The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

Jamie, Pete, and Chloe

"Used to know a lad," Jamie murmured, "from Liverpool. Had a band. Obsessively enthusiastic about Magic the way I'm obsessively enthusiastic about Science. Gave me a few pointers, he did. One of the first rules of Magic is that Magic answers need. Even if you've not got precisely the right ingredients in your cauldron-- say your eye of newt is a bit past the expiry date --so long as your motives are pure and strong and solidly at the forefront of your mind, Magic'll often bend its own physics to assist you. That's how Openers work, really, if you ever meet one of those, they naturally incorporate the principle of Magic answering need.

"You'll have to take me there sometime," he pondered, "your Shadow. Never met an alternate plane of reality I entirely misliked."

They stopped, and The Wraith stood by his moral guns, unafraid and apologetic.

"Tell you what, Triple-6," Jamie explained, quietly, carefully, paternally. "You protect my daughter with half the intrepidity and right-thinking you used to protect this complete stranger? We'll get along splendidly."

With that, he turned, and entered the kitchen, clapping his hands together.

"What've we got, then?" he requested amiably. "Sitrep?"

A force-bubble enclosed Marcy and Merick and Pete and Chloe, and Jamie arched an eyebrow in surprise.

"Merick was just tellin' me he's got my back big time," Pete explained, with a mix of dubiousness and appreciativeness.

"Good lad," Jamie nodded to Merick, "Chuck Taylor. Your brand of gum's not too shabby either."

Chloe's fingers flew with speed an android could envy.

She looked extremely worried.

"Got hits in Metropolis, Chicago, New York, St. Roch," she murmured. "I'm expanding the search to include all of North America, but I've got a sinking feeling about this, going by the timestamps."

"How d'you mean?" Jamie wondered.

"I don't think he's in North America anymore," Chloe breathed.

"Molto bene," Jamie whispered, the irony deep and dark.

Merick dropped the shield as Jamie and Chloe were talking. He didn't like how that sounded. If this thing was going global, they were in real trouble.

"Pete, you may be a stickler for culinary origin, but your a stand up guy. We cool?"

Merick didn't really wait for a response. "So, this thing is like the Chuck Norris of hacking? So if he is that good, what is to stop him from using his Google-Fu to track us? I mean like by our cell phones or whatever? We all leave digital footprints right? Are TracPhones any safer?"

Marcy thought of Dale. He had left so abruptly. He was out there alone doing God knows what.

Dale Tennylson however had been making excellent time. He was going as fast as his car could manage. He was getting closer with every moment.

Chloe, Pete, and Jamie

"Yeah, we're good," Pete chuckled. "All honesty, I was just busting your stones 'bout the 'false advertising.' Everybody needs a good stone-busting from time to time, and I'm damn good at it."

"Element of surprise, Merick," Chloe muttered, racing along the dataspine as fast as her wireless card could carry her. "Ostensibly, he doesn't know we're looking for him. If he's as similar to organic thinking as Doctor Hamilton suggests he might be, he might be sufficiently arrogant to think that he's never going to be detected. 'Pride goeth,' but that'll only get us so far. Also, this algorithm we've developed is pretty back-hack-proof. (Not that I'm sure this'll stop him?) Maybe I'll install some extra anti-spyware to be sure."

"Supposedly," Jamie suggested, "mobiles are more secure-- prepaids included --now that for the most part we're employing digital technology as opposed to analog. Obviously this doesn't make them invulnerable, just less vulnerable. All the same, by basic principle-- provided you don't have a GPS feature enabled on your phone --mobiles are harder to precisely pinpoint than fixed, 'landline' phones. Best you can get is the nearest tower."

"And I've got this set to rotate towers semirandomly," Chloe supplied, tapping the card with her finger before resuming typing.

"Really?" Jamie blinked. "Attagirl."

"'The Chuck Norris of hacking,'" Chloe murmured, "is about to discover that he's not the only one with another fist instead of a chin."

Wraith

I listened.
I watched.

I was way out of my league, but I had an in.

Shadows swirled around me and I emerged from them once again a sixteen year old boy in jeans and a old leather jacket.

