Post by Admin on Jul 9, 2008 16:04:41 GMT -5
Previously, in Justice League...
...the search for Mr. Exeter led the Justice League into a battle with the Key and his attempts to unlock the Gates of Heaven; Hawkman and Martian Manhunter were headed back from Thanagar after learning of Hawkman’s continued exile from his homeworld at the hands of his own mother; Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkgirl and Elongated Man were swept into a dangerous time travel scheme by the Lord of Time, a new villain bent on claiming vengeance against the team; and the Atomic Skull and his partner in crime, Penny Dreadful, pulled off a successful heist that foiled the attempts of Batman and Elongated Man to follow it up, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Exeter’s partners: I.Q., Angle Man and Clock King, who seem to be organizing super-criminal activity on a national scale! And now...
The Justice League
Issue #17: “A Game of Escalation, Part One”
Written by Don Walsh
Cover by Roy Flinchum
Edited by Mark Bowers
“I now call this meeting to order,” Ira Quimby said as he took his seat at the long oaken conference table. He tugged at the bottom of his royal purple “Ike” jacket and smoothed out the dark blue jodhpurs over his thighs. The criminal genius who called himself I.Q. looked up at his partners as he tugged off the white flared gloves and very deliberately folded them and placed them to the side before fingering the white silken cravat at his neck. He then flipped open the leather-bound folio in front of him and looked over the meeting agenda, all while the other two men at the table just stared at him long and hard.
“Are you ready now?” snapped Angelo Bend, the Angle Man. “And who are you to call this meeting to order? You wouldn’t be at a meeting to call to order if not for my efforts.”
“We waste time on all this pettiness,” interrupted the fussy small gentleman in the brown business suit at the opposite end of the table from I.Q. He adjusted his clock-faced glasses and cleared his throat. “We are here, let’s get on with business.”
“I agree, Clock King,” I.Q. answered as he picked up a pen. “The financial report from Mr. Exeter is very exciting, I see.” The three men reviewed the papers, making various noises of approval.
“Profits are up as expected across the board,” Angle Man said as he flipped past the last page of the record. “And the various union accounts are flush. We do seem to have one noticeable shortfall however, I see.”
“Yes. Collections has been sent to handle that...oversight,” Clock King reported. “Black Spider made contact just before the meeting, and he expects a payment plan to be in place by the evening.” The three men chuckled at that as Angle Man gave a lingering look over the photos of Double Dare, the delinquent account holders in question.
“We have the next blueprint ready for Penny and Skull?” I.Q. asked as he moved past the unpleasant task set for Black Spider and moved onto the next agenda item. He glanced from Angle Man to Clock King. Lacking the need for high-tech equipment, he hadn’t taken part in this arrangement.
“Indeed. Finalized and delivered,” Clock King replied with a curt nod. “I must say, these two have been a surprise. Our two best customers, our two most successful customers.”
“And our most successful pairing,” Angle Man added with an oily smile as the other two men shuddered a bit. “Oh come now! True love, in our line of work? Perhaps we should go into a super-criminal dating service as a side venture.” He chuckled at his joke.
“I don’t know about that, but we should consider using them in any future marketing and recruitment efforts,” I.Q. admitted. “If we can turn those two one-note clods into master criminals, we can make anyone succeed.” The three men all laughed as they moved onto the next agenda item.
“Ah yes, the arms dealing,” Clock King mused, fingers running over his pointed chin. “You’re meeting with the client on this one for the regular update, Ira?”
“Yeah. Got Merlyn coming with me, and the date and time aren’t changed from the appointment book,” I.Q. answered. “I have to say, I’m still not one hundred percent sold on this. There’s something going on we’re not aware of, even if it is nice to get our hands on some of this tech.”
Angelo Bend reviewed the project plans and rubbed at a spot on his temple. “There are more angles to this than we know. But the money’s good, the arrangement works. Do we poke our nose deeper?”
“Yes. I, for one, do not like missing data,” Temple Fugit answered quickly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I.Q., see what you and Merlyn can dig up when you meet with these fellows.”
“Got it. I agree. We’re all set then?” The three men nodded with satisfied smiles. “Excellent. Until our next board meeting.” He stood and gave a nod, picked up his gloves and slipped them back on, the other two men collecting up their papers and material before heading out.
Star City
This is what the doctor ordered, Oliver Queen thought to himself, wind rustling through bright blond hair and eyes focused only on the creeping activities on the street below. Clad in green, bow in hand, he quietly slunk down to a fire escape only two stories above the trash-strewn empty lot. Decrepit brick buildings hid him in their shadows, their Green Arrow here to defend the innocents held inside. Nothing else like it for taking the mind off of crazy blondes with intimacy issues demanding an autobiography the size of ‘War and Peace’.
He watched the street gang dealing with the strangers hunched in the back of the rental van. Two large boxes were opened up, and the thugs were ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over whatever they held. Green Arrow crept down further, and lined up his initial shots with his mind’s eye, while at the same time chastising himself. Can’t take it out on Dinah. Not completely. Quick temper got the better of me again. Both of us. We do that to each other all the damned time; one of us has got to stop it someday, if we want something more.
Emerald eyes grew wide as he saw one of the gang heft up a sleek-looking weapon, the size of an assault rifle, but with a barrel that ended in some kind of crystalline emitter, and with readouts. It looked like no rifle he’d ever seen. Do I want something more? That’s not like me, usually. He saw another thug pick up a stocky, squat pistol with a wide-mouthed barrel that almost seemed to glow and steam as the man played with the trigger. Enough’s enough, old man! You can play ‘One Mask to Live’ later on with a beer back at home. Mind on business, ‘cuz those popguns can’t make it onto the streets.
With that, he released his first arrow, watching it arc toward his foes. It landed against the rear bumper of the van and exploded into a brilliant flare, blinding the half-dozen punks and the two dealers. He leaped from the first floor landing he’d moved to, firing another arrow in a smooth motion. This one hit deeper in the van with a crack, and a large black mass quickly filled the interior of the van, engulfing the dealer and most of the cargo. He landed on the ground and pushed off into a leaping dash, one more arrow hurtling through the sky and striking the largest of the street thugs in the chest. The flattened tip immediately exploded into arcs of electricity that sent the beefy man jerking and screaming and collapsing to the ground, continuing to twitch from time to time.
“Damn! Green Arrow!” The thug with the pistol had begun to make out the blurry green shape headed for them with an angry growl. He dropped the weapon and ran off down the street, followed by the thug closest to him.
“Arrow my ass!” snapped the man with the rifle as he swiveled in the direction of the incoming archer. The crystal emitter began to hum and turn blue as he grinned. “Eat the 21st century, Grandpa!” The spots in his eyes were clearing, but only just in time to see the narrow-tipped arrow that sliced into the emitter. He cried in pain as the rifled exploded in his hands, dropping to his knees and clutching his burnt, bleeding fingers.
The remaining two charged at the hero, but Ollie struck one with a hard right fist that was made worse by the heavy bow he clutched, while the second one felt the archer bring his knee up into his breadbasket. He dropped with a whoosh of air from his lungs, and then things went black for the punk as a backhanded left crashed against the back of his head.
“Grandpa’s still got a few tricks to teach ya, you punk,” Green Arrow snapped as he walked up to the gang member holding ruined hands against his chest and rocking back and forth. He picked up the pistol and pieces of the rifle and looked them over, then glanced up at the men trapped in the back of the van. “You! I suppose this is the Fero Corp’s doing?” He held the pistol up under one of the dealer’s noses.
“What’s a Fero? No way, you got no clue, hero. Get outta here before you get too deep,” the man sneered in reply.
“And I suppose you’re gonna clam up now and tell me nothing more? Like who is your boss?”
“Why shouldn’t I tell ya? Means nothing to you. We work for Byth. So there. Take that and make something of it.”
“What’s a Byth?” Ollie stared at the pistol and then back to the dealers as the sounds of sirens started to fill the air.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Well...yes. Actually, I would. Tell me, and tell me quick,” Ollie demanded.
“You’re the big-shot superhero. You go and find out. If you’re dumb enough to keep after it.” He chuckled and said nothing more as Ollie watched the police cars start to arrive and chose that point to dash off down the street, the strange pistol still clutched in his fist and mind racing, considering his options.
Ivy Town
Ray Palmer stood just inside the doors of the chapel, smiling nervously and tugging at his shirt collar as he watched his fiancée, Jean Loring, talking to another woman and the pastor who manned the small religious building. Jean was quite animated in her conversation, the bridal planner watching the sweeps of her arm at various points of the building and the pastor nodding with a smile and occasionally glancing back at Ray, winking, chuckling before giving Jean full attention once more.
As the two women walked down the central aisle, discussing colors and flowers and patterns, the pastor stepped over to Ray. “You seem rather quiet, Mr. Palmer. Everything okay?”
“Sure. Absolutely. That’s Professor Palmer, actually. I teach at the university,” Ray Palmer explained in quick, short bursts of words. “But please, call me Ray. Nice to meet you. I’m fine.”
“Just a little overwhelmed?” the priest asked with a chuckle. “She seems a...decisive woman. You should make sure this day is yours too. Marriage is an equal endeavor.”
