With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

6th February 2013
14:47 GMT -5

"…got Deathstorm to neutralise the radiation before we started building..."

They don't know who that is, of course. They might have an equivalent on their Earth, but they'd probably have a more uplifting name. Lifestorm? Lovestorm? Infiltrating their world once the current crisis is over would be easier if we could work out what our alter egos names are before saying something stupid.

"…acquired the land for a fraction of its pre-war value…"

Jonathan hasn't asked about kryptonite yet. Deathstorm can make that as well, but he charges a lot for his time. Jonathan won't be able to afford it once his current supply runs out. I'll provide it, subject to health checks. It'll be a good way to encourage him to depend on me.

"…without having to deal with a pre-existing population…"

My current injection will wear out in half an hour or so, and I'd like to be done with this tour by then. It's a good setup they have: two people who are strong all the time and one who can be stronger than the rest for short bursts. It needs trust to work.

Why couldn't I have ended up on that Earth?

Oh, there's probably some… They said that Kal's equivalent is called Superman. So, Superwoman, over there. If she's some sort of backwards me, would that make her a crime fighting iconoclast, uncaring of the societal damage she causes as she fights to do what's right?

"…disparate backgrounds, which means that it's a little hard to know where to start."

It doesn't matter.

Wait, I'm doing a villain thing, aren't I? I should just ask them.

"Hey, I was wondering." I give them a smile they shouldn’t trust. And while I haven't used it enough to be completely sure what that pattern of activity in their brains means, I'm fairly confident that they don’t. But it doesn't matter. The parts of the brain that like smiles are still activated. "Is there an Ultrawoman on your old Earth?"

Jonathan nods-. Then he stops. "Kind of? We've got a few Supergirls. I don't know which of them is our you."

"Super… Girl?"

There are distinct advantages in being seen as younger. Less threatening. And on an Earth where you don't need to convince people that you're dangerous in order to get through the day, the downside of that approach is less of a big deal.

"I think she's a teenager?"

He's lying. His responses are a little off… Not in the way that Kal's were, that worthless kryptonite junkie-. But a direct lie is obvious with senses this acute. So does he know that she's a teenager, or know that she's not a teenager, or actually know her..?

I don't need to know that, specifically. But it would be useful to learn anything that would encourage them to stick with the program.

So, keep smiling. "Do you know her? There can't be that many kryptonians on your side of the portal? I'm the only one here."

"There's no 'Ultraman' here?"

I nudge him with my elbow. "Are you hitting on me?"

I can see the blood vessels in his face dilate in embarrassment. Oh, he's going to be easy to work with. Though obviously mating with him is completely out of the question. If this whole project works I'll 'allow' Joe to persuade me. And if it doesn't then I'll head through the portal and take my chances.

"N-no-. I just… There was another-" In the corner of my eye I spot Annabelle shoot him a warning look, but he's too distracted to notice. "-group who called themselves the Young Offenders. They attacked Metropolis a couple of years ago, it was on the news."

But that's not how you know about it.

"They worked for a group called The Syndicate, and their boss was called Ultraman."

I nod in understanding. "We used to have an Ultraman, but he's dead now."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don’t be." He frowns. "He didn't share my outlook. He got to the top by being the strongest, but he didn't have any kind of plan and he didn't make any friends. Power Ring killed him a little while ago, and the CSA is better off without him."

And I didn’t grit my teeth once saying that. My parents designed me well.

"Now, obviously we don't expect you to actually work in a factory or in a farm. Your job would be to monitor everything -especially the other members of staff- and either deal with any problems or report them to me. And I know what that sounded like, but when I say 'deal with' I don't just mean 'kill everyone'."

"Yeah, but if we did…" Carver tilts his head so the left a little. "That would be okay, wouldn’t it?"

"Well, there's no real 'law enforcement' here, not in the way that you're used to. But we're doing this on the assumption that you'll be able to handle things without killing everyone who gets on your bad side. So you can, but you should only do that if you really need to."

"So…" He thinks for a moment. "Okay. We're building up a town, and you're sending us whoever you can get from our Earth. Why is a Crime Syndicate doing that? Is it really worth it as a long term investment?"

