Flash got there first; as usual. Except...'there' was strangely empty.
I'm sure Batman's specs pegged the communications hub to this quadrant..., thought West. His footsteps echoed throughout the chamber as he looked around, letting his gaze linger; there was no need for superspeed here. The room had miles-high ceilings and rows of shelves, like a giant warehouse; but only a few boxes remained. Against the stainless-steel holding units and weirdly sterile white floors, the Flash's scarlet bodysuit of pure speed-force seemed affrontingly foreign. He felt like an invader, as he tended to do when wandering around the long-inhabited bases of megalomaniacs...especially megalomaniacs whose names he didn't know; invasive, and out of place.
Then the Flash leaned over one of the steel holding-units and the feeling, abruptly, vanished – only to return a moment later, many times compounded. He reached a gloved hand into the giant bin, and withdrew a familiar-looking simulacrum; it had yellow boots, mercurial headpieces, and a scarlet red bodysuit with a lightning bolt cutting down the center...
...What the?
The Flash stared hard at the vacant eyes of his own plastic action-figure, and knew immediately that something was deeply wrong.
GL? Kyle? He mentally beamed, drawing on J'onn's latent mental link. Batman?
Nothing.
The Flash's gaze shot back towards the labyrinthine hallways, and then he was off; only the speediest of camera-shutters would have noticed, a few pico-seconds later, a gloved hand returning to the bin to momentarily shift through – and take stock of – its reservoir of carded Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman figurines.
****
Green Lantern was zooming through the mazelike white hallways, dutifully tracing the Flash's mental signature when he noticed, amidst the endless white-walled repetition, a gilded frame hanging from a wall.
The hero immediately froze mid-flight, gently hovering in place. He glanced down the hall, towards Flash's slipstream, and then back at the hanging frame. Immediately, Kyle flashed back to several hours before this mission, in the Watchtower. He had been playing 2001: A Space Odyssey on a ring-generated TV screen, against the backdrop of the 'tower's windows into actual space. The irony had been delicious.
Kyle, Batman had said, appearing behind him. Have you been using those perception meditations we discussed?
For mmfSure, Kyle had said, through popcorn. On-screen, HAL began explaining his evil plot to the captive astronaut.
Good. Intel indicates we may find ourselves busy, imminently; I want you keen in the field. Your teammates – and that ring – need your full attention. Remember: no distractions.
Mnf – I gotcha, Kyle had said, munching away as Batman departed to haunt another JL member. Onscreen, a mammoth space-station floated languidly through the void of space; behind the TV, asteroid-debris passed over the moon's Sea of Tranquility at exactly the same pace.
Man, Kubrick's a total genius, eh, Bats? ...Bats?
Kyle completed his reflection and realized how pissed the Caped Crusader would be to find him examining decorative artwork in the middle of a headquarters infiltration. But by that time, GL was already hovering up-close to the framed artwork and holding a green-plasma-constituted magnifying glass. And before he had time to move beyond the ornate, gold-flecked Victorian frame to its actual contents, GL's ears were set ringing with the sound of an enormous crash.
Ah, crap, thought Kyle. I know this feeling. This is the feeling I get when Batman is right about something.
At either end of the hall, giant steel blast-doors had closed down from the ceiling, sealing off the hallway segment. GL realized he was experiencing a sensation of motion; the entire hallway shook and seemingly shifted, and before he could raise his ring to fire off a plasma-mortar or pair of rocket-powered buzz-saws, it was over. The motion ceased, the lights extinguished themselves, and the blast doors at one end of the hallway slid upwards with a pneumatic hiss to reveal a backlit figure, whose hulking tech-suit pulsed with veins of blue. Squinting through the glare, Kyle could make out a mosaic of monitors and a bound figure on a raised dais.
"Green Lantern; youngest League member and wielder of a ring fuelled by pure imagination," boomed the figure, his voice reverberating throughout the metallic chamber, "I hope you'll momentarily ignore the unconscious and chained Batman behind me, because we have much to discuss."
As Kyle rose to face the man, currents of light poured forth from his ring, streaming upwards to form a monstrous broadsword with a pulsing green blade; around GL's body, his protective forcefield morphed into an exoskeleton equipped with shoulder-mounted lasers. A dozen laser-sights, projected from the suit's torso, came to bear on the center of the tech-suited man's chest.
"Sure," said GL, striding forward, "let's talk."