Orientation

[Nathaniel Adam]

"Yes, sir."

The voice was gruff, and weary, but from frustration rather than fatigue. Razor-thin beams of light carved their way between the slats of closed blinds: they should have lanced their way through a reassuring haze of tobacco smoke, but thanks to the progressive left that small comfort had been stripped away, the packet of cigarettes that in the past would have been discarded onto his desk now locked away in a draw by Pentagon decree, the seal not to be broken until he was at least fifty feet away from an occupied building in a well-ventilated outdoor area. Three stars rested on the shoulder of his United States Air Force uniform, and yet he didn't have the damned agency to decide when and where he had a goddamn smoke. If that wasn't a metaphor for society's decline as it marched its way through the 21st Century, General Nathaniel Adam wasn't sure what was.

"Yes, sir, I am well aware of your organisation's interest in subjects presenting speedsters. In fact, I have the memo right here in my hands."

That was a lie, though General Adam still grasped at a random document from his desk regardless, committing to the falsehood enough to at least mime along. For most, it would have been an unnecessary reflex, and to contemplate the idea of being watched at every moment would have been branded paranoid: but given the circles that the General moved in, such suspicions weren't quite so outlandish, and one could never be too careful.

"Unfortunately, the SHADE Protocol is quite clear. Project Tartarus doesn't give me the authority to remove a meta from ARGUS jurisdiction. It's their job to classify threats to national security, and until they do, my hands are tied. Nothing short of an executive order will change that."

The volume of the voice on the other end of the handset telephone increased slightly. General Adam's jaw clenched in silent protest.

"Then respectfully," he cut in, with a stern edge of his own, "You should have got their faster, and caught this meta for your damned selves."

The receiver crashed into the cradle with a violent clunk, a frustrated sigh that rattled with the edges of a growl escaping from the General as the call came to an abrupt end. He felt his consciousness drawn towards the cigarette-containing drawer, but fought against the urge, smoothing down the front of his tie instead, before reaching for the intercom on his desk.

"ETA?" he barked, not bothering to spare the adjutant outside from a little displaced residual annoyance.

"Transport is thirteen minutes out," a faintly distorted voice replied, the Lieutenant outside trained well enough by past experience to have that information readily available.

"And the welcome wagon?"

There was a brief pause before the voice responded, a moment required to translate the nickname.

"Captain Heywood is en route, sir."

The name solicited a different kind of sigh from the General. Across the years, Captain Heywood had meant many different things to many different people, General Adam himself included. In Vietnam, the name had described a trusted ally. During World War II and the years after, it had belonged to a naval aviator and decorated war hero. The current iteration was something else entirely; a something else that General Adam had the misfortune of being the namesake and godfather of.

Resolve shattered, and the cigarettes were retrieved, the desk abandoned and a jacket hastily shrugged on. A cigarette was slid part way from the packet with a thumb, and then plucked the rest of the way by the General's lips, the door of his office bursting open as he marched swiftly towards the nearest smoking area.

"Should I redirect your calls?" the adjutant began to ask as General Adam breezed by.

The senior officer faltered for a moment, a lighter retrieved from his pocket, cigarette ignited a few minutes early in protest of the official regulations. A withering gaze settled itself on the military aide, and this time the sigh that escaped it carried with it a plume of cigarette smoke. By the time he responded, Nathaniel was already in motion again, forcing his way through a set of swinging doors that rushed in fear out of the General's warpath.

"What the hell else would you have my cell number for, Lieutenant?"

[Nate Heywood]

Nathaniel's foot drummed impatiently against the side of the footwell, as the motor pool minivan progressed towards the landing strip at an agonisingly slow pace. Captain Heywood was frustrated, by a great many things truth be told, but right now it was the military's choice of vehicle that was chief among them. They could have provided a jeep, or a truck, or pretty much any one of the numerous vehicles that the motor pool had access to. Literally anything else would have been acceptable to him, because it would at least have looked the part.

Contrary to what some might say, Nathaniel wasn't an excessively vain individual, but he did understand the importance of first impressions. In a few moments, an ARGUS transport would land, and the occupants would be getting their first glimpse of Area 51. Yes, that Area 51, the very Area 51 that was at the heart of so many stories, and speculations, and conspiracy theories - an almost alarming number of which had a certain amount of truth to them, as a matter of fact. Yet, instead of an olive green military truck, with flappy canvas sides and an engine that growled menacingly, the new ARGUS arrivals were about to be collected by a generic automobile with government plates. There was no style, no flair, and frankly, Nathaniel felt like he was a soccer mom on his way to collect groceries.

