“Joel?” Lois called out involuntarily, startled by the discovery. She scrambled off the bed, and spun around the room, searching for something, anything to stand on to bring her closer to the vent. She eyed the ‘bathroom’ bucket and grabbed it, flipping it over so she could stand on it. She could reach the vent, but she couldn’t see into it.
She wanted to call out to him again, but at the same time, if his captors realized she knew they had him, they might move him. So she forced herself to be quiet, and just listen… She heard another cry, though he didn’t sound overly distressed in any way. An uncontrollable sob escaped her lips, and she clamped her hand over her mouth. Part of her was filled with joy – he was alive! He was here! But she was trapped, and she had no idea how to reach him.
Lois eyed the vent above her, feeling helpless. She could just reach her fingers to the bottom two screws, but even if she could get them off, she couldn’t possibly reach the top…
She sighed as she stepped off the bucket, staring up at the vent that could lead her to her son. “Clark, where are you?” she whispered forlornly, setting herself back down on the tiny cot. She hated feeling this helpless…
But she’d find a way. Surely someone would come back to check on her at the very least. And when they did, she would be prepared.
Her son was counting on her.
~L&C~
Oliver hung his head in shame as they rode back up the elevator. How could he have let this happen? Lois was now imprisoned, and who knew what they were going to do with him… Oliver assessed whether he could take down the guys that surrounded him, especially in handcuffs. There were three guards around him, two on each side, and one behind him. They each held a gun, aimed at him. Oliver closed his eyes, thinking as the elevator rode upwards. In his martial arts training, he had worked on attacking several people at once, but not in such a confined space, and certainly not with his hands in chains. If he made a mistake, he was sure they’d shoot him.
Just as he was deciding he might be able to pull something off, the elevator stopped and a guard nudged a pistol in his back, urging him to move. He had waited too long. Oliver missed his chance. Or –
He walked just slightly slower than the two guards on either side of him, tripping up the guard behind him for just a second. That second was what Oliver needed, as he used his elbow to knock the guy behind him in the chest. Oliver stepped back and spun so he was behind the guard, wrapping his cuffed arms around him, so the guard would act as a shield from the other two.
Just as the other two guards realized what happened, the doors of the elevator closed. Oliver pulled the guard so he could reach the button panel. He hit the last button, sending them back to the floor where they had left Lois.
The guard struggled in Oliver’s grasp, but luckily he couldn’t do much to maneuver out of it. Oliver swung the guard to one side, knocking the pistol out of his grasp as his elbow hit the wall. In one movement, Oliver swept the weapon behind himself with his foot. The guard was now flailing in Oliver’s grasp, trying to turn to face him. Oliver let his grip loosen for just a moment, so the guard could face him, and Oliver could knee him in the crotch.
“All right… you wanna give me the keys to these now?” Oliver taunted, still keeping his grip around the guard’s shoulders.
“I don’t have it,” the guard said in gasps. “I only have the keys to the girl’s cell…”
“Then give those to me,” Ollie said, glancing at the elevator panel. The doors were just about to open.
Oliver could see the key ring on the guard’s belt. He hated to do it, but he needed him unconscious. Oliver took his arms off from around his head, and elbowed him in the face, smacking him into the corner, where he fell in a heap.
The door chimed open, and Oliver bent to grab the keys and the pistol. He didn’t intend to use the weapon, but he didn’t want the guard waking and coming after him with it. As he stepped out, he realized that the others were probably trying to call up the elevator to come chase him down. There didn’t seem to be any emergency stairs in this place, so his best bet was to keep the elevator down on this level.
Oliver dragged the unconscious guard and laid him between the doors so they couldn’t close, and jogged down the relatively dark hallway.
“Lois!” he called, looking down the three choices. He couldn’t remember exactly which arm of the corridors they had taken her.
“Here, Ollie!” she called to his right, down at the far end.
Oliver loped down the hallway, the pistol awkwardly in his confined grasp.
“I’m gonna get you out of there, Lois. Just hang tight,” Oliver said, setting the weapon down next to the door as he fumbled with the keys. “They should really label these, you know?” he said, trying one after the other, looking for the one for her door.
“Ollie, I heard Joel. He’s here!” she said excitedly through the window of the door.
“Good, then this little trip wasn’t entirely in vain…” he said, just as the fourth key he tried opened the door. “Bingo! You’re free!”
Lois pointed to the vent in her cell. “He’s through there somewhere, Ollie. If you can just give me a boost—“
“Whoa, no Lois. We gotta get out of here. Chloe and Clark have no idea we’re stuck down here.”
“Ollie, my son is here! I have to go after him!”
“Lois—we need to get Clark first. It is way too dangerous. Now, come on—my ‘friend’ over there is holding the elevator for us,” he said with a nod towards where he came from.
