Chapter 7
"Microscopic Flaws"
Lyle and Salu were fixing Legion Headquarters using the tried-and-true method of Science Everywhere:
Stick stuff together and see what happens.
Salu twisted two wires back together and flipped a switch.
"NOW?" she yelled.
"Aggh!" Lyle's scream managed to carry quite a way. "NO, NOT THAT ONE!"
Colossal Boy wandered through the hallways, offering help.
No one wanted to take it.
"Your hands are too big to try and do anything delicate, Gim," Lyle told him in between sucking on his fingers to try and relieve the sting from yet another unanticipated electric shock.
"Can you thread wires through .05 inch radius holes?" Cos asked him; knowing the answer would be no.
"We don't need any more help destroying things, Colossal Boy." Element Lad said apologetically as he vaporized another section of almost-decimated wall. "And Matter-Eater Lad and Star Boy already cleaned up most of the debris."
"I don't think you can be much help here," Bouncy was supervising the rebuilding team by merit of his architectural training.
Cham was walking by the common room when he spotted Gim perched on the couch, looking morose.
"Have you got anything to do?"
"No," the giant sighed. "No one seems to want -or need- my help."
"When was the last time you saw Yera?"
"Uhm," he thought of the Durlan actress he'd met on the off-duty day Cos had ordered before all this started. "Ten months ago?"
"High time you went on another date, then, don't you think?"
"-so we're not doing opera again. I can't sing worth anything, and she can, so I'll just stick to plays."
Gim chuckled. "I missed seeing you, Yera. It's been way to long since I've had any free time."
"Being valiant takes a lot of work, doesn't it?"
"Not nearly as much as your plays seem to."
"It's not just plays anymore, big guy. I've got a movie deal too."
"No way!"
"Absolutely. The director came to one of my plays, scouting for actors, and asked the stage manager for directions to my dressing room afterwards. He was absolutely shocked when he walked in and saw me unshifted. I had to switch my looks to make him believe it was really me."
He looked at her orange skin and the way her black hair fell around her pointed ears. "Couldn't he tell from the beautiful woman in front of him?"
"Stop teasing me," she smiled.
"I'm not," he told her with conviction. "It's the truth."
"So, anyway, now I'm Yera Trairith, movie actress."
"Do you know the part yet?"
"It's set late 21st Century Earth. I play the lead role, Tisha Ganshee."
"May I see?"
She looked around slyly. This was one of her regular restaurants, but no one was used to seeing her shift. But they weren't looking.
Gim looked at the well-built, dreadlocked African woman in front of him. "I like it."
He was walking Yera back to her apartment when a girl stopped him.
"'Scuse me," she said in a heavily accented voice. "Where's Kodlach Street?"
Yera started giving her directions as he thought. He knew that accent. Where…?
"Hey," he said as the girl turned away. She looked at him.
"Are you from Khlora?" he asked in Yiddish.
"No way," she said in the same language. "You're Colossal Boy?"
"I didn't think anyone else from the City could shrink like I do-well, no one but my family."
"I found out a couple years after you left. Been saving money ever since."
He noticed Yera's confused look and switched back into Interlac. "I'm Gim Allon," he told her holding out his hand.
"I'm Lali Muldrow."
"Is Gim here?"
Shvaughn spun quickly. "Who-"
"Shvaughn, it's alright." Element Lad put a hand on her shoulder. "That's Yera. She and Colossal Boy are dating."
He turned to the Durlan. "No; he's not here. He and Lali Muldrow went out together awhile ago."
"Went out?"
"He's showing her the city. She still doesn't know her way around."
It seemed as if Gim hadn't stopped talking about Lali ever since he'd met her, weeks ago.
"-said she has an older brother and a little sister. Her mom's the deputy mayor and didn't want her to leave the city at all-"
"That sounds a bit like my parents." Yera smiled at the thought; mostly to hide her boredom. "They didn't want me to leave but they knew how much I wanted to act."
"It's great having someone around like me, Yera. No one in Big City ever really got why I cared about the little people."
"Oh, so I'm a little person?" she asked, looking slightly offended.
"Nonono- not like little unimportant, just little in comparison."
"Hm."
Yera saw Lali wandering around when she was walking back to her apartment from a rehearsal.
"Lali!" she called.
The other girl turned. "Oh! You're Gim's girlfriend!"
"Yera."
"Yeah, that's it."
"Have you managed to get yourself oriented yet?"
"Oriented?"
"Element Lad told me that you were having a hard time finding your way around. That was why Gim was out with you."
"Oh! Oh yeah, it's much easier now! It's great that he's decided to spend so much time with me. I couldn't have done it without him!"
Lali was fairly glowing with happiness.
"Did you have a good time with him?"
