Triangle-left-square-R2-swing--dang, missed him!
Clark's face seemed to glow with bioluminescence. The same glow, it looked like, that illuminated Chuck's face. If it weren't for their fingers mashing buttons and the television screen in front of them, it would have seemed like they were fireflies. Salu's eyes followed the miniature characters kicking and lunging at each other. Salu had her hands on the couch Clark and Chuck were sitting on, but she was standing up behind them. Her head barely reached the tops of Clark's and Chuck's heads, even though they were sitting down. Every time they saw her, Chuck and Clark swore she was getting smaller. They called her Shrinking Violet.
"Gotcha!" Chuck blurted. Clark's character's health bar depleted after Chuck threw a solar blast at his face. Clark hung his head as the "Player 1 wins!" text hopped around on the screen joyfully as if it had just won.
The desk bell rang and Salu muttered, "Dang!" and left. She went back out to the front of the store while Chuck and Clark stayed in the back, exhausted from their virtual battle.
"Hey, Clark," Chuck said laughing, "I owned you this time, yeah?"
Clark rolled his eyes and laughed. Chuck had no mercy. "You cheated. You keep using that fighter with the high jumps."
"That's why they call me Bouncy!" Chuck boasted. He sat up. "Listen up, Clarko. You're just too soft. Remember I told you I could hack into any site and not get caught?"
"Yeah?"
"And you backed down when I told you to do the same?"
"Well, I'm not that—"
"You're a sissy, Clark, that's what you are."
Clark's face grew red. "I am not!"
"Are too. I bet you can't even hack into a second-rate packaging company's site." Chuck teased dangerously. "Clark's a baaaby..."
Before Clark could retort, Salu's head popped in the room. "Hey, bozos, we need you up front. Come on."
--
Clark entered his empty apartment and collapsed onto his bed. Normally he would've dozed off, but Chuck's nag kept coming repeating in his head.
You're a sissy, Clark, that's what you are.
Clark screwed up his face and pushed off the bed. It was easy, considering he had absolutely no muscle at all. Clark plopped himself on the computer seat and opened up his internet server.
Chuck had instructed Clark how to hack into a site once before. Clark tried to regain his memories while searching for a target to attack.
You backed down.
A military site. That would be good enough for Chuck. All he had to do was put a simple code into his Action Replay-looking thing and bingo, job done. Clark wouldn't get teased anymore, and life would go on.
Clark opened up the page for the Marines. He had to admit even with all the adrenaline Clark had built up, that wagging finger in his mind was taking over his determinedness. What would be the consequences of this? Would Clark go to jail? Maybe there was a way to just convince Chuck he had done it without actually doing it.
Clark's a baaaby...
Clark's eyebrows furrowed. He typed in some codes into his hacking device. Clark faced the "Access Denied" pop-up many times, but always found ways past it. He tried any key words he could grasp for permission into the delicate server. Firewalls after firewalls greeted him, but Clark pushed through. He tried all the backdoor cheats he could remember, and finally after sixty minutes of intense hacking, Clark was in.
Clark laughed and whooped. He leaned back in his chair and wiped the perspiration off his forehead. Now to just leave a note proving I actually did it...
Clark found the perfect spot: The Associations and Organizations page. It received the least hits. Clark had to think a minute before he typed in the little memo for his friend.
"In your face, Bouncy."
--
Two magenta eyes. Clark opened his eyes to see a man above him, sitting contently in a chair. His quick fingers were typing away at the laptop in front of him. He had on a plain green shirt and a mess of blonde hair.
But most intriguing were his eyes. How could they be that color? Magenta. Clark had never seen that before.
Then Clark wondered where the hell he was. Clark had already figured out that he was sideways on a wooden floor, but where was he? And why were there binds on his wrists and ankles?
The man with the Eyes turned to regard him. His eyebrows rose when he saw that Clark was awake.
"Oh, you're awake." The man said almost in monotone. His voice was high and nerdy. Now that Clark heard it, he wondered how old this man was. He was short, so he seemed younger than Clark. Twenty? No, he'd be in college right now if he was twenty. Maybe he was still at high school. Seriously, that's how young this man looked.
"Querl Dox." The man said. He got up and extended an arm. "Though most people around here call me Brainy, since I'm the most intelligent person in the building. Nice to meet you."
His name is Querl? Clark thought. He was about to say something about that when he realized his mouth was taped over. Clark made muffling noises, but the tape wouldn't come off, nor would Brainy help.
