Justice League

by Michael Jan Friedman

  The wife wouldn’t have liked that. But what was he supposed to do? Sit in gridlock until morning?

  Turning a darkened corner, Freddy headed south on Kupps Street. That’s when he caught sight of a half dozen people carrying things. Big things. Boxes, he realized as he drove a little closer.

  As his headlights illuminated the people, he saw that the boxes were marked. Apparently, they contained television sets and stereo sound systems. Now, he thought, why would people be carrying stuff like that around during a blackout?

  There was only one answer. They were looters—thieves taking advantage of the confusion to enrich themselves.

  A moment later, Freddy saw where the boxes must have come from: an electronics store with a broken display window. If it had a security alarm, the power outage had disabled it—and even if it had worked, there weren’t any police around to do anything about it.

  Freddy was just a security guard. He had never been a real police officer. He didn’t even know any real police officers. But he just couldn’t sit there and see an honest businessman ripped off that way.

  Then it occurred to him that he didn’t have to.

  In the dark, his uniform looked a lot like a policeman’s uniform, and he had the gun he had been given at work. If he could just yell and wave the thing around a little, it might scare the looters away and save a hardworking store owner a load of grief.

  Yeah, Freddy thought. That’s the ticket.

  Pulling over to the sidewalk, he withdrew his revolver from his holster and got out of his car. Then he closed the door and started walking in the looters’ direction.

  “Hey, you!” he roared at them, doing his best to sound like he was in charge. “What do you think you’re doing with those boxes?”

  He heard the looters exchange alarmed comments. So far so good, he thought.

  “I asked you what you were doing!” he snarled.

  The looters started to back off. But they didn’t drop what they were carrying. Freddy wondered why not.

  Suddenly, he felt a tingling in the short hairs on the back of his neck. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought there was someone behind him.

  Then Freddy saw the looks on the faces of the looters, and he realized there was someone behind him. Whirling, he found himself staring into the eyes of a half dozen armed gunmen.

  “You’re in a bad place,” one of them said.

  Then he laughed. And the rest of them laughed too.

  Freddy wished he could laugh with them. But at the moment, his teeth were chattering. He had bitten off more than he could chew. He saw that now.

  And he was about to pay the price for it.

  Then something happened. It was so quick and unexpected that Freddy wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

  All he saw was a big black shadow falling across the gunmen. At least, it seemed like a shadow—except that it had scalloped edges, like the wings of a bat.

  The next thing he knew, the gunmen were lying on the ground unconscious, their weapons nowhere to be seen. The guys who had been toting the boxes were running off, leaving their ill-gotten gains lying in the street.

  And the shadow was rising like a big, black helium balloon, losing itself to sight among the stars.

  Freddy shuddered for a moment, realizing how close he had come to losing his life. Then, putting his gun back in its holster, he went to round up the boxes and put them back where they belonged.

  J’onn found his next adversary lurking in the Watchtower’s main cargo bay, looking over the cylindrical metal-alloy containers stored there.

  The containers were arranged by contents and stacked two or three deep. They were filled with a great many things—beverages, nonperishable foodstuffs, medical supplies, and electronic components.

  But none of them contained the neutralizer.

  Another member of the Injustice Gang would have turned on the lights as he or she entered the bay to conduct a search. But not this one. He was as comfortable in the dark as he was anywhere else—maybe more so.

  That was one of the reasons they called him the Shade.

  He was easily the most treacherous member of the Injustice Gang, easily the most devious. And, with a seemingly unlimited supply of obedient shadow-matter, also the most difficult to outmaneuver.

  In J’onn’s opinion, John Stewart was the member of the League best equipped to handle the Shade. After all, no weapon was more effective against darkness than light, and no light was more powerful than the kind that sprang from a Green Lantern’s ring.

  John was also one of an elite corps of lawmen, assigned by a group of mental giants called the Guardians to protect the galaxy. Out of everyone in the League, he was the only member trained to fight super-criminals. That was why no one in the Injustice Gang liked to tangle with him—not even Grundy.

  The problem was that John Stewart was difficult for J’onn to impersonate. J’onn could fly like a Green Lantern, but he couldn’t project power beams or erect shields against the attacks of others.

  Still, the Martian Manhunter had to make the attempt. It would serve to reinforce the illusion he had created, which was all that stood now between the Injustice Gang and their objective.

  Taking on John Stewart’s appearance, he floated as silently as he could through the open door of the cargo bay, staying low so as not to cast a discernible shadow. He even refrained from firing up his power ring with the radiance it would normally have displayed, knowing it might tip the Shade off to his approach.

  Unfortunately, something tipped him off anyway. He whirled, casting a shadowy barrier in front of him with his walking stick.

  The Shade’s expression, as he saw whom he was facing, was one of unconcealed disgust. “You’re here too?”

  J’onn glared at him the way his friend the Green Lantern would have. “You’ve got some nerve breaking in here a second time.”

  “If you’d minded your own business at Sirius Labs,” Shade replied sarcastically, “none of this would have been necessary.”

  “Sorry to inconvenience you,” said J’onn with equal sarcasm. Then he launched himself at Shade, shooting out an extension of his right arm to make it look like a green-energy battering ram.

