Title: The Sound of Thought

Author: JayneFaire

Email: JayneFaire@aol.com

Rating: R

Challenge: Clark can read minds temporarily, why?

Notes: All love to Melly, Michi, Roxy and Carol

Summary: Clark discovers the sound of thought and a countdown begins.

Prologue: Murder in the First.

For all the power and money and influence Alexander Joseph Luthor had, when Smallville jurors were given the rest of his life to decide upon, they took the putty of his existence and warped it into a conviction of a crime most people on Earth, for the issue was taken to a global scale due to the defendant’s name and illustrious reputation in past years, believed he had committed.

What a loathsome creature the prosecution painted—a man driven by love and lust that quickly melted into utmost hate for a woman whose only crime had been to love him and then, after the trauma of losing their child, decided to leave.

What an innocent victim made the young Lana Luthor née Lang—orphaned by freakish tragedy, loved by the whole town over and known as a smiling face as she dutifully served coffee and crusts every morning; Cinderella story in the making as she received the seemingly happy ending with her Prince Charming in holy matrimony. The ‘Prince’, seen throughout Kansas and the rest of America as a right-minded philanthropist and employer of thousands, backbone of middle-American economy, ‘savior’ of Metropolis after the dark events of Black Thursday. None could be better for Miss Lang than he.

What a dirty and sordid image created with witness testimony of arguments and physical altercations between husband and wife that led to the tragic moment of flight then sorrowful, violent death.

It was at this point in the testimony, of ‘violent death’ when Clark Joseph Kent rose from his seat and sped out the courtroom as humanly as his strong, able legs could take him for it was at that moment the jury had been made privy to the ‘before’ and ‘after’ visages of the young Mrs. Luthor née Lang.

He averted his eyes, turned his head and moved quietly, but the effect was made for all knew young Mr. Kent, son of the senator, upright young man whom Miss Lang, when she was Miss Lang, made the youthful and foolish mistake of leaving in hopes of a more secure future through the vast fortune of her soon-to-be bridegroom. Mr. Kent was also, as the poor deceased girl had been, loved by all and this visceral reaction to her distorted death mask was ever the mar that sealed Lex Luthor’s fate, for the defendant’s look at that moment wasn’t horrified repugnance at the charred and destroyed face of his beloved for whom he denied having sent to an early grave, but rather his eyes betrayed an interest more of the escaping boy.

This would not do! cried many a juror, observing the exchange of hearts blood. To be thus distracted at such a heinous image! The mother of your dead child! He was decided, in that very instant, to have no heart, and thus having no heart it was much easier to image the man a cold-blooded killer. Nothing could save him past that instant, though all twelve had sworn at the start to favor his case. He had been universally loved and now, just as universally, hated. His defense had not yet had their opportunity to speak but minds had already been set in the way that minds often became set—in that firm, unrelenting way lest weakness be called into existence.

Murder in the First and soon Alexander Joseph Luthor would be sentenced to either life in confinement or to death in confinement. Either way, his prospects would see him in prison soon enough and he was convinced, as all men who saw nothing but a deep dark tunnel before them lined with sharp eyes and hearts filled with hate do, that his end would not be executed by the state or by nature but rather in swift prison justice. Hours of pain and violation culminating in either a blow to the head, a shank to the torso or a slice to the neck.

It was all he saw of his future.

It would be two days between the end of the trial and the sentencing phase when Lex Luthor would have to be saved for, if your narrator can speak free my dear reader, he was innocent. Quite innocent of all.

Chapter One: Wherein Clark Kent Discovers the Sound of Thought.

When one says, with fierce determination, ‘I would give my life for yours’, the recipient of said declaration thinks, ‘ohh, sweet. Endearing, genteel, fake, cloying, self-interested but still, sweet’ and a tag of cattle-dung is attached to the words from the onset. The words, no matter how determinedly said, how real and true they feel as they are being said, are never taken in a literal sense and if ever the occurrence arose to challenge the oath, it’s sturdiness would sway, it’s foundations would be found eroding, it’s veracity would be called into dubious question. In short, such a promise, more often then not, amounts only and ever to the sheer force of pretty words.

But once—perhaps in a century, even in a millennia for the occasion is so rare—this avowal does ring true and a life is given in protection for another. Human beings are, as most all creatures under the burning yellow star of Latona’s son, selfish. This is not using the word ‘selfish’ in it’s base and negative form but simply as a way to express that in the end, the I is what matters for it is the I who will see the next tomorrow. The fear of death is the main contributor to this regard and focus on the I. Humans have many beliefs and situations that try and beautify death to the point that Elysium is seen in a fairer light than the terra firma encountered everyday. This, though, is mostly fairytale to even the most devoted postulant of belief. When the time approaches for death, when it lingers in the shadows and is guaranteed to present itself in mere moments, that is when belief and faith fall away to fear. Gut-wrenching fear. In this state of paralysis, who can insist upon a promise given for life? Who can say, I will still, even now, die for you?

It is only one who cannot, in any way, fear death, who can give of themselves so freely. The identifying religion of Earth is formulated under this tenet: one who could look death in the face and give of himself without concern for himself. The blood of martyrs would pour after this example and two-thousand years later a young girl lay silent on a hospital bed, not realizing she had so fully given of herself as well.

Chloe Sullivan did not consider herself powerful. When she was younger, the feeling of invulnerability was much stronger and it was then, in years past, that she was convinced nothing could harm her and that all the answers of the world lay at her fingertips for the taking. Trials and tribulations later broke down her barriers of bravado and made her someone more careful and hesitant. Fear now paralyzed her in most situations and when the cry came out on fight or flight, flight would win nine times out of ten. She would be the first to tell you to ‘be careful’ when, just a few years ago, she would rush headlong into unknown danger. She was not who she had been and she knew that and thought herself better for it. There was only so much she would risk when a challenge presented itself.

Dear reader, please do not imagine that I deign to portray Ms. Sullivan as a yellow coward. No, her cautiousness was only exercised when it was only her own well-being in the mix. She against an attacker saw her run from said attacker. Add another defendant to the pot, any other person, even the most capable she’d ever met and she would round on a villain like an angry terrier, oblivious to their own diminutive stature and ignorant of her slight chances of survival. She would blindly and in rage and love slip into a mode of protection that would have seen her torn limb from limb before someone she cared about had an eyelash disturbed.

It was in that mode, in caring for another, that she’d held her dear cousin in her arms and vowed to do anything to save her. Anything. Would those thoughts have flowed as freely had she known what the promise would have done to her body? In a simple answer—yes. Before that moment between life and death Ms. Sullivan had only known this about herself—she loved her cousin. She thought nothing of latent powers or abilities she may have siphoned from her mother. She did not know that her mother’s power of suggestion had passed onto her in a purer and more innocent form—that of willing. In the breath before her cousin died in her arms, Chloe had told her, from her heart, that she would gladly give her life to her. In that moment, life passed from one to the other.