“Don’t worry. I’m getting my say-so here and there. I...I just get distracted, and then when I get a chance to glance back, there she is, surrounded by new choices.” Ray chuckled nervously and watched the two women, eyes focused on Jean, taking in each small move of her body. “It’s okay.”
“Here and there?” the pastor asked curiously.
“I’m the one who picked out the chapel actually. I drive past here a lot, coming to and from my place to work and back. I stop by for Sunday services when I can,” Ray explained. “And I enjoy your sermons when I do get to stop by. But my...my careers, they keep me too busy to stop by a lot.”
“I haven’t noticed you before, I must apologize.” He turned to watch the preparations being discussed down the aisle. “And I must also confess I’m surprised to hear you’re the religious one. You work at Ivy University. It’s mostly the sciences there. You’re a scientist?”
“Yeah. It’s what started me in believing,” Ray admitted with a grin. “For me, I’ve seen too much that works much too well, for way too long, to believe there’s not something to believe in. And in recent years, my other career has really opened my eyes.”
“What’s your other career, if I might ask?”
“Amateur scientific consultant for law enforcement agencies,” Ray replied without missing a beat. Jean and her wedding planner were heading back toward them. “You all good with the place, dear?”
“Not what I had in mind, but it’s absolutely charming, Ray,” Jean replied, sidling up next to the scientist and wrapping an arm around his waist. “Amanda and I have some really great ideas to run past you at lunch. You ready to go?”
“Sure thing, let me just--” A beeping sound started to go off and Ray pulled his pager out and glanced at it, then reached around behind, to hit a button on a second device, this one at the small of his waist, under his jacket. “It’s the office, hon. I’ve gotta take this one. So sorry. You and Ms. Jarrett figure out what you want to use, and I’ll catch up on the preparations.” He gave Jean a quick kiss on the lips and added, “Hopefully tonight, for dinner?”
“You go, dear, and I’ll see you when you’re back,” Jean said with a smile and watched him start to dash out of the chapel door.
“Is everything okay, Ms. Loring? That seemed very...abrupt. Especially for a college professor?” Amanda asked, watching the fleeing figure carefully.
“Is it his other job, perhaps?” the pastor suggested.
“Yeah.” Jean nodded with a proud grin, even though she watched him with concerned eyes. “I’m sure it’s just a...small matter. Let’s get lunch, shall we?”
The Hub
The room was rundown, dull and cracked from time and neglect. Plastered over peeling wallpaper were maps of the world, staring down on the single folding card table in the middle of the room. Wooden boards, worn smooth by countless footfalls, now supported only this one lone table, along with one lone stool on coasters, and a miniature fridge. On the table were piles of clippings, from newspapers, from telegrams and coded letters from across the world, from police reports and intelligence dispatches that should never have reached a hovel in the middle of the United States.
The gloved hand held the latest of these reports and then tossed it to the table. The hand then ran through the dark tousled hair and there was a sigh from no discernible source. The man stood and paced to a map of the world, pinning a red flag onto a spot in Africa, near several others. He looked over the red flags, compared them to the green and blue flags, scattered across southern Asia, and up into Eastern Europe. The gloved hand stroked the featureless jaw as he mused over the findings. He took a single black flag and pinned it firmly into place, not more than a half-inch to the west of the Sudanese border, inside Chad.
“No trenchcoat,” he said. “Short sleeves. Portable fan in the equipment.”
The man turned back to the table, stared down at several of the more secret reports, answers that he shouldn’t have and nodded. Thank you, Black Lightning. Every Question needs answers. Let’s hope these get to the right people now.
Then the man marched from the small room, flicking off the light and sealing it behind him.
A lonely country road
The van bounced over the broken roadway, every rut and pothole tossing the speeding vehicle into the air. Inside, copper-haired Penny Dreadful hunched over the wheel and guided the van with all the skill she could muster, while in the rear, bouncing right along, was the bulky form of the Atomic Skull. From the fiery skull echoed an eerie, exulting cry, one hand reaching up to grip the back of the driver’s seat.
“Whoo-hoo! This is great, honey bunny!” The Skull somehow grinned without flesh as he leaned over his lover’s shoulder. “And we have the chips! If Toyman’s right, we finally have our first real chance to stop Dr. Electron!”
“That’s great, pumpkin,” Penny replied with a grin and a slight shake of her head. “Let me pay attention to the road though. We’re almost at the safe house, and then we can have all the celebrating we can handle.”
“That’s a promise I’ll be keeping you to,” Skull replied with a lusty laugh as the van swerved around a tight bend and sent him bouncing to the side. “Just think. Step by step, closer to getting our hands on Electron, defeating his evil scheme and we can reverse the things he’s done to you. To us. We can live a normal life.”
The van pulled up to a sturdy, isolated hunting cabin, and Penny parked behind it. She pondered what Atomic Skull kept telling her, these promises of reversing their conditions and living normal lives once they defeat this Dr. Electron. She chewed her lip as she walked around the vehicle, while Skull couldn’t see her. There was no question in her mind, she loved being paired up with the powerhouse. And she was forced to admit she developed real feelings for him, despite the flaming skull. That just involved closing her eyes and picturing Brad Pitt. But this delusion of his...she sighed and put her happy face back on for her lover and partner.
“Got the chips,” Skull said as he shook a sack in his left hand. “Let’s get inside, make our contact, and then work on that celebrating.” His right arm swept around Penny’s slender waist and scooped her off her feet as he headed for the back door.
Giggling, Penny shook her head again, hugged the thick arm, and said, “Sounds good, pumpkin. Sounds good.”
The Hall of Justice
“I now call this meeting to order,” Wonder Woman announced as she tapped a gavel on the table. She glanced at the members gathered around her: Kid Eternity, Manitou Dawn, Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl and the Atom. On a conference screen was Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, who was calling in from a hotel room in Dubai. Next to him sat another figure, clad in dark colors slashed with golden lightning, a grim-looking man.
“We’ll get straight to the emergency, now that we’ve all arrived,” she continued to say. “We’ve had reports from several of our members that have troubling implications--”
“Sounds like I got here just in time, then,” Green Arrow announced as he entered the conference room. He stomped up to the table and chucked the pistol onto the surface before grabbing a seat and dropping into it, leaning back and hefting his feet up. “Hopped the first flight I could grab out here after washing out with my other resources. Flash, Atom,” he waved to the two heroes, then tossed a wave toward the screen. “Ralph, how’s it going?”
The group all turned eyes toward the Emerald Archer, and Hawkman started to rise out of his seat. “You’re of course welcome to the meeting, being a reservist. Kid Eternity, Manitou Dawn, this is Green Arrow,” Diana stated, immediately cutting off the rising tension. “Arrow, I don’t believe you’ve met our newest members.”
“An absolute pleasure,” Ollie replied with a warm smile as he turned toward Dawn. “Perhaps you can catch me up on your secret origin after all this. Over coffee?”
“Saving the world first, Arrow, hitting on junior members later,” Hawkgirl snapped at him. “What brings you here?”
Ollie looked back at Kendra Saunders and pointed to the pistol he brought. It lay next to holographic representations of other such advanced weapons. He explained how he’d acquired it, and how the arms dealers had no known backers he could find, and that the name Byth he’d been given offered no answers. “So finally, I came to the mad scientist experts. You guys.”
“Sounds like my encounter,” Flash explained. “Almost exactly. Well, except for how I caught them, of course. But yeah, advanced weapons, no known supplier.”
“It’s worse than that,” Black Lightning spoke up over the conference. “This is happening in hot spots all over the globe. I’ve been making some headway, making contacts with various nations and powered representatives, all toward a special project. While bouncing around, I’ve busted up two of these deals now.”
Hawkman stood up and announced, “These aren’t Earth weapons. They’re not close to Earth designs. The pistol is Citadelian. That rifle is Almeracian. I’m not familiar with this make, but the shape of the barrel, and location of the power source would tell me it’s a torsion impacter, a weapon based on scientific principles unknown to your race.”
“Well, I don’t feel quite so stupid anymore,” Atom chuckled as he looked over the devices. “Thought I was just losing my scientific touch.”
“What about this name, ‘Byth’?” Green Arrow brought back up, staring at Hawkman. “That mean anything to you?”
“No. It’s an alien word to me. Not Thanagarian, I assure you,” Katar replied, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the archer.
“I stumbled over Black Lightning on the last deal, here in Dubai,” Ralph interrupted quickly. “Trailing Exeter still. When Sue and I...lost contact with our consulting detective, I got in touch with another expert in this kind of thing. We agree that everything points to another deal going down, and soon. Lightning and I intend to go researching likely honeymoon spots in Chad after this meeting.”
“‘Expert’?” Flash started to ask when a signal interrupted them. Another conference screen appeared, revealing the face of the Darknight Detective staring down on them.
“Sorry I’m late,” Batman said as he settled into his seat back in the Batcave. “Things have been...hectic lately.” He gave a weary, terse grin which left several of the members unnerved. Not Wonder Woman though.
“Batman. Well then, we can get this other business out of the way,” Diana replied as her face became an expressionless mask.
