Krypton was a profoundly contradictory planet. In the eyes of humans, its technology was godlike—yet when their homeworld was destroyed, its people were trapped on that dying world, unable to escape.
The spacecraft that carried Krypton's last son, Superman, was almost the only vessel ever produced under Krypton's spaceflight prohibition that possessed FTL (faster-than-light) capability.
Joey had seen too many stories like this—civilizations straying down alien dead ends—and he wasn't surprised. Every world was vastly different from the next.
Take, for example, the cold fusion core known as the arc reactor hidden against his chest at this very moment. Iron Man had cobbled it together in a cave in less than a week.
Yet in Joey's original world, even sustained and controllable thermonuclear fusion had yet to be achieved, despite investments of hundreds of billions.
The citizens of Metropolis were holding their annual Day of Remembrance. Twenty years ago, a meteor had fallen from the sky and struck the city center, killing and injuring nearly ten thousand people. After the disaster, a monument had been erected at the impact site to honor the dead.
Joey moved through the crowd, wearing his flat black-framed glasses, wandering aimlessly in front of the memorial.
But what had landed there twenty years ago had not been a meteor.
It had been a Kryptonian spacecraft.
Joey had once had an escape ship of his own. His adoptive parents had buried it beneath the barn. Joey hadn't wanted to live as a Kryptonian, and they hadn't wanted their son to learn too early that he was an alien visitor.
So they had spent fifteen years in quiet mutual concealment—until everything changed. The ship had been completely destroyed by Joey and the aftershock of Wrath, and Joey had chosen to push what remained into the mantle.
Fate could be that cruel. The thing he had once refused to accept was now something he had to seek out again—because he needed what was aboard a Kryptonian ship.
Kal-El might be worth saving while he was at it.
But the ship itself was more important.
It carried Krypton's database—knowledge centuries beyond Earth's. Even if it couldn't fix his time watch, it would surely have other uses.
"Crawling through the sewers... This sounds like something Batman or the Ninja Turtles would do."
After circling the memorial for a long time, Joey located the route to the classified research facility a mile underground. Part of it connected to a restricted section of Metropolis's sewer system.
He could have punched straight down from the surface into the base.
But in a place dedicated to studying Kryptonian visitors, that would clearly be a bad idea.
To be honest, infiltration wasn't a good idea either. Across both his lives, Joey's understanding of stealth amounted to little more than Assassin's Creed, 007, and certain films that weren't allowed on television.
But he had never imagined infiltration could be this easy.
When you could see every hidden camera inside the facility, move faster than security personnel could react, even faster than their sensors could register movement—almost every security system on this planet might as well have its doors wide open.
There were exceptions, of course.
Like the several-dozen-ton lead-lined steel door in front of him, secured by electromagnetic locks. Without authorization, no one was getting through.
Boom!
Joey punched a massive hole straight through it. Alarms instantly blared throughout the base.
So much for stealth.
Joey floated deeper into the facility. The door he had breached clearly led to the core area. The moment he entered, he spotted the room at the center—layer upon layer of lead plating isolating it.
Around it were numerous laboratories. Nearly all of them were filled with biological incubation tanks. Suspended in nutrient solution were grotesque shapes—defective creations made from Kryptonian genes.
At the sound of the alarm, researchers were already fleeing toward emergency exits. Joey ignited the red-sun lamps shining down on him with heat vision, then grabbed an older researcher by the collar and asked:
"Where is the ship?"
After entering the facility, Joey hadn't seen the Kryptonian spacecraft. There were too many areas his vision couldn't penetrate, so he had to ask.
The researcher, lifted off the ground and already terrified, couldn't even process the question amid the chaos.
"What?"
"The ship! The one that carried the alien—where did you move it?"
Seeing Joey's ferocious expression and the red glow in his eyes, the man shook his head frantically.
"I-It's not here… A few months ago, General Lane ordered it transferred to the Star Labs facility!"
Joey flung him backward into a row of biological incubation tanks. The impact shattered them, and the creatures inside awoke.
The first thing the malformed beings—bearing Kryptonian genes—did upon awakening was tear apart their creator.
Screams filled the lab as limbs were ripped free. The experimental subjects attacked everything in sight, triggering a chain reaction as more tanks shattered and more monsters were released, plunging the facility into chaos.
Joey sliced an approaching specimen in half with heat vision as a warning, then floated toward the central chamber.
Layer by layer, he peeled away the obstructing lead-alloy plates.
He was about to meet this world's Superman—one not raised by the Kents, but taken by the military instead.
No.
After removing the final lead plate, Joey saw a room no larger than ten square meters. Calling it a room would be generous, it was more like a cage.
A red sun beam from above shone through the semi-transparent enclosure year after year, bathing the prisoner inside and ensuring she had not the slightest strength to resist.
Yes—she. Inside was a gaunt Kryptonian, a Kryptonian woman curled up in the corner.
She wore a loose white lab coat. Her face was obscured by long golden hair, her expression hidden. Only her hands and limbs were exposed beyond the garment. Even without using super-vision, Joey could see the dense constellation of needle marks covering her body.
Bathed in red sunlight, Joey smashed through the prison wall and lifted the frail Kryptonian woman into his arms. For an adult woman, she felt almost weightless.
And in truth, she was.
She looked like someone who had survived famine—muscle nearly gone from her arms and calves, only thin skin stretched over bone. The skin of her abdomen clung tightly to her ribs, as if it might tear at any moment.
Joey had never seen another Kryptonian before. Even though he had prepared himself mentally for this visit, the sight of her condition still stirred something in him he couldn't put into words.
"Stay away from Subject One!"
The laboratory's lead scientist had arrived with armed personnel, having suppressed the chaos outside. She shouted at Joey:
"Don't be fooled by her frail appearance! She's extremely dangerous! You have no idea what she'll do if exposed to sunlight!"
"No."
Joey locked eyes with the head researcher. In an instant, he burned her to ash.
Then he revealed a smile.
"I know exactly what she'll do."
"And I'm going to do it to you first."