"A Laying of Groundwork"

By Steve Seinberg

“So, two squads like before, but since we have enough members now to put eight in each, you want to set it up so that each squad can then be split into two sort of ‘sub-squads,’ four per group. Is that about the size of it?”

“That is about the size of it, Dinah.”

“So who’s on what squad?”

“Well, you and I will still serve as co-chairs, so we each head up one squad. One of us will serve as the ‘home’ team, and will stick close by New York, and even in the brownstone as much as possible, while the other group will be the ‘away’ team, serving up all first strikes and responses. And every two weeks, we’ll switch.”

“Sounds great. So who’s on what squad?” Carter Hall sighed. “Alright. You already know that Pieter will be with me. I’m sorry, Dinah, but it just has to be this way for now.”

“Uh huh. And who else?”

“In addition to Hawkman and Dr. Mid-Nite, that squad will also include Sand, Hippolyta, Hourman, Dr. Fate, the Crimson Avenger, and the Phantom Lady.” Mr. Terrific ticked the members off on his fingers.

“Okay, so that leaves me with you, Michael – offsetting geniuses there?”

Hawkman shrugged. “We don’t need to put all our super-intellects in one basket. We figured Pieter and Michael should be on opposite squads.”

“No, that makes sense. And that’s why I’d get the Condor, too.”

“He has healing powers, even if we don’t understand them that well yet, so yes, he should also be opposite Pieter for that reason. We want both squads to have a ‘medic’ on board.”

“So me, Michael, the Black Condor...and then I guess that also leaves me with...Power Girl, Captain Marvel, Liberty Belle – wow, that’s a whole lot of punch right there! – the Ray...oh, and Nemesis. Interesting.”

“Are you okay with all of it?” Both men leaned in, examining the Canary’s visage for any signs of emotional stress-fractures.

“I guess I have to be. I mean, the divisions are fine, and the whole home/away thing works, too. I just don’t want to put off dealing with this thing between Pieter and I forever and pretend that it’s taken care of. It’s not.”

“We know it’s not,” Hawkman cut the very possibility out of the air with his tone. “And it’s not the only relationship that actually concerns me, to be honest – I’m usually one of the more obtuse of us about these things, so I know I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this triangle forming, with the Phantom Lady and Jesse both setting their sights on young Rick Tyler.”

“Hourman is pretty damn cute,” the Black Canary allowed.

“Be that as it may,” Mr. Terrific cut in, “our hourglass-wearing heartthrob needs to handle that situation very carefully, Carter’s right. But one crisis at a time. Dinah, I’ll talk to Pieter, and soon, I promise, and I’ll get him to come and talk to you. We’ll work through this...but for a little while, you’ll just have to go along with us on this, okay?”

The Black Canary folded her arms over her chest. “Yep. Fine. So...I suddenly find myself with some extra energy – anyone up for a little sparring?”

“I’ve, ah, I have to take care of that matter with the, ah, security system...”

“...see if I can’t compare notes with the League on these Despero sightings...”

“...schedules to distribute...”

“...talk to the Condor, one man with wings to another...”

The Canary cracked a half-smile in the suddenly empty room.

“Candy-asses...”

“I know there is a tendency to think of the Global Guardians as a bunch of embarrassing losers, and to a large extent, I understand why that is, and – truth be told – I even agree. Still, you all need to remember that however ineffective they may have been as a group, some of the Guardians are still extremely powerful individuals. Clown-like, to be sure, but still powerful, and Olympian was always one of their heaviest hitters.”

Roulette paused to look around at the Hybrid, and make sure they were paying attention. As per usual, Harel, Calhoun, and Cassandra Sharp were focused like laser-beams, Angelika Bal was impossible to read, and Raiden and Lopez were rolling their eyes at the ceiling and broadcasting their characteristic affected jadedness. Roulette glared at the latter two until they wiped the sneers off their faces and sat up straight...or, straighter, at least. Calhoun cracked a smile at the sight of the massive, nine-foot-tall Taro Raiden looking schooled like a little kid by Roulette, who, even soaking wet couldn’t have weighed as much as one of Raiden’s forearms. Once she had their attention, she continued...

