The dual man-made islands of Notre Dame and Saint Helen were in the middle of the Saint Lawrence river, which in turn ran through the middle of Montreal. As such, while it was the middle of the night there penalty of lights and activity on each shore, so we had to be careful not to be seen. The islands themselves had been converted into municipal parks over a decade ago, so at least we could investigate there without being interrupted. So long as nothing exploded.
So, I gave it about 30 minutes. Probably less.
It wasn't hard to confirm that Ivo was telling the truth about the radio signal, and equally as easy to locate the exact source. On Notre Dame there was a tall radio tower, nestled among the remaining buildings on the island. Those that remained were the ones with the most unique architecture (an inverted pyramid building, an old monorail, the metal skeleton of a dome) though they weren't exactly in the best state of repair. The buildings were clearly meant to be looked at, rather than entered. The radio tower though was in use, and the source of the signal.
My feet made no sound as they touched the ground a few meters away from the tower, the space around an empty square. There was no sight of anything from the lampposts or small service building nearby, so my I moved towards a service box on the side of the tower. My hand reached out for the panel-
A small light caught my attention, and I noticed that I could see something attached to the back of the support beams of the tower. Several somethings, all spherical, and suddenly humming with energy. That was all I could see of the devices before they exploded in scintillating white energy, and what were most assuredly nano-disassembler fields consumed my vision.
Sitting in a diner adjacent to the river, I arched an eyebrow as the video feed from my drone took a few seconds to return. "And that kids, is why we have holographic decoys." I muttered.
Given how little we knew of Morrow and his current capabilities, there was a limit to how much we could plan for going into a space he controlled. So, we kept it simple; I send in a holographic drone or two of me, and see what he throws at them. And it seemed to be working out so far. Of course this meant that I was going nowhere near the island, so was doing support completely by remote. Still, we pulled together the whole Team for this, so having 'only' eight people in the field wouldn't be a problem.
Watching the rest of my team move in from the view of my other recon drones, I took a sip from my cup of coffee. Tasteless as it was from me. I couldn't exactly just sit in a diner and not order anything, so I had ordered a cup to remain inconspicuous. And, with the aid of my Mask nanites, I was. Colored in normal human tones and 'wearing' slacks, a dark blue button up, and a brown duster, no one had paid a second glance. It was almost a novel sensation, to be so not noticeable in public after all these months.
My team quickly fanned out and covered the area around the tower to secure it for threats, but nothing else showed itself. Robin approached the tower itself and swiftly searched it for anything of note. He was busy for a few minutes (removing what remained of those explosives in the process), before he finally said "It's just a normal radio tower, but it looks like it's getting power and data through cables leading into the ground."
I leaned back in my seat as I mentally brought up all the building plans and schematics I could find for the islands. I subvocalized "The line for that radio tower connects to a series of maintenance tunnels. They actually connect beneath both islands. If the command for the signal's not originating from the tower itself… it looks like there are two places left standing that could work as junctions. One on each island." The rest had been demolished and removed over the years.
"If Morrow is on site, then we should cast a wide net," Starfire said. "We split into two teams. I will lead the squad on St. Helen, Aqualad will lead the other on Notre Dame."
My holographic drone, a small featureless sphere, bobbed a little towards the nearby building. "That building near you has a hatch leading to the maintenance tunnels, taking it will lead you right to where you need to go. It's up to you if you think it's worth the risk."
"You think it might have traps too?" Robin asked.
"Just because this one was meant for Machina doesn't mean there are more mundane traps too." Troia remarked.
Starfire thought for a moment before she said "Don't take the tunnels. Machina, keep watch over all the tunnel entrances and exits, let us know if anyone tries to escape."
"Will do." I confirmed, then the team split up to head to their respective destinations. I sent a combat and recon drone to follow each of them before shifting my focus to the Justice Leaguers. "Watchtower, any activity to report?"
