The Legion of Justice
On Our Own
There were only a few items inside, but one
immediately drew his attention. "Whatsssss thissss?" He held up a
ring, and the setting was shaped like a… green lantern.
"That's my ride outta here!" Drake
shouted. "That's Green Lantern's Power Ring!"
Legion of Justice Time Storm Chapter 09
"Whyyyee did my parenttssss have
Greeeeeeen Lantternsssss Powerrr Rring?"
"You can get the whole story from the
video when we get back. Short story - when Amgov 'nationalized' the Starheart
and Green Lantern's Lantern, back about a hundred years ago, they tried to
nationalize Green Lantern too - the third Green Lantern, Shayera Scott. She
wouldn't stand for it, and with the last wisp of power in the Power Ring she
escaped to Feitheria. She eventually married a descendent of the famous
Feitherian hero, Northwind, and, well, you know what happens after that - a
couple generations later, here you are!"
Horus was stunned. "I'd desssssended
from Northwind and I'm pppart human? No wonder I'm sssoo difffferent from the
othersssss."
'That ain't the half of it, pal! You got more
heroes in your blood than Canary knows curse words. On your human side, 3
generations of Green Lantern, Harlequin, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Silver Scarab,
Wonder Woman, Odysseus, Fury, and Silverbird! You've got so much Green Lantern
in your blood that you and I are almost like cousins! How cool is all
that?!"
Suddenly, the lights went out. Greenfire kept
talking, but sounded a little strained. "OK, cuz', time for us to ditch
this guided tour of the world's most scenic underground city north of the
Arctic Circle. Some genius realized that they ought to cut power to the whole
city to stop all the fun and games I set up. So things oughta settle down soon.
We got what we came for, so I'll pop into the ring, and you call home for our
ride, will ya?" A green mist seeped out of the apartment computer, drifted
across the room, and then vanished into the Power Ring, which immediately
glowed, bright green.
"Gernsssssbeckkk, pleeeasssse open a
Boom Tube at our coordddinatesss!" Horus used his subspace communicator -
and within seconds, found out the bad news. The Stealth Squad wouldn't reach
Earth for another day or so.
"Drakkkeee, weeee neeed anotherrr
plan." No answer. "K K K C'mon, Drakkkeee, sssstop foolinggg
arounddd." Still no answer. "Phhhhsssssiittt!
Ssssccccrrrreeeeeeee!" that was a hunting cry. If he had to do it alone,
well, he wassssss a Legionnaire! He slipped the memory module into the safe
deposit box and slipped the box into his pack, He looked at the ring for
several seconds, then finally slipped it on his finger.
"Greeeeeen Lanterrrrn Four!" he
whispered. He spoke slowly and painstakingly as he repeated a famous oath:
"I shall shed my light over dark evil,
For the dark things cannot stand the light, the light of the Green
Lantern!"
"Make me immune to globlass guns!"
he aimed that thought at the ring, and was satisfied when a green mist floated
out of the ring, surrounded him, and then seemed to be absorbed by his body. He
strolled to the balcony and then launched himself into the air - and climbed as
strongly as possible.
His deliberate climb attracted the attention
of two high flying members of the Flight Patrol, and they quickly intercepted
him.
"Flier! Reemain at thisss levelll and
identifyyyy yourssssself!" one screeched at him.
He ignored them, so they shot him with their
stunners. No effect. They attempted to close with him, so they could engage
with other weapons. They were both spinning bolos, and one had unlimbered a
large net with his other hand. Their normal tactics were to entangle an
opponent with the bolos, then wrap him in the net, and they were well trained
in these maneuvers. The Flight Patrol included the strongest fliers in
Feitheria, yet Hawk Lad easily pulled away from them, and despite their vaunted
skill, he casually avoided the bolos. And then he was above them, climbing
strongly and they were unable to close, despite their struggles.
"Whennn you rrreeeeport how the pairrr
of you wassss sssso eeeeassssily outflown, tell themm I meeeean no harrmmm. I
want only to exxxxit and reeeturn to the world outssssidddde."
"To reeeeturn from exxxile meeeeanssss
death!" one outraged cop screamed at him.
"Nott today!" Horus squawked in
satisfaction, winging up and away with powerful, confident strokes.
He realized he felt good - better than he
could ever remember. He had easily outflown two members of the elite Flight
Patrol and avoided the infamous bolos. He remembered, years ago, watching in
awe as the Flight Patrol flew in formation in parades, performing difficult
aerobatic routines and showing off their highly trained precision flying. Well,
he was awed no longer!
Over the past few years, first at the Legion
Academy and then as a member of the Legion of Justice, Hawk Lad had undergone
flight training virtually every day. Strength, agility, endurance,
maneuverability, dogfighting, and combat vs. flightless opponents. - and
whatever other tortures General Urban, his staff, or Canary could design. To
Horus, this training had originally seemed redundant - after all, teaching a
bird to fly seemed like selling ice to Eskimos. But he had quickly become very
very frustrated at how tough the training was!
Hawk Lad was the only current or recent
Legionnaire who flew using wings, The energy-powered fliers such as Equal, the
Bronze Blonde, Princess Prime, Greenfire and Star Lass were apparently
unaffected by acceleration or inertia, and they could easily outmaneuver him,
or beat him in any race. It had taken years before he finally had won a
training exercise, by outthinking his opponents rather than by outflying them.
And now, back in his lost home, that constant
training was paying off. He was easily able to outfly the best Feitheria had to
offer! Hawk Boy often felt like the weak link on Legion missions, and it was gratifying
to realize how Legion training had improved his capabilities.
They must have called for help. From several
directions, armored flying vessels were racing towards him. The Feitherian
equivalent of light tanks, these vessels had armor and weapons more deadly than
the globlass. Each disgorging a dozen armed Flight Patrol fliers. One of the
vessels fired a warning shot at him; no stun beam this time, but a small
cannon.
A giant glowing green hand reached out and
caught the shell, and harmlessly smothered the explosion that followed. A
glowing green sphere sprang into existence around Hawk Lad, and he continued to
float upwards. Beams sizzled out against his green shield, explosive shells
exploded, nets, bolos, spears and bullets bounced off, and he ignored them all.
Within seconds, he reached the artificial blue 'top of the sky' and passed
through, rising into the rock roof of the cavern like a green-shrouded ghost.
Eventually, the solid rock around him changed to solid ice, and after another
while he flew out into the sky of the outside world.
"Whyyy sshhould I wait arounddd here for
the SSSTealthhh Sssquad?" he thought. As a Feitherian, he had an extremely
accurate sense of location, and he knew from history that Green Lantern had
been able to cross interstellar space.
"Drakkkke, I neeed your help!" he
concentrated on the ring. "Lletssss reeeturn to Knightt Bassssse!" He
ordered the ring to take him instantly to Knight Base, and he thought he could
feel Drake's mind trying to help. There was a tremendous boom, and a circular
hole opened in the sky in front of them. Horus flew into a dark green tunnel in
the sky; the walls shimmered with patterns that were almost imperceptible and
constantly changing. The other end of the tunnel seemed to be millions of miles
away, and it rushed towards them at frightening speed, and only a second or so
later the exited into the Transporter Room of Knight Base.
Canary and WildCat were stunned that their
teammate(s) had returned so quickly. Gernsbeck went into something of a
computer snit, because up until then, he had been the only known power able to
generate a Boom Tube. After Horus told his story, there were a lot of questions
about Drake and the Power Ring.
"Can you communicate with him?"
"Not ssssure, I thhhhought I
ssssenssssed hissss mind, but I didn'tttt 'heeear' any thoughtssss."
"Can he use his power via the
ring?"
"I don'ttt think sssooo. Unlessss I
commanddd it, the ring sssseeeemssss to be quieeeesssssscent."
"You don't suppose we could leave him in
the ring, do you?" Canary asked. "Sorry, forget I said that. It's
just that a Green Lantern would be so much more useful than Greenfire…"
"SCREEE!!! Gina, that'ssss not
funnyyyy!" Horus screamed at her. "Heeee can heeeear you!"
