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"So… do you know what this is about?" Artemis asked Donna, settling back on to the couch. She and Jacob had only just gotten back from their little personal trip, and the latter had called a meeting for the whole team. And while they did have plenty of briefings, Artemis got the distinct feeling that this was something different. "Jacob was a lot more vague than usual."

Sitting across from her on the other side of the Mountain's common room, Donna shifted in her seat. "I… can't say for certain. I think he wants to tell us something about himself."

"Like what?" Wally asked between handfuls of popcorn, the boy having thought that making a bowl beforehand was appropriate for this sort of thing. "You think he'd been hiding something from us?"

Next to him, Robin had an odd smirk on his face. "Stands to reason, KF. And I have some suspicions myself..."

Draped over the back of the couch, Connor scoffed. "Like what? For all he's got going on around him, the guy's pretty much an open book. What would he hold back from us?"

Artemis thought back to when she had told Jacob about her father. "...People can surprise you." She got a few looks, but didn't elaborate any further.

After a moment Wally shrugged. "Eh, it's probably not a big deal. I just hope that he gets back onto the field at some point. We still haven't done a proper mission with him since we became the Titans."

From his position leaning against the wall, Kaldur remarked "There are many responsibilities that he took up when we split from the League. It's not a surprise that he's been busy."

"You're not wrong," M'gann said. "But I still wish he was there with us this time. Um, on the mission, I mean." She added, giving an apologetic look to Donna. The other woman waved her off.

Wally slumped in his seat. "Yeah… Well, at least it was great to work with Speedy again. Who knew he was working the same case?"

Artemis had been less enthused than her teammates when the red archer had just shown up out of nowhere to help. She still remembered how much of a jerk he was when she first joined the team (and afterwards when he threatened her about being a danger to his former teammates). She was a little surprised that he managed to keep his mouth shut around her this time. Maybe he felt embarrassed by what happened, but he didn't apologize either, so she wasn't inclined to start liking him just for that.

Connor nodded his head to Kaldur. "By the way, when'd you learn that supercavitation trick to catch up with the fleeing purists? I've never seen you do something like that."

"I..." Kaldur hesitated for a moment, and Artemis swore she saw him blush a bit. "Have something a tutor for the magical arts, who I've been seeing when I return to Atlantis. I may introduce her to you soon."

It was then that Jacob and Kori walked over to the group, two of them having walked around the Mountain together beforehand for some reason. Artemis noted that he was wearing jeans along with a tee-shirt and overshirt. This wasn't the first time she had seen him wearing normal clothes as opposed to just those grey tights of his (a change she had… mixed feelings over), but for whatever reason, at that moment, the clothes made him seem more normal. "Sorry about the wait," He said. "I had to make sure that the Mountain's privacy protocols were working before we started."

"That serious, huh?" Artemis asked, eyebrows raised. "So, what's this about? You're making us kinda nervous here."

Kori stood behind him and to the side, and Jacob looked over the team for a moment before he started talking. "So… I have something to tell you guys. It's about me, and where I came from before all this. "

"Wait, I thought you were abducted and experimented on by aliens." Conner pointed out.

"Yeah, I was. I mean before that. I've never lied about anything, but there's something important I've been omitting. Something that might change how you think of me. I've been thinking about when the best time to tell you all this for a while now, and I feel the time has arrived. Partially because we're our own team, and Batman can't tell me no anymore." He chuckled a little. Then his face fell, and he breathed in deep. "I'm-"

"From a parallel universe!"

Artemis, along with everyone else in the room, slowly turned her head to stare at Robin, who had a knowing grin on his face. "It's the only thing that makes sense," The boy said. "When I couldn't find anyone matching your exact profile, I expanded the parameters. And I found there's a Jacob Morgan that lived in New York state who died years ago. Aside from your size, you're a decent match in appearance, and your given history is pretty close. So, given that you're a close match, and you run on multidimensional energy," He folded his arms across his chest. "I figured you might as well be from another dimension yourself."

