X- Mark the spot

"So, what's your professional advice? We just stay here?" Clark asked.

Jessica rolled her eyes and went back to her surveillance. They were both on the top of a building, looking down on the movement of the people and the cars below, waiting for Dr. Okamura to finally get out from his clinic on the other side of the street.

"It's a stakeout," she answered. "What were you expecting? Some Sherlock Holmes bullshit? Did you want me to break into his clinic, lick some old wine stain from his lab coat and deduce, by taste and smell alone, that he is hiding the kidnapped people in a fucking wine cellar on Cordoba?"

Clark sighed; and waited, because he knew by now that she wasn't done.

"If Sherlock Holmes was realistic, there would be a lot less witty battles against Moriarty and a lot more of him and Watson watching people boning in dark alleys," she put her binoculars down. "But then I suppose the target audience would be completely different."

Lots and lots of sarcasm aside, Clark was glad Jessica decided to help him. She managed to find Dr. Okamura's clinic in a couple of hours with only a surname and a sketch of his face that he did on the spot. She could be foul mouthed and probably an alcoholic as well, but she was also an excellent private investigator.

Dr. Okamura's full name was Daniel Okamura and he was a geneticist of relatively renown. Among his published researches, the one that got the most attention was a study he did on mutants or, more accurately, a study he did on non-mutants that carried the so called X-Gene.

Clark hadn't read the whole thing, but the study went on how it was common knowledge that mutants carried the X-Gene, which usually was activated during puberty, resulting in the mutations or powers that the mutants had. What wasn't common knowledge, or at least it wasn't advertised, was the fact that some non-mutants could also carry the X-Gene, without activating it their whole lives. That's how the X-Gene was passed on, sometimes skipping generations, but always present in certain lineages.

Dr. Okamura's thesis was a study on the possibility of the X-Genes being artificially activated; meaning, turning a non-mutant that carried the X-Gene into a mutant, without waiting for nature to do her thing further down the line.

Apparently, his thesis had received some attention, but no one wanted to really invest in it; the world wanted less mutants, not more, and since it was difficult to find willing subjects that wanted to risk injury and death to become the very beings that the majority of the world despised, the study didn't progress at all.

Or at least it hadn't progressed legally; Clark had a good idea now of the kind of experiments these people were doing.

"So, are you one of them?" asked Jessica, suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. "You know, mutants? Because it's cool if you are, I don't judge."

He looked at her. No, he was an alien, but Clark didn't really want to share that now. People had a tendency of freaking out when they found out; more now, he imagined, after an alien invasion.

"No," he answered, slowly. "I… acquired my abilities after birth."

It wasn't technically a lie; if he had remained in Krypton, under a red sun, he would be a normal Kryptonian. Still an alien, yes, but one without his so called powers.

"What about you?" Clark asked, trying to shift the conversation from him and, to be honest, legitimately curious.

"Accident," she said, and didn't elaborate. She turned the binoculars to the clinic's exit again. "It's funny, isn't it? The way they talk about it on T.V, it's like mutants are going to destroy the world. Fucking beasts of the apocalypse. Like they'll just, I don't know, teleport inside the White House and stab the president. And yet, I never even saw one before."

Clark considered her words for a second.

"Me neither. There aren't a lot of them and they don't exactly advertise what they are, for good reason. I guess, and forgive me for the cliché, people fear what they don't understand."

Jessica clicked her tongue, as if he had said something obvious.

"I know they do. And frankly, there are some mutant nutjobs who really are nightmare fuel, like that Magneto guy. But why the hell do governments all over the world lose their shit when they hear the word 'mutant'? There are worse people out there, scarier people, that aren't mutants and yet they don't give two shits about them."

"They are an identifiable group," Clark theorized, having thought about this before. "Easy to tell apart. Easy to isolate, to make people fear. It doesn't have the same ring to say people should fear 'Jessica Jones' or 'Clark Kent' as it does to say that people should fear mutants. And there is also the fact that they are unpredictable. You can't know which people are going to be born mutants, where they will appear, what will be their loyalties, what will be their abilities… I don't agree with it, obviously, but I can understand how governments may come to fear them. And how useful this fear is to some people."

After a moment considering Clark's long and over-detailed explanation, Jessica just shrugged.

"Yeah, well, people are idiots," she concluded, wisely.

