Chapter 10

Are we superheroes now?

“Well,” said Lucy gawking at the mansion from outside. “This is… nice.”

Alex carried Aiden’s unconscious body through the wide front door, which opened for them automatically.

“I can’t believe this actually happens in real life,” said Lucy as she stepped in.

“What happens?” asked Alex. He gently placed Aiden on the spacious center couch surrounding the expansive rectangular coffee table in the massive living room. He touched Aiden’s forehead and neck; he had a burning fever.

“Pretty girl runs into a billionaire in some random coffee shop, or a plane,” said Lucy. “I’ve read about The Billionaire Rancher, The Billionaire CEO, even The Billionaire Nanny… never a Billionaire Superhero.”

“It’s not mine,” said Alex. “It’s his.” He pointed the smartwatch at Lucy.

“No way…” she breathed. “That watch owns all of this?!”

“Apparently, yeah,” said Alex. “I only met him yesterday.”

“I’m not a watch!” came Clark’s voice through the watch. His blue ball exited the screen of the watch and was now displayed on the big OLED screen in the living room.

His voice now echoed from every speaker in the room. “I am…” He seemed to have paused to think, “…Clark!”

“This is just crazy,” said Lucy. “I’m not awake, am I?” She limped to the part of the couch across Aiden. “I need to wake up.” She crawled into the soft, cozy corner of the couch and instantly began snoring.

“She’s not dead, right?” said Clark. “Just asleep?”

“Yes,” Alex confirmed.

“Good,” said Clark. “Because I wasn’t a hundred percent when I saw you collapse like that.”

Alex wanted to ask how Clark was sure he didn’t need emergency medical attention, but he couldn’t speak. His body reminded him that he wasn’t fully recovered yet. He needed rest just as much as they did.

So at peace they were now. He wondered about the kind of horrors they must have survived through, together.

May they never have to again.

“You did good, Alex,” said Clark to him in a whisper through the watch’s speakers. “They are here, alive and well, because of you.”

Alex felt the corners of his mouth twitch into a smile. “What about the mutagens?”

“We’ll ask them tomorrow,” said Clark. “For now, goodnight!”

***

“Arrrgggh! What the hell is this? Where the hell are we?!” came the shouts of a young man. “Lucy!! Lucy, wake up!”

“Shut up, Aiden,” Lucy responded drowsily, her eyes still shut tight.

“Lucy! We’ve been kidnapped by an alien puppy!”

Alex rushed to the living room. He had chosen one of the many bedrooms on the ground floor to sleep in.

The robot blob was on the same couch as Aiden, who was cowering on the edge of it. The blob was still in his monster truck avatar, but one of its antennae had transformed into a long metal tube with a mean-looking syringe at the end of it.

“Stay away from me!” said Aiden.

A blue ball blinked into existence on the giant OLED screen in the living room. “No! You weren’t supposed to wake him. Bad dog!”

The monster truck-puppy whimpered.

“Why would you scream so loud,” said Lucy in a calm, sleepy voice, “in the morning!” she screamed the last part. “I was having the best sleep of my life!”

“Lucy, there’s a monster robot!” Aiden pointed at the robot blob.

“Blob!” said Lucy. “Change form. Something cute and snuggly. Now!”

The truck-puppy tilted its ‘head’ to the side and looked at curiously at Lucy. A couple seconds later, it transformed into a bright blue ball with a smooth, shiny, liquid-like body. It now also had large round eyes which were bluer than his bubble-like form—something straight out of a Pixar-animated movie.

The blob turned at Aiden and extended his round blue ‘arms’ like a lovable sentient balloon.

“See?” said Lucy. “It’s completely harmless,” she said confidently, then backtracked when she obviously recalled the events of last night; “to us,” she added.

“Oh my…” said Aiden, his tone completely different now. “It’s adorable!” Aiden picked it up and hugged it tight. The robot blob had a faint red blush below each of his eyes. “I don’t care what you are, I will love you forever.”

They were acting completely normal, thought Alex. As if the past couple of days never happened.

Or maybe, their minds weren’t ready to recall the events just yet.

It’s fine, thought Alex. Let them have their fun. Even if it is for a little while…

“Oh, hey Alex,” said Lucy after she spotted him. “You sleep well?”

“Yeah. Pretty well, actually.”