"In a word, yes. We have to take the long view. Nothing's going to get fixed unless we fix it, and this is the best way for us to start." I shrug in mock helplessness. "If you asked the members of the CSA, almost all of them would say that a well-ordered civilisation would be better than what we live in now. And then virtually all of them would carry on doing the same things that everyone else does, because saying 'don't care, got mine' involves less risk. This plan wouldn't be viable if the head of the CSA wasn't sponsoring it."

Jonathan twitches. "So what are you going to do about the rest?"

"Show them the way they benefit from not being idiots. And if they don't get with the program, kill them."

"And what about the rest of the people on your Earth?"

"That depends on the outcome of this experiment. If they can be trained to be decent people, we'll reform them. If they can't, we've got people working on a viral agent that will be able to replace the parts of their DNA that makes them incapable of moral reasoning with whatever it is that humans from your Earth have."

Hm. Okay. There isn't really anything else I can do to convince them to work with us. I think now's the time to back off. Let them talk amongst themselves and decide what they're going to do. And monitor it, just in case we need to use magic to nudge their decision-making a little.

Telepathy is too easy for a trained subject to detect. And it would be better if it's not necessary.

"Okay, I know this has been a lot to take in. So I'm going to leave you here to process the whole thing, and we'll meet up at… Oh nine hundred tomorrow morning, local time? If you need me, ask any of the guards and they'll have my priority line."

Annabelle nods. "Right. Thanks. Yeah-. I think it would be good if we could… Talk about things… Between us."

"I'll leave you to it. Oh, ah, you can go where you like? But the defence zone only goes so far. After that… You'll have to deal with the people of this Earth."

I meet each of their eyes to make sure they understand the seriousness of what I'm saying. They'd probably be alright, but I suspect that the experience would be unhelpfully traumatising.

"Ultrawoman here. One to beam up."

 

6th February 2013
15:23 GMT -5

I drop down from the ceiling panel I shoved aside, landing lightly on the floor. "If there're any bugs here, I'd need more equipment to find them."

Artemis shakes her head. "She's kryptonian. She can probably just listen to us from miles away."

Match looks around, his eyes unfocusing-. Really?

"If she is, I can't see her."

Artemis crosses her arms. "Superman already tried that one on Ollie."

Match does a guilty smile. "I think getting away from the Anti-Life got me my sense of humour back."

I nod, and so does Artemis. Despite everything, I actually feel better about being here than I did about being in Gotham. I mean, their history is… Really bad-. And their present isn't all that much better. Or any better. But I smiled when Match did that.

It feels good.

"Yeah." Artemis glances at me. "Do you think she's right? Like, would it be better if we started moving people here? Everyone…" She looks back down the corridor, towards the greenhouses where the first batch of refugees are tending the first crop of seedlings. "Everyone who's working here seems to prefer it."

I nod. "Same here. Everyone said that they were treated fine, and that they'd rather stay here than go back."

Match nods. "I'm pretty sure she was telling the truth. The only thing… I think she's dying."

Artemis frowns. "Why?"

"I tried not to show it, but she's giving off kryptonite radiation. It… Really… Itches."

Hm. "That's not a lot. It doesn't take much kryptonite to put Superman down. If you're still walking around…"

"We've all been taking lessons in kryptonian martial arts. And I'm… When I was still… Berserk… I could disassociate, from it. Like it was happening to someone else while I just… Watched. I think I… I can deal with actual pain better than the others."

"But she was flying around, and she busted through that hut's ceiling. Green kryptonite doesn't completely turn off kryptonian powers, but…"

Match shakes his head. "I don’t know. If she's got enough inside her body that I can feel it from outside, she shouldn't be able to do that."

I shrug. "Maybe kryptonians here aren't the same as our kryptonians. She already said their history was different."

"What, like they're powered by kryptonite?"

"Worked for The Kryptonite Man. Kryptonian organelles from our Earth need sunlight and get damaged by kryptonite. Maybe here it works differently?"

Artemis snorts. "At least you know if she offers you a syringe, she's just trying to help. But we still need to decide what we're going to do."

I shrug. "Nothing? This place is objectively better with their Syndicate looking after them than they are on our Earth. And we don't know when we might be able to get rid of the Anti-Life permanently."

