Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HereWhere we left off last time in Part 132 ...The minutes seem to tick on by as they waited for Clark to return with Superman’s answer and everyone either ignored the pizza or stared blankly at the bomb.
The sounds of an approaching fire engine and ambulance broke the silence. Then the lights in the room went out.
“Hurry back, Clark,” Lois whispered, hoping beyond hope that he heard her. Now, that they had separated the terrorists from their bomb, Clark could take out the terrorists without having to worry about Fuentes detonating the bomb.
In Perry’s office, Lois could hear a scuffle in the dark. Unfortunately, with nothing more than the faint emergency lighting from the newsroom, it was too dark to see anything.
It felt as if five minutes ticked by in the eerie, dark silence. Why hadn’t Superman rescued them or turned the lights back on?
“Let’s get out of here,” Jimmy whispered. She felt his hand on her shoulder. “Hold on, Lois. We’re going for help.”
“Take Lex with you,” Perry instructed.
“I’ll remain…” Lex started to argue.
“You
need medical treatment, Lex,” Perry said.
Lois heard the shuffle of several pairs of feet, and then the door opened and closed with an echoing reverberation.
She was alone in the dark with a bomb strapped to her chest. Unable to raise her voice any louder, she creaked out a dry rasping, “Help, Superman!”
Part 133**************
After the Opera**************
In the silence after the sirens had been switched off, Lois’s plea for help reverberated in Clark’s head. He had taken too long. Had time run out? Had Remy pressed her gun against Lois’s throat once more?
Superman zipped into the newsroom through the storage room window and the first thing he noticed was that someone had turned off the power. Only the emergency lights dimly lit the bullpen. It was also quiet, too quiet. He looked into Perry’s office and saw that someone had knocked out Fuentes and Remy and tied them up using computer cable. In the dark conference room, only Lois and Perry remained. The Chief knelt by Lois’s chair, murmuring reassurances to her.
Clark gulped. He should never have left. Fuentes had strapped the bomb to Lois’s chest. Without even realizing how fast he was moving, Clark found himself standing next to her a few seconds since hearing her call for help.
“Thank you, Mr. White. I’ll take it from here,” Superman said to Clark’s boss. “It’s safe to leave. The criminals are tied up in your office.”
Perry nodded. “I’ll go see what I can do about the power,” he said, gently setting his hand on Lois’s head for a moment before leaving. “You’re in good hands.”
“The best,” Lois responded, her voice catching in her throat. When they were alone, she turned back to face Superman. “You’re late.”
“I’ve been here the whole time,” Superman said, kneeling down in front of her.
“You could’ve fooled me,” she returned.
“He threatened to detonate the bomb if he saw me, Lois. What would you have had me do?”
“I don’t know…Yes, I do know. You could’ve flown in supersonically, taken Fuentes and his bomb out of the city, and tossed them into outer space,” Lois suggested.
“While Remy shot you and the rest of the hostages?” he murmured softly. X-raying through the duct tape, he could see that the lights on the bomb seemed to be flashing in a different pattern than before. “Anyway, aren’t you the one who told Clark that if there was a way to keep someone alive, I’d find it?”
“I didn’t say it was a perfect plan,” Lois said.
“I’ll be sure to try and confer with you before my next rescue mission, Miss Lane,” he said, slowly burning through the duct tape surrounding the bomb with his heat vision. He guessed this would jostle it less than trying to peel back the layers.
“Fuentes pushed some buttons before he strapped it onto my chest. He could have activated it, or put it on timer, or turned it off,” she said. “He didn’t say.”
“Nor will he. Someone knocked him out and tied him and Remy up in Mr. White’s office,” Superman informed her. He closed his eyes to listen to the inner workings of the bomb, but he just wasn’t familiar enough with bombs to know for sure. The clicks he heard could be from a timing device, or something just to flash the lights on and off and irregular intervals.
Lois stared at him for a moment before asking, “That wasn’t you?”
“No. I was down at the street level consulting with Inspector Henderson and Detective Tuzzolino. I was about to send Clark back with my answer when I heard your plea for help,” he explained. “Nor did I capture those men downstairs.”
