Clark’s eyes frantically darted around the tiny, cell-like room he’d been ushered into more than…how long had it been? There was no telling. He tried to count how many meals had been served to him - if the even more meager rations of food than what he’d been given before could rightly be called meals. But these days, it was hard to concentrate on anything at all. His thoughts were jumbled and almost staticky, blitzing through his brain faster than even he could follow. It reminded him of…someone. Someone who used to…what? Was it run? Or…walk? No…that wasn’t it. Something like walk. T…alk? Talk? Yes, that was it. Talk. Someone who used to talk a lot, and fast. Someone who took it past the point of talking into something else entirely. But what was the right word for it?
The image of a bubbling pot of water popped into mind, but he hadn’t the faintest clue why. Did it have something to do with the person’s talking? Did the person…bubble?
Clark sighed as he tried to grasp the correct word for what he meant but his frenzied thoughts refused to be still long enough for him to find what he was looking for. He couldn’t even remember if it was a man or a woman he was thinking of, though he imagined it might have been a woman. There was just something vaguely feminine about the ghostly, blurry shape in his brain.
He growled out loud, frustrated with himself and he once again tried to break free of the straight jacket that bound him. All to no avail. The sturdy material held tight and the seams refused to pop and give him even a false hope of escaping. He threw his head back as he struggled, and the soft padding cushioned the blow. Why was he here? Didn’t they know he wasn’t crazy?
“I am Superman!” he bellowed in response to his own jagged thoughts. “You have to let me out of here!”
He fought again against the bonds that held him. Where was his super strength? What had it abandoned him? Was there Kryptonite around? He couldn’t recall how long it had been since he’d last been able to feel his powers rippling just beneath the surface, ready to aid him at a moment’s notice.
“I demand to be freed!” he snarled, spittle flying from his lips. “I know what you’re up to! You want to ruin the world by keeping me locked up here! You won’t succeed! Nothing can hold Superman for long!”
He was about to launch into a further tirade when the door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. Dr. Fulton stepped into the room, his hands shoved deep into his lab coat pockets. Clark involuntarily flinched, knowing the doctor usually kept a syringe full of a powerful tranquilizer in his pocket. Memories of sharp pricks of pain in his neck followed by almost instantaneous blackness were fresh in his mind, even if the rest of his memories were muddled or missing entirely. Clark had been subjected to that violation of his consciousness more times than he could count.
“Let me out of here!” Clark demanded, as soon as he saw the doctor and despite his growing fear of the needle. “The world needs my help!”
“Still on this Superman fantasy I see,” Dr. Fulton said, an audible tsk tsk in this voice. “A shame. And here I thought we might be finally getting somewhere after all these months.”
“It’s not a fantasy,” Clark flung back, venom in his words and an icy hardness in his eyes. “I’m really Superman!”
“Superman would never allow himself to remain in this facility,” Dr. Fulton pointed out, gesturing palm-up to the cell around them.
“Something’s wrong with my powers,” Clark admitted sheepishly. “That’s what I need help with. Not my mind.”
“And how, pray tell, did you lose your powers?” Dr. Fulton humored him. “Industrial accident? Full moon? Ate too many bombs?”
Clark shook his head, abstractly grateful that he could still move at least that much of his body, even if his torso was bound almost too tightly to breathe.
“Well?” Dr. Fulton asked, inviting him to answer.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head again, his mind once more coming up with a blank nothingness as he tried to remember any relevant details of his life.
He couldn’t even remember where he’d been before being admitted into the asylum. He knew he had to have come from somewhere, but it was like trying to peer through a fog so dense he couldn’t see the hand before his face. Blackness ruled his memories and he had this unsettling feeling that he’d lived in darkness, rather than it being just a failure of his brain to recall where he’d been.
“I see,” Dr. Fulton said in that irritatingly patronizing way of his, the tilt of his voice suggesting that he knew he was speaking with an idiot.
“Why won’t anyone believe me?” Clark pressed.
Dr. Fulton rubbed his stubbly chin a moment in thought. Then he snapped his fingers, as though an idea had come to him.
“I know exactly what you need to clear this Superman fantasy you’ve concocted right out of your head,” he said with a disturbingly gleeful twinkle in his eyes.
Clark glared at the doctor, trying with all his might to turn the man into a smoldering pile of ashes. But nothing happened and Clark’s eyes soon began to twitch with the effort. Dr. Fulton merely shook his head, as if he knew exactly what Clark was up to. He stepped forward and Clark shrank back involuntarily.
