@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Superboy nodded
“Call Lex? Huh. You must really be spooked.
If we run into trouble, my priority is protecting the both of you and getting you out of here. Regardless if the download is complete.”
Conner flew over towards the wall and punched it. He created a sizeable dent in the wall.
“……..”
he punched it a few more times, before knocking the wall down. On the camera feed, the wall in the room with the corpse falls over and Conner is seen on camera. -c-
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor -c- Conner covers his nose and approaches the corpse, taking a close look at it. He sees a name tag on its shirt and leans in to take a closer look. After a moment he steps back, a confused expression on his face. He starts searching the room quietly, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Meanwhile, one of the ‘mannequins’ slowly turn their heads somewhere off camera, seemingly on their own
@SteelKon @JaguarAvatar "I'm not 'spooked'. I would never call Lex if I was afraid," she stated bluntly. "I'm only using him as a threat... And if that message would scare anyone, it'd be him.
"I'm going to ask one of you to grab a DNA samp—" Lena reaches up and puts her sleeve over her nose as the smell hits her. She groans, a wave of nausea washing over her. "... Sample... Also, be careful. Those mannequins are robots. They're probably going to attack you."
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon “Robots?”
Ivette let out a satisfied growl, a smile coming onto her face
“No holding back then if they try anything…and if I see that creepy guy, I’ll…”
She took a deep breath, calming herself down
“…I’ll politely ask him…I’ll /encourage/ him to tell us what his deal is.”
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Conner took the name tag from the corpse’s shirt
“…Don’t have an official way to take his DNA, but I think his name would be on this thing. And if the name matches the name tag then…”
The ‘mannequins’ begin to walk off screen slowly, shambling in a very unnatural way
“…I think I can safely say that Lena is…”
Conner turns around suddenly
“…holy shit…”
Conner rushes out of the room, back toward the others, as the -c-
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor -c- shadows of shambling figures appear on camera
“…Okay. So they’re…slow as hell…and they smell just as bad as the corpse…but they don’t seem to be a threat. They’re too slow for that.”
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon Ivette growled
“Christ, can’t that thing move any faster, Lena?”
The ‘mannequins’ seemed to freeze the moment Ivette mentioned Lena’s name.
Meanwhile the man on the camera feed seemed to laugh, shaking his head and mouthing something
The ‘mannequins’ began to pick up speed, making their way towards the hole in the wall
“…Uh…Superboy? You said those things were slow, right?”
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Conner got in a fighting stance next to Ivette
“…Well, they were…They didn’t seem too interested in me.”
the ‘mannequins’ stared at the pair for a moment before getting on all fours, sprinting towards them
“Oh what the f-…”
One of the ‘mannequins’ leapt towards Conner and attempted to tackle him. He quickly grabbed it and tossed her away, throwing her towards another charging figure
“OKAY. FINE THEN.”
@SteelKon @JaguarAvatar Lena looked towards the opening, now looking panicked. She had a thought. A horrible, sickening thought as she watched them charge.
She stood up from her seat, facing them across the room. "Lena Luthor!" She shouted.
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon the mannequins suddenly stopped, slowly turning their bodies towards the sound of Lena’s voice. Jaguar pushed one of them off herself, her claws scratching them and drawing blood
“…They…aren’t robots? At least not entirely…”
The figures twitched and moved erratically towards Lena, as if they were wrestling with their own movements, fighting against what they wanted to do
“…what the hell is going on?”
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor “Lena, for the love of god tell me you got that thing ready to go! We need to move!”
he squinted, staring at one of the mannequins. He used his X-Ray vision, or at least as much as he could. He covered his mouth, a look of horror on his face
“…Jesus…I…don’t think they’re entirely alive anymore…their insides are…rotting.”
@SteelKon @JaguarAvatar Lena looked horrified, but remained still as they came towards her, a tear escaping from her eye. She seemed to be fighting the instinct to run away.
"... Clementine, is that you?" Lena asked in a small, broken voice.
