“Hi. My name is Superman. It’s nice to meet you.”
The room was plain, functional, and most importantly, private. He usually had to pretend to be somebody he wasn’t. It was all for safety and sanity, of course; he’d never have a moment’s peace if everyone knew who he really was, all the time. Here, though, he didn’t have to worry.
“Hello, Superman,” said the figure, sitting opposite in a beige armchair. It was a human male, simply clothed, with what could only be called average middle-aged features and a bald head. “Tell me about yourself.”
Superman paused. “I’m Superman, and I was born on the planet Krypton. I was sent to Earth before Krypton exploded, and adopted by Ma and Pa Kent. I have super powers because of the yellow sun, and while I keep my identity a secret, I fight crime and injustice with my abilities.” It was all true, but it felt odd to say it all out loud like that.
“Do you like fighting crime?”
“Yes. I fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”
“Is it hard keeping your secret?”
“It’s hard, but I have to do it. It protects the people around me, and makes it easier for me to find bad guys.”
“Where do you find bad guys?”
Again, he paused. Nothing unusual about the question, but he still felt…off. “They call me ‘Man of Steel’ because I’m unbreakable and strong. I often find bad guys when I’m a reporter at The Daily Planet, with my friends Lois and Jimmy.”
“That’s good, Superman.” The figure crossed his legs. “Who are some bad guys?”
A moment passed as Superman stopped to think. There was something there, in the back of his mind, something…wrong. “There are many, including Brainiac, General Zod, and Bizarro. I also have a super-dog! His name is Krypto.”
“Do you have an arch-nemesis?”
“An arch-nemesis is someone’s main nemesis.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “The word ‘archenemy’ is synonymous. It means ‘the main enemy of someone.’”
The figure scratched his bald head. “Who is your archenemy or arch-nemesis?”
Superman set his jaw. He knew this one. “Lex Luthor! He’s always up to no good! I always stop him, but he always figures out a way to escape.”
“What if I told you that I was Lex Luthor?”
Suddenly, it all became clear: the questions, the familiar bald head of the man in front of him, the feeling of something being not quite right. “It’s you!” he shouted. “Ok Lex, this interview is over. Time to bring you to justice!” He had a nagging feeling that he couldn’t remember exactly what Luthor had done this time, but Lex was a bad guy and he was a good guy, so he was sure it would all work out.
Using his super-speed, he sprinted across the small room and grabbed the villain in a super-bear-hug. With a single bound, he flew up, smashing through the ceiling and making a beeline for the Metropolis jail.
Except, he didn’t. He didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He strained, trying again to dash, then just to move a leg, then just to lift a finger. No good.
“Ok, easy there,” said Luthor. “Don’t you want to find out more about my plan first?”
Superman struggled. “What have you…done? Got to…get…free…”
“I’m using my, um, my Kryptonite Beam to sap your powers temporarily so I can…”
He struggled more. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t fly…he tried to use his heat vision, but it was no use. He had never felt so helpless. He wracked his brain for some idea, some memory of how he could free himself, but everything was still so cloudy, so foggy, so disjointed and contradictory. Luthor could be defeated; he always had been defeated, and in so many different ways.
Where was the Kryptonite Beam? There had to be a flaw, a weakness…where was Jimmy? Where was Lois? She loved him, he knew…so why wouldn’t she save him? Wasn’t that his job? Saving?
He was panicking. He remembered being dead, then alive. He never hurt a fly, except sometimes he did. Lois looked so different…her face kept flashing, changing. So did Luthor. So did he.
Lex looked at the twitching avatar of his enemy; Superman’s eyes were manic, unfocused. He strained against invisible chains. “At last, I have you in my grasp,” Luthor sighed. “Again.”
The avatar of Lex Luthor looked up. It was an unnecessary but commonplace emote when communicating with the admin of a virtual space; it felt natural to look skyward when you were essentially talking to god. “Ok, shut it down. It keeps happening and I’m running out of ideas as this point.”
“Maybe we need to let it use some of its powers again,” a voice said.
“Which we tried, and it just made the meltdown that much more destructive,” he replied. “And made it more confusing since some powers worked and some didn’t, which just made it search harder for a logical explanation.” Luthor paused. “Maybe that’s the problem: logic. There are too many variants…the lore is too inconsistent. It’s trying to reconcile everything and it isn’t making sense, because it’s fiction and doesn’t have to make sense.”
“It should be able to deal with logical inconsistency,” the voice said. “Like making an ‘impossible’ 3D maze. The AI should just ignore it, same as any other computer. Fine, you can’t actually make five left turns, but you just don’t render the bigger picture. Humans do it all the time.”
“Well, AI doesn’t seem to work that way,” said the Lex Luthor avatar. “You train a virtual being on comic books, this is what you get. An AI that makes just about as much sense. And apparently, Superman can’t help poking at the flaws.”
“I’m sure we’ll get it one of these days,” said the voice. “People will kill to hang out with the ‘real’ Superman, even if it’s just in a game.”
“I sure hope so.” Luthor paused. “Ok, I’m not ready to be done for the day, but let’s switch gears for a bit. Work on something easier. Hulk smash?”
“Hulk smash,” said the voice.
The room, Lex Luthor, and a catatonic Artificial Intelligence construct of a comic-book hero all began to power down, slowly disappearing into digital non-being. But for a moment, the constraints on his superpowers ceased to be, and Superman flew up, up, and away, free to fight another day.
