Chapter 27: A Problem
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Bam! Bam! Bam! The Speaker of the House cried out, over the noise and confusion, "Mrs. Ross, you are out of order!"
"No," shouted Lana, "it's this Congress that is out of order! Call things what they really are! It's not the metas that are on trial here. There have always been evil metas. It's the Super-heroes! Some are metas and some – like that girl who sacrificed herself to save you, Senator – have no special powers to help them. What they have in common is their willingness to risk their lives, and even lose them, to protect all of us – metas and non-metas alike.
"You want the facts? I'll give them to you! I've been there, in the Luthor White House, from Day One and I have seen what's been happening. I'll tell you just what our dear President has been up to. I'll…."
A deep boom! echoed through the chamber.
Lana looked around, suddenly fearful. "What was that?"
The FBI, Secret Service and HDC people came to alert, tense and expectant. One called out, "We're under attack! The metas have returned!"
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The stretcher bearers set me down in front of the doorway. One of them grabbed me under the shoulder (the left one, fortunately) and hauled me to my feet. I shook him off and wobbled. I steadied myself with a hand of the door frame and studied the sight before me. The door was open; the doorway was filled with a constantly shifting pattern of colored light. The center of it swirled red then calmed down to a translucent yellow-green. Now I could barely make out the room beyond. It looked deserted.
Tentatively, I touched the colored light with a fingertip. Excruciating pain shot up my arm and, reflexively, I jerked my hand back. But pain and I are old acquaintances. I deliberately leaned forward and pushed my palm deep into the light.
I left it in for as long as I could stand it and then slowly pulled it out. It had felt as if my hand had been consumed by fire until the flesh was burned away and even the bones crumbled into dust. But I could discern no damage at all, except a residual pain that slowly died away. Satisfied, I turned to the two dumb-founded soldiers.
"It is a magical barrier," I told them truthfully. "I've encountered such things on occasion in the past."
"There really is such a thing as magic?" asked the corporal doubtfully. "I always thought it was faked or, you know, one of those meta powers."
"Well, if it looks like a duck and quakes like a duck…." I thoughtlessly shrugged and then winced as pain shot through my shoulder.
I pushed the pain back down and continued. "I suppose you could call this an illusion, if you want. It makes you feel like you're being burned alive but," I held up my hand, "as you can see, it doesn't actually do any damage."
"You mean it can't really hurt you?"
"Sure it can, but only if you let it. If you think it's killing you, then it will. These things are powered by the magician's will. It's basically their will power against yours." I smiled. "And I have beau coup will power."
Of course, I thought, Jason Blood has another source of power he could tap: the demon Etrigan, who was trapped inside his body. I pushed this thought away. What I needed was on the other side of the barrier, and I was willing to pit my will power against even a Demon from Hell to get at it.
"But, sir, you can't even stand unassisted," protested the other soldier.
"I'll make sure to fall forward, then," I told him. Before they could think up further objections, I turned and stepped into the barrier.
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We zipped down the corridors, just above the heads of the soldiers who prowled along them, guns at ready and nerves at hair-trigger. Some heard the soft-pitched whine of the miniature invisible plane and others felt the air move as we passed overhead. But the invisible plane was invisible and Gypsy's illusion held. When they looked up, they saw nothing.
The plane took us to an elevator. It was not working, but one blow from Captain Marvel made a hole in its floor large enough for us to pass through. If the noise drew the attention of any nearby soldiers, we were gone before they arrived.
On the bottom-most floor, we saw no soldiers, just long white, sterile corridors. The silence, however, was occasionally broken by a deep rumbling boom, reminding us of the fighting not far away. The occasional doors off the corridors were all made of tempered steel. I was reminded of the prison cell back in the clone factory and wondered what evils might be hidden behind those doors.
The corridor the invisible plane led us to was at least one hundred yards long. It dead-ended in a concrete wall.
We set down in front of it.
"The invisible plane," I told my comrades, "tells me Pete Ross is in a room on the other side of this wall. It got in through a ventilation duct, but the shafts are too small for any of us and it has been unable to find a door."
"I'll fix that," Captain Marvel announced, and swung his fist. For a split second I had to move fast to deflect concrete splinters away from Gypsy and me.
"The invisible plane also tells me," I added dryly as Captain Marvel stared in dismay at the still standing wall and the foot deep crater he had created, "that the wall is steel-reinforced concrete over three feet thick." And, I thought to myself, whoever is on the other side knows we're here now.
Marvel glanced back down the corridor. His brow lowered with determination. "Come on," he said and headed back down the corridor.
Afraid I knew what he intended, I grabbed Gypsy under her arms and flew after him.
"Marvel," I started when we joined him at the far end of the corridor, but I was too late. With the speed of Mercury, he was off down the corridor, flying faster and faster until he hit the wall with an impact that shook the underground base like an earthquake.
I helped Gypsy to her feet and looked down the corridor. The far wall no longer existed, replaced by a gaping hole over six feet across. Then my eyes widened and I jerked Gypsy out of the way.
She hissed in pain as her cast banged against the wall next to me, then Captain Marvel flew past us and embedded himself two feet deep in the wall behind us. He was clearly unconscious.
Someone looked out of the gaping hole in the wall, a hundred yards away. It was a man wearing an old-fashioned, double-breasted suit with a bow tie; a slightly odd apparition made far more so by being entirely pink and crackling with pink energy. It was Jakeem's Thunderbolt, a magical creature of almost unlimited power.
"Well?" called a familiar voice. "Are there any others?"
