ToC -- for previous parts.
Waking a Miracle (18/??)
The door beeped obligingly and the previously red light on the lock turned a sickly lime green. Lois, who was now adorned in loosely fitting sweats, having stopped off at her apartment to change on the way there, looked up at Clark with a grin that positively screamed, "Jackpot!" although the green glow on her face made her appear more nauseated than excited.
"And the General thought this was going to be hard," Lois jabbed snarkily as she pushed the door open and moved triumphantly into the next room.
Clark watched her as she shoved her way ahead, unable to contain his wariness. He had tried to x-ray the building on the way in, but as had been the main reason he had chosen not to search the boulevard in the first place, the paint on the building was riddled with lead. He got blurry images here and there, but it was like looking at an out-of-focus watercolor painting. He couldn't identify solid objects so much as he could identify varying shades in color and a general theme of what he was looking at. The entire premises was a palette of gunship grays, dull shell whites, taupes, and the bland earthen tones, similar in shade to what one would see when looking at fake plastic wood. An office-complex, a warehouse, a laboratory, or none of the previous, it was a complete toss-up, and try as he may, he could not get any more precise than that.
And thus, they were walking into an unknown situation, completely unprepared, despite Lois's protests to the contrary. Straight into Trask's and Thompson's supposed territory. The thought nearly stopped him in his tracks, but he forced himself to continue. He had promised himself he would protect Lois, and he was going to do just that.
He had known with sinking dread as he stood head-to-head with Lois Lane in the stairwell of the Lexor that there was absolutely no stopping her. His last kernel of hope that she could have some sense knocked in to her had been popped and deflated as she continued to press him for details, even as he remained there shaking slightly with shock and disorientation. There was simply no way to halt her forward momentum. None whatsoever, short of him exerting physical force to keep her put, which was not an option. Not even thinkable, as far as he was concerned. He would never use his powers in that way, not ever, having seen demonstrations from his earlier reporting career, as well as from his stint at Miracle Man, the disastrous consequences that forcing a human to do something they didn't want to do could bring, even if the intentions were good. No, there was no holding her back. She was a tidal force to be reckoned with, and he was lucky enough to have the rudimentary surfing necessary skills just to keep up with her without getting toppled over and drowned. Although, even that skill was debatable at times, what with the bloodthirsty sharks swimming around his position, this very moment. He had steeled himself to the idea that he would tag along to his own ruin.
His own ruin, which seemed indicated by the green light and Lois's grin of excitement to be approaching all too quickly. And even despite that, there was a lingering curiosity. He had already found out more about his earlier life today than he had ever cared to know previously. The questions he had never asked. Been afraid to ask. They'd finally been shoved in his face with the answers intact. Could there be more?
More than finding out, finally, why Trask had been so enamored with reaping vengeance? He shivered as his thoughts returned to Trask's diary. He had never felt so strange in his life, reading that diary, to be placed willingly, although unprepared, into Trask's head. He had viewed himself with a hatred he never had thought possible before. He had spent his life thinking he was a random victim to paranoia and psychosis, and although he still shuddered at the thought of Trask, he now had an understanding that hadn't been there before. They had both been puppets in a larger game, neither aware that the true villain was indeed George Thompson, if he had murdered Sarah as Lois suspected. It seemed likely. Even Trask, blinded by inconceivable grief, had been inclined to think it, and supposedly he had been a good friend with Thompson at the time.
He *wished* he could remember what had happened leading up to the part where he realized he was being lead down a very large stairwell by none other than Lois Lane. He remembered sitting down. Reading. There had been a cold sensation slipping through his body, as though someone had slid rods of ice along under his skin. A strange sense of lethargy. And after that, it was all a muddled blur, as though it had happened somewhere beyond reality. The more he tried to remember, the more it slipped away, out of his grasp like the wispy remnants of a dream that didn't want to be recalled.
On the way to Lois's, he had been unable to remain calm anymore, and had lapsed into a bout of paranoia. Had Lois picked up the diary? He couldn't remember what had happened to it after he'd read it. But Lois hadn't looked at him funny, at least not more strangely than she had after they had left Burton Newcomb's residence. But, given that she hadn't been jumping down his throat with new questions, there was little reason to suspect she'd actually picked up the damning piece of literature. Had she?
No, she couldn't have. She had given him a summary of what she'd heard, and what she thought, and there had been nothing about a diary. Only something about a blacked out fake speech, wet boxers, which he was still quite confused about, and some talk of a plot to backstab Trask, and kill Clark in the process. For the most part he was as baffled as she seemed to be.