Artemis just stared in utter bewilderment at the little twerp. She wasn't sure if she was more confused about how crazy Robin's theory was, or more pissed about how he was joking around when Jacob was trying to be serious. Before she could figure it out, Wally spoke up. "Uh, dude, I think you've gone a little too deep on this one. Don't you think you might be jumping to conclusions here?"

Jacob had been flatly staring at Robin since he started talking, but at that point he interjected. "I wouldn't call it a jump so much as a flying, triple twisting double." Robin flinched as he said it, and Artemis could tell that his eyes went wide behind his shades at the comment. Artemis saw something pass between the two of them, Jacob's face hard until the boy looked away. For what might have been the first time she could remember, Robin looked both angry and… shameful?

After a beat the man relaxed and let out a sigh. "However, he is right on money."

Artemis had to take a moment to process this. "Wait... what?!" She yelled. "You actually are from a different universe?"

"Yeah. I think the aliens pulled me from my home reality, though I can't be sure. All I know is that this is definitely not the world I came from."

The group fell silent. Just, what does anyone say to something like that? Wally eventually spoke up. "That's… wild. How did that even happen?"

"I don't know." He replied, irritation in his tone. "One second I was walking onto the subway, the next I was on a slab in the Vega system, and no idea what happened in between. That was five months ago. It was only a few days later that I joined up with you guys."

"Um," M'gann said. "How did you realize this isn't 'your' universe? You seemed at home with everything when I met you."

"While there are a lot of things the same, there's also some pretty big differences between my home universe and this one. For starters, where I came from there's no superheroes, no contact with any aliens, and I far as anyone could tell no magic either."

Artemis blinked. That almost sounds like a Twilight Zone episode, she thought. She had grown up with a world with superheroes, villains, and all kinds of monsters. Even if those things had mostly stuck to the background, not having them there just seemed… empty. "What was that like?" She blurted out.

Jacob was taken off guard by the question, but he took a moment to think. "...Duller." He settled on. "A bit safer on the ground level, I suppose, given that there were no supervillains or the like. But looking back on it, things were just… less bright. Of course, that let me know right away that I wasn't where I was supposed to be." His mouth pressed thin. "And that I would have to be starting from nothing."

Donna leaned forward in her seat, arms resting on her legs. "That's what you meant when you said you were estranged from your family. You literally don't have a way to see them."

He looked at her sadly. "I appreciate your offer to help, but unless you have both the means to dimensional travel, and a way to figure out which specific dimension I'm from, there's nothing you can do. The only people who might have the answer are a bunch of sociopathic lizard people hiding in a massive solar system that not even the Green Lanterns can enter. So unless I spend what would probably be weeks or months on a very dangerous expedition, I'm stuck here."

It was Connor who summed up what everyone one there was thinking. "...Shit. That sucks man."

Jacob chuckled. "Thanks. It's not all bad though. I got lucky enough to join up with you guys." He leaned into Kori a little bit, and she pressed her head to his in response.

Kaldur, who had stayed silent for most of this, spoke up. "I'm glad you told us, but I'm not sure why you felt you had to hide it in the first place. It's certainly strange, but not unbelievable given our line of work."

Jacob shifted his weight away from Kori, and his expression sobered. "The thing is… that's not actually the thing I've been holding back. That's just the context for what I actually need to tell you. This is the difficult part, because it will probably change the way you look at me. Because of what I knew before I met any of you."

"...You're startin' to lose us there, Mach." Wally said.

Jacob ran a hand through his hair, looking up at the ceiling. "Alright, bear with me here. This reality's media has completely failed to give me a popular point of reference, so..." He looked back down at them. "Ok, have you guys read 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'?"

"Yeah? What does that- wait." Donna said. "This isn't some kind of lead up where you tell us you're the protagonist of a portal fantasy story, is it?"