They spent some minutes in silence, just observing, then she looked at him again.

"So, how strong are you really?" she asked, as if she's been meaning to do this for a while.

He looked at her, wary.

"Why? You want to hit me again?" he inquired and she unconsciously touched her right hand, that was, to Clark's wonder, mostly healed by now.

"No, I learned my lesson. Just making conversation."

Clark himself had wondered that many times.

"I… don't know," he finally said. "It's not like I go to the gym and keep notes on how much I can bench press."

"But what was the heaviest thing you've lifted?" she questioned, opening her hip flask to take a swig. "I mean, I can lift a car. Can you?"

"I lifted a tractor once," he said, then added. "When I was 3."

Jessica choked in the middle of her swig.

"What the… 3 years old?!"

"My father was fixing the tractor and I wanted to help. He looked uncomfortable under it, so I thought I could make it easier."

"So you just went over there and lifted the entire thing over your head?"

"Well, not the entire thing, but yes, pretty much."

"Fuck…" she said, shaking her head. "But what about now? What was the heaviest thing you have ever lifted in your life?"

Clark thought for a second.

"An oil rig."

This time, Jessica was shocked into silence; for a while, at least.

"Holy mother of… How the fuck did you do that?!"

He hesitated a second, before explaining.

"I was traveling for a while and needed money, so I ended up working in a fishing boat. Long story short, we were close to an oil rig that caught fire and they called for help. I swam there and took the people out but, before they could board the helicopter, the whole structure began to fall down. They wouldn't have time to get away, so I did the only thing I could: I held it for enough time for them to take off."

Jessica was looking at him with disbelief etched on her face.

"How did you get away?" she asked, finally.

"I didn't," Clark answered. "I managed to hold the oil rig. It was… it was the first time that I actually felt my muscles strain. But I held it until the helicopter got out. Problem was, the steel beam I was standing on started to bent because of the weight and the whole thing came crashing down and exploded."

She was experiencing difficulty to talk.

"And you survived this shit?! Holy crap, what kind of stubborn son of a bitch are you?"

Clark sighed; she had a very colorful vocabulary.

"What else can you do?" she questioned, her entire attention on him now. "I mean, besides being able to lift oil rigs, surviving explosions and running faster than a car?"

Well, this was going to be a long conversation, Clark thought, since sometimes even he was surprised by the amount of things his Kryptonian physiology allowed him to do. So he decided to shorten it.

"I can fly."

"Bullshit!" she retorted immediately.

"No, I really can," he said, a little surprised by her fast reaction to this.

"Really fly? Or jump very high and fall down somewhat controlled? Because that I can do too."

"Really fly. Though in the beginning it was more like jumping and falling. Pretty scary thing, I gotta say, even knowing I wouldn't get hurt," he looked at her. "Maybe you can fly too, you just didn't get the hang of it yet. I could help you."

"No, thank you. The last thing I want to do is jump high enough to be able to die in the landing. I'll keep my 'super strength' and be happy with it."

Clark rolled his eyes, but didn't press; he too had been worried when he started trying in the Arctic and he knew for a fact that he wouldn't get hurt, even if he landed on his head. Despite the situation, he was enjoying this talk. The only people who ever listened to him talking about this were his parents; it was nice to talk to someone new. And that she also had her own set of abilities made this even more gratifying. Even if he still was pretty weird compared to the rest of the world, there were some people out there who weren't completely normal too. And he liked that.

He opened his mouth to say something else, when his eyes caught someone familiar.

"There is our guy," he said, pointing to the clinic. Jessica used her binoculars to confirm.

"Yep," then she turned to him. "Pretty good eyes you have there, huh?"

Before Clark could answer, however, she got up.

"Come on, we don't wanna lose him."

Every head on Cassidy Pub turned to look when Natasha entered. To be fair, Natasha turned heads everywhere she went, so it wasn't like the people of this pub were doing something unusual; they were just more open about it than people in other places.

Without caring for any of this, Natasha walked to the balcony of the bar and sat down. The bar was full of people eating and drinking. There was a girl singing country music on a stage and the sound of people talking was only a little bit lower than her performance. Natasha looked for a bartender and asked for a beer, placing a bill on the counter.