“Are you sure you don’t have a brother?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Clark told me about your vision about the two supermen,” he replied. “And as far as I know I don’t have a twin nor would I want one.”
“No? I’d have thought you’d like the company,” she said. “Or, in this case, the assistance.”
“Perhaps, at one time, but now I’d worry he’d try to steal…” Clark’s voice faded. This wasn’t the time to admit that Superman still loved her, especially since she had claimed to have moved on to Clark. Evidently, Lois didn’t consider that she and Clark were exclusive, since she felt comfortable enough accepting dates with another man and sending him on dates with another woman. If his
twin, her True Clark, did happen to show up, Clark would be out of the running anyway.
Maybe Lois dating Luthor was a mix of trying to make Clark jealous and part fear of moving too fast into an intense relationship with Clark, especially after her relationship with Superman had imploded on her. He doubted she was serious about Luthor by the way she kept flirting with Clark, and gushing on about how amazing Superman was. Well, she gushed about Superman when she didn’t know he was in the room.
He burned through another section of duct tape.
“You know all those times I pictured you touching my chest; it never was quite like this,” Lois said with a nervous laugh.
Me, too. Actually, that wasn’t true. In his fantasies, he hadn’t pictured anything quite like this. In his nightmares, he had not only imagined scenarios similar to this, but the aftermath of his failure as well. “I need to concentrate, Lois.”
There was a moment of silence before Lois started speaking again. She had a nervous energy, and Clark doubted it was physically possible for her to keep her mouth shut when she was truly scared. “You know, it’s times like these that I think maybe I should get a regular, boring job, settle down with a guy who sells insurance, and have two point four kids.”
For some reason, he couldn’t picture that ever happening. He looked at her skeptically. She returned a sheepish, anxious grin.
“Whatever makes you happy, Lois,” he replied soothingly. Better an insurance salesman than Lex Luthor. Would it be ironic if Clark quit the news business to sell insurance? Probably. “It would make my job easier.”
Lois pressed her lips together as the muscle on her jaw tightened and her gaze narrowed. “Is it a nuclear bomb?” she asked tersely.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly, glad to be returning to the topic at hand. “The box is lead lined, and I cannot see inside. Mr. White’s arguments against it being a nuclear bomb sounded sensible to me but, as somone also mentioned, it could just be the detonator and the nuclear bomb could be located nearby.”
“I forgot about that,” she murmured as he applied heat vision to another section of duct tape.
“It could also be a regular C4 or C6 bomb set to a remote detonator on Fuentes’s person,” he went on. “He could have planned as part of my agreement to assist him to give me the detonator after I took him, Remy, and the money to safety, and then pushed the button on the way just to spite me.”
Lois gulped, before saying with a faux air of casualness, “Go ahead and sugar-coat the possibilities for me, why don’t you?”
“I didn’t want this, Lois. I was trying to find a way to protect you and, instead, you’ve been strapped to a bomb because of me,” Superman returned.
Maybe she would be better off married to an insurance salesman and away from me altogether.“If you recall, I volunteered. It was the only way to save…” She paused, moving her gaze from his hands to his eyes. “Clark.”
He was unable to swallow the big knot in his throat, which resembled the size of an entire apple. He pushed it down, and cleared his throat. He had finally reached the last section of duct tape, securing the bomb to Lois’s chest.
“Hold still, absolutely still,” Superman insisted. He burnt through the tape joining her ankles together, and then went to work on the area where her arms touched the chair. “When I release this last section, I’ll be taking the bomb into space,” he explained. “You should be able to free yourself from the rest of your restraints then.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“And, Lois,” he murmured, focusing his heat vision on the duct tape that surrounded the bomb on her chest. “Clark wouldn’t want you to risk your life to save his.”
Superman pulled the bomb free and was in the sky heading towards space when he heard her respond, “That’s why I have to do it.”
***
Cat saw the Jimmys and Lex Luthor exit out the lobby of the Daily Planet from the stairwell.
Jimmy pushed through the door first and headed over to where she stood next to Inspector Henderson. “Lois is still upstairs. The bad guys duct taped the bomb to her chest,” he explained.
“And her to a chair,” Jimbo finished, coming up alongside him.
