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Chapter 34 - WASHINGTON D.C. JULY 4, 20:16 UTC -4 TEAM YEAR ZERO

As we entered the chamber and quickly disabled the lock behind us, the door cut us off from the similarly disgusting organic corridor that was sublevel fifty-two. We'd avoided any disturbances along the way, but there were a serious number of those things that attacked us, the G-Elves according to Robin's files, waiting to be born in their fluid sacs. Whatever their claws were, they were decidedly sharp enough to harm any of us with a dedicated attack, and fast enough to be a nuisance for anyone barring Kid Flash.

"This is it-"

I didn't hear the rest of Robin's words.

Instead, my eyes fixated on a reinforced glass pod that rested as the centerpiece of the room, and every device, sensor, and monitor in the chamber fed into that tube. It was dark, but one of the smaller benefits of the Aerophibian abilities were slightly better night vision. And beyond the darkened pod's glass exterior could only be one person.

Dark hair. Muscular. Tall. Angular chin. Late teenager. Form-fitting white suit from head to toe. Prominently displayed on his chest was a red symbol, one that could only refer to one thing and one thing alone. A stylized shield in red stood in contrast, with what appeared to be an angular letter "s" in the center.

Fuck.

Cadmus had cloned Superman.

This teenager could only be one character – Conner Kent. Kon-El. Superboy.

Project: Kr for Krypton. Kryptonian.

Three G-Gnomes – the telepathic genomorphs – sat in their own containers above the sleeping cloned teenager. They were awake, watching, waiting for us to engage, and I almost felt more uncomfortable with them in the room than I did the clone of the most powerful being on Earth - and maybe the universe, if you squinted.

Troia was as uncomfortable as I was from her slackjawed expression. "How could they do this?"

"A clone," Kid Flash muttered. "This is insane."

Robin did not need me to tell him to hack the nearest computer systems and feed any data that he could aloud for us to understand.

"Weapon designation Superboy. A clone force grown in… sixteen weeks?" Robin shuddered. "From DNA acquired from Superman."

"Stolen." Aqualad glared at the door leading out, knowing we had little time to try to engage with any of this more. So long as the door remained disabled, then we had a chance to learn more. Until G-Trolls – the big ones – showed up to make a huge damned mess of the doorway.

Robin read off more details about the suit, which apparently absorbed yellow sun radiation. Which meant that the clone was as juiced as he would be if he were outside in bright daylight, flying through the air. If we could convince him to help us, we had no reason to fear anything in the complex. If we couldn't, then they undoubtedly had a weapon that they could twist against us.

This was horrifying. It was one thing to read about a character with a deeply disturbing origin story, but it was another thing to see what may as well be an infant. An experiment who had barely lived, stuffed in a pod, who may have many unknown side effects. Comics canon would suggest Conner was perfectly normal, but was that true here?

"They educated him?" Troia asked.

The G-Gnomes. Telepathic education. Not real experience. They'd loaded his brain with encyclopedias, with images and numbers and histories. Damn…

"We need to get him out," I said simply. "We have precious little time. I don't wanna take our chances against an army of genomorph superweapons to get this clone out of here. No League response, none of my contacts – this is on us."

Troia gestured toward the clone. "They've made a mockery of Superman. Fed him lies. He may be hostile."

"Yeah – who wouldn't be?" Kid Flash argued. "I'd be pissed."

"Robin," I thought, thinking back to the many genomorphs in waiting outside. "He's alone, right? The only one?"

The kid's eyes widened, and his fingers typed so furiously that even the sound made me nervous.

"They could not have made more," Aqualad suggested, less out of certain knowledge and more out of hope.

"Why not?" I asked bleakly.

If I were in their shoes and had successfully built a Superboy, there would be dozens of them waiting to sell to the highest bidder. Cadmus had only built one Galatea, a white-suit clad clone of Supergirl in the cartoon, but they'd made so many copies of the other meta heroes they'd engineered that they'd taken on Justice League whose membership was in the dozens.

"I am not a genetics expert." I pointed with an exaggerated hand toward the doorway. "There may be hundreds of those things. Thousands, even. Why wouldn't they make more Kryptonians?"

Troia could not sit still.

Robin gestured slightly to the pod. "They needed a special container to keep him asleep, to help him grow. An isolated room, and the documents are only pointing to this one chamber on this floor. We aren't looking at dozens of Superman clones, but… there could be more than one. Can't rule it out."

That sobering thought brought the mood to its worst.

"I can't find anything quickly-" Robin groaned. "There are maybe hundreds of thousands of files here, if not millions, and the program I am running can only sift so fast."

