The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[Superman1496]

Bruce laughed as he started up the pick-up, and headed down the road. Well Pete, it's ok, I don't just drive for anyone. Bruce said. They headed towards the access road, Bruce occasionally looking in the mirror.

The truck didn't have a rear-view mirror, just the side ones. Bruce kinda laughed to himself.

'Benz one minute, goat truck the next.' He thought to himself.

So you and Chloe must be really good friends then? Bruce asked after a while. He didn't look at Pete, he just checked his mirror again.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

It was probably for the best that Bruce had not been looking at Pete.

Pete was getting better, truly, at keeping his face detached from his feelings. But he wasn't perfect at it by far.

He, too, did his level best to eye the wing mirror and check for pursuers, and to keep his voice even.

"Yeah," he replied eventually. "We've known each other like forever. I used to hang out with this guy Greg, we used to chase bugs together at the ol' Creekside Foundry? But he turned into a real buttmunch when puberty hit, and this one time he got me slapped with detention because he left a bunch of his favourite breed o' mealworms in my lunchbox and they got out and girls started screamin'...

"Bad scene," he lamented. "But at least? For detention they made me help this gal Xerox all the pages for the middle school paper. And that was Chloe. We been buds ever since. I didn't get int' th' Journalism thing 'till last year, but I think I'm startin' ta get th' hang of it.

"'Sides, she gets inta all kinds of scrapes," Pete chuckled with genuine bemusement, shaking his head and then glancing back across at Bruce. "And always? It comes down to this bad-ass black guy bailing her out. Always remember that. Even when you get back to Gotham, right? Always have a bad-ass black guy getting your back."

 

[Superman1496]

The akward feeling was cut short by Pete's words. Bruce laughed a bit.

Well Pete, I think that Chloe is very lucky to have a friend like you. And when I get back to Gotham, maybe I'll do just that. Bruce said, looking back at the road.

Hell, maybe I'll just give you a call up. You wouldn't mind working for Wayne Enterprises, would you? Be a top guy? Bruce joked, laughing.

A bad-ass black guy. Kinda reminded him of Lucius Fox back in Gotham. Great guy.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

"Tch," Pete snorted, but he didn't seem entirely disillusioned by the notion as he leaned back against the headrest and stared at the ceiling. "Yeah, wouldn't that just kick ass? You could make me Vice President of some sorta... crap. Ma always wanted me to be a lawyer, maybe I could helm your legal department."

Pete paused, and mused, and arched an eyebrow at Bruce.

"You guys don't make cars, do ya?"

He shook his head, and he scratched his chin with one hand.

"Nawh, nawh," he muttered. "Real estate, got it."

Pete pointed ahead of them. "So, rather than just go over this at the time," he mused, "when ya get off the Loeb Bridge, you're gonna want to take a right on Elm, and that'll take you to Miller's Walk. Head down the Walk for like ten, fifteen minutes (depending on th' weight of your foot). On your right? Miller's Field. On the left side of the road'll be Kawatche land, and that's where Miller's Bend'll be."

 

[AmenRa]

John Smith took Route 16 off the interstate and into Lowell County. He turned off Route 16 onto a short residential-type roadway that bordered a Native American property.

He turned from this street onto Miller's Walk.

He carried information he considered vital for Chloe.

But before he presented it to her, he wanted to have one more look at the paintings on the cave walls. If he missed anything, her work would be useless and his would be disastrous.

But if he was correct, if the locations of the pieces of the crystal were written on the cave walls, then two things would unfold:

The identity of "Numan" would be revealed - the Chosen One.

Var-Sen would once again walk the Earth as a true Kryptonian.

 

[Superman1496]

Well Pete, I'll think about the cars. Bruce said. Then he got a smile on his face.

Well, do you want to see how heavy my foot can be? Bruce asked as his foot began to inch closer to the floor board.

Let's see what this baby can do. Bruce exclaimed as they accelerated. But the noise the truck made was a little nerve-wrecking. Or, rather, what this baby can'tdo.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete made a face, as if admiring the truck's attempt to obey it's driver's command, despite knowing full well it's own limitations. Like, hm, The Little Engine that Couldn't And Knew it But Made a Damned Good Effort.

"Heh," Pete grunted. "Yeah, let's just say that speedometer needle don't go all the way 'round, right? But the odometer has. (Gone 'round a couple times, I'd guess.) No lil' red button 'neath the dashboard in this mean machine."

He blinked as a road-sign flitted by, and his eyes widened considerably. "Woah, chill," he cautioned. "Main Street speed trap's comin' up!"

 

[AmenRa]

As Var-Sen, or John Smith, Ph.D., drove his black BMW X5 around the curvy road known as Miller's Bend, his ears picked up a distinctive sound from overhead.

Looking up out of the SUV's window, he saw a blue and white Bell 206L3 cross overhead. He didn't need the eyes of a Kryptonian to read "LuthorCorp" painted across the helicopter's fuselage.

He felt his cheeks redden with anger. Lionel Luthor was headed to the Kawatche Cave.

