Ex Perdition

1st January
18:34 GMT -5

"…beyond not cool." The image of Guy floating over Stewart's ring shakes its head at me.

I walk down the corridor in the direction of the living area. "I know, I know. But I had no other way to get back!" His lip curls slightly as he nods. "If the Guardians had given me a star chart months ago I wouldn't have needed to. How are things on Oa?"

"Same old same olds. Kilowog's got me helpin' out with the rookies."

"Noo. Noo. Guy, you need to be teaching the veterans your technique." He gives me a sceptical look. "Seriously. It's too advanced for rookies. Get Salaak to find a few Sectors with two experienced Lanterns, recall one of them and show them how it works."

"I don't think Salaak's really in the mood fer more 'Human shenanigans' right now."

I turn the corner and can hear the television in the distance. "He actually said that?"

"Yeah. Oh, you know, translators, but…"

"Try getting Kilowog to do it then. Have you shown him?"

He nods. "Think he got it. Course, the only way t' check would be bringing you here."

"I'll probably pop over once my year's up. Anyway, reason I called. I got a phone call from Nylor Truggs this morning."

"What, you leave your number in a phone box or something?"

"He hacked GBS's phone records. You know Truggs says that he comes from the future?" Guy nods. "According to him we're due to be conquered by The Reach in a decade or so." Guy stops smiling. "He says that's why he came back."

"So why's he workin' fer Team Evil?"

"Because we failed. The League wasn't able to prevent it from happening, so he's trying to buff some other faction. Either that, or he's trying to force us to improve by giving us harder challenges. I've spent most of the day going through John's database on the Reach."

"He could just be bullshitting you."

"Yes… He could. I would probably have been able to tell if I could see him while he was saying it… On the other hand, looking at the stellar maps-" I hold up my left hand and generate a chart. "-in my particular area of interest it looks like I'll run into them anyway."

The somewhat nebulous border of the territory of the Reach Stellar Empire is marked out in a slightly brighter orange hue than the worlds around it. The map is 'dead' as of Stewart's last update so it might have expanded a bit since then. Plus, most of the systems marked aren't readily habitable. Yes, they could dismantle a few gas giants and build artificial habitats but it's so resource intensive that even the Reach don't bother outside the core of their territory. I expand one section and individual border worlds are marked out. "See what I see?"

Guy looks off to the side for a moment, then back 'towards camera'. "Maltus."

"They're actually curving around it. They can't hope to conquer it with brute force and I can't think how they'd corrupt the Controllers… And I think I can probably work out who the Orange Lantern Corps' first target is going to be. Except… Do I cause the attack on Earth? From the way Truggs was talking it was fairly apocalyptic."

Guy shakes his head. "You can't worry about stuff like that. But…" He has a furtive look over his shoulder. "Okay, look: I'm not sure I'm meant ta tell you this, but the Guardians think that the Controllers are already fighting the Reach. Lanterns in nearby Sectors have reported seeing these guys carrying out hit and run attacks on Reach shipping." The starchart disappears, being replaced by the image of a burly alien with a head somewhat like that of a bulldog trading fire with a Reach starship. "They wear this red, white and silver power armour with this.. sort of black starburst symbol-."

I smile. "The Darkstars."

"That what they're called? Wouldn't get too excited about it. Every time we saw them fighting Scarab Warriors they were gettin' their asses kicked."

"They'd probably do better if they had power rings."

Guy shakes his head. "No can do Paul. The treaty them and the Guardians signed says no Lanterns-."

"No Green Lanterns."

He's silent for a moment as he takes that in. "Heh. Hehhehheh. Think they know rings come in other colors?"

"Sinestro isn't exactly subtle. On the other hand, it's a big universe."

"So, what? You're just gunna give 'em all rings an' let 'em go at it?"

"Hardly. Even without Bobblehead malware-."

"Will you lay off'f that! They don't-."

"You can't kill people, Guy! The Green Lantern Corps was at war and they couldn't kill their enemies! The Scarabs are a threat to Lanterns -just about- but the reason you lost was because-."

"We didn't lose!" The image glitches. "We got a draw and a peace treaty. No more Reach battle fleets firing on unprotected worlds from orbit!"

"What do you call it when one side advances and the other retreats? Reach occupied space is… What? Five times as big by volume now as it was then? Are they any nicer? Give me a few hundred people who hate them, people whose worlds are under Reach control, whose people are slaves, whose strongest desire is to unmake them utterly… I think we'll get a different result."

"And then what? You wanna give a bunch of genocidal maniacs power rings you'd best be damn sure you can make them give them back at the end of it."

"That volume of space? Destroying the Reach will take centuries. Besides, rings can be used to rebuild their worlds as well as killing their enemies." He doesn't look convinced. "You know I use mine like that."

"You ain't exactly most people. And you haven't had decades a' seein' your homeworld torn apart. That sorta pain does stuff to yah and it ain't usually anythin' good. And you had trouble with the orange light anyway."

"So I'll ask the Controllers to be a bit more selective about it. It still gives me a core of experienced people to build my Corps from."

He thinks for a moment and then nods. "Plus, no one here's likely t' complain about the Reach gettin' hammered. Doubt even the Guardians would mind that."

"Any chance they'll approve bringing the Watchtower up to spec? If the Reach are heading this way…"

"I'll ask, but I doubt it. Couldn't you sort somethin' out?"

"Yes, I could build a series of space based battle fortresses armed with beam singularity projectors. Six months down the line I'll probably be able to build ones powered by Personal Lanterns in the same way Sector Houses are and equip them with nuclear force nullifiers and giant orange defensive barriers. You think they'll be okay with that? Heck, you think the Justice League would be?"

"Or you could just build one."

"Wouldn't be enough. If I'm doing a job I'm going to do it properly."

He moves his jaw slightly to the side, then looks around again. "Ah, look, I gotta go. I'll pass it on. For what it's worth. Just don't do anythin' too crazy until I get back."

I take a moment to reflect on the activity I have planned for this evening. "I'll see what I can do. Bye Guy."

He waves goodbye and the images shut down as I walk into the living room.

1st January
18:38 GMT -5

Wallace is slouched on the settee with a large bowl of popcorn on his lap. He looks around as I walk in. "Oh, hey Oh El." He takes another handful of popcorn and tosses a couple of pieces into his mouth as something on the screen explodes.

"You.. do know my name, right?"

"Hm." He thinks for a moment. "Guess I kinda got used to calling you that."

"Look, if me calling you 'Wallace' is bothering you I can just stop. I manage to call Robert 'Rob'."

"Eh, it's sort of your thing now." He straightens up a little. "You got any plans for the weekend?"

"Upgrading my Ice Fortress. Thanks to Lantern Stewart I can finally give it a decent power source."

He looks puzzled. "Really? I'm not one for slacking off but we just had three missions back to back. You sure you don't wanna take it easy for a bit?"

"It is easy. Me, the arctic wastes, the dulcet tones of Sandi Toksvig on the radio…"

"Who?"

"BBC Radio four presenter."

"Not taking Zatanna with you?"

"No. She.. left some homework to the last minute. Plus, I don't think she'd find it very interesting."

He returns his attention to the screen as.. someone drives a car off a raised section of road. Onto the rear of a lorry. There's no way that would work. "Just make sure you don't paint a giant skull on the side or anything."

I smile as I take the seat to his right. "You know, I wasn't going to… But now I'm thinking about it. What are your plans?"

"After Wednesday, last night and this morning? I plan on doing as little as possible. Oh, hey, you know that Rush Hour girl, right?"

"Actually, no." He raises his right eyebrow. "I know of her but we've never actually spoken."

"You know how her superspeed works?"

"How it works, the mechanism? No. The trigger is a mantra -same as Missus Tyler- but I've tried just saying it myself. " I shrug. "No change." He nods. "You made a decision about Nyssa yet?"

"Is there.. like, some way we can tell her and be sure it won't get back to Luthor?"

"No. There's no way to be certain Luthor won't find out. Heck, we don't know that Savage didn't have Mister Allen take samples of his own blood and post them to him while he was being mind controlled."

His eyes widen. "You don't think he did, right?"

"No, it too obviously links Lex to the attack." I think for a moment. "They might have posted it to the Brain…"

"Would that work?"

"No idea but I really hope not. If you're worried about Nyssa there are.. magically binding contracts. I don't know how eager she'd be to sign one. Plus, you've got everyone else who works there-."

"Including Doctor Sivana. Nice going there."

"Better than leaving him in the wild. And the recording equipment. You'd have to get her to agree to do nothing at the research centre. Heck, Truggs had a version of the Thinking Cap. Even thinking about it might be a risk."

He sinks back into the cushions. "Great. Think I'll try talking to… What was her name?"

"Until she tells you otherwise, 'Rush Hour'."

"Oh, come on. Bet you didn't ask her."

"True. But insufficient. I violated her secret identity for professional reasons. This is personal. Plus you're already planning to hit on her."

"I!" He looks aside. "Am.. not…"

"It sounded like Diana wanted to recruit her anyway."

"Oh yeah?" He smiles. "How'd she take you locking Nabu in the store room?"

I wince. "The dressing down I received was both entirely deserved and proportionate. Nabu didn't give you any trouble when you let him out, I hope?"

"He teleported away as soon as I took the chains off. Heh. Still can't believe you just left him there."

"I had a lot going on! I meant to go back for him, just.. sort of.. didn't get round to it." I still don't quite know how I managed that one. I actually checked for telepathic interference but no, just me being a numpty. I thought four hours would be sufficient to get out if he could but then the prison break happened…

"Did he give you any trouble?"

"No, he accepted my explanation. Not that it exactly helps; even if Klarion can't get the chain off himself one of the others should be able to."

"Kinda surprised. I thought he'd bear a grudge."

"Maybe it's an Order thing; he thinks I'm Diana's problem to discipline, that happened, therefore it's resolved."

"Could be." He returns his attention to the television and feeds himself some more popcorn.

"Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you. I mean, not about that."

"What was it?"

"What happened to Kent Nelson's walking stick?"

"Uh? Oh, it got burned up powering the shield spell Kent put around us. Well, most of it; I put the Helmet on before the handle got destroyed. I thought about putting it in the trophy room, but we had the Helmet…"

"And where is it now?"

"It's in my room. I mean, my room here. Why, you want it for something?"

"I was going to ask Sephtian… That Atlantean guy I work with?" He nods. "To have a look at it, see if he could get anything useful out of it. If we had a shield spell like the one Mister Nelson used it could be very useful." To say nothing of the fact that it would be a perfect focusing aid for the séance I have planned for this evening.

"I kinda figured Fate probably set the cane up for him."

"Right, but we can still work out what those spells were. You know, reverse engineer the thing."

He waves his left hand in a show of indifference. "Hey, if you want it, it's on the dresser."

"Thank you. That will be most helpful."

1st January
18:47 GMT -5

"Welcome, Orange Lantern two eight one four. Welcome, Teekl."

Only one zeta tube in the world greets us like that. I smile and take a look at the zeta tube's computer terminal as I pass. I think this part of the Zatara residence used to be a smoking room, old tasteful furniture, wooden panelling and a slightly stuffy scent. No dust, of course. Zatanna told me that there's a whole slew of spells built into the structure of the place. I have no idea who did it; the Zataras only moved in seven years ago. It was probably by the same people who thought that 'Shadowcrest' was a clever thing to call an enchanted house.

Another place where I can't scan things. I open the door to the main hallway and look around. A lot of the rooms aren't in regular use. It shouldn't take that long to-.

"…about you. About him."

Teekl's ears prick up and she looks around. I.. don't recognise that voice. The house reacts violently to hostile people -heck, I got smacked in the face by a floorboard when I tried scratching the leg of a chair to see what would happen- so he can't be an intruder.

"I'm.. I'm sorry about the performances-." She sounds distressed. I transition to the open area just inside the front door and start heading towards the kitchen.

"I don't care about the stage show, Zatanna. I want to know that my friend's alright. That you're alright." Yep, in the kitchen. "It's been two months and I haven't heard a word from him. John's missed performances before, but-." I push open the door. Zatanna's sitting at the kitchen table, a pad of paper, two textbooks and some writing implements in front of her, along with a cup of tea on a saucer. Sitting across from her is a frustrated looking man of oriental extraction in black jeans, blue striped shirt and pale brown jacket. There's a nearly empty mug of coffee in front of him. He looks up as soon as I walk in and then looks away. "Speak of the devil…"

Zatanna looks at me, then him and then back to me. "Paul, this is Uncle Ch-. Um, Charles Tong. He's Dad's manager."

Oh, right. I dip my head in his direction as I approach. "Good evening, Mister Tong."

He nods back as I walk around the table to Zatanna. "Hello Paul. Maybe you can tell me what's going on."

I put the head of Mister Nelson's cane down next to Zatanna while keeping my eyes on him. The ring makes lying so easy, perfect control of what would otherwise be involuntary physical reflexes. "With.. regard to..?"

"I want. To know. Where John is."

"Annnnnd…" I glance at Zatanna. "You haven't been told?"

"I know what the League told the world is bullcrap! What's going on!?"

"Mister Zatara was possessed by a Lich." There's a slight intake of breath from Zatanna. "The League are currently working to free him but it's fairly heavy going as the creature does not want to be removed."

"Where is he? I want to see him."

"Mister Tong, that wouldn't be safe. The spells containing him aren't reliable enough that non-practitioners are allowed anywhere near him, plus, he's being held in Atlantis. You can't breathe water and you couldn't survive the depth."

"Oh." He blinks and his eyes dip to the table for a moment. "I.. guess that makes sense. But what's with the subterfuge? Why wasn't Zatanna allowed to tell me?"

"The fewer people know the smaller the chance of some evil wizard trying to break in. Needless to say, we need you not to tell anyone about this."

"But-."

I nod and make a show of wincing. "Yes, Batman should.. probably have put you on an exceptions list or something. I'm sorry about that."

He shakes his head, not making eye contact. "But… That… I'm…" He looks back at me. "If John's not here, who's looking after Zatanna?"

"Uncle Charlie, I'm fourteen." I wince inwardly. "Not having dad around is.. hard, but I can manage for a little while."

"For two months?"

"You know Dad's family all live in Italy. And.. I can't contact Mom's family…"

"Batman and.. I, have been… You know… Around." That sounds so inadequate. The sagging I do isn't feigned.

He looks from me to her. "Yeah, I picked up on that."

I glance at Zatanna. "Have I come up in conversation?"

"Once or twice." A very faint smile. "Still, I suppose at her age-."

I shake my head. "Oh, no, we're not-." / "He's not my boyfriend."

Zatanna and I make eye contact for a moment before she looks away. "He made that.. clear." Huh, that was only.. this morning. Doesn't time fly.

"You're.. not staying here-" He makes a circling motion with his right index finger, taking in the whole of the house. "-all on your own, are you?"

"No, I've been staying… Um…"

"I think Green Arrow refers to it as a 'high-tech doss house', but it's actually quite nice. Certainly.. spacious."

He thinks for a moment. "You're living in Mount Justice?"

I knew it! I knew it!

"Yes, mostly. We, ah, installed a transportation device so I can go from here to there without appearing to leave the house. There's always other people around."

"Is.. that why the League recruited Fate? I mean, if he's the man who was part of the Justice Society he's got to be at least ninety years old by now."

"That was more to take on Mister Zatara's caseload as 'League wizard'. Nabu's not really a researcher, though he'll probably be involved.. um, 'at the death', as it were."

"Do they.. have any idea how long..?"

I shake my head. "Unknown territory, really. We know a couple of things that don't work. I came here because Zatanna and I were going to do some research on the subject."

"Is it something I can help with?"

"Do you know anything about necromancy?"

"I'm.. going to regret asking anything else, aren't I?"

Zatanna nods. "Probably."

"Okay. Well, I've got an answer I suppose. Zatanna,-" He reaches across the table and puts his right hand on hers. "-you know I'm always going to be here for you, alright? If you need someone who's not a superhero to talk to."

She nods and then pulls back to get up off her chair. I pick up the head of the walking stick as she walks around the table to hug him. "Thanks Uncle Charlie."

It… I had worried slightly that the adversarial path I've called for, keeping things from the League, might be cutting her off from other adult contact. It's a weight off to know that she has someone else. Someone not involved. "Right, well…" They separate, Mister Tong holding onto her hands for a moment and maintaining eye contact. She manages a small smile. "Zatanna, we need to stop off in London."

"Okay." She steps away from Mister Tong and heads for the door. "Let's do this."

1st January
23:53 GMT

I stick my head out of the deserted boathouse that houses the London zeta tube terminus. I've never been particularly keen on London. I'm a natural pedestrian and the place is just too big to walk around, to say nothing of the lines of sight. The London here… Well, I've read Hellblazer. I'm not spending any time here I don't have to.

"How long did he say?" I duck back in. Zatanna's sitting on a wooden bench with domesticus-sized Teekl ensconced on her lap, milking the attention for all it's worth.

"Should only be a minute or two."

"Wouldn't it be faster to pick him up?"

"Transitioning with arcane objects eats power. Plus, we're trying to keep what we're doing secret. Having me pick him up is a bit of a-." I hear a car pull up outside. I try getting the ring to show me but for some reason it doesn't… "He scry-warded Mister Chandler's cab." I hear footsteps. "And his own coat. I… I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"Guess you'll just… Uhh." John pushes the sliding door open wide enough for him to walk through. "Have to learn to use your eyes like the rest of us." He strolls over to Zatanna, who offers him the head of Mister Nelson's cane. He takes it and holds it up to study it.

Mister Chandler follows him in carrying a heavy looking bag. "Evening lady and gent. Oh, 'ere, thanks for the Christmas presents."

Warding amulets for himself, his wife and their daughter. Not Spelleaters as those would look a bit odd on a London cab driver but still effective in a conventional way. "You're welcome, Mister Chandler. I wasn't entirely sure they'd be well received."

He nods a little to the side. "Ye-ah, Renee nearly did her nut until I told her they weren't from John. Once she calmed down a bit she was well grateful."

"Are you accompanying us this evening?"

"Not bloody likely. Here." He throws the bag at me and I catch it with both arms, bending under the weight. I left the power armour in subspace because few things say 'call the police' like someone tramping through a graveyard in a glowing assault exoskeleton. It's only half a second away if I really need it and I've still got both rings. Those are concealed by weather appropriate ski gloves. Mister Chandler looks me over to check that I'm not going to collapse under the weight and then looks expectantly at John.

