A/N: Thanks to Aedien, Dextra2, and leathman for reviewing.
The last three chapters have been Central City only, but now it's time to check in with the rest of the Justice League.
Chapter Four: Watchtower Wonders
Wally mentally pieced together the various bits of evidence from the Henderson homicide as he hovered around 21st Street. Technically, it wasn't his job to make inferences from the evidence he processed – that was the domain of the actual detectives who scouted the crime scene, interviewed persons of interest, and received information from sources on all sides that didn't always make it to the scientists at the crime lab – but Barry (who undertook similar thought processes) always welcomed his opinion on cases, and sometimes his deductions turned out to be right. Besides, a brain that processed things as quick as Wally's did was bound to be able to find connections that ordinary people might miss – between that and Barry's ability to spin logical connections between their theories and the case and explain them satisfactorily to their detective colleagues in a way that didn't arouse suspicion, Wally had racked up quite an impressive number of cracked cases, considering he'd only been with the CCPD for less than fifteen months.
Also, puzzling over the case gave his mind something to chew on while he waited to be picked up for his shift on the Watchtower.
Unfortunately for Wally, there was not much evidence to go through, as the Henderson case was a very recent one, and he was soon left with nothing to do. Being a speedster, Wally naturally got bored easily when he had nothing to do. His lightning mind quickly cast around for a new puzzle to think through, since there was not much else he could do to occupy himself. His thoughts, as his brain jumped from one idea to the next, ranged from GL's late to Wonder what there is to eat on the Watchtower to I can't wait till we get the new transport system up and running.
Since its founding, the Justice League had maintained three Javelin-7's for transport between Earth and their outer space headquarters. Recently, though, this method had proved too slow and too cumbersome – a fact Doctor Fate had been quick to point out when he joined. He and Batman subsequently conferred together to come up with a better means of transportation. When Hawkgirl entered into their conversations, Doctor Fate's suggestion of teleportation gained technological feasibility, and the trio had been hard at work for the past several months developing a working teleport system that they could use in place of the Javelins. Of course, there were many things to be considered – how to best structure it, where to locate the invariant point, how to make it work on a large scale – and above all, how to make it completely infallible. Superman was certain that the League was going to gain more members over time – the Man of Steel could envision a future where the Justice League were at least thirty strong; if he was right, and the League would eventually be operating all over the world in unprecedented numbers, the teleport system would have to be flawlessly accurate and extremely reliable.
Until it was, however, the League members were still reliant on the Javelin-7's and piggy-backs. Of the nine heroes currently in the League, four of them – Superman, Green Lantern, J'onn, and Doctor Fate – were capable of making it up to the Watchtower without a Javelin, and on occasion the others depended on them to pick them up and take them there. Wally preferred traveling with GL or Doctor Fate – whenever he went with either of those two, he didn't need to bother putting on a space suit to protect himself from the extremes of space.
When his watch registered the time as ten-fifteen – fifteen minutes after the designated time for Green Lantern to pick him up – Wally activated his comlink. "Dude, where are you? You're gonna make me late for monitor duty! Do you want Batman to kill me?"
"Sorry, Flash – change of plan," Hal Jordan's voice replied. "Batman and Hawkgirl think the teleport system's ready for activation – they want to test it."
A shiver ran down Wally's back. "On me?" he squeaked.
"Don't worry," GL said soothingly. "It's perfectly safe. We've had success transporting a bag of marbles from here to Doctor Fate's tower."
"A bag of marbles is a lot smaller than a human being," Wally pointed out. "You sure Bats doesn't want to test it out on – you know – something more complex first?"
"Flash, you are the test."
"But I don't want –"
A bluish-white light enveloped him just then, disassembling his molecules and rematerializing him in the Watchtower control room, thousands of miles above the Earth.
"– to be the…" Wally stopped and stared at the advanced machinery that made up this part of the Watchtower. "Whoa."
"Teleporter's online," Batman said. He made a note on one of the computer monitors, then promptly walked off.
"What do you know?" Hawkgirl said cheerfully. "It worked."
"What do you mean, 'what do you know'?" Wally demanded indignantly. "You mean you weren't sure it would work? What if that thing had scattered my atoms all over Pluto?"
"Flash, do you really think we would've risked your life if we weren't absolutely sure it would work?"
