I stepped into my tinkering lab and pulled out one of the strange weapons Dr. Lana had used on Fialux that fateful night I'd stepped in to rescue her.

It seemed fitting that the world's greatest hero would find herself being rescued by the world's greatest villain. Though of course she hadn't seen it that way at the time.

It took a moment for the thing to get to me. I didn't want to hold it in a pattern buffer lest that do something to fuck things up. Not that storing something in a teleporter pattern buffer had ever done that before, but better safe than sorry.

"There you are, you son of a bitch," I said as the thing appeared via a very smart dumb waiter system that ran through the lab.

I sighed and hefted the weapon. Looked at the sparky bit on the front. Normally I wouldn't recommend looking at the sparky bit of something like this any more than I'd recommend looking down the barrel of any weapon, but…

Actually, the more I thought about it, specifically the more I thought about all the devious ways Dr. Lana had discovered to be a first-rate pain in my ass, the more I figured I shouldn't put my face that close to the damn thing.

It would be just like her to put in a sensor that waited for me to do something stupid like that and then blast me.

"So you're not the gun she was using today, but you're the closest thing I have," I muttered.

The whole thing was frightfully primitive. I wished there'd been some way to get whatever weapon Dr. Lana had been firing at Fialux today.

Somehow she'd managed to disappear the damn thing before I could get a good look at it. That galled me. I didn't like it when someone got one over on me. It didn't sit right with me that there was someone out there who could one up me or outsmart me.

And Dr. Lana had outsmarted me a few times.

Whatever. I needed something on in the background while I tinkered. Something that would help me get in a mood to defeat Dr. Lana. Like watching our fight play out on SCNN.

That network was way more tolerable after vaporizing stupid Rex Roth.

"Computer," I said.

No response. I had a moment of dread where I worried I might be in a CORVAC situation again. The asshole had gone radio silent right before he betrayed me, after all.

Then I noticed a light flashing on a panel on the other side of the room. I walked over and peered at it, then let out a disgusted sigh.

Of course. The stupid AI didn't have the capacity to turn on the TV because I'd been so busy canoodling with Fialux that I hadn't done the AI supercomputer equivalent of programming the damned remote.

CORVAC would've been able to figure that out on his own. Though, as I so often thought these days, this computer was no CORVAC. Both for good and bad.

Well damn it. It looked like I was going to have to get a remote and turn on SCNN like a normal. I pulled in the signal from an old-fashioned antenna because it was such a pain in the ass trying to get network shit on streaming.

It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what the correct input was and how to get everything working appropriately, but finally I had the news up and running.

Of course the number one story was my fight with Dr. Lana.

There was plenty of footage being played of my run-in with Dr. Lana. They got a particularly nice-looking helicopter shot of me flying across the top of the dorm, and I hit the record button to make sure all of this was being preserved so I could look it over later.

Not because I was particularly interested in an after action report so much as it looked awesome, and I wanted to make sure the video made it into the digital scrapbook. Especially now that the drones were more spotty thanks to CORVAC not controlling them.

They were also giving plenty of attention to the many cell phone videos of my fight with Dr. Lana. Luckily it seemed we were far enough away from the idiots taking those videos that they hadn't captured our conversation, but I realized it'd been dangerous for me to be asking all those questions out there where anyone could hear us.

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I could've given away that Fialux was de-powered. I'd been caught up in the emotion of the moment and it'd done a number on me, but still. I'd gotten sloppy.

Coverage moved back to an anchor. A pretty dark haired thing. She'd taken over since Rex Roth disappeared, which was just fine by me. She was way more easy on the eyes, and she didn't have that smarmy self-satisfied look Roth always had when he was reporting on the news.

"So to continue our story from earlier," she said. "It would appear the brief heroic streak from Night Terror is over. As you can see from the video this morning, she not only launched a robot attack on Starlight City University, but also fought a strange new hero who tried to take her on while also fighting off Fialux and doing serious damage to her as well."

