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#20
OCT 07 |
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“Best Wishes”
Smallville High School
Smallville, Kansas
Chlorine hung thick in the air making every breath brought in slightly harder than normal. Bare feet slapped against the slick pale green tile floor as dozens of barely clothed teens scuttled about playfully. A small group standing near the edge of the pool was caught unguarded as a spray of water splashed down on them from a boy that cannonballed into the deep end. The teacher blew her whistle and pointed at the mischievous teen in a warning to not do that again.
Four teenage girls, three in bikini’s and the other in a white t-shirt, sat alone in their group on the top of the wooden bleachers off to the side, chatting amongst themselves as they watched the activity in the shallow end of the pool with mild interest. Water splashed around like a tsunami. Loud yells and screams echoed in the tile room as half a dozen bodies crashed into each other, adding further to the torrent they’ve created.
“So, Jackie told me your double date with Connor, like, totally blew,” one of the girls, Anna, a bleach blonde, stated.
Shauna shrugged. “It was a total disaster. I’d have been happy if it was good enough to just blow. I never knew how much Duke and Connor totally hated each other until that night. They were totally fake.” The petite blonde sighed. “I had hoped that Andrea going with Connor would make Duke lay off the jealousy. I guess I was wrong.”
“Yeah,” Andrea snorted, “like that would happen. Whatever’s between them is personal.”
“That sucks,” stated the other girl, Rebekah. “What’re you gonna do? Duke’s not gonna like you, like, hangin’ out with Connor.”
“I dunno, just keep them separated I guess,” Shauna replied. “When I went over to Connor’s house to watch the Wichita game, all we could talk about was Duke. Connor kept on warning me about him, about how Duke’s a total dick and not right for me. How I could find somebody better. It was a little uncomfortable, but he meant well,” she admitted. “Woulda been nice if somebody could have been there to watch the game with us.”
Andrea shrugged. “I’m sorry. I had a huge fight with my mother and she wouldn’t let me leave the house, or use my cell phone. Wasn’t Kenny supposed to be there?”
Shauna shook her head. “He was grounded because of the restaurant fire.”
“Kenny, who?” Rebekah asked.
“Klutter.”
Anna grimaced. “Eww, what’re you doing hanging around him for?”
“Connor and Kenny are friends, they hang out all the time. ‘Sides he’s not all that bad. Pretty cool, really,” Andrea said, defending her boyfriend’s friend.
“Oh,” the other two replied with clear distaste in their voice, but they moved on. “So, it was just you two, huh? What happened?” Anna asked with a wicked smile.
Shauna rolled her eyes. “Nothing happened. He was a complete gentlemen.”
“That’s too bad,” the girl replied, her attention veered slightly to the pool.
A brown, oval, ball sailed through the air to its intended target, but Connor Kent leapt in front of his check and intercepted the ball. He crashed down below the surface and rose from it like Godzilla rising from the depths to threaten Tokyo. The quartet stopped talking long enough to watch him run, splashing water around him as he did. Their eyes greedily drank in the image of Connor’s body, following the threads of water that ran down his chiseled torso. Compared to everybody in the school, including the varsity football team, Connor had easily the most well developed body, even if it were pockmarked with small purple and black bruises – and the guys hated him for it.
“Where do you think he gets those from?” Anna asked, eyeing Andrea with particular, naughty, interest.
Andrea was quick to clear herself. “Don’t look at me, we haven’t had sex yet.”
“Really?”
The teenage Kent caught a glimpse, as he ran to the middle of the pool, of the girls to see his two favorite sitting there watching. He smiled, cockily, proud to show off his mad skills. That was until Shauna pulled off her t-shirt to reveal her smooth, flat stomach and the bottom crease of her breasts that her bikini top exposed as her arms raised over her head. He paused just long enough in admiration to get plastered by another boy to prevent him scoring a touchdown.
The girls giggled in amusement.
“When do you think you will?” Rebekah asked, returning to the subject at hand.