Why?

He had given up his search for The Artifact. At least, this is what he had promised Var-Sen.

If he had lied, then he would pay a heavy price for his treachery.

 

[Superman1496]

Pete was right. Bruce slowed the truck down, and the poor thing went back to normal. Or, as normal as it could get.

A few minutes later, Bruce came up to the caves. He parked further down the road, just in case someone was going to look for them. You don't mind walking a little bit, do you? Bruce asked Pete as he pulled the truck over to the side of the road.

Bruce got out of the truck, locked it, and headed back towardst he caves. If he wasn't going to be in school, he might as well do something meaningful. Maybe he could find something useful.

He still didn't know why Ducard sent him there in the first place. And he wanted to know why.

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen stopped his car near the entrance to the cave. Lionel Luthor's helicopter had already landed, and he could hear the turbine engine spooling down. He saw Lionel get out of the chopper.

Var-Sen looked to the cave entrance. It had been roped off with yellow rope, and signs proclaiming "NO ENTRY" and "LUTHORCORP PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING" adorned the cave mouth.

Var-Sen walked up to the signs and his fists balled.

Lionel Luthor saw John Smith and walked up to him with a smile.

The smile was not returned.

"What is the meaning of this, Lionel Luthor?" Var-Sen asked.

"Consider it a gift," Luthor answered, his voice considerably low to avoid attraction from the LuthorCorp workers near them. "This place obviously has some value to your people, as well as to the Kawatche."

Var-Sen's eyes were as cold as space as he spoke, "You know not of what you speak."

"That may be true," Lionel answered, "but neither does my son. And the best way to keep things where they belong is to put them in the open."

"You speak of duplicity and lies," Var-Sen stated. "You suggest that you can avoid any connection between this site and non-human species by hiding it in plain sight?"

Lionel nodded his head. "Exactly," he answered. "You're just going to have to trust me on this. I only want what is in your best interests."

Var-Sen's answer was a low and sincere warning. "Cross me, Lionel Luthor, and I will exact a heavy price from you."

Lionel didn't answer. He didn't need to. He didn't know enough about John Smith to understand what the alien was capable of. He didn't need to know, either.

Lionel gestured to the cave entrance.

"After you," Var-Sen said.

 

[Superman1496]

Bruce pulled Pete to the ground when the cave came into view.

Pete, why is Mr. Smith walking into the caves with someone from Luthor Corp.? Bruce asked. It wasn't Lex, not Lex, but obviously someone important. The helicopter hadn't been there when they drove past the first time.

Should we go in? Bruce asked Pete as he started to get up again.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete had been shaking his head at the helicopter. At the presence of the helicopter.

Look at me, he grunted. I'm freaking ESP McGee. I knew there was gonna be a chopper. I freakin' knew it. All right, Bruce, get back in the truck, get in the back, I'll drive, we'll hit Route 16 and drive it real slow, call me "A.C."

Bruce shoved him down to the ground, and he hit with a grunt, and he laughed ever so faintly.

He propped himself up on his elbow and watched Johnny Cash vanish into The Caves with... with yet another man in black.

And this fella... he had that big long black hair out to everywhere, the antithesis of his bald-ass son.

Pete Ross knew well that big ol' mane of hair.

He snarled softly, shook his head. "That ain't just anyone from Luthorcorp," he seethed softly, as Bruce stood, and he followed. "That guy is Luthorcorp. Man, that's Lionel Luthor. That guy bought up my family's creamed corn plant, fired everybody there, and turned it into some crap factory. Fertiliser, right? He is colder than the coldest ice and trickier than Richard Nixon. I bet he was The Devil in a past life, I would not be surprised."

Pete shook his head, and without a word suggesting otherwise he skulked towards the mouth of the cave.

"I never did 'zactly trust this Professor Smith," he grimaced. "Now we got one less reason to trust him. One less big reason."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen looked around the cave's interior. Already, machines and technology had been set up inside. There were laser-line scanners, mass spectrometers, magnetic resonance imaging machines. Var-Sen wrinkled his nose in frustration.

Primitive technology.

Human technology.

What did they hope to find? Did the Luthors fully believe they could unlock the secrets of the cave when he himself, a Kryptonian, did not even know?

Vanity. Pride. Foolish human arrogance.

"They began early today," Lionel told him. "And already they have found something."

Oh really? They discovered Earth was round and not flat? Var-Sen kept his mouth closed and did not utter his thoughts. He followed Lionel to an MRI printout.

"There's a hollow cavern beyond that wall," Lionel said, pointing to a rock wall painted with Kryptonian and Kawatche glyphs. In the center of the circle of writings was the key hole he had found earlier. "We believe it is another room, but we don't know how to open it."

Var-Sen said nothing. He only stared passively at Lionel Luthor.

"Do you know how to open it?" Lionel asked.

"No," the Kryptonian replied, "I do not."

