This is by far the longest chapter of the story so far. It didn't get us quite where I wanted to be, but after 25 pages I decided to cut it and leave it where we're at now. Hope you all enjoy.
Despite what some reporters might say, having Superman help her stand up was not a happy experience for Artemis. Generally it meant something had gone catastrophically wrong, she and the team almost died, and there were going to be long reaching consequences because Superman was only called in when the shit really hit the fan. Superman smiled down at her and gave a very audible sigh of relief as he reached down to grab one hand and help Artemis upright. Her head swam, a sharp pain throbbing behind her ear and left shoulder.
"Are you alright? Nothing looks broken, but you got hit hard," Superman said. Conner loomed behind him, shifting from foot to foot and fiddling with his fingers. It was a nervous tic he'd picked up sometime around high school and never gotten rid of, one that only surfaced when something really bothered him.
"Where's Bart?"
"We don't know yet. Flash is speaking with Batman now to try and figure that out," Conner said. He looked pale, shaken.
"What happened? Bart was fine one second and then the next he freaked out. How did he get always from us?" Because it was us, Artemis reminded herself. She and Conner were the ones that were supposed to be watching Bart, so she and Conner were the ones that screwed up. In the beginning, when Artemis first joined the team, her initial instinct was always to find blame with someone else, anyone else, because blame meant guilt and guilt met punishment. It didn't take long for Kaldur to notice the habit and train it out of her. Teams succeeded or failed as a unit, not as a collection of individuals that just happened to be in the same area at once.
Conner looked down at his hands in silence. He spread his fingers wide and shuttered. "He vibrated through my arms," Conner said quietly. "Bart could have killed someone doing that. It would have killed you, if you'd been the one holding him."
Artemis closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Bart was fine, and then he wasn't. Bart was scared and desperate for some reason and he did something dangerous. Luck was the only reason no one was hurt, luck and very strong Kryptonian bones. Bart would never do something like this of his own volition.
"M'gann and J'onn missed something in Bart's head. Someone made him do this. Godfrey. Godfrey made him run," Artemis said. She pushed herself fully upright with the help of Superman's steady shoulder and ignored the pulsing beat of pain in her skull.
"We need to call Aqualad and the others, let them know what happened."
"We tried. They aren't responding to our calls," Superman said.
Calm. Stay calm. Artemis could do this. This was fine, everything was fine. There were any number of reasons why the team wouldn't answer. They could be too close to the enemy to respond. They could have their radios jammed. They could be sitting around eating bon-bons and not hear the signaling. Not answering didn't mean they were hurt.
"Alright. Superboy, you and I need to find them and then go after Bart." Artemis moved to the door with purpose. Her hands weren't shaking, and if they were it wasn't from fear or anything stupid like that. She wasn't afraid. If she could disappear down the rabbit hole for almost a year playing Tigress she could handle hunting down a thirteen year old kid and her team mates. Everyone was going to be fine because she was going to make sure they were fine and god help anyone who tried to change that. Godfrey better hope Jaime was wrong about him having anything to do with Bart's attack, better hope he hadn't done anything to her team, better hope Artemis remembered she wasn't really Tigress when she found him if Godfrey had hurt them.
A hand fell on her shoulder, heavy and unyielding. Conner hadn't used his strength to get her attention in a long time, before she and Wally retired, and it had startled Artemis then as much as it did now. Conner, for all his anger issues when he was younger, was incredibly careful about his strength.
"Calm down. I can hear your heart beating from here and its going nuts. M'gann and the others can take care of themselves and we'll find Bart."
Artemis twisted, mouth open and ready to say…something, probably something mean because when she got scared she plaid dirty, but the look on Conner's face stopped the tirade before it even began. Conner didn't age, not the way that she did, but every once in a while Artemis would look at him and see so much maturity, so much change from the hostile, nameless boy she used to tease and flirt with that something actually clenched inside her chest. She glanced at Superman and wondered if he saw the maturity too, wondered if he felt any regret for waiting as long as he had to love Conner like the family they were.
"Yeah. Yeah, we'll find them. But we go now, we're not waiting around, ok?" she said.
Conner nodded, cocked his head to the side and squinted. "You should put on a new uniform. The Kevlar in that one's weakened."
"I don't have another one. It doesn't matter."