"We needed to take certain ... restrictions." Brainy explained.
What the hell? Clark thought frantically.
Brainy's other arm joined his extended arm (which Clark didn't know why was extended in the first place. Brainy obviously knew Clark couldn't shake it) and wrapped around Clark's torso. Clark's bewildered thought repeated louder in his head as Brainy lifted him up into a sitting position. From this close, Clark could smell Brainy.
... but he couldn't. Brainy had no scent at all. It was as if he were a robot.
Clark had finally managed to sit upright. Brainy glanced into Clark's blue eyes – something that made his heart flip – before standing up. Brainy pulled him up while Clark pushed off the floor. They never once broke eye contact. Brainy had such strange eyes that Clark found himself lost in them.
Must be contacts, or something. Eyes of that depth and color were impossible. Once they finally managed to get Clark standing, they held their gaze for a second, and then Brainy stepped back. Clark couldn't help wanting Brainy pressed up against him again.
"Imra!" Brainy sharply cried.
A soft voice answered from the other room. "Yes, Brainiac Five?"
"Do you posses a pair of wire cutters?"
Wire cutters? Clark thought. They tied me up that tight? Where the hell am I?
A woman older than Brainy—about, Clark had to say, five years—with long blonde hair which was lighter and had less color than Brainy's, glided into the room. Saturn models dangled from her ears.
"Oh? Who's this?" Her voice was breathy but smooth.
Brainy took the wire cutters from her hand and began to work at the rope around Clark's ankles. "Subject Clark Kent, age twenty-four, height one-hundred-eighty-two-point-eight centimeters, weight approximately one-hundred-fifty pounds."
Whoa, hey. Clark warned in his mind. Where'd he get all this info?
Brainy got up from Clark's ankles. Clark looked down to see that his legs were free. He was just about to run for it when something snapped onto his wrist. Clark regarded it. Handcuffs. Fuck.
"Not so fast there, Clark." Brainy said. The other handcuff was on his wrist. "We'll need to get you to Rokk and Garth first."
Clark was taken to another office. It was about seven rooms away from Brainy, and it was during the trip there that Clark observed his surroundings. It looked like a normal office building. There weren't any cubicles, but there were offices with people on laptops or people talking on the phone. Clark had no idea in his mind where he was, and he was starting to get more than a little frustrated.
Brainy tugged Clark closer when they got to a much bigger office. There were two chairs and two separate desks in the room. One of them had dark hair and – was that a pink shirt? He didn't have even a ghost of a smile on his face. The other had bright orange hair and a button-down dark blue shirt. He wore a cap with a lightning bolt on it.
"Hey, Brainy. What you got?" The orange-haired man asked. He had a loud voice that sounded like it would permanently have a smirk or a smile behind it.
Brainy locked the door behind him and started on the handcuffs. "Subject Clark Kent. Hacked into our mainframe server at approximately ten thirty PM eastern time last night. Was taken here by Jim and his friends at four twenty AM."
"Oh yeah, I remember you." The orange-haired man sneered, tilting his body forward. Clark was glad his mouth was taped over, or he would have let out a whimper.
Brainy cut through the binds on Clark's wrists when the pink-shirted man stood up. "I'm Rokk Krinn. My partner over here is Garth Ranzz (The orange-haired man gave a little wave). We're Brainy's co-bosses, and your bosses soon enough."
Again, what the hell is going on here? Clark thought.
Rokk sat down. "Do you know why you're here, Mr. Kent?"
Brainy grabbed at the end of the tape on Clark's mouth. Clark was so preoccupied with Brainy's face so close and those fingers touching him softly that it was completely unexpected when Brainy ripped off the tape.
"FUCK!" Clark screamed. His hands flew to his mouth and the cold that hit them was heavenly. Garth chuckled to himself in the background, but Clark ignored it. He focused on letting the hurt die down. God, that hurt.
Clark pushed down his impulse to let out a stream of swears and composed himself. "No, I don't know why I'm here, but I'm thinking I hacked into the wrong site to show Chuck that I'm not a wuss."
"Chuck?" Garth blurted.
"You hacked into our database, and we had to take you in before you knew about us." Rokk explained. He and Garth seemed about the same age; Rokk just seemed more professional and Garth was the laidback kid everyone liked.