The only thing that saved Ms. Sullivan as she now, herself, lay between worlds, was the fact that her cousin was not truly yet dead. The small part of her life-force that was not needed by her cousin was allowed to remain in her body, allowing her heart to feebly beat in her chest. She was not dead but far beyond a single-night’s rest of recuperation.

Clark Kent had stood in the Lowell County courtroom as cheers and curses rang out at the sounding of a guilty verdict. People stood and whooped as Lex Luthor was remanded to the county jail where he would wait to be sentenced and then, transferred. Clark didn’t hear anything beyond the foreman’s announcement. He thought he would feel something upon hearing this—elation, relief, anger, frustration, anything. He only felt hollow and watched as Lex was silently taken away from his team of lawyers who, Clark admitted noncommittally, had presented a far better argument. He didn’t want to think about the non-partiality of the jury because in Clark’s world, law was always fair. If it wasn’t, society would descend into the murky hollow depths of Salem, 1692. He knew magic and witches existed, but it was fear-driven law that they should be burned, and it was also under the same law that he should be cut open on a lab table.

Everyone deserved a fair trial and Lex, he knew, had not received one.

Did it matter though? Lex killed Lana. It was something he’d been repeating to himself over and over again. He murdered her so she wouldn’t be happy away from him. Wasn’t that the reasoning the defense presented and wasn’t the picture clear enough. Lex, who’d done so much evil in his short life, wasn’t the picture they painted of him just? He killed her and Clark had loved her. Wasn’t that enough to divorce himself from the ideology of habeas corpus? What did it matter if the entire preceding, from the explosion to today, this minute, seemed one large witch-trial? That Lex never really had a chance? The evidence was there though, so carelessly left behind that Clark could not, consciously, attribute it’s ham-fistedness to Lex in any stretch of the imagination—he had, as his previous employment history proved, very bad taste in his staff.

But . . . there was something chipping at him in a constant picking motion that was slowly clearing away the sheet of black ice from his vision; Lex was proud. It seemed a silly defense to him as his lawyers tried to paint him as the grieving widower. To show Lex as a proud man would have surely been his downfall. His wife was leaving him, would pride not have driven him to bloodshed? Clark looked up to catch sight of piercing blue eyes locked fiercely onto him moments before the bailiff led the owner of said eyes out of the courtroom. Clark was chilled to the bone.

No.

Clark’s stomach turned at the realization that Lex wouldn’t have killed Lana. His pride was too great for that. He discarded every woman who proved to hold no love for him. Like trash . . . Clark knew, in his heart, how it was that Lex loved another. He had to respect them, first, foremost. Lana had been playing Lex for weeks. He would have lost all respect for her before he would have had her killed.

He turned away from the jubilant crowd and stumbled his way to the Smallville Medical Center. Lost in his thoughts he allowed his legs to take him to safe-haven and only realized he was standing outside his best-friend’s hospital room when a nurse told him to have a good afternoon. He smiled to her, his eyes empty, but she was gone and Clark was left staring ahead to room 209 in the neurological sciences wing, previously the Alexander Luthor Wing. Clark glanced up and to his left where the sign that had bared Lex’s name had been taken down halfway though his trial when all charitable feelings towards a former hospital benefactor was as dry as neat London gin. He didn’t notice the shaking of his hands until he clasped them to the doorknob to still them.

What was this feeling of regret inside of him? After all the bad blood between them, how could he still harbor this despair at the loss of who had been one of his dearest friends? The answer was in the question. The brother he’d never had was sure to be on death row come two days from now. How could their lives have spun out of control so acutely in such short time? Seven years and everything had changed.

Clark was inside the room and bent over onto Chloe’s still arm, weeping before he realized he’d unclasped the doorknob. Hours passed and as it had been for the past five months, not a word on what was troubling him was exchanged. On Clark’s part, he didn’t know if people suffering from coma could hear what was being said and he was inclined to believe that yes, they could. Chloe didn’t know about Lana’s death and telling her, in this state . . . he hadn’t been sure what it would do to her. They’d been so close. When he visited he was sure to only ask her about her day, discourse about the weather and pray, silently for her.

Hours of weeping, he was sure, would destroy the bubble of protection he and her family had contrived to surround her with. Several times he tried to catch himself but months of raw emotion spilled out and as the room was lit more by artificial light than by the large windows he knew he would soon stop. He had to.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered, his voice hoarse and heavy. He wanted to come up with an excuse but he couldn’t lie to her. Omission was one thing; an outright lie was such a blatant betrayal of trust that he feigned to apply it. He wiped his eyes and looked at her still face. Her body had healed some time ago but her mind was elsewhere. It was the best explanation her doctors could give. Much deeper than coma and perhaps, permanent. They just didn’t know. Gabe Sullivan seemed to sink farther and farther into the depression Chloe had once or twice alluded to her father suffering. His visits to his only daughter were rare and erratic; occurring only in moments of lucidity that would, at the conclusion of such a visit, throw him into such despair that weeks would pass before another visit was dared. Lois Lane, the aforementioned dear cousin was battling her own demons that formed in her mind as guilt. Chloe had told her not to pursue the story that landed her on the floor of a filthy tunnel with a stab wound to her gut. It wasn’t known to her what happened in that pressing gloom but when she woke she was safe and her cousin was as near death as a human should ever be. Ms. Lane approached most guilt with resentful avoidance and steely determination to amend. Turning on Lex Luthor for presenting the situation in the first place, from her perch in Metropolis she became the sounding board for all things anti-Luthor, printing without much care whatever came to her mind to drag him into the bog of her regret. He visits were as seldom as her uncle Gabe’s. The only one of Chloe’s family that visited with any regularity was her Uncle Sam who would spend an hour every morning. He and Clark had spent the Sunday last with her. It was quiet but Clark derived some comfort from having Sam Lane there in the same room with him and Chloe. They had all lost someone dear to them and were each, somehow, abandoned.

Clark had been right about his best friend—Chloe could hear every muffled sound that escaped his throat. She heard every greeting he’d ever given her from the first day the doctor’s said he could come in and see her. She heard her doctors and nurses and her uncle—her father and cousin, less. She was more perceptive than she was given credit for and hearing snatches of conversation from passersby, Chloe knew her best friend, her sister, was gone and she knew Lex’s trial was to have concluded today. Inside her mind Chloe screamed once more, as she had several times before, to communicate that she was still there, that her mind was as sharp as ever. That in fact, it wasn’t her brain that was faulting her at the moment but rather, her mouth.