"Conner's right, I can see fractures all along the suit. It's not safe," Superman said. He stud like a large, imploring Boy Scout and his pestering would have annoyed Artemis if it had come from anyone else, but from Superman it was par for the course. He worried about everyone. He and Conner both.
All she had left was the old uniform. The one that hadn't been washed since the Arctic, the one that she never wanted to put on again, not if Wally wasn't there to watch her back. It was a stupid design anyway, didn't protect her gut, not like the Tigress suit did. But Conner looked determined, and Superman looked like Superman always did when he thought he was right, and standing here waffling over whether or not to put on a piece of clothing was a waste of time they didn't have to spare.
Artemis gave a frustrated snarl, threw her hands up into the air and snapped, "Fine! Fine. I'll meet you at the zata tubes in five," and stomped away. Conner lifted his hands in an offering of peace and let her go.
The locker rooms where close to the med wing, which was the only reason Artemis was willing to take the time to change like this. That was all. They needed to move. Time was the most important factor in situations like this, the longer they waited around the colder the trail was going to get and Artemis was sick and tired of feeling the cold. It was harder to pull the suit off then she wanted to admit. There were bruises all along her arms and chest, some minor swelling near her left hip, but all in all it could have been a lot worse if not for the suit, Dick, and M'gann. She pulled the green over her head, pulled the pants up her legs, slipped her feet into the comfortable, practical shoes, and didn't want to admit to how much it felt like coming home.
Conner and Superman both were beside the zata tubes when Artemis arrived, but that wasn't so surprising. The tubes were in the main room of the Tower, and everyone still present was clustered around the computer screens. Ollie and Dinah weren't back yet, but Superman was, and that struck Artemis as odd. Barry was standing in front of the computer, deep in discussion with Batman and J'onn. They stopped speaking as Artemis drew closer, and that just made Olive and Dinah's absence even more suspicious.
Barry caught her eye and he looked pained. In the space between one blink and the next he was beside Artemis. "Are you alright? I heard about what happened. We're going to find Bart."
"Yeah, we are. I'm fine. Where are Green Arrow and Black Canary?" It came out a little more brisk then Artemis would have liked, but Barry didn't seem to notice the tone.
"Still in the Arctic. They sent Superman back because he was the fastest and radio signals weren't working that far north," Barry said. His eyes flitted along the bruises on her arms and side, but he said nothing. It was one thing Artemis always really appreciated about Barry; he cared, but he didn't push. He waited, made sure people knew he was there for them if he was needed, and then just acted…nice.
"Why did Superman need to get back here so fast?" Conner asked.
Batman and J'onn exchanged a look before nodding at Superman, who said, "There were more of the creatures in the Arctic. Just the one, but we saw something troubling. It looked like a portal was trying to open up, for just a second, and one of the creatures dug itself up out of the snow and jumped into the portal. It closed up after him, but the fact that it was there at all is concerning."
"Another one?" Conner asked at the same time Artemis gasped, "A portal?"
"I know what you're thinking, and we're going to look into it. Right now. We're going to look into it right now, but someone has to go find Bart," Barry said. His voice was quiet, consoling, totally at odds with how Artemis felt.
There was another portal opening in the Arctic, in the exact same place Wally disappeared. It couldn't be a coincidence, nothing in life was ever a coincidence. It could have been him, he could have been trying to get back. Or, it could have been a link to where ever these monster things were coming from and maybe Wally got sucked into their dimension, or world, or quantum-time-space-pocket-of-mumbo-jumbo, she didn't care, it was closer than they'd been to finding him in weeks. But if she went to investigate, who was going to go find Bart? Who was going to find the others? The creatures were strong and they were dangerous, Superman was going to go back north. J'onn should come with them to find Bart, but Barry should go north in case they needed his scientific expertise to help get Wally back. Because they were getting Wally back, they were.
Artemis clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Don't freak out. Don't let your emotions get away from you, focus. Just focus. Her eyes opened to Batman frowning at her across the room.
"The team has been out of contact for the last thirty minutes. Let the League handle whatever these things in the Arctic are, you and Superboy are to find the rest of the squad and go after Bart. Understood?"
"Understood."
Conner tried to catch her eye as Artemis stepped up to the zata platform, but Artemis ignored him. Just for the moment, just this once. She wasn't mad at Conner, or at Batman, she wasn't mad at all, not really. Artemis couldn't have explained how she felt if her life depended on it at that moment, all she knew was that the first real, tangible evidence she wasn't insane for thinking Wally might still be alive was out there, and there was nothing she could do about it right now.
