Titans North
The sun was setting by the time the area was secure. It gave the sky an almost orange hue, something that wouldn't last for long as the darkness of night would follow soon enough.
The Titan Tower rested on the ground, not standing upright as was intended. The base had been compromised, enough support removed that whatever support remained slowly gave out. It was like chopping into a tree, cutting into a trunk just enough that the center of gravity was removed and the weight of the tree took care of the rest.
The section where the vertical base and the horizontal wings intersected was depressed, appearing like a giant hole. Smoke no longer wafted out of it, but you could still smell it. There was something else mixed in with that smell, one you wouldn't want to imagine, but had to in order to do this right.
Someone had attacked the Tower in Cancun, Mexico, and literally knocked it over, and the inhabitants were all missing. This was an affair for the Justice League to answer.
A green light traveled over the wreckage, Green Lantern using his ring to scan it. Periodically, he would spot red streaks, the Flash doing his own investigation around the building's remains. Hawkgirl flew around, getting the bird's eye view and coming down to get closer looks as necessary. Martian Manhunter was in the building itself, moving through walls and debris to conduct a rescue mission inside the destroyed complex. That left Superman and Wonder Woman to speak with the local Mexican authorities and to establish their jurisdiction.
It was their jurisdiction. The teens living and operating here were their responsibility. You could be sure that they were going to find out who did this.
Green Lantern grimaced at some of the readings he was getting. There was something here that the League had contended with a long time ago, and now it was making yet another return. It was a certain chemical signature, one belonging to a new and improved accelerant which also had explosive tendencies.
That was not all. He had found footprints on the outside of the building, and they appeared as if someone had actually walked on the one vertical surface. It was a sheer drop, and they only really appeared towards what was once the top of the Tower. A set did head towards the former bottom, but that was taking whoever made the prints away from the heart of the Tower.
With a simple thought, he ended the scan. Glancing around, he saw both Superman and Wonder Woman heading towards the destroyed building. This was as good a time to regroup and share findings.
Flash appeared by the giant hole that faced the sky, hands cupping his mouth as he yelled into it. The speedster was calling for J'onn, also coming to the same conclusion as Lantern had. A look to the sky had him catch sight of Shayera descending as well.
Right now it was the six of them. There could have been a seventh, but Batman was still in Gotham. Word had been given that if needed, they could send over whatever they had found and the World's Greatest Detective would take it from there.
Sometimes he just didn't understand that man. Kids under their watch were missing, and it needed to be fixed now.
"We managed to get the local authorities to maintain a perimeter, but I don't know how long that will last," Superman both greeted and got this gathering started. Right now, it was five of the six of them who had begun the search for answers, J'onn still not out yet. The Martian had telepathy, and one of them projecting their thoughts to their comrade would keep him in the loop.
"What do we know?" Wonder Woman picked up, her arms crossed. Straight and to the point, this princess of truth was looking for just that.
"Whoever did this knew what they were doing," Shayera spoke first, her arms also crossed and her wings folded back. The Thanagarian also had her own detective skills, ones with some slightly different methods than what Earth had developed, so she could give different insights if needed. "They took out the base of the building, and let gravity do the rest. That matches with what eyewitnesses have been saying. Our man wasn't done yet, he triggered a second explosion on the upper levels after the building fell over. I should be finding tiny shards of glass on the beach over there, but most of it either fell into the building it went straight up and rained down."
"Any clue on what they used?" Flash asked. Normally the Scarlet Speedster was the more upbeat and optimistic of them. This ignored his background in forensics, which Lantern had initially found surprising. Flash had a brain in there, and it took some adjusting to realize that he used it differently from others. Always looked for the best in people. "I think I saw some support beams melting, and I definitely know no jet fuel was used. We made sure of that when we built this place, it could take whatever was thrown at it. That wasn't steel we used, but like some heavy duty titanium. The kind of stuff that gets astronauts through the atmosphere."