“I’m already down here. All I need is to get into that vent. I can crawl through it and—“
“And what, Lois? Get caught on the other side? What good would that do Joel? Besides, he may not be on this level.” Lois looked forlornly at the vent, reconsidering. Oliver sighed. “Look, we know he’s here… we won’t leave him behind. But first, we’ve got to get to the others.”
Lois looked longingly at the vent, thinking. She sighed and then nodded. “All right. But just how do you expect we’ll get out of here? Surely they’ll stop us if we get back to the surface level.”
“They took all my gear… but you look like you still have all your stuff. Do you have your cellphone?”
“Yeah,” she said, fishing it out of her pocket to show him.
“Good. Turn it on. As soon as we’re close enough to the surface, Chloe should be able to pick up on its signal.”
“How do you know she’ll know to do that?”
He shrugged with a grin. “I know Chloe. It will at least give us a shot at getting some back up.”
Lois nodded, turning on her cell. “Okay. Now what?”
Oliver gestured with both his hands towards the pistol. “You’re an army brat, right? You know how to use one of those?”
Lois grudgingly picked up the weapon. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Good. Cause I may need your help when we go face our friends upstairs,” Oliver said as they headed back towards the elevator.
~L&C~
Clark landed with a whoosh a few hundred yards from the compound. He had spotted Oliver’s helicopter and assumed he would be there waiting for him.
Bart sprinted into view in a burst of light. “All right, so where’s our other amigos?”
“I don’t know,” Clark answered in a worried tone. “Oliver is definitely here somewhere, though.”
“Do you think he went in there on his own?”
Clark’s brow knitted in concern. “I hope not. But sometimes Oliver – does what he wants,” Clark said with a sigh. “Have you seen AC?”
“I’m right here,” AC said, approaching them from behind, causing the other two to turn towards him. “The water’s cold, but it isn’t too frozen. I can swim in from below the surface.”
“Be careful. Oliver is here, but nowhere to be found. If he went in on his own, then they might already be alerted that we are here,” Clark warned. He touched the device in his ear. “Chloe? Can you read our location?”
“Yeah…” she said on the communicator, sounding hesitant.
“What is it Chloe?” Clark prodded, recognizing through years of friendship a note of concern in her voice.
“Clark, you’re not going to like this…” she began.
Clark sighed, knowing they were wasting time, giving whoever was in that compound a chance to get a step ahead of them. “Chloe, we don’t have time. Just tell me what it is.”
“Um, you should know that I picked up Lois’ cellphone signal from inside the compound.”
Clark glanced up, panic written on his face. “What? Why would she come out here?”
Chloe sighed, “Clark—he’s her son too.”
“And Oliver? Have you tracked him?”
“He checked in a while ago, but that was the last I heard from him.”
“All right, Chloe,” Clark said, suddenly all business as he tried to push the thought of Lois inside that building away. “AC will go in through the surrounding lake. He will try to let us in without hitting off any alarms. He has ten minutes to find the entrance we located back at Watchtower,” Clark said, glancing at AC who nodded in confirmation. “If he doesn’t succeed, I’ll bust in, and Bart and I will race through the building to see what we can. I hope we can keep a low profile though…”
“OK, I’ll keep an eye on things here. And I’ll let you know if Lois’ phone shows up on my radar again.”
“Thanks, Chloe.” Clark closed his cellphone, his heart heavy with worry. “Why would Lois step into the middle of all this?” he asked no one in particular.
Bart and AC exchanged looks. AC clapped Clark on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Clark. If she’s in trouble, we’ll help her.”
Clark nodded. Though it did nothing to ease the knot of fear in his stomach.
~L&C~
Lois and Oliver headed into the elevator, Lois reluctantly clutching the pistol from the fallen guard.
“We have to hope we make it to the top without stopping. With just two of us—“ Oliver said, shaking his head. “Clark is going to kill me when he realizes I let you tag along.”
“Clark will get over it,” Lois said quietly, watching the panel as it lit up, moving up past various floors.
On the fifth floor up, the doors chimed open. Oliver stepped around Lois so he was in front of her. “I appreciate the sentiment, Ollie. But I’m the one with a gun,” she said, giving him a sidelong smile.
Oliver tried to push the ‘close’ button, hoping they’d continue unmolested on their mission to get out of there, but as the doors swung open, three other officers faced them, pointing rifles at them.
“Drop your weapon!” one of the men commanded.
“Like hell I will,” Lois grounded out, ready to aim and shoot if need be.
Oliver had his hands in the air. “Lois, don’t,” he said, moving closer to her. Then, he grabbed the gun from her and swung at the three guards. “Allow me!”
He had the guards distracted, which might be as good as they were going to get. Ollie shouted at Lois over his shoulder, “Lois, run!”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Seeing the elevator was blocked by Oliver and the guards, she turned and headed down the hallway, searching for a door to duck into.
Oliver managed to step back into the elevator and closed the door before the guards could stop him.
~L&C~
Lois found a stairwell, where none had seemed present on the floor they had put her in that tiny cell.
She stepped in for cover, and to give herself a chance to catch her breath.
