IX
The War Room

By two o'clock, Wayne sat at the head of his Communications "war room" in front of his top executives. To set the mood, he waited for absolute silence before he began.

"Ladies and gentlemen, today we must expand our scope of operations. At WayneNet, we have developed the most advanced network surveillance in the country, which we lease to our government. Today we must tap this capability to solve a mystery of titanic proportion.

As you know, the U.S. government employs a secret weapon code-named Big Blue. Over the past years, the Wayne spy satellites, also leased to the government, have given us a glimpse of this unbelievable weapon.

It is a man... But not just any man. He can only be described as a… super man. This man flies through the air faster than a jet, seems to be indestructible, can tear tanks apart with his bare hands and shoots heat beams from his eyes. He looks like you and I, but he is not like us.

Through the research of Vice President Gordon, we believe we have traced the origins of Big Blue to a meteorite landing in Kansas in 1988. A farming couple discovered a small boy near the crash site and took him in. The local police also investigated and later brought in the military. Certain groups believe this was an alien space ship that crash-landed, and not a meteorite. I am now one of those people.

In 1990, the military took this child from the farming couple who had found him and declared him as a ward of the state. We now believe this child was to become known as Big Blue. We believe that while he looks like us, Big Blue is not of this world. He is an incredibly powerful alien raised by the U.S. Government.

I'm not here to pass judgment. Big Blue has seemingly provided a number of services for the government that have secured the safety of our great nation. While the terrorist attacks of 2001 had a profound impact on myself, it also had an impact on American foreign policy, specifically in the use of Big Blue. He has become the greatest peace-keeper in the history of the world. I am happy to report that Big Blue is on our side.

However, I have recently learned that this ultimate weapon of peace has gone missing. If this information were to become public knowledge, mass panic could ensue and our enemies would seize their moment. I have learned that it appears Big Blue disappeared in Connecticut four days ago. We believe this was a non-government action.

I need a report of any information about something called 'The Connecticut Incident' in the next three hours. I want to know what happened to Big Blue by tonight. Information gathered will be extremely classified, so take no chances in your searches. Black hole routing protocol applies. I'm sure we're not the only ones looking."

After the meeting, Bruce resisted his impulse to withhold Barbara for a few minutes to discuss details. Caution was the watchword of the day… He knew that Barbara would be performing the bulk of the black ops intelligence work, but he couldn't be perceived as showing favoritism. After tidying up a few work details and ensuring that his statement of last night had made its way to Commissioner Gordon, Bruce Wayne alerted Alfred that he was ready to go.

Author's Notes:

Big Blue is - of course - the character we know as Superman. In my story, he was raised by the U.S. Government, not by Jonathan and Martha Kent. He never moved to Metropolis, never became a super hero, or even worked as a reporter. But where did he go? And what happened in Connecticut?

Contest #2: For 50 more FanFic points. Who made Big Blue disappear?