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

[Mr Zoat]

6th March
10:01 GMT -5

Dr Jonathan Crane regards me suspiciously from his side of the partition. His eyes have dark rings and he hasn't shaved recently, razors being something of a risk here. In accordance with Arkham Asylum rules he's in a strait jacket which is attached to his chair by thick straps and padlocks. The problem with Dr Crane is that while he's generally fairly well behaved, he can go into murderous rages with no apparent provocation. That's a fairly recent development: the first time he was arrested they actually sent him to Blackgate instead of here. Then… The other symptoms of prolonged psychoactive drug exposure started appearing.

One of those appears to be insomnia. His eyes are red-veined, and while he's trying to stay focused on me his eyes are wandering and he's blinking as if he's struggling to keep them open.

"Good morning, Doctor Crane."

"If you say so."

I risk a smile.

"I'm glad that you're not demanding that I refer to you as-."

"I'm insane, not crazy. I still remember what my name is. And I'm not.. Scarecrow when I'm like this. Scarecrow is…" He tries to move his arms, a slight jangling of the metal clips his only reward. "Terrifying. I'm not."

"And how are you doing?"

"The universe has no color or meaning. Food is bland, days blur together… I hadn't realised that the drugs would affect my sense of time like this."

"That could just be the repetition."

He nods.

"I'll have to test it, once I'm free."

I take a look at his spiritual networks.. and… Yikes. He's done a number on himself. The lines of emotional connections go places and those places are just… Dull. I can see their content… Crows, a decayed farm, a chapel… But there's no emotional resonance.

The Scarecrow can't feel fear.

"Doctor, I was wondering if you'd be prepared to help me with an experiment."

"What sort of experiment?"

"You need fear to function. But your exposure-."

"Everyone needs fear to function! It's the most primal motivating force, the impetus which keeps us…" He sags slightly, pulling himself in. "Keeps.. us…"

"Your exposure to your own gas means that you don't feel it any longer. Not unless you're exposed again."

"No. No. I still-. Batman. Something about the bat-imagery… That.. makes me feel fear without it."

"But being without that… It's horrible, isn't it?" He doesn't respond, settling for watching me intently. "What would you say if I said I could make you feel fear again?"

"You'll have to do more than lock me in a box for a few hours like you did Penguin."

"No, Doctor Crane. Magic."

"Not something I ever studied. Though I suppose an impulse that potent must have some sort of arcane significance."

"Just so. I don't know if you're a religious man-"

"No."

"-but I'm a Hellenist. And one of the supernatural entities I've encountered as a result is Melinoë. She's-."

"The nymph of nightmare and madness, of course I know who Melinoë is." He lets out a scoffing exhalation. "Are you saying that you can arrange divine intervention?"

"Yes." I take the product of our work out of subspace. It's actually nothing like as good as the regular version will be, but… They don't like prisoners having access to metal plates or wire. "This will allow her access to your psyche. Your brain-."

"Doesn't activate in response to normal fear-causing stimuli, but that's a matter of neurochemistry. You're saying that magic bypasses that?"

"That, and I'm sure that a man like yourself can appreciate a little subtlety. It's not all about brute-force reliving of childhood traumas."

He looks at the small leather patch floating before him. He might know that magic is real on an intellectual level, but he hasn't had any direct exposure to it himself. Hm, as far as he knows; who knows what Dr Gotham's coterie got up to. But until he actually tries it he won't know, and his pride in his craft might prevent him from accepting it.

"Why are you offering this to me?"

"Melinoë is a friend of mine. But I can't appreciate her work in the way that you can. And I suppose I would like you to have an outlet for your abilities that is a bit less destructive."

"And that's it; you don't want anything?"

"While your skill at neurochemistry is considerable, I don't really think I have much use for it in my work. I don't think that you know anything about the Gotham underworld that I or my allies need to know. All your victims are either treated or dead." I shrug. "You don't have anything I want."

Though there is a chance that this will make him sane enough that they can finally execute him for all of those murders he committed, including those of his college mentor, great grandmother, grandmother and father.

"You don't have to agree to use this, but I think that you'll like it."

"Have you used it?"

"No. That's not really my thing."

"Oh. And that interests me." He becomes noticeably more focused, watching my face carefully. "You don't think you could learn anything from studying your fears?"

"I used to fear heights, then I learned to fly. I used to fear death, then I wandered through my afterlife." I shrug. "Doctor Crane, do you want this or not?"

"Yes. Yes, I believe that I do. Even if it doesn't do what you claim it will, I'm sure that it will do something."

There's a clank behind him as the door opens and an orderly comes in with a tray. On the tray is another example of the dream thrower along with a pin. The orderly puts the tray down on the small table in front of Dr Crane. He looks it over.

"And what's this for?"

"I know perfectly well that you're more likely to try and use this on someone else than use it on yourself. In order to activate the artefact, it requires a small amount of your blood. That will link it to you. You will be the only one it can affect."

"I can hardly prick myself like-" He tugs on his bindings. "-this."

"Not a problem, Doctor."

I send a filament through the wall separating us and use it to grasp the pin.

"Where would you like me to take it from?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
13:08 GMT -6

Harleen regards me with fascination from the other side of the Belle Reve canteen table.

"Did it wyrk?"

"He spends his nights in absolute terror -and he consented to having an electroencephalograph attached so we can prove it- and wakes up raring to go. His behaviour has improved tremendously… He's asking to see the data we're gathering -which since it's medical data on him he's allowed to- but I don't see any reason not to."

"Except fuh the fact that he's obsessed with feyuh and this ain't gunna help."

"I'm not sure anything will. The various substances he's dosed himself with have altered the structure of his brain. I can't change it back without a 'before' image-. And that's pretty ethically questionable anyway. And so's fiddling around with neurons and hoping for the best."

She nods.

"The Caulder Method."

In the comics I-. Alright, in the one-off appearances Doom Patrol members had in comics I read, Dr Niles Caulder was the leader of a team of people whose superpowers came with adverse physical or psychological handicaps. In the original comics he got them back on their literal and metaphorical feet and led them in the fight against evil. That was retconned later into him having some sort of freak fetish and actually causing all of the events which caused their mutations and injuries, though that definitely wasn't the original intent.

The version here hasn't done any of that yet, though he has written extensively on superhuman psychology. I've read some of his work, and… Though we'd probably treat a lot of our patients in the same sort of way he's.. a bit more into enablement than I am.

"Not.. exactly. I'd like to fix Doctor Crane. I just don't think it's possible."

"What did Melinoë say abowd it awl?"

"I haven't spoken to her yet. If she was annoyed she could contact me. The very fact that Doctor Crane is still having nightmares strongly implies that she's not annoyed about it."

"An' the fact that you ain't havin 'em."

"I'm not actually sure if she can affect me through my wards. But if she couldn't and she was seriously annoyed I'm sure she'd find a way around it."

"How popular you think these things 're actually-"

My ring blinks.

"-gonna be?"

"I'm-" I raise my left hand slightly. "-sorry, but I have to take this."

She nods and shrugs.

"Orange Lantern Illustres, go ahead."

Guy's head appears.

"So are we doin' that whole title thing every time now?"

"You can if you like. I didn't check the caller ID."

He grins.

"Honor Guard Lantern Guy Darrin Gardner reporting in!" He looks thoughtful. "Oh, hey, that's right: ain't you supposed to say yer name when you do this?"

"How many Illustreses do you think we have?"

"We've got two, so…"

"Were you calling me because you're bored, or..?"

He nods, his expression growing more serious.

"Yeah. Y'know where you came through when you showed up in this universe?"

"I'm unlikely to forget."

"I was practicin' scanning fer stuff with my ring, and… Something screwy's goin' on."

"Can you narrow it down?"

"Ah… No." He winces slightly. "There's some kinda microscopic hole-."

I frown. It hasn't been my focus recently, but during my first few months I investigated my emergence point pretty thoroughly. "That wasn't there before."

"And I say microscopic, but if you kinda squint you can just about see the light comin' out right now."

"Is it getting bigger?"

"Oh, yeah. It's still not big, but-."

"Have you called Accomplished-?"

He rolls his eyes.

"What, you gonna try teachin' me how t' suck eggs next? Yeah, Physician an' Mist 're up here, an' Atom an' Bats are too. I didn't wanna freak out over nothin', but…"

"With you momentarily."

I close my left fist, cutting communication. So. Possible portal to Earth Prime opening up. I've got a message buoy ready to go if it actually is one-.

"You doin' okay?"

Harleen's switched from friendly chat mode to counsellor mode immediately.

"Yes. Home isn't my trigger." I slide my chair back and stand. "But this does warrant my personal attention. Excuse me."

"Shuwer. Let me know how it goes."

I raise my right hand to my forehead-

14th March
19:11 GMT

-and appear in near-Earth space. Ring?

Anomaly located.

I transition closer, looking around for Guy as I do so. He's… On the Watchtower, okay. He was right about the glow. I can see it with my unaided eyes, and-.

Anomaly growing.

The size of a full stop on a page to the size of a penny. To the size of a fifty pence. To the size of an old fifty pence. It's like a hole in the fabric of space, except that it doesn't match any of the dozen or so phenomena I know of that can look like that. It's red with darker patches, though I can't tell whether it's emitting the light itself or something on the other side is.

Fifty pence to hub cap and I'm backing up and armouring up.

"Orange Lantern Illustres to Justice League, I didn't do-"

Hub cap to sunshade.

"-anything. Should I retreat or attempt to contain?"

Sunshade to-. No, that's.. it, it's not growing-.

Something shoots out, the aperture wobbling and shrinking back in on itself. The object-. Woman, a blonde woman in a figure-hugging grey costume, which for-

I put an environmental shield around her.

-some reason covers her arms but leaves her legs bare. Her chest emblem is a red lightning bolt on a black triangle. Kryptonian? No, part kryptonian, badly burned and emitting a dozen different types of exotic radiation. Ring, drain.

Compliance.

"One injured human/kryptonian hybrid. Can I take her to the Fortress?"

"Supes says 'go for it'."

"On my way now."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
14:27 GMT -5

She's.. looking better.

The burns are fading. Fortunately, the purple healing ray works as well on people from her parallel as it does on people from this one, and I'm sure that the synthesised sunlight is helping as well. I've taking the liberty of restoring her uniform… As much as I can. Her left arm was burned down to the muscle in a few places and I just guessed that it was the same as the right.

"Jor-El? Anything else you need me to do?"

"Physically, she is as healthy as I can easily make her. Has my niece been informed?"

"Yes, but I asked her to stay away until I've been able to break the news to the patient. Seeing another kryptonian without context might cause.. problems."

"I suppose that's reasonable. The process used to grant her partial kryptonian physiology was quite different from that used to create Kon-El and Match-El. I suspect that she was born entirely human before it was applied."

I frown.

"They rewrote the physiology of a complex organism? Are they more advanced than us, do you think?"

"If they were able to do this reliably, then yes, they are. However, when Krypton experimented with augmented-."

"You think they just tried a lot of times and she happened to survive."

"It's possible. I can't tell for certain based on her current physiology." He pauses. "If it were done by kryptonians, awakening in a kryptonian facility might frighten her."

"I don't think kryptonian scientists would dress her like that. Neither would human scientists. If she's wearing a uniform like that then they've clearly given her a job."

"Or she escaped them."

"I suppose." Hm. "I'll take a look at her emotional network. If I see anything that's cause for concern we can move her before she wakes up."

"I think that would be wise."

Okay, let's see…

Fear of her environment. She's used to being able to tough out just about anything, and the burning frightened her. Not just the idea that she might die, but the idea that she might be crippled and unable to fulfil her duties to the state.

State employed superhero? That could work, but given that it's always shown as a terrible idea in the comics I feel some instinctive nervousness. It goes against the whole deeply individualistic core of the superheroic ideal. Cooperation with the government, sure, that's part of being a good citizen. Servitude like the police or army? No. Ideals over orders. Oddly prescient, considering that the Second World War happened a little after the first superhero comics were published.

Okay, so what else?

Not seeing much in the way of hate, which means that she probably wasn't a test subject. Not recently, anyway. Anger isn't really part of her character either. Something about some creepy politician leering at her, but that's about it.

I turn her shorts into leggings.

Her wants are a confused mess. It feels like she's been taught to want certain things her entire life-.

Oh.

Oh my.

That's… Going to be awkward.

"What did you just see?"

"She's a superhero on her world, but it's a little… Different to this one. She probably won't have a problem waking up here."

Dealing with 'extreme' beliefs hasn't been a big part of my training, but it has come up in conversation with Harleen. Such beliefs are nonsensical, but a person holding them won't listen to rational challenges to those beliefs because they've already tagged you as an 'Enemy of the People', 'Suppressive Person', 'Subversive Element' or whatever the approved way of referring to people who haven't drunk the kool-aid is, and as such someone to ignore and mistrust. The way to talk them around is to find out what was going wrong in their lives which led them to those beliefs and help them fix that.

But that probably wouldn't work here. That technique was intended for places where fascism is a dirty word, not for somewhere where it's the official state ideology and hammered into everyone from early childhood. I'd be worried, but it looks like I don't need to make her doubt. Something happened and she was doubting already. I've got to prevent her relapsing, convincing her that what she was used to isn't the only way to live. And… Keep careful tabs on her just in case she decides to go 'back to basics' on a planet full of people the Nazis would have considered fair game.

"Nuhmm…"

My light armour has a kinetic barrier and she's only part kryptonian… I haven't found a way to precisely judge how much solar power a kryptonian still has in their system.

"But just in case… Please turn the sunlight off."

The lights on the bier she's lying on dim slightly, and my ring notes that the lights in the entire fortress have changed frequency a little.

Hm. Given that she's more or less dressed like a conventional superhero I imagine that my armour will pass muster, but… I walk around to her left side, making sure that I'm out of arm's reach. Not that that will help much if she's got kryptonian reactions. Fortunately, if her first language is German -and no offence intended to Germany but I think that's most likely- my ring will translate what I say into German for her. Which means that her instinctive reaction to hearing a strange language won't be an issue.

"Miss? Are you back with us?"

Her eyes snap open, her fingers scoring the crystals of the bier as she panic-clenches her hands into fists, sitting up with eyes glowing!

I raise my hands in a placatory gesture.

"Miss, you're safe here."

Her eyes dim almost immediately and she sags, breathing hard as he heart races.

"Where-?" She checks her left arm before returning her attention to me. "Where am I?"

"I suspect that you're in a universe parallel to the one you came from. Are you feeling alright?"

She takes a moment to regain her focus.

"Yes. I am.. physically well. Is this..? Krypton?"

"I'm afraid not. Are you..? From Krypton?"

"No. No, it is simply that the design reminded me of pictures I have seen of Krypton." She looks me over. "You are a Lantern?"

"I am the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps."

"I do not know what that means."

"I'm in charge of-."

Would the Guardians deal with a Nazi Earth? Yes, yes they would. They've recruited people from some extremely vicious societies before, but they wouldn't recruit an individual who had personally participated in mass murder. And I'm not sure that someone raised as a dedicated National Socialist would want to serve in an organisation controlled by aliens.

"I suppose the best way to describe the job is to say that I'm the most powerful Orange Lantern, but not necessarily the most intelligent."

"I.. see."

"And you?"

One completely calm exhalation and she turns to adopt a sitting position with her legs over the side of the bier facing me.

"I am Overgirl."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
14:31 GMT -5

She takes a moment to check herself over, her eyes hesitating on her left arm for a moment before dropping to her legs.

"What happened to my shorts?"

"Your clothing was somewhat damaged. If you don't like it I can get you something else?"

"No, this is… Fine."

"Look, if it's bothering you, I have full physiological scans of all of my allies and I've stuck bits of them back together on several occasions. Humanoid nudity-."

"Oh, you're a doctor?"

"No, I'm an unusually well-equipped medic. If I were a doctor I'd actually know medicine rather than having my ring's database feed me everything. But there aren't that many medically qualified superheroes so I've been subbing in."

She nods. "Okay. Can I stand?"

"As far as I can tell, you should be able to. Your solar batteries probably aren't fully charged, but your muscles, bones and nerves appear to be working properly. Though if you feel unsteady, sit back down and I'll take another look."

"No, I meant, am I allowed to stand?" We look at each other for a moment. "Am I your prisoner?"

"No-." Which isn't completely honest. "It's really more that we don't know anything about you and so we're being a little.. careful. You're free to stand and move around the facility, but if you want to go anywhere else I'll be tagging along."

"Ah." She stands, testing her legs' ability to hold her weight. "I appear to be in good health."

I smile. "I'm glad to hear-."

"I am a National Socialist, from an Earth where Germany won the-. I don't know what you would call it. The Second Great War?"

"Second World War. And.. yes, I knew, but I'm a little surprised that you're being so up front about it."

"Ah." She touches her upper left arm with her right hand. "Did you remove my armband?"

"No, it was burned to ash, but… I don't think that replacing it would be a good idea."

"No, it would not. My-. Do you have an Overman here? A male kryptonian sent to Earth as a baby?"

"Superman. He-."

She lets out a bark of startled laughter. "You call him that?"

"Not that many people read Nietzsche, and the crest of the House of El looks a lot like a 'S'."

She nods. "Overman warned me that of all of the parallel universes he had seen, Germany under the National Socialists were only victorious in the.. Second World War, upon ours. He advised me that I should not conceal this part of our history."

"That's.. jolly decent of him." Ah… "Sorry, you've rather wrong-footed me there. I was expecting to have to work up to that."

"Did his pod land in the British Empire in this parallel?"

"No." Sadly. "No. The British Empire sort of… Deflated in the decades following the end of World War Two. All that's left of it is a lot of tiny places that either couldn't function on their own or don't want to."

"The technologies gained from Overman's pod should have given any nation the strength to take the world. If it was not Britain or Germany, where did he land?"

"I'm sorry, your Overman landed in Germany before World War Two?"

"Yes, in the Sudetenland in nineteen thirty eight."

"Our Kal-El arrived on Earth in nineteen seventy eight. The Second World War played out based on the strength and skills of the nations involved, with no-" I perform a brief mental review the membership of the All-Star Squadron. "-alien involvement."

"So who rules the world now?"

"Um. I.. suppose that the simple answer would be that.. no one does. The United States of America is the most powerful country according to most metrics. Second is probably the People's Republic of-"

The corners of her mouth turn down in distaste before she masters her expression.

"-China. Then it sort of depends on whether you count the European Union as one country or not."

Her eyes widen.

"Europe is unified? If.. it was not due to warfare, did it happen peacefully?"