“The Chief stayed up there with her,” Jimmy went on.
“Well, that explains where Superman disappeared off to in such a hurry,” Cat replied, looking up.
“Superman flew up there? Thank goodness!” Lex exclaimed with relief as he joined them. “He’ll save her.”
“We’ve got an injured man over here,” Jimbo called out to a paramedic, who nodded and opened the back of his ambulance.
‘Well, that partially explains Lex’s odd statement,’ Cat thought. Lex looked a wreck. His tie was undone, and his shirt stained with blood and falling open. It appeared as if he hadn’t even considered buttoning it. She could see a corner of a bandage protruding out from under his left shirt collar.
“Bob!” Bill called, waving his hand over to another man. “We need a bomb squad sent up to the newsroom. Lane has a bomb strapped to her chest.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Bob responded dryly, walking up. He lifted up his walkie-talkie and requested his team to move in.
“Sorry. Catherine, this is my cousin. Detective Robert Henderson, of the Metropolis Bomb Squad,” Bill explained. “Bob, this is Catherine Grant, society columnist for the Daily Planet.”
“Distant cousins,” Detective Henderson corrected, shaking her hand. He looked nothing like his tall, lanky cousin. He was shorter, stouter, and had a much darker complexion, but Cat could see the spark of humor dancing in both their eyes. “
Very distant.”
She smiled. “I know the feeling. The Jimmys are my distant cousins as well, according to rumor,” she said, nodding towards Jimmy and Jimbo.
“Rumor?” Jimmy sputtered. “You mean, it isn’t proven fact?”
“A recent article in Metropolis Science Magazine said that if two people’s families had lived in the area for at least three generations, there was an over ninety percent statistical probability that they were related by blood,” Bob informed them. “Excuse me.” He left and joined the bomb squad as they readied their gear for entering the building.
“So much for the rumor,” Jimmy grumbled.
They heard a sonic boom above them as Superman exited the building and disappeared into the sky.
“I guess Lois is bomb-free now,” Cat said, knowing Clark wouldn’t have left Lois’s side for any other reason than to rid himself of the bomb.
“Well, for the moment,” Bill replied with a slight chuckle.
“In that case, I need to return to her,” Lex said. How romantic. He left her side when she was strapped with a bomb, but as soon as it was gone…
“Mr. Luthor, sir, it appears as if you could use some medical attention,” said the paramedic, appearing out of nowhere and stepping between Lex and the door to the Daily Planet. “I heard that you’ve been shot. We should check your wounds before you do anything else.”
“I need to make sure Lois is okay,” Lex insisted, gesturing back towards the Daily Planet with his right hand. “She’s my date, my responsibility. I need to see her home.”
The stress of what Lex had lived through must have broken Lex’s normally calm shell. Something tickled Cat’s memory. She searched her mind backwards over the events of the evening, pausing when she reached George’s offer of spending the night with him. She imagined what they could do if she stopped by the Bristol instead of heading back to her apartment. Would it compromise the crime scene terribly if she went back upstairs and picked up one of her negligees out of her desk?
“Sir, bullet wounds are tricky business. I’m sure the lady would understand if you allowed me to take you to hospital. We wouldn’t want you to aggravate your injuries,” the EMT continued, looking Lex in the eyes. “Now, come with me to the ambulance and let me look at your wounds, sir.”
The paramedic seemed familiar somehow, but she couldn’t remember ever dating an EMT; firemen, often, but not any paramedics. Cat glanced over at him, but the man turned at that moment, so that she couldn’t see his face.
Lex stared long and hard at the stubborn paramedic, but then his shoulders drooped with what must have been exhaustion. “I was shot in the left shoulder. Kent apparently fixed some kind of concoction which closed my wound,” he said, allowing the EMT to escort him over the waiting Speedy Ambulance.
“Did he now?” the EMT replied. “I’m curious what it consisted of.”
Cat turned away from Lex and caught sight of the bomb squad entering the building. No, the MPD probably wouldn't allow her up to the newsroom anytime soon. Pity. She had this really terrific red number… of course, she really didn’t
need a negligee. She sighed. She didn’t really
need to go do George, either. It was nice to be wanted that way once more, but… then again… What would be the harm in celebrating? Because of her, the hostages at the Daily Planet had been freed and were, or soon would be, safe and sound. She had proven to everyone that she was more than just a sex goddess. Damn! She
needed to celebrate this victory.
