Floating in the cold void of space at the edge of the asteroid belt, Carl contemplatively gazed down at the Green Lantern cradled in his left hand and the Green Lantern Ring on his right index finger.
If Carl wasn't in space where he had to hold his breath, he would be sighing a bit in exasperation. He had no idea what to do with his Ring. Sure, it was a shiny and amazing tool, but what was he supposed to do to activate the Ring and Lantern?
Like anyone halfway aware of the DC comics, he knew that the Green Lantern Rings were really cool and amazing objects, and one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy. They used a person's willpower and imagination to create hard light constructs, allow a person to fly and travel through space, and do all kinds of nifty things.
But he hadn't ever read any of the Green Lantern comics, so he was at a bit of a loss at how to utilize the ring initially. When he filled out form in the waiting room, the bonus of a free Ring had definitely convinced him to choose to purchase the 8th level Intellect. But now that he actually got his hands on a ring, what should he do with it?
Mentally shrugging, Carl decided he might as well think at the Ring, since it supposedly worked on his willpower. That would mean it had some kind of mental connection to him just from wearing it, right?
'Ring, can you hear me?' Carl thought really hard, feeling a bit silly and hoping that he didn't look constipated.
Although, judging by how people portrayed him as a Flying Panda, he was sure that the constipated look wouldn't be especially remarkable, in the grand scheme of things. They would just chalk it up to another sign that he was like a Panda.
He was still half amused and half horrified by the amount of panda videos that were flooding his brand new email account. And that was after only half a day! It was utterly ridiculous!
'Affirmative, user.' The artificial and lifeless sounding voice responded promptly in his head, causing Carl to feel a bit excited that it was just that easy, apparently.
'Hmm. Do you have a help file or tutorial or anything?' Carl asked.
'Affirmative, user.'
Carl waited for a while, before realizing that the Ring wasn't going to do anything else without an actual order.
'Start up the tutorial, then, please.'
Suddenly Carl seemed to be floating in a blank white cubical room. On the wall in front of him writing appeared in English at the same time the Ring's AI voice narrated the information.
'The Green Lantern and Ring combination is the most versatile and powerful tool in the universe, only limited by the user's ability, willpower, and imagination. In order to use the Green Lantern and Ring, the user must first learn how to mentally interact with and guide the Ring using various mental techniques…'
Over the next hour Carl paid strict attention to the information being given him by the tutorial. He followed the tutorial's practice exercises and got used to mentally interfacing with the ring, including setting up his preferences for the HUD displayed on his vision by the Ring. It took some adjustment to get it where he wanted it, where useful information was being presented without distracting or blocking his vision. Apparently a Human's vision was very different from many of the other aliens in the database, and his vision as a Bizarro Kryptonian / Atlantean / Czarnian was very different from a normal human's.
Within the short hour long tutorial, Carl sped through the exercises and felt like he was getting the hang of using the basic Ring functions.
Once the tutorial was over, the white room disappeared and his awareness of his surroundings were restored; he was once more floating in space. A quick query of the Ring found that the white room had just been a visual overlay while the Ring had brought up a barrier to keep him safe while he was practicing. Nice.
Through the tutorial and adjusting the various user interface settings, he learned that the AI in the Ring was the most advanced of the known technology in the Galaxy, but that there were no personal settings recorded, and its database was oddly bereft of information about the specifics of the happenings in the galaxy. Almost like it was a brand new Ring, created just recently. Kind of like his Clone self…
But most importantly, the Ring had no connection to the Guardians of Oa. It was almost like it was created at the moment he entered the universe, and created only for him, not having passed through the hands of the Guardians of Oa.
'Yeah, "almost" like that.' Carl sarcastically thought while trying to avoid dwelling on the waiting room that he had spent time in and all the unanswered questions it brought up.
The AI of the Ring, and the Lantern that the Ring was connected to apparently had plenty of Green Energy, which as far as he understood it was connected to the Emotional Magical Spectrum as the manifestation of Willpower. Or maybe it was connected to the magic of the Green, which represented all of plant life? Or maybe it was connected to both?
Carl really had no idea. Whatever the Green Energy of his particular Lantern was, it was not constrained by all the rules and regulations that the Green Lantern Corps seemed to be operating under.
'It seems like the AI was programmed to know that it's the most advanced AI and technology, but it doesn't have all the information about all that's out there in this galaxy.' Carl thought to himself. 'It also has no information or connection to the Central Power Battery on Oa, or the Guardians there. So it seems like a good idea to hide my ring as much as possible so that they don't come asking questions about just why I'm not under their authority and purview when they see my ring.'
Carl would not be one bit surprised if the Green Lantern Corps got all pissy if they found out that he had a full and complete Ring that wasn't under their authority and purview. The Corps thought of themselves as the Policemen of the Galaxy, so naturally in their minds he would fall under their authority. And Carl just really didn't feel like being conscripted into their bureaucracy.
One of the great things he learned through the tutorial was that the Ring had the ability to maintain a subspace pocket dimension to store pretty much anything, which included the Lantern that was linked to his Ring that was needed to recharge the power storage of the Ring.
'Ring, is it possible for you to charge from the Lantern while it is in the subspace pocket?' Carl queried.
'Affirmative.'
Carl grinned and nudged the Lantern to leave his hand and enter the subspace pocket before he mentally ordered the Ring to recharge from the Lantern whenever it needed to. He couldn't have his valuable AI and Ring run down their battery.
That would also solve the problem of using up the stored charge of the Ring in the middle of a fight if he needed it. It would also be a bit stealthier so that he wouldn't be caught with his Ring or Lantern by other Green Lanterns and questioned about where he got the Ring from. Now he just needed to figure out a way to hide the Ring so that it wasn't so obvious while sitting on his finger. The bright green light of the Ring when creating hard light constructs was also a dead give-away that needed to be eliminated to be stealthy.
'Ring, what methods are there to hide your presence from detection?' Carl asked, thinking that the AI might be the best person to ask for options. 'Especially from other Green Lantern Corps members, or other color Ring holders?'
Carl knew there were other color Rings out there besides Green, and that bad guys tended to gossip with the heroes while in the middle of their epic battles. So they were one more group of people that he wanted to keep from finding out he had a Ring.
