BOOM!
17th November 2017
15:35 GMT +8
"Tenzin Cering!" I stride through the portal into the Chinese black site, and because I know that the Chinese are a bit more on the ball with summary executions that the Americans I've come out
next to his cell and
disarmed the soldiers on guard. No, not soldiers. Some sort of Chinese K.G.B. types? They were armed, anyway, and now they're not. "I'm looking for Tenzin Cering!"
"I am here."
One of the guards lunges for the wall-mounted alarm, and gets sonic blasted by Subjekt-17 until his bones fracture. He falls to the ground with a quiet, high-pitched moan.
"Auuuhhhhauuuuuuhaaauuuhhhh…"
The other guard runs at me and punches me in the-. In the groin armour, and promptly breaks his fingers. He pulls back,
shielding it as he tries to work out what to do next.
"Funny thing. Prior to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Chinese Communist Party tried to restore order using local army units. But confronted by people handing them flowers, some of whom they knew personally, they weren't prepared to break heads in the way the Party wanted. So they pulled them out and sent in soldiers from rural areas, as indoctrinated as they could find, who wouldn't have those sort of normal human hang-ups about killing peaceful, unarmed people."
I
rip the cell door out of the wall and chuck it down the corridor.
"So I'm curious. How much violence have
you two been dolling out to defenceless prisoners? Subjekt Seventeen?"
"A great deal."
"A great deal." I bow my head and wave my right hand from Subjekt 17 to the guard. "Oh dear. Then do as you-."
"No." Mr. Tenzin limps out of his cell, face swollen. "Do them no violence. Please."
"Really? I mean, I understand that you're a Buddhist, but I think that a little corrective chastisement might, you know, burn off a little karmic debt?"
"You are here to free me?"
"Free you and load your head with your past life memories."
"Then violence against these people would only be retribution. It would serve no greater purpose." He leans against a wall to steady himself. "Though if you have an aspirin, I would not be averse to receiving it."
Subjekt-17 takes hold of the guard who is still standing and slams him against the wall. Hard enough to severely injure him, not hard enough to kill him.
Mr. Tenzin looks at the fallen guard in concern, then at Subjekt-17. I shake my head. "He's had a rough seventy years. Does the 'no violence' thing extend to Gods of Evil?"
"It does not extend to humans. I try to limit unnecessary violence, but it is not an absolute prohibition." He looks down the corridor. "Please. There are many other prisoners here."
I
take a purple healing ray out of subspace and hand it over to him. "Point it at yourself and pull the trigger to heal your injuries. What are the other prisoners in for?"
"This is a prison for political prisoners. Some of them may have committed normal crimes-."
"If you were guilty,
there are a thousand prisons in China where they would lock you away." I sigh. "Fine. I-."
"What?" Subjekt-17 glowers at me. "What does he ask?"
"Humans are so evil, Subjekt-17, that they sometimes treat other humans as Subjekts. These human Subjekts want us to help them escape. Do you think we can do that?"
He looks around, the-
Someone in the guard post finally looks at their camera screen and activates the alarm.
-telepathic portions of his brain activating as he takes in our environment. "Such cruelty. Disgusting. Keep them away from me."
I nod. Ugh. I need to get Mr. Tenzin powered up myself, Subjekt-17 isn't interested in rescuing people and Queen Hippolyta isn't bullet-resistant. I'll have to interrupt Captain Adam, which is poor form, but I think he might appreciate something morally unambiguous.
Mother Box, boom tube.
BOOM.
Pin-
Captain Adam flies backwards through the hole and slams into the wall!
-g.
"Ah, are you alright?"
He straightens himself up. "I'm not hurt. I was handling the invisible guy, then someone hit me from behind."
"Can I assume that your training focused on aircraft more than infantry combat?"
"That's fair." He looks around. "Where are we?"
"Chinese political prison. Please break everyone out and send them through-"
BOOM!
"-that boom tube. Allies of mine will have food and medical aid waiting."
"China-. Are you crazy? Even Nixon didn't-."
"You're a man made of silver. As long as you don't tell anyone your name, I don't see how anyone can trace it to anywhere. I speak with an English accent and I'm an alien. And you can't tell me that they don't have it coming."
Mr. Tenzin has finished with the healing ray, so I grab it off him and hand it to Mr. Adam.
"This is an anti-gun. It makes people healthy by shooting them."
"That-. That doesn't make sense."
"If you want to make it an actual ray gun there's a dial on the side." He checks, and avoids touching it. "That's a bit superfluous for you, but I understand if you have a childish desire to play with a death ray."
"Healing ray gun. Sure, why not. How many people?"
Looks like… "Thirty eight."
The door to the next cell along vanishes in a flare of purple. "On it."
I nod. "Mister Tenzin, where do we need to take you?"
"Tibet. My father's temple."
Sinestro,
scan for his father.
There is a slight issue there, Lantern.
What? Oh,
no. Of course. The Chinese have their own candidate. No matter that forcing past life memories into some random arsehole will
at best do nothing, with permanent mental damage being the intermediate result, I don't
want a Party-approved arsehole getting those powers. Though that's almost certainly why they left his father outside of prison himself.
I
armour Mr. Tenzin and open a new boom tube.
BOOM!
"Please, as little violence-."
Subjekt-17 walks through ahead of me, and I shrug.
"No promise."