Behind Dr. Fulton, two burly orderlies appeared, looking more like professional weightlifters than part of a medical staff. Each one of them grabbed Clark by his shoulders and dragged him to his feet, heedless of Clark’s increasingly vigorous and snarling protests. Clark wasn’t going to go quietly. They were trying to kill him, he was certain of it. Then they would brag to the world about being the men who’d killed Superman. Just like…Clark drew a blank. It felt like he’d had run-ins with someone – maybe more than one someone – who’d tried to kill Superman before. Or was that some barely-remembered nightmare of his coming to the surface?
“Take him to the Tank,” Dr. Fulton ordered in a cold, hollow voice. “And ready a more…traditional room. I have a feeling we won’t be needing the padded one for much longer.”
***
Clark’s heart was racing and his eyes darted about the cold, sterile, extremely threatening room. He tested the ankle restraints that bound him into the padded chair, but the thick leather and heavy duty Velcro held tight and his twisted, misshapen ankles – a permanent mark of the torture he’d received in Lex Luthor’s wine cellar, if only he could remember it – screamed in protest against the awkward movement. Walking was hard enough, though he’d long ago adapted to his ill-gotten physical limitations. Trying to break free of his bonds was out of the question.
The same held true for his wrists. Those too had been broken on multiple occasions, and had healed improperly as a result, though not quite as severely as his ankles. He allowed himself to exert a greater amount of force against the wrist restraints, but all he received in return was the barest sound of the too-tight leather creaking and a cold, tingling sensation in his hands as the flow of blood was cut off from the effort.
Moving his head was out of the question. A thick band of leather held his head in place. He couldn’t do so much as move his head a millimeter to either side. His ears still rang and pain throbbed dully on the right side of his head from where one of the orderlies had clubbed him with a fist as Clark had tried to shove the man and knock him down to make an escape. It hurt even to keep his eyes open, but he was Superman. He wasn’t a coward. He would face whatever was to come, not cower behind closed lids as he imagined the worst.
Dr. Fulton didn’t enter the room until Clark was securely in the chair, unable to move a muscle. For a moment, the doctor stood on the far side of the room, his practiced eyes taking in all the details, assuring himself that his patient was helpless before he took a single step closer. Clark glared at him but Dr. Fulton seemed not to notice or care about how uncomfortable Clark was. He boldly stepped toward Clark until Clark could smell the overwhelming stench of Brut wafting off the doctor’s body like a noxious cloud. It made Clark’s eyes water and he wanted to gag from the assault to his nostrils. The doctor checked, then double checked, all of Clark’s restraints, then he set about putting electrodes on Clark’s head and chest, presumably to monitor his vital signs.
Silently, the doctor pried open Clark’s lower jaw and stuck a long rod of hard rubber in his mouth. Clark tried to spit the offending item out, but Dr. Fulton held him still until some of the fight went out of Clark while he tried to formulate a different plan. He didn’t have time. Dr. Fulton moved with practiced speed and grace. He backed off as his orderlies came forward, one holding Clark’s jaw closed while the other pressed two cold probes against Clark’s temples. Dr. Fulton stood to one side, adjusted a few dials, and then, with a blinding jolt of pain, electricity was sent into Clark’s brain.
***
Lois distractedly reached for the phone as it shrilly rang for the third time. Ignoring the caller ID in favor of trying to remove a long strip of tape that had become tangled around the fingers of her right hand while she attempted to wrap her sister’s Christmas gift, she pressed the answer button and tucked the receiver between her shoulder and her ear.
“Hello?” she said, half expecting it to be Lucy calling for gift ideas for their mother.
“Lois?” a man’s voice replied. “It’s Bill.”
Lois immediately lost interest in her failing gift-wrap attempt and she gripped the phone, switching it from her left ear to her right. “Henderson? What’s up?” she asked, wondering if the Police Chief had some news for her on one of the stories she was in the midst of investigating. “Do you have IDs on those dead hookers?” she guessed, referencing her most recent, and pressing, case.
“Er…no. I have some news for you on a case. An old one,” the man cautiously began. “It’s…ah…” he stammered, clearly at a loss for the right words.
“Bill, what is it?” she asked as her stomach churned and a cold fear broke over her body. She’d never heard that uncertain tone in his voice for the more than twenty-five years she’d known him.
“A friend of mine in Gotham…Commissioner Gordon?”
