They met in the entertainment room hoping by some slim chance that Flash had been in there. Unable to find Flash after the Javelin's disappearance, it was no trouble for the Justice League to figure out what happened.

Hawkgirl stepped close to Wonder Woman.

"Wonder Woman?"

Wonder Woman was in no mood to take any more crap from Hawkgirl, but Hawkgirl's wavering voice and deep eyes spoke to her maternal instincts. Something was deeply upsetting Hawkgirl, and her anger disappeared.

"What is it?" Wonder Woman asked gently. Hawkgirl stretched her hand across her chest to grab the opposite arm and bit her lower lip.

"If Flash dies down there-"

"He won't," Wonder Woman assured.

"But if he does," she said strongly. It was obviously very important she say what she had to say. Something was eating her up inside. "But if he does, and we become the Justice Lords . . . " Hawkgirl paused as she examined her feet.

"Go on," Wonder Woman prodded, placing a supportive hand on Hawkgirl's shoulder. Hawkgirl finally made eye contact with Wonder Woman.

"Are you really going to have a mullet?"

Wonder Woman stiffened and withdrew her hand. "Confound it!"

"Don't you mean-"

Her teeth clenched. "I am this close to breaking your chicken face," she said, spreading her thumb and index finger apart just a fraction of an inch. "I can't believe she's still on about that," Wonder Woman muttered as she stormed out of the room. Then her head appeared around the door frame.

"And to answer your question, I am now."

Hawkgirl looked as though she might cry.

J'onn sat down on the couch. "I will watch the channels . . . and scan small areas with my mind. I cannot guarantee any results." (24)

"Do what you can," Superman said.

"Yes, of course."

Superman, followed by a sniffling Hawkgirl, walked out to the corridor where Green Lantern was waiting.

"I think I know where he might be," Green Lantern said. "Probably he's gone t-"

Raucous laughter erupted from the entertainment room followed by J'onn's voice saying, "Oh, George Jefferson, you slay me."

"We never should have gotten cable in there," Superman sighed. "Say," he said suddenly, "has anyone seen Batman?"

So anyway, Flash was in the process of yelling at the Javelin since pulling all the levers and pushing (then later smashing) all the buttons didn't do anything.

As the underlying hum of the Javelin subsided, the cabin lights flickered out and left only the natural light coming through the windshield. (25)

The missing hum wasn't noticed because the wind was making a sound like Godzilla and a banshee had a baby (which is enough to drown out any sound you could ever hope to hear), but he really missed the artificial light when he tried to read the gauges. (26)

The battery backup kicked on the lights and he was able to see the problem.

"Right," he felt himself say even though he couldn't hear it. "Gasoline's expensive."

He looked through the windand/ordustshield and saw it was a hair's width away from being a cementshield.

"Oh, sh-"

He dropped to the floor and rolled under the consoles just as the nose of the Javelin impaled the street, bounced, landed mostly supine, bounced again, crumpled the tail end of the jet on the next impact, bounced once more, and crashed its belly into the street. There was another little bounce, but not enough to flip the plane, and I'm sure you expect me to say that Flash followed in suit and went tumbling along in the same pattern as the Javelin and was thrown all over the ship or something crazy like that. He did. You get a cookie. If you thought he broke anything, put it back.

Surprisingly, he was only covered in minor cuts and bruises and maybe he sprained something. But the crash wasn't over yet. There was enough potential energy in the Javelin to keep it moving. It went skidding toward the nearest warehouse, shearing the belly of the Javelin to pieces as it scraped over the pavement.

The now-called aluminumwallshield of the Javelin was still intact (27) which was more than could be said of the aluminum wall or some pillars and the adjoining support beams or part of the roof.

The Javelin continued on its warpath (Flash had ducked and covered - he's doin' fine) which must be costing the city obscene amounts of money, but it slowed down enough for the roof's caving in to catch up, in turn allowing the Javelin to be buried by rubble. That stopped the used-wad-of-Kleenex-shaped space plane moving.

