Chapter 78: Superman Arrested?
Through the news and Kara's description, Orin Vale quickly figured out what had happened.
To put it simply, a train traveling at two hundred miles per hour had gone out of control tonight. Superman appeared and did his utmost to stop the train, but he was exhausted in the process. Then, the military took advantage of his weakened state and captured him.
Was this for real?
A flicker of doubt surfaced in Orin Vale's mind as he processed this.
Superman, stopped a train, got exhausted, and was even captured? Are you sure you're describing the same Superman I know?
But on second thought, just as Batman was a rookie when he started, the current Superman probably wasn't much better. After all, the Superman he saw on television didn't even have his classic uniform, just a simple T-shirt, jeans, and leather boots.
It wasn't entirely impossible for the current Superman to be caught.
Moreover, Orin Vale immediately connected this to what Brainiac had just said: the archiving of the Kryptonians had already begun.
Perhaps Old Bu was pulling strings from behind the scenes?
From the description, Old Bu might have already been in contact with the military's top brass. He might have even fabricated lies to package himself as a savior while painting Superman as a heinous invader—it sounded very much like something Old Bu would do.
Then, Old Bu used some means to assist the military in capturing Superman. This speculation sounded much more plausible to Orin Vale; an early-career Superman falling into Old Bu's hands was quite normal.
"Mom said I have to take care of Kal, I should have watched over him!" Kara said nervously. "What should we do now? How about we just storm that base and rescue Kal?"
"That's a last resort. Don't be hasty," Orin Vale soothed.
A typically impulsive idea. He figured her Super Brain, after careful consideration, had arrived at the classic Kryptonian solution: "Just charge in with your super strength!"
"Wait for my word. I'll go investigate."
The troops that had captured Superman were led by General Lane. He was an old acquaintance from the Superman stories, the father of Superman's future wife, Lois Lane, and a future father-in-law with whom Superman would share a love-hate relationship.
This man was a lot like Ross, the father-in-law from the Hulk stories—a staunch anti-Superman figure and a complete pot-stirrer. He operated under the banner of driving away aliens for the good of humanity, yet he was routinely obsessed with creating his own super-weapons, often making messes he couldn't handle and leaving Superman to clean them up.
At this stage, General Lane was likely in the early stages of his condition, not yet having entered the phase of a deranged fanatic obsessed with creating monsters. For now, he just wanted to find an opportunity to take down Superman.
So, the first step was to infiltrate General Lane's base and take a look.
This was extremely easy for Orin Vale. His essence was no longer human; his human form was merely a disguise he could alter at will. In other words, shapeshifting was one of his basic abilities.
So he had Pal forge some files and "create" a new identity.
A high-ranking A.R.G.U.S. agent, Mike Williams.
There was a reason for borrowing an A.R.G.U.S. alias. Matters involving aliens fell within A.R.G.U.S.'s jurisdiction. And unlike other departments, A.R.G.U.S. was a special organization similar to Nick Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D. from the Marvel universe next door. They had extremely high autonomy and would often suddenly stick their noses into the affairs of various departments, responding to any questions with a mysterious, "That's classified."
Using the A.R.G.U.S. agent alias and the ID forged by Pal, he smoothly infiltrated the camp but still met some minor resistance.
"Sorry, Superman is ours. This isn't an A.R.G.U.S. matter," General Lane said bluntly.
"All metahuman and alien incidents fall under A.R.G.U.S.'s jurisdiction."
Orin Vale made his appearance and tone match the image of an A.R.G.U.S. agent as much as possible.
"Furthermore, A.R.G.U.S. recently encountered an extraterrestrial invasion, and its behavior was similar to this 'Superman.' There are signs indicating a connection between the two."
Then, his tone relaxed. "Of course, Director Waller's intention isn't to take over this project. We simply hope to share information, which will also help A.R.G.U.S. formulate strategies against these aliens."
General Lane pondered for a moment and seemed to find the request reasonable.
"Fine."
General Lane led him through the base to a facility hidden deep underground. Orin Vale immediately spotted the captured Superman.
At this moment, Superman was sealed in a fortress-like room, restrained in a high-voltage electric chair. His blue T-shirt was torn in several places, and he was covered in grime. He sat there with his eyes closed and his head lolled to one side, appearing to be unconscious.
