Chapter Text
The beeping of the machines fills the small, antiseptic white room while the harsh glare of the overhead lights beats down like a gavel. A white curtain is drawn around a hospital bed to shield it from the view of the hallway through the open door, life support machines and monitors surrounding it like a bulwark. But they cannot keep the intruder at bay, for in the end, nothing can.
Voices trickle in the open door, over the low din of a working hospital floor. The voices rise in whispered anger and recrimination, their words indistinct to the listener on the bed, but the emotions in them clear. Anger, fear, possessiveness. Souls so overcome at the thought of what they are losing they lash out; hurt people, hurting people. The intruder pays them no mind; they have not drawn its ire. They are not responsible for the suffering in that room. Nor does the listener lying in the bed, buried under tubes, sensors and blankets.
It doesn’t matter now, this last and pointless argument. The cause is of no consequence because its distraction has drawn away the two people who should be here when the intruder comes. Not that they could stop the intruder, or even see them. There is no one to see or hear the listener slip away, with resignation and not a little relief. Pain is at an end, at least. Soon he will enter into the light and see new vistas. The two in the hall will see him again, one day, in the undiscovered country, and there may make their apologies for missing this final goodbye.
The intruder is there, however. They are always there, at this moment. They have been to this hospital many times, and stood beside this same bed to ferry other young lives off to that same country. It is a grim task, but a necessary one, and the intruder tries to perform with as much kindness as one of their kind can. It is a little thing, that kindness, but it is there. The intruder has its host to thank for that, for without the host’s mortal frame of reference, then its aspect would be terrible and all it ferried would be afraid. Normally it comes to this place to hear the whispered sufferings of the frail little things confined to these beds, and brings wrath and judgement to those who put them there.
That mortal host feels their own guilt for what the intruder will do. This is not the done thing, the duty the intruder was charged with at the Beginning. But certain things, pacts and laws, have been invoked, so the intruder must do this. The intruder looks about the room one final time as the boy in the bed loses his final fingernail grip on life, and machines fall silent that should alert doctors. The intruder knows this is the end, and there is no aid they could render, they would only drag this out.
A rattle, a gasp, and it is done.
The intruder stretches out a green gloved hand, and a little mote of light flies from the boy’s mouth and hovers in their palm like a moth to the flame. The intruder considers the little wisp; such a small thing, to be all that remains of a life. The body in the bed goes limp as the rattle fades, and peace enters it as the tension and life leave it. The intruder draws its gloved hand and the mote back into its voluminous cloak and nods; a job well done.
Its host sees out its borrowed eyes, at the stack of comic books on the bedside table, untouched for days as their owner no longer had the strength to hold them and his head up to read. The coats belonging to the two in the hall are thrown over the backs of chairs on opposite sides of the room. And on the window is taped a single piece of paper, a familiar symbol drawn in red, laboriously done with a weak and shaking hand. Through the window, across the street, a steel skeleton of another building is going up. Another hospital to try to preserve young lives from the intruder’s appointed rounds. The rust red steel beams are covered in bright spray paint, names and birthdates and symbols painted on them to entertain the children who watch the ironworkers out their hospital windows.
Both the intruder and their host are drawn to the construction, and see the bright red symbol painted on one of the beams, the same as on the sheet of paper. A totem of hope that proved incapable of helping its creator. But a mark left behind, painted on the steel that will soon be sheathed in concrete and plaster. Even when the intruder has gone and the body in the bed is removed, and the two in the hall go away and never return to this place, that mark painted on the steel will remain. A final epitaph for the boy, even as he is carried forth from this place by the intruder.
It’s funny, don’t you think?
NO, IT IS NOT.
Right… I guess it’s destiny.
IT WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO HAPPEN.
I hope he’ll be happy.
THAT… IS UP TO HIM.
********
Everything is a blur as his eyes open for the first time. A blinding, kaleidoscope blur as he winces and blinks, trying to cut down on the light hammering his eyes. An echoing roar fills his ears, cacophonous and deafening but it does not end. Sights and sounds overwhelm his senses but they do not pain him or render him insensible. Instead, they simply go on and he must somehow endure and understand them.