He glanced across at the woman behind the steering wheel, dressed in generic unmarked coveralls rather than the military fatigues that Nate's mental image demanded. His eyes narrowed. "Would it have killed you to dress the part?"

A frown danced across the driver's brow, as she shot back a questioning look. "Sir?"

Nate sighed, sinking a little into his seat. At least he had dressed the part, USAF blues, Captain bars polished and gleaming on his shoulders, and the hat which he'd spent years learning to don and doff without mussing up his hair sitting patiently in his lap.

"It's fine, Airman," Nate replied as the car came to a halt, flipping open the aviators that the hat contained, and slipping them into place. "As per usual, the first impressions are all down to me."

If slow motion existed as a part of real life - which, based on the transcripts he'd read from some of the metahuman subjects who'd passed through Project Tartarus over the years, it arguably did - then that would have been the mode via which Nate Heywood exited the vehicle. Eyes hidden behind the lenses of sunglasses, he snuck a few glimpses of himself in the car's reflective surfaces before he stepped away, putting enough distance between him and his ride as possible, to temper the negative impact it might have on the vibe he presented when the ARGUS delegation arrived.

He didn't have to wait long: a plume of desert dust in the distance heralded the arrival of the Javelin, as it raced its way across the scrubland of Pahute Mesa, apparating into view in the last few seconds as the retro-reflective panels of its active camouflage system shimmered into inactivity and dropped the shroud of concealment that had hidden the craft from view. Captain Haywood didn't bother to fight against the small smile that tugged at his lips as the VTOL engines of the ARGUS craft whipped up a whirlwind of dust and debris from the landing surface, the plane settling to the ground like the sexy lovechild of an SR-71 and Star Wars. Though developed here at Area 51 - actually, just up the road at Area 51, if you wanted to get technical about it - the Javelins were exclusively the domain of ARGUS rather than the military, much to Nate's dismay. Allegedly, they were reverse engineered from alien technology, and could achieve low Earth orbit if necessary, to service the ARGUS network of secret spy satellites - not that Nathaniel would ever breach the official secrets act by trying to find out that sort of thing, of course.

Nate waited for the hum of the engines to die down, and then a few moments longer for the residual echo to fade from his ears before he strode towards the ship, the boarding ramp opening like, well, like a mouth, but at the back instead of the front, which was a mental image that Nate decided to very rapidly abandon. He set his focus instead on the occupants exiting the craft, the taller and blonder of which was greeted with a nod of familiarity.

"Agent Carter," he greeted, before his attention shifted to the other. "Which I suppose makes you Impulse." A smile flickered back into place. "Nate Heywood, United States Air Force."

His eyes narrowed, as he studied the younger man's features.

"Please tell me your name isn't Nathaniel. Or Hank. Or John. We're already way over our quota on all of those."

[Bart Allen]

"Bartholomew Henry Allen!" Bart declared, beaming at having been recognised by his famous alter ego, Impulse. He wasn't sure how Nate knew him, but he wasn't about to gift a horse in the mouth, "Bet you don't get many of those, huh? I should know. I'm the second!"

When they shook hands, he leaned in close, careful not to poke Nate with the rim of his new Flash cap, and kissed the air beside his cheek. Then up on his toes for another air kiss on the far side. What was the deal with all these tall dudes, anyway? Did everyone shrink in the future? Challenges of verticality aside, Bart was feeling pretty good about himself. His transition from a man of the future to a man of the past had transpired without incident, mostly, and he was making friends. Introducing himself with a generous stack of freshly-cooked pizzas, Booster, or Agent Carter, had earned for himself a considerable allowance of awesome points. And then there was Agent Jones... Anyway, the point was things were going well. Weller than well.

"Call me Bart. It's quicker." He retreated a step, because old-school dudes liked their personal space, and started drinking in his surroundings, "Hey, you look awesome! This place is great!"

Just as his feet started to wander, his brain reined them in, and he turned on the spot in a rigid circle. Self-control was the order of the day. He could totally control himself and that meant admiring, but without acting upon his admiration, for the awesome stealth ship, and the retro automobile, and smartly-dressed Nate, and the vast expanse of desert that called to something deep inside him and whispered on the wind: Run, Bart, run! Grodd this place was slow...