“Cat!” a male voice called to her from over her shoulder.
She looked around and saw that someone in the crowd gathering beyond the police line must have shouted her name. She set her hand on Bill’s arm. “Thanks, Bill. I’ll be seeing you,” she said, heading towards the crowd.
“I’ll need your official statement,” Bill replied.
“I’ll stop by your office tomorrow,” Cat said with a brief wave. Her eyes returned to searching the crowd to see who could have been calling to her.
“Cat!” the voice called again, this time a pair of waving arms joined in. “Cat Grant!”
Her heart rate increased and her mouth went dry. “Phil?” she murmured, taking a few more steps forward. It certainly looked like Phil. Not tall, thinning blond curls, nerdy glasses, pocket protector, incredible stallion of a man in sheep’s clothing. Her whole body flushed with heat as memories of their encounter in the copier room filled her mind. What in the world, was he doing…? Who cared? She ran into his arms, engulfing him in her embrace. “Phil!”
“I heard on the radio about a hostage situation over the Daily Planet and had to come down and make sure you were all right,” he said. “I hopped in a cab and…” He glanced down at his feet. He had forgotten to put on shoes.
“It was horrible. The guns, the blood, the sneaking up and down stairs. I just want to forget it all,” she said, pressing her lips to his. “Make love to me.”
“Are… are you sure?” Phil asked between kisses. “I mean, okay… but are
you sure?”
“I don’t care if you are married,” Cat said, running her hands down his body. It felt like coming home. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me?” he gasped, sounding startled. “You couldn’t mean me.
I’m not married.”
He isn’t? Cat stiffened and paused long enough to look at him. “But your co-worker, who came by the Planet when I broke the copier to get in touch with you, said you went to the islands with your family.”
“Yeah, my sisters and their families,” Phil said, rolling his eyes. “I’m just kooky Uncle Ph…”
She slammed him up against a car, causing the alarm to go off, as she stuck her tongue in his mouth. “Oh, Phil,” she moaned. “Let’s go back to my place. I need to get out of these clothes.”
“Are you sure? I mean, I’m so… and you’re so…” he said.
“Phil, I ruined one of my best scarves to break a copier just to see you again. What do you think?” Cat replied, putting a hand on her hip.
A smile broke across his lips lighting up his entire face. “I love you!” he said, and then his eyes bugged as his face turned beet red, as he sputtered, “I mean… you’re amazing… there isn’t another woman in the world like you, and I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind and I’d really like to get to know you better, and…”
“It wasn’t the perfume,” Cat said, euphoria flooding her. She squealed with delight that she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager. Not only did Phil feel the same way about her, he
wanted to get to know her better. Pushing him back onto the car, with the alarm still blaring, she climbed on top of him and continued covering his face with kisses. “I knew I hadn’t been sprayed, but I was so worried that you…”
“Are you nuts? Any man who needs a drug to fall in love with you is in serious need of a lobotomy. You are Eve and Aphrodite rolled into one. Perfection!” Phil rambled on between her kisses. “Wait. You
weren’t sprayed?”
Cat shrugged demurely. “What can I say? I don’t need a pheromone perfume to know when there’s a hunk of prime grade-A meat in the room. When I see something I want, I go for it.”
His brow furrowed. “And you missed
me?”
She ran her fingers down his face. “Honey, I haven’t wanted anyone else
since you, and, frankly, that’s saying a whole heck of a lot.”
Phil’s mouth attacked her lips with a furiousness that matched hers.
The car beneath them chirped. “Do you mind?” the owner of the car said crossly.
“We were just leaving anyway,” Cat said, grabbing Phil’s hand and dragging him down the street to her Moped. She unlocked her compartment and pulled out her helmet. “I hope you like handcuffs.”
“What?” Phil said, his eyes widening in alarm. “Cat, I don’t need any kinky stuff. I just want you.”
A large grin spread across Cat’s face. She was going to have to cancel her interview with Inspector Henderson for the next day. She and Phil had some catching up to do.
