Eighteen-year-old Clark Kent entered into Lex’s private study. He stifled a yawn and rubbed at his tired eyes, wondering why in the world his brother needed to see him in the middle of the night. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, he knew. Nothing good ever happened in the middle of the night.
“You wanted to see me?” Clark asked tonelessly.
“Yes. Thank you for coming so quickly,” Lex said, turning away from the merry blaze in his fireplace.
“In the middle of the night?” Clark pressed, irritable from being woken from his dreamless, satisfying sleep. He tried to stifle another yawn, but lost the battle.
“My apologies,” Lex offered. He swept a hand toward the two armchairs sitting on either side of the fireplace. “Please, take a seat. Wine?”
“No, thank you,” Clark replied as he sat. “What’s on your mind, Lex? I assume you have a job for me,” he said bluntly, unimpressed with Lex’s offer.
Lex cracked a small smile as he sat and took a sip of dark red wine from a glass on the side table. “You always do like to cut straight to the chase, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t make much sense to shoot the breeze when we both know you wouldn’t have called me in unless you had an assignment for me. Not in the middle of the night, anyway.”
“So serious all the time!” Lex replied, swirling the wine in his glass. “We used to be so close and all.”
“We’re brothers,” Clark said cagily, wondering where Lex was going with this. “You’ve always looked out for me, and I appreciate that. But…I’ve been locked up here in this penthouse for more than ten years…unless I’m running an ‘errand’ for you. I want to get out, explore the world. I’m eighteen, Lex. Even if the police were still looking for me, they’d never recognize me. I don’t look like the same dumb kid who accidentally knocked over the candles that killed his parents.”
Lex appeared conflicted for a moment. Then his entire face changed. “Indeed. And you shall have your freedom, soon, if all goes well.”
“Soon isn’t good enough, Lex. You’ve been promising ‘soon’ for a long time now.” Clark frowned and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. “I’ll do…whatever the job is…and I get some freedom. You know I’m strong enough to take it anyway.”
“All right,” Lex said calmly. “Do the job and we’ll talk about how best to slip you into the rest of society without raising any suspicions.”
Clark nodded. “Deal. So, what’s the target?”
“Arthur Chow.”
“Him? Or his business?”
“Him. He’s been poking around, trying to get a handhold into LexCorps. Out of the public view, of course.”
“Of course,” Clark allowed with a shrug. “You want me to scare him off or…?”
“I want you to eliminate the competition,” Lex said with dark casualness.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night. My jet will fly you out to California. You’ll do what you do best. And then we’ll talk about getting you out into the world.”
***
Clark silently scaled the wall of Arthur Chow’s sprawling mansion. He was dressed from head to toe in black, with only his eyes visible in the face mask that obscured his identity. He wasn’t yet completely sure how he was going to carry out his orders, but he was no stranger to improvising. In a way, it made things more interesting to figure out his methods on the fly. He’d already scanned the mansion with his X-ray vision and listened closely with his enhanced hearing. But things could change in an instant, he knew, so he stayed sharp and always made sure he was willing and able to adapt to anything that might occur.
It was getting late and the activity inside the mansion was becoming more subdued. But it wasn’t late enough to ensure that the occupants of the massive home were all asleep in their beds. So Clark was cautious as he worked his way ever upward, finding the tiniest fingerholds possible in the otherwise well-fitted stone wall. His muscles strained in a good way as he used his upper body strength to pull himself up. Clark smiled to himself. He didn’t relish being Lex’s hitman, but the work allowed him to stretch his abilities in ways he never could at Lex Tower.
Finally, Clark reached the top of the wall. From there, he was high enough to leap to a low section of the roof about thirty feet across the neatly manicured and bedewed lawn. Clark landed as quietly as he could, but he knew it was just the roof of the impressively massive attached garage. The Spanish style home wouldn’t allow for any handholds. The pristine white stucco exterior was simply too smooth for his fingers to find purchase. He opted to climb the drain pipe after gently testing it to see if it would hold his body weight. He wanted to get to the highest point of the roof, giving him an unmatched, eagle-eye view of the billionaire’s compound.
