Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
Here Part 135Part 136Asabi had the Speedy Ambulance service drop him and the Lex-Clone off in Mr. Luthor’s private parking garage. Then he accompanied Mr. Luthor’s clone back up to the penthouse, where Asabi passed it over to Dr. Leek for the initial examination of the clone.
While Lex-C was squared away with Dr. Leek, Asabi retrieved several thousand dollars of hush-cash from his available vault, used until that night more for acquiring and/or disposing of Mr. Luthor’s private dates than anything else. Before returning to the garage to pay off the Speedy Ambulance service, he telephoned down to Mr. St. John in the ark’s apartment suite that he had returned to the penthouse with the Lex-Clone and that they would be heading down shortly to the ark. No matter what Dr. Leek concluded, the clone would need a qualified medical doctor for an examination and possibly surgery to its shoulder.
Mr. St. John informed Asabi that he shouldn't bring Dr. Leek down to the ark with the Lex-Clone, as they would have the in-house ark medical team taking care of it. Actually, Mr. St. John referred to the clone as “him”. The clone was a creation of science and, in Asabi’s opinion, was therefore a soulless vessel. It wasn’t entitled to be placed in the same species classification, let alone gender, as him. Asabi knew that neither Mr. Luthor nor Mr. St. John subscribed to any religious beliefs, well, at least privately. Publicly was another story entirely. Publicly, Mr. Luthor and Mr. St. John acted as the crème de la crème of society expected them to. Asabi was the same publicly as well as privately; he just had skills he didn’t advertise.
Additionally, the Lex-Clone ate live frogs for snacks and
that was just repulsive, especially from the point of view of reincarnation, being that it was part frog itself. It only affirmed Asabi’s vegetarianism whenever he saw Lex-C eat its snacks with relish.
Asabi returned to Mr. Luthor’s private parking garage, gave the hush-money over to the ‘paramedics’, cleaned off the back of the ambulance seats of anything, which might have Lex-C’s blood on it, and sent them on their way.
He opened a secret compartment and watched on closed circuit security cameras until the ambulance reached the exit of the garage, and then he pressed a button to open the garage gates and allow them to exit. This was necessary since the only way to open and close those gates was by using the secret panel that Asabi was currently using, or one of two remote controls. One was used by whoever drove Mr. Luthor in the Daimler Limousine, the stretch limo, or the town car. The other remote was for Mr. Luthor’s private use only, and he had used it this evening when Mr. Luthor had driven himself to his secret meeting, the location of which even Asabi hadn’t been apprised.
Lex-C had complained about being sent all the way up to the penthouse, knowing that it would only end up returning downstairs to the ark after Dr. Leek examined it. Apparently, the lift ride upstairs put gravitational pressure upon its wound, causing it extraordinary pain. When Asabi and Lex-C were alone, the clone reverted to its childlike ways. Often, it reminded Asabi of a spoiled child in need of a good whipping for disobedience. Alas, intentionally physically hurting a clone of Mr. Luthor was strictly forbidden.
Lex-C was rubbing its arm as it and Dr. Leek left the private penthouse examination room / laboratory.
“He gave me a shot,” the clone complained.
Asabi ignored it. “Is Lex-C ready to be medically treated by others?”
“I gave him an extra booster of frog hormones,” Dr. Leek explained. “This should help speed up his recovery. I’m actually quite pleased at the amount of healing he’s done so far. I would love to observe his recovery process. This could be a medical break-through of epic proportions, enough to change the course of the future, this generation’s penicillin!”
Frog hormone therapy? Asabi held his features still so that his skepticism wouldn’t show. “Thank you, Dr. Leek,” he said, instead. “Why don’t you continue looking into that aspect back at your lab?” He hoped Leek kept in mind that since all of his funding came from Mr. Luthor and LexLabs, any patents and discoveries would, as well. It wasn’t Asabi’s place to remark on such legal matters, but he would pass on the information to Mr. St. John, who delighted in sucking the joy of accomplishment out of anyone. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Oh. Okay,” Dr. Leek answered, before turning to Lex-C. “Take care. I’ll be in to check on your progress in a day or two.”
The clone looked anything but thrilled by the prospect of ever seeing Dr. Leek again, as a child would of a doctor or nurse who had just administered shots, and barely waved good-bye when Asabi walked Dr. Leek to the penthouse’s foyer elevator.
Once Leek had left, Asabi escorted the clone to Mr. Luthor’s private ark elevator, which led directly to Mr. Luthor’s study in the ark apartment.