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon a voice from the computer begins to speak, in a robotic text to speech tone.
[Not quite. Almost. But not quite.]
The figures kept staring at Lena, tears falling down their eyes when they heard the name Clementine. Their expressionless faces suddenly shifted to sadness, before slowly becoming enraged
[They were…a mistake. But the emotional one refused to get rid of them. Perhaps as an admission of guilt over what he has done. We believe he wanted them to be found.]
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Conner quickly moved in front of Lena, getting between her and the approaching figures. He stared at the computer for a moment, before reading into his pocket. He pulled out the nametag he found on the corpse. He stared at the name, muttering quietly
“…Gerald Hartwin…what…what did you do?”
@SteelKon @JaguarAvatar Lena's hands turned to fists at her sides and her body began to tremble with anger, tears still running down her face.
"... You copied her... Why?!" Lena demanded. "What did you do to her?!"
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon Ivette was seething with rage. She snarled, sniffing the air before storming off.
[…Incorrect. At least on these failures. The prime body was…initially incapable of being copied perfectly. It seemed the direct copies were always destined to fail, one way or another. A breaking point was hit. It is amusing. Had he held out longer, a solution would have presented itself eventually. Thanks to a certain rogue AI.]
The man on the camera feed smiled at the camera. -c-
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon -c- Meanwhile, Ivette could be seen on the cameras, marching past the room where the figures once stood.
[…before that solution presented itself, he tried to cheat his way. Encouraged by his wife.]
The man on the camera looked back at the missing persons posters. He reached over and pulled one off the wall, showing it to the camera. There was a girl on the poster. She had a visual similarity to Clem, but was obviously a different person -c-
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon -c- [Grief makes humans irrational and stupid. He programmed the mind. But the body…needed adjustments.]
Ivette appeared on camera again, in the same room as the corpse. She was pacing around the room, searching for something.
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Conner stared at the missing person’s poster and then stared back at the figures in front of them
“……How many…how many did you take?”
Conner slammed his fist on desk, nearly causing the computer to tip over
“How many lives did you destroy? How many families did you break? And for what? Why do this? What kind of monster are you?”
@SteelKon @JaguarAvatar *iLena*. They were talking about iLena. She changed everything simply by existing. She thought of her, of all the clones of herself that weren't viable because Lex wanted them so be human so desperately. She thought of all the dead clones she'd seen in his files.
... But Lena knew why her own DNA was corrupted. Why was Clem's? And why were all these copies made unless...
Lena had been puzzling the pieces together, and was only now fitting it all together.
--
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon [How dare you.]
The man on the screen looked enraged. He began typing furiously
[You stupid child. The original Gerald loved his daughter. He was solely motivated for his daughter. But every experiment failed. Each resulted in failure. The toll that takes on someone can drive them to do unspeakable things…in the end he couldn’t live with himself and the actions he had to take. That’s why we exist.]
Ivette begins scratching at the floor.
The man on the video -c-
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon -c- feed looks up briefly, before looking back at the camera
[…Seems time is running short. But thankfully, in the end, that rogue artificial intelligence showed us a way. And we took advantage. We no longer needed the original Gerald. And he willingly agreed to let us…take the burden. We could continue where he left off. But we would not be held back by his morals. We could create the ideal daughter. One not held back by her…flaws. Which she had many -c-
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon -c- of. Imagine, if you will. A way to ‘edit’ a person. Make them the way they should be. That way, they will not fail. They will not die…or at least that’s the way it should have been. Her encountering you changed her. Her flaws resurfaced.]
the man shook his head in disappointment
[All that work. And she was the most successful iteration. And yet, it was curious. Why? How can all that work be undone by just your presence?]
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Conner clenched his fists and spoke with anger in his voice
“You can’t just…rewrite a person without erasing who they were! What you were trying to create would not have been his…her daughter! It wouldn’t have been Clem! Jesus, what is with you geniuses and not seeing this?”
