Chapter 12

Beast Boy sighed as he began to unhook the large piece of machinery from his back, watching as Raven hovered close by. "Raven, could you hold it steady?" The machine was instantly encased in black. Wiping his brow after the long flight, he sat down on a small ledge…and made the mistake of looking below. He scooted backwards immediately, gripping at the large receiving antennae. "Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look…" He continued to repeat the mantra, trying to stay focused on what he was doing.

The tallest building in the City stretched to nearly three miles vertically and encompassed two miles at its base. It was here Gizmo's device would set to work, scouring all of the upper building for signs of unusual power. And if nothing was found, the scan would lower. If necessary, the strangely powerful device would scan underground as well. Thermal scans, nuclear scans, infrared scans, X-ray scans, you name it. All packed into the relatively small, yet bulky piece of hardware Beast Boy was using to hack into the antennae to pirate the signal. "D-don't look down, don't look down…"

"Beast Boy…shut up." Raven lifted a hand to her temple, barely concentrating on holding the machine.

"Kshhh, click! Yo, snotbags, report. What's going on up there?"

Beast Boy sighed and tapped his ear. A small earpiece squawked with Gizmo's voice. "Almost done," he muttered irritably, his fingers criss-crossing wires and attaching them.

"Well, hurry up, moron, before a guard comes up and spots you both. Oh, and don't forget to set the hologram. No need for someone idiot to figure out we're hacking their signal because we were stupid enough to leave things out in the open."

Beast Boy clenched his jaw, fingers still working. "There, got it." The shape-shifter flipped a switch and watched with a satisfied smirk as it blinked and whirred to life. "Is there a signal coming in?"

"Aww yeah, good work, B.B." Cyborg's voice. "Come on back and check it out."

Nodded, as if Cyborg could see it. "Right." He tapped his earpiece again and turned toward the edge. Raven was sitting on the ledge, legs dangling over the massive drop. "We can go, Rae."

"Hmm," was all she said, not bothering to move. "Nice view." No emotion, no inflictions, just a monotone drone.

Beast Boy dropped down beside her, trying very hard not to gulp in fear. He tried a weak smile. "S-sure is."

They sat in silence for a long moment, letting the silence of comfortable companionship envelop them. Here, miles above the crust, the world was silent. Still. Breezes whipped and pushed at them, ruffling their hair, their clothes, and nothing else. Both minds were still for that long moment, just staring out into the endless urban sprawl, high above the steel and glass wasteland, comfortably blank in thought and expression. The treachery and honesty, sorrow and joy, was distant and far-removed, leaving them pleasantly sapped of emotion…for that one, long moment.

"I never liked cities."

Beast Boy cocked his head at Raven's statement. "Hmm?"

The empath waved a hand over the city, as if she were the master of ceremonies presenting an attraction at an ancient theater. "The city. I never liked it. It was always too fast."

Beast Boy chuckled a bit, closing his eyes and leaning his head back, supported by his arms behind him. "Everything is fast these days. Nothin' you can do about it, Rae. Just," he paused to shrug. "Just live."

The dark girl sighed. "Beast Boy, don't you ever feel like your being left behind? Like you weren't meant for this time, this place, this…reality?" She hugged herself against the winds.

Cracking an eye open, Beast Boy threw her a glance. "Why, do you?" A warm smile spread over his features. "Well, I suppose, at one point, I did. But…it's like gas. It'll pass." He chuckled at his own, stupid joke.

Raven rolled her eyes. "Leave it to you to crack jokes while I'm trying to have a decent discussion."

Winking, the shape-shifter laughed. "Where would we be if we couldn't laugh at stupid stuff?" His fingers drummed on the stone ledge. "Pretty freakin' dull, that's what."

"And smarter," Raven pointed out, emotionlessly. She stood up, her cape falling over her body comfortably. "Let's get going. They're waiting for us, I'm sure."

Had anyone bothered to look at the sky, they would have seen two streaks, one green, one blue, flying side by side.

---

Gizmo grunted as the Immersion Visor flickered with insurmountable amounts of data flooding in from the hijacked signal. He softly sub-vocalized a few commands to narrow the search and filter out whatever wasn't related to what they were doing. "Tin-can, help me out here. I ain't bein' paid enough for this."

Cyborg growled, facing away from Jinx, his conversation cut short. Stomping over, he connected to the computer terminal and stood stocks-still, the information flashing through the wires at speeds only his neural net could fathom. The android's human eye flicked back and forth, as if reading text in mid-air. "We could be at this for hours, Giz." He paused. "Oooh, I didn't know they had a nuclear reactor there."

"Shut up," Gizmo snapped, lifting his Visor. "I can't concentrate on…Whoa!"

A dull thump could be heard as Sneak deftly shoved Gizmo out of the chair with surprising power and lifted the Immersion Visor to his own eyes. "S'upid green man no' unnerstan' data. Me unnerstan' data." He fell silent, his little button eyes squinted in concentration.

Gizmo stood up, rubbing his hip. "Why you dirty little flea condo! I oughta tear your little head off and use it as a paperweight!"

