21st November 2012
08:21 GMT -5
We all stare at the JSI building as
Alan and I fly our team over New York.
John smirks on the orange platform next to me. "Very subtle. I like it."
It's not subtle at all. A giant skyscraper with… The upper quarter of the building actually
floating over the rest in what strikes me as an
incredibly bad design choice. If anything interfered with the anti-gravity system it would just fall and kill everyone-.
"Nth metal, of course.
"
Interceptor glares at me from her position slightly above us.
"You aren't authorised to scan anything."
"I didn't; it's just obvious. No one would be stupid enough to build something like that with a normal anti-gravity system, so you used a material that would always be 'on'. It's still a bad design but at least it's not an immanent threat to life.
"
"That's a…" Alan frowns. "That's a lot of Nth metal to make a building float. Carter always told me that he didn't have much of the stuff."
"Critical resource availability is a classified topic."
Alan raises his left eyebrow at her. "Can't be that critical if you're using it to make a
building."
"
Critical-."
"Okay." He raises his right hand, smiling. "Okay. Forget I asked."
Oliver is sitting on the edge of Alan's construct, left leg dangling over the edge. He carefully studies the city, and-. And the
several other
buildings which have 'JSI' inscribed on their frontier.
He does not look happy.
Then he looks up towards Interceptor. "So, you think I'm a cosplayer, huh?"
"No."
He gives her a moment to expand on that, and is disappointed.
"What, the J
SI doesn't do public relations training?"
"Either you're telling the truth, in which case you're not a member of the public, or you're lying, in which case you're a criminal. In
either case you're wasting my time."
Oliver nods, and I already know that he's going to-.
"So what's he like?"
"I've never met him. As I understand it, he's a well-regarded hero in Star City."
"He's a member of the JSI?"
"All superheroes worth mentioning are members of the JSI."
"Huh."
Interceptor glances down when he doesn't have a follow up, but it's Dinah who speaks up.
"Am I a member?"
"Are you Dinah Drake?"
"That was my mother."
Oliver looks away for a moment with a smirk. I…
Seem to remember from the comics that he actually mistook her for her mother when he was first starting out. And that he'd had a crush on her mother. For obvious reasons I've never
asked…
"Who was your father?"
"Larry Lance."
"Oh."
Dinah narrows her eyes slightly, more in curiosity than hostility. "What do you mean, 'oh'?"
"In our universe she was only married to him for a few years. She had an affair with Starman and they both left their spouses. It was a big scandal at the time. They were both discharged from the Society. I think they had a daughter, but her name wasn't 'Dinah'."
Dinah takes a moment to process that, while I-.
A statue. Dominator, a couple of khundians, facing people I assume are local superheroes. A list of-. That's a
long list of names.
"Why is there a statue of a Dominator down there?
"
"You know of them?"
"I destroyed one of their prisons. They're a distant fourth on my priority list.
"
"'
Distant'-?" Interceptor
scowls. "
The Dominators attacked Earth and made off with tens of thousands of humans as slaves! That memorial commemorates everyone who died fighting them and everyone they stole! Who are you prioritising above
them?!"
"The Reach, Apokolips, then the Spider Guild. Our Dominators are pretty unpleasant, but they aren't expansionist. The Reach are, and they subvert, enslave and then exterminate their neighbours. Apokolips is working on a plan to mind control the entire universe. And the Spider Guilders eat people.
"
"The Dominion vivisect people."
"But not many, and not particularly fast. I did say they were
fourth.
"
Alan looks at-. Yeah, okay. We make eye contact and I give him the nod to take over.
"Interceptor, how were they able to do that?"
"They had a space fleet and a huge number of soldiers. We couldn't hit their ships, and we couldn't fire nukes at our own cities. That's why the JSI has put so much effort into building up our forces: to make sure that no one invades the Earth again."
"How long ago was that?"
"About fifteen years."
Hm. Reminds me a little of what Abra said that the Reach ended up doing: grabbing as many people with superpowers as possible and setting up a colony. But while the Reach do sometimes sustain useful slave populations for a time, the Dominators generally don't bother. They have tributary worlds but they generally don't do much with them, having long since learned everything that studying them could teach them.
Of course… I do know where the Dominion
is. There aren't
that many worlds that the humans they abducted might have been taken to.
"I assume that the force they used was almost entirely Khundian? None of their own military?
"
"Yes, that's.. right. Why?"
"I'll need access to your historical-
"
A
green streak flies towards us from the JSI building, the pale green flickering flame aura making it pretty clear who it is.
Commander Scott
comes to a halt just ahead of us, floating in the air and
staring at us in that way Batman does when he's waiting for you to make a problem for him. He's wearing what looks like a silver spacesuit, minus the helmet. Interceptor comes to attention in the air at once, while the rest of us just stare back.
Alan
floats closer and I mentally compare the two. The Commander has less hair, and he looks a lot more fierce. More hostile. Might be situational, of course.
"
Hey."
The Commander looks at him for a moment longer, then nods to Interceptor.
"He's me. All of you, come with me for debriefing."