“Clark!” She shouted but it was to no avail. It was too frustrating and she felt her eyes burn with fury and sadness.

Chloe’s eyelashes betrayed a collection of moisture at their corners. Clark held his breathing and stilled his residual hitches of breath. “Chloe, I’m sorry,” he apologized again, reaching over to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“I need you to listen,” she said tersely, feeling his fingers on her cheeks. Her will pulsed through her and tingled against his wet fingers. Clark drew back his fingers as what felt like a surge of gentle electricity waved through him and he heard, quite distinctly, the word ‘listen’.

“Chloe?” He asked quietly.

“Clark?” She asked, just as quiet.

“Oh my God—”

Chapter Two: Wherein a Countdown Begins.

“Okay, let’s repeat the plan,” Chloe said in a half happy, half desperate tone. She was positively fervent. Clark had never heard her so determined about anything in all her life.

He shook his head, this having been the fifth time they have since, ‘repeated the plan’, “Chloe, I get the plan. It’s not exactly chess strategy versus Bobby Fisher.”

“Hey, it’s my life on the line superdude so get over it and coddle me a little. Five months locked in your head sucks as much as a female exec in a Fortune 500.”

“Chloe—” Clark reacted, his gentility affected by a graphic image.

“Glass ceilings and sexual favors. Don’t be so naïve Clark,” she goaded. Months of solitude had made her base and surly and . . . surprisingly refreshing. He’d missed her so much. “Okay, so,” she said slowly, her voice locked behind still lips, “The yanking, disconnecting or pulling of any plugs—”

He repeated like an automaton, his beat of speech that of a metronome, “—Equals a bad idea—”

“Heinously!” She helpfully interjected with rabid doggedness.

“—Equals a heinously bad idea.”

“That’s the plan!” She squealed.

He sighed with a chuckle, “Got the plan.”

She almost sighed, “Okay, so this is weird.”

“Very,” he agreed.

“New power?”

“Kinda hope not.”

“Why?”

“Remember that episode of Buffy?”

“Ew, demon hearts. Yeah, well, then again, it’s coming in very handy for me. Talking to yourself is a sign of loneliness. Answering yourself is a sign of insanity. Clark, I was having whole conversations. I need out of here. If it’s not you it must be me.”

He looked around the hospital room a little helplessly, “I—” he wasn’t sure how to really say it. He looked at the machine over her head and pulled a few strips of paper from the basket underneath. “Chlo, I don’t think anything’s changed really. Your EEG’s the same.”

“When’d you learn to read EEG’s?” She asked, hoping to deflect the disappointment that was rising in her breast.

“When you fell into a coma,” he said quietly.

“Ohh,” she said, her eyes again watering. “Well, there’s gotta be something there Clark. Your powers don’t come so easy. Right?”

He nodded. She was right. “Yeah,” he said. If he had developed the power to read minds, if that was part of his Kryptonian heritage, then he’d have to learn to master it like all his other abilities. It would have been some amount of trial and error. This was too fluid and she was right, it happened suddenly, right here.

He peered closely at the print outs and saw a minute blip there, like a momentary spike of . . . electricity, then the pattern went back to what it was, a mind near dormancy.

Electricity? He pondered this, pouring over the print out when another tear slipped from Chloe’s closed green eyes. Clark went to wipe it away and it all connected, all of a sudden, all in a flash. He drew back his hand and narrowed his vision on the tears. Enlarging them as his powerful eyes magnified the tears to their molecules he saw the all too familiar green of kryptonite. Clark’s mouth opened in shock and he looked down to his fingers, previously dampened by Chloe’s tears. The amount had been so trace he’d not noticed it but now he saw the pulsating of his fingertip, the redness and irritation. It was like hitting his hand with a hammer. Like his finger had touched a live wire.

“Clark?” Chloe called out to him. “I can’t see in here, hello?”

“You’re right Chloe. It’s you.”

“Me? How? What? Spill.”

The discoloration moved slightly farther down his hand. The motion was infinitesimal and only his eyes could trace it but there it was. He suddenly felt a sharp pang in his mind and closed his eyes sharply as blinding pain passed momentarily through him. Moment passed, leaving only the rapidity of his heart in his chest, Clark raced over to the sink in the corner of her room and furiously washed his hands but all the scrubbing couldn’t change the fact that the poison was in him, some already making its way to his brain, more inching its way through his system.

“Clark!” She screamed, her voice now reverberating through his thoughts and off the walls of his skull. His hands flew to his ears but it was only to cradle his head—the pain was beyond sound.

He gasped, trying to settle himself as the worst of it, he hoped, had passed. “kryptonite.”

“What?!”

“In your tears. There’s kryptonite in your tears.”

“Ew! Like, what the hell are they putting in the IV’s or are we talking latent mutant ability rears its ugly green head?”

His vision was popping and every sound she was making was pin-ponging through his synapses. He tried to concentrate on what she was saying but it was a heavy muffle. The pain had gone but it left a breathlessness that he couldn’t pull up from. She heard his heavy breathing before the connection clicked and she shrieked,

“It got on you!” Thought exploded and he crumpled to the floor.

I pull away now, dear reader, to move more to a position of a fly upon the wall. Usually in narrative the last line would be a perfect end of scene and we would break to another setting or time or both, drama high, suspense throbbing, all those lovely things that make a story more van Damme action movie than literary endeavor, however what happens to our darling Clark in these ensuing moments is much too important to cut away from. Chloe Sullivan, upon hearing no response from her best friend, her brother, her Clark, had come to fear the worse of his wellbeing. Knowing what kryptonite does to his system and knowing that she was the cause for his silence, Chloe panicked. Agitation high, heart racing, her EKG spiked and an alarm was sent to the nurses’ station down the hall.

A portly woman, middle aged with vibrant Clairol Glamour Girl red hair bustled into the room and ran first to her patient when, from the corner of her eye, she saw young Mr. Kent unconscious on the tile. All the nurses on the floor knew and adored Mr. Kent and this nurse was no exception. She gripped the call button over Chloe’s bed and called in for help. Giving Chloe the once over she identified the clear reactions of a panic attack, working for fifteen years in the neurological sciences wing gave her the tools to identify the body’s reaction to mental stimuli. For a moment she wondered if it were possible that the comatose girl could, in some way, know that her friend lay on the floor just a few feet away. She hurried to Clark as another nurse and a doctor came into the room.

“What happened?” The doctor asked, his short salt and pepper gray hair laying flat on pale, ashen skin. Doctors, my dear readers, did not get much sun and florescent lighting helped none at all. He examined Chloe and searched the messages her machines were displaying.

