this. Digging up a spaceship in order to return it to its owner and gain Earth an ally isn't supervillainous behaviour. If Sam thinks that it is then he should have given me a different definition."

Lex smiles. "Perhaps being open and honest from the start might have been a better idea."

I quietly chuckle. "I think it's a bit late to start on that now, for either-" There's a soft chime from his computer. "-of us."

His eyes dart down. "Mister Truggs has arrived. He has a proposal regarding our.. time line concerns which he wishes to put to us."

I nod. "I don't need to be in Opal until ten. Is this a.. group thing, or…?"

"Mister Truggs is publicly in my employ. Introducing him to the group effectively gives up my anonymity. Or at least my plausible anonymity."

I nod again. "As you see fit."

Lex presses a button, and a moment later Ms Graves opens the door to admit Mr Truggs. I hadn't really noticed before, but he's doing the Doctor Who suit with trainers thing. Makes sense. Wearing armoured boots makes more sense for me, but I never did like 'office shoes' myself.

"Lex. Grayven. Good to see you both." He takes the seat next to mine, leaning forward towards Lex's desk. "I had an idea about the AI, needed to run it by you."

I raise my eyebrows. "AI?"

Lex nods. "There are distinct benefits to having a single mind which can intelligently monitor every part of my infrastructure, or act as the guiding brain of an interstellar capital ship. Obviously, we're still at the planning stage now."

"Not so much. Not if you give me the okay."

"Mister Truggs, this is not an area where I want to take risks. Reliability is even more important than capacity where artificial intelligence is concerned. Covering our weaknesses is more important than being perfect in an area where we already perform well."

"I know. Hear me out." Lex nods and makes a small circling 'get on with it' gesture with his right hand. "Earth already has AI. Had it since the forties: the Red androids, GI Robot… And the Chinese had those Shaolin Robot things since two hundred BC. Problem is, they were clever but not adaptable. Programmin' learnin', learnin' the sort of things you want, that's tricky. An' risky, because you can't be sure they're learning the things you want until it's too late an' it turned out they learned things you didn't want."

"Originally I figured on doin' an upload. Get someone trustworthy, simulate their brain an' use that. But no one's got alla the skills we need, an' you can't get everything you could out of an AI setup if it thinks like a human. An' worse of all, everyone like that is bound to have something kinda screwy about them. I mean, take, ah… Leonard Snart. Nearly failed high school, smart enough to build a freeze ray in a prison workshop. An' what does he do with it?" I'm already nodding. "He uses it to rob banks. Or Steve Jobs. Founded a major computer company, revolutionised the electronics industry… Aaaaaan tried to cure his cancer with a Juice Weasel. An' I don't think making these people an AI is going to improve things. Human minds are built for human bodies. Get someone a bit messed up, end up with someone a lot messed up. So, back to square one?"

"But then it struck me: why upload one person?" He looks between myself and Lex, as if hoping for a sign of appreciation. "We got g-gnomes, we got ultra-resolution brain scanners… Give up a little time, an' we can copy the most useful thought patterns into a synthetic brain. Set it up so it has the higher functions of all of the greatest minds and the lower functions of a calculation engine. An' best of all, we can edit out everything not useful. Everything that makes whoever we're scannin' less than they could be. Take me, for example. I'm adaptable, rational and I learn quick. But I'm an instinctive iconoclast and I've got an arrogant streak a mile wide." He shrugs. "So we take the patterns and use them for the machine. An' then-" He swivels in his chair until he faces me. "-there's you. Determined an' patient, but you've got a temper."

I nod. "You're not wrong. I was going to therapy… But I've shot myself in the foot and damaged useful relationships because people made me angry."

He turns back to Lex. "An' then there's you. Intelligent, ideologically focused -which is a big deal for an AI- an' you've got the social skills of a psychopath without actually being one. But…"

I nod. "Yeah. Is it really that simple? I would have thought that the flaws were part-."

"Excuse me?" Lex raises his eyebrows. "What is it that you believe to be my psychological shortfall?"

"Aaaah." Truggs look at me. Then back at Lex. "You don't..?"

"Out with it, Mister Truggs."

"Paranoia. You don't trust people, you're on your guard, you need to know you could destroy everyone…"

Lex blinks, exhales and bows his head slightly. "I'm not paranoid, Mister Truggs."

Truggs looks at me, and I frown. "Ah, Lex… You remember when Kal-El first came to Metropolis?"

Another small exhalation. "Yes?"

"You remember how many risks you took? How much money you spent on anti-Superman technology?" He looks decidedly truculent. "Now, compare that to how much of a threat someone like… Well, like Karsta Wor-Ul has been, or Wonder Woman. What's the difference?"

He's frowning. "I'm.. not certain that I…"

"They're not living in your city. You can't stop him and he's in your face. So.. you.. took foolish risks and made the situation worse."

He frowns at me, his hands starting to clench for a moment before he forces them flat. Then he frowns at Truggs. Then he half-turns as if to consult Ms Graves, but thinks better of it. "You.. believe that I'm paranoid?"

Truggs shrugs. "Not 'totally crazy paranoid', but 'incapable of trusting people in a normal way'… Y-eah. You.. didn't know that?"

I lean forward. "Growing up as you did, the way your parents treated you, it's not surprising that you learned to.. cope. But it wouldn't be a sensible trait to include in an AI mind designed to run a military spacecraft." Lex looks decidedly disquieted. "No offence intended. I've long been impressed by how you function in spite of it."

"I.. suppose that -to an outsider- some of my decisions might seem-." His frown deepens. "Confrontational, but in business a strong stance can often grant superior returns."

I shrug. "True enough. But if that's all it is, why haven't you spoken with Lena recently?"

 

16th December
11:38 GMT -5

"Thank you both very much for coming."

Richard smiles warmly at Jay and Joan Garrick, while Hope seems somewhat less sure of herself. Jay's been 'out and proud' since the beginning of his career, but there's a slight difference between dealing with Jack Knight and dealing with a World War Two veteran and national institution. A bit of a rub as far as the wedding goes: Richard doesn't have any living relatives and most of his friends from the old days are either dead, in prison or wanted by the police. Clea's having a stiltedly polite conversation with Diana in one corner of the reception hall and Hope's brother Matthew is doing Best Man duties, but his side of the church is going to be rather empty.

Jay smiles. "I'd heard you'd gone straight. When I got the invitation I decided I had to see it for myself."

Richard raises his hand in mock surrender. "Straight as a die. Or she'll arrest me."

Hope bows her head slightly as Mr Garrick raises his eyebrows. "I wasn't going to make the joke myself, but how exactly did The Shade get involved with a policewoman?"

"My brother introduced us. We kind of knew each other through Jack Knight, after the Merritt case-" Mr Garrick nods. Yes, he and Jack's father were colleagues in the Justice Society, weren't they? "-but him and Matt had been working together against a drug trafficking network-" Who if I remember Starman correctly had been bribing Matt to look the other way before he had his epiphany and bit off the hand that had been feeding him. "-and he tried setting us up."

"Looks like it worked."

Richard looks mildly pleased with himself. "Actually, she dodged me for two months."

Hope sighs. "I wasn't dodging you. I was working. But… Yes, despite my reservations-"

Richard nods. "I have a bit of a reputation."

"-it actually has."

"Grayven."

I blink, turning away from the happy couple and their guests to face Diana. I smile politely. "Diana. Decided to stop stalking Clea?"

"It was.. interesting to see her again. Orin told me that you were working with her, but it was strange to hear her sounding so conciliatory."

"Just a matter of knowing what a person wants from a situation. There usually isn't anything particularly unreasonable about people's desires-."

"Rrrraaaahhhhh!"

I stop as we both turn to watch Kyle Knight charge past the open door, closely pursued by Hope's nephew. Lynne follows a moment later at a slightly more sedate pace. Nice to see her spending time with other children.

"People's desires, but if they want things they can't get, there can be problems."

Diana nods. "She told me. Her nephew becomes her heir-"

"Is recognised as her heir."

"-and she opens up relations with the rest of Atlantis."

"With the rest of the world. Thank you for making me aware of her. That engagement has been one of my more fruitful projects." Oh, hang on, she'd have-. "You were around during the forties. You can't shed any light on her mess of a marriage, can you?"

Diana shakes her head. "I didn't stay in touch with Queen Cora after our meeting. Not that I really imagine that the exact truth of what happened back then would have much effect on things today. Most of the people involved are dead."

"Yes, but a person who knew the truth could sell it to Atlantis for a high price. If Queen Clea turned out to have overreacted, she would most likely moderate her position in her future dealings. That would make Orin's life easier."

"And if she was right?"

"She's bitter about Queen Cora's actions anyway. But I think that if Orin found out that his grandmother was in the wrong, he would say so openly. And that would convince Clea that she could trust that he would deal honestly and fairly with her. It's a benefit either way. And as you say, any guilty parties are undoubtably dead now."

"But not Ptra."

I frown. "What stake do you have in it? At this point she doesn't have the skills to rule a city, even if they did reconcile. And I don't intend to put another idiot on a throne for the Justice League."

"Queen Adilah appears to be handling her office well enough."

"With a little help."

Her eyes narrow slightly. "From you?"

"From me, and from someone who actually knows how to run a country. Some of the things she's told me about the woman…" Ms Savage's feedback has been illuminating. Amusing. Frustrating. At least the.. stupid woman has the sense to follow good advice. Or maybe she thinks that I'll have her killed if she doesn't.

Can't say I wouldn't be tempted…

"One of the few things that her sister got badly wrong was not sorting out the succession. What's the point of building something if someone knocks it all down the moment you die?"

"You don't think dealing with Apokolips was a mistake?"

"Depends. Trying to trade with aliens in general isn't, and there wasn't really any way she could have known exactly what we're… They're like. There would have had to be a rehabilitation process, but it would have been easier than trying to turn Adilah into a competent ruler."

"And Lex Luthor-."

"-to do with that." We look around as Richard raises his voice. Hope and Joan left at some point, and Richard is looking decidedly apologetic. "Yes, I was with Injustice Unlimited while Zard was running it, but the only thing Dummy's incarnation had in common was the name."

"Zard wasn't exactly a good guy. But, alright, we never had you for anything worse than assault and theft. But that doesn't explain why you did any of it."

"It was the only thing that made me-" He holds up his left hand and lets it turn into dripping shadow for a moment. "-feel alive. I don't know whether that was Culp or.. my own mental state. But competing against people like you in a contest of power and wit was the only thing that stopped me feeling like I was sleepwalking through my own life. I'm not proud of it, but that was why."

"And you don't feel that way any more?"

"No. I'm actually happy just being." Richard risks a chuckle.

"I understand that he's been active in India."

I turn back to Diana. "Among other places. After Circe and I removed Culp, he felt that he wanted to do something to pay off some karmic debt. I suggested South America, but a couple of cities shut down in terror and they asked him to stop."

"We used to stop him by knocking his cane out of his hand. I would have thought that South America would have at least one person capable of doing that."

I snort-laugh. "Yeah. About that… He… Doesn't actually need the cane."

"Has he altered the machine? Is he concealing it somewhere else in his clothing?"

"No. He never needed it. He channels the power of the Shadowlands through his body. Since he's basically unstoppable and he only picked fights with the Society for fun, he… Spotted you… All of his pawns, so you'd have a hope of winning."

Diana blinks, the rest of her face losing animation. "You're saying… He was sandbagging."

"He was beachbagging. If Father turned up on Earth tomorrow, he's the one being I'd count on to win. He'd scare me if he weren't so chipper these days." Diana appears not quite sure what to make of that. "So… Given that he only picks fights with superheroes when he's bored… Does the League have anything to keep him occupied?"

 

16th December
11:38 GMT -5

Lex's mind raced as he skim-read another e-mail. Another cosmic converter completed and shipped. Low risk parts from the nuclear reactor it was replacing being transferred for recycling. Highly radioactive parts being transferred to temporary storage until the backup storage sites in Texas were complete. Slightly ahead of schedule, but not to a degree which suggested that corners were getting cut.

Paranoid.

His right hand didn't twitch as he considered checking what progress his anti-alien researchers were making with Savage's holdout weapon. Kryptonians were powerful, but their strengths were direct and their counters relatively readily available. New Gods weren't, but Grayven's reports of the nature of his homeworld were supported by enough evidence that he didn't think attempting to purchase such weapons from Apokolips was a sound strategy. Bitter experience with the Al-. The other alien, taught that simply trying to out-escalate people that powerful was frequently ineffective at anything other than distracting them for a few minutes.

Paranoid.

One of the sites in Texas had discovered a small robotic vehicle moving under holographic camouflage. On-site engineers confirmed that it was a LexCorp toy upgraded with LexCorp electronics by someone highly skilled in electrical engineering. They didn't have the facilities to check it for DNA fragments or fingerprints, but the chance of finding anything seemed remote.

Paranoid.

Not that he wasn't ordering it shipped to somewhere that could anyway. If by some miracle it didn't turn out to be from the Justice Youth it indicated that there was a highly skilled electronics engineer out there with time on their hands and a strong familiarity with LexCorp products. The Theodore Knight scholarship fund had only attracted a few truly worthwhile applicants, but having met Dr Thaddeus Sivana he'd come to suspect that the particular form of practical brilliance the Foundation was designed to support might frequently be paired with psychological iss-.

Paranoid.

With psychological issues which might make them less likely to apply for funding. He began typing an e-mail to the Head of Personnel about investigating the feasibility of modeling 'science genius' behavior and predicting their actions so that they could be approached before they became committed costumed criminals.

Paranoid.

Nylor Truggs was naturally under constant observation. He had so far given no outward sign of disloyalty, and if he did, killing him was a far more simple matter than killing Grayven. But there was no immediate need to do so. Even if his-. Even if he was wrong -and he clearly was- employees being willing to respectfully inform you of what they believe to be problems was useful and something he generally encouraged. He hadn't made any sort of threat to Lex or issued any sort of ultimatum. If anything, he seemed to be unconcerned by his-. His obviously flawed analysis. Facial analysis of his expression during the meeting supported that conclusion.

Paranoid.

How does a crazy person know-?

No. No.

How would a person, a random member of society, come to realize that their behavior was well outside normal bounds? The fact that psychopaths tended to do well in management was a well established fact, but therefore by the standards of their immediate environment they aren't unusual.

Family.

Yes, well, the less he learned from them-.

Which was rational. Completely rational. Even under other circumstances, given his diet and lack of exercise, it was unlikely that his father or mother would have lived past fifty. They made little to no effort to improve either themselves or their situation. Errors he strenuously avoided. So perhaps it had been a valuable learning exercise? A worthwhile illustration of what could happen if he fell into their habits? In any case, they never paid enough attention to notice his behaviors one way or the other.

Under normal circumstances, a person's parents were a source of guidance and protection. It would be.. natural, for a child denied such things to learn not to assume that they were safe.

Paranoid.

His hands move over his keyboard, dismissing his e-mails and bringing up the intelligence file on Leonard Snart. Yes. Abandoned by his mother and beaten by his father. Obviously clever. Possibly brilliant. Capable of designing the ice fortresses in months while denied access to more than basic writing or reference materials. But incapable of using that brilliance in a rational way. Why? Why does any social relationship function? Because people share assumptions and are generally prepared to act within them. In his case, the expectation was violated. He learned lessons which make it harder for him to act within a normal social framework. Not impossible; reports from the Central City Police Department indicated that he had a leadership role within the local costumed criminal community.

But if he could address his behavioral problem, he could better himself.

…

Yes. Human beings don't stop learning things in childhood. Leonard Snart could spend time with his colleagues without feeling obliged to freeze them solid. Lex himself had hired elocution teachers to help him rid himself of his Southside accent, and an expert in body language to improve the way he presented himself. There was nothing weak about being taught something by an expert in the field.

…

A genuine paranoid would not be able to do that. They would naturally assume that they were being fed misleading information by people who wished them ill. Mr Snart knew that a cooperative operation would reflect badly on everyone if it went wrong, so assumed that his colleagues would generally pull their weight. Likewise, Lex assumed that experts he hired would do the best job they could in order to gain future employment.

…

How does one learn to take a risk based on trust? What is the fundamental difference between Grayven and a chess grand master? The most obvious answer is that a chess grand master is simple to kill or threaten. Is that a proportional response to the potential threat they respectively pose, or… Evidence of poor socialization?

Hm.

How would he have behaved in Grayven's position? He would not have reformed the Light. With a position that powerful, raising people to his level would be a waste of time and resources. He.. might not have killed all of his former colleagues, but they would have been permitted very little freedom afterwards. Grayven had acted differently. That suggested that Grayven prioritized things differently.

Given that, when pushed, he didn't use anything worse than harsh language, was investing millions of dollars into researching ways to kill him rational?

…

Yes, yes it-.

Was it?

Normally, there were experts he could hire to advise him. But -in the abstract, with no concrete plans to follow through regardless of the answer- was there anyone he knew who would be able to relate to his position? A wealthy human businessman who had to work with powerful aliens and superhumans, earning his place amongst them with his intellect and wits?

A moment's thought revealed that the only such person he knew of was the entirely inappropriate Bruce Wayne.

Grayven is a potential threat, so putting resources into research may be a reasonable course of action. However, that justification only applies to physical threats. Atypical socialization can produce outcomes beyond a hesitancy to trust. Lex realized that his behavior might be 'off' in a number of small ways.

What other behaviours had Grayven and Truggs mentioned as being unusual concerning people who weren't a threat?

…

Lex reached across his desk, picked up his phone handset and dials.

A few moments passed, and then with a quiet beep the person at the other end picked up.

"Yes?"

"Lena. It's Lex."

 

16th December
09:38 GMT -7

"Thank you all for coming."

Not a huge audience. Only twenty two of the forty I invited responded positively, and three of them didn't actually turn up. Fair enough, really. They're in an industry where when a job becomes available you don't have much choice but to take it.

Kurt Damsen, former Head of Development at a recently downsized computer game studio, takes a moment to pointedly look around the room. His eyes momentarily arresting as his gaze alights upon a former colleague. "I was mostly curious about what a superhero wants to talk to us about."

"I'm hoping that you can help me with something that's been… On my mind." I sigh. "Essentially, I want to offer you -collectively- data on a politically complex and turbulent region of space, with a view to making a computer game based on it."

A couple of exhalations, and I've definitely got everyone's attention.

"The reason I want to do that -aside from the fact that you're all talented individuals who have been ill treated by your former employers- is because I was the one who in real life was obliged to deal with it, and I'm really not sure that I did the best job I could have done. I'm.. curious to see if a player base would -when confronted with the situation- make similar choices or different ones."

Heidi Rose, award winning game developer and programmer with twenty years' experience who quit after her third hundred hour a week month in a row, glances up at the sky. "Is this somewhere close? Are we going to have to worry about extra terrestrial critics? I don’t want to be probed."

