"-be here. Who authorised you?"
"If you don't know, then you're not authorised to know."
Oh, that's a convenient answer, isn't it? "Nope, if you don't already know, I ain't telling."
"Alright, what do you want from us? We can just leave."
"I'm going to detain you until a Peace Agent can decide what to do with you."
Huh. A quick wiki-walk fins me
Checkmate. AKA The Global Pace Agency. And look at that, they have connections to a form of OMAC.
"Oh. Okay, that's fine. We're happy to wait here."
He stops. "Drop your weapons and submit to being manacled."
Yeah, that'll be a big 'no' to that, buddy.
"You aren't carrying manacles."
His eyes glow, and there's a crackle-explosion from the bench near the cylinder. That's.. a novel form of teleportation, and I'm stuck getting indirect readings so I can't tell exactly what it is. And.. there are the manacles. Big, bulky, arm, leg and neck affairs with-.
It's certainly
intensive. More like forcing something into existence at a location, existing matter bedamned.
"Is that an explosive charge?"
"Yes."
Designed to rapidly decapitate the subject. And… Oh, that's a shaped charge, too. So obliterate their heart and a large part of their chest.
Designed for extremely strong or tough beings, clearly. Like, say, kryptonians?
"I'm fairly sure that those aren't licensed for use in this state, against any target."
"That isn't my concern. Submit, or be beaten into submission."
Now, see, you say that, buddy, but you evidently don't know much about
Lanterns.
"Blitzen, did you ever learn to steal a target's momentum."
"No? Are we fighting, or-?"
"Talk to Max Mercury or Kid Flash about it when this is over."
It's a neat trick, and if taken to extremes can freeze someone outright. Fortunately, the good guys limit it to movement.
I can easily hide my rings from discovery and drop convincing fakes, and neutralise the explosive and tear through the chains. But I don't have a ready way to communicate that to Blitzen, and I can see that she hasn't dropped back to a neutral mindset after my slight against her professionalism earlier. Plus, she's not used to fighting people who aren't trying to kill her.
In other words, she's keyed up for action, and playing nice is not on the cards.
I return my full attention to… "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"My name is classified. Surrender now."
So what
isn't classified about you, buddy?
"Right, but I need to know what to call you, even if it's just-."
His eyes glow-
Welp, he's taking that as resistance. Time to fight.
I create a construct vertigo inducer and a cold gun-
-the kinetic barrier project explodes, whatever his name is surging forwards-
Somehow, I don't think the vertigo device will affect him much, but the cold gun...
-and transmute more super-hard-freezing gel, firing-
-towards us. Johanna counter-charges, coming in from his side and speed-punching him in the liver-
Probably a bit painful, if he's super-tough as he appears to be.
-to encase his head.
-at the same time and the dizziness and shock hit. He manages to sort of throw himself at me anyway, but a construct crash mat absorbs his momentum and makes him fall to the floor.
And fight over. Total net time, all of three seconds?
Johanna has the manacles on him a moment later, and I attach my own around them.
He's glaring at us through the frozen gel. He's probably strong enough to shatter it, but he can't move enough to grip it or strike it.
Let's hope he doesn't have any thermal tricks, gel or not.
I coat the rest of him in frozen gel, then bore an air hole through it for him.
"So what did we learn?"
"Nothing of any significance. Unless…"
Time for a deep analysis, ideally via the nostril?
An x-ionised scalpel to his right forefinger gets me a drop of blood, and…
"He's not on any files. Not a Danner enhancile, so at least this is a new phenomenon. I think it's… Cybernetic, maybe?"
OMAC, then. An early model, lacking the full-conversion look of the
mass-production unit from Infinite Crisis-era DC.
"He doesn't look mechanical."
"No. Microbots. Or… Modified cells? There are things in here that clearly aren't natural, and at a certain point 'organic' and 'inorganic' sort of blur together. I'm not sure what it does -other than what we saw- and… I think it receives broadcast energy?"
Nanotech. It's six of one, half a dozen of the other in terms on the divide between technology and biology.
"What broadcast energy?"
"I'm not sure. I'm not even sure that's what it does. This really isn't my field."
"Is it infectious?"
Fortunately, very little Nanotech is great at surviving outside its intended environment. In this case, it's probably injected in large quantities.
"No. Quite the opposite; this sample is trying to self-destruct. I'd guess that he had an emitter of some sort in his body." I shake my head-. Then remember that I'm still inside my heavy armour and no one can see me do that. Back to normal armour. "I'm going to need to send an image of it to someone a lot more intelligent than me."
You... You could just do that
now. Send a mission update with the scans to Mister Atom and let him handle the techno-forensic assignments.
Dr. Metcalf, maybe? He should at least be able to work out what it does.
"Does he even have anything to do with Anarky?"
I mean, how likely is it that Lonnie got involved with Checkmate, if that's who's behind this?
"Don't know. Ah…" I force construct filaments through the frozen gel and attach them to his skin. "Okay, it looks like the whatever's messing up my scanner doesn't do anything about direct contact. So I should just be able to make him want to talk to us."
I look-.
"What the f-? Flip?"
Not that easy? Also, nice self-censoring, OL.
"What?"
"His desire network has been pruned right now. I'm not sure that he even has desires for me to redirect. I-. This is messed up."
Interesting. I'm guessing because of the nanotech coursing through his body. Presumably it's doing most of the thinking for him, hence his either/or demands earlier.
"Do you think that something we did made him come and look?"
"Ah… Since he had super speed-."
There's a difference between super-speed and merely being quick-moving, OL.
"No. That was not super speed. That was very fast reflexes. The human body can move faster than the human brain. Trust me: at super speed the difference is obvious."
"In that case he must have been close. Probably in the building. So-."
An on-site minder for whatever was going on down here, then. Probably not privy to whatever it was, but could provide clues.
"Check his pockets." I frown and she shrugs. "Either he has his keys with him or his door is unlocked."
I suppose that's possible. I cut through and…
Since it appears to be regular clothing rather than super-spandex, that might work. OL does sometimes miss the easy option for the clever ones.
"Huh."
Johanna snatches them from me. "Number twelve. I will check."
One short elevator ride away, of course. Let's hope there's not a booby-trap in there.
...Oh, wait, right...
Whatever works for her.