The man held up a finger and opened his mouth, before pausing and closing it with a click. "Huh." He said, staring at nothing. "I guess I am." He shook his head. "I mean, that's not quite what I was trying to get at, but..."

"Wait, portal fantasy?" M'gann asked.

Donna explained "It's a literary subgenre where someone is transported to another world, typically for adventure or to be a hero or some such. In the book he mentioned, the main character gets transported to the age of King Arthur and Camelot." Her eyes narrowed at Jacob. "And now that I say it… I think I see the parallel he's getting at."

"Oh. I supposed that does describe what happened to Jacob. Oh!" She looked back at Jacob with wide eyes. "Does this mean you're from a work of fiction?"

"...how is that your take away?" The man asked in confusion.

"There are many Martian stories about a hero being made manifest from collective Will of Mars, to right a wrong in the world!" She said excitedly. "Were you brought here by the Will of Earth?"

"Hey, that does kinda make sense," Wally added. "I mean, you do give off some pretty strong 'supporting character' vibes at times."

Jacob stared until he buried his face in his hands. "This is not the direction I thought this conversation would go." He sighed and looked up. "No, that is not the case. I hope. From my perspective, it's the reverse. I wasn't pulled out of a story… I was pulled into one."

A long pause stretched out among the group before Artemis spoke up. "That… what? The hell are you talking about?"

"I mean, that in my home universe, there are fictitious comics about superheroes. One's that have been around for decades. Ones that have Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, all the heroes and villains of this universe as characters. And that includes some of you guys."

"Whoa, hold up, time out." Wally threw his hands up in a T, giving Jacob a frown. "I was just kidding around before, but be serious. You can't just abuse the fact you just told us you're from a parallel universe to-"

"His initials are B.A." Jacob interrupted. Wallet looked at him in confusion, before his eyes went wide. Artemis didn't know what he was talking about, but whatever it meant had shaken Wally a lot. Jacob turned his gaze to Robin. "You want me to give his initials too?"

Robin was both silent and almost perfectly still for several long seconds. Eventually, the boy slowly removed his sunglasses, and when he spoke his tone was flat."I think… he's telling the truth."

"Of course he is." Kori said, putting a hand on her hip. "He wouldn't lie about something like this. And I can tell you that his knowledge has helped the League several times."

Robin picked up on how she wasn't freaking out like everyone else. "You knew?!"

"She was there when I told the League." Jacob explained. " And they told me to keep it to myself. I never was a dedicated comic reader, but I picked up a lot from cultural osmosis. There's a lot of random facts rolling around in my head that could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. I know potential events, powers, weaknesses, even secret identities."

Artemis tried to wrap her head around what the man was saying and what it meant. She could kinda understand that if he was from a different universe, they'd have different media, and there being superhero stuff wasn't too outlandish. Even if it felt kinda tacky. But the idea that she could be the subject of such things was unsettling. As she thought about what her life story would look like in comic form, a thought occurred to her. "Does that mean you know the future?"

"Not even a little." He replied. "The shared universe the comics take place in have been around for the better part of a century, and are littered with reboots, alternate timelines, and parallel universes. Trust me, I would not have let us get blindsided all those times if I had known better, secrecy be damned."

M'gann suddenly had a thought, the other girl's eyes went wide and she sat up ramrod straight. "How… much do you know about us? About things we haven't told anyone?"

Artemis suddenly felt a twist in her gut as the implication hit her. Had… Jacob already known about her father when she told him? He seemed to be surprised when she revealed it, but what if that was an act? If that were true, it somehow made her choice to tell him feel hollow.

He held out a hand. "Whatever it is you're thinking of, no, I don't know it." He looked at Artemis, saw the similar expression on her face. "And I promise I didn't know before you told me either. Like I said, I was never a dedicated comic reader, so the details I know are spare, and sometimes wrong. I thought Connor here had tactile telekinesis for a while, because that's what he usually had in the comics, but that's just not the case here."

