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

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
19:35 GMT -5

"…so few examples of Kryptonian media still exist!" Kara shifts uncomfortably as Canis grins excitedly at her. "I am very grateful for this opportunity!" Expand My Horizons!

"I wasn't-. It's not.. anything groundbreaking." She holds up a data stick. "This is just.. light entertainment."

"All the better! Such works give a far better view of the cultural assumptions that underpin Kryptonian culture, so much more so than a deliberately thoughtful piece."

"Ah…" She glances at me for guidance and I shrug apologetically. "Okay?"

Wolf pads into the hangar and stops at the top of the steps, sniffing the air and looking down at Kara with a mildly wary air. Kara notices her and -grateful for an excuse to escape her conversation with Canis- walks towards-. Takes two steps towards the steps and then remembers that she can fly, then does that instead. Floating just above Wolf she holds out her hand, which Wolf cautiously sniffs. Apparently finding the scent acceptable, Wolf gives her a small lick and then turns around to head back into the kitchen. Kara follows her, which leaves me with Canis.

"I understand that Zatanna will be joining us once more."

"Yes. I wasn't banishing her, I just felt that being around me wasn't healthy. If anything, I was banishing myself."

Canis shakes his head. "Illustres. You are a powerful New God. You must learn to accept that.. weaker New Gods will naturally come to arrange themselves around you. Choosing not to bed her is of course your prerogative, but pushing her away when she is clearly so devoted to you is harmful to both of your underlying metaphysical interactions and empowerment."

My eyes narrow. And not just at his implication. I think I.. understood what he means, but the words don't…

"My purpose is to guide people in realising their desires. She had a desire that couldn't coexist with mine or Jade's."

"Because she desires monogamy? Would not changing that desire be more simple?"

"Technically, yes, but I would transgress my nature to do it. And it wouldn't change Jade's feelings on the matter."

Canis frowns. "I know that Lowlies are not without value; my own father began his life as a Hunger Dog. But I do not understand why you let.. her have such power over you. It is… Unnatural. My father was not permitted to mate with my mother until he had achieved his own God-Name, and you are far more powerful than he was."

"Why do you think I encouraged her to join the Darkstars?"

"I respect your optimism, but the chance of her achieving your level of power -even with your aid- cannot be-"

"Recognised, Zatanna Zatara, B Zero Nine. Identity confirmed."

"-great."

Zatanna walks nervously out of the right zeta tube, hesitantly raising her right hand in greeting. I smile and return the gest-

"Salutations!"

-ure, while Canis strides over to her.

"Hi, Canis..?"

"Time permitting, I would appreciate it if you would talk through your fixation with Illustres with me."

"A-ah?"

"I wish to describe your heartache and longing in poetic form, and it would aid me greatly-"

I squeeze my eyes shut and bow my head.

"-if I could bear witness to your exquisite misery first hand."

I walk over to him and lay my right hand on his left shoulder. "Canis, shoo."

He doesn't tense. In fact, I can feel him.. relax. "Yes, Illustres. I apologise for overstepping my bounds." I remove my hand and he turns and walks up the steps towards the kitchen.

Zatanna and I regard each other for a moment.

"I'm sorry about-." / "That was-."

We both look away from one another for a moment.

"Why does he call-?" / "Happy birth-."

Oh, this is getting silly. I take her present and card out of subspace and hold them out. "Happy belated birthday."

"Thank you." She takes them and.. holds them slightly awkwardly. "Why.. did Canis call you 'Illustres'? I know it's your rank, but…"

"He appears to have decided that it's my God-Name, and that calling me anything else would be infantile." She nods. "How are you?"

"Not… Great, but… Better?" She shakes her head. "I know it's not… Good-. Healthy, how I've been…"

"But people don't change how they feel just because they realise they shouldn't."

"Yeah." She nods. "I think-."

"Recognised, Wonder Woman, Zero Three. Identity confirmed."

We both look around as Diana strides through the zeta tube, scanning the room for… Threats? What's going-?

"Diana. You've finally-" Her gaze shifts to me-. Oh, what am I supposed to have done now? "-learned to block my empathic vision. Well done."

She doesn't appear to register the compliment. "You must both come with me at once. It is a matter of the utmost importance."

"Ah… Sure? Do you want us to bring the whole team?"

"No. This requires only your particular skills."

"Ah..?" I glance at Zatanna. "Zatanna isn't.. back on the 'active' roster-."

"No, that's-" Zatanna shakes her head. "-fine. Romra pu!" Smoke coils around her as her armour reappears, and she shrugs at me. "I'm not injured. And I'm sure I can.. cope with being around you for a little while."

"Okay, so-" Diana has already started back towards the zeta tubes. "-where are we going?"

"You will be briefed upon your arrival, along with everyone else."

"Alright, but do I need any-"

"Recognised, Wonder Woman, Zero Three. Identity confirmed."

"-special equipment? Huh."

Zatanna frowns at the zeta tube. "Does she seem a bit.. off to you?"

"Someone might have found out about the Noriel thing… Or she had to take a shift on the Watchtower with Guy or Mister O'Brian." I shrug as I walk into the tube. "Diana's usually fairly serene, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't get frustrated sometimes."

"If you say so."

I shrug as light flares-

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B zero six. Identity confirmed."

-and I appear…

Um. This isn't-.

Construct armour forms around me just in time to stop the yellow construct gauntlet seizing me around the neck!

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
19:40 GMT -5

I jab a crumbler round into the gauntlet construct as it attempts to tighten its grip, causing it to-

"Grugh!"

-dissipate in a cloud of yellow-

"Recognized, Zorina Zatara, Made Man of Owlman."

-vapour what? I half turn as Zatanna materialises, looking just as confused as I feel at our emergence into a room which looks like a somewhat wrecked version of the hangar we just left. Zorina? Negative Fourteen, we're on Negative Fourteen. Which means-.

Wonder Woman… Olympia, that's what my alter ego's files called her, dives at the still off-balance Zatanna, spear outstretched! I form a construct palisade-.

"Pots!"

Olympia jerks, snarls, then her skin shimmers as she breaks the rushed spell. Why can't Diana learn what I've been trying to teach her like that?

"Ehtaerb ni erif!"

Three yellow construct Olympias appear, the one just in front of me being shattered by a crumbler round almost immediately. This is their Alan, isn't it? What's he playing at? Another appears just behind Zatanna, swinging the shaft of its construct spear down onto the top of her head. Zatanna's armour shimmers faintly and the shaft is halted an inch from her scalp as the fire she conjured pours down the real Olympia's throat, causing her to wheeze and then dive for the pool. The fire was orange so it's probably not hot enough to do lasting damage to someone as tough as her, but I imagine that it's fairly painful. Her target gone, Zatanna steps forward and turns to confront the construct just as I destroy it with another crumbler shot.

The third construct hangs back, growing a shield to accompany its spear.

"Mister Scott, what are you doing? If you want our help just ask!"

"Devorpmi lanosrep dleihs." Zatanna glances my way. "Mister Scott?"

The air next to the construct Olympia shimmers as Capo Alan 'Al' Scott appears. Disappointingly, he isn't wearing a recolour of my Alan's uniform, but rather a grey, loose-fitting suit that escaped from the nineteen thirties. The ring on his right middle finger glows with power, and there's a pin in his lapel with-. Ah, not the yellow sigil. It's a circle with lines radiating off in a… V? No, an X. Huh, old school.

"Mister Scott. You're looking less skeletal."

"Hnh." He nods, smiling, his eyes visible beneath the brim of his trilby as glowing dots. "People are remembering why their grandfolks were so afraid of me. Does a man a power of good."

Olympia shoots up out of the water, glaring at Zatanna as she pulls her right arm back to throw her spear-.

"That'll do, Olympia." Alan raises his right hand in a 'stop' gesture. "I doubt that they'd go down easily, and we can't afford to linger here."

Olympia's eyes flick towards him, but she obeys his instruction and floats through the air to land next to him.

"If you have a request, you can just make it."

"I find making a forceful impression more useful in the longer run." He shrugs nonchalantly. "But I suppose there's a time and a place. Howsabout you come along with us, and I'll explain what this is about someplace more convivial."

"Howsabout fuck you?"

His smile broadens slightly. "Howsabout fuck me?"

"You're a senior career criminal, and Olympia is an enforcer and hitwoman. And I'm assuming given the-" I look around. "-state of disrepair this place is in that President Slade is still winning. You might be in a hurry, but Zatanna and I are innocent bystanders and we're not."

He nods thoughtfully. "True. You might be able to cut a deal. But Slade's people are shooting first and leaving the questions for the morticians these days, and the two of you look just like known Syndicate members. And maybe you could fight your way out anyway, but… Well, I may not know exactly how good you are, but you don't know exactly how good they are, either."

"The zeta tube is right there."

"Yeah, and it's just released a good deal of easily tracked radiation on a wavelength Slade's people know we used to use. Chances are, they're already calling a team together. And unless you know how to make zeta streams cross between parallel universes, I don't see how that does you much good."

Zatanna shakes her head. "You're still not making much of an argument. We can both teleport. We don't need you to evade whoever they're sending."

"Teleport blockers, countermagic specialists, all kinds of exotic-."

Olympia takes a step forward. "The 'peaceful' wing of the Syndicate is being threatened with extermination by President Slade, which will result in a slaughter which serves no one's interest. There is no point in being queen of a pyre. If you wish to avoid this, you will aid us."

Zatanna and I look at one another. Empathic vision shows that she's inclined to follow my lead. Olympia and Mister Scott are both blocking me so I can't get anything from either of them-.

There's a flicker in my empathic vision on the other side of the room, which then moves to get into cover. Someone using optical camouflage and a remarkably quiet teleportation system. But they're not attacking and my construct armour is still up. I'm curious as to who it is, but I don't recognise their desires well enough to identify them without taking a closer look.

But we do need the time to gather information. And talking to my alter ego's allies-. Actually, where is he? He and Zorina are the obvious people to send on a job like this. Mister Scott must have gotten a full report from him, he knows that I was willing to help-.

Be awkward if he's dead.

"Fine. We'll hear you out. How are you planning on getting us out of a fortified mountain?"

He waves his right hand and a circle appears on the floor. "Magic. Their countermeasures eliminate frequencies each time we use 'em. We just have to change faster than they can catch up. Take a minute to punch through the general countermagic field Medea put over the country."

I take my power armour out of subspace and take a moment to check the controls. If there's already someone here, I doubt that it will take longer than-.

Space twists, and a silver-skinned man in blue trousers appears in the exact point the other person teleported in at moments before. He… Looks like a mash-up of Captain Atom and Major Force, which means that he's probably this world's equivalent of the latter.

Olympia immediately brings her spear to bear. "Have they sent you in to die alone, Q-Ranger?"

"I'm just the tip-" He clenches his fists, green mist rising from each of them. "-of the spear."

Constructs failing.

My construct armour and Mister Scott's construct Olympia fail immediately. Probably a way around that, but I don't really want to start a fight with the man on behalf of some mobster supervillains.

"But when it comes to taking down power rings-"

The circle construct Mister Scott was creating dies as well. I appear to still have my environmental shield, though my construct armour is gone. So, area effect construct disruption and it's blocking our host's preferred form of egress. Still not completely convinced that I care, and… If I initiate hostilities it will severely undermine my claims of neutrality later. My armour doesn't have much in the way of integrated weapons, but assuming that Q-Ranger matches Captain Atom's power output I'm not too concerned.

"-the tip is all you need."

He stalks forward, then rises a little way into the air as Olympia moves to intercept him. I raise my right hand, the kinetic belt in my armour causing him to walk into what probably feels like an invisible wall. He pushes it with his glowing fists to no obvious effect, and I use the kinetic energy he's providing to dig a shallow trench matching the dimensions of the circle Mister Scott created with his ring. I jog towards it with Zatanna just behind me as Q-Ranger raises his hands and fires an energy bolt at Olympia. It passes unimpeded through my kinetic barrier but she effortlessly blocks it with her bracers.

Mister Scott frowns at me, checks the floor and then nods as Zatanna and I cross the threshold and joins us. "Olympia. Now."

She backs up, blocking an increasingly frantic series of shots from Q-Ranger with a cruel smirk on her face. "How long?"

"About three second-" She blocks one more shot and then flies backwards at speed, crossing the perimeter just as the space around us turns to star-filled purple. "-s."

And then the hangar vanishes.

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
19:45 GMT -5

The room we appear in reminds me of Hephaestus's forge beneath Mount Etna. Mechanical technology covered in runes and shimmering with magic surrounds us in all directions as a brass circle on the ground around us crackles with electricity.

"We're through! Shut it down!"

"J-just a moment, Power Ring! If I don't-" I hear a clank as a lever is pushed into a new position. "-get this just right, Medea could track us."

Olympia rolls her eyes while Mister Scott smirks. "Really?"

"I don't like leaving-" There's another clank from somewhere behind something that looks like it escaped from the set of Thirteen Ghosts. "-things to chance. You know that. Gets people hurt."

Huh. Add in some affected nonchalance…

"I'm assuming that's your John Constantine."

"Yeah." Mister Scott nods. "Not much use in the field, but he's a great researcher and theorist."

"There." There's another clank, and then… Yes, that's John Constantine, but… Thick rimmed glasses with jeweller's magnifying lenses stuck on the bottom, a burn scar slash across his right cheek and a buttoned up laboratory coat combined with a tool belt. "Give it a moment to fully de-"

Olympia strides across the circle, ignoring the shock as the residual electricity discharges itself into her legs.

"-gauss. Right, yeah, nice work." He puts his hands on his hips as she strides past him. "Hope you weren't planning on going anywhere for another week."

"Don't let her bother you." Mister Scott crosses the circle without incident and approaches John -14, laying his right hand on the man's left shoulder. "You did good work here. Mission successful. Take a break."

John shakes his head, refusing to meet Mister Scott's eyes. "I.. can't, I can't afford the time. You know that."

Mister Scott shrugs magnanimously. "If you're sure." He turns back to Zatanna and me. "Come on, let's get outta Constantine's hair."

Zatanna and I glance at one another, then walk through the workshop after him. Olympia is already waiting for us before what looks like a heavily reinforced goods entrance. Ah, I see. The inner door is open while the outer door is shut. Once we're inside, she throws a lever and the inner door begins to close.

"Where's Zorina?"

Mister Scott glances at Zatanna. "Ah, kids today. No patience."

She folds her arms across her chest. "Where. Is."

"She's not on Earth right now." The inner door clunks closed and the outer door starts to open. "Otherwise we wouldn't need to be having this conversation."

"Did you manage to kill Doctor Chaos?"

"Yeah, he's dead and gone." He glances back at the now closed inner door. "And what's left of him is powering Constantine's workshop. The Don's back in charge, which is why the United States isn't a blazing war zone right now."

We step out into a stone-floored foyer, and Mister Scott leads the way along an adjacent corridor.

Olympia curls her lips. "I am unconvinced this is better."

Mister Scott's eyes twitch for a fraction of a second. Ah, yes, demonstrating disunity before outsiders mildly weakens their position, but that only gets worse if he remonstrates with her. "Honey, you never did learn to play the long game. Now's the time for keeping out of Wilson's way while he and Luthor finish each other off for us."

He stops, opening a door in the wall which leads into a small living room. Olympia marches through and takes up station behind the high-backed chair that appears to be the focus of the room. Mister Scott motions for us to enter and then comes inside, closing the door behind us and walking over to take the fancy chair. That leaves the settee opposite him for the two of us. I return my armour to subspace and take my seat while Zatanna remains standing.

"If she's not on Earth, where is she?"

"Oh, touring the galaxy. I don't know exactly where she is right now. Getting in touch would be tricky."

"And my… Blue alter ego?"

"He went with her." He looks at Zatanna. "Look, ah… Zatanna? You can sit or stand, it doesn't really matter to me. But this could take a while."

Eying him for a moment, she walks around the settee and sits down beside me. Mister Scott smiles.

"Now then. I'm sure you've got a lot of questions, but let me just give you a real quick overview. President Wilson is still in office, but he's coming up to the end of his second term. As far as we know, he isn't going to try and overturn the twenty second amendment, so that's it. The next fellah is almost certainly going to be the current Vice President, Alexander Luthor."

Zatanna nods. "Superhero becomes supervillain, evil corporate executive becomes honest politician."

"He was a superhero too. Beat Ultraman in a fight in central Metropolis right before the Decapitation." He smiles. "Darndest thing. Afterwards, he was more interested in winning the peace than finishing us off."

"Okay, so..." I mean, yes, I can see a heroic Luthor taking high political office… And depending on how police statey things are getting, it might even be good that he won't be pressuring the Syndicate as much. But that still leaves the question… "Why do I care?"

Mister Scott smiles. "Wilson might not want a third term, but it looks like he thinks we're… 'Unfinished business'."

"You are."

"Hah!" He leans back. "I'm not asking you to like us, Power Ring Orange. But the basic math hasn't changed. Moderate members of the Syndicate can only do so much to restrain some of the psychotic serial killers we've got working for us. At the moment, we're on the verge of getting everyone signed up to accept the new, softer touch Management. Once that happens, we can… What's the word?" He hesitates. "Downshift. Retool the Syndicate into an organisation that exists under the radar, to live in a society run under the rule of law."

"I'm still not-."

"Blue told you about Fawcett City, didn't he?"

"Yes. But I doubt that Wilson would do something like that a second time."

"True, but that still leaves him punishment beatings, arrest and indefinite detention without trial, torture… Honestly, he's copying all our best tricks. Imitation might be the most sincere form of flattery, but I'm not getting any royalties out of it. And before you say anything, he's not just magically getting the people who deserve it, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"And what's Luthor's take on that?"

"Son, if I knew what Lex Luthor was thinking, we wouldn't be having this conversation either. My guess is that he's gunna put up with it for another year." He makes a gesture of appeal. "But I don't know we can keep a lid on things for that long. The New Management is safe, but a lot of the Made Men aren't. And their families sure aren't."

Zatanna shakes her head. "Why us?"

"Normally, we'd put Blue on the case. But he's not here right now, and your face fits. Same with Zorina. The Zatara Crime Family all have their signature backward-talking magic. Can't fake it. That means people know you're speaking for the Family."

"Wait." She raises her eyebrows incredulously. "'Zatara Crime Family'?"

"Sure. Europe and North America's premier magic mafia. Is that not how it works on Earth Sixteen?"

"No, it's just me and Dad. The rest of the family don't do.. anything like that."

"Huh. Well, I suppose it wasn't all that likely everything would be mirrored. Here, it's your… Her, whole extended family. To varying degrees. Being able to say anything backwards is unusual. Usually comes with a restriction or two. But there are about two hundred or so people called 'Zatara' who can do it to some degree or other. The Don would be the fellah to talk to if you really want to ask about Family business."

"So why are Blue Lantern and Zorina Zatara off-planet at such a critical moment? Because it sounds like this was the worst possible time for them to take time off."

Mister Alan frowns. "Just unlucky, really. Figured we'd have a month or two before Wilson pushed this hard. Otherwise we'd just have asked them to delay their honeymoon."

"What?" / "Huh?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth -14
Shadowcrest
27th October 2011
09:27 GMT -5

I stand at parade rest outside the Don's drawing room, waiting for my invitation to enter. Given the events of the past year I could probably-. No, Zorina was very clear on that point. I could barge in and he'd have to take it, but if I decide to treat him as an underling then he can't be part of the Management and I have to be. A Manager can walk in on a Made Man. Made Men don't walk in on Managers.

And to be fair, the Don has been perfectly happy to admit how much he owes me and the team. And aside from one extremely worrying moment when Doctor Chaos nearly talked Jonathan around to his way of thinking, the team has been solid in its support. And while I'm not sure that they all totally get what's happening around them with the Syndicate and.. post-Syndicate-domination America, neither overt nor covert observation shows anything worse than minor grumbling about having to actually pay for things now.

Emperor Rickard was a mistake, and a costly one. But with The Answer, Don Giovanni, Capo Scott, Barracuda and the Director gradually being accepted as the new Management by the surviving Made Men, things are gradually getting-

"Sure, Uncle Gio."

-to a point where we're actually somewhat in control of things.

The door opens, and I adopt a somewhat more relaxed posture as Zaccaria Zatara walks out. He's.. not a member of my team, having been dispatched to the New York base of the Zatara family in order to learn the family business by the cabal that directs the family business back in Sicily. As a result I haven't really had much to do with him, though he's always been polite when I've visited at Zorina's invitation. Now, he sees me waiting and his face… Stills in the manner of someone who has learned not to let their face betray them but hasn't learned how to affect the expression they desire.

"Power Ring Blue."

"Good morning, Master Zatara."

He stares into my eyes for a moment, then gestures over his shoulder to the door. "Uncle Giovanni wants to talk to you."

"Then I will attend to him at once." I nod politely. "Good day."

He keeps watching me as I step around him and walk towards the door. Not sure what I've done to put his back up. The Don already said that he wouldn't be joining the Young Offenders, and not just because he isn't on President Wilson's radar yet. I'd use a nano-infection on him to eavesdrop and try to find out, but as Zorina said, her family regularly check for things like that and he'll feel obliged to strike back. And while his version of the family's magic only works on non-living things, that category includes both 'air' and 'power rings'.

I push open the door and.. see that the Don already has company. He sits at the head of the table, while Mister Scott gifts me with an unsettling smile from his place at the Don's left. Zorina sits primly at his right, while Charles Tong sits on her right. But not her immediate right, and the gap and the abandoned teacup indicate that's where Zaccaria was a minute ago.

"Power Ring Blue." The Don gestures to the empty seat next to Mister Scott. "Take a seat. We've got something to discuss."

"Thank you for inviting me." I pull out the chair and sit down, briefly glancing at my Manager. Usually, Mister Scott isn't slow to tell me what he expects from me at this sort of meeting, but I'm not getting anything-

"Tea?"

-from him-. I jerk my head around as Mr Tong holds up the teapot. Ah yes, the one respect in which the New Management definitely beats the Old Management: much less alcohol. While I don't like tea any more than I like liquor, at least it doesn't burn my throat.

"Thank you, yes."

Mr Tong puts a sterling silver tea strainer over a cup and pours a dark-coloured tea into it. Cup filled, he sets the pot down and gestures to the sugar bowl. "Sugar?"

"One, please." He uses a small set of tongs to deposit a single sugar cube into the cup before passing it over. "Thank you." I leave it to cool in front of me and turn to the Don. "What can I do for you, Don?"

"I want to know what your intentions are towards my daughter."

Unlike his nephew, the Don has excellent facial control. I don't remember much about Giovanni Zatara from the comics, but I'm reasonably sure that he wasn't anything like as physical as the Don is. It isn't all muscle, not after two decades of running a Zatara Family branch from behind a desk, but he's still pretty tough-looking. My eyes dart to Zorina for a moment, but she's keeping her face deliberately blank.

"Zorina is an extremely capable young woman-."

"I'm not asking you for her school report, Paul. I'm asking about your personal intentions."

"I don't-. I'm not romantically interested in her. Quite aside from the fact that I'm twice her age, I actually find her casual and unthinking ruthlessness quite unsettling."

