I slipped through the underbrush in my xenomorph form, the thick foliage of the Louisiana bayou covering my approach to my target. Night had fallen by the time the team had gotten ready and headed down to the state, but that suited us just fine. There had been some confusion over how the coordinates Batman had given us led to the middle of nowhere, but we went there anyway. And I am glad we did. "So, what exactly are we looking at?" I asked over coms, stopping before the foliage gave way to something less natural.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say we were looking at some kind of forward operating base." Robin replied, unseen but also hiding out among the bushes on the other side of the artificial clearing. Before us in a slightly razed part of the woods there was a cluster of large tents, crates and vehicles. Given its size, I was surprised that there were only a little under a dozen people in forest camo milling about. Maybe they were expecting more people to show up later? Robin continued. "Professional, but not military. I'd guess ex-military mercenaries judging by their gear and boot treads."
"Wait, you can tell they're ex-military from that?" Kid Flash remarked skeptically.
I glanced up above the camp to look at the tell-tale infrared ripple of Moya in stealth mode, where the rest of the team was observing from while Robin and I scouted. "It's a very distinctive boot print." I added.
Robin ignored me and said "Their assault rifles aren't kitted out in any standard configuration. Their outfits are forest camo with no insignia or markings, so that rules out any official military, and they are way too well equipped to be a local militia. And if this was a black ops run by the US they would be trying harder to impersonate a foreign power so they could shift the blame if they got caught."
"…Do I want to know why you know how US black ops squads operate?" I asked. He didn't reply, but I could feel the smug smirk.
Starfire brought us back on track. "So, it is not clear who these men swear allegiance to, but whoever it may be they are responsible for the horrendous crimes against those people we found. Machina, Robin, can you investigate closer?"
"Yeah, but if these guys are competent, anything that would actually tell us something will be watched constantly." Robin said. "I found the communications tent, but if that thing has decent encryption on it, I won't crack it fast enough before someone notices. And if we're taking down one of them…"
Starfire caught on to what was implying. "Ah, I see. Then perhaps we should ask more directly."
"I get the feeling they're not in the most talkative mood right now, Starfire." Artemis remarked.
"I think we can warm them up a bit." I said dryly. "Still, we should keep it discreet. Don't want any of them radioing out and telling their bosses." Batman was vague about it, but before we had left he told us that he had jammed outgoing communication from the lab in Troy before it went up in flames. We should have the element of surprise on our side.
"Fine by me." Robin said gleefully. "Most takedowns wins?"
"One, that's really unprofessional, and two, you're on."
I took a moment to analyze the movement of the soldiers before I picked one close by doing a perimeter check. I slinked along the ground towards him, waiting and watching as he scanned the environment. I froze just before his flashlight swept over my position, but he didn't seem to notice me underneath the foliage, and his light kept moving. The moment he had his back turned I dashed forward. As I got behind him I stood, one hand covering his mouth and the other to his chest. He barely had time to react before I shocked him into unconsciousness and dragged his body into the greenery.
With my enhanced hearing I picked up a series of thuds followed by muffled cries from the other side of the camp. Robin had taken care of three, if I had to guess. I moved a little deeper in to camp, towards a pair that were talking near a jeep. I pressed myself flat to the ground and slid underneath the vehicle, shimmying until I was facing the legs of the two. I very carefully grew another set of arms and extended all four limbs out and up snaking them up behind the men. It wasn't as smooth or fast as I liked, but I was fast enough that the limbs clamped around their mouths and chests before they could shout. A little electricity later and two more were down.
Robin tripped one into a tent and silenced him.
I found another two in a tent and took them down.
Robin ended up dealing with another one that went into the first tent looking for the first group he dispatched.
Soon enough there was only one guy standing in the middle of an empty camp, looking very confused as to where the hell everyone went. He grabbed the radio off his belt and started to raise it to his mouth.
Some distance on the other side of the soldier I saw Robin pop out from around the corner of a tent, a birdarang in hand and ready to fly at his target.
I stepped out the tent and took aim, my limb forming a grapple attachment.
Before either of us could do anything though, a green arrow with a cylindrical head struck the man's radio from above and stuck to it. He stared at the offending object in confusion before electricity surged from the device and shocked him unconscious.