“Other business?” Batman asked as he looked at each Leaguer in turn, seeing Hawkman glare back, watching Flash and Atom fidget in their seat, noticing Hawkgirl frown deeply. Kid Eternity, who never sat at the table anyway, merely looked at the monitor from over Manitou Dawn’s shoulder and smirked some sort of smug smirk, while Dawn herself merely turned her face away from the screen.
“Your recent behavior in Gotham,” Diana said as she folded her hands on the table before her. “Poor choices, lack of proper judgment, negligence in allowing the situation to get so far out of control. Hera help us, if most of the team weren’t scattered around time and space these last couple of weeks, we’d have had to help the government go in and contain you and your...allies!
Ollie kicked his feet up onto the table and leaned back in his chair, letting a smug smile show, though down inside, he felt uncomfortable too. He didn’t understand everything that had happened in Gotham, but this was Batman, and it was his city, and while it was rather fun to watch the great Dark Knight get chastised like a boy with a hand caught in the cookie jar, he couldn’t help but wonder if the League wasn’t stepping out of bounds here too. At least I have the Outsiders if the League decide they don’t like the way I’m cleaning up Star City. And let ‘em try and say something to me, he mused.
“Get to the point, Wonder Woman,” Batman snapped, giving the glare that he was so noted for.
“Given the situation you’ve put yourself in, and let us be honest here, given the tenuous legal position you’re in, I have no choice but to suspend Batman from the League,” Diana said in a level tone, using all her will to deaden the emotion that wanted to leap out. As she spoke, she typed at the keyboard in front of her, but her eyes never left Batman’s. “Depending on how things go from here, in the fullness of time, perhaps we can lift the suspension. Until then, access to the Hall will be restricted, and we’ll be changing our meeting frequencies. Please don’t try to circumvent them. Do you understand, Batman?”
On the other end of the transmission, Dick Grayson looked back up at the Queen of the Amazons and Justice League chairperson and gave the tiniest nod. He glanced down to notice the incoming message, and nodded a little stronger. “Understood, Wonder Woman. You need to do what’s best for the League. Batman out.”
Dick switched off the communicator and leaned away from the computer bank. He looked up and smiled as he tugged the cowl from his head and took the glass of water Alfred offered. “So very sorry about that, Master Richard,” the butler said sincerely.
“Don’t be, Alfred. Diana, she’s brilliant. She played that perfectly,” Dick said, looking relieved, smiling despite the faint circles under his eyes. He pointed to the message that came in while Batman was being punished:
“She saved face for the League and let me off the hook. Well, one of my hooks anyway.” He drank deep and sighed.
“How wonderfully politic, Master Richard. No wonder...Bruce had such respect for her,” Alfred said, giving just a slight move of his head to keep composure. “Join Master Tim for a later meal?”
Dick nodded and pulled himself from the chair, leaving the League behind.
Middleton, Colorado
The two men walked down the hall, past door after door, watching the numbers on them climb higher. Each wore an over-sized trenchcoat over the costume beneath. The man to the left was of average height, dark-haired with brown eyes focused straight ahead on their purpose. The man to his right was tall, close to six and a half feet in height, and even under the bulky coat, had broad shoulders and a thick neck. He had messy blond hair and glanced around anxiously.
“This is it,” the shorter man said, glancing at the paper in his hand. “Room 523.” He glanced down the hall to one side, then back to the other. He slipped a pocket watch from the jacket and nodded. “Five-fifty in the morning. They’ll be in by now, and most other guests should still be sleeping.” He glanced at his partner. “You ready to do this?”
“Yeah,” the blond said with a long slow nod of his head, eyes wide with excitement. “Been ready for a while now.” He flexed his fingers, clad in yellow gloves.
“You know the plan?”
“Yup. I’m containment. You’re discipline. I seal the room, you teach the lesson. I watch and learn.”
“Okay, kid. Let’s get our work clothes on.” The man pulled out a full face mask of dark burned orange, with black glassy oval eyes, and tugged it over his head, before sliding the trench coat off to reveal the indigo body suit burnished with a black spider design over the chest.
The younger man tugged up a black cowl over his hair and slid a jagged yellow mask over his eyes, removing the jacket to reveal a black padded suit adorned with a skull struck through by a lightning bolt on the chest. He was bouncing lightly on his feet now, very excited to begin.
“Ready, Dreadbolt? Ready to make your pa proud?”
“Oh yeah, let’s do it, Black Spider,” Dreadbolt chuckled and nodded eagerly. He watched as Black Spider pulled a lock-release gun from a pouch on his boot and easily forced the locked door open with hardly a sound.
The two men quickly stepped into the hotel room and Dreadbolt closed the door behind them. He then walked over to a light fixture and leaned on it while Black Spider headed further in.
“Lights on,” Black Spider announced as Dreadbolt powered up the room, generating a powerful glare from the whining lights. The two women, sprawled on twin beds, stirred, and shook their heads. Redheaded, toned and built like the gymnasts they were, twin sisters struggling to blink the light from their eyes, Double Dare slowly tried to get up.
“Wh-- what’s...Who’s...who’s here?” one of them demanded to know as she rubbed her eyes and looked around. Short bobbed red hair played around her face as Margot Marceau tried to get her bearings. She heard her sister, Aliki, gasp and her eyes focused on the lithe but muscular man, spider symbol staring down at her. “Oh shit...”
“Yeah. You could say that,” Black Spider said in a mean voice. “Injustice Unlimited held up our end of the bargain. We took your commission, built you a perfect plan, you walked out with over half a million dollars in negotiable bonds, and not even the best detectives masked or unmasked out there have a lead on you. Not even your old buddy, Nightwing. So tell me...what the hell made you think you didn’t have to hold up your end of the bargain?”
He casually blocked the hand that lashed out at him, and then bent it. “Now, Dreadbolt.”
Lightning cascaded out from the young man and flowed across every conduit and metal frame, forming a cage of power. “Now I’m here to teach you what happens when you double-cross Injustice Unlimited.”
Black Spider was a ballet of movement and power, skilled casual blocks preventing the two world-class gymnasts from striking him a telling blow, while the electrical field prevented them from being able to use their acrobatic style and teamwork to good effect in the cramped room. Black Spider landed one vicious blow after another into the small of the back, into the sternum, a kick against the left stomach, another blow just beneath the short ribs. All the while, he explained things.
“We get a percentage. That’s how it works. It’s a quarter of the take, but it pays for lawyers, it pays for safe houses like this one, it pays for the research and time and specialized gear. It pays to keep our members active and earning for themselves as well as us!” He watched as the two women bruised and bled, with burns received from attempts to escape the room. He tugged Aliki up by her long red hair. “You’ll notice that I’ve done nothing to affect your earning potential in this object lesson. No joint strikes, no neck blows, no spinal attacks. We want you earning, you want you earning. We just insist on our payment for services rendered!” His knee buried itself in her stomach and the long-haired sister crashed onto the bed, whimpering as Margot refused to fall, gasping for breath, bleeding from her mouth. Black Spider spun to face her and a last strike lashed out to stop just before her face. In the two extended fingers was a card, with an address. “We even use the money for medical services. Excellent health benefits. Just...pay...us...our...due!”
Margot glanced to her sister and snatched the card angrily, and pointed toward the mini-fridge, and then directed him to the freezer. He pulled out a tray of ice and grinned. “Was that so hard? We’ll go and melt out our take elsewhere, so you can go rest up from the morning exercise. We won’t have this discussion again.”
Dreadbolt pulled his hand from the room, which smoked and sizzled lightly, gave an arrogant smile to the two women and followed Black Spider out of the door.
“Oh man!” he said as they headed down the hall to the back stairs, coats in hand. “That was sweet! That was awesome! I get to do the beating next time?”
“That was business!” Spider snapped as he pulled his bloodied gloves off. “Don’t forget that. Your pa did, and look what happened to him. There’s no joy to be gained out of making enemies. Never. Come on. We got to get the money out now.”
Dreadbolt watched Black Spider storm down the stairwell, and rolled his eyes at his mentor. He then glanced back at the room they’d just left and pulled his fist down while whispering “Yes!” This was the life for him.
Ouddai Prefecture
Flash and Kid Eternity were the first to arrive as they appeared in their fashions on the broken rocky bluff where Elongated Man and Black Lightning waited. Kid Eternity adjusted his glasses as he looked around, while Flash glanced at the other two heroes.
“Okay, will one of you two sweat, please?” Ralph implored as he stared at the newcomers.
“Sorry. Ghost,” Kit shrugged with a grin. “And let me tell you how glad I am over that.”
“Sorry, Ralph, but when you ignore the sort of friction my speed generates, this kind of heat gets...typical,” Flash answered in an apologetic voice. “Nice to meet you, Black Lightning.”
“Glad you guys could make it. Where’s the others?” Jefferson Pierce asked as he got up and dusted off his black pants.
“Coming. They set the jet down pretty far away, just to be safe,” Barry Allen explained as he shaded his eyes and stared off in the direction he’d run in from. “There they are now.”
Indeed, swooping in low from the horizon were three shapes: Wonder Woman leading the way, carrying Green Arrow, who was looking more than a little uncomfortable in her grip; Hawkman to her left and Hawkgirl to Diana’s right, carrying Manitou Dawn. In moments, the new arrivals had grouped up with the other four heroes, Atom appearing on Hawkman’s shoulder and waving to Ralph and Black Lightning.
