Victor grimaced as he sprung into action and rushed to the central server stacks.
If his consciousness hadn't been contained inside the simulation, he would've detected the intrusion straight away. As this stinging frustration lingered, Victor attempted to patch into the Watchtower comms system. There were other Leaguers onboard, if he mobilised their ranks they could all converge on the intruder and minimise his chances of escape.
Cyborg quickly found out that all communications had been blocked by precise levels of electromagnetic interference that most definitely couldn't have been cosmic background radiation. The intruder was jamming comms...not a feat to be taken lightly. Victor couldn't even get word to Earth about the Watchtower being compromised either. He had to take care of this on his own.
Minutes ticked by, and Victor arrived at the central computer mainframe to find that its bulkhead had been locked down. The massive door's reinforced window revealed the thief's identity; it was none other than the technological thief and mercenary Mikron O'Jeneus, A.K.A Gizmo.
Gizmo was hunched over a portable computer terminal as he watched a progress bar denoting the status of his data transfer. He was a very short man at about 4 feet 2 inches and was completely bald save for a thick brown beard on his face. He suddenly noticed Victor glaring through the sealed door and smiled back at him.
"Nice of you to finally notice me rummaging around in this server of yours. What kept you?" Gizmo mused calmly.
Cyborg instantly began chipping away at Gizmo's hold on the Watchtower's systems whilst masking his footprint so that the diminutive genius wouldn't be able to detect his presence. Victor pressed, "What the hell are you doing here, Mikron? Where's the rest of your crew?"
"You don't have to try to keep me distracted you know, it's obvious you're already running counter-intrusion on me. Pretty impressive actually, how your brainwaves are directly controlling those cybernetic implants. Anybody else would be too slow."
At that moment, Victor managed to gain enough access into Gizmo's terminal to see what exactly he was stealing. His face dropped.
Gizmo chuckled. "Do you want to know how much I'm getting paid to take that from you? To put it simply, it's enough to pay back the student debt from my ten degrees."
It was the Amazo Algorithm...the data that Victor and Harper both crusaded to protect from H.I.V.E. on their very first mission together. The programming was a critical component of an android called Amazo; a machine that could replicate metahuman powers after coming into contact with them. Victor knew it was far too dangerous to keep...and that's why he destroyed it. "This is impossible. I wiped the entire drive. Melted it to slag." He muttered.
"Unfortunately, I do not have the answer to your question. But what I do have is enough time to copy this data, burn the original, then leave." Gizmo dismissed.
Victor shifted his questions to the corner of his mind and concentrated on stopping Gizmo. Further particle scans indicated that Gizmo's comm jammer was also dispersing neutrino bursts that would cause any manifested spatial ruptures to lose cohesion and instantly collapse...so that meant no boom tubes. On the other hand, Victor's counter-intrusion software was being fought back by Gizmo's own sophisticated program that was now piggybacking the Watchtower's processing power to enhance its own effectiveness. This meant that Victor was no longer just trying to chip through Gizmo's customised portable computer, but also the Watchtower's incredible supercomputer. It was a stalemate that would buy Gizmo enough time to complete the transfer.
However, if Victor used a combination of plasma torch incisions and his own enhanced strength on the heavily reinforced hatch, he might just break through before Gizmo can get away.
Cyborg's left hand twisted and rearranged itself, replacing the appendage with a high-intensity plasma cutting torch. He instantly began applying the heat to certain vital areas on the bullhead as Gizmo continued bantering. "I must admit, the design of this orbital station is quite amazing. The usage of centrifugal force to create a facsimile of Earth gravity is as old as toilet paper, but the execution here is extremely elegant. The spin, coupled with the structural design makes it seem as if the platform's completely stationary. I don't think anybody but you could have designed this, Cyborg." He said, clearly trying to irk the former Titan. He said the word 'Cyborg' with a streak of disdain, using it as a derogatory term.
