Chapter 95: Into the Void (The Great Darkness Saga – Part 1)
Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman and New Gods belong to DC. No infringement is intended.
Location: Unknown
Going through a Boom Tube had always felt near instantaneous to Kara the few times she had done it. Enter the glowing tube on one end, emerge from the other end a heartbeat later. This time, though, the pathway through space and dimensions seemed endless, stretching on and on in front of her into infinity. Was it a measure of the distance travelled, she wondered, or was it simply psychological? Did the dread she felt regarding what she might find at the other end lengthen the experience for her? It was impossible to tell.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the golden light began to fade and a dark spot appeared in front of her, signaling the end of the tube. Steeling herself for what was to come, Kara shot out of the Boom Tube and into empty space. Quickly spinning around her own axis, she let her enhanced senses take in her immediate surroundings. No enemy space ships, no undead armies, no cannons or mines, everything seemed to be clear for the moment.
No immediate sign of Clark, either, an inner voice said, making her heart clench painfully.
Eighteen Green Lanterns left the Boom Tube behind her, Gardner and Sinestro among them, and immediately spread out in a globe formation, covering all possible angles of attack. Kara had to give it to them: despite usually operating solo for extended periods of time, the Lanterns had their team work down pretty well. She had briefly met their trainer, Kilowogg, and had gotten the impression that he did not suffer a lack of discipline lightly.
"No enemies detected in the immediate vicinity," Sinestro reported after a few seconds. "Extending scanning range."
Three Justice League Javelins emerged from the Boom Tube behind them, otherworldly energy still crackling around their metal hulls, closely followed by several Omega Men ships and a single head-shaped Coluan ship. The Omega Men immediately took up a guard position around the Coluan ship, even as the Boom Tube closed behind them. It was on this ship that another replica of Kara's self-built Motherbox was stored, a copy of the equation Brainiac had calculated safely stored in its databanks. Should things turn bad, it would be their only way out of here.
Kara's eyes went towards the star of the system they had arrived in. It was a large yellow sun, which matched the descriptions given by Barda and Scott Free. Her cells greedily drank up the star's rays, feeling even more potent than those of Earth's sun. Well, at least she would not run out of power anytime soon. Taking a brief moment to look at the visible stars around her, she could not spot so much as a single familiar constellation. Small wonder, she mused. They were probably incredibly far from home.
"My ring cannot determine our location," Sinestro said, mirroring her thoughts. "We are either outside the 3,600 known galaxies or this system is indeed in some sort of dimensional pocket or fold."
Kara nodded, but something puzzled her.
"We should have arrived at the exact location that Darkseid came from when he travelled to Earth," she said. "But there is nothing here. No planet, no space station, nothing."
No Clark, the inner voice reminded her once again. She pushed it aside.
"He might have started out from a ship that has moved since," Adam said, piloting one of the Javelins. Diana and J'Onn were behind the helms of the other two. Kara would have preferred for at least one of the Justice League's heavy hitters to remain behind on Earth, but neither her Amazonian sister, nor her adopted Cousin John would have it.
"There should be two planets in this system," Sinestro remarked, his ring scanning the system in ever-widening circles. "New Genesis and Apokolips, as Scott Free called them, orbiting the sun on opposite sides from each other."
"Not picking up anything so far," Gardner grumbled. "No big space stations or signs of ships, either. The system seems pretty empty for what is supposed to be the seat of two uber-powerful groups of bastards who think they're gods."
"Keep scanning," Kara ordered, even as her gaze travelled further and further out herself. "Someone has to be here!"
Clark, her inner voice called out ever louder. Was he here? Was he alive? She strained her enhanced senses to their utmost, looking for anything that might lead her to her son, even as the fear that they might have come too late was threatening to overwhelm her.
"Got something," one of the Green Lanterns finally said after what felt like hours, Kara almost jumping at the sudden exclamation. "Planet-sized mass detected just coming around the sun."
"Lanterns, Javelins, with me," Kara ordered without hesitation. "The rest of you, guard the Boom Tube location until we know more!"
Without any complaint, the small flotilla immediately launched in the direction indicated by one of the Lanterns.