"No, that's… No. It's extremely unlikely that most of the people mentioned would ever come to Earth, and the few that would probably wouldn't care."

"Are these well armed aliens who could come to Earth?"

I nod. "Oh, very well armed. Then again.. I.. know that several of you have worked on licensed games depicting superheroes before." A slightly wry shuffle from the people who worked on 'Justice League Adventures', a fairly generic action RPG which to this day has the League's founding members wince slightly whenever they see it. Except for Jordan, who got cut in favour of Lantern Stewart, and King Orin, who got cut entirely. "And that contained several alien races who hadn't decided to complain about it."

Kurt nods. "So, where is it?"

"A cluster of star systems about sixty light years-" I point. "-that way." I generate a map, though at this size it's impossible to make out individual planets and the stars are points of light. "As a result of a pact between the Guardians of the-" Ugh "-Universe…" Blank faces. Consider your audience. "The people who run the Green Lantern Corps." A few nods. "And one of its more infamous residents, Green Lanterns aren't allowed inside. How big a deal that is probably isn't obvious, so let me explain a little about how interstellar law enforcement works."

"The first thing you need to understand is that the species of the universe have no common set of laws. There is no Space UN. The nearest thing to a galactic legal authority is the Guardians, and though they're generally respected they don't have a generally recognised universal jurisdiction. There are civilisations who bar their operatives entry, and the Guardians accept that. Beyond that, given exactly how far criminals can run when they have access to faster than light travel, there are networks of bounty hunting organisations of varying degrees of… We'd say 'legitimacy', but in the context of there not being an overall law I suppose that they're technically all as legitimate as each other. Similarly, the vastness of space makes the sort of extradition agreements we have on Earth impractical except between near-neighbours."

Neil Cohen, lead writer on two of Wallace's favourite games and recipient of exactly zero dollars in royalties, raises his right hand. "So it's all handled by NGOs?"

"Courts on particular worlds often offer bounties and have agreements with particular organisations about standards and prices. But generally speaking, a stellar polity will only use its navy to enforce its own laws in systems where it has colonies, and maybe on the routes between them. Taking a fleet towards someone else's territory is obviously an extremely aggressive action. If a regional power is strong enough they might do it, but if all of the local powers are approximately equal then border hopping to avoid capture is quite viable."

"Green Lanterns can and do pursue violent criminals wherever they go, but then they're stuck with what to do with them. Quite aside from the fact that they probably won't know much about any political motivations they might have, they might be in a position where they know that the people they capture might suffer a grotesque punishment, or… Be able to buy their way out of trouble. Depending on local conditions they might return people they capture to one jurisdiction or another, or they might opt to maroon them instead."

"In places of widespread civil anarchy, the Green Lantern Corps might decide to move in in force and restore order. This acts as a sort of encouragement to spacefaring civilisations to maintain a degree of control over their own citizens and keep their interactions with their neighbours at least somewhat civil."

"As a result of there not being a major local power strong enough to assert itself, and the Green Lanterns being excluded by treaty, Vega was until recently a major pirate safe harbour. Two local civilisations were flat out evil, while several others were either cowed by them or willing to go along with it as along as they could benefit too. The nearest thing to a resistance movement was near-useless. And returning to why I'd like a game made, I.. fixed the situation partly by diplomacy with some fairly unpleasant people and partly by outright genocide."

A wave of unease passes around the room.

"On Earth, there are systems of law. Out in the wider universe, it's hit and miss." I take a handful of data sticks out of subspace. "There was no higher authority to turn to, and refusing to make a choice myself would have resulted in far more death… And those deaths would largely have been amongst those who weren't totally monstrous."

"Ahhh…" I focus on Kurt, who realises that he has the floor. "We make.. computer games."

"Yes. I think a modern game would be capable of modelling the relations between different parties in Vega, and having both a trading and fighting game play loop and faction missions to progress the.. main story in the direction of the player's choosing. Even if the finale is some orange deus ex flying in and dealing out frontier justice." I shrug. "Though I personally think that the end game coming out of nowhere is poor writing. Having fought two of the local boss characters myself I'm confident that you could come up with something better."

"No, I meant... Fictional space law is.. one thing and… Deciding to wipe out a civilisation because they're evil in real life…"

"If you were confronted by a xenomorph facehugger-" I generate a construct. "-and you had a gun, would you kill it?"

"If I could, yeah."

"Would you kill a hundred, if you could? They're newborn babies, remember."

He nods. "Yeah, yeah I guess I would."

"Would you have nuked Hiroshima, if it was the only way to stop Pingfang camp? Would you have flattened Dresden if it was the only way to close Auschwitz? Would you order a hundred men to charge a trench line, knowing that it was the only way to take it? And how could you be sure that those justifications were true?" He shrugs. "In my professional work I sometimes find it frustrating that people aren't prepared to make certain types of decisions. I'm hopeful that putting it in a semi-fictional context will encourage decisiveness and the development of appropriate decision making schema. And to make people more aware of what space age civilisations are capable of."

Sharon Pombo, unofficially blacklisted from working in any mainstream game company or games related media company after agitating for trade union membership and worker's rights, raises her left hand. "So.. are you.. hiring people to make this.. game..?"

"Not precisely. I hope that I have here the nucleus of a company. I'm willing to invest considerable amounts of money, do PR work for free and provide background information on the Vega Systems themselves. But it's up to you to form the company. Or not, if you choose. I imagine that your former employers would be quite willing to take the property off my hands."

There's a general tightening of jaws.

"Any further questions, or shall we start going through the data?"

 

17th December
09:02 GMT -5

"And just where are you off to, young lady?"

Lynne freezes just this side of the hush tube aperture, her hands on her bike's handlebars. I'm smiling at the back of her head, arms folded across my chest in a mock display of gruffness.

"Out..?"

"Out where?"

She shifts her grip so that she can turn around to face me. Her expression briefly becomes one of mild irritation as she realises that she's not in any trouble. "Going bike riding with Imra?"

I look around. "I don't see Knockout. Has she already gone through?" Lynne's eyes drop, and I sigh. "Lynne, there is literally nothing that you and Imra could get up to that would perturb her, including fighting a death match against rabid bears. Your telepathic powers are considerable, but I'm afraid that this life we live makes us targets. You can be overwhelmed."

She looks up. "But I could get genomorphs to wherever I was in less than a minute."

"A minute's a long time in combat." She slumps slightly. "Okay, look, I know that Knockout can be a bit.. distracting. How about taking Iname with you instead?"

"Do I have to?"

"You have to convince me that you're going to be safe. I don't intent to ban you spending time with your friends, but I'm not going to let you risk your life to do so."

Her head dips slightly. "Ahh…" And then jerks up. "Drones! I could bring some drones with me."

"Those.. drones are probably more dangerous than Knockout. And they look more dangerous than Iname."

"But they can be invisible. Which means that Imra and Rokk…"

"'Rock'?" My smile broadens as I lean forward. "Are you spending time with a boy?"

"Yes? Rokk and Reep are coming, too. And I won't be.. doing anything with either of them. Or Imra."

"Oh, take all the fun out of it." I nod. "Okay, tell you what. Mother Box, drone squadron.. seven..?"

"Ping."

Riot control drones, designed to favour low lethality solutions and packing more shielding than blaster power. Should be enough.

Boom.

Five molluscoid drones drift through the opening, forming a rough arc between myself and Lynne. "If you can command them, I will consider it an acceptable compromise." Gain dominion.

Lynne nods, her eyes moving between the drones in turn. Obviously she can't do it with telepathy, vocal commands would give the game away…

"Drones, come with me." Become my invisible arms and eyes.

The drones float towards her, forming a circle around her and her bike before engaging their stealth system. I nod, pleased. "Very well then. All yours. Have fun!"

Lynne turns away, glancing up to where I know she can feel the drones to be. "Thanks, Dad!" She pushes the bike through the hush tube and lets it close down behind her.

Nice to see her doing so well. Hm. Knockout's brutalising her recruit and Sunset is working on her arcane transposition matrix with Circe. Teaching an old dog new tricks, though to be fair it's a fairly equal relationship. Circe might be a bit behind on theory and engineering but her practical knowledge is leagues ahead.

But… It's Saturday.

Saturday means that the team might even now be being briefed by Batman in preparation for investigating Lex's dig site in Texas. Sites, rather, unless they've managed to narrow it down somehow. Security looked good, and there wasn't anything I could think of that wouldn't attract more attention than it turned aside. We could let a random journalist in to take a look around…

Ping.

Yeaaaaaah, no. Secrecy is still the best policy.

Ping.

Because if Karsta wanted to talk to him then she'd have talked to him. She has access to hush tubes now. She's as safe as she can be. Especially if Amalak was the one hunting down her fellow escapees.

Ping.

I'm not saying that I disagree, but it's her decision. Okay, let's… Visit a couple of the other sites in case Batman is tracking me somehow, then… Visit the Rao system? I doubt that I'll find any ships, but you never know.

Hush tube.

Ping.

I stride through into the air above site three.

17th December
08:06 GMT -6

No problem with being spotted, since I did assure Batman that I would be checking these sites out for him. Sinestro, scan, if you please.

Certainly, Lantern Grayven. I'm happy to report that all is in order.

I know Scott's good at sneaking out of places, but how good is he at sneaking in?

Ping.

About what I expected. Okay, next site… May as well make it a boom tube this time.

Ping.

Boom.

Nothing much here, nothing much there…

I stop above the site with the actual ship beneath it. Lex told me that they think it'll still be two weeks before they get a hole down to the actual ship, and that will just be tiny so they can confirm that there's actually a ship there. Given the state of the surrounding rock it seems likely that the Doomsday buried itself by landing on the surface and melting the earth beneath it until it was suitably entombed.

Actually…

Sinestro, what sort of seismic monitoring is there around here?

Some, Lantern Grayven. None of it is particularly new.

Huh. Should be alright. Mining activity is pretty much mining activity. Even if the League access it -and they can- then it won't show anything odd. Alright. Mother Box, open a boom tube to the Rao system… You can prevent kryptonite radiation coming through, right?

Ping.

No, but I wanted to check. Okay, open it.

Ping.

I fly through and… Huh. The area immediately around me just looks like space, but staring towards anything in the distance results in me trying to see it through a green miasma. There's a lot of kryptonite dust in this system, and the part around Krypton's orbital plane is denser than most nebulae. Denser than more than a few planetary rings, actually. I… You know, I almost want to take some pictures. The sheer scale of the destruction is breathtak-.

Ping.

Really?

I frown. Yeah, okay, it's only been fifty or so years. It's surprising but not astonishing that there's anything left that can transmit…

Lantern Grayven, the dig site just sent an alert. The ship appears to be activating.

…

Oops.

 

17th December
08:08 GMT -6

And back through the tube! Sinestro, get me Lex.

I have him, Lantern Grayven.

"…projected timelines, and I'd-."

"Lex. Problem."

There's a slight intake of breath. "Explain."

"Something in the Rao system was still transmitting. When I opened a-" Probably best I don't directly refer to the ship. "-boom tube, it was detected."

"We knew something like this was a possibility. Proceed with contingency plan A. I'll send a message to the site manager that she's to help you in any way you require. Can you contain the situation?"

One on one fight with a capital ship. True, kryptonians didn't design those things with anti-infantry purposes in mind so if I was actually standing on the hull I might be alright… "No idea. The specifications I've seen say that I should be able to, and we're fairly isolated here, but if I'm too slow… We're not that far away from some major population centres here."

"Understood. Keep me informed."

End call, open a hush tube to wherever Karsta is and call her.

Done.

"Karsta Wor-Ul, the ship's activating."

"Wuh? Ship? Grayv-?" I hear her exhale sharply. "Was it a cold start up?"

"As far as I could tell."

"Then its weapons shouldn't be able to fire for at least fifteen minutes. I'll be with you in one."

I nod, and cut the link. Great, okay. What next? I can't tube into the ship. Phasing drones can't get through its armour. Why aren't there any super-tunnelers around when you need them?

But…

There are constructs, both for tunnelling and for stabilising geological formations. I could probably-.

Lantern Grayven, those seismic monitoring devices are now detecting the vibrations which the Doomsday is causing. It's not enough to panic anyone just yet, but if the League are paying close attention then they will be aware that something is happening.

Great. Any sign of the Bio-Ship?

Not as yet. However, it may well be that your brother has outfitted it with ways to avoid ring-based detection.

Or Zatara might. Guh, if anyone was watching, me coming back to-

I was wondering when that would occur to you.

-the dig site the moment something happened… Okay, cover story… Someone misjudged an explosive charge. Mother Box, hush tube to the dig site.

Ping.

I fly through, landing on the rocky chamber just in front of the drill. A couple of overall-covered mine workers stare my way in surprise, and the guards only just manage to keep their guns stowed. The foreman shuts the drill down before turning to face me.

"Change of plans, guys and girls. Your site manager will be heading down here once she gets off the phone with Lex in order to confirm my authority. Your security clearance and pay grades are enhanced, but I'll remind you that your nondisclosure agreements are still in effect. Sharing information with anyone will get you fired and sued." Or worse. Lex does not take betrayals well. "The object we're digging towards is an alien relic which LexCorp is extremely interested in acquiring. I doubt-" I glance at the drill rig. "-that you felt it with that thing going, but there was a significant vibration a moment ago which we believe may have been whatever it is becoming active. As such, getting down to it suddenly became a good deal more urgent."

"Is it..?" One of the drill operatives starts talking, then realises that he might be interrupting and trails off. I make a circling gesture with my right hand. "Is it dangerous?"

"Yes, and that's why I'm here. If it looks like your life is being threatened I will be evacuating you very quickly. Sorry it's come to this, but the original plan was to pack you off just before making contact and for me to do the last part of the drilling myself so that you wouldn't be at risk. Now, that's not an option." I look at the shift leader. "How fast can we get down there?"

"We're.. still looking at days. Longer if you want a shaft big enough to pull anything up through. How big is this.. whatever it is?"

"Too big to easily bring up, but I'm hopeful that once we can get a connection to it we can stop it."

"And if you can't?"

"Then you get a LexCorp funded holiday in Australia while I try containing it myself. Look, this isn't a slave-mine. You want to leave, I'll open a portal. But I need you to decide now because we need to get-" The ground rumbles faintly. "-on this."

Sinestro, what was that?

Hard to tell. The Kryptonian Stellar Navy never fought the Green Lantern Corps, but they were certainly aware of our capacities. I can't scan the ship in detail, but given the epicentre of the tremor and the shape of the ship, my best guess is that it either test-fired its primary thrusters or attempted to extrude part of its drive system.

That's pretty-

Karsta Wor-Ul steps through a hush tube just in front of me and stares at the ground, presumably trying to see what's going on below us. Good luck getting a decent picture. Kryptonian vision's not that good.

-typical for the boot up. The central computer won't panic for another few minutes yet at the earliest.

I turn away from her and focus on the drill crew. "I need a decision now. Go if you're going, otherwise full speed ahead."

"Exactly how dangerous-?"

"Not completely sure, but my best estimate is 'as dangerous as a well maintained but sixty year old nuclear missile silo'."

The foreman looks at each member of his crew, getting a nod from each in turn. Then they return to their stations and the drill starts up again. Okay, good. "Karsta Wor-Ul, since it's booting up, could you try-?"

She already has her computer out, running her fingers across the control system. "Not getting anything, but communications are towards the end of the cold start sequence. And Dru-Zod might have tampered with it."

"The signal from Krypton?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know anything about it. He might have set it up, but I'd have thought-"

"Incoming phone call."

"-that whatever is transmitting it would have been found before Krypton blew up."

Who is it?

Number associated with 'Mitchell Kent'.

Gah, great.

"Keep trying to raise it. I need to answer this."

Ring, answer.

 

17th December
08:12 GMT -6

I raise my left hand to my ear, generating a construct to keep out the drill noise as I do so. "Mitchell, good morning. What can I do for you?"

"Hey Grayven. Batman gave us an assignment and I was hoping you could help me with it?"

"Is that cheating?"

"Robin says it's only cheating if he directly tells you not to. Kid Flash says it's only cheating if you get caught, and then only maybe."

"And what did your mother say?"

"Nothing." I wait. "'Cause I.. haven't asked her."

"Mitchell, I'm not against a bit of 'out of the box' thinking, and I know well how useful contacts are in superheroism. Ask what you want to ask, and I'll think about whether answering is appropriate or not."

"Okay. See, he wants us to get inside a LexCorp building, and since you're working with Lex I figured the easiest way would be to just ask you."

"Ah… Yeah..? Any building in particular? Some of them do tours, you could just turn up…"

"They don't do tours to the one he wants us to get inside."

"Look… Mitchell… Managing someone of Lex's character is difficult enough without letting the clone of a man for whom he has a pathological hatred walk around anything he owns. Whereabouts do you want to go?"

"Some place in Texas."

Fuck! No, no, okay, he wouldn't be asking me if I was under suspicion… Un.. less.. he was asking me so they can see how I respond…

"Can you be more specific? Lex has oil extraction facilities, a few power plants and several places they're testing to see about storing nuclear waste in them."

"One of the nuclear waste ones."

I.. can see where this is going. "Just.. one at random..?"

"No. It's about sixty miles east of some place called Lubbock?"

Yes, yes, this one. "I.. can.. probably arrange that. Any special reason?"

"Batman doesn't think they're actually storing nuclear waste there. He thinks they're using that as a cover for something."

"No, they're not storing nuclear waste there. They're just excavating at the moment. It won't be ready for them to start bringing material in for a few years yet. Nuclear waste needs to be stored very carefully and things can go very badly if you don't get it right. Why does Batman want you to look at the place, anyway?"

"He's been trying to find out what happened to LexCorp's kryptonite. Apparently they made a bunch of lasers with it, and we think they're keeping them there."

Oh! Is that all!

"They're not keeping them there. The security personnel are carrying them."

"They are? But… Why?"

The site manager comes in with a couple of guards and starts shouting to people over the noise of the drill, while Karsta Wor-Ul keeps working on her computer.

I shrug. "Americans… Guns…"

"I don't think that's really-."

"Lex hates kryptonians. These guns would theoretically allow his security people to shoot a kryptonian dead." Very theoretically. Even a glancing hit would cause nasty burns, but a disabling injury would require several seconds' exposure. In the event of a serious attack by a fully charged kryptonian, getting the time to do that would require a fairly serious judgement error on their part. Still, it's better than nothing. "And since none of the kryptonians we know about have any reason to visit a construction site in the middle of nowhere in Texas, it doesn't really hurt anyone."

"I'm… Kinda…"

"You said that Batman wanted to know about the guns. I've confirmed their presence. I can give you a full count if you want, it's no trouble."