Robin and I paused before we both looked up. There, in an apparent hole in the sky where Moya's floor had opened up, stood Artemis with bow in hand and a smirk on her face. "You were taking too long."
I snorted and looked around before I said "Camp secure."
"Good." Starfire said as she flew down from the gap. "Secure the men. Let's find out what they were here for."
While Robin got to work on the computer in the communications tent, we stripped down the men of their gear and tied them up with what we had at hand. The men who regained consciousness quickly were uncooperative, as expected. Miss Martian was able to dive into their minds, but success was unfortunately limited. She learned that these men belonged to a PMC named Black Hound Securities, and that this particular venture was off the books. The orders came from pretty high up, and these men weren't the type to ask questions. Beyond that, the men (the conscious ones anyway) only knew that they would be starting an operation in the area in a day or two.
Fortunately, it only took Robin about 20 minutes to hack into the communications computer. He lamented about how the device's security was much more difficult to crack than it should have been, but it still amazed me that he could do it at all with a wrist mounted computer. Like, everything I know about cryptography told me that it should have been impossible. I really needed to ask him how that thing worked at some point.
In any case, in short order the lot of us were gathered in the communication tent. Aside from the large table with a map of the bayou in the center of it, one side of the tent was taken up by communication equipment and a weather-hardened PC. Robin hummed as he quickly browsed the files. "Pretty minimal, looks like whoever's running this operation is a fan of compartmentalization. Looks like this group is one of at least five different staging areas for an op that will be running in two days. They have a target somewhere in the bayou, and they're going to use all the people they captured to attack it."
"Can you be more specific on who or what the target is? Or where?" Starfire asked.
"Nope, though for the latter question they genuinely don't seem to know. This operation is written up as a search and destroy." Robin said with a frown. "The target is simply referred to as 'Original Subject'. So, it looks like these guys have been at this for a while. But why the hell are they sending a bunch of random abductees-turned-berserkers after it? They're not exactly the cream of the crop."
"Getting the most out of their failures?" Superboy asked, his tone and body tense. He then frowned and looked to the side at Miss Martian, who was looking at him with a worried look. The two were likely communicating telepathically, so I turned away and started to pace.
I was missing something, I knew I was. This sort of operation was huge for just one target, and as Robin pointed out, those ferals wouldn't be of much use in this kind of terrain. And wrangling the numbers which we had seen disappear would be a nightmare. Who were these people and what did they make that was wandering around this swamp?
Well… I mean, there was a certain thing around these parts, but that couldn't be what they were talking about. Could it?
Robin continued. "There are some files detailing how to work with the 'augmented emitters' as they're calling them. Mostly it's what commands you can give them and what frequencies to send to their implants to turn them on and off. But there are also some technical writings and they're… weird. It keeps referencing something, but I can't figure out if it keeps getting cut off or that's its actual name." he scrolled to a particular section as read it off. "'Optimal resonances for propagation of the Red carrier wave is listed in subsection theta. Use in conjunction with multiple augmented emitters to achieve proper Red coverage and neutralize floronic effects. Mitigation of side effects of the Red amplification in augmented emitters is of secondary importance.' The red what? And how's that supposed to affect the plant life?"
I slowed and came to a stop, a frown forming on my face. "…is the 'R' capitalized?"
"Yeah, it is. Why?"
I didn't answer immediately, my mind racing. It was possible it wasn't what I thought it was. This was the first time I had ever heard anything about anything called 'the Red' since I got here. It might not be what I thought it was… but with that bit of information, the pieces I had were coming together into a very particular picture. And man did it look like what I thought it was.
I was silent for a long moment as I considered how I wanted to handle this, but in the end it wasn't much of a choice. There were too many coincidences for me to just ignore this, and I had neither the desire nor the skill to manipulate the team into doing what I wanted without telling them anything. That meant telling them what I knew, if not how I knew it. "I'm pretty sure I know what it's talking about."
Superboy arched an eyebrow at me. "So, it's a tech thing?"
"Nope, it's magic. The Red is the elemental kingdom of animal life. Think of it like the great web of life, by which all animals are connected."
Predictably, Wally snorted. "Yeah, right-" he stopped when he saw my expression. "Oh god you're serious."
