Here at the End of All things

Lex Luthor stood looking at the end of the universe. Well at least his universe. They say when you are about to die your life flashes before your eyes and Lex was no different. His mind went back over how he had gotten here.

'It was not always like this. In the beginning it was just another spring day. Profits were up, Market share was up. Superman was his normal bothersome self but not at this moment. Kal was busy writing some story as Kent right now. Yes, I knew who he was when he was not in his blue tights. I just feigned not knowing. As if the lout could hide his identity from me.

I will admit it was a secret for a time, but once I really wanted to know it was all too easy to figure out. Wayne was almost as easy with his minions popping up like daisies down in Gotham. It was not the knowledge that was important but it was a part of the game after all. The ants down below on the sidewalk will never be a part of the Grand Game of Hero versus Villain. I played my part well and the past 30 years have been full of ups and downs but in the end it didn't really matter anymore. I was tired of it and the injuries and chemicals have taken their toll on both Kal and myself. Both of us have 'died' several times and come back. That changes a person.

R&D had been looking into something different. They did not think I knew about it but nothing in my company is hidden from me if I want to know of it. Some kind of healing elixir that preliminary tests show it might be some kind of panacea to all ills. The notes mention Vandal Savage but I skimmed past that. I took the time to peruse the data and found a half-dozen flaws in the research. Idiots. But the core of it was something special. Something that DID promise … something.

Here I was at the back side of my 50's and looking at the fountain of youth. Kal would laugh at me for this but he is still going strong and vital. Damn Kryptonian physiology would keep him going for another 4 centuries under this sun before he starts feeling old. I ran the numbers over a decade ago. But it is a part of his DNA, not something that could be duplicated, damn him.

I pulled the formula up on my screen and looked it over. Tweak this error, remove that error, streamline that process and the result glowed on the LED screen in front of me. Panacea indeed. I turned and walked to another console and ignored the stiffness from that shattered femur I had repaired a few years back. That had been my last foray into 'super villainy' and I made my peace with Kal after that. I gave my word I would not do anything that was not business any longer. He trusted me of course and I kept my word. After all what is a man without his word; his honor.

The researcher was someone new but a simple reassignment rather than death awaited them. Of course a selective brain wipe of their mind and a healthy payment for their services they would only remember as ending in a large explosion of failure, all of their research notes destroyed as well. They would end up working in a university Lexcorp owned with tenure. Funny, 20 years ago they would simply have been killed. I have mellowed somewhat since then.

I turned my attention back to the screen. They golden light of the formula glowed in the dim twilight of my office. After looking at it long into the night, I pushed the enable key to run the process. The fact that the process was hideously expensive in materials did not really matter to me. It was the lure of it that drove me to do so. Twenty four days from now I would find out when it was ready.

The chime took me by surprise. I had to stop and recall what the chime meant as I had been working on business. Ah, the elixir was ready. The readouts were off the scale; far beyond what the initial research had shown possible. This one vial could potentially cure every person on the planet of any illness. I had a single drop taken and diluted 1000 times and sent to a lab several ownership levels down for testing.

Another month later, the results arrived. The formula surpassed expectations. Terminal patients recovered from wounds other medical treatment could not touch. A quadriplegic's spine was regenerated. An old woman grew young again. A schizophrenic was cured of his insanity.

Fortunately, the sample consigned to the subsidiary ran out once those few cases were tested. I decided to let them wait another few months for side effects to appear in the test cases. A part of me did not trust the results. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. But when it did, it was much larger than I had expected.

All the people who had the elixir assumed the peak health and youthfulness that their biology was capable of. While they still ate and drank food, they did not need to any longer. The scientific and moral implications of this elixir were staggering. Being the person I was I did what I had done to so many discoveries Lexcorp had made. I sat on it and hid it away until I could decide what to do about it. Or at least I had intended to do that.

Alarms began to sound and cut off, only to restart a moment later. I moved toward the secure holding area where the elixir was being stored at my best speed. The strange timber of the alarm starting, stopping and restarting again was something I had never encountered before. As I neared the vault, Kal showed up in his blue suit and cape.

"Lex? What is going on?" he asked in a tone he rarely used in my direction.

"I honestly have no idea," I replied honestly as I cycled the vault open. In clear view trying to access the inner storage area was … me. Not me as I was then but a youthful and powerful looking me. A Perfect Lex Luthor in his prime. Kal did a double take before rushing forward. The Prime Lex merely glanced but took the hit Kal landed without a flinch. He backhanded Kal away and moved to take the vial of elixir when Kal did his normal stupidly heroic action.