Connor broke the surface and blew some of the chlorinated water off his lips, what little got in his mouth tasted sour to his tongue, and ran his hands through his wet blonde hair to squeeze it dry. His cheeks flushed a soft shade of pink and returned to the game thankful that his bottom half was submerged from sight.
“I dunno, but I do have something special planned for tonight.”
This time it was Shauna who asked a question. “Why?”
Andrea smiled. “It’s Connor’s birthday.”
On the next play he scored the touchdown after making what should have been, for any other boy, a near impossible leap over his defenders head for the catch.
Slabside Island Maximum Security Prison
Antarctica
His muscles tensed and tightened. Tendons and ligaments strained under considerable forces as his arms struggled; his wrists pulled against the thick metal bands that bound him to the cold slab he lay on. The tension and forces applied to the restraints were tremendous, yet despite the constant strain the straps refused to yield. A normal persons skin would have been cut and sliced to the bone under the effort, but his near impervious skin remained unblemished.
He truly had no idea how long he had been imprisoned here and subjected to this mad torture. His ability to perceive time was severely distorted; his brain swam in a murky haze and slow to process the environment around him; even slower to figure out what any of it meant. Everything looked like it was being viewed from the inside of a fish tank and the glass hadn’t been cleaned for years.
The part of his mind that could still process rational thought knew it was the cocktail of drugs his captors fed intravenously into his body that kept him from tapping into the full might of his powers and unleashing them in an effort to escape.
It was maddening.
Despite the hostility of the moment he managed a weak smile and his body began to relax. His tormentors may try to take everything from him, but there was one image he’d never let go of. He could see her now; a warm cornea of white light surrounded her visage. It was the only thought he held on to with any sort of clarity. The fuel for any remaining strength in his tired body and soul that was bruised and battered from the ruthless experimentation performed.
She was the one.
She kept him alive.
She was his love.
Tana Moon.
“KENT!”
Connor sighed and rolled his eyes at the voice that called out for him from behind in the crowded hallway. He stopped mid-stride. Kenny turned to look at him, but continued on his way to class knowing Connor wouldn’t be following.
He turned, careful to make sure his full backpack didn’t slam into anybody. Approaching the disguised teen of steel was Principal Moral. “What did I do now?”
The other students that filled the hallway were careful to pretend that they weren’t paying attention. Though, to be honest, it stopped being all that interesting after the twentieth time Moral stopped Connor in the hallways, or summoned the boy from classes over the speakers.
Moral didn’t stop in his stride as he passed by. “Just follow me to my office.”
Connor couldn’t help but look confused as he truly couldn’t recall anything he had done wrong in the past week. He followed the Principal anyway, wondering what he was going to get hit with next and just how he was going to deny it. What had thrown Connor off more was the Principals silence. Over the course of the year they had developed a loose friendship and Moral was quick to make small talk, no matter how deep the teen was in the hole.
They walked into the front office, passed the secretary’s and into the Principals personal office. Moral stopped at the door and let Connor walk in, then shut the door and walked to the back of the desk and sat down in his chair.
Connor was already in his seat and it really was more his seat than anybody else’s as he found himself here often enough. No matter how much Connor speculated on the way there nothing could have prepared him for the next words out of Moral’s mouth.
“I wish there was a better…well…less blunt of a way to ask this, but. Are you being abused, Connor?” the Principal asked with more somber seriousness than normal.
“Wha-? What? No, no, no…what makes you think that?” The boy’s cheeks flushed red.
The middle aged black man leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his receding salt-n-peppered hair. “Connor, you come to school covered in bruises. Last week you came in with a black eye that was gone the next day! If your parents, or anybody for that matter, is abusing you I have to know.”
His blonde head shook intensely. “Jesus, Reggie, nobody is abusing me. Seriously!” His mind raced with nervousness as he struggled for a lie. Connor certainly couldn’t tell the Principal that his bruises were courtesy of Solomon Grundy and various other super powered sluggers he encountered with his partners in the Teen Titans. “These are from, uh, rugby. I play in a rugby league.”
Connor searched Moral’s face for any sign that the Principal was going to buy the fib. The longer Moral sat in silence, the span of half-seconds passed like days, the more the disguised superhero doubted it worked. Then he saw something soften in the eyebrows above his rich coffee eyes. Something told Connor that he shouldn’t get his hopes up.
