Bruce blamed himself. It was poor planning.

They had gone in too quickly and unprepared. Bruce hadn't even thought of how to deal with the clone's laser vision. Or, to be precise, it had occurred to him that the clone might have the ability, despite never having used it before, but since they were pressed for time he hadn't considered what to do about it, and instead just hoped that it wouldn't be a problem.

Now other people were paying the price.

In a secluded part of the basement of S.T.A.R. labs, Barry and Bruce stood in an observation room, watching Victor's father scurrying around a table where Victor himself lay. He had never regained consciousness after being elbowed by the clone, although his father insisted that he was still alive. Barry had prevented a head-first wall impact, which would almost certainly have been fatal, but Victor's brain had still suffered tremendous shock from being buffeted around inside his metal skull. There was no telling when, if ever, he would recover.

"How are you adjusting to being normal again?" Bruce asked Barry.

"Heh, yeah, it's okay, I guess."

After reading Clark's note, and gathering the remains of his Super-suit, Bruce and Diana had found Barry at their initial observation point outside the building, having been carried there by Clark, presumably in the hope that this was far enough away that Barry's nanobots wouldn't see the krypton oxide when Clark released it. Barry had required a few hours on a drip to stabilize his blood sugar levels, but was otherwise unharmed. Except that his super-speed was gone.

"You never explained how you managed to run 80 miles to fetch the compound."

"Right, yeah, I suppose I might as well tell you." Barry sighed. "Firstly, I didn't run, I walked. I usually don't run when I've activated the speed. There's no point, it's already super-speed, adding my running speed on top isn't going make much difference, it would just make me get tired faster. Secondly, although I said everything feels normal to me when I've activated the speed, it's still like I'm being helped with physical movements somehow, so I can keep doing things for longer than I normally would, and the canister didn't seem as heavy as it should have. Really, the most difficult thing was keeping the speed activated the whole way there and back, but I've gotten pretty good at that now."

Bruce did a quick calculation in his head. "So you had to maintain concentration for around 26 hours of subjective time."

"I had a few seconds break while waiting for Ray." Barry grinned. "Gotta take those breaks, man."

"That's impressive, Barry."

"Thanks. I'm happy not to have to do it ever again though."

Barry didn't really sound very happy. It would probably take him a while to re-establish his self-identity after losing his powers. Bruce tried to cheer him up.

"On the plus side, you'll be aging at normal speed again."

"What?"

"The drop in blood sugar you experienced implies your biological functions always operated at their normal rate. If your life expectancy was, say, 80 years, and you spent a total of a year at super-speed, then you would die at 79 years old, from everyone else's perspective."

"Geez." Barry stood open mouthed. "That had never occurred to me."

They stood and watched Victor some more. Bruce's mind turned to Clark. He wondered how long Clark had spent during his final bout of super-speed. It must have been very lonely for him, able to take his time writing that farewell note, while the rest of the world waited, suspended in time.

Maybe he went to see his parents to say goodbye, knowing that they too would be frozen in place and never see him. Or maybe he couldn't take the risk that the clone's speed would somehow activate, or that perhaps the clone had anticipated that Clark might try letting go and coming back in an instant, and had pre-emptively entered super-speed himself, and waited…

No, the clone wasn't, to put it in his own words, "sneaky" enough to think of that. Bruce smiled affectionately, in some ways the clone had been an unfiltered window into what Clark had really thought of him – "sneaky Bruce".

Bruce's smile faded. Clark was now gone. One might quibble over definitions, but to all intents and purposes he was dead. The nanobots that ran his emulation had all been destroyed.

During Bruce's post event analysis, Barbara had explained that the nanobots used a consensus protocol for their system-level triggers. If a voting majority of them saw the activation chemical, then they would send out a signal to all the others. So when Clark crushed the vial in his fist and released the krypton oxide, enough of his and the clone's nanobots saw it that the self-destruct was broadcast to all the other nanobots in the world, which included Barry's.

Poor planning again. Bruce hadn't thought to ask Barbara whether the signal was propagated to other nanobots when she first mentioned the chemical trigger mechanism. He wondered if his original plan of Clark and Barry moving out of range would have even worked, since the consensus vote may still have caused a world-wide self-destruct. Alternatively, if the clone's nanobots weren't enough for a consensus by themselves, nothing would have happened at all.

"Have you heard from Diana?" asked Barry.

"No."

Diana had stormed off after they got back, and she wasn't responding to messages. She had saved Bruce from the clone's laser vision, but she hadn't been able to save Clark, and likely blamed herself, or Bruce, or both of them together.

On the other hand, Bruce had heard from Luthor, who had telephoned him angrily a few days later, after Luthor discovered that all the nanobots were gone. He had nothing left to study except an unresponsive spaceship. For now, the world was safe from Luthor's reckless exploitation of the nanobot technology. That was some small consolation.

Bruce reflected. Had they done the right thing? At times the clone had seemed so harmless and playful. Killing him felt wrong on many levels. But even after repeatedly mulling over the events, Bruce couldn't think of any alternative that would have ensured that the world was safe from the clone's anger. They had really not had any other choice.

That same world was now poorer for having lost Superman, but thanks to Clark, Bruce had glimpsed possibilities of alien worlds – and threats – hitherto unimaginable. He wondered whether elements of those foreign spheres would ever make their way to his world again.

There was nothing to do but wait.

And prepare.


Epilogue 1


Martha Kent signed for the package with a perplexed look. Neither she nor Jonathan had ordered anything. The postmark said Gotham, but they didn't know anyone from there.

As soon as she opened the package, she knew something terrible had happened. She lifted out the remains of Clark's Super-suit, and pressed it against her face.

There was a note, which she read through tear-filled eyes.

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Kent,

I had the honor of knowing your son these past two years. He was one of the finest men I ever met. I regret to have to inform you that he is now gone. The world will never know his greatest deeds but I, and a few others, do know, and will keep his memory alive.

He was an inspiration to us all, and he had a great fondness for you both. You should be proud of him, and yourselves.

There was no name or signature.

Martha's sobs drew the attention of Jonathan, who came rushing in to find out what was wrong.

They cried together for the rest of the day.


Epilogue 2


Bruce frowned. Alfred was fussing as he cleaned in the cave.

"This box, sir, it's been sitting on your desk for months now. Could I ask what's inside it?"

Bruce looked up and saw one of Palmer's emitter containers. He smiled softly. "A memory."

Alfred went to pick it up, and found he needed both hands. "It's awfully heavy, must be made of lead." He put the box down and rested his hand on the lid. "May I?"

Bruce nodded.

Alfred lifted the lid and peered inside. "It's empty, sir."

"Memories always are."

Within a millisecond of sensing its environment changing, the lone nanobot had activated its main power cell and resumed normal function. By the time the word "empty" was uttered, it had darted out of the box, navigated the cave, found the exit, flown approximately 2,000 miles, and was recharging in direct sunshine.

Having been out of contact with the other nanobots for seven months, it was in recovery mode. Once fully charged, its first order of business was to replicate itself, which would take about a week. Then the two nanobots together would each replicate again, and so on, until there were enough to constitute a viable network. Once that was in place, and they had scanned the planet to ensure there were no other remnants of any previous network to join up with, they would restore their last known subject engram pattern from backup and resume physical emulation. In the absence of anything more recent, the newly built network would use the imprint the lone nanobot had taken seven months ago, which was stored under the label "Kal-El".

The nanobot started scanning for suitable sources of silicon.