***
One moment, Superman was there heating up her chest… okay, the duct tape on her chest… the next moment, Lois was once more alone in a dark room with the words, “Clark wouldn’t want you to risk your life to save his,” echoing in Superman’s wake.
“That’s why I have to do it,” she replied, more to herself than to him.
Someone had to help the lunkhead.Lois couldn’t believe him. Actually, she could. He was so… so…
Clark! How in the world had she not seen it sooner? Glasses, ha! When they were alone, he wasn’t even acting differently now while in uniform. How could he believe that she still didn’t know? He must know that she knew. Why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t she?
How come it was perfectly all right for
him to risk everything for her, but he wouldn’t even let her reciprocate? Fine, he
was the invulnerable one, but still… Why did their relationship always have to be on
his terms? It was a nasty habit that she would break him of, if it were the last thing she did.
At least, he had been considerate enough to remember to cut her bindings before flying off. She started to pull her arms free from the chair; even though he had burnt through the duct tape with his heat vision, it was still a sticky affair. Okay, perhaps she was being unfair. Clark overflowed consideration… usually. Truth be told, she was a bit miffed because of his ‘It would make my job easier’ comment as if she ran out into the street and invited danger to chase her down.
Granted, there was that one time that she
had in fact run across a busy Metropolis street, but, in her defense, Superman
had been on the other side.
True, she had volunteered to remain behind while Clark went through the motions of pretending to go contact Superman, but how in the hell was she supposed to know that Fuentes would strap the bomb to her chest? She had been sure Clark would be back in no time as Superman, but instead he merely disappeared. Talking to Henderson and Tuzzolino? Ha!
‘
Thanks, Chuck. Love you, too. Don’t hurry back. It’s not like my life was on the line or anything,’ she grumbled in her thoughts, hoping that Clark could telepathically hear her.
Thankfully, the lights came back on in the conference room at that moment, making her job of pulling the duct tape from her body an easier one. Still… a strong pair of hands to help would be nice, too.
As if he had read her mind, Clark opened the conference room door and returned. “Lois!” he said in dismay. “What happened to you?”
Lois pressed her lips together in annoyance. This whole façade of pretending her partner was two different people, even when they were alone, was way past old. “I could say the same of you.”
“I was on the roof waiting for Superman to return from talking to the police. I saw him leave just now and realized that he had bypassed me. So, I ran back down to check on you,” Clark answered, glancing around. He had to know that this was his weakest excuse yet. “Where is everyone?”
She stared at him. “You’re kidding me, right?” He wasn’t going to make her go through the entire episode again, was he?
“Here, let me help you with that,” Clark said, kneeling down in front of her.
“What?” Lois exclaimed, wondering how far he would go to keep up appearances or if she could coax him into folding. “Aren’t you even going to ask why I’m duct taped to the chair? Aren’t you even curious what happened to the bad guys or if they’re off shooting our friends down in the basement?”
He stopped pulling her free to look her in the eyes. “Are they?”
“Well, no,” she grumbled.
“I knew you would have said something sooner, if they were,” he said, coasting by on his lousy excuse. “So, did they duct tape you to a chair for another reason other than the obvious?”
“Which would be what? To tape a bomb to my chest?” she retorted.
“No, because you kept picking the locks of the handcuffs,” he replied.
Smart aleck.“Did you have the bomb duct taped to your chest?” he asked softly.
As if he didn’t know… “As a matter of fact, I did. Thanks for asking. Superman just left with it about a minute before you reappeared.”
“Did he? Well, that’s good,” Clark said casually. He worked quietly on the duct tape for a minute. “So, were you just trying to make me jealous? Is that why you brought Luthor here tonight?”
“No,” she said, trying to pull free from her foot bindings. “I told you why already.”
Clark gazed at her for a moment as if with dumbfounded confusion, as if he had no idea what, when, where, or how she had told him that her date with Luthor was Clark’s punishment for not taking her to Smallville.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly true, but if he wasn’t going to be honest with her, why should she be honest with him?
“Then, what’s really the matter, Lois?” He caressed her jaw with the palm of his hand, running his thumb across her cheek. “I can tell that you’re angry with me. Why don’t you just spit out the reason.”
