I know what happened to the Man of Tomorrow.
Lex Luthor was not a man to leave things to chance. That day when his men collected Lois's body, he thought he saw a tear in the kryptonian's eye. He ordered new brain scans and reviewed them personally. They showed no change: the physical blocks in the brain were still there.
He was satisfied, but still kept an eye on him. He witnessed a few more skinning sessions, and he felt something was amiss. He ordered more scans, but they showed no change. The feeling of uneasiness lessened, but it still lingered.
It had been a few weeks since the tear incident and Lex Luthor was in an early meeting.
"…as we can increase the profit margin by 7%..."
Was it a trick of the light?
"…we should be able to pull it off; we have the capital to take over…"
Was it a tear?
"..garding Wayne Enterprises, we're just waiting for the…."
Did I miss something?
"We're going to have to deal with Wayne eventually."
Are the scanners wrong?
Harrelson said. Ambitious young man, but he still lacked sense.
Luthor decided it was time to end the meeting. "Go ahead. I want Wayne Enterprises in my hands by the end of the week. And Wayne, that ineffective fop?" Luthor countered. "He can come after me whenever he wants. I can beat him in any boardroom. Gentlemen, is that all?"
There were a few more things on the agenda, but his tone did not invite them to press him to stay. "Nothing else, Mr. Luthor, we can handle it."
"See that you do." Lex stood up and left the boardroom. He took his personal communicator from the suit pocket and dialed the laboratory. Markinson picked up after two rings.
"Yes, Mr. Luthor."
"Tell me about today's brain scans."
"They're normal, Mr. Luthor. The higher-function dam is still blocking the equivalent of the inferotemporal cortex and the temporal and the middle temporal lobe, keeping them apart."
"Do you have the brain scans in your hand?"
"um, no, Mr. Luthor, I…"
"Do not dare to conjure from thin air whatever figures you might remember."
Lex heard Markinson sit up, heard papers and ledgers hit the floor as he frantically opened and closed drawers. "I'm sorry, Mr. Luthor, I'll get right on to it…let's see…ah, here they are…yes, I can see the block…there's a bit of brain tissue trying to encapsulate it, but nothing to worry about."
"Same as always. Did you run the scans?"
"Um..no, sir. Pratt did."
Lex's voice turned icy. "Pratt?" He all but spat the name. "Protocol requires you run the scans. You. I should know that, because I wrote the damned protocol!" A beat. "Have you been running the scans?"
"Sir, I've…"
"When was the last time you did a scan?"
Markinson gulped. "Three weeks ago…"
"You idiot. Red sun the kryptonian and run a scan right now."
"But sir, we have a full skin session tomorrow and he's still healing."
"I know that, you imbecile. Right now he's getting to 45% solar power, which means he's very powerful and healing at a faster rate. And we only have him at that power level because he's supposed to be incapacitated. But we don't know that, do we? Right now his brain could be overcoming the blocks." Luthor finally reached his office and walked to the private elevator. "Right now Superman could be knitting his brain together. Do you really want to be there when a pissed-off brain damaged Superman wakes up?"
Markinson's voice dropped a few octaves. "Right away, Mr. Luthor."
"Red sun him, now! I'm on my way." He ended the call and pressed the button in his intercom.
"Hold my calls, Pearl. I'll be looking over a merger proposal."
"Yes, sir." The doors closed and the elevator went down.
After a few moments, he felt a tremor.
This building is designed to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes combined. My building does not shake. His communicator bleeped an alarm code.
"Shit." He pressed his palm against the wall and his palm print was scanned, popping a panel open. From it He extracted a gun from it, checking the sights and power source. A reassuring red beam flashed the confined space.
Fat lot of good this will do if this is Scenario One.
The trip from the office to the laboratory took no more than forty seconds and he reviewed the security measures: if he was still strapped on the gurney in the carving room, he would drop 200 yards down to the red sun maze, where his security detail would be on hand with Tasers and red sun guns to neutralize him behind lead-lined, reinforced concrete walls. Performance reviews claimed they could contain a 20% Superman in 90 seconds and a 30% in 600. Anything over 40 and all bets were off.
The building shook again, this time harder. If he was still in the carving room. Lex felt the adrenaline kick in as he buttoned up his coat and assumed a firing stance.
The elevator doors opened and an acrid smoke wafted in. Alarms blared and the emergency light flickered on and off. The corridor was empty and the massive door had holes in odd angles that belched smoke and bled incandescent tears. Luthor recognized it for what they were: heat vision blasts. The keyboard was still working and his code swing the door open. The smoke reduced visibility to almost zero. He grabbed one of the breathing masks from the fire station and moved on.