More confirmation, not that Lantern needed it. It was his turn to give his findings, though he would have preferred if J'onn was with them. What was taking him so long?
"I picked up a chemical signature," he reported, arms at his sides and shoulders straight. "They used Canidite for their explosives, both at the base of the building and in the upper levels."
Canidite was a top secret government accelerant, developed and stored on military bases and kept as hush hush as possible. Only a handful of people knew where it was and how it was stored. Their first and only run-in with the stuff had concluded with an attack on Washington D.C. and the White House. Due to how secretive the military was with the stuff, the League knew who they needed to go to next to find out if anymore had gone missing. Someone had managed to sneak it out from under the eyes of the Pentagon once; who was to say someone else hadn't figured out another way?
"That stuff again? I thought we weren't going to be bothered by it," Flash practically complained, but it really hid his frustration. Lantern was able to pick up on that and privately he agreed with it.
"You better believe some heads are going to roll for this," Shayera agreed. Glancing to him, "I think we need to pay General Lane another visit."
"That will need to wait. We need to make sure that the other Towers haven't come under attack as well," Superman intervened. "We'll need a headcount, make sure everyone is accounted for."
"Maybe an in person visit. Check up on the security system as well," Lantern agreed. Normally dark eyes were a shade of green, a highlight whenever he wore and activated his ring. Those same eyes peeked at the ruined Tower, and then wondered if any of the security features in it had been tripped. This…autopsy was going to have a lot of moving parts to it.
"I can check in with the guys in Jump. They know me," Flash offered. There was also the matter of there being a speedster in Titans West that had once been the speedster's charge. Flash had taken to doing regular check ups, though he never had opened up about the reason why. A bit odd, Lantern reflected, since there was a time when Flash couldn't stop complaining about the kid.
Wonder Woman seemed to have caught his action and now she too was eyeing the ruined structure. Fingers that rested on a bicep tensed. "Am I the only one concerned that we haven't made contact with any survivors yet?"
The chill breeze that occurred could not have picked a better time. Yeah, the princess there wasn't the only one concerned.
"J'onn went in there earlier. Hasn't come out yet," he informed the hero of Gateway City.
"I can go in there and help speed it up." Another offer from Flash, and since the man could vibrate the molecules of body to the point he could walk through walls, that was no empty promise.
"He would have alerted us already if something was wrong," Shayera stated. The raptor-like features of her helmet gave a fierceness that was also directed at the Tower.
They were all feeling it, weren't they? Something was wrong, incredibly wrong, and it had been that way before any of them had set foot here.
He knew this feeling. Back in Afghanistan, right before walking into an ambush or finding something…horrible, this feeling, the same one he was feeling now, he would feel it at those times. Lantern didn't like how he was having that feeling right now. By the very ring he wore, he hoped that nothing would confirm that this feeling had any place here.
"Say, Big Blue, you can do X-ray vision or something like that, right?" Flash said and you could hear the anxiety in his voice.
"I—" Superman began to say, but he stopped just as someone emerged from the Tower.
Emerge was not the best word to use. Maybe walk out or through…it wasn't easy to explain, but the gist, J'onn came out from a solid wall, walking as if nothing had been in his way. There had been a transparent quality to him, one that solidified by the expression of color that deepened with each and every second. You could see that green skin, the blue cape, and the expressionless Martian face as the last member of this investigation team arrived.
After all the time he had spent in space, dealing with other extraterrestrials, you would think Lantern would have an easier time reading that expression on the Martian's face. You would be wrong; J'onn had perhaps the best poker face around.
His arrival should mean that the rest of the team would relax, but the Green Lantern knew that he himself hadn't relaxed yet. Maybe he wasn't able to read facial expressions off that alien face, but body language was something else altogether.
Unfolding her arms, Wonder Woman asked, "Did you find anything, J'onn?"
J'onn did not answer, not immediately. He kept walking until he arrived at the grouping of Leaguers, remaining stoic and quiet, and now the Lantern did not know if he wanted to hear what the taller Martian had to say. His gut was saying that there was nothing good to learn.
