Age of Heroes
Part four of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma
Notes: A lot of the stuff in this chapter in particular is heavily inspired by Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z (not the movie, never the movie!) Some of the tactics and history might sound familiar if you've read them. If you haven't and you're a zombie fan, I highly recommend them.
Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, Young Justice or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs to DC, Warner Brothers, and associated parties.
"Ask yourself one question: What will you do—end your existence in passive acceptance, or stand up and shout, 'I will not be their victim! I will survive!' The choice is yours."
~ Zombie Survival Guide, Max Brooks
The next month or so was devoted entirely to trying to figure each other out as they made their way northeast, up the coast.
Wally spent most of his time teaching his new surrogate sibling as they travelled on foot (the bike had been left behind in D.C. in their rush to escape). In Wally's not-so-humble opinion, Supey couldn't have had a better teacher; he considered himself to be an apocalyptic survival genius by this point. Most humans traveling outside of safe zones did so only long enough to reach a settlement and join it, and the truly adventurous ones would venture out for brief periods to go on scavenging trips. Wally had made a living out of existing outside the settlements while following up on rumors of his family and travelled across the country, meaning he had a lot more experience than most staying alive in zombie-infested territory.
He was happy to share his survival tips with Superboy now. And Supey was a pretty fast learner, he discovered, once Wally got it through his head that he was not, in fact, invincible anymore.
He picked up on foraging and hunting in more wilderness-covered areas quickly, learning how to identify, collect, and properly store edible plants and animals for later. He was also far less squeamish than Wally was about hunting at all, accepting it as a simple necessity, which was good. Wally had felt guilty for a week the first time he caught and killed a rabbit, and had to force the meat down his throat out of pure need. The memory still made him ill years later.
And when they hit more populated areas, suburbs and large towns and city outskirts, Superboy also learned how to scavenge for canned goods, water, medicine, and other immediate necessities for themselves pretty fast. Wally taught him how to keep an eye on expiration dates and when to determine if foods and meds were unsafe or dangerous to consume, because food poisoning or bad drugs could be a death sentence out here—if you were incapacitated for any length of time, it meant the zeds would find you for sure. Wally also taught him how to scavenge for other things, outlining a list of which goods were useful for trade and acted as the best forms of modern currency, and with Superboy's enhanced strength the number of things they could carry away safely increased.
Most important, Wally stressed repeatedly the necessity of keeping themselves safe at all times. This one was the hardest lesson for him to get across to Superboy, who was still prone to wanting to fight, and disliked being forced to restrain himself. But gradually Wally started getting across the dire nature of the situation to him, and when he did Superboy took to these lessons, too, with intelligence and skill.
Wally taught him the basics of zombie avoidance, how never to approach them if it could be avoided and to always traverse silently in any place where zombies might be likely to congregate. A general rule of thumb, he explained, was that wherever high densities of humans could be found—cities, for example, or fairly populated towns and suburbs—equally high densities of zombies would likely reside now. Traversing these areas could be particularly dangerous, which was why if they could be circled around it was better to do so—unless, of course, you were desperate for the supplies, or couldn't afford to waste the extra time circumventing the area.
Of course, wilderness travel had its own dangers, which he was careful to outline. There would usually be smaller numbers of zeds, maybe only in groups of one or two, but but they could also be hidden almost anywhere without being spotted. Trees and bushes could conceal zombies far too easily, after all. Wally had even once seen a Crawler—a damaged zombie without legs— catch a man by surprise when he came across it in tall grass without seeing it (the encounter still haunted Wally's nightmares). Worst of all was water—Wally stressed time and time again to never approach open sources of water like ponds, lakes, and rivers without taking extreme caution and having a weapon at the ready. Zombies didn't drown, and the deterioration the water caused over time did not diminish their strength or their hunger, meaning an unknowing traveler could easily be dragged under and never seen again.
Superboy took it all in stride, and if the frequently grim lessons disturbed him he didn't show it— just kept the frown that Wally was starting to learn was his permanent default expression on his face. Which was good, Wally hoped; it meant his friend was taking this seriously and not ready to give up just yet. Plenty of people thought they could handle apocalyptic wilderness travel, only to discover after a few days of continually watching their back that they couldn't hack it, and usually that didn't end well.
In addition to explaining all the dangerous places, Wally gave him a quick rundown of the safe places as well, and told him how to determine if a chosen campsite was okay or not. Height was usually the most important factor: zombies couldn't climb, although they could sometimes figure out how to crawl up stairwells if they were sloped enough. Second and third stories of buildings, preferably with lockable doors or ladders and fire escapes up to the top, were the best. Roofs were also pretty good if they weren't sloped, although it was hard to hide from the elements in the event of a storm, and trees could be okay too if you were careful about how you slept in them. Shops, homes, schools, and business buildings were typically okay, but hospitals and clinics were to be avoided at all costs as resting places and were only to be entered at all if you were desperate to find medications. When the outbreak first happened, thousands of infected victims were rushed to the hospitals, only to die and spread the condition even further, making most medical facilities some of the most dangerous hot-zones for zeds.
