17

"Why didn't you come save me?!"

"For the last time, I wanted to, but I had no idea what actually happened to you. No one did!"

"Well, arrow boy managed to figure it out and find me! And he did it all by himself!"

I let out an exasperated sigh, the sound echoing through the empty high school halls we were walking through. Considering that Roquette had spent the last two weeks held prisoner by an international terrorist organization, it was understandable that she was a little grumpy. I just wished that she didn't feel the need to take it out on me. "Well," I said evenly. "If you really want, we can let you get captured again, and then I can be the one to save you. Will that make you feel better?"

Roquette's face twisted and she looked like she was going to continue yelling at me, but she paused before she let out a sigh of her own. "Sorry," she said as she rubbed her eyes. "You don't deserve that. I just… while I was held captive I assumed that you were the one leading the search effort."

I felt guilt settle in the pit of my non-existent stomach at that. "I… I'm sorry about that. The League told me that they would handle the situation, so I wasn't really allowed to do anything. And then that damn android showed up and…" I trailed off.

Roquette looked curious for a moment before she let out a sigh of her own. "Yes, well, in light of recent events I'm not entirely sure we should be placing our faith so heavily in that particular bunch of metahumans."

I was about to point out that the majority of the League actually weren't metahumans when my mind caught something that she had said earlier, and I looked at her. "Wait, were you serious when you said Red Arrow was by himself?"

"Well, yeah. We wouldn't be in this situation if we had one other person to carry the Fog container. Why?"

"Just something for later," I said as a slight frown crossed my face. There was no way the Justice League would have let Red Arrow infiltrate a League of Shadows island on his own if they knew. Which meant the brat had managed to find the doctor all on his own. How the hell did he manage to find her when Batman and the rest of the League couldn't? I suppose this iteration of Roy Harper could be even more competent than usual, but something about the situation seemed off.

Regardless, I could work that out later. At the moment I had to focus on the mission. That said, there was one thing I had started to wonder about… "Doctor, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but if you don't mind my asking… did you ever consider using the Fog to escape? Or building in an easy to activate kill switch?"

I saw the woman's jaw clench at the question, but she continued to look straight ahead for several long moments before she answered. "I-I tried at first, but there wasn't time, and they were always watching me. Their programmers weren't as good as me, but they were good enough to spot anything obvious. The first time they caught me trying to slip extra command code in-" She cut herself off, taking a breath before she continued. "And then they kept mounting more and more pressure to get it working, and building a coherent nano swarm capable of dispersal and flight is far different from anything I had ever done before and-"

"Doctor, its fine." I said quickly, regretting bringing it up. "I just wanted to know in case it was relevant to what we're going to do."

Roquette's shoulders slumped a little before she recomposed herself. "And just why are we moving anyway?" She said as we turned a corner, the building's front doors now at the end of the hall for us.

"Well, we know that the moment you activate the tracer program, the League of Shadows will be able to backtrack the signal to your location…" I was certain there had to be a way to prevent or slow down being backtracked, but unfortunately neither I nor Roqutte had the networking knowledge to make that happen (adding yet another subject to the study docket). "So we decided that it would be best to keep you mobile to avoid assassins."

As we walked out the doors of the high school, we saw the bioship waiting for us just past the school courtyard. "And what better way to stay mobile than a flying ship that can turn invisible." I said with a gesture to the living vessel. Starfire had not liked the idea of just staying on the defensive and waiting for the League of Shadows to come to us, especially seeing as our goal was to just keep the doctor away from them rather than defeat them directly. As such, she decided that we would just keep her out of reach. And as far as we knew, the Shadows had nothing that could actually reach a Martian Bioship.

The doctor looked at the craft with some trepidation. "That's all well and good, but how am I supposed to do any work in that thing?" Roquette asked.

I held up what I was carrying. "My laptop. Relatively high spec and already loaded with a few programming IDEs. Including some basic claytronics software. At the very least should be miles better than whatever a high school computer lab has."

"Alright but what about-"

"And a remote satellite uplink." I continued as I held out the small dish-like device in my other hand. "Trust me doctor, you'll be perfectly safe and have everything you need."

She glanced between me and the ship for a moment before she took in a breath and walked forward. "Right, of course. I'm just… tired of being carted around everywhere."

"Well you won't have to put up with it much longer."