"I may be able to give you a little more of an edge Chloe. How would you like a partner in cybercrime?"

I reached in my pocket and pulled the uplink cord for my watch/phone out. I think it was time we saw what kind of an AI I had in my pocket.

Chloe, Jamie, and Pete

"And sometimes Chuck Norris brings along Lee Marvin," Chloe mused. "What have you got there, Kyle?"

"Maybe he's just happy to see you," Pete cracked.

A number of pairs of eyes stared blankly at him.

"'Cause, see," Pete explained carefully, "it's in his pocket."

A number of pairs of eyes blinked.

"Yeah," Pete sighed, chucklin'. "Shut up."

Jamie grinned softly. "If this is the fellow I think it is," he murmured, "you're in for a wild ride. He once hacked The Department of Defence, and while he was in there he filed a memorandum suggesting that The President be replaced by 'a flying guy like on that TV show,' so that we wouldn't need to waste so much fuel on Air Force One. (If this is the fellow I think it is.)"

Chloe regarded Kyle with renewed interest.

"DoD?" she wondered. "Seriously? That's... that's urban-legendary. That's Proto-Messianic if not Legend."

She gestured to her laptop.

"That thing USB 3.0 compatible," she wondered, glancing at the uplink cable, "or do I need to break out my FireWire S3200 Ethernet port adapter?"

Kyle

"No, I can connect with what you got. Just schooch over so i got a little room"

I sat down next to Chloe and pulled my watch off. I then connected it to her laptop with the USB cable I had, then activated the speaker phone and tapped out a number about five people knew.


"Thats not the worst thing he's done. Remember that show Caveman? The little toaster is the reason that made it to the air. Hacked their system, wrote up the concept and sent it to the productions department with all the necessary approvals. Bekka took away his internet access for a week for that one for as she put it 'crimes against humanity'.

"Hey, I had no idea someone was going to actually produce that! Whats up? Ready to get your butt handed to you in Halo again meatsack, or do you need something?"


I looked over at Mr. McCrimmon. "He was created with Asimov's three rules. His creator is a fan. He unfortunately also likes Adult Swim and Futurama, and of course his favorite character is Bender. So while he can't cause harm to a person, he has no problems pwning someone over Halo."


Chloe was looking more and more agitated, and if I didn't tell her what was going on, I might get clobbered. SHE wasn't created with the three rules!

"Chloe, meet Odin, my company's AI. Odin, this is Chloe, she his given level three user interface with you, along with Jamie McCrimmon." I looked at them both. "Could you please speak your full names clearly so he can get a voiceprint and know who you are."

This was going to get weird, but you send a thief to catch a thief. We were hunting a AI, and I happened to have one!

Chloe, Jamie, and Pete

Chloe shifted to allow him more room, but there had already been an extra chair available from when Doctor Hamilton had sat down beside her.

"What about crimes against proto-humanity?" Chloe wondered. "I'll bet you the Neanderthal species was rolling in its collective proverbial grave at that show. 30,000 years from now, someone makes a show like that about Homo sapiens, I am so coming back from the dead and killing them with a stone ax."

"'You Gotta Make Way For The Homo Superior,'" Jamie chuckled, taking a page from Rose's book and quoting Herman's Hermits.

Chloe chuckled faintly. (Let's not get into me self-rezzing or The Earth being over-run with evolutionary mutants. I'm trying to adjust, here. I know, my bad, my choice of topic, but let's switch to something a little more tolerable. Like, say, a computer that thinks for itself.)

And then she addressed the speaker-phone on Kyle's watch: "Hello, Odin," she enunciated carefully. "My name is Chloe Anne Sullivan, and I'm very pleased to meet you. We'll have to FPS sometime when the world's not coming to an end. I've gotta warn you, though, I'm not very good. I usually get pwned by Unggoy."

Jamie grinned lopsidedly. (He was feeling a bit off. That headache was lingering at the fringes of his brain, and he wasn't sure exactly what that meant.)

"Wotcher, Odin," he greeted, leaning over the watch a little bit so his voice would be more easily heard, "or should I call you 'Ragnarok?' I'm Doctor James David Hamilton. Can I assume by your reputed ability to 'pwn' 'Unggoy' that your restriction against harming other beings is not also applicable to artificial intelligence? Because your help would be greatly appreciated."

