Abraham Cornellius was separated from the sealed room by several inches of steel. His eyes were a bank of video screens. There no conventional illumination in the containment chamber, making infra-red cameras necessary. Robotic arms moved around the secure space, controlled by his hands. Lionel Luthor his employer watched as he opened the metal attaché case using a remote robot manipulator.
They were alone in a secure laboratory within the bunker under the Libyian Desert.
The steel exterior of the carry case was lined with a wall of lead. There was a bang as the metal struck the metal of the lab bench. The standard video feed shifted from pitch black to a ball of green light, the contents of the case was glowing.
Sitting across from the case was Lionel's grisly relic. Held aloft on single metal pole. To Abraham it looked like a talisman on a stake, at odds with the temple of science in which he worked.
Luthor insisted the skull was the remains of a long dead mythical Titan, and the origin of the legendary material Adamant, of which Adamantium was an alloy. Cornellius had reluctantly accepted the veracity of the claim. Its resilience made a compelling case. Now came the experiment Luthor had devised. There was no denying Lionel's peculiar brand of genius.
He was insane. Abraham was sure of it. Who else but a madman would conceive of this idea?
Like a Russian doll the case encapsulated a second glowing container. Green and translucent, or at least it appeared so. This was trick of light. Rather a myriad of tiny green luminescent crystals had been suspended in glass.
"It's peculiar that the ARC material is not as durable as Aliens themselves." Lionel noted. Not for the first time.
"We don't know what happened." Abraham replied. He was tired of this conversation.
Lionel frowned. Not knowing the truth about the alien's place of origin ate at the Billionaire, defining his obsession.
"For whom the gods destroy, they first make mad." Abraham whispered.
"Speak up man." Lionel growled.
A bead of sweat glistened on Cornellius's brow. It moved as he frowned in concentration. "It may be the diamond like hardness of Alien Rock Crystal on Earth means that it was like silly putty on the world from whence our visitors came." Abraham suggested. Adding. "What a terrible place that would have been."
Lionel snorted disapproving of Cornellius's choice of words. "Scouts, nay Abe, invaders. A single adult would be unstoppable." Luthor stated. "Which is why we need weaponise the child. Bend him to us, make him one of mine. Earth must be ready. Weapon X must be ready. There might be more of these ubermensch. They may even be here – how would we recognise these Alien Overmen? They look human."
Abraham let Lionel's obsession, his rant, wash over him as the Billionaire speculated on how and why the aliens looked human. "...Shape shifters..." "...Bred this way..." "...Biological Machines..."
His employer was convinced of the justice of his cause; defence of the Earth against an Alien menace.
Cornellius directed the robot arm, which opened the translucent glowing container, revealing the contents. Abraham remembered the white cloth with a metallic sheen. Although this it looked different in this green light. Twisting and turning the controller, the robot fingers of the manipulator gripped the material, and pulled the one piece jump suit from the case.
It fell out suspended from the robot arm. It was no longer bloody, but the Alien mothers suit was still damaged.
Is that a stylised 'S' ? Abraham had wondered at the crest on the clothes from the outset. The outline was raised. And picked out in shadow. It equally could be described as two funny fish swimming in opposite directions. An Alien glyph. Either way a coincidence. It had to be he decided.
Lionel was comparing the suit to a picture of the clothing taken when it had first been removed from the Alien. Holding the image up the greying redhead compared this photograph to the suit as it was now.
Abe did not. He could remember exactly where and to what degree material had already repaired itself. Starting with the blood stains. It was self cleaning, self repairing. Harvesting material from its environment in lieu of the Solar energy that Cornellius had denied it.
"You're alive." He whispered. "I know it. I know it. I know it."
"What are you mumbling?" Lionel asked.
"Decomposition of the plastic extremities commencing at one metre distant from ARC containment vessel." Abraham informed his employer, reading from a colour CRT screen.
"Releasing material." He added.
The robot hand dropped the white suit onto the head of Aegis Goat.
It hung there, partially covering the skull. The narrow support beneath was not in contact with the alien material. Even so Abraham watched the CRT screen to make sure. The weight of the combination of skull and cloth was constant.
Both men stood still as statues. Neither was sure what was going happen. A camera zoomed in and focused cloth draped skull.
"Right now it looks like a damned art class still life exercise." Lionel laughed.
They waited.
"Activity still negligible." Abraham reported. There had been a fractional change. He noted it, but it was within possible margins of error.
"Shut the case." Lionel instructed. The robot manipulator moved obeying Abraham's directions and the lead lined case closed shutting out the green glow from the ARC material.
"Perhaps the material has been exhausted by exposure to the ARC container." Abraham suggested.
Later when there was still no change. Lionel decided to move to phase two. With a click of rocker switch the standard video revealed a ray of light. Sun's rays funnelled from the distant surface was being reflected down to the subterranean lab. A bean illuminating the white alien cloth and the skull it partially covered.
