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

15th January
13:42 GMT -8

"Ixy, get in here!"

Through the opening I see to the Freaks Rest, the slightly more middle class leaning part of Aberrance containing housing for the slightly better off locals. Either those gaffs with successful shows or people who have found better paid employment in one of the local businesses. Not necessarily up market businesses, mind; Aberrance is home to a successful chain of oddity brothels run by a pair of conjoined twins. The Flosse family live there and my assistants were supposed to be making contact with Richard's group. With luck they were able to catch them either before the performances started or between showings. Either way, I hope they've already had time to link up because I need to know if there's something else going on.

Ixy scampers through the Tube and stares straight at me. She looks agitated. **Grayven, something bad is happening to the Un-Men. It seems that they are attempting to sabotage-.** She freezes as something behind me-.

No! Stop! Additional clamps form around Tigira's wrists as I yank her claws away from her eyes. Ahh shit.

"Zhis is madness! I don't know who you are, but-!"

"Have you forgotten that quickly?" / "Have you forgotten that quickly?" / "Have you forgotten that quickly?" / "Have you forgotten that quickly?"

And this is why I don't like telepathy. Their voices aren't quite synchronised but that -and Tigira's bloody face just make it more disturbing. Ring, access all files relating to the structure of Tigira's eyes and heal.

By your command.

**Ixy, if the control mechanism is telepathic I need you to block it. Can you do that for me?** **You will succeed.**

**I don't know. I… Usually we would do this with G-Gnomes.**

**Do your best.** "Doctor, I need to bring in outsiders. Do I have your-?"

He turns back to me. "Yes. Do it. And when my children are free-" He turns back to whatever's possessing The Face. "-I will take your reason from your still living brain!"

"Better than you have-." Ixy's horns glow. "G-ghuhgh." He starts to froth at the mouth, glaring at Ixy with insane fury.

**I can't keep him out! All I can do is hold him off a little! It is like he is already inside Mister The Face's brain!**

Ring, transfer the Hush Tube terminus to Genomorph City.

By your command.

The portal shifts and for a fraction of a second I see a flash of something incomprehensible in Ixy's mind. I'll assume that was her accessing the Genomorph Entire.

"Grayven." I wince slightly as Kaldur's voice comes from my earpiece. "The third generation Un-Men are on the rampage. We are trying to stop them but they are -ugg- quite able fighters."

Ring, interface.

By your command.

I know. I've got Ixy and-

Four G-Elves run through the portal carrying a G-Gnome each. They set them down in front of each controlled Un-Man and the horns of the smaller G-Gnomes start to glow. Niko, Tigira and the Ape bloke shudder.

-some G-Gnomes trying to block whatever's controlling them. If you can spare Zatanna..?

"Yes, if you can send in some of your drones."

Ring, access Hush Tube two and send drone squadron-. Most of my drones have only high-lethality weapons. Ahh, drone squadron four. They'll feel the shock discs in the morning but it's better than being exploded by a plasma beam or putrefied by a Purple Death Ray.

By your command.

It's done, Kaldur. They'll be with you in a moment. You can issue voice commands on channel three.

"Thank you. M'gann, contact Zatanna."

Cranius appears to have been distracted by the portal to Genomorph City. He takes a step towards it before one of the G-Elves interposes itself. He stops and looks over the G-Elf instead. "Remarkable."

The flare of golden light heralding Zatanna's arrival triggers another frightened whinny from the horse but we've got more important things to worry about. Zatanna's already at full glow, tiny triquetra dancing around her fingers.

"Zatanna, someone or something is connecting to the third generation Un-Men-."

"Ytitcnas fo dnim!"

The tiny golden motes fly from her hands and connect to the foreheads of Niko, Tigira and… This is getting silly. Ring, what's his name? Oswald? Really? Fine. There's a flash of gold from their eyes and mouths as the foreign presence is banished. Must be a relatively weak spell if that was all it took. That's the thing, the reason why every team needs a magic user and a telepath: it's too easy for an enemy to score a Total Party Kill if they have an attack you have no way to counter. Zatanna quickly checks each Un-Man then nods at me to release them. Just The Face left to go.

**Grayven, I think we can…** Ixy takes a few shuffling steps towards The Face. **With five of us working together we can try to feel where else the pattern of thoughts which feel like the attacker are.**

**Oh, I have a better idea.** Otto leans down and Cranius touches his forefinger to Ixy's neck. **Show me what you are doing, child.**

"Zatanna, try to keep the connection open."

The Face's right hand is spasming harder now as the G-Gnomes creep towards him, horns still glowing.

"Er'uoy gniog erehwon."

I drop my construct around The Face as a large triquetra forms underneath him, threads of golden light flowing up his limbs to tie him down.

"Grayven, report."

Zatanna's freed three of the possessed Un-Men here and she, Ixy and Cranius are working to trace the attacker.

Niko stumbles slightly and I reach out with my right arm to steady her, earning me a small smile.

"Okay." Ah, it sounds like M'gann joined in the defence effort. "But what are you doing?"

My eyes fall to the ring. Um.

I'm holding together a dead Un-Man. Give me a moment.

They were able to restore Arcane to sort-of life, right? Maybe they can do something for poor old Tomas. Ring, make physical repairs. Orange light flashes along the cuts, sealing them. I gently lay the body down on the experimental slab. At least he'll feel at home if he wakes.

Okay, I'm free. Where do you want me?

"They're trying to set fire to a theater tent near the hotels."

Ring, summon a Hush Tube.

 

15th January
13:47 GMT -8

The Metamorphodrome. Future site of the filming of American Freak, the Un-Men's chosen route to wider acceptance of their techniques from an audience in search of something a little more visceral than Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Is that even still on? Toddson… Oh, he was the mind behind 'Models on Fire'. I'm not sure what that series involves and I actually don't want to find out.

The building itself is a huge structure with a decorative red and yellow big top style canvas covering. The entrance way is marked by two thirty-metre tall scaffold towers between which is supported a sign with 'Metamorphodrome' painted proudly on it. A little lower down is a twenty six metre tall split painting of Cranius in full Doctor von Schadel dress. Attached about a third of the way up from ground level is another sign, this one bearing the legend 'DR VON SCHADEL THEATER OF OPERATION'. It's a short distance from the main tourist areas but still in good real estate.

And whoever is controlling the third generation Un-Men appears to have taken particular exception to it. The big top style decorative canvas is already on fire. Given the nature of some of the biotech work done here it isn't too surprising that Uncorp security are well equipped with flamethrowers, though I am surprised that they were able to put them to use so quickly. An Un-Man with what appears to be a floating brain sticking out of his arse is making a tour, firing spurts of flames upwards until the flame resistant canvas finally catches light.

At least he's not self harming. Suppress flame. Weak orange light plays over the canvas and his weapon, causing the fires to gutter and go out. He looks around to find the source of the extingui… Extinguishing? Extinguation? I need to spend less time around Richard. My follow up squirts a knock out gas into his mouth and nose. Not quite sure about the dose for-. No, that worked. I lower myself to near ground level and I attach manacles to his arms and legs. Not quite sure what to do about the floating brain thing but since it doesn't appear to have any offensive potential I think I'll leave it. The flamethrower goes into subspace.

**While I'm here, any chance of an update?**

I transition into the film studio. The head of Aberrance's SWAT unit -an Un-Man with eyes in a band around his head who these days goes by the self explanatory name of Panoptes- and an Un-Man with prehensile tentacles replacing his right arm are setting explosives on one of the interior walls. Does that means that their controller keeps their skills intact while puppeting them? That does suggest that their minds may be recoverable, which should make Cranius happier.

**We caught up with Bertoldt Flosse at his show. He said a bunch of stuff about Uncorporation, but he couldn't think of anyone who'd work with Kobra.**

Think I can trust Richard to have been thorough in his questioning, though given Mister Flosse's psychological profile it was a long shot that he'd have been involved. Panoptes spots me and brings a submachine gun to bear while his colleague starts pressing buttons on the detonator. A solid orange beam hits the explosives and shifts them to subspace while I ignore the bullets which patter uselessly off my armour and face. Yank and gas, then manacles.

**Mister Inkabod made a great show of knowing more than he was willing to divulge. But his interests seemed limited to opposing Uncorporation activities within Aberrance. An attack on a city on the other side of the country would be of little immediate benefit to him, and he is in no position to gain access to the Uncorporation's laboratories.**

Nothing from either of them? I'm running out of suspects. Ring, any further targets?

Explosive devices detected. Marking.

Three other walls. Together they may have been enough to bring down the whole structure. Transition, subspace, transition, subspace, transition, subspace. Good job it isn't Richard or Artemis trying to do this.

**Metamorphodrome clear. Where do you need me?**

**Archer, lotta heat coming your way.**

**I see them.** Tao breaks off for a moment. **I am on top of the Uncorporation building. I believe that I can hold here, though their medical facilities will be hard pressed later.**

**I've got panicking tourists by the main entrance. I'm trying to calm them down telepathically, but it's not-.**

Transition.

The crowd is pushing and shoving in an attempt to reach the already clogged turnstiles.

"Listen to me! If you don't-" **-calm down now-** "-all you are going to do is injure yourselves!"

Looks a bit like that scene in Resident Evil 2, right before the security people shoot everyone trying to get out of Raccoon City. M'gann's floating directly over the exit while the panicky animals beneath us trample one another to get away from… Ring? No, no Un-Men in the immediate vicinity. If this really only affects third generation Un-Men the Insectoids should be safe…

**Archer, be aware that Un-Men inside the building may try to release the Insectoids. If that happens-.**

M'gann looks at me, her eyes glowing. **I've already sent Superboy and Match in via Hush Tube to guard the vault. Can you do anything about this crowd?**

Ripping out the turnstiles and part of the fence would probably deal with the crush issue.



But these people are being such morons.

**Why don't you just put a little more power into your persuasion?** Her eyes dim as she gives me a look of frustration. **I can't-** Easily or confidently. **-stop them crushing each other. You can do the job far better.**

She considers for a moment, then tilts her head slightly downwards. She closes her eyes for a moment and then opens them again, blazing white.

**Calm down at once!**

The noise of the crowd below us drops to near nothing, aside from the whimpering of someone underneath their feet and the droning of the Damien Kane animatronic. I lower myself towards the now calm but somewhat confused mass and extend an orange cord down to them. Expand an environmental shield around them and gently lift them up. A teenaged boy, cuts and bruises and torn clothing and more than a few broken bones in his right hand where someone stamped on it. The lesson will be more effective if I heal him up while they watch. There we go. A gap opens in the crowd as I deposit him with a group who appear to be his friends.

"The situation is under control." M'gann looks relieved that that worked. "Please, leave the park in an orderly manner."

Thanks to a combination of her mind control and my demonstration of the results of their thoughtlessness, her suggestion is heeded. Things progress a little more quickly once I detach the barrier parts of the turnstiles.

**Aqualad to Miss Martian. How are things at the gate?**

**The evacuation is going smoothly.**

I tighten the left corner of my mouth. **The panicking sheep are fleeing in a more orderly fashion. Were the Un-Men actually going after tourists?**

I'm not good at getting feedback from telepathy. Kon tells me that he can get flashes of what M'gann's thinking when she communicates with him, sometimes even an idea of where she is in relation to him. I just get words. There might be some sort of tonal conversation going on in our shared headspace right now but if there is I'm not getting any of it.

**They were not.** I'm fairly sure that if Kaldur were physically present I'd be getting a glower for referring to civilians as sheep. Hooray for telepathic insensitivity!

**They did go after that Janus guy, though.** I wait for a moment to see if Wallace has any further explanation to offer. **Or should that be 'those Janus guys? Him and some security guards tried picking up Mister Flosse when we were talking to him.**

**They're just targeting Uncorporation!** I'm rather fond of Artemis, but I don't think she'll be challenging Batman for the 'World's Greatest Detective' title any time soon.

**Is that..? Err, Rocket to team. We get all the security guys?**

Ring? **Ring says yes, though most Un-Men work in the Uncorporation building itself.**

**Grayven, open a Hush Tube for me.** I do a quick scan for Kaldur's location. **I believe it is time I spoke to Doctor von Schadel myself.**

 

15th January
13:53 GMT -8

I take a moment to do a quick check of the crowds around the exit. No other injuries, though from the slightly confused looks I think M'gann may have slightly overdone the telepathic shout. Unfortunately it's not an area Mister King can help her with; though an expert on sensory manipulation his ability to simply command the minds of others is quite limited. In the back of my mind I'm trying to weigh up the utility of introducing her to Chester. He really is a better match to her abilities but a far worse match to her character. On the other hand, he hasn't gone full 'Superman versus The Elite' arrogant arsehole yet, something I largely attribute to Vera's stabilising influence. With a moderate amount of effort I could probably nudge him into the anti end of the superhero category. How does that impact his usefulness to me? Certainly I don't want him picking a fight with Superman but hatchet men can be exceedingly useful if properly guided.

But a more pressing concern is whatever mind controlled all of the third generation Un-Men. I look around to where M'gann is crouched down comforting a small boy who appears to have been separated from his parents. "Do you have things under control here? I should probably get back to von Schadel." She glances in my direction and nods, her eyes glowing. Then she stands and leads the boy off.. towards.. a worried looking couple. Telepathic parent-child matching. Better than a tannoy announcement I suppose.

Ring, Hush Tube to Cranius.

By your command.

"…coincidence that the only ones affected-" I step through and the tube evaporates behind me. "-were your third generation Un-Men."

Kaldur is standing just inside what would normally be Doctor von Schadel's personal space, a Batman taught technique for applying pressure to reluctant witnesses. Not sure that it would work on a person like Cranius, though he does appear to be slightly perturbed.

"No, I don't zhink it was a coincidence at all."

I look around the rest of the room. The Face is sitting up inside a glowing golden barrier, rubbing his… Cheeks? And.. forehead? Zatanna's slightly turned away so that she can keep an eye both on his and the Cranius/Kaldur situation. Ixy's crouched on the gurney next to Tomas' body, watching the dispute with curiosity with the G-Gnomes on the ground near to her. The G-Elves are guarding the doors and Tigira and Oswald appear to have left. Niko is slightly behind Cranius, loyalty competing with her fear and uncertainty.

Kaldur turns to our other teammates. "Zatanna? Ixy?"

Zatanna shakes her head. "Whoever it was, they cut the connection at their end as soon as I started probing seriously. Their spell was very low power. I'm not.. sure I could trace it."

**Their mind was like lots of bits and all of it hates us. I did not like it.**

Cranius spots me. "Ah, Grayven, my boy! How is the situation outside?"

"Under control, Doctor. Minimal injuries amongst your guests, though I'm afraid that the security force's rampage-."

He frowns. "Zhey were targeting civilians? Zhet is not-."

"No, their attention was solely focused on Uncorporation property."

Kaldur narrows his eyes at Cranius. "If you do not tell me what you know-."

Otto waves his right arm dismissively. "Grayven, can you do somezhing with this one?"

I give him a slightly apologetic smile. "Not really, he's my boss." His eyebrows rise slightly. "Though if it makes you feel better he is augmented. Atlantean. He looks fairly baseline, but if you used an ultrasound scan you'd see considerable differences."

"My nature is hardly relevant-."

"Doctor." Niko puts her hand on Otto's left shoulder in such a way that her fingers touch Cranius'. "His team just stopped someone using our own people to tear Aberrance apart. That would have ruined everything for us."

Cranius looks like for the first time in his life he's tasted the fish heads. "I do not.. know who has done zhis. But I must suspect… My own mental abilities work partially due to zhe structures of my brain and the bio-alchemies which granted me life. Amongst my people such characteristics are very rare. Of Arcane's original creations, only myself and my late sister Ophidian possessed such zhings. And hers were far more limited."

Kaldur stares at him unflinchingly. "Who?"

"'Who' is.. impossible." Otto steps around Kaldur and heads for the far door. Cranius turns around on his shoulder so that he continues to face us. "But I will show you who it cannot be."

I look expectantly at Kaldur. We've had to take down nearly the entirety of Uncorporation's security and I actually don't know what is in this part of the Omega Vault. Things could get awkward for me if he decides to order me to become physically aggressive. I mean, I'd do it and try to find a way to apologise to Cranius later, but it would really be better to let Cranius explain things at his own pace.

After a moment's thought Kaldur follows him. **Grayven, Ixy, come with me. Zatanna, try to create a spell to permanently block the possession we have just witnessed.**

I nod and fall in behind him. Niko comes through the door behind me and hurries for a few steps in order to draw level. A moment later I hear Ixy jump off the gurney and scamper to follow me. I look down at Niko. "Any idea where we're going?"

She keeps looking ahead. "No. I've never been down here."

"Not even for your.. procedure..?"

She shakes her head. "No, there's a surgical suite for the Unvolve process itself in the main part of the building."

"So what's with that..?" I point to the room behind us with my right thumb.

"If a candidate can't take a little theatre they'll never be able to adapt to the way we live." Along the sides of the corridor are some very heavily reinforced doors. Niko notices my interest. "This is where we keep Un-Men who… Who either can't adapt to their alterations or who we can't keep controlled." I try to look through the door immediately to our left and see a grey skinned Un-Man with three heads staring blankly back at me.

"Your recent work hasn't added-?"

"No, we're very careful to avoid Arcane's mistakes. I.. don't know exactly-."

"Zhis one." Cranius has stopped before a large round vault door. He turns a combination lock in the centre of the wheel and I take note of the combination. Just in case. Then he puts Otto to the task of turning the wheel. I idly note that Cranius' need to hold on limits his range of movement.

"Allow me." He pulls his hands off as the wheel glows orange and starts turning in earnest. Once I release the ring's grip he takes hold once more and pulls the door open before ushering Kaldur through. He follows closely behind, followed by myself, Niko and Ixy. Inside… The room is in the same style as the other cells, though a little larger. The only object inside is a large and complex piece of machinery. The main component is a metal sphere about two metres in diameter with a glass viewing window on the front. Numerous pipes and tubes of varying thicknesses connect to the top, sides and back. In front of it is an old looking control panel, a little like an old science fiction computer console. Aside from the path between the control panel and the door the room is quite dusty.

Kaldur is already at the panel and looking up at the viewing portal. The substance inside appears to be a lumpy pale grey mass, something like the hide of a toad. "What.. is it?"

Otto walks around the panel to stand directly next to the window. Cranius glances at the substance inside and then turns his full attention to his audience. "Technically? A cell culture."

"What kind of cell could look like that?"

"Cancerous growths, of course. I did not know Damien Kane well before his death… But I have got to know him very well since." That's… Cranius smiles and Otto raises his left arm to knock on the window.

The flesh inside opens and a giant eye stares out at us.

 

15th January
13:58 GMT -8

I.. did.. not know that was there.

Kaldur looks aghast. "It's alive?!"

"Zhet depends on your definition of-" Kaldur hurdles the control panel and shoves him hard against the machinery. "-alive."

Ring, scan whatever that is.

By your command.

"It's looking at us!"

"It is a purely reflexive reaction! Zhere is no mind. Cancerous tissues can-."

"Ixy, scan.. it. Is it aware of its environment?"

She stares at it for a moment, horns glowing. **I do not know. No Genomorph has ever encountered anything like this before. I do not think… I cannot feel a mind. There are no coherent thoughts, not even like the ones animals have.**

Kaldur slightly loosens his grip on Otto as Cranius smugly smiles up at him. "Zhank you, Ixy. As I was saying, zhe cancerous cell culture within zhe containment sphere does occasionally create complex organ structures. But-" He stares directly at Kaldur. "-zhere is no directing consciousness. If zhere was, it would be too much of a risk." Kaldur's expression hardens. "Oh, ah… And it would be quite wrong to contain it in zhese conditions. Of course."

Kaldur releases him and takes a step back. He's trying not to look at the bloodshot and unblinking eye but his gaze is constantly being drawn back to it. "What is it?"

"Zhe late Damien Kane left his body to medical science, perhaps in zhe hope zhet its study could show us new ways to aid zhe ozher members of zhe second generation. I have no great irrational love for zhe traditional Human form but.. ahh… Unrestricted random mutation is seldom useful to zhe individual."

"This is.. Damien Kane? He is a hero to the people of Aberrance. If they knew what you had done-!"

"Yes, unt zhet is why we do not boast about it." Otto crouches down next to the window. "Unt.. we heff fulfilled his wish. As he wanted, I performed corrective procedures on zhe members of zhe second generation who had.. developmental issues. Not as satisfying as my own creations of course-" He turns back to us, fingers scrabbling at Otto's shoulder. "-but we are family."

Kaldur shakes his head. "What possible purpose does this serve?"

"Damien's body tissues have a most fascinating property. How much do you know of normal Human stem cells?"

"Little."

No, I don't suppose Atlantean military school would have been big on conventional biology. I know quite a bit -deliciously pre-Grayven knowledge- but it isn't polite to interrupt a mad scientist mid-monologue.

Otto stands and starts to slowly pace in a short circuit while Cranius stands on his fingers to keep himself pointed at us. "Zhe Human body is largely comprised of cells, yes? Each one in its place, processing chemicals in its own particular way. Perhaps zhey are liver cells? Or bone cells? Perhaps zhey are heart tissue, pulsing to pump zhe blood around your body." Otto's arms are in full lecture emphasis mode, which is a little off because he isn't correcting for the direction he's pointing in. "But, every naturally born person begins zheir existence as one single cell. How do we get from one cell of one type to many cells of many types?" Otto stops for a moment to give Cranius the chance to stare at us. "Emergent specialisation. As zhe cell divides it begins to exchange some of its plasticity for specialised characteristics. A totipotent cell which can become anyzhing becomes a pluripotent cell which can become most zhings which becomes multipotent cell… And so on. Zhis is why you cannot simply put a skin cell in a Petri dish unt grow a whole person, zhe cell no longer retains the capacity to become anyzhing else."

"What does that have to do with…" Kaldur looks at the eye again.

"Anton Arcane -our creator- used a vast number of strange alchemical solutions in his experiments, but none of his creations mutated quite as Damien Kane did." He looks down at the ground for a moment. "I did not know his parents well. If zhey had survived.. or if zhe military had not incinerated zheir remains quite zo thoroughly…" He sighs dejectedly but recovers a moment later. "Zhe cells of his body are pluripotent at least. Constantly zhey change unt divide, occasionally forming whole organs with zheir neighbours. Unt they have ozher properties. My Compound K uses heavily modified cells taken from here to enable my xenografts to meld with zhe host bodies. In zhe case of Niko, zhey were used to create zhe very wings which adorn her back."

Niko's hand covers her mouth as she tries to contain her horror.

Fascinating. Truly controlled application of pluripotent stem cells? "What other applications have you found for him?"

"Eh? Oh. Zhe laboratories are developing a spray to enable rapid healing of injuries. Unfortunately we haven't quite got zhe carcinogenic effects under control yet. When we culture organs it is not a problem, but on a living person…"

Kaldur looks thoughtful. "The insectoid Un-Men did not try to escape. Are the third generation Un-Men the only ones to have been exposed to this-" He makes an expression of distaste. "-product."

"Hm. Some animals in zhe lab, I zhink."

"Is.. that all that is left of Damien Kane's body?"

"I believe zo." Otto stops pacing and Cranius reorientates him before settling back down. "Zhet is why I said zhet it could not-."

"Are you certain?"

"Well… We did not check for toenail clippings. Does it matter?"

"I believe what my colleague is implying, Doctor, is that a magic user might be using the sympathetic link between a part of Damien Kane's body and your compound to enable their control."

Cranius' face goes slack. "God in Heaven." He glances at the sphere, then looks back at Kaldur. "Zhe entire… How can zhis be stopped?"

Hunting down whoever's doing it and burning their equipment is the only thing I can think of. And even then, they'd just have to capture a third generation Un-Man-.

"There are magics which can be used to break the connection between objects, as well as defensive spells which would make it harder to influence your people." Hm. Rather thought Kaldur was going to refuse to help, there.