He was struck from his thoughts as he nearly collided with Lois's stock-still figure. The door he had come through closed automatically behind him with a shuddering groan, followed by a clunk that echoed interminably across each of the four whitewashed walls that now enclosed them. The room he now found himself in was empty, save for him and Lois, and about the size of a hall closet or possibly an entry foyer. The door in front of them had a large security lock off to the side, with a number pad that looked like it had been ripped off of a phone. Next to the pad was a spinning dial, sort of like a combination lock, or a really shoddy safe.
"They must have added this since General Newcomb's day," Clark commented glumly, although secretly he could not contain his relief. There was no ambiguity in being blocked like this. No uncertainty, wondering what he had to do next. A higher power had struck down a barrier, and he was happy to oblige it. Yes. That was right. Not curious at all. All they had to do was walk away now. Yes. Walk. Away.
The temptation within burst all sense of restraint. He tried to x-ray ahead, but even with one layer of the building removed, he was once again thwarted. Nothing but a hole-filled mushy blur of nondescript objects and colors, although somewhere inside... he was absolutely positive now that there was a stapler.
Lois glared at him. "This is no time to get smug."
That was when the numerical readout above the number pad began to count down from forty-five, beeping and being incredibly obvious about their imminent doom, just like in the movies. What did that mean? A bomb would go off? An alarm would blare?
He glanced around frantically.
She wouldn't know, he convinced himself, as he approached the door and leaned his ear to the cool steel of the door. She wouldn't know, and he could do this. He could do this. Yes, yes he could. He inhaled deeply, although it didn't help much, because all it did was make him more aware of her and the unique, pleasant scent that identified her as Lois Lane. He placed his thumb and forefinger on the rough edges of the dial and began to spin it.
He heard Lois snort and her eyes widened in mock surprise. "Don't tell me. Your secret is you're a safecracker."
Of a sort, he winced.
Thirty-five seconds left. If worse came to worse, he could bust through the wall and fly her out, couldn't he? Absolutely not. No way. Where was this aberrant thinking coming from? One flight to get a speed gain on her wasn't license to don the suit again.
No. He would do this as normally as he possibly could.
Whatever that meant.
He held up his hand to silence her and consciously opened up his hearing as far as it would go. He could do this. Yes. Her heartbeat started thrumming wildly like a runaway timpani in his ears. She was nervous although she only showed an outward veneer of sarcasm. The distant sounds of traffic outside were magnified so bad they almost made him want to clamp his hands over his ears. The horns and screeches were almost too piercing to bear. A couple several blocks away was screaming at each other over who would tip the waiter. There was a football game going on somebody's radio. But he heard one sound in particular. The one he was searching for in the bedlam. Click. Click. Echoing around in his skull like hammers being struck to the bone. He strained even harder and then brought to bear a focus so intent, the rest of the world seemed to melt away, and there was only the sound of the locks, moving their way towards equilibrium within their small prison. He spun the dial more, listening to the tumblers behind the thick sheets of metal click and lock into place.
All of the tumblers rumbled into place, his focus inverted back to the world around him, and he withdrew his extended senses to find Lois gaping at him. The door swung open with horrendous moan not befitting of its appearance of technological advancement, and the timer next to the door stopped at a glaring ten seconds. Plenty of time to spare.
He let out a breath of relief.
Lois appeared utterly befuddled as he gestured her through like the gentleman that he was. How was he going to explain *this* without her thinking him some sort of escaped felon? Stretching for the first idea that came to him, he finally blurted, "The General said August 2, 1947. Eight right, two left, forty-seven right."
That was quite possibly the lamest excuse he had ever managed to come up with. The combination had actually been much less predictable. 24-7-61. But maybe she hadn't been watching closely.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he felt as though he were pinned under a microscope. He could imagine her thought processes whirring in her head, and there was a sense of heat spreading across his skin as he crumpled inward under her scrutiny. "You are so weird," she replied. "But it works for you."
She was covering for the stare she was giving him, of that he was sure. He had done what he'd set out to do without any overt use of his powers, but he feared she was even more ready to take guesses about his true nature than before. He had already dropped far too many clues, and this was just the icing on the cake.
Sooner or later, she was going to guess. And he was loath to consider her reaction when she finally did figure it out.