This was the bar that the alien she was looking for had worked, before he got hired by Arctic Cargo. A common pub, exactly like hundreds of others, full of ordinary people living ordinary lives; and yet, she was absolutely sure that neither Thor nor Loki could have worked there and blended in, either because of pride or simply because of lack of understanding of human culture.

It was one more thing that gave credence to her theory that the alien she was looking for was living on Earth for a while. At least long enough to understand the basics of things that should be clear to any human, like serving food, taking orders, keeping a conversation about everyday topics like sports or politics…

Thor might have looked human, but he was locked into a hospital hours later of arriving on Earth and, even after he got out, he managed to appear on SHIELD's radar almost immediately; certain things a person could learn only from experience. She was sure she would have trouble blending in on Asgard too, and she had trained her entire life to blend in anywhere.

The waitress brought her beer and handed it to her with a smile; black hair, dark eyes, pretty. So far, she was the only one there that fitted the poor description of the waitress that was groped and helped by the one she was looking for.

Natasha smiled back.

"It's always this full?" she asked.

"At this hour? Pretty much. Truckers stop by to lunch," she answered, while cleaning a table nearby.

"You look short-staffed."

The waitress snorted.

"Tell me about it… We've been meaning to hire someone for a few months, but we only got temporary workers. We lost one of ours a while back to another place."

"I know," Natasha answered, facing her. "Big guy, blue eyes, dark hair… Left to work for Arctic Cargo."

The waitress stopped in her tracks, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Who are you?" she asked sharply.

"Someone trying to help him," Natasha said in response. "Could we talk a little bit? Somewhere quieter?"

The girl kept staring at Natasha with unfriendly eyes for a few seconds, then agreed.

"Come with me."

Natasha followed the girl to the back exit, where they left to the cold wind of outside. There was nobody there.

"Okay," said the waitress, looking very determined. "Now, let's start over. Who are you and what do you want with Clark?"

Clark. Another name. Could that one be real?

"I'm Natasha Romanoff. You might've heard of me from the…"

"Avengers," the girl completed, suddenly looking awed and afraid at the same time. "I knew you looked familiar…"

Natasha smiled, trying to reassure the girl.

"And what about you?"

"Oh, sorry, I'm Chrissy."

She nodded and approached one step.

"Chrissy, I meant what I said. I'm trying to help Clark," and she was surprised to notice that she actually meant that.

"Why? What happened to him?" Chrissy asked, alarmed.

"You know he went to work for Arctic Cargo, right? The army was digging something on Ellesmere Island, and they were hired to help with the transportation of their equipment. There was a theft however. Important government's property. They want it back."

"No! Clark's a good guy! He would never steal something!"

Natasha put her hand on Chrissy's shoulder.

"I believe you. I really do. But nonetheless they ordered me to find him. If I don't, they will order someone else and this person might not be so convinced that Clark is a good man. So I need your help."

Chrissy was frightened and agitated, but she reluctantly agreed.

"What do you need to know?" she asked.

"His name, what is it?"

"Clark Sullivan."

Clark Sullivan. Yet another name. Might be fake too.

"How long did Clark work here?"

"Not long, just a little bit over a month. He said he needed some cash after moving."

That was interesting.

"From where did he move from?" she questioned.

"He said he came from Cordova, but I don't think he is actually from there. He is American though, of that I am pretty sure."

"Why do you say that?"

Despite still being scared, Chrissy smiled.

"We Canadians can always tell," she answered, jokingly. "First, there was his accent. I can't place it, but I know it's American. Then, maybe the most important thing: hockey wasn't his favorite sport."

Natasha gave a little smile in response.

"What was it?"

"Football. He was always watching it on his breaks. Said it reminded him of his father, how they used to watch every game together."

"How well did you know him?" Natasha asked.

"We… we were friends. Maybe we could've been something more if he had stayed" she looked at Natasha. "He is a good man, Miss Romanoff. The kind of man you don't see anymore, always helping, no matter who needed it, not because he wanted something in return, but because he could. Please, please, remember that when you find him."

"I will," she promised, and allowed Chrissy to go back in.

Natasha remained there for a while, enjoying the cold wind. This was the first time she talked with someone who had a personal relationship with the one she was looking for; "Clark", if the waitress was to be believed. What she learned here seemed to confirm what she had theorized.