The entry ramp folded out as we approached it, and we were greeted by the rest of my team. Truth be told, while the bioship was about the size of a bus, the actual command deck was a little cramped with nine people inside it. It wasn't that bad but several of us would have to get a little comfortable with each other. Speaking of which, I didn't fail to notice that Kid Flash and Artemis had parked themselves on opposite sides of the command deck, occasionally shooting glares at each other.

I really hope they get over this quickly, I thought to myself. At the very least, I still wasn't entirely sure why Kid Flash seemed to have such a problem with her. I would have thought he would have liked another girl on the team.

In any case, I sat Roquette down at a flat console and set the laptop in front of her. About a minute later everything was set up and connected. "Hmm," The woman hummed as she cycled through the programs and checked the connection. "I can work with this."

"Good. Everyone ready?" Starfire asked as she looked around. "Miss Martian, link us up."

And then… everyone just sort of stood around looking at each other. I was confused for several long seconds before I realized what was happening. "Have you guys formed a psychic link?"

Miss Martian turned to me and nodded. "It's easier for us to keep in contact this way, and our communications can't be intercepted or overheard." Her expression turned apologetic. "I'm sorry that I can't include you too. If you want to change into your ansible form…"

I waved her off. "No, I wouldn't be of use to anyone like that. Just use the coms when you need to talk to me."

Several of the team looked at each other at that and… were they still talking to each other? I couldn't tell. I was suddenly very uncomfortable, in a way that I hadn't felt since high school. That mix of self-consciousness and social anxiety that comes from not knowing you place in a group of people, not knowing what they said about you when you weren't there. Funny this happens after I fully join the team, I thought blithely as I tried to push my sudden bout of emotions down. I was an adult damn it, I was better than this.

Miss Martian then finally shook her head. "But Machina can't hear us, and there's no reason to exclude him." She said out loud. "Besides, we should make sure that if there's mission critical information that he should be informed."

Starfire let out a breath. "In hindsight, we should have considered this. For this mission we'll have to rely on comlinks for communication, only use the telepathic link if the situation demands it."

Everyone on the command deck nodded, and I felt my social anxiety abate a little. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little mortified by how my addition to the team proper was screwing up tactics. "Thanks," I muttered before looking at the doctor. "Are you ready?"

"Just give me a few minutes to get the program set up."

Starfire looked at Miss Martian. "Prepare the ship to depart."

"Activating camouflage mode." The Martian said as she pressed her hands into the controls, and a moment later we rose into the air. We gained about 300 meters in altitude before the ship came to a stop. For a few minutes we hung there in silence, with nothing but the sound of doctor's typing filling the command deck.

Soon enough though, Roquette said "Alright, almost got it… there."

I leaned over her as she put in a few final keystrokes and a map pulled up on the screen. The image pulled in and after a few seconds I recognized the location. "Looks like the Fog is near Richmond."

Starfire nodded to Miss Martian. "Set a course."

And like that we were off.

----------------------​

We weren't long into our journey before Artemis spoke up. "So… what's the game plan when we get there?" she asked.

"Depends on the situation." Starfire replied. "If the weapon is contained when we reach them, we take out the Shadow agents and retrieve or destroy the nanomachines as quickly as possible. If the Fog has been deployed, we try to upload the doctor's virus to whatever system they're targeting."

"Alternatively, could we just throw a thumb dive with the virus at the thing?" I asked as I glanced at Roquette.

"Most likely." The woman muttered, not taking her eyes off the laptop. "The Fog should automatically assimilate any digital system that enters its volume. I did have to cut a few corners for time though, so don't throw it at dense material the Fog happens to be burrowing though at the moment."

Artemis frowned. "Alright, but what if the virus isn't ready and the Fog already deployed? What do the more squishy among us do then?"

"Stay back until it is contained again." Starfire said firmly. "From what little I understand of this technology, none of us have any weapons guaranteed to stop it. We should not engage it directly unless it is absolutely needed, and then only by those physically capable of withstanding it."

Artemis leaned back in her said "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." She didn't seem too happy about it. "Not much for me to do though…"

"Don't worry, us real superheroes will take care of it." Kid Flash said with a smirk.

Artemis's head snapped towards him, but I spoke up before she could. "Actually Kid Flash, you probably wouldn't be acting in that scenario either. We don't want to tip our hand to the Shadows while the weapon is active."

"It's not a weapon, its science!" The doctor suddenly shouted. "Brilliant science!"

