Chapter 33

Location: Smallville High, Smallville – Earth – 2003

The glow of multiple monitors illuminated Skye Hubbard's face as she typed rapidly on her keyboard, her fingers moving with the confidence of someone who had done this countless times before. The IT lab at Smallville High was nearly empty aside from the faint hum of computers and the soft clicking of keystrokes. Skye sat their typing away while her boyfriend Apollo and her two closest friends Pete Ross and Chloe entered in silence. She leaned in, eyes narrowed, scanning lines of data as she infiltrated Smallville's local network.

A voice broke through the quiet.

"Still hacking the Pentagon, Hubbard?"

Apollo Kent grinned as he leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. Pete Ross stood beside him, shaking his head with an exaggerated sigh.

"Man, if she gets arrested, I'm not bailing her out," Pete joked. "There's no way my Mom would be happy with me associating with a juvenile criminal."

Skye rolled her eyes but smirked. "You'd let me rot in jail? Some friend you are."

Apollo chuckled, grabbing his backpack off the chair.

"I'd break you out, don't worry." He reassured Skye as he kissed her forehead.

Pete playfully nudged Apollo. "Of course you would, Mr. Boy Scout."

"So are you actually going to help or just stand there looking pretty?" Skye teased, leaning back in her chair.

Apollo chuckled.

"I can do both" He quipped as he strolled over and playfully ruffled her hair, earning an exaggerated eye-roll.

"Hey, hey, not the hair!" Skye swatted his hand away with a playful smile on her face.

"Yeah, yeah, get a room, you two," Pete interjected.

Apollo turned, smirking. "You jealous, Ross? You know you could have this too if you dated girls for more than a few weeks"

Pete scoffed. "Please. The day I start pining to settle down is the day cows start flying."

"I mean, we do live in Kansas," Apollo shot back.

Pete groaned. "You know what? Forget it. Skye and I actually came here for something important." He pulled up a chair next to Skye, his expression shifting to something more serious.

"I figure Skye's already told you about what her and I have been working on?" Pete asked Apollo

"Yeah, people in the Southside being attacked" Apollo answered.

"Well my mom's been hearing things. She's hearing how whatever it causing this is escalating. The assaults are getting worse. My mom says the injuries are weird—fractured ribs, deep bruises, concussions—like someone with strength well beyond normal is beating on them. The cops don't care because, well…" He gestured vaguely. "Poor people getting hurt? Must be their own fault."

Chloe scoffed finally saying something.

"Classic. The system works exactly as designed."

"So, you've been having Skye do some digging?" Apollo said.

"Exactly," Pete confirmed.

"Yet you wouldn't bail her out jail, cold world" Apollo told him and Pete playfully elbowed Apollo.

Apollo watched as Skye's fingers flew across the keyboard, her brows knitting together in concentration. He leaned over slightly, watching her work.

"You're kind of amazing, you know that?" he murmured.

Skye shot him a playful side-eye. "Oh, so now you notice?"

Apollo chuckled. "I always notice."

From the other side of the room, Chloe let out a loud sigh.

"Are we investigating a possible conspiracy or watching a rom-com?"

Pete nudged her. "Jealous?"

Chloe huffed. "Jealous that they're distracting us from exposing the corrupt system that preys on the vulnerable? Yeah, a little."

"Uh-huh, sure," Pete replied, grinning.

Skye suddenly sat up straighter, her eyes widening. "Guys, I think I finally found something."

Apollo, Pete, and Chloe gathered around as Skye turned the screen toward them. A series of encrypted files flickered on the monitor, bearing the label PROJECT OSSEUS.

"That doesn't sound ominous at all," Pete muttered.

Skye began bypassing the security, her fingers never slowing.

"'Osseous' that's Latin for bone." Apollo spoke to no one in particular. His encyclopedic knowledge of every language coming to use.

"What the hell kind of project name is that?" Pete questioned.

"That means the project involves bone" Chloe answered. "Maybe that's why all those people are injured and have broken bones."