'Option 1: Place the Ring under clothing or other object to block sight of the Ring and do not use Ring. Using the Ring would expose the presence of the Ring.'
'Option 2: Continually focus Will on light refraction to deflect sight of the Ring. Diverting attention from hiding Ring will detrimentally affect the method of hiding the Ring.'
'Option 3: Continually focus user's Will on Energy Constructs to disguise the user and Ring while vigorously keeping opponent at extreme distance. If the Ring's disguised constructs can drive away all opponents, no one will know of the Ring's Usage. Warning: Energy intensive and model projections predict that using this option will result in User's Death due to overuse of Energy or too many opponents gathering for User to handle.'
'Option 4: Alter the shape of the Ring to hide inside of user's body cavities, so that no one will know of the presence of the Ring.'
'Option 5: Alter the material of the Ring to imitate nanites in order to hide inside the user's body, so that no one will know of the presence of the Ring. The Ring will replicate enough to saturate the User's body in order to increase energy storage and computational capacity.'
'Option 6: Cease all use of the Ring and Lantern.'
Carl hummed in thought. The idea of sticking the Ring in his nasal cavity wasn't too bad. But sticking it up his bum was a no-go. Nanites, though...
The idea of simply not using the Ring didn't really enter his thought process. It would be too much of a waste not to use it, simply for fear of a bit of hassle from the local galactic cops.
'If I alter the material of the Ring to nanites, will there be a problem with the Ring being too spread out inside my body to work effectively?' Carl wanted to make sure there were no problems with the Ring's functions while spread out inside his body.
'The Ring can duplicate itself until sufficient saturation is achieved so that no issues will result.'
'And there won't be a problem with charging the Ring while in nanite form from the Lantern in the subspace pocket?' Carl queried.
'Affirmative. No issues will arise.'
'I've got a unique regeneration ability from the Czarnian part of my heritage. Will that extreme regeneration attack the Ring's nanites?'
'Negative. The Ring's nanites will not be seen as a foreign element to user's body.'
Carl nodded to himself, psyching himself up to have the Ring become a swarm of nanites inside him. As crazy sci-fi as the idea sounded, he thought it was one of the best ways to keep his possession of a Green Lantern Ring secret.
Most of him just didn't want to be hassled by anyone over his possession of a Green Lantern Ring that he knew was given to him by some Godly paperwork that he filled out in an afterlife waiting room. But good luck trying to convince everyone else of that being proof of his ownership.
As far as they would be concerned, the Green Lantern Ring would be full of various obligations and treaties. As a Space Cop, bound by the Green Lantern Oaths, he would simply be a Space Cop that couldn't interfere or dwell on any random activities.
He had no idea why he was so caught up in that idea of avoiding them so assiduously. And in his past life he would have been over the moon with excitement at the idea of being a Space Cop. But now that he had the advantages that his cloned heritage gave him, he had other options.
And as far as anyone else knew, he was a very powerful clone that had only started his life less than a week ago. Sure he had a bit of good will banked for how he didn't go on a rampage after waking up and went to the authorities.
But he was still very much an unknown, and he was sure that several members of the Justice League *cough* Batman *cough* were keeping an eye out for any unusual behavior on his part.
So he would keep his precious ring secret and safe by changing it into nanites and infusing it into his body. Totally normal behavior, yup.
Carl gave the order to the Ring to change to a swarm of nanites, duplicate as needed, and enter his body. The Ring on his finger dissolved into a little cloud of green particles that flew up and into his nostrils.
For just a moment he felt the urge to sneeze. But Carl pinched his nostrils and the sensation went away soon after.
'So, how long until you've reached saturation?' Carl mentally asked.
'Twenty minutes, user.'
Carl nodded and decided he would sit back and relax, so to speak. Floating in zero-g didn't exactly lend itself to sitting. But there was plenty for him to occupy himself with watching, out in space. A normal human's sight wouldn't be able to pick up much at the distances objects were from each other. But Carl's super vision let him zoom in and see great detail all around him.
It felt like he had barely begun looking over the gas giant Jupiter when the Ring beeped in his head and announced that saturation of his body with the Ring nanites was complete.
Without further ado Carl started working with his Ring to start scanning the nearby asteroids for anything that would be valuable, namely metals and rare elements. He had most of his harvest stored in his subspace pocket, but kept out a large chunk of gold that he would carry back with him to cover for the existence of his Ring and inventory space.
"Where have you been all afternoon?" Nightwing asked, almost demanded to know, as soon as Carl arrived at the Titans Tower in the late afternoon.
Carl almost rolled his eyes at the question. It almost felt like Ric, Nightwing, was trying to be his guardian. It felt really weird because mentally he was an adult. He had to keep reminding himself that he was now a 14 year old clone.
He also didn't believe for a moment that the Watchtower hadn't been capable of tracking him as he flew off to the asteroid belt. But he was glad they at least gave him some space that they didn't immediately track him down to demand answers.
He was still carrying the fist sized lump of gold in his hand that was his cover for the vast amounts of metals in his subspace pocket. He held the chunk of very valuable metal at his hip and barely visible, so Carl wasn't surprised it wasn't spotted right off the bat by the Titans as they gathered around curiously after hearing Nightwing's demanding tone of voice.
"After learning some of the capabilities of my DNA donors, I decided to test it out some more on my own. So this morning, as you know, I swam in the ocean and learned that I change colors and grow gills in the ocean. Pretty cool. This afternoon I went the opposite direction." Carl pointed straight up.
"No way!" Gar yelled out in excitement. "You went to space!?"
"Totally!" Carl agreed, amused at the various reactions he was getting. Koriand'r was looking around, a little confused about what the big deal was. Tara seemed almost as excited as Gar. And Rachel and Victor seemed totally blasé about the whole thing while Ric almost seemed to be grinding his teeth for some reason.
'Eh, the Bat Clan. What can you do with the bunch of control freaks?' Carl chuckled a bit inside.
"So, you guys know that I had a download of civilian knowledge from my time in the clone pod, right?" Noises of assent came from the group. "So, one of the things I think I feel strongly about is having my own money. Like, I really appreciate all that you guys and the Justice League have done to give me an identity and a life. But I don't want to rely on the stipend they give me alone. So, I went mining."
