Games People Play: 6/7
by Nan Smith
Previously:
Lois found herself staring at him in horror. "Earth would be practically back in the Stone Age."
"Yeah," Clark said. "Sort of like after Nightfall."
Lois swallowed. "And if Lex and his people were down here with tons of food and technology they'd be fine. There would be chaos at first, maybe some wars, lots of people dying, but in a few years things would settle down and then he could come out and --"
"Luthor the First," Clark said. "It would have been nice to have Space Station Luthor to live and rule, and play emperor from, but I think he'd make do here. No wonder he had this place waiting when Nightfall showed up."
**********
And now, Part 6:
"I wondered about that," Lois said. She cleared her throat, trying to dispel the sensation of a lump of stone settling in her stomach. "How do you think he's going to do it?"
"Those guys said the boss is going to test this set-up in the morning," Clark said. He also cleared his throat. "Which continent do you suppose is going to be suddenly thrown into the Stone Age?"
"I don't know," Lois said. "But something doesn't make sense here. Won't the government or the military or maybe some of the other countries figure out he did it? I mean, if he launches a missile, or something, can't they somehow track it back to where it came from? Won't they come after him?"
Clark hadn't taken his eyes from the display. "What if he doesn't have to," he suggested.
"What do you mean?" She stared at the screen and the blinking lights. It had to be her imagination, but the six tiny sparks that represented the orbiting satellites had assumed a faintly malevolent glow.
"I was thinking -- what if those satellites--" He nodded at the screen. "What if those satellites are actually nuclear weapons just waiting for the signal to detonate?"
That was an appalling thought. "How would he have gotten them into orbit?" she asked. Her voice sounded faint to her, and she cleared her throat again. This couldn't be happening! Except that it was.
"I don't know, but he got the satellites up there somehow. They could easily be nuclear bombs. Maybe Antoinette Baines managed it somehow during the Prometheus project," Clark said. "How many launches were there?"
"I don't know," Lois said. "If Lex used the Messenger launches to put his satellites in orbit --" She broke off. "He might have, I guess. Especially if he's got some of his people at EPRAD, or up on the station."
"Or both," Clark said. "I suspect there's not much Luthor can't -- or won't -- do."
"But why didn't Superman spot them?" Lois asked. "I mean -- he flies into space sometimes, doesn't he?"
"I suppose so," Clark said. "But there's a lot of space up there, and he didn't know about them. I'm not sure he'd be able to find them even if he was looking for them, if he didn't have some idea where they were."
That made sense, Lois thought. Even Superman must have his limits. "Isn't there any way to protect electronics from this EMP thing?"
"Sure. The military has shielded some of their equipment from the possibility of an EMP, but mostly everything else would be affected," Clark said. He turned his head, surveying the room, illuminated by the garish light of the unshielded fluorescent bulbs.
Lois produced her camera. "We need evidence," she said. "Let me get some pictures."
"Right. But make it fast." Clark glanced again at the screen and then began to move around the room, briskly opening drawers, obviously looking for anything that might be used as evidence.
"I wonder how they intend to handle Superman, though," Lois said. That seemed like a rather large oversight in Lex's plan, and it made her uneasy. If there was anything she knew about Lex it was that he wasn't likely to make that kind of mistake.
"I've been wondering about that, myself," Clark said, carefully closing a drawer. "He has to know Superman isn't going to let him take over the world, no matter whether he has all the technology or not."
"Well, I have enough pictures," Lois said, shoving the camera down into the coverall's pocket again. "Let's get out of here. If we can get hold of Superman, maybe he can stop them before they start their test. Even if we can't, we have to alert the authorities. If he explodes a bomb over somebody's country, you know what it'll look like. It could start a nuclear war. Maybe -- maybe that's how he intends to handle the military when he blows up those things." She gestured vaguely at the screen. "If they tear each other apart, he wouldn't even have to get his hands dirty. I don't know if even Superman could stop a nuclear war in time." She bit her lip. It went against the grain, but Clark certainly could get out of here by himself faster than he could if she tagged along. "Maybe we should split up," she suggested. "That way there's a better chance of one of us making it." And then he could come back as Superman and take care of all this.