“Do we have to go?” the Lex clone whined. “The speed of this elevator upsets my stomach, and it really hurt coming all the way up here, like you had slugged me in the shoulder.”
Tsk, tsk. Language, Asabi wanted to scold, but held his tongue. He held open the elevator door, insisting with his expression that the clone should enter first.
With a pout, Lex-C dragged its feet inside the elevator. “Anyway, I should be around for when Lois comes to check on me to see how I’m doing.”
Asabi responded with nothing more than a raised eyebrow as he followed it into the lift. The Lex-Clone would be lucky to see another sunrise, let alone Ms. Lane again. As soon as the elevator doors shut, Asabi removed the clone’s tie clip and the mini CD recorder from within the inside pocket of the suit jacket. Not liking being out of the loop on anything, Mr. Luthor had wanted a recording of everything said and done by Lex-C and Ms. Lane on their date.
Lex-C’s pout turned wistful. “I really like Lois. She was so nice to me, and she was so much prettier than her pictures.” It sighed, sounding even more like the besotted fool of its DNA host. “And she smelled nice too,” it said before scowling. “I don’t like her partner Clark Kent. I mean I
should like him because he saved my life and all…”
Asabi was very interested in the concoction Lex-C had mentioned that Mr. Kent had used on his boss’s clone. “Did he, now? That’s surprising,” he murmured encouragingly. “You should be calling her ‘Ms. Lane’ when your aren’t pretending to be Mr. Luthor, to show your respect.”
“I know, but Mr. Luthor said that he and
Ms. Lane were on first name basis and since she called me ‘Lex’, I called her ‘Lois’. Everything you and Mr. St. John taught me about Lois’s co-workers really came in handy tonight, but Mr. Kent wasn’t anything like I expected. He kept looking at me as if I were some puzzle he needed to solve. I think he’s still upset that…” It paused and caught Asabi’s eye before asking, “Did Mr. Luthor really shoot Lois?”
“Yes, but it was an accident,” Asabi answered.
Lex-C nodded slowly as it thought about that. “That’s what Lois said. I can understand why Mr. Kent doesn’t like me much, since he thought it was
me who hurt Lois. I could
never hurt her, either, so I won’t hold it against him if he doesn’t like me because of it.”
Oh, won’t Mr. Luthor be thrilled that Lex-C admires Ms. Lane as much as he does and considers Mr. Kent his savior, now? Asabi thought wryly. It was a good thing that he hadn’t gotten any more attached to this empty vessel than he had to the previous two Lex-Clones.
“Kent
really likes Lois, I could tell,” Lex-C rambled on. “The way he was always touching her, and I didn’t like that. I don’t think Lois liked it either. She kept arguing with him the whole time we were hostages and always telling him how stupid he is and stuff,” it explained. “With me, she’s much more respectful.”
“As she should as she believed you to be Mr. Luthor,” Asabi reminded it.
“Well, yeah, there was that, but I think she could like
me for me, if she was given the chance,” Lex-C said. “I’m a nice enough guy.”
Asabi tilted his head and gazed at it. “And if she didn’t?”
The clone’s face became the mirror image of its namesake. “I would make her like me.”
Did this have to do with Mr. Luthor’s nature on a cell level or his non-nurturing parental style for his clones? Asabi wondered. “I doubt Mr. Luthor will allow that to happen after tonight’s catastrophe,” he said as the elevator slowed for its approach to the ark. Both he and Lex-C would be lucky to remain alive once Mr. Luthor returned from his meeting and heard of the incident.
The doors opened upon Mr. Luthor’s ark-study, and they found Mr. St. John pointing a pistol at the tall, lanky physicist from the science division.
***
Superman returned to Metropolis via a brief fly by Lois’s apartment to check that she had made it home safely. She was sitting on her living room settee and pounding away her assignment frustration on the keyboard of her laptop. As everything seemed to be as expected with her, he continued back to the Daily Planet where he landed next to Detective Henderson who was gathering with his team outside.
“Superman,” Detective Henderson said with a slightly awe-struck tone to his voice.
It always amazed Clark how people criticized Superman’s actions to Clark, but when standing face to face with the hero they became all tongue-tied. It happened repeatedly and yet, it never failed to surprise him. In his old dimension, even after a year of being Superman (formerly known as Clark Kent), new people he met would treat him normally when he was dressed in his Clark Kent clothes, but the instant they realized who else he was they started to treat him differently. He dreamed of a day when this didn’t happen. Not in the way that Jason Trask did, where he treated Clark Kent with a modicum of respect until he discovered he was Superman. That was just the same problem in reverse.
