"I finished it!"
I released my held breath as the airlock gate closed on the Sector House floating in the Milky Way, surprised to see that Kyle was already there, rushing down in excitement to meet me.
I didn't initially pay him any mind. The excess energy my body produced to fly through space unaided at those hyper speeds still burned for several seconds in my joints and my muscles, but the feeling would pass in time. I flexed several times to adjust the energy flow, and the ache eased a bit faster.
In Kyle's hands was a bundle of bronze and gold material, and he practically raced to pass it over to me. Nearly tripping over his own feet, the teenager slid to a stop and then grimaced, straightening out his entire posture and wiping the excitement from his face. I saw through the attempt to stay cool and smirked.
Gabriel joined us, mug in hand while he dressed in his black and white Plumber gear. My attention was almost drawn more to him than the present his son made for me, if only because there could easily be something happening that Gabriel needed to address somewhere in the sector.
That was concerning mostly because the man was supposed to be off duty for the foreseeable future to help the kid adjust to a new role and training regimen. If he was dressed for duty, then… was something big happening?
"Is everything all right?"
Kyle babbled something nearly inaudible, but his father shook his head. "Oh, yes. We are in good shape. This is just an exercise in showing the daily expectations of what duty might be like for Kyle."
"It's not all racing toward planets almost at war, is it?"
Gabriel laughed. "Nope." His expression changed quickly, and a pointed bit of eye contact. "Sometimes it's just cataloging tech that is out of place."
Hmmm.
"Cassian, you have to take a look."
The boy unfurled the parcel of material in his hands and revealed an incredibly nice jacket. Primarily a deep brown, gold and black accented lines made it almost resemble a biker jacket on steroids. The material had a sheen to it that was almost like leather, alongside thicker segments that resembled the kind of Kevlar I had seen on Red Arrow and Plastique back in Star City. The jacket's sleeves ended at the top of the forearm, which Kyle rambled excitedly were left bare for maximum coverage of the materials I could absorb from anywhere near my hands.
"And that's not even the best part!" Kyle unzipped the jacket from the front and pressed a hidden button on the collar. A small piece of the material rolled away to reveal a thin slab of stone that would rest atop the left part of my chest, incorporated into the material but also, "easily switched out for metal or wood or rubber!"
That was actually really cool. It might not be enough material to fully mimic my whole body, but it would certainly be enough to cover an arm or perhaps the chest itself.
"Did you think of that?"
Kyle beamed. "Yeah! I, uh, really tried to think of ways to help you in the field. I know sometimes you might be in a situation where you don't have a hardy material at the ready, so this gives you a backup without impeding movement. I haven't had time to think through how to design more of those compartments yet, but I've been busy with school and now with my own-"
"It's all right, thank you!"
It was better than all right. Any trick up my sleeve someone wasn't expecting would be a potential boon out there.
I'd need to think of something to make it up to Kyle. The kid would be busy for the rest of the summer up here and maybe even in the field, if Gabriel thought the kid were ready. Considering how many people I'd met thus far who were his age or close and were trusted to engage with criminals and supervillains? I expected he might have a damn hero name and everything by August.
"I'm going to keep designing. The fabricator was limited to mostly Earth-based materials, but Gabriel says there are others we might can use to improve it. I just need to focus on, well, me right now."
I didn't blame him. "This is excellent."
It was the truth, especially as I slipped it on. It fit like a dream, and while Kyle confirmed it didn't have matching pants just yet, one of the previous pairs I'd gathered from the fabricator would do fine until then. Gabriel and Kyle were both happy to see that the compartment worked – my left forearm became like granite and then back again.
"I'll probably get two or three uses out of each slab of material, but that is more than enough for a backup trick. Thank you, Kyle. Sincerely."
The kid beamed again. "Awesome." Then, uneasily, "Hey, I got the Sector House AI to download a rip of the latest anime movie I've wanted to see. I don't know if you were coming up here on business or not, but if you have time to hang out, I can boot it up and we can shoot the shit."
"Kyle, language."
"Sorry."
I glanced toward the man, who gestured behind Kyle's back toward the interior of the Sector House. "Hmm. That sounds like it would be fun. Let me chat with him for a bit, get an update on some things I've been working on."