"Yeah! We talked about our families and stuff. You know my brother is studying to become a rabbi? Mom's so proud of him!"
"What are you planning to do here, anyway?"
"Well, I thought that I might, just, y'know, get used to stuff, and- and maybe once everything settles out, I might, I thought-"
A taxi pulled up and dropped someone off.
"Oh; hey!" Lali put her hand on the door. "Can I get in?"
"So long as you pay afterwards."
"Great! Thanks!" she climbed in and shut the door. "See you later, Yera!"
The actress was left standing on the side of the road, watching the taxi pull into traffic and disappear around a corner.
She had a feeling that Lali wasn't ever going to finish answering her question.
Cham was hanging around the mostly-fixed HQ when he spotted Yera walking across the plaza. He went down to the door to greet her.
"He's not here, if you're looking for him."
She sighed. "Is he out with Lali again?"
"Nope. Saturn Girl put him on an extended space patrol. Terror Firma hasn't acted up lately and he and Violet and Sun Boy are supposed to go and see if they can figure out why."
"Gim is on a reconnaissance mission?"
"He and Sun Boy are the distraction."
"Ah."
Cham looked at her quizzically. "Yera, is something wrong?"
"Can I come in?"
Sun Boy was trying to see the whole room without sticking his head in the door.
"She's on the other side of the ship, Dirk." Colossal Boy said. "Doing something in the lab."
"All those science types ever do is 'something in the lab'."
"You don't have to sound so grumpy about it. If you want to come in, come in."
Dirk stood in front of his friend. "My dad was like that, always in the lab. And you're the one who sounds like he's annoyed."
"I'm not annoyed."
"Are you sure you don't still like Violet?"
"What?" Gim's eyes went wide. "I haven't had a crush on Violet since I met Yera! You know that!"
"And I suppose you haven't liked her since you met Lali?"
"No!"
Sun Boy grabbed a chair and sat across from him. "You give a good impression of it."
"What do you mean?"
Cham showed Yera into his apartments.
She shut the door.
"Would you mind much if I dropped this?" she asked in Durlan.
"Not at all," he said, also switching to Durlan. "I know it's hard to keep up a shape, but I guess I'm just used to it by now."
She sat down in a chair, shifting back into her normal state.
"I wish I could just stay like this the whole time," she said wistfully. "It's so much easier."
"Most people still have a problem with us even when we look more like them," Cham pointed out. "Showing up green and tentacle-ly probably wouldn't help."
"Probably not." Durlans couldn't smile in their natural state, but he could hear it in her voice.
"So, what's up?"
"I don't know what do about Gim, Reep."
"He has been acting a bit like a jerk lately, hasn't he?"
"He and Lali seem to be the only people who haven't noticed yet."
"You keep taking Lali places, and don't even think about how Yera feels about that."
"But we're both from Big City!" Colossal Boy protested. Sun Boy looked unmoved. "There's just the two of us out here in the little world. It's just like with her and Cham, they're the only two Durlans offworld besides Mr. Brande. I don't get mad about that."
"You're missing the point, Gim. You don't do that sort of thing."
"Talk to other girls when I'm dating?"
"Take another girl out on what could've been a couple dates and then ignore the girl you're really dating!"
"And I suppose you know all about women, Dirk."
"I have frequent dates."
"All with different people!"
"Every single one of them has known it's a temporary thing! You can't go around just telling girls that you like them and then go off with someone else! It just causes problems!"
Gim had a sour look on his face. This was something they had never agreed on.
"She walks in on the end of a date, and then whenever I try and meet up with him, he's with her instead!" Yera fumed.
"He seems pretty oblivious about all this." Cham said.
"Oh, he is! Or he's doing it on purpose."
"Purpose?" he sat up straighter. "I don't think he'd do that."
"Reep, you live a little world all your own, here in the Legion. I've had a couple boyfriends before. They were all Durlan. There were a few people I've gone on dates with here, but they eventually back out. They don't want a 'dirty shapeshifting Durlan' for a girlfriend. The only reason most of them asked me is because they saw me first in a human form."
He considered that for a moment. "If we do have a world all our own in the Legion, then Colossal Boy's in it too. He's just not like that; to cheat on someone."
Yera scowled at him. "Maybe, but I've talked to Lali since then. She was very evasive about my questions as to what she's planning on doing. And then there's the fact that she has the exact same power as Gim does, then she shows up just as he's about to finish something else."
"No such thing as a convenient coincidence, right?"
"Exactly. It all seems so staged."
"She might try and get him to go out with her, but he wouldn't go for that without breaking it off with you first."
"You really think so?"
Cham nodded.
Yera got up and headed for the door. "Thanks for the talk, Reep."
"No problem."
