Star City
August 1, 9:15
"How goes the treatment?" I asked Dr. Stone.
Today was a Sunday, and while none of us were religious, it was the norm to spend it in some form of non-spiritual practice or plain relaxation. Mainly as a brief respite from the rigors of work while doubling as a vague bracing of the self for the misery filled nature of the next day.
On my end, I didn't care much for the weekend because I was never off work. Sure, I took things a tad bit slower on the measly two days, but I never stopped working. And that happened to be the case for Dr. Stone.
Frankly, it was a bit hard to not think of how many times I'd seen the story of him and his son play out on screen. It always involved him being too busy with work and ignoring his son and the latter's football career as a result.
Victor Stone existed here, and if things continued on this trajectory—that is, if my mere presence and radical actions hadn't sent a million wild butterflies into the timestream—his rebirth into Cyborg would happen eventually.
This begged the question; do I outright tell Silas Stone this? Describe these details to him so he'd be a better parent? Well, let's just say, that desire didn't exist, and I couldn't even force myself to manifest it.
Not only was it meddling in where I hadn't been invited (something I certainly loved to do), I felt… if you as a parent, needed to be told how bad you would mess up in the future just so you could do your job properly in the present, maybe just maybe, you shouldn't be a parent.
And that thought right there was why I couldn't bring myself to care. Just because I'd watched some shows and movies didn't mean I had the right to judge someone on such a serious topic. So I threw away this useless tangent.
Dr. Stone would waddle his way into the minefield of butchered family dynamics and learn from it or go back to the way he was. As for letting his son get hurt or even possibly die due to the messy nature of butterfly effects, I had already taken measures against that.
The man himself I didn't care to correct, but his son I would protect. Besides, I could heal any wound and even bring the dead to life. When the time for his "Cyborgification" rolled over (if it did) then I'd step in.
For now, I'd keep my relationship with his father professional.
"Mr. Hagen appears to be taking to it well," replied Dr. Stone from behind a console. Connected to it by a series of cables was the transparent prison holding the monstrous, muddy form of Clayface.
Unlike when I first met him, he seemed calm, though that may just be the prison. There were options to disable sound and it seemed the good doctor had them on. Hagen wasn't moving at this moment though, just sitting… or was that standing? I guess having no defined form made labeling parts hard.
Anyway, his current form was a singular mass instead of the normal humanoid shape he could assume and manipulate to move around. A part of me almost pitied him when I remembered what my basic detective worked had pieced together about his condition.
Sadly for him, that same story took away this slight ounce of sympathy.
Before he went missing several months ago, Mr. Hagen received a terminal diagnosis. He had cancer and the disease had long run its course.
Being a member of the League of Assassins, he'd of course heard of the fountain of youth their glorious leader had used to come back to life enough times for him to believe the legend.
Desperate and possessing everything he needed to go through with his plan, Mr. Hagen launched a seduction campaign on Talia al Ghul and actually "bagged her" as the kids would say these days.
As a matter of fact, Ra's memories made it clear that the old man disapproved of their relationship, but Talia had fought so hard for his assent that he'd given in just to make her happy.
What a guy!
Stuff like this is what vindicates me about certain tropes in anime that draw criticism from the "yOu WatCH anIMe?" people. Because I don't believe if Hagen knew for a fact he was going to die, it would never cross his mind that maybe he had a chance with the daughter of Ra's al Ghul.
His story and success was the literal rendition of a toad lusting after swan meat.
Being on the verge of death had definitely given him some crazy confidence for him to even attempt this, much less pull it off. Unfortunately for him, this was real life, where the consequences of a regular person's actions never ever failed to arrive.
With her father's blessing, Talia, I assumed, had gone to share the news with the love of her life. This is where again, I assumed, Hagen's luck ran out. Because, crazy in love or not, Talia was the daughter of a demon, and that side of her, beaten down by high school girl infatuation or real feelings(I wasn't certain about this part), didn't simply vanish into the ether.
Upon asking to see the Lazarus Pit or maybe even telling her the truth of his condition outright, Talia must've had a light bulb brain moment about the entire relationship, seeing it from an entirely different perspective.
This is where I think the hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn came into play. And I trusted my gut on this part wholeheartedly due to Talia's strange reaction when I mentioned Clayface on that day.
