Table of Contents
From Part 6:“Okay. I need you to call Luthor back and tell him to let the hospital lab know that I - that Superman’s on his way to pick up the sample. All right?”
Nodding again, Lois reached for the phone. Her head was spinning. Her brain was rebelling against the instructions she was trying to give it. Clark was
Superman! All this time, and he’d never told her. No, she’d never guessed! Not an inkling. It had never even occurred to her that there might be more to the ‘hack from Smallville’, as she’d unfairly dubbed him, than appeared at face value.
How could he possibly be Superman and she have no clue at all? Not even a
suspicion that there was something different about him?
“Lois.”
She looked up at the note of impatience in Clark’s voice, and saw him frowning at her. He was wearing his glasses again and, as he gave her a ‘get on with it’ wave of his hand, he seemed so familiar again. Her partner. The guy she worked with eight, ten, sometimes twelve hours a day. The person she thought she’d known better than anyone.
The man she hadn’t known at all.
“Okay. Lex.” And she dialled.
**********
Now read on...He really should have told her sooner. Okay, he had the best of reasons for keeping his identity a secret, but these were exceptional circumstances. Lois was
dying. She could be
dead by the early morning. He didn’t want her to die without knowing the truth.
No. Thinking like that was a bad idea.
She wasn’t going to die. He was going to do everything in his power to ensure that didn’t happen.
Now that she knew the truth, too, it would be easier. Why hadn’t that occurred to him sooner? All those files they had to go through - he could search them in seconds. He could have a list of who, what, where, when, how, all written down in less than the time it’d take Lois to read one file. How could he do that if she didn’t know? And how could he possibly have sat there next to her, reading files at the snail’s pace of human capacity, knowing how important every second was?
Stupid. Of course he should have told her. Just like he should have flown her to the hospital. And back from the hospital.
Too late for recriminations now. She knew, and that was the important thing.
He smiled suddenly, remembering the immediate aftermath of his revelation. Once he’d told her, she’d just stared at him for what seemed like minutes. That was a novelty: he’d actually rendered Lois Lane speechless!
The hospital lay below, and he dipped down; seconds later, he was standing in the path lab, being greeted by the chief pathology officer. He cut the pleasantries short; while he didn’t want to be rude to the woman, time was of the essence.
Back in the air again, and now to LexLabs. He was supposed to ask for a Dr Fabian Leek; he’d waited until after Lois had made her second call to Luthor since there’d been no point in him being at the hospital before Luthor had had a chance to alert them to the fact that it would be Superman collecting the sample. Luthor had told Lois to pass on Leek’s name to Superman.
LexLabs looked more like a brand-new, expensive financial complex than a laboratory. But then, that had a lot to do with its owner. Nothing belonging to Lex Luthor could possibly look shabby, or even just mundane. Heaven forbid.
The security guard at the door saluted, then stood back to let him pass. “Straight down the hall, Superman, and you’ll see Dr Leek’s door right ahead of you. He’s waiting for you.”
“Thanks.” He inclined his head, but didn’t pause. Mere seconds later, he was handing over the sterile-wrapped vial to the sandy-haired man in oversized glasses. Leek didn’t exactly do much to inspire his confidence, but it was hardly likely that Luthor would employ somebody incompetent to run his trailblazer lab, was it? After all, LexLabs had won several awards and had, only two years ago, come up with a revolutionary drug to ease the pain of arthritis.
“I’ll get onto this right away, Superman,” Leek said, his unctuous tone irritating. Clark did his best to shrug his reaction aside. He wasn’t interested in the man for his social skills.
“Thank you.”
Leek hurried to the door, and Clark was about to follow him. But a voice he hadn’t expected to hear stopped him.
“Superman.”
He turned, as Lex Luthor stepped through a door on the other side of the room. Clark stiffened.
Yet the billionaire looked less urbane, less arrogantly in control of his universe, than usual. He actually looked... concerned. And it wasn’t a fake concern. Clark had seen that expression on Luthor’s face before; he’d heard the man murmur slick words of practised condolence, or false sympathy for someone’s predicament.
No, Luthor was really worried.
“Yes?” Still, he wasn’t about to be friendly. Not with this man - this murdering gangster masquerading as a philanthropist businessman.
“How is Lois? You’ve seen her?” Yes, there was definite anxiety there.