He tried to stop Prime Lex once more with his heat vision only to break the vial and its contents exploded into the vault; engulfing all three of us in it. All I remember is a voice crying out, "No you fool!" as darkness descended.

Light slowly returned as my awareness returned. I hurt in ways I had not in over a decade but the pain was fading fast. I opened my eyes to see my shredded clothes tighten over a strong and growing more muscular body. Kal was also shaking off the effects of the explosion. Once I was able to stand I noticed my thigh was no longer stiff and my back no longer hurt. The chrome surface of the vault lining made a passable mirror and I saw myself changing. Kal was viewing the whole thing as I grew younger, stronger and more imposing. Even Kal seemed to buff up a little.

"Well, this is another fine mess," I muttered. I looked around and noticed the remains of the elixir evaporate.

"What was that, Lex?" Kal said in a hostile tone.

"That was apparently another version of me stealing 10 billion dollars of research," I said sardonically. "One one-thousandth of a drop of that elixir could cure a terminally ill patient into the prime of youth and we just bathed in it."

"I'm not buying it, Lex. You are up to something again," Kal said once more becoming hostile.

"Look at me, Kal," I shouted back. "Hell, look at yourself! That elixir had already changed both of us!" I strode out away from Kal in a fashion I had not managed in over a decade back to my private office. I pulled up all the data and research and copied it to a thumb-drive. Then I accessed the security cameras of both my office and the vault and copied those to it. Tetra bytes of data and processes filled the drive before I turned and handed it to the stunned Kal.

"Here," I said. "This is everything I have on that elixir so your Kryptonian computers can digest it and see what it was. I have barely had it a few months and it was still in initial testing to see the effects on humans. Before you get on your high horse on THAT just note that testing was done on terminally ill patients with their informed consent."

Kal glared at me again but took the thumb drive anyhow. Days later, he returned to apologize to me and said the elixir was exactly what it seemed. However his computers found something mine had not. He had run tests on himself after exposure to it and his computer errored when it extrapolated his expected lifespan. He asked me if he could run a few scans on me to see the effects.

For my part, I was already experiencing a few side effects already. I had not eaten or slept since exposure and I felt fine. I had no scar tissue left anywhere on my body and my mental acuity rivaled the time I had handled the Anti-Life Equation or been bonded to Brainiac. I already knew the answer before Kal even ran the scan.

Regeneration; perhaps Immortality.

At first it was not really more than an interesting sideline. Another decade flew by with Kal remaining in the spotlight and the other heroes of his age grew old and were replaced by successors. For me, I remained in the shadows of the ownership of my company. Unchanging, unaging, I was content to remain as I was knowing I would outlast any plot and the long view was something I could easily accept as I was immortal. Until that changed in a terrorist attack.

Lexcorp had been growing more and more powerful worldwide with my leadership. The only true rival I had in business was the Mortimer Company. That damned mouse company pissed me off even if their movies were enjoyable. But too many enemies remained in the shadows after so many years; biding their time. The nuclear device one of these people snuck into the Lexcorp Headquarters on my 65th birthday was the result of one such sour competitor. My little 'retirement gift' ended any celebration in a flash of light.

Until it hadn't ended. I woke up in the crater left behind by the detonation in downtown Metropolis. Stark naked but in perfect health and completely whole. Kal landed nearby, still thinking I was somehow responsible. The whole issue got settled quickly that I was not to blame as a rival was already crowing my death and a half-dozen groups took credit.

The deaths of almost 5 million people by a weapon of mass destruction with me living through it unscathed turned many against me. For once, Kal stood by me. That was a surprise in itself. We had an adversarial relationship for nearly forty years at this point and knew each other quite well. Since the accident, it had evolved into something else. We were not friends but it seemed we had become 'not enemies'.

With my reputation destroyed no matter what defense Kal said, I made a decision. Lexcorp has dozens of examples of alien technology and spaceships. I used my equity and personal holdings to fund the construction of a spaceship of my own. It was huge and expensive but it would be all mine. It would contain everything I wanted to bring along with me; numerous labs, machine shops, semi-sentient computers and robots. I even installed a small garden. The construction took several years out beyond the moon's orbit but eventually the 'Lena' launches to no fanfare and departs the Solar System.

In my ship, I left known space and explored the galaxy. Time had no meaning for me anymore. I merely existed for a time but I remember all of it. Before I knew it a millennium had past and heroes intruded upon my life once more. Some group calling itself the 'Legion of Super Heroes' stumbled over me as I passed through the Milky Way near Earth. I learned Kal had left the Earth about 500 years previously after the last of the original Elixir test subjects had finally died.