Superboy listened very carefully to each and every explanation, and recited everything back to Wally dutifully whenever prompted. Wally made him recite this particular list at least once a day, while they were moving—in the event that they got split up, which Wally hoped wouldn't happen but could never exactly be guaranteed in this day and age, he wanted to make sure Superboy didn't inadvertently get himself killed by choosing a poor shelter.
And of course, there were the lessons in zombie fighting, when necessary. Superboy seemed particularly intrigued by these lessons, which didn't surprise Wally in the least. He stressed many times the importance of always picking flight over fight if given the chance, until Superboy actually started rolling his eyes and saying the warning right along with him, but at least he knew. He also repeatedly stressed how important it was not to get bitten, because once you were, it was over—you were infected, you'd be dead in about fifteen to twenty hours, and soon after you'd be trying to munch on your friend's brains.
"Don't make me have to crowbar you," Wally told him grimly, once, when Superboy looked to not be taking the don't fight warnings seriously. "It'll kill me to have to do it, but if you get turned into a zombie and come after me I won't have a choice. So be careful and don't get bitten. And I'll do the same so you won't have to actually punch my face in this time."
Superboy seemed noticeably more subdued during the fighting lectures after that, which was good. Nobody should be excited about fighting zombies, not unless they were crazy or had nothing left to lose. With great care Wally went into details on how to fight zombies properly—the only way to beat them was to kill them, and the only way to do that was by destroying the brain. Once the brain was crushed or disconnected, whatever force was controlling the bodies just stopped, and they were just corpses once more.
"Other people think fire is a good idea," he told Superboy once, "but don't believe them. You can eventually burn a zombie to death by reducing the brain—and everything else—to ash. But remember, they don't feel pain, and it takes a while for a corpse to burn. Until then you have a mobile zombie on fire attacking you, which is just all kinds of bad. So don't do it."
Superboy actually grimaced at that one, which was a mark of just how gruesome life had gotten, and how desensitized to it Wally was getting. If the world ever went right again he wondered if he'd actually be okay in it. He really wasn't sure.
During other points of their travel, Wally filled in the blank spots for Superboy's non-existent memories of the last four years. He gave him brief history lessons on what he remembered going on before Z-day hit, and how everything had gone downhill after that. Most of the information for the past three years or so came from rumor, hearsay, and trading, and originated only from the areas of the country he'd been to.
"International communications sort of died," Wally explained, at Superboy's confusion. "I haven't heard anything about Europe, Asia, South America, or Africa since two-thousand and eight. Not much of a way to stay in contact with him. Things could be completely fine over there and we'd never know. Hell, we can barely keep communications up between American settlements. Only the military-operated ones have any degree of consistent communications and they don't really have much to say to the civilian-controlled refuge areas." Wally's disgust was barely controlled on that last line.
Superboy frowned. "You're not fond of the military."
"Not really. They sort of screwed things up a lot. The Justice League tried to warn them right when the mess first started. I heard Batman had all these contingency plans he tried to feed'em, to try and keep things controlled. But the government and the military spent so much time throwing fits over how they didn't want to give the League command in a time of crisis, and by the time they realized they were being idiots, it was too late." He shrugged. "Most of the League was gone and the outbreak was beyond control. So then they started this terrible campaign over on the western side of the country, trying to use the mountain range there as a natural barrier, and basically threw the entirety of central and eastern US to the wolves."
Superboy's frown grew noticeably deeper, and he did not seem particularly pleased at this show of cowardice or weakness. But all he said was, "But we're on the east coast, and there are still settlements here."
Wally grinned. "I told you, humans are survivors! There's about eight or nine major hubs of safety on our side of the boundary line that are run by some very innovative former civilians. They figured out ways to keep people alive and kept doing it just to tick off the apocalypse. Plus there's hundreds of smaller areas scattered around, where little groups and family units and trading posts and stuff manage to hold out."
Superboy seemed impressed. Although it was still clear he wasn't entirely comfortable with the way the entire world had changed on him seemingly overnight, it was clear he was starting to adapt to it. And, it seemed, he was also learning to appreciate the surprising brand of tenacity and endurance that humans had that outdid even his great strength and invulnerability.
Superboy, for his part, adapted enormously well to the apocalyptic era in more than one way. Because although the age of heroes was long gone and his status as Superman's clone meant little, his powers were still enormously useful when it came to surviving. Now that he was familiar with the sounds of zombies and the way they hunted, it was easy for him to identify approaching zeds with his super-hearing long before they were in visual range, meaning the two of them could break camp and bolt for it before things really became too dangerous.
