Superman: The Ark of Krypton
Chapter 15
By
Jason Richard
As the crowd continued to clap and cheer Superman very gently laid the now broken robot gently on the pavement. He felt rather overwhelmed by it, but had to admit, he could get used to this. He gave a nervous smile and then waved to the ground, thanking them for their applause. One person even said, "Way to go Superman!" He may not have chosen the name himself, but it was growing on him.
At this point the police finally showed up, but secretly Clark wouldn't be surprised if they had deliberately held back and let him deal with the killer robot. Not that he'd blame them. He'd never heard of a killer robot robbing a bank before. They probably weren't prepared for this kind of thing.
Not that Superman could be prepared for everything. At that moment, Lois Lane ran up, a tape recorder in her hand and a determined look on her face. Suddenly Clark got very nervous. After all, she'd have questions. Who was he? Where did he come from? How did he get his powers? Trouble was, he didn't really know the answers to those questions himself just yet, so he did the only sensible thing he could in that situation.
He flew off.
"Wait!" cried Lois. "I'd just like to ask a few questions! Who are you?! Where are you from!? How did you get your...aw come on!"
But Superman was out of sight within moments. Lois shook her head and said to no one in particular, "Oh I don't care how fast you are, you can't get away from me forever. I will get our questions answered...Superman."
She didn't notice Jimmy Olsen next to her, who had taken pictures just as Superman was leaving, so it was a surprise when he said, "Wow, I never thought a guy who can beat up a giant robot with his fists would be camera shy…" indicating the TV news reports that had also shown up.
Lois thought about it and said, "Huh, that is kind of surprising."
…
Pain. That was the last thing Rudy Jones remembered before passing out. Intense, burning pain welling up from his insides. The only other thing he could remember was his vision going purple, but that was about it.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a white ceiling. Rudy tried to move, but found his entire body restrained by straps. He couldn't even get a look at himself. Immediately he panicked, and began trying to thrash around...though with little success.
"Hey!" he cried out. "Hey! Let me out of this!"
He heard a door open and next to his bed stepped Dr. Hamilton, a worried look on his face. Rudy immediately began crying out louder, "Let me out of this thing! Let me out of this thing! Right now!"
"Rudy!" cried Hamilton. "Rudy! Calm down,you might hurt yourself!"
Rudy stopped moving and looked up, very frightened, "Why? What's wrong with me?" He realized he felt a little...strange. He had this strange sensation of being...empty...like he was hollow on the inside...but that didn't make any sense.
"We're not sure," said Hamilton. "But we're working on it. What on earth were you doing in the room Cellular Transfer Device?"
"Huh?" asked Rudy. "Oh that big room I got trapped in...I was...uh...cleaning."
Dr. Hamilton sighed, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. He said, "Rudy. Did you not notice the smaller room you had to pass through to get to that room in the first place?"
Rudy, in fact, had not noticed such a room when he passed through it. He had been too busy lugging around the container and thinking about his money. Now that he thought about it he did vaguely remember a sign saying, "Clean Room," a moment before entering that machine.
"Uh…" said Rudy. "I remember. What…"
"That room, Rudy," said Dr. Hamilton. "Is designed to remove all traces of dirt, debris, and microscopic organisms from people wearing air tight hazard suits. In other words no one cleans that room because it never get's dirty in the first place. You're codes shouldn't even have unlocked that room. Now, I'm going to ask you again. How did you get into that room, and what were you doing there?"
Rudy Jones felt a subtle panic start to set in.
"Uh…I…" he stammered. "I don't know anout any clean room...but I could have sworn my schedule…"
"Rudy," said Dr. Hamilton. "The truth. That storage container that was in there with you had your fingerprints all over it, as well as new chemicals injected into it. Rudy, what on earth were you doing in that…"
They were interrupted by someone else walking into the room. A sleazy looking man with slick hair and a nice suit. Rudy thought he looked like a lawyer.
"Dr. Hamilton," said the man. "I will have to ask you to kindly step away from my client."