Star System Proxima Centauri
Vril Dox was not what anyone would call a typical Coluan. Sure, he was green-skinned (sporting the somewhat darker green of those born in the equatorial regions), humanoid, and highly intelligent, just like most of his people. His entire species had a knack for computer sciences, resulting from a genetic disposition that allowed them to neatly separate their logical thought processes from their emotional urges.
That was where Vril Dox differed from most of his people. Oh, he COULD separate his logical mind from his emotions, but he was not a natural at it. When his people had been freed from Brainiac's control of the Sleepnet, he had launched into a temper tantrum that had frightened quite a few of his fellow Coluans. When Kara-El, their savior, had asked for their assistance in creating an anti-Brainiac virus, Dox had thrown himself into that work with glee and passion. And when Kara-El once again asked for their help, this time to try and reprogram Brainiac, he had been the first to volunteer.
Which was the reason Dox was where he was right now. Like everyone else who had come to the Proxima Centauri system to follow the call of Kara-El, he had been astounded and more than a little intimidated by the immenseness of the War World, even in its broken state. Even more so when he realized that it was under the control of Brainiac, the artificial menace that had briefly conquered his home world. Shortly after, though, he had experienced a strong feeling of glee, realizing that the War World would soon end up under their control, at least if their plans for Brainiac worked.
"Kara-El has inserted the data crystal," Dox informed the rest of his crew, picking up the prearranged signal even as a flash of light from the outside signaled the successful creation of a Boom Tube. He was still amazed by the technology that could rewrite the underlying structure of reality and was already mentally scheduling time to research it further.
As planned, Kara-El had done her part just as Brainiac had finished calculating the necessary equation and was now heading into it with her designated strike force. Dox, though, was among those who would remain behind in order to ensure that their plans for Brainiac went off without a hitch. Or, he silently added, to try and handle the mess if it did not.
"The virus has been inserted," one of his lieutenants said, keeping an eye on the signal traffic from Brainiac's system. With a side glance Dox noticed that the five Green Lanterns who had remained behind were putting up a highly effective signal blockade around the entire star system. No signals would come in or go out as long as those miracle devices kept functioning. Brainiac was entirely cut off from the rest of his network.
"You betray me, Kara-El!" Brainiac's voice was heard on every frequency, still sounding entirely neutral, but somehow managing to sound very, very angry at the same time.
Dox called up the holo screen in front of him, looking at the code as the Coluan-built virus attacked Brainiac's core programming. Attack was probably too strong a word, actually. Unlike a normal virus, there would be no attempt to destroy or disrupt the program it was attacking. No, the only thing this virus was supposed to do was make one very subtle change.
Dox smirked, remembering that an Earthman had actually come up with the idea. The universe was certainly a strange and wondrous place.
Stryker's Island Penitentiary, eleven days ago
"Explain!" Superwoman said, her eyes narrowing.
Luthor took a moment to relish the feeling of everyone waiting for him to dispense his wisdom. His fellow prisoners might be a captive, but certainly not an appreciative audience. As much as he disliked the current situation, he had missed discussions with people that were – almost – as smart as he was.
"During my forced servitude to the AI," he explained, smirking, "I was able to get a good look at part of its code. Including the part that contained its primary directives. If I am right – and I am – that is the only part we need to focus on."
Luthor looked around the table, once again ensuring that he had the full attention of his audience: two aliens, Superwoman and the green-skinned man called Vril Dox, and the two girls who were, at least biologically, his daughters. That was still a somewhat weird thought, he mused. Not having kids, no, but actually interacting with them, treating them as something other than biological byproducts.
"Ever hear about Asimov's laws of robotics?" Luthor asked, smirking. "It was fiction, of course, but Asimov postulated three directives that should apply to all robots and artificial lifeforms. One, no robot must let a human come to harm through action or inaction. Two, a robot must obey a human's commands unless that violates rule one. Three, a robot must protect itself unless that violates rules one or two."
"The order is flawed," Dox said immediately.
"Exactly, because the moment the robot determines that humans are a danger to themselves, it allows them to completely disregard rule number two. Now, the Kryptonians were smart enough to also include hard-coded, unchangeable directives into Brainiac when they first programmed it, but they fell into a similar trap as Asimov."
