Superman

by Matt De La Peña

  Bryan typed in: Corey Mankins.

  Lex typed: Kevin Sanderson.

  When the tablet finally got to Clark, he paused. He stared at the blinking cursor, trying to figure out what to write. Lex and Bryan shot him dirty looks. Finally, Clark typed: Kenny Braverman.

  One of the security guards waved them through.

  The hallways of the facility smelled new and clean. And it was quiet aside from the low hum of the bright fluorescent lights.

  “This way,” Bryan said in a soft voice.

  Halfway down a second long hall, Clark asked, “So, what kind of research do they do here?”

  “All kinds, I think.” Bryan led them through a labyrinth of much narrower hallways. “At least that’s what Corey told me. Wesley’s got projects going on in here that are far ahead of anyone else in the world.”

  They finally stopped at a two-way glass partition that looked into a lab. There were several dozen tables and chairs inside, but only one woman was working this late on a weeknight. She wore thick goggles and industrial rubber gloves, and she was carefully measuring chemicals into vials. Large, expensive-looking electronic equipment lined the wall in front of her. Microscopes and various machines sat atop a long stainless-steel table to her left.

  “What’s she doing in there?” Lex asked.

  “Chemical development and testing,” Bryan answered.

  “Chemicals for what, though?” Clark asked.

  Bryan shrugged. “Lots of stuff. This is where we picked up the supplement I’m taking.”

  Clark didn’t know what he was looking for, exactly. The place seemed like an ordinary science lab, and the woman inside looked like a scientist. He wondered if he’d even know it if he stumbled across something out of the ordinary.

  “What else has your brother shown you?” Lex asked. Clark had never seen him so eager. He kept looking all around, like he was searching for something specific.

  Bryan pointed toward another hallway, and the three of them headed in that direction. Halfway down the hall, just before they reached an antiquated freight elevator that looked out of place, Bryan stopped at another room. “Here’s the part I really wanted to show you guys. It’s one of their agricultural genetics labs.”

  There was no one inside, and the room was mostly dark, but once Clark’s eyes adjusted, he saw something that blew him away. There, on top of several tables near the window, were four ears of corn the size of small logs. Each one was at least four feet long and twice as thick as the barrel of a major-league baseball bat. There were other enlarged crops on nearby tables as well. Tomatoes as big as pumpkins. Stalks of wheat three times the normal size. A single watermelon so large that it sagged under its own weight and dwarfed the table it rested on.

  “Are these real?” Clark asked.

  Bryan nodded. “According to Corey, they are.”

  “But they seem so…unnatural.”

  “Dude, almost all farm corporations are experimenting on crops now. My dad does the same thing. You pretty much have to in order to compete in futures markets.”

  “It can’t be healthy, though. Or ethical.” Clark thought of his own farm. Everything was organic and natural. And the appropriate size.

  “Why not?” Lex butted in. “Genetic defects are freak occurrences, right? They’re not supposed to happen. Genetic alteration is nothing more than science correcting nature’s mistakes.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “We do the same thing with vaccines,” Lex added. “Treatments for cancer and other diseases. Are you saying we shouldn’t apply the same methodology to the production of food?”

  “Look how big that watermelon is. I get fixing genetic mistakes. But this is something else.” The freakish crops Clark was seeing didn’t sit well with him, but he was having a difficult time expressing why. “So…what if this keeps going on and on? Like, how would you feel if they did this to animals? Or humans?”

  “Ever heard of factory farms?” Lex grinned. “And you’re telling me you wouldn’t want to be bigger, faster, and stronger?”

  Clark shook his head. “Not if it took chemicals to make me that way. Or genetic alterations. I’d feel…artificial.”

  “Not everyone’s born like you, though, Clark,” Bryan said. “And you didn’t do anything to deserve it, right? I mean, I didn’t do anything to deserve to be born thin and scrawny. Why shouldn’t people look for ways to level the playing field?”

