Day 75 of 100
Volume 1, Chapter 38
BREACH EARTH, SILENT QUARTER
(ARGUS designation)
ARGUS OUTPOST
When agents would be brought under consideration for Silent, they would not immediately be accepted into the post. They would go in, under a revisionary status, for six months before it was decided whether or not to make the posting official. Some agents didn't make it to the end of that six months… some didn't even last a week, and that was really what made this step essential.
To live in a place like Silent, when you had spent your entire life well aware of what sound was, well aware of one's own voice, it could be difficult to adjust to a transition into a world where it would be taken away. In all the history of the outpost in Silent, it had been known for there to be a predominance of deaf agents, who would not only bypass the shock of the silent world but also be able to be fast tracked past the six-month revision.
The outpost had been forced into lockdown. That had been part of the demands handed down to them by their captors, whoever they were. If they became aware of any activity out of the Silent contingent of ARGUS, a grenade would be cracked.
The outpost director had ordered all her agents to remain as they were for the time being. Help was on the way, they knew that much, and while it was in all of them here to want to be the ones to handle the situation, they really didn't know what they were facing, and until they did they just needed to stay right where they were.
They knew help was coming, because part of it was already arriving. They didn't have nearly as many agents as Main Earth would have had. So they'd been sent backup. Several people had been coming through their crossing, each of them with more than a working knowledge of SQSL and ready to help protect the city where they would be needed.
But these people were, for the time being, as grounded as the outpost agents already were. They were, all of them, essentially here as backup to a team that was to be sent in from the Waverider. They would know what they were dealing with, and they would call the shots. This wasn't something that pleased all of the agents, who would have rather taken care of things themselves, in this city they had really adopted as their own, but they begrudgingly went along with the command because they knew… the stakes were too high to mess around without knowing what they were headed into.
So they stayed, and they watched, and they waited…
X
BREACH EARTH, WAR QUARTER
STEIN LABS
As Catherine Grant went about developing this idea of hers, she told the others to continue to figure out their course of action. All she told them for the time being was that they should go on with the assumption that they would be able to know exactly where the soldiers were and which type they would be dealing with. So, under that rule, Ralph looked to the twenty-some people gathered around him. They had to play to their strengths, knowing what they were going to be up against. One project at a time…
"Right," he breathed, turning to Rip and Gideon, "You'll be seeing to the Horus subjects I assume?"
"Make that a certainty," Gideon told him, not even looking toward him. Her mind was somewhere back at the base, in the projects wing, before they'd escaped… Rip, standing behind her, had his hands on her shoulders as he nodded to Ralph.
"Firestorm, you would be best equipped to deal with Svarog. Their being aligned to the enemy leaves us at something of a disadvantage…"
"We've got this," Barry promised, looking to Eobard, who gave much the same sentiment with a nod. He tried not to think about his mother, back on Main. She knew… How did he not realize that she would see through him? Maybe he just didn't want to admit it to himself.
"I can go after Mercury's speedsters," Roy spoke with confidence. "But Rory and I talked, and he is going to help here in War. I'll need backup in Silent."
"I can't match you for speed, but I might have a way to compensate for it," Mike raised his hand. "Does that suit of yours have any pockets?" He looked so confident about his plan, Roy simply gave a nod. He would take him on as his partner.
"Excellent, what's next?" Ralph looked around, as two by two the teams for Silent were coming together and stepping to one side of the room.
"I have some idea of how I might be able to go after these Neptune soldiers," Kara spoke up. "But I'd need a mask, one that would allow me to breathe underwater but still use my cry." Slowly they looked back to Catherine, presently hunched over her current project. Finally sensing eyes on her, she looked up, staring back at them for a moment before sighing.
"Sure, just add it to my list…"
"If she's going after those, then I'm going with her," Alexandra added, as though there'd ever been any doubt where she would go.
"Then that leaves Titan…" Ralph counted off. This would be a tough one, knowing what those soldiers were made to be. They couldn't spread themselves too thin, but some people were just needed in some places more than others. Finally, expelling a breath that sounded like it had been on the verge of being released for far too long, Winn answered the call.
"I'll go. I had to get out there sooner or later." All this time he had taken it upon himself to look after things back on the ship, because someone had to. But they had Catherine now, didn't they? Well, they'd always had her, whether they'd known it or not, but it would take some time for him to internalize it. "Sharpe?" he turned to Stargirl, his teammate, his fellow agent.