Everyone said he was a good man and his actions seemed to confirm that; that was nice, they didn't have another Loki on their hands by the looks of it. And her newest theory, that this alien was living on Earth for a while, was pretty much confirmed too. Not only he had the knowledge to work in a pub, but spoke with an American accent, liked to watch football and apparently had enough contacts and information on how to forge fake identities. The comment about his father was also on Natasha's mind; could it be another alien, an even older one, or a human he respected enough to call father?

Well, she hoped she would find out soon enough, since she had another lead to follow: Cordova. It was a small city on Alaska, if she wasn't mistaken. Previous home of her elusive alien.

It was a good thing she had a jet, otherwise this search would take forever.

Clark and Jessica had followed Dr. Okamura since he had left the clinic and got into a car, appreciating New York's traffic maybe for the first time, since it made it easier for them to catch up from the rooftops of the buildings and the alleys they used for shortcuts.

The doctor had drove to a small warehouse with the Oscorp logo in it, and disappeared inside, getting out only an hour later inside a small truck; probably a truck full of the equipment he needed to improve his experiments. The truck stopped so he could get out and enter his own car, then continued to follow the doctor's car through the city.

This time it was even easier to follow them, since the truck moved slowly and stood out, so there was no risk of losing it; not that Clark's vision would lose it, anyway. They drove for almost two hours, getting away from the crowded streets little by little, until they arrived on a somewhat emptier neighborhood, full of factories and warehouses, close to the water.

It was almost time for the sun to set when the two vehicles stopped in front of a tall fence, waiting for someone to open the gate for them.

"Finally," Jessica whispered, as the vehicles entered and continued to the inside of a factory, disappearing. "I was beginning to think they wouldn't stop."

"Tired?" Clark asked, curious about her stamina.

"Just annoyed."

She seemed to be telling the truth, which was weird, because a human wouldn't have been able to do what she did without getting exhausted; whatever happened to her, not only made her strong and gave her rapid healing, but also augmented her stamina to superhuman levels. He would have to ask her about it later.

Turning his head, Clark looked at the factory Dr. Okamura had entered. It looked very old and not functional at all. He couldn't tell exactly what it used to make, but it probably had something to do with chemical substances from the amount of metal barrels piled on the outside.

He looked at Jessica and sighed; he could already see this going badly.

"Before, you asked me what I could do," he started.

She didn't even look at him, her eyes on the binoculars.

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Well, there is one thing I left out. You see, I have a pretty good eyesight."

"I noticed," she deadpanned.

"Good, good… But what I meant is that my eyes are so good that I can, you know, see through things," he mumbled, quickly.

It took a few seconds for Jessica's brain to interpret what he had said, but when it did all movement halted. She lowered the binoculars slowly, turning her head to him, a very dangerous look on her face.

"What the fuck does that mean?" she demanded.

"It means that I have some sort of x-ray vision. I can see through solid objects. But before you ask…"

"If you looked through my clothes I will fucking scratch your eyes off!"

"… I haven't looked through your clothes," he completed, apparently not fast enough. "Ma made sure to raise a gentleman. If I did something like this she would… well, I don't know what she would do, but it wouldn't be nice, I can tell you that much. So no, I didn't look through your clothes or anyone else's and you have my word I never will."

She looked at him suspiciously for a second, then resumed her watch; well, he didn't know if she believed him or not, but at least she chose not to fight right now.

"So, I suppose you looked inside the place?" Jessica asked. "Because I'm hoping you brought up this new ability for a reason other than to let me know you could check out my tits anytime you wanted to. What did you see?"

Clark sighed but didn't take the bait.

"It's an old factory, full of big machines that seem to be collecting dust and metal barrels piled all over. There are some catwalks over the machines. Looks abandoned, at least the part with the machinery. No cameras anywhere. There are other rooms further back with people… I count 13 armed men."

"Pistols, rifles…?"

"Both," he clarified. "What is interesting, however, are the lower levels. There is one elevator that goes there, accessed by one hallway. But things look new there, like it's been built not too long ago, unlike the rest of the factory. I can see… some stretchers down there and some medical equipment. The people we are looking for are probably there."

"Probably," because he couldn't see it clearly to know for certain; the place was underground, covered in metal and, most likely, surrounded by lead from the old part of the factory. He could see through solid objects, but certain kinds of objects were harder to look through than others.

