Chapter 2: The Empty Apartment
The key fit perfectly.
Oak Street Apartments was a three-story brick building that had seen better decades. Water stains crawled up the exterior walls. The mailboxes in the lobby were dented, half of them missing name tags.
Apartment 3B was on the top floor. I climbed stairs that creaked under every step, found the door at the end of a dim hallway, and slid the key home.
The lock clicked. The door swung open.
Home.
The apartment was small. One bedroom, a kitchenette, a bathroom barely big enough to turn around in. Furnished—a couch, a table, a bed I could see through the open bedroom door. Clean, but with the sterile emptiness of a place no one had ever really lived in.
On the kitchen counter: a stack of papers.
I picked them up. Official documents, all of them. Birth certificate—Cole Michael Harrison, born in Wichita. Social Security card. A bank statement showing a balance of $4,200. A letter from Smallville High School confirming enrollment for the fall semester.
And underneath it all, a newspaper clipping.
LOCAL COUPLE KILLED IN HIGHWAY ACCIDENT. Son survives.
The article was dated three months ago. The Harrisons—Michael and Laura—had died when their car was struck by a semi. Their only son, Cole, had been at school at the time.
Orphan. Inheritance. A sad story that no one would question.
Someone had built this identity from scratch. Or something had.
[BACKGROUND INTEGRATION CONFIRMED. HOST POSSESSES COMPLETE LEGAL IDENTITY. RECOMMEND: MAINTAIN COVER STORY CONSISTENCY.]
"Who set this up?" I asked the empty room.
[INSUFFICIENT DATA. SYSTEM INTEGRATION PREDATES HOST CONSCIOUSNESS TRANSFER. ORIGIN PARAMETERS UNKNOWN.]
Great. Even the System doesn't know.
I dropped the papers back on the counter. The apartment had everything I needed—dishes in the cabinet, sheets on the bed, even a few canned goods in the pantry. Everything except answers.
The morning light slanted through dusty blinds. I'd slept in the hospital chair most of the night, only arriving here an hour ago. The clock on the wall read 8:47 AM.
Sunday. School started Monday.
One day to figure out how to be Cole Harrison.
The bathroom mirror showed me my new face for the first time.
Dark hair. Cut shorter than I'd worn it before. Jaw a little sharper, cheekbones a little higher. The same general coloring, but different. Like someone had sketched me from memory and gotten most of the details right.
The eyes were the strangest part. They looked tired. Haunted. Like they'd seen too much.
Maybe they have now.
The stitches on my forehead stood out—black thread against pale skin. I'd need to keep those clean.
[INTEGRATION: 37%. PRIMARY POWER APPROACHING ACTIVATION THRESHOLD.]
I turned from the mirror. Time to test what I had.
The couch was cheap—particleboard frame, thin cushions. Maybe forty pounds total. I gripped the armrest and pulled.
Nothing happened.
"Come on."
I focused. The System had mentioned safe output, gradual scaling. There had to be a way to access it.
[ENHANCED STRENGTH AVAILABLE. CURRENT SAFE OUTPUT: 10%. RECOMMEND GRADUAL SCALING TO PREVENT INTEGRATION DISRUPTION.]
Ten percent. Whatever that means.
I pulled again.
The couch lifted like it weighed nothing. Like picking up a pillow. My hand didn't even strain.
"Holy—"
I dropped it.
Too fast. Too hard. The couch slammed into the floor, and a crack split the hardwood beneath it.
[CONTROL FAILURE LOGGED. RECOMMEND: PRACTICE FINE MOTOR CONTROL BEFORE UTILIZING STRENGTH IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS.]
I stared at the crack. At the couch sitting innocently on top of it.
I could have killed someone.
The thought was cold and clear. If I'd grabbed a person instead of furniture—squeezed too hard, moved too fast—
[HOST CONCERN NOTED. POWER WITHOUT CONTROL IS DANGEROUS. THIS IS WHY THE SYSTEM EXISTS: TO PROVIDE STRUCTURE.]
Structure. Control. The things that separated me from the meteor freaks who lost their minds along with their humanity.
I spent the next hour practicing. Lifting things, setting them down gently. A chair. A lamp. A can of soup from the pantry. Each attempt, I focused on the release—on slowing down, being deliberate.
[CONTROL CALIBRATION: 15% IMPROVEMENT. CONTINUED PRACTICE RECOMMENDED.]
The crack in the floor would need fixing. I'd figure that out later.
Smallville at midday was busier than I'd expected.
The main street bustled with weekend activity. Families heading to lunch. Kids on bikes. A few farmers in pickups loaded with equipment.
