Previously: After a wild night in New Orleans, the female members of the Doom Patrol: Rita Farr the Elastic Girl, Coagula and Bast find themselves stranded in the Big Easy.*
*(But, you know that, as you’ve obviously read Doom Patrol #’s 3-5-Trav)
Kate Godwin, the part time Barista and part time super hero, crossed the street, sipping her take out coffee, as she walked from her hotel into the French Quarter. She strolled along the narrowing streets, nodded and smiled at a few locals she’d made friends with in the three days she, Rita and Bast had been “living” in New Orleans and made her way to Jackson Square.
She found Rita sitting on a bench, listening to a trio of street musicians.
“Morning,” Kate said, sitting down next to her. “What the plan for today?”
“Well, I managed to find an old bank account of…mine,” Her teammate replied. “So, we won’t starve, but I have no idea how we find Danny. So, New Orleans may have gotten herself a super hero team until further notice.”
“There are worse places we could be stranded,” Kate shrugged. “Bast thinks she can do something science-y and maybe find a way to get in touch with Danny, but, even here, she attracts attention and it’s going to get tricky for her to get around.”
Rita sighed.
“There are people we could ask for help, but that leads to having to answer a lot of questions,” She muttered. “I’d like to give us a couple more days to work it out on our own, before we deal with all that.”
“I get it, you were dead and now you’re not,” Kate said. “That’s gotta be awkward.”
“Rita Farr is dead,” she explained. “I’m…something else, maybe…and really tired of thinking about it. Point is, anyone I try and contact, who might be able to help us, we have to have a long conversation…”
“Meaning ‘fight’,” Kate added.
“And even then, they might not believe me,” Rita shrugged, her legs growing longer as she talked and lost focus on her size-changing powers.
“Okay, take a breath,” Kate said, patting her shoulder and offering her some coffee. “Let’s think of what our options are before…hey, if you could get into an old bank account, what about Dayton Industries? If Bast could get her paws on some tech…”
“Maybe, except the one person who could vouch for me is sitting catatonic in a movie theatre, back on Danny the Street.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that” Kate frowned.*
(She also wasn’t around when the Doom Patrol got Mento to, temporarily, snap out of his trance- Trav)
The two heroines, sat, lost in thought, until the coffee was gone.
“Hold on,” Rita said, looking over at Kate. “I might be able to find something…come on!”
She leapt to her feet, and accidently shot up to eight feet tall.
After a moment of embarrassment, she returned to her regular height.
“Where are we going?” Kate asked, hurrying to keep up.
“Library.”
An hour later, the two women entered the stylishly furnished, and slightly dishevelled third story hotel room.
“Rise and shine, pussycat,” Kate called, knocking on the door.
Bast, the alien cat-woman, peaked out from the nest of sheets she was wrapped up in, pulled one around her supple form for modesty’s sake and peered, with sleepy annoyance, at her friends.
“What…?” The feline member of the Doom Patrol asked.
“Get dressed and let’s start packing,” Kate continued. “Taxi’s waiting!”
Bast was soon dressed in sweat pants and an over-sized hooded sweatshirt, as the trio was squeezed in the back seat of a taxi, heading away from the French Quarter.
She was also a bit more alert, thanks to a cup of complimentary, hotel coffee.
“Explain this again…?” She muttered.
“Back when I…Rita…was first in the Patrol, being the girl, it was expected I’d play secretary to the Chief.” Elastic Girl explained. “One of the things I…sort of, remember, was that the Chief…Niles Caulder spent several years on the run from General Immortus…he established safe houses, caches of equipment and I did a little research and found one, here in New Orleans.”
“What does that mean?” Bast asked.
“Besides, hopefully, no hotel bills?” Kate said. “It’s the Chief, so a lab full of science stuff.”
“Ah,” Bast nodded.
“You take some of the Chief’s tech, cobble together something with your genius alien brain,” Kate explained.
“Danny comes and get us, problem solved!”
“It probably won’t go quite that smoothly,” Rita added. ‘But, it’s a step in the right direction.”
The taxi let them out in an industrial park within sight of the airport.
The trio walked around, Kate and Bast letting Elastic Girl take the lead. She consulted a piece of paper.
There were two squat, concrete buildings, a smaller wooden one that looked to be some kind of office and then two rows of self-storage units.
“Unit eight,” Rita said to herself as they walked. “Here we go.”
“Doesn’t look very big,” Kate muttered. “How much science could you fit in there?”
Bast kneeled down and tapped at the padlock with a claw.
“Do you have a key?” She asked.
Kate went down on one knee and grabbed the lock. Her hand glowed purple faintly and the padlock melted into a blob that pooled on the pavement. She then pushed up the wide metal door.
The space, roughly the size of a one-car garage held a generous coating of dust and a single cardboard box.
“Bit of a letdown,” Kate frowned, standing up and wiping her hands on the legs of her jeans.
“Must be something impressive in that box,” Bast said, moving towards it.
“I’ve got it,” Rita said, quietly, stretching her arms, she reached past her teammates and picked up the cardboard box. “Feels light.”
She handed it to Kate, so her hands were free to open it. Bast cut the tape holding it shut with a claw.
“It’s empty.” She said, looking at her teammates, hoping this made some kind of sense to them.