"Client?" asked Dr. Hamilton curiously.
"Why yes," said the man. "I'm Mr. Jones's lawyer. You're head of the department has already been served a subpoena, and I'm certain you will receive one shortly as well. We'll be collecting quite a been of damages for Mr. Jones from the accident your equipment caused.
Rudy breathed a sigh of relief. Mannheim had sent a lawyer to protect his assets, or so Rudy thought. A smarter man would have realized Mannheim set him up.
"You cannot be serious," said Dr. Hamilton. "Damages? He was in a restricted area…"
"For his disfigurement," said the lawyer. "The quality of this man's life is sure to go down, causing undue emotional distress and…"
"Disfigurement?" asked Rudy, worried. "What do you mean?"
Dr. Hamilton and the lawyer looked at each other and back to Rudy befor Dr. Hamilton picked up a nearby hand mirror.
"Rudy," said Dr. Hamilton. "As far as I'm concerned you brought this on yourself by whatever you were doing in there...but I don't envy your condition."
Rudy became very frightened as Dr. Hamilton brought him the mirror and showed him his reflection.
Rudy's skin was a deep purple, as if his entire body was covered in bruises. The blood veins in his skin that originally had been light blue and hard to see now bulged with a white liquid. In short Rudy didn't look like himself anymore. He didn't even look human now.
The sight of it made him scream in horror.
…
Clark Kent sat in the balcony of his Apartment, wearing a t-shirt and jeans while staring at the sunset and thinking about what had happened at the bank. Part of him thought it couldn't be a coincidence that such technology showed up so soon after Clark revealed his power to the world. He knew this technology was coming anyway, but he hadn't anticipated just how quickly it would end up on the streets...before even being used by the military no less.
He realized it was inevitable that this sort of thing would happen. Superman was a radical change to the world, and people would respond radically. For a moment he wondered if revealing his power to the world had really been a good idea. But then...this technology would have come sooner or later anyway, and people would have gotten hurt if he had done nothing, so he stopped worrying about that.
As he cracked his knuckles he thought about what did worry him. Where had that robot come from? Police reports given after the incident said that upon examination of the robot that it had all the hallmarks of tech stolen by intergang...whom Clark realized he couldn't hear...no matter how hard he tried. He could only wait until they acted, and that disturbed him.
He also began to wonder about Lexcorp. Luthor had, apparently, admitted that the robot had been stolen by Intergang, but upon examination of public police records Clark noticed that a lot of their tech came from Lexcorp. It made sense as it was a leader in the industry, but Clark also figured that such a company should get better security if they have this much theft in their wake. He was beginning to think Lois was right about Lexcorp. He'd heard her talk several times about how corrupt she thinks it is….even if she had no concrete evidence to back up that hunch.
Lois Lane. He sighed, remembering that look on her face earlier that day. She was apparently wasn't going to give up trying to find out Superman's story. Clark figured that when he had more answers himself he'd certainly tell her, so she could tell the world. Too many questions clouded his mind however.
Why would a race with powers like his send him to a place with people as vulnerable as this, where their most advanced technology is barely a challenge for him? He must have been sent to use his powers, and use them for something dangerous, because the suit he was given was as durable as he was, taking gunfire like it was nothing. He figured he'd tell the truth when he found it, but had to admit that the prospect of his being sent to that planet to take over, which he realized he could easily do, was something that made him a little scared to dig more into where he came from.
He had to admit, it had been quite a rush fighting such a powerful looking device by himself, but that rush also scared him. What if he got too drunk on power and accidentally hurt someone? He didn't like that idea. Still, he realized that there was no point wondering. All he could do was dig up the truth, until then, he'd try to find some way to get Lois Lane of Superman's case. Maybe he could slip her a lead to uncovering Lexcorp like she wanted, which would kill two birds with one stone he realized. Then again that might be dangerous.
He stood up and sighed, deciding, in the end, to just sleep on it all. It had been a big day.