"Sounds good to me," she accepted.
"Good," Ralph nodded. "Then the last part would be getting you all into Silent and in position as covertly as possible, which means…"
"Me," Seeker piped in before he could say it. Jax opened his mouth as though to argue that he could get them there quietly, too. "I have to rely on openings that are already there," she pointed out, "If those of you staying here need to go into the base, you'll need a quick escape, you'll need someone who can make an opening anywhere. That's you." He hadn't considered it that way. "Besides, if we're trying to save time, I've already got this part handled," she went on, speaking and SQ signing at the same time.
"I'll be staying here in War," Ralph went on before turning to Ava. "It'll be your call out there, so if you want to step in here…"
"The ideal end to this situation will be to locate the soldiers, subdue them, and retrieve the grenades and any other devices they might have rigged together," she told the group gathered around her, the ten who would be accompanying her, as it almost went without saying. "We don't know how many there are of them out there, but if we get them, then it'll be our best chance to put an end to this."
The thought that it could all finally be over… oh, if that wasn't the best motivator, they didn't know what was. They could destroy any chance of this weapon being used again… so long as no one put the pieces together again… but how could they do that?
"Has anyone ever action tried to… fix Mist?" Barry asked. He didn't mean to interrupt, but it was a question that felt sort of necessary at this point. Those among them who were either of the Waverider or of ARGUS had a look about them like they wished they could give him a better answer.
"It's been attempted, of course," M'gann answered. "But never successfully."
"I've spent more hours than you might think, considering that very question, hiding in my rooms," Catherine Grant spoke, without looking away from her work. "Whatever made Mist what it is, there's no coming back from it. If you don't want anyone else getting their hands on that water, making more of this weapon, then you only have so many options. You either find a way to prevent anyone else ever crossing in or out of that quarter, leaving those people to die away until there's no one left… or you make damn sure no one else can get their hands on it, drain the supplies. It's not as though they can do a whole lot with it as it is."
"Right," Ava spoke up after a few seconds. "So for now let's see what we can do about removing the weapon from the equation."
"Here we are," Catherine sat up, a satisfied look on her face. To some extent, spending so much of the last few years on her own had left her able to concentrate on a given task like she wouldn't have been able to, not back in the days when she'd been in her own time, at the head of her company. In very little time, she had now crafted what she hoped to be the answer to at least one of their problems.
"What is it?" Kara asked.
"This, Miss Danvers, will enable you to track these project soldiers according to their… power source," Catherine explained.
"There could be metas in Silent with those same powers though, couldn't there?" Alexandra asked.
"Which is why it will also be able to differentiate the locals from their unwanted visitors," Catherine went on. Ava picked up the device, which was already active. It showed everyone in the room who was a metahuman.
The ones who were from the quarter they were presently in – War – were shown as such. Rip, Gideon, Stein, Seeker. In Kara, it appeared to recognize her as being from somewhere else, but maybe for the fact that her meta status had been 'activated' here in War, it would just… alternate. She was of War as much as she was not. Then there were the other metas, the ones who were from some other Earth or quarter. Winn, Barry, Eobard, Jax, all of them out of Main.
They had something similar through ARGUS. It had come in very handy over the past few days, although it did not appear to recognize their origins so fast as Catherine Grant's device did. Where it differed even more from the technology they had on Main was the identification of some power base, even though it didn't go out into specifics.
It identified Seeker, and Jax, and Stein as 'dimensional' though, when looked at individually, each one of them was different from the next in how this power was expressed. It identified Rip and Gideon as 'aviary,' Barry and Eobard as 'nuclear,' and Kara as 'sonic.' It marked Winn as 'shapeshift,' which was entirely true, though it might have led someone to believe he could turn into other people or objects.
"There is room for refinement," Catherine had declared with a nod.
"It will do for now, thanks Cat… Miss Grant," Ava told the woman, as though she was only now realizing this was indeed their old AI. Leonard had told them all about this, but this was the first time she had actually met her… It was strange, but at the same time… kind of amazing. "Do you suppose it might be able to pick up on something like my staff…"
"Or this," Evelyn jumped in, holding the pendant around her neck in her palm.
"Or aliens like us," J'onn added, looking to M'gann, to Roy and Rory.
