Reminder from Part 57
Lex needed something more dramatic ... something more in keeping with Mayson's skills.
He sipped from the wine, his mind working.
A gas leak.
Multiple gas leaks. Simultaneously.
He would see how the caped alien coped with that.
And how the blonde hackette would write it.
From Part 59
Mayson's eyes turned cold, and her mouth twisted to a cruel sneer. "Then we are going to have to do this the hard way," she said. She looked at the watch on her wrist. "You have three hours to make your decision."
"What decision?"
"Everything I know - that Lois Lane is Ultra Woman, that she's been having an affair with you despite her marriage to the alien - *everything* will be in my story tomorrow."
"Perry won't print it."
"Carpenter will. And he'll pay big bucks for the exclusive."
Clark knew she was right. Having paid for the wedding and not obtained the honeymoon photos, the Star would jump at the chance to print any dirt on Superman and Ultra Woman.
"There is a way to buy my silence," Mayson said.
He didn't want to ask, but he had to. "How?"
"The only way to keep this story from being published is if the announcement of our engagement is in tomorrow's Planet."
Part 60
"Mayson," Clark grated. "I don't love you. I will never love you."
She knew that. She'd always known that. Now, the knowledge didn't hurt, but it did ignite the desire to hurt back. "You are so drearily old-fashioned," she said. "You'll find life much easier once you realise that the best marriages are business arrangements ... and that love is only to be found in childish fairy tales."
"I won't marry a woman I don't love."
"Then the woman you think you love will be splattered all over the Star tomorrow, and Lois Lane's life as she knows it will be effectively over. She'll become the primary target for anyone wanting to control Superman - assuming, of course, that Superman doesn't get to his adulterous wife first." Mayson strode past Clark and opened the door of her apartment. "I'm a fair woman, but not a patient one," she said. "You have three hours to make your decision - either we announce our engagement, or the story goes ahead. You will be back here with your answer by five o'clock. If you don't come, I will call Preston Carpenter and offer him enough delicious scandal to triple his circulation."
"Don't you have a contract with the Planet saying that you can't sell stories to other publications?"
"When you have a rich influential uncle on the board, you don't have to honour contracts," Mayson said airily. "If the Planet were stupid enough to sack me, they would lose the best investigative reporter in Metropolis ... and the wealthiest and most generous of their board members."
Kent didn't move. If appeared as if he'd run out of ideas.
Mayson gestured through the door for Clark to leave. "Five o'clock, Kent. Not one second past."
He walked out of her apartment. Mayson closed the door and leant against it. She had definitely not imagined that his first visit to her apartment would end like this, but on reflection, it was more satisfying than if she had managed to lure him into her bed.
He had looked like a broken man.
Her phone shrilled, and Mayson jumped at the sudden sound. As she crossed the room, her hand slipped into her pocket, and her fingers curled around the green rock. "Mayson Drake," she said into the phone.
"Mayson."
It was Luthor's voice. For all of his money and position, she didn't need him. She had the green rock to control Superman. She had Clark over a jagged barrel with his soft underbelly rammed against the spikes. She knew Superman's wife was leading a double life that included sex with someone other than her husband. "I've already told you that I have no interest in accompanying you on a date," she said coldly.
"This isn't about a date," Luthor said as if he had moved on. "I've heard a whisper - and to show that I am a man who bears no grudges, I have called you so that you can get the story."
"What story?" Mayson asked quickly.
"It's been a longstanding open secret that the engineers are worried about the state of the gas pipes under the city," Luthor said. "They are extremely old and in dire need of replacement. Unfortunately, no one is prepared to take either the backlash of the people who would be without gas for a considerable time or the cost involved in replacing the pipes."
"Is this a history lesson or a story?" Mayson snapped.
"The city engineers are going to conduct tests this afternoon," Luthor continued, unaffected by her tone. "These tests are against the specific advice of other experts who believe that any extra pressure could cause cracking."
Mayson hesitated. She didn't trust Luthor. Refusing his date could have been a little too much like provoking a cobra. "How do you know all this?"
"You said you didn't want a history lesson."
"Which pipes? Which part of the city?"
"If you go to Centennial Park, you will get the best vantage point without placing yourself in any direct danger."
A cold sheet fell across Mayson's heart. "And how do I know that you aren't directing me to the most dangerous place?" she asked. "I'm sure my death would cause you no grief."
"That's true," Luthor said smoothly. "But despite your many annoying tendencies, you are the foremost reporter in this city - and without you, I would have to rely on reading the incomprehensible claptrap spewed out by Linda King or the soft homely mush that Clark Kent writes."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Now you want a lesson in the psychology of my mind?" Luthor asked, sounding amused. "When there's a story in the offing?"
