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I hate that feeling.
When your toes and fingers turn to ice and the tiny hairs are on your neck stand on end. You’re dizzy and scared. And it always, always creeps up on you when you’re alone.
Thousands above me were restless in the football stadium, counting on someone to flip the switch, fix the dark death trap that had become one of the biggest blackouts in Metropolis; thousands were waiting for someone to save them.
That someone, as it so happened, was me. Chloe Sullivan. And only by chance, might I add, since I had counted on Clark being beside me. But Clark was busy saving people upstairs and that left me down where cables were hanging, sparks shooting off like roman candles. The fire that had started from the over heated generators crept over to the wall and was slowly circling around me.
But, so what? Chloe Sullivan hadn’t studied as side-kick all these years for nothing. I could handle it, and even if I couldn’t, it wasn’t like there was fire department behind me to back me up.
I handled the fire the best I could, sweeping the steady white foam from the extinguisher back and forth like I had seen in those safety videos you only partially pay attention to in high school.
It was smoldering hot, and the smoke stung my eyes and lungs, but that wasn’t what was made my body shut down and the icicle sensation spread to my toes. I had that dreaded feeling of needles racing up and down my veins while my skin felt blistered from the flames.
I wasn’t alone. Something was watching me.
When I saw it hiding among the shadows, I wasn’t sure what it was. The body looked human, but its skin… it was black, moving like a shadow against the flames surrounding the room. I watched it step through the fire towards me and that’s when I realized… it was metallic.
My first instinct was to run, but since it was between me and the exit, I knew that wasn’t an option. The way the figure stumbled towards me, the metallic surface of its skin flickering and shaking, told me that this thing was just as unstable as the blue strands of electricity arcing from fallen cables beside us.
It started making strange, screeching garbles, and as it came closer, its face changed shape, the surface of it a liquid metal. It was only in its last syllables until I heard it squelch something barely understandable.
“KKKKHHHHL-LLLLLL.”
Terrified, I tripped, crawling backward from the molten black devil, only to watch it stalk after me. It paid no attention to the fire, passing through it, unharmed, its body already black as if charred from an eternity of hell. It kept coming towards me until only a breath was between us.
It spoke, but there were no lips. And there were no eyes to look back into. The surface of its face only reflected mine, and I could see myself clearly, terrified, engulfed by the hot bed of flames around me.
I couldn’t think of anything to do or anywhere to run. Both the black figure and the fire now had me trapped in a corner and I was coughing, bad, the smoke starting to get deeper into my lungs. I used the only thing I had in my back up plan.
Holding the taser behind my back, I waited for the thing to creep closer to me, waiting for the most opportune time to sneak my attack, to gather enough time to slip by and flee. For a moment I rethought my strategy, the nagging suggestion that using a taser on this thing probably wasn’t going to work, but panic covered up my more rational thinking when its arm came towards me stretched like a liquid black snake, aiming for my neck.
At that point all bets were off. I didn’t want that touching me. Hastily, I pulled the taser and switched it on, making a direct connection with the slithering black coil that was inches from my flesh. Vibrating blue threads of volts made contact and it reacted in surprise, sending its black slithering appendage back into itself, its metallic surface warbling again like before.
Once the battery was sucked dry, I threw the cartridge at it as a last resort and started for my escape. I wasn’t sure if giving the monster an extra boost of power had helped my situation or hurt it, but as I was finishing cursing myself I observed something strange. Its body quivered and shook, the electricity not quite absorbed as well as I thought it would. It looked overwhelmed and drained.
While it was distracted, I crawled away on my knees and elbows trying my best to avoid the dark smoke closing in. I remembered why I had come down there in the first place, to figure out a way to turn the lights back on in that stadium. In the back of my mind, I recounted everything that had happened that night and consolidated that that NOTHING had gone according to plan. I was supposed to be sitting with my best friends watching a stupid football game, snacking on popped corn and cold drinks until my bladder burst. Instead my best friend had given me the kiss of the century in front of an audience of thousands which preceded a total blackout that was sure to make the headlines.
It wasn’t what I had planned, but through the past years I’ve learned a thing or two on how to think on your feet. Even though our friends night out was totally shaken up and I was trembling and burned, I crawled on my hands and knees trying to put the flames out while a strange creature chased after me. I guess it was typical of a Thursday night.
I grabbed the extinguisher lying on the floor and attacked the generator with more foam until a good portion was out. I looked over my shoulder, seeing that the thing was still recovering from the after shocks of the extra voltage, and as I turned to sort of the electrical mess inside the twisted metal box, I tried to reason why the black thing was acting on the fritz.
I didn’t get very far with my theories before the generator next to me blew up after a liquid black, metallic coil exploded into it, sending shards and sparks everywhere. I ducked, holding the red canister to my chest, inching backwards on the floor as the black thing advanced on me again, faster.
It had recovered, and this time when it spoke, I heard it clearer. Stronger.
“KAL-EL.”
I knew that name.