Rita frowned and rubbed at her temple. Her size kept shifting as she struggled to get her frustration under control.
“He must have cleaned it out,” Kate shrugged. “Probably moved it to one of the Doom Patrol’s headquarters…maybe we should check out those? There was the brownstone…then didn’t Cliff say they used that old Justice League cave for awhile…?”
“There’s something there.” Bast said, quietly, peering into the storage space. “There on the floor.”
The trio stepped into the storage unit to investigate.
Embedded in the concrete floor was a palm-sized disk, made of what appeared to be blue plastic, rimmed with metal.
“It was under the box…?” Kate frowned.
Bast tapped it with her foot. When nothing happened, she shrugged and looked at the others.
Elastic Girl knelt down, studying it. She tapped it with a finger.
“I don’t know,” She muttered. “Seems an odd coincidence…”
The metal door of the storage unit slid shut and with the hum of machinery, the floor began to lower, as if they were in some strange elevator.
Rita shot up to ten foot tall; struggling with the ceiling that slid shut above them, while her teammates frantically began searching the walls and floor for some hint of what they were trapped in.
After a minute of fruitless struggle, they stopped, glancing anxiously at each other.
The room settled with a clunk and a wall slid open sideways.
“Okay, that was weird,” Kate breathed, her hands glowing, as she waited for whatever attack was coming.
Bast pulled down her hood and quickly shrugged out of her hoodie.
The underground chamber gave the appearance of running under the entire storage facility. It was large and looked like a disused factory or machine shop. There were workbenches, large banks of machinery, wooden crates and various mysterious objects covered with tarps.
“Yeah, this place just screams ‘Niles’,” Kate muttered.
“Not sure what I was expecting,” Rita added. “But, I wish it was a bit less ‘mad scientist’…a sofa would have been nice.”
“So, go to it, Bast.” Kate said, lowering her hands.
“I am a scientist, not a wizard,” Bast replied, peevishly. “It’s going to take time to figure out what’s here, what still works and if any of it will actually be any use.”
“Okay, okay,” Kate said, rubbing Bast’s furry shoulders. “One step at a time. We can help. Rita knows some science and I can…um…help move stuff and make snack runs.”
“Let’s see about trying to sort through stuff,” Rita suggested. “Any papers we find, might help?”
Three hours later, Rita had all the files and papers piled on a makeshift desk, made from a couple crates and one of the Chief’s old wheelchairs.
Bast had cleared one of the workbenches and was using it as her main sorting area. She a small collection of useful tech and a large pile on the floor of broken, possibly dangerous and a few things no one was sure of even what they were.
Kate was coated with dirt and dust from moving crates and equipment. She grimaced and wiped her hands on her jeans.
“God, it’s like Dr. Sivanna’s yard sale in here…!”
“Magnus,” Rita said, not looking up from the files.
“Say, what now?” Kate asked.
“It’s more like Dr. Magnus had a yard sale,” Rita explained. “This all seems to be from Nile’s early works with robotics…the servo-drones he built as lab help and prototypes for Cliff’s robotic body.”
“So, dead end then?” Kate asked, moving to look over Bast’s shoulder.
The cat woman shrugged, then turned and perched on the empty spot on the workbench.
“If you’re hoping I can build a makeshift ‘Danny-detector’, then yes,” Bast explained, swinging her legs lazily.
“But, maybe I could adapt some of these electronics into an inter-spatial communication unit.”
“That’s good, right?” Kate asked, hopefully.
Getting a shrug from each of her teammates in reply, the super-powered barista frowned and went back to wandering the clandestine workshop, listlessly shifting tarps, scuffing through the dust on the floor and peeking into any open crates or cases she found.
Kate found a few more pieces of tech to add to Bast’s pile, a couple more old binders for Rita and a stash of chocolate.
“Gotta say,” Kate said, nibbling while she worked. “Despite his sociopathic tendencies, this is really good chocolate. What should I do with this big crate?”
“Any identifying numbers or labels?” Rita asked.
“Yeah, its all smudged…only number I can make out is seven and I think it says ‘crane’…you think there’s an actual crane in here?”
“Let me take a look,” Rita said, standing up. She stretched, accidently grew and bumped her head on the ceiling. She then returned to normal, and rubbing her sore spot, joined Kate. “I don’t see anything helpful. Might as well have a look.”
With a glowing fingertip, Kate coagulated the nails and they were able to easily take the lid off the large, rectangular crate.
“What the hell…?” Kate exclaimed, pushing aside the packing material. “It’s…Robot man!”
Standing in the upright crate was a large metal figure. It vaguely resembled their teammate, Cliff Steele, except a bit clunkier and made of a dull, silver metal. His joints with bulkier and there were obvious rivets holding him together.
His ears were slightly rounded metal disks. He lacked Cliff’s lantern jaw, instead sporting a smooth chin and a mouth grill. Its eyes were closed, but when Bast eased one open it revealed a white plastic eyeball with a tiny light for an iris.
“Is this a prototype of the Robot man in the repair shop?” Bast asked, running her fingertips across his metal skull and face.
“Not one I ever saw,” Rita frowned. “Though, it looks kind of like some of the Chief’s old service robots from before the Patrol…I’ve seen it before...but where…?”
