Post by redsycorax on Feb 12, 2022 0:26:05 GMT
Earth-500 is one of a number of alternate universes and on these myriad alternate Earths, history and human lives and outcomes of events take divergent forms. Take Paul Patton, for example. He was bitten by a radioactive spider, but he's not jumping around New York in a bright red outfit, throwing high tensile webs around evildoers or metahuman villains. If only he was able to do that...
++
NEW YORK:
Like many another young New York teenager, Paul Patton was an everyday student at Bugle High, slightly smaller than his companions, bespectacled, fond of cameras and with a mad crush on Gillian Saward, the daughter of a local police chief at the same school. Until, that is, the day that young Mister Patton was visting Starq Laboratories and was inadvertantly bitten by a radioactive spider who had somehow escaped from an adjacent laboratory and who responded instinctively to the living organism that it had landed randomly upon. And so, the spider's venom coursed through his body. However, other events will not ensue as they did elsewhere across the Multiverse. For Paul Patton is no longer a 'spider' "man." In fact, his humanity is now...questionable.
MANHATTAN ALLEYWAY CRIME SCENE:
"Oh..." Kator Hol put his hand to his mouth as Ultra Violet bit her lip:
"What the hell happened here? It looks like this police officer was eaten by a horde of insects?" Helena (Robin) Wayne said as she knelt over the remains of a police officer, whose skin had numerous lacerations and was consumed to the bones in places.
Ultra Violet gathered herself: "Nope. Look closer. Those marks indicate arthropods all right, but the depth of that gauge indicate spiders, not insects. Hang on..." She transformed herself into a being capable of increased olfactory input and gasped:
"Hell. That is one extremely large spider..."
"An imported tropical species?" Robin asked, as Kator vomited into an adjacent trashcan, unable to hold his horror and disgust in any longer.
"Nope. I don't get that at all. Hel, try a DNA swab and analyse it." The eldest daughter of the World's Greatest Detective did so and there was a moment before her microcomputer handheld clicked to indicate that its forensic scan had finished. Robin's brow furrowed:
"This can't be right."
"What can't?"
"There are mixtures of human and arachnid DNA in this result. Clearly it isn't contamination, this sample was sterilised beforehand. So it looks like you're right about the arachnid involvement in this context, Violet, but this implies..."
Shayera nodded: "A human/arachnid mutant?"
Robin shook her head: "No, that would have mean the microcomp showed signs of genetic insertion and modification. That's not what I'm getting here. It's more like blunter insertion and overwriting, as if a mutagen or teratogen was used in this context to deliberately force change."
Ultra Violet frowned: "Hang on, what's that in the corner of the image?"
"It looks like... a nanotech tag. Starq Industries Genomics Division. I'm calling Dad about this."
BATCAVE, GOTHAM CITY:
From beneath Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne sat at a communication console:
"Well, Helena, as you correctly recalled from senior high biology class, yes, human genetic engineering is illegal in the United States. However, this may be the outcome of an accidental event containment failure."
"Are you sure, Dad? I seem to recall you being pretty irate at the Senate Committee on Biotechnology Regulation at Starq Industries' poor record of biotech safety compliance over the last few decades."
"Harold Starq was always willing to make a quick buck when it came to cutting ethical protocols and 'ham fisted regulatory expenses that curtail entrepreneurial innovation', for which read 'comprehensive safeguards against risk to staff and bystanders from poorly contained hazardous biomaterial. And I'm afraid that with her drinking problem, Antonia Starq is just as reckless."
"Dad- you haven't been reading Mom's celebrity magazines, have you?!"
"No, Hel, that's from Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, I'm afraid. Thanks for the heads-up. I'm going to contact Congresswoman Gordon in Washington about this and see if she can help bring pressure to bear. And I think you should know that there have been additional New York postmortem incident reports that closely tally with the death of that police officer. Sadly, one is his daughter. The others are a middle-aged married couple, Meg and Bill Patton. If anything, they appear to be in worse condition than that senior police officer."
