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Tuesday

"Chromosome number," Mr. Dalton was saying, "is one of the chief determinates of sexual separation in closely related species."

Kon sat up a little when he heard the word ‘sexual,’ but then his brain parsed the rest of the sentence and he went back to idly doodling in the margins of his notebook. Dalton was pretty nice, and he really tried, but... Kon actually felt a little sorry for the guy, because he was obviously so damned *into* his subject, and it wasn’t like anyone at Smallville-freaking-High was ever going to use any of this stuff. Thomas Baumhauer, for example, the scrawny, pimply kid who sat beside Kon, was actively rolling his eyes as Dalton went on about horses' toes like they were supposed to find it all fascinating.

Kon loved Smallville. He did. He loved Ma Kent and the farm and the way the guy who owned the grocery store they shopped at worked the counter himself. He loved that there wasn’t a W-Mart for sixty miles. He loved that they could leave the farm with a load of peaches and come back with a truck full of watermelons without money ever changing hands. It had taken him a while, but Kon had come to love small town life just as much as Clark had hoped.

He still hated Smallville High.

"The horse, for example, has sixty-four chromosomes," Dalton was saying. "The donkey has sixty-two. All of the equines are physically compatible and can be induced to cross. The example most of you will be familiar with is the mule, which is the offspring of a female horse and a male donkey. They are strong, intelligent, healthy and long-lived – a phenomenon often called ‘hybrid vigor’."

Kon stopped doodling and started paying attention.

"A hybrid may have traits of both parents, or its genetics may combine to produce new traits. Often, ancestral characters masked in the parents will reassert themselves to some degree – striping in equines, for example. But it doesn’t matter how fit the offspring may be – the hybrid cannot produce viable gametes. Because of the differing number of chromosomes in its parents, the hybrid is infertile."

Kon tried very, very hard not to have a visible reaction. Instead, he slid his phone from his pocket and started punching out a text under the desk.

"There are rare exceptions in female hybrids, probably resulting from nondisjunction during gamete production. Mr. Kent, cell phone away."

Baumhauer smirked. He was a jerk. Kon flipped him off when Dalton turned back to the board. Behind them, someone tittered.

Yep. Kon hated Smallville High.

"I have a friend," Kon told Mr. Dalton after the bell rang, then stopped. He had a friend who what? Was an alien-human hybrid? That wasn't going to fly. "Um," Kon tried again. "What about aliens?"

Dalton stopped shuffling papers and looked at Kon intently. "Like, um…" The answer hit him like a brick. A beautifully shaped brick. "Like Kory Anders," he said, and grinned. "Think she could have kids with a human?"

Dalton laughed. "I don’t know enough about Tamaranian biology to tell you if she’s even physically compatible with a human male."

"Let’s assume she is," Kon asked. "She’s dated human guys, right? What do you think?"

"I think," Dalton said, smiling, "that Miss Anders has never submitted to the sort of scientific scrutiny necessary to answer that question. None of our alien visitors have – or, well, I suppose it’s likely the people with access are keeping the data under wraps. Which is a damned shame, because a few samples could pretty much tell us for sure if life on Earth originated here or elsewhere in the cosmos."

"Huh," Kon said. That was a pretty big ‘if.’ Like, an existential ‘if.’ The guys at Cadmus had probably known the answer, too. Star Labs probably knew. Doc Mid-Nite. Maybe Batman. Maybe Tim.

"It’s a good question, Conner," Dalton said, and he looked so damned happy that Kon had to smile back. "I just wish I knew the answer."

Kon sent the text off after class.

hybrids in bio 2day am i shooting blanks

He didn’t get a reply until after lunch – really awful sloppy joes, so Kon just ate chips. He only had one more class, anyway. Hurray for being a senior.

You’re definitely not compatible with human females; neither is Clark.

Tim always texted like that, with complete sentences and actual punctuation. Kon wasn’t sure what to think about the answer, so he sent back,

o im compatible alright

- and tucked his phone away.

The most interesting thing to happen during English was a whispered argument between a guy and a girl in the last row. Apparently, he wanted to give her a ride home in his new truck, and she wanted his penis to shrivel up and fall off. Way more interesting than Faulkner.

