August 13, 2010 - Happy Harbor, RI
Mt. Justice
15:17:16
“When your mission relies on subterfuge, resist the urge to go on the offensive.”
Seems obvious. He dutifully wrote it down in the notebook alongside his doodles of alternate shield emblems.
“The last thing you want is to risk exposing yourself and the team. Because a covert operation means keeping to the shadows, concealing your identity, and infiltrating your targets.”
Duh, do spy stuff. Clark, Connor Clark, Super Spy…
“And of course, you must always remain alert-”
Yaaawn…
“Am I boring you, Superboy?”
Connor’s attention snapped back from the drowsy fog he had been in as he froze, realizing he was caught dead to rights, pinned beneath Captain Atom’s golden glare.
Ah shit, that was out loud.
Hurriedly he resumed a normal sitting posture as Rikki snickered, and M’gann and Walli grinned at him being caught out by ‘teacher’. Apollo and Kaldura remained stoic.
“Uh, no sir. Ma’am. Captain.” He mumbled.
Captain Atom arched one polished silver eyebrow at him and crossed her arms. Behind her, a holographic white board displayed her lecture notes to them on the Justice Guild’s ‘Espionage 101’ class. It seemed like something they should have done before getting sent on covert missions, and it seemed the Guild agreed. Batwoman’s takeaway of their performance in Santa Prisca had made the class mandatory for the team, but scheduling it had taken a few weeks.
Which is why they were all sitting on deeply uncomfortable seats, at deeply uncomfortable desks in the Cave’s main hall. The circular arena that held the Cave’s holographic projector also had a grid pattern floor that could raise up sections to create obstacles, which he hadn’t known about.
And make furniture. The least comfy school desk I’ve ever had.
Their seats were simple cubes that rose out of the floor with no padding, which his invulnerable ass couldn’t be hurt by but wasn’t pleasant to sit on. Worse were the ‘desks’ provided, which were just equally sized cubes raised higher than the seats. Which meant there was nowhere to put his legs under it, like an actual desk. It was like squatting in a new house, with only your moving boxes for furnishings.
“Perhaps you’d learn better with a practical exercise in the field.” Captain Atom declared, and the team immediately perked up.
Well, they all perked up except Kaldura and Apollo, who had been sitting ramrod straight and taking diligent notes for the last three hours of Captain Atom’s exhaustive lecture on the basic points of espionage. Connor was gaining new insights into his friends and teammates; Kaldura was an overachiever, which only made sense since she was basically a child prodigy who’d been training for this kind of life since she was twelve. Apollo was also taking it very seriously, but there was a certain sullen brittleness to him that gave Connor the impression he had heard this all before but was going to go through every single motion of the process again.
Rikki was obviously bored; she was stuck in summer school with the remedial students, but endured it with grace. Connor recalled that Batwoman had words for her sidekick going solo during Santa Prisca too. Perhaps she did have something to learn here. Walli, M’gann and himself were in the same boat; they did need to learn all of this, but it was excruciating.
Captain Atom is a walking atomic weapon, an admirable hero, but she’s like every bad math teacher I ever had. Long winded doesn’t describe it; she doesn’t actually need to breathe. It meant her sentences went on and on without ever pausing.
The team looked around at one another as Atom brought up new screens for them, marked Confidential and Classified. The files opened into a dossier for an individual, and Atom explained their target. A screen with biographical info opened, showing a headshot picture of a crew cut woman in a blue uniform that immediately struck Connor, and he narrowed his eyes as she spoke.
“This is a cold case. Vietnam era.” She began, and he immediately grew even more interested.
“Captain Natalie Adams, United States of Columbia Air Force.”
Connor’s eye began twitching as he started scribbling notes.
“Convicted in 1968 of murdering Air Force General Clementine LeMar. Adams died in prison. But I’ve received a reliable tip that she was framed. Your mission: investigate. Prove Adams’ innocence or reconfirm her guilt and report back to me.” Captain Atom instructed, pointing a red gloved finger at him.
