I decided to start posting the longer fic I've been working on today. I may still post the next power short later this week, but I didn't get a chance to do the research I wanted on it this weekend so it's not written. There's 15 parts of this written so far, and I'm waffling on how many posts I want to do a week for it... but we shall see.
Note: this is *not* a sequel to Thermodynamics, it follows the aired Man of Steel Bars.
Beyond the External
by Lieta
Disclaimer: This is a fan work based on “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” All rights to the characters belong to DC Comics and Warner Bros. No profit was made off this work.
Thank you Morgana for betaing!
Chapter 1
With a notebook balanced on his knees, Clark analyzed the latest bizarre happenings in the city he now called home. If nothing else, this heat wave disaster had shown him how tied to the city he now was.
And it wasn't just Lois. Sure, he'd fallen hard for his feisty coworker long before he'd ever analyzed his own feelings for her. But, much as he wanted to stay in her orbit, however peripheral his role as *Clark* seemed to be there, that wasn't it.
Nor was it Superman. As soon as the injunction's ruling had been handed down, or more probably as soon as the Metropolis police had *arrested* Superman, offers had come flowing in. When he'd returned from stopping the train, he'd found a message on his machine from Murray begging him to contact Superman about various offers. Governments from all over the world had vied to become Superman's home base, heat or no heat.
No, he, *Clark* just felt at home here. He had a job he loved, an apartment he'd made his own, and true friends for the first time in years. Clark Kent the wanderer had finally found a place he wanted to settle. Far more than giving up the dream of openly giving aide with his powers that Superman's existence fulfilled, it had broken his heart to write a resignation letter to the Perry and to have to give it to Lois.
Clark shook his head to dispel his thoughts. Even with the source of the heat wave apparently found, it still bothered him. How had a *leak* in the reactor core of the power plant managed to match his activities?
He could come up with many ideas but, by Occam's razor, the simplest among them was: it wasn't. No, the heat wave with all the misery it brought to him and the city had been a deliberate maneuver to ban Superman from the city. Further applying "Non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate”**, who else but Lex Luthor would be the best suspect? Luthor loathed Superman and had tried to drive him away before, Luthor owned the power plane where the leak originated and Luthor had the means to invent some way to control that 'leak'.
And that wasn't all that bothered Clark in this latest 'test' by the billionaire. Dr. Sayer was a well-regarded physicist, so he had the accumulated respect in his field to be taken seriously when he had placed the blame for the heat wave squarely on Superman's shoulders. And, now that the real culprit had been revealed, he wasn't just shrugging it off as a failed hypothesis... he had disappeared. Clark had spent the better part of the day trying to track the man down and he couldn't find any trail to follow. The man was just gone.
Next had been City Attorney Cheng. She'd been particularly aggressive in pursuing an unproven theory so far as she had, never mind her determination to get Superman first banned from using his powers completely, then getting him ousted from the city. Could she be on Luthor's payroll? Clark debated checking records of other cases she'd been involved with.
Then there was the prisoner at the courthouse. Not only had he *happened* to get the bailiff's gun just as Clark was coming out of the courthouse... he had ended up in the same *cell* as Clark at the station? It certainly seemed to scream plant to him now that he looked back on it.
Finally, there had been the train. He hadn't been able to examine the brakes himself, he'd just stopped the runaway train. But he'd be shocked if they hadn't been tampered with in light of everything else that had happened. However, he also doubted that any investigation into it would agree. It would certainly run true to Luthor's 'luck'.
After adding all his thoughts and observations to the notebook, Clark tossed it down onto the table and leaned his head back against his couch with a sigh of frustration. He was getting *no where* in trying to bring Luthor down. He suspected Luthor was behind the Prometheus sabotage, or at least in a partnership with Baines. He'd even found some evidence that Luthor and Baines had had a relationship either prior to when he came to Metropolis or even continuing until her death. He had the sickening suspicion that Luthor had been behind the death of a woman who was quite possibly a former or even current lover. And *that* thought gave him chills when he thought of Lois’ friendliness with the man.
Next had been the tests of his abilities shortly after his debut. There had been the speed test with the two jumpers who were both employed somewhere within the LexCorp conglomeration. Then there was the bomb where Lois had gotten hurt. Luthor had alluded to those things being under his control, but even if he had flat out admitted it, it would be his word against Clark's. And he doubted even Superman's word would hold for much against the city’s greatest son.
After that Clark had even less concrete suspicions. Menken's timing in going to abduct Lois and Luthor's good fortune in coming to her rescue were very coincidental. They had certainly driven Clark to try and find just where Menken had gotten the money to fund Lois' father's research and surgeries. But again there had been no leads to speak of.
The Mentamide 5 incident was also suspicious. Alone with Luthor and Phillip, Luthor had seemed *far* too interested in the fact that Phillip had apparently perfected the formula for Mentamide 6 to be the remote investor he'd later tried to claim he was. And that didn't touch the convenient demise of Dr. Carlton, who had passed away not long after supposedly over dosing on his own serum.
And even if he wasn't directly behind the serum, the fact that the supposedly destroyed notes might be in Luthor's possession frightened Clark. Why would he need a serum that enhanced brain function and development? Even more concerning was the fact that Dr. Lane and Alan Morris had been absorbed into the LexCorp machine. He hopped Luthor wasn't going to get his own invisibility suits or continue with weapon-grade biotechnology. Clark contemplated that worrying idea for a long moment.
He even wondered if there'd been more to Toni Taylor's meeting with Luthor than the simple business meeting she'd confessed to in her plea bargain. Where *had* those flamethrowers come from?
At least Clark was reasonably sure he could absolve Luthor of any involvement with Trask. But that still meant he suspected almost all of the major incidents he'd been involved with since becoming Superman had at least some evidence of Luthor's fingers in the pies.
Clark gave a weary sigh. He didn't think there was any way he could get the evidence he needed to catch Luthor. Even Superman seemed unable to gain any ground on him.
What he needed, was his partner.
End
**A version of Occam's Razor often attributed to Ockham, but this phrasing actually comes from John Punch as a 'common axiom' (axioma vulgare) and translates to "Entities must not to be multiplied beyond the need".