“Rugby, huh?” Moral challenged. “Look, son, you don’t have to protect anybody --”
“I’m not protecting anybody, because nothing bad is happening, seriously!” Kent replied exasperated. “For the love of God, why won’t you believe me?”
Principal Moral pushed his glasses back up his nose to their usual perch with a finger and then leaned in on his elbows closer to Connor. “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you, but in circumstances like this I’m almost not allowed to believe you. The rules obligate me to check this out.”
“At the cost of humiliating good people?!” The teens voice rose. “The Kent’s have been solid members of this community for years, raised a son who went on to become a world renowned reporter, and when they could have turned their backs on me they instead took me into their home and have been very generous to me. I won’t let you rip their lives apart just because I take a couple bruises playing a sport!”
With a sigh Moral leaned back in his chair. “I understand, son, I really do. I’ve known Jonathan and Martha for years. They never missed a PTA and Jon’s at nearly every town meeting raising Hell over Smallville’s stupid town budget crisis and the fireman’s salary debacle. I know why you feel that you have to protect them.”
“Because they’re not doing anything wrong!”
“Then tell me who is!”
“You really want to know? Fine! Solomon Grundy two weeks ago totally ruined my day on the beach; on Thursday it was Mongul with the same boring scheme of turning the Earth into a Warworld, he really needs to see a therapist about that; and yesterday I got off light with Black Adam.” The sarcasm was rich in his voice, complete with the finger quotes around ‘light’; if anything Black Adam was the farthest from ‘getting off light’ one could get, even when compared to that short list.
“Connor, I really have to insist you take this matter seriously and not joke around.”
“I’m not joking around. You wanted to know the truth and I told you flat out.”
“So, what, you’re Robin now?” Morel asked, mostly jokingly.
“ROBIN!” Connor screeched, his eyelashes nearly flying off his scalp. “He can’t even take a punch!”
Connor leaned forward in his chair, his crystal blue eyes locked solid on the coffee colored eyes of the schools leader. “Listen, let’s look at this with a little logic,” he pleaded. “You know I’m healthy, because, like you said, I heal quickly. I would think a normal abuse victim probably wouldn’t be that healthy from the constant stress. Also, I suck at hiding my bruises. I don’t care! Anybody else would hide them under long sleeve shirts, never take swim class or do anything that would draw attention to their abuse. My grades are, relatively, improving and I’m focusing more. I’ve never been better!”
Principal Moral leaned back in his chair as he listened to the teen talk. He absently-mindedly tossed a baseball that he plucked off a stand on his desk, back and forth in his hands. It was a habit he developed to help him think. Moral remained silent for a couple moments after Connor was done talking. “Okay, let’s say that for the moment I believe you. I’d be willing to make a deal with you, based on one condition. After this moment if I see one bruise I will tear your whole world apart. If you keep yourself clean I will forget this whole incident ever existed. Do we understand each other?”
Connor was quick to agree.
“Good, you’re dismissed. See my secretary and she’ll write you a pass back to your class.” He watched the teen grab his backpack and leave the office in silence, the only sound coming from the worn leather of the baseball smacking in his hands.
Martha Kent absolutely hated heights. Her knees shook slightly as a trembling hand reached out to push a thumbtack into the wall. If it weren’t for her desire to celebrate this special occasion she wouldn’t have dared climb the stepladder. The Kent’s hadn’t celebrated a birthday in many years; the formality disappeared long ago between her and Jonathan. That alone was reason enough for her to make sure Connor’s birthday was going to be the best she could throw.
So focused she was in her activity that she didn’t notice her husband saunter up behind her.
“Looks good.”
Martha was slightly startled, but managed to maintain her perch.
Jonathan sipped on a sweetened ice tea after coming back inside from tending the farm. “Are you sure you’re ready to have a dozen or more teenagers destroy the house?” There was a trace of humor in his voice.