His face screwed up in confusion as he stopped taking notes.
“Why do you need a team of super powered covert operatives for this?” He asked, befuddled.
Waving a hand back at her digital whiteboard, Captain Atom answered him with a slight silver smile.
“Right, then I’ll continue the lecture…”
“NO!” Came a half dozen voices in denial.
“Then you have your assignment. Get cracking.”
As the others gathered their notes, Connor couldn’t help staring at the picture and the name on the screen, looking back from Captain Adams to Captain-
Sonofa-!
********
August 13, 2010 - Washington, DC
The Pentagon
16:27:16
“I keep telling you, it's her.” Superboy insisted as he picked at the blue Air Force uniform he was wearing, with a First Lieutenant’s bars on the collar. His badge even had his name on it. It felt incredibly illegal. He had thought about asking Robin back at the Cave why she had a rack of military uniforms for every branch and rank of the military, but he thought it was better not to find out in case he was arrested by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency. Apparently, it had its own federal cops.
More curiously, why does she have them in my size as well?
“I know you’re from another universe, ‘Airman Clark’, but in this universe we can’t accuse and convict people based on what their doppelganger in another universe has done.” Robin shot back over comms, her voice echoing strangely from her position in Pentagon’s extensive HVAC vents. She kept complaining about the dust; military budgets didn’t include funding for that.
Superboy frowned, but kept his mouth shut and didn’t insist on being ‘Lt. Clark’ as he followed Ms. Martian and approached the security station to enter the Pentagon. She was in uniform as well, and in a different human form than her usual Megan one. Today she was Captain Jessica Knight, of the USC Air Force Judge Advocate General’s office. Who was a real person, but the real Captain Knight was on leave in South Carolina right now, convenient for them. She was a slim, short haired blonde woman with glasses, and Ms. Martian’s costume was shifted into an Air Force uniform with a skirt and heels.
Seeing the PFPA guards, he leaned on the mind palace, finding the covert training Cadmus had provided. It wasn’t very extensive; they had wanted a blunt weapon. But it did contain breathing and mnemonic exercises that helped him school his breathing and heart rate. He stopped fussing with the uniform, way too hot for muggy DC in August. It was his first time back in the capital since his awakening in this world, and he distracted himself from that fact by focusing on the mission.
Ms. Martian: Mindlink up. Robin, your turn.
Robin: Hacking DoD identity authentication… now.
And just like that, Ms. Martian scanned her very fake lanyard ID badge, and the security guard’s reader turned green and beeped. He breathed a slight sigh of relief and dutifully scanned his badge next and thankfully, it beeped affirmatively for him too. He was briefly arrested by the guard searching his face for something, afraid he had screwed up, but then she gave him a smile unexpectedly. He returned it, not knowing what else to do, and turned to follow Ms. Martian.
As they headed down the very long corridors that were common to the massive building, they were surrounded by civilian personnel in business attire and uniformed military members of every branch. It made for a somewhat drab sea of uniforms, medals, and braid. He focused on his mind palace training, breathing and keeping his eyes forward. Everyone walked with purpose, and he matched it. He had to fight the desire to salute everyone he passed, as they had been told nobody saluted here. They were all officers and of different branches, it would get confusing. Robin continued to feed them directions; she was somewhere in the vent system doing extremely illegal things to the security systems and computers.
I have to admit, this is pretty good covert training. If you can call ‘actually infiltrating the Pentagon and impersonating Air Force officers’ practice, and not a threat to national security. I have no idea what would happen if we get caught here. The Guild can get us out of this, right? Atom put us on the case, it should be fine.
He wasn’t sure how, because he was very confident the United States of Columbia (twitch) would be very mad if they knew. Superboy was also painfully aware, over and over, that he was not in his world. Almost everyone in the hall was a woman, in uniform and out. That, and the flags on everyone’s uniforms were wrong. He could distantly overhear the PFPA officer who’d smiled at him gossiping about the cute baby-faced ‘boy Lt.’ That was… different.
