Chapter 2
"Poison"
Andromeda lay in bed, on top of the sheets. It was less than an hour past midnight. She started at the blank wall, the darker patches of the places where she'd hit them to keep from thinking about the constant pain in her stomach standing out.
She clutched at her abdomen as the empty ache got more intense suddenly.
Laurel hadn't been out of her room in almost a day. No one had come in to check on her. She had heard someone stop by her door a couple times, but they never knocked.
And I didn't want them to! she tried to tell herself.
But hunger was undermining her resolve.
If someone had come in, maybe they could have helped-
I don't need help!
Don't be an idiot. Of course you do.
Not from them!
Laurel turned over, trying to distract herself with movement, but it just pulled at her cramped muscles painfully. She curled up automatically and whimpered slightly.
Her resolve broke.
I don't care if I get sick- I need food!
The voice of reason interjected.
If I take the transuit off, I'll get lead poisoning and die.
If I don't take it off to eat, I'm going to starve to death! All I have to do is find someplace without lead-
On this planet? Where could you possibly find someplace so clean-
The laboratory. It's got to be regulated to keep outside influences out.
Andromeda's mind was made up. She swung herself out of bed and walked as fast as she dared down to the kitchen and lab.
Initially, Querl had ignored the slight movement he thought he'd caught at the edge of his vision. But then there was another slight movement, off to his other side.
He turned away from his project and scanned the room.
The tips of someone's feet were sticking out from behind a temporary memory bank for COMPUTO.
He put down the tool he was working with and stalked toward the intruder.
Andromeda had stripped off her transuit as soon as she sat down, and felt the air for the first time in nearly a week.
She breathed in carefully, savoring the rush of fresh, unfiltered air in her throat.
No, it wasn't unfiltered- there was a very slight air current that ran to where she could hear an environment control running. The inside of the lab was as carefully controlled as any quarantine wing in a hospital.
Laurel looked down at the plate on the floor next to her, stacked with what was presumably edible material of some sort. She hadn't seen any of it before.
Tentatively, she reached out to touch one.
"What are you doing in here?"
She snatched her hand back and glared.
"None of your business, Brainiac. Go back to plotting."
"I do not plot," he told her, voice icy. His eyes narrowed. "You have your transuit off."
She stayed silent and tried to glare even more, but the closeness of the food was distracting.
Querl's eyes moved to the plate of food, and her stomach chose that moment to complain loudly.
Immediately, his attention switched back to her.
"You haven't been eating," he accused. "That's why Shadow Lass had to carry you back, and why you've been in your room all week. You were too weak to move much."
"Maybe I just wanted to stay away from you alien filth," she snarled. A sharp pain in her stomach shot up through her chest and she doubled over.
Brainiac 5 fixed her with a stern look.
"Are you going to eat that?" he demanded.
"I-"
"Don't bother lying. We both know you're in agony right now. You need food. Are you going to eat that?"
"Yes!" she snapped through clenched teeth. "Are you happy now?"
"Even though it's been touched by the likes of us?"
Andromeda squeezed her eyes shut and refused to answer.
"Of course, history is full of examples hunger defeating ideological resolve."
"There's nothing else to eat, Brainiac. I- It's still contaminated-"
She heard him sigh.
"Give it to me."
Laurel's head shot up.
"What!"
"Give it to me," he repeated, hand held out.
She stared at him for a long moment before reaching over and handing it to him. He turned and walked off towards his equipment.
"What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'm irradiating it, Andromeda," he called, sounding annoyed. "Your immune system has existed adapted to a biological environment entire unlike Earth's. There are probably trace amounts of lead that need to be removed. Or did you want to kill yourself?"
Andromeda shut her mouth and settled for glaring at his back and trying to block out the pain, which seemed to have perversely gotten worse now that she was close to getting food.
It didn't take too long for him to return to the plate. He picked up one of the things she'd grabbed and held it out to her.
"I'm not putting that in my mouth," she told him angrily. "You're touching it."
More glaring.
"Just how, exactly, does one become contaminated by contact with a being from another species?" he asked.
"Germs," she said promptly, remembering her lessons.
"You keep pets on Daxam, don't you? Domestic animals of some sort?"
Laurel looked at him in confusion and anger.
"What-"
"Yes or no."
"Yes, of course, but what-"
"And these domestic animals certainly aren't the same species as you, are they?"
