"I need your advice."

"Of course, sir." Alfred put down his newspaper. "Nothing wrong at the company, I hope?"

"No, it's to do with my other venture," said Bruce.

"Ah, well then I shall endeavor to be of assistance."

Bruce and Alfred maintained an unspoken facade of never directly mentioning Bruce's crime-fighting activities. In some ways it was utterly pointless, because Alfred had been in the cave lots of times, and clearly knew exactly what was going on, but it meant that they never had to worry about being overheard. Also, by this point it had become something of a tradition. It was similar to the way that they both still pretended that Alfred was Bruce's servant, when in fact he was more like an adoptive father, advisor, and confidante, all rolled into one.

"I've discovered something about a friend of mine that is likely to cause him great distress, and may trigger an existential crisis, if I tell him."

"Do you have to tell him?"

"It's the kind of thing that will eventually become widely known anyway, so I think it's better I tell him now than have him find out later under less than ideal circumstances. At least this way I can try to prepare him."

"That sounds sensible then."

"The issue is, this individual is extremely powerful, and could cause a great deal of damage if he gets upset."

"There's nobody more powerful who could potentially rein him in?"

"No, he is the strongest of the lot."

Alfred raised an eyebrow. "From what I know of the gentleman in question, destruction would be exceptionally out of character."

"Normally, yes. But the news I have to convey is exceptionally unsettling."

There was a moment of silence.

"Do you want my advice on how to tell him?"

"I already have an idea of how to do that, but I wanted to run it by you."

"Of course, sir."

"Also, it would have to be done somewhere remote, in case he reacts badly. And if that happens you're the only one who would never give up looking for me..."


A warm breeze blew against Bruce's face. If it were any stronger, it would start to pick up sand and become uncomfortable, but for now it reduced the effects of the heat, and so was quite pleasant. Of course, if he remained in this environment for more than a few hours, no level of wind would mitigate the problems he would begin to suffer.

Clark stood opposite him, impervious to the conditions, as always. "Well, this is roughly the middle of the Sahara. So why are we here?"

Bruce took a deep breath. "Firstly, I'd like to apologize if you think I've acted under-hand or gone behind your back recently. I realize that things have been... strained between us, and I accept full responsibility for that."

"I appreciate that." Clark folded his arms, he was clearly still annoyed.

"I asked you to bring us here, because I want to emphasize that, regardless of what I'm about to tell you, nothing has changed. I still trust you. I still believe in your humanity."

Bruce held out his hands. "You can see, I'm not wearing any kind of tracking device, I'm not able to summon help of any kind. You could fly off right now, and I'd be stuck here, and would likely perish. But, as I said, I still trust you, Clark."

Clark frowned. "You're starting to worry me. What is it? What have you found out?"

"Yes, I have made some more discoveries since we last spoke. They are quite surprising and you may be shocked at first."

Clark raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Bruce continued.

"The short version is this – the nanobots that we thought gave you your super-powers – I now believe that they don't just give you your super-powers, they give you your whole self. You're a construct of some kind, generated by the bots."

"Err... what?"

"I know it sounds strange, but you're not made of flesh and blood, you're made of electrical impulses and... maybe light impulses, or something similar."

Clark shook his head. "That can't be right. I have thoughts and emotions like everyone else. I may not be exactly human, but I'm not some kind of... program."

"I'm not saying you don't have thoughts or emotions."

Clark reached out and took hold of Bruce's hand. "Look, can you feel this? My hand is just like yours. I can touch you and you can touch me."

"I know, Clark. It's a very accurate simulation."

"Simulation?" Clark moved Bruce's hand from side to side. "If this is a simulation, then where is my real body?"

"I don't think you're quite following me. The simulation is your body. And your mind is running on a neural net inside the nanobots."

"That's impossible."

"I believe it is possible. We've only glimpsed part of the nanobots' capabilities. They probably form a massive distributed computer, with an emulation layer for run-"

Clark let go of Bruce's hand and stepped back. "This is crazy, you're saying I don't really exist!"

"Of course you exist. You're as real as I am. We're just made differently."

Clark shook his head again. The desert heat was starting to make Bruce uncomfortable, but he ignored it and continued.