("Hola, Bender Bending Rodríguez," Pete quipped, half under his breath. "Me llamo es Pedro.")

Codes from the World Bank swimming at his fingertips, Zod knew he now held the monetary portion of his soon-to-come rule in hand.

Money was easy.

Taking candy from a child.

The other was more difficult. And to aid in the other he would use the three broken pieces of the Cystal of Knowledge to assist him in dominating the entire world that was Earth. But, more than domination, the Crystal of Knowledge would allow him to destroy, no, no, to create, at will, and to remake this world into an image of one a thousand times more beautiful.

And he would rule it all.

But first, he must find the three pieces. With his AI hunting Water in Honduras, Zod focused on Air. He knew Fire was fused to the console in the temporal control room in the cave, and only a Kryptonian could remove it.

Zod was smart and looked and search until he found references to things that in turn referenced Fire.

And he found references to an ancient stone tablet that had been lost for centuries with no clues as to where to look for it. But, he did find something that was a bit more at hand. There was an image of a an embroidery art that some thought was a map, and the map pointed a way to a treasure buried by a god from the heavens. And it just happened this ancient embroidered art had just recently been purchased by the Luthor Estate.

A quick Google search told General Zod all he needed to know about that issue.

And so, it was time for the father of LuthorCorp to meet General Zod.

Gabe Sullivan stood, looking rather rushed, awaiting to see his daughter. Of course Mr. Sullivan. Chloe's inside. Make yourself at home. Everyone else has. Bruce said. Then he turned to the Black Hood.

Something about this guy calling Bruce 'Mr. Wayne' didn't sound right. Bruce couldn't put his finger on it, but it just wasn't right. Call me Bruce. Now, may I ask why it is that you have come here, dressed as you are? Bruce spoke to the masked man in front of him.

There was something about him that struck Bruce. Familiarity.

What did you say your name was? Bruce asked again.

Damian

Looked at his father his facade had returned. his eyes behind the cowl had returned to their icey coldness. His jaw straightened and his posture took the final slight movement that went from him standing comfortably to imposing. The movements so slight that one would have to be looking extremely closely to even notice.

His voice the sound of gravel replied, "I am the Black Hood. I was on patrol and found Mr. Sullivan. His daughter had gone missing. I followed the clues. They lead to your home," there was a slight pause before he said the last word his fathers real name, "Bruce."

He then looked back to Ceri for just a moment and then returned to looking at his father in this parallel universe two years younger than him. Every motion practiced and precise. Not an ounce of the motions wasted.

Lex and Emil

Emil Hamilton stood out on the east terrace gazing out into the night.

Lex walked up behind him, his hands in his pockets, and then joined him out by the railing.

"I told you," Lex suggested, with a faint little smile, having buried the disappointment of the Blackberry image deep within, "the view would still be here."

"You told me the view would still be here by morning," Emil replied, coolly. "It is not yet morning; the night remains young."

"Point," Lex murmured, and then glanced at Emil. "What do you know that I don't?"

Emil didn't answer at first.

And then he echoed a sentiment expressed by Boyajian: "Lots of things."

The scientist turned, and walked back into the house.

Lex leaned on the railing and looked up at the full, pale moon.

Looked. Up in the sky.

"Oh," Lex murmured to himself, and to Emil Hamilton. "I know more than you'd think."

Kyle ( & Odin)

Glad to meet you guys. I'm Odin. No, it doesn't stand for anything, (but Mss Greystone says it means Obnoxious Deranged Intelligent Nutcase, but thats because she likes me). Now that you both have user access, what can I do to assist you?

"We have a rogue AI to track down. An Alien one. You cool with that?"

"You mean the crankcase that hacked our system and dozens of others. Hell yes! I owe that thing some payback! Just tell me what you want."

Ceri and Gabe

"Thank you, sir," Gabe smiled, a little bit pained.

Like his daughter, it troubled him to be a trouble to others, and he could tell that Bruce was not entirely enchanted with the thought of another person intruding upon his abode. But in a practical sense?

He really didn't have a choice.