His eyes struggle to stay open and tear up as images slowly begin to resolve themselves into something recognizable. A shiny tube, metal and glass, all around him. Everything is bright; powerful lights beat down from above with a warm and nourishing glow, and that light reflects off everything but the glass in front of him. He can see out; a dark and cavernous space beyond the little tube, dimmer lights beyond and shapes he can’t make out yet. The tube is warm, safe, and familiar. It is home.
Things are becoming clearer, his eyes stop tearing, but he keeps them half lidded, as if he were still sleeping. The cacophony in his ears fades to a dull roar, and he can make out the rise and fall of wave forms.
Words.
Someone is speaking.
But the words are all dull and distant, as if he were hearing them while underwater. He strains his ears to make them out, and instantly their fidelity changes as if he suddenly found the right frequency on the radio.
“-can’t leave him like this!” Says the first.
“Set him free. Do it.” Replies another.
Free? Are they talking about me?
That doesn’t make sense. He’s right at home. Why would anyone need to free him?
Suddenly there is a hiss and the and the engaging of mechanical gears, and the pod splits apart around him, half rising to the ceiling and the other sinking into floor. There is a sudden rush of cooler air against his skin, and the roar in his ears increases tenfold. The air currents blowing from the ventilation shafts, the thrum of the electricity in the power cables, the gurgle of water and waste in the plumbing. He can hear it all.
And three heartbeats, the respiration in their lungs. One’s heartbeat is dead calm, another’s is going like a hummingbird, and the third’s respiration sounds… strange. Slowly, contrast between the lights around the pod and darkness in the rest of the cavernous room resolves into shapes and figures as his eyes open fully. The room IS a cavern, stalactites hanging from what looks stone the color of wet muscle, studded with organic looking spheres. The floor is a contrast, smooth metal plating, leveling the surface and matched by ceiling panels across the chamber. The far wall terminates in a massive door, like some fantastical bank vault, shut tight to keep something locked up in here.
The three heartbeats are clustered around a console of some kind, and now he sees his would-be rescuers. Three young women dressed in garish outfits that stir a memory. The shortest works at the console as she looks up at him from it; her hair is short and black and frames her face well. She is wearing a tightly fitted bright red short sleeved tunic with large yellow catches on the front, belted at the waist in matching yellow that has a mind boggling number of pouches attached to it. Beneath that are a pair of skintight black leggings and green boots that look like something a futuristic military would issue, which match the gauntlets she wears that go up to her elbows. Over this she wears a cape that goes down to her calves, black exterior and a yellow lining that matches her belt, and on her face she wears a thin black domino mask that turns her eyes into blank but expressive white orbs. What he can see of her muscled arms and legs shows a gymnasts compact physique.
The one to her left is practically vibrating with nervous energy. Her heart palpitations would put a hummingbird on crack to shame. She has a shock of red hair that looks permanently windblown and falls down to her shoulders, and her outfit is a single piece bodysuit on which he sees no seams. Yellow boots turn to red legs at the calf, a yellow lightning bolt going down the outside of her thighs, linking to the yellow top, which again turns to red at the gloves. A mask covers her face except for her mouth, open at her forehead to let her lustrous red locks flow, and a pair of goggles with red lenses sits on her forehead. On the sides of her mask are what look like jagged lighting bolts sticking out like windvanes, and a similar red lighting bolt nestles between her modest breasts. She has the whipcord lean of a runner’s physique, and everything about her screams of her need for movement. Where her mask doesn’t cover he can see freckles and without her goggles he can see her bright green eyes.
The third is the tallest and most exotic; a dark skinned beauty with blonde hair pulled tightly into corn rows that become cowrie shell beaded braids at the back. She wears what looks like a scaled one piece swimsuit, red above the waist and ocean blue briefs below the rolling waves of her curves. Coiling black tattoos wind from her shoulders and her hips down the exposed skin of her limbs, undulating across her muscles and curves, and her wrists and ankles are decorated with bangles and anklets in gold. Over her shoulders are a pair of silvery metal hilts, and her right hand slowly reaches for one as her stormcloud grey eyes. She has a swimmer’s built, long and lean yet corded with muscle, yet still has padded curves. Most strange of all are the lines he can see upon her dainty neck; like scars but indented instead of raised.
