Yeah, I know. I'm afflicted with growing story syndrome. Don't laugh.
Sorry I took so long. My brother is in the hospital and I've spent a lot of time running back and forth between Ramona and Escondido over the last four weeks. I'm still writing, however.
Games People Play: 9/Who Knows?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"Okay." Lois bit her lip. "Find it for me and then go and get me something lead to put it in so you can get me out of here."
Instinctively, he followed her into Luthor's office. He had often seen it from the outside when he watched Luthor from a distance, and now he glanced swiftly around with his X-ray vision.
And of course, there it was. "There's a safe behind the clock." He reached out and touched a hidden switch. The clock moved smoothly upward with the faintest of chiming noises to reveal behind it the door of a safe.
"Can you open it?"
"I can work the combination." He turned his head. "Henderson and his men just arrived. He's showing a warrant to that butler of Luthor's."
"Nigel St. John. Hurry up. Just don't open the safe door, okay?"
One had to admit that Lois was single-minded, he thought, but he nodded and began to turn the dial.
It took less than thirty seconds. "It's open."
"Go get me something to put the stuff in," she commanded. "Hurry!"
Clark found himself obeying in a somewhat bemused way. Once Lois had found out the truth about him, it hadn't taken long for her to start giving orders to Superman, he thought. Oddly enough, he liked it. But where was he supposed to get hold of a lead box at this time of night?
Well, didn't hospitals that had X-ray machines have those protective lead aprons? One of them should do, and he could return it later.
On the thought, he was on his way toward Metropolis General.
**********
And now, Part 9:
As soon as Superman had vanished, Lois eased the door of the safe open.
She didn't know what she expected but she would have realized at once that the thing inside wasn't from Earth. It was a chunk of some kind of crystal a little smaller than her clenched fist, but the thing that made it stand out was the fact that it glowed a bright green color. In its own way the thing was beautiful, but knowing that it could harm Clark was enough to give it a sinister appearance that was certainly only her imagination. Quickly, she removed the object from the safe, closed the door and slid the clock into position again.
In the dark room the brilliant green glow made it easy to see her surroundings, and anyone that happened to enter the office couldn't miss it. She had to hide it at once. If Lex came in here and saw her with the meteorite, she was cooked. Where could she hide it so it would be safe until Clark got back?
She held the object high, illuminating her surroundings. Well, the first thing was to find a place to stuff it just to keep it out of sight. No one besides Clark would be able to tell that it was not in the safe where Lex had placed it.
There was a treadmill in the exercise room against one wall, she recalled. Lois wrapped the Kryptonite in her handkerchief and hurried into the other room, to shove the chunk of mineral well beneath the piece of equipment. There. If anyone came into Lex's office before Clark returned, at least it wouldn't be obvious.
Once the Kryptonite was hidden, she turned to the next problem. What was going on between Lex and Inspector Henderson out by the elevators? True, her curiosity was one of her greatest weaknesses, but she had to know. What was Henderson doing, and what was Lex telling him? Lois tiptoed back to the door that gave onto the secretary's office and pressed her ear against the wood.
"I assure you, Inspector," Lex's voice was saying smoothly, "whoever told you this fairy tale has sent you on a fruitless quest. I had nothing to do with whatever explosion appeared in the sky an hour ago, but if you must verify it for yourself, Nigel will take you into my underground shelter and demonstrate for you that there is no connection to any atomic warhead. I find the whole premise somewhat fantastic, to say the least."
Henderson's dry voice was as expressionless as Lois had ever heard it. "Thank you, Mr. Luthor. Considering the seriousness of the accusation, I'd prefer it if you were to accompany us. I'm sure you understand my concerns. After my people check things out, I'll be glad to leave you in peace, assuming things are as you've described. I'm sure you'll agree that an atomic explosion in space above the United States is important enough to merit an investigation."
"Of course," Lex's voice rejoined at once. "But are you certain that was what it was?"
"Completely," Henderson said, flatly. He didn't elaborate.
"But, I don't understand," Lex said. "Who could have turned suspicion on me? Surely no one could possibly believe that I could have anything to do with such a thing! You must know, Inspector, that Luthor Industries has a spotless ethical reputation."
