"Wow!" The small pack of youngsters looked up at Cyborg with starry eyes. "That's so awesome!"
Cyborg chuckled. "Sure was. But you gotta remember that it was the whole team there. I couldn't have fried those flying robots without Robin and Raven turning off their shields, or Starfire and Beast Boy blowing up the factory's guns. Just 'cause I had the big part doesn't mean it was a solo thing."
"Whoa," the kids uttered in unison. Which Cyborg thought was undeserving for the comment he'd made, but he also knew that sometimes, kids were just that easily fascinated. And he wasn't about to burst their bubble, certainly not on Halloween night.
One of the shorter kids, wearing a little skeleton costume, had a question. "Mr. Cyborg, do you like Halloween?"
Cyborg smiled. "Of course! There's all the decorations, all the costumes, all the parties...I admit I'm not into candy too much these days, but on the other hand I never have to worry about my costume anymore."
"But...don't you think some parts of it are scary...like ghosts, monsters and witches?"
Another kid, in a devil costume, scoffed. "He fights real monsters every day, stupid!"
"Whoa!" Cyborg said over the top of them. "Don't need to be like that. And yeah, some parts of Halloween are scary. But you know what? It's OK to be scared. In fact, I'll let y'all in on a little secret: Even brave people get scared, sometimes."
An internal alarm got Cyborg's attention, and prompted him to check the time on his arm display. "Ten o'clock. Well kids, I'd love to hang with ya some more, but I think you'd better go find some more candy before it's all gone, you know what I'm sayin'?"
The kids obligingly started to walk off, back on the candy trail. Cyborg heard that same kid in the devil costume shortly thereafter: "Easy for him to say, he lives with a witch. And a werewolf!"
"They're only scary if you're a bad guy!" Cyborg hollered after them with a smirk. He sighed and shook his head. "Hard to say if Beast Boy's ever really scary, honestly," he said to himself once the kids were out of sight. "Smelly, sure, but scary?"
Cyborg paused to look around, again. The two dark shapes of highrise buildings in the distance showed that he was on the frontier of the urban section of town. And that he had managed to meander a fair distance away from the T-Car over the past three hours. Nothing alarming about that, though, it'd just take a ten-minute walk back.
Seeing a lack of kids near the intersection, Cyborg decided to alleviate his boredom by walking across the street to chat up the solitary policeman there.
"Nice night," Cyborg said.
"It'd be nicer if we didn't have to be in uniform...so to speak," replied the middle-aged man.
"I hear that. Any idea why we are here?"
"No idea, just that the commissioner said to take this seriously. Some of the guys said he encountered an ordeal on Halloween as a street cop somewhere back east."
"Huh. Well, as long as we ain't havin' another ordeal, I guess we're doing pretty good."
"I hear that," he agreed with a smirk.
Cyborg sighed, taking in the sounds for a few seconds. The nearby streets were sparse in population, but the loud noises of a myriad parties out of view played at the edges of his hearing, like a dull roar. Dull enough that he hadn't paid it any mind, but on the other hand it was comforting to know the city was still celebratory.
The policeman cleared his throat. "So what was that you were telling those kids about candy?"
Cyborg shuddered. "Evil candy. Long story involving a remote and teeth. It sure tastes good, but it does a number on your stomach. Or more like a whole series of numbers."
A soft series of regular footsteps drew Cyborg's ear, and his eyes soon followed. A different set of costumed little kids was coming down the sidewalk, towards them. Cyborg stepped forward to greet them.
"Hi there! Y'all having a great Halloween?"
The closest trick-or-treater, about four feet tall and sporting a pirate costume, broke from the group and walked right up to Cyborg. The kid lifted his right arm behind his back, to Cyborg's confusion.
His confusion was only magnified when he was struck in the torso by the kid's arm, which somehow had enough force to knock him over.
"Yo!" Cyborg protested as he got to his feet and his mind started piecing together inconsistencies. "What's the—why did—how did..." It was then that he noticed all the eyes he could see were glowing a light blue. "Uh-oh. Zombie kids?" It was as good an explanation as any.
The kids advanced at their walking pace, the one who had struck Cyborg waiting for a couple seconds while his group caught up. Cyborg, unwilling to reduce a mind-control-victim-kid to a bloody pulp, backed up at the same pace while trying to formulate a more acceptable plan. As this continued, other clusters of kids appeared walking down the street behind the first group, all stepping in unison.
A couple seconds later, he heard a metal clink, followed by a cloud of white smoke issuing from a canister that had suddenly appeared on the ground, blocking all the kids from view.
A new, female voice hollered, "Carl! This way!"
Cyborg's name certainly wasn't Carl, but it was as good a direction as any. He turned and ran, keeping up with the policeman and following the policewoman in front of them.
"Whoa," Cyborg commented with some fascination, "wagon train of the 21st century."
The ring of twelve police cars in the center of the otherwise empty mall parking lot certainly had more than a passing resemblance to the wagon trains of old. As Cyborg approached the makeshift fortification with the two police officers, he became aware of the twenty or so other police officers in the cars and in the central area between them all. As well as the handful of kids who were also in the central area.
"Umm...you guys got any idea what's goin' on?" Cyborg asked.
The policewoman who had led him here answered. "Got some reports about kids going crazy at several spots across town, before all our radios cut out. This was the best spot to regroup. Haskins led these kids here," indicating the central group with a nod of her head.
"Radios cut out, huh?" Cyborg directed a signal analysis process to the display on his arm, and examined it. "Yeah, somethin's throwing out a lot of EM noise. Seems clearer on the higher frequencies though." He routed his built-in communicator to his arm. "Robin, come in, do you read me? Robin?"
No answer.
"Raven."
No answer.
"Starfire."
No answer.
"Beast Boy?"
No answer.
Cyborg growled in frustration. "Well this is great."
He almost didn't hear the little boy. "Mr. Cyborg?" The voice gave it away as the same kid from before. Which did make sense, Cyborg realized, as that set of trick-treaters was the last he'd seen before all this started. "Are you scared?"
Cyborg sighed. "Sure am. But I ain't givin' up, if that's what you're askin'."
"So where's your car?" the snotty kid from the same group demanded.
"It's around here," Cyborg said with a slight degree of annoyance, "It's just—AHA!"
Cyborg began busily interacting with his arm display and controls. "OK, I can contact the T-Car...and the T-Car's transceiver can reach the Tower through the interference! Sweet! ...except the Tower can't reach any of the others either. Weird." Cyborg's eyebrow furled in suspicion. "It can't even get a one-way signal out to me. Must be some interference near the Tower itself..."
"Mr. Cyborg," the first kid forced himself to ask, "did you really figure all that out just now?"
"Sure did. You never know where you're gonna find answers, huh?"
"Guess not..."
Cyborg smiled, before turning to address the police with a straight face. "Guess that's our only lead," he declared. "We track down the trouble at the Tower, get to the bottom of this."
"Alright, you go ahead," Carl said. "We'll keep this area secure."
Cyborg cast a skeptical eye. "And if you can't?"
"Then we toss the kids in the cars and drive off. Better odds for us than anything head-on."
Cyborg sighed. "Guess I'm on my own, then."
"But Mr. Cyborg," the kid cut in with some panic, "you can't leave us here by ourselves!"
Cyborg smiled in return. "It's alright. You're in good hands with the police, you don't need me here too. Besides, I gotta go out and there stop whatever's doing this, which means I gotta...go out there and find it. So...I gotta go out there and save the day, looks like!"
As started off in the direction of the T-Car, he was talking to himself. "'Sides, I just gotta stay away from a bunch of little kids. How hard could it be?"