Andromeda opened her mouth and then shut it again.
"Yet you let them live in your houses, where pollution would be nearly instantaneous and completely inevitable-"
"They're still Daxamite animals," she snapped.
"But animals; nonetheless- and animals with genetic and biological systems different from yours."
"Yes," she growled. Somehow, the hunger was getting worse.
"So you agree that this contamination can't be from biological matter?"
"Just give me the food!" Laurel demanded, staring at the plate he still held.
His expression gave the impression that he had an eyebrow raised in question.
"Do you agree?"
"Yes! Now give me the plate!"
He held it a little father back and brought what he was holding closer.
"If you really are that hungry, take the food."
"That's the one you're touching, Brainiac!"
Brainiac 5 frowned.
"The invulnerability must be affecting your brain. We already established this. This 'contamination' you worry so much about is not biological; and furthermore, how can you be worried about malignant microorganisms when I don't even have biological systems, and keep myself as free from pollutants as possible when working?"
She glared at him. He made too much sense.
But I'll die before I admit this- this alien might be right!
He tossed the thing in his hand up a few centimeters and caught it, then offered it to her again.
Laurel snatched it and turned it over in her hand. It was a sort of light orange color and slightly fuzzy.
"Don't I need to skin it and cook it?" she asked suspiciously. "What sort of animal is this?"
Querl rolled his eyes.
"It's not an animal- it's a fruit. It's called a peach."
"Fruits don't have fur."
"It's not fur. You don't eat the outside. You take it off and eat the rest."
Laurel bit straight into it anyway. Her stomach contracted painfully as what little juice that actually managed to get in her mouth ran down her throat. She ignored it and devoured the pulpy inside, dropping the skin on the floor.
She reached for the rest.
Querl sat down on the floor, about a foot out of reach, and put the plate in his lap.
He picked up something red.
"This is also a fruit. It's called an apple."
He held it out.
He's trying to make me eat out of his hand! Of all the-
"I will not be humiliated like this!" Laurel spat. "Especially not by the likes of you!"
"If it wasn't for the likes of me, you wouldn't even have food that was safe to eat. Are you going to take it or not?"
Again, she snatched it from him and ate it quickly.
He picked up the next thing off the plate.
"This is a pear."
It was breakfast time, and Dream Girl had a mission.
The Founders were all down in the kitchen already, along with most of the other older Legionnaires. Nura walked purposefully through the door and stood at the clear end of the table, arms crossed.
"I want to lead a mission with the new recruits."
"I thought we already agreed we weren't going to let them go out together again," Sun Boy said.
"They're good, they just need time together- then they'll be great. But keeping them away from each other isn't going to get them anywhere."
"What's going on today?" Tyroc asked suspiciously.
She ignored him and looked fixedly at Cosmic Boy.
"Let me take them on a mission."
"I know we had our share of troubles when we were starting out," he said. "But we never attacked each other on a mission-"
"Voluntarily," Element Lad put in.
"-we never tried to kill anyone. We never ignored a fight in favor of something else, and we never were so lacking in common sense that we ran straight into a situation without bothering to be careful."
"Are you sure about that one?" Triplicate Girl asked, glancing sidelong at Lighting Lad, who drank some more of his coffee sullenly.
"Not all of them acted like thick-headed lackwits."
"The ones that didn't were forced to take up the slack, and that's not fair."
"Anyway," Phantom Girl said. "I only had two of the new guys –and Invisible Kid isn't really new, exactly- and we still had to get the Science Police to clean up after us!"
"They just can't work together," Lu said. "Some of them can't even work alone! Andromeda attacked Shadow Lass and Brainiac 5 just argued the whole time! I know there were good reasons for letting these guys in –mostly- but they need to be paired with older members. They just don't get along with each other."
"They never will if they don't have time together."
"They can have time together when they're not on missions where it'll cause trouble," Garth said. "I'm not going to go hauling their sorry hides out of trouble because they just argue or something."
"I'd rather not worry about if someone's covering me in a fight," Dirk added.
"And what about that Daxamite?" Tyroc asked. "I'd rather not be worrying about if I'm going to get attacked by my teammates."
Shrinking Violet was just about to open the kitchen door when the shadows on the far side unraveled slightly.
Tasmia put a finger to her lips and shook her head as Salu reached for the keypad. She made a 'listen' gesture.
Salu put her ear against the door and listened.
