Superman: The Ark of Krypton

By

Jason Richard

Brainiac had been spending a lot of time analyzing the piece of the Colu probe. Fortunately, it was indeed completely dormant, it's circuits destroyed in the fight. Perfectly safe, which was a relief to Brainiac's stressed out systems. The Kryptonian built AI hadn't forgotten his directive to assist Kal-El but could afford to spare at least a little processing power to study it.

Little did he realize, however, that he was leaving himself open whenever he studied it. So much of his processing power was dedicated to studying such a complex piece of machinery that his firewalls were not as closely monitored as they normally were.

That's where Granny Goodness, from her ship out in space, had the opportunity to take advantage.

She doubted she could take complete control over the AI, but by tinkering around while it was distracted she could place a backdoor here, a failsafe there, little things that would allow her to get deeper and deeper into Brainiac's systems. All she needed to do once fully inside was hit one simple setting, something baked into the Colu Cell at the center of Brainaic's systems. A Colu system reset.

Jor-El must not have known what he was dealing with when he discovered this Colu cell. If he had, he would never have tinkered with it, despite its opportunity for scientific knowledge. In the back of her mind, as she sat hunched over her computer console, Granny Goodness wondered how the Kryptonian scientist had even found a Colu cell to begin with. It was a passing thought, however. Once the question was thought it was pushed to the back of her mind as she refocused all of her attention on this hack.

…

"Hey," said Lois. "Got a minute?"

Sitting at his desk in the Daily Planet Clark looked up at Lois curiously.

"Uh," said Clark. "Sure."

Moments later, they were alone in the break room, sitting across from each other at a table. Clark asked what was on her mind and she told him about her conversation with Lex Luthor and the truce he had offered. Clark quickly understood why she was so upset.

"So do you think it's a trick?" asked Clark.

"Honestly," said Lois. "I have no idea. Do you really think Lex Luthor would ever consider a truce?"

"I think Luthor will do whatever he thinks is in his best self-interest," said Clark. "So it's not out of the question."

"What do you think I should do?" asked Lois.

Clark sighed and said, "I don't like it either, but a truce does seem like the logical course of action. That being said, that doesn't mean we trust him. We'll all focus on fending off Apokolips for now, but we'll keep an eye on Lexcorp all the same."

"Yeah,' said Lois. "I was afraid you'd…Hey…what's wrong?"

At that moment Clark was getting a signal from Brainiac, on a frequency that only Kryptonians could hear.

"Kal-El," said Brainiac with much urgency in his voice, as well as electronic stuttering. "There are increasing er…er…errors in my systems. Something is…is wrong. I…I…I don't know what the problem is…is…is…"

"Hey,' said Lois. "Whats…"

"I have to go," said Clark, standing. "I…I just remembered something I was supposed to be doing for our boss."

"Okay," said Lois, confused. "Then, you should…"

But Clark had already walked away, leaving Lois to wonder what that was all about.

...

Message from the author.

Hey, I realize I haven't been putting chapters out as frequently as before. Sorry about that. The thing is I've been working on original stories as well as the fanfiction lately and finding time to do both has been harder than I anticipated. I'll try to speed things up here as I am really grateful for everyone's support.

And just in case anyone is interested there is a link in my profile to my page on this site's sister site Fictionpress where I've posted some original content. Again, I realize I've neglected my work here and I'll try to get back to posting here regularly again.

And as always, thanks for reading!