The smoke grew thicker as he entered the viewing room and saw why: scorch marks glowing dimmer and dimmer crisscrossed the walls and ceiling. There were shapes on the floor and he crouched to have a closer look. They were the bodies of Markinson, Rivers and Pratt, the room's morning shift. Markinson's head had been sheared off by the heat beam, the wound instantly cauterized. Rivers and Pratt had been sliced from left to right. You killed them. This is priceless. One more thing I made you do.
The safety glass was shattered, with parts either melted outright or completely gone. The monitors were dark and the computers sparked, useless. The data was lost, he was sure, and he'd have to go to yesterday's backups.
Lex walked to the carving room and saw that the gurney had retreated to the bottom floors, leaving a round hole. Next to it was a piece of the restraints…the other was embedded on the ceiling, next to more scorch marks. The sound of his own breathing and visibility reduced to less than eight feet had him on edge, but his hand holding the red sun gun remained steady. Three burly security guards were on the floor. Their clothes were smoking, but the beams did not reach the skin, thanks to their LexGuard vests. He grinned. Blocked by your own skin, alien. The guards were alive, but unconscious. One of the guards' face looked like it had been pounded with a steel ball…with knuckles.
Muffled sounds came from the hole, where Lex could see that lip had four drag marks that clawed the metal like it was nothing. He took a peek down the well…it was supposed to be lined with red sun lamps, but a significant number of them were broken in a vertical pattern. Looks like he grabbed hold of one side and broke the lamps as he went down.
He needed to walk through a 50 feet long corridor, all twisted and bent into odd angles, and get into the elevator that went down to the maze. Along the way he saw one of the female technicians, huddled in a corner, arm around her legs and forehead to her knees. He tapped her on the shoulder. She all but jumped at his touch and gazed at him with red-rimmed eyes. "he…he…"
Lex saw her right arm was horribly mangled and her voice was a hoarse whisper. "Go to the medical bay. I'll deal with him." He moved on.
The elevator took him down to the maze.
The red sun maze was an expensive measure, designed to work if, and only if, a massive set of errors and oversights allowed the kryptonian time to recover. All the security measures, all the scans, the system checks, the physical inspections were set up to keep them ahead of the healing curve. If that failed, the maze's purpose was entirely to weaken him enough for recapture.
Well, there might be the chance that I underestimated how fast his healing can get. He arched his eyebrows. Don't kid yourself, Lex: that was a major miscalculation. Fed by bad data. Heads will roll.
Red light filtered in after the doors opened. He was in one of the utility corridors deep within the 30,000 square foot underground complex he hoped would never need, but was grateful he didn't spare the expense. He jogged to the control room, feeling another tremor rock the corridor and saw plaster dust fell from the ceiling.
The control room's security door opened and he entered the only place in the maze where color was allowed. Every inch of the room was covered by monitors, showing every nook and cranny of the maze. In front of them was the operator, speaking softly to a microphone, receiving panicky transmissions and working over cries of pain and anguish.
"Team 7, take a right, then a left and fire from walkway Q-9. Team six, do you copy? Team one, status."
"What's the situation?"
"For God's sake, Stevens, shut up and walk to sick bay. Stay off channel unless you got eyes on him." He sighed. "Not good, but improving. He tore through our nets and powered his way through several choke points. Severely damaged one of the support columns and banged the secondary garrison good. Teams 1, 2 and 5 are disabled; 3 scattered and 4 hooked up with 7 and 8. Six is MIA; could be he destroyed their radios." He looked at him sideways. "Sir, we thought if he ever landed here, he'd be lukewarm at best, but he's red hot."
The operator was an expert hunter; a military man with battlefield experience. He ran containment scenarios over and over, until his team could perform them in their sleep. That many teams in disarray meant serious trouble.
"What are his readings?"
"He came down at close to 60%."
"What? He wasn't supposed to be an iota above 49%. Ever."
"Just telling what I got, boss. I knew our systems can't handle 60% Sup; not without green K." He pressed a few buttons and said "Boogie incoming, T-8 and eager for Crisco." The monitor showed the guards tossing several grenades around a blind corner and huddle up. The grenades exploded and the entire corridor was coated in a viscous substance. The guards fired their stun weapons at the substance and it carried the paralyzing discharge through the corridor until it hit Superman. The red sun lamps kept glowing, slowly draining him of his powers. The readout on the screen showed he was at 31% and dropping.