"I'm afraid I can't give you that information, Mr. Luthor. It apparently came from a very highly placed source." Lois's mouth almost dropped open at the apparent sincerity in Henderson's voice, as well as the implication of ignorance. Highly placed source indeed! -- Well, she supposed that you could call Superman a highly placed source, she conceded. Henderson was a lot brighter than she had ever given him credit for, and that was saying something. She would remember that the next time she had to deal with him.
"Very well," Lex was saying smoothly. "I'll be glad to escort you and your men down into the shelter."
"All right," Henderson said. "I'm told that the part I'm interested in is the 95th level." His voice sounded, conversely, completely disinterested. Lois made a mental note to remember that. Henderson might sound bored, but she knew darned well that he wasn't. But the recollection of a previous conversation between Lex and St. John, about that part of the complex being completely sealed off galvanized her into action. Maybe Henderson would figure it out but if he didn't they wouldn't have a second chance to find what needed to be found. By the time anyone was able to get back, Lex would have completely destroyed the Operations Room from which he had detonated the bomb over North America instead of concealing it behind a fake wall or something. She had to follow Lex and Henderson as closely as she could safely do so.
But first she needed to warn Clark about the place where she had hidden the Kryptonite. She hurried to Lex's desk and grabbed up the gold pen from its stand. Now for some paper --
Didn't Lex have any paper? she was wondering a moment later. What did he use the pen for, anyway? Abandoning her search at last, she ripped the top sheet off the desk calendar and scrawled a quick note to her partner, stuck it between the balcony doors in such a way that he couldn't fail to see it, and returned to Lex's office. Cautiously, she opened the door to the hall a fraction of an inch, checked thoroughly for any observer, and slipped through.
**********
When Clark arrived at Metropolis General, he headed directly for the X-ray Department. The hospital was quieter than it normally was during the day, since there were few visitors at this hour, and most of the patients were asleep. The X-ray Department, however, was almost certainly staffed, since illness and emergencies didn't keep set hours any more than crime did, and sure enough, the place was inhabited by a single, sleepy X-ray technician, a short, plump young woman who waked up noticeably when Superman walked in. She seemed a little surprised at his request to borrow a lead apron, but collected her wits rapidly.
"Sure, Superman," she told him. "There are several in the back. I'll get you one."
"Thank you," Clark said, giving her his best smile. "I appreciate the loan, and I'll bring it back as soon as I'm finished with it."
She nodded vigorously. "I'll get it for you right away." She turned and hurried through a door in the back of the waiting room, only to return in less than a minute with one of the heavy, lead-impregnated aprons used to protect patients during an X-ray procedure. "Here you are."
Clark took it with another smile. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," he assured her.
"Does it have anything to do with that explosion in the sky?" the technician asked. "Was that what it looked like?"
"Yes," Clark said. "The story will be in the papers sometime tomorrow, I suspect. Thanks." And he whisked out of the department so quickly he must have seemed to the technician to simply vanish.
There was no sign of life when he arrived at the balcony outside the exercise room in Luthor's penthouse, the lead apron draped over his arm, but a piece of paper that appeared to have been ripped from a desk calendar was stuck prominently between the doors and he instantly recognized Lois's handwriting.
"Lex is taking Henderson down to the 95th floor," she had written. "He's hidden the Operations Room. If you get back in time, meet me there.
P.S.: the K is in the exercise room. Be careful."
She had signed it simply with the letter L.
Clark destroyed the paper with a burst of heat vision and scanned the room beyond. Sure enough, the Kryptonite had been wrapped in a wad of Lois's handkerchief and stuffed well under the treadmill where no one was likely to find it. But if Lois was headed down to the bunker in order to show Henderson where Luthor's Operations Room was, he wasn't going to let her go alone. It didn't occur to him to wonder how it was possible for Luthor to hide something the size of the room from which he had controlled his nuclear weapons. Lois said he had, and Clark believed it, but although he had great faith in his partner, he also had less trust in Luthor's good behavior than she did -- at least he suspected that such was the case. If she betrayed Luthor, Clark was quite sure that the crime lord would not hesitate to act as decisively against her as he would against Henderson or any other opponent.
On the thought, he headed for the bunker in a burst of super speed, still clutching the lead apron.
**********
Inside the stairwell for the first flight of steps from Lex's basement into the bunker, Lois stripped off the one-piece outfit of the SWAT officer and tried to brush the wrinkles from her clothes. She wasn't particularly successful, but at this point she didn't care. Grasping the rail, she half-ran down the steps, disregarding the noise of her progress.