Lois finally shook her head and moved through the now open door, but for the second time in that small span of minutes, she halted and gasped. The room they found themselves in was immense. A huge, rectangular area, hundreds of feet long both wide and deep, but the lighting was dimmer and shadowy. It seemed that all the windows were pasted over with black contact paper and boards covered in more of that chipped lead-based paint that was giving him so much trouble. With his enhanced vision, he was able to identify row after row of cabinets, and sheet-covered objects that were amorphous and varying in size. The dim glow of the nearly out fluorescent bulbs gave the bulky gray tarps a haunting cast. He imagined that Lois could only see a vast, darkened blur.
Lois crept forward a step, the sound of her footfall on the concrete floor making a horrendous echo that nearly screamed, "Intruders! See here!"
But not a soul was roused by the sound, save for Lois, whose heart was cranking into overdrive. Clark, despite his extended senses, identified no other signs of life but their own. They were alone in this desolate house of luminous apparitions.
"I don't know about this, Lois. Where is everyone?" he whispered. It was one of those situations where he had no idea why he was whispering, but it somehow felt appropriate, as though he would disturb something that should not have been disturbed, or perhaps alerted some all-seeing guard to their presence. He wheeled about her still figure to her side and gazed around some more, partially in awe, and partially in terrorized apprehension.
Just what were they to discover in this place? Something stopped him from taking a preview with his x-ray vision then. Some last vestige of himself that just didn't want to know. Wanted to stay away while it still could claim naive innocence.
Lois patted him on the shoulder. "Clark," she admonished him, "The thing about luck is, don't question it."
Luck, he thought grimly. He very much doubted that the current abandonment of this building had to do with luck. Everything within him screamed that this was a trap. It had simply been too easy to break into, even despite his slightly talented assistance, and no one would leave a stockpile such as this without at least someone to guard it. Unless this was truly junk, which he doubted. And yet despite the little voice in him that was telling him to grab Lois by the arm and steer them right back out the door and to safety, he just couldn't seem to do anything but stare. Curiosity burned. And besides, the door had shut quite firmly behind them.
Lois seemed to give up on stealthy after deciding with a sense of finality that she was alone, save for Clark, and stalked forward to the nearest cabinet, only ten or fifteen feet away from their starting position. She yanked open the cabinet with a powerful gesture. The drawer slapped backwards into her torso, and she had her hands immediately pawing through the folders. Seemingly at random, she grabbed one out of the collection and rifled through its contents. A small photo fell onto the breadth of folders and she picked it up to examine.
She snorted. "Oh, give me a break. I've seen this movie," she said with a blithe chuckle. The photo was of a ridiculously tacky, shining metal triangular... thing. Spaceship? The lens flare in the photo was such that neither of them could get a real good look at it, but seeing the photo finally gave him the courage to take a peek around.
He x-rayed quickly, and gasped. This whole room was filled with file after file of alien encounter reports. The amorphous masses housed in gray tarps were all contraptions of a seeming otherworldly nature. Some, he could clarify no purpose for. But others had the distinct look of craft, meant to house some sort of ... being... for travel through the unknown. Space, air, whatever the medium, the reason for those particular contraptions' existences was clear. Had Bureau 39 catalogued all its alien-related materials?
What if they had things from his own past here?
The thought sent him reeling as he scaled the room, absently commenting to Lois as he scanned around. "Lois, some of these look like the genuine article."
Lois had moved on to another cabinet and was yanking out more photos. Some of them appeared fakish like the first one she had un-earthed. But some... appeared to be quite realistic looking. "They're too good," Lois said, the rational side of her seemingly wanting to take over for piloting purposes. "This has to be a set up..."
But the question in her voice left Clark to believe that she was starting to believe, the more and more files she flipped through. Her lower lip was stuck out, her lips encased in the tiniest of frowns, almost imperceptible as she rooted through the rest of the folders, all Ns and Ms. All catalogued precisely by locations, and dates.
Giving up on the folders after she hit the back of that particular cabinet, she walked off to the side, away from the line of cabinets, to the first blobbish tarp. "I suppose I'm going to pull one of these off and find a UFO?" she joked, but her voice had tremor, and her eyes were widened in apprehension. Oh yes, she was definitely starting to believe. She lifted it up and Clark saw what appeared to be a malformed toaster with barbed wire curling around it. And TV antennae.
She gazed at Clark, her eyes wide. "This can't be a joke. No one is this crazy. Are they? I mean, maybe we've found a junkyard for the world's retired toaster equipment, but... it seems like a whole lot of effort just to distract little old me. Especially when I'm a skeptic to begin with." She knocked on her temple. "Oh, God, where has my skepticism gone! It's not working!"
