Sell you a Bridge chapter 195

March 7th 2016 Mount Justice 2:00 PM EDT

My  plan was simple. Admittedly not as simple as my ORIGINAL plan, which  had been to just blow up every trace of The Reach on the planet, but  still not complex. Zee had talked me down from that one after we found  out what they were planning, back before we involved the League. As I  shared it with Nightwing, however, the muscular man looked more dubious  with every word I spoke.

He  glared at me. "An open bounty? Do you know how reckless that is? How  much collateral damage could result in just throwing down a few million  dollars and declaring open season in the underworld?" He sounded upset  at the very idea, and I could vaguely understand where he was coming  from. He'd definitely seen some of the people I was planning to bring in  work and had good reasons to distrust them.

That  said, there were a LOT of criminals, and this was their planet too.  Putting out an open bounty for the reach would utilize my absolute  advantage. Money. My powers could do lots of things that were very  impressive, especially with time to build up, but there was a limit for  the really scary stuff in that I needed a LOT of points. Even at ten  thousand per day it would take months, or even years to buy some of my  more expensive potential abilities.

Which  I would definitely be doing down the line, but I could basically make  money for nothing and barely spend anything on it. I was a human  printing press, and there were quite a few people on earth who could  really put the hurt on someone if you paid them enough. I still thought  it was a good idea. "Sure, and they'll all be super safe if the world  gets turned into a teen superhero farm? There's risk there sure, but  this is their planet too, and they won't want to give it up to The Reach  or anyone else."

Superboy  shook his head. "You don't get it Morgan. Lex Luthor, Ra's Al Ghul,  Vandal Savage, all the big names are actively working with the reach.  Lexcorp is funding that energy drink they're spiking. Most of the  criminal underworld works for them, even if you put the money out no one  will take the cash if it means crossing them." His face was stony and  serious, but despite the grim warning I couldn't help but laugh at that.

He  looked shocked, but I just shook my head. "You have a flawed  understanding of supervillains man. You have this ingrained notion of  them as some kind of malevolent and insidious counterculture, constantly  plotting to bring about the ruin of civilization." I paused. "Which,  ok, there are a couple of those. But for the most part that's not what  criminals are. Criminals aren't all psychos who want to murder everyone  and bathe in their blood. The majority of them are just people who don't  like following rules."

He  raised an eyebrow at me and I smiled, spreading my hands to encompass  myself. "Yup, exhibit A. My point is though, that while the average  crook may want more money, or better looking women, or vengeance, the  main theme is that they WANT. Specifically them. They don't have a  higher cause like you League folks do, they work to enrich number one.  Hostile aliens enslaving the whole human race and turning the planet  into a slave farm is bad for EVERYONE's bottom line."

He  tried to open his mouth and I cut him off. "Don't get me wrong man,  Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor, and their little club of tyrant wannabes are  scary. But they aren't scary enough to make burning down your house  while you're still inside it a good idea, and anyone worth their salt or  who has any real power wouldn't have bought into their supervillain  social club. Real power players don't mix well with others. People like  Morgana, like The Shade, the movers and the shakers who just go about  their business, they won't want to see someone taking their turf."

Nightwing,  to my surprise, looked...pensive. "That...isn't exactly wrong. Most  crooks are out for themselves. We assumed based on the scale The Light  operates on that they were cohesive like us, but being a criminal is a  job. Being a hero is a calling. They're way less united than we are, and  that applies here too." He grimaced. "I don't like the idea of having  to pay someone to protect their own planet, but if we could make sure  there isn't any collateral...it MIGHT work." He looked at me. "You  really have the money to pay for this? We tracked your thefts and  nothing you stole was even close to that valuable."

I  snorted, waving off the question. "I'm a Falcone. For every account you  know about I have ten you don't. I won't confirm or deny any theft  related funds of course, but I assure you I have the cash to throw  around. As for making sure I suppose we could do something like set up  stipulations on the fund for withdrawal. Our first customers wouldn't be  assassins or bounty hunters anyway, they would be thieves and spies. We  need information first and foremost. I can talk to Jim about putting  the word out to people in his line of work."

I'd  also talk to Reggie and Bette, but I wasn't going to confirm that for  the goody goodys. Superboy looked less dubious than before, but still  not convinced. He mulled it over for a bit before he sighed. "Alright.  But we have to agree on the terms of the contract. Nightwing is right,  we can't have rogue mercenaries killing innocent people for a shot at  some bounty. How long will it take you to get the money together? We can  work on something while you do it. Should be able to have an agreement  drawn up pretty fast." He looked to Nightwing. "You think tomorrow?"

