Here you are...chapter 2! I thank you all for your encouraging comments and being so generous with your reviews. It is much appreciated.
Darkest Dreams: Chapter 2
He was on the other side of the desk. Lois was sitting down. There was no way for her to try to run, kick, bite, or otherwise wrestle the gun from the grandfatherly man. So she didn’t move.
“Ah, good. I see you’re not going to try anything rash. That’s very good. I’ve heard you were one of those act first, think later type of people. I’m glad you’ve put a curb on that, for the moment, at least.” He pushed a black button on his desk with his free hand.
“What do you want?” Lois demanded, utterly annoyed at this point. It was bad enough that the chief wanted that dull story written up despite her protests, and that she had to wait for a full hour in a soulless lobby to talk about taxes, of all things, but this was the last straw.
The man stood up, keeping the gun trained on her. “Ah, but what would we want with Lois Lane, star reporter of the Daily Planet. Which one of your enemies could have dragged me into some petty plot for revenge this time?”
Lois didn’t reply, if only because it was a stupid and utterly inane question. Like she kept a list of everyone who might be after her for revenge. Goodness! She just watched him as he came around the desk, removing himself from its protection. He took one more slow step in her direction, bringing himself closer and Lois struck. She kicked the gun from his grip and recovered her balance to dive after it even as he grabbed at her ankles and sent her sprawling on the hard tile floor.
“HELP SUPERMAN!” Lois screamed as the door burst open and two black-garbed men ran in. “SUPERMAN, HELP!” Her hands closed around the gun and she rolled over, only to find that the two newcomers had two much larger guns leveled right at her. She froze again.
Dr. Logram stood slowly, a smile on his face that made Lois’s stomach clench. He didn’t even look at her as he stepped past the two guards. “Ah, perfect. Bring her along, gentlemen.”
They started forward, grabbing her arms. Lois struggled, and in the act managed to bring the gun up and pulled the trigger at point-blank range into one of the guard’s faces. She tensed, expecting the deafening blast and scream, but only for a moment, for the gun didn’t go off. She swore and let it fall from her fingers—it had been unloaded all along. “SUPERMAN! SUPERMAN! HELP!” she shouted, trying to pull away. One of the guards put a large hand over her mouth, but Dr. Logram shook his head.
“Let her call for all the help she wants,” he said. “For all the good it will do.”
The guard nodded and dropped his hand. Lois resisted the urge to swear again. They must have soundproof walls, curse it.
“Who are you?” Lois demanded as they lifted her from the ground and began dragging her down the hall. “What do you want with me? Who do you work for?”
Dr. Logram glanced back at her as he pulled a card from his pocket and slipped it into a door for access. He pushed open the door and ushered them in. “Always the reporter, aren’t you, Miss Lane?” Lois was pushed non-too-gently into the room. It was larger than the office—or maybe it just seemed that way, as it was completely bare. The walls were a cold cement, as was both the ceiling and the floor. There were no windows, no furniture, nothing. The guard pushed her into in the far corner, keeping the gun trained on her the whole while.
“Well, let me answer your questions, while you wait,” Logram said. “My name is Dr. Logram. I work for the government. And you, my dear, are nothing but bait for a much bigger fish we wish to catch.” The second guard made to close the door and the doctor stopped him. “Leave it open,” he said, his eyes gleaming like a hungry predator on the trail of his prey. “We’re expecting company.”
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Clark took his leave of Peru and turned to the Pacific for a quick wash from all the grime from his work. He headed back to Metropolis in good spirits. With the luck he was having today he might even beat Lois back, and with some discrete super-speed might even have that article typed up before she returned. With a fresh burst of speed he cut down as a blur into the alleyway next to The Daily Planet. Half-way through his first spin back into his normal clothes, however, he froze, hearing a too-familiar cry for help from a voice that made his blood chill.
“Lois,” he murmured, and in a millisecond was back into the suit and in the sky, heading hard towards the cry he had heard. In a moment he was over Hobb’s Bay, hovering uncertainly. He heard the scream again and shot down, following her cries.
He narrowed in on an old warehouse, and after a bare second he realized it must be lead-lined. He didn’t wait—Lois had gone frighteningly silent, and with a deep preparatory breath he plunged downwards.
The front door shattered under his speedy entrance, and he was down a long narrow hall even as a particularly mean looking secretary was lifting her head from her papers, her tight mouth opening in a surprised “O.” He saw Lois—sitting frozen to his quickened perspective under the careful eye of a gunman. A bruise was swelling on her cheek. Clark’s blood turned hot and he rushed forward, his mind already grabbing the guns and squashing them into unrecognizable balls of metal.
He darted into the room, but as soon as he shot through the doorway he realized something was wrong. Pain shot through him and he was jerked by a painful hook into normal speed, but his forward momentum was too much to stop and he slammed bodily into the back wall. He cried out as something in his arm snapped from the impact and he fell back. He lay there in shock for a moment before the pain crashed down on him like a hot wave and he cried out, trying to pull away from it all.
Lois barely had time to recognize the blue blur before it smashed into the wall, leaving a good crack in the thick cement. Superman seemed to practically appear on the floor, gasping in pain and clutching his arm as he writhed as if some internal pain was racking him.
“Superman!” Lois cried. She crawled to his side quickly, heedless of the gun following her. She put a hand on his arm and he groaned in pain.
“Lois…”
Lois turned sharply to Dr. Logram. “What are you doing to him?” Her voice was too near a shriek for her liking, but that was not to be helped.
