Chapter 1- Enough
Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep
"Where am I?"
Beep
"Who am I?"
Beep
"Why don't I remember these things?"
Beep
I can't feel my arms and my legs…they're numb. I remember hearing a voice and a beeping noise.
Beep Beep
"That's it! That's the sound!" I keep hearing it over and over, but that doesn't make me feel better.
Beep Beep Beep
"I have to get up dammit, how long have I been here? Was it days, maybe weeks, or even months?" I still don't know.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
"What the? Something doesn't feel right.."
Just then, I detected a soothing warmth rush over my head. It felt like hands were gently opening up my mind, as if they were pulling a curtain open and… I could feel again.
"You are not alone; we're going to help you" said a soft voice, as it echoed over the sounds of the beeping noise.
"Who are you and what do you want with me?" I asked.
She hesitated to answer "…I'm afraid I can't tell you who I am yet, but what we want is for you to be free."
My eyes weakened, I was puzzled. Why would someone I don't even know want to free me? Then I thought about what she just said. "Wait a minute, you said we want you to be free, do you mean there are others?"—
"Maybe, look I know things are confusing right now, but we don't have much more time. You need to trust me"
"Well you're the only one who visits." I retorted
"Huh, at least your humor is unique."
"What?"
Never mind…The lab equipment on your head and eyes are scanning your brain activity and the machine making the beeping noise is a heart monitor. Pretty soon the scientists operating those machines will know that you're awake and they'll try to shut you down."
"Shut me down?"
"No more questions—You need to escape now!"
I clenched my fists and started to pound on the wall in front of me. The water made it harder to break and I barely had enough room to spread my elbows but I could feel the structure weakening. My next punch shattered the cage and my eyes dropped as the water flushed away from me. I tore the machinery off of my head and took my first steps out of the tank. My very first images were of the room I was in. It had the shape of an old-fashioned lecture hall; I was standing in the center of a large circle filled with machines and staff in each row. There were dozens of white lab coats running away from me and as I scanned through the walls, nearly twice as many guards were rushing in to flank me. Within seconds they filled the room and covered my body with tiny red dots.
"Hands behind your head Project Superboy!" One of them ordered.
I couldn't think. My mind was filled with confused crackling noises; the screams, the alarms, the guards yelling, and most of all that stupid f**k**g heart monitor.
Beep—Beep—Beep—Beep
"ENOUGH!" I shouted, as I smashed my arms down onto the heart monitor. The impact blasted a shockwave that propelled the guards towards the outermost ring of the room.
"Wow…" The woman's voice said in astonishment. "You should be located somewhere in the control room; I'm pulling up a map right now to see"—
I flew as fast as I could, smashing the ceiling and anything else above me until I was far above the surface.
"Hmm…I guess you prefer the more direct approach." She remarked.
"Where do I go now?" I asked as I dusted away the rubble from my shirt. An S symbol, what does that mean?
"To Titan's Tower," said a grizzly voice. This sounded more masculine than the previous speaker and far less formal.
"Who are you? What happened to the girl?" I inquired.
"I'm Garfield Logan but my friends call me Gar. You'll find the answers you need at Titan's Tower. Just keep flying west, from that point on Miss Martian will lead you the rest of the way."
"Fine," I replied. "But just know that if you're lying to me you're going to end up much worse than those guards back there, understand."
"I'm not too worried." Garfield affirmed. "Something tells me that we're gonna need friends like you."
Elsewhere:
The young Security Chief rushed into the Director's office to notify her superiors of the news. "Project Superboy has escaped!" She proclaimed with what little breath she had left in her lungs.
"Good," her superior responded, "Then everything is going according to plan."
"According to plan, what plan?" The officer inquired.
"Well you see Ms. Spence, Project Superboy has always been more of a luxury. For the past several weeks infiltrators have been trying to break into Superboy's consciousness to get him to rebel. If it were not for our faithful servant Dubbilex this intrusion would not have been detected. So I had the D. cut off their psychic link with Superboy so that he could lead us back to these saboteurs. I released Superboy as a means of finding their identities and evaluating the risk that they present."
"What do you intend to do with the people you're tracking down when you find them?" She asked.
The man sighed with boredom before answering, "I intend to neutralize them in any way it deem fit."
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that Sir." Spence said as she reached for her firearm, but before she could touch the holster 5 long daggers coiled around her neck."
"Hmm…Well it appears that our infiltrators had some help on the inside, haven't they?" He grimaced before rising from his seat. "No matter, I'm sure whatever you managed to uncover was minuscule in the grand scheme of things. My apologies for not introducing my agent to you, Warblade meet Ms. Amanda Spence, Ms. Spence meet Warblade."
