Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (127/???)

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

Where we left off in Part 126 …

“Do you know this woman he’s talking about?”

“What else does he say, Jim?” Clark said.

“Oh, right. Um… ‘…doing things they normally wouldn’t. Now, my question is, Mr. Spencer, should I risk losing out on my soul mate and spending my life alone to keep from ruining my one perfect encounter? If I call and discover she’s married or never wants to see me again, or if we were just under the effect of the love-potion, I don’t know if I’d have the will to go on. On the other hand, I’ll be moving back to Houston this summer, and if I don’t call, and she feels the same way I do, I may never get a second chance. What should I do? Signed: Filled in Metropolis.’ CK, this is deep. Do you know the woman he was talking about? Does she feel the same way? What should we do? We can’t leave it up to that Spencer Spencer guy.” Jimbo read further. “Oh, no! Spencer tells him not to call! CK, you should tackle this. This should be your next investigation. Find this woman and make a love match! True love wins out! Mr. White would totally go for that story.”

Clark looked at him skeptically.

“Yeah, right,” Jimbo said, peering over at Perry’s office where they could hear Clark’s boss arguing with Jimmy. “The Chief would never go for it. Too bad. It would make for a terrific story.”

Clark sighed. Cat had said she was over Phil, but was she really? Should he butt in and tell her about Phil’s letter to Love Fortress International or keep out of it?

“I’m going to shut up now, but first, I’m going to order a pizza. You want a pizza?” Jimbo asked as he walked over to Cat’s desk with his magazine.

Clark nodded, returning his focus to his taxes. Sure, pizza. That sounds good. He flipped back a few pages of his tax instruction booklet and stared at the tables again. Had he figured this right? Clark doubted he would be able to concentrate on his taxes after discovering that Cat’s soul mate wanted her. Apparently, Phil wasn’t married after all. It had all been a huge misunderstanding.

“Hey, Jimmy, you want pizza?” Jimbo called towards Perry’s office, lifting up the receiver of the telephone.

“Now, you’re talking! Fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and olives,” Jimmy said, sticking his head out the door.

“Cuz, if it goes on a salad, it doesn’t belong on a pizza,” Jimbo hollered back. “How about Canadian bacon and pineapple instead?”

“Pineapple on a pizza? It’s amazing we’re related,” Clark could hear Jimmy mumble to Perry, before calling back out to the newsroom, “Just put pineapple on your half, Jimbo.”

The Chief chuckled, and Clark smiled, returning his gaze to the tax forms.

The elevators dinged again. This time, Clark heard a familiar heartbeat approaching.

Part 127

“We have exactly thirty minutes before the opera,” Clark heard Luthor’s voice state before the doors opened.

Clark’s head popped up in time to see Lois and Luthor walk quickly into the newsroom. He stiffened as his lips dipped into a frown. Taxes, huh?

“Well, how was I supposed to know that my source was going to be arrested?” Lois yammered to Luthor as they walked down the ramp towards her desk. “I just have to rewrite my lead; you should have waited in the limo.”

Luthor had his hand on Lois’s elbow as if he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. Clark knew the feeling. “I wouldn’t be much of a date if I allowed you come inside alone.”

“Hello, Lois,” Clark called, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Luthor.”

Lois froze, noticing Clark for the first time. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

That’s right, Lois, you’ve been caught in your lie. “Taxes!” he announced with a grand gesture. The same thing she said she would be doing.

Luthor glanced around and caught Clark’s eye, but dismissed him, before moving onto Jimbo and turning his head towards Perry’s office where the Chief was bringing out a life-sized cardboard display of Elvira, Mistress of the Night. “It’s a regular party,” Luthor said dryly.

“Lois, you’re a little dressed up for an evening at the office,” Clark said to her. He, himself, was in jeans and a t-shirt.

“Well, we’re supposed to go to ‘Madame Butterfly’,” Luthor replied for her.

Clark glanced at Luthor’s tie with blue circles and wondered, not for the first time, why everyone made fun of his ties. Luthor’s tie was hideous. Additionally, it looked as if he had never tied one before.

“Ten minutes,” Lois groused back, ignoring Clark. “I will be ten minutes.”