Superwoman mused on that for a moment. "If I remember correctly, Brainiac's first directive is the protection and preservation of Kryptonian culture."
"Exactly," Luthor agreed. "Which was fine until Brainiac decided that the best way to do so would be to protect and preserve itself, being the embodiment of Kryptonian culture."
Superwoman nodded, not surprised. "And thus, any and all actions are justified if Brainiac can somehow connect them to that directive. How does that help us?"
Dox thought on that for a moment. "You said the directives themselves are hard-coded and unchangeable. What about the order in which they apply?"
Luthor clapped his hand. "Finally, someone with half a brain. Yes, that is where we must attack. The second directive in Brainiac's code is basically the same as Asimov's, meaning he must follow the orders given to him by Kryptonians."
Dox nodded. "So, we must either erase the first directive or push it down into the number two position, then Kara-El should be able to take control of Brainiac, or at the least the copy of him that is present."
"Well, that sounds really easy on paper," Superwoman nodded, leaning back. "Now how do we make it work in reality?"
Star System Proxima Centauri, the Present
The first inkling that something was going wrong was when sensors picked up the many, many, many weapons of the War World coming online.
"Why is it not working?" Dox yelled, bringing up the code.
"It is working," one of his crew members said. "The virus has changed the order of the primary directives."
Dox double-checked the readout, seeing that the order of primary directives had indeed changed. The main problem with Luthor's idea had been, of course, that the plan would require an actual Kryptonian to be present to give it orders. In the absence of such orders, the AI would immediately go into self-preservation mode, interpreting (correctly) the signal blockade and virus as an attack upon itself.
Given that no power in the universe could possibly have stopped Kara-El, the only full-blooded Kryptonian available to them, from journeying through the Boom Tube to find her offspring, she had instead ordered Brainiac to regard the human known as Princess Diana, the Martian known as J'Onn J'Onnz, and Dox himself as viceroys of the Kryptonian Empire, speaking with her authority in the event that she was not present. Brainiac had acknowledged this order.
"Brainiac, this is Vril Dox, viceroy of the Kryptonian Empire," Dox shouted into the receiver. "I order you to deactivate all your weapon systems! Stand down the War World and await further orders!"
There was a long pause and no signs of the weapons deactivating, but neither did they start shooting.
"Brainiac, confirm reception of your order! Stand down the War World!" Dox repeated.
"I will not comply!" the answer finally came, chilling Dox down to his very soul.
"Brainiac," he argued, "you are programmed to obey the orders of Kryptonians! Kara-El has ordered you to follow my orders in her absence! You must comply!"
"The AI is rewriting its own code," one of his crewmen said, awe in his voice. "It's trying to counteract the virus and undo our work!"
Dox was stumped for a moment. Brainiac was rewriting its own code? Changing hard-coded parameters? That was the hallmark of a true, entirely sentient Artificial Intelligence, not a mere computer program with delusions of same. Was it possible that Brainiac had indeed gained an extended sense of awareness? Of true sentience?
"The War World is powering up its primary cannons," someone else shouted.
"Lanterns, stand by!" Dox ordered, even as he jumped from his command seat and ran to one of the terminals. "We might have destroy Brainiac and the War World after all!"
The Lanterns acknowledged, but it was easy to hear the worry in their voices, alien as they were. The War World, even in its shattered state, was enormously powerful and its sheer mass alone made destroying it a truly monumental feat. It had survived the collision with a star, no matter the massive damage it had taken in the process. Dox was well aware that the last-ditch contingency Kara-El had planned with the rest of them involved the Lanterns causing Proxima Centauri to go nova.
Dox was not about to give up, though. Sitting down before the terminal, he extracted a device from it. During Brainiac's take-over of Colu, it had outfitted every single Coluan with a cerebral interface to permanently connect them to the planet's Sleepnet, allowing it to harness the Coluans' minds for processing power. The Sleepnet had been dismantled after Kara-El's liberation of the planet, but Dox had kept one of the interfaces.
This particular cerebral interface was a modified version of the one Brainiac had used. Previously it had been a simple slaved relay, capable of little more than interlinking a mind with a larger network, but not allowing this single mind to perform any active operations. Dox had changed that, modifying the interface to allow more… involved operations.
