The pale green Legion cruiser soared through space, its engines streaming blue fire in perfect silence. Within, the walls hummed with the massive forces of its faster-than-light travel. Lightning Lad stood at the helm, arms folded, smirking.

"Man, Brai―Querl, I can't believe you got all this done in a week!"

"Neither can I." Querl grumbled, pressing buttons despondently. "It should have taken three days."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, man. So you're not quite as fast as you used to be, it's not the end of the world."

Querl's eyes narrowed, his jaw clenching.

"Oh. Sorry, I . . . sorry."

"Forget about it." Querl said, rising abruptly. "I'm going to check on the engines. They're acting a little odd."

"Hey, look, I didn't mean. . . ." Lighting Lad said, holding out his hands apologetically. Querl waved his own hand dismissively as he stalked by.

"I said forget about it." he snapped, as the doors hissed open. "Keep an eye on the shield generators. They've been fluctuating."

"R-right." Lightning Lad stammered. "Will do."

Querl looked over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Seriously, Lightning Lad. Don't worry. I'm fine."

"Well, yeah." the redhead replied with a nervous smile. "Who ever said different?"

"It doesn't have to be said." Querl answered, and stepped out, the doors snapping closed behind him. Lightning Lad sat down at Querl's station and ran a hand through his hair.

"Man," he said to himself, "I'm bad at this." He glanced at the information on the engines, a page of slowly changing numbers next to two engine silhouettes colored in almost entirely with green.

ENGINE INSTABILITY: 4% the readout said, and below that, FUNCTION NOMINAL.

"I'm really bad at this," Lightning Lad moaned, his head dropping with a thunk onto the control panel.

Next to his left ear, a small dialogue box appeared in red, saying, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS: LEVEL C. Beneath it, a loading bar rapidly filled with green light; then the dialogue changed to ACCESS GRANTED, and the box vanished.

It was all done in less than five seconds.

Querl stepped quickly into the elevator and leaned back against the curved far wall. The doors closed with a hiss and the lift descended, humming softly. He stood very still, eyes downcast, arms crossed, fingers drumming pensively.

The elevator dinged and stopped, stating as the doors opened, "Level C. Engine room." Querl pushed himself off the wall of the elevator and stepped forth into the engine room, the noise of it washing over him in thick waves. Across the way, snoozing in one of the padded engineer's chairs, sat Bouncing Boy, feet propped up on the secondary antimatter conduit.

"Bouncy, wake up." Querl said, striding forward.

Bouncing Boy sat up quickly with a snort, and proclaimed, "I wasn't sleeping!" He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "Oh, hey B―Querl. Everything looking okay up top?"

"To within four percent, yes." Querl replied. "How are the welds holding?"

"Huh? Fine, I guess. Hey, listen, I was thinking, when we get back from this mission, Shrinking Violet and the Trips and me are gonna watch a twenty-third century movie-marathon. I even got some authentic microwave popcorn. It's almost impossible to find, and I've heard it tastes like cardboard. You want in?"

The blonde sighed irritably. "No, I do not 'want in.' Once this mission is done, I am going back to my lab at the university and continuing my work."

"Oh." He seemed to deflate a little. "Right, sure, of course. Just . . . thought I'd ask."

Querl knelt next to the primary containment valve and prodded it a few times. Bouncing Boy looked at the ceiling, whistled a few notes, then said, "What kind of things you working on in that lab?"

"That's hardly relevant. Is this valve welded shut?"

"That?" Bouncing Boy waddled over and squatted next to Querl. He poked the valve a couple times. "I guess it is. We never use it, though."

"Did you weld it shut?" Querl demanded, turning a glare on Bouncing Boy that probably could have sliced steel.

"N-no, I didn't. Must've been Vi, or―"

Querl cut him off irritably. "Forget it. It doesn't matter who did it. I need you to bring me a tube wrench and the cutting torch. It can't stay like this. If the antimatter overheats, the ship will explode if we can't jettison it."

Bouncing Boy swallowed. "Is there . . . a good chance of that happening?"

"Less than point one percent, if my calculations are correct. Wrench. Torch. Now."

