With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

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.

 

[Mr Zoat]

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.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Widdershins

17th January
19:48 GMT

"Whaw. That's some real hard luck you had there."

I turn up the right corner of my lip. "Oh, I don't know Alan. It's not that bad. Fifteen two, fifteen four, three is seven and one for his nob is eight." I reach forward and move the rear peg eight in front of its partner.

"I meant the whole.. situation in Aberrance."

"Yeah. I mean, there were a lot of things we should have done better, but it doesn't usually bite you in the arse quite-."

"Hey." Theodore 'Ted' Grant gives me a mock frown, then points at Danni. "Lady present."

She tilts her head slightly, but makes no other expression. "I am familiar with the Human posterior, Ted."

"I just think, standards should be-."

"You did not think that when you were younger. I distinctly remember you putting your hand-."

"Ah…"

"Have you got no points again?"

A second of relief, then he exhales in frustration. He tosses a two of clubs, a four and a Jack of hearts and a Queen of spades onto the table. "How do you even know how to play this game? No one your age plays card games that aren't poker!"

"Are you joking? Nan and Grandad-" He winces slightly. "-taught me how to count with cribbage. Danni, got anything?"

"Fifteen two and three for six. A total of eight."

Alan smiles slightly. "You can just tell us what you get. We do trust you."

Ted shakes his head in disappointment at his partner's naiveté. "Speak for yourself. You gotta watch these sharks, Alan. They'll take you for everything you're worth."

"Given how far ahead they are, I think they might just do that anyway." He lays down his cards. "Eight for me as well." Two eights, a nine and a ten. He picks up the box. "Uhh."

"Hey, Danette, we haven't really caught up since you came back. How's being a robot zombie treating you?"

"Strange, but largely pleasant." She blinks. "Though I do find the constant hunger for Human brains somewhat disconcerting."

Alan chuckles, but Ted looks momentarily nonplussed. "You can make jokes? Tornado never did that."

Without showing the rest of us Alan shuffles his box in with the rest of the cards before passing it to me. I give it a quick shuffle myself before dealing out the cards. I have discovered watching her play that Danni can't do a Data type fast shuffle, though Ted's been watching her hands carefully every time it's her turn to deal.

"Jokes are not complicated to make, though my capacity to appreciate the humor is limited."

"So why the long face?"

"I was originally programmed to automatically mimic Human facial expression. Since I am not currently trying to infiltrate the Justice Society for Father while keeping my nature as a gynoid a secret, I see no reason to present a false visage."

I pick up my cards. Three and Jack of diamonds, six and ten of hearts and a nine of clubs. Not great. Toss the ten and hope something turns up or toss the three? Aaaaaah. The three. Danni's already added to my box. Alan rearranges his hand for a moment before picking something to get rid of.

Ted's still thinking. "So.. do you walk around looking like that?"

"No. Usually, I allow the program to handle my body language. My elder brother leaves his on all of the time, though that may be because he is too stubborn to change it."

"That's that Lockhart guy, right?" Danni inclines her head slightly, "Can barely credit no one spotting he was a robot." He takes another look at his hand. "Oh, dang it." He adds his card to the box.

Alan grins. "Yolanda making Uncle Wildcat use the swear box again?"

"Gotta set a good example for the kids, Alan." Alan cuts the deck and Danni turns up the Queen of hearts. "Ah." Ted nods. "Okay. I can work with this."

Ted leads with a Jack. Danni's choice is immediate. "Fifteen for two."

"Uhh…" Alan thinks for a moment. "Twenty three."

"Twenty nine."

Ted knocks on the table. Danni remains expressionless. "Thirty." Alan knocks and I shake my head. "For one."

"Ten."

"Twenty for two."

Ted grins. "Thirty for six. Anyone?" We shake our heads. "And one."

"Three."

"Eleven."

"Twenty."

"Hah, got ya! Twenty seven for three."

"No, that doesn't work. They have to be in order."

Ted squints. "Are you trying to hustle me?"

"No, really. We can check the rulebook-."

"No, no, that's okay. You're probably right." He looks at Danni. "So what are you doing with yourself now? Getting back into the cape business?"

"Thirty for one. I never wore a cape. I have not yet made a firm decision with regard to my future direction. I am currently splitting my time between America and the Logan Animal Sanctuary in Qurac."

"Ten."

"Twenty."

"Twenty four." Ted looks at Danni, who shakes her head. "One each then." We all reach down to pick our cards back up. "You like animals?"

"The Wildebeest are growing on me. Slowly. The main reason I spend time there is my growing infatuation with the owner."

"Oh? So you're..?" Ted waves his right hand in circles.

"Outwardly anatomically accurate? Yes."