Finally, "I have managed to locate one of the Titans." You could hear the stiffness in his voice, a break from the normally deep and unexpressive tone that the Martian normally used.
None of them spoke. They waited to hear more.
"I…I could not identify which one," J'onn admitted. "The remains were…I could not make a positive identification. They…they are dead."
That feeling he mentioned earlier? It had been right on the money. Goddamnit. There was confirmation now of at least one fatality. Were there others?
"You found the remains of one. What of the rest?" Wonder Woman pressed.
"I fear the fire from the Canidite was too effective. I do not know if I found more than one or if…" Orange eyes closed as a green head turned away. "My apologies. It is not easy when it is a child…"
They may be different species, but that sentiment was one they all shared.
At least one confirmed dead. The rest may still be mixed up in the wreckage.
"Did you try doing a mindsweep?" Flash pressed and he wasn't hiding his desperation.
"I did not detect any minds. Nothing to indicate someone was rendered unconscious. I found no other signs of life that may have left anything behind." It was bad news, yet J'onn knew he had to give it. They needed to hear it no matter what they thought about it.
"We need to contact the other Towers. Now," Superman stated.
No one argued with that.
It had been getting late when the alert came in. Yeah, sure, most everyone in the Tower was still up. Doing important things. You know, like…like…trying to assert dominance in a video game, trying to relieve boredom and failing horribly, trying to make room in the refrigerator, not sleeping, you know, important things.
Red Robin had activated the alert, so it wasn't something happening in town. That old pattern of things going quiet after something big still held up. So the big question was what this was all about.
"What gives? I was in first place and about to win!" Beast Boy demanded.
"In your dreams, BB, the game wasn't over yet," Cyborg retorted.
Even if some were a bit more delusional about it.
Complaints came to an end when the Flash arrived. Kid Flash was easily excited about it, just as he was easily excited about almost everything that was crash, but not mode, and no one still understood what each of those meant.
Turns out, Flash was there to have them feel the mode. That wasn't a good thing, apparently.
It was all business and Flash had to be going, and it was understandable. It put an addendum to the old pattern. Just because something big went down in Jump didn't mean that nothing else big happened in the rest of the world. In this case, it was in Cancun with Titans South.
"They're dead?" Terra was repeating, dazed. She had the thousand yard stare and everything.
"No, they can't be," Kid Flash was the first to deny. His head was shaking rapidly enough that it blurred his facial features. "They can't be. Miguel's there. They'd have to go through him and he's got those brick things. And Pantha! She's always trying to fight Star and almost doing it! Those other three I barely know, Lightning, Thunder, and Mirage. Does anyone remember what Mirage does again? I forget. But Lightning! And Thunder! Bringing the heat and the boom! Not fast enough to catch me!"
"Who'd do that?" Beast Boy wondered, slumping on the couch next to Terra. Their hands touched and then grabbed onto one another tightly. "Who could do that?"
You could hear what sounded like shifting running throughout the Tower. The windows that gave an amazing view of the bay was blocked off as sheets of titanium slid down them and blocked off all sight.
"I got the Tower on lockdown," Cyborg reported, the human aspects of his face stone hard. "I don't know how they got through Titans South security, but they're not doing it here."
"Are there other measures we can take?" Surprisingly, that question came from Starfire, but no one was going to take the moment to do a double take. How she spoke indicated that she too was taking this seriously. The Tamaranean looked at them all as if weighing their skills and abilities. "Would a watch be advisable? Someone to monitor our security measures manually and at all times?"
"I can handle it all," Cyborg answered her. "I'm connected to everything tech in the Tower. "Someone breathes wrong in our direction and I'll know."
"Unless the threat is already inside," Raven stated. Everyone knew what she was referencing and did not need the reminder. "The system isn't infallible."
Cyborg did not argue against the point.
