Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Specimen 2/?

From Part One:

"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.

*.*.*.

Part Two

*.*.*.

Warmth suffused his body, filling him with strength, nourishing him more than food ever had. He had the strangest floating feeling. Clark opened his eyes, blinking in the sunlight he could not remember ever seeing before. He stared down at the bed beneath him. Really beneath him. He was literally floating! Then he fell with a thud and a crunch of splintering wood as he broke the bed under his sudden weight. The door burst open at the sound and a man stood there watching him with a blank face. "Is everything all right?"

"Um," Clark looked guiltily from the man to the bed as he jumped off it and surveyed the damage he had caused, "I broke it. I didn't mean to."

The man smiled at him. "No matter. Mr Luthor's budget will stretch to a new bed." He strode over to the wardrobe. "He is busy in a very important meeting this morning and sends his apologies for not being here as he promised." He flung the door open. "As we had no knowledge of your size not all of these clothes will fit you, but as soon as we discover your size we will find you some more. I assume you can dress yourself."

Clark glared at the man. "Yes, I can dress myself."

The man looked him up and down with an expression that was almost disdainful. "We found no other clothing in your cell, Clark. Just the jump-suit you were, and still are, wearing. I did not mean to imply that you were incapable but perhaps unused to changing your clothes."

Clark walked over to stare impassively at the suits in the wardrobe. "They bring me my clothes each morning. I am not allowed to keep them, I do not know why."

The man fished through the wardrobe and brought out some items that were roughly Clark's size. He pushed the hangers into his hands. "Past tense, Clark. Mr Luthor wishes you to have a normal life. No-one will dictate to you here."

"Oh," Clark fiddled with the hangers in his hands. "Who are you?"

"I am Asabi. I am one of Mr Luthor's personal assistants."

"One of? How many does he have?"

"Three. We all have our separate assignments."

"I am just your assignment?"

Asabi shrugged and moved away towards the open door. "A poor choice of words, Clark. Mr Luthor pays me to do certain things for him. For now, he pays me to look after you."

Clark nodded as Asabi closed the door behind him. He saw no difference between Asabi and the various scientists that had come to see him daily throughout his life. All were paid to be with him, whatever the reason. Someday he wished to have a friend, someone who spent time with him only because they enjoyed being with him, not because they were paid to and were hoping to learn something about him. Clark knew that wouldn't happen. He was an alien, he knew no human would truly want his company because they'd all be repulsed by him, but he could dream. The closest he'd ever to had a friend was Dr Klein. He knew he was just work to him but Klein treated him like a man rather than a 'lab rat', as Luthor had called him. He wanted to talk to Klein about the floating he had experienced when he woke up. Perhaps Lex or Asabi would let him look for Klein, but on the other hand he couldn't trust that Dr Klein wouldn't just take him back to Bureau 39. More than anything else in the world right now, he didn't want that but he had no firm idea of what he really wanted. Resigned, Clark decided to dress and go along with Lex's wishes for the time being. He would be able to try and have a life once he was used to the outside world.

*.*.*.

Lois was paying little attention to the staff meeting in progress around her. Her thoughts were concentrated on Klein's notes. A part of her refused to believe them, that there had been an alien living on Earth for nearly 30 years subjected to all sorts of tests and bizarre experiments, and the seemingly nice Dr Klein had been a large part of that. But accepting all that, why would someone want to take Clark? Whatever the reason, Lois couldn't believe that it was good. She thought she heard someone call her name, and looked up from her notepad to see Perry watching her. "Huh?"

"I said, do you want to go to Luthor's charity auction tonight? The Planet has been given four tickets to the event. I'm going, Cat's going, Eduardo's going, do you want to come?"

Lois shook her head with indecision. "I don't know, Perry. It's just that I'm trying to work out this STAR Labs fire thing--"

"But you've been desperate for an interview with Luthor ever since you started here. Every single event you've thought he might appear at, you've begged me to let you go to and this one that he's *hosting*, you're turning down for an arson story?"

Cat looked up from her nails to fix Lois with a venomous stare. "You have to realise, Perry, that in order for Lois to get Lex Luthor's attention, she has to actually try to look presentable and at least slightly feminine. She probably doesn't even own a suitable dress."

"I do," Lois flicked her dark hair back irritably, "and I can. I'll go, Perry. A night off won't be so bad."

"A night off!" Perry exclaimed, "Judas Priest, this is not a social event girls, this is work. Now, Lois, how *is* that STAR Labs story coming?"

Lois tapped her pencil against her sparse notes, as she repeated her carefully planned speech. "The police and STAR Labs are sticking to the terrorist theory, but I'm not buying it. There's something else, something bigger going on there. Maybe something so top secret that only a few people know about it."

Perry looked at her, concern written across his brow. "So you have nothing? Look, Lois, I trust you. If you say that there's something going on there that's suspicious, I believe you, you've got great instincts but if you can't get anything concrete..."

