Hi. Is there anyone reading my story? I didn't have much feedback on the teaser, and I absolutely had no feedback on part 1 and on part 2. Does my story really sucks so much? If it is the case, just tell me, please. Should I bother keep posting it or is there really no one interested?
In the meantime, my last try...
Previously
"So, what you're saying, Henderson, is that the only persons who know where Clark is and what happened to him are Lex, who died, St. John or Asabi, who are both untraceable, and maybe, with any luck, Superman, who is in a coma?" She recapitulated.
"Afraid so."
Lois felt as if she was about to break down. She couldn't bear it any more. At least, she wasn't hungry any more. It wouldn't be this morning either that she'd be able to swallow anything.
In Henderson's expression, she could see that he believed less and less in the possibility of discovering what had happened to Clark, unless luck began to turn their way. Things weren't going well.
The Life could be ironic sometimes. All the persons that she loved had left her. Her father as well as all her former boyfriends. And then, when she discovered that she loved a man of whom she knew without a doubt that he would never abandon her, he vanishes without leaving a trace. And hearing from Jack that Clark's main motivation to investigate Luthor was to prevent her impening marriage, proved to her that, even if their relationship was at its worst, he'd never let her down. Not that she needed that proof any more.
In face of the irony of the situation, Lois burst out laughing. It was the hysteric and joyless laughter of somebody who was about to lose it completely, and Henderson didn't really know what to say to help her overcome the shocks which had befallen her during the last twenty-four hours.
********************
And now:
Part 3: Despair
Two weeks had passed by, and still no news of Clark. Lois practically hadn't left her apartment during the whole time, except to run some errands when it was strictly necessary. But it hadn't been very often, she had nearly stopped eating altogether. Some days, she didn't eat at all, and the few meals she took were pretty frugal.
She had spent the whole time sitting or lying on her bed, trying to remember something, anything from the last year that could give them an indication, a lead, to find Clark. But she had come up with nothing but a headache.
All the recollections she kept rehearsing were far from helping her to find him. Their only purpose was to remind her that she had spent a whole year close to a wonderful man, without ever noticing him. She had always been ignoring him, in favor of Superman and Lex. She had never paid him a lot of attention. Neither had he been the one she dreamt of in nights she spent alone at home.
Why had she had to lose him in order to realize how much she cared for him. She so regretted to not having noticed how much she loved him when he had still been there.
Instead, she had waited too long to face her true feelings, and now it was possible that she would never have the chance to tell him. Clark had disappeared without leaving any tracks to follow. She had no idea what might have happened to him. And she was becoming increasingly desperate. She missed him so much. She needed him, but he was not there any more, and it was all her fault. If she had listened to what he had to say about Lex, she would never have agreed to marry him, he would never have taken those horrible risks trying to prove Lex' guilt before the ceremony, and Lex would never have made him disappear… It was completely her fault that he was missing.
And even if no proof had yet been found allowing the police to connect Lex to Clark's disappearance, except for the message which had been left on her partner's answering machine the evening he was last seen, Lois did not believe in coincidences. That could only be Lex. She now knew that Clark had had an enormous secret in his life, that there had been a whole part of him he had been hiding jealously, and in theory, it was well possible that it was that thing which caused him trouble. It was possible that he had disappeared because of something bound to his secret.
But Lois did not believe it. The whole situation was too suspicious. Lex had left this message on Clark's answering machine the same afternoon that Clark had finally found the proof against him. And Clark had disappeared a few hours later, before being able to inform the police of his discoveries. It was just by luck that he had left his notes on all that he knew in his desk, before disappearing forever. That had at least allowed Perry, Jimmy and Jack to find them and inform the police. And Lex had committed suicide.
The following day, Perry had come see her to announce her that Stern had finally bought the Daily Planet and that the reconstruction had already begun. Waiting for it to be done, Perry had started to contact all his former employees, asking them to return. Some had accepted, others had declined. And a week later, the reunited team, with several new people, had put the newspaper back in print. The reconstruction wasn't completely done yet, so they had to work in temporary offices, and subcontract for the printing. Nevertheless the Daily Planet was back in the newsstands. But without Clark Kent. And without Lois Lane.