Mayson slammed down the phone.
In her other hand, she still clutched the green rock.
Should she take it with her?
If this were true - if the tests did cause damage and threaten life - Superman would be there.
She could produce the rock, and while he was debilitated, she could make a few of her own demands.
But ...
Gas leaks were serious.
If something went wrong, a leak could easily escalate into an explosion, and many lives would be in danger.
Including hers.
And, galling though it was to admit it, if something *did* go wrong, Superman could be her best chance of living long enough to write the story.
There would be other opportunities to introduce the green rock.
Mayson scurried to her bedroom and laid the precious stone in its hiding place. She closed the trap door and precisely placed the shoes. Her time to use the green rock would come.
But it wasn't now.
||_||
Lex Luthor replaced the phone and smiled as he settled back in his soft leather chair.
Mayson Drake didn't trust him. She had realised - too late - that snubbing his offer of a date was fraught with danger.
"Not this time, Mayson, my dear," he said. "Not that I care if your pretty blonde head is splattered on the Metropolis sidewalk, but there's no way I'm going to risk obliterating the green rock."
He picked up the phone to make his second call - to order a thorough search of her apartment. It would be phenomenally stupid to leave the green rock unguarded, but Luthor had learned a long time ago not to assume that others matched his acuity for the game.
||_||
Clark looked down on his sleeping wife, his heart heavy with the burning wish that he could protect her from the damage Mayson was attempting to inflict on their lives.
But there was no way to shield her. He had to wake her and tell her.
He laid his hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. "Lois?" he said quietly. "Lois, honey? You need to wake up."
She opened her eyes and smiled immediately she saw him. "Clark," she said. "It can't be time to get up yet." She wriggled away from him. "Come to bed."
He sat on the bed and swept back the hair from her face with a loving touch. "Lois," he said. "I need to tell you something."
She re-opened eyes that had fallen shut and wriggled to a semi-sitting position. She gazed at him, blinking against the weak light of the bedside lamp. He saw the apprehension bloom in her face and knew she had discerned that he brought bad news. "What happened?" she asked.
The fear in her voice was like a barb to his chest. He couldn't find the words to break it to her gently. He took her hand in his and said, "Mayson thinks that Lois Lane is Ultra Woman."
Her body tensed. "Mayson doesn't even know Lois Lane," she whispered.
"She does. She knew about your Brownlow story, and she knew about -"
"Does she know that you're Superman?"
"That thought doesn't seem to have occurred to her."
Lois's eyebrows dipped in contemplation. "So ... she thinks I'm cheating on Superman with you?"
Clark nodded disconsolately. "I'm sorry, honey," he said. "My dual identity just keeps getting you into trouble."
Lois eyed him, and the concern on her face twisted through his heart. If she'd fallen in love with a normal man, she could have avoided all of these complications. "How does she know?" she asked.
"She didn't say."
"What are we going to do?" Lois asked. "I don't think people will dismiss this as the ravings of a jealous woman."
Clark let out a long breath. "It gets worse," he warned.
Her grip tightened on his hand.
"She gave me an ultimatum," he said. "The only way to keep her story - including that Ultra Woman is having an affair with Clark Kent - out of tomorrow's papers is if we - Mayson and I - announce our engagement."
"Bitch," Lois muttered. She hauled in a deep breath and released it slowly. Then she looked directly at Clark. "How long do we have?"
"Less than three hours."
Lois straightened her posture and rubbed her eyes. "OK," she said. "We have some time. There has to be a way out of this - and we will find it."
"I am *not* going to agree to an announcement of the engagement," Clark said firmly.
"What if it's the only way to keep her from going public?"
"I will call a press conference and explain *everything*," Clark declared. "That would be preferable to anyone thinking I would marry that woman."
"It might be a way to buy us some time," Lois said.
"No."
His adamant response elicited a wan smile from his wife. "You wouldn't do it?" she asked. "Under *any* circumstances?"
Clark cradled her hand in both of his and solemnly gazed into her eyes. "When we talked about Superman and Ultra Woman getting married, we agreed that we weren't going to do it unless it was real. I made vows to you. I promised you that I would love only you for the rest of my life - nothing is going to change that."
"I didn't say anything about you loving her."
"I am married," Clark said with steely determination. "I am married to you. I am not going to even pretend otherwise."
"Superman is married," Lois said gently. "As far as the world knows, Clark Kent isn't married."
"Then perhaps it's time we changed that," Clark said. "Perhaps it's time I made it clear that regardless of the clothes I am wearing, I am me - and I am married, and I am in love, and I am totally committed to one woman."