“Hey, I’d like to order a pizza to be delivered,” Jimbo said into Cat’s telephone. “Yes, I can hold.” He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and smiled at Lois and Luthor. “Hi, Lois. Mr. Luthor.”

“Hi, Jimmy,” Lois said with a friendly smile.

Luthor merely nodded at the kid as if they had never met. Clark doubted if the man recalled meeting Jimbo at the Magic of the Night Ball.

Clark tried to drag his gaze off Lois and back onto his tax forms. She looked amazing in that black cocktail dress. She had pulled the front of her hair back with a clip and the line from her jaw down her neck to her shoulders and… He cleared his throat. She had dressed up for Luthor, not for him. His hands squeezed into fists, breaking his pencil. It was his fault. If he had only agreed to fly her out to Smallville, they could be talking, instead of Clark wanting to incinerate her date. He had nobody to blame, but himself.

Actually, that wasn’t true. He could blame his partner. Lois could’ve called him, instead of agreeing to go on a date with Lex Luthor. There was no way she could claim that an evening at the opera was ‘just a meeting between a reporter and her source’. He was trying hard not to jump to the wrong conclusions, but he was finding it difficult.

Suddenly, Clark heard Cat giggling out in the hall. His gaze jumped off Lois to the stairwell door.

A tall blonde man with glasses stumbled through the doorway with Cat in his arms and stopped on the landing. They were flushed with desire, which was obvious from the way Cat was moaning as the man kissed down her neck. Guess Cat was right. She was over Phil.

This diversion drew the attention of everyone in the room.

Cat looked over her shoulder, noticed the company, and dropped her feet to the floor. She tossed a big embarrassed grin towards them. “Hi, everybody, this is…uh…” she said, catching Clark’s eye and shifting her gaze to Lois and Luthor, where she lost her train of thought. “Um… uh…” She set her hand on the man’s chest. “George!... George.”

George waved.

“What are you doing here?” Lois asked.

Clark could tell she was trying to embarrass Cat by having her admit the truth. His partner should know Cat better than that.

“Well, I was going to show George here,” Cat said, patting his chest as the man started nibbling on her neck again. “How… how we put a newspaper to bed, but it’s a little crowded.” She laughed, grabbing her date’s arm. “George, the Observation Deck at the Metropolis Tower is still open. Let’s go,” she said breathlessly, pulling George back through the doorway.

Clark raised a brow and shook his head. That was his best friend, all right.

“You know, I could have lived without hearing that. Thank you!” Jimmy called, carrying a box of stuff from Perry’s office and around the corner to the storage room.

“Thanks, George,” Clark could hear Cat whispering to George in the stairwell. “That was fun. Here’s your ten bucks.”

“Keep your ten dollars, Cat. We could still go to the Observation Deck at the Metropolis Tower,” George suggested. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

The elevator doors dinged and opened, once again distracting Clark from his taxes and a most unexpected turn of events in the stairwell. He wasn’t quite sure why Cat paid that man, or tried to, to make out with her on the newsroom floor. Was she trying to convince Clark she was back to her usual self? He’d have to ask her about that later. She had certainly fooled him.

Willie, the old night security guard Perry had hired several months earlier, came out of the elevator. “What is going on here?” he accused.

“Ah…don’t worry, Willie,” Clark said with a wave of his hand. “It’s just us.”

“Yeah, but you’re not supposed to be here now,” Willie admonished Clark, Lois, Luthor, and Jimbo with several waves of his finger.

“Don’t worry, Willie. Everything’s fine,” Perry said, exiting his office wearing a sombrero. “You just keep up the good work.”

Willie looked uncomfortable about scolding them, since the Chief was there. “Yes, sir, Mr. White,” he replied with a nod of his head and a glance at his pocket watch, before returning to the elevator.

“Hello? Is anybody there?” Jimbo said into the telephone as the elevator doors closed. “Hey, CK, the telephone’s gone dead.”

“The system’s down,” Lois grumbled. “I lost my story.”

“Better luck tomorrow,” Luthor said, patting her shoulder. “Shall we go? If we leave now, we can still make the curtain.”

‘Better luck tomorrow’? Please! Clark glanced over to see how Lois would react to this outpouring of support for her career. Her lips pressed together in annoyance, but since Luthor was standing behind her, the man probably couldn’t tell. A part of Clark hoped she turned around and belted the billionaire in the gut for his remark. True, it was the same part of him that wanted to incinerate the man, starting with his hideous tie, but another, larger, part of him wanted it to be Lois who knocked the man down to size before running into Clark’s waiting arms. He knew neither part was being realistic, though.