Gabe smiled a little pained smile at Bruce Wayne and then darted down the hall into the bathroom. He could hear folk talking-- he could hear his daughter, sounding confident, sounding brilliant --in the kitchen, but he knew that first things should come first.

The bathroom door slammed and locked behind him.

"'A sparring partner,'" Ceri chuckled faintly, having clasped The Black Hood's hand.

As the two men conversed, the two lads clad in darkness, one of whom was still masked, Ceri stood off to one side, keeping her thoughts to herself.

She watched the two of them, reading little micro-expressions, posture, what-have-you. Filing things away, keeping her thoughts to herself.

(They sounded alike, a little bit. Just a little bit. Bruce's new, darksome voice, and The Black Hood's gravelly tones. Just a little bit alike.)

The spot where that palm strike had hit her hurt like Hell. Her hand hurt, the one that had slapped the ground.

'Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. If you don't take it out and use it, it's going to rust.'

But then again, this brat just hit me so hard he'd've knocked the coral off of The Great Barrier Reef. If there's any rust left on me after that...

'The Black Hood.'

They've been asking me to teach these kids a thing or two about self-defence. But I could stand to learn a thing or three from you.

Chloe, Jamie, and Pete

******* Winterlight said:

Glad to meet you guys. I'm Odin. No, it doesn't stand for anything, (but Mss Greystone says it means Obnoxious Deranged Intelligent Nutcase, but thats because she likes me). Now that you both have user access, what can I do to assist you?

Click to expand...

"You can tell she was being nice about it," Chloe mused, "because she threw the 'intelligent' in there as kind of a reverse 'compliment sandwich.' That's good HR technique, even if you're a resource without being human."

"I would have gone with," Jamie mused, pursing his lips and half-squinting up at the ceiling, "'Off-kilter but Delightful Interactive N'-- 'n'-- erm, 'not good with acronyms.'"

"Sometimes those one-liners just drop right out from under you," Pete nodded with rueful solidarity.

******* Winterlight said:

"We have a rogue AI to track down. An Alien one. You cool with that?"

"You mean the crankcase that hacked our system and dozens of others. Hell yes! I owe that thing some payback! Just tell me what you want."

Click to expand...

"Here's your chance for a rematch," Chloe encouraged Odin. "Like Sasha Mitchell going after Tong Po."

She trailed her finger along the code that traversed her screen.

"I need you to shore up our security protocols," she suggested. "See if you can't reroute, throw in some cul-de-sacs. Maybe bounce us off of some Queen Industries satellites? Those things are awesomely rugged, real hard for the opposition to put out of commission."

She frowned, thinking hard-- it felt good to be on the hunt, to not have to think about interpersonal bullcrap, to be working at the top of her game rather than bogged down by soap operatic acrobatics --and darted a glance at the watch as if she were talking to a person's face. (It seemed only polite.)

"Once you've done that," she requested, "see if you can't sort your way through local police files in Honduras, see if there's been any inexplicable radio traffic, maybe full-fledged communications disruption."

Merick was listening. Trying desperately to follow all of the techno-jargon being bantered about. He jumped as his cell rang.

H-hello?

"Merick, it's Dad. Any chance you have a list of goodies? I have three top of the line laptops being delivered to our place. Should be there in the next 30 minutes or so."

"Um... is everything ok? Who exactly delivers laptops to an empty house late at night? Dad, is everything ok?"

"Fine. Taken care of. I called in a few favors. Listen, I am half way to my destination. Forget just computers. Check with your comrades. I can get... well... let's just say I can acquire whatever you need. Get me a list. 15 minutes. No longer." Dale terminated the call.

I... I think Pod People have taken over my father. He says he needs a list of supplies, not just computers, but he can... acquire what ever we may need? He wants a list. Anyone got anything?"

Marcy was starting to worry. She had never seen Dale like this. He was like another man. She knew that there were some mighty scary skeletons lodging in the Tennylson family closet. Dale had never given her specifics though. She just knew he didn't get along with Edmund. And that Dale said Edmund had some ties to some very questionable people. What didn't she know? What was Dale hiding?