The  dark clad hero nodded. "Tomorrow works, we can run it by some lawyers I  know. If we-sorry if YOU are going to be paying spies and thieves to  start we'll have to work in something about theft prevention. We  obviously can't endorse it directly. First because we wouldn't be able  to keep it from the reach for long if we did,  futile as that hope is,  and secondly because we're UN sanctioned and this will involve dealing  with some shady characters."

I  snorted a bit at that and he glared at me. "What? No one here sees the  irony that the League could get in trouble with an organizational body  made up of governments that regularly employ the same kinds of scumbags  and lowlives we're going to be paying off here?" I got a lot of hard  looks and I put my hands up. "No pointing out blatant governmental  hypocrisy, check. Speaking of hypocritical governments we were promised a  run down on the situation since we've been gone. What the hell happened  with the government after the Amazon War?"

I'd  been wondering about this since we got back. I hadn't heard anything  about...anything. There was no way the US government could ignore an  attack on sovereign US soil. Nightwing looked annoyed. "The US  government ignored an attack on sovereign US soil." I blinked, staring  at him in shock and he chuckled. "Insane right? We were all expecting  more, expecting some reprisals, or peace talks, or....something. The  Bana Mighdal weren't Amazon's from Themyscira but they WERE Amazon's and  we expected the government to use it as an excuse to wring some  concessions from them."

He  looked pissed. "But they didn't. They just...ignored it. Gotham has  always been the underbelly of the US, and the bigwigs in Washington  didn't think starting a fight with the island full of super strong  women, or even rocking the boat, was beneficial. They slapped a blanket  immunity order on the city for anyone who wasn't provably in the wrong  so we didn't have to keep hearing about the fallout and then went about  their business, essentially rushing Gotham out of the news cycle."

Superboy  put a hand on his shoulder and he sighed, slumping into a chair.  "Sorry. Sore subject. Wayne Enterprises ended up picking up a lot of the  slack on the rebuild, and even Luthor helped out. The government just  levied sanctions against the Amazons as a finger wave, but they import  NOTHING so that was a pointless salve to the ego of the American  people." He froze, looking over at the blonde girl with the very obvious  frown and the wonder woman W on her chest. "Sorry Cassie, you know I  don't blame Themyscira, but I'm not happy with how it was handled."

She  sighed heavily. "No, I get it. Queen Hipployta didn't exactly help out  with the aftermath either. Diana lobbied for relief teams to be sent, or  at least some resources, but in the end it was decided that mans world  can deal with mans problems. In reality I think she was just worried  that the locals wouldn't have been able to tell friend from foe and  attacked the Amazons who came because of their relation to the Bana."  She sounded sad for her people and for Gotham both, and I decided I  liked her. She seemed to really care about what she was doing.

I  wished I could say that the government throwing Gotham under the bus  was shocking, but they had done their best to ignore us for years now.  Gotham was always the butt of everyone's jokes, It was the hell hole,  the dumpster fire, that place you wouldn't be caught dead. Well,  Bludhaven was worse, but only marginally and it wasn't nearly as big.  Still, ignoring something as big as the Gotham siege was pretty classic.  Not just because they didn't want to mess with the Amazon's but because  acknowledging it meant acknowledging magic on a wide scale, and even  with aliens and superheroes and people like Dr. Fate and Zatara running  around, that was a big step that would be hard to walk back.

I  shook off my disappointment. It wasn't like it mattered. I actually  felt for Nightwing, as a fellow Gotham brat we both hated how our city  was dismissed and derided, but it was hard not to see their point at  times. I had bigger problems though so I focused back on the teams, mine  and theirs. "Alright, well to answer your question earlier a day should  be doable to get some of the cash together. I can manage a big chunk of  money, unless you would prefer something like gold? I'm flexible."

In  reality it would be more like two days, since I could still use todays  email and then tomorrows. With the fifteen thousand points I had on hand  I could get pretty much the biggest payday I'd ever seen and still have  enough points left to spare. I was thinking some kind of sweepstakes or  something. Maybe publishers clearing house or something like that.  Point was money was no object to me, and if I got too much raw cash  gems, gold, treasure, art, anything I wanted could be obtained easily  and for cheap through my power with the click of a button.

Nightwing  looked slightly suspicious but still nodded. "I think cash should be  fine right now. I'm warning you though, I WILL look into where it came  from, same with any resources. Just because we're working with you and  you're legally in the clear doesn't mean we aren't still heroes. We  won't let you use blood money or stolen goods to fund this little  operation, no matter how convenient it might be." He glared at me  sternly. I had to keep my smirk buried under stoicism, because I wanted  to grin at him tauntingly. I still didn't like Nightwing, and I had to  admit, the idea of him spending endless hours trying to trace a money  trail for cash I literally conjured into existence made me smile. It was  the little things that really made life worth living.