John keeps looking at the cane for a moment, then spots what Mister Chandler is doing, rolls his eyes and turns further away. "Yeah, good call. Should be able to get a nice resonance off-."

"Ah, come on John, it's New Year's Day! You know what Renee told me."

John points his right index finger at me. "This is all your fault."

Oh. That. I turn to Mister Chandler. "I'm.. happy to pay reasonable expenses. If you'll tell me what the fare is..?"

"You see, John? That's 'ow you get good service. Take a fuckin' lesson." John shakes his head and rolls his eyes again before slipping the cane handle into his coat pocket. "Busy time of year mate, but since you're a valued customer we'll call it twenty five quid."

I don't actually have a lot of British currency in subspace so I take a blank gold disk out instead and float it over to him. "Will this do?"

He takes hold of it in his right hand and scratches it with his thumbnail before giving me a satisfied smile. "That'll do nicely. Have fun with whatever John's dragged you into." He turns and heads back towards his cab, hands in pockets. I hear him start whistling as I close the door behind him.

John shakes his head. "I'm never going to hear the end of that. Right, where's the nearest zeta tube thingy to the Harmony Grove Cemetery?"

Zatanna picks Teekl up and sets her down on the bench next to her. "Close. The League put in a new zeta tube just a little after Nabu became a member."

"And we're sure Nabu's not there right now, are we?"

I nod. "Since he has no sense of fun and doesn't get tired he's taken monitor duty. That doesn't mean he's not aware of-."

John fishes around in his pockets and takes out three leather thongs. "These should stop us triggering anything for the next few hours." I go to op-. "Don't look inside." I think I'll take his word for it. I sling the bag's strap over my shoulder and put the thong around my neck. "You sure you can stop the tubes making a record?"

"It's just a machine and the Green Corpsmen are on Oa." I create a zeta tube construct. "After you."

John goes to walk through, then stops as he notices Teekl rubbing around his legs. She's only met him a couple of times but she seems rather taken with him. "Oh, right." He crouches down and she sits as he puts a thong around her neck as well. "Can't 'ave the cat giving the game away."

She looks down at it and sniffs. "Collar smell fun." Then she stands and gives John's leg another nuzzle. "Teekl like Laughing Magician. Laughing Magician fun man."

"Long as I've got the cat's approval." John awkwardly steps over her and through the zeta construct. Teekl trots after him, tail high.

"Why.. does Teekl like him so much?"

"You heard what Nabu said. John's probably about the second most Chaos-aligned person on the planet. Suffering and havoc his constant companions and all that jazz."

She nods a little uncertainly and walks through the portal. I take a moment to erase all traces of our presence here before following her through.

1st January
18:56 GMT -5

This one's in a garage. I take another moment to reset every part of it to how it was before we came though.

"So…" Zatanna looks at the wall for a moment and then back at John and I. "What.. do we do if Mister Nelson doesn't tell us anything? Or if the ritual doesn't work at all?"

John shrugs. "We keep tryin'. Paul was dead right about this being a long term thing. I mean, the chains worked so we know he's not invincible or anything, but we're a bit short on ways to actually stop him."

I nod at him. "And if head on attacks are off the menu, we could always try that thing you did to your father. But not with a cat. I like cats."

For a fraction of a second John's eyes narrow, then his face relaxes.

Zatanna's looking at him a little nervously. "What.. thing you did to your father?"

"Minor curse I did after we had a row and I was too young an' stupid to know any better." It was a bit more than that. We can't shelter her from the less pleasant side of magic, not against someone as powerful and well supported as Nabu. I'm not exactly looking forward to poisoning all of those animals myself, especially after we put them in little Nabu dresses. "Zatanna, d'you mind going on ahead? I need to talk to Paul about something real quick. Instructions are in the top of the bag."

"Um, okay. Gab emoceb sselthgiew dna taolf gnola htiw em."

The bag floats off my shoulder and drifts after her. She takes hold of the handles in her right hand and heads out of the door, Teekl trotting along behind her. I turn to John. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Something that's been buzzing around me for a while now." He takes a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and takes a moment to light it. "I-" He takes a drag. "-never told anyone 'cept Gemma about that. And I know she didn't tell you. I didn't tell you and I very much doubt that Dad did."

"Um."

He shrugs. "So maybe I got drunk sometime, blabbed it out to someone and the story drifted around. Wouldn't be the first time. Then again-" Another drag. "-it's not the first time for you either. Not many people know about the tattoos I did for Elle. Not many people know about Gabriel's wings. And if I asked you how I first got together with Chas, I'm betting you know." Oooh dear. "What I wanna know is…" He looks directly at me and there's no humour in his expression at all. "How in the name of bloody fuck do you know all this stuff?"

1st January
18:58 GMT -5

Um.

I try getting a look at his soul to try and work out how bad I've misjudged this, but… Oh, that's clever. Something -probably another bloody ward of some kind- is dampening down on my ability to see it precisely. I can see colours there but all the details get blurred when I try to make them out. I didn't notice it before because there is colour there.

Um.

"What's the matter? Teekl stole your tongue?"

"I'd been… Sssssort of hoping that no one would notice that thing you just noticed. Um."

He frowns. "What? You've been doing that around Batman and he hasn't asked about it?"

"I.. think he assumes it's the ring. Scan stuff, pillage databases." I shrug. "Superheroes have secrets."

"I'm not a superhero. And this could get Zatanna hurt."

"No! I wouldn't..!" I exhale and look down for a moment. I don't want to tell him. This could mess up everything. Gather information. "If… If I don't tell you, what exactly happens?"

"Well, that's the question, innit?" He takes another drag while he considers, then breathes out a plume of smoke. "Can't very well dump Zatanna, not after what happened with her mother. Can't get rid of you." He looks me over. "Not easily anyway. And it's not like you've done anything to deserve it. Not as far as I know. 'Course, there was that one man on the tube who started shouting about crimes he'd committed… You know about that one, don't you."

It was a statement not a question, but I nod anyway. "Sold his soul and his daughter's too. Nearly sold another baby for an extension. Probably would have if you hadn't stepped in."

"Right. He looked like a victim to start with and turned out to be a right tosser. So understand that I'm a little bit concerned about this. We're picking a fight with a sodding Lord of Order-" He takes the cigarette and jabs it at me. "-and I can't trust the bloke I'm supposed to be able to rely on."

"I didn't sell my soul to anything. Except possibly the Ophidian. I didn't used to have one." He raises his eyebrows. "I know perfectly well that doesn't mean that I sold it. According to the Atlanteans I shouldn't have been able to live like that. If I'd been in contact with a Demon you'd have picked up on it when you did my tattoos."

"That does rather leave the question of how you managed it."

"I told you, I come-."

"From a parallel universe. With no magic." He looks away, making a show of considering it. "Doesn't explain what you know though." A quick glance in my direction and then he goes back to studying the wall. "Look mate: I can't make you tell me. But as long as you don't, I'm going to be on edge the whole time waiting for the other shoe to drop. And honestly? I kinda think I deserve it."

"John, I haven't… I haven't told anyone. Diana doesn't know. Kon.. doesn't know. I can't properly judge how knowing affects…"

"Now I'm getting really interested."

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. "It's… It's nothing here. It's nothing bad exactly. I was.. just a bit worried how… It's a bit mind bending."

"Wouldn't be the first time I'd heard something like that."

Tell or not? Oh, he's just going to keep at it until he works it out. A controlled release is far less risky. "I'm going to.. request, that you don't tell anyone else. It could completely mess up my whole life here and I really don't think the situation justifies it."

He nods. "Not asking me to promise? Or nip over to Themyscira and get Gaea to witness an oath?"

"No. Look, I basically trust you. If you need to release the information, do. But if you don't need to…"

He nods. "Alright, mate. Not going to mess up your life when you don't deserve it. Now. Let's see if the secret lives up to the build up, shall we?"

"Okay. Um." How to go about this? Point of reference. "You.. remember.. your friend. The one who was supplying the Family Man with his vic-."

"Jerry O'Flynn. Wasn't exactly his proudest moment but I don't want him remembered just for that." He thinks about it, then frowns at me. "You saying you didn't know his name?"

"The ring's.. improved my memory, but I don't remember everything I used to know and I never knew everything."

"Alright. Go on."

"You remember what happened.. the night he… Um. Disappeared?" The first glimmerings of realisation appear, his eyes becoming slightly unfocused. "I come from… Well, I suppose it was sort of like what happened to him, but in reverse."

He looks me over once more. "Seem to have adjusted alright?"

"This place… It's ludicrous, really. In a very fundamental way it just doesn't make sense to me. I suppose I should just be glad I got a body that works chemically."

"So where does the knowledge come from?"

I shrug. "It's not a secret where I'm from. The stories here fit story patterns I'm used to… Mostly. Some details differ. I was expecting Mister Zatara to have died in that ritual you did and not his wife. Other things too. And some things I just never bothered learning."

He nods. "And now you're off the reservation."

"Or on it. All a matter of perspective, really."

Another drag on the cigarette, then he lets out a chuckle. "You're right about it being mind bending. Not a lot of people coming through from your side, then?"

"As far as I know everyone thinks that it's impossible. Of course, where I am in relation to where I started… In Bleed terms…"

"Don't know much about that." Another brief chuckle. "Blimey. Anything else you wanna share?"

"I wouldn't say that I wanted to share that."

He raises his eyebrows. "Is there?"

"No. Can we.. go now?"

"Yeah." He straightens up a little. "Shouldn't leave a fourteen year old girl alone in a graveyard with only vast arcane power for protection and an intelligent cat for company. Starting to sound like a frigging Japanese cartoon."

"And.. you don't feel the need to share what I just told you?"

Another chuckle as he walks towards the door. "I think I'd be running up against something of a credibility problem there, mate. I don't know-" He turns the handle and waits for me to follow. "-if you're just mental or that's actually true."

"I don't know if it's actually true. Not like I can check."

"Confession's supposed to be good for the soul. You tried saying your name again?"

I try thinking it and stumble against the wall. "Still taboo."

"You know anything about what's going to happen next?"

I shake my head as we start down the street. "John, we're so far off my map theodolites haven't been invented yet."

1st January
19:09 GMT -5

John finishes pouring salt into the groove of the outer circle and hands the bag over to me before stepping back to admire his work. "Looks about right."

I used the ring to mark out the design around the grave and Zatanna filled the lines in with white sand. The sigils within are completely different from what he used in Poseidonis but the Enochian characters are the same as the ones I've seen mentioned in various Atlantean texts on this sort of ritual. The head of Mister Nelson's cane rests in the centre. Nothing looks massively out of place, which is just about the limit of my analytical abilities in these matters.

John also did.. something to the graveyard itself. Not exactly a popular time for visiting the departed anyway but anyone who tries will start to find themselves less eager to do so as they approach the front gate. The Tower of Fate is currently back in the nexus of the subtle realms, wherever that is. Nabu moved it out of Salem as soon as he took control of Mister Zatara. Thinking about it, Onomatopoeia, Zard and Faust are probably still in there. He certainly hasn't condescended to hand them over to the civil authorities.

Zatanna shifts her weight from her left foot to her right and then back again. "You don't sound very sure."

John tilts his head to the side for a moment. "Summoning's not really that hard, that's half the problem with it. Nelson was buried here, we've got an artefact that was important to him when he was alive and he's got no reason to feel vengeful. Even if it all goes tits up the salt ring'll stop him gettin' out before we can put him back down."

'Put him back down'? My eyes are drawn back to the headstones I've been trying to avoid looking at. "We're not.. animating his corpse, right?"

John rolls his eyes up and shakes his head. "Have a little faith. He might manifest from his body, but what we'll be gettin' is his spirit made visible by magic."

Teekl's sitting on the far side of the two headstones. She tries dawking the space above the salt ring but snatches her paw back with a look of shocked affront. Guess that means it's working?

Zatanna's still not meeting John's eyes. "What do we do when it's.. over?"

"I say 'I release you' and that's that. Look, Zatanna, I've summoned up some real miserable bastards before. A former superhero who -according to Nabu- wasn't in favour of what Nabu was doing anyway shouldn't be any trouble." John looks from her to me and then back again. "We doing this or what?"

She nods. "Yes, we're doing this." She sounds more certain now. I checked, and the Catholic Church does allow this sort of magic in criminal investigations as long as all other reasonable avenues have been exhausted. Pulling people out of Yahweh's loving embrace isn't supposed to be something you do casually. I.. have no idea whether or not Mister and Missus Nelson were Christian. I mean, they probably were, but if his contact with Nabu and other supernatural entities resulted in him going pagan his soul might have gone anywhere. Does Order even have an afterlife?

"Right then." John clears his throat. "In this sacred space we call out to the spirit of our departed colleague, Kent Nelson. We humbly request that he hear us and come to us that he might share his wisdom."

Nothing obvious happens. My turn then.

"We humbly beseech Doctor Kent Nelson to come among us and speak with us once more. We are sorely in need of his wise counsel."

I see a pale wisp of vapour rise from.. I'm not sure, actually. Could be from the sand or from the grave itself. Or both, I suppose. It isn't as if I've seen one of these things done before.

"Tnek Noslen, ew deen uoy."

The vapour shoots upwards, stopping at a point about a hundred and seventy centimetres from the ground and filling in Mister Nelson's form from the head downwards. As his head completes he looks around, taking in the sigils on the ground and his audience. The vapour next lends form to his chest and arms and he checks those over. "Hmm. Interesting being on this end of things for a change." He fixes his eyes on John as his waist and legs appear. "You must be John Constantine. I've heard about you."

John gives a shallow nod. "Yeah?"

Mister Nelson wiggles his right index finger at me. "Orange Lantern over there said I should consider handing the whole 'Fate' thing over to you."

John glances at me and raises his eyebrows. "He said. I wouldn't trust me with that sort of power."

"That's not necessarily a bad attitude to have. Anyway, Nabu would be the one exercising the power." He turns to me. His legs move but his feet aren't quite touching the ground. "Well? How was the funeral?"

"I didn't see the family funeral. All the surviving members of the Society turned up for the 'professional' one, along with a good chunk of the League. And my team, of course."

"Hope it wasn't too depressing for you."

"Not really. I don't really… In a reality with demonstrable afterlives, I'm not really sure how I should feel about it."

He smiles faintly before turning to Zatanna. "Zatanna, you have no idea how glad I am that Nabu relented and released you. When he pushed my soul out of the Helmet I felt for sure…" He trails off. "What happened?"

"My father offered himself in my place. Nabu's still controlling him."

"For how long?"

"As long as he wants."

Mister Nelson sighs, tilting his head slightly downwards and shaking it. "Oh, Zatanna. I'm… I'm so sorry. If there'd been any way for me to prevent it…"

"Mister Nelson, we called you here because we're not taking this lying down. We intend to remove Nabu, by force if necessary."

He turns back to me. "You've got guts, kid. But it'll take a lot more than that to take down a Lord of Order."

"I know. That's why I want you to tell me where it was you first picked up the Helmet." He looks.. a little disconcerted. "Alan let us look through your diaries. The one covering that period-."

He waves his right hand to stop me. "I left it in the Tower for safe keeping and none of us can get in anymore. And anyway I.. don't know how much it would help."

"Sympathetic resonance. Some sort of artefact that he'd been in close proximity to for a long time would be idea-."

"You don't need to explain the operating principles of magic to me. But even if you did get something like that, what exactly would you do with it?"

"Weaken Nabu to the point where removing the Helmet without his permission became a possibility."

He nods. "You know, I can't help but feel a little responsible. If I hadn't left Nabu on the shelf for all those years he might not have felt this was necessary."

"Yeah, maybe." John! "But I've seen those diaries too. Maybe if he'd treated you decently you wouldn't have done that. Far as Giovanni Zatara's concerned, doesn't matter much either way. Nabu's where he is now, that's what we've got to deal with."

Mister Nelson nods. "My father and I found Nabu in a tomb just north of Jahra. There were a lot of biers all laid out in rows, one for each of his former hosts. I don't know why the last one didn't pass it on…" He looks down for a moment, remembering. "The skeleton in the oldest tomb wasn't Human." We all look interested and he raises his hands to try to halt our enthusiasm. "Now, I don't know if it was actually his…"

"Can you show me the location?"

He holds out his right hand and the head of his cane rises to it. The remainder of the cane fills in with the same vapour making up the rest of his body. Once it's complete he holds up the head and a simple map of the area appears before him. Marvellous, it's in Bialya. "Take a look around when you get there. Might learn something from the hieroglyphics."

"Thank you. Do you know if Nabu has any particular weaknesses we could exploit?"

"Aside from needing a host?" He considers. "He's not very mentally flexible. Not sure if that'll help you any."

"Thank you Mister Nelson. There was.. one other thing."

"What is it?"

"The other thing that was in contact with him for a prolonged period of time was… Um, your head. Would you be prepared to.. let us..?"

"You want a piece of my body?" He thinks for a moment, then shrugs. "If you think it'll help. I'm sure not using it any more."

"Thank you. I…" I look at John and Zatanna. "I don't think there's anything else I want to-."

"Did you see her again?" Zatanna blinks at her own forthrightness as he turns back to her. "Your wife, Inza?"

This time his smile isn't half hearted. "Yeah. And she's still a real pistol."

2nd January
03:41 GMT +3

It's still pitch black as John, Zatanna and I approach the co-ordinates Mister Nelson gave us. At this altitude and time of the year it's bloody cold in the Bialyan desert so I've extended my environmental shield around both of them. We're a good long way away from any modern settlements, which goes some way to explain why no one has found the tomb since. Bialya's World Heritage sites are far to the west of here and we're far enough from water sources that it's unlikely anyone would just stumble across it. The tomb itself is warded -naturally- but the ring's seismic scans have no trouble picking it up. I suppose there was no reason for Nabu's ancient wearers to try protecting it from something like that.

"Laever lla secnefed." Zatanna points towards where the buried entrance is located. I've put thin orange lines on the dust and rock, showing the approximate size and shape of the subterranean space. A couple of tiny lights appear showing its still active protections.

"Antechamber looks clear." I hold out the phase shifters.

Zatanna takes hers and attaches it to her armour. John takes his and turns it around so that he can cast a sceptical gaze over it. "We could just astral project inside."

