Age of Heroes

Part nine of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma

Note: Sorry for being a few days late with this one. Between work and getting sick it's been a little hard to edit. Here we go now, though!

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.

"I say ya kill your heroes and—
Fly, fly, baby don't cry.
No need to worry 'cause—
Everybody will die.
Every day we just—
Go, go, baby don't go.
Don't you worry, we—
Love you more than you know."
~Kill Your Heroes, AWOLNATION

Wally was actually surprised to find himself waking almost two hours past dawn; he must have been exhausted, to sleep in like that. Yawning, he stretched and sat up on the couch, glancing around blearily. Superboy was awake already, leaning back against the end of the couch near Wally's head, with the Justice League interview book carefully propped open on his knees. Peeking over the arm rest (and thus Superboy's shoulder), he was surprised to find the pages opened not to Superman's chapter, but Green Arrow's.

"Studying up on Roy, huh?" Wally asked him.

Superboy was obviously not surprised to hear him awake, but he did glance up and put a finger to his lips, before gesturing towards the cot in the far corner of the room. Wally could just make out the small lump under the thin blanket, rising and falling gently in sleep, and Dick's dark hair splayed out on the pillow.

"Oh," Wally muttered under his breath, barely audible—but that was one of the perks (and occasional curse) of having Connor as a friend; he'd hear it anyway. "You know if he found anything?"

"No," Superboy murmured back. "Roy carried him out of the...lair...around four in the morning, but he was already asleep then. Told me if I woke him up he'd find a way to hunt down some Kryptonite and teach me a lesson." He snorted softly.

"And thus the studying?" Wally asked lowly. "I figured you'd be reading about more local heroes, honestly." He gestured in Dick's direction.

"Already read his chapter. Batman's the only one that didn't give an interview; it wasn't that hard."

Wally was hardly surprised by this, but before he could comment Roy entered the cottage quietly, closing the door softly so it didn't snap. He nodded to their guests, and deposited a new basket and a thermos on the ground in front of the couch before taking Dick's chair from the night before. "Breakfast," he said softly, without any preamble.

"You're a life-saver, Roy," Wally said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster while still being quiet. He slipped off the couch to sit on the floor and sort through the basket, while Connor quietly put his book away and came over to join them. "Fresh strawberries, wow...more bread...and eggs?"

"Just hard-boiled," Roy said. "Nothing fancy, but everything's all produced on the island one way or another."

"And the thermos?"

"Tea. I know what you're thinking, shut up," the bodyguard added with a scowl, as he caught sight of Wally's amused smirk. Wally chuckled under his breath. Not a butler, yeah right!

"Leave some for Dick," Roy warned, as they dug into breakfast, this time with the archer joining them. He popped a strawberry in his mouth and seemed to chew thoughtfully for a moment, before adding more softly, "But Wally, if you can get him to eat as well as you did last night, I will personally pay in trade for you to get some of the last strawberry harvest in your pack when you leave."

Superboy frowned, and glanced over at the figure in the bed. "Why? Is he sick or something?"

"Not exactly," Roy said, voice flat, although Wally could hear trace hints of concern in it. "He goes through these phases of short-term insomnia, and his appetite usually drops with it when he does. It's stress-related. He puts on a good game face, but it really gets to him, to have to make some of the tougher calls. Not all the decisions we need to make here are...pleasant, exactly."

Wally grimaced. It was unfair to force a fourteen year old to make as many life-or-death calls as Dick had to, in order to protect and support a fragile apocalypse-born colony. But he was still the best-qualified candidate for the job, and it wasn't in his nature to back down when people needed help, either, even if it did come with a huge boatload of stress-related problems.

"Sometimes you just have to let him work himself into a stupor," Roy finished with a quiet sigh of exasperation. "It's the only way he gets any rest otherwise, we don't even have the medications to spare as sleeping aids. Eating, though, that's trickier."

"I'll do what I can," Wally offered. He'd have done it even without the harvest bribe, honestly.