Clark shrugged, unable to find words. This was no hoax. No joke. This was real. Bureau 39 was real. Trask was evidence enough of that. All of this was real.
Which, on one hand, meant he wasn't as alone as he had originally thought. How many other... creatures... had Bureau 39 caught and catalogued? How many had been hounded their whole lives like he had? Or, unlike him, had they not been invulnerable, and been taken to slaughter upon discovery, as he was sure now that Trask would have done if he could have, right from the start--
He felt a stinging sensation spear his temples, and he winced. The sensation was unfamiliar. Strange, like a sense of deja vu that couldn't be quelled, and drove one crazy trying to figure out what exactly it was that had been experienced before. But as he grew accustomed to it, the stinging dulled to a fading buzz. A beacon, pulling him. Tugging at him. Somewhere. A solid, but invisible, vice grip snaked around his torso, chilling his skin into puckered goose bumps of anticipation. And he moved. Towards it. It. Whatever *it* was.
"Clark, do you really think..." Lois was mumbling behind him, somewhere, but even the bell sound of her tremulous voice, the familiar thrumming of her heartbeat, didn't stay his feet.
They were moving across the room of their own accord, and he was a slave to follow them to their destination. A strange-shaped tarp at the far end of the warehouse. He stared forward, grave, fearful, nervous, a jumble of anxiety. Lois had remained behind, choosing to go back to the file cabinets. She had her little disposable camera whipped out and she was taking shot after shot. He heard the sounds of the shutter closing and opening, clicking in the far distance like rips of thunder. But she was barely a distraction to Clark at this point. A dull, whining sense that he was not alone in the back of his mind. Lois Lane was there.
But Clark Kent was not.
The tarp beckoned him.
Here, it seemed to hiss and throb in his head. I'm under here. Not words, but the intent was clear. It were as if a new consciousness had taken up residence next to his own, but the feeling was not a warring one, but of strange familiarity. Not malevolent. More patriarchal than anything. And he felt comforted.
With no more hesitation, he peeled back the tarp like the skin off a banana, and stared. In the dim light, the small craft glowed bluish silver. It was pear-shaped, sort of, although much more angular and streamlined than an actual pear would have been. Mysterious markings were indented along the frame that ran around the central 'bubble', curling up like a wave into an apex that had his pentagonal symbol etched into it under heaps of dust. A marking that looked like an 'S' although he doubted that was what it really was. He ran his hands across the indentations, and felt the ship hum and spark beneath him, although it appeared quite inanimate otherwise. The dust surrendered like unwanted snow to a shovel on a walk as his hand swept across the surface, coming to rest at the top of the 'S' in front for only a few seconds, before tracing the squiggle to its completion.
The ship was small. Too small for a normal-sized human to fit within. His parents had told him at an early age that he was 'special' and that he had needed to keep that specialness a secret from the world. That if anyone were to ever find out, he or she would dissect him like a frog -- that prophecy seemed to have been quite true. They had told him of the small craft he fell to Earth in, although they hadn't been sure at the time if it was because he was some sort of diabolical experiment of another country, or perhaps the United States, or genuinely an extra-terrestrial. They had told him that they had recovered it and buried it, far away, where no one would ever find it again, but that if he ever wanted to see it, it would be there. A place he could find his heritage.
Apparently, the location they had buried the ship in had not been as secret as they had thought. They had never gotten a chance to tell Clark exactly where it was hidden, and Clark had never wanted to search for it after they had died.
But here it was, smooth and warm as though it were unnaturally heated, coursing underneath the skin of his fingertips like a living entity. This was the only place of origin he knew to be true, whether it was from Earth, or somewhere else.
And he had found it, however inadvertently.
He felt a life-long clamp of anxiety lift from around his chest, and he gasped in exhilaration as he looked around. Smallville, Exhibit A, the label next to the ship said. Bureau 39, intending to catalogue his life in greater detail, it seemed, had given him the greatest gift he could have ever imagined. A look into his heritage. His origins. His self. A self he had long wondered about, but been afraid to pursue.
There was a dusty burlap sack cast uncaringly to the side of the ship, and again the voice he had heard from before invaded his head.
Set me free, it seemed to whisper, and the deja vu feeling renewed in vigor. Set me free, it whispered. Set me free.