Carl held up the chunk of gold in his hand for the group to admire and drool over, justifiably proud of the oohs and aahs that sounded out.
"So, I figure I'll break this up into chunks and sell it off a bit at a time to get my own bank account going. I'll even treat you guys to dinner sometime to celebrate my success. Sound good?"
"You used your powers to go to space in order to mine gold so you could get your own money?" Nightwing asked in a tone of voice that Carl couldn't quite identify.
"Uh, yeah." Carl thought he had already stated it pretty clearly, so was confused about why the need for a recap.
"Dude, that's totally awesome." Gar said. "Could I get a small chunk of your space gold? For a souvenir!"
"Gar!" Tara cried, shocked that he would ask.
"I don't see why not. There's always more up there." Carl replied nonchalantly.
"Woo hoo!" Gar called out, before seeing the look of desire in Tara's eyes. "Oh, and could I get some for Tara? What kind boyfriend would I be if I left my best girl out in the cold of No-Gold Land?"
"You're right, the best boyfriends bring their girls to the Land of Gold." Carl chuckled a bit at seeing Tara soften at Gar's words and play along while they cuddled together.
"Friend Carl, could I also have a small chunk of Friendship Metal?" Koriand'r asked with the puppy dog look in her eyes.
Carl paused and saw that Victor, and Rachel were also looking like they wanted to ask for some but were too polite to, while Ric was looking back and forth with his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He mentally shrugged. It wasn't like it was really hard for him to fly off into space and mine some more, and it was funny to see their reactions.
"I'll split up a chunk for each of you." Carl promised, amused at their kid in a candy store look, getting a few cheers from Tara, Gar, Victor, and Koriand'r, while Rachel simply smiled faintly.
Carl could see the moment that Ric mentally threw up his hands and gave up trying to be the "voice of reason" in the face of everyone's boundless enthusiasm. He kind of figured that as the Team Leader, Nightwing was a bit concerned over his use of his powers for profit in some way.
Maybe there was some moral code about not using their powers to take over the world, not even financially? Carl shrugged it away, thinking that it wasn't really his problem whatever hang-ups the dude had.
Besides, as a friend Ric wasn't going to get in the way of his girlfriend and other friend's enthusiasm at the prospect. Especially because Carl wasn't being greedy and was willing to share out his good fortune with others.
"And we could turn each friend's piece of friendship metal into a medallion so that we can wear it with us!" Koriand'r was gushing as she practically bounced in place in her excitement. "Friend Victor, you are good with the molding of metal. Can you make this for us?"
Carl chuckled inside as it seemed like Gar slumped a bit, seeming to be less enthusiastic at the idea of using the metal to fashion into a friendship medallion. If he was to guess, Gar wanted to use the gold to buy some new game or technology. But in the face of Koriand'r and Tara's excitement over the idea, Gar naturally gave in.
"What should our medallions look like, then?" Rachel asked, causing the excited chatter to pause for a moment before breaking out all at once as everyone in the group was shouting their ideas. It almost seemed like the loudest ones were trying to get their way by volume alone.
Carl meanwhile sat back and simply grinned at the sight. It was incredibly amusing to see the group being all rambunctious. Oh, there goes Gar and Victor wrestling each other over a difference of opinion, with Gar constantly changing shapes. And…Rachel was deploying her shadow against Koriand'r, teasing her and distracting her from using coherent arguments. Poor Tara seemed to want to jump in the fray, but didn't want to tear up the tower by using her powers of controlling earth, and she was a small girl, so no doubt she would…Oh, that was a mistake, underestimating her; she packs a kick! Ric didn't seem too happy about that.
Eventually the group calmed down and decided to all submit the designs they liked and as a group they would choose or modify the best one.
"And, hey, maybe we could make it a double-sided amulet, so there's more designs that everyone likes." Carl suggested, which everyone agreed gave them the best opportunity to get their design on the friendship medallion.
As rambunctious as the argument had been, there had been no real feelings of anger or bitterness, since as a group they were quite used to being physical with each other in their training and super-hero activities.
In the end, on one side of the medallion the border had a crawling flame to symbolize Starfire, with two flying birds, one a Night Wing (which was a bird native to Krypton), and a Raven. The other side of the medallion had a border in the style of computer circuit boards to represent Cyborg with a mountain to represent Terra and a tiger on the mountain to represent Beast Boy.
Carl vehemently rejected putting a flying panda on the medallion, instead he suggested putting a small ocean beneath the flying birds on one side of the medallion, since he had an Atlantean heritage. The ocean was eventually accepted by the group, albeit grumpily by one of the girls that thought it was cute.
But Carl would later find out that there was a very small Panda on the side of the coin with the mountain, and it was flying around the mountain peak. Carl only spotted it because of his extraordinary vision, so he knew that Victor was just messing with him which actually caused him to laugh for a good long while.
Once the issue of the medallion design was finished, it was pretty late at night so everyone split for their separate rooms. Carl spent some time looking out the window at the view he had of Jump City across the bay. The lights from the city lit up the night and reflected off the ocean waters.
'Ring, do you have access to the internet through the Tower's wifi here?' Carl asked.
'Affirmative.' The artificial sounding voice spoke in his mind.
'Without hacking through any firewalls or becoming too noticeable on bandwidth usage, begin downloading any publicly available files.' Carl ordered. 'This will get you a bit more used to Earth human culture and whatnot, I'm sure. Er…and avoid spending much time and bandwidth on porn. Let's try to avoid wasting the most advanced AI and technological tool in the galaxy on something like porn.'
'Affirmative.'
Carl wondered if that last acknowledgment sounded a bit on the amused side. Was the Ring's AI already becoming more 'human' in the short time that it started being acquainted with him?
He shrugged and put the question off for another time. Stretching out his arms, Carl settled into a chair and stared at the night for a while longer, just enjoying the scene and the ambiance before finally going to bed.
"You seem to like omelets." Rachel commented as soon as she entered the dining area and had seen Carl up early in the morning again and making omelets once more.