His super strength was an enormous asset as well. He had already demonstrated that his high-powered leaps could get them out of potentially dangerous situations with relative ease and little risk if necessary, but beyond that his strength had other benefits. Superboy could easily shift aside massive obstacles or rubble blocking their path, tear their way into blocked or locked buildings for shelter, or even smash stairwells to prevent any particularly determined zombies from reaching them. In the rare event that they were forced to fight for their lives, he had a bad habit of breaking most of the makeshift weapons they came across with his strength—golf clubs, baseball bats, other crowbars, and even pipes and two-by-fours frequently fell victim to his overpowered swings. But that became sort of negligible when he could also pick up desks or sofas or hell, entire cars, and fling them at the walking dead from a safe distance, wiping out entire packs of zeds in one shot.
The first time he'd done that had actually been pretty epic. Enough for Wally to give him ten minutes of smug satisfaction before reaming him out on staying to fight instead of running like he was supposed to.
Traveling with Superboy definitely made things a lot safer, and that wasn't even taking into account the added benefits of having a traveling partner in general. Sure, it was a little harder to feed themselves, with two mouths and not one to look after, and they had to spend a lot more time than Wally was used to hunting or foraging or scavenging for edibles. It dragged out his usually three-week trip along this route to a full month, and some of the longer stretches they were forced to take when they couldn't find enough supplies were...uncomfortable.
But mostly the benefits were worth it. With two people, they had two sets of eyes and ears (one set particularly awesome) keeping a watch for danger and supplies and safe campsites. They could help each other with hunting, foraging, and scavenging, or one of them could keep up a careful guard while the other could focus one hundred percent of his attention on a task. Best of all, they could take watch shifts at night, meaning hours of real rest without having to stay partly awake the whole time, listening for tell-tale moans or other signs of danger.
Wally trusted Superboy to watch his back, and he was pretty sure Superboy trusted him the same, which was something depressingly uncommon in this day and age. Survival was all that mattered, the world was dog-eat-dog, and it was rare to find a traveling companion that you could actually trust to not stab you in your sleep and run off with your supplies. But they didn't have to worry about that with each other, and between Wally's knowledge and Superboy's abilities they made a very impressive, efficient traveling team.
And because of that ease and efficiency, and the month-long journey, Wally had plenty of time to start getting to know his friend on a more personal level, outside the super powers and hero's heritage.
It was gradual, and difficult to manage at first, because initially Superboy didn't have much of a personal level. Wally had long since determined that Superboy was intended as either a failsafe against Superman, or a weapon for something more sinister, and it was fairly obvious the more time he spent with the clone that Superboy had been allowed to know and think nothing outside of what was necessary for this job. It meant he had no favorites, no personality quirks, and no notable character traits to define himself as, well, himself. Even his language at first had been exquisitely precise, like somebody had dumped half a dozen advanced-level English textbooks into his head but forgot to make note of colloquialisms or cultural impacts.
But eventually as the days passed, Wally was intrigued to see more of a person forming, as the animatronic biological weapon gradually degraded away. At first it was obvious with Superboy's speech, in the way he started using contractions with less studied precision and adapted Wally's slang or vocabulary with growing casualness. Then with personality, as he started forming his own interests and quirks, became less and less "Superman's Clone" and more and more Superboy.
He was overconfident and aggressive and enjoyed fighting, but less so because he felt he had to and more because he liked to. He didn't like admitting to having any form of weakness, often denying being tired or hungry after a particularly large expenditure of his abilities on given days, hinting at a great deal of pride. He also hated failing at anything, and in what Wally suspected was a related issue, he was oddly, tentatively responsive to praise when he did something particularly well—like he was never entirely sure how to take it, but found he sort of enjoyed it. Sometimes when he said 'no' he often meant 'yes' and was just too stubborn to admit he was being agreeable. He enjoyed the taste of rabbit and the wild apples they'd occasionally found in overgrown orchards, but disliked venison and some of the more bitter edible plants they came across. And he had an odd fondness for animals, though he tried hard to hide it (and never quite managed); Wally often noted with amusement the way he'd watch feral dogs and cats in the cities, or deer, foxes, and the occasional bear or coyote in the wilderness.
And Superboy was surprisingly smart, too, once Wally managed to get him into a conversation. The teenager spent the first few days of their travel picking the clone's brain, trying to figure out how far his understanding of the world had gone before Z-day. Superboy had an odd habit of appearing to zone out for a moment, staring blankly ahead, when he was questioned about world events (or, Wally soon learned, many other things), before abruptly reciting a stream of succinct, analyzed information perfectly relevant to the topic. It was almost like the way computers would pause for a moment as the opened up files, and seeing it in a person was a little creepy at first, but Wally eventually got used to it.
