“Can you please get to the point, Mr. Smith?”
The smile faltered again. “Well, doctor, the fact is they want to bring you on full time and put you in charge of—”
“Not interested.”
His face dropped. “You don’t even know which project I was going to say.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m comfortable with my arrangement the way it is.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Smith reached out to the side. The man with the attaché case opened it and placed a file folder in the waiting hand. “You’ve seen some of the headlines, I’m guessing?” He walked past me to the table and spread out some clippings and printed articles.
THE MIGHTY DRAGON PATROLS LOS ANGELES
“APE MAN” STOPS ROBBERY
SHADOWY FIGURE HUNTS RAMPART DISTRICT CRIMINALS
I’d seen most of them before. A few of my grad students had been saving news stories and images for me since The Mighty Dragon had first appeared in June. I guessed we had twice as many articles as Smith did. Copies were on the flash drive, which reminded me to pick it up and drop it in my pocket. “Have you seen the ones about the electrical man up in Boston?” I asked him.
His eyes lit up like a child. “I have. What do you think of them?”
“I’m intrigued, of course, but until I see more concrete proof than a headline in the Post or some grainy photos on a blog, it’s not going to occupy a lot of my time.”
“But you’ve had your students saving news stories for you.” His smile came back.
“What are you getting at, Mr. Smith?”
He avoided my eyes and looked around the lab. “I hate to sound suspicious, Professor Sorensen, but... well, some folks at DARPA have been wondering if you’ve had some success with your human enhancement research that you haven’t told us about.”
I felt a twinge of panic. Maybe Mary’s paranoia wasn’t that misplaced after all. “You think I had something to do with these people?”
Smith shrugged. “To be honest,” he said, “I think they’d be thrilled if you had. It’d put the United States far ahead in the superpowers race.”
“The what?”
“They’re not just here, doctor,” he said. “People with superhuman abilities are appearing all over the world. Did you see Vladimir Putin on the cover of Time last month?” Smith shook his head.
“I saw the picture,” I said with a nod. They’d titled it ‘Superman of the Year.’ Putin had been bare-chested in front of the Kremlin, holding a car one-handed over his head. “I thought it was Photoshop propaganda.”
“Most people did. Thank the CIA for that. But superhumans are popping up everywhere.” Smith slid some more photos from the file folder. “England’s got the Green Knight and the Scarecrow. Japan’s got a whole team of super-samurais. There’s two guys in Iran calling themselves Gilgamesh and Marduk. Hell, we got satellite footage of a dragon flying over Baghdad this morning. Wings, horns, tail, everything.”
“A dragon?”
He shrugged. “Some of the agency folks think it might be some kind of metamorphosis or something.” His tongue tripped over the word. “That something, maybe someone, changed into—”
“I know what metamorphosis means.”
“Right, sorry. Anyway, don’t you see, professor? That’s why we need to get you back on Project Krypton. No more consults, no more outside evaluations. We want you working full time with us on this. And you don’t want to miss out on a chance like this, do you?”
“No,” I found myself saying. I knew Smith was right. Eva and Madelyn were going to be angry with me. I’d promised them I wouldn’t take on extra projects this year. “I thought Krypton was done for good?”
“The Secretary of Defense likes it. He brought it back two years ago, but it’s been kept pretty quiet. The Future Force Warrior project gets most of the headlines on Wired, anyway.”
“Then why bring back Krypton?”
“Well, Future Force is doing well,” he said, “and they’re also hoping to have that new exoskeleton project in the public eye in the next seven or eight months. But when it comes down to it, the Vice President, the Secretary, and the Joint Chiefs want to see the real deal in our corner and they think you’re the man to do it.”
I furrowed my brow. It’s a bad habit. Eva says it’s giving me wrinkles. “Our corner? I’m not sure I understand.”
He gestured at the papers and images on the table. “All of these other superhumans are answering to their country’s government,” he explained. “Almost every one of them. Some are even on payroll. I mean, think about it, doctor. There’s no point in having superheroes in the United States if the government doesn’t control them.”
Chapter 2
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