Wait a minute—what'd he say? Clark argued, "I wouldn't know about this – organization thing – if you hadn't taken me here in the first place!"
"Wouldn't you have told someone?" Rokk replied. "This 'Chuck', maybe?"
Clark paused, but then hung his head. Rokk was right; the whole point of hacking into that site was to tell Chuck. But still--
"You're probably wondering who we are exactly." Rokk said. "The CIA. I'm sure you recognize that name from the media and maybe a Civics textbook."
Clark's eyes bulged. "The CIA? You have to be joking! I mean, I—whoa, that's ... that's a lot of information right there."
"So now you know why you must keep this whole deal a secret." Rokk explained. "CIA agents must keep their jobs a secret. No one must know."
"Imra will take you back." Garth told Clark. "Tomorrow you'll officially start your training. Be ready, Clark."
--
Clark was sitting in a leather seat in a red Honda Accord. Not a car a secret agent would have. Actually, when Clark thought about it more, it did make sense, because secret agents always tried to blend in, and a junky car would be something people wouldn't notice at all.
"You must be shocked." Imra's cool voice washed over Clark.
Clark glanced at her, then went back to watching the buildings run. Judging from the sun steadily rising, Clark guessed it was six in the morning. Also there was that electronic clock in Imra's car that showed neon green numbers. Yep, it was six o' clock.
"Yeah, I've never done anything big like this before." Clark answered. "I mean, even in school, I never got all A's, and I didn't even try out for any sports teams. I was just a normal kid. And now I'm... I'm..."
"You're still a normal person." Imra convinced him. "You're still you. You just have a secret job, a secret identity. We should give you a name."
"A name?"
"When we're on electronic devices, cell phones, PDAs, web chatting," Imra explained, "We don't use each other's real names, just for the sake of secret identities. Garth is Lightning, Rokk is Cosmo, and I'm Saturn."
"What about Brainy?"
"... well, he kinda adopted his screen name. He's Brainy, since his real name is Querl. Anyway, we should give you one. Though we need some more information on you."
"I want to be a journalist. And I like sandwiches."
Imra parked her car and gave Clark a sly look. Clark glanced around him and laughed. "Well, looks like we're here." He started getting out of the car. "Um, thanks for the ride."
"You're welcome." Imra replied. She drove away as Clark turned to greet his shop. The sign 'Please: A convenience store' welcomed him in. The store wasn't to open until seven, so Clark had plenty of time. He went in the back and took a quick nap.
--
"OH, MY GOD, CHUCK! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
"Shh! You'll wake him!"
Clark's eyelids fluttered open to see Salu's red face glowering down at Chuck's. Clark blinked and sat up to get a better view at what was happening. Apparently, Chuck had knocked over another stand of ... what was it this time?
"Hair dye?" Clark asked for confirmation. His words came in a slur and he cleared his throat to chase it away.
Salu and Chuck whipped their heads over to him. Salu's shrill was completely unexpected to Clark's ears, which were slowly getting out of sleep mode. "Well, it's about time he woke up, anyway! The store's been opened for ten minutes—"
"Though we haven't gotten any customers." Chuck butt in.
"—and Chuck here can't be trusted in carrying some simple supplies from one place to another without knocking over a hair dye pyramid!" Salu shrieked, glaring at Chuck who was standing up now.
Chuck ignored her and walked over to Clark. He gave Clark a pat on the shoulder as Clark stood up. "Hey, buddy, you all right? Sorry about Violet over there. Dude, you looked completely stomped; what were you doing last night?"
Hacking into a government site that got me kidnapped and stuck in some secret agent business, Clark thought, but he didn't dare voice his thoughts. Instead he changed into his store shirt and got to work. It was just a normal day at the store: receiving shipments, cleaning the floor, helping customers. It was so typical that Clark thought that maybe he had been dreaming about the whole spy business. Maybe there was no Brainy, no Garth and Rokk, no Imra. He was still Clark Kent, and his best friends in the world were Chuck Taine and Salu Digby. He was not a secret agent, he was not—
A jingle rang from Clark's pocket. Clark took out his cell phone to see a new text message on the screen:
Your training begins today. I will be waiting for you at home.
Yep, I'm a secret agent, Clark concluded. He looked at the return phone number, and saw that all it said was "Withheld". He had no clue who had texted him and who would be waiting for him at home.
"Who you texting, Clarky?" Clark turned to see Chuck staring over Clark's shoulder. Fortunately Clark had exited out of the message already.