The elevator dinged again. What was going on here? It was beginning to feel like a regular Grand Metropolis Station here instead of a quiet Saturday night at the paper.

Three men in repairmen uniforms and a woman in black leather, all of whom carried automatic weapons, stepped out onto the landing.

“What in the Sam Hill?!” Perry said, stepping between Clark and the visitors.

“Is something wrong, Chief?” Jimmy called, returning from the storeroom, only to freeze in sight of the gunmen.

The woman started shooting at the ceiling.

A fourth man stepped out of the elevator, tugging his ear. “The Daily Planet Building is now ours. So, I suggest you cooperate and everything will go smoothly. In case you have a need to contact the authorities, or your friend Superman, you can tell them I’m holding a small but dirty nuclear device,” the man said, holding up a small transistor radio sized device. “If I catch so much as a glimpse of a red cape, the gene pool of Metropolis will pay the price. So, relax. By tomorrow morning, this will all be over, one way or another.”

***

“No telephone. Too high up to signal anyone. It could be morning before anyone realizes that something’s wrong,” Lois griped, looking out the conference room window to the dark street below. She knew she should be a lot more nervous, but somehow knowing that Clark was here, and would never let anything happen to them, gave her a sense of calm. After what the terrorists said, though, probably not a realistic one.

“That’s what they want us to believe,” Perry said, starting to pace. “But what on Earth do they want with the Daily Planet?”

“What are they going to do with us when they’re done?” Jimbo asked from where he sat at the conference table next to Lex, who was drumming his fingers on the table in thought.

Lex had been awfully quiet since the gunmen had forced them into the room. He probably wasn’t used to being the one not in charge.

Lois looked over at Clark, who was standing by the doors and keeping an eye on the terrorists. “We’ve got to find a way out of here,” she said, before turning to Lex. “Do you have your mobile phone? We could call down to Asabi or the police?”

Lex shook his head. “I didn’t think I’d need it.”

“What about Asabi down in the limousine, won’t he get suspicious when we don’t return?” Lois asked.

Lex thought about that for a minute. “No, I don’t think we can count on him. He’s not paid to be suspicious.”

Lois rolled her eyes. Some hired help. She saw Clark exchange a pointed glance with Perry. What exactly was that for? All right, she had to agree. What type of man hired someone who would look the other way?

“We negotiate,” Lex suggested. “I’ve dealt with worse across the boardroom table. We find out what they want, and then offer them a better deal.”

“Do you really want them to know who you are, Mr. Luthor? They could squeeze you and LexCorp dry,” Jimbo said. “And still kill us all.”

“There are six of us, and only five of them,” Jimmy reminded his fellow hostages. “I bet we can take them. Does anyone think that bomb is even real?”

Lois looked at Lex and then at the Jimmys with incredulity. She threw up her hands and shifted her gaze to Perry to see if the Chief had lost his mind too. He had the same expression on his face as she had on hers. At least she knew there were three sane people in the room.

“We can’t take that chance, can we?” Clark said, pushing his glasses back up his nose and turning to face them from the doors.

That told Lois all she needed to know; that the bomb was real. “Clark,” she said, approaching him. “They’re going to kill us.”

“We don’t know that,” he replied, keeping his trademark impartiality, while at the same time trying to reassure her. She appreciated that but, for now, she preferred the cold hard truth.

“We can identify them,” Lois reminded him.

Clark nodded, agreeing with her. “That’s right, which is why we don’t want to do anything rash, which might make them turn those guns on us sooner rather than later. If they wanted us dead, they would have opened up on us first thing. For now, the best thing for us to do is wait, figure out why they’re here, and come up with a plan of escape before that can happen. There might be a reason that they’re keeping us alive.”

“I know this type of people. If we don’t do something, we’ll be dead,” Lex interjected. “We must take the offensive.”

Lois shook her head. If Superman said to wait, she was going to side with him. “What do you mean, you ‘know this type of people’, Lex?” she asked. “When have you ever been held hostage before?”