"Sort of. The Second World War weakened the European powers to the point that they couldn't maintain their empires, but it also left them sharing a border with the Soviet Union." She.. sort of clenches, her hands balling into fists again. "That was a powerful incentive to cooperate, both economically and militarily."

Her eyes are glowing again. Faintly this time, but I don't think it's intentional.

"The Soviet Union. Does it still exist?"

"No. It broke up about twenty years ago, and the Russian Federation is a nationalist nominal-democracy. It turns out that communism doesn't actually work." I frown. "So, are you Overman's daughter? I know that you're a human-kryptonian hybrid-."

"No, I was born a human girl. My kryptonian traits were added by a retrovirus to incorporate parts of Overman's DNA."

I scream internally, while maintaining a polite smile. Cadmus considered that, but decided against it because that sort of retrovirus is really unreliable. I remember reading about an incident back on Earth Prime where it was used to cure a genetic condition perfectly successfully, but also gave the patient another one that was just as bad and the doctors performing the procedure didn't know why.

She notices my disquiet.

"Yes. I was… Fortunate."

For a moment I consider asking how many were less lucky. She's blonde, blue eyed-. They couldn't have risked a 'subhuman' getting that power, even a baby would have been a risk. But knowing that wouldn't help the situation, and I don't want anyone with Cadmus-like inclinations learning that the technique could work as desired.

"How old were you? Did you-? Volunteer?"

"I was eleven. And I did. Along with all of the others. Even I am not a complete success." I don't say anything. "You asked if I was his daughter. Does your Superman have children? With a human woman?"

"Not a human woman, no."

She blinks.

"I beg your pardon?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
14:35 GMT -5

"My friend Kon-El is composed of cloned tissues taken from Kal-El and a human man named Lex Luthor. With just a little metamorphic tissue added in to make the resulting life form functional. He was grown in a laboratory from foetushood."

"He is.. like me, then? A kryptonian/human hybrid?"

"Similar, though as they used a very different technique the results weren't quite the same. Are you the only one like you where you're from?"

The slight aversion of her eyes combined with the hesitation suggests that she's about to lie.

"Yes. I am the only living hybrid. But-. While I am sure that there are many things about the differences between our worlds we could discuss, we should focus on what brought me here. How did it look from your side?"

I nod. "Jor-El? If you would?"

"Jor-?"

A hologram showing the red hole as it is now appears, along with a scale. Next to it a recording plays of me appearing next to it and it expanding and disgorging her. She watches the playthrough, then returns her attention to me.

"Who is Jor-El?"

"Kal-El's father?" She shakes her head. "The man who sent him to Earth in the first place, in order to get him off Krypton when it exploded? In this parallel he included a near-copy of his mind with Superman's pod."

"I.. don't think that I ever knew his name. I.. don't even know that Overman knows it."

"Well, you can let him know when you next see him. Assuming that's the same on your parallel. Do you know what the.. red thing is?"

She shakes her head. "No. Something much like it appeared over the skies of Greater Germania. The New Statemen were investigating, when smaller portals began opening all across our world. One of them opened in front of a train. I attempted to stop the train safely, but I was pushed through myself. After that…" She shakes her head. "I do not clearly remember. Pain, burning, disorientation…" She shakes her head again. "I am sorry, I do not remember anything else until I awoke here."

"You said that Overman gave you advice on how to behave. Does this sort of thing happen a lot where you're from?"

"Not often, but he has travelled to parallel universes before." She smiles faintly. "He has been my world's greatest hero for sixty years. He has a large amount of experience to share with me."

For a moment I see his face. His hair's a little shorter than Kal-El's, but otherwise they could be the same man. The memory I'm seeing… She was younger -and shorter- then, and his expression is a mixture of surprise and joy.

I remember reading Red Son, and that version of Kal-El was still a good person. Just one with a radically different ideology than the one I'm used to. Stalin might have made extensive use of political executions and prisoner labour but he didn't. He awkwardly referred to it as being part of an earlier age.

How would a Kal-El who grew up in Nazi Germany be a 'good' man?

…

I'm coming up with nothing. Stalin's terror tactics aren't inherent to the Communist ideal; they were just his method for realising it without doing the 'universal raising of class consciousness' thing that Marx assumed would come first. But Nazi ideology is inherently genocidal. The idea that some people are lesser than others as a result of their genetic background is an intrinsic part of it. So… Maybe he'd just be less vicious about it? Exile rather than mass murder?

I can ask Overgirl for the details later. But in her case, there's no way a 'good' Nazi would accept someone experimenting on Aryan children like that.

I suspect that they didn't tell him what they were doing.

Because they were worried that he'd stop them. Which means that whatever else he is, he isn't mindlessly obedient to the wishes of the Fuhrer-.

"Do your people still have a Fuhrer, or did they reinstate the Reichstag?"

"Neither the Reichstag nor the Reichsrat were ever abolished." I raise my eyebrows sceptically. I suppose that it's possible their history-. "While the Fuhrer's executive powers are unlimited, it is not practical for one man to be aware of everything in the country. The representatives of both parts of the legislature form a vital role in linking central government to the people of each part of Germania, bringing forth issues and challenges so that they may be solved and the Empire strengthened further!"

"Al.. right. So we've got no idea what the portals are, where they're from or who might be creating them."

"Could they be created by someone here?"

"Certainly. And now that I know that you don't know anything about them, I'll start contacting the most likely culprits."

She lights up her eyes again, but this time fully under control.

"Do you require assistance?"

"I prefer not to threaten people with violence."

"Then what do you threaten them with?"

"Mind control. Or at least, significant external mental influence." Her eyes dim once again and she blinks at me in surprise. "Most powerful Orange Lantern. I can nudge a person's desires in a variety of ways. And no, I haven't done that to you."

Her face becomes carefully blank.

"If I had, the idea wouldn't still bother you." Hm. "Alright, I need to report in, then you can either accompany me on my rounds or stay here and read up on our history. I assume that you want to be involved in the investigation?"

She nods sharply. "Yes."

"I will point out that with the Nazis'-"

"National Socialists'."

"-defeat, this world and its people are obviously rather different to what you're used to. Please defer to me before doing anything rash."

She nods. "This is your world. I.. would prefer not to deal with.. certain people-."

"I'm aware. Is now a good time to mention that one of my great grandfathers was a gypsy?"

"One-" She shrugs. "-great grandfather is within acceptable bounds. You could never be Fuhrer, but few are afforded that opportunity."

"How nice." I raise my left hand. "Orange Lantern to Watchtower. Our guest has woken up. I'm afraid she doesn't have an explanation as to exactly what happened. A great many portals opened on the parallel Earth she comes from and she accidentally went through one while protecting a train."

John's face appears over my ring, prompting a quickly-suppressed frown from Overgirl.

"Understood. What's her name?"

"Overgirl."

He nods. "The hole looks like it's settled down for now. We're feeding the information to Earth's best physics researchers to see if they can work out what's going on."

"'Best' or 'best conventional'?"

"Both. Though if you can get hold of someone we can't, be my guest."

"Will do. I'll let you know if I find anything. Orange Lantern out."

His head disappears-.

"Was that a negro?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
14:39 GMT -5

"Green Lantern John Stewart does indeed have dark brown skin."

"I… See."

"I assumed that you'd realised that whatever purges the Nazis-"

"National Socialists."

"-conducted on your Earth, they didn't happen here."

"No, the negros were not purged. They were expelled from Europe-. I have not… Interacted with one before." She looks a little unsettled. "They are allowed to occupy positions of authority here?"

"In a meritocratic society, if you can do the job then you can get the job. On this Earth, restricting someone on the grounds of their ethnic background is considered inappropriate."

"They're just-. Allowed-." She shudders, swallowing, then nods. "I understand."

I'm morbidly curious about how the Nazis put their racial policies into affect, but… Given that whatever I hear there's next to no chance that I'll head over to her Earth to remonstrate with the locals, I… There isn't much point in me enquiring.

"The Justice League has several black members. Their foremost magic user is a multi-millennial African named Nommo Balewa, and if those portals are magical in nature he's your best hope of going home." She nods slowly in acknowledgement. "We don't segregate. There's-."

"Why not?" She frowns. "The British Empire segregated before the war. America had anti-miscegenation laws before the war…" She stills as she works it out. "The war."

"There's nothing quite like liberating a death camp full of starving people to make a person reconsider their racial attitudes. And if you're a black man who's spent years fighting and killing in the service of your country and then they try to make you sit at the back of the bus or tell you that your marriage to the woman you met on campaign isn't valid…"

I shrug.

"Fascism is as unpopular here as.. I imagine Jews are where you're from."

Her mouth opens slightly, then closes again.

"I'm.. not Italian."

Huh-?

I shake my head.

"Fascism has become a generic term for your particular brand of violent ethno-nationalism. There's basically nowhere on this Earth you can go where you can guarantee not to encounter black people. I'll ask again: can I trust you to keep yourself under control?"

"I would rather not-." … "Yes."

"Glad to hear it. Ring, please add Overgirl to the network."

"Overgirl added as A Six One."

"This way please."

I lift myself off the floor and fly out of the medical ward. She follows-. She can fly. Interesting. Have to talk to Jor-El about what combination of human and kryptonian enables that ability, along with the heat vision.

"Do you have teleporters?"

"No, zeta tubes. The infrastructure requirements-" She's looking around very carefully, though these walls can switch between kryptonian-transparent and kryptonian-opaque and I know that Jor-El's set it to the latter. "-for the first few were less, and it was easier to keep building them than it was to get approval for the satellite network a teleportation system would require. I'm gradually persuading them to switch to a magic-based system. What do your people use?"

"Assault transport ships."

Hm. Well, if they've had kryptonian technology for sixty years… And cleared the air between their launch point and their destination, an atmospheric craft… It would be slower than a zeta tube in places that actually have tubes, but otherwise could give them a faster response time. I'd rather dismissed the idea because.. teleporters are just better, but perhaps I was wrong not to at least present a few prototypes to the League?

I land just in front of the tube.

"Just through here."

I step-

"Recognized, Orange Lantern, B Zero Six."

14th March
20:42 GMT +1

-through to the outskirts of Budapest and take a moment to check our surroundings. Pretty sure that Batman has recording devices on these things…

"Ring, sound baffle. And call the Sivanas."

"Compliance."

"Recognized, Overgirl, A Six One."

Overgirl strides out of the tube-. No, marches out, and it's a mercy that she's not goose-stepping. At least she's not checking her body parts like I did. She stops and looks around for a moment as I rise into the air, then follows me as I ascend.

"Ah. Budapest."

"I hesitate to ask..?"

"On my Earth this is all part of Germania. The older parts of the city are much the same. The Fuhrer was a great admirer of the civic architecture."

"The Fatherland must be bigger. I take it that Germania is the part of the world that the Reich directly administers?"

"Yes." She smiles. "It covers most of central and Eastern Europe, including what was once the western part of Russia. The Fatherland has never been bigger!"

"And the former inhabitants have no further use for their territory?"

"Those who were genetically pure had their property restored once the war in Europe was over."

A million or so people living in Budapest at the start of the war. 'Genetically pure' meaning no more than one great grandparent who was a gypsy, Jew or Slav. Which.. means…

No, I don't-. I've got no idea what genetic markers they were looking for, or whether or not the crazy Nazi eugenicists considered Hungarians to be Slavs or not.

"Orange Lantern!" Ah. Papa Sivana. "Delighted to hear from you, my boy! Found something interesting for me?"

Overgirl is looking down, using her enhanced vision to examine the city and its people.

"A Nazi superhero from a parallel universe."

"Earth Ten? Yes, I met my alter-ego from there once. He's a businessman. National Socialism was not good for the scientific community. And neither was cribbing all of their technology from alien databases."

"We have a visitor from there. A portal opened in near-Earth space. Could you teleport us to you so we can discuss it?"

"Certainly."

Space… Cubes-.

Notvomitingnotvomiting-.

And I appear in Sivana's laboratory while Overgirl appears in a containment chamber, energy saws poised to dissect her!

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
20:43 GMT +1

"Doctorstopwe'vetalkedaboutthis!"

The closest energy blade spins into Overgirl's right arm. She doesn't react to the impact as it burns through her uniform, instead immediately sighting the top of the armature and firing her heat vision. The arm jumps as the point she hits doesn't merely melt but vaporises.

"Dissectingsomeoneisthelastthingyoudotothem!"

Overgirl jinks, avoiding a swinging blade and battering the armature with her right fist! It flies off its mount and goes careening into the force field containing the containment chamber.

Dr Sivana looks away from his control panel.

"Yes? Usually?"

"Whyareyoudoingthis?"

He blinks. "Oh! You didn't mean-?"

An energy saw catches Overgirl in the back of her head, crimping her.

"No!"

"I really don't think that was clear from-" I gesture at the containment chamber, where two track-propelled combat robots have entered from portals along the interior wall and point their plasma blasters at Overgirl. "-your introduction."

"Iapologiseandwillendeavourtobeclearerinfuture!"

"Oh, very-" He reaches out with his right hand and pulls a lever. "-well."

The combat robots lower their weapons and begin retreating-.

Overgirl flies into the first, rips off its head and fires her heat vision down its neck hole and into its interior! Its joints glow as its more delicate components are melted from the inside! She then grabs the slagged hulk and hurls it at its partner, which ducks behind the exit just in time for her improvised projectile to bounce off.

Then she turns towards Dr Sivana, eyes still glowing. Ah-.

There's a gold flash and she's on the floor, Dr Sivana taking a moment to admire the gold kryptonite laser pistol he's holding in his left hand.

"Superman would have been faster."

"What-?" She tries to push herself up, clearly having no idea why she's suddenly so weak. "What did-?"

I transition next to her, creating a barrier construct around her and firing a beam of sunlight at her. It won't reverse the effects immediately, but it should speed up her recovery.

"Doctor, what are you doing?"

He slips his pistol back into his lab coat.

"Experimenting. Learning." He grins evilly and rubs his hands together. "Those heat beams were approximately two thirds of Superman's highest recorded output. You were giving it your all and I'm confident that he never has. Why would the Nazis, with their fixation on strength and blood purity, create a weaker knockoff?"

"What was that gun?"

"Gold kryptonite. Radiation on the right frequencies interferes with kryptonian physiology."

"Orange Lantern usually enhances his kryptonian friends to prevent me doing that."

"You are Thaddeus Sivana." Her eyes narrow. "The version of you from my Earth was executed for treason."

"I don't think I'll miss him. And now that you don't have that frustrating force field scattering my scanners, I can try and work out how you got here."

He pulls a couple of levers and a scanner array descends from the ceiling.

"Hold still. You probably picked up all sorts of fascinating resonances on your.. way…" He frowns as he looks at the results. "Hm."

"I removed those as part of healing her."

"Yes, you did, didn't you? That's… Inconvenient. Did you at least keep a record of what you removed?"

"Sorry. Orange ring consumption is fairly undiscriminating. Couldn't you just send a probe?"

"I've already done that, but it's not as resilient as a kryptonian." He makes eye contact with Overgirl. "And you haven't answered my question. Why did they make you?"

She glares at him, then turns to me.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Because I'm afraid that despite his idiosyncrasies Doctor Sivana is the most intelligent human presently alive. When I have a problem that requires a scientific solution, I find myself increasingly turning to him and his family."

"Fam-? That dwarf was allowed to breed?"

"I'm not a dwarf; merely short. And unlike Nazis, I approach eugenics scientifically. My-."

"Doctor?"

He shrugs. "There's nothing to do until I get some useable data from my probes. If more portals open there are any number of things I could try in order to force their closure. But I don't imagine that you would be all that happy about the collateral damage that would be involved. So unless there's a reason to rush things, I may as well attempt to alleviate my own frustrations with someone I won't be working with ever again."

"Doctor, it's not like you to get this distracted. What's going on?"

"Hm." He thinks for a moment. "I think it's you. Since our first meeting I've been thinking about my rejections more."

"The ones which led to you-?"

"Becoming a supervillain, yes. Do you know how many times I was called a Nazi for trying to prevent the propagation of damaged genes?"

"More than you should have been."

"Tia and Magnificus are blonde and blue-eyed because their mother is blonde and blue-eyed and those were the genes I was working with."

I raise my hands in a pacifying gesture.

"You have no need to convince me."

"The Nazis were terrible scientists. They dismissed atomic physics as 'Jewish science'."

"I know they did, but Overgirl wasn't making policy-." I glance at her. "How old are you?"

"Thirty nine."

Huh. I've have guessed younger, but I suppose that's kryptonian physiology for you.

"Wasn't making policy during that era. And I also doubt that she thinks that atomic science is nonsense."

"Of course not. It was simply that the pool of physicists working in the area were predominantly Jewish and so politically unreliable. There was little point in the Empire expending resources without any chance of getting useful results."

"Useful. Results."

"Doctor, thank you for taking the time to investigate this phenomenon, but unless you need us here I think it best if we left."

"Yes. I think so too." He presses a button. "This facility is now transparent to zeta rays. You can leave when you like."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
20:55 GMT +1

"I'm sorry about that. I didn't realise that he'd.. react that way."

Overgirl's eyes are in magnification mode as she stares down at the streets of Berlin, saccading back and forth as she moves from one point of strangeness to another.

"I know."

"Would you..?" I point to the places where her uniform has been burned through. "Like me to repair that?"

"… Yes. Yes, please."

Orange light moves over her bare skin, leaving grey material in its wake.

"There isn't really much we can do about… Getting you back right now. Is there anything you..? Particularly want to see? Anywhere you want to go?"

"The Tempelhof Arc is missing."

"It was never built. For.. obvious reasons."

"I know you said that the subhumans are allowed into Europe, but why are there so many?"

I wonder for a moment if I should call her on the use of the term 'subhuman', but I did just lead her into an ambush by an 'angry' scientist.

"Improvements in transportation and communication technology and infrastructure, civil instability in Africa and the Middle East, and after the war West Germany had a shortage of low-skilled workers that they filled by-."

"They brought in foreign workers."

"They invited in foreign workers. There were economic migrants, not slaves."

"How.. has the Empire-. Germany.. remained… Stable… With…"

"Cultural assimilation, and less emphasis on monoculturalism. When you don't tell people it's essential that they only do things in a particular way, people stop objecting quite as strongly. Which is not to say that there weren't problems, especially in the short term. Just that they're manageable."

"Where are the Jews?"

"Around, probably." I shrug. "They aren't required to wear identification armbands or anything."

"They look-?"

"Just like anyone else? You did realise that Nazi propaganda-"

"National-. Socialist."

"-images were exaggerated at best, right?"