"Use magic to break into a place that houses dead hosts of the local Lord of Order?"

"As opposed to using a machine from the future you don't understand?"

"No, these were made here. Only the designs-."

"Evom em ot eht rebmahcetna." Zatanna rolls her eyes at us as she rises slightly off the ground and then floats clean through the ground in the direction of the tomb's entrance.

John wrinkles his face for a moment and then presses the shifter to his chest. I activate them both and then pull us through the ground. It's interesting; obviously the only light between the surface and the stonework below is what the rings are generating. If I had to guess what I'd be seeing I'd have said either a dull orange light or nothing. What's actually happening is the ring is interfacing with my optic nerve and nudging it to show me the results of the seismic scan as if I could actually see it. It's almost like floating through empty space. I didn't tell the rings to do this… Can't say I'd even thought about it. I do prefer it, though.

It only takes us a few moments to come out into the antechamber. Zatanna has already conjured a glowing ball of light and I watch as she gently lifts it into the air to float up towards the ceiling. I deposit John on the ground and he's only too happy to dispense with the shifter. Quick scan of the rock… The oldest parts were probably put together sometime around five thousand years ago. If they put all of the 'Fates' here that would make the oldest among them contemporary with Adom. Not sure when they stopped using it or how it ended up buried. I mean, the path of the Tigris and Euphrates has changed over the years… Maybe some sort of rockslide which resulted in dust getting trapped? Could it have been buried deliberately? Maybe there was a portion above ground which was destroyed and all that's left are the catacombs?

"Modest, wasn't he?" John's looking at the pictures on the wall surrounding the entrance. Someone wearing what is clearly the Helmet of Fate is seated, glowing ankh in hand, while the people around him bow down.

"No, the style's wrong. I think that was added later."

"Hm." He reaches for a cigarette.

"John!"

"Oh, come on, mate. It's not going to damage the place."

"We're underground. Your irreverence and smoking habits are well known and the smoke's got nowhere to go. He might spot it." He returns the cigarette packet to his pocket and buttons it closed. "If you need one that badly I can just stick some nicotine into your blood."

He shakes his head. "It's not the same."

"Are you two coming?" Zatanna looks back at us, having already gone a little way into the outer chamber. Another orb of light floats just above her and two Lamassu statues stand guard at her sides. I feel a glimmer of nervousness for a moment but the statues remain inanimate. They're.. still painted! Even after all this time! Bright blues and yellows on their wings, black hair and red helmets decorated with gold ankhs displaying their affiliation.

There are other statues, long haired and thickly bearded men seated and wearing robes. I don't know exactly what the images carved into their thrones and clothes mean but I take a scan of them anyway. This is… Simply amazing. Mister Nelson said that Nabu didn't want him to come back here but any modern archaeologist would give their right arm to see this!

Zatanna's stopped at the next doorway, just in front of the first still active defensive spell. "I.. don't recognize this one."

John picks up the pace a little as I keep gawping. What would Queen Beatrice do if she knew about this place? Probably put a small army around it and have a team of archaeologists go through it very carefully. Does she have any wizards on the payroll? I don't think so. Be a PR coup if the whole place didn't self destruct or something. Never really considered going after Nabu politically…

John kneels down and waves an unlit match at the faintly glowing rune. "Simple trap. Doesn't report back."

"What does it do?"

"Dunno. Paralysis, probably. Could be zombification."

"They can do that?"

"Yeah? Oh, not undead rotting corpse zombie. Like, it locks away part of your soul. Nasty stuff, but easy enough to undo if you know what you're doing. When this place was in use they probably checked a couple of times a week."

"How do we get past it?"

"Like this. By Laverna and by Eris, I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." The match flares as the light marking the protective spell goes out.

"Did you just quote Harry flipping Potter?"

He stands and carefully returns the match to his pocket. "Whatever works."

Zatanna leads the way once more. Given my lack of any sort of feeling for magic I'm happy to bring up the rear. The passageway is walled with stone bricks. It's all survived remarkably well… "Is there some sort of preservation effect on this place?"

John reaches out to the side and puts his hand on the wall for a moment. "Yep. Good housekeeping, really."

"So how come your place is a sty?"

"I think of it as 'lived in'. I mean-" We pause and look into a room on the left. "-this place is a tomb. Nothing organic. Nothing living. Thousands of years and nothing out of place. Don't feel natural to me." Just as Mister Nelson described, the rooms contain a series of biers with complete Human skeletons resting on them. Most have protective spells on them and in any case I doubt that they'd be much more use than the fragments of Mister Nelson's skull I have sitting in subspace. There are a few artefacts: metal cups, metal staves and a few swords. I take a scan of the rooms before we continue onwards.

There are more chambers of the same design to the left and right as we press onwards. The room at the far end is the one housing the alien remains and that is where we're going. Of course, in a ying-yang sort of way it seems appropriate that the resting place of the disciples of the Lords of Order contains… I enter the room behind John. Zatanna's already looking at the remains of Doctor Sven Nelson and whatever the name of Nabu's most recent but three host was. Their remains are almost perfectly preserved. No rot at all, even after seventy years. Just a little dried out. Mister Nelson only put the Helmet on much later and there was no way he'd have been able to get the bodies out by himself. The sarcophagus the host was in has been turned into an ersatz bier while his father had been laid out with his arms clasping a bible to his chest.

"Come on." John gently puts his arm around Zatanna's shoulder and leads her to the bier at the end of the room. It's decorated with gold and is raised up higher than the others. The pictures on the back wall show a figure in blue and gold descending from the sky, backlit by a radiant ankh. Another scene, showing him with scholars and monarchs. Another showing him teaching students and the last… Shows him dead, his spirit passing into the Helmet, which in turn passed on to one of his students.

The bones are similar to those of a Human but the structures are wrong. "Ring, identify the species."

"Individual identification impossible. Species identified as native of planet Cilia."

John holds his right hand over Nabu's skull for a moment with his eyes shut. "Not here and not passed on. I think we've got our man."

1st January
21:39 GMT -5

"Recognised, Orange Lantern, B zero six, Zatanna Zatara, B zero nine, Teekl, C zero one."

"…why he needed all of those dead mice." We head in the direction of the living quarters, Zatanna making a face as if she's swallowed something unpleasant. "Does he.. have a pet snake?"

I do a quick scan of the interior of the mountain as Teekl wanders off. Kaldur, Kon, M'gann, Donna, Artemis and Wallace are all in the living area. Depending on when Garth and Tula move in we may have to do something about enlarging it. "No, I'm afraid not. The idea is to use them as the effector component in a sym-."

"Sympathetic resonance spell using his bones to bypass his defenses." Her face stills as she considers it. "Since it's only connecting to the Nabu component and not…" She nods, then blinks in realisation. "John did that to his father! That's horrible!"

"He read about it in a book. He didn't actually think it would work." I generate a construct of Thomas Constantine in his prime. "John used a cat, dressed it up to look like his father, drew some squiggly lines around it and stuck it in a shed somewhere. When he saw it was actually working he went back to the book the spell was in, and there wasn't a reversal. In the end he stuck the cat in a jar of formaldehyde to stop it rotting further."

She frowns. "But that wouldn't reverse the effects. The link would still be active. How long did it take him to find out how..?" She sees me wince. "How long?"

"Couple of weeks after his father's murder. About twenty years in total."

Her eyes dip as she thinks about the magics involved. "The link would work.. both ways. If he died before the cat finished rotting away…" She shakes her head. "I've never heard of a case like that."

"I imagine that everyone would prefer it if you stayed away from that sort of magic. Where possible."

"What happened to him?"

"His soul was bound to the material world by the link to the cat. Even after his body was cremated his ghost just sort of hung around Gemma. She was the only one who could see him so people thought that she might be having some sort of episode. Or post traumatic amnesia. In the end she spoke to John about it, after the funeral. That reminded him about the cat. He dug it up and set fire to it to break the spell."

We take a turn towards the part of the mountain I occupy. The sociable thing would be to at least say hello to everyone first, but while I might not be physically tired I can get mentally exhausted. After all the excitement I really feel like I could do with turning my brain off for a bit. On that subject… "Are you.. planning on going home?"

"I… Probably not. You said you were going to be working on your Ice Fortress tomorrow?"

"Yes. I'm going to start by changing the power supply to something called a Bleed Membrane Instability Generator. Probably install a force field system. You're welcome to come along but I'm not sure how interesting you'll find it."

"No, that could be.. interesting."

"Are you sure? Because there's a whole herd of quantum-legged horses-."

She smiles. "You noticed that too?"

"That the number of legs they have changes from moment to moment? Yes."

"What do you think will happen to them? They can't stay on the Watchtower."

"Why not? They're going to have to replant a lot of the arboretum anyway, they can just include more grass. Hopefully Diana can get in touch with Odin… Now there's a sentence I couldn't imagine saying a year ago."

"If those were really Einherjar then Odin's sided with the Nazis."

"I'd be surprised if Odin was on anyone's side but Odin's. If he wants his people's remains and equipment back then he can negotiate." I stop just before reaching my door. "I.. don't suppose you've been sleeping any better?"

She looks away, towards her own door. "No. Not really."

"So.. do you want me to try..?" I raise my hands and just about stop myself making a grabbing gesture. My teacher Ms Terrill was quite clear about what not to do to scare off people who aren't used to being touched like that.

Zatanna flushes slightly. "Umm… I.. don't know…"

"Zatanna, you have school Monday and a fairly large amount of work to do. You need sleep and drugging yourself unconscious isn't a long term solution."

"It's not that. Um. How… How naked am I-?"

Hands raised defensively. "Oh, no no no. I mean, that's-" I gesture at what she's wearing now. "-fine, if you take off the coat. I'd certainly think it completely inappropriate to go beyond, you know, swimming costume level. And I completely understand if that's a bit much." She smiles a little in relief. "In any case since there's nothing actually wrong with your muscles I'm.. more or less trying to evoke the ancestral grooming response."

"Okay. Your room.. or mine?"

"Whichever makes you more comfortable. Though I should probably warn you that if we use mine the Ophidian will probably be watching."

"Mine it is then." She crosses the corridor and lays her right hand on the door. "Nepo emases." There's a brief puff of smoke from the doorframe and then the door opens slightly. Given that we've now had two attacks in here maybe I should think about up-fortifying the fixtures? "Can you give me a moment?"

I nod. "Of course."

She smiles. "Thanks." Keeping the door as closed as possible she slips into the room before closing it behind her. "Naelc pu yllaer ylkciuq!" Did she really think I'd care about her room being a bit of a mess? There's a sound of drawers and doors opening and then slamming shut. A moment later she opens the door widely. "Come on in."

"Thank you."

Her room -obviously- is spotless in the way that only magic and power rings can manage. The decorations are more pastel than my orange/grey colour scheme but the rooms are much of a muchness in terms of size and design. Her desk has a computer mine doesn't need and what in mine is a bare metal wall is covered with plaster and cream paint. We did that together a couple of days after she got here. The floor is wooden after she asked me to put one in. She said afterwards that she'd been joking, but she left it there anyway.

"So, where do you.. want me?"

"Do you have a brush?"

"Yes? Why.. do you need a brush?"

"Because it's clear that this is making you uncomfortable and the least 'massagy' thing I could do is brushing your hair. Like I said, relaxation is an instinctive response to being groomed. I think it would be a good place to start, at least while you get used to being in close physical proximity to me."

"Oh. Okay, that.. makes sense." She walks over to her chest of drawers, pulls open the top drawer and takes out a black handled brush. "Is this what you need?"

I link a filament to it and take it from her. "If that's what you usually use." I point to her bed. "Take a seat." She perches a little uncertainly on the edge of the bed. I subspace my boots and jacket before getting on her bed myself and taking up position cross legged just behind her.

And she tenses again. "I.. didn't realize… Um."

"How did you think I was going to brush your hair?" I gently lift it back over her shoulders with my left hand while readying the brush in my right. "I should probably warn you that I don't myself have any issues relating to physical proximity. If anything I do makes you feel uncomfortable, just tell me and I'll stop." I can't see any knots but I take care as I move it through her hair.

"No, that's…" I can both see and feel it as she starts to relax a little. "That's fine."

2nd January
08:18 GMT -5

Amazing what a good night's sleep can do for a person! Even Mister J'onzz sending us a message in the middle of breakfast in what sounded like a prelude to the fourth mission in as many days hasn't brought me down. And not just good sleep for me. Zatanna was nodding off when I left and she still hasn't -quick check- woken up yet. Didn't get much beyond a little neck work, but maybe next time. Worked though. She was also grateful that I'd been able to resolve the issue with Mister Tong. I wish she'd said something about that situation sooner.

M'gann smiles at me as she, Kon and I head to the training room where her uncle is waiting for us. "You and Zatanna were out pretty late last night."

"Not that late."

Kon glances at me before returning his attention to the path ahead. "I just thought you were trying to avoid Kaldur's cooking. Are Tula and Garth going to be 'all seaweed, all the time' as well?"

"I'm not…" Yes, probably. The Conservatory teaches arcane arts not culinary ones. "Maybe we should just avoid putting them on the rota for a while? Say something about.. letting them adapt to surface foods?"

"Fine with me."

"Soo..?"

M'gann's still looking at me. "So what?"

M'gann rolls her eyes. "What did you do? Where did you go?"

"Oh, not out as in 'date' out. It was mostly a magical research thing, though we did stop off at a restaurant in London. A friend of ours knows the owner."

"Was this friend with you?"

"No, he had some other stuff to do." Like buy a storage shed in London. I've got basically infinite money and even I thought those prices were ridiculous. Once that's taken care of it'll need to be warded and have the shelving put in… And something to deal with the smell of rotting flesh. Having a well meaning local breaking in because they smelt something bad would be disastrous. "We'd met the owner on a previous visit. If you like I can give you-" We come out of the corridor and into the training area. "-the address."

"And then?"

"And then.. we came back here." She looks unsatisfied. What would make her stop asking? "I did spend some time brushing her hair when we got back."

She frowns. "Why?"

"Oh. Right. Martian. Well, with Humans, having our hair brushed feels relaxing."

She reaches back with her right hand, takes hold of a lock of her own hair and holds it out in front of her face. "It does?"

"Our distant ancestors came from equatorial Africa. They were covered in hair to keep the sun off. Unfortunately for them, this made them perfect hosts for blood drinking parasites. Since this was before combs were invented they groomed each other. You get the same thing with modern apes."

She moves the hair slightly further away. "Parasites?"

"Those aren't so much of an issue these days with modern hygiene but the instincts are all still there."

"Really?"

I tap the skin just to the outer side of my eyes with my index fingers. "Empathic vision. I can see that sort of drive these days."

"I usually just shapeshift mine into place. I suppose if you've got it stuck on your head the whole time you have to take care of it." She turns back to Kon as we reach the 'ready for lecture' point. "Kon, would you mind brushing my hair sometime?"

"Sure. Don't think mine's really brushable length."

M'gann tries tugging on the lock in her fingers. "I've never really tried-."

"Recognised, Martian Manhunter, zero seven."

Our heads turn in his direction as he walks out of the zeta tube. "Good morning M'gann, Kon, Paul."

"Good morning Uncle J'onn." / "Good morning, sir."

Kon just nods and Mister J'onzz assumes the lecturing position. "I have asked the three of you here in response to a request from the Department of Metahuman Affairs."

Kon frowns. "Kobra hasn't escaped again, has he?"

"No. But their efforts in getting staff for Belle Reve are requiring them to transfer people from other, less critical duties. They have.. requested that we provide an escort for a prisoner who is due to be deported today. Since the members of the League are either off planet or occupied ensuring that no further infiltration has taken place I was hoping that you would be willing to perform the task." He pauses. "You have had a busy few days. I will understand if you wish to turn this down."

Kon shrugs. "Who is it?"

"The prisoner…" Another pause. "I am sorry, this is a matter of some personal embarrassment for me. His name is J'onn J'aarkn, though he has taken to anglicising it to John Jackson." A holographic image appears of a green skinned man in a pair of purple shorts and a pale blue short sleeved shirt. Aside from the skin colour his general shape matches Human norms far better than Mister J'onzz's 'Martian Manhunter' shape. He's even slightly overweight. He certainly doesn't look very threatening. Of course, for a Martian that sort of fat is just a way of concealing malleable bulk.

M'gann's eyes widen. "I didn't know there was another Martian on Earth!"

Mister J'onzz sighs. "Frankly, in his case I would prefer it if there were not."

Kon takes a closer took at the picture. "What did he do?"

Ring? Ooooooh. Oh. I can't say I'm entirely surprised.

"He entered the United States without an appropriate visa."

"Is.. that it?"

"He has also committed a variety of minor criminal offences. Mostly, they were as a result of his ignorance of Human society. He is not considered to be a serious threat and has agreed to leave of his own volition."

"So, why do you need us?"

"On the last three occasions on which the DMA tried to enable his return he arranged to not be at the launch site at the designated time. Your job is to ensure that he is."

M'gann shifts her attention from the picture back to her uncle. "When did he come here? How did he come here?"

"He made the journey here shortly after I returned home for the first time. Apparently, he had become enamoured with the Earth through the tales I told of it." M'gann nods. "He came in a Martian Bio-Ship of a somewhat older design than that which you and I use. It is currently in the care of the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station."

"He.. made the journey here on his own? How did he cope with that?"

"I am uncertain. I do know that he chose a time when Earth and Mars were as close together as possible in which to make his crossing."

She nods in understanding. "And that's in less than a week from now."

"Wait, if he's being sent back to Mars, why don't I just take him back?"

"I did take the liberty of offering your services. Unfortunately, the people responsible for releasing him are being very particular about handling things 'their way'. Your job will be to escort him to his leaving party and then to see him on to his ship. He is unlikely to turn violent but he is highly likely to attempt to escape through misdirection. M'gann, his telepathic abilities are far weaker than yours but he is.. an accomplished, shapeshifter. Are you willing to take on this task?" We look at each other for a moment, then nod. "Thank you. I will arrange for your entry to the Pitchess Detention Center in San Fernando Valley in which he is being held. You are due to meet him in three hours."

2nd January
08:28 GMT -5

"Paul? What is it?"

I take a moment to ensure that my face is a picture of cherubic innocence before looking around from my console at the front of the Bio-Ship to face M'gann. "Whatever do you mean, M'gann?"

"You've been.. smirking, ever since Uncle J'onn finished the briefing."