Wally ignored that and decided to focus on being glad that he'd put on his Flash costume earlier. The issue of secret identities was a little sticky in the League – not everyone was aware of everyone's alter egos. Wonder Woman's and Doctor Fate's identities were common knowledge within the League, and Hal had come out pretty early to his teammates, but everyone else had kept their faces behind their masks. There were a few exceptions, of course – Batman probably knew who everyone was (except possibly Hawkgirl), J'onn had apparently entrusted details of his human persona to Superman and Batman, and Superman and Black Canary were the only ones on the team who knew Batman's identity – but on the whole, their identities were still confidential. Wally himself had kept his identity a closely guarded secret – Wonder Woman and Doctor Fate knew him by association with Barry, but the only one he'd actually told was Hal, and that only a couple of months ago. Since then, if Hal was the one picking him up, Wally normally wouldn't change into his costume until the last minute because it was easier to stay inconspicuous as Wally West – but tonight he'd made an exception, and he was exceedingly glad he had. He wasn't ready for everyone to know about Wally West – and his complicated past – just yet.
Hawkgirl, meanwhile, was patting the teleporter console affectionately. "This baby's gonna make traveling up here a whole lot easier, that's for sure." She stepped onto the teleport pad. "Flash, if you don't want to find yourself in Midway, you'd better get off the pad."
Flash hurriedly stepped off. Hawkgirl nodded at Hal.
"Let her rip, GL."
Green Lantern pushed a button and turned a knob, and the next instant Hawkgirl vanished before their eyes. GL turned to Flash, a ridiculously gleeful grin on his face.
"Cool, huh?"
"It feels weird," Flash said huffily.
"Oh, you're just mad we used you as a test subject." GL waved a hand dismissively.
Flash glared at him. "And I'm stuck with you for ten hours tonight?"
"You, me, and Batman," GL corrected. "I don't think he's planning on going back to Gotham till five a.m., East Coast time."
"Why not?"
"He said something about doing the Watchtower maintenance reports to send to WayneTech."
"Oh." Flash said no more on the subject. Batman was touchy about his liaison duties with WayneTech, the company that financed all the League's equipment. Flash still hadn't figured out how Batman had managed to convince the corporation to foot the bill for the League's astronomically high operating expenses. When he'd dared to ask about it, Superman had mentioned vaguely that Batman was a close friend of Bruce Wayne, the CEO of the WayneTech empire – and a ferocious Bat-glare from the Dark Knight himself had convinced Flash not to pursue the matter further.
Still, Flash thanked their lucky stars that WayneTech was willing to support the League financially (though he had a sneaking suspicion that they were getting some revenue from Queen Industries as well) – without it, they wouldn't have their headquarters.
Flash still wasn't entirely sure where the idea for a space station had come from, but it'd stuck. The designs for the Watchtower were the result of several conferences among Batman, Wonder Woman, J'onn, Hawkgirl, and Flash himself. Hey, he was a joker, but he was also a genius who graduated college early – and he was brilliant in physics and chemistry. The five of them had come up with a schematic that incorporated a blend of Martian, Thanagarian, Amazon, and Earth technology. The Watchtower itself had been built within a month, assembled by the seven founders working together, and then equipped with the latest surveillance, gadgets, tools, computers, satellites, and whatnot. The Javelin-7's originated with Green Lantern, who had used his experience as a pilot to sketch a set of blueprints, using Ferris Aircraft's designs as a guide, and then passed the data to Batman so the Leaguers would have a means of transportation to their headquarters.
"What's there to eat?" Flash queried, heading towards the cafeteria. The Watchtower cafeteria was his favorite part of their headquarters – it was one of the few places he could eat as much as he needed to sustain his hyper-accelerated metabolism without arousing suspicion. Batman's contacts in the culinary industry (where was he getting these people?) supplied for the League a certain amount of food each day – which thankfully took into consideration Flash's enormous appetite – and kept the heroes fed when they were on duty.
"Meatloaf, pasta, apple pie…" Green Lantern supplied. "I ate the last of the pizza, though."
"Okay." Flash zipped around the room, grabbing ingredients and dishes and piling them on a tray. He then made his way back to the bridge, sat down, and began to eat, all the while keeping up steady conversation with Green Lantern and noting activity on the monitors out of the corner of his eye.
It was just as he was licking his fingers clean of the last piece of pie that the alert sounded.
"Which city?" Flash asked, standing up to get a better look.
"Yours," GL replied. "Someone's robbing the Central City S.T.A.R. Lab."
"Great." Flash was on the teleporter pad in an instant. "Beam me down, Scotty."
"Want some backup?" GL offered as he rapidly typed in the coordinates.
"Nah, I'm good. It's probably Mirror Master or someone hoping to get lucky."
GL nodded. "All right. Teleport in three, two, one…"
In a burst of light, Flash vanished.
A/N: Yep, tomorrow we're going back to Central City. Oh, well, it IS a Flash story.