It is now 45 minutes until the team meeting — just enough time for any necessary preparations, although Miss Martian is already hanging out in the training room.

Literally hanging. She's gotten the computer to make a kind of trapeze thing.

Cute! 

She waves up at her. 

As for her preparations...

She has a few ideas for magic things, but right now, probably not enough time? Also probably not enough time for doing anything too esoteric with the colors or anything like that...

She'll quickly check her messages - shouldn't be anything pressing, but shouldn't hurt to check, and shouldn't hurt to send a few quick thoughts to Joan. 

Oh - that was something she wanted to work on, didn't she? 

She has those crystals with the memories of her green light work, complete with the green light empathic impressions as well. And... for all that she thinks about it 90% of the time as "The crystal and blue and green power", a big part of what made her able to glom everything together was a bunch of powers about understanding this - memory and emotion, the structure of these crystals and little memory-minds, and the - ties and tricks in it. She reaches out her will a little, and tries to - feel it, hold it in her hand a little. 

She... has an inkling of an idea? She's not the most certain she can make it work, even with the passive benefits, but she was thinking....

Could she sort of - diffuse the impression of will into the sort of - mental construct thingymajig? She already knows the trick with Joan for making her intent sort of... spill out loosely, and there's already a structure there that's kind of compatible, and while she's not actively telepathic at the moment, they're her memories and she can feel them sort of - humming against her hand, and she made this. 

She takes a moment to try to conceptualize it clearly - loosening up the bonding structure of the mechanism of will, and casting it into the mould of the memory-structure, and then binding it all back together with a tiny little latticework of will tying it all together into something neater and more focused, a singular purpose rather then two purposes conjoined. 

Can she do that? Can she do that with a dedicated power to facilitate that? She doesn't want to quite do it yet, because she thinks M'gann would want to know to watch it properly, but could she? Also she's not sure quite how long it'd take, and there's a few other things she'd want to double check with the gift first. 

Yes, her skill at manipulating green light (and the attendant willpower boost) should more than suffice. It feels like it will be delicate work, to unravel and reravel the thoughtforms without letting them degrade, but a bit of patient attention should get her through it.

And she does have a message from Joan, actually — just a set of well-wishes and a quick check-in, because she's unfortunately busy today and won't have the time to stop by in person.

Doing fine! It's been a little weird sketching out possibilities with Mr. Zatara - fingers crossed soon I'll be able to talk about that once we've figured out a bit more of the practicalities of what doing it would actually entail. 

Got my first proper scheduled mission - just dealing with some venom supply chain stuff, shouldn't be too big a deal, but looking forward to have a chance to plan things out a little more. 

She quits out and smiles up at M'gann. 

"Hey! There's a little thing I wanted to try that with the memory storage system you set up for me? Think might be interesting for you to take a look at - I'm not sure if anything about it will transfer to how you do things, but thought it wouldn't hurt to give you a look!" 

She lets go of the trapeze and flips in the air to land in a more human-typical conversation position.

"I'd love to take a look! Everyone is doing things and the local mind-background-noise is too busy to read, so I've just been practicing humanoid movement stuff. What were you going to try?"

She'll sit herself down, and hum softly. 

"I've got the memories for Joan's lightwork training, and I've got the emotions, but since I want to give her the best chance, I figure that it would be good to do something that might not be the sort of thing that would have been tried, even with how many green lanterns there are? And I think telepathy isn't the most common thing, and doing complicated non-combat stuff with the green light probably has to be pretty rare, too, especially if it's crafting adjacent, so I want to sort of... unify the parts of it? Make it something more holistic, something that you can feel, not just with your mind, but with your soul, you know?" 

She closes her eyes, and focuses on making it unfocus, slowly relaxing in time with her slowed breath, pulling it over to the little mental impression she can feel. Then, there's a little bit of green 'thread' she can make, to weave it together, and just... little winds and pressures of her will, making sure it glides smoothly into place as it tightens and binds together, slowly shifting into a substance (or at least an alloy) of something different. 

"I'm not sure how big a difference it'll make, but my current powerset is well enough suited for it for me to want to try it out. Plus, I've been meaning to get my affinity for this particular powerset high enough to work with once I start reconfiguring for another project, anyways. And - I want to have something that can make it obvious to her that just because it's been impossible, doesn't mean it will be for her? Even if it's a nominal thing, just - a real chance is something that can help ones focus so much, I think." 

Miss Martian mirrors her seated position and watches intently as Topaz works. A few times she gently reaches out to point out a place where the memory is becoming unstable and hold it in place while Topaz reaffirms her grip on it.

"That's ... interesting. I don't think I've seen anyone weave thought and emotion in quite that way before."

She bites her lip.

"I know this is a gift for Joan, but would it be okay if I made a copy for myself? I kind of want to poke at it."

"Oh, feel free. It's just a tool, at the end of the day." 

She smiles lightly as she finishes it up. 

"Though I'd appreciate hearing about how your poking goes sometime. My knowledge bases for this can be a little... odd, sometimes, so it's always good to hear from other people's perspectives on what it is and what one could do with the ability to make things like that." 

