Notes:
This story starts just before the Pilot episode, although things aren't exactly the same as in the show - you'll understand as you read (I hope...).
I have no beta, so I apologise for any mistakes I've left in here. If anyone wishes to volunteer their beta-ing services for the rest of the story, let me know.
Standard disclaimers apply.
*.*.*.
Specimen
by Alisha Knight
*.*.*.
Part One
*.*.*.
The silver jeep drew to a halt outside STAR Labs and was immediately blocked in by a number of other press vehicles, all eager to get as close as possible to the burning building without hindering the emergency service vehicles' passage. Before she'd even turned off the engine her companion, Jimmy, had jumped out of the passenger's side and had started taking photographs of the flaming complex that was sending plumes of black smoke high up above Metropolis' skyline. Revelling in the moment of calm as she grabbed her tape recorder and notepad, Lois Lane steeled her nerves for the following onslaught. She leapt out of the car to join the fray, making sure it was locked before leaving its side. Someone always profited from a crisis and she was going to make sure it wasn't at her expense. She looked around at the chaos and panic of the fire; she'd already lost sight of Jimmy, who had melted into the gathered crowd. Finally, hiding behind the burning building away from the crowd, she spotted the more esteemed members of STAR Labs' staff. Out front the management were busy talking to the press and the emergency services, while the lab technicians were busy carrying out chemicals and experiments from the parts of the building deemed safe by the fire crews so that they wouldn't be exposed to the flames. There were some nasty things in that building, half the reason the accident was so newsworthy. If the wrong thing reacted to the fire and was released into the atmosphere, Metropolis would be doomed. But management and technicians didn't hold much interest with Lois. Technicians did all the donkey work and while they had useful information, they never had the whole story, and management would only tell as much as suited their purpose. No, the doctors and professors at the laboratories were the people she wanted to talk to, the people who really knew what was going on there and were likely to speak to her about it honestly. As she drew near, she noticed how concerned they were as they spoke earnestly in low tones amongst themselves. Her heart froze as the possibilities of what they were discussing whirled around in her frenzied imagination.
"Oh, no," she exclaimed loudly, startling them so they all turned to face her, "we're all gonna die aren't we?"
A middle-aged man gave a quick look at his colleagues, then detached himself from the group to speak to her. "No, no, nothing like that."
"How do you know, Bernard?" asked another scientist, obviously more concerned than his associate appeared to be. "We have no idea what it's going to do now it's free."
Lois watched as Dr Klein's face grew red with anger at the man's implication. "*He* won't hurt anyone, trust me. I'm more worried about what might happen to *him*."
A young woman about Lois' age, shook her head as she eyed the reporter suspiciously. "Speaking to the press won't make it any better either way. Be careful."
"Someone's got to tell her something now, she's heard too much!"
The scientists glared at Klein as he took Lois away from them, calling out more warnings about being careful over what he was planning on saying to her. "I'm sorry about that Miss Lane, as you can tell, this fire has caused us a lot of problems."
"What were you talking about?" she asked, her curiosity raised.
Dr Klein looked worried at her question. "Please don't ask me that, Miss Lane. I can't answer it, it's strictly top-secret government the-press-must-never-know and there's a very good chance of me getting chucked into prison, or worse, if I tell *anyone* about it, let alone you."
Lois crossed her arms over chest and gave him a conspiratorial smile. "Dr Klein, you know you can trust me with this information."
He sighed and shook his head, turning away from her as he spoke. "No I can't but I'm worried about him, and if anyone can track him down and help him, you can. That's the only reason I'm talking to you right now."
"Who?"
"I can't say any more, Miss Lane, it's more than my life's worth, but here," he reached into his lab coat pocket and handed her the notebook he took out. "These are my personal notes. You found them lying around after the fire. I'm very absent minded, it was bound to happen sooner or later."
