Clark considered flying to the site of Lois's Jeep, but instead decided to take a cab. No sense waiting for Henderson, and no sense giving him food for thought by showing up impossibly soon.
- Begin Part Four -
"Next session ready to begin at ten-ten AM. Subject has exhibited fatigue and extended recovery time between sessions. We will begin at fifty-five percent stimulus and escalate in stages of five percent at random time intervals. Maximum stimulus level for this session will be - seventy-five percent. IV now flowing, begin - now."
"I'm gonna be a girl this time, huh? Can I be a blond? With long, flowing, honey-colored locks? And great legs? And really big - "
"MacGillis, if you give me any more static - "
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're such a teddy bear."
*****
Lois awoke to pain again, but at a lower level this time. Not that it was much of relief. She still felt like she'd been dragged through a knothole backwards a dozen or more times.
She heard a woman's voice calling her name. "Lois? Can you hear me, Lois?"
"What? What do you want?"
"Lois, it's me, Lucy."
"Lucy! Oh, no! Did they get you, too? Just hang on, we'll figure out - "
"No, Lois. I'm here to tell you that you have to cooperate."
The pain jacked up a notch and she jerked. "Ahhh! What do you mean? Cooperate with - with who?"
"The people who are asking the questions, of course."
"Nobody's - gaaahhh - asked me a blasted thing! Yaahhh! Are they hurting you? Are you hurt?"
"No, Lois, I'm fine. You're the only one who's hurting. You're the only one who's in trouble."
"What? Then - aaagghh! Then get me out! Get me out of here! Help me! Aaahhhhh! Help me, Lucy! P-please!"
"I can't do that, Lois. Even Superman can't help you now. You have to answer the questions."
The pain escalated once again. "Aaahhhhh! No! Stop! What questions? Lucy, help me! Help! Help me! Help me help me help me help me help me help meeaaagghhh!"
She couldn't believe it. The pain intensified yet again. She screamed. "Help! Superman! Help!"
He appeared beside her bed once again, opposite Lucy. "I'm here, Lois."
"Help me!" She started crying freely. "Why won't you help me?"
His voice was level and calm, almost emotionless. "I keep telling you, Lois, I can't help you. It would cause the deaths of many others. You have to stay here."
She wrenched her body upwards as the pain accelerated once more. Her mouth fell open in a soundless scream and she clenched her fists. A crazy thought entered her head, that if she held her breath long enough she'd pass out and stop hurting.
She gasped and struggled against her bindings. The pain went up another level and she screamed endlessly. She tried to wrench her hands free, not to release her other bindings but to strangle Superman.
Her eyes bulged with the effort and her joints crackled. She tried to kick free, but the pain enveloped her and she blacked out.
*****
"Proctor! How much of that juice did you give her?"
"I stopped at seventy-five percent, MacGillis, just like I said I would."
"I saw the monitors! Her heartbeat was over one-fifty and her blood pressure was through the roof! We're supposed to get answers from her, not torture her for pleasure!"
"We will get the answers! And along with the answers, I'll get more data for my research!"
"You're killing her!"
"She's going to die when we're through anyway! What difference does it make how she dies?"
"It makes a difference to me! I won't let you torture her for the fun of it!"
"Fine! You can monitor the medical equipment and I'll do the talking!"
"I'm not a doctor and you can't act worth a flip! I know she's as good as dead, I just don't want you enjoying it!"
"Very well. Take a break. We'll pick it up in a couple of hours."
*****
Henderson was waiting when Clark jumped out of the cab. "Hold it right here, Clark. The forensic team is still working on it."
Clark fidgeted in place for two full minutes. He spent the entire time staring at Lois's Jeep, as if it had the answers to his questions.
A short, slender, dark-skinned woman with shoulder-length dreadlocks detached herself from the clump of people around the vehicle and walked across the parking lot to the two men. In a broad, lilting tone, she said, "William? We done, mon. I wish my car be so clean as that one."
"Clark, this is Lieutenant Marcia Gomez, forensics." He leaned towards Clark and pretended to whisper, "Watch out for her. She's from Jamaica."
She cocked an eyebrow at Henderson, then reached out to grasp Clark's hand firmly. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kent." She leaned closer. "Don't mind the inspector. He is from Metropolis, so he cannot help it."
Clark grinned conspiratorially. "I'll keep that in mind."
Henderson cleared his throat. "You can flirt with him on your own time, Marcia. What did you find in the Jeep?"
"Not a solitary thing, William."