She should really get a watch, shouldn't she? If she can figure out emotional light computers, it shouldn't be that hard to set up a system clock module she can graft in, but that seems a little fanciful, perhaps. In lieu of that, she'll leave the crystal with her and wander over to poke at a console again, and check the time there. 

Is there anything else that she should really do before this? There's a couple of possibilities for things to try - she's not sure quite how much longer for the bud to grow, but concievably she should be able to just grab a power to copy the specific stabilization array that Giovanni was using to store excess powers, right? That feels like something narrow enough that it shouldn't be that hard to do, though she probably doesn't have quite enough time to take full advantage of the opportunity. She could get something relating to venom - how hard would it be to get some sort of power to say, detect venom at a distance or purge it from someone's body? She hasn't looked it it in too much detail but it looks like nasty business that might make it a little awkward to incapacitate people on it. Her general toolkit should be fine to take them out, though, since the lights are generally decently flexible about letting you pull off non-lethal approaches... 

Really she doesn't know quite enough about the mission to pick something out just yet - is there any more details in the missive Batman sent or will that be all in a briefing soon? 

It can do a power for copying the stabilization array she saw, sure! It can also handle purging venom from her body. Detecting it at a distance is a bit trickier — range trades off against how much can be detected at once. It sounds like she doesn't know what tradeoff she would want there yet.

There is no additional advance briefing materials because Batman is a drama queen because properly weaving things took longer than it felt like, and (as Kid Flash appears with a whoosh of displaced air) everyone has actually arrived for the briefing proper.

"01: Batman"

He sweeps his gaze around the room, and Topaz's teammates arrange themselves into a vague semblance of a line.

"Venom!"

The computer projects an image of a dark substance in a vial, resting on the counter of a brightly lit lab.

"It is the most recent designer drug to hit the streets of Gotham. Normally, I would take the time to track down the source myself, but I'm currently busy with the follow-up investigation of the Cadmus fire. It's important that we trace the source quickly, however, because of Venom's effects."

The computer switches to showing a bulked-up grey figure smashing in the window of a pawn shop.

"Usually, with these kinds of drugs, the initial shipments are just to test the water and get people hooked. Typically, production substantially ramps up once initial distribution networks are established. If that happens, we can expect to see an upswing in super-powered violent crime across the nation."

The computer switches to showing a figure twitching, restrained, in a hospital bed.

"And a corresponding increase in people suffering violent withdrawal. Lab tests show that Venom use causes enhanced strength, decreased emotional regulation, decreased empathy, and a kind of self-righteous anger that makes people prone to lashing out. High doses result in grey coloration and tears in the skin, but low doses can enhance strength without causing large visual changes to a person's appearance."

"Your mission is to identify where Venom is coming from, how it is getting into Gotham, and who is involved. The method is up to you. I recommend breaking into teams to handle financial analysis, on-the-ground investigation, and any other avenues that you can think to try. The situation isn't urgent, so you have time to plan, and to run stake-outs or other longer-term observations, but it is important, since the League is not prepared to handle a general upswing in super-strong violent crime. Finding the ultimate source is less important than your safety — take precautions against being exposed, and make sure that you have a reliable escape route when confronting any drug traffickers. Once you've identified the source, notify me so that I can check your work and decide on a follow-up mission to try and stop Venom's spread."

"Any questions?"

Hm. 

How feasible would it be to just detect large concentrations at a high distance? If there's a centralized production facility, that might be enough just on its own. As for dealing with venom... She was thinking about how difficult it would be to heal away - she could maybe do something like that with a blue light trick, actually, given what she did for wonder woman, so she can always just grab a blue light healing power again if she really needs to do something about it,  so nevermind. 

"Should we expect to run into other metahuman support or other empowerment formulas with different effects? How does the strength of venom users compare to the abilities of this team?"

The 'what are your initial leads' question can probably go unsaid. Really, she shouldn't need something like that when there's enough magic tricks she can pull - if she got access to a sample, decent odds she could get something meaningful from poking around with psychometric powers, say, and probably the supply chain is too large to be restricted to people with anti-telepathy training... She's not sure how much Miss Martian is comfortable doing that but that could probably go somewhere even if the evidence is pretty cold if they have someone to interrogate. Presumably he's judged that this is more the sort of situation that's best resolved by throwing metahuman powers at it rather than conventional detective work, else the missions would be swapped around, though she's sure that Robin will have plenty to do. 

...She'll poke him afterwards about if he wants to get into precautions more generally - this seems like the sort of thing that's too easy to start to rely completely on playing whack-a-mole on it, especially considering she's pretty sure that they haven't exactly fixed the normal problem of drugs here. 

"Excellent question. While there are other empowerment formulas — such as Velocity 9 — they are not known to be mixed with Venom or generally present in the United States at the moment. Similarly, there are no known metahumans associated with the Venom trade. So, to answer your question, yes, you should absolutely expect to run into both of those things, given our lack of relevant intel," Batman, the most prepared man in the world, replies.

