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The team gathered to review the videos, hoping to find a clue that their leader missed. The recording started playback.
A figure appeared at the front doors, opening them casually. He was a young man in his late teens, early twenties with light hair and light eyes, with a cowlick sticking up in the front. He wore jeans and an old brown jacket covering a dark red button-down shirt. Silver-rimmed glasses.
The man walked up to the laboratory’s fingerprint scanners.
He just stood in front of them, slouching slightly with one hand scratching the back of his head, looking very disinterested. His other hand was placed on the smooth plate.
The scanner verified him as one of the doctors and opened the doors with a quiet hiss.
Other security measures were bypassed with an equally casual air, even the number code, retina scan and password.
Safe to say, the team was very frustrated.
Robin reported with a wry smirk, happy to be challenged at last.
“According to the database, this man isn’t anywhere on the records, past or present. None of the employees know his name, or ever profess to meeting him, but nearly all of them admit he looks familiar.”
Superboy crossed his arms.
“They could be lying.”
Robin nodded, but turned the monitor toward them.
“We have a close up of his face, I want you to tell me what you think of him.”
Wally jumped off the coach and zipped over to the screen, afterimages fading behind him.
He craned his head around leaning in far too close to be comfortable, peering at the picture.
“That’s freaky. Like, I feel like I’ve met him a hundred times, like he should be my best friend or something, but I can’t think of his name, or any time we met. Super weird.”
Aqualad commented “Surprisingly eloquent description of the feeling”
Kid Flash shot him a dirty look.
Robin waved his hands at them, tapping a few more commands into the glowing keys.
“What most concerns me is this next part.”
He turned the audio on, sliding his finger across the touch-sensitive screen to activate the video again.
The young man walked into the center of a white room lined with futuristic lights and shelves, rings of florescent bulbs shining through the fogged glass floor. He approached a large domed enclosure, placing his hand on the fingerprint scanner.
The door slid open, with a computer voice saying “Welcome, President sakdlbalskkssshhhhhh- -”
The computer’s voice was cut off by static when the man pressed his hand forward, crushing the scanner completely.
The camera within the scanner, before it was crushed, witnessed his face (which had been calm, nearly cheerful throughout the entire entrance) suddenly have an ominous look flit through his eyes, brows knitting down in anger.
The audio only picked up the faint sound of an animal cry before being cut out.
“What was that in the background? I didn’t recognize it.”
Aqualad turned his head up to Robin, who shook his head minutely and tapped on the next video sequence he had saved.
Three screens showed a wide habitat, about the half size of an olympic swimming pool and just as deep. It was modeled after arctic tundra, the sloping floor turning into blue-tinted water scattered with false ice-caps.
Two of the cameras were apparently motion-sensitive, and locked in on the man as he entered.
The third was stationary from the very top of the enclosure.
The man paused just inside the doorway, raising his fingers to his lips and letting out a sharp whistle.
The audio picked up shuffling and another small animal cry, before a furry critter came barrelling out from behind one of the many ice caps. It jumped from ice cap to cap, leaving them sloshing around and splashing up water. As it neared the edge of the water, the creature slipped and splashed loudly into the water.
A short muzzle broke the surface with a sputter, black eyes peering out from the soaked white fur.
The man had started jogging forward when the creature appeared, and now sat a few feet from the edge of the water, with one hand extended.
Aqualad made a noise of recognition when a small polar bear finally reached solid ground and pulled itself up, dripping buckets from pale fur.
The man started talking in a soft voice, and Robin quickly cranked up the computer’s speakers.
“-you, man. You okay? They didn’t hurt you?”
The polar bear shook water from its fur, ears pinned back. It opened its mouth, and a childish voice rang out..
“Who’re you?”
The man offered a smile, opening his palm to present what looked like a small bottle of amber liquid. Their evaluation of the substance changed when he rocked it back and forth, the liquid displaying a syrup-like consistency.
“I’m Mattie’s brother, remember?”
“Ah!” The Polar bear bound forward, throwing water everywhere.
It reared up on hind legs, grabbing the bottle first with its mouth, then paws. It easily popped the flip-top open and tipped the bottle back, sucking down the liquid like there was no tomorrow.
“Did they even feed you, buddy?”
The bear licked its lips, licking at the bottle’s top for a moment before abandoning it on the floor.
“They did, I hate frozen fish.”
The man tossed out a loud, obnoxious laugh, letting himself fall from a perch on his heels to crossed legs sitting on the floor. He let the soaking bear nose at his hair and jacket, casually batting away paws that tried to dig around in inner pockets.
“Dude, you’re seriously spoiled, you know that?”
The bear snuffed into his shirt before crawling into his lap, looking for all purposes to be a fluffy white dog.
“I’m hungry.”
The man ruffled the fur between its ears, looping an arm under its forelegs and rocking back.
He jumped to his feet like the weight of bear was only that of a plush toy, bending down to get the empty syrup bottle and tucking it back into an inner pocket.
The tiny polar bear seemed unconcerned that it was being swung around like a sack of potatoes. Likewise, the young man seemed unconcerned a certain mammal was dripping water all over his coat and pants.
“Can we go home?”
“Yeah, yeah. Do you think they deserve having their stuff trashed?”
He was at the doorway, having already used the keypad (He should not know the combination!) to open the sliding door. The bear craned its head to look up at the man, before settling back down.
“I’m lonely”
The man gave a faint smile and walked through the door.
Robin snapped off the video feed, turning to the team.
“The rest of the feed is of him walking through hallways, bypassing security in the same manner and walking out the front door, the way he came.
Feed from outside the building shows him walking down the steps and waiting at a bus stop. He gets on the bus and leaves.
I’ve already traced the bus routes.”
Aqualad frowned “I suppose the passengers treated the animal as a toy? It seemed very docile..”
Robin just nodded.
Aqualad leaned back against the station’s edge, pale eyes narrowed.
“So we have a man who registers on computers as whoever he wants. He has some sort of augmented strength, considering the smashed keypad and ease in carrying the animal. He somehow knew the key codes and the exact location of the animal.”
He glanced to the others, wondering if they had anything to input.
Robin spoke up
“He could be a kind of shapeshifter… or even have some sort of technology we didn’t see that allows him to bypass security. Maybe even power over technology.”
Aqualad nodded
“Those are good points. Basically, we know next to nothing about the suspect, who he is affiliated with and what he is capable of. Do we have a file on the bear?”
Robin nodded and turned back to the computer, while Kid Flash continued to scrutinize the picture of the man in the corner of their huge screen.