Chapter 7:  The Old Folks Home

All characters are the property of DC Comics.  No money is being made on this story and no infringement of copyright is intended.

I caught a glimpse of the headquarters of the Justice Society of America as the invisible plane screamed between the skyscrapers of New York.  I thought, as I always did, of Wally West's nickname for it.  He called it 'the Old Folk's Home'.  He said it teasingly but with an undertone of fondness and even respect.  It was not entirely accurate, of course.  The latest incarnation of the JSA had always included younger heroes as well as older; but the oldest heroes still in the business made their home in this aging, nondescript brownstone building.

Usually I had to suppress a smile when I thought of it.  Not today.  Today the Old Folks Home was under siege.  The battle lines were drawn with police barriers; with HDC troops, tanks and armored hovercars deployed on the streets; and with sharpshooters on the roofs.

Many of the soldiers turned to look as they heard, but didn't see, the invisible plane thunder overhead.  One or two fired at me, with the plasma pulse rifles I had encountered in Washington.  That was all.  These troops evidently had not been ordered to kill all metas on sight.  I did not fool myself that we would be allowed to leave as easily.  This pick up would be challenging.  I suppressed a sigh.  Probably they all would.

I set down on the roof of the brownstone.  I turned to the others.  "Stay here."

Gypsy's eyes were glazed with pain.  She didn't answer.  The other two nodded meekly.  I jumped out.  I had been invisible to the brownstone's security systems up to that point, but now they challenged me.

"Intruder," boomed the synthetic voice as all sorts of weapons and restraining devices popped out of the roof.  "You have twenty seconds to identify yourself or be seized for trespassing."

"Lemon Sherbet," I replied, thinking irritably that they should be more original in their passwords.

"Password correct.  You are free to enter."

I climbed back up to the cockpit.  "Okay," I told the others, "Gypsy better stay.  You two come along."

The senator and the congressman looked reluctant and apprehensive, but they climbed down without my needing to glare at them.

The thundering racket of the landing had not gone unnoticed.  Power Girl and the Star-spangled Kid came flying out of the rooftop access.  They both looked tense and ready to attack.  They stopped at the sight of me and a little of the tension left them.

"Oh!" said Courtney Whitmore, the Star-spangled Kid.

"What are you doing here?" Power Girl asked, but without her usual truculence.  "And who are they?"

"And where's your plane?"  Courtney added.

"It's invisible."

Wildcat followed them out of the dive tube.  "Bats!  Good to see you.  We could use some help right about now."

"Indoors." I headed for the dive tube.

"Sure thing.  Hey!  How did you know our password?  And who are these guys?"

I brushed past him, silent.  The dive tube was one of Mr. Terrific's inventions.  Magnetic force powers you up or down the tube and 'catches' you at the other end.  It was fast, if a little disorienting.  We came out, one after the other, on the fifth floor, in a foyer between the meeting room and the hospital.  The walls were decorated with the works of some of the lesser-known Impressionist painters.  I did not think they were prints.

Suddenly, the knot of fear in my chest loosened.  It made sense.  With Mr. Terrific in charge of security, the place was probably shielded against every imaginable form of attack, and several only Mr. Terrific had ever thought of.  Luthor's fear broadcasts would have no effect in here.

My two guests came out of the dive tube looking more than a little disoriented, but they did not vomit on the expensive Persian rug, so I did not worry about it.

"This is Senator Harold Connelly and Representative Piotr Zabrowski."

"Oh?"  Wildcat looked thunderous.  "Maybe you can tell us why the Army attacked us.  Was the Capitol under attack or was that a load of bull?"

Both were taken aback.  Power Girl intervened.  "Didn't you see all the smoke, Wildcat?  It was attacked, all right."

The two congressmen nodded.  Zabrowski added, "We were attacked by superheroes," he glanced at me, "well, they appeared to be superheroes.  Maybe the Army thought you were part of that.  It was probably all a mistake."

Power Girl snorted.  "They had a machine gun shooting wooden bullets.  That only works against Sentinel.  It was no god damn mistake, they were expecting us."

The JSAers' honest outrage clearly impressed them.  I had hoped for as much when I brought them in with me, but now it was time to take control.

"What's the situation?" I barked.

Wildcat bristled but Power Girl – short tempered, chip on her shoulder Power Girl – did not.  She replied with a tolerable calm, under the circumstances.  "We got creamed.  We got a call that the Capitol was under attack and scrambled and they hit us just short of the building.  It was a fucking setup."