Lois put her hand on his cheek and smiled into his eyes. "I love you for your conviction," she said. "But let's not throw away our chance to see if there is another way out of this."
"Do you have any ideas?"
"No," she admitted glumly. "But we have three hours to think about it."
From Clark's pocket, his cell rang. He slipped it out and saw the number displayed. "It's Mom," he told Lois. He took a moment to steady himself before answering. "Hi, Mom."
"Clark," she said urgently. "Have you heard the news?"
His heart thudded low into his stomach. "What news?"
"There are numerous gas leaks in Metropolis. One spark, and there will be a massive explosion. They're calling for Superman."
"OK, Mom. Thanks." He hung up the phone. "Gas leaks," he told Lois with heavy regret. "I have to go."
"Of course you have to go," she said quickly. "It will give me time to work out how we are going to fix this."
He gave her a quick kiss and shot from her unit and towards Metropolis.
||_||
Luthor dialled the numbers for his third call.
He was a man who believed in being sufficiently prepared so that, regardless of the outcome of any given situation, he would be the one left holding all the aces.
"Pearce," came the familiar voice.
"Luthor."
"Who? When?"
"Mayson Drake. Prepare now, set in position next time I call, activate if - and when - I OK it."
"Her computer?"
"Good."
"Home or office?"
"Home."
The line clicked dead. Luthor slowly replaced his phone and lit a cigar.
"Welcome to the game, Ms Drake," he said as the smoke drifted lazily upwards. "If you play your cards well, you might live long enough to enjoy it. If not ... ka-boom!"
||_||
For half an hour, Clark worked systematically to restore the pipes - using his super-breath to clear away the leaked gas sufficiently that it was safe to use his heat vision to close each leak.
Once the situation had been secured, he landed next to the group of police officers. They were dressed in black bulky suits, with rounded facemasks and tubes connected to their oxygen tanks. The city was eerily quiet - the police had ordered all citizens to get into a building and stay there.
Henderson - almost unrecognisable in his gear - stepped forward. "Is it safe?" he asked, his voice muffled.
Clark nodded. "I have checked all of the pipes and repaired the holes."
"They were holes? Not cracks?"
"That is correct. This was not an accident - nor even a series of accidents that could have occurred due to climatic conditions. This was sabotage."
Even through the mask, Henderson's horror was evident. "Who would want to do that?" he asked. "If enough of the gas had escaped, or if there had been an explosion, everyone's life would be in danger."
"Once your engineers have checked the air quality, you can lift the lockdown," Clark said.
"But you're confident it's safe?"
"Very confident."
"Were there any clues?" Henderson asked. "Anything to suggest why someone would do this?"
"It looked like mindless vandalism."
A footstep rapped loudly in the silence of the deserted street, and Clark swung towards the sound. Mayson Drake - wearing no protection against either gas or explosion - walked out from behind a tree. She approached the group with brisk steps and stopped next to Superman. "Can I ask you a few questions for my story?" she said.
"What are you doing out here, Mayson?" Henderson demanded, his annoyance evident. "We put the city in lockdown."
"I'm a reporter," she said coolly. "I don't get the best stories by scuttling away every time there is a hint of danger." She looked directly at Superman with a coy smile. "And once I heard Superman was here, I knew he would keep the city safe."
"You shouldn't be here," Clark said.
"Well, I am," she returned. "So how about you answer my questions so that I can get on with my job?"
Mayson Drake was the absolute last person Clark wanted to be with, but he nodded tersely. "Two questions," he said. "My time is limited."
Instead of immediately asking a question, she gazed at him with a shrewd smile. "How's your wife, Superman?"
"You get two questions, and you use one to ask about his wife?" Henderson said incredulously.
"She's well," Clark said. "One more question."
"How can we be sure that your repairs will keep this from happening again the next time the pipes are tested?"
"The pipes weren't being tested," Henderson said. "This was sabotage."
All of Mayson's composure and swagger peeled away, and her face paled to alabaster. "Sabotage?" she gulped.
Henderson nodded. "Someone did this deliberately."
Without another word, Mayson wheeled around and sprinted away, her heels tapping loudly on the empty sidewalk.
||_||
Clark landed in Lois's unit, and she rushed to meet him with such purpose and intent that he knew she had thought of something. "Is everything OK in Metropolis?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "But it wasn't an accident."
"Someone caused the leaks deliberately?"
"Yeah." His kiss was hot and quick, with a tinge of desperation. "What are we going to do?" he asked. It was a request for information, not a statement of despair.
