Chapter Eleven

It was the smell of coffee that finally coaxed Ted awake. Slowly prying one eye open, he automatically sought the alarm clock. 11:57 AM, it read. Of course, he had no idea what geographical area it coincided with. The East Coast? The West Coast? Mozambique? Could be any time zone . . . really no need to get up . . .

His eyes began drifting shut again. Except. There was still coffee. He could smell it.

He sat up, stifling a yawn and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Slightly more alert, he remembered--he had been traipsing around the Watchtower with an insane man who could not utter a complete sentence to save his life and the favorite son of the military-industrial complex. He felt a wave of unease when he realized he had slept in the same general vicinity as a certified madman . . . AFTER rather rudely telling him to sleep in the coat closet. Ah well . . . the Question was at least lucid enough to realize that he couldn't go anywhere in the Watchtower without the hacking skills of the Blue Beetle. Probably. He hoped.

With a sigh, he pushed the covers aside and got up, stretching. Wiggling his feet into the slippers at the side of the bed, he walked past the window . . . then paused.

Window? On the moon?

He pulled the curtains back and was confronted with blackness. Not the deep, starry blackness of space, but a half-hearted, greyish blackness. Beetle rested his fingertips on the "window" and watched miniature distortions ripple around his fingers. It was a LCD screen framed with curtains. Running his fingers over the windowframe, he found a set of well-hidden controls. He pressed the left-most button, a small green circle, and a scene slowly faded into view, an alien landscape of lavender and pale blue. Whisps of wind sent pale purple sand skittering around the craggy rock formations "outside", completing the illusion. Interesting. He wondered what planet it was supposed to be. He examined the other buttons on the miniature control panel and (after a few false tries) managed to get to a menu screen. He consecutively summoned scenes from Manhattan, Mars, Jupiter, and even a scene from Hamlet. Why anyone would want to look out their window and see a moody twenty-something staring morosely at a skull was beyond him, but if they wanted to . . . they could! Beetle returned to the menu, this time choosing "Hawaii", and an endless sunlit ocean of deep, deep blue appeared in front of him.

"If they've got one of those Star Trek-y holodecks too, this could be a regular vacation spot," Beetle mused. If Booster were around, that would certainly be his first suggestion. But of course Blue Beetle had enough common sense to avoid those sort of schemes, even though it could potentially make millions. Millions.

"Speaking of making money . . ." he said to himself. Technically, his presence was only required in the office when he felt like it--that was one of the perks of being the guy in charge--but he did try to let the staff know when he was going to be gone.

Glancing at the desk beside the bed, he spotted a neat black phone, which he picked up. The first time he dialed the number, the phone merely beeped piercingly. He tried again, this time dialing "9" first. The phone rang. He waited.

"Kordtronics, how may I help you?" the pleasant female voice asked after two rings.

"Heya Carol!"

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Kord, our fearless CEO! So you are alive." The voice took on a mischievous quality. "We were wondering if you'd fallen into a mineshaft or something--"

"What's that, Lassie? Mr. Kord's in the WELL?" a self-styled comedian shouted in the background.

"Tell Bob I heard that!"

"He says 'Free raises for everyone!'" Carol announced in a semi-muffled voice, as though she had one hand over the receiver. Several people cheered.

"Oh man, everyone's a comedian!" Ted rolled his eyes, but couldn't suppress a grin. "Listen, I may not be in the office for a few days."

"Where are you? I hear seagulls."

"I'm . . . ah . . . on the waterfront."

"And hula dancers."

"The waterfront in Hawaii," he added quickly. "I don't know how long I'll be gone. But I'll call in once in a while, okay?"

"Hey, you're the boss, boss. Needed some time to lounge around and relax, huh?"

"You have no idea," Ted replied. "Keep the rest of the crew under control, huh?" Carol agreed, said goodbye, and hung up.

"Lounging around. Relaxing. I should be so lucky," Beetle sighed as he resumed his quest for coffee.

He trekked out of the bedroom, pausing when he saw the white-haired figure at the dining room table--Captain Atom in his more . . . well, human form. His back was to Beetle as he sat in his bathrobe, leaning on his elbow and sipping from an official JLA coffee cup. Beetle's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but his voice was casual as he said, "Up already? Couldn't suppress that military training, huh?"