"At low levels, before becoming mutagenic, Venom will give users strength on-par with Kaldur or Miss Martian when she is not using telekinetic enhancement. At the mutagenic stage, users could become as strong as Superboy. The strongest on record are a little below that level, but best not to take chances."

"What about their speed and reflexes? Super strength means they can move their limbs faster, but they probably don't have the corresponding muscle memory, right?"

"An astute observation. Yes, even if they have strength on-par with some of your team members, they will almost certainly be less coordinated and less practiced at using that strength. Unless they have spent significant time practicing under the effects of Venom, although that will have side-effects."

The gift sends an impression of a tradeoff curve between distance and sensitivity. Detecting large amounts from a mile away is doable, as is detecting trace amounts right near her skin, with the curve interpolating smoothly between those points.

A nod. That seems... useful, but not 'just cheese the whole thing' useful, and not so useful that she should just pre-emptively slot it. It sounds like the big risk in a fight would be something unexpected or being boxed in with someone with an excessive dose of venom, but that shouldn't be an automatic runaway from the start situation? And if they don't get reflexes or too much exotic superspeed it shouldn't be too hard to run.

"Venom comes with a corresponding increase in durability as well, correct? Beyond that, I think we'll just need to see any preliminary intelligence you have to start brainstorming follow up ideas in detail." 

Oh, that's a thought. 

How easy would it be to use the red / blue light to detect a signature associated emotional effects of a drug? That could be something that could help further identification, and they already have a general area to preliminarily search in Gotham... 

Actually, she might as well ask that about telepathy as well - it should be possible in principle, just depends on what's feasible, in terms of scanning an area what their plan should be...

Batman hands over a datastick full of documents, and lets the team get down to planning properly.

Miss Martian agrees that telepathy can identify particular mixes of emotion from a distance — "but I'll probably need to see an example to get a proper 'feel' for it."

Robin brings up the (limited) clinical data on Venom, and confirms that it comes with a durability boost, although not actually one that matches the strength increase. "We'll have to keep an eye out for people hurting themselves under the effects, like with hysterical strength," they point out. "That might also be a way to identify people who have used the non-mutagenic level."

She has some ideas that she'll let spill out as the discussion goes on. 

One of her ideas is trying to detect it using the lights - the biggest problem would be having a sample, though she might be able to look for something coarser, or even just a general glance over an area to try to get a sense of where angry people are concentrated, which might be an idea? She could also just get a dedicated power for it, but she's not sure how useful attempting to sweep gotham with a scanning power like that would be - the range seems like it'd be hard to get good enough coverage.

...Maybe she could make a device and just get (kid) flash to sweep the area, if she can make it responsive enough to use at his speeds? That one is a bit overly speculative, so she'll hold off on mentioning that for now. 

She asks Miss Martian if she could get an impression of it from someone not actively on the drug - she's not sure if they have anyone available either of them could take a look at for that, but it might be worth looking into even if they don't have someone fitting lying around. She could probably try to offer healing and talk to people struggling with drug problems in the usual places, but she's a little wary of practicing medicine outside of active emergencies until she's figured out more about how to not make that a terrible idea legally. Trying to follow up on some of this would probably run face first into medical confidentiality, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to get some sense of where people are getting those injuries and getting a chance to talk with them? She's a little uncomfortable at the idea, though. 

Trying to just do a big scrying ritual for concentrations of venom is an idea, but probably not one the team can execute on in the immediate future. And of course it's not impossible that the places they're looking for are resistant to approaches like that. 

Trying to track down the supply chain just out of an ingredient list is... maybe something to consider? She knows that a lot of manufacturing can end up being really concentrated in a few places, and trying to track down those bottleneck places and see if there's anyone diverting supply or if there are suspicious purchases could work? She doesn't have enough chemical knowledge to know how hard it is to get the precursors or how involved the process of creation would be, but that's maybe a direction worth trying to look into? 

They should probably look into the patterns of the people getting it, see if they can get anything from that, or just try to follow the links traditionally up the chain from people getting it on the street to various distributor levels, that sort of thing. That's... probably not their area of comparative expertise, though Miss Martian and Robin can of course make a go at it. 

"Hmm. Yeah, I could get an impression off of someone who had used it previously. How likely are we to find someone who used Venom and regrets it and would be willing to let me pick the impression up off of them?"

"More likely than you'd think — people coming off of uppers, which I think Venom counts as, often have a depressive and self-recriminating phase. And yeah, canvassing a whole city with a limited detection-range like that is doable, but it's not what I'd want to do first. Maybe if Robin can narrow things down to a handful of areas by analyzing other clues."

Robin taps their chin.

"Kaldur, does Atlantean spell-casting include any kind of divination or dowsing?"

"Yes, of course. We even learned basic map-divination as part of basic training, but it's no use in investigations like this because even very basic wards interfere. It's more useful tracking magic sources cross-country than in a densely populated city, where there are probably thousands of active spells at any given time."