Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (187/???)

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Should you need to refresh your memory, the previous Part can be found here: Part 186.

Part 187

Lois took a deep breath before stepping off the elevator. She had just come from a perplexing interview at EPRAD, which hadn’t gone down in the way she thought it would. No, not at all.

Karma. That was what it was. Her words from the previous morning had come back to slap her across the face. What did people call that here in the States? Right. Murphy’s Law.

No, wait. That was if something could go wrong, it will. Her interview with EPRAD’s Director Avery hadn’t gone wrong. It had been amazingly right; it was just at the wrong time. She wished Clark had been there to share it with her, instead of skipping it to go out of town. The burden had been left to her, and she was afraid that she had made the wrong decision. Oh, she had plausible excuses for the choice she had made, but that was all they were, excuses. It was a damned if she did, damned if she didn’t type situation. All that she knew was that it had felt wrong.

She filed that thought to nitpick on later as she pushed her way through the doors of Bender and Associates, Attorneys at Law. It was an insane title for a law firm, she decided. What else would they call themselves? Attorneys for Crime? Attorneys at Play?

That morning, she had received a telephone call from Sheldon Bender’s secretary at nine o’clock, requesting Lois’s presence in his office at her earliest convenience. Lois had found going to the office of Luthor’s attorney highly inconvenient.

Lois’s curiosity on why Bender wanted to talk to her was tinged with dread. She doubted Luthor would fake his death only to show up two days later in his lawyer’s office, of all places.

Still, Lois had followed that phone call with one to her favorite A.D.A. to inquire if Mayson knew why Luthor’s attorney would want to meet with her. Mayson had said she could think of a hundred reasons why Luthor’s estate might want to sue her. The A.D.A.’s advice was to hire a lawyer and admit to nothing.

Lois had thought that it was a funny suggestion coming from the D.A.’s office, but refrained from saying so.

She had then called Perry and let him know about the meeting. She wanted someone she trusted to know where she was, in case Luthor had thugs there to kidnap her. She didn’t want to rely on Mayson as her backup, nor did she want to worry Clark by calling him at six-thirty a.m. Vegas time.

That was another excuse, Lois realized. She could have easily called him after her EPRAD interview and before coming here, but she hadn’t. Mostly because what happened at EPRAD was still weighing her down. She would tell him about both meetings during their planned phone call that evening, she had told herself. Another excuse, she knew and hated herself for it.

When Lois was finally ushered into Bender’s office ten minutes later, she was surprised to have the lawyer stand and offer her his hand. He had never treated her so cordially before, which naturally made Lois suspicious of his behavior.

“My condolences, Ms. Lane,” he said. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

So, Bender thought that Luthor was dead. Interesting.

“I thought you’d be busy making sure LexCorp wouldn’t fail without its leader, Mr. Bender,” Lois replied, shaking his hand after making sure it wasn’t holding a summons.

“I’m Mr…. was Mr. Luthor’s personal attorney, Ms. Lane. There are others in my firm who handle the business end of things,” explained the lawyer. He held out a hand to his guest chair. “Please, have a seat.” He sat back down himself. Once Lois had taken a seat, he continued, “Before the wedding, Mr. Luthor signed some paperwork to ensure your financial well-being should anything happen to him. I’m sure no one was more surprised than himself that such precautions would be needed so quickly.”

Lois’s jaw dropped open as the blood drained from her face.

Luthor hadn’t.

He couldn’t have.

Had he made her his beneficiary?

Luthor?

Well, it would explain why Bender was being nice all of a sudden.

“Ms. Lane?” Bender inquired. “Are you all right?”

She cleared her throat and took a deep breath, exhaling it slowly. Luthor was still alive. Any will naming her beneficiary to millions, let alone billions of ill gotten gains, would be thankfully invalid.

“Yes. Fine,” she said. “It seems a bit… premature to be discussing…” She forced herself to say his name though it felt like acid upon her tongue. “— Lex’s will.”

He nodded. “I agree. As his bank accounts are currently frozen due to the legal ramifications of what happened over the weekend. It will be a long time, yet, before I can move forward on that aspect of his estate.”

She stared at him. If it wasn’t Luthor’s will, then… “Can you be more specific on how... he ensured my financial well-being?”

The lawyer slid a document across the table to her. As she picked it up, he continued, “According to Mr. Luthor, you two had an arrangement that should you agree to marry him, he would turn over the ownership of the Daily Planet to you.”