Exercising every caution, he silently scaled the house, his movements painfully slow so as not to make a sound on the terracotta roof. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he sat perched on the chimney, looking down at the courtyard below, like a deadly gargoyle surveying his kingdom. Most of the lights were out in the house, but that didn’t mean that the household was mostly asleep. Clark would have to keep his work as silent as possible to ensure that he wasn’t caught. He smiled grimly. He was good at maintaining his stealth.
His target was in the hot tub, alone. A bottle of wine lay within an arm’s reach. Clark telescoped in with his powerful vision. The bottle was nearly empty, like the wine glass that was next to it. All the better. Clark could drown the man and the death would be easily attributed to an unfortunate, intoxicated accident. He wouldn’t even have to get blood on his hands.
Clark eased himself down off the chimney and to the edge of the roof. There he squatted down again and dangled his legs over the side of the roof. Using his powerful biceps and triceps, he lowered himself down until he hung by the very tips of his fingers. Only then did he let go, dropping quickly to the ground. The springy grass cushioned the sound of his fall, but he crouched stock-still in the shadows anyway, listening to see if anyone had heard him. But the relentless bubbling of the hot tub masked all else. No one stirred to check things out.
So far, he was safe.
He stood then and began to stealthily make his way across the moonlit courtyard. He dared to employ a fraction of his incredible speed, moving quickly enough to be no more than a blurred shadow in the night, but not quickly enough to cause an odd, out-of-place and unexplainable breeze. Clark would have preferred if the night sky had been heavy with clouds, darkening the yard more, but Lex had insisted that the job be done tonight. No matter. Clark was strong, fast, and young. He could avoid detection easily. Besides, with Arthur Chow outside, enjoying the clear, starry sky, Clark’s job was easier in the long run since he didn’t have to sneak inside the mansion.
Clark sped in a wide arc around the pool, ensuring that the billionaire didn’t suspect that anything was amiss. He came up behind his target, kneeling behind the still-oblivious man. Arthur appeared to be well into his wine. Clark could smell the alcohol wafting up from each breath the man exhaled. And Arthur was drunkenly singing to himself in a low tone. Clark had to wonder how much the man had had to drink before bringing the current, nearly empty bottle of wine out to the hot tub. He smiled grimly. Toxicology reports would easily find Arthur’s blood alcohol content to be well over the legal limit. It would be a no-brainer that he’d drunkenly drowned. No one would be searching for a killer.
Still, Clark took no glory, no satisfaction from what he was about to do. It was necessary, that was all. Necessary to secure Lex’s position as the most influential man in the world. Necessary to ensure that LexCorps remained the powerhouse that it was, in all areas. Clark closed his eyes for a brief second, took a deep breath, then took his right hand and pressed down on the top of Arthur’s head. He kept pushing down firmly while Arthur thrashed under the water. But the sound of the struggle amounted to no more than a few extra splashes of water amid the tumultuous churning of the hot tub. Still, Clark kept pressing down, sinking his arm down into the hot, bubbling water until he was wet nearly up to his shoulder. He stayed for as long as he dared; well longer than any normal person could survive without oxygen, past the point where CPR would have any prayer of bringing the man back.
Clark withdrew his hand and gazed down at the dead man at the bottom of the hot tub. Then with a quick burst of his heat vision, he dried his clothing, leaving nothing to chance. It wouldn’t do to leave a trail of water behind once he went to escape from the mansion’s sprawling grounds.
He felt nothing inside. Not remorse. Not pity. Not pride in a job well done. Not horror at having taken another life. If he felt anything at all, it was an emptiness inside.
He was the perfect killing machine, he knew. He’d proven it over and over again as Lex had given his assignments. He was fast. He was strong. He could see in almost pitch-black conditions. He was invulnerable. He possessed X-Ray vision and hearing so sensitive he could practically hear the grass growing at his feet. And that was just the tip of his powers.
He was, as Lex had often put it, the greatest assassin who’d ever drawn breath.
Perhaps that should have bothered Clark. Perhaps it should have terrified him, how efficient he was at killing people. But it didn’t. Each new murder he committed only solidified the empty darkness in Clark’s soul. How many had it been now, he wondered? Twenty? Thirty? A hundred? He’d long ago stopped keeping track, despite his flawless memory that would have allowed him to call forth a perfect movie in his mind, detailing every last minuscule aspect of the assassination. What did it matter, anyway? Lex had made it painfully clear that Clark’s powers bound him to a bloody destiny full of violence and death. It was Clark’s job to put an end to any and all threats against the empire Lex had built atop the minor kingdom Lionel and Letitia had begun.