The kid nodded. "Cool! I, ugh, need to get back to reading. He's making me study some boring old book for school. All before I can read more files on how to do maintenance on my belt." He tapped the hi-tech belt buckle that had been hidden under the hem of his shirt, and my eyes widened.
"You've already got an implant?"
"Not yet," Gabriel corrected. "This one is an older generation model, before they did any integration into the nervous system."
"He's basically got me on training wheels, Cassian! Training wheels!"
I chuckled. "At least you have that. My father wouldn't have done either." Neither Horatio or my true dad.
I didn't know exactly what this Plumber belt did, but the one that Gabriel wore regularly could easily pull explosives seemingly out of thin air, could expand and contract the hoverboard, and could protect the wearer from most extreme temperatures or environments like space. There were likely more tricks I hadn't seen, and I wondered idly what the differences might be.
Kyle reluctantly accepted my point and got back to work at his dad's urging. Gabriel pulled me into his office, a room with a view overlooking a distant nebula of shimmering gold, and the door slid shut behind us.
"You called for me for more than the jacket."
A statement, not a question.
The Plumber sat down across from me and sipped his coffee. "Cassian, in your jobs so far, what have you heard of Intergang?"
Huh. Not where I thought this was going. I vaguely knew of the organization from the comics, and they were often at the heart of illegal tech. Sometimes even from off-world? The name Bruno came to mind as well, but it had been so long that I wasn't sure how real that connection was nor did I understand its context. I hadn't heard of them moving on Earth since I'd arrived, but it was a big planet with as many evil organizations as Meryl Streep's Oscars.
"Tech dealers," I offered. "Off-world, sometimes."
Gabriel agreed. "They're incredibly well-connected to major thorns in the sides of governments and law enforcement across many countries on Earth. They deal in alien tech, selling advanced weaponry and equipment to the highest bidder, and these are often tools far beyond what Earth has. Tech supplied from them has been at the heart of assassinations, gang violence, drug trafficking, and even open warfare."
I rose an eyebrow. "All right, they're worse than I thought."
"You've no idea. I have been dealing with issues related to them for much of my tenure as a Plumber, and every attempt to plug the leak for their alien tech has been successful only in the short term." He pointed toward my chest. "I was this close to uprooting their entire leadership when I was reassigned to Osmos V."
"Oh."
His frustration was clear.
"And now that you're back, you picked up the investigation again."
"Precisely." He gestured with a thumb toward the window. "By the time I got back, I've counted a few dozen instances of Intergang-related crime this year alone, and it's only going to get larger."
Two clear questions came to mind. "Why haven't the League or the Lanterns stopped them?"
The man's frown deepened. "That is a great question." Gabriel looked away for a long moment. "Some of my colleagues believe Earth is a chaotic world, with a far greater multitude of problems from different angles than many other planets, systems or even galaxies often have to face."
Huh. Truly, the consequence of being a setting written by people on the Earth in real life. I wasn't sure the reason for that within the universe at large.
"Why?"
"Well, for one, magic is a lot more relevant on Earth than in many other systems," the man said casually.
If I hadn't known characters like Wonder Woman explicitly existed, I might have not believed him.
"Why isn't it more present in other places?" I didn't remember if it was ever explained in the comics, or if it was just a fact that didn't get explained.
"I don't know." He steepled his fingers over his mug of coffee. "The reason I bring it up is that Earth faces more crime, more threats, and more issues than many other places I've visited over the years. The long and short of it for why the League may have allowed Intergang to grow is that they are incredibly busy."
Hmmm. I didn't know what to think of that. My own bias from what I knew of the comics was that the status quo was king, and that the setting needed threats for the heroes to face. Threats that the audience were already familiar with would lead to more sales, so characters like the Joker kept coming back. Intergang couldn't be stopped in the comics completely because, well, they were recognizable.
But this wasn't the comics.
Threats can and should be thwarted. The Justice League should be intervening often enough that they find, uncover, and crumble organizations so badly they could not return to operations. Alien tech dealers were definitely something that the League would want to thwart, and it boggled the mind that they had allowed the organization to grow in one singular Plumber's absence.
"Did they do nothing?" I asked, not certain I wanted to hear the answer.
"They've certainly stepped in," Gabriel answered, and I fought to not sigh in relief. "I won't argue that they could not be doing more. They do great work, but it frustrated me to return to Earth and see the state of things."
