The Bombshell
Chapter Nine
Clark stepped through the front door as Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn mugged for the still photo that ended the movie. Robin nearly ran him down in her eagerness to get inside and tell them what she’d accomplished. “Hey, y’all! Boy, we had us a good time! An’ I learned a bunch about what these here powers can do!”
Clark felt all three movie watchers shift into wary politeness. His mother was the first to speak. “I’m glad the two of you enjoyed yourselves, Robin.”
Clark nodded as Robin flipped her hair into place and flopped into Clark’s favorite overstuffed chair. “She’s a fast learner, Mom.”
“That’s very good. So, what’s next on the agenda for Robin?”
Clark looked at the still smiling girl and said, “I’d like for her to live with you two for a while.”
Robin’s smile faded. “What?” she exclaimed. “You want me to – to go there? With them? You gonna send me away?”
“No, of course not.” Clark sat on the arm of the couch closest to Robin. “But part of what helps me be Superman is what I learned from my parents. They taught me a lot of things that I still lean on today, and when I have a tough choice to make, their lessons still guide me.”
As Robin gaped, Lois offered, “That’s true, Robin. Clark’s inherent need to help people almost derailed our relationship before I found out he had a second job as a super-helper.”
Jonathan turned on the sofa to face Robin. “Actually, even though Martha and I weren’t exactly consulted on this – “
Clark opened his mouth to explain, but Lois beat him to it. “He didn’t consult me either, Jonathan. But it might be a very good idea, assuming you and Martha agree. And assuming Robin agrees to it.”
The subject under discussion suddenly leaped to her feet. “I ain’t agreein’ to nothin’ like that! Ain’t no way I’m going nowhere!” She leaned towards Clark and grabbed his arm, pleading with him. “Please don’t send me away! I ain’t been bad to you and you know it! I wanna stay with you! I don’t wanna go!”
Clark, like his wife and his parents, was astounded by Robin’s sudden shift in demeanor. He’d expected to have to convince her this was a good idea, but he’d not anticipated her reverting to an almost child-like state.
He tried to calm her. “Robin, please look at this as part of learning to be a superhero. I learned discipline and control from my folks, and a good dose – “
“I don’t care!” she yelled. “I ain’t leavin’ and that’s that!”
Clark stood. “Robin, please, let me – “
And he spun down into unconsciousness as her fist crashed into his jaw once again.
*****
Lois stood and slowly backed away from the shocking scene. Focused on Robin, she could see Jonathan and Martha rush to Clark’s aid, but her vision was dominated by the blonde girl turning to face her.
“Robin,” ventured Lois, “will Clark be okay?”
“He’ll be fine,” she squeezed out. “Didn’t hit him that hard, just knocked him out.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” The girl took several quick steps and stood before Lois. “What do you plan on doing now, Robin?”
Robin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I gotta kill you,” she said softly.
“Wh-what!”
The girl hesitated, then repeated, “I gotta kill you.” She blinked and added, “I’m real sorry, though.”
After a stunned moment, Lois managed to ask, “Why?”
“Cause Clark won’t be with me unless you’re gone. I don’t think you’ll just up and leave, and even if you did you wouldn’t stay away, besides he’d come after you, so the only way to split you two up for good is to kill you.”
“I see.” Lois glanced at Clark, who was still woozy. “What makes you think he’ll be with you after you kill me?”
Robin shrugged. “He won’t, not for a while, but he’ll come around. We’re the only Kryptonians alive here on Earth. We was made for each other.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
Robin shook her head. “You’re stallin’ and hopin’ Clark’ll wake up in time to save you.” Robin lifted her hand and reached towards Lois’s throat. “But he won’t, not this time.”
Lois backed up until she bumped the wall. “Wait!”
“Can’t. He’ll wake up in about forty seconds and I gotta be gone by then.” The girl’s face softened. “I’m sorry. You been nice to me. I’ll make it quick. You won’t feel nothin’.”
Lois pulled a phone out of her pocket. “Can I call my mother to say goodbye?”
Robin hesitated, then nodded. “Fifteen seconds.”
Lois lifted the phone and stared at it, then slowly moved to open the cover. Robin’s eyes narrowed and she muttered, “This ain’t right. You’re too calm.”
Then she snatched the phone from Lois at super-speed and took a step back. “Somethin’ wrong with this phone, ain’t it?” She cautiously opened it and looked at Lois’s personal cell phone. Robin glanced up. “This ain’t nothing but a phone! What you acting so funny about?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lois replied. “This is the right one.”