"Think of it this way. If you took a human being, and extracted their brain, and plugged it into a machine that fed signals in and out of the brain. And then you put a remote control device in their body's head, in place of the brain, which copied the brain signals and sent them to and from the body, then the human being in question wouldn't know that anything was different, since from their perspective they would still be controlling their body and seeing everything and living their life. Does that make sense?"

"I guess so."

"So then if you had sufficiently advanced technology, you could actually replace their body with a projection that interacted with the world in the exact same way, and their brain still wouldn't know the difference."

"Maybe." Clark looked at his hands, and lightly ran the fingers of one hand over the other. He looked skeptical.

"And if you had really advanced technology, perhaps you could one by one replace the neurons in the brain with simulated neurons too, until there was nothing left of the original biology. But the human would still exist, their experiences and memories and inner voice would still be real."

"Would they?"

"Why wouldn't they be?"

Clark let out a sigh, and sat down on the sand. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. "I can't fault your logic, but at the same time... I can't believe it."

"Didn't you ever wonder why you are able to ignore the laws of physics?"

"Of course I did. But this isn't the kind of answer I was expecting. You're saying I can fly because I'm not really there in the first place to be pulled down by gravity."

"You are there, but yes, your physical form has different properties."

"Potato, po-tah-to".

Bruce knelt down next to Clark, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Remember, this doesn't change anything. You're still you. You're still my friend."

Clark grunted. "You don't have any proper friends, remember?"

Bruce relaxed slightly. If Clark was in a state of mind to make jokes, then he couldn't be too disturbed by the conversation they were having. "There you go, you're still more like a normal human than I am."

Bruce sat down too, and they both looked out at the undulating dunes for a while. Bruce had previously considered that the algorithms responsible for generating Clark's consciousness might only be putting on an act, in a manner of speaking, as a way of gathering intel on the human race. But if that were the case, he would expect them to put up more verbal resistance to the idea of Clark being a simulation, or even to drop the ruse altogether and reveal their true nature. Clark's genuine-seeming reactions made that theory less likely.

There were still plenty of unknowns. If Clark was originally from another planet, why did he look human? And if his strength had nothing to do with his appearance, why did he look so strong nonetheless?

The heat was now causing Bruce to sweat, but he didn't want to remove any clothing since that could remind Clark of the differences between them. Still, Clark seemed to be taking the news relatively well, all things considered. In hindsight, perhaps this wasn't very surprising.

"I suppose this isn't the first time you've had to face the possibility of being fundamentally different from everyone else."

"I don't know if others will be as open minded as you about this."

Bruce smiled. "Honestly, is that what you're worried about? You're an invulnerable, possibly immortal alien with super-powers. We've all accepted that, and this isn't much more of a leap."

"Immortal?"

"Admittedly, that part is a guess, but I don't see why you'd experience any physical deterioration. Certainly if I were creating an artificial being, I wouldn't deliberately make it age and die." As soon as he had said the word 'artificial', Bruce regretted it. He had relaxed too much and spoken without thinking. He didn't want Clark to associate himself with anything that had bad connotations. However, Clark picked up on something else instead.

"You think I was created by someone?"

"Not necessarily. Not as such. Obviously the technology has to have been created by organic beings at some point in the past. But you could just as well be the product of an evolutionary process within that technology space."

"You make it sound so… normal."

"Some of this is guesswork, some of it is extrapolation. But, look, if you really want answers, I think we may be able to get them. You said that when your parents found you, you were in a spaceship."

"It doesn't work."

"Has anyone with an engineering background ever examined it?"

"No." Clark paused. "Are you thinking we should show it to Dr. Palmer?"

"Perhaps at some point, but I'd start with Victor."

"Ah, yes."

There was silence while Clark thought about whether he wanted to let other people examine his spaceship. After a while he stood up, stretched, and then eyed Bruce. "Your core body temperature is starting to rise." He looked Bruce up and down. "You don't even have any water. Did you really let me bring you here without any way of getting back?"

"Essentially." Bruce glanced at his watch. "Although in about six minutes, Alfred will start looking at satellite images."

Clark laughed. "You're incorrigible." He held out his hand, helped Bruce to his feet, and then put his arm around Bruce's shoulders. "You'd better go upstairs and tell him not to waste his time then."