Odin

"I can re-route the signal through various satellites, make it look like the Chinese are looking into this. Also, I have already re-routed the traffic from your computer to a shell. If it does trace back to there, it will hit a DoD computer out at Nellis. It's 8 stories underground, so they will be safe."

"As for Hondouras, I re-routed one of my sattelites to that region and we should be getting IR and what visual we can in about 27 .8 minutes."

"Also, you the same Dr. Hamilton that did AI work with S.T.A.R. Labs? I don't have a voiceprint record on you, and Mss Sullivan does not have a a webcam, so I cannot do a match. Unlike her, who has three vidoes on youtube, so i know I am talking to her."

As the meteor shower was ending in Smallville, Edmund Tennylson arrived at a non-descript build in El Paso. This building seemed to anyone on the outside to be just another large factory or office building. Inside was the main testing facility for TennTech. On the floors open to the public TennTech tested the limits of genetic engineering. They created pigs, cows, chickens, and sheep that wear able to produce more useable material per animal. Crops that were resistant to environmental damage, and that would stand up better to insect infestations.

However, 10 floors below was a room. This room could only be accessed by 2 men. As the lift doors opened Edmund Tennylson stepped into the semi-lit room. He walked to the monitors and watched his grandson in the next room. Tommy Tennylson was laying nearly motionless. His brainwave monitors however were going absolutely insane. Spiking so high any doctor would have assumed the results wrong. Edmund became furious. He had been betrayed. By his own blood. Edmund opened the desk drawer, he removed a long slender dagger. Edmund typed an access code to enter Tommy's Room.

Without a word Edmund stood there. Watching the shallow breathing of his grandson. A boy who to the rest of the world had died ten years ago. Ten years ago Edmund had immediately seen the power in this child. While in surgery, Tommy had astrally projected his image for the first time. Edmund soothed the boy. Guided him back to his body. Then he faked his death.

Edmund had used Tommy as a tool. He was a way for Edmund to gather information on the various jobs he took. He was just a tool. What does a man do when his tool stops working the way he wants it to? He disposes of it.

In his office Edmund recognized Merick. He knew that hat. The only way Merick could know of what was going on was through Tommy. Hopefully Tommy had not given out too much information. With a sinlge slash across Tommy's throat edmund made sure his secrets would remain his own.

Tommy felt himself loose connection. He felt lost. He sought Merick. He needed his brother's support. He said his good-byes. Then he was gone from this mortal world.

Jamie, Pete, and Chloe

"Yeah," Chloe murmured, flexing her fingers and giving them a momentary rest. "The webcam's at home, and the camcorder's at school. The YouTube stuff was experimentation with the idea of a video diary. Putting a human face on the Smallville mysteries. I never got many hits, people seem more interested in piano-playing cats or clips of anime set to Christian rock music."

She smiled faintly.

"Now that I know I have a fan, though," she mused, "maybe I'll revisit that theme later for investigative work."

Jamie Hamilton snagged Pete's pilfered box of Nilla Wafers and dug a couple of cookies out, tossing them into his mouth and catching them nimbly.

"Did a bit of work in that field, yeah," he noted, "for the Keystone City branch. MIT still hasn't forgiven me for punching holes in some of their pet projects. (Last I heard, they were petitioning the Commonwealth to pass a law forbidding me from setting foot in Cambridge for the next eight years, which I suppose is a compliment, in a way.) Then they asked me to clean up your mess at The DoD, I'll have you know, of all the nerve."

He grinned faintly. "You're to be applauded, I think," he mused, "you and your Asimov-esque programmer. I had no idea you were an A.I., looking at your footprint, and I pride myself on spotting that sort of thing a good, oh, light-decade off."

Thoughtfully, he chewed another wafer.

"Glad to know you can be a tian1cai2, Calculon," he noted, "instead of just a fang4zong4 feng1kuang2 de5 jie2."

He glanced at Merick.

"I need a pair of shoes like yours in my size," he decided. "Red might be nice. Also, I could use a really big jar of Excedrin Migraine. I've got a whopper of a headache gathering like the wings of the storm, and the stuff's got caffeine in it, so, two birds with one stone in the hand."