“Oh,” said Aiden, getting off the couch and walking up to him. The blob floated in the air like a balloon let loose. “You must be Lucy’s date. I’m Aiden,” he said, extending an arm. “Thanks for letting us crash at your house.”

“Shut up Aiden!” Lucy said with gritted teeth, squashing a pillow lying nearby.

“It’s not like that,” said Alex shaking his hand. “I’m just a friend.”

“He’s the one who saved us, Aiden!”

“Saved us… From wha—? Oh.”

It all came crashing back to him.

“We were in that alley, weren’t we? I was… I was shot, wasn’t I?”

Aiden suddenly bent forward to look at his belly. His knees began shaking. It looked like he might collapse any moment—

Alex caught him before he hit the floor. “Easy now,” he said to Aiden. “Come back to the couch.”

“How?” asked Aiden. “I don’t understand…”

Alex carefully guided him back to the couch. Aiden looked like he was in shock.

“I’m… I’m not dead, am I?” he asked timidly. He looked like he was preparing himself for shock and disappointment, expecting the answer to be yes. “Is this like the afterlife?”

Lucy almost spat out the water she was drinking. “No! You’re very much alive.”

Aiden looked confused. He looked from Lucy to the floating blob to Alex. “How?”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering,” came Clark’s voice through all the speakers in the living room.

“Whoa what the hell is that?” blurted Aiden, spooked.

“Turn the volume down!” Alex told Clark. “And choose one of these speakers, please. It’s like you’re everywhere all at once.”

“Sorry,” said Clark, still blasting out of all the speakers. “This better?” he said, his voice now coming only from the giant TV, with his blue ball avatar back on screen.

“Who are you?” Aiden asked him.

“He’s an AI,” said Lucy.

They both replied together:

“He’s not an AI,” said Alex.

“I’m not an AI,” said Clark.

Lucy was confused. “If you’re not an AI, then what are you?”

“I… don’t actually know,” said Clark. “I’m just Clark.”

“Can you… um… do you have feelings?” asked Aiden.

“I guess I do,” said Clark. “I bet they’re different than yours though. But I can’t, for the life of me, get my head around how.”

“You sound so human,” said Aiden.

“I’ve been told,” said Clark with a virtual nod at Alex.

Aiden was lost in thought. He looked around the room and found Clark’s half-torn armor hanging near the workstation. “Holy shit is that your body?”

“It used to be,” said Clark. “It was destroyed a couple days ago.”

“Wait, no way!” Aiden struck his palm. “You’re that superhero who disappeared into the smoke screen, aren’t you?”

“The superhero…?” Clark’s invisible virtual eyes seemed to have lit up. “Yeah. I guess I am, yeah,” he said. “How do you know?”

“I heard those soldiers talk,” said Aiden. “They were waiting for you to come out.”

“Yeah, well,” said Clark with a hint of shame. “I didn’t survive … that engagement. At least my body didn’t.”

“He took out the main boss demon along with his entire demon army singlehandedly, while also destroying the portal from hell in time,” said Alex. “If not for him, the entire planet would be either dead, or enslaved, or something unimaginably worse.”

Aiden looked at the giant screen with pure awe. “You are incredible!”

“I guess we owe you more than just our lives,” said Lucy. “Thank you!”

“Please guys,” said Clark. Was he embarrassed? “I was just fulfilling my—” he cleared his virtual throat, “—never mind, enough about me. How are you two feeling? Do you still have a fever?”

“I don’t,” said Aiden. “I’m feeling better than ever. Like I woke up with a belly full of ice cream and berries. Berry ice cream.”

Alex eyed him curiously. Was he always this energetic?

Wasn’t he shot like five times just yesterday evening?

“I had a fever?” asked Lucy, completely surprised. “I feel fine.”

“You did,” said Clark. “My assistant-pet here cared for you all night.”

The blue bubble woofed from mid-air.

“Thank you,” said Lucy, smiling at the bubble. “I’d give you a treat if I had any. Or if you ate any.”

The bubble seemed to be absolutely loving the attention and praise.

“Let’s rewind for a second here,” said Lucy, turning to Alex. “Did you say a portal from hell?”

