The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern Page A

you ask permission to use it?”
    “No.”
    The Guardian locked eyes with Tommy. “I didn’t realize you were even old enough to have a driver’s permit.”
    “I-I’m not sure how old I am, sir.” Tommy tried—and failed—to keep from blinking. “It’s hard for a clone to know. Sometimes, I feel almost thirty.”
    “How do you feel right now?”
    “Like mud.”
    “And how do you think your fathers will feel when they find out what you’ve done?”
    “I don’t know, sir. Surprised?”
    “I doubt that. You’re too much like them.” Entirely too much like them!
    “Well, if our pops turned out okay, then there must be hope for us! Right, Guardian?” Flip was thinking fast and talking faster. “I mean, we can’t help being the way we are.”
    “Yeah!” Scrapper set his jaw at a determined angle that the Guardian knew all too well. “We’re just livin’ out our genetical hermitage . . . doin’ what our old men woulda done under the same soicumstances.”
    “ ‘Soicumstances’?” Under his helmet, Jim Harper raised an eyebrow. I’d like to know how that Bowery Boys accent managed to become genetically programmed.
    “What he’s trying to say, sir . . .” Gabby was making a feeble attempt to choke back mock tears. “. . . is that we’re just poor, misguided youths, trying to find our way in the world. We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
    “What about the stink bomb, boys?”
    They all looked at Big Words.
    “Ah, yes . . . well . . . that was the result of an experiment in organic chemistry, sir. And like many experiments, it was none too successful.”
    “I’d say it was very successful in clearing your way through the motor pool.”
    “Guardian—?”
    “Yes, Tommy?”
    “We just had to get out for a while. We were going stir crazy in there.”
    The Guardian sighed. “I know, but that doesn’t excuse—!”
    “Oh, you ‘know.’ Right!” Scrapper’s face was a study in disgust. “You can waltz outta the Project anytime you like. You get to pal aroun’ wit’ yer buddy Sooperman, an’ help ’im fight aliens, an’ have all kinda great adventures—an’ all wit’out us!”
    “I’ve aided Superman a few times, yes. But those were dangerous missions. There’s no way you could’ve gone along.”
    “Hey, man, it doesn’t matter.” Flip sounded just as disgusted as Scrapper. “The fact remains that you’re allowed to leave the Project, and we’re not.”
    “Ain’t fair,” sniffed Gabby. “Ain’t fair at all . . . keepin’ us cooped up all the time.”
    The Guardian nodded. “You’re right. It isn’t fair.”
    “Huh?”
    “We are?”
    “It’s not?”
    “I’ve been working on getting approval to take you characters into Metropolis for extended periods—”
    “All right!”
    “—but if you keep setting off stink bombs and causing mayhem, I’m never going to get that approval. Paul Westfield takes a very dim view of such shenanigans!”
    “Dat bum? He don’t like nothin’! He don’t even like Sooperman!”
    “Mr. Westfield’s likes and dislikes are beside the point. The fact remains that he is the administrator of the Cadmus Project, and what he says goes!” Whether we like it or not, thought the Guardian. He was none too keen on Westfield’s hard-nosed approach himself. “Do me a favor, guys. Try to toe the straight and narrow for a while, and I’ll do my best to get some vacation time for you all. Do we have a deal?”
    “Well . . .”
    “Tommy?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Flip?”
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    “Gabby?”
    “Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure.”
    “Scrapper?”
    “You promise to get us some free time?”
    “I’ll do everything in my power.”
    The young tough gave the Guardian a toothy grin. “Okay, Officer Harper, ya got me!”
    “And I shall be most happy to make it unanimous.” Big Words’s ear-to-ear grin looked to rival even Scrapper’s.
    “Good. Now, what do you say we turn this wagon around and head home?”
    “Uh, we have