Part 3
Clark willed himself not to pass out. Had to ride out the initial pain... couldn't succumb, not yet, not until he had done everything he could to get himself out of this hellhole.
Clark knew he was going to die if he gave up and he couldn't let that monster have Lois. By either dumb luck or stupidity, Luthor had given him a way out by placing the keys out of reach. Of course, it would be in character for Luthor if the keys didn't fit the lock on the door and he had left them there to give him false hope. But clearly, Luthor had been incensed and was acting very irrationally. So there was a good chance that the keys would fit.
He forced himself to his feet to assess his situation. First, it seemed like he should try to do something with the increased amount of kryptonite that was flowing through the bars of the cage, if he could. That would allow him more strength and time to figure out a way to get those keys.
He allowed his legs to buckle under him and was thankful for the brief rest as he lay on the floor gathering his energy. Doubling in two, he grabbed the boot on one of his feet and tried to tug it off. Funny how he never realized exactly how tight his boots were on his feet... and how ill fitting they actually were. He had never lost his powers with his suit or boots on. The one time he had lost his powers had been the trip where he and Lois had gone down to Smallville and Wayne Irig had given the strange green rock to his father.
The exposure had been brief the previous time, his powers had returned after a couple of days, so he knew, if he could get out alive, they could come back. If he could get out...
With a huge effort, he yanked at his boot, his muscles screaming as though a thousand needles were jabbing at them. But the boot popped off and flew out of his hands, landing a couple feet behind him.
Clark gasped for breath at the exertion it had expended, but felt a tiny glimmer of hope. He knew that if he let himself rest, even in hopes of regaining some strength, he would not get out alive.
With his raw hands, he grabbed the boot and endured the pain of grabbing the bars, pulling himself, one-handed to a standing position.
Lois... had to do this for Lois!
The control panel that regulated the intensity of the kryptonite was approximately six feet away. If he could move the lever by throwing his boot at it, there might be the chance that he could lessen or turn it off altogether, although it was sort of a crapshoot which direction the lever would go. It could turn up the intensity even more than before.
His eyes were starting to cross, blurry from the high power of kryptonite flowing through the bars. If he lost his vision then the odds of making it with the one shot he needed was very slim.
Closing one eye to improve his focus, he swung his arm back and forth clutching the top of his boot, calculating the amount of force he would need. One chance... that was all he had... had to make it in one try. At the top of the swing, he released it – lobbing it at the controls.
The boot flew through the air, heel first and struck a bottle of wine before falling onto the controls. Clark held his breath but nothing happened. Not at first, anyway, but the sickly green faded slowly to slight florescent glow, then almost disappeared. The effects of the kryptonite could still be felt but at an even lesser amount than before.
Clark sighed in relief. Although the effort had taken a toll on him, it had not proven to be as difficult as he first thought. One task down, now he faced an even bigger challenge – getting the keys off the barrel.
The only way he was going to be able to do it would be by fashioning a rope out of something... his cape!
It was so much easier to get out of his clothes with superspeed; his mother apparently had taken that into consideration when she designed the suit. No reasonable human being would be able to get in and out of this thing without being a contortionist, and that was the problem he faced now – trying to get out of the top part of his suit without exhausting himself further.
He didn't have enough strength to rip the straps that held it to his shoulders and his arm couldn't quite reach the zipper near his neck to pull it down. The raw blisters on his hands were cracking with the effort and he was nearing despair. He was trapped.
Trapped in his own suit.
There had to be a way. Simple spandex was not going to be the cause of him not getting out of here. He bunched up a wad of the cape and placed it between his arm and the cage, to keep it from burning him and causing more pain. Leaning against his arm, he forced his hand into a position to reach the zipper. If he could just start it, then he could reach under his shoulder blades and grab the zipper to pull it down completely.
He felt for the zipper, then sat up quickly and forced it to go down an inch or two. One more time and it gave another couple inches. Maybe it was now time to change positions and grab it from underneath. Without using the cape this time, he forced his arm upwards towards the zipper and felt for the tab, the bars branding their heat upon his arm.
He grabbed it, then yanked downwards. The zipper slid down his back and that job was finished.
The cape was easier to remove once he pulled his arms out of the sleeves and released the straps that held it to his body. Now came the challenge of tearing it into strips.
The floor was dirt so there would be nothing for him to use as a sharp edge. He didn't think his jaw had enough strength for him to tear a start in the material, so it had to be something that he could use to his advantage.