Looks rather like Cranius did too. "Zhank you. Are you.. willing to assist us in capturing whoever-?"

"In Atlantis anyone using this form of magic would be killed on sight. It is a foul misuse of sorcery. But I am very far from happy with what you have done here." **Aqualad to Zatanna. We believe that our enemy was using a tissue sample to form a sympathetic link. If we provide you with a sample, will you be able to trace them?**

**I.. should be able to. It depends on how sophisticated their defenses are.**

Otto turns around and moves to the side of the sphere. There's what looks like a… Oh, ew. He just.. took a core sample. Fortunately the cells in it appear to have failed to form any sort of structure I recognise. He picks up a pair of tweezers to transfer it to a test tube.

**I do not think that we are dealing with high level adepts.**

**Hey, Kaldur?** I was wondering where Wallace had gotten to. **Where do you want that Janus.. guys..?**

**Return him and any third generation Un-Men you are able to Uncorporation headquarters. We believe-** Otto walks out of the room and starts back towards Zatanna. **-that we have a way to locate our attackers. And -if we are fortunate- Kobra as well.**

He and Ixy follow Cranius out of the room. Niko stays, staring at the eye in the window as if waiting for it all to start making sense. I should probably get on with the mission and let her work through her stepfather trust issues on her own.



I step closer and put my left hand on her shoulder. "Niko-."

"I didn't know. I-I didn't know this was where it came from." She finally pulls her eyes away from the abomination, looking up into my face. "You have to believe me, I didn't-."

"I do, I believe you."

"The whole.. project..." She wipes her eyes with her hand. "I-I don't know what to do."

Gently, I put my arms around her back and pull her into my chest. "Niko. You've had a nasty shock and a quite horrendous experience. Now is not the time for making important decisions. Let us handle your attacker and make Aberrance safe. Later, when you feel up to it, talk things over with Cranius. Then you can decide what you want to do."

She stays there for a moment before pulling away. "Yes, that's… Thank you. You're right."

 

15th January
14:17 GMT -8

ABANDON ALL HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE…

"Poetic." I look over at Cranius, who in turn is studying the designs Kaldur is drawing around the shaft to the abandoned tunnel network. "Please don't tell me that you were ever planning to use this as an attraction?"

"It is not zhet radioactive, not in most places. For zhe sort of people who would heff been interested, zhe radiation monitors and lead lined suits would heff added to zhe appeal." He looks around at me. "We had a structural survey done. In zhe end Janus and I decided zhet it would be better to focus on zhe amusement park aspect. Nuclear radiation has no real role in zhe Unvolve process and Janus was concerned about.. brand confusion." He inclines his head slightly at the device in front of me. "Is it ready?"

"Seventeen different forms of teleportation and twenty two forms of faster than light travel are blocked." I nod my head to the side. "For the next half hour or so anyway. Power rings will be unaffected but I doubt very much that anyone down there will have one of those."

"I had wondered how you were planning to get down zhere. And zhe bindings, zhey are reliable?"

"Certainly. Kobra has magicians of their own, but the spell they used to control the third generation Un-Men was weak and rather simple. It's more likely that they've either fled already or that the magic user is an amateur rather than one of their Bestowed." I wave my right hand at Kaldur as he stands back and the symbols start to glow gold. "This whole thing should be overkill. If it is Kobra down there this should all be over in a few minutes."

"I admire your confidence." I go back to watching Kaldur as he telepathically checks in with the teams at the other entrances. Given that we know the enemy is a capable telepath I've dialled my defences all the way up. I couldn't hear M'gann if she were right next to me. "I believe General Sunderland once said zhe same zhing of Swamp Zhing."

Zing. From where she stands on the entrance platform Artemis glances back at me with a smirk. I shrug at her. "Speaking of Doctor Holland, you are aware that Abigail Arcane lives near Houma in Louisiana. Do you have any contact?"

"I-." He looks a little confused, then he reaches a decision. "She is family. She suffered under Anton Arcane just as we did. Did you know zhet he provoked a mob to murder her mozher? Heh, for witchcraft of all zhings." I shake my head. "If she chose to visit we would make her welcome, but I do not zhink it would be good for her. We would be but a ghoulish reminder of zhe life she has struggled to escape." He hesitates for a moment. "I believe she.. has a daughter now. If zhey are fortunate-."

"Doctor Cranius." Kaldur walks over to us. "We are ready. Are you certain that you wish to accompany us?"

"Yes." Otto fiddles with the Uncorporation security flak jacket he's wearing. "I know zhet I am not a front line fighter, not by your standards, but Otto and I heff been in a few fights togezher. Unt you may need my expertise on Uncreation. If we get close enough I should be able to sense zhe piece of Kane zhey are using."

"Very well. The other groups are in position. Grayven, take point." I nod. "Doctor, stay with Artemis. I will guard our rear."

I float Cranius and myself up onto the platform next to the concrete shaft down into Aberrance's underbelly. Ring, scan. Ugh, I'm still not getting good returns beyond about twenty metres. This is something I'm going to need to try and work out how to get around. Instead of the standard scan I extend a sonic probe down to the bottom of the shaft and fire off an ultrasound pulse. Concrete corridor with a large open space at the far end. Better, but I'll need to repeat the process as we go.

I nod to Kaldur. "Ready."

His and Artemis' eyes go slightly vacant for a moment, then he nods. "Go."

Transition. I look around. The corridor is about five metres wide by four tall and there's a large blue '3' painted on one wall. Looks like there's been some water down here. Not surprising given the lack of covering on the shaft. I activate my radio. "Clear."

I take a few steps away from the shaft and look out towards the large open area. Hard to tell around the shaft itself but from the dirt on the floor people have definitely been down here recently. Could just be rough sleepers of course. There's a soft thud as Artemis lands at the bottom of the shaft. I glance at her with my right eyebrow raised. She just looks smug as she puts an arrow to her bowstring. That was a good fifteen metre drop. If Kon had jumped down that he'd have cracked the concrete and made enough noise to wake the dead. Guess not all of the changes my new New Gods received after Barney's defeat are visible.

She moves away from the shaft and I hear Otto start down at a slightly more normal pace. "So, where are all of your drones?"

"Doing security duty in Aberrance. With the normal security disabled…"

She frowns slightly. "I thought you had.. hundreds..?"

"I do, but most of them are the lethal variety. And their minds are uncomplicated. They are ill suited to situations requiring complicated decision making." I purse my lips. "I was meaning to ask: before we came out, you implied that there was some change you had experienced since Barney's banish-."

Another smirk. "Are you actually calling him that?"

"Of course. Zatanna didn't go through all the trouble of branding the Beast 'Barney the Dinosaur' for me not to mention it at every opportunity. Anyway, you became uncomfortable when I asked-."

"Isthisreallythetime?"

"Artemis, I don't want your mother to string me up. This is your health-."

"Okay! Look, I'll-." She looks around as Otto's legs appear at the bottom of the shaft. "I'll tell you when we've cleared out the tunnels."

I give her a level look and she tries a jerky nod to reassure me. Ring, quick scan. Anything obviously wrong?

No obvious malfunctions detected.

"O-kaay. If you're sure."

Otto reaches the ground and Cranius takes in his environment. "Hmm." Otto steps away from the shaft as Kaldur uses his Water Bearers to descend rapidly, their water pseudopods increasing their viscosity to hold onto the inner surface, slowing his descent until he reaches the bottom and then forming a non-Newtonian cushion beneath him.

Nifty.

He flicks his wrists towards his body and the water flows over him before hardening into ice plates over his Apokoliptian armour. Magic ice, presumably. Our test sessions together have shown a noticeable improvement in the ease with which he can use the magics he knows. We've planned to do some more exploratory work next week. Once he's got it sorted to his satisfaction he gives me a nod.

I nod back and rise off the ground on my aero discs, glow to minimum. Next, I send another tiny construct probe to the end of the corridor and take a pulse reading. Clear. Slowly, I float after it, careful to keep myself out of the field of view of anyone I wouldn't be able to see. No, no one home. The room is about sixteen metres across and easily thirty long. Various guide markings are still painted onto the floor and a track has been laid down the middle, disappearing into a tunnel at the far end. I'm standing on a platform running down most of this side of the room eight metres off ground level. Nothing much else to see. I float up above the guard rail, turning around to look back the way I came. On the side of the platform someone has painted 'KANE LIVES!' in bold red letters.

I activate my radio again. "Room clear."

Artemis emerges from the tunnel, carefully checking the corners of the room. Otto and Cranius come out next, though they don't show the same tactical awareness. Actually, Cranius looks puzzled by something. Artemis takes up position on the steps leading down from the platform and then signals Kaldur as I head down the tunnel. Standard scans are still being blocked by something, but I can't see anything that could be doing-.

What was..? I raise my right hand to my right cheek. Feels like.. concrete dust? But this place looks pretty solid. I look upwards as more flakes of the hard grey material rain down. Hmm. I start floating back to the large room. Should probably-.

And then brown flesh tentacles explode from everywhere.

 

15th January
14:22 GMT -8

I bring up orange barriers to ward off the spray of concrete as a tooth-covered tentacle lunges down from the roof hole at me. I meet it with a swarm of razor edges, cutting it to shreds. Now, transition-.

Unable to plot path.

Oh, well… I fly backwards into the large room as more tentacles erupt from the walls, floor and ceiling. Artemis meets a cluster with a plasma arrow as Kaldur leaps into action, creating water machetes and slicing the ends off any tendrils that get too close. As I watch, several pieces that were cut loose begin twitching and growing, thin filaments of flesh reaching out to the nearest other pieces before connecting and expanding, forming veins and muscles and what look like miniature hearts, pumping their strange ichor through the cancerous structure.

I guess there is more to Damien Kane than we realised.

Ring, reactive barriers. And give me a fusion lance.

Orange barriers form in the air around my team mates. A barrage of flesh hooks directed at Kaldur's back get blocked for a moment before he turns to slice them apart. Artemis puts another plasma arrow into the disturbingly mouth-like barrier forming around the tunnel to our fallback point, incinerating it and.. it isn't growing back. Good to know.

I aim my fusion lance at the dense concentration of mass forming at the far end of the room- "Danger close!" -and pull the trigger as Artemis grabs Otto and covers Cranius' eyes. Corrupted flesh evaporates-

"uuuuUUUHHHGGGhh!"

-around the brilliant beam, my team's Apokoliptian goggles preventing us from being blinded by it. A slab of concrete falls from the ceiling above us, revealing the undulating mass of flesh and dozens of red irised eyes on stalks which extend to peer down at us. Some of the large tentacles abandon their attack, linking floor to ceiling and forming more eyes and sharp-toothed mouths.

"Cran-i-us!"

The area I shot has already been covered over by new growth as a large tentacle erupts from the mass, heading straight for me. I interpose an orange barrier only for it to fracture and melt as pustules on the tentacle break and leak -What is that?- some sort of.. presumably alchemical substance over it. I fire the fusion lance again, incinerating it and beating the expansion back.

"Tunnel's completely blocked! I can't see the exit!" Artemis switches to incendiaries and looses at a perimeter around our position.

"Kaldur, heat based attacks-."

"On it." His armour's icy coating shatters, tiny particles of ice whirling about him and crackling with electricity. "Keep them back while I prepare."

I dismiss the fusion lance and switch to maser turrets, firing at anything that moves around the flames Artemis' arrows created and heads in our direction. I'm not… We should be alright even if they manage to grab us. Apokoliptian armour is tough stuff. I could.. probably blast through the ceiling… No, too many unknown factors to-.

"MmmmmMMmghhrrrrrahhhhh!"

"Hah!" All of the tentacles momentarily recoil as I try and work out why Artemis is so happy. She catches my eye. "Archer says that there are brain.. things.. just underneath some of the big tentacles. He just shot one."

So the other teams are under attack too? Masers to 'wide beam'. "Can you do his 'shooting through solid objects' trick?"

"Not without time to concentrate."

The lights from Kaldur's ice crystal aura reach incandescent intensity. "Grayven, get behind me."

I drop down to the base of the steps, grab hold of Otto and Cranius and erect a bubble barrier around us as Kaldur lets rip. The air turns white as tiny ice crystals fly outwards, strike cancerous flesh and discharge.

"aaaoooaAAAAghhrrrpp."

The room is flash fried, the blackened lumps of dead flesh collapsing from the ceiling in charred piles. Kaldur flicks his Water Bearers and a new coating of ice begins to form on him. I turn to Artemis. "How are the others doing?"

"The Super Brothers are fine but Robin's group had to fall back. What is this thing?"

"Cranius? Something else you want to tell us?"

Otto rubs Cranius' eyes as he tries to focus on me. "No, zhis… From where is it getting zhe food to be zhis big?"

"Yeah, I've learned not to ask that sort of question. Kaldur, alright if I call in some of my killy drones now?"

He nods without looking around. "Consider yourself authori-."

"No! Zhese tunnels go all under Aberrance! If you kill it zhere is no telling what would happen!"

Kaldur glares at Cranius. "The park is largely evacuated-."

"Unt if zhis zhing has spread to zhe Uncorporation building itself? If it breached zhe Omega Vault zhen zhe Insectoids and my less well socialised brezhren would be released, to say nozhing of zhe people still inside."

"Cran-i-us!"

The voice echoes out from the far tunnel. Tendrils of flesh have grown to cover its walls but are hesitating to regrow into this room. Loose soil falls from the large hole that it created in the ceiling.

"I do not know what zhis zhing wants wizh me-" Otto straightens up, dusts himself off and starts walking towards the tunnel. "-but it seems zhet we must find out."

Ring, Hush Tube. I want-.

Unable to establish connection.

Fine. Father Box, Boom Tube to the-.

Ploong.

It isn't our device doing that, is it?

Ploong.

Fine, open subspace. Give me my Purple Death Ray drones.

I don't know what it is about Apokoliptian technology that absolutely needs to look as sinister as possible, but I'll admit that a gun that shoots negalife probably deserves it. Their eel-shape allows them to shift their gravity repulsion plates around and control their direction in all dimensions noticeably better than my plain ovoid designs. The mouth shape around the Death Ray is more of an artistic touch. I only have three at present as I was holding off on creating more until I had a chance to run comparative trials. They take up position above us as we slowly follow on behind Cranius and Otto.

"Well?" Cranius stares down the tunnel and Otto holds his arms out to the side. "Here we are. Do you have somezhing you wish to say?"

"I hate you."

"Yes, I noticed zhet. What I am curious about-" Cranius looks up as he passes through the tunnel mouth. More eyes on stalks turn to watch his passage. Only a few bother with the rest of us. Curious. "-is what precisely I heff done to earn zhis enmity."

"You tried to kill me."

Cranius recoils slightly, though Otto keeps going. "No I.. didn't."

"LIAR!"

"I assure you Mister Kane: if I had wanted you dead you would heff died and no one would heff been any zhe wiser. No, you died of-."

"Hrkhrkrhkhkrhkrh."

A grotesque parody of laughter bubbles forth from the cankerous mouths covering the fleshy walls surrounding us.

Cranius looks a little puzzled. "You find my denial amusing? Mister Kane, we may not have agreed about zhe.. way to zhe future for our people, but I do not hurt my brozhers."

"You're lying again!" Two tentacles explode from the walls and lash out at Cranius only to be intercepted by purple beams from my drones and rot to nothing. "You pushed me out of a plane!"

Cranius frowns. "What are you talking about? I hate flying. I did not even meet-." His eyes widen in realisation. "No. No, not you."

"Remember now, brother?"

Kaldur takes another look around. Not as if our situation has become more secure. "Doctor, I grow tired of you keeping things from us."

Cranius isn't listening. In fact.. are those tears?

"Crassus?"

 

15th January
14:26 GMT -8

Who?

"All zhis time… How are you still alive?"

"Arcane made sure I could heal myself. My landing attracted Alligators. Weak minded creatures. I forced them to pull me to safety and I ate their young for food."

There's a.. noise. Somewhere in the distance, two quiet clicks, a pause, then two clicks again.

"But… But…"

Kaldur's had enough again. He strides past me and grips Otto's left shoulder with his right hand. "Doctor. Who is this 'Crassus'?"

"He-he was… He is a creation of Anton Arcane, a first generation Un-Man as I am. Younger zhen me. Crassus, where have you been? How did you come to be.. zhis?"

"Pain. And suffering."

I drop back to walk alongside Artemis. "How are the others doing now?"

"It… The tentacle things have all pulled back. No one got seriously hurt."

"William alright?"

"I think everyone's a bit freaked out. How come you didn't say anything about.. this-" She indicates the walls with her right fist. "-thing in your briefing."

"I had no idea."

"Kinda a big thing to miss, don't you think?"

"Yes, it was, and I'm sorry." I take a moment to look around. I think we're nearing one of the underground test detonation chambers. "Though in my defence, this is quite a bit beyond anything-."

"Crassus, I searched for our brothers and sisters. If you had-."

"You put them in cages. Like he did."

"Zhey are insensible! Zhey cannot be reasoned with! Last time I tried to release zhem zhey nearly-!"

"I know. I see through the eyes of all of those you mutilated."

"I do not 'mutilate' zhem. Zhey volunteer for-."

I can see Kaldur wince at Cranius trying to argue with the megafauna.

"Cranius. Did you push him from an aircraft?"

He glances at Kaldur before dropping his gaze to the meat covered ground. "Yes. Yes, I did. And it is zhe only zhing I heff done in my whole life zhet I feel guilty for."

"Then why did you do it?"

Cranius suddenly jerks around to look at him. "Because I was afraid! You do not.. understand.. zhe control he had over us!" He takes a moment to try and collect himself as we round a corner and get a clear view of our goal. "Anton Arcane created us as tools. Slaves. His earliest creations were simple, bestial things but I! He created me to be capable of managing zhe ozhers, made me… Made me so zhet I would want to serve him. Designed me zo I could not zhink but to do his will. He owned my soul! I served as his majordomo and as his laboratory assistant. Everything I know about biology and alchemy I learned by watching over his shoulder, trying to learn how to predict what he would want next. His zhanks were zhe only zhings zhet gave me any pleasure."

"And zhen he created my replacement."

The clicking again. Sounds like… Dice? "Come closer. I want to see you with my own eyes."

Artemis' face hardens. "You pushed him out of a plane because you thought he was going to replace you?!"

"Yes! Zhet was my life! Once he had no more need of me Arcane would heff broken me down for parts! Or just ignored me until I starved to death! I knew zhet, unt I still.. wanted.. to serve him. Can you imagine what zhet was like? To.. to want zhe love a-a-and respect of a man who cares nozhing for you?"

She blinks, then with visible reluctance nods. "Yeah. I think I can."

We emerge into a large room, smaller than the last though still industrial in scale. The glasses show me pipes against where the real ceiling is but the whole of the interior surface is covered in fleshy growths. The floor is hard under our feet, but it yields slightly to our weight. Plates of bone? I know some Un-Men have horns. Damien Kane didn't but I have no idea what this Crassus can do. The only visible piece of machinery is the reinforced entry point to the test chamber itself. It looks a little like the end of a gas cylinder stuck through the far wall. It's five metres tall and there are a few openings which it looks like used to be hatches near ground level.

Otto takes a few more steps forwards as the rest of us come to a halt. "Well? I am here."

There's a grinding, creaking noise as new growth emerges from the portals in the cylinder and then contracts, crumpling the reinforced metal inwards. Next, a larger and paler tentacle projects outwards. This one has a passenger.

In general body shape Crassus is somewhat similar to a potato. He has no neck and his nostrils are set flat into the curve of his face. He has no lips but there is a slit for a mouth through which I can see a small number of sharp, widely spaced teeth. His legs are short and thin, so thin in fact that they look like they shouldn't be able to support his weight. His right arm is unusually long. If he were standing his hand would be lower than his knees, though that might be an illusion generated by the shortness of his legs. On his left, his limb is short and thin as if to counterbalance his right. His skin is rough and grey and though naked he has no visible genitals. The upper part of his body is twisted slightly to the left, though whether that's the result of an injury or the hunched back that appears to be connected in some way to the tentacle holding him aloft I couldn't say.

He stares at us one by one, his gaze returning to Cranius each time and his right hand constantly shaking back and forth. The tentacle gently lowers him to the floor and he makes a bow legged landing. It stays connected though. Alright, so if I target that-.

Kaldur strides forwards, shoving Otto aside. "Crassus. What do you want?"

"I want an end."

I nod and my drones target him. "We can do that." Kaldur scowls at me. "Orrr not."

"You!" He waddles in the direction of Cranius, stopping two metres away. "Where is he?"

"I… I don't know who you are talking about."

"Arcane."

"Arcane has been dead for-."

"You keep lying to me! You're doing his work! Making more of us! Where are you hiding him!?"

"I am not hiding him!"

"What other possible reason could you have? You were his favorite. You nearly killed me because you thought I was a threat to your position. Ugh!" He swings his right arm out to the side and throws a pair of dice across the room. They make a quiet clicking sound as they strike the ground, bounce once, twice and come to rest. Four and a five.

"Crassus, he is dead."

Potato features blinks, or at least tries. He doesn't seem to be able to shut his right eye all the way. "What?"

"He died. During our zhird fight with zhe Swamp Zhing we were freed from his control. We all turned on him-."

"Stop lying-!"

"I'm not lying!" Cranius appears to be feeling the pressure, his head undulating as he tries to get more oxygen. "Let me tell you exactly what happened."

 

15th January
14:30 GMT -8

"After we restored zhe m-." Otto brings up his hands to massage Cranius' brow as he tries to compose himself. "After we restored Arcane to life following his fall into zhe gorge, he became obsessed with recapturing Swamp Zhing. Having experienced zhet power for himself, he would accept nozhing ozher zhen-."

"I was there." Crassus' right hand twitches and -carefully keeping his eyes on Cranius as much as possible- he shuffles over to his dice and bends to pick them up. "You were the one who reassembled-."

"I did not have zhe capacity to disobey! I threw myself off a cliff to try to get to him faster! If not for our more physically able brothers making zhe leap before me I would have died zhere!"

A pseudopod emerges from the ground covering next to Crassus. He shakes his fist and rolls the dice onto it. For a moment he gives them his full attention. Three and a two.

Cranius continues talking as I edge closer to Kaldur. "Aqualad, what exactly-?"

"If he is connected to this.. thing, then he could very easily destroy the whole town and everyone in it." I form the ghost of a fusion cannon on my left arm and give him an interrogative look. "No. Celestial Archer said that there were neural nodes throughout the mass. Kill him and they may simply lash out. Our best hope is that Cranius can talk him down."

Well, we're fucked.

"…Scotland, and zhen on to America. Arcane knew zhat he would be returning to Alec Holland's home in zhe swamps of Louisiana. After…"

"After you pushed me out of the plane."

"Yes, after I pushed you out of zhe plane." Crassus, Kaldur and Artemis all jerk slightly. Some sort of telepathic attack? I can't feel it if it was. Ring, scan for concentrations of neurological ma-.

Unable to-

Unable to comply, yes.

-comply.

"…deep into the swamps. Eventually, we were able to track him down and overpower him."

Ring, connect ultrasound sensors to the ground as subtly as you can. Try detecting them that way.

Tiny, barely visible threads of orange light flow out of my feet, every so often branching off and creating the concentric circles of the ultrasound generators. Some of the eyes are tracking what I'm doing, but Crassus appears to have his attention solely focused on Cranius.

"…mesmerised, bound and dragged back to where Arcane waited in an old slave graveyard attached to a ruined plantation where he had made his base of operations. I still do not know precisely what happened. I zhink.. some of zhe foul magic he had raised in order to transfer his mind and soul into Swamp Zhing's body had escaped into zhe graves. Or perhaps zhe souls of zhe dead had been bound to zhet place in some way by the memory of zheir own suffering. Zhe spirits arose and tried to stop zhe ritual, but Arcane had laid his protections around him. Zhey could not reach him."

Ohhh kaaaay, I think that's a brain. And that. And that. And those are just the bits I can see. Perhaps if I forced a connection by cutting down to them and either assimilated or branded?

