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Chapter Eight
"Huugh-aahhg!" Clark grunted as he forced the doors apart. The electro-magnetic charge that would usually seal the doorways in case of a security breach had never set. Which on the bright side made it easier for the collected Leaguers to make their way through the station, but on the down side meant that the internal security systems guarding the station were offline for some reason. And as of yet they had no idea as to why.
"This is ridiculous," Lantern grumbled from Clark's left, the green glow from his ring offering the only light in the otherwise darkened hallway. "Stumbling around blind in our own base of operations. Don't we have some kind of fail safes for this sort of thing?"
"And what sort of thing would that be?" Shiara snapped shortly from just behind them. Clark didn't have to see her face to know that she was just as annoyed as the rest of them about this situation. He could tell from the tone of her voice. But at least she wasn't grumbling about it. The two of them butted heads so much that Clark was honestly surprised they managed to work together at all.
"Shiara is correct. We don't know anything about the nature of what actually happened. All we know for sure right now is that we've lost power." Diana corrected, fully agreeing with Shiara's point, even if she was a bit more diplomatic about it. John grumbled something about 'women' and 'unreasonable'. For his own health and safety, Clark sincerely hoped that he would refrain from making any of those comments out loud.
"Well actually that's not strictly true," the Flash commented lightly from the tail end of the group. Clark had a sneaking suspicion he knew whey the Flash was lolly gagging along so far behind Shiara and Diana, but for his own safety he kept those thoughts to himself.
"Oh really," Shiara deadpanned. "Well then tell us Flash, what do we know?"
"Well, we know that whatever happened had to involve some sort of electromagnetic surge, otherwise the backup generators already would have kicked in. That and whatever hit us for some reason didn't compromise the exterior shell integrity, thank Science, otherwise we'd all be breathing space at this point. So whatever it was someone must have manually overridden the shutdown controls in order to seal off necessary systems."
By this point everyone had stopped and turned to stare blankly at the speedster. The scarlet clad hero was rocking idly back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking up at the hall ceiling. As if sensing their looks he looked back down to see the rest of the assembled league starring at him.
"What?" The flash shrugged, appearing for the first time to be uncomfortable with all the attention. "I have a science background."
"All right then hot shot, since you seem to know what's going on around here, what do we do next?" Shiara asked glibly.
The speedster just shrugged. "Turn the life support back on?"
"Wait- it's off?" Clark asked numbly. The Flash just nodded, looking completely nonplused, but Clark was relieved to see that the others looked at least slightly put out by this new piece of information.
"Well, yeah," Flash responded. "It was turned off with everything else when the station went dark. If the electromagnetic surge had passed through the oxygenation systems we would have had massive fire balls, corrosive fumes and toxic gas spewing out all over the place. Someone must have shut it all down before that happened."
"So… how are we all still…?" Clark began uncertainly.
"Breathing?" Flash asked glibly, a cocky little smirk plainly evident even in the dim lighting and under the red cowl. "Standard atmospheric oxygen content is around 20%. Human beings need at least 15% to be able to function, but even then you wouldn't be able to exert yourself. Below 10% core systems become seriously compromised; crippling nausea, headaches and fatigue. That sort of stuff. At 6%? It's good night Lucy."
"How long before we reach 6%?" Clark asked nervously, hoping his anxiety wasn't too apparent to the rest of the group.
"Well the station normally runs at almost 24% oxygen saturation for safety reasons. Sooo… six people, moderate exertion, given the total number of cubic square feet, not accounting for any possible leaks of course… forty two hours?"
Clark breathed a sigh of relief, trying not to let the others see how nervous he'd been. While there were very few things that could hurt the man of steel, he most definitely still needed oxygen to breathe.
"This is stupid," John interrupted. "We're wasting time."
"We are evaluating the situation at hand," Diana interjected calmly. She had no more patience for John's current attitude than any of the others did, but she most certainly wasn't going to bash him over the head for it, like Shiara looked like she was about to.