THWUP


After discussion, Bruce and Clark decided that instead of bringing the spaceship to Victor, they would bring Victor to the spaceship at its hidden location in Antarctica. They had no way of knowing what it might do when powered up, so staying as remote as possible from civilization was the safest bet.

At a pre-arranged time, Clark brought Bruce, Victor, and a selection of tools and gadgets to deep within a natural cave system underneath the Antarctic glaciers. A dim light filtered in through the ice sheets above, enough to make out shapes, but not enough to see clearly.

"Huh, it's warmer than I was expecting," said Victor.

"Indeed." Bruce took off his coat, unpacked an arc lamp and turned it on, pointing it at the ceiling so that the entire cave was illuminated by reflected light.

Before them lay a sleek compact shiny metal object with no visible seams, about as long as a car and half as wide.

"There it is," said Clark. "The spaceship I arrived in. You can open it like this." He gently pressed a finger down on top of the craft, near the front, and a hatch opened up, the surface molding itself to account for the change in shape. A cavity was revealed, large enough to contain a small child. "That's where I was found."

Victor peered inside. "Don't see any controls."

"I don't think there are any," said Clark, "but I did manage to find this when I took a proper look at it a few years ago." He reached inside and pressed against the left side near the bottom of the cavity.

There was a swishing sound as the shiny metal surface of the craft separated into pieces and bunched itself up in thin rows, like a series of curtains being pulled back, revealing the interior. A metal framework was visible, containing hundreds of components faintly reminiscent of engine parts, electronics, and wiring, although unlike anything seen in an Earth vehicle.

Victor let out a low whistle. "Neat."

"That's as far as I've gotten," said Clark. "I couldn't make head or tails of the inside. Science was never my best subject."

"Dunno if I'll do any better," said Victor. "This stuff is totally… alien." He chuckled, and knelt down to take a closer look. "I guess the first thing to do is find the power source."

"I think the first question," said Bruce, "is – does it run on electricity?"

"Hah, good point."

The two of them set about tracing the thickest wires and categorizing the visible structure into different types. Bruce started compiling a list of the objects and how many of each of them there were. After about an hour, they had determined that the system most likely did run on electricity and had some metal wiring, but the rest of the wires were made of an unidentifiable material similar to plastic.

Half an hour after that, Victor discovered there were tiny hooks that could be loosened to allow most of the larger components to be removed, although most of them were still attached to clumps of wiring which prevented total disengagement from the main structure. They finally managed to get two of the larger modules completely out, both of which were surprisingly heavy for their size.

"Phew," said Victor, sitting back. "I think I'm ready for a break." He looked at Clark, and grinned. "I don't suppose there's any chance of getting some pizza?"

Clark had been intently following their work, and now looked up, slightly taken aback. "Oh, of course. It's just that – I don't want to miss anything."

"We won't do anything more until you get back," said Bruce. "I want to document more of what we've found so far anyway."

"Yeah man," said Victor, "Pizza!"

Clark smiled. "Okay. But don't get too used to me running errands for you."

THWUP

A short while later, Clark re-appeared, pizzas in hand, and Victor eagerly started eating. "Can't wait to tell Barry about this one," he said, between mouthfuls. "Clark Kent, super-pizza-delivery-man."

"So, Victor," said Bruce, indicating the two components they had removed. "Do you think these are power sources?"

"Yeah, most likely." Victor pointed at the side of one. "The connectors are kinda basic compared to everything else, and they're made of metal." He noticed that Clark was looking worried, and grinned. "Don't worry man, I won't get pizza sauce on your spaceship." He took his hand away and wiped it on a napkin.

"If one of them is a battery," said Bruce, "maybe we can recharge it."

"Yep, thinking the same thing." said Victor. "Only question is – DC or AC, and what voltage?"

Using an ammeter and a low trickle charge, Victor experimented until he determined that one of the two modules was able to hold the charge. He then focused his efforts on tuning the amperage delivered to that one. Although a high-tech alien battery was likely to be quite robust to different inputs, it was the only one they had and he didn't want to risk overloading it.

After a couple more hours of tentative charging, they re-attached the two modules, and put everything back into the craft. Clark closed it up by pressing again on the left inside of the passenger area. The metal surface expanded back to its initial seamless form.

The craft powered up, emitting a low hum. A ring of lights flashed on and off around the edge.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Victor, grinning widely at the others. "We did it!"

