Yue

21st October

21:08 GMT -6

Wallace has the doors open in a trice and I'm a split second behind him, armour appearing from subspace around my body. M'gann shimmers into invisibility as she takes to the sky while Beryl and Kaldur hold back slightly. M'gann and I could try phasing through the wall but there are technologies which can interfere with that and I don't particularly feel like doing a repeat of the Louvre.

Instead, I generate a giant crumbler gauntlet construct and slam it into the exterior wall!

Teleport jam, external communications jam… Brick, metal and plastics lose molecular cohesion instantly, the illusion covering the interior failing a moment later and revealing…

A lot of surprised people on forklift trucks.

Wallace blurs through the opening, keys vanishing from ignitions in his wake as I use my ring to scan the interior. Looks like a computer warehouse. High-end stuff, but nothing illegal. Of course, this might be a legitimate operation. The building stealth isn't illegal by itself, and neither is time travel in the US.

"Hey, what the hell is this?!"

Her badge says 'supervisor', and she's first to snap out of the shock. I ignore her, heading for the ceiling with another crumbler gauntlet construct. Because the thing about stealth technology is -crumble- that just because you can't see it, that doesn't mean that it isn't there. Out through the roof, into the night sky… Which stays night sky. Construct rotary blades, spin them through the area just in case there's an invisible carbuncle on some other part of the roof…

**Roof clear.**

**Ground floor clear.**

**They don't know anything. As far as they know, they ship in raw materials and ship out computer products.**

I feel Kaldur nod. **And those in the know are most likely management, working the day shift. Take as detailed a map of the interior from their minds as you can.**

**Done.**

I drop back through the hole in the roof as the supervisor works out that the man in the grey/blue armour is in charge. "Hey, I'm talking to y-!"

Kaldur waves his water-bearers and water envelops her before turning into ice. Kaldur approaches her as the rest of us receive M'gann's map in our minds.

"Please remain calm. We work for the Justice League and are searching for a group of assassins."

"And by 'calm'-" Beryl walks forwards with a large bundle of handcuffs. "-we mean get over here so we can cuff you."

A few turn and dash for the exits. M'gann becomes visible in front of one exit, her white-glowing eyes and telekinetically levitated pallets being more than enough to convince them that it's a bad idea. The ones heading for the fire exit reach it, only to find that it's been gummed shut.

"Borrowed that from my girlfriend." Wallace appears behind them, cuffs in hand. "Probably a fire hazard, so don't smoke anything for the next hour or two."

Hm. Based on the map M'gann took, this place appears to just be a manufacturing site. Not that we can rely on that…

**Aqualad, do we check out the production area first, or shall I start smashing the floor?**

Beryl and Wallace start applying cuffs as Kaldur thinks it over. **We will examine production first. You have point.**

I drop down, forming a new crumbler gauntlet construct as I do so. At this point there's no way we're going to disguise our general location, but experience has shown me that bypassing doorways wrongfoots a lot of people and bypasses a lot of traps. I strike the wall with the gauntlet and it disintegrates, revealing a dimly lit electronics laboratory. The lights blink on automatically as I enter and I get a good look at the equipment. Oh, that's interesting.

**Looks like they're using nano-forges.**

**Really? Are those what I think they are?** Wallace feels as interested as I am. **Practical molecular construction machines?**

**Yes.**

**Are those from the future?**

I hear the uncertainty in Kaldur's mental voice. He's far better with technology than most Atlanteans, but it still isn't a topic he's anything like as conversant on as the.. rest of us.

I'm thinking of us as a team again. That's.. rather nice.

**Difficult to say. It's a generation prior to what Doctor Roquette is working on, but I'm not aware of any Earth company that has them. Especially not this size and speed.**

**Do they present a danger?**

**Not to our mission, no. And.. on the off chance that they are fairly developed technology that the people here were keeping secret for some reason… They'd be very expensive to replace.**

**Then do not interrupt their operation. What are they making?**

**Bleeding edge quantum CPUs. Again, not definite proof of time travel, though... Suspicious. Miss Martian, did the employees suspect anything about this?**

**A few of them thought that there was something odd about the machines, but none of them really thought much about it.**

I spin orange strands around the room, but nothing is other than as it appears. **Room is secure. Moving on.**

Another wall, another destructive high five, another hole. Same.. basic layout, same systems… Same lack of booby traps. **Next room clear as well. Appears to be producing…** Ah. **Difficult to say for certain. Not circuitry. This stuff could be used in some models of phased particle weapon, but equally it could be used in a number of other high-end physics research devices.**

**They got contracts to supply things like that?**

I can feel Wallace's curiosity. And I just know that he and Richard would love to play with these things for a while.

**Not that I've been able to find. Also, they need better network security.**

**Time to remove the floor?**

**Not quite yet. Squire, are there any abnormalities in the floor plan?**

**No-. Wait. Maybe. They had an underground car park dug out… But it looks like they used too many lorries to move the earth they dug out away.**

**You think that they dug out more than they declared?**

**Not for certain, but if we're digging out the basement anyway…**

I crumble the floor beneath my feet and drop through the-.

**That's not on the plans. I just dropped through a radiation suppression system of a similar type to the one in Washington. Floor's thicker too.** I crumble again, this time breaking through to a new corridor. Dropping down the hole I take a look around. **This isn't on the plans and doesn't look twenty-first century.**

Actually, the solid metal with blinking diodes looks sci-fi retro, what someone in the fifties might have imagined the nineties would look like.

**I'd appreciate some support before I proceed further-.**

"Intruder detected. Initiating countermeasures."