"So alright Mr. Smarty Pants," Shiara asked, half mocking and half serious. "What's our next course of action?"
The Flash blushed, actually blushed, under all the sudden extra attention, before scratching at his chin thoughtfully and composing his answer.
"Well, my first bet would be to head to the brain stem –" Flash paused at all of their confused looks to explain. "It's that emergency manual override system Bat's installed next to the greenhouses? We can control the artificial gravity, life support, and the sealing of the exterior shell to prevent atmospheric leaks." Clark nodded along, understanding the jist of what was being said, even if he knew he had no idea of the details. "After that… check out auxiliary control I guess and try to find out what happened?"
The Flash shrugged his expertise running out where science ended and tactical took over, but Clark nodded along anyway, pleased with his general assessment of the situation
"Wait, auxiliary control? Is that not where J'onn and the young man were working on the computer systems?" Diana asked curiously.
"You think that little punk had anything to do with this?" John asked suddenly, more to either Superman or the Flash than to Diana. Clark was skeptical, but before he could voice his concerns the Flash (as usual) beat him to the punch.
"I doubt it," the young man was looking dubiously up at the ceiling again, contemplating Johns proposition. "Whatever it was that passed through the station, it had to be some sort of massive energy surge. And the Watchtower just isn't capable of producing that kind of energy- not without plunging us all into darkness and sending us hurtling towards earth anyways. It might explain why the ship didn't completely blow up though."
"How so?" Diana asked, glossing over the 'completely blow up' bit even as Clarks spine chilled at the words.
"Well if they managed to isolate certain systems, it would explain why the life support system hasn't completely fried and flooded the hallways with toxic gas. And why we appear to still be in a relatively stable orbit."
"Alright look," Clark finally spoke, not quite cutting the Flash off but interrupting quickly enough that no one else could interject. "John is right about one thing- we are wasting time." Clark tried to ignore Lanterns simultaneously triumphant and pissed off glare as he spoke to the rest of the group. "We now have a basic understanding of what is going on and we know how to fix it. Lantern, Diana, escort Flash down to the brain room thing and help him get the life support systems up and running. Shiara and I will head toward auxiliary control and try to find J'onn and Oz. Hopefully we can then start making sense of all this and get the station back up and running."
Clark could practically see Lanterns feathers getting ruffled at the order, and he actually could see Shiara's feathers ruffling. But he had no time or patience to sooth either their egos or his conscience right now. Flash would need the more consistent lighting of Lantern's ring in order to complete his task of getting the life support back online, and Diana would make sure the two didn't kill each other before they even got that far. The station was black, they had a finite air supply (even if it was almost two days worth), they were flying blind and quite literally standing in the dark. And dammit- this was THEIR home. One of the few places in the world they were supposed to be able to just be.
But worse than that. Worse than possible death, impending doom, risk to thousands of civilian lives if the station were to suddenly loose orbit and plummet towards the earth with them all burning alive inside of it- was the thought of Batman coming back in less than two hours time with the station still out of their control
And for that reason and nothing else, Clark was eager to get a move on. "Ok guys, lets spread out."
"You're sure this will work?" Oz asked dubiously, looking between the sealed computer lab doors and Jon's patiently outstretched hand in the heavy gloom.
"As I've said, repeatedly," Oz couldn't help but pick up on the faint note of exasperation in the Martian's tone. His lips quirked faintly, but the bundle of nerves and anxiety building in his chest made it all but impossible to smile. "There should be no complications." Oz remained unconvinced. The Martian tread carefully. "However, if it will help ease your… condition, we could always begin lightly by simply phasing through something smaller first."
Oz quirked an eyebrow in the dark, but apparently Jon could see it. The Martian nodded towards a desk chair and the computer technician, catching the hint, righted it.
"All you need do is continue to breathe normally and focus on remaining the dominant personality."
"The, uh, other guy?" Oz began cautiously, trying to ignore how badly his voice was beginning to crack. "It's a little more than a, uh, 'personality'." J'onn nodded, but Oz knew he didn't fully understand. How could he? Still, he had to be sure. "If I, uh, start to change? I need you to run."