  Immediately, the shadows on both sides of him rose up in waves to do their master’s bidding. But J’onn didn’t allow himself to be distracted. He followed through with his attack, knocking the Shade off his feet.

  Unfortunately, his “beam” didn’t have the force the real Green Lantern might have applied. The Shade went reeling, but he remained conscious. And his walking stick, which was the source of his power, remained in his hand.

  That enabled him to send a pack of shadows after J’onn. Had J’onn been the man he appeared to be, he might simply have pierced them with a green-energy beam. But he wasn’t that man at all.

  His best option was to keep flying—and look for an opening. But the Shade was an expert at handling his inky minions. J’onn’s ability to maneuver in midair would be tested as it had never been tested before.

  Shadow after shadow loomed before him and tried to engulf him, but he wove his way through them. Not once, not twice, but over and over again, so many times that he eventually lost count.

  Finally, J’onn thought he saw a gap in his adversary’s defenses. Without hesitation, he hurtled toward it. But at the last possible moment, the Shade threw a shadowy blob in J’onn’s way.

  It was a trap, J’onn realized, a trap all along. And he had fallen for it.

  But as the shadow broke over him like a heavy black surf, he swerved sharply to his right. Not even the real Green Lantern could have cut so sharp a corner, but somehow J’onn managed it.

  He thought he was out of harm’s way when the shadow elongated itself and reached hungrily for his ankle. But before it could snare him, J’onn pulled his knees into his chest and escaped.

  “You’re faster than I remembered,” the villain snapped.

  But not fast enough to get another clear
shot at the Shade, especially in such close quarters. J’onn saw that now.

  “Don’t go away,” he said, mimicking John Stewart’s voice. “I’ll be right back.”

  Then he flew through the open doorway and veered into the corridor, narrowly eluding the grasp of a thick black tendril.

  When J’onn had put enough distance between himself and the Shade, he reassumed his Martian shape and breathed a sigh of heartfelt relief. That was close, he told himself. Too close.

  If the Shade’s shadow had been a little quicker, J’onn would have been disabled by it—and his deception exposed. Then Luthor would have been able to search for the neutralizer unhindered.

  I have to be more careful, J’onn reflected. There’s too much at stake here for me to fall victim to overconfidence.

  Fortunately, he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He had convinced yet another audience-of-one that the invaders had the League to contend with, and not just a lone Martian watchman.

  With that objective still firmly in mind, J’onn scanned the Watchtower for his last and most challenging audience.

  Luthor had made his way to the one place in the Watchtower he hadn’t been able to identify—the one place that seemed to serve no purpose. In his mind, that also made it the place most likely to contain the neutralizer.

  It was in the depths of the facility, at the lowermost level, concealed by a metal door that was like any other on the Watchtower. And though it was locked, Luthor didn’t expect it to remain that way for long.

  Slipping his explosive-projectile gun from its shoulder holster, he took aim at the door and fired. The impact caved the metal surface in partway. Firing a second time, he blew it away entirely.

  Luthor holstered his gun, then strode into the room through the smoke left by his projectile and looked around. It was a big space, one of the biggest he had seen in the entire Watchtower. But there wasn’t anything there—not supplies, not equipment, not even a table and chair. It contained nothing at all.

  On the other hand, he noted, its contents might have been concealed, as was the case in the League’s meeting room. The more he thought about it, the more that possibility seemed worthy of investigation.

  But he hadn’t noticed any concealed compartments in his scans of the Watchtower. That meant that finding them would be a little more difficult.

  As he came to that conclusion, he heard his name spoken over the communication device inserted into his ear. It was the Shade. He would have known that dry, rasping voice anywhere.

  “What have you got for me?” Luthor asked.

  “I’ve got a bulletin,” said the Shade. “We should get out of here while we still can.”

  Luthor felt an itch under his metal vest and wished he could scratch it. “Why do you say that?”

  “I just ran into the blasted Green Lantern. They’re all here, Luthor. Every last one of them.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” Luthor said, allowing a note of skepticism to creep into his voice.

  “Are you calling me a liar?” asked Shade.

  Luthor was certain that the shadow-caster was capable of lying. He just couldn’t come up with a reason for him to be doing it.

  “All I’m saying,” Luthor told him, “is that every one of us has run into a Justice Leaguer except me. Why is that, do you suppose? Just a coincidence?”

  “You hired me to fight them,” said the Shade, “not to explain them. You’re supposed to be the brains of this outfit. You figure it out.”

  And with that, he cut the link.

  Luthor’s teeth ground together. Someday, he would make the Shade regret his little gestures of disrespect. But until he got his hands on the neutralizer, he needed all the help he could get.

  Focusing again on the task at hand, Luthor approached one of the walls and pressed his fingertips against it. It seemed solid enough. No seams as far as he could tell, though a closer inspection might indicate otherwise.

  He was reaching into his belt pouch for his molecular scanner when he realized there was someone in the room with him. Whirling, he saw a figure standing behind him in a long, midnight blue cape and cowl.

  Luthor couldn’t believe his eyes. “Batman . . . ?”