Bast found some wires, trailing from a panel in the robot’s side, leading to a boxy device, buried deeper in the packing material.
“There’s something here…?” She muttered, feeling around. “Maybe a monitor or power source. I can…feel switches and a dial…”
“Be careful,” Kate said, nervously. “Niles worked on some pretty sketchy stuff.”
There was a hum of machinery and whatever rested behind the robot vibrated and sparked, setting the packing on fire.
“Oh crap…!” Kate breathed, pulling Bast back.
Rita grew, going down on one knee, so as to avoid any more banging her head. At twenty feet tall, she was able to grab the robot and toss him onto a nearby workbench. She then beat out the fire with her over-sized, gloved, hands.
“Everyone okay?” She asked, turning to check on her teammates.
A fist, like iron, caught her across the jaw, and the crouched heroine tumbled backwards into some crates.
Robot man spun, stumbled as though unused to his limbs, but still managed to catch Bast as she hurled herself at the metal man. He tossed her away, so she landed on Elastic Girl.
He then turned to glare at Kate.
“Whu-who…are…you?” He demanded, his voice sounding staticy, like a just wound phonograph or a radio that was having trouble syncing with a station.
“Hold on, there big guy,” Kate said, holding up her hands in a, hopefully, placating gesture.
“Who are you?” Robot man said, again, shaking his head. “Does Mister Who have a sister? And…Tigress..? I…what is happening…!!”
He moved back and forth, unsure and sounding increasingly frantic and angry, finally coming down with both fists upon a workbench, cracking it like it was made of plywood.
One of his wobbling legs gave out and he fell to his knees with a clang.
Kate circled him wearily, her hands glowing faintly.
“Okay, deep breaths,” She said, in what she hoped was a quiet, soothing tone. “We aren’t the bad guys.”
“Who…? I don’t…know…who are you? Who…am…I…?”
He lumbered to his feet, eyes glowing red as he grabbed hold of the front of Kate’s shirt. His grip was like a vice, despite the trembling in his arm and the fact that his metal body swayed drunkenly.
“Robert, no!” Elastic girl shouted, flinging herself at the metal man, regaining her original height as she moved. She pushed between Kate and Robot man. “You are a hero, not a monster!”
“You know him?” Kate gasped, while trying to pull free.
“You are Robert Crane!” Rita continued, ignoring her teammate and concentrating on their attacker. “You are a scientist! To save your life, your brain was placed in this metal body…you are Robot man!”
“What?” Kate exclaimed. “How…what..?”
“There was a Robot man in the 40’s,” Rita said, her hands getting bigger and trying to pull the metal fingers loose from Kate’s neck. “He served with…what were they called…?”
“Robert Crane,” Robot man muttered, letting go of Kate and taking a step back. His eyes changed from red to a soft, white light. ‘But, I’m…not…I was a man…?”
He held his head in his hands, muttering to himself.
“It’s okay,” Rita said, taking his arm and steering him over to a crate. She got him to sit and then she and Kate checked on Bast.
The alien was dazed, but was listening, while she waited for the room to stop spinning.
“So, wait, there was a Robot man during World War 2?” Kate asked. “And how did he end up in Niles junk drawer?”
“I don’t know,” Rita replied, looking thoughtfully over at the metal man. “He was part of some team the government put together…I’m pretty sure the Chief based some of his work on Crane’s. No idea how he got here, though. Seems like there were rumors…he died shortly after the war or they found a way to transplant his brain into a human body…I don’t know…?”
“Everybody thought he was dead, but he got shut off and Niles got his hands on him and then treated him like an old exercise bike,” Kate muttered. “That part, I can believe.”
Bast was lying on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling, her expression a combination of pondering recent events and thinking she should have stayed in bed.
“We need to help him,” She said, glancing between her friends.
“Of course we will,” Rita told her, with a small smile. “Taking in strays is what we do.”
“No Robot man gets left behind,” Kate added, offering Bast a hand.
The three moved to confront the despondent metal man.
“So, how are you feeling?” Rita asked, cautiously.
Robot Man looked up at them and made a noise that might have been a snort of disbelief.
“I…have no idea,” He replied. “I’m awake and still alive, I guess that’s a good thing, but I’m still…still living in this metal shell.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Bast asked. “Where were you before we found you?”
“I…uh…it’s a jumble,” he replied, shrugging his steel shoulders and then tapping his riveted temple. “I’ve got…fragments. Images and bits of conversation…I was dangerous…or they thought I was…there was talk of being able to...fix me, maybe move my brain to a better…uh…a better shell, body…Chuck was there, Chuck Grayson and a shorter man…another Doctor…I think it was after the war ended.”
“Okay, Rita said, with a reassuring smile, patting his shoulder. “It’s a start. I understand what you might be feeling. I…um…have some memory problems of my own. It’s not easy, but we help people and we might be able to help you. Okay?”
Robot man looked up at the size-shifting actress and nodded.
“Yeah, I guess. I…uh…what year is it?” He asked.
“Oh boy…!” Kate breathed.
They managed to squeeze Bast’s over-sized hoodie over Robot man’s steel torso. His legs burst the seam on her sweatpants, so he looked like he was wearing a ragged set of capre pants.
