-o-o-o-
Clark would have been hard put to imagine a worse scenario than the one in front of him. Lex Luthor was running his life from beyond the grave and the world now knew that Clark Kent had been Superman. Maybe being in his own body when this all happened might have been worse. Maybe. At least the media wouldn’t be hounding Alexa Alexander for being Superman.
“I guess we won’t have any problem with the M.E. issuing a death certificate,” Martha said. There was a note in her voice that Clark had never heard before – verging on hysterical.
“I guess not,” Clark agreed. “This isn’t exactly the way I had imagined the world finding out. Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry to put you through this.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jonathan assured him. Clark wasn't convinced. If he had just waited a few seconds, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe he and Lois would still be in their own bodies and Luthor would simply be behind bars and they could get on with their lives.
“We can deny Luthor’s allegations,” Lois suggested. “Luthor was nuts. He was imagining things. It’ll be like when Diana Stride tried to make the connection between Clark and Superman. The reputable journalists didn’t buy into it, especially once they saw him and Superman together.”
“Clark Kent isn’t going to be walking through that door any time soon,” Clark reminded her. “And then there’s us. How do we explain the ‘Alexanders’ even knowing Clark Kent’s parents?”
“Maybe Martin found out about Luthor’s relationship with his mother and was helping Clark track Luthor down to bring him to justice,” Lois suggested. “And everybody who knows your parents knows how open and friendly they are. I’m surprised you don’t have a houseful of stray cats.”
“On a farm, cats are working animals and they don’t live in the house,” Martha stated primly. At least she sounded more normal now.
“You know what I mean,” Lois stated. “If Martin and Alexa had been working with Clark, maybe even become friends despite the Luthor connection…”
“You’d be treating them like they were Clark’s old school chums,” Clark broke in. “And they would want to be here for you. It could work.”
“I know it’ll work,” Lois insisted.
There was a knock on the door and Lois went to get it this time. There was a uniformed police officer on standing in the hallway.
“Mister Alexander?” the officer asked. At Lois’s nod he went on. “Henderson asked that a protection detail be provided for you and the Kents, at least until this thing about Luthor’s tape blows over.”
“That’s very kind of him,” Lois said. Clark watched the officer try to look past Lois into the apartment. Luckily Lois’s new body was at least as broad as Clark’s old one had been. She stepped easily in front of officer, blocking his view.
Something about the officer seemed off. Alarms went off in Clark’s head and he hurried his parents into the bedroom, away from prying eyes.
“So, this is where Superman used to live,” the officer said, obviously trying to make conversation.
“This is where Clark Kent lives,” Lois corrected the man. “In case no one noticed, Lex Luthor was mad as a hatter.”
“Then where’s Kent?” the officer asked.
“Hopefully, not at the bottom of the West River,” Lois said. “Is there something else you want, Officer… Morris?”
Clark peered around the corner to watch them. Without his powers he felt helpless. This body didn’t have the mass he was used to, nor the strength or reach but he wasn't about to let Lois face this problem alone. He had a bad feeling about Morris.
“The phone’s dead,” his mother whispered.
“Where’d you stash Daddy’s money?” Morris asked Lois. There was something definitely unpleasant in his voice. Then Clark placed where he knew Morris from – he was one of the officers who had been censured for making snide comments about Lois just after her abduction was discovered. There were other black marks against him that Clark hadn’t been apprised of, but his impression was that they had to do with Luthor.
“Why do you want to know?” Lois asked Morris.
“All those millions just lying there for the taking and it just gets handed to you,” Morris growled.
“And we’re supposed to do what? Hand it over to you because of your rugged manly charm?” Lois asked. “I don’t think so.”
Clark groaned silently. Morris might have taken the insult from a female Lois Lane, but not from Luthor’s son. Clark stepped into the living room in full view of Morris. Hopefully he could distract the man so Lois could make an escape.
Clark could hear his mother on her cell phone talking to someone. He didn’t pay attention to who she was talking but assumed it was Henderson or Reed. Mom was nothing if not a smart woman. She knew there was something off about Morris.
Lois, on the other hand, instead of taking advantage of the distraction to put some distance between herself and Morris simply stood there.
“You can leave now,” Lois told Morris firmly.
“I don’t think so.” Morris replied and Clark realized that he’d pulled his gun. “Inside,”
he ordered.
Instead Lois opened the door wider. “Mister Nunc, have you got this?” she called out.
Leo Nunc from the sleaze bag known as the Inquisitor – Clark hadn’t realized that Nunc and his cameraman were back. He had thought his dad had managed to chase the little weasel away.
Lola came storming out of the bedroom. “I won’t let you hurt them!”
The rest seemed to happen in slow motion. Morris turned and pointed his gun at Lola as Clark grabbed her and pulled her down to the floor. Two shots rang out.