Var-Sen walked around the cavern for a moment, examining the things LuthorCorp had invaded its sanctity with. Professor Holdsclaw would seek to stop this. Var-Sen would contact him immediately, if he didn't already know.
He then stepped back over to Lionel, and spoke to him in a low, threatening
voice.

"There are things in here not meant for humans, Lionel Luthor. There are things in here not meant for you. Humans have tried to find what you seek for many, many years."

"They tried and failed," Lionel stated.

"They tried and died," Var-Sen reminded him. "Mark me well, Lionel Luthor. This place is protected by powers beyond what your frail mind can comprehend. The prophecy shall soon be fulfilled.

"Know this now: leave this place untouched, as well as those who visit here to view history as it was written on these walls. Should any harm come to an innocent, the one who brings it shall answer to me."

Var-Sen turned on his heel and left, heading out of the cave.

Lionel Luthor watched him go. Regardless of John Smith's warnings, Lionel knew he had to keep this place secret from the most dangerous person of them all:

Lex Luthor.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Chloe (and Mikey)

Chloe stood in the boy's locker room, gazing out the big double doors at the football field outside. The Testosterone Elite got this view every time they ran out into the bellow of the crowd and the calls of the cheerleaders and the adulation of a society obsessed with physical prowess.

And for the halftime show, she decided, dourly, we can bring out some tigers or lions or something and feed them some helpless Judeo-Christian monotheists.

Stupid.

Civilisations pretend they've improved but on the underside of things we're just the same, Chloe ranted inwardly, and shook her head. Our priorities haven't changed one iota.

She sank to one knee, and she hooked one of the sliced links of the chain on a pen and she scrunched her eyes up at it.

She flashed back a bit.

Michael from The A/V had been wheeled out of there on a stretcher, a little delirious. He had been... ranting. He'd seen a monster in the locker-room. In this locker-room. By these doors.

Her initial scientific dubiousness and scepticism had flared to life because this was Michael, after all, the kid who had figured out how to play D&D in iambic pentametre because he'd gotten bored of LARPing World of Warcraft. He was highly imaginative. Granted, that had made some of his TV Production class projects like, Oscar-worthy short films, but he didn't entirely have his brain on this side of The Rod Serling Zone.

But, as per due diligence, she'd had a look in here anyway.

'"Some, they call me Abaddon,"' Michael had whispered, in that invariable voice he used when he was quoting something, Dungeon Master-style. '"Some, they call me Krop Tor. Some, they call me Satan, or Lucifer."'

Chloe let the loop of chain clink back to the floor. She rose to her feet.

Sure, forensic analysis would be better. But at first glance it didn't look like a chain-cutter or a fire-axe had done this damage. The cut was too clean, for one thing. Razory-smooth.

She'd heard of blades that could do this sort of thing. Honed real sharp. Maybe coated with that space-age Lubrilon stuff.

'I didn't get a look at his face,' Michael had whispered, desperately, grabbing Chloe's forearm as she walked along beside the wheeled-out stretcher, 'not directly. That's probably the only reason I'm still alive. He's probably like a Gorgon or a Cockatrice or a Basilisk or something and he would have petrified me to look upon his countenance. But his eyes were glowy and they reflected in the door. They were... they were the colour of blacklights, or-or-or the stuff that glows under blacklights. He had a crown of bony extrusions around his head, like his endoskeleton was partly exoskeletal. And he hid his passage into the brightness of the outside world in a veil of blackness that he summoned from the aether.'

He'd leaned his head back, and his jaw had worked.

'It was all a dream,' he had whispered, 'it had to be. I saw Ray Charles go in there. Kyle. Kyle Matthews. I saw him go in there. But he disappeared, the way that people disappear in dreams. There and gone again.'

Chloe stood in the doorway, and took a few strides out onto the run up to the field.

She crossed one arm over her stomach and bounced the pen against her chin.

Her memory was nearly eidetic. Not perfect, but nearly.

And she'd glanced over the morning's copy of The Metropolis Observer while she'd been milling about before Professor Smith showed up and threw her galaxy for a loop.

Vigilante justice and apparent parahuman activity had been the order of the day in the City section.

She particularly enjoyed, upon reflection, the part where "'The shadows came alive and attacked us!'"

And where "...the entire area went black."

She turned, and squinted down at the chains, and she twirled her pen in her fingers like Alan Cumming in "GoldenEye."

"'Three weapons were found, with the advanced technology gun cut to pieces with what looked to be a sharp object,'" the Unidentified Police Source had claimed.

Suddenly, she really really wanted to see the cuts on that gun, to see if they matched the cuts on these chains. She shook her head.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, Chloe, she berated herself. Why would this... this so-called Wraith have any interest at all in the goings-on of a high school three hours north of his usual hang-out?

But then again... there were crazy goings-on here today. Mass hysteria. Could he have caused it somehow just by virtue of his presence? Or was he here to... stop it?

Michael said he saw Kyle, Chloe murmured silently. Maybe Kyle saw something, too?

Rose walked into view, combing her fingers through red hair now unbound from the braid.