Despite not really needing to breathe, the metal man seemed to inhale deeply, once they were outside in the industrial park.
“Huh, who would have thought that concrete and overcast skies could look so pretty,” He said. “So, this is the first time I’ve been outside in…what…60 years?”
“Well, best guess,” Kate said, looking around.
“Have a walk around,” Rita said. “See if you recognize anything.”
“Fraid not,” he shrugged, ripping a seam in the shoulder of his sweatshirt. “Don’t think I’ve ever been to New Orleans…”
The two women stood away from the poorly disguised metal hero, allowing him space to wander and reacquaint himself with the outside world and hopefully sort through his memories.
“Any of this seem…I dunno, off…sketchy, to you?” Kate asked in an undertone.
“What do you mean?’ Rita asked, keeping watch on their new charge.
“Just about all of it,” Kate said. “Bast thinks so too.”
“How do you know that?”
“She did that thing where the space between her eyes scrunches. And that cute lip chewing thing, she does when she’s thinking…”
“Are we talking about Mr. Crane, or your new crush?” Rita asked, turning to glance at her teammate.
Kate gave her a ‘you’re not funny’ look before continuing.
“There’s something going on here,” Kate replied. “I don’t know if Robot man is up to anything, but I think there is a lot going on in that big tin head.”
“Yeah,” Rita agreed, simply.
“But, also what was going on with Niles? He kept that guy in a box for decades!”
“I don’t…?” Rita started, with a slight frown. “The Chief’s plans and motives were never easy to figure out.”
“Yeah, look, there are three choices here: gross neglect, out right evil or Niles knew something we don’t…” Kate said, uneasily.
“Hey,” Robot man called. “Is that fellow someone you know?”
Walking across the parking lot, with obvious intent, was a bald African-American man in bedraggled street clothes, toting a crowbar.
“What…oh, wait…!” Kate said.
“Why isn’t he still in jail?” Rita asked.
“So, not a friend…?” Robot man inquired, looking back and forth at the two women.
“Rita beat him up,” Kate explained.*
*(The girls were pretty busy in issue 3- Trav)
“Found you!” The super-villain with the obvious name of ‘Crowbar’ snarled, waving his namesake weapon, angrily. ‘Think we were done? Did you think I wouldn’t track you down!?”
“He’s pretty rude,” Robot man said. “Um…do you ladies mind…?”
“Have fun,” Kate said.
He pulled back his hood and went to meet Crowbar, cracking his iron knuckles.
“This seems like a bad idea,” Rita muttered.
“It’s fine,” Kate replied. “The guy has been cooped up for 60 years, let him work the kinks out. “We’re right here if he gets in trouble. I may not trust him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him get the crap beaten out of him.”
Rita sighed, but didn’t move to stop the fight.
“What seems to be the problem?” Robot man asked, reaching Crowbar.
“What?” The super villain grunted. “Giant girl got the Metal men to be her bodyguard?”
“I have no idea who the Metal men are,” Robot man explained. “What I do know is you are not going to hurt those women. So, we talk this through, you can just be sensible and walk away or you and I are going to duke it out. Your choice.”
Crowbar swung his weapon, held it like a shotgun and a blast of energy caught Robot man square in the chest.
It shredded his sweatshirt and sent him flying backwards. He hit the ground, skidding for several more feet, his body making a harsh scrapping sound on the concrete.
“Ow…?” Kate winced. “Okay, maybe we should…?”
The two then had to dodge more energy bursts.
Rita shrank down to six inches tall, while Kate leapt to the side and landed on her hands and knees, scrapping her palms.
Robot man got, unsteadily to his feet.
“Well, that packs a wallop,” He muttered, shaking his head. “My turn.”
He ran at Crowbar, picking up speed until he was coming at the villain at 50 miles per hour. His punch caught Crowbar under the chin and sent him flying.
“Oh my…!” Rita exclaimed, quickly shooting up to ten feet, while stretching her arms to catch Crowbar’s limp, unconscious form.
“Huh…?” Robot man said, flexing his hands. “Looks like I still got it.”
“Yeah, I guess you do,” Kate said, going to join him. “You okay? That was quite a hit.”
“Feels like I dented my shoulder,” He shrugged. “So, what now?”
“I have no idea,” Kate replied.
“We should probably call the police to deal with Crowbar,” Rita suggested. “Again.”
“Hey!” Bast said, jogging over to them from the storage unit. “I might have gotten something working. I think I’m getting a signal!”
“And looks like somebody already called the cops about your friend,” Robot man added, pointing. “Look!”
Three automobiles came racing down the road, black mini-vans with tinted windows. They skidded to a halt, a half dozen man in dark, nondescript clothes and dark glasses quickly getting out and pointing guns at the quartet of heroes.
“Uh….?” Kate said, raising her hands in surrender.
“Those aren’t the police, are they?” Robot man muttered.
“Who are they after?” Bast asked, looking from Crowbar to Robot man.
A door opened and a woman got out of the lead car.
She was tall and blonde and dressed in a green bodysuit and long coat. She walked past the men with guns to stand in front of the confused heroes.
“My name is Val Vostok,” She said. “And I’m looking for the Doom Patrol.”