"Highlight anything with unique DNA," I suggested. "Make a copy of it, if you can, and we can sift later."

The Boy Wonder tilted his head up to shoot a look toward me. "You think I am not already trying that?"

I frowned, not biting at that frustration.

Aqualad intervened instead. "Work what you can. The League will certainly handle the rest."

I did not disagree with that. Still, Robin poured every ounce of effort to work his tech magic, and if we had more time, I sincerely believed he may actually be able to find anything worth finding. Such as it was, we ran on borrowed time.

WASHINGTON D.C.

JULY 4, 20:57 UTC -4

TEAM YEAR ZERO

Jim Harper – Guardian - had little idea what to do in this situation. One minute, he responded to Dubbilex about what could only be a minor fire, the next he was facing down three sidekicks connected to the Justice League. And two others he did not recognize, but regardless – they'd intruded on Cadmus' turf, and Jim knew what had to be done.

His grandfather James had been Guardian back during the days of the All-Star Squadron in World War II, and Jim often wondered what his namesake would do in times of stress. Acting in heroism often required the toughest of choices, and ultimately, he'd been hired to work security for Cadmus. He'd spent some time on the streets of Boston a few years back, but the steady job he had now was easier on his conscience.

A group of sidekicks had witnessed his bosses' secrets. That… was worrying on many levels, not the least of which was that Cadmus would undoubtedly shut down if they were to be uncovered. A breach in the information security of this facility would be a death-knell in the good work they could do, and Jim did not want that.

Desmond and Dubbilex joined them on sublevel fifty-two, and the sidekicks had found perhaps their most secretive project – and one of their most successful. The researcher was incensed, and the horned telekinetic genomorph had his own curious expression on a calm, alien face.

"They're locked inside," he answered simply, the G-Gnome on his shoulder feeding intelligence to his mind. "Desmond, we should-"

"No. Whatever it is that you were going to say is irrelevant, Guardian." The doctor was more furious than Jim had ever seen him, and in many ways, Guardian shared in that anger. This was an intrusion into their affairs.

When Desmond ordered the telekinetic to force the door open with his mind, Dubbilex raised a hand, horns glowing a bright red. A warbling of reality oozed in the space between he and the door, but the door did not budge, much to the consternation of the doctor.

"What use are you?"

"I apologize, Doctor Desmond, but these locks are beyond my capability to effect."

Desmond wheeled on Jim. "The board of directors trusts you to ensure this facility remains secure. You know that we cannot allow them to simply leave."

Guardian's eyes widened at the implication. "Doc, these are trusted members of the hero community. They do good work. You want to – what, eliminate them?"

Desmond put a fist in to his palm. "If that is what it takes to ensure Cadmus and its projects have an unimpeded future, then that is what we must do."

"This will bring the Justice League down upon our heads."

"Better them," Desmond began, "than to face the ire of the board of directors, believe me." He glanced toward the G-Gnome on Jim's shoulder. "Contact the G-Gnomes inside Project: Kr."

Guardian tensed. "What do you intend to do?"

Desmond set his jaw. "What must be done. Time to field test our latest weapon."

WASHINGTON D.C.

JULY 4, 21:13 UTC -4

TEAM YEAR ZERO

"Kid," I said seriously, "how confident are you that you can outrun their security measures?"

The speedster frowned, his eyes not leaving the holographic screens filled with raw data the youngest of us siphoned through. "Reasonably confident, if I have room to move."

"Start a dedicated sweep."

His eyes widened. "Cassian, I can move through the corridors, maybe, but I doubt I can safely get in and out of the security doors. Any room like this would be out bounds."

I frowned, thinking of everything I knew of speedsters. "So, you can't just move through walls?"

He suffered. "No-"

"KF gets a nosebleed when he tries it," the youngest snickered, still typing and scrolling.

"Dude!"

"We cannot risk going half-cocked-"

"I don't wanna leave any stone unturned, if we can manage the risks."

I thought back to the final days of my work with Carnifex.

"Cassian, I admire the confidence, but we do not know what we are looking for," Aqualad answered. "Not without Robin's data."

"I'm working on it."

I cleared my throat. "I will spare you the whole story right now, but I once led a team to liberate a prison camp. We didn't know how many prisoners there were, nor where they were all likely located, but we had to try. In that mission, I found my father and my mentor. Saved them unexpectedly." I swallowed. "If I'd cut my losses earlier and took a handful of prisoners out, I might have not saved two of the people closest to me."

No one said a word for a long moment, the only sound the typing of the monitor.

Troia was the first to respond. "That's- I am glad to hear it ended well. But you…"

"Thank you for sharing your experience," Aqualad added.