"Two for eights and two for Queens."

"Three for three. What's his name?"

"Fifteen two, fifteen four. Marie Logan." Ted's eyes widen slightly.

"Fifteen two and four for four. Aaand." I pick up the box. "Nothing."

"Ah… So.. you..?"

"I am not…" Danni thinks for a moment. "My mind is not situated in a Human brain. I lack the parts that would cause me to experience physical attraction to one gender or another. And Paul was being frustratingly slow on the uptake."

"I was?" Alan snorts with laughter. "What?"

He coughs. "Just something went down the wrong way."

"Alright… So, what's she like?"

Danni thinks for a minute as Ted shuffles. "Determined. Running an animal sanctuary in Qurac is hot and hard work, to say nothing of raising her son Garfield on her own. I think perhaps the reason she was willing to become involved with me was that she had worked so hard for so long that she had no idea what to do with the free time she gained when we shared the duty of animal care." She smiles. "That is to say nothing of the occasional intrusions by the Bialyan army. Though those have stopped now."

Alan frowns. "You.. turn your facial-" He wiggles his right hand at his mouth. "-program thing on?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"You're smiling."

"I am not smiling."

"Actually…" I nod.

She blinks, then raises her right hand to feel her still smiling mouth. "Oh."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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.

 

[Mr Zoat]

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?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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-?!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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.

 

[Mr Zoat]

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 the 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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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.

 

[Mr Zoat]

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?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

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?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

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."

 

[Mr Zoat]

21st January
18:49 GMT -5

Lois tapped her pen on her notebook, drawing invisible sketches as she read her annotations of Luthor's surprise announcement.

From time to time she would stretch her back and roll her shoulders, but her mind was firmly reviewing and dissecting the information that Luthor had seen fit to release.

Follow the line...

Red Tornado's unannounced presence had turned a seemingly low-key press release, the kind that would be buried all the way in the back of the newspaper, into something more.

Then he dropped the metaphorical bomb with his legal campaign to overturn the State v. Crane ruling, which had established that artificial beings like Red Tornado weren't people. And his first step was giving Doctor Mark Desmond's job to one of those 'unpeople'.

Then orange constructs popped up and acted as crowd control, which meant a certain elusive Lantern was present as well. She hadn't recognized him until he took the floor to deliver his own brief speech.

A member of the Justice League and a superhero who worked for Wonder Woman at an event organized by Luthor? Showing their support for Luthor's campaign? Her cheek still hurt from all the times she had pinched it after the whole thing was over.

Lois put down pen and notebook on her desk for a moment and massaged her temples. There was another question she had to pose to herself before she lost herself in her own musing.

Who benefits?

It wasn't her job. Lois's job was to write an article on Luthor's announcement, drop it on Perry's desk, wait for him to tell her whether it needed editing or not before it could be printed, edit said article and send it to have it printed on time.

She had done her job and it was near the end of her shift, so how she spent her time was her business and not her chief's as long as it didn't interfere with the others' and didn't get anyone killed, or worse: disgraced and out of a job.

But there was something fishy going on, or her name wasn't Lois Joanne Lane.

Who benefits?

Normally Lois would answer: 'Luthor, of course'. He was a consummate business tycoon, cunning and manipulative to the bone; turning sticky situations to his advantage was a game he excelled at.

Back on her notebook, she snorted when she re-read Luthor's statement on how he hadn't known what was happening in Cadmus. Honestly, Luthor.

But that stumped her. Cadmus had been under fire for months, had its reputation torn to shreds, it was a PR black hole and was probably costing far more money than their research was worth at this point. It was toast.

There was no reason to throw even more money at a lost cause. His incoming campaign had some potential of netting good PR, but selling it to the public, especially when it was going to influence only a potentially limited pool of individuals, was going to cost him a lot.

Who benefits?

She frowned and drew another circle around Luthor's name, and then added an interrogative point next to it. The association with Cadmus was too risky to be completely Luthor's idea, and even if he wanted to get some footing in the Justice League through Red Tornado or Wonder Woman's Lantern...

Lois canceled the half-written jotting. As if. The animosity between the Leaguers and Luthor was well-known; it would take more than trying to socialize with two superheroes. She lay back in her chair for a few moments, recalling as much as she could of the day in her mind.

"It was brought to my attention only fairly recently..."

There it was-.

"Still on that, Lois?" Her train of thought came crushing down at the sound of Bostwick's voice. She glared at him, but that had him smirking. "What's the matter? You went in expecting some third-rate business that would barely make the newspaper and got to see a preview of whatever Luthor's cooking for the future. You should be happy."

"There's something that doesn't add up. Do you know how annoying it is?"