She was still too shell-shocked to be able to resume work already. She needed more time. Perry understood it perfectly well. Every day, he came to give her news. Every time, she hoped that he would have further information on Clark's whereabouts, but that was never the case. He informed her nevertheless on the progress of the police investigation on Clark, and on Luthor's shady business.
She had hoped a long time that due to having Lex's files, the police would eventually find a document or something explaining what he had done to Clark, but the police hadn't found a thing.
In her line of work, Lois had come across people being happy when the police found the dead body of a loved one, who had been missing for a long time. She had never been able to understand it. But today, she knew why they reacted in this way. These people could finally begin mourning, they finally knew what had happened to the person that they loved. Lois wouldn't be happy if one day the police announced to her that Clark's body had been found. But now she understood this need to know what had happened to him, even if bad came to worse. If he was dead, she'd much rather know it, than continuing to hope for his return forever. She needed to know if he was well or if he had been hurt, or even killed…
Since the Daily Planet had resumed business a week earlier, Perry had put Clark's photo on the front page every day, asking those who would have information to contact the newspaper. And Lois had begun to hope again. Somebody must have seen what had taken place and would call the newspaper, and Clark would be found. She would see him again, would say to him that she loved him. He would forgive her and everything would be fine. But nobody had called yet, and Lois had finally sunk into a profound depression.
She had thought of suicide, but she had rejected the idea quickly. Clark was going to be found. Alive. And then he would want to see her, and she would be there. It was out of the question that, when he would be back and ask to see her, someone would take him to her grave. She could not put him through that. She would be there waiting for him, until he returned.
The last time she had seen him, they had quarreled and parted irritated. She could not leave things like that. It wasn't an option. She absolutely had to see him at least once again to sort things out. She could not let their friendship end in anger...
Due to repeating that, Lois had succeeded in chasing away the idea to kill herself to escape the suffering of not knowing what had happened to him. But she wasn't well for all that.
Since the previous day, Perry had added in the newspaper that a reward would be paid to those who would be able to provide information which would lead them to find Clark. And they had finally received some phone calls. Perry had asked Lois if she wanted to follow the leads that had brought them. She would have liked to accept, but she couldn't.
She was aware that Perry had asked her to do it because he was conscious of her depressive state. He tried to help her by making her feel useful. But she couldn't accept it. Finding Clark was too important, and she wasn't fit to lead the investigation effectively. Apparently, she hadn't been able to investigate anything for a long time, she amended mentally. Lex had been fooling her for more than a year! A fine investigative reporter she was! She couldn't trust her capacities any more.
Perry hadn't insisted, and had entrusted Jimmy and Jack with the mission to verify all the tips that they received from the persons who phoned. Unfortunately, at the moment, nothing had come from all that. All they got was lies from people hoping to get the reward.
********************
Henderson was sitting at the wheel of his car, in the parking lot of the hospital. He knew that he had to start the engine, but he didn't want to. He needed a little moment to rest. The work of a lieutenant was always difficult but these last two weeks had been particularly exhausting. The task ahead of him might turn out to be even more difficult. He wasn't in any hurry to see Lois again.
For the last two weeks, he had been leading the investigation on Luthor - and every day new revelations on his illegal business turned up, providing the already overworked police with even more work - the investigation on Clark's disappearance - where unfortunately, he cruelly lacked any information - and insure the protection of Superman, who was still in a coma at the hospital. On top of all that, every criminal seemed to take advantage of the current incapacity of the superhero, and consequently, Henderson relied on people to make all the necessary work.
He had taken some very strict measures as for the safety of the superhero. Only him, and the persons whom he granted access were entitled to enter Superman's room. And at the moment, he had authorized only some very famous doctors, who had submitted themselves to a preliminary investigation, and the most trustworthy of his men to enter it. He had also added Lois to the permanent list of the persons authorized to see Superman. But she hadn't come to the hospital yet, not even once.
The room itself had been perfectly secured, shutters had been put in the windows, and the door was permanently guarded by two of his men in the corridor, and two others inside, even during the medical exams. Other policemen were deployed all over the hospital.
The police station had already received uncountable numbers of dead threat against Superman. There were a lot of criminals who wanted to take advantage of the critical state of the superhero to get rid of him forever, and consequently, Henderson had to take measures to insure Superman's safety.
