Issue #6

The Most Dangerous Game

By Jess Nevins

"Metropolis General Hospital, this is Unit 16. Prep the Special Surgical Room; we have a metahuman gunshot victim in need of immediate attention."

"Read that, 16. Vitals?"

"Dropping fast. Our ETA is 2:15 and he may not make it."

"Copy. What'd he take?"

"One to the chest. In through the chest just above the right nipple, bounced off the fourth rib. Tore him up inside pretty good. The right lung is collapsed."

"Right. Thoracic Team is standing by."

"Good. Keep this quiet, Susan. No press."

"Okay, but...well, is it someone they'd care about?"

"Suze, it's Superman."

"...Oh, god, no..."

A 2000 KordCo van leisurely drove away from LexCorp headquarters, those inside smirking as they watched the cruisers, sirens screaming, speed towards the LexCorp hq. The driver of the van preened as he saw a fleet of late model sedans swerve around corners and rocket towards the LexCorp building; he fancied he could just make out the LexCorp Security logo on the cars' doors.

The largest of the van's passengers said, "Selinda, can we go to the petting zoo when this is over? I wanna see the bunny rabbits again." The driver reflected, not for the first time, that his compatriot Mammoth sounded like one of the mugs Bugs Bunny spent his time humiliating, the "I will hug him and pet him and call him George" yeti, perhaps.

Shimmer smiled and patted her brother's arm. "Sure, Baran. Once we kill Luthor we can go on a long vacation, anywhere you want to go."

Baran, known to the world as Mammoth, clapped his oversized hands with glee. "Can we go back to the lake? I wanna go swimming again."

Shimmer opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted from the darkness at the back of the van. "Selinda. Come here." Shimmer gracefully rose and, swaying in time to the van's rocking, walked to the very back of the vehicle, where the Indian sorceress known as Jinx lay on a series of cushions.

Jinx's voice range with sorcerous resonances as she whispered, "Selinda, action like that always gets me going...you know what I need..." Shimmer, her mind caught in a spell she had no way of resisting, smiled and slipped her shirt off. Her pale, bare skin and full breasts gleaming dully in the darkness of the van, she kissed Jinx once on the lips, then knelt before her.

In the front of the van Mikron, the supervillain known as Gizmo, and Arthur Light, the criminal known as Dr. Light, exchanged smirks as the sounds of ecstasy drifted forward. Both liked Jinx; she was one of the guys. You could go drinking with her and cruise the bars for chicks with her. Jinx was just doing what either of them would have done, if they'd had the power; Shimmer was a sweet piece of ass. Besides, Jinx had filmed her and Shimmer a couple of weeks back and sold the longest and juiciest clip to IEG for a handy sum. The film, "Supervillains After Hours," was the second most popular .mov file on the Net and had brought them enough operating capital that they didn't have to rob any banks or jewel stores any time soon. The first most popular .mov or .avi file being that never-to-be-forgotten clip of Wonder Woman in action against the Cheetah in Boston's Fens; the lucky student videotaping the fight caught, on film, the Cheetah's kick knocking Wonder Woman's bodice ajar, so that for 20 entire seconds--the length of time it took Wonder Woman to put the Cheetah down--one whole Amazonian breast, including the nipple, was exposed.

So Myron and Arthur were relatively happy to have Jinx use Shimmer. It kept them in money, kept Jinx happy, and sometimes Jinx let them watch. They'd left Psimon behind in the LexCorp building, to take the fall. Life was good.

In the Special Surgical Room the doctors took over.

Dr. Strohm said, "Get him on the table. Carefully, everyone. One, two...three."

Then, angrily, "Nurse, why is he still in this costume?"

Nurse O'Bannon, unbowed in the face of her boss' anger, quietly said, "Doctor, it's made from the same thing he is. We can't get it off him."

The anesthesiologist paused, the hand holding the needle poised over the largest vein in Superman's arm. Dr. Strohm instantly burst out with, "Oh, SHIT! And the lasers won't work, either! Shit! Nurse, call--"

"Specialists are on their way, Doctor Strohm."