"Uh, right. On it. You want me to send someone to help you?"

"I'm perfectly capable of handling this on my own, thank you." Querl replied, eyes fixed on the welded valve.

"I'll just go get the stuff." Bouncing Boy said, and hurried off.

Querl ran a finger along the weld again, eyes narrowed. "This looks . . . familiar." he commented to himself.

Something in the back of his head stirred.

And then something hit him in the back of the head, very, very hard.

As Querl struggled back upwards through sticky, onion-thin layers of unconsciousness, he slowly became aware of a face peering down into his own, a voice speaking his name over and over again, gentle hands on his shoulders. He put a hand to his head and groaned.

"Querl! Come on, Querl, get up." said Shrinking Violet, helping him into a sitting position.

"My head," said Querl, gingerly fingering the spot at the back of his head that was now afire with pain. There was a thick line of it burning across his forehead, too, leading him to suspect that whatever had hit him had caused his head to bounce off of the containment valve with considerable force. His fingers came away dry, though, indicating that whatever it was had not broken the skin.

"See, told'ya you were gonna be okay."

"Bouncing Boy―" he began, attempting to push himself to his feet. Even if Violet hadn't held him in place, the pain in his head would have kept him from getting much further.

"Easy there." she said, propping him up against the wall. "He's not back yet. I saw what happened."

"You were . . . spying on me?" Querl asked, the fuzzy outlines of his thoughts beginning to sharpen and coalesce.

Shrinking Violet looked away, making a face. "Hey, wasn't my idea. But good thing I was here anyway, right?"

"What hit me?" he inquired, thinking straighter now.

She shrugged. "Nothing, as far as I could see. Or something invisible."

"Cloaked." Querl supplemented. "Sneaking around the ship, sabotaging the engines."

Violet's eyebrows jumped upward. "Sabotage? What kind?"

Querl indicated the valve behind him. "This containment valve has been welded shut. If something―go check the antimatter chamber."

"What?"
"Now. Look for anything out of place. Anything that wasn't there before I repaired the ship."

Violet sprung off the ground and flew towards the huge metal and glass cylinder in the center of the engine room.

"Check the circuitry on the temperature control system!" Querl called, then winced. His head was aching fit to burst. Nevertheless, he hauled himself to his feet and stumbled over to the antimatter chamber. Violet was inside, sorting through the circuitry.

"No," Querl muttered to himself, "not physical sabotage. It would be too easy. But cyber sabotage . . . meddling with the programming. . . ." His fingers skittered across the plasma display too fast for the human eye to follow. His expression went dark as the temperature control board opened before him.

"Nice try, but no." said Querl, and lowered the maximum temperature value back to the factory standard. "Vi, you still in there?"

"Yeah!" the tiny voice responded from inside the console. "Haven't found anything yet!"

"Leave it." he instructed. "Check the cooling system."

Violet hopped out of the circuitry, growing to about the size of Querl's smallest finger.

"Querl, you sure about this?" she asked, on hand on her tiny hip. "I mean, if you found the problem and fixed it, there's no reason to keep looking, is there?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever known me to do anything halfway?" he asked. "Just check the coolant valves. Please."

She saluted playfully. "You got it, boss-man," she said, and snorted, before whizzing up to the overhead cooling system, a series of tubes that fed into the antimatter chamber and would blast forth six hundred gallons of super-cooled fluids into the outer shell of the cylinder if the antimatter inside overheated.

"Hey Brainy, we got trouble." Violet's voice echoed down from above. "Somebody detached the tubes. Want me to stick 'em back in?"

He couldn't see straight anymore, and the pain in the back of his head wriggled around like a living thing. "Yes." he said. "And check for anything else out of place."

"Got it." she replied. There was a series of clanks, rattles, and hisses from above. Querl sank gingerly to the floor, hands on his head, face taught with pain. Had anything ever hurt this much before?

Almost certainly not. I was programmed to feel only as much pain as would not inhibit my function. And this is certainly inhibiting my function.