"I.. assumed they were a.. little, but…" She blinks, her vision returning to normal focus. "They just-. And they don't… Control…"

"No, Jews do not control European society. The vast majority of holders of high office in Germany are Christian. There are slightly disproportionately more Jews in banking when compared to their representation in society as a whole, but that's largely for reasons of tradition after a lot of European monarchs banned them from a lot of other trades rather than any concerted attempt to subvert the state. The only person who might be able to claim to control the world's economy is the head of the Greek Independent Authority for Public Revenue, Professor Demetrios Prokopios, and he's… Well, he's not Jewish."

"I… Don't think I.. believe it."

"You're free to look at whatever records you want. History, crime statistics…"

"Genealogies?"

"I.. doubt that our records are as expansive as yours are, and they're certainly not available to the public at request. Is there something you particularly want to know?"

"How the races have.. been bred together."

"I'm sorry? Outside of a few.. very unusual criminal situations, no one makes anyone breed with anyone else. Certainly, having people from different cultures living and working together results in a greater number of interracial relationships than would happen if they were geographically separated, but there's no.. deliberate.. policy of encouraging it. Honestly, the very idea would make people quite uncomfortable."

"I-. I mean-." She gurns. "How, how common.. is..?"

"I don't have the statistics to hand, but general demographic information might be publically available. You'd only find out how many mixed race individuals there are, rather than how many mixed race couples… Other than the fact that you find the whole idea immensely disturbing-."

"Are you-? In a relationship with a… Negress?"

"Ah, no. My girlfriend's father is of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Skræling ancestry, while her mother is Vietnamese. She looks more like her mother."

For a slightly awkward moment I remember Raquel kissing Kaldur on the Watchtower in the first moment of 2011. Maybe she just thought I was taken?

"I realise that this is somewhat hard for you to take in-."

"Yes! It's disgusting! Why would-? Anyone-!"

She takes a few breaths to regain her composure.

"Karl told me that he regretted… Regretted the purges."

"Karl?"

"Overman. Overman told me that he regretted the purges. I didn't-. I thought that he meant that he didn't think it was worth killing them."

"That may well have been what he meant."

"No, he's-" She turns to stare at me. "-seen other Earths! He's seen this result! And he'd.. rather have this than-than-."

She's actually crying. Okay, I can see how having your idol-.

I take a closer look at the violet strands.

"You think of him as your father."

"I was supposed to be-. They made me because they were trying to make someone who could bear his children, and he found out about it -about me- before they were ready. And he-. He is the world's greatest hero! He found out that my family was dead, and he.. took me out of the laboratory and into his home and treated me as if I was his natural daughter, not a half-alien who could never match him."

"Alright. Um."

"Why didn't he.. just… Tell me this is what it was like?" She turns back to the Berlin panorama, shaking her head. "I-. I'm more loyal to him than to the Fuhrer. He should have been Fuhrer after Adolf Hitler died. Why didn't he trust me with this?"

"Because it would have been a total shock to your worldview, and interfered with you being a hero on a world that works like yours does." She gives her head a tiny shake. "You said that he regretted the purges. Did he ever talk to you about them?"

"He was away from the Earth when the Great Cleansing occurred. He never likes to talk about it. He only spoke about it to me after he did a television interview where he admitted to wishing it hadn't happened, even after all of the good that the National Socialist party has done for our people. I-. I need to understand-."

Her head jerks up.

"This world. Are any of my family alive?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
20:59 GMT +1

"Angelika Kant-." She frowns, wiping her eyes with her right hand. "No. Not Kant. Köhler."

"Did your family change their name-?"

"Overman's name is Karl Kant. I took his-. If they survived, they will be Köhler."

"If they were born at all." Ring, get searching. "We're assuming that history is the same up to Kal-El's arrival, but that is an assumption."

The ring shows me a list of Köhler. It's not a short list, and… There is a digitised list from the forties, but it's partial and I'm only allowed to access it legally because this is a Justice League operation. The Stasi really gave big data a bad name.

"You were born in nineteen seventy three?"

She nods. "Yes."

"Parents' names? Including mother's maiden name, if you know it."

"Peter and Gabriele Köhler. I.. don't remember my grandparents. Or what my mother's name was before her marriage."

"Do you remember what part of Germany your family was from?"

"Danzig."

Because she was born after the Nazis were victorious. I suppose that I should be glad she didn't say 'Adolfburg' or something.

"Do you remember their dates of birth, or if they lived anywhere before that?"

She shakes her head, which… I only remember roughly when my parents' birthdays are. It's been twenty eight years for her. But…

"Was the Versailles Treaty the same for you as it was for us, with East Prussia being separated from the rest of Germany by the Polish Corridor?"

"The first Treaty, yes."

"The first?"

"The Fuhrer considered it appropriate for the treaty returning control of occupied France to Marshall Pétain to also be signed in Versailles. Technically, it would be the third treaty since the treaty establishing the French State was also signed there, but that was only an interim measure."

An action that was just as mean-spirited as the original pre-signing train journey by the German delegation through the fields where the French had put German prisoners of war to work. Some people would rather twist the knife than stem the bleeding.

Okay, so, family Köhler, living in East Prussia… They would have been born… In the fifties-.

"How long did the war in Europe last on your Earth?"

"Including Russia?"

"Yes."

"The Soviet Union lost cohesion after the Fall of Moscow in nineteen forty one. Major military purification operations carried on for another year. Britain was effectively removed from the war in Europe in nineteen forty three, after the Battle of Edinburgh. Even after Churchill died, they would not surrender. You should be proud; the British never needed to use blocking battalions or commissars."

Yeah… Great…

"I've got plenty of people called 'Köhler', but… Do you think you could draw one of them-?"

She shakes her head.

"Your parents were born when Germany was stabilising its control over the continent. Here, it would have been when Germany started losing, or just after it lost. The Soviet Army was extremely violent in its treatment of German civilians in the areas it overran. I can show you pictures, but if you won't recognise them…"

I shrug, shaking my head.

"No, of.. course. It was a vain hope; there is no 'Supergirl'."

"No… Two, actually. There's a young woman who uses the name, though she's a magically-augmented human rather than a kryptonian. And there's Kara Zor-El, who's Kal-El's cousin. She doesn't use the name."

"His.. cousin? Other people from Krypton survived here?"

"A very small number. She had a pod like his, but it was damaged when Krypton exploded. She nearly starved to death in suspended animation before we recovered her."

"Would-? Would she exist in my universe-? No, no." She shakes her head. "We have no way to know how different Krypton's history is."

Hm. Karsta was already working on her farm in the nineteen thirties. The Kryptonian Navy had already been stood down… Though more recently. Jor-El might actually have found it easier to build the pods than he did here, since he could just buy parts from the recently-decommissioned ships rather than having to make them himself in secret. Or just requisition a ship outright, depending on exactly-.

"She would be dead in my universe, wouldn't she?"

"It's impossible to say. Our Zor-El wanted her to end up on Xudar, so she might just be there."

No, she wouldn't. Zor-El might have been prepared to indulge his brother and not insist that Kara immediately fly to Earth to rescue his nephew, but she'd be just as eager to meet him as he was her. If she could, she'd have travelled to Earth 10 by now.

"I have to get back. I must tell Overman that he might have a surviving blood-relative."

"We weren't planning on keeping you here."

But what to do with her now? The initial shock seems to have worn off, at least a little. If Doctor Sivana couldn't get a useful reading from her then no one can, so there isn't anything the League need her for.

Back to the attempted denazification. Or… Denational socialismification.

"I tried doing the same thing, you know."

She's not really looking at me, but at least she's not looking at a peaceful street like it pooed on her mother's grave. "What do you mean?"

"When I first arrived on this version of Earth. I tried going-. Well, not 'home'… It doesn't exist here. But to the nearest town. Then I tried tracing my genealogy. A man who might have been my Granddad was killed when Baron Reiter tore apart the ship he was serving on. Or it might just have been a man with the same name." I shake my head. "I wasn't able to track down anyone else."

"You..? The.. portals have-."

"No, no, I didn't come through one of those. We still don't know how I got here, though.. you did come through in the same place."

"What… Was your world like?"

"No superheroes or supervillains. History in general is.. surprisingly similar. Technology is about five years behind and there are a lot more people." I shrug. "But I'm familiar with the idea of superheroes, while I doubt that Nazis-"

"National Socialists."

"-bothered-." I frown. "Why do you keep doing that?"

"Because we are not-." She sighs. "'Nazi' is an abbreviation of 'Ignatius'."

"Okay?"

"You're saying that we're a lot of ignorant Bavarian peasants. It used to mean that before our enemies started using it for National Socialists."

And -to be fair- for all their anti-scientific habits they certainly aren't peasants.

"Okay, well, I suspect that National Socialists haven't spent all that much time imagining what the world would be like if they lost."

"We have. We just thought it would be…" She looks around. "Worse." She shrugs. "After all, how could it not?" She shakes her head. "I do not want to be here. It is too… Familiar. What part of the world do you live in?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
15:02 GMT -5

I frown at Director Armstrong in genuine puzzlement.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Her jaw is somewhat tense, though less tense than it was a moment ago when she thought this mess might be of my instigation. "They're claiming Apokoliptian citizenship."

"Yeees, that's the part I don't understand."

A man whose identification tag marks him as coming from the organisation's legal branch shifts some notes on his holopad before returning his attention to me.

"You said in front of the Senate committee that Apokolips claimed ownership of the Earth, with you as their… 'Suzerain'."

I groan inwardly.

"You can confirm that you haven't offered anyone Apokoliptian citizenship?"

"I can indeed."

"Is there anyone else on Earth who could?"

"Apokolips doesn't even have citizenship. I'm not an Apokoliptian citizen in any legal sense. Knockout isn't an Apokoliptian citizen. Anyone claiming to be an Apokoliptian citizen clearly doesn't know anything about Apokoliptian society."

"Is there an equivalent title or.. level of social standing?"

"No." I shake my head. "The modern notion of 'citizenship' comes from the idea that the right to rule comes from the consent of the governed. That people have rights and responsibilities to the state as a whole derived from their participation in it. Apokolips… Doesn't have that."

"So what does a person have to do to have rights on Apokolips?"

I don't immediately respond. He looks up, and I try and communicate with expression alone exactly how mistaken he's been in his choice of barking tree.

"There are no rights."

"I thought Apokolips was feudal with super powers. Aristocrats have rights and responsibilities in feudal states."

"Yes, because the monarch is usually first among equals, and a sufficiently large group of major nobles could overthrow them. That's where the Magna Carta comes from. That doesn't work on Apokolips-" Except briefly under Queen Heggra. "-because in an arena fight between Darkseid and everyone else -even allowing the 'everyone else' team to punch voodoo dolls so they didn't get in each other's way- Darkseid would still win. That makes for a very different social structure."

"Is that how it works? There's Darkseid, then everyone else?"

"No, there's… Four or five layers..? It sort of depends on how you look at it. If this… What was his name again?"

"Lincoln Burns. He's a.. musician, with a history of, ah… Shall we say 'creative' tax dodges."

"Right. If he somehow appeared on Apokolips, he'd be a Lowlie."

"Is that the equivalent of being a blue collar worker?"

"No. A blue collar worker, someone with an employer who valued their input and would miss them if they vanished, would be a level up. Lowlies are a step down from slaves."

"A step d-. How does that work?"

"Apokolips has the technology to become a traditionally post-scarcity civilisation. The only reason we're not is that we chose not to be. We don't need the labour of blue collar workers, or a working class, or semi-skilled labourers, or whatever you want to call them. Historically, in human civilisations, serfs have protection under the law, even if they have little freedom. Slaves had legal protection in some societies, and in those where they didn't they at least had financial value. Lowlies have no value. They're considered worthless, barely useful as a group for the power their misery provides to people like Darkseid. And I know that the moment he finds a better way to do it he'll have them all killed."

I shrug.

"Or just completely ignore them."

"And… Up from them?"

"Soldiers, mostly. A few Lowlies who survived long enough to become distinguishably useful to their betters. A group with useful applications. Occasionally, one even gains sufficient power to join the Elite… Canis Major is the only one I can immediately call to mind, but it does happen."

"And then?"

"The Elite. Awakened individuals like myself powerful enough to have specific uses. Darkseid's inner circle exists on a continuum with the rest of the class, but they have enough Elite under their command that you could count them as a separate group."

"But they don't have rights either."

"No. There are… Alliances, levels of favour… Open fighting is discouraged because it's distracting and tends to spread, but complete peace is discouraged as well. There are social conventions, but nothing as potent as 'rights' or 'laws'."

"And the top level?"

"The autocrat. Darkseid at the moment. Yuga Khan before him. Monstrously powerful individuals who define the purpose of our society."

"Okay, and what sort of tax rates do these levels pay?"

I lean back in my chair, my right hand covering my face.

"None. There isn't-. There are tribute payments in some cases, but there's no standard rate of income that people are obliged to hand over. Most people don't have any income it would be possible to tax."

"So there isn't a tax rate."

"No, there isn't a tax rate. Lowlies don't have-. No one on Apokolips has property rights."

"But he can't be a legal citizen of Apokolips."

"Correct."

"Are there any Apokoliptians on Earth who might tell him or his lawyers otherwise?"

"I know all the Apokoliptians on Earth. It wasn't Knockout; she works for me. My brother wouldn't, my sister-in-law wouldn't, then it's just Kanto -who wouldn't bother- and-."

Uh.

"What's his lawyer's name?"

He checks his notes again.

"Simon Leas."

Oh for fuck's sake. The one Apokoliptian I decided to ignore because he was beneath my contempt.

"And they want to make representations to me about intervening on their behalf with the IRS?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Okay, got a solution. Invite them for a discussion at Challenger Mountain and we'll handle this under Apokoliptian law."

Director Armstrong scowls. "Why the hell should we do that?"

14th March
18:02 GMT -6

"Shit! Shit! Shit!"

I don't waste time looking at the autodefecating Mr Burns as Knockout holds him up by his shirt, instead focusing my attention on the cowering Sleez. As an Elite Apokoliptian himself, disciplining him myself is 'officially' worth my time. Mr Burns is a Lowlie who drew the attention of his betters.

I grab Sleez around his chest and squeeze until his morphomagic generator fails and he's forcibly returned to his true, goblinoid form.

"'Apokoliptian Citizenship'? Have you been gone so long that you've forgotten how we do things you vile worm?" Honesty. Integrity. Directness. Openness.

"Hey! You can't-!"

Knockout takes her right hand off his shirt and slaps him hard enough to send him flying into the wall. Though she's restrained enough to avoid doing lasting harm. "Silence before your betters, Lowlie."

"You drew my attention, Sleez. And I am going to remind you why you shouldn't have done that."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
15:05 GMT -5

"Recognized, Orange Lantern, B zero six."

I walk out of the glaring light of the zeta tube with my fingers crossed. It's not that I think that she'll actually attack anyone, it's just… I don't think that further shocks to the system will help my case.

So, what do we know? Overman, the most powerful and highly respected superhero on Earth 10, thinks that the holocaust was a really bad idea. He's playing his horror down, but the person closest to him spotted it. And since she really didn't-. Doesn't want to believe it, I don't think that she's merely mistaken. So okay, he was a teenager when the Second World War ended, and Angelika said that he didn't commit mass 'purging' himself. I wouldn't expect most teenagers to question the society they grew up in at that age, and…

And I'm not sure that I can criticise him too harshly for not trying to topple the fascist status quo when I left the Crime Syndicate as a going concern. Okay, he's had sixty years and I had a couple of days, so… No, no, the Syndicate doesn't have a broad support base. By now fascism is just normal. The surviving groups who aren't considered 'acceptable' aren't going to have the economic or military power to form a separate support base. And at this point the more stupid parts of Naz-. Yes, Nazi political organisation must have reached some kind of resolution, otherwise the system just wouldn't be able to function.

Overman openly said that he thought the purges were a mistake and they don't appear to have tried to purge him. Yes, kryptonians are tough but they're not invulnerable. If the current regime were that sensitive to criticism then they could probably have gotten rid of him. Ultimately, I just don't know enough-.

"Recognized, Overgirl, A six one."

I don't know what he's planning. And I don't know if I could come up with something better.

Angelika looks around curiously. Her eyes alight on the bio-ship for a moment, but she appears familiar with the general design.

"Is that Martian?"

"Yes, it belongs to my colleague, M'gann M'orzz. What's Mars like in your parallel?"

"It was dead. There's a Germanian colony there now, but the only member of the native species left is A'monn A'mokk."

"What happened to them?"

"I don't know him well. Some sort of weaponised disease. It killed the entire population over the course of a few days." She shrugs. "It does nothing to humans, so there was no reason not to colonise it."

Hm. Don't remember an A'monn A'mokk from the comics.

"Good news, then! Martian civilisation is alive and well here. The Justice League has a Martian member, as does my team. That's a Martian spaceship."

She nods, and continues looking around.

"I can't see through the rock."

"Yes, it's a security measure. I reinforced it with super tough materials and arcane wards, and there's an enchanted grove inhabited by a dryad on top of it." I frown. "What does National Socialism say about dryads?"

She shrugs. "Since they aren't human, our standards of racial purity don't apply. The National Church dislikes them, while the Ariosophists.. generally revere them. I have never dealt with one myself. Do you intend to introduce us?"

"I think Euanthe's probably a bit tactile for you."

"Tactile?"

"She doesn't really have a concept of personal space. Oh, um… Should I introduce you as Overgirl, or Angelika? Actually, is it alright if I call you Angelika? Overgirl sounds a little.. odd in-." I wince. "Do you speak English?"

"Yes, and Spanish and French. Though I am told that I have a strong accent."

"I hadn't noticed."

"Of course not, we are both speaking German."

"No, I'm speaking English." I hold up my left hand. "My power ring includes a translation function."

"It does?"

"I got a 'C' at GCSE German, which means that I can't speak German. I didn't even get that far with any other language."

"Sentinel's ring does not translate. Is that because his ring is green?"

"Did he get it from an American superhero called Green Lantern?" She nods. "It's defective. Damaged during a remote shutdown when its previous owner stopped obeying the people who made it. It doesn't have a lot of the functions the rings in good working order have."

"How would he repair it?"

"Ta.. king our parallel as an example, find someone who understands the technology and ask them to do it. The Guardians of the Galaxy might do it, but… How National Socialist is Sentinel?"

"They would refuse to aid a hero due to his political beliefs?"

"If those political beliefs include the idea that mass murder of people who haven't committed a crime due to genetic characteristics is okay then yes, they probably would. If the Green Lantern Corps in your reality works like it does here then there are two Lanterns in your region of space already. If they haven't approached him -even just to find out how he got his ring- then it's probably because they don't want to."