Yera was about to walk out the door into the plaza when she saw Lali coming toward the building. She ducked behind a corner and did some quick thinking. She wanted her questions answered.
It was Shrinking Violet, dressed in civilian clothes, who walked out the door.
"Uh… it's Lali, right?" Yera tried to sound nervous.
"Yeah. And you're Shrinking Violet?"
"Uh-huh. Lali…"
"What?" the giant looked at her sharply.
"C-can I talk to you?"
"Of course! Where-"
"Let's just walk." Yera said, pulling the other young woman away from Legion HQ.
"So I should have just talked to Yera about how she felt about me being friendly with Lali?"
"Exactly." Sun Boy said. "That's all."
"Do you think she's mad at me?" Gim asked.
"Maybe. If nothing else, though, she's probably really tired of hearing about Lali. I know the rest of the Legion is."
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Lali asked, looking at Yera/Violet.
"You and Gim are from the same place, right?"
"Yeah…"
"And you've been talking a lot, so I bet you know him pretty well."
"I'm not really sure. I do know I'd love to get to know him better."
Yera reminded herself that being angered by that statement wouldn't be in character.
"I want to know more about him."
"Why?" Lali stopped walking. "I'm not going to go around telling other people personal information to feed gossipmongers."
"No no no! It's not that!" Yera made herself blush. "It's- uh-"
" Come on, spit it out."
"I like him." she said quietly.
"Really."
Yera put on an embarrassed face and ducked her head. "I- ah, it's, well-"
"You haven't told him, have you?"
"No."
"Well," Lali said. "What would you like to know first?"
Colossal Boy decided he needed a second opinion.
Taking advice about girls from Sun Boy was all well and good, but his reputation as a womanizer was too well-earned for him to really trust what Dirk said.
Not that the only other person on board had a very good track record when it came to relationships.
"Shrinking Violet?" he asked, poking his head into the lab.
"What?" she snapped; then took a good look at who it actually was. "Oh. I thought you were Sun Boy."
"I was just talking to him, actually."
"Really?"
"He's not that much of a horrible person, you know." The tone in her voice made him feel like he had to stand up for Dirk somehow. "He's just a huge jerk sometimes."
"Cos is a huge jerk sometimes, too. Sun Boy enjoys antagonizing people every so often. Like a less-severe case of Nemesis Kid."
Gim decided this was not a good time to point out that she acted the same way towards Lyle; and that Brainy could give every Legionnaire a run for their money when it came to getting on people's nerves.
"There are times I wonder if the 'nemesis' part has more to do with his personality than with his powers." That was neutral enough, and probably true. "It's easy to see someone actually calling him that."
"I think you're right. What do you want?"
"Dirk was saying that I've been a clueless jerk around Yera lately."
"He's right. And just after you managed to pack away the last instance of stupidity."
"You aren't in a very good mood right now, are you?"
"Absolutely not."
"You know you fit the role of 'occasionally- insufferable genius' very nicely?"
"Are you going to say anything worthwhile or are you going to stand there adding unwanted commentary? I have things to do."
"You're saying more than me. Do you think Yera is likely to be mad at me for ignoring her like that?"
"Maybe. Probably not. I don't know her that well. What do you think?"
"I'm not sure. I've only got Dirk's word to go on, and you know what his experience is like."
"I don't really know about that." Lali admitted to Yera, still disguised as Violet. "He hasn't said."
"Just when did you decide to come to the 'outside world', anyway?"
"Oh, Gim inspired me. I was at a total loss as to what to do with the powers I had. Always different, you know. Ever since I was little."
"This must be great for you, then."
"Yeah- hey. I gotta go."
"Really?" Yera hadn't ever seen Violet look monumentally disappointed, but she managed a good impression.
"Well, uh, you could, maybe, come along?"
"That would be great."
"I've still got some boxes that could use unpacking, so it's not like you're intruding or anything..."
It would be great. She was being very evasive again.
'No such thing as a convenient coincidence, right?'
Yera-as-Violet dumped the leftover packing onto the floor.
"Thanks for your help, Violet," Lali said.
There was a loud, impatient knock at the door.
"Who-" Lali began, and then slapped her forehead. "Oh, I forgot to pay the rent! The landlady said she wasn't going to take late payments after last time!"
The knocking came again.
"Just a minute!" she called and scrambled for a small box half-hidden under the packing material and pulled out her wallet.
"I'm sorry, Violet! I'll try not to take long-"
"Take as long as you need."
The shrunken giantess ran for the door. Yera heard it open, and an irate voice started off on a spiel before the doorjamb clicked shut again.
Yera looked at the small box lying open on the floor. A glinting bit of medal wrapped in tissue paper caught her eye. She picked it up.
It was a beautifully-rendered platinum locket. A small jewel set in the middle sparkled briefly. She pulled at the catch. It stuck.