“That’s what that red lightning was,” said Alex. “If it had managed to open… Well, let’s just say I’m glad we had a guardian angel watching over us. Quite literally.” Alex thought of how poetic it was that Clark’s home was actually atop a cliff overlooking Sol City.

“But if it was a portal from hell,” said Lucy. “Shouldn’t we be looking at… I don’t know… Shouldn’t we be referring this to the church or something? Or maybe talk to some experts of the occult?”

“I don’t know how that’d help,” said Alex, confused. “They weren’t those kinds of demons.”

“What do you mean?”

“They come from the Demon Worlds,” Clark explained. “It’s a group of planets in a dark quadrant in our galaxy, quite far from here.”

“But weren’t they opening a portal?” asked Lucy. “If they were on the same dimension as us, wouldn’t they just use a spaceship to get here?”

Alex wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “They did use a space ship to get out of here. But… I don’t know.”

“They use portals to close great interstellar distances in practically no time,” Clark explained. “It’s a common tactic they use to take an unprepared planet completely by surprise.”

“So they come from space?” asked Lucy.

“From a part of our galaxy commonly referred to as the Demon Worlds, yes,” said Clark. “Although I think the League itself is more accurately a tribe of nomads.”

Lucy looked even more confused than before.

“See?” said Aiden. “I told you there’d be a rational explanation.”

“They’re opening portals to get from their worlds to ours,” said Lucy. “How is that any different from what I had said? How is it different from the scary stories Grandma used to tell us?”

“Again, I don’t think they’re that kind of demons,” said Alex. “They’re more like an alien species.”

“I don’t know though,” said Clark. “It is entirely possible that historic human civilizations on Earth may have at some point come in contact with space-faring demons, and made interpretations of their own. There are so many references to demons and demonic creatures in ancient folklore, across cultures and modern boundaries. The evidence is overbearing.”

All four of them sat in complete silence for a full minute trying to wrap their heads around the implications of all this, while the blue bubble continued to merrily float around.

Were the demons from ancient folklore the same as these space-faring demon pirates?

How much of an influence have they had on human history and culture?

Where had they disappeared to? Why were they back now?

Alex knew no one here had the answers to that. “You guys hungry?”

“Starving,” said Aiden, eyeing the fruit basket on the coffee table greedily, which was only filled with apples.

Alex suspected that the robot blob must have collected all the apples he could from nearby trees before any of them were awake, but didn’t gather any other fruit. Perhaps because it had no data as to whether humans ate anything but apples. It had even placed a large kitchen knife beside the basket.

“Didn’t you say you felt like you woke up with a belly full of ice-cream?” asked Lucy.

“I meant that metaphorically,” said Aiden. “I could eat a bucket now.”

“Jesus.” Lucy sighed. “Where does it all go, huh?”

Alex awkwardly shifted in place. Sibling dynamics was a foreign concept to him since he had always been the only child. His parents never let him mingle too much with his cousins either.

“I’ll just go see if I can find something to eat,” said Alex. He immediately realized he had no idea where to look. Was there even a refrigerator here?

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

If yes, then why?

“Clark?” Alex called to him. “You got something we can eat?”

“Sure I do,” said Clark. “There’s canned human food in the bunker going all the way back to the Second World War!”

“World War 2? There’s no way it’s still good.”

“It says on the packaging that it’ll never go bad, in a fun big font and bright colors.”

Alex sighed. There was so much about the human world that Clark didn’t understand. “That’s just false advertising, mate.”

“What?!” He was appalled. “Why would they knowingly write something false in such an important manner? That’s diabolical.”

“We’d sue if the manufacturers were still alive,” said Alex. “Guess we’ll have to make do with the fruits.”

“Or we can order take out,” Clark suggested.

“Are you out of your mind today?” asked Alex.

“Don’t worry they’ll never figure it out,” said Clark. “I’ve been ordering stuff online since forever. I just send my drones to the pick-up spots. They think it’s for some rich fat recluse staying somewhere in the mountains.”

“What if someone actually shows up to deliver in person?”

“That happened a couple times,” said Clark. “Even though I strictly selected drone pickup. Trust me, I’d remember if I did otherwise. But they insisted I selected the incorrect delivery options, damn them. Anyway, I just ask my assistant here to transform into a fat recluse billionaire to collect the package and scare them away.”

The floating blue balloon woofed once again.

“That’s wild,” said Lucy.