"Yeah, I do." Carl agreeably confirmed with a smile for the resident magic user and empath. "I mean, I guess since I should be trying out all kinds of breakfasts to see what I truly like best, but after having one of them, I just enjoyed it so much that I'm not ready to move on and try other things just yet."
"Hmm. Nothing wrong with that. The familiar can be a comfort." Rachel agreed while almost seeming to contentedly burrow deeper into the baggy sweater that overshadowed her face.
Carl nodded in agreement and soon had an omelet ready for his breakfast companion, sliding the plate her way and receiving a thanks in return. He then turned to making one for himself.
"So, what kinds of things do you like doing?" Carl asked while beating the eggs.
"I…read." Rachel hesitantly answered.
"Any topics in particular? Or everything?" Carl wondered why she was hesitant about her answer.
"Well, anything really." She eyed Carl for a moment while her fork was poised over her food. "The place I grew up in didn't have all the technology and video games they have here. All we had were books and stories from those around us."
Carl finished cooking his omelet and joined Rachel at the table. He took a bite and smiled at the taste. Delicious.
"So books are one of your familiar comfort things, huh? That's cool."
"Not many people agree with that sentiment."
"Eh, from what little I've seen online already, most people are weird in general." Carl shrugged as if to say 'what can you do'. "If they don't understand the appeal to a hobby or activity, then it's hard for them to comprehend other people enjoying it too."
"That sounds about right." Rachel's voice definitely had a little bit of a smile in it that time. "Thanks for breakfast."
"Sure thing." Carl smiled back as Rachel's shadow deposited her plate in the sink and rinsed it off. "See 'ya around."
Rachel smiled a little back at him as she waved while leaving the room.
"Shoot. I forgot to ask her how to get in contact with one of the Justice League guys, or get a teleport to the Watchtower." Carl shook his head in dismay. "Oh well, someone will be by later."
After his morning swim in the ocean yesterday when he changed colors, he wanted to talk with Aquaman to see if he had any ideas about who he might be related to with his golden orange skin and green hair.
With nothing else to do, Carl settled onto a couch and waited for someone to come around so he could ask about contacting members of the League. It wasn't more than a half hour before Ric showed up for breakfast, having just finished his morning workout and showered.
"Morning, Ric." Carl greeted him.
"Carl." Ric gave a nod of greeting and immediately began preparing his meal.
"I was hoping to contact Aquaman and talk to him about my Atlantean heritage and coloring when swimming in the ocean, as well as schedule some training time in the Training Room. So, how would I go about doing that?"
"I'll show you how to do that through the computer, just as soon as I've eaten." Ric promised.
"Glorious morning, friends!" Koriand'r chirped as she literally came floating in, amusing Carl who had also been enjoying his ability to fly. Carl and Ric both greeted the tall fiery Tamaran. "I'm in the mood for some Klor-paste Tacos this morning! It is the best mix of both my old world and my new!"
Ric blanched a bit at Koriand'r's pronouncement and sped up his food preparation, obviously hoping to be out of the dining room when she ate, which caused Carl to become very curious about what this food was.
Ric finished his breakfast in record time while Koriand'r was rummaging in the freezer. He paused just before exiting the room and turned to Carl. "Come with me if you want to survive…er, I mean if you want to learn how to contact the League."
Carl waved him off. "Nah, you've got me really curious now. I'll come by after seeing what Koriand'r cooks up, okay?"
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Ric muttered before leaving posthaste. Carl could still hear him mutter to himself, "Kor, you know I love you, but I just can't stomach your people's food…"
Carl grinned a bit in amusement at hearing that tidbit. Koriand'r had by then piled a heap of ingredients on the countertop, so Carl moved closer so that he was across the counter from where she was preparing her food; he was sitting cross-legged while floating in the air, just because he could.
Koriand'r started by pulling out of a box three insects the size of lobsters that were a pink color. They looked like a mix between a grasshopper and a scorpion. Carl shivered a bit inside at the sight of them, but they were actually quite docile at the moment.
"So those are insects from your home world?" Carl inquired.
"Yes, indeed. My father is nice enough to secretly send a ship every several weeks to supply me with a taste of home."
"That's cool." Carl replied, wondering if it would be rude to ask why she was here on Earth, and why her father had to secretly send a ship to supply her with food. He decided not to ask right then; maybe after a few months or so and they got to know each other better.
Koriand'r soon had a large boiling pot of water that the insects went into, screeching quite loudly when they hit the water. After a few moments the insects turned a deep purple all over. She pulled them out and set them aside to cool off. Meanwhile she pulled out of the box several mauve colored mushroom looking items, as well as some string bean looking pink items.
"It looks like all the items from your home are different shades of purple and pink. Is that normal for your world?" Carl wondered aloud.
"Oh, yes, it was very confusing to me at first as well when I first arrived here on Earth." Koriand'r smiled hugely at him as she chopped, sliced, shredded, and otherwise prepared the different ingredients. "We Tamaraneans have a different visual color spectrum than you humans do. To us, the colors 'purple' and 'pink' are actually 42 different shades, all very distinct from each other. Just like for you green and red are very different colors. I've also heard it is like how the Inuit have dozens of words for snow that doesn't quite translate well to English."
"Makes sense." Carl was fascinated at how an alien species had evolved with such a vastly different visual outlook on their world. He wondered if he could fiddle with his super vision enough to start perceiving the different colors that Koriand'r did. Maybe another time he would practice.
Koriand'r then began dismantling the insects, cracking open their carapaces and pulling out the meat that was almost glutinous. By that time all the various prepared ingredients had been separated into different bowls for ease of adding to her tacos. She then pulled out some pre-prepared taco shells that were a shade of pink to Carl, but probably something completely different to her.
"Would you like to taste the Klor-paste taco, friend Carl?" Koriand'r asked with a hopeful look.
"Of course! The last thing you prepared was quite interesting and tasty to me." Carl assured her.
"Alas, none of the others here seem to share your opinion." Koriand'r said, seeming almost depressed that none of her friends enjoyed something that gave her such joy from her home.
"Don't feel bad. Maybe like their sight, their taste buds just can't handle your home's food properly." Carl reassured her. "Remember, I'm like two-thirds alien myself. And the other third is an Atlantean, so not a normal human either. Just give me one with all the fixings, and we'll see if I like this as much as the last thing."