In the corner of the cage was a tiny lip of an edge – could be perfect if he could stand to get that close to the bars, but there was no choice. Taking the end of his cape, he began sawing back and forth six inches from the bottom. All he needed was about three strips and he could make a sufficient rope.
By tying his other boot onto one end, he could have a weight in which he could reach the keys. There was a problem with that plan – there was no place where he was sure the boot wouldn't come off the rope... unless he wrapped it around both the sole and the ankle in a figure eight.
At last, his other boot was off, he had the strips tied together and he was ready to try to get the keys. But he was now fighting waves of exhaustion. The pain had lessened and what was left was a dull ache in his body and the overwhelming need to close his eyes... His eyes fluttered shut for a second, then he forced them open. He had to stay awake – had to keep going before Luthor came back and finished what he started.
He shut his eyes briefly and was even slower to open them again. Finally after fighting it for a couple minutes more, he succumbed to exhaustion.
*****
Lois decided not to return to LNN that day. Lex had simply thrown her for too big a loop for her to get any work done and she had dismissed the driver when he had come looking for her. The chauffer was clearly unhappy that she didn't need his services but she hadn't cared.
She had been sitting at the location of her old desk for a couple hours now, trying to make sense of all that was happening.
She wondered if she'd be happy running and owning the Daily Planet – if this was really what Lex intended for her. If Superman was correct, then Lex had many hidden agendas that she never suspected. Sure she had been charmed and courted by the billionaire, but today she had seen a side of him that could possibly support what Superman had hinted at.
His kisses left her cold... and his groping touch left her irritated. Every man that she'd kissed had always felt he had the right to take liberties with her body; not at first, but always before she was ready. Now Lex had ruined that beautiful kiss from Superman because she would never forget that she had kissed Lex while she was thinking of the man she loved.
How had that happened? How could she have been so distracted by her thoughts that she had forgotten that she was testing to see how Lex made her feel physically? She had turned into his arms and had kissed him back – now he thought that she wanted and enjoyed his touch and his kisses.
And that she was happy with his wedding gift.
Lex's wedding gift – the Daily Planet.
Automatically, she turned her head to the right and glanced over to where Clark would have been sitting. Where he could sit if he chose to come back and work for her. Of course, she'd be married then... and the owner of the newspaper. More than likely, she'd have an office somewhere above this floor where she'd be stuck with paperwork and other mundane business tasks.
On the other hand, if she was the owner, then she could hire people to do the menial tasks. What she wanted to do was to hunt down Kerth winning stories and expose dangerous criminals... but would she actually have the freedom to do that? Would Lex always be looking over her shoulder, persuading her not to go on the next stakeout but to send an employee instead?
And Clark... he had told her that he would never work for Luthor – Would he consider her to be a Luthor? Technically, she would be, but didn't plan on changing her name.
She'd be Mrs. Lex Luthor.
She frowned.
Mrs. Lois Anybody didn't cut the mustard in her mind. She was Lois Lane, not Lois Luthor or Lois Superman or whoever. Somehow, she didn't think she'd get that choice with Lex.
To the world she would always be Mrs. Lex Luthor. Her career as an award-winning journalist would be shoved to the background and she would be just someone's wife. Someone's rich wife... who owned the Daily Planet.
Her mother was placing all kinds of pressure on her to marry – Ha! Just look at what it could do to her social status - alcoholic mother of two dysfunctional daughters and ex-wife of a robot-committed mad scientist. If all else failed, her daughter would be married to a rich influential man. What more could her mother ask for?
In fact, what exactly was she holding out for?
Love maybe? No, love didn't have anything to do with being happy. In fact, it made life miserable. Her mother had, perhaps, married for love and look what it got her – alcoholism and plain existence.
Way back in her almost hidden memories, Lois could remember when she was very small, a time when her parents had been happy. She recalled a time when her father would come home and kiss her mother hello and she would cling to their legs wanting to be included in their happiness. It had been wonderful – until her father had an affair with his lab assistant and then the spiral downwards had started.
That's why the promised wedding gift of the Daily Planet was a great temptation – she'd have her own life. Without being too emotionally involved to get hurt. She didn't love him; not the way a woman should love a man, definitely not the way she'd always dreamed and had fantasized. Her love had already been taken by someone out of this world - by someone who couldn't love her back. Her kind of love only existed in fairy tales and Superman had tried to tell her that.