  Clark turned back to the watermelon, considering his special powers. What if he was the product of something like this? What if his powers were artificial?

  “Think about this,” Lex added. “If we can grow bigger and better crops that still taste good, maybe we can help end world hunger. Or at least drive food prices down. That’s a good thing, right?”

  Clark shrugged, ready to put this whole conversation on hold. This definitely wasn’t the best setting for some deep philosophical discussion about the future of agriculture.

  “Okay, Lex,” Bryan said. “We’ve seen the inside of the lab. It’s probably best if we get out of here now.”

  “Hang on,” Lex said. “Isn’t there anything else interesting we can see? I feel like we just got here.”

  Bryan shrugged. “I’ve only been in here once. And this is as far as we got. Corey said he wasn’t able to take me into the restricted wing.”

  “The restricted wing?” Lex looked down the hall before turning back to Bryan. “We definitely gotta keep going. Just a couple more minutes. You can’t tell me you aren’t curious.”

  Bryan looked around nervously. “Two minutes. Then we go, okay?”

  But Lex was already continuing on.

  Clark tapped Bryan on the arm. “If you think we should go, let’s go. I don’t want you getting into trouble.”

  Bryan shrugged. “I guess a couple more minutes isn’t gonna make much difference. Come on.”

  Clark thought about letting the two of them go on without him. But he knew he couldn’t do that. Instead, he switched his mind-set from investigating the lab to looking out for his friends.

  They turned down a hallway to the left. Most of the rooms they passed now were dark and empty.

  Clark froze when he saw the shadows of two stooped figures pass slowly from one hall to another. But when he and Bryan and Lex reached that spot, Clark didn’t see anyone. It was as if the figures had disappeared.

  As they came upon a large conference room, a voice from behind stopped them in their tracks. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

  The three of them spun around and found a large man in a suit standing just down the hallway with his arms crossed. He had blond hair and some kind of phone device in his ear.

  “We’re f-fine,” Bryan stammered. “I was sent here to track down—”

  “You have no reason to be here. This area is strictly off-limits.” The man raised a walkie-talkie toward his mouth, barking, “Security, we have a code red in section C, zone four. Request immediate intervention.”

  “No, I’m friends with Dr. Wesley,” Bryan pleaded. “He knows we’re here.”

  Clark turned discreetly to size up the large conference room. He tried the door, but it was locked. The sign above read RESTRICTED—PROJECT DAWN.

  Lex was staring at it, too.

  The man marched right up to Bryan and looked at his badge before shoving him against the wall. “You don’t have clearance, asshole. If I were you, I’d be looking for a way out. The men who are coming aren’t fully trained yet. Mistakes have been known to happen.”

  Clark’s ears tingled as he closed his eyes briefly and focused on the sounds all around him. A glass beaker tapping against a table. Water streaming out of a sink. Classical music. Several people speaking quietly in Spanish. A chorus of clinking chains pulled tight. And then Clark heard what he was listening for.

 
Footfalls in the distance.

  Three people, at least.

  “We need to go,” Clark barked at Bryan and Lex, taking charge. “Follow me.”

  The blond man stepped in front of Clark, who went to shove him aside. But the man hardly budged. He was even stronger than he looked.

  The man grinned and made a move to grab Clark’s arms, but Clark ripped out of his grasp and slugged him in the stomach.

  The man doubled over.

  “Whoa!” Bryan said, looking on in awe.

  “We need to go!” Clark growled. “Now!”

  Just then, three men dressed all in brown came racing down the hall toward them. All had shaved heads, and their eyes were abnormally dilated. Two looked Mexican, and one was black. Clark flashed back to the knife-wielding man downtown. The one who’d come after his ex-football teammates. He froze, trying to understand the connection, but there was no time.

  The blond man shouted up to Clark, “You’re screwed now!” He barked into his radio. “I repeat, code red. Lock down all exits!”