Every day, he went to the hospital hoping that the doctors would tell him that Superman had finally awakened, that he was saved, but that hadn't happened yet.
The first two days, the Man of Steel had been in a very critical state, and the doctors were extremely pessimistic as for his chances of survival. None of them knew anything about the kryptonian biology, and they couldn't thus try anything without risking to inadvertantly kill him. They had nevertheless found a pulse at once and discovered that his heart was where they would have expected to find it in a human.
During the first hours of his stay in the hospital, his heart had stopped beating twice, and it was by sheer luck that the doctors had managed to coerce it to beat again. But from the third day on, his state began to stabilize, and everybody dared to hope again. It was possible that he was recovering and that his state was likely to improve any time.
But two weeks had already passed by, and no improvement had been noticed. He remained stable, but did not appear to wake up. And the doctors who looked after him might be running tests on him, but they hadn't succeeded yet in finding the cause of the problem. By means of tests, they had noticed that the kryptonian biology was very close to the human one, although there were slight differences, notably at the level of the cellular structure of tissues, blood composition… But without any point of reference, how could they know what was normal for him and what was not?
This day, while he was walking out of the hospital where Dr Stephenson had repeated to him that no change had occurred in the health of Superman, Henderson had received a phone call on his mobile phone from Sergeant Zimac, another inspector of the central police station, who worked under his orders.
Several days earlier, Henderson had charged him with a very unpleasant mission, but which turned out regrettably necessary since they were lacking any clues about Kent's disappearance. Zimac had to search the entire river for the reporter's body. Henderson should have done it much earlier. Before Superman appeared in Metropolis the previous year, two thirds of the missing persons were found in the river, most of the time near Hob's Bay. It was terrible statistics, but the appearance of Superman had changed that for the better. But with the current condition of the superhero, Henderson knew that if Superman didn't quickly wake up, he would soon begin again to search the river regularly when one would report a missing person to the police.
In fact, he should have done it much earlier in their searches for Clark Kent, but Henderson didn't want to take that path. To look for him in the river was to accept that the chances to find him alive were thin, and he did not want to think this way. Kent was one of his friends, he was a good man. And Henderson preferred to organize the searches thinking he was still alive, rather than to envisage places where the police could find his corpse. It was why he had delegated this part of the searches to Zimac. Henderson felt unable to do it himself.
And Zimac had called him while he was reaching the parking lot of the hospital to announce that the entire river had been searched, and that they hadn't found anything. Clark Kent was still missing, and they still had no lead, no clues whatsoever to find him.
And now, he had to pay Lois a visit to tell her. She deserved to know that, at the very least, her partner wasn’t rotting at the bottom of the river. They weren't any nearer to finding him, but at least, there was always a chance that he was alive. If they had found his corpse, it would have been the end.
He knew that it was killing Lois not to know, but he doubted strongly that she would have felt better if he had returned her a corpse coming from Hob's Bay. In fact, he was sure that if she learnt that he had died, she would lose any will to live herself. It was the hope to see him again which made her hold onto life at the moment.
********************
The sudden silence that had fallen on the temporary offices rented by Stern so that his team could continue to take out the Daily Planet until the former premises were restored, warned Perry that something unusual was occurring, and he raised the eyes from the article he was correcting to see what it was.
He was bewildered to see Lois crossing the room with big steps, in his direction, without caring about the glances of all her colleagues aimed at her. She had dressed with a very professional suit, had put on some make up and even carried her professional bag in the hand. It was a real appearance. He really hadn't expected that.
He had seen Lois several hours earlier, in the middle of the morning, and she was still as destroyed and lost as the previous days. In fact, Perry was very worried about her, and having returned from her home, he had called one of his friends, whom he had not seen for years, but who was a quite famous psychologist. He wanted to speak to him about Lois, to know how to help her.
So he was very surprised to see her in the newspaper office, with the same professional air full of confidence which she always displayed at work. He knew that in addition to the shocks which she had undergone, she also suffered from a serious crisis of confidence, due to the fact that Luthor had been deceiving her for months. He didn't understand what had taken place since this morning to put her back on track. Had the police finally found Clark?
She stopped in front of his desk, and he noticed that he was still fixing her open-mouthed. He cleared his throat in search of something to say to her, but she spoke before he had the time to say something.