So maybe marrying when you didn't actually love someone was a good idea. Love wasn't there to clutter up her thoughts and preoccupy her with childhood fantasies and the like. If she married Lex, then she'd be guaranteed of never being alone again.
But...
Could it be possible that Lex's promised wedding gift was a bribe to get what he wanted? Had Superman been right when he hinted that Lex had set up several incidents over the past few months to discredit Superman?
Covering her eyes with her forearm, she buried her head onto the smooth plane of the desk in front of her and wondered if she was playing right into Lex's hand.
******
Clark slowly began to rise to consciousness, waves of aches and dizziness washing over him in a maelstrom of confusion. Where was he? Was he still alive?
With an effort, he forced his eyes open and the bleak wine cellar came into focus. He tested a muscle by moving his arm and it felt heavy, like a huge cloud was enveloping his whole body. He was still fatigued. How long had he been sleeping? Clark realized he was in the same position as when he'd succumbed to the pull of exhaustion.
He stretched his back and the muscles cramped almost immediately. He had never experienced stiff muscles before and could only imagine that what was happening. Gritting his teeth, he tried stretching his extremities, feeling the muscles knot and bunch up in pain. A few minutes later, after the spasms had stopped, he tried to sit up.
He had no idea how long he had lain there. Could have been a few minutes or a few hours but there was no way of knowing until he got out.
Luthor could be back at any moment – he was fortunate that after collapsing his captor hadn't returned, but that couldn't last forever. He had to get those keys...
The fishing boot was all ready prepared so all he had to do was to stand up and start tossing the thing at the top of the barrel where the keys rested six feet away. Compared to the control panel, this was more than a one shot opportunity; he could use the boot repeatedly.
His first try missed the barrel completely; the second hit the top of it but didn't even touch the keys. The third try hit the keys but pushed them further away so that they were resting next to the lip of the barrel.
On his next attempt, the boot bounced the keys and they fell... behind the barrel!
Clark closed his eyes and groaned aloud. Now he wouldn't be able to tell where he needed to throw the boot – he'd have to keep tossing it blindly around the barrel and hope that he'd make a connection.
Several tosses later, Clark was beginning to believe that the keys had landed completely out of reach of the boot. He had come so close and now it seemed like he was just wasting his energy. Maybe he should formulate another plan.
He tried pulling on the bars to see if his powers were returning, but couldn't bear to grip them because they burned his bleeding hands more. The cape was at least soft and pliable to grip – he could bear it. There were no other options; he had to keep tossing the boot.
Clark didn't know how long he kept trying nor how many attempts he made, but when he heard the boot land during his latest throw, it sounded different - the metallic sound of keys clanking together.
He got them! Tugging gently on the cape, he pulled it towards him slowly, not wanting to dislodge the keys from under the boot.
When the boot was pulled from around the barrel, he could see the keys securely under the heel. As long as he didn't pull too fast, they were his!
At last, the keys were within his grasp and he began trying each one in the lock. He inserted the second to last key in the lock and turned... the lock opened!
With renewed strength and determination, he yanked open the door and walked free. After grabbing his boots, he struggled up the steps to the door and found it locked, but there was a key for that door on the chain also.
The door opened up to the elevator and Clark froze. Did he dare to use the elevator to escape? There was no way to know if it was being monitored or if it was another trap. But with no other way out of the cellar, he was doomed. He had to take a chance.
Clark stepped inside the elevator and punched the third floor button. He didn't want it to open up to a busy lobby or office. Although he was fairly sure this was Luthor's private elevator, he couldn't take the chance and have Luthor alerted before he could go to the police. If he decided to go to the police...
The elevator began to rise and he pressed himself against the wall, out of sight when the door opened. During the slow ride upward, he began to sweat. This was it! His final chance at freedom...
The elevator ground to a stop and the doors opened silently. Outside the door, the light was dim and quiet. Judging from the window, he could see that it was night and the building was shut down.
Clark let out a tiny sigh of relief... just maybe...
He stepped out of the elevator and looked to the side for the stairs. There it was, an exit sign... This was easy... too easy...
Thankful that he didn't have to climb up again, he gripped the railing and went down one flight – Bingo!! An emergency exit! He tested the door, half expecting an alarm to sound, but there was silence.
Once outside, he began running down the alley, sticking close to the shadows of the night. He had escaped!!
******