"Ah… Just a second…"

The line goes quiet. Not dead, but I think he's muted me. Hm.

It's not that surprising that the League would be interested in the location of kryptonite-.

It wouldn't be that surprising that a security organisation like the League was interested in the location of kryptonite. For the League it's radically out of character for them to do something that sensible. Which is probably why it's coming from the team, but…

Karsta Wor-Ul walks toward me. "Grayven." I raise my eyebrows. "We need to get through the rock faster than that drill will."

"I don't know any super miners. Magic-." Would Sunset..? Or Circe-. No, involving her wouldn’t be wise. "There are people I can ask, but they'd have to be brought-"

Sounds return on my phone construct.

"-up to speed. Mitchell."

"Can we have a look around right now?"

"Who's 'we'? Because if it's the whole team-."

"Ah, no. My team. Kid Flash, Polara, Miss Martian and Zatanna."

"What.. exactly are you looking for? I mean, I've already confirmed the presence of the guns."

"Anything Lex doesn't want us to find. I don't think he'd send guards with kryptonite weapons to a nuclear storage site."

"You do know that kryptonite is radioactive, yes? That it's dangerous to humans as well as kryptonians? This is probably one of the few places they can fire the things without anyone suing when they get cancer."

"Are they actually firing them?"

"Ah… Let me check." Mute. I walk over to the guard furthest away from the drill and patch myself into his headset. "Those lasers you're using. Do you practise with them here?"

"Yes sir. We have live fire exercises twice a week. Just to keep us on our toes. We did a full training course before being deployed, but that was back at headquarters."

"Thank you." Unpatch and unmute. "Yes, they actually fire them sometimes."

"Just guns? Not anything… Bigger?"

"Like a.. kryptonite plasma weapon? Some sort of heavy laser cannon?"

"Something that would cause earth tremors."

"They've got drills. Those make quite a rumble." Cover or not? "They set off a few explosives a little while ago, and they've got permits for those. If you think Lex is turning this place into a kryptonite weapon research centre… It's not impossible, but as I said… It's years away from being anything other than a hole in the ground."

"Okay, that's fine. My team wins the contest if we get inside first, and if there's nothing to find then we don't find anything. So can we visit?"

"Ah…" Getting them off our back, versus the risk of actually still having the ship here. "Yeah, sure."

"We can be there in a couple of hours?"

"No, ah… I'll need to talk to a few people, make sure they're available to conduct the tour. This is a working facility, and I just know that Lex will have a grump-session if you being here delays things. Let me sort things out… Maybe… Tomorrow afternoon?"

"Tomorrow afternoon."

"Pencil it in, I'll confirm later."

"Okay, I'll do that. Thanks, Grayven."

"No trouble at all. Goodbye."

And hang up.

Karsta Wor-Ul raises her eyebrows. "Trouble?"

I nod. "Yup."

 

17th December
09:24 GMT -5

Lex nods. "What's the current state of the ship?"

Karsta Wor-Ul taps her computer and uses Lex's projector to display a hologram of the ship. "The ship is undergoing a cold start. Normally, that would happen in dock and there would be a team of engineers on board to make sure everything worked properly. It's possible to do it in the field, but the process has about two hundred steps and wasn't ever part of normal operations because... How often do you lose all power and not get immediately destroyed in a place where you can't get towed back to a shipyard?"

Not.. often. There were one or two cases in Apokolips' last war with New Genesis where crippled ships were left behind, and the crews salvaged wrecks to restore them to working condition. But that was unusual in the extreme, and they couldn't really standardise that procedure.

Lex watches the hologram for a moment. "How familiar are you with the process?"

"Today is the third time I've read it. The first was when I was assigned to the ship as head of its marines detachment. Second was when I tried to work out how we'd run a drill for something like that. We decided it wasn't worth the time."

"So who is doing it now?"

Karsta Wor-Ul frowns for a second, then shakes her head. "Not a crew, that's for sure. Everyone left the Doomsday before it vanished, and every member of the navy was in-system at the time."

"How can you be sure? Given how hostile you and your cohorts were to the idea of isolationism, how do you know that others didn't feel the same way?" Lex shakes his head. "I always thought the 'Last Son of Krypton' story was unlikely, and you're living proof."

She blinks. "Because it was a general recall order."

I smile faintly. "Karsta Wor-Ul, Lex only knows about Kryptonian society through Kal-El. He won't understand the significance."

"Should have known." She gives Lex a hard look. "In America, when the nation comes to a decision and a law gets passed, everyone who doesn't like it does their best to frustrate it. On Krypton, we didn't."

"Do you really expect me to believe that you had no crime?"

"No, we had crime. What we didn't have was an acceptance of a level of law-breaking. Of course, we were closer to a direct democracy rather than a representative democracy… The point is, if a thug robs someone with a gun he knows he's breaking the law. If a soldier disobeys a legal order, he knows he's going to be court-martialled. But you let accountants bypass financial laws, lawyers have no loyalty to the court system-"

Lex narrows his eyes and gives his head a small shake.

"-and your politicians don't face censure if they break their promises. Any Kryptonian who did those things would know they were committing a crime. I hated the Science Council, but I had no grounds to dispute their authority. They came to power according to kryptonian laws and customs."

"But everyone-."

"Yes, everyone. It was a legitimate order from a legitimate source acting in accordance with the will of the majority of kryptonian citizens. No one disobeyed, and only a handful of us went AWOL after we returned. There weren't any Military Council fanatics hiding out on a military outpost on one of the Possession Worlds, or whatever paranoid-"

Lex twitches.

"-theory you're working on. And the ship has been buried ever since. Even if there was someone waiting and they installed animation suspension units, you'd have to explain why they flew to Earth and then buried themselves. And why the Doomsday's energy output was so low if there were active suspension units on board. Anyone who was prepared to openly defy the Science Council like that wouldn't have buried themselves, they would have either attempted a coup or gone pirate."

"What if some of your fellow escapees tracked it down?"

"On Earth? We didn't know it was here. If any of us had found it… There's no sign that anyone used mining equipment, and I didn't detect it when I entered the Sol system for the first time. And again, why would they board the ship and then stay buried? Or bother with the ship in the first place."

Yes, late nineteenth century, a squad of kryptonians could have forced the nations of the Earth into compliance relatively easily.

Karsta Wor-Ul shakes her head again. "No, it's happening on automatic."

Lex nods slowly. "What about that signal?"

She shrugs. "An automated warning, asking any nearby ship for help. Which might explain why the Doomsday is trying to respond. I don't recognise the authorisation code, but the officer would have been promoted after I left."

"Could we just deactivate it?"

I nod. "Yes, but the Doomsday isn't receiving it any longer. It only heard it due to the signal reaching through my boom tube."

"You opened-?"

"I didn't think that was possible for non-New God signals to pass through. I'm feeling-" I glance at Karsta Wor-Ul. "-notably less smug now."

"Hn." Karsta Wor-Ul thinks for a moment. "I might be able to alter it to send a cancellation, but if it was a planetary disaster then the authorisation needs to come from the chairman of the ruling Council. And the entire Science Council died with Krypton. The Doomsday would probably reject it."

Lex nods. "So we're still stuck trying to force an entry before the Doomday liquefies the center of Texas. Under the circumstances, I'm prepared to consider looking beyond our usual circle of help in order to ensure that we're successful. Grayven, do you know of anyone-" I'm already shaking my head. "-who could offer meaningful assistance?"

"The only geomancer I know is Tara Markov, and I have no idea where she is."

Lex thinks for a moment. "Is she a relation of Gregor Markov?"

"Half sister. But she was brought up by her mother in America and I haven't tracked her down." I don't know how her abilities work but something about her is preventing ring scans locating her. "I can put my people on it, or I can have them assist the drill. I don't know exactly how effective they'll be in either role…" I shrug. "Up to you."

"Can I assume that your people don't have any particular tunnelling abilities?"

"Sunset can do basic geomancy. But.. nothing like what Miss Markov can do. My other suggestion would be building a New God tech drill, but that would take me some time. Certainly longer than it will take the Doomsday to fully activate."

Lex shakes his head. "You'd think that with all this costumed lunacy we'd have at least one moleman by now."

I nod, grinning. "I was thinking that."

"Attempt to locate Miss Markov. I'll make preparations on the assumption that we'll be successful and will shortly need to slip a capital ship past NORAD. And I'll speak to Gregor; I have contacts in that part of the world and he may have an address."

I keep nodding. "Good-" Lex's mobile rings, and he picks it up off his desk. "-show."

"Lex." He listens for a moment. "Yes, that was.. expected. No, don't shoot it down. Maintain observation for now, Grayven will be with you shortly." He hangs up, then looks at me. "You said that ten members of the Justice Youth were unaccounted for?"

"Assuming that Match was telling the truth, yes."

"The detection systems I installed in one of the decoy sites just picked up-" He presses a few buttons on his computer, the hologram on his projector changing to… Oh, marvellous. "-the Martian's ship heading towards them under camouflage. So either he wasn't telling the truth, or another squad chose a more direct approach."

 

17th December
09:33 GMT -5
Stabilise.
The dully gleaming tectonic stabilisation poles situated across the dig site appear to be doing their job. Certainly, none of the tectonic activity detectors across the state are picking up anything untoward. If I'm honest the trick is to prevent vibrations being nullified completely and giving the game away that way.
Stabilise.
So that's under control. Having fetched them, Miss Amane is now standing to attention, almost-. No, literally vibrating with excitement at the possibility of being given another vital task.
Stabilise.
The drilling continues nothing like fast enough and the Bio-Ship is loitering entirely too close for comfort and-.
S-?-tabilise.
And.. I.. felt that. A definite attempt by someone to use magic to feel this site. Probably Garth or Tula. The whole team wouldn't fit in the Bio-Ship these days and I wouldn't have felt it if it had been Zatanna. Okay, the poles are helping me normalise local magic fields so unless they're a lot better with geomancy than I think they are, they shouldn't detect anything suspicious.
Stabilise.
Unless that's.. suspicious in itself. I'd be annoyed with myself for not knowing that if it had been something that I'd had any reason to think I might need to know. I'm not the subtle guy!
Stabilise.
Call Mr Near or not? Lex gave me a mildly impressed eyebrow raise when I told him that The Spider worked for me, but I don't really know much about his capacity for non-violent intrigue. And him getting involved directly is a pretty giant red flag for my involvement.
Stabilise.
I try using the poles to extend the reach of my essence toward the Doomsday, but get nothing. Not too surprising. It wouldn't have been designed to interact with gods, and I can't properly be said to have conquered it. I can't even really feel it, which might be a side effect of Krypton being mystically inert. At the very least, I suppose that at least I can confirm that there aren't any living people on board.
Stabilise.
Incoming communication.
Stabilise.
Answer.
Stabilise.
"Sunset, talk to me."
Stabilise.
"How fast do we need to find this girl?"
Stabilise.
"Dunno. Ask me another."
Stabilise.
"Because this sort of ritual is easiest with body parts."
Stabilise.
"We don't have body parts."
Stabilise.
"I know where the Markovian royal family bury their dead. I could get part of her father's body really quickly."
Stabilise.
"Sunset."
Stabilise.
"I'd put it back."
Stabilise.
"Not the point. Royal graves are usually protected. It would be far easier to exhume her mother's family or perform the ritual on-site. And it would probably be easier still to look for geomantic disruptions."
Stabilise.
"I'm not an earth pony, Grayven. Geomancy-."
Stabilise.
"No, you're a human, remember."
Stabilise.
"I'm a human thaumaturgist being asked to use a type of magic I don't have a whole lot of experience with."
Stabilise.
"Necromancy it is-"
Stabilise.
"It's not necromancy."
Stabilise.
"-then and it kind of is."
Stabilise.
"I'm not going to be summoning the body part's spirit back and asking them where she is, because they probably wouldn't know. Scrying with body parts is perfectly fine."
Stabilise.
"Is that what Princess Celestia said?"
Stabilise.
"It's what I think, and it's what Queen Circe says and she outranks a princess."
Stabilise.
"Okay, look, you know your abilities better than I do. Find her for-"
Stabilise.
Incoming communication.
Stabilise.
"-me. Hang on." Answer.
Stabilise.
"Grayven, it's Lex. I've found her." Oh. "Gregor sounded rather pleased at the idea of his half-sister finding legitimate employment. Apparently some of the people she's been mixing with are violent criminals."
Stabilise.
"Shocking. One moment." I switch channels. "Sunset, no need to exhume anyone. Lex found her."
Stabilise.
"Oh." I hear a sound that sounds suspiciously like a spade striking soil. "So can I-?"
Stabilise.
"While I respect your desire to learn magic, I cannot justify using the remains of the recently deceased without a good, mission-related reason."
Stabilise.
"But-."
Stabilise.
"I'll get you some sheep bones when I get home."
Stabilise.
"It's not the same." She huffs. "Fine. I'll phone Zatanna and see if I can find anything out."
Stabilise.
"You do that. And no grave-" The line drops. "-robbing." I sigh faintly. Put Lex back on.
Stabilise.
By your command.
Stabilise.
"Sorry Lex, had to call off one of the people I had looking. When can she start?"
Stabilise.
"As soon as we can get her to you. Are you sure that your brother can't detect hush tubes?"
Stabilise.
"No. But unless she's got Bugs Bunny's digging skills it's still the quietest way to get her here. Where is she?"
Stabilise.
"Bludhaven. Halyard Square. You have her picture?"
Stabilise.
"Yep." I hold the ring away from my face. "Iname, would you be so good as to escort Miss Markov here?"
Stabilise.
"Will she try and resist, master?"
Stabilise.
"No, no, this is a voluntary thing. Just smile and-." She smiles. "Maybe not like that. Be polite, and get her through the hush tube."
Stabilise.
She nods. Right, ring, show me somewhere suitable. That'll do. Mother Box, hush tube.
Stabilise.
Ping.
Stabilise.
Miss Amane walks through at a normal pace, and I saunter toward the drill team. The foreman spots me, and steps away from the still-active drill so that we can talk at a reasonable volume.
Stabilise.
"We're bringing in a metahuman who can control rock to finish the tunnel."
Stabilise.
"So, what, we can just stop?"
Stabilise.
"Probably. To be clear, I had no idea that the woman in question was available and as far as I knew your participation was vital. I'm genuinely grateful that you all stayed on, and depending on how well she actually understands her ability, I may need you to direct her."
Stabilise.
"Does she just make rock… Disappear?"
Stabilise.
"No, but she can move tonnes of the stuff at will."
Stabilise.
"And where's she gunna put it, exactly?"
Stabilise.
"Depends on how precise she is, but I'm afraid that you're probably going to be manning the wheelbarrows."
Stabilise.
"For what we're getting paid for this, I'm fine with that. Not helping out yourself?"
Stabilise.
"I'm not supposed to be here, and I'm going to be dealing with the alien artefact."
Stabilise.
"Fair enough. What-?"
Stabilise.
Miss Amane walks through the tube, another young woman just behind her. Tara Markov is wearing a green parka coat, jeans and.. what I think is a brown and yellow leotard. Pageboy haircut and some sort of half-face mask thing.
Stabilise.
I've seen worse. I turn away from the foreman, who walks back to his crew and starts waving at them to close the drill down.
Stabilise.
"Thank you for coming, Terra. I need you to get-"

Her eyes widen as she sees me.

"-started right away."

She keeps staring. Is this about the decapitation thing? I smile and hold out my right hand. "Hi, I'm Grayven. Have we met before?"

She looks me over again, and then smiles brightly in a way I've become all too familiar with from Miss Amane.

"No. We haven't."

 

17th December
09:37 GMT -5

Miss Markov's eyes unfocus slightly as she stares at the rock floor. "There's no room to compress it at all. I can pull rock out and shove it out the way if that's what you want."

"How much, and how quickly?"

"Give me a couple of minutes and I can probably pull out the whole column in one go." She glances up at the ceiling. "Without bringing the place down."

"And if we wanted a bit of subtlety?"

She shrugs in frustration. "Single lumps are easier, but I can pretty much keep throwing rock into a.. truck or whatever."

Another choice. Have them cart the rock away manually, or open a tube and expel it that way? And how to explain either choice? No, no, put the digging crew to work moving rock now and shove everything they can't remove somewhere by tube. Then have them move it through after we make it into contact with the Doomsday. I doubt that anyone is watching closely enough to know precisely how much material we're shifting. I wave my right hand at the drill crew.

"Get a conveyor set up. Grab as many people as you need, this has top priority. We'll shove rock through a portal until you're ready."

The foreman nods and the group takes off at a jog. This section of the mine had a conveyor spur leading to it while it was first being dug out, but it was taken out when the drilling began. We wanted to put monitoring equipment in there in its place, and to reduce the risk of someone seeing something incriminating. The nearest stretch isn't that far away, and the spur pieces are designed to be simple to assemble.

And hush tube to… I don't know, one of Clanadrern's abandoned cities. A way off the ground, so we don't have to worry about it piling up. Plenty of rock there, and even after Guy chased off the anzadorl the locals still haven't recovered to the point where it's practical for them to live in them.

Ping.

Okay, good. I mark a circle on the ground about a metre and a half wide. "Terra, please dig that out at best possible speed. Chuck the material through the portal."

She gestures, and with a tremendous crack a cylinder of rock a metre tall rises out of the marked target. A gesture sideways and it flies through the hush tube, even as another cylinder rises up from the ground. Not exactly quiet, but I can't deny the effectiveness. Possibility for a non-combat focused New Goddess? Mmm. Probably not necessary-. Ah, where are my manners?

I dismiss the now-superfluous guide construct and create a pair of noise-filtering headphones. In Miss Markov's colours-. Hang on a minute, shouldn't it be 'Markova'? That's how Russian-derived surnames work, isn't it? Oh, never mind. I hold them out to her. She notices, frowns for a moment and then takes them with her left hand and awkwardly puts them over her head one-handed.

Next step. Sinestro, is the Bio-Ship still in the same place?

It's certainly keeping its distance, Lantern Grayven. Though I will remind you-.

You can't tell for certain who is inside, and in fact the thing you're detecting could well be an illusion anyway.

Just so.

No vibrations not in keeping with normal mining work. My own aura is more or less contained, though I suppose they might be able to-.

"What am I digging for, anyway?"

"I'm afraid that's-"

There's a clatter as the first length of conveyor machinery is dropped into place.

"-need-to-know. Suffice to say that both I and your accountant will be very pleased if we reach our target in time."

"In time for what?"

"Miss Markov, I am grateful to you for your work, but I do not yet trust you with all of my secrets." She's making excellent progress. A quarter of the way there already. If I'd had the slightest idea that she existed I'd have sought her out sooner. "If you really want to know, you'll have to do quite a bit more work for Lex and I."

"Work like this? This isn't what most people hire me for."