Out of the corner of his eye Clark saw Lois bringing her locked hands down on Morris’s gun arm. Morris began howling and Clark suspected that Lois had managed to break the officer’s arm.
The world went back to normal time. Lola was unnaturally still beneath him. Clark got to his knees to check on her. A crimson stain was spreading across the front of her blouse. “I loved you…”
“Honey?” a man’s voice asked. It took a moment for Clark to realize it was Lois that was speaking. Lois was staring at him and there was an odd stinging on his side. Clark looked down to see blood staining one side of his own shirt.
“Everybody put your hands where I can see them,” a familiar female voice yelled. Betty Reed had her own gun drawn as she walked in, scanning the living room. Wilkerson was right behind her.
“They came at me,” Morris yelled at Reed. In response Reed kicked his gun away. It clattered down the steps.
“We need a bus here!” Reed yelled into her cell phone. She gave the address as Wilkerson ran past her and down the steps to tend to Lola and Clark. He knelt by Lola and checked the pulse at her throat. Then he shook his head. Clark already knew Lola was gone.
Wilkerson raised Clark’s shirt to check his injuries. “Are you hurting anywhere else?”
Clark shook his head. Somehow Wilkerson had a towel in his hand and was pressing it against the wound on Clark’s side. Martha was kneeling beside them, murmuring assurances.
“They came at me,” Morris repeated to Reed. “It was self defense.”
“No it wasn’t,” a man said. Clark looked up to see Nunc standing in the doorway holding a video tape. “We have it all on tape. He was threatening pretty boy here and then just opened fire on two defenseless women.”
Reed put out her hand to take the tape but Nunc held it away from her. “What will you give me for it?” he asked.
“Withholding evidence in a police shooting?” Reed asked in return. “You tell me. Free room and board as an uncooperative material witness?”
Nunc made a face but handed over the tape. “I was thinking more in terms of an exclusive no holds barred interview with the team that was looking into Lois Lane’s involvement with the late and apparently unlamented Lex Luthor.”
“That case is still open,” Reed responded.
“I’m sure it is,” Nunc said nodding toward Lola’s body. “Especially since it looks like there’s gonna be two Lois Lanes in the morgue tonight. So somebody want to explain that?”
“Not especially,” Reed said, handing Nunc a receipt for his video tape. “Let me know if you decide to leave town.”
-o-o-o-
Lois wanted to run to Clark but settled for a slow walk. She didn’t want to spook Reed or Wilkerson who had to be on edge with the whole situation.
Lois had sensed there had been something off with Morris even when she signed for her property back at One-P-P. Morris had been manning the property desk and he had been sweating and seemed nervous – almost as though he’d expected to get caught for something. Even Henderson had noticed it but hadn’t said anything.
Standing in Clark’s doorway, Morris had been sweating even more profusely – Lois could smell the stink of stress on him – and his heart had been beating too fast. She’d actually been able to hear it – a faint shwoosh shwoosh.
Then Nunc and his cameraman had appeared. As much as Lois despised Nunc and the paper he worked for, Lois had doubted that Morris would do anything too foolish in front of a reporter and a camera.
She’d been wrong. Now Lola was dead and Clark was hurt and there was a good chance that she’d be arrested for assaulting a police officer. She was sure she had broken his arm. Her body was stronger than she’d thought and it was hard to judge her stride and reach when she wasn't actually paying attention. ‘Mindfulness’ her Tae Kwon Do instructors called it. She needed to be more mindful of her new body or more people might get hurt.
Lois could hear multiple sirens approaching fast. Then they went quiet – they had arrived.
She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or not when Henderson walked in with the EMTs and the crime scene unit.
Henderson’s eyebrows went up when he caught sight of Nunc but he didn’t say anything about that either. “Are the Kents okay?” he asked Reed instead.
She nodded. “Will and I were in the area when the call came through about a cop waving his gun around and making threatening noises. Considering the address…”
“Good call,” Henderson said.
Morris started complaining again. “He broke my freakin’ arm!” The EMTs ignored the complaints as they helped him up the stairs, followed by a grim faced Wilkerson. Another EMT finished bandaging Clark’s wound and was trying to get him to lie down on the gurney.
“Honey, please…” Martha was saying.
“I’m fine,” Clark protested.
“You’ve just been shot!” Lois yelled at him. He was such a lunkhead sometimes. “Do what they tell you. You’re not invulnerable…”
From the hurt look he gave her she knew he was reading more into her statement. ‘You’re not invulnerable any more…’
“Please,” Lois said, “let them help you.”
Clark nodded sullenly but settled back on the gurney. “I hate hospitals, you know,” he grumbled to no one in particular. The EMTs just grinned. Martha patted his arm.