"Whatever this is, it's connected to those assaults in the Southside. And get this—these attacks? They're not random. They're planned."

Apollo lifted his head.

"By who?"

Skye clicked a few keys, bringing up a list of seemingly random locations.

"That's where I hit a wall. But I tapped into an encrypted network running through the railroad district. It was buried deep, but I pulled some files. Whoever is orchestrating these attacks? They call them 'deployments.'"

Apollo's stomach twisted.

"Deployments? As in, soldiers?"

"Something like that," Skye murmured. She tapped a file. "They're marking target areas. These attacks aren't just crimes; they're strategic."

"Who the hell are these people?" Pete asked.

Chloe exhaled through her nose, glaring at the screen.

"I'd bet money it's another one of those rich-man power plays. Some group of corporate-backed scumbags trying to keep the poor in check."

Apollo sat back, mind racing. Something wasn't clicking—until it did. His brain pieced together the scattered clues in an instant. His voice was quiet, certain.

"They're testing something."

The group turned to him.

"What?" Skye asked.

Apollo's mind worked through the pieces out loud.

"If these attacks are deployments, and they're planned instead of random, that means someone's watching. Studying the effects. Why? To test something. Pete, you said your Mom said the attacks are getting worse, it must be because their making it stronger" Apollo told them.

"It?" Chloe asked.

"A new weapon, one that breaks bones" Apollo said.

Silence settled over the room.

Chloe exhaled slowly. "You know I don't say this enough but how smart you are is... scary sometimes."

Apollo smirked.

"That's what you love about me" Apollo responded.

Chloe gave him a sidelong glance, lips quirking like she was trying not to smile.

"She may not but I do, it's one of many things I love about you" Skye said as she kissed Apollo's cheek.

Pete shook his head.

"Okay, Romeo and Juliet, can we stay focused? If you're right, Apollo, then that means we're dealing with—"

"A pseudo-military sect field testing on actual people," Chloe finished grimly.

"We need to figure out where they are" Pete said.

"I wish I could get into their encryption and find their base but I can't, it's at a level I can't crack yet" Skye admitted.

"You don't need to," Apollo interrupted, his mind already racing through the possibilities.

"Look at the timestamps. They're using a predictable schedule—deployment every few nights, same pattern, same sectors."

He studied the map Skye had pulled up, eyes flicking between the routes.

"They're launching from somewhere nearby… an abandoned location. Probably somewhere discreet but accessible."

Chloe crossed her arms. "Like?"

Apollo's expression hardened. "The abandoned tunnels in the railroad district."

Pete blinked. "You got all that just from some timestamps?"

Apollo shrugged. "It made sense."

Skye nudged him with her elbow, her gaze warm with admiration.

"I know I just said this but I'll say it again you're kind of brilliant, you know that?" Skye said as she gave him a peck on the lips.

Apollo smirked. "Oh, so now you notice?"

Chloe rolled her eyes again.

"Unbelievable" she muttered under he breath.

Pete clapped his hands together. "Alright, so what's next?"

Apollo's expression darkened. "We go check it out."

The group made their way to the tunnels almost immediately. The air in the tunnels beneath the railroad district was damp and stale, the scent of rust and mold hanging thick in the darkness. The only light came from their flashlights, beams cutting through the pitch-black corridor as Apollo, Skye, Pete, and Chloe moved cautiously forward.

"This place is straight out of a horror movie," Pete muttered.

He wasn't wrong cracks in the stone walls were covered in moss, old graffiti was scattered everywhere making it hard to tell whether the stains in the wall were paint or blood and old train tracks disappeared into the darkness ahead.

Pete gestured ahead. "Which means we're either the smart ones who turn back now… or the dumb ones who keep going."

Apollo smirked. "We all know which one we are."

"Tell me again why this seemed like a good idea?" Skye muttered gulping a little at the potential danger ahead of them

"Because if we don't get proof, no one will believe us," Chloe said back, holding up her camera.