The back ally she zataed into was nice, cleaner than Gotham, but Keystone City was always cheerful that way. Conner zataed in hot on her heels, and Artemis waited only long enough for him to get his bearings before striding out of the ally way. She knew where G. Gordon Godfrey lived, had looked it up as soon as the others left on their recon mission, and if they were going to get to the location fast enough they didn't have time to sit and chat. Two blocks up and three over. Not that far in reality, but it felt like a lifetime to cover right now.
"If you hold on tight, I can get us there faster." Conner gestured with a thumb to his back and Artemis rolled her eyes. Piggy-back rides were not her idea of adequate transportation, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
She moved around behind Conner, secured her bow to its strap on her waist and double checked the integrity of the binding holding her quiver on, took half a second to be glad she'd brought the short sword Tigress carried, and then jumped up. Her arms locked around Conner's neck and his strong hands came up to secure her legs.
"Hold on tight," he warned, and then they were running.
It was nothing like running with Wally, because running with Wally had a weightless, breathless quality to it that nothing else ever came close to. Conner didn't have the grace or the smoothness that Wally and his cousin and uncle had when they ran, but he had more power behind each thrust of his legs. Wally was by no means devoid of strength, but Conner was like a wrecking ball barely contained.
"He'd have wanted you to help the others and find Bart, you know," Conner said after a moment of silent running.
Artemis ducked her head against the wind and said nothing.
Godfrey lived in a pleasant little slice of suburbia not quite outside the city but far enough out to allow him to have a back yard. It looked liked like a nice, safe area where nothing dire happened and people trying to kill thirteen year olds via mind control wouldn't live. The front door was wide open, but there was no car in the driveway and no sign of anyone at home. Conner let Artemis slide off his back just inside the foyer, well out of sight of anyone on the street. The last thing the team needed now was more bad press spurred on by a liar like Godfrey.
There was movement in the side of the house, down a long hallway. Artemis caught Conner's eye and nodded, allowing him to go first. The wood floors were soft and expensive, the kind that swallowed up sound when walked across, but Artemis stuck close to the walls anyway so as to minimize the likelihood of a squeaking board. Conner paused outside the first room along the hallway, one with an ugly picture of an erupting volcano hanging next to it, and squinted his eyes.
"It's them," he said with no further preamble before shoving the door open and bounding forward.
Artemis followed, itching to draw an arrow. She wanted something out and at the ready to stab people with too many G's in their name if the occasion should arise. Instead she slipped through the door and winced. There had been a fight in this room. The book case on the right was cracked in half, books and knickknack on the floor. On the left wall was a person sized dent in the wood paneling. Kaldur was on his feet near the demolished book case, and Artemis could see the beginnings of a bruise on his chin from where she stood. Jaime was in full Blue Beatle suit, sitting on the ground next to M'gann. Artemis wouldn't have thought it possible for green skin to look pail and pasty, but M'gann's certainly did. Dick's sunglasses were smashed on the floor, his civvies half torn to reveal his suit underneath and he didn't seem to care. Instead he knelt, helping M'gann stay upright and looked up only when he heard Conner come barreling into the room.
"We were right about Godfrey. Definitely in on something big," Dick said, and he sounded grim.
"Did you see Bart?"
Jaime nodded to his knees. Bad sign, definitely a bad sign. Deep breaths.
"What happened?" Conner knelt beside M'gann. She smiled at him, but the expression was weak.
"I do not know if Godfrey was expecting us, but he came prepared for a confrontation. He attempted to plant suggestions into our minds in order to make us believe we were in enough pain to die. I fear that he might have succeeded in causing serious damage had M'gann not protected our minds," Kaldur said, quick, efficient, and kind above all.
He and Artemis exchanged a glance. Both were aware of how deeply disturbed by her actions M'gann was, how truly she regretted harming Kaldur the way that she had, and both were very aware of the fact that Kaldur's praise was strategic. There was no doubt that he was right, and M'gann did help safeguard their minds—Kaldur did not heap false praise on anyone, honesty was a big deal to him when not undercover—but the wording was intentional.
"Bart showed up and grabbed this weird remote control looking thing for Godfrey and then they both disappeared," Jaime muttered.