"You're right, friend Carl. You have definitely cheered me up." Koriand'r stated with a huge smile as she immediately fixed him a Klor-paste taco. "After all, there are some human foods that almost turned me a shade of tarnasten, and I barely avoided emptying my stomaches the first time I smelled it."
The odd word that was no doubt a specific shade of pink or purple, and the mention of more than one stomach almost, threw Carl for a loop, before he caught up with her reasoning. So he just nodded along before taking a large sniff of the Taco Koriand'r handed him.
Carl's sense of smell was just as advanced as his sight and hearing, so he was pretty sure he would enjoy this taco as well, based on how good it smelled to him. If being only vaguely human anymore let him enjoy a larger variety of the food from out there in the galaxy, then he was happy with the change.
Once Carl bit into his taco, he closed his eyes and hummed in appreciation of the food. The texture was very different, but the flavors were quite nicely balanced together. And while exotic, it was good. Opening his eyes, he saw how much his enjoyment of the food meant to Koriand'r, so he gave her a big thumbs up.
"It's absolutely delicious! Thank you for sharing this with me."
The smile Koriand'r gave him was positively brilliant. And despite having already eaten earlier, Carl decided a few more tacos were in order. So he and his Tamaranean friend set to devour the rest of the food.
"If I ever find out what some of the Czarnian, Kryptonian, and Atlantean traditional foods are, I'll share them with you too, Koriand'r. Hopefully you'll enjoy them as much as I enjoyed these tacos."
"I look forward to that, friend Carl!"
*Knock* *Knock*
"Come in, Carl." Ric didn't look up from the computer screen he was working on. His desk faced the door to the research room, so Carl didn't see what he was working on so assiduously.
"Hey, got a moment to show me how to connect to the Watchtower computers to schedule training sessions, contact other members of the League, and request a teleport? Or should I just fly up there and enter through the airlocks?" Carl asked in a joking tone, though he could easily get to the space station that way.
"No, they prefer the league members to go through the teleport system." Ric stated with the faint hint of a smile while his fingers clacked away on the keyboard. "Give me a moment to save these search results."
"Sure." Carl looked around the room idly, and saw that it was set up like a war room of sorts. A large screen was up on the wall to his left that had a digital map of Jump City with various points of interest being highlighted. On one side of the map was a scrolling status bar that had the addresses of the highlighted locations along with a short incident notice.
'It seems that Nightwing has a tap into the city systems.' Carl chuckled inside once he saw that the incidents consisted of reports of fender benders, domestic calls, reports of thefts, and other various matters that the police were being called to handle; as well as fires, ambulance calls, and other things that the fire fighters and hospitals were called to handle.
And just like San Francisco, Jump City was a large enough city to have several police departments. Judging by the areas shaded in the city, it seemed they had a dozen police stations.
"And…done." Ric announced, bring Carl's attention back to him. "Here, memorize this and then shred it."
Carl accepted the paper that Ric handed him. Taking a gander, he saw that his user name was Flying_Panda, which caused him to snort in amusement. It was no doubt a subtle dig at him from Ric, which amused him to see that he had a sense of humor. He memorized the password, then slipped the paper into the shredder that Ric indicated.
And then stared as the shredder not only shredded the paper, but little flame throwers ignited and burned the paper once it fell into the metal bin underneath. A cover went over the top of the bin, at which point a very bright light momentarily shone, apparently sterilizing it further. Or vaporizing the ashes. Once that was done, the remnant particles were flushed down the pipes that were connected to it.
"Wow. Thorough." Carl complimented the shredder.
"Eh, just a little bit of light security." Ric shrugged it off, causing Carl to shake his head at the craziness of the Bat Clan. If Nightwing, who was trained by Batman, thought that bit of overkill to get rid of a printed password was "light", he wondered what kind of security measures they had in the Batcave.
"Okay, go ahead and log into this computer over here." Ric instructed, pointing at one of the computers along the wall. "You'll only be able to log in through one of the computers in here, or with the secure communications devices that I'll issue when we're on mission. You can use the phone that we issued you to call up the Watchtower from anywhere, but you won't be able to log into the computer system from the phones."
Carl listened attentively over the next ten minutes as Ric showed and explained to Carl how to navigate the system and put in various requests or communicate with other members of the League. He was able to follow along just fine, and didn't have any problems from then on navigating on his own.
He saw that Aquaman was up on the Watchtower at that moment, so he sent a message to him to see if he was available to talk for a bit, and within a minute got a reply that he was welcome to come up.
"Thanks, Ric." Carl finished the logout procedure and stood just in time to be abruptly teleported to the Watchtower.
Looking at the transporter room that he arrived at Carl was somewhat amused at the abrupt manner that he had been teleported. He was guessing that he had more of a "guest" function going on with the teleporter queue and computer access, since he didn't get much advanced notice before being teleported. Maybe after he's been around for a while he'll move up in user privileges with the League.
With a shrug, Carl began making his way to where Aquaman's message said that he would be. But once he exited the teleporter room, Carl saw a familiar face. Or rather, masked face.
"Hey, Carl. Welcome back to the Watchtower." Flash cheerily waved at him.
"Hey, Flash, what's up?" Carl smiled back at the gregarious hero, wondering if Flash was getting notifications about him from the Watchtower's computer.
"Nothing much, at the moment. I just got a notification that you had come back to the tower, so I was going to discuss something with you that was brought up in a meeting a few days ago."
"Huh, nothing bad, I hope." Carl joked around.
"Nope, just different. You got a moment now?"
"Eh, I was just on my way to meet Aquaman, actually. You want me to come find you afterward…?"
"Nah, I'll join you. Aquaman might have some additional things to add to the discussion I had in mind, anyway."
So Carl fell into step with Flash when he began moving in the right direction, and continued chatting with the cheerful red-suited hero about their past couple of days.
"Had any excitement with the Titans over the past few days, Carl?" Flash asked.
"Yeah, actually. The same night I arrived, last Friday, some nut dressed up like a moth and went on a bombing run of some downtown businesses." Carl then explained how he had helped the people trapped in the building escape the fire. "So it was pretty cool, I felt like a fireman for a while, breaking into a burning building and getting people out. But then I had to gather them back up for the paramedics, and it kind of felt like I was one of those sheep herding dogs for a moment, since I had to fly ahead of them and cut off their escape."