My wanders continued for millennia until I looked over my charts and noted I had visited every inhabited system in the galaxy over the past 100,000 years. My data banks had been upgraded hundreds of times and I knew secrets of the universe even Darkseid would have envied. But I was bored with existence by this time.

I had one last task before I could go. I would rid all realities of the Elixir and prevent another Lex from suffering as I am. Time machines and dimensional viewers were like a child's plaything with my accumulated knowledge. In any reality I found the elixir, I destroyed it. I ran across the other Lex that condemned me along with a dozen other doing the same thing as I was. It was not causality that condemned me. In the end, I returned to my home dimension.

I turned the 'Lena' and left the Milky Way galaxy entirely after that. There was nothing left for me there after all. As my ship raced past the Magellanic Cloud towards Andromeda, I recorded everything and archived all that I knew. I built an upgraded 'Lena 2' as I travelled with all I had learned from thousands of space faring and planet bound species. I could have made the journey in hours but I took the slower path. After all, I had all the time in the universe to get there.

By the time I arrived at Andromeda, even humanity had preceded me there. I was a part of their myths now; the Luthor, the immortal wanderer in the stars. I avoided them when possible even to the point of having to destroy a few of them if they bothered me too much. I no longer cared about humanity or any other species. Fleets gathered against me and died to my automated defenses as I went about my business when lo and behold, Kal showed up.

He was as unchanged as I was. He casually mentioned how long it had been which startled me; 3 million years, more or less. Time flies. He accepted my offered hospitality. My wine cellar was exemplary and to my surprise he accepted a drink. We talked of our years apart for weeks before he got down to business. The locals were afraid of me and they even went looking for the last 'hero' for help. I did not even rise to the bait of a fight. My boredom was such that even death might be welcome by now. To my surprise, Kal just nodded in agreement.

I stood after our weeks of discussions and came to a decision. I strode to the controls and activated my drives for the first time in aeons.

"Last chance to get out, Kal. If they do not want me here, I'll leave," I stated.

"Where will you go?" Kal asked.

"I have no idea," I replied. "My star charts have more galaxies listed than there were stars in the Milky Way galaxy itself. My drives can visit any of them in a blink."

Kal looked impressed at my claim. He looked at the viewscreen with the massive fleets gathered around and made an offer.

"Want some company?" he asked.

For the first time in over a million years, I smiled and replied, "Why not?" before instructing the computer to pick a random galaxy and jump out.

I do not know how long we traveled together after that. We visited innumerable stars and planets. Conversation would dry up at times until we found something new in the universe. We even found a galaxy entirely devoid of life so we took a billion years to seed it with life only to see them destroy themselves time and time again.

In time we returned to the Milky Way and noted the changes in it. Sol had long burned out and Earth was merely ash in orbit for eternity. We did not linger. New races and species flourished in other parts of the galaxy and we explored this new place. But even that passed into the arc of time behind us.

We traveled and parted dozens of times as the universe continued. At one point my boredom returned and wanting to end things, I hurled myself into a black hole. The latest incarnation of the 'Lena' remained in place until the black hole itself died after some billions of eons and exploded and I was freed and awoke, still immortal and still undying. My robot minions hauled my in and we departed, jumping to the far side of the universe to travel back toward the same spot. I had nothing better to do.

Time. It continues no matter what. I am older than anything else in existence. Even the galaxies that predated me have died and been reborn in other forms. I lost track of the count of it the lifetime of several galaxies ago. But even time has an end. The Great Crunch that some scientists on Earth predicted is actually happening. Everything is collapsing back upon itself. Hopefully, this will be the end of this empty existence. Even so, I hovered on the edge of the universe as it grew smaller. I merely sat and waited in a haze as millennia spun by orbiting the center.

I was not really surprised that I received a visitor near the end. Kal stepped into the observation lounge and took his familiar seat at my side. Neither of us spoke as we sat there. The end took as much time as the time before we began sitting but in all that neither of us spoke. We just waited in silence. Unchanging. Unaging.

The life of the universe finished and was ending before I spoke at last. The final collapse was happening mere hours away as it dragged us into its maw. I moved for the first time in a galaxy's lifetime to look at Kal one last time.

"I'm glad you're here with me. Here at the end of all things, Kal," quoting an old line from Earth's literature.

"You too Lex. You too," Kal replied.

I looked back at the last remnant of the universe and waited once more; waiting for the end as the 'Lena' crumpled around us.

Perhaps the end will be death at last.

I hope.

A/N: This was a random thought experiment based on a dream of being immortal. The unending life that cannot be extinguished but without the power to do more than exist and observe.
Updated 2/11/19 Corrected a few spelling and usage errors