The hermetic doors of the laboratory parted with a quiet hiss, allowing a completely bald man to enter. His business suit, confident demeanor, and sharp gaze left no doubt that he had the authority to command here—not just as a representative of higher management. A man in his late years, wearing glasses with thick eyebrows and an unkempt brown mustache, immediately turned to face him. His short, disheveled hair was in "creative" disarray, dark circles under his eyes betrayed sleepless nights, but his gaze burned with enthusiasm. The lab coat hinted at his profession. The third in the room was a teenager, around seventeen, with short, jet-black hair that slightly stuck up above his forehead and bright blue eyes, though his gaze seemed empty and detached. Of the three, he was dressed most distinctively: a tight black-and-silver suit with gloves and a large "S" emblazoned on a pentagonal shield across his chest.
"Dr. Donovan," the bald man addressed the scientist, "I hope you'll delight me with how my hard-earned money was spent?"
"Mr. Luthor, this is our finest work," Donovan replied. "We accounted for the mistakes made in projects 'Match' and 'Kr,' as well as the defects identified during the subsequent life of the samples. I can confidently state that in Project 'Superior,' we've created a perfect clone who will not only possess all of Superman's powers but will surpass him in several aspects. For instance, we've already overcome vulnerability to Kryptonite and the inability of the body to absorb red spectrum radiation. The integration of modified human DNA from Project 'Genomorph-42' has also shown promising results, and we can already predict high psionic resistance once the sample's self-awareness reaches 'L-3' level..."
"Good," the bald man interrupted the scientist and turned to the teenager. "I see you've changed the suit design? I didn't know you disliked white..."
"With all due respect to Mark Desmond's work, he designed his suit in an era when we didn't yet have Apokolips technology. For its time, his design had excellent durability and helped the Kryptonian body absorb solar radiation well, but using it now is like grinding coffee by hand when you have an electric grinder. This version surpasses it many times over. It also provides an invisible mode when needed, is self-repairing, and can mimic ordinary clothing."
"I hope you didn't install an artificial intelligence or systems that allow remote access?" Luthor asked, his tone carrying a light warning.
"Not at all! Only an isolated neurointerface with a genetic marker. We fully understand that we shouldn't completely trust the technology provided by our alien partners."
"Excellent," the man in the business suit said, looking into the teenager's eyes again. "The first two attempts were failures. One was a mindless, uncontrollable berserker; the other was a stubborn fool obsessed with imitating Superman and lacking even a fraction of my intellect. But I won't make a mistake with you. I had to modify almost every nucleotide in my own genetic code before integrating it into yours began to enhance you rather than weaken you. I could say that through creating you, I've come to know myself better than anyone else in the world."
"Mr. Luthor, I'm afraid that while he can hear us, he's not yet capable of understanding such complex matters," the scientist felt compelled to warn. "His self-awareness is only beginning to unfold from the implanted psychomatrix, and this is not an instantaneous process."
"I know, but let him remember these words—they mark the beginning of his life," the man said without turning his head, continuing to study the features of the Superman clone's face. "You will become the best continuation of my genetic line. The best continuation of me. A living example of human intellect triumphing over alien muscle. Maybe you'll even kill me," the man chuckled at some private joke, "but in any case, you will become the true leader for humanity. Born of human intellect, human effort, and human blood—not descended from the heavens."
Silence hung in the room, quickly becoming awkward for the scientist. Without much thought, he decided to break it by changing the subject:
"Mr. Luthor, may I ask where you're sending him?"
"Far from the other projects and the habitat of his original. With Project 'Kr,' I underestimated the human factor: lab personnel and mindless lackeys are not the best environment for shaping a personality and instilling the right ideas. But that's not your concern, Dr. Donovan. Tell me, has the condition of that metahuman woman who donated the egg cell changed?"
"Unfortunately, no—the damage is too extensive. We're doing everything we can, but even with the technology of our alien partners, healing will take no less than several years. That technomagic virus..."
The conversation continued, but the two men, engrossed in their discussion, didn't notice that the boy, who had been standing motionless, suddenly shuddered, and his gaze began to come alive.
Consciousness Returns
Consciousness returned slowly and hazily, like after a deep sleep that hadn't fully restored me. Blinking and focusing on the colorful blobs in front of my face, trying to piece them into recognizable shapes, I didn't immediately realize what I was seeing. My last memory was of flying backward onto the asphalt, slipping on an invisible patch of ice under a thin layer of fresh snow—ice that some juvenile idiots had trampled into a slide. The kind of slide you jump onto and glide along with your soles, and the kind that juvenile idiots always make not somewhere out of the way, but right where people walk the most. Only the space around me now bore no resemblance to a winter street, or any medical facility I'd ever seen (and waking up in one would have been expected after losing consciousness from a blow to the head).