Don't panic. Don't panic. Bart was going to be alright. He'd only been gone forty minutes so far, they would find him. How far cold they get in an hour?
Far, if Bart was running.
"Breath," Dick instructed. Sometimes Artemis forgot how blue his eyes were.
"What did the remote control thing look like? Did Bart run them both out of here or did the remote do something?" Artemis could be clinical about this. It was nothing like the Arctic. She hadn't turned around to find Bart vanished the way she had with Wally, this wasn't voluntary. She was going to get Bart back in one piece and no one else was going to die or vanish or cease or whatever the hell someone wanted to call disappearing from her life. It wasn't going to happen.
M'gann straightened up more fully. It looked like she might be sick for a moment before M'gann closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again with resolve lingering in the corners of her thinly pressed lips. "I can show you, both of you, if you'll let me."
Always, Artemis thought as loud as she could. Conner nodded. M'gann smiled. It was small, heartfelt, and strong. She raised her hands and brushed her fingers against Artemis and Conner's foreheads. Instantly the room vanished. Artemis found herself looking down at a rectangular machine that kind of reminded her of Sphere in a weird way. It had something to do with how the light reflected off of the red metal. There were bright yellow lines like a computer chip running across the face of the machine and it was thick looking, but aside from that the image meant nothing to Artemis.
"I've seen that before!" Conner gasped.
The room flickered back into existence. M'gann blinked, watching Conner in slight surprise. Kaldur moved closer to kneel down beside Dick, his bruised jaw tight with the same shows of stress his used to have on the sub with Manta. Same show, different trigger. Jaime lunged forward, his face a scant breath away from Conner's in his excitement.
"You know what that is?" he practically crowed. It must be nice to be that optimistic.
Conner shook his head. "No, I have no idea what it is. But I've seen one of those before, when the Forever People were here. The guy we were fighting had one of those, and it got smashed during the scuffle."
"That doesn't really help us much," Jaime said, deflating almost as quickly as he'd grown excited. He scrunched his shoulders, looked at something that definitely wasn't there over his shoulder and snapped, "They are too helping. Calm down, hermano."
Dick frowned. "I saw Asami, that girl who helped break you out of the Reach prison, with one as well. Or, at the very least, with something that looked similar. If we can figure out where she got it from maybe we can figure out how to track down Bart."
Jaime perked up again. The suit peeled away from his face so that the look of guilt he wore was on full display. Artemis narrowed her eyes. He noticed the look and shifted awkwardly. "I…um…I know where she got the machine from."
"How do you know?" Kaldur asked. It would never cease to amaze Artemis how level his voice could sound when he wanted it to. That was what made Kaldur so good when they were undercover. With such a calm, unflappable demeanor it was hard to imagine him having a duplicitous bone in his body.
"Tye told me. He called after things settled down with the Reach. He told me that he and the others weren't going to work with us, but they weren't going to work with their 'benefactor' either because they found out it was Lex Luthor and he was 'terrible'."
"'Terrible?'" M'gann repeated, nonplussed.
Jaime nodded, "Terrible." And then, "That was not a loss of a tactical advantage! They needed to know!"
"Why didn't you tell us about Luthor's involvement as soon as you knew about it?" Conner growled.
Jaime's shoulders scrunched, eyes flickering to Conner's face and then down to the ground again. "I didn't want to get Tye and them in trouble. They didn't know it was Luthor helping them at first, and then when they did they stopped working with him."
"He's dangerous! He could have—"
"It doesn't matter now," Kaldur said sharply, cutting Conner's retort off before it could get too angry. "Now we go to Luthor and see if he can help us find our friend."
They waited long enough for Dick to change from his civvies into the Nightwing suit and that was it. No one questioned the fact that he wore the suit underneath his clothing anymore. Artemis caught Jaime eyeing Dick as he put his mask on and made a mental note to check with him after this was all over about how often he watched celebrity news shows. Richard Grayson wasn't normally one to generate tabloid information, but Bruce Wayne was and nothing pleased the news more than bringing up the adoptive children Bruce Wayne had whenever he did something noteworthy. If Jaime recognized Dick he was going to put two and two together eventually and he needed to be reminded about discretion. Preferably from her and not Batman.