"Then we'll need to do what Starfire suggested," Red Robin said, taking control of the team. "There are eight of us, four teams of two will be awake at all times to monitor and patrol as necessary. No one is alone, stick together at all times, and have your communicators on you, no exceptions. Cyborg, double check to make sure that all communicators are keyed in and that they can trigger a Tower wide alarm if needed."
"This can't be happening. This is happening," Kid Flash muttered, his hands holding his head as he gazed down at the floor.
"Everyone." This was perhaps the sharpest tone Red had ever used with his teammates, and right now their leader needed everyone's head in the game. "We're going to be getting through this, and the first thing we need to do is remain calm. The Justice League is on the case and they'll be tracking down whoever attacked Titans South. While they do that, we need to take care of ourselves, look out for one another, and stay safe until the situation is resolved.
"Right now, all we know is that Titans South was attacked and…there were casualties. That has always been a possibility for us. What we do is dangerous, and sometimes the threats we fight catch up with us. We do not know who is responsible and why they did this. Any and all evidence will be in Cancun. No, we're not going there right now, the League will handle it. If it's the cartels down there, they just made a huge mistake. If it's a new supervillain, then they are at the threat level that the League would need to get involved anyway. It's overwhelming right now, I know. We focus on what we can do, and we do it. What we can do is take all precautions we can to keep ourselves safe, stick together, no going off on your own, and watch each other's backs. We'll get through this."
"And if this big bad, whoever they are, decides to pay us a visit? We got that whole celebration thing going on that the mayor is throwing for us and people expect us to show up for it," Cyborg pointed out. "We don't show up, people start asking questions."
"And this is going to give people like Alderman more ammunition, I know," Red Robin agreed. "We'll have to work that out, but the one thing we can't do is start a panic, between ourselves or with the city."
And here he was trying to have it all ways again. The best thing to do would be to call it off, tell the mayor thanks but no thanks, there is an emergency and they can't make it. At the same time, they had spent so much time building themselves, building the Teen Titans and finally those efforts were being recognized. In a perfect world they would be able to manage both. Too much experience told him that no, they would not be able to handle it.
Could a lie be told? They needed to be out of town during this appreciation rally that Mayor Wolfman was trying to hold. If one paid attention to the news, then Wolfman's polling numbers were completely out of whack. You couldn't tell if he was getting support for his vocal support for the Initiative or if he was losing it. A nightmare situation for a politician, and since he had gone this far, on a limb no less, he would be doubling down.
The attack on Titans South could not have come at a worse time.
"We have the night to come up with something, whether it's staying put or figuring out how to do this pro-Titan rally the mayor wants to put on," Red Robin finally said. "In the meantime, lets get this Tower checked out, make sure security is tight. You guys can get started on that now, but go in pairs just in case. Wonder Girl and I have business to take care of first, but we'll join you once we're done."
Wonder Girl had been quiet this whole time, letting the teen vigilante handle the others. The armored blonde was more contemplative nowadays, but don't get him wrong, she still could tear you apart verbally if she felt like it. It was just currently she wasn't as eager to lash some of it his way anymore. Their conversations were more deeper, like about their immediate futures, than constant rips and volleys of insults.
"What do you guys gotta do that's so important?" Beast Boy asked.
Red Robin leveled the shapeshifter with a look. "Contact parents, let them know we're trapped in the Tower during a lockdown. We won't be able to make it home tonight."
Green eyes blinked. "Oh. Right. Good idea."
The team leader then took stock of the others, noted their various looks and body language. Raven was one he lingered on, both due to past behavior where it seemed like she was weighing his every word and move and always ended up disappointed, and possibly residual effects from her time in Gotham. There were no judging looks, no signs that she was still assessing him, so Red would have to take that as a win.
Clapping his hands together, "We got our jobs. Let's get them handled. We'll figure out the rally when we're done. If anyone needs a moment…take it now. There were…I mean, are some strong people on Titans South. We all know how strong Bunker is. Starfire, you know more about Pantha. I'm holding out for survivors, but we'll have to wait until we hear back from the League. We need to go over the Tower in the meantime. After…we'll figure it out."