"I need a new cellphone," Chloe muttered. "Motorola Razr 2, if he can get one, or a W490. Gotta be 3GSM with at least a tri-band chipset, but it doesn't matter what provider, I'll unlock it myself. And coffee. Lots of coffee. I prefer my caffeine in beverage form rather than pills."

"Tell Santa I wanna sweet ride," Pete murmured, only half-serious, but only half-kidding, "with a dynamite weight-to-horses ratio, street-legal noise levels, 0-60 in a clocktick and the ignition in the damn right place. And NVGs, good ones, none of this surplus crap."

"And Megan Fox's phone number," Jamie suggested helpfully.

"And Megan Fox's phone number," Pete nodded vigourously, snapping his fingers and pointing at Jamie because mad scientist or not the man was a genius.

Jamie smiled gently at Marcy, offering her the box of Nilla Wafers with an encouraging nudge.

"I wouldn't worry overmuch," he murmured. "If he is a Pod Person, you can tell right away; their breath starts smelling of cucumbers and their blink rate goes off the redline. Bit of an additional warble in the larynx."

His voice grew more serious, and lowered a bit, and he put a consoling hand on her shoulder.

"And if he isn't a Pod Person," he pointed out, "then he's still the man you married, no matter what's befalling him, no matter what's lurking behind his eyes, he's still the man who won your heart. That's worth remembering, ennit?"

Odin & Kyle

"Actually, I found Cat Flushing Toilet to be the most hilarious thing I had seen in a while once you get the backstory. Anyway, I have been doing some looking into that security video, and if you are hunting that guy in the video, your freaking nuts Kyle!! He will rip you apart! Estimating from the video his strength is about eight times yours, and speed is about five times yours. Invunrability to a high degree also, otherwise he would have torn skin on the sharp edges of the vault door. My advice is to stay away from him, and if your not the PLEASE do not let your sister know. I have fragile audio receptors!"

"I think someone else has the job of taking him down. We are just backup. And no way in Hell am I mentioning this to Bekka! She's have not a cow, but a barnyard!"

Merick grinned wickedly. In a flash he was gone.

Marcy, with little or no sign of warning wrapped both of her arms around Jamie, sobbing into his shoulder."Thank you, your right." Marcy struggled to get a hold of herself as she hugged the good doctor.

Merick swooshed back in to a scene that he found as confusing as the actions of his father. His mind was a bit lost. "Ummm... I don't know your size, but these are an eleven. I grabbed the wrong size and Dad hasn't had time to bring me back to Granville. They are green instead of red though. And Mom, if you can stop molesting Rose's dad, I grabbed your purse. Do you have any Excedrin?"

Marcy was trying to pull herself together. She mumbles, "Right side pocket" as she continues to lock Jamie in a fierce bearhug.

Merick dug into her purse and fished out the nearly empty bottle of Excedrin. He set it on the table and pulled out his cell. he dialed his father and waited only half a ring.

"What do you need."

"Hey, I got a few requests. NVG's, a pimped ride, a Motorola Razr2 or w490 gotta be 3gsm with a triband chipset."

"That it?"

"Oh, and Megan Fox's phone number."

Merick's heart was lifted at what he heard next. He heard the familiar sound of his father laughing. It was then he knew his father was ok. Not the doing the greatest right now, but still ok. "Son, the people I am dealing wth for this are more likely to get you a large quantity of C4 than Megan Fox's phone number. But I will see what I can do."

"You know this stuff better than a group of kids. Although I guess that is a story for another time. Whatever you think we might need. And Dad, be careful. Please.

"You too son. I am so proud of you." Dale terminated the call.

Jamie, Pete, and Chloe

All of a sudden, Marcy Tennylson whirled to face Jamie Hamilton, and she coiled him up in a boa constrictor of a hug and proceeded to empty her tear-ducts and her mucous membranes into the shoulder of Jamie's suit coat.

He stood there, eyes bulging, completely at a loss. Completely unprepared for this sort of display of emotion.

(Abandoned, the box of Nilla Wafers thudded softly to the floor and tipped over. Fortunately, it had been emptied enough by now that nothing spilled.)

He was just trying to... he had just been trying to...