Captain Atom's hands jerked as he spun around, accidentally sloshing hot coffee over himself. It would probably have been quite painful, except he'd started pulling his metallic skin to the surface the moment Beetle spoke. It started in patches, with small splotches of silver appearing on his wrists and cheekbones, but within seconds the sleek metal was expanding and pooling, pouring over his face and even coating his hair.

Oddly enough, the process also made Captain Atom's bathrobe disappear. Not that he really needed it in his superhero form, but he nevertheless sat down very quickly and scraped the dining room chair as he scooted closer to the table.

"Ah . . ." He grabbed a napkin and began wiping up the splashes of coffee discoloring his metallic red hands. "Excuse me." And he made a quantum-aided dash to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Blue Beetle shook his head in disgust, then poured himself a cup of coffee. As he looked through the cupboards for the sugar, Captain Atom emerged from the bathroom. He still had his stainless steel sheen, but was now wearing the bathrobe again. Since he hadn't knotted the terrycloth belt at his waist, it was apparent that he was also wearing boxer shorts.

Beetle raised his eyebrows as he eyed the huge red kiss emblazoned on the side. "Those are government issue, are they?"

Captain Atom pulled his bathrobe closed. "They're . . . My wife gave them to me."

"Ah, your wife. Plastique. You know," Blue Beetle mused, "it really surprises me that you would marry a terrorist. Even a reformed terrorist. Or was that just so you could keep track of her for your pals in the Pentagon?"

"I . . ." Captain Atom's hands were trembling as he knotted the belt around his waist in a lopsided bow. "I love Bette. Whatever she's done wrong in the past, she's more than made up for it, and . . . and . . ."

"Didn't she try to blow up the Statue of Liberty once?" Beetle said thoughtfully.

"But she didn't, I stopped her," Atom gritted.

"Was that before or after you two got stranded together in the hot, steamy jungles of Cambodia?" asked Beetle, whose knowledge of past and present metahuman activities had increased twentyfold since befriending the information broker, Oracle.

"I . . . she . . . it's not like we . . ." The Captain's cheeks tarnished; it took Beetle a moment to remember that it meant he was blushing. "Before."

"Mm." Beetle poured himself more coffee. Truthfully, he had nothing against Plastique. Well, he'd had something against her when she'd been running around tossing explosive charges at people in the name of Quebec separatism, of course, but to be fair that had been quite a while ago. "Did you call her?"

Captain Atom stared. "What?"

"Did you call her?" Beetle repeated. After a pause: "To let her know where you are?"

"Oh. I . . . No, I left her note, though. Last night."

"Well, if you think that's sufficient . . ." He gave the Captain a sideways look, but didn't receive an answer. With a mental shrug, Beetle exited the kitchen, retrieved his costume from the bedroom, and returned to throw it into the washer he'd spotted earlier in the pantry. Thank God he'd had the foresight to make his outfit machine-washable. After measuring out the laundry soap, he wandered back to the kitchen area. Coffee was well and good, but he needed some real breakfast.

"Where's the Question?" he asked as he began rooting through the cupboards.

"The bathtub."

Beetle paused with one hand closed around a box of Pop Tarts, then poked his head around the cupboard door. "The . . . where?"

"The bathtub. In the bathroom," the Silver Savior specified.

Beetle momentarily forgot the strawberry Pop Tarts (with frosting and sprinkles.) "Weren't you just in there?"

The Captain's yellow eyes widened. "I . . . ? Oh, no. No no no. The other bathroom, the one in the monkey room."

Beetle's eyes narrowed. "The monkey room? What, are you speaking in tongues?"

"If you would just listen--" Captain Atom's voice rose, but then he cut himself off with a sigh. "The room that the Question went into last night with all those sheets and things--it used to be a second bedroom. Probably the master bedroom, because it has an attached bathroom."

"Ah, so he's in there."

"Right."

"In the tub."

"He was last night, yeah."

"Sooo . . ." Beetle paused. "Where do the monkeys come in?"