"But we are in over our heads," Kid Flash finished. "Not impossible, Cass, but if we commit to that, we are risking this whole complex coming down on us hard."

"Sublevel forty-one," Robin muttered, breaking the tension with the mere suggestion of another hallway. "Sublevel forty-five."

At the two levels, I waited with bated breath.

"Not sure what I am looking at, but forty-one has a chamber with such encrypted clearance levels that it has to be something. And forty-five was referenced in the files of Project: Kr – something related to it is there."

I wanted to see it all, alongside those two corridors as a place to start.

We just had one problem.

The pod opened with such force that its door nearly bent away from its proper location. In the next half-second, Aqualad bodily tumbled, end over end, and slammed so forcefully into the wall that it cracked behind him.

I wheeled around in time to see the clone bounding for us, roaring as he immediately proved his weapon status the moment something awoke him. Robin maneuvered poorly out of the way and almost slid onto his own cape to avoid a palm strike that might have left him with a new orifice in his abdomen. He gripped for something in his belt, and I forced my way forward and barreled my own body-weight with as much force as I could muster without a running head start, nor with any reinforcing armor.

He moved.

Had the clone merely lost his footing? Had a fluke happened? Or had I actually pushed a Kryptonian several feet away without even full strength?

I didn't have time to reflect because his backhand strike forced me onto my ass nearly twenty yards away, skidding to a stop before a pile of railing.

Perhaps our heaviest hitter, Troia stood nearby, eyes wide, maybe in shock. She didn't move, but she was in a readied stance almost on instinct. Her hands wavered, and I reminded myself again that she had not done any of this before.

Kid Flash proved ineffective at knocking some sense into the clone with three glancing strikes in rapid succession against the clone's wide back. For all his effort, the speedster pulled his hand back and winced, rubbing at his fingers and zipping away before the Kryptonian could latch onto him for more purchase.

Smoke filled the room as Robin created some distance, but if the man had super-vision of any kind, then it wouldn't be any more than a nuisance.

Aqualad tried to grapple the man to the ground and bought us some time.

I gripped Troia's arm at the shoulder for moral support. With my other hand, I activated the secret panel in my uniform jacket. Thanking Kyle under my breath for the design, my skin grew a barrier of lead.

Troia did not need me to say anything. The shoulder support was enough, and she steeled herself too.

A heavy breath exhaled and then she roared as she powered forward, gliding through the air and forcing Superboy off of his feet and into the opposite wall, a deep crater left in their wake. He tried to wail on her, but she kicked toward his hip and knocked him off-center.

Aqualad generated a whip of water to try to grip the Kryptonian clone's arm, but it was nothing more than a distraction that I couldn't properly see through the smoke.

"Stand down," Kid Flash shouted. "We do not wanna fight you!"

"We want to help you, Superboy!" Robin shouted from his hiding spot, somewhere I couldn't see.

"We are here to free you, not to-"

Aqualad bodily hit the ceiling so hard, electricity sizzling from his tattoos, that his sentence died with his consciousness as he hit the floor.

I flew forward even as he tossed Troia away, the Amazon flipping end over end and tumbling through iron railing.

A lead knee struck his torso, and he hit the rocky structure behind us, dust filling the space. I slammed a fist into his shoulder, directed a kick toward his abdomen, but he maneuvered below with a roar, grappled onto my leg, and spun me like a bag of still frozen ice you needed to break up for your freezer.

Lead armor shattered as I hit the wall three separate times, my own vision and senses starting to wane as consciousness became difficult. I spotted Kid Flash trying to pull open the door, to perhaps run for help?, but a final slam threw my senses completely into disarray.

The clone roared as an electrical disc from the Boy Wonder's gadgets sent currents of power through him. I didn't see how the clone responded, didn't see how Troia awkwardly tossed the clone to the side, didn't see how she tried to pull me to my feet before he grappled us both to the ground, then to the ceiling, then back to the ground again.

Each painful impact left the room more and more into rubble. I was barely aware of Aqualad managing to stand, managing to deliver a haymaker of a hit with a hammer made of water. Troia and I had some breathing room to recover, but the girl was out.

I was more than halfway there myself. Senses spinning, I saw something.

Something I had not expected.

A bruise.

A bruise on the Kryptonian's face.

I… doubted that I'd done that.

Troia must have. Or maybe Aqualad.

One of us had left a mark on him, and I had no idea who. But… it….

Everything darkened to nothing as pain wracked my body.

WASHINGTON D.C.