  The masked man’s expression didn’t change one iota. “No wonder they call you a criminal genius.”

  Luthor ignored the sarcasm. “This can’t be. You’re in Metropolis, saving innocent lives from the blackout we imposed—along with the rest of your friends in the Justice League.”

  Batman grunted. “Obviously.”

  Luthor didn’t get it. However, he couldn’t deny the evidence of his own eyes. Somehow, he had made a mistake. But he wasn’t going to let it stop him from achieving his objective.

  “I don’t suppose you’d consider giving yourself up,” said the Gotham Gladiator.

  Luthor shook his head. “Not for a nanosecond.”

  “I didn’t think so,” said Batman, reaching for his Utility Belt.

  By then, Luthor was also reaching for something: the explosive-projectile gun in his shoulder holster.

  Despite the crime fighter’s reputation for quickness, Luthor got his weapon out and aimed it before Batman could extract anything from his belt. For a moment, as Luthor fired, he thought he had done what so many others had failed to do.

  He thought he had destroyed Batman.

  But somehow, just when Luthor thought it was too late for the lawman to escape, there was a flash of blue-black cape—and the projectile hit the opposite wall instead, putting a sizeable indentation in it. As for Batman . . . he was gone. It was as if he had never been standing there in the first place.

  No, Luthor thought. Not gone. Just somewhere else. That was the way Batman worked: through the use of fear and misdirection.

  He put his back against a wall and looked around, certain that the Dark Knight would reappear somehow. But after several minutes had elapsed, he began to realize that Batman wasn’t coming back.

  “That’s not like you,” Luthor said to the absent crime fighter, his words creating a faint echo in the room.

  There was no answer.

  Luthor took a deep breath and considered what had just happened. And the more he thought about it, the odder it seemed to him.

  Batman wasn’t in the habit of running from a fight. When he went after someone, he kept at it until he got them.

  The only logical conclusion was that he didn’t want to apprehend Luthor. But if that was the case, why had he shown up at all? To scare the head of the Injustice Gang? To give him something to think about?

  Just what in blazes was Batman trying to accomplish?

  For that matter, what was anyone in the League trying to accomplish? None of them had finished off Luthor’s henchmen, even if they’d had the chance.

  And why weren’t they in Metropolis, where they belonged? The League had addressed much smaller catastrophes than the one Luthor had inflicted on Superman’s city. It wasn’t some obscure hog-wallow in Kamchatka, for pity’s sake. It was the town where Superman had burst on the scene, a place he always seemed eager to protect.

  Yet, for no reason Luthor could discern, Superman and his colleagues had remained there on the Watchtower, leaving Metropolis to fend for herself. It wasn’t just unlikely. It was downright inconceivable.

  Something stinks, he thought. Something stinks out loud. And he was beginning to get a glimmer of what it might be.

  It was true that he had seen Batman with his own eyes, and that his gang had reported seeing the rest of the Watchtower’s owners. But the League hadn’t shown up all together, had they? They hadn’t even shown up in pairs.

  They had appeared one at a time.

  It was almost as if someone had wanted the League to be seen—someone who was impersonating each member in turn, so he could give the impression that the Watchtower was well defended.

  And Luthor knew who that someone was.

  As J’onn rose through floor after floor of the Watchtowe
r, no more substantial than a ghost, he cursed himself for vanishing so suddenly from the room the League had set aside as a gymnasium.

  In a couple of weeks, it would be equipped with an array of training machines and a choice of holographic battle environments. But for now, the room was bare.

  Without any equipment in it yet, it must have aroused Luthor’s curiosity. He must have broken into it hoping that the neutralizer was hidden somewhere inside.

  That was fine with J’onn, who knew the device was elsewhere. And it had given him the chance to appear to Luthor as Batman.

  For all his lack of superhuman abilities, the Dark Knight was the one who inspired the most fear in the Injustice Gang. No impersonation of the League would have been complete without him.

  J’onn had gone into his confrontation with Luthor believing he was ready for it. But when he and Luthor went for their respective weapons, J’onn had been unable to produce a Batarang from his Utility Belt.

  Of course, a Batarang and the line attached to it were difficult objects to mimic—almost as difficult as Wonder Woman’s golden lasso. But he hadn’t anticipated that it would be that difficult.

  All of a sudden, J’onn had felt as if he were moving in quicksand. Realizing he was going to be destroyed if he didn’t change tactics, he had flashed his cape and dropped through the floor.

  Becoming immaterial, at least, still seemed to come easily to him.

  Now that he had had a moment to think about it, J’onn realized that he had demanded too much of himself. Morphing took a substantial amount of energy, and he had transformed himself over and over again in the last hour without giving himself a chance to replenish his strength.

  He had miscalculated. And now Luthor suspected what he was up to.

  It wasn’t just a guess. J’onn could read Luthor’s mind as easily as anyone else’s, and it was clear to him that Luthor had seen through his subterfuge.

  J’onn had to do something about it. Otherwise, all his labors would amount to nothing—and the Injustice Gang would run roughshod over the Watchtower.

  But what could he do? It wouldn’t be enough for him to impersonate his teammates one at a time anymore. Luthor had caught on to that.