THE BIZARRE KNIGHT
Chapter 1
"Progress report, Dr. Teng," snarled Lex Luthor via an interoffice vid-wall with a digitally perfect image of the hairless billionaire on the wall-sized plasma screen mounted onto one entire enclosure. Situated some six-and-a-half feet up so that even the video image of Lex would have to be looked up to by those working in this, one of a dozen different high-tech departments in LexCorp. Especially this department.
Dr. Teng was a genius in bioengineering and advanced genetics, lured into LexCorp employ two years earlier by an advance paycheck containing at least seven zeroes, plus the promise of total noninterference by any and all medical oversight organizations. In other words, Lex Luthor gave Dr. Teng an open-ended contract to bring to fruition any and all scientific innovations.
Especially since Lex would make use of such to do the one thing in his fantastic life that he'd been unable to accomplish: bring down Superman.
"We are making progress, Mr. Luthor," said Dr. Teng as he turned bespectacled eyes to peer up at the high-definition image that was, unmistakably, Lex Luthor, master of his self-governed domain. "However, I cannot stress the need not to rush the results. I'm dealing with a highly advanced experimental means to create and accelerate the growth of real human clones."
"I trust, Doctor, that the facilities I've provided, along with the pay, is sufficiently generous?" said Lex in a clearly rhetorical tone and affectation. "Not to mention ready access to lots of Kryptonite without which, as I understand it, your unique cloning methods would not be possible."
"As I've stated numerous times since joining LexCorp, Mr. Luthor," said Dr. Teng with a tense sigh. "These newest genetic techniques I've developed and employed, with the assistance of some of the finest technicians your money could buy, is very delicate. Even dangerous. Perhaps in another year or so…"
"I want results now, Dr. Teng!" snarled the oversized image of Lex Luthor who, at that exact moment, was sitting in his opulent office at the very top of the twenty-six story LexCorp building, situated in the heart of downtown Metropolis. "It is now…nine-thirty A.M., Doctor…I expect real results by six-thirty P.M. today. Or else you might find yourself and your 'pet project' back out on the streets with a very nasty series of ethical and legal reprimands in your permanent personnel jacket. Understood?"
"Yes, Mr. Luthor, but…"
The sudden cessation of Lex's video link from top floor office to sub-floor experimental genetics labs rudely cut off Dr. Teng as he considered the very real possibility that Lex could easily use his considerable clout, not just with businesses, but with supposedly public labs as well as certain governmental agencies that could, with Lex providing erroneous informational propaganda designed to hurt the bioengineering and genetics genius, end up putting the brilliant scientist behind bars. Or worse.
Besides, this really was the culmination of a lifetime of research and experimentation that began long before being brought under the LexCorp roof. Figuratively speaking.
"All right, everyone," Dr. Teng said to all those assistants and technicians who'd been his staff from the very moment he'd accepted Lex Luthor's unbelievably generous financial and technical offer. "As you've heard, Mr. Luthor expects success by the end of the day. I realize that we've tried to maintain some semblance of reasonable safety thus far, but…it's time to pay the proverbial piper. And I only pray what we create here, today, doesn't prove to be humanity's undoing."
Bruce Wayne hated having to spend long hours at Wayne Enterprises during quarterly reports time regarding the corporation's myriad multi-billion dollar activities about the globe, both for profit as well as for the public-at-large. Even though he could spend such long hours, for the most part, in the comfortable opulence that was his official office, though he seldom used it.
The pop-up computer terminal, which was as much a part of his grandiose desk as its automatically locking/fingerprint-reading drawers, was currently presenting a seemingly endless list of extremely boring accounts for which, like it or not, Bruce had to attend at least once every three-to-four months.
Stifling a yawn and rubbing the redness from his too-tired eyes, Bruce looked out his office's window at the slowly setting sun dipping behind the immense skyline unique to Gotham, and knew that, very soon, he would leave behind this façade of attentive businessman for the truer mantle of crimefighting Batman.
He wondered if he could've ever maintained any semblance of sanity had it not been for his nightly excursions into the darkness, literal and figurative, of Gotham City as the Dark Knight. Probably. But he would've probably turned to alcohol, or worse, to deaden the sadness and loss that remained at the core of his being and which was, to some extent, appeased by his cowled-and-costumed alter ego.
Bruce thought with a bittersweet sentiment, Dad, now I know why you left as much of this to the board of directors. Your passion was always medicine as well as your philanthropic endeavors on behalf of the less fortunate of Gotham City. I don't know what you would think of your son, skulking from nighttime shadow to nighttime shadow in an identity-hiding, bulletproof padded blue-and-gray costume…but I'd like to believe that you'd be proud that, in my own way, I, too, was helping the people of this city.
Even as Bruce finished up, so he could deactivate his computer and allow it to retract into its recessed compartment to become very much a seamless part of the desk again, he couldn't help but think about how relatively quiet Gotham had been for the past month.
Ever since that one sleepless week wherein, thanks to Lex Luthor, although such could not be proved, and Joker, what a nightmarish combination!, a unbelievably super-powered villain called Composite Superman, literally half-Superman/half-Batman, in both costume combination as well as actual physicality, who'd made it possible for the dangerous inmates of Arkham Asylum, including the super-criminals Penguin, Riddler, and Two-Face, to run free until Batman and Superman rounded them all up again.
And what of Composite Superman? Neither Batman nor Superman could adequately answer that question. Both just felt relieved that such an incredibly powerful being from another reality was, indeed, gone. Lord knows, Batman and Superman would've never stopped him.
Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, Clark Kent had just changed into his super-powerful alter ego, which was more the real him than the bespectacled reporter, and was now flying high over his favored cosmopolitan home in his familiar red, blue, and yellow outfit, red cape billowing behind him. Super-vision and super-hearing, as always, were in full use in order to catch any sort of criminal or super-criminal act in progress.
Like Batman, Superman had had a relatively boring couple of weeks since the near-successful attacks of Composite Superman. Unlike the Dark Knight, the Man of Steel was fine with that. It was a lot like the "no news is good news" mentality, but replacing "news" with "crime".
The one thing both Batman and Superman shared in common was the realization that low-to-no crime periods never lasted.
The sun was gone from the sky and the moon, full for the next few days, dominated the night as Lex Luthor held to his dictated timeline…
"Dr. Teng," said a smirking Lex as he, along with his ever-present well-dressed, well-muscled bodyguards, entered the sub-floor experimental genetics lab area, "amaze me."
Dr. Teng, a nervous smile on his face, now alone as the many technicians that had consistently assisted him for the past two years had all left LexCorp after one very long day, gestured and said, "This way, Mr. Luthor."
Glancing back at his bodyguards, Lex gave a nod and a gesture that wordlessly ordered them to remain where they were as their hairless billionaire employer followed Dr. Teng into a point much deeper into the huge, sterile, one-of-a-kind high-tech lab. A point within its own set of windowless walls and doorway.
"Allow me to present to you," began Dr. Teng in a tone and affectation that heralded back to the days of the sideshow barkers, "the Superman and Batman clones!"
Having pressed a touch-sensitive control, the huge gold-hued doors of two seven foot tall, four foot wide compartments, both tied into an entire room of unrecognizable, even to Lex's highly intelligent mind, super-scientific devices via high-tech cables and hoses, the two sets of double-doors of two standing chambers gradually opened as dry ice steam rolled out like mini-fog banks to obscure the two muscular, costumed forms within for several tense seconds. Then…
"Dr. Teng," began Lex in steadily growing disgust, as he saw the two supposed clones of what, in newspapers such as The Daily Planet, which Lex Luthor once owned, had been referred to as The World's Finest, "is this your idea of a joke?"
Suddenly shaken, losing his smile, Dr. Teng began to hastily explain, "Mr. Luthor, please, hear me out. I realize these clones don't look exactly like Superman and Batman…"
"These clones look more like clowns, Doctor!" snappishly said Lex as he continued to look intently, angrily at two appropriately costumed, in the blue-red of the Man of Steel and the blue-gray of the Dark Knight, creations whose skin was stark white, overly angular, especially about the visible facial areas, as though composed of living diamond material rather than human-like flesh, then back to the understandably apprehensive bioengineering/genetics genius.
"Somehow, this happened once we stepped up the process in order to meet your deadline," explained Dr. Teng. "Which, of course, meant using a lot more Green Kryptonite exposure than originally called for to accelerate cellular maturation…"
"Doctor…"
"Though they appear odd," continued Dr. Teng. "Though they seem grotesque in comparison to the real Superman and Batman, both are just as powerful or, in the case of Batman, agile with an honest-to-God Bat-belt. And both not only believe they are the real thing, they are utterly loyal to you."
"Hm," hummed Lex as he reconsidered the situation and how he could manipulate it in his favor. "Who are you?"
First, the bizarre Superman said, with the delivery of a dim-witted moron, "Me am Soo-perman."
"And me am," chimed in an equally moronic cowl-and-caped clone, "Batty-man."
"Bizarre," Lex groaned with a shake of his hairless head, even as the odd-looking Superman clone looked toward the equally odd-looking Batman clone and shared a pensive moment, before...
"Bizarro?" asked both simultaneously. Then, separately, "Me am…Bizarro Soo-perman. Me am…Superzarro!"
"And me am," the dumb-downed version of the Dark Knight said a second later, "Bizarro Batty-man. Me am…Batzarro!"
"We am," continued Superzarro, "World's Worst!"
Just as both Superzarro and Batzarro began to chuckle, again in a dumb-downed manner, Lex rolled his eyes and heaved a very heavy, very prolonged sigh of angered frustration. Then he turned and said in a hushed aside to…
"Dr. Teng, surely you cannot be serious. These 'Bizarros' are like exact opposites of Superman and Batman. And they appear to be exceptionally…stupid."
Before Dr. Teng, literally fearing for his life at this point, could reply, Superzarro railed, while easily turning his maturation chamber into something akin to crumbled tinfoil, "Me no stoo-pid, Lex Loo-thor! Me soo-per! Me have super-hearing! Me hear you whispers! Not make me mad…or else!"
"And me not stoo-pid either," added Batzarro as he pulled a curiously shaped Batarang, which definitely was not bat-like in appearance, from a dirty, dull-yellow Bat-belt which he threatened to hurl at both Dr. Teng and Lex. "Me am Ca-ped Croo-sader! Me am Knight of Dark!"
Before either could further demonstrate their displeasure over Lex's whispered disrespect, the bald billionaire said with a forced smile, "I'm sorry… Superzarro…Batzarro. My mistake. Tell me…who do you…serve?"
Both Bizarros literally scratched their misshapen heads, then Superzarro answered, "Me serve…Lex Loo-thor."
"Yeah," Batzarro said immediately after, "me serve Lex Loo-thor, too."
Finally warming to these polar-opposite "heroes", Lex said, with a broader grin this time, "And who is our enemy?"
After a pregnant pause to consider the straightforward question, both Bizarros simultaneously replied, "Enemies am Soo-perman and Batty-man! Us hate them!"
As a devilish gleam in his eyes now matched a diabolical leer, Lex said under his breath, "Excellent."
END OF CHAPTER 1