"There was this paper, and someone had written . . . You know what, it doesn't matter anyway, they're all dead. Just forget it. Forget about the damn monkeys." Captain Atom's voice was taut as he threw his coffee cup into the sink. He must have unintentionally tapped into his quantum super-strength, judging by his expression as the cup hit the side of the sink and shattered. He stared at the shards for a moment, then turned on his heel and left without another word.

Beetle raised an eyebrow as he watched him leave. "Well, well, well. Isn't someone tense?" He carefully plucked the largest jagged fragments out of the sink and tossed them in garbage, then took a spare washcloth and started sweeping the smaller ceramic splinters out of the sink. Despite his caution, his hand slipped as he was handling a particularly sharp shard. "Ow," he murmured as a drop of blood swelled on his first finger. He headed to the main bathroom and searched around until he found a box of Band-Aids. After applying one to the offending digit, he returned to the kitchen and discovered Captain Atom was back as well . . . sitting at the dining room table with another cup of coffee.

"You know, some of us stay and clean up our messes," Beetle said with a pointed look. "Although I suppose it is easier to just let someone else take responsibility."

Atom didn't say anything. Blue Beetle snorted, then went to check on his costume. The wash cycle had completed, so he transferred it to the dryer. When he re-entered the kitchen, the Captain was still staring into the depths of his coffee.

"What's the matter? Sulking because the Question won't come out and play?"

"I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing up here running around with him," Captain Atom murmured. "He can't be trusted."

"What a coincidence," Beetle replied, looking directly at Captain Atom. "I was just sitting here thinking exactly the same thing." And he smiled. But not a nice smile.

Captain Atom looked up with an expression that struggled between anger and frustration, before the emotion drained out of his face. He traced one metallic red finger along the rim of his coffee cup and finally said, "You know . . . I know we were never exactly friends, but I really thought . . . maybe we'd moved beyond this point . . ."

"Apparently one of us did." The comment came out more acidic than Beetle had intended. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to check on the faceless wonder."

He had already stalked out of the dining room and almost reached the second bedroom when Captain Atom called after him. "Blue Beetle?"

He paused on the threshold. "What?"

"Would it help if I said I was sorry?"

Beetle turned and stared at him for a full minute. "No." And he stalked away.

He didn't really have a plan as he approached the bathroom door. He looked at it for a moment, picturing himself kicking it in to the surprise of a shocked and (in his mind) horrified Question, before returning to Plan A and simply knocking. Well, more like banging, really, because thanks to Captain A-Bomb he was now in a bad mood. But it was the same idea.

"Hey, get up!" he said, just in case the Question hadn't received the message.

No reply.

"You really don't want to give me an excuse to kick down the door right now. Believe me."

Silence.

Beetle found this somewhat unnerving, and thus his next query of "Question?" was in a quieter, more hesitant tone.

"Okay, it's your funeral." But his bravado, like his anger, had faded by the time he jiggled the doorknob. He just wanted to get a feel for how sturdy the door was. He didn't expect it to actually open.

Back in the dining room, Captain Atom was still staring into his coffee as though he expected to find the answer he was looking for in the swirls of dark liquid. He had wondered, when he received the Beetle's late night phone call, whether Blue Beetle had decided to let sleeping dogs lie for once. But no; apparently the blue-clad superhero was more a fan of poking, shaking, and yelling "HEY!" at sleeping dogs until they woke up. And then enthusiastically pulling out a can of mace.

The worst part, Nate thought, was that Beetle himself had seemed to halfway forget his animosity once in a while as they had wound their way through the Watchtower. Some people were born adventurers and some had the role thrust upon them; Beetle was clearly one of the former, and although Nate had no doubt that he really did want to keep an eye on the Question, he had a notion that Beetle was having the time of his life hacking through the JLA's firewalls. All in all, it made for a warped sense of almost-normalcy. As normal as life could be when you were trying not to get fried by lasers on the moon, anyway.

Captain Atom had just settled in for a session of intense, self-recriminating brooding when Blue Beetle returned looking shaken. He entered the pantry, moving with uncharacteristic hesitation, and a minute later was shaking out his costume and pulling a statically-charged dryer sheet off his cowl. "We have a problem."

"Yeah, no kidding," Nate said as a brief flash of anger washed over him. Beetle was the one who wouldn't accept an apology, after all.

"No, a real problem," Blue Beetle clarified. "The Question's gone."