Till All Souls (2/3)
a Justice League story
by Merlin Missy
Copyright 2004
PG-13
Wally wished sometimes he didn't know his friends as well as he did.
Heck, J'onn probably wished the same thing on a daily basis. If he didn't
know them, he'd think they were a little worried, and a little beat-up from
their fight with the latest incarnation of the Injustice Gang. And can't
they come up with a better name? It's not like they have anyone from the
first Injustice Gang except Copperhead, and that's only because he's not
bright enough to know when he should get a new job.
Yeah, if Wally hadn't known his friends this well, he wouldn't have been
half so worried. John was pacing, and Diana was glowering, and Batman
— Wally still couldn't call him "Bruce" even in his head — had managed
to find a way to be shadowed in his brooding darkness even under the
fluorescent lights.
Superman asked, "There wasn't anything else?"
"No," said J'onn over the comm. "She was starting a transmission, and
then she was gone."
"You mean cut off?" asked GL.
"I mean," said J'onn. "The transmission did not continue. And then we
lost her signal entirely." Shayera hadn't been seen by anyone, and she
wasn't answering her comm.
"What signal?" asked Wally. "Wait, are these things tracking devices?"
"You missed the meeting where we announced that," John said.
Diana added, "They work even when the comms are off."
"So what's it mean when we don't get a signal at all?" Wally looked
around for an answer from someone.
Finally, Batman said, "We have no idea."
"Solar flare," John said. "It's just another solar flare." But everyone
else's comm was functioning fine right now.
"All right," said Superman. "Batman, Diana, keep an eye on the rest of the
team. We need to make sure the mess is cleaned up and everyone is
debriefed. J'onn, transmit her last known coordinates and the three of us
will start looking there."
As Bats and Diana went off, J'onn sent the coordinates. Wally thought
about hanging back with GL and Supes, but the look on John's face didn't
invite company so he dashed off to get there first.
It was an alley. It looked like a lot of other alleys he'd seen and maybe
that's why it was so familiar. A faint dusting of snow covered everything.
No footprints, which only meant that the snow fell after whoever'd been
here had left.
The other two flew up and landed behind him.
"Oh no," John breathed.
Wally spotted the mace and grabbed it, remembering a second later
everything Bats had tried to teach him about detective work. "So she was
here."
"She was," said Superman, and he had the same weird and unhappy look
John did. His hand went to his ear. "J'onn, tell Bruce and Diana we have
a problem. We're at the coordinates. We've been here before."
It was the graffiti that finally did it. Wally remembered the Cool "Disco"
Dan tag, remembered reading it while clutching his stomach for a second
after the dimensional jump. Then, one of the walls had been overtaken by
a yellowish-green portal. Now it was just brick. Shayera's mace was
suddenly very heavy in Wally's hand.
"Okay," he said. "So we go get her. Just like last time."
Superman said, "Last time we were all in that universe."
"But, our Bats has one of those dimensional gate thingies in the Batcave,
right?" Superman didn't respond.
John swore.
Batman, grudgingly, let her sit at the computer. He stood beside her, and
Superman was a few feet away, and she had no weapon.
Shayera listened to voices from a home that was almost hers.
There were more transmissions than she would have expected. Earth was
not in a direct route between Thanagar and the Gordanian homeworld.
Hyperspace messages traveled in a line, radiating only slightly (on a
cosmic scale) from their intended path, unlike radio waves which spread.
That Earth was getting these transmissions indicated the planet was close
to the transmission path. Or behind it.
"It's possible they headed straight to the Gordanian homeworld when they
left here," said J'onn.
She shook her head. "They can't get there from here. They can't get there
from anywhere. That's why they needed the bypass."
"Keep listening," said Batman.
Most of the transmissions were encrypted, as she'd suspected. Her codes
were six years out of date in her universe, except for the few she'd gotten
access to during the invasion. She used what she could remember,
plugging them into Batman's computer with only a brief hesitation. She
was an ex-patriot, and she was in another universe, and she really couldn't
make herself care.