“This house hasn’t changed in nearly thirty-years. I think a little youthful energy would be a good thing for this old place. Even if it’s for only a day.” Martha stepped, thankfully, off the stool; happy to be on solid ground.
“Oh, you don’t count that disaster zone upstairs that doubles as Connor’s bedroom as ‘youthful energy’?” Jonathan chuckled. “The clothes thrown on the furniture or the boots left scattered on the stairs?” he teased. As opposed to the idea when he was originally approached with it, he had grown fond of having the teen live with them. “Not that I don’t enjoy tripping down the stairs in the middle of the night.”
“Hush, you.” Martha stole Jonathan’s sweet tea. “I think it’ll be good for the boy. He’s got so much responsibility with the Teen Titans and he doesn’t do much but hang out with other superheroes. He needs a chance to just mellow and feel normal for a change.”
They both looked at the arcing banner leading into the decorated living room. “Well, I guess I can’t argue with that. I just hope you’re not gonna mind having to run to the ‘Pottery Barn’ to replace the whole house.”
“Don’t you have chickens to feed, or something?” Martha teased playfully.
Jonathan flung his hands up in defeat and smiled. “Okay, Okay. I get it when I’m not needed. Have your fun.” He turned and left the room, leaving his wife to continue her birthday crusade.
Slabside Island Maximum Security Prison
Antarctica
She hated to admit that the reports weren’t encouraging. It took a lot of restraint to not grab the nearest lab coat wearing fool by the face and throw him to the floor. The Secretary of Metahuman Affairs gave a passing glance at the subject through the Plexiglas then returned her attention back to the stack of papers in the manila folder. Despite her control the anger was apparent on her face.
“I make my way here all the way from D.C. to put up with this bullshit?” Amanda Waller spat.
“His biology is compensating, ma’am. The sedative has nearly quadrupled from the original dosage. If we increase the dose any more it could kill him. Even for a being of his constitution there are limits to what he can tolerate.” The lead scientist replied. His voice faltered a little. Even though she stood at roughly four feet, and was easily that much wide, Amanda Waller radiated a threatening presence as if she stood over seven feet tall, probably how she acquired such an accurate nickname: The Wall.
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Every single one of our experiments is ultimately expendable, no matter how important they may be to the future defense of our country. If you need to increase his dose to control him, then you damned better increase it.” She poked a stubby finger into the scientist’s chest to enhance her point.
“But, --” he began to protest.
Her hand was like lightning, striking with the deadly accuracy of a rattlesnake on the scientist’s ear. She pulled his head down closer to her face. “Let me make this clear to you,” she hissed. “If Match regains consciousness he would jeopardize everything we’re working towards. To have a being of his power and talent dedicated to Task Force Omega would be an amazing asset to the States.” Amanda let go, but continued. “I didn’t come here to get bitched at by Warden Miracle. The hoops the DEO had to jump through to get a foothold here was far too strenuous to have this deal compromised.”
The scientist swallowed nervously and rubbed his sore ear. “Yes, ma’am. I understand, completely.”
Secretary Waller nodded her head. “Good, now, let’s move on to the next project.” She slapped the thick manila folder onto the chest of the mouthy scientist – forcing him to catch it before it fell to the floor – and pushed passed them all out of the room.
The men shrugged, then turned rank and slowly followed The Wall out of the laboratory for the next. As they exited nobody was able to observe the clone flex his fingers and close his fist. Match’s head rolled to the side. His blank white eyes focused through the drug induced haze to see the world clear again. A murderous glee sparkled in his eyes and a sinister smile split his lips.
Metropolis City Hospital
Metropolis, Delaware
Dubbilex stirred lightly. A tired moan vibrated in his throat. An attractive platinum blonde girl, with stylish black frame glasses, stood patiently by the DNAlien’s bed. Serling Roquette, formerly of Cadmus, was called in as an expert on the cloned telepath to oversee the surgeries and rehabilitation Dubbilex required. The fact that she was the only one from Cadmus left in Metropolis put her on a short list of contacts for the Hospital to call.