No, the killing didn’t scare Clark.
And yet, he didn’t relish it either. He took no pride from a successful assassination. He didn’t even share the details of how each death had occurred unless Lex specifically asked. “The job is done,” was his most-used phrase when he returned back to Lex Tower after each assignment was completed, followed by the assurance that no one had seen him and that no one would ever suspect that Lex was behind the murder plot.
He just felt empty, like there had to be more to life than just skulking about Lex Tower, hiding from the public, and killing people – usually under the cover of darkness. He longed for the freedom to mingle with the public, like a normal person, enjoying the light of the sun and being able to make at least a few decisions for himself. After all, he was eighteen now. Either Lex would allow him to leave the confinement of Lex Tower, or Clark would take it by force. How could Lex stop the most powerful man on Earth?
It’s nothing personal, he thought, directing his mind back to the sunken corpse. It’s just business.
“Arthur? Are you still out here?” a woman’s voice called from around the corner of the house. “The kids still won’t settle, and I thought maybe you could talk to them.”
Clark’s spine immediately stiffened and he stood up tall again. With lightning speed, he zipped back across the courtyard and melted into the shadows. Dressed head to toe in black, he was no more than a ghost in the thick shadows cast by the moon, but he didn’t want to risk being caught. He reached the spot where he’d jumped down from the roof. Exerting barely the slightest effort, Clark jumped up, grabbed hold of the roofline, and deftly pulled himself up. Lightly, he crossed the terra cotta shingles and crouched behind the chimney, just in time.
The woman he’d heard – presumably Arthur’s wife, though Clark had never met her – came around the corner. She looked around, clearly expecting her husband to be in the hot tub. When she didn’t immediately see him, she appeared to become agitated, which only increased when she spied the wine. She ran to the hot tub, screaming for Arthur. But it was too late. Her anguished screeching tore the otherwise peaceful night apart as she discovered his body on the bottom of the hot tub.
Still, Clark felt nothing inside. Not pity for the new widow. Not remorse for having left children fatherless. Not a sense of relief at having gotten away with murder. He was empty inside – a vast, yawning abyss existed where he was meant to have a soul. His heart was stony and unmoved.
He watched the woman frantically search the area, calling for someone, anyone to come help. But her gaze stayed at ground level. She never once looked up. She never once looked in Clark’s direction. The butler came running and Clark heard the widow yell at the man to call 911, while she waded into the hot tub to pull out her deceased husband. As the butler rushed back into the house to make the call, Clark nodded to himself. It was time to leave. He didn’t need to watch the scene unfold as the ambulances and police cars arrived. It was safer for him to slip off now, while the house was unwatched. He’d lingered too long already. He could hear the occupants of the house stirring, alerted by the woman’s screams that something was amiss.
Without sparing another thought for the deed he’d done, Clark turned and made his silent escape from the crime scene.
***
Clark knocked on the door to Lex’s private study, still dressed from head to toe in the sleek black suit he always wore when completing an assignment. He never changed before letting his brother know how an assignment went. Not after the first time. Clark had felt dirty, the weight of his first kill pressing on him like a physical force. So he’d returned to Lex Tower, showered, shaved, and changed into his normal clothing. Then he’d went in search of Lex. His brother had taken one look at him and become livid. He’d demanded to know how long Clark had been back and why Clark hadn’t come to the study immediately. He’d commanded Clark to recount the entire sordid affair and verify that he hadn’t been spotted. Not once had Lex asked how Clark was handling having blood on his hands for the first time.
That had been the most eye-opening moment of the night for Clark. Lex hadn’t asked if he’d been hurt or how he was dealing with his first murder. It had struck Clark as odd, at first. But, over the years, Clark had come to understand why. Of course Clark wouldn’t be hurt. Nothing could hurt him. The deadliest bullets and sharpest blades shattered against his invulnerable flesh. So why would Lex bother to ask if Clark had suffered any injury? And of course Lex wouldn’t ask how Clark was mentally coping with having taken a life. Lex was trying to toughen him up and prepare him for his destiny as an assassin. He couldn’t afford to have Clark questioning what he was doing. Questions led to hesitation. Hesitation led to failed missions, sloppy work, or getting caught.