And Superboy apparently had a lot of files in his head. Wally soon realized that Superboy could accurately summarize world history from the year one-thousand all the way up to a month before Z-day, correctly analyzing all political, social, economical, religious, and military aspects like he was reading straight out of a textbook. Even stranger was that sometimes, after reciting a particular batch of history—especially after the more social or cultural moments, like race riots, country divisions, or particularly cruel acts done in the name of a god or an idealized concept—he would pause and question why it had even happened, as though he didn't understand the thoughts behind what he'd just recited. He had a surprisingly firm understanding of military strategy, entire catalogues of modern military weaponry, vehicles, and their workings, and a frighteningly detailed list of each and every known superhero up until 2007, along with an analysis of each one's strengths and weaknesses, all locked away in his head. And he spoke at least ten active languages fluently, as well as comprehending a number of dead ones.
It was a baffling load of information, and Wally was at first inclined to think that Cadmus had wanted their clone to be super-intelligent as well. Except the more he questioned Superboy the more he started to realize there was something else at work with all the information they'd dumped into his head, and he didn't think it was intended to be for Superboy's benefit. For starters he didn't seem entirely capable of utilizing much of the information in his mind; he rarely bothered with combat strategy when they fought zombies, nor had he learned to interpret half of the textbooks scrawled in his head. It was more like it was there for show, less for Superboy to access it. To Wally that meant one thing: Superboy wasn't the one intended to make any of the decisions based around the knowledge given to him, and was only supposed to know enough to react, if necessary.
More frightening to Wally was the specific nature of Superboy's knowledge, because unless it was directly related to military history or languages or other related topics, he had only a high school freshman level understanding of things like mathematics, sciences, literature, and the like. One could argue that everything Superboy had been force-educated with would aid with 'public relations' in the event that he was required to 'replace' Superman. But Wally thought it also sounded suspiciously like preparing a particularly strong and dangerous super-human for military combat...or maybe they'd just skip the pretense and go straight to turning him into a tool for some seriously dangerous blitzkriegs.
It was a scary, scary thought, and Wally had to remind himself repeatedly that Superboy wasn't going to have to do anything like that anymore. Superboy was allowed to make his own choices, and he wasn't being experimented on or abandoned by Cadmus anymore. Everything would be okay. Totally okay. But all the same, he couldn't help but feel protective of the clone, determined to keep him away from those crazy scientists if they ever showed their faces again. And he kept his suspicions to himself—Superboy had been through enough already without having to wonder about the what ifs of his purpose, especially since it still seemed to concern him so much.
There was more to Superboy too, although they were subtle things. He wasn't much of a talker, and unless Wally directly asked him something he was usually pretty quiet. But it wasn't in a bad way—Wally found he was a exceptional listener, always paying attention even when he didn't appear to be, and he didn't seem to mind Wally's often inane chatter. It was sort of nice, because back before Z-day Wally was often lectured with anything from amusement to exasperation to irritation about how he was a chatterbox that talked too fast and too often for his own good. But Superboy didn't seem to mind it and didn't interrupt him, which made them pretty good company for each other.
And Wally chattered a lot, because he couldn't help it; after being alone for four years, for the most part, it was nice to have somebody besides himself to talk to. When he wasn't giving lectures or lessons on surviving the apocalypse he usually rambled on about mundane things, whatever was on his mind at the time, just to keep things even between himself and Superboy. Sometimes they were weird stories ever since Z-day—his (many) impressive survivalist feats, the strange things he'd seen, the dumb things he'd seen people do, the rare moments of humor that could be found (because you had to hold onto those in a world like this). More often they were things that he remembered from before the outbreak: his favorite movies, bands, video games, foods and shows, the girls he had crushes on, his old science projects and experiments, the places he'd gone on vacation.
It was during one of his rambling sessions that he discovered the other more subtle trait Superboy possessed: he could be oddly observant when he wanted to be. Wally had been explaining enthusiastically about how his mother made the best lasagna, how she made it just perfect like no one else could and the taste was to die for, when Superboy interrupted with, "You talk about them a lot."
"Lasagna?"
"Your family," the clone clarified. "You mention them a lot, in your stories."
"Oh. Sorry." Wally looked away, a little downcast and a little embarrassed; he hadn't meant to go overboard.
Superboy growled in frustration and after a moment managed to mutter, "No, I...sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He looked a little put out; Wally had discovered he was pretty terrible at apologizing, too. Then his usual frown softened a little, his shoulders shifted uncomfortably, and he added, "It's just, you really miss them, don't you?"
