Diana landed in the desert three miles from the Phoenix facility. The sun was not yet up. The sand was cold under her boots. She could see the lab from here, a low concrete blister with no windows and a single road snaking away into the dark.
She walked.
Her bracers were tight against her forearms. Her sword was sheathed across her back. The lasso hung coiled at her hip.
The outer fence was electrified. She gripped it bare-handed and pulled. The steel screamed, snapped, and went dead. No alarm. Mystic had already cut the power to the perimeter.
Two guards at the service entrance. She was between them before either could raise a radio. The first fell to a single strike to the temple. The second turned, mouth opening, and her hand closed around his throat. Not enough to crush. Enough to hold.
"Where are the children?"
He couldn't answer. He was already unconscious.
She let him drop and pushed through the door.
---
The smell hit her first. Antiseptic. Urine. Cold metal. The corridor was lined with steel doors, each one painted a soft pastel color that was meant to be cheerful and was instead obscene.
She opened the first door.
A boy sat on a cot. He was maybe six. His arms were wrapped in bandages from wrist to elbow. He looked up at her with eyes that had stopped being surprised by anything.
"What's your name?" Diana asked.
"Subject Seven."
"That is not a name."
"I don't remember my name."
She knelt. The lasso at her hip glowed faintly, responding to the truth already in the room. "You will remember. I promise you. What are they doing to you here?"
The boy looked at his bandaged arms. "They put things inside. They say it'll make me strong. It makes me sick."
"How many others?"
"Twelve. But Sarah died last week. They took her away."
Diana stood. Her hand found her sword hilt and stayed there.
"Stay here. No one will hurt you again."
She walked back into the corridor. Four more guards were running toward her. She didn't draw the sword. She didn't need to.
---
Oliver Queen drew his bowstring to his cheek and let the arrow fly. It hit the security camera above the Pennsylvania facility's loading dock and sparked, fizzled, died.
John Stewart's ring flared green and the loading bay door folded inward like wet paper. They stepped through together.
The facility was larger than the Phoenix site. Three levels. A basement. Oliver moved left, John right. Their comms were silent. They didn't need to talk.
Oliver found the data room on the second floor. Two servers. A wall of filing cabinets. He pulled a drive from his quiver and slotted it into the main terminal. Mystic's voice whispered through his earpiece.
"Downloading. Estimated time: three minutes."
He heard footsteps. Three guards. He nocked three arrows. They rounded the corner and he released. The arrows hit chestplates, not flesh. Blunt tips. The guards went down, gasping, ribs intact.
"Non-lethal," he said into the comm. "Two more on the east corridor."
"I see them," John replied.
A green bulldozer blade swept the east corridor clean. The guards yelled, scrambled, were pinned gently against the wall by a construct that held them like a seatbelt.
"Clear."
Oliver watched the download complete. "Data's out. Moving to the sublevel."
He found the children in the basement. Cribs. Medical monitors. A woman in a lab coat was standing over a baby with a syringe.
Oliver's bow came up. "Step away."
She turned, eyes wide. "You don't understand. This is government-funded. We're protecting—"
"I don't care who's funding it. Step away from the child."
The syringe clattered to the floor. The baby cried. Oliver holstered his bow and picked the child up himself, cradling it against his chest with the awkward care of a man who had never held something so small.
"John. I found the nursery."
"How many?"
"Eight. All under two years old."
Silence on the comm. Then John's voice, lower. "We're taking them all."
"Yes."
---
Bruce stood on the rooftop of a parking garage in Lower Manhattan. The sky was pale pink with the first edge of dawn. Below, the city was still quiet. In ten minutes, A-Train would run this street. Same route. Same time. Same ego.
His black armor was cold against his skin. The HUD painted the street in green wireframe. The alloy blade was sheathed at his back. His webshooters were charged.
This time, there would be no chance for a counter-narrative. Mystic had drones overhead. Seven angles. Every second would be recorded. Every moment would be public.
A flicker at the edge of the HUD. Motion tracking. A heat signature moving at Mach 1.2.
A-Train.
Bruce didn't jump. He waited. Watched the blur resolve into a human shape, blue and white suit, head down, legs pumping. The speedster was running the center of the street. No one else was out. No civilians. No cars.
The moment A-Train crossed the intersection, Bruce moved.
Weblines shot from both wrists. They hit the asphalt in front of A-Train, crisscrossing in a net that spanned the street.