"Well, no time like the present then," Jessica said, getting up, only to be stopped by Clark.

He looked at her.

"Look, maybe I should go alone. I can be shot and survive, you can't."

She looked surprised at him for a moment.

"You are bulletproof?!"

"I told you I survived an explosion, why wouldn't I be bulletproof?"

"Shit, I don't know, you just surprised me," she answered, before slapping his hand away. "And fuck that, I'm going. No way in hell I'm staying outside after all this running around."

Clark reluctantly nodded and got up as well. They ran all the way to the fence and tore the wire to go through it; they didn't need tools to do it, simply sliding their hands over the wire as if they were breaking an annoying spider's web. Clark had made sure that nobody was there first, but his first instinct was to look around as they ran to the factory.

Even if they could, they didn't enter through the main door, choosing to bend the bars of a window nearby so that they could jump in. As Clark had told Jessica, there was nobody in the machinery room. There were a few lights on, giving a creepy vibe on the dark place, as they walked the corridors full of dust. It was more than clear that the place was abandoned, or at least that part was.

Moving on through the old and big machinery room, they arrived at a closed door; it wouldn't be anything unusual, except that this door wasn't old at all. It stood out in the decrepit room as the only thing new, bright steel and glowing lights on a little keyboard.

"Great, it's locked," complained Jessica.

Clark ignored her for a while, looking at the keyboard. She definitely couldn't see, but to his eyes the fingerprints were clear; he just needed the right combination of the numbers that had marks on them.

"I can see which numbers were used, but I'm going to need try the combination," Clark explained, before pressing a few numbers.

An unsatisfactory noise made itself heard and he tried again. Jessica rolled her eyes.

"Just let me," she said, pushing him to the side.

But instead of pressing the numbers on the keyboard, as he thought she would do, she punched the door; her fist made a huge dent on the steel and she grabbed it with both hands, forcing the door open with a grunt.

"See?" she smiled.

And then the alarm started to sound.

"Wow… I just… I have no words. Good job!" Clark congratulated, dripping with sarcasm, a hand on his face.

A small blush spread through Jessica's face.

"Okay, that's on me," she admitted, unnecessarily.

Without losing any more time, they ran through the door, arriving on another room. Like the previous one, it was also full of machinery, but these looked new. There was lighting here and the noise the machines made showed them that these were functioning. Aside from the catwalks over them and the doors upstairs, the room had only one corridor, right in front of them, on the other side of the room; and, at the end of it, the elevator that Clark knew would take them down.

There were also three men on that corridor, holding their rifles in their direction.

They dashed behind a big machine as the bullets flew right where they were a second ago. Jessica looked around, searching for something; without saying a thing, she extended her hand and reached for one of many metal barrels around them. And, with incredible accuracy, she threw it on the men.

The barrel bounced on the ground and kept rolling fast, hitting the men on their legs, throwing them upwards with violence; they fell back like rocks and didn't stand up again.

"Ha!" she cheered, just as Clark noticed movement in the rooms upstairs.

If the men managed to get to the catwalks, there would be nowhere to hide from their bullets anymore. That wasn't much of a problem to Clark, but Jessica couldn't say the same. So, taking a page from her book, Clark also grabbed a barrel and threw it; except he did it against an object, so there really was no reason to hold back.

The barrel was filled with something and, because of that, extremely heavy. So when Clark tossed it, it moved like a cannon ball, hitting the catwalk right on the spot where it connected to the rooms upstairs. The steel from the catwalk was simply ripped away from it, creating a huge hole and preventing anyone from crossing it, at least for now. The noise of the barrel colliding against the wall was deafening.

"Show off," Jessica simply said, looking forward.

They both got up and started to go towards the corridor of the elevator. The alarm was blaring non-stop and they could hear people yelling. That's when there was a bell noise, indicating that the elevator had arrived on their floor. They watched as the doors opened and a woman got out; the same woman he saw last night, breaking that man's neck.

She stopped, looking at them. The woman, Angel, if Clark recalled, was tall. She had short, black hair, and a very fit physique; like on the night before, she had a match held on her lips. Without saying anything, almost looking bored, Angel looked around, her eyes stopping at the smashed barrel Jessica had thrown. Very slowly, she walked to it and picked it up; Jessica's eyebrows rose.

And then she threw it back at them.

