Chapter Six


"Almost there?" asked the Question. He was sitting with his legs tucked neatly under his chair, watching.

"Oh yeah, definitely," Blue Beetle said, but he kept the Bug soaring at a slow glide. He wanted to give Oracle a chance to martial her forces. Of course, if Babs would only work with more fliers, he wouldn't even have to land . . . Then again, a fight in the Bug could severely damage the airship and Beetle generally didn't encourage the destruction of anything that had the sole responsibility for keeping him aloft several hundred feet above the ground . . .

Concern for the Bug swiftly replaced concern for New York as Blue Beetle glanced left and did a doubletake. Leaning forward, the Question was fingering the buttons lining the dashboard. Specifically, he seemed attracted to a red button. A big red button.

"You like that one, do you?" Beetle tried to keep his voice casual.

"Interesting. Purpose?"

"I just had that one installed. It one opens a direct line to the New York police department," Blue Beetle said brightly, and was gratified to see the Question jerk his hands back in a manner usually reserved for confrontations with venomous snakes. Still, Blue Beetle decided he'd better land before his passenger's interest revived. He began humming as he piloted the Bug towards the New York branch of Kordtronics.

Like the warehouse across from Beetle's apartment, Kordtronics had a carefully concealed underwater airlock that allowed the Bug to discreetly enter the secret sub-basement under the office building. Beetle carefully landed the airship and powered it down.

The Question exited first, peering around suspiciously before leaping the eight feet from the trapdoor in the Bug's belly to the floor. He landed on his feet, with hunched shoulders and his fingers splayed out, paranoid and ready.

Beetle followed, somersaulting neatly in mid-air, just in case Black Canary was watching. (Like Power Girl always said . . . if you've got it, flaunt it!) He felt mildly disappointed when Canary didn't jump out of the shadows and give the Question a good kick in the head. If this kept up, he was going to have to take the vigilante down all by his lonesome.

"Onnnne . . . is the loneliest number . . ." Beetle hummed, causing the Question to turn around and aim what was undoubtedly a stare at him, eyeless mask or no. Blue Beetle pretended to ignore him. He could stall for a little while longer, he supposed, waiting for Canary, and if worse came to worse . . . well, at least a fight here would be somewhat easier to conceal than it would've been in his apartment.

"More computers," the Question observed, turning his attention away from the blue-clad Beetle. "And . . . things. Hm." He examined a table cluttered with half-finished inventions and picked up a cosmic arc-welder. He surreptitiously pocketed it as he moved on, pausing before something that looked like an eight foot tall glass tube with circuitry and wires running down to a surprisingly small box, perhaps twice the size of the average computer, sitting on the floor. "Ah . . . Teleport tubes."

"Uh . . . yes." Beetle sounded a little miffed; cosmic arc welders were expensive. "It's left over from my Justice League International days. But it won't interface with the current JLA transporters."

"Not without work," the Question said.

"Yeah . . . like three months of work funded by tens of thousands of dollars in grant money," Beetle retorted. "We're talking about the JLA here. You know? The JLA? The ones on the moon with the extra-super-extremely-high security system designed by the Prince of Paranoia himself, Batman?"

"Beyond your abilities? Should have known."

"This the part where I'm supposed to indignantly throw myself into a frenzy of work to prove that I can too break into the Watchtower, right? Sorry, but no."

"I need to get into the Watchtower, Blue Beetle." The Question's voice was flat and calm. "You can. I know. The Bug. Mr. Gold's armor. Armaments. You have the skills."

"The Bug gets blown up every second Sunday and that armor was a last resort for Booster; he hasn't worn it in years," Beetle protested as convincingly as he could. "I can't get you into the Watchtower."

"Can't? Or won't?" the Question asked, tilting his head to gather the shadows under his nonexistant eyes.

"Why wouldn't I want to help a fellow superh--er, crimefighter?" Beetle asked, hoping the Question was too far over the edge to guess the obvious answer to his rhetorical question.