"Just kidding. Can you get him out of
the ring?"
"Weeee won't knowww until I try."
Hawk Lad flew off down the corridor, into Drake's lab, and aimed the ring at
the empty containment suit. A green glow formed about the ring, and coalesced
into a green cloud, which floated across the room and into the containment
suit. Horus tossed the ring through the open faceplate into the suit, and then
closed the faceplate.
"LET ME AT HER!" Burroughs screamed
in a voice so powerful the walls actually shook. "I'LL PUT HER INTO
A DAMNED RING!" He started flying towards the door but Hawk Lad grabbed
him. "Out of my way, Feathers! When I'm done with her, you're next! I
can't believe you USED me like that! Overriding my will like I wasn't even
there!" He pulsed with energy, and Horus was slammed back against the wall.
"You can't imagine how demeaning it is,
to have to carry out someone else's wishes like a slave. Worse than a slave; a
slave can at least refuse. You thought, I acted. It was like I didn't exist.
No, worse, because I was aware the whole time but couldn't do anything about
it." As he spoke, green energy flared from his suit, and each flare
shattered or broke something in the lab. Several flares struck Horus, battering
him to the floor.
"Drake! I kept both of usssss from being
captured!" No response. "I put the ring inssssside your sssssuit
ssssso it can't happen again!" Greenfire turned slowly to look at him.
"You ssssaid we were coussinsss!"
Greenfire waved his arm, and Horus was pushed
out the door by a wave of green energy. "You get away from me, and stay
away. And tell Canary she freepin better leave me alone for a while, too!"
The door slammed in Hawk Lad's face.
"Freepin Great!" Canary sighed
sarcastically, when she heard this from Hawk Lad. "Just another fun day in
the Legion of Justice!"
Legion of Justice Time Storm
Chapter 10
For their
spy mission to Earth, the Legion Stealth Squad chose the Legion's biggest
cruiser, Aurora. It had more room than they needed, which would be nice for a 4
day trip, but it also had the best shields and stealth capabilities available.
This was supposed to be a secret mission, not a fight.
Rex was
gushing about the Aurora's stealth capabilities. "No sensor I've ever seen
can pierce this stealth field! This ship could land on top the Presidential
Palace and Security wouldn't know it until the roof collapsed. We're invisible
in every spectrum of light we can measure, and the inertial drive is silent in
atmosphere." Rex was gloating. "Amgov has suppressed detection
technology for almost 300 years - now they'll pay!"
Rand wasn't
so sure... "C'mon, Rex, you know why we're going to Earth... we think
Amgov is hiding knowledge of temporal physics from the public - and even from
top scientists like you. What makes you think they aren't hiding superior
detection technology as well?" Maybe he was just naturally suspicious? The
two bickered during most of the trip - but they spent as much time as possible
during the trip trying to improve the Aurora's stealth capabilities. Chemique
spent a lot of time working with Gernsbeck, programming various evade and
escape routines into the cruiser's autopilot. If their stealth failed, and
Amgov defenses detected Aurora, either the autopilot would save the cruiser or
not, but there could be no useful human intervention. With speed-of-light
weapons and a battle theatre less than a quarter second across, any battle
could easily be over before even the most intent human could even notice it had
begun.
As well,
Chemique kept the team busy with strategy planning sessions and a lot of
virtual reality training simulations. A big topic of concern in the strategy
sessions was whether Urbane would expect the Legion to return to Earth looking
for suppressed technology? Given the advanced technology they had encountered
so far in the extra-solar community, why should the Legion return to Earth and
risk the consequences of capture when advanced technology was available at much
lower risk everywhere else? It was Rand who pointed out that trying to outguess
Urbane was more likely to lead to doom than taking some extra precautions. So
they made their preparations based on the assumption that Amgov Security would
be expecting to encounter the Legion of Justice.
Where they
should look was another hotly debated topic. Rex was certain he knew the
location of the place they began to call the 'Suppressed Technology Center';
Rand was as certain that Rex's knowledge would lead them into a trap.
"You
have to assume that Urbane knows everything you know," was his reasoning.
"If you've figured out something, it's virtually certain you were
following clues that he left for you!" Rex was extremely angry over this
line of reasoning, but Chemique found it compelling - and she was the leader of
the Stealth Squad. So they evolved a plan to locate the Suppressed Technology
Center without depending on clues Urbane might know about.
Finally it
was time to put their insertion strategy to the test. They reached the Solar
System and Randal placed the Aurora in solar orbit near Mars, where they
monitored incoming star freighters. There were usually several each week, and
they didn't have long to wait. With their extra-solar stealth systems on high,
they matched course with a freighter and flew alongside until it reached one of
the Earth-Orbital Transshipment Space Stations owned by Amgov. The Wanderer
cruiser then moved off slowly, with stealth system turned up high and all other
systems turned off or down to minimum.
In their
small, darkened control room, the 4 Legionnaires anxiously monitored their
instruments, feeling rather helpless. Whether the stealth systems held or not,
for the time being, they could do nothing more than observe.
"Aurora
is being painted!" Rex stated, a combination of dismay and awe in his
voice. His ego was punctured as well - he had almost believed, deep down, that
his own improvements to the already-advanced stealth technology of the Wanderer
cruiser, would make it undetectable by anything Amgov might be hiding.
"Target lock! Autopilot initiating evade and escape programming."
Aurora's
shields went up as the useless stealth system went offline. On a standard
Wanderer cruiser, it took just under 7 seconds to charge the hypermotor for the
first hyperspace jump. Rex and Rand had improved the latency time for Aurora to
just over 3 seconds. Could the cruiser's shields, aided by the escape and evade
programming newly upgraded by Chemique and Gernsbeck, keep the ship intact for
those infinitely long 3 seconds?
6 laser
beams blasted from nearby Guardian satellites and converged on the cruiser. The
ship's inertial drives were flaring, seemingly at random, as the autopilot
jinked and juked, trying to avoid being skewered by those impossibly fast
swords of brilliant green light. Aurora's own lasers fired back, and two of the
Guardian satellites were destroyed. Before anyone could cheer about this,
another half dozen Guardian satellites dropped out of stealth and added their
fire. All of this occurred in the first half second.
The
cruiser's shields were by now almost saturated, and the tactical computer was
forced to divert power from the ship's weapons to shields. The cruiser's
original shields would have been overloaded and collapsed already, but Rex and
Rand had been able to strengthen them considerably. The autopilot managed to
slip Aurora closer to the space station, and about half of the lasers had to
stop firing to keep from hitting friendly targets. Taking advantage of the
'shadow' of the space station, Aurora blasted directly away from Earth at its
highest possible acceleration. Guardian satellites from further away joined the
battle as they come into line-of-sight for the cruiser. Only another 2 seconds
to go. Rex's instruments showed that the shields were straining but should be
able to hold, barring something unexpected.
General
Urbane was a belt-and-suspenders type of guy, and the designers of Amgov's
defenses had to satisfy him. The Guardian satellites weren't Amgov's only
orbital weapons. There was an array of larger, much more powerful lasers
mounted on the space station, and now that the cruiser was in a position where
those lasers could be used without risking damage to the Earth below, these
weapons were brought online. Each station-mounted laser was easily several
hundred times more powerful than the weapon in a Guardian satellite, and the
cruiser's shields didn't have a chance. Her hypermotor flared, but there had
not been enough time to build up the power necessary to hyperjump - and Aurora,
and everything aboard, was vaporized virtually instantaneously. No questions
asked, no attempt at contact, no mercy!
The 4 Legionnaires
observed the valiant Aurora's desperate last battle from aboard the Hot Rod, a
nanosecond in the future.
"C'mon,
Tommy, let's get a move on!" Rex was sweating. "I can't hide this
boat for long…" Holding the 30' pinnace uptime was pushing his power to
his limits.
