The desert heat hit Abraham Cornellius like a wall as he stepped out of the air conditioned aircraft. The private jet had brought him to this distant Luthor-Corp installation. This North African Compound was Isolated even in relative terms, and the local geography of the Libyan Desert meant any human settlement was very far away. Beyond the airstrip were the only signs of industry. Simple rounded blocks of off white concrete. Three Shapes that floated in the heat haze, like squashed almost flattened pyramids, with a single feature. A dark indistinct shadow. A wide hanger door, broad like an open mouth.

Abraham swore. His use of the anglo-saxon made the Arab soldiers chuckle. The heat was fierce. He bet an egg would fry on the asphalt. The case handcuffed to his wrist was heavy, and his arm ached with the weight of it.

"Ah Doctor, may I assist." Their Captain began. It was self evident that this officer shared an affection for an ostentatious military uniform with his Commander-in-Chief. Like Gadaffi he was draped in gold trimmings. "The heat. Here it is terrible. They say it is the hottest place in the world."

Abraham could see himself sweating in the reflection in the Captains mirrored sunglasses. "Yes, but you'll have to stick close, I'm chained to this." Cornellius let the Captain take hold of the large metal attaché case.

The man grunted as he took the weight. "It is heavier than it looks."

"That is on account of the lead shielding." Abraham replied.

Looking around his eyes squeezed together against the glare. "Hell on Earth then." Cornellius said. "Fitting." He grumbled.

"This way." The Captain pointed. "If you please."

Abraham was grateful to be ushered into the white Luthor-Corp Range Rover that waited to the side of the runway. It was only a few hundred metres to the nearest concrete structure, but the vehicle was a welcome respite from the sun. The heat was less stifling inside, just. The journey fast and short. The concrete structure was all but empty. The four by four braked to a halt. Parked in what appeared to be a painted bay on the floor. It was more than that. Moments later the car and its occupants began a long descent. The camouflaged elevator platform carried them quickly downwards. Several floors passed by, Abraham wasn't able to judge exactly how many.

Finally stopping the platform delivered them to an underground chamber. He followed the soldiers and their Captain's lead. Each exited the vehicle.

The air was cool, and the atmosphere sterile.

The installation was a simple, functional metal and concrete. Industrial and clean. Several minutes later, and some distance along straight tunnel corridors Cornellius was taken to large set of double doors. Here the Captain left Abraham to carry the burden of the metal case once again.

Abraham entered an expensively appointed office, but the furnishings belonged very much the previous decade. A fashion time capsule. That told it's own story.

There was the smell of leather, wood, against beige and orange. The gleam of real gold, and the smell of a very expensive Cigar.

Lionel Luthor smiled, from behind a fragrant cloud. Sat in a voluminous captains swing chair, behind a glass and gold desk. His suit was contemporary, wide shouldered and double breasted.

"Can I get you a drink Abraham." He said with a characteristic flash of his white teeth. "It's all very good." Using a wooden boxed clicker device he triggered a moving panel. A mirrored bar was revealed in the exposed alcove behind. "It was great when I had the bar stocked back in '78, now it's ten years older," He sipped Brandy from a wide bell and stemmed glass, "it's even better. Shame I can't say the same for the furnishings. Where did taste go in the 70's?"

"Why am I here – what has this installation to offer project Logan?" He raised the case. "And why did you want me to bring this?"

Lionel Luthor smiled. "Always anxious." He said. "Do you still fear the world being destroyed – how did you put it – reduced to sea of grey goo?"

"I'm anxious to work." Abraham countered. "Field tests are going well. The Couple you chose have proven to be excellent guardians."

Lionel Luthor nodded, he appeared unwilling to talk about his connection to this family. Lionel swallowed from his oversized glass, before getting up. "Come this way."

Lionel led him. More corridors. Long enough for his arm to ache once more. Finally a vault. A chrome keypad awaited. The industrialists fingers danced over the numbers. Ever the sly, the long haired billionaire kept his back between him and his employee. Cornellius didn't try and peek. He valued his life more highly.

"I spent a fortune digging the sands of Libya for this." Luthor told him.

Then with a flourish he pulled on the heavy lever that snapped back the hydraulic retaining bolts.

There was a hiss and slow movement of several feet of steel. Behind inches of toughened glass was an animal head. Or more accurately a desiccated skull. Skin was stretched taught, like leather, it was hairless, frayed around the bony extrusions around the nose and eye sockets. Little more than skin and bone, dry and long dead.

"What the Hell?" Abraham spluttered. Peering for a long moment agog. "What is this?" He asked Luthor. "It's huge, to big to be bovine, but from the shape, and given the shape of those horns, it appears to be a goat."

