Part Three

"They're still doing an inventory on that body farm," said Drake, once he and Vic were comfortably settled. "So far everyone who is still there - and I don't mean the employees - is supposed to be there. However, they - by which I do mean the employees - have discovered that some of the bodies don't match the descriptions in the documents. The management isn't sure yet if legitimate donations were replaced by the ones who don't match - and, if that is the case, what happened to the ones which were supposed to be there - or if they're somehow extra, or some combination."

He had asked Vic to come to his office near the end of the regular workday, as a supplement to the usual whole-office briefing in the conference room that morning. One particularly welcome announcement today had been that the office had been recently approved to acquire another employee. So far, Drake hadn't found anyone, but he assured them he was working on that.

"You gotta admit that's a clever way to dispose of a body without attracting attention," said Vic. "If you have someone on the inside to handle the paperwork, I mean. If one of the subjects hadn't literally gotten up and walked away..."

"They have a suspicion as to who might have doctored the paperwork," said Drake. "They won't tell me, but they're working with their local FBI office. I've also contacted medical schools in the area and every other institution I could think of which might accept bodies for legitimate reasons. Including morgues and teaching hospitals."

"I hadn't even thought of that," said Vic, startled. "Yeah, if that place is killing enough supers with their fights, they might need to use other venues. Just to spread the bodies around. If they are killing at lot of supers, though, how come nobody's heard of it?"

"So far, no-one in those other places has found anything worse than an occasional clerical error, so there's not likely many dying," said Drake, who was well aware that Vic still had a lot to learn about investigation, and that part of his job was her continuing education in that area. "I've routed all these inquiries through local FBI offices, asking that they check for extraneous or replaced bodies, without mentioning the super charity fights or The Super Battle Federation. Even at the body farm. Just that we have reason to believe someone might be using this or that facility to hide a body. So far, no-one seems to have twigged about the origin of the suspicious bodies."

"This could mean that whoever was charged by the SBF to handle bodies is now having to stockpile them somehow," said Vic, thoughtfully. "That might lead to a break, especially if someone gets desperate to get rid of them."

"Even disposal at sea is tricky these days, given shipping traffic and environmental monitoring," said Drake. "Anyway, there is one more matter I need to discuss with you before we both head home."

* * *

"What's wrong?" Michelle asked, when Vic welcomed her to their apartment with a firm hug later that afternoon. Not only was Vic looking upset, Michelle could tell that her spouse had been cleaning and straightening. A sure sign she was bothered by something.

"Because of Lady Green and the Detroit office getting an additional non-super employee, they're talking about reassigning me," said Vic, sourly. "Oh, it's currently just talk, among some of the upper level administrators. If there is a change it will be months from now, the way the bureaucracy works. I just want you to be aware that it might be coming."

"That's not good. I have a good position at the place where I work, with a loyal clientele!"

"Like I said, so far it's just talk," said Vic, giving her distressed wife another, briefer hug. "I think the problem is that things have been quiet on the super crime front in this area, lately. With Lady Green handling the non-super work I used to do with local cops I'm mostly just hanging around the office right now. I suspect the lull will be over soon, though."

* * *

At the Bay Area Guardians base the next day there was considerable confusion and irritation. The island team had returned after usual business hours, and except for Andrea had - unusually - all gone straight to bed, in their quarters at the Bay Area Guardians base. The android member had left a brief report of their misadventure for Steel Lace to read when she arrived in the morning, then gone to her cubicle for recharging and memory organization. A process not unlike human dreaming.

Eventually, the uncharacteristically subdued and chastened island team members met with their leader, early the next morning. There, the humans sheepishly related what had happened. They all clearly remembered their experience with the strange man, right down to all the organics obeying him without question.

"I suspect it was some sort of psionic effect, perhaps artificially generated," said Andrea, blandly. "My synthetic brain operates on a different frequency from typical organic brains."

"It definitely left us in an altered state of consciousness," said Cumulous, with a sigh. "I pretty much flew back and landed on personal autopilot. If Andrea hadn't been there to guide us in the right direction we might have just kept flying until the fuel ran out."

"Even after we docked," added Mesa, "she had to get us out of the plane and shepherd us onto the pneumatic subway. I do remember that Charlie was pretty confused at how we were acting."

"Yeah," said Cumulous, nodding. He sighed. "We should probably make a trip out there to explain what was going on."

"I was so out of it when we got in the boathouse I was about to crash in the emergency quarters there," said Lungfish, emphatically.

"Whatever it was, it was persistent," said Steel Lace, nodding herself at their comments. "Fortunately, after a good night's sleep all of you who were affected seem back to normal."

She smirked.

"Well, as normal as some of you get."

"Very funny," said Mesa. He made an aggravated sound, and slowly shook his head. "It was... weird. I never had any inkling that I should even question what I was doing."

The others affected had similar evaluations of their mental states.

"Well, we definitely need to send another group up there," said Steel Lace, with a tired sigh. "People who are natural resistors. Maybe with some of you also along, though equipped with some sort of blocking device. Oh, and definitely Andrea."