Zorina-. There's a small smile on her lips. And I don't know why.

"I see." He takes a sip of his own tea, then returns the cup to its saucer. "Do you know why Zaccaria lives here?"

"Training? I had been assuming that the Zatara Family intends to expand further into America, and he was here to learn the territory."

"No."

"Then… Are his parents weaker than you, mystically?"

"Not a bad guess, but no. He's here to succeed me when I die." He sees the concern in my face. "Not now. Decades from now." He snorts quietly. "Whatever Wilson thinks. Zatara family tradition is that successful branches pass from father to eldest son. Since I don't have any sons, my sister Zenobia had a word with our mother and arranged to have her second son sent here."

"What.. about Zorina?"

"That's up to her. She won't get put out on the street, but she can't run the business."

"That's.. ridiculous. She's got the skills, the magic ability-."

"And?"

"And you're saying that there's a blanket ban on her doing it because she's female. I didn't realise that your family discriminated-."

"That's not it."

"I'm sorry?"

"We don't regard women as less important. You think fighting is more important than raising children? You think I don't respect my mother, same as I respect my father? No. No. It's just tradition that there are some things women do and some things men do. Not that I think it makes a whole lot of sense either." His expression hardens. "My own papa told me, my wife's body barely cold in the ground, that he wanted me to remarry. For Zorina's sake. Like I… Like I can't raise my own daughter right. Because raising children is what the women do."

"I'm.. sympathetic, but-."

"Zorina wants to take over after me, and there aren't a lot of ways that can happen. If Zaccaria wasn't here, we mighta been able to swing it. But he is, and picking a fight with the rest of the family wouldn't be a good idea. The other option is marrying well and running the business through her husband." I frown-. "Not another Zatara. But someone appropriate. We usually like to marry other magicians. It improves the chances of the children getting the powerful version of our family magics. But it doesn't have to be, as long as they've got something to offer the family. You're a Syndicate Made Man. A lot of our people respect you, respect your judgement. And you're probably going to join the Management one of these days."

"Giovanni, if you want me to.. do interviews to-."

Zorina giggles. It's a sound that worries me.

"No, he wants to make sure that you haven't seduced me with your-" She widens her eyes slightly. "-wily ways." She turns to Giovanni. "Happy, Daddy?"

He glowers. "I wouldn't say happy. He's right, he is twice your age."

Zorina smiles confidently. "He's also Mister Scott's apprentice. The two of us being together will make it clear to everyone that the Management are here to stay."

"Um. Zorina, I thought you were hitting on me because you enjoy making me uncomfortable. I didn't realise that you-. I mean, do you… Love me?"

She smiles, shaking her head. "No. But… I respect you. I like you. I only joined the Young Offenders so that I could find a useful idiot to mind control, but you… You have potential."

She pushes her chair back and walks around the table to me.

"I'm sixteen in just over three months." She leans forward and kisses me on my right cheek. "Save the date."

…

"Um? Excuse me?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
19:58 GMT -5

"Really?"

"Well…" Mister Scott shrugs. "More or less. Blue was running the team with Ultraboy, not with me."

"He got married to a sixteen-year-old girl..? Because she told him to?"

"They spent a lot of time together after the Decapitation, then they were trying to work out how to kill Doctor Chaos. I guess she just had to be a bit more forceful to make him think of her in that kinda way."

Zatanna.. shuffles uncomfortably next to me, and Mister Scott regards us curiously.

"You two… Not together? Blue's big problem was the age gap, and you two look like you're the same age to me."

"No." / "No, we're… Not."

"Alright." Mister Scott shrugs. "Hardly matters to me. What else you wanna know?"

"Everything. To come up with a workable strategy for keeping your Syndicate going, I need everything. And some time outside. I want to check everything you're telling me."

"Sure, we can set that up. But I was mostly talking about if there was anything you wanted to ask me. Not everything we do gets written down, y'know."

"I didn't…" Zatanna glances at me. "Read the full report on the Syndicate. If… President Slade could beat the Syndicate when it was at its strongest, how are you still here?"

Mister Scott shakes his head. "No, he couldn't. The Syndicate was effectively above the law for six years. Then Luthor got the smart idea of travelling to a parallel Earth to ask for help. We got… Blindsided. Well, I say we, I was retired at that point. We knew that Luthor had cracked our security, we just didn't think he had enough manpower to do anything about it. Next thing we know, he's back, and he's brought a team of Management recolors with him."

"Who were they?"

"The Justice League. Not the one from your universe. Ultraboy checked that before their little excursion to your LexCorp. They attacked Syndicate operations all over the United States." He glances to his side where Olympia has started grinding her teeth together. "Olympia got a front row seat at one of them, if you're interested in getting a blow-by-blow."

"I will rip out her intestines when next we meet."

"And then, when everyone was running around trying to defend the operations that were still going on, Luthor and the League attacked the moon base. Managed to jam the teleporters when it was only the Management on board. Wilson actually led the Marines boarding party himself. Which I kinda respect."

"And… Then the League left?"

"Sure. Mission accomplished. Except Wilson didn't actually think Luthor would be able to pull it off. He didn't have anyone in position to attack all the other Syndicate bases or companies. And they didn't have anyone telling them what to do."

"The League half-arsed it."

Mr Scott shrugs. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. Maybe they had their own business to take care of back home?"

"No, I know the Earth Sixteen Justice League. It's not on the job full time. If they could spend a few days here they could spend a few more, or come back a little later. If they didn't, it was because they decided that their involvement was no longer required."

"Did the Syndicate try to rescue the.. managers?"

"Owlman and Johnny Quick were killed during the League's attack. The rest? Hah, Ultraman killed President Wilson's wife. What did they think was going to happen?"

"He killed him?"

"Exposed him to blue kryptonite, then beat him to death with a crowbar in his prison cell. Power Ring got disarmed and then shot in the head. They had to use a nuke on Superwoman. We don't call it the Decapitation because the heads survived."

"Okay, but if President Wilson hates the Syndicate that much… Why didn't he do anything about the rest of you?"

"Putting something like that together takes time. And by then, Made Men had already started killing each other so he figured he didn't need to."

My blue counterpart didn't mention that, but I suppose that it makes sense.

Zatanna blinks in surprise. "What? Why?"

"Because they're supervillains. None of them have any higher ideology than their own preservation and enrichment. The moment the Management were no longer around to referee, they reverted to type."

"A little harsh… Blue and Ultraboy kept the Team alive, Jimmy Olsen took charge of Ultraman's people… But mostly true. Things really got going about… Oooh… Three weeks later? Pretty much died off now. A few bright young things tried to set themselves up as the new Management, but everyone else was just fighting over territory. Thanks to the Don, things in New York were pretty calm, but everywhere else was a mess."

"Tragic."

"It was for everyone who lived there." Zatanna frowns. "What, you think they're keeping it in the family? Wow, you really aren't Zorina, are you? People die in the crossfire, people die being in the right place at the wrong time. Having interests that conflict with the new kings and queens of the hill. Being anywhere near the more aggressive Made Men, now Owlman isn't around with the super sedatives. Or by thinking that they can actually arrest us now that the top bosses are pushing up daisies and not getting that we aren't any physically weaker."

"Did anyone come after you?"

"Oh, phsss, I was an old man, they didn't care about me. And the Syndicate members who did respected me enough to leave me alone. Think Olympia here got a few new notches on her spear though."

Her hands ball into fists, her face twisting in anger. "It took the combined might of the Hellenic peoples to force the Amazons from Greece and they dared to think that-."

Mr Scott reaches behind him and puts his right hand on her left arm. She flinches, and then calms.

"There were a lot of bodies on the floor before anyone really got into position to organise anything. The surviving Justice Underground members -like Q-Ranger- got out almost immediately, which meant they could actually fight us without needing to have a whole battalion on hand. Blue was instrumental in holding things together. That's why him not being here is.. such a pain."

"What precisely do you need me to do?"

"Talk our guys and their guys into accepting something we can all live with. Thought it was gonna be an easy sell, then Wilson started up again and it's thrown everything out. Folks are getting skittish. Be nice if you could find out what was going on in the White House, check that Luthor's planning what we think he's planning."

"And what resources do I have? What authority do I have?"

He shrugs. "You're my main guy's younger brother. Folks know you're speaking for me and him both. You can't order us to hand ourselves over to the Feds, because that's not gonna fly with anyone."

"Can I include the summary execution of Made Men in my plan? The truly monstrous ones?"

He raises his eyebrows slightly. "Not an easy sell. Most of the people you're thinking about aren't actually Made Men. We liquidated a lot of our 'living weapons' so's Doctor Chaos couldn't use them."

"Still…"

"I'm not taking anything off the table, but you'd better have a good pitch to go with it."

"Right. We'll need you to show me the exit so we can confirm any of what you've just told me, then we'll get to work." Hm. "Actually, are the parts of the Syndicate you're in control of doing anything right now that President Wilson might find particularly objectionable?"

"Sure, everything. But if you're talking about stand-out objectionable… Yeah, one thing comes to mind."

"Then I'm probably going to need you to stop doing that right away. What is it?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
20:06 GMT -5

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I look through the one way glass into the cell containing the bound, bruised and bloody form of Dame Carol Ferris. Her hair is shorn short and her musculature is considerably more pronounced than that of our Carol Ferris. Her pink gambeson is torn and dirty from the fight that resulted in the Syndicate 'acquiring' her, and she's-. Her eyes aren't focusing.

"Oh God." Zatanna looks at me in horror. "Is she..?"

"She's alive. Mister Scott, I'm going to need you to let me in there."

"Sure, you can do that." He motions to an adjacent corridor. "Door's around here."

I follow him, Zatanna opting to stay in the observation room. "What happened to her armour and her ring?"

"Doc Strange got the armour and.. what was left of her ring. They're both in pieces." He stands by the control panel for the heavily reinforced door, looking me over. "You weren't planning on giving them back to her now, were you?"

"I'm thinking about releasing her as a show of good faith."

"Hm. Well, she hasn't really learned anything in here. But President Wilson isn't gunna suddenly call us 'partners in peace' just because we let one superhero go free."

"I know. But I'm not trying to persuade him, am I?"

He smiles as he activates the door release. "Knew you'd come up with something, son. Get to work."

I walk into the cell and the door closes behind me.

The walls are padded, and the chains attached in such a way that she can't move much beyond a small circle in the centre of the room. A circle that's already stained with urine and blood-.

A small flare of orange light removes both, and I take a purple healing ray out of subspace and play it over her most obvious injuries.

"Star Sapphire, can you hear me?"

"S-saar 'apphire." She isn't looking at me and her eyes aren't focusing, but at least she's cognisant of my presence. "T-t-two."

Her mouth is swollen and she's lost teeth.

"Two eight."

The swelling goes down as I watch, but purple healing rays don't replace lost teeth. Not in humans, anyway. She blinks as the ray starts to reduce the brain swelling.

"Two eight one four." She looks at me. "Healing me for another round of beatings? I will never betray my comrades in arms."

"Glad to hear it." I hold up the ray projector. "These don't work on memory loss. This would be difficult if you weren't 'you' any longer."

"Star Sapphire Two Eight One Four."

"Yes, I know-. Oh, are you doing the 'name and serial number' thing?"

"I have nothing else to say to the Syndicate."

"You… Realise that by doing that you're effectively saying that the Syndicate is a government you are at war with, right? Rather than a criminal organisation? I doubt that was what you meant, but…"

"Why are you talking to me, Power Ring? And why are you no longer blue?"

"I've never been blue. And I'm talking to you because I want to send a message to President Wilson."

She nods resignedly. "I wondered how long this would take. Do your worst; I will not fear you."

I frown-. "No, not 'send a message' as in 'kill you and dump your body'. 'Send a message' as in 'I tell you something and then you tell him'. Do you understand?"

"I am not so injured that I cannot understand simple sentences." She frowns. "Who are you? I had taken you for the Hope Diamond, but you are younger. And you are less cowed than he."

"Lex Luthor isn't the only man who can travel to parallel universes. Where I'm from, we're called Lanterns."

"Then why are you acting as an accomplice to their villainy?"

"Based on the information available to me, I have cautiously concluded that a negotiated peace settlement is in the interests of the people of the United States, and that a military victory by the President -if achievable- would produce such.. horrendous amounts of collateral damage that such a solution would be better avoided. As such, I wish to make an opening offer."

"How could I possibly accept anything you say at face value?"

I take the Staff of Love out of subspace. "Does this look familiar?"

She regards it for a moment. "An.. older design. We moved from crystals to power rings millennia ago. How did you come by it?"

"My parallel's history is a little different to yours. The Zamarons never moved on from crystal. This drove… Our you insane until Green Lantern Two Eight One Four A removed it from her. I've since.. adapted it, as you can see." I put my right hand on the head and imagine that it was Jade in this position. The chains turn to violet crystal and then fragment, violet powder falling to the floor.

"Thank you." She takes a moment to flex her joints, probably for the first time in several days. "But it proves little. Even Ultraman loved his parents and his son."

"If I lend this to you, could you gain the proof you want?"

"Yes." She regards me curiously. "Will you give it to me?"

"I'll lend it to you right now, and then give it to you once we release you. Please be aware that I'm trained in anti-Lantern combat and it will put a major crimp in the 'releasing you' plan if you use it to pick a fight."

She nods. "A gesture of faith from each of us, then."

I hold out the staff. Her eyes flick to the observation mirror, then she steps forward and grasps the centre of the staff with her right hand. I release it and she pulls back slightly, placing her left hand palm-down on the Star Sapphire. She shudders as she makes a connection.

"This is… Too powerful." She blinks heavily as her eyes switch from pure violet to violet-irised. "An untrained mortal who attempted to use it-."

"I know. I did say."

She focuses, and strands of violet light reach out from her into the room. Three brush against my chest, then the rest swiftly orientate on me.

"Show me what you love."

Ah… The violet aura around her intensifies. but I don't.. really feel anything. Then the aura dims and she offers back the staff.

"You spoke truly."

I nod and take the staff from her.

"You must understand that I do not have the authority to negotiate with you."

"No, but you know the President, the Vice President and Quizmaster better than I do. I'd like something there's at least a chance they might agree to."

"What are you authorised to offer?"

"Nothing's off the table. But as you can imagine, there's a limit to what I could actually deliver on."

She nods, notably less guarded now.

"Then let us discuss the matter."

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
20:11 GMT -5

"You should be sure to temper your expectations. President Wilson has hardened his heart to any Made Men who might seek his pardon."

"We're not looking for pardons for everyone. But… Does that include everyone even slightly associated with the Syndicate, or just Made Men? If… An accountant who worked in an Syndicate-owned firm wanted to hand themselves in, or an engineer who worked on a Syndicate project and didn't commit a crime other than working for the Syndicate?"

"There may be room to negotiate, for those only tangentially involved. But President Wilson has committed himself to the destruction of the Syndicate. And he will not adulterate his ambition. I do not know if he would consider you to be a full member yet, but by staying here and speaking on their behalf you are putting yourself at risk."

I shrug. "We already have the technology to block the planeshift device your Lex Luthor used. I doubt that he's had the time to design a second device that works on a different basis."

"You are not concerned for yourself personally?"

"Not significantly." Hm. "What do you think the chance is of President Wilson removing all special legal measures and restoring habeas corpus?"

"He believes that the extraordinary measures are necessary for destroying the Syndicate and restoring peace to America. Once the Syndicate is destroyed, then the pre-bellum legal mechanisms would be restored."

I can't help but smile. "Did you know that the Syndicate didn't exist until Governor Wilson started targeting metahuman criminal gangs? I mean, the Managers knew each other, but cooperating was only ever on a case by case basis."

"No. And while I don't know whether it's true or not it hardly matters now."

"No? Because it seems to me that Wilson started a war that has made the country much worse off. Every time he escalated they escalated right back. If he'd just not done that, the country's supervillains would still be spending more time fighting each other than fighting anyone else."

"They would still be supervillains."

"Your starter for ten: what's the difference between 'kidnapping' and 'arresting without charge'?"

She narrows her eyes. "Pass."

"If you pay the ransom, the kidnapper lets you go. Wilson gave up the right to say 'the law says so' when he started changing the law to justify what he was doing. Ultraman was satisfied with running crime in Metropolis. Heck, crime went down after he took over all of the city's other gangs, even including his punishment beatings. Then he got threatened by something he couldn't beat on an organisational level. So he upped his organisational game and his brute force game, because the force at President Wilson's disposal was greater than what Ultraman had at his disposal."

"Are you trying to claim that letting the Syndicate off scot-free is the best solution?"

"How familiar are you with the Good Friday Agreement?"

Which exists back on Earth 16, but might well not be a thing here. I really need to get out and update my database.

"It was the peace settlement which brought an end to political violence in Northern Ireland."

"Sort of. Fanatical groups remained active for years afterwards, but the main groups accepted that it was a fair deal and stopped bombing and sniping. Marching season still gets a bit tense. But, part of the result was that hundreds of murderers were released from prison having completed a mere fraction of their sentences. And the vast majority of them didn't re-offend. The British government devolved a lot of authority to the Northern Irish Assembly while the Republicans gave up on trying to unify it with the Republic of Ireland by force. Everyone got a situation they could live with, and if anyone breaks the law now then they're fair game."

"The Crime Syndicate is not a political organisation, Citrine."

Cit-? Okay, not sure what her jewel fixation is about, but at least it's orange.

"Criminal gangs in Northern Ireland did a lot of fund raising. It didn't all go on guns. And they did punishment beatings, too. And while I rather missed the part of history where the British Army decided that treating Ireland like occupied territory rather than part of Britain was sensible, and that brigandage and murder were acceptable forms of policing, I know full well that they happened."

"You think that the Made Men of the Syndicate will become legitimate citizens if the President gives them a… Mulligan?"

"There was crime before supervillains. There would still be crime if they vanished. Even now there's crime, but since it's being committed by the state people are pretending that it isn't crime. But the last reliable statistics I was able to find said that supervillain-led criminal groups are actually slightly less violent than the regular kind. They can just escalate further if pushed. We've seen what happens when the surviving parts of the Syndicate are pushed."

She looks thoughtful for a moment. "The offer President Wilson received last year was genuine."

"Yes. Wait, you thought that it wasn't?"

"The President believed it was an attempt at misdirection. I had no opinion."

"Did he?"

"Yes."

"Because… People sometimes say that they want peace, when what they actually mean is 'victory'. Peace on their terms only. For example, take a look at how many Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded in the Middle East. And compare it to how much peace has actually happened. People actually want peace when they're prepared to give up things they don't want to give up in order to achieve it."

"And what is the Syndicate prepared to give up?"

"All of their remaining strategic weapons. At least, those that aren't built into Made Men. Certain types of crime, so long as they are allowed to move into legitimate areas of commerce to offset the financial loss. Part of the Syndicate's combat strength can be… Sent into exile."

"Exile? Where?"

"Pick a failed state, or one run by criminal gangs already, or one where the government might appreciate metahuman muscle in order to solidify its hold on power. Creating a private military company out of the Syndicate's hard cases well outside President Wilson's area of concern. They won't complain too much about the work, and they won't be an immediate threat to America. Plus, if they die in combat, he doesn't have to worry about them at all."

"Unless they seize a country and begin rebuilding there."

"If they take over a country, that's even better. Firstly, there's less reason for them to come back to a place where there's a firing squad waiting for them. Secondly, running a country is actually really hard and takes a lot of time and intelligence, which is time and intelligence that isn't being spent on attacking American concerns." I shake my head at the obvious sub-par decision making. "Let me tell you: if I'd been running the Syndicate a couple of years ago, they'd have had a very different focus. So many ways they could make a profit-."

Oh goodness me. That's how I get them on-side. Evil Alan can give me their personnel files and I can work out how they can make money legallyish. And it won't go like it did with our Lex because they'll think I'm one of them and they're actively looking for better options.

"So that's my opening offer. Nothing is nonnegotiable, and the Syndicate does appreciate that while everyone would lose in the event of a direct confrontation they'd lose by most. I'm happy to meet with representatives of the President, or of anyone else if he doesn't want to be directly connected to what's going on."

"I can request an audience with the President and relay that."

"Not-. Lex Luthor will probably be President this time next year. You'll need to make sure you tell him as well, because he's going to have to live with it. And if the Quizmaster is as intelligent as his alter ego back on my home parallel, you should tell him so that he can make sure I'm not pulling something."

She nods slowly. "I will agree to that."

"Thank you. If you'll excuse me, I'll go and talk to Power Ring about letting you out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
20:17 GMT -5

Mister Scott nods as I enter the observation room. "You got some good ideas there. Using someplace no one wants as a fallback point. And we were already shutting down mosta Owlman's boondoggles anyway."

I nod back, then turn to his bodyguard. "Olympia, you're the blood knight of the group. How would you feel about heading to Africa or South America to kill people for money?"

"It would be a welcome change of pace from hiding as we are now."

Zatanna regards her with distaste. "I thought that your.. Syndicate was trying to avoid direct confrontation. Were you on Doctor Chaos' team?"

"No. It was clear to me that Doctor Chaos was merely using us for his own ends, rather than trying to rule the world as the head of the Syndicate. And I will not be used by a shade."

"Do you think your fellow blood knights would go for it? Or would they just take it as a sign of Management weakness?"

She stares at me haughtily. "Why do you call me a 'blood knight'?"

"The term refers to someone who fights for the joy of it. In context, I'm talking about the members of the Syndicate who can't do 'subtle' or 'white collar crime'. The ones who need to fight-"

And I suddenly understand Owlman. At this point, Bruce Wayne could do the world far more good as CEO of Wayne Enterprises than as Batman, but he can't stop going out and crusade-caping. Owlman could have been richer and more powerful by doing almost anything other than building an apocalypse bomb, but… Once he knew how to build it, he had to build it. Had to use it. Not because it was a good idea, that wasn't the point…

"-and will act out if they can't."

"I am not a petulant girl who cannot control her battle-rage."

"So are you giving up on forcing Wonder Woman to eat her own intestines? Because a purely rational person would settle for killing her efficiently."

"She rendered me insensate with my own spear!"

Mister Scott chuckles, quietly and menacingly. "Think you're making his point for him, doll."

Olympia snarls quietly to herself, turning her face away from both of us.

"What's the arrangement for moving Dame Carol out of here?"

"Gas, magic bindings, then moving a variable endpoint door somewhere we won't want to go again and throwing her out. Olympia, why don't you go get her ready to move?"

Olympia turns and marches from the observation room.

"And Zatanna? We'll need you to move the door."

Zatanna nods slowly. "Because this is Shadowcrest, isn't it? I haven't really…" She places her right hand on the wall, closing her eyes as she… What, connects to the house's magic? "Since it's just me and Dad, we haven't really experimented with everything it can do. But if my.. family has so many magicians here…"

Mister Scott shrugs. "I'm sure they won't mind throwing in a spell book or two as a thank you present if you pull this off."

Zatanna doesn't look particularly pleased at the idea.

"What are we supposed to call you while we're in company?"

