DC Universe- 2100

Superman landed outside Cadmus and walked towards the front gates.

"Superman?" One of the guards says.

"Uh...you...you have an appointment, sir."

Both of them were young. In fact, they seemed like complete newbies.

Superman looked them up and down. "Take me to Mr. Lynch."

A knock comes to Jasper's door. "Yes? Come in," he says without looking up from his paperwork.

"I wanna talk." Superman said

Jasper looks up at that familiar voice. "Superman! Ah...of course. What about?"

"Synthetic Kryptonite." Superman said narrowing his eyes.

"A tricky subject. Cadmus stopped producing it long before I was appointed head of this division. What about it?"

"I just found a small army of robots built out of the material. We traced it's production back to Cadmus." Superman said.

"Ah..." Jasper checks the windows and shuts the blinds. "All right, look, I didn't have a choice. He said he'd kill me if I didn't cooperate. When Cadmus shut down Kryptonite production, it kept going by establishing other companies that were disposable and could take the fall. Those companies would get shut down when production was eventually discovered and Cadmus would maintain its legitimate reputation without legal trouble. Shortly after I took over this division, I found all of that out and tried shutting all of the remaining facilities. Then, while I was doing that...he showed up. He practically took over Cadmus on his own. Told me to keep those facilities open so he could build an army with them. Look, he'll kill me if he finds out I told you any of this."

"Since you've already signed a death warrant you have nothing more to lose. So tell me, who is the person behind this?" Superman asked.

"He...he called himself-" Suddenly Jasper bursts into flames with a wail of agony and in seconds he is reduced to little more than vapor.

"I could have sworn I told you, SPECIFICALLY, not to do that, worm," a says a hologram that appears in the room. The image is of a man in futuristic attire designed to resemble something a bit more medieval. "You should have let him stay quiet, Superman."

Superman turned to face the hologram. "Who are you?"

"I believe I am the one whose name this poor fool was atomized for nearly giving away. Worry not, Superman. Your time will come. Then the Dark Knight, the Amazonian, your precious bundle of joy...all in due time. For now, however, I am certain you have more pressing matters to attend to. I must now be off to check on other operations...hopefully more successful ones than the one you just ruined. Fare thee well. Hail," the man says. At that last word, he makes a gesture, clenching a fist and holding it over his heart whilst standing upright. Then the hologram disappears.

Superman clenched his fist and walked out, he'd recorded the entire thing, hopefully Batman or Bat-Girl could help track him down. "Star-Girl." He said into his comm.

"Yeah, Superman, what's up?" Star-Girl says at the monitor.

"Beam me up." He said walking down the hall of Cadmus. "We have another problem."

Star-Girl gets a lock on Superman's position and brings him up once he's outside. "What's the deal?"

"Cadmus was building those robots, but not for themselves for some big shot." He said taking out the recording. "Is Bat-Girl still here?"

"She's in the Monitor Room."

Superman nodded. "Let's see if we can get a trace on this guy." He said heading into the monitor room. "Bat-Girl."

"Need the world's greatest hacker for somethin'?" Bat-Girl says without looking away from what she's doing.

Superman set the recording down. "I do, Cadmus was behind the production of the synthetic Kryptonite but they were doing it for the man on this recording. Any chance you can get a lock on him from this?"

"Cake," she says, having the computer analyze the man's face and voice. "Annnd...wait, that...that can't be right. No match? This computer could find any specific rock on mars. There's no way this guy doesn't exist. No records or...ANYTHING?" She runs the check a dozen other ways. Each time turns up the same result. "Wha- but he...he has to be...maybe an alien or...okay, I'll just track his-" UNABLE TO TRACK POINT OF ORIGIN "You...you gotta be kidding me."

Superman crossed his arms. "I don't like this..."