She had always had a mouth on her.  That, at least, had not changed.  I grunted, "You should have paid more attention to my warning."

Power Girl and the Kid just stared at me.  Wildcat reddened.

"You didn't tell them," I growled, hardly believing it.

Power Girl turned on Wildcat.  "Ted, you idiot, what did you do now?"

Ted Grant raised his hands, whether to ward her off or to show his innocence wasn't clear.  "Hey, I told Mr. T."  Then he looked uncomfortable and added, "Well, it was several days later, but we were in the middle of dealing with the Thinker so I was a little distracted and we wouldn't have had time to do anything about it anyways."  He scowled and muttered, "And then Terrific had to go and get himself shot."

"What!?!"

They all turned and stared at me.  Power Girl said, "He was shot two days ago, as he was leaving the townhouse.  We wanted to keep it secret until we caught the shooter."

Wildcat scowled and added, "The flipping bullet went right through and buried itself in the granite facing of the townhouse.  The bastard used a cannon, for crying out loud!"

"Not a cannon," I told him distractedly, "a 15.2mm Steyr IW2000 with an optical sniperscope, firing an APFSDS round."

"How do you know that?" squeaked Courtney.

I scowled and she shrank back.  But my scowl was not for her.  Why had I not seen this coming?  Luthor was right to fear Mr. Terrific; he was a triple threat to him.  He was invisible to all forms of electronic surveillance, which meant he could get into almost any place; his ability to penetrate computer systems was unmatched, even by Oracle; and he was the leader of the only presently full-strength superhero team.

I knew Luthor had recruited Deadshot, I knew he might use him as an assassin, I just did not guess who the target was.  If I had, Mr. Terrific would have protected himself.  Or maybe not.  He tended to rely too much on his electronic invisibility.  It had been no protection against an old-fashioned optical sniperscope.

"Because I know who the shooter is," I finally replied.

The knot in my chest was back in full force and this time it had nothing to do with the Scarecrow or the Mad Hatter.  Oracle and I had planned things so that no one was indispensable, but without J'onn or Mr. Terrific, we would have little margin for error left.

Something else occurred to me.  "If you two didn't know, and Wildcat obviously didn't think to do it, who signaled me?"

"I did."

It was a sign of my distraction that I hadn't heard her come up.  I turned to see a short older woman with bushy gray hair.  Abigail Matilda Hunkle, once the original Red Tornado and better known as Ma Hunkle.  These days, she was the curator of the JSA museum downstairs and mother hen to all the JSAers.

She continued, calmly, "Wildcat told me.  Well, everybody tells me pretty much everything around here.  So when the soldiers showed up outside, I went and hunted up that 'panic button' you sent us."

I nodded.  Clearly a woman of sense.  "What's Mr. Terrific's status?" I asked without much hope.  Their attitudes said he was still alive, but no one bounced back quickly from a hit like that.

"Bad," said Ma Hunkle.

"He's still alive," Power Girl said at the same time, "but only just.  Dr. Mid-Nite is watching him day and night."

Pieter Anton Cross (better known as Dr. Mid-Nite) was, in addition to being a superhero, one of the best surgeons alive.  My father would have liked him, I thought suddenly; then put the irrelevancy aside.

"And the rest of the team?"

They glanced at each other and the knot in my chest tightened another notch.

Power Girl shook her head.  "The rest are either wounded or... or missing.  We're it."

My brain froze.  After what Oracle had told me, I had come expecting bad news but this....

There was a strange sound behind me, like sand poured onto concrete, and a new voice said, "Not quite.  There's still me."

"Sand!" Power Girl swept him up in a hearty hug.

Courtney beamed.  "When you didn't show up, I was afraid you'd disappeared too."

"I would have gone back for you," Power Girl interrupted, "but you...."

"I ordered you not to," Sand completed.  "And you see I was right.  I'm not easily hurt, as you know."

All very affecting, but I was in a hurry.  "Disappeared?  What happened out there?"

Sand, exhaustion writ plain in his face, looked at me in puzzlement, clearly wondering what I was doing there.  I don't think he even noticed the congressmen, who were trying to fade into the woodwork.  Power Girl turned back to me and picked up the threads of her interrupted briefing.

"Sentinel and Hawkman were hit immediately.  The platform Sentinel had created to carry Hourman and Wildcat disintegrated when he was hit.  I caught Wildcat and Hawkgirl caught Hourman but, as she slowed to set him on the ground, a new bunch opened fire from another direction.  Both Hawkgirl and Hourman were hit.  Basically, it all went to hell.  It was like our teamwork was off, we couldn't seem to do anything right."