“Luthor, he may be holding the lives of thousands of people in his hands,” Clark reminded him. “Don’t do anything to provoke him.”

“Lois, there is lots about me you haven’t yet learned,” Lex explained calmly without really saying anything. “Now, we know what stuff Mr. Kent is made of, it’s apparent that we need someone with a cool head, and a keen sense of judgment to take charge.”

“Well, that counts Lois out as well,” Jimmy mumbled.

Lois shot Jimmy a ‘you’re not helping’ scowl.

“You?” Clark scoffed at Lex.

“Yes, why not? I have a thousand people in my employ…” Lex started.

“What does that have to do with this? Those people aren’t in your employ, Mr. Luthor,” Jimbo interrupted, pointing out to the newsroom. “Even if those men found out who you are, they wouldn’t listen to you.”

“Were you once a covert Navy SEAL, Lex? An ex-Marine? They have guns, we don’t. How exactly, do you expect us to go on the offensive without getting shot?” Lois demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Perry said, raising his voice. “This is my ship. I’m the captain here.”

“Yeah, of the Exxon Valdez,” Jimmy mumbled. Thankfully, only Lois and Jimbo could hear him.

“Perry, you should fake a heart attack. Lois, you can divert their attention, and I’ll hit the person who comes in with a chair,” Lex tossed out, standing up.

Lois’s eyes popped. She could picture that scenario in her head, and it didn’t end well. “No! Stop!” she insisted, holding up her hand. “We do that, and Perry could be shot as a liability.”

Perry and Clark exchanged another look. This time, they seemed impressed by her forethought.

“I appreciate you thinking of me, honey,” Perry said, shooting her a small smile.

“What about Cat? She may have heard the gunshots,” Clark suggested.

“Cat?” Lois scoffed. “You want me to trust my well-being to a woman who is right now on the top of Metropolis Tower, banging hips with a Neanderthal, whose name she can hardly remember? Thank you, no.”

“Cat is a darn good investigator, Lois. Just because you don’t like her, it doesn’t mean she can’t sniff out trouble, right, Chief?” Clark said, turning towards their boss for support.

Perry looked skeptical. “Cat?”

Clark shook his head in disbelief.

Lois grinned. Point to her. “What do you mean, Clark, that ‘she’s a darn good investigator’? Are you referring to that Muldoon investigation that you two were working on together? Come on! Cat had to use my name to get anywhere on that story,” she retorted. “Anyway, have you found the good doctor, yet, big fellow? Huh?”

Clark pointed at her. “There’s more going on with Brenda Muldoon’s disappearance than we’ve been able to print, Lois, and Cat has been central to digging it up. Give her a little credit.”

“She looked hot in that dress,” Jimbo interjected, trying to be helpful.

Jimmy elbowed him. “She’s our cousin, apparently.”

“Really?” Jimbo was surprised. “How?”

Jimmy shrugged.

“Like what?” Lois demanded. “What is going on with that little human interest story that I haven’t heard about?”

“Dr. Muldoon apparently stole drugs from both Metropolis General Hospital and her own clinic the night of her disappearance. Additionally, Cat just found out – off the record – that human ova are also missing from the clinic’s fertility section. Does that sound like your run-of-the-mill disappearance to you?” Clark countered.

It didn’t, but she refused to back down. “Oh, come off it, Clark. You’ve got to admit if anyone heard those shots; it would have been Willie…”

The door banged open, and the terrorist leader shot into the ceiling above their heads.

Clark grabbed Lois and dove for the floor, covering her with his body.

“Nine millimeter automatic. Better than a gag. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, sir,” Perry said, holding up his hands.

“Good! Now, keep it down in here,” the terrorist leader insisted. “There will be no more tests of my patience.”

Lois pushed on Clark’s chest. “Get off me, Chuck!”

“Is that understood?” the terrorist leader said, looking directly at Lois.

Clark sat up, but still blocked her from the gun. “She understands.”

Lois pushed his shoulder in her attempt to stand up, but Clark continued to hold her with his arm to pin her behind him. That was when Lois realized that when Superman wanted her shielded, she was going to stay shielded, whether she liked it or not.

The terrorist leader turned to one of his men, and nodded towards the newsroom. “Schumack, go tell ‘em they’re on the wrong floor.”

The man nodded and disappeared out of the conference room.