"I have detected no activity on the island, aside from the earlier explosion." Red Tornado replied. We had both opted to hang back on this op due to the trap most likely being for either of us, and Tornado in particular had decided to observe from the Watchtower.
I checked in with our other League support. "Hawkman, Hawkwoman, Morrow just attack one of my decoys. Any movement in the parks?"
"Just a couple of punks making street art on one of the walls." Hawkwoman replied. "I suppose they could be androids, though… Damn, we're going to need some kind of field scanner if this continues to be a problem."
I had been a little surprised at how the Hawks had let us take point on this mission. Before it had been an investigation, but I assumed that they would have called in more of the League to deal with the obvious trap. Instead, they advised us on the different approaches we could take, but ultimately left the execution up to us. As Hawkman put it, 'This sort of operation works best with a coordinated team. Let's see if that's what you are.'
Starfire's squad had Troia, Miss Martian, and Artemis, and it didn't take long for them to reach their target. The building might have been artful once upon a time, but now it was mostly a large concrete box. A quick look inside with the drone following them showed an exhibit of homes of the future. Looking at the layout, it reminded me a lot of an Ikea, with hallways weaving between open 'rooms', each one showing a retro-futuristic display of what people in the sixties thought things would be like in forty years.
Of course, considering this building had been condemned a few decades earlier, everything was in various states of disrepair. Most of the displays were empty and cleared out, and those that remained were covered in dust or knocked over, with some mannequins scattered all over. The front entrance was boarded up; I had to fly the drone through a broken window. While the team was working on the entrance, I flew the hologram drone in and had it take the form of Red Tornado before sending it to do a walk down the halls. After the earlier display I didn't really think that anyone watching would fall for the same trick twice, but it was worth seeing if more of the traps were automated and responded to visuals.
Meanwhile, Aqualad lead Robin, Kid Flash, and Superboy across the bridge between the two islands to their own goal. I sent their recon drone ahead to the squat building they were headed for, and found a factory. Or at least the facsimile of one. There were rows of conveyor belts surrounded by mechanical arms, many of which were frozen in dramatic poses of assembling everything from toasters to cars. It was mostly accurate to what they had back in the sixties, if a little dressed up.
My attention shifted back and forth between the two teams, along with all the recon and combat drones I had patrolling around the island. Even spreading my drone arsenal so thin, there was still no visible sign of anything, in spite of how Morrow had to know we were here by now. I wasn't comfortable with how we still didn't know what the point of all this was, or what lengths he would go to protect it. I was already starting to doubt the scientist was here at all, so what was to say he hadn't rigged the whole island to explode?
Well, we couldn't know if we didn't check it out, so best not let my attention slip. Team one had made it into the building, and my decoy hadn't picked up any four slipped into the large exhibit hall, and I directed them towards an exit in the back, to where the utilities room was. As they made they way in silence I keep my drone looking in all directions for any threats. None obligingly showed themselves, but something still felt off. Something I couldn't quite place.
I didn't mean to, but I ended up voicing the first thing I could narrow it down to. "I don't trust those mannequins..."
Starfire turned back to look at the 'room' nearest to her, containing mannequins of a couple and their child. The one dressed as a housewife was in the middle of pulling something out of a high tech oven, and the other two sat at a table. "Do you detect something wrong with them?"
"Not exactly, but…" I hesitated as I tried to figure out what was bothering me before it finally clicked into place. "They're a lot cleaner than I would have expected for being abandoned for decades."
Starfire frowned as she studied her target, and took a step towards it.
That was all it took for the mannequins to suddenly move in turn, each of them straightening up and turning towards Starfire with their arms extended. Starfire was quick on the uptake, and moved out of the way by the time their arms finished transforming into canons, thus dodging the barrage of fire and laser light.