“Well…,” said Aiden. “All I heard was pizza!”

Clark chuckled. “That can be arranged.”

“Wasn’t it ice-cream before?” Lucy glared at Aiden.

“Yeah, well, that too,” said Aiden. “Pizza is food, ice-cream is dessert.”

***

They quietly had their fill of food and dessert, ordered from a pizza place in a completely different city. Even though the inside of Sol City was an apocalypse, the world outside still functioned as normal.

Clark also ordered a fresh set of clothes for all three of them. He let everyone know that he values hygiene despite being a machine, while also explaining the nuances of machine hygiene to an inquisitive Aiden.

“I’m full,” said Aiden collapsed on the couch. “But I can eat more.”

“Classic,” said Lucy.

Alex was impressed. Despite not eating well at all in the past couple days, the pizza filled him up instantly.

Something felt off about Aiden.

“Are you sure you can eat more or were you just kidding?”

“No, I’m sure,” said Aiden. “In fact, can we go a second round?”

Alex looked at Clark concerningly.

“Of course,” said Clark. “Lucy how about you?”

“Tell you what,” said Lucy. “I wouldn’t mind a second round. Something heavier this time.”

Alex gulped. Their appetite was off the charts. “Say, um.” He cleared his throat. He didn’t want to seem offensive or make them feel embarrassed. “I ask this for a reason so please don’t take it the wrong way, but do you guys always eat this much?”

Lucy looked at Aiden. “He does.”

“What? No!” said Aiden. “I don’t eat a lot.”

“You once finished an entire large pizza by yourself!” said Lucy.

“Well, that’s not a lot,” said Aiden.

“You just finished half a large pizza.”

“That’s not true,” Alex cut in. “He actually ate a full. All by himself. And he’s still hungry.” Lucy and Aiden looked at each other weirdly. “Is that odd?” Alex asked them.

“Yeah,” said Aiden. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Alex looked at Clark. “Something’s up.”

“It’s got to be the mutagens,” said Clark.

Lucy reacted faster than a bolt of lightning. She was immediately in front of Aiden, shielding him in a defensive stance. She pointed the fruit knife at them, which Alex never saw her grab.

Alex was taken aback. The blue balloon ruptured a tear, chuffing air from its body and hiding behind Alex once it was out of air. It was just as confused.

“Look guys,” Lucy said in a careful tone. “We truly appreciate your help and hospitality, even though it was all for those glowing rocks all along. But let me make it clear, once and for all: We don’t know anything about them. We don’t know where we dropped them. And we’d like to leave.”

“You can’t leave yet!” said Clark. “We still haven’t talked about the mutagens.”

Clark thought he was being nothing but sincere and honest, but that tone didn’t land on Lucy.

“I told you we don’t know anything,” she said. “And we’d like to leave now.”

“You don’t understand,” said Clark. “We need to know about the mutage—”

“Clark, shut up,” said Alex. He immediately complied.

Alex carefully took a seat on the couch. He wanted to let Lucy know he was no threat. “We mean you no harm,” he said firmly to Lucy. “You can relax.”

“How do I know for sure?” Lucy asked, still waving the knife at them. “You telling me that robot won’t take us out if we try to leave through the front door right now?”

“Go ahead,” said Alex. “Clark, open the front door.”

“But Alex,” he protested. “What about the mutagens?”

“Just do as I say, please!”

The front door opened wide. The glass walls in the living room also retracted upwards. The robot blob took whimpered behind Alex. It obviously wasn’t scared of Lucy and Aiden. All the sudden hostility had upset him, like it would any normal dog.

“See?” Alex told Lucy. “If you want to leave, you can leave right now. But please hear us out first.”

“Why did you save us?” Lucy asked. “Why did you get us here? Is this a quid pro quo?”

“It is not, I assure you,” said Alex. “We got you here to save your life and nurse you back to health, that’s all.”

“What’s all this about the muta—whatever-the-fuck, then?”

“Mutagens,” Aiden corrected her.

“Quiet,” Lucy told him.

“The mutagens are the source of his power,” Alex explained. “They were scattered across the city when his body was destroyed. He needs them back, so that he’s ready to defend Earth once again from a future invasion. That’s all there is to it.”

Lucy’s facial muscles twitched. Alex’s sincere tone seemed to be working.