I arched an eyebrow at her and said "I think that's semantics at this point," I was about to say something else when I caught a glance at the laptop screen. I watched it for a few moments longer before I said "Scratch Richmond, it's on the move. Pretty quickly too." I glanced back at the doctor. "How fast are these things?"

"Not that fast, but what we're tracking is not the Fog itself, but its container." She replied as she switched windows back to the programming software. "The nanites have only about 30 minutes of power before they have to return to their container to recharge and upload any data they're retrieved. Whoever has the container is the one moving fast."

"Where are they headed?" Aqualad asked.

"If they keep headed in a straight line… Philadelphia."

Robin sat up straighter at that. "There are any number of targets that the League of Shadows could be after in that city."

"Wayne Tech, STAR Labs, Lexcorp, any number of smaller companies with governmental or military contracts…" The lot of us turned to look at Artemis, who had been listing off names. She flinched a little at the stares and got defensive. "What? Those are the obvious ones, right?"

"Can we reach the city before they do?" Starfire asked.

I looked at the screen for a few seconds longer before I shook my head. "It will be close, but at our current rate they'll reach the city first by about 20 minutes."

"I can't push the bioship any harder." Miss Martian said. "As it is she's going to be feeling the strain tomorrow."

Starfire's mouth pressed into the thin line before she looked back out through the view port. "Well, then we will have to hope that they cannot do too much damage before we arrive."

--------------------​

By the time the ship reached the outskirts of Philadelphia about an hour later, night had fallen and everyone was a bit on edge. Roquette had confirmed that whoever had been carrying the fog had entered the city, but we had no idea what they were up to. We had to get closer before we could get a more precise location, and as such everyone was on the lookout for any sign of the enemy.

As such, I almost missed it when the doctor suddenly sat up a little bit straighter in her chair. Out of the comer of my eye I saw her brow furrow as her typing picked up speed, her expression becoming more confused and concerned as time went on. A full minute passed like this before I finally turned and looked at her. "Something wrong, doctor?"

She didn't acknowledge me at first, instead continuing to look at the laptop screen and mutter to herself. I could see the screen, but to me it was just a rapidly scrolling page of code and commands. I was about to ask again when she froze, her eyes going wide in shock. "Uh oh."

"…Uh oh? What 'uh oh'? I do not like 'uh oh's. There is no conceivable scenario were you saying 'uh oh' leads to our situation improving."

She looked back up at me, her expression a mix of fear and uncertainty. "I- I lost the signal from the Fog."

Robin took notice. "Wait, lost? How?"

"I don't know! I mean, it's possible that the container was damaged or destroyed. They might have tried to remove my ability to track it, but unless they have someone as smart as me there's no way they could have done it without wrecking the thing."

"So, best case, the Fog has been neutralized without us having to act," Starfire said. "But what is the worst case?"

Roquette's eyes darted to the side, not looking at any of us. I don't know why, but something seemed off about her reaction. Thus far she had mostly been composed since we picked her up, but now the fact that she had lost track of the Fog made her almost afraid. Before I could think on it more, she said. "30 minutes of destruction. But, while I may not be the best judge of a bunch of assassins, I don't think they'll decide to just destroy everything around them to get the most out of their toy."

"Nevertheless, the situation is more urgent than ever." Starfire said. "Do we know the Fog's last location?"

"I can tell you at least one place they've been." Everyone looked at Superboy, who was currently looking out the view port. We followed his gaze to a section of the Philadelphia skyline, and saw plumes of smoke drifting between the buildings.

Robin quickly checked his arm computer. "Estimating location and target… That's STAR Labs!"

The bioship altered course and headed straight for the smoke. We were forced to slow down once we hit the city proper, but when the bioship rounded the corner of the last building in our way…

Shit.

"We're too late." Robin said, voicing our thoughts as we gazed down at the pile of concrete and rubble that used to be STAR Labs. I had no idea what the building used to look like, but now all that remained was a smoking pile about half the size of a city block. "There's nothing left."

"But, why would they destroy the building?" I asked. "They were just after the computer systems, and you don't have to take out the whole building to get those."

"You do if you don't know where those systems are." I looked back at Roquette and she grimaced. "I… didn't have to time to program a proper sweep and search algorithm. So they search everything in the building. Including the walls."

I bit back a curse, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand. "Where was the last position?"

"About 900 meters to the west."