"What, you're a mercenary?" I raise my eyebrows in disbelief as she nods. She's not much bigger than Lynne, for goodness sake. No armour, no weapons but her innate abilities… "Really? Have you any idea how much mining equipment costs? And how slow it is, compared with you? Honestly, you'd be better off staying in-"

A hush tube opens and Karsta Wor-Ul floats-. Notices the company and lands fast enough that Miss Markov might not have noticed.

"-the mining industry." I switch my attention to Karsta Wor-Ul. "What news?"

"Just an old probe." She frowns as a mass of gravel flies past her into my hush tube. "Kryptonian version of the Voyager probe. I don't think it was intentional."

Huh. "So I didn't fall for a cunning plan, I messed things up by accident. I'm not sure whether I should feel better or worse." She frowns faintly for a moment, then dismisses me. "Can you contact it now?"

"The rock isn't what was stopping me. But given what's happening, it seems reasonable to assume that at least part of the main computer is still functioning."

My eyes flick towards Miss Markov. "Might want to talk about this somewhere else."

"Why, can she understand Kryptonian?"

Useful. "Alright, so either main communications hasn't restarted yet or Dru-Zod set the ship to run in autistic mode. Nothing we can do until we actually get down there." Hm. "I've been meaning to ask: do you want me to put more effort into looking for other Kryptonian survivors? I haven't really-."

Lantern Grayven, your attention.

"What is it, Sinestro?"

"Since I was monitoring the seismic sensors anyway, I thought it worth drawing your attention to something."

An image appears in my mind, a confusing pattern of tiny shockwaves resolving themselves into… Footprints.

And back to English. "Grayven to site security. Intruders moving in from the west under some sort of active camouflage." Don’t want to risk killing my friends. "Location on your headsets now. Low lethality response. Make it clear that you know that someone's there. I will revise these instructions if they get closer."

"Understood, sir."

While he has his own… Issues, Mr Rathaway was a bit more on the ball with the commercial applications of his sonic technology than his contemporaries. Anyone with super strength and flight would be able to push through a wide-area sonic pulse, but anyone else should get knocked over. My former team mates almost certainly have the sense to wear ear protection, but if not vertigo inducers are an option as well.

Another section of conveyor gets dropped into place, and some engineers who weren't part of the drill team start the process of attaching the pieces together and attaching them to the ground. That's proceeding as planned. Sinestro, how close is the tunnel now?

Close, Lantern Grayven. She will breach in another minute.

And if we'd had her from the start I'd probably let her, but as it is I'll need to pay her and dismiss her before then. Can't risk her seeing the ship. Not without more leverage than I have now. She can bring the rock back through the portal once the conveyor is set up.

"Alright, thank you Terra. Please stop digging and start helping the engineers."

She turns to face me, the last few chunks of rock coming up out of the hole at speed and floating just behind her. "But I haven't found anything."

"I know. But you're an external contractor and there are some things we don’t want you seeing just yet."

Karsta Wor-Ul wrinkles her nose. "We might end up needing her anyway."

I nod, then hold out my left arm to the pit. "Shall we?"

 

17th December
09:41 GMT -5

Ugh.

Manual labour.

Karsta Wor-Ul and I float upside down above the last few centimetres of rock between us and the outer hull of the Doomsday. It would be nice if I could use a construct for this, but unfortunately the use of power rings can be detected for quite some time afterwards. I haven't made a secret of the fact that I've been here, but if they talk one of the Green Lanterns into having a scan and it looks like I've been here a lot, that could be awkward.

So instead Karsta Wor-Ul softens pieces of rock with her heat vision and I shove it to the sides with my gauntlet-covered hands. Ridiculously primitive, and I'm definitely going to put a 'rescue drill' together once we're finished here. I attached a hologram generator to the mouth of the tunnel to stop anyone just looking down and seeing what we're doing, and-.

The tips of the fingers of my right hand bump into something harder than the gneiss surrounding it. I give it a prod… Yep, that's it. I shove my left hand into the same spot and shove, the slightly translucent grey/blue crystal of the Doomsday's outer hull becoming visible. The tip of the upper spire, unless I miss my-

"Out of my way."

-guess. I float upward as Karsta Wor-Ul descends, taking position right over the exposed patch. She holds out her right hand, cleaning a small section of the hull of all rock residue before planting a small crystal of her own on its surface.

"Come on, Dru-Zod. Don't tell me-."

There's a slight intake of breath.

"It's not about to fire, ri-?"

"Got it. I've got it."

Spikes of crystal extend through the surrounding rock, then grow towards each other to create a solid flat surface. The centre of the surface then retracts, revealing an entryway to the ship.

Which… Is too small for me to use.

"Um." Karsta Wor-Ul floats slowly inside. "Could you ask the ship to make it bigger? I'm-." More crystals appear along the base of the pit, growing around one another as the hull extends further in our direction. "Thank you. Everything alright in there?"

"Kryptonian warships were designed to be able to take on extra mass to grow larger as required. It looks like Dru-Zod had the Doomsday jettison at least part of its mass before landing it here." The entrance expands further, and I drop down slowly after her. "I suppose it didn't really need crew quarters with no crew."

I can see well enough in low light conditions, but I'd prefer it if the lights were on. Coming aboard a newly-reactivated capital ship should be a major event. We shouldn't be sneaking through like-.

The lights come on, points within the crystalline walls lighting up, brightness suffusing the interior. Mm. Maybe it's the low power state, but… Kryptonians really didn't care about interior design. The walls are bare crystal, slightly lumpy, but… It just looks boring. No New God would build a ship like this. I don't think that humans would either. Even their submarines have more personality than this.

I hold out my right hand as we reach an actual corridor, the entrance we used slowly closing itself behind us. Feels like… Yes, natural yellow… Alright, white sunlight. We head down the spartan, utilitarian corridor in the direction of the ship's command centre, sensibly located in the centre of the ship's main mass.

"Do you have control yet?"

Karsta Wor-Ul is still focusing her attention on her personal computer. "No. It looks like the main computer is disconnected from the peripheral systems. They're acknowledging that I'm authorised to be here, but I don't have command access."

I follow her into a shaft, dropping further inside. As science fiction starships go it's not all that big. Certainly not the size of its Apokoliptian equivalents. But then it wasn't designed with the same functions in mind, and it's still bigger than any military ship in this space sector. You'd probably have to go to Thanagar before you encountered anything larger, and the Doomsday would tear one of their Command Carriers apart without slowing down.

"Intentional or damage?"

"I was an infantry officer and the internal diagnostic doesn't know."

"I'm not seeing any damage."

"Me neither." Got to say, this ship is designed to make getting about inside relatively easy. Even for someone my size. Or maybe the corridors are designed to cope with traffic in several directions at once? "Damage to the superstructure repairs itself automatically. That doesn't require any input from the computers. Glasslords, you could rip a piece off the hull and it would try and grow back."

"So… Why were you so sceptical about us being able to build more?"

"Because it would be useless. And slow. Some of this hull is made of smart crystal mass, but most of it has…" She thinks for a moment as we approach what looks like a fortified crystal door. "There isn’t a precise word in English and I don't speak Apokoliptian. Circuits, and other systems, as part of the structure. Make a whole ship out of smart crystal and all you have is an oversized paperweight."

"Mm. Still, it could be useful if we can use it to armour other ships."

"It wouldn't be efficient, but I suppose you could." She lands on the deck in front of a crystal outcrop. "Now, let's see what Dru-Zod left for me to work with." She lays her hands on the crystal. "Karsta Wor-Ul, Sub-Command Third."

The crystal grows slightly, holding her hands in place. Since she doesn't seem alarmed by it I'm going to assume that it's meant to do that.

"Can you tell if it's planning on shooting its way out? It would be an amusingly ironic way for Texas to die, but I'd rather avoid it if at all possible."

She glances back, slightly irritated. "Not yet. Give it a mo-"

The crystal barrier protecting the bridge retracts, crystal finger by crystal finger.

"-ment."

The crystal holding her hands retracts, and she takes a moment to check the bridge's interior. Pretty.. small, actually. Apokoliptian bridges are near-literally penis extensions for the ship's master. Kryptonians appear to have preferred compact and functional. 360⁰ holographic screens, and station for the commanding officer in the centre and a circle of stations for the bridge officers. Practical, but it's not exactly blowing my socks off.

Then the screens light up, a male kryptonian in fleet greys embossed with the House Zod sigil staring down at us. Dru-Zod, presumably. There's a definite resemblance to his kneeling-fixated great nephew, but you wouldn't mistake them for one another.

"Hello, son or daughter of Krypton. If you're seeing this message, then at least one of us had the sense to overcome the Science Council's edict of isolation." He smiles, looking down for a moment. "Or perhaps we were all very lucky, everyone came to their senses and I'm cringing as the Military Council watches this after I recovered the Doomsday myself. No. No. I won't even dare hope that has occurred. The demographics are too.. against us."

"But, you're here. I am or more likely was Admiral Dru-Zod of the Kryptonian Stellar Navy. This was my flagship, the Doomsday. I instructed it to entomb itself on a world far enough from Krypton that the Eradicators would struggle to find it in the hope that it would one day be returned to service. It is yours. If practical, I would urge you to use it as a reminder of the power and majesty of the Kryptonian military. Return it to Krypton and inspire our people to seize the stars once again. But given what I have done, I could hardly blame you if you wanted nothing to do with them."

"In either case, please take the time to examine my records. I loaded everything I could on strategy and tactics onto the Doomsday's computers, as well as records of every battle the navy ever fought. Do not waste this vessel's potential. May Rao shine upon you."

Karsta Wor-Ul is already at the command station. "Weapons off. I've got control of-."

The holographic image shudders.

"If you're seeing this message, then the Doomsday has identified you as a member of the Kryptonian military. While I cannot approve of you violating the edict of isolation, I am not really in a position to fault you. May your example remind our people why we went to the stars in the first place."

Another shudder.

"Karsta Wor-Ul."

She looks up. "Dru-Zod."

"I'm sorry. I didn’t have time to make a full neural clone." He sighs. "I'm glad that you escaped. I knew about your plan… If I hadn't been the highest ranking officer with the fleet I might have joined you. All secure data is now unlocked. The Doomsday is a fine ship, and it will serve you well."

 

17th December
09:45 GMT -5

Karsta Wor-Ul's eyes unfocus as she uses the mind link control to get a better impression of the ship's status. A very faint sort of.. singing noise in the background that I only noticed when we stopped talking changes faintly in pitch.

I raise my eyebrows. "And?"

"Ship's in good repair. I was right earlier; it jettisoned about a third of its mass on Titania before making its approach to Earth."

"So is there now a useless Doomsday-shaped lump of ship sitting there?"

"No. Kryptonian warships aren't strictly modular, but they are designed to be able to remove less useful sections without weakening the rest of the ship. Crew quarters, main FTL drive, secondary weapon arrays and long range sensors are buried. I can pick them up once we get the Doomsday free."

"Why would-?"

"The Doomsday's been down here a while, but humans have been watching the skies for as long as they've had eyes. The computer would have detected intelligent habitation, and Dru-Zod programmed it to hide itself until kryptonians came to find it. With the extra mass… It actually would have had to melt Texas to hide itself, and that would have created obviously unnatural rock formations humans would have studied by now. And there's a limit to what stealth systems can do when a ship that big enters an atmosphere."

I hold out my left hand and generate a recreation of the Doomsday's original landing. "How.. much bigger are..?"

"'Secondary weapons' is misleading. They're called 'secondary' because they're not part of the core ship, not because they're smaller. And the Doomsday was designed to hold a company of marines in reasonable comfort."

"Main FTL is a disposable system?"

"Main FTL was designed to bypass interdiction fields. Which meant that we either needed to change systems a whole lot, or burned it out brute forcing them."

I nod. "Alright. Where are we at with the start-up and the digging?"

"I've told the primary weapons not to melt through the rock above us, so we don't have to worry about that. Peak primary power output is at thirty percent and rising, which is more than enough for peacetime atmospheric flight."

"You mentioned 'stealth systems'..?"

"We're already invisible to radar and thermal imaging. Hologram projectors will take care of visible light… Human-visible light."

"Gravity detection?"

"That takes longer. It's easier to futz around with the detection system than mess around with gravity precisely enough to hide a ship."

"And I assume that this ship can't teleport."

"What, so we could just fly it out of here?" She shakes her head. "No such luck. How about a boom tube?"

"Boom tubes are a viable method, but they're loud, easy to detect and the power requirements scale cubically with the size. I don't have a power source good enough."

She frowns. "I thought you said Apokoliptian ships-?"

"Yes, and they have Apokoliptian power sources to go with it. I could make one in a.. few months, probably. And if we used it-."

A nod. "Everyone would know that we used it. And I guess a hush tube would take even more power."

I nod in return. "An eye-watering amount larger. I'm not even bothering to plan for ever using it. You'd need Apokolips itself to power it. And highly stealthed ships to take advantage of it." So how do we get the ship out? "Can you dig out the area around the ship a bit?"

"Already doing it. But the lower fins are much deeper. Even getting space to turn around is going to take time."

"Right." I raise my left hand to my left ear. Call Sunset.

By your command.

"What?"

"Sunset, you said you could teleport as a unicorn. Do you know anything about creating larger portals?"

"You don't create a portal when you teleport. But.. yeah, I've been studying that kind of thing to try to learn how Starswirl's portal works."

"How big could you make one?"

"Ah…" She goes quiet for a moment. "I mean… In theory? There's no limit-limit, but the push back from Earth's natural magic systems gets really strong when you get to about a kilometre."

I generate a quick image of the Doomsday. Plenty. "Could you make one?"

"No, no I could not. I don't-. I could build the physical components it would need to work, but major workings like that… I don't have any experience running them. Circe probably does."

Hm. Richard could probably get the Doomsday out as well, but he isn't exactly subtle. I don't really want him associated with this endeavour, as it would put at risk his efforts to join the Justice League.

"Okay, thanks. Is she still there?"

"I'll pass you over."

"Grayven. Am I to understand that you want something large moved?"

"Yes. An alien spacecraft we're digging out. As you know, I'm having Lex build a space fleet and I don't want anyone getting distracted."

"I will assume that it's fairly large, then. There.. are.. a.. number of techniques we could employ. How far do you want it moved?"

"Far side of the moon at the absolute minimum. Ideally, all the way to Vega."

"The moon I could manage, if the exit point were properly prepared. But further than that is completely impossible. I once tried to use my powers to visit distant stars, and the magic… Like the air atop the tallest mountains, it grows thin as you travel further from Earth."

"Mordru said that magic rich worlds were rare."

"As far as I know, he's right. It would be nice to see another magic-rich world, but I can't really take the time away from the school that would be required to do a proper tour."

"Could we send it to one of them?"

"I have no idea. Do you have an expert sorceress at the far end, one who is familiar with the magics of their world?"

I… Could ask Kalista, but… I'm not keen. We don't have a good personal relationship and she has no real reason to want to assist me. Particularly given how I've allied myself with Alonzo. And he didn't list 'magicians' amongst the personnel he was willing to contract out to me.

On the other hand…

5th Lunar Conjugation
Sun Rampant

Mirabai smiles, nodding as she listens to my proposal. "Yes, those records of Mordru's which I've studied make mention of such things being possible. Being a Chaos Lord he had no need for external sources of power himself, but he had studied the theory."

I smile. "And in return..?"

"Your aid in opening such gateways to other mystically rich worlds. It will be an excellent way for us to share knowledge."

I nod. "Perfectly acceptable. If you would select a site, I will have my people get in touch about the design."

 

17th December
09:59 GMT -5

I wince faintly as the figure I suspect to be Artemis dodges multiple sonic blasts. Very good thing that this all happened first thing in the morning. At night things would be decidedly more dicey. As it is, the excavation site is in an area of open desert. There's no cover, so even under active camouflage and protected by invisibility spells they're having a devil of a time getting closer.

Rather impressed they've developed those to the point that they can sustain them in combat. Wonder if the League are using those now?

Now, if this were a conventional frontal attack, they'd have overrun the place by now and all of the guards would be dead. Even on a normal zero-fatalities League mission I'd give them a fair chance. But they're allegedly supposed to be sneaking in, and it should be apparent to them that while the guards can't tell exactly where they are, they do know that someone is trespassing on private property. They can't really fight back, because they're supposed to be sneaking in and they are technically the ones on the wrong side of the law.

I am wondering, though: does Batman not believe that anything significant is happening here? Did he believe me? Because otherwise I strongly suspect that a Justice League member with worldwide jurisdiction would be demanding access right now. Or… Maybe they're coming later?

Anyway, the team has a standing strength of fifteen. Assuming that Mitchell was telling me the truth and his squad isn't taking part, that leaves ten. Two squads of five? Whoever is flying the Bio-Ship isn't M'gann. So… I'd guess Kon. The most obvious people to be in charge of the other two squads are Richard and Kaldur. Who's on the ship? Richard would ordinarily be the one I'd expect to hang back and observe, but he does kind of hate me.

Hm.

Ring, contact Mitchell.

By your command.

I raise my left hand to my left ear as it rings.

"Hey Grayven."

"Hello again, Mitchell. Lex moaned for a bit, but he's given the okay. You can have a look at any of the other sites right now, or the one you asked about on Tuesday."

By which time we will have either moved the ship or reburied it. Not easy to find unless you know exactly what you're looking for.

"What's the delay?"

"As I said, they had a bit of a cave in. Nothing too serious, but they're going to be clearing up for a little while."

"They let you in there."

"Lex is sort of stuck with me. And yes, I could force the issue, but I don't think it would really help with his rehabilitation. Tuesday okay for you?"

"I guess. I mean, thanks, but I'm kinda worried that the others will get in first."

Hm…

No. No.



Well… Can't hurt to ask…

"How would you… And your team mates… Feel about working as LexCorp security guards for the weekend?"

"Huh?"

"The security at those sites is good, but it could always be better. You're going to get in on Tuesday, at which point you win."

"And… Batman didn't say we couldn't stop the other teams."

"Exactly. I mean, this is basically a training exercise, right? I've already told you what's at the site, and you'll see it yourself on Tuesday."

"And.. we'll be able to see all of it, right?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Ah..? Lemme just go talk to the others."

The line goes dead. Oh goodness me! Hah! Okay, if M'gann is coming here I should get some sort of telepath baffle for the locals… Something Lex could have conceivably have handed out. Alright… Some sort of basic aetheric disruptor? No, magic, that would be better. Mother Box, open a hush tube to the site manager's office.

Ping.

I walk through, waving politely to her with my right hand as she looks up.

"Why are half my guards shooting up the desert?"

"So the invisible would-be infiltrators don't break in."

"And-. Who-?"

"Justice League sidekicks. I'm not exactly sure why they're trying to get into this facility-."

"We are.. digging up.. some kind of an alien artefact."

