TOC Part 12 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOURNAL ENTRY #13
LATE FEBRUARY, 1995
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We spent the next few weeks cleaning up after the Diana Stride case. Looking for the lab that had made the enhanced formula lipstick, trying to find out where the Kryptonite had come from, and working to find Cadmus's new headquarters. So, when Kyle Griffin broke out of jail, we were less than concerned. With everything we were doing, some guy pulling pranks hardly seemed like a priority.
We'd already disposed of the lipstick itself, shortly after Diana's arrest. Tracking down the lab wasn't too bad, since we'd already had some clues from watching Diana. With Jack and Lin to help us, breaking in was almost easy. We copied what information we could from their computers, then destroyed everything, starting with the physical notes on Kryptonite.
Eugene cracked the encryption on the copied data for us. Sifting through it, we got some information about Cadmus HQ, but nothing on where the Kryptonite had come from. That wasn't too surprising, since Intergang had been the ones to obtain it, but, knowing that Cadmus had managed to get Kryptonite before, we'd been hoping to find something.
We'd hit a dead end when Cat called to tell us about a black market auction. It was a semi-regular thing, it seemed, where dangerous and exclusive items could be obtained. The organizers would only accept bidders and sellers known to them. Cat had heard about it through one of the military contacts she'd managed to cultivate in DC. Colonel Cash had been looking into it because he saw Superman as a potential threat.
He wasn't like Trask. He didn't think Superman was a spy or part of some conspiracy. He was, however, very concerned about the power Superman had, and what might happen if it got out of control. He wanted to be ready for the worst. So, he'd been keeping an ear out for anything — legal or otherwise — that could possibly be of use. He'd found the auction, but had been unable to get in. It especially frustrated him because this time, there was a chunk of Kryptonite going up for sale.
We were discussing possible plans when Bobby activated his comlink. Lois had called him, looking for information on the Prankster. We had nothing, and told him so. Jack volunteered to look into it while the rest of us continued on our various projects.
When Lois found out that Bobby had come to their meeting empty-handed, she tried to reclaim his pay. She actually grabbed the sandwich out of his hands. After a struggle, Bobby managed to get it back, telling her to consider it as feeding him "on spec." I'm not sure what happened during the rest of the meeting, except that I heard Bobby mention to Lois that Hamilton had a new lab. I wasn't really paying too much attention to the monitors. Watching Lois and Clark was entertaining, but sometimes there are more important things in life.
I went to the auction with a briefcase full of Bobby's money. The guards, of course, stopped me. I told them truthfully that I was representing a bidder who wished to remain anonymous. Predictably, they weren't happy with that answer. All three of them moved in on me. I grabbed one with my right hand and slowly but easily lifted him over my head. That gave them pause. I gently lowered the guard back to the ground, then stepped back.
"How did you do that?" he asked.
I opened one of the panels on my arm, giving him a brief glance at the mechanical workings inside. "You ever heard of Rollie Vale?"
"Ain't he the guy who got busted out of the joint a coupla weeks back?" the second one asked.
"Yeah," said the one next to him, "but what's that gotta do with anything?"
The guard I'd lifted put a hand to his shirt, where I'd grabbed him. "He was in there because he built some kind of robot, wasn't he?"
"I heard he built himself a robot arm, too."
The first one looked suspiciously at my briefcase. "But he had to do it out of spare parts because he didn't have money for better."
"You guys know who busted him out?" the third guard asked, rejoining the conversation.
"It was Luthor, wa'innit?"
"Luthor's in jail now."
"So? He's still
Luthor."
They looked at each other, then back at me. I said nothing.
"Okay, g'wan in."
"Thank you."
The auction room was sparsely decorated. There was little more than a few rows of chairs facing a podium. The room, though, was filled with a who's who of the criminal community. I recognized agents of Cadmus and Intergang among others, and was very glad that I knew them from having seen them on the monitors rather than in person. There was also a couple who seemed out of place. We later identified them as Tim and Amber Lake, who were known to enjoy collecting unusual items. They'd already snatched up a good deal of Lex Luthor's personal collection. We assumed they wanted the Kryptonite purely for its rarity.
Between Cadmus, Intergang, and the Lakes, the bidding quickly escalated past what I had. I sighed. I hadn't really expected that it would be that easy, but I'd been hoping. I took out a device Alan and Hamilton had designed, based on the sonic technology we'd picked up a few months previously. The thing looked like an ordinary cell phone (and we were fortunate that cell phones were so big back then), but it was capable of much more.
I pointed the "antenna" at the Kryptonite on the auction block and pressed a button. The Kryptonite shook a little, but that was about it. Alan had warned me that the frequency might not be exact. I didn't understand it all, but he and Hamilton had made some guesses based on the research we'd stolen from Cadmus. There was a range of possible frequencies, and to make it easier on me, they'd set the device to start at the low end. I moved a dial with my thumb, slowly moving along the range. The Kryptonite started to hum. I nudged the dial a little further. The crystal shattered. Tiny shards exploded outward from the podium, and glittered as they fell to the floor in an emerald cloud. (Heh. I'm getting poetic in my old age.)
The sound of gasps and curses filled the room. People started looking around wildly, trying to figure out what had happened. Then, suddenly, there were sirens. The crowd panicked. I ran with them out the back door. Everyone scattered. I waited until I was safely underground, then signaled Phillip to let him know he could shut the speakers off. The sirens trailed off, as if moving away. We'd considered actually calling the police, but realized that we wouldn't be able to rely on their timing and that, even if they caught anyone at the auction, they'd have no proof of any criminal activity.
So, we'd taken a piece of Kryptonite out of the picture, found some new faces to keep an eye on, and were in a better position to find other auctions in the future. We'd also given the people who'd organized and attended the auction something to be nervous about. We wouldn't be able to pull the same trick again, but still... Not a bad night's work.
Back at the Fortress, I learned that Jack had found the Prankster. Using skills he'd learned from Jimmy, he had learned that Griffin's childhood home had been condemned and abandoned. It wasn't hard to check and find out that he actually had returned to use it as his new base. Bobby passed the information along the next morning, and Griffin was captured that afternoon. We collected the device he'd been using to cause temporary paralysis. Hamilton, working for Lois and Clark, had already come up with a set of contact lenses which would block the device's effects. Lois and Clark had even been good enough to test them for us. We weren't sure what we'd do with it, but we knew it would be useful some day.
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