He reached into the bag, and was suddenly greeted with a glow so fierce, he felt as though a nuclear reactor had exploded in his face, and yet so soft, he felt caressed, warm, and whole, as though he were encapsulated in a fleece blanket. The voice calmed immediately as he pulled the small globe free of the bag and he stared into it. It was a small object, the size of a grapefruit at best. The orange light was strobing, and humming, like the dull buzz of an electrical current. He ran his free hand over the globe, and it seemed to pulse in time with his touch, responding to him. Like skin.
It was a piece of him.
His.
He stared into the globe, bewitched by the ghostly pulsating glow. He saw before him a brilliant ice-covered planet, glowing fantastically in the light of a sun, too close. Harmful. The sun was harmful. The blue swirls of planet began to couple with the blazing red of the gigantic star, and lost. The explosion was brilliant. Crystal flew apart everywhere, sparkling, creating a horrific show of lights, more fantastical than any Christmas tree he had ever seen. But just as quickly as the particles of the planet exploded into light, they melted, and disappeared in the unforgiving heat of the star. Too close. Too close.
A small ship -- his ship -- flew out from the explosion like a particle of the planet, but where the other pieces melted, the ship grew more purposeful in its motions. It zipped below into the canopy of stars in a wide arc before righting itself and pealing out in a straight, slingshot zoom. Right towards the disembodied viewpoint where he was gazing from. The ship flashed past him, so close he imagined he could feel the bass rumble of its small engines, even in the silence of space, and then he was staring at an empty star field. Hot flares of the murderous star arced out like graceful, deadly rainbows, but the planet was gone.
And suddenly, he knew.
Krypton.
He blinked as the vision faded, and the globe became dull and lifeless in his hands. Krypton. He sucked in a breath. He knew where he was from now. What had transpired to bring him to this planet, this planet that seemingly did not want him. His world had exploded into a cataclysm of ice and light, and then it was gone, leaving only him behind.
He was the last one.
The last one of whatever race had surrendered to their fates on that planet. A Kryptonian, he supposed.
Was this supposed to give him direction now?
He wasn't sure.
He didn't feel different, and yet, he did.
He stuffed the globe into his pocket, where it came to rest, snug, and happy in its new cocoon. The buzzing feeling was utterly gone, and he felt bereft. The ship was no longer warm to the touch, nor pulsing. It seemed as if everything had come alive with the sole purpose of drawing his attention, and then withdrawn back into a peaceful hibernation, dull and senseless, oblivious to whatever might befall it after it had instilled its knowledge within him.
For several long moments, he felt raw, and beaten. Exhausted, and exhilarated all at the same time.
But as the exhilaration began to fade off its lofty peaks, it was then that he realized he was being watched. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end, and there was a tickling sensation of dread that began in his chest and radiated outward. His gaze jolted upwards, only to find her staring at him. He inhaled sharply, his pained gaze flitting indecisively towards the exposed shell of his dulled craft, and back to her. Her mouth had toppled open, as though she had lost control of her jaw-muscles and was left to surrender alone and frightened to uncertainty, and her eyes were wide with ... something. Comprehension? Astonishment? Revulsion? Possibly all three. But where he had expected a gasp, there was only the dull throbbing of silence.
He glanced to the folder she had clenched in her white-knuckled hands. S. She had found the S's, he thought dully. Smallville, 1966. The folder, which she had held high next to her head like the spoils of war, drifted slowly to her side as her arm slackened, and she continued to stare. The contents, unchecked, fell from the folder and cascaded to the floor like an unruly deck of cards. Notes and observations of his life dribbled out around her feet. Photos. Everything. But he couldn't look away from Lois. And Lois was acting like she was a bird stuck in the glare of a cobra. It was as if either of them was incapable of blinking.
Oh God, he thought. She knows. She *really* knows.
And that was when a white hot lance of agony, agony like he had never felt before, split him through the temples, bones, muscles, and nervous clusters he had never known existed, and sent him careening to the ground in a paroxysm of spasms. He didn't even feel himself hit the floor, only realizing, belated, that he was horizontal. A thunder fall of footsteps descended on him like a flock of gnats, but the pounding of his heart and blood in his ears seemed to overcome the intrusion, sending him into a dull state of curious, but pained lethargy. He couldn't think. Couldn't move. Everything was hurting. Things were a slow mash of blurred sensations. There was mumbling, faint, and distant, as though he were trying to hear through gobs of cotton, but by then, the throbbing waves of torment had eased into a dull buzz, and darkness wrapped around him like a cloak.
*****
TBC...
(End part 18/??)