"Thanks, Dad. As soon as we get some pepto-bismol for Kator's unsettled stomach given the graphic nature of this event, we'll be headed for Starq."
"Do you want me to call in the other JAA members?"
"No, Willie and Isabella haven't had a decent day off in ages. And Superman and Superwoman are still offworld dealing with that rogue planet incursion in Epsilon Indi's solar system and GL is on Brazilian Air Force patrol duty. Ollie said something about a Cherokee holy day and his responsibilities there and Artur is presiding over a trial as Atlantean UN Governor, while Rai and his new husband are still on honeymoon and Tanaka is dealing with that landslide in the Andes. And J'Onn and Diana are on JAA monitor duty this week. So, that leaves few options for enlisting further aid anyway."
"Check. If any of them become free, should I send them in?"
Helena Wayne shook her head: "Given what I've studied about Starq Industries in Ecology Class, I think we're well-enough informed to handle the corporate affairs aspect of this."
"Good plan- dealing with discovery and preparing accordingly."
"What can I say, Dad? You trained me well. Give my love to Dick when he calls in next. Helena over and out." And with that, the various younger members of the Justice Alliance soared aloft- Robin on her Batrope, Hawkgirl and Hawkboy on their pinions and Ultra Violet emulating a high-gravity humanoid physiology, which gave her agility to spare.
STARQ INDUSTRIES OFFICES:
"Ah- the Justice Alliance junior division. To what do I owe this ambiguous pleasure?" Antonia Starq put down a whiskey bottle as she turned to face the quartet of youthful JAA members.
"We're here to ask you some questions about your genomics division, Ms. Starq."
"What about it? Are you here to see our NewMaize? Or perhaps-"
"No, Ms. Starq. We're here to investigate animal genetic modification, specifically arachnid."
Antonia Starq frowned: "We have no such projects under development."
"Perhaps as a collateral consequence of a biohazard breach?"
Antonia Starq's mouth set: "Take care about what you're implying, Girl Wonder. You're getting dangerously close to defamation territory."
"Ms. Starq, we do have copies of Senate Committee on Biotechnology Regulation affadavits and court records from at least three separate past cases."
"Then you're also presumably aware that two of them were settled out of court."
"Yes, to the sum of about one million dollars compensation each to the affected parties. And the third one ended in plaintiff success."
"Are you implying that my company still has suboptimal regulation of hazardous byproducts, Robin?"
"No, although these electoral donation records are interesting, aren't they? They indicate substantial...campaign donations... to candidates who favoured diminished expenditure on biohazard regulation from biotechnology corporations."
"So? It's a free country."
"Yes, and money talks quite loudly, sometimes."
"Exactly what are you accusing Starq Industries of?"
"How about the escape of a biohazardous mutated arachnidoid organism, leading to exposure of a given individual and teratogenic damage to that person, resulting in the deaths of at least four individuals?" Robin snapped, her face only inches away from Antonia Starq's livid and infuriated visage.
"I assume you have proof, Robin?"
Robin held up her microcomp display: "And I assume you're familiar with Professor Phineas Potters' research paper on teratogenic and mutagenic consequences of arachnid biotoxins in Biotechnology Regulation, the industry journal?"
"Very clever. Plausible inference, even if highly theoretical."
"Grounded in enough replicable, evidence-based studies to stick in court." Robin coolly replied, as she walked out of the office, followed by her colleagues.
Once they were safely out of the Starq Industries annex, Ultra Violet whistled: "Wow, Batman trained you well, Hel!"
"Runs in the family, apparently. Now. Violet, how about you transform into a being that can track mutated arachnidoid/human fused genetic material?"
"How about a mutated bloodhound?" Violet said, as she began to transform morphology and seconds later, her dogself bounded away, barking to her human colleagues to follow her.
Hawkboy offered: "What say we follow her aloft, Shay?"
"I'm with you, Kat. I just hope that this creature hasn't had more people around for dinner."