"I was told this place was to help me acclimatise to my new time period, but as you can see, I'm already well-adjusted. So, what's the deal? This place is a desert. I bet you have a secret base. It's underground, right? Is it underground?" His foot tapped the baked earth as if it was about to cough up its secrets, and then, when his gaze fell upon the old automobile, his face blossomed with wonder, "Oh, man! Do I have to wear a blindfold? I could totally rock a blindfold."

[Nate Heywood]

What was it with these people, and kissing him to say hello?

Nate filed that away for later contemplation, knowing it would take far too long to fathom out in its entirety to dwell on it at the moment. He had a job to do, and while maybe it was a job that literally no one else on the base wanted, it was how things worked. If General Adam ordered you to jump, you jumped furiously, again and again, until he stopped scowling at you, because you valued your life too much by daring to question how high. On the upside, it was better for everyone involved that Nate the Captain was out here rather than Nate the General: amusing as it would have been to watch his godfather react to Bartholomew Henry Allen the Second's chosen mode of greeting, the glare-induced explosion of Impulse and the subsequent massacre of all witnesses would not have been good for the Project's reputation, or it's Days Since Last Death board.

Somewhere at the back of his head, Nate fought the subconscious urge to tap into his own metahuman abilities. Well, technically they were transhuman, strictly speaking. See, while it wasn't openly publicized, the United States government subscribed to a particular classification system for individuals who were not baseline human, for the purposes of threat analysis, ability suppression, legal accountability, benefit provision, and all sorts. Someone like this Impulse, a speedster based on Nate's threadbare brief, was most definitely a metahuman: an individual affected in such a way that their genome was no longer conventionally human. That was important, because metahuman abilities could be hereditary, and were of interest to geneticists and bioengineers working to either counteract or replicate their effects. Nathaniel on the other hand, he was transhuman, named in reference to a particular social movement that sought to modify themselves beyond the limits of human mortality through technology, science, cybernetics, and the like. Specifically, Nate was infused with an alien meta-material, a kind of metallic programmable nanopolymer that could emerge from within his cells and bloodstream and form a protective shell across his body composed of a material so resilient that Martians used it to build spaceships. Though Nate's abilities were the result of a kind of bioengineering, they didn't affect him on a genetic level, and so weren't transmissible should Nate ever find someone to settle down with and start a family. Then you had inhumans, who were just damned weird, transformed through methods that scientists couldn't explain - but refused to call magic - into individuals that were no longer functionally recognizable as humans; and last but not least, the nonhumans, because referring to other sentient species as extraterrestrial was considered inaccurate - especially if those nonhumans weren't extraterrestrial by virtue of having been born on Earth. It was all very confusing, but Nate kept it all straight in his head by realizing they all conspired to form the handy acronym MINT. He was confident it would catch on, eventually.

Nate's subconscious urge was not a reaction to danger, but rather anxiety, a mild sense of which was triggered by the rapid pace at which Bartholomew launched his words. Call me Bart, it's quicker was a nice sentiment and all, but the last thing this kid seemed to need was an opportunity to be faster. Maintaining his calm, and offering Bartholomew a small smile, he let his attention shift to the babysitter they'd sent along with him. "You didn't tell the kid where you were taking him?"

[Booster Gold]

Booster offered a shrug. It came off the back of a moment of shared sympathy with Captain Heywood, yet another person that Booster recognised from his own time, but had been forced to reacquaint himself with since arriving in this particular present. Back home, Booster and Heywood were acquaintances who knew each other in passing, Heywood moving in the circles of the Justice Society, while Booster gravitated more towards various iterations of the Justice League. It was a shame, Booster had come to realize, as back in his native timeline the two might have had a lot in common. Both had tumbled out of careers in football, both overshadowed by their fathers, both fond of bold colours and bold costumes with stars emblazoned on their chests.

Sadly, this version of Nathaniel Heywood had walked a different path, putting his athleticism to use on behalf of a family tradition of military service, rather than out on the sports fields. Booster wondered what had precipitated that change, what subtle nudge to the continuity of his past had redirected his fate in such a way. In time, perhaps, he might grow close enough to Nathaniel to find out. Perhaps that detail would be the crucial piece that helped him realize what was broken, and allow him to find his way back home.

