Chapter 2
Robin awoke to find himself tied down on a stretcher in the hospital room of Titans Tower, surrounded by his friends. He saw many bandages covering all the cuts he had received. "Why am I tied up?..." he wondered for an instant and then guessed the reason. The others obviously feared that he would keep hallucinating about Slade after he woke up. "Robin, what happened last night?" he heard Cyborg's voice asking.
"You can untie me, the hallucination only happened in the dark remember?" Robin suggested. After checking to see that the light was on, his friends removed the restraints, allowing Robin to sit up.
"How did you get into this condition?" asked Raven, reminding Robin of Cyborg's question.
"I had nightmares," replied Robin.
"About Slade?"
Robin nodded.
"But how did he get all the cuts and bruises?" wondered Cyborg aloud. "I checked his blood for any chemical reagents and there aren't any!"
"Check more thoroughly!" demanded Starfire. "What else could cause the nightmares?
"Perhaps Robin was sleepwalking," suggested Raven, providing an answer. "Or maybe Slade developed some new chemical reagent that can't be detected."
"There is one way to find out. I can install a video camera in Robin's room.
That afternoon, Cyborg used spare parts from the T-car to construct a video camera, which he attached in a corner of Robin's room. There was no sign of trouble the rest of the day. At night, as an extra precaution, Cyborg left his detachable hand in Robin's room. The Titans again retired to their rooms and waited.
At about midnight, the window in Robin's room silently slid open and a shadowed figure threw a handful of dust into the room. In accordance with Cyborg's programming the camera immediately triggered an alarm. Sirens blared through the tower, waking up all the Titans. The shadow figure rappelled to the ground and fled.
Cyborg was the first to rush into Robin's room. Robin groggily sat up in his bed, then suddenly bolted out of bed and started kicking and punching at thin air. The other Titans arrived at the door behind Cyborg. Robin inexplicably (and obviously unwillingly) flew into a wall and fell to the floor. Cyborg turned and flicked the light switch on the wall.
Robin got up and continued his imaginary fight. The other Titans stood amazed.
"I thought the hallucination thing only worked in the dark!" cried Beast Boy. "I know!" said Cyborg. "Slade must have developed a new chemical that works in the light."
"No, he's just sleepwalking," said Raven. "I can feel it."
On hearing this Cyborg reached for Robin but barely missed as he was thrown away from Cyborg's hand. Cyborg picked Robin off the floor and shouted "Wake up Robin!" At this point, the other Titans could see clearly in the light that Robin's eyes were closed as he struck out at an imaginary Slade, hitting Cyborg square in the chest. Cyborg shook Robin and shouted again, this time in Robin's ear. Robin's eyes popped open and he suddenly realized that he was aiming a kick at Cyborg.
To Robin's relief, Slade was no longer present. At the hospital room, Cyborg found the chemical reagent in Robin's bloodstream, while the other Titans reviewed the camera footage.
"Look!" Beast Boy pointed to the screen. "Someone's putting the powder in Robin's room!"
"That would probably be Slade," guessed Robin.
Beast Boy was still watching the camera footage. "You know, this is the third time Slade's used the hallucination trick. It seems to work really well…"
Robin's expression suddenly lit up as he took in what Beast Boy said. "In that case, why don't we make our own chemical reagent?"
The Titans took a split second to realize what Robin had said. "It's brilliant!" shouted Beast Boy. "We'll make a reagent that causes Slade to hallucinate, and eventually he'll die of sleep deprivation!"
Robin turned to Cyborg, still with only one thought on his mind. "Cyborg, could you make such a chemical?"
"Well, in theory it's easy to make one; Slade's chemical uses amphetamine and street hallucinogens. There are two difficulties; the first is how we get these drugs, because they're illegal, and the second is how to get Slade to inhale the mixture."
"I can get the drugs from the police station tomorrow," said Robin. "Let's go to sleep."
The next morning, Cyborg and Beast Boy had their usual argument over breakfast. For once Robin was impatient to get over with breakfast and start tracking Slade. After what seemed to him like an eternity but was really only two minutes, Robin stepped into the kitchen to settle the argument so that everyone would be able to start breakfast.
"Since the two of you can't decide what to make, how about if I cook today?" he suggested. Cyborg and Beast Boy were too busy squabbling to notice. Finally, Robin squeezed past them to the other end of the kitchen and hurled two explosive disks, throwing Cyborg and Beast Boy out of the kitchen. Then Robin set about making the breakfast.
Robin took only five minutes to cook, being so anxious to get to work on Slade. The other Titans took their time with the large meal while Robin inhaled his food as fast as possible and started to leave. "Where are you going so fast?" asked Beast Boy. "I'm going to the police station for the supplies," replied Robin. The other Titans continued to eat, and by the time they were done Robin was back with several plastic bags full of drugs that had been seized by the police.
Later that morning the Titans gathered in their laboratory and watched Cyborg mix up the chemical. First he took a small test tube with a small amount of powder. "This is the chemical reagent used by Slade," he explained. "Basically, it contains a chemically altered version of several hallucinogens mixed with standard amphetamine, and a sequence of encapsulated neurotransmitters, probably from one of Slade's nerve cells, that store false nerve signals. Now what we need is to decide what we want Slade to see. Depending on what neurotransmitters in what sequence are placed in these small capsules, Slade will perceive different things."
Robin knew exactly what hallucination he wanted to create for Slade. "Make the chemical so that when Slade inhales it, he imagines himself fighting me, just like in his own reagent. But make it so that he feels himself losing. There are also a few special situations that have to be watched for or they'll spoil the illusion."
An hour later, as Cyborg and Robin worked together to create the chemical reagent, an alarm went off. "Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire, go and handle the alarm," commanded Robin. "Cyborg and I will stay behind and build the chemical." The other three Titans looked at each other. They were not used to getting this kind of order; Robin normally led the Titans in battle. However, they followed their leader's orders and set off to stop Overload from robbing a bank.
Four days later, with four alarms having occurred in the interim, Cyborg and Robin emerged from the laboratory carrying two large vials of powder. "Now all that remains is to find Slade," said Robin.
As if on cue, the alarm again sounded. Slade had reappeared at the same bank that had already been attacked five times in five days—previously by Overload, Dr. Light, Mammoth, Brother Blood, and Plasmus. Robin carried one powder vial while Cyborg carried the other as the team rushed to face Slade.
At the bank, Slade had knocked out all the guards with his bowstaff and started heading down to the basement. A green rhinoceros caught up with him, knocking him down from behind and trampling over him. Slade rolled out of the way and barely avoided a green starbolt, then backflipped up as a sonic cannon beam passed right between his arms. The green rhinoceros turned into a T-rex and lashed around with its tail, knocking him right into one of Robin's freeze disks. Robin charged forward and kicked off Slade's mask. Slade's robotic computer screen stared back at Robin, then displayed only a one-second countdown, knocking all the Titans away. "Cyborg, did you get any radio signals?" shouted Robin over the noise. After a short pause Cyborg managed to respond: "Yeah, the signal came from somewhere exactly 2.53 miles away." "Start searching!" ordered Robin anxiously. The Titans split up as they had before and started looking for Slade's second hideout.