Everyone in the room jumped at the voice, a menacing growl that raised the hairs on the back of the neck and made mouths go dry. The surgical team's heads turned as one to take in The Batman, left hand wrapping his cloak around him, right hand holding the unconscious body of an orderly who'd been foolish enough to try to stop him from entering the O.R.

Dr. Strohm, who considered himself the unquestioned ruler of the Operating Room, recovered first. "I don't care who you are--you aren't sterile and you're endangering the patient. Get out!"

The Batman ignored him and said to Nurse O'Bannon, "Tell the orderlies that others like me are coming. They are not to be hindered. Go." The Batman leaned forward as he said this, so that he was less than six inches from O'Bannon's face. She was a tough woman who'd dealt with almost everything Metropolis had to show, but nothing in her life had readied her for this, and she fled.

Dr. Strohm, face growing cholerically purple with rage, spluttered, "You--you can't send her away! You're threatening the life of your friend by--"

"He's not my friend, Doctor, and in three minutes he'll either be dead or healed."

The anesthesiologist, hand still frozen over Superman's body, glanced at the wall clock and said, "How...how did you know? He can't have been shot more than 20 minutes ago."

The Batman, intently studying the chest wound, said, "I make it my business to know these things."

In Denver Detectives Arnold, Johnson, Pepys, and Jones were conferring over coffee. Pepys, a stocky, squat redhead, said, "I don't like the Queen Bee for it. Wrong m.o."

Johnson, fat and ugly, exhaled irritably. "Kanjar Ro is still under wraps."

Arnold, a handsome African-American, said, "I'm afraid the Angle Man is all wrong for this. It was his weapon, but the prints aren't his."

Jones looked thoughtful. He finished his coffee and motioned the waitress over for a refill. "Thanks, sweetheart." Turning to the Detectives, "That leaves Air Wave...but he's one of the good guys."

Pepys snorted. "Year, right. Look, John, we know you got a hard-on for the costumes, but this has them written all over it."

Jones frowned, then cocked his head and looked at Arnold. "Yeah, Matt?"

Arnold, startled, said, "I was just going to say that one of my sources with the D.E.O. tells me that this might be related to a mass murder that took place back in 65. That one involved a bunch of costumes--cover types. Seems like about 70 or so were involved, and at least 20 were killed. That one was never solved."

Johnson tore a bit from his bagel and said, "Why would one of the shadows wanna murder the sidekick of Hourman?"

Jones began to shake his head when an alarmed look crossed his face. In a flash he was on his feet, throwing a crumpled $10.00 on the table. Shouting, "I gotta run," he was out the door before the others could say anything.

Pepys, watching him go, said, "Is he a flake, or just really, really busy? I still haven't decided."

The Martian Manhunter, in his heroic body, 50 miles east of Denver and rapidly accelerating, put her words and the murder case behind him as he sped towards Metropolis, his mind communicating with others and his thoughts on Superman.

In Metropolis a golden light, a dry, hot wind, and the smell of sand filled the Operating Room as a yellow cloak, yellow gloves, and a yellow helmet floated through the wall. The Batman, examining the gunshot wound with a computerized magnifying glass and a long metal rod, did not look up. "Fate."

Dr. Fate's helmet drew close to Superman's face as a golden ankh appeared in the air above him. He said, "He is gone to the distant shores...even now Anubis prepares his heart to be weighed."

The Batman glanced sidelong at the Lord of Order. "Can you bring him back?"

The helmet slowly examined Superman's head, then moved down to the chest, Batman moving aside without a word. Finally, "Not all at once. He is too far gone...too damaged. The wound hurt his soul; he is unused to such pain."

The Batman tucked the metal rod and the magnifying glass back into his belt and said, "Can you turn him human, at least?"

The helmet rotated in mid-air, the cloak and gloves staying by the wall. Fate's voice, echoing unearthly, and Egyptian accented to the Batman's trained ear, said, "That will weaken him further and hasten his death."

"But then the doctors will be able to operate on him."

The helmet nodded. "I see. Yes."

The gloves and cloak floated over to join the helmet, and the space between them filled in, and suddenly all of Fate was there. He raised both hands as more golden ankhs filled the air.