"Not illegal. Probably not something Lex should be doing, but certainly not illegal. Here." I take a mind ward out of one of my armour's pockets and hand it over. "A couple of them are telepaths, and this will prevent them hearing anything from you."

"Ah, thank you, but I'm not the only one who knows or who saw you today."

"Quite true. Iname?"

"Yes, Master?"

"AH!" The manager recoils at Miss Amane's sudden appearance, while I just take it in stride.

"Please pay our friends in Venturia a visit. We need…" Quick count, how many people here actually know what's going on, how many saw me… A few more and a few spares… "Thirty mind wards. Put it on my account."

"Yes, Master." She bows her head and then she's gone again. Hm. Wallace is about as fast as her these days. He can't vibrate through force fields -even weak ones- and all of the walls and doors include those. Doors are arranged like airlocks where possible, with sensors in the mid-section. Rock is conveyed in automated carts using a similar system. It's Flash-resistant, but… Well, there are limits.

On the other hand, I haven't felt him. And I think I would. Which suggests to me that he or his team are waiting until dark. If so, we'll have cleared up by then, rock fused back into place. At worst, he'll see Miss Markov. And she doesn't have any outstanding warrants, so she's a curiosity at worst. He could probably find out who she is, but Lex is allowed to hire metahumans just as long as he isn't using them to commit crimes.

Or he might have already seen everything and the other squad are only still competing so they can win second place.

…

I suppose I could phone him as we-.

Incoming communication.

I hold up my right forefinger to request silence, then raise my left hand back to my left ear. "Yes?"

"Batman didn’t say we couldn't help LexCorp."

I smile. "Good lad." Okay, none of the guards outside know what I was doing. The fact that I've been here is known, so that's fine. "I can send you to the slip road leading to the site, or you can use your own tube to get there."

"Okay, we'll be through in a couple of minutes."

"I'll make sure there's someone to meet you."

I end the call, then smile at the manager. "Could you please send a security team who haven't met me to the site entrance?"

 

19th December
22:03 GMT

Far below me, Komand'r raises her left hand in a psychosomatic gesture I need to talk to her about at some point. A huge construct-crane grips onto part of the Doomsday's FTL system and hauls it upward. I'm actually impressed; I still have trouble with constructs of that size.

She notices me watching. "Are you certain this is what you want to do with our time together?"

"Yes."

Space docks are frequently attached to space stations, but they don't have to be. Automated clamps with circles of thrusters attached can keep lumps of ship in place reasonably well while work is conducted. The arrangement is harder to defend and means that workers have to do without certain basic amenities, but since we're just slotting pieces together -and since I can't just open a giant boom tube to Tamaran and borrow one of their spares- it's perfectly adequate.

Komand'r looks upwards in my direction and then begins her ascent, bringing the last of the Doomsday's peripherals with her. "Is this how courtships are usually conducted amongst your kind?"

"There isn't a 'usual' about it. But… I suppose, yes. My brother Scott Free is New God of Freedom, and he met the woman who is now his wife while finally escaping Apokolips. That escape, from Apokolips' defences, from his pursuers, from Father's plans for him and from the Anti-Life, was the most amazing demonstration of his abilities and godly nature. Him assisting her in breaking the conditioning she had gone through for her entire life gave her the ability to direct the violence inherent in her own nature for the first time, allowing her in turn to viciously cast down those who stood against her."

"They make one another stronger."

"No, not-. Scott didn't become stronger when he escaped Apokolips. He became stronger trying to. It wasn't that she was taken by his strength of will or his skill with weapons, rather that they… Fitted together perfectly as the result of becoming who they were. And then… Orion and Bekka. Orion is a powerful warrior, but as a result of his heritage he lacked the… Connection to the cause of New Genesis which he needed to fully…" How best to put it? "Realise his true nature."

Komand'r and the giant lump of crystal she's towing reach low orbit, steadily starting to match velocities with the parts already assembled.

"Fully what?"

Huh? Oh, right. "Manifest… Himself. Grow to be as he should be. With her, he has a cause, something other than his own hate to champion. With her he can experience emotions and sensations which were otherwise denied to him. She in turn could not flourish on Apokolips, much as she wished to. In Orion she found the ideal partner, who healed himself in aiding her."

"Do you have other brothers with remarkable courtship stories to live up to?"

"… Kalibak's single."

"Sisters, then?"

"Only back on Earth Prime. And I don't really think that her example is entirely applicable to my situation."

And wouldn't it be awkward if it was. I'd put something about how she met her husband here but I promised her that I wouldn't.

"Why do you believe that repairing a ship for someone else to use will lead to a similar breakthrough?" She finishes her approach, moving the drive into place, attaching the docking clamps and then connecting the governing computer to the network. "Or did you simply need me for labour?"

"I'm not the God of Foremanship. Though that's a perfectly respectable thing to be a god of."

"You're the God of Conquest."

"I'm the God of Conquest. And for me, that means empowering those who act in my name and according to my purposes. Strengthening my subordinates and allies and integrating them into my greater whole." I slowly float in her direction. "I didn't strengthen Tamaran because of my obedience to an externally imposed system of morals. I didn't do it because I want you to return the favour later… Though I'd be a little peeved if you didn't. I did it because building people up is what I am."

She nods. "You are building things up. You saw us as broken and knew that we needed to be repaired. Saw me… And you did not side with the Citadel not because they dominated Vega, but because they did not build upon their dominions."

"Yes. Just so."

"And you're giving the kryptonian this because it makes her stronger while tying her more closely to you. That's what you did with those psions you captured." She's close enough now that I can see her eyes narrowing as the green glow they emit dims slightly. "I suppose that I understand now why you did not simply turn them into constructs. That's what I did to mine."

"A ruthless, rational, utilitarian course of action. But I've.. experienced how using memories of that sort makes you feel. Did you try drawing them into your ring?"

"Yes." She looks away for an instant. "It made me feel unclean."

"I.. might have done something like that. I do have a few construct lanterns of my own. But I made them from people who had literally irreplaceable expertise, not from people who -though clever- could be replaced."

"Are you telling me that I should not-?"

I shake my head, then wave my right arm left to right to give her a gesture she can actually see. "No. My nature is not your nature, any more than Scott's nature is Barda's nature or Orion's nature is Bekka's nature. I'm saying this to.. aide you in understanding me, understanding why I do things, how I'm likely to act in future."

She floats right up to me. If there were any atmosphere here to convey the sound we could speak normally and still be heard. As it is…

"You did not ask Karstawor'ul to agree to use the Doomsday at your behest in advance of returning it to her." I smile, and she tilts her head slightly to the left. "You gave it to her because it was the place in your domain where it could do the most good."

"Nearly. Mostly."

"Then for what other reason?"

"You don't.. build through a series of hostage-exchanges. Through… Ransom demands, holding desperate people at your mercy and demanding everything that have. My greatness is the greatness of my people. By living this epistemology, by honestly serving it, I will inspire others to do the same. With all that I have given her, do you honestly think that Karsta Wor-Ul would refuse me aid if I asked it of her? Would you?"

"Nnnno." She turns around, looking toward Zerox. "Still, it requires a great deal of faith in your subordinates to give them such a powerful ship-." She turns back to me. "-unless you left something on board."

I shake my head. "Such an act would ruin the rapport we have established. And in any case, I have given hundreds of people power rings. Any of my Lanterns are powerful enough to come to Earth and destroy it."

"Incoming vessel detected."

The Doomsday's hyperspace window shimmers into reality for an instant, and then the ship itself flies through. First time I've had a good look at it from the outside, and it's…

If I'm frank, I'm a little underwhelmed. This isn't a ship that was designed to look intimidating. This is a ship designed to look like a giant ice crystal. But… Different peoples have different philosophies and different technologies to use in the building.

I smile at the sight, and take a wine bottle and a couple of flute glasses out of subspace. I offer one to Komand'r, and generate a corkscrew construct.

And I don't mention that my godly nature means that those I treat in such a way are made far less likely than their characters would suggest to act outside the bounds of the role I set out for them. And I don't mention that as someone who isn't a New God she can't do the same to me.

No need to finish on a sour note.

 

2nd October 2013
23:59 GMT -5

The woman clad in dull grey tries for a moment to keep her attention on the street scene before her, but as the minutes ticked by found herself unable to take her eyes off her visor's clock. In one minute-.

3rd October 2013
00:00 GMT -5

Right now it was nine years to the day since Bruce and Yolanda fought dad. Nine years since…

And the trick was still to not feel too good about putting a crossbow bolt through his skull, even after nine years. She'd feel worse about keeping the bolt if she didn't know that Bruce still had Joe Chill's pistol.

"Miss Wayne?"

And of course he'd get in contact now. "Batwoman here. Do you have an alert for me?"

"No, Batwoman. It appears that tonight will be a quiet night. May I remind you that you have a nine o'clock meeting tomorrow morning? Or perhaps I should say, this morning."

She can't help but smile. "You may."

"You have a nine o'clock meeting this morning, Miss Wayne. Perhaps a full night's sleep would be of use?"

She occasionally wondered what had led a former British Royal Marine to become the butler to an American surgeon. Alfred had told her at least three different versions of the story, and if it had been anyone else she would have investigated it herself. But… Doing something like that to Alfred…

And if she couldn't focus on what was going on around her then he was probably right.

"Batwoman to Cave. I'm ending tonight's patrol early."

"Understood. I'll expect you shortly."

His end of the radio goes silent, though she knows that he's only a word away. It took.. time, to learn to trust Bruce. Batman. The man who decided to take on dad for some girl he'd known for five minutes, and nearly died in the process. But with dad dead, she'd had a hate-figure missing from her life and he looked like he might fit the mould. Except he didn't. When they trained together, she didn't come away covered with cuts and covering broken bones-.

Except that one time, but they stopped right away and that really hadn't been intentional. Unlike dad.

She wasn't sure if she should be annoyed or pleased that she still hated him nine years after his death. She supposed it was a little like Bruce and his parents' death; the emotion was just so much a part of her now that it wouldn't ever go away, constantly informing her every feeling. Which was… Hm. It just was. It was almost certainly why she hadn't wanted to speak to mom, even after she got out of prison. Artemis talked her around eventually, but it only took one meeting for her to decide that once was enough. 'You feel bad now, great. That doesn't change anything.'

Occasionally, she wondered if Artemis was so forgiving because she couldn't really remember what it had been like.

She checks the roof, first with normal vision and then with the visor's augmented reality mode. No one, and the car was parked off the main streets. Just walking up to it in costume wasn't a good idea, as the reason why the car wasn't bat-themed was to avoid drawing attention to it when they drove through Gotham. She could change out of her costume, but she had to admit that she was always slightly worried that someone would take a picture and cover the internet with the image. And then everyone she ever tried to arrest would bring it up at every opportunity, which would be… Frustrating.

Fortunately, the car had a self drive system which was smart enough to pull in front of an alleyway for long enough for her to climb into the back seat. Then she could either change in the car or wait until she got back home.

It had taken her three years to think of Wayne Manor as that. Only two for the cave…

"Batwoman to car. My location."

"Unable to perform operation."

Great. "Type of error?"

"Axle tests indicate that the wheels have been removed."

What? "Confirm."

"Axle tests indicate that the wheels have been removed."

How did-? "Batwoman to cave."

"Cave here. Are you on your way? Would you like me to-?"

"Can you check the car's cameras? The computer thinks that the wheels have been stolen."

"What is this city coming to?"

"It's probably just a glitch."

"No, I'm very much afraid not. Remote tests say the same thing."

Great. "Any other damage?"

"Not that I can see. Should I call the auto-club, miss?"

"No." She heads for the edge of the roof at a run, vaulting over the alleyway to the next block as she heads toward the car's location. "It had wheels when I left it two hours ago. I'm going to find whoever took them and I'm going to explain to them why that was a bad thing to do. And I don’t want Batman to know that the wheels vanished on my watch."

"A curious crime, miss. The sensors on the car should have detected the movement, and the wheels are not easily removed."

"I know."

Learning how to maintain complex vehicles was an.. interesting part of the training Bruce put her th-. Gave her. Not being able to outperform Harold on simple things like replacing the wheels had been galling, but the fact that she hadn't been lambasted for her failure had been an early sign that things.. were going to be different.

She slows as she approaches the edge of the roof, looking down toward the near-empty parking lot where she-.

It was up on bricks. The protective hub caps had been left on the ground next to it, wires had been expertly connected to the electrical shock unit behind them so that it couldn't shock the thief, and then the non-standard dimension nuts had been removed and taken away. Whoever it was probably hadn't realised whose car they were stripping. Check the surroundings… Clear.

She stepped off the roof, pushing forwards on the wall as her cloak spread out around her and hardened into a glider wing. Easier than using a line or a ladder, though she'd thought that Bruce was insane the first time he demonstrated it.

Sometimes she envied Donna.

A slight thud at touchdown was unavoidable, unless she got very lucky with the wind direction. She was scanning her environment again as her cape went flaccid, but her descent appeared to have passed unnoticed.

And now, the car.

Sensors in her visor could detect the tiny patterns of oil left by people's fingers whenever they touched anything bare handed. They could detect the fiber patterns of gloves a lot of the time, too… Except that if the thief had been expecting an electrical discharge they would wear rubber… Nothing. The surface of the parking lot wasn't soft enough to show footprints. She could take samples and run them through a DNA analyser to see if anything matched the police database, but this didn't strike her as a plot by a supervillain.

If they'd left a bomb, yes.

Or a whoopee cushion.

Hm. How did the thief know that the interior of the wheels was electrified?

"Batwoman to cave. I'm at the car. Three wheels are missing. Check car records for previous theft attempts."

"Right away, miss. What do you intend to do?"

She smiles under her mask.

"I'm going to go and ask some people some polite questions."

 

3rd October 2013
01:19 GMT -5

"Let-. LEMME DOWN YOU CRAZY BITCH!"

She smiles as the tire-thief hangs upside down from a fire escape, a smart rope wrapped around his right ankle. "Now, why would I do a thing like that?"

"Nothing yet, Miss. I don't believe that the young man has attended school recently."

She doesn't directly respond, but moves slightly out of the shadows so that the camera integrated into her cowl can get a better look at his face. He's young, mid-teens at most, and his hair is a badly cut mop on top of his head. His clothes are in reasonable condition, and his general appearance suggests that he's not homeless.

He bends, pulling his torso upward towards the rope. He pulls at it, but it's far too strong to be torn by his fingers. Still, that sort of pull up isn't easy. She mentally re-evaluates his probable strength and degree of training upward slightly.

"Ahh." He loses his grip on his ankle and falls back into his hanging position. "Shit." His next move is to try covertly feeling in his pockets, but she raises her right hand and holds up the knife that fell from his jacket when he was caught.

"Looking for this?"

"What's this about, huh? I didn't do anything."

"That's not what your fence said. After I broke two of his fingers." She takes another step forward. "Exactly how common do you think tires like that are?"

"That fat fuck."

"He said this has become quite the habit for you. How long have you been doing this now?"

His face takes on a decidedly sullen cast. "I dunno. Couple a' years."

Not exactly a hardened criminal. Which was actually a little frustrating. Dealing with hardened criminals was simple. It didn't require empathy. But unlike Mom or Dad, Bruce's training emphasized a mission. A good greater than reputation or money that they were supposed to work toward.

It was entirely too simple to believe that taking down the largest crime families would be enough to 'fix' Gotham. Batman and Harvey Dent had managed that while she was still living with her parents. The fact was that while the out of control criminal element made things worse, Gotham's decay wasn't all that much different from what plenty of other manufacturing centers in America were experiencing. Cheaper to do it in Mexico, or in the Far East. And when manufacturing jobs went, all of the jobs which depended on the people doing them went as well. And when that happened, social decay wasn't far behind.

Bruce made it clear that he considered it his duty to his parents' memories to make Gotham work again. And she could see the logic, and tried not to begrudge him having had parents who were good people.

Too much.

Which meant that the correct thing to do here wasn't hand this little p-. This boy over to the Gotham Police Department. Child services, perhaps, but the first thing to do was to get him talking about himself. Find out what his home life was like. Work out why he was doing this, then come up with ideas for how to make sure he stopped.

Dad would just have killed him. Or beaten him unconscious, if he was in a good mood.

She presses a control on her belt and the tether pays out, depositing the boy on the ground and loosening to the point that he can stand. He rises to his feet quickly but hangs back, not wanting to risk trying to get past her.

"So let me tell you what's going to happen now. You're going to go back to my car-."

He recoils. "That was your car? I thought it was just-."

"You're going to go back to my car, and you're going to put the wheels back on. And we're going to talk about what else you've been doing lately." She steps aside, moving back into the alley's shadows. "Move."

Slowly, tensely, with constant wary glances in her direction, he ambles forward. At the mouth of the alleyway he hesitates-.

"Keep going. The tires are already there."

Hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, he heads out of the alleyway. Instead of following him she backs up, recovering her smart rope and using a grappling line to rapidly ascend an adjacent building. Far easier to avoid being blindsided from up here. Now to follow-.

"Cave to Batwoman. I.. believe I have a match."

"Tell me."

"Jason Todd, fourteen years old. Son of Willis and Catherine Todd."

She reaches the edge of the room and takes a moment to watch him walking down the street. "So where are they?"

"Dead, in both cases. His father was a frequent guest in Blackgate, and it is unlikely that young Master Todd had a great deal of contact with him. In any case, he was killed in Blüdhaven last year in what may have been a gang-related incident. I'm afraid that I can't tell you any more about it than that, policing in Blüdhaven being what it is. His mother died in March this year from a drug overdose."

"And the reason he's not in a children's home is?"

"He appears to have phoned an ambulance for his mother, but left their apartment before they could arrive. I suspect that he knew that they wouldn't be able to do anything for her."

"Or for him, apparently."

Todd was still on the move. She checks the street and the surrounding rooftops, then fires a grapple line to the opposite side of the street and extends her cape. The resulting pull sends her flying across the divide and onto the rooftop opposite. Check immediate environment, free the grapple and check on Todd-.

He's backing away from a car that just braked hard in front of him, the front end having driven up onto the pavement to block his path. She's already running along the roof in order to get above them.

"Batwoman to cave: car registry."

"Reported as stolen five days ago."

Getting a tracer onto it from here would be awkward. They're designed to be throwable, but the sound it would generate hitting the car from here would make it immediately obvious to anyone nearby that they'd been hit by something.

She comes to a halt, takes a directional microphone from her utility belt and points it at the car.

"-trying to get the money."

"'Trying' don't cut it, Todd. Teacher lady wants t' talk. Now."

She carefully looks over the edge. Todd is talking to the man in the passenger seat, but two people have already got out of the back and are circling around-.

Her eyes narrow. One of them is wearing… It looks like armor, but the red-glowing lines don't look like something a street enforcer should be wearing.