“Tell ‘em that it’s down one,” the leader continued.

“Hold up, guys! Wrong floor; down one,” the terrorist yelled towards his teammates, exiting the elevator with some kind of equipment.

The leader and the woman in leather turned and left the conference room together, shutting the door behind them.

“Lois! Clark! If you two ever get me shot at again…” Perry hissed, dusting ceiling debris off his shirt. “The only writing you’ll ever do is writing recipes for the Food section.”

“I’ll do puff pieces for Travel. Clark’s better at cooking than I am,” Lois returned, pushing away Clark’s arm as she climbed to her feet. “He can take the Food section.”

Perry glared at her, and she zipped her lips.

Lex leveled an intense gaze at Clark as he reached out from his seat at the head of the table to take Lois’s elbow. “If you ever put her in harm’s way again, Kent…”

“Are you threatening me, Luthor?” Clark said, crossing his arms and leveling a Superman glare at the man. “I protected her from…”

“I didn’t ask you to protect me,” Lois reminded Clark, stepping away from Lex’s grip. “I may be the only woman here, but if any of you treat me like a damsel in distress again, I swear I’m going to steal one of their guns and shoot up this party myself. Got it?”

Clark sighed. His shoulders dropped, and he turned away to look out the conference room doors again.

“Yes, ‘um!” Jimmy answered, raising his hands in mock surrender.

Jimbo chuckled.

“Division between the ranks is a sure sign of weakness,” Lex said, and Lois didn’t like being lumped into Lex’s ‘ranks’. “I suggest that we just put this little incident behind us and concentrate on trying to learn their next move.”

Perry leaned towards Lex. “What do you think they’ll do next, Lex?”

Lois took this opportunity to walk over to where Clark was standing by the door. “You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured, but he didn’t even meet her gaze. “But thanks.”

“People aren’t going to look down upon you, Lois, if you aren’t always the strongest person in the room,” he said softly. “Let me do what I do best.”

She crossed her arms. “And what’s that exactly?”

Clark pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at her. “Care for you.”

Lois tried not to show that his words washed over her like an intimate embrace. She raised her brow. “Who says I’m not the strongest person in the room?”

A split second smile brushed his lips. “Not me.”

She returned his lightning fast smile. “That’s better.” She winked and turned back to Lex and Perry at the conference room table.

Perry turned to Clark. “Do you all think that’s a nuclear bomb?” he asked.

Subtle, Lois thought. The Chief had asked the group, but he was only really looking for one man’s answer.

“Whatever’s in that box, we can’t take any chances,” Clark recommended, and Perry agreed with a nod of his head.

“Do you really think they’d blow themselves up?” she asked Lex. He was the criminal mastermind in the room. If anyone knew, he would.

Lex shrugged. “Terrorists believe that the value of a life, even if it’s their own, isn’t as important as their cause.”

“Thank you for that worst case scenario, Luthor. Let’s leave out the conjecture until we find out what their ‘cause’ is,” Clark said. “Why take over the Daily Planet, and then not have us report it over the wire? Do they want to use us as their mouthpiece?”

Perry considered this.

“The point is: it’s up to us to stop them,” Lex replied.

“We need to stay alive any way we can,” Clark rebutted.

“Okay, what you do suggest, Mr. Kent? We just sit here, and let them do whatever they want and then wait for them to kill us?” Lex said.

“No, but I… we have no choice. If I… or any of us… try to get to the bomb, any one of those guys could kill any one of you… us,” Clark hissed at Luthor.

Lois had never seen Clark so angry; he was losing control of his secret identity.

“And if that is a hair trigger under his finger, it could go off before I could stop it, and I refuse to take that risk,” Clark announced.

Lex scoffed and glanced at Lois as if her partner had lost it.

She chuckled nervously, hoping that Clark hadn’t given himself away to the billionaire. “Take it easy, Clark. I know he’s your friend, and you’re his biggest fan, but you’re not Superman,” she reminded him in what she wished sounded like a teasing manner.

Clark instantly calmed down, and took a deep breath. “I know, but even if I was…”

“Clark!” Lois interrupted, before he could dig himself into a deeper hole. “Superman will find a way to save us. I know he will.”

