As always, thanks to Nancy for making me do more rewrites than I actually wanted to. You made it so much better. The invisible car reference is from the only James Bond movie I've ever seen (and even then, I only saw half of it). I think it was called Die Another Day. And a bit of an apology for making people wait around for this part. Although it's still technically the weekend, I did post this later than I had planned.
PART FIFTEEN
“Kaylie? Kaylie can you hear me?” Jor was shaking my shoulder vigorously as he swam into view. I felt the weave of upholstery pressed against my cheek, and I groaned as the world blurred, then came into focus.
“Please don’t tell me I passed out like some helpless female.” The grin that stretched across his face appeared strange from my sideways angle.
“Okay, you didn’t pass out. You swooned.”
I decided to take the high road and ignore him, instead focusing on the issue at hand. “Did it work? How are you feeling?”
“Actually, I’m feeling much better. And I don’t have my powers.”
“So that means I have them?” My heart quickened at the news.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I cautiously sat up on the sofa, and glanced nervously around at everyone staring at me intently. I didn’t feel much different. My heartbeat felt a little faster, but that was probably because of nerves, not superpowers.
“So what do I do?” I asked everyone nervously.
“Just try something small,” Ellie suggested. “X-ray vision is pretty easy, so maybe try that at first.”
“How do I do it?” I asked blankly.
“Pick something in the room,” Clark coached patiently. I cast around and settled on the table lamb beside the sofa.
“Okay, I’ll use the lamp.”
“Now concentrate on the lamp and focus your vision. Sometimes squinting helps at first. Imagine peeling away the layers of the lamp in your mind.”
I concentrated hard, squinted tightly, but nothing happened. I forced myself to focus and block out everything else, but still I didn’t get any further. I was just about to give up, but then I felt a slight tickle behind my eyes. Was that it? I concentrated on that feeling, magnifying it and directing the energy it brought towards the lamp. It instantly burst into flames.
They must’ve been prepared for something of the sort, because they reacted almost instantly. Ellie jumped up and ran over to the lamp to extinguish the fire. Clark caught me and forcibly restrained me from accidentally tearing my entire apartment down by trying to escape. He led me back to my seat and gently sat me down beside Jon, who looked at me with concern.
“Are you okay, Kaylie?” he asked me gently.
“My lamp just exploded because I looked at it,” I told him distantly.
“That’s nothing. I once evaporated the Smallville community skating rink because I was daydreaming about volcanoes.” I tried to laugh at his attempt to lighten the mood, but all that came out was a strangled “ha-unh”. I placed my hand against the arm of the sofa to push myself more securely onto my seat. The arm fell away with an awful wrenching noise at what felt like a light touch to me.
“Holy crap!” I exclaimed, jaw agape.
“Kaylie, you need to remain calm,” Lois instructed soothingly. “I know it’s really difficult right now, but the more anxious you get the harder it is to control yourself.”
“I need to check your vitals,” Brad told me, inching closer.
“Are you sure you want to risk that? I might fry you accidentally or break all the bones in your body.” Tension started to rise up inside of me again. I started to realize that I could seriously hurt people. Jon put his arm around me, and I stiffened in response. Who knows what I could do to him now that I was the one with the superpowers? Then Clark crouched down and placed his hands over mine. I focused on him gratefully. At least I couldn’t burn him to a crisp.
“After Brad is finished with you, I’ll take you someplace far away from any form of civilization and we’ll practice until you can get control, okay?”
“That sounds good,” I said timidly.
“You’ll get it Kaylie, don’t worry,” Jon reassured me. “You’ll probably end up being better than me.”
“Yeah right,” I muttered to myself. I had known that there were risks in using the laser, but I hadn’t expected it to be so hard to simply control the powers when they came. I remained completely passive as Brad checked me out.
“You know, Jon,” Ellie began, suspiciously innocent, “You not having your powers for the time being could actually be seen as a good thing.”
“Oh, really?”
“It would be really useful to have data to compare what your abilities are with and without any powers,” she explained excitedly. “I think it might help with my research, not to mention the benefits-”
“What tests do you want to do, Ellie?” he asked resignedly.
“Just a few. Very simple ones, they shouldn’t take long at all.”