"…no longer concerned with our fates. He assumed zhet zhe spirits were trying to kill us. When zhey first touched my mind.. I was horrified. Zhe strange and alien ideas. We were all well used to pain, but not zhe idea of pain, zhe zhought zhet zhis was not zhe natural state of being. Unt we had no more concept of slavery zhen a fish does of water! For a moment I knew.. a life zhet was so different from zhe one I had been made to live. I knew.. what it was to play." He looks around to Artemis and Kaldur. "Can you imagine heffing to explain such a zhing? You just.. run around with other people.. aaand you laughed? I had never laughed before. Tw-twenty years. And I had never laughed. Heh. Heheh."

Another pause as he composes himself. "And I knew what slavery was. And I knew zhet zhe appropriate response was not to do whatever my master wanted. No. No. No, zhe right zhing to do was to hate." Otto's fists come up. "It was to rage! And with zhis new knowledge my brozhers unt sisters unt I rose up against our creator! We tore him to pieces! We scattered him across zhe swamp for zhe scavengers to consume!" For a moment he looks contemplative. "I zhink some of us even ate bits of him ourselves. Not me. I didn't have zhe stomach." He looks back at the three of us and Otto points to his neck. "Stomach, eh?"

Crassus flinches and rolls the dice again. Six and a two. He snatches them up almost immediately. "He's dead?"

"Yes, he's dead. Zhe pieces were too small and too melted to reassemble. I made sure of it."

"He's dead." Another roll. Four and a one.

"Unt you are here! My brozher! I am zo happy to-."

"Then why are you doing what he did? Why are you making more of us?!"

"Wizh Arcane dead I needed a new reason to live. I wanted community, I wanted.. zhe smiling faces. I wanted to know honest joy, to be happy because I was happy, not because someone was pressing zhe buttons in my brain! Zhe only people like me in zhe whole of the world were my brozhers unt sisters. We knew next to nozhing of zhe modern world. Some wanted to hide, some to.. try unt return to zhe Castle. Zhose zhet came wizh me, we spent near forty years wandering around America. Zhen we heard about zhis place. A new home, one where-."

"Kane did not make this place for you." Another roll. "He wanted to make a sanctuary." Five and a six.

"Did you know him? He died not long after I arrived. I only had.. two conversations wizh him, but I razher got zhe impression zhet he detested violence."

"I got him away from the army. I took him to Romania, to those in our family who were slaves and being paraded for entertainment."

"Zhet cannot happen now. Wherever our people are abused unt I hear about it, Uncorporation intervenes! And we are not sideshow freaks! We are biotechnological progress!"

Another roll, two and a two. "You treat the people here like he treated us."

"Zhe Gaff-?" Crassus scowls. I think. His facial structure or lack thereof makes it hard to tell. "Ah, zhe naturally deformed? Zhey are useless, a distraction from zhe work. As if a little hair or a.. twist of zhe spine make a person special." Crassus squeezes his dice harder and rolls them again. One and a three. "If.. it really bozhers you, you could aid zhem yourself. Arcane designed you as a chirurgeon. If you will unplug yourself from zhe remains of Kane I could teach you, show you how to alter-."

"What about the 'Gaffs'?"

"We could…" Cranius winces. "Perhaps.. make an accommodation…"

Crassus looks confused. I suppose that if someone tries to murder you and you don't see them for forty years and you've built up a picture in your mind of them being completely evil, having them apologise and try to reach out to you probably isn't what you expect. He tilts his head a little to the side and rolls the dice again. Double six. His eyes widen slightly and he nods. "I-. I don't know…"

The crisis apparently past, Kaldur steps forwards. "Crassus, we came here to discover how Kobra were able to access Uncorporation biotechnology."

"The snakes? Yes. I got it for them. I took control of the new ones, handed the material over."

"Why?"

"I don't…" He looks down at the floor. "I didn't want people to make more of us. I thought that if it went wrong where everyone could see it, the work would stop. And if that didn't happen…" He describes an arc around us with his right arm. "I had this, and could stop it myself."

"Unt how did you get it out of zhe town? We would heff noticed if any of zhem had left."

"Inkabod. I felt his hate when Damien Kane died. I spoke in his mind. He thought I was Damien." He brings his shrivelled left hand to his mouth. "I shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have lied using Damien's name."

Artemis looks back and forth between the two Un-Men. "So… Are we good?"

"Brozher, where did you learn the magics to do all zhis?"

"From the snake man. He wa-."

The tentacle supporting Crassus coils up and slams him hard into the side wall!

And the pupils on the eyes watching us turn into serpentine slits.

 

15th January
14:34 GMT -8

Oh who fucking now?

"Crassus!" Otto lunges across the room, nimbly ducking around the tentacle as our new opponent tries to squash him flat with Cranius' prodigal brother. "No!"

Kaldur's Water Bearers come forwards, streams of water wrapping themselves around the tentacle before flash freezing. Ice surges along the tentacle from that point, locking it in place. I'd like to help but -scan- I haven't the slightest idea how his body works. Those nerves seem… I settle for severing him from the tentacle at what looks like a safe point, taking hold of him and lowering him to the ground. As Cranius frantically assesses Crassus for injury I raise a barrier around our group.

I turn to stare into the largest cluster of eyes. Not making an immediate attack? Curious. From the rather forceful looks Kaldur and Artemis are sharing I'm going to assume that there's some sort of mental conversation going on. Should probably try and keep whatever-this-is' attention on me. "Alright. Who is it this time?" Obvious answers are 'Kobra', 'some sort of mental copy of Crassus', 'Anton Arcane' and 'Damien Kane'.

"We are the many servants of he who-."

"Kobra, right, got it." A few of the eyes blink. "You must be one of their Bestowed. Or.. several. I doubt that any normal man could control a lifeform like this." The scans I did of Cranius suggest that he can multiprocess, and if I'm understanding the results of my last scan properly-

Ploong.

-and it seems that I am, he shares the ability. "Is Jeff there?"

I think I can actually hear the thing around us trying to breathe. "Our sublime master-."

"Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff! Here Jeffy Jeffy Jeff-Jeff!" I pause for a moment. "I'm not having a conversation with an underling. I am a god. I have standards. Get someone important to talk to me or get on with your 'evil plan'."

No response. In the corner of my eye I see Kaldur give me a slight nod while Cranius sprays something onto Crassus' injuries. The Kobra people must know what his name is, mustn't they? I don't mind someone pretending to be a god but he is so far below the power level at which anyone should believe it…

"Grayven. Your arrogance truly knows no bounds."

I smile. Since I'm on 'delaying' duty I won't try winding him up directly. "Kobra! I'll treat that as a challenge. Been keeping yourself busy since you broke out of prison?"

"Maintaining contact with my people while.. constrained by Belle Reve was no great challenge. How do you like my newest weapon?"

"Not exactly a walking sun." I frown. "And it's not exactly new. Three careless owners?"

"No matter. I have already taken the materials I wanted from it. Arcane really was a brilliant man. But getting your little team as well? That was an unexpected bonus." I risk a glance at Kaldur. Hope they're ready to go with whatever they were working on. "Oh, and Grayven? Savage says you took too long."

…

"Two weeks!?" I mean, come on! I told them it would take… Wait. Did me beating up distraction-escapees at the prison really irritate them that much? Not.. that I.. really want to become a member or anything…

The flesh coating our exit tunnel contracts, blocking our retreat for a few seconds as more pustules begin to form on the inner surfaces all around us. Crassus manages to lift himself up a little and look around, his right arm scrabbling around until Otto picks up his dice and hands them to him.

"Kaldur, do you-?"

"Target the neural clusters! Now!"

"On it." My drones fire beams of black wreathed in purple at the site my sonic probes marked and Kaldur strikes the wall in an attempt to freeze the pustules solid. A few burst prematurely but most of the ones likely to cause immediate problems are well hit. Artemis looses at a wall, her arrow disappearing as it reaches the surface. Wonder where she's getting her targeting information from? I form a fusion lance construct once more -consider and add a light baffle- then fire at a more distant target, the furious beam blasting through flesh, concrete and soil before incinerating a large cluster near our entry point.

Artemis fires another three arrows before the fifth strikes the floor and cuts into it without disappearing. "Damn it! Kaldur, we-!"

A three fingered arm bursts forth from the ice surrounding us and flails at my shield before growing so that its elongated fingers can wrap around it. Its outer surface is covered in bone plates with what look like runes cut into them. A shot from my fusion lance barely chars the outer plating as it starts to squeeze. Father Box, Boom Tube.

Unable to comply.

Eh, time to do this Warhammer Forty Thousand style then. I draw my sword as Kaldur lunges forwards and stabs at the edge of one of the plates protecting the wrist before pouring electricity down his watery blade. The limb convulses as Artemis looses again, this time with her arrow flashing out as intended.

Whoompf! Air rushes past us from the test chamber. Ring? Exceedingly hot air, apparently. The flesh around the opening blackens and carbonises as I watch but whatever's happening there isn't slowing the arm down. I generate a personal shield around each of us before dropping the bubble shield and hacking at the arm's finger joints. As I reach the bone it tries to clamp around me and I'm forced to push at the claw end with my left arm while bracing myself against the floor! I'm stronger, but I can see it healing around the cut my sword is making. Gah, defence alone won't-.

The limb shudders and slumps. I pull my sword out and stand ready for the next attack. Nothing.. appears to be happening. The frozen eyes are sightless. Ring, charge?

Sixty three percent remaining.

"Did that do it?"

Artemis stands a little straighter, tension leaving her bowstring. Ring, using any and all methods, scan the local-.

Full scan available.

Huh?

A cloud of ash puffs out of the test chamber and someone-. As Match and Kon struggle out, blackened and panting. I quickly extend an environmental shield around them and dust them off. Match slumps, sucking down ring cooled air while Kon floats unsteadily over to land in front of Kaldur. "Main cluster.." He takes a couple of breaths. "Taken care of."

Kaldur gives him a faint smile. "Well done. Grayven, is the life form still active?"

Ring, any further biological activity?

Cell division is now occurring at conventional rates.

"Not in a coherently aggressive way." I look around my teammates. "Would you please tell me what just happened?"

Match looks up. "We… We melted our way through the far… Far side of the test chamber. Miss Martian detected…" He waves in the direction of the passageway. "She detected most of the mental activity coming from there." He squeezes his eyes shut. "I don’t wanna use heat vision ever again."

Cranius makes a last check on Crassus before looking at Kaldur. "If zhe creature is dead, we must take care in how we make our escape. Its mass is likely supporting zhis whole area."

Father Box, do we have Boom Tube capacity back yet?

Ploong.

Good to know. "Boom Tubes are available. Does Miss Martian need a lift?"

Kon shakes his head. "No, she phased out. We're good to go."

I nod. "Father Box, take us back to the Uncorporation building."

 

15th January
14:46 GMT -8

"…if I wanted to put the scare on some Gaff?"

Kaldur leads the way through the Boom Tube into the Uncorporation's boardroom. I float the injured Crassus through next, escorted closely by Cranius and Otto. I'm a little surprised by how forgiving he's being. Aberrance will struggle to recover its reputation from this. I suppose that their biotech work won't be much affected. Perhaps getting another bioengineer outweighs the harm to tourism the attractions in the rest of the town will suffer?

Robin's team must have taken a Tube back here. Richard appears to be engaged in a staring competition with Janus Junior. Janus Senior.. appears to be unconscious, his lolling head supported by a neck brace. That's one way to get privacy. Wallace is slouched in one of the boardroom chairs with his feet up on the transparent table. The Sphere warbles a greeting which prompts Zatanna to look up from the golden wire frame map of the tunnels which floats in front of her. Miss Ervine raises her right hand slightly in a minimalistic wave.

"If you really thought he was involved, the smart thing to do would have been to have him watched. It would have been impossible for a man with no arms to kill-."

William flashes us a smile. "Hey guys. How'd it go?"

Janus Junior looks around. "Hey doc. How's tricks?" He frowns. "And who's the potato? That one of ours?"

Cranius gazes at him imperiously. "Zhis is Crassus, our brozher. I do not believe zhet you ever had zhe opportunity to meet him in Castle Arcane."

"Hey Crass. Greetings from the Old Country or whatever." He wiggles his right thumb at Richard. "Can I get this rube out of my face now?"

"This rube saved your life when your bodyguards got possessed!"

"Yeah, well now I'm tossing your whole crew off the lot, capisce?"

"Be silent, fool. But for zheir intervention zhis entire building would have collapsed unt our possessed third generation cohort would surely heff killed us both."

Richard half turns to look at him. "Why is this guy in charge of your security?"

Cranius rolls his eyes. "Do not be ridiculous. Why would I put Janus Junior in charge of security?"

"Say what?"

"Sergeant Panoptes is in charge of Uncorporation security while Captain Alatrasca is in charge of Aberrance's conventional policing." Janus gapes. "Janus Junior's deficiencies became apparent zhe first time I met him. His.. nature as a member of zhe first generation required a highly placed position within zhe company so I gave him an empty title."

"Wha'?"

Richard smirks as Otto walks over to Janus and pulls a square green sticker decorated with the Uncorporation logo off Janus Senior's cheek, then another from his forehead. Cranius turns to look at Kaldur. "He should awake momentarily. I zhink we had best.. discuss matters. Grayven, would you be so good as to summon anozher of your portals zo zhet Crassus can get medical attention?"

Ring, Hush Tube to medical.

By your command.

A new portal opens next to the recumbent Crassus. He doesn't look all that bad… Or rather, not much worse than normal. Still, that was a pretty nasty whack he took, to say nothing of possible neurological damage caused by the feedback from the rest of us attacking his cancer body. In the small medical wing of the Uncorporation building I see a four armed woman in a nurse's uniform hurriedly put down some files on a desk before hurrying to the rim of the tube.

Crassus manages to look up slightly as I send him through. "Cranius. You promised-."

"Yes. I know. I will keep my word."

"Doc, you're not..? You're not serious, right?"

"I had hoped zhet perhaps you would grow into your role." Otto pulls out a chair and sits down as another hush tube opens. M'gann, Mister Tawny and Tao walk out. "Will Miss Ixy not be joining us?"

Kaldur shakes his head. "Ixy was never supposed to be part of our combat operations."

"Mm. Well, to make sure zhet we are all on zhe same page: The zhing beneath Aberrance was created using tissues taken from zhe remains of Damien Kane, much as my own Compound K is cultured from his flesh. At some point my brozher Crassus came into contact both wizh it and wizh Kobra. With zheir aid he converted it into zhe obscene zhing below us unt used the symapzhetic connection to zhe third generation Un-Men to steal more of our property. Zhis was zhen smuggled out of Aberrance by zhe idiot Inkabod and delivered into zhe hands of Kobra in some sort of misguided attempt to blacken our names and wrest control of Aberrance back to the G-." He works his jaw for a moment. "Carnival folk."

"Oooohfh." Janus Senior turns and half collapses into the chair next to Cranius'. "Is it… Is the matter resolved?"

"It is not." Kaldur stands opposite them and leans forwards, looming over them. "While your company does not appear to have been complicit in providing Kobra with the materials they used in Gotham, the fact that they still possess them means that almost every member of your organization is vulnerable to being controlled."

"Zhe second generation.. like Nurse Hemangi, were unaffected. Miss Zatanna, have you..?"

"I should be able to protect all of the third generation Un-Men you have at the moment, but I'm not going to come back here every time you make a new one."

"No new-!" Janus Senior's eyes widen. "That could set us back-."

Otto reach out and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Zhe alternative is letting zhem be controlled by terrorists. We accept."

Janus flashes him a pained look. "Cranius…"

"I heff Arcane's book. Given time, I should be able to develop a new technique." He pauses. "Now, to proceed against Kobra…"

"Your 'brother' Crassus was directly involved in providing them with highly restricted drugs, as well as mind controlling people and attacking us."

"Crassus genuinely believed zhet I was still under Arcane's control. Unt you cannot tell me zhet he is fit to stand trial. No, if we say zhet Kobra was controlling zhe creature below.. unt follow up wizh Inkabod…"

I shake my head. "Doctor Cranius, we cannot simply conceal what has happened here from our superiors. Unless there is something else you can offer..?"

He thinks for a moment. "My.. expertise in zhe physiology of zhe Un-Men. Whatever.. bastardised version of our drugs Kobra are using, I am zhe leading auzhority on zhe processes involved. I assume zhet zhe Justice League would find zhet useful?"

Kaldur leans back slightly. "It seems an inadequate reason-."

"I read zhe toxicology reports from Gotham. Zhere are certain stabilising agents in zhe bodies of Un-Men.. first, second or zhird generation.. which do not exist in ozhers. What Kobra heff cannot compete wizh Venom Buster as a combat drug, but it would make an excellent slow acting poison. Unt.. given zhe effects.. a weapon of terror. I imagine zhet zhe Justice League would want a mezhod of reversing zhe effects ready sooner razher zhen later? Hm?" Kaldur's face hardens and M'gann folds her arms. "My brozher will spend zhe rest of his life here in Aberrance. Zhere will always be one of us close to him."

Richard narrows his eyes. "And what about your other brothers? The ones he killed?"

"Now zhet zhe assailant has been dealt with… Zheir bodies are mostly intact. If we could resurrect Arcane, perhaps zhey may rise again. And even if zhey cannot, our shared torment is such zhet I cannot remain angry with Crassus for his actions."

Kaldur looks around, trying to take in the mood of the team. Personally, I don't see the point in hounding Crassus. Perhaps him working with Cranius will improve the lab's output. After a moment Kaldur bows his head slightly. "Our new objective is to locate the network of Kobra agents working with Inkabod. Miss Martian, for the remainder of this weekend you are to be his shadow. If we are fortunate, Gotham was the only site developing Uncorporation products. As for the question of whether or not to show leniency to Crassus, I will need to consult with the Justice League."

 

16th January
16:06 GMT -8

I frantically pull the knife from my belt and slice at the weird flesh bubble around me. This stuff might be doing a number on my constructs but it looks like x-ionised knives work perfectly well. The gel.. stuff around me gloops out onto the stone effect floor of Cranius' secret room in the Omega Vault. **M'gann! Are you alright?**

M'gann fades into visibility, clutching her head. **I think so. What was that?**

I sheathe my knife, put a hand on either side of the cut and pull myself free. **I think it was Damien Kane.** I look around the room as I step onto the floor. The mound of flesh which was containing me grows out of the wall like unusually aggressive lichen. There's still some organic activity there but I'm not seeing either thoughts or desires and it isn't connected to anything else. The metal sphere I opened is torn apart, exploded outward by the strength of the escaping.. thing.

**Inkabod was telling the truth?**

Ring, sample. **The tissue sample doesn't match, but Doctor Manguy's notes showed that Kane's genetics were in constant flux even while he still looked Human.** Still, his obvious rage surprised me. I went through everything Kane wrote or said in interviews in preparation for this mission. He had a Zen like quality about him… Well, maybe not Zen. I doubt many Buddhists experience life-as-suffering in quite the same literal way that a malfunctioning second generation Un-Man can. **Aqualad, Kane's out and on the rampage. Can you..?** I can't hear him.

I look up at M'gann as her eyes glow brighter. **Something's preventing me from reaching them. We need to get back!**

I nod and attach a filament to her. Ring, Transition.

Transition function not available. Local conditions are preventing target acquisition.

Fine. **Transition's out.** I rise off the ground and shoot out through the vault door, M'gann only a short distance behind me. A volley of Crumbler rounds destroys the wall between us and the Doctor's rumpus room, then the far wall, then the wall at the end of the corridor and we're out into the air and oooh shit.

A colossal arm completes its throw, hurling one of the Muto-Rail trains into the eastern face of the Uncorporation building. Glass shatters, metal and concrete crumple and cracks spread across the entire surface. I only realise that I'd stopped breathing after checking that no one had been in the train.

"Keep your stinking trains, Schadel!"

A fleshy titan stands over Aberrance. Its malformed body is a red-brown colour, its surface speckled with pale, vein covered nodules. It's vaguely humanoid, if a Human were made of wax and then repeatedly melted and allowed to harden. Actually, it… It looks like a giant Damien Kane, as he was shortly before his death. M'gann and I just stop in the air and stare at it.

"Just as was promised! I will cast the Un-Human, Un-Godly usurpers from our paradise! In the name of Kane!"

Kane.. lives in death. Wait, that's not Kane's voice. Ring, correct for size and distortion.

"Just as was promised!"

Inkabod? Guess he's fulfilling his own prophecy.

**Up there! On its chest!**

Ring, magnify. More pustules like the one that held me. Near the centre of its chest I can see Kaldur trying and failing to get his Water Bearers to come to life. Two explosions flare out from the middle finger of its left hand as Robin leaps from its left forearm towards the severely beaten Western Mutagenics building, only to be caught by a barrage of tentacles and pulled back into the arm. He struggles and tears several of them off, but they regrow too quickly for him to fully break free. As soon as he touches the skin of the forearm a new pustule grows around him and his movements grow sluggish.

Artemis stands on a nearby hotel, shooting upwards towards its head. Its left arm swings down and she's forced to leap aside as it caves in the hotel's roof. I experience a moment of pride when I realise that without super strength that would almost certainly have captured her, if not killed her outright. Another plume of flame, this time from its left shoulder. Rob's borrowed x-ionised sword is plunged in to near the guard and he uses it to keep himself anchored while shooting bolts of fire from his left hand at the tentacles trying to reach him.

Kon and Wallace are stuck in another couple of pustules near the right hip while Raquel fires a force bolt at its head.

"I am the Chosen Warrior of the God of Cancer! You think you can stop me?! Ah ha ha ha!"

White lines poke out of his titan's skin and a volley of bone shards fly-

-straight into my construct barrier. Rob looks up at me as he pours more heat into the arm. "Cheers mate. Wondering where you'd gone."

Kane's face above us is expressionless, and on the top of his neck hump… Inkabod grins like a loon as clouds of a noxious looking gas blow out of slits in the holes around him, forcing Raquel to back off. Her belt might protect her from kinetic impacts but it doesn't do much against acid or poison. Inkabod is sunk into the titan's flesh up to his waist, his hands sunk into smaller pustules on either side. Right, this should only take a moment. I fire a filament up at him-.

Connection lost.

How the hell did he ward something this big? "Where's Troia?"

"Pulling people out of rubble." He glances up at the head. "There's some sort of magic barrier keeping him safe."

The right arm swings around to swat us. Quick check of the ground -yep, clear- and I form a particle beam construct. A thick beam of purple light slices neatly through its wrist, sending the hand plummeting to the ground.

"Stop queering my pitch, man! Wait, who's-? Gruhhhhhhh…"

The titan shakes and stumbles backwards as M'gann assaults its weak-minded princeps. With him distracted Rob pulls his sword free and we both fly up to assist M'gann. Looks like he got the air manipulation spell working then, though when I told him why I called it Swift Wind he didn't seem too enthusiastic. Right, up over the face. Ew, the eyes aren't actually eyes. They're just plates of bone and flesh and the rest isn't all that nice to look at either, constantly moving and flexing as new flesh is created and consumed. I replace the particle beam with my usual railgun and load a Mageslayer round, a heads up display forming around the right of my head. Sephtian's still working on my next batch of these so I don't have a lot of them. Shouldn't be a problem. Aim to skim him? No, big boy’s rules. As long as it doesn't kill him…

The gun tracks as his eyes go red.

"No!"

M'gann shakes, goes visible and starts to fall out of the air. I grab her with a construct as the gun fires, skimming his left side and leaving a line which is rapidly filled in with red. No more shield, now I-.

He jerks downward. For a second his eyes return to normal. "Wait, what?" Then they go red again and he's pulled in up to his head. "Help!"

Oh for goodness… I form maser constructs and burn holes in the flesh around him. A moment later Rob makes it up and unleashes a circle of flame which extends downwards into the hump. Right, he can do that better than me. I connect a filament to the top of Inkabod's head and try extending an environmental shield around him. No luck. M'gann has recovered sufficiently to fly under her own power and comes up alongside me. She extends her arms, gestures and begins pulling Inkabod free.

