With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

3rd Jahrdrung 2512
Morning

"Of course… You are welcome."

Marco Lupo holds his arms out to the sides, indicating the garden of his father's villa.

"It is simply that we usually get a little more notice before so notable a guest visits us."

I nod. "I.. know, and I'm sorry. My learning on the subject of international affairs has been fairly narrow, and while I knew that your father was a highly capable Tilean general, I… Somehow missed the fact that he actually ruled a city in addition to commanding armies."

"My father's fame must have spread wide indeed for that to be true."

"Indeed. Where I am from, the only Tilean considered to be his equal was Borgio the Besieger, and… Well…"

"My father was never bested by a toasting fork."

I shrug. "No man can be on guard at every moment of every day. But it does detract a little from tales of Borgio's military prowess."

"Yes. I have also heard stories of a strange orange wizard who could strike daemons down with impunity. I had assumed that they were… The ramblings of drunkards, and yet… Here you are."

"Drunkards do ramble. In my case…" I shake my head. "I am not a wizard. Any man may use an enchanted artefact, or even wear mundane armour of such solid construction that he can survive powerful attacks."

"I have heard that in Araby the most skilled magicians bind daemons to carpets which allow them to fly."

I nod. "Yes, it's… Because they're so far from the polar gates, the winds of magic flow weakly there. Their wizards must become proficient in slowly drawing upon the winds and infusing objects with power, or in carefully binding spirits to their service."

"And such men also made-" He gestures to my left hand with his right. "-the ring which you wear?"

"Oh gosh no. This was made by a species who are contemporaries of the Old Ones. I couldn't even begin to explain how it was made. It is able to permanently turn daemons into something that is enslaved to me and technically no longer a daemon. Do you want to see one?"

"I…" He glances at the plain clothed men with the rapiers lurking near at hand. "Think that I will live without."

"Wise." I shrug. "Bringing to bear the level of strength that is needed to physically harm the more powerful sort of daemons is still fairly difficult. Lesser daemons are far easier."

"And… I heard a story about you tricking a dwarf smith with a fake sword?"

"No, I don't think I did that? What sort of fake would trick a dwarf?"

"Supposedly, it bent when he tested it."

"Oh! No, that wasn't a fake sword, that was-. There isn't much a human can teach a dwarf master smith about metallurgy, so I thought I'd make him a curiosity that he couldn't replicate."

"A sword that bends?"

"Anyone can make a sword that bends. A copper sword will bend. I made a sword that can be bent and then spring back into shape."

Mr. Lupo looks puzzled. "If you are not a wizard..?"

"The secret is the element carbon." I generate a construct… Representation of a carbon atom. "Roughly half of wood is composed of carbon, and about twelve percent of a human. It's a very versatile material. These-" I point at the outer electron shell. "-let it attach to a wide variety of other materials in a variety of ways. If we arrange it as a lattice, we-"

I add more carbon atoms and pull out the view until the individual atoms are invisible.

"-get-"

I dismiss the construct and fabricate a diamond to replace it, reaching out with my right hand to catch it and then offering it to Mr. Lupo. He takes it and considers it very carefully.

"-a diamond."

"A.. diamond."

"But if we arrange it in layers…" I generate a new construct image. "We get a substance called graphite, and we use it in pencils. You see how each carbon atom has the same number of bonds?"

"So how does it differ-?"

I pull the image out again but this time fabricate a pencil, which he catches, having palmed the diamond.

"We use them for training children to write before we let them loose on pens."

"I am sure that your maids appreciate it." He looks closely at the sharpened tip, then scratches at it with his thumb nail and examines the material that has been scraped free. "And this is the same.. 'element' that the diamond is made from?"

"Yes. The diamond has a strong and rigid structure, while the layers of graphite can slide away from one another almost freely. But there are other forms of carbon structure as well, and it turns out that if you make tubes of carbon and incorporate it into the metal, you get-"

I fabricate an example in the form of a traditional Tilean duelling sword.

"-something like this."

I then attach a clamp construct to each end and bend it into a hoop. I then remove the clamp from the bade end and we both watch as the sword straightens itself. I then offer it to him.

"Master Thurgun found it amusing, but elects to hide it from his apprentices lest it give them inappropriate ideas. Please, keep it, the pencil and the diamond. An apology for disrupting your day."

He takes the sword and checks the edge and… Heh, he checks that it's actually made of metal.

"Thank you. A fascinating demonstration. I.. am curious. What was it that you wanted to speak with my father about that brought you so far?"

"I know that your father greatly reveres the most ancient traditions of your city, for example that he rigorously trains himself physically when a weaker man of his station might allow himself to go to seed. I was hopeful that his reverence might extend to my area of interest."

"He used to make my brothers and I join him when he trained as an oarsman." Marco smiles. "It left us with an abiding hatred of all boats, though I owe my life to the training of his wrestling master. Do you want to test yourself rowing against him? He's very good."

"Ah, no. My home country was once conquered by a city much like yours. They left us with a rich legacy of civic monuments, but the most useful was their roads. Rather than… Do what modern Tileans appear to which is have mercenaries standing around demanding money with menaces, they used soldiers not actively fighting the nation's enemies to build roads so high in quality that it was sixteen hundred years before we could surpass them. And many of their roads were around to see themselves being surpassed. I need to build a big road network. A very big road network of very big roads, such as would allow an army to march from one end of the Reikland Empire to the other at the best possible speed. The greatest architect in the world is currently engaged in building a rather large canal for me, but your father was the man I thought of first for roads."

"I do not think that my father would want to help someone invade the Empire-."

"No no no." I shake my head. "The Emperor has signed off on it, and he's leaning on the Electors to do the same. They all grudgingly accept that it's in everyone's interest that it happens. I wanted your father to have input at the planning stage so that we end up with a well planned network rather than a mess."

