8th March 2002
00:32 GMT -7
Chloe accelerates the submersible towards the shoreline with nary a ripple. This really wasn't what I wanted to do on my first journey on the
Spear of Benthesikyme, but… Needs must. A man like Morgan Edge might well have been paranoid enough to have some sort of sonar built into the rocks around his private island, but that won't do anything to help against a submarine built with Atlantean technology.
I'm not sure if King Orin
knows that some of the people loyal to his late brother survived their final confrontation and are still around and just doesn't care, or if he assumed that with the issue of who owns the throne resolved they all went back over to
him. But as so often in these cases, his loss is my gain.
Chloe and a few of her friends were grateful to me for helping them start new lives on the surface. Not so grateful that they'd be willing to help me recreate the technology that the Atlanteans used to effortlessly see off the US Navy last year, but certainly grateful enough that they're willing to ferry me and mine around in the one vessel they still have under their control. As long as we don't get too close to Atlantis itself, which is a place I'm perfectly happy to leave well enough alone.
"Thirty metres to shore
now. Full stop."
I nod and begin pulling myself up the ladder to the hatch.
"Thank you. We'll signal when we're ready for extraction."
"Understood. Good fortune."
Of course, the dangerous parts of this job
should have been taken care of already. Hanging around a lot of supervillains for most of the working week has encouraged me to spend time both exercising and training, and I'm armed and armoured. But I'm fully aware that I'd be the weak link in an actual combat situation, which is why I'm leaving that to the professionals whenever possible.
I stop climbing, press the button to open the inner hatch and then climb up into the airlock. Another press closes the hatch below me, and a moment later the hatch out onto the dark, unstable, spray-blasted hull opens. I.. would..
hate to have to take a boat in this, let alone
swim.
Fortunately I have a better option, courtesy of my partnership with the late Dr Knight. I unclip the Gravity Rod from my harness and press the activator stub. Immediately, a very faint golden energy field envelops me, and as I hold it aloft and hold down the flight button I'm lifted into the air.
It's not the most
fun way to fly, even if my initial fear that I'd be hanging off the rod turned out to be unfounded. But it works and the energy shield keeps the worst of the wind and water off me, so I make good time to the shore. Mr Edge's mansion is surrounded by a high wall with a rather impressive electrified plasma field protecting it, but, assuming that things are going to plan-.
A figure steps out of the shade of one of the guard towers and holds up an LED torch.
... .. - ..- .- - .. --- -. --. .-. . . -.
Glad to hear it. I aim the Gravity Rod and swoop downwards, landing next to him.
Roy Harper smiles confidently as I lower the rod.
"How was your flight?"
"Brief, thankfully. Any trouble here?"
"Nothing we couldn't handle." He leads the way back into the guard tower, then onto the stairs leading to ground level. "Hey, what are you planning on doing with this place after we're done here?"
"We'll be handing Mister Edge and his associates over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He has no legal heir." I shrug as we begin walking up to the main house. "It's not entirely clear if anyone owns it. No government claims it, which is why he set up here in the first place. And since no government owns it, no court has the authority to determine who the rightful owner is."
"Huh. You don't want it?"
"I… Don't think so. It might be convenient for some of my employees with outstanding warrants, but.. I.. think that being on an island base might encourage them to
regress."
He nods, smiling.
"Heh, yeah. It
does kinda shout 'supervillain', doesn't it?"
I note the slumped and bound private security guards propped up against the exterior wall of the house. I can't
see much bleeding…
"Any trouble?"
"Between me, Cheshire and Cheetah, we took them down before they knew what was happening. Cheshire even used those electrified baton things you gave her."
I look at one man with two blackening eyes and a broken jaw. Then I look back to Roy and raise my left eyebrow.
"Mostly as
clubs, but hey, no one got stabbed."
We walk in through the open front door.
"There was
one thing though."
"Yes?"
"When I saw how Cheetah dyed her fur I made a crack about black cats… Cheshire likes that sort of thing, but-."
"Cheetah
really doesn't."
He regards me curiously.
"How'd
you find that out?"
When I was kissing the fur covering her abdomen, discovered that her genetic splicing had given her
supernumerary mammaries and remarked that she now had '
kitty titties', which... It turns out that they're a sore point for her.
Not…
Literally, they're actually quite-.
Anyway.
"Pretty much the same way you did. One offhand comment, and-" Months of progress on improving her self-image ruined. "-she was surprisingly upset."
We proceed through the foyer and down one of the corridors. More guards are bound, but unlike outside there is visible damage. Bullet holes in the walls, blackened wood and carpet where explosives were used…
"Please tell me those were flashbangs."
"Hey, zero body count. Cheshire gets it."
I'm not
entirely happy about employing an assassin anyway. Sending her on a mission like this while two months pregnant made me unhappy in an entirely different way, but… She appears to have handled it just fine. And I certainly don't want her covering her maternity leave with money earned through her primary occupation. I don't
think my contacts in the FBI will be willing to talk about a pardon at this stage, but it's something to work towards.
Barbara's waiting just ahead, her right paw is twitching as she restrains her desire to lick the dye out of her fur. This is the first time she's been out as 'Cheetah' since we started working together and I think that the fighting is bringing her feline instincts to the fore. She freezes as we approach, her eyes fixing on my face. I… I've studied cheetah behaviour, but her body language is an odd combination of human and cheetah and I'm not entirely sure what that means. I can't see any wounds on her, which I'm happy about.
"…in these things, anyway?"
Cheshire's already opened the vault and is walking around the four red biohazard containers contained therein. Barbara falls in behind Roy and I as we join her and she regards me curiously.
"
This is why we're here? Did Morgan get his hands on something he wasn't supposed to? The last sample of a deadly disease that was never supposed to leave the laboratory? Oh, a bio-weapon the US government doesn't want people to know about?"
"No." I raise the Gravity Rod. "Please step back."
"What-?"
She hurries aside as I press the 'energy pulse' button.
