"Hello, gentlemen," Chloe greeted happily as she and Emmeline walked up to Clark and Pete in the shop.

"Hey, Chloe," Pete said.

"What are you doing to those poor citrus?"

Clark and Pete had stabbed wires into several oranges and arranged them as if they were a floral arrangement.

"Well, apparently there's enough acid in them to act as a battery," Clark explained.

"How very 'Survivor' of you. What are you going to call it? A Clockwork Orange?"

"Don't you wish you were the first one to say that?" Pete told her.

A student wearing a gray hoodie with the hood pulled up came over and plugged something into one of Clark and Pete's empty outlets. Emmeline noticed he was wearing headphones underneath the hood.

"Sure, you can use our outlet," Clark said dryly.

"Thanks," the boy answered before walking away.

"What's up with that guy?" Pete asked.

"His name is Cyrus Krupp," Chloe said. "He transferred in a couple of weeks ago. They asked me to give him the new student propaganda tour, but he said he wouldn't be here long enough to need it."

"Maybe that's why he's trying so hard to win friends and influence people," Clark said sarcastically.

Chloe smiled and started walking away. "Coming, Em?"

"Go on ahead. I'll be there in a bit."

"Suit yourself."

Clark turned to Emmeline. "I heard your mom was finished with treatments."

Emmeline smiled broadly. "Yep! The cancer is gone, so now she's just recovering from everything."

"That's great news."

"Oh, check it out, man!" one of the jocks said loudly. Emmeline looked over and saw someone listening to Cyrus's headphones. "The loser's listening to a dial tone!"

Cyrus snatched the headphones back. "You don't have the mental capacity to comprehend that sound."

"Are you calling me stupid?"

"Let's just say you're not one of mankind's brightest lights."

The boy knocked the headphones to the ground and then stole the weird sphere Cyrus was holding. They started tossing it back and forth so he couldn't get it back.

"Hey, don't damage my transmitter!" Cyrus cried. "Don't damage that!"

At that, Clark had had enough, and he went over to the boys. "Hey, guys. Why don't you just leave him alone?"

The boy walked up to Clark and got right in his face. "Stay out of it, Kent."

Emmeline smiled to herself when she saw that Clark showed no signs of backing down or even moving. That and the fact that the boy had to stand on his toes to get to Clark's eye level.

Cyrus got between the two boys. "I don't want to hurt you, Kyle. Just give me my transmitter back."

"Get out of here, freak," Kyle said.

"I'm warning you."

Kyle grabbed Cyrus by the shirt and flung him into one of the counters. As they all laughed together, Emmeline rolled her eyes. High school boys were so immature.

Clark went over and helped Cyrus up. The boys all started jeering him as he walked away. Then Cyrus turned around and the tool rack suddenly burst into flames. Emmeline's widened eyes looked at Pete. Was Cyrus another 'meteor freak'?

"Now leave me alone!" Cyrus yelled. He took the sphere from Clark and ran out of the room.

There was more to Cyrus than what she saw at first.


Chloe and Emmeline pulled up to Clark's farm to find him doing some chores.

"Hey, Kent," Chloe smiled as the both of them got out. "We know your secret. Lana told us you're letting her board Whitney's horse here."

"Oh, yeah, that. Right."

Was it just her, or did he seem relieved? Did he have another secret? Knowing Clark, the answer was probably yes.

"You made her year, you know."

"Well, Tyson's really important to her. She didn't want another part of her past just taken away."

"Mm-hm. And she'll be here every day. Just like old times."

"Chloe, there's nothing romantic about mucking out horse stalls."

"Ew, Clark," Chloe laughed.

Clark put away some of his tools in the barn. "Hey, I see the electronics lab is still closed."

"Yeah, the fire marshals are investigating Cyrus's pyrotechnics. Did you know that Principal Reynolds suspended him, and he confiscated his science project?"

"Do you have any idea how he did it?"

"It could've been a trick. Or it could be meteor rock inspired."

"I think my money's on the second option," Emmeline put in.

"Or he could be an alien."

"…That one, not so much."

"Alien? Why would you say that?" Clark asked.