REHOBOTHAM:
In the abandoned, dilapidated suburban house where he was currently concealing himself, Paul Patton was running out of time as he desperately tried to control and mitigate the effects of his transition into a mutated arachnohumanoid. He was ashamed of himself for what he had done and what he had become, although the second option was someone else's fault for not providing adequate safety equipment and ineffective biohazard protocols in the first instance. But it was a losing battle. As the arachnotoxin filtered into more of his cells, particularly his neuroanatomy, the wild, predatory spider was demanding to be released and satiated with more human quarry.
And then he heard the sound of the baying bloodhound as it entered the overgrown grass covered yard and its paws echoed on the porch. At that moment, the spiderself gained ascendancy and the Blood Spider dropped from its hypersilk webbing and scuttled rapidly toward the telltale canine. And then there was a flash of purple light and a young woman was there as he rounded the corner, inadvertantly placing himself in full sight of the intruder. She put her hand to her mouth but then her form pulsed mauve again as she metamorphosed into a pterodactylid saurian, able to withstand any venom that he could disgorge at her. And then, behind her, came two other young women and a young man. Violet kicked in the door in her saurian persona and snarled her anger at the creature before her. The Blood Spider could only see an obstacle in its way and its animal instincts overpowered Paul Patton's increasingly fragile human reason. It leapt toward her, to be thrust aside by the sweep of its wing, as Robin, Hawkboy and Hawkgirl arrived at the doorway.
"Well, at least it's a male. Imagine what might have happened if it were female and parthenogenic." Hawkboy offered, strapping on his buckler and visor. Hawkgirl removed her mace and dagger from their holsters at her side.
"Remember, despite what it's done, it may contain struggling human and arachnid cognition. We need to reach its human side."
As saurian Ultra Violet knocked the arachnohumanoid out into the yard, Hawkgirl observed:
"Are you going to ask it nicely, Helena?"
"Droll, Shayera. Ah. Thank you, Dad and the good folk at Wayne Biotech."
"I wondered what that Batdrone was doing with that cell sample you clipped from that cadaver." Battle was joined, with Hawkgirl, Hawkboy and Robin taking care to stay outside the range of the creature's mandibles as Ultra Violet's dinoself snapped and snarled at it, and as it futilely tried to bite her leathery changeskin, its jaws sliding off it as they repeatedly failed to gain traction:
"Violet! Over here!" Ultra Violet obliged, flinging the Blood Spider across the yard to where Robin awaited it. As it fell at her feet, Robin jabbed it in its still humanoid shoulder with a preloaded syringe and skipped back as the creature howled and thrashed. But then, more welcome change was visible as it shed its arachnoid characteristics and became recognisably human. Soon, there was a naked shivering teenager on the overgrown grass: "Oh, god. What did I do? My Aunt Meg. My Uncle Bill. Gillian. Her dad. I'm a multiple murderer. I...kill me. Please. I'd rather die than turn back into that."
"He won't though, will he?" Hawkboy asked as Robin wrapped her cape around Paul Patton in the interests of modesty.
"Don't be too sure of that. Helena, I could still smell some of that arachnotoxin inside him before I changed back."
Robin sighed: "I'm sorry, Mr Patton, but our colleague Ultra Violet here is right. The serum I administered is only a stopgap one and it'll wear off. And the Justice Alliance does not kill our adversaries. Excpt if we have no other way."
"But don't you see, you might have no other way. If you won't do it, I..." Superman and Superwoman descended into the yard.
"Batman kept us informed through the Batdrone hovercam. Paul, I think we have a potential solution."
"Other than killing me, I don't think you have any, Superman. Please. Put me out of my misery before the Blood Spider escapes and kills more people."
Superman produced a cylindrical device:
"Actually, Paul, we do. This is a Kryptonian medical device called a Survival Zone projector. The Survival Zone is an adjacent four dimensional universe where currently incurable disease sufferers were kept in physiological stasis until a cure could be found for their condition."