Clark schooled his features. “She’s coping. As you’d expect from a strong, determined woman like Lois Lane. She’s not letting this get her down.”
“I’m not surprised. Lois is... extraordinary.” Luthor sighed. “I want to help, Superman. I’ll do anything I can. All my resources - my entire fortune is at her disposal. Please tell her that.”
The man actually meant it. This was a person who could callously, brutally end the life of a former lover, just because she’d outlived her usefulness to him. Oh, he had no proof that Luthor had killed Antoinette Baines, but he’d bet anything on it. And yet Luthor was willing to use everything he owned to save Lois’s life.
Clark shook his head. He’d never understand Lex Luthor. “It’s not a matter of money. We have to find the antidote to the poison. And there are only two ways of doing that: identify the precise compound that was used in order to devise the appropriate antidote or treatment, or find whoever’s behind this and get the formula from them.”
“I see.” Luthor’s expression turned thoughtful. “Well, at least I can help there. I will ensure that my staff have the test results available as soon as possible, and I already have Nigel - my assistant - working on contacting the best poisons experts in the country. We can have the test results faxed to them too. I assume the police are involved?”
“Yes. Inspector Henderson’s in charge of the case.”
Luthor nodded. “He’s one of the best. Still...” He hesitated. Then he met Clark’s gaze head-on, his expression direct. “Superman, let us be frank. We don’t like each other, you and I, but that’s irrelevant here. What matters is saving Lois’s life.”
“That’s true,” Clark agreed. What was going on here?
He stilled for a moment. Was this all part of some elaborate bluff? Was
Luthor himself behind it?
He had the resources, beyond any doubt. It would be a piece of cake for Luthor to get one of his scientists - perhaps even Dr Fabian Leek himself - to come up with a lethal poison to get an interfering journalist out of his way permanently. And no-one would ever suspect him.
And yet... Lois had never investigated Luthor. She bought the man’s act, hook, line and sinker. She’d been on a couple of dates with him. And Luthor was attracted to Lois. That was obvious, and whenever Clark had caught the other man so much as looking at Lois it’d made his blood boil.
True, Luthor hadn’t hesitated to kill another woman he’d been romantically involved with. But Lois? What motive could he have had? It would be more plausible had Clark been his target.
No. As much as he didn’t want to believe it, Luthor was being sincere. For once in his life.
“Superman.” Luthor had obviously noticed his abstraction; his tone was impatient. “Let’s try to focus here.”
“I have to get back. Time’s of the essence.” His tone, in response, was sharp.
“Exactly. So let’s get this said and over with. I have... connections, a fact which won’t surprise you. You may wonder why I’m acknowledging it, but if you’ll think about it you’ll realise that there’s nothing you can do with that information. I simply want you to know that I intend to use those connections to see if I can find out anything about who is behind this.”
Clark pulled his jaw back into place. Luthor admitting to having criminal contacts? Yet, of course, Luthor was right. He hadn’t actually admitted anything, really. He had connections? Sure. So did everybody. He hadn’t spelt out what sort of connections, even though both of them knew exactly what he meant.
Focus on what really mattered. “Lois - and Henderson - have already been working on their contacts on the street. Nobody’s talking.”
“With respect, Superman, the kind of people who might know about this won’t talk to the police. Or a reporter. Let’s just say that I have... leverage... Lois and Henderson don’t.”
Oh, he’d just bet. “I hope you’re successful.” And that was honest, even if it was the first time he’d ever wanted Luthor to succeed at something. “Am I to inform Lois of this?”
“You’ll understand, I’m sure, if I say I’d prefer that you don’t.” Luthor’s smile was cynical. “Superman, believe me when I say that nothing is more important to me than saving Lois’s life.”
At least they were united in that. Though the thought that he and Luthor shared any kind of common aim at all made acid roil in his chest. Yet, much as he hated it, for the moment they were allies of a kind. He inclined his head. “Nor to me. Good luck, then.”
“Thank you. You know where to find me if there is anything else I can help with.”
“Yes.” Clark swung around on his heel; his cape swished behind him as he did. Not a chance he would be seeking Luthor out for anything else; not if he could help it. Accepting Luthor’s help in any form felt like getting into bed with the devil. The worst of it was he couldn’t refuse.
Anything that had a chance of saving Lois’s life was worth doing. Even joining forces with Luthor.