Ceri was always encouraging him to practise being a normal, well-adjusted human, but he wasn't nearly practised enough to comprehend this sort of outburst.

He stood there, stiff as a board, arms at his sides and eyes as big as dinner-plates.

Merick suggested that she maybe cool it with the "molestation," but when had mothers ever tended to take advice from their sons?

Jamie did manage to smile gratefully at the appearance of the shoes and the Excedrin both, but the gratitude of the smile was sleeted full of nervous-wreckedness.

With nothing but his eyes, he managed to catch Pete's gaze.

Pete blinked at him, astonished at the look of sheer bewilderment and terror on Jamie's face.

'What do I do?' Jamie begged silently, mouthing the words, hands at his sides in an emphatic pantomime shrug.

Pete gestured that Jamie 'Stay calm,' and Pete, too, mouthed the words. He then mimed a hug, wrapping his arms around empty air, suggesting with his chin, with a nod, with his eyes, that Jamie do the same.

Jamie hesitated, eyes going a little wider.

Pete scowled at him, and gestured, expressing with that scowl and that gesture that Jamie should make with the consolation and not be such a cowardly douche-nozzle.

Jamie nodded, bit his lip, and hugged Marcy gently.

Pete grinned, ear to ear, and tossed Jamie a thumbs-up.

Jamie smiled nervously, but then, getting the hang of it, started patting Marcy softly on the back.

"There, there," he murmured, awkwardly, and then, for good measure: "There."

Pete crossed his arms over his chest, still grinning, and nodded like a proud papa.

Chloe, meanwhile, was busy at work with Odin and Kyle.

"He has a very good point, Kyle," Chloe muttered. "Generally I classify Meteor Freaks and other varieties of the superpowered with an alphabetical categorisation system. Say, for instance, they have a low-level ability like, uh, controlling people's minds through computers? That'd be a 'Class B.' Or maybe they're fast and strong and can jump from rooftop to rooftop like Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix, that'd be a 'Class C.' Energy projection would bump you up to a 'Class D,' and so on and so forth, yadda yadda yadda."

She her face up, rather adorably, as she concentrated on the code that Odin was visiting upon her screen.

"In case you're wondering," she murmured distractedly to Kyle, "you're at least an 'F,' based on the powers ascribed to The Wraith by The Metropolis Observer and Mikey from The Smallville High A/V Club. So. Not too shabby."

She looked at Kyle more firmly, now, genuine concern on her face.

"This guy," she winced, "on the other hand, this extra-solar bad-ass from our worst collective nightmares, for him I'd need a whole 'nother alphabet. On Beyond Zebra."

Chloe shook her head, and bit her lip.

"They have some pretty scary villains on Krypton," Chloe breathed. "I only hope their heroes are equally impressive."

Kyle

"An 'F' huh?"

I leaned down and whispered in Chloe's ear.

"To date I have only been up against normal thugs and lowlifes. I hold back quite a bit. And yes, he's tear me limb from limb if he got ahold of me. Crazy, not stupid ya know"


"Jury's out on that meatsack. OK, A DoD satellite was over that general area seven minutes ago roughly. I have hacked into their mainframe and gotten their CPU good and drunk and had my way with her.."

"Great, he got ahold of a trashy romance novel."

"Shaddup ya biological mass of hormones and confusion, I'm being brilliant. Anyway, before the eight billion dollar testosterone factory chimed in, I got into DoD's satellite and downloaded that section of their data. I also scrubbed it from their database and replaced it with a sanitized version. This information belongs to us now. Bringing video up now."


I along with the others leaned in to take a look at what had gone down after I left.

Marcy slowly released Jamie. "I'm sorry. I just. I needed a hug."

Merick, meanwhile was near hyperventilizing with the gales of laughter he was attempting to hold back. Merick got a hold of himself. "I guess there is a care package arriving at my place in a bit. Three top of the line laptops. I was told to grab them. Dad thinks they will help." Merick looked at his cell. Nearly 15 minutes since he had been told about the computers. Merick swooshed to his bedroom.

The first thing he noticed was the sounds. A loud whirring. It took him a minute. Then he understood. There was a very large helicopter outside. There was a team of men scrambling into the cellar with boxes of all shapes and sizes. They had just arrived. Had to have. He only left here a few minutes ago. Merick decided to make himself known.