The computer spat out another decrypted message. She closed her eyes.
"More troop movements. They're engaging part of the Gordanian fleet."
She bit her lip. "They're close to Thanagar, only one system over."
"Not near here?" asked Superman.
"Not this group." She flipped over to the original broadcast. "This is a
bad signal. We barely got it. Some are much closer." She sat back as the
computer digested another message.
She would get to live exactly as long as they found her useful. Diana had
told her as much. Given enough time and imagination, she could
conceivably spin enough stories — based on the frankly useless
information she was getting — to act the scheherazade and lengthen her
life expectancy. But her time frame was unknown and her imagination
wasn't the best.
Probably why they gave me the cover story in the first place, she
mused.
The computer gave her another decrypted message. This one was still
garbled. She typed in another encryption key and began going over escape
plans in her head.
J'onn had mentioned in passing that they had been searching for her for
months. Apparently their little toy couldn't penetrate the magics
protecting Fate's tower. In theory, she could break out of here and seek
sanctuary with this universe's version of the Nelsons, if they weren't
fascist or evil or dead.
The biggest problem with escaping into this world was that she had no
idea what reception she would receive. Were they still conquering heroes?
Outcasts? Would the resistance, assuming such a thing existed here, take
her in as a fellow or shoot her on sight?
The computer spoke.
"This one's a Mayday from a supply ship. They're low on fuel and
stranded too far from the fleet."
They locked her in the cage at night, or whatever time of day it was when
even Batman crawled out of the Cave to his bed. She tried not to think
about the walls around her, but the wrongness was everywhere. She
couldn't comfortably sleep on the shelf and the floor was too cold for her
to lie down; she tried both. Eventually, she settled in a sitting position,
back uncomfortably against one chilly wall, with the blanket draped over
her.
She woke from the cold several times. When morning came, or at least
when Diana came to escort her to the bathroom again, she'd barely slept.
"Here," said Diana at the door. "Use the shower if you want. You can
change into these." Clothes had been neatly folded and placed beside the
sink. Shayera murmured her thanks and spent the next fifteen minutes
standing under a hot spray, waiting for warmth to go all the way through to
her bones. She changed into the new clothing, was surprised for only a
moment that everything fit and was tailored to accommodate her wings.
Of course the clothes fit. They were hers.
"Back to work," Diana said from the other side of the door.
There was a mirror. If she broke it, she could use a large shard as a
weapon. She could squirt liquid soap in someone's eye. She could ...
Shayera exited the bathroom, followed Diana back to the computer, sat
down, and went back to work.
"That was longer than usual," said Superman.
"There were a lot of personal communiques in that one. Letters home. A
few business transactions." Their Hro is getting married. I think I
remember her.
Batman asked, "What's their location?" He'd made a three-dimensional
starchart on the computer.
"Here, I think." Four or five star systems over. Close, but tactically
advantageous. The Gordanians weren't looking in this part of the galaxy.
"I thought it was here," Batman said, indicating a site only three systems
away. As she translated, he was beginning to pick up the language. Once
he understood it, once she had used up all her codes, they wouldn't need
her any more.
She thought about slowing down.
"Keep listening," said Superman.
There is sunshine slanting in through the big windows and she is happy
and warm. Shayera is painting. The doctors won't let her have a brush,
but the paint is sticky and blue on her fingers as she touches the canvas.
She paints lots of blue pictures. She used to be allowed to have more
colors, but she cried when she played with the green paint so the doctors
gave her more pills and took away everything but blue.
She is painting a picture of her best friend but it's hard with just blue. Ivy
is red, and just-barely-green like the bubbles on a wave in the sea.
She remembers flying over the sea. She remembers salt spray on her face
and on her wings. She stops painting, and tries to grab the memory,
cupping it in front of her with paint-covered hands, but there's nothing
else.
