The man himself isn't on Earth at the moment, and apparently the only one who spends any time there outside of Family Day is Thaddeus Senior himself. So the others left the security in his hands. And if I want to have an actual private conversation… Somewhere that emphasises what I'm saying, there isn't anywhere better than his home away from home.
About to ask him for something he's not likely to want to give or help with without a very clear demonstration of why he should?
"Did he update the program to recognise me?"
She nods. "I'm sure he has. He's usually very good about that sort of thing."
Probably as a 'monitor, restrain only if able' status, since unless he's put the time in devising countermeasures - which he probably has - there's not much you can do to a Lantern on a mission.
Behind me, one of the Darkstars starts to look concerned.
Not Jade though. She started looking concerned when I mentioned the name 'Sivana'.
See, she's the smartest one here, because she would know the name and the reputation behind it..
"Well, it'll be a teaching moment if he hasn't. Thank you for your help."
"We both owe you a great deal for bringing us back together. He's changed so much, it's-. Really, ask us anything."
Though if I remember correctly, Magnificus still has the
monkey demon on his back, right? Unless that got sorted out off-screen during the Sheeda thing... Hopefully he's doing well.
Behind me, Jade's expression doesn't change but she isn't quite able to prevent herself shifting her weight slightly to her right foot.
"Goodbye, Professor."
And it's not because a fabulously pretty woman is talking seemingly-flirtatiously with OL. Which other
might take it to be...
I end the call and generate a zeta tube construct before turning to the Darkstar team. "Now-."
Jade raises her eyebrows. "'Sivana'."
Ah,
that's how they're getting to Earth, eh? And I assume Sivana's got a suitable receiving relay at his end that isn't under League control, so there'll be no record of their arrival to give batman a clue.
"I've been to Thaddeus Sivana's places of work before. The automated defences are really just there to keep out casual thieves."
There's a moment of hesitation, and then the Darkstars raise their masers and form up for a breach.
Good response. Especially when the facility is on Venus, so any 'casual thieves' would be operating at interplanetary levels anyway.
"Paul, Doctor Sivana might have put you on the guest list, but the rest of us aren't on it. The League of Shadows used to have a rule that if we saw any sign that he was around we were to abandon the mission."
"He's mellowed out a lot."
Exterminating a bunch of Sheeda probably helped with some stress relief.
"Illustres?" A Darkstar with skin of blue crystal glances at me. "How dangerous is this human? I thought that your species were only just entering the space age."
"I'm not totally sure that he couldn't -if he put his mind to it- build a weapon capable of unmaking all of reality. His younger son lives on Maltus and is outperforming the q'ardajin at scientific comprehension and weapon crafting. I've taken my eyes off his younger daughter and that may have been a mistake. He kidnapped a version of himself from a parallel universe to act as his guidance counsellor."
...And people wonder
why stories of Earth sound like someone talking up their species?
"You didn't read the human file?" A red-scaled Darkstar with an unusually flat head looks at his colleague in surprise. "My last Senior Agent had us all read it. Just in case, he said."
"I thought it was a joke."
Nooo... Oh, no, my sapphire friend, it is anything
but.
"It's not a joke." / "It wasn't a joke."
I smile at Jade, who avoids meeting my eyes as she dons her helmet and engages her cloak. "On three."
I can just imagine the subtle difference in their tone of voice, too. OL slightly amused, Jade deadly serious.
The others signal affirmative, and don their own helmets. After a three count I feel the zeta radiation discharge as it conveys them across the universe. I count off the seconds until they arrive at the destination-
And consider why zeta gates aren't a common form of interstellar travel.
Probably something to do with the slightly unstable nature of them, and the impression that your molecules are getting scrambled as you're beamed insane distances...
-before closing the construct down and
stepping out, homing in on the thin residue of Sivana-themed desires around Venus from their earlier trips there by spacecraft, the actual facility having long since been warded by things that I don't want to test. And then
So glad he's improved his greediport technique that far.
it's back into the material universe and down through the clouds and towards the facility's main hangar. It's… Pretty, dropping through the raging death storm that's Venus's upper atmosphere and then it fades away as you get underneath it and you get a clear view of the layout of the whole place.
Not that the surface is
much less windy or stormy at times. But I suppose being wrapped in a nigh-impenetrable forcefield gives it a different perspective.
Pretty good way to hide the place, actually. Not a lot of sensors are going to detect much of anything through the storm. Even a shielded probe would probably be destroyed by it. You'd need a special hostile environment probe, and there's nothing on show from space that would make you think there's anything here to see.
Or a Power Ring, but even that can be fooled, as shown by the scry-warding.
I fly into the outer part of the hangar and signal the base computer. And… Two mechanical arms unfold from the walls, some sort of glowing scanning field appearing between them. It passes over me and the arms retract back into their vestibules. Then a-.
A small exterior panel slides down to reveal a hand scanner.
Good, it's not shooting on sight. So he's at least
kind of welcome.
Alright. I doff my right gauntlet and press it to the scanner. Line up, line down, someone was in a retro mood when they made this. Green flash-. And an environmental shield deploys around the hangar exterior, a wave of force pushing the accumulated dust outwards. Only then does the exterior door open, retreating into the floor and roof.
Easier to keep the shield off when not in use, to minimise maintenance needs.
Can't hear any shooting, so I'll take that as a good sign.
I fly.. slowly enough that the computer systems shouldn't mistake me for a missile or William, but faster than usual because it's been a couple of minutes and Dr. Sivana isn't a predictable man. A few Sivanadroids are still active, but everything else seems to be in standby mode as I'd expected. The zeta tube aperture should be-.
So by and large, he's not wandering about too much, if he's here.
And that was a maser shot!
I pick up speed, grabbing a passing Sivanadroid with a construct as I shoot around the corners.
And I can't but picture a big clamp grabbing it by the neck, gently-ish.
"Sivanadroid."
"Ready for-."
"Update guest list. Include Darkstar squad."
And uploading physical data on each member as he says it, of course? After all, without that, would they recognise a Darkstar given one hasn't been to Earth before?
"Command prompt rec-."
"Sivanadroid, dismissed."
No time to waste, after all.
I set it down just before the final corner, hoping that's enough to-.
BOOM!
...Oh, goddammit, it's either an Apokaliptian strike team or...
What?
Anarky dives across the kitchen, throwing some sort of-.
The Illumi-nutty. Don't tell me, they got in with Sivana and he's letting them use his facility as an off-world base?
Thing I destroy with a point defence construct just as he reaches the boom tube aperture, vanishing from sight as the tube collapses.
Jade materialises a second later, jabbing a stun baton through the space the aperture was occupying a moment before. "Damn it." Her eyes lock onto me. "That was Anarky."
At least
someone's been keeping up with OL's files.
"Lonnie Machin, yes. I had.. no idea he was here. Did you see-?"
"A man in a blue trench coat and the Sane Hatter?" The other members of her squad walk out of a nearby corridor, and the flat-headed lizard shakes their head. "Yes, and they escaped too."
I can't help but smile. "Welcome to Earth."
...Okay, maybe
not working with Sivana. Or at least friendly enough to have access to his worksite but wary enough to run away when strangers show up unannounced...
Hopefully the home guard are willing to prioritise capture over disintegration.