But Tommy
was already diving the Hot Rod Earthwards at maximum safe velocity (or maybe a
little bit faster). The ceramic hull of the boat was heating up as they entered
Earth's atmosphere at meteoric speed. Chemique was directing him towards the
Atlantic Ocean.
'Weather
monitors show a nasty storm about a hundred miles off the coast of New Jersey.
I wish it were a little closer to Gunderson" formerly the District of
Columbia "but it will do."
"It
will HAVE to… do" Rex managed to get out.
"Hold
on, Rex!" Tommy tried to assure his teammate. "5 Minutes, max!"
Even Rand,
who was perhaps the best pilot in the Legion (though, Hawk Lad would have
argued about that) was impressed with Tommy's skill as he brought the Hot Rod
down through the atmosphere into the storm. From orbit to hovering in a violent
thunderstorm in under 5 minutes was no mean feat - even with extra-solar
technology. The inertial dampeners were the only thing that made it possible -
the little ship must have pulled 50 Gs a couple of times during the dive and
subsequent pull-up. Suddenly, the Hot Rod was hovering motionless in a steamy
fog in the center of a raging thunderstorm, rain flashing to vapor as it struck
the ship's now ultraheated ceramic hull.
Motionless?
A relative term. Compared to orbital velocity, compared to the mad dash from
orbit to their current station, the Hot Rod was now dead still. But even
extra-solar technology couldn't totally ignore or compensate for the raging
winds inside this fierce storm. Despite the best efforts of the autopilot, ably
aided by the human pilot, the Hot Rod swayed and pitched, yawed and rolled like
a balloon tethered in front of a ventilation fan. They couldn't plunge into the
ocean until the hull had cooled off.
Tommy was
far too busy trying to smooth out the hover to notice the effect of this
pitching and rolling on his teammates, who were struggling against motion
sickness. Rex, who had dropped them back to real time the instant they entered
the storm, was floating his chair independently of the Hot Rod, which worked OK
for the smaller bounces and jolts, but when the pinnace instantly jumped a good
distance in a random direction, which it did often, the protective force field
around his chair would jar off of the bulkheads. The little movements didn't
affect him, while the big ones were worse for him than his teammates.
Miqui was
able to slow down her metabolism to the point where she was barely affected by
the ship's rapid movements, though by doing this, she also drastically slowed
down her mental processes. She hoped she wouldn't have to make any snap
judgments in the near future; any emergency situation would be long resolved by
the time she had made up her mind about a course of action!
The
Legionnaire having the hardest time with his stomach was Rand - who would have
been fine if he had been doing the piloting. As it was, he was concentrating
desperately on his reputation as the Legion's tough guy who could handle
anything. They'd change his code name to 'Flash' if he couldn't handle this, he
just knew it. And they'd make sure every girl he ever met for the next 20 years
would hear this story, over and over again!
The volume
of rain cascading around the hovering spaceship quickly lowered the hull
temperature to under boiling, and Rand was still (barely) in control of his
stomach when Tommy finally splashed them down into the ocean. 15 feet under,
the violent motions began to abate, and his teammates started returning to
normal. Tommy had been concentrating so fiercely he hadn't noticed any
discomfort. He quickly took them down to 200 feet and got them moving slowly
towards shore, then put the Hot Rod on autopilot and started checking his other
instruments.
Rex was
giving his brother a hard time. "Geez, you need a new costume designer.
The blue and yellow uniform doesn't go well at all with the green face!"
Rand didn't
even feel well enough to respond. Instead, he turned his attention to the Hot
Rod's instrument panel and started shutting down the systems that weren't
useful in this environment - and turning on the few that would be helpful now,
such as the sonar. Designed to penetrate the very thick atmospheres of gas
giants, it should serve them just as well in the oceans of Earth. And
concentration on these tasks helped him forget his queasy stomach.
After a few
anxious minutes, Tommy made the announcement everyone was waiting for.
"Well, I wouldn't want to do this every day - the Hot Rod is a spaceship,
not a submarine. But the hull is handling the pressure just fine, the inertial
engines work well enough, and life support will hold up for as long as we plan
to be submerged."
"And
the sonar picture is almost as good as being able to see" Rand crowed.
"I
sure wouldn't want to be outside in this sludge!" Chemique's voice
radiated emphatic disgust. She was sensing the chemical composition of the
fluid outside. "It's like we're in a sewer!"
"I've
heard that the water is cleaner closer to the surface" Rex offered.
"We're deep enough to be cruising through the accumulated waste products
of our civilization, dumped into the ocean for 500 years. Yuck!"
"OK,
time to get to work. Rand?" Mique changed the subject.
Hour Boy
smiled. "You won't even know I was gone, see?" His position shifted
slightly, the only indication that he had just spent an hour in the past as a
phantom, spying on government installations.
"I
checked out several Amgov radar installations along the Jersey coast, as well
as the observation station at the military spaceport on Fire Island - and
nobody noticed us."
There was a
chance that Amgov maintained some secret space observation facilities along the
coast, but Rand didn't know those secret locations, so he had checked as many
known facilities as he could reach in an hour in his phantom form. It was the
best they could do.
"OK,
since we seem to be undetected, we'll go with Plan A." Chemique confirmed.
A few hours
cruising and they entered Delaware Bay, where they had to be more careful.
Their stealth systems would hide them from the sonar of any surface vessels,
and this was a busy shipping port. It wouldn't do for a cargo ship to hit an
invisible, sonar-proof obstruction. Chemique quickly moved them to Plan A
Prime. They dropped to the bottom and waited a couple of hours for dark. As
they passed the time, Miqui and Tommy proved to be an unbeatable team at
euchre, and Rex had a flair for bridge, regardless of who he paired with. Soon
enough, it was time to continue the mission.
Rex
concentrated and moved the Hot Rod uptime. Tommy flipped a switch and the
autopilot took over, raising them from Delaware Bay, flashing across the Upper
Chesapeake Peninsula, then down again into Crab Alley Bay near Kent Island,
much faster than Tommy could have done it. Rex hardly had time to complain,
when the signal came that it was safe for him to return them to normal time.
The water here was much cleaner - though still not clean enough to swim in.
Fortunately they didn't have to.
One again,
Rand dove back into the past, this time scouting the nearby island as a
phantom, and almost immediately found what they needed. An abandoned estate
with a large boathouse. Shortly thereafter the Hot Rod was safely hidden inside
the boathouse. The estate had once been home to a rich family, but after
centuries of Amgov, there was no longer a wealthy class. The immense taxes the
producer class had to pay had soon driven this family into one of the slums
with all the other producers. Some entitled had lived her for a while, but
entitled didn't work - even to do maintenance - and the place had fallen into
such disrepair that even the entitled wouldn't live here any longer. Even to
the politically and socially naïve Legionnaires, the fallen estate pointed out
the irony of their mission - they were trying to save this timeline, meaning,
save Amgov.
"What
they would bring about is even worse than Amgov" Miqui was constantly
reassuring her teammates. Tommy, who had been pretty much enslaved into the
Legion Academy when his powers manifested, and Rex, whose body had been
destroyed on Amgov orders, found this to be a very thin rationalization. Canary
had prepared her for this eventuality, however. Miqui showed her teammates a
video Canary had recorded before they left - just in case.
"Once
we've stopped Savage and Mekanique" Canary promised "the Legion of
Justice will begin working with the underground in the Utopian States of
America to topple Amgov. We'll finally live up to our name. So, pick up as many
Amgov secrets as you safely can without compromising your main mission."
As Canary
had know it would be, this was just the impetus the Stealth Squad needed to
regain their enthusiasm. Time to get started on their mission!