In time, Clark had come to mentally embrace and appreciate the cold, matter-of-fact, and stubborn dismissal of his feelings that Lex had approached Clark’s first kill with. It had set him free of any lingering doubts or misgivings he may have had over murdering another man.
But his lesson had been learned nonetheless. Showers and clean clothing were only to be taken after he reported back to Lex.
“Come in,” Lex called distractedly as Clark’s knuckles left the cherry wood of the door.
Clark obediently opened the door, squared his shoulders, then entered into the darkened room. Lex was sitting before the cold, dark fireplace, lounging in the plush armchair, a glass of deep red wine in one hand and the stub of a Cuban cigar in his other hand. Only a few lamps were lit, giving out a weak, yellowish glow in the gloomy room. It was almost as if Lex were trying to mimic the glow of a lit hearth, without the resulting heat a fire would throw off into the already warm night air.
“Lex, I’ve returned,” Clark said stiffly, as he approached the armchair.
“And looking no worse for wear,” Lex commented, his eyes flickering over Clark’s body in a cursory manner, looking for obvious signs that his prized assassin had suffered any damage.
“Not a scratch on me,” Clark confirmed. He cleared his throat. “The job is done.”
“Were you seen?”
“Not even Arthur Chow himself saw me,” Clark replied, his voice hollow with disinterested calmness.
“Excellent,” Lex replied evenly, nodding thoughtfully to himself. “Tell me. How was my rival disposed of?”
“The police and medical reports will agree,” Clark said tonelessly. “In his drunken state, he slipped in his hot tub and drowned. A tragic, if not avoidable, accident brought about by a complete lack of good judgment.”
“Impressive,” Lex said approvingly. “You’ve gotten much more creative in your solutions to my problems. So much better than those blood-soaked days when you were just starting out.”
“I take only what opportunities I’m presented with,” Clark said, brushing off the compliment.
“Still, I always appreciate when you’re able to make a death look accidental,” Lex mused, stubbing out the smoldering butt of the cigar in a golden ashtray on the side table to his right. “But what of the rest of the Chow family?”
“The rest of them? I suspect the widow will deliver a very touching eulogy at the funeral. And I anticipate his children will weep when they learn of their father’s passing,” Clark replied wryly.
Wrong answer, he thought in the next second as Lex’s look of approval melted under the molten rage of his disappointment.
“You what? You let them live?” Lex’s serene face contorted into absolute hatred.
Clark shrugged and spoke in an even, unperturbed voice. “My orders were to kill Arthur Chow. Arthur Chow is dead. Nothing was said about the family.”
“It should have been implicit,” Lex growled, his face beet red with his rage.
“No, Lex,” Clark said, cutting off whatever else Lex was about to say. He held up a hand, annoyed that his judgment was being called into question. “Stop. Just stop. I’ve always done exactly what you tell me to do. You wanted Arthur Chow dead. If you wanted his entire family eliminated, you should have said so.”
Clark watched as Lex took a deep breath and steadied himself before speaking again. Some of the redness in his face had cooled, and Clark no longer felt like his brother was about to burst a blood vessel. When Lex spoke, the immediate anger was no longer at the forefront, but it was still there, thinly veiled and bubbling just beneath the fragile surface of his forced calmness.
“You don’t get it, do you? His widow? Their children? All of them are his beneficiaries. With Arthur dead, his wife inherits everything. His fortune. His business. Everything. His children, obviously, are next in line after the wife dies. By allowing them to live, you handed over his business to a woman who’s just as much of a ruthless threat to LexCorps as Arthur ever was.”
By the end, Lex’s voice had risen from the feigned, deadly calm it had been. He slapped his hand down on the side table, hard, making the glass of wine topple over onto the floor and shatter. The deep red wine splattered, looking for all the world like blood strewn at a murder scene. Clark knew firsthand what that could look like, though he didn’t enjoy dwelling on the mental images that his mind refused to let go of.
“You’re useless!” Lex growled through gritted teeth.
