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

[Mr Zoat]

1st September 2013
19:43 GMT -5

Artemis looks mildly confused. "Bournville is an actual place?"

"Yes. It was the top of the line Victorian town built by the Cadbury brothers for their workers. It's also the place the dark chocolate brand I resurrected is named after."

Wallace arranges more of the names Edward Mackensen provided us with on the hologram display. Faces, employment history, and… I'm not sure whether I should be worried or relieved that we've got this much information on known associates. And when they're all in place, he looks decidedly unsatisfied. "We've got a problem."

"Someone's been making drugs in a company town when I'm the one who owns the company."

"Not that." He gestures at the display. "Why would any of these guys know anything about alchemy?"

He's got a point. A few drivers, a depot manager, a welder… Yes, some of them have something obvious to add to the enterprise, while others…

"This chap." I point. "Charles Andrews."

Artemis frowns, calling up his expanded history. "The… Homeless guy?"

"'No fixed address' doesn't mean homeless. Did I ever tell you about The Tate Club?"

"The place in London where the wizards hang out?"

I nod. "Criminal record. A couple of speeding tickets, both in London. And he didn't have the same hair style, but I'm pretty sure that I remember seeing him in the club on one of my visits."

Wallace raises his eyebrows. "What happened to perfect memory?"

"Wizards. There are plenty of ways for them to disguise themselves. Altering my memory would be difficult, but changing their own face a little would be easy. What else do you notice about his record?"

"He's been unemployed… His whole life."

"Good suit for an unemployed man. Unemployment benefits in Britain aren't that good."

Wallace nods. "Street magician?"

"That's my guess." I have my ring quickly review Cadbury's records. "Never applied for a job with Cadbury or KordTech."

Artemis nods. "Guess he's not a joiner."

"Could be that. Or it could be that he's not good enough."

Wallace looks sceptical. "I don't know, Oh El. This isn't something a guy who knows nothing could have come up with."

I call up the mass spectrometry results.

"Look, each of the patches contains basically the same thing. The only difference is the… Tiny amount that can't be properly analysed with conventional equipment. That looks to me like he found a potion recipe somewhere and adapted it."

Wallace nods. "So he can follow a recipe but doesn't know enough to create things outside of that."

"It's a thing in Britain. We've actually got lots of magicians, technically, but they're usually weak and ignorant. They get by on cunning and the greater ignorance of the people around them. One or two good tricks they parlay into wider significance."

Alright, London's the most surveilled city in the world… And we have access to all of their records. Again, not… Totally comfortable with that, but… Facial recognition-. Ring, that query's going to take too long. Do the processing yourself.

Compliance. Results available.

And suddenly I know nearly everywhere he's gone in central London for the last twenty years. Any one particular place-.

"Here." The Grand Hotel, of course. "I think he's been living here."

Artemis frowns. "Do magicians earn enough to live full-time in fancy hotels?"

"Not usually, but it's easy to nudge a few minds so that they think you're a guest. Put up a glamour so that they're only selectively aware that the room you're occupying actually exists. There are all sorts of ways to manipulate people with magic if they can't defend themselves at all." There's a reason why the Metropolitan Police put up with John Constantine, and it's not just because of that Watford mess. They needed someone with his skills. "I'll get in touch with my old friends at The Tate Club and see if they're prepared to talk to me."

Wallace calls up a London street map. "Think it's safe for me and Arte to check out his hotel?"

"Probably. I suspect that it's booby trapped… If he's planning on ever coming back, which given that he's moved to Bournville, he may well not be."

Artemis nods. "Like, an explosive..?"

"Probably not. Probably some sort of curse, or maybe a minor demon. If it's the first, your spell eaters should be able to take it… Unless it's indirect. But again, I don't get the impression that he's particularly powerful. It would probably be bound to an object-. You've got your-?"

Artemis and Wallace both pull out their rune stones.

"Good, good. I've got silver-plated iron daggers if you want them, but honestly you should be able to handle a minor demon without special measures."

Artemis holds out her hand, so I fabricate a knife with a sheath that will fit on her harness.

Wallace frowns thoughtfully. "How smart would a demon be?"