Lois’s heart began to race with anticipation as she studied the papers he had given her. Unfortunately, they were written in a foreign language – Legalese.

“Excuse me?” she said. He couldn’t mean…

“You are now the owner of the Daily Planet.”

Lois could hardly hear her own thoughts under the loud beating of her heart. “There must be some kind of mistake, Mr. Bender. I didn’t marry him.”

“Mr. Luthor signed the ownership papers over to you while you were waiting to walk down the aisle.”

“Before the wedding?” Lois gasped.

“That was the reason for the slight delay to the ceremony,” Bender explained. “I understand he wanted to present it to you on your honeymoon. I filed the change of ownership paperwork this morning with the state of New Troy, as it was the last thing he asked me to do before he died.”

She stared at him. This must be some big huge practical joke.

“Contrary to what the FBI and those with the Metropolis Police Department might feel, Mr. Luthor was an honest man,” Bender went on. “If he agreed to something, even if he should later regret the decision, he would honor it.”

Okay. Now, that Lois couldn’t believe. She had been to the Sewage Reclamation Facility. She knew what it smelled like.

“Do you mean that he made me co-owner of the Daily Planet with him and that with his death it falls completely to me?” she asked, unable to believe that Luthor would let go of such a valuable prize in his holdings and so easily at that. A prize despite his having blown it up.

“No, Ms. Lane, the Daily Planet Newspaper Company and the Daily Planet building both belong entirely to you. He didn’t, on the other hand, leave you any funds with which to rebuild it,” Bender said with a gloating smile. “Nor were you named in his will.”

Ah, there was the rub. That she could believe.

Luthor had given her the Daily Planet, per their agreement, but she would’ve had to beg and plead with her husband for every penny she would need to rebuild and run it. Of course, she was sure that the funds he had received from the insurance on the Daily Planet wouldn’t come along with the company, but had been kept by its previous owner. She didn’t even want to think what the sick bastard would have required her to do to get the money.

She had no idea what to do. She feared that once it was discovered that Lex Luthor was still alive, he would find a way to have the contract giving her the ownership of the Daily Planet invalidated. She needed to find a competent lawyer and fast. She couldn’t let that man get control of the Planet once more.

“Thank you,” Lois said, standing up. “I believe we’re through here.”

“Have a good life, Ms. Lane,” Mr. Bender said, holding out his hand.

She refused to shake it a second time. One decontamination shower was enough to last a lifetime. Instead, she held out her own hand, palm up. “I’ll need the keys to the building and the property title, if you don’t mind.”

Bender’s smile faltered as he dropped his hand. “Right… um…”

Ten minutes later, as she rode down in the elevator, the large ring of keys for the Daily Planet in her purse, she wondered what the outcome to this hiccup would be.

Should it become public knowledge that Lois had received the Daily Planet assets from Luthor during her investigation, it would tarnish her reputation as a reporter. Well, damage it more than this investigation had already done. A grey cloud of impropriety would always hang over her head. Reporters weren’t supposed to receive financial gain for the work they did as part of their job, any more than politicians, judges, or any public officials were.

Bender had told her that the property title was in the mail, being that the paperwork had only been filed that morning. Before she made any Planet-shaking decisions or freak-outs, Lois needed to check to see if these papers he had given her were legit.

***

A shadow fell over his body and Clark opened his eyes behind his sunglasses. “Yes?”

“Um…” The young woman in the bikini blushed. She quickly recovered and shot him an alluring smile. “I… uh… noticed that you have been lying here for quite a while and… um… I just wanted to make sure that you hadn’t fallen asleep. I didn’t want you to awake with a serious sunburn.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” Clark said, sitting up and glancing at his watch. It was only shortly after noon.

“I’m Stephanie,” she said with an air that stated that he would want to know. She reminded him of Lana in a way that wasn’t a compliment.

“Thank you, again, Stephanie,” Clark replied. “You’re quite right. I should be heading inside, now.”

“Inside?” she sputtered with confusing disappointment as if no man had ever shown as little interest in her as he had.

“Yes. I need to buy my girlfriend a gift. Our anniversary is coming up,” he said. The anniversary of the day they had met had already passed, so also had the day Superman had first rescued her, but the day he and Lois had officially become partners was in August. Clark didn’t want to miss that one.

He stood up and slipped on his Superman flip-flops, threw the towel over his arm, and nodded at the young woman.

“Oh,” said Stephanie, shifting her position to better display her assets. “Wouldn’t you rather take a dip in the pool and cool off first?”

