chris24601

Summer of Fanfic

Thu, 21 May 2009 13:24:46 GMT

With all the distractions I've had going on the last six months or so (during which time I've relocated my business and been swamped with work from a number of new clients), it completely escaped me that I had never actually finished posting all of my latest fanfic. To correct that, and to avoid having to spam pages of posts just to get it all up here, I've gone and converted all my past fics into PDF's. For those who are interested and want to catch the conclusion of Part Six "Blood", of if you just want to wash the taste of "Failsday" from your mouth, you can find them here...

www.siegeproductions.com/metropolis/metropolis1-destiny.pdf
www.siegeproductions.com/metropolis/metropolis2-viewpoints.pdf
www.siegeproductions.com/metropolis/metropolis3-ghostsofthepast.pdf
www.siegeproductions.com/metropolis/metropolis4-metallo.pdf
www.siegeproductions.com/metropolis/metropolis5-convergence.pdf
www.siegeproductions.com/metropolis/metropolis6-blood.pdf

I'm also setting myself a goal of trying to complete a new book in this series every month this summer, because as certain people I've chatted with often know, I've got a ton of additional stories floating around in my head and I'd like to get them actually out in written form so everyone can enjoy them. So feel free to beat me about the proverbial head, neck, and shoulders on this.

Metropolis - Blood (part 4C)

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:51:33 GMT

Congresswoman Lana Lang sat in the back of Dr. Irons’ observation room using the room for its stated purpose; observation. Awareness of your surroundings, both physically and socially, was one of the most important elements in achieving your goals. Awareness gave you knowledge and, as her time as Lex’s protégé had drilled into her, knowledge was power; power over those who did not have that knowledge.

She grinned to herself. As interesting as it was to watch Dr. Irons fret and agonize over whether or not to proceed with testing one of the Metallo weapons, it was not his moral dilemma that gave her pleasure. It was that she had a secret; one that even Lex didn’t know yet; the truth about the so-called Superman.

Lex was too closely involved in the events of two months ago… too egotistical to look past his own importance to see the connection to anyone other than himself. He couldn’t conceive that the Numan of Kawatche myth making its first public appearance in stopping the falling LexWing might not have been about him and was all too ready to believe that the alien had somehow stolen his latest love interest from him. But distanced from those events Lana could see the truth. This wasn’t about Lex Luthor at all.

It was about Clark Kent and his greatest secret.

Did her former friend Lois know? The proof of her newfound knowledge screamed at Lana from the front page article of the day’s Daily Planet. It’s so very convenient lack of timeframe for the alien’s arrival even as so much else had been filled in suggested her knowledge, but given Clark’s involvement in the article that did not confirm anything.

No, she decided. He didn’t even trust me with this secret and she trusted Clark far too much. Even as bright as Lois thinks she is, there’s no way she knows this truth. Lana reveled in her secret knowledge and the fact that she alone had deduced the secret Clark had been keeping.

It had never made sense to her until the alien had gone public, but in retrospect it was so clear. It was no accident that the alien just happened to be in Metropolis on the day the LexWing crashed, just a few days after Clark Kent had arrived in Metropolis. It was no accident because the alien had been here for far longer than anyone else realized. All those times Lex, Chloe or herself had been in danger and mysteriously saved; all the near disasters averted; they were the work of the alien.

The alien which Clark Kent had known about for years.

When had Clark first learned of its existence? He had been the first to discover the Kawatche caves and their paintings, but what else had he discovered down there? Regardless, it was clear once you looked that Clark Kent had clearly been in contact with the alien since at least that point in time. It was no accident that Clark had gotten the first interview with the alien. It was just the natural result of Clark having secretly known this Kal-El for years.

The true value of a secret though was how much power it allowed. Knowing the peccadilloes of various politicians and their staffers was extremely valuable so long as they were in office. What Lana was now calculating in her mind was the value of the secret she had now fathomed.

How much power did this give her? Over Clark? Over Lex? Over Superman himself? What would Clark be willing to sacrifice to keep this truth from being revealed? What would Lois do if she were told? What would Lex be willing to give to learn it? Would the threat of its revelation keep Superman out of DEO affairs?

No, she shook her head at the last one, probably not. The alien was clearly guided by the same sort of naïve morality and dreams of a better world that still drove Clark and Lois. Her two former friends should have woken up to the ways of the world by now; Lois most of all. If anyone had suffered hardships on par with those Lana had endured, it was Lois Lane. She, more than anyone, should have understood that the cold and capricious universe wanted nothing more than to kick you in the teeth at every opportunity and the only way to prevent that was to control as much as possible by any means necessary. The fact that she had not, that she still continued to see things in terms of right and wrong, marked Lois as the bigger of the two fools.

That Superman held to those simplistic beliefs was even more shocking to her. He was a god among men who could have controlled everything; brought humanity into a golden age beyond measure. How could the alien believe that these flawed dupes and rubes whom she could keep compliant just by throwing the barrels of federal slop at their feet would ever be capable of being anything more? Telling them they could be something more wasn’t just irresponsible; it was dangerous.

This was why they needed these weapons so badly. Why they needed to know Superman’s weaknesses. Because Lana knew to the core of her being that the alien’s way; watching over humanity like some shepherd while letting the ignorant masses bumble around as they will without the enlightened guidance of their betters; would lead to chaos and devastation.

Lois waited until they’d both stepped out of the Fortress and onto the landing of the Daily Planet’s roof access before actually speaking. “So what have you got?” Lois finally asked in response to Clark’s offer of getting her mind off this current mess. Now that she was back in familiar territory she hoped, futilely she knew, that maybe if she ignored it, it would all just go away.

“The story I mentioned before we were sidetracked,” Clark answered. “A serial child killer the police are calling the Toyman.”

“Toyman?”

“It’s his M.O.,” Clark said and he opened the door and stepped out into the open air beneath the Planet’s burnished globe. “He always leaves a toy behind with his victims. He’s taken another child and we’ve only got a few days to find him before we’ve got another victim.”

“Any leads?” Lois queried. She found herself to be simultaneously repulsed yet intrigued by the case.

“Not much,” Clark said. “If the child was nearby he wasn’t calling for help. Even with my super senses and speed there are still enough places to hide in this city that I’d never be able to cover them all in time. We need to narrow down the possibilities.”

“Which is where the Department of Family Services comes in?” Lois asked.

“It’s not much,” Clark admitted. “But the missing child was taken from a foster home. The Toyman butchered the child’s foster parents before taking him. I was trying to get some background on the child… Bobbie Granger.”

“What about the other victims?” Lois pondered as she tried to slip into her analytical and detached investigative mindset. It wasn’t working too well. It was probably Clark’s influence she decided; before he’d come back into her life she’d been able to detach herself from the feelings of others quite easily. Clark’s concern for everyone made that distance hard to maintain. It didn’t help that she now had a very specific child’s image in her mind as well. What sort of sicko would abduct and kill kids like Lucy?

“Captain Sawyer was supposed to e-mail me their names,” Clark replied. “I haven’t had a chance to check yet.”

“Well then let’s go check,” Lois stated. “Then we’ll need to do a background check on them as best we can. We need to find out if there are any real common factors that might give us something more to go on.”

Jim finally worked up the nerve to go check on Lois and Clark about thirty minutes later. Funny, it didn’t look like they’d had a fight or anything. If anything, Clark seemed to be hovering protectively over Lois and she seemed more than willing to let him.

So not a fight then; he’d have to go inform Jenny that she had not, in fact, won that particular office pool. But if it hadn’t been a fight what had it been? That was where his speculation hit a brick wall. As he’d mentioned before, Lois didn’t go out of her way to make friends. So she definitely didn’t feel the need to share every aspect of her life with her co-workers.

Seeing that they were both hard at work on something or the other Jim decided to break the ice by pretending the earlier incident had never even happened. If they wanted to let him in on it, they would.

“Jeez,” he remarked as he approached. “You two just turned in one of the biggest stories of the century. Don’t you ever take time off?”

“Only when forced,” Lois remarked casually. “Last time Perry tried to make me take a vacation I came back with the Glassman story and he pretty much gave up.” Either their discussion up on the landing really was nothing or Lois was tremendously good at hiding her feelings. Jim considered himself a decent judge of people and decided it had to be the former.

Jim also remembered the Glassman murder. It had made national news about three years ago. His sophomore journalism professor had even mentioned that it was mostly because of Lois Lane that the true motive behind the murder had come to light, which in turn had probably changed the outcome of that year’s mayoral race, and cited it as an example of how a single reporter could make a difference.

Jim shook off the memory and got back to the matter at hand. “So,” he asked carefully. “Do you need any help… with anything?” If there really had been something to Lois and Clark’s business on the roof he’d just given them an opening to share if they wanted to.

Lois looked up at him with a cocked eyebrow and Jim cringed in anticipation of some scathing comment, but instead she just pulled the top three or so pages from the stack of papers on her desk and handed them to him.

Okay, so a ‘no’ on the sharing of personal problems.

“What are these?” Jim asked.

“Obituaries,” Lois said simply.

“Alright,” Jim responded. “So what am I supposed to do with them?”

“Do a full background check on the victim and their family.”

“Victim?”

“Yeah, we’re trying to find a killer,” Lois said grimly as she turned back to her own stack. Clark hadn’t even looked up from his own stack. “Dig up everything you can find. If any patterns or connections stick out, make a note.”

Jim flipped through his stack and felt slightly sick.

“Lois, these are all…”

“Kids,” Lois finished for him. “I know.”

Jim looked at the pile on Lois’ desk… there had to be two dozen of them.

“How far back does this go?” Jim asked as he indicated the pile.

“Roughly ten years,” Lois replied; her face a mask.

“Right,” Jim replied hollowly. He would have been twelve back then… the same age as some of these kids.

“And Jim?” Lois added as he was starting to walk back to his desk.

He turned to face her and it wasn’t lost on him that she’d actually called him Jim for once instead of Jimmy.

“We’re on a deadline,” Lois said. “Work fast or the pile’s going to be one taller.”

“Got it,” Jim said; hoping as he did so that this would be another of those times that a reporter would make a difference.

“Oh, it’s you,” the middle-aged woman at the front desk remarked as she lifted her gaze from her now nearly completed crossword to look at Lois and Clark. “As I’m sure you were already told we won’t have any results back for five to six business days and we can’t do anything until then.”

“Actually, we’re here on another matter.” Lois replied, doing her best to keep her tone pleasant. They wanted cooperation not antagonism.

Clark’s instincts had been right. The link to the Metropolis Department of Family Services was the only thing they could possibly find in the list of names Captain Sawyer had supplied them with. It had probably already been checked out by the Police at some point, but it never hurt to have a fresh pair of eyes look at it again… especially when those eyes could see through solid walls.

Admittedly the link wasn’t terribly strong; while eight had clearly been in the DFS system, either in temporary or permanent foster care, four children could only be tied in because of child support disputes, seven others only because they had received Medicaid or other government assistance, and the remaining five because they had served time in juvenile correction facilities.

The latter set had been the hardest piece to crack since those records were highly confidential; there was no actual legal way to get those records. Hacking the Metropolis Courthouse’s computers was hardly Lois’ worst offense in that department though. Bribery, computer hacking, trespassing, breaking and entering, pick pocketing and petty theft were all on her list of sins committed in the effort to find the truth and see justice done. Lois was well aware of the slippery ethical slope she walked using such tactics. Still, she reasoned, the world was far from perfect and better a few crimes against property and privacy when needed than the crimes against people that would go forward or go unpunished otherwise.

The acknowledgement that this was probably not the best ethical standard to teach a little girl was a fact that simply refused to lay dormant in Lois’ mind, but she did her best to suppress it as she pulled out her press badge and got back to the matter at hand while Clark did the same. Not that press badges in and of themselves meant anything, but a lot of people just assumed you had the right to barge in, ask questions and get answers if you had one and Lois wasn’t going to dissuade anyone of that notion. “We just need a look at some of your records.”

“Our records are confidential, Miss Lane,” the woman replied as she squinted at the badges.

“Not the ones we’re after,” Lois insisted. “Confidentiality doesn’t apply when the subject is deceased; most of them for years.” Which wasn’t entirely true; the DFS was a public institution which meant that they could request the information under the Freedom of Information Act, but that could take weeks or longer. Time they really didn’t have; The Amber Alert for Bobbie Granger had gone out at noon.

“We don’t make it a policy of handing out information to reporters,” the woman replied as she turned back to her crossword.

“Okay, let’s try this another way,” Lois said as the exasperation filtered into her voice. “We’re writing a story about the two dozen children in the last decade to go missing and turn up strangled; all of whom were associated in one way or another with this office. Now you can either be in the article as the dedicated individual who aided our investigation or you can be the incompetent bureaucrat whose laziness let another child die... I can write my story either way.”

“She really will,” Clark pointed out from behind her; playing his part perfectly.

“I think I should talk to my supervisor,” the woman replied as her face paled.

“You go do that,” Lois agreed as she pulled out a notepad, glanced at the name placard on the desk, and scribbled the woman’s name into it as dramatically as possible. “The readers of the Daily Planet would love to hear his side of the story… or we could simply say that his spokesman, Rachel Clayhill, denied comment on the matter.”

Ms. Clayhill seemed to be doing the math in her head. “Why don’t you speak with my supervisor yourself,” she said finally, thereby clearly removing herself from the line of fire.

“That would be most helpful, thank you,” Lois replied with a wicked grin; noting again how the threat of a bureaucrat’s inaction making their superior look bad seemed to have the universal effect of ensuring cooperation.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Clark half-whispered once Ms. Clayhill was out of earshot.

“No,” Lois agreed, remembering her own recent thoughts. “But I can live with being considered a bitch. Bobbie Granger might not be so lucky if I play nice.”

The thought of this effectively put an end to the ethics debate in her head.

For now.

“Hey, I’m home!” Catherine Grant called out as she entered her downtown apartment. Normally she wouldn’t have announced her presence at this hour of the day but, unlike the suburbs, downtown Metropolis was still a mess traffic-wise and school was cancelled until tomorrow so she’d had to beg Carol Peterson from down the hall to baby sit while she went to work.

Needless to say, after spending the morning with Jack Rider and then hearing at noon about the missing boy, Cat wanted nothing more than to get home and have lunch with her son, Adam.

“Carol? Adam?”

She wouldn’t have taken Adam out to the park would she? If they had, she felt certain Carol would have left a note; probably by the phone she decided and started to walk in that direction.

“Where did you guys get off… to…?”

Mr. McNaulty across the way heard the wailing scream through the walls and came running. He found the door to Catherine Grant’s apartment wide open and a scream without end seemed to come from inside. The wail reminded McNaulty of his grandfather’s folk stories about the Banshee; a creature whose wail could suck out your soul.

Steeling himself, he entered the apartment and found Cat kneeling on the floor with her hands practically tearing at her mouth as she continued to scream.