The only person he could recall in all his time as Superman, who hadn’t treated him differently in either persona was Inspector Henderson; as such, the man had earned Clark’s respect instantaneously.
True, Luthor had treated neither Superman nor Clark Kent with respect, but there was an air of caution as he chose his words during his first meeting with Superman. It had been a total boneheaded move on Superman’s part to let Luthor know he was onto him. Clark had regretted it from the moment he had flown off the man’s penthouse balcony.
Detective Henderson regained composure quickly with a shake of his head. “What can I do for you, Superman?”
Superman pulled out Fuentes’s little metal box. Henderson took a step back and looked at Superman with an expression of alarm.
“Don’t worry, Detective. It isn’t a bomb,” Superman informed him. “I flew it out past the far side of the moon where I was able to pry open the casing for a better look. Being that Fuentes had claimed it to be a dirty nuclear bomb, I decided to err on the side of caution.”
“That makes sense,” Detective Henderson said, backpedaling on his earlier criticism of Superman’s behavior. “So, what is it?”
“Your team is the experts. Why don’t you tell me?” Superman said, handing the box to Henderson.
“Cortez!” Henderson yelled to one of his men still in protective clothing. When the man approached, Henderson passed the box to him. “Superman, why don’t you tell Cortez here what’s in the box?” Cortez was the bomb squad member Clark had spoken with down in the advertising manager’s office.
Superman reached out for Henderson’s clipboard. “May I?”
There was a momentary hesitation, and then Henderson released the clipboard. Superman flipped over the paperwork and drew a picture of what he had seen when he had glanced in the box. He gave the picture to Cortez. Henderson peered over Cortez’s shoulder for a better look.
“From your sketch, it could be a remote detonator to a bomb,” Cortez said. “But I’d have to take it apart to be sure.”
“Is there a way to use the signal from the remote to trace it back to find the bomb’s location without detonating it?” Superman asked.
Cortez and Henderson exchanged a doubtful look. “It might be possible with your speed,” Henderson finally said. “But I wouldn’t want to risk it.”
“Understandable,” Superman replied. “Ms. Lane said that Fuentes pushed some buttons on the bomb before strapping it to her chest. The first thing I checked for was a timing device, but I didn’t see one.”
“It could be that the timing device is on the bomb itself and not on the remote,” Officer Cortez explained.
“So, there could be a live bomb somewhere in the downtown Metropolis area, and there isn’t any way to follow any signal back to it, or to know when it will detonate?” Superman confirmed.
“I’m afraid so,” Cortez said. “The best I can do is take this puppy apart and see how far of a range it has. That will lower our search radius. For now, let’s start with a square kilometer with the Daily Planet at its epicenter and work out from there.”
Superman nodded, taking a quick look around. There were many office buildings, subways lines, sewer tunnels, gas mains, and underground parking structures in downtown Metropolis. The bomb could be anywhere, inside any nook or cranny, be any size, and with the remote having been lead-lined, that meant the bomb was probably shielded as well. He decided to begin searching and keep an extra sharp eye out for any blind spots in his x-ray vision. “I’ll get started.” He took one last long glance back towards Lois in her apartment with regret, but this had to be done or Lois could get caught in the blast.
Henderson picked up his radio. “Tuzzolino? We’ve got a problem.”
***
Kirk had one brandy and then decided he wanted to keep a cool head for his talk with Luthor and had switched to water. It was a good thing he did. Mr. Luthor kept him waiting over two more hours. If he had been drinking Mr. Luthor’s good brandy the whole time, he would have been plastered by the time their benefactor arrived. Kirk tried to leave more than once, but Mr. St. John kept telling him that Mr. Luthor would arrive shortly and that he should wait. Conversation between Kirk and the Head of Security wasn’t natural or pleasant, so mostly it dropped off into uncomfortable silences.
Finally, the phone on the desk rang again. Mr. St. John had been sitting at the desk as if it were his and answered it easily as if he had been waiting for the call. “Yes?” he said into the receiver. “What’s his condition?... That’s good… No, no. We’ll have the ark medical staff take care of him. The fewer people involved, the better.” He hung up the phone and raised his eyes to Kirk’s. “Mr. Luthor is on his way. He should be here within fifteen minutes.”
Kirk stood up. He couldn’t help hear about the ‘medical staff’. “Is Mr. Luthor okay?” he asked.