Clark pocketed his cell phone. "No one." It wasn't a lie. He hadn't texted; someone had texted him.
Chuck gave him a disbelieving look. "Hiding secrets from your best friend? How rude."
"Chuck, get those pictures developed, will you?" Salu demanded. Chuck had to leave quickly before Salu could do anything to him. Clark was glad; only his first day and already someone else might have figured out Clark was a secret agent.
"It's going to be a long day." Clark muttered to himself before arranging the prescriptions of pills in order.
--
Clark's hand froze in its journey to the doorknob. Images briefly bombarded his mind: Imra, Garth, Rokk, Brainy. Who would be on the other side? Or was it a new person?
Clark took a deep breath and sharply turned the knob. The door creaked open in the darkness and Clark stood there a moment as cold air and his familiar smell whooshed into him. Clark then entered his apartment and flipped on the lights.
Brainy was lying on his couch, fast asleep.
He was wearing another green shirt, this time a darker shade. Some blonde locks fell in front of Brainy's calm face. Clark squatted in front of him and wished Brainy's beautiful eyes were open. Clark took this time to fully observe the man: He was thin and short; he took up approximately two thirds of the couch. His skin was perfect, not a sign of acne shown. Brainy looked so peaceful in comparison to his usual alertness that Clark didn't want to wake him.
Clark's desire to see the purple eyes flared, and before he knew it, Clark's was lightly shaking Brainy's shoulder. "Brainy..." Clark called softly.
The magenta in Brainy's eyes gave a wave of relief over Clark. Brainy woke up similar to how a hamster did: his eyes fluttered open sleepily, he closed them, and the next time he opened them, he was wide awake. His head jerked up and he glanced around for a second, then he rubbed his head, sending his blonde locks in every direction.
"I apologize," Brainy muttered, bringing himself to a sitting position, "I was up all night researching."
"I hope I don't end up like you." Clark said.
Brainy shook his head, either to disagree or to shake the sleep off him. "No, I have devised a plan to get you an adequate amount of sleep. Your convenience store is open from seven a.m. to eleven p.m, but you leave at nine. That's fourteen hours. Twenty-four minus fourteen is ten, and you need at least six hours of sleep to regulate properly. That means you'll have to be at headquarters three hours a day, leaving one hour to get ready for work or whatever. Now personally, I don't think that's enough time—"
"Oh, I can work at eight and leave at eight." Clark suggested. "We don't get many people during those hours."
"Perfect. Twelve, six, one, added together—that makes nineteen, which leaves five hours for us. A better schedule, though I would like six hours. You will need to change your biological clock and get used to sleeping at two in the morning instead of ten thirty."
How much information did you guys get on me? Clark wondered as Brainy stood. He grabbed his messenger bag and left, waiting for Clark to catch up.
Brainy had a better car than Imra: a black Nissan Altima. As they started making their way to headquarters, Clark asked Brainy how old he was.
"Nineteen." Brainy answered.
Clark frowned. "Wait, but that means you're still in college."
"Graduated two years ago."
"Nuh-uh. You can't be that smart."
Brainy just gave him a wry smile.
When they got to headquarters, several people greeted them as they walked to Brainy's office. They didn't always say 'Brainy' or 'Querl', though.
"How come some people call you 'Brainiac Five'?" Clark asked as soon as they were in Brainy's office. Brainy was busy booting up his computer and getting all the papers in order.
"There were four other guys—well, one was a girl-- before me who were just as smart as me." Brainy explained while Clark settled in a chair, "I'm the fifth Brainiac."
"What happened to all the other ones?"
"Died in missions."
Clark's heart sped up and half a minute passed with silence. "What's the ... statistic or percentage that these people here die on missions?"
Brainy looked at Clark, the first time since they had been in the office. Clark felt that Brainy sensed Clark's fear—of course Brainy could sense it, it was practically radiating off him and screaming to the rest of the world. Brainy leaned over his desk to Clark. "You're not going to die, Clark. You'll be with me, and I've been on hundreds of missions, some with very bad circumstances."
Clark felt better. He could trust Brainy. Even though they had just met, he felt like he could trust Brainy with his life. Of course, it might have been just because Clark knew he would hide behind Brainy in times of a mission. Now that he mentioned it, Brainy looked too short and tiny to handle any big guys. Though he must have had some kind of secret to make it this far.