"As soon as possible," said Mesa, firmly. "Given how quickly that guy appeared they must have noticed that fisherman landing there and had someone waiting to send unwanted visitors away. They could be covering an ongoing illegal activity... or just buying time to remove evidence."

"I'll get right on it," said Steel Lace, just as firmly.

* * *

On the other side of the United States, in their mountain base not far from the East Coast, another super team was having another meeting, a bit later in their day and more routine but just as serious.

The base had been used by two teams before the Assembly took it over. Both of which had possessed at least twice as many members as the Assembly throughout their existences. Which meant that some of the function rooms - such as main meeting room, where the entire team now was gathered - were oversized for the group. This actually suited all the members quite well. Especially Maciste, who was larger than most humans.

Lucille Gorgeous was in charge of the Assembly, and she - as usual - conducted the meeting in a businesslike manner. Finally, though, after covering the more mundane matters (well, things mundane for the consideration of an active superhero team) were covered, she broached a different sort of topic.

"There is a group which is using Champion's name and likeness without permission," she said, flashing a photo of the offending costumed person on the main display. "Champion and I have already spoken about this. The Super Battle Federation is a non-profit group, and they do good work raising money for disadvantaged supers, but that does not exempt them from the law or proper manners. They are also using the names and images of several other supers not involved in their work, but those people aren't members of our team and haven't asked us for help, so we'll focus on the misuse of Champion's name and image. You can see that the actual character is dressed more like a professional wrestler, uses the stage name of Invicta, and claims she is the champion of the Super Combat Federation, which is a union for super fighters. However, the posters..."

Another image appeared on the screen, apparently artwork from some sort of advertisement. The character portrayed thereon had the previous person's lower face, but she was shown wearing a more risqué version of Champion's current outfit, including the mask, and the woman was portrayed as distinctly more curvaceous than either the real woman in the previous image or the real Champion. The text proclaimed that the matches featured "The Famous Champion, In Our Cubed Circle!"

"That reference to a 'cubed circle' means that these are cage matches," said Dr. Gorgeous. "Said cages being proper cubes, with all six sides heavily reinforced with structural integrity fields - technology which is not supposed to be in private hands, yet - and has metaloglass on the outside for added protection of the audience. Including from sonic and gas attacks. Both of which have apparently been used in these matches."

"Wow..." said Maciste, stunned. Then he frowned. "Y'know, that woman looked familiar..."

"She bears a strong resemblance to Vic," said Champion, speaking for the first time on this matter. "Not so much the physiognomy as the general physiology. That is, not in the face, but the body."

"We had our attorneys send cease and desist orders to the organization's official address, but their reply said that the office we sent the notices to was just for promotional purposes in the US. Their official response was that such notices needed to be sent to their corporate headquarters... only they won't say where those are, except that they were outside the country. We were eventually able to obtain an address in Canada, but inquiries sent there tell us to contact the US address, that they are just for promotional purposes in Canada. The actual fights are at a facility outside both countries. Even though most of the supers touted as participating are from the United States. However, they are all supposedly members of The Super Combat Federation. Though the union is not officially associated with The Super Battle Federation. To clarify, that is the actual business which organizes the fights and distributes the money they earn - after subtracting expenses - to super-specific charities."

"Which country are they actually in?" said Champion, who seemed less irritated than Dr. Gorgeous about the matter. "I mean, aren't such fights basically illegal anywhere supers are legally considered people?"

"The place is, in a sense, nonexistent," said Dr. Gorgeous, looking even more irritated. Which meant that the usually calm and self-contained super genius was irate bordering on angry. "Our legal staff investigated, and discovered that the island advertised as the location of the fights was not actually claimed by any nation."

"Somewhere in the remote Pacific, then?" said Thunderer.

"No. It's in a disputed border area between the US and Canada."

"Uh..." said Thunderer, voicing what the others hearing this were thinking.

"Just tell us," said Maciste, tiredly. He glanced over at Sharma and was irritated by her bland smile.

"The island is in the Straight of Georgia, right on the US/Canada border," said Dr. Gorgeous. The main display now showed a map of a portion of western North America, zoomed in to portions of Washington State and Vancouver and some of the Pacific Ocean. "Neither nation claims it currently, due to an agreement to leave it unclaimed until a dispute over where the border actually runs - it zig-zags pretty wildly through there - is settled. Part of the motivation for ignoring it is probably that it has been used as a base for smugglers - in both directions, depending on the era and product - for centuries. There is therefore a long tradition for no nation to want anything to do with it. As well as for some influential citizens in several nations to have good reasons for keeping it unclaimed."

"Huh," said Maciste. "So... are we legal there?"

"I don't know," said Dr. Gorgeous, looking uncomfortable. "I asked the US State Department. They told us to ask the Canadian Government. Who told me to ask the US State Department."

"Typical," said Thunderer.

"So what can we do?" said Champion.