"I..." Wally hesitated for a moment, but there was no point lying about it. He did miss them terribly, and there wasn't a day that went by that he didn't wonder if they were still alive or worry that they might be hurt or scared or worried about him and he couldn't do anything to stop it. "Yes," was all Wally said out loud, and still he couldn't quite hide the raw fear and worry and pain he felt inside. But Superboy's expression was neutral, and he didn't react with scorn or laugh at how pathetic he sounded.
So Wally added, slowly, tentatively, "I haven't seen them since the outbreak," and sketched out a rough outline of his own personal history, how he'd been separated from his parents and aunt and uncle on a school trip, how Z-day had come, and how he'd never been able to find them again. How he'd been searching ever since for them—how at the beginning finding them had been the only thing getting him to get up some mornings, to keep stumbling forward, keep surviving one more day. How it had been terrifying, and how much he still worried, for them more than himself. How he didn't even know if they were still breathing, or if they'd been turned, or if they were just gone, and how he wanted so badly to know and was simultaneously terrified of finding out.
Admitting those things made him the most vulnerable he'd ever been with anybody since the outbreak, other than maybe his buddy at the refuge they were heading to. And he felt bad that he was heaping all of this on Superboy, who he was supposed to be the unafraid, knowledgable big brother for. But Superboy proved to be an utterly non-judging listener, and when Wally finally talked himself into silence all Superboy said slowly was, "So, that's your purpose, then."
"Huh?"
"Your place in this world. The reason you keep going. To find your family. Family can be a purpose." He seemed honestly intrigued and enlightened by the observation.
"Uh. Yeah, I guess." Wally shook his head, winced, and added, "Sorry. I didn't mean to, y'know, dump all that on you. You shouldn't have to deal with all my baggage on top of yours."
Superboy did not appear impressed by the logic, and snorted. "But you can take mine and yours? You have a goal, but you're wasting time to help me find answers too."
"I'm not wasting my time!" Wally protested. "I really do want to help you. I mean, we are friends."
"So then it's fine for me to listen to your problems, too," Superboy countered with surprising ease.
Well, damn. He actually had Wally there.
"I, uh, hope you find them," Superboy added more solemnly. He sounded uncomfortable again and his shoulders shifted the same way as before, and he was carefully not looking in Wally's direction when he spoke. Awkwardness practically rolled off him in waves; clearly emotional anythings were not things he was used to. "I don't...exactly know what it's like, to have family. But they obviously mean a lot. And I'd be angry if anything happened to people that were important to me."
That was the end of their only real major heart-to-heart (which had, in Wally's opinion, been enough—it was hard enough to remain manly when a large part of your life consisted of running like a baby away from monsters, without adding heartfelt emotional talks to the mix). He did, however, discover that family and emotions weren't the only things Superboy had a hard time comprehending. His experiences of the world were rather limited—largely coming from loads of mysterious brain-data or his personal newly-created memories of an apocalyptic America—which meant his frame of reference for many of the things Wally rambled about ranged from 'slim' to 'nonexistent.' He had virtually no concept of how to have fun, or do normal teenager things, or indeed what 'normal teenager things' even consisted of.
It was sort of depressing, in Wally's not-so-humble opinion. Sure, his own childhood had been completely ruined at the age of twelve by a rampaging horde of zombies sweeping the nation, but at least he'd had twelve years of junk food, video games and beach visits. Superboy had no memories at all outside of artificially implanted ones, or pure survival, and had seen absolutely nothing good in the world since Wally had re-introduced him to it. Wally was determined to change that, and prove that not everything in the new age was terrible.
Of course, it wasn't easy, since the fact of the matter was most things in the world still were pretty terrible. It was hard enough to be a good, fun big brother when most of the time you were instructing your sibling how to feed yourself or properly smash in slightly decomposed heads. And being a surrogate sibling was sort of new to him anyway, making it even tougher, since he'd never had a younger brother or sister before. But he was determined all the same to give Superboy at least a few good memories that he could hold on to when times got bleak, to remind him that even in an apocalypse not everything was bad.
He wished he could give Superboy some classic kid experiences: take him out for ice cream, visit an amusement park, go swimming at the beach, have a movie marathon, check out a concert, play video games for a day straight in increasingly violent and competitive multi-player modes. These were the things Superboy always seemed puzzled over or unable to grasp entirely, when Wally rambled about them during the quieter and safer moments of their journey. Sadly these things were simply impossible right now, with the state of the world. But Wally wasn't known for giving up, and eventually engineered several other opportunities to teach Superboy about the good side of life.
He started simple. During one of their necessary scavenging expeditions, after skirting around Baltimore, he came across a mostly intact deck of playing cards. It was missing a few cards from the Hearts suite, but miraculously both the jokers were still there, which mostly made up for it. Wally taught Superboy poker, blackjack, cribbage, go fish, and half a dozen other games, taunting and ribbing his surrogate sibling in good-natured fashion to get a rise out of him and engage his competitive streak.