* * *
It had been just over ten years since the sudden appearance of his powers, but Jon was astounded to realize how much he had grown to depend on them. The run of tests Ellie was currently putting him through only served to draw attention to the loss.
“Okay,” Ellie summarized, clicking her pen absentmindedly. “So far you show a marked decrease in strength, endurance, sensory perception, and reflex speed.”
“Gee, that’s great. As long as I don’t get overconfident or anything.” The physical trials she had pushed him through in the last hour had made him feel unbelievably slow, weak, and clumsy. He struggled to complete tasks that would have been laughably easy for him before Project Titan had appeared.
“Oh, stop whining,” Ellie told him, refusing to be sympathetic. “You actually come in a bit above average in comparison to other males in your age bracket.” She looked up from her clipboard apologetically. “Thanks for doing this for me, Jon. I know it can’t be all that fun.”
“No problem. I consider this to be at least three years worth of birthday presents.”
“Watch it, bozo!” She pointed her pen at him menacingly. “I have you in a very unique position now where I’m a thousand times stronger and faster than you and you’re completely vulnerable.” He threw up his arms in surrender.
“Okay, fine! You don’t owe me anything.”
“You have that right, my dear brother!” She consulted her clipboard again. “I have one more test I want to do,” she said hesitantly, “but if you don’t want to, I completely understand.”
“What is it?”
“I want to test your reaction to Kryptonite. It’s possible that you’re still sensitive to it, even though you have no powers. Or it could’ve been transferred to Kaylie. The only way we would know for sure is if we tested one of you.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Jon nodded grimly. “With Kaylie investigating Sproxton, we need to know if Kryptonite can affect her.” Ellie brought out a heavy lead box and set it before him.
“Just open it really slowly,” she instructed. “As soon as you feel anything, shut it right away and we’ll have our answer.” Jon nodded again, and waited for Ellie to move a safe distance away. Then he carefully eased the lid off the box.
He felt nothing. The deadly Kryptonite glowed sinisterly up at him, but he was immune to the affects. He closed the box firmly, allowing Ellie to rejoin him.
“You felt nothing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he confirmed.
“So that means…”
“That Kaylie is vulnerable to it.”
* * *
I had a very strong sense of déjà vu as Clark dropped me off at my apartment later that day. Of course this time, we had just returned from a super-power cram session in Antarctica as opposed to an ugly fight on a tropical beach.
Clark had given me a crash course in super-powers. I could blow down a house if I wanted to, or tie my bicycle in a knot. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the amount of control that Clark and Ellie currently owned. I almost broke the sliding glass door on my balcony as I was trying to get inside, and I had pretty much given up on being able to control my heat vision. We had gone to STAR labs and gotten Brad to check me over, and he had thought it might have something to do with the temperamental nature of red Kryptonite.
“It never works the same way twice,” Brad explained. “With practice, you may be able to get a better hang of it, but until then, you should just be very careful.”
Clark had also given me a stern lecture about not running out to help on any rescues.
“You may hear things,” he told me. “But you have to trust that Ellie and I will take care of it. You don’t have full control, and it would also be very risky to introduce another superhero to Metropolis. We were lucky enough with Ultrawoman, but now that the kids are public, it makes it a lot more difficult to distract people.”
So far, it hadn’t been a problem. I still had to focus very hard in order to hear anything concrete, and even then, Ellie and Clark were soon on top of it. I also felt that I was already doing my part to better society by hunting down Sproxton. And anyway, there was something else I was having a problem with that would seriously jeopardize my career as a superhero. See, I still hadn’t learned to fly.
I *did* manage to do a little floating and fluttering from iceberg to iceberg, don’t get me wrong, but as far as the soaring through the air at rocket speed thing goes… Well, I just couldn’t manage it. As soon as I got higher then a couple feet of the ground, I just froze. It was that stupid phobia of mine that had plagued me throughout my whole life. Although the Peter Pan method of faith, trust, and pixie dust didn’t completely apply for honorary Kryptonians, it’s very difficult to stay in the air when your mind is filled with images of squashed corpses instead of happy thoughts.
But Clark was very nice about it and didn’t push me. He said that as long as I didn’t start spontaneously floating in the street, it didn’t really matter if I could fly or not. And spontaneous floating was not very likely at this point. The ground and I had a very amicable relationship, and I wasn’t anxious to instigate an estrangement any time soon.