The Thunderbolt looked like he had eaten something sour, but obediently glanced down the corridor, right past us. "No, Boss," he replied and disappeared back through the hole.
I looked at Gypsy. Even through her pain, she had had enough presence of mind to hide us with an illusion. She looked back at me.
"I think we're in trouble," she whispered.
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I woke up face down on the floor. My jaw hurt and the gnawing pain in my right arm pit remained, but these were nothing compared to the indescribable agony filling my left foot. Reflexively, I jerked it towards me and the pain slowly faded away. I hoped Diana was doing better than I was. After a moment, I gathered my strength and rolled over. Just beyond my feet I could see the swirling color of the barrier. I couldn't remember anything after stepping into it. Evidently, I had – as I had told the soldier – fallen forward through the barrier. All except my left foot. I didn't think it would hold my weight – and I lacked the strength to stand, in any case – so I rolled back onto the stomach and crawled forward.
Once I reached a chair, I pulled myself up and fell into it. I spent the next minute or two gasping for breath and then looked around. It was much as I had expected. A few feet away, resting on one of the control panels, was Tim's laptop, with a DSL line leading off behind one of the consoles. On the ground nearby was the briefcase he had brought along.
Fortunately, the chair was on castors and the carpeting wasn't too thick: I was able to push my way over to the laptop. I unplugged the DSL line and yanked out the hard drive and tossed it aside. I reached into the briefcase and pulled out a spare hard drive and a headset. I popped in the new hard drive, booted up the laptop and plugged in the headset.
"O, come in."
"B! Is that you? We thought you were …." Whatever they thought, Oracle decided it was best left unsaid.
"Status report."
"I have no communications with anyone inside the complex. The video was a plant."
"I know. R infected the White House intranet with the virus on it."
"Did he? Smart kid. At last report, R was taking Z and JB to track down some hard evidence. He sent the rest to Congress to buy some time. Oh, except W and G, they went looking for you."
"And found me. What's N's status?"
"He's fighting off a new and improved fake JLA. I alerted all the networks in advance, as we planned, and they were in position when the attack started. All major TV channels are filled with live footage of our guys fighting to protect Congress. That should put a spoke in L's wheel. Make Congress stop and think, at least."
"Good, but not enough. I need to know what's going on inside, and that means we need control of the White House surveillance system."
"And how are we supposed to accomplish that?" asked Oracle waspishly.
Although she couldn't see it, I grinned wolfishly. "Once I tell them I've found the source of the virus, they'll going to do a complete reboot. Reformat the hard drives to get rid of any copies of the virus and then reload key software. If you sneak in after they've gotten rid of the virus and before they load the firewall…."
"I'll own that system!" crowed Oracle.
"I can monitor the process from here. It'll require split-second timing, though; too soon and the virus will infect your system; too late and you'll bounce off the firewall."
"Don't try to teach your Grandma to suck eggs, B. I'm setting up the programs now. You hook me up and in a hundred milliseconds – 150 tops – I'll have that system locked down under my control."
"Then run a search program through the surveillance system. R has been out of touch too long and I need to know what L is up to."
"Whenever you're ready, B-man. I'm set."
I pulled out the walkie-talkie and thumbed the on-switch. "Jones, this is Ramirez."
"Ramirez! What have you got for me?"
"I found the source of the virus; a laptop hooked into the network. I've disconnected it. Your reboot should work now."
"You… damn, I never thought you'd actually manage it. Great job, man."
"Thanks, now you get YOUR job done."
"On it. Jones out."
I turned to look at the bank of monitors in front of me. Suddenly, there was a hum of power and they all came on at once, still black except for the scroll of numbers at the top as they completed a memory check. Then, almost faster than I could see, the commands started scrolling across the screens. I picked up the DSL line with one hand, the other finding by feel the port it connected to.
The commands slowed to a stop as the hard drives suddenly powered up. Reformatting a hard drive is a physical operation and takes time, but once it was done I had to connect quickly, before the firewall could be loaded.
There! Almost before I realized it, the commands started scrolling down again and my hands had made the connection without waiting for my conscious mind to order it. Because I was looking for it, I saw Barbara's programs kick in. Her modified firewall program, with a backdoor written into it, was written to disc while the original firewall was consigned to oblivion. I doubted anyone else would have noticed and now a steady stream of false information showed that everything was happening as it should while Barbara took over complete control of every system on the network.
"Done!" There was no mistaking the triumph in her voice.
Suddenly, the monitors started showing views from surveillance cameras throughout the White House and the subterranean complex below it, image following image faster than the eye could follow. But not faster than Barbara's search programs could follow.
In less than a minute, one screen steadied with the image of Supergirl locked in hand-to-hand combat with a Bizarro. Then, a second monitor locked on a view of Captain Marvel embedded in a concrete wall. A single glance was enough to tell me he was unconscious, or worse.
Seconds later, a third camera showed an image of the Thunderbolt, standing at the elbow of a man in an oversized green armored suit. The armor was unfamiliar, but the face was not. It was Luthor. Around them slumped the bodies of Robin, Zatanna, the Mad Hatter, Pete Ross and Jason Blood, while in the background, wearing a dunce's hat and looking barely conscious, sat Jakeem Williams. Somehow, Luthor had broken through the block I had placed in Williams' mind and gained control of the Thunderbolt.
In my ear, Barbara whispered, "Houston, we have a problem."
Author's Note: Yeah, I stole the armor idea from Jeph Loeb, who stole it from the pre-Crisis Luthor. So?