“I know him,” Lois confirmed though it hadn’t really been a question directed at her. “Well…of him. We’ve never actually met,” she immediately corrected herself.
“He got a tip…Lois, I don’t know how to say this,” Henderson said carefully, and she could picture him shaking his salt-and-pepper head. “But…he found something. Someone. Lois…it’s…he found Clark Kent.”
Thunderstruck.
Lois had never quite understood the full meaning of the word until that moment. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her mind and sent shockwaves searing through the rest of her body. But if it was in relief, joy, fear, or some other unidentifiable emotion, she wasn’t entirely sure. The world was too busy spinning around her at a terrifyingly fast pace for her to make any sense of anything. Vaguely, she has the sensation of wanting to vomit from the sense of vertigo she was experiencing.
“F…Found?” she ventured. “Good found or…?” She couldn’t force the rest of the words out.
“He’s alive,” Henderson confirmed for her, and Lois began to sob in relief.
“Where? How? When?” she asked, rapid-fire.
“I’m on my way to your apartment. I’ll explain it all in the chopper to Gotham,” Henderson said guardedly. “At least, I’ll share what little I know right now. We’ll find out the full story once we get there.”
“G…Gotham?” Lois stammered.
“Can you believe it?” Henderson replied wonderingly. “Just a couple of hours’ drive away after all this time.”
“How soon can you be here?” Lois asked with grim determination.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Make it five,” she said, before hanging up the phone without waiting for his response.
***
The heavy whump-whump-whump of the helicopter’s blades as they sliced the air deafened Lois. The whine of the engine as it raced them toward Gotham was almost more than she could bear. The pilot spoke over the headphones embedded in their protective ear-coverings only when necessary, but Lois’ mind was elsewhere and she hadn’t heard a single word of what was said. Even Henderson had given up on trying to talk to her, not that he was an overly chatty man as it was. But he’d tried to calm her down at least, even if Lois hadn’t really listened to him. It wasn’t that she wanted to ignore him. She simply couldn’t stop her mind from whirring around in worry.
Something was wrong, she knew it deep down in the marrow of her bones.
It made goosebumps rise on her skin and it twisted her stomach into knots. She could taste the cold, coppery taste of fear in the back of her throat and it was an effort for her not to throw up. She felt alternately stifling hot and drenched in coldness as her mind concocted one horrible scenario after another.
There was something Henderson deliberately wasn’t telling her, she decided. It wasn’t so much what he was saying to her that clued her into that fact, but what he wasn’t telling her. So far, all she really knew was that Clark had been found, alive. But where in Gotham and the circumstances of his discovery were being withheld from her. She didn’t believe for one hot second that he didn’t know the facts. Of all the policemen Lois had ever worked with over the past two-and-a-half decades, Henderson was the best. He was always knowledgeable on details of his cases, even when they weren’t really his cases. For him to feign ignorance now only served to fuel her suspicions and, in turn, feed her fears.
“Prepare for landing,” the pilot said over the headphones they all wore, his voice sounding distorted and robotic and somewhat staticky.
Lois instinctually tugged on the strap of her seatbelt, though she knew it was already as tight as it was going to get. She’d done a lot of traveling over the years looking for Clark, some of it out to Kansas to be with his parents, some of it in chasing dead-ended, false leads. By this point, she hated traveling by air, whereas once it was her favorite mode of transportation. The years of broken dreams and fresh wounds to her destroyed heart had taken their toll on her. And yet, she missed being scooped up into Clark’s strong arms, snuggling into his broad chest, and being flown with such care that the world melted away while they defied gravity. Of course, she hadn’t known it was Clark back then. Her dashing hero in the vibrant blue suit and regal red cape had merely been Superman at the time, until Clark’s parents had reluctantly confirmed his dual identities with her as she’d searched high and low for her missing best friend.
It was funny, she had often wryly thought to herself. Even before she’d been made privy to Clark’s secret by her own investigative nosing around, she’d been more aware of Clark’s disappearance than she’d been of Superman’s. Superman had almost ceased to be on her radar in those early days, when she’d first started trying to find Clark. It was only weeks after her wedding, and after calling out for Superman’s help more times than she could count, that she finally realized that he wasn’t ignoring her, but that he was missing as well. And then she’d found the suits in Clark’s closet and had known the horrifying truth about why the hero was gone.
The helicopter went into a hover. Lois leaned over slightly to peek out the window. Below them, at the top of the Gotham PD’s building, she could see the huge blue and white landing pad, spread out like a target for the chopper to land on. And next to the rooftop access door, a huge metal contraption stood. Lois squinted against the bright winter sunlight.