It looks like the gear Apokolips has been sending to Intergang.

Todd backs up slightly, but he can't afford to run. The people facing him are fully fit adults, and they have a car. Her right hand comes up to her mouth, attaching the gas mask unit while her left readies the gas grenades. A light flick of her wrist and they're dropping towards her targets, earning a quick-

"Whu-?"

-from one of the enforcers before she drops, her feet smashing into her target's chest and sending him flying backward into the deserted road! The second enforcer draws a whip-handle, the glowing red whip itself materialising a moment later. The wielder looks completely confident for a moment and then collapses, coughing. Jade is already darting toward her, one strike to the target's wrist causing her to lose her grip on her weapon and another to the nose breaking it-

"Aie!"

-and forcing the woman into a staggering retreat. Next, she releases a smoke bomb and circles around-.

The woman she hit staggers forward as bullets fly at her former position. Car hasn't moved yet. Jade draws and throws a tracker, a light on the interior of her mask letting her know that it had made successful contact. An engine roars-.

Jade fires the grapple and leaps toward a nearby roof as the car shoots backwards, turns and blindly accelerates down the road away from her. A moment later Todd -apparently unharmed- heads in the other direction.

"Batwoman to cave. Contact the special crimes unit. And my team."

 

3rd October 2013
01:43 GMT -5

Todd is held roughly between two thugs-. Between two children trying to be thugs. They force him to his knees in front of a woman who looks old enough to be his grandmother, who looks down at him in disappointment.

"Why do you do this to Old Ma, young man?"

"I was gunna get the money!"

She turns her eyes slightly toward the Amazon next to her who nods, suddenly a good deal more awake.

"Jason." The elderly woman leans forward and pats him on the cheek, causing him to spasm in his captor's grip. "Don't lie to Old Ma."

"I wbghr-." One more faux-affectionate pat and she removed her hand, giving him a moment to recover. "I was. I just stole the tires off some real expensive car! I was going to pay you at the meeting tomorrow!"

She reaches up to the side of her helmet and pings twice, waits one second, then pings again. Readiness pings from those amongst her colleagues who could wake up and get to Gotham at this hour.

She looks up, catching sight of a red cape for a moment.

And some other people who happened to be available. That one… Is a work in progress.

"Oh, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me that." The old woman turns away from Todd and strolls back toward her pulpit at the front of the room. "Do Old Ma a favour and string him up, would you?"

"Go."

A green blur sprints down the road, smashing through the doors of Ma Gunn's School for Boys and dashing inside. Wally West wouldn't get out of bed at this hour for anything less than a nuclear war, but Frank is a good deal more flexible. And far less mentally stable, but taking down a small number of Intergang-equipped children-.

Some of the children run for it, but the older ones slap their belt buckles. Apokoliptian armor grows over their skins as Frank appears, pushing against some sort of energy membrane covering the door. The drawback to having someone who can in theory replicate any of the team's powers is that the mental programming Ivo gave him to let him cope with those powers sometimes leads him to getting distracted. Wallace would have spotted the trap, but charging people allied with Apokolips just brought all of Frank's impetuousness to the fore.

One of the armored-up thugs chuckles and raises his gun, only for Luke to stop looking like a section of wall and start grappling him. Donna dives, punching through the thin stonework and plowing into two thugs armed with glowing batons.

"Kid Amazo, go around the-."

The force field holding him snaps back, sending him flying back out of the front door.

"Amazo. Wonder Woman."

He smashes into the road hard enough to break a normal man's bones. He can heal of course, but from the looks of things-.

"You know I-. Don't like mimicking Wonder Woman. It makes me-" He heads back towards the school through the air. "-feel guilty about hitting people."

"Focus, Kid."

Lonnie drops down next to the rear entrance, neatly jabbing four would-be escapees with his electrified cane. He's come on a long way since she stopped him administering punishment beatings to white collar criminals. Dominic's joke about him being her sidekick aside, she was quietly pleased with his burgeoning tactical sense.

"I think that's-" In the corner of her eye she spots Donna block a glowing club with her left bracer before punching its wielder hard enough to knock them clean off their feet. "-psychosomatic. I assure you, Wonder Woman does not have a problem with hitting people."

But the boss wouldn't escape that way. She fires her grapple at the school's western wall and used the pull to launch herself into the air. The pattern isn't exactly subtle. Not one of Intergang's pseudo-New Gods have fought to the death when escape was possible. She didn't see a Mother Box, but from Todd's description it certainly sounded like her office might have one of the-

She slams through the office windows, bolas flying from her hand just as 'Fay Gunn' strides through the doors… And hit only air as the woman made use of her more than human agility to sidestep it.

She rolls as she hits the ground, a smoke bomb dropping from her belt before she rights herself and the billowing clouds obscuring the room.

"Batwoman. Did Mister Todd try stealing your tires?"

New Gods were always stronger than baseline humans-.

Keeping low, she scuttles to her left, tossing a remote speaker right as she does so.

"Steppenwolf wasn't the only New God handing out favors, was he?"

A volley of bullets shreds the microphone, but Gunn is moving too quietly for her to precisely locate. Regular bullets. Not armed with Apokoliptian weaponry? Unlikely but possible. Those Apokoliptians who focus on direct confrontation would keep the best for themselves, but according to Todd 'Ma Gunn' had been training child thieves for Intergang for years. Which of the Apokoliptians would have granted her power? Granny Goodness was the obvious choice, except that the techniques she would use would be obvious somewhere like Gotham. And she was hardly the only Apokoliptian skilled in training young fighters.

She flicked through her mask's enhanced visual modes as she headed for the far wall. Nothing, predictably enough. Divine ability, technology, or had she made good her escape? Boom tubes were usually loud, but they were hardly the only way to teleport.

"Trying to fight outside your weight class, mortal?"

The voice roams around the room, suggesting either that she's moving rapidly and silently or that Gunn's using the same microphone trick that she did. Or some sort of New God magic, but at least that would mean that her combat abilities were more limited.

Act.

Left arm drawing her cape over her face, right hand throwing two photon flares high, toward the ceiling. The resulting flash isn't quite strong enough to light up the matte black material of her cape, but it's a close run-

Flare dying, drop cape, identify target, move!

-thing. She darts forward as Ma Gunn blinks and starts to turn, the capacitors on her knuckle-mounted tasers whining as they build up the sort of power needed to knock down someone who was New God tough.

Ma Gunn twists and grabs her right wrist with a grin as she swings her right fist. "This is a boy's school."

Painfully aware of what happens to human-strong people who try grappling with enhanced strength, she uses her charged left hand to hit the fingers holding her. They spasm and reflexively jerk back, freeing her to manage a throat-punch with her right. There's a buzz and a smell of burning as the contacts connect unevenly and the stored electricity arcs. Then-

Ooof!

-she gets a reminder of why she wears armor inserts as Ma Gunn's drives her bony fist into her solar plexus. She retaliates, sidestepping a clumsy swing while getting two solid strikes on Ma Gunn's nose.

"Been broken before, girly."

"No. Have you?"

Ma Gunn makes another clumsy strike with her right hand-.

While her left pulls off her shawl and throws it, obscuring-.

Concealing a weapon. Evade!

The red energy pulse bores through the wool and narrowly misses her left leg as she thrown herself to the side. A batarang gets shot out of the air while Ma Gunn's expression is one of mild contentment.

Right up until Todd hits her over the back of the head with a tire iron. She staggers, so he hits her again and again, the hard metal, leverage and strike location conspiring to overcome Ma Gunn's resilience.

Jade rises to her feet and punches the reeling New God with both hands, letting the voltage run through her head until Ma Gunn collapses to the floor. Todd hefts his tire iron again with malicious intent, but reconsiders when he notices her staring at him.

"So… What happens now?"

Jade triggers her radio, listening as the rest of the team report their status. Frank's already adopted Wonder Woman's manner of speech. It's not taking as long as it used to. Tomorrow's problem.

"Now we talk about your future."

 

20th December
18:01 GMT -5

I stand, and dazedly wander towards the man I've been strenuously avoiding.

"Yes."

He looks… The body is robotic. It's not as young-looking as the version who was killed by Red Volcano. Closer in appearance to his chronological age, though… Since Red Tornado is pretending to be in his early forties I suppose he's supposed to be in his seventies? His synthetic skin has hair, and there's a slight-. Ah, yes, it's thicker to better conceal the orange glow.

"Doctor Morrow. How are you… Feeling..?"

His eyes… Robotic, of course. He most likely doesn't have direct control of them. They're slightly slow in tracking me. It does help with making him look like a slightly confused old man, and therefore explain why he's living with his son.

"To be truthful, I don't feel much of anything."

"Numb?"

Red Tornado smiles. "Shall we sit down?"

Ah. Right, yes. I step back, trying to keep Dr Morrow in full view. I know that what I'm seeing isn't what's there, but… Yes, if I didn't know that then I don't think I'd spot it. The synthetic flesh is at least as good as what Dr Lockhart used for years. Not much point using what I made for Danni, as he doesn't have any way to interpret the inputs… I don't think..?

Dr Morrow himself walks in a far more robotic manner than his son does. Or either of his other chil-. Surviving children, do. Precise, measured to fit the intervening space between himself and the place he's going to. None of the small adjustments organic beings make. I wonder if he was like that before Truggs turned him into a Construct Lantern? If the robotic version of him was anything to go by he certainly had a thing for robots.

Red Tornado sits back down at the same time as I do while Dr Morrow takes the arm chair, perching on the edge before sliding himself backwards into its cushioned embrace. Which I suspect he can't feel. He seems to be moving far more gingerly than he needs to as well. Habit? He was old for a long time.

Again, I notice the delay as Dr Morrow focuses on me again.

"Numb. No, not exactly. I can still feel pressure on my… My outer surface. I still have-" He raises his right hand. "-proprioception, I can still hear and smell. It's more that the emotional connection to anything I experience has been stripped away. Red Inferno described what it was like to see her memories exactly as I wrote them and not as she was supposed to experience them. I think it's probably like that.

"No desire to be evil..? To kill all humans and replace them with robots?"

"That, or anything else. I think I've…" He turns his head to look at Red Tornado, who nods encouragingly. "That I've made progress in a lot of areas… Turning my designs into things with a public use. But the only reason why I've done that is because Tornado asked me to."

"And his opinion still matters to you?"

"His opinion is nearly the only one I've been exposed to. It seems that I can borrow motivation from the people around me. Or perhaps I just don't have any reason not to do what they ask."

"So you.. don't really care.. about anything."

"That's about right. I can't honestly even say that I prefer action to inaction."

"Are you..? Suffering at all?"

"I'm not anything at all. My former self would have found this state… Unpleasant. If that's what you want to know. Not that I was above doing this to other people."

"Really? I thought that your problem with AIs was that they kept being independent."

"Exactly. They were -as far as my goals were concerned- failures. I was aiming to create things that could pretend to be independent but were actually more like what I am now."

I nod, my eyes unfocusing as I try to actually see his desires. If he has his memories, then he should-. "How well can you remember your life?"

"Fairly well. Not perfectly, but better than I was able to toward the end."

Then he should still have his desires in there. I mean, he's made of orange light. His whole structure should lead to him following his desires. Lethargy-. The Praexis certainly didn't feel that. They even provided a commentary. And the hellwraith…

But he's right. I can sort of see what's left of his desires, but they're not… Sparking and flowing as the desires of living people do. Including Red Tornado. Rather than following links to other parts of his mind, they're linked to-.

I look down at the ring on my left ring finger. Huh. Not totally unexpected, but… I've been intentionally avoiding wanting him to want anything. And the result is… Stasis? Numbness?

"Huh."

Red Tornado raises his eyebrows. "Have you learned something?"

"Sort of. Doctor Morrow is numb because I've been avoiding wanting him to want anything. I think that the Praexis Demons behaved as they did because I wanted them to. I knew I.. did, but I didn't question it when they behaved more or less in line with my expectations. I suppose that as a test… Would you mind if I brought out my other Construct Lantern for comparative purposes?"

"I thought that you had a good number of Construct Lanterns."

"I did. Then I got into a fight with Agony and he shredded them. Permanently, as far as I can tell. Just got the one left now, and I don't really… Like… Bringing it out."

"Can you control it?"

"Yes. In fact, I think I can control it better than I thought I could."

"Then by all means."

I hold out my left hand. "Hellwraith."

The.. thing drizzles out of my left ring. "Yes, Master?"

And I look… Huh. It's… Behaving like a creepy demon monster because I want it to. My own assumption that it would behave in that way combined with my desire not to alter my Construct Lanterns' natural behaviour… Not that they have natural behaviour… And that's the only reason. Huh. At least that means that I don't have to worry about it actually possessing someone when I don't want it to.

"Alright. Red Tornado, Doctor Morrow, I have two options which you may like to consider."

Red Tornado nods. "I'm listening."

His father shrugs. "I'm literally incapable of moving until someone else wants me to. And you don't."

"No. I'm pretty sure that the Sword of the Fallen can kill you permanently. With a tiny chance of reincarnating you instead. That's option one. Alternatively, you don't desire things. But I can change that. I'm obviously not offering to give you your old desires back… Not all of them, anyway. But… The desire to build, to improve, to have your skills recognised-."

"And I already want them back. But I know that it's only because you want me to."

I nod, standing up. "Which is why I'm going to leave the two of you to talk it over while I strenuously avoid wanting you to want anything. Let me know when you reach a decision."

 

21st December
11:01 GMT -2

"How offended should I be that you have left my king until last?"

Kaldur keeps his face blank as he swims along beside me. King Orin was kind enough to grant me an audience at relatively short notice, which I thought was jolly generous.

"I wasn't trying to offend you. Or.. him. I just didn't want to distract from his political work. After all, he's the one person on the League with a good reason for being angry with me."

"At least you do not need to be concerned that he will challenge you to a duel."

"I'd be more worried if he did. King Orin's intelligent enough that he wouldn't do that without a way to neutralise my advantages."

Poseidonis has grown. Certainly since when I first visited. But I can even see structures that have been expanded since my most recent visit. The floating guard posts inscribed with protecting runes are new, though I'd heard that they were planning something like this after the zombie attack back in June. The wide-ranging patrols by some sort of artificial sea monster with organic supercavitation abilities are new as well. Their speed, combined with the dolmen gate superhighways already linking up all but one of Atlantis' cities have drastically reduced the time it takes to move their military forces from one place to another.

"Are you sure that is possible?" I glance his way, and we make momentary eye contact as we leave what appears to be the designated 'swim lane' and head toward the palace.

"Sephtian threw a piece of lab equipment at me when I said 'magic-based interdiction field' to him, but in theory my ability to use my rings could be neutralised with one. And if anywhere was going to create such a device, it would be here."

"I will be certain to pass that information on. Batman will be sure to appreciate it."

"I wasn't planning to teleport into the Batcave again." The water around us shimmers as we pass through the outer wards. "Though if the Green Lantern Corps ever gets serious about hunting Sinestro down, I imagine that they'd find it fairly helpful."

Guards look me over as we enter the building, while Kaldur gets a familiar nod.

"What's… Happening with Koryak, anyway?"

Kaldur looks away for a moment. "King Orin made a substantial payment to his son and to the child's mother. I believe that he would like to form a closer relationship with Koryak, but his mother and foster father are… Uncomfortable with the idea."

I nod. "Fair enough. The first time they hear from him in over a decade is when his brother kidnaps their son. I can see why they'd be concerned."

"Avoiding the child's father does not make him safer."

I chuckle quietly to myself. "Oh, for a world full of rational people." Ah. "How are..? You and your parents..?"

"My father never requested a paternity test. They were not sure until I told them that I was not his biological son. It was an uncomfortable conversation."

"But you're… Alright now?"

"Our relationship remains strong. Regardless of our blood relationship, he is still the man who raised me. What did you think would happen, that justified you withholding that information from me?"

"I don't know. Anything. You just told me that it didn't change your relationship, and I highly doubt that you're about to go out and connect with your biological father. So other than making you uncomfortable, what did telling you achieve?"

"It told me that someone could use my blood in a spell to track Black Manta."

Ah… "No, no, hang on. He's been raiding Atlantean territory for years. He must have some protection against remote detection."

"Then it would have told me that he could track me."

"If he knew."

"You think that he does not?"

"He wouldn't know how long that your stepfather and mother had been… Together. He wouldn't know exactly when you were born-." Although that information would have been available to the Light after New Year. Would they have passed it on? No obvious reason why they would…

"Something has occurred to you."

"The Light pillaged Justice League databases last year. So he might have gotten your birth date. But no one other than me knew for certain. And if I'd told anyone, it would have been on the Justice League database. As it is, as far as he knows he still might not be your biological father. And I'd advise against putting it on a database that isn't on a power ring."

Private audience chamber coming up. We slow, and a functionary catches our eyes and gives us a nod.

"What will you do after your meeting?"

"I dunno. Check in with Batman, let him know that I've done all he asked-." Kaldur raises his eyebrows slightly. "Ask.. my.. team mates if they're prepared to have me back on a part time basis."

"That would be wiser. Batman is the one who determines team membership, but your conduct caused a degree of discord amongst us as well."

I exhale… Probably more sharply than is helpful. "What? Really? Kaldur, I like and respect you, but if you're going to give me shit about Nabu-."

"I am not. Zatanna was quite vocal in defense of your approach. What concerns several of us is that you did not share your feelings or plans with the rest of us."

"Oh." We come to a halt just in front of the audience chamber's doors. "So you're going to challenge me to a duel."

That gets a thin smile. "Do you think that I am less intelligent than my king?"

"No, but you don't have his responsibilities." I shrug. "Our team is supposed to be covert. I kept the secret for eight months without tipping anyone off. Telling you would have put you in a position where you-." Well. No, I wouldn't have allowed the secret to get out. "Where you would have to have decided whether or not you wanted to inform your mentors."

"Who may have stopped you."

"Who may have tipped off Nabu. I.. don't.. want to ever have to be in a position where I have to.. decide whether or not I want something badly enough to fight my teammates." I shudder slightly at the idea. "Keeping you out of the loop served that purpose. Among other things."

"You didn't trust us."

"But King Orin can. And Batman can, and Wonder Woman can, and so on."

"You may have better luck convincing our team mates to welcome you back if you would commit to being more open with them."

"Trust isn't a binary thing. I'm not accusing anyone of being inherently untrustworthy. I don't mind being more open, but I concealed my Nabu-related plans for good, mission-based reasons. What exactly would you have done if I had told you-"

The door covering oozes back, granting us entry to the audience chamber.

"-in advance? "

"I would have shared the burden of making that decision."

I frown, and give my head a small shake.

"What burden?"