She had seen Oliver disappear back into the elevator, and she knew the guards would be coming after both of them, and probably had others on the lookout for them all over the building. She had to tread carefully.
Hearing herself breathe in the echoic stairwell, she felt rather safe. Lois glanced over the railing, seeing the stairs went up quite a ways, but she was only two levels above the ground floor. She felt a lurch in her chest, wondering if Joel was held on any of those levels below her. In the cell, his cry had come from far away, somewhere above her. If she was close…
She only hesitated a second, then ran down the two flights of stairs to the basement level. She told herself that Oliver would make it out and get Clark. If she got caught, then it would only be a matter of time before he would come and rescue her – and hopefully, their son as well.
When Lois reached the bottom level, she peeked through the window in the door. The corridors looked different here than where they had held her captive; the walls were metallic, clinical. Carefully, she opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
Lois glanced up, noticing that cameras were strategically placed throughout. She would be spotted eventually, but she didn’t care if she could just find Joel…
Having a good sense of direction, she followed the floor plan in the path of where her cell had been, three floors below. Joel had to be here somewhere. She just hoped this was the right floor.
Warily, Lois made her way down the hallway, staying against the wall just under the cameras as much as possible. The halls weren’t well lit, which she hoped was working to her advantage.
Peeking into one door, the room looked like a lab of some sort, or a hospital. A metal table lay in another room, near a glass cabinet with all sorts of medical equipment, though Lois got the distinct impression that the room wasn’t designed to save lives – but rather, to experiment with them.
She shoved that dark thought away, afraid to think about what that could mean about what they were doing with Joel.
As she inched down the hallway, she thought she heard a baby gurgle, and she started moving faster, a whispered, “Joel!” escaping her lips.
Eventually she came to a glass wall, and there inside, was her son, sitting on a table, surrounded by barriers. But what puzzled her even more, was what he was holding in his pudgy little hand – her blue kryptonite bracelet.
~L&C~
Oliver made it out of the compound, his heart heavy, knowing Lois was still in there somewhere.
He dreaded facing Clark and seeing the inevitable recriminating expression on his face. It’s not like Oliver could have stopped Lois from coming with him. But he knew that Clark wouldn’t see it that way…
Still, they had to act fast to get her out of there. Oliver checked his watch, seeing that he was just a few minutes later than their original rendezvous time. It had seemed to him that they had been down there much longer.
He headed to the meeting point, and sure enough, saw Bart and Clark waiting for him.
“Oliver! What happened?” Clark asked immediately. “Where’s Lois?”
Oliver stared at him a second, somewhat relieved that he wouldn’t have to reveal that bit of news to Clark himself. “I guess Chloe figured it out?”
Clark nodded. “Oliver, why did you bring her here?”
Here we go, thought Oliver. “Clark, I couldn’t stop her. Come on, let’s not do this now, okay? We just need to get her back.”
“Fine. Any idea where they took her?”
Oliver shook his head. “I was trying to escape with her. But I got cornered and told her to get out of there. If she didn’t make it out of there, she either got captured or she—“ Oliver hesitated.
“Or she what, Oliver?” Clark prodded, looking very anxious.
“Clark, Lois heard Joel down there. She probably is going to try and rescue him herself,” Oliver admitted reluctantly.
“She's what? He’s
here?” Clark said excitedly, a note of hope sounding in his voice for the first time in a long while.
Oliver nodded, allowing a small smile. “Yeah. He is,” he said, clapping his hand on Clark’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go rescue your family.”
~L&C~
Lois stared through the glass for a moment, just watching her son. Happy tears flowed down her face, as he looked unharmed. She pressed her hand to the glass, wishing she could touch him. Lois glanced around, looking for a way into the room, but it appeared to be a wall of solid glass.
“I’m going to get you out of there, Joel. Just hang on,” she said, wondering if the glass was soundproof or even transparent from inside. Not that it would matter to a baby… but still, she hoped that somehow he had seen her and knew that she was coming for him.
She wondered what they had been doing to him, what they knew about him. How had he gotten her bracelet? She must have left it in his room near his crib the day of the wedding…
She couldn’t think about that now. Lois had to find a way to get him out of there.
Lois started past the room, not finding a door near either side of the glass wall. Obviously there had to be a way in… Reluctantly, she left the glass wall, now desperate to find an entrance to the room.
Suddenly, a door opened, and standing before her was General Slade Wilson.
“Lois Lane. We have a few questions for you,” he said, nodding to someone behind her.
She tried to turn and run, but two guards were already behind her, ready to handcuff her.
“What are you doing with my son? I didn’t think the US Army was into kidnapping children!” she spat.
“That baby is no ordinary child, Miss Lane, is he?” Wilson said calmly, stepping up to her. “So, come into my office and we’ll have a chat,” he said, nodding to his soldiers to guide her into another room. “I’m more curious than ever to speak to the mother of the Blur’s child.”
----
Come and speculate what's in store over
here!