She sighed and gently rested her hand on his rough gray forehead. The stiff, cheap, bed-sheets crinkled as Dubbilex shifted under her touch. Serling observed her friend who suffered brutal torture at the hands of an unknown assailant for unknown reasons. After his dismissal from Cadmus, and eventual discharge from active service for the government he lived alone. Nobody should have known where he was. Unfortunately the drug his attacker introduced to his body, to shut down his mental talents, still saturated his system leaving him in a semi-coma. Until Dubbilex woke up it would have to remain a mystery.
That’s the part that left Serling charged. How could somebody know enough of the DNAlien to formulate the drug? Just about everything on the clone was classified. Acid burned in the center of her chest.
“It has to be somebody from Cadmus,” Serling reasoned aloud. After the employees were broken up, most had taken on jobs all over the country, spreading out and becoming untraceable. It was the only thing that made sense.
She pushed the monitor closed on her laptop, scooped it off the table next to the bed and promptly made her way out of the Hospital. Once outside she fished out her cell phone. There was someone she needed to call immediately.
Smallville, Kansas
Connor stood quiet at his locker, the noise around him as other students slammed their lockers shut, laughed and chatted with friends as they prepared to leave the school at the day did little to impede the boy from listening at a voice mail on his cell phone. As per school policy all cell phones were to be shut off and left in the students lockers for the whole day. Only at the end could they be turned back on.
It was almost ten seconds after the voice mail was over before Connor moved, thumbing the Nokia E70 off. His crystal blue eyes just stared at his open locker, but they saw nothing. A hand slipped onto his shoulder jarred him back to reality.
“Is everything okay?” asked his girlfriend. Shauna stepped up behind her raven-haired friend and looked over her shoulder.
Connor attempted to compose himself in front of the girls, but his anger and sorrow was apparent on his face. “No, one of my best friends in Metropolis was jumped and beaten pretty badly. He’s in the hospital, some sort of coma. This is really turning out to be a shitty birthday.”
Andrea was shocked and wrapped her arms around her boyfriend. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Is there something I can do?”
“No, there’s nothing I can think of,” Connor told Andrea as she pulled away. “It just goes to figure that it’s my first real birthday and its gone to shit.”
“Well, the day’s not over. I’m sure there’s some way I can make it up to you. Maybe a nice dinner and a late night romp naked in a corn field?”
Despite his mood Connor grinned. “I think that’s a step in the right direction.” They reached out to give each other a quick kiss. Shauna, still quiet, diverted her eyes to the floor. Connor noticed, but neglected to say anything. “I gotta go with Kenny after here and help him look for a job. So, I probably won’t make it back home ‘till 6 or so.”
“Text me when you’re done. We’ll figure something out,” Andrea said as she and Shauna split off into the dwindling crowd leaving the school.
Connor watched them leave for a couple seconds before zippering his backpack shut and slinging it over his shoulder. He spied a quick peak of himself in the mirror and then shut the locker.
The shifter slid smoothly into park. Then the hand glided over from there to the keys and turned the ignition of the black 2004 BMW off. Principal Reginald Moral reached to the passenger seat and grabbed his soft black leather briefcase. Once he slid out of the car he gently pushed the car door shut. His BMW was his trophy, sought after and achieved after many grueling years dealing with hordes of children. There were few things he took solace in, aside from his car, the golf course-like cut of his lawn was another – that he appreciated as he walked around to the back of his house – and naturally his wife.
After the general chaos of his day Principal Moral valued the routine of coming home every day. He juggled his keys until the one he needed was singled out. His wife wouldn’t be home for at least another hour, so only the quietness of the inside was all there was to greet him. While Moral loved his wife, he learned to treasure the small moments he had alone. They didn’t come often enough. The briefcase dropped to the floor, followed by a pair of black shoes. It felt like ten pounds were relieved from his throbbing feet.
A hand reached up to loosen the tie that hung around his neck like a dead snake and popping free the top button of his dress shirt. Moral double-checked the time on the microwave’s clock. He still had roughly forty minutes free. The principal made his way down the stairs to the basement. Sectioned off in the otherwise spacious basement was his poker room, reserved for his friends who loved to make a raucous and smoke like industrial stacks.