"I know. I still have a few leads I want to chase up. If nothing solid shows up in the next few days, I'll put my efforts into another story."

"Good. Now, Applegate..." The meeting droned on around Lois' head, her thoughts elsewhere. Could she really justify following up on Dr Klein's story? Especially if she had no intentions of printing anything that was likely to end up with both of them having 'unfortunate accidents'. After a while she noticed people packing up and heading out to the newsroom. She picked up her notes and left the conference room, bumping into Jimmy as she started to make her way from the door to her desk.

"Whoa, careful there, Lois. You should look where you're going."

"Sorry, Jimmy," Lois tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, "I'm not really with it today."

"Oh, well, here are the numbers for any J or M Kents in Kansas," he said, handing her some sheets of printed paper. "There was only one in Smallville, I highlighted it for you. I can't believe there really is a place called Smallville, I thought you were trying to trick me when you told me about it."

"I know, you couldn't make it up could you?"

Jimmy flashed her a boyish grin before heading off on the errands of other staff members.

"Thanks!" she called after him as she finally made it to her desk. Lois sat down and stared at the strange black number surrounded by luminous yellow ink. She had no idea what she wanted to say to the Kents, but she felt that perhaps the best way to start this was *at* the start and that meant trying to find the people who had first found the alien. She took a deep breath and dialled. A couple of rings later a friendly female voice answered the phone.

"Hi. I'd like to speak to Jonathan or Martha Kent please."

"I'm Martha Kent. Who is this?"

"My name's Lois Lane, I'm from the Daily Planet. Is your husband called Jonathan?"

"Yes," the woman, Martha, sounded confused. "Yes. He's working on the farm right now. Why are you calling us? What could we possibly have done that would interest the Daily Planet?"

Of course Lois knew she'd need a cover story. She couldn't very well tell them the truth, that she was researching the kidnap of the alien child they'd discovered in 1966, but she didn't want to stray too far from the line. "I'm researching a story on abandoned children. I hear you found a child that got successfully reunited with it's birth parents."

"Well, yeah. That was years ago, Ms Lane. Surely there are more recent stories for you to use, ones that are closer to Metropolis as well." Martha sounded on edge now, as if she was hiding something and she was worried.

"True, but I wanted to use an example from a rural setting, only there aren't that many children abandoned in the country."

"What do you want to know?" Martha was snapping now. The woman had sounded so nice and approachable when she answered the phone. Something was definitely up in Smallville.

Lois gripped her pen tighter as she held it against the paper, making notes, mainly on how she knew she wasn't going to get any information from the Kents. "Anything you can tell me."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "We found a baby boy in a local farmer's field. We informed the police and said that if his parents didn't want him, we would like to adopt him. The police found the boy's real parents so he was only with us for a few weeks."

"Did you get attached to him?" Lois asked. Clark seemed to have a magnetic presence; Dr Klein seemed found of him, even though he was only supposed to be an experiment to him and Lois had been drawn to him simply though Klein's notebook. Maybe it was an alien thing.

Martha chuckled. "Yes. He was an adorable child."

"Did you ever find out what happened to him?"

Again there was an awkward silence and a stiff reply. "No, the police were not able to tell us."

"Thank you, Mrs Kent." said Lois as she put the phone down. Stranger and stranger. Klein had been lead to believe that the Kents were satisfied with the lie about Clark's whereabouts but Lois wasn't fooled for a second. Mrs Kent knew that something was up. Maybe there was more than they had told the authorities. If it weren't so far, Lois would've gone snooping but she couldn't visit Kansas on a whim.

"Miss Lane?"

Lois looked up to see Dr Klein's nervous face looking down at her. "What is it?"

"Well, I," Klein looked nervously around,"I hadn't heard anything from you. Did you read my notes?"

"Yes," Lois motioned for him to sit down, and he did, "I was just speaking to Martha Kent."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "It seemed as good a place to start as any. I think they kept something back from the police when they handed Clark over. And I don't think they believed that he had been returned to his real parents."

"Oh!" Klein exclaimed. "But why didn't they try to get him back?"

"Perhaps they were more sensible than we are."

Dr Klein scuffled his feet, staring at the floor between them. "I shouldn't have got you involved, I know. You don't have to help me."

"But I want to. I'm almost certain that the fire was started purely as an aid for someone to get Clark out, but we need to know who knew he was there first."

"I think that there are more people at STAR Labs that knew about Clark than I was aware of."

Lois gritted her teeth in irritation. "I hate government investigations."

Dr Klein sighed. "My colleagues believe Clark started the fire."

"What?"

"I wrote about his powers, his alien abilities. He could have done it, set alight to some of the paper, maybe his bedding," he shrugged, "I think Dr Wicks suspects I might have had something to do with it. She hasn't been very forthcoming with what really happened when I've asked her about it. I just don't believe Clark would do it. He would have nothing to gain by escaping, the only reality he's ever known is Bureau 39. He may be a superbeing but he has no concept of the outside world, he would give himself away in minutes. He doesn't like his life, that's obvious enough from his attitude, but he accepts it. He doesn't look for a better one. He certainly wouldn't endanger people's lives like that."