Lois slid the notebook into her jacket's interior pocket as she watched Klein return to his colleagues. She was intrigued, very intrigued, and she almost felt as if she had always been destined to be a part of whatever the scientists were going on about. She hadn't felt so sure about something like this since she first started working at the Planet, which was even more bizarre considering she had absolutely no belief in fate whatsoever. Also, she had no idea what Klein had been talking about. Whatever it was, it was going to take a lot of time and effort for her to investigate, she knew that well enough from what Klein had told her. With a resigned sigh, Lois strode back over to the action. She'd better return to Perry with something, even if it was only the standard line.
*.*.*.
That evening Lois sat on her couch eating take-away while watching the news. The fire had finally burned out during the afternoon and half of the STAR Labs building was now just a charred ruin, eerily standing out against the orange glow of Metropolis' night sky. The police suspected that it had been an arson attack, possibly by a terrorist group determined to get their hands on some of the explosives and chemicals kept in STAR Labs. The vault in the basement, where all the most dangerous of the experiments and chemicals were kept, had been targeted and there was a lot missing. A lot, but not all and not nearly enough for Lois to believe that what had been announced as missing had been the arsonists' intended acquisition. Perry had agreed with her initial analysis that something else had to have drawn them in, and when coupled with Dr Klein's reluctance to talk and all his concern over the government, whatever it was it wasn't going to be easy to find. Lois flicked the television off and settled down onto her couch, keeping her own notebook and pen out on her coffee table ready to make notes as she read what turned out to be Dr Klein's diary.
*/* I have been reassigned to STAR Labs for a very 'particular' project. I am to be working under a man named Trask for a secret government agency. So secret I have been informed that it wouldn't be safe for me to learn everything at once, that they need to see that I'm trustworthy first. When I arrived this morning I was assigned to a few cover experiments, nothing so big that I would have to concentrate fully on them. I have been told that I will learn more in a week or so. */*
The next few entries were on his 'cover experiments'. Lois only understood every other sentence and she prayed that the information he wanted her to have had nothing to do with them, because learning all the terminology and scientific names was going to be like learning an entirely new language for her. Something new caught her eye as she skim read past the experiments and she started to read properly again a few weeks into his diary.
*/* Today I was taken down the vaults below STAR Labs through a number of secret passage ways, being told that soon I'd be given free access to them but that for now I would have to be content to be taken there. This secrecy I find more irritating than mysterious. How am I supposed to help them without having all the information? I was lead into a room. It was sparse and practically empty, with a camp bed in one corner, a toilet and basin in another and a television set against one wall. In the centre was a table with two chairs and at this table sat a young man. He was tall with dark hair and eyes. His skin looked like it should be darker than it was if he was allowed sunlight but all he had to see by was one strip light on the ceiling that made him seem unnaturally pale. He didn't look up as we came in or try and make a bolt for the door for all that he seemed to be a prisoner in the room.
"Clark," said Dr Wicks, my superior who had brought me here, "this is Dr Klein. He's here to replace Dr Griffiths."
The man, Clark, looked at the table. I noticed it was strewn with paper, mostly with writing on it that I wasn't close enough to read. "Oh."
Dr Wicks turned to me, watching me closely. "I know this seems strange, but before we can explain it all to you we need to trust you and so does he."
"Who is he?" I asked, knowing that she wouldn't tell me why he was here.
"We call him Clark." Dr Wicks replied vaguely. "He received the name before he came to us and it was easier for us to keep it as his."
I didn't understand at all but knew better than to say so. Dr Wicks told me to sit down with Clark and talk to him. Then she left us alone. I had no idea what to say to him. Clark tidied up his papers, never once raising his head to look at me.
"You're nervous," he told me after a short stretch of silence, "your heart's too fast. One doctor came to see me and their heart beat so much they had a heat attack and died."
"How do you know that? About my heart, I mean."
Finally Clark looked me in the eye, but only briefly. "It's not for me to say. Some scientists have only met me the once. It's important not to give too much away until I know they're not going to leave me."