Victor began firing back, seeing as there wasn't much else for him to do while he sliced through the bulkhead. "You see, Mikron, architecture is just math and physics. You have a limited amount of space due to finances and logistics, and a limited combination of matter that wouldn't come apart under natural strain. That might be a little hard for someone as narrow-minded as you to understand."
Gizmo winced comedically as he replied, "When did you decide to install a sense of wit? It doesn't suit you. Maybe my friend can help you...uninstall it."
Victor twitched as his proximity sensor picked up movement behind him. Before he could react he was clobbered by a gigantic fist the size of his torso. Cyborg was rammed into the bulkhead, the pressure being applied on both sides of his body enough to instantly kill any ordinary person.
Gizmo laughed. "Protip; if it isn't working properly, just whack it real hard."
Victor hissed in reaction to the stress being pressed onto his remaining internal organs; one of the few remaining ways for him to experience real pain. He peered over his shoulder and beheld the unwelcoming visage of Mammoth, one of Gizmo's compatriots from the Fearsome Five. His grotesquely muscled frame was freakish, especially when compared to Victor's comparatively normal profile.
Mammoth snarled, spraying spit over Victor's face. "You don't got that alien bitch or the creepy witch to save you this time."
The behemoth of a man wrapped his trunk-like fingers around Victor's midsection and plucked him up. Victor rerouted power to his armour plating and discharged a burst of energy through it, which pulsed into Mammoth's body electrocuting him.
Mammoth roared and released Victor, who landed on his feet, reconfigured his right arm into a fist-sized hydraulic battering ram, and threw it at his gargantuan foe. The resulting bone-crunching attack was only enough to send Mammoth staggering backwards; otherwise, he was unharmed.
Victor wasn't about to let go of his advantage. A white noise cannon took the place of his previous weapon, and Cyborg took aim and fired directly at Mammoth. Shot after shot, the brute gritted his teeth and worked his way forward inch by inch. Victor would've easily held his own in basically any other situation...but right now, he and his adversary were roaring over the Earth at 60,000 miles an hour in what was basically a can filled with oxygen. If just one of Victor's more heavy duty weapons missed and breached the station's hull, the atmosphere would vent instantaneously and kill Mammoth as well as anyone else on this wing of the Watchtower. This same danger was why Victor couldn't turn these heavy weapons on the bulkhead and blow his way to Gizmo.
"Gonna have to do better than that, tin man."
A high-pitched whirling filled the corridor, and caused Mammoth to glance over his shoulder. "How about this?" Harper's voice taunted.
A loud buzzing overwhelmed Victor's auditory sensors as he detected a concentrated wave of microwave radiation focusing on Mammoth's biomass. Microwave energy in this particular amount would not be as devastating to the Watchtower's structure as Victor's more damaging plasma beam.
Cyborg spotted Harper in the hallway, wearing a new suit. It was overall fairly angular and bulky, perhaps to house components to amplify power production and routing capabilities. Unlike most of her other suits, this one was armed only with energy weapons.
With an amused grunt, Cyborg manifested a microwave emitter following Harper's demonstration, then he fired. The resulting release was impossible to see with the naked eye, and so both shots hit Mammoth from either side. This time, he felt it. The giant man growled with unbridled fury and charged towards Victor once more. Thankfully, this time, Cyborg had time to calculate exactly when the moment of impact would occur and dodged Mammoth's attack entirely.
The behemoth was, instead, sent tumbling into the bulkhead with nothing but his own strength. The entire barrier trembled, then collapsed entirely, and Mammoth was rendered dazed by the impact. Victor hurried you the other side, where Gizmo had been previously been lurking, but he was gone... Mammoth had proved to be a clever distraction as Gizmo made his escape.
"Damn it." Victor hissed. He knew, somehow, that this was his fault. If he hadn't been foolish enough to dream of being normal...if he had just left that simulation, then he would have noticed the intruders much earlier. Still, one question temporary discarded most of his quilt and replaced it with confusion. How was the Amazo algorithm still around? And more importantly, what was it doing on the Watchtower?