After class Kon headed for his locker, ready to dump whatever he could and hit the sky. The hall was noisy and crowded, as usual, and completely plastered with posters for next week's Spring Formal. When he fought his way through to his locker, the combination dial got stuck again, so he glanced over his shoulder before nudging the door open and reaching inside. He was keeping his bio book, tonight. He thought he might actually do the reading, for once.

Ten feet away, the guy from English with the bad luck clipped a smaller kid with his shoulder and sent him to the ground. Books and papers flew everywhere, but the jackass kept walking.

Kon knelt down and started gathering papers. "What an asshole," he said. He really hoped the bastard heard him, too.

The kid just grinned. "Thanks," he said as Kon handed him a stack of worksheets. His blonde hair was spiked up like Tim used to wear his, and his little rectangular glasses were a lot more stylish than Conner Kent’s. Kon figured he was probably a sophomore.

"I don’t know if it will make you feel better, but he just got massively shot down by a girl in my English class," Kon said. "Sometimes karma strikes preemptively."

The kid laughed.

"I’m Conner," Kon said, because, hell, nobody here laughed at his lame Conner Kent jokes.

"Matt," the kid said. He crawled forward a few feet and extended his hand, and Kon shook. They got a few funny looks from the people who had to detour around them, but Matt acted like he didn’t even notice. Kon decided he liked him.

They stood, and Kon went to shut his locker. "See you around," he said. Matt nodded and took off down the hall.

So maybe Conner could make friends. Maybe tomorrow he'd trip the asshole during English. Maybe the girl in the back row would laugh. Maybe she'd even talk to him.

Maybe Kon should get back to the farm, because Martha had been cutting up apples when he left that morning, and he was pretty sure that meant pie.

It turned out to be cobbler, but that was good, too, with that drop-biscuit crust that had cheese in it. Kon ate three helpings, with ice cream, and a ham sandwich when Martha gave him that look. The milk was cold and fresh, and he drank about a quart of it. Martha joked about getting another cow, then sent him out to fix the hole Krypto had knocked in the fence chasing rabbits.

After he burned the weeds out of the truck patch - heat vision was ten thousand times better than a hoe, any day - he helped Martha bring in the peas she'd spent all morning picking, even though he'd told her he would do it when he got home.

He left three of the big twenty-gallon buckets on the back porch and brought the rest in so they could watch TV while they shelled them. Krypto followed him in and settled down for a nap, spread out on his back with Martha's slipper occasionally rubbing his tummy.

"You know Clark and Lois can't have kids?" he asked during a commercial.

"We hadn't really talked about it," Martha said without looking up from her peas. She snapped the end of each pod and pulled the string down the front like a zipper, then slid her finger along inside to make the peas pop out. It was soothing to watch. Kon just touched his pods and they opened. Martha was still faster. "I assumed, though," she said after a moment.

"Tim says I can't either."

"I'd wondered," Martha said. She stopped snapping peas and looked at him seriously. "I shouldn't have to tell you that there are other ways to build a family."

Kon grinned. "Well, duh," he said, and then shut up, because the weather report came on.

When they had finished a bucket each, Kon put the empties by the back door and carried the bulging zip-locks of fresh peas to the deep-freeze. He grabbed two more buckets off the porch and carried them into the living room, where a reporter was talking about a domestic kidnapping that had turned into a car chase outside of Wichita. Kon kissed Martha's cheek on the way out the door, and went to do his thing.

When it was all over, he flew the two little girls back to their mother's house in Topeka, and then Keystone wasn't that far out of the way, so he stopped off to see Bart.

"I was waiting for this game to come out when I died," Bart told him. 'This game' was Super Mecha Attack DX Gaiden, and Bart was beating the pants off him at versus mode. Kon loudly blamed the fact the game was in Japanese, but there was really only so much translation 'giant robots and girls in short skirts' needed. "After we got back from the future," Bart continued, "I picked it up from the bargain bin for fifteen dollars."