He pushed the poker room door open and then pushed it shut. The fluorescent lights flickered on. Moral walked to an otherwise regular wall adorned with posters of beer and women. He reached for a hidden slot that unlatched a square part of the drywall and then pulled it free, revealing a twenty-year research project underneath.
His coffee-colored eyes scrutinized the pictures and newspaper articles pinned to the corkboard. A couple lines of red thread tied some pictures together linearly. Moral reached into the breast pocket of his white dress shirt, pulling out the yearbook proof of a blonde Connor Kent. He placed it over a free section of the board and pinned it with a free thumbtack. The blonde haired teen stood out in sharp contrast to the other photos of the dark-haired teenage Clark Kent, Superman – from over the past ten years – to the most recent ones of Superboy.
After his confrontation with the younger Kent this afternoon there left little doubt in his mind that he was also the teen sensation known as Superboy. Just like usual with this generation of Kent’s, and the last, however there was little proof…just suspicion.
He just wondered what he was going to do with that knowledge. Provided he could prove it.
Moral shook his head, wasting no more time to reflect further on his project. He replaced the section of the wall, turned off the light and exited the room, locking the door behind him.
Slabside Island Maximum Security Prison
Antarctica
The explosion shook a startled William Tockman into consciousness. The boom still echoed in the halls as he threw himself out of his cot. Nearly 0.243 seconds passed before the klaxon blared and the sirens cast a red hue on everything around him. Inmates began to yell in confusion and in glee about the prospect of The Slab falling down around them. The criminal known as the Clock King pushed his diminutive cellmate out of his way and peered through the bars, observing what he could. Tockman felt disappointment over the guards’ reaction time. It took shortly over two minutes for a pack of riot gear clad guards to go running passed his cell. With all the drills they’d been holding over the past week the Clock King figured that it should have taken far closer to a minute and a half.
Tockman easily had a dozen or so ideas to help improve their timing but the Warden, Mister Miracle – not the actual Mister Miracle that was born and raised on the hellish planet Apokolips, but some sort of Evil Knieval Jr. knock-off Mister Miracle – was quick to ignore the ramblings of the master of linear chronology.
“Well, it goes to show him who’s the fool now,” Tockman argued. After this debacle he fully expected that the Warden would pay him a visit tomorrow morning, around 8:43, to finally hear reason. “I’m not a joke.”
Another explosion, not as powerful as the last, shook the walls again, exciting the inmate’s further. With a feeling of self-righteousness swelling in his chest, Tockman just shrugged at the chaos, pushed his cellmate out of his way and jumped back into bed.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the prison and four stories down from the Clock King, Amanda Waller stood in the middle of two-dozen armed guards. They stared at the closed steel doors of the laboratory where the explosions originated. If they wanted to know what happened those doors had to get opened, because the other side was filled with so much smoke that the cameras showed nothing and the observation window was equally as useless.
“I want those God damned doors knocked down now!” the Wall barked.
One of the guards looked back at her. “We’re trying, but they won’t open. It’s almost like they’re welded shut!”
“Then cut them open!”
An anxious scientist turned away from his console to the angry woman. “Secretary Waller, I got the control’s working. I can activate the emergency vents and suck the smoke outside.”
Amanda shoved half a dozen bodies out of her large frames way to approach the man. “Then do it already. Jesus Christ, why do I have to think for you?”
The scientist complied as the vents activated. The smoke began to swirl, as it was drawn out of the room and exhausting to the harsh cold atmosphere outside. Everything began to look clearer and the problem began quickly evident.
“Oh, balls…” Amanda muttered. The metal table that once held a body down to it was now occupied with a large pile of rubble dumped on it from the hole that was bored through four stories above it. Fortunately nobody was inside the laboratory at the time. Access was restricted and limited to activities that could be performed in less than two minutes. It turned out to be a wise precaution. From what it looked like the bounds were cut open by focused fire and the hole that led up through the prison to the outside by brute strength punching straight through.
“Alert the Director,” Amanda ordered. “Match has escaped.”