"I've.. just.. been.. assembling a record of Mister J'aarkn's time on Earth. He's been quite a prolific actor."

"Oh? I've been thinking about studying drama myself. Do you think he could give me any pointers?"

I lose it. Both hands go to cover my face as I bend over, snorting with laughter. "I sincerely doubt it!"

"What?"

"Well…" I move my hands away and take a couple of deep breaths before straightening up and leaning back in my chair. "Ahhh. H-how about I start from the beginning. From what I can tell Mister J'aarkn came to Earth in nineteen eighty six. He never really made a secret of having super powers but he mostly pretended to be a green metahuman rather than revealing that he was a Martian. His Human appearance is based on a…" I pause to clear my throat. "On that of a man named Ronald Hyatt."

"Did Mister Hyatt complain about it?"

"If he did, the police don't have a record of it. Why?"

"I just don't understand why Uncle J'onn has such a big problem with him. I'd love it if more Martians came to Earth. I mean, you're practically next door. If he could make the journey over twenty years ago I don't see why more Martians don't do the same."

"Well.. I.. can't answer the second question, but as to the first? Most of Mister J'aarkn's work has been in the genre of.. Adult Cinema."

Kon looks up. "Oh. Guess that explains it."

M'gann looks from him to me. "Adult.. Cinema..? Like, arthouse stuff?"

"No. Like, pornographic cinema, made for the sexual titillation-" Her face goes purple and her right hand goes to cover her mouth. "-of the viewing public. I couldn't find any footage of him in action that I'd feel entirely comfortable showing you. Suffice to say, he-" And upon occasion, she or er or it. "-takes full advantage of his shapeshifting abilities." It was actually a little tricky to track down everything he'd ever been in due to his tendency to invent new identities and appearances for each film in a lot of his early work.

"Oh."

"I think the reason why Mister J'onzz dislikes him -aside from, you know, possibly bringing Mars into disrepute- is that after Mister J'onzz became active as a superhero… Mister J'aarkn appeared in a highly successful film called 'Martian Womanhunter', in which he took the role of a.. thinly veiled erotic take on Mister J'onzz's own time on Earth." M'gann stares at me. Behind her fingers I see that her mouth has fallen open. "It was so successful that there have been a number of sequels… Anyway, after he became 'openly Martian' the immigration people started investigating him a bit harder."

Kon frowns. "Seems kinda harsh."

I shrug. "I'm not completely sure why they're being this aggressive about it but.. he is an illegal immigrant. Once his application for citizenship was rejected-" Despite his obvious unusual talents the judge felt that America was perfectly capable of generating its own erotic performers and as such his skills didn't warrant a green card. "-the only question was how he was going to be removed. Since they've got no way to deport him back to Mars they're relying on him being willing to leave by himself. His lawyer convinced the court that sending him back when Mars was further away would be 'cruel and unusual', so they can only try to do it on a few days every other year."

"R-right." M'gann recovers a little. She's still bright purple though. "I-if he made the journey on his own… I don't know how he could have coped."

Kon thinks for a moment. "Some sort of suspended animation pod?"

"The people he showed around his Bio-Ship don't mention it in their report. Of course, if his model can shapeshift then there's no reason to suppose it would have been visible. M'gann?"

"Um. We do have animation suspension systems, but they're designed for medical use and not for space exploration. If he used something like that and something went wrong he could have been killed if there was no one else there to wake him up safely."

"Quite a risk. I wonder why he was so eager to come here?"

Kon shrugs and looks at M'gann. "Plenty of Earth people find aliens attractive." M'gann smiles and pushes her hair back over her shoulder with her right hand. "Maybe some Martians like Earth people."

"He's not.. going to.. do anything, is he?"

"I've only got biographic details here. I don't know anything about his personality."

"I mean... I don't really know much about.. Human mating." I raise my left eyebrow and glance at Kon. "I-I mean-! Not… That part."

"Didn't Mister J'onzz give you a basic explanation?"

"Um, he gave me a talk about Human reproductive mechanics, but Martians don't work like that. I'm.. really just mimicking…" She glances at her chest. "Some.. things."

I glance at Kon again. **Is he aware-?**

"I've.. shown Kon what I really look like." **What I really really look like.** "Martian intimacy is more… Telepathic." Her face stills and she glances at Kon. "Not that we haven't kissed."

I raise my eyebrows. "I was there at New Year."

"And I've.. reconfigured my mouth to act like a Human mouth. Including sensitivity to touch. Normally we don't really even have lips."

"But this sort of thing wasn't covered in the videos Mister J'onzz sent you when you lived on Mars."

She nods, some of the blush fading. "It.. really wasn't. I.. can understand how it works, I'm just not.. comfortable with the idea of being the one doing it."

"Hey." Kon gets up out of his seat and walks over to lay his right hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to feel pressured about it."

"I suppose.. if I wanted to know what it was like for a Martian… I could try asking him?"

"If he's been doing it professionally for this long he's probably got a slightly distorted viewpoint. Wouldn't Mister J'onzz.. be.. better able to provide advice?"

"I don't.. think he's been… Involved with anyone since he came here." In fifty five years? I don't know him well enough to judge how probable that is. "This.. party we're supposed to escort him to..?"

"Most of the guests are co-workers. I.. doubt there'll be any… Goings on, if that's what you're worried about. You're both.. sort of.. under the California age of consent. Mister J'onzz wouldn't have assigned you to the mission if he thought that was a risk."

"I'm going to be a bit nervous about scanning anyone's mind though."

"Don't worry about it. My empathic vision will work just fine, and we can just tell him that he's not allowed to wander off." Maybe a new topic? "So! Excited about Garfield starting school on Monday?"

2nd January
06:12 GMT -8

Our Department of Metahuman Affairs contact stands on the tarmac of the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station outside the hangar holding Mister J'aarkn's Bio-Ship. Our three hour advance notice was plenty of time for me to transition us from east to west coast as well as go over Mister J'aarkn's case history in a little more detail and thoroughly check out the party venue. Just a normal house, though I did detect that it has most likely been used for 'professional purposes' fairly frequently. Nothing like that going on when I scanned it, of course. It looked like some of the decorations had been put up in advance. There doesn't appear to be a guest list… And I happen to know that Sara Smart lives in this area and worked with Mister J'aarkn on at least one occasion.

The Bio-Ship descends through the sky as M'gann brings it in to land a few metres away from the DMA official. Her name's Kate Spencer and she was the lawyer who handled their part in the legal manoeuvrings that led us to this point. She's wearing a dark blue suit with a mauve blouse. Nothing particularly interesting in her background, though she was involved in a few supervillain cases on the defence side before her employment by the DMA. I don't remember anything about her from the comics so with any luck she really is just a lawyer.

M'gann drops the ramp and I lead the way out. With a three hour time difference between east and west coasts it's not quite dawn here yet. Odd, really. I've spent so much of my time in the States on the east coast I haven't really thought about how wide this country is. The spotlights around the base give us plenty of light and in any case with the ring I don't have a problem seeing in the dark.

"You're what the Justice League sent?" She doesn't sound all that impressed. Drawback of most of your work being secret-. "A Superman look-alike, Little Miss Martian and the Cake Man."

"I'll have you know that did wonders for fruitcake sales across the world. I may have single-handedly revived the market." A quick look into her soul tells me that she really wants Mister J'aarkn escorted off-planet with as little fuss as possible. Looks like she was also involved in their previous attempt to get rid of him.

"Please tell me you can fight with that ring as well?"

"Naturally. We wouldn't have been sent if we weren't up to the job."

"Okay, look." She makes brief eye contact with all three of us. "I know an oncoming car crash when I see one. That mess at Belle Reve meant that the guys who were supposed to be handling this got called away to Louisiana, because apparently a telepathic shapeshifting criminal is 'low priority'. All the planning we put into moving 'John Jackson', wasted. So here's what's going to happen: you're going to follow me and do exactly what I tell you and maybe, maybe by some miracle we'll actually get rid of the bastard this time."

O-key. Clearly I underestimated how irritated she is. That's the problem with analogue abilities I suppose. "Um, I could just fly him back to Mars myself. It would only take a couple of-."

"No!" I raise my eyebrows at her vehemence. "This is still -technically- a voluntary repatriation. If it looks like we're forcing him to leave his legal team will be all over it. I do not want him wriggling out of this."

Kon looks nonplussed while M'gann looks curious. "Why are you so angry? He hasn't hurt anyone…"

"Because he's been making us a laughing stock. Last time he somehow managed to get the people I had escorting him drunk and filmed them doing a conga line at his third leaving party. I do not want there to be a fifth." She takes a moment to collect herself. "Please tell me you have regular clothes with you?"

Kon shrugs. "Yeah, but, why?"

"The last thing we need is to make this more of a media circus than it already is." She looks past us at the news vans parked at the perimeter fence. "If they find out we had to call in superheroes to handle this…"

"Say no more." A wave of orange sends my armour to subspace to be replaced by a plain black suit with an orange tie. After a moment's hesitation I add the black sunglasses to complete the look. M'gann looks at me, smirks, then shifts her own clothing to match mine. She can't make glasses and instead of a tie she has a blue cravat with a red 'x' at the neck.

Missus Spencer closes her eyes in a clear prayer for divine patience. "You really..? Fine. Fine." She looks at Kon. "What about him?"

Kon sags and turns to re-enter the Bio-Ship. "Give me twenty minutes to get this armor off."

Ye-eah. Maybe I should see about getting him some armour that's both useful and ring friendly? No idea where I'd even start with that. Maybe Io will have some ideas next weekend?

Missus Spencer checks her watch. "We've got about fifty minutes before we're due to pick Johnson up." She looks at M'gann. "Do you know enough about Martian spacecraft to tell me whether or not his ship is in working order?"

"Yes, but Martian Bio-Ships are living creatures. She should be able to heal herself."

Missus Spencer's jaw tenses for a moment, then she looks over towards the hangar holding Mister J'aarkn's ship. "I'm not going to try loading him onto a ship that doesn't work. Or get this far only for him to tell me it doesn't work with no way to confirm that for myself."

"I.. can take a look if you like?"

"This way." She turns away and heads towards the hangar, the two of us following on behind.

**You want to borrow some sunglasses?**

**I can barely see as it is. Why are you wearing those?**

**Because after the last few days I've run out of serious. Making sure a porn star gets on his flight out of the country just doesn't register on my 'important' list.**

**That doesn't explain the glasses.**

Just ahead of us Missus Spencer presents her identification to the guard at the hangar entrance. It gets checked and she receives a nod. I step up and hand over my own identification. The Justice League emblem gets a raised eyebrow and a glance at Missus Spencer. She nods and the guard hands it back. I walk past him as M'gann shows him hers.

**A physical joke that combines the tomfoolery of wearing sunglasses at night with becoming a ridiculous caricature of a government agent.**

**That's not very nice.** M'gann gets the nod and the three of us head into the hangar. **She's taking this very seriously and Uncle J'onn is relying on us to do a good job.**

I throw up my hands, earning a look of puzzlement from Missus Spencer. **Why? Worst case scenario here is that a.. basically law abiding man stays in the country a little longer than he should.**

Missus Spencer leads the way towards the other Bio-Ship. It's a medium-dark green colour with purple detail and rather than the cabin and sweeping wings of M'gann's Bio-Ship this one is a sort of crescent shape, passenger area at the front and wings sticking out and back from the sides. It's currently resting on some scaffolding which holds it off the ground. A quick scan shows nothing that could reasonably be described as a weapon.

Missus Spencer turns to M'gann. "Well?"

M'gann walks towards it and holds out her right hand towards the hull. "He's… Old. A lot older than my ship."

"How old? Will it fly?"

M'gann nods. "He thinks so. I don't know how old he is, though. I don't recognize his design and he's been asleep for too long for me to tell from a simple probe."

"Can you open it up?"

"Can I open him up?" Missus Spencer doesn't react to the correction. "Of course." A hole opens in the hull under the right wing. "Do you want to see inside yourself?"

Missus Spencer shakes her head. "It wouldn't mean anything to me. Just check it over."

M'gann nods and floats up inside. Should I follow? May as well.

2nd January
06:13 GMT -8

I jog merrily down the Bio-Ship's boarding ramp, smiling at our DMA contact. "Kate! Good to meet you in person at last."

"Grayven. Welcome to California." She's a little less effusive than I am, but she smiles as she extends her right hand to me. I take hold of it in my own for a moment before bending down to raise it to my lips. She glances aside and rolls her eyes. "Really."

I release her hand and turn back to the Bio-Ship as my team mates proceed out, Mister Tawny to the fore. "Kon, M'gann, Mister Tawny, I'd like to introduce Katherine Spencer."

Kon and M'gann stop just behind me while Mister Tawny strolls forwards in order to sniff her. He spent the Belle Reve episode glowering at prisoners who looked like they might have been thinking about trying to escape again. He'd much rather have come with me but he's rather hamstrung by his lack of low lethality options. Tooth and claw marks don't make for good PR. Mister Tawny's head comes up to the top of Kate's abdomen and he out masses her massively.

She leans away from him a little. "You have.. a Tiger?"

"Yes, and he's quite friendly. Try rubbing his ears, he always likes that."

She makes eye contact to see if I'm being serious, realises that I am, then somewhat tentatively extends her right hand to the left side of his head. She tries delicately stroking the fur. He understands my intent and leans into it, encouraging her to press harder. Once she does so to his satisfaction he closes his eyes and makes a sort of throaty grunting noise to indicate that he's satisfied. Seeing a big cat behave in what might be called a kittenish way usually does wonders for calming people down about him being around and it appears to be working on Kate. "How long have you had him?"

He half opens his right eye and I imagine that if he had distinct eyebrows one would be raised. "We've been together a little over two months."

"Did he.. grow up in a zoo?"

"No, a jungle in India. His manners are all him."

One last head nudge and Mister Tawny sits back on his haunches. Not sure that's a good idea, it makes him taller. He'd probably have been better off lying down… Oh, doesn't matter. Katherine looks my humanoid team mates over and her eyes rest on M'gann. "Grayven seemed pretty sure that J'aarkn wouldn't make any trouble for you."

M'gann nods. "He probably won't. I won't know for sure until I speak to him myself."

"Why is that?"

My smile broadens. "Martians have a skin colour based caste system." Kate blinks at me in surprise. "The Whites who make up about a third of the population are at the bottom, then the Greens who make up most of the rest. Reds like M'gann are at the top. Royalty, essentially. Obedience to them is ingrained within the Martian psyche."

"They…" Kate looks at M'gann for confirmation and gets a nod. "I had no idea." Something occurs. "Wait. Martians shapeshift. How can they have skin color based discrimination?"

"We're also telepathic." M'gann looks a little distant for a moment. "Even if we can't tell by looking at someone what type they are, they know."

"Well I…" Kate takes a moment to digest that. "For all the legal tricks his team have employed he hasn't once tried requesting asylum. I'm going to assume that he's genuinely green."

M'gann nods. "If he was White I might not have ordered him to leave. Martian society isn't exactly.. friendly, when you're White." Kon puts his right arm around her shoulders.

Katherine frowns. "I don't.. think he's White. But… How did that sort of prejudice develop?"

M'gann shakes her head. "It's been like that for so long… I don't think anyone knows."

Kon shrugs. "Why does it ever develop? Maybe everyone needs to look down on someone. Kryptonians never had a reason for looking down on clones and aliens but they did anyway."

Looks like Kate didn't know that either. "Superman..?"

"Superman grew up on Earth. The stuff his birth father taught him about Krypton… He wanted him to think the best of it. And… I guess… Be the best of it."

She turns to me. "And.. your people?"

"Apokoliptians aren't prejudiced. We hate everyone equally. But we mostly take it out on the weak." There's a slight tension in the skin around her nose. "Why so surprised?"

She shakes her head slightly, looking down. "I.. guess I just hoped… It was something a species grew out of."

My right hand goes to her left shoulder. "Well… Maybe Humans will be lucky." I think for a moment. "Or maybe finding an external hate figure will work."

"Um?" M'gann makes eye contact with Katherine and glances in the direction of the hangar. "Could we... See his Bio-Ship now?"

"Yes, of course. Please, come this way." M'gann takes the lead, walking alongside Kate. Kon and I follow along behind with Mister Tawny dawdling along in the rear. Not an accident; he's watching our backs while pretending to have merely animal intelligence. Must remember to speak to him about using further augmentative formulae on him before his growing divinity makes it impossible.

I'm inclined to follow M'gann's lead on this. I did suggest to her that I could switch Mister J'aarkn's Guardian programming off. She pointed out the obvious problem that he'd be going back to Mars. Not only would that blow the secret -I don't really care about that but apparently she does- but it would also put him somewhere where I wouldn't be around to keep him under constant observation. Her scans haven't shown any significant deviation since I made the change to her. There have been a few behavioural changes; she doesn't avoid fire anymore and has a little bit more self confidence. The randomly striking matches pretty much stopped once the novelty wore off.

"So… How did you meet her?" I look around at Kon as he nods at Kate.

"We haven't met, not in person. After that whole thing with Vertigo nearly getting away with mass murder I wanted to get in contact with someone inside the DMA who might be willing to help me understand the way things work here. A few enquiries later I ended up having a free and frank exchange of views-."

Kon smiles. "And she still talks to you?"

"We actually have a lot of common ground. We both think that the insanity plea is too readily granted, that justice is delayed too long… I think she might slightly resent that I get to deal with the simple end of things."

"Yeah, about that." Kate turns her head in my direction. "You seemed to be taking your time with those prisoners you apprehended."

"If one is concerned with minimising damage to the locale, bringing down a supervillain isn't as easy as we sometimes manage to make it look."

"Uh-huh."

"Beating up Vertigo is a pointless exercise. Once his stabilisers come off he can barely stand upright on his own. Anyway-" I turn back to Kon. "-we've been exchanging ideas for a while now."

"About what?"

Kate's face hardens. "About making sure supervillains actually get punished for their crimes."

Kon looks at her and then back to me. "Aren't they.. getting punished now?"

"Vertigo went on worldwide television and admitted to killing hundreds of people. He did so in a state with the death penalty. There is no doubt at all of his guilt and he doesn't have diplomatic immunity any longer. Why was he alive to escape?"