“I don’t know,” the portly red-headed nurse said as she checked Clark’s vitals. “I came in and she was panicking and he was on the floor.”

The doctor and nurses could not hear the frightful screams of Chloe Sullivan regarding the health and wellbeing of her friend.

“How is he?” The doctor asked as he nodded away the second nurse from his aid with Chloe and encouraged her over to Clark.

“Breathing steady but his pulse is a little erratic.” She looked down to the palm of the hand she was taking his pulse through and saw the inflammation there. “Doctor, looks like an electrical burn.” She scanned the area where Clark had fallen. There weren’t any sockets anywhere near. She furrowed her brows and looked into the face of her colleague next to her, ‘That’s weird.’

Clark’s eyes slowly opened and he seemed to hear before he saw. He was looking up at the nurse hovering over him and he could clearly hear her say, ‘That’s weird’ but he didn’t see her lips move at all. Through her, beyond her, he heard Chloe screaming to him.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled, hoping it was loud enough for Chloe to hear. Though he heard her as clearly as before, it hurt less as if the sound was filtered somehow, as if his body had learned to set up defenses against it. He hoped that was the explanation and not that his mind was now covered with so much eschar that he just couldn’t feel.

“You sure?” Chloe asked but something else came through, ‘He doesn’t look good,’ ‘I wonder how he got burned,’ ‘We should get him into exam one.’ All of this was said concurrently and he wouldn’t pinpoint the locations of origin for any of them. Clark flinched away from the nurses who sat so close to him and he rose to shaking legs. ‘He looks like he’s gonna fall.’

“I’m okay,” he said again to the concern before he realized it hadn’t been vocalized. He did feel like he was going to fall but he had to get out of the hospital if he really was. He’d rather topple unconsciously to his barn floor than to a hospital corridor.

Chloe calmed down at this assurance from Clark and her panic subsided. “Are you—Is Chloe going to be alright?” He quickly corrected.

“I was just worried about you,” she told him.

“She’ll be alright. I think she knew you were in danger,” the doctor explained. “We should get you looked over,” he said, moving towards the knot of people at the wall.

Clark shook his head and stepped quickly away, his gait wobbling and causing the nurses to silently react. “I’ll see you tomorrow Chloe,” Clark muttered before he hastily left the room. Jogging down the hallway he could hear the doctors and nurses call out to him but he hit the staircase before they stepped out of Chloe’s room. He tried to catch his breath but his gasps for air were as fruitful as a landed fish and he made it down the first flight of stairs before he had to sit down and rest his head. He pulled his cell phone and looked down to the illuminated screen. His mother was the first number there. Senate was in session and it wasn’t a five minute drive from Washington D.C. to Smallville, Kansas. He needed his mother in those breathless moments; he needed her desperately but he put away his phone and got to his feet. He would have to suffer through this without her. He’d have to figure this out one way or another.

He looked down to his hand. The tip of the index finger of his left hand was now completely numb and the redness had crept down more through him. Would it travel all the way from his finger, to his hand, up his arm, into his chest and stop his heart? He calculated how long it would take for that to happen.

He closed his eyes.

Four days.

Four days to live or four days to die.

Chapter Three: Wherein a Father Fails to Help.

It was most awkward for Clark Kent to look up into the faces of the two men who had so thoroughly stepped into the shoes of the two fathers he’d already lost. Lionel, cool, rational, calculating, distant—he was the epitome of the Jor-El Clark had tried to understand, failed to love and eventually learned to give his respect. J’onn, passionate, compassionate, headstrong, stubborn, defiant and noble—if ever a man could have so absolutely reminded Clark of Jonathan Kent it would be him.

Lionel paced the length of his cool blue steel and glass office on the top floor of LuthorCorp Tower as J’onn crouched low, hovering over Clark, his eyes still examining the point of infection. Clark had made it, with admitted difficulty, across three counties from Smallville before his exhaustion sent him crumbling to his knees in the high brush of an October, pre-harvest, corn field. His Watcher, up to that point, had been unaware of Clark’s condition. Upon the young man’s collapse all was made clear. He swooped in from his vantage point of perfect invisibility and only needed to take one look at his charge before he knew something was terribly wrong.

“You should have called on me,” J’onn said, examining Clark closer in the thick, black darkness of night with the steady glow of his bright red eyes. It had taken some time over the past few months to get used to the eerie red glow that so reminded him of his summer in Metropolis with red kryptonite poisoning his mind.

Clark gasped as J’onn took hold of his throbbing hand, “I thought I could make it.”

“To where?” He asked but he heard Clark before he spoke for, my apt reader, J’onn J’onzz was possessed of the ability that now plagues Clark Kent: Telepathy.

“Lionel,” Clark breathed, struggling back to his feet with assistance. “I need help.” As he said this, Clark was astonished at how quiet the night was; how clear and silent. He looked harder to J’onn who only said simply,

“You’ve not reached the point to read my thoughts, Clark.” There was some comfort in J’onn calling him by his Earth-given name. Up to that point he’d been, and only had been, Kal-El to his Watcher. Clark was sure this appeasement was meant to relax him and it did as it was imagined.

He nodded and J’onn was sure he saw the young man exhale in something like relief, “I’m glad. I missed the quiet.”

Entering Metropolis some time later at a speed that was more human than not, as Clark patently refused more help from J’onn than that of a study shoulder to lean upon, tore through his mind with more vicious aggression than those isolated thoughts of two nurses and a doctor ever could. The sounds of the city assaulted him and he was immediately immersed in hundreds of thousands of voices rattling through him and shaking the foundations of his sanity. His eyes darted to and fro as man and woman passed alongside the two wanderers. So many thoughts pulling him under, dragging him down. He felt like he were in a vat of tar and he couldn’t recover himself.

“Focus on only one set of thoughts, Clark. Focus on your own,” J’onn implored. Clark closed his eyes for a moment, tried to look inward and for a brief moment felt a lightness overtake him and he felt the weighty tar release from his mind when a bus filled with people pulled up alongside them at a red light. The proximity to all these wandering, mundane but loud and belligerent thoughts shackled him once again and drew him under. He collapsed.

“What do you suspect it is?” Clark heard Lionel Luthor ask from somewhere above him. He cringed as his pained hand was touched and he drew in a sharp intake of breath.

“I already know what it is,” J’onn said, resting the young man’s palm back to his chest but keeping his hand on Clark. “Chloe Sullivan.”