Off Markab the Green Lantern wiped his brow as he slipped into hyperspace. The Zak-Dorn battle masters had been peculiarly reluctant to stop their war on the Klorn; they kept saying it was good practice for Strategema, and when the Lantern had appeared they'd resisted his message. Forcefully. It had been a long week's worth of fighting, with a number of frighteningly near misses, and all the Green Lantern wanted was to make his report and then go home to tend to his laser-burned and impact-bruised body.

Seconds into the void of hyperspace, an enormous purple face appeared in front of him. The Lantern instantly stopped as the face said, "Hal Jordan. Your presence is needed on Earth."

Jordan sighed heavily and tried to keep his exasperation from showing. "Yes, Guardian. About Markab--"

"We have followed your actions and are pleased with the results. But you must go to Earth now, Hal Jordan. Superman's life hangs in the balance, and it is in the galaxy's best interest that he remain among the living."

Fear shot through Jordan's body and widened his eyes as he said, "Yes, sir!" and reversed his course. His pains and fatigue forgotten, he doubled and redoubled his speed, one thought foremost in his mind: that his friend would not die if he could help it.

Seconds crawled by as the golden glow surrounded Superman's body and the ankhs flowed from Fate's hands and helmet into the Kryptonian. Finally the glow flickered out and Fate sighed and said, in a voice heavy with weariness, "It is done."

Dr. Strohm gaped at Fate and at Superman, and it took The Batman's barked, "Doctor!" to snap him back to the here-and-now.

Strohm leapt into motion, shouting orders, and as the anesthesiologist dosed Superman and nurses appeared and began scurrying around Strohm, The Batman and Dr. Fate retreated to the corner of the O.R.

Batman nodded once--the closest to praise he was able to give, Fate thought--and said, "It looks like a bullet wound, but there's no exit wound, and I can't find the bullet."

Fate turned his helmet and his magical sight on the body of his friend. After a few seconds he said, in a perplexed voice, "No, it...is not there. But no magic took it away. It is simply...gone."

Unnoticed by either of them, the suction tube sucked up water from Superman's chest wound; the water had started out as ice, then been shaped into a bullet by Gizmo. It had been changed into Kryptonite by Shimmer, but her powers were of a limited duration, and during the ambulance ride to the hospital the bullet had reverted to ice, and promptly melted.

As had been the plan all along.

In Keystone City Barry Allen was finishing explaining his report to his boss.

"...and that's why everything was so messed up, sir. Somehow the Mirror Master used his mirror image to commit the crimes, which is why the fingerprints on the Heart of Darkness didn't match his fingerprints, or anyone else's. It was his mirror image that Eclipso killed, which is why the blood and DNA were so strange. We weren't dealing with an alien, just someone who was reversed. The Flash told me that he caught the Mirror Master in a hotel room in Omaha; the police there are processing him."

Chief Balcom nodded. "Good work, Allen. Oh, by the way, on your way out, let everyone know that there's an all-precinct meeting planned for 6 tonight."

Allen's ears pricked up. "Sir? What about?"

Balcom checked to make sure his door was still closed. "Don't let this get out before we make the announcement, but...Superman was shot about an hour ago. He's in critical condition. Metropolis P.D. is sitting on this, but we expect that word will get leaked to the press, at least, if nobody else, and you know what that'll mean. Rioting in Metropolis, and the super-scum going there in droves. We don't want a copycat riot happening here."

"Uh...Chief, I've got something in the lab I have to take care of."

Balcom nodded. A second later, a thought occurred to him, and he followed Barry Allen into the hallway. "Allen, I want you..." He stopped. Barry Allen was nowhere to be seen.

The Flash was just reaching Metropolis as Chief Balcom opened the hall door.

Five minutes later The Batman, Doctor Fate, the Green Lantern, the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman (still dripping wet from his frenzied swim across the Atlantic), and Wonder Woman (somewhat out of breath from her frantic flight across the country) whispered conjectures at each other as they waited for the doctor's verdict on Superman's health.

Meanwhile, in Bludhaven, a KordCo van pulled to a stop in front of the LexCorp labs complex....

Author's Note: The "mass murder" that Detective Arnold referred to will be described in greater depth in Brave and the Bold #20.

Next issue: Up the rushing mountain...