Paul eagerly nodded: "Thank god! Superman, please, send me there before that creature escapes from me again." Superman complied, as Paul Patton closed his eyes and sobbed in gratitude. As the Survival Zone ray projector's radiation portal effect took place, his outline became transparent and immaterial, until invisibility and intangibility ultimately resulted.
Superwoman turned to the whirring projector above: "You got that, Bruce?"
"I did. And I sent it to a mutual friend of ours."
Ultra Violet raised an eyebrow: "Oh. Would that be a journalist, by any chance?"
"Only the very best, Violet dear. Ever hear of Lois Lane, editor of the Daily Globe?"
And apropos of that observation, a certain determined and seasoned investigative journalist shouted upward through a loudspeaker at Starq Industries:
"Ms. Starq! What comments do you have about the Paul Patton case?"
In her office, Antonia Starq was getting increasingly drunk as she heard the distant klaxon of police sirens. She did not welcome what was about to happen as she heard the staccato steps of boots ascending the stairs to her office and the repeated intrusive questions from that human rottweiler in the form of a journalist. She gritted her teeth, sprayed breath freshener in her mouth and stood, albeit unsteadily given her alcohol intake over the last few hours, as the police crowded through the open door, ready to arrest her and convey her for trial.
EPILOGUE: JAA SEABASE:
"All right, so what happened next?" Diana asked as the others crowded around the JAA conference table.
"Well, you've seen the news. The evidence is fairly damning and the way things are going at her trial, Starq is going to prison for professional negligence in her executive capacity at the very at least."
"A shame. She has a steely mind. She might have made a creditable metahuman if she'd turned her mind to it." Batman added.
"Excellent job, though, Helena and Violet. Your first case and you've cracked a major case of corporate malpractise! Way to go!" Captain Thunder applauded.
"It's Paul I feel sorry for, though. With that thing trying to take him over, he didn't murder those people, it was technically manslaughter." Hawkboy added.
"Well, yes, by any objective standard of jurisprudence. Although the Survival Zone serves both as a remand facility and as a medical acute quarantine ward, so he's safe from the Blood Spider side of him there. And one day, Rao willing, one of us will find a cure for the beast inside him and he can return to normal society from his interdimensional prison." Superwoman said as that evening's meeting concluded.
THE END
++
NEW YORK:
Like many another young New York teenager, Paul Patton was an everyday student at Bugle High, slightly smaller than his companions, bespectacled, fond of cameras and with a mad crush on Gillian Saward, the daughter of a local police chief at the same school. Until, that is, the day that young Mister Patton was visting Starq Laboratories and was inadvertantly bitten by a radioactive spider who had somehow escaped from an adjacent laboratory and who responded instinctively to the living organism that it had landed randomly upon. And so, the spider's venom coursed through his body. However, other events will not ensue as they did elsewhere across the Multiverse. For Paul Patton is no longer a 'spider' "man." In fact, his humanity is now...questionable.
MANHATTAN ALLEYWAY CRIME SCENE:
"Oh..." Kator Hol put his hand to his mouth as Ultra Violet bit her lip:
"What the hell happened here? It looks like this police officer was eaten by a horde of insects?" Helena (Robin) Wayne said as she knelt over the remains of a police officer, whose skin had numerous lacerations and was consumed to the bones in places.
Ultra Violet gathered herself: "Nope. Look closer. Those marks indicate arthropods all right, but the depth of that gauge indicate spiders, not insects. Hang on..." She transformed herself into a being capable of increased olfactory input and gasped:
"Hell. That is one extremely large spider..."
"An imported tropical species?" Robin asked, as Kator vomited into an adjacent trashcan, unable to hold his horror and disgust in any longer.
"Nope. I don't get that at all. Hel, try a DNA swab and analyse it." The eldest daughter of the World's Greatest Detective did so and there was a moment before her microcomputer handheld clicked to indicate that its forensic scan had finished. Robin's brow furrowed:
"This can't be right."
"What can't?"
"There are mixtures of human and arachnid DNA in this result. Clearly it isn't contamination, this sample was sterilised beforehand. So it looks like you're right about the arachnid involvement in this context, Violet, but this implies..."
