Chapter Nine …. Time to think
Time to think is a rare thing. I mean, really think No distractions. Nothing ringing or binging or sounding to tell you there's something you have to do. It's like those tables in the house that pile up with great magazines and books that are picked up at some cure little bookstore. People imagine time to sit and read. A hot cup of tea and a dog at their feet by a fireplace. You'll sit and read that novel with a content look; and you'll stop, occasionally, to sip that tea and look up nonchalantly, with a satisfied grin, into the distance. Perhaps looking out a window at snow, or a light rain falling.
That, almost, never happens.
Shannon Long was snoring. She's been tugging at cuffs that were connected by her climbing rope through her harness and to her crossed and bound ankles, and finally fell asleep in a marriage of exhaustion and resignation.
She wasn't entirely uncomfortable in her jeans and with her wrists held close behind her. In fact, it was almost comforting, in a strange way, as she was used to the climbing ropes and could have worked the knots lose by now had it not been for the added smart cuffs Lena had brought and Tech and Jose used to complete her tie.
The warehouse that had been the Prols' temporary headquarters, hideout, and living space was a collection of random items looking, in their entirety, like the leftovers from a garage sale. An empty folding table that once held computers and screens, liter from fast-food snacks and late dinners, cords, wires, and an empty duffel bag with the Luthor logo across the side.
"Luthor Corp – Working for You – "
Shannon had time to think. Time to remember another life. A life before a Crisis she didn't even know took place. A life with her father who did his best to bring her up alone. He loved Jazz music. He loves getting away on weekends to bike and climb. More than anything else, he loves his girl.
Shannon had wriggled, rolled, tried to work the bonds lose. It wasn't that she lacked the strength. She lacked the will. How did she get to the point where she trusted some guys she met through the office to upend her life?
She'd channeled her anger and hurt and pain into this new group. When you're looking for a foothold on a hard climb, you'll take what's available. And the Prols were the nearest foothold on her attempt to climb back from her father's fall.
Across Central City the architect of Luthor Corp, Lex, was trying to track his half-sister. He'd visited her lab and returned to his workstation, which he preferred to the shiny, sterile environment Lena had created down the hall.
His desk was almost old-fashioned in that the technology was kept out-of-sight. His screen raised from the mahogany top and several clicks and clacks later he was retracing Lens's activities for the day. No one was above surveillance in Lex's world, least of all his brilliant sister.
Especially since he's worked so diligently to drive a permanent wedge between her and Supergirl – Kara Danvers. Orchestrated, played, and worked like a fine violin - or the crystal pieces of his chess set. Moves and counter-moves until he felt sure that Lena was turned against the Girl-of-Steel and was his compliant ally in his new post-crisis world order.
Blue dots appeared and disappeared on a map of the city and Lex recognized the digital footprint of a hacker. Someone was trying to hide both her location and erase her whereabouts.
Few people counted on Lex's far-ranging brilliance and a few keystrokes later he had Lena's last "pinged" location, the last place from where her phone was on and working. A warehouse along the waterfront.
He stood languidly, sighed, and grabbed his long black trench coat as walked towards his private elevator to his fleet of vehicles below. Best not to raise an alarm. He strode to his elevator humming Mozart's' Piano Sonata number 11, and went to track down his mercurial sister.
While Tech and Yose drove their secured charged to places unknown, Shannon dozed and dreamt in their former hovel, half-sleeping and half-recounting all the places where she should have seen that betrayal coming.
One thing that's good about being tied down … it gives a person time to think. As Shannon drifted off she remembered the day of the "Crisis." "Crisis on Infinite Earths," as it was knows to J'onn and others who had knowledge of a pre-crisis universe. A universe where Lex Luthor was a criminal and not a Renaissance-man, savior. A pre-crisis where memories were as they had been since birth, and not altered by a ripple of tachyons that had changed things in subtle ways to the will of The Monitor, a being who wielded almost god-like powers, but was still not beyond human failings.
Lex may have been transformed into an icon of brilliance and philanthropy through memory manipulation and his deal with the Monitor. But Lex was still Lex. For all of the changes to the multi-verse and reality in the defeat of the Anti-Monitor, Lex couldn't escape his character.
In Lex's new reality he headed multinational corporations that reached into almost every industrial facet. One thing that requires is workers. While the Monitor could change what existed, he could not – for all his omnipotence – create life. Lex's new empire needed employees. Minions. People to run every aspect of his operations. From the power plant at the Central City Dam, to his shipping company, which carted natural resources to and from Central City from the bay where Shannon now struggled.