They made small talk for a few hours as quietly as they could, while letting Dick sleep undisturbed in the corner. Roy updated Wally on most of the goings-on at New Batcave since he'd been there last, six months ago, and explained the island's features and facilities in more detail to a curious Superboy. Wally, in turn, gave Roy updates on the lay of the land in the surrounding area, and notified him about a few supply caches they'd found while traveling, too big and too much for single travelers to do anything with but potential targets for a well-organized, highly-trained foraging party.

It passed the time, and by the time Dick stirred on the bed and groaned as he slowly began to slip back into wakefulness, it was nearly ten thirty in the morning. Superboy looked antsy and was clearly impatient to get his answers, but Roy gave him a look that clearly said I really will find a way to kill you, and Connor refrained from pouncing before the youngest teen was even fully conscious. Besides, Wally could tell Superboy was starting to grow more fond of the former sidekicks, and that meant he was actually, genuinely concerned for their well-being, too.

They gave Dick some time to wake up and eat (true to his word, Wally managed to cheerfully coax his friend into having a decent meal) and by eleven he was as energetic as ever. "I broke through last night," he told them excitedly. "Downloaded all of the information to my own systems to be safe, too. You will not believe some of the stuff that was on that thing." He gestured for them to accompany him into his makeshift lair again (still very dark, due to a lack of windows) and toggled on a number of screens, each displaying various photographs and veritable walls of text.

"Hey," Wally said, pointing at one of the photos—it was the same long-limbed elf thing that he'd found when he'd first wandered down into Cadmus. "I recognize that thing. It was one of the monsters."

Dick gestured to the screens and other photos. "Yup. All of these are. According to the files, they're called 'genomorphs.'" Wally blinked; that sounded familiar. Hadn't Superboy rambled something about genomorphs, back when he'd first pulled the clone out of his pod?

"They're genetically engineered life forms," Dick added. "Amongst other things, Cadmus was apparently playing God. All the different types are designed for a different purpose. Just look at the stats on some of these things." He clicked rapidly between individual creature data. "Super strength, razor claws...these tiny ones even have telepathy."

"Weapons," Roy summarized flatly. "An army of living weapons."

Superboy's hands clenched tightly, so hard Wally could hear them crackling. "I'm also a genomorph," he growled slowly, low in his throat. "Does that also make me a weapon?"

Wally winced. He'd long ago guessed that this was Superboy's intended function, but he'd never really wanted to bring his speculations to light...and he felt even worse now, knowing he was right.

Roy was either unimpressed by or uncaring of the warning tone in Superboy's voice, and his answer was blunt. "We know you aren't," he said, "but it's not unreasonable to assume that if these people were willing to grow you secretly in a tube fifty stories below ground, they also believed they could control you enough to use you as a weapon. And quite frankly, Superman was capable of causing a lot of damage, even if he never used his powers that way. Somebody screwed up enough in the head could easily imagine putting those abilities to a more dangerous purpose...like in military operations, or even against the Justice League."

Superboy's eyes narrowed for a moment, but then his face fell as he repeated the purpose scripted into his head. "Created to replace or destroy Superman..." he murmured softly, staring at nothing. He looked almost ill.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Dick interrupted, before things could get worse. "The projects obviously failed, and you're not being controlled by Cadmus at all anymore, Connor. You're free to live your own life. That includes living it as a person, not a weapon."

"My choice," Superboy repeated, echoing Wally's old promises when he'd first found the clone. He sounded determined as he added, "Not as a...a replacement, or a tool."

"That's right, dude," Wally encouraged, hoping to keep his friend from getting too down. "And those Cadmus guys will just have to deal with it, if we ever run across them again. Nobody's controlling or using you on our watch." The others nodded in agreement, and with the way Dick's eyes narrowed, he had a feeling the kid'd be doing more thorough research later, to see if he could dig up a few names. They probably wouldn't be welcome in New Batcave if they ever showed up. Wally tried hard not to let himself feel too much vindictive satisfaction at that.