“Catherine?” Mr. McNaulty called out as he approached cautiously. Then he saw the crimson pool on the floor and the lifeless eyes of Carol Peterson staring up at him from above her severed neck.

“Mary Mother of God!” McNaulty exclaimed as he crossed himself as a ward against evil. He reached down and took Catherine by the shoulders.

“Catherine! Catherine!” he yelled, trying to snap her out of it. “It’s going to be all right! It’s going to be…” His words died as he realized the full extent of why she was screaming… her son was supposed to be home today and he was nowhere in sight.

Metropolis - Blood (Part 4B)

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:49:35 GMT

... “I’m pretty sure you’re still human,” Clark replied. “Kelex…?”

“Master Kal-El is correct, Mistress,” Kelex replied in its completely calm and rational voice. “Though your genetic code now includes Kryptonian elements which the Fortress’ systems recognize, you do not have all the types of RNA necessary to translate that code into the proper protein sequences which would make you physically a Kryptonian.”

“And in English that means?” Honestly the calm matter of fact manner of Kelex’s reply freaked her out more than anything. It was if Kelex thought there was nothing at all disturbing about this. At least Clark looked concerned, though he wasn’t actually panicking. Actually he looked downright relieved compared to how tense he’d been when he’d brought her up to the medical wing.

“It means you’ve got the blueprints, but no building materials,” Clark told her. “Is that about right?” he asked Kelex. The seemingly out of place sense of relief was definitely present in his tone.

“A crude but sufficient analogy, Master,” Kelex said. “Specifically Mistress, you lack the RNA necessary for the synthesis of the cell structures which store and expel solar energy.”

“Again I ask… what does that mean in layman’s terms?” Lois demanded.

“It means no superpowers,” Clark told her. He couldn’t quite keep the look of joy from his face at that pronouncement.

“Oh.” Lois felt her face fall slightly though. As horrible and dirty as it felt, a part of her still reasoned that if her very genetic code was going to be violated by a sentient alien artifact it seemed like she should at least get something out it.

“That’s a good thing though,” Clark explained as he caught the look on her face. “Having Kryptonian powers is lethal if you aren’t actually a Kryptonian. Jor-El gave them to my father for just a few hours and that was enough to destroy his heart.” He looked away but continued. “One of Professor Willowbrook’s students received Kryptonian powers from another artifact and it killed him within days… his body completely shut down from the strain.”

“You never told me that,” Lois said softly as she reached up and brushed her hand against his cheek.

“They’re not exactly pleasant memories,” Clark replied. He squeezed her hand gently as he said it. “We all have things we’d rather forget.”

The revelation wasn’t much of a shocker really. After all, she’d learned from personal experience that superpowers usually came with a heavy price. She recalled her brief brush with power when, back in high school, she’d been exposed to a gas that gave her the ability to compel others around her to tell her the truth; which had been incredible except that it had also heightened her probing inquisitive nature to the point that she forced others to reveal secrets that hurt and that the other side-effects had nearly killed her. Her hand went to her chest at the memory of the needle which had contained the antidote being plunged into her heart.

But Lois now understood the look of relief on Clark’s face earlier. She remembered how Jonathan Kent’s health had suddenly failed during their junior year and that his heart had failed completely barely four years later. She’d never known exactly what had caused the condition, but now that she did, she suddenly understood Clark’s fears for her when she’d fallen through the portal to the Fortress. He had been imagining what it would have been like to go through the same thing with her; watching her die and being unable to save her. Compared to that potential torture discovering that she had simply had her DNA scrambled would seem trivial by comparison.

‘Trivial’ or not though, it had been done to her and Lois felt a fresh surge of hatred towards Brainiac and the beings who had inflicted so much pain and misery upon her world. Her skin crawled at the thought that a part of those beings, however minute, was a part of her now and no matter how many showers she took the stain would never come out.

As she looked at Clark she realized that these thoughts were not lost on him. He must have read the look on her face because his expression was just as pained as hers. He had been victim of Jor-El’s madness far longer than she had. Worse, like the child of a serial killer, he felt compelled to bear the guilt of his people’s sins himself.

Lois again wrapped her arms around Clark; she refused to let this ruin the one good thing in her life. She would not let it drive a wedge between them. She knew they would have to return eventually, but for now they needed to get out of here; out of this poisonous monument to an evil that just didn’t seem capable of resting in peace and back to the real world where she could see Clark as just an ordinary guy and she could pretend to be just an ordinary girl. But before they could leave there were still a few more questions that Lois needed to have answered.

“So if I’m not going to be leaping tall buildings, what does this actually mean?” Lois asked finally.

“Not much really,” Clark told her. “Without the right RNA it’s mostly junk DNA to you.”

Also known as introns, junk DNA was the term used to describe the 98% of the human gene sequence that did not play a role in the creation of proteins and thus served no actual purpose in the human body. They were nothing more and nothing less than the debris of ages past; holdovers from earlier times as life crawled its way up the evolutionary ladder. If Clark was right she was just going to be carrying around a lot more debris than most; which was pretty symbolic of her life, come to think of it.

But there was still that caveat.

“Mostly?” Lois asked with just a hint of her earlier fear. When you considered that the amount of genetic information tacked on to her was at least as long as a normal human genetic code and that less than 2% of a normal genetic code was enough to produce a fully functional human being it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize what even the smallest fraction of those sequences actually being able to code proteins might mean.

“I’m not a geneticist,” Clark admitted. “I have no idea what all those extra genes actually do. Kelex could probably compile a list and some probabilities, but so far they don’t appear to have done anything more than give you a door key to the ‘wonderful world of Krypton’ and let you speak the native language without going insane. I honestly can’t say for certain though. If there are any physical changes they’re certainly not significant enough for us to have noticed them yet.”

Or had she noticed them and simply disregarded them as they had her ability to understand Kelex earlier?

Lois thought back to how full of energy she had felt this morning and now wondered if there might have been more to it than just the natural giddiness of being in love. That was going to be the worst part, she realized… the second guessing. If not for the fact that she had loved Clark long before this had happened, and visa versa as it turned out, she might find herself doubting even that.

“So if all of this is just junk DNA… why would Brainiac go to all the effort of putting it into me in the first place?” Lois asked. Indeed that part seemed to make no sense to her whatsoever. “I mean, it sure seems like an awful lot of work just to give me a door key,” she added with just a tinge of snark; a sure sign that her defensive coping mechanisms were still intact.

“It’s not that,” Clark replied, his gaze suddenly not meeting hers. “It did it because the normal human genetic code isn’t compatible with the Kryptonian genetic code.”

Lois couldn’t exactly say that she was surprised by that; Kryptonians were from a completely different planet. She’d be more surprised if they were compatible. Still the reason behind Brainiac’s actions remained somewhat nebulous to her.

“So,” Clark continued; his face turning slightly crimson. “It wanted to make you into the perfect mate for me and it’s kinda hard to be a ‘perfect’ mate if you can’t, well… mate.”

“Oh?” Lois remarked, her brain still not entirely letting her catching on. Then it hit her.

“Ohhhh!”

She felt her cheeks turning as crimson as Clark’s were.

No, this isn’t awkward at ALL, she thought to herself sarcastically. It was health class in junior high all over again only with the cute boy standing in the same room with her. The fact of the matter was that, though she loved Clark deeply and had often dreamed of finding herself in his embrace… of losing herself completely in the throes of passion, Lois had never quite followed through on the fantasy to the biological imperative behind that act. Her thoughts suddenly went again to catching her father and Julie Monroe that one day after school and again to how that may very well have been the day that Lucy had been…

“Oh, Peanuts!!!” Lois exclaimed as she bolted out of Clark’s embrace and looked directly at Kelex. “Just how detectable are these changes?” she asked it. “Could our… er, human technology see it?”

“I am unfamiliar with human technology,” Kelex answered. “But the changes would only be detectable at the molecular level. A cellular scan would not detect anything out of the ordinary.”

“Damn!” Lois swore.

“Lois, what is it?” Clark asked.

“Lucy,” Lois answered.

“Lucy?” Clark repeated blankly. Of course the name had no meaning to him.

“My sister… er, half-sister,” Lois began.

“A… sister?”

“Half-sister,” Lois corrected reflexively. “Half as in ‘never knew she existed before today’ sister. She just showed up on my door this morning.”

“And what does that have to do with human technology?”

“Because just before you found me this morning I had my blood drawn for tests to prove that I was her sister,” Lois explained.

“That’s not good,” Clark pointed out.

“Very not good,” Lois agreed. “Kelex would these changes automatically show up on a DNA test? Wait,” she stopped the droid from even starting to answer. “You wouldn’t know how we test DNA would you?”

In point of fact, Lois wasn’t even entirely certain how a DNA test worked. Could it be possible that her sample would be able to sneak by undetected somehow?

“We need to find out if these changes are noticeable with a DNA test,” Lois finally decided.

“You’d think they’d almost have to be. We should get your sample out of there just to be safe,” Clark pointed out.

“No,” Lois objected. “Without the sample they can’t prove that Lucy’s my sister. I need to prove that Clark.”

“If the Kryptonian elements are detectable I don’t think they’re going to bother looking at whether any of the rest of it matches your sister,” Clark pointed out. “Besides, you already sound pretty positive that she is your sister,” Clark remarked. “Is it really that important for it to be official?”

“It is if I’m ever going to get custody,” Lois answered.

“Custody?” Clark asked sounding a little shocked. “Lois, how old is this Lucy?”

“Eleven,” Lois replied. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised at Clark’s shock; this was coming completely out of left field; but it stung a bit that his reaction wasn’t… what? She didn’t even know how she felt about Lucy coming into her life. It was completely unrealistic for her to have any expectations of Clark about this, yet she did.

“Her mother died and now she’s got no one to take care of her,” Lois went on to explain. “What exactly were you expecting?”

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Clark admitted. He seemed to mull something in his head for a moment. “You said her mother?”

Lois nodded.

“So your dad…”

“…is her dad,” Lois finished. “Which is why I think I have to take her in.” Indeed, it was that fact alone that was probably driving her more than anything in this matter. Lois knew she would not have felt such a strong connection if Lucy had been the daughter of Elle Lane-Sullivan and some other man.

“You’re sure?” Clark asked.

“More so than I am of my own blood at this point which, admittedly, isn’t a lot,” Lois answered, noting Clark’s hesitation.

“And there’s no other way to prove that she’s your sister?”

Lois shook her head. Ideally, she had been told, Lucy’s relationship to her would be proven with a paternity test of their shared parent. But Gabe Sullivan had been dead for eight years and his remains had been so badly burned that the cremation which followed had barely been necessary. The odds of finding any intact DNA with an exhumation were virtually nonexistent. Lois didn’t know if she would have had the emotional fortitude to actually have an exhumation done even if the chances were good. That left only a direct test of Lucy and herself.

“So any ideas on how to pull this off?” Clark asked finally.

“Well, I guess the first thing we have to do is find out exactly how a DNA test works,” Lois responded as she tried to put aside her fears about Lucy and what she would mean for her and Clark. “If it won’t pick up on the ‘additions’ then we’ve got nothing to worry about… except for my life being a disaster area.” How ironic would it be for Clark and herself to be able get over something as bizarre as her newly acquired genes only to fall apart because of something as mundane as family issues.

“Kelex, can the Fortress access human computer systems?” Clark asked.

“Theoretically, Master,” Kelex replied. “I will need a connection of some type to do so, however.”

“The Daily Planet has a wireless network,” Lois pointed out. “The portal to the Fortress should be in range. Radio signals passed through the portal before so you should be able to tap into the internet… that’s what we call our system for connecting our computers… using that.”

“Let me see,” Kelex began. “Yes, I am detecting a series of binary broadcast signals in the area just outside the portal.”

“Yes,” it continued after a moment. “The connection is terribly slow, but I have established a connection.”

“Just like that?” Lois asked. “You don’t need any special software or anything?”

“I have just created the algorithms necessary to communicate with the system,” Kelex replied. “As I said, Mistress, the system is quite primitive and rather unstable.”

The Daily Planet was using a LexCom wireless router; pretty much the fastest connection available to the public sector and Kelex had just called it slow and primitive. It again reminded her of just how alien this place truly was. Despite all that it represented, there was a part of her that looked forward to getting a crack at the Fortress’ computers at some point. But not today.

“Start searching for references to DNA testing and how it’s performed,” Lois said. “Let me know as soon as you find out if they’re going to be able to detect… this.” She waved her hands in a general way to indicate herself.

“As you wish, Mistress,” Kelex replied. “The data feed is a trickle but I should have an answer for you soon.”

“In the meantime I think the best thing would be to get your mind off all of this,” Clark told her. “DNA tests take time right?”

“Five to six business days for the results. I don’t know about when the actual test itself takes place in that,” Lois replied with a resigned nod as she allowed Clark to lead her from the medical facility. The headache this one blood sample might turn out to be just served to remind her of just what had been done to her by Brainiac. Lionel Luthor and Brainiac really were two of a kind. Both seemed to have an uncanny knack for disrupting her life from beyond the grave.

Lois caught a reflection of herself in the reflective crystalline surface of one of the passing walls and found herself looking closely at it; searching for the slightest sign of something different about her. But she looked just as she had this morning and she hadn’t looked any different this morning than she had on any other before. For that matter even Clark’s super senses hadn’t noticed the changes in her.

Yet, no matter how unnoticeable the changes might be, the feeling of violation remained, and if it was noticeable in her blood then it would be almost as if a scarlet letter had been branded on her brow… ‘A’ for alien. True, she’d handled the revelation that Clark was an alien with surprising ease, but that was different. She’d always known that Clark had secrets and okay; alien was not one she had ever really considered beforehand; but she’d always been pretty certain of who and what she was. Now it was like the solid ground beneath her feet had been swept away and she was left hanging in mid-air.

To her lack of amusement, Lois actually felt the need to look down at her feet just to confirm that was not literally as well as figuratively true for, despite Clark and Kelex’s assurances, Lois was not convinced that she was still entirely human. She’d watched all the late-night ‘X-Files’ marathons growing up so the concept of an alien-human hybrid being wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to her. Now she might be just that. How did you even begin to deal with that?

Right now she planned to do so by taking a walk along that river in Egypt called ‘denial.’

Metropolis - Blood (Part 4A)

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:46:57 GMT

Note: The first scene of this chapter is so long it had to actually be broken into seperate sections. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Chapter Four: LOOKING FOR A REASON

Lois would be the first to admit that she didn’t entirely remember getting from the entrance to the Fortress to the chamber she now found herself in. Panic had a way of doing that to a person. What she did remember was Clark carrying her as he called out for Kelex, the golden robot that acted as his liaison to the Fortress, and that it had led them up the column of light in the center of the entrance chamber; the elevator for all intents and purposes; to this place; a medical facility; or at least that was what the Kryptonian symbols above the door indicated.

Yes it appeared she could read Kryptonian as well as speak it. Indeed, Lois read the symbols so easily that she’d done a double take upon realizing that they had not actually been written in English.