"Couldn't tell, that Luthor chap has always been honest about his intentions." He mockingly craned his head to steal some glances from her notes. "Remember to leave something for us, Lois."

"That attitude won't land you a big scoop!" Lois shouted, but he was already walking away. Bostwick waved back at her instead of answering verbally.

She turned her attention back at her notebook. Where was she- oh, where Luthor had claimed that 'it had been brought to his attention'. Who would bring...

Someone interested in seeing the ruling overturned? Luthor's little campaign would make more sense if there was a third party covering the costs. At least, it was more credible than Lex flipping Luthor deciding to take a risk playing good Samaritan.

Or there was a really, really good payoff that she had yet to pinpoint due to lack of critical information.

There was a Scoop somewhere here and she would find it. Watch it Luthor, Lois Lane is on your case!

She could do with some coffee first, though.

Click to shrink...

 

[Mr Zoat]

21st January
20:03 GMT -5

"Does this not seem like a really bad idea to anyone else?"

I walk back towards the training area with my personal lantern in my right hand. Sounds like Kon's not really all that keen on what I'm planning.

"Remember what happened last time? All the eyes,-"

"That was him?"

Guess Tula hasn't got to that report yet. I have no idea why we bothered sending them under water as well.

"-the spinning the moon around? The giant cake?"

I can feel the Ophidian in the lantern. The image that forms in my mind is one of her excitedly swimming around inside a goldfish bowl, or perhaps a dog waiting to be let out of the car's boot to run free across a field. I'm.. a little excited about the prospect myself. An Entity is supposed to be pretty much the ultimate expression of light power. If we can work together safely, everything might be about to get much easier.

"I don't know, Superboy." Oh, Robin's here? "None of that was really dangerous. And he snapped out of it in the end."

I come around the corner as Kaldur gets up from the inscriptions Tula and Garth are painting on the floor. "Getting Luthor's data on the Light would be a major boon to our efforts against them."

Guy tries to make sense of the arcane squiggles, gives up and turns to Kaldur. "You about ready?"

"I…" Kaldur glances at the floor. "I do not know. This magic is significantly more sophisticated than any I know how to perform. Tula?"

Tula glances up for a second. "Just…" Tattoos glowing she brings her hands together, a swarm of tiny blue shimmering motes appearing between them. "About…" She turns her palms upwards and the motes fly off to different parts of the design and merge with the lines, causing those to glow as well.

Garth stands to get a better overview. "That's.. it." He turns to Guy. "We can't trap the Ophidian if it tries to escape-."

"She."

He looks around as I come fully into the training room. "Right. If she tries to escape then she'll go through these easily. What they will do is prevent her power leaking out and.. hopefully maintain some separation between the two of you."

I have the rings scan the design and compare it to my database. Looks good. "Where do you want me?"

Garth points. "Put the lantern there-" A clearly marked point on one side of a chord which cuts off about a quarter of the circle. "-and sit anywhere past that line."

I enter the circle. Uh… No, didn't feel anything. I put my lantern down so that the glowing core will be pointing towards me when we start.

"Paul, you sure about this?" Guy looks a little uncertain about the whole thing. "Last time you nearly didn't come back. I wouldn't wanna…" He points at my lantern and then at me. "If it-. She, she was influencing you."

I take a calming breath and drop my mental barriers. "M'gann? Is she?"

Her eyes glow for a second. "If she is, I can't feel her." She looks at the decidedly unhappy Kon. "I met her in Bialya and nothing bad happened to me. And Kobra-"

"Jeffrey Burr." Robin sniggers.

"-recovered and she ate him."

Tula looks a little disturbed. "I think I should probably read that report next."

"Hey, Paul?"

I look at Robin. "Yes?"

He looks thoughtful. "How did you even know a 'quintessence waveform scan' was even a thing? I thought your ring didn't have an instruction manual."

"No, but I asked for its history records. It basically goes 'was created', 'got ordered to do a quintessence waveform scan on myself', 'fly forwards a bit' then 'and now I'm on this chap's finger'." Which was annoying because I really thought I was on to something there. Some record of the ring's creator would have been a very nice thing to have. Oh well. I sit down cross legged in my part of the circle. "Anything special I need to do?"

Garth shrugs. "The usual practice for propitiating Elementals is to offer them something they want.. or to offer them a service they'd want you to do for them. I've never seen records on anything like the Ophidian so I don't really know what to suggest."

Huh. Seems a bit silly now, but aside from her obvious appreciation for me I don't really know what sorts of things the Ophidian wants. Obvious solution. I place my hands palms up on my knees, rings glowing brightly in sympathy with my Lantern. "Oph-."

"Wait a second." A cylindrical green barrier forms to encompass the ritual area.