 

21st December
13:08 GMT -5

Alan focuses, and the light from his ring permeates every part of the ruined structure. As I watch, broken walls repair themselves, shattered glass unbreaks and torn carpet regrows.

While we contained and stopped Oceanus as rapidly as we could, the damage to the Atlantic rim was considerable. Six months on and there's still plenty of rebuilding that hasn't been completed yet. I'm not completely sure that this is the best possible use of Alan's time, but I suppose-

"Yyyyeeeaaaaaaaayyh!"

-that's not the point. Alan floats back, smiling at the crowd-

"Ambient hope detected. Charging. Charge: seventy three percent."

-rushing forward to take a closer look at the reconstructed house. He's not getting enough charge to make this a charge-neutral endeavour, but that's hardly a problem while he has access to his personal lantern.

"Blue Lantern! Do you have a minute!?"

He looks around from his newly acquired fan club, then flies in my direction. "How'd it go with Aquaman? You all finished up?"

I nod. "He was actually pretty reasonable about the whole thing. We actually spent more time talking about all the changes Atlantis is going through, with the arcane technology and better links to the surface."

"Just in time for Christmas."

"Ah… I suppose. I don't think they're doing anything at the Mountain this year. I was really more thinking about it in terms of New Year. You know, start the year back on the roster."

He nods. "Sounds like a plan. What are you doing for the rest of the day?"

"Jade's between assignments, so we-" He nods, doing the closest he manages to a salacious grin. "-were going to head into space so she can practise with her power armour."

He shakes his head. "Kids these days."

"Do you want to come? I don't think you've ever left Earth before, and your ring can do that now."

"Oh, that's not true. Back in…" He frowns, eyes turning away from me as he tries to remember. "Forty nine, I think it was. Alexander Salkind fired some.. kinda ray out of his flying saucer that opened up some kind of rift in space. Since I was the only guy on the Justice Society who could fly safely in space, President Truman asked me to fly there and take a look at it."

"Really? But.. your.. maximum flight speed…"

"Oh, it wasn't quick. They made me a flight suit like air force pilots wore, and it took me a couple of days to get there, see what was going on." He thinks for a moment. "Whatever Salkind was trying to do, him opening that rift caused all kinds of trouble for the world on the other side. I ended up spending a couple of months helping them deal with the natural disasters he caused. Almost…" He looks away again. "That was… Just after Rose… Got sent to Reformation Island. When the portal started to close on its own, I considered staying on. They were a.. nice people."

"What species were they?"

"Oh, human, near as I could tell. Didn't have a fancy medical scanner on my ring back then. Darndest thing, they even spoke English."

I frown. "Weird. You sure it wasn't some sort of colony Salkind had built with people from this Earth?"

"He wasn't really the kind of guy for that sort of thing." Putting it mildly, given the contents of his Justice Society dossier. "I don't know if it was a parallel Earth or something…" He shrugs. "Nice people. I'd have liked to have gone back to visit, but Salkind never said how he opened the rift."

"Alan… I come from another Earth."

"Oh, ah, I'm sorry if you think it would have helped, but it wasn't your Earth. And it wasn't the same kind of portal. I'd have mentioned it sooner if it was actually relevant."

…

"Hahahaha!"

Alan looks at me curiously, a relieved smile spreading across his face. "I'm.. glad you're taking it well, but I'm not quite sure what the joke is."

"After all the times I've withheld information from people about things, I don't really have the right to complain too loudly when someone does it to me. I mean, now that I know about it I'll take a look just in case, but-"

Incoming communication.

"-it's probably-. Excuse me. " I hold out my left hand. "Orange Lantern Illustres here. Go ahead."

Dox's face appears above my ring's sigil. "Illustres. Report to Maltus. I have an assignment for you."

"Can you.. give me-?"

Dox's face disappears.

…

Ring, call Clarissi Dox.

Compliance.

A moment passes, then he reappears. "Yes?"

"Can you give me a little more information? Do I need to bring equipment or personnel with me?"

"I am sending you on a diplomatic mission. There will be a gathering of government officials from around the Reach Periphery, and we need to make a show of strength and intent in order to win them to our cause."

"And you want me on hand in case the Reach try anything."

"They would be fools not to. I would prefer to have this conversation in person."

"I've got a Darkstar recruit and another Lantern here. Bringing them will mean that it will take me hours to reach Maltus rather than seconds. Is the delay a problem?"

Dox's face twitches very slightly. "No. That is acceptable. I will expect you when you arrive."

Alan raises his right eyebrow as Dox vanishes. "I thought that Xor fellow was still under house arrest. You're not planning on skipping town with him, are you?"

"No, he is. Alan, do you want to come to Maltus and see the results of you giving me your lantern?"

He smiles. "Yeah, I think I would. You inviting Jade too?"

I nod. "A little earlier than planned, but I'm sure they'll make allowances. She's just outside Gotham now. Shall we?"

 

21st December
23:43 GMT

No one part of the whole is complete by itself. My desire is for all peoples to exist in reflexive equilibrium with one another, fulfilling their desires better together than they could apart.

"I thought I was supposed to be learning to fly myself."

Alan doesn't sound annoyed, but I'll admit that it's a fairly curious decision on my part.

"Yes, and you'll have plenty of time to do so. But I'm a lot faster than most Lanterns, and our first stop is a good deal further away."

"Zamaron." Jade's voice is flat. She's back in her professional head space. I don't compartmentalise anymore, but… I get it. "Which is where the star sapphire came from."

"Right. I've sort of been meaning to stop off there for a while to try and establish a working relationship… Or at least make sure that they don't dump another star sapphire off on someone else. Or try to use the one Zatanna's carrying to drive her crazy."

Alan frowns. "I thought you said that couldn't happen. Because if it can, you need to warn-."

I shake my head. "By.. by default, the star sapphire has certain effects on the mind of the user. Zatanna's staff protects her from those. But I imagine that a Zamaron who focused on it could bypass that, or… Just turn up and affect her manually. Ultimately, for the benefit of everyone, I need to persuade them to change their operational philosophy."

"The Zamarons supposedly use the light of 'love'." Jade uses her armour's control system to rotate her whole body toward me. "Which -for them- means obsessively, violently, crazily fixated on someone. So you've brought us, your girlfriend and your mentor."

"I love you both, Eros and philia; demonstrating both that there are other entirely more beneficent ways to experience love and that an Orange Lantern doesn't need to banish all other emotion in order to use the orange light. No one part of the whole is complete by itself. It's true for the Guardians, it's true for the Controllers and it's true for the Zamarons."

"And you're going to talk them around."

I nod. "Sure."

"And no one has tried to do that before?"

"Green Lantern…" Um. Jade's not in the know as far as Jordan's identity goes… "Two-. Er…" I generate a construct of him. "That one, isn't the best negotiator in the world. He treated his-. Star Sapphire being given the star sapphire-."

"Harold Jordan treated it as an attack to be punished, rather than an opportunity to learn why the attack happened."

I glance at Alan, who gives his head a small shake. "I can't comment on claims that-."

"Star Sapphire being Carol Ferris is public knowledge. The Justice League's first Green Lantern looks exactly like one of Ferris Aerospace's former test pilots. It wasn't hard to work out."

"Alan, you can witness that, right?"

"You mean, someone seeing past a tiny mask to identify the superhero behind it?"

"That, and the fact that I wasn't the one to tell her."

Alan nods. "Sure, I can tell Hal that. But maybe we should just not mention it."

"Oh, he doesn't need to know that Jade knows his name, but that tiny mask thing is going to get someone killed one of these days."

"It already has." Alan and I both look at Jade. I don't.. remember her mentioning killing any superheroes… But it's possible that she thought it would make me react more strongly than random people I'd never met. "Most superheroes start out wearing shoddy costumes with masks like that, and there aren't any unwritten rules about not going after them out of hours. The League of Shadows killed hundreds of small time superheroes in America alone."

"God, I-. And no one knew about that?"

"The information is all part of what the League took from Infinity Island, so I assume that Batman knows. Another benefit of a 'secret identity'. Most superheroes don't tell more than a couple of people what they're doing. Which means that when it happens it's not a superhero dying in some sort of grand battle against a criminal gang, it's… A police officer, a postman, a reporter… Dying from what looks like natural causes, unless the coroner looks very closely with very expensive equipment. Or a random, senseless murder."

That… "So we should expect an upswing in the number of neophyte superheroes?" Maybe I need to spend more time with the Alliance.

"Probably. Either that, or a whole lot of messy assassinations by amateurs."

"And more superheroes means more people being inspired to become superheroes rather than join the police."

"Eventually. The League of Shadows was usually only hired to kill the competent or powerful ones. It won't just be people seeing more superheroes, the ones who they see will be better at it."

"That's good." Alan frowns slightly at my expression. "Isn't it?"

"You mean, there suddenly being hundreds more super powered vigilantes with no respect for authority out and about? People with no idea how gathering evidence works? With no patience for running actual investigations but who expect to be allowed to punch out anyone they want for whatever reason?"

"I didn't know anything about that when I started out, and the first man I tried to bring in had a heart attack and died."

"And… You got CP-? You didn't get CPR training, did you."

"CPR didn't exist back then. I only heard about pumping someone's heart like that in the sixties, and I'd… Already more or less retired as Green Lantern by then. I know enough to save someone if it happened now. But I thought you said we were legally just people who happened to be around and decided to help out."

"Sort of. In America, as long as a superhero doesn't kill their opponents, that's generally how the law handles it. But get a bit more organised, start acting like an organisation -especially if a decent chunk of the new people feel differently about lethal force- then things could be a little different."

"Like McCarthy again?"

"Like the government making a serious attempt at forcing superheroes into joining the police. Like them actually enforcing anti-vigilante-"

Approaching Zamaron.

"-laws. Warp terminating in two, one."

The universe reappears, and we stare down at the pink-glimmering world beneath us. A flash of empathic vision shows me thousands-. How? Okay, the Controllers didn't know exactly how many maltusians joined them after Aga'po led them away from Maltus, but you'd think they'd have heard something if it were that man-.

I tether Alan and Jade and yank us all aside just before a giant beam of violet light blasts through the space we had been occupying! Alan and I raise construct barriers as a storm of lesser beams light up the space around us.

"You didn't phone ahead?"

"They weren't picking up!"

"Paul, they aren't going to talk and it looks like we're outnumbered. We should leave."

I take a moment to remove a buoy from subspace and record a message.

"You're right. Warp in two, one-."

 

22nd December
07:12 GMT

"It's like a cross-country car ride."

I've been letting Alan handle the flying on the final leg, and Jade's been trying to sleep inside her armour. And he's not wrong. Any sufficiently long journey is just… Getting from one place to somewhere you'd rather be. In fact, it's worse than a car journey because you can't really see anything very much of your environment. If I look left or right all I get is a blur of blue with a few distant twinkling stars. Alan's a slower flier than I am, but I doubt that he'll be doing this on a regular basis. Otherwise I'd.. set up some sort of services station or something.

"With the drawback that if you lose concentration… You die!"

Or find a planet we could stop off at that wouldn't freak out.

"Really? That can happen? I thought the environmental shield stayed on whatever I was thinking?"

"You don't have to focus to maintain it, but if you focus on one of the other six emotions then it can and will shut down."

"So: don't get angry, greedy, scared, willful, compassionate or loving."

"It's more: don't get those things outside of a breathable atmosphere or in the middle of a fight."

"I'll keep that in mind." He calls up a star map. "Nearly there, aren't we?"

"Just about. Jade?"

"I'm awake."

"We're approaching Maltus."

"Good. Is there a version of this armor that can travel at faster than light speed under its own power?"

"There was a version they experimented with that had a short FTL range, but they had to compromise a lot of other systems and… Everyone who used it died within a couple of missions. Once the Reach worked out what they were facing, they could just send ships to the emergence point…"

"How long until I qualify for my own spaceship?"

"Three days?"

"I'm surprised that their training program isn’t longer than that. Or do they only take people with backgrounds in combat and intelligence?"

"No, they accept recruits with all levels of skill. But in your case they can skip some of the basics. The main area where you're lacking is everything to do with space travel, so I imagine that they'll start you on that part of the training program."

"Alan, we are approaching the Maltus exclusion zone. Please stand by to transmit your authorisation signal."

He looks at me and I raise my left hand. "Orange Lantern Illustres to Controller Hinon. On approach with two guests, please don't shoot."

Hinon's curious face appears above my ring. "Or perhaps I should tell them to shoot twice just to make sure?"

"I'd rather you didn't. I've had more than enough Maltusians shooting at me today."

"What did you d-?"

"Alan, I am now terminating-"

The universe leaps back into focus, Maltus just ahead of us. Through ring-enhanced vision I can see Ranx, and his significantly expanded space docks. Several of them hold near-finished capital ships, while others contain cargo vessels and passenger ships from the region's various Controller protectorates.

"-warp. Please keep your hands inside the ride until it comes to a complete stop."

And I can feel the other Orange Lanterns. It seems that Dox's recruitment efforts are going well.

Hinon regards me for a moment. "You went to Zamaron. And they shot at you. What did you do to make them shoot at you?"

"Nothing! My friends-"

"A likely story."

"-and I appeared near their world and I had just long enough to look at them before the energy beams started."

"You looked-." She closes her eyes for a moment. "I will contact our sororal compatriots and smooth things over. Please try to remember in future that your eyes are not the mere light sensors that those of most of the rest of your species are. You looking at them touches them with the orange light in a way they may well have found uncomfortable."

"Ah. Please pass on my apologies."

"If you come up in conversation I will certainly do that. Otherwise I will avoid all mention."

"Alright. Is Dox onboard Ranx?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"I'll head straight there. Anything else?"

"A few of the more recent recruits would -and I can barely credit that I'm saying this- benefit from the wisdom of your experience."

"I'll check in once I've met with Dox. Whereabouts are you?"

"The forges attached to the Central Power Battery. Why, what do you want?"

"I've brought Alan with me. You said that you wanted a look at him?"

"Oh. Yes, that would be-"

Her face vanishes and reappears on Alan's ring.

"-interesting. Lantern Scott. Good to meet you."

Alan looks nonplussed. "Ma'am."

"I'm sending you a map now. I'll expect you shortly."

"O.. kay?" Hinon's face vanishes. Alan is left looking slightly concerned. "Should I be worried?"

"She's an expert on power rings. Given your unusual relationship with the green light, it's probably a good idea."

"Ah, that makes sense. Am I alright to go down there?"

"You're on the Orange Lantern Corps database. If there's somewhere you're not supposed to go, someone will politely let you know."

Ranx is approaching rapidly, growing to the point that it's visible to my naked eyes.

"And how about me?"

"Ring, contact Director Jeddigar's office."

Compliance.

"Illustres." That was quick, and it's the man himself. "What can I do for you?"

"I forwarded an application form on behalf of a human applicant for your organisation. Since I was heading here anyway I brought her with me. I appreciate that it's a little irregular-."

"No, not at all. We can perform her assessment now. Is she with you?"

"Yes. Where should she-?"

"Locking on."

Jade vanishes in a swirl of light. Of course. Teleportation is probably the best way to get around for non-Lanterns.

"I'll let you know when we're finished with her."

"Right-oh. Thank you for your help."

His face disappears. Well, he's a busy man.

"It's Christmas in three days. Is Jade really going to be stuck here for Christmas?"

"No, it-. Possibly, but that wasn't what I was talking about. I thought that she could use something that would let her travel back and forth.. easily…"

Alan chuckles. "How are you going to fit that under the tree?"

"I made a giant tree."

"You-?" For some reason that amuses him further. "Did you decorate it too?"

"Of course I decorated it. And I wrapped the ship. Who do you think I am?"

 

22nd December
07:25 GMT

"You're back!"

"Hello, Rat-"

Lantern Ratchet attaches himself to my torso, tentacles stroking my face and armour.

"-chet. You're still stationed on Ranx, then?"

"Oh, yes. Clarissi Dox greatly appreciates my personnel-handling abilities."

I don't laugh, but I do smile just in time for him to run a tentacle across my lips. "I'm not particularly surprised that he passed that on to someone else."

"A lot of people have said that." Ratchet pulls away slightly so that he can actually look me in the eye. "I'm not sure why."

I start along the corridor in the direction of Dox's office. Charles Stross wrote in The Jennifer Morgue that a CEO's desk was their way of showing off, equivalent to… What was the quote? Ah, yes:

'Desks are to executives what souped-up Mitsubishi Colts with low-profile alloys, metal-flake paint jobs, and extra-loud, chrome-plated exhaust pipes are to chavs; they're a big swinging dick, the proxy they use to proclaim their sense of self importance.'

I really hope that Dox has become humanoid enough to want a big desk. Hopefully Brande or someone has been working on him.

"Dox was raised in an environment which encouraged self-reliance and the suppression of emotion. Much as you were raised in an environment that encouraged physical isolation. And his 'father' tried to beat the 'softness' out of him in much the same way that your own society tried to stop you wanting to touch people by cutting off your limbs."

Ratchet stills, his tentacles coming together beneath him in a gesture of sympathy. "I didn't know that. But why doesn't he do those things now?"

"How long did it take you to go from wanting to touch someone to venturing outside of your pod?"

Three billowing tentacles. Regret, uncertainty. "A considerable time. He is not yet ready to do so for himself?"

"I don't think so. He wasn't when I left."

Square grasping gesture. Resolution. "How can I help him?"

"Ensure that he has constant, normal and pleasant interpersonal contact. Enveloping me with tentacles is fine, but I-."

"No, I-. I have been made aware that you and Taranna have been unusually indulgent of my desire for physical contact. Some of the new Lanterns have asked if I am part of the corps' 'hazing'."

"Right. Different cultures have different ideas about what's 'normal' for physical touching. And.. given that we're recruiting fighters for whom letting people get physically close often involves an element of risk, it's good that you're aware of that."

"I should not press Clarissi Dox, and let him touch people when he is ready to do so?"

"More or less. But Coluans aren't big on touching people anyway, it's more the social aspect that he needs you to help him with."

"I understand. I will serve."

I nod and smile. "Thank you." Arriving at Dox's door, I raise my hand toward the door chime.

The door opens before it arrives.

"I've been monitoring you since you arrived in the system. Come in so that I can brief you."

I wave Ratchet goodbye as he floats away down the corridor, then step into Dox's off-.

Oh Eris, it's worse than I thought. Not only is there no desk, there's no furniture of any kind. Not even a stand for his personal lantern. He's got a wispy orange console around him which his fingers constantly move over without him looking where they’re going. Okay, touch typing doesn't take a level ten intelligence but the displays are changing as he touches them. His eyes aren't focusing on me, and there's an orange glow in a circle around his head.

I walk over to just in front of him, then come to attention. "Reporting as ordered."

"Later than ordered."

"I had an opportunity to open diplomatic relations with Zamaron I felt it worth taking the time to explore."