Like when Clark did it, she put a lot of her force on it. The thing was barely visible as it crossed the room, splitting the air. By pure reflex, Clark and Jessica stepped to the side, letting the barrel pass in the middle of them, exploding on the wall behind with extraordinary force.

"Holy hell!" exclaimed Jessica, eyes wide.

Angel walked calmly through the corridor, until she arrived at the room with the machines. And, without looking back, she punched a button on the wall; a steel door began to come down from the ceiling, isolating the elevator.

Jessica looked at him.

"Go, I'll deal with this bitch," she said, as Angel continued to walk towards them.

"Are you sure? I've seen her kill a man last night. She is dangerous," said Clark, looking at the door closing slowly.

"So am I."

Clark nodded, still worried, but started to walk towards the elevator; and towards Angel. He would trust Jessica.

"You are not going anywhere," stated Angel, almost looking bored.

He didn't answer. He just kept walking to her, without hesitation. She frowned and raised her fist; and punched him.

Except she didn't hit anything but air. Looking surprised for the first time, Angel looked around, trying to find Clark, only to see him entering the elevator on the far end of the corridor without even acknowledging her.

Baring her teeth, Angel turned around, ready to go after him; that's when Jessica's fist collided with the side of her head, throwing her like a rag doll against a pile of barrels.

It was on.

It wasn't every day that Jessica could really use her strength. Even when she tried to be a superhero, convinced by her sister, her only opponents had been street thugs and she couldn't exactly go all out against them; not without killing people in horrific ways with her bare hands.

This woman, though, could take a punch. A real one, to the side of her head, and get up, with barely a scratch. She got up from the pile of barrels like an enraged bull, throwing barrels everywhere as she ran into Jessica, her head hitting her stomach, pushing her back.

Jessica lost her breath for a second, trying to keep herself on her feet while the woman pushed her. She brought her fists to the bitch's liver, punching with all her strength, feeling her muscles hardening like a brick wall; she didn't even flinch.

Without being able to stop, Jessica braced herself a moment before colliding against the wall, cracking it; she couldn't remember the last time she had hit something this hard. Without losing time, the woman started to punch her non-stop. She felt for the first time what boxers felt when backed into a corner.

Each punch she took threw her against the wall, cracking it further. She was beginning to get dizzy, the storm of hits giving her no time to think. In a boxing match she would be dead in the water, but lucky for her, she never cared much about rules; holding the woman's arms with her own, Jessica headbutted her in the face, throwing her to the ground.

Without waiting for her to catch her breath, she kicked her in the stomach, and punched her, only to see her hand break the ground as the woman dodged; and moved her legs to drop Jessica to the ground.

She felt her throat tighten when the woman grabbed her on a chokehold. She elbowed her and tried to get away, but she just wouldn't budge.

"That's it, keep fighting," the woman whispered in her ear. "It won't make a difference. You're already mine."

Jessica, of course, fought even harder.

"When you pass out, we're going to fit you with a control collar… The things I'm going to make you do."

Her vision began to blacken. Suddenly, Jessica wasn't in an old factory anymore, fighting a woman. She was in the middle of a street, walking away, as a man yelled at her:

"Get back here, Jessica!"

She opened her eyes with a jolt.

"NOOO!" she yelled, strength flowing through her muscles again.

Her legs tensed against the ground, cracking it, and she pushed all her strength in them, jumping. She and the woman were thrown in the air, colliding against the wall, the bricks breaking on impact. And then she was free once again.

Without caring about her wounds, Jessica got up and punched the woman in the face, so strongly that her head went back against the wall and broke it; and then she punched again and again and again, her hands turning into blurs as she unleashed her fury.

"Never again, never!" she yelled, over and over, the woman beginning to disappear into the brick wall.

Jessica didn't care; the person she was hitting wasn't exactly there anyway. Going back one step, she prepared all the muscles on her body, lifted her fist, and gave one last devastating punch against her opponent's face; her head was embedded in the wall.

"Take this, you bitch!" she spat.

She got away from the woman, breathing hard, tired as hell but feeling a thrill like she hasn't in a long time.

That's when she heard the rifles being aimed at her from the catwalk upstairs.

The elevator's doors barely opened and Clark was already out. He could hear the sounds of the fighting upstairs, the room shaking at times, but he ignored that and looked around. What he saw, took the words out of his mouth.

