I took my welding mask off with a smile. The Super-Duper Psychicotron 5000 (as I personally called it, though officially it was the much more dignified Oracle's Throne) was almost ready to be turned on- whether it would stay on, I didn't know, but it was still pretty exciting.
Progress- from a purely engineering...ical basis- was good. Apart from a couple high-energy capacitors, everything was ready and in place. If my father had made it, he'd have called it finished right here and now- but I'd carefully disguised my safety measures as 'fuck you my brain magic needs energy' specifically so he couldn't complain.
If he tried to make his own... well, there'd be a lot of brain damage, seizures and all sorts of nasty stuff if he didn't actually check the ever-so-slightly misleading information I'd given him. Which I expected from him, seeing how he was still blaming me for his last shenanigans, but either way it was no skin off my back.
I started humming as I put the (hyper-advanced superscience-utilising child-safe) welder back in the fabric I kept it in. Fun fact, eidetic memory is really good for when you forget the words halfway through a song. "Cross the borderline of black and white and climb the stairway, up and up we go..."
My mindless humming was interrupted as soon as it started by a knock on the door. I felt a brief surge of indignation, my face scrunching for a second, before I headed over and opened it.
"Mercy?" I asked, suddenly perplexed by the appearance of my snazzy-hatted glorified child-minder. "I thought I had breakfast already?"
Using my amazing and extraordinary super-intellect, I immediately confirmed that I had, in fact, had breakfast today. But that was exactly the sort of thing I'd used to forget a lot, and old phrases died hard.
"You have," Mercy said, nodding. She looked ... sort of uncomfortable. "Eh... Can we talk?"
"...Sure?" I said, inviting her in. I hopped onto a stool, which had an amusingly girly heart emblazoned on the top of it. Mercy went to lean on one of the benches, her ridiculously short shirt-coat-thing being a possible reason as to why she didn't just sit properly.
Or maybe she just didn't want to get comfortable. She always had that slight tension about her- she could be calm, sure, but I'd never seen her just sit down and use the backrests. Both in a literal sense and as a more general metaphor, to do the opposite of narrowing that down.
"You got your birthday tomorrow," she said.
"Yes," I agreed, raising an eyebrow. "Yes it is."
"...And you're not excited about it? Not at all?" Mercy questioned.
"Not really," I said.
"Not even a little?"
I shrugged. "Doesn't seem like a big deal," I told her. "Woo-hoo, I've been in existence for a grand total of one revolution around the sun. Father must really be patting himself on the back at how I've avoided dissolving into protoplasm for the entire time. Doesn't really seem... relevant to anything I'm doing, I guess."
"Your birthday 'doesn't seem relevant'," said Mercy flatly.
"I have been to many parties in my short life," I explained. "They are terrible things and I doubt they're going to end up any more enjoyable just because I'm the centrepiece. And I also doubt whether we're actually doing anything other than that sort of bare minimum 'huzzah, this small child I created has reached an arbitrary yet regular point in her lifespan' thing."
She looked away awkwardly, confirming my suspicions (not that I hadn't already confirmed them myself, but it was good to know she wasn't rationalising to that degree). "I... guess that's a pretty sensible way of looking at it," she agreed reluctantly. "But- the other thing I was gonna ask. Why'd'ya call him 'Father'?"
I raised an eyebrow, not entirely sure what she meant by that. "Because 'mother', despite being more biologically accurate, would also not fit Luthor's gender role?"
Cloning and parental figures interacted poorly. Go figure.
"I mean-" Mercy frowned, though there was something else in her eyes. "You've never called him 'daddy' or 'pa' or anything other than 'father', 'Lex' and 'Luthor'. But you're his little girl, his little angel to him- you never say anything back. Why?"
...Really. That's what this is all about. "Because he doesn't love me," I said bluntly. Her expression faltered. "Anything he says is for someone else's benefit, which inevitably becomes his own benefit within a reasonable timeframe. Next question?"