"What will happen to you if you do say too much?"
"Me? Nothing. There's not much they can do to me, Dr Klein. It's you I am worried about. They don't tell me anything, only that I won't be seeing so-and-so again. I have memorised all the names, there are too many to list but I am pretty sure that a lot of them have met with unfortunate accidents."
My pounding heart stopped in that instance. "You mean... they were killed?"
"I don't know, Dr Klein. Only the outside world knows that. I fear I have already said too much. You should never have taken this job, you know. I'm dangerous." */*
Lois stopped reading for a second time and continued to flick through the pages. More and more bizarre conversations with 'Clark'. What she wanted was to know who this Clark was and why he was being kept in a vault in STAR Labs. She also wondered at Dr Klein. She had used him as a source on more than one occasion and he had appeared to be very scatterbrained every single time, yet he had obviously been very observant in his dealings with Clark, even remembering their conversations. That wasn't important, however. What was important was understanding what Klein had wanted to tell her. What did Clark have to do with the fire? Was he one of the things that were missing? Klein had said he was worried about *him*, he must have meant Clark. There were so many questions that she needed answering, but she needed to finish Klein's notes before she spoke to him about it. It seemed very likely that the wisest thing for Lois to do would be to return the book to its owner and pretend she'd never seen it. But Lois Lane had never been wise. She started to read again about two months into the diary.
*/* Dr Wicks called me into her office today. "You've made good progress with Clark," she told me, "and we're very impressed with your work for STAR Labs as well. It's time we told you about Clark but first we need you to sign this."
She pushed a piece of paper towards me. I read it fast, but I read it nonetheless. The outcome was that my future was not a very bright one if I ever told anyone about my work for Bureau 39. Still I signed. If what Clark had told me was true, my signature was irrelevant and my contract had become lifelong as soon as I laid eyes on him. Wicks rolled up the paper and stored it in a draw. Then she told me the story of Clark's origins. There had been a meteor shower above a town in Kansas, called Smallville, in 1966. As Bureau 39 had been set up to identify possible alien threats to Earth, a group had been dispatched to collect up samples of the meteorites and to find out if anything else strange had been reported. Days after arriving they had learnt that a farmer and his wife, Jonathan and Martha Kent, had informed the local police that they had found a baby in a field and had applied for custody of the boy they had named 'Clark'. After snooping around the Kents' house the agents had discovered what appeared to be a small spacecraft. They had bugged the house and then later discovered that Clark had been found in that spacecraft. They told the police that they had found the boy's real parents and quickly gained custody of the alien child, while leaving the Kents to believe that the boy was happy and safe with his real family. Bureau 39 then debated what to do with him. The leader, Jason Trask, had wanted to kill him and be done with it, but the general consensus had been to study the boy to further our knowledge of extraterrestrial life. Fearing that he may be dangerous they had hid him from the world, keeping him locked up in secret laboratories. That was the only life Clark knew. Sometimes he had to be moved; I already know of his amazing strength and that meant that he had often destroyed his cells, especially during his teenage years, and each new one was made stronger than the last. Lead had proved to be the better metal to use. In the next room to his is kept the meteorites that had accompanied him to Earth. Experiments had shown him to have negative reactions to the rocks and although lead seemed to shield him, they saw no harm in keeping them nearby to subdue the alien. Everything about Clark is heightened: his strength, his eyesight and his hearing. He can also burn things with his eyes and freeze things with his breath. They constantly refer to him as an alien, 'it' instead of he, but I see only a lonely and resigned young man. I have realised why all the animal rights activists picketed research laboratories. It is no life for a living creature, be it mouse, rat, monkey or alien. I know I shouldn't be writing this down but I am determined that should Clark make it into the history books he should make it as more than an alien and if this is ever found in the future maybe he will. There is a kind, considerate, caring and intelligent man inside that lead-lined vault. I wish to call him my friend, but I worry that to him I am just another doctor. */*
"Poor man," Lois said out loud, feeling a tear course it's way down her face. She couldn't explain it, maybe it was some strange maternal instinct but she felt drawn to this 'Clark'. She could tell from what he had written that Klein did as well. She would help him find out what happened to Clark but whether she'd return him to STAR Labs or write a story about him was less certain. This was a revelation to her. She'd never even *considered* killing a story before. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. Maybe she was just tired, that could explain it. She stood up and hid Klein's diary under a cushion, just in case, before heading to the bathroom.