A-Train saw it too late. He tried to divert, but his speed was his own trap. He hit the webbing at full velocity and the lines held, tensile strength surpassing steel, stretching but not breaking. He bounced, tumbled, skidded across asphalt in a shower of sparks.
Bruce landed ten feet away.
"Kevin Marker. A-Train. You are under arrest for the murder of Robin Gallagher."
A-Train scrambled up. His suit was torn. His face was drenched in sweat. "You—who the hell are you?"
"I'm the one who doesn't run."
A-Train ran.
He was fast. Even dazed, even bloody, he hit Mach 1 in two seconds. Bruce watched him go. Let him reach the end of the block. Then reached out with his mind.
Telekinesis closed around A-Train's legs. The speedster's feet left the ground. He kept running in the air, legs churning uselessly, suspended five feet above the pavement.
"What—what is this? Let me go!"
Bruce walked toward him. The drones descended, cameras swiveling.
"Robin Gallagher was a waitress. She was twenty-three years old. She wanted to leave the city with her boyfriend and start a new life. You turned her into red mist and kept running. Then your company called her a murderer to protect you."
"I didn't mean to! It was an accident!"
"You didn't stop. You didn't call for help. You let lawyers call her a knife-wielding psychopath. That wasn't an accident. That was a choice."
A-Train's eyes were wild. Spit flew from his mouth. "They'll spin this. Vought will spin this. You're nobody. You're just some guy in a suit."
Bruce pulled a small device from his belt. A thin collar. Metallic. Ringed with tiny lights.
"This is a kinetic dampener. It neutralizes your speed. You'll wear it until trial. Mystic, broadcast."
"Drones are live. Global feed engaged."
Bruce turned to face the nearest drone. The camera lens reflected the cold blue light of his HUD.
"This is A-Train. He killed an innocent woman. He fled the scene. He allowed his company to destroy her name. The Justice League has evidence. Witnesses. Forensic analysis. Not of one murder. Of three. All civilians. All covered up by Vought International."
A-Train thrashed against the telekinetic hold. "Lies! They're all lies!"
"Your speed left trace evidence at every scene. Skin particles. Fiber transfers. Your blood at the third site where a teenager got in your way and you didn't even notice." Bruce turned back to the camera. "We have everything. And by noon, the world will see what else Vought has been hiding."
The collar snapped around A-Train's throat. The lights flickered. The speedster's body went limp, his accelerated metabolism neutralized.
Bruce lowered him to the ground. The drones kept filming.
"To Vought International. You have six hours to release every internal record of human experimentation. If you don't, we release them for you. To the Seven. You have twelve hours to surrender to League custody. If you don't, we come for you."
He grabbed the unconscious speedster by the collar of his suit and launched into the sky.
---
Diana stood in the Phoenix facility's central lab. Nine children had been extracted. Four adults in lab coats were lined up against the wall, hands bound. The air shimmered and J'onn J'onzz materialized beside her.
"The League extraction team is two minutes out," he said.
"Good. Can you do what we discussed?"
J'onn looked at the scientists. His red eyes moved across their faces.
"Yes."
He stepped toward the first one, a thin man with grey hair and trembling hands. "Please don't hurt me."
"I will not hurt you. I will look at you."
J'onn's eyes flared. The scientist's face went slack. Seconds passed. Then the Martian stepped back.
"He knows the names of seventeen Vought executives who approved these experiments. He knows the location of three other facilities. He knows that Homelander was not the only successful subject. There were others. Some died. Some were released into the foster system. Some are still here, in the sub-basement."
Diana's hand tightened on her sword. "Sub-basement?"
"There is a sub-basement."
She turned. "Show me."
---
Oliver carried the baby up the stairs. John cleared the path ahead. They emerged into the loading bay as the sun rose over the Pennsylvania hills. A League transport hovered overhead, its ramp descending.
Diana's voice came through the comm. "We found a sub-basement in Phoenix. More children. Older. They've been here for years. Six of them. Ages twelve to seventeen."
"Same here," Oliver said. "They're bringing up the last ones now."
"J'onn has extracted testimonies. Names. Locations. Everything."
Bruce's voice cut through, cold and clear. "Hold the data. I have A-Train. He's in League custody. Broadcast is live. The world is watching."
Diana looked at the children emerging from the lab's lower levels, blinking in the sunlight they had not seen in months.
"Then let's show them everything.