“No,” he replied honestly, heading for the hotel. “Have a good day.”

Stephanie harrumphed behind him.

This was the second time this morning Clark had needed to go inside to avoid a well-intentioned young woman who wanted to rescue him from becoming sunburned and save herself from boredom. He doubted it would be the last. The first one had actually asked him to help her apply sunscreen. He had noticed a similar bottle in Stephanie’s hands.

He couldn’t wait until he was healed from his bout with Kryptonite, had his powers and suit back, and no longer needed to display his body so publicly.

One aspect of his life that he treasured above all else, with the exception of Lois, since moving to this dimension, was his privacy. He had lost it in his old dimension and it annoyed him to no end when someone invaded it on their own volition. It was an inconvenience that he needed to leave his healing sunbath to go inside to avoid others worrying about him, but it would draw too many questions if he remained lying in the ninety degree sun for hours on end without consequence. He assumed that they meant well, but he wished they would just leave him alone.

Perhaps the interruptions wouldn’t have bothered him so much if he hadn’t been sharing his apartment with Jimbo for the last several months. Actually, he had enjoyed the young man’s company, especially since he no longer had the Daily Planet to go to. There were times, though, when Clark just wanted to be himself, in the privacy of his own apartment, and was unable to do so.

Mostly, all these women ogling him embarrassed Clark. Grown women shouldn’t titter like gossiping schoolgirls whenever they walked by. It wasn’t as if his body was much different from most of the other men at the pool. Perhaps he would be lucky and Jimmy would have returned from UNN and could join him, deflecting all the unwanted attention onto himself.

The young man hadn’t said much at dinner at the café the night before. Clark hadn’t wanted to discount Jimmy’s love-at-first-sight declaration, being that he himself had fallen under its spell, but Jimmy was much younger than Clark had been when it had happened to him. Jimmy could easily be confusing desire with love, especially since the poor man had been in jail and away from female companionship for several months.

Jimmy had inquired about how the Luthor investigation was progressing, and Clark had been embarrassed to admit that the subject hadn’t come up. Jimmy had given him a teasing smile, which only made Clark’s unease increase.

Knowing Lois, it must not have been progressing at all or she would have been hesitant to speak of anything else. Either that or it was progressing spectacularly and she wanted to keep all the acclaim to herself. One of the two.

The latter would explain why she was so insistent that he not return to Metropolis early. She had suffered more than he had during the investigation, with the humiliation of Luthor’s constant voyeurism of her apartment. Clark was too close to it, anyway, and was desirous not to even think of the man or the investigation now that he was dead. As a victim of the billionaire’s insane mind, he would be glad to move past this episode and start the next chapter of their lives. Therefore, Lois was more than welcome to keep all the honors of writing said article for herself.

On the other hand, with Luthor dead, any knowledge of Luthor’s heinous acts was just that: knowledge. That knowledge wouldn’t give them any power to overthrow the corrupt king, as the man could not fall lower than his dive off the penthouse balcony had taken him.

Clark had hoped he would find Jimmy returned from UNN upon his arrival to their hotel room. Instead, he found a phone message from his friend, informing him that his interview wasn’t until that afternoon, and apologizing for not being there to have lunch with him.

Tossing on a t-shirt to cover his bare chest, Clark went down to the gift shops in the lobby. He could return to the mall at the hotel down the strip, but he didn’t want to be out of the sun for too long. Clark would look for a little something for Lois, and a book to read for himself the next time he returned to the pool. Perhaps that would discourage anyone else from trying to start up a conversation with him.

Give me my sunlight and let me be!

Clark felt bad about being so selfish, but the truth was he wanted to heal and return to Metropolis and to Lois as soon as possible. He tilted down his sunglasses and tried to x-ray through the doors of the elevator. He was able to see a slight flickering of the floors passing by, but then the view faded back into the solid metal doors.

The noise of the casino was deafening without his super hearing. He didn’t care to experience the sound of a hundred slot machines with it.

***

Lois opened her front door to find Inspector Henderson standing outside. She raised a brow. She wasn’t too surprised. She had looked through her peephole first.

“To what do I owe this pleasure, Inspector?” Lois asked, glad that she didn’t see any FBI Special Agents in his wake.

“May I?” he asked before entering and sitting down on her sofa.

“You better not have opened Luthor’s sardine can without me,” she said, shutting her door. “I don’t know how many more dictionaries I can afford to give to the Metropolis Police Department with the word ‘Exclusive’ highlighted.”