“Okay, so here’s what we’ve been able to make out,” Black Lightning said as he pointed out the broken terrain. “Just over that rise, there’s a small cave system, where the dealers have been hiding out in. According to our contact, they’ve got something new for sale, and this is supposed to be a meeting of higher-ups. So this is a chance to get a big break.”
“Lightning and I think that the meeting is going down, either now or very soon,” Ralph added. “‘Cause our guy on the inside hasn’t gotten anything to us for a few hours now. Being that he likes his risks, and he’s good at what he does, it has to be because everyone involved is there.”
“Then we go in, hit them hard, hit them fast,” Wonder Woman declared. “We know the weaponry is advanced, and very dangerous, so take no extra chances, and watch out for each other. Ralph, who’s this contact, and how can we identify him when we attack?”
“Good Question,” Ralph answered with a sly rubbery grin. “He’ll let us know, that’s the best I can say.”
“Let’s get this show on the road then, before I sweat off any more pounds,” Green Arrow grumbled as he crouched at a boulder and peered at the destination.
“It probably needs to be lost then,” Hawkman snapped back as he started to lift off the ground and looked back to Diana. When she gave the signal, he swooped out over the ground and led the charge, Hawkgirl speeding behind him, mace at the ready.
“Let’s go!” Wonder Woman commanded the rest of the group and the heroes made their charge.
Flash and the Hawks struck first, tearing up dust and small pebbles in their wake and tearing through four well-armed sentries at the cave mouth before they could make a noise. The team roared on through, all alert, all ready for whatever lurked within.
“Whoa!” Kid Eternity cried out as he started to appear at the mouth of a large, artificial rock chamber, only to bounce away and roll across the ground. “It bounced me! I got bounced! How the hell do I get bounced?”
“Dontknowbutgoodthingitwasyou!” Flash said in a panicked voice as he drew himself to a screeching halt just centimeters from the chamber opening. He reached a cautious hand to the open arch, and felt no resistance.
Hawkman flew on overhead, mace gripped firm in his hands. “Nth metal! As soon as we entered, my harness tingled with it! There’s a Thanagarian behind this!”
“We have got to get your people to stop this, Katar,” Hawkgirl chided him as she flew in alongside him and entered the large chamber. Kid Eternity picked himself up off the floor as he watched the rest of the League charge in and grew darkly angry.
“No way am I getting left out of this!” he declared as he watched Dawn and Ralph bring up the rear of the group. “Maybe solid...maybe that’ll--”
He never finished his sentence as a quiet shape melted out of the darkness of the cave wall, bringing down a heavy sap across the back of his now-materialized head. The slender female shape looked down at him sadly as he started to crumple up, his hand reaching up to the wound, glasses bouncing off the floor and vanishing as he started to fade from sight. “How...?” And he collapsed into the floor and vanished with his glasses, as the sad young lady stepped back against the wall and vanished against the earthen color.
Unaware of what had happened to their teammate, the League stormed the large command center, littered with workshops and computer monitors, and networks, and a half-dozen various people coordinating meetings in the worst places across the globe. In the center of the room stood I.Q., more sensibly dressed in his blue jodhpurs and a less-refined purple jacket over a white t-shirt. He wore red-lensed goggles now as he turned to look up at the arriving heroes. Next to him, the black-clad master assassin, Merlyn, already had a pair of vicious, barbed black shafts nocked in his bow.
It was the three figures next to the pair that gave some of the League a brief pause, but not Katar Hol. He dropped down toward the largest of the three figures, a bald-headed Thanagarian with a strange gray cast to his skin.
“Bydar Rok! You bastard! How did you escape prison?” Hawkman snarled as he dropped down on a hated foe, swinging his mace downward viciously.
“Turmoil is great for getting the prison population back out into circulation, old friend,” the strange man answered as he quickly raised his left arm, the hand flattening, growing round and convex, a shield that deflected the wicked blow, while his other arm literally lanced out, tearing into Hawkman’s armored uniform and nearly into his torso. “It’s Byth now, by the by. Just so you know who killed you!”
Merlyn released his arrows without a single word, Wonder Woman deflecting one of them as Elongated man flattened and stretched out his arm to catch the other one. “Oh great, Arrow gets to have a ‘whose is bigger’ match now,” Ralph rolled his eyes up as he reached out and grabbed up a pair of the workers in the room and whipped them into a stone wall.
“Ah, you’re just jealous because no one wants to ape your rubber-band act, Ralphie,” Ollie joked right back as he quickly released a volley of arrows back at his black-clad counterpart.
“No, no contests today, Green Arrow,” Ira Quimby snapped back as he held up a wand that pulsed red and blue. The arrows struck a field of energy, splintering into pieces a foot from their target. “We’re just here on business. A field demonstration of some new weapons from our pal Byth.” Merlyn fired more of his black shafts, passing through the one-way force field with ease and forcing Ollie and Black Lightning to dive for cover. “Of course, no reason my man here can’t get a bonus.”
“No new weapons are going to save you two,” Wonder Woman declared as she dropped to the ground and lashed out at the two villains, battering at the defensive screen. Merlyn stood his ground, though I.Q. dropped back and reached for a small box on his belt.
“What does ‘Byth’ mean?” Hawkgirl asked as she swooped around to flank Hawkman’s foe, as the right arm of Byth split into a half-dozen barbed whips that lashed at the pair of fliers, keeping them from reaching him with their own weapons.
“It’s an Exorian word for shifting prowess,” Byth explained as his left arm stretched out into a wicked looking scythe, slicing at the Amazon threatening his allies, forcing her back, blocking with her bracelets.
“Exorian?” Hawkman backed up a moment and stared. “Your powers...?” He glanced over at the two other figures who had been near Byth since the start. They were of average height and build, bronzed skin and short black hair, ears coming to a point. “What have you done?”
“We’ll explain it all after you and your friends are put down, Officer Hol,” Byth sneered. “Twins... ACTIVATE!” he commanded and the alien siblings, one female, one male, glumly lifted their hands and touched fingertips.
Flash was streaking toward the Thanagarian now, leaving Black Lightning, Atom and Elongated Man to finish off the other guards who were responding to the battle. “DianaIcan’tfindKitorDawn! Wherearethey?” he called out as he streaked toward Byth, only to see the male Exorian’s body start to grow blurry at the edges. The figure then quickly turned into liquid, and splashed onto the floor, before crystallizing. “Ice!” Flash cried out at the last second, and skidded helplessly into a far wall.
The female turned her attention toward Green Arrow, futilely trading arrows with Merlyn, who held the upper hand thanks to I.Q.’s defensive screen, and she shifted into a snarling wild cat-like creature that leaped into the Emerald Archer and bore him to the ground, tearing at his protective layers of costume.
“Exorians! All mine...and their powers, too!” Byth taunted again, as he retracted the stretched out scythe and caught Hawkman from behind, sending him crashing hard to the floor.
“Okay, enough flunkies, now for the big guys,” Black Lightning said as he turned back toward the heart of the battle. That’s when he noticed Dawn, lying unconscious at the side of the chamber, away from anyone. He went to investigate, only to feel something heavy and metal crack against the side of his skull and send him to the ground. The sad-looking young woman turned to blend back into the cavern wall.
“Okay, it’s time to trade partners,” Wonder Woman declared as she flew to confront Byth. “Hawkgirl, help Green Arrow; Ralph, Atom, after I.Q. and Merlyn!” She started to swoop toward the Thanagarian, but the patch of ice shifted to liquid, and quickly became a vaporous humanoid shape that leaped up into her way. She screamed in painful surprise as the steam poured over her - eyes, nose, throat, soft passages all burning at the shocking attack - and staggering her away.
“Oh yes...yes, yes, yes, Injustice Unlimited is going to really love these,” I.Q. said as he watched Merlyn drop back to protect him from the Elongated Man and Atom. “I think it’s time to go though, don’t you?”
“Yes. Enough of a demonstration, let’s get out of here,” Merlyn spoke at last, watching as Hawkgirl swooped and circled a vicious bird of prey now, giving Green Arrow a chance to recover.
I.Q. hit the button on his small box, and the air behind them rippled and shifted into acute angles, tearing a momentary fissure in space. “Ta ta, Leaguers. Maybe we’ll see you later!” And with that, the two villains had escaped, though the passage remained in position for a few moments, as if waiting.
“You really don’t want to follow, do you?”
The young woman stopped in her tracks, her body still matching the color of the rock wall, hidden from sight. She jumped though when she noticed the man step out from his own hiding place. “I’ve been watching you, and you don’t want this, not any of it. Right?”
“How...how did...who are you?” she asked, wide black eyes staring at him as the color drained from her, revealing a black-haired, lovely young woman dressed in an understated shirt and skirt; a patched ragamuffin staring at the sudden man of mystery as he separated from his own shadows. She tried to seek out his eyes but couldn’t find them and she shook.
The Man With No Face held out an opened hand, gloved palm up, offering her a life line he was sure she’d been waiting for. “That’s easy to explain. Just answer...the Question. And then help me turn the tide!”
To Be Continued[/b]
If you wish to comment on this issue, please CLICK HERE to visit the letters page.