"The pleasure's all mine" Warblade grinned as he slowly sliced the corners of her neck, he was careful enough to avoid cutting her arteries.
Spence let out a faint scream and glared back at her captor menacingly. "You won't get away with this, none of you will."
"Enough, Warblade please silence her."
"Of course" Bryce repled as he violently struck the back of her head. He looked up to his master and asked "What now?"
"Lord, I could search through her memories to find the culprits you are after." Dubbilex interjected.
"No need for that," he abjured. "After all, that would ruin the surprise."
"We could send in OMAC to handle this." Warblade suggested.
"That would be overkill…send in Allen."
Warblade nodded, "Very well."
"In the meantime, Doctor Ivo, please continue on Project: Amazo and Director Donovan continue onwards with Project: Match. Please remember gentlemen that failure is never an option for agents of Checkmate, unless you want to end up like the late Director Westfield. Am I making my point clear?"
"Understood sir!" Both Doctors replied.
At Titans Tower:
Superboy flew to the base of the Tower to enter the building. Before he approached the doors he saw a man on a motorcycle blur past him. He was only able to make out the face for an instant but he could distinguish that the expression showed signs of frustration. After the clone was scanned briefly by a turret, the doors unlocked. He flew up the stairs and met the faces behind the voices. He saw three people standing by a supercomputer. A green man in a white and red costume stood at the center of the station and glanced over his shoulder. Another green person with red hair smiled at the Superboy. She wore a white shirt with a red x over it along with a blue cape and skirt. The last person off to the right wore a red and purple body suit; he walked toward the clone and extended his hand as a sign of peace. Superboy was unable to recognize the gesture so he proceed to walk to the monitor.
Before any of them could speak, Superboy asked "Who are you and what do you want with me?"
"You're certainly a very straight forward person" The green man implied. "I'm Garfield Logan but you can call me Beast Boy. The woman next to me is Miss Martian and the guy you just passed is called Bunker. We're the Teen Titans and we just rescued you."
"Rescued me from what?" The clone asked again; his tone insinuated that his frustration was growing.
"From Cadmus, it's this secret government lab that experiments with alien and metahuman dna. This must be a lot to take in right now but you're the biological clone of Superman. He's our galaxy's most powerful hero. If we didn't intervene when we did you have been used as a weapon to slaughter millions of people. We were hoping you could join our team so that we would have the power to stop them all."
"So what you're after! You free me with the hope that I will serve you as my new master. What makes you any different from them?"
Beast boy furrowed his brows and showed his sharp fangs. "The difference is that you can walk away from me whenever you choose to. I don't want you to be with us if you don't want to be, but just know that Cadmus will always treat you as their property, they'll take you back if they have to obliterate anyone around you to do so. The only way you can truly stay free is if you help me stop them."
Superboy contemplated Logan's words. "Fine, but after Cadmus is finished I'm done with all of you."
"Great to have you on the team amigo!" Miguel cheered.
Miss Martian nodded "Yeah but Superboy is a little to formal, do you have a name?"
Superboy glanced at his wristband. It read test subject: K85O943NOR7. "KON-OR" he tried to pronounce.
"Oh you mean Connor. I guess that'll work" the Martian said.
Beast boy quickly snapped the id bracelet off of Connor's wrist a noticed a flashing red light flickering on the inside of the band. "Damn! You were tagged."
"What does that mean?" Connor asked.
"It means that this interview was just cut short. Vamonos amigo!" Bunker shouted as he exited through the roof.
"Right! M'gann man the defense system, Superboy you're with me and Bunker. TITAN'S GO!"
For few moments each of the Titans surveyed around the tower. Miss Martian operated the turrets and monitored the sensors, Beast boy patrolled the grounds as a cheetah, Bunker and Superboy glided in small circles around the roof. Suddenly, a small dot popped onto the surveillance monitor and moved rapidly towards their coordinates.
"Bunker, enemy incoming on your—" the Martian's sentence was cut short as the intruder knocked Miguel out of the sky.
The infiltrator examined Superboy rolled her eyes. "So you were what I was sent after, you look pretty scrawny for a super clone. Listen up science project cause I ain't saying this twice. They call me Bombshell and my mission is to bring you in. All you need to do is follow me back to Cadmus and no one has to get hurt. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. What's it gonna be?"
"Screw you!" Connor yelled as he punched her in the face. He instantly winced in pain as his fist bounce off of the woman's metallic skin.
She grinned as she grabbed his wrist and tossed him over her head. Connor regained his composure and descended across from her. Her fist glistened with bright sparks of energy as she said "I love it when they try to fight back. The hard way it is."
TO BE CONTINUED…