She must've led him to the pit, helped him into it with a smile on her face and then sealed him shut inside of it. It was the only thing that made sense, that explained Hagen's drastic change from his movie star looks and physique to, well, mud monster.
The fact that his clay body was suffused with countless Dionesium microparticles told me my hunch was right on the money. Hagen had gotten more than what he bargained for and Talia well, I'm sure the vengeful part of her felt his punishment appropriate for the deception.
Imagining Hagen's torment sent a slight shiver down my spine. Dying and coming back to life over and over and over. Because fountain of youth or not, the pit consisted of a liquid, and humans couldn't breath that.
This incessant death and rebirth, the presence of the mutative Dionesium (according to Tech-Adapting, it could activate metahuman powers with the right application), and the soil at the bottom of the pit, had given birth to the scene behind the prison/hospital cell before me.
"Don't worry," I said upon noticing a vague head rise out of the messy blob. "You'll be fine."
The head just kept staring at me and I left, heading for Dr. Stone.
"The Dionesium particles are being gathered," he gestured at the bottle sized glass tube slotted in a port on the console. "It should be done soon."
"Good," I nodded. "It's going to take a while for us to get them all though," I glanced behind me at Hagen. "And we're not sure if it will fix his problems."
The chamber holding Hagen had some sonic scanners built in to vibrate the mutative particles out of him. We could've ignored ethics and cranked it all the way up, but that would mean subjecting him to incredible pain and even possibly killing him.
"One step at a time Mr. Rath. Rome was not built in a day."
"Hm… I'll take your word for it. Let's focus on something else. The mice. How're things going?"
I already knew of course, courtesy of my invisible hooks in the facility's security systems and the boatload of bugs I had all over the place.
Dr. Stone started for the door leading out the room and I flanked him, matching his stride.
"There were some complications with the first batch, but we managed to figure out the problem and rectify it. Truthfully, the technology you shared with us is what saved the day. It is unbelievably precise and thorough. The biometrics of the mice pre and post transformation are completely identical. We're still working to compare their genetic differences of course, but I am confident in the results."
"That's good to hear. When do human trials start?"
"Not anytime soon I'm afraid. This is the thing with science. Once we have a theory or method that works, we have to test and try to disprove it in any which way possible. When it has survived everything we can throw at it, then we can take that step."
"Huh… that's a tidbit of knowledge I did not have. Thanks for sharing it."
Actually I did, but I only found out some weeks ago when I wanted to spread the Cyberpunk medical advancements over the internet like they were confetti.
"Please, I should be the one thanking you."
True to his nature as a workaholic, Dr. Stone was the only scientist present in the entire facility. I was only here to make a quick stop to check in on Hagen, maintain the illusion of getting an update on the Kobra brute cure, and simply look around.
In his generosity, Dr. Stone had given me access to view some of the catalog they'd collected over the years. None of them were new to me as I'd seen and read everything the scientists had put down about them.
This tour was just a cursory glance while I debated on whether to bring the doctor in on the secrets I'd discovered about some members of his workforce.
In a world where someone like Lex Luthor existed, handing over something as dangerous and groundbreaking as the biological reconstruction tech felt like asking a python to make your ceiling their home.
Been there, done that. Trust me, it was not a fun time.
That bald bastard would not be able to resist getting his grubby hands on it. If he could go far enough to make his own versions of the hero he loathed so much, a person who lived and breathed and had his own agency, what would he do with technology? An inorganic, inanimate thing?
That question did not need answering. A background search and surveillance campaign the likes of which had never been done had been conducted on every personnel member that worked in this facility before I handed over the flesh changing tech.
There were a few eyebrow raising things, but only one of them satisfied the condition I gave to Mike.
One of the scientists was on someone's payroll, and that someone was connected to another someone that answered to Luthor, as convoluted as that thread was. Apparently, the bastard had pulled the strings behind the scenes to get her this job.
She didn't have to do much, just give him some small tip offs on certain tech he was eyeballing or offer some much needed insight on the Light's thefts from their facilities.