*****
As soon as she saw the other woman’s face, Robin knew she’d been tricked somehow, but before she could react, Lois had flipped open the other phone and a pulsing green glow filled the room.
The pain hit her immediately. She’d never felt such agony. It penetrated every pore, pierced every muscle, twisted every bone in her body, and tore at her brain. She knew Lois had done something, had found something that would hurt her, but she didn’t know what it was and she didn’t know why this was happening to her.
She fell to her knees and then curled up on the floor on her side. “Ahhgghh! Take it away! It hurts! Take it away! Please!”
Lois’s barely audible voice drifted over the raging sea of pain. “I don’t think so, Robin. You were going to kill me, and that’s not something I can afford to ignore.”
The girl couldn’t answer. It took all her strength just to pant. She’d never felt so weak, not even when her drunken parents – her fake parents – had beaten her bloody as a child and then laughed at her attempts to apologize for something she couldn’t understand that she’d done wrong.
She could sense Lois leaning closer. The woman was close enough to touch, and that meant she was close enough to kill. It would be easy. She could still just reach out and squeeze her throat and –
And Lois’s hand caught her wrist and held it still with almost no effort. Robin’s strength was gone, dissipated as if she were an ordinary woman.
No. Less than ordinary. Weak as a newborn kitten and just as helpless. As helpless as she’d been when her parents had abused her.
She couldn’t believe it. Worse than the pain was the knowledge that her powers had been taken away from her. Without them, Clark wouldn’t love her, couldn’t love her. She’d be alone for the rest of her life.
She cried out in fear and torment and fell into a pit of blackness.
*****
Lois grabbed Robin’s collar and slowly dragged her across the room away from the door. She turned and called out, “Get Clark out of here! He should be okay down in the lobby.”
Martha goggled at Lois, then shook herself. “Come on, Jonathan, let’s get him up.”
Lois watched his parents struggle to help Clark to his feet, then guide him to the door. He was still woozy from the punch, but the Kryptonite in Lois’s hand didn’t seem to be affecting him as badly as it was hitting Robin. Lois turned and checked the girl again, then set the lead-lined case with the green rock in it down on a table out of her reach after making sure the lead top was between Clark and the Kryptonite.
She turned to face her husband. “Clark, I’m sorry, but it was do this or let her kill me.”
His head snapped around and he forced himself to stand upright. “What?”
“That’s right, you didn’t hear that part, you were out cold. She was going to kill me.”
His face twisted and he insisted, “No way, Lois! You misunderstood – “
Martha interrupted. “No, Clark, it’s true. I heard her, too.”
“But – Mom, no, she – “
Lois forced herself not to shout. “Clark, you have to leave the room. I’m going to call Bernie Klein.”
“Dr. Klein? What can he do?”
“He can – he can take care of her, keep her safe.”
He grimaced and demanded, “How?”
She felt the tears tickle her eyes. “You’ll have to see it.”
*****
It was hard for Lois to believe that she’d met Robin McGyver less a week before, on a Friday evening after a mysterious plane crash at Metropolis’s busiest airport. Now, late on a Wednesday evening, she was at Star Labs, visiting the girl’s prison cell, the place where she’d probably spend the rest of her life.
Only it wasn’t quite a prison cell. She had her own living room, a spacious bedroom, a bathroom which was free from any cameras or microphones, her own kitchen, including a pantry which could be stocked from outside without anyone entering her quarters. She had a television, radio, card games, a computer – without a direct Internet link – and access to any books on almost any subject which she might want to read.
But the girl couldn’t leave, not ever. She wasn’t free. And there was no legal record of her incarceration. No one but Lois, Clark, and a very few high-level Star Labs employees would know where she was, or even who she was.
Lois stood iron-stiff, watching Robin on the video monitor as she stalked back and forth in the living room of her new apartment. Bernie Klein, standing behind her shoulder, shuffled his feet and sighed deeply.
“I’m sorry, Lois, but if half of what you tell me is true, we have very little choice in this matter.”
Lois crossed her arms. “I know. I keep telling myself the same thing.”
A phone on the wall buzzed and Bernie picked it up. “Yes? Of course. Send him right down.”
He hung up and blew out a breath. “Superman is on his way down. I’d imagine he’ll have some very interesting things to say about this setup.”
Lois didn’t answer. She was too busy anticipating some of the interesting things Superman might say to her.