“Stop poking in my head,” Clark mumbled, his eyes blinking open. He was in Lionel’s office. The new, and ‘new’ is used loosely here darling reader as Lionel had been, sometime ago, the original person to hold the title, CEO of LuthorCorp was standing just over J’onn’s shoulder. Clark paused and realized how quiet everything was. Looking to his hand he still saw the redness there; swollen green capillaries rose to the surface of his flesh. J’onn helped him sit up but kept a hold of Clark’s uninjured hand as he sat next to him. He looked to the connection and then up to J’onn, his eyes relaying the thoughts within.

“I’m blocking them,” he explained quietly. Clark looked down again to the connection and minutely nodded. “Are you sure?” J’onn asked. Clark wearily nodded again and J’onn released him, breaking the link. It wasn’t as before where some thoughts were clear and some were muffled, no, it was louder, harsher, the sounds closer, more fierce, like dogs gnashing at his ear. Nothing came through that made any sense, all it was was a wail, a scream, a million voices howling inside him. Clark cried out and held his head, trying to keep it together when a second later it was gone and J’onn was holding onto him again.

Lionel hated to state the obvious but, “This is a patched up solution to a bigger problem.”

“I’ll teach him control, it’s the least of our worries,” J’onn said. Clark wore a look of incredulity on his face that clearly expressed his disbelief and rising fear. The Watcher looked again to Clark’s injured hand. “It’s a small but dangerously concentrated amount of kryptonite. Particles, not liquid—”

“Well, there’s some mercy in the world,” Lionel mumbled.

“The swelling is the only thing halting its progress in your system. Smaller particles have already made their way to your brain.”

“That’s why I can hear thoughts?”

“That’s their purpose.”

“My brain?” Clark asked, trying not to tremble. Not his heart but it didn’t matter. The result would be the same.

“She told you to listen and you are. It’s getting worse because the smaller fragments are breaking through.”

Clark looked down to his palm. “How long?”

“About four days if your body holds.”

Lionel turned away, his hand absently rubbing his beard. “Solutions?”

Clark grit his teeth, “Other than amputation?” The surrogates turned to him with shock and surprise. He had to turn away, forcing himself to hope but it was failing him.

“That is crossed off the list of solutions,” Lionel said firmly. Clark wasn’t sure if it was Jor-El or Lionel Luthor speaking but he knew the finality of the statement was absolute.

“Neutralization,” J’onn said and in a moment Clark could see his ship turn Lana’s necklace from deadly poison to clear quartz. Then he also watched the same ship disintegrate into absolute nothingness. Great going Kent.

J’onn looked at him with an expression of understanding and Clark knew he’d read that. “That couldn’t have been the only way.”

“When two telepaths have a conversation, one feels a bit left out,” Lionel said.

“My ship,” Clark prompted, knowing the residual memories Jor-El left within him would give Lionel enough. Young Mr. Kent could see the vast store of memories flit across Lionel’s eyes before realization and recall dawned on him.

“Ah, yes. Gone,” he said. “And the fortress,” he muttered. It was nowhere near full power yet. If it was his desire to make Clark feel any worse for his shortcomings then he was surely succeeding. The group almost released a collective exhalation when Lionel’s eyebrows rose in remembrance. The effect of whatever memory this was was so powerful and overwhelming that he leaned against his desk. His eyes flit over to J’onn and Clark and he seemed to nod to himself.

J’onn stood from where he sat, his hand now gripping Clark in what felt like hope, Lionel’s thoughts racing through him. “Will he help?”

The elder Luthor pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s hard to say. There’s . . . bad blood. Significant bad blood. And there will, undoubtedly, if I know him at all, be questions.”

“Confound questions, will he help?!” J’onn demanded and for a moment Clark saw all of Jonathan Kent in his determination.

“Who?” Clark asked, also rising, his legs weak.

Lionel seemed to examine him through narrowed eyes as if sizing him up and Clark felt like an exposed piece of meat that had been found wanting. Lionel shook his head, “No, in the end I don’t think he will.”

Clark’s anger colored his face and he said, “When two hardasses have a conversation, one feels a bit left out.”

J’onn couldn’t hide a momentary grin. Lionel remained cool. “He was working on a project that dealt specifically with reversing the effects of kryptonite. He had, I believe, even found a way to turn the element back to its Earth-bound, inert form.”

“Quartz,” Clark mumbled, grasping who they were now speaking of.

“The project was . . . personal,” Lionel said, glancing to J’onn who, Clark could see, had just flushed pale. What was going on between these two? “And the files were never on LuthorCorp servers. Only he would know where they are now.”

“If it’s true, if I can get a hold of these files—” J’onn began but Clark knew there was no chance of that.

“He’ll never help me,” Clark said quietly, recalling the fierce blue eyes that had penetrated his soul not a few hours ago. “I don’t think I could even ask him.”

J’onn took on a determined look, “I’ll get the information.”

“No,” Clark said with heat. “If he wants to help me . . . then he will. If he doesn’t, I accept that.”

“You’ll die,” Lionel said, still, at times, unable to understand Clark’s deep sense of right and wrong.

Clark didn’t say another word. He just sank his tired body back to the leather sofa he’d been sitting on and looked to J’onn, his thoughts part desperate, part resigned. If he knew he was going to die without his help, would he give it? Would he save him after damning the woman he claimed to have loved? Would Lex Luthor relish the idea that Clark Kent was dying?

Chapter Four: Wherein Control is Learned and Certain Inquiries Are Made.

With three days left to his life, Clark welcomed midnight on the roof of LuthorCorp Tower. With J’onn leading the way and Lionel taking up the rear Clark looked up to the mid-autumn sky. How crystal clear it was, the color of iolite, smoky shades of purple ringing the bright light of stars. There were no clouds and a cool breeze was coming in from over Hobb’s River. The moon hung low and in a transitional phase from new moon to thin silvery crescent. Almost immediately Clark scanned the horizon for that spot in the immense sky where his planet had once been seated all those years ago. It was a habitual movement, one he never intends to make and when he has made it, he feels a certain depression in his soul. J’onn had caught sight of Mars and Lionel, inexplicably, was staring into the direction Clark had been aimed. It had made him feel closer to Lionel Luthor than anything else had in the seven years they’d known each other.

J’onn led him by his arm to the retaining wall of the building and Clark tensed in fear as he looked down over the city. He’d conquered most of his fear of heights when the situation presented itself that he had to but he would never jump into a situation, hundreds of feet above ground, if he had a good enough choice.

“I understand,” J’onn said and Clark thought with trepidation and a bit of sarcasm, ‘sure about that?’ J’onn smiled, “Do you have any idea what a bonfire does to me?” Right, Clark said to himself. Fire. “I do understand fear.”

“What scares you Lionel?” Clark asked, pulling his eyes away from the ledge. Lionel Luthor stood a few feet away from them not looking down, but looking out, across, straight ahead to his city.