Next Issue: To help Val, the Doom Patrol is heading back to Oolong Island!
*(But, you know that, as you’ve obviously read Doom Patrol #’s 3-5-Trav)
Kate Godwin, the part time Barista and part time super hero, crossed the street, sipping her take out coffee, as she walked from her hotel into the French Quarter. She strolled along the narrowing streets, nodded and smiled at a few locals she’d made friends with in the three days she, Rita and Bast had been “living” in New Orleans and made her way to Jackson Square.
She found Rita sitting on a bench, listening to a trio of street musicians.
“Morning,” Kate said, sitting down next to her. “What the plan for today?”
“Well, I managed to find an old bank account of…mine,” Her teammate replied. “So, we won’t starve, but I have no idea how we find Danny. So, New Orleans may have gotten herself a super hero team until further notice.”
“There are worse places we could be stranded,” Kate shrugged. “Bast thinks she can do something science-y and maybe find a way to get in touch with Danny, but, even here, she attracts attention and it’s going to get tricky for her to get around.”
Rita sighed.
“There are people we could ask for help, but that leads to having to answer a lot of questions,” She muttered. “I’d like to give us a couple more days to work it out on our own, before we deal with all that.”
“I get it, you were dead and now you’re not,” Kate said. “That’s gotta be awkward.”
“Rita Farr is dead,” she explained. “I’m…something else, maybe…and really tired of thinking about it. Point is, anyone I try and contact, who might be able to help us, we have to have a long conversation…”
“Meaning ‘fight’,” Kate added.
“And even then, they might not believe me,” Rita shrugged, her legs growing longer as she talked and lost focus on her size-changing powers.
“Okay, take a breath,” Kate said, patting her shoulder and offering her some coffee. “Let’s think of what our options are before…hey, if you could get into an old bank account, what about Dayton Industries? If Bast could get her paws on some tech…”
“Maybe, except the one person who could vouch for me is sitting catatonic in a movie theatre, back on Danny the Street.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that” Kate frowned.*
(She also wasn’t around when the Doom Patrol got Mento to, temporarily, snap out of his trance- Trav)
The two heroines, sat, lost in thought, until the coffee was gone.
“Hold on,” Rita said, looking over at Kate. “I might be able to find something…come on!”
She leapt to her feet, and accidently shot up to eight feet tall.
After a moment of embarrassment, she returned to her regular height.
“Where are we going?” Kate asked, hurrying to keep up.
“Library.”
An hour later, the two women entered the stylishly furnished, and slightly dishevelled third story hotel room.
“Rise and shine, pussycat,” Kate called, knocking on the door.
Bast, the alien cat-woman, peaked out from the nest of sheets she was wrapped up in, pulled one around her supple form for modesty’s sake and peered, with sleepy annoyance, at her friends.
“What…?” The feline member of the Doom Patrol asked.
“Get dressed and let’s start packing,” Kate continued. “Taxi’s waiting!”
Bast was soon dressed in sweat pants and an over-sized hooded sweatshirt, as the trio was squeezed in the back seat of a taxi, heading away from the French Quarter.
She was also a bit more alert, thanks to a cup of complimentary, hotel coffee.
“Explain this again…?” She muttered.
“Back when I…Rita…was first in the Patrol, being the girl, it was expected I’d play secretary to the Chief.” Elastic Girl explained. “One of the things I…sort of, remember, was that the Chief…Niles Caulder spent several years on the run from General Immortus…he established safe houses, caches of equipment and I did a little research and found one, here in New Orleans.”
“What does that mean?” Bast asked.
“Besides, hopefully, no hotel bills?” Kate said. “It’s the Chief, so a lab full of science stuff.”
“Ah,” Bast nodded.
“You take some of the Chief’s tech, cobble together something with your genius alien brain,” Kate explained.
“Danny comes and get us, problem solved!”
“It probably won’t go quite that smoothly,” Rita added. ‘But, it’s a step in the right direction.”
The taxi let them out in an industrial park within sight of the airport.
The trio walked around, Kate and Bast letting Elastic Girl take the lead. She consulted a piece of paper.
There were two squat, concrete buildings, a smaller wooden one that looked to be some kind of office and then two rows of self-storage units.
“Unit eight,” Rita said to herself as they walked. “Here we go.”
“Doesn’t look very big,” Kate muttered. “How much science could you fit in there?”
Bast kneeled down and tapped at the padlock with a claw.
“Do you have a key?” She asked.
Kate went down on one knee and grabbed the lock. Her hand glowed purple faintly and the padlock melted into a blob that pooled on the pavement. She then pushed up the wide metal door.
The space, roughly the size of a one-car garage held a generous coating of dust and a single cardboard box.
“Bit of a letdown,” Kate frowned, standing up and wiping her hands on the legs of her jeans.
“Must be something impressive in that box,” Bast said, moving towards it.
“I’ve got it,” Rita said, quietly, stretching her arms, she reached past her teammates and picked up the cardboard box. “Feels light.”
She handed it to Kate, so her hands were free to open it. Bast cut the tape holding it shut with a claw.
“It’s empty.” She said, looking at her teammates, hoping this made some kind of sense to them.
Rita frowned and rubbed at her temple. Her size kept shifting as she struggled to get her frustration under control.