"You were afraid," I told her.

"Now just a minute," roared Wildcat.  "This little lady is one of the..."

"You were all afraid," I interrupted, "because Luthor's been broadcasting an electromagnetic signal that triggers the fear center of the brain.  Everyone's brain.  We're protected in here, but – as soon as you go outside – it will affect you again."

"Really?" asked Courtney hopeful.  The thought that it wasn't her, that someone had made her feel afraid, was reassuring.

I'm only guessing, I didn't say, I don't really know.  I didn't say it because it didn't matter at the moment.  Both Courtney and Power Girl stood a little straighter.  They would be more confident in themselves, more effective, and that was all that mattered.

"Well," Karen continued,  "Jakeem and the Flash – our Flash -- never showed up.  Captain Marvel and I smashed up some tanks and tried to chase the troops off.  But more kept coming and we couldn't get the upper hand."

I clenched my teeth in disgust.  That would look good on the ten o'clock news.  Luthor had gotten what he needed out of the confrontation.

Karen pushed her hands through her hair.  "Then Hawkgirl and Hourman disappeared.  No one's quite sure when that happened, let alone how.  We were kind of busy, after all.  But then Marvel disappeared too!  I was looking at him one moment, I turned away for a few seconds, and he was gone.  No more than a few god damn seconds, I swear!"

Wildcat grumbled, "If Fate hadn't gone off on some mystic, mumbo-jumbo business, he'd have settled their hash."

I doubted that.  Luthor had planned too carefully.

"After that," Karen finished up, "Sand ordered us to gather up the wounded and take them back here.  He would cover us."

She shrugged.  "What happened after that, I don't know."

Everybody turned to Sand.

Sand's tone made light of things.  "I set off a small, localized tremblor.  Just enough to shake everyone up and spoil their aim."

Setting off an earthquake in downtown Washington. Fantastic.

Sand continued, "I was going to change to sand and sink into the ground; except they hit me with some sort of freeze ray.  I couldn't shift form or move or anything.  They would have had me, except a tank blasted me with one of their high-powered plasma pulses.  It shattered me into a million pieces.  I guess they thought that would kill me, but instead the heat of blast warmed me enough that I could shift to sand and get out of there.  Then it was just a matter of traveling through the bedrock to here."

Power Girl's face took on a set look.  "Dr. Mid-Nite should check you out.  That clearly took a lot out of you."

Sand, who had been half-slumped against the wall, straightened.  "I'm okay."

Power Girl looked ready to object, but suddenly the intercom came alive.  It was Dr. Mid-Nite's voice and there was an urgency to it.

"I think you all should get over here right now."

Sand looked at Power Girl and laughed weakly.  "I guess we're all going to see the Doctor."

We crossed the foyer to the Hospital, which was spacious, uncluttered, sterile and high-tech.  Dr. Mid-Nite had his back to us, watching a screen filled with Superman's face.  He seemed to be making an address.  My heart sank.  I had expected this, but that didn't make it good news.

Three beds were occupied.  Two were surrounded by IV hook ups and monitoring equipment.  Hawkman was sitting up in the third bed, watching the screen.  His left wing was heavily bandaged, his right leg was in a cast and an IV fed into his right arm.  He looked pale.

Dr Mid-Nite turned to face us.  "He came on just a... Sand!  Good to see you, man!  And Batman.  Good.  I think we're going to need your help."  He looked a little puzzled at the other two visitors, but then turned back to the screen.

Once he shut up, I could hear Clark's voice.

"...for interrupting your programming.  Thank you for listening.  Good night."  His image vanished, to be replaced by a pair of TV anchormen.  They looked at each other, stunned.  Mid-Nite t'ched and hit a button.  They disappeared.

"I started taping as soon as I realized what was happening.  Ah, here we go."

Superman's face reappeared in the screen.  He looked tired but resolute.  "... ellow Americans.  I apologize for interrupting the regular programming.  Please don't bother to change the channel, as we are broadcasting on all channels."

He allowed himself a small smile.  "That is quite a chore, these days.  But the matter I must speak to you about is both critical and urgent."

He paused.  "I must tell you that President Luthor was a criminal and traitor to this great nation of ours. He sought to first undermine and then destroy the heroes that protect this country from attack by aliens and other threats from without, and by supervillains and ordinary criminals from within.

"Today he convened a secret session of Congress where he tried to force the passage of legislation which would have crippled our effectiveness.  But this was only the opening wedge.  We are convinced he intended to ultimately round up all metahumans into concentration camps and exterminate us."