Dr. Logram was watching with detached interest. “So it does work. And very well, indeed. Ah. Very good.”
Lois’s grip on Superman’s twitching shoulder tightened. “Kryptonite,” she whispered, realizing that crazy as Trask had been, he had been terribly right about at least one thing.
The doctor pulled out a glowing green stone from his pocket and stepped forward. Superman cringed and tried pitifully to drag himself farther away with just one good arm, but he bumped into the wall and was forced to a stop. He gritted his teeth and managed to lift his eyes to the doctors.
“Who—are you? What—what do you w-want?” Clark tried to call forth Superman’s strong tone, but between the pain and his body’s trembling reaction to the burning radiation, the attempt was weak at best.
“Ah. Straight to the point, then, hm?” Logram gestured and a guard stepped forward and pulled Lois back, keeping her in a firm grip in case she tried anything foolish. Logram stepped forward and crouched down, bringing the green stone close to Superman’s pale and sweat-covered face. Superman shuddered and his head lulled as a low groan escaped his throat. His breath hitched as his muscles tightened too much to draw in air.
“Stop it!” Lois said harshly.
Logram stepped back again. Superman’s breathing eased slightly but he didn’t move, his eyes glazed with pain.
“You may go now, Miss Lane,” Logram said, placing the rock back into his coat pocket. “You are no longer needed.”
The guard made to drag her away, but Lois struggled fiercely. “What? No! Where are you taking me?”
“I told you that you were meant only as bait,” Logram said, waving his hand and not looking away from where Superman lay shivering on the floor. “I have what I want. You may go.”
“I’ll call the police,” Lois said. “Cliché as it is, you aren’t going to get away with this!”
“You do that,” Logram nodded. “They won’t find us, and if they do they won’t do anything about it. We work for the government, Miss Lane. We have planned this for months—ever since the alien first showed his flashy colors to America and the rest of the world. You’ll never find us, Miss Lane. So please…go. You are quite human and the power the alien has put over you is not your fault. It will fade, in time.”
“You’re with Bureau 39,” Lois realized with growing horror. She looked at Superman. A trickle of blood had trickled from his hairline and was falling across his pale brow, mixing with agonized sweat. Lois felt like she was drowning in his eyes, which were dark and dilated with pain. He looked at her with something akin to relief beneath the fear and pain—relief that she, at least, would go free. “What do you want with him?”
Dr. Logram shrugged. “He’s an alien. We’ve neutralized him, and if we are to believe his orphaned story then he is still quite valuable. Just think about it. A creature with an invulnerable immune system. An alien from another planet. Who knows what chemicals and bonds make up its being! What sort of medical miracles might we find?” He rubbed his hands together, his eyes glittering at the prospects.
Superman uttered a desperate oath that sounded almost like a prayer. He had lifted his head enough to look at her, and his expression was one of pain mixed with thinly veiled terror. It was shocking to see in the eyes of her hero.
Lois shivered. She couldn’t just leave. Even if these men really did let her go, it would be next to impossible to track them down, even with the best of her reporter’s instincts and luck. She hesitated, then made her choice. She could not simply walk out and leave him, bleeding and broken. She couldn’t leave him. She pulled against the firm hand on her shoulder. “No. I’m not leaving him.” They would have a better chance together, if Logram meant to let her go at all or just...have her done away with.
Superman shuddered at her words and shook his head. “Lo-is…no. Get out of here”
“I’m not leaving him,” Lois emphasized over his words. “I don’t care where you take him—I’m going too.”
Logram finally turned to look at her. He chuckled and shook his head. “You can’t save him, Miss Lane. The studies are going to go forward. It’s best if you go and forget about him.”
“No,” Lois said coldly. “I don’t care what you do. I’m staying with him.”
“Lois, no. Please…go…”
“The alien seems to wish otherwise,” Logram said.
“I don’t care,” she said, though her voice quivered slightly. “You’re a monster, and I’m not leaving him alone with you.”
Logram looked at her closely for a moment, then shrugged. “He may cooperate better with a companion,” he said, as if talking to an owner about a pet dog. “If you want, we’ll let you stay with him until he dies. Then we’ll let you go. We aren’t afraid of what you might write for that paper of yours—you can’t print what you can’t prove, and we are more invisible than wraiths. Of course, we won’t compensate you for your lost time, but then again, this is your choice.”
Lois turned to look at him and went still as she saw his cool, professional expression. Superman’s breath was hitching again as he struggled for air, but this man before him simply glanced at him with unconcealed interest.
“Lo-is…don’t…”
“I’m staying with him,” she said again, the words final. Logram nodded and gestured to the guard to let her go. Lois immediately ran forward to Superman’s side and knelt down before him, tears rising in her eyes as she lifted his head gently onto her lap.
“Lois…no…Lo-is…leave me. I don’t…care…just…leave…please. Lo-is…” Clark was desperate. Fear only added to his helplessness, but he knew whatever was to happen to him, he wanted Lois to be safe.
“Sh,” Lois said gently, brushing his hair from where it had fallen from its usual slicked-back style. It was longer than it looked, and softer. “Sh. It’ll be all right.”
Superman shut his eyes, gritting his teeth as a pain deeper than that which racked his body shook his core. The prolonged contact of the Kryptonite was beginning to become too much—he didn’t know how long they had stood there talking, whether it was seconds, minutes, or hours. It had seemed like hours. His last thought was that he was not only to fall fate to his worst fear, but Lois was here beside him in this nightmare, and there was nothing he could do to protect her.
“Lo-is,” he whispered, and fell into blissful nothingness.