"Uh… This is a pile of assumptions we're making here, but I'd guess that if it attacks you then it's probably as intelligent as a feral animal, and if it holds off and waits then it's probably as intelligent as… My old praexis demons."

"Could we bargain with-" Artemis glares at him and slaps his upper right arm. "-with-. I don't mean like that."

"You necessarily do. It's a demon. Even just freeing it from bondage would just free it to inflict misery on other people. If you want to try and get information from it, give it a choice of having its physical form destroyed by either physical trauma or Essence of Vitriol. Your super acid will cause lasting harm. If there's a demon there at all, which I emphasise we don't know."

Artemis nods. "We sweep the place, find where he's been hiding, and go through his stuff and see if there's anything magical there."

"You and Wallace will."

"Okay." Wallace raises an eyebrow. "And where are you going?"

"Bournville. It's not strange for me to visit; I own the company. I'll walk around, monitor our suspects remotely and see if I see any problems. If you turn out to need me I can be back in London in a few seconds, but I'm still hopeful that we can end this without a violent confrontation."

Artemis frowns. "Did you miss the part where they tried to kill a guy to keep him quiet?"

"Frankly, I don't think a magician like this is skilled enough to pull that off. I'm not sure why it happened, but that's why I'm going to go in softly. Anything else?"

They shake their heads.

"Alright." I generate a zeta tube construct. "Let's go."

 

[Mr Zoat]

September 1st, 2013
14:49 UK Time

Okay.

Okay.

No rush. Just remember-

"Recognized, Artemis, B zero eight."

-what Dad and Uncle Barry and Jay told you. Apologise, talk about what you're going to do like rational people, and then let her talk herself out while making sympathetic noises because that's something women need even if they've agreed with you about what you're going to do next.

Arte looks around the abandoned lot where London's zeta tube is stationed these days.

This whole idea was a lot less scary when I thought they were joking. And when it wasn't Artemis.

Okay, Wally, time to man-

"So, this way?"

-up-?

"Huh?" She's pointing-. The hotel, right. "Oh, yeah. Ah, you want me to carry you?"

She taps her belt and.. floats into the air-. Because she's got an inertia belt. "You want me to carry you?"

Hm. It's mid-afternoon here, so there shouldn't be all that many people on the street. None of the people in Britain with superspeed live in London, so unless Lord Malvolio is still around-. Should have checked that. I start tapping on my arm computer. There's no reason not to run except that Artemis can't keep up, and she'll be flying directly anyway-.

Oh, that's not why-.

"You know what?" I shrug, smiling my most winning smile. "Sure."

"Really?" Hah! Didn't expect that, did you?

"Yeah. I've never gone flying with you before-" Let's not mention what happens when I try using superspeed with an inertia belt. Should have learned my lesson from trying to vibrate through a wall. "-and it's not like a hotel room's going anywhere."

Okay, she knows this is some sort of game, but she never backs down, so-.

"And up we go!"

I… Should have seen this coming. She just put me over her shoulder, because she's got superstrength and I'm not that heavy. We're flying at about ten stories up, and I'm getting a great view of London's streets-

And her ass.

-but we can't really have a conversation…

Ah, it can wait.

"You okay back there?"

"Just taking the time to appreciate how great your ass looks in these pants."

She tightens her grip around my waist just a little. "Well, you-."

I feel her turn her head towards me, but that's just putting her face in my hip, so…

"Would you prefer a bridal carry?"

"Nah babe, I'm good."

My wrist computer beeps-. No, looks like Lord Malvolio only comes back for a few days each month. Still think it's kinda weird how he looks like a juiced-up Alan Scott… I wonder if they're related or something-.

And I'm not on Arte's shoulder any more! She dropped-. No, she tosses me and I'm starting to come down-! Okay, I should be able to run down that wall-.

She catches me under the arms. "How about this?"

Okay, breathe, breathe, try and ignore the fact that your feet are hanging ten stories up-.

Wait, what's that against the back of my h-?

Oh.

Okay, not complaining any more.

"Fine, babe."

"Didn't look like you were f-." She pauses, then shifts position so she's not cushioning my head any more and I'm just dangling. "How about now?"