"Absolutely," Catherine Grant declared confidently. "But we're going on first things first basis here, and for now I have plenty more to prepare if you wish to get to Silent in a timely fashion."
"So," Ava turned back to her team. "We get in, locate, disperse, capture, retrieve… Those are the essential steps and, we can only hope, they will see us to the end of this siege. But we need to be prepared in case it won't be. You will have your light bands, and written communicators. You'll also need a base of SQSL. Winn, Rip, and Gideon can get by, Seeker is fluent," she looked back to the breach hopper, getting a nod. "Then that leaves you six," she turned to look at the Danvers sisters, Firestorm, Mike, and Roy. "Let's go somewhere to start on that."
Off went the eleven bound for Silent, leaving thirteen behind, those who would have to concentrate their efforts either on the ongoing endeavors here in Stein Labs or back on the Waverider, those bound for another visit to the resistance army base, and those who would go out into the city, as backup to the base team or the people of the city itself, in the even that things spiraled out of control… again.
"I'll head back to the Waverider with Miss Grant. In the event that things go sideways, we need to be at the ready to fly," Ralph declared. "Who's headed to the base?"
"I am," Evelyn jumped in at once. She was angling for a fight, they could just see it, and when their eyes told her as much, she let out a breath. "I'll behave, I swear."
"We already know I'm going," Jax spoke next.
"I'll lead you through, if you don't mind," Detective Raatko stood to join them, turning to Valor even as he was standing to do the same, as though she'd expected it.
"One human, one wielder, one meta, one alien… How's that for a team?" he commented with a smirk. That settled that. They would be the base team.
Stein, Wells, and Zeta, none of them fighters and entirely more valuable and needed here, would remain at Stein Labs. This left M'gann, J'onn, Patty, and Rene to patrol the city in wait of what might come next.
"What's going to be our goal, going into the base?" Jax asked.
"One way or the other, we need to find out who knows what in there, From the projects wing up to the General, some of them have to have known about these soldiers, if it really isn't just the one Horus girl," Nyssa nodded. "It won't be the first time we've doubted the General's allegiance, and if this time it turns out she is involved…"
"She can't be…" Laura Zeta sighed. The resistance was so important to the city. How many of them continued to cling to some shape or form of hope because the resistance was there, protecting them? What would happen to these people if they found out that the resistance was spoiled from head to heart? Could they be robbed of so much, after having their feeling of security, of shelter, taken from them at the WQI and in each of those attacks?
"From everything we've seen, it could well be contained to the projects wing, and it would make sense," M'gann told her. "Everything we've seen in the past few days, if the projects have been able to guard their operations the way they have without being shut down, they would have known better than to let it big enough that it would reach the General. I still believe in her, and you should, too."
"But we still can't tell her about any of it, can't involve her until we know," Ralph pointed out. We can believe in her all we want, but we also have to go on under the assumption that this belief might not be earned after all. That was what he was trying to say without actually saying it; he didn't want to lose faith in her either, like Laura, like anyone else born of War Quarter.
"If I need to be able to get us into the projects wing, anywhere else in or out of the base, I'm going to need to see… blueprints, maps, images, anything you've got," Jax told the others.
"You'll have them," Ralph promised.
"Once we get in there, we need to see what they've really been up to," Evelyn went on. "We need to know what they know, and they can't raise the alarms." The enemy aligned forces, the ones who had come in to lend their support to the resistance in this hunt for those responsible for the attacks on their communal points… The powder keg waiting to burst when the truth came out… They'd be in there, too. "They're going to need someone to blame, sooner or later… and we can't give them that, not without the whole city breaking apart."
"We don't know that yet," Martin Stein turned to her. He couldn't help but feel his heart go out to this young girl, the father in him, so lost since Lily's change, just felt bound to protect her.
"Today, we fight to save Silent Quarter… but we also fight to do the same for War," J'onn added.
Evelyn still feared for how her city would fare in the end, but she would heed the advice she was given here… What else could she really do? Unlike the plan for Silent, which was for the most part straightforward, the one for War felt much more like it could only be created up to a certain point. After that, they'd have to make a plan for the next part, going off of what they'd learned before, and when that part was done, another checkpoint, another new bit of plan… until somehow, somewhere, they reached the part that would lead them to the end, whatever it turned out to be.
TO BE CONTINUED (tomorrow, in volume 2)