Shannon remembered the day she went climbing with her father. The last day she was with her dad. Most of us never know when that last day is actually here. For Shannon, it was a spring morning on a granite cliff above the water, upstream from Lex's soon-to-be acquired dam.
Pre-crisis, pre-Lex Corp, this was a public works project. An immense dam spanning the glacially carved valley that led to the bustling bay upon which Central City lay.
Shannon and her dad, Jim Long, climbed a well-known route that would normally take the better half of a day. A traverse, a climb down, a spectacular view, then a final push to the top. That was the plan anyway. Before storm clouds gathered, despite the lack of a squall in the forecast. Before cold rain arrived and Jim was last seen plummeting into clouds and then was lost to the water below. Before a stunned Shannon clung to a granite rock face alone, crying, and screaming for a reply that would not come.
In the days to come she would be part of a search effort. She would drive and hike the length of the water in the hopes of bring some kind of closure to the unreal events that took her dad from her.
Shannon had no way of knowing that the "Crisis" was even happening and the storm was a quantum "hiccup" – a subtle change to make the new pieces of reality fall into place neatly so the Monitor could rearrange the world to make it fit the deal he made with Lex.
Shannon had no way of knowing that far out to sea, working on a Lex Corp freighter, the man who – in a pre-crisis world – retained all the memories they had of being a father and daughter together – was the mad she called "pop."
A subtle change for Lex and The Monitor. A life-changing alteration for Shannon and her father. He now had no memories of his former life. Simply a merchant marine working with others in a Lex-dominated world. She, a damaged and bitter engineer … finding solace with a group of people, "Prols" they called themselves, who worked to unravel the Luthor's hold on their world.
Was she drawn to the Prols from some vestige of memory that she couldn't, quite, grasp?
Were others drawn to a pseudo-radical group because deep-down they knew that something wasn't right about the Luthor's hold on their reality?
Whatever the case, and if Shannon knew it or not, she ended up putting her feelings aside to work with two hackers against the very person who stole her father from her. A father she thought was lost to the water.
A father who was lost to the water. But was still alive. Alive and working a hundred miles off-shore on a tanker bound for the far east.
Which is where J'onn caught up with it.
Alex, J'onn, and Dreamer had been setting up shop in their new 'Watchtower." J'onn's office which, truth be told, looked quite a bit like the lair of the Prols. Fast-food wrappers. Screens, scanners, Martian technology. The usual fastidious Alex and Dreamer had joined J'onn's bachelor lifestyle with their focused search for Kara. She'd been missing a day now and, with only brief breaks for food, J'onn and Alex were finally closing in on some answers.
The rope J'onn had obtained held energy – like all matter. Vibrations, after-images, quantum variations that gave J'onn insight into Shannon's thoughts. The image of her father in particular.
"The most potent image in her mind was of this man." Said J'onn, as he showed Alex and Dreamer a screen.
On the screen the image of a fiftish man with a stubbly face and a hint of red hair left in his graying temples.
"This was the man that I saw. I found him in the Lex Corp data base."
"Who is he?" asked Alex.
"It's not who he is, it's who he was." Said J'onn.
'The Monitor might have changed things, but it wasn't perfect. I can't find any record of this man pre-crisis. Yet, this is the man she saw. The man in the mind of the person tying those ropes on our scout leader. If we find him, we might get some answers."
Alex tapped into the Lex Corp database and there he was.
"He's an engineer in the fleet of Lex Corp tankers."
"Do you know where he is now?" asked Dreamer.
"Currently on the 'L. X. Lillian' bound for Hong Kong."
"J'onn?" asked Alex ….
By now J'onn had already transformed into his native look.
"I can intercept it at sea … 'shouldn't take long …" said J'onn. With that, the Green Martian was out the window and headed towards a bearing Dreamer had provided.
Sea stories abound in the merchant marine corp. Mermaids. Giant squid. Green guys with tridents swimming along next to ships. Still, there's something unnerving about a six-foot tall, Green Martian landing on your bridge when you're at sea.
When the commotion had settled and J'onn produced a picture of the man he was looking for he didn't have to wait long for his goal. There, on the bridge was a man fitting the description. The man he'd seen in Shannon's memory. The man who had a name tag that read "Jim Smith."
"Smith?" J'onn said out loud. "Seriously, 'Smith?'. The Monitor had power over time, space, and the quantum realm and the best new name he could come up with was 'Smith?"
