Strength in Numbers

[tx-instruments.livejournal.com]

Things were coming together nicely. Shade, Talia, and Brainiac - worthy peers for the refined Society. Still a handful of others to contact, of course - but progress was progress.

Noah sits at his computer station, monitoring several data feeds as he lets his mind wander a little - thinking about the technological improvement that Brainiac might be able to make to these systems. His reverie is interrupted by the noiseless red flashing of an indicator light - one of the tertiary alarm systems in his safe house.

Anyone else might attribute it to malfunction. Noah, naturally, assumes his intruder is simply adept enough to have discovered and disarmed the primary and secondary alarm systems.

"Unless we're dealing with a speedster, I have at least thirty seconds.."

With a resigned sigh, he activates the security system - it wouldn't slow down a big gun for too long, but it was merely the prelude..