“Now, to give you the official basic run-down on Olympian...Olympian is actually the code-name used by what was once a regular garden-variety Greek twenty-something named Aristides Demetrios. When on active super-guy duty, Demetrios wears what he claims is the actual Golden Fleece of Greek myth, found after a famous quest by Jason and the Argonauts.”

“As depicted in a pretty lame TV miniseries starring Jason London, who is fine, by the way.”

“Thank you, Ms. Lopez. Maybe your miniseries gave you the informational background necessary in order to enlighten the group about the Argonauts themselves? Because whether it’s true or not, when he’s wearing the Fleece, Olympian claims to have the powers and abilities of each of the fifty or so heroes who manned that fabled ship, and he does seem to be able to back up at least some of that.”

“Yes, Roulette, I actually can lay down some knowledge for those of you who missed the miniseries in question – the Argo’s crew included a couple of guys with wings who could fly...Hercules, who was super-strong, as we all know...there was a guy with amazing memory, another with Superman-style vision...uh, there was one who could walk on water, one who could change shape...oh, and there were a couple of monster-slayers in addition to Hercules: the guy who killed the Chimera was with them, and so was the guy who killed the Minotaur.”

The group raised eyebrows as one.

“Very impressive, Ms. Lopez. How did you manage to retain all that from one lousy miniseries?”

Amelinda Lopez shrugged. “I told you: Jason London is hot.”

“Well, all actor-ish ‘hot-ness’ aside, Ms. Lopez is surprisingly on-target here: among those abilities displayed by Demetrios when working as Olympian, he has demonstrated great strength and some degree of invulnerability, flight – even without wings – and/or great foot-speed and the ability to indeed walk on water, and he also seems to have pretty advanced vision capabilities. Any claims to eidetic memory and shape-shifting remain unsubstantiated, however, although it might be best to not discount anything at this point. Let’s at least allow for the possibilities without dwelling on them too much, shall we?”

There were murmurs of assent.

“Now then, assignments: I have to admit, I was tempted to just send all of you after Demetrios, but I can’t leave the House completely unprotected. Therefore, Captain Harel, Mr. Calhoun, you’ll both be staying here with me – I think Tap has our Japanese guest well in hand, but on the off-chance something goes awry, I’d prefer to have you nearby. And there’s also the usual rabble in the holding cells to worry about. At any rate, you two will remain behind. Ms. Bal, you’ll be leading everyone else on this little junket. My top recommendation is that Ms. Sharp use her wind and sandstorm powers to distract Demetrios, Ms. Lopez then use her energy siphoning abilities to weaken him, and finally, you all wade in with gusto. Keep him on the ground, let our Behemoth here do most of the heavy-bag type of work, and when you put him down, you make sure he’s down for a nice long nap – I have zero interest in having him gathering his wits before Tap has him under wraps, and then tearing up the House the way the Justice Society did. Are we all clear?”

They all nodded, Harel and Calhoun looking disappointed at being kept behind and out of the action.

“Good. Captain Harel, please check in on Tap for me, and I’ll be along shortly. Mr. Calhoun, why don’t you take a tour of the holding cells since I mentioned them. The rest of you, I have some handouts here on the specifics of the job. We know where Demetrios has been residing for the last couple of months now, and I’ve drawn up an attack plan.”

“God, I love the handouts!” Amelinda snatched hers up eagerly. “I just hope this Demetrios guy doesn’t look like Jason London – I’d hate to have to mess up a pretty mug like that.”

“It might be a sacrifice that you’ll just have to make, Ms. Lopez.”

The young thief and speedster known as Touch ‘N’ Go cracked a charming, sideways grin. “The things I do for this job. And actually, Jason London has an identical twin brother – there’s two of them walking around! – so even if Demetrios is that pretty, and I do end up having to rearrange his face, I’ll still have plenty of Greek hero fantasy material to work with.”

“And in the end, isn’t that really all that matters. Okay, everyone – you have your marching orders, so march!”

Roulette clapped her hands, smart cracks ringing out in the room, and the Hybrid marched. Nothing for efficiency quite like a House kept in strictest order...

“So you never heard of the House? Or Roulette?”

“I’ve spent most of the last few years in a self-induced coma while mutating into this lovely new form you now see before you, my friend…so there have been quite a number of developments in the ‘super-villain’ world that have thus far evaded me. No, I’m afraid I remain uninformed as to this House and its proprietress…although from your capsule summary, I’m inclined to think favorably to this point.”