My jaw fell open. I'd fought Fialux and some strange new hero? What sort of crack were they on? What the hell did they…

Idiots. It was good to see SCNN was keeping up with the hard hitting journalism that made them famous around the world.

They moved to a shot of me firing on Dr. Lana. One of several shots. I wasn't sure if they were selectively editing this to make me look like the bad guy, or if they seriously missed the parts where Dr. Lana was doing her best to kill me.

I sighed. I guess the Starlight City News Network was willing to do anything to get eyes on their broadcast. They'd been hurting what with the Internet and all, and the only reason they were still doing anywhere close to the business they had back in the day was because of all the superpowered beings and creatures who regularly fought it out in the city limits.

The rest of the world was willing to pay a premium to get that sort of news directly from the closest news source on the ground. Especially since streamers who tried getting that footage usually ended up as smears on the pavement. Or free floating molecules blowing on the wind.

"It's almost like that bastard Roth is still there," I muttered.

I shook my head. I was jumping at boogeymen. Rex Roth was dead. I'd vaporized him. Even if he did have access to a teleporter he would've had to time it precisely so the thing went off at exactly the moment I fired on him, and that was the sort of thing I would've had a tough time pulling off even if I had CORVAC doing the calculations and watching for the energy blast.

Rule number one for Surviving A Heroic Intervention: you couldn't outrun the speed of light. Rex Roth going up against me with no computer to back him up since I'd just vaporized his digital partner?

There wasn't a chance.

I looked down at the confiscated weapon. Held it up and fired it up. The tip glowed with that same pink glow I'd seen on Dr. Lana's gun. It had the odd effect of causing the television screen in front of me to flicker.

I sighed and went over to set up a radiation scanner manually. Oh how I pined for the days when I could just tell CORVAC to monitor whatever I was doing and assume he'd catch everything interesting.

I really missed working with that asshole. Almost enough to make me want to try training my new AI, even if I knew just how dangerous that game could be.

For now I was going to do this the old-fashioned way. I was going to run experiments on the damned thing and figure out what made this weapon tick.

If I figured out what made it work then maybe I could figure out exactly what it was Dr. Lana had done to Fialux, and if I figured out exactly what the hell it was she did to Fialux then maybe I could reverse the process.

Assuming the technology in this particular cattle prod thing was even anywhere close to the technology on display in the weapon she'd used today. It'd seemed a little more advanced than the toys her minions had been throwing around, after all.

"I'm going to figure out how the fuck you did this, Lana," I growled.

There was nothing for it but to get to work. Even if I was going to be partying like it was 1999 and using ancient technology I had to manipulate with my hands like a baby toy because most of the automation I'd built into my lab over the years had been done away with the moment CORVAC betrayed me.

I let out a few choice curse words. It's not like there was anything to hear those curse words with no AI listening in.

Fialux was counting on me, even if she was unconscious in a medbay and had no idea she was counting on me.

Unfortunately I still hadn't come up with any answers a couple of hours later when the computer finally dinged to let me know the medbay was finished with Fialux.

I didn't even bother running through the halls. No, I was in a big enough hurry that I flew down the halls at top speed for all the world like I was about to fire some torpedoes down a small target a couple of meters wide.

"How is she?" I asked when I zoomed into the medical room.

"Unconscious, but she will recover. Recommend several days of rest and relaxation where she doesn't get too active. It will take that long for some of the bones to finish setting and repairs to complete."

I grimaced. That was the thing about those medical bays. They could work wonders healing someone, but they weren't miracle workers.

Also? Fialux having bones that needed mending was really worrying. She wasn't supposed to have bones in need of mending.

I had a feeling she was going to be frustrated when she realized the situation, but there was nothing for it. The last thing I needed was for her to go out and try to save the city in her current condition.

Especially when her "current condition" looked like she didn't have any of her powers. She wasn't going to be happy about that either, and I was going to have to shield her from that news for as long as possible.

"And her anatomy?" I asked.

"Still human," the computer said, sensing the unspoken question. I guess even this dumb AI could be smart sometimes.

"Damn," I said. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

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