Nothing Happened

I don’t mean, she didn’t get caught, though she didn’t get caught. I mean, nothing happened. She’d definitely made contact and that was definitely one of Penguin’s lieutenants.

I had slots--and even when I hadn’t, it had announced Subject not added, no slots available. Nothing had happened. That didn’t make sense, even if she were somehow being ****, that had basically been true for Kat as well and the App hadn’t cared…

See, no problem, I told you--

It didn’t work. Panic replaced confusion in my mind as it suddenly did make sense. The only reason it wouldn’t have worked is if she was under someone else’s control! The Penguin must have a copy of the App!

Shit. Shit. Shit. Uh…bail?

Bail. I agreed.

She smiled, and made her excuses with a shocking skill. Despite not being a particularly skilled actress, she was extremely good at covering, at least when she’d had time to prepare. Which she clearly had, as this was no spur-of-the-moment decision. Something we would discuss…but not right now. Not with the thrill and terror of this new discovery racing through my veins.

Asa was texting Diamond from the back of a cab as she headed home, but I didn’t abandon her until she reached her door and I was sure no one was following her. Then I snapped back to my own body and headed down to the car.

All three of us were at Asa’s within twenty minutes.

”Shit.” Asa said, shaking with reaction to the sudden discovery as I held her closely.

That was the general consensus. After a few minutes of ranting and agreement that the situation was total shit, we started to evaluate what we actually knew.

It took Diamond to point out that we didn’t even know if it was actually Penguin who had the app. It seemed the most obvious, and would sure explain how a pig like him had so many beautiful women around, but so would his wealth and criminal organization. Given I was planning to not be visibly in charge of our organization, we shouldn’t assume that whoever else had the app was dumb enough to put themselves visibly in charge.

Who else could it even be, though? All of Penguin’s lieutenant’s were female and I sort of doubted the app would allow a woman to use it. Well, maybe a self-hating lesbian? It was certainly misogynistic enough, but maybe it just pushed for the degradation of women without caring who did it? But I was pretty sure if any of the songbirds swung that way, I’d have heard about it.

But if it was someone else, say some random pimp, or operator in Penguin’s network…we probably would never figure it out without turning on PVP, which I sure as fuck wasn’t doing.

“Do we even know if the app’s the same for everyone? When I was making choices…it seemed more tailored to tempting me,” Asa offered.

“Fuck…we don’t really know much and the app sure isn’t giving us any helpful hints,” I said.

“We stay away from them for now,” Diamond said definitely.

”Is that enough? What about Kat? She’s bound to start getting more attention, with me helping her. What if whoever it is goes after her and realizes she’s protected, just like the Songbirds?”

“We don’t actually know all the Songbirds are targets,” Asa pointed out, but we waved that away.

”You’ll have to step her down, keep her where she is, don’t build her up,” Diamond said and I nodded.

Fuck. All my hopes and intentions for Penguin were burnt.

Something of my depression must have shown on my face, because Diamond and Asa tried to cheer me up. It wasn’t until they pointed out that once I got a few supervillains under control, they could go after Penguin and investigate. They didn’t suggest that I try to point any heroes at him…because what would the point be? They already knew, it was proving it that was the problem. Well, they probably didn’t know about the magic mind controlling app, but the rest…

As we were chatting about that and who we might send to investigate and who to focus on now that we were making real progress on the development front, with Peyton out next week and Firefly making real progress. Clayface was the obvious choice, though Absence might work too…they were also throwing out other supervillains, none of whom I had access to.

Cheetah wasn’t exactly hanging out in Arkham, or Gotham. Honestly, most of the saner, more powerful supervillains steered clear, because between Batman and the Joker, it wasn’t a very…hospitable environment.

“But you’ve got Jenna under control and she works for supervillains, right? That means she might get recommendations? And then you can ride along. Get that bitch Cheetah under control, so she can apologize to mom,” Asa offered and I belatedly remembered that I’d learned Kianna’s husband (first husband?) had been killed by the supervillainess.

“Lady Shiva would look good going through Asa’s little training program,” Diamond suggested, changing the subject. “Or if we’re going for power, what about Circe? Or fucking Livewire, she could be real useful…” she muttered.

“I’ll look into it,” Asa said, shaking off the anger and fear which had been filling the room.

We talked a bit more, before, for once, something occurred to me, rather than one of the others and that question threw everything into doubt.