Different, not wrong. Correct for this world, and this America.
Columbia.
Fuck, this is hard to get used to.
His eye was twitching again as they found the office they were looking for. Robin signed off as she crawled off to reach the vent for the office interior and plant her bugs. ‘Captain Knight’ knocked on the door, and they heard a curt “Come in.” and did so. Superboy carefully schooled his expression and followed Ms. Martian in. A modest office, with an L shaped desk, two chairs for guests, some file cabinets and a shelf of awards and decorations behind the seated grey haired woman in a similar uniform to his own, wearing pants instead of a skirt, and with four silver stars on her epaulets. Her coat was off, hanging on the wall, and she had her shirt sleeves rolled up over thick, scarred forearms.
General Wilhemina Eiling…
She had short cropped iron grey hair, her uniform was neatly pressed, her stars shone with polish, and she was going through papers at her desk as they entered. She had steely blue eyes and a severe look, lines deeply carved into her face by time and brutal experience. Eiling wasn’t a pilot or commander of them; she had spent decades as an officer in Air Force Special Warfare, the operators for the Air Force who did things like rescue downed pilots and direct air support behind enemy lines. Her file had a frankly intimidating list of awards and citations, with many redactions for cover actions.
“Geneal Eiling, ma’am.” ‘Captain Knight’ said as she stood at attention, and ‘Lt. Clark’ mirrored her. Eiling glanced up from her papers before putting them down.
“Please sit, Captain, Lieutenant." Eiling said as she waved at the two overstuffed chairs before her desk. “And explain to me why the Judge Advocate General's office is reopening this case?”
Eiling sounded almost offended at the idea, but the two of them sat before Ms. Martian answered. Superboy determined to stay silent, and keep his ears open. He heard slight shifts in the vent and didn’t look towards it, and then a click as Robin set her bugs up to record the meeting.
“Respectfully, I am not at liberty to do that, ma’am.” ‘Captain Knight’ answered. “ You were the judge at Adams’ court martial, which makes you a potential witness.”
“Witness to what?” Eiling demanded indignantly. “The Adams case was open and shut.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you remember, General?”
“Fine. Captain Natalie Adams was your classic malcontent.” Eiling began, and slowly Superboy tuned out the rest of the sounds around him to focus on her heartbeat. “We were barely acquainted before the incident. In fact, I was better acquainted with the victim. Adams blamed LeMar for a Viet Cong ambush, as if any officer would intentionally get her own women killed.”
Superboy: Steady so far.
His role was to use his senses on Eiling, trying to pick up anything the bugs couldn’t, like a tell that she was lying. Superboy wasn’t practiced enough to do that by heartbeat or anything, and Batwoman had made explicitly clear that such things were not admissible evidence. He was not a lie detector; he could detect physiological changes like heart rate, but none of that was proof someone was lying. At best, it was an indicator of what stressed the target. Eiling’s heart rate was like a metronome.
“But Adams would not listen to reason. She was caught in the act by an MP. Sgt. Polk, I think her name was.”
That all matched what the file said; Capt. Adams had made allegations against LeMar without evidence, and Eiling had rejected those allegations out of hand due to the lack. Afterwards, Sgt. Polk had testified that she had heard a commotion in LeMar’s office, and came in to find LeMar dead with Adam’s bayonet in her. Adams was still standing over the body, and had been arrested on the spot.
“I was a colonel when I drew the case.” Eiling continued, her heart rate holding steady. “I found Adams guilty and sentenced her to life in prison.” She said as she wrapped up the case, giving a very accurate summary, according to the file, especially for something that had happened over forty years ago.
“Turned out to be a short sentence. Adams took her own life before the year was out.”
Superboy kept his eyes on Eiling’s impassive face as ‘Captain Knight’ asked follow up questions and Eiling gave terse answers.
I know you did it…
Eiling’s heart rate never spiked. She was cold as ice.
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