Superman strode into the monitor room, saw the scene before him, and stopped dead. Lois turned and noticed Bernie Klein’s odd expression. Maybe he’d seen the makeup on Superman’s jaw and wondered what it was covering up. Lois understood that Clark Kent could have a bruised jaw courtesy of someone he was investigating, but Superman couldn’t, not if they wanted to keep his dual identity secret. And Bernie didn’t need to know any of that. If he thought Superman had a Kryptonian zit and was embarrassed about it, that was fine with Lois.
Superman stepped forward slowly and gripped the back of a chair. Lois kept silent as she saw his fingers twist the metal.
“Tell me about this place, Dr. Klein,” he ground out.
The doctor stepped closer. “Uh, it’s, uh, it’s a secure, uh, facility – “
Lois butted in. “It’s a Superman containment room.”
Superman’s gaze snapped to Lois, then slowly turned to the doctor. “Explain.”
Klein had never heard that tooth-grinding, unbending, barely suppressed fury in the hero’s voice before. He took a deep breath and began.
“Before I joined Star Labs, Superman, the faculty was partially funded by Bureau 39. They – wait a minute!”
Superman stopped his move towards Bernie, then crossed his arms. “Very well. Please finish explaining.”
The nervous bald man wiped his forehead. “I have so not been looking forward to this moment for such a very long time.”
“Doctor!”
“Okay, okay! Bureau 39 designed and built a Superman-proof apartment below the sub-basement of Star Labs. The walls, floor, and ceiling are filled with an interlocking network of thin lead-lined pipes which carry a liquid synthetic green Kryptonite. It has the same damaging properties that regular Kryptonite does, but with the added little bonus feature that it clings to whatever it touches, as long as it touches something less dense than lead.”
“Like skin.”
“Yes, like skin or hair or clothing. As another little added bonus feature, it’s at least twice as effective as the green crystal you’re familiar with, although it doesn’t have the range. It needs to be in contact with the subject in order to maximize its effectiveness.” Bernie gestured to the video monitor, where Robin had stopped her tirade and appeared to be listening. Superman turned his gaze in that direction as the doctor continued. “We’ve already explained to our – our guest – that any break in the wall will also spray the pressurized liquid all over her, and it would take an acid bath to get it off. By that time, the radiation might have already killed her.”
Still staring at the monitor, Superman bluntly asked, “You said Bureau 39 designed and built this?”
Bernie nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“With me in mind?”
Bernie paused, then answered, “Yes.”
Superman hesitated. “How long have you known this was here?”
Bernie’s shoulders slumped. “Since I took over as head of Star Labs. One of the requirements when I took the job was that the appropriate government agency retain control of this room. It’s never been used until today.”
“You could have held some of the New Kryptonians in it.”
“True. But not enough of them. A group of six or more, maybe as few as four, would have been able to create a breach in the wall large enough to keep at least one of them from receiving a lethal dose of synthetic Kryptonite. This facility couldn’t be used during that awful time because there was no way to safely restrain them all here, so the government kept it secret. And there wasn’t time to build enough rooms to contain all the invaders.” Bernie sighed. “No one has ever been held here.” He turned to the monitor again. “Until now.”
Lois spoke up. “Does the government have this synthetic Kryptonite formula?”
Klein shook his head emphatically. “No, they do not. They keep asking about it, but I have told them repeatedly that the only copy of the formula is in my head. I’m not ever giving it to anyone, it isn’t written down anywhere, and there’s no way to reverse-engineer it from a physical sample. It’s too complex and too unstable. What’s flowing in these pipes is all that exists in the world.”
Superman motioned to the monitor. “What about sunlight? She needs it in order to stay healthy.”
“I know. We collect sunlight on the roof and send it down here through coated glass fiber-optic wires. Then the light is reflected through lenses in the ceiling and distributed evenly throughout the apartment. It’s not like being in broad daylight, but it is enough to keep her alive.”
“Have her powers returned yet?”
“So you know how Lois captured her?”
His voice seemed to flow from beneath a glacier. “I do.”
Klein nodded. “Some of them have. The rest should be back in a day or two. But, like I said, there’s no way for her to get out of that room without killing herself, even when her powers do return fully.”
Superman nodded slowly and sighed. He turned back to face the monitor. “Is there a way to talk privately with the young lady?”
Dr. Klein motioned to an opaque bulge in the corner of the room. “In there. There’s a corresponding audio-video link in the near corner of the living room in the apartment. They’re both sound-proofed, and the audio link isn’t monitored. This booth is also lined with lead in case of a containment breach in the liquid Kryptonite system. You can speak to her from there.”