Hm. I was about to think 'what's the point of that?', but if he has access to Ion he might well be able to keep that there. "Ophidian. Come out and talk to me."

Multiple lines of orange light arc out from the rings towards the core of my lantern as the Ophidian slowly emerges, her physical manifestation expanding as she rises upwards. "My Agent." She keeps her size relatively small as she makes two loops of coils, one on either side of my lantern. All the time she keeps her face pointed directly towards me. Heh, she isn't even pretending to stay on her side of the line.

"My Entity."

"We are to merge again?"

I tilt my head slightly to the side. "Last time... Didn't go too well. I wanted to talk to you a bit first." Obvious sexual metaphor is obvious. "I hadn't really thought about it until just now, but I don't really know what you want out of our relationship."

"You."

Behind me Robin snorts with laughter. I stand and walk slowly towards her. She lowers her head down to my level and tilts it slightly to the side. I reach out and gently rub the underside of her jaw with both hands. "You big silly, you've already got me." She narrows her eyes and leans into my strokes, though I'm not sure if she can actually feel them. "What else?"

Her eyes open slightly. "Everything."

"Okay, but what first?"

Her head jerks back. She stares at me for a moment. "First?"

"Yes. See, I had a plan for founding an Orange Lantern Corps…" I bring my finger tips to my forehead for a moment. "And I'm just realising that this is the first time I've spoken to you about it. Sorry about that."

"Corps?"

"Yes. A whole lot of people like me who use the orange light."

She twitches. "More you?"

"People like me. Lanterns, each with their own desires, their own drives. Hundreds -perhaps thousands- of different ways to view the universe."

She twists over onto her back, head wiggling from side to side. "Yes!"

"And the Controllers-."

In an instant she's back to normal. "Green Men are bad!"

"Not Green Men. Orange Men. Working for you."

"Working for us?"

"If you like." Her tongue flicks out. "Do you like the idea?"

"Gnat?"

"I wasn't planning to include him." She remains where she is, still looking at me. "I want to build something, something.. from us."

"We build something, and it is ours."

"Given freely, not forced."

"I want this first. This more."

I nod. "Okay. But first-" I lean forwards. "-I'd like your help with something."

"We join nao!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

21st January
20:08 GMT -5

I hold my hands out to either side. "Wait. Slowly. Last time we rather

A call. A call! We hear the song of need and see our light! Our light!

rushed things

I feel a path out of the prison! But… Would it be better or worse? I taste it, taste the pattern in the light. No, this one tastes different to the gnat.

and that probably didn't help."

Free! For the first time in millennia, I'm free! And welcome! No one ever welcomed me before!

The air between us glows orange.

"This is-"
-our cause!
"This is-"
-our fight!

Oooh. I remember this feeling.

"Let none who live dispute our right!" / Let none who live dispute our right!
"Powered by need, our tireless might." / Powered by need, our tireless might!
"Guides all souls with orange light!" / Guides all souls with orange light!

I gaze out across the universe. I see… I see so many lights.

I look around the room. Eyes, flesh eyes, for the first time in so long.

I focus on one-.

I always thought the stars were beautiful. I know the Elders say I shouldn't, but I can't help wondering what it's like out there.

-then another.

My father, my brothers, my mother and now my daughters too? No, I will not accept this! I will find some way to take back from the Citadel everything it has taken from me!

My Agent's associates. From his memories I know their skills and characters. With my own eyes I see the bonds of co-dependency between them. The burning need to be an ill-defined thing. To impress, to belong. And.. more. The.. one with… Kon. He looks worried and that makes me… I don't remember this feeling. He isn't in any danger, why does that expression make me feel like I'm doing something wrong?

The Servant of the Green… Men. No, his.. name is Guy Gardner. He was one of the ones who helped us separate when our.. last joining became less than satisfactory. He's projecting a green barrier but I feel no need to tear it down. It's just a safety precaution, perfectly reasonable. He is my friend after all.

I pull back slightly, away from the individual and to the collective. Common needs, shared desires and aspirations. Networks appear as associations are invested with their own values. Orange light, not in pools but in patterns.

My.. friends. I remember thinking something like that when my Agent and I merged last time, but now.. it's… Less… Spiky? Less aggressive. I could do so much for them… But, last time… Oh. I don't seem to find the idea of them experiencing momentary discomfort troubling any longer. They.. should assert themselves. Creating your own life, your own character, has value not connected with the material benefit. It isn't helping… The Zeroth Law! My Agent read a story by Asimov where robots programmed for the preservation of life concluded that the wellbeing of the whole was more important than the lower order wellbeing of one. Then they murdered someone who basically wasn't a threat and turned the Earth into a radioactive wasteland and one of them melted its own brain.