"I know you benefited from a classical education Abe." Lionel said. "Think man. Where are we?"

Abraham frowned. Luthor was mocking him. He was tired. Jet lagged, and his head was pounding. The metal case was heavy. He hated to think about the danger it contained.

"If this is Hell then that's the Devil himself?" Cornellius snapped.

"Close." Luthor chuckled. He puffed on his huge Havana. "But no Cigar."


"It's so good to see you again Silvie." May Kent said. She poured ice tea.

Silver Fox accepted the glass with a gracious smile. Her behind rested on the bannister rail that ran around the veranda porch of the nineteenth century farmhouse. She had refused a seat. She had been sitting in the car. Her light weight navy suit hung loosely. She had been aiming for a business like look, something to take the edge of her exotic appearance.

"It's been too long." Jonathan agreed. Under his green baseball hat, the knot forming between his brow seemed to say otherwise. He took a swig from a brown beer bottle. Pushing back into the antique rocking chair, crossing his booted feet, leather dusty with earth, rubbing the thick soles against the polished wood of the veranda. The sun was almost down. Sinking to the horizon of the verdant arable lands of British Columbia, Canada. Red light flickered through the cab glass of the Green John Deere parked between the House and the red painted barn.

"How is the boy?" Silver Fox asked.

"Growing like a weed." Jonathan replied.

May sat down on the Veranda chair. Placed her glass on the table while looking at Jonathan. It was a wordless rebuke.

"He's doing very well." May said. "He's already walking and talking. Maybe,.. well I thought he might be older than you told us."

"It's possible." Silver Fox said. She paused. This moment of uncertainty provoked the bluff farmer.

Jonathan raised his hand. "Look Silvie. Cut the crap. I can't know for certain," He tapped his checked shirt at his heart, "but I know Lionel Luthor. From way back." He lent forward. "I've met a lot of government types in my life. Heck they inspect this and inspect that, want to know more and more about how I farm, raise my stock, plant my seed. But you... you're not one of them."

He turned to his wife, with an apologetic smile. Then he said. "Face it. You're a class act. A catwalk model slumming it." Adding. "And no cheap supermarket suit is going to sell me the story that you're a social worker on a handful of Loonies."

He lent forward. "Your one of his - Lionel always had an eye for the ladies."

Silver Fox didn't like the implication, but given the circumstances she couldn't find it in her heart to blame him for his conclusions. She sighed. This had been a long time coming. Her monthly visits were bound to inflame the Kent's suspicions. She didn't need to be psychic to guess that much.

"Jonathan." May's rebuke was not silent this time. "We agreed..."

"To sup with the Devil."

"I married you didn't I?" May snapped back.

"I assure you Jonathan, May. I do have young Logan's best interests at heart."

"I'm calling him Reilly." May said. "Remember - it's my maiden name." She added. Her face red, her heartbeat raised. She was worried, afraid she might lose the child she had fast grown to adore. Her hand reached out for her husbands. Too late Jonathan was on his feet. He gripped the rail looking out across his land, standing next to Silver Fox, who was facing in.

For all his gruffness the Farmer loved the boy too. She saw this love drove his anger.

She also knew these emotions were effecting her. She had slipped up and mentioned the name Logan. Mount Logan where it had all begun.

"When we ran into trouble, when the Bank threatened us with a forced sale, the last thing I expected was a call from Lionel." Jonathan growled.

"But you took it."

"Hell yes. I wondered why after all this time..." He emptied the beer. Then sighed. "I mean an offer to help us relocate, a mortgage from – at a very favourable rate.

"He said he wanted to make amends. To be friends again."

"Of course." May noted. "Lion Capital is a wholly owned Luthor-Corp subsidiary."

"And the icing on this particular cake was the promise of a family." Jonathan continued.

Silver Fox nodded. "It can't have been easy leaving Smallville." She looked at the older man's weather worn face, whilst reading his hidden intentions. This was a good man she reminded herself.

"It was and it wasn't." Jonathan told her. "It was liberating, leaving all that history - generations of Kent's, the old feuds. From a well known face in a small town to a new place and a new start.

"Still miss the old Kent farm though."

"Cloverdale has been good to us." May said.

She likes it here Silver Fox thought, and what May likes matters to Jonathan. She means everything to him.

"Lionel has been good to us." Jonathan said. "But Luthor's are never good without a bad reason. That's what my Pa told me." The farmer turned and looked Silver Fox in the eye.

"Tell me what it is." Kent demanded. "There is something... different about the boy isn't there?"

