Thank for your patience. Real life has slowed down my writing time (job, kids, granddaughters). Thinking there will be a total of 25 to 27 parts.
-- Max
Reflections TOC ==============
Reflections – Part 22
Parts of the last hour seemed so surreal to Clark. After searching through her apartment and finding nothing, he decided that he needed to get the police there. Unlocking the door from the inside, he streaked back onto the roof, changed back into his clothes, and super sped back to her front door. Without pausing he walked into the apartment, and used her phone to call the police. After his call, they had showed up in less than ten minutes time, which was amazing in itself. But what was more surprising was the arrival of Detective Henderson, twenty minutes after that. Clark hadn’t specially asked for him, but in retrospect he should have.
After thirty minutes of questioning, Clark was still frustrated at the police not finding one clue to Lois’ abduction. He was still sweeping the apartment with his enhanced vision, when he heard Henderson come up behind him. He quickly pushed his glasses back up, and turned to talk to the Detective. Before the Henderson could say anything, Clark dejectedly asked him, “You didn’t find anything, did you?”
Henderson studied him for a moment before answering, “No, nothing conclusive. The handprint we found definitely isn’t Lois’s, but there’s not enough there to identify anybody. The forensic team hasn’t found anything else. Whoever took her, they were professionals, and cleaned up after themselves, even if it was in a hurry. We still haven’t figured out how they got her out of the building without being seen.”
Something suddenly hit Clark. Without saying a word, he walked over to her window, and looked at the window sill very closely. After a few seconds of searching, he saw a small scuff mark near the center of the sill. “I just remembered, I found her window opened when I came in, and there’s no screen.” he stated, still staring at the sill. “And here on the sill is a small scuff mark.”
Henderson joined Clark at the window and examined the mark himself. He motioned for one of the forensic team to investigate and record the mark. Seemingly lost in thought for a minute, he finally turned to Clark and asked, “So do you think they just hauled her out the window? Someone on the street must have noticed them coming down.”
“What if they went up? She’s on the top floor, and it wouldn’t take much to bring her up to there if she was incapacitated.” Just saying that thought out loud put chills down his spine.
Henderson snapped his fingers and another officer immediately appeared next to them. “Miller, take one of the squints up to the roof and look for evidence of anyone pulling something up there from Lane’s window.” The officer nodded, and hurriedly went to gather of the forensics team on his way out the door.
“Good call, Kent. It may help.”
“Not enough. If only I had come a little earlier.”
“And what? Get yourself kidnapped also?”
Clark said nothing, but simply turned away from the detective, and walked over to the kitchen. The cold cup of coffee still sat there on the table, a mute witness to Lois’s abduction. He sat down heavily into one of kitchen chairs, feeling so helpless. With all of his powers he still couldn’t see one clue that would help him find Lois. He could just sweep the city from the air, hoping to see or hear her, but she might not even be anywhere in the Metropolis by now. There must be some clue here, something he hadn’t yet seen.
Something he hadn’t yet seen…
Clark closed his eyes and focused his sense of smell on the surroundings in the apartment. He started to separate the scents he knew belonged here, searching for something that didn’t. The various fragrances that he had seen in her bedroom, the sweat of the forensics team, the gunpowder in the guns of the police officers…
He finally detected one thing out of place. A chemical smell. One that he recognized, from his time in Kenya, as some type of tranquilizer. They must have hit with some kind of dart laced with a tranquilizer. That gave him hope that she was still alive. Now he knew how they had subdued her, he needed some clue to who they were. Concentrating more he started to sift through the other odors he detected. Suddenly he could identify another smell that was definitely out of place in her apartment… sea water. He pinpointed it to several locations on the carpet and on the furniture. Someone who had been in the apartment had acquired the smells of the ocean fairly recently. Concentrating deeper he detected several other smells mixed in scent of the ocean. Most noticeable was diesel fuel.