They were talking about her- her and the others.
She listened as the others kept saying how bad they were.
It hurt.
We weren't that bad- weren't we?
In the kitchen, Saturn Girl leaded back in her chair slightly and closed her eyes, only half-listening to the conversation.
She could hear Tasmia and Salu clearly from where they were lurking outside the door, Tasmia's thoughts colored with indignation and Salu's with injured pride and a little doubt.
Farther away, but still just as strong, Imra could feel Querl working in the lab. She knew how he'd spent his night.
She drew her mind back closer to home and opened her eyes.
"They have worked together," Dawnstar was saying. "We have flight rings now, do we not? And a computer more powerful than anything outside the United Planets Navy or a university?"
"That was just Brainiac 5's project," Element Lad pointed out. "But yes, the flight rings were definitely an example of cooperation."
"You should take them, Nura," Saturn Girl said.
"What?" a few different people asked.
"They need the time together. We bonded nearly as much during fighting- maybe even more- as we did talking during downtime. They need that opportunity, too. Take them out today to wherever the trouble's going to be."
Nura smiled brightly at her.
"Thanks. You're not going to regret this."
Saturn Girl watched her as she walked out.
No, you don't really know that.
Lyle had woken up and was still strangely full from the night before. He took the opportunity to get down to the lab early.
"So, how did you enjoy your dark, lonely night?"
The now-familiar exasperated sigh followed his usual greeting.
"I fail to see why you assume that just because the rest of you are sleeping, I should feel lonely," Brainiac 5 told him.
"But you're all alone in here," he said dramatically. "In the dark, cold night, when the dark depths of a person's very soul rise up-"
Lyle was hit by a flying apple core.
"You try my patience," Brainy told him, showing no sign whatsoever of having ceased his work for even an instant.
"What patience?" Lyle asked impudently, grinning. Then something occurred to him. He poked the apple core with his foot.
"Is Violet hiding around here somewhere?"
"No. She has not by yet today."
Invisible Kid frowned.
"So who-"
He caught sight of a discarded peach skin and he glanced over towards the far side of the lab.
Andromeda was sleeping there, curled up on the floor, the remains of the kitchen fruit bowl piled on a plate laid carefully on the nearest counter.
"Oh, so you didn't spend the night alone," Lyle remarked, looking sideways at his lab partner.
"Be silent or leave."
Shadow Lass spread her arms wide, still getting used to the idea of flying a few hundred feet above the ground, but enjoying the wind and the slightly-weightless sensation the flight rings afforded.
"Enjoying yourself?" Dream Girl asked, coasting in at an angle to fly next to her. She had taken to traveling like this as easily as most people took to walking.
Tasmia closed her eyes and focused on the wind.
"Of course. Don't you ever dream of flying?"
She got a small smile in return.
"Only when someone else is falling."
Quickly, she decided to change the subject.
"So, where are we going? I know we're headed north, but that's still a lot of places. And what are we going to be doing?"
"Could you all come in a bit?" Dream Girl called to the others. They had wandered off a little ways, exploring their newfound surroundings.
Nura slowed some to talk to her team more easily.
"We're headed to a place called Toronto," she told everyone, pointing to a slowly-growing city in the distance. "In about half an hour, an industrial spy calling herself Caress is going to try and slip off of the UP Fleet's Ontario Compound with naval secrets. We're going to stop her from getting away with them."
"It would be a better allocation of our time to prevent this woman from getting into the Compound in the first place," Querl pointed out.
"She's already in there."
"What?" Invisible Kid exclaimed.
"By the time I got everyone convinced I that I should take all of you out on this mission, it was too late to get there before she did."
Brainiac 5 persisted.
"Andromeda is more than fast enough-"
Dream Girl looked over at him and smiled coolly.
"We're a team, Brainy. We don't send people off by themselves to confront the enemy."
"Brainy?" Lyle said quietly to Violet. "I like it. It fits him."
Predictably, he got a nasty glare from the Legionnaire in question.
"Oh, you mean you hadn't started calling him that yet?" Nura asked.
A shadowed figure dropped out of the window.
Caress landed lightly on her feet and looked around. The cameras were still bypassed from when she had first come in, and the grounds patrol was headed for the front of the building. She had maybe ten minutes before they came around again.
She started to dash along the side of the building, headed for the place in the fence where the Fleet had been lax in restricting the plant growth.