"There." Abraham yelped at once. He pointed at the monitor. Confirmation of a positive change in combined mass. The Alien material glistened like white gold.
Lionel killed the sunlight.
"Absorption and repair continuing, registering a negative change in the total mass of both objects. Conclusion; the Alien Material is metabolising the artefact.
"Interesting the burst of sunlight was enough to kick start the process." Lionel observed with a self satisfied smile.
He was enjoying this moment as much as Abraham was dreading it.
Lionel took control of a second set of remote manipulators. A robot arm moved toward the experiment. Lionel turned a dial, an the canister in the robot's hand opened remotely, exposing a sizeable shard of ARC material.
The Alien cloth's luminescence dimmed away to almost nothing. Lionel then removed the ARC material from sight, closing the containers remote door. Slowly the cloth brightened again.
Cornellius watched as his employer continued to experiment. Exposing the Alien Cloth to sunlight, and then to the ARC shard, and various combinations of these. All the time measuring and watching.
Abraham sweated in the air conditioned cool of the lab. He mentally noted that suit was almost completely repaired. The white cloth now lay against the sunken Aegis Skull which had been part digested by the Alien material.
"You can't mean to let the suit complete the repairs to itself?"
Lionel turned on him. "Why the hell not." He growled. "I want to know what it does next – what this alien thing will do with the hardest substance on Earth."
"That's crazy." Cornellius said. Aware how weak he sounded.
"Perhaps." Lionel laughed. "But I have an off switch." He laughed. Turning the dial once more he exposed the Alien cloth to the green glow of the ARC material.
His manipulator held a scalpel. It glistened in the green ARC light. Abraham had no way of knowing, but he guessed this was an admantium blade.
Lionel smiled. "Now, let's see if we can cut a piece off the suit."
Jonathan Kent looked at the man who stood before him. Stubble threatening at a beard graced his chin, sideburns that would have made Elvis jealous, and a mop of shaggy hair.
This was no latter day hippy. His clothes were old but had been expensive, they had that worn look that only age and use can give something of quality, the antiques people called it patina, and Jimmy Olsen had it in spades. First impressions were of a young man. The kind that works out, maybe a bit too hard. The little guy making up for his lack of height with width, but Jimmy had old eyes. That's the best description Jonathan had for May when she asked him why he thought the young man was older than the twenty five years he claimed. "Eyes like Coals." He said. "Like my Great Grandpops."
"Mean and ornery – you mean?" May noted.
Jimmy was sitting in their kitchen eating hard. There was an animal nature bristling beneath his whiskers. He just kept it bottled up, but like his chest hair, it wanted to escape from the buttons of his heavy cotton shirt. From the cut of the collar it had been in and out of fashion twice.
"Thank you Maam." He said as May delivered another slice of apple pie. May never tired of feeding folk. Jimmy never tired of eating. He was well mannered when he needed to be. Around May he was like a blast from the past, old school deference. In the field he would curse like soldier.
Jonathan believed Jimmy had served. As an old soldier himself there was something familiar about Olsen – if that was even his real name. When and where, and for who Jimmy had fought, Kent hadn't fathomed. He'd asked, not outright, just leading questions. Invitations for his new hire to open up, but Jimmy was coy about his past. Jonathan respected the man's privacy. The Kent farm had enough secrets of its own. He wasn't going to throw stones a Jimmy for his. Still it made Jonathan think.
"The only person I know with an appetite like this is our boy."
Rielly looked up from the table, and his pie swimming in cream and ice cream. "Pa, I'm not that bad – am I?"
Jimmy paused. It was almost odd, his spoon to plate to mouth action had been until then mechanical.
"You are a credit to your mother. A gentleman." Jonathan chuckled rubbing the boys mop of black hair, hair they hadn't needed to cut, ever. A kiss curl fell across his forehead, no matter what May did to control it.
Jimmy returned to his dinner. He wasn't a communicator. Later he would commune with six pack, and a cigar. He drank hard, but Jonathan had found him hard at work each and every morning.
Later as Jonathan let the cool pillow kiss his cheek May said. "Have you seen how Mr Olsen watches our boy."
"No. Does he?"
"Yes." May replied. "But only when he doesn't know I'm watching him."
"You're too suspicious." Jonathan sighed.
"No. We can't be too anything where Reilly is concerned." May replied.
"He's a good worker. I'm not getting any younger." Jonathan said. "What with my touch of Angina, and that extra land I took on last spring – I needed the help."
"I know." May replied.
Jonathan knew too. "Look we needed the extra income, for Reilly's College Fund."
"I know." May said again. She drew close to her husband. They both knew the College Fund was a convenient camouflage for their savings. Money set aside for an special kind of rainy day. The kind that Noah built a boat for, Jonathan mused as sleep took him.