It took longer than Artemis would have liked to get them all back to the zata platform, and more time then she would have liked from them all to arrive in Metropolis. Dick had his holographic computer out and he typed furiously at it, ignoring everyone else in his efforts. Less than five minutes after the furious typing began, Dick clicked his tongue and grinned the satisfied, blinding smirk he used to when he was younger and hacked motions sensors for fun.
"I have Lex Luthor's schedule. Looks like he's taking an afternoon coffee break in his office right about now," he said smugly.
Artemis and Conner snorted skeptically, glanced at each other, and shared a smile. Luthor having a coffee break from evil and manipulation was as likely as Superman having a break from kryptonite allergies.
They entered the Luthor Corp building from the roof. Security was minimal to non-existent there, which was odd but not entirely unheard of. M'gann set up a link between them all so that their radios wouldn't trigger any alarms, and because something was still jamming half their signals. There was no one in the stairwell leading down from the roof, and only one security camera at each floor landing that Dick fed a continuous loop of empty stairwell to. No one stopped them from creeping onto the executive floor, and the secretary at the front desk walked away from her post to deliver mail before anyone had to figure out how to sneak past her. Nothing stood between them and the crisp, clean frosted glass doors of Lex Luthor's office.
That was way too easy, right? We shouldn't have been able to sneak in here so fast, Jaime thought.
Easy means he's expecting us, which means this is either a trap or a negotiation, Artemis replied. She pushed open the emergency escape door leading out of the stairwell and marched across the room to Lex Luthor's office, Conner at her side. Jaime slipped out after, M'gann and Dick following close behind and Kaldur guarding their rear. The glass doors were unlocked and Artemis told herself that she wasn't going to do anything rash. Lex Luthor was an opportunistic slime ball, but he wasn't the one that got Wally hurt. The Reach did that, and the Reach paid for it. As long as Lex wasn't directly responsible for any harm coming to Bart, Artemis could control herself. If he was, she made no promises about his physical well-being.
The office was Spartan and aggressively modern, decorated in clean lines of chrome and glass. Large windows took up most of the wall, with book cases full of thick volumes and gray flower vases covering what the windows did not. A minimalist desk sat in front of the wide windows. A women stud and a man sat behind the desk, facing the door.
Lex Luthor spread his arms wide and smiled at the team as they entered. Mercy Graves raised her arm, ready to deploy her modifications to defend if need be, but so far her hand continued looking like a hand and not like a mini bazooka.
"Good afternoon, welcome," Lex said as he pushed away from his desk.
He looks too happy, Conner thought. There was a sour tinge to his mental voice.
Definitely. I'm guessing trap, stay whelmed and ready to act, Dick advised.
Luthor stepped out from behind his desk, Mercy his constant shadow. Now that he was away from the desk Artemis could see three sleek drawers just waiting to be investigated. She thought as much along the mental link, and Kaldur sent along his affirmation. Interrogate Luthor about the machine and its possible ties to the Forever People, see what he knew about Godfrey, and make sure he wasn't hiding anything from them. Easy as pie.
"Conner, so nice to see you. I've missed our little talks." Luthor's voice was like an oil spill. It sprung from his mouth and leaked out all over the room until it made the listener want to choke.
"What do you know about G. Gordon Godfrey," demanded Connor, ignoring the obvious bate.
Artemis circled wide to the right, Dick to the left. His goal was the computer, hers the three little draws and any clues either could scrounge up. Mercy tracked their movements with her eyes, never turning her head away from Lex or lowering her arm from its fixed location on Kaldur. Tactically, it made sense to take out the leader and she and Luthor had to know that Kaldur was the one that called the big plays now that he was back, but Conner was between Kaldur and any built Mercy might try to fire. Which meant she'd never hit her target. She and Luthor had to know that too, they weren't stupid.
The top draw was locked. So was the second.
"Oh, no. Please, don't search my desk. It can obviously hide so much from you all considering it's mostly made of clear glass," Luthor said drolly. He hadn't turned away from Conner yet, which made Artemis want to shoot him full of arrows.
She glanced at Dick, busy connecting a line from his glove into one of the USB ports on the computer. Something gave a soft chime when the cord was connected, and at the sound Luthor turned away from Conner to frown at Dick.
"There's no need to go through my files to find what you're looking for. I didn't exactly hide it."
"So you know what we are looking for then, do you, Mr. Luthor?"Kaldur asked softly.