"Their own species has never cleansed itself? They do not have their own defectives?"

"Yes, and I work for them. When Maltusian political factions can't agree with one another they just avoid one another, they don't kill each other. The last time there was Maltusian on Maltusian violence was when one of them came close to accidentally destroying the universe, and there wasn't any internal disagreement about how to handle that."

"Other species, then. How do they handle-?"

"Some species do sterilise people with genetic disorders… Those are actual disorders which make parts of their body not function properly, not for membership of a particular social group. More advanced places just fix them or use assisted reproduction techniques to ensure that the damaged genes aren't passed on. Political purges happen in a lot of places, but… Remember all of the centuries German Catholics spent killing German Protestants, and vice versa? Same thing, and about as sensible. Trying to kill a popular idea by killing people usually doesn't completely work, and trying to kill an unpopular one is pointless. Other places have caste systems, but even then… Flat out extermination of the sort Germania went in for is very unusual."

I call up a holographic screen and connect it to my rings by a construct.

"Feel free to review our database if you wish to confirm that for yourself."

"Yes." She walks over to it and begins entering her search parameters. "I think that I will."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
16:11 GMT -5

"You did this?"

Ah, she's located my brief fling with genocide, a reconstruction of the destruction of the Citadel Complex playing on the screen.

"A few friends and I, yes."

"You purged them."

"I prefer precise descriptions. We didn't feed them laxatives after all. We exterminated them. And I'm slightly uncomfortable that it feels like you're going to imply there's no difference between what I did and what your forebears did."

"What do you think the difference is?"

"There was a story a Jew who escaped N-. National Socialist-" She nods appreciatively. "-Germany. He'd fought in the First World War and been awarded an Iron Cross. But the restrictions on Jews were getting worse and he didn't particularly want to get murdered. So he withdrew his money from his bank, packed his suitcase and headed for the border. The border guard wanted to examine the contents, because it was illegal to take more than a certain amount of money out. So he handed it over, the guard popped it open, took one look at the Iron Cross on top, heiled him, closed the suitcase without examining it and handed it back."

"If a Jew had an Iron Cross then he stole it."

"Eighteen thousand Jews won an Iron Cross during World War One." I point to the monitor. "Feel free to look it up. I can't promise that there are scans of the individual certificates attached, but unlike the National Socialist Party we haven't purged our archives. Heck, there were even a few Jews who won an Iron Cross during the Second World War, fighting for Finland."

She's already accessing the archives of the German military, which has made a point of ensuring that the information is easy to locate. Truth isn't a perfect tool for keeping out National Socialist mind control efforts, but I suppose that you do what you can.

"Jews in the World War One military served disproportionately in front line roles-."

"There were no front line Jewish officers."

"True, but that was because it was illegal for them to be given front line commands, not because they were ducking them. Honestly, it's like-."

"Recognized, Superboy B zero four, Miss Martian, B zero five."

The zeta tube lights dim, and Kon and M'gann stroll in. M'gann's in Megan mode, and neither of them notice Angelika at first. Kon glances my way-

"Hey."

-and then returns his full attention to M'gann.

"Hi there. This is-"

M'gann notices Angelika first, blinks in surprise and then smiles.

"Hi! Um, who-?"

"Overgirl." Since she didn't say I could call her Angelika. "She's a Supergirl-equivalent from a parallel universe. I'm minding her until the League can work out how to send her home."

"Good-." Her eyes fix themselves on Kon's chest. No, Kon's red 'S' on black background emblem. "-afternoon."

Kon gives her a small smile. "Another kryptonian, huh?"

"That is not quite right. It would be more accurate to say that I am a combination of human and kryptonian."

Kon's smile broadens slightly. "So you're more of a me-equivalent." He walks forward and holds out his right hand. "I'm Superboy."

Angelika steps around the hologram and shakes his hand. "Overgirl. Though it sounds strange in English."

"Oh!" M'gann grins. "Are you from a parallel universe where everyone's genders are reversed? Are you dating your Mister Martian?"

"Ah-? No. No, I am not dating a martian."

Though she doesn't appear to feel the same level of visceral disgust at the idea that she did at the idea of dating a 'subhuman'.

"My Earth is not so similar to this one."

Kon nods. "Oh? What's different?"

"We have had access to kryptonian technology for sixty years. Earth technology is far more advanced as a result." She glances back at the screen. "Though this holographic interface is not too different from what I used at home."

"So… Is that it? Did a Kryptonian ship crash-land on Earth or something?"

"No, our.. Superman came to Earth at an earlier point in our history than yours. The people who found him analysed his pod, accessed its data stores and took information from there."

Which… Means that Hitler shared more kryptonian technology with the world than our Kal-El. I… Don't think I want to think about that. Interesting that she's not mentioning the impact of the divergence regarding the Second World War. If she's trying to get someone else's perspective… Fine, that can only help my case. Though I hope she manages to be more subtle than just asking 'so how do you feel about Jews, Superboy?' or something.

Kon nods sympathetically. "Yeah, Superman's not keen on doing that. I don't really get it. I mean, humans already have nuclear missiles and-" His eyes flick my way. "-death rays and stuff, so what difference does it make if they get kryptonian crystal-based construction technology as well? If anything, tougher buildings should make people safer."

Har-Zod isn't in favour of sharing with humans. And Kal-El is the closest thing to legitimate kryptonian authority here. I've… Got a contingency plan for if the League needs to end its relationship with the UN for some reason. The Kryptonian database has all sorts of designs which could be easily marketed without threatening anyone's secret identity, enabling the League to be financially independent and entirely open about where the money was coming from.

"Unfortunately, even kryptonian technology is not impervious to weapons which terrorists can bring to bear."

I might wonder whether or not the Nazis-. The other Nazis would have killed her parents in order to get a test subject. But if there is an ongoing insurgency, they'd hardly need to. Particularly if they didn't have a special reason to think that she would be a success, and particularly given that a German couple who themselves would have grown up in an intensely Nazi-friendly environment would probably have been happy to allow their daughter to become superhuman.

"Sure, but it's better at it than human stuff."

I raise my eyebrows. "What's your armour made out of again?"

"Okay, yeah, but we still can't make enough orichalcum for construction projects."

Sad but true.

"So, what can you do?"

"Everything that Overman can, but to a lesser degree."

Kon frowns. "You can fly?"

"Yes." Overgirl rises into the air. "You cannot fly?"

"No. Didn't have heat vision, either."

"But you do now?"

"Kinda." His eyes blaze with white light and M'gann backs away slightly. "But not from-."

"Recognized, Aqualad, B zero two."

Ohhhh….

Fiddle.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
16:15 GMT -5

"Not from my kryptonian biology."

Angelika looks around just long enough to confirm that someone is coming through, then returns her attention to the Overboy lookalike.

"Then from where?"

Kaldur sees Angelika, then looks at me and raises his eyebrows slightly. I transition over to him.

"Batman informed me that you had taken custody of our guest. He did not say that you were bringing her here."

"Bit of a complication, there. When I recovered her, I inadvertently scrubbed all of the residues that could have been used to locate her origin point."

"I imagine that her friends and family will prefer that she be alive but separated from them than that we return her body to them."

I nod. "Hopefully I'll be able to find out which types of exotic radiation were the cause of her injuries so that I can learn to just absorb those in future."

"Have you arranged for accommodation?"

"Not yet. I thought that would be a bit pessimistic. Plus, there's a slight… Problem that I probably need to make you.. and Batman, aware of."

"What is it?"

"On her Earth the Second World War went the other way."

He glances past me. "I.. see."

The Second World War wasn't really a big deal in Atlantis. With one brief exception they remained neutral throughout. It's not taught in their schools. As a result, it wasn't until the Kriegers made themselves known that Kaldur read up on the subject. It still clearly doesn't have the same resonance with him that it does the rest of us-.

M'gann knew even less about it and Kon's telepathic education covered world history in such an even-handed manner that no one atrocity stood out.

The rest of me, then.

"She's having a bit of a hard time dealing with the differences, but I'm confident that I can eventually talk her around."

"Should I be concerned?"

"I imagine that she'd prefer not to interact with you socially, but unless-."

Kaldur walks past me. "Overgirl. I am-"

She's smiling as she turns away from Kon, then her expression sort of calcifies as she sees who is talking to her.

"-Aqualad."

"Hello."

"I would like to welcome you into our home." He holds out his right hand.

The flickers of emotional arousal I see are.. a little like what I imagine Kara sees when she looks at someone's brain and tries to work out what they're thinking. A lot of things are activating, but I'm not entirely sure-.

Oh, she's gone for 'well-trained house negro'. That's… Disappointing, but at least she doesn't feel obliged to lash out.

"Thank-. You."

She takes his hand, holds it for about half a second longer than the minimum politeness would require and then lets go, straightening up slightly. Then she sees his gills.

"You are Atlantean? I did not think-. Ah, the Atlanteans I have seen before had pale skin."

Kaldur nods. "Most do. My father moved from America to Shayeris before I was born. Have you worked with Atlanteans before?"

"Yes, Underseaman is a member of the New Statesmen. They are the equivalent to your Justice League."

He's-? 'Underseaman'? I suppose it would sound better in German, but… Wallace is going to find that more than a little amusing. I'm using my ring not to smile myself. And well done to Angelika for not wiping her hand or anything. She's going for 'I am superior' rather than 'you are inferior'.

**She's a Nazi!?**

Kon and M'gann are staring at me, while Kaldur and Angelika don't react. Closed circuit it is, then. Kon and I are easier for M'gann to communicate with.

**She's a work in progress. All of the genocide that resulted from their victory happened before she was born. It would be unreasonable for us to blame her for it in the same way that it would be unreasonable for anyone to blame me for the transatlantic slave trade or M'gann for the assassination of Prelate D'rett.**

Kon blinks, then half-turns to M'gann. **Who?**

**He was assassinated by white rights extremists. And I don't think it's the same. I don't go around with a t-shirt on saying 'the Hyperclan did nothing wrong'.**

**But if you were born in a Hyperclan enclave surrounded by people who believed that the Hyperclan did nothing wrong, and you thought that as a result, should we blame you for it then?**

**Nnnnnoo.**

**Great! Because I might need your help in talking her around.**

**Oh…** Kon and M'gann glance at each other. **Kay..?**

**Tha-.**

Donner, of course!

Kon subtly shakes his head. **Who?**

"Overgirl,-" I turn to where she's giving Kaldur's questions the briefest answers she can manage. "-I think I might have someone you'd know."

She turns stiffly. "Who is that?"

"Donner. Gerri Brauer? She-."

Angelika jerks in surprise, and then beams. "Aunty Gerri?!"

"So you know her?"

"Yes, I know her." She appears to be genuinely happy. "She is a major hero on my Earth, and she was my combat instructor when Overman was busy." She restrains herself slightly. "I know that she is not the same woman, but I would still like to meet her."

"Okay. I've only spoken to her a couple of times." Back when I was tracking Danner Formula enhanciles. I think she's been talking to Arnold, but I haven't kept in touch. I'm going to assume that the National Socialists didn't get that formula on Earth 10, though I'm not sure how they missed it. "I'll phone her and ask if she's willing to meet you."

"Thank you."

I raise my left hand to my ear.

"Ring, phone Gerri Brauer."

Compliance.

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
16:19 GMT -5

"Hallo?"

Ms Brauer doesn't have a secret identity, but sometimes using someone's nom de héroïque is appropriate anyway. It indicates that you treat their work seriously, rather than thinking of them as some kind of costumed lunatic.

Who isn't also doing a decent job.

But this is out of hours. She's not on the job, and calling her 'Donner' might make her think this is some sort of emergency…

Ah, just sidestep it.

"Hi, Orange Lantern here. Are you busy?"

"I can talk. Have you found another one of us?"

Not in the way you're asking.

"No, I… Actually need to ask a favour. We just had a hole to a parallel universe open in near-Earth orbit. A woman came through, and she's… Having a bit of culture shock. You're… She knows their version of you, and… Nearly no one else here has a direct equivalent. Are you willing to meet her?"

"What sort of parallel universe?"

I wince inwardly.

"Your parents would probably have liked it."

"My p-? You mean… The Nazis..?"

"Yeah. So you know better than anyone what sort of environment she grew up in."

"Is she dangerous? Violent?"

"So far she's been.. about as reasonable as she could be. She's clearly not happy, but I've explained how things are different here and the worst she's done is use intemperate language to describe it."

M'gann turns away from their ongoing conversation to frown at my use of the word 'intemperate'. Because M'gann knows how I use that word, and while Angelika is being a little standoffish, she's being polite. She isn't giving any overt sign of being angry or scared. I guess even Nazi's just a word, until they start calling your friends subhuman.

"Why are you asking for her?"

"Because you had a change of heart and I'd like you do help her do the same. Her existing relationship-" Angelika frowns at me. "-with your alter-ego means that she's more likely to listen to you than… Well…"

"Everyone knows about the cake."

"She.. doesn't."

Angelika shakes her head and turns back to Kon. "Did Orange Lantern do something with a cake?"

"Didn't, hurray for super hearing."

"Hehaha. Yes, okay, I can see her. Have you been clear that I am not the other version of me?"

"I'll reiterate-"

"He what?!"

I sigh quietly. "-it. Where are you?"

"Val and I are in Inges Karotte in Munich. Can you find it?"

Hotel? Bar? Doesn't matter.

"Yes, no problem. Thank you. I'll see you shortly."

I hang up.

"Hah!"

And there's a picture of the cake on the holographic display.

"Overgirl, she's fine with meeting you-."

"Of course she is." She presses a button and the hologram vanishes. "Where is she?"

"Munich, so we're heading there. They don't have a zeta tube, so we'll head to Berlin and fly."

She nods. "Okay." She returns her attention to my friends. "Kon-El, M'gann, Aqualad, it was nice to meet you all."

"Yeah." Kon smiles and waves as we head towards the zeta tube. "Hope you get home soon!"

"Now, I want to be sure that you understand that-"

"Recognized, Orange Lantern, B zero six, Overgirl, A Six One."

14th March
22:22 GMT +1

"-your Gerri Brauer and ours aren't-."

"She isn't a National Socialist, I know. I heard everything both of you said." She taps her right ear with her right forefinger. "'Over hearing'."

"She was brought up as a National Socialist, but stopped after-."

"After she saw the wonders of your de-. Society. And you want her to convince me."

I point upwards with my right forefinger. She nods, and we rapidly ascend above the Berlin streets and turn south south west.

"If it helps, I'm happy to let you try and turn me into a National Socialist. If you have objective evidence, I'll examine it."

"Hm, very gracious of you. But Aunty Gerri was not a very.. 'good' National Socialist on my Earth." She smiles. "Heh. She still jokes to me about being a sexual deviant."

"Really? What particular deviation..?"

"That she is attracted to women. The first time she did it I nearly telephoned the State Police. Even after she explained it to me I thought it was a shocking thing to joke about for years. But now it's just tiresome. 'Aunty Gerri, please, it's not funny anymore, you're not fooling anyone.'"

…

"Seems.. like a bit of a risky joke."

"We don't execute people for making jokes."

…

Ring, what sort of place is Inges Karotte?

…

Ah.

Well I can't pretend…

"Theoretically, what would happen in your society if she wasn't joking, she just used that as a cover when you walked in on her with her girlfriend?"

Angelika stops in the air and gives me an extremely disturbed look.

"Why are you asking?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
22:27 GMT +1

"No."

"I can s-."

"No."

"Overg-."

"No."

"Angelika-."

"How is your society so degenerate that a good woman like Aunty Gerri is… Infected with these filthy habits?"

"Simply put, we-" Mostly. "-don't regard them as filthy or degenerate. I mean, what logical-."

"What djgkh-?" She shudders, taking a moment to compose herself. I really have to admire her presence of mind; she's had to do that a lot today, but even being confronted by the idea that the woman who's become her mother-substitute was homosexual all along she's trying to respond coherently and rationally. "Logical. Yes. How do they have children?"

"In vitro fertilisation. Or they adopt." I shrug. "Come on, I know kryptonians had exo-wombs. I don't believe for a moment that Earth Ten doesn't have technology for assisting reproduction."

She shakes her head. "We could probably perform such procedures but we do not use the technology like that. If it cannot breed then it does not deserve to breed."

"Oh."

She glares at me. "What do you mean 'oh'?"

"Kon hasn't.. exactly asked, but it.. seemed… He wouldn't be able to have children with M'gann anyway. I.. had wondered how you squared superheroing with… 'Children, church and kitchen'."

"Women aren't that limited. Ariosophists like strong women. And the fact that I cannot have children does not unduly trouble me. We do not sterilise war veterans who lost limbs in honourable battle in the way we do people born without them due to genetic flaws. I lost the ability to bear children but my race gained knowledge of kryptonian genetics. Mine was an honourable sacrifice."

"Your men-."

"Karl could sire children on any healthy kryptonian woman. It does not apply."

"And most lesbians could reproduce through conventional sex with a man if they wanted to. And I imagine that prior to the invention of assisted reproduction technology.. some did. I've personally helped thirty one lesbian couples have children or become pregnant-."

"If they are having-" She frowns. "-sex with you then they are hardly lesbians."

"Ah, no, sorry, I meant that I've used my ring to assist them, merging genetic material and triggering cell division."

Which is not to say that I haven't had… Offers. Some of which included Jade. I'm pretty sure that she'd never go for it.

"Besides, one man causing that many pregnancies amongst an isolated population would be terrible for genetic diversity."

"Please repeat that?"

I frown. "Besides… One man causing.. that many pregnancies amongst a isolated population would be.. terrible for genetic diversity?"

"So perhaps you should add negroes and Jews to it? Have you been educated into believing that you need genes from degenerates in order to remain healthy?"

"Ah-. Not exactly, but genetic errors tend to be expressed far less in diverse populations."

"Just sterilise the people carrying them."

"That seems a little extreme."

"Does 'diversity' prevent genetic errors from being expressed, even when only unrelated people reproduce?"

"Ah, no, not completely. We don't-."

"Sterilisation does, when combined with mandatory genetic screening."

"We don't have the technology to screen like that. But we're getting off the point, unless your Earth has discovered an underlying genetic basis for homosexuality."

"What is the point?" She turns away. "In a few days, either your Justice League will send me back, or the New Statesmen will have come to recover me. You will not 'turn' me in that time, and I doubt that I will have turned you."

"The.. point is that we told Mrs Brauer that we'd meet her, and we're going to be late."

"So-. Wait, she is married? You told me that she is only interested in women!"