  The men in brown were only fifteen yards away now and closing fast. Clark grabbed Bryan and Lex by their arms and all but dragged them down the hall the other way, moving quickly as the trio in brown pursued. Clark’s powers came to him easily now. His X-ray vision allowed him to see through walls, into the rooms ahead. He led them along the labyrinth of hallways, and he was able to determine, based on sound alone, that a second group of men was now after them. The men were coming from the opposite direction, trying to pin them down.

  Clark spotted a closed door near the end of one hall. He hurried ahead of Bryan and Lex and tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Before they caught up to him, he quickly snapped off the doorknob and chucked it away. “In here!” he shouted, and the three of them ducked inside the dark room and closed the door.

  “Shit!” Bryan said under his breath. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “What?” Lex asked.

  “I just messed up my foot.”

  “Jesus, Bry,” Lex said. “What’d you do?”

  “I don’t know. I turned it over coming in here.”

  “Quiet,” Clark said when he heard the men coming.

  The three of them breathed as quietly as they could, listening to the men run right up to the door, then past it. After a long stretch of silence, Clark used his phone to illuminate the room. They were in some kind of large computer center. Fifteen desktop computers were lined up on a long table, all their screens showing the same screensaver: the Wesco logo. Clark couldn’t make sense of it. Wesley had a tiny, run-down office downtown. Yet he seemed to also own this secret facility full of expensive-looking equipment.

  And then there was Corey. How did he figure in?

  “Clark,” Bryan said between frantic breaths, “what am I gonna do? I can’t put any weight on my foot.”

  Clark checked his phone. No signal. But Lana had texted back: On my way!

  “They’re just trying to spook us.” The normally cocky Lex looked genuinely scared, his typical grin nowhere to be found. “No one’s actually going to hurt anyone, right? Clark?”

  “No one is going to hurt us,” Clark said.

  “Either way,” Bryan said, pulling out his phone, “I’m calling the cops. I don’t even care if Corey finds out I was here.” He stared at his phone for a few seconds, then slammed it against the tile floor. “Shit. No service.”

  “Me either,” Lex said.

  When they turned to Clark, he shook his head. “No service for me either.”

  While Bryan and Lex began arguing about whose idea it had been to enter the restricted area, Clark told them he’d be right back.

  “Wait!” Bryan called to him. “We should stick together!”

  But Clark was already out the door. He crouched in the hall, listening intently for footfalls or voices. He heard only footsteps now, and they weren’t close. Straining to make use of his X-ray vision, his eyes buzzing, he felt like he was rising toward the high ceiling. His stomach sank. Then his vision suddenly punched through the wall directly in front of him.

  Another dark room.

  He went through the far wall in there, too. And now he was seeing the hall they’d been in when the blond man had approached them. He saw two men in brown walking past the restricted area. He paused on the sign above the door again: RESTRICTED—PROJECT DAWN.

  What did it mean?

  When Clark tried to see through the Project Dawn wall, his sight grew fuzzy, and then he lost his X-ray vision altogether.

  It took everything he had to will it back, and this time he focused on finding a way out. Security guards were waiting near the door where they’d entered. And the blond man had a small crew with him at a second entry point. But then Clark spotted an old fire escape with no one nearby. It was clear on the other side of the building, and Bryan was hurt, but the fire escape was their only chance.

  Clark burst back into the room and explained the situation. “Bryan, you’re coming with me. I’ll help you get around.”

  Bryan stood without arguing and wrapped his arm around Clark’s shoulder. The three of them quietly left the room and began making their way across the building, keeping their eyes peeled for the blond man, anyone wearing brown, or security.

  Bryan and Lex were looking to Clark for guidance now. He couldn’t let them down.

  His X-ray vision was less reliable when he was on the move like this—it kept cutting in and out—but he was able to determine a few key pieces of information. The fire escape they were looking for was only accessible from the third floor. And they were on the first. He remembered seeing an antiquated freight elevator behind the genetics lab.

  “Here they are! Down this hall!”