The longer they kept walking the more it felt like he stood fixed in one place and it was the Earth itself that was moving under his feet like a giant treadmill. Though the more Kenny thought about it, it was partly true. He and Connor were walking east and deceptively the world traveled west on its journey to meet the sunset. It didn’t help that the length of road looked exactly the same as it stretched to the horizon. On the right was a deep ditch over grown with weeds and a rotted out wooden fence held together by good wishes and barbed wire that kept the cows that grazed the field from wandering. To their left were acres of corn.
Kenny kicked at a rock in mid-stride, sending it skidding along the black top until it disappeared into the weeds off the road. “Well, today sucked. Thanks for coming with me anyway.”
Connor shrugged. “Hey, it’s no big deal. How were we to know?” In truth it really wasn’t a bother to the Teen of Steel. After today’s headache it felt good to be outside and wander aimlessly without a purpose. This was the type of help he didn’t mind offering. It was sure as hell better than getting his face pounded into the ground. “At least we tried and got some fuckin’ great milk shakes from Stewarts.”
“Yeah, not a total waste of a day,” Kenny replied, staying silent about his ulterior motive to this job hunt. He was charged with keeping Connor occupied long enough for all of their friends to gather at his Aunt Martha’s house. As it was they were going to be five minutes early.
“I was thinking that I know of a great place you could get a job at. They could use a good hand with their computers, and I know a guy I could pull some strings with.”
“Oh yeah? Where at?”
“Daily Planet, in Metropolis.”
Kenny looked at Connor with a surprised look. “Who the Hell do you know there?”
“Dude, I’m a Kent. I know their top reporter, Clark. I even know this great apartment you could stay at from when I used to live there.”
“Metropolis? That’s kinda cool. When did you have time to live there?”
Connor smirked. “Eh, I’ve been around. Used to be in Hawaii, too. Now that ruled. Hot girls in thongs and bikini’s everywhere. Walked around with a virtual hard-on all the time.”
They must have walked another half-a-mile at this point and to Kenny he still felt like they were making no progress to the Kent farm. “When are you gonna tell me what you do? You did promise to. Yet I still wonder where the hell you disappear too after you get those strange pages on your phone. Why you look like shit half the time when you do decide to show up? We are friends right? Trust me, dude.”
Connor went silent. Kenny could tell some sort of debate was raging in his friend’s head. After a minute Connor opened his mouth to speak.
“Kenny, what I’m about to show you is very important. Only a few on this planet know this. I know I shouldn’t have to ask you…but I need you to swear you’ll never tell anybody else about this.” Connor was strangely serious. They stopped walking.
“Yeah, man, I mean I wouldn’t pry if I didn’t wanna know. I can keep a secret.” Kenny held up his hand in a sign of scouts honor.
Connor pulled off his red collared shirt to reveal a black t-shirt underneath. Emblazed in the center of the shirt was a red symbol. A hollow diamond with an ‘S’ in the middle.
Despite himself Kenny began to giggle. It grew into a quiet chuckle. Then erupted into a full-blown laugh. “You can’t be serious?”
“Kenny, I am Sup --”
BANG!
The gunshot cracked like a whip and echoed in the air. Kenny involuntarily blinked with the concussive explosion. His first instinct was to think an anxious hunter wandered to close to the road in hunt of his game. But when he opened his eyes he was in for a tremendous fright. Down on the ground, with a hand firm to his right shoulder was Connor. Blood poured from between his fingers, crimson legs dripping down his arm.
“Shit!” Kenny yelled and in a flash at his friends side. Connor moaned and fought to get to his feet. “You gotta stay still --”
“No. Time.” Connor grimaced through clenched teeth. A vein bulged in his forehead. The effort to move was greatly straining him.
Kenny was about to say something else when he noticed a weird spider-webbing effect growing under Connor’s skin and up his neck. Even weirder was it was green. “What the fuck?” he whispered to himself.
Connor, unbelievably, stood. Kenny turned to face his friend and found his voice stalled in his throat. Descending upon them with nostrils flaring, expelling hot putrid air out of its large razor sharp teeth lined mouth was the vicious Velociraptor!
To Be Continued in Deadshot #5…
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