Anyway, I was very glad to have some spare time after the stressful night and day. And I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. I pulled out the business card Jon had left me before we all took off this morning. It gave me his office number, cell number, and pager number along with his email. On the back of the card, he had scribbled his home number. Although it was completely bizarre and upside-down and crazy, it was one of the most romantic gifts he had ever given me. Unfortunately, Ellie had already finished with her tests by the time we got to STAR labs, but she had told me that Jon was at work, so I dialed the number for his office connection.
“Hi, this is Jon Kent,” he answered after the first ring.
“You better be prepared for a barrage of calls now that I have your number,” I told him. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing your voice over the phone.”
“Kaylie! Hi! I’m glad you called.” The warmth in his voice traveled through the air and heated me down to my toes. “How did your field trip go?”
“Did you know that penguins are not nearly as sociable as documentaries lead us to believe? I swear one tried to bite me while I was practicing X-ray vision.”
“Well, he was probably afraid you would torch him like you did that lamp. It was self preservation.” Even though I couldn’t see him at the moment, I could picture him perfectly in my mind’s eye. That teasing smirk and quirked eyebrow… I was glad that he was teasing me instead of coddling me. There’s only so much well meaning concern that I could take in one day.
“Oh ha ha. Very funny, Spaceboy. I’ll have you know that that problem is almost entirely dealt with.”
“‘Almost entirely’?” he echoed.
“I may still have a few problems that need ironing out,” I admitted reluctantly.
“Kaylie, I’m sure you’re doing fine,” Jon reassured me. “You sound like you’ve taken this whole thing in stride, which is a lot better than I did when I was dumped with a bunch of crazy powers.”
“So how have you been?” I asked him, eager to change the subject off my inability to control myself.
“Well, so far I’ve managed to give myself three paper cuts, burn my tongue on coffee, and create what promises to be a massive bruise on my knee by banging into something at STAR labs.”
“Missing the invulnerability, huh?”
“Just a little,” he said wryly. “Ellie didn’t have much sympathy for me though. I hit some big piece of equipment and knocked the calibration off. She hates it when people mess with things in her lab space.” He paused. “You know, it’s a good thing that you called. I’m going to call it a day here in a bit, and I was wondering if I could stop by your place and drop off that research my mom was talking about.”
“Well, that depends,” I told him.
“On what?”
“On whether or not you bring food. I’m starving!” I complained. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to get hungry anymore.”
“Well, you may not need food to survive, but that doesn’t keep you from getting hungry,” he explained. “What do you want me to bring?”
“Anything but pizza,” I said. “I had a bit of an overload yesterday.”
“Not pizza. Got it. I’ll see you soon, Kaylie.”
“Sounds good,” I replied brightly.
“Okay!” There was an awkward pause.
“So… bye! I guess.”
“Yeah.”
I was about to hang up when Jon called out hurriedly.
“Wait! Kaylie!”
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” he said almost tentatively. Because he wasn’t there in person, I had to hug myself instead. But I still did it with feeling.
“I love you too, Jon.” Then we were able to hang up.
Our first phone conversation. It was perhaps a little stilted, but then again we were at an awkward place in our relationship right now. Everything between us had been exposed, whether it was intentional or accidental. And things were even more screwed up now that I had Jon’s powers. The traditional balance of power between us had shifted, and now I was scrambling to retain my footing. You’d think that the acquisition of powers would make me want to be more independent, but in actuality I found myself wanting to cling to Jon even more. Having the powers scared me. For years, I had worked with my body, training it and conditioning it until I knew its limits exactly and could be confident in my ability. Now, I was constantly being thrown off by the new abilities I was now in possession of, and I always had to be hyper aware of what I was doing in order to avoid unconsciously crossing the boundary between human and super. The whole situation set me nervously on edge and undermined my confidence, which was a bad thing to happen when I needed to be at my best. So now, more than ever, I needed to depend on Jon for his experience and support.
Even though I was constantly being reminded that I currently had Jon’s powers, I was still expecting him to come knocking on my balcony instead of my door. And I was a little confused to be faced with the strange bespectacled man who stood in the doorway holding Chinese takeout. Although I had been able to recognize him the first time I saw him like this, I still pictured him in my head without glasses and with his hair slicked back. Not that I didn’t like his hair this way. In fact, I would definitely call it an improvement.