"Well, that is different, but…" He shakes his head. "My father has not to my knowledge shown interest in building roads himself."

"Ah, rats. I'm sorry to have wasted-."

"My brother Gaius on the other hand has been greatly involved in the building and maintenance of our city and its territory. I would be happy to give you a favourable introduction."

I smile broadly. "That would be excellent. Thank you."

 

3rd October 2012
11:13 GMT +7

Jade pulls her hat down to shade her face, and I can't help but notice that she's using makeup to lighten her complexion. Combined with the mirrored sunglasses, the effect is to make her look more like an American tourist, rather than a first generation emigrant.

"This is the opposite of disappearing."

And she's changed her accent, too. If not for my empathic vision, I'd be concerned that I'd sat down next to the wrong woman.

I watch as people walk past the table we're occupying outside a café without paying us any attention.

"You seem to be managing."

"Why aren't more people noticing you?"

I shrug. "All white people look the same?"

Vietnam got hit hard by the Sheeda. People fled to the countryside as invisible soldiers hunted people in the streets of all of their major cities, which only really made hunting them down take a little longer. Industry completely collapsed, and forget about tourism. Sadly for Alan's contemporaries, Vietnam followed China's example in killing off their superheroes when the revolution occurred, and unlike China they didn't have a population large enough to generate a team's worth of high-tier superhumans since the official change of policy. China could barely look after itself and help from further afield was sporadic at best.

Now, tourists are… Back, if not in the sort of numbers that they used to appear in. With former tourist hotspots in South America now under Accala control there are tourists out there, but most of them are holidaying in their own countries. Vietnam has also opened its doors to South American refugees looking to settle somewhere not under the control of a rampant plant goddess. Not out of any particular spirit of generosity, but just to get enough people to fill their population centres.

On.. the.. positive side, people who had been in prison since the Communist takeover either escaped or were released; the government doesn't have the spare manpower to maintain the same old police state. Combined with the influx of people from corrupt-but-nominally-democratic countries, I foresee some big changes in Vietnam's future.

"Okay, we've visited my grandmother-" And the carbonised stretches of forest where the automated defence systems I installed on a slow Wednesday afternoon dealt with the one Sheeda attack that bothered going anywhere near her. "-so I think we're done here."

"Any particular preference on where to go next?"

"Is there anywhere on Earth where we won't be recognised?"

"Ah… Maybe? At this point the Dolmen Gate network goes to just about every country, and I'm… Heavily associated with that. And with the arcane desalinisation system and storm controllers, those are getting quite a lot of use in a lot of places."

"So no."

"The price of not having a secret identity. And… Glowing faintly orange at all times."

Jade takes a moment to check her peripheries for autograph hunters.

"What about another planet?"

I nod. "We can go to another planet. Do you have anywhere in mind?"

"None of the planets I've been to would keep us away from work."

"I'd stand a good chance of being recognised on most of the planets I've been to. I mean, on Tamaran, everyone's orange anyway so that's less noticeable, but they've got their planetary communication system back up and running and I'm pretty sure that my picture is everywhere. Ah… The Crown Imperium highly regulates media broadcasts, so we could go to most places there and…"

Ah…

"Get arrested because they.. don’t really do tourist visas outside of a few port… Cities. Um. We could probably… Manage on Rashashoon?"

"What's wrong with Odym?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Except the complete lack of facilities."

She folds her arms across her chest and leans back slightly in her chair.

"I thought you were in the Eagle Scouts."

"Yes." I nod. "I've given roughing it a fair go and know from personal experience how much I don't like it. Though I'm perfectly happy to give it another try if you feel like going seriously back to nature. In Vega there's a planet of mollusc people where there are vast areas of habitable land with no people in them. Just… Don't mention that you're female to the locals and we'd be fine."

"Why would that be a problem?"

"They've got a weird reproductive system where the males look pretty humanoid but the females are giant slugs which… They're not intelligent, and they don't have a way to lay eggs, so the males hunt them-."

"Somewhere else."

"Emana? They've actually got a government now."

"What did they have before?"

"An informal understanding between megacorporations. I think they're.. still shaking out the bugs in the system-."

"And they'd probably appreciate your input."

"If they realised that I was there. But, yes."

"No work."

"Havania? It's a Thanagarian colony world. They have some contact with other species who aren't their serfs, and Bleez gave me an open invitation to visit."

"What's it like?"

"A cross between a pre-civil war American plantation and colonial Africa, with a more pleasant climate and the rulers have wings. There isn't much building on the surface because the thanagarians like flying over and hunting in pristine wilderness, but also like their creature comforts. But importantly, I don't have any obligations there, and the Orange Lantern Corps doesn't have any obligations there."

"Are you telling me they have slaves?"

"Yes. Ah, sort of. Technically they're serfs, but… Yes. It's not called the Thanagarian Empire because they're known for species-inclusivity. But I won't proselytise if that's what you're worried about. Just some site-seeing and culturally enriching diversions."

"Are we going to be walking past slaves being whipped?"

"Almost certainly not. They usually do the beatings in prison cells where it won't unsettle anyone's stomach. And honestly, things rarely get that far."

"Alright. Let's try Havania. I assume you need to call ahead?"

"I probably should." I reach down to my bag and take an LCD screen linked to a Bleed fracture pulse receiver. That shouldn't look particularly strange to anyone who sees it. "Calling Bleez."

Compliance.

"How did you meet her?"

"She was performing at a diplomatic meeting. She's actually a famous singer in the Empire, though it was rather lost on me. I've been sending her Earth music-."

Bleez appears on the screen. Or rather, her face and the hastily-wrapped towel covering her chest does.

"Hi there Paul! I-." She spots Jade. "I'll just go and put some clothes on. Be right back!"