Chloe beckoned her over. "Careful not to slip in the puddle of urine," she suggested. "I think it's Michael's, even though he didn't exactly include piddling down his leg in his official report."

"Erm," Rose winced, making a face, and stepped around the aforementioned puddle. "Ewh."

Rose walked up, but she seemed to shiver slightly as she passed through the space of the door. Cross-breeze maybe?

But there was a weird sort of recognition on her face.

Chloe arched an eyebrow. "You okay?" she wondered. "You're not going hypothermic on me, too, are you?"

Rose shook her head. "Residual effect," she suggested, "from the cold water? I hope I don't get pneumonia and die like... like William Henry Harrison or something."

Chloe looked her up and down. "You dried off pretty fast. What, even your shirt and jeans?"

Rose grinned softly, nodded, apparently proud of her ingenuity. "I used the hand dryer from the girl's locker room in concert with a blow-dryer somebody left in their locker. One of those Chi Ionic ones that my mom uses at work, really powerful. (Probably belongs to one of The Pom-Pom Parade... anyone else'd be too pragmatic to leave that sort of thing in an unlocked locker.) My shoes are still soggy, but that's cool."

Chloe smirked softly, impressed. "Wish I'd thought of that. My clothes are still hang-drying in the window at The Torch."

She paused. "Lord, I hope some pervy upperclassman doesn't steal them."

Rose knocked one of the chain-links with her toe, a gesture unintentionally evocative of Pete Ross.

Chloe looked at her, askance, eyebrows bunched. "Have you seen Kyle at all? I didn't see him outside when we were doing the head-count."

Rose shook her head softly.

"He said he wanted to talk to the principal," she murmured. "I dunno if he got the chance, since Mister Jamison got screwloose on the lunch-line. (And here I thought people got pissy at The DMV.)"

Chloe nodded. Kyle was missing.

The Wraith had made an appearance, apparently.

Chloe kept her thoughts to herself.

Absent-mindedly, she texted her phone number to Bruce's cell.

And she kept her thoughts to herself.

Rose began braiding her hair again.

 

[AmenRa]

Smith exited the cave into the field. As his pupils contracted in response to the glare from the yellow sun, his eyes caught movement near the direction of the road.

Two figures appeared to be hiding.

Watching.

Interesting...

 

[Superman1496]

Bruce and Pete laid in the grass across the way from the cave entrance. They waited for a while, trying to figure out what to do next.

Bruce's phone vibrated, signaling a text message. 'Well, it's either Alfred, or Chloe. No one else has my number.' Bruce thought.

John Smith walked out of the caves, and he didn't look happy. Bruce watched him walk out. But then he stopped.

Shit, he see's us, doesn't he? Bruce whispered to Pete, not taking his eyes off of Smith.

So, Mr. Smith, what are you doing in the Kawatchi caves with Mr. Luthor? Bruce asked quietly as he stood up, knowing that there was no point in pretending he was ok.

Bruce walked over to Smith. Funny we should keep running into each other here, don't you think? Bruce said, his voice deeper and more serious.

Something wasn't right here.

 

[Ithica]

Selena held her breath until she was safely outside and lost in the crowd. The teacher's outside were starting to reasserted order. This was a good thing because some of the parents were starting to show up after being tipped off by either the reporters or the emergency vehicles.

It didn’t take long for her aunt to show up and, after Selena’s teacher said she could go, she followed her back to the truck. Selena gave a brief run down of what happened but kept everything vague. Her aunt muttered some thing about incompetent teachers and walked around to the driver’s side.

Selena shook some of the water from her hair before putting her bone-dry backpack in the back. She hopped into the truck as her aunt said, “We’ll have to run home and get a change of clothes for you before you go to work.”

 

[AmenRa]

John Smith looked directly at Bruce with a blank expression. He then cut his eyes to Pete Ross, and then looked back to Bruce.

He listened to the question Bruce had asked. What, indeed, was he doing in the cave with Lionel Luthor?

Oh, Bruce, I was explaining to Lionel Luthor how his tampering with Kryptonian artifacts could very well bring about the destruction of Earth.

But, instead he answered, "I was setting some things straight. I'm about to leave for an extended trip overseas, and I wanted to take a look at the cave writings before I left. Why are you here?"

He looked at Pete again. Something had happened. He could read it in their faces. Why else would they be here?

"Perhaps some research for our intrepid reporter?" Smith postulated. "No, she's not the type to send someone to do her work for her. Well, then perhaps you two are visiting LuthorCorp's newly acquired historical landmark. I understand they intend to open it up for tours."

He had no doubt his sarcasm would not be lost on the youths. He liked Bruce Wayne, and not just because his father was one of the greatest men Earth had ever known. And he liked Pete Ross, as well, simply because he was friends with Chloe Sullivan. And that, by default, made him acceptable. He trusted Chloe, which was beyond any explainable instinct, but he trusted her nonetheless.

He started to walk away, but stopped and turned once again to face the two.

"I am on my way to see our dear reporter," he told them. "What should I be expecting when I arrive?"