However, after a quick scan with his Ultra Vision, Orin Vale couldn't help but laugh internally.
Superman was perfectly fine, not hurt at all. He was just pretending to be unconscious.
Orin Vale quickly guessed what was going on.
People say Superman is impulsive, but impulsive doesn't mean stupid. He had likely taken this opportunity to feign defeat, letting them capture him so he could meet the mastermind behind it all.
Orin Vale retracted his gaze and stole a glance at General Lane beside him. The old man's lips were twitching into an irrepressible grin as he looked at the captive Superman. He seemed to be gloating over his achievement of capturing Superman, completely unaware of the severity of the situation.
"Why hasn't the interrogation started?" Orin Vale asked.
"We're waiting for an expert," General Lane said. "It was the expert's plan that helped us capture this Superman. He's on his way now and should arrive within twenty minutes."
As he spoke, General Lane began giving orders again. "Keep the gas on, don't let this alien wake up! Hah, this guy doesn't look so 'super' now, does he..."
Seeing his smug look, Orin Vale suddenly looked forward to the man's reaction when he discovered Superman's health bar was full and he'd been faking it the whole time.
Superman obviously didn't need him to worry. In comparison, he was more concerned about what Brainiac had said earlier.
He slipped into the base's server room and had Pal perform a carpet search of the entire server. Unfortunately, he found no trace of Old Bu.
However, there was an unexpected discovery.
A restricted area in the base, classified as "Top Secret of Top Secrets," was located on the fourth basement level. Its contents couldn't even be accessed from the main server. In the entire base, only General Lane had the authority to enter that room.
This slightly piqued Orin Vale's curiosity.
He silently descended to the room designated as a restricted area and quickly understood.
Alien artifacts.
The entire room was a collection of alien artifacts and related evidence gathered from around the world over many years.
Orin Vale was even surprised to find armor that resembled an exoskeleton in this room.
But upon closer inspection, he saw that it wasn't an exoskeleton in the traditional sense. Instead, it was a high-risk technology that required a complete link between a person and the machine, more akin to Robocop.
This equipment was labeled "Zero Armor."
A codename quickly surfaced in Orin Vale's mind.
Metallo.
Driven by a Kryptonite heart, he was one of Superman's greatest archenemies. Superman had suffered greatly at his hands, even having near-death experiences.
A soldier named John Corben merged with this "Zero Armor" to become the Kryptonite-powered nightmare from the Superman stories.
A simple scan was all it took for Orin Vale to realize that the Zero Armor's ability to fight Superman wasn't just reliant on Kryptonite. The design of the equipment itself had many merits, and he could even see traces of alien technology from unknown sources.
An idea struck Orin Vale, and he revealed his Hyperspace Bracelet.
Just as the glasses Zero Bunny used for transformation were usually stored in his bracelet, the Hyperspace Bracelet naturally came with its own subspace. Its capacity was limited and couldn't store large objects like aircraft or tanks, but stashing a few small things was no problem.
The bracelet's built-in subspace activated, and he directly shoved the entire suit of armor into the bracelet.
He had just invisibly nipped one of Superman and Supergirl's future deadly enemies in the bud.
In any case, when General Lane discovered the item was missing, the blame would fall on Amanda Waller. It wasn't his problem.
His gaze swept around the room again, and he was then surprised to find a display case filled with brilliant, shining green stones—it was Kryptonite.
In the original lore, many Kryptonite fragments fell to Earth after Krypton's explosion, and that was the main source of Kryptonite for the villains to use against Superman.
It seemed General Lane's people had also unearthed Kryptonite. They had identified it as an alien element, but they probably didn't know yet that this thing was a super-effective weapon against Superman, so it was just being collected for research.
Orin Vale thought for a moment and, on a whim, dumped the entire cabinet of Kryptonite into his bracelet's space as well.
Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. The blame would still fall on Waller anyway, so it would be a waste not to take it.
Doing a good deed without taking credit, another deadly threat was eliminated without a trace. Honestly, Orin Vale felt it wouldn't be too much to ask for the future Superman to kowtow to him for this.
(end of chapter)