"You don't see. You don't see the need. You still think the world is bright and--"

"Yeah, I think I remember this lecture," Beetle said drily. "Okay, okay, okay . . . I'll give it a shot. But I can't make any promises."

"Don't fail," the Question said simply, hoisting himself up onto one of the larger mainframes and sitting with his hands resting on the rectangular, black-wrapped package on his lap.

"Didn't even cross my mind," Blue Beetle said beneath his breath, gathering a selection of tools off a workbench. A contingency plan was forming in his head, just in case he really was on his own. It should work . . .

But as his gaze swept the room, Blue Beetle couldn't help wondering where his back-up was.

Halfway across the city, Captain Atom was standing in a very dirty phone booth. The graffiti scrawled on its walls was barely visible under a grimy, black coating of dirt. Several of the numbers had popped off the phone itself, although several kind souls had generously scratched phone numbers, pointing citizens towards "a good time", into the silver plating around the dial. In addition, someone had stolen the receiver. The phone book had been torn from its stiff, protective plastic covers, though part of it appeared to have been abandoned in the corner, crumpled and stained.

Captain Atom gingerly picked up the remains of the phone book, using just his thumb and first finger, and backed out of the phone booth, for once wishing for a bottle of disinfectant more than pants. (Well, both would be nice, actually.)

Handling the tissue-thin paper as little as possible, he flipped through the pages. It was his lucky night, apparently. He actually had the right half of the phone book.

"Should've thought of this before," Captain Atom--Nate--muttered, moving under a street light to get a better view of the phone book. He turned to the "K" section, suppressing a sudden shadow of guilt as he ran a metallic finger over the listings. At last, he saw a name that gave him pause.

"Kordtronics," he said to himself, memorizing the address. "It's got to be Kordtronics." And he was off in a dim glow of quantum energy.

Within minutes, Captain Atom was swooping around a medium-tall office building with the occassional lit window of a workaholic breaking the blackness. Given that Beetle had always prefered underground lairs (although 'lair' perhaps had too ominous a connotation for a hero like Blue Beetle) and that the building was on the waterfront, the next step was obvious. Captain Atom took a deep breath and dove.

The water was dark; the electric lights of the offices glittered on the face of the river, but broke through the surface only dimly. Atom was forced to come up for air several times, breaking the water with a gasp and tossing his sodden, silver hair out of his eyes before gulping down another lungful of air and going under again.

Just when Nate was beginning to think that maybe Blue Beetle had decided to simply put his headquarters in a conference room somewhere, he caught a glimpse of something deep in the river.

He kicked downward, though at this depth it was hard for him to see anything but the twists of metallic hair free-floating in front of him and the bubbles drifting past him, faintly lit by his yellow eyes. But his stretching fingers brushed something solid and steel in front of him: a massive airlock. Captain Atom swam down, braced his feet against the solid surface, dug his fingers into the metal, and slowly pulled it open.

The rush of water into the opened chamber pushed him forward as he clung awkwardly to the huge metal door. He quickly flew in and pushed the doors closed again before the room could be flooded completely. Drains in the floor automatically opened as the hydraulic doors hissed shut and the water began to disappear.

Captain Atom hovered for a minute, breathing in the fresh air, before flying to the opposite end of the airlock and pushing open an identical set of looming steel doors. But whereas the other doors opened onto the river, this one opened into a sub-basement which was considerably more spacious than the average office floor in order to accomodate the Bug.

It had been a long time since Captain Atom had seen Blue Beetle's airship; he had forgotten how big it was. Still, it only took him a few seconds to fly around the ship. Peering through the machine's yellow viewports, he confirmed that there was no one inside. It appeared to have been landed normally; he didn't see any damage . . .

With a frown, Captain Atom landed and walked away from the Bug, ready to cautiously explore the parts of the underground complex that were obscured by banks of towering mainframes, monitors, and less identifiable equipment.

He had gone about twenty feet when he nearly tripped over the Blue Beetle.

The Beetle was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, leaning over some sort of electronic gadget as he gripped a screwdriver between his teeth. He was humming. And not, apparently, in any sort of desparate, mortal danger.