 

[AmenRa]

Krypton - 1,000 years ago

Zor-El stood on the balcony ledge of crystal and rock that ringed his laboratory and gazed down at the city below. Kryptonopolis shown with its usual irridescence as its citizens, oblivious to their fate, scurried about with their daily lives.

He had predicted the end within the next seventy-two hours.

Zor-El was never wrong. The damage done to the power crystals could not be reversed. The virus that had taken over and re-written the code of the Brain InterActive Construct could not be reverse-engineered.

Krypton was doomed, and that was the finality of it.

A tall, muscular, and green-tinted alien stepped up behind Zor-El. His cape swirled around him and came to rest as he folded his arms across his chest.

"It is done," the alien said, "Nam-Ek and Aethyr have been confined to outpost Zeta-1 as per your instructions. A security team will move them to the Council Chambers when you reconvene."

Zor-El turned to look up at his friend. "I wish there would be time to try them and sentence them to the same fate as their leader," he stated, shaking his head. "But I am afraid time is something we no longer have the luxury of, my friend."

The green-skinned alien's eyes flared red for an instant, and he nodded his head.

"You have served this world unselfishly and with great honor, my friend," Zor-El said, reaching up to place a hand on the taller one's shoulder. "I would ask one more favor of you."

"You have but to ask," came the reply.

"You know of my plan to send my daughter to Earth before the end," Zor-El stated and saw a nod of confirmation. "I would ask that you go there and watch over her until she is ready to fulfill her destiny."

"I will watch over her from afar until her time is at hand," he replied.

Zor-El gave a bow of respect and thanks. "I could not give her a greater gift than you, J'onn J'onzz."

The reply was quiet and sorrowful. "We shall be the last of our great worlds, Zor-El. I will see that Kara carries on the honor and strength of her family, as I do mine."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete had done a very good job of keeping his animus bottled lately.

But there were certain things that robbed Pete of his dispassionate reserve. Threats to Chloe, for one thing. Dudes who climbed into proverbial bed with Lionel Luthor, for another. Arrogant ass-faces for another.

And right now?

Professor John Smith was all three of those things in Pete's eyes and the bottle in which he kept his animus broke wide, wide open. He strode away from Bruce and got all up in Smith's grill.

"You can expect?" he growled softly, his eyes bitterly aflame: "You can expect to find a lot of kids displaced an' hurt an' confused because Smallville High has had a Helluva day. You can expect to tell Chloe exactly what your stupid damn run-around game is before you make her completely crazy with your freakin' goat-crap. You can expect her to smell the reek of Lionel Luthor on you from like thirty paces and drop you like a rock."

He poked a finger into John Smith's chest.

(He blinked, momentarily, because the dude was solid. Like some sorta man of steel. Almost hurt his finger.

...but he recovered quickly.)

Pete's voice got low, and it got hard, and his eyes got even harder.

"You can expect me to bring the noise all up and down your ass," he seethed, "if a) you harm one hair on 'our dear reporter's' head, or b) you fracture even a cubic millimetre of 'our dear reporter's' heart. Your call, Tin Man. Your call."

 

[AmenRa]

John Smith listened to Pete Ross rant, and he watched with interest as the boy reached out and poked him in the chest.

Smith realized Ross cared a great deal for Chloe Sullivan, and he was defending the girl's honor with everything he had. The Kryptonian was impressed.

"They are a great people....they wish to be. They only need the light to show them the way."

He reached out from his pocket and handed Bruce a Central Kansas University business card which had his office numbers and email addresses.

"Your warning has been duly noted, Mr. Ross," he said to Pete, "it is plain to see you don't trust anyone. That is a very wise decision, and I don't trust anyone, either. And since you are so eager to champion a cause, how about being a Defender of History? Contact Professor Holdsclaw at CKU and let him know that the Luthors have moved into the cave. A certain 'dear reporter's' assistance, along with Holdsclaw's intervention, may bring the subject to light in such a way as to have them removed."

Then, to Bruce, "my contact numbers are on that card. I will receive automatic notices of email and office voice mails. Keep ever vigilant and maintain your circle of friends closely.

"All will be revealed to you in time."

And with that, John Smith left the two standing by themselves.

 

[Superman1496]

Bruce stood there, holding Smith's card as he walked away. He didn't know what to do. Inside, he was smiling because of Pete. Gutsy kid alright.

But Bruce put the card in his pocket, and returned to facing the cave. He had never met Lionel Luthor. He had actually never really met someone who was like his father. In business aspects of course.

Well Pete, I admire your aspiration. I really do. But I don't know how Mr. Luthor is going to take it. He might be a little less amusing then Mr. Smith. Bruce said, not looking back at Pete.

But, instead of asking the messanger, why don't we ask the big bad wolf himself why he has made this cave his own personal laboratory. Bruce said as he started walking inside.

His stomach turned a little bit as he got closer, but he knew to control his nerves. He knew the billionare businessmen. Animals. They could smell fear in an intimidating high school teenager easily.