Shayera nodded: "A human/arachnid mutant?"
Robin shook her head: "No, that would have mean the microcomp showed signs of genetic insertion and modification. That's not what I'm getting here. It's more like blunter insertion and overwriting, as if a mutagen or teratogen was used in this context to deliberately force change."
Ultra Violet frowned: "Hang on, what's that in the corner of the image?"
"It looks like... a nanotech tag. Starq Industries Genomics Division. I'm calling Dad about this."
BATCAVE, GOTHAM CITY:
From beneath Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne sat at a communication console:
"Well, Helena, as you correctly recalled from senior high biology class, yes, human genetic engineering is illegal in the United States. However, this may be the outcome of an accidental event containment failure."
"Are you sure, Dad? I seem to recall you being pretty irate at the Senate Committee on Biotechnology Regulation at Starq Industries' poor record of biotech safety compliance over the last few decades."
"Harold Starq was always willing to make a quick buck when it came to cutting ethical protocols and 'ham fisted regulatory expenses that curtail entrepreneurial innovation', for which read 'comprehensive safeguards against risk to staff and bystanders from poorly contained hazardous biomaterial. And I'm afraid that with her drinking problem, Antonia Starq is just as reckless."
"Dad- you haven't been reading Mom's celebrity magazines, have you?!"
"No, Hel, that's from Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, I'm afraid. Thanks for the heads-up. I'm going to contact Congresswoman Gordon in Washington about this and see if she can help bring pressure to bear. And I think you should know that there have been additional New York postmortem incident reports that closely tally with the death of that police officer. Sadly, one is his daughter. The others are a middle-aged married couple, Meg and Bill Patton. If anything, they appear to be in worse condition than that senior police officer."
"Thanks, Dad. As soon as we get some pepto-bismol for Kator's unsettled stomach given the graphic nature of this event, we'll be headed for Starq."
"Do you want me to call in the other JAA members?"
"No, Willie and Isabella haven't had a decent day off in ages. And Superman and Superwoman are still offworld dealing with that rogue planet incursion in Epsilon Indi's solar system and GL is on Brazilian Air Force patrol duty. Ollie said something about a Cherokee holy day and his responsibilities there and Artur is presiding over a trial as Atlantean UN Governor, while Rai and his new husband are still on honeymoon and Tanaka is dealing with that landslide in the Andes. And J'Onn and Diana are on JAA monitor duty this week. So, that leaves few options for enlisting further aid anyway."
"Check. If any of them become free, should I send them in?"
Helena Wayne shook her head: "Given what I've studied about Starq Industries in Ecology Class, I think we're well-enough informed to handle the corporate affairs aspect of this."
"Good plan- dealing with discovery and preparing accordingly."
"What can I say, Dad? You trained me well. Give my love to Dick when he calls in next. Helena over and out." And with that, the various younger members of the Justice Alliance soared aloft- Robin on her Batrope, Hawkgirl and Hawkboy on their pinions and Ultra Violet emulating a high-gravity humanoid physiology, which gave her agility to spare.
STARQ INDUSTRIES OFFICES:
"Ah- the Justice Alliance junior division. To what do I owe this ambiguous pleasure?" Antonia Starq put down a whiskey bottle as she turned to face the quartet of youthful JAA members.
"We're here to ask you some questions about your genomics division, Ms. Starq."
"What about it? Are you here to see our NewMaize? Or perhaps-"
"No, Ms. Starq. We're here to investigate animal genetic modification, specifically arachnid."
Antonia Starq frowned: "We have no such projects under development."
"Perhaps as a collateral consequence of a biohazard breach?"
Antonia Starq's mouth set: "Take care about what you're implying, Girl Wonder. You're getting dangerously close to defamation territory."
"Ms. Starq, we do have copies of Senate Committee on Biotechnology Regulation affadavits and court records from at least three separate past cases."
"Then you're also presumably aware that two of them were settled out of court."