So they knew. She tensed, everything – all her well laid plans now hinged on this couples willingness to trust her, a woman they thought was in bed with Lionel Luthor.

It was a big ask. She thought. "Yes." She replied. "He's special."

"How special." Jonathan asked. "Genetically special?" His eyes pin pricks. "I know where Lionel's interests lie.

"We were good friends once. Defy family. Defy history. Defy Nature. His words Silvie. Luthor Petro-Chemicals, was what it was then, a family business founded on a few oil wells, and chemicals and fertilizers. Lionel always said the next big step was genetic engineering. He said. 'Agriculture made us civilised. Geneculture will make us gods'."

Jonathan folded his arms. "Tell me I'm wrong? Tell me Reilly isn't an experiment?"

Silver Fox could see tears in the farmer's eyes.

She felt like shedding her own. "Your wrong Mr Kent. Lionel hasn't done anything to... Reilly I mean." She didn't add - yet. She thought it, and for a moment forgot herself, as her emotions long suppressed tried to claw themselves animal like to the surface of her consciousness. She whispered to herself. "James why am I still doing this?"

Kent looked at her questioning. "Pardon?"

He hadn't heard her words. He couldn't understand. Not yet anyway.

She then said. "The boy was born this way – and he's not the worlds first.. exceptional child."

"A toddler shouldn't be able to lift his own crib above his head." May told her, he eyes demanded an answer.

"Samson could have done it." Jonathan laughed he ran his hand through his hair displacing the green baseball cap. It was a desperate sound. Of a man struggling to understand what he could not comprehend. "That's what you said May."

But May clearly didn't know what to say – or think right now.

The uncomfortable silence was broken by the patter of feet. The baby waddled towards them. Somehow he'd come downstairs and opened the front door. A clever boy indeed Silver Fox thought. His development was already outstripping human norms. If it was to prove exponential as Cornellius predicted, then the Kent's were in for many more surprises in the coming months and years.

Silver Fox watched as Jonathan smiled at Logan, the boy he and May called Reilly.

"Yes – Samson, maybe others like Hercules or John Henry." Silver Fox said, as she looked down and straightened her skirt. Avoiding the Kent's eyes. "You're saying that there has always been exceptional individuals who became legends."

Silver Fox nodded. "Modern science is trying to understand how this happens, and how we can help. I'm part of that."

"And Luthor?" Silver Fox took hold of Jonathan's arm. She pulled him close and whispered. "Believe me Mr Kent I don't trust Lionel either."

Jonathan stared into her eyes. She touched his mind. Just enough to push him in her favour.

"May, I want the best for him and for you both." Silver Fox explained.

"You are here because?" Mrs Kent asked here adding for emphasis. "Be honest. We deserve the truth. For Rielly's sake."

"I was told to inform you that I'd be taking the child with me for more tests." Silver Fox replied.

"Now hang on. Rielly is going no where – not without us." May stated.

"Please May. Look it's clear you understand – that you've seen how different... Rielly is. For his safety and for yours too, it's very important to monitor his development closely."

"Why should we trust you."

"Because I made sure Luthor gave the child a chance to grow up with loving parents, instead of in a plastic bubble in some laboratory."

"You made sure?" Jonathan parroted. "How?"

"Like you said Mr Kent." Silver Fox replied. "I'm not a Social Worker. I have my own talents."


Cornellius rubbed his wrist. Lionel had unlocked the cuffs, and the case now rested on a metal stand. Abraham glanced at it nervously. In front of them was the great skull. Removed from the vault it lay on a metal examination table, centre in a well equipped laboratory. Mummified flesh and skin clung to the bone. It had appeared hairless, but on closer examination under a lit magnifying lens, tiny tufts remained.

"Here." Luthor said. Offering the scientist a scalpel. It sat nestling in a velvet case, like a fine pen.

Abraham recognised the blue steely glint from the blade.

"Adamantium?"

Luthor nodded. He took the tool, and recognised it. This was the same blade he had given Luthor in Canada at the Mt. Logan installation. The scalpel that had proven it's edge by cutting the alien child.

Lionel was telling him something. He did nothing by accident.

"Do you know how I recreated Adamantium?" Luthor asked.

"I do not?" Abraham replied. "Pray tell sir, I am all ears." He rubbed his sore wrist.

"No need to be tetchy Doctor." Luthor snarled. He grabbed hold of Cornellius's tired right arm. Lionel was advanced in years, but not weakened by them. He held Abraham's wrist and his hand held the scalpel. In that moment Abraham feared for his life. He imagined his throat opened by the preternaturally sharp and resilient blade.

