I promised I'd deal with this bunny before tackling another one.
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TOC The violent crime rate in Metropolis went down after the first few ‘executions’ of muggers and rapists. It was actually safe for a woman to walk into Suicide Slum at night, although any intelligent person still avoided the area after dark.
The police were refusing to comment on the drop in violent crime. Those few detectives willing to talk to Lois for deep background admitted that white collar crime was as high as ever and the drug traffickers that had survived Superman’s ‘house-cleaning’ had simply found better places to hide while they peddled their wares. The same held for gambling and prostitution.
The one interesting note in the whole mess was that following Luthor’s murder many of his high ranking subordinates had run for cover – many of them into the hands of the FBI. They had brought with them damning evidence of Lex Luthor’s complicity in the Messenger disaster and the flaws in the LexCorp nuclear power plant. There were even links to Bureau 39 and Jason Trask’s threats against Superman, as well as the early ‘tests’ of Superman’s speed and strength that had endangered innocent bystanders.
“So, Superman was right when he accused Luthor of being ‘the Boss’?” Lois asked Henderson over coffee at her uncle’s bistro.
“That’s what it looks like,” Henderson admitted. “Of course, it would have been helpful if he’d just brought us his evidence instead of publically ‘executing’ the man.” It had become a Metropolis euphemism – Superman didn’t murder people, he executed them.
Henderson sighed. “Lois, did Clark have any suspicions concerning Luthor?”
“He didn’t like him, I know that,” Lois told the officer. “But it was more of a gut reaction, I think. Luthor just didn’t ring true to him. Why?”
“Some of us were wondering if that was why Clark was the first one
he took out. Clark knew too much about Luthor’s darker side and Luthor wanted him out of the way.”
“If
he was under Luthor’s control, then why did he execute him?” Lois asked.
“Superman found out about Luthor’s criminal inclinations?” Henderson suggested. He didn’t sound enthusiastic about his theory.
Lois shook her head. “I think it was more personal than that. I know it sounds self-centered of me, but Clark was my partner and my friend and Luthor was a suitor, for lack of a better term. Somewhere in that mess Superman decided he didn’t want any rivals for my attention.”
“If it was anyone else saying that, I’d think they were delusional,” Henderson said. “But it makes a sort of weird sense.”
A hush fell over the restaurant. Lois looked over to the entrance and saw Superman standing there, arms crossed over his chest.
Lois sighed. “I’ll take care of the check,” she told Henderson as she slipped out of the booth.
“Superman,” she said, trying to make her voice cheerful. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
He seemed a little puzzled by her question. Then his eyes flickered toward Henderson. Lois looked back at the officer and put on a bright smile. “Inspector, you will let me know the moment I can print this, right?”
“Naturally.”
She kept the smile on as she turned to face Superman. “You remember Inspector Henderson, don’t you Superman? One of Metropolis’s finest?”
Superman forehead creased in a frown. “A flatfoot?”
“That’s not a very polite thing to call someone who works to keep Metropolis safe, is it?” Lois chided.
“Metropolis doesn’t need cops,” Superman said. “It has me.”
“Well, someone has to direct traffic and take out the garbage, don’t they?” Henderson said with a sardonic shrug. “Lane, I’d tell you to stay out of trouble but I know you’d have no idea what I was talking about.”
Lois managed a chuckle. “I do know what you mean. It’s just that our definitions don’t quite match.”
Henderson bobbed his head once and left the restaurant. Lois turned her attention back to Superman.
“What were you talking about?” Superman demanded.
Lois considered her words before speaking. “If you must know, he was filling me in on what’s been uncovered about Luthor.”
“Luthor’s dead. What more is there to know?”
“Well, there is the matter of him having been ‘the Boss’,” Lois said as the cashier handed her card back. Lois headed for the door and was relieved when Superman followed her out.
“I told you he was,” Superman reminded her.
“And you must appreciate that people want to understand how it happened. They want to know what he did and how it affected them. They want closure,” she explained.
“If you say so,” he said. He didn’t seem convinced.
“How did you know he was the Boss?” she asked. “I mean, he was so good at covering his tracks. Nobody knew he was also head of Metropolis’s most dangerous criminal gang except for his closest associates.”
“I heard him talking about it,” Superman said simply.
“When was this?” Lois asked.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Luthor. I want to talk about us.”
“Us?”
“I can give you anything you want, gold, jewels, the riches of this planet,” he said. “We can go anywhere, do anything. I can give you the world.”
“Maybe I don’t want the world,” Lois said. “Maybe I just want to do my job without worrying whether you or some other boss approves.”