"I turned the red juice to eleven when he hit the deck: that took out one helluva big chunk of his reserves. He tried to fly up, but the vertigo field messed his inner ear and he augered. He got angry and smashed the floor and fell to deck 2, where he disabled team 1. We pinballed him to deck three, but he bent the restraints and tore loose. We're taking him to the Womb."
"The one on the third level?" Luthor saw display whittle down to 28%. "They're on the wrong side of the complex."
"He's done enough damage to the corridor that a few charges will drop him within swiping distance of the fourth level Womb. Hold on, sir, 'cause if he drops under 20%, the fall rattle him, but the Swipe will put the hurt on him. Teams 8 and 9, charges ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"Lock harpoons and weights. Fire!"
Around the sides of the corridor where Superman lay, flailing and twitching under the Tazers, horizontal panels dropped and the guards fired the harpoons. The tips were stunted and had a large vial, which shattered on impact, covering Superman with an adhesive substance. The harpoons had ropes attached and the glue helped them get purchase on the glistening skin of the kryptonian. He moaned in pain and screamed in anger at the cameras
LOOOOO..THAAAAWWWRRR….
One of the monitors flickered and went dark.
Another person would have felt a chill go down their spine, but not Lex. He grinned at the foolish kryptonian using his heat vision to deny him a camera.
"Sweet, sir. That cost him 2% of his overall juice." Switching to another angle, they saw the guards drag Superman to the end of the corridor.
"Team 10, ready for containment. Swiper will engage in 15."
"Team 7, on my mark detonate the charges. Teams 8 and 9, ready drag him to the hot zone. Drag….good…3, 2, 1, mark."
The screen flashed red and the kryptonian went down the hole. The display read 21%. "That was close, sir. Engaging the Swiper."
In the row of monitors corresponding to the fourth level, they saw Superman fall hard to the ground, among broken pieces of concrete and rebar. He coughed and tried to stand. He shakily rose to his knees when the Swipe, a massive concrete wall pushed him into the Womb. It had a long, scientific and purposeful name, but the boys in security had dubbed it the Womb. It was a round chamber, roughly 60 feet across, completely filled with a gelatinous substance that hindered movement and had every inch covered with red sun lamps. The door heavy closed and was bolted shut.
"11-ball is on the pocket, boys. Lock, load and converge on the fourth level. We're in the home stretch..."
The display read 18%, then 17% as they saw Superman struggle in the substance. Like wet sand, it moved when he moved and filled the space around him, denying him purchase or leverage.
"16 percent…12 percent…9 percent…5 percent….switching lamps to low level….draining the Womb…Cap Team stand down. Med Team stand by for recovery… 1 percent, sir. We have him. Opening access door…"
Luthor smiled as he saw them strap Superman to the gurney and wheeled him out. "It was touch and go for a minute, sir, but this actually helped me to spot the flaws in our scenarios. I'll have the boys running new drills first thing tomorrow morning."
"There'll be a bonus for all of your men, Wilson. Carry on."
The following weeks had Lex's spin doctors working overtime. Families of the deceased had to be compensated, millions in hush money had to trade hands and a suitable story for the media had to be concocted: a disgruntled employee had sabotaged the emergency generators and rigged them to blow. Unfortunately the man had died in his attempt and Lex vowed to never let another senseless tragedy like that happen again.
He also confirmed the cause of the escape attempt: Pratt had taken upon himself to save LexCorp a few thousand dollars by only doing one of the seven scans required and falsified the notes in the reports. Or maybe he was lazy. Or maybe he was in league with the kryptonian supporters. The press had caught up to the fact that he had disappeared and ran editorial after editorial on how he was missing, mewling like newborns.
In any case, it didn't matter why he did it: Lex pinned the blame on him and the media ate it up.
His new science team delved into the kryptonian's brain once again and the results were not encouraging: his brain simply recovered faster than the lobotomy could keep him under. Soon, there would be no physical way to keep him under.
Tyler, the new head of the science division, sent him a very interesting report in that regard: he was suggesting keeping his brain busy. Data probes showed his storage capacity was in the Zettabyte territory and there was talk about using him as one of LexCorp's massive servers. He could have no personality if he was running billions and billions of operations per picosecond.
Lex kneaded his forehead and laid back on his chair.
…and something just clicked in him mind.
"Pearl, get ahold of my science teams on the phone. Tell them to pack today for very cold weather." He beamed. "I finally cracked the safety measures of the Fortress of Solitude."