"Less fine. Ah, look, babe, I know you're pissed about the whole dropping-out-of-college thing, but it was just an idea."

"An idea."

"Yeah. Y'know, getting feedback-."

"That you brought up with Paul, and not with me."

"He-."

"Paul. The cake guy."

"He's also the richest guy in the world right now."

"He is?"

"Kinda. Rob explained it. Basically, rich people don't have a lot of cash just sitting around, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Right, so between dollars not being worth much and most shares not being worth much, Paul just flat out owning a huge logistics company with magic portals… And the only chocolate company still trading internationally, and having a whole load of gold in a vault somewhere… I mean, once the economy starts working again then whoever got shares in the companies that are still working will probably be richer on paper, but… Yeah."

"Do you think he knows?"

"Ah… Could go either way."

"Do you think he did it on purpose?"

"Again, could go either way. I mean, he was trying to keep vital infrastructure working, and right now that's just about the most vital thing there is, so…"

But we're talking around the problem.

"Look, I've kinda been thinking about it for a while, and he was just there, so I thought I'd ask. Obviously, I'd have talked it over with you before deciding anything."

"So?"

"So we haven't talked it over yet. And… Okay, they're not making me redo the first semester, so I've got a couple of months to put a business plan together. We already know there's a market for healing potions, and I can come up with something to extend their shelf life." Which honestly isn't great right now. "And there's a bunch of other potions I've tested that are just like things that are already on the market but better, cheaper, and without the side effects. Ted says he's fine with helping with marketing and Paul already said he can handle shipping."

"So..?"

"So… What do you think?"

She breathes out slowly, my head cushion deflating even further. "Do you really wanna do this?"

"I don't know..? I think… Yeah? I think putting stuff together and making stuff happen is kinda why I got into chemistry in the first place, and… Uncle Barry's great and all, but ninety percent of his actual job is running the same couple of tests about a million times a week."

"Okay. Work on that business plan, and… Show me when it's done, I guess."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Huh. That wasn't so-.

"But you understand how I felt when you talked about it with Paul instead of me, right?"

"Oh, totally!"

"Because…"

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st September 2013
14:45 GMT

There's something about being here that I find extremely relaxing.

Britain isn't any better defended than other European countries. Decades of spending cuts on the armed forces and a high level of restrictions on citizen weapon ownership combined with a dense population and plentiful processed resources should have made it a good target for the sheeda. In fact, the high number of low level magicians made disrupting sheeda invisibility spells relatively easy, and allowed both the military and the few civilian weapon owners to fight regular sheeda soldiers. Combine that with a sizeable small arms industry which switched to supplying local militias immediately, it… Was bad, but not as bad as it was in a lot of places.

"Orange Lantern!"

I wave back with a smile.

Which means that the physical and psychological scars the Harvest caused in most places… Aren't quite as bad here. Especially in places like Bournville, which with a little light industry and a relatively dispersed population didn't have anything to draw sheeda attention. One chocoholic highborn was about it, and they dealt with that by just handing him chocolate until enough force could be brought to bear to kill him.

I see a young woman communicate to her nervous daughter that it's perfectly acceptable to wave at me, which causes her to wiggle her windmill in my general direction. I give her a little wave back.

And with the anti-life… Good community networks did a lot to keep people alive all over the world. There was a sweet spot between high density faceless neighbours and low density isolationism where there's a measurable drop off in the death count, and Bournville's right in the middle of it. No Justifiers and no Finality Man ever visited here, because… Why would they? Heck, the nearest anti-life broadcaster was in London. The biggest problem they had was in maintaining food supplies, but a lot of places in the Birmingham area were already creating new allotments and bringing land back into agricultural use, so it was more a matter of restricted diets rather than actual starvation like in some places.

Oh, and there's the fact that the rate of employment is very high, thanks largely to me vanquishing the fake cheese merchants of Kraft, and I can feel justifiably proud of that bit.

Well. Nothing looks like it's on fire. And scans don't show anyone using the emotion drugs here. It does look like some enterprising individual is growing a few plant troughs worth of cannabis, but… Eh, fine. It's probably less dangerous than moonshine. I'd be more worried about the electricity consumption if I hadn't given Cadbury a bleed torsion generator to lower their fuel costs, which resulted in them selling the considerable excess to the national grid.