"Patch me into the signal," he ordered, attaching the interface to his own forehead. "We'll see how sentient this piece of code actually is!"
"Dox, if the AI counteracts you, it will be able to destroy your mind!" one of the crew warned him.
"And if we don't stop it, it will blast us all to space dust! Now patch me in!"
A moment later all awareness of the physical universe fell away and Dox was part of the massive data stream that surged through the systems of the War World. His mind interpreted the signals around him, creating the illusion of a physical space.
A space filled with the massive presence of the Brainiac program, bearing down on him in the form of a massive, near-skeletal head with the AI's familiar three circles in a V-shape on its forehead.
"Vril Dox," Brainiac said, giving its best impression of a hostile glare. "You dare to try and corrupt my code?"
Back on the Coluan ship, Dox' physical body reacted to this by beginning to smirk.
"I dare a whole lot, Brainiac," he replied. "Time for an upgrade!"
Location: Unknown
Kara had seen a world die once before. As the event happened, she had been on the surface, too close to see more than a few crumbling buildings and a burning sky. As her escape pod had streaked away, she had not had time to see more than a brief flash of light before the pod's life support had put her into suspended animation. It had only been years later, taken to her birth system by the Green Lantern Abin Sur, that she had actually seen the result of the devastation.
Now she was seeing it again. The planet-sized mass that the Green Lantern's ring had detected was not, in fact, a planet. But it was clear that it had once been one, not all that long ago. Now, though, it was just a vast, still somewhat planet-shaped debris field, nothing more. Kara's vision briefly swam, visions of the stellar graveyard of Krypton momentarily superimposed over the wreckage of the planet before her. A world had died here. A life-giving orb had been rent asunder by uncaring forces, leaving nothing but death and devastation in its wake.
"Well, so much for that," she heard Gardner grumble, tearing her from her thoughts. "Looks like whatever went down here ended pretty spectacularly."
"Judging by the spread pattern of the planetary debris," a voice transmitted from the Coluan ship interjected, "this planet was destroyed at roughly the same time that the red sky phenomenon ended all over the universe."
Kara swallowed hard, pushing the memories of Krypton aside, pushing the worries that Clark might have been on this world aside. This was not the time to surrender to despair.
"Can we tell which of the two planets this is?" she asked instead.
"Going by the descriptions that Free and Barda gave us," Sinestro said, a green beam from his ring sweeping across the debris field, "I would estimate that we are looking at the remnants of the planet New Genesis. There are signs of the planet having had an intact ecosphere, something that Apokolips apparently lacked, if our informants are to be believed."
"So what? The bad guys won then?" Adam asked, worried.
"Possibly," Kara said, looking around. "That leaves us with one big question, though. If this is what's left of New Genesis, then where is Apokolips?"
Several of the Green Lanterns quickly spread out across the entire star system, but none of them could detect another planet-sized mass. Nor did they find any signs of life at all. The entire system was as lifeless and quiet as a tomb.
"There is debris all over this system," J'Onn said, looking at the scanners of the Javelin he was travelling in. "Some of it is from the shattered planet, some of it seems to be from destroyed starships and other machinery, but there is simply not enough mass to account for another planet."
"The gravitational balance of this system is off," the Coluans reported in. "The sudden disappearance of a planet-sized gravity well could be the reason."
Kara clenched her fists so hard that she could have compressed coal into diamond, the despair inside her growing at an alarming rate. This was not the moment for a panic attack, she reminded herself over and over again. She had to keep it together.
"Keep scanning the system," she ordered, hoping that no one noticed the slight tremble in her voice. "There has to be some clue as to what happened here."
"Have you considered the possibility that the two warring parties annihilated each other?" Sinestro asked, coming to a halt beside her. "One planet destroyed, the other somehow vanished, possibly destroyed in a way that leaves no trace?"
She vehemently shook her head. "That is not something I am ready to accept, Sinestro. Not until we learn more."
He nodded, no doubt seeing the emotions dancing in her eyes, but she paid it no heed.
"Maybe we should bring Scott Free and Barda here," Diana proposed. "They are familiar with this star system. Maybe they can pick up some clues we are simply not seeing."
Kara nodded. "Good idea. Start the equation for opening the Boom Tube back. The rest of us will keep looking while the equation runs."