...the search for Mr. Exeter led the Justice League into a battle with the Key and his attempts to unlock the Gates of Heaven; Hawkman and Martian Manhunter were headed back from Thanagar after learning of Hawkman’s continued exile from his homeworld at the hands of his own mother; Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkgirl and Elongated Man were swept into a dangerous time travel scheme by the Lord of Time, a new villain bent on claiming vengeance against the team; and the Atomic Skull and his partner in crime, Penny Dreadful, pulled off a successful heist that foiled the attempts of Batman and Elongated Man to follow it up, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Exeter’s partners: I.Q., Angle Man and Clock King, who seem to be organizing super-criminal activity on a national scale! And now...
The Justice League
Issue #17: “A Game of Escalation, Part One”
Written by Don Walsh
Cover by Roy Flinchum
Edited by Mark Bowers
“I now call this meeting to order,” Ira Quimby said as he took his seat at the long oaken conference table. He tugged at the bottom of his royal purple “Ike” jacket and smoothed out the dark blue jodhpurs over his thighs. The criminal genius who called himself I.Q. looked up at his partners as he tugged off the white flared gloves and very deliberately folded them and placed them to the side before fingering the white silken cravat at his neck. He then flipped open the leather-bound folio in front of him and looked over the meeting agenda, all while the other two men at the table just stared at him long and hard.
“Are you ready now?” snapped Angelo Bend, the Angle Man. “And who are you to call this meeting to order? You wouldn’t be at a meeting to call to order if not for my efforts.”
“We waste time on all this pettiness,” interrupted the fussy small gentleman in the brown business suit at the opposite end of the table from I.Q. He adjusted his clock-faced glasses and cleared his throat. “We are here, let’s get on with business.”
“I agree, Clock King,” I.Q. answered as he picked up a pen. “The financial report from Mr. Exeter is very exciting, I see.” The three men reviewed the papers, making various noises of approval.
“Profits are up as expected across the board,” Angle Man said as he flipped past the last page of the record. “And the various union accounts are flush. We do seem to have one noticeable shortfall however, I see.”
“Yes. Collections has been sent to handle that...oversight,” Clock King reported. “Black Spider made contact just before the meeting, and he expects a payment plan to be in place by the evening.” The three men chuckled at that as Angle Man gave a lingering look over the photos of Double Dare, the delinquent account holders in question.
“We have the next blueprint ready for Penny and Skull?” I.Q. asked as he moved past the unpleasant task set for Black Spider and moved onto the next agenda item. He glanced from Angle Man to Clock King. Lacking the need for high-tech equipment, he hadn’t taken part in this arrangement.
“Indeed. Finalized and delivered,” Clock King replied with a curt nod. “I must say, these two have been a surprise. Our two best customers, our two most successful customers.”
“And our most successful pairing,” Angle Man added with an oily smile as the other two men shuddered a bit. “Oh come now! True love, in our line of work? Perhaps we should go into a super-criminal dating service as a side venture.” He chuckled at his joke.
“I don’t know about that, but we should consider using them in any future marketing and recruitment efforts,” I.Q. admitted. “If we can turn those two one-note clods into master criminals, we can make anyone succeed.” The three men all laughed as they moved onto the next agenda item.
“Ah yes, the arms dealing,” Clock King mused, fingers running over his pointed chin. “You’re meeting with the client on this one for the regular update, Ira?”
“Yeah. Got Merlyn coming with me, and the date and time aren’t changed from the appointment book,” I.Q. answered. “I have to say, I’m still not one hundred percent sold on this. There’s something going on we’re not aware of, even if it is nice to get our hands on some of this tech.”
Angelo Bend reviewed the project plans and rubbed at a spot on his temple. “There are more angles to this than we know. But the money’s good, the arrangement works. Do we poke our nose deeper?”
“Yes. I, for one, do not like missing data,” Temple Fugit answered quickly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I.Q., see what you and Merlyn can dig up when you meet with these fellows.”
“Got it. I agree. We’re all set then?” The three men nodded with satisfied smiles. “Excellent. Until our next board meeting.” He stood and gave a nod, picked up his gloves and slipped them back on, the other two men collecting up their papers and material before heading out.
*****
Star City
This is what the doctor ordered, Oliver Queen thought to himself, wind rustling through bright blond hair and eyes focused only on the creeping activities on the street below. Clad in green, bow in hand, he quietly slunk down to a fire escape only two stories above the trash-strewn empty lot. Decrepit brick buildings hid him in their shadows, their Green Arrow here to defend the innocents held inside. Nothing else like it for taking the mind off of crazy blondes with intimacy issues demanding an autobiography the size of ‘War and Peace’.
He watched the street gang dealing with the strangers hunched in the back of the rental van. Two large boxes were opened up, and the thugs were ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over whatever they held. Green Arrow crept down further, and lined up his initial shots with his mind’s eye, while at the same time chastising himself. Can’t take it out on Dinah. Not completely. Quick temper got the better of me again. Both of us. We do that to each other all the damned time; one of us has got to stop it someday, if we want something more.
Emerald eyes grew wide as he saw one of the gang heft up a sleek-looking weapon, the size of an assault rifle, but with a barrel that ended in some kind of crystalline emitter, and with readouts. It looked like no rifle he’d ever seen. Do I want something more? That’s not like me, usually. He saw another thug pick up a stocky, squat pistol with a wide-mouthed barrel that almost seemed to glow and steam as the man played with the trigger. Enough’s enough, old man! You can play ‘One Mask to Live’ later on with a beer back at home. Mind on business, ‘cuz those popguns can’t make it onto the streets.
With that, he released his first arrow, watching it arc toward his foes. It landed against the rear bumper of the van and exploded into a brilliant flare, blinding the half-dozen punks and the two dealers. He leaped from the first floor landing he’d moved to, firing another arrow in a smooth motion. This one hit deeper in the van with a crack, and a large black mass quickly filled the interior of the van, engulfing the dealer and most of the cargo. He landed on the ground and pushed off into a leaping dash, one more arrow hurtling through the sky and striking the largest of the street thugs in the chest. The flattened tip immediately exploded into arcs of electricity that sent the beefy man jerking and screaming and collapsing to the ground, continuing to twitch from time to time.
“Damn! Green Arrow!” The thug with the pistol had begun to make out the blurry green shape headed for them with an angry growl. He dropped the weapon and ran off down the street, followed by the thug closest to him.
“Arrow my ass!” snapped the man with the rifle as he swiveled in the direction of the incoming archer. The crystal emitter began to hum and turn blue as he grinned. “Eat the 21st century, Grandpa!” The spots in his eyes were clearing, but only just in time to see the narrow-tipped arrow that sliced into the emitter. He cried in pain as the rifled exploded in his hands, dropping to his knees and clutching his burnt, bleeding fingers.
The remaining two charged at the hero, but Ollie struck one with a hard right fist that was made worse by the heavy bow he clutched, while the second one felt the archer bring his knee up into his breadbasket. He dropped with a whoosh of air from his lungs, and then things went black for the punk as a backhanded left crashed against the back of his head.
“Grandpa’s still got a few tricks to teach ya, you punk,” Green Arrow snapped as he walked up to the gang member holding ruined hands against his chest and rocking back and forth. He picked up the pistol and pieces of the rifle and looked them over, then glanced up at the men trapped in the back of the van. “You! I suppose this is the Fero Corp’s doing?” He held the pistol up under one of the dealer’s noses.
“What’s a Fero? No way, you got no clue, hero. Get outta here before you get too deep,” the man sneered in reply.
“And I suppose you’re gonna clam up now and tell me nothing more? Like who is your boss?”
“Why shouldn’t I tell ya? Means nothing to you. We work for Byth. So there. Take that and make something of it.”
“What’s a Byth?” Ollie stared at the pistol and then back to the dealers as the sounds of sirens started to fill the air.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Well...yes. Actually, I would. Tell me, and tell me quick,” Ollie demanded.
“You’re the big-shot superhero. You go and find out. If you’re dumb enough to keep after it.” He chuckled and said nothing more as Ollie watched the police cars start to arrive and chose that point to dash off down the street, the strange pistol still clutched in his fist and mind racing, considering his options.
*****
Ivy Town
Ray Palmer stood just inside the doors of the chapel, smiling nervously and tugging at his shirt collar as he watched his fiancée, Jean Loring, talking to another woman and the pastor who manned the small religious building. Jean was quite animated in her conversation, the bridal planner watching the sweeps of her arm at various points of the building and the pastor nodding with a smile and occasionally glancing back at Ray, winking, chuckling before giving Jean full attention once more.
As the two women walked down the central aisle, discussing colors and flowers and patterns, the pastor stepped over to Ray. “You seem rather quiet, Mr. Palmer. Everything okay?”
“Sure. Absolutely. That’s Professor Palmer, actually. I teach at the university,” Ray Palmer explained in quick, short bursts of words. “But please, call me Ray. Nice to meet you. I’m fine.”
“Just a little overwhelmed?” the priest asked with a chuckle. “She seems a...decisive woman. You should make sure this day is yours too. Marriage is an equal endeavor.”