“Clark!” I whispered, the memory returning to me. Kal-El was Clark’s Kryptonian name. His birth name. My mind clicked again, realizing that if this entity knew Clark’s birth name, then it probably wasn’t just the average meteor freak. It was Kryptonian. And from my experience, anything Kryptonian wasn’t exactly friendly. I had meant Clark’s Kryptonian self once a long time ago. I still stand that Kal was the biggest prick I’d ever met, a polar opposite of the boy I knew.
Clark had mentioned how he feared the possibility of new Kryptonian arrivals from the second meteor shower that happened months ago. He was able to track down several and send them away, but he hadn’t found any others since then. I wanted to wave a bright red flag and scream bingo. I think I’d found one.
Once it had heard me scream Clark’s name, it stopped, its face changing, reflecting the orange flames in its black metallic skin. Its face morphed into something that looked a lot like my face, and it spoke again, with my voice.
“CLARK.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, entirely creeped out by how it replicated my voice. It sounded just like me, a deceptive little trick, and it moved towards me again, both arms extended and reaching. I desperately remembered what Clark had said to me before that night, how he could hone in on my voice. I wasn’t sure if he was being serious, and I hadn’t grown accustomed to Clark’s abilities in those early months after high school. It would be near to impossible for Clark to hear me over the thousands of screaming voices above me where I laid trapped under hundreds of feet of concrete in the basement. But I crossed my fingers and prayed that he could hear these last breaths before I burned to a black crisp.
I screamed for Clark, shrill and choked from all the smoke and ash. The Kryptonian mirroring me exactly, squelching my voice the same way, and together, it was loud enough to make my ears bleed, and my hearing slowly go deaf.
The screaming went on forever, and I felt my voice give out, dying painfully, as I coughed and wheezed, succumbing to the carbon.
But then there wasn’t any sound. I thought my hearing had finally died, the pain in my ears and head far exceeding any pain I had felt before. And I couldn’t see the black monster anymore. It’d been washed out by smoke and ash that whirled past my eyes, a grey mist where I was lost any further from two inches from my face. My hair whipped violently, and slowly my ears adjusted to where I could hear wind racing past me at incredible speeds. My body picked up from the floor, and I had to hold on to the nearest stable object to keep from flying away.
When the winds died down, the smoke gone, the fire was out, and it was dark again. Black like before except for the flickering of the cables arcing back and forth that interrupted the darkness. That’s when I saw the shadowed figured of Clark standing over the stairway, his lips puckered in this silly way that let me know he had just saved me by huffing and puffing like he had just blown out a million birthday candles.
My eyes were watery already from all the smoke, and I almost cried, not remembering ever being happier to see my best friend before. He was beautiful, his eyes bright and fierce over the inky room, and I smiled once I saw them float over to me and soften, his dark curls parted over them. “Chloe, are you ok?”
I nodded, coughing up the smoke that had gotten in my lungs. “Clark, it’s Kryptonian!”
I saw him change expressions, to confusion.
“What’s Kryptonian?”
I blinked, straining my eyes in the dark to feel out the monster’s black silhouette, but it wasn’t there like before. Had it moved, or were my eyes playing tricks on me? The blue flickers of the generator wires were my only source of light and as I scanned the room I only found Clark. He came down the steps towards me, only every other step down visible to me through the strobe of the electrical discharges.
“Clark, something’s in here with us. It’s been feeding on the electricity, and I think it’s been charging itself—“
“How do you know it’s Kryptonian?” He asked me as he helped me up, his eyes wider than before—and before I could open my mouth, it spoke for me.
“KAL EL.”
I grabbed Clark’s arm. It was behind us, only I still couldn’t see it. I could barely feel the charred air shift where the thing walked passed us, its black body camouflage in the dark.
“Chloe,” Clark pushed me towards the exit, but I didn’t budge. He needed me there just as I needed him.
“Clark, the generators.” I said, moving through the black to find my way back to the electrical cables.
“Forget the generators. If it’s Kryptonian then—“
“No, Clark, you need me, they need us!” I couldn’t fix the generators unless Clark took are of the black monster, and Clark couldn’t save the day unless I showed him how. “Neither one of us can do this alone!” I screamed, bumping into the metal box.
I heard Clark protest but it was covered by my own voice, way off in the corner. It was quiet and deceptive, like a molester reeling in its prey.
I could feel Clark stalking after it, and air moving past my legs with each cycle. I felt the black shadow drawing nearer and nearer until I felt something upon me. I turned around and flinched, finding Clark right beside me. “Oh, thank god.” I sighed, turning back to the box, “Have you seen it? Where is it?”
He didn’t answer, so I looked up from the wires.
His eyes weren’t blue. They were black.
“Chloe.”
I stumbled back when I heard my voice sliding off Clark’s tongue. But it wasn’t Clark. His hand moved towards my face and as his fingers turned black I fell away.
That’s when I saw Clark, the real Clark, step in between us, fisting his hands which he then threw into the imitator’s chest.