Kate nods. "I don't have a lot of good to say about the Chinese government, but they didn't waste time killing the people responsible for Roanoke Island. That's how it's supposed to work: commit the crime and you take the punishment. Instead, we spend years -not to mention millions of dollars- on trials and appeal after appeal." She shakes her head. "If we'd got our hands on them, they might have been in Belle Reve for years before we did what the Chinese did. That needs to change."

2nd January
06:17 GMT -8

The inside of Mister J'aarkn's ship is clearly set up for one person. The pilot's seat is quite different in shape to the one M'gann uses. I spend a moment trying to imagine him sitting in it as M'gann walks over to the nearest control panel and kneels down to touch it. How would..? Ah, of course! He wouldn't have looked Human when he got here. Mister J'onzz would have mentioned if he'd known him personally, so he probably wouldn't have had a particularly good description of Humans to work from. Assume that he is a bit more massive than M'gann… If he was lying on his back, his legs there… His arms would reach the controls left and right there and there.

M'gann squints slightly. **He's.. in good condition.**

**Surprised?**

**A little.**

**That's a bit harsh.**

She shakes her head. **No, not like that. Mister J'aarkn's been on Earth for decades. Even if he knew what he was doing, maintaining a Bio-Ship without Martian equipment and experts isn't easy.** I nod, and walk over to the front of the cabin. No view screen, I note. In fact the interior is fairly featureless. **I'm going to have to take my Bio-Ship back to Mars this summer so she can get checked out.**

**Anything I can help with?**

She give me a small smile. **Not really. There probably isn't anything wrong, but better safe than sorry, right?**

**Oh, definitely. I'd rather like it if I could get a trained power ring technician out here.** I nod at the panel she's touching. **Find out anything useful?**

She sits back. **Not much. This ship is… He's more mentally simple than mine. Annnnd.. I'm not his pilot. I'm not authorized to view all his files.**

**Can you.. press the matter?**

**Maybe. But I don't want to risk damaging him by going too far. Navigational logs should be okay…**

I nod. Can't do much to help with that. **Will he fly?**

**I think so. I'm not familiar with this model but everything looks okay.** Her eyes glow. **Okay, here we go. He was made in… Oh.**

**What?**

**He's older than I thought. Quite a lot older.**

**How old?**

**About a hundred and sixty Martian years old. That's about-.**

**Three hundred Earth years. Was something interesting happening on Mars back then?**

She shakes her head. **All sorts of things, but nothing I can think of that would make a ship special. And if it was special then the Martian government could just have asked Uncle J'onn to pick it up.**

**Does the design mean anything to you?**

**He looks like an old design, but it could just have been retro.** Her eyes dim. **He isn't as fast or as manoeuvrable as mine. I think his top acceleration outside of an atmosphere might be higher. There's some medical systems that mine doesn't have, but he's locking me out of them.**

**Makes sense. If he was planning on staying on Earth he'd want to know that he could be fixed up if he got injured.** I frown. **Your Bio-Ship doesn't have medical functions?**

She shrugs. **Do Earth cars come with built in doctors?**

**I suppose not.**

**My Bio-Ship isn't really anything special, not by Martian standards. Aside from the plasma beams, I mean. Those don't come as standard.**

**Still say gravitic accelerators would have been better.**

**We couldn't be sure they'd be compatible.**

**But plasma based weapons give away the invisible ship's position every time they fire!** I frown for a moment. **Why does a civilian aircraft come with invisibility?**

**Its whole shapeshifting thing is based on what a lot of Martian species can do naturally.** She shrugs. **It's actually more effort to make one that can't.**

**If the ship communicates with you telepathically… Does.. that mean it can move through solid objects?**

She shakes her head. **No, that requires telekinesis. There might be some military ships that can do it but civilian ones can't.**

**Martians have warships that can move through solid objects?**

*Um…** She thinks for a moment. **In theory? They just use telekinetic fields for defense… But I think the system could be adapted.** The telepathic amp designs in Lantern Stewart's database aren't for an organic technology using species. That might be something I could work on. Maybe if I had some sort of Martian Sephtian..? "Well, that's it." She stands up. "As far as I can tell the ship can get him home. I don't know how he'll manage all that time on his own though."

**What, a week? I know you find isolation unpleasant…**

She shudders. **I don't think I could explain it to a Human, not so you could understand what it's like for one of us. Even when we're not actively contacting the minds around we Martians can always feel them. Being in deep space… Or even just away from an inhabited planet… Imagine if you were inside your room back in the Mountain, and whenever you opened the door there was just nothingness. The wardrobe was full of nothing, the drawers were full of nothing and all the pictures had nothingness over everyone's faces.**

**That would be quite weird.**

**There probably isn't a real Human equivalent. I tried to explain it to Henry as well and he didn't really get it until I shared the feeling.** "There isn't really anything else I can learn here. We might as well go and meet Mister J'aarkn."

There's a brief glimpse of yellow in her aura. Ah, yes, that makes sense. "Are you alright with meeting him in person? I don't know how good your mental control is but…"

"He's going to spot me. Being White." She shuffles uncomfortably. "I don't think he'll make a big deal out of it. At worst he'll just refuse to talk to me."

"You don't think he's White himself?"

"He might be… But it isn't very likely. I suppose I'll find out when we get there."

"I don't know how good your shields are, but could you just switch back to your civilian appearance and pretend to not be Martian?"

She shakes her head. "Not if I wanted to use telepathy. Martian telepathy doesn't feel like Human telepathy and he'd pick it up right away. Well, unless he was really weak, anyway."

"How about if he'd been away from other Martians for twenty four years?"

She shakes her head. "No, that wouldn't be enough. Particularly given how rare Human telepaths are. I.. suppose we may as well get it over with." She looks over at the place on the floor where she made the entry hole.

"Before we do that… Um." I suppose she doesn't exactly have anyone with whom she can talk about this particular difficulty in her adaptation to Earth… "If you wanted to talk about… Human style tessellation mating-" Her eyes widen and her face goes purple again. "-if you had any questions and wanted to discuss it with someone who wouldn't find it weird or laugh… And wasn't your uncle. You know where to find me."

"Uh-huh." She nods once and then drops through the floor.

2nd January
06:28 GMT -8

"…could work on the Fortress tomorrow or something?" Through the front view screen I get a brief look at the Pitchess Detention Centre as M'gann brings us in. Missus Spencer got permission for us to land next to his isolation cell. I rather got the impression that the prison governor will be glad to be rid of him.

"No, it's fine." Zatanna sounds only mildly disappointed, but that could just be her being polite. "I've got school work I need to get done anyway." She was still asleep when we left and thanks to the geomantic wards the Ophidian and I transmuted into the rock of the mountain I can't scan inwards from the outside easily anymore.

I feel bad about leaving her behind. I stuck a note on her door but I felt obliged to say something directly as well. "Okay then. We're coming into the prison now. I'll let you know if anything interesting happens."

"Bye."

I dismiss the phone construct and lower my left hand as the Bio-Ship touches down. Missus Spencer is the first onto her feet. It seems that she really wasn't comfortable being on board. I suppose that if my first exposure to Martians was Mister J'aarkn I'd be a little hesitant to sit down on a shapeshifting seat as well.

Kon stands next. He joined in on the suit wearing but he looks more than a little uncomfortable. I'm not sure he's ever worn one before. He starts to leave the cabin before realising that M'gann is still sitting down and turns back to her. **M'gann? Come on, you don't have to be worried about this jerk.**

**I.. know.** She stands somewhat hesitantly before girding her mental loins and joining him before the two of them head down the exit ramp together.

I take a moment to check that my glow is set to minimum and run through a few of the basic mental defence exercises Mister King taught me. I also put a neural chaff grenade and an electrolaser pistol in holsters on the inside of the jacket. Probably excessive but it doesn't hurt to be sure. The carbon nanotubes in the jacket -plus good tailoring- ensure that it doesn't deform and give the game away. Sunglasses? Check. Everything in readiness I follow Kon and M'gann out of the Bio-Ship.

Missus Spencer leads the way towards the building which houses Mister J'aarkn. "The party starts at seven AM local time. He gets three hours at most, then we're flying him back to Channel Islands." Looks like quite a nice area, actually. There are quite a few trees and contrary to my expectations there's a fair bit of grass on the ground as well. In front of the entrance a couple of guards in riot gear wait along with the governor. Assistant Sheriff McDonald looks relieved to see us, though I do detect a slight frown when her gaze passes over the three of us. "Sheriff."

"Kate. We getting rid of him for real this time?"

"We'll do our best."

She nods at the three of us. "What happened to-?"

"Belle Reve." She turns back to look us over as well. "These three were what the Justice League offered to replace them."

"The Justice-?" We get another look. "Seriously? What, they leave their costumes at home or something?"

I take a few steps forwards. "I'm sorry, Assistant Sheriff. I rather got the impression that you wanted this low key. If I was mistaken..?"

"And who are you supposed to be? The Incredible G-Man?"

"Orange Lantern two eight one four." There's a flicker of recognition and she opens her mouth to ask. "Yes, the one with the cake." I hold out my right arm to indicate my colleagues. "Superboy and Miss Martian."

"Supe-? And another Martian? Is that really a good idea?"

"Human telepaths are a little thin on the ground."

"Ah, well, you can't do any worse than the last guys." Missus Spencer's face stiffens slightly. "Come on, may as well get this over with." The guard on the left mutters something into his radio and I hear the door unlock itself with a clunk. He goes through first, followed by the Assistant Sheriff, Missus Spencer and the three of us. Inside is a well lit reception area and another reinforced door with two new guards. I raise my left eyebrow at that. "Half my guards line their helmets with tinfoil these days."

M'gann looks puzzled. "That wouldn't do anything to stop a telepath."

"Sure, you know that and I know that, but after you've had Jackson shapeshifting into… Some extremely disconcerting forms while you're on duty you'll try most things."

"What sort of things?"

Assistant Sheriff McDonald shudders slightly as the inner door is opened. "Put it this way: he really liked his job and appears to want to continue practicing it here." She pauses before entering. "Or half the time, her job."

"You mean he..!"

"Hey, Terri!" On the other side of the bars inside the next room an overweight green skinned man lounges on his bed. "Come to see me off? Or are you finally taking me up on-."

Assistant Sheriff McDonald's face hardens. "I'd rather be intimate with a pig."

He nods in agreement. "I can do pig! How about I pencil you in for-. Oh. Hey Katie. Time already?"

"Jackson. Do you have your things?"

He waves his right hand dismissively, then swings his legs around to hang off the edge of the bed. "Nah, Simon's bringing everything I'll be taking back to Mars to the party. Can't believe you're making me have it in the morning this time."

"It'll be the last time, Jackson."

"Yeah yeah, I'll be good." He looks directly at me, smirk on his face and eyebrows slightly raised. "Eh? Eh?" I still my mind, letting everything flow away. After a moment he looks slightly puzzled, then shrugs. "Tough crowd. But just because you're a hard case-" His form shifts and melts, transforming… Into a slightly oversized copy of Jade. "-doesn't mean all your friends are." He hasn't quite got the voice right. Okay, how is he doing that? He didn't get it from my mind, I doubt he got it from M'gann. She… He struts towards the bars in a most unJadelike fashion. "How about you and me have some fun together at the party later?" I remain impassive. "No? Then how about-?" He shifts again and hell no.

The corners of my mouth are most certainly turned down as I look at Zatanna's face. "Knock it off. She's under age."

"She may be, but I'm not." Her voice he's getting exactly right. "How about if I mature-" She gains about half a foot in height and her secondary sexual characteristics become noticeably more apparent. "-it up a notch." Zatanna's casual wear melts away, being replaced by negligee and a translucent night dress. "You could pretend I'm her older cousin?" He adopts a faux-innocent pose. "Get in practice for the real-."

"Mister J'aarkn-."

Missus Spencer walks up to the cell door, grabs him by the collar of his nightie and pulls him against the bars. "Jackson, if you don't knock it off right now you'll go to the party in an ambulance."

He thinks for a moment before nodding cheerfully. "Sounds good to me! You got a paddle or you want me to-?"

**J'onn J'aarkn.** He shudders and rapidly regains his own form, his right hand going to his forehead. **Behave yourself!**

"Ughugr." He blinks heavily. "Forgotten what that was like." Missus Spencer lets go as he regains his feet. He shakes his head once and then looks over at M'gann, his expression one of curiosity. "Folks back home really miss me enough to send a Manhunter to pick me up?" He looks a little closer. "Hey. J'onzz? That you? When did you join the Feds?"

"My name is M'gann M'orzz and if you start shapeshifting into my friends and hitting on people I will mind blast you again."

"But I can hit on people looking like this?" He looks himself over. "I can work with that. Now let's get this show on the road!"

2nd January
06:33 GMT -8

Kon politely but firmly pushes Mister J'aarkn down into the front right seat on the Bio-Ship before taking the seat just behind for himself. Missus Spencer remains standing behind the pilot station and I'm at mid left. Mister J'aarkn has a quick look at the dashboard before swivelling the chair around, clasping his hands behind his head and tilting the chair back with a smile. "Aaaah. All the comforts of home. This a new model?"

"She's newer than yours." M'gann moves her hands and the Bio-Ship rises off the ground. It's about a twenty minute flight at Bio-Ship cruising speed and the party isn't due to start until seven.

"You take a look at him? What did you think?"

"I'm babysitting you because Uncle J'onn asked me to. I don't particularly want to talk to you."

He rolls his eyes with a sigh, then turns a little more to look at Kon. "Hey stud muffin. See something you like?" He grins lasciviously, raises his hands to chest height and makes beckoning gestures with them.

"I don't think you're my type."

"How about-?" M'gann glares at him. "Oooor not. Waaaaait, are you two..?" He wiggles his right index finger back and forth between them. "Oh, hey, sorry. Hands and.. whatever, off your beefcake." He turns his chair back around, looking at Missus Spencer for a moment before turning his attention to me.

"Mister J'aarkn-."

"Call me 'John'. Seriously, I've been John for twenty five years now. You ask for Mister J'aarkn and I start looking for Daddy."

"How old are you?"

"Earth years?" He looks up at the ceiling as he tries to work it out. "Let's see… Sixty four, so… A hundred and.. forty seven. Yeah, that's it."

"As I understand it, Martians mature at about a third of the rate Humans do?"

"Sort of. For emotional maturity when you're young that's probably true, but the amount of life experience is pretty different. I'm middle aged by Human standards but you can't just project Human behaviours onto me."

"So you coming to an alien planet and having as much sex as you can get isn't a Martian mid-life crisis."

"Hah! No, different psychological drives. Martians don't really…" He glances at M'gann, who refuses to meet his eyes. "You know how Martians fuck, right?"

"I heard a brief description."

"Not hormonal at all. We don't even have hormones like you do. What happened to me… Yeah, okay, I know I'm weird, but it doesn't have anything to do with a Human male feeling the urge to sow his seed before he decays into physical obsolescence."

"So why did you come here?"

"Funny story, actually. I'm a biology teacher. College level equivalent." He nods his head to the side. "Used to be anyway. I think I'm still qualified but I haven't done any teaching…" He leers at Missus Spencer. "Well, you know. I've done that kind of teaching, I mean I haven't done classroom teaching. Not since I left Mars."

"Theoretical to practical?"

"I could do a lecture on the mating practices of just about any Mars native lifeform you care to name if you like, but no. Mars is parched. Next to nothing alive on the surface outside of a few preserves and everything in the caves is regulated, monitored… Not much for a biologist to do. When-" He turns to M'gann again. "-J'onzz started transmitting back to Manhunter headquarters from Earth I got fascinated. A whole new world, filled with fascinating alien life completely unknown to Martian science."

"I rather got the impression Martians weren't very interested in us."

He nods. "I think it's something to do with telepathic data transmission. When one of us passes on an image or an experience, the recipient gets the context and perspective of the one they got it from. It's like they lived it themselves, and if they did that…"

Kon nods. "Why bother doing it for real?"

Mister J'aarkn shrugs. "Or it could just be a modern cultural thing. My Bio-Ship was part of a limited run they made back when we were a bit more outgoing. It's designed to keep one person alive and sane while they travel from one place to another in space."

M'gann reluctantly look at him. "How does it do that?"

"In a bunch of different ways. When you turn the system on it sort of keeps you half asleep, and creates this ghost sensation of there being other minds around."

"Half asleep in space?"

"The thing about space, its basic distinguishing feature…"

J'aarkn nods. "Right. Empty. It's not like they were going to be doing interstellar flights or anything. Your Bio-Ship may be more sophisticated but the basic technology is the same. No need to check things every few hours, the telekinetic sensor means you can easily avoid any obstacle big enough to actually harm you. There's nothing to be awake for until you actually get somewhere. The original idea was for there to be a crew of three, but you can fly the thing with just one."

Kon frowns. "So how come it never got used?"

Mister J'aarkn sags slightly. "Before my time. The guy I bought it from seemed to think it was only ever a proof of concept type thing. You know, 'if we were going to do this, how would we do it?'"

"So, what? You heard about a planet of fascinating new sentients and hopped in a ship so you could go and have sex with them?"

"Wouldn't you?" I give him a level look. "No, it wasn't quite like that. We'd known that you Humans were here for a while. We don't do a lot of deep space astronomy like you do but since Mars doesn't have much of an atmosphere we have to do a lot of local space monitoring. We'd been seeing artificial lights on Earth for centuries, we'd picked up your radio transmissions for decades… I mean, we had no idea what you were saying but we knew there was structure to it. Some of the really powerful telepathic types could even juuust about hear your thoughts when the planets were close together."

I look at M'gann and she nods. "It's barely noticeable unless I really strain-."

Mister J'aarkn's eyes open wide as he looks at her. "You're that powerful?"

"Yes. I am."

"I thought I was just being oversensitive when you shocked me earlier. Whaw." He frowns. "What you hiding out here for then? Wouldn't some tut-? Oh." M'gann looks a little sad and Mister J'aarkn looks like he's realised that he's put his foot in it. "Um. Right, sorry."

Would M'gann's educational prospects be curtailed due to her being White? Thinking about how racism affects people on Earth I suppose I shouldn't be completely surprised but wouldn't there be somewhere for her to exercise her talents? Interesting that the lecherous ex-teacher doesn't care. "I'm still not sure why you made the trip."

