For the man who has nothing

From inside the climate controlled headquarters at Site One, Lex Luthor gazed at the fortress. It towered above them, majestic and serene.

The camp had been set up six months ago, a few weeks after they captured him. Having the man of zinc was one thing, but plundering his retreat? Discovering the secrets, the technology he had in there? Lex couldn't wait to get his hands on all of it.

It proved to be quite the formidable opponent. The first thing Lex did was to try the silly yellow key in the lock. A special crane was made, with a rotating mechanism to hold and turn the key in the required direction…and it failed.

It was a minor setback, he thought, and he had the not inconsiderable resources of LexCorp at his disposal. People were called, research facilities were built and all sort of methods were tried. The locks held. No amount of force or finesse could open them. He tried to dig through the walls or under the fortress, but each time he failed. The fortress looked like it was made from ice, but at some point it turned into a material so dense that no force on Earth –and he had access to all of them- could scratch them. Not even his most powerful scanners could see through them. Even his special drills found no purchase on the material.

At its peak, Site One was inhabited by over 75 people and had state of the art technology and facilities. Over time, he had to concede defeat and pull his resources back to LexCorp. He left a skeleton crew to keep things running –and arranged to have things return to top efficiency in a moment's notice- in case he got a breakthrough.

That time was now, and he wasn't leaving until he opened the fortress.

"Dr. Tyler, are we ready?"

"They're fitting Captain Holden with the creep suit, sir, but we won't know until everything is in place. They're waiting for the headpiece and the contacts."

Creep suit. Luthor chuckled. It was an acronym for the suit that started with Kryptonian Emulation something-something, but "creep" suited Lex just fine.

"It will work." Lex said as he picked up an oddly shaped metallic case and walked to the control room. "Individual pieces held up so far. The flight principle is what keeps the Golden Argosy airborne."

"Yes, sir, but I'm not sure how they'll behave in a gestalt."

"We'll see."

They walked into the prep room, where several scientists were busy fitting sensor and wires to man wearing a skin-colored body suit. It had hundreds of wires over it, branching out like veins. Over that suit, they were fastening pieces of what looked to be pieces of whitish leather armor.

"Captain Holden, how are you holding up?"

"Just fine, sir; the undersuit's hugging me in all the wrong places." A few of the technicians laughed.

"Don't worry; when we pull this off, you won't have to wear it again."

"Thank you, sir. "

Lex placed the metallic case on one of the work tables and opened it. "Holden, do you know why we chose you for this?"

"No, sir."

"You have the right measurements. As you are, your body type and figure is almost like the kryptonian's: you're almost as tall, almost as broad and almost as heavy as he is. A 95% match. All we need is to tweak you just a little bit, cover you in massive patches with his DNA and bio-patterns and we're done. Basically, we're trying to trick an overzealous doorknob to open."

The scientists took more pieces from the workbenches and put them on captain Holden. They had been delicately worked on, each them a remarkable piece, with fastening spots that held them securely to Holden's body. At key points, they were fitted with fiber optic sensors and those were connected to hair-thin wires that hooked to a portable control panel. They assembled them, starting at Holden's feet and they worked their way up.

"You see, I tried it before. Have someone wear the suit and float to a pre-arranged spot to see if it passes muster and opens the door. I tried look-alikes, latex masks and holographic projectors. Nothing worked." He paused. "But a few days ago I realized he would have keyed the sensors to his bio-signature. And hey, I can have a suit made to test the theory."

Lex took out a pair of long-sleeved gloves and gave them to Holden. "I had to leave the Department of Defense on hold for a few days to assemble this." If Holden was squeamish about the gloves, he made no comment. He put them on and the helpers fastened them to the torso piece, which ended past the shoulder, but before the elbow.