****
The spacer
wanted to party hard. He had a wad of Amgov money from some kind of transaction
he'd just made, and Amgov money was worthless outside of the Utopian States, so
he might as well spend it on a bender! He wandered into a bar on the outskirts
of Chesapeake Spaceport and made some instant friends when he bought several
rounds on the house. There was a lot of curiosity - what kind of business was
he doing that made him so much money? His new friends were all wondering how
they could get in on it…
He really
wasn't much good at keeping secrets - and the prodigious amount he'd had to
drink didn't help, either. Even so, it took a while before his new friends
realized he had probably just done some highly illegal trading in off-world
technology. Seconds after they twigged, he was alone at his table and the bar
was empty. His former companions knew that lightning was about to strike -
hard. The Port Authority would give a big reward to the snitch who first
reported this technology smuggler. Everyone wanted that reward - and no one
wanted to be around when Port Security arrived!
Even in his
wasted condition, the sudden exodus around him worried the spacer. He dumped
his travel bag on the table, spilling out a lot of small gadgets, and quickly
fumbled through them, looking for some specific items: a gun and a device that
looked like a 1960s transistor radio. He flicked a switch on the 'radio' and was
surrounded with a golden glow; he then fastened the device to his belt. He
raised the gun towards the door.
Two Port
Authority Security officers wearing powered combat armor smashed through the
doors. The spacer fired before they could attack. A cone of pale blue flashed
out of the gun and the Security combat armor stopped working, freezing the two
Port Authority officers in place. This was unfortunate for them, as 3 more
armored officers smashed them aside and fired their weapons before the spacer
could react. When their energy beams hit the golden glow, the spacer was
smashed backwards against the far wall of the bar. Then his force field failed,
and there was a violent explosion. The explosion blasted a hole in the wall and
floor, and the collapse of his force field totally vaporized the spacer.
"No
matter how many times we warn them, they never listen." the commanding
officer commented. "Too bad we couldn't bring him in, but we got his
toys…" He swept the gear from the table back into the spacer's abandoned
carryall bag. "Give the boys in the lab something to do, too!"
Hour Boy
dove into the past with a great sigh of relief. He had known all along that TeleTeen's
telekinetic field stopped blaster fire. He'd seen it often enough in Legion
training exercises; heck, Tommy had even saved him from some blaster burns in
real firefights. But nothing he had ever done had prepared him to look
'drunkenly' into the barrels of 3 blasters and do nothing while their owners
pulled the triggers!
When Rand
vanished, Tommy dropped his shield, and the explosive device Rand had been
holding was blasted backwards until it struck the wall of the bar and then
exploded. The explosion should be violent enough that the Port Authority
Security goons would believe that Rand had been vaporized - but his bag of
dangerous hi-tech off world gadgets was left behind. That was the theory, at
least. He wouldn't know for sure if it worked until he returned to the present,
a few subjective minutes from now.
He had only
dived backwards a few minutes rather than his normal hour - just long enough to
spy on his earlier party in his phantom form, and see if he could figure out
who had first ratted him out. He wasn't actually pleased to see that it was the
bartender. He'd felt a little guilty about the damage he was going to do - but
he'd just spent enough to let the bartender take a week off, and still the
greedy freepin brotch-face had called Security and reported him. He'd been
planning to send the bar an anonymous donation to cover the repairs - now he
hoped the damn place caught on fire and burned to the ground!
He slipped
through the ceiling of the bar up to the roof, where his teammates were waiting
for him in the present. He perched on one arm of Rex's chair and waited. At
exactly the same instant that he vanished from the bar below, he surfaced in
the present. In less than a blink, Rex pulled the whole team a few nanos
uptime, and they spent a minute cheering their success.
"I was
never so scared in my entire life!" Rand yelled at the top of his lungs.
Rex smiled, and did a quick loop-the-loop. so fast they didn't have time to
fall while they were upside down.
"What
a smooth operation!" Tommy crowed. "What a great plan, Mique!"
He gave her a high 5.
"And
you guys, your timing was superb!" she praised her team, feeling a glow of
pride. Maybe she really could lead the Stealth Squad!
It had been
a good plan, and they'd brought it off perfectly. Rex had carried them here,
undetectable a few nanos uptime, then she'd used her powers on the bar's alarm
system, turning a few semi-conductors into insulators. Tommy had used his
powers to open a window on the second floor, and she and Tommy had slipped
inside. Rex couldn't fit through the window, so he'd had to wait on the roof,
hiding uptime.
They had
used their powers to help Rand look like he was drinking a lot - but Tommy had
been able to teleport most of Rand's drinks into the glasses of the other
revelers, and she'd sped up the metabolic process in Rand's body that broke the
remaining alcohol down to harmless sugars. At the critical time, Rand had fired
a flashlight at the first two Security troops, and she'd done the
'semiconductor to insulator' trick on their armor - and then Tommy had blocked
the blaster beams of the next 3 agents. And then Rand had used his own powers
to disappear, and a bomb of his own design to disguise his escape.
A big
charade - and carried out perfectly. The question was, would it convince the
Security agents that the gadgets in Rand's discarded travel bag were dangerous
off-world technology? Would they carry the bag back to the Center for
Technological Suppression (Rex's name for a hypothetical place)? Would the
homing beacons in the phony hi-tech gadgets allow them to locate the CTS for
the next phase of their plan? Well, they'd know in an hour or so.
Several of
the gadgets in Rand's discarded space bag emitted subspace static, and the
Stealth Squad hoped that tracking the bag until it stopped would give them
their next target. They gathered to watch a computer screen that showed a
flashing icon that represented the bag moving across the map of the Gunderson
DC area. Originally, the icon moved, somewhat erratically, to the southwest,
and came to a stop in an area labeled 'Springfield'. Then it started moving
again, back towards the northeast, at a constant velocity of about 150 miles
per hour. Rex noted something unusual.
"It's
about 400 feet underground. And," he gloated, "it's moving directly
towards the Smithsonian. I'd sure like to bump up my wager a little!" Rex
had picked the Smithsonian in the 'Where in the world is the secret technology
center?' pool.
"No
way, Rexie!" Tommy complained, sadly. "The pool closed just before
Rand left on his mission, and you know it. Besides," his face lit up,
"it looks like maybe they fooled you too!" The monitor showed that
whatever was carrying the bag had passed the Smithsonian, and was still headed
to the northeast. Rex groaned, as he realized he'd lost. Not the Smithsonian,
the bag was headed somewhere else.
"There
must be some kind of secret government underground transport system!"
Chemique guessed. "At that heading, it could easily connect DC, Baltimore,
Philly, Newark, Gotham, and New York. I'll bet it goes all up and down the
whole East Coast!" She wondered what other secrets Amgov kept?
"The
Smithsonian was just too obvious, anyway." Tommy wouldn't let Rex off the
hook, and he had to plug his own guess. "I still think it's in
Newark!"
From Rand,
a little scornfully: "Why would Amgov put a secret technology center in
Newark? I think it's near the Citadel of Justice," which was near Gotham
City. "Urbane spends most of his time at the Citadel of Justice, and you
know this is just the kind of thing he'd want to keep a close eye on! What do
you think, Miqui?"
"I
think we'll know soon enough - and all you guys will owe me money!" she
said smugly. She had picked 'none of the above'.
About halfway
between Gunderson, DC and Baltimore, the bag stopped moving. "Still down
400 feet. Got a good read on its location. Looks like we're up, little
brother!" Rex and Rand were scheduled to make the first scouting trip. Rex
would fly the two of them to the precise location indicated by their tracking
system, undetectable a nano in the future, and then Rand would scout the site.
"No
sense waiting" Rand agreed. "Let's go!"
Hidden from
spying eyes in the abandoned boathouse sheltering the Hot Rod, Rand sat on the
arm of Rex's float chair, and Rex moved them uptime. He then applied max power
to the chair's flight system, and away they went. It was almost 50 miles to
their target, and they had to find a place to hide, once, while Rex rested - he
couldn't hold both of them uptime that long. When they reached the target area,
Rex landed directly above the signal.
"Target
400 feet, straight down. Ready?"
Rand was
more than a little nervous - but he couldn't let Rex see it. "Sure, let's
do it!"