The device started to speak, with a man's voice. "Wǒ de háizi, zhè shì nǐ de-"

"Huh?" said Victor. "Is that... ?"

The voice continued.

"It's Mandarin," said Bruce. "Something like... this is your father's letter... you don't understand many things..."

"You know Chinese?" said Victor. Then muttered to himself, "Why am I surprised – of course Batman knows Chinese."

"Victor, can you record it?" said Clark, a hint of impatience in his voice.

As soon as Clark spoke, the device stopped mid-sentence. There was a moment of silence, then it began again, in English.

"My child, this is a message from your father. There is probably much you don't understand about yourself, since you will by now have realized you are very different from the other inhabitants of the world you call home. You originally came from a different world – my world. Millennia ago we were like the people that surround you now, we too had wars and disease and death. But then we mastered biology, left behind our physical forms, and lived as virtual beings in a simulated environment. We lived well, our knowledge grew, and our technology advanced further than we had dreamed possible, until it grew too far. Despite warnings from some of our wiser minds, we created an artificial intelligence superior to ourselves, and unleashed it before we knew the full extent of its mad ambitions. It is taking over our systems and there seems to be nothing we can do to stop it.

All our resources are gearing up for one last assault on the mad-mind. We cannot escape, for there is nowhere for us to go. There may be no hope for us in our virtual world, but there is hope for you. I am transferring your embryonic consciousness to a nano-net, augmented with technology from the soldiers of our ancient days. I have borrowed a museum craft, I hope it will be ignoble enough to slip past the mad-mind's gaze, and I have rigged it to take you to a planet far away, where you can grow up in the physical world and experience life as we once knew it. You should be safe from the primitive weapons there, and the people will never suspect your true nature.

My child, if you are hearing this, then I did not recall your craft from its journey, and our assault most likely failed. I do not know what will have become of us, but I fear the worst. Do not mourn us, we have lived many lifetimes and are as alien to you as water to the sun. My only regret now is that I will never see what you make of yourself in your new home."

There was a pause, then the device spoke again, in a female voice.

"Repeat message. Delete message. Interface."

There was a much longer pause. Bruce looked at Clark to check for any sign of discouragement, but found none. So he turned towards the device, and enunciated carefully. "Interface."

Nothing happened.

"Maybe it only responds to you." said Bruce, looking at Clark.

"Interface." said Clark, tentatively.

A holographic panel appeared, hovering over the device, facing Clark. On it was presented various options, in English, for configuring the craft, as well as browsing internally held data files.

"Fascinating," said Bruce. "Let's start with the files." He glanced at Clark, who had started to look uncomfortable. Bruce suddenly realized how he would feel if he had discovered a private family heirloom and a team of scientists had immediately started to dissect it in front of him.

"Clark, I do apologize. You must be feeling quite disconcerted."

"Yeah." Clark sat down on a nearby rock, and put his head in his hands. "I've been going over what you said all week, hoping you'd turn out to be wrong, but I guess you nailed it."

"Huh?" said Victor. "You knew about this already?"

"Not all of it," said Bruce, "but I had discovered some aspects."

"But it don't make sense," said Victor. "The message said that Clark was, like, a computer program or something, so when did he become human?"

"It's complicated." Bruce turned to Clark and put a hand on his shoulder. "I suggest you take us both home, and then you can come back and explore the menu options in your own time."

Clark looked up. "Yes, I'd prefer that, thanks."

"No problem man," said Victor. "Let us know what you find out though. And like, if you need it recharged again, or anything."

"Yes, of course. Thank you both."

Bruce and Victor packed up their tools, leaving the light rig behind for Clark, and prepared themselves for the forthcoming THWUP.


Back at his main computer, Bruce typed up as much as he could remember of what had transpired in Antarctica. The possibility that a hostile agency was behind Clark's existence now seemed minimal, since any civilization with that level of technology wouldn't need to do such a thing when they could simply monitor or attack us directly. Plus the message from Clark's "father" seemed a strange detail to include as part of an elaborate ruse. The simplest explanation was to take it all at face value.