“I would never hurt you,” he said. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“Of course I believe you,” Lois lied. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”
“It’s just… I don’t like it when you talk to other men,” he said.
“I’m a reporter,” she said. “It’s my job to talk to people, including men.”
“But I see them looking at you.”
She sighed. “I don’t know what you think you see. But you’re wrong. I have no interest in them, at least not that way, and they have no interest in me that way.”
“Luthor did. I told him to stay away from you. He didn’t listen. He thought he could tell me what to do.”
“And what would make him think that?” she asked.
Superman glowered at her then vanished in a clap of air.
-o-o-o-
Days turned into weeks. The trickle of people and companies fleeing Metropolis turned to a flood. Even at the Daily Planet many people had left to seek safety in other cities, at other papers. Cat Grant and Ralph Gunderson had left for Gotham City. Jimmy had gone to stay with his father in Washington DC.
Perry had sent Alice to stay with their younger son in Los Angeles. Lois didn’t know where Clark’s parents had gone – Perry hadn’t said a word about them since the meeting in his fallout shelter. She assumed that Clark was still alive somewhere since she hadn’t been told otherwise.
Lois buried herself in her work. At least when she was busy she didn’t have to think too much about Clark. But he was still in her dreams.
“Lois,” Clark said. “You have to stop him.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But you have to try.”“Miss Lane?”
She looked up from the article she was working on. A uniformed messenger was standing by her desk. He handed her a white business envelope then waited as she opened it.
Parking Level LL
Wannamaker Building, 7 pm tonight.
Be discrete.
WHWH? Lois tried to match a name to the initials. William Henderson?
“I need a reply,” the messenger said.
“Yes,” she told him simply. Then she fed the message into the shredder.
-o-o-o-
Lois was familiar with the parking garage at the Wannamaker Building. She had often parked her Cherokee there while on search missions for various public records. LL was the lowest level of the parking garage.
Henderson was waiting by the elevators. He put a finger to his lips when she opened her mouth to ask him what was going on. The elevator doors opened and wordlessly he ushered her inside. Once inside he put a key into a slot at the top of the control panel. Lois expected the elevator to go up – they were on the lowest level after all. Instead she was surprised to find the car heading downwards.
The doors finally opened onto a concrete corridor lined with pipes and dimly lit with utility lamps. Henderson beckoned her to follow him down the corridor to a metal door. He knocked on the door and after a moment it swung open to reveal a small room with several men inside.
Henderson closed the door behind them.
“We’re clear,” a man wearing headphones said. Henderson seemed to relax and Lois let go of the breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding.
“Lois Lane, Colonel David Foster, US Army,” Henderson began to introduce the men beginning with the one wearing the headset and watching mysterious blips on what looked like a radar screen.
“Dan Scardino NIA. I think you know Andy Brown with the local FBI office.”
The men greeted her solemnly.
“You’re sure this place is safe?” Lois asked.
Foster answered. “This room is lead-lined and as soundproof as we can make it. We’re also beneath a very busy subway line and we have a way to track him. He’s moving away from us.”
“You have a way to track him?” Lois repeated.
“One of LexCorp’s little gadgets,” Scardino explained. He was younger than the others, about her age, and had an infectious smile that reminded her a little of Clark.
“LexCorp claimed it detected his brain waves,” Scardino said. “The guys at STAR Labs think it actually detects a shift or a warp in the normal space-subspace boundary. It shows up when Superman flies, kind of like a contrail. We can detect where he is and where he’s been, so long as he’s flying.”
“And right now he’s flying?” Henderson asked.
Foster nodded.
“We have a little time then,” Brown said. “Ms. Lane, Henderson suggested we bring you in on this. I don’t like involving civilians in matters like this, but unfortunately I agree with him that you’re the one best suited for what we’re suggesting.”
“Superman has to be stopped,” Henderson said. “We know he’s killed at least a hundred people but we can’t even convene a grand jury against him for fear of what he’d do. Luckily he doesn’t seem interested in setting himself as a dictator. Yet.”
“I don’t think it’s occurred to him,” Lois said. “Something happened to him…” She glanced at Henderson who nodded his head. She assumed he was giving her permission to tell them her theory. “It’s almost as if he was a different person, more like an early teen than a grownup.”
“You think he isn’t really Superman?” Brown pressed.
“I think that if he is, then something awful happened to him to make him this way, and if he isn’t…” She let her voice trail off meaningfully.
“In either case, can we count on you to help us?”
“Tell me what I need to do.”