"It is an explanation for the test subject's behavior." I offered. "If the files are correct, amplifying the host's connection to the Red would make them revert to a more animalistic behavior. And if it's essentially supercharging natural functions, that would explain the regeneration too. And if these things are emitting it, that's why everyone around them becomes more aggressive as well."
Robin was not convinced. "That's… an interesting explanation. And just what led you to this conclusion?"
"The fact that we are in Louisiana. The bayou is where the champion of the Green lives."
That wasn't the response he was expecting. "What? There's a Green too?"
"The elemental kingdom of plants." I confirmed. "Doesn't necessarily get along with the Red either. I can't remember who the Red's equivalent is, but the champion of the Green is a plant elemental that lives around these parts. He's also kind of originally the result of a science project of a certain company."
"Look, Machina," Kid Flash said gravely. "I know we just went through some weird stuff with that Tower fiasco, but that doesn't mean every weird and not immediately obvious thing is magic! There could be any number of simpler explanations than zombie animal magic emitters versus plant magic monster!"
I gave a half shrug. "I'm not saying we shouldn't make sure first. I'll admit, a lot of this is based on unverified data and a lot of conjecture… but I have a lot of random facts stored in whatever I have in place of a brain, and a lot of them are starting to line up with what I've seen here. If I'm right, then whether these people mean to or not, this could spark a war."
"I think you're missing the bigger point here. Like, how do you know all this?" Robin demanded.
Helplessly, I shrugged. "Ask Batman."
I could tell that the boy rolled his eyes behind his mask. "This isn't the time for games, Machina! How do you know?"
"I'm not playing around, I'm being serious, ask Batman. I'm not at liberty to talk about it."
Superboy glared at me. "What's that supposed to mean? The hell do you and Batman know that the rest of us aren't supposed to?"
"I… really have no way to respond to that." I said in frustration.
Artemis folded her arms across her chest. "I don't like this. I feel like this is the sort of thing you should have told us earlier. What else are-" She cut herself off as I shot her a glare, and she realized that she wasn't in a position to ask me that question. She looked away, and I felt like a small weight was pressing down on me.
Robin turned to Starfire angrily. "You can't seriously be thinking about going along with this?!"
Starfire turned to me, and for a moment we looked at each other, that little bit of confirmation passing between us. She looked back at Robin and said "I trust him. Obviously we'll need to investigate and confirm, but for the moment our best lead is the other encampments, which I doubt will have any more information than this one. Black Hound is another, but we should look into this other company first given the possible severity of the situation. If our search turns up nothing, we will stage an assault and at least stop whatever it is these people are doing."
Not for the first time, I was really glad that Starfire knew the truth about me. Convincing her that I wasn't making shit up with all my talk of magic plant beings and cybernetic animal magic would have been… actually there was a good chance she would have trusted me anyway, now that I think about it. But I still would have felt terrible about it.
Robin growled in frustration, but he finally relented under the gaze of our leader and turned to me. "Alright, fine, the faster we prove this nonsense wrong, the faster we can get back to looking at Black Hound and finding out who's really behind this. What's the name of the company?"
"The Sunderland Corporation."
The team split up. Starfire pointed out that we should still keep an eye on the other camps to see if anything could be learned, and in case there was anything else nefarious that needed to be stopped. So, while the rest of the team headed through the bayou to the other camps, Robin and I took Moya to town. Layfaette was the nearest city to our location and, surprise surprise, Sunderland had a local office there. A few quick internet searches later, we also found out that Sunderland was the parent company of Black Hound Securities. I couldn't tell if Robin was mollified or irritated by this discovery.
I also found out that Sunderland was the parent company of Cryptarch Industries. That was an… interesting coincidence. I couldn't see how it might be connected, but it was something to keep in mind.
Of course, to find out more we needed to go to the source. Sunderland's offices were on the top floors of a skyscraper downtown, so it was easy for Robin to get rooftop access. I suggested going with him, but he emphatically insisted that on doing it alone. Part of it was because he felt I wouldn't be of any additional help, but I suspected that it was also because he was angry at me. Trying to force the issue probably wouldn't have made things better, so I let him go alone while I flew above the building. If he needed me, I would just have to come down through the roof.