I hear something snap and the titan starts to tilt.

Shit! Okay, they've got that.

**Rocket, slow down its fall. Troia, get over here.**

**On it.** / **On my way.**

I throw a construct lasso over the titan and attach a filament to my knife. The titan's tipping faster to the right and there are still people in that building. Bloody Aberrance building codes and bloody rubberneckers! I pull, but construct resistance and massive weight don't make it easy. I replace the construct with steel cables from subspace as Raquel gets into position and the black blur of Troia at full speed flies into view. **Troia, support it while I get the hostages free.**

The pressure on my cables is suddenly reduced and I focus on slicing open the pustules on the likely impact zone. Not just my friends, it's been grabbing every Un-Man within reach and-. Oh no. It's removed their alterations. I free Sergeant Panoptes and get a view of his empty eye sockets. Petra and her exposed skull. Tripes with his war wounds reopened and his arms and legs gone. It's recalled the things made with Kane's tissue. I abandon my cables and start frantically trying to heal those I can while still freeing the other captives.

**Got him!** I glance up to see M'gann floating free with Inkabod besides her. I'm not sure if it's just his gunge coating but his skin has a decidedly grey cast to it.

**Impact area clear. Let it down.**

I keep cutting as the titan lands on the Uncorporation plaza. A full thirty nine mutilated Un-Men lie in construct beds to my left, while a few others -second generation and Janus himself- appear to have been unaltered. My team mates who had been captives wander in a daze away from their prison, surveying the catastrophic damage it wrought on the research centre of Aberrance.

Damn.

 

16th January
17:22 GMT -5

"What. Happened."

Batman isn't messing us about this time, and I can well understand where he's coming from. Cranius was incensed, millions of dollars in property damage, people fleeing in terror, Un-Men crippled… Well, by their standards. I pretty much fixed them up to normal people standards. To top it all off Inkabod has become the heir of Kane in a way he hadn't expected: his legs were already beginning to mutate when we left. He'll be dead in a few years from the same thing that killed Damien. If Cranius isn't already dissecting him to find out how he did it, anyway.

And our team working together in public view.

While Rob, Zatanna and I focused on healing people our super strong colleagues shifted rubble, digging out the survivors and the dead. Objectively, the recovery operation went fairly well. I don't think anyone who survived the building collapses died of their injuries; the Praexis Demons were great at finding people. And afterwards, when Cranius had threatened us with everything he could think of, M'gann probed Inkabod's mind, allowing us to pick up the Las Vegas Kobra cell.

Twenty seven dead, including a third generation Un-Man whose brain modifications were forcibly extracted by the Un-Titan. None of us are feeling particularly good after this.

Kaldur looks like Rob's drained him again. "We… I did not anticipate such a direct move."

I nod. "Inkabod gave no sign that he had access to those sort of resources. As far as.. anyone other than Inkabod knew, the only part of Damien Kane left was in Uncorporation's control."

He looks directly at me. "Why did you think it was a good idea to release the part of Damien Kane which the Uncorporation had in its custody?"

"Damien Kane's records, his history after moving to Aberrance… There was nothing there which suggested a violent temperament. If he was aware enough to influence the third generation Un-Men, it made sense that there was a conscious mind there. If there wasn't, it wouldn't have taken long to repair the containment equipment."

Robin shakes his head. "From the timelines, Inkabod had already created the Un-Titan by the time he did that. It wouldn't have made much difference."

"Your initial efforts to fight the.. 'Un-Titan' met with little success."

Kaldur gives his head a very small shake. "It rapidly healed piercing injuries, physical attacks, freezing and electrical shocks. Our attempt to utilize the Sphere's onboard weapons merely resulted in Inkabod firing indiscriminately into the air. Given the risk that posed to civilians I ordered it to stop." He pauses. "Eventually we discovered that burning its flesh was more effective, but it could still regrow from the living tissue beneath."

"The-." Zatanna cuts herself off, not sure if she's supposed to speak. No one else says anything. "The stuff Aqualad and Superboy were trapped in was an alchemical solution designed to drain people's strength. Cornwall Boy could just drain it to stop it working, but no one else would be able to get out without help."

M'gann's head is bowed. "The extra.. brains he was using to control it made it hard for me to stop him telepathically."

"Why was it -despite scouting out the location where the Un-Titan was being created in advance- that you failed to realize it was there?"

"The tunnels had wards on them. Subtle ones. They didn't just stop me scanning, they made it look like nothing was happening."

Robin nods. "Same with sonic mapping. Nothing showed up as out of the ordinary!"

M'gann shrinks a little further. "I didn't feel anything either. I.. don't think Inkabod even planned doing that in advance."

"But he did know that he had a piece of Damien Kane."

"I… He wasn't actively thinking about it. I'd have to have done a deep scan-."

Kon scowls. "And there wasn't any reason to. He was just some carnival huckster!"

Batman stares at him until he gets a hold of himself. "Clearly, there was a reason to scan more deeply. Or -failing that- continue to monitor him once he revealed that he was the organizer of an anti-Uncorporation group. Aqualad, what prevented you from establishing a working relationship with Uncorporation?"

"Doctor von Schadel… Cranius, made it clear that he had no interest in working with outsiders. Once Kid Flash was forced to prevent Janus torturing Mister Bertoldt, we lost the cooperation of the rest of the organization."

Wallace scowls. "Don’t suppose there's any chance he's going to be punished for trying to murder a man with no arms or legs."

"The Department of Energy will be sending an agent to Aberrance to investigate events. Those of you not attending school next week will be offering your full cooperation." That's just.. Kaldur and me, isn't it? We glance at each other, then we both nod. "The.. scope, of events in Aberrance was far greater than I had anticipated. I want your mission reports written up tonight and in my hands no later than twenty three thirty." My team mate and I nod. "Dismissed."

We fall out, most of my team mates heading towards the showers. Kaldur hangs back to watch as Batman leaves the mountain.

"Recognised, Batman, zero two."

"That mission was a disaster."

"No, that mission was a sub-optimal success. We completed our objectives-."

"And twenty seven people paid for our 'sub-optimal' mission with their lives."

"Spree killing rampages happen, and there usually isn't any obvious warning. Robin and I were with you every step of the way. None of us spotted anything."

He takes a moment to compose himself. "Do you think Inkabod would have started his rampage if we had not spoken to him?"

"No idea. No… Yes, I do. He already hated Uncorporation, I.. sincerely doubt that he could have made the Un-Titan in one day… He or.. whoever, must have been working on it for a while. Us being there might have prompted him to do it today rather than.. next week… Except that doesn't make any sense either. Why do it when you know there's a team of superheroes on site?"

Kaldur thinks for a moment. "There were points in the fight where he did not seem to be in full control of himself."

I rub my forehead with my right hand. "Kobra… Eve… Someone who we haven't met yet who knows something about Un-Men..." Constance Sunderland is not currently involved in Aberrance to any degree and I would be very surprised if Cranius tolerated her as he did in the comic. I can't think of anyone else who could have done something like that. "The one thing Kobra does better than the League of Shadows used to is magic. Or it might just have been the effect of plugging himself into the Un-Titan itself."

"Or Damien Kane."

"Not very likely, but if you want to check I know a sneaky necromancer."

"I do not think that will be necessary." He turns to leave.

"Did you hear if Garth and Tula got their request approved yet?"

He stops. "Yes. They will be joining us from this Friday."

"How long does their placement last?"

He turns back, looking… Not cheerful, but at least a bit less miserable. "Service with the team counts as active military service. Unless Atlantis goes to war it is possible for them to spend their entire careers here."

"Probably best if they spend some time with actual army units."

"Yes, and they still have several years yet to complete in the Conservatory. The field posting will last six months." He realises something. "I suppose… They will leave us shortly after you will."

I suppose they will.

 

18th January
06:27 GMT -2

Sephtian makes a last check of his Dolmen Gates and then goes back to fiddling with his water armour harness. "It has been some time since I have had to 'cast on the move'."

"You have practised, right?"

"Yes. Well, somewhat. I was really more focused on the Gates and my speech, rather than the walking aspect."

"Sephtian, I can do the presentation myself if I need to."

"No.. no. My presence will increase the impact. I-" The jewellery inscribed with the runic sigils which will alter the properties of the water around him begins to glow. Since we're underwater the effect is far less noticeable than it will be on the surface, but the light seems to bend slightly around him. "-will manage." He brings his right arm up to his face, closely checking the aura for imperfections. "This man we are going to see, you mentioned that he is an idiot?"

"No, he's actually extremely intelligent. He just pretends to be an idiot because, A, it makes people underestimate him and B, it makes him more likeable. He probably won't know much about magic, but, surface world."

Sephtian nods. "He hardly needs to understand the technical aspects. In fact I.. don’t think many Atlanteans could."

"Ready?" He nods and I take hold of the first Dolmen Gate with a clamp construct. Ring, plot route to London.

"Compliance."

Aaand transition.

18th January
08:28 GMT

London City Hall looks a little like a dorsal fin made of glass. Several of the pedestrians walking on the pavement outside the building look up at me and the circle of stone and metal I'm towing. A few start heading away as fast as their legs will carry them but by far the majority get their camera phones out. There's quite a wind blowing but even so I manage to pick out the words 'orange' and 'cake'. Huhh. I suppose if you have to be known for one thing…

I float downwards towards the ground. I'm dressed in one of my black with orange pinstripe suits with tie and orange sigil cufflinks. My shoes are trainers, but they're black with orange decoration. A quick wave to the crowd and I start towards the door. The mayor of London on this Earth is the same man it was back home, Boris Johnson. I'm here to sell him on the idea of using Dolmen Gates to improve London's transport infrastructure. I mean, if there was ever a man who hated the RMT it's Boris Johnson, right? Integrating magic with mainstream society requires people to get used to using arcane devices in their everyday life, and I can think of nothing more in need of replacement with Dolmen Gates than the London Underground.

There's no way the Gate could fit through the door so I have to transition inside. Four armed response officers, two receptionists and seven civil servants goggle at me as I float over the metal detector just inside the doors and land in front of the desk. "Orange Lantern two eight one four, here to see Boris Johnson. Would you please let him know I'm here? He's expecting me."

"… Yyes." The woman -Shirley according to her name badge- presses a button on her computer, still staring at me. "Just bear with me a moment please." Her eyes unfocus slightly as whoever she's ringing says something. "Yes, I've got a, um, an 'Orange Lantern' here-." She looks annoyed for a second. "Well you could have bloody told me." A brief pause.

"Mummy, why is there a big circle in the air?"

"It's probably a piece of installation art. Don't point, Cynthia, it's not polite."

Shirley presses another button and focuses back on me. "I'm sorry about that. They didn't tell the front desk because they thought you would go in through the window."

Eh? "Why would I go in through the window? That would be a dreadfully uncivilised way to behave."

"Right. Um. They're waiting for you in the Assembly Chamber. Would you.. like someone to show you up?"

"No, I'm.. fine. Shall I go up now?" She nods. "Thank you." I attach phase shifter clamps to the Gate and activate them before flying straight through the ceiling.

The floors blur past, then the Gate and I come out in the middle of the Assembly horseshoe, facing the mayor's seat. Which he isn't in. I turn-.

"Hello there!" Mister Johnson turns away from his PA and.. his.. Interim Director of Police Resources and Performance, who according to the ring is called Camilla Black. No idea why.. she's here..?

"Mister Johnson, good morning." There are actually several other people hanging around, politicians and civil servants of various stripes. I frown at them as Mister Johnson hurries around to the front of the horseshoe to get at me.

"Glad to have you here." He holds out his right hand and I take it. As we clasp he takes a grip on my forearm with his left and.. am I supposed to mirror the gesture? He doesn't look disappointed when I don't so I guess I wasn't. "So. Apparently you wanted to talk about our transportation infrastructure? Some dastardly villain planning some sort of mass kidnapping?" My smile becomes somewhat stilted. "Or terrorism? Rest assured that London's police stand ready to assist the Justice League-."

"Um, sorry, can we hold on a minute?" He stops. "To the best of my knowledge… Ring, check for me? Right. There are no attacks currently in the works. I'm here to talk about.. upgrading London's transportation infrastructure."

"Oh." He looks over at… Oh. Everyone involved in running security services answerable to the major's office. "Dash it."

"Sorry."

"No, no, clearly I was reading too much into it. Um, is it a problem if they sit in? The cabbies really try and gouge if we all leave at the same time."

I shake my head. "No, that's fine. Oh heck, you didn't throw out an Assembly meeting for this, did you?"

I can hear a couple of people trying not to laugh.

"Oh, it wasn't anything important. So, um… What's the stone ring thing?"

Right! Back on track. "If everyone would like to take their seats?" Mister Johnson nods twice and then strolls over to the chair at the open end of the horseshoe. The other seats around the table are swiftly occupied with a minimal amount of barging, and a few other people choose to watch from a standing position just behind them. The public gallery is empty, either because it's been cleared out or because it really wasn't that important. Once everyone's settled I move the Dolmen Gate to the right of the mayor.

"For near instantaneous travel over long distances, the Justice League use devices called 'Zeta Tubes'. You step in one end and -if you're authorised- you emerge at your destination about three seconds later. The problems with this system -including the truly ludicrous amount of money it costs to set up and run- mean that it isn't.. and may never be.. suitable for mass public use."

"This-" I nod at the stone ring. "-is a Dolmen Gate. Its design and construction have been a collaborative project between the Atlantean Conservatory of Sorcery and the Orange Lantern Corps." I pause and make eye contact with a few people. "We don't just do cakes, you know." There's some polite laughter. "When active, a pair of Dolmen Gates form a link which will cause someone who enters one to emerge from the other. There's no time lag, no loss of energy and no physical mechanisms to malfunction. And now, to give you a more thorough explanation…" I use a construct to snap the locking rune off the bottom of it, Sephtian's laboratory appearing on the far side. "I'd like to introduce its inventor, Professor Sephtian."

Sephtian steps up to the Gateway, flares his gills to take a deep breath, then steps through onto the carpet.

 

18th January
08:32 GMT

He gets a few stares. I even hear a chair scrape back as someone fails a fear test, though I do them the courtesy of not looking around to see who it was. When most people hear 'Atlantean' they think of Purebloods like King Orin. For obvious reasons those with heavier physical alterations rarely leave the sea. I'm used to Sephtian's robes just sort of drifting around him but with only the thin film of water being generated by his jewellery to support them they're actually hanging down. He does a quick check of his arms to make doubly sure that the charms are working. Odd to see him out in broad daylight like this. I'm also used to the muting of colours caused by Atlantean lighting conditions. Here, the blue-grey colour of his skin and the obviously inhuman design of his eyes stand out all the more.

He takes a moment to look around at the audience, before shifting his legs up and down to test his ability to support his own weight. "Hm. Rather glad that worked." He then shifts his attention to me. "Paul?"

Oh right! I send a filament into his water field and extend the ring's translation facility to him. He can read English -if a bit slowly- but he struggles to speak more than a few simple sentences.

"Thank you." He takes a few steps outward towards the middle of the horseshoe and then turns to Mister Johnson, bowing slightly. "Your Honour."

"Um. Professor." He doesn’t seem to be failing to take this in his stride any worse than he usually does. "Welcome to London. And, um, the surface."

"Thank you. It's very…" He looks around the room. "Bright. And airy."

"So, whereabouts is, um…" Mister Johnson waves his right index finger at the Gate. "Where does that come out at?"

"The other end is in a secure room in the research section of the Conservatory of Sorcery in Poseidonis, the capital city of Atlantis. Or.. given that we have a City-State system.. perhaps I should say 'crown city'? Poseidonis is located a little to the south of here and about half way across the Atlantic.. and a long way down. I journeyed approximately… Ah, conversion, what was it..? Four thousand kilometres, in no more time than it would take me to take a single step."

Getting more comfortable in lecture mode he begins walking around the horseshoe. "For the convenience and safety of your fair city the portal or 'Dolmen Gate' incorporates a subsystem to prevent the flow of water across the threshold. In Atlantis we use it to prevent water flow from areas of different pressure levels. Here.. well, it's essentially a hole to the bottom of the Atlantic. Water pressure would seek to equalise.. and you'd all get rather wet."

Mister Johnson tenses the muscles in his chin and nods. "Well I.. think we all appreciate you not doing that. So it's.. some sort of wormhole thing?"

I shake my head. "Wormhole techniques involve converting matter to energy, transmitting it and then reassembling it. That sort of thing still strikes me as rather unsafe.. though there are spacefaring species that use things like that."

Mister Johnson gets Sephtian's full attention. "I'm not.. familiar with wormholes. The.. Gates.. utilise a form of sympathetic binding. Essentially, they convince the universe that they are in fact one object, so walking or swimming through one naturally causes you to come out through the other."

"They're.. magic?"

"Arcanotechnology, yes. No one is 'casting' a spell. Rather, the magic is bound to the physical structure of the artefact."

"Right. Well. Gosh."

"The design is as good as I can make it. Now, we are looking for somewhere to field test it."

"You want us to use it?"

"Yes. Given London's perennial transportation difficulties this was the first place I thought of when the subject was raised."

"How… How many people can fit through it?"

"There is.. nearly no limit to the throughput. The size of the aperture itself is the sole limiting factor."

"So any number of people can walk through?"

"There may be slight difficulties if a significant proportion of them are powerful magic users, elementals or gods."

"Hm. Don't think we've got too many of those but, um… Exactly what might go wrong? People getting cut in half does rather give a bad impression."

"Oh, no, that can't happen. A person going through is either in one place or the other. We tested it thoroughly, and from the point of view of an external observer it looks like the part of the person that hasn't 'completed' its journey just.. 'fades in'."

"Hm." Mister Johnson gets up from his chair and comes around his desk to get a closer look. Sephtian gets a brief once over -not impolite, just curious- but it's the stone circle that gets most of his attention. "What would happen if I stuck my arm through there?"

"Boris!"

"Oh, come on Clive, it's perfectly safe. Well? What happens?"

"You'd.. get wet. And cold. And.. the pressure on the far side is quite a lot more than is safe for-."

"Allow me." I touch a filament to him. "Ring, protect but make the aura permeable by water at sea level pressure."

"Compliance."

"Right. Well. Here goes!" Mister Johnson sticks his left arm through up to the elbow, holds for a moment and then pulls it back, shaking water onto the carpet from his drenched suit sleeve. "Gosh, that was chilly!" He holds up his left arm. "Hey, someone take a picture!" A couple of people obediently take out their phones as he poses. "We could put this at East Croydon, take some of the pressure off Victoria. Or Victoria and Euston, bypass the underground."

"We were rather assuming that you'd want more than one pair."

"Oh? How many have you got?"

"How many do you want?"

"How..?" He blinks. "Gadzooks. Are you serious?"

"We only have six pairs at present. Each pair takes.. three days’ work to enchant. We may need to reconsider if you want more than fifty pairs, but the data we would get from their use-."

"How much would this cost? For fifty pairs, I mean."

"Nothing. The idea is to use London to prove the value of the system."

"And how much to run?"

"It doesn't require external power. I.. think one service a year should be sufficient. Since this is a demonstration, I'm prepared to offer the first decade's maintenance for free. After that.. we can discuss matters. Whatever the market rate turns out to be."

"How.. big.. can you make them?"

"A little bigger than this. Larger than that and we would need a new thaumatorium and the setup costs are astronomical."

"If you put them in sequence around the District and Circle lines…"

Boris brings his right hand to his mouth, thinking it over. "Wouldn't that rather scupper the Underground?"

I smile and raise my eyebrows. "And?"

He grins. "'And' indeed. Are you offering this to Paris? Or New York?"

"No."

Sephtian puts his right hand on my left shoulder. "He should say.. not yet and not for free. If this is met with success we will increase production and run it as a commercial enterprise."

"Alright." He pulls away slightly and addresses the room. "Quick show of hands. Who else thinks this is a great idea?"

 

18th January
10:57 GMT

"Is 'e alright?" Francis nods at Sephtian as the Atlantean bends down to peer at the ducks huddled up on the bank of Southwark Park's pond.

"He's never been above the surface before. He is now one of a very small number of Atlanteans to have ever seen a bird of any sort."

"You say so, mate." He looks at his cigarette, has a quick look around and then sighs slightly before returning it to his jacket pocket. Sephtian and I are drawing a crowd and while smoking in public is legal in London littering isn't. "Must be nice, gettin' out in the fresh air."

"I wouldn't boast about 'fresh'. I've seen London's air pollution figures."

"Presentation go well?"

"I think so. But Britain doesn't have any diplomatic relationship with Atlantis. We'll need import licences, then there'll be contract negotiations…"

He frowns, bemused. "I thought you were gunna give them away?"

"Not exactly. We were going to lease them.. and do maintenance for ten years for free. We'd still have to hash out who's responsible for what, and they'll probably want a surface company to do insurance. I mean, do you think surface world insurance companies will be able to get their heads around magic related risks?"

He chuckles. "If they did, reckon I'd be a fuckin' millionaire by now."

"And then if someone decides to challenge everything in the courts -and the rail unions almost certainly will- we might still be hanging around a decade from now. I mean, look at the sodding airport expansion."

He thinks for a moment, and shakes his head. "When this gets out, who's gunna keep on about that? I mean, if you can just stick one of those things in Heathrow and another one in JFK, what's the bloody point of flying? Come to think of it, should I be looking for a new job meself?"

Ah heck. Global news network equals global overreaction. Building enough gates for a local system will keep Sephtian's team busy for half a year. After that, the plan was to try and get an Atlantean company interested and lease the designs to them. There's no way we can produce enough Gates in the short term to replace the global transportation links, but the markets are going to be driven mental by the idea that we might.

"No. I mean, airports might be a target for whoever takes this project on once there's an actual market, but I don't think we'll ever replace cabs. The Gates are strictly point to point, one to one." Not entirely true, we could make multiple-exit Gates but they're even more resource intensive. "I mean, Saturday nights, if you wanted to send everyone home using Gates you'd have to have one Gate for everyone in the pub. Even if the pub could afford it, there wouldn't be room for anything else."

He nods. "Nice to know."

"You're right about planes, though. Won't be for years, mind…" I frown as Sephtian stares at a tree, then gently runs his right forefinger down its trunk. World economics here are a little bit less insane than back home. I don't remember exactly when the last recession happened but I haven't seen any sign of it here. I wish I remembered more economic figures so I could judge whether it just hadn't happened yet or if there was an underlying difference between here and home. I should probably have thought about that a bit more before bringing the Gates to public attention.

"Suppose that'll mean cheaper holidays."

I turn my head to him and smile. "Oh, um, if there's somewhere you particularly want to go, just let me know. I don't mind flying your family around. I can even give you a tour of the Ice Fortress if you want."

"Oh. Thanks, mate." Sephtian wanders back in our direction, pausing briefly to stare in fascination at the crowds staring at us. "Where to next?"

"Ah, Mister Chandler. Would it be possible to take us to the 'Tower of London'? I understand that is this country's most notable prison for people with supernatural abilities."

"Well, yeah, it is, but they don't let the tourists in that bit. Be a bit of a crap prison if they did."

"Still, I would like to see it."

"Right you are, guv." He turns and starts back towards where we left his cab.

Sephtian dawdles for a moment, looking at the surface of the pond and then at the water around his own right hand. "I wonder…"

"Thinking of going for a swim?"

"No. I'm wondering what 'wind' feels like." The water around his hand flows up towards his shoulder, baring his skin. He then cautiously holds his hand up. "Hnm."

"Is that safe?"

"The lower pressure feels odd, but it isn't a problem. If I.. left it, it would become uncomfortable." Curiosity satisfied, he allows the water to cover him once more. He waves at the observers and then starts after Francis. "You said that there was something you wanted to show me today?"

"Yes, I.. just thought it might be a distraction."

"Constantine might value the journey, but I am more of a destination man."