"I tested the pieces: you should be completely insulated from the weather, you'll have level 9 invulnerability and with the sun burst, you'll even manage to hover up to the ID spot." He went to the work table and grabbed the last piece from the case. When Luthor turned around, Holden gulped: he was holding in his hands a replica of Superman's face, from the shoulders to the trademark spitcurl. "Don't worry about the eyes; you'll have his contacts."

The helpers fastened the head piece, just like the others, and Holden was completely covered, each part plugged to the control panel.

"How are you feeling, Holden?"

"Fine, sir. Smell's a bit…ugh."

"Right now the suit is there, but it's not functional and it's wrinkled like a cheap suit. Once we plug it in, the suit will assert itself and you may experience some discomfort. It's important that you soldier on until the tests are done."

"I won't disappoint you, sir."

Lex went to the technician working on the control panel. "He's ready."

"We're powering up the suit, Holden, starting at five percent."

The console hummed as it fed yellow sun energy through the myriad of fiber optic cables, arranged with painstaking detail to emulate a kryptonian's circulatory system.

"How're you feeling?"

"No change, sir."

"Ten percent."

The hum didn't increase tempo, but the pieces started to react…a few of the large pieces cracked, slowly.

"Anything?"

"Nope."

"Twenty percent"

"Oh, I felt something move, sir. The torso is tightening a bit."

"Good. Ramp it up to fifty percent, Tyler."

"Yes, sir."

The tempo increased and the pieces seemed to gain a better shape. Lex remembered when he was a kid and could not afford anything, he liked to walk around department stores and see how they wrapped gifts. He recalled one time when the saleslady put an object, a silver photo frame, over a velvet board and covered it with a piece of wrinkled plastic. The lady used a hair dryer to smooth the plastic to perfection. This was something like that.

"Now I'm feeling them come together, sir. Legs are a bit tight and…ow, my arms are getting pinched."

"Make it one hundred percent."

The dials went to the top of the green markings, as pure sunlight streamed through the wires and energized the skin. The contour, the shape seemed to sharpen in focus as every piece clung to Holden's body. The pieces overlapped in some places, but once it touched another, it seemed to remember where it was and where it should be.

"Aaahgh, sir…" Holden's voice was strained. "It hurts, sir. Ow…my back…my legs…I can't move my neck…." And then no voice came out, only a strained groan.

"Holden, relax. Remember your breathing exercises." Luthor said, as Holden's vitals spiked. "Diaphragmal, not thoracic."

A few seconds passed. His moans increased in intensity and his heart rate increased.

"His wrist just shattered…ribs are severely bruised…hairline fractures in the pelvis…femur won't hold on for much longer…"

"You're doing fine, Holden. You're earning your bonus." To Tyler. "The creep suit is complete. Give him the painkillers." Another button was pushed, and a few CC's of analgesic were administered to Holden's bloodstream. His vitals slowly stabilized and the moaning subsided.

"Bring in the tights."

From another container, one of the techs took the red and blue uniform and the others carefully worked to put it on. All the wires needed to feed sunlight to the skin converged at the neck, so they could fit the uniform from the feet up and not disturb the wire network. Fortunately the material could stretch to 200-300% of its original length and it didn't lose shape. The cape was fastened to the shoulders with Velcro. Lex had forgotten how bright it was.

Finally, they glued a small, button-sized speaker on his bottom lip.

"Open the eyes and release the jaw and lips."

The sensors beneath the eyelid twitched and, beneath them, Holden's eyelids blinked rapidly. "Just about it, Holden: time to put in the contact lenses….there we are…now speak if you're ready."

"Good to go, sir." The voice came out strained. His lips were a bit purple, maybe from earlier, because now the face mask allowed him just a tiny bit of wiggle room.

Carefully, Lex put the contact lenses in. "This should work with the retinal scanners. Look everywhere, look at everything around the door, gaze at the keyhole…anything will help."

Holden blinked a few times, as if testing the lenses.

"We're done, Holden. Just relax and let the voice box do all the talking."

Lex contemplated him with approval and a bit of loathing. "Perfect." He fastened his weather gear. "Let's go."