It wasn't a lab. It wasn't an infirmary. What he saw down there could only be described as a torture room. There were electrified racks, with shackles on it; plastic containers filled with melting ice, big enough to fit a person; chains on the ceiling where people could lifted like punching bags; little cages right by the side of hoses, presumably so the prisoners could be soaked with freezing water; bathtubs filled with filthy water to drown people.

Clark couldn't believe what he was seeing. He knew these people were performing experiments on people, but that? That was beyond anything he could have imagined. Forcing himself, he looked around, looking at the people cuffed to the stretchers, barely conscious. He walked towards the first one, a man, with some kind of IV fluid attached to his arm.

The man looked at him with terror, and closed his eyes as soon as he got close.

"Please, please, please… Just kill me!"

There were no words to describe how lost Clark was at that moment; that's when he heard the CLICK of a gun behind him.

"Stop right there," said a voice he recognized as belonging to Dr. Okamura, pointing a gun to his back. "Don't move!"

Clark didn't move, but not because he had been ordered.

"Now turn around very slo…"

"Were you the one who did this?" Clark interrupted, his voice tense even to his ears. "Were you the one who tortured these people?"

Dr. Okamura was so surprised to be cut off that he didn't answer for a second.

"Tortured? Oh no, I have more important things to do with my time. Now, turn aroun…"

"But you knew about this," Clark stated.

"Well, of course I knew. It's part of the treatment. Nothing raises adrenalin like pain."

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? Without stimuli, the X-Gene wouldn't activate, not even with the serum."

"You are making mutants?"

"I'm making the future," he corrected. "Back on the World War 2, the making of one super-soldier was what turned the tide of the war. The making of Captain America shaped the century. What I'm doing here will as well."

"Your future will be the inside of a prison cell."

Dr. Okamura laughed.

"Do you think anyone cares about what happens here? Armies all over the world will pay fortunes for one single mutant created in this workshop. Normal people, people like me and you… Well, we only have a place on the battlefield as cannon fodder now. Captain America saw to that. The Avengers saw to that. You need extraordinary weapons to fight extraordinary weapons."

"Does this government know?"

"They don't know because they know better than to ask questions. There are people on key positions inside the army and the government that make sure it stays that way. And why would they care, anyway? They made worse things."

Clark didn't say anything for a few seconds.

"These people, will they live?"

"Maybe, I don't know. It depends on how they react to the serum. And it depends if they have a dormant X-Gene too. It doesn't matter, there are always more subjects," he pointed the gun to Clark more assertively. "Now, shut up and turn aroun…"

Before he could even finish what he was about to say, Clark was already in front of him, his hand crushing the pistol alongside the doctor's bones. Dr. Okamura screamed, helpless, only to be grabbed by the back of his head and dragged to the man on the stretch.

"He is not a subject!" Clark yelled, forcing Dr. Okamura to look at the man. "He is not an experiment! He is a person!"

"God, you are one of them!" Dr. Okamura screeched, more afraid than he ever was on his life. "You are a freak!"

"No, I'm much more than that, Dr. Okamura," he lifted the doctor in the air. "Now, tell me the names of the people in charge or I'm going to hold you responsible for everything here."

"I don't kno…"

"Now!"

"My notebook! It has emails, documents, transactions! Just please, let me go!"

Clark did let him go; with strength, against the ground. The doctor stayed down, unconscious.

Forcing himself to calm down, despite everything he had just learned, Clark concentrated his hearing to see how Jessica was doing. The sounds of the fight had stopped, he could hear Jessica's breathing pattern and heartbeat. But he also could listen to the heartbeat of 10 men as well, probably holding rifles by the sound.

Turning around, Clark looked up; it would take too long to take the elevator again and breaking the steel door that had sealed the corridor. He needed to be a little more direct. He kneeled on the ground, focusing all his energy; small objects all around him began to float. He contracted his muscles, preparing himself to fly.

And took off.

BOOOOOOM!

Jessica didn't know what the fuck had just hit the building, but it felt like an atomic bomb had just fallen on top of them. The entire factory trembled, she and everything else in the room fell to the ground. All the lights turned off, replaced by the red glow of the emergency ones. The machines stopped working and the only sound was the alarm blaring and the sound of metal bending.