Scardino handed her a silver box. It was far heavier that it looked. She lifted the top and saw a green glowing crystal nestled in black velvet.
“Element 126. Colonel Trask believed it was capable of immobilizing Superman, maybe even killing him. Luthor’s research notes seem to confirm it,” Scardino said.
“But you don’t know, do you?”
Scardino shook his head. “It will be dangerous for you, especially if it doesn’t work.”
“More dangerous than living in Metropolis right now?” she asked. “Just tell me when and where and what I have to do.” She reached for the box. Henderson pulled it out of reach.
“We need the crystal for another day or so,” Brown said. “Scardino will give you the package and your instructions once we have everything ready.”
“Lois, you know we wouldn’t ask you to do this if we thought there was any other way, right?” Henderson asked.
“I know that,” she said. “I wouldn’t have agreed if I thought there was another way. But just to assuage a reporter’s curiosity, who authorized this operation?”
“The president himself,” Brown said. “Superman has been declared an enemy of the United States. He is presumed to be armed and dangerous at all times and our orders are to terminate with extreme prejudice – assuming it’s possible to terminate someone who is invulnerable to anything we can throw at him.”
“Then we’d better pray that pretty green rock does the trick,” Lois said.
-o-o-o-
Two days passed, then three. Superman flew into Lois’s apartment each night to give her chocolate from Belgium and France. He brought her exotic cheeses and wines. She didn’t dare tell him she didn’t want them. She just hoped that the places he was taking them from could afford losing their wares.
In the late afternoon on fourth day after the meeting Lois spotted Scardino in the coffee shop across the street from the Planet. She ordered herself a latte then slid into the seat opposite him.
“We’re set. We know he comes to see you after you get home from work,” Scardino said. “Just get him into position in front of your living room windows and open the box.” As he spoke he handed her a brown-paper package.
“That’s all I need to do?”
“We’ll handle the rest,” he assured her.
“You make it sound so easy,” she said.
“I wish it was going to be easy,” Scardino said. “Everything hinges on you.” He reached over and patted her hand. “Look, when this is over…”
“Look, Dan,” she interrupted, pulling her hand back. “Assuming this ever gets over, it’ll be a while before I’m ready for… whatever it is you’re suggesting.”
“Hey, you’re an attractive woman,” Scardino said with a grin. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.” His expression abruptly turned worried and he tapped the almost invisible earpiece he was wearing. “You need to leave.”
Lois grabbed the package and shoved it into her purse. Then she hurried across the street to the Planet.
-o-o-o-
Lois barely had time to get the package unwrapped before Superman flew into her apartment.
He seemed nervous and upset, pacing across the floor.
He finally turned to face her. “Who was he?”
“Who are you talking about?” Lois asked.
“I saw you with him! Who was he?”
“Who was who?” She didn’t know if he had seen her with Scardino or if some other poor soul had caught his attention. She was afraid to ask what he had done.
Superman was waving his arms, shouting at her. “You’re mine! You’re mine and no one else can have you!”
Lois backed away from him, hoping he would recognize how badly he was scaring her. Her heart was pounding as though it wanted to escape from her chest.
He didn’t seem to care. His face was a mask of fury. “I saw you with him!” he shouted.
“I don’t know what…”
“You lie!” His face was red and his eyes were glowing.
Lois couldn’t remember a time she’d been so frightened. She felt like she should run and hide but she knew she couldn’t. She tried to remember what she needed to do. She needed to open the silver box.
“I don’t know what you think you saw,” Lois said. She hoped she sounded calmer than she felt. “But I haven’t been with anyone.”
He grabbed her arm.
“Superman, please. You’re hurting me,” she said. She’d never seen him so angry, so out of control.
After a moment he seemed to realize that he was hurting her and dropped his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But when I think of you with anyone else… I go crazy. You understand that, don’t you? You know I love you, don’t you?”
“I know you think you do,” she said, edging her way to the sofa to sit down. “But if you really loved me, you wouldn’t hurt me or scare me like this.”
“But everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you,” he said. “Luthor… he didn’t deserve to even look at you, walk on the same streets as you.”
“He didn’t deserve to die,” Lois said.
“He was a criminal,” he said with a shrug as though that was enough to excuse his actions.
“Whether he was or not, he deserved a fair trial,” Lois told him.
The box was on the table in front of her. He grabbed her hand as she lifted the lid. She screamed as she felt the bones shatter. The box fell open.
His eyes widened in horror as he felt the pain of the kryptonite.
“I loved you,” he managed to say. The window shattered. He gave her a look of betrayed astonishment as he fell to the floor.
Lois woke up screaming.