"Yes, to the sum of about one million dollars compensation each to the affected parties. And the third one ended in plaintiff success."
"Are you implying that my company still has suboptimal regulation of hazardous byproducts, Robin?"
"No, although these electoral donation records are interesting, aren't they? They indicate substantial...campaign donations... to candidates who favoured diminished expenditure on biohazard regulation from biotechnology corporations."
"So? It's a free country."
"Yes, and money talks quite loudly, sometimes."
"Exactly what are you accusing Starq Industries of?"
"How about the escape of a biohazardous mutated arachnidoid organism, leading to exposure of a given individual and teratogenic damage to that person, resulting in the deaths of at least four individuals?" Robin snapped, her face only inches away from Antonia Starq's livid and infuriated visage.
"I assume you have proof, Robin?"
Robin held up her microcomp display: "And I assume you're familiar with Professor Phineas Potters' research paper on teratogenic and mutagenic consequences of arachnid biotoxins in Biotechnology Regulation, the industry journal?"
"Very clever. Plausible inference, even if highly theoretical."
"Grounded in enough replicable, evidence-based studies to stick in court." Robin coolly replied, as she walked out of the office, followed by her colleagues.
Once they were safely out of the Starq Industries annex, Ultra Violet whistled: "Wow, Batman trained you well, Hel!"
"Runs in the family, apparently. Now. Violet, how about you transform into a being that can track mutated arachnidoid/human fused genetic material?"
"How about a mutated bloodhound?" Violet said, as she began to transform morphology and seconds later, her dogself bounded away, barking to her human colleagues to follow her.
Hawkboy offered: "What say we follow her aloft, Shay?"
"I'm with you, Kat. I just hope that this creature hasn't had more people around for dinner."
REHOBOTHAM:
In the abandoned, dilapidated suburban house where he was currently concealing himself, Paul Patton was running out of time as he desperately tried to control and mitigate the effects of his transition into a mutated arachnohumanoid. He was ashamed of himself for what he had done and what he had become, although the second option was someone else's fault for not providing adequate safety equipment and ineffective biohazard protocols in the first instance. But it was a losing battle. As the arachnotoxin filtered into more of his cells, particularly his neuroanatomy, the wild, predatory spider was demanding to be released and satiated with more human quarry.
And then he heard the sound of the baying bloodhound as it entered the overgrown grass covered yard and its paws echoed on the porch. At that moment, the spiderself gained ascendancy and the Blood Spider dropped from its hypersilk webbing and scuttled rapidly toward the telltale canine. And then there was a flash of purple light and a young woman was there as he rounded the corner, inadvertantly placing himself in full sight of the intruder. She put her hand to her mouth but then her form pulsed mauve again as she metamorphosed into a pterodactylid saurian, able to withstand any venom that he could disgorge at her. And then, behind her, came two other young women and a young man. Violet kicked in the door in her saurian persona and snarled her anger at the creature before her. The Blood Spider could only see an obstacle in its way and its animal instincts overpowered Paul Patton's increasingly fragile human reason. It leapt toward her, to be thrust aside by the sweep of its wing, as Robin, Hawkboy and Hawkgirl arrived at the doorway.
"Well, at least it's a male. Imagine what might have happened if it were female and parthenogenic." Hawkboy offered, strapping on his buckler and visor. Hawkgirl removed her mace and dagger from their holsters at her side.
"Remember, despite what it's done, it may contain struggling human and arachnid cognition. We need to reach its human side."
As saurian Ultra Violet knocked the arachnohumanoid out into the yard, Hawkgirl observed:
"Are you going to ask it nicely, Helena?"
"Droll, Shayera. Ah. Thank you, Dad and the good folk at Wayne Biotech."