"Depends on how you wanna play it, son. You can call me 'Al' if you want us to be friends. Capo Scott if you want to make a business case for why we should try making peace with President Wilson. Or Power Ring if you want to appeal to the masses as supervillains and give them a target to crush. I'll respond in kind." He waves his right hand nonchalantly. "It's all about getting them into the right head space." He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Hey, ah… I've been wondering… Whatever happened to your me?"

"I got him a new lantern. He rejuvenated and joined the Justice League."

"Hah! Ah, you shouldn't ah said that. Now I kinda wanna go fight him. See which of us aged least gracefully."

"See, this is exactly what I don't get about supervillains like you. What's the point?"

"Point? The point is to be, son. It's not complicated at all."

I shake my head. "The nearest thing I've got to a rival on Earth Sixteen is a man named Nylor Truggs. He steals pieces of schizo tech and then develops them for wider use. I think he's planning on using what he's collected to fight against an oncoming alien invasion."

"Sounds like a superhero to me."

"He murders the people who own any technology they're not using to his satisfaction."

"Sounds like a really focused superhero. We had this guy called Brother Love who used to mind control people who.. weren't getting along. Course, that was back in the sixties…"

"He murders them as a point of principle; they don't use what they've got so they don't deserve to live."

Mister Scott nods, smirking. "Now that sounds more like a supervillain."

"But how does it make sense?! Why do you people.. do these things? There must be.. some.. reason I'm not seeing."

"Well, sure. Sure there is, son. Of all the books I've read, all the plays and films I've watched, no one put it quite like George Orwell. 'Always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.'"

"Nineteen eighty four. I never grokked it. The social control stuff… Sure, totalitarian governments use their control to reinforce their control. That makes sense. But real world dictators have a high quality of life. The Inner Party make their own lives objectively worse every time they do anything. And as far as I could tell, their own anti-technology policies would eventually remove their ability to maintain their control. I mean, I'm not Kantian, but that's… Just… Dumb."

"You.. sweet, innocent boy." He shakes his head fondly. "I don't know if I can explain it to you. How did your Alan Scott get started? Let me guess, he was… Driving a train someplace, someone held him up and he.. tripped over his ring?"

"His employer tried to blow up the train he was working on for the insurance money."

He nods. "I used to work the railroads too. 'Till I realised how much money I could make holding 'em up instead. Built up a decent stake but the law was on my tail. Cornered me and my guys in an old railroad shed we were using for a bunkhouse. I grabbed an old train lantern to brain a guy with…" He shrugs. "And as I killed 'em one by one, I started to feel their fear, making me stronger."

"Conditioning. The ring conditioned you. You made them afraid, it makes you feel good-."

He shakes his head, visibly frustrated by my comment. "No, no, come on. Do me the courtesy of letting me have my own motivations. My ring lets me feel fear, it doesn't make me feel anything about it one way or the other."

Or so I'm sure you'd like to think.

"After I killed 'em all, I took all my money, went to Gotham and invested, bought a.. radio company. I was rich and powerful, and when you're rich and powerful most rules are things for the little people. And it wasn't enough. I kept a secret identity for years, not because I made money out of it, but because I wanted to do… Whatever I wanted. I wanted a sort of power you don't.. get from money or connections. I wanted people to look up at the sky and pray that my yellow light didn't fall on them. The money was just a way of reminding people how powerless they were. Hell, half the time I just burned the stuff. Easier than working out how to fence it. Your.. Alan, did he ever run with a posse?"

I nod. "The Justice Society."

"I founded the Crime Lodge. A club for people like me to meet up and brag about things. To hang around the only other people like us, who.. lived like we did. And maybe push each other a little further. People came and went, but a few of us… We made that place, made it untouchable. Made ourselves untouchable."

"My Alan gave it up because of a senate investigation. Why did you quit?"

"Same reason I told Ultraman his whole Syndicate thing was doomed from the get-go." He sighs. "We got too big."

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
20:22 GMT -5

Through the viewing window I see Dame Ferris stagger and collapse. A moment later Olympia walks in with some worrying-looking chains and a full head container.

Zatanna averts her eyes, frowning. "What do you mean, 'too big'?"

"Olympia wanted to conquer the world. Heh, when you get access to our database, take a look at the file on Themysciran culture. It's an eye-opener."

Um, yeah. Not sure what an evil version of Themyscira would be like, al.. though… America isn't evil. It's just that a few people changed ends. Themyscira might be exactly the same.

"Did you lose?"

"How do you lose at taking over a world?" He shakes his head. "At our height, there were only twenty one Crime Lodge key holders. How do you conquer a planet with twenty people?"

"Cow them into submission?"

"And get what? I told you, we were already untouchable. And because of that, we got a rather inflated idea of our ability to do anything other than wreck the place."

"Destruction is the work of a moment. Creation, the work of a lifetime."

He looks at me curiously, then shrugs. "Guess you could put it like that. We thought… We'd already peaked as super criminals, maybe world domination was the next step. The next rush. So we took over New York City." He makes a 'forward' gesture with his right hand. "Just strolled in to City Hall and announced it."

"I can't help but notice that you don't rule New York now."

"What the hell did I know about civil administration? Trash collection, electricity, water, sewage… Law enforcement. I managed a bit better than Whizzer-"

Zatanna snort-laughs, then covers her mouth with her right hand.

"-and Olympia. He couldn't really be bothered to do the actual work and she just shouted orders and threats and expected terrified people to respond intelligently. We didn't even last a month before we gave it up." He shakes his head. "I think if it had been a day, we coulda laughed it off. But it meant the world to Olympia, and I… Well, it didn't work out. We tried going back to the way things were, but… The old games got tired, there was nowhere to go… Some problems just can't be solved by a magic ring. Jace and I focused on our regular careers, Vicky… Olympia, went back to Greece to see if she could break the spell keeping the Amazons trapped on Themyscira. Didn't work, which is probably just as well." He nods to himself. "Maybe actually trying to do the work of running a country is just what we need to take the wind out of the sails of the Young Turks who're griping to me about 'letting Wilson walk all over us'."

Olympia heaves Dame Carol over her left shoulder and marches out of the cell. Mister Scott blinks as he brings himself fully into the present, then leads the way out of the observation room.

Huh.

Well, that was… Revealing. What happens to a power tripper when the power trip ends? When the drugs don't work? When the high you expect doesn't come, when your reputation and ego take a huge blow…

Though the fact that he didn't bother learning from his mistake and trying again is rather telling.

Zatanna and I follow him out and then bring up the rear as the party strolls down the corridor, stopping in front of a.. blank wall. Mister Scott looks it over, then touches it with his right hand.

"This'll do. One a' you wanna take the dame?"

I pick her up with a construct and Olympia-. Victoria pushes her away, as if she finds touching her distasteful.

"Wait until the door vanishes before you wake her up. And don't hang around; we're not sure how fast Medea can pick these up, but she can, and they'll be sending people to wherever you end up."

"Or do hang around and just go over to their side."

Victoria clenches her fists while Mister Scott just shrugs disinterestedly.

"Yeah, maybe. Hell, if you can talk Wilson down it'd be worth it. But I think Blue would be disappointed if you died, so just you remember they ain't your kinda people."

I nod. "How do we get back?"

"Assuming you don't end up in the White House or something, I'll ask the Don to open you a door in… Twenty four hours."

Zatanna shakes her head. "I need to tell my Dad where I am. They're probably already looking for us."

Mister Scott shrugs with mock-helplessness. "Blue told you how to block our dimensional shift technology, so we can't use that. We don't have another zeta radiation based gate, the Mountain is swarming with soldiers and Gubbins has probably already taken it apart. We can build another one… But we haven't yet. And I don't remember anything about Zataras being able to travel between alternate dimensions under their own power." He steps away from the wall. "All yours, sweetheart."

Zatanna sets her jaw. "Rood ot erehwemos esle."

Wooden panels rearrange themselves to form a door, and Zatanna grabs the handle and pulls it open. "Let's go."

I float Dame Carol before me as we head out into.. a dark disused dockside warehouse. I can hear the subdued sounds of the city in the background, and the lapping of water somewhere closer.

"Rood raeppasid."

I generate a construct bed and set Dame Carol down upon it. "Please wake her up."

"Sniahc llaf trapa." The chains binding Dame Carol fall apart link by link, and the helmet decays into flakes of metal to be blown away by an ethereal wind. Zatanna walks up to stand adjacent to Dame Carol's head and places her right hand on her forehead. "Nekawa."

Dame Carol's eyes jerk open and she sucks in a lungful of air. I smile faintly, take the Staff of Love out of subspace and hold it out to her.

"Feeling better?"

She sits up and turns so that her feet are planted on the floor, then rises to her feet. "I do not fear death so much as dying with my work incomplete. Still, it is pleasant to be away from that place." She takes the staff in her right hand and the Star Sapphire in her left, a faint violet glow enveloping her at once. She holds it for a moment and then pulls, the Sapphire coming free of the staff.

"I suggest that you be careful with that. The last wielder-."

She shakes her head and places the Sapphire against her breastbone where it grows a faint violet crystal gorget. "Star Sapphires are trained to avoid losing ourselves to our passions. I had long suspected that the lesson was a holdover from ancient times. I suppose that now I have proof."

"Now that you're free, what will you do?"

"I will do what we agreed, and relay your offer of a conditional surrender. How shall I contact you with any response?"

"Power Ring Yellow wants us back in twenty four hours. Meet back here in… Eighteen? If you haven't gotten an answer by then…" I stare into her with empathic vision, getting snapshots of her triumphs and tragedies, why she-. Ah. "Want to talk to me really hard and I'll feel it."

"Very well." She rises slowly off the ground, flying towards the exit. "I will bid you a good evening."

I nod, watching her go.

"I suppose that's one way to make sure I can't use the staff." I look at Zatanna and she shrugs awkwardly. "It's not like I.. want it, but we're stuck on a parallel Earth. It could have been useful."

"If we get desperate we can chase down Power Ring Green's gauntlet."

She nods. "So what now?"

"Now we do some research. Let's find out if any of what they've been telling us is true."

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th February
20:48 GMT -5

Gotham City -14 appears to be a buzzing centre of industrial activity. More buildings are being demolished, built and rebuilt than in any city I can name back on Earth 16. Collateral.. damage as they finished off Owlman's faction? With Wayne Industries definitely not being the force for social improvement that it is back home, I can only suppose that someone is trying to make good on three decades of neglect in record time. Most of it appears to be… EnigmaTech? Yes, I remember from Trinity that one version of Quizmaster started calling himself that. I didn't read enough of it to find out exactly what triggered the rebranding or the siding with villains, but since this planet clearly hasn't been attacked by a Qwardian dreadnaught I can't be confident that the same situation applies.

But if it is him… A rational superhero. Working on the economy, because a strong legitimate economy is the best way to prevent the re-emergence of a strong illegitimate economy.

Why can't I work with people like that? I wonder if he'd consider mentoring our Edward Nyg-.

"Gotham Economic Boom Continues'." Zatanna turns the page of her newspaper as I emerge from my data trawl.

We're in a somewhat empty café near Grant Park, having walked through an oddly cheerful city. Richard might be right about headline crime being down, but there's still a certain undercurrent of nervousness in Gotham 16. Probably will be for years to come as people readjust. Here, people were wishing us a good evening as we passed them. Even the soldiers on both of the checkpoints we walked past were polite enough.

"Reading between the lines, it looks like they're adapting technology seized from the Syndicate for civilian purposes. Once we're done with this whole thing, I'd-."

Zatanna's eyes widen in shock. "Oh."

"What?"

She folds the paper back on itself, then in half, then turns it around. Showing me a picture of the mayor shaking hands with a heavily scarred man named Edward Nashton. Okay, what'sohhhhh.

The mayor Thomas Wayne. Ring, check obituaries.

Compliance.

"Martha and Bruce Wayne died in Crime Alley. Thomases Senior and Junior survived."

I seem to remember Thomas Wayne Senior going rather off the deep end in the comic. Here, he… Yes, the files I can access suggest that he's doing a good job. Although… Mister Scott's files on Talon suggest that he's still at large. But he was more 'the test subject that survived' than 'foster grandson', and while Wayne Senior isn't going quite so crazy as his comic counterpart he is an enthusiastic supporter of President Wilson.

"Oh." She turns the paper back towards her. "Should we.. tell… You know."

"We can include it in our report. But… That's not… His father. They were similar once, but-."

The door jingles as a squad of armed soldiers enter. The first has his gun at the ready, though not quite pointed at anyone. The second has a scanner of.. some kind, and the third also has a gun at the ready. The woman with the scanner takes a look around, tenses her jaw for a moment and then steps forward.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We've detected an illegal holographic device on the premises. Would the person using it please stand up?"

That would be legally tricky if the country was actually following normal legal processes, but the emergency laws make it quite legitimate for those soldiers to 'scan and shoot'. She's asking because she's not stupid enough to fire into a restaurant without direct provocation, regardless of what the law says.

And likewise I'd feel kind of bad if I got a group of innocent civilians killed. I sheepishly raise my right hand and then stand up. The two soldiers with guns immediately fan out to cover me, though they don't raise their guns quite yet.

"Sir? Would you mind explaining?"

"I'm-. I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was quite this illegal. Um."

She relaxes slightly at the sound of my very clearly foreign accent.

"How-? How big a problem is this? I mean, I knew things were.. a bit tense here, but… Ah…"

"Sir, I'm going to need an explanation."

"I keep getting mistaken for this guy, and after the third time I got detained for an hour at a checkpoint I thought, you know, wear a facial mask…"

"Why were you stopped?"

"I look like a guy on the Syndicate list. I mean, I'm not him, but we do look a bit similar…"

She nods sympathetically, and the guns droop a little further. "Sir, I know it's frustrating, but the law exists for a reason. We're fighting a major civil insurgency. Please deactivate your disguise immediately so that we can verify your identity."

"Okay, but so long as we're clear that I'm not him."

No direct acknowledgement, but I tap the hologram projector on my cravat anyway. The holographic mask I've been using to walk around with fades away immediately. No intakes of breath, I notice. And the corporal with the scanner is frowning slightly. Looks like Blue-me isn't that well known by people in general.

The corporal waves her scanner at me again. "You're a close match for Power Ring, but you're too young and your body shape isn't quite the same. You're in the clear, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate the device."

I nod sheepishly and take it off my cravat and hold it out. She attaches her scanner to her waist and steps forwards to take it from me.

"Am I in… Any other trouble?"

She puts the hologram projector in a utility pouch.

"I'm willing to let this go, but please be aware that using holographic disguises in public is illegal."

"Right, yes, sorry."

The two armed soldiers step back, and the corporal leads the way out of the restaurant.

Hm.

I sit back down and generate a sound-deadening field. "Interesting."

Zatanna nods. "They could detect your holographic disguise, but not my magic or your power rings. And either Star Sapphire hasn't reported in, or whoever she reported to hasn't added you to the system yet."

"The checkpoints didn't detect the hologram, but those soldiers only had mundane equipment. Holographic displays are fairly common on Earth Sixteen… Even if they've been banned for a while, people could still have projectors. The detectors are rare, either expensive or hard to make, and they're used to getting false alarms."

"But she didn't arrest you. Which.. means that they're not just interning everyone, even if they technically violate the emergency orders." She looks at me for a moment. "Do you think Mister Scott was lying about what President Wilson is doing?"

"That's the problem, isn't it? Some of these emergency orders are pretty draconian, but if they're using sound judgement and only actually applying them when they need to… That's not necessarily a problem. It still leaves the.. practical issue of how to bring down the Syndicate without causing massive widespread destruction, but I am revising down my estimates on how many innocent people are being affected by the current level of government action."

"Does that change anything? If we're trying to avoid a fight we're still going to have to help the Syndicate anyway."

"It does make me think that President Wilson might be more rational than they've been trying to convince me he is. Which means that we might be able to persuade him to go along with it."

"If that's true, why were they trying to make him look like the bad guy?"

"Not sure. Maybe so they could claim that they got the president removed to strengthen their position with the Made Men?" I shrug. "Not sure."

She nods. "So what's our next step?"

"Find people protesting against the emergency laws who aren't sponsored by the Syndicate and request more details. But we can probably leave that until tomorrow."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
09:21 GMT

I narrow my eyes as I look at Hinon. "So… What exactly do you want?"

"As I have already explained to Clarissi Dox-."

"Politely." "The petitioner will know their place."

She takes a breath, which I'm almost entirely convinced is for show. "What the Controllers want is access to the Orange Central Power Battery and the right to recruit Lanterns. Which I believe is fairly reasonable, given that we created it and you depend upon me to maintain it."

"There's a good chance that the reason why Vega was such a mess in the first place was your mishandling of the Orange Central Power Battery. How much harm did Larfleeze cause because your security was inadequate?"

"I am fully aware of our civilisation's failings. I have lingered here as I have because I consider us obliged to clear up after the Guardians' failings. May I presume that you will be more content with providing the security yourself?"

I smile and walk past her, taking in the holographic display of Tamaran's orbital shipyards and defences. The Citadel shipping that we seized from Ermana forms the core of the Tamaranian Self-Defence Fleet, though both Clarissi Dox and Weaponer Lysis were leery about using them at all. By the standards they're used to -the standards of major galactic powers- they're a bit rubbish. The primary weapons of the Citadel battleships are optimised to work against large numbers of medium-sized ships at medium to short range, which is… Okay for Vega. That's what most groups use. But now those are ex-groups. The pirates evaporated under the fury of Princess Komand'r's assault, the local Spider Guild chapter hunted down and slain to a man by Princess Koriand'r and the remaining Gordanian clans are bending over backwards to satisfy us.

Beyond the less than ideal loadout of the capital vessels, there's the fact that they're… Designed for Citadelians. Technologically simple and rugged, with parts that can be stripped out and replaced easily. Dox and Lysis both want to take full advantage of the g-gnomes' telepathic knowledge-sharing abilities to go in the opposite direction. Make the most advanced ships that we can and keep them in operation with telepathically-educated crew. They were even making noises about not bothering to finish the ships we took from Ermana in order to better focus on the next generation.

I talked them down from that, since getting the Tamaranians some experience is our most immediate concern. I just wanted to get the things flying as soon as possible, but they insisted on upgrading their sub-light drives before considering them 'finished'. Now the battleships should at least be able to close with most opponents, though they still won't live long if we pick a fight with the Dominion or…

Or Apokolips.

But that's fine. For now. It would be ridiculous to pit a world that's barely recovered from occupation and enslavement against the most powerful civilisation in the galaxy. The Crown Imperium is the only local power of any size, and our relations with them are quite friendly. Once we drag that toerag Ryand'r back here, we'll be packing him off to their naval officer school. Oswin tried floating the idea of a dynastic marriage, but… Then he saw the look on my face and dropped it. I'm sure that Ryand'r is perfectly capable of hooking up with someone without external involvement. Anyway, we don't need to ensure that our ships are optimised for destroying theirs. The next threat we'll be facing will probably be the Spider Guild, and they're more inclined to raid than make direct attacks.

We ended up agreeing to make the next generation of ships a compromise. Something more advanced than what the Citadelians used, but less than Colu or Qward would build. Something the Tamaranians can maintain themselves. And getting them educated is one of our largest bottlenecks right now. They need technically skilled people in every field, and we don't have the g-gnomes to speed that up enough. We can barely crew the ships we have, and that's drawing on Euphorian expatriates who might well up and leave once Kalista decides that she wants to go home. I ended up making a gift of a number of the docks we took from Ermana to the Karnans, not as a demonstration of largess but literally because we can't use them.

But.

"With the Lanterns under my command, I consider these defences adequate for now. But my interests are local, and I'm sure that you want Lanterns for something a little more significant than a dick-waving contest with the Guardians."

"As you know full well, the Green Lanterns don't protect everywhere."

I nod. "I am painfully aware of that. Where in particular do you have in mind?"

"The Controllers are currently engaged in hostilities with the Reach. I take it you've heard of them."

"Yes." I turn away from the hologram and back towards her. "And I know that they need to be fought. But Tamaran isn't strong enough to participate in any significant way against the level of force they can bring to bear. I won't even allow volunteer brigades."

"Then it's a good job that I'm not asking for that, isn't it?"

I suppose. "If I said 'yes', how exactly would it work?"

"A small number of Controllers would come here to connect themselves to the Orange Central Power Battery. And then they would return to Maltus."

"That's it?"

"It would be useful if our Lanterns could receive training from yours, but given your understandable reluctance to become embroiled in our conflict with the Reach I doubt that you would agree. We have no need to forge either personal lanterns or rings here."

"Would it be easier?"

"Yes, a little."

"Alright. They can work here, and I'll get Dox to assign some instructors."

"And what do you expect in return?"

"Half of the rings and personal lanterns they produce. I appreciate what you've done, but I'm a little tired of Orange Lanterns with voices in their heads limping back to the Central Power Battery to recharge."

"That-. It will be a hard sell to my fellow Controllers, but I can live with it. Anything else?"

"You mentioned 'clearing up the Guardians' failings'. I have one more for you." I alter the hologram so that it displays a psion. "These-."

"You want us to recreate a species you rendered extinct? We have the genetic records from when we owned their ancestors as household pets-"

What?

"-but I'm somewhat surprised that you consider their resurrection desirable."

"Can we go back to the 'household pets' thing?"

"We created them and deposited them in Vega. Is that not what you were referring to?"

"No, I was just referring to leaving them unsupervised by not patrolling Vega. They came from Maltus originally?"

She nods. "One of our earliest experiments with biological augmentation. We had largely abandoned Maltus during their rise to full sophoncy. It wasn't until their fleet neared Oa in search of the 'Great Teachers' of their legends that we realised the extent of our bungling. I would rather they had learned wisdom rather than being destroyed-."

"They're not all dead."

"Oh?"

"I kept a handful of their cloning specialists and child-educators alive. I.. was going to ask you to become their overseers, but having heard how you messed that up the first time I'm going to tell you to take them on as a client species. Oversee what they're doing properly this time, and keep working with them until they're capable of playing nicely with others."

"Hm. Yes, we have other client species, and the psions at least are intellectually capable. That will certainly be easier to sell than losing half of our work."

I wave my right hand. "Half of your work until all my Lanterns are equipped and I have a.. small number of spares. I am not interested in expanding the region I control at present, but I do want to make sure that it is protected."

"That's a little better. May we also study your Lanterns so as to aid our Lanterns in coping with the orange light?"

I nod. "Sure, as long as you share what you learn. I've long suspected that Tamaranian culture makes for Lanterns who are able to channel the orange light without going into crazy mode, and I am happy to help you avoid any incidents of that kind. Let's go talk to Dox, and… Nail down the specifics."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
10:02 GMT -5

"I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting."

Linda King of the Metropolis Star scurries over to the seats in her newspaper's waiting room and holds out her right hand.

I smile as I stand up and take it. "Not at all, Miss King. Thank you for seeing us."

I don't know whether the Metropolis Star exists back on Earth 16. The Daily Planet exists here, but it's one of those weird 'dog ate my alien' lunacy tabloids that America seems to produce in a bewildering quantity. The Metropolis Star on the other hand has a reputation for unflinching honesty and a fearless determination to find the truth. Which means I guess they change ends when matter changes polarity?