"I got interested on what life was like here. I don't think he remembers me but I was part of the group J'onzz shared his memories with when he got back. Spent a couple of years analysing them, trying to understand how the biological systems here worked. Of course, he wasn't a biologist so the information he already had wasn't quite there. And as I kept looking… Darndest thing, I just.. started to find the way you people look appealing. Male, female, young, old… You're all so different from Martians anyway that you're clearly not appealing to the same parts of my brain as an attractive Martian would. I just.. wanted that. You, basically. Nearly went crazy with excitement and fear when I finally decided to make the trip. Was.. longer than my journey home will be and I did the stupid thing of not using the sleep system. Hoohoo, let me tell you: never again."

M'gann's starting to get interested now as well. "Then what happened?"

2nd January
06:37 GMT -8

"What happened is I started hallucinating. Constant things crawling around at the edge of my visual field. Even after I changed the shape of my head to get three sixty degree vision. Then the voices started. Think I had a long conversation with one of the walls but it's all a bit blurry. It was a twenty three day journey and I barely made two." M'gann shudders slightly. "You went the same way?"

"I.. didn't need to stay on the ship for as long, and I had Uncle J'onzz there."

"That would be better. Still not great?" She shakes her head. "Guess that's why we Martians never really got into space travel."

Kon frowns. "Couldn't you just build a bigger ship? If there were a lot of Martians on board it wouldn't be such a problem."

"Sure, yeah, we could do that. Problem is no one wants to." Mister J'aarkn shrugs. "The whole thing's just such a bad experience that we've been put off trying. It's like, if you wear a heavy metal gauntlet you can stick your hand in a sink waste disposal unit, but why would you?"

M'gann nods. "Our military use ships like that, but they don't really get big enough to go on long voyages."

"How did you..? Actually, how did Mister J'onzz manage it when he went back the first time?"

"Uncle J'onn used an advanced meditation technique. And he altered the atmospheric composition of the air inside the Bio-Ship so he'd feel sleepy all the time."

Mister J'aarkn leans forwards. "Sure, I can believe that of him, but how'd you do it?"

"My.. uncle Ma'alefa'ak was born without the ability to use telepathy."

"Ooh." Mister J'aarkn looks pained. "The poor bastard."

"Well, he lives on the surface. I visited him a lot when I was younger. I guess I just got used to the isolation. I mean, not totally. I couldn't have made the crossing if Uncle J'onn hadn't been there."

"Right. So, I just about manage to keep it together well enough to turn the system on. The rest of the trip is kind of a blur… Not sure if that's how it's supposed to be or if that was just because of me being a dummy about not using the system from the start. From how the food stores on board decreased I must have been eating something but…" He turns his palms upwards as he shrugs. "First thing I remember seeing clearly was the Earth when I reached high orbit and the collision detector came on. I was still a bit woooowh, you know? But I recognized the shape of the landmass J'onzz said he'd been on and nudged my Bio-Ship in that direction. I came down in the Death Valley National Park. You know how desolate that place is, right? When I staggered out I was so messed up I wasn't sure whether I was on Mars or Earth. Plus, I was still in, you know, alien mode."

"Alien mode?" Missus Spencer frowns. "That isn't how you look?"

"What, like a green Human? You really thought that? Haah!"

"Jackson!"

"Oh, come on! I'm a shapeshifting alien! I didn't settle on this face for years."

"So, what, you look more like Manhunter? With red eyes-?"

Mister J'aarkn sniggers as he shakes his head. "Not even close. He picked that shape because he wanted something that looked mostly Human but also a bit alien and intimidating." He widens his eyes. "What we actually look like would-" He jazz hands. "-blow your fragile, Human-."

Kon shakes his head. "You're not that weird."

"Oh, ruin the rest of my fun why don't you. Wait a second." He looks back and forth between him and M'gann. "You went with green Human and showed them the real you anyway? You guys must be pretty tight."

I nod and Kon crosses his arms across his chest. "Yeah. We are."

"So you were wandering around Death Valley in Martian mode..."

He grins again. "Scared the shit out of these hikers."

Missus Spencer doesn't appreciate the humour. "Jonathan Adams, Evan Morris and Vincent Myers."

"Aah, Jonny. You never forget your first."

"You sexually assaulted him."

"I did not! Okay, so I wasn't exactly who he thought I was at the time…"

"What did you do?"

"Since I didn't have any real idea where to go I just headed towards the nearest minds I could feel. They'd made their camp in this little.. gully, to keep the wind off. It was night time, and what with them having a fire going that ruined their night vision they didn't see me until I stepped right up to them. I just sat down next to, ahh…" He looks at Missus Spencer. "It was Evan, right? I just sat down and they're like 'AAAAAAGH!' Evan and Vincent run away. Jonny tried to but he tripped up and hit his head. So seeing him hurt pretty much snapped me out of my funk. I knew a bit about how Human bodies worked so I had a rummage around the campsite for a medical kit or whatever. Dressed the wound, propped him up and had a rifle through his mind."

M'gann looks scandalised. "You did what!"

"I'd terrified two guys and gotten a third injured! I didn't want that to happen again when he woke up. So, I got the image of someone he liked from his memories…"

"Madison Burnett."

"Okay, I know it looks bad now, but at the time it seemed like a perfectly rational thing to do. I could use my knowledge of Human physiology to replicate the bits he hadn't seen-."

"But not her clothes."

"I didn't realize those were important! I thought, familiar face, that'll give me a chance to talk to him. Okay, not talk exactly, I didn't know the language and hadn't got the hang of the-" He puts his right hand to his neck. "-Human voice box yet. When he came around he must have thought he was dreaming or something. I asked him if there was anything I can do to make him feel better… He had some suggestions…" M'gann's gone purple again. "I didn't exactly know what the big deal was, not until I started mirroring his brain pathways."

"You mirrored his brain pathways!?" M'gann looks genuinely shocked. "But you only just met him!"

"It was in the name of science, Miss M'orzz. Science! And whaaaw did I ever not regret it. Guess you've got that stuff to look forward to."

"Leaving the Erotic Adventures of a Martian Womanhunter aside for a moment…"

"Well, eventually he went to sleep, I went back to my Ship. Since I'd learned the local language from him I spent some time listening in on radio broadcasts-."

"What about the other two? If they were alone in Death Valley…"

"Yeah. I mean, to a Martian? Death Valley isn't so scary. If I'd known more at the time I'd have gone to check up on them. Just didn't occur to me. I found out later that they went back in the morning to check on Jonny." He grins again. "See, they thought the screams-."

"I get the picture."

"So I hid the Ship and used my new knowledge of Human society to walk around a few towns, listen in on a few more thought processes. Eventually I started visiting libraries. I don't know if you know this, but these days on Mars writing things down is really only done for ceremonial purposes. Everything else is telepathically encoded. If I'd realized I could have gone to a library first... Just didn't think of it."

"But how did you go from anthropologist to adult film star?"

He shrugs. "I had to eat, needed a job and I enjoyed the work. Something about Humans just works for me in a way Martians… Eeeeehh, kinda don't. I could mimic the stars of the day, assume male or female form or whatever else the director wanted. After a while, I switched over to focusing on that rather than my studies."

M'gann looks like she's swallowed something bitter. "Did you do any actual research?"

"Oh, sure! I've got a kuru pendant full of data. I don't know if anyone back home's actually going to care about it, but I've got it." He sits back with a sigh. "Good times. I'm really going to miss this place."

2nd January
06:56 GMT -8

It's only a little after dawn when we arrive at the house at which 'John Jackson's 4th Bi-Annual Leaving Party' is being held. The building is fairly large but there isn't quite enough space in the garden that I'd feel comfortable leaving the Bio-Ship on the ground. M'gann sets down in the car park to drop the rest of us off and then takes it up over the top of the house. We aren't on a flight path here so unless someone decides to fly a kite or something it shouldn't be a problem. M'gann can float herself back down invisibly when she's done.

Mister J'aarkn hurries up the path to the door and presses the doorbell while Missus Spencer, Kon and I follow on behind at a more sedate pace. Interesting that he doesn't fly. I mean, it isn't as if he needs to pretend anything any more. I know that M'gann's telepathy is unusually strong but I actually have no idea how her other abilities compare. Probably worth finding out at some point.

A moment later the door is opened by a heavily made up Asian woman. "John!" They kiss each other's cheeks. "You're early! Did you escape from prison again?"

He shakes his head. "Sorry, Casi. I think they got me this time."

"Oh no! What have they done?"

"Well, you know. Set a thief to catch a thief. J'onzz decided to sic his niece on me."

She looks past him at the three of us. "Which one..?" I hear a soft tap as M'gann touches down on the paving stones, then she makes herself visible again. "Nice suit." Miss… Casi turns back to Mister J'aarkn. "For a moment I thought she was going to be like you."

"My job is going to be open." He half turns back to her with what I am coming to recognise as his signature leer. "What do you say, Miss M'orzz? Interested in showing another generation of Humans the wonders of Martian physiology?" He wiggles his eyebrows in an attempt to wring as much embarrassment from her as possible.

And.. she.. doesn't go for it. Just as she starts to purple again she tosses her head and shifts form. "No." Her hair shortens and turns black and her skin goes from green to pearl white. "And I don't want your friends mistaking me for you, either." Interesting. I've seen her White Martian form but I've never seen her wear white skin while Human shaped before. Monochrome's a rather intense look. I like it.

"Ah well." Mister J'aarkn puts an arm around Casi's waist as he strolls into the house. There's a small porch which leads into an open plan living area. "Anyone you guys want to meet while you're here?"

"No." / "I don't really watch this kind of thing." / "Is Miss Smart likely to be in attendance?"

Kon and M'gann both stop dead to stare at me. Mister J'aarkn shrugs. "You'll have to give me more than that. Lots of people in this industry use different names. My first few movies were made with me listed as 'Jonathan Jerking'. Heh, or Joanne."

"Sara Smart. I believe she performs as 'Sally Sonic'."

Mister J'aarkn comes to an immediate stop. "That'ssss… Dangerous tastes you got there, kid." He actually looks a little nervous. "Listen, she's.. not good company. Why don't I just find you some nice-."

"I'm really more interested in her personal history."

"Oh. Well, I'll tell you now she doesn't talk about that."

"Will she be here?"

"Maybe." Miss Casi slips free of his arm and heads off into the house, looking just as uncomfortable as he does. He turns back to me. "Yeah, probably. She's got an invite anyway. Metaporn's not a huge genre." He sighs. "Ah, who am I kidding? She'd never miss an opportunity to wave her ageless tits in the sagging faces of her former co-workers. She'll be here."

"I understand that you've worked with her before."

"Yeah. Once." He flaps his hands dismissively at me. "Hey, it's your life. Talk to her if you want, just leave me out of it." He turns away, looking through the door at the far end of the room. "The four of you going to follow me everywhere? I kind of want to say 'goodbye' to my friends without you lurking over my shoulder the whole time."

Missus Spencer folds her arms across her chest. "I'm sticking to you like-." The leer reappears. "I'm staying close by you. The three of you can hang back. Check the perimeter or something."

"Rightyho." **Miss Martian, are we networked?**

**Yes. And don't worry about Jerking-.** Kon and I look at her. **About J'aarkn listening in.** Mister J'aarkn exits through the far door in the general direction of the heated swimming pool. Not sure it's really hot enough at this time of the morning, even in California. **His telepathy is fairly weak.**

**Any idea how he knew what Jade and Zatanna look like?**

**I think that was me.** Kon shrugs uncomfortably. **I felt.. something in my head. I was thinking about girls you might… You know. I'm sorry, but it was getting hard not to.**

**That's fine. Far better it be someone like him than someone actually hostile. Might be worth you joining in when Mister King next comes in though. I've found it really helpful for stopping that sort of thing.** He nods. **For now though, you and M'gann should probably stick together. Don't want him mentally nudging you off in the wrong direction.**

**Right.**

**M'gann, you can pick out his mind from just about anywhere around here, right?**

She shrugs. **He's the only other Martian around. Unless he's secretly a lot better than I think he is there's no way for him to hide from me.**

**Feel free to wander the grounds, then. Try to keep track of everyone who turns up and report anyone we should be concerned about. I'm going to try following Mister J'aarkn from a distance, just in case he tries anything with Missus Spencer.**

M'gann nods and turns to go back out through the front door. Kon goes to follow and then hesitates for a moment. **Um.**

**I know it's not standard bodyguarding protocol but our main concern is him. Mister J'onzz was right, he's got no history of violence.**

**No, it's…** He uncomfortably avoids meeting my eyes. **You wanted to…**

**Do you want to know why I asked after Miss Smart?**

M'gann looks curious too. **It does seem a little out of character. Not that… Whatever you…**

**Miss Smart is a Human enhanced by magic. I'm mostly interested in her as an object of study.**

Two slightly relieved nods. **That makes more sense. What can she do?**

**She doesn't age. She's in her seventies now and doesn't look any different to how she did in her late teens. If that could be replicated… I don't even know what it would do.**

Kon looks thoughtful. **Why was J'aarkn so afraid of her?**

**She's had a rather hard life, and.. as a result, has become a complete bitch. She takes particular pleasure in seducing married men, videoing their time together and sharing the video with their wives.** Sometimes it's like they do everything they can to make you not want to help them. **Or vice versa. I mean, I'm a bit disappointed at how weak willed they're being but the pattern is a bit obvious.**

**Is she a criminal?**

**Nothing criminal about adults making sub par choices. Even with encouragement. If I'd found a smoking gun I'd already have acted on it.**

2nd January
07:22 GMT -8

I take another look around the pool area. **Anything interesting happening where you are?**

I hear her sigh through the mental link. **A few people have asked how long I've been in… You know, in the profession. I was sort of hoping that the suit would scare them off.**

**Should have added sunglasses and an earpiece.** Pretty good turnout considering the time of day. There's a little bit more flesh on display than I'm used to, but really no more than I might see on a Happy Harbour street in summer. The heavy makeup and.. um, 'forthright' mammaries are a more noticeable difference but I guess off the job people are just people. **Kon, anyone asked you that?**

**One guy did.**

**Conner glared at him so hard no one else has dared try.**

**If it's getting to be a problem just hang around Missus Spencer for a bit. Everyone here knows why she's here.**

**Has J'aarkn done anything?** I can hear a note of frustration in Kon's mental voice.

**He got a drink and then started doing the rounds. Right now he's talking to Mister Hyatt.** I look over to them. From the body language and the way they're laughing I'd guess that they were pretty good friends. Behind them Missus Spencer checks her watch.

**Probably just waiting for us to drop our guard.**

**Maybe. Or maybe -since he isn't a supervillain- he's still capable of recognising an unwinnable situation when he sees one.**

**Are you able to look inside him and see for sure? I'd.. still rather not scan him telepathically if I can help it.**

**Already done.** I double check anyway. **Small amounts of yellow associated with us, Missus Spencer and going home and from the amount of orange I'm seeing I'm going to say that he was being completely honest about how desirable he finds Humans. I can't see anything related to concrete escape plans.**

"Hey, are you with the Metahuman Department people?"

I half turn and-. Oh my goodness, it's porn star Barbie. **Excuse me a minute.** "I am indeed. What can I do for you?"

She beams at me. "You're English!"

"I was born in England, yes. I'm legally a Themysciran national."

"Themy-? Wait, like Wonder Woman?"

"Indeed."

"How did you manage that?"

"I did some work for Her Highness and -since I was stateless at the time- she.. made the offer."

"So are you, like,-" She makes a circling motion with her left hand. "-the only guy in the whole place?"

"One of two, though as I understand it male Olympians are free to visit whenever they like."

She pats my chest with her right hand. "Bet you're popular!"

"My first visit is next weekend so I can't say for certain. But I.. rather doubt it. Either that or we'll get mobbed as soon as we land."

"Wouldn't that be fun."

"Probably more awkward than fun." I glance across at Mister J'aarkn. Nope, still there.

Miss… Ring? Atchford? Okay. She follows my gaze. "Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about John. He's a really nice guy. Why are you people going after him like this?"

"I'm afraid that I don't know. I only became involved in this case today, and in any case I wouldn't have any authority over the decision. From what I've seen of Missus Spencer she appears to be taking his previous 'no shows' somewhat personally."

"Is she allowed to do that?"

"Dispassionate professionalism might be the ideal but I doubt anyone will fault her. The conga line thing-"

She giggles. "Oh yeah, that was funny."

"-really didn't help matters. I have to ask, were their drinks spiked or something?"

"Hey, everyone here's clean." I raise my eyebrows and she looks away. "Theeeey might have had a bit of vodka in their beer. The.. barman probably misheard their order."

"Uh huh."

"So.. what do you do when you're not throwing people off the planet? You said you worked with Wonder Woman?"

I stare at her for a moment. "I can't believe it. It actually works."

She tries to frown but is defeated by botulinum toxin. "What works?"

"Glasses. Sorry,-" I shake my head. "-private joke. Um, I suppose the most accessible part of my job involves metal trading."

She looks at me sceptically. "Commodity trading? What, you work for the DMA in your spare time?"

"No, the three of us volunteered for this because they were short staffed. I've actually never worked for them before."

"Private security?"

"Superhero."

"Get outta town." I raise my palms to display the glowing sigils of the rings for a moment before closing them again. Her head jerks back slightly and she blinks repeatedly, first looking at my hands and then at my face. "Wait, I know you! You're-!

"Yes, the.. Cake Man." I'm starting to know how Lex feels.

"No, not that. You did that interview after that thing with all the kids disappearing."

"That wasn't exactly my proudest moment either."

"Really? 'Cause I thought it really brought home what a lot of people went through. I mean, my two spent the whole thing watching TV or sleeping, I didn't even think about what happened to kids on air planes. And, superheroes just usually seem to have it all together, you know? So perfect and distant and you were just so genuine."

Um. Right. I hadn't really had any interest in fallout from that interview. Hadn't bothered asking Ms Cobert how it played. I have another look around the poolside as I try to work out how to reply. "Thank you, I-." Oh, look who's trying to sneak away. "Would you excuse me for a moment?"

"Hey, look, I didn't-."

I stride in the direction of the woman heading for the door into the house. "Excuse me?"

"Wha-?" She stops and turns around. Brown skin, curly shoulder length hair and a facial structure unlike his usual faces. "Oh, you're one of the people looking after Jackson, right?"

"Mister J'aarkn, knock it off."

She shakes her head. "I'm not-."