My drones pulled back as the combatants moved in to engage each other. Starfire and Troia charged straight in at the androids, the latter kicking a table in her way towards the artificial family. The 'father' caught it by the flat side, but only just before Starfire smashed through it and drive a glowing fist into its face. At the same time Miss Martian rose into the air to get a good view, but as she crested over the stall, something grabbed her attention. "More incom-"
From the view of my drone, I saw three more androids disguised as mannequins launch themselves up at her. She couldn't maneuver out of the way, and they all bore her to the floor. I saw her struggle and moved the drone to assist, but I hesitated when I got a clear view of what what happening. Beneath the androids, I saw her legs merged into a long serpentine tail, and the arm which shoved one of the mechanical beings off of her was clawed. Her tail wrapped around one of her assailants and promptly crushed it, before rising in the air slamming another one into the ceiling.
The last she threw off of her to the ground, and it skidded and stumbled to its feet. Miss Martian dove at it in a serpentine charge, but drew up short when it raised it's arm and a torrent of fire shot out of the limb. She didn't scream, but was still forced back, and things started looking worse as a second one moved to join the first, it's arm turning into a flame thrower as well.
Before they could advance though, two arrows shot through the air and impacted each of them, bursting in a blue flash. In seconds the androids were completely frozen in a layer of ice. With a gesture, Miss Martian lifted both telekinetically and smashed them together, leaving nothing but a pile of metal and circuits. She nodded at Artemis before the two had to refocus on the next batch of androids coming towards them.
The two split apart to cover both ends of the hall they were in, but several of their assailant simply scaled over the exhibits to get at my teammates. My drone flew upwards to keep track of dozen-plus androids that were closing in, and I started calling out which directions they were coming from. What resulted was a sort of running battle where the team was continuously moving to positions to take cover from the laser fire the androids fired at them. They managed to pick off several, whether by one getting too close or getting hit by arrows or starbolts, but it was slow going.
So Starfire decided to change it up a bit. "Machina, we need to bottleneck them. What's the fastest way to get off the exhibition floor?"
"20 meters north-west of you position, there's an archway leading out to the courtyard. It's wide, but you can reach it before they can stop you and it will force all of them to come from the same direction."
"It will do." As one they bolted for the spot I indicated, Starfire plowing through a model living room to make the most direct route. In a matter of moments they were at the arch, and the group came to a stop and turned in time to see several of the remaining androids running and extending their arm cannons at them. At the last second, Troia jumped in front of the group, arms raised. Troia's arms were a blur as she deflected every energy bolt that came at her, covering both herself and her teammates behind her.
Starfire hung back for a moment, holding her hands in front of her as green energy built between them. Over the course of several seconds it grew brighter and brighter, and when the energy started to bleed between her fingers she jumped up and thrust her hands out. The energy released not as a bolt but a solid beam that sliced and burned through her targets, cutting several down in moments.
Starfire had been practicing with her Radiant One abilities ever since she had gotten them, trying to push it as far as she could. According to her they tended to grow stronger and more varied over time. Thus far her starbolts were the only ability she had, but she had already learned how to focus and direct it into more than just rapid fire bolts.
The android numbers had dwindled rapidly, but they showed no signs of remaining launched themselves at my team in a bid to overwhelm them, but a few careful shots from my drone slowed them down enough such that the girls were able to prepare themselves. The machines crashed upon their defensive wall, and were predictably broken. Then, aside from the sound of sizzling metal and sparking circuits, the hallway was quiet. After a few moments to collect themselves, the moved on to their objective.
With things seeming to have quieted down, over there I shifted my attention to Team Two, who had just entered the mock factory. "Just a heads up, the girls got attacked at their location. They've taken care of it, but be on your guard."
"That means that's where the source of the signal came from, right?" Kid Flash said, zipping along the perimeter of the room. "I mean, you wouldn't put a bunch of killer robots in some empty room."