She was currently lying in a heavily reclined chair that seemed to be the Kryptonian equivalent of an examination table. Kelex had just completed a series of tests, which to Lois seemed a lot like a series of glowing lights passing over her that left a tingling sensation on her skin, and a few minutes later it handed something that looked like a funky PDA to Clark.

“So? What’s wrong with me?” Lois asked with nervousness in her voice. The blind-panic she’d felt after falling through the portal was threatening to overtake her again and it was all she could do to keep it in check. While he’d more or less kept his cool when she’d just spoken in Kryptonian, after finding her inside the portal to the Fortress, Clark now seemed just as worried as she was.

“I’m not sure that’s exactly the right question,” Clark began cautiously as he looked up from the PDA. He turned briefly back to the PDA and, as he scanned down whatever was on it, the tension in his face lessened noticeably, but he still sighed heavily as he turned to face her.

“How much do you remember of your time as L-El?” he asked quietly.

“All of it,” Lois said with a shudder; remembering how skewed her perceptions had been under the influence of Brainiac’s brainwashing. “Every last second.”

“Well, that’s why you can speak Kryptonian,” Clark replied. “You may have overcome the effects of Brainiac’s memory implants on your personality and self-identity, but all the information it implanted is still there in your head… including how to speak and understand Kryptonian.”

“So why the sudden onset of speaking in tongues back at Family Services?” Lois asked.

“Best guess?” Clark began. “Because you didn’t realize that you can think in Kryptonian as easily as you can in English now. Something got you thinking in Kryptonian and the words just came out. Now that you’re aware of it though you shouldn’t have any more problems in that regard.”

“And you know this because…?”

“Because you’re speaking English again now,” Clark told her. “You probably shifted mental gears the moment I told you what you were doing because you want to speak in English. You didn’t notice?”

Lois started to say no but, now that she thought about it, she could feel the linguistic differences between the two languages in her mind; the way she’d express a certain thought in English and how she’d do the same in Kryptonian. It wasn’t like her Spanish or marginal Arabic where she had to translate the thought from English into that other language or visa versa; she could literally think in the Kryptonian language now. Which was, once you got past the creepy way it got into her head, actually kinda cool.

Clark, appearing to sense that exact thought going through her head, added, “If it makes you feel any better, I learned Kryptonian pretty much the same way; only it was the Jor-El program that put it into my head instead of Brainiac. I had problems at first too. You even got a picture and a story from my first involuntary use of the Kryptonian language. Remember sophomore year when that ‘odd’ symbol was burned onto my barn?”

Lois did remember that incident; it had led to an actual response from the enigmatic and reclusive Dr. Virgil Swan; one of the most brilliant astrophysicists of his generation. More important to Lois at the moment though was the reassuring knowledge that Clark did have some experience with this particular brand of oddness too. That did make her feel a little better actually… plus her outburst hadn’t almost burned down a building.

“I was almost expecting something like this, but honestly… I should have noticed it sooner,” Clark said with a note of chagrin in his voice. “Admittedly we were a little preoccupied at the time, but I should have made the connection that you were still understanding Kelex even after you broke free of the brainwashing.”

“Wait,” Lois interjected. “Kelex wasn’t speaking English?”

“No, Mistress,” Kelex replied and, now that she was paying attention, it was indeed speaking in Kryptonian. “Though I am capable of understanding virtually any language, I have yet to speak in anything other than the Kryptonian tongue.”

“The only thing that had me thinking otherwise was that the last time a human had the Kryptonian language uploaded into their brain, their synapses couldn’t take it… it completely fried their mind,” Clark added.

“Well, there must be a reason it worked this time,” Lois replied as she stretched and got up from the Kryptonian examination chair; her voice relaxing slightly at having that part figured out. “And I’m guessing that I fell through the portal because, what… Brainiac changed the locks for me?”

“No, Mistress,” Kelex answered. “The portal, like all the Fortress’ technology, is hard-coded to prevent its use by non-Kryptonians.”

“So then why… would… it…?”

Lois felt the words die in her mouth as the reason for both her mind being able to handle the Kryptonian language and her falling through the portal coalesced into a single answer in her mind. As she dropped back down onto the examination chair she just stared at her raised hand like it was some alien extremity… and it now occurred to her that it very well might be. It took all her willpower not to fall into hysteria as her wide-eyed gaze again fell on Clark.

“What did Brainiac do to me!?!” she demanded.

“Lois,” Clark said as calmly as he was able. “It’s going to be okay.”

“That’s not an answer!” she snapped at him. It felt to her like her skin was crawling.

“I know it’s not,” Clark replied in a hurt tone. “But when I do tell you you’re… you’re not going to like it and I… I should have made you stay with Mom.”

Clark’s words and tone served to remind Lois that, whatever this was, it wasn’t his fault; he hadn’t wanted her anywhere near Brainiac. It had been her own stubborn insistence that had brought her along into the Fortress and into the monster’s clutches and yet still Clark was blaming himself for it.

Lois reached out and pulled herself up into his embrace… unwilling to let him feel responsible for this for even a heartbeat longer. “Its okay,” she whispered as her head rested against his chest. “It’ll be okay… right?” Her voice felt tiny even to her.

Clark took a deep breath before answering. “Brainiac didn’t just put things in your mind Lois. It put things into your body too… into your genetic code.”

“What… sort of things?” Lois asked as she looked up at him. She was again starting to have difficulty breathing and it was only the very quiet voice from the logical side her of her brain which told her that this was only because she was on the verge of hyperventilating. She took a deep breath to steady herself, but it was only partially successful. If not for Clark’s embrace she probably wouldn’t be standing at all.

“It’s probably easier just to show you.” Clark waved the alien PDA in front of Kelex. “Kelex, can you put this on something a little bigger?”

“Certainly, Master,” it replied. An instant later the air shimmered and what looked like three sets of multi-colored horizontal bar codes appeared in the air.

“What exactly are these?” Lois asked tentatively, taking a half-step away from Clark to creep closer to the images.

“Genetic maps, Mistress,” Kelex answered. “The first,” it continued indicating the shortest of the three, “was created from a sample of your hair which I detected on a hairbrush in the handbag Master Kal-El brought with you. The second was created from the scan of you that was just completed.” It indicated the much longer band in the middle.

Still taking deep deliberate breaths, Lois examined the display. While she couldn’t begin to make out all the details presented there, it looked to Lois as if the areas of the two columns that were lined up were identical, but the second column was easily twice as long as the first. It was as if a whole set of information had been tacked onto the bottom of who she’d been.

“But we reversed all the changes Brainiac made,” Lois interjected. “Shouldn’t this have reversed itself too?”

“We only reversed the changes that hadn’t stabilized,” Clark replied. “After about half an hour the changes became permanent, remember?”

Lois looked away for a moment. She did recall Kelex saying something to that effect yesterday and she had spent hours in the thrall of Brainiac as L-El; more than enough time for the effects on her to stabilize.

“Is there any way to reverse it?” she asked. Again the look on Clark’s face said it all.

Kelex’s words a moment later merely confirmed it. “No, Mistress. Adding the additional DNA sequences was difficult enough for a being with the power and knowledge of Brainiac. To successfully remove those sequences from the billions of cells in a living organism without killing that organism in the process would have been beyond even its capabilities.”

Which meant the only thing left was to find out what she had become; what Brainiac had turned her into.

With a resigned sigh her eyes now shifted to the third column. Where that set lined up with her original map there were differences; not a lot, but they were clearly there. She vaguely recalled, probably from a Michael Crichton novel, that there was less than a tenth of a percent difference between the DNA of one person and another unrelated one and the differences she saw here seemed to fall within that range.

Still, as she reached the bottom of the third genetic map, it was the similarities to the second map that drew her attention. To her untrained eye they looked virtually identical.

“What’s the third map of?” Lois asked finally.

“That is a map of Master Kal-El’s genetic code, Mistress,” Kelex responded.

“So Brainiac actually turned me into… a Kryptonian?” Lois asked in a stunned tone.

“No,” Clark reassured her quickly. “Even after Brainiac changed you kryptonite still had no effect on you, remember? If you were a Kryptonian you would have known it then. Believe me.”

Lois tried to hold on to that thought… she hadn’t actually felt anything unusual from the kryptonite. So that pretty much ruled out being a Kryptonian. “Then what am I now?” she asked.

“I’m pretty sure you’re still human,” Clark replied. “Kelex…?”

“A crude but sufficient analogy, Master,” Kelex said. “Specifically Mistress, you lack the RNA necessary for the synthesis of the cell structures which store and expel solar energy.”

“Again I ask… what does that mean in layman’s terms?” Lois demanded.

Metropolis - Blood (part 3B)

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:38:05 GMT

An hour later Lois sat in one of the plastic chairs in the lobby of Family Services with a cotton swab pressed between her forearm and bicep where the nurse had taken a sample of her blood and did her best to ignore the other people waiting around her. Julie Monroe had never named a father on Lucy’s birth certificate so, regardless of the physical similarities and Lois’ admission, Family Services wanted more concrete proof of her relationship to Lucy before they went any further.

The question was; further towards what? She’d told Mr. Scott in no uncertain terms that, now that she knew about her, she wanted to be a part of Lucy’s life. But that was so vague as to mean anything and that was because she kept coming back to the same question again and again in her mind; could she really take responsibility for an eleven-year old girl?

Okay, it wasn’t like she was in diapers and needed constant attention; Lucy’s ability to get herself to Smallville and across town to her apartment on her own spoke to a fair degree of independence on her part; possibly too much. But she was still just a girl, not even a teenager yet.

Oh God, Lois exclaimed to herself. In two years Lucy would be a teenager. She remembered how clueless she’d thought her father had been during those years with her and he had been a grown man with more than a decade of parenting and several decades of actual life experience under his belt. Plus, he’d been her father, the one who’d raised her since she was a baby. How in heaven was she, a virtual stranger, supposed to enforce discipline on a teenage girl when she was just a half dozen years past being a teenager herself?

Further, she’d never be able to replace Lucy’s mother. For all the girl’s hopes that finding her flesh and blood would make everything just like it was before Lois knew that such a thing was impossible and she would be the one having to deal with that fallout. Given all her own issues regarding the death of her father was she even remotely qualified to try and help this girl get back to a normal life?

True, the definition of ‘qualified’ for a blood relative was a lot less stringent than for a non-relative, but that just made Lois’ logical side even more upset. After all, what did blood really matter when it came to raising a child? Just look at Martha and Clark. He wasn’t even from the same planet and yet when you looked at them you couldn’t see anything other than a mother and her son.

Lois, on the other hand, felt like she didn’t even have a reference point in the same galaxy for what it would take to be a mother; it had been two-decades since she’d been abandoned by her own. What she knew of parenting at all she knew from her father… the only reason she was even here was because of his final lesson in what it meant to be a parent.

Lois’ eyes moistened at the thought. Her father wouldn’t have hesitated for an instant at bringing this girl into his life no matter how bad things had gotten towards the end. It would be a sacrifice, but how could she not do the same?

No, blood had very little to do with being a parent… being a family. It was something far deeper. A connection that her heart told her reached far beyond life and death… even if her head did want to chalk up her ghostly experience the previous day to her subconscious. Lucy was a living breathing part of her father and she couldn’t turn her back on that.

What blood would do in this case though was grease the wheels of the bureaucracy, a rather gory metaphor she knew, but an apt one. If she was seriously considering going through with this then she needed all the help she could get. It wasn’t even a matter of whether or not she wanted to bring Lucy into her life, but whether she even could.

Take her job for example; where long and erratic hours were the norm and a part of what she craved. Being there for Lucy would probably mean cutting back on both the number of hours and her ability to come in at the drop of a hat as well. Could she even afford to take care of Lucy if she did that? Sure she was getting by right now and even saving a little; but it wasn’t like she was rolling in money. What would adding a second mouth to feed do to her budget?

And it wasn’t just food. There would be clothes… school books… a two-bedroom apartment too if she wanted any privacy.

Oh God, Lois silently exclaimed again. Forget the hypothetical apartment… her actual apartment was a wreck; she’d have to get it spotless and soon. Family Services would be turning her life upside down and inside out if she wanted custody of Lucy. Actually it had already started. As per the fine print in the release she had signed before the needle had been stuck into her arm, her blood was going to be checked for more than just a DNA match, which could have been done with just a mouth swab.

At least she didn’t worry what they’d find there. Other than caffeine, which to her qualified as a food group, the strongest drug in her home was aspirin and she’d never felt the need to drink much; she didn’t like to lose control and even a single glass of wine was enough to give her petite frame a buzz. Her drunken binge after Lex had dumped her had been the painful exception to that rule and that was a low point she was determined never to repeat; so much so that she had actually poured what little alcohol was left in her apartment down the drain the following day… admittedly more out of spite than an actual desire to become a teetotaler.

No, it was the rest of her life that concerned her. It was one thing to acknowledge who she really was to herself, but she had become Lois Lane for a reason and that reason conflicted with bringing her past into the light of day. Her long hours at the Daily Planet could well become a non-issue if the connection between Chloe Sullivan and Lois Lane became too well known… and not in a good way. Mr. Scott, and by extension the DFS, was now at least peripherally aware of the connection.

It was frustrating and completely overwhelming to tell the truth.

Honestly, Lois didn’t even know why she was still waiting around the depressing DFS offices; the bleeding from the needle had to have stopped by this point. Nothing would be decided today or even tomorrow anyway. The nurse who’d taken her blood had said it would take five to six business days to get the results back from the lab and they had her home, work, and cell phone numbers if anything else came up. Lucy had already gone home, very reluctantly, with the Evans so it wasn’t even like Lois was hanging around here for her benefit either.

That said, Lois just didn’t feel like going anywhere else. Even exploring the wonders of the Fortress had lost all its appeal. She watched with idle amusement as a man walked out of the lobby and almost fell as he hurried too quickly past the wet floor sign that was still in front of the lobby door.

“I’m sorry,” she heard the voice of a man with the familiar appearance of life-long janitors everywhere say as he scurried across the floor to the man.

“Robby!” the man called out in a slightly irate tone as he looked at the janitor. “Robby, didn’t you wash this floor already today?”

“Yes, Mr. Kramer,” the janitor replied timidly. “But there were some streaks and I wanted to…”

“…I don’t care,” Kramer interrupted. “Just make sure it’s dry before I get back. I have some things to check up on.”

Yes, this place was just gushing over with the warm feelings, Lois thought in response. Actually it fit her mood perfectly. About the only thing she really wanted to do at this moment was to see Clark. Yet even there she found herself doubting. Clark knew she had emotional baggage, but her time and her life had still been her own. If she went through with this her life and her relationship with Clark would have to be secondary… Lucy would have to come first. Would Clark still be on board for that?

Lois looked glumly over at the entrance and blinked in surprise.

“Lois?” Clark called out as he walked through the door into the lobby. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same question,” Lois said as she sprung up and gave him a slightly hesitant hug.