Except that they didn't have any real proof of what was going on here. Lex was bound to have some kind of cover story, no matter how unlikely it seemed. It might be that they were going to have to let him at least start his plan, and catch him in the act, as it were. That was playing it awfully close, but what choice did they have?
"There's no way I'm leaving you alone in this place," Clark said flatly. "Let's go." He glanced at his watch. "It's three-twenty-four," he added, with a faint note of surprise in his voice. "We've got some time, so let's not waste it."
In spite of her resolve, she was glad he refused to leave her here by herself. "All right. Let's get out of here."
He raised his head and she felt an instant thrill of alarm. She knew the meaning of that pose. Clark was hearing something that she couldn't, and that could only mean someone was approaching.
"Somebody's coming," Clark said, on cue. "Quick; this way."
He hustled her toward the back of the big room, pulled open a door that she hadn't even realized was there and pushed her through. The faint squeak of hinges nearly made her hair stand on end, but almost at once she realized that it wouldn't have been heard outside the room. Beyond the door there was a narrow, dark, very cramped space. Clark crowded in beside her and pulled the door shut.
It was pitch black inside, and Lois pushed backwards, trying to give her much larger partner more room, but the rattle of a key in the outer lock, followed by the sound of footsteps in the room they had just vacated made her freeze. Beside her, Clark was motionless as well. Footsteps came nearer, and Lois held her breath. Very slowly, she eased backwards in the narrow space. Whatever this place was, if she and Clark were found Lex would know that he had been discovered and act immediately. Even Clark might not be able to find and render the bombs -- if indeed that was what they were -- harmless before the damage was done. Besides, could Superman withstand the explosion of a nuclear weapon at close range? Lois didn't know, and she didn't want to have to find out. Lex's seeming oversight on the subject of Superman nagged at her. There was something she was missing.
Something metal gouged her in the middle of her back. Another doorknob, she realized. The little room had an exit. She poked her partner in the side. "There's another door here," she breathed.
Silence beyond the door. Lois held her breath, straining her ears.
"Can you hear anything through it?" he whispered back.
"No."
Another silence. "Me either."
Lois gripped the knob and tried it cautiously. It was locked. "Locked. Just a minute." She reached into the capacious pocket of her coverall and found her lock pick again. Operating by touch, she slipped the little instrument into the keyhole of the knob and began to work.
It seemed like ages but in reality must have been mere seconds before the knob turned under her hand. The faint squeal it made caused her hair to try to stand straight up, but she controlled the urge to shove the door wide and instead eased it open as quietly as she could. She couldn't prevent a slight grating sound, but although it might seem loud to her, in the operations center it was probably inaudible against the background sounds of running equipment. As soon as the aperture was wide enough, she slipped through and paused, momentarily disoriented.
The room was as dark as the little closet had been but she had the impression of a good deal of space around her and for a very short few seconds she felt alone in the echoing silence.
Then she realized that Clark hadn't followed her. She turned back, suddenly aware that the door was open. Clark was still in the closet.
She held perfectly still, waiting. What her partner was doing she wasn't sure but she had no doubt Superman was up to something.
An instant later, he stepped soundlessly through the door and closed it very gently, holding the knob so that the latch closed softly instead of with an audible click. Then he produced his light, illuminating rough, unfinished stone walls and an uneven stone floor. Piled some distance away were a number of unopened wooden boxes and one open one. From the top of the open box trailed an array of wires and what appeared to be a set of earphones.
"What were you doing?" she whispered.
"Listening," Clark said. He looked grim.
"What did you hear?" Lois asked. Peering at him in the illumination of her flashlight beam it almost appeared as if there was perspiration on his forehead. "Who was that?"
"Luthor," Clark said. "And several other men. They're starting their test. We've run out of time."
"We've got to get out of here," Lois said.
"I know."
For a brief instant she fought the same battle that she had fought with herself in the control room. "Let's split up," she said again. "Maybe there's another way out of here. If we both look, maybe we'll find it. One of us needs to get out and warn someone. You go that way." She waved vaguely into the darkness. As dark as it was in here, surely Superman could slip away from her and do something. Clark couldn't let Lex get away with this, could he?
