Chapter Four
When Clark awoke, he was in some kind of cell. It was small, only a few feet wide and not much taller than he was, which he realized as he got wearily to his feet. He looked around at the three metal walls, and the one wall that appeared to be plexiglass of some sort. As he looked out, he could see that his was just one in a row of cells that filled a very long corridor. It was dark, and in the dim lighting he was unable to tell whether the cells across from him were occupied or not.
He slammed his fist against the glass. To his astonishment, it didn't break. In fact, his hand kind of stung. He stared quizzically at his own hand, then punched the glass again. It still didn't give. It was only then that he noticed that the light in the room had a very strange, intense red color to it.
"So, you're awake," came a familiar voice from the next cell.
"Wells?" Clark asked.
"Indeed. I see you found the time machine."
"Wells, where the hell are we?" Clark yelled, anger seeping into his voice. "And what happened to my powers?"
"Red Sun Lamps," Wells explained. "The lights above your head are filtered to mimic the effects of a red sun, like the one Krypton had. It negates your powers, I'm afraid."
Clark looked up, and saw that the ceiling of his cell was lined with a series of red lights, shining directly down on him. He squinted his eyes and tried to fry the lights with his heat vision, but quickly discovered that power had disappeared along with his strength. Under these lights, he was just a normal human.
"As for where we are," Wells continued, "that may take a bit longer to explain."
"I saw some kind of a fortress when I got here," Clark said, his pre-blackout memories starting to come back to him.
"Yes. We are inside its dungeon."
"And we're really in the future?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Whose fortress is this?" Clark asked.
Wells was silent.
"I think you owe me an explanation," Clark demanded, his patience running out. "Whose fortress is this?"
Wells let out a long, slow sigh. "It's yours."
Clark froze, and a chill ran down his spine. He didn't say a word.
"Clark?" Wells said, softly.
Clark closed his eyes. "What do you mean, it's mine?" he asked, very slowly.
"I don't know how to tell you this gently, Clark, so I'm afraid I'll just have to say it. In the future, you become a dictator. A tyrant. You use your powers to conquer the Earth, and rule it with an iron fist. Those who do not obey you, you imprison, execute, or exile. This is your fortress, your castle, from which you reign."
"Then it's true," Clark said, his voice barely a whisper. "It's all true. The prophecy was right."
"What prophecy?"
"In my space ship," Clark said, leaning against the wall of his cell and slowly sliding down it, coming to rest in a sitting position. "There was a message in the ship that brought me to Earth, which read, 'On this third planet from the star Sol, you will be a god among men. They are a flawed race. Rule them with strength my son, that is where your true greatness lies.' My father, Jor-El, sent me here to conquer."
"That doesn't make sense," Wells said, sounding exasperated. "Clark, I told you that I have been to many different realities in which some version of you exists. In every reality that I have seen, besides yours, Jor-El sends you here as a final act of a father's love. Krypton was about to explode, and he placed you in a rocket and sent you to Earth so that you would survive, not so you would conquer. I don't understand how your universe could be so different."
"Well, it is," Clark snapped, his face buried in his hands. "And it looks like I can't escape that destiny."
"Clark, you said that the prophecy came from your space ship. How were you able to read the Kryptonian language?"
"There was an octagonal key that was part of the ship," Clark said, his voice so quiet that Wells had to strain to hear it from his cell. "I placed it in this hole in the wall of one of the caves beneath Smallville, and it kind of… 'downloaded' into me the ability to read the language."
"I've never heard of anything quite like that, in any of my travels in the other realities," Wells said.
Clark got to his feet and banged his fists against the wall that separated his cell from Wells'. "I don't care about any of those other realities, or what happened there! This is my world, and this is my life! So stop comparing it to everything else you've seen!"
"Calm yourself, calm yourself," Wells said, frightened by the sudden outburst. "I can only imagine how traumatic this must be for you. But Clark, you have to understand something. I don't think any of this was supposed to happen. Something, somewhere in time, was deliberately changed, so that this would be the end result."
Clark tried to take deep breaths to slow his breathing. "What do you mean?"
"This was never supposed to be your future. And it doesn't have to be."
"You know more than what you've told me," Clark said.
"I do indeed. Clark, someone wanted this to happen. Someone wanted you to become a conqueror and rule the world, and took very specific measures to make sure that it would happen."
Another voice spoke up, this one from the cell across from Clark's. "It was Tempus, wasn't it?" the voice said.
Clark stared into the darkness of the cell across from his. Only now that his eyes had adjusted did he realize that the same red light was also emanating from that cell. He could make out the shadowy outline of a figure inside, but not in detail.
"Wells, who is that?" Clark asked.
"As I said, Clark, I have been to other realities in which you exist, in some form or another. And, as I also told you, there is one particular version of you that I have spent quite some time with. On more than one occasion, we have encountered a man named Tempus, who has made it his mission in life to prevent the Utopian society of the future."
The man in the cell across from Clark's stepped forward, out of the shadows, so that Clark could see him more clearly. He wore a blue costume with red boots and a cape. On his chest was an emblem containing a letter "S."
"Clark Kent," Wells said. "I'd like you to meet Superman."