Lois stared at her pile of research. "Dr Klein, I'm going to try and find out everything I can about Bureau 39. I need you to try and find out every person connected to STAR Labs who knew about Clark. Maybe we'll come across something. Keep me posted."

*.*.*.

Lois fidgeted with her black dress as she stood in the crowded room. Even with her head full of the STAR Labs investigation she had enjoyed the sensation of getting all dressed up and making herself look nice. Now however, the confinement of her dress and the burning sensation in her feet from the heels were beginning to get to her and all she wanted do was to return home, put on some comfortable yet horrifically unfashionable clothes and get back down to work. Somehow she had managed to loose Perry and Eduardo almost as soon as the four of them entered the building and Cat had run off chasing men about two minutes later. Lois sighed deeply. Maybe she should just seek out Lex Luthor and try and get an interview with him, that's what she had come here for anyway. She knew what Lex looked like even though she'd never seen him in the flesh, everyone in Metropolis did. She found him quickly enough, while moving through the throng of people. As she'd suspected he was in the centre of the biggest gathering of people, smiling and laughing politely, every bit the gentleman. Lois found herself smiling in turn, even from where she was stood on the outskirts of the congregation she felt herself being drawn to his charm. As she pushed her way through the suits that were desperate to try and be seen with the most influential man in the city, she noticed another man doing the same on his other side, with a considerable greater degree of luck. He didn't even need to touch someone and they'd just move for him, like magic. She watched Lex's countenance change as he spotted him. Something like anger and concern briefly flooded his face, only to be replaced by his charming smile again nanoseconds later. He made his excuses to the men and walked to a quiet corner to talk to the intruder, unaware that Lois had followed them.

"Well, try and calm him down then," Lex was telling the man.

The man shook his head. "No, sir, you do not understand. He *is* calm, just stubborn. He wants to talk to you. I am worried that if you do not come and see him now, he will try to find you. A bad enough thing for him to do in the middle of a social engagement regardless, but I know there are people from STAR Labs here. What if he is recognised?"

Lex glanced around, missing Lois as she ducked behind a rather large and ornate plant-pot and fern. "I do not know of anyone here who would, but there is a lot about Bureau 39 that I don't know yet. You're right, I shan't be missed for a few minutes. We cannot alienate him at such an early point in our friendship. Thank you, Asabi."

Asabi nodded curtly at him and disappeared back into the main body of Luthor's home. Lex straightened out his tux, composing himself before returning to the man he had been talking to before Asabi had interrupted him. "Sorry about that. There's a slight problem with catering that I have to see to. Won't be a moment," Lex touched him on the shoulder and followed Asabi's route, trying not to seem too hasty.

Lois leant back against the sturdy plant-pot she had been hiding behind. They never said his name but Lois was pretty sure they must have been talking about Clark. The whole thing was making less and less sense. Why would *Lex Luthor* have burnt down STAR Labs to take Clark? If it hadn't been for that brief moment when she saw him drop his facade, Lois would have easily believed his intentions were purely altruistic but now she wasn't so sure. She glanced around and saw Perry entertaining a group of people with some Elvis story. She ran over, ignoring the fact that she was interrupting him. "Perry! Have you got a cell phone with you, I need to make a call, right now!"

He grinned at her, then addressed his friends. "I've told you about Lois Lane, right?"

"Perry!" Lois ignored the giggles surrounding her reputation as 'Mad Dog' Lane. She was used to it by this stage in her career, it was just water off a duck's back. "This could be really big."

"OK, OK. Calm down, I'm just teasing you." He handed one to her. "I want it back."

"Um," she glanced at him and then the door, "can I give it back to you tomorrow? This may be an all-nighter."

Perry waved her away with a sweep of his arm and continued with his anecdote. Lois headed out into the lobby, where it was quieter and she had time to think. Her instinct had told her to follow Lex to try and find Clark but she had no idea what he looked like. So she needed to call someone who would know him from Adam. She riffled through her small handbag, searching for the contact number Dr Klein had given her. The phone was answered almost immediately.

"Hello? Who is this? What time is it?"

Lois breathed a sigh of relief. "It's Lois Lane. Dr Klein, would anyone at LexCorp have known?"

"About Clark?"

"Yes. Who else would I have been talking about?"

"Why not say his name?"

She shrank back against the wall as someone walked by. "I'm not really in a good position to talk freely right now. I think I might know where he is but I wouldn't know who he is if he is there, so I thought I'd call you."

Klein sighed tiredly. "You babble a lot don't you? There does seem to be an indication that some of the research was funded by LexCorp. Do you know where he is?"

"I think Luthor has him at their headquarters, maybe even in his penthouse."

She heard movement and the rustling of papers. "I'm coming."

To Be Continued...