"For weeks now, the members of the FBI and the special Metahuman Response Team—or Taskforce X—have searched for the terrorist organization Crucible, and we're glad to tell you that we finally have some answers for the American people," the Director of the FBI said, chin held high with a victorious grin plastered across his mustached lips.
He stood underneath bright fluorescent lights with several news cameras pointed at him. Styled in a well-pressed designer suit and tie with golden cufflinks, Director Penn reminded me of all the corrupt politicians and dirty-money men who made the creaky gears of Gotham spin.
"At first, we thought they were just that powerful, that industrious, but then it occurred to us: look at the money. And where did it lead us? LexCorp."
Reporters shouted questions at him, but he held up a hand, practically commanding their silence.
He clicked a button in his hand, and a massive screen descended behind him, displaying images of me inside a LuthorCorp tank during my metamorphosis. I noticed that the images had been backdated, but the evidence doctoring didn't stop there. There were images of the twins, Nathan and Shelim, as well as dead metahuman clones, fetuses, and mutated aberrations.
That sneaky bitch, Artisan. She was using their history against him. Propaganda at its finest.
"Lex Luthor conducted illegal experimentation on children from all over the world and is responsible for engineering the terrorists that devastated your cities and your lives. He's responsible for Julius Spencer, Nathan Kelly, Shelim Williams, and the South African Twins."
The slides behind him changed. They showed a graph charting LexCorp's success over the past decade or so and comparing it to attacks that could be publicly traced back to the Twins, Shelim, Nathan, and the captured Crucible members.
"Luthor used his metahumans to stamp out opposition in local and foreign markets through persuasion and violence to grow his company and operate with impunity. We have multiple victims who've reached out and are ready to cooperate fully with the FBI."
"Are you saying that Lex Luthor ordered them to attack New York and LA?" a reporter asked.
"That'll be the first question out of my mouth when I get him in the interrogation room in Bellevue," the director said. "The members of Taskforce X are bringing him in as we speak, and we expect heavy resistance. To answer your question, Jim, we think he's responsible, and the US justice system has promised to help us prosecute him to the full extent of the law."
"Do you expect other world governments to prosecute Luthor as well?" another reporter asked.
"We do," he answered, "but we expect that he'll be spending the rest of his natural-born life in Bellevue. We have the best metahuman containment facilities in the world. And while Luthor might not be one himself, he certainly has several on his payroll…"
The interview went on and on as I slowly turned to a second computer and tapped into every piece of technology, watching Luthor's public-facing holdings. Security cameras, police scanners, news rooms, and internet forums. There was nothing at his homes, offices, and facilities around the world.
I clicked my tongue. Despite mine, Shelim's, and Batman's best efforts, we couldn't find Artisan or the Light's new bases. Whatever was going on must be happening there, if it was happening at all.
I didn't put it past Artisan to rig all of this up as some kind of twisted theater to justify bringing him into custody later that day, if she brought Luthor in at all. Maybe all of this was to discredit him.
Seize all of Luthor's assets.
Blue-black electricity sparked off my hand as I pulled my technique, Electricity Manipulation, back from the keyboard and crossed my hands.
I bet I'd have my answers for sure if I could hack the FBI or any other three-letter agency.
Shelim finally got around to giving me the hacking lessons he promised after our sparring sessions with the Justice League.
Every day, he assigned me tasks that related to tracking Artisan and her movements, showing me how to hack with Electricity Manipulation. He was always surprised by how much I'd improved. Alex helped, too, linking me up with important people in the underworld and showing me conventional tricks that somebody like Shelim never bothered to learn or found too inefficient to teach.
Psi-Clarity worked off my body's adaptation mutation and more or less made me into a computational prodigy. I remembered every line of everything I ever saw, could run advanced calculations, picked up on things faster than damn near everybody, and deduced things that I reasonably shouldn't have.
That's why it didn't surprise me much when I managed to hack into the Gotham City public education system on the first try, or figure out how to get into banks and security systems, install and create malware, and compromise other basic systems with plenty of help from Alex and a few hacker friends.
Hacking Lv 7
Psi-Clarity Lv 7
Memorization Lv 6
Big corporations with top-tier security, like hedge funds, tech firms, and government agencies, were still a bottleneck now. But I expected those shackles to fall off sooner rather than later, given my rate of improvement. But would that happen before Artisan managed to close in, or after things had completely gone to shit?
"New York, Los Angeles, and Zandia are just the start," Director Penn said, drawing my full attention back to the interview. "We suspect that Luthor might've been the cause of the explosion in Las Vegas a few weeks back, and we strongly suspect that he's been funneling enhanced soldiers to Queen B in Bialya and is employing the rogue French scientist known simply as Brain. It's an entire cabal."
Somebody gasped, and the muttering increased.
I shook my head. Using the United States government to hunt down the Light? That was either really inspired or fucking dumb.
They could expose her completely. But I suppose that didn't matter when you controlled the media and the President of the United States. The truth was what you made it, especially when you could change your face.
I ground my teeth. If only she hadn't moved all of her fucking bases. How she managed to completely disappear without leaving a clue behind in less than 48 hours, we'll never know.
My phone vibrated, and I saw an incoming call from Robin.
"Yeah," I answered. "I've seen it."
"I'm not calling about the news," he said. "We have a mission. We've found Dr. Priya, and somebody is hunting her. The team is headed to Germany."
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