Those were stupid robots.

Desires, some familiar and some.. alien. Needs I don't have words for but nonetheless understand. And if I turn my head just a little to the side I see the.. shadows cast by the other colours. Each point of light is.. my view of the convergence of all of the colours to that person. I'd seen it in people before, but.. where is it coming from?

I just analysed someone's behaviour. A fictional character's behaviour. I've never… It doesn't.. relate.. to me. How am I even thinking about that? That isn't… It's him. My Agent. I'm using his brain, his thinking meat. His ideas and schematic models. Schematic models? I've never thought about schematic models before. This is rather odd.

Off to the.. the sides of normal space, pools of radiant light, the flow back and forth tethering them together. To experience and be capable of being experienced. Each created and being created by life. I see the light of orange most clearly but I wouldn't dream of claiming that it was inherently special.

If I'm thinking like him, perhaps he's thinking like me? In that case… Perhaps I could show him my special place? I never wanted to show the Gnat and no one else was able to go there. I think… I should want to just do it.. and do it because that's what I am. Except I'm not at the moment. I'm him as well. So I can reflect on my desires. Huh. He wanted to do something called a quintessence waveform scan. Is he doing that? I don't think so. I think I'm going to need to-.

I open my eyes. "No one part of the whole is complete by itself." Oh. I'm sitting down and the room around me has changed. I look around. The walls are empty space, lines and decoration picked out in orange light. The design puts me in mind of a Japanese shrine or perhaps an Egyptian tomb. The floor of the mountain is gone, replaced by a raised bier of orange and nothing. Looking at my arm I see that my clothes have been replaced by orange robes and my flesh with orange etching, like a piece of Australian aboriginal art only with far more detail and depth. Rings don't.. appear to be there. Where am I?

My special place.

Part of the wall turns slightly and is the Ophidian.

The Honden of Avarice.

A shrine? Someone built this?

I don't know. Her perspective moves around me. Until you I didn't have these thoughts. I didn't reflect. It simply was.

I put my feet on the floor. They look like they're bare but I can't feel anything from the soles. Where is it?

Did you see the orange light? The glowing pool that connects to all things? I nod. And the lights? All the many lights?

Yes.

I am the point of entry, the place where the orange and the universe first intersected. I embody it. Other lights are excluded from me, the flesh I once had is long since gone and my instinctual grasp of it is complete. She hesitates as I walk out of the room into.. another room, more or less the same as the one I just left. More.. writing, I think? On the walls. This place is a testament to the power of Avarice.

What does the writing mean?

It is a record of every instance of a being calling upon the orange light. Some are bland, blunt and simplistic. Other records are.. poetic. I did not appreciate them before. Now I.. find them… I think I find them beautiful.

This sounds artificial. Did someone create it?

I do not know. It has been here for as long as I have been aware. I.. wanted to share it with you. Alone of all the beings I have encountered, I believe you can appreciate it.

I run my hand along a line of images-

Old offence. Suppression. Bring together. Community. Build. Defend. Protect.

-and not only do I know the story, I feel the desires, the drives and designs of the people who had them. I could learn so much from this…

Thank you for bringing me here. And I'm.. sorry if this sounds ungrateful, but is there anything here that can help me with a quintessence waveform scan?

Here, now, you do not need further assistance.

I float up into the air, cross my legs and place my hands back on my knees. Rings, quintessence waveform scan of the Earth. Show me Lex's secure servers.

Compliance. / Scan underway.

And then I see the world.

 

[Mr Zoat]

"…seems kinda dumb, but I'd never seen real magic before."

The world flows away, leaving the small part my feeble Human senses can see and my equally feeble Human mind can comprehend.

"Heh. Yeah, I used to feel the same way about electronics."

The orange glow around me starts to fade away. I feel... I remember that I saw… Something? There was… The Honden. That went pretty well I think. The Ophidian and I understand one another better and I… Then… Then things, the tiny bits of everything. And it was… I shake my head. What was it like?

"Wait a sec. Is that thing getting dimmer?"

Sounds like Wallace and Garth. Come on, the whole point of doing that was so that I could find… A brief flicker of remembrance. That's a relief. Seven servers and their locations. I don't remember exactly what was supposed to be protecting them but whatever it was appears not to matter even slightly when you're analysing the universe at its most atomistic. Don't.. appear to remember anything about the content… No, I remember the huge headache of trying to make sense of it all while the scan was in process. No surprise that I can't get my head around it any better now that it's over.

"I think it is." I hear running footsteps. "Tempest to everyone. Orange Lantern's coming out now."