While Red Robin and Wonder Girl slipped away, the cybernetic young man found he himself couldn't stop thinking about Bunker and the rest. A part of him hoped that the Mexican national was still alive. Sure, he would have to cross the border again illegally, but so long at their fellow Titan was still alive and able to kick some ass, that would be one win.
As far as any of them knew, though, there was one confirmed casualty. Please do not let it be any of them.
Yet Cyborg knew he had to recognize that yes, someone on Titans South was dead.
In hindsight this really would be the calm before the storm.
Two pairs of feet, one clad in golden mystical armor and the other…wasn't, walked through a hallway almost in tandem. Cassie knew she had been quiet back there, hadn't spoken up and expressed any snark.
Maybe that was because she was really taking this seriously. She had heard what Flash had said. A Tower, destroyed. Titans, missing or dead. The one responsible, unknown and could be anywhere. What wasn't there to take seriously?
With a group like theirs, it was also expected to have a lot of different reactions. She had noticed that Kori and Victor were trying to be proactive. You might count Raven being helpful by keeping any opinion about leadership to herself. Red was trying to step up as leader, and he had been doing well maybe until the end. He was getting better. Terra, Bart, and Garfield were the ones to keep an eye on, she felt.
Terra, or Tara, no, let's stay with Terra because she had never expressed any interest in her, ahem, "real name," she had been dazed and caught off guard like the rest of them. Cassie found herself keeping an eye on the geokinetic because whenever the blonde used to be quiet for long periods of time, that meant some crazy ass psychic bitch was mind controlling her. The League said that was no longer a problem, but you never knew.
Garfield was kinda all over the place, but he was feeling the emotions too, she was sure. The shapeshifter never could resist a chance to tell a joke, but he knew when not to do it. Kinda. Sorta. It was a work in progress. It seemed he spoke up only for the sake of doing so. All over the place at times. Maybe he too was hit hard by this.
Bart seemed to be the one most affected. Poor kid looked like he was sucker punched. He was still young enough to have that sense of invincibility that most people their age had, so something that went against it like this would be like getting a gut punch. He had spent a lot of time with Miguel before the newest member—and informal—of the team agreed to take charge of Titans South. When you fight with someone during life and death stakes, you got close. Blood brothers kind of thing. But really, Bart had this idea that nothing was going to take down the Teen Titans. He was from the future, you know.
But not everything got written down for posterity's sake. Plus, Bart had admitted he didn't learn everything about their future due to being more interested in everything Flash. He had known all their names, so…maybe they got through this alive? Then again, Bart who never could keep his mouth shut made no mention of Miguel. And…and hadn't Bart mentioned once that they were the founders of the Titans? Sometimes founders didn't last very long.
"I've been trying to reach Titans North and East," Red spoke up. This caught the blonde off guard but she got back into the moment. Talk about a long period of silence, just walking. Yet, there was a reason for that. Red probably wanted to get out of range of anyone with sharp hearing, you know who you are green boy. She also noticed he was holding his communicator in hand, probably to make sure that someone wasn't racing by either.
He wanted this between the two of them.
"Anything?" she prompted.
Red shook his head. "Radio silence."
It made sense to check up on the other branches of the Initiative. South was down, it did not just mean West was only a target. North and East could also be targets so everyone needed to be put on high alert. The League might be taking care of that themselves, but it didn't hurt for Red to take the initiative himself. She wouldn't be surprised if one day Red was the one running the whole thing.
Still, no word from North or East? That didn't mean they had already been attacked. If it was anything like with South, they would have heard about it by now. So…
"Maybe our lockdown is getting in the way. Maybe they too are in lockdown," Cassie suggested. Don't jump to conclusions, she already had a problem doing that.
"Maybe," Red grunted, still holding his communicator in hand. "I don't like it. The first major attack we've had and in one of our homes. I got a bad feeling about this."