Then comes a spike of adrenaline and aggression whose origin he questions for only a moment as it washes over him. Then his questioning ceases.
These three are intruders. They are a threat to him, his home, his creators and his purpose. They must be dealt with.
Certainty fills him and he feels as if he stands upon bedrock. He locks eyes with the dark skinned swimmer and stretches his hand; tendons creak and knuckles crack as if from long disuse. His brow furrows as the anger grows.
How dare they?!
The swimmer’s perfectly arched eyebrows, dark in contrast to her blonde hair, only get a chance to briefly rise before he is upon her. He barrels forward like a freight train takes her to the ground with a thunderous crash. She is still trying to grasp what is happening when he raises a fist in the mount and brings it down in a brutal ground and pound that does not relent. He grits his teeth as his fists slam into her fist, a brutal and violent anger coiling in his gut. These interlopers will pay for their trespass.
The runner reacts first, suddenly her arms wrapping around his raised fist to hold him back from pummeling her friend into the ground. Her sudden appearance distracts him long enough for the gymnast to wrap him in a headlock that feels laughably weak. The runner seems the greater threat so he whips the arm she has hold of and she is sent sailing across the room into a glass tank which bursts into shards. She groans and does not rise. The headlock is meaningless; that one’s paltry strength cannot choke him out and it does nothing to interfere with his mount. He ignores her and returns to the ground and pound, a growl escaping his throat.
Why doesn’t she go down? He thinks as he pummels the swimmer again. Her head rocks with each blow but those stormy eyes remain clear and locked on him. She is well trained, and used to a beating. His fists crack into her skull with the power to shatter boulders but they just pound her head into a dent in the metal decking.
How can she be so tough?
“I don’t want to do this!” The feebly struggling gymnast says next to his ear. He ignores it for the true threat. That one would break in a single blow!
Suddenly a stinging agony bursts across his face and inside his sinuses. Blinding particles strike his eyes and a dark smoke fills his lungs and makes his choke and cough. He stumbles to his feet, trying to rub away the blinding particulates and cough up what has been blasted into his lungs. Then a brutal impact hits him in the solar plexus and drives the air from his lungs. His flight is only stopped by his impacting the console, and it crumples under his landing. He scrambles to his feet, coughing up the last of the gas he inhaled and scans for his enemies as his eyes clear.
The gymnast has some kind of weapon in her hand, and he can hear the electric whine of its capacitors charging. But still partially blinded and choking, he cannot dodge out of the way in time. She fires and two barbs stick into his chest, barely. The electric discharge as he hears the click of her depressing a button on it sends a painful stinging across his chest. He hears the crackle of lightning and the smell of ozone as current races up the wires, but it's not enough to do real damage. He looks down at the barbed probes sticking out of his chest, and back up the wire to the gymnast holding the weapon. Contemptuously he grabs the wires and hauls on them; it happens too fast for her to let go and she comes sailing towards him as if she weighed nothing.
Her surprise is somehow clear even through the domino mask and he catches her by the throat with one hand. She kicks at him as he snarls and slams her to the floor with a grunt. The arrogance of this one! He plants one white booted foot on her chest and leans into it. He can hear her ribs creak and her spine compress as he puts more strength into it. He could crush her like a bug!
“ENOUGH!”
That is all he hears before something hits him like a tidal wave throwing a haymaker. He sees some glowing watery blue mass come sailing towards his head as he looks up from crushing the insect under his boot. Everything goes black for a second but he wakes up the instant he slams into the hard metal vertical bed of the pod. It stops his momentum and he crashes to the floor. Pain shoots through his head, and his anger only grows. He pushes himself to his feet and stalks forward. The swimmer is trying to help the gymnast up, but she groans and falls back to the floor. Her would-be rescuer rises to her feet and raises a hand to halt his advance.
“We are trying to help you!”
Her anger and indignation are palpable.
So bizarre.
These intruders think they are helping him? Why would he need help?
He pauses as he considers.
Why are they so insistent on him needing help? That’s ridiculous. He is a clone of Superman created by Project: Cadmus. This is his home, which they have trespassed in.
Why do they think they are the good guys here?
…Something is wrong about all this.
What is it about these women? As if he should recognize them, but can’t. They are strange but somehow familiar.