At first Superboy was scowl-y and unresponsive, but gradually he began to get the hang of both of the strategies and the taunting, and he had one of the best poker-faces Wally had ever seen on anyone, ever. They started betting on basic things to up the ante, then: who got stuck on which sleep shift watch, or who got the last piece of rabbit meat or scoop of canned rations. And during the day, if Superboy reported no dangerous sounds in the area, Wally would idly shuffle the deck in his hands as they walked, and practice his 'magic tricks' ("It's not really magic," Wally would explain with a snort, at Superboy's raised eyebrow, "It's all quantifiable stuff, sleight of hand and probability mostly, but it really impresses the girls when you get it right. Now pick a card and don't cheat with any super-vision!")
But Wally found better opportunities as they travelled, starting with a few days after they crossed over the Pennsylvania line. On their travels they found an abandoned high school that had, of all things, a mostly-intact volleyball court. The nets were a little rotted, but not so badly that they were completely useless, and there was still an intact sports shed off to one side with a decent collection of not-too-deflated balls and a mostly-working pump. Wally made a snap decision, and called for a halt. It was probably not the best decision, admittedly, and his instincts screamed that he should not be wasting valuable time and energy on this, and that there could be zeds anywhere. But he could afford to be a little more relaxed, now that he was traveling with a Kryptonian. Superboy's advanced hearing could give them warnings about approaching zombies long before they actually got there, and the field was open enough they'd have advanced visual warning, too. If this didn't pan out they could still be long gone before danger arrived.
So he called for Superboy to set his pack down next to the court (still close enough to grab and run; Wally hadn't abandoned common sense completely) and pick a side. The clone did so, perplexed, and Wally gave him a brief rundown of the rules (which he couldn't really remember anymore, so it mostly consisted of 'don't let the ball hit the ground or the other guy gets a point') and volleyed it over the net. Superboy hit it back with so much force it popped on impact. Wally counted it as a point for himself, laughed, and retrieved a second ball from the shed. The second time Superboy was able to rein himself in for the first return volley, but couldn't match Wally's more natural agility and speed when attempting to subdue his own powers, and missed the ball. The third time Wally almost gleefully spiked it at the clone's feet, and laughed at the sullen expression on Superboy's face. "C'mon, dude, I thought you were supposed to be super! If you can't keep up with human ol'me, then I think you need more practice!"
Superboy gave him an angry look, and was clearly frustrated by his losses, but the fury retreated slightly when he spotted Wally's grin and realized he was only teasing. His angry look shifted to one of determination instead, and he seemed to focus more carefully on the game after that. Wally hadn't realized this would turn into an exercise for the Kryptonian to learn how to control his vast strength better. But he was surprised to find that after half an hour of play, Superboy was already learning to shift between restraining his strength for volleys, and utilizing it fully for getting around the court quick enough to keep up with Wally's return shots. By the time an hour had passed, and Superboy reported the first telltale signs of hunting moans in the distance, the clone was actually grinning as he played, and the look didn't disappear even as they ran for their lives shortly after.
Somewhere past Philadelphia Wally managed to scrounge up a similar opportunity, in an old arcade that had probably seen better days even before the outbreak. He wasn't sure if it was nostalgia or inherent suicidal tendencies that sent him in there after Superboy reported hearing a few zombies, but they ended up beating in more than a few dead heads when they should have been running (not that Superboy argued, at all). When the wild adrenaline rush had finally worn off and the clone reported no further zombie sounds, Wally took the opportunity to explore. Without any electricity the arcade was dark and cold, and it had absolutely nothing of value for scavenging, which an unimpressed Superboy was quick to point out (Wally had noticed him developing a tendency towards bluntness of late).
"It was much more impressive back in the day, I'm sure," Wally told him. "All this stuff would've been lit up and making noises and the games look like they were pretty cool." He gestured at the details painted on the sides of a few machines, tapped a grimy pinball machine with a fond look, and then grinned at what he spotted in the dark corner. "Oh, sweet! Supey, help me drag this thing outside, we'll need light to play it..."
"It" turned out to be an old air hockey table, which Superboy relocated fairly easily to the more sunny outdoors. One of its legs was broken and had to be wedged up with a few blocks of concrete, and it took Wally a while to find an intact puck and a couple of mallets. Once he did and explained how to play, Superboy gave him a rather skeptical look, and asked flatly, "What exactly is the point to this thing?"
"To have fun," Wally answered brightly. "It's not about training or surviving or whatever. It's just fun!" His grin widened, and he added, " 'Course, I'm pretty awesome at this game, so I'll understand if you're too scared you can't beat me."
Superboy's eyes narrowed, but by now he had gotten used to Wally's taunting, and his own determined grin slipped on to his face a lot faster than it used to. "That sounds like a challenge."
