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Uncle John had said he and Big Blue were going to check something out in Metropolis’s underground, and they’d be back soon.
They’d said that hours ago. Natasha was beginning to have her doubts about that.
She wasn’t the only one.
Lois Lane – THE Lois Lane – had knocked on Steelwork’s door and asked if Natasha had heard from Uncle John and Superman yet. When Natasha had told her that no, they were supposed to be back two hours ago, Lois had asked if she wanted to do something about it.
Which led them here, with papers spread across the table and various files open, trying to figure out what exactly Steel and Superman were after.
“So,” Lois said, “What did your uncle tell you about what they were looking for?”
“Not much. They were going to investigate some of the B13 tech in the underworld of Metropolis. CAELOSS passed some concerning info to Uncle John, and he wanted a partner to look into it.”
“Superman, uh, mentioned to me and Clark that he thought there was an issue going on with B13 tech in the underground and he and Steel were going to look into it.”
“No details.”
“Nope.” Lois grumbled.
“Superheroes aren’t very good at sharing information, are they.” Natasha said.
Lois laughed. “They really aren’t. Convinced we shouldn’t worry about them or something and that we’ll worry less if we have less information about what they’re doing.”
“Which is stupid.”
“Very. But I’m glad I came here; I didn’t know the CAELOSS connection. That’s useful. Do you have any way to contact or find them?”
“No, Uncle John doesn’t want me to know enough to be in danger if things go south.”
“That’s smart of him. Do you mind me having a look around to see if I find anything?”
“Sure, be my guest.” Natasha said.
Lois let herself into Uncle John’s office and began poking about in his paper files. “Do you know how CAELOSS communicates with him?”
“Word of mouth, usually. They’re paranoid of things being intercepted.”
“With good reason. Luthor has eyes and ears everywhere, especially with the B13 tech. Are there any locations that your uncle frequents around when he’s contacted by CAELOSS?”
“I’m not sure. He usually goes down into the underworld to meet with them because Steelworks is surveilled.”
“That’s good opsec.”
“How are we supposed to find Uncle John and Superman now, though, if we don’t know where to find CAELOSS?”
“Natasha, I didn’t stumble into getting a Pulitzer. Metropolis is my city. It’ll be tricky to track down CAELOSS but I’ll find them.”
“Oh. Right. I’ll let you get to that then.” Natasha said, wincing. Great, she managed to insult Lois Lane. Perfect.
Lois smiled. “It’d be faster if I had a helping hand. Want to learn some tricks of the trade, kid?”
---
“So, we’re looking for something related to B13 tech that’s currently threatening Suicide Slum, to a degree and severity that they’d approach a superhero for help. That limits our options considerably.” Lois said as they made their way through the underground of Suicide Slum.
“There are a lot of things that fit that criteria, though. Most of the major infrastructure for the rest of the city runs through Suicide Slum or affects it in some way. The dams, the electric plants, everything.” Natasha pointed out.
“That’s true. But it’s still a starting place, depending on what CAELOSS can tell us.”
Lois deftly wound her way through the twists and turns of Suicide Slum like a woman on a mission, swiftly tracking down leads on members of CAELOSS and where they tended to congregate. It was dizzying to watch how quickly she established trust with suspicious residents to coax them into sharing information, and leaned on her previously established contacts to prod them into divulging what they knew.
It was very clear why Lois was so good at being a journalist, especially on the city beat. It took her around an hour and a half from them leaving Steelworks to have tracked down and acquired an immediate meeting with CAELOSS.
Their leader, Clemente, was clearly flustered to have Lois Lane on his doorstep with very little warning.
“How may we help you, Ms. Lane?”
“Normally, I’d have a great many questions to ask you about CAELOSS’s goals and views on how B13 technology has affected Suicide Slum, but unfortunately I’m not here for work. Superman and Steel have gone missing, and as far as we can work out, they went missing looking into something you brought to their attention.”
“We –?” Clemente blinked, then glanced over at Natasha. “Oh! You must be Natasha. John Henry’s said nothing but good things about you.”
“He better.”
“Wait, Steel and Superman are missing?”
“Yep, they were supposed to back hours ago, but they’re a no-show and Uncle John always calls when he knows he’s going to be late.”
“That is concerning.” Clemente frowned. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“We appreciate that.” Lois said, and motioned for him to continue.
“There’s this . . . nexus place on the edge of Suicide Slum, in the direction of Lexcorp Tower, called the Power Conduit. It distributes power to Suicide Slum. At least, that’s Lexcorp’s company line.”
Lois narrowed her eyes. “And what does the evidence say it actually does?”
“The opposite. It seems to drain power from the actual powerlines in Suicide Slum, and direct it back towards Lexcorp. There’s something else that goes on there as well, but we can’t figure out what. Whatever it is, the area of Suicide Slum surrounding it is one of the worst-off parts.