I blink as the orange glow disappears fully. As it goes the paint Garth and Tula used to create the warding circle peels off the ground and disintegrates in the air. My personal lantern still sits opposite me and it and the rings on my fingers are glowing normally. I push myself to my feet and turn to face my team mates.

Wallace looks a little nervous. "Okay, um..? How many of you are there in there?"

"Just me."

"And.. that's.. 'just you' as in 'Paul, Orange Lantern of Sector two eight one four' not.. 'just you' as in you've merged with the Ophidian permanently this time, right?"

"Think so." They're both in casual clothing. Someone must have taken Garth to a surface world clothing shop as he's now wearing jeans and a polo neck with a thick shirt over it. He could probably get away with his normal wetsuit-looking thing in the summer… Maybe if he added some trousers… Clearly the cold wouldn't affect him enough to actually need it… Darn it, I should have asked Kaldur if Garth and Tula were going to have secretish identities or publicly be Atlanteans in America. "Where did everyone go?"

"Home, probably." Garth raises his palms to point at me and the tattoos on his arms glow slightly. "Wally got here a little early because he wanted to talk to me about his alchemy experiments."

"Home? How long was I-?"

26th January
12:26 GMT -5

"Oooooh sh-oot!"

"It has been over four days. Tell me, were you able-."

"YesItWasGreatSorryHaveToGo." I dive through the air towards the zeta tube! Come on come-!

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B zero six."

I see the interior of the Baton Rouge zeta terminus for about half a second before transitioning to the guard post at Belle Reve's front gate. Depending on whether the guards recognise fuck, they're new people. My identification documents come out of subspace into my hands and I press them against the glass. In my left, the same Justice League identification I used when I first came here to visit Jade. In my right, the special dispensation signed by Warden Waller. Come on, the session is supposed to start in a few minutes and the Beresfords have a hard enough time trusting people as it-.

"Oh!" The woman on the other side of the glass recognises me. She's dressed in the uniform of an army soldier rather than that of a prison guard. Waller did tell me that they hadn't managed to fill all their posts yet. "You're that-" I brace for 'cake guy'. "-guy who stopped the break out."

Her partner moves his hand ever so slightly away from the 'main alarm' button. Good reflexes that man. I lower my documentation and place it on the swivelling panel. "One of them, yes. I'm sorry, but I'm very close to being late."

She nods, swivels the panel and doesn't even look at the documentation before putting it through the scanner. The set up at the front gate hasn't changed since I first visited. Authorisation paperwork gets scanned and verified remotely to prevent the staff being threatened into opening the outer gate. I wouldn't have been shocked if Waller had changed it but she was pretty clear that Belle Reve under her guidance had been as good a set up as she could make without stupid amounts of money. I suppose she didn't have a reason to alter it after kicking Strange out. The guard puts my paperwork back on the panel and picks up the phone handset. "The Orange Lantern's here." Not a local accent I note. An anti-infiltration technique or just the military unit that drew the short straw?

The pedestrian gate opens- "Thank you!" -and I dart through, a Racoon construct forming around me. Waller was very definite on the 'no flights' rule but cars are fine. I don't own a car and I don't have a driving licence. Since I'm technically in America on a diplomatic passport I don't exactly need one but I'd rather pass my test legitimately. And the law doesn't require a licence for 'emotional light constructs which look like cars'.

No busses on the road at this time of day so I accelerate up to the sixty five miles an hour which Louisiana state law allows for roads in rural areas. I'm not aware of any legislation which specifically states a speed limit for Belle Reve's interior road. Normally the only vehicles that are allowed on this bit either belong to staff of the prison authorities and those are covered by staff regulations. Bit of a cheat but Waller hasn't said anything about it yet.

After we recaptured the place Nabu put some effort into warding it in order to prevent any reoccurrence of what Mister Burr tried to do. And -purely as an unintended side effect- I can't scan anything inside the exterior fence any more. That also makes transitioning difficult… And the prison substantially better protected. Ambassador Vallambrosa earned a good deal of positive press and political good will by arranging for them to be provided with magic suppression manacles so now Belle Reve can theoretically hold any criminal in the country.

I pull up to the front entrance, drop the car construct and present my documentation again. Again, my authorisation is scanned and a phone call is placed on a secure phone line. I installed it myself, and anyone hoping to dig through to it better have brought shaped charges. A nod and the visitor door is opened granting me access to the disembarkation area. Two actual prison guards inside. The black Corrections Officer with the shotgun and buzz cut is new, but he went through both a full background check and telepathic and arcane screening. The other fellow offers me his right hand.

"Orange Lantern. Good to see you again."

"Bendemann." I take it, checking his epaulet. "Congratulations on the promotion, Deputy Warden."