But Bruce Wayne wasn't just a normal teenage highschooler. He was, as a matter of fact, one of those animals. 'Well, much younger, but still, he thought, same basic construct. Right?'

 

[ChasNicollette]

Emil (and Meyer & Boyajian)

Whuuuh-DEEP.

A few feet from where Emil Hamilton sat in a lab on Level Three, a centrifuge spun to a stop.

He ignored it. Boyajian had damaged his arm, and he was fixing it. It was taking a great deal of his attention to do so, and he decided to not be distracted by trifling things.

The plasticore-titanium housing that contained the systems of his arm had required a few judicious flexes and twists to pop back into shape. The servos and such had been a more intricate task. He had adapted a microsurgical kit to his purposes, and was using a pair of magnifying goggles to do some of the more careful work.

The phone on the wall started to ring. And ring. And ring.

He ignored it.

By the time the fifth ring rang in the room, he cinched shut the access panel on his wrist, wriggled his fingers, and nodded.

"Not bad work," he murmured, smiling ever so distantly as he shed the goggles, "if I do say so myself."

The phone rang for the ninth time, and he kicked off of the workbench at which he sat, sending his wheeled desk chair rolling across the room...

The tenth ring died as he plucked the phone from the cradle and put it to his ear.

"Hamilton," he acknowledged, crisply.

"Doctor?" queried Mary, one of those pretty little receptionists down at the front desk. "There's a courier here from Metropolis to see you. Says you requested all urgency?"

Doctor Hamilton smiled ever so faintly, ever so distantly.

"Page Mr. Meyer, would you?" he suggested.

"I've sent him on an errand down 'round your end of the building, he can sign for it. Imply that Meyer should not drag his feet, hmm?"

Mary's reply was dutiful and eager-to-please: "Of course, Doctor," she agreed. "Right away, Doctor."

"Much obliged, dear," Emil drawled, and hung up the phone.

He sat there for a moment, fingers steepled. He ran his tongue over his lips.

He stood, and hummed Ravel's "Bolero" to himself as he wandered over to the centrifuge. He put one hand in a pocket, and with the other hand, his human hand, he scratched at the stubble on his chin. He seemed inordinately pleased with himself.

Beside the centrifuge on that particular table sat a tray of half-a-dozen phials, each of which contained a tiny patch of the verdant mist that Randal Graves had become. Each of which contained a sample.

But he'd already performed one miracle, early that morning, and he could repeat that miracle 'till the proverbial bovines wandered back to their domicile and still not solve the greater problem.

If he kept switching patches of meteor-rock fog into bodily fluids, well, he'd just have a frightening number of phials full of bodily fluids, and that would be a rather embarrassing thing to have in one's refrigerator, wouldn't it? Besides which, he couldn't exactly throw the whole array in a blender, mix it all up, bake it in a kiln, and then expect it to come out as a human, well, could he?

"Humpty Dumpty," he muttered.

The phone rang again, and with that one hand still in his pocket he wandered back over to the phone, and retrieved the phone once more from the hook.

"Hamilton," he prompted, eyes half-lidded.

"Uh," Meyer muttered, sounding stymied, "Doc? Did you order a 500-pound package delivered from a secure storage place in Metropolis?"

"Mmhmm," Emil nodded briskly, that smile never leaving his face. "If you have to enlist Mr. Boyajian to help you, I completely understand, he's a big strapping fellow, eh? You might have to use the service elevator. Bring it to the lab where the accident took place, would you?"

Silence came from the other end for a long moment, then:

"Right," Meyer grunted, and hung up.

Emil arched his eyebrows, shook his head.

He hung up his own end of the phone, and fished in his pocket for the original phial. He held it up to the light, tapping it with a finger and the blood therein rippled slightly.

He glanced up at the ceiling. "Randal," he murmured softly, "I'm fairly certain you can hear me? Let's go for a walk."

He tucked the phial back away again, back into the pocket of his shirt.

Emil left the lab, locked it behind him, and took his time walking down the halls of Level Three.

He whistled to himself. Mozart's "Jupiter Symphony."

He stopped in the coat room, eyed a few shirts and trousers, even a tie. A pair of socks, a pair of shoes.

Without bothering to seek permission from them to whom these items belonged, he measured them against himself, did a bit of math in his head, and selected that which met his criteria. He left the rest of it in a heap on the coat room floor.

He paused for a long moment at the coffee station, helped himself to an espresso, flirted with an appreciably leggy female lab tech, and then went on his merry way.

Minutes later, he walked into the lab in which Randal had met his terrible fate.

Next to the infusion chamber-- even with his oft-mordant sense of humour, Emil refused to refer to this as a gas chamber --the crate from S.T.A.R.Labs' castoffs storage facility sat, ominous, as yet unmolested. It stood nine feet tall, five feet wide and five feet across.

Meyer and Boyajian sat on the floor on either side of it, looking not unreasonably exhausted. Meyer looked like he had just run a Marathon, and was holding his back. Boyajian looked a tiny bit red in the face.