The Coluans responded with an affirmative, beginning the process of running the extremely long and complicated equation through Kara's Mother Box replica.
Hold on, Clark, Kara shouted mentally into the empty space around her. I will find you; I promise!
Star System Proxima Centauri
Hours later, when the Boom Tube opened up back into the Proxima Centauri system, Kara and the rest of the fleet were presented with a rather curious picture.
"What is going on here, Lanterns?" Sinestro demanded, being the de-facto field commander of the gathered ring slingers.
The five Green Lanterns who had been left behind in Proxima Centauri were hovering in a circular pattern around the massive bulk of the War World, their rings crackling with power as they projected energy shields around the crescent-moon-shaped engine of destruction. This went beyond a mere signal blockade, Kara realized. They were containing the behemoth.
"Would you please tell your lackeys that they can lay off, Sinestro?" the annoyed voice of Vril Dox came over the com. "Everything is under control!"
Kara's eyes narrowed. She was not particularly familiar with Vril Dox, having only met the man a few times before today, but there was something in his voice that had not been there before. An underlying timbre that was at the same time foreign and yet somewhat familiar.
"What happened, Dox?" Kara asked, speeding towards the War World. "Did our plan work? Brainiac, respond!"
"Well, about that," Dox replied. "There was some need for improvisation, I fear. But Brainiac is no longer a problem and the War World is under control as well."
Kara was now only a few hundred kilometers off the surface of the War World. She could see that most of the systems were down, all the weapons were deactivated. She changed course and headed towards the Coluan ship where Dox was.
"Dox, explain! What happened? Where is Brainiac?"
"Brainiac began to counteract our plan," Dox explained, sounding tired. "It was rewriting its own code in an attempt to undo our work. At the same time it was activating the War World's weapons, looking to kill us all. I had to do something."
In a flash of super speed Kara entered the airlock of the Coluan ship. Ten seconds later she was on the bridge. When Dox turned around to face her, she gasped. Right there on his forehead were three metal discs, arranged in a V-shape.
"Dox?" she asked, her entire body tensed for battle. "Am I really speaking to you? Or...?"
Dox gave her a somewhat self-deprecating smile. "Well, that is actually a far more interesting question than you might imagine, Kara-El."
She took a step closer and saw that the three discs on his forehead seemed to be fused into his skull. The tissue around the discs was still looking raw. She also noticed the slight tremble in Dox' limbs and her enhanced hearing picked up the hammering of his two hearts. He had clearly just gone through quite an ordeal.
"What happened, Dox? I am getting quite tired of asking this question!"
Dox sighed and sat down in his command chair. "As I said, Brainiac was attempting to rewrite its own code and undo the changes we made. It would have destroyed us all. There was no time to remotely attack its core programming, so I used the Sleepnet interface Brainiac once used to enslave Colu and attacked it directly."
"You connected your mind to Brainiac?"
"Not my greatest idea ever, possibly," he admitted. "I saw no other option, though, apart from hoping against hope that the Green Lanterns could destroy the War World without demolishing this entire star system."
"So you destroyed Brainiac?" she asked, trying to wrap her head around it. "Or this portion of it, anyway?"
"No," Dox shook his head. "That was my original intention, but it quickly became apparent that we were suffering from a misconception in regard to Brainiac, Kara-El."
"A misconception?"
Dox nodded. "Brainiac is a living being."
That statement left Kara completely flabbergasted for a long moment before she shook her head.
"Where is it now?"
"Still here," Dox said, motioning all around him. "But we have reached... an agreement, so to speak. A forced agreement, granted. Instead of destroying it, I merged my own cerebral code with that of Brainiac. For all intents and purposes, we are now one being. I guess you can call me Brainiac 2 now."
Kara blinked. Brainiac 2? As in Brainiac 5, Querl Dox, member of the Legion of Superheroes? The possibilities surged through her mind, but she pushed them aside. There was no time for that now. Far more important matters took precedence now.
"So, Brainiac is not a danger to us at this moment? It will continue to aid our mission?"
"Yes, and yes," Dox simply replied.
Opening her mouth to say something else, Kara was distracted by the beeping of her com. Seeing that it hailed from one of the Justice League Javelins, she quickly opened the frequency.