Henderson cocked his head to one side. "You mean you didn't find anything out of the ordinary, right?"
Gomez shook her head. Her locks rattled from side to side. "No, mon, I mean I find nothing. That Jeep be cleaner now than when they build it."
"You mean somebody sanitized it?"
"If you mean did somebody wipe the spic from the span, then, yes."
"So we have nothing to go on?"
"We have less than nothing. Not even Lois Lane's prints be in that car. They even wash the asphalt around it. No footprints. Only thing we find is residue from cheap dishwashing soap on the bottom of one tire, the kind anybody buys in almost any grocery store. No way to trace it." She frowned and crossed her arms. "Somebody want her to disappear for sure, mon."
Clark seemed to deflate. "Lieutenant, you mean you have no clues at all?"
"No, Mr. Kent, not from her car. We must approach this case from some different direction."
Henderson turned to Clark. "I'm sorry for dragging you all the way out here for nothing, Clark. I'll arrange a ride back to the Planet for you."
He held up his hand. "Mind if I take a look around first?"
Henderson shrugged. "Marcia is the best we have at this, Clark. If she can't find anything, I doubt you will, but go ahead if it'll make you feel better. In fact, I'll even release the Jeep to you if you want."
"Not just yet. Let me poke around a bit first."
They watched Clark step carefully towards the Jeep, scanning the parking lot around it as he went. Henderson turned to Gomez and asked quietly, "What do you think he's looking for?"
Gomez sighed and shook her head. "He look for his heart, William. Whoever that woman is, she carry it with her. He got to find her and his heart both." She punched his elbow gently. "I take my team back to the lab. We don't do no good here. But call me when you find something interesting, right?"
"You've got dibs on the next dead body, Marcia, I promise."
She grinned up at him. "Oh, you surely know the way to a woman's heart."
Clark ignored their byplay. He checked the parking lot around the Jeep carefully. Sure enough, there were no footprints older than the soap residue on the asphalt. He opened the driver's door and looked at the carpet. It held nothing.
He went around to the passenger side and looked again. Bingo. The impression of a man's dress shoe appeared in the carpet, far too faint for the police to have spotted it. Only someone with Superman's enhanced vision could have found the shoe print. The man had apparently stepped down onto the parking lot and then back up again. There were microscopic traces of asphalt and dust and soap in the carpet fibers.
He memorized the outline of the shoe, then began methodically searching for a match on the asphalt outside the clean area. If they had taken the trouble to move Lois directly to another vehicle and then sanitized the area, he was out of luck, so finding this man's footprints was his only lead.
There was nothing on the asphalt, so he expanded his search to the grassy field beside the parking lot. Clark hoped the rain two nights before had been enough to soak the ground and leave it damp enough to retain a shoe print.
Bingo again. He spotted a print in the dirt beside the edge of the asphalt that matched the print in the Jeep. Just then, Henderson walked over to him. "Clark, I have to leave. You want to come with me?"
Clark shook his head. "No. I want to look around some more."
Henderson waved his hands helplessly. "But there's nothing here for you to find. Come on back with me. We're not giving up, I promise."
"No thanks, Bill. I'll stay here for a while longer." He managed a wan smile. "Maybe something will come to me."
Henderson nodded. "Okay. I'll call Perry for you and tell him you're following a hunch." He put his hand on Clark's shoulder. "We'll find her, Clark. We'll find her."
Henderson turned and left. Clark looked more closely at the dirt near the first footprint. Now he could see Lois's prints beside the man's. His tracks were even, while hers scraped and skittered from side to side, as if he'd dragged her upright alongside him. A third set of tracks, probably another man's, paced the other two sets. The two men had either led, carried, or forced Lois with them across the field.
The tracks stopped suddenly in an open area behind the warehouses. Search as he might, Clark found no other tracks, either pedestrian or vehicular. There were no trees or buildings close by, only the imprints in the ground of what looked like two parallel pipes, each about twelve feet long.
He'd seen this arrangement of lines before, but it took him several moments of thinking before he realized what he was looking at. A small helicopter had landed here. The men had forced Lois into the chopper and they'd flown away.
He had no way to track the craft through the air, so he focused on memorizing the irregularities and minor dents on the copter's runners. If he could find the helicopter that made these marks, he'd be one giant step closer to Lois. Of course, given the number of helicopters in Metropolis, that was a pretty huge 'if.' Still, he had no other clues.
He looked around carefully and saw no one. He ran behind one of the small outbuildings and spun into the suit.
- End Part Four -