"A challenge for you, maybe, this is a piece of cake for me!"
"We'll see how easy it is!" And they were on.
It wasn't perfect, of course. The table couldn't be plugged in, meaning there was no actual air to the air hockey, so the puck didn't slide as well as it should have, especially when the table was still a bit lopsided. And occasionally it would get stuck in the goal slots, prompting Superboy to pick the entire table up and shake it until it fell out again. But mostly it was fun, and the good-natured ribbing and genuine laughing was just as enjoyable than the game itself. They played three rounds in an hour and a half, and Wally was a little surprised to discover he won two out of three of them, considering who he was up against. But Superboy took his losses surprisingly well, and appeared to genuinely enjoy the game for the game itself, and not the victor. They had been forced to move on as it started to get dark, to hunt out a shelter for the night, but Superboy had clearly enjoyed the experience and that was all that mattered to Wally.
But most notable to Wally was right after they crossed the state line into Connecticut. They had just spent a harrowing week and a half skirting New York City, which was dangerously infested and not even worth attempting to go near, and both he and Superboy were feeling a little strained. So the change of scenery was nice, and when they passed through this tiny blink-and-you-miss it town that the zeds had clearly abandoned long ago in favor of better hunting grounds, neither one was particularly adverse to taking a day off to rest in the relative safety.
There wasn't much of note in the town, but it did have a bookshop, and Wally decided to poke through it just because. Superboy followed him, looking around the shop curiously, and they soon split up amongst the shelves to explore.
The place was a bit of a mess—other travelers had clearly been through here in the past. Wally found ashes and the twisted remains of torn up pages, and his inner nerd cried a little at tomes of knowledge now being reduced to fire-starting fuel in the new age, but there wasn't much he could do about that. He swung by the camping section first, but as expected, the survival guides, camping books, foraging and plant encyclopedias, and anything else of current value was long gone. No loss; he probably knew most of it anyway. He poked idly through the comics, paged through a few sci-fi novels, laughed (not without an edge of bitterness) at the enthusiastic display for the 'latest' walking dead bestseller that had come out a couple weeks before Z-day, and frowned in disappointment at the pathetically small selection of non-fiction regarding physics, biology, and chemistry.
Then, on impulse, Wally searched through the store until he found the home and family section, and browsed the shelf until he spotted what he was looking for. Grinning, he snatched the floppy paperback from the shelf and searched for Superboy, intent on sharing his find.
He found the clone in the history section, which didn't come as a surprise. What did catch Wally, just a bit, was the book Superboy was looking through almost longingly: Voices of the League, the cover read, and the tag on the back added, An in-depth collection of interviews with our secret guardians that have finally stepped into the light! Right, of course...the Justice League had gone public in 2007, barely four months before Z-day hit. It had been a big thing, before the apocalypse became a bigger thing.
Wally didn't have to even guess which interview Superboy was reading. Even without seeing the pages, it was fairly obvious, just by the almost wistful look on Superboy's face, and the way he focused on the book so intently; like he was trying to absorb every last detail, reconstruct the person inside just by reading a few written phrases and learning what the interviewee clearly viewed as important. Things he would never, ever be able to discover on his own, because he would never, ever really know that person, no matter how hard he tried.
"You can keep it, you know," Wally told him. Superboy blinked and looked up at him with a little surprise. Wally was sure the clone had known he was there, but had also registered him as safe and not bothered to pay attention.
Superboy considered his words for a moment, and then said slowly, frowning, "I thought we weren't supposed to carry what wasn't necessary?"
"No, I think what I specifically said was 'don't carry what you can't carry,'" Wally corrected, "But seeing as you can bench press tanks without breaking into a sweat, I think you're good carrying around a paperback or two."
Superboy smirked a little at that, but his expression grew more solemn a moment later as he glanced down at the book. After a moment he closed it almost tenderly, as if taking a great deal of care not to damage it with his superior strength, and clutched it close almost possessively. "Yeah. I'll...just hold on to this, then."
"Great," Wally said. "Trade you, though." And he tossed his own find at Superboy, deftly (but carefully) snatching the League interview book from the clone's hands when Superboy flailed hastily to catch it.
Superboy gave him a dirty look (he really was getting good at that) and then glanced down at the new paperback in his hands. " 'Baby Boy Names of the Two Thousands'?"
"Yup!" Wally said with a grin. "We're getting close to the refuge settlement, and cool as 'Superboy' sounds, I don't think it's gonna fly so well around norms. You're gonna need a secret identity." His grin grew more conspiratorial.
Superboy frowned, and flipped idly through a few pages of names, but did not seem particularly interested in any of them—or in renaming himself at all, really. After a moment he glanced up at Wally again and said, "I don't know how to pick a name."