“He will be. A slight accident. Nothing for you to worry about, Professor Devlin,” Mr. St. John reassured him and waved for him to sit back down.
Kirk set down his glass of water and rubbed his hands together nervously in his lap. Something wasn’t right. Mr. St. John had said that they would have the ‘
ark medical staff’ take care of him, as opposed to whom? What other medical staff was there?
“Perhaps I should return another time, Mr. St. John. Mr. Luthor and I can talk when he’s feeling better. I just wanted to seek permission to use the emergency exit to check out things Topside and make sure it was as badly damaged as we expected,” Kirk said, rising back to his feet. “It can wait.”
“Half a kilometer is a long ladder climb,” Mr. St. John replied.
“A ladder? The emergency exit is a ladder?” Kirk sputtered. He was in good shape and he used to rock climb for fun during the summers, but that would be a long climb straight up, especially without his gear. He swallowed.
“Emergency exits at this depth usually are, Professor Devlin, because they don’t require any electricity.”
Right. Five hundred meters in a dark enclosed space. Fun. He thought, ‘
not’. “I can do it. I believe it would reassure many people if they knew for certain that someone had double-checked the damage to things Topside,” Kirk said, inching towards the study door.
Mr. St. John pulled out a pistol from Mr. Luthor’s desk. “Where are you going?”
Kirk raised his hands. His heart started to race.
Nowhere, apparently. “Topside still exists, doesn’t it?”
Mr. St. John waved the pistol, motioning for him to move away from the door. “It does, but then again, we never expected for it to disappear.”
“I meant it still exists as it did before. Did Nightfall even strike the Earth?” he asked, moving away as Mr. St. John walked between him and the door, but he knew the answer to this question before he even asked it.
“No, thankfully not,” the L.U.C.’s Head of Security told Kirk.
Keep him talking, Kirk told himself.
The more he talks, the more you’ll know, and the longer you can plan an escape. He swallowed. He was five hundred meters underground. He didn’t know where the escape hatch was. There would be no escape. “How?” he stammered as a cold sweat broke out over his skin.
“Superman. He failed to die during our first attempt,” Mr. St. John admitted. “He pushed Nightfall Minor out of the way.”
What’s ‘Nightfall minor’? “First attempt at what?” Kirk asked.
To save Earth?“To kill him, of course.”
“
What? Why?” Kirk said, his throat drying up. “Why would anyone want to kill Superman?”
“Because he’s in the way,” Mr. St. John replied matter-of-factly.
Kirk gazed at him incredulously. He could feel the sweat dripping down his face now. His heart was racing as well. He tried to swallow again, but his tongue seemed to have swollen in his mouth. “In the way of what?” he finally gasped out.
“World domination, of course,” Mr. St. John said. “Mr. Luthor will never have absolute power over Metropolis, then America, and then the world, if Superman keeps muddying up the waters and interrupting his plans, now will he?”
Oh, my God! The L.U.C. is a trap. “You’re holding two hundred people against our will,” Kirk insisted, backing further away from this crazy man. “You can’t do that!”
“Actually, it’s more like 185, and we have a signed contract with every one of you, stating that you chose to come to the ark of your own free will,” Mr. St. John said, stepping closer.
“Under false circumstances!” Kirk argued, circling away from him and hoping to get to the door. Somewhere in Luthor’s apartment was a door, which led to a ladder that would take him Topside. “You cannot keep these people here with a lie.”
“We can and we are,” Mr. St. John said.
“What will happen when the three years are up? The locks on the service elevator will un…” He stopped as realization struck him. “There are no locks, are there?”
Mr. St. John smiled, causing another chill down Kirk’s spine as if the Grim Repear stood behind him breathing down his neck. “We did well in choosing you, Professor Devlin, very intelligent. There are locks, but Mr. Luthor, Asabi, and I control the codes which open the elevators.”
“Elevators?” Kirk gasped. “There’s more than one?”
Of course, there’s more than one, birdbrain, he admonished himself.
Do you really think that these guys climb a ladder to Topside every day?“There are three elevators, Professor Devlin,” Mr. St. John informed him as a villain was wont to do when he thought he had the upper hand. “The service elevator on which you arrived. The east side emergency elevator on the edge of the medical wing. A false wall and a table with a houseplant on it currently block it. And…”
The bookcase behind Kirk started to move, revealing the metal door of an elevator.
“Mr. Luthor’s private elevator here in his apartments,” finished Mr. St. John.
Kirk’s jaw dropped. There was no tunnel with a ladder. There had been an elevator right here, the whole time.