She doesn't look sure. "Will they let them come back when we do?"

"Would they want to? We're-. This isn't like the Sheeda. We're going to be rebuilding for years. And so many people have died…" I take a moment. "Match, how many people could live and work here?"

He looks around, his eyes a little lower.

"A few thousand?"

I nod. For a proof-of-concept… "I don’t think we'll have trouble finding a few thousand people who'd want to move here."

"So…" She shifts awkwardly. "We find them and bring them to the portal, instead of Mistress just grabbing whoever?"

"WayneCorp has a list of people with specialised skills. We can get them exactly who they want."

"But what she wants is us."

Match shakes his head. "She wants people who are strong and tough. She doesn't even know that you're both superheroes."

I nod. "And the Justice League is using villains from Belle Reve. But are they really the people we should send to Evil-Earth?"

She shrugs. "What about the Terrors? Or Captain Cold?"

"That's… Kind of a hard test of how 'reformed' they are. I… Guess we could send… Arsenal, over to keep them in line..?"

Artemis knows Roy better than I do. With the whole… Being replaced thing, it still kinda feels weird talking to him. He's closer to Beryl and New Kara rather than Kaldur or… Me. But he probably has the most trouble with the Anti-Life out of all of us. Getting him off Earth, doing something that's useful, would be better for him than keeping him with us.

Match frowns. "Okay, and you think Ultrawoman's going to be okay with us just telling her this?"

I smirk at him. "Unless you want to fly us back to the portal."

"I don't actually know where it is. I mean, I could carry you around while I search the whole world, but that could take a while and they'd know where we were heading."

One other thing…

"But what do we do about feeding Gotham?"

Artemis shrugs. "Tell them it's our arrangement fee or something. They're only shipping cheap stuff anyway. I don't think Ultrawoman's gunna complain as long as her project works out. We might be able to talk her into letting us use her portal generator to move things around on our side, too."

Mitchell nods. "Okay, but what about Mistress?"

Another shrug. "What about her? We're gunna need to deal with the city bosses eventually. She's better than a lot of people, but she's still the leader of a bunch of Justified."

"Are we..?" He looks around. "Are we sure we can't fix her? I mean, the Justified would have gone with someone, and she isn't doing anything evil."

"I dunno." I shrug. "I dunno. We haven't ever returned a city boss before. It might be something we can do, but there's such a lot of them, and… We don't have the resources we'd need to prevent the Anti-Life just… Picking someone else."

Match frowns. "Don't… Depressed people handle Anti-Life exposure better than regular people? And they've… Gotta have some superheroes, even if they're not all that good at it."

Yes. "So we just take their problem cases off their hands and use their manpower to hold onto Gotham!"

Artemis holds up a hand. "If she goes for it. Supervillain bosses don't usually take it well when someone disrupts their brilliant plans. Can we..? Do we have access to the files they've made on their enemies?"

Match smiles. "Or Lex Luthor's phone number."

I start typing on-. "Ah, actually, yes."

Artemis comes a little closer. "Okay, so who looks-?"

"No, I mean, we've got Lex Luthor's phone number. Ah. It looks like Ultraman liked to warn him whenever he did anything, because… Well, according to Ultrawoman's notes, he did it because he enjoyed watching Lex suffer from his failure to protect people."

"Is it current?"

I pick up a phone. "One way to find out."

 

6th February 2013
15:28 GMT -5

Someone picks up, then there's silence. Okay then.

"This is the-."

"The industrial complex that Power Ring has had built in the Yellowstone Nuclear Exclusion Zone. Do you need help escaping?"

It's weird. It's definitely Luthor, but without the calm confidence that our Luthor almost always affects. That's aside from the way he just offered to do something for us without any real idea who we are.

"No. The opposite, actually. You know that the Syndicate is taking people from a parallel Earth?"

"I knew they were taking them from somewhere. Please, I have a lot of people who need my help. Just relay the particulars of your situation."