“Well, yeah, there is somethin’ to be said for snatching up some of the super boy-scouts and making ‘em brain each other in forced death matches while a bunch of costumed nuts bet on who’ll win.”

“Just so.” The Key really did have a world-class leer, and he even steepled his fingers together like he was Dr. Moriarty or something.

“So anyway, yeah, why don’t I sketch in some of the big picture for you.”

The Key gestured magnanimously. “Proceed,” he allowed.

“Okay, so here’s how it works: basically, no one knows where the House really is. You get in either by getting a direct invite yourself, or you got some connected pal in the super-crook world who vouches for you, and you ride their coattails in the first time, with Roulette’s okay.”

“All attendees are therefore vetted by this Roulette woman personally, then.”

“Right. No party crashers allowed. For one thing, it’d be damn difficult to crash even if you had the ‘nads for it, since like I said, no one knows where the House is even at – once you’re on the guest list, Roulette’s people send you some location to be at at a certain time, and then they teleport you in.”

“Teleportation? Really. Interesting.”

“Yeah, she’s supposedly quite the techno-thief – they say she filched the teleport tech from the Justice League, and swiped some other gizmos and whatnot from the JSA.”

“Admirable, if true.”

“Yep. But so there’s that, about it being no walk in the park busting your way into the operation without an invite, but the other thing is that even if you did manage to figure out where the place really is, and you could somehow bootstrap your way in, then you’d then have Roulette’s on-site muscle to hassle with. About a year or so ago, she tried grabbing some of the JSA and having them duke it out in her arenas, only they turned the tables on her, got loose, and demolished the old site. Since she rebuilt, they say she’s really upped her security force…and the guy you’re after, Prometheus, is one of her goons. And you still haven’t told me why you’re after the guy, by the way.”

“In due time, my Terrible friend – finish your own narrative first.”

“Okay…well, so yeah, she’s got all her safe-guards, and her super-powered bouncers to toss any trouble-makers out on their ears, and it’s impossible to get in if she doesn’t okay you first. Now the thing that we got going for us here is that she’s actually sent me invites on a couple different occasions, so we’d have that in.”

“This being due to your association with Dr. Psycho, I presume?”

“I guess so. That’s what I figured, anyway. Although, y’know, a few months before I hooked up with Psycho, I did a couple of low-level jobs with some of the Royal Flush Gang, so maybe they put the word in for me? I gotta say, I honestly don’t even remember anymore whether that first invite I got came in before or after I joined up under Psycho.”

“And why have you not yet attended an event at this marvelous-sounding House?”

“Well…this is kind of embarrassing, but the truth is that while I really would like to make some more connections in the super-goon community, I didn’t want to cruise in there with nothing to talk about, you know? Since I quit Psycho, I haven’t pulled any major jobs or made any decent connections, and you don’t impress potential employers or cronies like, say, Deathstroke or Doc Sivana, by telling ‘em how you jacked open an ATM with your blade and ran away with fifteen hundred bucks. That’s just not the kind of epic saga they need to hear before throwing some work your way, y’feel me?”

“More or less, yes. I understand. Well, but given some stake money and a retainer, with more funds coming in on the back end of the job, you would be willing to overcome your reluctance about attending?”

“Well…shyeah! I mean, I don’t know if it’d be cool to drop your name or anything, or whether you’d be okay with it, but sure, even just walking in there with a nice, fat roll would say something. Plus, if I could pull off what you want, my rep jumps forward by, like, a couple of light-years.”

The Key leered again. And steepled his fingers again. It was like watching one of those lizards expanding the spiny crown on top of its head when it was going into attack/defense mode, or mating season or whatever. It was quite frankly giving Mr. Terrible the creeps. He distracted himself by pulling out one of his knives and cleaning his fingernails with the point of it.

“The one fly in the unguent, or what-have-you,” added Mr. Terrible, “is that once I’m in, I’m sure I can arrange a way to rumble with this Prometheus clown, and probably even gank this key-thing you want from him…but what I don’t see is how, after messing up one of Roulette’s stooges, do I get out of the place? That’s the sticking point. I’m a lot of things, but a teleporter, I ain’t.”