Sure, she could list a few other times, but even she understood the gravity of the situation. On top of that, Red was being vulnerable with her. He trusted her that much. Again, not a time for snark.
A hand in gold armor placed itself on a broadening shoulder and gave a squeeze. "We're doing everything we can, aren't we?" the armor-clad blonde said.
"Are we?" Red retorted, then grimaced. "Sorry. I feel like we could be doing more. We should be doing more. These were Titans."
"And the League is taking care of it. We'd only get in their way. Let them handle this while we do the best thing we can for this and keep ourselves safe," Cassie told the official team leader. "They have their own way of doing things, right? Plus, if whoever or whatever did this is that tough, we'd need the League anyway."
"Do we always need to be reliant on them? The Initiative could one day be a training program for a future Justice League. We could be handling this ourselves and learning what we need to be to be the next Justice League," Red replied. "Hiding away and letting the grown-ups handle it can't always be the answer, and one day we'll be the grown-ups."
Her grip on Red's shoulder tightened warningly. "Don't sell ourselves short. We've handled some adult situations before. Wouldn't that Clock King crap count as adult stuff as well? It's not a bad thing to recognize when we're in over our heads. I know this is rich coming from me, but it's not a bad thing to ask for help."
The eyes behind that domino mask turned to look at her. Oh, was he going to comment on that? Go ahead, see how that turned out for you, Timmy boy.
His survival instinct must have kicked in, because he looked away and said, "We still need to alert our parents about the situation without giving away too much detail. I know my parents will be worried. I bet your mom will be as well."
Ah yes, the one topic that only the two of them could relate to on an even keel. The rest of the team were either estranged or orphaned. What were the odds Victor would contact his dad at S.T.A.R. Labs? Bart's were somewhere in the future so good look with that. If they were still alive in the future. Kori's parents were dead, so were Garfield's, Terra wasn't interested, and Raven never spoke a word about hers. Raven was probably in the estranged category in that regard.
That just left her and Red with still living and involved parents. Different challenges there, especially when wanting to conceal secret identities. She knew Red and Cyborg had teamed up to make it harder for the general public to get a good look at her. She didn't wear a mask unless her armor decided a helmet was necessary. Scrambling any and all pictures and keeping her distance away from others helped with that.
Remember, most cameras were either digital or part of a phone. Victor was a master at affecting anything digital or that could connect to the internet. Security cameras were a sinch. Someone was going to have to find one of the old dinosaurs, ones that used film, to stand a chance. Raven and Bart could handle those with Raven detecting the offender and Bart doing his thing to snatch up the film.
The team went out of the way for her. She would go all out for them in a heartbeat.
But yes, Mom needed to hear about this and know that they weren't going to be spending quality mother-daughter time together right now. Kinda sucked, they were starting to make some plans and after the Clock King terrorized the city too. When the little fish hid themselves under the rocks they crawled out of, it gave her and Red the chance to spend time with their mostly intact families.
You're probably wondering about her father. Well, she was too, and Mom was still mum about it.
Maybe one day there would be answers. The same for what went down with Titans South. Until then, they could only do what they could.
Whoever came up with the T design for each of the Titan Towers was taking things too far in John's opinion. Whose idea had it been to make these buildings in such a way and why hadn't anyone stopped it?
It wasn't well known, or really told to anyone he knew nowadays, that once John Stewart had been interested in architecture. Joining the Marines so that he could take advantage of the G.I. bill to go for a degree in architecture had been his original plan, but then his sense of responsibility had kicked in and he found himself serving multiple tours. After that, the ring came into his life and everything after that was history.
That didn't mean that he had given up his interest in the field or the topic. No, those buildings were a joke that had gone way too far. Damn it, and he had gone out of his way to make sure that the base and internal support could handle the wings that made up the top of that T.
The only benefit he found was that it was easy to find one of these buildings. Currently, he was near Toronto, Canada, close to Detroit and that was perhaps why he was checking in on Titans North. Detroit was his town, and it seemed that Titans North was in his proximity as a given.
