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Thanks to Psyckosama and Skitzyfrenic for helping with this chapter. Chapter 12 The baking California sun sat high in the eternal summer sky of Night City. Its reflection glinted off the waters of Morro Bay and the glass towers of the city with blinding brightness. This ancient ball of fire also washed out much of the Neons Lights of Night City; a reminder that despite all of the actions man had wrought on the world for good or ill, there were some things beyond their reach still. With few stupid enough to actively stare at the sun, none noticed the small quadcopter flying in from the southeast. Nothing more than a typical delivery drone, one of the tens of thousands that could be seen flitting about the better parts of town, it was of course, completely out of place in Pacifica as it buzzed its way towards the small field of plants growing in the formerly asphalt-covered parking lot of the Grand Imperial Mall, using the sun as cover. Tartan-clad guards surrounded the walled plot but u...

 

  "Hallo?" Ms Brauer doesn't have a secret identity, but sometimes using someone's nom de héroïque is appropriate anyway. It indicates that you treat their work seriously, rather than thinking of them as some kind of costumed lunatic. Who isn't also doing a decent job. But this is out of hours. She's not on the job, and calling her 'Donner' might make her think this is some sort of emergency… Ah, just sidestep it. "Hi, Orange Lantern here. Are you busy?" "I can talk. Have you found another one of us?" Not in the way you're asking. "No, I… Actually need to ask a favour. We just had a hole to a parallel universe open in near-Earth orbit. A woman came through, and she's… Having a bit of culture shock. You're… She knows their version of you, and… Nearly no one else here has a direct equivalent. Are you willing to meet her?" "What sort of parallel universe?" I wince inwardly. "Your parents would proba...

 18th February 13:00 GMT Beryl catches the newly relaunched Dairy Milk with Biscuit as she walks across the battlements of Sheldrake Castle, smiling as she realises what it is. "How was the moon?" "Grey, dusty, in orbit around the Earth. Usual moon stuff." "You know it's technically a dwarf planet." "The barycentre is under the Earth's surface. If it wants to be its own planet then it's free to leave. Ready?" "Yes, let's get this-" I attach a filament to her head and transition- 18th February 07:00 GMT -6 -us to the St Roche zeta tube. While I could have gone right to Mount Justice -it's not like our principal enemies don't know exactly what we use it for- I feel that a minimal effort to keep random tourists from visiting all the time is worthwhile. "-show on the road." She steps lightly into the zeta tube- "Recognized, Squire, B One Five." -and I follow her through. 18th February 08:01 GMT -5...

 17th February 00:57 GMT -5 Ah, man. It's like I've tripped and fallen into the sixties. Naturally, any piece of supervillain paraphernalia that's simply a weapon has to be decommissioned. But now that they're actually doing their jobs the police have to be able to train new recruits on the sorts of things that the mad men, mad women and mad others who inhabit Gotham might use, and since they don't actually want to kill the rookies... Novelty vehicles from brightly painted cars to parade floats and a couple of aircraft, example costumes and mundane devices with cunningly concealed secret compartments and enough ridiculous costumes to make Elton John have a heart attack. "So… Like…" The night custodian looks like someone who thought that this job wasn't going to actually involve much actual work. "What are you actually looking for?" "Honestly? An excuse to go home for the night." I take out a rune stone and walk towards the nearest p...

 17th February 00:33 GMT -5 Detective Bullock ambles ahead of us through the Gotham Police headquarters. "Jeez, don't you kids ever sleep?" Robin shrugs. "You're awake too." Despite the weight I've taken off him during our altercations, Bullock hasn't altered his gait or style of dress. Has he..? Not noticed? No. No. "I get paid overtime. An' anyway, I'll take time off later. Things are going crazy t'night." "Tell me about it." He stops just outside the CCTV room, looking back my way. "Some nut job nearly took out the Breed Building." "It looked structurally unsound to me. Also, I think that might cause your job to become a little easier." "I doubt it." He pushes the door open and nods at the people manning the screens. A WayneTech experimental pattern recognition system, it's supposed to be able to detect crimes and notify police faster than someone can phone 911. And it… Kind of work...