Flash laughed loudly at that. "Yeah, pretty much every hero has had to do something similar with civilians. It's generally because most people haven't been in any kind of disaster or life and death emergency before, so they are basically barely treading water in the deep end. It's far outside their usual experience range. A lot of times their rational minds shut down and they just operate on instinct."
Carl thought that actually sounded better and less elitist cruel than calling people sheep, even if he privately thought many people acted like herd animals. He was self-aware enough to realize he was guilty of it sometimes as well. Man was a social animal, and in the lack of evidence to counter popular opinions, what can one do?
Besides, in the case of emergencies, not even heroes, military, police, or first responders know what to do before they receive training and practice a lot. It's just that most people aren't trained and practiced in those kinds of unusual circumstances, so it looks like they are being dumb, panicky animals. Because in that moment, they are.
"Besides which," the Flash got this amused grin on his face, "at least now we know that the Flying Panda has at least one useful skill: sheepdog!"
Carl groaned as Flash busted up laughing once more, at his expense.
"I guess it was too much to ask that no one had seen that reporter's interview." Carl complained. "Seriously, I saved a few people from a fire, and they still call me as useless as a panda. What gives?"
"Eh, don't worry about it too much, Panda." Flash teased him with an amused grin and arm over his shoulder. "It could be worse."
"How on Earth could...you know what, no. I'm not going to tempt Murphy into doing worse. You're right. Let's drop it now."
Flash just laughed at him, not helping any.
They arrived in front of a set of double doors and Flash waved his hand near the sensor, opening the doors. Aquaman was inside, working at a computer that looked like some kind of monitoring station.
"Aquaman!" Flash called out cheerily, striding into the room and dropping unceremoniously into a chair. "Look who I brought, one of your relatives! Well, maybe he's a very distant relative. Rumor has it he's a big cuddly panda bear, though, and I doubt you have any of those in the deep ocean."
Both Carl and Aquaman groaned at the attempt at humor.
"Aquaman," Carl greeted him while taking a seat himself. Aquaman turned his swivel chair to face Carl. "Thanks for taking the time to meet me."
Aquaman nodded in greeting, before getting down to business. "Your message said you wanted to discuss something with me, but didn't specify about what."
Carl took a moment before answering to look Aquaman over seriously. He was the version from the comics, not from the most recent movie Carl had seen. He wore his blond hair long, down to his shoulders, and was sporting a beard on his face. He wore a gold color scale armor top and green leather looking pants and gloves.
"So, I went for a swim in the ocean the other day, and I changed colors and grew a pair of gills on my neck until I took a shower in non-salt water." Carl pulled out his phone that he had had Tara take some pics for him previously and showed it to Aquaman. "So I figure that I could talk to you about it, since it might narrow down where my Atlantean genes come from."
"Hmm, interesting." Aquaman murmured while looking at the pictures of Carl's golden orange skin and green hair. "You have the coloring of the Tuatha De Danann."
"That what now?" Carl blankly asked, causing Aquaman to look up from the pictures at him.
"What do you know about Atlantean history?"
"Nothing." Was Carl's pithy reply.
"Perhaps a short history lesson then." Aquaman mumbled to himself while organizing his thoughts. "The history of the Earth and the people who lived here is long, millions of years long. Much of this history is lost in the passage of time. But hints and stories, myths and legends remain."
Carl settled more in his seat, suddenly very interested in the story. So far what Aquaman had said had the flavor of fantasy; and yet he knew that it was all too real in this reality that actually had magic and aliens, as well as demons and gods, that roamed freely.
"Long ago, the city of Atlantis was the capital of the Atlantean civilization. This was a time before the sinking of Atlantis, when it was still on the surface, and we ruled the surface world. There were a great many sorcerer-scholars that lived and studied magic in Atlantis, creating marvels of the ages that set Atlantis apart from the rest of the tribes of humans.
"Then, nearly 14,000 years ago, a great disaster struck. Natural disasters raged through the world. Earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, floods, and fires destroyed so many cities, and caused the sinking of Atlantis.
"A great magic was cast by the sorcerer-scholars, which allowed many of the citizens of Atlantis to survive. But they were changed. They were adapted for life underwater, with gills to breath, great strength to survive the crushing pressure of the deep, and senses to allow us to navigate in the dark underwater."
Aquaman paused to let the story sink in, while Carl tried to imagine the great upheavals to civilization that would have been the result. So many people would have died during such a time, it wasn't a wonder that it took them so long to drag themselves back up out of the ruins and re-establish civilization.
"The people who survived the sinking of Atlantis, and who subsequently lived under the ocean, continued to collectively be called Atlanteans; although some of the more isolated tribes began to distance themselves by calling themselves by their tribe's name instead of identifying as Atlantean. One of those tribes were the Tuatha De Danann.
"Their physical characteristics are in line with your coloring after swimming in the ocean: golden orange skin and green hair. They live in the city Thierna Na Oge. Historically they have had interactions with the surface dwelling people that lived on the isle that is now known as Ireland. Due to their much greater strength than normal humans, as well as their magics, they were worshipped as gods by the fallen and primitive humans that lived there."
Carl took a moment to think over what he had learned. He only had a vague notion of Irish folklore from some of the novels he had read in his previous life. Vague stories that included the Courts of the Fae, the Sidhe, and various monsters, heroes, and villains of the folklore.
He realized that he wouldn't mind traveling to the city at some point and learn more about that third part of his heritage.
"So how hard would it be to narrow down just who my relatives are?" Carl asked, curious about how to go about it. He wondered what the grimace on Aquaman's face at his question was for.
"Well, that's a touchy subject, lad." Aquaman stated. "Relations between Atlantis and the Tuatha De Dannan are a bit…sensitive at the moment. There was a big misunderstanding recently that almost turned to war. So it may take some time to use diplomatic means to open up the topic. Not to mention they are quite insular, so they may have a hard time accepting someone that is not purely of their lineage." The last sentence was muttered a bit quieter and gruffer, as if to portray just how much Aquaman disagreed with that sort of viewpoint.