Emil draped his selected garments over the back of a chair and nodded calmly to the two of them. "Thank you, gentlemen. That was quite prompt."

"You're welcome," Boyajian nodded easily.

Meyer was a little less polite. "You wanna tell me what the Hell this thing is?"

Emil tsked softly. "O ye of little patience."

Meyer scowled. "O me of lotsa back pain."

Emil chuckled, though not kindly. "Fair enough."

Without a word of explanation, explication, or exposition, he strode right up to the crate, dug in his metal fingers, and tore open the crate. He needed no crowbar, no screwdriver, no lever... his hand was not exceptionally strong. But there were benefits to being part machine.

The wood crumpled apart with a crack, and chunks of the crate fell away, whisper-thin bundles of packing material spilling everywhere.

Unflinchingly, Emil began digging through the packing stuff to reveal the thing that lay beneath. A cylinder.

A green-glass cylindrical semi-enclosure with an open doorway, with a perfectly square metallic base and a matching topper.

Meyer and Boyajian stood behind Emil and frowned past him at the cylinder.

"I don't get it," Boyajian commented, his face a rather adorably befuddled mess of knots.

Emil's lip twitched, his eyes still half-lidded.

"Nor should you, I suppose," he admitted. "It's still a prototype. Only one of its kind. We put it mothballs because we couldn't get it to function properly. Some basic incontrovertible law of Physics kept gumming up the works."

Meyer's curiosity was finally starting to over-ride his embitterment: "Which law?"

Emil glanced over his shoulder at Meyer: "Heisenberg."

Meyer nodded. "Heisenberg."

Boyajian scratched his head. "Heisenberg?"

Emil glanced over his shoulder at Boyajian: "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle dictates that we cannot know both the velocity and the location of a subatomic particle simultaneously at any given moment. You can know one or the other, surely. But not both."

"Ah," Boyajian nodded knowingly for a moment.

But then he shook his head. "No," he confessed, "no, I still don't get it."

Emil reached out with his metal fingers and ran those over the surface of the glass cylinder. "This," he said, with no small theatrical relish, "is an ambient matter teleporter. According to theory, it employs a rare but naturally-occurring phenomenon called 'folded space' to..."

He trailed off, and shook his head.

"Well, that's immaterial, really," he corrected himself. "Because it doesn't work, not really. Because anything we try to teleport through this thing gets lost in translation. The military was rather put out with us when we couldn't get it right. All these little molecules flitting about, we lose track of all of them because when we try to track their velocities we lose their locations, when we try to pinpoint their locations we lose track of their velocities. Migraine-inducing. Lost a lot of perfectly well-mannered albino mice. We created the most powerful molecular tracking system in existence but it still couldn't keep up with even the simplest solid objects."

"Hm," Boyajian grunted. "Mike Teavee."

Emil nodded, distracted but moderately impressed. "Roald Dahl. Yes. Very good."

Meyer patted Boyajian encouragingly on the shoulder.

Emil knelt by the metallic base, started flipping switches and making adjustments.

"But this was the only problem," he continued, striking up the band once more. "This Heisenberg trouble. The rest of the machine works perfectly. The ambient matter reserve in the base even can even fill in the blanks of any material lost, provided a certain percentage of the subject makes it through. Hopefully, someday in the distant future, some descendant of mine will invent a kind of... Heisenberg Compensator, make the leap, bridge the gap. However, fortunately for us...?"

Emil flipped a toggle, and the cylinder surged to life, glowing turquoise in the dim light of the lab.

"...we don't have to wait until the distant future," Emil finished with a flourish, made a final adjustment, and rose to his feet.

Meyer's face, this time, was the one that had screwed itself up. "You've circumnavigated The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?"

"No, no, no, no," Emil snorted, "of course not."

Emil went around to the back of the cylinder, reached up and tapped a key, and a compartment opened. He withdrew the phial of blood from his pocket, and he set it neatly into the compartment, after which the compartment closed up again.

"Randal Graves has circumnavigated The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle," Emil pointed out with no small triumph, stepping back out from behind the cylinder. "His own properties, his own existence, his own ability to juggle his gaseous particles is proof that he is conscious of both the location and the velocity of his every subatomic component at any given instant. I don't need to keep track of him. He can keep track of himself. (I discussed this tidbit with him yesterday.)"

Meyer and Boyajian looked at each other, agape. Meyer slapped himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand.

Emil strode over to the infusion chamber and stepped inside.

He continued making adjustments, both to the vent system and to the light sources.

He then stepped back out into the lab itself, brushing an eyebrow with the backs of his metal fingers. With a human thumb, he gestured to the infusion chamber behind him.

"This is the blender," he declared, and then pointed to the teleporter, "and this is the kiln."

Boyajian blinked, but bit his lip so as not to repeat unnecessarily his inability to understand.

Fortunately, Emil continued: "I managed to resurrect bits and pieces of Mr. Graves by adapting local factors," he explained. "Which is to say, as you fellows added meteor rock energy to mustard gas, I have added meteor rock energy to mustard gas treatments, particularly oxidising and chlorinating agents. But now, instead of resurrecting fragments of him, I'll be throwing him all back together at once.