The winds whipped through his long dark hair and his features were tight, set. Strained. “Losing a child.”

He’d said it so quietly that the wind had nearly whipped the words away from their ears but Clark heard him and his blood chilled within him. Was it Lionel or Jor-El talking now? Did he mean Lex or did he mean Clark?

“Both,” J’onn said quietly. “He meant both.”

Ever since the start of the trial, Lionel had attempted to reconnect with the son he’d been betraying for months. A betrayal enacted for Clark’s sake. Lex would have none of it. None of his entreaties to be the father he needed in now such a terrible position in life. Lex knew, in his heart, where Lana had developed most of her impressions of him. He did blame Clark, partially, but most went to the father he’d wanted to love but whom he first needed to respect. He didn’t respect his father and thus, couldn’t love him. Lionel, who once came to court everyday, eventually stopped going altogether, and not, as Ms. Lois Lane had spun it, because the LuthorCorp board had pressured him into distancing himself from his son and the rather messy business of an immolated nineteen year old bride, but rather, because he couldn’t bear seeing his son everyday and thinking he was responsible for what had happened.

Lionel finally looked their way and Clark could see the solemnity of Jor-El staring back at him through those brown eyes. “Begin your training.”

Clark and J’onn faced each other, Clark looking to the strong, dark hand that held him sane and cognizant and fearing the moment that hand would release him to hear the inner monologues of nearly all of humanity. The Watcher placed his free hand onto Clark’s chest and said, “Listen, only to the rhythm of your heart.”

Turning his senses in, Clark found the steady beat in his chest. He tuned out the breeze and the sounds of the city. J’onn smiled, “Good. Now focus on my words,” Clark looked to his mouth and followed him as he said, “Follow me, listen, follow the sounds of my thoughts. Follow me. Follow me . . .” Clark focused and soon J’onn had stopped speaking but Clark could still hear him. He was in J’onn’s mind and he heard him say, ‘Follow me, follow me.’ The young man tentatively smiled. ‘I’m letting go now, just stay with me.’ Clark nodded, still hearing J’onn beckoning him. The palm was releasing his flesh and at the moment he was released the only thoughts in his mind beside his own were J’onn’s. Clark’s smile fractionally brightened when from somewhere behind him he heard,

‘Please don’t fail him Lex.’

Clark turned to Lionel and heard in that single, solitary thought, all the pain Lionel Luthor had been holding inside for his son. So much hopefulness and still the preparation that he would be let down. With compassion pouring out for the lost relationship between father and son that he knew he had a hand in, Clark lost track of the sound of J’onn’s thoughts.

“Clark?” J’onn vocalized but it was too late. Clark’s eyes widened as the torrent of sound hit him as if he’d fallen face first from the skyscraper to the concrete below. It was no longer the sounds of Metropolis that assaulted him but rather of most of the state and beyond. The only thing that saved him from collapse was J’onn’s hand on his cheek as his legs began to waver. Clark crashed to the roof, his knees jarring his frame. His eyes rolled but J’onn caught his line of vision and called him back from the darkness. “Clark?” J’onn said again but Lionel ended any further inquiry with,

“Again.”

It would be just after dawn when Clark finally controlled the sounds of thoughts that passed, up to that point, unrelentingly, through his mind. The night had been long and not without similar incidents of allowing too much inside of him than he could handle. But wasn’t that how Clark Kent had always been? Accepting of everything, internalist of every hurt? Focusing on J’onn became hard when he could hear a child crying alone somewhere in the distance with an avowal to end her life. Frantically seeking out the voice his defenses would crumble and he was thrown again into a semi-conscious state, the voice becoming forever lost to him. The regret that followed was crushing and halted their progress for many moments after.

Now we pull away, my beloved reader, as our haggard hero transports himself back down to the leather couch in Lionel’s office to rest. We shall now entertain a change of scenery that brings us back to Smallville, Kansas where a young woman has just infiltrated the Smallville Sheriff’s Department. The tools of her trade were not any less mercenary than a knife or gun for they too had the power to ruin lives. With mirrored aviator glasses and a uniform that was ill-made to fit her buxom curves, she slipped into Lex Luthor’s holding cell and turned on her microphone.

An eternal early riser, Alexander Luthor had woken with the dawn from what he was sure had been a nightmare. Nightmare or dream? He couldn’t say at all because seeing Lana nocturnally had now become symbols of both. She’d been screaming at him, demanding of him to save her, accusing him of being weak. He countered, fiercely, that it was all he could do, all he knew to do. He’d been saving her. It was what he convinced himself of—that he was saving her. The barred casement above his head filtered in the bright sunlight of fall. Lex no longer looked out that window. He didn’t want to see the small town of Smallville ever again if he could help it.

Now he stared up at his new visitor and let out a heavy, irritated sigh.

“Orange goes well with your complexion. You look like a creamsicle,” she offered with a smile, removing her glasses.

“You look like a cheap strip-o-gram.”

“Say what you like Dead Man Walkin’. Strip-o-gram, muffin peddler, drop out? Anything you like,” she coughed, “cold-blooded killer,” she coughed again.

“I love our weekly sessions Lois. I keep asking how you get in here but solicitation’s illegal so I understand your need not to incriminate yourself.” At this she became flustered. Smiling he looked to her microphone. “I imagine that part of our tête-à-tête will be spliced out of official record?”

She grinned. It was hard and tight and didn’t display humor in the least bit. “Convicted felon. Much fancier after your name than PhD. Or Esquire, or all those other nice titles your daddy bought you. Well,” she said, brightening up as his face fell, “How does the new title fit Mr. Luthor?”

“As well as your bra: not really.”

Her smile became genuine and he frowned at this. “You must be glad that once you’re in maximum security you can bypass that barber’s chair.” At this his face darkened. The effect was like a shadow had drifted across the sun. Lois came up close to him, “Yeah. That’s it. That’s it right there Lex. That look.”

“What look?” He asked through clenched teeth. She was almost nose to nose with him.

“The look of a killer.”

His hands, up to that point, were shoved into the pockets of his orange overalls but as she said this he withdrew them. Lois didn’t flinch, she didn’t move. She wouldn’t dare given him her fear. Lex touched her under her chin and he saw her jaw clench. He smiled and leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Maybe it is.”

She took a deliberate step back and he could see how hard she was trying not to tremble. He sat back down on his exposed bunk and grinned, “Like I said. I love our weekly sessions.”

And what happened next he hadn’t expected. It was as if something broke inside Lois Lane. She took two quick steps and she was now leaned over him, mimicking his previous position, her lips to his ear. “Do you know what they do to people like you in prison Lex?” She asked, her voice rough and raw, tears rising like the color in her cheeks. “What they do to sick, spineless, weak little men who think they own the world and everyone in it?”

