Thanks for the reviews, everyone!
And thank MetroRhodes especially. I wasn't even going to post this chapter until quite late tonight, if I was going to post it at all today. But she sent me a quite terrifying email that convinced me that it would be to my own good to get it up as soon as possible.
See? Reviews *do* make a difference!
BTW: Life just exploded out of my ears, and with finals coming up starting Saturday (Why in the world would anyone decide that finals should start on a Saturday!?), a 7 page paper due tomorrow, a 4 page paper due the next day, and all the normal hw stuff besides...Well, between my complaining, I'm just trying to say that my posting schedule may get a little less consistent than it has been. Just a warning, that's all.
Special thanks to Shado from the Planet forum for a certain medical detail included in this chapter.
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Chapter 14: I See Right Through You
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I love you, Kal-El The words moved through Lois's mind, down her arm, to his hand, and she prayed that he could feel it. She couldn’t find the strength to speak them.
They entered the other room. Lois forced herself to keep walking, though her feet unwillingly began to drag on the cold, lifeless floor.
Her eyes went to the monitors, to where Kal-El had been held—lying, broken, bleeding, screaming. The unfiltered, bright lights brought back memories as bad as the nightmares that plagued her sleep.
Clark was struggling to keep his own breathing at least somewhat calm. The ever-present fear that had loomed in his mind like a black shadow was beginning to fade. One way or another, it was coming to the end. And after he died, there was nothing else for him to worry about.
Lois…Except Lois. But she could do it. She could go on living. She had to.
So he floated. His heart beat in his head like a distant funeral procession. His pain was growing more distant. His mind had accepted too much this past week, and now it felt nothing. He hardly felt their hands on him as they adjusted the x-ray machine over him.
No need to fear. This, at least, would not bring more pain. And he was tired. So tired, that he didn’t even care any more.
He heard the hum of the x-ray machine turning on above him. Lois hovered a few feet away, wringing her hands, but allowing this. Her eyes were busy elsewhere—looking, searching for something to help her out of this.
Time was running out.
Logram paused, fiddling with the x-ray machine for a moment, and then moved it over Superman’s body.
As soon as the x-ray touched the soles of his bare feet, Clark knew something was terribly, horribly wrong. Pain, like kryptonite but a hundred times worse, struck into his skin like a focused laser.
He had no time to brace for it. He had been floating, drifting, dreaming, and then pain brought him back down to Earth so sharply that his whole body shook with the shock of it. He screamed.
Lois jerked into her body from her distant awareness. Nothing seemed wrong…nothing
looked wrong—but Superman was screaming. A terrible, soul-wrenching scream that made all of the dreams from her nightmares seem like a drop of tears in an endless ocean.
The x-ray moved up his ankles, his calves, his knees, and his scream rose in pitch and intensity.
Lois cursed desperately, leaping forward, but the guard was ready and quickly took her in a firm grip. The x-ray machine continued to move upwards.
“No. No! What are you doing to him?! Kal-El! You’re killing him!” Clark shuddered, his eyes shut as he screamed on and on and on…Lois was surprised the lights didn’t shatter, that the ceiling didn’t fall in, that heaven itself didn’t strike down to save him.
Even Logram looked shaken by the sound of Superman’s agony. “Well, the x-rays…we added kryptonite radiation to…weaken his cell density to…get a clearer picture.”
And then, Superman stopped screaming.
In all of her life, Lois had never heard anything so terrifying, so awful, as that sudden silence. Silence, but for the continuing hum of the machine.
Logram practically dropped his clipboard on the table beside him and turned sharply, hitting a black button on the x-ray and turning off the machine.
Clark didn’t move. Lois felt her heart tearing in two.
“Kal-El.
Kal-El! Superman!”
Nothing but silence. Silence as Logram reached up, pushing the x-ray machine aside and putting a finger to Superman’s throat. He shook his head after a moment, then moved it—to his good arm which was mottled with bruises from the blood samples.
Lois went deathly still. Her very blood froze in her veins. Waiting. Waiting. Her heart was growing colder in the extending silence.
Logram swore.
Lois felt it rising in her heart—utter complete despair. Her heart was going to burst, her soul was going to tear clean from her body and vanish. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear it.
Logram moved over quickly to the monitors, pulling out wires and placing them on Superman’s body.
And then, Clark took a breath.
It was a loud, gasping breath, like one who had dived too deep and had barely made it to the surface before fading completely to blackness. His whole body shuddered as he struggled for air.
With a cry of relief, Lois tried to pull out of the guard’s grip, but he held her firm, even as Logram found Superman’s pulse with the wires he was placing on him and a weak, frenzied heart pattern appeared on the monitors.
An urgent beeping sounded with the blinking of a bright red light on a panel beside Logram. The doctor cursed and turned away from Superman’s shaking, gesturing sharply to the guard that held Lois.