The little Vulpinite shot him a nasty glare. "An' I oughta do someting equ-eqally nasty, you bad pe'son." His head turned back to the Visor, just before Gizmo brought a fly swatter down between his perked ears. Smeck!

The Visor went flying as the little fox jumped with a tiny yelp of pain and lunged at Gizmo's face. "I makes'ya pay!"

Sneak connected solidly with Gizmo's face, gripping tight with his little arms, nipping with sharp little teeth. Gizmo yelped and grunted, trying to breathe around Sneak's fuzzy little body, before swinging the fly-swatter to slap him off. The Vulpinite dodged quickly to the side, just before the swatter landed. Scowling, Gizmo turned his angry, swatter-marked face at Sneak before lunging. Sneak yelped again as he was grabbed in a body-slam type attack and slammed into the ground. With un-proportionate strength, the little fox forced Gizmo's arms open and began pounding on him with his little paws.

A strong, dainty hand yanked Sneak away from Gizmo before anything else could happen. Jinx frowned at the Vulpinite. "Sneak, no fighting. We need him alive, got it?"

Sneak tried a sheepish smile before wilting in surrender. "Yeah, me go' it."

"And so do I!" Cyborg exclaimed, his mouth sub-vocalizing a command. "I got something, anyway." The terminal monitor flickered to life, a strange mash of colors on the screen. "Check it out," he said, motioning blindly in the computer's direction. He didn't bother disconnecting.

The others moved forward and squinted at the screen. Only Gizmo seemed to be able to understand it. "What the…" The Immersion Visor slipped over his head swiftly, a flurry of commands sub-vocalized in an instant. "Well, if that don't beat all," the short tech wiz murmured softly.

Jinx fidgeted, her hands clasped together. "What? What is it?"

Sneak, losing interest swiftly, flew out a window. He didn't really care all that much. No-body noticed.

Cyborg hmmed, rubbing his chin as his human eye continued to flicker. "These are high energy readings. The blobs of color are auras of intense concentrations of thermal energy from hyper-active mitochondria. That usually means that this certain bio-form," He pointed a finger at one of the blobs, "Is most likely a Meta, simply because only Meta cells work on such an agitated plane." He sub-vocalized something and continued talking. "If we were to scan this building we would find that there is only one true Meta here."

Jinx bowed to a blind audience, her Cheshire cat grin wide as ever. "Thankyou, thankyou." She straightened and peered at the blobs again. "All right, so what's that mean? We found Starfire all ready?"

Gizmo smirks. "No, probably not. The percentage is slim to none that her energy readings are as low as this." The image suddenly panned out, showing that the blobs were actually inside a gray-scale high-rise's basement, nearly thirty-eight floors below the surface. "It means either there are some Metas we haven't found yet, or…someone's keeping Metas as pets."

Cyborg scowled, still blind as his connection fed him more information. "That's…a possibility. How could we find out?"

Gizmo leaned back a bit, tapping his chin. "Well, we'd need a hacker. A good one. I'm sure they have surveillance cameras and cy-sects. We could possibly hack into them and get a glimpse of what's going on in there." He sub-vocalized a command and the terminal shut down. Slipping the Visor off, he squinted, staring at the wall. "There ain't many who can do that. That's a Wilson Enterprises company building and they have top-notch security."

Cyborg yanked his cables free and smirked. "I think I might know someone."

---

Davidson jerked awake as his communicator vibrated. Fumbling a bit, he tapped at the screen in his hand, displaying Cyborg's face. "What?" he growled. "This better be good, freak, or I'll tear your shiny metal head off for disturbing my nap."

Cyborg didn't even flinch. "Colonel, I need Subtraho."

Unlike Cyborg, the military man's eye twitched. "You're…joking, right?" He chuckled cruelly. "That lunatic is going nowhere." He paused, before furrowing his brow. "Why?"

"I need a hacker."

The colonel scowled and ran a hand through his silver hair. "I'm sure you do. That's the only thing that maniacs good for. That's why he isn't getting out."

"Do you want Starfire?" The question was blunt, hard.

Davidson scowled down at the screen. "Listen here, you Metahuman freak. I don't take orders from kids. I especially don't take orders from mutations and earthy abominations." The scowl melted into a mean smile. "Subtraho is going nowhere near a computer."

A sigh. Cyborg rubbed his metal head plating. "Sir, if I can't have him, I can't get Starfire." It's a blatant lie, but he doubted Davidson knew that. "We need to hack into the place she's being held."

Davidson scowled again, before sighing. "Fine. Subtraho it is then. Don't bother doing anything, he'll find you." The aging colonel tapped his hand again, the screen going dark instantly. He rubbed his face. "There's a reason he's known as Subtraho," he muttered to no one before moving towards the door.

In the style of one of my favorite writers, I'm splitting the story to make it more suspenseful…and junk.

Subtraho- Latin adjective meaning stealthy or doing something by stealth. Fits a hacker, eh? He's original, so don't touch. I might bite your finger off.

Raz