Sell you a Bridge chapter 192

March 6th 2016 Reach Factory 12:00 AM EDT

My  head was pounding and my body was shaking as I fell out of the  martian's body. I had just enough presence of mind to see his aura and  make sure he wasn't being controlled before my vision went fuzzy. The  martian fell to his knees, and then onto his side, bonelessly, and I  heard a shout as my team showed up, probably notified by the clone on  the ground via the sending stone that had been copied into it's ear when  I duplicated myself.

Zee was at  my side in an instant, with Dreamer standing guard over us both as she  tried to figure out what was wrong. "Morgan? Baby are you ok? What  happened?" I couldn't respond, my brain felt like a bag of broken glass  and gravel, shifting uncomfortably around whenever I moved or thought. I  mentally pulled up my character sheet, eyes focusing on my points  value. Ten thousand. Nearly ten times what it had been. I would be  getting ten THOUSAND points per day now. I shook my head, almost  immediately regretting the action, but trying to focus all the same.

I  groaned. "M'fine. Minute." Speaking fucking hurt, my entire mind was  currently reconfiguring into a different order. That had felt...right.  Like it was how my power was meant to function, but it had also felt  wrong, like it was something that human beings weren't supposed to be  able to do. I thought back to Del's little speech to me about becoming  more than I was. I had the sinking feeling that if I'd taken the boom  tube back instead of going to long way my brain would have exploded when  I tried that little trick just now.

I  closed my eyes, noting the burning zero behind my lids. Well, that  explained some of the pain. I hadn't fully tapped myself out like this  in a long time, and while this was a level of suck that was far beyond  the last time, I doubted being completely dry was helping things. I  wanted to juice myself up a bit, but I had absolutely no energy for  something like void form, so I had no way of taking in energy. I  certainly wasn't feeling up to any tantric top ups right now.

Still,  despite the twelve fucking hour wait until this hellish nonsense ended  completely, my brain started to de-fuzz at least a little after a few  minutes. Luckily they hadn't done anything to the martian but tie him  up. Zee noticed me becoming coherent and was pretty much in my face in  seconds. "Honey? Look up, I need to see if you have a concussion." She  moved her hand in front of my face, checking if I could track the  movement. She frowned at me. "I...don't know what I'm looking for. Also  you didn't hit your head I don't think."

I  burst out laughing, cutting off the sound with a wince when it made my  head ring. I kept the chuckle after quieter and smiled, pulling her down  for a kiss. She relaxed into me, and Dreamer bent down to help us both  up. She steadied me, looking concerned. "Are you alright Morgan? We got  some sort of feedback through the sending stones, like you were reaching  out but not with words or impressions, just...overstimulation. It  knocked us all flat. What happened? And who is that?"

I  stepped away from Dreamer to stand on my own slowly. "His name is  B'arzz O'oomm. Martian. He was having his brain hijacked by one of those  scarab things. It tried to use me to embed itself with the League or  something, I don't know, but when I noticed it was controlling him it  took over and tried to kill me. Damn thing was way too strong so I  baited it into letting it's guard down and then sucker punched it with a  possession attempt. Keep an eye out, it isn't possessing him, but I'm  not sure how long that's going to last."

A  calm voice echoed from over where the alien was tied up. "Quite some  time, I believe, my friend. I thank you. The scarab his been knocked, as  The Reach would say "off mode". We should relocate as soon as possible,  the other scarab will be coming soon, and he is much more powerful than  I. I do not think your method of interference  would work a second  time." His voice sounded weak, but steady, and I double checked his  aura, seeing no more sign of the earlier corruption.

That  sounded...terrifying. We decided to heed the warning and bail, but we  didn't take him anywhere sensitive, simply relocation to an empty  warehouse while Wally took the samples to his lab to run them. Luckily  this factory was in Gotham, so there was an abandoned warehouse pretty  close. Despite all the changes while we were gone there was still an  abandoned warehouse every two miles in Gotham.

Once  we made it to the warehouse we sat down with B'arzz, who caught us up  on what he knew about The Reach, which sadly wasn't much. His voice was  apologetic as he filled us in. "I do not know many of their plans. The  Reach send out beetles across the galaxy as scouts and spies. They find  unsuspecting locals and bond to them, subverting their minds and  creating deep cover agents to aid The Reach in their conquests."

I  raised an eyebrow. "Then why send a martian? Or at least, why in your  current form. You guys can shape shift right? You could have passed for  human. No offense but you aren't exactly subtle as is. For that matter  why didn't they just slap a scarab on a human in the first place. If  they were coming here you would think they would have sent a spy ahead  of time, since you said that's their MO."