The elevator door opened to reveal Asabi and Mr. Luthor. The latter looked much worse for wear. His shirt was unbuttoned and bloody and his tie pulled down.
“Mr. Luthor!” Kirk gasped. “What happened to you?”
Mr. Luthor looked at him with confusion and shock. Surprise at finding him in his study and yet confusion as if he had no idea who he was. Kirk should have known that Mr. Luthor wouldn’t have remembered him, let alone an inkling regarding their supposed meeting.
“He’s been shot,” Mr. St. John explained.
“By whom?” Kirk asked, his mouth running away from him.
“By you,” Mr. St. John said, turning the pistol away from Kirk long enough to shoot Mr. Luthor in the shoulder.
Asabi dove out of the way. “St. John! Some warning next time,” he said, from the floor.
Mr. Luthor grabbed his shoulder and gazed at Mr. St. John with fright. His knees buckled under him and he fell to the floor, howling in pain.
“Mr. Luthor!” Kirk said, taking two steps towards his fallen benefactor.
“He’ll be fine,” Mr. St. John reassured him. “The wound needed to look fresh when the doctors saw it. Asabi informed me it was already starting to heal and scar over.”
“But! But!” Kirk stammered, throwing a hand out towards the man on the floor. Mr. Luthor wasn’t the bad guy here. It was Mr. St. John! He was the one pulling Mr. Luthor’s strings. He was the one keeping them imprisoned in this underground hellhole. Then Mr. St. John’s words sunk in. “
Me? I would never…” He backed away from the insane man with the gun now leveled at his chest.
“Yes,
you, Professor Devlin. Unfortunately, living underground has done serious damage to your psyche. You went insane in your belief that the world Topside was still there. You even went so far as to attack Mr. Luthor, thinking that he was holding you prisoner here in the ark instead of what he is doing, rescuing you from a life worse than death,” Mr. St. John said, his voice cold and that lilting English accent making his words sound more true than Kirk’s sputtering. “That is when I burst into Mr. Luthor’s study and killed you, before you could do the same to him.”
“Killed…?” Kirk gasped, his eyes widening as Mr. St. John raised his gun and shot. A burning heat spread quickly through Kirk’s chest, which suddenly turned cold as the blood stained his shirt red. He tried to take a breath and failed. The light in the room brightened, then dimmed, and then swirled around his head turning to darkness.
***
Brenda Muldoon looked up from her paperwork. What was that sound? It almost sounded as if someone was buffing the floor, but it was made of concrete and buffing was unnecessary. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it was LUCA. Her eyes widened, and she jumped to her feet. Running into the corridor, she saw the emergency golf cart disappear around the corner.
The L.U.C. used a battery-operated golf cart for an ambulance, since it was the only vehicle that could fit down the halls. It wasn’t equipped with a siren as most emergency vehicles Topside were, so unless one heard the whirr of the motor and wheels, it stole through the L.U.C. practically soundlessly. It did have a horn, should it be needed, to clear halls of pedestrians, but at this late hour, the dimly lit corridors were empty. The entire medical staff – all five doctors and nurses – had trained on driving the ambulance, which one of the nurses had nicknamed LUCA, that first week after they had arrived. This was the first time that she had heard it taken out since then.
Dr. Sherridon, one of the two G.P. doctors, was driving. Brenda knew this fact because Dr. Sherridon was on-call that night. Sean Sherridon was a serious man with little sense of humor, and they rarely got along. He was a religious man and didn’t believe in premarital sex. He had disapproved of her bringing contraception to the ark as part of her ‘fee’. He also didn’t endorse her converting that empty apartment down the hall from her apartment into a ‘sex room’. He had thought it would be better to save it as a reward for the couple who entered into the first L.U.C. marriage. Brenda was more realistic than that. Better that they monitor who was pairing up and give them a healthy place to release their pent up stress than make sex forbidden and taboo. That would be a horrible beginning to a new society. Additionally, she knew from experience that just made people want it more.
Each doctor had a single ark-room with a private bath off the medical wing, down the hall from the ‘sex room’. The three female nurses were lumped together in an ark-room over in the women’s dorms, and the one male nurse shared a double room with someone, but Brenda hadn’t met him. The remaining female nurse, who was both a Nurse Anesthetist and Massage Therapist, had been given a single ark-room off the medical wing near the doctors. Brenda guessed this was because of her status above mere nurse. One of the four minor nurses was always on duty in the round-the-clock infirmary, in case anyone got sick during the night.