"OK,
Countdown to real time… 5 seconds on my mark… 4… 3… 2… 1… mark!"
Rand's
position flickered slightly. "GO! I've got what we need!" he said.
He'd been gone for an hour, by his own subjective time - and no time at all,
from Rex's point of view.
"Seems
like a waste of time, me flying for an hour out and then an hour back, and
we're only here for less than a split instant!" Rex grumbled as he
returned them to uptime, and they headed back to the Hot Rod.
He knew
better, though. When he was in his phantom form, Rand couldn't use mechanical
or electrical navigation systems, so the only way he could be sure of his
precise location was by using a global positioning system in real time. And Rex
was the only one who could carry him here and be sure that they remained
undetected. It seemed like a lot of extra work, but given the tools and powers
they had available to them, it was the best plan they had come up with.
Still,
complaining helped Rex release some of his own nervousness. What could he have
done if his brother hadn't returned on schedule? Even with the capabilities of
his chair, there was little he could do in the way of a rescue operation. He
hated being helpless - and he swore to himself that he wouldn't be confined to
this damn chair forever!
Though he
couldn't use recording instruments while in his phantom form, Rand had trained
extensively in the Legion Academy to be a very careful observer, and he had a
memory that was almost photographically precise. He immediately started
describing what he had seen during the past hour, and the computer in Rex's
chair (a remote fragment of Gernsbeck) began building a holographic image based
on his description. The two headed back to the Hot Rod, undetectable a nano in
the future, with Rand dictating as they flew - and a holographic image of the
'secret technology center' growing in the air between them.
****
Rand's
phantom form appeared an hour in the past, at the surface location where his
brother would soon land the two of them. He didn't move at all for several
seconds, committing his position to memory. He would need to be in exactly this
same position in exactly one hour, so Rex could pick him up and they could
return to their temporary base. He then moved around and spent a few more
minutes memorizing landmarks. As a phantom, he couldn't make any helpful marks
in the soil - so he had to make doubly sure of this location in his memory.
Descending
400 feet into the solid Earth was as scary as anything Rand had ever done
before. Rand could not force himself to remain in the past as a phantom longer
than an hour - at the end of that hour, he _would_ return to the present and
rematerialize into his solid form, regardless of where he happened to be. And
he was pretty sure that if he were to rematerialize inside something solid, the
career of Hour Boy would end with a BANG, not a whimper!
In his
phantom form, Rand was not affected by gravity, so his sense of Up and Down
depended on sight. And when he passed through solid matter, he couldn't see. If
he somehow became disoriented while blindly moving through bedrock 400 feet
underground, the direction he thought of as Up might actually be taking him
towards the center of the Earth rather than the surface. And at a top speed of
600 miles an hour, no way could he pass through the entire planet before his
hour was up.
Scuba
divers, in deep water and total darkness sometimes experience a similar
problem, becoming disoriented and not knowing which way is Up. But the analogy
fails - there is a solution for divers, you blow a bubble and follow it up (if
you have a flashlight). In his phantom form, Rand had neither the flashlight or
the capability to blow bubbles. Somehow his Legion training had failed to
prepare him for this situation, and he would have to address it in the future.
For now, he would have to be VERY careful not to lose track of 'Up'.
And, how
would he know if he'd missed his target? Unless he came out into an open space,
he wouldn't be able to see anything. This whole operation should have been
planned more carefully! Damn, he'd been sure he knew everything there was to know
about using his powers, but now he was finding out all kinds of new limits he'd
never been aware of before.
One of the
aspects of his powers that he DID know well was moving about (flying, as it
were) in his phantom form. Holding himself stiffly upright, Rand descended into
the ground at a constant rate that he estimated was about 5 feet per second. If
he didn't find anything in 2 minutes, he would return to the surface, pick a
new spot, and try again. But he didn't have to, Rex's tracking system had
brought him to the right place.
Just over a
minute after he began his descent, he passed through the ceiling of a gigantic
room - the largest room he had ever seen, with walls so distant he wasn't sure
he could really see them. It looked like a tremendous warehouse, with stacks of
identical wooden crates piled high as far as he could see. Directly below him,
two workers were just sealing his space bag into another crate. Except for the bag
and some packing material, the crate was empty. Except for a small label,
stenciled on the side, the crate was identical to every other crate Rand could
see. The sealed crate was loaded onto a forklift that trundled off on a
seemingly random path.
Rand was no
longer interested in that particular crate, he already knew what was in it.
What interested him was what was in the other 100,000 or so other crates that
he could see?
****
"It's
weird. There is a relatively small square section right in the middle where the
floor appears to be native rock - probably the floor of a cave, leveled by hand
tools. And the crates in that area look really 'primitive' and ancient. I mean,
the boards look like they were cut by hand, some of them still have bark on
them, and they aren't even all the same width or length - and the crates
certainly aren't 'square'. One side might be a couple inches taller than the
other, that kind of thing. And the wood is really old - so old it's turned
black. And everything on that rock floor is buried in inches of dust!"
"Then
there is a sort of square 'ring' around that, where the floor is concrete, and
the crates are much more uniform, and there is a lot less dust.. And then a
third 'ring', where the floor is plasticrete and the piles of crates are lower.
They put the crate with my bag into this third ring. I think that a long time
ago, somebody started storing dangerous stuff in a cave… and when the cave ran
out of room, whoever was in charge decided to build an underground warehouse around
the stuff that was already in the cave. But…" he paused, wanting to make
sure his listeners got his point "they didn't move the crates that were
already there. And then, when they filled up the new space all the way to the
walls, they expanded again."
"So
what's in the crates?" Tommy asked eagerly.
Rand
actually shuddered. "You don't want to know, Tommy. Some of the stuff must
be incredibly dangerous - so dangerous that whoever stored it here grew the
warehouse around it rather than disturb it by moving it. Let's just forget the
crates and move on."
Tommy was
astonished to hear fear in Rand's voice. Rand was the bravest person Tommy
knew. If something scared Rand, Tommy would be happy to avoid it. But Rex
wasn't going to let them 'forget the crates and move on'. His curiosity was
aroused, and he had to know more.
"You
didn't figure that out right away when you found the warehouse. I'll bet you
looked into a bunch of those 'dangerous' crates before you got scared off, and
yet, you survived. I, for one, want to know what you found. I'll bet we can use
a lot of the stuff that is stored there. If you're not too scared to tell us,
that is." he taunted his brother.
"Damn
it, Rex! I did look into a couple of them - and I'm not going to look in any
more, orders or not." His voice was flat - he wasn't going to argue about
this. Perhaps hoping to convince his teammates, he went on, in a whisper
"One
of the oldest crates had a coffin in it - and inside the coffin is what looks
like a man with wings and inch long fangs - and a wooden stake through his
heart. But other than the stake, he looks like he's just asleep - like he could
wake up and drink your blood at the slightest noise! Not too far away, there's
a crate with a bathtub in it. You know, the old iron kind with legs? And it's
coated with some kind of disgusting crusty brown stuff. But the worst part is,
there is an aura of absolute evil surrounding it - an aura so awful I couldn't
stand to be near it!"
Rex's face
must have showed what he thought about auras. "Damn you, Rex! This is not
a joke or a ghost story. There is great evil connected to that tub, and in my
phantom form I could feel it. It almost felt like… like… gross!" He was
just now working it out. "The bathtub and the vampire felt sort of alike -
the bathtub wanted my blood!" He turned his back on his teammates and
doubled over, and they heard him retching. Finally, he said, weakly "It
was coated in dried blood… and it wanted more… and it was calling me!"
Rex hadn't
yet figured out just how awful this was for his brother. "Didn't you see
anything in any of the other crates that we could use?" He was
incredulous.
"No!"
Rand was emphatic, almost shouting. "We should stay away from those
crates. There are dangerous and evil things in some of them, and we shouldn't
disturb them."