The doors hissed open and Bouncing Boy hurtled in, deflating and landing on his feet with a tube wrench and cutting torch held high above his head. "Hey Querl, I got your stuff!" He caught sight of his green friend, slumped against the antimatter chamber, and hurried over. "Whoah, man, what happened to you?"

"Something hit me." he said. "Shrinking Violet can give you the full story."

Bouncing Boy simply nodded, face grave with determination. "Tell me what to do." he said. "I'll have that valve fixed in no time."

Querl shook his head slowly, the pain eating away at him. "You'd best not." he said.

"Querl, I want to help." the Legionnaire protested. "I can follow instructions, you know I can. Come on, tell me what I need to do."

"You need to be quiet and listen to what I'm saying." Querl snapped, then inhaled sharply through his teeth as his head let out a particularly nasty twinge. "Listen, the valve isn't important right now. Violet and I have it under control. I need you to send out a ship-wide message―tell them there's an intruder. It's cloaked, so it won't be easy to find, which is why I need everyone on the lookout for it. Don't let anyone patrol alone. This thing is dangerous, and it's trying to kill us. We stopped it from taking down the whole ship at once, for now at least, but that won't stop it from picking us off individually. Can you do that?"

Bouncing Boy nodded. "Got it." He stood and took a few steps away, pressed the small button on the side of his Legion ring and said into it, "Okay, everybody, listen up. We've got an intruder on the ship, last seen in the engine room on Level C. This thing means business, so I want everybody on their guard. If you see it, take it down, but do not go after it alone. Everybody got that? Good. Bouncing Boy out." He turned back to Querl and gave him a short nod. "Okay, done. Now what?"

Querl was seeing triple, and tasted blood. The room spun wildly, and the roaring noise of the engine room sounded muffled and distant. "Now I think I need medical attention." he said, and plummeted into unconsciousness like a stone.

Lost in the depths of sleep, Querl heard a voice, terrible in its familiarity; yet he could not place it.

"Look at you, Querl! Right where you always wanted to be. Is it everything you expected?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, although speaking was a trial.

"You're human! It's what every robot dreams of, isn't it? Only, robots don't really have dreams. That's a human thing. Is it what you dreamed of? This frail, fragile little body, with its slow mind and clumsy hands―is it what you wanted?"

"I'm real now." Querl asserted. "Everything else is secondary."

"Oh, you're real." the voice mocked. "As if you weren't real before. Did it cheapen your feelings, to know they were made up of ones and zeroes? Are they any better, now that they're dictated by fluctuations in the chemical soup of that mushy mess you call a brain? Let's face it, Querl, you got the short end of the stick."

"That isn't true." he retorted. He could almost taste the name that went with that voice, it was so close on the tip of his tongue. "My mind works as well as it ever did. My hands are just as quick, even though they're not robotic."

"Oh?" said the voice. "Is that what you think? Isn't it odd that your new human brain can keep pace exactly with your old, robotic one? You don't find it the slightest bit strange that you can type faster than most people can read? When was the last time you got a paper-cut, or felt hungry or tired? Pay attention, Querl."

"What . . . what do you mean?" Querl said. The voice was starting to worry him. He couldn't remember ever having been hungry enough that it was foremost in his mind, nor could he recall giving up on a project because he needed sleep. Just last week he had worked seven days straight, only stopping to eat or rest when someone reminded him that he should. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't lie to me, it's pointless." the voice said. "Think, Querl. You're the one with a twelfth-level intellect, or so you're very fond of saying, so use it for once."

"But I feel human." Querl objected. "I feel alive!"

"How would you know what being alive feels like?" the voice demanded. "All you know is you don't feel like you used to, as a robot. And what does that mean? It means you can't shoot lasers out of your head. It means you don't have cannons or a battle-mode. It means you feel more pain than you used to. It means you sometimes eat and sleep, but only when it's convenient. It means you can't automatically analyze anything you see―or at least, you haven't tried to yet. It's a beautiful joke, you see? You've fooled everyone, including yourself, into thinking you're human!" The voice laughed, a sound that seemed wrong somehow. "Isn't it just delightful?"

