When the aircab let them off, Lightning Lad had to check twice to make sure they were at the right address

Brainy's Homecoming

Chapter 1: Sick Call

(Disclaimer: All characters and situations are the property of DC Comics.)

When the aircab let them off, Lightning Lad had to check twice to make sure they were at the right address. "This is the Asimov Arms Hotel? It's a total dive!"
"This is the address Brainy gave us," Saturn Girl said, checking her data pad.
"What's Brainy doing in a dump like this?"
"Why don't we ask him that?"
They went inside. The Asimov Arms looked as if it had been a pretty fashionable address . . . thirty or forty years ago. Now it was run-down and dingy, and nothing worked.

The misshapen blue form behind the front desk didn't even look up from his comm box as they approached. "You got two days to pay me what you owe, or you're outta here! This is your last warning!"
"Excuse me--" Lightning Lad began.
"Fifty credits an hour," the landlord said, "two hundred for the whole night. Payable in advance."
"We're not here about a room," Saturn Girl said.
"Then quit wasting my time. I got work to do."
"We're meeting someone. Can you tell me where I can find Querl Dox?"
The being looked up, a puzzled expression on what could loosely be called his face. "Dox . . . Dox . . . oh, you mean the green kid! Room 212. Take the stairs to the fourth floor."
"Isn't there an elevator?"
"It's outta order."
"Why is room 212 on the fourth floor?" Lightning Lad asked.
"Because it is. Now scram, I'm busy here."

Something was not adding up here.

Behind Saturn Girl, Bouncing Boy looked around and grimaced. "This place is so low-rent, the cockroaches won't come here. There's no way Brainy would ever end up here if he had . . ."
"Any other choice?" Saturn Girl finished for him. "We won't know what he's up to until we ask him."

Just then they heard a door open. They all turned and saw . . . some slimy squelchy thing leaving the room of a woman who seemed to have taken advantage of the all-night deal.

"I really didn't need to see that." Lightning Lad groaned.

"Did anyone notice the number on the door?" Saturn Girl asked.
"Between the slime creature and the . . . scantily dressed lady, I missed it," Bouncing Boy confessed.

Lightning Lad rolled his eyes. "Not that we can see any numbers on these doors anyway, underneath all the grime. When did they last clean here, 2958?"
"We'll try down this way." Saturn Girl started to say before a loud BANG! distracted her.

Someone had thrown a bottle through an open doorway and it smashed against the far wall.
"Nice place here, huh?" Lightning Lad was feeling less and less comfortable by the minute.

By the time they finally got to Brainy's room, all the three of them wanted was just to get out as soon as possible. But that would depend on Brainy and what he had to say to them.

As for Brainy himself, he was lying on what passed for a bed in this place, having passed out, not from any illicit substances, but from simple exhaustion. Not having eaten for three days didn't help matters any.

He was roused by a knock on his door.
"I'm paid till the end of the week!" he called out, in a voice that didn't sound like his own. "Go away!"

"It's us, Brainy!" said Saturn Girl.
Brainy tried to get up to let them in, but he barely had the strength to roll over. "It's not locked!" he called out. "Come on in."

"About time." said Lightning Lad under his breath.

Saturn Girl shot him a look. "You're not helping," she said. "Brainy's in some kind of trouble . . ."

'Trouble' was an understatement.

"What happened?" Bouncing Boy asked. "How did you end up here? What do we need to do to help?"

Brainy tried to talk, but he couldn't express to the others how hard the last year had been on him. No matter where he went, he couldn't find a place to settle, a place where he belonged. In the end, he had parked his new human body in the cheapest place he could find.
And then . . .
Brainy spoke so low that none of them caught it. "What was that?"
"My mother was here," he repeated.

"I didn't know you had a mother," Lightning Lad said. "You didn't want to see her that time we visited your home planet . . ."
"We didn't part on good terms. I didn't want to get into the whole thing all over again. I don't know how she found me, but . . . she came here, and . . ." He couldn't finish.