Henderson noticed. “The Bat Signal,” he said, pointing.
Lois nodded. “I always did wonder what it looked like.”
“Impressed?” the man asked with gentle sarcasm.
Lois shrugged indifferently. “Not really.”
“Cynic,” he tossed back with a grim smile.
Lois shrugged again. “Why? It’s completely impractical. What if there’s no cloud coverage? How does Batman see the signal? What if he’s in a place where he can’t get a good view of the sky? I mean, it’s 2013! Yeah, okay, maybe that worked twenty years ago, but now? Really? A big light? Can’t the Gotham PD just…I don’t know? Drop him a text message or something to get his attention? You know ‘Hey, we need you, Harley Quinn is trying to blow up a building and The Penguin is robbing the bank?’”
She was aware that she was babbling, but she couldn’t help it. Her nerves were practically raw and bleeding from the anticipation of seeing Clark again and learning what had happened to him.
Henderson made a motion with his hand for her to tone her criticisms down. “As far as I know, it’s never failed,” he said in a simple defense of the Bat Signal. “Now, hold on. We’re beginning our descent.”
True to his word, in the next moment, Lois felt the helicopter drop in altitude. It was a bit of a gusty day, so the descent was anything but smooth. The chopper lurched and bumped its way down to the rooftop, but the skilled pilot made sure the touchdown itself was as smooth as glass. Lois ripped off her headset and jumped out of the helicopter as soon as it was possible. Then she was practically sprinting toward the white-haired, older gentleman standing near the doorway that led into the building.
“You must be Commissioner Gordon,” she said as soon as she reached him, nearly yelling with the effort to be heard over the whine of the helicopter’s routers. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet.” She extended her hand.
The man nodded as he shook her outstretched hand. “Glad to meet you. I’ve been expecting you. Come on inside,” he added as Henderson jogged up. “Bill, good to see you again.”
“Jim,” Henderson said, inclining his head with the word. “It’s been…what? Seven years?”
“Nine,” the Commissioner automatically corrected as he pulled the door open for them.
“Nine. Geez,” Henderson replied in wonderment, shaking his head as he entered into the stairwell behind the door.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lois impatiently interrupted, blurting the words out. “I’m sure you had a lovely time at his son’s graduation or your daughter’s birthday party or whatever. Where’s Clark? What’s happened to him? When can I see him? Is he here, in the station?”
Commissioner Gordon chuckled darkly. “Bill warned me you’re a bit of a feisty one,” he said affectionately. Then he sighed softly. “I’m afraid Clark is not here at the station. I actually haven’t been to see him myself. I called Bill as soon as my officers confirmed that it was him, then waited here for you.”
“Is he okay?” Lois asked pleadingly.
Commissioner Gordon sighed again as they walked down the flight of stairs to the top floor. He punched the button to call the elevator as soon as he was within reach.
“I’m afraid things are a bit more…complicated…that your friend being okay or not,” he said, each word sounding painstakingly chosen.
“Wh…” Lois tried, the word getting stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard and tried again as she stuck her hands into her coat pockets to hide the fact that they were shaking. “What do you mean by that? Where is he?”
“He’s…he was found…locked up in the Arkham Asylum,” the man said, his words dripping with regret.
The world seemed to tilt on its axis and begin to spun at a dizzying pace, just as it had in her apartment. Lois felt herself sway on her feet. She would have lost her balance if not for Henderson’s strong arm reaching out toward her. His hand came to rest on her shoulder and she felt herself steadying at his reassuring touch.
“What…why…is he there? And why hasn’t he been brought to the station?” she demanded after a moment; each word painful to speak as they ripped from her bone-dry mouth.
“He’s…not in good shape, Miss Lane,” Commissioner Gordon replied, averting his eyes so as not to look her in the face as he made the admission. “My officers report that he’s…almost catatonic. I was hoping that, if he sees you…” The implication was left hanging unvoiced in the air.
“Catatonic?” She could barely squeak out the word. “But…he’s…Clark.”
His condition couldn’t be true! He was Clark Kent - the strongest, kindest, most wonderful man she’d ever met. He would see her and be back to his normal, vibrant self in no time, she decided, knowing deep down that it was going to be more complex than that.
“My officers are investigating the circumstances of his admission to the facility, but if he’s that bad off, he’s probably been there for some time,” the Commissioner gently warned. “Just…prepare yourself, Miss Lane.”