His heart, so still before, was now racing in his chest. He knew. He’d feared it. And still he whispered, “What?”

Her voice was drilling into his soul, “They love them.” Her words were like a slick and dirty caress, “They give them the kind of love they deserve. The kind of love only a twisted mind like theirs can understand.” She pulled away and their eyes locked on each other. “The only kind of love they’ll ever know.”

She was gone before he remembered to breathe.

In indolent rage, Lois Lane escaped the sheriff’s station and allowed her feet to guide her way. As if in a trance and completely wary of thinking, young Ms. Lane let her car drive and she retreated to that of passenger. When next she knew herself, she looked out her window and saw the squat modern structure of the Smallville Medical Center. She hadn’t been there in weeks and it was as if reality had been following her in the shadows but had never caught up till just that moment. It was as if blame had constantly shifted out of her focus. Everything crashed in then, right there, right at the realization that her extended absence had been deep-seated avoidance and a reneging of responsibility. Lex’s face melted away from her mental bull’s eye and her own image was replaced. She was assuring Chloe that she would steer clear away from any and all things Luthor.

She grinned as her eyes filled with tears that yet failed to wet her dry eyes. “You were right,” she conceded to her cousin, lying unconscious somewhere beyond the thick hospital walls. Attacking Lex relentlessly for these five months, in the end, gave her little consolation. Whatever Lex’s judgment, whatever he’d been doing in the tunnels, Chloe would never be where she was now if it hadn’t been for Lois’ own steadfastness in orchestrating her revenge on Mr. Luthor. Wes Keenan had been wronged and the wrong had to be righted. Now Chloe had been wronged, damaged. Who was to blame here? Could she continue to lie to herself and blame him? Lana’s death was not the issue and was never really the issue in her blind fury. In that there was a significantly different sort of scorn and indignation. No, for Lana, it was shock and abhorrence for what befell the young wife. For Chloe, it was violently different, even though her cousin still lived. Lois’ upset wholly stemmed from issues originating solely with herself. Truth be told, with no slant of opinion on the recollection: Chloe had warned her, Lois had promised her then lied, she nearly lost her life in the process and somehow, Chloe saved her. Chloe nearly died saving her.

The analogy was clear and here lay the conflict—to lay down one’s life for someone who had blatantly disobeyed bespoke of a faith she faltered in, a belief she held loosely. Her scapegoat had to be found and found he was. Why not Lex? They’d never been friends of any esteem or intimacy. Their buffer, Clark, had even let him go. Nothing connected them but mirthless irritation. When Lois discovered Wes then she had a reason anew to hate Mr. Luthor, false savoir of her city.

Yes, Lex was to blame. He had to be and five months later, end of October, she had existed solely in that singular mode. She wrote, she studied, she determined to erase his face for it haunted her as much as Chloe’s had. The two were irreversibly tied until this moment, as the small town began to awaken and life bloomed. They were now separated and Chloe’s fate was now chained, solely to her.

“This is my fault,” she whispered, still staring at the hospital. She wiped her face. There was nothing for it and I must say, from my own opinion, the blame was not wholly justified. As outside observers watching a snapshot in time, we know the future of Ms. Lane. Tenacity is her constant. She did not aim to injure but to help and that must be remembered before we move on.

She drove away a few minutes later, using the restriction of ‘visiting hours’ as her deterrent even though getting into a jail cell was far easier on her conscience then going to visit her cousin.

Chapter Five: Wherein Lex Luthor Receives Another Visitor.

Our protagonist was somewhat rejuvenated by the breaking dawn and an hour’s nap before the tall floor to ceiling windows in Lionel Luthor’s office was all he could really allow himself for this pressing day. He and J’onn had calculated three such dawns before his brain would be poisoned by Chloe Sullivan’s will. Three dawns, two sunsets. One hope. This hope lay in Lex Luthor.

As capable an assistant as J’onn had been to Jor-El in those years before the destruction of Krypton, as much information as Lionel could recall from the traces of information ghosting about his brain, all of it could come to little given enough time and would come to nothing in the three dawns allotted. Why was this an absolute? Because on Krypton, kryptonite had only existed in its non radioactive form. It was as common as sand and was as innocuous. “kryptonite” didn’t exist until radiated by the explosion of that planet’s guiding Red Sun. There was no information whatsoever on the substance for it hadn’t existed. With only three dawns left, they needed information and they needed it now.

Clark sat carefully up as the golden yellow light bathed over his once tan, healthy skin which was now pale and sallow. The physical change was marked and definite as to give no confusion. It had begun. Lionel Luthor had been watching him sleep whilst, alternately, reading that morning’s Daily Planet. It proclaimed his son’s conviction on the front page. Uncomfortably, he glossed over the references of the bloody Luthor past where the father has murdered the parents and the son had killed the wife. He was forced to imagine Lillian and his dead infant son. He considered the stain of familial blood too dark to be erased from the Luthor name. The worst enemy to a Luthor was a Luthor. Instead of absorbing the merciless words of a biased newsperson, Lionel would glance up constantly to take in the sleeping visage of his . . . words failed him. What was Clark’s official title in his world? Ward? Charge? He . . . he dared not use ‘son’ even in his own imagination. The title was not withstanding. Clark was a young man he’d admired for years but only from afar. When he first met the boy all he could tell was that he wasn’t afraid to say what needed to be said and didn’t shy from the truth, however brash it was. It was like fresh air in a city of filth and false deference.

Clark intrigued him and they say that curiosity killed the cat. In his case, in seeking out the mode and reason why Clark Kent ticked; Lionel faced the truth in awesome and terrible confrontations. Truth had stripped him apart, filleted him and gutted who he had been and the same truth made him who he now was. And who was he? Neither here nor there. Earth bound, floating above a destroyed planet. Not Lionel, not Jor-El. Memories of newborn children brought images of Lex or Julian, even Lucas into his mind until his awareness locked onto the mass of ebony curls and the flushed face of the blonde woman holding him. A red-head had always been his preference. These memories, he realized in horror, were not his own. Other times, the child would have bright red curls and the mother would be the same. Still, the feeling of disquiet and of a foreign presence would overwhelm him. He was then made aware that his body, his very mind, at that moment, had not been his own. He was human and alien, father to three, father to one, businessman, scientist, statesman, then the blurring furthered until neither Jor-El nor Lionel remained. Only this ‘other’ man who would be father to Lex, father to Clark and neither to both.

The connection to these alien memories strengthened substantially ever since that fateful day when he went to the dam, hoping to stop Clark from doing something he would forever regret. He realized then that his mind was more concerned with Clark’s state of mind than with Lex’s well-being. What troubled and confused him most was whether this was Jor-El’s concern for his son or Lionel’s disregard for his own.