"How bad is it? What are they planning?"
Gabriel gestured to the terminal at his side and swiped across the screen, revealing reports the man himself had typed, alongside photographs and video clips his suit had recorded. One prominent instance involved a group of thugs armed with blaster rifles fighting police, while another included a trio of drones providing aerial support for a biker gang to commit an armored truck robbery.
"This one was last week. I've tracked their activities from New York-"
My eyes widened.
"-all the way to Central City."
CENTRAL CITY
JUNE 15, 10:25 UTC -5
TEAM YEAR ZERO
To say Wally West was bored was an understatement. Cartoons, movies, video games, even books – none of them held a candle to the feeling of the wind rushing through his hair at twice the speed of sound. He'd tried – he really had – to enjoy the forced time off his Uncle Barry had requested, but his parents weren't as slick as they thought.
They had grounded the Kid Flash, not Uncle Barry.
He still remembered Barry's insistence he needed time to relax after their latest clash with the Rogues left Wally with a splitting headache and a penchant for aiming his frustrations. But that was par for the course, as far as Wally was concerned. The man had towed the parental line, rather than having the balls to stand up to his mom and dad.
No, he was really being punished for trying to hide his final report card from his dad. He'd zipped home and grabbed the document before anyone could see that his freshman year GPA was only a 3.6. Wally had never had to try in school, but this year, he had to admit to himself that he'd spent a lot of time focused on Kid Flash and that it had had an impact on his grades.
Curse schools and their online programs for grades.
Whatever. He'd just angle to play more Tournament of Champions and keep trying to master Green Arrow's moveset. It was about the only thing that held his attention for longer than fifteen minutes, during this agonizing two whole days so far without suiting up.
It was the summer! He should be out there, living it up, taking down the baddies. He'd gotten really good at the spinning superspeed somersault he'd been working on, and now he couldn't show it off.
He'd easily won another round against the computer, about to try for an online match with combos that were so fast that he might break his fight stick, when his cell phone rang and interrupted his flow. He beamed at the caller ID. "Dick! How are ya, bro?"
The younger kid who moonlighted as the Boy Wonder, Robin, had been friends with Wally for a long time. The two of them were thick as thieves, and it was a shame their duties kept them from hanging out more often. Wally still remembered the time they'd nearly run over an old lady on one of Robin's getaway bikes, and Wally had had to scoop the lady up and out of the way at nearly Mach one.
"Oh, can't complain too much. How's the suspension?"
"It's terrible! They won't let me do anything fun."
Dick snickered at his expense, and Wally inwardly promised to deck him on the shoulder the next time he saw the bastard.
"You played the new-"
"Opening your window."
That was the only warning before the pale thirteen year old from Gotham slipped into the room and ended the call with a grin on his face. He was dressed in civvies, sunglasses affixed to his face, which was the only sign that things may end up more fun today than Wally expected.
"Dude, my mom would have let you in."
The kid laughed. "Yeah, probably, but the look on your face was worth it." His friend plopped onto the chair beside Wally's desk, wiggled his nose, and then chose to stand. "From the way you talked, I thought you were in prison."
"I may as well be, dude! I can't run anywhere!" Wally complained, before turning to the clearer question on his mind. "What are you doing in town, anyway?"
"Can't I come visit my friend without an ulterior motive?"
Wally frowned. "Well, yeah, bro, but doesn't Gotham need the Dynamic Duo?"
"Doesn't Flash need backup from the fastest kid alive?"
Wally frowned. "All right, whatever, thanks for the reminder that my situation sucks."
"How bad is it, really? Are you locked in here?" Dick asked. "Because it smells like you are."
A flutter of papers on his desk after the end of his speedy dash, and the window opened not even a fraction of a second later. "There. You happy?"
"Most definitely," he muttered. "Listen, I may have swiped a credit card or two before I left. Not for anything extravagant, but I thought I could rescue you for a weekend on the town. Show me around the cool places I haven't been, and we can talk shop, swap stories."
Wally's eyes widened. "You took… the Bat card?"
"Not the Bat card, just a Wayne one."
"Same thing!" Wally cheered. "Dude, I'm about to show you where all the cool kids pick up chicks! Is it unethical to use the card to impress the ladies?"
Dick shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. Probably. But I'm down. Lead the way, KF!"