"Okay, so they come from a parallel Earth where almost everyone is suicidally depressed as a results of something called the Anti-Life. When they're brought here, the effect ends. Ultrawoman and Power Ring want to use people from my parallel to create a population who aren't as violent as local humans, so they can build a stable society for them to rule over. All of the people who come over are happy about it because they're not suicidally depressed anymore. I came here because I'm part of a superhero team on the other side. We're trying to fix the whole Anti-Life situation, but having somewhere to put the people we can't help yet would be really useful. On the other hand, a group calling themselves the Crime Syndicate of Amerika don't exactly instill confidence."

"Hptch. And you want my advice?"

"Actually, we want your help. You're clearly a good guy. If you came over to our side of the portal you could be a big help, and we can send… Ah, some people back through-."

"Your supervillains."

"Kinda. I was thinking a couple of superheroes, with a few people who are being rehabilitated. Honestly, I think seeing a world where everyone's a villain might be the last thing they need in order to get why evil is wrong."

He's quiet for a moment, and then I think I hear a quiet snort.

"As ever, the devil and the deep blue sea."

"But I've only been speaking to Ultrawoman for a few hours and she called herself evil."

"That's a disappointing statement on her part. I had hoped that her treatment by Ultraman might result in… But I was being foolish again. My honest advice is that you should avoid entangling yourself with the CSA. While Ultrawoman does seem to be… Somewhat more honest in her dealings than other members, she's still a ruthless and highly skilled manipulator. There's a good chance that there's some other game going on that you know nothing about. As for.. agreeing to fight on an alternate Earth, I would want an extremely reliable way to confirm any of this before I agree to anything."

"That's fair. But the Anti-Life is… Basically destroying our world. Even if there is something she's not telling us… I don't think we can afford to turn this down."

"That sounds like a good way to negotiate an extremely poor deal. Do you have any threats to hold over her head?"

"The Anti-Life will end up spreading here. And we could probably shut the portals down and prevent them from reopening. But there's nothing to stop them opening new ones to some other Earth, and the people who are here already would get stuck here."

"What sort of timetable are you on?"

"We've got maybe a day before the guy who's the centre of the Anti-Life broadcast system gets to the city on our side of the portal. If he notices it, he's almost guaranteed to investigate."

"What is the chance of him not becoming aware of it?"

"I don’t know. Not good."

I hear him sigh.

"When will you explain things to Ultrawoman?"

"After I get off the phone with you."

"That's unnecessary. I can hear you perfectly well like this."

…

"Hey… Ultrawoman."

Artemis's eyes widen slightly. Match looks upwards, probably searching for her through the building's walls.

"Kara."

"I take it 'Carver Malone' isn't your real name?"

"Sure it is. But you can call me Robin."

"And the other two?"

"Artemis and Match."

"Kara, the boy's offer-."

"Is actually pretty good for us. Harder to convince the rest of the CSA to not interfere, and I'm honestly not sure that reformed criminals would be more effective than your civilized supervillains. I assume that I get to see who you've got available before the exchange takes place?"

"Ah, sure? Subject to availability? What d'you mean by 'civilized' supervillains?"

"People who understand the value of loyalty. Or just their own word. We don’t need more savages."

"What are you doing, Kara?"

"Exactly what you want, Alexander. I'm civilizing our Earth in a way it's never been civilized before. I'm going to improve people's lives in a way that you've never managed."

"It's not a contest."

"You didn't sound enthusiastic about going on holiday, Alexander. Surely you'd want to help out on a world even worse than this one?"

"As you may remember, I did that once."

"Did you know that Ultraman destroyed that planet without knowing that you were the one defending it?"

"No. I didn't."

"Alexander, you're being offered the chance to visit a planet with a superheroic majority, where you'll find people who think like you and want the same things as you do. And you being away means that I can carry on bringing stability to our Earth."

"You mean killing everyone who disagrees with you."

"Not all of them. I'll even agree to avoid deliberately killing your friends."

"Because you want them to deal with your enemies in the CSA for you."

"You're the one who didn't want me to kill them."

…

"Contact me when it's time to depart."

There's a added quiet as he hangs up. Just me and Ultrawoman.

"I thought you'd be mad."

"Oh, I'm squeezing my desk stress toy pretty hard right now. But, honestly, the way you behaved just proves my point. You thought through what I said, realised that I was right and came up with a deal. You didn't blow up the whole facility out of spite. I think we can make this work together, Robin."

"Yeah. Here's hoping."