He gazed back at her unsurely. How could a man have such a combination of power and kindness at his fingertips, and still not have confidence that he would wield it properly? He had already proven himself a hundredfold. Being a superhero must be like being a reporter; you’re only as good as your next rescue.

Clark might doubt himself, but Lois had no doubts whatsoever. She smiled at him.

“I believe in him,” Lois reminded him. I believe in you, Clark, she said with her mind, hoping – just this once – that he could read her thoughts.

“God have mercy on us,” Perry mumbled from where he sat at the table. “But I agree with Lois. Let’s just give Superman time to figure out what to do, and until then just keep our heads. Okay, Kent?”

Clark nodded. “Okay, Chief.”

****************
Cat to the Rescue?
****************

Cat set down her coffee mug and stood up. “Thank you, again, for the coffee and helping prank my friends, George, but I really must be on my way.”

George took hold of her hand. “We could still go to the Observation Deck at the Metropolis Tower like you told your friends,” he suggested, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. “I’ve never been.”

“Aren’t you a sweetie?” she purred in return. George had been the ointment her bruised ego had needed. While there was a part of her that was sorely tempted, an even larger part of her just couldn’t forget seeing two Lex Luthors and the puzzle it presented her. “But I’m in the middle of something at the moment, big boy.”

George stood up and pulled her into his arms, pressing his lips to hers once more. It had been too long of a time since a man had made her feel like this.

“You are delicious, though,” Cat said, licking her lips after his amazing kiss.

“Why don’t you give me your phone number? I’d love to rain check it,” he murmured.

“Mmmm. George, you’re just too good for this girl’s ego,” she said, dancing her fingers across his chest. “I don’t give out my number. How about you give me yours, and I give you a call?”

“Uh… I don’t have a phone yet, remember? I told you, I’ve just moved to Metropolis and am staying at the Bristol,” he gently reminded her as he handed their check with the money and a tip to the cashier.

Cat snapped her fingers. “That’s right. The assistant store manager in charge of sporting goods at the new Cost Mart store.”

George nodded as he guided them out of the Metro Diner to the sidewalk. “I guess I got a little carried away when you asked me if I knew anything about cars.”

“Mmmm. Sporting goods, huh? You sure have the body for it,” Cat said, pulling him back in for another kiss, mainly to distract him from starting back into talking about cars. Geez, didn’t some men know it was better if they didn’t open their mouths so often to talk? She had only asked the one question.

“Would you like to head back to my hotel with me?” he murmured, his voice husky.

Over his shoulder though, Cat noticed that Lex Luthor’s limousine still sat in the same spot it had when she had followed it there. Lex would never have waited an hour and missed the opera for Lois to fix her story. That was not only odd, but totally out of character. Lex’s chauffeur was no longer standing outside for his boss to show, though; he had returned inside the car to wait.

Cat reached into her handbag and removed a notepad and a pen. She wrote down George’s name, the name of his hotel. “Room number?”

“569,” he replied, kissing down her neck.

Her body begged her to ignore the hairs on the back of her neck, and the little nagging doubt in her mind about Lex, Lois, and the limo, and follow George back to the Bristol. Her sixth sense was telling her that George would give her an adventure-filled weekend, the likes of which she hadn’t had for the last two months. “A rain check it is,” she said as she took a step back and dropped her notepad back into her bag.

“You’re killing me here, Cat,” he told her.

If George was so desperate to reach her before she contacted him, then it was good that he knew her name and where she worked. “Absence only makes the heart grow fonder, George,” she reminded him with a wink.

“Do you want to share a cab?”

Cat pointed at the Moped. “This is me.”

He looked skeptically between her and the bike. “Really?”

“Really,” she said, bouncing her eyebrows. “I love how it hums between my legs.”

George gulped. “Stop by, any time, day or night,” he said, stepping to the curb and waving at a passing taxi. “Anytime.”

“I just might,” Cat said with a little wave as he climbed into the cab.

As soon as he left, Cat returned to the Daily Planet. She tried the revolving door, but Willie, the night guard, had locked it. That in itself threw up a red flag. She had come into and gone out of the Daily Planet at all hours of the day and night, weeknights, weekends, and holidays; it was a requirement of her job as society columnist. Never before had this door ever been locked.

The rattling of the door drew Willie’s attention from the Information Desk. He waved to her, and called, “Closed for cleaning, Miss Grant.”