**********
After the fifth attempt at reading the file in front of her, Lois gave up, slamming it closed and losing a couple of pages in the process. Her frustration mounting, she shoved back her chair and bent down to grab the missing paper. It crumpled in her hands. She didn’t care.
Clark was Superman.
He’d never told her. She’d never even guessed.
And to find out
now, of all times...
Her partner, the guy she’d complained about having foisted on her, the naïve country boy with the irritating sense of humour and the maddening habit of editing her copy, was
Superman!
It was barely believable. Yet it was true. Once she’d looked at him,
really looked at him, without his glasses she’d known it was true.
She couldn’t think about this now. There wasn’t time. It was already nearly eleven. Almost half of her final day gone already, and she was no closer to saving her life. She had no idea who’d done this to her, her doctor had no ideas whatsoever as to how to treat her and her blood sample hadn’t even been analysed.
Great.
And she’d had a concrete reminder that time really was running out. The episode of hazy double vision hadn’t just been a consequence of learning the truth about Clark.
All the more reason to get back to work.
Reaching across to the towering pile Clark had brought in with him, she grabbed another file. Oh, this was someone she remembered. Marcus Kemp. Serial killer who enjoyed torturing his victims before ending their lives. She’d hunted him down, going undercover to pose as one of his preferred targets, and got enough evidence to enable the DA to get a conviction. She’d won a Kerth for it, too.
He’d been spitting fire after the guilty verdict. He’d leaned over the edge of the dock and his gaze had bored right into hers as he’d sworn to make her pay. She’d regret it, he’d promised her. He’d make sure that she lived just long enough to regret what she’d done to him.
Kemp. Definitely a possibility. She stared at the passport-sized photo clipped to the front of the file. Close-cropped hair. Thin, weasely face. Too thin to be the face behind the mask? Hard to tell. Besides, wasn’t he still in prison? She made a note to have Jimmy, or Henderson’s men, check on that.
Or she could just ask Clark to fly over the prison. A semi-hysterical giggle escaped her.
Clark was Superman.
Why hadn’t he told her?
All the times she’d seen him as Superman, the things he’d said to her... Telling her that she was special. Making her fall in
love with him!
The things she’d said to him as Clark...
What we've got here is an example of human evolution: before and after. Clark is the before. Superman is the after. Make that way, way
after.
No wonder he hadn’t told her.
He’d said she could yell at him later. By rights, he should be the one yelling at her.
This was getting her nowhere. Back to Marcus Kemp. She studied the photo again. Of course, the only problem with Kemp was that he’d killed his victims with a butcher’s knife. And he’d never even completed high school, much less studied advanced chemistry. Not that that ruled Kemp out, all the same... She made a note to have Jimmy check out his cellmates and known associates in prison.
The door opened then and Clark came in. As she looked up, he said, “All done.”
He’d been gone - she checked her watch - not much more than fifteen minutes. And in that time he’d been all the way across the city and back, and presumably had conversations along the way. Wow. She’d known Superman was fast, but it felt different somehow knowing that it was Clark doing all this stuff.
“Thanks.” She watched him as he pushed the door shut. He looked just like... Clark. Exactly the same man who’d waited for her at the hospital that morning, who’d held her and comforted her in the taxi, who’d reamed off those cops at her apartment. She’d had Superman with her the whole time, and she’d never known.
“How are you getting on with those?” Clark gestured to the files. “Anything?”
“Actually, there’s one possibility - I was just going to take it out to Jimmy...” Grabbing the Kemp file, Lois pushed back her chair and stood.
Immediately, the room spun around her. Her legs felt wobbly and her head woozy. Everything went out of focus. She flung her arms out, but had no idea where to reach for. She could feel herself swaying, losing all sense of balance, falling, the floor rising up to meet her...
And then she was safe, lying in strong, reassuring arms with Clark’s voice resounding in her head.
*********
Oh god. It was happening already. What Dr Sutton had warned about - Lois was really starting to feel the effects of the poison. Her stumble in his apartment might have been coincidence. This, though, was real.
At least super-speed had enabled him to catch her before she hurt herself. He cradled her against his chest, feeling her trembling against him, her rapid heartbeat thumping against his body.
“Lois? Are you okay?”
“Clark?” Her voice was thick. She was still halfway out of it. He buried his head in her shoulder. This couldn’t happen! He couldn’t lose her!