“Come on in,” I invited. He came inside and dumped the food plus several bulging folders on the table. “So I was thinking that we could-”
“Just one second,” he interrupted.
“What?” I asked. Then Jon stepped close to me, wrapped his arms around me and kissed me in a way that left me feeling boneless and shivery.
“I was just thinking on the way over here that we haven’t kissed since that night at the Gentleman’s Club.”
“Not exactly the best kiss we’ve ever shared,” I commented.
“You did what you had to in order to shut me up,” he replied easily. “If you didn’t I would’ve blabbed the whole thing to the entire club and then the entire investigation would’ve been shot.”
“Thanks for understanding.” I was still in his embrace, and I finally go the chance to do what I had longed to from the moment I first saw his messy hairstyle. His hair was as soft as I had imagined it to be, and I could smell his shampoo as I ran my fingers through it. Jon was looking at me, but then his eyes slid over to the coffee table that was littered with papers.
“Are you planning a bonfire or something?”
“That’s some of my research on Sproxton,” I explained. “Surveillance notes, and background checks, and NIA records.”
“This is only some of it?” He asked aghast. “You could write a twelve volume novel with all this stuff.”
“Well, that’s what spying is largely about,” I told him as I attacked the food he had brought. “Research and patience and more research with the occasional life or death struggle thrown in.” Jon walked over to my hidden compartment that I had left slightly ajar when I had dug out all the paper.
“Do you mind if I…?” he gestured to the bookcase.
“Go ahead,” I told him. I pulled one of the files that he had brought with him towards me and began paging through it.
“All that’s here is more paper,” he complained.
“That’s not everything.” I stood and made my way to the bookcase. “All the fun stuff is underneath.” I showed him how more panels slid away to reveal my modest weapon collection, and a couple wigs with a bit of costuming make-up. A few more odds and ends completed my arsenal.
“So where are all the cool gadgets and the keys to the invisible car?” he asked half jokingly.
“Jon, I’m a spy, not Batgirl,” I explained. “The more cool gadgets you depend on, the more likely they are to malfunction when you need them the most.”
“I guess that makes sense,” he admitted.
“I imagine it would be the same for you,” I told him. “When you’re performing a difficult rescue, you can’t depend on flashy moves alone. You have to use your creativity to think of the best way to utilize what you have on hand. Take this thing, for example.” I held up the rusted pry bar I had used to break into Sproxton’s office. “I can use this to break locks, or as a screwdriver, or even as a weapon if I absolutely need to.” I replaced the pry bar and began sliding the panels back in place to cover up all my equipment.
“You know, it’s kind of weird,” Jon commented. “You’re still the same person and everything, but now I see this whole other side to you that I didn’t before.”
“It’s kinda the same for me too,” I told him. “I mean, I always knew you had a family and a job and all that, but to actually talk to you dressed like this, and to call you at work and see you with your family is really different. I guess it’s like we need to get to know each other all over again.” I was so busy puzzling this out that I failed to pay attention to what I was doing. The next thing I knew, I had ripped the sliding wood panel out of its place as I was moving it. I was now holding it in my hand, and I could see that that the casters had been torn out of their place
“Dammit,” I hissed, flustered by my mistake.
“Kaylie, are you okay?” Jon asked me anxiously.
“I’m fine,” I replied shortly. “I’ve been doing that on and off all day. It’s just like I forget for one second to be careful, and I end up scorching a hole in something or,” I held up the chunk of wood, “ripping apart expensive furniture.” I sighed dejectedly. “This is going to put me up to at least a thousand dollars in damage since this morning.”
“Kaylie, I’m so sorry you have to go through this.” The guilt danced across his face. “You’ve made a huge sacrifice for me and you’re only getting more trouble in return. Maybe if this isn’t working, we can go to STAR labs and see if Uncle Brad will reverse it. I can try the Kryptonite thing I was talking about.”
“Jon, what the hell are you thinking?” I exclaimed angrily. “You can’t use green Kryptonite like that. Brad already told us that this morning. I volunteered to do this, and I’m not just going to back down because I break a couple of pieces of furniture.”
“I know that,” he said. “But Ellie called me at work after you did and told me that you were having more problems controlling your powers than we originally thought you would. I know how scary it can be to not be in control, I can’t just let you stumble through this on your own.” I forced myself to calm down. Although he wasn’t going about this in the way I wanted, he was just trying to help me out.