He waited until Lois sat down on the couch opposite him before speaking again, “I’ve just returned from S.T.A.R. Labs. You were right. The blood from the splatter contained amphibian DNA, and in enough quantities that we believe that the man who jumped from Luthor’s balcony wasn’t fully human. Now, we need a few more details about this ‘hunch’ of yours.”

Lois’s eyes widened as she tried to come up with some sort of answer. She had no idea how she had known the clone had amphibian DNA. It had just been another one of her psychic gut feelings. “You’re not going to like it.”

“There’s a lot about this case I don’t like already, but go on,” Henderson said.

“I knew Lex Luthor would never commit suicide, if he could find another way out. Nor could I see him going into any situation without a way out. Until I deduced what that way out was, I couldn’t reveal my hunch,” Lois said. It was the truth, but she was stalling while she racked her brain for an acceptable excuse. “When you mentioned Cat being in Luthor’s wine cellar, I recalled him showing me his bunker during Nightfall and I realized how he must’ve escaped. Then, I figured the man who had jumped was someone made to look like Luthor,” she said. “It couldn’t be a mask, like the one of my face we found in the safe, because… well, I’m sure that would have been a dead giveaway. Pardon my pun.”

He waved impatiently for her to continue.

“Therefore, Luthor’s double had to be believable enough to pass a medical examiner’s review; it had to be plastic surgery or a clone. Since the medical examiner didn’t mention any surgical scars during the autopsy…”

“There was no autopsy, Ms. Lane. I saw him jump. The world saw him land. Open and shut case of suicide and cause of death. We did have his blood tested for drugs and alcohol, though, just in case,” Henderson said. “He came back clean.”

“Oh,” Lois said, frowning. “They didn’t check out his body… or what was left of it, at all?”

“Enough to verify he had been shot in his left shoulder within the last six months,” he said. “That was enough of a verification of identity for me, but apparently not for you.”

“That’s only because the clone was my date on the night the terrorists took over the Daily Planet,” Lois said. “Luthor, the real Lex Luthor wasn’t there.”

“I know,” Henderson replied.

“You know?” she echoed incredulously. The ratfink had been holding out on her.

“I have an eye witness who saw him leave his private garage twice that evening within minutes of each other,” he said. “Go on about how you knew he was a clone.”

Lois glowered, wishing that Henderson would be more frank and open about what he knew, because if he did she would finally have the source in the MPD that she deserved.

She was tempted to tell him that it was merely an assumption she had made after reading Jurassic Park. In the book by Michael Crichton, and the movie by Steven Spielberg, scientists clone dinosaurs using blood found in prehistoric mosquitoes and mixing it with frog DNA to fill in the gaps in the genome. If she didn’t already know that upon telling Henderson this so-called ‘truth’, she would’ve lost his respect, it would have been worth it just to see his shocked expression.

“I had a source tell me,” she said.

“What source?” he asked, leaning forward.

Lex Luthor, himself – a supposedly dead one in a psychic vision.

“What do I look like?” Lois returned. “A seventh grader for the Whippany Middle School Gazette? I don’t name sources.”

Henderson scowled. “Fine. What did your source tell you about Luthor’s clone?”

“It was off the record.”

He rolled his eyes now. “I won’t tell.”

It was Lois’s turn to look skeptical. “Just like you didn’t tell the FBI that we would be in Luthor’s office yesterday afternoon?”

“I never said that I kept them out of the loop. Besides, if I had told you, you would have zipped up quicker than a couple of teenagers necking on a couch when a car pulls in the drive,” he replied.

“That’s sick, Henderson,” Lois said, betting he wouldn’t have used such an analogy with her partner.

“You going to deny it?”

“No,” she grumbled.

He leaned towards her, putting his forearms on his thighs, and said softly, “I didn’t tell them what we found in Luthor’s private video room or even that he had one.”

Lois caught his gaze and knew he wasn’t lying. “Fine. My source said that Lex Luthor had made a clone of himself, which he had used the night he had been shot at the Daily Planet. There. Satisfied?”

“You had this information and you sat on it?” he sputtered.

“Well, my sources aren’t always… reliable,” she admitted much to her consternation. “It wasn’t something I would naturally take as fact. Like being told a man is suddenly flying around Metropolis rescuing people, I wanted to confirm it first.”

“Weren’t you the first person to meet Superman?” Henderson asked.