The steel door that had sealed the corridor to the elevator began to fold itself, as if something was forcing it open. The armed men on the top of the catwalks got up, their hands shaking with fear, as they tried to see what was behind that door.

A pair of red eyes ignited in the dark.

"Open fire!" yelled one man.

Before they could fire, however, a pair of red energy beams crossed the room, melting the steel support of the catwalks; the entire thing came crashing down, tumbling the armed men on the ground. And then he was there, already on them, as if he appeared out of nothing.

Jessica could only watch as the dark figures moved under the red lights of the dark room. Clark picked one man from the ground as he tried to stand up, lifting him in front of him as if he didn't weight anything, and dashed to the front, using the man he was holding like some sort of shield.

He bashed his "human shield" against one of the men, throwing him to the other side of the room. Without even looking, he punched a man by his side, sending him down, before using the man he was holding to hit another man. 3 thugs managed to get up and point the rifles at him, but Clark simply tossed the man he was holding on them, knocking down the 4 of them in a tangle of limbs.

One of the armed men appeared from the other side of the collapsed catwalk and managed to shoot; Jessica was baffled as she saw Clark simply move his hand across the air and slap the bullet to the side, deflecting it directly to the leg of an approaching enemy. The man fell down screaming, only to be picked up and launched against the shooter.

The only man left standing didn't even try to fight. He simply discarded his rifle and began walking backwards, exactly like someone unarmed would do when faced with an approaching tiger. The man was so damn scared he didn't even noticed he was walking right in her direction; that was a little insulting, so she bitch slapped him into oblivion.

Jessica looked at Clark, her jaw dropped; when she managed, she said:

"So, I guess you forgot to tell me a few of your abilities, huh?"

As soon as Clark was certain Jessica was alright, much to her very verbal displeasure, both of them got back into the lab/torture room. He still couldn't manage to stop flinching every time he saw the things down there and, apparently, he wasn't the only one bothered by it.

"What the fuck? What did those sick sons of bitches did here?!" she exclaimed, a disgusted expression on her face.

"They were trying to create mutants out of non-mutants," said Clark, looking around for Dr. Okamura's notebook. "Do you remember the doctor's thesis? About activating a dormant X-Gene?"

"But why the medieval torture room?" Jessica demanded, still unable to look away.

"To raise their adrenalin, make the serum work. I'm guessing they didn't really care that the mortality rate wasn't low," he added, somber.

Finally finding the computer, Clark started to look for everything regarding the experiments in it. To a human, that would take days, but Clark's eyesight, memory and rapid thinking process made it take a lot less; all he had to do was glance at the documents, rolling down as fast as he could, and everything would be safely committed to his mind.

"Jessica, start taking pictures," he asked.

"What?! Why?" she turned to him, shocked.

"I need evidence for my story," he answered, without looking at her.

He did have to look at her when she grabbed him.

"Are you fucking kidding me?! There are people dying here and you are worried about a fucking story?!" she yelled at him.

Clark grabbed her and pushed her to the front of the computer, at the end of his patience after all he had witnessed that day.

"Look at this," he demanded. She tried to move, but he held her. "Look at it. Do you see the names? Do you see where they work? There are powerful people involved in this, turning a blind eye to everything happening here. If we call the police now, without finding the proof first, all of this will go away. It will be like it never happened. Only the dead will remain dead, the people that did this will keep on killing and everything will remain the same."

Jessica looked at him, maybe surprised to see him sounding serious for once.

"We need to reveal everything happening here, Jessica, otherwise they won't stop. So please, help me."

Still silenced, Jessica nodded, getting her cellphone to begin taking the pictures.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

Clark didn't answer for a second.

"I'll read everything as fast as I can and then I'm going to beat my own record of 'the most quickly written story in the world'."

She turned at him.

"You've got to be shitting me! You are writing this now?!"

"Only chance we'll have," he explained. "The moment we call the authorities, they'll take everything and we are done. The people here aren't exactly alright, but they aren't in risk of dying, they can wait for an hour."

Saying this, Clark began to type his story as Jessica took the pictures, his fingers moving as fast as the computer allowed. Taking his cellphone from his pocket, he dialed a number, while still typing one-handed.

"Mr. Ellison? Clark Kent. I'm sorry to bother you now, but I have a story. And it's a big one."