Ivy has memories. Ivy tells her stories, though she usually gets tired
halfway through and wants to go do something else. Shayera can focus on
things for hours and hours. She used to get mad when Ivy didn't finish her
stories or wandered off while they played checkers, but the doctors
changed the pills they gave her and she doesn't get mad anymore.
The doctors watch her while she paints.
Sometimes she can hear what they say. "Different physiology" is hard to
figure out, but they say it a lot when they make notes on their papers.
They talk to each other about brains a lot, too. Ivy says brains are what
fills her head. These are brain doctors, and they watch all the patients here
at Arkham and make notes. There's another doctor who pokes needles
into her arm to get blood samples, and it hurts but not much.
She thinks she remembers being hurt a lot more, but those memories are
vague.
Today she has a visitor. He comes to see her sometimes and he tells her
his name but she always forgets. Mostly he sits and watches her for a
while and then he leaves. Now he talks to the needle doctor.
"We have a problem," says the needle doctor, and she shows him her
notes.
"Are you sure?" he asks as he reads the papers. He doesn't look happy,
and this makes Shayera sad too.
They continue to talk and Shayera tries to listen but mostly she tries to
keep painting. The needle doctor is sure and thinks it's about two or three
months but says she can't tell with aliens. Her visitor is definitely not
happy, but Shayera doesn't think he's mad either. It's not anger on his
face as he looks at her, as he tells the needle doctor he was raised to do the
right thing.
Shayera has no idea what he means.
"I have preliminary plans," Batman said. "I didn't get a good look at what
my double had on hand, but I think I may have a theory."
"Great!" said Flash. "How long will it take us to build it?"
"About three months."
Flash looked downcast for a second, then asked, "How long will it take if I
do most of it?"
"I was already assuming you would."
John got up from the table and walked out. Staying was just going to
make him want to start yelling, and that wasn't going to do any good.
A few minutes later, he felt a familiar breeze. "We shouldn't have let
them go," he said without looking.
"We had to," said Flash. "They knew our secret identities."
"Would have been worth it, to keep them from going back and doing it all
over again."
"Says the guy who doesn't wear a mask all day." Flash looked like he
wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, but neither of them was the touchy-
feely type. "We'll figure out a way to find her. I mean, we know where
she is. We just have to get there."
"Yeah," said John. He closed his eyes and then it hit him. "The android."
"Huh?"
"Amazo knocked Oa into another dimension. Maybe he or Fate or both of
them can make a portal."
He looked at Flash as the idea refired him, but Flash shook his head.
"J'onn already asked." Damn.
John sighed. "I should go back in there. We need to implement Operation
Toil and Trouble."
He and Batman had worked it out right after their last encounter with the
Justice Lords, when they'd seen the potential that one or more of them
could be replaced by alternate-universe doubles. J'onn would relieve
himself from all other duties and go into full mental screening mode. He'd
have a terrible headache during and afterwards, and he'd probably go into
another antisocial funk when it was all over, but he'd be the first to
identify anyone who wasn't themselves. Meanwhile, there were code
phrases and passwords only the core six of them had. It wasn't perfect,
but it was better than nothing.
He wasn't sure how they'd determine whether Shayera was really herself if
they got her back. That he was considering this an "if" worried him more
than anything.
Shayera was back in her cage. The others were occupied with matters
requiring their attention. Maybe a supervillain, maybe a rogue comet.
They didn't bother telling her and she didn't ask.
They'd been gone for hours. She started to regret her last two cups of
coffee, but more, she started to worry. What if they faced down a threat
that was too big for them? What if they were all wounded or killed? Did
anyone else know she was down here, locked up tight?
The walls got closer. She went to the bars, hung her face as much outside
as she could, and took deep breaths. They would come back. They would
come back. They wouldn't leave her here forever, locked inside a tiny
little box with no food or water and now with no air at all, no no no, they'd
be back, sure as rain.
Her mouth was sour and her pulse raced.
Maybe Batman had left the key in a convenient location and she could
reach it if she grasped out enough. She stretched her arm, groping wildly,
until it felt like her shoulder was going to dislocate.