Anyway, someone's learned not to shit where they eat. Or make drugs, in this case. Scans aren't coming back with anything helpful. C.C.T.V. isn't anything like as all-encompassing here as it is in London, so I can't meaningfully use the same technique. Tracking shipments of the raw materials isn't really possible because either they're bringing in low quantities in the driver compartments of their lorries or the official manifest is otherwise being altered. Wallace thought that some of the raw materials are probably being acquired locally, but… Looking at power consumption only really returns the cannabis grower as using significantly more power than is otherwise explicable.

I take out a rune stone, but… No. Far too large an area to cover. Unless I'm right over where they're doing the magic part of the work, that's not going to show anything. It's not good at picking up alchemical products at the best of times.

Empathic vision…

Huh. Nothing useful. In fact, everything's a little blurry. That… Shouldn't-.

Ah. Probably deliberate. I wouldn't notice from a distance or if I was visiting headquarters, but now that I'm here… Yeah. Alright, there are only so many places in Bournville -or even wider Birmingham- that an alchemical laboratory could be hidden, but me being here and floating menacingly is probably enough to stop anyone doing anything foolish, and it's probably best if I wait until Wallace and Artemis can back me up before making an attack. Mostly for the intimidation factor. With three of us they're much less likely to say 'I can take 'em'.

And in the meantime…

The universe flickers as I appear over the main portal park and depot. Eighty large-sized portals positioned around a tarmacked area about the size of ten football fields, lorries coming in and out, men in high visibility vests checking identities and directing drivers to the appropriate warehouses, crews loading and unloading pallets… And the lorries being directed away from the complex and towards the Cadbury factory directly.

What was the series called-? The Commonwealth Saga, that was it. Mass transit was undertaken not by spacecraft but by a massive network of giant railways connected by wormhole portals, all based on planets owned by a megacorp founded by the portal technology's inventors. I don't know, I should probably get someone to assess whether moving to a system like that would actually be better. I wasn't planning for this to be permanent-.

I wasn't really planning for this at all.

No, no, it wouldn't work for how we're using it. We've been moving the portals around, and it's not practical to lay tracks like that. But once things go back to normal, then… Maybe?

Trying not to get further distracted, I descend towards the management offices and phase through the wall. Once inside, I head towards the logistics office and knock on the door.

"Yeah!"

I push it open and stroll inside, prompting eyes to widen and mouths to drop. "Good afternoon. Need access to your computers for a moment."

"I mean… They're your computers?"

"Yes, but just grabbing them-" I connect to the closest with a construct cable. "-would be rude."

Due to the magical nature of our logistics train, our computer systems are warded, so no remote access for me. Plugged in, however, I can access transportation logs…

Ah. Mr. Mannheim is here… Somewhere. Not sure why, what he's learned… Patterns of lorry movement-. Shipments from source locations-. Good.

I disconnect. "Thank you. All yours again."

"Is there something-?"

I

step out, returning

to the depot. Where is-? Ah, there. Transition down, because even if there's been a network shutdown it would take a while for everyone to be notified.

"Davidson-"

The man flinches, turns around to see me, and flinches more.

"-Oyebe. I can't see your desires. Why would that be?"

"What-? What you mean, man?"

"It means that you're under arrest under suspicion of smuggling and such other offences as may be discovered by a full investigation. You may find me more-." He turns and sprints away from me. "Where are you going?"

Other people working in the depot turn and stare as I fly after a man attempting to flee from me. Why would-?

Oh gosh darn it. I grab him with a construct just as he simultaneously has a stroke and a heart attack, and this time I take out the planar jammer immediately. Remove the patches -and if one of these isn't fear then it's certainly stupid- and repair the physical damage. Ongoing symptoms..? None, good.

"Mister Oyebe."

He doesn't move for a moment, then focuses on me. "He just-. Crazy fucking wizard. I should have known this was going to happen."

"You really should. But I may be lenient with you if you tell me where he is. Now."