“He must have cleaned it out,” Kate shrugged. “Probably moved it to one of the Doom Patrol’s headquarters…maybe we should check out those? There was the brownstone…then didn’t Cliff say they used that old Justice League cave for awhile…?”
“There’s something there.” Bast said, quietly, peering into the storage space. “There on the floor.”
The trio stepped into the storage unit to investigate.
Embedded in the concrete floor was a palm-sized disk, made of what appeared to be blue plastic, rimmed with metal.
“It was under the box…?” Kate frowned.
Bast tapped it with her foot. When nothing happened, she shrugged and looked at the others.
Elastic Girl knelt down, studying it. She tapped it with a finger.
“I don’t know,” She muttered. “Seems an odd coincidence…”
The metal door of the storage unit slid shut and with the hum of machinery, the floor began to lower, as if they were in some strange elevator.
Rita shot up to ten foot tall; struggling with the ceiling that slid shut above them, while her teammates frantically began searching the walls and floor for some hint of what they were trapped in.
After a minute of fruitless struggle, they stopped, glancing anxiously at each other.
The room settled with a clunk and a wall slid open sideways.
“Okay, that was weird,” Kate breathed, her hands glowing, as she waited for whatever attack was coming.
Bast pulled down her hood and quickly shrugged out of her hoodie.
The underground chamber gave the appearance of running under the entire storage facility. It was large and looked like a disused factory or machine shop. There were workbenches, large banks of machinery, wooden crates and various mysterious objects covered with tarps.
“Yeah, this place just screams ‘Niles’,” Kate muttered.
“Not sure what I was expecting,” Rita added. “But, I wish it was a bit less ‘mad scientist’…a sofa would have been nice.”
“So, go to it, Bast.” Kate said, lowering her hands.
“I am a scientist, not a wizard,” Bast replied, peevishly. “It’s going to take time to figure out what’s here, what still works and if any of it will actually be any use.”
“Okay, okay,” Kate said, rubbing Bast’s furry shoulders. “One step at a time. We can help. Rita knows some science and I can…um…help move stuff and make snack runs.”
“Let’s see about trying to sort through stuff,” Rita suggested. “Any papers we find, might help?”
Three hours later, Rita had all the files and papers piled on a makeshift desk, made from a couple crates and one of the Chief’s old wheelchairs.
Bast had cleared one of the workbenches and was using it as her main sorting area. She a small collection of useful tech and a large pile on the floor of broken, possibly dangerous and a few things no one was sure of even what they were.
Kate was coated with dirt and dust from moving crates and equipment. She grimaced and wiped her hands on her jeans.
“God, it’s like Dr. Sivanna’s yard sale in here…!”
“Magnus,” Rita said, not looking up from the files.
“Say, what now?” Kate asked.
“It’s more like Dr. Magnus had a yard sale,” Rita explained. “This all seems to be from Nile’s early works with robotics…the servo-drones he built as lab help and prototypes for Cliff’s robotic body.”
“So, dead end then?” Kate asked, moving to look over Bast’s shoulder.
The cat woman shrugged, then turned and perched on the empty spot on the workbench.
“If you’re hoping I can build a makeshift ‘Danny-detector’, then yes,” Bast explained, swinging her legs lazily.
“But, maybe I could adapt some of these electronics into an inter-spatial communication unit.”
“That’s good, right?” Kate asked, hopefully.
Getting a shrug from each of her teammates in reply, the super-powered barista frowned and went back to wandering the clandestine workshop, listlessly shifting tarps, scuffing through the dust on the floor and peeking into any open crates or cases she found.
Kate found a few more pieces of tech to add to Bast’s pile, a couple more old binders for Rita and a stash of chocolate.
“Gotta say,” Kate said, nibbling while she worked. “Despite his sociopathic tendencies, this is really good chocolate. What should I do with this big crate?”
“Any identifying numbers or labels?” Rita asked.
“Yeah, its all smudged…only number I can make out is seven and I think it says ‘crane’…you think there’s an actual crane in here?”
“Let me take a look,” Rita said, standing up. She stretched, accidently grew and bumped her head on the ceiling. She then returned to normal, and rubbing her sore spot, joined Kate. “I don’t see anything helpful. Might as well have a look.”
With a glowing fingertip, Kate coagulated the nails and they were able to easily take the lid off the large, rectangular crate.
“What the hell…?” Kate exclaimed, pushing aside the packing material. “It’s…Robot man!”
Standing in the upright crate was a large metal figure. It vaguely resembled their teammate, Cliff Steele, except a bit clunkier and made of a dull, silver metal. His joints with bulkier and there were obvious rivets holding him together.
His ears were slightly rounded metal disks. He lacked Cliff’s lantern jaw, instead sporting a smooth chin and a mouth grill. Its eyes were closed, but when Bast eased one open it revealed a white plastic eyeball with a tiny light for an iris.
“Is this a prototype of the Robot man in the repair shop?” Bast asked, running her fingertips across his metal skull and face.
“Not one I ever saw,” Rita frowned. “Though, it looks kind of like some of the Chief’s old service robots from before the Patrol…I’ve seen it before...but where…?”
