Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic All the Daytime and the Nighttime, 6/?

Previously...

Clark took the money and got the change and the bug and handed it to Gomez. Rather than just lay the money on the bar, as was the standard practice, he held it in his right hand and waited for Gomez to extend his hand palm up and then placed the change in it. Gomez put the change in his pocket and turned, surveying the room and casually drinking his beer.

Just then Frank walked back up. “Charlie, Lou wants to see you out back.”

Clark turned to Gomez and said with a smile. “Frank here will take care of you. I’ve got to find a friend.”

With that strange comment, Clark left Gomez standing at the bar looking puzzled.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Chapter 6

Bill Henderson was sitting at his desk, staring at Clark Kent’s suitcase on the desk in front of him. Curiosity was the hallmark of a good police officer. Henderson stared at the CK monogram on the front of the battered brown small suitcase. It was almost a briefcase, but thicker. Clark Kent; Charles King. Did he plan to keep the initials in all his undercover identities?

He had left the fire after Kent had given him the suitcase because the fire seemed to be almost out. Somehow he felt he needed to protect this suitcase. How had he not heard Kent come up to him from behind? Even in the ordered maelstrom across the street, he should have heard Kent make some noise.

He stared at the single lock. “Come, touch me,” it seemed to whisper to him. “Open me. Find out Kent’s secrets.” Hesitantly he reached out his finger. Then, deciding there was enough of this shilly-shallying, he moved the bar sideways and the lock sprung open. It wasn’t even locked, really. Maybe Kent hadn’t had time to lock it amidst the excitement of the fire.

Suddenly, Henderson stopped in thought. Wait, how had Kent gotten from the Metro Club to the Apollo and up to his fourth floor room to rescue his suitcase? Maybe he had it with him at work. But then, why come to the Apollo to give it to him? On that confusion, Henderson lifted the top open. Taped to the inside of the lid was a poem, clearly printed from a computer and encased in plastic:

Henderson reached into the pocket on the lid and pulled out a sketchbook. He flipped it open, all in the name of research, he told himself. He saw sketches of Centennial Park; the Metropolis skyline, obviously from an airplane; the MetJets Stadium with the LuthorPark name emblazoned on it, also from the air; and the outside of the Metro Club from the ground. They were all amazingly good and detailed. The very last sketch was of Lois Lane’s face beautifully, almost lovingly, rendered.

Carefully he placed the sketchbook back into the pocket. He looked into the bottom of the suitcase and saw a simple laptop from the top P.C. maker in the country. A simple plastic pencil case neatly held all the wires to make connection. He saw another case with solid state miniscule bugs in them. They were the same bugs MPD was decoding with gear provided by the FBI. There were no labels on anything that screamed “FBI” or “NIA”. “Good spy gear,” he muttered to himself. He fastidiously put it back together the exact way it had been, latched it and then put it in the kneehole of his desk.

Henderson had sent Gomez to the Metro Club to see if Kent needed help when he himself had hopped in a squad car to go to the Apollo. Gomez should be back any moment to let him know what happened there.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Clark met Lou outside the back door. Lou tossed him a set of car keys and gestured to the black SUV. “We’ll take this one. You drive, I assume.”

Snatching the keys from midair, Clark smiled, “Oh, yeah. Where to?”

“Riverfront by Hobbs Bay,” Lou said as he entered the passenger side. “I’ll tell you where when we get closer.”

Sliding under the steering wheel, Clark was happy to note he was quite familiar with this particular make of vehicle. In fact he had done his defensive driving qualifying test down at Quantico in this exact model. He quickly adjusted the seat backward and the steering wheel up for his build. As he inserted the key, he noticed Lou subtly rearrange his gun in his shoulder holster. ‘Show time,’ he thought. He peeled out of the alley fast but without squealing tires and executed the turn into the main street smoothly.

“Go over to 124th and take it down to Bay,” Lou ordered.

Simply nodding in acknowledgement, Clark complied. Lou wasn’t much of a chatterer and he was glad of that.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Lois Lane had spent the beginning of the night waiting for her opportunity to depart unnoticed by the Toaster below the large beam that was now her temporary bed. Toni had fallen asleep, still bound to her chair. At least the Rattus norvegicus that had been her earlier bedmate had departed silently out of its own boredom. Suddenly her eyes popped open in instant alertness as she heard the voice of the Toaster.

“All right, I see you and I'm gonna get you before you cause any more trouble. Your little tail is mine.”

Lois was fully awake now, adrenaline pumping. She peeked cautiously over the edge of the beam, expecting to meet her demise but instead saw the Toaster aiming at a rat with his weapon. She looked over to see Toni, tied and asleep, and took her opportunity to depart by quietly dropping from the beam, back down to the crate and retraced her steps to the back door, silently and with relief, emerging into the still dark alley.

Looking about for any more Toasters on the loose, she cautiously moved down several blocks before flipping open her cell phone and pushing the rapid dial number for Henderson’s personal cell.

“Hello, Lois,” Henderson answered promptly, thinking caller ID was one of the world’s great inventions.

“Bill,” Lois whispered. “I’m down at the Riverfront. Toni Taylor is tied to a chair in the old warehouse at Bay and 124th. Turns out she was the head of the Toasters as well as the Metro Club gang until the Toasters staged a little coup.

“How do you know?”

“Because I followed Toni from the Metro Club to this place and managed to eavesdrop on her paying them off. Or trying to. They didn’t like the amount and have ambitions for a bigger group.”