“Don’t worry. I’m getting my say-so here and there. I...I just get distracted, and then when I get a chance to glance back, there she is, surrounded by new choices.” Ray chuckled nervously and watched the two women, eyes focused on Jean, taking in each small move of her body. “It’s okay.”
“Here and there?” the pastor asked curiously.
“I’m the one who picked out the chapel actually. I drive past here a lot, coming to and from my place to work and back. I stop by for Sunday services when I can,” Ray explained. “And I enjoy your sermons when I do get to stop by. But my...my careers, they keep me too busy to stop by a lot.”
“I haven’t noticed you before, I must apologize.” He turned to watch the preparations being discussed down the aisle. “And I must also confess I’m surprised to hear you’re the religious one. You work at Ivy University. It’s mostly the sciences there. You’re a scientist?”
“Yeah. It’s what started me in believing,” Ray admitted with a grin. “For me, I’ve seen too much that works much too well, for way too long, to believe there’s not something to believe in. And in recent years, my other career has really opened my eyes.”
“What’s your other career, if I might ask?”
“Amateur scientific consultant for law enforcement agencies,” Ray replied without missing a beat. Jean and her wedding planner were heading back toward them. “You all good with the place, dear?”
“Not what I had in mind, but it’s absolutely charming, Ray,” Jean replied, sidling up next to the scientist and wrapping an arm around his waist. “Amanda and I have some really great ideas to run past you at lunch. You ready to go?”
“Sure thing, let me just--” A beeping sound started to go off and Ray pulled his pager out and glanced at it, then reached around behind, to hit a button on a second device, this one at the small of his waist, under his jacket. “It’s the office, hon. I’ve gotta take this one. So sorry. You and Ms. Jarrett figure out what you want to use, and I’ll catch up on the preparations.” He gave Jean a quick kiss on the lips and added, “Hopefully tonight, for dinner?”
“You go, dear, and I’ll see you when you’re back,” Jean said with a smile and watched him start to dash out of the chapel door.
“Is everything okay, Ms. Loring? That seemed very...abrupt. Especially for a college professor?” Amanda asked, watching the fleeing figure carefully.
“Is it his other job, perhaps?” the pastor suggested.
“Yeah.” Jean nodded with a proud grin, even though she watched him with concerned eyes. “I’m sure it’s just a...small matter. Let’s get lunch, shall we?”
*****
The Hub
The room was rundown, dull and cracked from time and neglect. Plastered over peeling wallpaper were maps of the world, staring down on the single folding card table in the middle of the room. Wooden boards, worn smooth by countless footfalls, now supported only this one lone table, along with one lone stool on coasters, and a miniature fridge. On the table were piles of clippings, from newspapers, from telegrams and coded letters from across the world, from police reports and intelligence dispatches that should never have reached a hovel in the middle of the United States.
The gloved hand held the latest of these reports and then tossed it to the table. The hand then ran through the dark tousled hair and there was a sigh from no discernible source. The man stood and paced to a map of the world, pinning a red flag onto a spot in Africa, near several others. He looked over the red flags, compared them to the green and blue flags, scattered across southern Asia, and up into Eastern Europe. The gloved hand stroked the featureless jaw as he mused over the findings. He took a single black flag and pinned it firmly into place, not more than a half-inch to the west of the Sudanese border, inside Chad.
“No trenchcoat,” he said. “Short sleeves. Portable fan in the equipment.”
The man turned back to the table, stared down at several of the more secret reports, answers that he shouldn’t have and nodded. Thank you, Black Lightning. Every Question needs answers. Let’s hope these get to the right people now.
Then the man marched from the small room, flicking off the light and sealing it behind him.
*****
A lonely country road
The van bounced over the broken roadway, every rut and pothole tossing the speeding vehicle into the air. Inside, copper-haired Penny Dreadful hunched over the wheel and guided the van with all the skill she could muster, while in the rear, bouncing right along, was the bulky form of the Atomic Skull. From the fiery skull echoed an eerie, exulting cry, one hand reaching up to grip the back of the driver’s seat.
“Whoo-hoo! This is great, honey bunny!” The Skull somehow grinned without flesh as he leaned over his lover’s shoulder. “And we have the chips! If Toyman’s right, we finally have our first real chance to stop Dr. Electron!”
“That’s great, pumpkin,” Penny replied with a grin and a slight shake of her head. “Let me pay attention to the road though. We’re almost at the safe house, and then we can have all the celebrating we can handle.”
“That’s a promise I’ll be keeping you to,” Skull replied with a lusty laugh as the van swerved around a tight bend and sent him bouncing to the side. “Just think. Step by step, closer to getting our hands on Electron, defeating his evil scheme and we can reverse the things he’s done to you. To us. We can live a normal life.”
The van pulled up to a sturdy, isolated hunting cabin, and Penny parked behind it. She pondered what Atomic Skull kept telling her, these promises of reversing their conditions and living normal lives once they defeat this Dr. Electron. She chewed her lip as she walked around the vehicle, while Skull couldn’t see her. There was no question in her mind, she loved being paired up with the powerhouse. And she was forced to admit she developed real feelings for him, despite the flaming skull. That just involved closing her eyes and picturing Brad Pitt. But this delusion of his...she sighed and put her happy face back on for her lover and partner.
“Got the chips,” Skull said as he shook a sack in his left hand. “Let’s get inside, make our contact, and then work on that celebrating.” His right arm swept around Penny’s slender waist and scooped her off her feet as he headed for the back door.
Giggling, Penny shook her head again, hugged the thick arm, and said, “Sounds good, pumpkin. Sounds good.”
*****
The Hall of Justice
“I now call this meeting to order,” Wonder Woman announced as she tapped a gavel on the table. She glanced at the members gathered around her: Kid Eternity, Manitou Dawn, Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl and the Atom. On a conference screen was Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, who was calling in from a hotel room in Dubai. Next to him sat another figure, clad in dark colors slashed with golden lightning, a grim-looking man.
“We’ll get straight to the emergency, now that we’ve all arrived,” she continued to say. “We’ve had reports from several of our members that have troubling implications--”
“Sounds like I got here just in time, then,” Green Arrow announced as he entered the conference room. He stomped up to the table and chucked the pistol onto the surface before grabbing a seat and dropping into it, leaning back and hefting his feet up. “Hopped the first flight I could grab out here after washing out with my other resources. Flash, Atom,” he waved to the two heroes, then tossed a wave toward the screen. “Ralph, how’s it going?”
The group all turned eyes toward the Emerald Archer, and Hawkman started to rise out of his seat. “You’re of course welcome to the meeting, being a reservist. Kid Eternity, Manitou Dawn, this is Green Arrow,” Diana stated, immediately cutting off the rising tension. “Arrow, I don’t believe you’ve met our newest members.”
“An absolute pleasure,” Ollie replied with a warm smile as he turned toward Dawn. “Perhaps you can catch me up on your secret origin after all this. Over coffee?”
“Saving the world first, Arrow, hitting on junior members later,” Hawkgirl snapped at him. “What brings you here?”
Ollie looked back at Kendra Saunders and pointed to the pistol he brought. It lay next to holographic representations of other such advanced weapons. He explained how he’d acquired it, and how the arms dealers had no known backers he could find, and that the name Byth he’d been given offered no answers. “So finally, I came to the mad scientist experts. You guys.”
“Sounds like my encounter,” Flash explained. “Almost exactly. Well, except for how I caught them, of course. But yeah, advanced weapons, no known supplier.”
“It’s worse than that,” Black Lightning spoke up over the conference. “This is happening in hot spots all over the globe. I’ve been making some headway, making contacts with various nations and powered representatives, all toward a special project. While bouncing around, I’ve busted up two of these deals now.”
Hawkman stood up and announced, “These aren’t Earth weapons. They’re not close to Earth designs. The pistol is Citadelian. That rifle is Almeracian. I’m not familiar with this make, but the shape of the barrel, and location of the power source would tell me it’s a torsion impacter, a weapon based on scientific principles unknown to your race.”
“Well, I don’t feel quite so stupid anymore,” Atom chuckled as he looked over the devices. “Thought I was just losing my scientific touch.”
“What about this name, ‘Byth’?” Green Arrow brought back up, staring at Hawkman. “That mean anything to you?”
“No. It’s an alien word to me. Not Thanagarian, I assure you,” Katar replied, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the archer.
“I stumbled over Black Lightning on the last deal, here in Dubai,” Ralph interrupted quickly. “Trailing Exeter still. When Sue and I...lost contact with our consulting detective, I got in touch with another expert in this kind of thing. We agree that everything points to another deal going down, and soon. Lightning and I intend to go researching likely honeymoon spots in Chad after this meeting.”
“‘Expert’?” Flash started to ask when a signal interrupted them. Another conference screen appeared, revealing the face of the Darknight Detective staring down on them.
“Sorry I’m late,” Batman said as he settled into his seat back in the Batcave. “Things have been...hectic lately.” He gave a weary, terse grin which left several of the members unnerved. Not Wonder Woman though.
“Batman. Well then, we can get this other business out of the way,” Diana replied as her face became an expressionless mask.
“Other business?” Batman asked as he looked at each Leaguer in turn, seeing Hawkman glare back, watching Flash and Atom fidget in their seat, noticing Hawkgirl frown deeply. Kid Eternity, who never sat at the table anyway, merely looked at the monitor from over Manitou Dawn’s shoulder and smirked some sort of smug smirk, while Dawn herself merely turned her face away from the screen.