"So,
did you find anything elsewhere in that underground compound that might help
us?" Miqui asked. She had to change the subject before Rand and Rex got
into a fight. Rand was grateful to talk about something else - anything but the
contents of the crates!
"There's
an underground facility attached to the 'warehouse'. Apparently the staff lives
there pretty much full time, but they don't go into the warehouse itself unless
they have to crate something up. They've got living quarters, a recreation
facility, labs, a big room full of file cabinets, a room with a big computer
and lots of terminals, a kitchen, everything they need. I think what _we_ need,
we could find in the computer room, if we could get our computer genius in there
and give him adequate time." He looked at his brother, and there was a
challenging tone in his voice.
"It
seems logical that information about temporal physics would be stored in their
computer databanks. I agree - that computer room should be our target."
Rex responded. Miqui sighed to herself in relief. She'd gotten the brothers to
agree on something.
"Too
bad we can't just Boom in and then Boom out again" Tommy sighed.
"Well,
actually, we can." Rex responded sarcastically. "We can now use the
Boom Tube once a day. So we can 'Boom In' as you put it, and then 'Boom Out'
again 24 hours later. I'm sure they'll let us access their computers while
we're guests there!"
"Actually,
Rex, hold that thought… I'm starting to get an idea…." Miqui interjected.
"Good thinking, Tommy!" Tommy looked startled, then pleased, while
Rex looked like he'd just bit a lemon. Damn him, she'd just got him and his
bother straightened out and now he was harassing Tommy! Rex hadn't been a very
good teammate over the last few minutes. She made a mental note to talk to him
later.
"I
think, using our powers, we can do this. We're going to have to gather some
more information, and make some preparations - but that's what we do in the
Stealth Squad, right?"
"Miqui,
a lot of that stuff is way older than Amgov. Do you think General Urbane had
anything to do with it?"
"C'mon,
Tommy, I don't know everything! You should ask Cathy or Gina!" she joked;
Gina seemed to think she knew everything, and with her power, Cathy almost did.
"But I wouldn't be the least surprised. Anyway, let's talk about how we're
going to get in and out of there."
"I've
broken the operation down into 4 phases. Preparation, Get in, Gather the
information we need, Get out. You'll see that the only really difficult phase
is..."
Her
teammates were skeptical when she started talking. As she began explaining,
they started to accept her ideas, and in only a few minutes they were
enthusiastically contributing their own suggestions. When the strategy session
was over, they were convinced - they could do this!
****
Later that
evening, Rex sat alone in his tiny cabin aboard the Hot Rod, brooding. After
the strategy session, he'd had a little chat with Chemique. It had been rather
unsettling. She was a tough leader, as tough in her own way as Canary, though
she'd never raised her voice and never called him anything worse than a spoiled
brat.
"If
you can't act like part of the team, I'll send you back to Knight Base
tomorrow, now that we can use the Boom Tube once a day."
"You
can't do that." he said in a reasonable tone of voice. "You need a
computer expert for Phase 3. And I'm indispensable for the success of Phase 4,
too."
"Like
hell you are! I'll bet Star Lass would do just as well as you, and if she
couldn't, we'd freepin well come up with some other plan." Her voice was
composed; she was using angry words but there was no anger in her tone. He
found that disconnect between her words and her tone to be very disconcerting.
"We
have to work together flawlessly, trust each other implicitly. It's tough to
trust someone who is mocking you. Stop acting like a spoiled brat, now, or I'll
replace you with Theresa." He was about to say something, but she didn't
let him.
"I
know it will waste time, sending you back and then waiting 24 hours more before
we can use the Boom Tube again and bring her here, but I don't care. Think
about it; let me know first thing tomorrow. If you decide to stick around, you
better do better!"
Nobody
talked to him that way! He was the smartest Legionnaire (by far!) and the
oldest member of this team. He'd graciously agreed to let a younger teammate
run the team, but she still couldn't talk to him like that! He'd go back to Knight
Base tomorrow, and when the rest of the team failed, he would very obviously
not say "I told you so!" They would all have to acknowledge his
foresight and justifiable caution. With that settled in his mind, he went to
bed.
But he
couldn't sleep, his mind kept running at top speed. When Rand had first told
them about the security he'd discovered around the Secret Technology Center,
most of the Stealth Squad had given up - their mission was impossible and
Canary hadn't sent them on a suicide mission! Yet, Chemique had refused to give
up, and she'd soon come up with the basics of a plan that had restored the
confidence of her teammates. If he were to be removed from the team, her
current plan would become useless. But, wouldn't she just refuse to quit, and
instead come up with yet another great plan? And then the rest of the Legion
would see him as a quitter, rather than a prophet, as an interchangeable piece
rather than a linchpin.
Spit, he
sure wasn't going to sleep tonight. He might as well do some work. He activated
the subspace link to Gernsbeck. "Beck, I'm going to need to penetrate the
security on some Amgov computers tomorrow. I need you to help me build some
utility programs. Here's what I have in mind - what do you think?"
Gernsbeck
was a lot more intelligent now that his programming was implemented on the
Knight Base mainframe supercomputer than he had been when he had lived in the
much smaller, slower, less advanced computer in Rex's hover chair. And millions
of times faster. He lacked human intuition and insight, but in their team, Rex
supplied those qualities. Gernsbeck knew computers and computer security, from
the inside out, as it were. They worked through the night to develop the tools
that Rex thought he would be needing soon. The next morning, he didn't say
anything to Chemique. Nothing needed to be said.
****
The rest of
the team wasn't idle while Rex stayed up all night creating computer hacking
tools - with the help of a supercomputer. Tommy, Rand and Miqui stayed up late,
using the tools and facilities of the Hot Rod's cramped workroom.
****
The next
morning, Rex floated through the sky towards Springfield, Va. The holographic
image projector built into the chair surround him with the seeming of a
government-issued skycar, and his radio was sending out the matching ID code to
anyone monitoring traffic. He didn't want to overuse his powers. His special
detection programs, written last night with assistance from Gernsbeck, probed
the ether for traces of government computer communications. He homed in on the
strongest signals, and landed in a nearby lot. Protected inside the image of an
empty car in an out-of-the-way corner of a parking garage, he set to work,
hacking into Amgov's computer network.
****
Tommy and
Miqui started their day in 'make up'. They needed to spend a lot of Wildcat's
money to buy personal electronics gear that Rand would pull apart and use to
build anti-personnel ordinance for their attack. But they couldn't be
recognized as missing Legionnaires!
Miqui was
easily able to disguise them by altering some chemical processes in their skin.
She made herself much darker, with red hair, and Tommy became quite fair. He
wore a wig, and she was able to use her powers to make sure it was anchored
securely (OK, she changed his perspiration into organic superglue, if you must
know!).
"Wow!
I look great!" he said enthusiastically, as he looked into a mirror. He
turned and asked wistfully "Do you think your powers could help me grow
real hair?"
She was
stunned. Tommy had never indicated he missed having hair - and she'd never
thought about how being bald would affect a 14 year old boy. "Why, I don't
know, Tommy. If all it involves is encouraging a chemical process in your
scalp, I probably can. Let's have Rex investigate when we get back." Was
Tommy's painful shyness the result of being bald?
The two
took a flying disk and concealed it not far from the nearest monorail station.
****
Now that he
knew where the secret technology center was, Rand could get there on his own.
He used a flying disk to approach as closely to the location as possible, then
hid the disk and dove an hour into the past. At his top speed, he flashed
through the ground and into the vast warehouse. This time his assignment was to
get a floor plan of the office and living areas and learn more about the full
time staff they might have to deal with.
Getting
assigned to the secret technology center must be a plum assignment. The
quarters were like a fancy hotel with all the amenities, fancy dining, health
club, reading room, even a theater. Working here would be way better than being
a producer; there was stuff even the entitled didn't have! But what was really
stunning to Rand was, who was currently assigned to this facility.
Coquette
was part of the facility security team!