They published stories about Ultraman while he was still an up-and-coming crime boss, resulting in several hospitalisations amongst their staff. They published stories about the Syndicate while they were de facto rulers of the country. And recently they've been publishing stories about the police state President Wilson has been creating, which has resulted in several arrests. Miss King has even published interviews with Syndicate members, including a seventeen year old on death row. She's ideal for our purposes.

"And…" She looks at Zatanna. "You are?"

I destroy the bugs and generate a sound-deadening field, then nod.

Zatanna smiles. "Zatanna Zatara."

"Ohh." Hm. Nervousness, but no fear. She doesn't think that we're going to threaten her. "I… Didn't know there were any other Zataras in America right now."

Zatanna shakes her head. "I just got here."

"I should.. probably warn you that our premises are monitored… Constantly. Usually when Syndicate members want to speak to me they arrange a meeting somewhere else."

"That's not a problem for us."

"I-. No, I don't see, but… Okay, if you're sure." She takes a step away. "Why don't you come into my office."

We follow her through the main desk warren of the Metropolis Star, several reporters and subeditors regarding us with fascination as we pass. Miss King opens the door to a corner office to let us inside, then follows us in and closes the door behind her. Then she closes the blinds facing the main office. Then she crosses the room and closes the exterior blinds, which is a bit of a give-away if anyone actually is watching. Then she motions for us to take a seat on a small armless settee while she pulls over a quilted stool to sit down opposite us.

"Can I record this conversation?"

I shrug. "As far as I'm concerned. But… Some parts… Can't be made public without… Having some fairly negative consequences for a lot of people."

"People being..?"

"The population of America. That's not a threat from me. Just a… Realistic assessment of the likely outcome."

"Okay, warn me when we get to those." She frowns at Zatanna. "You look a lot like Zorina. Are you her… Sister?"

"Parallel universe double."

"Like.. the Justice League." Zatanna nods. "So you're a.. superhero?"

"Ah… Trying to be. But the situation here is… Complicated."

"Normally, we'd work with the government against something like the Syndicate. But… Then I heard about what President Wilson had been up to."

"I, ah…" She laughs nervously. "Have had disagreements with President Wilson, but he's not trying to blow up the entire planet."

"Neither is the Syndicate any longer. At least, as far as I've been able to tell."

Because while Victoria can block me and Mister Scott is filled with yellow, Mister Constantine was wide open.

"You want to help them… Because they're less evil?"

"Because if they're trying to reduce the level of violence considerably I can justify giving them a little help. But if Slade Wilson is turning America into a totalitarian state, I can't justify giving him the level of help he would need in order to secure total victory. But I can't trust what they're telling me." I lean back. "So… Is he?"

"I-. Hm." She thinks for a moment. "I don't… Think so. He reacts like a totalitarian dictator to anything relating to the Syndicate, but no one who questions his foreign policy or healthcare policy gets treated in the same way. And totalitarians are total. It's all about them, their ego. I spent enough time in the Middle East and South America to recognise the psychology. For President Wilson, it's all about the Syndicate."

"How… Bad has he actually got?"

She shrugs. "We've got martial law everywhere there was a Syndicate boss, and a number of other places besides. We've got thousands of people in special detention centers and no sign that they'll be given access to a lawyer, let alone a trial date. The troops pulling law enforcement duty are a lot more willing to shoot than the police used to be-. Police used to be before the Syndicate took over."

I nod.

"But I don't know whether they're going to stay there when President Wilson leaves office. And I don't know whether or not whoever comes next will keep up his policies."

"Alexander Luthor, right?"

"Like I said, Wilson only acts totalitarian with the Syndicate. I haven't seen any sign he's going to try and fix the election. But.. probably."

"And what happens then?"

She shakes her head. "Your guess is as good as mine. I'd like to think that he'd start some sort of trials process, but we haven't quite gotten to that part of the electoral cycle yet and I don't think he'd want to undermine the President by openly disagreeing with his policy."

"What's the general opinion in the country like?"

"Mostly, extremely supportive of the President. Due process isn't usually popular until you're the one being denied it." She sighs. "Honestly, I think he could order the summary execution of everyone they're holding and get a round of applause in most places."

"Do you know.. what proportion are actually..? Guilty?"

"You'd know better than me. But… Even if they're all guilty of the things they've been accused of, a lot of it should be.. minor stuff. Instead, they're being housed in a military stockade, with all the problems that creates."

I nod. Armies aren't designed for criminal rehabilitation any more than they are policing. American prisons are pretty unpleasant anyway, and the soldiers are going to be inclined to regard the people they're holding as guilty until ordered otherwise. Now I'm getting Marvel: Civil War flashbacks.

"Now why don't you tell me something?"

I shrug. "After Fawcett City, what was left of the Syndicate began rallying around new.. senior members. Those members then offered President Wilson a conditional surrender. His response was to go on television and give his 'no quarter' speech."

"He did that because they-? And it was genuine?"

"Owlman's bomb was insane. Think about it: what were they going to do if they actually set it off? Most of the Syndicate would die, let alone everyone they rely on for basic goods and services. With the old Management gone, most of the lower level organisers wanted to go back to being normal criminals. The 'threat to the world' thing looked like a bad plan when the ones masterminding it were dead."

"There have been plenty of attacks since then."

"Of course there have. The New Management made the surviving Made Men aware of their position when they tried to convince them it was the best route forwards. After President Wilson publically slapped them down, they lost face and members of the organisation began looking for other leadership."

"I can.. publish this?"

"Sure. Everyone in the Syndicate knows what happened, so you won't be undermining anyone." I make an amused snort. "And if what you're saying about public opinion is true, I doubt that anyone on the President's side will care either. And… You know that at the end of the Second World War, the Japanese offered to surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped?"

She nods.

"The American government refused it because it wasn't unconditional. I've got a worrying suspicion that this is going to go about as well as that did. Only this time, the Japanese have second strike nukes themselves."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
14:20 GMT -5

"Laever."

Zatanna continues staring at the Staff of, the runes glowing as she studies their interaction. Miss King's archive was enlightening, and with Mr and Mrs Kent murdered in their Aruba retirement home I may have to reconsider the 'exile' thing. It could have just been one of their criminal rivals, or Doctor Chaos trying to stir things up, but it would be very much in keeping with what I've learned of Slade Wilson's character to have organised the hit himself. The Kents weren't part of the Syndicate, though they were certainly involved in the country's criminal networks. They appear to have supplemented their farming income by being a step along the narcotic and people trafficking route, arranging for their neighbours to get cheap farm labour from Mexico and covertly growing and processing any number of plants that are illegal in the US. They sold the whole thing to their son once the Syndicate expanded into that area, and now almost every person of Mexican extraction in Kansas is in a prison camp for 'Syndicate-related criminal activity'.

Mary Batson's parents died in suspicious circumstances years ago. Charles Vicker's parents died before his rise to power, and his brother died during it. Johnny Quick's parents were blissfully unaware of his activities in America until the Australian Federal Police knocked on their door. Only Miss Batson and Mr Kent had family who were Syndicate members, and unless the Super family somehow survived Fawcett City it's just Ultraboy and Mary Mayhem. A one-and-a-half year old and… Nine year old? Nine years ago is the first time Mary Mayhem showed up, about the time her… Whatever relation to her Mary Batson has, began taking control of Fawcett City.

Both murderers. Both marked for death.

"Are they coming?"

"Probably. But you can hardly blame them for wanting to be sure that we aren't laying a trap."

She nods. "Should I put up some sort of protective spell?"

"No. If anyone is coming, they're almost certainly watching the place now. If they see you-."

"If they see me casting a spell, they'll think it's a trap regardless of what the spell actually does. But that does mean that if they try and trap us, we're going to be less safe."

"Which is sort of the point of this whole thing."

She frowns, then nods in understanding. "Because President Wilson doesn't want to risk the Syndicate getting strong enough to take control of the country again? And talking to us could risk him giving them the opportunity to rebuild."

"Not even that far. Just getting the ability to actually have discussions face to face without one side being tortured for information or killed out of hand." … "Your armour is fully charged, right?"

"Yes, though I don't know if it would stop Medea. Do you think that's the name their Circe took, or do you think she's actually Medea?"

"Our Circe killed our Medea when it looked like she might fulfil the-."

An area on the other side of the warehouse shimmers, vague outlines running into one another for a few moments before solidifying. One resolves into a heavily cyberised woman, another into a large gorilla who's wearing-. I can't immediately tell whether that's actual power armour or if he's just that big. Lady Sonar and General Grodd. Until recently the Syndicate thought that the former was dead and that the latter had returned to Africa. And between them, sitting on a floating sphere…

"Enigma, I presume."

Half of his face is covered by a metal mask and he's wearing a black suit with green trim. In addition to his sphere he has a question mark-topped staff, held in his right hand and resting on his knees.

He's not smiling.

The gorilla raises a heavy projectile weapon and points it directly at me. Empathic vision isn't working on any of them, but that gun isn't much more than it seems. Minimal threat. Scans aren't piercing Lady Sonar's armour, but I've seen records of what her soniguns can do. Some of the exotic effects might be a problem, but I'm not feeling all that worried. Which leaves the sphere. All sorts of weapons could be in there.

"I understand that we have you to thank for the release of Star Sapphire."

I can just about see the burned flesh underneath the half-faceplate. I'm going to assume that was a result of his fights with the Syndicate, though his profile picture still shows him having an unburned face.

"I was able to negotiate her release, yes. If she passed on my message-."

"Yes, you want to talk us into letting you all off."

"That's not quite it, but yes, in effect."

"You're not really selling the idea to me."

"You know what the Syndicate still has in its arsenal?"

"Some of it."

"At present, the policy of the New Management is to close down their strategic weapons programs and avoid confrontation where possible. But if they don't end up with something to show for it, the Made Men will stop listening to them. How many people died at Doctor Chaos's command after President Wilson rejected their last offer?"

"You mean, how many people did he kill?"

I nod. "Yes. And order killed, and were killed in response. I'm not trying to convince you that they're nice people or that they'll reform." Though some might. Or rather, might have done. Given how my alter ego joined, I could well believe that there were other Made Men who were strong armed into it. Like Jade's alter ego, Sai. The reverse morality thing should have made her a hero here. Something odd happened there. "It's just that the consequence of carrying on as you are is lots more death."

"And what would be the death toll in the long term of allowing the Syndicate to survive?"

"I don't know. Compared to what?" We watch each other for a moment. "How did the President or the Vice President take it?"

"The President declined your offer. I'm only here out of a sense of personal obligation."

"'Declined' as in 'you're going to try and bring us in' or 'declined'-."

"There will be no deals with the Syndicate's Management. No bargains for leniency, no informal understandings, no expectation that we will do anything other than kill all of you."

"Regardless of who else dies in the process?"

"Regardless. The Syndicate is simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist."

I.. nod. That's a problem, but hopefully we can work around them. "Very well." Is there anything else I want to ask him? "What happened to the 'quiz' thing?"

"Ultraman burned off half my face, then murdered my wife, my son and my daughter. I haven't really been in the mood since then."

"So is that it? Slade Wilson can beat a helpless prisoner to death with an iron bar because that prisoner murdered his wife? Should I let Ultraboy know that it's perfectly legitimate for him to kill President Wilson? And that afterwards he has to let Rose kill him?"

"Oh, Ultraman killed far more people than just Lillian Wilson. And we bereaved are perfectly happy with what happened." He leans forward slightly on his floating sphere. "You think that letting them get away is justified by the harm avoided? I think that the harm we'll suffer is worth it to permanently get rid of them."

"And then what?" He jerks his head towards Zatanna. "What happens when everyone in the Syndicate, and.. half the country are dead?"

"Then -assuming that I am not amongst the dead- we rebuild. A society without supervillains."

"A society which has abandoned the rule of law? Where a word from the President and the cries of the mob are enough to sentence a person to indefinite imprisonment or death?"

"No. Once the Syndicate are gone, then things can return to normal."

"And what about the families of the innocent people who the army killed? Why is what happened to your family more important than what's happening-"

He presses something on his staff, as they start to blur again.

"-to theirs?"

And… They're gone.

Zatanna sighs. "I don't think that worked."

"No. But it was a long shot, anyway. Let's see what we can do on the other end."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
20:43 GMT -5

I frown in mild confusion as Lamprey and Sea Witch promenade through the great hall, exchanging polite greetings with several Made Men.

"I never heard how Lamprey ended up… Like that."

Jonathan Kent watches me impassively for a moment. "Not like your version, y'mean."

I nod. "I recognise Nanauvian blood magic, though he seems far more advanced than anyone I've heard of at his age. It's his.. attitude that I can't place."

Mister Kent makes a small shrugging gesture. "Kidnapped when he was a kid. Some crazy shark wizard wanted t' see if surface worlders could learn blood magic. Lamprey was the only one who survived, an' he ate his teacher 'bout the same time as Barracuda's army broke through the city's walls."

"Sure, I was there when he told our Kaldur that. And that would explain the brutality, not…"

Jonathan's eyes follow his team mate for a moment. "Guess after what he went through, he learned not t' wear his feelin's on his sleeve. An' since his power comes from eatin' people, he usually goes 'zero' t' 'three hundred' in no time flat."

"Our Tula's dating our Garth, but he said that he ate your Garth."

"Oh, that ain't the creepy thing." Jonathan takes a sip of his beer, his eyes moving around the Great Hall. "You hear how that happened?"

"No." I smile at him. "Go on, horrify me."

"Our Garth was a junior officer in the Shayeris army. Him an' Tula were engaged, an' they were gonna get married once the Nanauvian campaign was over. He was doin' such a good job Barracuda invited him t' eat with the senior officers." Jonathan smiles unpleasantly. "Only he runs his mouth about Barracuda bein' an 'inferior surface dweller'. Barracuda takes it, then sics his assassin on him. Lamprey kills an' eats him, then decides that that means he gets Tula as well."

"Ah."

"So her family thinks, okay, the king's nephew's dead, and this Nanauvian guy's in tight with the Emperor's half-brother and he's goin' places, so they okay it. Tula weren't so keen, but I guess she figures she can put up with it 'til she can poison him. Only she puts the poison in his food."

"And he detects it with magic, because the entire focus of his magic is eating."

"Which she never bothered learnin', cause she's a stuck up bitch. But he figures, okay." Jonathan shrugs. "It's just poison. No big. They're married, right? And it weren't gonna kill him even if he hadn't spotted it. But he can't let it go completely. So he rips out her right eye, tears off her right ear and bites off one of her fingers, and eats them."

I jerk my head away from him and back towards her. "She appears to have all her parts."

"Atlantean wizards can grow stuff back. Her irises 're a slightly different color now, but other than that you'd never know. Only now, any time he wants, Lamprey can see everything she sees, hear everything she hears and feel everything she touches. Said if she tried it again he'd eat part a' her brain, too."

Ew.

Jonathan smiles. "Yeah, thought you'd like that one. Now what the fuck are you doin' here?"

"Capo Scott felt that my alter ego's absence would weaken the Management position."

Jonathan grimaces. "New Management bein' weak weakens the New Management's position."

"You want to say that to Capo Scott's face?"

That earns me a small glare. "Had Blue chewin' my ear off fer a year about keeping it cool. I get it. But I still think we could win."

"Win..?"

"Us against the Underground, against Luthor. Fuck it, us against the goddamn army."

"Jonathan, even-."

His eyes harden. "Ultraboy. I'll take 'Jonathan' from Blue, not from you."

"Ultraboy… What's the Syndicate for?"

He frowns, puzzled. "What d'ya mean?"

"What is the Syndicate for? I threw a similar question at my parallel's Justice League once, and I'm still not convinced that they know. Your father was Management. One day, you might be too. You should probably have some idea of what the organisation is for."

"'Who profits?'"

"Which means?"

"What, your ring don't do Latin? 'Who profits?' What d'we get out of it? What's the benefit, what's the angle."

"Who profits from unlimited revenge? Is anyone paying you to kill all those people?"

"No-."

"Your father gave up his grudge with Owlman in order to beat President Wilson, because that's what he needed to do to keep the business going. Your father couldn't beat the Justice League-."

His beer bottle shatters as his right hand clenches into a fist. "My Pa got ambushed. Wilson had ta' land a nuke on the moon base."

"Not the point. Luthor still has his planar portal. He has access to thousands of parallel universes. Even in the event that the Syndicate could beat this entire world -and you'd have to, because people know about Owlman's bomb now- then Luthor-"

"I know the bomb was stupid-."

"-could call for aid from as many Justice Leagues as it took. One League stopped your father. One League, and the threat of one tactical nuclear device. If you pick a fight with this whole world, that includes two countries who wouldn't mind all that much if they had to carpet-nuke America to stop you. And even if you could win, there'd be nothing left; scorched earth, depopulated and wrecked cities, radioactive fallout and a nuclear winter. As a wise man named Wilson Fisk once said: 'there is no profit to be made in the destruction of the planet', and there really isn't. Am I getting through?"

He looks down at his right hand, brushing the glass and residual beer off his skin. "Yeah. Sure. I'm gunna.. go circulate."

"Sure. Enjoy yourself."

He walks away, and a quick look inside him shows his conflicting desires battering against each other, with the one where M'gavv ties him up and-. Okay, not strictly relevant.

I shake my head, and take a look at his other new team mates.

Their Raquel survived one of Owlman's experiments involving what I suspect was their Arnus's ship. Arnus himself appears not to have survived into the modern day, though given that his ship gave him a human-seeming face and he could look like anyone I suppose that I shouldn't assume anything. She has flight, super strength and endurance and calls herself 'Skud'. She also seems… Kind of out of it, though whether that's intoxication or a result of Owlman's treatment I don't know. She's talking to Jackie Quick at the moment, or… Rather, being talked at by him, though she seems happy enough with the situation.

Their Tula appears to be a pure caster rather than a battlemage. No Robert, no Donna, no Beryl, Roy or Canis, or Leonid or Amon. I know that in the Earth 2 comic J'onn J'onzz guessed that the Syndicate's villainous nature made it hard for them to make allies, but that doesn't seem to be a problem here. I guess it's the utter battering the Syndicate's been getting recently that makes it a less appealing organisation to sign up to.

I wonder what the best way to get a few more of these people on-side is? I've got a sound argument, and doing what I want gets them what they want; they get to avoid dying to President Wilson's enforcers or executioners, they get to fight and dominate and get paid for it. But anyone without allies or subordinates in a gathering like this is going to have an uphill struggle. Zatanna would probably get more recognition than me, but she's busy pumping the Don for information on the Zatara crime family-.

And then I hear the guitar.

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
20:49 GMT -5

A cowboy escaped from the eighteenth century sets his guitar aside as the last of the notes fade away. Dull red leather jacket, blue bandana covering the lower part of his face and a decidedly black hat… The costume puts me in mind of Gregory Saunders, but he's a very old man back on Earth 16. I'm pretty sure that his lycanthropy is the only thing that keeps him functioning, and I don't know if werewolves have indefinite lifespans. This fellow's younger. Great grandson of the local version, maybe?

A small crowd of Made Men have… Not 'gathered' but.. perhaps 'congregated' around him as he sits on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the Shadowcrest garden. The building is in the equivalent location to that of its Earth 16 double, which made me a little worried until Mister Scott explained to me that the exterior is protected by heavy duty illusions and wards. We can see out, but no one who comes this way will see anything very interesting. Speaking of the old revenant, he's over to one side of the garden talking to the local version of Hawkman and Robotman… Manhawk and Automaton. Old cronies from the Crime Lodge days.

Back on Earth 16, I've given Doctor Crane a little post-mortem fame by bringing his failed attempts to gain legal personhood back to public attention. Here, he's famous for not caring one bit about having a human form. Over the years his brain box has been plugged into wheeled and tracked vehicles, bipedal and quadrupedal robots, factory machines, mainframe computers and on one notable occasion an Apache helicopter gunship. His Syndicate file indicates that they have him working on facility management in one of their storage depots at the moment, because while physical frailty isn't as much of a problem for him as it is for his contemporaries he's still an old brain in there.

"Any y'all got any requests?"

Heck, this is as good a place as any to get some attention. I generate a construct banjo and let my hands glow with orange light as I pluck a few notes.

Through the crowd I see the guitar player jerk his head around to look at me.

"And who you suppos' to be?"

I smile, shrug and play the refrain again as the crowd starts to part between us.

He takes hold of his guitar. "Guitar leads this duet, jackass."

I shrug. "I'm not stopping you. You're just not playing."

"That how y'all want it?" He stands, guitar at the ready. "Alright. Ah'm game. Keep up if'n y'can."

He skips ahead, playing the next riff. I take a couple of steps closer, echoing it as I go. He's already moving onto the next part as I finish. I'm not sure if he's annoyed about being forced to share his stage or he just wants to find out how good I am. Which makes me feel very slightly bad, as I've never played a banjo in my life and am barely having any input in where my rings are sending my fingers. I couldn't outplay an actual musician without studying an awful lot of professionals and taking on board huge amounts of data, but for something relatively simple where I only have to play off-

He's getting faster, and he's smiling under that bandana. Yes, he thinks he's testing me.

-one person rather than a whole orchestra, conductor and audience this works fine. Since the only part that's not being handled by my ring is the movement of the rest of my body, I make a show of copying his body language at the same delay as the notes are being played. He's still getting faster, and I really think that at this stage he's trying to make me fail. Maybe a little fail that only he will notice. A supervillain musician hazing.

Sorry, it's a well-known tune and power rings don't trip up over keying.

He reaches a fast pace as the song approaches its end, his smile calcifying as it requires all of his concentration to maintain his breakneck pace. We're only about a metre apart now, and I think that without my rings I'd need to splint my hand to recover from moving my fingers at this speed. But… He seems to be enjoying himself, and from the expressions on the faces of the crowd I'd say they are too.

The music reaches a fever pitch, then with a final strum dies. Evil Vigilante and I stare each other in the eyes for a moment.

"Hah!" He pushes his guitar to the side and holds out his right hand. "You're alright. Put 'er there!"

I allow my construct to dissipate as I take his hand in mine and shake it, musician to fraud.

"Name's Desperado. Fastest guitar in the west. You another Power Ring?"

I hold up my ring. "I'm afraid so."

"Three rings? You compensating fer something there, partner?"

Best serious face on. "There's no such thing as too much equipment."

There are a few sniggers at that, both from the crowd and from the man opposite me.

"Y'know, you do kinda look like Bluey."

"Family resemblance. Pleased to meet you."

Okay, got a degree of attention. Now, how best to make use of it.

"And I'm sorry about stealing your stage, I'll give it right back."

"Oh yeah? I've run with rodeo clowns before. Show me what you can do."

He walks away from the fountain towards his accomplices Black Knight and Pulsar. And.. now most of America's most wanted are staring at me.