Glancing down at the gymnast, he sees there is a symbol on the right breast of her tunic. A black circle, with a stylized yellow R. It is also on her belt.
He knows that symbol!
But then a pulse of anger comes from above and he sees red again.
None of that matters!
He charges forward again and brings down an axe handle fist toward the swimmer. She dodges to the left out of the way, and spear tackles him with a roar. Together they crash into the strange red rock of the walls; it looks like melted candle wax but is as tough as any stone. He is on his back as their positions are reversed, but he has her measure now. She brings a fist down but he easily catches it.
I’m faster, and stronger! She’s good, but she doesn’t have the power I do!
Since when did he have power?
He raises a foot and kicks her off across the floor. She tumbles to her feet like an acrobat, and he springs up to continue the fight. Devastating haymakers soar towards her but she is as uncatchable as water, flowing around each strike and delivering her own counter attacks with fists and feet. Each blow makes him grunt in pain but they do no real damage. He is tougher than she is strong! But she is too damned fast, and skilled!
Anger boils over and his crushing overhand right is slipped, and she gets an arm under his, and then another. She pins his arms back in a painful shoulder lock. They both grunt as they struggle, and he tries to leverage his greater strength to break the hold. This close, she smells of salt spray and ozone.
Electric blue light illuminates his face from the side, and he sees from the corner of his eyes that the undulating black tattoos on her arms are now glowing like neon lights and casting that electric blue glow.
The smell of ozone rises, and he wonders why.
Everything erupts in agony as his muscles spasm and joints lock. A scream rips from his throat from the pain. This is far worse than the gymnasts’ toy, this actually hurts him. His teeth grind as his jaw spasms shut. The pain is excruciating but the lightning does not relent. She can keep this up longer than he can bear it. Somehow he must break the connection or she’ll fry him. A part of him departs the agony and thinks quickly; a glance down at their feet reminds him of a basic tenet of combat training. All strikes and locks rely on footwork. A glance up shows him the ceiling barely thirty feet above.
A small voice within asks; What combat training?
His knees bend and his legs tense and he throws both of them into the air. They impact against the stone ceiling with a thunderous boom and a burst of dust and falling stones. Her body shields him as they impact and she grunts with the impact. The electricity ceases; either her energy ran out or her concentration broke. Regardless, she still has him in the shoulder lock, so with another might bound, he gives her another taste. This time she goes limp after the second im
pact, and ragdolls onto the floor as he makes a three point landing.
Rising, he turns and sees her facedown and still on the floor. All three are still breathing. As it should be. Cadmus wants them detained; probably for interrogation as to how they infiltrated his home. Security should already be here. The massive door remains shut; the intruders must have overridden it when they broke into his chamber. He strides forward, past the unconscious swimmer and spares her not a glance. He reaches the door; it's twice as tall as he is, and half the width of the room. It must be two feet thick; whoever designed it didn’t want whatever was behind it getting out.
It clearly has no power, so he simply finds the seam and shoves his hands into the gap. Hardened steel crumples like cardboard, and once he has a grip on its internals, he shoves the door to the side on its track. Four figures await him; a woman in a suit of black and blue armor, wearing a gold helmet that leaves her mouth exposed, a young black man in a lab coat and a high top fade who shrinks at the sight of him, and a middle aged white woman wearing a lab coat, button up shirt, slacks and sandals, and a pair of horn rimmed glasses. Her brown hair is worn long in a pony tail, and is grey at the temples. She and the helmeted woman have bizarre creatures perched on their shoulders, like scaly blue monkeys with tiny horns and wide, staring red eyes with black sclera that follow him. The last figure is the strangest; shorter than the humans, but grey and horned like the monkey creatures. Almost as if one of the little ones was enlarged and stretched out to human size but not human proportions. Its thin and wiry body wears a set of white scrubs, and its face is scarcely human at all. Fin-like ears protrude from the sides of its head, a pair of horns curve up half again the height of its head, no nose and a pair of fleshy tendrils droop from the corners of its mouth like a mustache.
The small voice questions the vista before it once again.
What the hell is this?
But his body only steps forward and comes to attention, staring straight ahead.
The older woman walks past him and enters his chamber, surveying his handiwork. She turns and smiles cruelly at him.
“Attaboy…”