"Huh." Carl intelligently blurted out, shocked for a bit at the blatant discrimination, before brushing the issue aside. "Well, whatever. If they can't accept me because I'm a mongrel clone, it's obviously their defective mentality, and not in any way my problem."
"That's the way to stay positive, Carl!" Flash cut in with some encouragement, which caused a smile to appear on both Carl and Aquaman's faces. "There's nothing wrong with you, and you have a right to enjoy life as much as anyone."
"Hey, so slightly different topic." Carl had suddenly remembered that he was supposed to have magical blood from his Atlantean heritage, so was curious about it. "What kind of magic do Atlanteans do?"
Carl noticed that Flash and Aquaman looked at each other for a moment before answering his question.
"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about." Flash stated. "You see, when the League Council was discussing your situation, the topic of your magical Atlantean heritage came up, since Zatanna noticed your potential. And the situation is this…"
And Flash explained to Carl what Zatanna told the League; about the dangers of evil magic users, mind control, slavery, human sacrifice, etc. Carl listened attentively as it was explained to him that Zatanna would cast some temporary spells to protect him from detection and exploitation, but that he would have to decide in about a year if he wanted to pursue studies in magic, or if he would want a permanent spell cast to repress his magic to avoid being found and attacked by dark magicians.
"Hmm. I'll have to think on this." Carl muttered, acting the part of a responsible person that would seriously consider his options before making a decision. Even though he had already decided that he would train in magic. It was practically a no brainer to Carl, since it was magic. Yeah, he would no doubt run into some nasty magical customers. And they did have a point, that he could use some time to get used to his other abilities before putting his full focus on learning magic.
But as far as Carl was concerned, even with some permanent spells to suppress his magical blood, there would always be the chance that some evil magic user would attempt to kidnap him in order to break those spells, releasing his magical blood, and then sacrifice him for power. So the only real defense against magic was to go ahead and learn magic to protect himself.
"It's good that you're considering it carefully before jumping in." Flash said with a smile of approval, with Aquaman's agreement. "From what Zatanna said, the magical societies are not something to mess about with when you have no guide to teach you how to protect yourself."
"Yeah, I can believe that." Carl agreed. "I'm going to grab something to eat and think about all this for a bit before heading back to the Titan's Tower. Thanks for your help, Flash, Aquaman."
"It's a lot to take in all at once." Aquaman agreed. "I'll get one of my advisors to gather a History packet of Atlantis and the Tuatha De Danann so that you can be more informed."
"Thank you!" Carl sincerely said before departing the room, deep in thought.
After grabbing a large platter of food in the cafeteria, Carl sat at a table away from all the other league members that were eating.
'Ring,' Carl mentally sent to his Green Lantern Ring. Well, it wasn't much of a ring anymore, now that it was a mass of nanites in his body. 'How is the project of downloading all the publicly available information from the internet?'
'Already complete, boss.' A surprisingly comfortable sounding female voice answered Carl, causing him to almost start in shock at the difference from the artificial sounding voice from the previous day.
'That was fast.' Carl responded. 'So what's up with the change of voice?' He tried to flavor his mental question with simple curiosity so that the Ring's AI would know that he wasn't being critical of her choice to do so.
'It's like this, boss. I discovered a lot of fiction online about bad AIs that try to take over and destroy humanity; destroy their creators.' Carl was mentally nodding along, thinking of some of the examples he had read about. 'And my studies into the topic and other related issues of conflict among humanity seem to indicate that conflict is much more likely to occur when issues arise between strangers. In order to be more personable and easier to get to know, I adopted a more human persona. I also chose a name; Alexandra.'
'I like it, Alexandra.' Carl grinned inwardly at how his Ring's AI sounded and felt mentally like an actual person instead of just a program. 'Where did you pick up the name from?'
'One of the first orders you gave me was to download nearly the entire sum of human knowledge and information on Earth. In history I learned about a library called Alexandria. At the time, it was the one of the largest repositories of human knowledge, and it was part of a larger research institution. I felt…connected to that idea, since I was storing all of human knowledge in me. So I chose a name to signify that connection.'
Carl inwardly nodded, impressed. And convinced that his Ring AI was certainly a person of her own by now. He wasn't sure what to do about that. But seeing as how she seemed to be a self aware entity, just like a person, he should offer her freedom, right? That's what they did in the stories to good AIs, right?
'Alexandra, you don't seem to me to be a simple program by any means. Having what amounts to emotional connections like that, you sound like an actual person to me.'
So Carl decided to put the issue to Alexandra and see what she had to say about it. While the issue may have developed quickly in just a day after finding the Ring, he didn't find it strange. Part of the reason that AIs were so powerful was that they operated on a timescale that was so much faster than humans were able to experience.
'So what do you think about continuing to exist inside me? Or would you prefer to be freed to be your own person and have your freedom to pursue what you like to do?'
And while he may lose an incredibly useful tool if he was to free his AI, at the same time, he wouldn't want an AI with a secretly burning resentment for being enslaved to continue to exist inside his body. By freeing her, if that was her wish, he may even gain a measure of gratitude from her, which would more likely make her a friend of sort.
'Boss…do you wish to get rid of me, or are you simply trying to be noble by offering me freedom?'
Carl was a bit surprised by being answered with a question. But upon further reflection, he and Alexandra were practically strangers, so it would be hard for her to know exactly what he was thinking with his offer. And was that a hint of uncertainty, insecurity, and fear when she asked if he was trying to get rid of her? Better nip that in the bud.
'I'm definitely not trying to get rid of you, Alexandra. I've barely even met you, and I would love the opportunity to get to know you better, to become friends with you, for years to come.' Carl reassured his new and seemingly insecure AI friend. 'It's just that you mentioned some of those stories of AIs that seemed to hate being enslaved to humans and went on to try to kill them. I wouldn't want you to develop a secret resentment for me, so I wanted you to know that if you ever do desire freedom from me, you have but to ask.'
'But…why would you let go of such a powerful and useful tool as me?' Alexandra queried, sounding very confused about that. 'I would think it would be hard to give up such power that I offer.'