*.*.*.
Slowly, groggily he opened his eyes.
"Awake are we?" asked a friendly but unknown male voice. Clark was immediately on his guard.
"Who are you? Where's Dr Klein?"
He focused in on his companion. He seemed perhaps a decade older than himself, smaller, though by no means short and perhaps a little overly confident in himself. "I am your saviour, my friend, and I have no doubt that Dr Klein is safe and well at home. No-one died in the fire."
"Fire?"
"Oh, you don't remember?" the man sounded falsely sympathetic, "I had some men start a fire so that I could free you from Bureau 39."
Clark had managed to sit up and notice the opulence around him. "Why?"
"For a lab rat you're amazingly curious," the man laughed. "No, no. That was cruel, if perhaps accurate. My name, my alien friend, is Lex Luthor. I am the richest man in Metropolis. I learnt of your plight after I started donating money to STAR Labs. I read some research notes on you and thought it most unfair that a creature such as yourself should be kept in such ghastly conditions, so I liberated you. Of course no-one can know that I did that and should they find you, you would go straight back. Therefore it would be in both our interests if you stayed inconspicuous. However you look human enough that after some time perhaps you could be allowed out into the world to help me out from time to time." He seemed to be rather pleased with himself for some reason Clark wasn't aware of and wasn't convinced he wanted to know.
"Help you?" Clark watched Lex incredulously, "Help you with what?"
Lex shrugged. "Whatever I need help with. The shopping, taking a car to the garage. I don't support freeloaders, but of course you need time to adjust, Clark. I am not expecting anything of you yet. Now, do you like your room?"
For the first time Clark decided to look properly at his surroundings. He could not remember ever being in such a large space; the room was easily four times the size of his cell. There was colour on the walls, two large windows and a carpet on the floor. There was a proper bed on which he was currently sat, a desk and other furniture. Through an open door he could see a proper bathroom and opposite the bed there was a large television set, as well as some books on a shelf above a real fireplace. "It's... amazing. Better than a palace!"
Lex tried not to snigger at Clark's naivety. The room was akin to a comfortable hotel room, the plainest room Lex owned. He had put the books in to win favour with Clark, he had learnt that the alien seemed to enjoy writing. In fact he had ordered that as much of what he had written be rescued as possible, along with the meteorites in case anything went wrong and Clark tried to turn on him. "So long as you are pleased. Now I shall leave you to recover from your ordeal. I have placed a guard outside your room to make sure that no-one will come to return you to the laboratory, if you want anything you can ask them to convey a message to me."
"Oh. I am used to guards," he replied emotionlessly.
"That's good then. I shall return to see how you are doing after breakfast tomorrow morning." Lex stood up from the chair he had been sat on and left the room. Clark watched him go, ambivalence coursing through him. He was free but how free? Was Lex really rescuing him from Bureau 39 or was he going to be as much of a prisoner here as there? He knew what guards meant; that he wasn't allowed to leave the room. That wasn't freedom, that was captivity but Luthor had seemed so amiable, maybe he did have his best interests at heart and the guards were only there for protection until Bureau 39 stopped looking for him. There were so many questions, but the comfortable looking bed was calling Clark and he decided that there would be time enough for him to try and work out the answers tomorrow.
To Be Continued...
...if you want it to be, that is. Let me know by leaving feedback ... Please!
- Alisha