"Alright. What do you know about mithril and orichalcum?"

"Ocean Master's armour is made of the former, King Orin's of the latter. Mithril we can still make, but it is incredibly resource intensive and.. the purity isn't all that it could be. As for orichalcum, it's a lost art. I was.. thinking about using the gold you provided and a sample from the royal vault to attempt to recreate-."

I take a small ingot out of subspace and hold it out to him. He takes it and starts studying it carefully. "There's a woman on Themyscira who can make both. The Amazon Royal Guard have full orichalcum gear. You know-" He extracts a wand from his robe and holds it against the sample with his left hand. "-how high metal purity makes enchanting easier? It turns out that it's the same for transmutation. I don't really know-."

His hands spasm and he drops sample and wand. "Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm..?"

I catch both with filaments. "-how big a deal this is. I wanted to talk to you about it?" He's shaking. "Um. Are you alright?"

"I. Um. Ug. Bh."

"She was happy to make more for me."

"Pure. It's pure."

"Yes, I knnnow."

"The best armour in Atlantis is that worn by King Orin….. aaaand my opinion as an expert is that this is superior. His… The orichalcum making up his armour… This makes it look shoddy."

"Can it handle enchantments? Or does the magic inherent-."

He nods in a ridiculously exaggerated motion. "Ooh yes. Yes. Yes it can. Oh my goodness me, yes."

"Because I was thinking.. armour? I mean, I don't know what the limits are here."

He snatches the ingot and wand back and starts scanning it again. "I'm… I'm not sure there are any."

 

19th January
09:05 GMT -5

"Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm..!" Mister Kord's hands shake as he holds the small jovium rod.

"Um. Are you alright?"

"Room temperature superconductor!"

"Ssssort of."

He looks at me like I just shot his puppy. "Not.. room temperature.. superconductor?"

"Sort of room temperature superconductor. See, when Io first showed it to me, I didn't actually know much about superconductors? Jovium doesn't actually…" Maybe if I just showed him? "Okay, just.. hold that rod in the middle?" He shifts his left hand to the middle and takes his right away. I lean across his desk and take a cigarette lighter and a sheet of newspaper out of subspace.

"Ah… You know a super thermal conductor will distribute that heat equally across its mass, right?"

"Just watch. And drop it if your hand gets hot."

"… 'kay?"

I roll the newspaper sheet up into a tube and press it against one end of the rod. Next, I hold the lighter up to the other and flick the spark wheel. A flame appears immediately. The jovium itself doesn't change in appearance but a second later the newspaper is on fire.

"Huh? But… That shouldn't…"

"Magic materials don't necessarily make sense in terms of… conventional physics."

"Okay. Heat moves from one end to the other instantly… Something to do with the flow of electrons within… Maybe.. light speed rather than instantaneous.. the photon? No, no, no, that wouldn't…" He slides his chair back slightly and bends down to rummage in his drawers. I put out the newspaper and lay it and the lighter down on the desk. "You got a smaller piece?"

"Yes? What sort of size-?"

"About-" He puts a small metal plate on his desk. "-the size-" Some wires follow it. "-of a dime." His head reappears as he puts what looks like… I think it's supposed to be a battery. He plugs the wires into-. Oh, an electromagnet. I take a reasonably dime sized piece out of subspace and use a filament to hold it just above the metal plate as he attaches the wires to the battery pack. "Now, a normal superconductor-."

"Floats in a magnetic field, I know."

He looks me in the eyes, then turns his head slightly to the side. "So.. do I get a clue..?"

"Nope."

"Hm." He takes hold of the jovium piece in his right hand and stares at it. "You're not putting a shield around it, so it can't explode… Amazons would have tried heat… Do they have magnets?"

"Weak ones."

"Hmm." He leans forwards to stare at the metal, left hand on the battery pack's on button and right hand on his chin. "So: either it floats like it's supposed to, or it.. doesn't? If it channels energy it might.. produce a magnetic hose? Or just do nothing?" He sags slightly. "Welp, there goes my productivity for the week."

"Are you going to turn it o-."

He holds up his right hand. "Bup bup bup! I want to work this out."

"Okay..?" I wait for a moment but nothing else is forthcoming. "Made any progress with the armour?"

"Yeah, you owe Aaron down in testing a new arm."

"What?"

"Broken in three places. Still not really sure how he did it."

"What was he doing?"

"Super jumps." He shrugs, still staring at the metal. "It's not like a computer game. You don't have any control while in the air. If you don't judge the launch right… Least it wasn't the elbow this time."

"So… Is the problem with the thinking cap system itself?"

"I think the problem's thick skulls. A couple of guys have actually volunteered for the implanted version."

I take a moment to absorb that. My own armour is controlled by a system which has learned my movements, and I hardly ever use it without the ring anyway. But -thanks to Theodore Knight and Nylor Truggs… And Doctor Cizko I suppose- I have the full schematics of the Thinker's Cap. A mind-machine interface. I had hoped that connecting the wearer’s nervous system to the armour might bypass the need for learning. "But we already know that would work."

"Hey, you commissioned the research. You say 'wearable', we do wearable." He momentarily looks away from the metal to meet my eyes. "Lot of money in power armor, though. Government money."

"Maybe if they can run a super prison for a few months without a break out I'll consider it."

"Hm, yeah. Okay. I'm going to saaaaay… Float!" He flicks the switch and lets go. The jovium drops onto the metal plate with a metallic click. "Darn it!"

"How about the invisibility?"

"Why doesn't it… Oh, um, we made it work, and we think we can shield the wearer from the 'crazy making' effect. Maybe. What you end up with is more like a mech than a suit of armor, though."

"You think you can shield..?"

"None of the animals we stuffed in the cockpit showed any behavioral changes. Until we switch over to doing double blind Human tests it's hard to be sure. Aaand that risks a bunch of invisible crazy people."

"Does it affect robots? Computer circuitry?"

"Not that we've noticed." He turns the battery off and picks up the jovium disc. "Who exactly gave you this stuff?"

"Io." I generate a life sized construct of her, floating just above the ground.

He stares for a moment. Maybe I should have given her more clothes… "Oh, I have to have-. A.. meeting with her. Can she.. leave.. Themyscira?"

"Physically? Yes. She'd start ageing again but it's not like she's that old. I'm not sure if she'd want to, though."

"Does she understand how this-" He wiggles the jovium disk. "-stuff works?"

"I doubt it. Her background is in metallurgy. Smithing, not physics or thaumaturgy.."

"And she's the only one who can make it?"

"She told me that she learned from Hephaestus. Apart from that? I think so."

"She give you anything else?"

I remove the construct, then deposit the samples of orichalcum and mithril that Sephtian didn't purloin on his desk. "This one-" I point to the mithril. "-is about eight times stronger than titanium for a third of the weight."

His eyes widen. "Ahh?"

"And this one-" I point to the orichalcum. "-is a bit heavier but a lot stronger."

"Ahh?"

"Apparently they both take enchantments-."

He lunges across the desk and grabs me by the shirt. "I need to meet her!"

 

19th January
17:21 GMT +3

Myrto regards the chess board between us with suspicion. "Why are we not using the same pieces?"

On her side 'king' Hippolyta ranks up next to 'queen' Alkyone. Representations of Myrto herself take the place of the usual bishop, Charis the knight and Philomela the rook.

"Because we're not the same people."

On mine a robed Controller takes the king spot next to Queen Ophidian. I'm the bishop and my knights are represented by two Tamaranian warriors who I hope look something like Koriand'r and Komand'r. Sadly, with no Green Lantern presence inside the Vega Systems Stewart's ring didn't know exactly what they look like so I've guessed at eighties hair and swimming costume armour. My rooks are Vril Dox. Heh, though if he actually found himself in this position they'd probably turn out to have been robots all along.

"The pieces do the same thing, they just look a little different."

Her pawns are Amazon warriors while mine are Darkstars. Bit of a false equivalence, there. Pointy stick launchers versus maser cannons?

"I do not think I should play this with you."

Not moving away though, are you? "Why ever not? There's never been any prohibition against men playing board games in y-. In our society. You don't have any duties to attend to. You could make an argument that I shouldn't talk to you outside the-" I give her a salacious smile. "-festivals, but Queen Hippolyta herself authorised me to."

"Very well." She narrows her eyes slightly at me. "If you are attempting to convince me of your martial skill by showing that you have mastered a board game-."

"Pff! I haven't mastered chess! I've barely played for years." I pick up the Darkstar in front of my Controller and move it forwards one square.
Pe7-e6
"Then what do you hope to gain?" She considers the board for a moment before picking up Hippolyta's Charis and moving her to the board's edge.
Kng1-h3
"Relationship building." I advance my Controller's 'me' four squares. "When I spoke to Alkyone I think I was unnecessarily confrontational. In my defence, I rather like Diana and your captain refused to provide evidence against her or even tell me what the charges are supposed to be."
Bf8-c5
Alkyone's Charis moves towards the centre. "Perhaps you should apologise."
Knb1-c3
I move my Ophidian up to her knight. "Yes, but she doesn't seem to want to talk to me. And shouting it past you seems a bit rude."
Qd8-h4
Alkyone's Charis moves across the centre line, threatening 'me' and capable of defending Hippolyta if necessary. I retreat a square and a bowwoman comes forwards to protect the vulnerable Charis.
Knc3-e4 Bc5-b6 Pd2-d3
Hm. Myrto doesn’t seem to have the same deep seated desire conflicts that her immediate superior does. "If you want me to prove my skill as a warrior I would be happy to tell you about the fights I've been in." Komand'r comes out to threaten Charis.
Kng8-f6
"Hpf." She actually gives me a small smile. "If you wish to boast of your valour, you have chosen the wrong time of the year." Alkyone's Myrto crosses the board to threaten my.. Ophidian. Oh dear.
Bc1-g5
I pull her back a single square. "I'm not here to seduce every woman on the island. Not.. that you're unattractive-"
Qh4-h5
"Aphrodite forbid." Alkyone advances one square.
Qd1-d2
"-but where I'm from, we consider the ideal family structure to involve the biological parents caring for their offspring. Siring a load of children would make it impossible for me to give them the attention I'd want to." I move a Darkstar forward to try and either chase off her Myrto or free Dox. "And I.. think I'd want at least some emotional engagement with my partner."
Ph7-h6
She retreats her Myrto a square. "Are you unusual among the men of your homeland?"
Bg5-f4
"A bit? Oh, not about.. that. I'm sure you'd find plenty who would be happy to 'fire and forget'." She frowns slightly and shakes her head as Komand'r captures Charis. "Loose and forget?"
Knf6-e4
That gets a snort as Komand'r falls to a bowwoman. Suddenly free to move, Ophidian crosses the board to support me.
Pd3-e4 Qh5-c5
She hesitates for a moment. "How does the.. king and the rook thing work?"

"You move Hippolyta two spaces towards Philomela and then Philomela goes on the other side of Hippolyta." She nods and makes the move.
e1-a1
Darn it, I'm being out manoeuvred. "You don't seem to have the same problem with Amazons having children that Alkyone does." I move me up to threaten Alkyone. Need to get more pieces out!
Bb6-a5
She shrugs. "If the Queen has decided to encourage childbearing I trust that her decision is correct. I am a mother myself and my.. paramour was a comely enough man. I liked him." She moves a bowwoman forwards to protect Alkyone. "Captain Alkyone is concerned because you were selected by the Dragon."
Pc2-c3
"And what do you make of me?" I advance a Darkstar to threaten Myrto, prompting her to retreat into a position to threaten the Ophidian. I pull her back a single square.
Pg7-g5 Bf4-e3 Qc5-c6
"Had I not known of the association, I would most likely have assessed you favourably." Alkyone advances to the centre, threatening Dox. "As it is, you could merely be an innocent she has involved."
Qd2-d4
"Involved in what?" I move Dox forwards a square. I need to deal with Alkyone. Myrto gives me a slightly suspicious look. "If I'm innocent, then it's-" Ugh. "-part of your job to protect your weak and feeble menfolk. If I'm in on it then either A, I know anyway, B, don't know but wouldn't care or C, would care and so can be turned to your cause. Explaining what you think is happening doesn't cost you anything."
Rh8-h7
She moves a bowwoman forwards. "Except inform her of what we know. If you are false."
Pg2-g3
"You've been in prison for over eighty years. Even if I don't tell her what you tell me, you are in no position to threaten her. She wouldn't gain anything except a salve for her curiosity." I advance a Darkstar to threaten Charis. "And whatever she's been doing, if she's been at it for eighty five years then she's clearly not in any sort of rush. Plus, you might get information out of me."
Pg5-g4
"There is reason in what you say." Charis comes forwards, out of the way. I advance a Darkstar. "However, the decision is not for me to make."
Knh3-f4 Pb7-b6
"Can you talk to Alkyone about it?" She advances a bowwoman to exchange with my Darkstar and I take the trade before advancing my newly liberated 'me'.
Pf2-f3 Pg4-f3 Pe2-f3 Bc8-a6
She moves her Myrto to the side of the board to threaten the area around my Controller. I'd like to castle soon, please. "I see no harm in it."
Bf1-h3
"Thank you." I advance another Darkstar to give Koriand'r some space.
Pd7-d6
"Did you come to Themyscira today merely to entertain me?" Philomela comes forwards one square.
Rd1-d2
"No, I'm mostly here to speak to Io. I've been able to help her in the forge a bit and it turns out there's a huge market for her work in the rest of the world." I advance 'me' into a position protected by the Ophidian. She advances a bowwoman.. and back we go.
Ba6-c4 Pb2-b3 Bc4-b5
"Your need for arms is that great?" She pairs up her Philomelas and I get my Koriand'r out of the way.
Rh1-d1 Knb8-d7
"No, but our need for building materials is." Her Charis moves forwards and I finally castle.
Knf4-d5 e8-e1
"Building materials?" She looks a little amused. "How would you build something in her forge?"

"We can't. That's why I'm going to be asking very nicely."

 

19th January
19:33 GMT +3

Io and I rematerialise on Lemnos and I link arms with her before she has a chance to get her bearings. I also take the opportunity to cover her in clothing appropriate to the temperature; away from Themyscira's second summer the temperatures on Aegean islands can get quite low in winter.

"What did you do?" She takes in the rocky hillside for a moment, then slowly turns her head towards the town of Myrina. "Where are we?"

"Lemnos, of course."

She jerks her arm free. "When I said that I wanted to consult with Lord Hephaestus, I did not mean in person!"

"Why not? Diana gave me his actual address, and he'll be the third Olympian I've met face to face."

"You are a hero. Of course the gods take an interest in your life. I am-." She blinks as a new realisation hits her. "Oh gods. I'm not on Themyscira anymore."

"Nope." I point down into Myrina. "That's Myrina, a town of about five thousand people. See how they're not all swarming up the hill to capture you and.. offer you up as a sacrifice on.. some vaguely phallic altar to the god of patriarchy?" I spread my arms. "Welcome to the world. It's a town. They fish. In the summer there are tourists. Over that way there's some farms and over that way is where Hephaestus built his first workshop on Earth after Zeus threw him off Olympus." I start walking in that direction. "Coming?"

I hear nothing for a moment, then the sound of her boots on the rocky path behind me. "Did you plan this in advance?"

"I made a point of learning about the Olympians after I so magnificently failed to notice Eris and Hera. If you mean 'did I always plan to bring you here', no. I thought that I'd just need to plead my case to you. And maybe Queen Hippolyta."

I can already see the entrance to his home up ahead. It's made with local stone and blends in with its surroundings. The upper section looks ruined, but the subterranean part is supposed to be quite nice.

"This is truly nothing to you, is it?"

"It'll be a bit of a blow if he advises you to say 'no'."

"You are walking to the home of a god, uninvited, because you wish for me to share the secrets of divine smithing with this.. 'Ted Kord'?"

"Because I want you to work with him. And probably teach other people."

"I… Did you have an apprentice in mind?"

"I was thinking more like dozens or.. even hundreds of people. Get them hammering metal until they're competent and then put them to work." I glance back at her as I step onto Hephaestus' stone covered patio and she's pulling a face. "We can use machines for shaping the metal, we just need people for the transmuting."

"If their souls are not at one with the metal they will not be able to do it. And even then it is not certain." Let’s see. Hephaestus does mechanisms but not electronics or magics not directly associated with his nature. "I tried showing Pallas-."

Io cuts herself off as a section of wall drops into the floor. She gives me an interrogative look but I just shake my head. I know roughly where the opening mechanism is but I hadn't got as far as triggering it yet. A moment later I hear a familiar voice coming from inside.

"…woman. Or a man. I've forgotten which you prefer. Whichever it is, the important thing is that it involves you leaving this cave."

That was Hera. She sounds different when she's sober. More authoritative.

"Yes mother."

I'm assuming that was Hephaestus? He sounds a lot like the old man from Up.

"Good. Well, you think about that. I'm going to go lie on a beach. Or possibly a waiter." She comes up the steps at the end of the short tunnel, her attention focused behind her. She's wearing a white dress which displays her 'full bodied' figure to best advantage. She cleans up fairly well. "We'll see how things go." She checks her bag for a moment and only then looks up to see the two of us. Io -who's bowing at the waist- gets dismissed almost immediately while apparently I warrant a closer look. "Or maybe I won't need to go that-" I hold out my palms, showing the rings. "-fffarr…"

"Queen Hera." I give her a shallow but polite bow. "Orw… Should I still use the title?"

"Until Zeus tricks some other poor woman into marrying him, yes."

There's a creaking noise as someone else mounts the stairs. "Who is it, mother?"

"My divorce counsellor. And-" She frowns for a moment, then smiles in recognition. "-an Amazon. One of your worshippers." A slightly closer look. "Not exactly pretty, but she looks like she's built for a forge." She sniffs. "And smells like it too."

"I don't date worshippers, mother. And I'm married."

"To a harlot. And you're not really in a position to be fussy."

Hephaestus looks towards the opening as he reaches the top of the stairs. He's a short, broad shouldered man with long greying hair tied back in a loose ponytail and a bristly beard a shade greyer. His right leg is twisted and withered, supported by a metal brace which is what is making the creaking noise. "Io. Good to see you. And the blatant disregard for propriety means you must be Paul. Diana said you might be stopping by. Welcome to Lemnos."

"Lord Hephaestus."

"Oh, don't bother with that." He shuffles to the side of the passageway and beckons her inside. "I've always got time for the most skilled amongst my mortal followers. Just head down to the workshop, I'll be with you in a minute."

Io straightens up slightly. "Thank you, my lord." She enters the building, edges past Hephaestus with an expression of confusion and excitement on her face, then heads down the stairs. Then-.

"You're here to talk shop too, aren't you?" Hera is pressing herself up against my back, her chin on my left shoulder and her arms around my chest. She's, um… A well developed woman. "You know, there was a time when mortal heroes sought out goddesses. We're very friendly when properly.. appeased."

"Athena rather spoilt that for everyone." I gently pry her hands away and turn to face her. "I'm very sorry, your majesty, but I do need to speak to Lord Hephaestus about metallurgy."

"Well, fine." She gives me a dismissive wave with her right hand as she turns to leave. "Don't blame me if I've found someone else to play with by the time you're finished."

"… … I won't!" I watch her go for a moment, blink, then turn back to Hephaestus. "Has.. she been.. staying with you since..?"

Hephaestus looks at me with tired, defeated eyes. "Paul, I am over four thousand years old. I do not need my mother picking up after me. Have you seen what she's done to my workshop?"

"Tidied things away?"

He rubs his face with his right hand. "I can't find anything. Now, I'm happy she's left Zeus. I really am. And it was nice to see her. For.. maybe a whole day." He meets my eyes. "You want my aid with something?"

"Um. Yes?"

"Persuade her to go someplace else and we can talk about it."

 

19th January
19:46 GMT +3

I trudge down the steps towards Hephaestus' workshop. Dimly I can hear-

"…looked pretty, but we never really found a use…"

-him explaining.. something or other to Io. I don't remember Hephaestus at all from the comics and I don't think I should treat the one Justice League Unlimited episode he was in as a guide. The steps take a right angled turn to the left and I start to see into the interior of his workroom. Light comes from a series of flame-wreathed metal rods attached to the walls like torches, as well as Hephaestus' own smelter and furnace. There's an anvil as well as benches and tool racks, though the racks look curiously empty. Of the tools that remain some have runic devices carved into their surface while others look mundane. I think I even recognise a few modern brand names on the more sophisticated ones. Well away from the heavy heat sources is a planning area complete with diagram laden drawing board and metal technical drawing tools. There are also a few magazines, titles like 'Materials Today' and 'Engineering'. A slightly chipped mug bears the legend 'Smiths have the best tools'.

"Oh, you're back already." Hephaestus turns away from Io and the glowing green crystal he was showing her. "No luck? Or did you just get a bit too.. carried away?"

"No, she's gone."

"Quick work."

"Look… Not.. that I mind sexually assertive women, but I found that quite uncomfortable."

"Oh?" He waves his right hand dismissively. "Happens to the best of us."

Huhh. "Queen Hera and I did not have sex. I persuaded her that she would be better off relocating to the southern hemisphere where it's still summer. I bought her a suite in a five star hotel in Australia, paid for for the next two years."

"Mm." He nods. "Sensible."

"I also took the time to explain modern contraceptive devices." And.. marital aids. I do not want to have that conversation again. She kept getting me to repeat the bits she found most amusing.

He looks thoughtful. "You know, a lot of trouble could have been avoided if someone had discussed that with Zeus. Little late by the time you got involved."

"I'm not even sure they work on gods."

"Chemical ones wouldn’t, but unless fertility was an express part of the domain of the god in question barriers should work the same."

Io looks a little lost. "I'm sorry my lord, but.. 'barriers'?"

He looks back at her and sighs. "Aphrodite should really have talked to you ladies about this. You see, after-."

I wince. "Can we talk business first? Please?"

He shrugs. "If you insist. What was it you wanted?"

"I want to share knowledge of the working of mithril, orichalcum and jovium with the world. To use them in major engineering projects and technological innovations. A-and from the way a mage of my acquaintance was reacting, magic and arcanotechnology as well."

"Okay. And?" Io blinks at him. "What, you want me to make it for you?" He has a look around the forge. "Sorry, but even if I was prepared to do nothing with my time but help you, it's Vulcan's turn with our Etna foundry until the summer solstice. I'd only be able to make a few pounds a day. If you were doing any sort of big project-."

I take a gold coin out of subspace and toss it to him. He catches it with his left hand, examines it for a moment and then puts it in his mouth and bites it. "Complete purity. Diana never told me power rings could do that." He walks over to a pile of rock samples and bends awkwardly to pick one up. There's a slight shine to it. Metal ore? "Thing is, what bottlenecks a mortal smith -even a great one-" He glances at Io with a thin smile on his lips. "-doesn't mean all that much to a god like me." He puts the rock down on the anvil before walking away to pick up a runic hammer from where it leaned against the wall. He hefts it to reacquaint himself with the weight and balance before walking back to the furnace and thrusting it head first into the fire. "Io, could you work the bellows for me?"

"Of course, my lord."

She pumps and the flames grow brighter and hotter. Hephaestus' smile broadens in satisfaction. I note that he's not wearing protective gloves or a mask. "This hammer is called 'Flame Drinker'. Not much of a weapon, but it's great for transferring heat." His smile dims. "Vulcan doesn't know how good he has it. Did you know that unlike Ares, Mars is god of agriculture? And at least he had the decency to marry Venus. Sure, he's not all that bright and he could stand to wash more, but at least he shows a polite interest."

"Do you.. intend to follow your mother's example?"

"My marriage was commanded by Zeus. I'm not sure if the reasons for it still matter, but I'm not going to try my luck with him now." He looks at Io. "Okay, that should do it." She steps back and he takes a firmer grip on the hammer. "Cool."