"And because it's the right thing to do" Apollo added.

Apollo moved ahead, his super senses tuned to the slightest disturbance.

Apollo moved ahead, keeping his senses on high alert. The tunnel wasn't just abandoned—it was used. Scuff marks, discarded crates, and faint traces of vehicle tracks told a clear story and something that Apollo found most disturbing but wouldn't reveal to his friends so they wouldn't panic that he could hear something up ahead—something alive.

"This place is active," he murmured.

Skye crouched by an old access panel, prying it open. Inside was a keypad, modern and well-maintained.

"Definitely not abandoned." Chloe said when she saw it.

"Think you can get in?" Apollo asked Skye.

She smirked. "Please. Have a little faith, angel boy."

Apollo rolled his eyes but smiled as she got to work.

The lock clicked open, and the heavy door groaned as they pushed it aside.

Inside, flickering fluorescent lights illuminated the room. It wasn't just a room—it was a lab.

Chloe immediately started taking pictures. "Jackpot."

"This is insane." Pete added recording everything with his camcorder.

Apollo moved toward a desk stacked with files alongside Skye. She opened one and scanned the heavily redacted text.

"Guys…"

They gathered around, reading the document. Most of it was redacted, but the key details remained.

Subject: Ted Grahame Status: Enhanced Experimentation Process: Meteor infected individual previously diagnosed with osteopetrosis before meteor infection. Augmented with further radiation exposure.

Abilities: Exoskeletal Armour, Strength, durability, bone hardening, rapid healing.

Notes: Subject retains combat viability. Deployments: Southside sectors. Field testing. Further modifications pending.

"Jesus," Pete breathed as he read the file. "He's just a kid."

"Ted Grahame… Male… Subject displays remarkable cellular regeneration. Bone density increased exponentially. Subject previously suffered from… osteopetrosis?" Chloe read aloud.

"That's the disease where your bones become too dense" Apollo said remembering it from the list of diseases Hammer's new tech was supposed to be able to scan for.

"They experimented on a sick kid?" Skye said.

Apollo's stomach twisted.

"They didn't just experiment on him… They enhanced him." Apollo said his body boiling with rage.

Apollo thought it couldn't get worse but then they found the video footage.

On the screen, Ted was strapped to a table, screaming as doctors extracted his spinal fluid with long needles. His back arched, muscles spasming as his bones visibly shifted beneath his skin. The footage cut out, but the sound of his agonized cries echoed in their heads.

"Jesus," Pete whispered, his face pale.

Skye swallowed hard.

"Guys," Apollo whispered "I think he's here."

Apollo walked deeper into the tunnels, realising the living being he sensed when they were entering must be Ted. Apollo followed that heartbeat and they found another room. In it was a containment cell. Inside, a figure lay motionless.

Apollo took a step forward. "Ted?"

"We have to get him out of here." Skye said.

Apollo approached the reinforced glass cell at the back of the room.

Skye reached for the door's control panel.

"I think I can override—"

A loud beep filled the room. Then, a mechanical hiss.

Ted's eyes shot open. For a brief moment, he looked ordinary—just a scared teenager. Then his body convulsed, and with a sickening crack and an inhuman growl, his body began to change. His skin hardened into a layer of plated, armor-like bone. Segments of ivory armor formed across his chest, arms, and legs, his spine sprouting jagged spikes.

Ted's gaze snapped toward them.

"Ted, wait—!" Apollo tried to reason with him, but Ted swung his armoured arm, smashing a metal table across the room.

"RUN!" Pete shouted.

Just as Ted lunged forward to attack him, his strength shaking the entire room. Apollo barely managed to push Pete out of the way before Ted's armored fist smashed into the wall.

The team bolted for the exit, barely squeezing through the doorway as Ted charged after them. The tunnel shuddered as he tore through the concrete walls in pursuit.

Skye tripped, and Apollo was there in an instant, pulling her up and pushing her forward.