I don't remember what Germany Prime's stance on gay marriage was, but here it's been legal since the noughties.

"German law allows two people to marry. Whether they're a man and a woman or two of either is only significant if they want a church wedding."

Angelika appears to be uncertain what to make of that. Either that, or she's about to vomit, but we're over countryside here so that won't matter too much.

"Gay people are no more inherently liberal than straight people. If given the opportunity to form near-conventional romantic relationships, most will go for it. I mean, what do your schools teach about Ernst Röhm?"

"Who?"

"Member of the German Workers' Party? Commanded the Sturmabteilung? Took over the War Ministry during the Beer Hall Putsch? Got purged when the National Socialists went mainstream?"

"Are you implying that he may have been homosexual?"

"I'm not implying anything; I'm directly stating it. As I understand, he was pretty open about it. It was public knowledge at the time. And he was still a member of the National Socialist party because it didn't have a hard line on sexual orientation at the time and he agreed with everything else." Hm. "You know, you could take a copy of our archives back with you. Everything your Germania has chosen to forget. I mean… If you're sure that you're right, what's the harm in getting more primary sources?"

"Sometimes the purity-. The purity of the state must be preserved by impure means."

"Meaning?"

"The criminal terrorists I fight often have friends and families. Some of whom knew nothing of their illegal activities. People who would mourn their loss, and beg for clemency. It would be 'nice' to be able to grant it, but all that would do is release a criminal to commit more crimes. So I don't dwell on it. I don't hear petitions. And I don't record that someone I tore in half was considered to be 'a friendly, regular sort of guy' in official reports, because people will read those and may reach the false conclusion that terrorism is what friendly, regular sorts of guy do."

"And is having sex with other women something that national heroines do?"

She gives her head a small shake. "No."

"Then how do you intend to explain-?"

"Overman-. I'm sure that he knows. And… If my Aunty Gerri is… Then I will not talk about it. I will not report it. And I will bear talking to your Mrs Brauer as I have borne everything else here."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
22:38 GMT +1

Angelika pushes open the door and steps inside, visibly braced for whatever depravity she may find inside. And… Yes, as expected: a disappointment. It's a bar, not a club or 'love hotel'. People of all ages-. All ages who can legally order alcohol, are chatting and drinking and, yes, almost all of them are women and I can see the violet strands in a good number of cases, but nothing is happening that isn't comfortably PG.

That doesn't seem to be helping Angelika. She's sort of stopped just inside the entrance, and she's getting a few puzzled glances. Sure, people come here in fancy dress sometimes, but-. Huh, I suppose that the single red 'S' isn't an obvious National Socialist symbol, if people can even see it in the low light of the bar.

I step around her and approach the bar, a barmaid shrugging to the patron she was talking to before walking over.

"Are you in the right place?"

"I didn't realise that it was exclusive."

"No, no." She shakes her head. "But sometimes tourists come in here without knowing who drinks here."

"We're here to meet someone, but first…" I turn my head towards Angelika. "Angelika? Do you want something?"

Overhearing or not, she doesn't appear to be listening.

I turn back to the bar.

"Liqueur, I think. I'll have an orange juice."

"Are you driving?"

"I'm on call. She's not."

She turns away, opens the bar's fridge and pulls out an orange juice bottle. "Any particular liquor, or should I just pick one?"

"Something local? And good?"

"Okay. Nice Orange Lantern costume."

"Thank you, I made it myself."

"Who is she supposed to be?"

"Some sort of dark and gritty Supergirl reboot." She passes me the orange juice and then pulls out a tumbler from behind the bar. "It's not really my sort of thing, but she's a big fan."

The barmaid turns to an inverted bottle behind the bar with a picture of a beehive on it. "Single or double?"

"Best make it a double, I think."

She presses the glass upwards twice, golden liquid pouring into the glass. Then she turns back to me and puts it down next to my orange juice. I pay, using mild sleight of hand to disguise that I'm taking the euros out of subspace rather than my pocket, then pick up the glasses and turn back to Angelika.

"Have you adapted?"

Her eyes jerk back to me. "It's just a bar. These people are not a threat to me."

"Not a physical threat, but okay. Let me know if you need to leave."

Mrs and Dr Brauer have been watching us from the moment we entered, shuffling around their bench to make room as we thread our way through the crowd. I smile politely as we get to within talking distance.

"Mrs Brauer, thank you for agreeing to meet us."

Mrs Brauer and Angelika are regarding each other cautiously. One is a super-Nazi meeting the double degenerate doppelgänger of her aunt. The other is a medium-power superhero who knows how violent neo-Nazis can be and is fairly sure that she couldn't safely contain the woman opposite her because while she's about as strong and about as tough and heals faster she can't fly or shoot heat beams out of her eyes.

"That's fine."

I sit down opposite her wife. "Doctor Brauer."

She looks surprised for a moment, then shakes her head with a chuckle. "No, I kept my name. And please; Val's fine."

Angelika is standing next to the table, her eyes-. She's looking at the wedding rings, and Mrs Brauer stretches out her fingers to indicate that she's noticed the stare.

"Are you going to sit down?"

Angelika sits almost immediately. Perhaps due to the familiarity of the voice and the attitude of the speaker. They look at each other for a few moments, then Mrs Brauer nods.

"I'm Gerri Brauer, also known as Donner."

"Angelika Kant. Overgirl."

They continue looking at each other for a moment, before Mrs Brauer apparently decides that it's her job to take the lead.

"How long have you known the other me?"

"Twenty five years. She had known Overman for decades, and it felt natural to him to ask her to train me."

A lot of people don't realise that Mrs Brauer is in her seventies. I'd say that she looks less than half that, though obviously I wouldn't be so socially cack-handed as to make a technically accurate 'cradle robber' comment regarding her new wife. Another point on the Danner life expectancy graph. Maybe I should offer it to Paula? She hasn't asked…

"And.. she's.. a..?"

Angelika holds her head up proudly. "National Socialist. And you are… Not. Why not?"

"I.. grew up in post-War Germany. My parents tried very hard to bring me up 'properly', but there were so many competing influences that they could not keep me away from all of them. And they could not keep me from discovering the truth of the parts of National Socialism that they themselves were not particularly fond of. Once I became aware of those, the idea that the Third Empire was defined by strength and unity was not something I could continue to believe. And once that certainty was undermined, I became more open to other points of view." She shakes her head, glancing at her wife. "But only gradually. My parents' lessons were a large part of how I viewed the world."

"How did you..?" Angelika looks at Val for a moment. "…with women..?"

"I did not recognise that I liked other women for a long time. My parents had taught me that theirs was the correct way for romantic relationships to be conducted." She shrugs. "And since they were happy together from when they met to when they died, it seemed to work for them. I.. had male friends, but none I felt attracted to in a romantic way. And I had female friends…" Another shrug. "Some of them, I liked the way they looked. Some were very close friends, but… I had nothing to compare what I felt for them to."

Angelika nods, and I can practically feel her assembling the narrative in her head. Too much honesty and openness, a good and proper National Socialist woman is led astray by the degenerates all around her.

"What about your version of me? I imagine that she would have married decades ago."

"No. She did not. She… Did not think that she could justify leaving her role as a warrior heroine to have a family."

"Still? Is your Germany still at war?"

"… No. The Second World War finished in nineteen fifty eight, and we have maintained good relations with-" A glance at the half-Japanese Dr Kameya. "-the other world powers since then."

"She has not found time for a family in fifty years?"

"Terrorist attacks from surviving subhumans were common in the east. She had to move around a great deal."

"Angelika, this isn't going to help if you-."

"And she-. Had a girlfriend. Perhaps more than one, I only saw her with-."

Mrs Brauer frowns. "You saw her-?"

"She told me it was a prank!"

Mrs Brauer smiles fondly. "You must have been a very trusting girl. But what do you think now?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
22:42 GMT +1

Angelika looks down at the table, and I slide the drink into her line of sight.

"I think that she likes women."

Mrs Brauer nods. "So: the Nazis control everything and some people are still homosexual."

Angelika looks away, but this bar doesn't leave a lot of places for someone to look where they won't be confronted with gayness. "Yes."

Mrs Brauer frowns. "Did Röhm kill Hitler on your Earth? Or did they just decide that sexual orientation didn't matter?"

Angelika squirms a little at the mention of Röhm. Perhaps she held out some hope that I'd made the man up?

"No, it matters. Someone found to be behaving in such a way… If they are young, there are corrective measures, but otherwise they would be severely punished or killed."

"You found your version of me with her girlfriend… Did the government decide to keep it quiet?"

"Now I know, and I think that Overman knows. I don't think that anyone else does."

"She can't be that good at hiding it if you walked in on her."

"Kryptonian genetics have given me very good hearing. I was… Investigating a sound I did not recognise."

Dr Kameya covers her mouth with her right fist just in time to muffle her guffaw. Angelika shifts awkwardly in her seat.

Mrs Brauer nods. "We will have to bear in mind how inquisitive children can be if we have children."

I raise my left hand slightly, rings glowing as a pale DNA strand construct appears above it. "I can create a zygote with DNA from two women. If you're ever interested, phone me."

Mrs Brauer gives me a mildly reproachful look, though I think it's due to me interrupting her effort to connect with Angelika rather than my offer to help her become a mother while in her seventies.

"Are you going to report her?"

Angelika shakes her head. "No. I-. Need to speak to her about it, but I.. cannot report Aunty Gerri."

"I'm glad for her. But what does that mean for you?"

"It.. means that I am putting my personal relationships ahead of my duty to the state and people."

"I meant: can you get into trouble for not reporting it?"

"Perhaps. But I doubt it. I have a high enough status that I could simply say that I did not know, and that would be accepted." She shakes her head. "Unless there was video evidence, Aunty Gerri could probably shut down any investigation herself. It might be different if I spoke against her, but she is one of our most revered heroes. Her word would not be doubted lightly."

"And how many others do you think there are like her?"

"Ther-." Angelika takes a deep breath. "Few. She is old enough that she was born before the modern social controls became so pervasive. Most people don't even know that some people have such desires. It may be that some are confused as you were, but we can help them develop a healthy sexuality."

"'Healthy'."

"Yes."

Mrs Brauer takes a moment. "I suppose in a Germany controlled by the Nazis-"

"National Socialists."

"-it probably is better for their health. Here, I am much happier now that I can express-" She and Dr Kameya make eye contact and clasp hands with a smile. "-my love openly."

Angelika sits back, looking more sad than angry about it.

"Why did you want to meet me?"

"I used to feel very self conscious talking about.. some things with Overman. But I could always talk about anything with Aunty Gerri. I thought that.. talking to you might help with coping with all of this. And it hasn't, even a little bit, because you are the worst part of it."

"Okay?"

"I understand what Orange Lantern is trying to do: to show me that your civilisation works and is full of normal people who just do things a little bit differently. And you know all sorts of things we culled from our history because they would be a distraction. I've seen things like that before; I know how to ignore them. But I can't ignore you, or what I've learned about Aunty Gerri. And I hate that."

Uh… Oh.

Mrs Brauer nods sympathetically.

"It's a lot to take in, isn't it? You know your beliefs are nonsense-."

"They are not nonsense!"

"But you can't just throw it away, because then what do you do?" And just for a moment she actually looks seventy. "The Justice League is trying to send you home?"

Angelika nods.

"I think you should stay here. Until you're sure how you feel about everything."

"How would that help?"

"Because 'why' finds no answer."

She turns to look at me, clearly recognising the quote but not understanding its relevance.

"The problem here is not that you need to suppress an inconvenient truth or two in order to let other people carry on doing their job. The problem is that the existence of this society proves that doing that job was unnecessary. With no purges at all two thirds of Germany became one of this Earth's largest economies. So it doesn't matter whether the Jews were trying to undermine German society or not; this Germany did fine without needing to scapegoat anyone. You're a fundamentally rational woman; if you were totally blinded by ideology you'd have attacked me as soon as you found out what this world was like. You're trying to see lies that aren't there behind the curtain that isn't there, and you're becoming increasingly distressed not because you're appalled but because you're not appalled and know that you should be."

Mrs Brauer nods. "And that's why you should stay. If you went home now, what would you do?"

"I would be embraced by my friends and team mates, and forget that this happened."

"Could you forget it? If nothing else I'm sure that Overman would like to talk to you about it."

Angelika's eyes unfocus slightly, and I don't think it's because she's staring through a wall.

"Yes. I think that he would." A deep breath. "And whatever view I reach, what do you expect me to do?"

"You might want to stay here permanently. Or you might want to go home and help your society start to reform."

"Or you'll have your faith in National Socialism restored in full and will be able to go home with your head held high."

Dr Kameya gives me a disgruntled glare.

"But from a purely self-interested point of view, surely either outcome would be better than what you're feeling now."

"I don't live for myself. I live for Germania."

"Then doesn't Germania deserve to have you at your-"

My ring blinks.

"-best?" Urgh. "Excuse me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
22:47 GMT +1

I step out through the bar's doorway and hold out my left hand.

"Orange Lantern."

Guy's head appears, and he looks less than amused. The German passers-by around me on the other hand look decidedly amused, beginning to form a rough circle around me.

"You plannin' on tellin' us she was a Nazi?"

Perhaps it would be best if I..? Yes.

I fly directly upwards fifty metres, high enough that the crowd can't hear me but low enough not to trouble aircraft.

"No. I felt that it would be prejudicial-"

He bows his head slightly "Ahh."

"-to her rehabilitation if everyone around her was reacting to that facet of her character."

"Rehab."

"Well, yes. What did you think I was going to do with her? She couldn't very well miss that we were a somewhat more diverse society than she was used to."

"Coulda kept her in Supe's Fortress."

"For an indefinite period of time?"

"For a day or two, 'till we work somethin' else out."

"I've got her sitting and talking peacefully with two gay women in a gay bar."

"Huh?"

"Denazification progress I wouldn't have made if she was still in the Fortress."

"Come a long way since blowin' up the whole Citadel Empire there, Orange."

"There wasn't anything to rehabilitate the Citadel to." I shake my head. "How's the research on the portal coming?"

"What you askin' me for?" He looks away from his ring for a moment. "Only thing I've done is fetch some a' Overgirl's skin cells and blood from the-"

Idiot! Of course there'd be-!

"-place you picked her up. Dunno if they're actually gettin' anythin' useful off them."

"Have you spoken to the Guardians?"

"'bout this? No. This is just normal Earth crap, right? Why, you think I should?"

"I don't know anyone else on Earth I could meaningfully ask for input. That means I'm down to asking either Dox, Kalmin-"

"Hell no."

"-or Hinon. I don't know enough about whatever that portal was to offer anything myself. Have you unlocked some sort of Bleed control construct from the archives?"

"I could prob'ly shut it down if it opened up again, but that's it."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's-. Kinda not relevant."

"So what, you just called me to complain about me not taking the time out to tell you that Earth Ten is where Kal-El landed in Nazi Germany and the Nazis won the War with Kryptonian technology?"

"Oh. That how it happened?"

"I haven't asked for a moment by moment account, but that's what she told me."

"All it woulda taken for the Nazis to win would be Supe's pa gettin' the landin' zone wrong."

"And not putting any security on the ship's database. Them just getting to bring up Overman would have been bad but hardly catastrophic."

He smiles. "Reckon Al coulda taken him, do yah?"

Difficult to say. Alan would have had the edge in experience, but most of his early career involved him fighting mundane criminals rather than high-powered superpeople. If the Nazis had been prepared to take people off front line duties in order to train him…

"Not sure. Alan died on their Earth, but if other things were a little different…"

"An' what happened to their me?"

"Unless you were conceived before nineteen thirty eight then I doubt that you were ever born."

"Yeah? How 'bout you?"

"I haven't asked, but she didn't appear to recognise me. And since I come from a parallel universe anyway, there probably aren't versions of me in other parallels-."

In a sane multiverse. Blue-me does rather suggest that things don't work as I think they should. But... I mean, why would there be? We couldn't all come from Earth Prime, and even if there were multiple similar parallels the chance of multiple versions of me being transferred at the same time must be astronomically small. There wasn't a native version of me, after all. I could accept one instance of another me as chance, but if it turns out that I'm everywhere...

"Ah, hey, Bats wants ta know if she's got someplace to stay tonight."

"We haven't really got that far. I can book her into a hotel if someone hasn't cracked the portal by then."

"You okay ta keep lookin' aftah her?"

"Yes, though I'm not entirely sure that she'll be okay with me continuing to be her escort. She's not exactly happy about having to confront how non-Nazi our Earth is."

"Sucks t' be her. Hey, they got any Lanterns ovah there?"

"Some Nazi got Alan's ring after they killed him. Otherwise, their Earth doesn't have any Lanterns."

"Think we could take 'em?"

"I'm not sure why picking a fight with a planet of National Socialists would be a sensible thing to do. If you're talking about having the League fight the New Statesmen-"

"That what they call themselves?"

"-then I'd bet on you… You do have kryptonite on you, right?"

"Seems like a crutch."

"Their Overman has an extra fifty years' experience and is used to killing. In a fight he'd probably beat ours."

"Hn. I'll tell Supes you said-"

There's a blast of displaced air as Overgirl appears next to me.

"-that."

"As you will. Signing off."

My ring fades as I lower my left hand.

"Angelika, I think I've been pushing you harder than-."

"I have not enjoyed this, but it has not exactly been a re-education centre."

"True, but I've… Pretty much played my hand. How about you pick somewhere, and we go there?"

She nod thoughtfully.

"I think that I would like to see my home. Take me to Wewelsburg Castle."

 

[Mr Zoat]

14th March
22:59 GMT +1

"Oh."

I… Consider saying something, but I think it's better to let her work through this by herself for a moment.

I think I remember that the Earth Prime version of Wewelsburg Castle was some sort of SS facility. The Earth 16 version was instead technically controlled by the SS, but was mostly used as the centre of operations for the Thule Society. Which I imagine Himmler was tickled pink about, being the giant magic fanboy that he was. They actually based the Spear of Destiny's aegis here rather than in Berlin, a decision which allowed the Thulist magicians to monitor it full time but left it a little exposed. Once the US 3rd Armoured Division captured it, their attached shaman was able to end the spell and render what was left of the Third Reich open to Allied superheroes.

Of course, by that stage it probably only knocked a few weeks off the war…

"That is… What is it used for?"

"Part of it is a museum. Another is a youth hostel. And there's a fire station for the village."

"The-. The village is underwater on my Earth. The area was cleared after the war."

"Who owns it?"

"It is a Protectorate training centre, where the next generation of heroes are taught to use their powers."

"Not a Thulist chantry?"