Lex spent a moment more glaring at Dick, who grinned and continued doing whatever the hell it was he did with computers, before turning back to Kaldur. Luthor looked slightly ruffled.
"Of course I do. I expected you days ago, but you children took far longer to put two and two together then I expected."
Artemis pulled open the third draw and felt her stomach swoop down to her knees before jumping up to crowd her lungs. There was the machine, or another version of the machine, from Godfrey's office sitting snug and sound in the bottom draw of Lex Luthor's desk.
He has one too, Artemis thought. She pulled the machine out of the draw and held it up just to be sure. M'gann's lips pressed tightly together in anger.
That's definitely the same kind of machine that Godfrey had. They must be working together in some way.
Conner reached forward, grabbed the lapels of Lex Luthor's blazer and pulled him up off of his feet to snarl, "If you get Impulse hurt for another one of your stupid tricks—"
Mercy lunged forward as well. She dug the muzzle of her transformed arm up under Conner's chin and hissed, "Let go."
Jaime's plasma cannon pressed against her ribs. "I suggest you step away."
Well, that went well, Dick muttered.
"Everyone, just calm down. We do not wish to harm anyone here. On the contrary, we are trying to help a friend. Tell us what we need to know in order to do so and we will leave," Kaldur said. He held his hands up so that everyone could see his empty grip.
Conner, put him down. M'gann placed a tentative hand on Conner's shoulder. For a long moment it looked like the standoff would continue, and then Conner released his grip. Luthor fell lightly back to his feet and straightened out his jacket. Mercy waited just long enough to be sure no one else was going to take a shot at Lex before stepping back from Conner and away from Jaime's weapon.
"Now, if we're all ready to speak like adults here. I can explain to you why I have that little bit of curio and you can all get on your way," Luthor said.
"Why do you have this?" Artemis moved away from the desk, closer to the group clustered around Luthor and Mercy. She made sure to keep well out of arm's reach of either, but if they needed to beat a fast retreat they were closest to the door. Dick circled around the desk to stand beside her.
"We were all given one, all of us met to help Godfrey 'usher in a new era.'" Luthor's voice dripped with sarcasm. He shot the device in Artemis' hands a withering look.
"What do you mean, 'all of us'? Who's that?" Jaime demanded.
Luthor considered him for a moment and then shrugged. "Who doesn't matter, so much as why. This new era Godfrey spoke of was going to be ruled from on high by his master, and those of us who helped them would be reworded for our efforts."
"How does this have anything to do with the teammate of ours Godfrey kidnapped?" M'gann asked. She still hadn't taken her hand off of Conner's arm.
Luthor shrugged. "Honestly? I have no idea. All I know is that Godfrey can be very persuasive when he wants to be and if he wanted your friend you're not getting the kid back."
"Yes, we are," Artemis said. The intensity of her response brought the room to silence. She'd sounded more than angry, she'd sounded dangerous.
"That device there opens a Boom Tube. Simply tell it where you want to go and it'll take you there, but really, I already know where you heroes want to go."
"And where is that?" Conner snapped.
"You want to go to Apokolips and stop Darkseid before he finds a way to bring his world here, onto ours. That's Godfrey's end goal. If he took your friend, Apokolips is where you'll find them."
"What evidence do we have to know that you are telling the truth?"
Lex Luthor turned, locked eyes with Kaldur and said very slowly, very firmly, "G. Gordon Godfrey and I have very different ideas about what is good for this planet. I am no one's servant."
"So you're just going to let us take this out of the goodness of your heart?" Artemis demanded, waving the machine back and forth in front of Luthor' face.
Luthor frowned. "It's called a Father Box, and I'm not giving it to you out of the goodness of my heart. I'm giving it to you because Godfrey tricked me into helping him in the first place and because I find that, without proper guidance, you people tend to miss the truly important object lessons."
"What's going to happen when the Light find out you simply gave us the device?" Kaldur asked.
"They won't. A better question is, how will you children defend yourselves from Godfrey's influence?"
"Let's go," Kaldur said instead of answering. He watched Lex Luthor, and Lex Luthor watched him as one by one the members of the team filed back out of the room. Artemis lingered at the door, watching Mercy closely just in case she tried anything while Kaldur tried to leave. She did nothing.
Luthor waved. "Good luck."