The docks… Her kidnappers had recently been at the docks. After the seizure of the illegal arms yesterday, it couldn’t be a coincidence. He dashed out of the apartment as quickly as possible, ignoring Henderson’s shouts as he left. Ducking into the stairwell, he shifted into super speed, not worrying if anybody was going to see him. He burst out the back door, now in his super hero suit, and streaked skyward, heading directly towards the docks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lois slowly came back to consciousness, aware that she was sitting in a chair in a dimly lit room. Her head was throbbing, and when she tried to move, she discovered that she was held fast by ropes around her torso, and that her arms had been lashed to the armrests of the chair. As her eyes began to focus, she could see the two men that had burst into her apartment standing a few feet from her. The nose of one of them appeared broken and swollen, no doubt the result of her palm strike during the struggle at her apartment. The other was dressed in a Fedex uniform and sporting a black eye. That was that last time she trusted a delivery man.
She also had made the mistake of thinking that she had taken care of all of her assailants. The last thing she remembered was bringing down the man with the black eye with kick to his groin, then feeling a small stinging sensation on the back of her neck. Then, nothing until she awoke here. The man with the black eye turned his head to speak to someone further back in to room. “You sure we can’t just kill her now?”
A man stepped out of the shadows, a look of exasperation on his face. “Now that wouldn’t get us the information we needed, would it now? You can have your fun when I’m done with her.”
Lois recognized the voice. It was the same one from the attack in the garage a few nights ago. Was this man behind what happened to the Shuttle? Either she and Clark had been wrong about Luthor, or this man worked for him. He was of medium height, and looked to be in his late fifties. His face was adorned with a white ‘Van Dyke’ beard, and he wore an unassuming tweed sports coat. He didn’t look especially dangerous, more like an older English shopkeeper or even a butler. However something in eyes told her that he was indeed a very dangerous man.
“Ah, I see she has deemed to join us, once again. Good afternoon, Miss Lane.”
She only glared back at him in response. She wondered if he going to take revenge on her, now the Shuttle was safe from sabotage.
“I see that we’re going to dispense with the pleasantries. Very well then, let’s get right down to business. I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you’re going to answer me truthfully. Refusing to answer the questions will make life very unpleasant for you. And my two associates here are very anxious to do just that for me. Oh, and just so you know that I am serious about all of this…”
He suddenly drew his arm back, and smacked her hard with the back of his hand. The impact of the slap was jolting, and she could taste blood from her broken lip.
“Now tell Miss Lane, how did the police find out about that ship yesterday?”
The question made her look up at him in surprise. He knew about the guns, and she was sure that this was the same man behind the attack in the garage. They had been right, it was all connected. It had to be Luthor. If she wasn’t bound to a chair right now having information beaten out of her, it would have been a perfect opportunity to confront this man with his connection with Luthor. But she was sure that doing so now would just hasten her death. Though, right now, she was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to be walking away from this very easily. Might as well start with the truth… Well mostly the truth.
“I got an anonymous phone call. I’m not sure who it was. He had already called the police before contacting me.”
He scrutinized her for a moment before saying, “Really, now, Miss Lane. You expect me to believe that an anonymous caller picked you out of all the reporters in Metropolis just to witness the police raid on the ship?”
She shrugged her shoulders as best as she could. “I guess I do have a little bit of a reputation. I have written stories on the illegal arms trade before.”
His eyes bore into her as he contemplated what he thought of her response. “You know, I almost believe you. So let’s work our way back a little, shall we? It seems that both you and Mr. Kent have been investigating these little ventures in the gun trade for quite some time. Mr. Kent, even more so than you. So I find it very coincidental that you two are now working together at the same newspaper, on the same stories. So I would very much like to know how you ended up in the Congo a year ago, and how Mr. Kent ended up exposing two key transactions in France three years ago.”
Lois’s eyes grew wide in fear. He was going to go after Clark, too.
“Ah, I see I struck a chord. You know, from what information I gathered about Mr. Kent, he didn’t seem like the type who could fool someone of Miss Manchester’s caliber. But apparently he was clever enough to trick her into hiring him in order to interfere with our purchase. If I knew what a thorn in our side he would become, I would have eliminated him also, despite the approach of the police. Now let’s get back to your story.”
Lois realized that this man was the one responsible for killing Manchester three years ago, and starting Clark on his quest. She watched him walk over to a wheeled cart in the corner of the room and push it over near her chair. On the cart was a car battery with two ominous looking electrical wires connected to it. He picked the leads up, and touched them together briefly, creating a large blue spark. Smiling, he placed one lead on the back of her hand, securing it with duct tape. She knew she was in real trouble now.