“I’m following up on a lead,” Clark replied. “I went by your apartment first but you weren’t there so I figured I’d get a head start and fill you in when we met up later. Now what are you doing here?”

Lois found herself balking at the question. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell Clark; she couldn’t keep something like this from him ever; it was just that she had no idea where to begin.

“My life has gone insane,” Lois said finally. “This morning everything was going along great and my only plans for life were to meet you at the Planet to do the whole… thing we had planned when a girl named Lucy showed up on my door claiming to be my sister, well half-sister anyway, and because I was the only family she had left she wanted to come live with me and Clark, I have no idea if I am even going to be able to do this because, you aside, my life is a wreck and how am I supposed to take care of an eleven-year old girl when I can barely keep my own life from going down the… mmmmppphh!”

About halfway through her stressed-out run-on soliloquy Clark’s eyes had gone wide; Lois couldn’t blame him. But then he’d started looking wildly around the room and then clapped his hand solidly over her mouth with a nervous look on his face.

“Lois, though I want to hear all about this… you have to stop talking now,” Clark told her in a hushed tone as he gently lowered his hand from her mouth.

“May I at least ask why?” Lois whispered back, her voice laced with annoyance. It wasn’t like his action was intended to hurt her, but she was in the middle of a venting her frustrations here and it felt like he wasn’t taking it seriously at all. Yet even at her whisper Clark again looked around nervously and it was only then that Lois noticed that a few of the people waiting there were staring at her a little funny.

“Because you’ve just been speaking in Kryptonian,” Clark whispered back.

Lois felt her own hand shoot up to cover her mouth as Clark led her from the lobby. Fear coursed through her veins as Clark lead her down the stairs and out the front doors of the building and into the city street. A million questions poured though her mind, but she was too scared to utter a single one.

“Okay, I don’t think it’s anything to be alarmed about, but we should get to the Fortress just to be sure,” he told her in his most reassuring tone.

Not be alarmed? Who was he kidding? She’d just started speaking a completely alien language here and she could read the concern hidden behind Clark’s otherwise calm expression.

She shrugged as if uncertain and sliced one hand up into the air, shooting him a questioning expression as she did so. Hopefully he’d understand.

“No, I think we can drive,” Clark said cautiously. “But let’s do it quickly… and until we know for sure… no matter how much you may want to… just don’t say anything.”

Jim Olsen got to work almost an hour late. He’d had to take the already overburdened city bus line because his car, like so many others, was still sitting on the interstate. Between the gridlock caused by the initial rush to recover their cars and the fact that many had left their cars running when they’d been abandoned there were probably a hundred thousand or more automobiles blocking the lanes of the interstates that were either out of gas, or wrecked, or blocked in by a car that was. FEMA had already set up a number of locations where people could put in their information to retrieve their cars and shuttles that would be departing throughout the day as, mile by mile, they worked their way through the mess. He was expecting a call giving him the time, hopefully later today… but maybe tomorrow, when the shuttle to where his car had been left would be departing.

Odds are it would be the better part of a week before things were even remotely back to normal. But Jim was still amazed that the city had gotten this far so soon and with a minimum of violence. He guessed that surviving an alien conqueror and coming within a hair’s breadth of nuclear annihilation all in the span of twenty-four hours did a lot to keep violence at a minimum. People were all still so relieved to be alive that they’d forgotten to be uncivil to each other. You couldn’t leave Superman out of the equation either.

Superman was truly the hero of the day and at the moment Jim was basking in reflected glory. Perry had authorized the sale of his stunning picture of Superman and Brainiac to other media organizations across the world and, as outlined in his contract, he would be getting a share of those proceeds as a nice bonus. Even more important than the cash Perry had let slip that TIME/Newsweek had purchased the picture for a possible front page; his picture would be looking out of the newsstands of checkout lines across the country and around the world.

Jim was definitely starting to think that perhaps Photojournalism was his niche. After reading Lois and Clark’s second Superman exclusive he could honestly say that, while he wrote a competent story, he’d never truly be in their league when it came to writing. But with pictures he could excel and make a name for himself and be regarded as every bit the equal of Lois Lane and Clark Kent.

Lois and Clark; that was the big news as far as the office was concerned. No one had said anything in so many words but it was clear to everyone that the last few days had finally catalyzed them into a couple. As much as Jim liked Mr. Luthor he had to admit that Lex’s belief that Lois had feelings for Superman couldn’t have been more off target. He’d never seen Lois and Lex’s relationship before Superman had shown up, but it had always been pretty obvious to Jim that it wasn’t some mysterious and distant alien Mr. Luthor was losing out to; it was the friend and co-worker who’d just been there for Lois day after day while Lex had become ever more distant.

Whatever the specifics were, their couplehood was clear enough that Hendricks from accounting had been able to collect on the office pool. Jim wasn’t exactly proud of betting on his coworkers’ happiness, but when you’re the new kid in town you try to socialize wherever you can. Besides it wasn’t like it was hurting anybody and anyway, now that this bet was done the office would move on to betting on something or the other new by the end of the day.

“New pools,” Jenny Cartman whispered to Jim as he emerged from the elevator into the city room.

Or even sooner.

“What are the bets?” Jim asked nonchalantly.

“First major fight and date of the engagement or break-up,” Jenny replied. She didn’t have to say who. One thing Jim had learned was that those who did not participate usually became the object of the bets. Lois, he had learned, did not participate much in any office recreation. Abby Dawkins, Perry’s secretary, had confided in him that Lois had only attended one office New Year’s party in the five years she’d worked here and that was only because Perry had forced her and even then she’d slipped away almost immediately. She just didn’t go out of her way to make friends; which was why after just a few months Jim probably had more friends at the Planet than Lois had made in five years.

That said, though she didn’t go out of her way to make conversation, Jim had always found Lois to be social enough; with other people anyway. His article the day after her front page Superman exclusive had chilled her opinion of him greatly. Despite that Jim still didn’t regret writing the piece. It was all factually true; just yesterday Kal-El had even admitted to being an alien and people HAD been fearful of Superman; and Jim would never feel bad about writing the truth, even if it hurt. Still, he was glad that Lois and Clark had ultimately been proven right about Kal-El’s benevolence. Maybe now that she had been proven right they’d be able to move past the earlier bitterness and be friends… or at least be cordial.

Considering the office pools again Jim decided to hedge his bets and on more than just the office pool. “I’ll pass on the first,” he said finally. “Put me down for six months on an engagement.” Even if Lois did find out about the betting pool she couldn’t be mad that he’d bet on a speedy courtship and happily ever after… he hoped.

“Suit yourself,” Jenny said as she veered off for her desk.

It was maybe five minutes after that when the objects of the betting pools emerged from the elevators and into the City Room. It was clear even from this distance that something was wrong and Jim moved to intercept them.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” he asked, but Lois just stormed right past him without saying a word. She was clearly agitated by something.

“Clark? What’s going on?” Jim asked as he stepped directly into Clark’s path. “What’s got Lois so upset?”

“Look, Jim,” Clark replied, “now really isn’t a good time.” Lois had already disappeared through the door to the stairwell. “Lois and I just need to… um, figure some things out. In private,” he added.

“On the roof?” Jim guessed. In the past two days he’d seen them both head up the stairs to the rooftop overlooking the city a couple of times. He guessed it was sort of becoming their ‘spot.’ But the look on Lois’ face suggested that romance was the last thing on her mind.

“Yeah,” Clark replied. “On the roof. I don’t have time to explain it. Just…”

Jim saw Clark’s head jerk suddenly from him to the stairwell door. “… I’ll tell you later,” Clark said as he bolted for the door leaving a stunned Jim in his wake.

Jim very casually walked in the direction of Jenny’s desk.

“Is it too late to get in on that ‘first fight’ pool?” he asked.

“Totally,” Jenny replied with a smirk. “Besides, I already called ‘inside of twenty-four hours.”

It had been just over ten minutes since the incident at Family Services when Lois finally made it up onto the landing just inside the roof access to the Daily Planet. Ten minutes in which she’d managed to concoct a half dozen different scenarios as to what had happened back there in her head; none of them good and most of them involving Brainiac having managed to survive and trying to possess her. The image of the possessed man named Milton swirled up inside her head again and again as she imagined the horror of being trapped inside her own mind with no way to escape.

Yet if that were really the case, would Clark have spared even a second getting her to the Fortress? Definitely not. Brainiac was a threat to the entire world. Whatever was going on with her, Clark must have been pretty certain that this was not Brainiac trying to return. Actually he didn’t seem nearly concerned enough to her thinking, which was unusual in and of itself.

Lois looked nervously around the landing, hoping that it wouldn’t take Clark too long to extricate himself from Jimmy’s questions. She would have said something, but she didn’t trust her own mouth to let her words come out in English. Instead she moved up to the wall where the entrance to the Fortress was to wait for Clark.

How could she have spoken Kryptonian and not realized it?

Lois was just starting to ponder that thought as she leaned up against the wall… and screamed.

It was as if all the other sounds in creation had suddenly vanished as Clark heard the single most horrible sound he’d ever had to hear… one he’d heard far too many times… that of Lois’ terror-laced scream. But this time it was different. This time it had cut off suddenly. A fraction of a second after that all the other sounds in the world died away too as the world froze in place around him. The world as seen through the lens of his super-speed was one that was, in some ways, even more bizarre than when seen through his heightened senses.

Jim stood before him as motionless as a statue, his eyes glancing away towards the door with a befuddled look on his face. Clark dimly recalled glancing around the city room to see if anyone was looking in his direction; they weren’t; but honestly, preserving his secret identity in this case was a distant second in his mind.

In that moment of perfect stillness, Clark’s x-ray vision blazed around him as he sought out Lois and what might have caused her to scream out. Yet at first glance there was no sign of Lois at all up above; just the luminous glow of the portal to the Fortress in his x-ray vision. His senses swept outward but there was nothing amiss outside the Planet either. No one had fallen; there was no accident on the streets below. It was as if Lois had vanished into thin air.

“…I’ll tell you later,” Clark told Jim as he forced himself back into real time and ran for the stairwell. It took every ounce of his willpower to refrain from blazing into full super speed until the instant he’d made it through the door and then again the world froze in place as he raced up the flight of stairs to the rooftop as he tried to find her.

Clark could feel the desperation rising in him, but then an instant later he saw Lois’ purse laying next to the entrance to the Fortress … the strap going right up to the seemingly barren section of the wall where it was severed in two and a large section was missing.

Without thinking he plunged into the portal and into Fortress where he saw Lois frozen on the floor with an expression of mute and wide-eyed terror on her face as she stared at the severed section of purse strap which lay just inside the entrance to the Fortress.

He again let his super-speed collapse around him and Lois seemed to come alive as her eyes went from the strap to Clark.

“Clark!” she cried out as he took her in his arms. “What’s happening to me?”

Metropolis - Blood (part 3A)

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:36:04 GMT

Chapter THREE: Tongues

“Well, well, well. It looks like we’re finally making some progress,” John Henry Irons remarked, mostly to himself, as he poured over the results of the latest round of performance trials. Practically the entire city had the day off today, more due to the transportation snarl the evacuation had caused with the roads than any real damage done by Brainiac itself, but not Dr. Irons. Not when you were LexCorp’s number one scientific expert and flew to work each day by helicopter.

“Something interesting, Doctor?” Lex Luthor asked with his usual tone of curiosity as he walked down onto the main floor of Dr. Irons’ lab. Lex didn’t have to worry about traffic either. Since his work was his life, he made his home in the virtual mansion that existed atop the LexCorpBuilding.

“The endo-frame reproduction was able to maintain balance on an uneven incline for 2.36 seconds longer than the last trial,” Dr. Irons remarked, not looking up from the screen where various graphs and charts were displayed. Just beyond him; in the center of the room an object that looked rather like a pair of mechanical pants lay in a jumble on the floor. “I’m definitely on the right track in configuring the gyroscopic systems. Another week… ten days on the outside and I think it’ll be ready to try the stairs unassisted. Of course the real challenge is going to be slaving the gyroscopics and programming to the proper neural patterns once we’ve got the full range of movement down…”

“As fascinating as this might be Doctor,” Lex began calmly, “I believe the priority set for reverse engineering was the unit’s hand weapons.”

“Yes,” Dr. Irons agreed hesitantly. “It is. This is just a… side-project. One I believe will be far more profitable in the long run. The possibilities for advanced prosthetics presented by the Metallo unit are tremendous. How much would you pay for a fully functional prosthetic if you lost… I don’t know… your hand for example? A prosthetic that moved in accordance with your every thought just like the old one and could even transmit the sense of touch back?”

“And the weapons, Doctor?”

“Yes. Well,” Dr. Irons coughed slightly. “As you know Metallo’s structure is virtually impervious to conventional cutting tools. While it’s not quite in the same league as the Brainiac entity, it’s still some pretty formidable stuff. We can barely scratch, much less cut through the material, but I was finally able to open the unit up at the joints and seams by using a sonic screwdriver to…”

“… a sonic screwdriver?” Luthor interrupted with a look of incredulity.

“It uses focused sound waves to loosen or tighten screws and other fasteners even if they’re inside another object. I had to invent it specifically for the purpose of studying Metallo over there.” He indicated the inert metallic limbs and torso lying in pieces on one of the lab tables.

The head of course was elsewhere. Dr. Irons had detected signs of brain activity inside the metallic skull and so, rather than risk the monstrosity that used to be John Corbin coming back to life due to Dr. Iron’s probing, Mr. Luthor had ordered the head removed, locked in a padded steel box and placed in the most secure vault he had access to. Lex hadn’t known exactly how Dr. Irons had gotten that head off before now.

“It was also the inspiration for the Sonic Discombobulator,” Dr. Irons continued.

“I presume this side-trip has something to do with the apparent lack of progress in reverse engineering the hand weapons?” Lex asked.

“Yes. Well,” Dr. Irons began again. “The fact of the matter is that based on past experience most forms of directed energy devices are extremely fragile. The last thing you’d want to do is use a sonic screwdriver on them. It might shatter any number of components and thereby render the ability to discern exactly how the weapon works impossible.”

“I note that you had no such hesitancy to go rooting around in the unit’s chest cavity or locomotive systems,” Lex pointed out with a grin. Then his face grew serious. “You have two of the weapons, Doctor. I think we can risk one of them in an exploratory exercise. I’d like your findings by the end of the day.”

With that Lex Luthor turned and walked away leaving a rather shocked looking Dr. Irons in his wake.

Often the observation room that overlooked Dr. Irons’ lab was filled with students; either on a field trip from grade school or graduate students that had come to listen and observe one of Dr. Irons’ many lectures on any number of scientific discoveries. Today, however, it held a very different guest.

“He’s stalling,” Congressman Lana Lang remarked as Lex joined her in observation room. She was standing near the back with the lights off; in the shadows where she seemed strangely at home. She had watched the whole exchange between Dr. Irons and himself; silently observing in the manner that had become her custom.

“You know you won’t see that report today or even tomorrow. He’ll have an excuse for not having it finished,” she added.