She stuck her thumb against the hinge, angling the catch away from her, and pulled again. A small hologram of a man popped out.
"Lali?" he asked, annoyed. "Where have you been? You were supposed to report back with your intelligence days ago! Turn this thing around!"
Yera made a split-second decision and shifted into Lali. She turned the locket around.
"Yeah?"
"What's with you? You better have good information on the Legion! Lemnos is not going to be happy with this delay."
Yera wracked her brain for something inconsequential but seemingly significant. "Colossal Boy and Sun Boy are on a mission to track down Terror Firma."
"Really? Well, I'll have to tell our team about that. What-"
Yera heard the door open again. "I have someone here!" she hissed.
"Micro Lass, you have really got to work on you-"
She shut the locket and stuck it in her pocket, shifting back to Violet as she placed the tissue paper back in the box.
"I hate collection day," Lali sighed.
Yera pushed past the door into Legion Headquarters just as an alarm went off.
Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy, and Invisible Kid came rushing in. Lyle started messing with a control panel on the wall as Cos tried to yell over the alarms.
"WE JUST GOT THE POWER GOING TO ALL SYSTEMS AGAIN! YOU DON'T HAPPEN TO HAVE A LIVE COMMUNICATOR ON YOU, DO YOU?"
She winced as Lyle cut the alarm and Cos didn't manage to stop shouting right away.
"Actually, that's what I came to talk to you about."
The Legion cruiser had landed Shrinking Violet was just about to comm Lyle and tell him to 'flip the switch already, it was just Yera'; when Gim rushed past her and the alarm shut off.
"You'll make a better impression if you don't run!" Sun Boy called after him.
Violet sighed and followed Colossal Boy.
All the Legionnaires at Headquarters were gathered around COMPUTO's main terminal in the common area.
Yera watched nervously as her news sunk in.
"You're absolutely sure that that is what you said to the man when you opened the locket?" Saturn Girl asked.
"I'm sure. Good memorization makes an actress's job much easier."
"Lali was using me?" Gim asked, sounding more like he was trying to wrap his head around the situation than that he was confused.
"Yeah. Sorry."
"No, I'm sorry," he said. "I was ignoring you in favor of Lali. Who is apparently a two-faced scumbag."
"It seems to me that she's more like an ineffectual spy," Lyle put in. "I don't think she's had any serious training. It seems whoever this guy is; he probably just picked whoever she could get."
"So, who was this guy?" Bouncing Boy asked.
"I don't know. All I know is that when I mentioned Terror Firma, he said 'our team'."
"Could it be the Workforce?" Lightning Lad asked. "Imra told them to get lost, but they're nothing if not persistent."
"We haven't heard of them having a 'Micro Lass' on their team, but we didn't know about Spy, either," Imra pointed out.
"We could just open the locket and see who pops up," Salu said. "Worst case scenario, we have no idea who he is."
"Voting time," Saturn Girl said. "All in favor of Violet's suggestion?"
Most of the team raised their hands. She counted.
"We open the locket then."
"Incoming," Dream Girl announced.
Lali burst through the door. "Violet, when you were helping me unpack, did you see-"
She stopped midsentence, clearly confused by the gathering.
Violet was even more confused. "When I was helping you unpack what?"
"Earlier today, you were-"
"In space."
"You were at my apartment…"
"Um, Shrinking Violet," Yera put in. "That was me. I was impersonating you."
"You were impersonating me?" Violet asked, aghast.
"I was talking to you?" Lali looked askance at Yera.
"Can we just open the thing and get this over with?" Timber Wolf asked blearily. "I got dragged out of bed for this, and I'd really like to go back."
He picked up the locket and yanked it open. The man's face appeared again.
"Elysion! Get me out of here!" Lali screamed.
Nemesis Kid hurled toward her. "You're working for Terror Firma! Elysion was the guy who broke my arm!"
Colossal Boy grew until his hair brushed the ceiling. He reached for Lali menacingly.
"No one messes with my friends."
Lali grew too. She swatted his hand away and started backing toward the door.
"But you're all wrong! You're protecting the UP when they're the ones who-"
Blok grabbed her ankle and tripped her up. Her head caved in the wall above the door.
"I have heard that before," he said calmly. "I too knew people who blamed the UP for their troubles, and it caused no end of difficulty."
Lali shook herself free and shrunk just enough to fit through the ruined doorframe. Ultra Boy and Lighting Lad both dashed after her and got tangled up trying to get out of the room at the same time.
A familiar flash of light shone from beyond them for a moment, and Saturn Girl knew Elysion had ordered Terror Firma's teleporter to come pick Lali up.
"Hey, Imra," Sun Boy said.
"What?"
"We know what Terror Firma was up to now."