conner is just a copy. (apograph) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-10-01 19:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alma wade, conner kent (superboy) |
Who: Alma and Conner
What: Two of the Illusive Man's pet projects finally meet. May he rest in peace. Not.
When: Saturday, 7pm
Where: Santa Monica Pier
Status: Complete.
Rating: Gish.
The pier had not been what Alma had been expecting. She had looked it up before leaving, and had been surprised. It was like a boardwalk. Shops and games and even an amusement part. Some of the shops were beginning to close when she got there, but still more were open. Live music was playing, and she could smell the sea. She decided she needed to come here some time when it was earlier, and she could just explore the place and let the masses wash over her. Alma added it to her mental list of places of good feeling, where her empathy could absorb positive emotions to balance the constant pressure from negative ones. Like her zen garden, but instead of peace and solitude, it was noise and laughter and happiness. She wore a red tank-top, red tennis shoes and a pair of faded jeans. She was trying to reclaim her favorite color, refusing to let her dreams soil it for her. It hadn't even made her skin crawl, today. Conner was a big guy - tall and broad shouldered - and it was clear what he had been ‘built’ for, because he looked the part. He was in some nondescript black tee shirt and jeans, with the intent of blending in with the rest of the teens on the pier. He didn’t want attention. His mother was strict enough, and he really didn’t want to know what her bosses were like. It was easy enough to look for red, but hard to decide who to approach. How much red was ‘wearing red?’ Then he spotted Alma, and it became clear. The teenaged boy took a breath, squared his shoulders, and reminded himself that he was brave. Then he approached. “Hey -- Alma? I’m Conner.” She turned, looking up at him. Her eyes darted over him, studying him. He was bigger than she'd expectied and she'd wondered what Harper had wanted with him. She resisted the urge to peer into his mind. It was easier said than done, her powers occasionally did so without her permission, but today she succeeded. "Hello, I'm Alma." She felt a little surreal. They were related. Conner was awkward in person - the quiet type not for show, but because he didn’t usually know what to say. He shifted his weight and found something, the first bit of small-talk that came to mind. “Thanks. For meeting me.” Seriously - what did you say to your sudden half-sister? “I’ve spent my whole life badgering the woman who raised me to tell me more about my family. It’s, uh. Weird. To suddenly know.” Wait. And that may have sounded like the situation was bad. Conner quickly tried to fix it, adding, “Good weird.” "I jumped at the chance," She admitted, glancing around to see if either of them might have been followed. It had occurred to her it might be a trap but she had to have come. To find out, to see. "It's unusual." Alma gave him an awkward smile, trying to make her speech patterns less formalized. To be less off putting. "We should get something to eat and talk. I am, I'm sure we both have a lot of questions." “Yeah,” Conner agreed. Though he was terse, there was something like a smile on his face. “Food’s good. I’m not picky.” Really. There were very few categories of food that he’d refuse outright. “Do you have a preference?” Most of it looked to be food court fare, but surely there were restaurants and carts, too. Alma's smile turned into an outright grin and she even rocked on her heels a bit, eager to get moving, "I'm particularly fond of things without additives, but since there's nothing here like that, I really like hot dogs. I do not get them very often." Maybe some of the restaurants might offer organic fair, but Alma didn't want to go inside any of them. She wanted to be outside, as the sun set and the evening enveloped them. It felt too good with the breeze on her face. “Hot dogs are good.” Conner agreed. “My ‘mother,’” the title said with air-quotes for emphasis, “likes to control what I eat, but I can get them at friends’ places. I could go for a hot dog.” Apparently they had that in common - lack of access to certain foods. Conner realized that he wasn’t surprised; if they were really both science projects, of course their diets would be monitored and controlled. Variable control... or something like that. His grades in biology were decent, but not great. He was smart enough, but certainly not brilliant. Not special, at least not intellectually. “So, uh. I’m about to be 17. Well. In December.” Conner didn’t go as far as asking Alma for her age, but he did glance sideways. "I..spent a lot of time in the lab, the only food we had was organic and without any additives. I had a lot of access to what goes into food. I have a degree in biology." Don't get her started on corn syrup and what goes into supermarket meat, "I found out what I ...was...on accident. so I ran away." She tilted her head. She found that interesting, "I just turned seventeen this month." A degree in biology. Conner didn’t laugh, but he did duck his head and grin a little. “You must be the smart one. I’m a junior in high school.” It didn’t bother him as much as he thought it might, discovering that he was (by comparison) the dumb one in the family. He was just too pleased to know that he had family