"Did she hurt you?" Saturn Girl asked.
"Not like that," Brainy said quietly. "She said . . . it was decided, that I can never come back to Colu."
"Oh, man." This did not sit well with the other Legion members.

"It was different when I left, on my own," he explained. "I knew I always had the option of going back, if I had to, or wanted to. Now I don't have that option any more."

Brainy looked like he'd lost his best friend . . .

Saturn Girl sat on the bed beside him and started to put an arm around him before she remembered that Brainy didn't like being touched.
"It's okay," he said. "I don't mind anymore." In truth, he felt a need to connect with another living being, something that he'd never felt before. He'd been alone since he left Colu, but he'd never been lonely. The Legion was his only family now; if they too rejected him, then there truly was nothing left for him.

"I want to go home," he murmured, and leaned into Saturn Girl's comforting warmth.

"It's okay, Brainy," she said. "We'll take you out of here. You can't stay in this horrible place. I don't know how you lasted this long . . ."

Bouncing Boy had his pocket handkerchief out and was rubbing at something on Brainy's face. "Buddy, you've got dirt all over you. It almost looks like you've got Rigellian spotted fever--"

"That's because he does." Lightning Lad was holding a portable medi-scanner.

The room went suddenly quiet. Bouncing Boy swallowed and jerked his hand away; spotted fever was supposed to be very contagious.

"Oh, Brainy," Saturn Girl sighed. "How long have you been sick?"

"I don't know. I haven't been sleeping well for about a week . . . I haven't had anything to eat for almost three days . . . it hurts when I swallow."

Lightning Lad was checking a list of symptoms. "Yeah, that's on there. Does your head hurt?"

Brainy nodded. "Pretty skraking bad, too. What else can I expect?"

"I won't bore you with the whole list. It sounds worse than it is, anyway. Don't worry, we'll take good care of you."

Saturn Girl was shaking her head. "I think we should take him to a hospital. He's in really bad shape . . ."

That was an understatement and a half. Between the dull throb in his head, the churning in his stomach, and the persistent fever, Brainy felt like something the Arcturan swampcat had dragged in. Then dragged out again. Then dragged in a second time and stomped on, chewed up, and spit out.

"We have state of the art medical facilities!" Lightning Lad was saying. "He'll be fine!"

"I'd just feel better if he were in the hands of professionals," Saturn Girl countered.

Bouncing Boy nervously fidgeted with his Legion flight ring, wondering how much exposure it took to become infected. Would they all have to be quarantined? What if they were already infected?

"C'mon, Chuck," Lightning Lad said. "The transport will be here any minute."

"What transport?"

"While you were busy panicking, I called Legion HQ and arranged for a pickup. They said it would wait for us out front."

Saturn Girl was trying to help Brainy up, but he was too weak to stand. "Guys, I think we may need a floater."

"There'll probably be one in the groundcar. Let's just head for the elevator."

"There is no elevator," Brainy said. "It's been out of order since I've been here. They never fix anything around here." He rolled over on his side and managed to lever himself to a sitting position.

"We're getting you out," Saturn Girl said. She took one side, and Lightning Lad took the other, and between the two of them they managed to lift him off the bed and onto his feet. With their support, Brainy was able to walk across the room, out the door, and into the hallway.

I never liked it here anyway, he thought. Good riddance.

The transport was waiting right where it was supposed to be, but to their surprise, it was unmanned.

"Nobody's driving this thing?" Bouncing Boy asked nervously.

"They said they couldn't spare the people," Lightning Lad explained. "Phantom Girl was . . . kinda evasive about that."

"If there were something going on," asked Saturn Girl, "wouldn't she tell us?"

"We'll find out soon enough. We're almost there."

As soon as the car came to a stop outside the HQ, Bouncing Boy and Lightning Lad loaded Brainy onto the floater and went inside.

It was too quiet.

"Where is everyone?" Saturn Girl asked.

"Probably out on missions," Lightning Lad said. "Let's just take Brainy to the infirmary, and then we can find out what's going on."

They guided the floater down the corridor; luckily, it wasn't far to the infirmary. The doors whooshed open--

"Guys," Bouncing Boy said, "I think we have a problem."