“That’s not the point here,” Lois said with a fling of her hand. “Anyway, after I re-read Luthor’s Chinese fortune, which he had kept for some unfathomable reason, and having known that he had jumped to his death, the information seemed a little more trustworthy. As I said, it was a hunch to have S.T.A.R. Labs check for frog DNA.”

“So, did you verify it?” he asked. “Is it possible to clone a human being?”

She raised a brow. Wasn’t he the one who had just come in here and announced that S.T.A.R. Labs had validated her theory? “Apparently so.”

“Right,” Henderson said, actually appearing chagrined.

“Any idea on when you’ll get the elevator shaft open to Luthor’s bunker?” she asked.

“We’re working on it.”

“It’s five hundred meters down, so you better bring some long rope,” Lois said.

“You’re not invited, by the way. FBI’s orders. No civilians allowed,” he returned. “Too dangerous.”

She rolled her eyes, not surprised.

He stared at her as if debating something in his mind. “What if Lex Luthor’s not down there? What if he’s already scampered off to someplace new?”

“What?” Lois shook her head. “No, he’s going to be down there.” He had to be. Although, Luthor was social man. How long could he stay underground all by himself? And he hadn’t been in his bunker in her vision, but some other locked room with windows.

“Did he tell you that he would wait for you to join him?” Henderson said wryly, knowing the truth. “I’m going to put you in a safe house until we find the real Luthor.”

She jumped to her feet. “No way!”

“We both know that Luthor’s going to come after you,” Henderson said, also rising to his feet. “Soon, it will be public record that it was your investigation of the Nightfall virus that led us to Luthor as being behind the hoax. When it does, he’s going to come after you. That is, if he isn’t already coming after you because of what you did on Saturday.”

“I’m not going into hiding!” Lois insisted.

“If anything were to happen to you, Kent would kill me,” he said, looking her in the eyes.

“I… that’s not… it…” she stammered, before finally putting her hands on her hips. “How in the hell do you know about us?”

Henderson had the audacity to smile. “Ms. Lane, I too have my sources.”

“Well, my answer is still ‘no’,” Lois said. Once Clark was back in town, she would have all the protection she would ever need, and then some.

***

Several hours after Clark had returned from lunch, Jimmy came out to the pool area and plopped down in the sweltering heat next to his friend.

“I can’t believe you’re still out here,” Jimmy said, removing his already loosened tie.

Clark closed his book and flipped over onto his back in order to sit up. “I just came back out,” he exaggerated. “How did the interview go?”

Jimmy tilted his head back and forth. “Okay, I guess.”

“Just okay?”

Jimmy shrugged and leaned over his knees. “It was kind of weird. I mean, they knew who I was.”

“They had invited you out here for the interview,” Clark reminded him.

“Well, yeah, I know that, but it was totally surreal. I mean, I thought that they had wanted to interview me because Luthor had framed me, or Jimbo, as the scapegoat for the Daily Planet bombing, but the way they prefaced my interview…” He shook his head. “It’s as if they want people to believe I’m some hot shot photojournalist.”

“Aren’t you a photographer?” Clark asked. “Perry did publish some of your photographs, ergo…”

“Well, yeah, but I never thought of myself in those terms. I’d love to be James Olsen, would-be photojournalist, but actually, I’m just Jimmy Olsen, Lois and Clark’s researcher. These people knew that I was the one who took that photo of Superman flying Lois into the Daily Planet that first day he appeared. They asked me about Trask, Bureau 39, and the photos I took of them invading your family’s farm and being arrested by that idiot sheriff when I asked for help. They knew I had met Superman, you know regarding his ship.” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t tell them he rescued me from almost walking in front of that truck when I was loco for April Stephens, though.”

Clark smiled. If April Stephens could only see you now. “So, how does it feel to be a celebrity?”

“You’re right; fame isn’t what I thought it would be.”

“Is it better?” Clark inquired. That was how most people perceived it on the first day. His first day of fame included being outed as an alien, accused of being a traitor, and losing the woman he had thought he had wanted to marry and the woman he grown to love within minutes of meeting her, so his experience wasn’t the same as most people’s.

Jimmy looked up from his hands. “If I’m famous for knowing Superman, how will I know that they admire me for my actual work or for hanging off his cape?”

“Anyone who knows you knows the truth, Jimmy. Lois and I wouldn’t have been able to crack half the cases we worked on this year, if it weren’t for you and your hard work,” Clark insisted. “Anyway, it wasn’t some other guy holding the camera and getting those shots. It’s not like Superman gave you any of those photos, or took them himself. Any credit you’ve gotten from them is because you’ve earned it.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Jimmy murmured.