to worry about how he measured up. “I found out on accident, too. I read an email I wasn’t supposed to see.” But he hadn’t immediately run. He’d thought about it, briefly, but then he’d decided he must be imagining things. Conner felt a flash of regret. He should’ve done something more decisive, taken action to keep himself from being used. She had been bred for brains, he for brawn. She wondered if they'd tried to combine the two. That thought was frightening, "I think that was the point, with me." "There was a file open on a computer, I read it, and then accessed some more I shouldn't have. It was..eye opening. I ran away. They followed me. Some nice people helped me and I ended up with a man who ran a place that helps troubled youth. Mostly to keep them out of jail, but also runaways." Alma ordered a hot dog, with the works. She suddenly seemed less the genius and more a teenage girl, as she looked at him, "He'd help you too, if you wanted." Conner frowned, but his furrowed brows were more frustrated than upset. “I’m not certain that she wouldn’t try to follow me. The woman who raised me - I don’t know that she wouldn’t be a danger to your friends.” And, for all his surly, overconfident teen flaws, Conner did not want to be the albatross that brought bad things down upon those that carried it. “If I left, I’d try to disappear. Somehow.” The problem was the ‘how.’ Conner wasn’t really a planner. He just did things and hoped they’d turn out. "They do try to follow you," Alma said, sadly. "It isn't as bad as it was. Harper is dead. He was the funding and leadership behind all of it. I wouldn't be surprised if there are splinter groups. I always have to be careful." She tapped her head, "They don't know that I can hear them coming." She wanted to tell him about her powers, but it was a matter of how to phrase it. That was a start. If only he were as strong or as durable as in the dreams -- but he wasn’t, and Conner couldn’t be as reckless as he’d been there. He opened his mouth to say something, but then one of Alma’s comments caught his attention. “Hear them coming?” He took it to mean enhanced senses. There was a telepath in his dreams, but he didn’t think of that as ‘hearing.’ Conner was a very literal boy. "With my mind. Surface thoughts. I dream I have mind powers and now I do here. I'm not crazy." She felt it was important that he understand she wasn't crazy, "I can move things, manifest, read thoughts. I don't always have control." “You’re not crazy,” Conner agreed. “In my dreams I know someone who can read thoughts.” It was a preposterous thing to say, but if Alma had powers (or believed that she had powers) ‘I dream weird things’ wasn’t really so out there, was it? “That’s useful. You know when people are thinking about you?” Conner had his own hot dog, now, but he was less interested in eating than talking. “...if it makes you feel better, in my dreams I’m a half alien clone. You’re not crazy.” "I'm the apocalypse," Alma replied, like she was discussing the weather. She looked around, then levitated the hot dog in Conner's hand for three seconds, "Half-alien clone?" The idea of aliens was exciting to her, and she peered at him, wondering if she could see alien DNA in his features. ...wow. Conner blinked at the hot dog, as if it would be back in his hand once his eyes reopened. Nope. It was actually hovering. I’m the apocalypse was the kind of pronouncement for which Conner had no answer, so instead he answered the question. That, at least, was straighforward. “Half Kryptonian. The DNA is unstable, so they had to use human DNA to finish off the sequence. You get the alien strength and durability, but no flight capability.” If he was clinical about it, Conner realized, he didn’t feel so angry. Or perhaps it was that he was talking to someone else who could understand - someone who had been created to be used, just like he’d been. “I was supposed to kill the alien DNA source, I think. If he couldn’t be controlled by the people who made me.” "I don't know what that is," She admitted. "We must have different dreams then. That's a relief." Alma took a bite of her hot dog, chewing thoughtfully, then swallowing, "My father experimented with me, to bring out my powers. I was empathic too, and I absorbed negative emotions like a sponge. They got scared and put me into a coma. I was impregnated, twice, and gave birth twice. They took my babies, to use them to make soldiers and control them." She lifted her head a little bit. She felt a kindredness with him she hadn't felt with anyone else, not even River or Roy, "I don't trust the government. When presented with something they can't understand, they try to get rid of it, or profit from it or control it. Your Kryptonian, my babies." She sounded so angry, "They're all the same, everywhere." Wow. Okay, so Alma’s dreams were even worse than his. Conner was a weapon and only a few of his best friends saw him as anything else, but at least no one had made children from his DNA. It was a new, awful level of invasiveness. “Good people. Bad people. I think that’s pretty universal,” Conner agreed. “There are always people who want to exploit whatever they can find.” "They gravitate to power. I'm trying to be less cynical. Wrex is a good man, and he surrounds himself with good men and good women. They want to help people with..powers like mine." She pointed towards the water, seeming to relax again, "Walk with me?" Conner