Brainy stood up abruptly. He reached inside his bag and took out a Starbucks Double Shot. "Here, you're gonna need this."
Clark took it, but showed no signs that he was going to drink it. "Why?"
"Your biological clock still thinks it's time to sleep. Wake up your system."
Clark followed Brainy out the door. "I'm fine, Brainy, really. This excitement is keeping me up."
Brainy gave Clark a steady look, and then took the coffee from Clark. "Whatever you say. I will keep it in the break room."
They stopped by the break room, and then went ahead to the gym on one of the lower floors. Clark hadn't kept in shape since high school gym class. Even running the treadmill for more than five minutes left Clark breathless. Not to mention his body was slowly relaxing and getting ready to go into sleep mode. Brainy was right about the Double Shot.
"We'll get you in shape first, and in about a week you and I will go sparring." Brainy explained while Clark took a quick breather. Brainy had been doing the treadmill along with the bicycle, stair master, and a couple others. He was breathing almost perfectly except for his chest heaving a little bit more than usual. Damn, he had amazing stamina.
Brainy smirked. "Actually maybe I'm too good for you. We should get you sparring with a more suitable opponent. I presume the weakest person on our floor?"
"Oh, that's just mean, Brainy." Clark said, barking out a laugh, "Am I really that bad?"
Or was the question if Brainy was really that good?
"I'll try to contact Reep." Brainy said, unsheathing his palm pilot from his pocket.
Clark arched an eyebrow. "Reep? What is it with you guys: Reep, Rokk, Querl... I mean, I've got Salu, but we call her Shrinking Violet a lot of times."
"Most people call Reep, Cam." Brainy suggested, searching for something in his phone. "His screen name's Chameleon. He adopted it, like me."
"By the way, Imra said that I wouldn't get my own name until you guys knew more stuff about me." Clark said. His breathing was almost even now, and he used this conversation as an excuse for getting more air. "So that means your names have to do about you, right?"
"Correct."
"I understand 'Brainy', but what about 'Lightning'? 'Chameleon'?"
Brainy opened his mouth to answer, but a noise came from the palm pilot he was holding up to his ear. "Yes, Reep, it's me. I have a favor to ask."
Clark blocked out the rest of the conversation and sat down on a nearby chair. It was just the first day and already he was exhausted. He glanced at a nearby clock and saw that an hour had gone by. Only four more to go.
Luckily for Clark, exercising was only one hour every day. Since Brainy was the computer guy, Brainy and Clark sat behind Brainy's laptop, learning all the secrets behind it.
"You'll get your own soon enough." Brainy explained. "We're ordering you one in a couple days. For now, you'll get to know my friend here: the Fujitsu Lifebook T4020. Though you'll be getting a Mac Air. Damn you. They look so cool."
"A Mac? Me?" Clark said reluctantly, "Uh, I'm not really into Macs. I grew up on the PC and when I met my first Mac in the library in junior high, I almost threw it to the ground because it couldn't half the size of the window or full size it. It was torture."
Brainy blinked. "Yeah, but this is that Air we're talking about! You have to have seen the commercials?"
"I have, Brainy. And it's really cool. Just ... Macs freak me out. Here, you can have it."
Brainy looked stricken. "Oh, I could never abandon my Lifebook." Brainy started calling someone on his palm pilot. "I guess it's a good thing we haven't put in the order yet." He held the phone to his ear and Clark listened to Brainy telling the secretary or whoever to change the order to a Sony SZ.
Brainy showed him the basics: the HTML codes. Clark knew those a little from Chuck's teachings. Then Brainy showed him how to hack into a site using the HTML code.
"Usually there's some sort of back-up link or button that lets you log in as an admin and then you can change anything you want." Brainy said. He demonstrated on a simple fan shrine of a cartoon character, changing the words "Robin rox!!" to "Robin rocks!"
After Clark tried to do the same thing to "Robin is sooo hawtt!!" Brainy asked how Clark hacked into the CIA site.
"I designed the site, and I put up some impressive firewalls and anti-virus programs. How did you get past them?" Brainy demanded with a fire behind his eyes.
Clark gulped. "Well, it was all in Flash, so I transferred it into HTML format, and did one of those EPA200 things and ... I tried a Rosebud for the firewall, but that didn't work, so I did a Trojan. That got though the first one. For the second one, I did a ... MG18-something..."