"You all know why we're here. Slade Wilson's people are pushing when they used to hide, income is down and the new bosses are telling you to take it and hide. And -understandably- you're pissed. An arse-kicking is a lot less fun when you're receiving rather than giving, and Doctor Chaos was talking some good shit, wasn't he?" I generate a construct helmet matching the one he housed his consciousness in. "Killing a few hundred people didn't work, clearly the answer is to kill thousands!" I dismiss the helmet. "After all, things improved so much after Connecticut."

"The sad fact is, business as usual? Is not going to work. We've gotten to the point where we are so hated that it's overwhelming their fear. It's not that they're less scared -and as I look around here I can see some very scary people- it's that they don't care that they're scared. People with nothing to lose will do crazy things. Kill all a man's friends, and he might just pop over to a parallel universe and recruit more. Kill a man's wife, and he might surprise you by invading your home with enough fusion bombs to split the moon in half. A little fear smoothes the wheels. A lot of fear throws everything out."

"None of you are stupid. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. You know that the same old scams aren't working. And you're all looking around for the new scam. So let me lay it out for you. Wilson's people are perfectly happy to repeat Connecticut in every state if that's what it takes to win. And I'm sure some of you would be as well. But ask yourself this: who profits? If we expended the Syndicate's entire strength, all our secret weapons projects, everything… What do we get? A giant, smouldering wasteland to rule over. Do you want to live in a wasteland? Because I don't."

"I didn't become a supervillain-" At all. … I think. "-to live in a wasteland. I became a supervillain to enrich myself. Maybe a few people around here like fighting for the sake of it, but I doubt you'd do it for free." In the second row, Vamp shrugs. "I'm not going to live somewhere without running water. I want goddamn running Champagne! Who profits? It should always be us. And if something doesn't profit us, then we shouldn't be doing it! And right now, the United States of America is far, far too hot for us to operate profitably."

"Someone with superpowers and no moral hang-ups can always make money. So that's what we're going to do: make money. Go places where we can make money, do things that make us money. Over the next few weeks, you're all going to be getting marching orders and shipping out to places where there's money to be made and no US army on every street to stop you. I'm sure you all remember how to take over other people's syndicates and make them work for us, it wasn't all that long ago you did it for the old Management. But if you've got a better idea, come and talk to me about it. People with good ideas could find themselves getting rapid promotion. And if you don't have a better idea, but don't like my idea anyway and are going to piss and moan about having to work for your money, then fuck off. You know where the door is, and if you're really lucky you'll make it five paces before the Justice Underground shoot you dead."

I take a moment to look around. Most of them are maintaining a disinterested front, but they're all paying attention. And I can see the undercurrent of fear that they can't completely ignore any more.

"Syndicate, it's time to adapt or die. Your choice."

I raise my right hand in a wave of goodbye, and turn away to head back into Shadowcrest. Now, the other part of handling the Syndicate. Talon inherited a lot of Owlman's old projects. Where's he gotten to?

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
20:56 GMT -5

Raquel -14 stares blearily at me. "Dunno. Duncare. G't… Medicine."

She pulls a hypospray out of her equipment harness, and injects herself. Medicine or 'medicine', I wonder? According to my ring it contains psychoactive substances which are.. moderating the negative effects of what Owlman put her through, though I doubt that some of those compounds are purely medicinal. The effect of the drug isn't immediate, but she starts looking more relaxed almost immediately. I wonder..? How many people associated with the Syndicate are like her, and would gladly walk away if they could get palliative care elsewhere?

"Hey!" The local version of Artemis spots me with Raquel and glares at me. "What do you want?"

"Arrowette, have you seen Talon? I need to talk to him ab-."

"Don't care. Saw him sneaking off with Sai. Went-" She waves her right arm at the stairs. "-that way."

I frown. "Sai didn't work with Owlman's part of the Syndicate-."

Arrowette snorts. "Uh, yeah, I don't think they're talking all that much."

Ugh? Ring, Jason Todd -14 isn't any older than Jason Todd 16, is he?

No. Jason Todd, born 16th August 1999.

Twelve-? I blink. "You.. think-?"

She makes an exhalation of exasperated contempt. "You're just as bad as your 'big brother'. We're supervillains. They wanna go off an' do whatever? Whatever. Following the rules got my Mom stuck in a wheelchair and turned.. my.. Dad into President Wilson's boyfriend who I couldn't pick out of a police line-up. Fuck the rules and fuck you."

"U-uh." No, this is irrelevant. I'll just… Knock. "Does it not strike you as odd, your sister being a Made Man?"

Artemis puts her left arm around Raquel, who instinctively leans into her. "Nah, she's great at this stuff."

"Her.. alter ego was a supervillain on-."

"Yeah well she's not her. We're not just evil versions of you, we're our own people who just happen to be kinda like you." She regards me for a moment, then grins. "Wait, are you banging her?"

"I'm going to go and find T-"

"Hah! You totally are! Guess bizarro-Zorina doesn't put out."

"-alon." I turn away and head for the stairs. "Enjoy the party."

"Don't think Talon likes guys! But you do you! Asshole!"

I walk up the stairs and look around. Shadowcrest -14 is either bigger than its alter ego or they've increased its internal dimensions with magic. Or.. maybe it links seamlessly to other buildings? Don't know, and it's not particularly important anyway. Empathic vision is limited to relatively short range, and I'm not.. seeing what I remember from Talon.

I pick a direction and start walking. Talon is Jason Todd, notable for being kind of a thug, dying, and coming back from the dead as a murderous vigilante when he wasn't a flat-out villain. Our Jason Todd is living in a Wayne Foundation-funded children's home, but… Artemis had a point. Comic Jason Todd ended up as he did for in-character reasons. He was a thug because that's the life he knew. He was trying to get better under Batman's tutelage, and died trying to rescue… Either his mother or a woman he thought was his mother -I don't remember which- from Mr Napier. When he was resurrected he was understandably angry with Batman for leaving the Joker alive, and reached the conclusion that Batman's methods wouldn't work.

Owlman grabbed people off the streets and experimented on them. That doesn't generate the sort of loyalty and gratitude comic-Jason felt for his mentor. Talon probably only stayed on because Owlman controlled his cybernetics. Which creates a very different dynamic. Comic-Jason wanted to please his mentor. Talon wouldn't. Oh, he might accept Owlman's methodology, but he wouldn't accept his ends.

And Jade? Okay, say she's a purely self-interested agent. It could be an opposite of neutral is still neutral thing. Jade 16 joined the Shadows because she knew how to locate them and wanted to learn what they had to teach. And as a result of her upbringing, she didn't have any real hang-ups about killing people. Jade -14? She'd have left home at roughly the same time as the Syndicate got together. So… She'd have known where to find them, her home life was in a similar place…

But Jade 16 did that despite knowing that her father worked with them. And Jade -14 would know where to find… The US military, or… Whoever. Maybe… My own alter ego talked her around somehow? No, she wasn't part of his team, and she was already with the Syndicate before he got here. What motivates her? Well, her father is a hero, which means that however much she dislikes him she wouldn't hate him anything like as much as my Jade hates hers. So she wouldn't reject-.

I step out onto a mezzanine overlooking a library. On the other side I see Sai in full costume walking down the staircase. No.. Talon in evidence.

"Sai!" Her face mask turns my way. "I'm looking for Talon." I float up over the railing and drift towards her. "Do you know where I might find him?"

"I'm not his keeper."

Sounds just like my Jade. "I wasn't implying that you are." I land at the bottom of the stairs. "Artemis just said that you-."

"Surprise!"

Huh?

My kinetic barrier flares into life as a.. female Joker-lookalike slams a mallet into the back of my head to absolutely no effect. I frown at her.

"Yes, that… Was surprising. Doctor Quinzel once hit me with a mallet, but hers was inflatable."

The young woman looks at the mallet. "Would'ja believe that's never happened to me before?"

"I bet you say that to all the boys. Look, have either-?"

I suppose that the poison gas in the flower is a... An evil clown classic. I step into it and grab her with both hands. Rings, remove her equipment and-

Compliance.

-then-.

I recognise her emotional makeup. She's the person who appeared in the Mountain just before Q-Ranger. And she didn't evacuate with us, which means…

"And you're a hero."

She grins in that too-wide Smilex way Mister Napier is wont to do. "I'm not good, I'm just drawn this way."

I scan the area, just catching Sai sprinting down a corridor before the house's magic disrupts things too much. And she won't be running towards Talon. Chasing her is a bad idea.

"Talon's doing something, isn't he?"

"He's suckin' alla the way to the center of a tootsie pop."

"Brand."

She shudders as the sigil appears. Nothing in the files suggests that Talon knows the first thing about magic. Ditto with Sai and whoever this woman is. They can't bring down the wards. Slade's people already have most of the identities of the Syndicate members. Attacking to try and free Dame Carol stopped being worthwhile this morning and I know that she's reported in.

"Take me to Talon."

"You got it, boss man."

She vaults up the stairs and dashes down the corridor, me close at her heels. We take a right, head up a small flight of stairs and through a door…

And see Talon look around as the Justice League shimmers into being in front of him.

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
21:01 GMT -5

Armourcoldgunwidebeamgoldkryptonite!

Now, if this were my Justice League, I'd be in a great deal of trouble. But it's not. Superman's shoulders are a little too broad, the red of his cape and boots a little too bright, and his hair has a little too much volume to it. Diana's.. pant area has more blue in it, and her tiara is smaller. Their Flash is a little slimmer, their Martian has a popped collar and.. isn't wearing much. Their Lantern Stewart has a shaved head, a goatee and an unarmoured costume, and their Hawkwoman is wearing bright unarmoured clothing that my version wouldn't be seen dead in. This is probably the Justice League variant who attacked the Syndicate's moon base a year and a half ago. The Syndicate didn't have a great deal of footage of them in action, but from what I could tell their peak output was roughly in line with what I'm used to.

Still: they're the Justice League. They almost certainly have years of experience on me, and they're famously powerful superheroes for a reason. And it's the famous bit that's going to cause them problems. I doubt that there's anyone with superpowers who hasn't at some point thought 'how would I beat the Justice League in a fight?'. Heck, there are probably plenty of people without superpowers who've thought about it, if only to mock Batman or Aquaman. The point is, while I might have trouble with someone whose abilities I don't know well, I know these six extremely well.

SupermanweakeningconstructstriketoheadknockbacktakeDiana'spunchonkineticbarrierpullHawkwomanasidewithconstructcoldgunonFlash.

And they haven't had me helping them cover their weaknesses. And they haven't tried fighting me before. They don't know my weaknesses. They don't know what I can do.

ShockcrownFlashgreenblockedcrumblershockcrownvertigoonDianaandHawkwoman.

The only person here whose abilities I don't know well is Talon and… Duela Dent, or.. Napier, or whatever she's called here. Talon is an athletic thirteen year old with a cybernetically enhanced brain. I hope. I'm.. sure someone would have done something if his implants were going to rip him apart as he grows Gunslinger Girl style. But if Owlman had weapons that could easily kill Lanterns then their John Stewart would have died on the moon. And Power Ring Green would have died years ago.

ThanagarianriotgasonHawkwomanmoveNthmetalmacekeeptankingDianawithkineticbarrierfirecrumblervolleytobreakStewart'sbarrier.

But what the heck am I going to do with a Justice League? Oh… Sai's going to call in more reinforcements, isn't she? Not a lot of times when it's possible to get so many Made Men together in one place, and no one really expects telepathy or magic to work on one of Owlman's… 'Products'. Both Talon and Sai have been Syndicate members for years and they're both under sentence of death. Talon could authorise Duela to attend on his own recognisance. Him bringing in one extra helper wouldn't raise any eyebrows at all.

PsishockDianatitaniumchainsbindandclampstunHawkwomanmorechainsrefresh-

**Stop.**

Everything speeds up for a moment as I fight off J'onn J'onzz's mental command. Flash collapses, his costume covered in ice from his repeated attempts to speed through cold zones specifically designed to disrupt his super speed. His speed stops his attempts killing him right away as they would most people but he's still getting dangerously cold. Superman is trying to regain his feet, right hand smeared with blood as he cautiously probes where my construct hit. Hawkwoman can't do much more than flail under the effects of the vertigo inducer while Diana remains coherent enough to glare at me. Lantern Stewart is trying to shield his team mates, my crumbler rounds preventing him from… No, he's… Only maintaining a single construct. Huh.

I grab Hawkwoman's mace with a construct, charge it with a generator construct and swing it through their Manhunter.

**AAAAGH!**

He staggers, curling up as the mechanism he uses for phasing is painfully disrupted. Fabricate phase-blocking chains, psi-suppressor and wrap him up, which leaves Lantern Stewart and Talon as eff-.

Superman punches me in the helmet, his now human-strength blow easily absorbed by my kinetic barrier.

"Kal-El, don't-."

Two more punches, then I use a vertigo inducer on him. He collapses, and I chain him up while suppressing Lantern Stewart.

"Kid, what's our exit?"

"There isn't one."

He doesn't seem unduly troubled. "Then I guess I'll have to dig deep-."

I fire a rapid volley of crumblers to disrupt his environmental shield and then cut off his right middle finger with an x-ionised knife. The finger and his ring fall to the floor as he winces, and I swiftly recover both. He grimaces, then takes a fighting stance. I shock crown him and then chain him up as well.

"Talon… What was any of this in aid of?"

"How can you even ask that? You know what the Syndicate is. I know Blue only works with them because he didn't have a choice, but you're far more powerful than he is. You wouldn't let something like the Syndicate exist on your Earth."

I construct grab his planeshifters and-. And they self-destruct, marvellous. I haul the recumbent Justice League into an approximate line and then remove their vertigo inducers. I then give Flash a quick coat of one of Trickster's anti-vibration gels and then give him a quick warm-up ring-blast. I then.. pull Lantern Stewart's severed finger out of his ring.

"Lantern Stewart, if you hold still I can probably reattach this."

"Don't go to any trouble on my account."

"Alright." I pick him up in a construct grapple and bend him around until I have access to his right hand. Put the finger back in place and then purple healing ray for a few seconds… And then drop him back down.

"Don't put any weight on it for a few weeks." I sigh. "What the heck am I supposed to do with you?"

Hawkwoman sneers. "You could let us all go."

"That would be my preferred option if-" I hold up the planeshifter. "-this hadn't fried itself. Talon, what parallel are they from?"

He regards me impassively.

"Do you want me to send them back to a random parallel universe?"

"Twelve."

!

"T-twelve?"

Hawkw-. Hawkgirl smiles. "Worried?"

"More.. embarrassed. I'm-. Ac-tually a.. fffan of yours."

Kal-El 12 frowns. "You've got a funny way of showing it."

Aaaaaaaggghhhhhh!

I take a hologram projector out of subspace. "I'm-. I came here from Earth Sixteen. This is-" I activate it. "-my Justice League. The.. original seven members, anyway. I'm a member of a youth team run by our Batman."

Flash gapes slightly. "Huh?"

"My alter ego from this parallel has a blue power ring. I first came into contact with Earth negative fourteen when their youth team attacked our LexCorp. I'm here now because the Syndicate's new management want to… Well, survive. Having studied the situation in detail, I decided that the most useful thing I could do-."

"Is let us go and help us take the Syndicate down?"

The other Leaguers stare at Flash, who shrugs.

"What? He might."

"Is to finesse them into becoming a less malevolent organisation. A direct fight would risk massive collateral damage, and I'm not totally comfortable with how police-statey Slade Wilson is making things. This gathering of the Syndicate is happening so that the management can set out their new policy and you being here is really going to undermine that. Is there any chance at all I could persuade you to accept a parole arrangement?"

I get glared at.

"I'll throw in the mace, power ring and turning Superman's powers back on?"

The glares continue.

"Fine. Flash, how fast can you read?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
21:03 GMT -5

Flash's-. Mr West's eyes blur as I scroll through pages and pages of information at super speed. Hawkwom-. Hawkgirl tried to keep up as he got up to speed, but had to look away as it picked up.

"How did you turn my powers off? It felt like kryptonite, but it didn't hurt as much."

"Kryptonite comes in a variety of different colours, each bypassing the kryptonian biological force field and having slightly different effects. Green causes radiation burns while gold kills off the organelles which give you your powers in the first place. The exposure I gave you will.. probably depower you for a couple of months, but they'll repropagate over time-. Ah, at that level of exposure. Sufficient exposure could remove your powers permanently."

I kneel down in front of him as Talon's knife pings off my environmental shield.

"Might I suggest that you invest in some sort of radiation shield? Kryptonite is the one relatively well known way of hurting you, and you don't appear to have ever worked out how to avoid it."

"I've got a lead-lined suit I sometimes wear."

"Then you're doing better than my Superman, but-." Wheelbarrow time. I hold out my right hand and use my rings to fabricate a radiation shield generator, then attach it to his belt. "That should protect against someone waving a crystal at you, but it won't stop a kryptonite laser so don't get careless."

Lantern Stewart snorts. "This your first time taking prisoners, kid?"

"I don't-. Look, I'm not really comfortable helping the Syndicate, I just think it's better than the alternative. I certainly don't bear you any particular malice."

Their Diana appears to realise something. "You knew our weaknesses because you've fought your Justice League before."

I nod. "Weekly sparring sessions with the Two Eight One Four Green Lanterns -our Lantern Stewart can do more than one construct at a time, by the way- occasional sparring sessions with Diana, Hawkwoman challenged me to a duel and there was the one time where they got mind controlled by Star Conquerors-."

"Uh…"

Hawkgirl looks at Mr West. "Flash."

He blinks, and I stop the display. "Ah… Guys? I don't.. feel…"

"Your brain can't hold all of the information you just took in any more than we could if we read it all at normal speed. But if you wouldn't mind sharing your conclusions?"

"I don't know. I guess…" He shakes his head. "He's got a video of President Wilson beating Ultraman to death."

"Superwoman and Power Ring Green were also murdered."

Hawkgirl narrows her eyes at me. "They were criminals."

"They weren't convicted. They were entirely at the President's mercy, and he didn't even give them a show trial, let alone actual due process. And everyone else in the Syndicate expects that if they get arrested, the same thing will happen to them. Being a 'good guy' isn't like picking a team jersey, it's about doing certain things and not doing certain others."

Mr West looks decidedly uncomfortable. "They've got martial law all across the country. And the Syndicate still has a lot of firepower. They-. Wilson sent the army after the Supers in Fawcett City, and-. And the city doesn't exist any more. I think… I don't like it, but… I think Orange Lantern might.. have a point."

Mister J'onzz's face is almost completely expressionless. "If Orange Lantern is providing us with accurate information."

"If I was flat out lying-" Talon moves towards the door and I send Duela to intercept him. "-then Talon would have jumped in to point it out."

Talon-.

Oh no, where's Batman?

"I don't suppose that you left Batman behind, did you?"

Diana smiles menacingly. "You really shouldn't underestimate him."

"And you shouldn't underestimate a magic house owned by a supervillain that's also full of supervillains." I crank-. No. I remove Diana's lasso from her belt, take the end in my right hand and put the noose around Superman's neck. "Did Batman come with you?"
Truth
His eyes glow for a sec-.
Truth
"Are you trying to trick us?"
Truth
"I'm trying to persuade you by any means I can, but genuinely regard direct conflict as contrary to the interests of this version of America. The information I gave the Flash was accurate, and only as slanted as what I've seen was slanted."

Wait, this version of the lasso compels truth at both ends? Darn it!
Truth
"Batman didn't come with us. He's hanging back until we secure an entry point for the rest of the Justice League."

I drop that lasso and carefully use constructs to wind it back up. "Happy now?"

Mr West shakes his head. "Were those..? Figures right? All the people who died in Wisconsin?"

"As.. far as I know, yes. Approximately three million deaths. Six sevenths of the population. No one knows exactly what happened because everyone anywhere near the city died, but that's basically what I don't want to see happen everywhere else as well. That's what.. happens when two heavily armed groups square off and no one blinks. I.. spoke to Enigma, the leader of the Justice Underground, and he said he was fine-."

I reach down and pick up the lasso again.
Truth
"That he was fine with the whole country suffering the same proportion of deaths if it meant that the Syndicate was exterminated. Are you?"

League members.. look at each other. Mr West appears genuinely distressed by what he just saw, and the others... I suppose that when you're used to solving your problems by punching them, it comes as a bit of a shock when you find out that not only can you not solve this one by punching it but you may have actually contributed to three million people dying.

Superman looks up at me. "So what exactly do you want us to do?"

"Go home." I send his chains back into subspace and he stands, glancing expectantly at his comrades. No, not just yet. "Let the Syndicate finish reorganising and disarming. If in a few years the emergency laws President Slade's using have been revoked and the Syndicate is still causing problems then feel free to have a crack at them but until then the risks just aren't worth it."

He rubs his wrists, then folds his arms across his chest. "Even if you're not lying, how do we know that the Syndicate isn't going to go right back to building giant bombs?"

"Because it didn't work, they don't have the resources and everyone who knew how to make that bomb is dead." Could we..? "Mister J'onzz, how good is your false mind technique?"

"It should withstand a brief inspection. I am surprised that you have heard of it."

"My parallel's Mars is still inhabited." His eyes.. sadden slightly. "There aren't that many telepaths in the building. If I take you around the building, you could do surface scans of a cross section of Made Men. See what they're planning. If you-."

The door opens. Duela is knocked forwards, but turns it into a tumbling roll and comes to her feet as-.

Ultraboy stares at the bound members of the Justice League. Then stares at Superman.

"Pa-?"

Then he stares at the 'S' and lunges!

"You're a dead man!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
21:07 GMT -5

I've enhanced Kon-El quite a bit. Danner Formula, his bond with Helios, his equipment and getting him training with Diana. I don't think that Jonathan Kent has any similar upgrades. He only had… Months with Ultraman still being alive, and after that he had far fewer resources to find a way to augment himself. I remember him being a bit faster back in LexCorp, but that was all.

I think I can contain him without much risk. I step between him and Superman 12, my kinetic barrier flaring into life and causing Jonathan to rebound off it. He regains his balance almost immediately and glowers at me.

"Ultraboy, stop."

"What the Hell is-?" He looks past me and spots Talon. "You piece of crap. You-. I trusted you, you were-."

"You were Ultraman's son. I was Owlman's test subject. I survived him implanting a computer in my brain by a combination of luck and the deaths of every test subject before me. I wasn't meant to live this long."

"Yeah, we all knew Owlman was a psycho! I never treated you like that!"

"You've called on me to plan theft, extortion and murder."

"That's what we do! You're our problem solver!" Talon twitches. "And you were good at it. If this is some sorta conscience thing, you picked a real bad-."

"I've been looking for a way to 'problem solve' the Syndicate since before we broke you out of Cadmus. The only reason that mission even happened was because I was hoping to find one of Luthor's weapon caches."

"Aaaagh!"

Jonathan punches the kinetic barrier at full strength, making no progress. He takes a half step back, his eyes fixed on Talon as he paces his enclosure.

Kal-El looks a little lost. "Who is this?"

"Jonathan Kent, aka 'Ultraboy'. Ultraman's adopted son, created in a laboratory by Lex Luthor and freed during the Young Offenders' first mission. You don't have a Superboy, do you? Your Luthor just made Bizarro."