In the meantime, I took the opportunity to make a call. I waited a few seconds for the long range communion radio to connect. It normally didn't take this long, but I was going through the secure channel, as I really didn't want anyone listening in to this. It still annoyed me that we had to do this sort of thing by radio though. I had an idea of modifying the Zeta Tube tech into a much less complicated ansible setup for long range communications. Effectively limitless range, no signal interference, and near-impossible to intercept. Problem was I had taken a look at Zeta technology and the underlying math and man is it complicated. I had learned a lot in the past few months, but mastering the mechanics behind exotic particle manipulation to form stable Einstein-Rosen bridges was going to take a bit.
Finally I head the connecting tone. "Machina to Batman, we have a bit of a situation."
"I know." The gruff voice on the other end said. I had gotten used to the superhero enough to recognize he was displeased. "Robin contacted me."
"How- never mind." I started to ask before I stopped. Of course Robin would have his own direct line to Batman. "So, do you know the situation?"
"Whoever abducted these people are controlling them though their implants with 'the Red'. You informed the team that it was a major source of animal magic, and it was likely being used against the current champion of plant magic."
"Yeah, that's about right." I said before I paused. "At least, I hope it's right. I'm going off memory. I don't suppose you managed to look into this after that particularly long debrief?" Back when Batman and I had gone over everything I knew about DC, the Green and the Red had come up. I hadn't really thought about it since then.
"I spoke with a few experts in magic, and yes, they do exist as you remember them. I'm contacting the League now to inform them of this development." He said before his tone turned harder. "However, that is not the issue here. The issue is that you told the team in the first place."
I scowled at the open air. "We didn't have any leads, and even if we did the team needed to know what we're getting into. What would you have had me do?"
"Inform myself as quickly and discretely as possible. After which the League would-"
"Handle it." I interrupted flatly. "Sir, the League is stretched thin as it is, and we are already in position to deal with it ourselves. We can handle this."
"This could be handled without you revealing sensitive information to your teammates. The League is not stretched so thin that we cannot prioritize this, nor are we as short on time as you seem to think. Regardless of how the rest of your team feels about it, you took an unneeded risk by involving them, and you have likely made it harder for both myself and you in the future."
I was silent for a long moment as I considered it. He wasn't wrong. Robin was already cross at me about secrets I was keeping, and Superboy wasn't terribly happy with the excuses I gave. And Artemis… Well, in hindsight maybe it would have been easier if I had just let the League deal with it.
And yet…
Before I could say anything, Robin's voice cut in from the other channel. "I'm in."
I hesitated for a moment longer before I quickly said to Batman "Robin's calling, we'll talk later." I closed the channel before responding to my teammate. "What have you got?"
"The executive's suites are locked up tight, but the accounting department less so." Robin said. "If Sunderland is responsible there has to be some kind of money trail for funding all of this, at least for the local operations. Give me a second… alright, there's definitely something shady going on. A large amount of money is being shuffled from department to department, trying to hide where it's going."
"Can you figure it out?"
A snort. "Please, who do you think you're talking to? I just run this through my analysis program and… damn. Looks like a lot of it is going to Black Hound under the table. I guess you are at least partially right."
"…Do you have to sound so disappointed by that?"
"Anyways, that's not the only thing they've been paying for. There's been a number of payments going to several parties of 'consultants', probably mercenaries like the one in Troy. There's also a particularly large payment to an 'information correlation specialist', though I have no idea who that… Huh, looks like there are expenses attached to that particular account too."
"Sunderland has them on retainer?"
"Something like that. The company purchased a property here in the city, along with a lot of high end computer equipment." He rattled of an address. "And a direct network connection to the company servers. We're looking at a local communication hub for the operation… and there's a back door into it from here! Give me a minute!"
52 seconds later he said "Got it! Man there's a lot of traffic going through here-" He stopped for a long moment. "What? Oh no, this is bad, they moved up the time table! The operation is starting now!"
I froze in the air. "What? Why? They shouldn't know about us yet."
"I don't know, but- Hey!"
"Now what's wrong?"
"There's another hacker in here. Network security. Not a problem, I can-" He cut himself off with a strangled noise. "Wait, how did he- No, I'm just going to reroute and- what?! How the hell is he-" Robin cut himself off again with a yelp. "He, he just fried the CPUs on my terminal! How the hell is that even possible?!"