Henderson rolled his eyes and muttered, “Just like you.”

“Whatever. The Toasters are out of control and planning to burn Riverfront to the ground, starting from the wharf and moving toward the city. Unless, that is we can stop them. But I don’t know that we can. They intend to burn the whole area down, starting…” Lois turned suddenly as she saw flame light up the sky as a building down the block began to burn. “Eeep! Right now. A building at Bay and oh, probably 128th just started to burn.”

Bill said calmly. “I’m in the situation room. I’ll call the fire dispatch right now. Try to get somewhere safe and let me know where you are.”

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Clark and Lou were driving toward Bay when a car suddenly exploded into flame in front of them. “Whoa!” Clark pulled the vehicle over to the curb. “We’re not driving into that!”

“Then we’ll walk,” Lou bit out. He looked really upset. The sound of fire trucks suddenly began, but they sounded far away.

Clark turned to Lou. “Lou, what’s down at Bay Street? I’ll run down and do whatever you need.” Lou didn’t look like he did much running these days.

Lou looked desperate. “All right. Toni went to meet the Toasters in the warehouse there. I warned her they weren’t to be trusted, but…” He shook his head. He pulled out his gun and started to hand it over butt first. “I’ll follow you as fast as I can, but you may need this. For the Toasters. Those flame guns are mean. I told Toni not to give them those guns. She’s like a daughter to me.”

Clark patted Lou’s shoulder. “Keep the gun, I don’t need it. I’ll go get Toni and bring her back.”

“O.K. I have a backup in my boot anyway,” Lou muttered as Clark left the SUV and he left the car also and began walking past the flaming car, gun in hand, ready.

Clark began to run slowly – for him - past the burning car. Confident Lou could no longer see him, he increased his speed, thankful it was still night and he wouldn’t be seen. Unfortunately he was still in his bartending clothes and the white sleeves of his shirt were visible in the feeble light in this area.

He sped over toward the warehouse fire, ready to put it out, when he saw the Toasters
marching down the center of the street, a trail of burning cars raging behind them. The Toasters paused before a storefront.

“Gentlemen, I'd like to propose a toast.”

Clark could see them all begin to adjust their weapons. He increased the magnification of his vision to the weapons and saw them move the dials from "Light" all the way up to "Toast". He could hear the whine of the guns charging.

“Let's cook.” The lead Toaster gestured to the storefront.

Clark accelerated his speed to the gear where time slowed down for others. He looked around frantically for a water source and found that the building that was their current target was still occupied by a business. Better luck was that it was an older building with a water tower on the roof. He leapt up to the roof, got up near the top of the water tower at the back and pushed. The tower came down satisfactorily, spilling its contents on to the Toasters and their weapons. As he expected, electricity and water didn’t mix and the weapons flamed out.

Clark could hear the 451 – arson - call from a nearing police car and left the arresting to them. He hoped they had a big wagon coming soon.

While the gang suddenly dropped the weapons, loudly exclaiming four letter expletives, and dancing about from the shock they had gotten, he dropped back to the ground and continued running toward the warehouse where Toni was supposed to have met the Toasters.

Clark saw Toni with his x-ray vision before he reached the door. She was struggling helplessly with her bonds and tied to a chair. Clark entered the front door and moved to her side to release her.

Toni looked over at Clark in surprise. “How did you find me?”

“I drove Lou over. He knew where your meet was. A burning car and the Toasters marching down Bay Street stopped us. They were, well, toasting everything. Lou’s behind me, but he doesn’t move fast anymore.”

Clark paused, pulled her upright off the chair and looked her in the eye. “Lou also told me you are in charge of the Toasters.”

“Not anymore. They are out of control! We've got to get out of here before the Toasters come back!”

“The fire department and the cops are taking care of them right now. They don’t know that you are here, though.”

“Looks like you came through for me.”

”Looks like you let me down.”

Toni protested with a shake of her head. “I swear I didn’t know they were going to torch the Apollo. That was their own doing.”

Toni looked at the door at the sound of police and fire sirens approaching. She stared at Charlie for a moment, then lowered her eyes. “I had to create a situation that would allow me to take over the Metros from Johnny. There was no other way.”

“Staging your brother’s fake hit isn’t the solution to any problem, Clark stated vehemently. “There's always another way.”

“Charlie, please --,” Toni pleaded.

Just then, Lou walked in the door.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Lois had watched wide-eyed as the Toasters had marched down the street, flaming cars on the way. They were past her when they stopped in front of a storefront and aimed at it. All of a sudden, a large amount of water came off the roof and doused them. Lois looked up and could see the water tower now laying flat on the roof, its contents spilled. How had the tower collapsed at that particular time?

Fire trucks were now converging on the warehouse fire and also starting to work on the burning cars. Lois had seen the figure of a man walk by and realized it was Lou from the Metro Club, moving at a determined pace toward the rat central Lois had just left and totally ignoring the dancing Toasters.

Turning to follow Lou, Lois was surprised to find a black and white pull up beside her.
The officer called out, “Are you Lois Lane?”

Startled, Lois turned and said, “Yes, that’s me. What do you want?”

“Inspector Henderson called and asked the nearest unit to give you a lift to the Precinct.
He wants to talk to you.”

Momentarily undecided, Lois’ head swung from the officer’s face, back down the street and then back to the officer. Finally she decided it was time to regroup. Maybe Bill had some information for her to help round out her story.

She nodded her acquiescence, the officer opened the back door for her and she slid in with a sigh.
------------
tbc

Artemis