Everything was going just as planned- the tall bushes and weeds were getting nearer by the second-
-and then something, some sense so deeply buried in her subconscious that she couldn't tell what it was, told her to move.
She dove for the ground and hit it just as there was a massive boom from right behind her. The ground shook violently, as if there was an earthquake in progress.
Caress scrambled to her feet and started to run again, but something caught the back of her loose outfit.
She turned and saw a tall blonde girl, maybe a young woman, holding on tightly and glaring wrathfully through her wind-tossed hair; as if she had a personal grudge.
Quickly, Caress spun, tearing a long hole in the fabric. She started to sprint for the fence, but stumbled sideways as a fist shot just past the left side of her face, startling her. Quickly, she grabbed the wrist.
The girl tore away and Caress stumbled back in shock- no one had ever broken out of her supergrip before!
Then a glint of light caught her eye.
She glanced down at the girl's waist. There was a gold belt there, bearing a black stylized black 'L' symbol, a star in the upper-right corner.
A Legionnaire.
"Nass!" she whispered as she turned to run again.
Shadow Lass, standing in the concealing darkness of the side of building, stuck out a foot.
Caress, who was too distracted to notice the sudden appearance of a boot, tripped over it.
Tasmia stepped out of the shadows and kicked the spy's legs out from under her as she stood. The woman rolled away and stood facing her.
Immediately, Tasmia aimed a blow at her face. Caress dodged and tried to head for the fence again.
A fist came out of nowhere and she was forced backwards. She put one hand up against the wall to steady herself and held her abused stomach.
"I'm not getting out of here without a fight, am I?" she asked the newest girl, who had appeared out of nowhere.
"Of course not," Dream Girl said simply.
Caress tried to dodge past her, but Shadow Lass was ready for her, and then she tried to go the other way, but Dream Girl was already there- and then the fight started in earnest.
Lyle, still invisible from getting Dream Girl into position, carefully avoided the raging fight.
"You ready?" he whispered to Shrinking Violet, who he had in a tight grip.
She didn't say anything, but started to shrink. He held on until she was too small to grip without crushing.
Salu shrunk down to about the size of a fly before stopping, then used her flight ring to head for Caress.
The spy was fighting two of the best combatants the Legion had to offer. She wasn't going to get away anytime soon, but that was just the distraction. They couldn't let the data Caress had taken leave the grounds of the Ontario Compound.
It was a little difficult to stay out of the way, but Violet was small and used to the flow of battle. She kept a careful eye on everyone's movements and finally managed to reach Caress. She kept pace with the woman for a few moments, searching for a pocket or pouch.
There.
She dove for the concealed pocket and grabbed the edge, keeping a tight grip as she pulled herself upward.
Shrinking Violet was going to get that information back.
Laurel was ready to start punching people again, but a voice cut in.
'Stay back, Andromeda,' Brainiac 5 said over her ring.
She hesitated and made a scathing remark.
'There was absolutely no call for that. I am running tactics for this operation, and you are going to listen to me.'
She wavered, not really swayed by his 'argument'- but the events of that morning were still lingering in her mind.
He's probably right, whatever he's planning, the little dissenting voice in her head –getting louder now- said.
Andromeda clenched her teeth.
"Fine," she growled. "But I don't have to like this, Brainiac."
'I wasn't expecting you to.'
Tasmia was well into the fight now, falling easily into the chaotic patterns of battle. She'd figured out Caress's general tactics- she avoided actually engaging anyone more than she tried to hit- and Dream Girl was fitting in seamlessly with both of their movements.
And then Caress dove forward and grabbed her arm.
It took Shadow Lass by surprise, but she immediately flipped Caress over onto her back- but she didn't let go. She just stood, going through a few contortions that looked extremely painful in the process, and turned to face her.
"You're not getting out of this," she said, yanking her forward.
Tasmia had thought she'd braced herself firmly, but it felt like the spy was using a superpower now. Her foot caught on an uneven spot on the ground and Caress's other hand came for her face.
She blocked it with a forearm, but Caress just grabbed that, too.
It burned.
Shadow Lass bit back a scream, tore her arm away, and hit Caress's other arm hard just below the elbow, forcing the muscles that let her clench her hand to relax. She let go with a yelp and stepped back involuntarily.
Dream Girl tried to take advantage of her sudden distraction and kick her side, by Caress turned and stepped away at the same time. Nura's kick left her abdomen open, and the spy swiped at it.