Down, deep under Earth and alone in those dark tunnels, sure he was moments from death, Lionel Luthor breathed his last and woke, a new person, Clark Kent hovering over him. Cut, injured, bruised from some battle, the eyes of Lionel Luthor looked over the young man who had saved him and he forgot his entire life. Gone was his childhood in the tenements of Suicide Slums. Gone was his adolescence spent in wild rebellion and disregard. Gone was the home and family and name he’d built from the ashes. Replacing these were memories of a happy, noble childhood under a bright red sun. Here now were visions of a life removed from mediocrity and obscurity. This new life was honorable in everyway and here, before him, was his son. This is how he addressed Kal-El, for ‘Kal-El’ he was to him. It was then, in the slow creeping resentment coloring Clark’s flushed and exhausted face and the anger flashing behind the boy’s weary eyes that Lionel Luthor recalled himself. His own bleak and bloody memories flashed through him.

He’d apologized to the boy then. He’d muttered something about nearly drowning playing with an old man’s vision and Clark had accepted it. The fact was, in that moment, Lionel had been Jor-El, Clark had seen it. It was clear as day in his eyes and Clark couldn’t deal with that. What he’d been through that day made him resent all things Kryptonian, even himself. He saw Jor-El through Lionel’s eyes and he resented it. It was an unwelcome ghost.

From that moment, Lionel distanced himself from the recollections that now overwhelmed him on a daily basis. Like on a powerful mistral the memories were nearly too much to bear. He was more and more Kryptonian day by day, a seed planted by the fortress to blossom when it was needed and now it grew but that look on Clark’s face, in the moment he had called him ‘son’, quieted this overwhelming development. To Lionel, he assumed Clark didn’t want anything to do with him at that level but to Clark, he wanted nothing to do with Jor-El at that level.

“You should rest,” Lionel said, putting down the paper.

Clark shook his head. He could not tell Lionel that lying in one position was becoming more painful than he could deal with. “I’m not tired,” he lied, feeling ready to sink into some dark sleep for hours, days even but he recalled that these would be his last days if he remained. Clark rose to his feet and flexed his left arm. Three of his fingers were numb but he could still move them, albeit with considerable discomfort and pain.

“J’onn?” Clark asked of his Watcher.

Lionel glanced out the window to the clear autumn sky, “Resting,” he said and Clark understood that J’onn was hovering over the Earth, beyond the atmosphere, in the cold and quiet of space. Lionel turned to Clark, “The helicopter is always on standby,” he offered.

Clark shook his head though he was grateful for the offer. He wasn’t sure he was going to make it but he had to try. Lionel had been too generous as it was and as much as the older man tried to deny it, Clark always acutely felt the imposition he and his troubles brought down on him. As much as he previously didn’t care for Lionel he still felt that Jor-El had no right to set up shop in the man’s brain. Now Lionel always presented himself at Clark’s disposal but to Clark it all felt akin to slavery. Everything he knew of Lionel before Jor-El’s influence told him that the man was never so giving, so free. So pleasant. He’d done such horrible things to Lex and to Chloe. To Clark as well. If it hadn’t been for Jor-El, he would never be here. Clark was in a perpetual state of confusion and uncertainty. How could he resent Jo-El’s calming presence in Lionel’s mind when the alien was the only thing that made Mr. Luthor anything near human?

‘I’d better order breakfast for him before he leaves,’ Clark heard Lionel say to himself and he quickly reordered the focus of his thoughts and blocked the unwelcome sound of the man’s internal dialogue. He didn’t want to hear Lionel’s concerns. They were . . . false. Just like Zod’s rage when he was in Lex’s body. As ill as he thought of Lex now, he knew Lex didn’t want him dead. Lionel’s concerns were Jor-El’s, he was sure of that. It was wraith-like feeling and false. Clark focused on the image and memory of Jonathan Kent. Clark only acknowledged one father in his life and it wasn’t Jor-El or Lionel.

Clark mumbled his thanks and his goodbye, leaving before Lionel could protest him to stay and eat. He moved faster than the security cameras in the hall could pick up and he was down to the ground floor within a half second. When a sharp pain surged behind his eyes, Clark toppled forward down the last two steps before he reached the lobby level. Gripping his head, a powerfully high-pitched noise wailed in his mind. It was gone as quickly as it had come but not before it left him cold and crumpled on the floor, his body panting for air. It would be an hour before employees would arrive for their 9-5 shifts and the fourth shift was regulated to the deep underground of the massive glass and steel tower. Clark was safe to rest a while, alone in the narrow staircase. He leaned back against the pale blue wall and panted. His arm was trembling and his muscles jolted under the flesh. Clark looked down to it when blood trickled down over his ashen lips. He breathed heavily and wiped his nose, leaning his throbbing head back.

If Lex couldn’t help him . . .

If Lex wouldn’t help him . . .

He closed his eyes.

Moments passed and when he opened his eyes again he wasn’t sure exactly how much time had gone. He could hear the commotion of a new workday booming beyond the stairwell exit. He wondered if he’d truly just been resting his eyes or if it were possible that he’d lost consciousness. Clark got to his feet and with a wave of passing dizziness he regretted leaving before taking Lionel up on his unvoiced offer for food. Walking slowly, Clark left the stairwell and emerged into the grand LuthorCorp lobby. It was pristine; granite and glass, polished chrome and smooth concrete. The blue and purple glass clock on the wall announced that it was just before nine. Many people were entering in a crush and the place was as busy as a MetroRail Station. Clark made his way to the men’s restroom and was grateful to find it empty. He went to the first sink he could grab a hold of and stared at himself in the mirror. He hesitated a second before turning his eyes away from his reflection. He didn’t want to think about the change because the fact that there was a change was enough.

Turning on the cold water, Clark rinsed the blood from his hands and face and he took a few gulps of cool water to wet his dry throat. Taking a deep breath he looked again at himself. At least he was more presentable now. He could face Lex and not cause too much worry . . . if Lex was even in the state of mind to worry about him anymore. Clark doubted it and instead decided that at least he didn’t look like he should be pitied.

Still feeling uneasy on his legs, Clark quickly made his way out into the lobby and out to the bustling, busy Metropolitan street. Before he took many steps he could feel the intense sensation that he was being watched. He spun around, his body moving too fast to give his observers much time to make themselves discrete, and his eyes instantly fell onto a white van across the street. Two men were seated in the front and one was holding a black telescopic camera. Clark caught sight of it a second before it disappeared beneath the dash. The three men knew it was too late to pretend nothing had happened. C