"Next question?" said Mercy, and I was given pause by the emotion in her voice."Next question? You're akid, Lena! You shouldn't be able to say your pa doesn't love you, let alone say it like I should have noticed!"
I stood up. "Well I am able," I said coldly. "News flash- Lex Luthor doesn't love anyone but himself! That includes me. And that, as much as it pains me to say it, includes you too."
She chuckled bitterly. "Your entire life," she said, "you've lived like a princess. He does love you. He's just... bad at showing it, y'know?"
"I've lived like a princess?" I replied, raising an eyebrow. "Tell me, Mercy- do princesses get to do what they like? Do princesses get to have friends? Do princesses have a life beyond their room and the court?"
"You've got free reign to work on what you like," said Mercy. "Unlimited time, unlimited resources..."
"Apart from when Luthor decides I'm wasting my time," I snapped.
She moved to retort. I raised a finger.
"Remember that first week out of the tank," I reminded her, "when I discovered dinosaurs for the first time? How much I wanted to study them? How I said I wanted to go to Africa and explore the Kem-Kem Beds?" I shook my head and made an imperious frown. We both knew who that was supposed to be. "Nope, they're 'worthless rocks'."
"They're-" A second finger.
"Remember that time I wanted to learn how to sing, how to make my own music," I said, "when I saw those stupid Super Singer things for the first time? How great I thought it would be if I could be famous like that?" I repeated my previous expression. "Nope, it's a 'marvellous waste of your intellect'."
"That's-" A third finger.
"Or how about that time I wanted to make a video game," I added, "once I'd learned how to code enough for those simulations on the gene project? Developing the best damn game ever made, with self-organising neural networks and god knows what other cross-applicable features? Nope, it's 'plebian nonsense without cultural value'."
"You can't just-"
"Shut. Up!" I shouted, finally having had enough. "I'mfine with you having some sort of love for Father. But I wouldgreatly appreciate it if you respected my opinion and left it undiscussed." I paused, breathing heavily. "Thank you. Can we please end this conversation?"
Mercy went silent.
"...When was the last time you felt like a kid, Lena?" she asked me, quietly, softly.
"If my father had wanted a kid," I said simply, "he would have stopped me growing at nine months."
She looked away. I stopped, a guilty feeling welling up inside me.
"...I do... try, y'know," I said haltingly. "...Even if it's just because I enjoy acting stereotypically."
"You can't just... be a little girl?" said Mercy.
"No," I replied. "It's like..." I shrugged. "He used neural uploads," I said instead. "Adult ones- I was never meant to learn new words or go to school or anything like that. I just... know things. What's polite, what's not, stuff like that. Being a kid... well, would Father get a neural scan from someone who thinks being childish is acceptable behaviour? Is that who he is?"
"...What if we, I dunno," she said, as she sidestepped the question- "had you unlearn that sort of thing? Like- get you a therapist, someone who can tell you it's okay?"
"Father wouldn't want that for me." I shook my head. "We both know how he feels about that sort of thing."
I promised myself not to interrupt her retort.
But it was awful hard to interrupt a defeated silence. That felt worse than cutting her off would have, to be completely honest.
She stood up to move to the door- "Wait."
She turned around to look at me.
"I... thanks," I said, not quite sure what I was supposed to be saying. "Nobody's ever really... asked me that sort of thing before."
"If you're okay?" she asked.
"If I ever felt like a child," I said.
She stayed still for a few moments, and I turned away from the pity in her eyes. I heard the door moving- but she hadn't left the room when it closed. I turned back around.
She was holding a box. "He'd notice if I gave it to you tomorrow," she said as it passed hands. Then she turned around, leaving me dumbfounded as she left me alone in the room.
I stayed like that for a few seconds, not quite sure what to think.
I put the box under the bench. "...Well," I mumbled, "that was an unexpectedly heavy conversation." It was for the best if I let my thoughts on the matter gestate, rather than work my way through them right this second. At least while I had other things I could do. Such as...