"I do not intend to abandon you," J'onn replied simply. Oz swallowed at the words that he knew were meant to inspire comfort. So he tried a different tactical approach, relying on more logic.
"I cannot focus fully on maintaining my control if I then also have to worry about not hurting you," Oz stated, as succinctly as possible. "If I begin to change I need to know that I can shift my focus without hesitation."
"Very well," J'onn relented. And though he could hear the hesitation in the Martians voice, it brought him no small measure of comfort to know that the other man would follow through on his word. J'onn held out his hand once more and this time Oz took it, trying to focus on the warm, dry, sandy feeling of Martian skin beneath his own rather than the pounding of his own heart. As they turned towards the chair Oz couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Here he was, a veritable monster in his own right who had traveled the world and chased down horrific, vicious and evil creatures that would give most people nightmares for life… and he was absolutely terrified of a freakin' office chair.
J'onn raised an eyebrow at his small chuckle, but thankfully didn't comment as he instead chose to pull Oz along towards the chair. The closer they got the more aware Oz became of a faint tingling in the hand that J'onn was gripping. It was like an all over buzzing that, in his wilder days before his, uh, 'condition' developed, Oz would have attributed to a few too many drinks and some particularly good weed. At the time, the sensation had been pleasant. And Oz was sure that if he were actually capable of relaxing, he would have found this pleasant as well. But as it was, combined with his own uneasiness and the heightened stress from his earlier close call with the computer monitors blowing out, the sensation was anything but pleasant. He could practically feel it running through his fur, crackling and fizzing and sending every hair on end. As they got closer to the chair his breaths began to come in short gasps as every instinct in his body and every instinct of his other self told him that what he was doing was beyond the realm of physical possibility.
Up until the moment he reached the edge of the chair, everything had just been a bundle of nerves and anxiety and fight or flight instincts run amok with a vague background of unpleasant tingling. He closed his eyes, silently willing the tingling to go down or the intense need to run (and/or throw up) to go away.
But then he felt it. Eyes shut and breathing ragged, he felt the intense 'wrong-ness' of his physical being sharing space with another solid object. The world swam, melting into a hot tidal mess of scents and sensations and instincts. He felt a growl grow from low in his throat more than he heard it, and immediately clamped down – hard. A moment later, he felt the wrongness fade, and reality, along with his senses, snapped back to him. He felt like he'd been hit in the face by a cool refreshing breeze for the first time after being sequestered in a dark noisy steam room for days.
"…borne? Daniel? Can you hear me?"
"Gah," Oz choked out, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. J'onn was standing nearby, but had taken a cautious step backwards, his hand held out in a comforting gesture but thankfully not making physical contact. "..hm ukay, hi'm okay…"
His breath was still coming out in uneven gasps, but they were softer now, reducing his reassurances to a soft whisper. It took him a while, quite a bit longer than he cared to admit in fact, but he eventually managed to reign back the instincts. He felt himself sliding back into his body, the last of his senses clicking into place as the tingling and numbness in the tips of his fingers and toes finally faded away.
"Ugghhh…" Oz groaned out, he rubbed his throbbing head as he slowly stood up straight again and looked J'onn cautiously in the eyes. "I don't think this is such a good idea"
"Do you another suggestion?" J'onn asked wryly. Oz was still bent over, leaning heavily on his knees as he took long, slow breaths in, and out. But he managed to pick his head up enough to cock a sarcastic eyebrow at J'onn.
Still, he knew the Martian was right. They had no other way to escape their tiny dark prison, and no way of knowing what was going on outside in the rest of the station until they did so. The others could be hurt (or worse), they could be under attack, or the station could be hurtling towards a crash trajectory with Earth. They just had no way of knowing until they got out of there.
"Ok," Oz finally admitted reluctantly, bracing himself and taking slow, even breaths. "Let's make this quick."