The Key displayed his almost-audible “laughing-grin” again, which was about equal on the creepy scale to the reptilian finger-steepling. “Leave that to me. I have another associate who I believe will be quite willing to serve as your means of egress.”

“‘Egress’…that’s like escape?”

“Just so.”

“Well…not that I wouldn’t be grateful for it and all, but why doesn’t your associate just do the whole gig, then?”

The Key shook his head, utterly dismissing the possibility as any kind of potentially good idea. “No, no, I’m afraid this particular gentleman has no wish to be anywhere near as ‘hands-on’ as this job would require. One way or another, Prometheus – assuming you leave him alive – and his current employer will almost surely come away from this knowing who it was that assaulted him and purloined his key-artifact, and my other associate will only help me with this if his part in the grander scheme of things can remain essentially anonymous.”

“So I do the dirty work, and if they’re still pullin’ breath when I’m done, Roulette and Prometheus will have permanent beefs with me.”

“I’m afraid so. Is that a problem?”

Mr. Terrible considered, and then shrugged. “Well, a guy’s gotta take the work that’s in front of him, right? And it’s not like Roulette or her flunky are offering me any work. In fact, I’m sure all they really want out of me is for me to show up and drop a few large at their gaming tables. So I guess the hell with them. I mean, people seem to have some respect for Prometheus as a fighter, if not exactly as a guy, and everyone seems to like the concept of hero-types bein’ forced to gut each other for fun and profit, but I don’t think there’s all that much actual love out there for either Roulette or Prometheus themselves. I guess crossing ‘em now so as to make my bones and get some career momentum going makes more sense than turning this gig down.”

“Excellent!”

“So but if we could go back to Prometheus, and this key-thing he has…?”

“Ah, yes. Well, you see my interest has virtually nothing to do with Prometheus himself as an individual – I know almost nothing about him, and care even less. What does intrigue me, however, is the fact that from several reliable accounts, this key-artifact he has in his possession acts as a gateway to a sort of other-dimensional sub-realm. Think of it as a place mostly removed from this plane of existence where, if one has the know-how, one can step through into solitude and privacy, with the forces of law and ‘liberty’ being almost completely unaware of your location, let alone capable of reaching you there. In short, I want to relieve Prometheus of this key, and take up residence in what he apparently refers to as ‘the Ghost Zone.’ I want to use it as my headquarters, if you will. Oh, yes, and the fact that the gateway device is in the form of a key does admittedly appeal to me, although I try not to lapse too deeply into fetishism where my – what’s the word? ‘shtick’ – where my shtick is concerned.”

“No, no, I get it – a key for the Key. That’s cool, I can dig it. Okay, so you’re saying what I’ll need to do, then, is get into the House, which oughtta be no problem, considering I been invited and all, and then when I spot my moment, jump Prometheus – lethal force optional, but not out of bounds as far as you’re concerned – and grab this key-thing from him, which’ll be on his person pretty much at all times, yeah? And then your other villain pal will ferry me the hell out of there before the House security can get a bead on me.”

“So eloquently and succinctly put, I could preen!”

Mr. Terrible wasn’t quite sure what such preening might entail, but he wasn’t too keen on witnessing it, not if it was anything like the laughing-grin and the steepled fingers business. “Well, great. Alright, then. I still have the contact info to get word to Roulette that I definitely want in on her next gathering, so I can set those wheels in motion, and then all you gotta do is line up your pal to be my ride home.”

“Wonderful!” The Key clapped his hands together in delight. If that was part of the aforementioned preening, Mr. Terrible didn’t need to see any more of it.

“So…well then not to sound crass or anything, but how’s about we talk money…?”

“Indeed. Let us talk money indeed…”

Mr. Terrible tried not to let dollar bill signs form in his eyes as the Key began laying down figures, and tried to ignore that cold prickling feeling that was again running down the back of his vertebral column, reminding him that this was all happening too easily…that everything he did turned out disastrous. Everything he did…turned out disastrous…

Next Issue: Why the ex-Freedom Fighters are not all fitting seamlessly into the ranks of the Justice Society...and it’s the Hybrid vs. Olympian – will two-thirds of Roulette’s promethium-infused enforcers be enough to take down the Greek myth in (super-)human form?