A very confused Jim 'Smith' stood almost motionless. In times of great stress most people have three options. People think they have many … but it really comes down to three. Fight, flight, or freeze. You never, really, know which one a person will pick. It's a complicated algorithm based upon how much sleep you had the previous night, your mood, how much coffee you've had that day, and how many movies you've seen.
Regardless, Jim stood there motionless. Apparently he'd chosen the "deer in the headlights" option. J'onn reached a green hand for him and held Jim by his wrist.
There wasn't any resistance. Being starred down by a six foot tall Martian tends to keep one from resisting.
J'onn raised his right hand to Jim's temple and, Jim's knees crumpled … his face became flushed … he gasped hard …. "Shannon!" he yelled.
Jim remembered everything pre-crisis. And at the front of his memories, as she had been at the front of his mind since the very moment he saw her take her first breath, was his beautiful daughter Shannon.
'Where's Shannon?" he demanded, he shouted, he stood and found his legs again and didn't care if that was a six foot Martian in front of him or a six foot mirage … 'Where IS MY DAUGHTER?"
At a warehouse on the pier a metal door jiggled, then the handle was cut clean off and it swung free.
Lex had traced Lena's signal to its last known location. A piece of the phone still lay on the mess of cables and wired left behind in a hasty exit.
Shannon was shocked awake by the sound, still lying on her side with ankles and knees bound. But, amazingly, her writs were free.
Shannon brought her now-free hands in front of her and scooted herself up.
"Lex … Luthor?"
Lex looked around, then down at Shannon ….
"Ironically, you have ME at a disadvantage … you are?"
"Nobody. I'm Nobody. I recognized your face. How could I not, it's everywhere," said Shannon.
Lex surveyed the warehouse and the situation. Nothing screamed "danger" or "trap." He'd survived all those years, pre-crisis, by assuming everything was a snare of some kind.
He walked towards Jazz and began helping her with the rope …
"Now, tell me, how did you find yourself here…" Lex began, '…and, incidentally, have you seen Lena Luthor on these premises?"
Shannon untied her remaining bonds and sat back on her hands …
"How long do you have?"
"Lena's 'Smart Cuffs.'" Lex said, as he held the now-open cuffs in his hand.
"When I, when they, left me here those were tight around my wrists. How'd you get them open?" asked Shannon.
"I didn't" said Lex. Then, he looked off to the distance for a mamoment, and a hearty laugh filled the metal warehouse.
"Oh, sister … he said. Not to Shannon, but to himself really.
"Oh, sister dear … you really must pay more attention to programming."
Shannon, now free and sitting with her knees drawn up was staring at Lex with a mixture of curiosity and distain.
"What are you talking about?" she said finally.
"You were restrained with these, right?" asked Lex, holding a smartduff in his hands.
Lex had read the intra-office memo about the cuffs. How they responded to a person's struggles with an equal amount of force.
"Apparently, my dear sister never stopped to think about what would happen if someone didn't resist at all." Laughed Lex. "You fell asleep, right?"
"Yes." Said Shannon.
"And when you woke, these were open and off. If you resist, you can't escape them. When you relax completely, the 'Smart Cuffs' do too."
Lex was still laughing as he helped Shannon to her feet.
"So, young lady … Might you have an idea where my sister might be?"
Shannon was at a loss for words for a moment …. Then she told Lex of a place near the dam where they might have gone with Lena and Supergirl.
"Supergirl?" said Lex, suddenly losing his levity. "Supergirl is with them?"
Shannon explained how they'd caught the Girl of Steel while Lex took it all in.
In a parked van near the Central City dam, Lena Luthor and Kara Danvers were cuffed together … face to face. Both had writs crossed and cuffed around each other's waist. Kara, still tied at the ankles with the Kryptonite-infused rope and both of the once-friends roped together at the knees, waist, and shoulders. The way they pulled, argued, squirmed, and struggled, the Smart Cuffs would have little chance of releasing them.
"This is all you're fault …" began Lena …
"MY fault …. Continued Kara …"
It went on like this as Tech and Yose exited the van, keeping Lena and Supergirl bound together and with time to work together against the bonds that kept them apart, and the very rel ropes and cuffs which now held them tightly together.
Back at "Watchtower" Jim Long, J'onn, Dreamer, and Alex sat with tea and computers on search for a girl who now called herself "Jazz." A girl who, at that moment, was watching Lex Luthor drive away from the pier as she stood in an empty warehouse, feeling like she was still lost and alone on a granite cliff, a thousand feet above a cloudy abyss.
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