"Thulist? No. They had little impact on the war. Certainly, they had no need for a castle. Were things different here?"

"Without a kryptonian or Kryptonian weapons, the National Socialists relied on magic to keep out Allied superheroes. And of course, with no Overman, Germany's greatest hero was Captain Nazi."

"National Soc-." She frowns. "Unless he was actually from Bavaria, and his name was a joke? I don't think that he would call himself 'Nazi'."

Huh. Obvious, when you think about it.

"Albrecht Krieger?" She shakes her head. A fortunate escape for Lucky Hans, then. "He was pretty powerful, but he was created by magic and I.. guess that your Germany didn't get heavily enough into that."

"No. The Fuhrer put a great deal of resources into understanding the technical data taken from Overman's pod. Since the returns were good, he would not have felt the need to continue working with such people. Germans were not comfortable with magic at the time."

She shakes her head.

"There is nothing for me here."

"The.. hostel part is still open. We can probably go in-."

"No, it… I should stop looking for points of similarity. That is a path only to disappointment." She turns away from the castle to look at me. "What happened to him?"

"Albrecht?" She nods. "He survived the war and went underground with his brother Wolf. They turned up in various places, working with… We'd call them 'fascist' groups."

"Italian expatriates?"

"No, right-wing, anti-Semitic, militant nationalists. Even tried living in America for a while, at the height of the Cold War."

"What is the 'Cold War'?"

"After National Socialist Germany was defeated, Europe was split between America and Company in the West and the Soviet Union in the East. Nuclear weapons meant that direct warfare was considered to be too risky by both sides, but they both hated each other, so… A war that never saw them directly fighting one another." I exhale sharply through my nose. "The Americans wanted a powerful supersoldier badly enough that Albrecht nearly got a job." I shrug. "It didn't work out. They actually took part in an attack on the Watchtower in twenty ten, with help from National Socialist Russians."

She frowns. "Russians?"

"Yes."

"Russians who live in Russia?"

"Yes."

"But they are not Slavic? They were from another ethnic group?"

"No, no, mostly they were Slavs."

"Were they there to die in the service of the Master Race?"

"No." I think for a moment. "Well, they didn't think so. That might have been the Kriegers' plan. But I think they just tippexed what Hitler wrote about Slavs in their copies of Mein Kampf. But we won and they lost. The Kriegers escaped, and next time I ran into them was in Brazil."

"Does Brazil have a National Socialist government? Or a.. fascist government?"

"Not any more. They had an… Interest in a local man, but we were there first. We killed them, picked up a rather large bounty payment and I sent the Spear of Destiny to Atlantis for safe keeping."

"His spear was really the Spear of Destiny?"

"It's a very powerful magic spear. I don't know what its origin was, or whether it's the same spear mentioned in whatever arcane text you're thinking of."

"What did he want with the man in Brazil?"

"That's… Something I should probably check that he's okay with you knowing." I break eye contact, looking around the night time German countryside. "Since it doesn't look like the Justice League is going to be able to send you home this evening, have you given any thought to where you'd want to stay?"

"Not Germany, please."

"Yes, I guessed. And because -with all due-."

"You want me where you can see me."

"But you'd-."

She nods. "But not in a location that you consider secure. So not your mountain or your Superman's fortress. Are you suggesting your home?"

"I was going to suggest a hotel. You're welcome to my settee if you want it, but I think you might prefer a bed."

"I am hardly likely to sleep. Is there really nowhere on the Earth where National Socialists are in the ascendancy?"

"There… Are… A few isolated places inside some countries, but I don't know anyone in any of them. If you really want to meet them then I suppose that in the interests of balance I should let you, but they don't openly run hotels." She doesn't say anything for a few moments. "I can recommend a hotel-."

"Yes, that will-. I was just thinking about what I could do with myself while I am here. I cannot help in reopening the portal, but I will not be work-shy."

Um.

15th March
17:29 GMT -5

Kaldur said yes.

"Everyone, this is Overgirl."

But…

Canis looks curious. Wallace and Richard regard me with incredulity. Ghia'ta and Arisia look like they know they're missing something but aren't sure what it is. Raquel has skipped straight to glaring. And the rest of the team don't look all that happy.

"She's going to be working with us for a little while."

 

[Mr Zoat]

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.

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th March 2002
00:38 GMT -7

Jade backs up further, a shock baton appearing in her left hand and a crossbow pistol in her right. But there isn't any particular surprise in her expression. Her life to date hasn't encouraged or rewarded trust and she certainly wasn't putting any faith in me at this point in our working relationship. To be fair, I don't trust her either, which is why none of my employees know why we're here.

"Hey, what the hell are you-"

There's an arrowhead next to my head-

"-doing?!"

-as the battered canisters leak brown sludge over the floor of Mr Edge's vault. Liquids don't really compress that well but they do conduct blast waves. Thank you, Hollywood Science. I could shoot it again, but at this point-.

The mud begins purposively pouring out of the canisters, collecting into thick strands which writhe and twist around one another before merging into a unified mass.

The arrow lowers.

"The.. hell..?"

I lower the Gravity Rod and step forward as arms, legs and the outline of a face begin to appear.

"Mister Hagen? Are you compos mentis?"

I don't look, but I suspect that Roy is frowning as he reorientates his arrow. "Hagen. Clayface?"

"Not my greatest role." Mr Hagen mimes cracking a neck he no longer possesses, then lumbers around to look at the canisters. "How long was I in there?"

"About four years, I'm afraid."

He turns back to the four of us, eyes -such as he has- properly focusing on me for the first time.

"Edge?"

"Will be spending some significant time explaining himself to the Federal Bureau of Investigation once we anonymously drop him off."

He thinks about that for a moment.

"You some kind of superhero?"

"I prefer to think of myself-."

"Heh. Supervillain, then."

"Not really." I hold up the Rod. "Barely know how to use it." I indicate Roy with my right thumb. "He's a superhero. She's-" I look around and nod at Barbara. "-a former supervillain and she-" I nod at Jade. "-issss..." I raise my eyebrows. "Former supervillain?"

She shrugs.

I turn back to Mr Hagen.

"Former supervillain. I, Mister Hagen, am in the business of locating people who have -for whatever reason- made some rather unfortunate choices, but whom I think might be amenable to making better ones in future."

"Uh-huh."

I reach down with my right hand, unclip a chemical flask and hold it out to him.

"MP Forty. I understand it helps you pull yourself into shape."

He looks at it hungrily. "It does more than that. It makes me feel human again. What do you want for it?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. First taste is free."

"Heh." He reaches forward with his left hand and takes it from me. "And the second taste?"

I shrug. "You need to show me that you're serious about reforming. I can arrange for you to continue receiving doses while you're in prison-"

"Ah, I already don't like this plan."

"-and for a legal team who will keep the time you'll serve to an absolute minimum. Doctor Bates is already working for me-."

He frowns. "Stella? She's still..?"

"Invested in your wellbeing? Yes. Her work has enough other applications that that I've been able to justify setting her up in a laboratory, and I'm happy for her to also work on a long-term fix for you."

"If I play ball."

"If you play ball."

He holds up his right arm and turns his hand into a morning star.

"And if I don't?"

"I don't intend to stop you." I step aside, leaving a clear aisle towards the vault's exit. "You're free to go."

He lumbers past us and sticks his head out through the door. "That sounds better. Where are we, anyway?"

"A small island in the South Pacific." He stills, then turns back to me. "I won't stop you from leaving… But if we don't come to terms then I won't help you to leave."

He lumbers back, growing larger as he does so. Though his combat abilities are… Disturbing, he is restricted by conservation of mass. While he can whip out his arms to tens of metres long they're not particularly strong when he does that, which is why he makes dense patches in the shape of bludgeoning or melee weapons when he wants to seriously hurt someone.

I fold my arms across my chest and wait patiently.

"Not Arkham. Not Blackgate. Someplace… Nice. I think I want to take up gardening."

"I don't have the authority to negotiate, but… I'll see what I can do. Avoiding Arkham should be simple enough; whatever else you are you're clearly not insane."

"Guess that'll have to do." He shifts his right hand back into a hand, twists the top off the flask and downs the contents. Then he tosses it back towards the canisters which contained him. "How are we getting off this rock?"

"Submarine."

He closes his eyes and groans.

"Submarine. Why did it have to be a submarine?"

"The island's too small for an airplane big enough to carry you and I don't own a helicopter big enough to carry you. Cheshire, would you be so good as to lead the way out?"

She stows her pistol bow, makes brief eye contact with Roy and then turns away, heading cautiously down the corridor towards the exit. Mr Hagen regards me for a moment, then turns away to lumber after her.

"Clayface."

"Arsenal, I don't like using their-" I make fleeting eye contact with Barbara, who looks away. "-nom de infamies. I think it encourages them to think of themselves as criminals and nothing else. Will you stay here until the navy arrives?"

"Yeah, no problem." He nods. "Good trip."

Barbara and I follow Mr Hagen towards the front door, the sky outside… Glowing red for some reason? Flares? Did we miss someone, or is the navy early? That could be a little awkward if-.

"Acquisition successful. Locating local variant 'Peter Wynne'."

What the hell is-?

Mr Hagen smiles as he looks back at me.

"Guess I'm getting out-"

He shrinks, assuming my form.

"-after all. Thanks for the jail-."

A giant blue.. hand reaches down and grabs him, pulling him up into the air.

"Acquisition successful."

…

"What?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Jungle Gym

15th March
20:46 GMT -5

I walk-.

"What-"

I wince-.

"-the-"

Raquel grabs me by the right arm and pulls me around.

"-fuck?!"

"There's no point whispering. She'll hear us perfectly well if she concentrates."

"What the fuck?"

"Her culture has engineered a visceral revulsion at the idea of underemployment, she wanted a job and-."

"A Nazi?!"

"You know Canis is worse, right?"

She grimaces, shaking her head. "He's not a Nazi, he's just a.. weird.. art.. guy."

"Did you..? Miss the bit where he mentioned leading Apokoliptian armies? You've read the files on Apokolips, what did you think they were doing?"

"Fighting a war?"

I don't laugh, even though that statement is ridiculous.

"The area around Apokolips is called 'The Waste', because whenever anyone tries settling there Apokoliptian armies go out, kill everyone and destroy everything. Canis personally led at least one campaign of outright extermination and sees nothing wrong with having done so, so, compared to that, the activities of someone who has mostly done the same sort of work as us but in the service of a far less pleasant society is less evil."

"So she is evil."

"Well that's an interesting philosophical-."

"Paul."

"No, it is! Let's assume that as a fully indoctrinated National Socialist-"

"Nazi."

"-she sees absolutely nothing wrong with killing someone from one of their scapegoat groups. However, as a result of frantic genocidal purging before her birth she's never met one. Jews are extinct, gypsies are extinct-."

She raises her eyebrows. "Niggers are extinct."

"Actually, no, but I got the impression that Kaldur was the first black person she'd ever spoken to. The point is, though she would take part in a genocide if asked, she never has. Likewise, she hasn't ferreted disabled people out of hiding to send them to the camps because there aren't any. She hasn't had the opportunity to do the evil she'd be willing to do. What she's actually done is crime fighting and disaster relief. So is she evil-"

"Yes."

"-or a good person working for an evil state?"

"Okay, kinda both. An evil person working for an evil state."

"You know she did dinner-" Raquel grimaces. "-tonight, right? Look… Why do we arrest people?"

"Yeah, I don't think Little Miss-"

"She's thirty nine."

"-Mz Nazi is gunna go join the Belle Reve Crew."

"Of course not. She hasn't committed a crime here yet."

Um. Except arguably wearing that red 's' symbol in Germany, where a very similar symbol was banned as part of post-war denazification and hasn't been unbanned. But fortunately America has much more broadly-phrased free speech laws.

"But we perform arrests rather than summary executions-"

"Because we're not Nazis."

"-because we try to rehabilitate people, Miss Breaking-and-Entering. We support a system in which people who break the rules are placed in confinement and gradually re-socialised. That is what I would like us to do for Angelika."

"I'm cool with confining the bitch."

"You… Ah, you.. mouthing off to her might be a bit of a hard test of her willingness to play along right now."

"Well excuse me, masser!"

I frown. "Oh, don't even. I'm not asking you to calm down a little because you're black, I'm asking you to do it because, firstly, her seeing you as a rational person undermines what she's been taught about black people, and second, because it means that if I've horribly misjudged the situation she's less likely to kill you."

"Oh, ah'm not going near her without my kinetic barrier-."

"She has heat vision."

She frowns. "Superboy didn't have heat vision."

"It's a different form of hybridisation. She can't match Superman's peak output but it'll still incinerate you."

She stands there for a moment with a decidedly disgruntled expression on her face.

"Oh that's a great way to introduce her to the team."

"Not… What I wanted to lead with. But I don't need to tell you not to make rude jokes about Darkseid in front of Canis despite the fact that-."

"Worse, yeah, I get it."

"If you want to see what true evil looks like I've got a few thousand hours' worth of recordings from Vega you can go through. Mid-firefight cannibalism is a high point, and the Citadelian slave-cages match anything the Nazis managed. Or heck, you ever watched a cowboys versus Indians film?"

"Yeah, but I never cheered the cavalry. Spotted that one."

"What tribes used to live where Dakota City is now? You live there, work there, and I don't see you calling for the city to be demolished."

"I wouldn'a invaded their land and killed them. She would."

"Okay, look: you don't have to have anything to do with her. I'd appreciate it if you'd help, because at the moment you're one of two black people she's been introduced to and I think you disprove Nazi propaganda pretty hard."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're welcome. But you don't have to, and she's probably only going to be here for a week or two anyway."

She sighs angrily.

"What's Superman sayin' about this, anyway?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th March
07:01 GMT -5

M'gann tilts her head to the side slightly as Angelika leads the Earth's other kryptonians and half-kryptonians through what looks like tai-chi. The motions don't exactly correspond to those of tai-chi, but humans and kryptonians have the same points of articulation so there's a degree of similarity.

"Overgirl knows Torquasm-Rao?"

"She might look young, but she is five years older than Superman." I watch as she corrects his form, changing the angle of his outstretched left arm. "And Overman's seventy four. He's had plenty of time to study it."

And a brief discussion of what it actually does made me very glad that we're not planning on fighting Overman anytime soon. From what Overman, Overgirl and Earth 10's magicians can work out, it essentially gives the user greater control of their innate energy fields. Which would mean that while Overman might be a physical duplicate of Superman, his training would make him in effect significantly stronger and tougher. And that's before getting into the really unusual things that are supposed to be possible with it.

Fortunately, no one of Earth 10 had access to an actual master of either Torquasm-Rao or Torquasm-Vo. They've essentially been trying to recreate it from surviving records with the aid of personal experimentation. I suppose that if I were looking for one I'd try-.

Overgirl doesn't know about Daxam. Which is one of two places where there might actually be a surviving master, along with the Phantom Zone. Or if not an actual master then at least an inheritor of the tradition.

Ms Lane takes a slurp of her coffee.

"Okay, you wanna give me the background on this?"

"Obvious question: how does someone with super strength learn how to fight?"

She nods. "I've seen how Superman goes through training robots. So this is kryptonian fight club?"

"No, you-. Superman's kryptonian physiology, his strength, toughness and speed, make it very hard for him to improve his skill level. A human martial artist can go to any gym or dojo and find people to train with. Someone as powerful as him? He's got maybe two dozen people on the planet he can train at anything like full power with. And out of all of them.. only Diana is much use as a trainer."

I had thought that Adom would be able to help there, but it turns out that he hasn't ever had to train a fighter in his weight class before either. Which makes sense: the other Ancients came pre-trained, Shiruta wasn't a brawler, and… As he said, he never had a family to share his power with before. He said that he would be happy to have training bouts with Superman, but even someone as clumsy as Clark Kent can only explain away so many bruises.

"Though Superman's doing better than some. The best Hugo Danner could come up with during World War One was to have himself dropped onto enemy positions by plane. When he fought the All-Star Squadron, Atom beat him pretty easily, because Atom had fought plenty of people in his weight class while Hugo hadn't."

"Wasn't he a boxer?"

I nod. "An amateur, but he was pretty good at it. Though… Honestly? Reading the reports it doesn't sound like he was all that good at it either. Super strength and toughness change so many assumptions about what will hurt someone and what won't, you can't just transfer what you learn without super strength over."

Or we'd just dose Superman with gold kryptonite and train him like that.

"If she's five years older than him, how come she looks so young?"

Um.

"Have you and Superman talked about your long term future?"

There's a certain something in her eyes as she understands my implication.

"Oh. So she just hasn't physically aged."

"No, she-. Well, I assume that she has, as I don't have earlier scans to work from. But she is aging now. Just not at the same rate a human would."

Which considering how she was made is pretty darn lucky.

Ms Lane turns to M'gann.

"How does that work out with you and Superboy?"

"Um… I'm not really sure? Martians usually live longer than humans, but…" She shakes her head. "No one knows what Kon's life expectancy is. If he lives as long as humans do… Well, that's still a long time. And if he lives longer then great!" She smiles a little.

And doesn't mention the third possibility: that something goes wrong with all the exotic effects operating on Kon's body and his lifespan is shorter. That shouldn't happen. I've studied his biology and had the G-Lusca check him over as far as they can. As far as we can tell nothing like that should happen, but kryptonian energy fields aren't well understood. Jor-El… Might be able to make him entirely kryptonian, but that would involve radically altering who he is. Lex Luthor genes make you think rather differently to Kal-El genes, not to mention all of the other minor changes.

No, I'm… Just being paranoid. If nothing else, earning Helios' favour has probably made him a low-end arcane life form, and if that's happened then conventional biology is much less important.

"And how about children?"

M'gann purples faintly. "I… There are… Things I could do with shapeshifting. They're kinda advanced-" Ms Lane's eyebrows are slightly raised and I'm not using empathic vision on M'gann right now. "-but that's not something we're worrying about right now."

"Are you asking for any particular reason?"

"Kids don't read newspapers, Match is single and working out with his shirt off." I bow my head slightly and raise my eyebrows. "I'm not proud of it, but Superman having a new workout routine isn't exactly breaking news. This is going in 'Lifestyle', if Perry even uses it."

"Just another new kryptonian?"

She nods. "One was big news, two was news. Three is a production line."

"She comes from a parallel universe."

"Had one of those last year. You got into a fight with him." She looks mildly curious. "Is the House of El crest different in her universe?"

"No, and she operates under the name 'Overgirl', so it wouldn't really fit."

"It's not an 'S'. The kryptonian glyph for 'hope' just looks kinda like one."