"Now," he said, wandering over to the feed tubes for the vent system, "I know what you're thinking, I know what you're going to ask: 'But, Doctor Hamilton, if you reconvert him all at once won't all his globules and fragments be discombobulated and improperly placed, like a ship-in-a-bottle constructed by a blind man?'"

Emil curled a lip. "Well," he lamented, "you're quite right to think so. However?"

He walked back over to the teleporter and patted it lovingly.

"If," he mused, "we teleport our man Randal with this marvelous machine, its scanning imagers having very recently received a genetic template based on Randal's previously reconstituted blood, its teleportation effects will combine with Randal's awareness of his subatomic structure, and it and he will be able to reassemble him atom by atom precisely as his lovely wife and well-bred daughter remember him. Whatever matter he's lost to sampling will be resupplied by the ambient matter batteries."

Emil returned to the door of the infusion chamber and stood beside it patiently.

"Are you cognisant, Randal?" he wondered almost amiably. "I need you in the scary box, please. I'll give you to the count of... hm. Ten?"

He waited exactly ten seconds and then pushed the door shut.

He strode over to the control panel for the infusion chamber, and flipped a couple of switches, and the vent fan began whirling insistently. The green light went on, and the chamber quickly flooded with the oxidising/chlorinating agents and meteor rock particles...

"You had better get good and angry, Randal," Emil murmured, an unreadable glint in his eyes. "You're going to need all the strength you can get. Because this is going to be... excruciating."

Meyer and Boyajian took a step back.

They both looked very pale in the eerie green light.

Emil smiled softly, oh, so softly. And then he returned to the teleporter.

He pressed a pedal down at the side of it, and it whined to life... reaching out with its energies and grabbing hold of Randal Graves even as he resolidified within the infusion chamber, grabbing hold of him and dragging him into the teleporter's booth, shimmering him into place.

Lungs formed. A mouth. A throat. A face.

The turquoise of the booth glowed brighter, brighter, brighter, a small blue-green sun.

The lights of the lab flickered dangerously.

Emil's lip twitched. His eyes glinted unreadably.

Because as soon as he was solid enough, Randal Graves started screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming...

Bloodcurdling. The howl of the damned.

It seemed to take forever...

...but about thirty seconds later, Randal Graves, intact as he could ever be, materialised on the floor of the teleporter booth.

He was naked and he was sweating and he was crying, but he was human again. He was human again.

Without batting an eyelid, Emil retrieved the clothes he had stolen from the coat room from the back of the chair on which he had left them, and he tossed them in a bundle against Randal's trembling form.

Emil smiled softly. "Take a moment to... collect yourself," he suggested, eyes glinting unreadably. "And then get dressed. Your adoring public awaits, does it not?"

Emil half-turned and smiled thinly at Meyer and Boyajian.

"One of you lads be a chap and fetch Mister Lex Luthor, would you?" he suggested. "I want our boss to be here when I shake Randal's human hand."

Meyer and Boyajian stood there, looking stricken.

Meyer turned, and practically fled to find the nearest phone.

Boyajian shook his head slowly, incredulous: "Holy shit."

"Indeed," Emil nodded, and put his hands in his pockets.

A ways down the hall, six phials of living meteor-rock mist glowed softly, and the phials rattled inexplicably, though only for a moment.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete Ross took a minute to breathe as John Smith walked out of sight.

He took a minute to breathe. He put his hands on his knees and he bent over a little bit and he breathed.

He shook his head. Maybe I should've asked Smith there if he had a paper bag I could hyperventilate into.

Pete stood there for a moment half-bent, breathing, and he chuckled softly and he held up a hand.

"For the record?" he pointed out, that hand upraised, "I was Legend just now. Exactly as Legend as advertised, no more, no less. An' th' only reason I'm havin' trouble findin' my lungs right now, it ain't 'cause I ain't Legend... it's 'cause I'm havin' an allergic reaction to you mixin' so many metaphors. Big Bad Wolf Messenger Lab Man? That is some seriously screwed up imagery."

But he straightened, and he rubbed his hands together, and he steeled himself anew. He put the animus back in the bottle... he didn't trust himself to remain coherent when exposed directly to the Evil that was Lionel Luthor. Hopefully this time Bruce could do all the talking.

He followed Bruce into The Cave.

"Into," he suggested, knowingly ironically adding yet another metaphor to the mix, "The Lions' Den."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen pulled up to the visitor parking area of Smallville High and was immediately greeted by police cars and firetrucks.

There were a few ambulances in the parking lot.

And there were a lot of wet students.

He exited his SUV and tucked the leather-bound journal under his arm.

He stood and surveyed the scene. He figured right now it would not be a good idea to try to enter the school. He felt he should wait for just a few moments for the air to clear. He began scanning the multitude of students milling about, hoping the catch a glimpse of a certain female with blonde hair.