Feeling a little mollified, Artemis asked. "So, what did you know about us?"

"To summarize," He said, looking at each in turn. "Aside from Kori, I probably know the most about Robin, because he played a pretty big role with Batman. Same thing for Wally and the Flash. I know some things about Connor, some of which is wrong. I know a lot about Donna, all of which is wrong. The only thing I knew about M'gann before I got here was that she existed. Kaldur is not the Aqualad that I'm familiar with, and Artemis..." He shrugged. "Nothing. I had never heard of you before."

"Thanks… I think." She replied.

"If you want the personal details I know, you can come to me later in private and I'll tell you." He paused for a long moment, before standing up a little straighter. "So, that's it. That's the thing I've been holding back."

Another long silence stretched over the group, and they all looked at each other. Artemis could see the uncertainty on everyone's face, a feeling that she mirrored. This was just too weird, to the point she couldn't figure out what her actual problem was. Was it the whole comic book thing? Was it that he held back that he had a lot of semi-accurate information about them? What could she even do about it?

She looked back at Jacob, and saw the worry on his face. Realized that he was just as uncertain about this whole thing too. And in that moment, she came to a conclusion.

"This is stupid."

Heads turned to her, and she got up off the couch. "All this multiverse, comic book stuff. It's stupid, and as far as I'm concerned doesn't mean jack."

"Umm," Jacob raised a hand hesitantly. "It's still all true."

"I know, doesn't make it any less stupid." She said. "I don't really understand it, and nor do I care."

"...she has a good point." Conner remarked

M'gann looked at them skeptically. "I don't think it's stupid. But… I guess it doesn't really change anything either."

Kaldur rubbed his chin. "True, though I'm not fond of the inherent implication that we are just 'characters'."

"That's not how it works," Donna dismissed. "If he's here, then we're no more or less 'real' then he is. Trust me, we just visited the Fates and got a lesson on how weird reality is." Kaldur conceded with a nod after a moment's thought.

"Yeah! And the Wall-man is way too cool just to be confined to a comic book page!" Wally bragged, flashing a grin. "Though if I was, I'd totally be the main character."

Robin snorted. "Yeah, and I'd be the side character that everyone likes more." The boy looked back at Jacob, and his face fell. "I… look, I can't say I'm too happy with people knowing stuff about me that I didn't tell them. But, I know that it would make me a hypocrite if I actually got mad about it. So, we'll see where this goes."

"That's all I ask." Jacob said, and as he looked out at everyone a small smile crossed his face. "Thanks. For understanding, and well, everything else."

"Yeah well, it's whatever." Artemis said awkwardly, before standing up. "Ok, I say we forget all this and get food. Unless you have any other massive revelations you want to drop on us?"

"...I'm actually 28."

The assembled team let out a variety of surprised noises, but Artemis just threw up her hands. "I was being rhetorical!"

'Why do you use such primitive methods of interfacing?'

"Because I've been getting lazy," Noah remarked, fingers flying across the keyboard in front of him. Files and data scrolled past the screen at a rapid pace, and the man skimmed over the info. "Doing everything with my abilities removes some busywork, but it also means my focus drifts. There is a certain meditative practice to using one's hands, don't you think?"

'What you consider meditative, we consider distracting and inefficient.'

Noah snorted, but kept working. Ever since he had managed to isolate his 'passenger', he had gotten into the habit of talking with it. Not that it was particularly good at conversation, but Noah had found it was best to keep the entity occupied. The thing would default to trying to break the collar's suppression if it didn't have anything else to do, and Noah found the sensation of pressure at the back of his head quite irritating.

Noah set the latest batch of files to compile and store themselves on the flash drive he had put into the computer. "I have to give it to her, she keeps her personal projects surprisingly clean and easy to move." He remarked, taking a sip from a mug of coffee with one hand while using the other to start up his trace-cleaning program that would erase any evidence that he had been on the computer. Not something he normally had to bother with on his own terminal.