"Heh," Kon said, "unexpected bonus." Bart backed him into a corner, and Kon gave up on finesse and started button-mashing as fast as he could. "Space doesn't have corners, man," he complained. "I've been to space. There are no invisible walls in space!"

"Wait, stop," Bart said, "try your specials. Hold green and hit purple."

Kon tried it. Bart killed him anyway. "Oh, you motherfucker," he growled. When Bart just laughed like a super villain, Kon stuck him to the couch and grabbed him in a headlock.

Kon's phone started playing Enya at him, making Bart cackle. He managed to get it out and open without letting Bart go, but it took some effort.

"Yeah?" he said. He held the phone against his ear with his telekinesis, and used his newly free hand to pummel Bart with a couch cushion.

"Are you busy?" Tim asked.

"Nah, man. Me and Bart are fighting giant killer robots."

"What a coincidence," Tim said. He sounded slightly short of breath. There was a muffled boom somewhere on his end, and the tinny sound of distant screaming.

"Is that Tim?" Bart asked. He squirmed and vibrated until Kon finally let him go. "What's he say?"

"Dude," Kon said. He sat up, grinning. "Where are you?"

"What's going on?" Bart asked, and then somehow he had the phone and Kon was talking to nothing. "What? Oh, where?" Bart was grinning, too, and then he had Kon by the wrist, and they were moving.

All in all, it had been a good day. School hadn't sucked too much. He'd gotten to hang with Bart and Tim, and there had been giant robots, which were always fun. He would make it home by supper time, and his chores were already done. After they ate, he could watch some more TV while he did the reading for bio, and see how many channels were playing footage of the fight.

He skimmed into his bedroom window and took a quick shower to get rid of all the hydraulic fluid. Martha Kent was a very forgiving woman, but he wasn't going to risk tracking that shit all over the house.

Martha was sitting at the table when he came down. Kon drifted over and presented her with a peck on the cheek and a bouquet of daisies he'd picked on the way back from Baltimore. She didn't smile. "Sit down, Conner," she said.

Kon sat, dread pooling in his stomach like molten lead. "What happened?" he asked.

Martha laid the flowers carefully in the middle of the table, then looked up at him, eyes soft and tired. "Someone was killed at your school today, Conner," she said.

When Tim picked up the phone, Kon didn't waste any time. "I need your help, man."

"The murder at your school. Turn on your computer."

"How did you-?" Kon started - then he remembered who he was talking to. He shook his head and did as Tim asked. "His name was Matt," Kon said. "I only met him today, but he seemed like a nice guy."

"Matthew David Stephens," Tim said. "He doesn't have a criminal record."

Kon frowned. "Someone beat him to death in a locker room. He's a victim, Tim."

"He wouldn't be any less of a victim if he had a record," Tim said, as Kon's computer finished booting and went to the desktop. "It would give us a more concrete starting place."

"I've got a starting place for you. Someone shoved him down, in the hall today."

"Hm," Tim said. It was a considering 'hm'.

"I don't know the guy's name. Pete, maybe? He's in my English class though, so I could find out. I think he's on the football team..." A group shot appeared on his screen. "There," Kon said,"top row, third from the left."

"Peter Miller. I'll mark him as a possible. First things first, though - we need to know more about Stephens."

There was a pause in which Kon heard typing. "Hey," he said. "I don't hear any bats."

Tim's voice was dry as fucking bone. "Contrary to popular belief, none of us actually live in the Cave."

"So where are you hacking my computer from?"

"Sundollars."

Kon rolled his eyes and popped the top on a Soder. "You are not," he said, and took a sip.

"Oh?" He could hear the smile in Tim's voice.

"If you did suddenly start doing Red work on public access wifi in coffee shops, I'd hear the other people."

"It's a slow night. Not a lot of people drinking coffee. Incoming."

The 'ping' that Kon's computer made when the files arrived didn't quite cover the ‘ping’ of an electronic timer going off on Tim's end, but it was a good effort. Kon kicked his chair back onto two legs and smirked. "You're in Draper's shithole apartment."

"What makes you say that?" Tim asked, oh so casual, and yeah, he was definitely grinning.