“Look, Jon,” I told him, “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve had an overdose of kindness and sympathy today, that’s not what I need from you right now.”
“So what do you need?” he offered.
“I need help sifting through all this research you brought,” I told him, grateful to let our previous subject go. I didn’t want to think about my lack of control right now. I was sure I would get it in time. He agreed to my request, and we both sat down at the kitchen table, eating the food Jon had brought and searching through Lois’ files. It felt very natural to be working with Jor on this. I had recognized that we had similar work habits when I had assigned him all those silly little tasks before we had started dating, and it was nice to see that it still applied when the job was actually important.
“What are we looking for specifically?” Jon asked me.
“I need a record of businesses suspected of being connected to Intergang,” I told him.
“Costmart is their HQ,” he supplied.
“Too obvious,” I said. “I have a list of companies Sproxton’s connected to here and I’m hoping to find a common link between him and Intergang. But Sproxton’s too smart to be associated with Costmart. Although it’s never been proven in court, nearly everyone knows that Costmart and Intergang are intertwined.” I paged through page after page of information. It would have to be something small, I decided. Maybe a sister or shell company… I was suddenly aware of Jon’s eyes observing me.
“What?” I asked somewhat peevishly. I don’t always like to be interrupted when I’m working.
“You’re beautiful,” he told me with a smile.
“Oh! Uh… thanks,” I blushed.
“You’re also floating,” he added casually. I returned to my chair with a heavy thump. That had surprised me.
“I guess I was so focused on this that I just…”
“Lost track of gravity,’ he finished.
“Yeah. I guess so.” I had never thought that that would actually happen. When I had been with Clark I had needed to work so hard to get up in the air.
“It still happens to me occasionally when I get really focused on something,” Jon reassured me. We continued working in silence until Jon spoke again. “Kaylie, have you heard of a Marten Technologies?”
“I think so,” I commented abstractedly. “They have a government contract and Sproxton meets with them to discuss their research grants and such.”
“They also supply Costmart with a lot of merchandise. But if you look at this invoice and compare it to their tax return…” he passed the papers to me.
“Wow. There’s a huge disparity.”
“So I’m thinking-”
“That Marten Tech is doing some under the table dealings with Costmart?”
“And if Sproxton does dealings with Marten Tech as part of his legit duties it would be easy to slip in a few special deals now and then without raising suspicion.”
“I’ve got to go check out their research lab,” I told Jon as I pushed away from the table and rushed to get my stuff together.
“Wait, *you* have to go? You can’t go there all alone!”
“Jon, I appreciate your concern, but I’m a trained NIA agent,” I told him patiently. “I think I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, so you always go on assignments by yourself?”
“Well, no,” I admitted reluctantly. “Usually I have my brother as backup. But he’s been transferred so it’s just me.”
“Kaylie, I’m sure that you’re more than capable of looking after yourself, but right now you’ve got some new abilities you can’t entirely control. I really think it would be a good idea if you had someone with you.” I stopped lacing up my shoes and took a look at him. He seemed truly agitated.
“It’s more than just me not being fully able to control my abilities isn’t it?” I asked.
“Ellie did a test,” he admitted. “Kryptonite doesn’t harm me anymore, which means that you’re now vulnerable to it.”
“Not necessarily,” I argued. “You can’t know for sure unless you test me.”
“Okay, maybe we don’t really know about you, but we do know for sure that I can’t be hurt by it,” he argued. “Please just let me come along and be your backup. I’ll do whatever you want me to, and although I’m not a trained agent, I have done my share of breaking and entering.” I looked at him appraisingly.
“All right, fine,” I conceded. “You would actually solve a problem that I’ve been a little worried about.” I reached for the keys to my car and tossed them in his direction. “I don’t want to accidentally damage my car with an unexpected burst of superpowers, so you can drive.”
“We’re not flying?” he asked, a little confused.
“Of course not!” I exclaimed. “I’m afraid of heights, remember?” It was probably a good thing that my hearing wasn’t tuned to pick up the mumbled reply from Jon. It would’ve only been some kind of biting jab, and right now I was too buzzed by the chance of a break in my investigation to think of a suitable comeback.