I tilt my head forwards and let my glasses slide down my nose a little, revealing my orange eyes for a moment before pushing the glasses back up. "Empathic vision. You might have changed physically but you haven't changed spiritually." I raise my right index finger. "Don't mess me about again."

2nd January
07:32 GMT -8

"So, yeah, they got the Talk almost as soon as they could talk." Miss Atchford leans back in her chair and raises her right hand expressively. "I'm not proud of my job exactly, but I'm not going to lie to them about it. And I definitely don't want Paige getting pregnant at nineteen like I did."

"I'm a little embarrassed to admit it-" I look around the room. "-especially here, but I honestly had no idea how Human reproduction worked until sex education class in Primary School." More of Mister J'aarkn's fellow performers have drifted in since his first 'just testing you', though I don't think the party has reached critical mass as yet.

"So.. you were how old?"

"Eleven, I think."

"Doesn't sound unusual to me." We both consider that line and start to smirk. "I mean, yeah, okay, okay. I didn't get started that early."

"I'm glad to hear it. I don't ever remember having 'The Talk' with my parents at any point. I mean, I'm sure they'd have been willing to talk about anything I'd asked…"

"Do you have that.. abstinence.. thing.. in England?"

"Not outside of religious institutions. I mean, I might be a little out of date, but…" I shrug and shake my head. "For me it was always one of those crazy things Americans do."

She feigns offence. "Oh yeah?"

"Silver rings, playing rugby wearing body armour-"

"Oh, you do not get to mock football!"

"-calling it football despite the fact that the players spend most of the time carrying the ball in their hands! How did that name even catch on?"

"I don't know, that's just what it's called!" We share a giggle. You know, I kind of thought this job was going to be annoying, but I'm actually quite enjoying talking to Miss Atchford. "What do you call it in England then?"

"American Football. Because you're the only people who play it."

"Oh, that is not true! They play it in Canada."

"They do?" Ring?

"Yeah, I dated this Canadian guy for a while who couldn't stop talking about it."

Uhh, traitors. "I was unaware of that. But, still, US and Canada." And Australia, sort of.

"How long have you been in the US anyway? Or do you just fly over?"

"A little over six months, and I do live here."

She gets a little more serious. "How'd you get a green card?"

"I.. didn't. To start with.. I was technically on a sticky wicket but-."

"A what?"

"Um, cricket? The three sticks behind the batsman which the bowler aims for is called a wicket. 'Sticky wicket' means a difficult situation, just as a batsman might experience on a waterlogged pitch. Anyway, yes, I was technically in the country illegally-."

"Ohh. So it's okay for you to do it, but John has to get thrown off the planet."

"The difference is: he can go home. I come from a parallel universe. I have no way to go back. I suppose I could.. build a habitat on the moon or something." That could actually be an interesting thing to do anyway. "But otherwise there's nowhere for them to send me to. And anyway, now I have a Themysciran diplomatic passport, so I'm here legally."

"And that.. Kon guy?"

"Born in the US. I suppose he should really have joint citizenship."

"And the albino Martian girl?"

"Ah-uuuuhhh." Actually, what is M'gann's status? It's never really.. come up. "I don't actually know."

"Ah hah! She's an illegal immigrant too!"

"I'm sure her uncle sorted.. something out…" Ring? Oh, no he didn't. Megan Morse legally exists but M'gann as M'gann doesn't. "I think Justice League facilities count as extraterritorial…" Though that only helps as long as she never leaves the mountain… I might need to talk to her about that.

"No, no, that's fine. One rule for her and another for John. Seems perfectly okay to me."

"Look, if I was the one making the rules I wouldn't kick him out either. Missus Spencer's really got the bit in her teeth over this whole thing, I don't know… Did he do something to trigger this whole thing?"

"I don't think so. I mean, he might've? He's pretty libidinous off-set. Maybe he hit on the wrong girl? Or, you know, guy."

"Or turned into a Dog and humped the wrong leg."

"Hah! Long as it was only a leg! Yeah, I can see him doing that. I mean, he's a great guy to work with, you know? Most of the time a girl looks like she's getting off in a porno she's just faking it, but with him? You.. usually.. don't have to. I guess it comes from being a woman part of the time."

"Or his telepathy. He knows what his partner likes and he can feel it when they like it."

"Huh. Yeah, could be. He's actually a good person to get paired with if you're just getting into the business. Not like Ron the Hedgehog." Her eyes widen. "You need to know what you're doing if you're doing anything with that thing."

I nod. "I can imagine." Actually, where is Mister J'aarkn?

"Are your Martian and Kon a thing?"

"They're dating, yes."

"Lucky guy."

"They haven't quite got that f-oh for goodness sake!" I get to my feet. "Would you please excuse me again?"

"Why?" She nods as she realises. "What's he done now?" I hold out my right hand. She takes it and uses it to come to her feet and I transition us to the first floor bathroom. "Whoow. Is that-?" She spots Mister J'aarkn. "Ow, eww!"

He's bent over the toilet, his head, arms and upper torso extended into a narrow column that is vanishing down the pipe. Damn, that's nasty. I reach down and tap him on his right hip. I mean, I could intercept him before he gets away but I'd really rather not.

"Kinda busy here." I blink as a mouth appears on his lower back. "It would be a big help to me if you could-" An eye appears near the mouth. "-go and distract-" The eye focuses on me. "-my… Oh. Hey, Orange Lantern! I was just.. doing some plumbing."

"Uh-huh. Well, when you're done, I'll pull you out and clean you off, shall I?"

2nd January
07:45 GMT -8

"…chocolate sauce!" The man introduced to me as Dwayne looks up from the pool table and grins as he makes eye contact. "So that was the last time I worked with those assholes." I shudder theatrically and he chuckles as he returns to his shot. Dwayne is black, homosexual, and -from the string vest, short shorts and innuendo- clearly very much at peace with both characteristics. He takes aim at one of the striped balls -the American version of the game being played with striped and solid coloured balls rather than yellow and red ones- and takes a shot at the neatly arrayed balls. He doesn't use as much force as I would have done and as a consequence they remain fairly clustered up. He stands up, studies the table for a moment and then turns around, offering Miss Atchford the cue. "Bobbi? You playing?"

She waves him off with a shake of her head. "Oh… No… Not really my game."

Dwayne shrugs and turns to offer it to me instead. Ah, why not? "Okay, but I should probably warn you-."

"What? You some kind of limey pool shark or something?"

"No, I'm dreadful at the game." I walk up to the table, trying to get a feel for the layout. "I really mean it. You may want a helmet."

"Hey man, I always want helmet."

I wince as I bend slightly to check the shot I'm thinking of making. Sure, the ring could easily calculate the optimal trajectory and force, but the point of this is to have fun, not own all with an alien supercomputer. Okay, I think I can get the solid yellow one. Maybe. I bend a little further, put my left hand on the felt and bring the butt of the cue back-.

"Oh, hello!"

I close my eyes for a moment. "Hate to be a prima donna about this Dwayne, but could you possibly move a little further away?"

"No problem, man. No bigger black fan of Madonna than me!"

W-? No, never mind. I thrust the cue forwards, hitting the white ball cleanly and sending it into the yellow. Agh, angle was slightly off and it hit the green as well and it's… Well, at least Dwayne won't be able to pot it either. I straighten up and offer him the cue back. He makes a point of running his right hand down the shaft before taking hold of it. I step away from the table as he brushes past me and raise my eyebrows at Miss Atchford. She shrugs.

"So… Dwayne, how did you meet Mister J'aarkn?"

"Who?" He focuses on the table, walking around to the far side to get a better look.

"John, Dwayne. His Martian name is J'onn J'aarken."

"Really? I thought that was just his movie name."

"Most Martian languages use telepathy rather than the spoken word, but that's basically what it sounds like."

"Huh." He leans down to take a shot, using it to break up the ball cluster a bit more before holding out the cue butt first to me across the table. Again, he keeps his hand in place as I pull it free. "Was kind of going through a dry patch. See, there's work in gay porn, but there's more money in straight stuff. More people buying it. But since most of the people buying it are guys, they're mostly watching the girls. They're like, fucking them through you, you know? But they're all fat and hairy and whatever from spending all their time jerking off at their computers, so if you look too good, that's no good. Gay porn, no, you gotta look good for that. My body's my professional tool, know what I'm saying?" I nod and take aim at the ball with the green stripe. "And I can fuck girls. I mean, I'm usually thinking about something else at the time, 'cause if I can't I'm going to need a helping hand from Mister Blue, but I can do it."

I make the shot and-. Aww, it hits the side of the pocket and bounces out. "I'm not hearing about Mister J'aarkn's role in your career."

"Agent got me a job, fucking this ridiculous big titty thing. Script needs her to suck me off and give me a titty job. No way I could pretend I was doing a guy. The whole thing was doing nothing for me at all. They wanted a cumshot and I couldn't deliver." I pass him the cue and he leans forwards to make a shot almost immediately. The blue solid bounces off the yellow stripe and goes nowhere important. "Then, suddenly, I look down and there's this eight inch cock dangling down her leg. Now, I didn't sign up for no tranny movie but that definitely wasn't there when we started."

"Did that.. help?"

"Yeah, it helped. Like, half my movies are tranny movies now. Turns out, long as it's got a cock I don't much care about the rest." He stands up, looking contemplative. "Never would have found that out if it weren't for him."

"Ah. Well then, I'm happy for you."

"Real shame he's going away."

"Look, I get that he's a good guy. And I really hope-" Dwayne passes me the cue back. "-thank you, I really hope he can come back legally. But, right now, he's had all his appeals and he lost."

"I guess." Okay, even I can't miss-. Yes! Solid red number seven goes down the middle left pocket. I move around the table to take aim at solid purple. "You hang out with a lot of other superheroes?"

"From time to time. Please understand that I can't really-" Aagh, another miss. I pass the cue back. "-talk about most of what I know."

He takes a look at the table and then looks back at me. "You ever meet Superman?"

"Yes, a few times. I mean I don't.. know him well or anything. Are you a fan?"

"Something like that. Got a copy of his 'S' tattooed on the head of my-."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. Because of how super it-."

"I-. I got it. I don't think I'll mention that to him if you don't mind."

"Not sure how you'd bring that up in con-"

**Get out!**

"-versation." A plume of water erupts from the pool as I look around. A somewhat stunned and bedraggled Mister J'aarkn swims slowly from the point of impact towards the water's edge. "Where'd he come from?"

**M'gann?**

**He tried 'just taking a look' at my Bio-Ship.**

**Everything under control?**

**How much longer do we have to stay here?**

**A couple of hours. Are you-?**

**It's fine, he's just… Ugh!**

"Flying practice."

"Looks like he's out of practice. You got any tattoos?"

"I'm sorry? Oh. Yes. Covered in the things."

"For real?"

"Tattoos and a few brands."

He raises his eyebrows and makes eye contact with Miss Atchford. "That's some heavy duty shit you got there."

"They're practical rather than decorative. You can get spells tattooed or branded onto your body and I needed a way to be more resistant to magic. Though speaking of heavy shit… What can you tell me about Sally Sonic?"

2nd January
08:24 GMT -8

"Simon!" Mister J'aarkn embraces his lawyer with a smile. "Good to see you!" He's shape shifted his clothing into swimming shorts but otherwise has kept his slightly overweight Human form.

"John." Mister Leas hugs him back, if a little less enthusiastically. He's wearing a Hawaiian shirt and fawn coloured trousers. "Sorry I couldn't come up with-."

"No, no, it's fine." He pulls back a little, some of the sadness he feels showing on his face. Missus Spencer doesn't appear to be moved by it. "I'm just grateful you managed to put it off this long. Did you bring it?"

"Of course I did, John." He looks around for a moment before spotting a coffee table. "Shall we?"

Mister J'aarkn nods and they sit on the well cushioned chairs set up on either side of it. Mister Leas takes a small presentation case out of his pocket, sets it on the table and then pushes it over. Mister J'aarkn looks relieved. "Oh, you have no idea how glad I am to get these back." He turns to Missus Spencer. "Why'd you take these off me, anyway? I'd have thought you'd be glad for me to have something else to occupy my time."

"No alien technology in prison, Jackson."

"But they're just data recording devices! Look." He opens the case, revealing three gold coloured metal disks. Each one is about twelve centimetres across and divided into three concentric circles. The outer ring is blank, the middle ring is textured with what might be a representation of snake scales and the centre circle has what looks like it's supposed to be a representation of a Martian face. "Harmless." The case also contains a thin gold chain, which he attaches to one of the pendants before putting it around his neck.

Missus Spencer raises her right eyebrow. "Oh yeah? What's on it, your back catalogue?"

"Sure, but not just that. There's a copy of everything I know about Human society on here. If I'm having to restart my life on Mars I need something to work with."

"I dread to think what they'll think of us learning about us from you."

"I don't know what you're complaining about. I like Humans." He turns back to Mister Leas. "Haven't I always said how much I like Humans?"

"Hey." Dwayne nudges me. "There she is." I follow his gaze as Miss Smart walks in behind the lawyer. Her hair is done up in a high ponytail and she's wearing a plain white t-shirt with calf length trousers of red denim. Her whistle's on a chain around her neck, tucked in to her t-shirt. She looks… Friendly. Innocent, even. I suppose that explains her appeal. "You sure you want to do this?"

I look across the room to where Kon and M'gann have taken up position. **M'gann?**

**Her mind is… Ugh. It's... She's exactly like they said.**

**If it were easy, it wouldn't require us. Will the approach Dwayne suggested work?**

**Probably.**

**Is provoking her really such a good idea? This isn't exactly a tough assignment and Missus Spencer wants us to keep a low profile.**

**I won't start anything, I just need to get a closer look at her.** Miss Smart walks around the seats, leans down over John's shoulder and whispers something in his ear. He keeps it together better than he did when we talked about her earlier. Looking into her I see orange, red and yellow, yellow of the outwards, 'inflicting on others' variety. The texture of the orange is a little off as well. Not exactly a desire coming from herself, not exactly one imposed from outside…

"Because if you're not, we can just do the smart thing and head back to the pool table." He pauses. "Or we can go somewhere and you can show me your tattoos."

I turn back to look at him and give a slight shake of my head. "I don't know, Dwayne. Maybe she's right. Maybe I am just that shallow."

He gives a slight wince, but carries on with the script anyway. "You're being too hard on yourself. She was just having a bad day. Just give her some time to calm down-."

"Hello Dwayne." Miss Smart's right behind me. Sounds like she's kept her original accent. Either that or she's done what I've done and accentuated it due to being surrounded by the colonials the whole time. "Who's your friend?"

"Ah, this is Paul. He's one of the people making sure John gets his flight this time."

"Ohhhhh." She walks around the side of me and confronts me with a perfect pout. Puts me in mind of something Buffy might have done. "And why do you think John deserves to be thrown off the planet? Is what he's done so bad?"

"I don't make policy, Miss..?"

"Call me Sally." They did say she didn't like being called Sara Smart ever, so that fits. She goes from pouting to winsome. "Are you sure you can't do anything about it? He's a really great guy."

No, it's like the blue half of her personality spectrum is just gone. That's really odd. "I'm sorry, Miss Sally-" She giggles. "-but the courts have made their decision. If he fills in a visa application properly I'm sure that his request will be considered the same as any applicant."

She leans her head against Dwayne's shoulder and I watch him tense up. "That's a real shame. I'll miss having him around."

That appears to be a genuine desire. I see-. Oh, goodness me. I suppose when you can't be hurt you can… A shapeshifter can reach places other people just can't. Seeing her essence like this makes the sensation rather more immediate than seeing a recording. I wonder if telepathy has the same effect on the user? "It's nice that he's got so many people willing to speak up for him."

"It really is." I just about manage to keep my face still. I saw red, but she doesn't..? It's just there, it isn't linked to anything. That doesn't make any sense! If I didn't know better I'd think it was getting piped into her from somewhere. "Say, I couldn't help overhearing you earlier. You said something about someone thinking that you're shallow?"

Yellow that time. I get a glimpse of a man's face and start running it through the ring's facial recognition program. "Oh, it's… Um, a friend of mine." I have the ring control my body language. 'Tough guy talking about something personal'. She's more likely to stay put if she smells blood in the water. "We had a… Well, a disagreement. I wasn't supposed to be working today… We had plans.. then.. this came up…"

"Oh, I'm sure your 'friend' is just annoyed. Have you tried calling her?" She blinks in surprise and then puts her right hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, you didn't say it was a girl friend."

"Yeah, it… She is." Her acting is superb. Talented or a result of forty years working in the industry?

Miss Smart looks around, over to where Kon and M'gann are keeping watch over Mister J'aarkn. "Not her, right? Or is it? I can go talk to her if you think it would help?"

"No, not her. But I appreciate the thought." My scans of the whistle aren't showing anything special but my scans of her are. Minute vibrations throughout her body. Sound as a conductive medium for a spell, maybe? That could work. Her brain isn't that of a sociopath. She should still be capable of emotionally engaging with people. Why isn't she?

"Hey, Dwayne,-" She straightens up and gives him a slight shove away. "-why don't you go get us a plate of crisps and some dip. This sounds like something Paul needs to get off his chest. I've always got a friendly ear for people in distress."

2nd January
10:12 GMT -8

Mister J'aarkn looks at me sceptically as we walk across the airfield. "So what you're saying is, she's literally incapable of feeling hope, compassion or love?"

"I.. think so? What I do isn't like telepathy, and I don't have a planet full of other people who can do it with whom I can compare notes."

"Can't say I'm completely surprised." He ponders this information for a moment. "Is there something wrong with her brain? I'm not her biggest fan but if there's a biological basis maybe she could get it fixed."

"Not that I could see. It's weird; I kept nudging her to try and get an emotional response, her brain was lighting up in the right places but it didn't generate the normal emotional responses."

The guards on duty outside the hangar activate the mechanism which causes the hangar doors to start opening. Mister J'aarkn turns to look through the doors. "I'm sympathetic, but since I'm leaving the planet it isn't really my problem anymore."

"I was just hoping you'd.. picked something up."

He shakes his head. "Telepaths shouldn't go poking around diseased minds. Not without special training." He catches sight of his Bio-Ship and raises his hands wide. "Ahh! My boy!" His Bio-Ship responds by tugging on its clamps. Missus Spencer nods and ground crew remove them, allowing it to drift forwards. "Heh. Don't tell anyone, but I'm actually pretty bad at telekinesis as well."