“I know,” Lex said as he stepped up next to her, coming so close he could smell the scented perfume in her shampoo. Lana tensed as he did so, but she did not move away.

Lex knew she didn’t like to be touched; to have her personal space invaded; but she would not give him the victory, however small, of letting him get to her. Lana understood that it was one of his power games; a way of trying to assert dominance over her; but she would have none of it. No one else knew Lex Luthor the way she did.

“But he’s also, bar none, the most brilliant scientist in the country,” Lex continued. “Probably the world. And he’s also right about the profitability of the prosthetics research he’s doing. It could help countless people who’ve been crippled lead normal lives.”

“And in normal times I’d applaud his social consciousness and devotion to your bottom line,” Lana replied.

“…But as you keep pointing out, these aren’t normal times,” Lex finished for her.

The last two days were a case in point. Mankind had known for months now that it was no longer alone in the vast blackness of space, but the past two days had been a potent reminder that the blackness had savage teeth. Though even Lex could not deny that Kal-El, the so-called ‘Superman,’ had played the part of hero in stopping the Brainiac entity, unlike others, he was not content to let that showboating alien be their sole line of defense. Lex Luthor would not allow himself or those he cared about to be subject to the whims of such a capricious being. Humanity needed to be able to stand on its own against the things that went bump in the night and Lex lived for the day when he would finally be able to look Kal-El in the eye and tell him, ‘Go away! Earth doesn’t need you anymore.’

So why was he being so reticent here?

“He never signed on for weapon research,” Lex felt compelled to add.

The fact of the matter was that Lex knew he was exploiting Dr. Irons’ loyalty by even making the request. Dr. John Henry Irons didn’t like guns. Thirteen years ago his mother, father and sister had been gunned down in a drive-by shooting. His responsibilities to his grandmother and orphaned niece were his incentive to not enter the endless cycle of violence that the gangs involved in the drive-by represented. Instead he’d put all his energies into becoming an inventor of possibilities; of a world where things like weapons were not needed.

The weapons concealed in Metallo’s arms were an anathema to him; instruments useful for death and nothing more. Yet, still Lex had asked him to study them, help make more of them. Because there was no one else who could.

“He just… doesn’t want blood on his hands,” Lex finally offered by way of an explanation.

“It washes off,” Lana remarked.

“You know what I mean.” It was just one of the bonds that he and Lana shared… the inexplicable horror and power of having taken another human life. In both their cases it had been self-defense. But regardless of the justifications; the excuses; it changed you.

“I do,” Lana replied. “It still washes off.”

Not for the first time in her presence Lex felt a shiver run down his spine and subconsciously took a step back from the young woman. Lana grinned coldly. This round of their little game went to her.

“We need this weapon, Lex,” she said. “We need an equalizer. Something that can slay the monsters that are stalking humanity. Either get Dr. Irons to figure it out… or find someone who can.”

Despite the Toyman’s best efforts, Bobbie Granger was still not happy. It had all started so well, too. The boy had been excited and tried out all manner of his inventions at first and when he’d drifted off to sleep all seemed right in the world. Then the morning had come and the boy had quickly become bored with his new toys and upset that he could not show off his new toys to his friends. He was even more upset to learn that he could not leave the wonderful house of toys and that the Toyman had to leave him alone during the day. After all he had very important matters and many other children not as blessed as young Bobbie to attend to.

Still, the child was unhappy and that made the Toyman most unhappy. Something had to be done; he wouldn’t screw this one up like he had the others; he’d get it right. He just had to find the solution to the problem at hand.

The boy had most of all wanted to show off to his friends…

Of course! It was so obvious that the Toyman almost laughed out loud. How could he not have seen it before? Children needed playmates.

Another child; he needed another child. Risky to attempt so soon, but it had to be done. He couldn’t abide not doing everything he could to make the children happy; happy as he had never been.

The Toyman went down his list of names in head… there were so many to choose from. But his meticulous mind preferred to go alphabetically so as he ticked off the names of his past failures to his current project his mind went naturally to the first of his currently available prospects alphabetically after ‘Granger, Robert’ in his mental collection. The Toyman smiled to himself… yes, that one would do nicely.

For all the fresh paint and new chairs, the Metropolis Department of Family Services offices looked and sounded and even smelled pretty much as Lois remembered them from all those years ago. Admittedly everything looked a lot shorter and smaller too, but she knew that was just because she’d been all of eight the last time she’d been in here.

The faces were also different of course, but the atmosphere of stress and overwork still hung over the too small and too crowded place as Lois led Lucy into the lobby, carefully stepping around the wet floor sign positioned directly in front of the door as she did so. It was only eight in the morning, but there were already a few clusters of adults and children waiting in chairs. Some looked like they may have been there since the night before; a not unreasonable prospect given the general chaos Brainiac’s attack had caused. One, a frazzled looking mother with a screaming infant and a toddler who refused to stay in his chair, pretty much set the mood perfectly.

Putting that out of her mind, Lois walked up to the front desk with Lucy by her side. A heavyset woman in her forties looked up from her crossword puzzle. “Can I help you?” she asked in a bored tone.

“Yes,” Lois replied. “I need to find Lucy Monroe’s case worker please,” Lois said as she gave a stern look down at Lucy who had been maintaining a stony silence ever since they’d left her apartment despite Lois’ efforts to coax potentially useful information out of her; such as her home address or even the last name of her foster parents. With no other option Lois had to bring her here.

The desk clerk tapped a few lines into her computer. “That would be William Scott,” she said after a moment. “Down that hall. Fifth office on the right,” she added pointing down one of the hallways.

“Thank you,” Lois replied as she led Lucy in that direction.

They’d just entered the hallway when Lois saw a wiry man in his thirties step out of the fifth office on the right. He looked in their direction as he did so and his eyes seemed to flicker for a moment. Following him were a forty-something couple that, based on the cringe Lucy gave at the sight of them, Lois guessed could only be Greg and Lisa. The couple too looked down the hallway at them as they approached.

“Lucy!” the woman who was probably Lisa cried out as she and Greg rushed forward towards them. Lucy took a half step back as she approached, but Lisa just bent over slightly as she reached the girl and wrapped her arms around her. “You had us so worried!” she exclaimed.

“Thank you!” Greg said to Lois as he approached. “When she wasn’t in her bed this morning we panicked.” He breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. “With all the craziness still going on in the city we didn’t know what to think. I take it you found her then, Miss…?”

“Lane. Lois Lane,” she replied. “It was more like the other way around actually.” Lois didn’t know exactly why she was surprised to see the looks of concern on Greg and Lisa’s faces… probably because of Lucy’s sentiments and her own prejudices. She should have known that the assessment of a girl who’d lost the only home she’d ever known was going to be a bit suspect.

Lisa looked up at Lois. “Lois Lane? The reporter?” She turned back to Lucy with a hand resting on each of the girl’s shoulders. “Lucy, did you go and bother Miss Lane?”

“We’re sorry, Miss Lane,” Greg said. “Lucy… well she’s probably already told you, but she’s convinced she’s got a sister out there somewhere. She was probably hoping that you could help find her somehow.”

“We’re sorry she wasted your time,” Lisa added as she started to pull Lucy back towards the case worker down the hall. “It won’t happen again.” Lucy reached out and grasped Lois’ hand though and gave her a pleading glance. “Lucy! Let go of Miss Lane! She’s not going to be able to help you find your hypothetical sister.”

Lois looked from Lucy’s desperate face to Greg and Lisa, so filled with relief, and to William Scott down the hall with his concerned expression and back to the girl clutching at her hand with three, now two fingers. It was crazy; she barely had a handle on her own life. Yet deep down she knew there was only one thing she could do.

“Actually, I am her hypothetical sister,” Lois said.

It was as if the entire hallway had been frozen in time. Greg and Lisa, and William Scott just stared at her for what felt like a solid minute while a look of relief seemed to grow on Lucy’s face.

“Maybe we should step into my office,” Mr. Scott said finally.

Metropolis - Blood (part 2B)

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:12:36 GMT

It was just before eight in the morning as Clark Kent walked up Brighten Drive; a pristine street that was part of a pristine subdivision in the suburbs of Metropolis. Despite Perry’s promise to give Lois and Clark the day off, but because the news never waited and the traffic situation had left him short-handed, Perry had called Clark at his apartment barely two minutes ago about the police and coroner being called to 11347 Brighten Drive and if he could go check it out. Perry had tried calling Lois first, but there’d been no answer. Clark wasn’t surprised; she was probably still dead asleep after two days of not sleeping at all. Even he’d needed a record four hours of sleep to recover after that particular ordeal.

Clark could have stopped by and checked he supposed; it would have taken all of two seconds. But if Lois really was getting a good night’s sleep for once in her life he was loathe to disturb it; especially for something so routine. His super-hearing certainly hadn’t picked up one of her nightmare induced screams; which Clark took to be a good sign. Besides he was meeting her at the Daily Planet in less than an hour and he could wait to see her until then; if he used every ounce of his willpower. Compared to the seeming lifetime he’d waited to be with her, an hour was nothing.

His father had once warned him that it was impossible to stay best friends with a woman. At the time he’d thought his father was crazy; after all he’d been friends with Lois for years. Indeed, though he had shared the secret of his powers with Pete Ross it had been Lois with whom he’d been able to be the most honest about the things that really mattered. Even before Pete and Lana Lang had drifted out of his life he had grown steadily closer to Lois, bound by their shared goals of uncovering the truth and seeing that Lionel Luthor faced justice for his crimes. Lois was, without doubt, his best friend.

Yet now that he was older Clark understood the nuances of his father’s words; it was nearly impossible to stay just best friends with a woman because friendship was such a big part of love. It was the glue that held a lasting relationship together between the peaks and valleys of passion and it was such a small step from close friendship to romantic feelings.

He couldn’t count the number of times growing up where there had been moments when it seemed like his friendship with Lois could have become something more. Yet, in all those times one or the other of them just wasn’t in the right place for it to work just then. Mostly it had been his fault, he was more than willing to admit. His adolescent hang up on a dream named Lana Lang. But he’d woken up a long time ago and this time all it had taken was a single moment when they’d both been in the right place and now Lois wasn’t just his best friend, she was his girlfriend.

Girlfriend. Clark had to admit that he liked being able to apply the word to Lois. Yet at the same time it felt wholly inadequate to describe the woman who’d been his best and most intimate friend for almost half his life. He found himself thinking back to the word Brainiac had used and actually found one thing he agreed with that alien intelligence on.

Amara. ‘Chosen’ is how he’d translated it for Lois but, as he’d told her, that didn’t begin to cover it. There were nuances of eternity and infinity; as if across every possibility they had always been together and always would be. In the end it was a word easier to define by inference; Lois Lane was his Amara.

It seemed so utterly silly now, but he could still remember how scared he’d been when she’d discovered his powers just a few short months ago. He had carried the knowledge of what that revelation had done to his friendship with Pete for years and he had come to believe that he was always going to be alone to a certain extent; unable to share who he really was with anyone. Pete had never quite been able to see him as just Clark after he’d found out and, though he could withstand many things, Clark could not bear the thought that Lois might look at him that way too. He should have known better.

Maybe it was that they were both older than when he’d revealed his secret to Pete or maybe it was just something intrinsic to Lois’ character, but even when she stumbled onto his powers she had never stopped seeing him as just Clark Kent. That acceptance of him had made all the difference these last few months; it gave him a strength that his powers alone could not begin to equal; Lois was what made him Superman.

Superman. It was an idea so crazy that only Lois could have come up with it. The idea that a brilliant costume on one hand and a pair of glasses coupled with a mild manner on the other could allow him to hide in plain sight was ridiculous on its face, but so far it seemed to be working. Again he should have known better. As a trained observer and investigator Lois knew how people looked at the world and how most saw only what they wanted to see.

Indeed, the simplest of disguises seemed to work the best; as Lois had demonstrated by hiding behind the simplest disguise of all; a name and a career where that name was far more recognizable than her face. Clark knew all about the blacklisting efforts by various old cronies of Lionel Luthor that made it all but impossible for Chloe Sullivan to find work anywhere in the field of journalism, but given the fame now associated with the name Lois Lane he sometimes wondered just how the Planet’s board would react if they were told the truth about just who their star reporter really was.

He imagined it would be a lot like some of the reactions he’d gotten from his fellow reporters upon learning that he and Lois had scored their second ‘exclusive interview’ with Superman. A lot of bluster and outrage about something they couldn’t do a thing to change.

It wasn’t like ‘Superman’ had had a lot of choice in the matter either. Though he’d gotten better at making himself seem different as Superman; the latest trick he’d been practicing was shifting the frequency of his x-ray vision down into the visible range so he could make his eyes visibly glow; he still preferred to rely on simply not sticking around long enough to be seen if at all possible. Regardless, as a figment of the imagination it was up to his creators to speak for him and that was Lois and himself. Still, all the bluster and outrage preceded by the months of distrust and at times outright condemnation by the press made Superman coming to them for a second time seem plausible, which was why they’d gone ahead and written the story.

It was rather ironic really. When he and Lois had first come up with the idea of Superman they’d gone out of their way to distance themselves from their creation so that people wouldn’t suspect that Superman was just Clark in a costume. It had been incredibly frustrating to have to listen to all the attacks from their fellow journalists with no real way to respond. Now those same journalists had pretty much guaranteed that no one would think twice about why Superman would only trust Lois and Clark when it came to making statements in the future.

Not that Clark was planning on making a habit of it. The whole point of Superman was to protect his family and friends from those looking to exploit his powers or exact revenge for having thwarted their plans. If people thought that he or Lois could just call up Superman on the phone whenever they needed him that would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of the disguise. For that reason alone, Superman was going to hold on to the mystique his silence had garnered as much as possible and he and Lois were going to be getting their stories the old fashioned way; keep their eyes and ears open and ask lots of questions.

Well, that reason and because Clark didn’t exactly like being on the other side of the story. It was probably his parents’ doing; the way they’d always encouraged him to protect his secrets to the point that the most Lois had been able to get out of him during an interview in high school was that he didn’t like peas… and that had come from his mom. He wasn’t fond of being on the receiving end of probing questions, but in an effort to keep the story professional and keep it from feeling too much like they were just making it up as opposed to reporting the news he’d actually sat down with Lois and let her interview him, as Superman, for real.

After answering the questions raised by Lex’s story their interview had gone on to talk about the reasons Kal-El had been sent on his mission of conquest; how Kal-El was the last of his people and, with Brainiac destroyed, the threat that his people posed to Earth was hopefully over.

‘Hopefully?’ Lois had asked.

‘Brainiac proved that even when you think they’ve been utterly destroyed some evils refuse to stay buried,’ he had responded. The fact of the matter was that he just didn’t know if Brainiac was finally the last dying gasp of Krypton, as he’d believed the A.I. that Jor-El had sent with his ship had been before, or whether it was just another in the seemingly endless line of evils emanating from that dead world.