“Remember Miss Lane, it’s the amperage that kills you, not the voltage. And we can keep this up as long as we need to.” He brushed her other hand with the lead he was holding. Even for the short moment, the painful flow of electricity caused her body to spasm. She was going to need a miracle to get out of this one.
A miracle… Maybe she could repeat the miracle of a year ago.
“So Miss Lane, first, who gave you information about our transaction in the Congo?”
She took on the look of a submissive, terrified hostage to the best of her ability. “Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you what you want to know, but it won’t matter anyway, because they killed my contact.”
“Go on,” he said menacingly, as he brought the lead near her hand.
She slowly took in a large breath, and with all her might she shouted, “HELP, SUPERMAN!”
Her captor immediately became furious, and thrust the lead down on her hand. Her body convulsed as the electricity coursed through her. He drew it away and angrily said, “I see that you don’t fully appreciate your situation. I doubt, seriously, that you have a super powered being at your beckon call, looking for you. But since I see you’re not being cooperative…” He brushed the lead down on her hand once again. Lois wished she could scream out, but the electricity froze her vocal cords. As he withdrew the power lead, she slumped down in her chair. She knew that this time there was no way out, and that a third save by a superhero would be too much to ask.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clark swept by each building and ship, employing his x-ray vision to search for Lois. Some of the ships took extra time because of the lead content of the paint, and he needed to search using his super hearing. He had just finished another audio search of a vessel, when he heard it… Lois’s voice. Focusing as he rose higher into the air, he could make out that she was talking about the tip she received about yesterday’s raid. What a minute… she was lying. She didn’t get that call; he had faked it. She must be covering for him for some reason.
He focused in to try to get her location, which was difficult as the sound was bouncing around the canyons of the closely set buildings. He heard a male voice reply to her. He could hear the voice talk about him (Clark), then he talked about…
He froze in midair. This was the man who killed Lena, and if he didn’t hurry, he was going to do the same to Lois. Frantic, he tried to zero in on her voice when suddenly, he heard Lois shout ‘Help, Superman’. Focusing so much on picking up the soft voices, the shout startled him for a moment. However, it enabled him to zero in on her location. He swooped down to the decaying building where her voice had come from, x-raying it as he descended to pinpoint her location. The scene of her torture appeared before his eyes, causing the enraged superhero to come crashing down through the roof at full speed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lois was bracing herself for another jolt, when suddenly the roof above her exploded. Within the space of a couple of seconds she found herself untied. The two thugs who had broken into her apartment lay unconscious on floor in front of her, with the cart laying mangled between them. She looked to her left and saw Superman holding her captor in the air with one arm by his shirt and coat. She heard him talking to the kidnapper, frightened by the rage in his voice. Slowly, and with much effort, she got up from her chair and made her way over to him. As she approached, she could actually see his eyes glowing red, probably from containing his famous heat vision.
“Don’t give me that,” she heard Superman shout at the man. “I heard you. You killed her! Why?”
“You won’t like my answer,” the kidnapper managed to choke out. Superman’s only response was to squeeze his clothes even tighter, and glare at him.
“She was a loose end.”
His answer seemed to make Superman even angrier. Lois never thought she would be fearful of Superman, but seeing such a powerful being so angry, terrified her. She needed to talk him down from this… whatever had set him off. He must have dealt with criminals like this before, so why was this one any different? She reached out and touched him softly on the arm.
“Superman, maybe you… maybe we should let the police handle this. I would hate for you to do something you’ll always regret.”
He snapped his head and looked directly into her eyes. She could see the anger there, but more she could see guilt and shame all reflected in his eyes. As she stared into his eyes, suddenly everything fell into place. She now understood the source of his anger for this one criminal, and what she had to do to save Superman. “I’m alright… really. You saved me again. Let the proper authorities handle him. Don’t let him destroy you, and what you stand for.
She could see him fighting with himself. More, she could see the heartbreak in his eyes. The heartbreak of what he thought was his failures. She was sure that he never let anybody see that side of him when he was being the superhero.
Then she played her last card. “Please, for me…”
She watched as his eyes softened, and he slowly let her captor down to the floor.