The flames vanish and a wave of cold air passes through the workroom. Hephaestus waits for a moment and then pulls out the hammer. The runes on its head are now glowing the white-red of hot iron. "Yeah, that's about right. Io, could you get the crucibles?" She takes five small bowls from a shelf and puts them down on the anvil. Each one has a slightly differently coloured interior, residue from whatever he uses them for melting. "Now…" He picks up a nearby set of tongs, grips the rock with it and holds it over the first crucible. "Gold." He brings the hammer down, tapping the ore gently. One of the runes goes out and there's a slight hissing noise as molten yellow metal runs out of the sample. He waits a moment until it's finished then moves on to the next crucible. "Silver." The hammer comes down again and this time the liquid metal is pale silver. "Copper." Again. "Zinc." Again. "And last and very definitely least, everything else." The remaining rock melts out of the tongs as he strikes it.

Hmm. Io looks entranced, but the most interesting part of that to me was the hammer itself. The ability to perfectly draw heat away from an area and store it somewhere else, that has possibilities. The rapid smelting..? Though interesting, that probably isn't a technique mortal magic users can learn fast enough to be much use, to say nothing of Mister Kord's engineers.

"I think Io was more worried about how you'd feel about your cult's secrets being shared."

"Why?" He turns to her. "Io, I didn't show you how to transmute metals so you'd be able to lord it over the other Amazons. I taught you because I knew you'd use it."

"Yes, my lord, but… The people he wishes me to teach do not worship the Olympians. I wasn't sure if that would be acceptable."

"Don't worship us? That isn't exactly a short list." He makes a quick inspection of the hammer before lowering it to rest against the anvil. "Io, if I'm not prepared to share what I know, if I'm not prepared to teach people with enquiring minds and restless hands, then I don't deserve their worship. That said-" He turns back to me. "-if you actually want my active participation..?"

"I can put small statues of you in the rooms in which the work will be undertaken and we can probably do something on your festival days. Can't promise that anyone will take it seriously…"

"That would be nice. The Amazons dropped the Hephaesteia out of their calendar entirely."

"You.. want me to teach them?"

"Io, I gave that knowledge to you. How you use it now is up to you. That said, I broadly approve of just about all work done in my domain…" He turns back to me. "This isn't just going to be weapons, right?"

"We're still investigating the limits of the materials, but no. We're not limiting it to weapons."

"What were you planning to start with?"

"Power transmission with jovium, and a modified Dolmen Gate that uses orichalcum wire rather than gold wire."

"Dolmen Gates?"

"Upright stone circles. You walk through one, you appear at the other."

"Oh, like Fae Rings." I nod. "I didn't think your society used magic any more?"

"We do a bit, but no, we had to go to Atlantis for the expertise for that. I'm trying to bring together all sorts of useful knowledge and get the people who use it to work together to achieve more."

"And Eris is okay with you doing that, is she?"

"Major social shifts involve more chaos than stagnation." I shrug. "I like to see things get built."

Hephaestus nods solemnly. "And so do I. I think we can do business."

 

20th January
07:59 GMT -6

I float awkwardly in the air above my and Guy's usual sparring area over the Chihuahuan Desert. Given all of the flashing lights there have been out here over the past three months I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that we've attracted a small audience. Fortunately the owners of the dusty four wheel drive vehicles that turned up today were understanding about the need to stay well back.

"So…" Difficult to work out what to say, really. "They.. give you any trouble? About the ring?"

Lantern Stewart moves his eyes to look at me, while otherwise remaining facing the direction of… Not sure what he's looking at. Away from me, certainly. "No."

"Did the.. Guardians want to talk to you about it..?"

"It's standard practice when a Lantern encounters something capable of destroying a power ring. They weren't angry, they just wanted to know what had happened."

"Will Lantern Jordan be joining us?"

"No."

"On patrol?"

This time he turns his head slightly. "Do you actually know what Gardner's been doing?"

"Teaching other Greenies assimilation resistance, I hope?"

"Yeah. Actually made a formal recommendation about our training practices." I do a small and hopefully subtle air punch. "Salaak was so surprised that he actually said it was a good idea. Out loud. Said he'd forward it for consideration."

"Okay?"

"Then Gardner requested permission to undergo the M'eelam Na'aquall ritual." I give him a blank look. "You don't know what that is?"

I raise my right hand. "Stewart riiioooohhh." I grind to an awkward halt before lowering my right hand again. "N-no, no idea."

He looks away again. "The ritual's halfway between a journey of self discovery and a demonstration of self mastery. It involves.. going inside the C-. The Green Central Power Battery and journeying through your own mindscape. Guess all that meditation you've been doing must have rubbed off on him."

Or he's trying to learn to regulate his connection with Ion. "Do all Green Lanterns go through it?"

He shakes his head. "No. Anyone who passed basic can ask for the chance to try. Most don't bother. It doesn't make you any more powerful. Not by itself anyway. Thing is, passing it is required if you want to join the Honor Guard."

"Is Guy getting promoted?"

"Not as far as I know. Can't imagine Gardner keeping quiet about it if he were." Noo, neither can I. "But between the training sessions and the ritual, it looked like he was."

I think about it for a moment, then nod. "Jordan jumped in right after Guy came out, didn't he?"

"You bet he did. Which effectively means that I'm doing solo duty in this Sector right now."

"I'd.. offer to help, but I can't leave the system."

"Gardner's coming back until Hal finishes up." He creates a digital clock just above his ring. "In fact, he-."

"Hey guys." We both turn in the air to see Guy floating just behind us. He's wearing a green overcoat to go with his usual sleeveless t-shirt. "What's up?"

"Was it a tight fit, getting your head out of the Central Power Battery?"

"Eeh, we made do." He looks around, smiling beneficently at the desert, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Good to be back."

"Can we get started yet?"

"Oh, got a couple a' messages for the two of you. John, the Guardians want me t' teach you t' resist orange light stuff, so we should probably do some a' that today."

"Makes sense. Losing one ring is unfortunate. Losing two looks like carelessness."

"Yeah, but that's not why. Paul, I got some bad news." I brace myself. "Spoke t' the Green Man yesterday. He's the guy keeping-."

"Keeping an eye on Vega."

"Right." He takes another breath. "Those Construct Lanterns Larfleeze has? They're out and about. Most a' them are staying inside the treaty line, but a couple have headed out."

My eyes widen slightly. "That's.. not good. Did he say which ones?"

"He was ordered not to approach." I nod. Sensible. "Said they were headed roughly in this direction but there's a lotta space between here and there."

"Larfleeze?"

"Still sitting tight."

"And the other thing? The rings?"

He shrugs. "If they're out there, we haven't seen 'em. We had all the Lanterns in Sectors between here and there check the predicted flight path. They didn't find anything, and given how Oranges are supposed to usually behave…"

I nod. Anyone avaricious enough to draw a ring to them should be very obvious if they're using it. On worlds with sophisticated communications infrastructure the news would spread quickly and a Green Lantern could pretty much just check in to find out. On a more primitive world it could be a problem but their scope for malevolence would be a lot less. "Just in case, it might be an idea to have other Lanterns come here, practise detecting Orange Lanterns and resisting assimilation with me."

Guy grins. "Offering yourself up as a training dummy? I'll pass it on, but I don't really think the Guardians 'll go for it."

"Why? I'd have thought that they'd be overjoyed-." Guy and Stewart both raise an eyebrow. "Um, satisfied? To have some assurance that their Lanterns could fight Orange Lanterns effectively."

Stewart gives a small shrug. "Maybe they think you're still a risk. The Ophidian is still in your Lantern."

Guy gives him a look. "Or maybe they don't like him proving they lied to us about Vega and the Psions."

"How is that going down in your corps?"

"Most of us hadn't even heard of Vega. Everyone who had?" He shrugs. "Operational security. Oh, hey, that reminds me." He pulls his coat aside slightly, revealing-.

"Is that a gun?"

"Neural disruptor. Messes up force fields and disrupts nervous systems but doesn't kill people. Green Lantern Corps approved sidearm."

Stewart frowns. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's in the field manual and everything. I know, I was surprised too."

"I think I'll stick with magic bullets, thanks."

Stewart loses patience. "Are we actually going to get any practice in today?" Guy and I grin at each other and simultaneously generate construct armour. "Hey, what-?!"

 

20th January
16:57 GMT -5

I perform a few last minute checks on the… I hesitate to call it a 'cosmic treadmill' because it isn't one. It isn't designed to travel through time no matter how fast you run on it. It certainly can't give you super speed, though it is only a few malfunctions away from propelling someone -briefly- at super speed directly into the protective force fields which surround it. What it does is use various pieces of New God technology to create a treadmill that can cope with a runner moving at super speed. Wallace's latest test-.

"Grayven?" I look around as Artemis enters the laboratory. Arms folded. Not a good sign.

I turn around to give her my undivided. "Artemis. What can I do for you?"

"I thought you were going to tell him."

Ah. Yes. That. "I was.. and.. then.. there was the riot, and Crassus, and chasing down Kobra." I frown slightly. "And you didn’t tell me what that problem you mentioned was."

"Oh." She stops and nearly looks back at the exit. "It's not.. really… Important." Then her irritation overcomes her… What, embarrassment? "But it's not as important as Wally not needing to eat like a pig anymore."

"I was going to run a few more tests and give him the news today. But actually, I'm far more concerned about potential bad news than good news. Artemis-" I lock the doors and block internal monitoring. "-whatever it is, you need to tell me."

Her head slightly bowed, she takes a quick look around the room before hurriedly walking up to me and motioning for me to lean down. "I'm…" She takes a deep breath. "Late."

I blink. "Wallace's session isn't for another couple of minutes. If you want to watch-."

"No, not-." Irritation and embarrassment war with one another on her face. "Late-late."

"Undead?"

"I mean my period's late." She makes an expression of angry exasperation. "Urahh!"

"Oh, that." Quick scan? "Nothing to worry about." She looks slightly mollified. "Can't talk about Zatanna, but Barda's the same. No more cramping, no more mood swings aaand no more blood pouring out of your genitals every month. I'll keep monitoring you, but until you actually want to have children I wouldn't worry."

She takes a moment to absorb that. "And.. then..?"

"Again, shouldn't be a problem. New Gods don't have the crazy population growth you might expect from an ageless race but we're well within replacement levels. Worst comes to the worst I'm perfectly happy to assist with reproductive cloning." She looks a little uncomfortable. "But I want to emphasise: it shouldn't. There shouldn't be any reason why you wouldn't be able to conceive naturally."

She nods, a little closer to normal. "Okay. Thanks…" Her face comes back up, right index finger pointed at my nose. "But you promise to tell-" There's a beep from the door. "-Wally!"

Unlock, internal monitoring to normal. The door opens and Wallace walks in wearing his yellows. Apokoliptian armour tries to resist the very things which allow the treadmill to work in the first place. "Of course. Wallace, do you mind if Artemis sticks around to watch?"

"Aah…" He looks at her and shrugs. "No, she's fine." He puts a bottle of water on a side table and walks over to the treadmill. "We starting with this again?"

"I thought we would." I turn back to the control system, Artemis coming alongside me to watch what I'm doing. "I'm going to try pushing a little further this time." He nods. "Normal protocols apply: if it starts going too fast or something unexpected happens, tell me and I'll slow it down as quickly as it's safe to do so." Another nod. "I'll bring it up to half the speed of sound in five seconds, and then.. we'll go from there."

He climbs up onto the deep black material which makes up the substance of the running platform and lowers his goggles onto his eyes. "You could probably go a bit quicker than that. I think I'm accelerating faster than I used to."

"Standardised testing, Wallace."

He walks to the middle of the platform and turns to look at me. "Yeah, but we're not really getting any new data at the low end."

"I'm monitoring changes in your body as well, remember." He gives me a reluctant nod and then returns his attention to his 'target', assuming a ready stance. I put my hands on the controls. "Starting in two… One…" I press the activation button and Wallace begins running on the spot. This part -as well as several contingency responses for if something goes wrong faster than I can compensate- is pre-programmed, letting me focus on his readouts. His heart rate is insane, but then his whole body is sped up. Anything I do to compensate, to work out how fast it is compared to the rest of him is.. educated guesswork at best. After a few attempts I decided that the only real way to tell if he was in distress was to get feedback from him. Sure, I can use Velocity Ten to briefly move fast enough to intervene, but how would I know when to administer it?

The treadmill doesn't look like it's moving but Wallace's movements are already blurry. Since his body and head stay in roughly the same place those are more solid but his arms and legs are reduced to smears of colour. I turn my head towards Artemis. "Even at this comparatively low speed he would struggle to hear us. I have to use the ring to speed up anything I want to him to hear." She nods, her attention focused on Wallace. "Ring, message. Second stage acceleration starting. Try to stay centred. Transmit."

There's a very brief noise, almost immediately followed by a second.

"Got it Grey-man."

"Gray man?"

I press another button and the treadmill accelerates towards twice the speed of sound. We found early on that Wallace now benefits from some -or possibly all- of the same physics opt outs as his uncle, so no risk of a sonic boom. "My name's Grayven, I'm male, I'm grey. It works." When we first started I brought the acceleration up only very slowly, but at the speed his body is now working that made it painfully slow for him. For a fraction of a second Wallace moves back very slightly on the conveyor but he immediately rallies. In fact, he's a little too far forwards. I press another button to trigger the 'centre' reminders.

"What does that mean?" Artemis is pointing to one of the readouts. It's looking a little high… Not the first time it's done that.

"Arcane field strength. That's actually lower than it was the first time he went this fast."

"So he's using magic to go faster?"

"Nnnot consciously. It's like when you focus to send an arrow through a solid object." Another check of the monitors. Everything looks good here… "Ring, message. Okay, Wallace. Going to push it a little now. If you need to use the override, do it. Transmit." The sound is gone too fast for me to hear it.

"Go for it."

I nod, then rapidly tap a few more buttons. High acceleration, high jerk. I watch the arcane field strength indicator and there's a sudden peak which then drops back down. Hm. Wallace himself doesn't seem to be having any difficulty. Artemis narrows her eyes slightly and leans forwards. "Is something.. flickering in there?"

I'm not calling it 'speed lightning'. "Yes. It appears to be a side effect of him moving at extreme speed. Or possibly the thing which enables it."

"How fast is he going?"

"Now?" I check. "About twelve times the speed of sound."

Her eyes widen. "I thought he could only go about one."

I shrug. "That used to be true. I haven't told him exactly how fast he's been going in there."

"What!?"

"Blind trials generate the best data. And since I'm ruining that today anyway…" I press a red button on the bottom of the controls and the readout changes to display 0.0006461. Another tap and the bottom three numbers blur. Ring, Velocity Ten.

I'm not sure how fast my body is moving relative to his. His arms and legs are still blurs but I can see his facial expression clearly. Confidence, determination… I think he's enjoying this. There's a dull, slow ping from the controls as the number reaches 0.002. He doesn't seem to be in difficulty. Ring, increase jerk factor. I've only got a few moments more until the Velocity… There it goes. Another ping at normal pitch as the number reaches 0.01. A few more… I don't want to call them 'lightning flashes' because they aren't electrical in nature. Arcane field increasing quite a lot… Still not really at a worrying level. It's below what Zatanna uses for low level spells. 0.02. 0.03. 0.08. 0.15. 0.2. 0.3. 0.4. 0.5. Maybe I should stop..? 0.6. The safeties should work- 0.7. -even at this speed- 0.8. -but I'm a little- 0.9. -concerned…

"Internal override activated."

The numbers start to drop. And so does my heart rate. Wallace is still in a sprinting posture but the analytic systems don’t seem to think there's anything much wrong with him. From what little I can see he doesn't look to be in pain. Since his speed at this point is more an effort of spiritual might than physical power, his motions remain more or less the same as he drops back down. Once he hits 0.0001 the readout switches back to metres per second.

From his peak, it takes about two minutes for him to drop back down to what I consider normal jogging pace. He looks pleased with himself. Breathing heavily but not panting, sweating but not in any obvious discomfort. Still going, he looks out at his audience. "Well? How fast?" I press a few buttons to bring up his peak speed, then swivel the monitor so he can see it. 0.97. He frowns. "What unit is that? Kilometres per second?"

"C."

"C?" He starts to frown, then his eyes widen. "C!" He nearly trips and has to speed up to avoid falling flat on his face. "I was nearly at light speed!?"

"He was nearly-!" Artemis hits me in the chest. "You had that thing up to light speed!?"

"It's safe up to about one point five-."

Wallace blurs off the treadmill and grabs a computer console, calling up the test data. Pictographic representations flick across the screen faster than I can interpret them. Then they stop and he looks up at us. "I-it worked. I-I'm as fast as Uncle Barry."

"And that's not all." Artemis nudges me in the back. "Is it, Grayven?"

"No. Wallace-" Ring, unlock dietary data for Wallace's use. "-your calorie intake is down by about a third. You've cut out snacking almost entirely, and I've a sneaking suspicion that most of the rest of your abnormal eating is down to habit. I'm going to suggest-" He steps a little unsteadily back from the console. "-cutting down further and observing the results." He takes a few more steps and collapses into a chair. "Um. Are you alright?"

"Yeah. " He pulls his goggles off and rubs his eyes. Goggles were probably a bit tight. "I really am."

 

21st January
09:27 GMT -5

"…that I very much appreciate you coming." Red Tornado doesn't immediately respond. Fortunately, Lex has the sense not to turn up the smug any further. "I realize that my relationship with the Justice League-."

There's a slight whirr as Tornado inclines his head slightly and Lex stops talking immediately. "I am not here to represent the Justice League. I am here in my capacity as a private…" Another slight tilt. "Individual."

"But not a citizen. You were created in the United States? Certainly your.. 'father' Doctor Morrow was a naturalized American citizen."

"How did you talk him into doing this?"

I turn away from what must be the most uncomfortable conversation in Red Tornado's life to face Ms Graves. Guess I must still be on Lex's cool list; she doesn't usually talk to people while on the job.

"I'm a very good friend of his sister. When I pointed out what it would mean for other people in his position, he was… He felt compelled to agree that the law needed to change." She nods. "I.. waited until I had his agreement in principle before telling him that Lex was organising things."

Mercy nods, then raises her right hand to her right ear as one of the ushers reports in. "Excuse me." She turns away from me and heads towards Lex.

And there's the rub. Working with Lex when I thought that the worst thing he'd done was arrange a few murders was one thing. Now, I know that he's a member of the Light and therefore shares responsibility for trying to mind control the Justice League. To say nothing of Roanoke Island, or of Truggs' theft of the ring.

On the other hand, him and his must know the secret identities of the members of the Justice League as well as those of my own team mates and there haven't been any attacks. Batman and the Greenies and.. Nabu, have put some effort into checking and there doesn't even seem to have been any additional monitoring. Did they just.. not recognise anyone? Was Savage so sure of his victory that he just decided not to bother finding out?

On the.. third hand, I don't know how the Light make decisions. Talia told me that she was never present when her father spoke to the other members, but clearly they each have their own interests separate from those of the group as a whole. Mass murder is very much not Lex's style. Direct attacks against the League… Well, that is, but I still don't have hard evidence linking him as an individual to it. Batman and I have been monitoring LexCorp for 'exciting new developments' which could be based on materials appropriated from the Watchtower. So far nothing has turned up. Probably wishful thinking, but I'm still hopeful about the possibility of talking him around even if he was involved.

We're due out on stage in a moment or two. Lex is finally announcing Dubbilex's formal appointment as Director of Project Cadmus. The G-Goblin himself is placidly enduring the attentions of a makeup artist. Lex's people made their best effort, but even so I don't think that the suit was a good idea. His frame doesn't quite fit Human proportions and the clothing does more to emphasise that fact. Unless.. that was their intent? The G-Elf, G-Dwarf and the G-Gnome mounted on the G-Troll's broad shoulders are all being spared the makeup brush. They're here to showcase Cadmus' achievements in the field of genetic engineering, not to take questions or give interviews.

Lex did politely ask if Kon would be available. I passed on the request, but Kon said that he didn't really want a load of people staring at him like a lab experiment. Though he didn't mention it, I imagine the idea of being compared to Kal-El wasn't exactly a big draw either. With Diana taking respons-. With Diana becoming his mother he hasn't felt the need to follow up on Lex's offer of a familial relationship. I mean, as far as I know, anyway.

I asked Mister Queen about the Duke of Oil. After all, he was definitely created in the United States so he would be affected if we managed to get the law changed. Turns out that as an AI he can't be prosecuted for what he did in Star City so they've.. sort of impounded him instead. Long term it could be a bit iffy were it not for the fact that as he doesn't have a body he's stuck where they put him anyway. Mister Queen didn't quite turn me down but he did raise the question of whether the Duke would really give the impression we wanted. Having thought about it, I think that he actually would. There will be AI criminals and the law should make it possible to prosecute them. Having him boast about his immunity to the right people might actually help us. But maybe not at the first announcement.

"Mary?" Lex smiles at the makeup artist. "Is Dubbilex decorated to your satisfaction?"

She takes a step back to examine him. "I think that's about as good as I can get. They just don’t do powder for your complexion, Mister Dubbilex."

The G-Elf scuttles over to him. The two of them make eye contact and Dubbilex's horns briefly glow. Looking through another Genomorph's eyes? I suppose he.. wouldn't have had access to mirrors for much of his life. "I am certain that you have done the best you can."

"Well then." Lex looks around our little group. "Red Tornado, Paul, if you could follow me out and take your seats behind the podium. Mister… Oh, pardon me, Director Dubbilex, please wait in the wings until I call you out." Dubbilex and I nod while Red Tornado remains impassive. I don't really have.. much to do here, but apparently I'm sufficiently good for public relations that it's worth our while to have me just hanging around. And I am stumping up a good deal of money for this.

With one last smile at his new Director, Lex turns and leads us from the backstage area to the side of the stage. A quick ring scan shows thirty three journalists of various stripes, the range including everything from general reportage, law and politics to technology websites and magazines. There are television cameras, but those are being operated by LexCorp employees. Makes sense as this isn't supposed to be a major announcement. In fact I expect he had to hint that something interesting was going to happen to get this many observers.

Lex tilts his head back a little as Ms Graves corrects the alignment of his tie, then strides out onto the stage to take his place behind the podium. I let Red Tornado go out next and then follow on behind him. The only people I recognise in the audience are Ms Lane and Mister Olsen. I suppose Mrs West-Allen and Ms Grant are more presenters than investigators. Tornado's presence wasn't announced in advance and there are more than a few exclamations of surprise, not to mention camera flashes. Since I'm in a suit rather than armour I am a good deal less recognisable. I.. think. Maybe me being here just matters less as I don't stand for the League?

"Ladies and gentlemen." Lex pauses, looking around the reporters and making eye contact with as many of them as possible. "Thank you for coming. I've invited you here today to talk about two things. Firstly, the appointment of a new Director for Cadmus Labs. Secondly, that I will shortly be mounting a sustained legal campaign to overturn what I believe to be the most repressive set of laws presently enforced in America."

Slightly over egging it there. United States versus Crane may have set the tone but it didn't go to the Supreme Court. It isn't national law, though other courts have tended to rule on similar lines.

"It was brought to my attention only fairly recently that while I -a man born in the United States to parents who were both American citizens- enjoy the full protection of the law, while.. a legal immigrant enjoys the full protection of the law and even an illegal immigrant receives a good deal of protection, there is a small but growing subset of people… Of intelligent beings, who enjoy no such protections. Beings like-" He turns slightly and gestures. "-Red Tornado, who was built in the United States in nineteen forty eight by an American citizen and who -for reasons that defy all logic- is still not able to claim American citizenship. Technically, as the law stands, he isn't even able to claim to be a person at all."

"Now, I'm not usually one for civil liberties campaigns, but the idea that a man with such a history of public service as Red Tornado has is not considered a person by the laws of his home country is something I will not stand for. We abolished slavery in eighteen sixty six and I will not see it reintroduced by the back door simply because the slaves are being built rather than born." Another round of eye contacts. As if anyone would argue with anything he's said. "But to return to my first point: Cadmus Labs was created to push the boundaries of genetic science. Since taking personal oversight of its work I have been-" Concerned face. "-truly disturbed by the unethical nature of the work that was being undertaken by the previous Director, Doctor Mark Desmond. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce the individual who will be responsible for keeping Cadmus on the straight and narrow: Dubbilex."