Brainy was trying very hard not to laugh. Clark had never been good with tech talk. Chuck handled that. Clark pictured Brainy and Chuck going on for hours about some cheat codes in video games. It spurred something in Clark, but Chuck extinguished the thought and feeling due to the confident thought that Chuck would never meet Brainy.
"I'm assuming you're a newbie at this?" Brainy chuckled, taking the laptop back. "Which is, actually, more disturbing for me. Better put up some more back-up on the site."
After Brainy showed him the simplest of cheat codes and assigned Clark to memorize them by the end of the week for a test, they moved on.
The next hour Brainy showed him the guns.
"Have you ever worked a gun before?" Brainy asked to begin with once they settled into the equipment room. It was specially guarded so that no enemies could get all this weaponry. Brainy had to enter a password and then the cabinets to the sides opened up, each filled with certain weapons— handguns, knives, machine guns, and possibly any other gun besides a laser gun. Clark wouldn't be surprised if he found a light saber in here.
Clark took a swig from his Double Shot. He had gone into the break room on their way to the equipment room and stolen it back. Brainy just gave him an I-told-you-so look.
"Only at arcades in the zombie shooting games." Clark admitted.
"Well, the simplest way to explain it is if you pull the trigger here, a hammer right about here gets pushed back. Then a spring jumps forward and makes the hammer push back. It hits the primer and ignites it. The primer sets off the propellant, which explodes, driving the bullet out of the gun."
Brainy showed Clark how to hold a hand gun, a shot gun, where to keep guns when they're hidden, and other stuff Clark needed to know. It was boring for now, but Brainy promised him that later he would do practice-shooting with Clark.
The fourth hour was studying.
"For now you'll be finding your way around headquarters, figuring out every single secret from air ducts to basements." Brainy instructed Clark, rolling out a blueprint of the building in front of Clark on a huge desk. "After that it'll be current events and learning what's happening in certain parts of the world, with certain known criminals, who the French Secret Service is—anything useful to know. If there's a big mission coming up, this time will be used for studying the plan and other material for the mission."
Clark almost fell asleep trying to memorize the blueprint. Headquarters ("Northeastern division", as Brainy called it) had ten floors, each with its own specialty. The seventh floor—the one Brainy worked on—was the floor with the co-bosses, and the floor sent on the close-range missions, usually lasting one to seven days. They were the most valued so they weren't sent on long-lasting missions away from home, where they might possibly lose contact with HQ.
The fifth and final hour compromised for the fourth hour's boringness. Clark would be learning the real deal.
"Jumping on buildings, sneaking around, you know, official spy stuff." Brainy said, watching the anxious smile creep upon Clark's face.
The first day, Clark learned the easiest and most important thing on their list: picking a lock. It was harder than it looked, even with the cheat lock picker and not paper clips like he had tried in middle school. Once Clark got it down to an adequate time (forty seconds), Clark and Brainy raced each other. Brainy was obviously better at it than Clark, so Brainy tried to see how many locks he could pick in the time limit of Clark picking one lock. It turned out Brainy had gotten to his fifth lock cracked when Clark was finally done.
"Five locks for Brainiac Five." Clark said with a grin. They were walking back to the car for Brainy to take him home.
Brainy threw him a smile. Clark frowned. "Hey, Brainy, what were the other Brainiacs like?"
Brainy's eyebrows shot up and he slowed walking. Clark stopped walking and waited. Brainy fidgeted, eyes darting left and right, then continued walking, keeping his head down. "Brainiac Four trained me. He was always a little annoyed at how I was better at stuff than he was. He would teach me something and within a week, I'd do it twice as fast as him. Well, not twice as fast. I'd say 1.4 times as fast."
"Wait, so if Brainiac Four trained you, then are you training me into a Brainiac Six?"
Brainy opened the door to his car. "No, I'm just training you into a CIA agent. I'm too young to be thinking about an heir."
They both got in the car. Brainy turned the keys and the car jerked to life. "Though we tried to get me a partner before."
"What happened to him?" Clark asked.
"Died in a mission."
Clark gulped. Though he wasn't worrying about it as much as he should have. After five hours of intense work, Clark's brain had turned into a gray mush. Clark went to bed without changing. He had never slept so soundly before.
--
A/N:
I promise that there will be more to this. I'm working on it. And yeah, there will be more Legion members, but I'll always include their superhero name somewhere, so you won't have to worry about researching people. Subscribe!