“What if I tell you we don’t have them?” Lucy asked.

“Then we’ll believe you,” said Alex. “And if you’re lying, we’d have no way to know. We’ll continue looking for the mutagens ourselves because they are important for reasons I already explained.

“Please,” Alex begged. “Relax. We mean you no harm.”

Lucy looked like she genuinely, desperately wanted to. But past experience seemed to have taught her otherwise.

She slowly relaxed her stance. “We don’t know anything about those glowing rocks. Do you believe me when I say this?”

“Yes,” said Alex. “I don’t think you have any reason to lie.”

“We found them—” She hesitated a bit before continuing, “—at least one of them, near the east exit. After the golden light shot up into the sky.”

“That’s it!” Clark jumped in excitedly. “That was me being split in two!”

“That was you?!” Aiden said excitedly.

“Quiet you two,” said Alex and Lucy together.

“You said at least one of them,” said Alex. “So you found more?” Alex obviously knew that they had. Clark’s receptors had picked up two blips. But he was trying to ease her into giving them the information on her own. Hopefully, this should help build back her trust.

And if she lies about anything, he’d know she didn’t trust them yet.

“Yes,” she said in a quivering voice, still sounding unsure whether to give Alex the truth. “We found one there and the other one near Darby Terminal.”

“You guys were running all over town,” said Alex. “Was something after you?”

“I’ll ask the questions now,” said Lucy.

“Okay,” said Alex.

“What does the name CalebGOD69420 mean to you?”

“The what now?!”

“The Boxing King!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Alex. “I’ve never heard that name in my life.”

“He’s famous,” said Lucy. “The fact that you’ve never heard of him makes all this even more sus.”

“But you hadn’t heard about him either, Lucy,” Aiden blurted.

“Aiden, quiet!”

“Lucy,” said Alex. “I swear I have no idea who that is.”

Lucy studied his face carefully. “How did you find us?”

“We were tracking an energy signal from the mutagens,” Alex said. “Clark can read them. They were part of his suit once.”

“Oh yeah?” said Lucy in utter disbelief. “Then why isn’t he going back to get them right now? He can just send one of his pickup drones, can’t he?”

“Because they are already here,” said Clark. “Inside you.”

Lucy dropped the knife. “What?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” said Clark. “They’ve been absorbed. I’m almost sure of it. I wanted to take a blood sample from each of you earlier to confirm, but that spooked Aiden.”

The blue ballon revealed its long, syringe-ended tail.

Lucy looked shaken now. “Yeah, well, of course! You can’t just draw our blood without consent.”

“I’m sorry,” said Clark. “I didn’t know.”

The blue balloon puppy whimpered.

“This is crazy,” said Lucy, finally dropping back on the couch. “What do you mean they’re inside us?”

“The mutagens are meant for biological life forms,” Clark explained. “Not artificial ones like me. I can only draw upon the crystallized power contained within them. But only through a biological, carbon-based life form can they fulfill their true purpose.”

“Which is what?” asked Lucy.

“Genetic mutation.”

“Oh my god,” breathed Aiden. “Oh my god!”

“So what are you saying, then?” asked Lucy, struggling to remain calm. “You’re saying we’re some kind of freaks now?”

“No!” said Clark. “You’re the same as before, but also different.”

“What does that mean? Speak clearly.”

“The natural course of your evolution,” Clark began, “has been tampered with. Accelerated. It will take a toll on your physical body, the effects of which we’re already beginning to see now. Increased appetite, energy. Who knows what else is yet to come? I have limited information as to how the mutagens affect the human anatomy because the mutagens vanished from the face of the galaxy long before humans were even born. I’m only making guesses based on past data, which is why I need to analyze your blood.”

“Is this why he had a fever last night?” asked Lucy. She seemed to be missing the fact that she had a fever, too.

Missing? Or subconsciously blocking it out?

“Yes,” Clark told her. “I’m certain the mutagens are the reason. Behind your fevers, and behind how Aiden survived five magnum revolver shots.”

Aiden’s breath skyrocketed once again. “So I’m a… a mutant now?”

“Aiden,” said Clark in an urgent tone, “can you please explain to me, in as much detail as you can, what happened in that alleyway?”