"Rumors from his old school," Chloe told him. "He went to junior high in Granville, and he told some kids there that he was extraterrestrial. Needless to say, they sent him to a distant corner in the social galaxy."

"He didn't do anything…super, did he?"

"Like start fire with his eyes? Mm-mm. But he did make it a habit of running away. The last time, the cops found him in the middle of a field butt naked. Cyrus was pointing to the sky saying, 'They're coming to take me home.' That incident landed him in a mental institution."

"That's so sad," Emmeline remarked. "I can't imagine what it's like in a place like that."

"You don't think he's really an alien, do you?" Clark asked.

"No," Chloe admitted. "But wouldn't it be awesome if he was, though?"

"Yeah, it'd be the story of the century, wouldn't it?"

"This isn't about Pulitzers, Clark. I mean, can you imagine being from another planet? The experiences you could share?"

"It wouldn't freak you out?"

"Compared to most people, I think aliens would be a step up."

Clark raised his eyebrows, and Emmeline could've sworn she saw some admiration for Chloe in his eyes.


Wonders never ceased. Clark explained that Cyrus was building some kind of transmitter to signal his 'parents' and get them to take him home. Then when Tyson was sick, he did something weird and completely cured him.

"Magic," Chloe said as Clark walked into the Torch office.

"What?" Clark asked.

"That was how Cyrus started the fire. The fire marshals found strips of magnesium powder hidden behind the blackboard. All Cyrus had to do was wait for the right moment, hit the detonator, and before you can say 'Presto'…" She held up her hand and a small blackboard on her desk with a strip of magnesium lit on fire. "Instant inferno."

"I didn't see him use a detonator," Clark said, still in disbelief.

Chloe held out her other hand to reveal her own detonator. "Ah, but illusion is the art of misdirection, Clark. Trust me. This kid is more David Blaine than he is Wall of Weird." She started putting out the fire with a squirt bottle.

"All right, well, that still doesn't explain how he cured Tyson."

"Yeah, I haven't figured that one out yet. But I'd be willing to bet that he faked that one too somehow."

"No, I was there. It was real."

"Okay, well, I'm not discounting the possibility that he may have some magic healing power. But if he does, it's probably byproduct of meteorite poisoning. He is no more extraterrestrial than you are."

"Called it," Emmeline said.


Clark came up to the loft where Emmeline, Chloe, and Pete were waiting for him.

"Hey, Clark, Cyrus escaped from the Medical Center," Chloe told him. "The Child Protective Services and the sheriff are searching for him everywhere. Take a look at this."

She handed him a 'Missing Persons' flyer. There was a picture of a man and a woman with their son.

"Who are these people?" Clark asked.

"John and Maggie Burnet and their son William. They disappeared the day of the meteor shower. Rescue workers suspected that they were vaporized when their farmhouse was hit, but no remains were ever found."

Pete stood up and walked over to them. "If their son survived, he'd be too young to remember what happened."

"The older couple that adopted Cyrus lived half a mile away from the Burnet house."

Clark looked up at them. "What are you saying?"

"Clark, what we're saying is Cyrus is not an alien. He's an orphan."


Clark went after Cyrus, but they soon learned that he ended up having a complete mental breakdown after he missed his supposed chance to go home.

It was sad that the boy had lived almost his entire life thinking he was someone else when he really wasn't. He probably could've lived a much happier life if things had gone differently for him.

Emmeline was just leaving Smallville High for the day when Pete came up to her.

"Hey, Em, we need to talk," he said.

Emmeline turned to him. "Okay."

"Things have been tense between us for the past couple of weeks. I know that I hurt you, and I'm sorry. But why can't you forgive me?"

"Because, Pete, I know that it wasn't exactly you who did that to me. It was the parasite. But I guess I just thought that even though that thing was inside you, there would still be a part of you that cared for me. And realized that what you were doing was wrong."

"I don't even remember it happening. Do you know what it's like to hurt someone and not remember it?"

"Yes," Emmeline said sharply. "I do. Remember that demon flower that almost killed me? I don't remember anything I did while I was in that state. But I know that I at least had the decency to not physically hurt anyone."

"Em…"

"Mom's at home, and she needs me right now, okay? I have to go."

Pete sighed as she drove away. How could he make her see that he still cared for her more than she knew?