The sterile, fluorescent hum of Smallville Medical Center was a frequency Jeremy had learned to navigate with surgical precision. While Lex Luthor lay unconscious in the ICU, Anna Palmer was being held in a high-security observation room three floors up, guarded by a single deputy who was more interested in his lukewarm coffee than the girl who had nearly ended the Luthor line.
Jeremy didn't need a key. He didn't even need a badge.
Jeremy stepped into the darkened hallway, his Mimicry already shifting. He adjusted his posture, the set of his shoulders, and the weight of his gait until he was the perfect double for Dr. Miller, the night-shift neurologist. He pulled a surgical mask over his face, leaving only his eyes—cool, clinical, and devoid of their usual emerald heat.
He walked past the deputy with a weary nod. "Standard post-trauma assessment. I need ten minutes with the patient."
The deputy grunted and stepped aside.
Inside the room, Anna Palmer sat on the edge of the bed, her hands cuffed to the rail. She looked hollow, the withdrawal from the Shimmer Serum leaving her skin grey and her eyes darting frantically. When she saw the "doctor," she flinched.
"I didn't mean to... the light... it was everywhere," she whispered, her voice a cracked ruin.
"I know, Anna," Jeremy said, his voice dropping into a low, hypnotic resonance. He stepped toward her, his hand glowing with a faint, barely visible blue light.
He wasn't going to kill her. That was a messy, Luthor-style solution. Instead, he reached out and placed his fingers against her temples. He opened his internal Static reservoir, but he didn't release a bolt. He created a Localized Bio-Electric Pulse—a controlled surge designed to over-stimulate the hippocampus, the brain's filing cabinet for recent memories.
"You're going to forget the shimmer, Anna," Jeremy murmured. "You're going to forget the basement, the vials, and especially the boy who caught you in the dust. To you, the last forty-eight hours are just a blur of green fog and bad dreams."
Anna's eyes rolled back as the pulse rippled through her nervous system. It was like a hard reset on a corrupted hard drive. The specific, jagged memories of the serum's formula and Clark's impossible speed were dissolved into white noise.
She slumped back against the pillows, her breathing deepening into a natural, albeit forced, sleep.
Jeremy stepped out of the room, the "Dr. Miller" mask still firmly in place. He nodded to the deputy and headed for the stairwell, shedding the mimicry as he moved through the shadows of the utility closet.
By the time he reached the ground floor, he was Jeremy Creek again—the concerned friend, the quiet survivor.
He found Clark sitting in the waiting room, staring blankly at a muted television. Clark looked up, his expression a mix of relief and lingering guilt.
"Is he... is Lex going to be okay?" Clark asked.
"The doctors say he'll pull through, Clark," Jeremy said, sitting down next to him and leaning back. "And the girl... I heard the nurses talking. She's in some kind of shock. She can't even remember her own name, let alone what happened in that study. It's the meteor rocks, Clark. They burn out the mind as fast as they change the body."
Clark let out a long, shaky breath. "Maybe that's for the best. If she doesn't remember... then Lex doesn't have a witness."
"Exactly," Jeremy said, a dark, hidden satisfaction curling in his chest. "The secret is safe. The world is quiet again."
…
Jeremy walked out of the hospital into the cool morning air. He felt the Refined Shard in his pocket, now accompanied by a new, subtle vibration. He hadn't been able to "eat" the Shimmer Serum, but the act of scrambling Anna's mind had taught him something far more valuable.
He didn't just have the power to take. He had the power to Edit.
He looked toward the Luthor mansion on the horizon. Lex would wake up with questions, but no answers. Lionel would look for his serum and find only ash. And Clark... Clark would continue to believe that Jeremy was his guardian angel.
Jeremy smiled, the first genuine expression he'd allowed himself in days. He was no longer just a collector of powers. He was the architect of the truth.