It took them more than an hour to take Holden from Site One to the threshold of the fortress. Dr. Tyler checked Holden's vitals periodically, making sure he wasn't too strained by the suit. Towers had been built against the fortress and a freight elevator raised them up to the landing. The door dwarfed them, imposing.

"Start when you're ready, Tyler."

The doctor activated the console's secondary functions. Holden stood unassisted for a few seconds and then drifted upwards. Lex knew it would work. After all, that was the principle that held the Golden Argosy in the air.

The cape fluttered regally as Holden gained altitude. Lex knew the kryptonian wasn't really there, but the cape brought back too many bad memories. Holden was maybe 20 feet from the keyhole when the console started beeping.

"That is an invisible beam, sir, completely non-harmful."

"The scanner engaged. Cue the voice."

Tyler pressed another button and a voice was heard through the tiny speaker above them.

…I'm Superman…I love you, Lois…please, stop…damn you, Luthor…my name…my name is Clark Kent…Batman will get you…But I was good! Why are you doing this…I'm sorry…I'm very sorry…

A completely visible green beam scanned Holden from top to bottom, and a few seconds later, the keyhole rotated on its own.

"It worked."

Noiselessly, the massive door slid open.

"Holy shit, it worked." Tyler enthused. The helpers all but clapped with joy.

Lex merely nodded.

Artic air wheezed past them as the Fortress finally granted them entrance. Inside, lights flickered on. Next to Lex, two dozen commandos wearing state-of-the-art LexCorp gear stood in attention. "Take Holden down and tend to him." He spoke to his earpiece. "Engineers, make sure only we can open and close that door. Science teams, stand-by while we do the security sweep."

They entered the Fortress carefully. Patched via satellite to Metropolis, the troops fed audio and video to Wilson, and he had direct communication with Lex.

"What do you see, Slade?"

"Now that the door is open, the sensors are working just fine." Over Lex's shoulders, several airborne probes flew by, each one in one direction through the fortress. "If there are any traps, they'll let us know."

"I'm beginning to suspect there are none. I'm sure the sap never thought we'd bypass his defenses. " He chuckled. "He probably booby-trapped the keyhole, though. Tell the engineers to be careful."

The insides of the Fortress looked like they were carved out of the ice, but Lex bent down and felt the ground: it was cool to the touch. In fact, the place's temperature was getting warmer. Under his weather gear, Lex started to sweat. He took off his jacket and handed it over, continuing to walk through the hallway.

To the left, a rather heavy-looking ice- door was ajar.

"Lois Lane Room," Lex read. Despite the doors thickness, it was rather easy to pull it open. "Apparently he knew what hinges were for." The squad chuckled.

Inside he found a mannequin of Lois Lane wearing a red dress and an almost complete pearl necklace. On the wall, there was a picture of them flying through the air, Lois in his arms.

To Superman, with love, Lois.

"Must be from the time when she didn't know." He dictated a note into his LPad. "Low-priority room."

They continued, reaching the next room. Inside was a sports car, with a few spare parts around it, next to a Jimmy Olsen mannequin. The car wasn't painted yet and Lex could see thousands of fingerprint grooves on the metal. "Probably it's not completely road-worthy. Take the car to R&D. Low priority room."

The corridor ended in a sheer drop to a massive hall. Lex's eyes could not take everything in at once: a gigantic statue of a man and a woman holding a world aloft, a transatlantic, a tyrannosaurus rex, metallic portals, displays that were too far away to identify, along with cases, platforms, crystalline formations…

"And not one goddamn set of stairs." Lex spoke into his earpiece. "Bring in the scaffoldings."