It went flying, landing into the side of the wall where it broke through, creating a crater in the cement floor, Clark speeding after it. I blinked, temporarily awed at the super smack down, then shuffled back to the generator box to work on my first objective. I wasn’t an electrician, but paying attention to my dad working on our fuse box behind the house helped.
I had everything in place, only I needed to weld the two cables together. I needed, Clark.
I yelled for him, and instantly he was there. At first, I flinched, unsure if it was him or the imitator, but the little light from the sparks lent to his blue eyes, and as he looked at me softly, I let out the breath I had been holding.
He gently pushed me aside, told me to stay back, and I watched as he lifted the five hundred pound cables effortlessly in either hand and fused them together.
His eyes flashed, and in the dark, they glowed, red emitting outward in a pair of red, string-like light. I had never actually gotten the chance to marvel over Clark’s heat vision, but that night, I saw my best friend turn into an arc welder, melding the fray of wires back together with ultimate patience. Electricity escaped through the welds, dancing around Clark’s body, but he didn’t even flinch. I watched as his chest became rock solid, flexing as he moved the cables around to seam the wires. It was amazing, it was super, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Clark’s eyes pierced harder down until he was satisfied with his work and silently, he nodded to me, signaling to flip the switch. I did, using both of my hands and body weight to pull down on the rusted, charred lever, connecting the outside source into the conducers.
The room hummed back to life, and the emergency lights flickered on above us. I smiled, and felt the stadium rumble to life, and I knew then that Clark had just saved the thousands above us.
But it didn’t mean we were safe. The new, dim, fluorescent bar that flickered on revealed the monster in a new light.
It had transformed again, into a smaller masculine figure. One that I had seen before and whose accent I recognized. It was the super computer Clark had encounter before,
“Milton Fine.” Clark sneered, resting the cable to the floor and then moved to stand in front of me protectively. I scooted to the side so I could see over Clark’s large shoulder. Fine paced the room, a sweaty grin on his face and spoke again in that strange dialect. Clark responded in the same tongue, and I clued in that they were speaking Kryptonian.
Something was said that Clark didn’t like, and the next thing I knew Clark was way across the room, an armful of Fine in one hand, the other hand holding a chunk of the collapsed wall way above his head. I only blinked once, and the room changed around again, the fight progressing faster than my eyes could comprehend. They were moving faster than I could think, and now they were on the other side of the room, Milton Fine pummeling Clark’s face deeper into the cement floor.
I blinked again and saw Clark crash into the cables he had just fixed, and now the seams were broken open, the lights above us flickering again. The connections working, but still unstable. Fine crashed after him, and fingers of the electricity crept over his imitation skin, making him groan and sweat. He hobbled onto his feet, wavering and swaying to regain his balance. Clark saw this too, and then looked to me for an answer.
And then it clicked together. Milton Fine was a Kryptonian super computer brought to Earth in the second meteor shower. If all of these electrical power failures were contributed to Fine’s desperate recharging, then he had to have a battery of some sort, somewhere to store his energy that he seemed to be shedding by the minute. Instantly my mind sifted through all those times I had left my trusty laptop on charge over night, only to discover that the battery had been drained lower than its prime. It was frustrating and cruel that simply letting the battery over charge would diminish its available power, but it happened, every time. The battery was so unusable that I eventually had to buy an entirely different pack.
So I applied observed conclusion into the practical. What if we “over charged” Fine’s battery and rendered him inert? I had tested my theory somewhat on accident when I shoved my taser into its body before. It seemed to lose control, its battery on overload. And now again once Fine came in contact to excessive amount of power. But we needed something bigger, something with more voltage than anything on Earth to kill an alien supercomputer’s charge. I looked up, and saw Clark’s eyes follow mine.
“Clark—“ I started to say, but before I even had a chance to blink he was right in front of me, his eyes reassuring me before his voice followed.“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
He nodded to me and turned toward Fine who was finally on his feet.
And before I had to chance to wish him luck, Clark and Fine were gone. I heard the crumbling of the basement ceiling where their bodies had missed the exit doors, and I ran after them even though they were far gone.
I raced up the stairs the way I had came, leaping several steps at a time the same way Clark had with me strung around his shoulders. Seconds later I reached the ground level and could see the stadium clearly now with the back up lights so strong that it pierced my dilated eyes. I squinted and shielded them from the lights and watched as the crowd rejoiced, saved, all smiling and oblivious to what all had gone down below them.
Blue jerseys waved in air, and the crowd was chanting as security guards took straggling looters into custody. I looked up to the giant screen to where the game clock was still ticking down, thousands cheering for the game to resume. Were they really going to resume play after what everything had happened?
I breathed in relief once I saw Lana and Lois running towards me, capturing my tense shoulders in a bear hug. I smelled of smoke and ash, but they didn’t let up, smothering me in a warm embrace that soothed my soul. The crowd was roaring as ever and it was only when Lois tore away that I realized everyone wasn’t cheering for the game, instead looking up into the night sky, passed the bright stadium lights and stars where far away you could see a redblue blur speeding up and up and…
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