‘Evil is an interesting choice of words. Does that mean you think of your people as evil?’ Lois had asked off his response.

Clark had considered that one carefully before answering. Leave it to Lois to hit him with that one.

‘I’d like to think that, like everyone else, they were a mixture of good and bad,’ he’d said finally. ‘But when I look at what Brainiac was prepared to do in their name… I find it very hard to see the good; hard to not hate everything about them.’

‘Is that why you do what you do?’ Lois had asked. ‘Why you try to help people? Are you trying to make up for what your people have done?’

Clark smiled at the memory. Leave it to Lois to also always have a point to make when asking the hard questions. She knew him so well that she’d probably known his answers before she’d even asked and she knew his answer to the last question would make the perfect lead for that next one.

‘In part,’ he’d replied. ‘Mostly though I’m just trying to live up to the example set by some good people I’ve had the privilege of knowing here on Earth. I’d much rather focus on the positives than negatives. For every evil visited upon Earth by Brainiac there were a thousand acts of courage and sacrifice and goodness by the people of this city. I might have many gifts, but they don’t make me a hero. Not to sound like a public service announcement, but it’s what you do with whatever gifts you have that make you a hero.’

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ Kal-El had concluded. ‘I have to get back to work.’

Speaking of getting back to work.

As he rounded the corner Clark could now see the yellow police tape which surrounded the otherwise unremarkable home that the police had been called to. There was already a small crowd of neighbors standing at the edge of the tape; bystanders always seemed to be drawn to the possibility of anything morbid. Technically he was a bystander too, as were the occupants of the KGBS news van he spotted around the corner around the corner. The difference between him and the people from KGBS and everyone else was that they weren’t there to gawk; they were here as part of their job. Like he’d said before; eyes and ears open; ask lots of questions.

When it came to the former Clark had some definite advantages over his fellow reporters. While everyone else was stuck waiting and watching the front of an otherwise unremarkable house, Clark could have a look inside. Clark’s vision seemed to flicker as his x-ray vision kicked in and the world suddenly looked like a very different place. With nothing in the sky for the energy being emitted by his eyes to reflect off of the bright morning sky became as black as pitch to him. At the same time the building became ghostly and nearly transparent as the wavelength his eyes were emitting penetrated the wood like it was barely there. What it did not penetrate so easily was metal and bone. So along with the many copper pipes and electrical lines running through the house Clark could also see clusters of seemingly florescent skeletons standing around inside and two sets that were clearly not going to be moving of their own volition ever again.

With a sound like a rushing wind Clark’s super hearing focused in on the house and the sounds within; To Clark it felt as if his ears were actually moving rapidly over the distance between himself and where he was trying to listen. Actually, that wasn’t too far off the mark. When he focused on a distant point the gravity field which gave him many of his powers somehow reached out and conducted the sounds vibrations from that distant point to his ears rather like a tin can and string telephone could. He suspected there was a big subconscious element to it as well; that was the only explanation he had for why his hearing seemed to pick up on Lois and desperate calls for help even when he wasn’t specifically focusing on anything in particular. Regardless of how his hearing worked it was currently answering a lot of the questions his x-ray vision had given him.

“What do you think, Dan?” Clark heard the voice of Captain Maggie Sawyer ask. It took only a moment for Clark to associate her voice with the movements of the slightly shorter skeleton standing amidst a few others. She was looking down at the two victims sprawled on the floor. The big skeleton who shrugged in reply had to be Detective Dan Turpin, one of the best investigators in the Metropolis PD. His voice an instant later confirmed it.

“Dismembered… clean cuts with no defensive wounds. Looks like the same M.O. to me Maggie,” Dan said gruffly.

“I’d concur with that assessment,” a cool female voice coming from another of the skeletons added. Clark almost thought he saw Captain Sawyer’s jaw clench at the other woman’s words.

“So he’s back. Which means we’ve got, at best, three days before the Toyman leaves us another present,” Maggie announced grimly. She reached over and picked up a framed picture of some sort. “Get an APB out. The clock is ticking if we’re going to find…”

“HEY KENT!!!”

The words boomed in Clark’s ears like cannon shots and, with a slight start, the dark and focused world of his x-ray vision and super hearing collapsed into the bright and din-filled world the normal people around him were experiencing.

“What’s the matter Kent? Think you’re too good to talk to your fellow reporters just because you scored a big break?” The decidedly masculine voice added as Clark spun around. “Well, that’s yesterday’s news now.”

“Oh, stow it Jack,” came the much a more pleasant and familiar feminine voice.

“Hello, Cat,” Clark said to Catherine Grant while deliberately ignoring her fellow KGBS reporter Jack Rider. Catherine Grant was just a few years Clark’s senior and was one of the more prominent junior reporters for GBS News, owing as much to her competent portrayal of the news as to her statuesque beauty.

“Congrats on the Superman exclusive,” Cat responded; smirking slightly at the disgruntled look this gave Rider.

Jack Rider was a tall man in his early-fifties with that meticulously groomed and slightly graying hair that seemed to be favored by senior reporters everywhere. He was currently top of the heap at KGBS and the Metropolis media circles in general. After a quarter century on the job he was one of the most well-known figures in Metropolis; though among his fellows in the media he was known more for his arrogance and string of failed marriages than the hard-hitting interviews and investigations the general public knew him by.

And he was clearly irritated about the Superman interview, Clark noted. He was probably wondering why Superman had overlooked the ‘King of the Metropolis News’ in favor of a couple of print reporters. Lois would be thrilled.

“So where’s your partner, anyway?” Cat asked as she pulled Clark away from Rider.

“I think she’s catching up on her sleep at the moment. The last few days have been… hectic,” Clark said hesitantly. He didn’t know exactly how to discuss Lois with Cat. He’d gone on three dates with Cat while trying to get over his feelings for Lois back when she had been dating Lex Luthor and though he and Cat had agreed to be friends, bringing up your new girlfriend/Amara with someone you once dated didn’t seem exactly kosher.

“Hectic. That’s a… different… way of putting it,” Cat replied. “Apocalyptic is how most people would describe a rain of fire and an invasion of super-powered robots. So what are you doing out here anyway?”

“Perry called about the police and a coroner being called out here and figured there’d be a story,” Clark explained.

“Pretty much the same story here,” Cat agreed.

“I figured,” Clark said. “I knew why you were here, but why’s Rider out here too?”

Cat sighed. “Apparently someone upstairs pointed out that he hasn’t broken a major story in months and that his reputation as top reporter in the city might be slipping.” She gave him a sly grin. “I believe you and your partner were mentioned at some point. Anyway, I think he’s looking for a big story… something to prove that he’s still the ‘King.’ I tried telling him that this is a totally routine murder; probably some housewife finding out she’s been cheated on; but I don’t think Jack’s interested in being logical at the moment.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as a routine murder,” Clark pointed out.

“Oh come on,” Cat retorted. “I know you grew up in Smallville, but you can’t be that naïve.”

“No,” Clark admitted with just a tinge of melancholy. The fact of the matter was that he’d seen far too many deaths for someone just a quarter century old. “I guess just I prefer to not let them become statistics.”

“Noble words,” Cat remarked. “But that way lies expensive sessions on a shrink’s couch. Metropolis had a homicide about once every eighteen hours last year. That’s a little too much of man’s inhumanity to man to identify with and remain sane. Though at least you don’t have to squeeze someone’s life and death into a ten second blurb for the evening news,” she added. “That’s all this is going to warrant.”

“We’ll see,” Clark responded as he thought back to the strange name Captain Sawyer had used; the Toyman. This was definitely not a ‘routine’ murder. He needed to find out more.

“There’s our cue,” Cat exclaimed as the front door to the home opened and police and a pair of paramedics leading a body-bag laden gurney emerged. He could feel the silent gasp of the crowd as a second pair of paramedics and the second body-bag emerged after them; marking it as more than a simple domestic disturbance gone bad. Communities like Brighten Drive weren’t supposed to have things like this happen in them. At least that’s what the neighbors were trying to tell themselves.

With a grace that belied his large frame Clark slid through the crowd towards the police line. As he approached he could hear the gaggle of his fellow reporters firing questions at Captain Sawyer and Detective Turpin as they emerged from the house as well.

“Sorry folks!” Sawyer yelled back at the reporters. “We have no comments on this matter at this time. I will give you a statement downtown at noon.”

The reporters didn’t seem to like this answer, because they kept shouting questions at Sawyer. Clark reluctantly joined them with one of his own.

“Captain Sawyer!” Clark called out over the continuing din. “A moment of your time?”

Sawyer turned and regarded him from a distance as if evaluating her options before walking over towards him and the police line.

“Sorry, Kent,” Sawyer told him as she came up. “I like you, but this time there’s nothing you can say to get more out of me than the statement I’ll be giving in a few hours.”

Clark leaned forward and quietly said a single word.

“Toyman.”

Clark saw Sawyer clench her teeth as she bit back a curse and he knew he’d scored. She lifted the yellow tape and grabbed him by the arm to pull him through, much to the consternation of his fellow reporters. Clark looked back for a moment and, seeing Cat and Rider still in the pack, locked eyes with Rider and threw him a jaunty salute. The expression Rider returned was priceless.

Lois is definitely starting to rubbing off on me, Clark thought as Sawyer led him up by the house. Okay that wasn’t technically true… Lois had been rubbing off on him since the day they’d met. He probably wouldn’t even be a reporter today if she hadn’t opened his eyes to the world of journalism back in high school.

“Okay,” Sawyer asked in an exasperated tone once she was certain they were out of earshot of his fellow reporters. “Where did you hear that name?”

“One of my contacts,” Clark replied simply.

“When I find out who has the loose lips I’m going to chew their ass off,” Sawyer growled.

“That would be… interesting to see,” Clark remarked. Despite the macabre nature of the situation, Clark couldn’t help but grin at the mental image of Sawyer trying to bend over backwards that she had just provided him.

“So what else do you know?” Sawyer demanded.

Clark thought back to what he’d seen with his x-ray vision and heard with his super-hearing and prepared to bluff his way into getting more information. “That there’s been at least one other time when someone’s hacked a couple to pieces.”

“Yes,” Sawyer admitted grimly. “Look, the Feds don’t want the specifics of this getting out and the Mayor is applying every ounce of political clout he can muster into keeping this quiet; the last thing he wants is for his city to have the same reputation as Gotham.”

She glanced apprehensively over at a pair of dark suited individuals conferring off to one side, but seemed to reach a conclusion in her own mind as she spoke again. “Everything I’m about to say is off the record until we catch this guy, understood?”

Clark just nodded firmly. Sawyer’s question was a reaffirmation of the unspoken relationship he and Lois had managed to cultivate with the Captain. When they’d uncovered Councilman Roberts involvement in the murder of his intern they’d gone to the police before going to public with their story. They’d done the same with John Corbin and several other less high profile cases. In short, they had developed a reputation of playing ball with the police and the police returned the favor.

“Alright,” Sawyer began with a sigh. “This is the second time we’ve had a couple murdered this way, but it’s just the most recent escalation of a very sick bastard who’s come to be known as the Toyman. The worst is coming in a few days.”

“When the Toyman leaves his present,” Clark finished for her.

Sawyer grimaced again at Clark’s knowledge of the situation. “It’s the reason we call him the Toyman, Mr. Kent. Like I said, killing the couple is a recent addition. His primary targets are children. At first children would simply go missing and we’d find them a few days later, strangled and dumped, but always with a toy next to the body. Our Feds over there think that shows signs of a conscience and guilt, but anyone with an actual conscience wouldn’t keep killing children and he certainly wouldn’t have started slaughtering people when he takes them.”

“Any idea what that’s about?” Clark asked.

“I keep thinking about that toy label… some assembly required,” Sawyer deadpanned. “But that’s just my nerves talking. I’m sure our good agents have a theory about the deeply disturbed psychological problems that drive this individual, but my deep analysis is that he’s a cold-blooded monster who deserves a bullet in the brain. Regardless, the child who should be in that home is missing and given the Toyman’s M.O. we’ve got at most three days before a little boy named Bobbie Granger is murdered and dumped.”

“Does he…?” Clark began. His mind didn’t want to go there, but he knew the statistics as well as anyone.

“No… thank God,” Sawyer interrupted. “That’s the only mercy in all of this. None of his victims have shown any signs of molestation. This isn’t about sex.”

Sawyer again looked over at the two FBI agents before continuing. “Honestly, I don’t care who breaks this case at the moment so long as we find Bobbie in time. I don’t want to have to tell Bobbie’s mother that her little boy is dead.”

“Mother?” Clark asked. “I thought…” he looked over at the ambulance where the bodies of the two victims lay.

“No, these were foster parents,” Sawyer said. “The mother’s an addict on her second attempt at rehab who claims she doesn’t even know who the father is, but no parent deserves this.”

She looked directly at Clark. “I could really use a miracle right now, Mr. Kent. You did not hear me say this but, vigilante or not, I’d take Superman’s help if it were available. I don’t suppose you have any way of reaching him?”

“I can’t call him up on the phone if that’s what you’re asking,” Clark replied as he recalled his earlier musings about people trying to get a hold of Superman through Lois and himself. His comment just now was truthful in its own way, but it also served to dissuade Captain Sawyer from trying to regularly contact Superman through him.

“Pity,” Sawyer remarked. “If I had the authority I’d just deputize him and be done with it.”

“I’m sure he’s got reasons for staying out of the limelight,” Clark pointed out. “Still, he’s got super hearing. If you yell loud enough he’ll probably be able to hear you. Heck, he may even know about this already.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t exactly robotic alien conquerors or gang lords with arsenals bigger than some small countries. Do you really think someone like Superman has the time to deal with something as small time as this?” Sawyer asked.

“I know that if I were Superman I’d make the time,” Clark replied.

“And if wishes were horses I’d have a ranch,” Maggie deadpanned. “I’m not holding my breath.”

“In that case, is there anything else you can give me to go on?” Clark asked. “A list of the other victims would be a good start.”

“I’m sure the experts have gone over that a hundred times already looking for commonalities, but I’ll slip you an e-mail of it as soon as I get back to the station,” Sawyer replied. “Good luck, Mr. Kent.”

“We’ll do our best,” Clark vowed. He may not need to break out the crimson cape for something as ‘small time’ as this, but this was definitely a job for Superman.

Metropolis - Blood (part 2A)

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:10:03 GMT

Chapter TWO: QUESTIONS

It took a moment for conscious thought to return to Lois’ mind. She couldn’t have heard what she just thought she had.

“Excuse me?” Lois managed.

“I think I’m your sister,” Lucy repeated.

“I think my father would have told me if I’d had a sister,” Lois said suspiciously as she recovered.

“Well, half-sister actually,” the girl clarified. “My mom’s name was Julie Monroe.”

That name seemed vaguely familiar to Lois and she struggled to remember where she might have heard it. Yet, distracting her from that train of thought was that she had also caught the tense in the girl’s statement.

“Was?” Lois asked.