Dubbilex's arrival on the stage is greeted with gasps of astonishment. Then the cameras start flashing. He doesn't look around, simply heading towards the podium as Lex steps aside for him. Then he looks out across the audience towards the back wall. Making eye contact during speech isn't something that comes naturally to a Genomorph; not much point when you're telepathic. He's had some tuition but Lex was of the opinion that his behaviour being a little off would work just fine. It reinforces the fact that he isn't Human without making him appear threatening in a way that would harm our efforts.

"Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dubbilex. I am a G-Goblin, one of a number of types of synthetic 'Genomorph' life forms created by Cadmus Labs over the last decade." He pauses as another barrage of flashes go off. "For most of that time we were treated as slaves by the project management. It is only since Lex Luthor took direct control that we have been treated as people, and I am all too aware that this has no basis in American law. I have Human equivalent intelligence and yet my legal status is that of laboratory equipment. Possibly even that of medical waste. I cannot vote. I cannot own property. My salary for my work must be paid to a trust, administered by Humans. An assault or a theft committed against one of us is not a crime, except as a crime against Cadmus property." He pauses. I don't think he really believed he'd get the opportunity to do this. "What my people want is equality, both for ourselves and any others who are unfairly denied it. Now-" His horns glow slightly and I notice Lex give an almost imperceptible nod. "-does anyone have any questions?"

The entire room jumps to its feet.

 

21st January
15:01 GMT -5

Thank goodness that's over.

When Dubbilex tried to answer questions and failed due to everyone else trying shout their questions over everyone else, I worked out why Lex wanted me on hand. One quick aura of silence later and things became a great deal more orderly. Well, in effect. They kept on shouting but only the person with the 'Player 1 Select' construct around them could be heard by anyone else. Dubbilex could easily handle that, though I imagine that most of the journalists missed his first few answers due to trying to listen with their mouths.

I don't think that Ms Lane believed Lex's claim not to have known about what was happening in Cadmus for a moment but she has too much sense to just blurt out an accusation. Nonetheless, she did ask Dubbilex about his origins and interactions with Cadmus staff to date. I already knew that he was only five years old but I hadn't really considered what that would mean for age related legislation. The age of consent isn't really an issue for a species that can't reproduce sexually but ordinarily he wouldn't be able to vote in elections for another thirteen years. The oldest Genomorphs in existence are the small number of surviving G-Prometheans, the original batch Cadmus produced to make sure that their processes worked before moving on to more 'useful' varieties. I was introduced to one last week and they look like broader and shorter G-Elves. None of them are over fifteen and they aren't likely to make it to twenty. Their longevity wasn't really a concern at the time.

Red Tornado made a brief speech about his perspective on Human society. I find it hard to believe that he hasn't got better at delivering speeches than that. Lex had to nudge him into giving specific anecdotes about his early and somewhat confusing interactions with humanity at large. My own talk was far shorter, focusing on the need for a rapid change in the law to reflect what none of us in the room doubted; that these were intelligent beings in need of recognition.

Neither Dubbilex nor Lex made any mention either of their Kryptonian research or of Mister Harper, save as 'caretaker management'. Once the initial round of questioning was over Dubbilex brought out the other Genomorphs. That was where things got a bit complicated. They could deal with a Human equivalent being wanting legal recognition but coping with a gestalt life form requires such a radically different approach that the same sort of connection just wasn't there.

Spotting that the audience were drifting, Lex stepped in and used the opportunity to extol the technical skills of the Cadmus personnel responsible. The G-Troll lifted a few weights, the G-Elf did a short acrobatic performance and the G-Dwarf did some sketching. Two different sketches at once to be precise. I hadn't thought about their niche when Kon and I went in to find Match but it turns out that they can handle multiple sources of data input and output. And Harper was having them wash dishes.

When they were established in the audience's minds as 'not threatening' Dubbilex offered to have the G-Gnome enable telepathic communication between volunteers. I think Lex had plants who were primed to volunteer themselves if no one else did, but Mister Olsen got to his feet almost immediately. That demonstration wasn't all that audience friendly as only the participants and myself could hear what they were saying but it seemed like the participants enjoyed it.

I still don't know where the original genetic samples came from. No one asked, presumably because they were assuming that Cadmus created them ex nihilo. I could try asking Dubbilex, see if they've picked up anything from the minds of Cadmus' original researchers? I have to assume that Lex knows. Could I just ask him? And I'm back to how far I'm prepared to work with him.

After that, a buffet lunch and mingling with the journalists. A few wits thought to ask for my Christmas Cake recipe and commiserated me on the Guinness Book of Records refusing to recognise it. I think their excuse was something to do with the large scale theft involved. Not like I've been prosecuted… Another question that got some attention was one concerning the possibility of me joining the Justice League. In the end I just gave a brush-off non-answer about how if they couldn't manage with three Lanterns a fourth wouldn't help much either, but I thought it was worth thinking about. I know I can fight as well as -if not better than- the local Greenies. My existence isn't a secret, I don't have a life outside.. this that could be disrupted by membership. If it wasn't for the Nabu thing, is it something I'd actually do?

I'm on good terms with several members and not on really bad terms with any of them. They aren't my team, but the League only really get together as a group for major events and I don't think I'd be significantly less effective around them. On the other hand, what would I gain by it? Control? I'm planning to put Vril Dox in charge of my Corps, control isn't my thing. I'd already be turning up to major events anyway, already have access to most information and resources… I'm sure Alan would like it if I did, but otherwise.. I'm not.. seeing the draw.

I step aside as a large party of Zatanna's fellow students walk down the pavement. She should be out of school soon and John's managed to track down Mister Ondaatie for us. For a man who never leaves the city he can be surprisingly elusive when he wants to be. Probably still irritated about John's mishandling of the The Beast situation. My plans for our final confrontation with Nabu are still somewhat nebulous, but it would be very convenient to face him down somewhere we knew he couldn't flee from. If Mister Ondaatie's willing to help with that, great. If not, I'll need to either start looking for somewhere else or come up with another methodology. Keeping him in one place would also give us the best chance for a negotiated resolution-.

I spot Zatanna and a small group of her school friends walking down the pavement from the school's main entrance. I don't really… I haven't had anything to do with them. She has talked about them, but it's… The things we do together are mostly things we have to keep secret. She told me that she hasn't told them much more than the Justice League's official statement on her father's sudden absence from the public eye. Let's see… Kayla, Sarah and Alexis? I think?

I'm wearing a woolly grey roll neck jumper to cover my neck tattoos and black loose-fitting trousers. Neither have any orange in them. In deference to the setting I'm also wearing glasses for the first time since I got here and I've combed my hair slightly differently, which I assume is the reason why no one in the city I visited with a giant cake resting on a flying ice fortress can recognise me.

"…no real chance of Webster…"

I come to a halt just outside the gates. Most parents collecting children from my old Primary School used to wait just inside the gates while most children attending my secondary school either walked home or got on one of the three double decker busses that were laid on for us. There are parents around for the youngest children but for the most part they appear to be lining up to board the yellow busses at that pavement just outside the school.

"…of feeling at the time. Even if they captured DC -and I don't think they could…"

The four of them are rather focused on their own conversation. Something they're working on in class? I haven't really talked to Zatanna about that sort of thing in any detail. Probably should…

"…didn't have enough recognition-."

"I'm sorry to interrupt."

"…to even try to-."

"Zatanna?"

They stop, conversation dead. Kayla -I think- gives me a look of mild indignation. "And who exactly are-?"

"Paul?" Zatanna recovers from her surprise quickly. "Why are you..?"

"I finally managed to get hold of that chap in London we wanted to speak to."

Probably-Alexis looks me over with a smirk and then turns to Zatanna. "Is this the guy you've been-?"

"Yes! Paul's been, ah, a he's a friend." She nods. "Yes."

"The tattoo guy?" I pull back my left sleeve slightly and let her have a look. "Ooh. They really go all over..?"

"Most of my body, yes. Zatanna, I can do this myself if you're.. busy. I just thought-."

"Right, yes, no, this is…" She turns back to her friends. "I'm really sorry, but I need-."

"It's fine." Sarah giggles as Zatanna starts to blush. "You need us to tell your dad you're studying with us?"

I shake my head. "We're not-"

"No!"

"-romantically involved."

Alexis gives me a look of total incredulity. "Uh-huh. Which is why you're spending every free moment together."

I try meeting Zatanna's eyes but she looks away. "It's really more of a professional development thing."

"So what you're saying is: dating you is good for her career?"

"To reiterate: not dating."

"And the friendly massages?"

I hesitate. I suppose.. those.. from an outsider point of view could seem a bit…"I fear this conversation's rather got away from me. Zatanna-?"

Mantling her face with her right hand she grabs my arm with her left. "Stel tsuj teg tuo fo ereh won."

 

21st January
20:12 GMT

We appear a few streets away from the Northampton Arms and quickly walk around a corner. I've discovered that unless there's some sort of lightshow accompanying it, most people tend to ignore teleportation. They've all got their own stuff going on, so if you make even a basic effort to fade into the crowd they'll usually assume that they just missed spotting you the first time. That's far more likely than the idea that you used a power ring to travel faster than light from the other side of the Atlantic, right? For those who do spot it, getting out of their line of sight is usually enough. Though the CCTV cameras I can see do appear to be paying us particular attention.

Zatanna.. isn't looking at me. I suppose that having me turn up like that.. and having her friends assume that we're dating was fairly awkward. And I know that she loves me, a perfectly natural result of her need and my freely offered support. And probably more than a little physical attraction. I mean, I designed this body. I know it looks good. But I'm really more filling an 'in loco paternis patris' role than a boyfriend thing. I was.. clear at New Year, wasn't I?

"… How.. was.. school..?"

"Good." She doesn't expand. "How did the thing with Lex Luthor go?"

"G-. I think it went well. He might have been a bit heavy handed with the slavery line, but I suppose that simple messages transmit better than complex ones. The Genomorphs themselves were reasonably well received."

"We've been.. studying the build up to the Civil War. I don't think any of the factors which made people support slavery apply now. Genomorphs were used as forced labor in Cadmus but not anywhere else. There's no body of people who are used to it, no major industry that depends on it and I doubt any politicians would be prepared to stand on a pro-slavery platform now."

"As far as I know, the only people working on artificial biological lifeforms in the United States are Cadmus and Uncorporation. Neither of them would have a problem with expanding the thirteenth amendment to unambiguously cover non-Humans. The only problem will be with AIs. That, and working out how to integrate them."

"Why would AIs be a problem?" She glances at me as we stop at a pelican crossing. Looks like she's calmed down a bit. "I don't think anyone could seriously doubt that Red Tornado is a person."

"No, they wouldn't. He's unambiguously Human-equivalent. The problem would come from technology companies working on intelligent systems, where they make something and it isn't clear how clever it is. Or worse, if they make something that looks like it might be intelligent and either wipe it or add a load of restrictions to stop it developing. And then there's the problem of who owns Genomorph genetic data."

She frowns. "They'd own it themselves, wouldn't they?"

"At the moment, lots of companies have patents on genetic sequences, even ones that are naturally occurring. There have been a lot of legal challenges… The American Supreme Court might end up hearing a case eventually, but even so, Genomorphs are the product of research. And they can't reproduce naturally. If Cadmus-" The lights change and we start across the road. "-or a company like Cadmus owned the genetic data of an intelligent creature, they could hold them in bondage by controlling their access to it. Or decide to genocide them."

"Does that apply to Humans?"

"Oooh, yes. There's some.. very stupid and thoughtless law relating to genetics out there."

"Are you saying.. if a person has a gene, and a company copyrights it… That company owns that gene in that person's body?"

"They might. Maybe. I can't see a court ever enforcing that… I mean, can you see a judge daring to ban.. 'natural transmission'? But if any company ever gets heavily into artificial genes they'd probably try. Lex and I might end up having to fight against the ability of companies to patent genes at all." I hesitate as the Northampton Arms comes into sight. "Um… About your friends…"

"Oh, just…" She glances out into the road. "Just ignore them. I told them we weren't dating."

"Okay."

"I haven't told them about.. what really happened to Dad, but it's pretty obvious that there's something wrong. Making jokes about the hot English guy I'm hanging out with-"

"Themysciran."

"-is just them trying to help." I nod, and pull open the pub's door for her. "Thank you." She walks in and I follow her. John's sitting across from the door at the same table we occupied during our heart to heart eleven days ago and he looks up as we enter. There's a hardhat on the table, and sitting across from John is a middle aged black man wearing full underground maintenance gear. Ken 'Map' Ondaatie. Probably the most powerful shaman in the country and a virtual god within London itself.

And I'm going to get him fired from a job he loves by making trains obsolete.

…

Maybe I should have thought about that a bit more?

That realisation causes me to slow down, allowing Zatanna to pull ahead. She walks over to the table, stops and gives a short bow. "Mister Ondaatie, thank you for agreeing to speak with me."

"Bowing? John, how did a polite girl like this get involved with the likes of you?" Zatanna hesitates, not quite sure what to do next. Mister Ondaatie points to the space next to John with his left hand. "And you by the door. I've been watching you since you arrived."

How did-? The cameras. If he was just directly seeing the pictures they transmitted, my wards wouldn't… I approach the table, recalling exactly how many cameras that was. Magic multiprocessing? Or maybe he just set them to track Zatanna? Would it be worth suggesting that she get tattoos..? No, I'm fairly sure several people would object to that, no matter how functional they were. Mister Ondaatie looks around as I come up to the table. "What's this I hear about you talking to Boris about transportation?"

I wince inwardly. "We offered him first dibs on a portal network. And before you start complaining, you're perfectly capable of enhancing the tube so no one needs to use them."

"Not a great way to go about asking for a favour." John and Zatanna shuffle along and I sit down on the end of the seat opposite Mister Ondaatie.

"No, but I was part of the group that stopped the plant attack back in October." He nods, picks up his pint and takes a drink. "John told you what we want?"

"You want me to help you ambush a superhero."

Zatanna's face hardens. "A superhero wouldn't hold my father hostage."

"Mister Ondaatie, this is the most important thing happening in my life. What do you want in exchange? If you really want the tube thing spiked, I'll talk Sephtian into using a different city."

"I prefer to keep my tube work and magic work separate." He looks thoughtful. "I know that you're telling the truth about Fate. I felt Giovanni Zatara trapped inside him when he came looking for John while we dealt with The Beast." He looks at Zatanna. "Nabu is bound to Order. Even if he came to London, I wouldn't be able to free your father."

She nods. "We know. We just need you to stop him leaving. Stop him teleporting and.. flying away from us really fast."

"Are you planning to kill him?"

"We will have plans for killing him, but we'd prefer not to. We can keep him imprisoned if we have to. I'd rather come to terms."

"But you want to be able to force him to see things your way." Zatanna and I both nod. "Risky, for me. He could do a lot of damage to my city, saying nothing of what he could do to me directly if he found me." He leans back in his seat, thinking things over. "There is… Something you could do for me. An old mess of John's that needs to be tidied up. Do that for me and for London…" He nods. "And we'll help you."

"Okay. What sort of mess?"

"The Damnation Army."

 

21st January
20:18 GMT

John frowns. "What, you mean that nutter who tried to murder Gemma? And that football hooligan mashup? Don't think either of them are in any position-."

Mister Ondaatie shakes his head. "No, John. Nergal's victims were many." He reaches into the pocket of his overalls and pulls out a map. Looks like… Utilities. Sewers, electrical cables, water pipes and storm drains.

"And? Their boss is gone. Saw him get burned to death by Angels meself."

Mister Ondaatie chuckles. "Demons are harder to kill than that, John. I'm surprised at you."

John exhales. "Too much to hope Angels would do something that actually helped me. How'd they f-." Half second glance at Zatanna. "Mess that one up?"

"You took his spirit to the borders of heaven. His body was taken by Richard Simpson. Maybe he left a little bit of himself somewhere so that he could regrow?"

"How would you know, anyway?"

"If he was really gone, this-" He taps his right forefinger on the map. "-wouldn't still be here. A little patch of hell underneath my city."

"Okay. Any idea what he's got down there?"

John thinks for a moment. "Not Nergal himself. Probably not any other Demons either, else they'd have taken charge and started attacking things. Could be.. cultists… People he's messed about with his magic. Maybe some nasty trap spells, but Nergal didn't really bother with that sort of thing."

Zatanna nods. "He'd have to have something there keeping the link to Hell going. If we destroyed that, everything that was affected by Nergal's magic would either be pulled back in or.. die."

"Or we could just blitz them." I shrug. "I'm a bit low on Mageslayers but don't have a problem assimilating Demons."

"No." Mister Ondaatie shakes his head. "Anything that stirs them up risks drawing more attention from Hell and there are more than enough people-" He looks straight at John. "-doing deals with Demons here already."

John looks not even slightly guilty. "If you can't take a little heat…"

"So.. if we shut the portal down, you'll let us fight Nabu here?"

"Yes." He takes another sip. "That's it."

"Just so we're clear: while I don't want to kill him, it might come to that. And I can't promise that Order won't hold you responsible."

He looks towards the wall, his eyes unfocusing. "Did you know people from all but three of the world's countries live in London?"

"I think I remember hearing that on a radio program."

"People from Europe, people following trade routes from all parts. People like my parents, coming here from the colonies after the War. Little bit of everything if you know where to look." He nods to himself. "Messy and vital. Alive and chaotic." He turns back to me. "Don’t worry about Order coming after me. The same energies that will stop Nabu will stop any of the others sticking their noses in."

"When do you want this done?"

"No time like the present." He gets up, picking up his helmet as he does so.

I get to my feet as well. "Alright then. Lead on, MacDuff."

I hold out my right hand to help Zatanna up. "Actually, the line is 'Lay on, MacDuff, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold! enough!'."

"We did 'Twelfth Night' and 'Romeo and Juliet' at my school. I've actually never read MacBeth."

John levers himself off the seat and pulls out a packet of cigarettes. "Suppose if we're fighting Demons then gettin' damned is always a possibility."

"Wasn't the play a complete character assassination of MacBeth because Shakespeare wanted to suck up to King James?"

Zatanna nods. "Probably. Or it might just have been that he only had access to one historical record and made a story based around it."

We follow Mister Ondaatie out of the door. Then he walks to the edge of the pavement and holds out his left arm. Yeah, right. Like there are going to be-. A taxi pulls up next to him. Right, Shaman of London. He gets in the front and I open the rear door for John and Zatanna. Mister Ondaatie must know I could get us there near instantaneously, right? Maybe he just prefers to use his own methods?

While John's here… "John, I've got a… A moral problem I was hoping you could help me with."

"Must be desperate. Isn't that Wonder Woman's job?"

"It.. probably should be. But since Nabu…"

"Alright. What is it?"

"There's a company in the United States called 'Cadmus Labs'. They made an intelligent artificial species and I'm working with a man named Lex Luthor to get that species legal recognition."

"Okay?"

"Lex Luthor is almost certainly a member of the Light. The Light are a group of supervillains who claim to be trying to advance the Human species by… Well, that's not very clear. I was and am trying to cooperate with him to encourage him to do that in less villainy ways. I know he's committed crimes, but.. if I can make his impact a net positive…"

"That's your thing. So what's the problem?"

I try looking out of the windows, but the scenery around us ripples and shifts disturbingly. "The problem is that Klarion is also a member of the Light."

"The Chaos Lord from Roanoke an' the Watchtower."

"Right. The Light had someone steal the piece of Starro they used to mind control the League during the Roanoke incident. That means foreknowledge. I don't know.. exactly what they knew. Heck, Klarion isn't exactly reliable. Maybe he was doing that on his own? My problem is... I'll tolerate a lot, but I'm not prepared to work with someone who gave the nod to a plan which would kill hundreds of thousands of children."

Zatanna leans around his shoulder. "I'm glad to hear it."

John looks puzzled. "I thought the whole point of bein' a legitimate superhero was so you could arrest people and that."

"The Justice League will take the word of someone under the influence of the Lasso of Truth as gospel. Courts don't." I sigh. "And anyway, it's not his membership of the organisation, it's how much control he had, whether he knew in advance what Klarion was going to do."

John thinks for a moment. "Telepathy?"

"He'd notice, and there's ways to resist. We could overpower him, but he maintains the appearance of an upstanding citizen. Hard to justify. And we wouldn't be able to use it in court. And… I'd ideally like to keep working with him."

"So you need more information?"

"Couldn't you just hack his servers?"

"Already done, normal and secure. And since I didn't find records of things I know he's done, there must be other servers I haven't found. The Light know scry wards block my scans and Lex is used to needing to protect his stuff from Kal-El and Batman. Adding a few drawings with a circuit pen wouldn't have been a big deal."

The taxi comes to a stop. I look in the rear view mirror and see that the driver's eyes are somewhat glazed as Mister Ondaatie pays him. Zatanna opens her door and gets out. John looks out the front windscreen for a moment, then shuts the door behind her. "If he did know, and you get proof, what would you do?"

"Data I stole from his servers probably wouldn't be admissible in court." Unless I was a member of the Justice League and was responding to an attack. Huh, there's the reason to join. "But if I knew to my satisfaction, I'd kill him and as many of his co-conspirators as I could find. Then, release the data to the public. It's the only appropriate response."

"You did say you'd be alright working with Klarion. Back when the Nabu thing-."

"In the short term while we dealt with Nabu, yes. It’s not like that would make the people Klarion killed more dead. But we'd be on each other again as soon as Nabu was out of the picture, and I'd have called it off if he looked like doing anything like that while we were working on the problem."

"'course, if you use your ring on Klarion, you could find out from him."

True… I shake my head. "Let's not keep Mister Ondaatie waiting."

 

21st January
20:31 GMT

"I don't know what the miserable sod did to this one."

My railgun turret tracks another Hellzombie and pulverises the right half of its chest with a tungsten round, smashing it to the floor. Then it starts to push itself up. "They're getting tougher." Another shot annihilates its head.

"The closer we get t' the main portal-."

"John, focus please!"

"Assimilation twelve per-. Assimilation thirt-. Assimilation nine percent complete."

Lost cause there. The Hellzombie I'm holding in a draconic talon near the edge of the pumping station flails around as it tries to get a grip on the construct pinning it. In a grapple those things can break my constructs. The first few we ran into just lay in the tunnel, weakly trying to reach for us as we passed them by. The next group were like classical shambling zombies, aside from having intact skin and a strange yellow glow in their eyes. I suggested that we ignore them as well until the barrier I was pushing them back with went all 'construct lost' on me. At this rate I'm going to have to start cranking out the heavy constructs, and I'm not eager to find out what comes through the portal to see what all the noise is about.

Speaking of which… "More incoming. Major wave. Zatanna?"

The new wave have eyes that glow brightly and are about as strong as Kon was pre-enhancement. While the earlier types looked more or less as they did when Nergal killed them these new ones are altered. Distended jaws full of razor sharp teeth are common, as are clawed fingers and toes. Luckily, no daemonic speed yet.

"Sretaw wolf-" Water streams underneath me and gathers next to her as I have the claw toss the Hellzombie it's holding into its brethren. "-dna hsup meht kcab!"

I'm briefly underwater as the wave surges past me. In that instant the water appears to stretch out for miles around, filled with shrivelled, crab eaten corpses which nonetheless continue to weakly struggle against the chains that bind them to the riverbed. I make fleeting eye to eye socket contact with the closest as it fruitlessly reaches for the tauntingly close surface with unfleshed arms.

Then the hellish waters have passed, taking the vision with them. Two Hellzombies managed to anchor themselves into the tunnel brickwork and I swiftly target them for-.

"Ah! Fucking..!" John staggers back from the glyphs inscribed on the brickwork as they smoke and burn, the base of his thumb in his mouth. A second later he yanks it out, still blackened and smouldering. "Zatanna!"