"I have our legal department working on several possible approaches. We have made certain that the US promotional office for the organization knows the adds we are protesting are a violation of international Copyright and Trademark. We have also notified other supers whose images are being used of that fact. We are attempting to contact the organizers of the matches directly. We are informing the media of the inaccuracies involved. Not yet calling it a deliberate deception."

"Why do I have the feeling that we're gonna have to go up there and bust some asses?" said Maciste, actually looking eager.

"Because you always feel we're going to have to go somewhere and bust some asses," said Champion, with a laugh. She sobered. "Unfortunately, you're usually right. By the time things are bad enough for us to go in, it's usually beyond the point of negotiation."

* * *

"Thank you for inviting us over," said Steel Lace, before taking the first sip of her tea.

The old, downtown San Francisco loft had seen many strange visitors during the more than a century it had been the primary home of the building's owner. There had been circus acrobats, stage magicians, real magicians, artists and inventors of many types, explorers, pilots and scientific adventurers. Arguably, however, none of those were quite as strange as the owner, herself. She was small of stature, huge of presence, and obviously not human, at least in the details. Doctor Fenrisa Freysdottir, aka Runner, was a member of one of the other sapient species currently inhabiting the Earth alongside Homo sapiens sapiens. Most of the members of that last species were not even aware of the current existence of the others. The Bluegrass Elves were descended from a New World primate, and as a separate species was actually a bit older than Homo sapiens sapiens. However, even for one of the Bluegrass Elves Runner was... unusual. They rarely had any body hair, except on the tops of their feet, and had flat faces similar to those of humans. Runner was covered in thick fur and had a blunt but definite muzzle, with claws on her fingers and toes. The latter being obvious just now, since she was, as usual when in her home, barefoot. As well, despite being a bit short compared to a typical, adult human, she was a bit tall for one of her species.

"Oh, my pleasure," said Dr. Freysdottir, with a toothy smile which revealed impressive canines. "When Tiger mentioned that island and Dr. Kravaal I realized I knew some things about that situation which might not be in any records."

"Please, continue," said Steel Lace. For some reason, perhaps because of their host's own accent, whenever the leader of the Bay Area Guardians was speaking with Dr. Freysdottir her own Alabama accent came out. As well as her southern manners.

"You actually should have checked before you went there," said Dr. Freysdottir, her tone mildly critical. "That place was involved in some odd medical experiments in the Twenties and Thirties, and there were rumors of other suspicious activities there at several distinct intervals since. The whole family is one, long string of mad scientists. Right up to the current Mordecai Kravaal."

"We did check," said Mesa, somehow managing one of the delicate-looking teacups with his very large hands. "We knew about the previous Dr. Kravaal's experiments. However, the only current information available to us about that specific location is that it was an island on a lake in a national park. Officially, it was supposed to have been long abandoned and the structures there derelict."

"Huh. Well, the lake was carved out by glaciers during the ice ages - before my time, by the way - and the islands are where glaciers left mounds of debris. With that particular one there's a large chunk of glacier which was somehow buried, covered and insulated by the sediment which piled up to make the island. Dig down and you've got a natural deep freeze. Which is why one of the family members used it for research into low temperature treatment of malignant diseases, and another for research into cryogenic suspension.

"Leon Kravaal is the man who originally claimed the island and had the first structures built there. The Kravaals, with the Özils and a few other lines, are descendants of famous mad scientist Antoine Pratt. The current claimant to the property is a collateral descendant of Leon Kravaal, a man named Unduly Özil. However, there have been several others among the kin of Leon who have claimed or tried to claim what's there. Some have just moved in and started work, without getting permission. In recent decades, though, the family has agreed to leave the island alone while they collectively try to get it back from the federal government. It's a sort-of sour grapes arrangement."

"There's few enemies more bitter than family you've gotten on the bad side of," said Mesa, feelingly. Perhaps speaking from personal experience. "All that makes me think that the guy who chased us off was telling the truth. At least, as he knew it. He considers the island to be his family's property and doesn't want anybody fooling with it."

"A lot of that we already knew, including the current claimant's name, but some of it is new to us," said Steel Lace. "Can you provide contact information for him? We did find a blurry image of Özil. That showed enough that I don't think the guy who ordered our people off the island is him. That was probably a flunky."

"Unduly," said Mesa, with a slight smile and a shake of his head. "The things parents name their children. It's bound to cause problems during their childhoods. No wonder so many masterminds and mads have strange names."

"Uhm..." said Dr. Freysdottir, frowning in thought. "I don't know of any current contact information, unfortunately. Can the Park Service help?"

"No. They say all that was settled when the lake was made a national park in the Sixties. They also said that the island is definitely federal land, now, with no chance of any of the previous owners getting any of it back. They have no current contact information on the family. Neither do they know anything about any legal attempts by the descendants of the former owners to reclaim their property."

"Let me guess," said Runner, her frown replaced with a scowl. "They not only know of no claims on the island but state flatly there's no activity there now."

"Exactly. That's why they wanted someone to check out that fisherman's report. Oh, and ours, now that we told them about what happened and asked for additional information. Their attitude is that since they asked us, and our people were mind controlled, that makes it even more our problem."

"Typical."