It was dark when he arrived, and this far north and away from the city itself, meant you were able to see some of the stars out there. The Tower faced Lake Ontario so whatever light it emitted only obscured the sky if you were close enough. There was a faint glow around the Tower meaning someone had left the lights on. The team in there had responded to some emergency out of the Tower and during the night.
This meant they were either on their way back or no one had gotten around to turning it off.
There were two points of entry for the Lantern: rooftop or ground floor. He chose the ground floor, not wanting to set off any of the sensitive security systems that monitored the roof, plus he wanted to get another look at the front lobby. No particular reason.
His credentials were scanned in via his ring, and so he was allowed access. Naturally, he made a request of the system to alert everyone in the Tower of his surprise visit. Perhaps this was the real reason for choosing the ground floor as his entry; it gave time for teenagers to hide the kind of things they didn't want adults finding. He had been a teen once. He had hid things from his mother. If he caught anything, then he would come down on them, not turning a blind eye. At the same time, if he didn't see it, then there was nothing to reprimand.
John waited in the lobby for several minutes, taking the time to really look over the first area any invited guests would see. It was suppose to look professional and present a feeling that you were in an education setting. There were checkpoints in here, but those were mostly for guests. Don't get him wrong, there were heavy-duty features for the front door, but that was something for the public to speculate about. If needed, this lobby could be shut down into a bunker of sorts, though it was more capturing anyone who thought to break in through the front door.
Minutes passed, and nothing. No one had called in, or come running down. He went to one of the checkpoints, a front desk set up and he sent up an alert for the Titans here that he was here.
No response.
John was starting to get suspicious now. In light of what had happened in Cancun…
With help of the Watchtower teleporter, Hawkgirl had arrived on the scene to scope things out.
"There's a good chance they're preoccupied with something," the Thanagarian pointed out.
"I sent an alert through the Tower. If they're out in Toronto, their communicators would have informed them about this. Someone would have responded," Green Lantern refuted. "I'm getting a bad feeling about this."
Everything after that only seemed to confirm it. The main hub, a rec room and living room set up was empty. Hell, it looked lived in and there were paraphernalia—and not the illegal kind—that were placed all about. Someone had started cooking in the kitchenette. Movie cases rested on the floor immediately in front of the plasma widescreen TV. The space situated in the middle of the U-shaped couch had its projector up still.
"It's like they left expecting to come back," Hawkgirl murmured as she took this in. She circled the machine that could project holograms into the air, usually so that the team could brief itself before heading out on a preplanned mission. "This hasn't been put away. Some kind of emergency? An alert and then intel before heading out."
"Most of them don't wait that long," Green Lantern pointed out.
"Each team operates in its own way. Most go running out the door once the alert comes up," Hawkgirl corrected. She began typing on a visible keyboard in the projector, and in its center were the last images it projected made visible in the air about it.
Reading the display, they both could see how there was an alert that came in. The area was near downtown Toronto. Some kind of storage facility. No activity there currently. They would need to check it out and see if there had been any trouble.
There was more tapping, another holographic image flashed into existence. "According to this, the whole team went to check that alert. They haven't been back in…it's been nearly a week!" Hawkgirl exclaimed. There was alarm there as well, and Green Lantern felt it as well. A week without being in the Tower? Why the hell were they only finding this out now?
"Something stinks here, and I don't think Cancun was the start of it," he growled.
"I'll bet my mace we're only going to find out how much deeper this goes," the Thanagarian agreed. Pausing, she added, "Hopefully nothing has happened with East yet."
That gave him pause. From Flash, they had learned that West was okay and still operational. North was missing, and anything that could have been mentioned about South had already been said. Like North, there hadn't been any communication from East.
Wonder Woman was heading over there. They'd be getting confirmation on East's status soon enough. In the meantime, they needed to check out this lead and see if it led them to North.
This time he would use the rooftop access. It was closer than the ground floor.