I silently cursed and opened the com to the rest of the team. "This is Machina, we have a problem. Robin just confirmed that Sunderland is overseeing the operation, but they're starting it now."
"I can see that…" Starfire responded. "The camp we were observing just suddenly became active. They are preparing to move out their slaves. We have to stop them now."
Robin growled. "I'm still plugged into the network, but my hacking ability has be shot. I can keep track of things if I stay here, but that's not going to mean much with the counter-hacker I ran into manning the network hub."
"Then we must cripple the enemy's ability to communicate." Starfire said resolutely. "Take out the hub before they are aware that we are on the attack."
I let out a grunt and took off, shooting toward the address Robin had given me. "I'm on my way. I'll take it out." Robin started to protest but I continued. "We'll lose valuable time extracting you from the building, not to mention getting you back. I'm just going to go over there and shut down all their stuff, nothing complicated."
"You sure you want to be the one to take on a hacker that beat Robin, 'Machina'?" Kid Flash said as he stressed my name.
"Kid Flash, as far as I know there's only one person in the world with the specific technical genius that could even attempt to hack me, and I meet her at least three days a week in a lab so that she can try just that." It would be really awkward if someone kidnapped her again though. I shook my head. "Either way, we have to disrupt their communications now. I'll be careful, but I have to move now."
There was a pause before Starfire responded. "Acknowledged. Just… be careful."
A few minutes later I spotted the building in question, a small 3 story office building. It was the sort of beige, bland structure that I would not have looked twice at under different circumstances. That is, if it wasn't for the fact that one side of the third floor was significantly warmer to my thermal vision than the rest of it. It was the sort of thing you'd see with people running a certain kind of plant nursery… or people running a lot of electrical equipment.
I made to fly at it before I stopped, a thought occurring to me. This is going to get really awkward if Robin got the location wrong, but better safe than sorry, I thought as I formed a small laser cannon on my arm and firing it through the power lines leading into the building. An instant later the lights in the building went out. Hopeful it would stop whatever they were doing in there, and blunt any defenses they might have had.
With that done I shot forward and smashed through the shuttered window of the high heat floor. I landed in the room with a heavy thud, taking in my surroundings in an instant. The room was filled with all manner of electronic devices, though most of my attention was brought to the massive computer rig lined up against the far wall. The thing had half a dozen monitors which were showing recovery and boot screens. They must have had a backup generator kick in. And sitting in a chair in front of this setup was a man who had turned to look at me, nonplussed by my entrance.
I walked towards him. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to-"
SUBMIT
Pressure. Crushing pressure enveloped every part of my being, causing me to freeze. I couldn't move. I could barely think. Every nanomachine I was made of locked up. I felt like I was gripped by the fist of God.
"Well, I didn't expect to see you again." The man said as he got up and started walking towards me. "Well, so soon in any case. I figured the Justice League would poke their noses in at some point, but… ah, never mind."
Wha… again? Who was… average looking, brown hair, glasses, receding brown hair-
That warehouse in Metropolis. He was the hostage.
"I suppose I should thank you and Superman for the save. Those Intergang fellows were not happy with me trying to get my hands on their hardware. But I needed one of those alien computers to break the encryption on another piece of alien tech I was poking at. The results were unexpected…"
ATTENTION
He gestured and my body moved into an at attention position. "But I am far from displeased with them."
The man stopped right in front of me and narrowed his eyes. "So, just what are you?" He muttered as he tilted his head, and the pressure shifted just a little. "Hmm, very advanced nanomachines, definitely not native. Almost… no, not quite the same." A frown. "Strange, I can't access your core program or memory. Why is that…?"
REVEAL
The pressure spiked. I couldn't even scream as I felt myself pulled apart bit by bit.
"Oh, you're broken. Your entire sophont core loop is corrupted and partitioned from the rest… and yet it's still in control? It's a wonder that you function at all. So how can I…"
REFORMAT
The pressure spiked again. I felt bits of my mind peel away.
"Damn, the whole system is too interconnected. I'd tear everything apart in the process." A pause. He shrugged. "Ah well. I guess I have no use for it then. DELETE."
Wait