Of course, this wasn't his computer. Or his apartment.

"She really needs to invest in a new coffee maker, though." Noah muttered to himself, grimacing a little as he set the cup down. Judging by how nice the apartment was, and just how well built the workstation he was at was constructed, she could definitely afford something better than the beat up box she had in her kitchen. Then again, considering how extensive her wine rack in the living room was, her disposable income might be tied up elsewhere.

Noah had realized that to solve his current problems, he would need to expand his horizons a bit. So, he fell back back on an old strategy: if you don't have the tools you need, steal them from someone else. Which led him to breaking into the apartment of a certain scientist to see if she had any files that could be of use. And sure enough, he now had far more detailed data on Machina than he had previously, once inaccessible due to her main workstation being air-gapped. He had dismissed the idea of coming here in person before, but nowadays he was much more open to taking risks.

It was also a relief to get away from the other Light members for a bit. Dealing with their various 'eccentricities' could be trying at times, and something he couldn't avoid as they often came to him with technical issues. Or sometimes not even that, as just before he left Klarion of all people showed up, though he just wanted someone to complain to. The boy wouldn't stop whining about how Ocean Master had screwed up the planet's 'ley lines' or whatever with his little stunt. Apparently the little demon child had something planned for Halloween which he had to scrap now, but Noah didn't care to ask.

He was so distracted by the memory that he almost missed his cleaner program running into something odd. The program was thorough enough to go down the hard drive to see if it logged any traces, and at the moment it was finding files similar to the ones he was looking at, flagged for deletion. And they weren't previous or alternate versions of what he had already seen, these were something else. After a moment's thought he got to work recovering the files.

'This is discarded data. What are you doing?'

"Looking for something I wasn't expecting..." He muttered. He followed the trail of deleted files down to the depths of the computer's hard drive until he uncovered the source. Restoring the files he brought them up on the monitor, and as he read a vicious grin formed on his face. "Well, well… Now this has some potential." Noah had come here looking for some information and possibly some tech schematics he could use, but the files he was reading offered another opportunity. It would be a bit risky, and the other Light members might not approve… but this could give him an ace in the hole.

So, instead of clearing out like he planned, Noah instead settled in and waited.

An hour or so later, there was the sound of the apartment door being unlocked and opened, and a few seconds later he heard someone say "Wait, did I leave the lights on?" Noah turned around in his chair in time to see one Dr. Serling Roquette walked into the room. The woman was carrying a bag of groceries in her arms, which she dropped to the ground the moment she saw him. "Who the hell are you?! What are you doing in my apartment?!" She yelled in pure outrage.

"Well, my dear, you can call me the Calculator." Noah said casually. "As for how I'm here, well, you didn't exactly have a complex lock on your front door. Also, I should note that it is very easy to bribe a protective detail if their charge has a habit of ditching them." To be fair, the woman did also install a handful of technological traps in her apartment. Which, of course, meant nothing to him.

The woman pulled off her jacket in one smooth motion, and her nanites quickly covered her body. "I don't care who you are, I-"

Noah reached up and turned the dial on his collar, giving him a little more juice from his 'partner'. He mentally adjusted for the strain while his power reached out to her. Huh, it looks like she actually replaced all of her blood with nanites. Impressive, and convenient for me. He just had to stop the flow for a half second-

Roquette spasmed as she went into a momentary cardiac arrest before collapsing on the ground, letting out a pitiful noise. He watched her half-stumble to her feet before he did it again, causing her to tumble back down. In her code, he saw a number of defensive protocols being engaged, which he shut down or countered one by one. After tangling with Machina enough times, Noah was getting pretty good at the whole digital warfare thing, an experience which Roquette clearly lacked.