“Do you think Lois and I ride on Superman’s cape?” Clark asked softly.

“No! Absolutely not, CK. You and Lois, wow, you guys are amazing what you ferret out, and there are plenty of cases you’ve busted wide open that didn’t involve Superman at all,” Jimmy said.

Clark wasn’t as convinced, since he knew Superman had tagged along on all of their cases, maybe not overtly, but definitely covertly.

“The truth is, CK,” Jimmy continued. “I…” His voice faded. He was quiet a moment and then slapped his palms against his thighs, standing up. “I’m really hot in this suit, man. How in the hell do you wear one all summer long? Phew! I’m going to head in and get my trunks.”

As Clark watched his friend walk back into the hotel, he had the sinking feeling that wasn’t what Jimmy had wanted to say at all.

***

Lois raised the grate that blocked the entrance to the parking garage, and then pulled it down behind her, relocking the deadbolt lock from the inside. She walked as far as she could into the darkness before turning on her flashlight; at least she knew she wouldn’t run into any cars.

When the Daily Planet building had been boarded up after the bombing, its parking garage had been deemed ‘unsafe’ by LexCorp’s engineers. It appeared sound to her.

She didn’t want the beam from her flashlight to attract notice by those on the street, so she quickly headed to the stairwell door. She pulled the large ring of keys from her briefcase, looked at the sheer number of them, and dropped them back into her bag. Next, she pulled out her lock picks and opened the door that way. It seemed to take less time than testing every single key would have done.

The stairs in this back corner of the building seemed to be in better repair than she had expected. She climbed up several stories and exited onto the third floor. It was strange to be walking these halls in the dark of night without any lighting and with the only noise the dull hum of traffic from outside. She almost expected a ghostly image to appear in the light as it shined against the office windows.

The offices on this level seemed in good condition.

Yes, the Daily Planet had been bombed. Yes, they would need to repair or rebuild the ground floor, lobby, and the basement printing department due to fire or water damage, but the offices into which she beamed her flashlight appeared more dusty than damaged.

Lois returned to the stairwell and continued her upward climb. She had to admit the several months of time passing hadn’t cleared the smoky smell from the air. They would need to fix that as well. Finally, she made it to the floor where she had worked. Here the door had been broken and was hanging off its hinges. It hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of what was to come.

She scanned around the room. Not bad. Not bad at all. Some plaster had fallen down during the explosions, but the bullpen was mostly intact.

There was the conference room where Clark had asked her out for the first time. Jimmy had just announced that Platt’s accusation about the explosion of the Messenger had been proven by S.T.A.R. Labs. She and Clark had hugged and then he had asked her to dinner. More recently, she and Clark had been handcuffed together during the hostage situation much to his chagrin and her delight. Good times.

Lois recalled that she had suggested that they be handcuffed together the next time they had time to talk. He couldn’t have gone to Vegas without her, if she had done that.

Two doors down was Perry’s office, locked up and entirely too quiet. She almost expected him to stomp out and start yelling at everyone to get off their collective fannies and get back to work. It had been in there that she had seen Clark for the first time and called him ‘Chuck.’

She approached her desk and felt a tug of longing. She scanned her flashlight across the room and stopped the beam at Clark’s desk. It still had his computer, files, and telephone on it.

Luthor had condemned the building after the bombing and nobody had been allowed to retrieve their stuff. Everyone had just assumed that either the building was too dangerous to enter or everything had been destroyed. She added this fallacy to Luthor’s pile of lies. Lois, on the other hand, had covered enough fires to know that many of the older buildings were built to more sturdily than the newer ones and, therefore, could withstand fires better.

She crossed over to Clark’s desk and lifted up the receiver of his phone. The line was dead. She hadn’t expected anything else and would have been surprised if the phone service wasn’t one of the first things cut at the Daily Planet after Luthor had closed her down. She hung up the phone.

Dusting off her hands, she headed up the couple of stairs towards the landing with the elevators. There she saw that the doors to one of the elevators had been wrenched open. Her heart skipped a beat, aching. Clark… Superman must have done that when he tried to save that kid who Luthor had hired. Skippy? She turned away from the gaping hole and the caution tape.

Walking down the hall towards the main stairwell, she went around the corner and headed towards the ladies’ room. There on the wall between ladies and gents was a pay telephone. She lifted up the handle and smiled.

A dial tone.

***End of Part 187***

Part 188

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