"Perry, I want to see all the files which we have on Lex Luthor's businesses implying Nigel St. John or Asabi," Lois threw at once.
"Why?" was the only thing that Perry was able to answer her. He was so surprised by this new development.
"Cox, St. John and Asabi were Lex's right hands. He distributed the dirty work on these three. Cox was arrested two weeks ago, but she doesn't know a thing about Clark's disappearance. Thus Lex necessarily charged Nigel St. John or Asabi to do it, and they both managed to escape the police when Lex committed suicide, and they haven't been found yet," Lois explained quickly.
Perry thought for several moments about what Lois had just said. Had she just implied that she was going to investigate into the disappearance of Clark? At the prospect, Perry felt as relieved as worried. Relieved that the best of his reporters was working on the case, but worried also because he knew how fragile Lois had become. He had remained silent too long. Lois spoke again.
"I want to know everything about what they had done for Lex in the past and how they had done it. I am going to pursue them... these bottom-dwelling scum-suckers! I am going to find them, and I am going to make them tell me all that they know about what had happened to Clark," she continued with more fierceness.
"All right, Lois. If you are sure that you feel well enough for this investigation, I am going to ask Jack to give you all the information you need."
"Thank you, Perry."
She turned around and got ready to go away when Perry retained her.
"Lois? Can I ask what took place so that you decide at once go to take charge of the case?" He asked slowly, his anxiety for her clearly visible on his features. She was staring at him for several seconds silently before answering.
"I don't want to wait any more, lamenting, until the police bring me back a corpse."
Before Perry could add anything, she went away and settled down at an empty desk. The reasons which had urged her to return to work were naturally more complex than what she had said to Perry, but she did not feel well enough to go into details.
When Henderson had come to see her and had admitted to her that he had had the river searched for Clark, Lois had become furious. He hadn't told her sooner that he was looking in Hob's Bay, because she knew that it was the place where they looked when they had no more hope to find somebody alive. And if the police looked for him in the river, that meant they had lost hope for Clark.
She had really been crazily furious that the police had wasted their time looking for a corpse, while everything that she wished was that they would find him alive. It was irrational. She knew that statistically, he was probably dead. But she refused to accept it. She needed to believe that he was still breathing.
She also knew that if the police had searched the river, they had no other lead to follow. Which meant that Clark's case currently was at the very bottom of the police's list of priorities. The police hadn't found anything in Hob's Bay. For them, the search ended there. They could done nothing more until a new lead appeared out of nowhere. And in spite of all the beautiful words of Henderson, who had promised her to not leave the case until the mystery of Clark's disappearance had cleared up, Lois knew how things worked. And she knew that the case would not move any further.
And she had understood that if she wanted to have the chance to see Clark again some day, alive and well, she would have to look for him herself. As soon as Henderson had left, she had thought about the means which she could use to find him, and had to face the lack of clues. But then she had remembered a discussion which she had had with the policeman two weeks earlier. And more exactly, of something that she had said to him:
*** "Thus, what you're saying, Henderson, is that the only persons to know where Clark is, what happened to him, are Lex who died, St. John or Asabi who are both untraceable, and maybe, with any luck, Superman, who is in a coma?" ***
And she had had the 'click'. She could do nothing to resuscitate Lex, nor to help Superman to wake up, but she could find Nigel St. John and Asabi. She wasn't sure any more of her skill as an investigative reporter, but she knew that with the motivation which she had to find Clark, she would be capable of doing it.
At this moment, she had sworn to herself to look for him until she would find him. She would never give up, until she found him, or until she died trying.
Then she had got ready to go to work, and she had come to the temporary premises of the Daily Planet. For Clark, she had just reanimated "Mad Dog Lane", and she was hard on the trail of her preys. She would find these rotten both, and then, she'll finally find Clark.
Jack arrived at her desk with a pile of files reaching a height of about two feet which he deposited on a corner of the table.
"That's what we have, for now, on Asabi's dealings. New files comes every day. There is three times as much about St. John. So when you are finished with those, drop me a note, I'll bring you the others. "
"Thank you, Jack."
"Good luck!" he finished with a last glance towards the enormous pile of files before going away and returning with Jimmy with whom he was in charge of verifying the tips which they got from the persons who phoned them, hoping to get the reward for finding Clark.