  8th February 13:55 GMT A crowd is gathering around the main entrance to the palace as King Myand'r and Queen Luand'r proceed out, looking up as-. The supplicant goes to the one in the position of power. They're about to fly up to me, and that won't do at all. Instead, I transition down onto the step a short distance in front of them and bow. Not a full ninety degree job, that would probably be a bit much. But fifty degrees is fine for a national hero and senior Lantern when faced with the local monarchs. "Your majesties." I can hear a murmur from the crowd as Luand'r puts her right hand on my right shoulder. "Orange Lantern, you have no need to abase yourself before us." I straighten, smiling. Since I'm a few steps down from them, my head is slightly below theirs. I'm not exactly sure how that looks to Tamaraneans, but humanoids tend to think about body language in fairly similar ways. "Thank you, your majesty. As I approached the ...

 7th February 05:05 GMT "O-kay." I look around the cargo hull of Xor's reclaimed ship. "Ten thousand bleed fracture personal communicators designed to look like commercially available brands with text, sound and video recording and transmission. Effectively unlimited data storage and able to interact with government monitored channels and charge from commercially available power points." Onigar picks one up and taps the screen, working her way through the menu. "I… Can see the use of it. But I was expecting you to do something more aggressive." I shake my head. "Not a good idea. Intervention-in-force would require an army of occupation numbering in the billions. I don't have an army that big lying around." Though Dox is working on it. He probably could field a billion soldiers at this point, but most of them would be from allied worlds and their governments would only authorise them for fighting the Reach. "So we're using a prod-...

6th February 17:18 GMT Guy's eyes narrow. "Doin'… What?" "She worked on the neural programming system. She… Wanted to develop something that could be used in schools, but… That wasn’t what the government was funding her for. The data implanting system they… Well, so far as I know that they still use, that was largely her work. I think that the official record of her trial lists that as the reason why she was murdered." Ring, one way transmit to Xalitan Xor. Compliance . "She was murdered by a former War Hound named Xalitan Xor, wasn't she? Personal revenge seems rather contrary to how everyone's been telling me they're programmed to think." "Xalitan… None of them mind what was done to them. Since few of them remember ever being anything else… If you or I were forced into a strange body, had our minds reprogrammed and then were made to fight for a government that treated us with contempt, we would resent it. They were taught in such...

 6th February 17:14 GMT "Yes Father, I'm fine." Guy floats back in through the wrecked window, five locals in… High grade stealth armour, being dragged along after him on construct hooks. He deposits them on the apartment floor and generates construct bonds around them. "Paul, you wanna..?" I nod and start scanning, removing concealed weapons, integrated weapons and… Two suicide devices each, one of which would have caused serious physical damage to the user's brain. That's… Interesting. There are ways to extract information from a dead brain, but-. No, no, that's probably just a side effect. "Two Lanterns were here to speak to m-. No-. Not about that. Just in general." "Your guys say anythin' yet?" I look over to where 'my guys' are sitting on the floor, patiently awaiting a drive to do anything. They don't wear armour, just the sort of reinforced cycle shorts that Xor does. "I haven't asked them anything...

 6th February 13:22 GMT "Lanterns." Sub Sector Unifier Creduk Vin turns to face us as we enter his office and brings his fists together at his chest. A novel gesture but the basic idea repeats itself in many humanoid civilisations: my hands are in a place which would make it difficult for me to use a weapon and I'm doing it first to acknowledge that my position is inferior. "What can I do for you?" The city of Johhonnta has a paramilitary police force. It strikes me as odd. Even in Metropolis -a city which has to occasionally cope with Superman-tier criminals- the Special Crimes Unit are far more heavily armed than a normal SWAT unit but regular police are equipped in the same way as regular police in other cities. And that still-. Well, used to strike me as odd when contrasted with the British police's lack of guns. But here it's like something out of Judge Dredd. Smart rail rifles, plasma blasters and solid all-enveloping armour, including a helmet whi...

 6th February 11:51 GMT Stars are flashing past us, but we're actually moving relatively slowly. And as is Green Lantern custom when in the territory of non-hostile governments capable of tracking Lantern movements, we're letting them. Which involves us moving far slower than we could if we made an effort. A sign that we respect their territorial claims, and an encouragement to them to cooperate with our investigation. "This will be immensely politically difficult." The upper half of Lantern Canar's body might be humanoid, but… The plant-meat symbiosis in his body is so thorough that he has none of the body language which usually comes with that. Honestly, I can barely credit that the E'Fal are a naturally occurring species. I'm struggling to think of a way for that sort of hybridisation to arise naturally. Half his total mass is technically another creature, including several vital organs. "Prisoners who receive transportation sentences are never all...