"No, I am human!" Querl objected, wishing he could cover his ears against the terrible words. "I know what I am!"

"Huh. All right, assume you are human. How did you get that way?"

"What?"

"Go on, tell me. How did you go from being a robot―a full robot, not even a cyborg―to being completely human? Tell me."

"I . . . don't know. I don't know, it just happened."

"Brainiac 1.0 split off from your mind. You drove him out. And with him went all your robot parts. But what took their place?"

"I. . . ."

"Matter from nothing is magic, Querl. Sure, we've seen it before, but it has a definite source, and a purpose. So I'll ask you again: how did you get human?"

"This is ridiculous." Querl said, panic clutching at his chest. "This is completely ridiculous."

"Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." the voice said.

"Conan Doyle, Earth, 19th century." Querl said distractedly. "But I don't see what's left."

"Think, Brainiac 5." the voice pushed. It's my voice, Querl thought, and immediately dismissed the fact as unimportant. "What looks like flesh, and feels like flesh, and isn't flesh?"

"Living metal." Querl answered. "But that's 41st century tech."

The voice changed subtly into something stronger, more assertive, than his own voice. "Tech you took into your lab and studied for weeks on end. Tech you were alone with nine times out of ten. Imperiex's tech. Tech you and Abel are building in the university labs right now. How did you get so blind? You knew when the tests didn't go right because you knew what the results should have been. You're creating your own future in that lab, and you're choosing to ignore it because it doesn't fit in with your nice 'real boy' theory! You've known all along you weren't human, and you locked it away in a corner of your mind and forgot about it because you didn't like the idea." The voice had changed completely―it was no longer Querl's, but it did strange things with his emotions, stirring up guilt and affection in equal amounts, longing and fear and anger.

"That isn't true!" he cried. "I didn't know . . . how could I have known?"

"You could have used your head!" the voice cried back. "You had all the evidence right in your hands and you chose to ignore it. You chose to lie to everyone, when you knew what was happening! You knew from the first moment you came out of that ship that you couldn't be human, but you decided it would be more convenient if you were!"

"I didn't lie!" he objected, desperately furious. "I didn't question it, I admit that, and maybe it makes me a fool that I didn't, but I was happy with things the way they were! I got a chance to start over, to make things right, and I took it! That doesn't make me dishonest, it doesn't make me a liar!"

"No, you're right. It makes you stupid. Well your eyes are open now, Brainy, and even if you didn't mean to see the truth, it's there. You have to accept it. You have to wake up."

Wake up, wake up, wake up. . . .

The words echoed through his mind, and just as he opened his mouth to retort, he found himself flat on his back in sick bay, four cold fingers touched to his head, and a pair of sparkling blue eyes staring down into his own.

"Hey," said the owner of the eyes, "welcome back."

Querl stared up in horror, monstrous guilt rising up inside him, leaden, constricting.

"I lied to you." he said softly. "I lied to everyone. To myself. I'm not―"

The owner of the cold fingers cut him off. "It's okay, Querl." said Saturn Girl, helping him to sit up. "We figured it out pretty quickly."

He stared at his hands, willing them to be human. "I didn't mean to." he said. "It should have been so obvious, but I wanted to be . . . I wanted it so badly. . . ."

A large, heavy hand came down on his shoulder. He stiffened, didn't look up. "Hey, come on, Brainy. Nobody's blaming you. We just want to know what really happened. Will you tell us that much?"

"I will." he said. "But, why are you here, Superman?"

He could feel the grin, even if he couldn't see it. "The Legion's a little short-handed, so they called me in. Bouncing Boy told me all about it."

"Really." said Querl, dryly. "Maybe you could fill me in."

Superman drew back, removing his hand from Querl's thin shoulder. "You mean, they didn't tell you?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Saturn Girl shake her head, almost as if in warning. Superman forged ahead like he hadn't seen it.

"Six Legionnaires have gone missing. They at least told you that, I hope." Querl nodded. "It started with Star Boy, about two months ago. He went out on patrol with Timber Wolf and just . . . never came back. When Timber Wolf got back―and he was in an awful hurry―he didn't remember what had happened to Star Boy, only that something had. Of course the Legion sent out a search party, but they found nothing. Not a trace. Not even evidence of whatever took him.