Wally rolled his eyes. "Man, you gotta make everything so difficult, Supey, y'know that?" He traded books again, and started paging through the 'most popular' section from the back of the alphabet, reading names and meanings out loud while Superboy watched. "Okay, let's see what we got here...'Thomas,' means 'a twin.' Hrm, only found one of you, so I guess that's a bust. 'Oliver,' haha, 'elf army'...naw, that's totally not you. 'Nathan,' 'he gave'...he gave what? Yeah, no grammatically incorrect names for you, Supey. 'Landon'...seriously? This is a name? Sounds like part of a sentence, I'm gonna landon that zombie over there. Yeah, no. Good thing there are no schools anymore or you'd be getting beat up during recess...'course the bullies'd probably break their fingers trying, but, y'know...oh! Okay, here's something." He glanced up to make sure Superboy was still paying attention, and then read out loud, " 'Connor,' says here it means 'strong willed,' but it could also mean 'wolf lover.' You definitely have the first part down, but how do you feel about wolves?"
Superboy blinked. "Uh...they're okay. The ones we saw back in that forest a few weeks ago were kinda cool."
Wally couldn't help but smirk at that, since 'kinda cool' was an understatement. Superboy was referring to the time they'd watched, from a safe distance, an entire pack of wolves take down a wandering pair of zeds. Animals couldn't be reanimated, of course; there were no zombie deer or bears or skunks, thank God. But the bite still killed them and zombies would still tear them apart, which meant animals tended to keep their distance from the zeds. Wolves, on the other hand, would stop at nothing to take the invading monstrosities down, even if it wiped out half the pack—which it usually didn't, because they were dangerous enough to bring zeds down cleanly and smart enough not to consume them afterwards. Superboy's expression as he watched what amounted to kindred spirits at work had been a mix of deep respect and genuine excitement, which had made the risk of getting close enough to watch in the first place totally worthwhile to Wally.
"Great!" Wally said. "Then it fits you all the way. Connor it is...long as you're okay with it, anyway."
"Connor," Superboy repeated slowly, as though getting used to the unfamiliar name on his tongue. He cocked his head as though listening, and then said with a little more confidence, "My name is Connor." Another pause, and then he nodded. "Yeah. It's fine. I like it."
Wally grinned. "There ya go! Nice to meet you, Connor. No need to bother with a last name, nobody uses'em anymore. Or you can borrow mine if you want, families have been reworked so much in the past few years nobody would bat an eye even if we totally don't look like we're related at all."
"Of course we don't," Connor smirked. "You're way too short compared to me."
"Hey!" Wally groused with good humor. "Man, you rescue an alien from a pod and give him a name and this is the thanks you get..." He snorted, tossed the baby name book aside idly, and added almost as an afterthought, "Still gonna call you Supey outside of the crowds, though. It just fits."
Superboy said nothing in response, but his nod was agreement enough. He'd never argued against the nickname before, and by now it had layers of familiarity to it that just stuck for both of them.
They stayed in that little blink-and-you-miss it town for a full day, relishing in the rest, before pushing on at a faster pace. They were close to the refuge now, and Wally was anxious to finally get there, now that they were on the final stretch. But the journey had proved interesting, and there had been plenty of successes outside of pure survival. Superboy—Connor—seemed more alive than he had when Wally first pulled him out of the pod, a little more natural, more...human.
And, Wally realized with some surprise, the same could actually be said of himself. He'd always tried to stay optimistic, as he searched for his parents and his Aunt Iris and (maybe) even his Uncle Barry; to believe they could still be alive, so that he could keep going. But he was starting to realize, after spending a month traveling with Superboy, how much he'd just been merely subsisting up until now. Before it had been survival and little else: getting together the exact, precise physical needs in order to keep going for the next day, making sure he was physically capable of traveling safely and efficiently, making sure he had the physical materials necessary to barter for even more survival.
But now that he was looking out for somebody else, doing his best to make sure they didn't just survived but enjoyed life as much as possible, he was starting to realize how little of that he'd been doing himself. He'd been living for others before, but always in the future. Now that he was living for somebody else right now, he felt a lot more...alive. And he realized, the farther they went on this journey, that to really make it through the apocalypse, you had to do more than just survive: you had to live. Appreciate what you had, never waste a moment, and get what enjoyment you could, no matter how bleak life might otherwise look.
So maybe it wasn't entirely a one-way rescue, after all. He might have pulled Superboy out of Cadmus, adjusted him to post-Z-day life, and taught him how to have fun—but Connor had, knowingly or not, given him a few lessons as well.
And somehow that left Wally feeling a lot more light-hearted than he had in almost four years.
My sincerest apologies to anybody actually named Landon (or Oliver, Nathan, or Thomas). Wally is an inconsiderate jerk sometimes. He doesn't mean it, really.