Star Dust (A Paladin Adventure)

Search

When we got to the tower, Steve asked the AI where Tony was. The AI, who packs a lot of snark in with the Irish accent, told us that the boss was in his engineering lab. When we went upstairs, the AI had alerted him that we were coming and he was waiting impatiently. It looked like he'd been testing a variant of the arc reactor engine in the simulation chamber.

"So what's going on?" he said, a bit snappishly. His eyes took in the difference between my dress and the boys' sweatshirts and jeans. "What trouble did you get into now, Harrington?"

I elevated an eyebrow. "I was out with Diana, Batgirl, and Supergirl. Came across a Skrull who was the leader of a band of human thugs. Before he killed himself, he gloated that without him, the humans they had would die."

Tony dropped the crescent wrench he'd been fiddling with. "What now? I'm going to need more context." So I quickly ran over the story for him. "And that's all you know?" he sighed, picking up the wrench again.

I opened my mouth to answer and my phone rang. It was Diana. "Diana, Supergirl, Superman, and Flash are on their way. Batgirl and Batman are also en route."

"We might as well wait for them," he said grouchily, directing the AI to send them up when they got here and picking his glass of whiskey. He didn't offer us any, I noted. He started violently when Supergirl knocked on a pane of glass, and nodded when I pointed around to a window that opened. Tony often flew his suits into this lab.

The Bats were the next up, followed by Diana and Flash, who'd been waiting for her. "I heard one of the police officers saying that the gang we interrupted was the Brotherhood, apparently they're located in the Chinatown area."

Batman nodded. "It gives us a place to start looking."

"Wait, where are we looking? What are we looking for?"

"Human hostages," Batman said, speaking slowly and clearly, as if to a child.

"Yeah, got that, flying hamster," Tony said. "But how are we going to search? We can't go door to door, and the Brotherhood isn't going to let us just saunter casually around their headquarters." He huffed a breath and pulled up Lexis/Nexus to start searching, directing the AI to pursue other searches. The rest of us waited silently and patiently as he waved his hands through screens of information projected by the computer.

"I guess I'll suit up," I finally murmured to Steve, and he nodded, following me. I kept a spare Poppy suit in his room, and we changed without much comment. 

"You go out for a couple hours and you're miles ahead of me," he said ruefully, pulling up the side zipper on his costume. I clipped my utility belt into place and slid my arms around him, resting my head on his chest, listening to the reassuring "lub-lub" of his heart.

"Only a step," I said, disagreeing. "But we just can't let people die. And I'm worried..."

"About experimentation," he finished, nodding. He gave me a friendly pat on the butt and we walked back down to the lab. Progress had been made while we were changing. Bucky filled us in quietly as Tony and Batman bickered. Bucky hadn't changed; his suit was black leather plus the arm, and the arm was actually enough to identify him. He wore a black motorcycle jacket and dark jeans, so it was pretty much the same thing anyway.

"We've got two locations that are linked through property ownership to the gang, and they're fighting over who gets what," he murmured, and I listened. There was a site in what had previously been a store, the windows covered with paper and it was widely assumed that this is where they packaged their drugs. They were a middleman for a not-huge fish in the drug trade, and they were responsible for cutting the drugs and sending them out using couriers. There was a second site, a row house where the leader of the gang lived and kept a couple of girls. Tony and Bruce both apparently felt that this was the more promising location and were arguing over it.

Diana and Batgirl were getting increasingly irritated. "Enough," the Amazon said crisply. "The residence is big enough for both of you to search. "You two, Batgirl, Superman, and Supergirl will search the residence. "Emma, Flash, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and I will search the shop." She forestalled any argument by motioning her team over, politely but firmly asking Tony to put the details for the store up for us. As we gathered around, Tony shut up and put the blueprint for the house up for the team he'd been assigned to.

"Looks pretty straightforward," Bucky opined after a cursory study. There was the storefront and a basement. It was an older building, built in the 1910s, electricity upgraded in the 1980s, plumbing in the 1990s. We decided to go over as a team, and when we got there, Flash would do a quick run-through and let us know what we'd be up against. Nothing, hopefully. It was a weeknight, if that made any difference. Then the rest of us would come in and we'd conduct a search. I don't think any of us expected that the hostages would be there but that perhaps we'd find some clues to where they were being held. Surely the Skrull wouldn't be stupid enough to keep human hostages where they could be seen by the other gang members.

We took my car; it was a tight fit for five, and I squeezed into the backseat with Flash and Bucky as Steve drove and Diana had shotgun. Fortunately, at this time of night, it wasn't a long drive. I scanned the building through the window; even covered with paper I could still see that there weren't any heat signatures, and we went around to the alley to break in. Selina had said once that lockpicking wasn't difficult, and I'd taken it as a challenge. The lock was old and worn, and in this case Selina was right. I stepped back and Barry was back almost before he was gone. "It's clear," he said, and we all went in. I took a right and found the door to the downstairs immediately. I picked the lock again, and this time Steve and Bucky went down first, me behind. I might be bulletproof, but it still stings a lot and Steve was very good with his shield.

All sorts of caution for no payoff. There was a cot with a stained mattress, a table, some metal folding chairs, and a naked bulb on the ceiling. The boys headed out into the room  to check the undersides of the furniture, and I casually looked under the stairs. It was quite dark back there, and I asked Bucky if I could borrow his finger. He grinned at me and turned on his flashlight finger. "We could have been better prepared," he said, and I nodded. We stared at the back wall, frowning.

"Something looks off," I said, cocking my head. Bucky nodded.

"Don't know what it is, though." That attracted Steve's attention, and he came over.

"Huh," he said, and ducked under the stairs to poke the wall with his shield. We were expecting a sharp sound, as the walls were concrete, but this rang like metal. Steve patted the wall, then started to hit a place with the shield edge. We were all startled when he opened a heavy metal door. He cautiously patted the inside of the wall on the side that didn't have the hinges and a light flickered on inside. We advanced cautiously into the room; the light was bright, the walls painted white. Half the room was dominated by equipment I'd never seen before. The other side had bunkbeds, spaced closely together. We'd found them.

There were at least a dozen hostages. Chained to the beds that were bolted to the floor. Bucky leaned out. "Diana! Flash! Down here!" Flash was immediately by our side; Diana's footsteps were light and quick on the stairs.   

"Gods," she breathed as she joined us inside. The hostages were all terrified children.