“We asked Dr. Irons to look into it because it’s having serious effects on the lives of the citizens of Suicide Slum and as an engineer, he’s uniquely suited to look into it. I didn’t know he’d gone to Superman, though. Or that there was anything there capable of hindering them.”
“That tracks with what I know.” Lois mused.
“I don’t know any more than that, but let us know if we can help you in any way.” Clemente said.
“We’ll do that.” Lois said. “Thank you for the information. It’s a great help to us.”
---
“What do you think?” Lois asked as they walked away from CAELOSS’s hideout.
It wasn’t that Natasha had never interacted with Lois before; she was at Steelworks quite often for one reason or another; Mr. Lane was apparently a very understanding guy given all the time she and Superman spent hanging out there with Uncle John. So Natasha could say that she wasn’t unfamiliar with Lois. But she was still Lois freakin’ Lane, the best journalist alive, and her asking Natasha what she thought was intimidating.
“I think that the Power Conduit is far bigger than CAELOSS thought it would be, and Uncle John picked up on that and that’s why he asked Superman for help, but they got taken by surprise by something.”
“I think that’s a very astute observation, Natasha. I do think there’s a little more than that going on. Superman and your uncle are very good at taking care of themselves. If it was only something with the B13 tech, or even Lexcorp, they’d have found a way around it by now. Besides Lexcorp and CAELOSS, are there any other groups fighting for control of the B13 tech of the underworld?”
“Well, there’s the Cybermoths. They invaded Steelworks a while ago while Uncle John and Superman were building the Fortress, but we haven’t really heard much from them since then.”
“Right, Cl-Superman mentioned them and going into the Phantom Zone to rescue their queen that one time.”
“Superman mentions a lot of things to you.”
Lois shrugged. “It’s good for both of us to exchange information.”
“Right.” Natasha said, somewhat skeptical. They sure seemed close for just exchanging information. Lois also seemed close to Uncle John in a similar way and – nope, Natasha was not thinking about that.
Soon enough, the Power Conduit loomed in front of them. It was lit up like most of the B13 tech was, lights blinking ominously. There were no signs of people nearby, though.
“This appears to be the place.” Lois said, frowning at the building.
“You know, for some place that’s supposedly so important, it seems awfully unmanned.” Natasha said.
“You’re right. I’d usually expect at least a guard, or signs of some worker here. I see surveillance equipment but no sign of life. That’s not a great sign. Though with Lexcorp, who knows. There might be robots of some kind here. That would be typical.”
“How do we want to handle this?” Natasha asked.
“Well, we don’t know exactly what’s in there and the only way to find out is to go in. But given how abandoned it looks, we should be fine as long as we’re careful and sneaky.”
“And to break them out?”
“Between your tech knowledge and my investigative knowledge, we should be ready to handle anything. Though we should probably take something with us.” Lois said. “I have pepper spray in my bag. You?”
Natasha lifted a steel pipe from the ground. “I’m all set. Let’s do this.”
---
The blinking lights in the darkness only added to the ominous feeling permeating the Power Conduit as they snuck through it. Natasha gripped her pipe tightly, feeling jumpy from the strange noises rumbling through the building. Lois appeared more collected, but had a death grip on her pepper spray.
They pass through rooms and rooms full of twisting tubes and wires and cables, all leading towards some central location.
“I really don’t like this place.” Natasha whispered.
“Me either.” Lois said grimly. “It’s clearly sucking something out of Suicide Slum.”
They found their missing superheroes in a central room with a high ceiling. Wiring and cables encircled most of the walls, radiating out from the center of the ceiling.
Uncle John and Superman were tied together with some kind of weird, shiny cables, backs against each other, bound tightly from head to toe and dangling from the ceiling.
Uncle John spotted her sneaking towards them. “Natasha! No! Get out of here!”
“No can-do, Uncle, we’re getting you out of here.”
“We?”
Lois popped out from behind the door. “Hey boys.”
Superman sighed. “Hi, Lois. I kind of expected this to happen.”
“What are you doing here?” Uncle John asked.
“Like Natasha said. We’re getting you out of here.” Lois reached forward as though she was going to try to pull on a cable.
“Don’t touch the cables.” Superman warned. “They don’t like that.”
“Noted.” Lois said. “Any idea how to get free?”
Uncle John responded. “No clue. We’ve been trapped in them for hours. We’ll figure something out, but you need to hide and get out of here. It’s only a matter of time before –”
The door on the other side of the room opened and a swarm of Cybermoths burst into the room, weapons pointed at them.
“—that happens.” Superman finished Uncle John’s sentence with a sigh.