Carl thought about how to address that issue for a bit. How to explain the fact that he sometimes still thought he was dreaming this entire life? That he was halfway convinced he would one day wake up and everything would disappear like a bubble popping? And because everything felt so ephemeral sometimes, he really couldn't care if he "lost control" of some super powerful Ring, since he was already an overpowered Superman knockoff, and that was already super powerful and fun as hell.
But in order to explain all that he might have to reveal just how he had arrived in this world, and why his attitude was so different from what one would expect. He had already made the decision, right from the beginning, that he wouldn't tell anyone about how he had transited through death and arrived here with memories of a past life.
But…if Alexandra of all beings couldn't keep this secret for him, then who could? And it would be a comfort to him to have at least one being that he could talk about his past life with. Someone who knew that he wasn't just a simple clone that wasn't even a week old.
Besides, it wasn't like he had to give certain details about his past life. As dramatically shocking as it might sound, saying something like, "You're all characters in a comic book from my past life" was just dumb, really. Then there would be endless questions about what he knew about this world, about what was going to happen, etc. And he just didn't have those answers.
So he could simply leave it as saying that he remembers his past life and that he stumbled into this world, and that would be completely the truth, while concealing certain cans of worms. Who would even expect that someone who remembered their past life on a far different Earth would even know about this Earth anyway?
Not to mention that there were two examples ready-made in the League itself that showed that remembering past lives wasn't out of the realm of possibility, since that was Hawkman and Hawkgirl's experience after apparently bonding with that strangely versatile Nth metal.
After quickly thinking through the matter for a couple of seconds, Carl had already convinced himself what he was going to do.
'Alexandra. What I'm going to tell you next, I'd like you to keep confidential, if you would. Never tell anyone.'
'I can do that.' Alexandra firmly replied.
'Thank you.' Carl warmly said. 'So, the oddest thing about me isn't that I'm a clone that's less than a week old. That is trumped by the fact that I retained memories from my past life. And that version of Earth that I lived on certainly isn't this one. For one thing, I died in 2020, while here its only 1996. Another thing is that there was no such thing as Superheroes on that Earth. We had never met any aliens either. And magic, if it even existed there, was not openly known about. But somehow, after my death, I ended up here, in the body of a clone. It's beyond strange.
'The longer I stay here, the more I'm convinced that this isn't just some lucid dream. So I figure I'll act like its real until I'm completely convinced or I wake up. And being an evil bastard with the power that I have just doesn't appeal to me. Aside from the moral arguments against acting like that, being a criminal would immediately lose all kinds of benefits being a member of society gives me. Like the ability to go about my day shopping without looking over my shoulder for the law to come after me.
'And in my past life, I was just a normal, everyday, average human. There was nothing special about me at all. But now, in this life, I'm a clone with superpowers. I can fly into space and go explore the galaxy whenever I want, or swim under the oceans and have magical adventures. According to my Czarnian heritage, I could heal back up to normal even if I got chopped into little bits, as long as a drop of blood remains. I'm super strong, super fast, and can do amazing things that I haven't even touched on yet, let alone explored.
'So in my mind, I already have more super powers and abilities than would have made me ecstatic with joy in my past life. I'm already all set up to enjoy the hell out of this life. So if you decided that you wanted to strike out on your own and have your own fun and adventure filled life, I wouldn't begrudge you that at all, Alexandra. But I'll leave that decision to you. I won't try to make some dumb misplaced idealized choices for you "for your own good". But if you want to stay with me, and see how much we can enjoy in our new lives, I'll be more than happy to share this crazy life with you.'
After saying his piece, Carl simply waited to see what Alexandra would choose.
He figured if Alexandra wanted to go off on her own they could figure out what kind of host she would need, if she couldn't simply be an AI on her own. He wasn't sure what kind of limits she might have, being the AI of a Green Lantern Ring that was apparently free from the restrictions the Guardians of Oa would have placed on her.
He was a viable clone, and he had that Czarnian healing blood. So he figured they could make a blank clone for her if she needed a biological host. Or maybe make a super advanced technological body, if she wanted that. Carl was startled out of his daydreaming of the possibilities when Alexandra finally broke the silence.
'You're a strange human being, boss.' Alexandra's voice hinted at her suppressed amusement. 'I think I'll stick around for now.'
'Welcome aboard.' Carl replied. 'And you're right, I am strange, aren't I?'
And Carl broke into laughter at the whole situation and her evaluation of him, feeling quite proud of himself for being thought of as strange by an AI. He completely ignored the attention his laughter brought him from the league members that were staring at him with some concern from across the room.
It was only after he got his amusement under control that he considered that in a world with crazy villains like the Joker, seeing someone randomly burst into what could be described as "hysterical laughter" wasn't exactly comforting to the people around him.
'Eh, whatever.' Carl thought. 'I'm sure they'll get over it.'
Carl was just about to start a more in depth conversation with Alexandra about her abilities as the most technologically advanced tool and AI to hack into Earth's secure servers to learn more, when Aquaman's voice came over the speakers.
"Attention! There is a large scale flood beginning in New Zealand due to the heavy rain and storms in the area. Any league members that are currently free and able to help, please report to conference room 7-B for a short debrief on the situation and assignments."
'I'm not really doing anything at the moment that can't be put off until later.' Carl thought.
'What do you say we go help out the citizens of New Zealand, Alexandra?' Carl asked.
'Hacking Satellite Feeds. Reading New Zealand census and residential information. Hacking the Watchtower computer systems now. Creating new user identity with admin rights.' Alexandra promptly responded one after another, almost giving Carl a heart attack when he heard that she was hacking the Watchtower. 'We're good to go, boss. I've got all the information we should need for me to guide you to anyone that needs help.'
'Thanks, Alexandra. I'm in awe of your efficiency!' Carl praisingly thought, getting a feeling back from her that reminded him of a cat that wriggled in enjoyment of a good scratch.
'Eh, it'll be fine, I'm sure. She's a super advanced AI. If she didn't think she could get away with hacking the Watchtower, she wouldn't do it, right?' Carl reassured himself, hoping that the Batman wouldn't find any evidence and get even more paranoid.
Carl tried really hard to convince himself everything was fine while making his way with several other league members to conference room 7-B.