"Our Cadmus cloned Supergirl, not me." He takes a step closer to the kinetic bubble, regarding Jonathan sadly. "I'm sorry to hear about your pa, but-."

"Don't give me that bullshit! You're the reason Wilson got him in the first place."

"I didn't think President Wilson would kill him out of hand."

Jonathan recoils. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?! Think I'd feel any different if he gave him a trial first!?"

"If we hadn't stopped him, Owlman would have set off his bomb-."

"They only rushed construction 'cause of you! The day you attacked the moon base, we found out Owlman got J'arkus killed 'cause Blue convinced him the bomb was a dumb idea. If you hadn't been there, Blue would have had time t' talk the whole management int' not making it at all!"

Superman sets his jaw. "I'm not exactly in favor of leaving a supervillain in charge of the country."

"What, you think Wilson never killed nobody? You actually know what he did in the army?" Jonathan snorts. "Blue looked it up one time. Guess he thought it'd make us see power his way. Just showed me that Wilson's full of shit."

"Cathartic as I'm sure this is-."

"Can't believe you actually beat them all." Jonathan narrows his eyes as he takes a look at the League. "Blue kept bitchin' 'bout not bein' at full power. Guess if he'd had one a' them lantern things that'd have gone a bit different."

"Cathartic as this is-" I look first at Superman and then Mister J'onzz. "-I don't think it helps with our actual objective."

Superman shakes his head. "Batman said we didn't know enough about how things worked here."

"I'll listen to Batman's lectures on morality when he does what he should have done years ago and kills the Joker, but he has a point. You're not stopping a couple of gun-armed bank robbers here. If you want to swing your fists around in national politics you better be sure you know where your punches are going to land."

"Hey, Orange." I look at Jonathan. "You could just kill 'em."

"What does it take to get it through your thick skull that constantly killing people doesn't get you what you want? I don't want money, I don't want any power the Syndicate could give me, I just don't want a ringside seat at a massacre."

I mean, for goodness-. No. No. Sonic baffle, kinetic prison, telepathic scrambler… And a dust sheet. I put the sheet over his bubble and the baffle and scrambler down nearby.

"Okay!" Back to the Justice League. "Some things are sent to try us, and I really hope Eris is getting a laugh out of this."

Diana looks slightly puzzled. "Her jokes usually involve more things being set on fire."

"The evening is young, and this is a supervillain party being invaded by superheroes. Mister J'onzz? Still up for a walkabout, or… Do we move on to Plan Q?"

"That would depend. What is Plan Q?"

"I summon the Embodiment of Avarice and mind control the planet. I'm just having one of those days."

"Then I will cooperate."

"Okay. Talon, what are my chances of pulling this off?"

"I can't calculate it. My information on your capacities is out of date. You could talk the Syndicate around, but Wilson won't let the Syndicate go into exile."

"I realise-."

"And neither will the Senators and Congressional Representatives who survived his purge. Or the army officers, or the Justice Underground. Even if you could get Luthor to agree to it. Or just.. people in general. And if I had an orange laser I wouldn't bother explaining this to you."

Superman frowns. "Orange..?"

"Lantern environmental shields don't block light of their own colour. An orange laser would pass through that and any construct I could throw up and the Green Lantern Corps is lucky that Qwardians are colour blind. John, get some body armour."

I lift my right hand and Mr J'onzz's bonds return to subspace.

"To be clear: I'm resistant to telepathy. My armour blocks phased objects. My kinetic barrier blocks super strong strikes. And I'm really trying to save as many people as possible."

He floats to his feet.

"I understand."

"We'll need to avoid Brainstorm…" I clap Talon in irons, then shock crown Duela and remove her brand. "I realise that I can't stop the rest of you escaping, but… Please, unless you have a better idea, let me handle this, at least until Mister J'onzz can report back."

A few glowers is probably the best result I could expect.

I step around Ultraboy's time out bubble and push open the door, Mister J'onzz shifting to a new shape-. Ultraboy, apparently, behind me.

"Did you get his biographic data?"

"I'll manage."

Got his voice at least. Okay, where's the best place to-.

And then I hear an explosion.

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
21:12 GMT -5

I grab 'Ultraboy' with a construct and fly as fast as the narrow confines allow in the general direction of the sound.

"What now?"

Mister J'onzz appears to take it in his stride.

"Would a kryptonian not be able to fly under his own power?"

And there's now a lounge in place of the library…

"My Superboy is a kryptonian-human hybrid. I think that Ultraboy is similar. Last time we met he didn't fly."

"I see."

No more explosions, no running feet… I don't know what's going on here. I stop, listening, trying to scan…

"Are you getting anything?"

His eyes glow faintly for a moment. "No. The magics of this house confuse my senses."

"Great, that-."

"-s'nretnal noitacol!"

A section of the wall panelling next to me grows up to the full height of the wall and sprouts a handle before swinging open. Zatanna steps back from the opening and I see Don Giovanni throwing glowing snakes through the air at a man in gold and blue power armour. He blocks left-handed with an anachronistically simple wood and iron shield, which… Causes the snakes to decay into motes of light. Armour matches what the local Lex Luthor wore, but I can't scan it and the helmet means-.

Small lasers deploy from the armour's gauntlets and shoulders, flicking back and forth as they inscribe an arcane symbol in the wall behind the bruised and bleeding Don. My destructive pulse hits him in the side, buckling and blackening the armour at the point of impact. That's… Weak, but I am less well motivated in this fight than I usually am.

The figure in armour immediately raises his right arm and fires a-. A blue laser at my face, which fails to penetrate my environmental shield. I respond with two construct micro-missile launchers, missiles firing and smashing into his weapons with just enough force to render them inoperable. The Don uses the breathing room to step outside of the near-complete warding circles and snarl at the armoured figure.

"Hsurc!"

Armoured plates tremble and I can hear them as they begin to deform. The armoured figure moves their shield just enough to block the Don's line of sight to the worst affected parts of his armour-.

"Pord eht dleihs!"

His arm jerks, but the shield is attached rather than being held. Alright, power armour and rush him. I swing my right fist, and he intercepts with a.. small kinetic barrier, then I bring my left fist around and slam it into the part of his armour damaged by my destructive bolt. Another force field shimmers into being, but this one is a general purpose plasmic field and nothing like strong enough to stop the force I'm bringing to bear. The armoured warrior is lifted off the ground and shoved-.

**Sleep.**

My armour's psi-baffles prevent me collapsing on the spot, though I still feel a wave of tiredness pass through me. Shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. I drop off a psi shock grenade tuned to Martian telepathic communication patterns and detonate it-

**Ughf!**

-and then follow up on my attack.

"Laeh."

Don Giovanni's bleeding stops and his burned clothing knits back together somewhat as I go for a grapple, x-ionised knives emerging from subspace and stabbing forward to punch through the outer surface of the armoured figure's armour, severing power and control cables where I can without causing undue damage to the person wearing it.

"Dleihs sparts kaerb!"

The shield falls to the ground at the same time Mr J'onzz does, and I take a firm grip of the armoured figure and go to work on the seals attaching the helmet to the rest of the armour. Constructs pull-.

"Surprise, motherfucker."

That's not Lex Luthor. That's Preceptor, the local version of Mr Crock. I suppose that anyone can wear armour.

And-. Everything's shimmering and… And I'm in a workshop, in a powerful force field, and… Those are soldiers and that's half the Justice Underground. Huh, that's what Sir Solomon looks like. Pictures don't really do him justice.

"Release Preceptor, and I will see that you receive a fair trial."

My left hand closes over Mr Crock's head as I turn slightly.

"Mister Vice President, I'm not sure that you have the power to make that offer."

"Just fry us, sir!"

"Not to a Made Man, but I'm fairly sure that you're not one." He's wearing the same armour as Mr Crock, though he's left the helmet off in favour of a heavy collar containing a force field generator.

"And then what? I sit in prison until your fight with the Syndicate reaches its pyrrhic conclusion?" I release my grip on Mr Crock and step away from him. "I intercepted Talon's effort at summoning the Justice League. They're currently in chains in Shadowcrest."

"They're alive?"

"I don't.. want.. to kill people. I've just about got the Syndicate to the point where they're prepared to go into-"

A weak laser shot from one of the weapons I missed on Mr Crock's armour shoots me in the eye piece and fails to penetrate my environmental shield.

"-exile, shut down all significant operations in the United States-."

"And you think we should foist our problems off on someone else?"

"Not on a nice country, but there are plenty of places that the Syndicate won't make worse by taking them over. Somewhere lousy with strife which they couldn't make worse if they tried."

Vice President Luthor takes a moment to check that the various armed men and women in the room haven't disappeared. "I'm not sure that you're in any position to negotiate."

"Of course I'm in a position to negotiate. That's why Power Ring and Olympia brought me here: to try and negotiate a cessation of hostilities. You're my last hope for avoiding all-out confrontation."

He frowns faintly. "You honestly believe that you're not at risk, don't-?"

I

step out and then

back just in front of him.

"Yes, and you've no idea-"

Vice President Luthor doesn't step back, though he does up the output on his force field slightly. Lady Sonar takes a shot, but I'm already braced and my sonic cannon disrupts her blast quite nicely. Shots from the regular soldiers I just ignore, content to let my armour and kinetic barrier soak them.

"-how annoying it is to me that the supervillains are the ones making the peaceful overtures. At the very least-"

Soldiers fall back to give Sir Solomon a clear path. He strides forwards, fists balled, then punches me right in the kinetic barrier to no effect.

"-you should be offering pardons to defectors, stripping away the support for the hardcore of nutters." I shoot a mage slayer round into Sir Solomon's left knee, causing the magics animating him to leave it. He stumbles, and I help him on his way with a right hook. "Or offering them terms of some sort. It's like you people want the country to burn. And I find that a very frustrating attitude."

Q-Ranger's blast burns through my environmental shield and melts into my armour.

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
21:16 GMT -5

My armour is tough, but if Q-Ranger's powers work like Major Force's then he can keep hitting me indefinitely and he's… Yes, impeding my ability to repair it by ring. Constructs are out, and… Ugh. Problem. Like Captain Atom, Major Force 16 can switch back and forth between human and metallic at will. But I've just run into Justice League 12, and Captain Atom 12 is a containment suit wrapped around a nuclear explosion. That's the sort of mistake I'd only make for the people around me once.

Can I touch his desires..? No, something blocking me. I'd guess Medea, but since I can't identify a local source it doesn't really matter. Close combat, then. I continuously try to send out filaments in order to keep his attention focused on his work and lumber towards him, arms outstretched. A barrier interposes itself-

"Thanks, Star!"

-and I trigger my right gauntlet's crumbler field to smash through it, grabbing Q-Ranger with my left. My gauntlet begins heating up at once, but now that he's touching my environmental shield directly…

Desire Nullification.

He blinks, the glow of his eyes dimming.. and.. I have constructs again. Quick flick through the equipment catalogue… Quantum stabiliser, that'll do. I generate construct shields to block Dame Carol's shots, stab out with x-ionised knives to destroy Vice President Luthor's arm-mounted plasma repeaters and clamp the quantum stabiliser to Q-Ranger's neck before shoving him out of the line of fire. Dame Carol flies towards me, the glowing crystal sword which appears in her hands slashing through my barrier. I interpose my left arm, twisting it so that the sword bites into what's left of my bracer and.. mostly passes through but is at least turned away from my body. Carol drops the sword and it decays into crystal dust as she replaces it with violet crystal fists which I immediately destroy with crumbler constructs before striking her in the head with a pile driver construct.

"Ugh!"

Soldiers around the room open fire, but their guns are a mixture of low power plasma and chemical projectile guns. Not a massive concern except in utterly overwhelming numbers. I shoot out filaments, punching through their armour and shock crowning them to the ground.

"It will take a little more than losing a leg to-."

I fire mage slayers at Sir Solomon's elbow and then step away, his hand keeping its grip even as it parts company with his upper arm and the last of the soldiers drop.

Ring, access the schematics for the planeshift jammer my blue alter ego gave me and jam an area of 100 metres.

Compliance.

I then turn to Vice President Luthor, my armour glowing as I begin to undo Q-Ranger's damage.

"Please stop. Every time I fight to support Syndicate efforts I feel a little more stupid, a little more like I'm making myself culpable for their prior actions."

"That's usually how it works when you-"

Lady Sonar takes out a backup weapon so I fire a blast of electromagnetic energy at her. Her weapon and some of her cybernetics spark and shut down, allowing me to connect a filament to her head and render her unconscious.

"-help someone."

"No, I know I'm now partly responsible for their future actions. I accept that. It's the idea that the Syndicate is some monolithic-." I sigh. "This isn't going to work, is it? Even if I could have talked you around-."

I reach out and properly render each of the baseline human soldiers unconscious and point a railgun at Dame Carol as she pulls herself out of the crater she made on impact.

"Dame Carol, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask you to surrender."

The sapphire on her chest is still glowing, but she doesn't immediately generate a new construct.

"I will not surrender to the Syndicate."

"I'm not a member of the Syndicate. Can you surrender to me as an officer of the Orange Lantern Corps? We haven't had to actually deal with any prisoners yet, so you'd make an interesting test case."

"No."

"Literally the only reason why everyone here isn't dead is that I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill you because it won't help the people of this country. It appears that.. I'm in a minority in caring about that, but-."

Luthor's face hardens. "That's why we're doing this-."

"Enigma literally told me to my face that he'd happily repeat Wisconsin in every state if that was what it took to destroy the Syndicate."

"Enigma has lost a great deal fighting the Syndicate. It doesn't surprise me that when faced with someone in their employ he used immoderate language."

"Alright, fine: would you?"

I hear a sliding sound, and half turn as one of the… The unconscious and paralysed soldiers pushes herself off the ground. What? She reaches up to pull off her gas mask and.. a.. swirl of gas momentarily obscures her face.

"I would be very interested-"

The gas vanishes, revealing a blank face, her armour bleached white with the American flag replaced by the Eye of Providence.

"-to know the Answer myself."

Luthor narrows his eyes slightly. "I've never met a living conspiracy theory before."

The Answer shakes her head. "Mister Vice President. I am a living conspiracy fact. An Answer you're unwilling to provide." She walks closer, her posture relaxed. "You've seen the same assessments that Orange Lantern has. The same assessments that my operatives have. You know the outcome of this conflict even as you set it in motion. And you're not Slade Wilson. Even with all of the friends you've lost you still haven't lost your objectivity, your.. devotion to your ideals. You would not let America burn as the President would. You talked him into waiting this long because this was the only approach which you believed could work in a way that you would both find acceptable."

The Answer stops just out of arm's reach as Luthor shakes his head.

"Whatever policy disagreements I may have with President Wilson, I would never air them to this country's enemies."

The Answer pointedly looks at me.

"Given that Orange Lantern is here and Batman is not, you may reasonably suppose that your attempt to overwhelm the majority of Made Men has failed. I have already been notified that Sureshot's attempt on the Director's life has similarly met with failure, though in his case fatally. Though Talon has been successful in neutralising most of Owlman's retaliatory plans, that leaves at least three sources over which you do not have control, in addition to the… Manual efforts of the Made Men."

Luthor's eyes dip, his head turning slightly away for a moment as… I assume that he's trying to come up with another solution.

"There is no more data to be gained, no more questions to be asked. Your path and that of the President are now irreconcilable. So you have a simple choice: mutually destructive escalation or a cautious disengagement. I already know the Answer… But I think it may be best if you say it."

Luthor shakes his head, a very subtle motion as he tries to deny the reality.

"I know how you work. I know what you'll do."

"I'm a well known criminal. Your administration's reputation will survive my actions. And Slade Wilson's legacy will remain intact."

"I…" Luthor closes his eyes and bows his head. "I agree."

The Answer nods. "Correct Answer. I will make the arrangements."

"The Syndicate loses." Luthor shakes his head as the Answer turns and starts to walk away. "Then why does it feel like we do?"

"You didn't get what you convinced yourself that you deserved. That's always the Answer. Anything else is window dressing. Orange Lantern, I will speak with you before you leave."

Another swirl of mist and the woman the Answer… Possessed? Collapses to the ground.

Dame Carol frowns for a moment, then relaxes. "The war is over."

Luthor shakes his head. "No. It's never over. But the campaign is." He looks at me. "Have you killed anyone?"

"To the best of my knowledge, not on this Earth."

"I would appreciate it if you could arrange for the Justice League to be released."

"I'll need one of your teleporters, but… I should be able to do that. What exactly happens next?"

"We're enacting your plan, apparently. You should be happy. You've probably saved millions of lives."

"We've saved millions of lives. And to be honest? I suspect that I'm about as happy about it as you are."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
21:31 GMT -5

The world shimmers and I appear back in the room where I left the Justice…

"What the hell happened?"

My cold bursts put out the fires, but I really hope that Shadowcrest has a self-repair system. The tarpaulin I put over Ultraboy is gone, the youth unconscious on the other side of the room.

"Turns out a tarp doesn't stop heat vision." Mr West is upright, though most of the restraint gel is still stuck to him. "Did you know this stuff was heat-resistant, or were you planning on having him kill us?"

"I-." Damage.. matches… "I'm sorry. My Superboy doesn't have heat vision. Ultraboy didn't use it last time we fought." I think he's looking a little less angry. The half-mask makes it hard to tell.

Superman still looks aggrieved. Though intact, which is nice, given that I thought he'd be the first person to feel Jonathan's wrath. "Where's J'onn?"

Talon and Duela are in the recovery position off to one side, Diana is standing over Jonathan just in case he wakes up and piles of melted and ripped chains litter the floor. At least no one's dead.

"Don't know, and given that he tried to put me to sleep telepathically I'll have to work up to caring. Good news: there's an official truce in the works and your services are no longer required."

Lantern Stewart's eyes narrow-. I take his ring out of one of my utility pouches and toss it to him. He catches it and slides it back onto his finger. "I think we'd like to confirm that for ourselves."

"Sure. I need to evacuate you to hold up my end anyway. The old Syndicate facility under Mount Justice is currently occupied by the government, and it should have an internet connection. That alright?"

Hawkgirl holds out her right hand and I return her mace to her. By construct, as getting within arm's reach may not be wise. "Not without J'onn."

"What difference-?" I nod. "Fine, fine. Wait here."

I-. I pick up Jonathan with a construct stretcher and float him out of the door. There's a residue… Reads as… I'm not sure what that is, though there's enough of a kryptonite-based substance in it that I wouldn't want to expose a kryptonian to it. His vitals… He'll have bruises, but I don't think there'll be any permanent damage. Hm. Library's back, but flying in the direction of the door Zatanna summoned… Yes, it's still there, good.

On the grounds that surprising a gangster-magician who just narrowly survived an assassination attempt would be a bad idea, I knock twice with my right fist.

A man with a dimly-glowing sword opens the door, blade-point facing me. He takes me in, then lowers his weapon and steps back. "Don? It's Power Ring."

Zatanna has Mister J'onzz trapped in a flaming cage. I… Don't remember anything about Mars 12 Martians being especially afraid of fire, but I suppose that the potential for being burned to death would stop most people trying anything. She looks around, relief evident on her face. The Don himself has six floating puddles around him, each showing a different person or location. He looks my way as I come in.

"He dead?"

"No, but Luthor took the deal. After I beat up his retinue."

He nods. "Great news. If it's true."

"The Answer leaned on him. Get in touch with… Her? If you want confirmation. And apparently someone called Sureshot-."

The Don nods. "Tried killing Caulder. We wondered who it was. He was having trouble identifying the body. Eclipse." The swordman nods. "Get some reliable people and sweep the house. If this guy snuck in, Luthor mighta called in more help."

"He did. Part of the deal is that they get released."

"You told him we already got them?"

"I already did get them. Mister J'onzz-. Zatanna, can you turn that off?"

She nods, stepping away from him. "Hsiugnitxe."

The flames evaporate and Mister J'onzz half-collapses, panting for breath.

"Not clever, Manhunter. Fortunately for you, we've come to terms. You and your League are leaving now."

"What have you done?"

"What I had to in order to get an outcome I could live with. Do you need help to walk?"

He looks directly at me, his disdain evident. "And who has paid the price for your gratification?"

"Egrem."

The pools of water floating in front of the Don merge into one.

"Dnuos."

"…a stroke. We have no further word on the President's condition, but specialists are being flown in…"

"You've murdered the President. How can you possibly think that will help matters?"

The Don chuckles. "That's how the Answer works. Things just happen. I'd guess that Luthor thought the same thing Orange did, that after Preceptor's assassination attempt failed and Orange stopped you, there was only one route left."

"Don?"

He pushes the floating puddle aside. "Did the Answer say whether or not Wilson survives?"

"No. But he won't be resuming his office. And if you don't follow through on your end, this all falls apart."

"I'll keep up our end. Just as soon as the Answer tells me what it is." He smiles faintly. "I can guess what you're going to ask. You don't want us to bother you again." He shrugs. "And I'd like to agree. You've done us a good turn here. And relying on outside contractors undermines our authority. But if we really needed you, we'd call on you. And we both know that if enough innocent people were at risk, you'd swallow your distaste for us and come."

"You're right. But if that happened, I would be forced to decide that you were a problem worth my time to fully resolve. However long it took, when I finished there would be no Syndicate. On my Earth, Don Giovanni, we have a prison for magic users like you, and I will personally remove your larynx before delivering you there."

He nods, unfazed. "As long as we both know where we stand. Zatanna?"

Zatanna glances my way for a moment, then returns her attention to him. "Yes?"

"Sindella and I were always planning on having more children. It would have been nice for Zorina to have a few brothers and sisters." He shrugs. "That didn't happen. I don't really want to see Orange Lantern any more than he wants to see me, but you're family. I want you to know that you're always welcome here."

Zatanna's face is a picture of distaste. "Why would I want to come here any more than he does?"

"You think we're bad people?" She nods. "You Catholic?" Another single nod. "Then if you think we should repent our sins, you're the one person who might convince us to see things your way. If not me, Zorina's going to be running this part of the family eventually. And since we're going to be de-escalating… You might be able to talk her around."

She glares at him for a moment, then about-faces and marches from the room. I drop off Jonathan, pick up the still-unsteady Mister J'onzz and head after her. She slows to a stop just outside and activates her kinetic belt.

"I don't know where we're going."

"Follow me." I head towards the room containing the Justice League. "Manhunter, under the circumstances I think it might be best if you took Talon and Duela with you. I'm not sure what happened to Sai-."

"She teleported out when Preceptor teleported in."

I nod. "Then she's gone, good. Are you as ready to go home as I am? " She nods. "Then let's hope that Gubbins has finished his repairs."

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th February
21:53 GMT -5

"Why the long face, Orange?"

Mister Scott makes an expression of benevolent puzzlement, his arms held up in a gesture of appeal.

"The President's dead, and I made it happen."

He shrugs. "He might pull through. They haven't announced-."

I glare at him, and he has the decency to stop talking. "And I've managed to make an enemy of a Justice League variant I actually know."

He looks away from me for a moment. "The Don's probably going to want to go to the funeral."

"Oh yes, very respectful. The whole point of the Answer killing him like this was so that it can't be traced to Syndicate activity-. Actually, why didn't the Answer do that weeks ago? Why did he need me-?"