I walked the town slowly, mapping it against memories that weren't quite memories. The Talon sat on the corner—not a coffee shop yet, still whatever it had been before Lana and her aunt took it over. The Beanery, across the street, seemed to be the current caffeine destination.
The Luthor mansion loomed on a hill outside town. Even from here, I could see the turrets, the Gothic architecture. Lex would be there somewhere. Twenty-one years old, newly exiled from Metropolis, running the fertilizer plant that was probably poisoning the groundwater.
Don't think about Lex yet. One problem at a time.
I turned down a side street, following a route that felt familiar from late-night viewing sessions. Past the church, past the elementary school, until the town gave way to farmland.
The Kent farm appeared around a bend.
Red barn. Yellow house. White picket fence. It looked exactly like it did in the opening credits, except real. Three-dimensional. The corn swayed in a breeze I could actually feel.
And there, by the clothesline—
A girl.
Blonde. Tall for her age. Moving with an unconscious grace as she pinned sheets to the line. The wind caught her hair, and for a moment she turned toward the road.
She didn't see me. I was too far away, half-hidden by a fence post. But I saw her.
[BIOSIGNATURE ANALYSIS: INCONCLUSIVE. SUBJECT DISPLAYS ANOMALOUS ENERGY PATTERNS. FURTHER DATA REQUIRED.]
Kara.
It had to be. The blonde at the Kent farm, years before she was supposed to arrive. The timeline was already broken.
Or this isn't the timeline I know.
I forced myself to keep walking. To not stare. She was supposed to be Clark's cousin from Minnesota—that was the cover story, according to canon. A cover story for a Kryptonian who had somehow arrived early.
The questions burned in my chest. Why was she here? Did she have her powers? Did Clark know what she really was?
[RECOMMEND: INDIRECT INFORMATION GATHERING. DIRECT APPROACH CARRIES EXPOSURE RISK.]
No kidding.
I walked past the farm, memorizing the layout. The barn where Clark had his loft. The storm cellar that might already contain alien technology. The fields where a spaceship had crashed twelve years ago.
Tomorrow, I'd start school. I'd meet Clark naturally. And maybe—carefully, patiently—I'd find out why the girl hanging laundry at his family's farm wasn't supposed to exist yet.
The grocery store was called Smallville Market. Fluorescent lights, linoleum floors, the smell of produce and cleaning supplies.
I grabbed a basket and wandered the aisles. Bread. Peanut butter. Milk. The basics of survival.
The checkout line moved slowly. The woman ahead of me had three kids and a cart full of diapers. I waited, basket in hand, feeling the strangeness of it all.
This is real.
The bread was real. The money in my wallet was real. The seventeen-year-old body I wore was real.
"That's $14.87."
The cashier—a bored teenager with acne and a name tag reading MIKE—held out his hand. I paid. He bagged my groceries without looking at me.
Normal. Mundane. Exactly what I needed.
I walked back to Oak Street with my bags, passing families and couples and dogs on leashes. Just another kid carrying groceries. No one special.
[INTEGRATION: 43%. RECOMMEND: CALORIC INTAKE FOR OPTIMAL ADAPTATION. METABOLIC DEMANDS INCREASING.]
The peanut butter and bread suddenly seemed inadequate.
That night, I sat on my bed and stared at the ceiling.
The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. No roommates, no family, no TV running in the background. Just me and the System's occasional updates.
[INTEGRATION: 47%.]
Tomorrow was Monday. First day at a new school in a body that wasn't mine, with powers I barely understood, in a town where meteor rocks created monsters and the farm boy down the road would one day save the world.
And I know how it all turns out.
That was the thing. I knew. I knew about Lex's fall. About Jonathan's death. About the years of lies and heartbreak that Clark and everyone around him would endure.
Can I change it? Should I?
[HOST CONTEMPLATING TIMELINE MANIPULATION. WARNING: UNPREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCES LIKELY. RECOMMEND: CAUTION.]
"I know," I muttered.
The System didn't respond.
Sleep came eventually—thin and restless, full of dreams I couldn't quite remember. When I woke, the sun was up, and the clock read 6:30 AM.
Monday.
I dressed in clothes I found in the closet—jeans, a plain t-shirt, a jacket that fit like it was made for me. Probably was.
The mirror showed a teenager ready for his first day of school. Just a normal kid.
The System disagreed:
[INTEGRATION: 52%. ENHANCED STRENGTH OPERATIONAL AT 10% SAFE OUTPUT. RECOMMEND: AVOID PHYSICAL CONFRONTATIONS UNTIL CONTROL MASTERY IMPROVES.]
I grabbed my backpack—also pre-stocked, apparently—and headed for the door.
Smallville High waited.
And so did Clark Kent.
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