  Clark spun to find one of the security guards pointing at them. Two men in brown came marching around the corner, gripping police batons. When they spotted Clark, Bryan, and Lex, they started jogging down the hall toward the boys.

  “This way!” Clark shouted at Lex. He hefted Bryan over his shoulder, and he and Lex sprinted the other way, out of the restricted area, back in the direction they’d come from and toward the elevator. As they gained a little ground, Clark kept expecting the men to shout at them, order them to stop. But they said nothing. Just hurried after Clark and Lex in silence, wielding their batons. They seemed more like robots than actual men.

  When they came to a fork in the hallway, Clark remembered that one way led toward the genetics lab. He had no idea where the other passage went. Before the men in brown could round the corner, Clark said to Bryan, “I need one of your shoes.”

  “My shoes?” Bryan said, anxiously pulling one off and holding it out for Clark. “Take it.”

  Clark tossed the shoe down the unknown hall, hoping it would at least give the men pause. He took off down the other hallway with Bryan, Lex following closely behind.

  When they made it to the freight elevator, Lex pushed the up button, over and over, but nothing was happening. “Come on,” he growled.

  Clark set Bryan down and peeked back along the hall. Still no sign of the men in brown. He hurried over and put his ear to the elevator doors but didn’t hear a thing. The old elevator didn’t work. He had to think of something else.

  “What now?” Bryan barked from the floor.

  Lex was now straining to pull apart the doors. “I can’t even budge them!”

  “I need the other one, Bry,” Clark said, and Bryan immediately ripped off his remaining shoe and handed it over. Clark hurried to Lex and gave the shoe to him, saying, “Go break something. A window. A lamp. Anything.”

  Lex looked at the shoe in his hand, and a devious smile spread across his face. “I can do that.” He spun around and continued down the hall.

  Clark wedged his fingers into the elevator doors and pried them open easily. He looked down. No elevator
car. He looked up. There it was, stuck on the third floor. But he also saw a gap between the elevator car and the back of the shaft. Just as he was turning toward Bryan, who’d been watching him the whole time, he heard a loud crash in the distance.

  Lex returned, out of breath. “Just took out a whole row of beakers. Hope there wasn’t anything important inside.” When he noticed the open elevator doors, he turned to Clark. “Jesus, how’d you—”

  “Hurry,” Clark said tersely. “We have to climb the cable.”

  As Lex raced to the open elevator shaft, Clark lifted Bryan again and tossed him over his shoulder. He carried him to the shaft, where Lex was already gripping the thick cable. “Up?” he shouted.

  Clark nodded. “Go!”

  Lex leapt onto the cable, wrapping his legs around it and beginning to climb.

  Clark could hear footfalls coming toward them now. “Can you climb?” he asked Bryan.

  “I don’t know.” Bryan looked toward the open shaft. “I can try.”

  But there was no time for uncertainty. “Wrap your arms around my neck,” Clark told him.

  “What?”

  “Just do it.” With Bryan clinging to him, Clark leapt onto the cable and closed the door with his feet. Then he scurried up the cable, quickly catching up with Lex. “There’s a gap in back,” he said. “See if you can climb up onto the roof of the elevator car.”

  It took Lex several tries, but he was finally able to shimmy up the small gap between the elevator car and the shaft and climb on top of the elevator. When Clark and Bryan got up there, too, Lex was already climbing down off the elevator, through the open shaft and onto the third floor.

  “What now?” Bryan said, after he and Clark got down, too.

  “The fire escape,” Clark said.

  “There,” Lex said, pointing out a large window half-covered in tar.

  Clark sprinted over and lifted the window, and the three of them climbed out onto the fire escape, one at a time. Clark threw Bryan’s arm around his shoulder again, and the trio hurried down the stairs, toward the street level. Lex hopped down onto the crumbling pavement first, then reached up to help Bryan. Clark leapt off last, his phone buzzing the second his feet hit the ground.