For now, he focused on the provision of sympathy. It was clear that neither of them wanted to be here, engaged in the relatively menial task of handing off a metahuman between one agency and another. At a guess, it was a task that mutual unpopularity with their superiors made them both uniquely qualified for. Still, orders were orders, and those were important, as Booster was slowly coming to except.

"The kid's from some wonky version of the future," he explained, his tone matching the initial dismissive motion of his shoulders. "Figured that he probably hasn't even heard of Area 51 where he's from."

[Bart Allen]

"Oh, he's heard of it. They say it was the place where humans first encountered an alien," Bart's eyes were narrow, and his faced creased from the effort of submitting such a dubious claim. In his time, there were many stories to kindle the flames of imagination, it was what they had instead of network television, but he had learned to take everything he was told with a grain of salt. He then returned his attention to the men who seemed to determined to pretend he wasn't there, "And his name is Bart, by the way. Please feel free to start using it any time, now."

To his frustration, Bart recognised the tone in his voice, and it was pleading. He had been going for bitchy and annoyed but he'd never been very good at that. By the time it took him to get angry or upset about something, enough seconds had passed for it to feel like a small lifetime and, consequently, no longer worth being upset or angry about. And it was just as well: in his experience, anger and hatred were an impotent waste of energy and time, achieving nothing of positive value. Which was precisely why he was here! And if he could just help people to understand that, then perhaps they might stop with the kid stuff, and start taking him seriously.

Of course, it would help if he stopped getting so-

"Wait, did you say Area 51?" His eyebrows leapt, and he rubbernecked this way and that, to catch a hint of something he might have missed upon first inspection. Then, with the barely-contained buzz of a kid at Disneyland, he turned his expectant gaze back to Nate, and said, "Are there aliens here?"

[Nate Heywood]

"That's actually a common misconception."

Nate could feel the intention of Bartholomew Henry Allen focused on him, finally, which was exactly where the attention of everyone in an audible radius was supposed to be whenever Nathaniel Heywood had interesting information to impart. It was something that happened rarely. Well, infrequently. Well. It was something that happened much less frequently than Nate would have preferred, but probably a lot more frequently than anyone he knew would have liked. But, c'mon, people. This stuff was interesting. Nate hadn't sat through endless tedious lectures on history and science and aviation at the Air Force Academy just to torture people with the boring stuff. He'd filtered it. Curated it. Carefully selected only the best quality, organic, free range facts. The ungrateful many didn't appreciate the intellectual fact snacks he had generously prepared, and you know what? That was fine. But when someone expressed an interest? When someone sat down at the dining table of his intellectual kitchen, they were sure as hell going to get force fed the entire buffet.

"When a lot of people think about encounters with aliens, the first one that springs to mind is usually from Roswell, New Mexico, back in 1947. UFOlogists also - correctly, ish - speculate that Area 51 is a facility where the American military stores and studies alien technology, which definitely is part of what we do here. Well -"

He hesitated, squinting off into the rugged Nevada landscape, before gesturing off towards a squat cluster of distant shapes.

"- what they do over there, technically."

A flicker of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, like a superfan watching a movie for the hundredth time, reacting to the good part that they knew was just about to happen.

"The thing is though, this whole area was just empty desert and silver mines until the 1950s. Groom Lake was nothing but a pair of crappy runways until Project Aquatone in 1955, and the Nevada Test Site, Base Camp Mercury, Tonopah, and all the rest of it didn't exist until years after the Roswell incident, and that even the first significant UFO encounter of the 20th Century, either: Foo Fighters, the Battle of Los Angeles, and the Cape Girardeau crash predate Roswell by several years. So while we do currently have the Martian Bio-Ship from '47 alongside other alien debris on-site for testing and study, there's technically only a tangential connection between 51 and Roswell."

Nate shrugged, offering himself a subtle little nod at an explanation well-presented.

"As for whether there are aliens here? I guess it depends what you mean by that. We tend not to use alien or extraterrestrial when we're talking about folks who aren't human. For starters, both those terms imply something foreign, or not of this Earth: but if a Kryptonian is born here in the United States, then technically they're neither alien nor extraterrestrial, and that's just frustratingly inexact. It doesn't accommodate humans born on other planets either, if that has or does ever happen. We tend to go with nonhuman instead, just to be a little more exacting and specific. As for whether or not we have any of those here?"

A shrewd smile curled at Nate's lips.

"Well, Bart, I guess you'll just have to come with me and find out."