“Your recent behavior in Gotham,” Diana said as she folded her hands on the table before her. “Poor choices, lack of proper judgment, negligence in allowing the situation to get so far out of control. Hera help us, if most of the team weren’t scattered around time and space these last couple of weeks, we’d have had to help the government go in and contain you and your...allies!
Ollie kicked his feet up onto the table and leaned back in his chair, letting a smug smile show, though down inside, he felt uncomfortable too. He didn’t understand everything that had happened in Gotham, but this was Batman, and it was his city, and while it was rather fun to watch the great Dark Knight get chastised like a boy with a hand caught in the cookie jar, he couldn’t help but wonder if the League wasn’t stepping out of bounds here too. At least I have the Outsiders if the League decide they don’t like the way I’m cleaning up Star City. And let ‘em try and say something to me, he mused.
“Get to the point, Wonder Woman,” Batman snapped, giving the glare that he was so noted for.
“Given the situation you’ve put yourself in, and let us be honest here, given the tenuous legal position you’re in, I have no choice but to suspend Batman from the League,” Diana said in a level tone, using all her will to deaden the emotion that wanted to leap out. As she spoke, she typed at the keyboard in front of her, but her eyes never left Batman’s. “Depending on how things go from here, in the fullness of time, perhaps we can lift the suspension. Until then, access to the Hall will be restricted, and we’ll be changing our meeting frequencies. Please don’t try to circumvent them. Do you understand, Batman?”
On the other end of the transmission, Dick Grayson looked back up at the Queen of the Amazons and Justice League chairperson and gave the tiniest nod. He glanced down to notice the incoming message, and nodded a little stronger. “Understood, Wonder Woman. You need to do what’s best for the League. Batman out.”
Dick switched off the communicator and leaned away from the computer bank. He looked up and smiled as he tugged the cowl from his head and took the glass of water Alfred offered. “So very sorry about that, Master Richard,” the butler said sincerely.
“Don’t be, Alfred. Diana, she’s brilliant. She played that perfectly,” Dick said, looking relieved, smiling despite the faint circles under his eyes. He pointed to the message that came in while Batman was being punished:
Dick, talked to Donna. Know your plans. Good luck. Anytime you’re ready to join the League, you’d be most welcome. Diana
“She saved face for the League and let me off the hook. Well, one of my hooks anyway.” He drank deep and sighed.
“How wonderfully politic, Master Richard. No wonder...Bruce had such respect for her,” Alfred said, giving just a slight move of his head to keep composure. “Join Master Tim for a later meal?”
Dick nodded and pulled himself from the chair, leaving the League behind.
*****
Middleton, Colorado
The two men walked down the hall, past door after door, watching the numbers on them climb higher. Each wore an over-sized trenchcoat over the costume beneath. The man to the left was of average height, dark-haired with brown eyes focused straight ahead on their purpose. The man to his right was tall, close to six and a half feet in height, and even under the bulky coat, had broad shoulders and a thick neck. He had messy blond hair and glanced around anxiously.
“This is it,” the shorter man said, glancing at the paper in his hand. “Room 523.” He glanced down the hall to one side, then back to the other. He slipped a pocket watch from the jacket and nodded. “Five-fifty in the morning. They’ll be in by now, and most other guests should still be sleeping.” He glanced at his partner. “You ready to do this?”
“Yeah,” the blond said with a long slow nod of his head, eyes wide with excitement. “Been ready for a while now.” He flexed his fingers, clad in yellow gloves.
“You know the plan?”
“Yup. I’m containment. You’re discipline. I seal the room, you teach the lesson. I watch and learn.”
“Okay, kid. Let’s get our work clothes on.” The man pulled out a full face mask of dark burned orange, with black glassy oval eyes, and tugged it over his head, before sliding the trench coat off to reveal the indigo body suit burnished with a black spider design over the chest.
The younger man tugged up a black cowl over his hair and slid a jagged yellow mask over his eyes, removing the jacket to reveal a black padded suit adorned with a skull struck through by a lightning bolt on the chest. He was bouncing lightly on his feet now, very excited to begin.
“Ready, Dreadbolt? Ready to make your pa proud?”
“Oh yeah, let’s do it, Black Spider,” Dreadbolt chuckled and nodded eagerly. He watched as Black Spider pulled a lock-release gun from a pouch on his boot and easily forced the locked door open with hardly a sound.
The two men quickly stepped into the hotel room and Dreadbolt closed the door behind them. He then walked over to a light fixture and leaned on it while Black Spider headed further in.
“Lights on,” Black Spider announced as Dreadbolt powered up the room, generating a powerful glare from the whining lights. The two women, sprawled on twin beds, stirred, and shook their heads. Redheaded, toned and built like the gymnasts they were, twin sisters struggling to blink the light from their eyes, Double Dare slowly tried to get up.
“Wh-- what’s...Who’s...who’s here?” one of them demanded to know as she rubbed her eyes and looked around. Short bobbed red hair played around her face as Margot Marceau tried to get her bearings. She heard her sister, Aliki, gasp and her eyes focused on the lithe but muscular man, spider symbol staring down at her. “Oh shit...”
“Yeah. You could say that,” Black Spider said in a mean voice. “Injustice Unlimited held up our end of the bargain. We took your commission, built you a perfect plan, you walked out with over half a million dollars in negotiable bonds, and not even the best detectives masked or unmasked out there have a lead on you. Not even your old buddy, Nightwing. So tell me...what the hell made you think you didn’t have to hold up your end of the bargain?”
He casually blocked the hand that lashed out at him, and then bent it. “Now, Dreadbolt.”
Lightning cascaded out from the young man and flowed across every conduit and metal frame, forming a cage of power. “Now I’m here to teach you what happens when you double-cross Injustice Unlimited.”
Black Spider was a ballet of movement and power, skilled casual blocks preventing the two world-class gymnasts from striking him a telling blow, while the electrical field prevented them from being able to use their acrobatic style and teamwork to good effect in the cramped room. Black Spider landed one vicious blow after another into the small of the back, into the sternum, a kick against the left stomach, another blow just beneath the short ribs. All the while, he explained things.
“We get a percentage. That’s how it works. It’s a quarter of the take, but it pays for lawyers, it pays for safe houses like this one, it pays for the research and time and specialized gear. It pays to keep our members active and earning for themselves as well as us!” He watched as the two women bruised and bled, with burns received from attempts to escape the room. He tugged Aliki up by her long red hair. “You’ll notice that I’ve done nothing to affect your earning potential in this object lesson. No joint strikes, no neck blows, no spinal attacks. We want you earning, you want you earning. We just insist on our payment for services rendered!” His knee buried itself in her stomach and the long-haired sister crashed onto the bed, whimpering as Margot refused to fall, gasping for breath, bleeding from her mouth. Black Spider spun to face her and a last strike lashed out to stop just before her face. In the two extended fingers was a card, with an address. “We even use the money for medical services. Excellent health benefits. Just...pay...us...our...due!”
Margot glanced to her sister and snatched the card angrily, and pointed toward the mini-fridge, and then directed him to the freezer. He pulled out a tray of ice and grinned. “Was that so hard? We’ll go and melt out our take elsewhere, so you can go rest up from the morning exercise. We won’t have this discussion again.”
Dreadbolt pulled his hand from the room, which smoked and sizzled lightly, gave an arrogant smile to the two women and followed Black Spider out of the door.
“Oh man!” he said as they headed down the hall to the back stairs, coats in hand. “That was sweet! That was awesome! I get to do the beating next time?”
“That was business!” Spider snapped as he pulled his bloodied gloves off. “Don’t forget that. Your pa did, and look what happened to him. There’s no joy to be gained out of making enemies. Never. Come on. We got to get the money out now.”
Dreadbolt watched Black Spider storm down the stairwell, and rolled his eyes at his mentor. He then glanced back at the room they’d just left and pulled his fist down while whispering “Yes!” This was the life for him.
*****
Ouddai Prefecture
Flash and Kid Eternity were the first to arrive as they appeared in their fashions on the broken rocky bluff where Elongated Man and Black Lightning waited. Kid Eternity adjusted his glasses as he looked around, while Flash glanced at the other two heroes.
“Okay, will one of you two sweat, please?” Ralph implored as he stared at the newcomers.
“Sorry. Ghost,” Kit shrugged with a grin. “And let me tell you how glad I am over that.”
“Sorry, Ralph, but when you ignore the sort of friction my speed generates, this kind of heat gets...typical,” Flash answered in an apologetic voice. “Nice to meet you, Black Lightning.”
“Glad you guys could make it. Where’s the others?” Jefferson Pierce asked as he got up and dusted off his black pants.
“Coming. They set the jet down pretty far away, just to be safe,” Barry Allen explained as he shaded his eyes and stared off in the direction he’d run in from. “There they are now.”
Indeed, swooping in low from the horizon were three shapes: Wonder Woman leading the way, carrying Green Arrow, who was looking more than a little uncomfortable in her grip; Hawkman to her left and Hawkgirl to Diana’s right, carrying Manitou Dawn. In moments, the new arrivals had grouped up with the other four heroes, Atom appearing on Hawkman’s shoulder and waving to Ralph and Black Lightning.
