The sound of Amanda Waller's heels echoed sharply through the sterile, white halls of Cadmus Labs. Each step growing more furious as she made her way to the reinforced door to Laboratory 12. The door slid open with a hiss.
Inside, Professor Emil Hamilton was hunched over a glowing console, the message signal lost was blaring.
"Hamilton!" Waller's voice sliced through the hum of machinery. "Did you put any other trackers in the clone that I don't know about?"
Hamilton didn't even flinch. His tired eyes shifted from the screen to Waller, adjusting his glasses before responding in a calm, measured tone. "No, Director Waller. I told you before, there's only one bio-tracker along with bomb you have in her skull. And her name is Galatea, not 'the clone.'"
Waller's lips twitched, half sneer, half smirk. She stepped closer, folding her arms as her gaze burned through him. "Let me remind you, Professor, she wasn't made to a normal little girl. She was made to be a weapon for the United States. And she is a very dangerousweapon, not your daughter. Stop treating her like she's a damn person."
Hamilton's jaw clenched. "She is a person," he said firmly, though there was exhaustion behind his defiance. "She feels, she learns, she chooses. Maybe that's what scares you, Amanda."
Waller's nostrils flared. "What scares me," she snapped, "is the thought of another unstoppable asset going rogue."
The two locked eyes, before Waller broke the silence. He cellphone was ringing. She then pulled a phone from her pocket.
"Cecil," she said curtly into the receiver. "Give me an update."
On the other end, Cecil Stedman's gravelly voice came through, rough with fatigue and sarcasm. "We retrieved Guardian from the last known location," he said. "All he knows was some Tamaranean woman carrying her away. My agents still haven't found a trace."
"Dammit," Waller hissed, pacing toward the wall of monitors. "I just gave the enemy a damn weapon."
Cecil grunted. "You think she switched sides?"
"I think," Waller said slowly, "that she hates me and leads to chaos." Her voice hardened. "I'll engage Task Force X for off-world travel. I will do a reconnaissance missions and have a team ready in 12 hours."
There was a pause on the other line. Then Cecil spoke, incredulous. "You're sending hardened criminals into space? To do what, bring her back?"
Waller's lips curled into a grim smile. "Not necessarily. I want them to find the Viltrumites, and bring as much informationon their empire as possible. And If they can't bring Galatea home, or she has been compromised. Then she will be eliminated. Anything that can help us counter their physiology and growing their numbers. If they die in nthe process?" She shrugged. "Collateral cleanup."
Cecil sighed. "You don't make it easy to sleep at night, you know that?"
"I'm not paid to make you sleep," Waller said flatly. "I'm paid to keep US citizens alive."
Then, after a brief pause: "Can you spare an operative to accompany the task force X on the mission?"
Cecil hesitated. "I've got a guy. He's been off the radar, bit of an outlaw lately."
Waller raised a brow. "You're not talking about...."
Cecil chuckled. "Oh, I am. I just hopes he picksup my calls."
Waller exhaled through her nose, staring at the blinking screens of Galatea's last known coordinates. "Then get him ready. If he's half the legend people say he is, he'll need the work."
The call ended with a click. The hum of Cadmus resumed, the sterile silence returning like a fog, but Waller's mind was already racing. She looked at the hologram of Galatea's face, perfect, confident, defiant.
"She'll come back," Hamilton muttered quietly. "She always does."
Waller's expression softened for a moment… then hardened again. "She better," she said coldly, turning to leave. "Because if she doesn't, we'll make something stronger."
[ Hours Later, Deep Beneath the Ocean]
Cold.
That's all Cain could feel.
The pressure of the deep ocean crushed against his broken body, every nerve screaming as his consciousness faded in and out. His vision was nothing but black and, the endless dark of the abyss.
Bubbles rose past his face, slow and ghostly. His body drifted, limp, his suit cracked and torn. His once sleek black nanotech suit flickered faintly with red light in the void.
Then , voices. Echoes from the past.
"Cain!"
"What....."
"Oh no....!"
And then, the crash.
Mark.
The memory slammed into him like a meteor , the Tower exploding, glass and steel crushing against his body, then came the Titans. Bushido's body splattering against his face. Kilowatt's scream. Pantha's arm reaching for him before he tore through he like paper.
Cain hit them all screaming, broken and battered, blood and guts running down his face. He remembered screams and more lifeless and bodies.
Now, in the cold dark, they were back.
Bushido. Kilowatt. Pantha.
Their eyes empty, bodies disfigured, their mouths moving in perfect, horrifying unison.
"It's your fault."
Cain gritted his teeth, trying to look away, but their voices drilled into his skull.
"You're defective."
"You killed us."
"You couldn't save anyone."
"Your weak."
His breath hitched, bubbles escaping from his lips. His arms shook, fists clenching, nails digging into his palms until blood drifted upward in slow crimson streams.
"Stop," he muttered. "Stop!"
The phantoms only came closer.
"Defective....weak"
Cain fell to his knees in the void, eyes wide, haunted, his voice breaking.
"I didn't mean to… I tried...."
"You killed us..."
"I'm sorry!" he screamed into the endless dark.
And then, light.
Something grabbed him, a strong hand gripping his arm, pulling him upward with impossible speed. The water roared around him as he rose, pressure breaking, lungs burning. His consciousness flickered, then vanished.
.....
Cain awoke with a violent gasp, his body jerking upright. Sweat drenched his face, and his breath came in ragged bursts. His eyes darted around , dim light, metallic walls, the sound of waves crashing not far away.
"Hell of a nightmare," a voice said from nearby, calm, rough, familiar. "You were thrashing so much I thought you'd wake the dead."
Cain's heart pounded as he turned his head. A figure leaned against a wall, half in shadow. Red helmet resting on a nearby crate. Leather jacket. Boots.
His amber eyes widened.
"Jason…" Cain said, his voice hoarse. "Is that you?"
Jason Todd, gave him a faint smirk.
"Miss me?"