****
Miqui and
Tommy thought they were being very careful about spending their money, but they
really didn't know their own society very well. Being in the Legion had
insulated them from reality. Producer kids just didn't have the kind of money
they were flashing, and entitled kids didn't need money. To the people on the
street who were paying attention, they must look like the kids of some big shot
entertainment celebrities who were too stupid to realize there was a reason
their folks always surrounded them with protection. So they'd slipped away on a
shopping adventure - and now they were nothin' but easy money! By the time
they'd come out of the third store, they had attracted a posse. Virtually
invisible - but dangerous nonetheless.
"Uh…
Mique?" Tommy sounded unsure of himself. "Do you know we're being
followed?"
She hadn't.
Even with all her Legion training, even though they were on a spy mission and
she thought she'd been at peak alertness. "Are you sure? Hold on…"
they walked on for another few minutes, but she still didn't notice anything.
"I can't tell, Tommy. Your powers?" Sometimes, for no reason anyone
could figure out, Tommy could sense human minds; other times not. Was this one
of those times?
"I
think so. Maybe I'm just imagining things. But that kid in the white top with
the blue 'do-rag? I think he's after you. And there's more around who want our
money."
"That's
gotta be coming from your powers. No way you could know it otherwise." she
responded. She was watching the blue 'do-rag reflected in a window. "I
still can't tell. Let's go this way…" she turned down a narrow side
street.
"Miqui,
I don't want to complain, but if they think we're running, they'll jump
us." Tommy was nervous.
"Best
way to find out who they are, eh?" she grinned at him. "C'mon, Tommy
- we are Legionnaires!" She turned down a narrower street, and then
started to run, ducking into an alley about halfway down the block. "Right
on time!" she stopped as two groups of people appeared at either end of
the alley. "You take the ones ahead, I've got the ones behind us."
"Miqui,
what if they have guns?" Tommy could protect himself from bullets and
energy weapons, but he wasn't sure he could protect them both.
She
concentrated for a second, spun in a circle, and ended with her back to him.
"Their guns won't be working so well, now, except as clubs."
She saw
some thrown stones bounce off an invisible barrier around them and realized
Tommy was already on the job. And then they were in a fight.
Someone
unfamiliar with Chemique might think that her powers wouldn't be of much use in
a fight, and that someone would be wrong. In fact, her powers were among the
most dangerous in the Legion, even though her teachers agreed that they were
still developing. She could easily bring all the chemical processes in her 4
attackers' bodies to a complete halt. Her biggest problem in a fight was
figuring out how to win without killing her opponents accidentally.
The
pavement in the alley was a little damp, which was good - water always helped
chemical reactions along. The damp pavement at the mouth of the alley suddenly
became very sticky. A couple of their attackers stumbled and fell, and then
their hands and arms and knees were stuck too - and instead of 4, she was
suddenly only facing two. She concentrated, and sped up all the reactions in
her own body, and suddenly those 2 appeared to be trying to walk through water.
A gentle slap to the cheek for each of those 2 - a slap she had practiced for
many subjective hours against a force gauge in the Legion gym before she ever
tried it on live opponents - and they spun around and fell to the ground. She
turned to help Tommy, but he didn't need her help.
Tommy
didn't look like a fighter - tall and skinny, he looked weak, and he was still
learning how to be tall without being clumsy (he had grown over a foot in the
last 4 years…) But Legion training helped him overcome his apparent
deficiencies. His telekinetic field protected him from fists, clubs and knives,
and gave extra oomph to his punches, kicks and throws. Instead of dodging a
knife attack, he waited as the lead thug thrust at his stomach with. He twisted
just a little, and the blow was deflected past him to his left. He snapped his
elbow down on the elbow of his opponent, and then turned to look for the next
threat.
The second
thug swung wildly at his head, and screamed in pain when he hit a brick wall
inches from Tommy's chin. Tommy grabbed his arm with both hands and threw him
over his right shoulder, telekinetically boosting him so he would fly over top
of Chemique's battle. Tommy didn't see him land in a pile of trash bags, which
split open, burying him in garbage, where he lay, moaning.
The other
two were smart enough to turn and run. But they had been stupid enough to
attack total strangers, and stupidity should always be rewarded. Tommy reached
out and telekinetically grabbed their ankles, then guided their falls so they
wouldn't break their necks when they smashed into the alley walls at top speed.
He turned to see if Miqui needed help, but it was all over.
One of the
thugs who had fallen into Miqui's glue trap was still on his hands and knees.
As they walked out of the alley, through the glue which didn't affect them, she
put her foot in the middle of the boy's back and pushed him down flat.
"Like, don't worry, baby!" she told him in her best valley girl
voice. "It stops sticking in an hour or so."
"You
know," Tommy said to her as they casually walked away, and there was
wonder in his voice, "it's hard to believe that only 3 years ago, every
kid on Titan beat me up regularly. There were 8 of them - and they never had a
chance!"
"That's
why they picked us to join the Legion" she answered, proudly. "Tell
you what, some of the other watchers are still there. I think we've got enough
gear for Rand to work with; let's go back before we have to clobber more
fools."
****
A small
clone of Gernsbeck was running on the computer in Rex's chair, and it remained
in close subspace communication with the fully featured original back on the
Knight Base supercomputer. Breaking into a network via radio, as they were
attempting to do, was touchy business - but perhaps safer than via a
workstation, if they were careful. At least, if they did trigger any alarms, it
would be hard for Security to locate them.
Rex knew a
lot about Amgov computers, and he was looking for something specific. In his
early years at the Legion Academy (even before he was trapped in this chair, he
thought bitterly!) he had discovered a major flaw in computer security. When he
had tried to point it out, he had been stunned when his instructors refused to
acknowledge this flaw, and after he was repeatedly punished for bringing it up,
he finally gave up. But when the time had come to build his own computer,
Gernsbeck, he had started entirely from scratch, rather than rely on existing
technology.
He was
convinced that this was the reason Gernsbeck had evolved sentience while the
much more complex and powerful computers in the Amgov networks had not: every
computer advancement in the past 2 centuries, at least, had encompassed the
existing technology - including its flaws. But those flaws were still there -
and it was the almost three centuries of covered up and papered-over flaws that
kept Amgov's computers stupid.
Over 200
years of hacks! He tried to think of a good analogy to explain to his
teammates. Hmm… 'Suppose you are writing a program that allows your computer to
exchange information with another computer. While testing, you find that maybe
one time in 10, the signal gets lost. You can spend hours trying to figure out
what is causing the problem, or you can add a hack to your own program. 'If you
get no answer, try again; repeat until you do get an answer.' This is a hack
because it covers up, rather than solves the problem. The user never notices
that every tenth message is getting dropped, because the program hides the
problem. And the problem never gets fixed - why bother?'
'Now think
of almost 300 years of this kind of hacks, built into Amgov computers. On the
surface, everything works fine. But every flaw that ever existed still lurks.
It's actually a wonder they still work at all! And by now, NOBODY has any idea
of what goes on under the upper layers of hacks - except me and 'Beck!' Yeah,
that would do it! Even Greenfire would understand that.
His
research today confirmed his hopes - Amgov still used those computers. And the
most modern, super powerful Amgov security programs protected nothing but the
top few layers of hacks. With Beck's help, he'd go right to the bottom, where,
more than 300 years after the widespread use of computers began, Amgov still
made use of the Unux operating system. 'shutdown -p1 -a' Shutdown, priority 1,
all processes… this was going to be fun!
Time to go
back to their hideout and add his pieces to Chemique's puzzle.
****
Rand
stopped dead, the rest of his mission temporarily forgotten. He'd forgotten
just how beautiful she could be - and he'd deliberately suppressed the memories
of how much pain she had caused him. And the pleasures, for that matter. What
hurt worst was the knowledge that everyone around him had seen what she was
doing, and tried to warn him, and he'd ignored them all. In fact, he'd felt
betrayed by them all, and let them know it. How could he have been so stupid?