First, I was standing—vertically, on my own two feet, unsupported—not lying on a bed or anywhere else. Second, the surroundings were more like something out of a Saren or Cerberus lab from Mass Effect than anything you'd find on Earth. I didn't have to look far for an example—right next to me were large glass tanks filled with liquid, in which floated some organisms that couldn't be mistaken for human, even in a drunken stupor, they were so grotesque and twisted. But there was also a "third" thing, which looked like... um... cartoonish grafonium. Seriously, the objects around me, the space, even my own body—everything had a suspiciously incorrect color palette, tending toward brighter, more contrasting colors, like in a very high-quality drawn picture, but still a drawn picture.
Staring in shock at the room before me, I didn't immediately realize that two men were standing nearby, talking about something. Maybe my hearing returned a little later than my vision—I don't know—but either way, a disheveled, mustached man in a lab coat and a distinguished man with a smoothly shaved head were having a businesslike conversation. The man in the coat wasn't familiar to me, unlike the bald man, who—no matter how hard I tried—I couldn't remember where I'd seen him, but I was absolutely certain I had, and for some reason, that realization shook something inside me.
But just as I internally resolved to call out to them, to get at least some information and clarify what was happening, the universe apparently decided I hadn't had enough impressions and that the limit of shocking, sudden twists hadn't been reached.
An explosion occurred above my head.
Like a slow-motion video, chunks of concrete flew through the lab, smashing equipment and filling the air with dust. The blast wave sent the two men next to me flying. I, however, remained standing, feeling only a slight gust of wind. And a good dose of shock, of course. Events continued—the damaged equipment began to explode and short-circuit, and liquid leaked from the cracked tanks containing the grotesque creatures. Finally, my brain registered that I needed to do something, find shelter at least.
But as I realized in the next second—today was not my day.
No sooner had I begun to move than a teenager's body flew out of the hole in the ceiling, heading straight for me. I didn't even have time to be relieved that it was intact and not the bloody remains of some dead lab assistant before it kicked me square in the chest.
The blow was powerful, and before I knew it, I was flying backward. I didn't fly far before my back slammed into what felt like a wall, and then I fell onto a metal platform.
There was no pain yet—probably shock. Something buzzed and sparked above my head, but I couldn't react to it yet—I was trying to understand what was happening and where I was. Explosions, teenagers with the force of a battering ram... And then my thoughts were interrupted by what I saw in front of me. It was a simple polished metal panel, and in it, I saw my face. But it wasn't my face! It was the face of the guy who had just kicked me!
After that thought, I looked up and saw the aforementioned teenager moving toward me with a very serious and determined expression. And you know what? He was wearing a tight black T-shirt with a large red "S" emblazoned on a contoured shield across his chest.
And then it started to dawn on me... And scenes from the Young Justice cartoon began flashing before my eyes, because the bald man in the business suit, the futuristic lab, and the guy who looked exactly like the most famous Superman clone—well, those were telling facts...
Maybe I'd gone crazy—I don't know, but the logical chain formed instantly. It was outright insane and stupid, but there was no other explanation, and the existing one whirled in my head like a wild dance. So what was happening? Had I actually died and now found myself in the body of a cartoon character? Wait. Stop. The bald man in the suit, the "S" on the teenager's chest, the teenager himself with a kick like a battering ram, and my reflection looking like him... Had I ended up in the body of another Superman clone?
Oh, hell no, send me back! This is one of the most psychopathic versions of the DC world, where not a day goes by without the threat of global annihilation! The third season was absolute nonsense—I couldn't even watch it! Even a Superman clone would be depressed by the sheer number of parahumans and the chaos they create!
My hysteria was interrupted by a sound from beneath me, and a bright light flashed in my eyes...
Aftermath
"Donovan, what is this machine?" Luthor asked, barely recovering from the impact, immediately noticing the activation of the equipment into which Project "Superior" had fallen. Of course, he first tried to recall what this device was for, but he couldn't remember.
"It's a teleporter, or rather, its prototype," the scientist replied. "When you sent us the files from the Death World, one of the employees discovered this machine there. A request was sent to you for permission to build it, and the response was positive." Luthor began to recall that something like this had indeed been among the files, and the artificial planetoid did contain an abyss of various technologies collected by Mongul from across the galaxy. "The device needed to undergo a few more tests, after which we planned to move it to another department for detailed studies of the physics of teleportation."
"What will happen to Project 'Superior'?!" the billionaire snapped, feeling nervous sweat break out on his forehead.
"Unknown. Either the teleportation will succeed, or it will scatter him into atoms. But even if he survives, the consequences will be unpredictable."
No sooner had the doctor fallen silent than the room was pierced by the scream of the teenager trapped in the device. He began to rise above the floor, and the light grew brighter. Neither Superboy nor the other superheroes descending through the hole in the ceiling could do anything—the room was flooded with a flash of light, and when everyone's vision returned, they saw that where the device containing the clone had stood, only a few twisted pieces of equipment remained. And security was already storming into the room...