"Sometimes, violence isn't the Answer."

The.. man himself walks into the room, dressed in a more traditional anti-Question costume of white coat, hat and trousers, the Eye of Providence pin on his lapel. While I can see him in empathic vision, none of what I'm seeing really makes any sense. There's little emotion, and the tiny unreadable flecks there are don't appear to be connected to anything.

"Seems like it was here. I talked no one around. Luthor only agreed with you because I outfought everyone he had with him."

The Answer shakes his head. "Don't underestimate Luthor. If you hadn't undermined his belief in the absolute evil of the Syndicate by making peaceful overtures, he would have been quite prepared to die for his cause. He had to accept the Answer in order for these events to unfold."

"And you couldn't do this in some other way?"

"A math problem in an exam is written to have one correct Answer."

"Yes..?"

"If the problem is complex, a far smaller proportion of students will give that Answer than will give a different, incorrect Answer. Having you here allowed us to.. phrase the question in a way which would lead to the Vice President giving the correct Answer, rather than continuing with Slade Wilson's wrong Answer. You are still dissatisfied."

"Of course I am."

"If you were waiting for a certain Answer-."

"I could have removed him from office without killing him."

"Perhaps. But this will motivate the Made Men to accept the change in their working conditions more easily than they would if they believed that the President would pursue them."

"I don't-." Zatanna walks in, two books floating alongside her. One has runes stitched into the leather-bound cover, while the other is more mundane. "Ready to go?"

She looks at the Answer and Mister Scott, then nods. "More than ready."

The Answer nods, while Mister Scott smiles and waves. "You kids take care, now. Don't do anything I would!"

Zatanna traces a circle around me with the Staff, while-. Huh. "Mister Scott?"

He makes a dismissive motion with his right hand. "Ah, call me 'Al'."

"We're going home using a government-owned facility."

"Yeah?"

"You realise that that means that Luthor knows where we are. And how to contact me."

His face falls slightly-.

Zatanna taps the staff against the floor. "Teg su tuo fo ereh."

Mist coils around us, and when it falls again we're just outside Mount Justice. There's a military cordon, and the formerly concealed main entrance is wide open. Great, right, now we can go home-.

"How old are you?"

…

"Huh?"

Zatanna isn't quite looking at me. "I thought it was strange, how every other member of the team was the same age as the versions here and you weren't. And then I remembered that your ring lets you change how you look." She looks up, meeting my eyes. "You told us it was the first thing you did with it. I didn't really think anything of it, but… You're not younger, are you? You're the same age." Her eyes widen. "That's why-. Oh.. God, it all makes sense now. Who-? Who knows?"

"I told Jade. I'd be surprised if Diana and Batman aren't suspicious. That's it."

"Oh God, I was-. Why did you even..?"

"I honestly hadn't realised how young Diana and.. the rest of you thought I was. Not until she tried sending me to school. And then… I.. panicked, and said what I thought I needed to in order to stay on the team."

"I knew you acted older, but I just thought-. Thought you were being British, or.. it was because you thought you had to because everyone on the team was younger than you."

"No."

"Hehhah." She laughs nervously. "Artemis said she thought it was weird that you found her mom attractive. I didn't think-."

"There were women Paula's age I found attractive when I actually was-."

We… Don't look at each other for a moment.

"So. What now?"

I shrug. "We find Gubbins and go home. With regards to my age, I'd rather not tell people, but if you want to that's okay. Just give me a little warning."

"No, if you.. don't want to tell people, that's up to you." She doesn't say anything for a moment. "If you'd told me, I-." She cuts herself off. "I want to say I wouldn't have been so attracted to you, but.. Zorina.. married.. you. So… That's not true."

"I'm more similar to Blue than you are to her. But yes, I see where you're coming from, and you may well be right. I'm sorry."

"Hey." We look up at the man in the dull blue overalls. Gubbins, I assume. And the circle of soldiers with their weapons nearly raised. "The VeePee phoned ahead, but I don't really want a couple of Syndicate stooges in my new workshop. So get moving and get lost."

I nod. Doesn't really matter how much of that he heard if neither party ever wants to see the other again. "Certainly. If you'll show us the way?"

He floats up on some sort of gravity repulsor harness and heads towards the entrance-.

Dame Carol lands in front of us.

Gubbins grimaces. "Star, I wanna get them out of here. If you wanna have a duel or whatever-."

"No. This will take but a moment."

He drifts to the side and she approaches me.

"What can I do for you?"

"The war here is over, and my obligation to President Wilson discharged. But you freed me, rearmed me and spared me in combat, and so now I have an obligation to you."

"That's fine, don't worry."

She looks mildly offended. "My honor is not so light a matter."

"You can pay me back if I ever come back here?"

"You have been clear that you do not intend to come back. It would be inadequate repayment."

Oh… What can I-?

"You're aware that people who are villains here tend to be heroes on my own parallel? And the reverse?"

She nods. "Yes."

"How would you feel about a trip to Zamaron Sixteen?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 12
4th March 1996
09:01 GMT +1

Mr Gisler of SGN Banking smiles at me as his secretary escorts me into his office. "Mister Wynne. Good morning."

"Good morning." I head over to his desk and shake his hand before sitting down in the client side seat.

"Can I offer you some refreshment?"

"No, not for me, thank you."

"Very well." He makes a dismissive motion with his right hand and his secretary heads back out of the office, closing the door behind him. "Now, I understand that you have some… Interesting business for us?"

"Yes, 'interesting' is a good way of putting it. I'm not-. I'm sorry, I'm sure that your bank can handle this, I just… Wasn't completely sure which department I should come to."

"Well." He shrugs friendlily. "Why don't you explain to me your business, and then, if I cannot help you, I can make an appointment with someone who can."

I nod. "Thank you." Convincing lie mode time. "I… Work in physics. To be precise, in the study of teleportation."

"I have heard of teleportation of course, but I am afraid that any technical explanation-" He shakes his head. "-you could give me, I would not understand."

Which I was counting on. "As simply as I can put it, I was working on a teleporting smelter. It was designed to move specific atoms from ore, and so massively reduce the cost of refining metal. But when I was working on this, I found out that when you teleport something the size of an atom… It doesn't take very much energy at all. So little that you can set the start and end points to… Not just what's within arm's reach, but… Well, light-years away, if you want. Including through solid matter."

"That's… Remarkable."

"Yes. If you think about it… Too remarkable. Quite aside from the fact that it could easily be weaponised, I… Well, it would destroy the modern mining industry. But… I realised that there are obviously other ways to make money with that sort of technology-."

Mr Gisler holds up his hands. "I will just stop you there. If you were thinking of discussing with me any criminal activity, I would warn you that while we respect our clients' privacy there are certain limits."

"Oh, no no no. Ah… I don't.. think so. I mean, the obvious criminal use would be pointing it at a gold reserve or something, but I realised-. Well, the smelter can be set to only extract a particular atom, that's the whole point of it. And since there's no real range limit and asteroids aren't owned by anyone, I pointed it at Seven Zero Four Interamnia."

"I'm afraid that I don't know the name, but I assume that it is an asteroid?"

"Yes, quite a big one. And I set the smelter to look for platinum. And because the smelter is so energy-efficient, I just.. kept going, and now three times the annual platinum output of all Earth-based mining concerns is sitting in a warehouse in Surbiton."

Mr Gisler looks at me for a moment, clearly not sure how to react.

"That is.. a great deal of platinum. Is it quite safe?"

"No. That's one of the things I was hoping that your bank could help me with."

"Yes. Yes, we can certainly store it for you. What I meant is: is it safe in the short term?"

"It's a solid metal block weighing eight hundred tonnes." I chuckle nervously. "If anyone can steal it, I'd.. say they've probably earned it."

"I.. don't think that we can move a block of that size and weight."

"Oh, no, that's just a security measure. I can use the atom smelter to break it up into… Bars, or whatever the proper size for platinum is."

He nods. "I can arrange for armoured transports to move that. I will.. have to check the volumes of material and the space we have in our vaults. It may be that we have to make arrangements with other banks if you want it all to be stored."

I reach up and scratch my head with my right hand. "Well… No. It's just shiny metal to me. I need to turn… At least some of it into cash. Honestly, I'd be happy to sell all of it, but I'm not sure if I can do that without causing global prices to drop. And I don't want to shoot myself in the foot."

Mr Gislet leans forward slightly. "As a private citizen, you are under no obligation to tell anyone that you have this metal. My colleagues in Commodities can arrange for a quiet sale so as to not damage the market. You would get slightly under market value minus our commission, but if that is acceptable to you then I can pass the matter to them at the conclusion of our meeting." He looks a little awkward. "I am sorry to have to ask this, but… Given the irregularity of your case, would it-?"

I open my briefcase, pull out a packet of photographs and hand them over. They variously show me, a box of blinking lights, a giant perfect cuboid of silver metal and the warehouse that surrounds it all.

"Herrgott."

He spreads them out across his desk, trying to get a sense of scale.

"Would it be acceptable for me to keep these?"

"Yes, certainly. I, ah… I own the original."

"Yes, I suppose that you do." He tidies the pictures into a pile and returns them to the packet, which he then nervously taps against his desk. "We can.. handle the transportation and sale. Will this be a service which you will want to use in the future as well?"

"Ah… No. Even after taking costs into account, I.. don't think I'm going to need any more money for the rest of my life. Can I assume that you can handle my conventional banking?"

"Yes, that is a little more within my usual area of responsibilities."

"And I'm going to need.. legal advice. Commercial legal advice. I don't know what sort of taxes I have to pay on the metal… I'm not trying to avoid anything or.. evade paying what I owe. I just don't know what I owe for something like this."

"That will not be a problem. You are a British national?"

"Yes."

And I honestly am. There actually is a process for people who appear from a parallel universe to claim citizenship, though I've got no idea why they have one. The local version of Sir Percival found the whole thing rather entertaining. Nice chap. Had to get a new National Insurance number because my original one was owned by someone else here and a new name because I can't say my old one, but the process itself was remarkably simple.

"We have people familiar with British finance who will be able to advise you. I'm not certain how off-world law would be handled, but I imagine that between our legal team and the Inland Revenue we can come to an agreement."

"Thank you."

"Have you given any thought to how you will invest your money? We are happy to simply put it in a high interest account for you, but that may not represent the most profitable use of it."

And I have. The nineties internet is painfully slow, but I was just about able to confirm that the Jack Knight version of Starman was active in Opal City. So much super advanced technology around the place and yet walking down the streets I could easily pretend that I was still on my Earth.

"I was thinking of starting a business, developing.. certain forms of advanced technology for civilian use. I don't have a.. business plan yet, it's all in the very early brainstorming stages."

"Do you wish to establish the company in Britain, or in another country?"

Money where my mouth is…

"The use of certain financial loopholes, where… Companies hide their money… That sort of thing has always annoyed me. I will be founding the company in Britain, not in a letterbox in Gibraltar."

"I respect your patriotism, Mister Wynne, though I am obliged to point out that it will most certainly cost you a great deal of money."

"I understand. I'm fine with that."

"Well then." He smiles and offers me his hand again. "I will speak to various people, and contact you at your registered address by close of business on Wednesday. Once we have reached an agreement on exactly what we can do for you, you will receive a written contract no more than a week later."

"Thank you very much." I take his hand and shake it. "I look forward to doing business with you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 12
21st March 1996
18:11 GMT

The phone rings.

And keeps ringing.

While it's true that I don't really have to worry about the cost, I'm still used to e-mails. Their speed, convenience and ubiquity. As it is I had to phone around just to get this number, and getting anyone there to-.

"Opal City Observatory."

Yes!

"Good afternoon. My name is-" Slight hesitation. "-Peter Wynne. Would it be possible for me to speak with Doctor Theodore Knight?"

"Ah, probably? Hold on, I'll go find out for you."

"Thank you."

"Dad? Some English guy wants to talk to you."

…

That was either Jack Knight or David Knight. And what little I read about David suggested to me that he would make a point of actually going to where his father was before speaking. And then there's the fact that he died early in his career. I.. don't know if that's true here because I have no internet access and there's no reason for anywhere I have ready access to to have detailed records on an American superhero who hasn't been active for decades. The Justice Society didn't exist here, with various iterations of the All-Star Squadron being the nearest equivalent. Which means that quite a lot of what I remember from the comic can't have happened.

There's also no Justice League, no Superman and no Wonder Woman. I've got no idea whether or not Batman exists and while there is a local Green Lantern they don't appear to be spending much time on Earth. No sign of Aquaman or Atlantis generally. Not sure about Flash or Martian Manhunter, but the first wouldn't be that big a deal on a global scale and the latter can shapeshift. And… I don't really see what finding out more about that aspect of things really gets me. The Guardians aren't going to want another orange ring user around the place and I doubt that anyone would pick a fight with Larfleeze for my convenience and win. So… Unless I start to recognise specific events of global significance there's really no point in-.

"Knight here."

"Good afternoon. My name is Peter Wynne, and I'm very glad to have reached you."

"Happy to be of service. What exactly can I do for you?"

"I've recently come into rather a lot of money, and while I was trying to work out what I could productively do with it, I… Remembered reading Arnold Munro's biography, the bit about his time with you in the All-Star Squadron. In particular, his description of your cosmic rod and the way it turned background radiation into… All of the things you could do with it."

"The rod's not for sale."

"Oh, gosh, no, I'm… Not brave enough for something like that. I'm really more interested in adapting the… Cosmic..? Converter..? Component? For civil power generation."

"Oh yeah?"

I can hear his uncertainty.

"I'm.. no expert, but a device the size of a baton which can enable a man to fly must be generating quite a lot of power, to say nothing of the force the force field mode was able to withstand. I don't know if you've given any thought to the idea, but I'd very much like to explore the possibility."

"Just civilian power generation?"

"Ah… Well, I'm not averse to exploring other possibilities as well, but that seemed to be to be the most obvious application we could bring to market quickly. The power distribution network is already there, and most places we'd be setting up are already used to having lots of different generator types feeding into the system."

The British energy market only stopped being a series of regional monopolies six years ago. I never really thought that having different people 'supply' the energy to customers when it all went into the same grid made any sense, but it works to my advantage here.

"And that's it?"

"Doctor Knight, I'm not sure what you're getting at?"

"It's been a while since I read Iron's book. Did he happen to mention what happened to me after the war?"

"You.. spent some time in a psychiatric hospital."

"I helped design, test and build the first atomic bombs. After they dropped, they showed us the pictures. The military guys wanted to congratulate us because we'd ended the war. I looked at all the burned out buildings and imagined… All of the people who died. I'll be straight with you, Mister Wynne: I like what you're saying. I'd like my work to be used for peaceful civilian projects. My son Jack was kvetching at me about that very thing only a little while ago. But I'm worried all the same. I don't want another Nagasaki or Hiroshima on my conscience."

"Doctor Knight, the world has many weapons, big and small. I don't really see the benefit in adding another, slightly better one."

"Money's a good reason, for a lot of people."

"Doctor Knight, I've already got more money than I know what to do with. I could buy an island, stick a villa on it and live the rest of my life there without worrying about money ever again. I don't want to do that. I want to improve the world. I don't want to… See something on the news about some hospital in Africa not being able to power their heart monitors or.. premature baby incubators, because their power supplies are rubbish and they can't get fuel for generators. I don't want to keep hearing about fixable problems when it's in my power to fix them. I want to know I fixed them. This isn't going to be a not for profit thing, but-. Money… Is the tool I intend to use for.. finding solutions. Making those solutions work. For encouraging the next-. Ah, begging your pardon, 'mad scientist'-"

"Heh."

"-to work for me rather than someone who might go with weapons manufacturing. And… You can't take it with you."

"Oh. Ah, are you ill?"

"Life is a terminal disease, Doctor Knight. None of us are getting out alive."

"Hehhahah. That's, ah… That's an interesting way to look at it."

"So while I could buy a yacht that I don't know how to sail, a high performance sports car I'd probably write off the first time I tried to drive it or… I don't know, negotiable female companionship of a sort that I like to think I'm deep enough not to enjoy for too long, I'd rather do something actually worthwhile."

"Okay. So… Say I'm interested. How do you want to work this?"

"We should probably meet up, so you can make sure that I'm on the up and up. I'm happy to fly you and whoever else you want to bring over to England, or I can come to Opal?"

"It would be nice to see England again, but all my equipment is over here."

"Okay, I'll come to you then. Assuming that we get along, we'll probably need to talk to some lawyers. I mean, I genuinely don't want to make weapons, but I completely understand if you want that on paper. And… Depending on where we start first, we're probably going to need to talk to someone in government because this is going to be a very disruptive technology."

"That's not actually something I know much about."

"Me neither, but I know people who do." Vicariously. Uh, what are the requirements for visiting America? Do I need a visa, or do I just flash my passport? Do I need any injections? "I'll telephone you again once I've finalised my travel plans."

"I'll look forward to it. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

I return the handset to its cradle. The handset is connected by a wire. That takes me back.

That phone call went as well as it could have done. And my new life is on track. Metal converted into money, the least mad mad scientist I could get hold of sounds like he's interested and SGN are being very helpful.

My only real worry at this point is Lex Luthor. I know that LexCorp exists but I don't know exactly what areas it has interests in. It could be that they aren't involved in the energy market, in which case all I really have to worry about is how to politely say 'no thank you' to any partnership offers. If they are… Well, it's not like he kills every competitor. Unless I do what Superman.. might do at some point and challenge him in his own manse I doubt he'll resort to extreme measures.

I reach for the Thompson Directory and flick through for 'travel agents'.

Now let's put my Business Studies GCSE to use.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 12
12th December 2001
18:43 GMT -6

As the claws press up against my neck I realise that I may have made a rather serious mistake.

"And who.. are.. you?"

Doctor Minerva's face is so close to the back of my neck that I can feel her whiskers as they brush against my skin. Instinct. She wants to be able to tear out my throat if she doesn't like the answer. I would have thought that a woman of her intelligence would realise that a gun would be a better-.

Her claws tighten slightly.

"My name is Peter Wynne." I don't think she has a magic lie detector so I don't need to explain how it's only sort of my name. At this point I've… Sort of gotten used to it. "Are you hungry?"

"I haven't eaten British before."

"Our food culture's come a long way since the eighties. But…" I gesture to the preservation crate on the bench in front of me. "I brought this as a sign of my honest intentions."

"What's inside?"

"Springbok."

I feel whiskers and fur move as she shifts her head to take a look. And I feel the air move as she sniffs. "Why?"

"Your physiology is a mixture of human and cheetah. I'm not sure exactly what you can eat… How your… Splicing has affected your digestive tract, but… I know that predatory animals get their vitamins from organ meat. I… Thought you might like it."

Or maybe you'll be incandescent with rage at me implying that you're an animal. Or you might be incandescent with rage at me implying that you're not a good enough biologist to understand your own digestive processes.

Another sniff. "Is it fresh?"

"Killed a couple of hours ago. The.. box is designed to keep food fresh without freezing it. It should be perfectly palatable."

"Open it. Slowly."

I cautiously reach forward and deactivate the stasis field, then open the lid. The smell of blood immediately fills the air. I then pull the crate a little closer and tilt it so that she can see the meat inside.

"That smells good."

"I'm glad that you-."

Ow! She just… Licked me? Cheetah tongues are barbed and do not feel nice. At least she's removed the claws.

She pulls back enough that I can't feel her any longer. "Step aside."

I sidestep to the right, looking around at the rest of her laboratory setup. Some of the equipment is stolen, and the rest is either old or damaged in some way which caused it to get thrown out. Power comes from a cable which runs to a nearby junction box and I've got no idea what she's doing for water.

The glamorous life of a supervillain.

I feel her tail rub against my leg as she softly and silently approaches the crate. I turn slightly to face her and her slit-pupilled eyes flick to my face for an instant before fixing back on the meat.

"So we're clear: if this is drugged I will kill you before it can take effect."

"It's not drugg-" Her right hand darts forwards, grabs a still-bleeding liver and brings it up to her muzzle. "-ed." She sniffs it deeply twice, then tears into it with her teeth, pulling, ripping and then jerking her head back and swallowing, blood and liver juices dripping down her mouth and onto her fur-covered chest.

She's… Her fur is thick, but she's still clearly mostly shaped like a human woman. There are very clearly fur-covered mammaries under there and I'm going to move my eyes back to her face now. She's eating at quite a pace, not really chewing at all as she gulps the meat down. As she eats I get a good view of the altered structure of her jaw and her decidedly nonhuman teeth, sharp for cutting and stabbing, the grinding function of human molars abandoned as a result of her ill-advised auto-experimentation. She swiftly finishes the liver and breathes lustily in pleasure before turning to face me.

"Are you an autograph hunter?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Autograph. Are you here for my autograph?"

I frown. "Do people do that?"

"You'd be surprised." Her tail curls from left to right behind her. "But that's not why you're here."

"No. I.. want to offer you a job."

"What kind of job?"

"Biological research." She narrows her eyes slightly. "I have a prospectus-" I gesture to my coat with my right hand. "-if you don't mind me reaching for it?"

Her eyes narrow, and she makes a small shrug as she starts cleaning her right hand with her tongue. I reach into my jacket and pull out the booklet with 'Schizo Applications' emblazoned on the cover, then put it down next to the crate.

"Essentially, my business makes its money by acquiring the rights to… Unusually advanced technology and finding civilian applications for it. I'm aware that this… Wasn't what you originally intended, and I see definite commercial potential in your work."

Her face relaxes slightly, her eyes widening. "Y..?"

"Obviously, you have.. certain.. legal difficulties which we'd.. have to work around. My company is based in Britain and I.. don't think we're going to be able to get you indefinite leave to remain. But that's okay, I've been thinking about opening a branch in the United States for a while. There's so much.. stuff to work on here. Do you.. have much experience with project management?"

"It's.. been a while. When you're a supervillain it's.. hard to.. find willing collaborators."

"I imagine. There are a few other scientists I'm going to be trying to recruit, but it's unlikely that you'll be working with anyone in your speciality.. quite on your level."

"Why?"

"Because high-end scientists with criminal records are cheaper to hire than scientists without criminal records. Oh, and I'm afraid that compulsory counselling will be part of the employment contract."

"I'm not crazy."

"No, but you've been living in isolation and in constant conflict with all of those around you for a prolonged period. Humans don't work well in those circumstances. And.. then there's the-" I gesture to her face with my right hand. "-risk-taking."

She sighs. "It was my life's work. I couldn't just abandon everything I'd been working on."

"In point of fact: you could. You could have gotten a job in a related and more commercial field while you applied for grants, or worked on 'splicing' in your spare time. Instead, you tested a.. demonstrably unsafe mutagen on yourself. Now, that might have been a risk you decided to take because you carefully weighed up the risks and decided to take a chance… But just in case-."

"Let me guess: it's a condition of your insurance."

"Oh." I shake my head. "They don't do insurance for people who employ supervillains. I just put money in escrow and cross my fingers. So far so good, but I haven't cracked the American supervillainy scene just yet and I'm told that some of your contemporaries are fairly hardcore."