"There could still be something to find here, KF." Robin said, walking between a pair of half-built cars on the motionless conveyor belt. "If we've learned anything from the last time, this guys likes to work on multiple-"
There was barely any warning. The manufacturing arm that Robin walked past suddenly moved, swing at the boy's back. Before I could warn him though, Robin was already moving himself, flipping backwards in a graceful arc over the mechanical limb. As his body turned back to face his target, his arm swept in an arc, several birdarangs lodging themselves in the side of the machine a moment later. The projectiles sparked with electricity and the arm fell limp.
The rest of the assembly robots in the factory were moving, folding extra legs and limbs that I was sure weren't standard issue back in the sixties. The tools on the ends of their limbs came to life, ranging from drills to saws to plasma cutters. Their moment was lumbering, but precise, like giant metal insects.
And as if to drive the point home, several of the larger ones clambered together and locked into one another, forming a sort of large spider mech.
Kid Flash sighed. "Never thought I'd say this, but the killer robots are gettin' kinda old."
"Team, attack pattern delta!" Aqualad shouted, and they all burst into motion.
Kid Flash was the first to move, breaking off from the group in a blur and heading for the machines at the edge of the group. I could track his movement by the sparks he left in his wake, and the flashes of electricity the erupted whenever he struck a target. Superboy meanwhile rushed straight at the big one, knocking a few of the smaller machines out of his way before plowing into it with enough force to send them both through the back wall.
Aqualad and Robin followed in his wake, the former lashing out with his water-bearers at the robots that were pulling themselves up. With the water shaped into machetes, Aqualad stepped in and skewered several machines one after another, taking out several before they could get to their feet.
The machines managed to rally however, and once they recovered several rushed at Aqualad with spinning saws. He responded by jumping back, but without missing a beat Robin jumped off his shoulders like a spring board and launched himself over the robots. He let loose more of those electric birdarangs before landing, shorting out several of them.
The two moved back to back to deal with the next swarms of robots moving in. Aqualad's weapons shifted into maces and he started bashing the machines away. Robin on the other hand broke out his escrima sticks and started jabbing them wherever he could find a gap in their plating. They were doing a fair job, but the downed machinery was quickly started to impede their movement and box them in. My combat drone tried to help, but before long the two found themselves cornered by one of the larger ones. It's arc-welding arm jabbed forward-
There was a sudden blur and a flash of blue sparks and suddenly the machine's arm fell off, a clean slice exposing internal circuitry. It had only a moment to process this before the blur struck again and again, slicing off more pieces every time. In a matter of seconds all of it's useful appendices were laying on the floor next to it. The blur finally resolved itself into Kid Flash, one hand holding a high frequency blade and the other gripping one of the exposed wires. Blue electricity crackled from his glove and channeled into the machine, shorting the whole thing out.
Good to see he was making use of that basic sword training Batman forced on him.
Superboy then came crashing back into view, still wrangling a now much more banged up giant spider mech. The thing had several bits of plating ripped off and two of its legs missing. Big as it was, the thing just wasn't built to handle Superboy's strength. It lashed out with one of it's remaining arms with an overhead meant to crush him into the ground, but he caught the limb and pulled. There was the sound of screeching metal as it was pulled out of its socket, and then Superboy proceed to return the favor. With its own arm.
It only took a couple of hits before the entire thing was reduced to scrap. Superboy tossed the arm onto the pile and dusted his hands. "Much easier than those androids."
"Yeah, weird that this was the best that Morrow could do..." Kid Flash slid his sword back into his sheath, a slight frown on his face. "I think these were just mooks."
Aqualad stowed his water-bearers. "It seems we keep finding yet more questions. Hopefully there's some answers as well."
Both teams made it to their respective spots without further incident. Both also found several more nano disassemblers at said spots, which wasn't that surprising. They linked up over comms to discuss what they found.
"Well," Robin said as he pulled a small part of the electronics out of the signal repeater. "Other than the fact that this was clearly made by Morrow, there's nothing here."
"Same… I think." Artemis said, turning an identical bit of hardware over in her hands. She had a bit of technical know-how, but had needed a little coaching from Robin.