“Well,” Aiden began, nervous, “we were running away from this… gang. We also saw a giant crocodile demon earlier—”

“Stick to the point, Aiden,” snapped Lucy.

“Right,” he said. “Lucy said we should rest in that alley for a bit while she checks whether someone’s following us. Someone was. I guess they were tracking us with a drone—”

“The drone was mine,” said Clark. “They were tracking you some other way. I wish I had one of my battle drones, then I would have shot that man down before he even got the chance to aim at you guys. But I’m sorry, I lost all my battle drones during the attack on Sol City.” Clark sounded upset again. “Anyway, Sorry to interrupt you, Aiden. Please continue.”

“Right,” said Aiden. “So the man was about to fire at Lucy, and I pushed her away.” Lucy squeezed onto a pillow once again. “He said he heard me coming from behind, but I think that was just an echo. Or maybe… I don’t know. Then, he shot me.” Aiden breathed heavily. “Five times. I don’t know how I’m alive.”

“What did you feel when the bullet connected with you?”

“I…,” said Aiden. “I don’t know. The bullets never hit me. I felt some pain, for a moment there, but I think that was phantom pain. There are no bullet holes. There was no blood. I think the bullets simply passed through me, because… I felt like I sort of… glitched out of existence every time I was hit.”

“Interesting,” said Clark. “Very interesting.”

“I was only able to wrap my head around it now,” said Aiden. “But at the time, I honestly thought I was dead. I know it sounds crazy.”

“Not now it doesn’t,” said Lucy. “You’re some genetically-enhanced freak now.”

“Where was the mutagen absorbed from?” asked Clark. “Not that it matters. You may as well have swallowed it.”

“I have a…” Aiden cleared his throat. “…a circular burn on my thigh. On the part that pushed against the rock in my pocket as we ran.”

“Where was the second rock?” asked Clark. “Was that in your other pocket?”

“No,” said Aiden. He nervously looked at Lucy. “That was with Lucy.”

“Lucy.” Clark turned to her. “Can you show us whether you have the same kind of scar on your thigh?”

Alex awkwardly cleared his throat. “You can go to the washroom down the hall that way.”

Lucy promptly sprang from the couch and sprinted toward the washroom. In a couple of minutes, she came sprinting back with a panicked expression on her face. “What the hell did you do to me?!”

“Is that a… yes?” asked Clark.

“That is,” Alex confirmed.

“I told you those rocks were trouble!” she snapped at Aiden.

“I told you we should throw them away!” he snapped back.

“Guys, please,” said Clark as the situation started to devolve once again.

The blue robot balloon, that had been cowering behind Alex all this time, sprang forth and landed atop the coffee table. He then donned the form of a miniature wolf and let out a deafening howl that lasted a full minute.

Everyone covered their ears, except Clark.

The message from the robot wolf was clear: Calm down!

All those raised voices bothered it. It just wanted everyone to get along.

“I’m sorry little wolf,” Aiden said to it calmly. He looked like he felt genuine guilt for upsetting the robot.

“So,” said Lucy, who had also clearly calmed down. “So what? Are we superheroes now?”

“Like you?” Aiden asked anticipatingly.

“If you want to be,” said Clark. “But first things first. I need to monitor you guys for a few days. Analyze whatever changes your body undergoes. Keep a log of your emotional states.”

“What do emotions have to do with this?” Aiden asked.

“Everything,” said Clark. “Isn’t it true that the mutagens were absorbed into your body while you felt great emotional distress, or upheaval?

“Emotions have a lot to do with evolution,” he continued. “You didn’t think it was a coincidence that the most evolved species on this planet also happened to be the most emotional, did you?”

Lucy and Aiden remained silent, immersed in their thoughts and wonder.

“Perhaps,” Clark continued, “it is emotions that make me so different than all of you. You can feel in ways that I cannot. You can see the world in ways I can never imagine.”

Alex could tell that all of this, too, was painful for Clark to admit.

“I was never meant to harness their true power, no matter how much I wanted to,” he said with a heavy voice. “But you… You guys might just be.”

***

The gang stayed up chatting for a little while past that. All that energy that Lucy and Aiden felt in the morning was all but gone by dusk, and they were too tired to stay awake past 4 pm.

Consent was finally obtained to get their blood samples. Their bodies didn’t show any physical altercations, but Clark said they should watch out for those just the same.