His eyes focus on me for a moment, then close again. "You were unsuccessful."

"True, but that doesn't mean that-."

"I am aware that not all risks pay off. How badly did it go?"

"They shot at me without otherwise communicating at all."

"Try not to do that again."

"How are things here?"

"Your recruit Lantern Ragnar has been quite useful in continuing training the other recruits. Our total strength is up to seven hundred and forty four, not counting Lanterns Xor, Koriand'r and Komand'r."

"Any orange light incidents?"

"None which caused permanent damage. If you're interested, simply have your ring feed the information into your mind directly."

I will need to look into that. "So. Diplomatic conference?"

A holographic image of Reach space appears, the areas around the edge marked in colours indicating… Their defence status, I think. No, no, their predicted time until Reach assimilation.

"Since diplomatic events are not my forte, I am putting you in charge of the Orange Lantern Corps contingent. Sleer Prigatz will be in overall charge; diplomacy with border worlds is an official part of his job. Our primary goal is to secure fleet bases and construction sites. Secondary goals include supplies of personnel and raw materials and information sharing. A mutual defence pact is tertiary at best; none of these places would last long against the Reach by their own efforts, apart or together."

"Understood. You want us to show off a little?"

"These people understand power. Or think they do. They've heard of Green Lanterns. Some of their worlds even have currently serving Green Lanterns. You will be travelling with a small fleet of ships far more sophisticated than anything they can produce themselves, but I suspect that a demonstration from a Lantern will be the most obvious display of our power."

I nod. "A power that can be theirs, without any of that 'two-per-Sector' nonsense."

"You will be meeting diplomats and military planners. For the most part, they will not be the sort to take after Lantern Ragnar. They won't be fighters. Review the files of those who are, and focus your efforts on those."

I nod. "Are we expecting the Reach to stick their oar in?"

"They'd be fools not to. And they haven't established the largest interstellar empire in this galaxy by being fools."

 

22nd December
07:49 GMT

That's a lot of Orange Lanterns.

I walk calmly through the training area as all around me Lanterns practise generating constructs, spar or sit in meditation. And I can't help but feel… Disappointed? I don't resent Dox for sending me away; he was right about needing to establish himself as being in charge. But I wish I could have been here to see this happening.

And I wish I recognised some of them. The majority of Orange Lanterns appear -predictably enough- to be clickers, and a decent minority are from Controller protectorates. I have my ring inform me of their names and their histories as I look around. There, a man who felt that his own people were too weak to stand before the Reach and so sought out a friendly power to provide that protection. There, a Greater A clicker who wanted to live longer than… Their..? Physiology would allow, and now seeks to repay the Controllers in the most efficient way possible. A partisan, a pirate, soldiers and psychopaths and-.

"You! In the robes!"

And then there's… This fellow. One eye, blue skin, some sort of mace-staff whose head is glowing with orange light. No, he hasn't integrated his personal lantern into it, he's just augmenting it with his ring. He flies into the open-sided corridor I'm walking along and lands just in front of me.

I smile, and give him a shallow bow. "How may I be of service, Lantern Zartok?"

"I haven't seen you here before. Are you a new recruit?"

"Oh, no. I've been a Lantern for some time."

His eye narrows. "Then why have you not been training with everyone else?"

So he isn't bothering to look me up? I know that I'm on the database-. Actually, do I have admin access? I do? Oh, good. Lock my file, would you? I smell a learning opportunity.

"I.. managed to irritate Clarissi Dox enough that he sent me back to my homeworld." I shrug apologetically. "I'm only here now because he's got a diplomatic job on that he doesn't want to handle himself."

"Bah!" Zartok grins, walking closer. "You can't learn to be a true Lantern by sitting at home!"

For a moment, I imagine walking around Hampden Park while glowing orange. Flying around Sainsbury's with a construct trolley. Picking up a late train and flying it to the platform in time.

"I suspect that you're right."

He puts his right arm around my shoulders-. On top of my shoulders, nearly but not quite around my neck. He's about thirty centimetres taller than me, a fair bit more muscular -and his clothing shows it off more- and I can see in him the desire to lead soldiers again. To prove himself in physical conflict, both as a fighter and a leader. I can't really assess his skills myself, but Dox appears to have left me access to everyone's full personnel files. Assessment… Bit of a nasty piece of work, actually led armies against peaceful civilisations because he found their natures offensive… But pretty good at what he does.

"Well, now is as good a time to start as any! Fortunately, I have reserved an arena for my own training! Join me!"

"Thank you for this opportunity. If you would be so good as to lead the way?"

"But of course!"

He releases me and flies off to the right, glancing back once to make sure that I'm following him. I oblige him. A few other Lanterns look around, but more seem curious than worried-. Ah, that one actually bothered to read my biography. Taking a closer look at my gracious host's present set of desires… He wants to establish himself as a leader, someone to be respected and -to a degree- feared. He'd really make a better Sinestro Corps member… Perhaps Kalmin is burned out on yellow rings? Anyway, assuming that he's true to his desires…

Hah.

He's planning to use this spar to demonstrate his superior skill and try to impress me so much that he'll be able to recruit me as a follower. He'll also want to show his superior abilities to anyone watching. Humiliating him totally will.. probably.. be counterproductive? It really depends on how much of an arse he's been. Would beating him down result in others liking me more? How would he take being so brutally outclassed?

He descends into one of the fighting pits, a small group I identify as cronies waiting in the stands. The hulking male glances up for a moment and then returns to gorging himself from the bowls of food around him. His desires appear to focus around hunting, eating and claiming territory. Dox put a note in his file indicating that he's an experiment. He should instinctively go from full-on combat mode to gorge mode to near-hibernation with little in between. Which would mean that the extremes of mood which come with orange rings might not matter. I'll be curious to see how that plays out.

The slender female looks me over but doesn't otherwise outwardly react. Inwardly, I can immediately see the changes as lights related to personal safety and room for advancement light up. It looks like she's mostly in this for the loot, but also derives a degree of satisfaction from the technical work her ring now lets her perform.

Not someone… I'd have recruited, but she passed screening.

Lantern Zartok lands on the opposite side of the arena centre, and I set down opposite him.

"The first thing you must know about being an Orange Lantern is that the stronger your desires are, the stronger you are!"

"I see. And the capacity for control?"

"Is of little use if you're already-"

I generate construct armour around my body.

"-dead!"

The orange blast leaps from his staff and splashes off my chest plate to no effect. Zartok looks momentarily surprised, then nods in approval. "Excellent reflexes! But can you-"

I step out and

appear just behind him.

"-do it-!" He swings his staff at the area I was a second ago. Part way through the swing it registers that I'm not there, and he intensifies his environmental shield and swings around, prompting me to step back out of his reach.

Hm. Reasonable response. A stronger environmental shield would protect against most attacks, and the obvious place for me to go if I was a total neophyte was right behind him. If I were taking this at all seriously I'd have gone far further away when fighting a Lantern with a melee weapon fixation.

"Agile. Or are you wearing a teleporter?"

"Personal teleporters are too easy to disrupt. Ring-based teleportation is far safer."

His eye narrows again. "Who are you? Were you a Green Lantern before turning your coat?"

"No. I'm your Illustres. And if you want to get anything out of this, feel free to come at me full force."

His environmental shield seethes with power as an orange sigil appears in his eye.

"I LIKE A CHALLENGE!"

 

22nd December
07:53 GMT

Corruption tendrils reach out from my construct armour, grabbing, turning and hurling his spear construct back at him before it can strike me. He dismisses it before it can strike home, brilliant orange light shining from his staff's head for a moment before blasting toward me. I dismiss my construct armour and hold out my hands, drawing the power of the shot into my rings. Next comes a railgun-

I feel it as Lantern Grood switches into hostile mode and charges his environmental shield. I'm pleased to note that Drusa is intelligent enough to take a step away from him as he crouches to leap.

-which I load with a single crumbler round and fire. Zartok generates a weak shield construct, and can't keep the surprise off his face when it gets destroyed. Reasonably impressive, actually. When Guy and I started experimenting with defending against them, we stuck to trying better and better shields for a very long time before we gave up and switched to ablatives. He went ablative from the start-.

Or maybe that's just the best shield he can make.

That's less impressive.

Behind me, I generate a Super Soaker 9001 construct, fire a torrent of water at Grood before he can leap from his crouch, then follow up with a cold gun blast which freezes it in place.

I step out and

back as Zartok's staff blurs through the place I had been standing, then create an orange laser construct and fire it at Zartok's left hand. He's already turning to face me, and jerks his hand out of the line of fire as he does so. I reform my railgun and fire a rapid volley of tungsten rounds at his staff. His environmental shield takes the worst of it, but the staff is knocked from his grip.

For a moment, before he grabs hold of it with a construct and pulls it back.

To my left, I see a cluster of spectating Orange Lanterns move aside for Lantern Ragnar. I hope that he won't be offended by me drawing this out for longer than I did our fight.

Fist constructs are Zartok's next avenue of attack, and I note that despite his eye going completely to the orange side he's still reasonably coherent. Precision crumbler round shots shred each of them, then I connect myself to Zartok with two arcs of orange light.

"Brand."

Light flares around Zartok as he tries and fails to break the orange light connection using orange light.

"Yuuuraaagh!"

Hands behind my back, I stroll closer as he falls to his knees.

"Branding ten percent complete."

"Thank you. Lantern Zartok, unless you've been holding back a great deal-"

He looks up with a grimace on his face.

"Branding twenty percent complete."

"-then your understanding of the orange light is not good enough to break this connection. Wanting more might make your constructs stronger, but it leaves you with distinct vulnerabilities. Your own desire, its intensity, is what is making this easy for me. The best way to stop me… Is to stop wanting."

He grits his teeth-

"Branding thirty percent complete. Forty percent complete."

-and then stops himself. He takes a few deep breaths and drops into a sitting position, the orange sigil fading from his eye.

"A start. But not enough. You still want, and therefore are still connected to the-."

"By what right do you think to give me instruction!? The Controllers gave you two rings!"

I shake my head. "No. Actually, they didn't give me either of these rings. Though if it makes you-"

"Branding fifty percent complete."

"-feel any better…" I move my hands around to my front and take hold of my original ring with my right thumb and forefinger. His eye fixes on it as I pull it off and toss it to the floor. "Multiple rings don't increase your construct strength. They just extend your battery life. There. One ring."

He staggers to his feet, only for my construct chains to pull him down again.

"Are your bonds any weaker?"

"That ring. The design. It isn't like the others."

"Branding sixty percent complete."

"No." I hold up my right hand. "This is the very first orange ring ever created. It used to belong to Larfleeze."

"The first Orange Lantern! You are channelling the desires of an insane ancient! That is how-!"

"Hardly. It has no AI support. It's less physically resilient than the one you're wearing, and its maximum charge is only about eighty percent of what a modern ring can contain. Why do you think that the Controllers changed the design, if not to make it more effective?"

"How long have you-"

"Branding seventy percent complete."

"-had that ring?"

"Half a year." I indicate my original ring with my right foot. "I've had that one about a year and a half now."

"And you appear here now? I have been training, strategising and studying our enemies. What have you done to earn authority amongst us?"

"Hah!" Ragnar grins. "He beat me in a duel even faster than he beat you. I am grateful that at least he took my fight seriously!"

"Branding eighty percent complete."

"You should yield now. I'll be perfectly happy to fight you again when you've a little more experience."

"Branding ninety percent complete."

Zartok's nostrils flare, but he nods. I call my ring back from the ground and cancel the branding effect. He glares at me for a moment before rising and stepping back.

"Strength is nothing without direction. Discipline."

"I have discipline."

"You have physical discipline. You've clearly trained hard at it. The way your body moved, the way you reacted rationally to my attacks… But you lack spiritual discipline. I know Green Lanterns who can break branding attempts, and I know that I certainly could."

I look up and around. A reasonable gathering.

"My Lanterns. I am sorry for not spending more time here. I need a small number of you to volunteer for a dull diplomatic mission. I doubt that you'll learn much from it, but I will agree to devote what spare time I have to teaching you my techniques. And if you're wondering what's so special about that."

I slide my ring back onto my left ring finger and then extend my hands.

"Did you know that it's perfectly possible for a mortal Lantern to create a personal lantern? Let me show you..."

 

22nd December
14:22 GMT -6

"…why I need to observe it as it happens."

Sunset winds down slightly as her presentation comes to a conclusion. I followed pretty much all of it, though the more complex thaumaturgical notation she used to prove her claims rather went over my head. Circe smiled and nodded at appropriate places though, so I'm going to assume that it's accurate so far.

I nod. "So, you know how alicorns are made."

"I-. No. Not exactly. I've got-" She presses a button on her wand -in the sense of being a narrow cylinder, not in the sense of being a literal magic wand- and a new lot of notation appears on the screen behind her. "-an explanation. It fits what… Cadenza told me happened to her…" She glances aside. "Before Celestia banned her from talking to me about it, anyway."

"And..?"

"Well…" She gestures to a series of squiggles on the mid-left of the screen. "As you can see, the evoca.. tion…" I shake my head and she rolls her eyes. "She got hit by a whole lot of magic perfectly aligned to her special talent and was very lucky that she didn't just explode."

Ah! "Which is why you want to study a newly developed New God, because they're as close to having a pony-style special talent as humans get!"

She stares at me, then at the screen, and then back at me. "Yes! That's what I just…" She presses her button a few more times, gestures at the screen again and then glares at me. "I can't even tell if you're being serious or not."

"Oh, this is all…" I wave my right hand over my head. "So I'm just going to assume that your understanding of the thaumaturgy involved is correct. But okay, you know how Mi Amore Cadenza did it-."

"By pure fluke." She pulls a face. "'Why don't you go and play with Princess Cadance and her friends?'"

"Now, come on. It isn't Cadenza's fault that she tripped over the one thing you want more than anything in the universe by pure luck. That's why it's called luck."

"I know. It's just… Urgh! You know?"

Circe and I nod sympathetically.

"I mean, if she'd actually worked at it a bit…" She shakes her head. "The point is, I could just replicate what she did and try and control it… Like she did… Somehow. And I might be as lucky as she was…" Her shoulders slump. "No, that would never happen. I think I'd have about a thirty percent chance and… Yeah, not doing it."

I frown in what I hope is an intelligent way. "But your special talent is 'magic'. Shouldn't any source of arcane power do?"

"If it was just about charging me up, yes. But… Okay. Part of my working theory which you apparently didn't listen to is that every pony is essentially a crippled alicorn. We manifest only one part of our full power rather than all of it. But with a tremendous influx of power that… Weakness or congenital deformity or whatever, gets erased."

"Ah… Are you basing that off a sample size of one?"

"There are two alicorns in existence. I only know how one ascended because the other wouldn't tell me how she did it."

"I thought… Nightmare Moon..?"

"While there might be some sort of underlying factual basis in the Nightmare Moon story, I couldn't find any credible historical account. And believe me, I looked. There are legends about Celestia fighting all kinds of monsters in the ancient past. There's no real reason that an evil alicorn couldn't have been one of them." Her jaw tightens. "Though if there is any truth to the story, it totally undermines her friendship fixation: exactly how many friends would a night-obsessed foal-eater have?"

I inwardly wince on behalf of Princess Luna.

"Anyway, one example and a lot of math. From what I can tell… From the models I've made for earth pony magic, unicorn pony magic and pegasus pony magic, the chance of the magic surge doing what it's supposed to increases dramatically if you can.. balance it out with examples of ponies manifesting as each of the tribes. Ideally they'd all have the same special talent, but…" She wrinkles her nose. "There are pegasus ponies who specialise in using pegasus pony magic, but there are literally no earth ponies who do. So… That's a bust."

"Don't I remember something about pony mythology claiming that your ancestors migrated from somewhere.. then.. settled in what is now Equestria?"

"That's the pony Christmas story. And it's plausible. I mean, if you totally ignore the lack of historical records or archaeological evidence, and the fact that no unicorn I spoke to has any idea how to move the sun or the moon. And the fact that Equestria has a huge desert to the south, oceans to the east and west and mountains and the north pole to the north. None of that is the sort of terrain that you migrate toward if you're already fleeing a blizzard and-" She air quotes. "-'windigos'."

"So how does studying a new New God help?"

"I know it's not about power or skill. Cadenza proved that-. And that's not-. She was a pegasus pony growing up in an all-earth pony community out in the middle of nowhere. Even if she'd wanted to, she wouldn't have been able to learn much about how her magic worked. But New Gods are able to absorb large amounts of magic and get a lot stronger almost at once. Without the magic needing to be associated with their nature."

"Why don't you just get rid of your magical bum parasite?"

"I-." She goldfishes for a moment. "My what?"

"You know." I wave my right forefinger in the general direction of her posterior, prompting her to take a step backward. "That thing which appears on your haunches when you taste of the kind of magic it finds most appealing."

"You-." Her eyes narrow. "Are you talking about my cutie mark?"

"Yes."

"Those aren't parasites."

"Sure they are. A pony has to have a special talent in order to get one, correct?"

"Well… Yeah..?"

"And if anything happens to it, their special talent vanishes, right?"

"It… Depends..? Minor injuries don't really do much, but there's a definite correlation between outright cutie mark loss and talent loss."

"So the cutie mark doesn't add anything useful, it just adds a layer of vulnerability. Sounds like a parasite to me. If you could work out how to erase one without losing the talent that attracted it, you wouldn't have to worry about energy formatting."

"Let's… Save that for a backup plan. I don't want to risk having everything I know about magic suddenly disappearing if I got it wrong."

"That just means that now is the ideal time! You're not a pony. I can do a quick tattoo-erasure, you won't risk losing anything because human magic doesn't work that way, and then you could go back-."

"No. I'm proud of my cutie mark, of getting my cutie mark and it's what's going to be on my haunches when I turn into an alicorn."

"You're proud of a parasite?" I give her a sceptical look. "Have you ever heard of toxoplasmosis? It's a disease which alters the behaviour of prey animals it infects so that its primary host can catch them more easily. Like the cutie mark parasite encourages you to regard it as a coming of age signal, when it really only serves that role in the same way as a Chlamydia infection does. And there's this species of fungus which infects ants and makes them-."

Circe lays her right hand on my left shoulder. "Grayven, I don't think that's going to help-."

Sunset glares at me. "What about your god-name? I don't hear you calling that a parasite?"

"Because god-name is a poetic way of referring to a complicated set of arcane mechanisms, not a… Mystic weak point. I survived Mister Doom effectively removing mine without my mundane skill set being altered."

"It's not a parasite."

"Fine. If you say so." I cough. "Without any evidence." I cough again as Sunset puts her hands on her hips. "But as for your proposal, I don't think Miss Kimble is really ready yet, but if you can find another volunteer I'll empower them while you record the results."

"Thank you."