"The only way out is the door we came in," Clark said. "I'm going to have to make one."
"Huh?" For a split second she stared at him, not understanding what he meant. Then comprehension dawned. She hadn't expected it to be so easy.
From the little closet came the faint squeak of hinges. Someone was opening the outer door.
Clark glanced swiftly over his shoulder. "We have to go now. I can't leave you here alone. If Luthor finds you, I'm afraid of what he'll do. Come on."
"What?"
"I'll explain later, if you're still talking to me," Clark said. He wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her tightly against his side. "Tuck your face into my shoulder and hold on."
Wordlessly, she obeyed and felt herself suddenly become lighter than air. Then they were lifting off and she pressed her face tighter into his shoulder. His arm clamped her against him like a bar of iron.
They floated straight upward, and below her Lois heard the inner door open.
Like ghosts, they hovered in mid air. Lois found that she was holding her breath and forced herself to breathe silently. Below her she saw a human figure carrying a flashlight and heard the echoes as footsteps crossed the stone floor. The figure bent over the wooden boxes and she heard the clatter of something falling to the ground. There was a muffled thump that made the echoes reverberate around the cavern and a four-letter word. Then the footsteps were retreating and she heard the door close noisily.
"He's gone," Clark's voice said. "Are you all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked. "Why aren't you going to go back and stop them?"
"I can't." His voice sounded odd. "Do you mind if I explain later?"
She shook her head.
They began to rise slowly again. "Here we go," Clark's voice said. "Keep your eyes closed so you don't get rock dust in them."
Lois squeezed her eyes more tightly shut and then an almost indescribable sensation engulfed her, a vibrating, grinding feeling. Clark had to be digging through rock and soil, one-handed, literally burrowing an exit route for them. Then the sensation was gone and cool night air blew against her skin. She raised her head to the sight of a brilliantly starred night sky past a shoulder clad in blue spandex, and of the ground far below. They had to be well away from the city.
But only for a few seconds. Then the lights of Metropolis were sliding by below. Clark certainly wasn't wasting any time, she thought.
"I'm going to put you down by the Twelfth Precinct. Henderson is on night shift right now. You can tell him everything. I've got a bomb to get rid of."
Lois nodded. "Clark --"
They swooped downward. "We'll talk when I get back. I'll explain everything, but I want to go somewhere that you can yell at me in private." His boots hit the ground in front of the police station and he pushed open the doors. "Sergeant Binns!"
The man behind the desk glanced quickly up. "Superman?"
"Tell Inspector Henderson I said Ms. Lane has something very important to tell him," he said. He looked apologetically at Lois. "I'll be back as soon as possible."
"Be careful," she said, fixing him with a patented Lois Lane glare. "If you get yourself killed, I'll never speak to you again!"
He smiled. "I will." In the blink of an eye he had vanished. In the distance, Lois heard a sonic boom that rattled the windows.
With a sigh, she turned to Norman Binns. The sergeant was staring at the space where Superman had been with a startled expression on his face. "Could you call Inspector Henderson, Sergeant? There isn't much time to waste."
**********
With the intense speed of which he was capable but rarely used within the atmosphere of Earth, Clark streaked toward space, leaving a sonic boom in his wake that probably shook windows all across the continent.
The satellites were centered over each large land mass, in geosynchronous orbit, according to the computer image. That meant, Clark thought, that Luthor didn't intend to simply detonate the bombs on the satellites. That would be much too high to accomplish what he wanted. He was going to have to launch his weapon from each satellite for it to reach the desired altitude above its target -- high enough for the pulse to reach every corner of the land mass below, but not so high that the effect might be too attenuated by distance. Exactly what that distance was he wasn't exactly sure but he figured that Luthor wouldn't put the satellites any higher than they absolutely had to be.
The things were bound to be small; probably not much larger than a Volkswagen, he thought, and very likely coated with some kind of non-reflective substance to conceal them from accidental discovery. But he had seen the computer simulation, and he thought he could figure out from that information, and reasoning, where the satellites were hiding. But he had to move fast. How long it would be before the signal would be sent he didn't know but it couldn't be long. And of course, he had no idea which one of the six was going to be the Guinea pig.