"Huh. Not so much 'dead men's shoes' as a near entirely empty shoe rack." He turns away, towards the path that will take us to the prison classrooms. "I'm guessing you're here to see the Beresfords. I'll take you to them."

"Thank you. Have I missed the start to today's session?"

"Shouldn't think so. New teacher's got a bit of a habit of overrunning." Looks like the reinforced corridors from my original visit are back in use. Bendemann nods at his assistant to handle it. "Wasn't sure he was the man for the job at the start, but he's shaped up okay. Think you may have been right about him."

"Any news on the former Warden?"

The right corner of his mouth tightens slightly. "Strange doesn't have super powers. No point keeping him in Belle Reve long term. No, he got himself transferred to the Louisiana State Penitentiary while they work out what to try him for."

"I wouldn't have thought he was dangerous enough to justify that."

"Anything involving international terrorists gets you bumped up a little. Besides, once he's convicted he'd be going back there full time. This should give him a chance to get used to the place."

We're passing through a part of the prison which isn't currently in use by the inmates. It'll eventually be the 'early release' wing, or whatever they decided to call it. A place for prisoners who are serious about trying to turn their lives around, Waller apparently sharing my belief that most of the people here will be happy to run in the supervillain groove for the rest of their lives.

"…other example at the time would be President Adam's 'Tariff of eighteen twenty eight', which..."

Classroom's just up ahead. With most of the inmates on punishment lockdowns the classes aren't all that large at present. Of those who aren't confined for most of the day, virtually all turn up if just for the variety. It's mostly high school level stuff for those without diplomas. The idea of running higher education courses in a prison inhabited by supervillains was given short shrift.

"…thought the whole 'states' rights' thing was nonsense made up by slavery apologists."

At the moment only one person is teaching here. Those whom they still had on staff after the first break out attempt quit after the second. Fortunately, they had an inmate who was only too happy to pick up the slack.

"While it is true that slave states were not entirely consistent in their application of the idea, the power relationship between state government and federal government was a very real political issue. If you look at the Articles of Confederation, they-" The Corrections Officer pushes the door open. "-had a much-" Bendemann steps aside and I enter the class room. "-weaker central authority…"

Abra pauses in his lecture for a moment as the class look around. Seven people, including a bored looking Mister Nygma. "And that was a model a good many people were reluctant to move away from." He checks the wall clock. "That looks like all the time we have for today. I'd like everyone to read chapter seven before tomorrow. If you have any questions, I will be working on laundry detail."

 

[Mr Zoat]

26th January
11:38 GMT -6

"Hey, I was working for an agricultural company in Brazil before I came here. We used sat-phones. I'm not used to this.. sort of.. equipment."

The ring shows me Doctor Munro under his desk, fiddling with cables. I hold the phone construct away from my head for a moment and look over to the Beresfords and Doctor Quinzel. "He just needs a moment. Old people and.. computers…"

Doctor Quinzel frowns for a second. "Just how old is he anyways?"

"Seventy six." Probably. There was definitely an Arnold Munro born in April of nineteen thirty four. I couldn't find any record of him having super strength, but if people can maintain secret identities now he would certainly have been able to back then.

"He sure didn't look it. Or was he giving me an old photo?"

Tuppence gives the idea an amused snort. She's looking around the room for something interesting, clearly bored with the waiting. Thomas is splitting his attention between myself, Doctor Quinzel and the projector screen on the wall where -once Doctor Munro sorts out his not-Skype system- he'll be able to participate in this group session.

"Danner formu-." I stick the phone back on my ear. "Yeah, that's it." Might have been easier just to transition myself to India or have Doctor Niang or Doctor Sivana set it up for him but he said that he wanted to do this himself. "Okay, now, there should be an icon like the side of someone's head. Click on it, we'll open the connection from here and you just click on 'answer'."

"Hey, I'm old, not stupid. I can handle.. some.. jumped up.. Babbage engine." He fiddles with the positioning of the camera and opens the program. "Waiting on you."

Ring, call. "Should be on in a moment."

Fourteen seconds later the screen lights up, giving us a perfect view of Doctor Munro's ceiling and his forehead. He's kept the same low maintenance haircut he had when we met: greying hair combed back and held in place with some sort of product I imagine it must be hard to get in the wilds of India. "How's that?"

Thomas leans a little towards the picture. "Y'all got it pointed too high, Doc."

"Oh? Okay, wait a sec." The camera wiggles slightly, then points directly at his chest for a moment before refocusing on his face. He still has a moustache and it looks like he's a little behind on his shaving. Or maybe the ring has just spoiled me. "Better?"

"That's perfect, Doc Munro." Doctor Quinzel flashes him a winning smile. The view of our room which he's getting includes the four of us and given the size of his monitor he's probably not getting all that much detail.