Bast found some wires, trailing from a panel in the robot’s side, leading to a boxy device, buried deeper in the packing material.
“There’s something here…?” She muttered, feeling around. “Maybe a monitor or power source. I can…feel switches and a dial…”
“Be careful,” Kate said, nervously. “Niles worked on some pretty sketchy stuff.”
There was a hum of machinery and whatever rested behind the robot vibrated and sparked, setting the packing on fire.
“Oh crap…!” Kate breathed, pulling Bast back.
Rita grew, going down on one knee, so as to avoid any more banging her head. At twenty feet tall, she was able to grab the robot and toss him onto a nearby workbench. She then beat out the fire with her over-sized, gloved, hands.
“Everyone okay?” She asked, turning to check on her teammates.
A fist, like iron, caught her across the jaw, and the crouched heroine tumbled backwards into some crates.
Robot man spun, stumbled as though unused to his limbs, but still managed to catch Bast as she hurled herself at the metal man. He tossed her away, so she landed on Elastic Girl.
He then turned to glare at Kate.
“Whu-who…are…you?” He demanded, his voice sounding staticy, like a just wound phonograph or a radio that was having trouble syncing with a station.
“Hold on, there big guy,” Kate said, holding up her hands in a, hopefully, placating gesture.
“Who are you?” Robot man said, again, shaking his head. “Does Mister Who have a sister? And…Tigress..? I…what is happening…!!”
He moved back and forth, unsure and sounding increasingly frantic and angry, finally coming down with both fists upon a workbench, cracking it like it was made of plywood.
One of his wobbling legs gave out and he fell to his knees with a clang.
Kate circled him wearily, her hands glowing faintly.
“Okay, deep breaths,” She said, in what she hoped was a quiet, soothing tone. “We aren’t the bad guys.”
“Who…? I don’t…know…who are you? Who…am…I…?”
He lumbered to his feet, eyes glowing red as he grabbed hold of the front of Kate’s shirt. His grip was like a vice, despite the trembling in his arm and the fact that his metal body swayed drunkenly.
“Robert, no!” Elastic girl shouted, flinging herself at the metal man, regaining her original height as she moved. She pushed between Kate and Robot man. “You are a hero, not a monster!”
“You know him?” Kate gasped, while trying to pull free.
“You are Robert Crane!” Rita continued, ignoring her teammate and concentrating on their attacker. “You are a scientist! To save your life, your brain was placed in this metal body…you are Robot man!”
“What?” Kate exclaimed. “How…what..?”
“There was a Robot man in the 40’s,” Rita said, her hands getting bigger and trying to pull the metal fingers loose from Kate’s neck. “He served with…what were they called…?”
“Robert Crane,” Robot man muttered, letting go of Kate and taking a step back. His eyes changed from red to a soft, white light. ‘But, I’m…not…I was a man…?”
He held his head in his hands, muttering to himself.
“It’s okay,” Rita said, taking his arm and steering him over to a crate. She got him to sit and then she and Kate checked on Bast.
The alien was dazed, but was listening, while she waited for the room to stop spinning.
“So, wait, there was a Robot man during World War 2?” Kate asked. “And how did he end up in Niles junk drawer?”
“I don’t know,” Rita replied, looking thoughtfully over at the metal man. “He was part of some team the government put together…I’m pretty sure the Chief based some of his work on Crane’s. No idea how he got here, though. Seems like there were rumors…he died shortly after the war or they found a way to transplant his brain into a human body…I don’t know…?”
“Everybody thought he was dead, but he got shut off and Niles got his hands on him and then treated him like an old exercise bike,” Kate muttered. “That part, I can believe.”
Bast was lying on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling, her expression a combination of pondering recent events and thinking she should have stayed in bed.
“We need to help him,” She said, glancing between her friends.
“Of course we will,” Rita told her, with a small smile. “Taking in strays is what we do.”
“No Robot man gets left behind,” Kate added, offering Bast a hand.
The three moved to confront the despondent metal man.
“So, how are you feeling?” Rita asked, cautiously.
Robot Man looked up at them and made a noise that might have been a snort of disbelief.
“I…have no idea,” He replied. “I’m awake and still alive, I guess that’s a good thing, but I’m still…still living in this metal shell.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Bast asked. “Where were you before we found you?”
“I…uh…it’s a jumble,” he replied, shrugging his steel shoulders and then tapping his riveted temple. “I’ve got…fragments. Images and bits of conversation…I was dangerous…or they thought I was…there was talk of being able to...fix me, maybe move my brain to a better…uh…a better shell, body…Chuck was there, Chuck Grayson and a shorter man…another Doctor…I think it was after the war ended.”
“Okay, Rita said, with a reassuring smile, patting his shoulder. “It’s a start. I understand what you might be feeling. I…um…have some memory problems of my own. It’s not easy, but we help people and we might be able to help you. Okay?”
Robot man looked up at the size-shifting actress and nodded.
“Yeah, I guess. I…uh…what year is it?” He asked.
“Oh boy…!” Kate breathed.
They managed to squeeze Bast’s over-sized hoodie over Robot man’s steel torso. His legs burst the seam on her sweatpants, so he looked like he was wearing a ragged set of capre pants.