Before he left the atmosphere, he took a deep breath of air, filling his lungs. He could hold his breath for twenty minutes, or, in a pinch, one or two minutes more, but that was his limit. Then, holding his breath, he accelerated upward, trying to estimate from the diagram that he had seen in Luthor's fortress where he would find the satellite.
He had a one in six chance, and he felt slightly guilty as he hovered protectively above the North American continent. Superman wasn't supposed to play favorites but this was the part of the world where the people he cared most about lived. Lois, his parents, the people at the Planet, the residents of Smallville. He had to start somewhere, he rationalized, and here was as good as any.
What was *that*?
Black on black, at first he wasn't sure that he was seeing the thing, an amorphous black blotch against the black of space. The only indication that there was anything was the pinpoint of light, the tip of the sword in Orion's belt, that winked suddenly out. Then another star and another vanished in a leisurely way as he zeroed in on the patch of blackness. Then he saw it, a smooth outline of dull black against the faint cloud of stars behind it. He approached it carefully, unsure of what to do now that he had found one of his targets. If he shoved it out of orbit so that it plunged into the sun or something, would those below, tracking it, realize that something was wrong and --
And what? He didn't even know which satellite was the right one. He was going to have to wait to see which one it was. He needed to locate all six, so that when it happened he could take out the active one, and quickly remove the others.
But the position of this one gave him some clue to where the others probably were. At least he hoped so.
He looked down, setting in his mind the landmarks on the huge blue, green and brown globe beneath him. He was directly over Kansas.
Okay, the other satellites were most likely at this level and centrally located over their individual continents, he thought. Just like on the computer diagram miles below him and to the east. Turning, he raced south.
The satellite was more or less midway over South America. Again he turned and a moment later was headed west.
Each satellite found gave him more certainty of finding the next. Within minutes, he had located all six. With that information in hand, he began to circle the globe, flying west around the equator, keeping watch over the continents.
He had to dip downward once into the atmosphere for a second lungful of air, but he instantly resumed his vigil. And when the rocket fired, he saw it.
The missile burst from the satellite that hung directly over Kansas and accelerated toward the west. He began to follow and paused. The rocket was angling lower, obviously headed for the level where its burst could sow destruction and chaos as it took out the electronics of the civilization on the continent below, but as he watched it leveled out, and at once he realized its purpose.
The rocket was circling the globe and by the time it completed its orbit of the planet and reached Kansas again it would be at the correct elevation for the air burst. Well, it wasn't going to reach Kansas again. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Rather than chase the thing, Superman flew east, tracking the rocket's trajectory over his shoulder until it disappeared around the planet's horizon. In a burst of speed he accelerated, and intercepted the oncoming missile partway around the globe.
With a quick motion, he ripped the object into two pieces and hurled them outward at escape velocity. They were well beyond the elevation at which their satellite had orbited when the nosecone exploded in an enormous globular burst of nuclear fire.
But Clark was already moving. He didn't know if the people down in Luthor's command center had any way of telling what was going on up in space, but he had no intention of giving them the chance to do any more damage. Knowing where the other satellites orbited made it childishly easy to find and dispose of them, one at a time.
But he had no intention of letting all the evidence get away. A quick dive into Earth's atmosphere to refill his air supply for a third time, a race to the Moon, guiding one remaining satellite, and a short time later he lifted off the dark side of Earth's barren companion, leaving behind his prize, its nuclear payload intact.
He hoped Lois had been able to convince Henderson in time to do some good, he thought as he entered Earth's atmosphere and set a course toward Metropolis. If Lex Luthor realized that he and Lois had been there and what they had seen, Clark knew enough of the billionaire to realize that he wouldn't hesitate to destroy the evidence, and with it every denizen of the underground bunker. As it was, Luthor had to know who had disposed of his nuclear satellites. Clark wasn't sure what the man would do, but he was fairly certain that Luthor would do something.
But just once it was going to have to be brought to an end by Metropolis's Finest. Superman was going to have to stay at a safe distance.
**********
tbc