"This is like it's three-quarter time, and the opposition have a good lead and are coming home with a tail wind. You can either accept that you're beaten, or you can fight it out. The best way forward - the *only* way forward - is bold and fearless attack. You need to trust your teammates and yourself."
"What are you suggesting?" Clark asked, unable to glean anything from her analogy.
Lois sighed. "It's flimsy," she said. "About the only thing going for it is that it's better than sitting here and doing nothing."
"I couldn't think of anything," he admitted.
"I think we should get into the suits and pay Luthor a visit."
Clark could not see how that was going to help their situation with Mayson, so he said nothing and waited for Lois to continue.
"I am sure Luthor is the Boss," she said. "If we pay him a call - under the pretence that we are there to discuss the cameras in the honeymoon suite - we might find something ... *anything* ... to support that theory."
"Are you suggesting that if we can find something, we could print it tomorrow, and it could knock Mayson's story off the front page?"
Lois grimaced. "Nah ... That's a possibility, I suppose, but I think that, having missed out on the honeymoon photos, the Star will consider dirt on Superman and Ultra Woman - an extramarital affair no less - to be their first priority."
"I agree," Clark said. "If Mayson offers Carpenter her story, I can't see anything replacing it on the front page - not even the identity of the Boss."
"My thoughts were more about trying to barter with Mayson," Lois said. "She understands that knowledge is power, and she's more than willing to use it. We could offer her the Luthor story in return for her not printing the 'Lois Lane is Ultra Woman' story."
They were going to have to discover something earth-shattering - and with solid backup evidence - for Mayson to even consider that deal. "Even if she agrees, there are no guarantees she will keep her word," Clark said. "She could take the Luthor story today and still print the Ultra Woman story tomorrow."
"But if you agree to the engagement, there are no guarantees that she will keep quiet about what she knows," Lois said earnestly. "I thought about this while you were gone, and I realised that if we give in to her on this, it will become a string of similar situations. Every time she wants something, either from Clark or Superman, she will threaten to publish what she knows."
"Except if we are supposedly engaged," Clark said, and his aversion to the idea sat like acid in his mouth, "it will be her fiancé she is exposing. Mayson is very careful to ensure that the dirt she throws doesn't land too close to home."
"Hhmm," Lois conceded grimly. Her resolve had deflated. "Maybe it's not a workable idea."
"It's a start," Clark said with an encouraging smile. "But we need more than that - we need an explanation for how Lois Lane was in Metropolis."
"Anything we say is going to introduce the possibility of a link between Clark Kent and Superman. If we say that Lois is with Clark and that the Superman wedding was simply a ruse so he appeared more human - that is going to admit that Clark and Superman are close."
"And it sends entirely the wrong message about both men's attitude towards women," Clark said. "As if they are something that can be traded and loaned on a whim."
Lois wrinkled her brow. "Why didn't Mayson even think that Clark Kent could be Superman?"
"I don't think she has a high opinion of Clark," he said grimly.
"Did you go to her apartment?"
"Yes," Clark admitted. "She insisted."
Lois smiled briefly. "That explains it - she would have tested you with the green rock."
"Uggh," he said. "That's probably why she tried to hug me."
"Maybe." Lois's thoughts had moved on. "I suppose, even in this situation, you would prefer not to lie?"
"I might have to," Clark said, though he wasn't comfortable with his concession. "The problem with lying is that it tends to lead to other lies, and the pit just keeps getting bigger."
"Could we say that Clark had discovered something about Superman's past? You're an investigative reporter ... just because Mayson couldn't find out anything about Superman, that doesn't mean Clark couldn't. Perhaps you found out about ... him coming from Krypton. Instead of writing what you discovered, you and Superman became sort of friends. I mean, the world has accepted that Superman can have a wife ... why not a buddy?"
"Until someone wonders why Superman and his *buddy* are never seen together."
"True," Lois said. "But at least if we *had* to concede that Lois was in the library in Metropolis, we have an explanation. Superman brought Clark's girlfriend from Australia because they were missing each other."
Clark nodded thoughtfully. "It's not watertight," he said. "And it doesn't explain how two friends end up with women who look so alike."
"Nothing is going to explain that," Lois said with a sigh.
"But Superman, Clark, and Lois will stick to the same story. It's not going to be easy to prove they are all lying."
Lois's eyes met those of her husband. "We go and see Luthor?"
He couldn't see an obvious way forward ... but Lois did seem to have the knack of looking in the right places for answers. "OK," he said. "We visit Luthor."
Lois stepped away. "My suit is hidden in the bedroom," she said. "Can you get me into it, please? We need to hurry."
Clark spun around Lois, spun himself into the Superman suit, and then he picked up Ultra Woman, and they flew towards Metropolis.