After about a minute of her thrashing on the floor, he then felt something else: an all too familiar electric tingle that slowly pushed at his grip on her nanites. So she does have the same magic as Machina, Noah thought with a frown. He could tell she wasn't as skilled or strong with it as the synthetic, but she would eventually slip out of his control if she kept this up. But, he had done a cursory study of magic use and Roquette had a weakness the superhero lacked.

With a thought Noah caused her nanites to form electrical prods on either side of her head before sending an electric shock through her. The woman screamed in pain and her concentration was broken, losing control of her magic. He waited to see if she would try again, but Roquette finally stopped struggling to collect herself.

'Assume control.' His passenger insisted. "Break the organic with the synthetic."

Do you know nothing other than brute force? Noah mentally asked. It seems I'm going to have to show you what a little bit of finesse can add to coercion. Out loud, he said "You, doctor, have been a naughty girl. And not a very thorough one at that."

"Wh-what are you talking about?" She ground out.

He gestured back to the PC behind him. "You are very meticulous in your notes about your nanotech and the process you use to make them. And you are also far less meticulous in making sure deleted data has been properly scrubbed from your hard drive."

He stood from the chair to look down at her, a vicious grin on his face. "You cheated. You stole some of Machina's nanites to help build your own."

She might have been able to hide the flinch were she in a normal state, but being rendered powerless had rattled her. "You don't know what you're talking about! I studied his nanites at his request. But I made my own through my own research!"

Interesting, that's a bit of a sore point for you, Noah mulled. He knew she was lying of course, the recovered files had gone in depth about the dead nanties she had experimented on. But given this reaction, it would help if he could get her to admit it herself. She's already off balance, so let's try a classic. "Oh, well if that's the case, there must be some other explanation for the vial of his dead nanites I found."

Her eyes widened. "I destroyed those-!" She started to say before she cut herself off. The silver substance may have covered her face, but given her pained expression he knew she was flushing from embarrassment. She knew she had just been played.

Too easy, Noah thought with a smirk. "I'm sure I don't need to explain just how illegal that is." He said out loud. "Acquisition of a superhero's bodily material without consent, with the intent for use in experimentation? That's a few felonies at least, and given how popular you two are, will probably draw the attention of the international community. Quite the scandal, I should think."

Roquette managed to prop herself up to her knees, and she had enough fight in her to bare her teeth at Noah. "You-You're a supervillain, no one's going to believe you!"

Noah hummed. "There are plenty of ways to release information anonymously. Oh sure, recent events means that everyone will be suspicious of it… but suspicion leads to asking questions. I'm sure Machina can trivially figure out the truth if he bothered to look, and this would prompt him to do so."

He knelt down to eye level. Let's drive in that insecurity, shall we? "Just imagine what would happen if they learned the truth. Maybe you'll avoid prison, but you'll lose your job for sure. More than that, they'll never let you work again, superhero or otherwise. How could they trust you?" He grinned before twisting the knife. "They'll never look at you with respect again… just pity."

They held each other's gaze for several long seconds, Noah could see her internal struggle. She was trying to think of a way out of this. Trying to figure out a way to beat his control. Trying to think of how she could spin this to her allies without losing everything. He could see the mounting tension as nothing she could come up with could beat the Sword of Damocles she had made herself.

And he could see the moment she broke. "What do you want from me?" She said in a strained voice.

Ah, how he had missed working with people.

Hanging above the Earth in low orbit, a figure drifted. It was not in itself that unusual. With as many super-powered entities that Earth has, you'll find a few that can travel above the planet's atmosphere. And given the soft green glow around the figure, one would think that it would be one of Earth's Green Lanterns. Though, that would only be half true, as while it may have been a Green Lantern, they weren't from Earth.