"Yes, I… Yes, I know."

"And that's… Germanic? Sun, or victory? I suppose either works for a kryptonian. Is there any reason she doesn't use the regular one?"

"Yes, and you'll be free to ask her about it."

"Does she know it's half what the SS used to use? Because even if she doesn't plan on sticking around, she might wanna consider changing it."

"I believe that she is aware, but she's been wearing it for a long time, as has her mentor. Overman feels much less connection to his Kryptonian heritage than Superman. I would be surprised if she followed your advice."

Ms Lane shrugs. "She can take the heat from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League if she wants to."

It's completely inappropriate, but I can't help but smile. And Ms Lane looks a little too curious at my reaction.

"Um." I clear my throat. "You ever thought about getting superpowers yourself?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th March
18:11 GMT -6

Harleen regards me dispassionately for a moment, then turns back to the barkeep.

"Next one's a double."

"So-."

"Bh!"

Keeping her attention on the barkeep as he pours her drink, she raises her left hand towards me.

Alright then.

I wait patiently as the barkeep finishes pouring and puts the glass down in front of Harleen. She picks it up with her right hand and raises it to her lips. And drinks.

"Aren't y-?"

"Bh!"

And down the whiskey goes. She then puts the glass back down on the bar, but… Her hand hasn't gone down yet. So I keep waiting.

Harleen closes her eyes, breathes in and then holds it. One, two, three and out slowly.

Then she lowers her left hand and turns towards me.

"Okay."

"Okay."

"So on Earth 10, the Nahzis rule the woruld."

"Various far right groups rule the world, with the German National Socialists being paramount amongst them. Directly ruling a world using a relatively small population base is actually quite difficult."

Not that has stopped all sorts of people from trying. Hah, thought the person from Britain.

"So everyone's a Nahzi, they're just ain't all Joiman."

"There's a range of political opinion, but ethnocentrism is a fairly common thread."

"Okay. Okay. So… Do I need t'go in hidin'?"

"I.. wouldn't think so?"

"You do know I'm Jewish, don't yah?"

I frown. "Should you be drinking on a Friday evening?"

"Ah, yeyah? Why-?" She shakes her head. "I ain't practisin', but I don' think Nazis care 'bowd that."

"You know those ridiculously racist Second World War era caricatures of Jews? With the hook nose and-." She nods. "That's what she thinks Jews literally look like. So you wouldn't need to hide even if she wasn't being overseen by a Justice League member or affiliate twenty-four seven."

"Rilly? Did the Nazis kill awll the smawt people too?"

"No, but they needed to maintain faith in their ideals, so they didn't ease up on the propaganda after their extermination campaign ended. 'This is what our enemies looked like, accept it, don't question it'. Which is why I came to-."

"To me, because you think I know how to convince her nat to be a Nahzi."

"She's not doing badly. Considering. She's managed civil conversations with homosexuals and black people. She's upset but not irrational about the realisation that her mother-figure is probably homosexual as well, and doesn't plan on informing her country's authorities. But she's-."

"She's makin' exceptions and feelin' weird abowd it, not reassessin' her fundamental worldview."

I nod.

"Which is obviously a problem, because she might be able to get away with the-. N-word, she-."

"Which n-word'?"

"The.. five letter one?" She nods. "Because she's foreign and it hasn't acquired the derogatory association in some countries that it has in America, but she also calls some people 'sub-human'."

"Yeyeah."

"So any advice you've got on how to handle her would be much appreciated."

"It ain't rilly my field. She ain't crazy. She ain't even a criminal." A tiny frown and a tiny shudder. "She thinks she ain't a criminal. I know you know bowd how maladjusted mosta the people in Belle Reve are."

"Yes."

"An' she ain't."

"I know." I look away for a moment. "'Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are... Well... Human beings.'"

"That a quote?"

"Terry Pratchett. As far as I can tell he was never born here."

"Clevah." She picks up her glass and taps the edge of the base against the surface of the bar a couple of times. "She's used tah fittin' in with awal the other Nahzis. If she ain't deliberately tryin' to keep to herself, she'll pro'bly come around gradually without rilly meanin' to."

I nod slowly. "Because she doesn't see herself as part of a criminal minority, so she hasn't developed the psychic defences they need to maintain their egos when they resist the herd."

"'Herd', huh?"

"Animals form herds for sound evolutionary reasons. They learn how to behave from all of the other animals around them. I didn't mean it as an insult. And in this case it should be helpful."

"Unless she internalises bein' an outsidah."

"So I've got to persuade a group of superheroes to be nice to a self-identifying National Socialist. I mean I… Think they understand what I'm trying to do, but if she acts out in front of a camera it's going to massively undermine Justice League credibility."

"And you ain't got no one you can share Overgirl-babysittin' duty with."

"No, Kid Flash has a sort of horrified fascination with her. In the short term… On the practical side, I'm more worried about her acting on differences in rules of engagement. Policing works more or less the same on her Earth, but 'threats to the state' are met by lethal force by default."

"And if a threat comes from someone she thinks is 'subhuman', she ain't gunna hold back none."

"Not… Reliably."

"Okay, well, there's a few things you could do…"

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th March
09:24 GMT -5

Eyes move around the room, Tula and Garth shrugging at those which alight on them. Robert looks thoughtful, but he ends up looking at me as well.

I shake my head.

"I don't think it's wendigos. They're not exactly subtle, and you need a very particular cannibalistic ritual to give someone the ability to turn into one. As far as I know, there were only ever a handful of Canadian tribes who knew how to do it, and they weren't exactly popular with their neighbours. It's never been confirmed as happening in the United States, let alone South America."

Beryl raises her eyebrows. "Werewolf?"

"Less unlikely, but…" I use my ring to bring up some of the pictures Batman handed us as part of the Brazilian government's request for help. "Look at this. Werewolves will kill people and eat them, but-."

Richard nods. "They wouldn't make a point of tearing up a building site. You think there's an economic motive."

"It could be a werewolf going to the site and then deliberately changing, or some other sort of shapeshifter, or some other sort of augmented strength. They're not too far from places we know Bane was selling Venom, for example. Or the site workers are in on it and it's just people with hammers and patience."

Seriously. Wendigos? I'm surprised the Cattle Rancher's Association has even heard of those.

Beryl presses another button and brings up the company's financial information.

"Insurance fraud is another option. And mafia debt collection's always popular."

I nod, looking around the circle. "Is it alright if Squire and I take this one? I already know the Brazilian superhero Fire-."

Wallace frowns. "So why isn't she handling this? Or some other Brazilian superhero? Or their police?"

Richard smiles. "Don't want a trip to Brazil, KF?"

"No one got hurt." He shrugs. "Criminal damage isn't exactly high priority."

"No, but it's low risk enough to be used for training, which is… Sort of the point."

Roy snorts dismissively, shaking his head.

Kaldur looks at him. "You believe there is another motive?"

"The Cattle Rancher's Association owns Brazil's UN Ambassador. It's easier for them to put in a request to the Justice League than it is to get their own police to deal with it."

I half-smile.

"Plus, we're cheaper."

Though Wallace does have a point. Beatriz might not want it because she's on bad terms with the ranchers, and they might not want her because she shoots things with fire and she can only control her primary fires. If she sets anything else on fire it burns normally. But that still leaves a number of publically-active superheroes and plenty of private security specialists. Fabiao was right on the money there. The Cattle Rancher's Association has a lot of wealthy members who wouldn't be slow about bringing that level of force in to deal with augmented protestors.

Are we..? Really that easy to get hold of? I mean, if it was something that we were needed to deal with then I wouldn't have a problem, but this.. could result in a lot of trivial stuff being dumped on us. Or on the League.

Kaldur nods, making eye contact with me. "The mission is yours."

Beryl calls up a holographic roster, and moves her emblem and mine into the 'Brazil' column. Kaldur dismisses the images of the Brazil assignment and calls up a new set.

"West Africa. An armed group has been attacking isolated villages. There are reports that they are led by an albino, and have access to extremely advanced weaponry."

There's no picture to go with it, but the description came from people who escaped from different attacks and had no opportunity to compare their stories. The only African albino I remember from DC is that one animal man villain, who…

I look around at the assortment of demigods who are now part of the team.

Frankly, just about any of us could beat without too much trouble due to having much more raw power than Vixen or Mr Baker. And while Africa's big, there aren't that many places where you can hide a penis tank. Tracking him down might be slightly difficult. Stopping him won't be. And while it would be interesting to see where he's getting his equipment from, that's hardly critical either. Actually, the only thing I know that's not included in the briefing report is that he has that animal-trait copying sidekick, and… The same thing applies. Whatever magics are in her mask are either too weak to be useful to me or too weird for me to be comfortable with studying them.

M'gann calls up a map and highlights the locations attacked.

"That's a pretty big area. The Bio-Ship would be best for scouting this out covertly."

Canis brings up a topographical map and studies it for a moment.

"If we visit one of the Lowlie hovels-" Raquel glances at me and then looks away. "-Brut may well be able to track them by scent."

Amon briefly raises his right hand. "I would also like to participate. In his first life, my brother gave these lands his protection, and I think it would please him if I continued his work."

And he's fast enough that operating away from a Lantern won't prevent him relocating, and he's tough enough to serve as the team's lead brawler if it comes to it.

"Agreed." Kaldur nods, and Beryl makes the assignments. "Next, the Question has requested assistance in bringing down a Hub City crime lord."

Artemis frowns. "Isn't he.. kinda…" She hesitates for a moment. "Crazy?"

"He's the second sanest street shaman I know."

Tula nods. "Shaman like that open themselves to the spiritual presence of the places and peoples around them. That usually leaves them a little disconnected from society."

Garth nods as well. "Which is why hardly anyone in Atlantis studies that branch of magic."

Kaldur smiles faintly. "Do either of you wish to observe a practitioner at work?"

Two small head-shakes from them, but Robert perks up slightly. "I wouldn't mind."

The remaining unassigned senior members of the team do the eye-dance for a moment, before Artemis nods. "I'll take it. Be nice to see somewhere worse than Gotham."

Richard jerks his head back in mock offence.

"Hey! We're only, like, fifteenth on the US murder rates lists this year."

"You barely chart on the international list."

Because let's get a sense of perspective. We have more superheroes in this room than most countries have in total. We really shouldn't be spending all our time in a country that can manage most things perfectly well without us.

"Next." The holograms shift again. "The Russian government have reported that they have a lead on the disappearance of Christina Molotova."

Wallace blinks. "I hadn't realised they were still looking."

Leonid's face remains perfectly stoical. "Russia is a big and empty place. Finding someone who can move as fast as she can is not easy."

"Okay, great." Wallace turns to Kaldur. "This one's mine."

Leonid nods. "It may be best if I go with him. To avoid miscommunication."

"Agreed." Their icons move on the chart. "Next…"

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th March
11:02 GMT -5

Raquel and I fly upwards towards the top of Mount Justice.

"I'm a.. little surprised that you wanted to join me on this one."

Raquel lands a moment before me and takes a quick peek inside the grove to see if Euanthe is in residence before turning back to me.

"Ah ain't gunna let the fact that I'm pissed at you get in the way of a mission."

"Right, but, with the greatest respect-" I walk past her into the grove, taking a moment to admire the unseasonal growth which blocks out both sight and sound of the town below. "-your skill set isn't essential to the mission. You could have taken one of the others."

"You didn't have to accept me."

"I already had an analyst and a magic-user. I didn't need to make room for anyone else." Though since this will almost certainly be below my level… "I'm perfectly happy to let you take the lead in combat if you like."

She frowns in curiosity. "Why?"

"You need the experience more than I do."

"Gee, thanks."

"I'll be happy to take you to Vega next time I visit if you want to prove me wrong."

"The place with three different empires who are worse than the Nazis."

"Not any more. But I could see that you wanted to take the Africa mission." Her right hand goes to her ward. "I can do facial analysis as well. It's not as if I'm going to be offended if you deny me your company."

"Okay, two reasons. This whole thing with Nazigirl got me thinking about indigenous rights. That's what this is about, right?"

"Could be. Could be a lot of things. I'd be surprised if it had nothing to do with that. Though it might just be that locals wanted to cut down the forest for grazing instead."

"So that's why I wanna go. I wanna see what that looks like in places where it's still happening, not just where it happened hundreds of years ago."

I nod. "Okay. What's the other reason?"

"You're gonna take Nazigirl, aren't you."

"I… Was planning on asking her if Superman could spare her from Metropolis."

"So there we go. Ah'm gonna be right there. If she mouths off, I'll see it. And if she doesn't…" She shrugs sarcastically. "Then maybe ah've got her all wrong."

"I think it's a little early to expect any major behavioural changes, but I appreciate that you're at least giving her the rope with which to hang herself. Euanthe?!"

"And Treegirl."

"Treewoman. Not that she calls herself that. I'm not sure how old she is, but the closest I got to a straight answer suggests at least three thousand."

"'cause she remembers the Amazons arriving on Themyscira."

I nod. "Just so, well spotted. Euanth-."

The leaves-. I step back as I realise that they've formed a face.

"I didn't know you could do that."

The face sort of smiles, then splits in two as Euanthe emerges from the middle. She isn't in full spiky-bane-of-demons mode, but the soft bark-like faux-clothing she used to wear has been replaced by thicker antediluvian armour.

"Pavlos. Have you found another demon for me to destroy utterly, to burn their leaves and choke the life from root and stem?"

"Not this time, I'm afraid. I've got a mission in the Amazon rainforest and I'd appreciate your help."

"Amazon."

"South of here, below where the land narrows. Lots of trees, but fewer than there used to be."

She looks sad, staring at nothing I can discern. "There are fewer trees than there used to be everywhere."

"We could just show her a map."

"Dryads aren't good with spatial directions. Land doesn't register with them in the way that plants do. Euanthe, if I touch a plant when I get there, can you track me that way?"

"No. Plant senses-" She holds her arms up to her chest and strokes the armour of her right forearm with her bare left hand. "-are not so acute as mammal senses."

"How about if I take control of one of the local plan-?"

And.. now I'm enveloped in… Not vines. Bark. Um.

"No." Euanthe leans forward to glare at my face, which is the one part of my body still exposed to the outside. "Do not do it."

"I'm still not clear why you find it so upsetting."

"I make plants work like plants doing what I want. You make plants work like animals doing what you want. It is not the same."

I…

Dimly remember something like that happening in Swamp Thing. He accidentally… Or was it Tefé? They accidentally reformatted a portion of the Green into a plant-based city, and Swamp Thing minus Alec Holland tore it apart. I'm not exactly sure what the problem with that is, but then… I suppose… I'm not a plant.

Now I'm.. slightly curious what would happen if I touched Euanthe like that. She has far more control than I do; she could prevent any unpleasant side effects…

"Could you give me a sprout or something that you could track?"

"You will not touch it with your red green-touch?"

"Not if you don't want me to."

She blinks twice then steps back as the bark around me decays into mulch, with the exception of a single fragment which lands in her outstretched right hand and is rapidly transmuted into a seed pod. She holds it up to her face to study it intensely, then passes it over to me.

"Plant this in good soil and provide it with water, and I will attend to you."

Dryads don't have the best sense of time either, but she'll probably show up some time that day at least.

"Thank you, will do. How's Doctor Isley getting along?"

Euanthe smiles. "She will make a good druid. She earnestly wishes to grow in the green, not for red growth but for the wonder of it. And her connection is pure, not twisted as the one her false teacher made."

"Glad to hear it." I hold the seed up. "I'll seed you when we arrive."

"Yes."

I nod politely, then lead Raquel out of the grove.

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th March
13:43 GMT -3

Beryl beams from the back of her construct-pegasus as she continues her review of the evidence which the Cattle Rancher's Ass-. Sorry, the Brazilian government, sent to the Justice League. Garth appears quite happy to make do with his kinetic belt. He's competent enough, but with the massive amount of extra magic-related reading and practice he's had to do as we encouraged him to throw out the entire Conservatory of Sorcery curriculum to retrain on the fly hasn't allowed him the time to get really good with it.

Raquel is ignoring Angelika, who is shooting her the occasional discomported glance. I know that she knows why Raquel is here. I suspect that she heard everything Raquel not so subtly said about her…

Private word?

I fly a little closer and stick an orange sphere construct around us.

"Have you ever visited Brazil before?"

Her eyes flick around the interior of the bubble before she turns them upon me.

"Yes, it is a popular holiday destination for Germans on Earth Ten. But… It is nicer. There are no slums. The industrial build-up is far better planned."

"Slums happen whenever industrialisation happens and people migrate from the countryside to the cities."

"Not in countries governed by National Socialists. On my world, there was a government program to build high-rise accommodation for the incoming labourers. Not the best homes, perhaps, but better than those… Mouldy shacks."

"I'm… Sure they've got something in the works."

"Unchecked capitalism is harmful to the people. And to itself, ultimately." She shakes her head. "Brazil was not involved in fighting during the Second World War here any more than it was on my world. There is no good reason for it to be like this. I think that the Jews have infiltrated their government."

"That's a… Bit of a non sequitur." Quick check… "Also, no."

"No Jews?"

"Very few."

"They don't have to have direct control. Even-."

"Angelika, stop. The only person who controls the world economy is Demetrios Prokopios and he's Hellenist. If you wish to convince me otherwise then please provide me with a detailed analysis of global financial transactions for the past eighty years sorted by ethnic group and a very sound argument."

"I-. Okay, I will work on it. Why are we in a bubble?"

"Angelika, you just tried to say -with no evidence- that Jews are the reason why Brazil has slums."

She blinks, then her eyes switch from Raquel to Beryl.

"The Atlantean cannot be a Jew. Is the negro?"

"No, but that's beside the point. Remember what I said about being meritocratic?" She nods cautiously. "Part of that is having evidence when you accuse people of things, as a person's capacities can only be properly assessed when you have an accurate picture of their individual achievements. The more you slander -and it is slander if you can't back it up- groups of people, the less willing they will be to cooperate with you. And if you cause that situation to happen then the one dragging down the group performance is you. Is that your aim?"

"It-. No. I am committed to our work."

I smile. "Good." I stop smiling. "So knock it off."

"Are any of them-?"

"And if they've earned their place on the team or the League, why would it matter? I know that you checked what I said about Jews earning an Iron Cross. What did you find?"

"It was as you said."

"And why do you think that was?"

She doesn't reply.

"Because there's two basic possibilities. Either they were roughly as courageous as everyone else fighting in the war, or there's been a truly colossal cover-up including faking a hundred years' worth of documents. Tell me."

"I.. suspect that it.. was courage."