Merick walks out of his bedroom and down the stairs to the cellar. The men stopped as he walked in. "Hey guys. Listen, um... my father, Dale, called. He needs me to bring him the laptops that you are bringing." Merick hoped he lied convincingly.

Two of the men looked at him suspiciously. "They are on the workbench. Tell him every thing he needs should be here. If he needs anything else it is a phone call away." The two men went back to unloading the cargo.

Merick walks over the the bench, grabbing the boxes. As the two men leave the cellar for a new load he swooshes bak to the kitchen of Wayne Manor.

"Care package arrived."

Merick peels open the first box to find a gleaming Alienware laptop, and a sweet of gadgets, only some of which Merick recognized.

"Chloe, I think this is for you. I have a couple more. Looks like one for each team. Anyone know what all this is? I recognize the webcam, and headset. The rest I don't get."

Lionel should have stayed with Lex and Emil at the mansion, but for some reason, whatever reason, he was more comfortable standing in front of the octagonal impression in the rock wall of the Kawatche Cave.

He knew now what John Smith had tried to tell him. The secrets within these walls were never meant for humankind.

And he knew, as well, somehow, they were never meant for Zod.

And as he stood there, he reached out to touch the wall, and something touched him.

The symbols written on the wall merged, coalesced, and they shown with light. And a great light of power and energy spat forth from the octagonal shape and slapped Lionel Luthor on the forehead.

Power.

All the power of the Crystals of Krypton.

The resonance held within the walls of the cave had been activated by the shards of the Crystal of Knowledge. And once a certain other crystal was brought within the walls, the console located a consciousness of a long-dead Kryptonian scientist. The consciousness was collected, and stored, and kept waiting.

Until it downloaded itself into the mind of Lionel Luthor.

Where it would wait until the time was right.

And Lionel Luthor lay sprawled on the floor of the cave, muttering incoherently in a language that had not been spoken in over a thousand years, and then not even on Earth.

But there was one word that sounded familiar.

Zod.

Though Kara had been the first to head away from the lake, Diana soon caught up, and both girls sprinted off towards the Kent farmhouse. Everything they passed became blurry lines of distortion, though slowing down it all came back into focus.

"You haven't caused any discomfort. It's actually nice being able to be myself around someone else."

Finally the farmhouse came into view, and both girls raced down the dirt road. Kara did stop short, however, when she noticed that there was another car in the road.

"Come on, this way," Kara said as she slowed down to a more normal jogging speed. Once she reached the cellar, Kara saw the lock bolted around the handle.

Kara reached down and grabbed the metallic lock. Clenching her fist together, she shattered it into pieces and tossed them aside. Once that had been done she opened one of the doors. It was pitch black down there, but Kara managed to find one of the light switches, yanking the tiny string so that a single bulb illuminated the storm cellar.

Kara peeled back the dark tarp, and there on the floor was her ship. It wasn't big enough for an adult to travel in, as Kara had arrived on Earth when she was a mere child. The ship itself resembled a Kryptonian pentagon encased around the central pod. There was a small, octagonal slot positioned on one of the several sides of the ship, and Kara had noticed it when she first saw the ship a few days ago. Aside from that, there were a few strange markings, but nothing that Kara recognized.

"You have no idea how much I know what it feels like to be alone," Kara said softly.

As Kara pulled the tarp and made her statement, Diana had been prepared to offer platitudes for what had been said. All words froze in her throat as Kara's ship came into view.

Diana didn't know what the glyphs said but she recognized the divine script, and also recognized a symbol amongst them. The symbol of Hades. She knew that symbol well, it was the one symbol that had been driven into the heads of all of the royal line to avoid! But Kara was not what she had expected to have to avoid, she seemed like a normal girl to Diana. After all, had Hades not taken Persephone as his bride? Kara was a daughter of Persephone, not Hades himself! So Diana did as any daughter of Themyscira should when in the presence of one of the Gods.

She knelt onto one knee and bowed her head to Kara and said "Daughter of Persephone, I, Diana, daughter of the royal blood of Themyscira welcome you."