Her hand connected and the fabric disintegrated where she touched.
The other Legionnaire did scream. She stumbled quickly backwards a few steps and collided with the still-invisible Lyle. He snapped back into visibility as the weight of the senior Legionnaire knocked him down to the ground.
Violet had the information chip.
She kept a firm hold on it as she tried to find a way to get out of Caress's pocket safely.
She heard Nura scream and decided that waiting for a good opportunity was taking too long. She used her flight ring to brace her feet against Caress's leg and started growing, tearing out the pocket as she went.
When she'd almost reached her normal size, a few seconds later, she pushed hard with her feet. The spy was shoved sideways. Violet turned-
-and got an accidental fist in the face from Shadow Lass, who had gotten into position to take out Caress.
Tasmia winced slightly, not happy about the accident, and dove past her fallen teammate to continue the fight.
Brainiac 5 stood and flew himself down from the roof, heading straight for Shirking Violet. She would still have the information chip, and that had to be returned to the Complex.
He bent down and looked her over quickly- she wasn't holding it, and he knew for a fact that she didn't have any pockets. Querl checked her belt pouches quickly, but it wasn't there, either.
She must have dropped it.
He started searching the grass.
Caress had gotten turned around, and could see the fence behind the maniac she was fighting. Nothing she could do seemed to stop this Legionnaire from continuously attacking her. She'd tried burning her more with the acid she could secrete, but either the Legionnaire was too high on adrenaline –or whatever her species' equivalent was- or she was used to it.
A kick she hadn't seen coming knocked her backwards and Caress used her new momentum to roll a few yards away, well out of her attacker's immediate vicinity.
She stopped her evasive maneuver in a crouch and took a quick glance around. The other Legionnaire she'd been fighting was still down, the boy she'd knocked over trying to tend her ineffectively. The maniac was taking a moment's rest to catch her breath, bent over slightly, not looking up-
-and there was someone right next to her, back turned, searching the ground for something.
Caress dove.
Andromeda saw the danger and acted instantly, using her superspeed to race to Caress's side in a split-second, smashing her fist into the side of her jaw before she'd done more than extend her arm.
The impact shattered the spy's jawbone and spun her around.
The arm she'd been reaching for Brainiac 5 with whipped around bonelessly, the hand catching the front of the Legionnaire's face and dragging down her torso.
Laurel breathed in and felt an immediate, crushing pain start to grow in her lungs.
Querl spun around, information chip in hand, just in time to see Andromeda fall to the ground, clutching her torso.
"Laurel!" he exclaimed, and scrambled to her side.
She was wheezing heavily through tightly-clenched teeth, curled up as if to protect herself from an attacker. She was shaking, and he could see the glisten of sweat entirely out of place in the pleasantly-cool Torontian air.
The air.
He reached forward and touched the skin of her face.
Her transuit, that kept her protected from the fatally-high levels of lead in Earth's atmosphere, had been dissolved by Caress's acid.
Shadow Lass dropped to her knees next to him and looked at the destroyed uniform Andromeda was wearing.
"Hospital?" she asked him, reaching for her teammate.
"NO!" Andromeda forced herself to say through the pain, batting her hand away. The effort cost her, and she hissed in pain. "I will not go to a hospital!"
"Now is no time for your light-cursed xenophobic prejudices!" Tasmia snapped. "Do you want to die?"
Querl shoved the information chip against Shadow Lass's chest.
"No, she's right. Make sure this gets to the Complex Admiral and take care of Shrinking Violet."
"What?" she demanded, taking the chip.
"A hospital will not have adequate facilities for treating her. Lead poisoning is at present incurable."
"She's going to die. There's no cure," Lyle said heavily, coming over. He was supporting a woozy Dream Girl.
"The military police finally got here," she mumbled. "About time."
None of them spared a look for the Compound security officials who were arriving to take the unconscious Caress into custody.
"In most cases, yes, she would," Brainiac 5 told them, reaching for Andromeda. She didn't resist. "But most cases do not involve me."
"Oh, so you're going to outdo millennia of scientific efforts to find a cure for lead poisoning, just like that?" Lyle demanded hotly.
"I have at least five hours as of the time it will most likely take me to get back to Legion Headquarters," Querl told him, lifting off with the semi-conscious Laurel. "That is considerably more than enough time to try."