"Glad to hear-" I look around as a green-flame-wreathed Beatriz reaches our group, falling in next to Raquel. "-it. Oh, one other thing. I know that it's purely descriptive where you're from, but in America it's not considered polite to refer to black people as 'negros'."

She frowns. "Why? It is literally Spanish for 'black'. You call them black."

"Some words acquire resonances separate from their literal meaning. For example, to me, Ignatius is just a name."

"Hah!"

Outside the bubble, Raquel lets out a bark of laughter while Beatriz glares at me and.. Angelika. Beatriz, whose grandfather was a fascist hatchetman and tried to get her to join the Brazilian Integralist Party. Who would have preferred their last Emperor to stay in charge or for Hugo Danner to have taken over than what actually happened to happen.

"Alright, I'm going to go and talk to Fire. Please make polite, non-racial conversation with Squire until we arrive."

She nods and I drop the shield, the two of us peeling away in opposite directions.

"Fire, thank you-."

"Why the Hell did-" I erect a new soundproof bubble. "-you pick up a Nazi?!"

"There wasn't anyone to hand in greater need of rehabilitation."

"That-. Okay, yes, that is certainly true."

"And it would have been better if I'd been more specific about who would be joining us, but I didn't make the connection between your.. personal experiences and her until a moment ago."

Raquel frowns. "Brazil has Nazis?"

"Everywhere has Nazis. In Brazil, they ran the country for twenty years with the support of the American government."

"'cause of the Cold War, right."

"Fire, I'm perfectly happy for you to shout at me-."

"No, I'm annoyed at you, but you are trying to help her. I want to shout at her."

"Alright, after-."

"Hey!" Raquel frowns. "How come she gets to shout at her?"

"Because she's unlikely to meet Overgirl again, whereas you might have to work with her again. I'm not against a little invective being directed at her, but if that's all she's getting then she's more likely to close out external influences and that's an outcome I'm trying to avoid. But getting back to the actual mission: Fire, what can you tell us about the locals?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th March
14:21 GMT -3

"Hm."

Beryl carefully studies the damage to the cab of one of the log-hauling lorries, and I take a moment to scan the metal and transmit a representation of the stress pattern into her computer. I'm letting her acquire evidence and eavesdrop while her pattern recognition abilities really get to work trying to work out what people aren't sharing.

And… I'll admit, I am treating this like a training mission. For the rest of my squad. I'm not using empathic vision on the workers or site overseer or even the manager who is heading towards me at a scurry-walk.

The forest here is in the early stage of being cleared. There's a dirt road to a.. slightly better maintained dirt road, and a small cleared area for the lorries to turn around in. Outwards from that there are a great many tree stumps, cut through just above ground height. Clearing those out will come later, hopefully after they've made some sort of arrangement to keep the soil from being washed-.

No, no, that's not going to happen, is it?

Angelika is on overwatch duty. Beatriz and Raquel headed off to the nearest town to see if they could pick up any information, because when Beatriz wants something from a person she can be beguiling in a way she.. never bothered to be with me. And Raquel wants to learn something about what life is actually like in this part of the world, a goal I fully support. Garth is attempting an aura reading from the apparent entry point, but… If it actually was a magic creature he'd have found something almost immediately.

"Orange Lantern!"

I smile at the manager, descending through the air to land just in front of him. Cotton trousers rather than jeans, and.. a little overweight. His employee file says that he started with the company doing clearance work himself, but whatever muscle he built up swinging a chainsaw has long since been subsumed by middle age.

I smile pleasantly and take the offered hand. "Mister Souza."

"I didn't think that the Justice League was actually going to send anyone."

"It's a slow-peril day. And I do like getting on top of these things before anyone dies."

"Thank you."

Small wafts of fear, but it's all… Failure to deliver penalties and danger to his crew. I'm not seeing any sign that he's worried about us. Which means that if there's any kind of put-up job going on that he almost certainly isn't part of it. Which is nice.

"So, if you could please summarise events for me?"

I've repeatedly read the actual briefing document, but Batman expects us to check things for ourselves. And Mr Souza certainly hasn't read the briefing documents and almost certainly also didn't read the briefing document's grandfather, which would have been prepared by someone in Corporate or Public Relations. And because of that, he probably isn't certain what the 'official line' is. The route of enquiry I'm supposed to be encouraged to follow.

Another Discworld quote… No, I can't remember it well enough to quote it. Samuel Vimes said… Something about police work. That you poked around and asked sensible questions but in your heart of hearts you just hoped that the guilty party's nerve would break and they'd give themselves away. No one with any sense would attack a site with either myself or Overgirl present. Even just having an increased security presence might well intimidate a potential attacker; not necessarily because they couldn't outfight it, but because they wouldn't be able to do so without identifying themselves. And superheroes they couldn't identify would mean that they'd have to at least consider that they might lose the fight.

"It was… Two days ago. We start work at dawn, so the damage wasn't immediately obvious, you know? Then Pablo -he's the truck supervisor- told me that some of the trucks had been vandalised." He shrugs. "That could be a lot of things. We're too far away from anywhere for it to be drunks, but I've had environmental protestors on sites before. But they don't just rip engines apart. So I thought maybe it exploded or something? But there wasn't any burning, and then the other workers started reporting the rest of the damage."

I nod.

"Do you have any security on site?"

"There's a checkpoint down the road, but that's mostly for making sure that people are at work when they're supposed to be." He shrugs, shaking his head. "That's about it. No one lives around here."

"No tribes?"

He shakes his head. "No, if we were anywhere near a tribal reserve or whatever, we'd have some armed guards. We haven't had any kind of complaints or anything like that."

And while I'm not a perfect lie detector… I'd say that he's probably telling the truth. Still…

"No complaints?"

He face-shrugs. "Sure, some, there's always some, but nothing special. This just came out of nowhere."

"Were any people injured?"

"One guy cut his hand on broken metal. Oh, directly? No. We pretty much shut down during the night. It's too dangerous when we can't see what we're doing, and it's a pain setting up floodlights somewhere like this."

Bad roads. They have to move people and equipment in and the wood out without turning them into a quagmire. March is a reasonable temperature… Still too hot for me, but not bad for Brazil. But it's also pretty darn wet. Add in generators, lights, fuel for the generators… Yeah. They could only do it if they at the very least dumped stone chips to give the road some sort of surface, and the added cost would be significant.

Which… Ah. Getting replacement people would be easy, up to a point. If everyone died then the fear would keep replacements away, but one or two deaths? Not really an issue. Getting replacement machinery is difficult. They can't have broken machines blocking the site, which means they need to get another truck up here to drag it away-. Unless they're planning on asking me to do it. So is whoever did this planning on delaying work? It won't stop, but if they need to slow it down until something else happens…

Nothing much happening in Brazil's political calendar. Certainly nothing of immediate relevance. At least, that I can see as an outsider. If we get stumped here I can head over there and find an insider to pump for information. Nothing special economically. So, geography? Someone or something-?

"Had anything changed recently? Were you moving onto a new area?"

"We cut trees where there are trees. Sure, we were moving up, but we're always moving up. We didn't pass any.. obvious barrier or marker. I mean, not that I noticed."

Again, no obvious sign of dishonesty.

"Alright, thank you. My team and I will keep looking around, and I'll let you know when we have something."

"Do you know..? How long this is going to take?"

"Not really. If it's just a matter of tracking down one malcontent then I doubt that we'll still be here this evening. If something more complicated is going on then it'll take longer."

"Like..?"

"If the damage was caused by manifested forest spirits then it could take years and radically change the Brazilian economy."

"But you can deal with it, right?"

"Yes, but… We're here to prevent harm to people, not to support any one economic policy. If all logging had to stop tomorrow, then as long as you're given time to evacuate then our job is done."

"Oh."

I nod and smile again.

"Excuse me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th March
12:39 GMT -5

"How is she getting on?"

On the other side of the living room Cassandra and Barda are playing Ludo. I think. Board games don't appear to have been a major part of either of their childhoods, Barda lacks the patience for abstract instructions and we're still not totally sure if Cassandra can read. Dice are being rolled and pieces are being moved, but-.

Scott smiles fondly at his adopted daughter. "She's much better at engaging with us directly, now. She still tries to hide if we creep up on her, but other than that…"

Cassandra looks around, and… She doesn't smile as she sees me, but there's a sign of recognition in her eyes and she doesn't tense up.

I smile and kneel down, fingers ready for signing.

"Hello Quiet Girl. How are you?"

Not hurt not hungry not tired.

"Do you like it here with Escape Man and Big Woman?"

Escape Man hide escape.

I frown interrogatively at Scott, who looks a little guilty.

"The first time she saw me do my escapology act, she didn't realise that it was a trick. She tried tearing the stage apart to get me out."

"Escape Man is very good at escaping."

Barda scowls at me over her daughter's head. "You're ruining my concentration. Don't you have a check-up to get to?"

I nod as I stand and let Scott lead the way to his science basement.

"You decided not to Awaken her?"

"Given how messed up her development's been already, we didn't want to risk making things worse."

I nod as he opens the door for me, then I walk in and take my accustomed position on the scanning bed. Scott plugs his Mother Box into the head of the bed and a moment later-

Ping!

-we're done. And from the look on his face it isn't good news. I… Get a decidedly unsettled feeling starting up in my stomach.

"So… Not getting a lolly, then."

Scott shrugs, and makes an effort to smile.

"You can have a lolly if you want."

I nod. "Yeah, that makes it less fun. I'm… Guessing that using the Anti-Life fragment against my alter ego wasn't a good idea."

"Whether it was a good idea or not isn't the point." He sighs. "The good news is that the cage I built is still mostly there. It's a bit looser, but as long as you don't try using it again the fragment isn't going to get free."

"What will the effect on me be?"

"Have you noticed anything?"

I think for a moment.

"No. But then.. I'm not sure I would."

"You're the longest surviving living Anti-Life vessel other than Darkseid. Everything Mother Box learns from you is new. I'm actually a little surprised that Metron hasn't turned up to take a look at you."

"Would it help if he did?"

"Ah… I doubt it. He might not have seen another vessel last this long before, but he hasn't seen one having a complete breakdown before either."

I purse my lips, then raise my eyebrows.

"'Complete breakdown'."

"The Anti-Life Equation fragment is… Merging, with the interior of the cage."

Oh.

"I.. don't know exactly what that means. But if I had to guess-."

"It's inserting itself into all of the emotions we used to make the cage, and will gradually… Corrupt them?"

"Either that, or adapting so that it will be able to affect people with a strong emotional reason to believe that life isn't always painful."

"I.. don't suppose that you've had any luck working out how to get rid of it, have you?"

He looks down, exhaling sharply through his nose. "Your father or mine?" "Tyranny or Monarchy?"

"No." "Neither."

"I know that asking Darkseid isn't a good idea, but Highfather-."

"Dumped you on Apokolips. Fuck him."

"As the one who got dumped, I've got a whole lot more reason to be mad at him than you do. And while I don't have any great desire to speak to him… He could fix you."

"He could blast me to the Source Wall with his staff."

"That's why I'm not insisting." He leans back against the laboratory wall behind him. "Bottom line? I don't think you're in immediate danger, but this is only going to get worse."

"Yeah."

"It's gradual, but it's ongoing." He shakes his head. "I can't tell when it's going to change you.. radically, or if we'll even notice." I nod solemnly. "Do you have some other way of dealing with this?"

"Ponies."

"Sunset Shimmer's people?"

"Yes. They have… Arcane weapons for dealing with… Things like this. I'd thought about getting them to take a look at me anyway, but if the damage is ongoing… I need to prioritise it."

"Your best hope for a cure is… Getting blasted.. by.. pony-magic?"

"Yes. Their knowledge of thaumaturgy is basic to say the least, but the background magic level on their world is so high that high end artefacts just sort of.. turn up."

"And you don't think they'll have any side effects?"

"It's more that I don't think those side effects will be worse than the Anti-Life Equation." I shrug. "I'm pretty sure that Sunset could undo petrification, I have boom tubes in case of banishment and if it strips me of my other power as well and.. turns me back into my adolescent form…" I shrug again. "That should only take me a few months to fix. I wasn't planning any heavy combat in that time anyway."

"That's… Surprisingly trusting of you."

"Scott, they're.. ponies. I've heard Sunset tell a lot of stories about her people, and I can't see them responding to my desire to cleanse myself of an Anti-Life fragment negatively."

"You know that the Anti-Life Equation isn't the only way to mentally change one of us with magic, right?"

"I'll survive becoming the New God of Cultural Victory. The universe won't survive Darkseid getting the Anti-Life Equation."

"And what are you planning on doing if he turns up to find out what happened to it?"

"Get the ponies to shoot him."

"After you come back."

"Depends on what he does." I shrug. "He can destroy the Earth whenever he wants. You know that, I know that, the League knows that. If I do destroy a fragment and if he does destroy the Earth in retaliation… The universe still comes out ahead. Or maybe the preparations I've made so far are enough." "Anything we do could set him off and I refuse to live in fear."

"Then I guess the ponies are your best shot." He quietly snorts with amusement at the idea. "Make sure your Mother Box monitors the whole thing. If this works… This could change everything about how Apokolips and New Genesis deal with each other."

"If Apokolips can be purified by pony magic, that still leaves hundreds of billions of Lowlies to relocate and a planetary civilisation to rebuild. But… Yeah, it would be an improvement." I stroll past him and pull on the door handle. "So fingers and hooves crossed."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th March
14:44 GMT -3

"…low level." Garth shakes his head. "There was no trace of magic being focused on a particular task. As far as I can tell, the magic systems of this forest are undisturbed."

I nod. I suspected, but it's always worth checking.

"Okay, good work."

Raquel shrugs. "What if they're.. hiding it, or something?"

Garth lets out a mildly pained exhalation. "There are many ways to hide with magic. It's taken me this long to be confident of my answer because I've been using the countermeasures for all of them." His eyes dart to the side for a moment. "The counters I can perform. Countering attempts to directly detect something with magic is simple, but the person casting it will know that they are being countered and therefore roughly where their target is. And any use of magic disrupts the-"

He takes a moment to assess the likely magic-competency of the people he's talking to.

"-background flows, in a way which can be detected later. I don't know this forest well, but I could not detect any significant disruption."

"What if they're just.. really good at hiding?"

"Then you need someone else. I do not-. I am not complaining, but these are not spells an Atlantean battlemage would ordinarily study in detail until they were studying for their mastery exam. I am not proficient enough to undo the work of someone who has studied hiding magics for their entire life."

"And we don't expect you to. Overgirl, see anything interesting?"

She hesitates for a moment, perhaps a little surprised that I'm asking her.

"There are no inexplicable sources of electromagnetism or sound. I cannot see anyone unusual through the trees. There is nothing hidden underground." She shrugs. "I have nothing to offer."

I nod.

"Rocket? Fire?"

Beatriz doesn't look particularly enthusiastic.

"Some people complaining about the disruption. Some people complaining about what the company pays. No real information about anyone who might have done it."

"No one unhappy with the work being done?"

Raquel shakes her head. "They were mostly happy about the jobs. One chick said she hoped that once the farm was built they'd sort out the area's power network. A couple people complained about what they were doing to the roads, but that was it. No one wants this stopped."

I nod. "Thank you both-."

"So?" Raquel puts her hands on her hips.

"So?"

"You gunna tell us what it is?"

I give my head a small shake. "I don't know."

"'cause you were sayin' this was a training mission."

"Oh, I could crank up my empathic vision and learn all sorts of things, but I think Squire has something she-."

"You don't know where we are, do you?"

Beryl's grinning.

"I know the grid reference, the longitude and latitude. Why?"

"Oh, given how much you went on about him, I thought you knew. Anyway, the damage was probably done with super strength. It matches damage patterns of other examples of super strength damage on record, rather than tools or super-sharp claws. No big footprints, so they're probably normal-sized. And they got their strength from the Danner Formula."

I frown. "Too much damage for Venom?"

"No. Danner blood clots differently. Once I worked out how that bloke cut his hand there was some blood that didn't fit, so I took a closer look."

"That was just.. steel, though. A Danner enhancile should be able to tear up steel as much as they like without getting a cut."

"Some of the saws here are tungsten carbide."

Uhhh… Tungsten carbide blade, if they hit it hard enough… Might pierce their skin… The blade would get the worst of it.

"It's possible. Did you find any fragments?"

"No." She shrugs. "Maybe they got cut somewhere else then came here? Look."

She pulls a slide out of her computer and holds it up. Scan…

"That's the Danner formula alright. Well found. What do you think our follow-up should be?"

"Dawn Warrior survived Hugo Danner's coup, right?" I nod. He's a long-serving Brazilian superhero who was part of Hugo's 'army', and he mostly took the job after Hugo lost because he didn't know what else to do with his life. "We could ask him. Can't be many people who know how to make it."

"The All-Star Squadron recovered his records. He might have showed the local tribes the process, but they wouldn't have had any sort of scientific education outside what he taught them. And I can't think of any reason why Luthor would have involved himself in this."

"How about Doctor Munro?"

I.. nod. "He was here, and he knows how to make the formula. But he said that he didn't know that there were other enhanciles…"

Huh.

"Think of something?"

"I never… Exactly asked him if he knew the formula himself before he went to work for Luthor. He might just have volunteered to let Luthor reverse-engineer it from his blood and tissues. I know that he knows the formula now..."

Raquel frowns. "Wait, so Luthor started making a super formula and you didn't check where he got it?"

"I… No, I didn't. It didn't seem important. And there's no reason for him to be doing field trials in the middle of Brazil when he could get plenty of volunteers just about anywhere."

No obvious reason for Dr Munro to randomly empower people either. And I don't think that his eagerness at the idea of meeting others like himself was feigned. That wouldn't make sense if he had been doling the stuff out himself. Of course, someone could have gotten hold of a sample of his blood while he was here… Or semen, if Hugo somehow managed to transmit it sexually as Dr Munro thought.

I think that I need to find that out.

"Alright, next step. Fire, do you know Dawn Warrior?"

She wiggles her head from side to side.

"A little. We've worked together, but we're not close."

I nod. "Overgirl, you and I are going to talk to Doctor Arnold Munro. Squire, you and Fire go and speak to Dawn Warrior. We need to know if he knows about any other Danner enhanciles around the place. Tempest, take Beryl's blood sample and try and track the owner."

"I.. don' t think I can do that. It's too old, now."

"Give it a try, or try identifying the alchemy in the Formula and track that. If you can't, then you can't. Rocket, stay here as security. A Danner enhancile could kill everyone here if they felt the need."

Her eyes dart to Angelika for a moment, then she nods.

"Squire, Fire, I'll drop you off."