JULY 4, 21:32 UTC -4

TEAM YEAR ZERO

Kid Flash had zipped down the corridor, past Guardian, a researcher whose name badge had said Desmond, and a group of genomorphs of various shapes and sizes that had come with him. One of the G-Trolls – the huge ones – he'd had run right through its legs to keep a relatively straight shot.

He had one goal – the stairwell.

The speedster was there in seconds, and he took a bit of time to begin to wind up its many flights.

He… hated everything about this – hated that he was leaving his friends with that slave of Superman's son. This had gone above and beyond the call of duty anyone had expected of them, and even if the Flash had ordered Wally to do this, he would have pulled the younger speedster back far sooner than all of this.

He crossed sublevel after sublevel, not stopping to check for any radio signals. They were too far underground and likely had conventional jamming tech capable of letting only their approved frequencies out. He… well, he almost had an idea to use their comms, but logging any kind of dedicated channel into Cadmus's systems was far too risky.

He only needed to give a signal and then seek a way to assist. He didn't want to wait for backup, especially while the whole League was preoccupied with a so-called sorcerer trying to casually blot out the Sun. There were other things he could do, and Wally…

Sublevel forty-five.

Hmmm.

He detoured.

It wasn't smart, it wasn't wise, but he could move.

Kid Flash poured on the speed as he entered the corridor, this one more like any usual underground lab he would expect, rather than the horror movie only a few floors down. He didn't know what he was looking for, but the security measures were far more focused on the deepest sublevels. He could take the time to check, to see what he could learn.

Most doors he tried were closed and locked behind security he hadn't the skill to crack. If he were Uncle Barry, perhaps he could try to speed blitz through likely passkeys. As he was, Wally was more limited than that. But not all the doors were.

A lab full of chemicals – sterilization solutions, isolated compounds meant for organic tissue growth, and – whoa, samples of medicine that half the known world would deem too dangerous to use. Stem cell propagation materials were only the tip of the iceberg, and while Wally could maybe recognize a few of them, he hadn't the medical expertise to make heads or tails of how they were used.

A monitoring room, almost like a security checkpoint. A wall of screens showed not every camera, but instead dedicated feeds to a few rooms within the facility. The details on screen, notes on paper, and an open laptop revealed this was a room designed to view footage of the genomorphs at work, at play, and at training. One screen displayed a room noted as a simulation chamber, designed to expose genomorph subjects to situations like extreme temperatures or even live battle scenarios.

Wally glanced toward the open laptop and quickly perused its files. A steaming cup of coffee rested nearby, half-drunk – someone in their haste to leave and investigate the mess he and the others were making had given him an in, and he wasn't going to squander it.

Wally focused on trying to find project files, files from this sublevel, files from sublevel forty-one. Surely – surely he could find something.

The sound of booming footsteps alerted him that he was losing the chance to further investigate. Annoyed, he zipped through as many files as he could, and – oh.

Project: Match.

Kid Flash read two lines of data in the file, wishing that this was a more comprehensive diagnostic file and not a file on "Match's performance at enduring psychic torture." It was on this floor, behind a security door as extensive as Project: Kr. And… "as hyperdurable as the original specimen to most physical means."

Wally wasn't certain if this clone was like the Kryptonian one that had just whooped their assee, but they had certainly cloned something durable.

G-Trolls passed the hallway, spotted Kid Flash, and roared.

The speedster had little room to move as quickly as he might have liked, but he'd found what he needed. He raced to the right, hoping to double back toward the stairwell, but gasped in surprise at the wall-to-wall genomorph stampede that stood between him and the stairs.

He…

He had nowhere to go.

One of the genomorphs walked forward, the only one of its kind in the mass of clawed G-Elves and massive G-Trolls. It was slender with long horns, nearly the same height as him, with roughly human proportions. Two long tendrils drooped from his face, almost like a beard.

"Stand down."

In his head, a second statement from the same entity, the horned genomorph. <"Do not resist. Do not react to this voice. I wish to assist you.">

Kid Flash frowned in disbelief. "You expect me to stand down?"

"Cadmus must remain secure." Then, <"Surrender and I will ensure you and your friends make it out of this place alive.">

"You're… serious?"

<"Yes. I am Dubbilex. Do not resist, young hero, and I will work to ensure your freedom.">

Wally glanced at the only corridor to freedom, a corridor he was not confident he could escape. Maybe… if he ran so fast he ran along the wall, he could – no.

<"What is Project: Match?"> It was odd to try to think back to the telepathic creature, and he wasn't sure it even worked until Dubbilex responded.

<"I will explain. Come.">

With a heavy sigh, Kid Flash allowed Dubbilex and his genomorphs to take him. At the first opportunity he had, however, he would dash to freedom. Trusting this thing might be the only way out of this.73

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