The crash was finalized by a gentle metallic tinkling. Then the airbag deployed.

Flash was very still. He wasn't sure if the cacophony that had been bombarding the Javelin stopped or if he was just deafened by it. He ventured a peek from under his arm. What used to be the roof covered the not-even-scratched rubbleshield, and the lights had gone out at some point during the crash, so he couldn't see anything. He wasn't entirely sure he was still alive, but upon moving he didn't think being dead could hurt that much.

He unfolded himself and groped clumsily around in the darkness. He managed to grab his crutches and J'onn's clothes. His eyes soon adjusted to accordingly and he could detect dim traces of light through the rubble on the buriedaliveshield. It couldn't have been that densely covered.

Flash used the handle of a crutch and smacked the windshield so he could get out. For no other reason than a plot device and that I deemed it be, the invulnerable windshield shattered. I'm bored with it anyway.

Maybe it had been under just enough stress from one direction that attacking it with a crutch from the other was the proverbial straw or maybe the windshield's built like those arches. You know the ones. They've got those keystones. However it happened, broken glass, metal, wood, and dirt rained down all around Flash. Why he didn't just open the door I'll never know.

Anyway, he shimmied out of the Javelin and threw on his ill-gotten trench coat and hat before lumbering outside to get his bearings. He didn't need anymore attention than he'd gotten already and I think he might have thought that by hiding his red and yellow suit, I wouldn't know where he was. Heh. Ignoramus.

A crowd gathered to see what all the fuss was about smack dab in the middle of downtown like people do, and Flash slipped into the midst of them without so much as a howdoyado. He feigned being interested for a minute before he saw the movie theatre across the street.

He tugged at the lapels on his new coat and said, "Well, I was going here anyway."

I'm sure Green Lantern wished he had left a note if that's where he wanted to go.

"I don't think he's here," Superman said. A rhinoceros ran by. "And did you really have to destroy all the fences and habitats looking for him?"

Green Lantern shrugged. "I thought he'd be here."

A whole mess of penguins waddled by and one chirped curiously at J'onn. J'onn turned into that huge snake thing and scared it away. Wonder Woman hit him playfully, but firmly.

Superman crossed his arms. "Why would he be at the zoo, Lantern?"

"Why not?"

Even Superman couldn't argue with that logic. "But was it really worth that?" He pointed at Hawkgirl who had been singing ever since she found out they were breaking into a zoo. They had to break in because by now it was nighttime, but they probably would have broken in anyway. It was that kind of day.

"#Lantern's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow. Lantern's taking us to the zoo tomorrow and we can stay all day. We're going to the#"

"#Zoo, zoo, zoo!#" chimed Batman who leaned toward Hawkgirl when his part came along.

"#How 'bout#"

"#You, you, you!#"

They continued. You can imagine.

"Yeah . . . " Lantern put a hand on his chin. "Why didn't you just use the tracker on the Javelin?"

"Because you were so sure he'd be here."

"Oh." A herd of antelope ran by followed closely by a pride of lions with a murder of crows on the lookout for the wake/colony/committee of vultures that would be seeking leftovers. "Well, break out the locator, then."

J'onn looked around. Superman and Lantern stared at the locator to figure out how to read it, Wonder Woman was watching Hawkgirl and Batman and kind of wishing she knew that song, and pandemonium littered the streets of the zoo. A bird overhead let loose some more pandemonium which platted in a white blotch on J'onn's shoulder. He sat down in a huff.

"This day's gone all to Hell."

Wonder Woman tackled Hawkgirl.

· ¤§¤ ·

(24) I should think Tomboy13 would recognize that line. Why, it's what inspired me to make him obsessed with television. I laughed then, in your story, even though I wasn't supposed to.

(25) Or vacuum shield. Space shield? I guess it depends on where the Javvie is, so here it's a windand/ordustshield.

(26) Which he might have wanted to do before he left. He probably didn't adjust the mirrors, either.

(27) They build those things to last.