They regrouped on the roof and met as little resistance leaving the building as they had getting into it.
"He didn't actually tell us how to use the Box, did he?" Jaime asked.
"No, not really." Artemis studied the machine in her hands, eyes narrowed. Tell it where to take you, and it'll do the rest. That sounded more like magic then science if she was going to be totally honest. Wally liked to say all magic could be broken down and explained scientifically, with only a few notable acceptations.
"If we use this device, we must do so with the assumption that Luthor is setting us up for a trap," Kaldur said. He crossed his arms over his chest and considered their options. M'gann's link kept their minds open to one another, but only sent information specifically broadcast. Artemis got flashes of what Kaldur was thinking, pictographic images of abstract ideas, but without his words to go with the images the jumble was largely meaningless.
M'gann rung her hands. "We should call the League, shouldn't we?"
"Definitely, but time is a factor here. The longer we wait the longer the enemy has Impulse," Dick said. He moved closer to Artemis, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder. She sent him a tight lipped smile.
"I say we try to radio them once more and then we see where this thing can take us." Conner nodded to the device in question and then punched one fist into the other.
"The radio is still jammed. I tried as soon as we got up here to reach the Tower." Kaldur didn't look happy about that fact.
Artemis couldn't blame him, she really couldn't, but this was a moment. She could feel it building underneath her skin. Something big was about to happen, adrenaline already tingling up and down her arms. She was going to get Bart back, and if this thing worked the way Lex Luthor said it did, she just might get Wally back as well.
We go for it, Artemis thought. It grounded her, strengthened her, to feel the link of her friends' minds inside her own. They were about to do something incredibly dangerous, but what else was new?
We go for it, echoed in her head and it didn't matter whose voice she heard say the words because everyone radiated their agreement.
M'gann, will you be able to shield our minds if we encounter Godfrey again? Without injuring yourself? Kaldur asked.
For the first time since they set out this morning—it felt like days already—M'gann grinned. It lacked all of the uncertainty and possessed all of the strength Artemis had ever admired about M'gann. Oh, now that I know his trick, I'll be ready for him. Don't you worry about that.
Then we go for it.
"Take us to Bart Allen," Artemis commanded.
Nothing happened.
Conner looked above them, behind them, to the side, but they were still very definitely on the roof of Lex Luthor's office building.
"Well, that was a load of c—" he began, and then abruptly stopped as a massive, swirling circle of golden light opened beneath their feet. Artemis felt her stomach drop and screamed before she could help herself. The light swallowed her whole, swallowed them all whole, and Artemis could hear the others' panic in her mind but she couldn't see them anymore. All she could see was bright, searing light. She tried to close her eyes, but it made no difference, the shine came through either way. The pins and needles were all consuming now, filling ever last inch of her, there was no up, no down, just endless, fathomless light—
And then there was red and rock and Artemis fell on someone hard enough to set her teeth on edge. That was going to be another bruise for sure. She allowed the momentum of her fall to roll her off of the figure she landed on—a guy in a black leather jacket, pants with too many pockets and holsters, and a red helmet that covered his entire face—and back to her feet.
They were on the base of a walk way that led to the top of a steep cliff face. A group of people that did not include her own team were trying to get to their feet now, untangling themselves from the mess of five bodies falling on them, and Batman was part of that group. He was already upright, looking towards the end of the path. Figures clustered around a stone pillar, someone massive looking and Godfrey as well as a half dozen more of those dog things. She couldn't tell what was going on by the pillar, the big guy up there was blocking her view.
"Artemis?"
She froze.
Artemis had heard that voice in her dreams for weeks, called his cell phone just to listen to his recorded message when the thought of never seeing him again got to be too much, would recognize it until the day she died. Her heart was beating too fast, too hard, because it was all she could hear in her ears anymore and the pins and needles in her body weren't gone yet but she could still feel her hands shaking. Slowly, so slowly—she wasn't as fast as he was, had never been as fast as he was—Artemis turned.
Wally looked at her the way a drowning man looked at land, the way a starving man looked at sustenance, exactly the same way he'd been looking at her for the last five years.
"Wally," Artemis said like the name was a psalm.
A scream, shattered, terrified, and in agony, echoed down to them and Artemis whipped around to stare up at the pillar. The view was unobstructed, and only now did she realize someone was strapped to that stone.
"BART!"
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