"I wondered what that Batdrone was doing with that cell sample you clipped from that cadaver." Battle was joined, with Hawkgirl, Hawkboy and Robin taking care to stay outside the range of the creature's mandibles as Ultra Violet's dinoself snapped and snarled at it, and as it futilely tried to bite her leathery changeskin, its jaws sliding off it as they repeatedly failed to gain traction:
"Violet! Over here!" Ultra Violet obliged, flinging the Blood Spider across the yard to where Robin awaited it. As it fell at her feet, Robin jabbed it in its still humanoid shoulder with a preloaded syringe and skipped back as the creature howled and thrashed. But then, more welcome change was visible as it shed its arachnoid characteristics and became recognisably human. Soon, there was a naked shivering teenager on the overgrown grass: "Oh, god. What did I do? My Aunt Meg. My Uncle Bill. Gillian. Her dad. I'm a multiple murderer. I...kill me. Please. I'd rather die than turn back into that."
"He won't though, will he?" Hawkboy asked as Robin wrapped her cape around Paul Patton in the interests of modesty.
"Don't be too sure of that. Helena, I could still smell some of that arachnotoxin inside him before I changed back."
Robin sighed: "I'm sorry, Mr Patton, but our colleague Ultra Violet here is right. The serum I administered is only a stopgap one and it'll wear off. And the Justice Alliance does not kill our adversaries. Excpt if we have no other way."
"But don't you see, you might have no other way. If you won't do it, I..." Superman and Superwoman descended into the yard.
"Batman kept us informed through the Batdrone hovercam. Paul, I think we have a potential solution."
"Other than killing me, I don't think you have any, Superman. Please. Put me out of my misery before the Blood Spider escapes and kills more people."
Superman produced a cylindrical device:
"Actually, Paul, we do. This is a Kryptonian medical device called a Survival Zone projector. The Survival Zone is an adjacent four dimensional universe where currently incurable disease sufferers were kept in physiological stasis until a cure could be found for their condition."
Paul eagerly nodded: "Thank god! Superman, please, send me there before that creature escapes from me again." Superman complied, as Paul Patton closed his eyes and sobbed in gratitude. As the Survival Zone ray projector's radiation portal effect took place, his outline became transparent and immaterial, until invisibility and intangibility ultimately resulted.
Superwoman turned to the whirring projector above: "You got that, Bruce?"
"I did. And I sent it to a mutual friend of ours."
Ultra Violet raised an eyebrow: "Oh. Would that be a journalist, by any chance?"
"Only the very best, Violet dear. Ever hear of Lois Lane, editor of the Daily Globe?"
And apropos of that observation, a certain determined and seasoned investigative journalist shouted upward through a loudspeaker at Starq Industries:
"Ms. Starq! What comments do you have about the Paul Patton case?"
In her office, Antonia Starq was getting increasingly drunk as she heard the distant klaxon of police sirens. She did not welcome what was about to happen as she heard the staccato steps of boots ascending the stairs to her office and the repeated intrusive questions from that human rottweiler in the form of a journalist. She gritted her teeth, sprayed breath freshener in her mouth and stood, albeit unsteadily given her alcohol intake over the last few hours, as the police crowded through the open door, ready to arrest her and convey her for trial.
EPILOGUE: JAA SEABASE:
"All right, so what happened next?" Diana asked as the others crowded around the JAA conference table.
"Well, you've seen the news. The evidence is fairly damning and the way things are going at her trial, Starq is going to prison for professional negligence in her executive capacity at the very at least."
"A shame. She has a steely mind. She might have made a creditable metahuman if she'd turned her mind to it." Batman added.
"Excellent job, though, Helena and Violet. Your first case and you've cracked a major case of corporate malpractise! Way to go!" Captain Thunder applauded.
"It's Paul I feel sorry for, though. With that thing trying to take him over, he didn't murder those people, it was technically manslaughter." Hawkboy added.
"Well, yes, by any objective standard of jurisprudence. Although the Survival Zone serves both as a remand facility and as a medical acute quarantine ward, so he's safe from the Blood Spider side of him there. And one day, Rao willing, one of us will find a cure for the beast inside him and he can return to normal society from his interdimensional prison." Superwoman said as that evening's meeting concluded.
THE END