The next few hours became a blur in the mind of Reilly Kent.
James had thrust a change of clothes at him. The military surplus gear was too big, a sloppy fit, but it sufficed. Replacing his tattered rags left over from his encounter with Victor Creed.
His uncle by association hadn't given him time to pause and think; rather he'd insisted they run for the trees.
Tall dark and black against the night, but to his eyes this world was anything but colourless - sure it was many a different shade, a different set of hues; his night vision merged with his perception of frequencies otherwise invisible. As incredible as this ability was, to him it was pedestrian. This was just the way he'd grown up seeing the world.
No, what was unusual was the gaping hole inside of him, or at least that was the way he felt. Kent wasn't accustomed to losing his mental focus; he was known as a serious child, the kind that becomes a nerd or a geek given time, but tonight his young heart was fit to burst with grief. The death of the only father he had known was tearing him apart. Leaving behind May, the only mother he had known, meant he was unable to share with her their grief, their collective loss. The boy was unable to feel her touch or revel in the familiarity of the reassuring smell of her. All this was denied him.
"Who's doing this?" Kent had asked.
"Luthor." Had been James' terse reply.
It had been a long journey for the boy, from babe in May's arms to here and now. Living, learning, and coping. He'd always known the day might come when he'd have to run; Ma and Pa hadn't hidden that from him, saying because people were scared of his great strength, his unique abilities, the things that made him different, they might come for him. Tonight those people had a name. "Luthor." The boy had never imagined that maybe-day would be a night like this.
The stench of Victor Creed, the stink of gunpowder, the red iron taint of blood in the air, the smell of his home burning. His dead Pa. He didn't so much leave it all behind but rather he carried it with him, his eidetic memory holding onto the tragedy in uncompromising detail.
James Olsen ran ahead into the woods. His relentless pace never breaking, demanding the young boy followed suit, all the while knowing that he could. Kent couldn't pretend, he couldn't get one past his ever vigilant protector.
James led, leaping headlong into a wide river that crossed their path. The boy followed and the cold darkness embraced him. Languishing in the riverbed as it meandered quietly south.
Sure his heart wanted to stop, it wanted him to curl up and sob, but his head had other ideas. He was remembering dreams, memories from a time when his senses were less acute. From a time before any normal child should remember, but now he did.
Images of another place. Red Sun - red sky; white glassy towers with golden detailing. Closer the brilliance of blue robes with scarlet cloaks. Closer still two faces above him so familiar. The warmth of their unconditional love; but then came a bitter taste. His gut full of pain, around him was something dark cold and green.
I'm not normal, Kent thought, kicking out of the water like a dolphin taking to the air, making foot fall among the trees on the other side, following the shadow that was James, thinking, but neither is he. James was a Mutant.
What am I? Kent wondered.
They ran through the night, moving through the wooded terrain to higher ground and greater isolation. Kent wasn't sure but with the dawn close, the boy figured they'd covered close to fifty miles. James wasn't random in his choices; he followed a predetermined route through the pathless wilderness. He had his own rhyme and reason. They stopped as day broke to eat.
"Breakfast." James grunted. His stubby finger pointed to a holed rock face.
It was no diner, Kent wasn't sure what his Uncle had in mind, but he guessed this wasn't an accidental discovery, and James actions on entering only confirmed Kent's suspicions.
His claws extended and he scratched at the rocky earth several feet inside the cave mouth, after a short while of furious digging he excavated a plastic wrapped pack. It was the first of many. A cursory glance at the contents revealed, by Kent's extraordinary vision; a weapons cache, emergency rations, and water. All that was needed for survival in the wilderness.
"I could have taken us to any of dozen or so ways-a-ways, from the farm." James explained. "And any of them would have taken us to a place like this." He looked at him, a look that said I am prepared. His eyes asked are you? Brow furrowed full of serious intent. "We've got to lay low, and make our way deeper into the wilderness."
The unstated truth was self-evident. Luthor would be looking for them, chasing their trail.
"How are you holding up kid?" James asked. He shrugged am apology, and extended a claw "Snikt," then raised the razor sharp bone claw to his face.
At first Kent thought he was going to shave, but the blade didn't slide across his skin like a cut-throat barber might, but instead sliced like a surgeon. With only the wrinkles around his 'tasting a lemon expression' tiny eyes betrayed his pain. James calmly, flicked out the silicon implants from his face. From each cheek, around the line of his jaw, even the body of his nose.
Bloody they fell into the hole he had dug. As his ravaged face healed, he said through bloodied lips. "Light a fire boy. That's your shtick."
Kent tried to oblige, and concentrated on the collection of dry kindling he quickly arranged. It seemed to him he should be able to do this... again, but somehow it seemed wrong, like it had been wrung out of him too soon.
The dreamlike images swam around just below the surface of his conscious mind, tantalisingly close, but also just out of focus.
"Didn't have this trouble when Sabretooth was killing your pa." James said.
Kent span around, his temper flared, eyes flashed red, James flinched; there was the smell of burnt hair pungent in the cave.
"I was planning on you cooking up these emergency ration packs." James replied. "Not me."
Kent said nothing; he knew what James had done. That didn't mean he liked it. Something had changed in their relationship. As the dry leaves and slender finger thin sticks were ablaze, he realised what it was.
"We're not pretending any more – are we?" The boy said as he added more fuel to the flames. "Out here we're what we are."
"Here's the billy-tin." James replied passing him a packet of beef stew, which he opened with a lightning fast 'Snikt' of a claw.