Despite not really needing to breathe, the metal man seemed to inhale deeply, once they were outside in the industrial park.
“Huh, who would have thought that concrete and overcast skies could look so pretty,” He said. “So, this is the first time I’ve been outside in…what…60 years?”
“Well, best guess,” Kate said, looking around.
“Have a walk around,” Rita said. “See if you recognize anything.”
“Fraid not,” he shrugged, ripping a seam in the shoulder of his sweatshirt. “Don’t think I’ve ever been to New Orleans…”
The two women stood away from the poorly disguised metal hero, allowing him space to wander and reacquaint himself with the outside world and hopefully sort through his memories.
“Any of this seem…I dunno, off…sketchy, to you?” Kate asked in an undertone.
“What do you mean?’ Rita asked, keeping watch on their new charge.
“Just about all of it,” Kate said. “Bast thinks so too.”
“How do you know that?”
“She did that thing where the space between her eyes scrunches. And that cute lip chewing thing, she does when she’s thinking…”
“Are we talking about Mr. Crane, or your new crush?” Rita asked, turning to glance at her teammate.
Kate gave her a ‘you’re not funny’ look before continuing.
“There’s something going on here,” Kate replied. “I don’t know if Robot man is up to anything, but I think there is a lot going on in that big tin head.”
“Yeah,” Rita agreed, simply.
“But, also what was going on with Niles? He kept that guy in a box for decades!”
“I don’t…?” Rita started, with a slight frown. “The Chief’s plans and motives were never easy to figure out.”
“Yeah, look, there are three choices here: gross neglect, out right evil or Niles knew something we don’t…” Kate said, uneasily.
“Hey,” Robot man called. “Is that fellow someone you know?”
Walking across the parking lot, with obvious intent, was a bald African-American man in bedraggled street clothes, toting a crowbar.
“What…oh, wait…!” Kate said.
“Why isn’t he still in jail?” Rita asked.
“So, not a friend…?” Robot man inquired, looking back and forth at the two women.
“Rita beat him up,” Kate explained.*
*(The girls were pretty busy in issue 3- Trav)
“Found you!” The super-villain with the obvious name of ‘Crowbar’ snarled, waving his namesake weapon, angrily. ‘Think we were done? Did you think I wouldn’t track you down!?”
“He’s pretty rude,” Robot man said. “Um…do you ladies mind…?”
“Have fun,” Kate said.
He pulled back his hood and went to meet Crowbar, cracking his iron knuckles.
“This seems like a bad idea,” Rita muttered.
“It’s fine,” Kate replied. “The guy has been cooped up for 60 years, let him work the kinks out. “We’re right here if he gets in trouble. I may not trust him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him get the crap beaten out of him.”
Rita sighed, but didn’t move to stop the fight.
“What seems to be the problem?” Robot man asked, reaching Crowbar.
“What?” The super villain grunted. “Giant girl got the Metal men to be her bodyguard?”
“I have no idea who the Metal men are,” Robot man explained. “What I do know is you are not going to hurt those women. So, we talk this through, you can just be sensible and walk away or you and I are going to duke it out. Your choice.”
Crowbar swung his weapon, held it like a shotgun and a blast of energy caught Robot man square in the chest.
It shredded his sweatshirt and sent him flying backwards. He hit the ground, skidding for several more feet, his body making a harsh scrapping sound on the concrete.
“Ow…?” Kate winced. “Okay, maybe we should…?”
The two then had to dodge more energy bursts.
Rita shrank down to six inches tall, while Kate leapt to the side and landed on her hands and knees, scrapping her palms.
Robot man got, unsteadily to his feet.
“Well, that packs a wallop,” He muttered, shaking his head. “My turn.”
He ran at Crowbar, picking up speed until he was coming at the villain at 50 miles per hour. His punch caught Crowbar under the chin and sent him flying.
“Oh my…!” Rita exclaimed, quickly shooting up to ten feet, while stretching her arms to catch Crowbar’s limp, unconscious form.
“Huh…?” Robot man said, flexing his hands. “Looks like I still got it.”
“Yeah, I guess you do,” Kate said, going to join him. “You okay? That was quite a hit.”
“Feels like I dented my shoulder,” He shrugged. “So, what now?”
“I have no idea,” Kate replied.
“We should probably call the police to deal with Crowbar,” Rita suggested. “Again.”
“Hey!” Bast said, jogging over to them from the storage unit. “I might have gotten something working. I think I’m getting a signal!”
“And looks like somebody already called the cops about your friend,” Robot man added, pointing. “Look!”
Three automobiles came racing down the road, black mini-vans with tinted windows. They skidded to a halt, a half dozen man in dark, nondescript clothes and dark glasses quickly getting out and pointing guns at the quartet of heroes.
“Uh….?” Kate said, raising her hands in surrender.
“Those aren’t the police, are they?” Robot man muttered.
“Who are they after?” Bast asked, looking from Crowbar to Robot man.
A door opened and a woman got out of the lead car.
She was tall and blonde and dressed in a green bodysuit and long coat. She walked past the men with guns to stand in front of the confused heroes.
“My name is Val Vostok,” She said. “And I’m looking for the Doom Patrol.”
Next Issue: To help Val, the Doom Patrol is heading back to Oolong Island!