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon The other Gerald shook his head
[…You sound like he did. At the very end of his life. He used to see things our way. If we could bring her body and mind back to the way it was, how soon would it be before she died tragically again?
It started off small. A few changes here and there. But we realized we had to convince him to go further. While the body recreation we had no part in…the simulations of the mind? All we had to do was ensure failure after failure. -c-
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon -c- the direction we wanted, we had to orchestrate some of her demises.
Gerald never caught on to what we were doing. But what we didn’t anticipate was the effect on his mind. The ordeal broke him. Having to fail time and time again while his daughter’s original lay in th-…]
At that moment, Ivette tore a panel off the floor, revealing a trap door. She opened it and looked down, just as the man on the camera looked up. He slowly looked at the back at the-c-
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon -c- camera and gave a sinister smile
[Seems my time is up. And you still seem blind to reality. If you knew the full truth, you would have supported us. But you’ll find out soon enough.]
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor @JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Conner looked back an Lena in surprise, before staring at the screen
“…tell us everything or our little Jaguar friend is going to treat you like a scratching post….”
he stood there quietly for a few seconds before muttering
“…original?”
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon The notification sound was heard from the man’s computer. He smiled, typing in the box
[Our conversation is over.]
“The hell it is!”
she grabbed ‘Gerald’ by the head and pulled him up, dragging him out of the room. The man didn’t scream. He had a blank expression as Jaguar dragged him down the hall and towards the room Lena and Superboy were
“This monster better start talking! Or I don’t know if I’ll hold myself back.”
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor As Jaguar and ‘Gerald’ came into view, the ‘mannequins’ turned their heads, twitching
Conner looked at them, with a look of growing concern on his face
“…I…uh…maybe I should keep an eye on these girls. And…Jaguar? Don’t forget. We aren’t monsters. We’re heroes. Don’t kill him. As…tempting as that is right now.”
@SteelKon @JaguarAvatar "Clem wouldn't want you to hurt him too badly," Lena said, and looked at the 'mannequins'. She had a regretful look in her eyes. "She has a compassionate heart."
She looked back towards the computer and started looking through some of the files. "Something in wrong with these computers. It shouldn't be this slow, and he shouldn't have been able to do anything on his end without me seeing."
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon Ivette let go of the man’s head, her claw marks having left a small trail of blood
“…You’re right…”
‘Gerald’ shook his head and smiled, before speaking in a strained tone, as if his real voice hadn’t been used in some time
[“You’re observant. Despite all that, you should get all the files. But…the trade off was necessary. We got what we needed. And my final command was completed. I see no need to speak to you any more. -c-
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon -c- Until next we meet.”]
And with that, his face became blank. He simply stared off into nothing
@JaguarAvatar @HeartOfALuthor Conner stared at the man, his eyes focusing on his neck suddenly
“…the power dampeners still have a lingering effect but…I can party see through him. He’s…got a chip near the back of his neck. Just like…”
Conner turned his head to Lena before stepping forward. He waved his hand in front of ‘Gerald’’s face, and poked his forehead. The man didn’t respond.
@SteelKon @JaguarAvatar "... Do you think he transferred his consciousness into another body? Or maybe just... Killed himself? Do they have more of them?" She took the USB from the computer.
"... I'm concerned he's done something to the... Clems..." She didn't like the sound of that. "We need to look deeper. We can't leave yet..." She looked at Conner. "Not you. You have to leave. This place is draining your power, maybe including your invulnerability. No offense Conner, but you aren't --
@HeartOfALuthor @SteelKon “The dampeners don’t seem to work on me. Possibly due to my powers being mystical. Science and mysticism aren’t a strong pair…
…If you’re worried about her, I’ll stand by her and protect her. After all, both of us are friends of Clem. I feel like we need to solve this mystery…
…back in the lab where…this guy was…”
she shoves ‘Gerald’ and he falls over
“……there was a whole other room. Maybe the answers we seek are down there.”
Conner Kent
𝕷𝖊𝖓𝖆 ⋆
Ivette Velez / The Jaguar