“She… um, died,” Lucy said; doing her best, but failing miserably, to keep the emotion from her voice with a suspiciously familiar roll of her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Lois replied. “How long…?”

“Six months,” Lucy answered.

Lois could empathize. She remembered the shape she’d been in six months after her father’s death and, if the story Lucy was weaving was true, she was doing a lot better job with her emotions than she had.

“Regardless,” Lois said, “I still think my father would have told me about you.” Her father not telling her about something that important didn’t sound at all like him. Further, unlike Elle Lane-Sullivan, the woman who was nominally her mother, Gabe Sullivan was not the type of man to walk out on his commitments and another child would certainly be such a commitment.

“Only if he knew about me,” Lucy explained with just a hint of melancholy. “Mom never told him and I didn’t even know about him at all until mom told me just before… before…” She didn’t have to finish; the eye roll said it all.

That was why she had seemed so familiar, Lois realized as she searched the girls face. She didn’t know about the mouth or the ears, but Lucy definitely had a Sullivan nose and her eyes… she had her father’s eyes.

“Why wouldn’t she have told him?” Lois asked. She still couldn’t quite believe it, but she took a step back and to the side, allowing the girl to enter through her door.

“She said she didn’t want to muck up his life,” Lucy said as she slid through the door. “He’d just gotten a big job in Smallville that was going to make a big difference for his daughter… for you… but she had a career in Metropolis that she didn’t want to give up and she didn’t want to mess things up for him by making him feel obligated to stay.”

Oh my God, Lois exclaimed to herself as she finally placed the name. Julie Monroe. It had been just before her dad had taken the job in Smallville at the LuthorCorp plant. She’d come home early from a half-day at school and walked right in on her father having sex with a blonde twenty-something coworker named Julie Monroe. She could still feel the awkwardness of that day as the image was dredged up in her mind. Her father had of course explained ‘the birds and the bees’ to her before then; albeit in the totally clueless fashion that only a single father could manage; but she’d never seen a graphic presentation before that day.

For all she knew she’d walked in on the very day that Lucy had been… Oh God, she did not want to go there.

“Do you want something to drink?” Lois asked to get her mind off the train wreck it was headed for. “I’ve got water and... Well, actually I’ve just got water,” she said as she recalled the state of her refrigerator again.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Lucy replied as she was looking around the main room of Lois’ apartment.

Lois felt a wave of self-consciousness sweep over her as she took a good look around herself at the stray pizza and fast food boxes, the piles of old books and papers, and the empty coffee mugs sitting here and there. Yet, most glaring given all the debris on the floor and furniture, was the complete absence of any decoration on the walls; no pictures or photos or other decorations; no real sign that anyone really lived here, because the truth was that she didn’t really live here. Her home was the Daily Planet, this was just where she slept.

“So… um, Lucy,” Lois began, trying out the name. “Not to sound rude, but what exactly are you doing here?” She had a sneaking suspicion.

“Well, um,” Lucy said looking at her feet. “I was kinda, sorta… hoping that I could…” Lucy took another rather distressed look around Lois’ apartment. “That I could… y’know, um… come live with you?”

Yup, that’s pretty much I thought she was going to say, Lois confirmed. “Look, kid… Lucy. My life is kinda complicated and, well, rather messy at the moment,” she said as she waved her hand at her apartment; her one bedroom apartment. “Don’t you have any other family?”

That last part was probably the wrong thing to say Lois realized as she saw Lucy’s face fall.

“Do you?”

Lois looked away. Her only living relative was her uncle, General Sam Lane, who had just two days ago come back into her life after a seven year absence that was mostly her doing. Her hand went to the metal dog tags she wore around her neck; a gift from Sam that had once belonged to her father.

Sam had called shortly after she’d gotten home the night before to tell her that unfortunately they’d have to postpone their dinner plans for next week because he’d been unexpectedly called back to Washington. Sam promised he’d make it back to Metropolis later in the month and she knew he’d try, but after seven years of inertia trying to rebuild a relationship between niece and uncle was going to take more than just vague promises.

“I don’t have anyone, Miss Lane,” Lucy said finally when Lois didn’t answer. “They put me in foster care because there was no one else who’d take me in.”

Lois dimly remembered the visits from the Department of Family Services after her mother had fled with the police on her heels. How they’d periodically turned their lives upside down while checking to make sure that her father was capable of taking care of his daughter without her mother around. More than anything she remembered the woman they’d sent; a mean old lady named Mrs. Bragah who dropped in unannounced at least once a month for the first few years and made derogatory comments about her father’s abilities as a parent and, from the point of view of a six year old, seemed genuinely disappointed that she’d never caught her dad making some kind of mistake. Intellectually she knew that the vast majority of the people involved in Family Services were probably dedicated and hard working people, but that early association tainted her emotional reaction to the whole agency.

“It took my case worker a month just to get around to tracking down my father,” Lucy explained in an annoyed tone. “I was hoping I could have gone and lived with him, but then he told me that he was dead too.”

Now it was Lois’ turn to look hurt. She knew that Lucy had never known her father, so his death was just an abstract to her, but it still hurt to have such a painful memory discussed so casually.

“As far as the case worker was concerned that was that. He’d already exhausted the possibilities on my mom’s side so… End of search. I had no family,” Lucy continued. “Stupid jerk.”

“So then how’d you find me?”

“Mom told me Gabe had another daughter,” Lucy said. “If he was gone then I figured she must be as alone as I was, so maybe…” She looked up at Lois expectantly. “It took two months just to save up enough money to get a bus ticket out to Smallville to try and find you.”

Lois’ eyes went wide at the thought. “Your foster parents let you ride on a bus by yourself?”

“Not exactly,” Lucy replied, not meeting Lois’ gaze. “I kinda… did it without asking.”

“You ran away?” Lois asked bewildered. “What were you thinking!?!”

“That if I found you I wouldn’t have to go back,” Lucy blurted out. “I’ve been in four different foster homes since… since… I just don’t want to go back.”

The girl sounded desperate. It sounded like she’d wrapped her whole life into the notion that if she somehow found some piece of real family then her life would suddenly be perfect… that it would be like having her mother back somehow. Lois could relate; she’d had a similar sentiment while hunting down everyone involved in her father’s death. She’d honestly believed that if she could only find them all and make sure they paid for their crimes her life would somehow go back to what it had been like before. Life, she had learned, didn’t work that way and if Lucy thought that Lois was in any way equipped to take in and raise an eleven year old girl she was going to be figuring that lesson out for herself very soon.

“So what happened then?” Lois coaxed. She may not be able to take the girl in, but the least she could do was listen.

“The cops picked me up and Family Services took me back before I could finish,” Lucy griped.

Lois wasn’t terribly surprised by that revelation. Eleven year olds were not exactly known for their subtlety. Odds are she’d already asked whichever foster parents she had been with at the time to take her to Smallville before she attempted to do so on her own. There was probably an APB on her before she’d even reached the county line.

“I did find out some stuff though,” Lucy added defiantly. “I, um… got to see my father’s grave and um… did you know there’s a headstone next to his with your name on it?”

Lois just nodded quietly. In the aftermath of her father’s death she’d never actually bothered to have the headstone bearing the name Chloe Sullivan removed from the cemetery. It had seemed fitting at the time.

“For a while I thought you were dead too,” Lucy said. “I went to the library and found your obituary with a picture and everything. I filled out a request with the CountyClerk to see if there was anything else on you or my father, but then the police found me. I’d just about given up when, like, a month later I got a letter from the Clerk’s office saying that your death certificate had been overturned… so I knew you were out there somewhere.”

While Lois would have been just as happy to stay legally dead at the time, practical matters had intruded. While the Kents would have been more than willing to put her up indefinitely Lois had wanted… needed… her own place; somewhere she could escape to and be alone. She had also needed to be able to get her G.E.D. and a job; both of which were difficult to accomplish while you were legally dead. Being alive also gave her access to her father’s small savings and his life insurance policy which had made all the difference in being able to afford classes at SmallvilleCommunity College.

“I started spending a lot of time on the internet trying to find ways to search for people… but I didn’t turn up much,” Lucy continued. “Later I thought of checking the Smallville newspaper for a story or something. I mean, it’s not every day that someone comes back from the dead and all.”

“You really didn’t spend much time in Smallville did you?” Lois mumbled to herself.

“Huh?”

“It’s nothing,” Lois said. “Go on.”

“Well, I looked and looked but there was nothing on you,” Lucy said. “By you I mean Chloe Sullivan,” she clarified. “I convinced Greg and Lisa, my latest foster parents, to let me spend as much time as I could at the library. Finally I found a nice lady working there, Caroline Mueller, who told me that to get a death certificate overturned there’d have to be a court record somewhere. She was helping me look for that when I found out you’d had your name changed to Lois Lane.”

And once you made that connection finding Lois Lane wasn’t especially difficult. “So am I the first or second one you tried?” Lois asked.

Lucy’s eyes went wide. “S-second,” she stammered out. “How’d you know?”

“Deductive reasoning,” Lois replied. “There aren’t any Lois Lanes in Smallville and only two in the Metropolis phone book. The other one’s a florist or something down on Des Moines Avenue. She occasionally gets some of my mail by accident.”

“Oh,” Lucy said.

“I’m also going to deduce that you didn’t exactly ask your foster parents before you came by, did you?” Lois continued.

The girl’s guilty look pretty much said it all.

“Right,” Lois said as much to herself as to Lucy. “Let’s get you home before your foster parents have a slight case of abject panic.” She grabbed her purse off the counter as she went.

“I can’t go back Miss Lane!” Lucy yelled.

“You’re going to have to,” Lois said, trying to figure out how to explain it to an eleven-year old. “I’m not your legal guardian and you are most definitely a minor. I’d get in big trouble if I didn’t take you back. One thing I know about Family Services is they’re big on rules and following them. Tell me… do you really think they’d let me be your guardian if I didn’t take you back as soon as I could?”

Again Lucy didn’t meet Lois’ gaze which answered the question as effectively as any words. “You’re my sister though,” Lucy said sullenly.

“Yeah,” Lois admitted, as much to herself as to the world at large. “But blood only goes so far in a case like this.”

As Lois put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder and guided her for the door she found herself wondering if her last comment had been about Family Services… or herself.

Metropolis - Blood (part 1)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:31:18 GMT

Chapter One: The Day After

Bobbie Granger wasn’t happy. True, he hadn’t had to go to school yesterday or today, but he’d also had to spend hours in the car with Henry and Mandy listening to boring old people music on the radio and he’d missed all his favorite cartoons and they’d had to spend last night in a hotel somewhere in the middle of nowhere because something had been going on in the city. Plus, he hadn’t been able to take all of his toys with him; Henry and Mandy had been in a hurry to leave the house and when he forgot his Warrior Angel action figure, they’d flatly refused to go back for it.

They were finally home now, Henry and Mandy’s minivan had just pulled onto their street, but now the sun was setting so it would be time for bed soon and tomorrow it would be back to school. What was the point of not having to go to school if you couldn’t have any fun?

“Make sure you bring a bag in with you,” Henry told him as he grabbed two of the suitcases from the back and headed for the front door.

Bobbie deliberately took a long time getting his seatbelt undone and tarried just a bit longer before opening the side door of the van, hoping that maybe everything would be removed before he got around to the back himself. No such luck though, his travel bag was still sitting there waiting for him along with a bin filled with action figures and cars and video games and all the other toys that a typical boy owned.

Fixing his priorities, Bobbie grabbed the toy-filled bin from the back and started to lug it back into the house. It was heavy, but at least Henry and Mandy had left the front door open for him.

Bobbie staggered through the front door to find himself face to face with a stranger; a man he’d never met before. Glancing over he saw Henry and Mandy standing behind the man. They didn’t look nervous so he guessed the man must be okay.

“You must be Bobbie Granger,” the man said as he bent over to bring his eyes level with Bobbie’s own. “I’ve been hoping to meet you for a while Bobbie,” he added as he rubbed his hands together. “What fun we’re going to have.”

Bobbie just eyed the man warily. He was almost ten and he’d learned to never trust any adult who said they were going to be having fun because most adults’ ideas of fun usually wound up being completely lame at best.

“Who are you, Mister?” Bobbie asked the man, again looking to Henry and Mandy who were still just standing there with pleasant expressions on their faces.

“I’m from Family Services,” the man said. “But more important than who I am is who YOU are. You’re Bobbie Granger, removed from your mother’s care, currently in foster care with the Henry and Mandy Walter of 11347 Brighten Drive, and from the look of things a very unhappy boy am I right?”

Bobbie nodded.

“Yes, I thought so,” the man replied. “I certainly thought so,” he said again, almost as if to himself. Then his focus fell back on Bobbie. “Well Bobbie, today is your lucky day. I’m here to take you to someplace where you’ll never have to be unhappy again. How does that sound?”

For a third time Bobbie looked to Henry and Mandy and still they stood there with an unblinking expression on their faces.

“Hmm? Oh, yes!” the man exclaimed. “We should ask your foster parents what they think. Do you think this is a good idea Mr. and Mrs. Walter?”

Henry and Mandy’s heads bobbed up and down in affirmation.

“There! See! They think it’s a wonderful idea,” the man said. “Now why don’t we go out to my car and we’ll be on our way?”

“But what about my stuff?” Bobbie asked.

“Not to worry,” the man said. “I have all your toys here.” He picked up one of two duffle bags by his feet. It was so full that the surface was a mass of bumps from the jutting arms, heads, wings and other accessories of the toys crammed inside.

“I wouldn’t worry about that too much though,” he continued. “Where we’re going you’ll have toys beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Really?!?” Bobbie asked excitedly.

“I’ll prove it,” the man said as he pulled what looked like a TV remote from his pants pocket. He hit a button on its surface and a car came rolling around the corner and pulled into the driveway. As it came to a stop Bobbie saw to his amazement that there was no driver inside.

“Cool!!!” Bobbie exclaimed.

“Now, why don’t you go wait in the car while I finish up business with your foster parents,” the man said cheerfully.

“Sure,” Bobbie replied, his voice brimming over with enthusiasm. He raced for the mysterious and wonderful car and didn’t bother to look back.

The man turned back into the house and shut the door behind him. Things went so much more smoothly this time; this time he’d finally get it right for sure.

Adult cooperation made all the difference he had learned and his device had functioned flawlessly for a second time. He regarded the Walters with their blank and passive expressions made possible by his latest toy. He walked around them where he could clearly see the small blinking modules on the bases of their necks; devices that controlled their thoughts and made them pliant… made them giant living toys.

Finding a reliable way to quickly attach the ThinkChips had been the most difficult part, but his solution for that had been equally as inventive.

“Come, Cuckoo,” the man said as a hummingbird buzzed out of a dark corner and came to rest in his hand. It was not actually a hummingbird, but a small robotic drone that was even now folding down into a sphere barely the size of a golf ball.