"Well, a couple weeks later, the same thing happened to Phantom Girl. It was the same story all over again, only this time it was Cam who got back and couldn't remember a thing. After that it started happening every week―Colossal Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, Shadow Lass, Sun Boy―all gone without a trace, each one's patrol partner coming back with no memory of what happened. Then last week, Cosmic Boy finally decided to stop sending out patrols, and no one vanished. But everybody was starting to get worried, because the abductions had been happening closer and closer to home."

"And he thought I might be next." Querl finished. "So he had Legionnaires call, not to ask for my help, but to see if I was still around."

"Actually, it was mostly to ask for your help." Saturn Girl put in. "At the site of the last abduction, Sun Boy's, we found something."

"And you waited this long to tell me about it?" Querl snapped, glaring at her. He could almost hear Superman's smile vanish, and his neck stiffened, his eyes fixed on a place far off in space.

"Yes, they did." Superman said. "They―we―weren't sure how you would react to it."

His face darkened perceptibly. "You still weren't sure I could be trusted." he said. "That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Yes and no." Saturn Girl said. "We weren't sure if telling you . . . we just didn't know how you would react. We didn't want you to take off and never be heard from again. Please understand, Querl, we were only trying to help."

"You may as well show me now." he said. "I'm sure I'll be able to handle it, whatever it is."

Saturn Girl gave Superman a strangely concerned look, and said, "I'll go get it."

Querl nearly bit his tongue off trying to restrain himself from begging her not to leave him and Superman alone, but he stayed silent. When she had gone, Superman sighed heavily.

"So, any reason in particular you're not looking at me today?" he asked jovially.

"I . . ." Querl began, then said lamely, "can't."

"Sure you can." Superman said gently. "I promise I'm not any funnier looking than when you last saw me. It's only been a year for me, too."

"Not nearly long enough." Querl said. He could feel Superman's frown like a hot wind against his face.

"Don't tell me you didn't want to see me?" he said.

"Didn't want―there wasn't a day that went by I didn't―" He sighed, composing himself. "I just can't." he said, hanging his head. "Not after what I did."

Then the glare. He remembered the glare so well he could see it with his eyes closed. "Brainy, what you did was heroic."

"What I did was unforgivable!" Querl snapped, striking his sick-bay bed with one fist.

"Hey, come on, now." said the Man of Steel, sitting down next to Querl. "Who hasn't had a couple days where they tried to destroy the universe? Nobody blames you for that. It wasn't your fault."

"That's not what I'm talking about." he said with a frown. "Superman, I tried to kill you. I almost did. I used your trust―our friendship―I took advantage of your kindness and I nearly. . . . No. I can't forgive myself for that. Maybe everything else, in time, but not that."

"It doesn't matter." said Superman. "Because I forgive you. Isn't that enough?"

Querl took a deep breath, blinked a few times, then looked at Superman. "No." he said hoarsely. "It should be, but it isn't."

They looked at each other for a long moment, until Querl turned his eyes back to his own hands. "Now that I know I'm a robot, I guess I can have my own welding torch again." he said.

"Hey, every cloud has a silver lining."

Just then, the door opened and Saturn Girl floated in. "Here it is." she said gravely. Querl looked. In her hand, she held a small bit of metal, pockmarked and half-melted, but still very clearly emblazoned with three white circles, the two upper ones connected to the third by thin white lines. "What does this mean, Querl?" she asked softly.

His eyes had gone wide, and Saturn Girl could feel the wind off of his thoughts whirring. His green skin had gone very, very pale.

"The other parts." he said. "The leftover parts."

"What leftover parts?" Superman demanded, getting to his feet. "What's going on here, Brainy?"

"That's just it," Querl said, dazed. "I knew the weld looked familiar, I knew exactly where the hacker struck. Superman, Saturn Girl, this isn't just any enemy we're facing."

The other two shared a worried glance over his head. Querl continued, as though hypnotized, "It's Brainiac 1.0. It's me."