There was a bloop from the computer.
...checking my mail? I pushed my chair over back to being in front of it, and logged in to see what it was that I'd received.
With my spam filter being highly advanced, emails weren't a thing I'd seen regularly. There were only a few people who even had it in the first place- but when I saw it was from a certain Mr Kent, who totally wasn't Superman, no-siree, I smiled.
'To Ms. Luthor,' it read.
'I'm writing to you because of a break-in to Star Labs last night. A pair of canisters were stolen- apparently containing a substance designed to enhance energy absorption in human cells. With your recent involvement in that fiasco with Vital, I'm inclined to think of you as somewhat of an expert in biological affairs.
'With that in mind, this morning we found a policewoman who had apparently been somehow drained of her own energy, alongside another sample of the substance. We're inclined to believe that one Rudy Jones may have been exposed to the chemical- if you could get permission for yourself or one of your associates to check just what might have happened,
'I've attached the directions to this email. I hope to hear from you soon,
-Mr. C Kent'
...Associates? I thought, raising an eyebrow in interest.Sounds like an open invitation for a certain undersized superhero to me. Tell 'em I have some super duper alien tech to science it with, and wallah- it's totally not that hyperintelligent small child who lives in that company building.
Either way, Parasite was apparently out and about, which meant...
I took a moment to consider things.
Well, Superman was probably on his way to get punched in the face and get thrown into an ocean. I would rather not interrupt some valuable character growth, so I was just fine with that happening.
...Totally not related to the fact Superman would probably be willing to let me access a blood sample or two for medical purposes. Honest.
Now all I had to do was flagrantly abuse my control over the local cameras to get out of the building. I activated the 'sneak me out of here' protocols, clicked my fingers, and got to work.
Step 1: Grab a hairband and change into clothes that don't belong to a very small mad scientist.
Step 2: Exit the building.
I opened the door normally, since nobody could really call me leaving a room 'suspicious'. Seeing the coast was clear, I very sneakily walked down the stairs and, aside from having to distract a few token security guards, pretty much walked out of the door.
...To be quite frank it was almost embarrassing how easily you could enter and exit LexCorp with a little bit of technological know-how. At least it wasn't something that could be circumvented with rubber gloves, which was more than could be said for the museum shenanigans.
Once I was out of the building, I just had to alter my hairstyle with the hairband. Then I could just start walking- by default I was plenty confident enough to keep anyone from suspecting that I was unattended. The only part that really needed any Batman skills was entering my secret base undetected, and that was more a just-in-case thing anyway.
With that remarkably uncinematic method of getting inside, I needed nothing more than a quick change of clothes before I was in my bike and zooming off to the bridge.
The outskirts of Metropolis were pretty in their own right- a picturesque landscape of rivers and green hills surrounded by canyons. It was what had made this place into a worldwide trade hub- it was immediately recognisable, and more importantly, incredibly well-situated for receiving goods from across the Atlantic.
It had been pretty important in the American Revolution, too- its canyons made the place a natural fortress, turning it into nothing but a whole lot of chokepoints for anyone trying to invade, making it the perfect place for the British to send reinforcements and supplies. It was only thanks to a combination of skilled insurgents and native American folk heroes that the city had been taken at all- the freedom of Metropolis had led to the freedom of all America.
That had produced a whole bunch of knock-on effects, which I won't go into detail about right now- but safe to say that it's probably a large part of why superheroes are so accepted. And possibly why the country hasn't made Superman lose his faith in humanity, too, though I'd already had too much heavy thinking for the day to start really comparing the two universes' cultures.
With a gentle electrical hum I descended down into the landscape, landing on the bridge. It was just above one of the marshy tributaries- if I remembered correctly, it had been famous for smuggling in its past. Now, though it was just a bridge.
Well, as far as anyone knew. I knew that this place had given us the first glimpses of the shape of the world to come.
A world where we needed Superman.