Those couldn't even be traced back to her because S.T.A.R. Labs had facilities all over the state. All she needed to do was use her higher clearance to take a peek at some of the stuff going on in other branches (something that wasn't suspicious in the slightest due to her status as a scientist) and pass on what Luthor's goons needed to execute perfect crimes.
Needless to say, I'd had multiple eyes on her since we rooted this out. On the subject of the cure, I didn't doubt that Luthor would relay what she fed him to Savage.
So either they'd sabotage the cure, steal the tech, and destroy every trace of the research in one go, or launch their attack before we had a working cure and then do all the things listed above.
This necessitated some action from me. We needed to have a working sample asap. Because whether the attack happened or not, the Light had the means to create an army of super strong and super tough nuts.
However, in order to develop said sample without anyone being the wiser, I needed Dr. Stone to be onboard. He needed to be aware of the moles in his court and play the part of the oblivious one.
How he could possibly do that after I gave him this revelation gave me a mountain of doubt. Because unknown to Dr. Faulkner, Luthor's every willing mole, her boss had started making moves to secure himself another pair of eyes and hands in this branch.
People had started to sniff around the son of a janitor that worked here, the former of which attended college in another state. I had no doubt those were Luthor's goons. And though something told me they weren't going to act anytime soon, when they did, it would be fast.
That cure needed to be done yesterday.
Looks like I had no choice but to bring the good doctor in my little secret.
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Undisclosed Location
August 5, 13:03
The problem with people like Godiva—able to mind control others and fully willing to do it to anyone—was that capturing and imprisoning them didn't spell the end of things. Simply shutting them up(both physically and mentally) didn't suddenly undo all the damage they'd done.
In fact, this was the precise reason the intelligence community had done their utmost to bury any info on her and watch her (when they could) from afar. Because they'd closed in on her before, and she'd gone scorched earth, activating the sleeper agents she had in their ranks and among the civilian population.
This harrowing reality had been confirmed by the improved interrogation tool I used in screening the new recruits. By slapping an inhibitor collar around her neck and grilling her, Godiva had given me the answers to every question myself and the intelligence community wanted answered.
Not that she did it willingly of course. The woman spent most of the interrogation yelling curses and calling me a dog, but that was the beauty of the Veritas device. Whether you verbally answered a question or not, it would produce results, results that were more accurate than false.
Using the new piece of intel, we kept up appearances by sending her sleeper agents the daily check-ins they knew to look for. Without these, whatever dastardly fallbacks she'd given them would be executed, and we couldn't have that.
With this, we'd gotten everything we could possibly get from her. It was time to hand her over to the one who pointed me in her direction in the first place.
"Admiral," I greeted and shook the man's hand.
"Mr. Rath. I will say this now. I like a good joke like any other man. But so help me god if this—"
I cut him off with a laugh and wave at the non-descript van behind me. He and the armed men he arrived with followed my gaze and caught the sight of a masked Lyla and Ostojic dragging the bound and gagged Godiva out of the back.
"Well I'll be damned," remarked Olsen, his head following the trio as they got closer. "You know I didn't expect you to find her, much less deliver her to me."
"I suspected as much, but you know," I stuck my hand in my greatcoat pockets and hunched my shoulders in shrugging motion. "First impressions and all that."
The admiral waved for his men to take the prisoner and went for a handshake. "Consider me impressed then."
"What about the men and women who fell prey to her abilities? There are some serious security concerns here. Not just for the U.S. Government but for the whole world."
"Way ahead of you," I handed the man a storage drive. "That is a list of everyone in the country currently under her control, whether they know it or not."
"This country?"
"The others will receive theirs after this. I suggest you make haste and contact the Justice League before they do, unless… you want to wait in line."
I used the Soulsword to free the thralls in Godiva's mansion. The rest of her thralls in other places, unfortunately, would not have that privilege. They would have to be catered to by Wonder Woman and Manhunter.
At least until I had a working prototype of the technological Soulsword.
"…You've given me a lot to think about," the admiral stared at the device before pocketing it. He went for another handshake. "Thank you once again. You've done this nation a great service."
"Thank you too for giving me the opportunity."
We then said our goodbyes and then parted ways.
Godiva would end up in Belle Reve after some not so fun days in a black site while Shield grew a few steps closer to securing a meeting at the Pentagon.
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