But, unless they started to make some very real progress soon, it was going to happen.
She stirred in his arms. “I’m okay, Clark. You can put me down now.”
He lifted his head and looked at her. Her gaze was clear and she’d stopped shaking. “Okay.” He lowered her into the chair she’d vacated. “What just happened? Dizzy spell?”
“Yeah.” She grimaced. “Dr Sutton did warn me.”
“Yeah. I didn’t think it’d happen so soon.”
She seemed to hesitated, then said, “Actually, I had an... episode... earlier, too. Blurry double vision.”
A lead weight seemed to settle in his chest. “We’ve got to get working. What’s that file you want Jimmy to look at?”
She explained why she’d chosen Kemp, and Clark nodded. “Makes sense. I’ll take it out, and then we can get to work on the rest.”
He leaned down and scooped the file from the floor, then headed towards the door.
Help! Superman, help!The cry made him stop abruptly. Habit had him beginning to formulate an excuse, but then he remembered. Superman was unavoidably absent from duty today.
“Clark? What is it?” Lois was watching him, looking puzzled.
“Oh.” He’d just been standing there, his hand on the door, not moving. “Someone calling for Superman.”
“You have to go, then, don’t you?” She sounded alarmed.
He shook his head instantly. “Not today. I promised you I wouldn’t leave you, and I meant it.” But he could hear the sound of shouts, and frightened protests. Someone was being attacked.
“But that was before I knew... Clark, you have to go!” Now there was guilt in her voice.
“No.” He said it firmly, insistently. “Nothing today is as important as saving your life, Lois!” If there were other calls for help, as there surely would be, he’d have to school his reaction more carefully so that Lois didn’t see. Hearing some other sounds then, he relaxed. Sirens. Running feet. The police were on the job and the victim was safe. “It’s okay,” he told her. “Emergency over.”
“You can tell
that?”
“I heard sirens and voices,” he explained. “Anyway, don’t worry about it, Lois. The world will just have to manage without Superman today.” He gave a faint shrug. “It’s not as if he always gets to everyone who needs him, anyway.”
“I guess not... but still...” He could tell that she was amazed that he’d do that for her. Didn’t she know how much he cared for her? That he’d give his own life if it would cure her?
Telling her that would only get both of them emotional, and that was something they couldn’t afford. Not with the minutes inexorably ticking by, and no sign of any progress. So he said nothing and simply left the room.
This time, he didn’t get into conversation with Jimmy. Time was too precious. He took the new bundle of files the researcher had ready for him and returned to Lois. Once back in the conference room, he sat and pulled the files over in front of him and then, making himself ignore Lois, went through them at super-speed. Time slowed to a crawl around him as he flicked through each page of every file, studying each line in detail.
When he’d finished, the conference-room clock told him that less than five minutes had elapsed. To his right, about a hundred discarded files were stacked. On his left were two bundles, one containing what he felt were slim possibilities requiring further checking; there were about fifty of those. And the final bundle, with forty files, contained strong possibilities, all criminals who had made threats of some sort against Lois or who had a scientific background of some sort.
Now, he needed Lois’s help to try to narrow down the suspects - with only a small number of exceptions, including Barbara Trevino, Sebastian Finn and Miranda, the perfumier whose last name he’d never actually discovered, they all related to investigations from before he’d joined the Planet. He looked over to Lois, intending to explain his system to her, and found her staring, wide-eyed and disbelieving, at him.
“My god! If I hadn’t seen that with my own eyes, I’d never have believed it.”
He shrugged. “That’s super-speed for you. Anyway, let’s get to work...”
*********
The large clock on the conference-room wall had just ticked past 12:45. Already half the day had gone and they were no further forward. Well, a little further, if she counted the fact that ten minutes earlier a fax had arrived from LexLabs with the results of the blood test.
Not that the medical jargon had told her anything much. It had simply listed what she assumed were traces of elements found in her blood. Since they were all listed by some sort of symbol or abbreviation - some were chemical symbols which she just about recognised, others just an illegible scrawl - nothing really made sense to her. Or to Clark, who did actually know something about chemistry.
Henderson had sent one of his lackeys in a while ago to update them on the search of her apartment and the neighbourhood. Nothing. The forensic team had found nothing at all, not even the minutest piece of fabric or speck of fluid. And none of her neighbours had seen anything. It was as if the guy had never even been there.