Other than a few minor scrapes and bruises, the citizens of the L.U.C. had been relatively healthy during their first month. The doctors had busied themselves by conducting initial physicals on all of the community members and familiarizing themselves with their patients’ medical histories. Thankfully, general good health and no family history of disease or cancer was one of the requirements to be accepted into the community. Brenda was hoping this meant an eradication of many STDs, but she knew that was being wildly optimistic.
Brenda was in top physical condition herself, running ten miles around the farm quad every other morning and alternating that with yoga in her room. She was able easily to follow LUCA down the twists and turns of the ark corridor, until it stopped outside the doors to Lex Luthor’s apartments.
Oh, no. Brenda froze as she watched Dr. Sherridon step from LUCA and ring Lex’s doorbell. She had worked too hard to make Lex dependent on her to lose him now. Had she pushed him too hard? She knew he was older than he pretended to be. He couldn’t hide his age from her. Had he suffered a heart attack?
She approached Dr. Sherridon. “Do you need my help?” she asked.
Dr. Sherridon started at her voice. “Brenda!... er… Dr. Muldoon. What are you doing here?”
“I heard the LUCA go by. Is someone hurt?” Brenda asked.
Asabi opened the door. “This way,” he said, leading them through the living room to Lex’s study. Lex had brought her here once to discuss how to improve his techniques for optimal implantation.
Lex sat in one of his fancy and uncomfortable armchairs, holding his left shoulder and gasping. It sounded as if he was trying not to cry.
“Lex!” she exclaimed, pushing past Dr. Sherridon through the doorway and kneeling down beside Lex. “What happened?”
“He
shot me!” he said. If any other man had said it, she would have thought he was whining, but not Lex. Lex never whined; no matter how hard she pushed him, he never gave in.
Brenda glanced behind Lex and over to the bookcases where Dr. Sherridon knelt and saw the legs of another man. “How is he?” she called over to her colleague.
“Dead,” Dr. Sherridon replied. “It’s Professor Kirk Devlin. He used to be one of my patients. He’s been shot in the chest.”
“Professor Devlin tried to kill Mr. Luthor,” Nigel St. John said from where he stood at the desk, causing Brenda to turn and notice him. “I had to protect him.”
Brenda looked back at Lex. “Let me see your wound, Lex,” she insisted.
Lex gazed at her with what seemed to be a mixture of bafflement and relief. The shock must have been settling in as he stared at her as if he couldn’t place her name or face, yet he was happy that she was there and taking charge. He let her move his hand, which held the handkerchief he was using to stop off the blood, off from his wound. It was a messy injury and not at all the type of wound she was used to seeing. She set her hand on his jaw tenderly for a moment. “Asabi, Mr. Luthor will need surgery. Go wake Dr. Gideon and Nurse Miles to prep the O.R.,” she told Luthor’s assistant. “And inform the infirmary to prep a recovery bed.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Asabi replied with a slight bow, but before he could leave the room, Mr. St. John moved towards them.
“That’s not necessary, Asabi. Dr. Muldoon, I’ve already contacted Dr. Gideon about Mr. Luthor’s condition,” Mr. St. John informed her. “He will make his recovery
here in his own apartments, where I can keep him safe and away from gawking eyes.”
“Miles should also be informed,” Brenda said, meeting Mr. St. John’s stare without flinching. Old men didn’t scare her; she’d been battling them her whole life. “She will be in charge of pain regimen and anesthesia during surgery. The infirmary nurse will still need to be informed to prep his bed here for its patient. Medicines, bedpans, and other things will need to be brought here to care for Mr. Luthor properly, and a new work schedule drawn up, as he’ll need a round-the-clock nurse. Unless you plan to do those things yourself, Mr. St. John.”
During their exchange, Asabi slipped from the room.
Mr. St. John bowed his head in deferment to her demands. “As you wish, Dr. Muldoon,” he said and followed Asabi out the door. “I must make arrangements for Professor Devlin.”
“Dr. Muldoon?” Lex whispered, catching her attention again. He gazed up into her eyes with wide-eyed wonder. “Brenda Muldoon?”
“Yes, Lex. It’s me,” she replied, taking hold of the hand of his uninjured arm. “We’ll take good care of you. Don’t you worry. I’ll see personally to your recovery.”
He smiled then, and she could see a charming vulnerability she had never noticed before shine through. “I’ve found you.”
Brenda couldn’t help, but return his smile. “And I’ve found you, too.”
***End of Part 136*** Part 137 Comments