"Because Alfred doesn't let you eat those gross microwave burritos."

"Hm," Tim said, only that time it was totally a laugh.

Kon started tabbing through the files. Most of the photos looked like yearbook headshots, but there were two with newspaper clippings - one from Boy Scouts at age eight, and one that looked fairly recent, showing Matt in an apron, sorting cans at the Smallville Food Bank.

"Hm," Tim said again.

"Please don't tell me you're disappointed that he was civicly responsible."

"No," Tim said. "I'm looking at his family records now. His parents divorced two years ago. Rebecca Ann Stephens, nee Martin, age 38. Patrick David Stephens, age 42. Matthew lived with his mother, sole custody. There's a restraining order against the father.

Kon sat up and put his drink down. "Yeah?"

"His current address is in Iowa. I can look for travel records."

Kon scrubbed his face with his hand. "I hate it when it's family, dude. That shit's not right."

"No," Tim said, his voice gone soft. "It isn't right, but it's statistically true. You aren't going to like this, Kon."

"I already don't like it."

"No, I mean..." Tim trailed off. After a moment he said, "I've got medical records here. Matthew was hospitalized two days before his mother filed for the divorce and the order. He was beaten. Badly."

Kon drained his Soder and crushed the can to the size of a ping pong ball. He set it aside and started looking for his shirt. "Where's he live?"

"We're not done."

Kon dropped to the floor and felt around underneath the bed. When he didn’t find anything, he stretched his telekinesis out to increase his reach. He found one boot, but not the other. "Where," he growled, "does he live?"

Tim was silent.

"Tim-"

"We'll go together," he finally said. "Tomorrow. We're not done, Kon. You wanted my expertise. I'm giving it to you. Now sit down."

Kon sat down so hard he sent his flimsy desk chair back three feet. He covered his face with his hands.

"I know you don't want to hear it, but a gut feeling and circumstantial evidence aren't enough. If he is the killer, we'll prove it. If he isn’t, and we don't find that out until it's too late, you will never forgive yourself. Believe me."

"I'm not going to kill him," Kon mumbled.

"I've got the crime scene photos. Do you want them?"

"Do I?" Kon asked. "Because unless the killer wrote his name on the wall in blood, I'm not going to get anything out of it. You're the detective. What do you detect?"

"I'm sixty percent sure that the killer is a meta or other humanoid being with enhanced strength."

Kon's fist hit the desk like a shotgun blast. "No," he said. "Damn it, no. This is Smallville. No fucking supermaniacs allowed. And nobody - nobody gets to beat their own kids to death. I'm going to break the bastard's face. He's never going to get out of the damned Slab, because he won't be able to fucking walk."

"Kon," Tim said.

Kon took a breath. He brushed a splinter out of his belly button.

"We'll go together, tomorrow, when we have more information. I'll pull together what I can from here, but I'm going to need you to plant some cameras for me tonight. I'll walk you through it."

Kon sighed and tipped his chair back again. He propped his feet on the desk and scratched the waistband of his Hawkman boxers. "So you're going to sit there in Gotham behind a computer while I do all the gruntwork?"

"Something like that."

"Do I get my own fishnets?"

"You've already got your ear pierced," Tim said. "It's the logical next step."

Kon laughed despite himself. "So where's the B and E going to be?"

"Lowell County Coroner's building, Room 3E."

"...because you are a creepy mofo. Okay. Should I fly your way and get the cameras?"

"No need," Tim said, and something in his tone made Kon brace himself. "You can repurpose the one in the vent three feet to your left."

What. The. Fuck.

Kon's chair crashed to the floor as he shot up and out of it. "It only has about a week of battery life left," Tim was saying through the handset on the floor. Kon grabbed the vent cover and the screws holding it spun out. Sure enough, there was a small black camera behind it.

"The fuck, dude!" He muttered.

"You'll need at least one more," Tim's tinny voice informed him through the phone. "The one in the swallow's nest above the front door would be a good choice. It’s redundant."

Kon swooped down and grabbed the phone. He shouted a few choice words into it and threw it at the wall.

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