“Go and check it out,” he said. When the guard hesitated, Logram snapped, “I can take care of the girl. She’s not going anywhere without the alien, anyway.” The guard released her, but Lois surprised herself when her feet didn’t run to his side immediately, but her eyes moved sideways as if drawn by their own accord to the clipboard that Logram had set aside, and now had forgotten as he had his back to her.
To the metallic blue cardkey that sat on top of it, gleaming like hope itself, forgotten.
A moment later the guard stepped back in, backed by three of his fellows. They walked right past Lois, their backs all but turned to her as they talked to Logram. “There’s been a breach, sir.”
Another curse from Logram. He lifted a headpiece from the beeping machine and put it on, not looking away from Superman as he pressed a button to receive reception. Lois didn’t look at him—her eyes were fixed only on the blue card key, which sat on the shiny silver table like a banner. She slid one foot forward slowly, as if afraid any obvious movement might make the card disappear like a dream.
“What?” Logram demanded into the mouthpiece, irritated. There was a pause, and then in a very different tone, this one suddenly firm and business-like. “Are you sure? What’s the status?” He glanced back at Lois, who froze in her slightest movement and looked at Superman’s still body. His faint heartbeat fluttered unsteadily on the monitors, the strong beep marking it almost haphazardly. Logram looked back at the monitors, as if following her gaze. Lois inched forward again, licking her lips. Her mouth was dry as she lifted her hand slowly. She felt the cold plastic beneath her fingers.
“Very well. Get everyone out there. I’ll be with you shortly.” Logram terminated the conversation and turned around to look at the guards. Lois slipped the card into her hand and hid it in her clammy palm, stepping a small step back away from the table. “Code Orange. Could be nothing, but I want all men searching the grounds. Nelson, Grimmer, drop these two off. You other two, with me.”
One of the soldiers grabbed Lois’s arm and she let herself be pulled away as Logram left with two of the guards. She mentally urged the soldiers to hurry, the card growing slippery in her hand from sweat. She didn’t know how long it would take for Logram to realize it was gone. They only had this one chance. Lois prayed that fate would be for them.
And Superman…he would be okay. He
would be.
The guard pushing Superman swiped open the door and rolled the bed in. He didn’t even undo the restraints, but stepped back and turned to go as a red light flashed from the hall and a distant alarm wailed as if in agony.
One of the soldiers pressed a button at a small black device at his belt. “We’re on it,” he responded crisply to some unknown order. The second guard let Lois go and they moved quickly out the door, closing it firmly behind them without a backward glance.
Lois didn’t move. She was frozen, feeling the card slipping between her trembling fingers. She felt the cold eye of the ever-watching camera on her back. Superman lay on the bed, still restrained, out cold. His breathing was raspy and shallow, and it echoed in the small room painfully. In. Out. In. Out. The card was in her hand.
Lois hurried to his side. He was unconscious, pale as death itself, now, but some scarlet blood colored the corner of his mouth. As she watched, blood began to trickle out of his nose, marking a scarlet trail down his face to drip onto the bed behind him. She grasped his hands, wiping the blood away with a corner of the bed sheet. She couldn’t do anything else, for now, though the realization threatened to throw her into a panic.
What had the kryptonite done to him this time? Why was his
nose bleeding? Did that mean his lungs were bleeding, or just his throat from the screaming…?
Lois didn’t know. So she forced herself not to think about it, even as the blood began making another slow trail down the side of his face.
She knew if…
when he woke he would not want to be on the table, but Lois was not strong enough to help him down carefully, even with the weight that he had clearly lost over the last weeks. She leaned over, allowing herself to hold him for a moment as the fear that had taken her in the last room began to release its grip on her.
“Oh, Kal,” she whispered, clutching him like a lifeline.
It had been close. It had been too close. For a moment in there she had thought she could almost feel his spirit pulling away. She had almost lost him.
She kissed him. His lips were cracked and limp, and tasted faintly of blood, but she didn’t care. She loved him. She wanted nothing more than for him to be free, to be saved—to be able to fly free with the innocent spirit that was now battered and bruised.
Another alarm joined the first, closer somewhere in the compound, and Lois blinked, coming out of a daze to realize that she was shaking. She brushed his hair from his brow.
We’re getting out of here, Kal-El. One way or another, today was going to be the end of this.
She moved to the bed, grabbing her heels that hadn’t been moved for days, and after a moment she grabbed his boots and shoved them under the cold table that held him. She didn’t untie the restraints—if he awoke and struggled she didn’t want him to fall and further injure himself, no matter what sort of nightmares his position would recall. He would be all right. He had to be.
She hesitated, uncertain, now, upon what action to take. She shifted, then after a moment decided to continue onward barefoot, holding the shoes in her hands. She cursed whatever moment had inspired her to wear heels on the day of the beginning of this nightmare.
Clutching her shoes tightly, she slowly she walked towards the door. She listened for a moment, but the door was thick and no sound besides the wailing alarms reached her ears. Taking a deep breath, she swiped the card.
The light turned green, and Lois opened the door.
To find herself looking right into a very startled looking guard’s face.
TBC...
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