He stared out of the screen with utmost seriousness.  "He claimed that metahumans are a threat to the rest of humanity.  That is far from the case!  True, some metahumans – the so-called super villains – are a threat, but they are a small minority.  Most metahumans use their powers to protect you from those, human and metahuman alike, who would threaten you, your loved ones or our way of life.  It is clear that Luthor's claims were a mere cloak for some deeper, darker plot.

"In any case, we could not allow him to threaten all metahumans like this.  His actions have forced us to recognize a fact that we have long striven to avoid."

Superman paused again and something chilling crept into his face.  "We metahumans are not human.  We have pretended to be, to you as well as to ourselves, but our destiny is greater and grander than that.  It is time to cease the pretense.  In particular, it is time to reject the idea that human law applies to us.  We are beyond that and from this day forward we all must accept that only metahumans have the right to judge other metahumans."

He smiled.  It was clearly intended to be a reassuring smile but there was something disturbing in it.  "Do not think this means metahumans will be allowed to trample on the rights and freedoms of mere humans.  On the contrary!  Without human courts and legal technicalities to get in the way, we will be able to deal with supervillains more quickly and efficiently.  As we will deal with those who threaten or harm metahumans."

His countenance turned stern and unyielding.  "Please remember this.  We will not allow anyone, human or metahuman, to endanger the lives or well being of our fellow metahumans.  Justice will be meted out swiftly and without compunction.  As it already has, in the case of Lex Luthor."

He now seemed to be asking for understanding.  "Luthor clearly intended harm to all metahumankind.  He had to be punished.  Please believe that we intended no other deaths.  But Luthor cowardly attempted to escape his just punishment by ordering the army to attack us.  It was with great sadness that we fought against the soldiers of this great country of all of ours.  In the resulting confusion, we know that other – unintended – deaths occurred.  We regret this."

Superman attempted to smile again, with no more success.  "The man who now leads this country, Pete Ross, is a good man.  We are sure he understands and accepts the rightful role of metahumans in our society.  We mean him nothing but good.  Nor do we intend to interfere with your choice of president in the future.  You may elect anyone you choose.  Unless, of course, that person is not acceptable to us."

He paused again before continuing.  "I know this is a lot for you to take in, but it really means very little change for nearly all of you.  Most of you have had little contact with metahumans and that will not change.  If you do encounter one of us, just remember to treat them with the respect their position deserves.  Otherwise everything will be the same as always.

"Once again, I apologize for interrupting your programming.  Thank you for listening.  Good night."

Silence filled the room.

Dr. Mid-Nite broke it.  "Beautiful job of programming, really."

"Whoever did that smile is a genius," Power Girl added.

"That wasn't Superman!" Courtney insisted with a belligerence that showed her lack of certainty.

Wildcat smiled sympathetically.  "You know that, kid, and I know that, but most of them joes out there?"  He shook his head.  "They ain't gonna know that."

"After that show," I interjected, "the troops outside won't wait much longer to attack.  It's time to evacuate."

"I can't move Sentinel or Terrific," Dr. Mid-Nite objected.

"I can supply you with any medical equipment you need, once we get them in the plane..." – I knew the invisible plane could change it's form to anything Diana asked of it and she had told it to obey me.  I was confident I could get it to provide whatever he required – "... but bring all the supplies you need."  I was not sure it could produce human blood or drugs on command.

Mid-Nite nodded.  "That will work."

He looked over at Sand.  "Sand, come over here."  He proceeded to examine him as Sand kept insisting he was fine.  I wanted to tell him to wait until we were in the plane, but my father had taught me long ago that a good doctor lets nothing take priority over the care of his patients.

I looked at Sentinel, pale and unmoving.  Except for the "beep... beep... beep" of the heart monitor, he could have been dead.  He had been my hero growing up.  In a way, I guess, he still was.

None of us would survive much longer if we didn't get moving.  The soldiers would be ready for us this time.  Several nearby buildings were taller than this brownstone.  Snipers on them could shoot anyone who showed themselves on the roof.  Even if we dealt with them, the tanks and soldiers on the ground would open fire at the first sound of the jet.  They could put up a wall of fire that nothing could fly through.  Being invisible wouldn't help much in that case.  We needed a plan.

"All right," I said loudly enough to garner everyone's attention, "this is what we'll do."

Author's Notes: I am somewhat out of date on the JSA, so if I made any mistakes, my apologies.