Captain Atom fought the urge to zap him with a quantum bolt, or at least smack him.

Instead, he stood with his arms crossed as he gave the Blue Beetle his best disapproving stare. Blue Beetle continued working on his . . . electronic-gadgety-thingie . . . and after a few minutes the muscles in Captain Atom's face began to clench painfully.

"Problems, Beetle?" Atom asked in a somewhat annoyed voice, ready to change tactics.

"Mm-hm . . ." Beetle confirmed without looking up. After a minute or two he mumbled "Transistor won't respond" around the screwdriver by way of addendum.

He could have been kidding, but he probably wasn't; the world really did stop existing for Blue Beetle when he was working on a project. Or so it had been back in their JLI days.

Well, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same . . . and Captain Atom had always been a bit hot-tempered. "BEETLE!" he barked.

"What is it, Atom?" Blue Beetle asked in annoyance, finally looking up. His eyes widened behind his goggles and his mouth dropped open, letting the screwdriver clatter to the floor. "Waitaminute--Captain Atom?? What are YOU doing here? Don't tell me you're in on his little plan--"

"What plan? Whose plan? Why did you call me? I thought you needed help, Beetle," the Captain said in an accusatory voice. "If I find out this is one of your practical jokes that you and Gold set up . . ."

Blue Beetle stared at him blankly for a minute, then clapped a blue-gloved hand over his goggles. Captain Atom barely heard him mutter, "Ohhhh man, speed dial . . . Oy."

"Would you please start making some kind of sense?" In spite of himself, Captain Atom heard his voice rise. "Listen, Beetle, do you know what I had planned for tonight? Sleep. Not wandering around New York at 2 AM thinking you'd tangled with God-knows-what! I think you owe me an explanation or an apology or both! What the hell are you up to?"

"Why don't you ask Mr. Paranoia over there? He's got a stylin' hat, a great sense of humor, and he's been calling the shots all night."

Captain Atom whirled and found himself staring at a man clad in a dirty trenchcoat and hat sitting unobtrusively on a large mainframe, legs crossed and faceless face tilted towards him. "The Question."

"Indeed." The reply was quiet, but oddly uneven in timbre. "Don't recall inviting Captain Atom, Beetle."

"Ah . . . well . . ." Beetle stalled. "I thought you might want some muscle when you went to *AHEM* invade the Watchtower." He gave Captain Atom a meaningful look as the metallic-skinned hero's yellow eyes widened. Invade the Watchtower?? He'd known the Question was a few bananas short of a bunch, but . . .

"Are you NUTS?" the Captain demanded.

Beetle, who had begun working on his electronic device again, looked up long enough to give the Captain a look. "Ye-es," he said under his breath, just loud enough for Nate to hear.

"Not nuts," the Question corrected. "Doing what has to be done. Saving the world."

"How will breaking into the Watchtower--?"

"Don't bother, I already tried that line," Beetle said. The device he was working sent up a few sparks and suddenly hummed to life. "Hey, whaddaya know--I got the sucker working!"

"What are you--" Captain Atom turned and took a better look at Blue Beetle's project. "Hey, that's connected to a transporter tube! You're not helping him??"

Beetle was smiling, but with clenched teeth. "I didn't exactly have a lot of choice, Atom, unless I wanted to turn my apartment into a battle zone. Kind of hard to keep a secret identity once you start kicking costumed types out the windows, y'know? You remember the concept? Secret identities?"

They stared at each other with eyes locked until Captain Atom broke away, turning towards the Question. "Well, whatever your scheme was, Question, you can forget it. No way am I letting you have access to the Watchtower."

"Not going to let the government's pet superhero stop me."

Captain Atom bristled. "Oh YEAH? Even when the government's pet can do this?" He aimed his fists at the Question as they began to glow, crackling with energy. "Quantum blasts, Question. One false move and I'll fry you down to your atoms."

Captain Atom waited. The Question tilted his head. Blue Beetle seemed to be holding his breath.

"Very well," the Question said at last. "Can tell when I'm beaten."