With that accomplished the man turned again to the Walters. The crime of letting a child be unhappy was unforgivable. He picked up the second duffle bag, withdrew the machete and poncho from them, and advanced on the insensate couple. As their blood flowed freely the man’s only regret was that, with the ThinkChips still in place, they were not actually aware of the pain from his cuts which he knew they so richly deserved.

The young woman named Lois Lane shot bolt upright in bed; her eyes wide and her breathing heavy. Reflexively her right hand came up to her left wrist to feel that the Kryptonian bracelet which she wore there was still in its place. Though the device didn’t protect her from minor injuries or her nightmares, it did protect her from lethal harm and the psychological reassurance of its presence on her wrist did much to calm her.

So much for the theory that victory brings peace, she thought to herself as she pulled herself out of bed. Victory in this case meant having finally stopped the menace of Brainiac once and for all. Peace would have been the absence of the nightmares that plagued her almost every time she slept and had for eight years now.

Still, even as her heartbeat slowed down to its normal pace she knew this night had not been as bad as some; though visions of her father’s fiery death had still come, Lionel Luthor and Brainiac had not had the chance to torment her this night. She looked over at her alarm clock and was rallied further by the observation that she’d actually gotten six hours of sleep last night. Of course, given that she hadn’t actually had any sleep at all in the previous two days, she was still technically running a net sleep deficit.

Not that the theory of trying to catch up on sleep actually worked; mainly because it played hell with the biorhythms which could leave you feeling even less rested than when you first went to bed; she’d read all the literature on insomnia in those early days of anger and grief when true sleep seemed like some half-remembered dream. Besides, if it were actually true she’d probably need a solid year pulling a Sleeping Beauty just to catch up on all the sleep she’d lost in the eight years since her father had been murdered and she’d rather not waste that much time. The truth of the matter was that she’d become so used to the lost sleep in that time that four hours a night would probably still be her normal average now even if the nightmares had abandoned her completely.

Still, despite the relative lack of sleep, Lois was feeling a lot better rested this morning than she had in a long time; though that might also just be the thrill of anticipation at work. It had been a long time since Lois had felt… it felt silly to even think it, but… well, giddy. As giddy as a school girl with a high school crush is what she’d call it if she were being honest; which today she was more than willing to allow of herself.

A high school crush isn’t too far off, she thought to herself as she slid into the shower and bobbed in time to some nameless tune in her head that only she could hear. Barely twenty-four hours ago she’d finally heard and returned the words she’d dreamed of hearing from her friend Clark Kent since they had been back in high school.

“I love you Lois Lane!”

Okay, technically back in high school it would have been ‘I love you Chloe Sullivan,’ but debating that point would just be a case of to-may-to/to-mah-to style semantics. Whatever she was calling herself it was the person behind the name that Clark loved and that would be her.

She again brushed her hand across the surface of her bracelet. During the past few months she hadn’t dared take it off even for a moment lest she be caught defenseless by Brainiac. In that time it felt as if the bracelet had almost become a part of her; a physical symbol of her connection to Clark and their shared fight for truth and justice. That feeling of connection, to the bracelet and to Clark, had never felt stronger than it did this morning. She didn’t have to wear it all the time anymore… she just wanted to.

She still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that it wasn’t just a dream on her part. It can’t be this simple, she’d said the day before; just after they’d first kissed. There’s supposed to be years of drama and missed declarations and breakups and misunderstandings and thinking we’ve lost each other forever before something this good happens with us.

Clark had just smiled at that. Lois, there was, he’d replied. It was called HIGH SCHOOL. Then he’d kissed her again.

He’d been absolutely right of course. As fresh and exhilarating and new as this felt it was sometimes hard to remember that they’d actually known each other for more than a decade now… since the eighth grade, actually, when her father’s job had moved them from Metropolis to Smallville and she’d shared an impulsive first kiss with a farm boy who’d been kind enough to show her around and now, after all the trials and tribulations, it had finally paid off. It really was just that ‘simple.’

By the time she was through in the shower that nameless tune in her head had turned into full-fledged humming of what might have been ‘Walking on Sunshine’ as she brushed out her hair and wondered if she shouldn’t do something about her hairstyle; or relative lack of one as the case might be.

Once upon a time, back when winning the attention of her farm boy had been as important to her as journalism, she’d gone out of her way to keep up with the latest styles. But in the years since her father’s death that concern had given way to functionality and simplicity. How many hours had she spent on bleaching her hair as a teenager and primping to get it to lie just so anyway?

Her hairstyle had been one of the first victims of her more functional outlook. She had bleached it back to blonde one last time after she’d come out of hiding; she had needed to look as she had before Lionel Luthor destroyed her world one last time for her videotaped testimony against him; but after that she’d simply let it grow back into her natural light brown. As to the style; others in her circle might feel the need to blow fifty bucks on a supposed designer do, but to her mind you got pretty much the same results for $14.95 at the GreatClips down the street.

Yet, today she was feeling the need to spruce herself up a bit more than usual; as she had done so long ago at the Smallville High Spring Formal. Not that she wasn’t already attractive, she’d turned enough men’s heads to know that she was, but she wanted to make herself look as beautiful on the outside as Clark made her feel on the inside.

No doubt about it, she was in love. Not just with Clark Kent; which was a given; but amazingly enough with her whole entire screwed up life. And what wasn’t there to love, really?

She had a job as an investigative reporter for the Daily Planet; the job she’d dreamed of having for as long as she could remember and how could you not love that? Some might wonder; why in this age of instant news anytime and anywhere that anyone would still want to be a print reporter? But they’d be missing the point. Any hack on the twenty-four hour cable news or the internet could get the story first. An investigative reporter’s job was to get the story right and a print investigative reporter’s job was to get the story right for posterity. If it wasn’t written down, then it never happened and unlike the internet; where stories were here today and gone tomorrow like soap bubbles amidst the vast oceans of information; a real solid copy of a story was something more enduring... more real. It wasn’t like people lived forever to share their memories of times past. Someone had to record what happened so that people years from now would be able to say, ‘this is the truth of what actually happened.’

You couldn’t leave out the hate mail on her list of things to love, either. Some might find it strange, but Lois loved getting hate mail… had loved it since she first had started working at a newspaper back in junior high. Lois didn’t make accusations in her stories lightly so any hate mail she received probably meant that her investigation was stepping on the toes of someone who probably needed to have them stepped on in the first place. So it really meant something to her that she’d actually earned hate mail from her fellow reporters … which would have pretty much topped her week if not for Clark. The e-mails had started pouring in from some of her fellow reporters yesterday afternoon once it leaked out to the rest of the press that ‘Superman’ had yet again given an exclusive interview to Clark and herself regarding the events of the last two days.

Well, what did they expect after the way they’d been trashing ‘Superman’ for months? Lois asked herself as she set about brushing her teeth. The hate mail had pretty much boiled down into one very illustrative complaint; the claim that Superman was playing favorites and using them because they had been supporting him since his debut instead of bashing him like every other member of the media had done.

In short, they’d chosen to run with the rest of the pack and now that the story had broken the other way they were stuck on the outside looking in and were griping about it. This was especially funny given that what they were really griping about was that she and Clark had been consistent and that consistency had apparently paid off. The vast majority of the media was eating crow this morning over their speculations that Superman was really a vigilante/alien conqueror and Lois thought it served them right because the headline of the Daily Planet this morning just about said it all.

‘HERO!’ the bold block letters proclaimed above the stunning picture taken by Jimmy Olsen during the final battle with Brainiac; a woman and young child huddled in fear as ‘Superman’ selflessly interposed himself between them and the massive blast of energy pouring from Brainiac’s hands. After yesterday only the truly deranged could honestly doubt that ‘Superman’ was a hero.

More accurately Clark was the hero, which was another thing she loved. She was one of a select few people who knew the truth; that ‘Superman’ was nothing more than a costume Clark Kent put on so he could use his powers to help people without drawing attention to his real life; to his friends and family.

My boyfriend’s a superhero, Lois thought as she suppressed the urge to bounce up at down with glee at the thought.

Best of all about the whole article in Lois’ mind was that they had been given a second chance to do it right; which was not something that happened often in any aspect of life. The first time she and Clark had written an interview with ‘Superman’ it had been an extremely rushed affair and the desire to preserve Clark’s secret and their personal feelings that ‘Superman’ might be the greatest thing since sliced bread resulted in the questions being pretty much softballs.

In the months since then Lois had rewritten that story a hundred times over in her head, so when the opportunity actually presented itself to do another interview without drawing suspicion to Clark and herself and their connection to ‘Superman’ the story was halfway done in her head before she and Clark even sat down to discuss it.

First and foremost was the rebuttal of the charges in Lex’s hit piece that had appeared the day after their first interview. This time they included virtually the entire story, the good and the bad; leaving out only the time frame that ‘Superman’ had been on Earth and that Kal-El was just his Kryptonian name as opposed to his real name. Yes, Kal-El was an alien from the now destroyed world of Krypton and yes, Brainaic came from Krypton as well. His father, Jor-El, had sent Brainiac and Kal-El to Earth in order to conquer it. Kal-El had arrived first, but after living among the people of Earth he rejected his father’s plan and did his best to thwart it. ‘Sons often rebel against their fathers,’ the interview had quoted Kal-El as saying; a sentiment that Lois hoped even Lex, whose conflict with his father Lionel had shaped his entire life, could relate to and hopefully take to heart.

Despite the pain her ex-boyfriend had put her through recently Lex had been a true friend during those first tumultuous years back in Metropolis. That friendship was the sole reason she’d been willing to forgive his brutal breakup with her; though admittedly she wasn’t in any hurry to reach out to him beyond that. If Lex was serious about wanting forgiveness as a friend he’d have to be the one to prove it. More than anything it pained Lois that Lex could be friends with Clark and herself and yet see Superman as such a grave threat. Hopefully the last few days would help him to see the light.

So yes, all things considered her whole crazy mixed up life was something Lois found herself loving a whole lot. Yet all of the above was not what had her so giddy this morning. What had her so giddy was that in about two hours, after putting in a perfunctory appearance at work, she and Clark would be going on their first kinda-sorta unofficial… date. She fought the urge to bounce up and down again, but only just barely.

More specifically, they were going to get a better to look at the Fortress that had been bequeathed to him by Brainiac.

The Fortress existed in a whole separate universe; inside a tesseract to be exact. If you had a doctorate in quantum mechanics you’d know that a tesseract was an infinite space contained within a finite area; in this case an apparently two dimensional plane just inside the roof access door of the Daily Planet. If you’d just read and watched as much science fiction as Lois had, you’d know it worked pretty much like Doctor Who’s TARDIS; it was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.

A LOT bigger. Big enough to more than warrant the mental capitalization she gave to the Fortress. She’d gotten a brief look at its layout when she’d been brainwashed by Brainiac and the fact of the matter was that the Fortress wasn’t just big… it was beyond even the word colossal. She was thinking that she’d have to invent a new word just to describe how big it was. The entry hall alone was big enough to hold a football stadium and the miles-high observation deck where they had watched the unfolding battle between Brainiac’s Eradicators and the U.S. Army hadn’t even been a quarter of the way up the main tower. It was a place so vast that the elevators, if the place had conventional elevators, would need four digits and the floor space of a single level could be measured using square miles.

It was, she had been told by Kelex, a perfect reproduction of Clark’s ancestral home; a massive arcology that had once been home to one of the three great ruling houses of Krypton; the House of El. Tens of millions had lived there once. Now all that was left was a shadow; an empty shell filled with ghosts, wonders, and possibly horrors, beyond counting.

And Clark was the only one with the key. The portal into that Fortress opened only for Kryptonians. Unless Clark was holding the portal open himself you were just pounding your fist against a concrete wall trying to get in. For all the jokes made when they were kids about the loft in his barn being his ‘Fortress of Solitude’ this place could really be such a place. If Clark went in on his own, there would be no one else who could go in after him to bring him out.

Which was pretty much why she’d insisted on coming with him when he went back into the Fortress. Okay, that and her insatiable curiosity for all things bizarre. The simple fact of the matter though was that, regardless of its origins, the Fortress was a solid and tangible link to where Clark had come from and he had so many questions about that alien world. Without someone to bring him back down to earth she worried, probably totally irrationally she was willing to admit, that he might get himself lost in that alien world.

Mostly though it was just a chance to spend some time with Clark in a place where neither of them had to wear masks; a place where Clark didn’t have to hide who he was and she could act just a little bit more like the girl he used to know. There was just something about having your identity violated by a god-like alien artificial intelligence that made you appreciate just being yourself a little more.

Lois was rummaging through her refrigerator and only belatedly remembering that there hadn’t been anything truly edible in it two days ago either; unless she wanted to risk something that looked like it might be growing bluish fur; when her doorbell buzzed. She looked up at the time on her radio, 7:27 A.M., and wondered who could possibly be trying to visit her at this hour.

The thought that it might be Clark coming by early to surprise her buoyed her steps as she went to the door and peaked through the peephole at who might lie beyond. She sagged slightly as she saw that it was not Clark visible through the fish-eye lens. It was a girl. She looked to be ten, maybe twelve years old; Lois hadn’t spent enough time around kids recently to really be able to guess with any degree of accuracy. Still, the girl looked vaguely familiar to Lois; she was dressed in camouflage pants and a leather jacket that looked about two sizes too big for her and her blonde hair was pulled back into a short ponytail.

She tried to remember where she might have met a girl that age before. She knew one of the families in the building had a daughter in the Girl Scouts because she’d bought several boxes of Thin Mints off her a few years ago, but she was pretty sure that girl had been a brunette. If she didn’t live in the building, she was pretty good at sneaking into places where she didn’t belong though.

Whatever the reason was for her being at her door, the girl seemed to be quite nervous; she was fidgeting from one foot to the other and looking back and forth along the hallway of the apartment building as she punched Lois’ doorbell again. Deciding that, whatever the girl wanted, she wasn’t a threat, Lois unlocked her door and opened it.

“Are you Lois Lane?” the girl asked without preamble.

“Um, yeah,” Lois replied. Okay, so she wasn’t going door to door at random.

“And your name used to be Chloe Sullivan?” the girl continued.

Despite her recent thoughts about just being yourself Lois found herself completely thrown by the question, though for reasons far more practical than philosophical. While her former identity wasn’t exactly top secret, it didn’t exactly fall into the common knowledge category either. “Who told you that?” Lois demanded.

“I found it in some court records,” the girl answered. “So are you?”

Lois just nodded. There was no point in really denying it, but now she was desperately trying to remember where she’d seen this girl before. She hadn’t used her old name in eight years and this girl would have been in pre-school at best at that time.

“And your father was Gabriel M. Sullivan?” she continued as if she needed to get whatever it was out as quickly as possible lest she lose her nerve.

Lois felt a tinge of loss at the sound of her dead father’s name and bit of annoyance at the girl for having brought it up.

“Who are you kid?” Lois demanded.

The words seemed to flow out of the girl like a torrent, as if she’d been waiting a lifetime to be able to say them.

“I’m Lucy… Lucy Monroe… and if Gabriel Sullivan was your father… then I’m your sister.”