When she reached the first landing, a gust of wind from nowhere blew her hair around and Superman materialized beside her, looking maddeningly neat and unruffled compared to her own rumpled condition.
"Hold on a minute," were his first words. "Let's work together on this. What's going on?"
It was amazing how much better she felt all of a sudden. "Lex is escorting Henderson's people down to the 95th floor," she explained. "But I heard Nigel St. John tell him that the part of the bunker with the Operations Room was sealed off. Henderson won't find it."
"Yes he will. We'll see to that." He extended an arm. "Let's go."
"What's that?" she asked, poking a forefinger at the apron.
"My Kryptonite-handling equipment," Clark said. "I'll explain later."
"Okay. I guess later's soon enough." She gave the apron a second look and let him scoop her against his side.
The next seconds were a blur. Lois tucked her face against Clark's shoulder as she had done before and was aware mostly of motion, and then the coolness of the night air on her face. Clark paused in mid-air and Lois found herself looking down at a dark open hillside now bathed in the faint light of starshine. The Moon had set. "Where are we?"
"That's where we came out earlier tonight. We're going back in the same way."
"What are you planning to do once we get there?"
"We'll have to decide that when we see what the situation is. Hang on for one more minute."
Another burst of speed and they paused inside the inner cave. From somewhere Clark produced his flashlight, and she saw him squinting slightly toward the Operations Room. "Empty. Let's go see what they've done to hide this place."
Lois pushed open the door that led through the short closet and into the room with all the equipment that they had seen before. The monitors were still on, and she could hear the hum of running machines as they moved through the room toward the exit into the hallway.
The place hadn't changed, Lois saw. The stone corridor was as empty as before, and she found herself instinctively walking on tip toe to avoid the echoes of footsteps. Clark was squinting past her, and glancing at his spandex-clad form she had to subdue the faint feeling of awe that the sight produced. After all, in spite of the fact that this was Superman, he was still her partner, Clark. But the blue spandex and waving red cape, and the ripple of muscle through the thin material underscored the fact that this wasn't an ordinary man. Clark was a man from another world, who had come to Earth for some reason only known to him, and he was using his unearthly abilities right before her eyes. She had settled in her own mind some time back that he wasn't here for any sinister purpose, but she still didn't know everything. Well, now that he knew that she knew, she could ask him for the whole story, and he was darned well going to tell her.
After this was all over, of course. After they had made sure that Lex was arrested for his crime.
After all, there had to be something illegal in an attempt to plunge the world into the Stone Age again. At least, she hoped so. Besides, wasn't it against the law for unlicensed civilians to mess around with nuclear weapons?
"Come on," Clark said suddenly. He picked her up again and then they were flying down the curving stone corridor as silently as ghosts. This time he didn't fly too fast for her to see the passing scenery -- what there was of it. The bare stone walls flowed toward them and Lois found herself holding her breath.
"Luthor and Henderson, and his SWAT team, just stepped out of the elevator," Clark explained in a low voice. "This whole corridor has been closed. We have to open it."
"Do you know how -- or are you just going to knock down the wall?" Lois asked.
He gave a faint chuckle. "No, but I want to get a closer look at the controls." As he spoke, they rounded a corner and found themselves faced with an apparently solid stone wall. "Here we are." He fell silent, apparently studying the wires that ran along the ceiling.
"Well?" Lois demanded.
"The wires along there control the false wall," Clark said, pointing. "They run back to that other room that was labeled CTRL on the map. Remember? It must be the master control room for the complex, like we figured."
Lois nodded impatiently. "What are you going to do?"
"They're headed this way," Clark said, keeping his voice low. He pointed to one of the blank doors that opened in the corridor walls. "In there. Then I'm going to open it."
The door proved to open on some kind of store room. Clark eased it nearly shut after them and peeked through the narrow opening. "Here goes," he whispered. Lois heard the faintest sizzling sound and smelled scorched insulation. There was a sudden grating noise and Clark quickly shut the door the remainder of the way and put a finger to his lips. Lois put her ear against the door and tried to breathe quietly.
"I thought," Henderson's somewhat muffled voice said, "that this hallway didn't go anywhere." A pregnant silence ensued.
Lex's smooth voice seemed to have acquired a faintly ragged edge. "I assure you, Inspector --"
"Let's go," Henderson continued. "This is beginning to be very interesting."
**********
tbc