"Okay then, come down off of there--slowly--and . . . What have you got there? Beetle, what's he got there?" Captain Atom demanded, craning his neck to get a better look at the rectangular package the Question held.

"I don't know, but he said it wasn't explosive." Blue Beetle's tone suggested that he didn't place a great deal of confidence into anything the Question said.

"Not explosive," the Question assured, carefully slipping the package, in its torn garbage-bag wrapper, beneath his trenchcoat. He slipped off the bank of computers, landing neatly on his feet, and started moving towards Captain Atom.

"Thaaat's right . . . nice and easy . . ." Nate said, already estimating how much time it would take to wrap up the situation and fly home. Even if the Question tried to fight him, none of his blows could even bruise Captain Atom's alien-alloy skin. Anyway, the Hub City vigilante didn't seem to be looking for a fight, walking with his back straight and his hands in his pockets . . .

Blue Beetle's eyes suddenly widened behind his goggles. "Atom, look out! He's got--"

The Question flew into a high kick, throwing all his weight against Captain Atom's chest. Nate didn't feel a thing, but it did knock him off his feet for just a second . . . long enough to look up and see the Question's trenchcoat swirling as he lobbed four scarab-shaped grenades directly at him. And then the world exploded into choking clouds of smoke.

Captain Atom pushed himself to his feet, stumbling slightly. His eyes watered as he spun around, trying to see through rolling plumes of blackness. He gasped, gagging as his throat burned . . . if he could just get out of it . . . Low intensity quantum blast might burn it away--no, he couldn't, couldn't risk hurting the Question or Blue Beetle--He felt himself keeling--

Suddenly, something was being pressed over his face. He shook his head, with a vague idea of fighting off his attacker, but stopped when he took a breath that had only a faint taste of smoke to it. He opened his eyes and found Blue Beetle pressing a small gas mask, about the size of his palm, over his nose and mouth.

Beetle was wearing a gas mask as well, but his eyes, despite his goggles, were squinched up and watering badly.

"Where . . . is he?" Captain Atom demanded. He tried, unsteadily, to stand, but was pushed back down by Beetle.

"Don't move. You've just had four times your daily recommended dosage of smoke inhalation."

"I'm fine." His head was already clearing. "The Question . . ." He twisted around, trying to peer through the billowing clouds of smoke.

"Will you please stay still? Don't worry, he's not going to attack. He's headed for the transport tube--"

Captain Atom pushed the Blue Beetle aside. "Hey!" Beetle protested as Nate's surge of quantum-powered strength sent the bug-themed superhero skidding across the floor.

"The transport tube--? The Watchtower!" Captain Atom held one hand clamped over his gas mask as he flew in what he hoped was the right direction.

"Atom--!" Beetle actually managed to catch Nate's ankles as he charge by.

Captain Atom barely noticed, pulling the Blue Beetle along in his wake. Flying straight into the smoke made its effects all the worse; he could barely keep his eyes slitted open against the stinging smoke clouds. But he caught a flash of movement . . . A faint gleam of light off what could be glass, a faint swirl that could have been a trenchcoat . . . And the faint sound like a computer when it's just booting up . . . Captain Atom closed his eyes and redoubled his speed. If he could just knock out the teleporter . . .

Beetle was bracing his feet, futilely trying to slow down the atomic powered hero. "Atom, wait!"

But it was too late to wait. Captain Atom felt himself crash through the glass of the transport tube and immediately tried to pin the Question. Blue Beetle, thanks to the Captain's sudden stop and Newton's first law, slammed into Atom's back, resulting in a sort of superheroic dogpile.

It wouldn't have been a problem, except . . .

"Hey, it didn't stop!" Captain Atom rose his voice to be heard over the ever-increasing hum of electronics. "The sequence didn't stop!"

"Of course it didn't stop! All you did was splinter some non-vital components!" Beetle said frantically, trying to regain his feet. "Get up get up get up! We've got to get out of here bef--"

The rest of Blue Beetle's sentence faded away as their atoms tore apart in a surprisingly anti-climatic blaze of light.