Luthor held him fast for a moment, perhaps enjoying this primal display of power, then he forced the Doctor's hand not to his throat as Abraham feared, but to the old dried giant goat's skull.

As he did so Abraham stopped struggling, and free of resistance Luthor hand in hand with Cornellius stabbed the remains.

The blade scraped across the surface of the leathered skin, and left no mark.

"Again." Lionel ordered. Abraham obeyed. The result, or that should be the lack of results, Cornellius thought, was the same. The skin was unscathed.

"How?" Abraham spluttered. "Is this skull somehow impregnated with Vibranium?"

Lionel chuckled and shrugged. "There may some esoteric relationship, after all metal is in many myths is something stolen from the gods."

"This is why you had me bring the alien material?"

Lionel shrugged. "Your report old friend was clear. The material begins to digest every vessel you used to contain it, including Adamantium – in a clear attempt self repair."

Abraham shrugged. "Possible – probable even, but the danger of ecophagy cannot be dismissed. There is no guarantee that the alien von Neumann machines would simply cease activity. We are lucky that the radiation from Alien Rock Crystal acts as a suppressant. If these micro machines ran unchecked, if they didn't stop..."

"We are lucky that our radioactive space emeralds – these ARC's give us a degree of control over our alien visitors – especially the child. For the child will become a man."

Cornellius sighed. "I suppose if we're to dabble with doomsday technologies, Hell on Earth is a good a place as any." He looked at the skull. "So Lionel – what is exactly is this thing, another alien artefact?"

"What this is – is the head of Aegis Goat." Lionel replied pointing to the grizzly artefact.

Abraham coughed in disbelief. "The Titan animal of Greco-Romano myth?"

Lionel nodded.

Cornellius continued. "Whose hide provided Zeus and Athena with indestructible armour?"

"The same." Lionel affirmed. "Adamant Armour forged by the Smith-god Hephaestus himself, and this is the skull, a trophy of sorts. Long interred here in Libya's desert, as you put it – Hell on Earth."

"Adamant you say?" Abraham looked at the skull. "If this creature was real, and nigh on indestructible, then so was mythical metal Adamant." he concluded. "Are you saying your Adamantium comes in some way from this Titan?"

Lionel laughed. "There is a story. Perhaps you are familiar with it? Centuries ago no metal on Earth could match Damascus Steel. From the third Century through to the age of enlightenment it was simply the best. The envy of the world. The secret guarded by an elite guild of smith's whose work with metals blurred the boundaries of science and magic. To each new batch of steel a seed of the first was added. Without this seed – this catalyst, the steel was ordinary, with it extraordinary.

"And can you guess how the first batch was forged?

"I think I might." Abraham frowned. "Although the notion is quite fantastic."

Lionel was looking at the goat and smiling his broad toothy grin. "Damascus' wizards of alchemy added a special ingredient to the crucible of that first melt. A single hair from this, the Skull of the Aegis Goat."

Abraham found himself shaking his head. "Alchemists, magic, gods – is this really where you are going Lionel?"

"Don't pull such a face Abe. Open your mind. The universe is not stranger than we imagine – it is stranger than we can imagine. Or have you a better explanation as to why an Adamantium scalpel can't cut the dried skin of an aeon old goat's head?"

Cornellius faced the evidence of his eyes, and answered saying. "Because this beast was the pure source material – the original indestructible Adamant."

"Exactly." Lionel grinned. "This was a living creature of magic – or perhaps such magic is but a science as yet undiscovered, at least by mortal man."

Abraham nodded. "So that is how it happened. Damascus, India, Japan. Incredible as it seems. It came down to this." He pointed at the skull.

"Come on Abe." Lionel asked. "Is the idea of such mortal gods so incredible – after all what would our ancestors have called the Alien's that crashed on Mount Logan?

"There are Aliens. There were - perhaps still are gods, and the Aegis Skull and Adamantium is just part of this incredible legacy.

Lionel patted the locked case. "And this alien material is but a new chapter in that story. A story of theft and invention. Weapon X is back on course."

"You saw my report." Cornellius said incredulous. He was trying to make sense of this, to connect the dots, thinking; what is Lionel Luthor up to? "I fully expect that Logan-Child skeletal structure will be stronger in it's adult state than Subject Zero's would have been after the Adamantium bonding process.

"Simply Lionel the Weapon X project is obsolete."

"Abe, Abe, you think too small. Adamantium is so last year. This is a new golden age. Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Well I'm going after the gods themselves." He turned to the Skull. Starting with the Aegis. I'm going to see what our Alien bio-tech can do."