"No you're done playing at happy family's kid, and this isn't camping in the woods with Uncle Jimmy, this is a crash course on how to stay alive when some of the best hired guns in the world are chasing you down."
James had always treated him like an adult; this was different, harder and kind of like the army stories told by his Pa, he shivered a little as grief nibbled away inside.
Advanced for his years by human standards, the boy connected the dots. Luthor meant Luthor Corp. The company his Pa always followed in the business section of the Newspaper out of habit, and if the older man demonstrated anything when reading about Lionel Luthor's exploits, it was loathing.
Luthor Corp had a factory outside of Jonathan Kent's old home town.
Whatever there was between them, it went back to Smallville.
With water from a plastic bottle out the pit, Kent rehydrated the dried mixture. It wasn't cooking by his mother's standards, but in a little while there was an appetising aroma.
"Won't Luthor be tracking us?" He asked looking up from the pot.
James shook his head. "He sure would like too." Adding cigar smoke to the tainted air. "His people had tracking devices fitted to anything that moved. My bikes, your Pa's truck." James squinted and put his hands together if twisting and snapping something. He sniffed the air. "Even you."
"Me?" Kent replied.
"Yeah." James said, this time scratching the dry blood and whiskers from his face with a razor claw. Without the implants he looked leaner, less round faced, a different person entirely.
Kent realised James had been hiding who he was.
"Now you know just how handsome I am, as nature made me." The man called Olsen, if indeed that was his real name laughed. Then back to serious once more, he added. "That tracker, the one they implanted in you as a baby, that wasn't me who fixed it for ya'. That malfunctioned almost immediately. Your highly evolved immune response broke it down to nothing in hours."
"Why?" Kent asked. "How..."
"Do I know this stuff?" James shrugged. "Silver Fox." He shook his head and briefly explained. "Silver Fox is a double agent inside Luthor Corp." He went onto explain how she had 'persuaded' Lionel to place the 'Logan Child' with the Kents, and how he and Silver had hatched to plot to extract him before Luthor could complete his plan.
Only James was sketchy about what that plan was. "I don't know exactly." He answered when pressed. "We expected him to let you age up some more." James spat. "Hell should have known he'd not give a damn about making you into a child soldier."
"Me?"
"Well kid you did take down Victor Sabretooth Creed." James sniffed. "By that standard you're worth a small army already."
"What about you?" Kent asked. "What is your part in this?"
"Me." James shook his head. "Done things that I'm not proud of. Fought here and there, for a long time. Worked for whoever was willing to pay."
"You were a mercenary?"
"Kid I'm the best at what I do, and what I do ain't nice." James answered. "So the Billionaire Lionel Luthor came knocking promising a never ending pay day and sure, I was interested. More fool me.
"He had plans for people like me, people like you."
Kent realised that James had been hiding from Luthor too, and hiding in plain sight too. "What do you mean?" He asked.
"Weapons." James said. "He wanted me. Almost had me, if it hadn't have been for Silver Fox..." James paused and shrugged saying, "Now its you Bub - he really wants you to be a living weapon."
"Against who?"
"Whoever or whatever gets in Lionel Luthor's way."
"How do you know Creed?"
James sighed. He sucked on his Cigar. Sniffed the air, as if thinking about answering.
"We go back a long way. We were brothers in arms, but he liked the work too much." James shrugged. "Things got real bad between us. It went like that for a while, we'd cross paths, and he'd give my hide a good licking. I'd give as good as I got. Then it changed. That was the first time Silver Fox saved my skin, and I hers." James crushed the tobacco against the rock. "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't of got there when I did." James growled. "If I'd have been there a moment late. Creed had her, meant to do her harm."
"A man shouldn't hit a woman." Kent said with religious certainty. A Jonathan Kent maxim repeated.
"Well there is that, and then there is worse than that." James replied. "You remember that drake who wouldn't leave your Ma's ducks be?"
"Yeah." Kent remembered. "Ma was running out after him chasing him with a broom." It was a funny enough memory to make him smile – almost, but reality was too close, too real to let that happen.
"Well imagine that kind of thing, but with claws, and all the murderous intent of Victor Creed."
Kent felt his eyes redden in rage. This time he held back the fire. It made his head throb. I'm learning he thought.
"Yeah exactly." James nodded. "Somehow Silver Fox being there... in that situation,... broke something inside of me, I was angry kid, so very angry, I tore into Creed, and for the first time I got the better of him. Dammit I thought I'd really killed him that time."
"You didn't."
James nodded. "Nah. More fool me, but you see I nearly didn't make it myself."
"You didn't heal?" Kent asked, he frowned. "I thought you always healed?"
"Oh I healed all right – here." James patted his torso. "But not here," he tapped his head, "here I was lost in a berserker rage, but Silver Fox she pulled me back, brought the man to fore again."
"Creed killed him." Kent said, tears formed in his eyes, but they turned to steam before they could roll down his cheek.
"Now listen up Bub we don't have time for none of this maudlin." James told him. "Pull your man pants on kid, you just got drafted into the real world, red in tooth and claw."
"Okay." Kent snapped. "I get it." He growled back. "What now?"
James nodded his approval. "We stay out of sight, we can still make progress west under the cover of the trees.
"Where are we going?"
"Vermont."
"That's..." The boy did the maths, rubbing his dry eyes any way. "Well has to be more than three thousand miles."
"Yeah like I said kid, no time for feeling sorry for yourself. We got to keep moving."