Hours later, Lex walked through the ground floor of the fortress while his people assembled hydraulic scissor elevators in order to access the higher and winches with metal baskets, to get to the lower ones. Wilson's flying trap detectors had already given the all-clear, having found no traps or guardians. His security people put red sun flood lamps all over the hall, just in case something kryptonian-powered was there. Wilson chuckled when he told Luthor there were Superman mannequins on one of the higher floors and that the top floor had a strange contraption Wilson couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Lex saw that the place was full of weapons, armors and devices, confiscated by the kryptonian. Around the hall, he had rooms furnished and dedicated to Clark Kent -hah-, the Kents, Perry White and The Planet crew, Batman and Robin, a crime computer he built for him…the transatlantic hanging from the roof could not be anything else but the Titanic….the kryptonian had the gall to steal the Titanic. I'll let Robert Ballard know… after my people are done with it.

"This is very sad, Tyler."

"What is, Mr. Luthor?"

"All this…" Lex pointed at the displays. "The tawdry bric-a-brac, collected by an alien that desperately wanted to be human. This is the kind of stuff an old man would think a kid would love to own. Super-secret fortress, stuffed to the gills with unbelievable amazing loot." He picked up a gun labeled Czarnian Death Ray. "This is nothing but a gigantic monument to his ego and his overinflated victories. For instance, what powers this ray? What type of energy it uses? Does it only affect living tissue? What about inorganic materials? Can it vaporize rock? Metals? Wood? What are its uses for construction or demolition? He just hoarded them in his playhouse, because they looked cool when he came to relax."

Tyler arched an eyebrow, just for a second, but Lex caught him. "I know what you're thinking, Tyler. You're thinking I'm one to talk, because Metropolis has a skyscraper in the shape of an L and every other product is named Lexthis or L-that. Well, let me tell you something: that building is full of people working…producing, making deals around the world that affect millions. All the technology I have, I use. If it makes me insanely rich, well, I won't argue with that, but even my armors and death rays are out there, in doses the public can handle. Named after me, sure but they are there" He returned the ray to its display.

He saw a chair, bolted in front of a device that held thick sheets of metal, with strange letters carved in them. Some looked like they were made by intense heat, others by relentless pressure. Lex looked at them for a while, seemingly in a trance. "Huh…118 letters…several sounds just like the ones in our language…K is ee, as in meet…squiggly line is I, as in bit…"

Minutes passed and then he snapped out of his reverie and went to the device's control. A button reset the sheets to page number one and Lex started reading. Before long, he was laughing his head off.

"My word! It's his diary, where he put down his innermost thoughts. The most powerful creature in the world and he wrote like an emotional teenager dealing with unrequited love, dashed hopes, dreams and fears." He dictated a note into his LPad. "Write krypto-english dictionary and contact the literary division. See if they can turn this pap into something that can sell."

A voice crackled in his earpiece and it told him the stairs were ready. Lex walked

Sir? The upper levels are accessible now.

"I'm on my way."

The scissor elevator was next to an unfinished painting of an alien landscaped – call the art department, see SCI-FI uses- and activated the hydraulic lift. He reached the spot where eight Supermen stood side by side. He knocked on the closest one and it sounded metallic.

"Robots, eh?" Lex's scientific curiosity got the better of him. "Duplicates for emergencies…or companionship? Note: re-check the Lois mannequin. High priority. Reverse engineer." He got back to the elevator, to reach the last level.

Sir, one of the lower levels has a kryptonite vault.

Lex stopped the elevator. "Go on."

Kryptonite vault, sir. The name's carved on the door. There's all sort of colors here: red, green, blue, white, gold, black, and pink…even one that looks like the Hope diamond.

"Close the vault. Have the HazMat team go over it and once we have the ok, get everyone on it. High priority room.

"Very well, sir."

On the top level of the fortress, there were two items: one was labeled Phantom Zone Projector and the other was a large round screen, labeled Phantom Zone Monitor. When Lex got close to examine it, a few shapes in it coalesced into view.

Lex Luthor, destroyer of Kal-El, son of Jor-El. We've been waiting for you.

Lex smiled. They even looked like him.