"So that explains the basics for why Superboy was created to begin with," Dick continued, drawing up more screens, "But the real juicy intel was locked in this Project Kr file. It took me forever to break into this thing, it was triple encrypted, even on the drive, but it's not hard to see why."

The screen changed to a photo of Superboy, quietly asleep in a much less dirty pod, with three of the tiny creatures hanging over his head in a strange apparatus that Wally hadn't even noticed when he'd found the room. It was obviously taken years ago, but Connor didn't look like he'd aged a day. Superboy shifted uncomfortably next to him, apparently not liking the reminder of how he'd been locked up for so long.

Dick tapped out something on the keys, and a bubble of text appeared next to the photo. "They seemed to have a decent handle on cloning tech," he began. "They force-grew you in just a couple of months—the records say the project began in early January of two-thousand and seven. They would have finished the physical developments barely a month before Z-day hit. But here's the real kicker: your DNA isn't one hundred percent Kryptonian."

Superboy's eyes widened. "What? Why not? I'm supposed to be a clone of Superman!"

"And you are," Dick said, "But not completely. Look here, at this note. It mentions something about pure Kryptonian DNA being too unstable to clone effectively, resulting in a lot of premature deaths in the cloning process, or unstable brain functions in young adolescent cloning attempts. They decided to resolve the issue by mixing human DNA into the process, which seems to have stabilized your growth both mentally and physically, and let you reach full maturity."

"What'd I tell ya?" Wally asked, nudging Connor gently in the side with an elbow. "Humans, we don't just roll over and die. Bet that's the part that saved you."

Superboy looked stunned at the revelation, and was rendered speechless. Wally didn't blame him—it was a pretty crazy thing to discover. Then he blinked in surprise as he realized something of his own. "Does it say who that DNA is from?" Wally always felt sorry when Superboy read through his book or asked almost longingly about stories of Superman, wanting but never able to know his family. But if he had a human donor too, there was a chance that person was still out there, a chance he could still have some form of family...

"No," Dick sighed. "It just mentions the donor is anonymous." Wally's face fell. Well, it had been a long shot. Superboy looked further dejected as well, so Dick addressed him again. "But moving on, you mentioned that you don't have all of Superman's powers, right? I'd be willing to put money on that being the reason why."

"That would make sense," Roy agreed. "Genetically speaking, humans aren't capable of any Kryptonian feats. The human DNA might have stabilized him, but with the trade-off of subduing Kryptonian powers."

"That's why I can't fly," Superboy said softly, staring at his own photograph on the screen. "Or use any form of vision beyond infrared, or have super speed. I'm a defective cloning attempt..."

"Still more than any of us can do," Wally said, in an effort to cheer his friend up. He hated that Superboy always seemed to beat himself up over not being comparable to the original—it wasn't like he'd chosen to be born 'defective,' or even at all. When Superboy did not look reassured he added, "Those powers have still saved me loads of times, Supey. It doesn't matter how they compare to Superman's, you're still really strong—literally, even—and you're still surviving. That's what counts."

"Powers are overrated, anyway," Dick added, and Roy snorted in agreement, but nodded. "So what if you can't do everything Superman can do? You're part human, there's great stuff there too. We're tenacious, enduring, adaptable, and innovative; I mean, just look around. It's the apocalypse and we're still going strong." He grinned. "You get the best of both worlds, SB, it's really a good thing."

Superboy hesitated a moment, but then a slow, tentative smirk slipped on to his face. "Maybe you're right," he admitted after a moment. "It's only been a month, but all the humans I've met have managed to do some pretty incredible things, without powers at all..."

"I think he's talking about you," Wally hissed to Dick in a loud stage whisper.

"Not you too, SB, I haven't been so flattered since my cape and tights days," Dick joked, with faked high-pitched embarrassment.

"He's talking about both of you idiots," Roy said dryly. "God only knows why." They grinned, and Superboy actually snorted in amusement, which was as good as a bark of laughter from him.