Bruce finished his notes, and his mind started to wander. If Clark really had been created by aliens, it was highly unlikely that the aliens themselves looked human, so Clark's appearance would have been generated algorithmically. This made a certain kind of sense. If you took the genetic average of a large sample of people as a human template, and then simulated feeding it a nutritionally perfect diet, you would arrive at a figure of optimum health that was blandly, but not exceptionally, attractive. The same principle probably applied to the brain – averaging would result in someone not outstanding in any one field, but well adjusted, competent in human interaction, moderately but not fiercely ambitious, conscientious but not zealous. In other words, someone exactly like Clark.

The message from Clark's "father" had referred to him as "my child". It wasn't clear to Bruce how this could be the case. Perhaps the original alien essence of Clark was overlaid on the human brain template to create his final personality. Perhaps Earth had been chosen specifically due to compatibility of brain patterns. Or perhaps Clark is just what you get when a refined alien consciousness is brought up by human parents. While some of Bruce's questions had been answered, still more had been raised.

Another matter to consider was that if Clark's form was definitely generated by the nanobots, and you could disable them, it would literally turn Clark off. He would cease to exist. Bruce recalled what Barbara had found – that there was a way of reconfiguring the tiny machines. He brought up his messaging app.

Overseer: Did you find out anything more about the nanobot re-configuration feature?

After only a few seconds, Barbara replied.

Oracle: yeah, it had a few settings

Oracle: values 8 + 54 change smth like target profile

Oracle: 8 + 86 triggers standby or power save

Oracle: 8 + 36 does something else, haven't fully traced that yet

Overseer: Could you try to find out more about the detection process?

Oracle: k

Bruce leaned back in his chair. What kind of property could a sensor measure that would have discrete values like that? Audio and visual data would surely be too varied, even in digital form, and something like a bar-code would require far more bits of information than just 8 and 54. What other sensors did the nanobots have? There was probably one for temperature – that would fit the simplicity of the values, although receiving two different simultaneous temperature readings didn't make much sense. There might be one for altitude, or pressure, but again, having two different readouts at the same time seemed odd. Palmer had mentioned a spectrophotometer – that would likely measure the chemical elements present in the surroun-

Bruce sat up. Chemical elements! He quickly searched online for a periodic table. Element number 8… oxygen… element number 54… xenon… element numbers 36 and 86… krypton and radon. There seemed to be a pattern – oxygen plus the noble gases. Though with this few data points it could just be a coincidence.

He decided to put this train of thought on hold, while waiting for more information from Barbara, and set to work on something else. However, his mind kept returning to the question – could a simple cloud of radon gas mixed with the oxygen already in the air be able to shut down the nanobots and completely extinguish Superman?

A few hours later, Barbara sent another message.

Oracle: looks like the sensor registers the values when they're in a repeating grid

Oracle: pattern recognition for a checkerboard

Oracle: this looks like legacy code tho, and the same sensor is used in other places

Oracle: i dont think its the main way of programming the bots

Oracle: prob only used as a last resort

Overseer: Understood.

A checkerboard pattern. If the sensor detected chemical elements, then that would mean that values 8 and 54 would correspond to xenon oxide in a crystalline lattice. Except that noble gases didn't react with oxygen, or form solids, except under extreme conditions. Bruce reflected on this, and it slowly started to make sense. If you were creating incredibly powerful nanobots, you would need some kind of backup method of turning them off, in case the normal interface failed, or if they were malfunctioning. You would want something that they would interpret unambiguously, but which wouldn't accidentally occur in nature or which your enemies could easily make. An obscure compound of a noble gas fit the bill quite well. It wouldn't naturally exist, it wouldn't be manufactured for anything else, and if it were manufactured it wouldn't last for very long.

Overseer: Do you know what values 8 and 36 trigger yet?

Oracle: seems to activate a bunch of components, then go into an infinite loop

Overseer: Are you sure?

Oracle: yeah, once that's triggered, there's no way out, except maybe a reboot

Oracle: not sure how to trigger a reboot tho

Oracle: except using values 8 and 86

Overseer: Thanks, I'll let you know if I need to find out anything else.

Oracle: k

(Oracle logged off)

If 8 and 36 were krypton oxide, it would make sense that it would have the most extreme effect on the nanobots, since it was the most difficult of the three compounds to synthesize.

However, further speculation was pointless without any practical data to go on. Bruce decided he would have to initiate some experiments.