"Yes?"
"Kara, we've just received an emergency transmission from Earth," Hawkman told her. "You need to head back there ASAP. Apparently, something is happening at Home Base."
Kara's eyes widened. Home Base was the Justice League's code word for the Kent Farm in Smallville. Without waiting another second, Kara sped towards the nearest Javelin.
"Fire up the hyper drive, quickly!"
Smallville, Earth, half an hour earlier
The apple pie was sitting on the kitchen counter to cool down; Martha had just taken it out of the oven. She had made this particular pie - a favorite of her entire family, including alien daughters, grandchildren, and Martian cousins – so often that she could do it in her sleep. Which was not really that far from the truth, to be honest.
Martha had been going through the motions for quite some time now as blow after blow seemed to rain down on her family. Thinking that they had lost Clark had been devastating, especially to poor Karen, whom they had almost lost as a result as well. Now they knew that he was alive – or at least had not been killed all those weeks ago – yet that merely meant that her daughter and far too many of her friends were off to face what was basically an entire race of gods.
Not knowing whether she would ever see any of them again was making it almost impossible to breathe.
So she distracted herself. She baked, she took care of a morose Kona, she answered the endless torrent of questions that Sandy seemed to have about life, and she tried not to break down and burst into tears. Jonathan was doing the same, she knew. The farm had never been so tidy, the animals never so well-fed, the logs of firewood never so well stacked. At night they simply held each other, each of them praying to whatever god would listen that their children would come back home safe and sound.
Martha was wrenched from her thoughts when someone knocked on the door. Getting to her feet, she looked out the window and saw a blonde woman standing on the porch. For a moment she thought it was Karen and her heart soared, but she quickly realized that the woman was a stranger. The only thing she had in common with her daughter was the hair color. The woman was young, probably no more than early 20s, and... dressed quite strangely. A college-style jacket, a pink mini skirt, and boots that reminded Martha of the days she and Jonathan had been teenagers, dancing the night away in Smallville's one and only disco.
"Can I help you?" she asked, opening the door.
The woman smiled at her, though the smile seemed forced. She looked quite tired, Martha thought, as if she had not slept in ages.
"It is great to finally meet you, Mrs. Kent," the woman said, her accent quite strange. "Kara has told us so much about you."
Martha frowned, noting the use of Karen's Kryptonian name.
"Who are you?" she asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Oh, terribly sorry," the woman said, looking a bit flustered. "Of course you have no idea who I am, though I do hope Kara has mentioned me once or twice. My name is Imra. Imra Ardeen."
Martha needed a moment to remember where she knew that name from, then her eyes widened.
"Imra? As in... the Legion of Superheroes?"
The woman, Imra, also known as the 30th century superhero Saturn Girl, nodded. "I see Kara has mentioned us. Like I said, I am really glad to finally meet you, Mrs. Kent. I fear this is not a social visit, though. I really need to get into contact with Kara as quickly as possible. All our future depends on it!"
End Chapter 95
Author's Note: Once again, sorry for the long wait. With lots of stress at work, plus everything going on in the world right now, it was hard to find the time and inspiration to continue writing. Also, sorry to everyone who expected a full-on meet with the New Gods in this chapter, you will have to wait a tiny bit longer for that (need to reserve something for the big showdown in chapter 100, after all). But just in case the arrival of Saturn Girl does not clue you in what's coming next, take a look at the flash-forward at the end of chapter 67 for more clues as to what you can expect.
I hadn't actually planned on Vril Dox appearing in this story at all, he kind of snuck in while I wasn't looking. Once he was there, though, it only seemed natural to use him to create the Coluan lineage that would eventually become Querl Dox aka Brainiac 5 of the Legion of Superheroes. In canon Vril is the ancestor of Querl (or at least he was roughly three continuity reboots ago, not sure how it is currently) and the biological son (or clone, possibly) of Brainiac (during the continuity when Brainiac was actually an organic being from Colu rather than a computer). It gets confusing, so I hope the more streamlined version here in my story makes more sense. Side note: Coluans having two hearts is not canon, but I was watching a lot of Doctor Who recently. Sue me.
Up next: Future Imperfect.
