The call comes into the main chamber, routed through a hundred different scramblers and decoders—all of them built with the intention of coding messages meant for the Tower only. After all...it's a dangerous world out there. Anyone could hack into the system and monitor our communications. Anyone.
My name is Bart Allen. I'm the Kid Flash. Yeah, what a name. I like it too.
"Bart, it's me."
"I hate it when you do that."
"You know who it is," Superboy groans impatiently.
"Yeah," I say with a chuckle. "I just like screwing with ya."
"Uh huh, yeah, well screw with this. We've got something big here."
"Where?"
"Gotham."
"I seem to remember," I say jokingly, taking the tone of a snooty professor, "something about you being afraid of the dark…and Martha Kent having to wash your sheets every night."
"Will you shut up!" Conner growls.
Alright, fun-time's over. Back to work. "What is it, Kon?"
"Something's…come up."
"What is it?"
"Put the Tower on lockdown, and meet me in Hub City in ten minutes."
Sigh. He knows I can beat him. "How about five?"
"Deal."
Lockdown's a standard procedure we take to close up shop when one person is on duty and has to leave. Quintuple-redundancy security systems based on Kryptonian, Thanagarian and Martian tech, plus some Atlantean systems that Tempest installed back when he was a member. To say nothing of the stuff that Tim got from Batman. That stuff itself is redundant: fingerprint scans coupled with optical scans and voice recognition. Sometimes I'm surprised I don't have to give a freakin' urine sample.
It takes me ten seconds to put the Tower on lockdown like Conner said, and another ten to make it to Denver. I slow down around Keystone City, and pick a nice open field a few miles from town to cross through—I don't want Wally or Jay to hear the sonic booms and come yelling at me. At this rate, I'll be in Hub City inside two minutes. It gives me time to think about stuff.
Raven, Gar, Cyborg and Wonder Girl are all on leave this weekend--doing their own things—leaving me, Tim and Kon to pick up the slack. It's not their weekend to be in 'Frisco, so I can't blame them. Lucky me, I'm the only one on duty. Me and Tim, but he's hardly there anyway. He splits his time between Gotham and Blüdhaven now and only makes about two weekends a month. If that. It's always nice having him around though. He's good conversation.
"Is that, uh, a new cape?"
Tim looks at me, his brown eyes staring quizzically through that black mask. He doesn't know what to make of what I just asked him. "No."
It's usually worth a try though. It's like talking to Superman, for Pete's sake. He makes you feel important and stupid at the same time. Such is Robin. Protégé of Batman, woo-er of women, wear-er of the esteemed red and black costume. Yeah, Tim's had quite the career, which is more than I can say. Tim's fought the bad guys that Wally's bad guys are scared of: Joker, Two-Face, and the rest. He even lived through that Legacy Virus thing a few years back. Yeah…Tim's a real trooper.
I slow down to 35 miles an hour o my way into town. It's about 8 o'clock, and for the most part Hub City seems pretty dead; everyone's either sleeping or looting some hapless business in secret. I finally slow to a walking gait a few hundred yards before the Courthouse. No use in surprising him. Superboy's sitting on the front steps, waiting for me.
"You lose," he says slyly.
"Let me know, the next time you want to race. What's up?"
Superboy holds back for a second; opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but hesitates. "I'm about to do something that…I'm not sure I have to do. But I want to do it."
"What?" I ask. Whatever's he aiming for, he's doing a good job of leading me on.
"I need to know that you'll trust me on this."
"If you tell me what it is, maybe I could. But you're not helping me out here by talking in riddles. You're not exactly Nigma, you know."
"You remember a few months ago, when Tim got all those emails about me? About how my DNA was spliced evenly from Superman and Luthor?"
"Yeah, but I thought someone was just yankin' your chain."
Conner looks away for a second.
"What's this about, Kon?" I break out the real-name on him. As real a name as he could have, anyway.
"Some things I need to get off my chest," he says patronizingly.
"Ooh-kay. Why don't you start with the S?"
"I'm leaving, Bart."
"What?"
"There are questions about me—about my life and how I came to be—that I want answered. This Luthor thing—"
"The DNA," I interrupt.
"Yes. I need to know what this is all about. I need to know what he wants with me."
Ol' Baldy slipped off the radar about six months ago—before Sue Dibny, before Deathstroke beat the hell out of the League. Wow. A lot of stuff has gone down in six months. Life…she flashes us by.
"If you're suggesting—"
"I'm going to find him, Bart."
"Luthor? It's not that easy, Kon. You can't just walk into the LexTower anymore. You're talking about going incognito in the underworld for at least a month in order to find him. You don't know what's down there.
"I don't have to."
"Kon—"
"Listen, this is between you and me, Bart. No one else. If anyone asks, tell them I'm in Metropolis with Clark for the week."
"I don't know if I can keep this legit for that long. How long before Vic or Tim realizes you're gone?"
"They don't have to," he says and stands.
"Don't do this, please. I'm asking you as your friend. You don't know what Luthor might have waiting for you."
"You can't stop me," he says in that better-than-you older brother voice. "I'm asking for you stay out of my way. I need to do this, Bart. Will you trust me?"
"What you're asking for…might be more than I can allow."
"What I'm asking for…goes beyond friendships and team alliances. This is something I need to figure out for me. So let me do it. Please."
Superboy lifts into the sky, and I don't stop him. I watch him go, a fast moving black streak against the sky heading east, and tap my ear—the inset communicator.
"This is Kid Flash. Anyone reading this?"
"This is Robin, what is it?"
"Superboy's heading your way. Be advised."
"Why is he coming here?"
"He's looking for Luthor," I say with some difficulty.
"Alright," Tim says. Even over the radio I can hear the concern in his voice. "Meet me at the Davenport Towers in ten minutes."
"You…want me along for the ride? Since when?"
"Since I realized leaving you alone in the Tower with a fully functional Playstation 2—when you should be on monitor duty—is more dangerous. See you in a few."
He disconnects, and I'm already on the road.
Continued