Lois punched my arm. But she was smiling.

"You owe me, Olsen," she said, cracking her knuckles. Her fingers glowed with a pale, necrotic light. "That story you didn't run about my abuela's ghost-taco truck? We're even."

Superman landed next to me, clutching his ribs. "Jimmy, I need you to get to safety. He's using Kryptonian cells mixed with… something else. Something cold."

"SHUT UP!" the clone screamed, his perfect face cracking like porcelain.

That’s when the window exploded.

"I… I was supposed to be better ," he whispered. "Faster. Stronger. Without the doubt."

I held up my phone. I'd recorded the clone's entire monologue earlier. And on the screen, I played a video of the real Superman—not fighting, but helping an old lady cross the street. Giving a kid his cape to use as a blanket. Eating a hot dog with mustard on his nose and laughing.