nodded, because he’d finally taken a bite of his hot dog. He chewed thoughtfully, following Alma’s lead. “I have problems being positive, too. It’s not as bad as in the dreams, but it’s there. I expect people to lie to me. Always have - even before I knew that my mother was lying to me about everything.” Everything. Conner wasn’t even certain she was his biological mother. He doubted it; Ms. Kent didn’t look anything like him. Growing up, he’d always assumed that was because he’d inherited his physical appearance largely from his father. Now? Maybe he did look a little like his biological mother, after all, because she could have been someone else. “There’s a guy on the Valarnet who tried to cheer me up once. Mostly, people don’t bother. They have their own stuff to deal with, and I don’t expect much. It’s not their problem, really. It’s my problem.” "Everyone is out to get me, in the dreams. Even my sons." She agreed, with the general feeling. She glanced at him as they walked, "Some people are nice that way. It's hard to accept, but there are genuine people out there. I know this girl who is just...a lightbulb of kindness, and another who is pure joy. I like being around them, they drown out everything else. Friends are....nice." “I think Clark’s genuine.” Conner didn’t have to say why; it was complicated, but the belief was deeply held. “But he has his own life and his own problems. I wasn’t going to ask him for help. Besides. You understand, but he’d think I was crazy. ‘I think my mom is actually some kind of scientist assigned to watch me?’ That sounds crazy.” Conner shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t want to endanger anyone, but I don’t want to stay either. I may not be able to get out later.” Which was scary. He didn’t want to be anyone’s tool or weapon. "It's one of the more crazy things I've heard," Alma replied, quietly. "And I should know better. I'm amazed Wrex and Roy understood me." She stopped short, taking his hand, "Talk to Wrex. There's no pressure, just talk to him. He's going to adopt me. He's family." “Okay.” Conner promised. “I’ll talk to him.” It couldn’t be as weird to hear the second time - that he’d been genetically engineered and that he thought he needed to get out. Hopefully Wrex wouldn’t delete the PM. Then the second name registered. “Roy? As in Roy Harper? I know him. In person, and in the dreams.” "He bought me lunch, when I was running away. And gave me the address to the ranch as a safe haven." She'd developed a massive, unrequited crush in the process. She was mostly over that, but as rash as Roy could be, she was still fond of him. She didn't know where she'd be without him. “He tried to keep me from getting mugged.” Conner’s grin was lopsided. Ah, memories. “We got away in my car.” And from then on, Roy had been okay in Conner’s book. “If you and Roy both think this place is okay, it must really be okay.” So maybe Roy was as reckless as Conner; his judgment when it came to people had been pretty good, at least so far. A PM to Wrex was definitely a go. "It's a good place. We're rebuilding after that meteor, it will be better than ever." Alma laughed, the mental image completely believable to her, "He's a good man. A little on the reckless side. Very brash. But I like that about him. It was hard to accept he wasn't interested in me as more than a friend." “In the dreams we don’t get along, but I’m much more--” Conner paused, looking for the right word. “--angry. Because everyone knows I’m just a clone, and I expect to be treated like one, so sometimes I don’t give people a chance. But that’s just a dream. We get along fine here. I trust him.” Although Conner might still give Roy a hard time now that he knew that they had a connection through Alma. She was a little jealous. She knew no one from her dreams, although there were very few people she'd actually want to meet. Most of those to apologize. Especially to Michael Beckett. She smiled, "He's trustworthy. And it's good that you know someone from your dreams. It gives you a connection. I think..I think that there's another good thing about those dreams. We can learn how to not repeat mistakes. How to be better." “It made me feel less crazy. It’s like... independent confirmation. Someone else has dreamed these things, too.” Though he could have dealt with it alone, Conner was glad that it hadn’t been necessary. “I’m trying to do things better. To accept who I am and not try to be someone else.” Like Clark. Clark was Clark. Was he someone to emulate? Possibly, but that didn’t mean Conner had to try so hard to win his approval. Alma nodded. Even if it hadn't been the same, knowing that Wrex dreamed of being an angry turtle man had helped. So had his assurances that just dreaming about it didn't make you become it. She already knew she was different. Wrex, and Roy, and many others had helped her become different. "I think you have a good person inside of you and you just need to let him out." The phrasing made Conner smile. For such a self-protecting, inexpressive boy, his grin was surprisingly unguarded. “Like I’m my own prisoner. Okay. That’s actually not wrong.” Not wrong in the dreams, not wrong in reality. Conner had a way of limiting himself and locking himself in. It was adorable, Alma thought. She decided she liked having a brother, and that everyone should have that opportunity. She nodded her head, replying, "You're the one holding the keys, no one else." |