Superflash:Collison Course (Volume 1)

Chapter 18: Time after time

Paul Westfield, Dabney Donovan and Max Lord had been religiously following the news even as they continued upgrading the Metallo and Reactron projects to serve as their weapons against Supergirl and Superman. John Corben's body had been negatively affected by the kryptonite in his chest to the point that the radiation had begun eating away at his human flesh. Ultimately more drastic measures had to be taken and Cadmus enhanced his failing limbs with solid steel.

Ben Krull was a different matter altogether. The exo-suit he had created was designed to harness the reactor energy and pull it out of him to power the armor. Upgrading his suit was far easier as they only had to replace the energy core with the gold kryptonite. The fusion of his powers and the kryptonite made a far more potent weapon.

This was not what worried them the most, however. The main wrinkle in their plan had been Supergirl's growing partnership with the Flash. Corben had reported back to Westfield that the two heroes had met and briefly worked together. Now it seemed that the two of them had nearly become inseparable. He had been there at the site of the old Cadmus project helping her rescue Superman, alongside Batman, Wonder Woman and Robin. Max had known about the explosion when he had received an alert that the explosives he and Luthor had planted were activated. He also knew that Lex had been behind it, even from behind bars. Now the new Cadmus was forced to make changes.

"Donovan..."

"I don't have time for you right now, Lord. I'm busy."

"You'll be less busy when you hear what I have to say."

"I doubt that very much...what do you want?"

"I want to use your meta-humans. I want to turn them into soldiers."

"Cannon fodder you mean, is the great Maxwell Lord afraid that his plan to use Metallo and Reactron to defeat the Kryptonians is in jeopardy?"

"This isn't a game, Donovan. This is war. Superman and Supergirl have amassed allies, a small force though they may be, they are a threat. I'm not worried about Metallo and Reactron getting their job done, but all the pieces have to be in place."

"What are you proposing? Sending my untested creations against the alien's allies?"

"That's exactly what I'm proposing. At this point, Westfield has only used them as guinea pigs for Metallo. We can use them for so much more. We send them into battle against Flash, Batman, and the others and they won't be able to save their precious friends."

"An intriguing idea, it will take time to create a full batch of meta-humans though, especially if I'm creating them for war. There are safeguards that will need to be in place."

"Such as ...?"

"They need to be practically mindless, can't have any of the heroes getting into their heads and changing their alliances. And...,"

"And what?"

"And they have to be completely disposable. They go in to the fight, complete their mission and die without leaving any traces behind that will tie them to me."

"You mean tie them to Cadmus, don't you?"

"Yes...of course."

Max should have been concerned that Donovan paused before agreeing with him. As it is, he completely missed the subtext in the scientist's words. He was so preoccupied with defending Earth from what he saw as an alien threat, that he had no idea that Donovan was plotting against both him and Westfield.