"So, wait, what does that mean?" Trioa asked.
"It means that in spite of all the fancy robots, this is just a signal generator. It's not even a proper computer, just some circuitry. It looks like it was just a trap after all."
"Yeah, but it looks like he thought just Mach would show up," Kid Flash said smugly. "Clearly this guy ain't a match for the whole team."
I didn't quite feel the kid's confidence, and after a few seconds I commed the Watchtower "Watchtower, we still have a negative on Morrow down here. Any sign that he tried popping up somewhere else?"
"None that I can see," Red Tornado replied. "I am not detecting any sudden break-ins or robot attacks anywhere the Watchtower has eyes on. If Morrow is doing something right now, he's being subtle about it."
"And that leaves us with what?" I mused out loud.
"Another deadend." Superboy grumbled. "I hate being on the back foot like this."
"Our enemy has spent many years hiding from the world," Aqualad said. "It is not surprising we didn't find him in the first few days. If nothing else, we have neutralized one of his traps."
"You are not wrong Aqualad, but I share Superboy's sentiment." Starfire remarked. "I would prefer this hunt to have at least given us a trail. As it is, we still need to clear the rest of the island, if just to clear all the traps. We can not risk a civilian being cut down because we were not thorough."
Kid Flash groaned. "You gotta be kidding me. Man, I wish we could have our tech expert here doing this for us."
I gave a small hum before what he said reminded me of something. Upon seeing I had no new messages, I called Serling. And again, it went right to her voice mail. I frowned. It was unusual for her to be out of contact for this long. While it was probably nothing, I felt making sure was prudent. "Watchtower, has there been any activity around Serling?"
"Again, none that I can see." Red Tornado paused briefly before he continued. "As far as I am aware, she is in her new apartment in San Diego."
I tapped my fingers on the table. Making up my mind, I got up from my both and headed to the cashier to pay out. "Team, I'm going to go check on Serling. She hasn't been picking up her phone."
"You think she might be in trouble?" Kid Flash asked.
"Probably not, but considering the woman, I think it's best to make sure."
"Serling!" I called out as I knocked on her door for the third time. "Are you in there? You better not getting lost in cat videos again."
Standing next to me, Red Tornado made one of those slight movements I had come to recognize as his attempt at changing to a relaxed posture. "Perhaps she is asleep?" He suggested. He thought it unwise for either of us to be alone while we were still hunting Morrow, so he had tagged along.
"She's not that heavy a sleeper," I remarked, planting my hands on my hips and staring at the door in frustration. "Screw it, I'll let her yell at me later."
I pressed my finger to the door lock, and my appendage shifted to slide into the keyhole. I didn't have a lot of practice lock picking doors this way, but it didn't take too long for me to unlock the door. I opened it and walked into her apartment, taking stock of everything I saw. Serling's place was a cosy little number, a nice one bedroom with a little extra space she had turned into workstation.. Red Tornado and I split up, searching the apartment. However, we didn't manage to find anything amiss.
Aside from the fact that Serling wasn't there.
"I swear to god, if that woman got herself kidnapped again..." I muttered as the two of us regrouped in front of Serling's work desk. Even as I said it though, I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense though, there's no way she'd go down without a fight. I know she's not trained, but given her nanomachines she should have left some evidence."
"I have informed her watchers of her disappearance," Red Tornado remarked. "but they swear that there has been no sign of entry or exit. However, I will note that they do not have a clear view of the roof. It's possible she could have flown out."
I sighed and looked at her computer before typing away at the keyboard. "Maybe she left us a note..." I muttered. It only took a few seconds to find something interesting, though it wasn't what I was expecting. "Serling noticed the signal." I said, looking at some form of frequency analyzer program. And the last file loaded was a sample of the signal we had been seeing out of Montreal.
"That is… improbable." Tornado said. "The range of the signal was well below her ability to pick it up on the west coast."
