Chapter 2

Richie had never known Backpack to act this way; it was completely out of character for the small contraption. He thought Backpack was actually going to jump out of his hands when Virgil flew off. It made Richie uneasy.

"Calm down, Backpack! V's just going on patrol. Normal stuff, you know that."

The machine turned back to Richie, his little red sensor zeroing in on his master. Backpack clearly wanted to tell him something, but Richie just couldn't understand, and that was something he just couldn't understand. Backpack and he never had trouble communicating. If Backpack had something to say, why the hell wasn't he just saying (well, not really saying, but whatever) it?

Whatever it was that Backpack wasn't telling him, though, it was quite obvious the gadget didn't want Virgil to leave. Backpack rarely acted against Richie's will, but the situations that called for it left Backpack very adamant. Typically, if Richie went against Backpack's judgement, the machine would basically throw his own little hissy fit.

For convenience's sake, Richie had long ago taught Backpack to respond to situations with pre-programmed emotional discourses based on comparative data to like-situations in Richie's example log or to real-life situations he'd had Backpack interpret and catalog one rainy Saturday until he was fully convinced that Backpack had the process of analyzing human facial ticks, hand motions, and voice fluctuations down to a science. One of Backpack's seemingly favorite emotions to portray was anger, especially after having his objective foiled.

Instead of the well-used emotion, though, Backpack was portraying one he very rarely partook in. Fear, anxiety, nervousness. One of Backpack's metallic feet tapped incessantly as he streamed the warning to Richie that a situation where fear or anxiety would be suggested had arisen.

This interaction was not, no matter how many times Virgil insisted on calling it such, a "psychic power." Neither Backpack nor he were so-called "psychics." Backpack had a multitude of ways of communicating with Richie that in no way involved something akin to such a cheap trick (cheap trick, of course, not including Martian Manhunter or the like). Richie and Backpack had, for one, developed a top-secret code of very subtle movements to portray various communications; Backpack also had a special frequency where he could communicate with Richie via a code Richie had invented (Richie had imbedded a receiver in his earring); Backpack could stream code into Richie's helmet and his work-glasses; Richie's gloves used a sort of sign-language to send commands; and so many other complex, intricate, and definitely not psychic things, but try and tell that to Virgil. All Virgil seemed to hear was blah-dee-blah, smart person mumbo-jumbo.

Richie quickly pushed his lingering annoyance at Virgil's inability to let go of this ridiculous "psychic" obsession he seemed to have to the side and focused on the task at hand. While he often found himself lost in his work, losing track of the occurrences of the world for days, he actually found it quite hard to get his hyped-up mind to settle on one thing at a time. It seemed there were always a thousand little thoughts floating this way and that way in his head.

Even when he dedicated his mind completely to one task, say inventing a device for Virgil to deflect water from his path (something he'd been working on as of late), he would conclude a day of work to realize that part of his mind had been ruminating on a new physics theory all day and that part of his mind had been arguing the pros and cons of superheroes wearing capes and even that part of his mind had been systematically cycling through all possible pizza toppings until it decided on the best possible combination for dinner that night. Since the Big Bang gas had taken over his mind, Richie could barely imagine it giving him a break, even for a moment.

"Backpack, run sweep XT007. Password 151109. Override Omega. Password 766590. Allow access to squadron D37 HT with protocol Delta Y. Password 430279."

Richie quickly cracked open the panel that gave him more direct access to Backpack's alert and sensory systems. He tapped into the direct feed from Backpack's sensor, simultaneously processing Backpack's streams of code and beeps. He had, in all honesty, expected to find no difference in Backpack's streams versus his output; it was mostly just the initial test he always ran. Backpack's programming was more sophisticated than anything on the market; not even the government touched what he had created. Backpack was unique, complex, and incredibly encrypted by design, and Richie knew it would have nearly impossible for some of the brightest minds in the world to crack the codes and integrate anything new into the system, especially without Richie himself finding out. What he found, though, dismayed him.

Backpack had been ordered by supreme authority (something only Richie was supposed to be capable of) to backlog almost all incoming data and to report only the information provided or approved by an outside source. Still, Backpack's programming, even when tempered with, had been too smart for the hacker. That's why Backpack had been wigging out; he'd known something was amiss. Richie just hadn't noticed.

It gave Richie a sick feeling in his stomach to know that someone had had their grubby hands inside his prized possession, and Richie himself hadn't even noticed it happening. It reminded him repellently of when Brainiac had invaded not only his creation but also his very mind. Richie swiftly decided that he would take very strong measures very soon to prevent further intrusive encounters. This was not a lesson he would learn a third time.

It took Richie less than a second to process this information. The intruder beat his reaction time.

"I'd be careful what you say out loud. They say that walls have ears."

Richie spun around into a fighting pose just as the mystery man glided out of the shadows. A long black cloak, hood pulled low over his face, made it nearly impossible for Richie to pick him out. Nearly.

Richie made quick work of analyzing the man. He was tall but hunched over, clearly well-progressed in years. Very little of his skin was actually visible underneath the all-encompassing cloak, but what of the man's skin Richie could see was pale to the extent of being sickly. He moved with grace and confidence, and Richie deduced that he was probably quite used to making such grand entrances.

"Who are you? What do you want? What are you doing here?" The words flew out of his mouth before he realized he was saying them. The man had only taken a few steps but seemed to already be halfway across the room, nearing Richie. He paused for a moment in his progression, though, arms tucking behind his back in a manner Richie read as amused.

Pompous asshole, Richie seethed to himself.

Adults, it seemed, always patronized him (or anyone younger than themselves). Even adults that recognized his genius seemed belittled his ability to truly use it. A prime example of this conundrum was the Justice League. Richie didn't doubt that they were just as big of big-shots as they portrayed themselves to be, but did they have to treat Virgil and him like such kids? Seeing the Justice League, his idols, in person was always so amazing Richie thought he might drop dead on the spot, but the way they looked down their noses at him sometimes still tap danced on his last nerve. This man, though, could have shamed the Justice League. Indubitably, he had gone pro at acting like he was superior a long time ago.

"Calm down, Richard. I don't want to fight; I just want to talk." The man slithered forward another couple feet. Richie idly wondered just how long his legs were. The ever-turning gears in his mind supplied him with the knowledge that they were probably around four feet tall. If Richie could have seen more of his body, he could have made a more accurate estimation based on common body portions- but that wasn't really important at the moment.

Richie could tell, now that the man was a little closer, that his cloak was no cheap scrap of material. Top notch stuff, that was. Richie would estimate that it cost at least a couple hundred bucks. He didn't know when he learned about fabric costs per yard, but he assumed he picked up on it from TV or a store or Frieda and Daisy when he wasn't really paying attention. His mind always seemed to absorb everything going on in the world, store it away, and bombard him with it when he didn't really need to know.

There was an emblem on the right side of the front of the cloak that Richie couldn't quite make out yet. It was deep purple, the color of royalty, with red outlining. Richie did a quick run-through of all of the cults and secret societies whose emblems he had memorized, which was actually quite a lot, but he came up with nothing. Both his interest and his paranoia were concurrently perked. This man was from something new; either that, or from something very, very old.

"After all," the man continued, spreading his arms out wide like some sort of seriously screwed up show man, "a cat may look upon a king."