Alpha Lantern Hraalkar remained almost perfectly still as he swept the planet's communication grid, recording the ebb and flow of information. It was… chaotic, to say the least. Unlike the orderly channels from a central ocean which he would expect, Earth's infosphere was shifting myriad of pools which broke off into smaller rivers, which in turn folded back into each other. A decentralized mess which barely had any sense of hierarchy. This alone would not have given someone with his level of technology trouble, but there was more to it than that.

Several parts were made with completely different technological bases, layered under or over the main network. Some of those were both recent and… strange. Ever since he had been assigned to his covert observation, he had seen the parts of the network that defied analysis grow. Signals and information that almost appeared to come from nowhere, and disappear just as quickly. While this was just the sort of thing he was there to keep tabs on, the fact that it was beginning to obscure parts of the infosphere from him was concerning. The local protectors must not know about it, or they would surely be taking action.

Just on the edge of his vision, Hraalkar could see the decommissioned station that the Guardians had given this planet. He wasn't worried about being seen though. The station was of Lantern make, and it's sensors would not detect the Alpha Lantern unless he willed it. At the same time he could access the station's internal sensors, so he knew that Lantern Stewart was on it at the moment.

If you had chosen differently, would you be here in my place, Stewart? Hraalkar wondered. But then, if you chose differently, I suppose you wouldn't be you.

An incoming communication brought him out of his thoughts, and a moment later the green image of a Guardian appeared in front of him. "Report, Lantern Hraalkar."

"The target's behavior remains consistent." He replied. "It continues to ingratiate itself among the protectors of the planet while advancing it's knowledge of technology."

The Guardian's brow furrowed slightly. "Following an Infiltrator pattern… this one continues to be divergent. More evidence that we cannot rely on old knowledge when it comes to this technology."

"There's more. The target's esoteric abilities are increasing as well. I am having difficulty tracking it consistently."

"Magic. Earth is replete with it." The Guardian said, and Hraalkar swore he heard a hint of disdain. That was impossible though, so he ignored it as his superior continued. "Have you been able to determine the exact nature of these abilities?"

"Not directly, but I have discreetly accessed the decommissioned station's database and obtained their records on the subject. It's their assessment that the target has the ability to manipulate technology. Moreover, it seems that it is also spreading to other synthetic entities on the planet, as well as a cybernetically enhanced organic."

"I see… what of the quantum waveform oscillations?"

"The target remains at base levels. And yet..." Hraalkar considered how to phrase what he had observed. "I have detected elevated levels outside of the target, though I've never been able to isolate it. I suspect that this magic is interfering with my sensors." He had been rendered near blind during the last major event, when part of the planet had been covered by an esoteric energy field. The Alpha Lantern certainly did not feel an encroaching sense of dread just from looking at it, but was glad to see it gone all the same.

The image of the Guardian shook its head. "It can't be a coincidence. It might not be quite what we feared, but it could become it all the same." The Guardian returned his attention back to the Lantern. "I will start making preparations to extract the target. The sooner we get it into a Sciencecell, the better."

"Preparations?" Hraalkar asked. "Do we not have any cells available at the moment?" That seemed unlikely, the holding facility on Oa was truly massive. True, the Corpse would also have to be mobilized, but it should not take that long to get everything in order.

The Guardian hesitated. "This is a… delicate matter. We will want to remove the target with minimal interference from the local establishment, and once we do have it we will need to get it into containment as quickly as possible. At the current rate of progression, we have some time before the situation becomes untenable."

"And if it becomes untenable before preparations are complete?"

The Lantern felt the weight of the Guardian's focus on him. "It is paramount that the target not be allowed to reach the Resonance Manifold. If you detect any quantum waveform oscillations that reach through the Bleed, you are to extract the target immediately and by any means necessary. If that isn't possible, destroy it. Full annihilation."

"As you command, Guardian." The communication ended, and Hraalkar resumed his watch. He couldn't say he fully understood the situation, but that wasn't his job. His job was to follow the will of the Guardians.

And if the Guardians thought this Machina was a threat, then he would see it neutralized.

=====A=====