She was going to starve. She slid down to the cage floor. She was going
to die from lack of water. The Justice Lords were dead or had forgotten
her, and she was going to die here. She clawed her fingers into the floor,
scrabbling for a way out through the slick, unyielding metal.
"Dinner," said John, coming into sight with a tray of food.
"Please," she gasped. "Please, can I get out of here? Just for a minute?"
She sounded like she was begging even in her own ears and she didn't
care.
John stared at her through the bars. Then he walked out of sight again,
and came back with the key. He paused as he brought it to the door.
"Please?"
He unlocked the cage and she stumbled out. She spread her wings and
tried to breathe, but the shaking won and she went to her knees again.
He stood above her, watching dispassionately. The panic attack ended,
and he offered her a hand. After she got her footing, he continued holding
her hand a moment too long.
"Done?"
"If I have to live in a cage, can it be a bigger one?"
"No." He escorted her to the bathroom. As he brought her back, she
trembled, regarding the cage with undisguised horror.
"What do I have to do to be allowed to eat out here instead?"
"Ask someone else." He locked her up again and brought her the food:
sushi, all her favorites. She was ravenous. Maybe if she focused on the
meal she wouldn't be concerned with the cage.
She swallowed a few pieces, barely taking the time to chew. He'd pulled
up a chair outside and pretended to read something. She wasn't fooled.
"You don't need to babysit me," she said around an ebi roll.
"If you choke to death, Batman will yell at me for hours."
"That's your biggest worry?"
"Your Batman ever yell at you?"
She smiled, a little. "I didn't think the rest of you would accept him after
how he helped us."
"Before the power disruptor wore off, we all had a long talk."
"Didn't seem to help," she said.
"Depends on who you ask. We've had elections. The police answer to the
government, and the government isn't us. The crime rate's low, thanks to
what we did, but we're trying things the old way. For now."
"Do you still fry your criminals?" There was that twitch again.
He met her eyes when he said, "Last one was right after the invasion."
"So. Where is she now? Arkham?"
John picked up his reading materials and walked away from her without
answering.
They were far from finished on the messages Batman had collected over
the past few months but now he was sitting at the computer,
running the signals through the decrypting program and trying to translate
the results. She'd always known he was smart, but this was worrisome.
She corrected him when his translations were off. This was happening
less and less frequently.
In theory, she could buy herself more time by trying to decrypt the
messages they hadn't yet decoded. While she didn't know all the current
keys, she understood how the people who made the codes thought. J'onn
didn't; he hadn't ripped apart the mind of Lieutenant Kragger in this
universe, and she wasn't about to tell him it was possible.
She kept her eyes open for an opportunity to bolt.
J'onn was escorting her back from the restroom when his head snapped up
suddenly. A moment later, an alarm went off. John and Batman went to
the computer, checking the alert on the screen. J'onn did not join them,
but she saw his eyes glow which told her he was reading their thoughts
and seeing what they saw.
All she'd wanted was a distraction. All she needed now was a head start.
Shayera flew from a standstill, taking a precious second to get wind under
her wings, and then soared towards the back entrance of the Batcave. She
knew where to go, knew where it was from her observations of her
Batman, from the time she'd used it to find them.
Right there, and she had only a dozen meters left to go and even Superman
couldn't catch her in the open air. She flew just a touch faster.
A wall glowed green in front of her, blocking her escape. She swooped to
avoid it, knowing she'd never slow down in time, but the wall covered the
whole opening.
She smacked into the construct with a crunch. It wrapped around her sore
body and yanked her back to the cave proper, then shoved her roughly into
the cage. She hit the shelf on the back wall with her knees and fell hard.
Shayera closed her eyes.
"Not smart," said Batman. She heard the door slam shut. Someone
locked it. She didn't look to see who. Without getting up, she reached for
the blanket and rolled it around herself there on the floor.
She used to be a lot better about not crying.