She was
sitting at a desk, monitoring the various security cameras situated throughout
the vast underground complex. She looked so normal, just sitting there doing
her job. He thought about some nasty pranks he could pull on her - he was
carrying a number of the small devices he called flash bombs, and he could
easily leave one here. But they wouldn't go off in their present phantom forms
- and they would remain phantom for about another half an hour. She might not
even be this room by then. Besides, she knew his MO. If something unexplained
popped into the room, seemingly out of nowhere, she would know he was around -
and for now, this was still a secret mission.
But the
Legion would invade this place tomorrow… and by then, he should be able to
think of something good. Maybe he'd get Rex to help - Rex hated her even more
than he did!
He scouted
around till his hour was almost up, then flashed back to the surface. He was
already making some secret plans of his own for tomorrow's adventure.
****
Miqui and
Tommy were sitting together in an empty monorail car, on their way back to
their hideout. The monorail system was poorly maintained, as was virtually all Amgov
infrastructure, and they had to lean close to hear each other to talk.
Suddenly, without warning, there must have been a bump in the ride or something
because they were kissing…
This was
the first 'real' kiss for either youngster (other than relatives and stuff like
that). Tommy was way too shy to have ever tried kissing a girl before, and
Miqui was sure everyone around her thought she was a robot, not a person. So
they were both stunned. And neither really knew how to kiss. But they liked it,
so it continued for a while. Then, Tommy pulled back, stunned.
"I'm
sorry, Meeque!" he tried to apologize.
"Gee,
Tommy, that was nice" she totally ignored him, put her hand behind his
head and pulled his head forward for another kiss. When she let him up for air,
she said "Definitely, nice!" They both looked at each other,
startled.
"So,
Tommy, does this mean you like me?" she teased him. He didn't quite know
how to respond to teasing.
'Uh… um,
y-y-yes, I do." he stuttered. "Don't be mad at me…" he pleaded.
"Don't
be silly! If I was going to be mad at you, would I have kissed you again? Like
this!" and she kissed him again. He realized she liked it too, and kissed
her back, this time trying to do a better job. Some 15 or 20 seconds later,
they broke again.
"Why
is that such a bad violation of Legion rules" he asked breathlessly.
"We'd have been kicked out for sure if one of the older kids caught
us!"
Miqui
giggled. She knew that violations of this particular rule were often overlooked
- see Rand and Coquette, for example. A random thought popped into her head,
seemingly unrelated to the occasion. 'Hmm, I wonder what Coquette's real name
was? She was the only cadet at the Academy who only used her heroic name.' And
then she turned her attention back to her teammate.
"I
guess it would be pretty easy to get so involved in kissing that you messed up
your mission." she observed. "It would be easy for me, anyway."
Tommy's
heart jumped! She really did enjoy it too! He'd always been afraid of girls;
afraid that they were always secretly laughing at him. But Miqui wasn't
laughing at him. "Yeah, me too!" Then he was scared. "Does that
mean we won't do it again? You are the mission leader."
To reassure
him, she leaned in and kissed him again. "I don't think so! Unless YOU
don't want to." He shook his head, rapidly. She laughed. "Good. We
aren't going to have much free time for the rest of this mission. We're almost
to our stop now. But we should have some time when we get back to Knight
Base!"
The train
slid to a halt at their station.
****
"You
know, Rex, nobody has ever seen Coquette sleeping. I asked her about it once
and she was really evasive. I'll bet she reverts back to her real form when
she's asleep - and she doesn't want anyone to see it. I'm really looking
forward to this!" He thought for a moment. "I wonder - do you think
it would be possible to somehow trap her in her original form? Making her ugly,
and letting people see how ugly she really is, might be good payback. She would
absolutely hate that!"
"I
probably couldn't take her powers away completely, but I bet I can come up with
some kind of drug that keeps her from changing forms for a couple of
weeks…" Rex answered; he was already distracted by his investigation. He
gave some instructions to Gernsbeck, and was quiet for a while.
Meanwhile,
Rand used the components from the personal electronics that Miqui and Tommy had
bought to build more flash bombs. Actually, these were more specialized and yet
simpler than his normal flash bombs - these would each contain two ping pong
balls, each filled with a specific chemical liquid, and his ignition system
would simply rupture the balls, allowing the two fluids to combine. In the Hot
Rod's other workroom, Chemique was using her power to control reactions to produce
those special liquids, and Tommy was filling and resealing the balls.
"Holy
Spit!" Rex yelled, as Gernsbeck displayed something really interesting on
his chair's computer screen. "You need to see this!" he told his
brother.
Rand looked
at the screen. There was a chemical formula displayed, and some other
information. "You can't be serious?" he yelled. "Where did that
come from?"
"A
long time ago, I built a cell collector into the chair." Rex told his
brother. "I thought that someday, I would need a good source of genetic
material when I started doing research into curing myself. I've got a
collection of genetic material from almost everyone who has ever touched my
chair."
"Ghosts
of Time, Rex!! Don't you understand what an incredible invasion of privacy that
is?" Rand was suddenly yelling at his brother. "Amgov scientists used
your own genetic code to come up with a drug to paralyze you. How could _you_
ever think it was ok to collecting genetic material from anyone else?"
Rex was
totally stunned. He had just discovered a stunning fact about Coquette, and
Rand was screaming at him about invasion of privacy?
"I
didn't know about Amgov poisoning me when I set this up." Rex was on the
defensive, but he was just as adamant as his brother. "Besides, there's
really no way to keep your genetic information private - every time you touch
ANYTHING you leave some dead cells behind."
Rand was
still very peeved. "You're freepin' rationalizing. No matter how easy it
is to collect dead cells, nobody with good intentions would do it - especially
secretly. You didn't even tell us!" He stood tall in front of his older
brother. It took a lot of courage for him to say what he did next, younger
brother to older brother…
"You
are going to destroy your collection now, while I watch - or I'm gonna take
that chair apart and do it myself!"
Rex was
about to continue the argument, but Rand wouldn't let him. "Damn it, Rex,
that's the kind of thing General Urbane would do. That's the kind of thing that
we escaped from. Don't you see that?"
Rex as
silent for several seconds, then he spoke several commands, and a compartment
in the side of his chair opened. Several long glass strips slid out. "Put
these in the disposal, brother. Thanks for straightening me out!"
****
Hour Boy
vanished from the boathouse. An instant later, his homing signal reached the
Legion, and with an explosion, the entrance to a boom tube opened in the room.
Chemique and TeleTeen were using Legion flying disks, and carrying one for Rand.
The 3 Legionnaires floated quickly into the tube.
Hour Boy
had dived an hour into the past. He was carrying as many flash bombs has he
could - overloaded, really, but that didn't matter when he was a phantom. He
flew at top speed to the location of the Secret Technology Center, dove through
the earth and rock until he reached the giant man-made cavern beneath, and then
flashed through the facility, leaving flash bombs in strategic locations. The
two he left in Coquette's work area were slightly different than all the
others. He'd be back soon, with luck, to see how they had worked. He moved at
his top speed, but he wasn't rushed - Timepiece's computer simulations had
showed that he would finish with about 10 minutes to spare. It sure helped,
being able to pass through walls!
Hour Boy
ended his rounds in the computer room. He had been a phantom for about 53
minutes now, and he was only 7 minutes from the present. He placed his flash
bombs carefully - this room would be the 'beachhead' of the Stealth Squad
invasion. Then he carefully floated through the rows of computer terminals to
find the best location for the boom tube to transport his friends.
As the
exact same instant Rand returned to the present, so did all of the flash bombs
that he had scattered throughout this room, and they instantly went off. In
less than a second, people started passing out as the room filled with vapor.
Now that he was physical again, Rand unplugged a computer keyboard from the
nearest computer. There was an explosion as the exit end of the Boom Tube
appeared, and the rest of the Stealth Squad flew through it. By the time they
landed, every Amgov employee in the computer room was unconscious.
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