Clark set his jaw in a thin, hard line. “Useless?” he asked in a sharp tone. “Useless?” he repeated for good measure, allowing a little anger to poke through his usual stoic manner when reporting on the outcome of a kill. “That’s rich, Lex. If I’m so useless,” he continued, stressing the word, “you can stop using me as your own, personal assassin. Oh, wait,” he said, pretending like an idea was just coming to him, “that’s right. I almost forgot. I’m the only one who can do the things I can do. The only one with a host of powers on his side. You need me, Lex. Never forget that.”
“Oh, no, Clark. You need me,” Lex said in a venomous hiss. “I’m the one who’s kept you safe all these years. Safe from the police, who would find a way to execute you for our parents’ deaths. Safe from scientists who would tear your alien body limb from limb studying you. Never forget that.”
“I haven’t,” Clark shot back. “Which is the reason why I’ve constantly bloodied my hands for you over the years. You think I want to see LexCorps fail?” He chuckled without mirth. “On the contrary, Lex. I want to see this company succeed far beyond anything our mother and father could have dreamed. I want it to reach heights even you haven’t fathomed.”
“Then why did you let the family live?” Lex said, obviously biting back a more scathing retort.
“Because their deaths are needless,” Clark explained. “Everything will be thrown out of whack with Arthur’s death. His widow won’t be thinking straight. There’s bound to be bad decisions made. An opening may come for any smart businessman to swoop in and bring ChowTech into the LexCorps fold.”
“That could have happened, regardless,” Lex reminded him, speaking as though to a painfully stupid, wayward child.
“Maybe,” Clark said with a dismissive shrug. He gestured vaguely. “If the family becomes a problem, I can always go finish the job. But right now, no one will ever suspect that Arthur’s death was more than an accident caused by mixing too much alcohol with an obvious drowning hazard. Kill the whole family, however, and suddenly it reeks of a murder plot. Let the dust settle on this one, Lex. It can only benefit you.”
“It had better benefit me, Clark,” Lex growled ominously. He looked Clark dead in the eyes, and Clark could see the fire still burning in those brown depths. “Get out of my sight.”
Clark wanted to argue about his promised freedom once the job was done, but he held his tongue. Now was not the time. Not when his brother was in such an enraged mood. Inwardly, he sighed, even as he forced himself to nod in acknowledgment of the dismissal and retreat from the study. He sulked on his way back to his room. Knowing Lex as well as he did, Clark figured it would take a minimum of a week before Lex would be calm enough to even entertain the conversation Clark wanted to have. More likely a few weeks. But Clark could wait, as much as he yearned to join the outside world, to mix with the rest of society and have the freedom to go wherever he chose, whenever he chose.
Yes, he could wait. He’d bide his time, do what Lex told him to do, and when the time was right, he’d broach the subject once more. In the meantime, he would have a chance to figure out, what, exactly, he wanted to do with his life once he was living out there, amongst the common folk of Metropolis, blending in as if he wasn’t an all-powerful alien assassin. He could do anything he wanted – become a police officer, a teacher, a professional athlete unlike any the world have ever known, a doctor, a well-renowned author. The world lay at his fingertips, just out of reach for the moment, but it was there and Clark wanted to be ready when his prison door opened.
He knew, of course, that he could leave whenever he wanted to. Lex couldn’t possibly hope to stop him. But Clark didn’t want to forcibly take his freedom. He couldn’t do that to the brother who’d cared for him all these years, ever since their parents had died in the house fire. The accidental fire. The fire that haunted Clark’s dreams every night. Oh, he hadn’t actually been there when the fire had gotten out of control. He hadn’t witnessed Lionel and Letitia’s deaths. But he had been the one to knock over the candle in the first place. Accident or not, he was still responsible for his parents’ deaths.
I owe Lex everything, he thought with a sad sigh as he entered his bedroom and sat down heavily on his bed. It’s my fault he no longer has a mother and father. It’s my fault he has to hide me here in Lex Tower. He’s been risking everything by hiding me for the last ten years. If the police knew he was harboring a wanted man…
He shook his head, trying to dispel the terrifying implications.
I owe him everything. But…I wonder…will he ever feel as if my debt is repaid? Will I?
To be Continued…