"Well, if I'm reading this right, this signal came from only a hundred miles away." I quickly checked the air waves. "It's not there anymore, Morrow probably turned it off. And if he had more than one of these set up, he's bound to have more than two. What the hell is he doing?"
Drawing my attention back to the analysis of the signal itself, it was ostensibly white noise at first glance, but looking at it for more than a minute showed a repeating pattern in the signal. It also made no sense, thus leading credit to Ivo's claim that is was encrypted. I could see from the program's history that Serling had the same thought, and there were logs of several attempts to decode it. The last thing she did with it was a little unexpected though."She copied the file containing the signal to a different device, likely her own nanites. And that's the last activity."
"Do you think that she went somewhere to have the signal decrypted?" Red Tornado asked.
I shook my head. "The only place that could be would be her second skin. It has a staggering amount of processing power compared to modern supercomputers, plus it can work in parallel. For all the good it will do her." I didn't bother lecturing the android on how you could only brute force the weakest of encryptions, even with the number of operations per second Serling could put out.
"Nevertheless, she thought it worth the effort." He looked between Serling's computer and myself. "If no other leads present themselves, it may be worth attempting yourself. You should have even more processing power than she does, and if she managed to succeed, there could be an explanation for for current whereabouts within." He hesitated, a thought occurred to him. "Though you may want to take care. It's possible that the decryption will release something… malicious."
"...Not likely. It's hard to tell, but I don't think whatever data this has is enough to make a whole virus. Besides, if that was Morrow's intent, why would he hid it behind encryption? But, you're right, it's worth checking." Still, I activated Core-Loop Reinforcement Protocol as I started grinding away at the encryption.
Tornado was silent, then said "You have mentioned to me before that you have been attempting to use your technomancy to aid in breaking encryption."
I hesitated for a moment before I shrugged. "Attempting, yes. Haven't had much success." I formed a hologram between my hands, a multifaceted diamond representing the encryption. The Algorithm mandala traced itself on my arms, and flowed into the holographic space. The visuals were more my sake that Tornado's, really. "Well, I can certainly try, but I've been at this for a few weeks now, and-"
The moment the lines connected with the diamond, there was a resounding click in my mind, and the gem opened up like a flower.
I stared dumbfounded, not even bothering to look at what I just decrypted. "What just… that's never happened before."
"Forgive me if I am mistaken, but you have often made breakthroughs with your abilities-"
I shook my head. "No, it's never like this. I always had to work at it, and whenever I learned something new it felt like a revelation. This just… happened." Experimentally, I repeated my result with another encryption algorithm. "No, I'm not cracking any other encyprtions just this one. It's like I already knew the answer. Or… the Algorithm itself was the key."
I didn't know what that meant, but I couldn't help but be chilled by it. By comparison, the data I had just decrypted was positively mundane and simple. "It's GPS coordinates." I pulled up a holographic map and displayed a location. "It's relatively close, it's in the western part of the Arizona desert."
Red Tornado saw the point on the map and… stiffened, somehow. "I believe I know where this is."
"Really? It doesn't appear to be anything important according to the internet."
"You would find nothing, as it would be classified. During the second World War, the U.S. government created several small settlements to do top secret scientific research."
"You mean like Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project?"
"Similar, though Los Alamos had already existed in some form and was appropriated. Others were built wholesale, and each had its own field of study. During my tenure in the All-Star Squadron, the government requested that I allow myself to be studied at the settlement that specializes in robotics. This was that location."
I looked at the map. "Was?"
"I believe that it was abandoned after the war finished, the scientists and work moved somewhere else."
"And Morrow moved in?" I speculated. "This place got a name?"
"Science City One."
=====A=====
A/N: This took a minute, huh?
Short version is that I went on vacation, got sick, and rewrote this chapter from scratch twice. And I'm still not entirely happy with it but I have the feeling this is the best I'm going to get it. Hopefully all the cool stuff next chapter makes up for it.