M'gann gives the ship a quick look over and then turns back to Mister J'aarkn. "Your shapeshifting is pretty advanced, though. You can change far faster than I can."

"Well. That's biology. I've studied that, and it's not like I've been fucking twenty four seven since I got here. You attending an Earth college?" M'gann hesitates for a moment, then nods. "So… You're about.. forty, right?"

She shuffles self consciously. "Twenty four."

He blinks. "You haven't finished school on Mars? Oh, that's.. not a good idea. Especially with how strong your mental abilities are."

"I'm.. getting tuition here."

He shifts his head to match the one Mister J'onzz normally uses. "Military school? Look, I'm sure he's a great guy but he isn't a teacher. Manhunters don't get taught a lot of things you might-."

"No, there's a.. Human telepath."

He nods his head to the side. "That's a bit better. Still seems…" He thinks for a moment. "You got a shapeshifting teacher?" M'gann shakes her head.

"If that's a problem, I could ask if the Chinese have a Durlan they're willing to lend us."

Kon frowns slightly. "Or how about Plastic Man? He's a shapeshifter."

"Those might be able to teach application, but they can't teach technique like another Martian can." Mister J'aarkn reaches into his bag. "Ah, what the hey. I was sort of thinking about doing this anyway." He pulls out the case containing his amulets, opens it and takes one out.

M'gann leans a way a little. "I'm not.. sure I want to touch that."

"Oh, no, no, no. This isn't my fun recording. On this-" He holds it up. "-is everything I've learned from shapeshifting Human bodies. And everything else. Twenty five years of practice from the point of view of someone with no small amount of skill if I do say so myself."

"I'm not sure I want your.. skills."

"You've got the shape right, but the nerve distribution? The internal structures? Hmm?" He looks at her levelly and she glances away. "You're dating an alien, Miss M'orzz. They have different stuff. Heh, and they do different stuff with it. And if you want to do stuff the way they do stuff… Well." He wiggles the pendant back and forth. "It'll be far easier than working it out on your own."

M'gann reaches out to take it, then hesitates. "Don't you need this? Your research…"

"It's fine, I got a backup. I may be going home now, but I plan on coming back here eventually. And I plan on trying to get other Martians to come here as well. And that'll be easier if you make a go of living here."

"The, um…" She reaches out and takes the amulet from him. "Thank you."

"No sweat." He closes the case and returns it to his bag as his Bio-Ship drifts up to us.

Kon looks from him to the Bio-Ship. "If you're bad at telekinesis.. do you need me to lift you up?"

"I can float you up?"

"Nah. May as well leave the way I arrived. Katie, you wanted to see what Martians really look like."

"Not partic-."

"Like this." His body grows and reshapes, looking like… A green version of M'gann's true form. **Behold my majesty!** He spreads his arms wide. I think he's a little bit bigger than M'gann and he's noticeably more upright. The bits that are pale purple on M'gann are a slightly darker green on him. For some reason I expect his customary paunch to still be there in this form, but obviously it isn't. **Well? What d'yah think?**

Missus Spencer looks him over while I look towards the fence where the few news people who actually turned up are trying to get him in focus. "I'm underwhelmed."

**Curses! Foiled again!** He puts his right hand on the hull of his Bio-Ship and a portal opens to the interior. **Oooooh kaaaaay. Wish me luck.** He puts both hands on the lip of the opening and tries to pull himself up. Long arms: excellent reach, not so great for exerting force. We let him struggle for ten seconds before M'gann takes pity on him and lifts him up with telekinesis. He takes a moment to find his feet and then turns around to look back down. **Thanks. I was about to ask for a Martian friendly step ladder. How far up does American airspace go again?**

"Jackson!"

**Kidding. Kidding. Okay, here I go.** He disappears inside and the hole closes up.

Missus Chambers watches the Bio-Ship carefully. "Orange Lantern. You can fly in space, right?"

"Yes, but I'm not spending the next week escorting him to Mars the slow way if that's what you're about to ask."

"No, but-"

The Bio-Ship jerks in the air then drops to just above the ground. **Whoops! Had the damn thing in reverse.**

"-I'd like you to make sure he at least gets out of the atmosphere. I want him to go home, but even more than that I want this case off my desk."

"I suppose… Kon, M'gann, you alright getting home?"

Kon looks at M'gann and then back at me. "Actually, we thought we might spend the day here. Maybe fly up to San Francisco? Do some sight seeing?"

I nod. "Alright then. I'll just-" Mister J'aarkn's Bio-Ship tilts front end upwards and then accelerates into the sky, much to the excitement of the crowd on the far side of the fence. "-keep an eye on him. If you want me to pick you up when you're finished, you know how to get hold of me."

"Right, thanks. Um." Kon looks at M'gann, who's staring at the amulet in her hands. "You really going to use that?"

"I think I'll get Uncle J'onn to check that it's safe first. And not full of… You know."

"Good idea. Now, if you'll excuse me?" A nod from Kon and a wave from M'gann and I rise into the air before accelerating after Mister J'aarkn's ship. This shouldn't take all that long, but I don't want to turn into a permanent third wheel. Maybe Zatanna and I can get the work on the Fortress in after all?

3rd January
06:29 GMT +8

When I first visited the Great Ten I did so by appearing at their headquarters in the Great Wall complex. The name is a bit of a misnomer; while the facility is close to the famous world heritage site with which it shares its name it isn't located in the structure itself. Even if it was somehow practical to dig into the ancient structure the cultural ministry would have gone berserk. Rather, the facility is located in the Ordos Desert in Shaanxi Province on the grounds that unlike a major tourist hotspot no one had any reason to go there.

But that isn't where we're meeting today. The Dragonwing operates out of Anshan Airbase in Liaoning Province and with the death of Captain Han on Friday the place is buzzing with all of the scientists who will be involved in the process of bonding his successor to the craft. Given my positive working relationship with the Chinese authorities I was the one tasked with returning their ship to them and I took the opportunity to make them an offer. Father Box's files on Durlan technology are sadly deficient, and those I took from Jordan's ring were rather lacking in detail as well. In return for all data they possess on Durlan technology I would endeavour to make the next Immortal Man's name more than an empty boast.

I stand on the far side of the hush tube's portal which opens into the north most interior wall of General Yen's office. I can see in but while they know I'm here they can't see out. General Yen is sitting at his desk while Chairman Jiang stands just behind him to his right. The general isn't actually a direct part of the Great Ten project. He doesn't have authority over their personnel once they transfer over from the air force, but as a practical matter he has to be involved in matters like this as one of his responsibilities is locating and training potential future Immortal Men. When Captain Han died there were six highly skilled and trained hopefuls waiting to jump into his suit, but until they do they're air force and they answer to Yen. The pilots on this base are also the ones called upon to give air support to the Great Ten's Xeno-Teams, though they usually aren't authorised to actually know what they're shooting at.

There's a knock on the door. The general just manages to avoid looking in my direction before straightening himself up slightly. "Come!" The door is opened from the far side and our preferred candidate marches through. Literally marches, legs and arms moving in a way which looks quite unnatural. Captain Chen is wearing black trousers and the Type Seven blue jacket, and he looks neither left nor right nor down as he approaches the desk, stamps to a halt and salutes the general. Yen returns it and Chen stands rigidly to attention.

Yen waves his right hand. "At ease, Captain." Without lowering his gaze at all, Chen shifts to the precise regulation definition of 'at ease'. Yen doesn't wince, but he does use his eye movement to convey that he thinks his subordinate is being ridiculous. He looks behind the captain and nods at one of the guards outside the room, who closes the door. Yen takes a breath and focuses his attention on Chen. "As you are no doubt by now aware, Captain Han -the serving Immortal Man in Darkness- has died. Though you are not currently cleared to hear the details of 'how', his funeral will be on Tuesday. Obviously your attendance is mandatory." Chen doesn't move or otherwise give any sign of having heard.

Chairman Jiang's eyes narrow slightly. "Captain Chen, the Great Ten project already has a robot. It does not need another."

Chen's eyes widen fractionally. "I apologise, Comrade Chairman." Oh? I hadn't realised he was gay. "I merely wish-."

Yen shakes his head. "We didn't make our decision on the basis of how well you can stand up straight." Chen starts to tilt his head to look at him, then catches himself and stops. "Yes, that means what it sounded like. You have been selected as the late Captain Han's successor."

Chen barely moves, but his heart rate increases and his brain is moving into full happy mode. Now that he has confirmation of what he was hoping for he allows himself to actually look at his superiors. "Sir, if I may ask..?" They both nod at him. "Captain Han has not been seen on base since Thursday. How long..?"

"Friday."

"I… Forgive me, but is there a reason why I have not begun the bonding process already? The records on the previous pilots indicated that it can take several weeks to adjust to the Dragonwing's control system."

Yen picks up one of the dossiers on his desk. "Colonel Li Lok, the Dragonwing's first pilot. A highly decorated officer, perhaps the best in the air force at the time. Even with what we knew about Durlan technology from our previous encounters he lasted a mere eight months." He pushes the dossier aside and takes the next one in the pile. "Major Li Yi. No relation. With the radiation treatment and the new interface designed with what we'd learned from the Qinghai Incident, he lasted a little under two years before undergoing the same meltdown you saw Captain Wei undergo on the day you first arrived."

"I understand that, sir. We all do. It is a price which any of us would be willing to pay."

"But would it not be better-" I step through the portal. His head snaps around and he instinctively reaches for a sidearm he isn't carrying. "-if you didn't have to?" Chen looks to his superiors for some sort of direction but they remain impassive. "You are expensive, Captain Chen. Your education up to this point, all of the fuel and munitions expended while you learned to fly. And the time it takes to get a man to your level of ability!" I take a few steps towards him. "To say nothing of getting to the point at which you are skilled enough with the Dragonwing itself to be let out on missions with it."

"Captain Chen." Chen tears his eyes away from me and looks at Jiang. "The intent of the Standing Committee on Metahuman Affairs on this matter is to move to a situation where it is no longer necessary for us to sacrifice our brave servicemen in order to use the alien 'Dragon Wing' vessel. Mister Grayven has offered to assist us in the improvement of the pilot interface system. To that end he has been granted high level access to our records-" And they were actually surprisingly honest about that. "-concerning our encounters with the Durlan menace. You may speak freely in front of him."

Chen nods before looking me over once more. "I believe I have read your file."

"Did they get my good side for the pictures?"

"What is not in the copy you read-" We both turn to look at Jiang. "-is that Grayven is the person who handed the Roanoke Island criminals over to us."

"My pleasure."

Chen looks puzzled. "I understood that he…" He turns his head in my direction. "That you were working with the Justice League."

"I am. But those four needed to die. China had the means and the will where the League did not."

Yen looks up at me. "Have you had any success in tracking down the last of them? Klarion, I think his name is?"

"Mmm. Some. Work in progress." Tracking him down is simplicity itself; Nabu has shared a spell with Zatanna that would almost certainly draw him out. The trick is finding a way to harm the bastard.

"He is also the main reason why Celestial Archer is on detached duty at present. Grayven has the confidence of the Committee in this matter."

Chen nods. "What is required of me?"

I point at a clipboard on General Yen's desk. "When you sign the documents relating to your transfer, there's a section on 'technological, biological and xenotechnological' modifications. They added a page authorising arcane alterations. Sign it and we can get started."

"Arcane?" He frowns. "Magic?"

"Both alchemical and.. modifications to the structure of your soul. Simply making you tougher wouldn't extend your lifespan due to how the Durlan picotechnology works. Increasing your ability to regenerate the damage they cause would, but it might interfere with your ability to make an interface at all."

"So what will you do?"

"To begin with I will simply monitor what happens during the interface process. Durlan technology is advanced but essentially mundane. There's no reason to suppose at this stage that I wouldn't be able to simply remove it entirely from your body and then reset you to remove any lingering damage."

"Then I would have to restart the bonding from nothing."

"Yes. Far from ideal. What I'm aiming to do is a little more sophisticated. In fact I.. don't think I can explain it fully in a Human language. By modifying the layout of your soul I should be able to fool the universe into not allowing the interface to harm you. I make no promises; it may well take several attempts before I can get it to work as intended."

"My service to China comes first. But… I have no great love of the idea of my time as Immortal Man ending with my body liquefied." He turns to the desk. "Sir? May I?" Yen nods and Chen picks up the paperwork. "Sirs, if I may ask: what does he get out of this?"

Jiang looks a little less disapproving. "As well as access to our data, Grayven will be working with volunteers from our Xeno-Teams on systems of further Human augmentation."

"The Justice League have proven… Reluctant, to embrace my methods. Fortunately for me the People's Republic is a little more.. far sighted."

2nd January
23:23 GMT

The fluorescent tube on the ceiling blinks and splutters as we stand in the small corrugated iron warehouse. Solidly constructed shelving runs around three walls, separated from the area John and I are standing in by what looks like a fairly heavy duty ward drawn in white paint on the floor. The shelving is three levels high, though presently only a small part of the shelves to our right have anything on them.

"Look, mate… I don't think it's working."

Each dead mouse has a little Nabu helmet, and is positioned in a protective circle decorated with an ankh. The circles on each shelf are connected in serial by copper wires which then go down the supports at each end to the focal point: Nabu's skull.

"We can't know that for sure."

"I think he'da done something if it was. He been back to Bialya since we visited?"

"Not as far as I know. " I shrug. "I can't monitor him the whole time. You're sure that the scry wards are working?"

"Since we're not up to our necks in golden ankhs? Yeah, they're working."

I study the room for a few moments. "The basic set-up's working though, right?"

John nods. "Anyone touching that wire would be in for the shock of their lives."

"Okay, we can't measure its effectiveness against him directly. Can we?" He shakes his head. "How long have we got the warehouse for?"

"I paid for a month."

"Money really isn't an issue. Would a different animal work better?"

John thinks for a moment. "Zoroastrians consider Dogs to be orderly." I wince. "Don't suppose you could scrounge up a Lamassu from somewhere?"

"Probably not, and I draw the line at intelligent beings. If there's power in the circuit, it's got to be going somewhere, right?"

"Could be loss in transmission. Or maybe we're just not getting through his defences."

"I thought the bones-."

He throws his hands up. "I know, alright! It should be, but it isn't." He shakes his head and takes out a cigarette. "Look, it's your money. We can keep this place going long as you want. I've got something else I need to work on for a week or so, but any idiot can do the physical stuff. Circle, ankh, dead thing, wire."

I nod. "I'm going to assume that it is working, just not enough to affect him visibly as yet." I take another look around the macabre set-up. "I can fill this up without it being a problem?"

"Yeah-. Well, the shelves, yeah. Don't just dump stuff all over the floor."

"Wasn't planning to." I look up to the ventilation system, where my -and Lantern Stewart's- contribution is humming quietly to itself. "Is the air purification system working?"

"Can you smell anything?"

"No, but my environmental shield tends to block out-."

"No, it's working fine. How long 'till we need to change the filters?"

"If all it's doing is absorbing gasses, a couple of years. Carbon chemistry's a universal constant. That'll get cut down if you keep huffing ash into it, though." He moves the lighter away from his cigarette. "This other project you've got going on. Anything I can help with?"

"Don't think so, mate. Bit of a get together of magicians, investigating some odd happenings. Doubt anything much'll happen and I've got your number if it does."

"Okay, but if it does? Don't hesitate, alright." He nods. "How was Tasmania?"

"Fucking miserable. Got to see a death camp through the eyes of one of the guards. Angie had to talk to the ghosts of the victims."

I tilt my head slightly to the side. "I'm not an expert or anything, but when you take your girlfriend on holiday somewhere, aren't you meant to go somewhere.. nice?"

He turns and walks towards the door. "Maybe I think it's fair warning. Not a lot of lounging on the beach going on in my life."

I follow on behind him. "You don't need to tell me how dangerous your life is. Maybe you just shouldn't go out with normal people?"

"She kept it together alright-" He turns the handle and pushes the door open. "-and we got the information." I follow him out and he closes the door behind us. "Might even have helped a few ghosts escape their death dream."

"Are any of the people you're calling in to help likely to be willing to help us with our problem?"

He gives me a humourless grin as he locks the door. "I'm a bit sceptical about them being willing to help me."

"I can bribe better than you. Plus, they don't hate me already."

"I'm told that helps." He thinks for a moment. "Nat Kuhn might be able to improve the rig we're using here. Alba's basically one of your lot already. She never knew Giovanni and I'm not sure where she'd stand on Nabu." He shrugs. "I don't think any of them have anything essential."

"What about Map?"

"He's handy, no question there. Why single him out?"

"Worst case… Second worst case scenario. We can't find a way to remove Nabu peacefully or easily and have to fight him while he's still at or near full power. He can teleport. How do we keep him in one place so we can hit him?"

John lights his cigarette as he thinks about it. "There's ways of messing up someone's perception. Not sure how we could hit him with a spell he couldn't.. just…" He pauses. "Ah, fuck me. Map could cover all of London. You want to fight him here."

"I don't want to fight him at all. But if you can't think of somewhere better…"

"Bloody going to try." He leads the way down the path back towards the main road. "What's the worst case scenario, then?"

"Nabu finds out what we're doing and picks us off one by one as 'chaotic influences'. We still don't know what he did with the people he picked up on Roanoke. Or Onomatopoeia."

"Can't say I'm all that worried about what happens to mass murderers."

"It's the principle. Superheroes get leeway because they follow certain rules. Even Batman hands the people he catches over to the police for trial and sentencing. If someone in the Justice League has decided that they aren't happy with the status quo, if they want to start handing out punishment themselves…"

"Again, bunch of arseholes."

"Yeah, that's why I'm not kicking off about it already. But our society assumes that justice works in a particular way. If we let anyone have that sort of power, and there's no.. established and agreed on procedure for that to happen, then it's an arbitrary use of unaccountable power by someone who's doing it because they can." He doesn't look convinced. "You heard Nabu; you're a chaotic influence. You want him coming after you? Or your friends or family because they've been influenced?"

"Who watches the watchmen?"

"Everyone. And they have a rather depressing tendency to take their lead from us."

"What about when you do it, then?"

"Citizen's arrest, technically." He opens his mouth to make a smart response and I put up my hands. "I know I've been the beneficiary of that slack. That's why I try hard not to overstep. But I honestly think that Nabu considers himself the highest possible authority already, and.. that… Doesn't bode well for the rest of us."