Clark was expecting them to run fevers once again in the night to come, so Alex told him all about the proven home remedies that had always worked for him when he was young, perfected by his mother. Clark eyed him suspiciously when he did so.

The next day, a couple hours before dawn when the others were still asleep, Alex tip-toed to the front door. He was pretty sure that he was now cleared by the mansion’s security systems as a non-threat, so he should be able to open the door with ease.

It was just as he thought.

Alex carefully snuck out and closed the front door behind him, silently. He took a few steps away from the door and stopped to look up at the starry sky.

Did he actually want this?

No. Of course not.

He would love to just go back inside, wake up with the gang tomorrow, help Clark figure out what Lucy and Aiden's newfound powers were...

Damn. That actually sounded so cool.

But he can't, can he?

Every time he's tried to play the hero... something bad has happened.

And he didn't want that for anyone inside that mansion, artificial life form or otherwise.

He resumed walking in darkness. He decided that he’d turn his flashlight on only when he was past the estate grounds and deep into the woods.

However, he was barely a few meters away when the front door swung open and the porch light illuminated his back.

On the ground ahead of him, he could see a long shadow of what looked like a small dog bolting at him.

Shit. It had slipped his mind that those two never slept.

Alex turned around.

The robot wolf stopped a few paces away from him.

“You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?” came Clark’s voice from a speaker on the robot wolf’s head.

“I was going to do it over the phone,” said Alex. “Or the radio now, I guess. It would’ve been too hard, otherwise.”

“Then stay,” said Clark. “You don’t have to leave.”

“I can’t,” said Alex. “I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Clark cut in. He played Alex’s recorded voice back to him. “But I do this for you this one time. After that, I’m out.”

Alex shrugged awkwardly.

“You’re not cursed, Alex,” said Clark. “Whatever you did for those two proves that. They’d be dead if not for you.”

Alex felt his eyes swell. “I wish I had reason to believe that too.”

“I’m sorry if I said anything that offended you,” said Clark. “I cannot understand what you’re going through, and I don’t want to pretend that I do. But I wish we had more time to figure it out together.”

The robot wolf let out a sad whistle.

“Maybe some day,” said Alex, looking at both Clark and the robot wolf.

“The way you took control of that rapidly devolving situation,” Clark went on, “was pretty impressive. I need you here.”

“Don’t worry,” said Alex with a smile. “They trust you now. You’ll do fine.”

“And what about those two, huh? They seemed to have grown quite fond of you.”

“They’ll be over it in no time,” said Alex. “They barely knew me a few hours.”

“Something tells me that was long enough.”

Alex playfully raised an eyebrow at him. “Since when are you an expert on human interactions?”

“Fair,” said Clark. “Where would you go?”

“Back to the city,” said Alex. “Kenny’s in a hospital somewhere inside. That dude’s done a lot for me and I can’t just leave him there.”

“Didn’t Lucy say that there were demons hiding in the underground?” asked Clark. “Everyone on the surface is in imminent danger.”

“Which is precisely why I must get him out of there.”

“I understand,” said Clark. He then fell quiet, as though concentrating on something.

“Here,” he finally said. The watch on Alex’s wrist glowed blue. Alex was startled; he had forgotten to take it off. “I’ve installed a copy of the protocol I used to hack the robot dogs into it. Just point the watch at them from a stealthy position and wait about ten seconds. It should give you a ten-minute window to sneak past them.”

“Thank you, Clark.”

“It’s also a communication device,” said Clark. “Call for help if you need any. We’ll come racing down.”

The robot wolf woofed and wagged its tail excitedly.

Alex finally decided to pet him and the robot exploded with happiness. “Thanks to you too.” The robot wolf woofed once again.

“Damn curses,” said Clark. “I’m putting out an ad to recruit the best witches in the galaxy.”

“I don’t think it’s that kind of a curse.” Alex chuckled. “Or maybe it is, who knows. Maybe if I too become a superhero, it would go away.”

“Just say the word,” said Clark. “I still have one mutagen left.”

“No good can come from having power like that in my hands,” Alex said truthfully.

“On the contrary,” said Clark. “I can’t think of anyone better.”

Alex smiled. “Goodbye you two. And good luck with that ad.”

“Good luck with whatever lies ahead for you, Alex.”