Dick turned back to the screens a moment later, falling serious once again. "There's more stuff in here too," he explained. "All the information in your head? Wally was right, it was downloaded straight to your brain...using these guys." He pulled up an image of one of the tiny monsters Wally had seen scattered about Cadmus, and then gestured to the same things crouching in the apparatus over photograph-Superboy's head. "They're genomorphs, classification 'Gnomes.' They were telepathically force-feeding you an education once your physical developments were completed. That's how all that imagery and knowledge got into your head, even though you'd never left the facility before."

Superboy frowned. "They were in my head?" He did not look comfortable with the thought.

"To teach you," Dick said. "And it extends a lot farther than you might think. There's the information downloads, and teaching you the basics of language, but it also extends to physical abilities as well. Wally said you came out fighting—you knew how to walk, you had hand-eye coordination, and you were able to communicate relatively quickly. Those are all fine motor skills that typically take months of practice and experimentation for babies to figure out. Even humans recovering from serious accidents typically need a lot of physical therapy to recover those abilities. The fact that you could do it right away implies they were conditioning you physically as well."

"That's not all," Roy added. "If the process extends that far there could be inherent sleeper triggers buried in your head that you don't even know about."

"Roy!" Wally snapped, giving him a dark look.

"I'm being realistic about this," the archer shot back, not looking in the least bit sorry. "Even regular humans are susceptible to suggestion with things like hypnotism, and that's not taking into account telepathy and genetic programming. We can't forget you were intended for use as a weapon, even if history went in a different direction. You're supposed to be a fully operational clone of the Man of Steel—there's no way ordinary scientists would be able to stand a chance against you if you decided to rebel. They'd have most likely slipped something into your head to control you. Better that you're aware of the possibility now, then find out the hard way later."

Superboy looked angry at the prospect, although he seemed more furious at the Cadmus scientists than at Roy. At least he wasn't metaphorically shooting the messenger. Instead he growled softly, "How am I supposed to know?"

Dick sighed. "In the current age? We can't. Pre Z-day it would have been easy to just borrow a telepath or something from the Justice League and take a look through your head. As it is, all I can offer is some basic advice: if you do have conditioning somewhere, it'll most likely be triggered in an auditory fashion. A handler probably couldn't get a hand on you before you could fight back, but they could yell something easily. It'd have to be something uncommon enough to not come up in regular conversation, either, and probably it'll have significance to the project or the people that commissioned it to begin with." He offered a smile. "Stay whelmed, SB, it's probably not as bad as you think. Even if you do have some programming in your head, it's the apocalypse—I really doubt anybody around cares about that stuff anymore. Whoever started the project is probably long dead."

Superboy looked grim, but nodded after a moment. Then he frowned. "But if they were...directly downloading all of these things into my head...why can't I remember any of them? And why did they stop? I don't know anything about Z-day or the apocalypse or the walking dead from those databases. I didn't know it was even happening until Wally took me out of Cadmus and I saw it for myself. And I didn't recognize any of the other genomorphs, or...or anything related to Cadmus at all." He looked frustrated.

"Ah. Now that doesn't have an official answer, but I think I have a theory about it," Dick said, tapping at the computer again. "There's a brief mention in the last file on the drive here about a dangerous contagion sweeping the globe, and it's dated in May, when the outbreak started. My guess is they're referring to Z-day, but they didn't sound too concerned about it—at first. And then they learned the genomorphs were particularly susceptible to whatever it is that transforms sentient creatures into dead heads."

He frowned. "Humans, Atlanteans, and even Kryptonians are infected by a bite or a transfer of fluids, but that requires direct contact. It sounds like the genomorphs were more sensitive to the infection and could get it through air-born transfer. Something about the genetic engineering from scratch and not a clone base, not sure what, it doesn't specify. Cadmus decided their living weapons were a little too dangerous when turned into mindless flesh-craving monsters and terminated the project. Already-turned genomorphs were killed and burned. The rest were intended to be...euthanized...with a failsafe trigger built into their genetic coding."