The elevator arrived then, softly dinging as the doors slid open. They stepped into the open car and Commissioner Gordon pressed the button for the parking garage.
“I’m truly sorry to be the one to deliver this news to you,” he added as the doors closed once more.
***
The police cruiser ground to a stop, the tires crunching on the old, cracked pavement of the worn and uncared for old parking lot outside of the ancient-looking, imposing Arkham Asylum. Gravel was haphazardly thrown into potholes as a cheap and unskilled way to fill them in. Pieces of broken asphalt littered the ground. Actual litter was strewn about the edges of the parking lot, blown against the barbed-wire topped chain-link fence by uncounted windy days. Lois didn’t care what the parking lot looked like. She was just glad the drawbridge out to the place was in a much more reliable and trustworthy looking state.
Still, the building before he gave her the creeps. A sense of foreboding and doom seemed to emanate from the very stones it was built out of. A darkness was there, as though a storm cloud hung over the place, though the winter sky was devoid of even the thinnest gossamer wisp of a cloud. A chill ran up her spine and she pulled her coat tighter around her neck, though she knew it hadn’t been caused by the wind. For just a moment, she took stock of the police cars and ambulances on the scene. There were plenty of both, she noticed, and that fact only served to unnerve her more, rather than comfort her.
What’s going on here? she wondered with trepidation as she and Henderson walked side by side, following the Commissioner.
“We got a tip,” Commissioner Gordon began, as though reading her thoughts, “that the patients here haven’t been…treated well.” He gestured to the nearby ambulances. “Hence the overabundance of EMTs.”
“What do you mean by ‘haven’t been treated well?’” Lois demanded.
“We’re sorting it all out, but the tip we received said there were at least five dead bodies left abandoned in their rooms,” the older policeman said without so much as glancing in her direction.
“So, your source is on the inside then?” Lois asked, her reporter’s instincts kicking in.
The Commissioner shook his head. “Not unless one of the doctors or nurses has a supply of batarangs to use to pin notes to the precinct door.” He hesitated a moment. “At least, that’s what I heard.”
“You didn’t see it with your own eyes?” Henderson asked, surprised.
His friend shrugged. “I was supposed to go fishing today. It’s my day off.”
“Yeah?” Henderson asked, sounding intrigued. “Where?”
“Right here in the harbor,” was the immediate, easy reply. “A buddy of mine has a boat. We try to go once every month or two.”
“Good fishing in these waters?”
Commissioner Gordon shrugged. “Not the greatest, but it’s not too bad either. I’ve pulled in a few trophy-worthy fish over the years.”
Lois rolled her eyes behind the Commissioner’s back. “Wow, I’m sure Clark really cares about the fishing around here,” she all but sneered.
“Easy, Lois, just trying to lighten the mood,” Henderson said soothingly.
“I don’t want a lightened mood,” she snapped. “I want to see Clark.”
“Patience,” Commissioner Gordon gently retorted as he gestured toward the building. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Patience? Lois’ mind growled angrily. Patience? Is he kidding me?
Henderson chuckled darkly. “Lois Lane doesn’t do patient, Jim.”
Lois ground her teeth together in an effort to ignore the barb. But her entire body was on edge and she quickly lost what control she had over her tongue.
“You think this is funny, Bill? I’ve been searching for Clark for twenty years! Now I’m being told he’s right there in that building,” she said, stabbing her finger in the direction of the asylum, “in bad shape, and you’re…cracking jokes and talking about fishing?” she accused, venom dripping from every thorny word she flung at him.
Henderson stopped and turned to her, an apologetic look on his face. “Hey, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just…trying to help, okay?” He sighed. “I’ve been in places like this before, Lois. You have no idea how…depressing they can be. And with Clark being close to catatonic…I was just hoping to give you something else to focus on for a couple of minutes, that’s all. I didn’t mean any harm by what I said.” He reached out and put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
Lois sighed in turn. “I guess I can appreciate that in a way. But…I’m scared, Bill.”
He nodded in acknowledgement, knowing how rare it was for Lois to admit her fears. “I am too. Clark’s a good guy. I don’t know how he wound up in a place like this, but I don’t for a moment believe he deserved it.”
“Then let’s not waste any more time,” Commissioner Gordon interrupted in his gruff, gravelly voice. “Let’s go get him out of here.”
To Be Continued…
Last edited by Deadly Chakram; 01/03/20 10:00 PM.