The tunnel trembled, cracks forming overhead.

"We have to get out before—" Chloe started, but then the ceiling gave way.

A deafening crash filled the tunnel as rock and debris collapsed between them and Ted. Dust filled the air, cutting off their sight of him.

Pete coughed. "Well, that's one way to escape."

Apollo stared at the fallen debris, his mind racing.

"This isn't over." Apollo said.

Chloe nodded grimly. "No. But we have enough to expose them, whoever they are. They won't be able to hide much longer."

The quartet rushed to the Torch and immediately got to work, everyone doing what they needed to get this exposé ready. The air was thick with tension, the weight of what they had just witnessed pressing down on them.

Ted Grahame. The boy with bones of steel. The boy who had been made into a weapon.

Apollo leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his mind racing. The collapsed tunnel, Ted's monstrous transformation, the experiments, the screams from the video they had found—it all swirled inside him like a storm.

Across the room, Chloe sat at her desk, fingers flying across the keyboard. Chloe typed furiously, the steady rhythm of her fingers striking the keys a furious counterpoint to the unsure waters the teens found themselves in. The article was coming together—exposing Project Osseus, the secretive group operating in the shadows of Smallville, the pattern of orchestrated attacks, and the horrifying truth about their so-called "weapon."

Skye was next to her, scrolling through the hacked files she had recovered, ensuring they had all the evidence they needed. Pete stood by the whiteboard, where they had mapped out everything they knew.

The silence stretched on until Pete let out a low whistle. "So… we're really doing this, huh?"

"Of course we are," Chloe snapped, not looking up from her screen.

"I mean, yeah," Pete said, rubbing the back of his head. "I want to do this. We need to do this. But can we acknowledge what we actually uncovered and witnessed, what's going to happen when this gets out?"

"That's what we need to figure out. How much do we say? What do we hold back? We don't even know who's really behind this yet." Apollo answered, his voice measured.

Chloe scoffed.

"Does it matter? We know enough. A secret project, a kidnapped teen turned into a super-powered weapon, an underground facility experimenting on him—people need to know."

"But what happens to Ted?" Skye interjected, her voice softer. "If we put this out there, he becomes a target."

Chloe huffed.

"He's dangerous and everyone knows I'm all for making sure the meteor infected aren't seen as monsters but we saw what he did, Skye. We know he's hurt people. You really think we can keep quiet about that?" Chloe questioned.

"I'm not saying that," Skye replied, shaking her head. "I'm saying we need to be smart about this."

Chloe rolled her eyes.

"The guy nearly killed us. He destroyed that tunnel without a second thought" Chloe replied.

Apollo finally pushed off the wall, stepping forward. "Because they made him that way."

The room fell silent.

Apollo exhaled, his fists tightening at his sides.

"Look Chlo, we don't know the full story yet, but what we do know is that Ted Grahame is a victim. He didn't choose this. He got powers from the meteor shower and immediately after was experimented on, tortured, and turned into something he never asked to be." His voice darkened. "And now, he's being used. Ted is being used"

Chloe sighed and Apollo sat on the edge of her desk, arms crossed, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

"We need to be careful about how we frame this." His voice was steady but firm. "We don't have the full picture yet. If we put this out the wrong way, we could make Ted the villain in all this."

Chloe looked up at Apollo.

"The truth is the truth Apollo. And the truth is Ted's hurt people and he is dangerous. Revealing that is not our problem."

"It is our problem." Apollo countered meeting her gaze.

Chloe finally turned, exasperation flickering across her features.

"Apollo, I get it. You feel bad for him. But we can't sugar-coat what we saw. That tunnel is gone because of him. People could've been killed" Chloe pointed out.

"He wasn't in control," Apollo argued. "You saw what they did to him. He's being used. He's not the bad guy here."

Chloe let out a sharp breath.

"I'm not saying he is. I'm saying people need to know what's happening" Chloe stated.