“I’ll go with her,” Martha mouthed to Lois as she followed the EMTs and gurney up the steps. A uniformed officer escorted Nunc out as well.
Henderson beckoned Lois to join him.
“Sorry about hurting Morris,” Lois said.
“I figure I should be glad you didn’t break his neck,” Henderson responded. “As near as we can tell, Morris is the one who gave Luthor’s tape about Superman and Kent to LNN. We’ve had issues with him before but nothing like this.”
“What kind of issues?”
Henderson’s eyebrows went up again. “You sound like a reporter.”
Lois shrugged. “Maybe I spent a previous life as a reporter.”
Henderson managed a chuckle before continuing. “Let’s just say there were indications that Morris did Luthor and his people an awful lot of favors with evidence disappearing, things like that. And he may have been liberating little things from the prisoner effects. Not that we’ve ever been able to do more than slap his hands. But this… this is over the top even for somebody on Luthor’s payroll, unless…” He paused and gave Lois a speculative look. “What did he say he wanted?”
“Where I put Luthor’s money,” Lois said. “ ‘All those millions just lying there for the taking and it just gets handed to you,’ he said. He pulled his gun out. Then Cl… Alexa came out and so did Lola. I wasn't fast enough to stop him from pulling the trigger.” Lois wanted to kick herself for her slip – as far as Henderson knew it was Superman in Alexa’s body, not Clark.
“Do you think he was aiming at Mrs. Alexander or at the Lane clone?” Reed asked quietly.
“It happened so quickly and they were so close together… Alexa was out here and Lola came out yelling ‘I won’t let you hurt them.’ Alexa grabbed Lola, was between her and Morris when Morris opened fire. I wasn’t fast enough to stop him.”
“We’ll need to test you for gunpowder residue,” Reed said.
Lois held out her hands and one of the techs swabbed her hands, putting the swabs into a plastic baggie.
Henderson reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card and handed it to Lois. ‘O’Brien Agency’ the card read in an elegant embossed type. There was no address, only a phone number, but Lois had heard of them – they provided ‘close protection’ for wealthy and influential people. She had even interviewed the owner of the agency a few years before – Donal O’Brien, a retired MPD police commissioner with a reputation for scrupulous integrity and discretion.
“I’ve already contacted them on your behalf,” Henderson said quietly. “And, no, Morris wasn’t sent by anyone in my unit. He wasn’t trained for close protection work for one. And I hadn’t ordered a protection detail.”
“I didn’t think you had,” Lois said. “But if you didn’t, how did Morris know where we were?”
“Good question,” Henderson said. “When the CSU is finished here, we’ll lock this place down and put a guard on it. In the meantime, I’ll run you and Mister Kent over to the Imperial. O’Brien will be meeting you there.”
Lois simply nodded. Henderson wasn't going to give up any more information until he had a better handle on it. Lois Lane was dead. She wasn't in a position to get anything more from him. Idly she wondered if she should call the story of the attack in to the Planet. She wasn't sure who Perry assigned the kidnapping story to. Not Clark, he would have been too close to the story. But someone there should be champing at the bit to get more on the story of Lane’s and Superman’s deaths at the hands of Lex Luthor.
Henderson looked around the apartment. “Is there a back way out of here?”
“Not out of the apartment, but out of the building, yes,” Lois answered.
“Good,” Henderson responded. “This street is going to be swarming with media any minute and that’s a gauntlet I don’t want to run right now.”
Luckily, the camera crews arriving on the scene didn’t notice Lois, Jonathan and Henderson as they made their way down the alley to Henderson’s sedan.
“Mister Kent, if it’s any consolation, it’s the opinion of the investigating officers that Luthor wasn’t working on all thrusters when he recorded that statement about your son being Superman,” Henderson said after they were well away from the apartment.
“What about you?” Jonathan asked. His voice was very subdued.
“Do I think Clark Kent moonlighted as a guy who could fly? I admit there was a certain superficial resemblance between them that made me wonder a little. But a suspicion isn’t the same as proof and there is no proof. Not even a fingerprint match. Do I think Luthor was certifiable? Yes,” Henderson answered. “Officially Clark is missing and presumed dead. Odds are that he was Luthor’s test case with that weapon of his. Of course, without a body or witnesses it’ll be hard to prove.”
“Suppose I said I saw Clark down in Luthor’s bunker just before Superman showed up?” Lois offered. “And I saw Luthor kill him.”
“Did you?”
“I said, ‘suppose’,” Lois reminded him.
Henderson took a moment to respond. “Martin Alexander, can you positively state that you saw Lex Luthor kill Clark Kent?”
“Yes,” Lois answered. She assumed Henderson had a tape recorder and had turned it on. “I saw Lex Luthor kill Clark Kent, in the bunker with the disrupter.”