And yet she had tangible, painful evidence that he had.
Clark was pestering her to eat something, but she really didn’t feel hungry. He insisted that she needed to keep her strength up. Her stomach recoiled at the thought of food. Nausea bubbled up inside her, along with an achy feeling in the pit of her abdomen.
She’d never felt so useless, either. They were supposed to be working - going through files, looking for clues, ranking possibles in order of likelihood - and she was doing none of it. Of course, she couldn’t compete with Clark’s ability to speed-read files in less than a second and recall every word of the contents. Nobody could.
He was Superman, and he had powers to dwarf any human’s abilities. That was... well, it was intimidating. Okay, it was pretty darned useful, too, but it couldn’t help but make her feel inadequate.
Yet that wasn’t why she was feeling useless. Who cared about competition when her life was at stake?
The real problem was that she was falling apart. She was Lois Lane - winner of three Kerths, possessor of the sharpest mind in the business. And right now she couldn’t even have written a fluff piece on the mayor’s new haircut.
Her hands shook when she tried to pick up a file. At times, she had to read words several times to take them in - and as for stringing them together to make a sentence, that was hit and miss. Her head was throbbing - and she didn’t even dare take a Tylenol in case it reacted badly with whatever poison was inside her.
So much for her determination to save her own life. Right now she couldn’t even keep herself upright. She
was useless. And Clark had to think so, too - of course, he was far too kind to say so, but he wasn’t stupid.
The phone rang, shattering the near-silence in the conference room. Clark answered it, speaking briefly before holding the receiver out to her. He didn’t look happy.
“Lois Lane.”
“Lois, my dear! How are you feeling?”
“Lex!” She shot a glance at Clark; what was his problem? But then, he’d always seemed disgruntled around Lex, hadn’t he? “I guess I’m as well as you’d expect in the circumstances. But thank you for your help with the blood tests.”
“My pleasure, Lois. But I was calling to tell you that I’ve spoken to Dr Leek. In case the report he faxed to you was as incomprehensible to you as it was to me, let me tell you that he explained that your sample tested negative for all the agents your physician asked that it be tested for.”
Oh. So that was what it meant. They really were no further forward. “I see.”
“We’ve been consulting with a poisons expert from Johns Hopkins. He’s recommended a few more substances which should be tested for, and that’s Fabian’s next step. I hope that he’ll have more to report in an hour or so. Look at it this way, Lois: at least we’re eliminating possibilities.”
“I guess.” He was right; the more they could narrow down the list of possible things she could have been injected with, the better. But it still sounded like a huge amount of guesswork. She hadn’t quite realised, at the hospital, that it wasn’t a simple matter of having some lab geek look at her blood to see what was in it. They had to work out what might be there and then test for it. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“Are you making any progress on who might be behind it?”
Lois shrugged, glancing at the remaining files scattered over the table. “Eliminating possibilities on that too. Seems a lot of people want me dead.”
Lex made a sound which she assumed was dismay. “Well, as I said, Lois, if there is anything else I can do to help - I did tell Superman that all my resources are at your disposal. You only have to ask.”
He had? Clark hadn’t mentioned it. But then, she couldn’t think of anything else Lex could help with. “I appreciate that very much, Lex. But I think we’re doing all we can.”
As he ended the call, she turned to Clark. “You didn’t tell me Lex had offered to help.”
To her surprise, he looked awkward. “He did. Actually, he seemed pretty sincere too.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
He sighed. “It’s a long story, Lois, but I don’t trust him. I never have. You may as well know - he was behind the tests on Superman not long after I came to Metropolis.”
“What?” She remembered that. Superman had actually disappeared for a couple of days... and, now that she thought about it, Clark had seemed quite down at the time too. Tests... Yes, there’d been some weird incidents - attempted suicides, but the victims had seemed perfectly okay afterwards. And a bomb with no apparent motive.
That had been
Lex?
That was certainly food for thought. She rubbed her eyes; she really was too tired to think about all this right now. “If we didn’t have so much else to do, I’d want you to tell me more about that, Clark.”
“Later,” he said. “When you’re better, I promise, okay? And I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me too.”
When she was better. Yeah, right. But he’d even managed to sound as if he meant it, too. Where would she be without Clark today?
*********
...tbc