He  smiled grimly. "They did. Earth HAS a scarab agent, the scarab has  simply been damaged and knocked off mode. From what I understand this  happened quite some time ago. The Reach are concerned that  countermeasures have been taken against implanting another sleeper. The  plan was for me to use the camaraderie I share as a renegade scarab to  grow close to Earth's scarab user and reset his scarab, rendering him on  mode once more. The current host, called Blue Beetle, is a member of  the League's affiliate team, and subverting him would give them ready  made access."

That  actually wasn't a bad plan. Why go through the trouble of planting a  spy when you already had one locked and loaded. The best part was that  since the League presumably knew about his origins and had almost  definitely vetted him, once they brought him under control confirmation  bias would make the heroes much less likely to look into him again.  "What are their plans for Earth then. Clearly you were involved. We're  running those chemicals now, but it would be easier to just tell us."

He  shook his head sadly. "You misunderstand my position. I was a drone. An  effective drone, but still merely a weapon. One does not tell a knife  how one plans to stab. They simply aim it and let it do it's work. I  have no more insight into The Reach's plans for this world than you  yourself. I was simply chosen due to my position as a nearby neighbor  and a known quantity to the League."

I  cursed internally, yeah that would have been too easy. I sat down,  giving myself a bit of time to recover a bit more as we waited for news  from our science nerd. Luckily we picked literally the fastest science  nerd in the world, so he was back within about an hour, and he did not  look particularly please. Artemis looked at him grimly. "I recognize  that look. That's the look you had on your face before I broke up with  you. It does not bode well." She approached him gently, putting a hand  on his shoulder. "What did you find."

Wally  looked...scared. Like full on terrified of his discovery. He glanced at  B'arzz and shook his head. "Not here. No offense but I don't know him,  and I don't want to announce something like this in uncertain company. I  nodded, standing up, and Dreamer caught me as I wobbled, helping me  limp out of the room on their heels, Zee slipping under my other arm.  I'd never tapped myself out right after refill before, and if I had my  way I was never going to do it again, because this fucking sucked.

Once  we got outside Wally slumped against the wall, shaking. Artemis looked  disturbed. "Wally? What's wrong? I haven't seen you this shaken since we  found that time loop projector. Was it really that bad?" She looked  genuinely worried for him, and I could understand. If Zee had been all  shaky like this it would have freaked me out too, but more importantly,  Wally was a hardened operative who had seen some shit, for him to be  spooked like this, whatever he found must have been awful.

He  swallowed hard. "T-the chemical agents used in the soft drink called  'Reach' contain two main components. One of them is a sort of sedative,  but much longer lasting. It's a chemical you would use to make an animal  docile, a mood stabilizer of sorts to inhibit aggressive behavior. The  second was...more complex. It took me most of the time I was gone to  figure out what it did, but once I managed I realized what the plan  was." The sedative thing was...bad. Making the native population docile  wasn't something anyone with good intentions would do.

He  took a deep breath. "It's a genetic tracker for the meta-gene, a  marking agent that allows the reach to identify latent metas." He took a  shuddering breath. "They're starting a farm Arty. They're fattening us  up, and picking the choicest cuts, and they're going to harvest the ones  they want and slaughter them. They aren't trying to conquer earth." He  spat on the ground angrily. "They're trying to fucking DOMESTICATE us."  His voice was hot with rage, and I couldn't blame him, he had reason to  be angry.

Aside  from the normal human reaction to being fattened up for the slaughter,  we had just come from a corrupt authoritarian state. Seeing what the  witch had done to the Mystic Man, hell what she'd done to the whole OZ,  put the fate of earth under The Reach into sharp relief. Even if they  didn't overtly conquer us, they would twist our way of life into a  sickening parody of itself.

Forget  the future, Jim had already said it. The world had become darker, more  corrupt, and I was betting the secret cabal of alien psychos playing  nazi eugenics were not uninvolved in that shit. A few years ago I might  have passed it on to the adults, or even the League, and left it alone.  Let Jim handle it. But my team had been through too much on our own for  that, and besides, I had a little sister now, a little sister with  supernatural powers who might very well show up as a bearer of the  meta-gene under a microscope for all I knew.

No,  we wouldn't ignore this, we wouldn't pass the buck, but we also  wouldn't do something as stupid as try to stop an alien invasion from a  galactic super empire by ourselves. Our trip through the OZ had taught  me a lot about the benefits of having an army at your back, and I was  absolutely going to take it to heart. I looked up at Wally, my eyes firm  as I looked him in the eye. "Alright. I want you to get me a meeting  with the Justice League. Tell them we have information about a threat to  Earth. And tell them we want to help them stop it." I wasn't going to  become a superhero, but I sure as hell wasn't letting alien slavers farm  my race for soldiers either. Guess the Justice League was about to make  a deal with a Devil.