Cat smiled with understanding, waved again, and walked away down the sidewalk.

Something definitely was up. The Daily Planet never closed.

She went to the parking garage and decided to enter the building from there. The garage was mostly empty, except for a couple of cars and a strange van parked near the elevators with the name “Night Cleaning” imprinted on the side.

Remembering her ordeal in her apartment building’s elevator just the weekend before, Cat chose the stairwell. After several flights of stairs, she was glad she had been foregoing the elevators all week, but her calf muscles were starting to burn. It probably had more to do with her sprint inside Lex’s private parking garage earlier that evening than this current climb. She stopped on the landing and pulled off her high-heeled shoes.

Finally, she reached the landing outside the newsroom. This stairwell had brought her up to the exit by the employee lounge and lunch area. As she set her hand on the doorknob, she heard a weird zapping noise, as if a fuse was shorting out, and then the sound of rain. Someone hadn't pulled the blind all the way over the window on the door, and Cat knelt down to gaze through it. Through the one-inch crack that this view afforded her, she could see it was raining… on her desk. Terrific! There went her computer, her files, and her rolodex. Oh, no! Oh, wait. She had locked her rolodex in her desk.

There was a strange man sitting at her desk and he had been caught in the rain, which Cat belatedly realized must be the fire sprinklers. He had been looking at some large blue papers, which didn’t belong to Cat. Suddenly, two things happened. Another man in a dark blue suit approached her, blocking her view of the stranger, and a gun discharged. The man in the navy suit grunted and fell to the floor.

Cat jumped away from the door and tried to catch her breath. Oh, God! That man was shot directly in front of her. Her heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Luthor!” she heard Clark call out in shock, and she guessed who the man in the navy suit was.

Clamoring to her knees, she looked back through her gap in the window and saw her assumption was correct. Clark was bending over and helping Lex from the floor. Lex held his left shoulder as Lois ran over and joined them to help him back to the conference room. Wait, was there another person standing next to the stranger? Yes, a woman with short dark hair, and dressed in leather, and carried a… Cat sank back down to the floor… an automatic machine gun.

Well, that explained things.

As quickly and quietly as she could, Cat returned down the stairs. On the floor beneath the newsroom, she heard voices that she hadn’t noticed on her climb up. Once more, she tried to look through the door, but a blind blocked this window fully. Slowly, she opened the door a crack and peered through.

At least three men in cleaning crew jumpsuits were doing something in Advertising, but out of her view. She doubted it was cleaning, being that they had guns hanging from their shoulders, but she didn’t want to chance being caught by venturing further inside. She slowly latched the door and continued down the stairwell.

When Cat finally stumbled out of the building, she found a set of bushes and lost what little she had in her stomach.

Oh, God!

Oh, God!

Oh, God!

She had seen Lex Luthor shot right in front of her. Cat threw up again. She didn’t like the man, especially after everything Clark had told her that Superman had discovered against him, but still… Cat knew him, and he’d been…

Shot.

In cold blood.

Directly in front of her.

Cat’s heart raced. She had to do something. What? Clark, Lois, and Lex were clearly being held hostage. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to remember who else she had seen when she and George had stumbled passionately into the office. Jimmy! No, Jimmys, both of them had been there, and Perry.

Oh, God!

She covered her hand with her mouth. Okay. Gunmen held six people hostage at the Daily Planet. On the plus side, one of the people was Superman. On the negative side, one of the hostages had been shot.

Okay, Cat, think, she told herself. How many bad guys had she seen?

Her head started to throb. She lowered it between her knees and took another couple of deep breaths.

The strange man who had been sitting at her desk, the woman in leather, and least three guys on the floor below the newsroom, made five.

Cat heard sirens and knew that the fire department was on its way. Oh, yea. They could save the hostages. She would just need to tell the fire captain what she saw. She took a few steps away from the bushes and looked down the street towards the approaching fire truck. Clark must have set off the sprinkler somehow to contact them. He was so cool under pressure.

Suddenly, the fire truck’s lights switched off and the sirens stopped sounding. The truck turned a block away and appeared to be heading back to the station house.

“No!” Cat yelled, waving her arms. “No! Come back!” But the fire truck was already out of sight.

***End of Part 127***

Part 128

Comments welcome.