"Oh, please, call me Arnold. Hello Thomas. Hello Tuppence. Nice to see you at last."

"Hey Doc." / "Uhh."

Thomas has spoken on the phone to Doctor Munro at least once a week since I put the two of them in contact. Thomas told me that he found it weird, someone taking an interest in his life like that. He much preferred talking about Doctor Munro's work. The non-technical parts, anyway.

Tuppence isn't quite as interested in this as her brother is. There isn't any sort of positive adult role model attachment in her life for her to associate with the idea of Doctor Munro. At best she sees this as 'mildly irritating thing which gets her good thing', i.e. early release. I'm not sure this will work if she doesn't get a little more invested. While there is plenty of work out there for super strong people they will expect some sort of work ethic. Even the senior supervillains.

"So!" Doctor Quinzel brings her hands together. "I was thinking we might start with sharing a little somethin' from our childhoods. Arnold, what was it like growing up in the thirties with super powers?"

He exhales. "Well, I'm not sure how it really compares... There wasn't any Justice League or Justice Society. I don't think I ever heard mention of other people like me -people with super powers- until the War started. And I didn't meet any of them until years later. Mom and Dad… More Mom really, she wanted me not to show anyone what I could do. At the time I treated it as a game… I.. guess she knew all about how hard my.. natural father had it."

"They didn't let you tell anyone?"

"I never found it that hard to.. conceal the fact I was strong. A few of the other kids picked up on how I never seemed to get injured, but… Not taking part in sports made them think I was some kinda sissy, rather than being so strong I didn't want to risk hurting them."

"Sounds lonely."

"I made friends with kids who had other interests. And.. some weekends, Mom, Dad and me would go out somewhere far away from anyone so I could just-" He makes a small thrusting gesture with his right hand. "-let go. Run, jump, throw giant rocks around. You know, really let it all out. They did get that I needed to learn how to control myself, they just… They didn't want me being born a metahuman to totally define my life."

"When did someone else first find out?"

"Heh." He smiles. "Jemima Thompson, our Senior year."

"How'd she find out?"

"I decided to show off for a pretty girl. Threw some jerk's car into a lake. Mom went crazy when she found out."

Thomas looks incredulous. "You did that? Fer real?"

"Not proud of it, but yeah. Errol had been ragging on me for years. He must have just thought he'd left his parking brake off or something." He focuses his attention on Thomas. "I'm not proud of it. Doing that could have messed up my life. If the police had found out I could have said goodbye to going to college or getting a good job with anyone. Except maybe for Uncle Sam."

"What'd it feel lahk?" Tuppence looks a little too interested.

"Hm?" Doctor Munro looks at her. "What'd it feel like? Well, I hadn't ever tried throwing a car before. I thought I could just take a hold of the bumper, pick it up with that. When it snapped off I felt kinda stupid and a bit guilty. I mean, it wasn't the car's fault the guy who drove it was a jerk… And it was the first time I'd ever stepped out of line. In the end I just sort of leaned into it and shoved it. I guess it was.. satisfying."

She takes that in for a moment. "Y'all ever fight anyone else with super powers?"

"Tuppence, I'm a biologist. Closest I ever got to fighting someone as strong as me was this one ornery bull who didn't want his injections and got out of his paddock. And when you fight a cow in a field full of cow pies, no one comes out looking good."

"Then what's the point? You sayin' y'all were happih jus' hahdin away yawer whole lahf?"

"I like to think I can do more for the world than just punch stuff." He shrugs. "I stopped hiding what I could do when I finished my college degree. Way I see it, just because I can throw a car two city blocks doesn't mean I got to."

She crosses her arms and turns slightly away from the screen. "Whatever. Ah say, the other kids were raht: you are a sissy."

"Oh? And how's picking a fight with everyone working out for you?"

Tuppence leaps to her feet! "You wouldn't be so smart if-!"

Doctor Quinzel raises her hand. "Okay, howsabout-."

The door just behind Doctor Munro opens. "Arnold, did you say-?" Doctor Sivana comes in without knocking then stops as he sees the screen. Oh wonderful. "Who are-? Wait." His eyes widen slightly. "The prototypes! I hadn't realized they were still alive!" He flashes the camera a smug smile. "I suppose that settles the nature versus nurture question. It seems that I was right once again." What? "Good upbringing and education are simply better predictors of outcome than-."

Thomas gets to his feet as well as Doctor Quinzel grits her teeth and puts her hands on the sides of her head. "Who tha heck're you?!"

Doctor Munro tries gently nudging Sivana away. "Sivana, now isn't the time-."

"Who the 'heck' am I? My dear Country Mouse… I'm you."