"But if we present this the wrong way, all they'll see is a dangerous monster," Skye said, arms folded as she leaned against the desk. She glanced at Apollo, their silent understanding shared in a moment.

"We need to focus on the people controlling him, not Ted himself" Skye told Chloe.

"Agreed," Apollo said.

Pete, who had been silent during this debate up until now, let out a sigh.

"I don't know, man. I get what you're saying, but people in the Southside deserve to know what's been happening to them." Pete said right before he crossed his arms. "My mom's been warning me about these attacks for weeks, and the cops won't do anything about it because they think it's just normal crime."

He gestured to the board behind him, where they had brainstormed and where their research was pinned up.

"But it wasn't random crime. This was planned. We have proof. The people who were hurt need to feel validated and seen, to know that what's happening to them isn't going unnoticed" Pete emphasised.

Apollo nodded. "And that's what we should be focusing on."

Chloe groaned, swiveling in her chair to turn and face Pete.

"You're both missing the bigger picture here. This isn't just about Ted or the Southside. This is about who's behind this. Someone is running experiments on people. Right under our noses." She turned and pointed at Skye's screen where all her hacked files were.

"The only way we're going to get to the bottom of this is if we draw them out. And the best way to do that?" She said as she turned back to her own screen and tapped the keyboard. "Expose everything."

Skye frowned. "And you don't care about the fallout?" she questioned.

"No, Skye, I welcome it." Chloe said her eyes glinting with determination. "Because the more attention this gets, the harder it'll be for them to cover it up. If they come after us, that just tells us we're on the right track."

Pete gave a small chuckle. "I hate that I kind of agree with her."

Apollo exhaled.

"We can't throw Ted under the bus. If we make him out to be nothing more than a threat, people are going to start hunting him. That's not justice" Apollo stated.

"So what, then?" Chloe asked, arms crossed as she swiveled in her chair again turning from her computer to face Pete, Skye and Apollo. "We hide the fact that a kid with bone armor just collapsed an entire tunnel?"

"No," Apollo said. "We tell the truth. But we make it clear that he's a victim, too."

There was a long silence.

Then Pete let out a deep breath. "Alright. So we publish—but we're careful with the angle."

Skye nodded. "We focus on the organization, not Ted."

Apollo glanced at Chloe, who still looked less than thrilled, but after a pause, she let out a dramatic sigh and turned back to the keyboard. "Fine. But I'm not watering this down."

As she typed, Apollo and Skye moved behind her, reading over her shoulder.

For months, the people of Smallville's Southside have lived in fear, victims of a pattern of brutal assaults that local authorities have ignored. But the truth behind these attacks is far more insidious than just street crime. Beneath the very streets of our town, an unknown organization has been conducting experiments on a teenager, turning him into a living weapon against his will. And now, they're deploying him like a trained attack dog.

This isn't just an isolated incident. This is a conspiracy. This is abuse. And Smallville deserves to know.

Pete whistled. "That's gonna turn some heads."

"Good," Chloe said.

Apollo readjusted his glasses as he re-read it.

"It's good." Apollo told Chloe with a kind smile

Chloe smirked. "I know."

Pete nodded, setting down his camcorder. "We should also try to attach the video footage of the lab. Show people what's really happening."

Skye hesitated. "What about the more graphic parts? The spinal extraction—"

"We leave that in," Chloe interrupted. "People need to see the truth."

Apollo shook his head.

"We keep that footage, but we don't put it out yet. We release enough to get people talking. If we show everything now, we lose our advantage. They'll just bury it" Apollo said.

Chloe frowned but didn't argue.

Skye glanced at Apollo. "Think this is the right call?"

Apollo exhaled but nodded. "It's the best we can do for now."

Chloe hovered over the 'Publish' button. "On three?"

Pete let out a deep breath.

Skye took Apollo's hand.

"One."

Apollo squeezed Skye's fingers.

"Two."

Chloe smirked. "Three."

She clicked the mouse.

The article was live.

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