How did he do that? How did he know that she was venting her anger about one thing because she was really upset about another? Despite her better judgment, she relaxed into his hand on her cheek.
“I’m tired, Clark. I’m tired of all this…” she said, raising her eyes to his. “Pretending.”
Clark rested his head against hers and his hand shifted to the back of her neck. “Me, too,” he whispered, tilting his chin to bring his mouth closer to hers. “Lois, the truth is I’m really…” Suddenly, he froze. Drawing away from her face, he started pulling the rest of the duct tape off her ankles.
Lois pressed her lips together in annoyance. Really?
Again? She swore in languages she knew no other words in. She could set a clock by that man’s ability
not to tell her anything. “You’re really
what, Clark?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Clark mumbled as Perry burst through the conference room doors.
“There! I got the lights on,” Perry said. “Finally, I found the master switch down the hall.” He paused at seeing Clark instead of Superman. “Oh, Clark! Good, you’re back, and Superman’s…?” He looked around for good measure. “He removed the bomb taped to Lois’s chest? I thought I had heard a sonic boom. What did he discover about the bomb?”
“It was in a lead lined box,” Lois fielded this question, since Clark was supposed to be out of the loop. She really shouldn’t keep covering for him until he admitted the truth to her, and let him fumble around on his own, especially since Perry already knew the truth. On the other hand,
Clark didn’t know that Lois had blabbered all to Perry and, personally, she wanted to keep it that way. “He couldn’t tell without opening it if it was really a bomb, a transistor radio, or remote detonator to a real bomb. We’ll have to wait and see what he says happened when he took it into space.” She looked at Clark, hoping he might supply the missing information, but he continued to concentrate on her duct tape.
“Hmmmm,” Perry thought about that as he went over the door to his office and glanced inside. “Thank goodness for Superman. I’d have hated losing you, Lois.”
Clark didn’t respond as he turned to face the door to the newsroom.
“Thanks, Chief,” she said.
A minute later, she too heard the sound of footsteps. Detective Henderson dressed in a flak jacket peered through the window. Lois waved, her hand finally free, and actually caught him sighing in relief.
Detective Henderson opened the door. “So, did I miss the show?” he asked.
“You mean me blowing up? Then, yes. Superman beat you to the punch,” she replied. She jerked her head towards Perry’s office. “Apparently, someone has subdued the bad guys in there.”
Henderson nodded, signaling to some of the other men with him and sending them over to Perry’s office. “Where’s my bomb?”
Lois shrugged. “Superman said something about taking it into space.”
The detective looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Could you inform him to contact me or someone else in the bomb squad about lessons on defusing a bomb in order to keep the evidence intact?”
“I’m sure he was more worried about it blowing up the Daily Planet or killing everyone within six city blocks,” Clark said. “But we’ll pass on the message.”
Lois stood up and went to ball up the remains of her duct tape straitjacket, but Henderson raised a hand to stop her.
“Do you mind if we gather evidence before you start cleaning?” he asked.
She tossed him her pile of duct tape. “Be my guest.”
“Lois, Clark, why don’t we move to the other conference room and allow these men to check for any more explosives,” Perry suggested, opening the door leading to the newsroom.
“You should leave the building completely until we give the all clear,” Henderson recommended.
Perry turned to Detective Henderson. “Now, see here, Detective. We’ve had a major news event in Metropolis fall into our laps, and I need to get my reporters working on it for tomorrow’s paper.”
“There won’t be an edition tomorrow, Mr. White, if these guys planted any more bombs around the building,” Henderson reminded him. “Your security guard said they were looking for Dragonetti’s vault, but maybe they were just looking for a good place to plant another bomb.”
“Judas Priest!” Perry grumbled, but Lois could tell he would relent to make sure his staff was safe. He turned and marched into his office.
“Mr. White!” Henderson called with exasperation as he followed him. “You shouldn’t…”
Perry returned to the conference room less than a minute later holding his Elvis box. “Come on, folks. We’ll have our meeting outside, and let these nice policemen do their jobs.”
***End of Part 133*** Part 134 Comments