“This is the Cybermoth’s territory now, intruders. Leave now and you just might live.”
“You don’t scare me.” Lois taunted. Superman sighed fondly.
Natasha had grown familiar with B13 technology in the last few months. Those cables were getting a signal from something, and if she could disrupt or turn off that signal, Uncle John and Superman could break out and deal with the Cybermoth infestation.
There. That blinking light five feet to her right. That looked like it was connected to the cables. If only she could get over there without the Cybermoths noticing, she could turn it off.
She tapped Lois’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. “I think I know how to disable the cables. Can you distract them for me?”
“No problem. Go.” Lois hissed back. “Hey, Cyber-bugs! Do you know how stupid you guys sound calling yourselves Cybermoths? You’re just asking for stupid bug jokes!”
The focus of the Cybermoth horde was now firmly on Lois, who was slowly shifting left, away from Natasha. Natasha inched her way right, careful to not make any sudden moves.
“Why did the Cybermoth fly into the sun? Because they thought it was a computer screen!” Lois called out.
Natasha winced at that. And she thought Uncle John’s jokes were terrible. Almost there, just a few more inches – there! Natasha slammed her hand against the light.
The cables loosened their stranglehold and fell to the floor. Superman caught Uncle John around the waist before he could fall and flipped them so that they were no longer upside down, floating gracefully above their heads.
“Now, Cybervermin, my partner and I really do not appreciate being dangled from the ceiling, so I suggest you leave now before we have to remove you forcefully.”
“You’ll never understand the conduits of this city. He who controls the information has the power.” A Cybermoth hissed.
“Don’t say we didn't warn you.” Uncle John said, flinging his hammer straight at the Cybermoth.
Chaos erupted from there, with Cybermoths leaping at her uncle to try to bring him down and Superman batting them away like insects. Natasha tried to keep herself close to the wall so as to not be in the way, hitting any that came close with her pipe. Seeing that the pepper spray was useless against the Cybermoth’s gas masks, Lois had found her own piece of pipe and waded into the fight.
Wait, was that a detonator that Cybermoth in the corner had? That couldn’t be good. Natasha grabbed a rock from the floor and chucked it at them, but not before they’d managed to hit a button. Damn it.
A Cybermoth followed the path of the rock and noticed her next to the control panel. They tilted their creepy gas-masked head and stared at Natasha. She felt as though she was being observed and judged, and the Cybermoth was intrigued by what they saw. She really didn’t like that feeling.
The Cybermoth took a step forward and Natasha readied the steel pipe. But before the Cybermoth was in range, Superman picked them up and chucked them into a whole eclipse of Cybermoths (yes, after their first encounter Natasha had looked up what a group of moths was called to better insult them. So “an eclipse of Cybermoths” it was).
“I had that.” Natasha grumbled. The Cybermoths were still agitated, but were swarming towards the exits. Superman and Uncle John noticed that as well and exchanged grim glances.
“We don’t have time for this,” Uncle John said, scooping her up under one arm and rocketing out of there. Superman followed close behind, Lois scooped up in a similarly undignified way.
Lois caught Natasha’s eye and jerked a thumb at Superman’s shoulder, mouthing “Can you believe them?”
Superman, apparently, caught this in his peripheral vision and rolled his eyes.
Natasha laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Uncle John demanded. Natasha only laughed harder.
Behind them, the building crumpled under the force of the explosion.
Uncle John and Superman came to a stop above a rooftop a block away, gently setting Natasha and Lois down. Lois brushed nonexistent dust off her shirt with irritation.
“Well, that’s one way to handle the Power Conduit.” Uncle John mused.
“I can’t wait to see what Luthor accuses us of this time.” Superman grumbled.
“Hey, at least it’s taken care of.” Uncle John said.
“What was it doing?” Lois asked.
“Siphoning off Suicide Slum’s power to send it straight to Lexcorp and sending data and information to something hidden beneath Lexcorp tower. They must have some secret project down there, but it’s hopefully received a significant blow from this.” Uncle John said.
“Good. A bad day for Lexcorp is a good day for us.” Lois declared.
“That’s true. But I have a feeling that whatever that secret Lexcorp project is, it’s going to be a huge problem.” Superman said, radiating moodiness.
“And we’ll deal with that when we get there.” Lois said confidently.
“Yeah Big Blue, we can handle it.” Natasha said, buoyed by Lois’s confidence.
“You’re right. We’ll get to it when we get to it.” Superman acquiesced.
“Great bonding, team. Now, let’s go back home and discuss how reckless you two were.” Uncle John said, clapping his hands on Natasha and Lois’s shoulders.
Lois began to protest and demand Uncle John’s definition of the word reckless. Superman shook his head in fond exasperation, exchanging a wry glance with Natasha.
Natasha grinned.