Dick looked disgusted as he explained, and Superboy's angry snarl and the way he cracked his knuckles barely hid the uncomfortable look in his eyes. Wally didn't blame them; he felt his stomach twist with horror. That would explain why all of the monsters he'd seen looked liked they'd simply collapsed without so much as a fight—they had. They'd been pretty terrifying monstrosities, but if Dick was right and they were truly sentient creatures...that was mass murder on a grand scale, for creatures that could very well have been just like Superboy, made as weapons without being given a choice in the matter.

"That's pretty sick," Roy said out loud, shaking his head as he voiced their thoughts. "There's no way the League knew about this place. If these people were willing to go that far, who knows what else they were getting up to?" He frowned. "But that doesn't explain the correlation between Superboy and his missing memories. He obviously wasn't part of the termination trigger, so that wouldn't have had any effect on him."

"No, he wasn't, and before you ask, no, there's no notations about a failsafe trigger in him either," Dick said, cutting Wally off before he could speak. "But it probably did affect the G-Gnomes forcibly downloading information into his head at the time. If that telepathic link snapped in the middle of an intense information download..."

"The mental backlash could have been enough to wipe out that information and any number of other related memories or functions," Roy finished. "It's possible," he conceded after a moment, with a slow nod. "The drive is dated post Z-day—it's even possible that they were attempting to alter your education and memories for the outbreak, so you could be activated against them, but everything was wiped out when the telepathic link was cut."

"That explains why he didn't know anything from the past four years, either," Wally said slowly. "No gnome-things to download updates into his head after they're...turned off...and since he was still in a pod, there was no way for him to figure it out any other way..." He frowned. "But why would they just...stop...the gnomes in the middle of an intel download, anyway?"

"Dick and Roy were guessing last night that they left in a hurry," Superboy said slowly. "That they panicked, and that they wouldn't have left me behind if they'd had more time to prepare for leaving. If they had to activate the failsafe remotely while trying to escape..."

Dick nodded. "It's only a guess, but probably what happened," he agreed. "The outbreak hit everywhere very suddenly—it caused a lot of widespread panic and mass evacuations with little to no warning. The scientists were probably forced to run for it without any forewarning. They likely activated the genomorph failsafe as a last-ditch effort to keep their genetics projects from turning on them when trying to escape. That interrupts your education, destroys some of your information acquisition, and leaves you in suspended animation for four years without being woken, letting the apocalypse pass you by without even knowing about it."

There was silence for a very long time as Superboy stared at the screens, processing everything Dick had uncovered. The others remained silent, giving him a chance to come to grips with his own origins. But finally, after a very long moment, Connor asked slowly, "Is that everything?"

"Everything on this drive," Dick confirmed quietly. "If there's more, I don't have access to it. Not here. I'm sorry."

"No. Don't be." Superboy sounded tired, and his expression was a little strained, like he was overwhelmed with all the things he'd learned about himself so fast. But a moment later he stood tall, shoulders back, and said with some measure of confidence, "You helped a lot. All of you. I would never have figured any of this out without your help, but...now I know. Where I came from. Why I was made. Why my abilities are...different...than Superman's. Why I was abandoned and why this isn't the world I was intended for."

Wally gave him a pained look. "Supey, don't be like that—"

"No, you don't understand." Superboy glanced over at him, and Wally was surprised to see the faintest trace of a confident smirk, one that grew as he spoke. "I've been wondering about all this stuff ever since I woke up, just wanting answers. It's all I could focus on. But now I've got them, so I can finally stop focusing on them and move forward. Like you said—maybe this isn't the world I was designed for, but I can still make a place for myself in it. And now I can really work on that without any distractions."

Wally's grin was practically blinding, and even Roy offered a smirk of his own. Dick cackled and said almost gleefully, "That's the human part of you talking, you know!"

"I figured." Superboy didn't look particularly upset by this. "It's not so bad. Being human, I mean."

And as Wally watched his little makeshift family-team happily welcoming their newest member fully into the fold, he decided it wasn't so bad, either, being related to an alien. Things could be weirder, after all, right?