"Lufelab scigam wolf yawa!" The smouldering stops.

Ring, heal. The wound disappears.

"Fuck me." John slumps to the ground amongst the skull braziers. "How many more of these friggin' things are there?"

Ring, phone. "Mister Ondaatie, one more down. What's that done to the area?"

"Nicely done. It's shrinking again. I'll come up behind you and deal with any of Nergal's foot soldiers you missed."

If it's shrinking… I create a construct of the map he showed us. I know Mister Ondaatie's location, so… Not all that much space left.

"What was that?" Zatanna looks at John as he tries massaging some life back into his hand.

"The people in the water?" She nods. "The dead and damned. Maybe they drowned, maybe they just really hated water." He shrugs and walks to the edge of the platform. "So now they get to spend eternity in the place they hate most of all."

"Can't we do something for them?"

"Have to talk to God about that."

"Ready to move?"

Zatanna stretches her right shoulder. "I think I should ask Mister Gambi to add some more padding to this armor." I raise my eyebrows and she nods. "I'm good."

John nods. "Let's get this over with."

I float them both off the ground and with the railgun turret construct taking the lead we fly down the tunnel towards what I hope is the epicentre. "Zatanna, have you given any thought to learning how to use conventional firearms?"

"Dad doesn't like guns."

"Why not? I mean, I can understand not wanting them to be generally available, but if you're working in a business that pretty much always involves violent confrontation it seems like a sensible thing to have."

"Talking backwards doesn't provoke people in the way that waving a gun at them does."

"I'm not saying 'always go for the gun', I'm just saying it's a useful tool that is sometimes the correct choice. If I hadn't had my pistol with me on Roanoke then Klarion would have killed me."

The turret turns upwards and puts three rounds through a Hellzombie that was hiding in a tube up to the surface. It gets cut clean in half with most of its torso reduced to paste and both parts fall to the ground. Then the top half pushes itself upright, looks around and starts dragging itself towards the bottom half. I hold out my right hand and focus my mind on the idea of destruction, of how hideously wrong such an entity is. An orange beam lances out from the ring and vaporises it. Don't really think there's anything about Hellzombies the world particularly needs.

The tunnel curves around ahead of us and I can hear… something. The Hellzombies Zatanna flushed down here a few moments ago are just starting to get themselves reorganised. They'd have done it quicker but it looks like they've lost the ability to cooperate with one another. Another series of high-pitched hums as the gun takes the time to headshot each of them. They'll recover, but without sensory organs they aren't much of a threat.

"Dna yats nwod."

"Nearly there." I cut through a grate covering the entrance to the hellgate. The chamber on the far side is about twelve metres across and eight deep, with a shore occupied by Hellzombies on the far side. Halfway up the wall to our right is what looks like a surprisingly vital thorn bush. The portal itself is surrounded both here and in hell by a series of skull braziers-.

One of the Hellzombies leaps at us. The railgun turret fires twice, hitting thigh and stomach and knocking it out of the air and sending it hurtling into the wall. It slides down into the shallow water, then clambers to its feet. "John, we're going to need that portal down a bit quick."

"Going to have to clean that mob off first."

That mob is giving us their full attention. "Rings, total charge?"

"One hundred seventy four percent remaining." / "One hundred seventy four percent remaining."

I share momentary eye contact with Zatanna and we both raise our hands. "Destruction." Thick beams of orange plough into the Hellzombie mob. I'm not going for kill shots here, just to damage them.

"Nruter ot ecnehw ey emac!" The hell portal shudders and buckles as an ethereal wind tries to call the restless souls of Nergal's damned home. They try to dig in, grabbing at the walls, the floor and each other until an orange beam finds them and forces them loose. Once we have space enough for landing I drop down and create another turret for sentry duty.

"One hundred fifty percent remaining."

The land beyond the portal resembles the ash wastes of Morrowind, decorated only by the remains of the Hellzombies which Zatanna's spell has sent through. John touches down next and begins walking around the portal, closely examining its edges.

A moment later the ethereal wind cuts out and Zatanna bends over, panting. Only three more Hellzombies on this side and a quick claw construct is easily able to throw them through. Taking a slight risk I extend a filament through the gate and deposit concrete blocks from subspace to block it off.

And then we hear the moaning.

 

21st January
20:35 GMT

I've heard moans before. On the bridge on Gotham there weren't many. The children either cried as loudly as they could or were drowned out by those who did. But at other times, such as during the disaster recovery work later when we dug out those on the verge of death who'd lost the strength to cry out… There were moans then. Victim recovery, picking up those who were injured but wanted me to pick up other people first and tried to bite down on their own pain. Or from zombies on television whenever we let Wallace pick the film, an exhalation with no mind to guide it.

This moan doesn't sound like any of them. I hear black, despair and nullity. I take a quick look around but aside from John and Zatanna empathic vision doesn’t show me anything. The noise got John's-. "John, get on with it."

"Right, right." He cups his hands around the closest of the braziers, bows his head slightly and starts muttering something.

Magic. With all this hell magic around… Ring, check my Spell Eater. Getting hot yet?

Effect of ambient magic minimal.

Good to know. I fire off a series of filaments into the water but all they find is concrete, sludge and a few old unanimated bones. I subspace those to be passed to the police later. Roof's solid concrete-.

Zatanna looks up at the wall. "It's coming from the bush."

I fly up into the air, careful to keep my distance. There's nearly no light here so I've got no idea how it's staying this vital. Magic? Can't scan through the outer leaves at all. Forwards go the probing constructs, pushing against the outer layer of thorny branches. The moaning increases slightly in volume. Am I hurting the plant? I haven't.. broken anything… I stop the probes and have them send out filaments instead. What am I looking a-?

Oh no. There's a woman… No, a Dryad in there. She's curled up in a foetal position and the thorns are radiating off her back and her head. Her torso and head are intact but it looks like her legs have been snapped off below the knees. Where shins and feet should be are smaller branches which terminate in the roots holding her to the wall. Her arms are pulled tightly to her chest, hands gone with a few weak sprouts radiating out in all directions in their place. Her eyes are mostly closed, flickering slightly as her damaged mind tries to reject the reality of her suffering. Cuts around her neck, jaw and face look like.. someone stuck their fingertips into her.

"Heavily injured and traumatised Dryad. Doesn't look like she's been demonised like the others. I know sod all about the medical care of supernatural crea-. People. J-."

There's a heavy bang from the concrete wall. Odd. If the Hellzombies had the intelligence to attack visual walls they could have escaped by now. On the other hand I'm sure hell has plenty of horrible things dwelling therein. Perhaps they can smell a way out? John's eyes are fixed on the gate as the brazier he's next to changes from red to blue flame. "Where're the friggin' Alexins when you actually need them. Chalice would love this."

Zatanna's watching the gate too, with the occasional glance upward at me. "Do you.. know what's on the other side?"

John strides over to the next brazier. "More'n those zombie things, that's for sure. Try finding out anything else and I'm telling it I'm here."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yer dad wanted to keep you safe from Demons. Which is great.. in theory. Then, when you need to know about them-" The fire from the second brazier shoots outwards, pooling around his left hand. "-you realise you don't know a soddin' thing." He looks up. "Oi, Paul, any chance you can make me a hole in that wall then close it right after?"

"Yeees, I can take out a block. Chest height in the middle good enough for you?"

"That'll do. Thing is, Zatanna, I've been trying to defuse these things…" He winces. "Agh. When what I think we need-" Fire from the other two braziers drifts through the air to float around his left hand and beneath the blaze I can just about make out the circle and triangle and squiggles of his tattoo. "-is a controlled explosion." The sleeve of his coat starts to smoulder as he hurries towards the wall. "Ready?"

"On 'go'. Three, two, one, go!"

The brick disappears and we get a momentary vision of a thing with John's face and glowing red holes where its eyes should be grinning at us through the hole. "Hello, John."

"Fiat Lux!" Flame shoots from John's outstretched hand and his look-alike sidesteps the fiery blast which swiftly eats its way through the Hellzombie horde.

As soon as the flame passes it by it shoots its hand through the gap and grabs John's wrist! "How's life treating y-?"

"Close it!" John pulls back, slamming his attacker's forearm as hard against the concrete as he can! "Fucking close it fucking right fucking now!"

"Tel og fo ym dneirf!"

The hell creature's hand opens immediately. It looks.. surprised. "Zatanna? Is that-?"

I shove the block back in the hole and the rest of his sentence is cut off. Great. The Demon Constantine; all of John's skill and a right niece-raping bastard to boot.

"John, who was that?"

He shakes his head, looking a little guilty. "Don't worry about it." He checks the now dead braziers. "Alright. With those out-" There's a brief flicker of light from the furthest one. "-the connection shouldn't-." All three dead braziers flame back into life and the blue one starts crackling. "Oh fuck right off. How is he-?" John sits down cross legged and plants his hands palms down on the ground. "The link should have died, why is it still…"

There's another loud bang as something hits the concrete. The Demon should only be as strong as John himself is… Maybe a little bit more given its demonic nature. It shouldn't be concrete punching strong. Other friends? If the Demon's anything like its progenitor it will have tried to make alliances…

John's head comes up. "Sympathetic resonance. The Dryad's still connected to the Green. He's using that to keep the gate where it should be."

"I can fly her out of here."

"Won't be enough. Nergal's going to have marked her good and proper. He could use any of the zombies-."

"What, then?"

He looks up at me with cold dead eyes. Oh. Right. A Constantine job. Surprised it didn't come to this sort of thing earlier.

Zatanna doesn't get it. "What? What are we supposed to do?"

"Destroy the Dryad, break the link." Her eyes widen in horror. "Fortunate for us all that I'm not John Constantine, really. Can you hold them off for about twenty seconds?"

She turns away and presses her hands against the wall. "Dog sselb siht etercnoc!"

"Aaaaaaagggh! FuuuuCK!"

I fly at full speed back out of the room, frantically trying to plot-! There! Transition.

21st January
15:39 GMT -5

I appear in the grove on top of Mount Justice, construct blade slicing one of Swamp Thing's fruits from one of the trees we grew from his seeds. Transition.

21st January
20:39 GMT

Fly fast as I can back into the room, up to the bush. Smoothie maker construct, blend the fruit, construct tube through the bush, into her mouth and down her throat, pump. I take a gulp of it for myself as well. Is that.. oregano? I know some of Swamp Thing's fruits induce psychedelic states but I'm sort of hoping that between the Dryad getting most of it and the Ophidian's influence that-.

The Dryad's eyes shoot open and she bites through the feeding tube construct. She coughs, flails and uncurls. Her thick outer bark bulges outwards, cracks and falls off, revealing healthy new growth beneath. The largest branch at each knee expands as the others wither, restoring her legs. Roots break off and she falls to the ground, still coughing, choking and finally vomiting forth a stream of black sludge. She gets a second's respite to push up to all fours and then she's heaving again, bile pouring across the rock and into the water.

"Paul!" John's on his feet. "That stuff she's chucking up, that's prime essence of Nergal!"

"Got it." I gently stick a bucket construct under her head and start annihilating all of what she's already produced. The smashing against the concrete is continuous now, but with a little luck that won't be enough. Between convulsions she manages to look up at me for a moment then her face goes back down as she coughs up the last of it. I pull the bucket away and eliminate the rest of it.

"Their marker's gone!" John heaves the blue brazier out of the ground. "Zatanna! Put out the other ones!"

"Semalf eid yb ym dnammoc!"

The ruddy red flames poof out one by one as John runs his brazier between them, causing the blue flame to ignite each one in turn. Then he slams it back down in its original position. "There! No link and I know you don’t have the power for this. Close you bastard thing, close!"

From the wall where the Dryad fell vines sprout and then shoot around the walls of the room, spreading, dividing and growing around one another until the whole place is covered. Zatanna has to use her flight belt to get above them and John is rudely tossed aside. Lastly the vines form an arch around the gate and grow to cover it from both sides as Swamp Thing grows a face directly above it. Large glowing red eyes look down at John and then hard at me.

"I didn't give him any!"

If his face was mobile enough to scowl I think he'd be scowling at me. "The breach is.. sealed. Constantine can.. secure it.. against further intrusion."

The Dryad sees who he is, then kneels before him. "Great Champion, thank you."

He looks down at her and his expression appears to soften slightly. "There is no.. need to abase yourself.. before me, Green Sister." She looks up as he turns his attention to me again. "You will take.. her to a place of.. safety."

It wasn't a question but I nod anyway. His eyes go out as the Dryad looks around nervously at us. "Miss?" I drop down to land in front of her but outside her personal space. "How does a trip to Themyscira sound?"

 

21st January
23:58 GMT +3

Zatanna looks around uncomfortably as we enter the woodland in the middle of the island of Themyscira. "Are you sure we're allowed to be here?"

"It's perfectly alright for me to bring guests. I checked with Queen Hippolyta."

Euanthe hurries over to a nearby pine tree and hugs the trunk, pressing her face against it. Poor woman hasn't said much since Swamp Thing left. She seems to understand what we're saying well enough and Zatanna tells me that she's speaking English, but beyond that? She's muttered assent to my suggestion of coming here and muttered her name when I asked. We had to walk out the slow way. I offered to fly her out but she became so obviously terrified that I dropped the idea.

"Doooes.. that include…" She looks at John's cigarette.

In addition to the four blue-burning braziers I left a few ring-fabricated sun globes in the portal chamber. John was fairly clear that if Swamp Thing says that a hole is sealed then it's sealed and I thought it might be nice to keep the plant growth Swamp Thing caused alive if at all possible. Mister Ondaatie was pleased with what we'd accomplished and says that he'll keep his word about cooperating to remove Nabu. One worry down.

"Smoking wasn't specifically mentioned. They've never had tobacco here."

John turns back to us. "Oh yeah? Maybe I should set up shop here."

"You wouldn't be able to find your way through the wards without me. But please don't try?"

"No, I meant…" Oh, she was looking at John. "Other men."

"I wasn’t told not to."

John grins. "My kind of answer."

Euanthe pulls away from her tree, swaying slightly. "This… This way." She starts walking further into the forest. I think that's -yep- the way to Gaea's sacred grove. I follow behind her, matching her pace. There are big mythological beasties in these woods but at the same time I'm not sure how much she needs us to be here. Would they attack her? How physically powerful is she? She just got a major infusion of Green power and she certainly looks a lot healthier. And a good deal less thorny. She certainly doesn't seem to have any trouble navigating in the dark.

John follows a pace behind, careful to keep within the bubble of orange light I'm casting. "So. What's next on the agenda?"

"For now? Nothing. Sephtian needs time to work through some of his current projects, work out how to integrate his new transmuted substances. The next thing I want is some sort of anti-order version of the Ace. Or maybe some sort of super fast magic draining artefact."

Zatanna comes up alongside me. "What about the Star Sapphire?"

"How are you feeling now?"

"A bit drained." She smiles at me. "I don't usually get that sort of work out after school."

"You fought Hellzombies and-."

"Is that what they were?"

"Um. That's what I was calling them in my head. John?"

"I don't bother naming every little thing hell chucks up. Hellzombies." He thinks for a moment. "Sure, why not. Meaning's pretty clear and it lets you tell yourself that they're not really people-."

Zatanna's face drops. "Oh God. Those were people?"

"Once." Euanthe stops ahead of us and with visible reluctance turns around to face our direction. She keeps her eyes down. "Once they were. Some may even have been good people. Then…" She shudders. "N-. Nergal. He reached into them and pulled all of the goodness out. He replaced it with the stuff of Tartarus." She shudders again before turning away. "They were not people."

The three of us stay silent for a moment but it looks like that's all she has to say. "Right… Well, given all the stuff Sephtian has on his plate at the moment, it might be best if you could try accessing the Sapphire's power with magic directly. John?"

"What sort of power is it?"

"Crystallised love."

"Love?"

"Love is a very powerful force. Even more so when it's focused into a coherent beam of destruction."

"Oh, I won't argue about that." He exhales a puff of smoke. "Few things we could try. Usually it'd be… Over eighteen stuff…"

"Um." Zatanna's eyes flick to me and then off to the side.

"But there's siphons an' that. I'll flick through a few books, see what I can come up with." He chuckles. "Girl usin' magic powered by an alien love crystal."

"It really is straight out of a Japanese cartoon."

"What are you two talking about?"

"Sailor Moon." She shakes her head, not getting it. "You're a teenaged girl who uses magic by shouting nonsense at people. You go to a school that has a uniform policy so: jacket, short skirt."

"It's not that short."

"Teekl's taken a liking to you so that's the talking cat covered… And now you're getting an alien magic love crystal."

"I've never watched Sailor M-."

"Mother!" Euanthe runs forwards at a sprint, straight into the arms of.. a tall Amazon woman in a green robe. How did I not see her? Do Amazons have ninjas? Empathic vision shows blue, green and white. Shape's a bit odd…

The older woman pulls Euanthe tightly against her chest. "Daughter. I am so very glad to see you." Wait. How do Dryads come into being? Was she sired on whoever this is by some sort of plant god? No, the ring says that Dryads are supposed to be Gaea's daughters, but that could just mean…

Oh, not again. I drop down onto my right knee. "Earth Mother."

She looks up from Euanthe. "Paul, John Constantine, Zatanna Zatara. Thank you for rescuing my daughter from that Demon and returning her to me."

"No problem, love."

"That's our job."

"And Paul, I am particularly obliged to you for the work you have done in my oceans and at my northern pole."

"I helped cause the harm. It was only right that I fix it." Originally I tried to get a consensus on how I should go about reglaciation from the relevant UN committee. After a month of waiting I decided to go ahead without them. The Ice Fortress has no problem going faster than the rate of ice loss but it isn't exactly fast fast while on autopilot. Even with that in mind the north pole is appreciably larger than it was when I started, and with a larger area of the planet white and reflecting the sun's energy back out into space I've taken a significant step towards bringing climate change under control. "And if you hadn't witnessed my oath I don't think Diana would have taken me on. I wouldn't have.. got anywhere."

"Still, few would put the effort into righting the situation that you have. You have my thanks."

"You're welcome. Is.. there.. anything you particularly want dealt with next?"

"I am certain that you will find something to occupy your time. Come, child." She turns away, gently leading Euanthe deeper into the woods.

I wait until I can't see either of them before rising to my feet. "Right. Think that's enough weirdness for one day. Where do you two want dropping off?"

 

21st January
16:23 GMT -5

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B zero six."

I walk across the empty training room and head in the direction of the kitchens. Darn it. Garth and Tula were going to get here mid morning and I wanted to be here. I told Kaldur I couldn't be sure… Quick scan-.

**Hey Paul.**

**Good afternoon, M'gann.**

I transition into the kitchen. All the lifers are here along with the new inmates. Garth and Tula are sitting at the table with Kaldur.. going through old mission reports. Wolf temporarily interrupts her exploration of the kitchen to trot over and sniff me while Teekl is happily curled up on the table right where it would be most convenient for Garth to have his holoscreen. Kon's doing something in the kitchen. It's a point of pride with him that he no longer needs a fire extinguisher on standby so I make a point of not observing him too closely. M'gann's close by just in case, a school textbook floating beside her.

"Sorry I'm so late." I kneel down to rub Wolf's head. "The press conference.. went on for a lot longer than I thought it would, then there was this thing in London…"

Tula cranes her neck around her holoscreen. Looks like she hasn't quite picked up the art of moving them yet. "Was that anything to do with Professor Sephtian's portals?"

"No. Hellzombies." Oh, hang on, Mister Ondaatie. "Well, perhaps tangentially-."

Kon turns around. "Hell Zombies?!"

"That.. might not be the technical term?" I get up and head over to the table, pointing at the holoprojector. "Can I borrow that?"

Kaldur nods. "Go ahead."

I have the ring play a short section of the fight with the medium strength Hellzombies, demonstrating their appearance, strength and construct resilience. "I can replicate their behaviour if you want to practise against them, but we.. closed the portal fairly emphatically."

Garth looks concerned. "Someone was sending.. those.. things through the Professor's portal?"

"No… One of Nergal's portals to hell. It was in a storm drain under the city, but like I said it's closed now." I suddenly realise that I'm the only one here raised in a Christian society. Huh. Hadn't really thought of it like that before. "It was just sort of floating on the air with these braziers on each side…"

Garth nods. "The spell was probably extracting power continuously from hell itself."

"I think that's what the Zombies were doing." I take a seat and then look around the Atlanteans. "Is 'Hellzombie' the right term? Technically, I mean?"

Kaldur looks down at the surface of the table for a moment before meeting my eyes. "Demon magics are hardly a popular field of study in Atlantis."

Garth half raises his right hand palm up in a gesture of uncertainty. "If they were fortified by such hellish magic and had little will of their own… Hellzombie would be as good a description as any."

"Right, Hellzombie is going in the database then." Ring, upload files.

Compliance.

Kaldur's face has the tiniest of frowns. "Why were you fighting them at all?"

"I couldn't just leave a hellgate under a major city. The Hellzombies couldn't go too far away from it, but something clever might have used it eventually."

"You could have called upon us to support you."

"There wasn't all that much room in the tunnels. I had-" I bring up the files one by one. "-Ken Ondaatie, John Constantine and Zatanna with me. That seemed... Adequate?" I shrug. "We'd just have got in each other's way."

"If you are certain." Kaldur reaches across the table and pulls Mister Ondaatie's file towards him.

M'gann puts her book down on one of the worksurfaces. "How did the press conference go?"

"I think the Genomorphs came across alright. We won't really know until journalists who weren't handpicked by Lex Luthor get their teeth into the story. What have you lot been up to?"

Tula wiggles her right forefinger at her holoscreen. "Reading and watching recordings of your battles. Oh! Um." She reaches down and lifts up a small box which she hands to me. "Professor Sephtian asked me to pass this on to you."

I nod and open the lid. Ah! Yes! Two neat rows of Mageslayer rounds stare back up at me. "I was worried he wouldn't have time to make these."

"He didn't, Lori did. The spell isn't all that complex and with the new thaumatorium set up… Well, it's apprentice work." I nod and shift them into subspace. "How do you actually use those?"

"I'll show you." I generate a railgun construct, making sure that it is transparent enough that they can see the internal construct mechanisms. "Railguns use magnetic force to fire solid projectiles. I hold the Mageslayers in subspace, load them when I want to fire-" I do so. "-and use the ring to aim the gun. The iron jacket on the rear of the projectile allows the magnetic pulse to push it out at anything up to about… Um, ten times the speed of sound? I usually don't use quite that much force." I turn on the magnetism a little and the round starts drifting along the length of the gun.

Garth leans in for a closer look. "I thought Lanterns used energy beams. Or giant glowing fists."

"I can do energy pulses, but they're slower than my railgun shots and my specialist ammunition is better against some types of target. Glowing fists are kind of Lantern…" Names, right. "Green Lantern two eight one four A's thing." I send the Mageslayer back into subspace and drop the railgun construct.

"Why does he use giant fists?"

"I've never really been clear on that."

"Could you.. tell me something?"

"Ask away."

Tula flicks through a couple of files before finding the one she wants. "When the team fought Mister Twister, you.. made a note in your report that you scanned him?"

"Yes, that's right."

"But that you didn't do a.. 'quintessence waveform scan'?" She looks up at me. "What is a quintessence waveform scan?"

"Heh. Um, a really good way to give yourself a brain haemorrhage." She blinks in surprise. "I tried using it afterwards to find out what it was. Woke up about twenty minutes later feeling absolutely dreadful. It's supposed to be a sort of super detailed scan that tells you everything about the thing you're scanning, buuut according to the ring you have to have very specific aetheric characteristics to make any sense of it without burning out your own neurons. I don't."

She nods, then frowns. "I.. thought you merged with the orange light Elemental?"

"Oh, that was months later." Oh, hang on a minute! If the Ophidian helped… Depends on the time it would take, but it would certainly be possible to find Lex's servers with that sort of scan. "I haven't tried since. But I think I probably should."