We didn't linger long on the rubble before we moved, traveling further downtown until we reached an intersection. It didn't take long to spot the point of interest. Starfire looked at Miss Martian. "Bring us down, we need to investigate."

"Wait." Eyes turned on Aqualad, and he continued. "The Fog may still be there. We should not take unnecessary risks."

Starfire thought about this for a moment before she nodded and looked at me. "Machina, go down and investigate."

I nodded in kind and got to my feet. Before we had picked up the doctor the team had discussed possible tactics and strategies if we had to face the Fog directly, and it was decided that I was the best candidate if one of us had to get close to the nanomachines. Considering that I had been able to resist Amazo's attempt to consume me (brief as it was), I was likely able to resist nano-scale attacks. Not exactly something I wanted to test of course, but still.

In short order I was lowered to the street by a line, and as I landed on the asphalt I took stock of what we had spotted from the air. There was what looked to be the shredded remains of a grey van which had smashed into a lamppost, the front half completely annihilated into a pile of metal parts and dust. There were a few civilians nearby, but thankfully they were only rubbernecking at the moment. "Stay back, don't touch anything!" I called out in what I hoped was an authoritative tone.

I walked up to the wreckage, keeping an eye out for any signs of an all-consuming technofog that was prepared to pounce. The mess remained still though, even as I reached it and started sifting through the pieces. It was only a few seconds before I found something, and I just knew that it couldn't mean anything good. "Machina to team, I'm pretty sure I just found the Fog container. Or at least, what's left of it."

"Wait, what do you mean what's left of it?" Roquette asked.

I bent down and picked up a curved piece of metal with some exposed circuity and a large red LED on it. The doctor had given us a description of the Fog's container before we left, and this seemed to match the front plate. "It's been torn to bits. Disintegrated." I sifted around the pile some more and found something I wish I hadn't. "I think I also found the Shadows agent. Or at least… what's left of them."

It wasn't a body so much as a smear of red mixed in with the rest of the ruined van. Wasn't exactly pleasant to look at though.

"So, does this mean the Fog malfunctioned or something?" Kid Flashed asked. "Does that mean our job's done?"

"It…" Roquette paused, her tone unsteady. "Possibly, though…"

A certain suspicion started to form in my mind. "Doctor…" I said. "Is there anything you want to tell us?"

"I don't know what-"

"Is there anything you want to tell us?" I said again, this time a bit more forcefully.

There was a long pause. For a moment I wondered if I was just being a jerk to her for no reason, but then… "I was running out of time!" She said frantically. "I had only made prototypes before, but they wanted something fully functional, and they had me working 18 hours a day! I needed to find a way to have the whole swarm keep cohesion to stave of physical and data entropy! Then… then I remembered the scans of your nanites, how you were constructed. So I made a few structural tweaks and repurposed their software into a full distributed neural network that could adapt and respond to any stress the swarm was put through. I made it resemble your own nanites as much as I could, but I never thought that-"

"Doctor Roquette." I said sharply, cutting her off. "What are the odds that the Fog has become self-aware?"

There was a long silence before she replied "…When you say self-aware-"

"God damn it, woman!"

"It's programmed to try to survive!" She continued over me. "At best it just has a sort of survival instinct! It's only supposed to work to keep it together and preventing it from destroying itself by touching something volatile. This though… this implies a sort of long term critical thinking I never programmed it with."

"Let me guess," I said flatly. "The Fog realized that doing what the Shadows agent told it to do was not good for its health in the long run, so it quit."

"Something like that." The doctor confirmed. "I never built the Fog for longevity. Even with constant recharging the nanites will break down with too much use. Though I don't understand how it gained the ability to think critically about its actions and existence like that."

"I think that may be because you built something partially based on hyperadvanced nanotech you don't really understand yet." I remarked in frustration. I knew that now really wasn't the time to be giving the expert sass, but I really couldn't help but be mad at the scientist for her lack of foresight. "Is it possible that the Fog might have internalized the data that the Shadows had it consume, and that catalyzed its change in behavior?"

"It's possible, but I don't know what the Philadelphia STAR Labs was working on. But if it can internalize the data it assimilates, the virus I've been writing won't be good enough anymore."

Before I could respond, a new voice cut in on the com. "This speculation is all well and good, but we need to act soon given there is an incredibly destructive weapon loose in the city." Aqualad said. "Doctor, do you have any idea where the Fog might have gone?"

"Well, I have a guess…"