“Okay, so here’s what we’ve been able to make out,” Black Lightning said as he pointed out the broken terrain. “Just over that rise, there’s a small cave system, where the dealers have been hiding out in. According to our contact, they’ve got something new for sale, and this is supposed to be a meeting of higher-ups. So this is a chance to get a big break.”
“Lightning and I think that the meeting is going down, either now or very soon,” Ralph added. “‘Cause our guy on the inside hasn’t gotten anything to us for a few hours now. Being that he likes his risks, and he’s good at what he does, it has to be because everyone involved is there.”
“Then we go in, hit them hard, hit them fast,” Wonder Woman declared. “We know the weaponry is advanced, and very dangerous, so take no extra chances, and watch out for each other. Ralph, who’s this contact, and how can we identify him when we attack?”
“Good Question,” Ralph answered with a sly rubbery grin. “He’ll let us know, that’s the best I can say.”
“Let’s get this show on the road then, before I sweat off any more pounds,” Green Arrow grumbled as he crouched at a boulder and peered at the destination.
“It probably needs to be lost then,” Hawkman snapped back as he started to lift off the ground and looked back to Diana. When she gave the signal, he swooped out over the ground and led the charge, Hawkgirl speeding behind him, mace at the ready.
“Let’s go!” Wonder Woman commanded the rest of the group and the heroes made their charge.
Flash and the Hawks struck first, tearing up dust and small pebbles in their wake and tearing through four well-armed sentries at the cave mouth before they could make a noise. The team roared on through, all alert, all ready for whatever lurked within.
“Whoa!” Kid Eternity cried out as he started to appear at the mouth of a large, artificial rock chamber, only to bounce away and roll across the ground. “It bounced me! I got bounced! How the hell do I get bounced?”
“Dontknowbutgoodthingitwasyou!” Flash said in a panicked voice as he drew himself to a screeching halt just centimeters from the chamber opening. He reached a cautious hand to the open arch, and felt no resistance.
Hawkman flew on overhead, mace gripped firm in his hands. “Nth metal! As soon as we entered, my harness tingled with it! There’s a Thanagarian behind this!”
“We have got to get your people to stop this, Katar,” Hawkgirl chided him as she flew in alongside him and entered the large chamber. Kid Eternity picked himself up off the floor as he watched the rest of the League charge in and grew darkly angry.
“No way am I getting left out of this!” he declared as he watched Dawn and Ralph bring up the rear of the group. “Maybe solid...maybe that’ll--”
He never finished his sentence as a quiet shape melted out of the darkness of the cave wall, bringing down a heavy sap across the back of his now-materialized head. The slender female shape looked down at him sadly as he started to crumple up, his hand reaching up to the wound, glasses bouncing off the floor and vanishing as he started to fade from sight. “How...?” And he collapsed into the floor and vanished with his glasses, as the sad young lady stepped back against the wall and vanished against the earthen color.
Unaware of what had happened to their teammate, the League stormed the large command center, littered with workshops and computer monitors, and networks, and a half-dozen various people coordinating meetings in the worst places across the globe. In the center of the room stood I.Q., more sensibly dressed in his blue jodhpurs and a less-refined purple jacket over a white t-shirt. He wore red-lensed goggles now as he turned to look up at the arriving heroes. Next to him, the black-clad master assassin, Merlyn, already had a pair of vicious, barbed black shafts nocked in his bow.
It was the three figures next to the pair that gave some of the League a brief pause, but not Katar Hol. He dropped down toward the largest of the three figures, a bald-headed Thanagarian with a strange gray cast to his skin.
“Bydar Rok! You bastard! How did you escape prison?” Hawkman snarled as he dropped down on a hated foe, swinging his mace downward viciously.
“Turmoil is great for getting the prison population back out into circulation, old friend,” the strange man answered as he quickly raised his left arm, the hand flattening, growing round and convex, a shield that deflected the wicked blow, while his other arm literally lanced out, tearing into Hawkman’s armored uniform and nearly into his torso. “It’s Byth now, by the by. Just so you know who killed you!”
Merlyn released his arrows without a single word, Wonder Woman deflecting one of them as Elongated man flattened and stretched out his arm to catch the other one. “Oh great, Arrow gets to have a ‘whose is bigger’ match now,” Ralph rolled his eyes up as he reached out and grabbed up a pair of the workers in the room and whipped them into a stone wall.
“Ah, you’re just jealous because no one wants to ape your rubber-band act, Ralphie,” Ollie joked right back as he quickly released a volley of arrows back at his black-clad counterpart.
“No, no contests today, Green Arrow,” Ira Quimby snapped back as he held up a wand that pulsed red and blue. The arrows struck a field of energy, splintering into pieces a foot from their target. “We’re just here on business. A field demonstration of some new weapons from our pal Byth.” Merlyn fired more of his black shafts, passing through the one-way force field with ease and forcing Ollie and Black Lightning to dive for cover. “Of course, no reason my man here can’t get a bonus.”
“No new weapons are going to save you two,” Wonder Woman declared as she dropped to the ground and lashed out at the two villains, battering at the defensive screen. Merlyn stood his ground, though I.Q. dropped back and reached for a small box on his belt.
“What does ‘Byth’ mean?” Hawkgirl asked as she swooped around to flank Hawkman’s foe, as the right arm of Byth split into a half-dozen barbed whips that lashed at the pair of fliers, keeping them from reaching him with their own weapons.
“It’s an Exorian word for shifting prowess,” Byth explained as his left arm stretched out into a wicked looking scythe, slicing at the Amazon threatening his allies, forcing her back, blocking with her bracelets.
“Exorian?” Hawkman backed up a moment and stared. “Your powers...?” He glanced over at the two other figures who had been near Byth since the start. They were of average height and build, bronzed skin and short black hair, ears coming to a point. “What have you done?”
“We’ll explain it all after you and your friends are put down, Officer Hol,” Byth sneered. “Twins... ACTIVATE!” he commanded and the alien siblings, one female, one male, glumly lifted their hands and touched fingertips.
Flash was streaking toward the Thanagarian now, leaving Black Lightning, Atom and Elongated Man to finish off the other guards who were responding to the battle. “DianaIcan’tfindKitorDawn! Wherearethey?” he called out as he streaked toward Byth, only to see the male Exorian’s body start to grow blurry at the edges. The figure then quickly turned into liquid, and splashed onto the floor, before crystallizing. “Ice!” Flash cried out at the last second, and skidded helplessly into a far wall.
The female turned her attention toward Green Arrow, futilely trading arrows with Merlyn, who held the upper hand thanks to I.Q.’s defensive screen, and she shifted into a snarling wild cat-like creature that leaped into the Emerald Archer and bore him to the ground, tearing at his protective layers of costume.
“Exorians! All mine...and their powers, too!” Byth taunted again, as he retracted the stretched out scythe and caught Hawkman from behind, sending him crashing hard to the floor.
“Okay, enough flunkies, now for the big guys,” Black Lightning said as he turned back toward the heart of the battle. That’s when he noticed Dawn, lying unconscious at the side of the chamber, away from anyone. He went to investigate, only to feel something heavy and metal crack against the side of his skull and send him to the ground. The sad-looking young woman turned to blend back into the cavern wall.
“Okay, it’s time to trade partners,” Wonder Woman declared as she flew to confront Byth. “Hawkgirl, help Green Arrow; Ralph, Atom, after I.Q. and Merlyn!” She started to swoop toward the Thanagarian, but the patch of ice shifted to liquid, and quickly became a vaporous humanoid shape that leaped up into her way. She screamed in painful surprise as the steam poured over her - eyes, nose, throat, soft passages all burning at the shocking attack - and staggering her away.
“Oh yes...yes, yes, yes, Injustice Unlimited is going to really love these,” I.Q. said as he watched Merlyn drop back to protect him from the Elongated Man and Atom. “I think it’s time to go though, don’t you?”
“Yes. Enough of a demonstration, let’s get out of here,” Merlyn spoke at last, watching as Hawkgirl swooped and circled a vicious bird of prey now, giving Green Arrow a chance to recover.
I.Q. hit the button on his small box, and the air behind them rippled and shifted into acute angles, tearing a momentary fissure in space. “Ta ta, Leaguers. Maybe we’ll see you later!” And with that, the two villains had escaped, though the passage remained in position for a few moments, as if waiting.
“You really don’t want to follow, do you?”
The young woman stopped in her tracks, her body still matching the color of the rock wall, hidden from sight. She jumped though when she noticed the man step out from his own hiding place. “I’ve been watching you, and you don’t want this, not any of it. Right?”
“How...how did...who are you?” she asked, wide black eyes staring at him as the color drained from her, revealing a black-haired, lovely young woman dressed in an understated shirt and skirt; a patched ragamuffin staring at the sudden man of mystery as he separated from his own shadows. She tried to seek out his eyes but couldn’t find them and she shook.
The Man With No Face held out an opened hand, gloved palm up, offering her a life line he was sure she’d been waiting for. “That’s easy to explain. Just answer...the Question. And then help me turn the tide!”
To Be Continued[/b]
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