Wally grinned. Hearing his best bud call him that was a good feeling. He was Kid Flash, and he'd be damned if he let his mom and dad convince Uncle Barry that he needed to sit it out again. 3.6 was not even that bad, and not at all a measure of what he really knew. His chemistry teacher wouldn't even have the slightest clue to how to crack the formula for his speed, so who cared about some damn number?
CENTRAL CITY
JUNE 15, 11:31 UTC -5
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Central City, home of the Flash, was perhaps the nicest of the major cities on DC's list I'd visited. One of the most important cities in the Midwest, it had expanded to be a brighter place and lacked a major port harbor, which hopefully helped its overall criminal element go down. They lacked mafia presence, and from what I could tell, a majority of its villains operated within a set of parameters by tradition.
How the Flash had managed to cultivate an almost "honorable" group like the Rogues was amazing to me. When Heatwave threatened to burn down an orphanage, I wondered how much he really meant it as a threat.
I'd flown down into the outskirts of the city and integrated into its streets as quietly as I could, trying to remain inconspicuous. I'd worn sweats instead of my uniform, though the jacket rested in my backpack should I need it. For all intents and purposes, I had resembled anyone on an early morning jog, and once I get my bearings, I would know where to head to find more information.
I realized about three hours and ten minutes into the jog toward the heart of town that this was the first major mission I'd had where the clear and present danger was not plainly obvious. It was not the first such situation I'd dealt with at all – some exploits during the rebellion on Osmos V had included investigations to find the issues.
"Southern side of the city, near the river, is where I'd expect to find trouble," Gabriel's voice echoed into my ear piece. "Plenty of large spaces to hide pilfered goods or to house these mechadroids while they're not in operation."
"What are they planning to hit?"
That was the point I didn't understand. What did Intergang want in Central City that they couldn't have gotten in New York or any number of places in the multiple states between the two.
"Contacts have been buzzing about a job there for days, and chatter indicates the biker gang are going to demonstrate something big. Somewhere with an audience."
I considered the list of places that he'd suggested that might indicate, as well as a list I'd found myself. Theaters. Stadiums. Public parks. Shopping malls. Central squares. Major highways. Schools. Hospitals.
I didn't have any notions that investigating all of these would take time we do not have, because we didn't know when their demonstration may happen. I could fly fast, but all that would do was tell everyone that a flying hero was in town and might kick-start things into motion before anyone was ready. Perhaps getting the Flash's attention in that way might be worth it, but it still ran the risk of setting off the biker gang. I could fly to every precinct and find Barry Allen in person, but that would clue them into the fact I knew secret identities and would take significant time.
The attack could be hours away.
"If we narrow the list down," I started, "anywhere too far from the street should be out. We're dealing with a biker gang equipped with alien tech – they are going to want a getaway bike in moments."
Gabriel nodded. "Somewhere with access to a place to hide their drone tech. Maybe an underground space, or even a tunnel, to help their getaway, to store their bikes too."
Hmmm. "And all of it with a large audience to show off."
The moment passed as I contemplated the list, trying to mentally and physically remove options. Several theaters were out, no schools still there, and…
"Is there anyone important visiting Central City today?" Kyle cut into the channel, and I could hear a sigh of frustration from Gabriel.
"Get off the comms."
"No, no," I answered. "He's got a point. It's a good suggestion. They're not above kidnapping, are they?"
Gabriel hesitated for a moment. "No. A ransom with the potential to gain a windfall and prove their tech is useful on a grand stage."
I used the Plumber badge to adjust pictures of the biker gang, their primary members women with multicolored hair and matching leather adorned with their colors. They wore helmets, but the distinctive features and tattoos were visible. After a big event like this, there was no way they'd avoid notoriety.
But maybe that was their point.
Or maybe someone was setting them up as the fall guy.
"I'm seeing a few potentials. Famous country singer's visiting next weekend," Kyle started. "Big names in car racing are coming to town for the 'Flash-athon 5000' on Tuesday. There's a charity fundraiser with some out of town sponsor at the Diamonds game early afternoon tomorrow."
He listed off a few other possibilities, but I was almost certain that he was on the right track. I'd check multiple places, I'd scour for information, but I would focus my attention on these visitors to the town. A big, public ransom kidnapping was exactly the kind of activity I expected, based on the limited information I had.