“You know,” she said, “it would be a great irony if you tied him up with the ropes he used on me.”
She saw him smile sadly, then in the blink of an eye her kidnapper was bound to chair in the same ropes that had held her a few minutes ago.
The superhero just stared at the man for a moment, then turned to her and said, “You know, I could setup that battery for you if you want to use it on him.”
Thankfully, she could tell he was kidding with her. “Tempting, but no. He probably should be awake when the police arrive.”
He shrugged as he replied, “Your call. Speaking of which, there’s a pay phone outside, we can call the police from there.”
Lois nodded. “Sounds good to me. I don’t think these guys are going anywhere soon.”
Superman gestured her toward the door. “After you.”
She took three or four shaky steps before feeling a set of strong hands help her keep her balance. “Maybe I should carry you,” he stated in a concerned voice.
“No, I should be okay… I think.” She took another tentative step, then stopped. “Maybe you should go call the police. I’ll just wait here for you.”
“There is no way I am letting you out of my sight right now,” he said firmly. Without bothering to ask, he picked her up and carried her in his arms toward the door. Under normal circumstances she would be upset for assuming she needed to be carried. But right now, she didn’t have the strength to be upset. Feeling safe once again, she laid her head on his chest on closed her eyes. Once outside she heard him say, “Are you strong enough to stand again?”
She lifted her head from his chest. “Huh? I mean, sure.”
He set her gently down, and slowly released her from his arms. “Steady enough?”
“Yeah,” she answered timidly.
He smiled back at her as he said, “I guess we should make that call now.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Then after a beat she said, “I would like to call Henderson directly, but I don’t have any money for the phone.”
“Don’t worry…” he replied as he reached behind him and lifted his cape from one side. He reached back to his cape with his other hand, and a moment later produced what looked like an old fashioned coin pouch. He opened it, and pulled out a quarter, and handed it to her. He closed the pouch, and replaced it back to wherever in his cape he kept it stored.
“What else you’ve got back there?” she asked with a hint of humor in her voice.
“You’d be surprised… and no, we are not taking inventory right now. Don’t you have a phone call to make?” he asked, pointing to the quarter in her hand.
“Oh… right.” She deposited the coin into the phone and dialed Henderson’s special number (that in a moment of weakness he had given to her a while back). After waiting for the transfer to radio, she heard him on the other end of the line.
“Hi, Bill. It’s Lois… No I’m fine. Yes, they really did take me. No, I managed to get out of it… Yes, I told you, I’m fine… No, I did not kill them… No Clark’s, um, not here either… I used my secret laser pen knife on them.” She smiled at Superman when she said that, but then lost her smile at Henderson’s reply. “No, really, I’m okay Bill. I was rescued by Superman… Okay I’ll ask him, he’s standing right here. Hang on.”
She covered the phone, and whispered to Superman, “He wants to know how you knew where to look for me.”
“Well, I…, um…”
“I bet Clark had a hunch and flagged you down, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, that was it. He figured that maybe the gun smugglers thought you were the one that told the police.”
She smiled, and replied, “That’s what I thought.”
She uncovered the phone, and said, “Superman said that Clark gave him the clue where to look… It’s a long story… We’re at…” She paused for a minute to look at the address on the side of the building, then took a look at the nearest street sign.
“We’re at an old beat up warehouse on docks. The address is 1766 Old Schooner Road… Yeah, I’ll wait right here… What? Oh, well thanks, Bill.” With that she slowly replaced the handset on the cradle.
“What wrong? You almost look confused.”
She snapped out of it and replied, “Oh, it’s just that Henderson said he was worried to death and that he was glad that I’m alright.”
“What’s so strange about that?” Superman asked with a grin.
“I just never… well, I assumed that he mostly considers me a pain in the ass.”
“I wouldn’t have thought that at all. He seems to respect you a great deal.”
“Really? Who would have thought?” Then after a beat, “I guess I’ll just wait here for the cops to show up. If you see Clark, send him this way, and let him know that I’m alright.”
“I think I’ll just stay until the police arrive, and I’m sure you’re safe.”
“No you can go… really. Those guys aren’t going anyway. What could possibly happen?”
It was, of course, at that moment that the building exploded into a fireball.
--- End, Part 22 ---