"Do you want me to make introductions?"

"Not at.. this point. There's a fairly narrow… Sane-enough-to-be-employable and crazy-enough-to-be-useful… Margin for error, and I'd rather focus on a small number of individuals and.. use them to encourage future waves of employees."

"So you're not forming a supervillain team with this as cover."

"Either 'no' or 'yes, and I'm having them work within the law', depending on how you look at it." I think about the dying power ring sitting in a safe back in England. "I've never really gotten into the more flamboyant sort of criminality. Should I take it that you're interested?"

"Yes. Yes… Definitely."

I smile. "Good show. I've procured the services of a removal agency to…" I look around. "Assist you in shutting this place down. They know better than to ask questions, but if you could avoid directly telling them anything they might have to claim the fifth over in court..?" She nods. "Much appreciated."

I reach into my jacket and hand her some paperwork and a pair of keys.

"One contract of employment, a debit card linked to a prepaid account and a key to an apartment for your use until.. things are settled and I've got a location for you to move to. And a contact number in case you have any concerns or queries." I smile and nod deferentially. "I'll leave you to your meal."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Earth 12
6th February 2005

02:38 GMT, apparently

I blink owlishly at my bedside clock, and for a moment try to remember exactly when I got my first clock radio back on Earth Prime. The one before that had a horrible beeper and I was glad to see the back of it. Behind me, Barbara wriggles and starts sleep-grooming my back, purring throatily as she does it. Which is a bit weird, but people in a relationship make allowances for one another and this is far preferable to the sleep-chew she gave me the first time we slept together, which resulted in a trip to casualty.

Why am I awake?

Yesterday… Not a lot happened. I had to have a chat with Lenny about him skipping his therapy sessions and he accused me of giving him mixed messages by inviting him to a supervillain team up and then blue-balling him, but I'm… Reasonably confident that he was joking. Jan Gisler's retirement party is in a few weeks and as an important client I've been invited to that…

No, not coming up with anything. Turn around, nuzzle Barbara and then go back to sleep? Sounds like a plan. Just check-.

My eyes widen and Barbara's left licking a hole in the bed sheet as I climb out of bed at speed, swiftly entering the code for the bedroom safe and taking out the cosmic baton Ted gave me 'for personal protection'. Force field on button three. Then I head towards my home office and my document safe. Someone's touching the ring. I don't exactly know how much harm a near-dead ring can cause but I'm not interested in finding out. Baton in my right hand and pointed forward I shove the door open with my left and hit the light switch.

Batman glances at me, then returns his attention to the orange power ring in his right hand.

"Fascinating. I didn't know they came in this color."

"Put it down, Mister Wayne. Put it down now."

"How did you get it?"

"Is it whispering to you, Mister Wayne? Is it offering you everything you've ever wanted? Because that's what it does. It tells you that you can do anything with it. Please, put it down."

He places it down on the mantelpiece, and I take a moment to-.

"You need a better safe."

"Ninety nine percent of people who might try and rob my safe would just blast it open. I put the ring in my office safe in the hope that they'll assume all that's in there is paperwork."

"How did you get a power ring?"

"Why are you in my house? I don't know what arrangement you have with the Gotham police, but I'm fairly sure you don't have any right to be here."

"Your citizenship application states that you had it in your possession when you arrived."

"Mister Wayne, I'm pretty sure I couldn't beat you in a fist fight but I'm pretty sure I could shoot you through a wall with this on wide beam."

"Peter Wynne, thirty eight years of age. Appeared out of thin air from a parallel universe nine years ago. You claimed to have no idea how it happened."

"And I didn't. Still don't. Look, has one of my employees had a relapse? Is that why you're hassling me?"

"We're speaking because I recently had an encounter with two versions of you from another dimension."

"Do you mean 'parallel universe', or were they really six dimensional?"

"I thought that their voices sounded familiar, but it took me some time to remember where I'd heard them before. May twenty ninth, last year. A phone call was made to my home number. The caller offered to deploy a nuclear device at the Thanagarian construction site in Libya."

An event I haven't spoken about with my Thanagarian employees. Quite a lot didn't make it back to the Command Carrier when their commander ordered a pull out, and while they've mostly been released by the various governments that were holding them as prisoners of war they're obviously not exactly popular due to the whole 'trying to blow up the planet' thing.

"Yes, and Mister Pennyworth politely pretended that he had no idea who you were as I got steadily more frantic, and that's why virtually all of the ring charge I was keeping for emergencies is now gone. I was sitting at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea for hours waiting for someone to contact me, so with the Justice League expanding you might want to work on your coordination a little."

"You know who I am and where I live, and you've done so for years."

"My home parallel doesn't have superheroes. I put the ring on and asked: 'who are these costumed lunatics?'. But given that you're doing good work there's nothing I wanted to do with the information. Although I'm seriously thinking about using it in order to serve you for this."

"What do you intend to do with all of the criminals in your employ?"

"So I remember hearing about a case where Mister Cobblepot was released on licence, then returned to prison after helping some of his former employees find legitimate employment contrary to the terms of his parole. And I seem to remember hearing that you protested both the release and the return to prison." I shrug. "What I'm doing is giving them an avenue to use their abilities for the good of mankind, and to benefit themselves. Without doing anything illegal."

"Except when they turn on you."

"That happened with two out of… Eighty? Both times I was rescued by other employees and I'm pretty sure that one was a LexCorp plant. Supervillains… It's an ingroup-outgroup differentiation thing. Once they categorise you as one of theirs, as being on their side, the.. sane ones are usually alright. You just can't trust them to follow abstract rules."

"Oh, is that what this is." Barbara pads in behind me. "You're my ingroup."

She folds her arms across her chest, putting her weight on her right hip as her tail whips back and forth.

I sigh. "Batman, is there any chance of you leaving?"

"I still need-."

I walk up to Barbara, wrap my arms around her shoulders and curl my hands upwards so that I can stroke her head around her ears. She relaxes slightly as I lean closer, gently kissing her muzzle.

"You're the group I love being in most of all."

I rub a little harder, and she isn't quite able to prevent her eyes closing slightly in pleasure as I continue to kiss her. We've learned that tongues are a bad idea with her teeth and papillae, but her lips are still sensitive enough to enjoy this sort of contact. I press against her-.

"He's gone."

I maintain the pressure on her head. "What, you want me to stop?"

"Nrugh, I need to get up tomorrow."

I pull my face away from hers slightly, my pyjama-clad chest still pressing against her fur-covered breasts and my fingers still kneading her head.

"What did Batman even want?"

"It sounded like he had a run-in with a parallel universe version of me. And in case you're wondering, no, this isn't a sign that I'm secretly planning on picking a fight with the Justice League."

"Goodnrughuhuhuh." She tilts her head back, pressing harder against my hands, her tail wrapping itself around my waist.

"Oh, and I'm assuming that you heard me refer to him by name?"

"I know, don't tell anyone." She shakes her head, pulling her ears out of my grip for a moment. "I have to ask. Could your power ring..? Fix me?"

"Assuming that you'll simply dismiss my claim that there's nothing to fix-."

She pulls further away, looking into the mirror suspended over the mantelpiece.

"This isn't-. Me. I know you don't care-."

I walk up behind her and wrap my arms around her. "This is the only 'you' I've ever known. But in answer to your question… Maybe. It might also have driven you insane, torn you apart because it ran out of power half way through, called the universe's other insane and horrendously powerful Orange Lantern here from Okaara, or… Any number of other things."

I crane my head down and nibble at her neck for a few moments, until I feel her tail wrap around me again.

"It wouldn't be a safe or reliable fix, Barbara. And I love you just the way you are."

She leans her head against me. "Okay. Let's go back to bed. But if Wonder Woman's in there, I'm going to want a better explanation."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Realigned

6th February
07:08 GMT -5

"Um." Holly stares at Artemis's tight-fitting work out trousers as she and Paula jog closer to our meet-up point in Robinson Park. "Damn."

Karon arches her right eyebrow.

"Huh? Oh, come on. Look at that!"

Karon turns her head away slightly and raises her right hand.

And Holly realises her mistake. "Karon. I didn't mean-."

"She's romantically involved with a young man, so I think you're out of luck."

"I'm window shopping, not-." Karon starts walking away. "Oh, no, that's not…"

Artemis jogs up beside me as Holly goes after Karon. "Ah… Are they… Not jogging with us?"

"Perhaps they'll… Join us later."

"Are they having a fight?"

I give my legs a quick stretch. My identity, Paula's former identity and Jade's identity are public knowledge, so anyone with a working brain should be able to tell that Artemis=Artemis. Then again, people around here… But, she doesn't want to strengthen the painfully obvious association so I'm wearing only one ring, it's on my left ring toe and my environmental shield is down so low that it's virtually invisible in this light. I mean yes, Gotham's better these days, but I'm not stupid.

Point being, I have to at least look like I'm warming up normally in order to maintain the pretence.

"Holly appreciated a certain person's physique out loud. Karon was less than impressed."

Artemis snorts as Paula slows to a stop alongside us. "Yeah?" Artemis looks around the park. "Who'd she check out?"

I look at her.

"That black chick over there?" She turns back and sees me looking at her. "She-. Oh. Huuuuuuh."

"I haven't spoken to Wallace about-."

Her eyes widen slightly. "I hadn't realised you'd met Wally."

"Yes, we've bumped into one another at KordTech a few times."

Not often, in reality, because neither of us are based there and we don't visit the same parts of the company. But it's a believable place for us to have met as far as a casual observer would be concerned if a) they knew who I was b) they don't know who Artemis is c) they know who Wallace is but don't know that he's Kid Flash, and, d), probably some other conditions as well.

"Oh. Right, yeah."

I smile at Paula. "Paula, good morning."

"Good morning, Paul. Ready for a run?"

"Yep. Just think I need to phone Wallace and warn him about 'that black chick' stealing his girlfriend first."

Artemis grimaces, growls quietly, then takes off down the path. Paula follows at a slightly slower pace, and I take a moment to make eye contact with Holly and wave before dashing to catch them up.

With crime falling and Pamela Isley reformed, Robinson Park has seen a resurgence of joggers. Mister Freeze murdering those people in Grant Park probably helped send the overflow here as well. Still, it's a cold part of the year and so we don't have that much competition for the pavement on work days.

So far Zatanna hasn't decided to tell everyone my age, and as I briefly meet Paula's eyes I'm sorely tempted to just come out with it. It's… Like the reason Bob gives in The Atrocity Archives for homosexuals being -historically- banned from the British intelligence services: being gay meant that you could be blackmailed by foreign agents… Because being gay meant that you could be fired, which was only a problem because of the rule banning homosexuals. After someone pointed out this catch 22 they changed the rules so that homosexuals were fine as long as they weren't in the closet, because if they were out and proud they couldn't be blackmailed about it.

Except…

If someone actually did blackmail me… What exactly happens? It's not as if I'm obsessed with public opinion, and… Compared to Grand Theft Baking Supplies, I doubt the fact that I told people I was twelve years younger than I actually am is going to arouse all that much excitement. Threatening to tell my friends? A bit awkward, but nothing compared to how anything someone could blackmail me into doing would make me feel. Police? I'm not a US citizen and I doubt that Hippolyta would care. I'm publically nineteen, so other than the fact that I'd be able to buy alcohol around here not a lot would change legally.

"Did you do a lot of running before you starting running with us?"

I glance at Paula for a moment before returning my attention to the path ahead of us.

"No, not really. Treadmills-" Once or twice, more to be sociable or because I was taking a break from my rings than for the purpose of exercise. "-or exercise machines were more my thing. Though my trainer did once make me run the marathon."

"Which one?"

"No. The marathon. I had to run from Athens to Sparta, retracing the route of Pheidippides. There's some nice countryside in Greece, but I can't honestly say that I recommend it."

"That could be interesting."

"I didn't know that you were into endurance running."

"When I was younger, I trained myself so that I was ready to commit whatever crime was most profitable. After I recovered from my injury, I tried to get back to that same level of fitness. But I no longer have anything to aim for."

"Perhaps you should try a normal marathon first? I mean, I can arrange passage to Greece-" By flying you there. "-and I'd be happy-" In the interests of building good relations with my future mother-in-law, not because I like running. "-to run it with you."

She smiles as we reach the northernmost part of the park and turn east. "Thank you."

I look right and see Holly and Karon cut across the grass to catch up with us, their disagreement apparently resolved. I'm not seeing any real emotional damage, but… Come on, Holly! At this point you should know that while Karon doesn't expect you to police your eyes she does expect you to police your mouth a little.

"Have you heard from Jade yet?"

"No, and I doubt that I will for a few days. She'll probably want to familiarise herself with her new working environment fairly intensely at the start."

"Who will she be fighting?"

"Hopefully, no one for a while. The place she's being sent to is a solid ally, but the… Enemy are really good at infiltrating and exploiting internal divisions. When she does, it will probably be locals armed with local weapons. Less dangerous than plenty of things she's fought on Earth."

She nods as Artemis slows to allow us to jog alongside her.

"I am sure that you are right, but I still worry. We had not fully reconnected when she left. I am not.. complaining that you found her the opportunity. If she must fight, then I would prefer her to fight for a good cause than for the League of Shadows. But I miss her."

I nod. Jade knows I can get access to instant communication technologies… But she hasn't asked me to give one to anyone. But I could nudge her about writing, or.. something. "I'll see if I can come up with something."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th February
07:32 GMT -5

I take the bowl of porridge off my tray like some sort of caveman and put it down on our table. Then I repeat the process with my glass of orange jui-.

Artemis gives me a condescending look. "What are you doing?"

I smile at her. "Normalcy."

"You're out of practice."

"Yes."

I stow my tray on an unused chair with the rest, then pull up my own chair and sit down. Next, I open up the little sachet of honey -no golden syrup here- and pour it into the porridge. Normally we all go home for breakfast, but Paula suggested this for our expanded group. Ugh, and the honey's.. sticking to the sachet and.. I can't get the spoon in…

"…but you're keeping his name?"

Paula nods at Karon's comment. "Yes. It's on all of my paperwork. I am used to it now. And it would not be fair to judge the rest of his family by Lawrence's behavior."

"And I'd find calling you 'Tuyet Nguyen' really weird."

Holly looks confused. "I thought you were called 'Paula'. I'm.. sorry-."

Paula shakes her head with a quiet laugh. "Lots of people from Asia take Western names for the sake of convenience. I've been 'Paula' for even longer than I've been 'Crock'."

"So you don't, like, mind?"

Paula smiles, shrugging. "No. Why should I?"

"Ah… I.. guess. It.. just… I mean, I wouldn't pick a new name if I moved to Vietnam."

Paula raises her eyebrows. "Are you sure? You don't want me to choose one for you? I think you would make a delightful Hau Li."

Holly focuses her eyes on her bagel. "Er… No."

"Hey, Paul." I look over to Artemis. "I was wondering something."

"And what was that?"

"I was talking to Wally about names. If you and Jade do get married, is she taking yours or are you taking hers?"

"Why, does Artemis West not work for you and you want moral support? Because I don't think Wallace Crock sounds any better."

Karon shakes her head. "Who's 'Wally'?"

"The guy I'm dating."

Paula looks mildly concerned. "Artemis..?"

"No, we're not-. Getting married, Mom. It just.. came up."

"Would I take her name?"

Four sets of female eyes swing my way, and Artemis nods.

"Would I take her name..? Over the name that not only can I not say, not only can I not think, but I haven't actually even been able to communicate to anyone?"

"Oh." Artemis dips her eyes. "Yeah."

"Yes, yes I would. As long as she agrees to rationalise the spelling."

"Rational-?" Artemis frowns, then nods. "Right."

Holly frowns. "So you'd be Paul Crock?"

Paula shakes her head. "Jade uses my maiden name. Nguyen."

"What's wrong with 'Win'?"

"The person who came up with romanisations for Vietnamese pictograms was some sort of moron, that's what. 'Win' is spelt En-Gee-You-Why-Ee-En."

Holly blinks. "Huh?"

"Yes, that was my response the first time I saw it written down as well. I was thinking… Double Ewe-Why-En-En?" I look at Paula and raise my eyebrows interrogatively.

She shrugs and shakes her head. "If you like? If that is how you feel then I think you should talk to Jade about it."

"Of all the things I worry about in our relationship, what name we might pick is a long way down the list." I look at Holly and Karon. "What about you two? I don't know how it works with lesbians."

Holly and Karon exchange an awkward glance, then Karon wobbles her head from side to side.

"There isn't a rule. I guess… People just do what works for them, I think… Just keep our own names..?"

Holly nods. "I think… Yeah? I wouldn't-" She turns to face Karon. "-mind if it mattered to you, but.. I'd… Find it weird? Changing my name?" Holly looks at me. "So what happens if you get your name back?"

"Then Jade and I would have to have an actual conversation about it. But since my family is still back on Earth Prime… That connection is much less important."

And I'm not really all that fond-.

I catch myself before my face hits the bowl. Karon looks concerned while Holly lets out a surprised snort of laughter. "You been running too hard?"

"And now I'm going to stop talking about this, because thinking about my name makes me faint."

I start working my way through my bowl. It's… Eh. One of the problems with my ring enhancements is that it makes cooking well extremely easy. So restaurants just… Don't have that much appeal, let alone cafés like this. Oh, these things are sent to try us.

"Paul?" Karon pushes aside her cereal bowl. "Could you.. tell me something?"

"I can tell you many things. Can you be more precise?"

A minor eye-roll. "Have you ever checked out anyone in front of Jade and told her about it?"

Holly sags slightly. "Karon, I said I was sorry."

"No, I-. I don't want to be over-sensitive about this? I know you're more open about.. physical attraction than I am, and… I don't want to be a bitch about it."

"You're not, it's-."

I nod. "Yes."

"Oh." Karon frowns while Holly looks mildly curious. "Who?"

I nod at Paula. "I mean, it's nice to know that I'll still find Jade attractive when she's fifty, but she's told me-"

Karon's eyes widen and Holly tries to find the breath to giggle. Paula shakes her head while Artemis cringes.

"-that it makes her uncomfortable if I keep doing it, so aside from the occasional joke I've stopped. Actually, Paula, now that you're a free woman-."

"You are dating my daughter."

"Not me, but have you thought about dating again?"

Paula blinks in what I'm reasonably sure is affected surprise. "What makes you think I'm not dating now?"

I smile as Artemis cringes further.

"Who's the lucky person?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th February
11:48 GMT -6

I hold out my left hand.

"Ring, come."

"By this ring, my honour upheld
By this ring, my wrongs repaid
By this ring, my slights revenged
By this ring, I fight and live!"

Lantern Xor's environmental shield shimmers as he unclenches his left fist and regards the unmoving ring on his ring finger.

"By George, I think you've got it."

He looks at me, then at the ring, then at me, his breathing becoming more rapid and… I think he's smiling. … Sort of. He clenches his fists again, construct gauntlets forming around them and then dissipating as he unclenches.

"That is it? You can no longer remove my ring?"

"Not easily. Oh, and congratulations. Lantern Ragnar still can't reliably perform this technique."

Lanter Xor stops 'smiling'. "Do not make this easy for me. Every wound taken in training is one not taken in the field. I need to learn."

I hold up my hands. "You are able to resist this technique. That does not mean that I cannot use other techniques, or that your exotic defences are proof against being undermined in other ways. Gaining proficiency with a rifle does not mean that you have also mastered artillery."

He nods, calming himself.

"I understand, Illustres. What is next?"

I shrug.

"There are any number of things we could practise. What do you want to learn? How do you want to apply these skills?"

"I will apply them in accordance with my oath. I have accepted your ring and I follow your orders. I have held my temper when I dealt with this world's inquisitors and public informers. As such, my honour is upheld. The harm I inflicted on civilians and their property when I first arrived, I have undone as much as I can and performed service in lieu when I could not."

And wasn't that fun to try and explain to people. Three weeks of a giant orange and grey alien carrying a seventy year old grandfather's shopping and mowing his lawn as repayment for causing him to fall over in shock and break his right hip.

"As such, my wrongs are repaid. All that is left is my slights. The wrongs committed against me."

"Are any of those against locals?"

"Soldiers fight who they are told to fight. I owe those I injured or slew no debt, but nor do I bear them malice. Their commander has been publically shamed."

Bit of a stretch, but General Hardcastle was strongly criticised by the White House and strong-armed into resigning his commission. And if Xor is happy with that then I'm not going to try and convince him not to be.

"All those who remain who have slighted me are on my homeworld." For a moment he looks a little lost. "So it is there that I must return."

"You don't sound particularly eager."

"I was raised high in the service of a man named Jaggar Ton. For years I served him loyally as his bodyguard. I was happy with a life of honourable service, but when I grew inconvenient he had me convicted of a murder I did not commit. I do not… Understand such dishonour. Thinking about that place causes my liver great pain. Yet… What else can I do? I will never be whole if there is not a full accounting."

And the thing is, he's right. He won't be. His oath is spot on: these drives are so fundamental to him that he can't turn from them.

"How do you mean 'inconvenient'? I would have thought that a bodyguard of your strength would be invaluable."

"His daughter and I became involved."

Ah. I nod.

"Seems a bit extreme. He could just have fired you."

"'A bit extreme?'." Xor stares at me. "He had his own wife killed so that there was a victim."

I blink. "What?"

"Yes. It still bewilders me. When I was in his service I knew that he could be… Cunning. Deceitful. But I had never seen him act in such an… Evil way."

"Ah-h?"

Okay… Yes… There are human societies where the murder of a spouse for certain types of behaviour has a disturbing degree of acceptance even today. But to do that to give yourself an excuse to fire your bodyguard..?

"Are you sure he did it?"

Xor's face freezes. "What?"

"I accept that you didn't do it, but… Are you certain that he had her killed?"

"Yes."

"Did you..? See any sort of violence in their relationship before that?"

"Not between them. That is why I find it so shocking."

"Was..? Mister Ton a soldier himself?"

"No."

"Had he been..? Attempting to arrange a political marriage for his daughter?"

"Not where I could hear it. And Onigar made no mention of it when we were together."

"Does Alignment society have a formal caste system?"

"No."

"I'm… Sorry, Lantern Xor, but I'm not clear why you think he killed her. There were easier ways to get rid of you, and he'd risk being found out."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know. A business rival? Some… Random mugger? You said you got the job as his bodyguard for saving his life, so clearly assassinations happen."

"Then why blame me?! At his order, I would have slaughtered anyone who dared attack his family. And I liked her."

"He might genuinely believe that you did it. He might have been being blackmailed or threatened by whoever did it. Xalitan, have you really learned so little from your exposure to Earth's justice system?"

He just glowers.

"What would you do, if he was in front of you… Right now?"

"I would want to kill him for his lies, for what he has done to me. But…" His closes his eyes for a moment, his breathing slowing. "If he were… Truly ignorant. That would not be right." He opens his eyes. "Before I kill him, I must know. I must know why he did it, what he believed."

I nod.

"Good. I'm impressed with the control you showed there. New orders, Lantern Xor. Return to your prison transport and make it ready for a journey back to Alignment space. We'll return there together and get you some answers."