She went to work immediately. She wanted to track down constants in the way both men worked. That might allow her to find out where they were hiding and to catch them.
********************
She didn't need more than a few days to track down Asabi. But she was afraid of having the mind not clear enough to interrogate him herself when she faced him, and she didn't want him to escape again, either. Thus, she handed the information to Henderson, and Asabi was arrested.
Henderson interrogated him for a very long time, but he didn't know anything about what happened to Clark Kent, either. He was aware, naturally, that his employer hated the journalist, but he didn't even know that he had planned to get rid of him. Luthor hadn't mentioned anything about it to him.
For Lois, there was no doubt anymore that St. John was responsible for Clark's disappearance, and she doubled her efforts to find him. It was more difficult. Nigel had been a part of the Secret Service and he knew how to be discreet.
To work through all the files which the Planet and the police had concerning the businesses which Luthor had confided to his butler had not helped her a lot. Nigel St. John was a resourceful man. Nevertheless she found all the aliases that he had been going under in the past, and launched a research on each name on the list. But she didn't come up with anything helpful. She had contacted all her snitches to obtain information about him, and finally, that had paid off.
One of her most reliable snitches, Bobby Bigmouth, had asked her for St. John's photo, and had called her back two days later to tell her that he had circulated the picture to all those who could help this guy to build up a new identity, and somebody had recognized him. He was now going under the name William O'Neill. He had asked for a false passport to be made.
Once again, Lois handed the information over to Henderson. After checking the names of all the passengers of planes, and ships which had left the United States during the last three weeks, he discovered that Nigel had taken a plane to London only a few days after Luthor's death.
Henderson warned Interpol, and eventually, St. John was caught. He had been quickly turned over to the United States. But during his interrogation, it turned out that he did not know either what had happened to Clark. Luthor hadn't said a word to him about it.
And Lois fell into despair again.
It had been her best chance to find Clark. Lex had wanted him dead, and Clark went missing shortly before her wedding, but none of Lex's three usual henchmen for the dirty work knew anything about this matter. Either Lex had used somebody else - it was unusual, but it had happened before- and Lois would probably spend years to discover who, among the thousands of employees of LexCorp, had been charged with the task of getting rid of Clark, or Lex wasn't responsible at all, as unlikely as it was.
And if it was mere coincidence that Clark vanished at the same time as Luthor's fall took place, Lois would have no more lead to follow, and that was a possibility she refused to contemplate. Nobody could disappear without leaving a trace. He had to be somewhere. And there was necessarily somebody who knew where. She just had to look elsewhere.
But at the moment, she allowed herself to cry because of the uselessness of her pursue of Asabi and Nigel St. John. Not to mention the enormous task which she'd face if she really wanted to investigate every person who had been working for Lex for the past year, all of it only to find out who the Boss would have send to complete this mission.
While she was crying silently, sitting at her desk in the temporary newspaper offices of the Daily Planet, Jimmy approached her.
"Maybe it's a good thing, all things considered, that Asabi and St. John don't know anything about what Luthor did to Clark," he said in a reassuring tone.
"And why is that so, Jimmy?" Lois asked while drying her tears.
"Because that could mean that we have all been looking in the wrong direction. Maybe Luthor is not guilty here, maybe he didn't have the time to do anything of what he wanted. Clark went missing while warning Superman, and Superman was trapped by Luthor, but there is nothing there to indicate that Clark had been trapped with him. Maybe this doesn't have anything to do with Luthor, but with Superman. He could have put Clark out of danger somewhere before visiting Luthor, in case it would be a trap," he explained with hope.
Jimmy sometimes came up with silly theories, but it was nevertheless a possibility. And if Superman had put Clark out of danger somewhere, far away from Metropolis and where he couldn't read a newspaper, he could even be unaware of what was going on in Metropolis.
She really had to discover how Clark contacted Superman. Maybe by knowing that, she would discover where Clark was.
Except, naturally, if it was indeed Lex who was behind it. Or if it was something else, connected to Clark's secret, that happened to him. It was possible as well that he was a random victim of a crime.
The more she thought about it, the more Lois saw the countless number of possibilities. Nobody had the slightest clue. Anything could have happened to Clark. And she didn't know if she would ever be able to find him.
She was feeling so terribly lost.
********************
