Mrs. Luthor

MRS. LUTHOR
R.J.Salway

I read somewhere that people can't stand stories that jump around in and out of
sequence, so I thought I'd try to write one that is totally out of sequence and
try to make sense of it all. I don't know if it works but it was fun doing it.
It's perfectly straight in my head, but in writing it's all over the place.
Nothing is in correct order until all events catch up with the others.
Have fun sorting it out.
A 'what-if' story picking up five years after season one, and it is another
challenge story from a very long list.
The Challenge

1- One

1999
Lucy Lane kept her annoyed grumbling under her breath as she gathered her books, pens and
papers together and stuffed them, along with her laptop into a backpack that was already filled
with odds and ends. The Metropolis City Library was closing early and all four librarians were going
from table to table to quietly send people on their way. The building was being turned over to the
rich and famous this evening and security was being tightened in preparation for an event.
'E-vent,' she muttered sarcastically to herself and drew the zippers closed. Next to her, two big blue
eyes looked at her curiously and she smiled in their direction. "And woe to those of us who actually
use the library for its intended purpose," she told them in a louder voice.
A new wing was being added to the building, which was partially funded by a government grant, and
though fund raisers brought in most of the remaining money necessary to begin construction, there
was still a significant percentage - Pittance, she thought - needed which would be donated tonight by
the aforementioned wealthy citizens of the city. Then they were going to hold a fancy-shmancy party
to celebrate their own generosity. The curious blue eyes didn't need to know what she thought about
that.
If they were really interested in the expansion of the library they would have donated all of the
necessary money three years ago and saved the staff the task of raising over thirty percent
of the cash themselves, she thought sourly. But, no! They waited long enough to provide the short
amount and now they’re going to congratulate themselves for doing it by letting the library spend
some of that hard earned money on truffles and fois gras and Dom Perignon to thank them!
Lucy reached under the table she was using and pulled out a collapsible baby stroller and began to
unfold and raise the parts and click them securely into place. She shoved the backpack onto a shelf
under the seat and grabbed a bright yellow sling carrier and positioned it in front of her, slipped the
straps over her shoulders and clipped it in front. She did a double check to make sure everything was
secure. Satisfied, she turned back to the tabletop and reached for the removable carrier/car seat she’d
placed next to the laptop docking station she’d been using and immediately her annoyance faded away.
The twenty-two week old baby girl laying inside the pink and ivory seat was almost finished with her
bottle. Her big blue eyes were staring intently at the slowly moving fan blades and the tiled patterns and
other images on the room’s high ceiling.
"Hey, Mara-mouse," she said softly and smiled when the baby's eyes immediately moved
to her, and a tiny hand let go of one side of the bottle and reached toward the ceiling. Lucy
looked up briefly. "Uh huh, isn't it interesting? Time to go, sweetie." Lucy pulled the bottle gently from
the baby's mouth and was glad when she let it go without a protest.
Oh good, no dealing with the 'look' today. She put the bottle into a small bag at the back of
the stroller, and after putting the seat into the stroller and locking it in place, she lifted the
baby and put her into the carrier hanging from her shoulders.
Mara's little, warm body pressed against hers and was very noticeable in the coolness of the
library's air conditioning. She kissed the top of the girl's head and smiled at the baby smell
that filled her nose. Who knew? Who knows anything for sure? Taking care of this little girl was never a
chore. She loved every minute of it, but now, she was deliberately taking her time in quiet protest of
being tossed out of the library early. She brushed her hair back with her hands and pulled a rubber
band from a pocket of her shorts and secured her hair up and away from her shoulders. Let them try
to make her hurry with a baby in her arms. Sort of in my arms, she smiled.
It was early August and the temperature in the heart of the city was stifling this time of year,
even at dusk. She glanced toward the lobby and saw two men in uniform ushering people
toward a side exit. Security for the 'e-vent' no doubt.
Pushing the stroller ahead of her along the aisle in the computer access section, Lucy was
nearing the empty main desk, but angled away toward the handicapped entrance. Pushing
the stroller up and down the wheelchair ramp was a lot easier than bump-bump-bumping up
and down the steps to the street. The doors swung open and she pushed the stroller into the
early evening air.
The setting sun shone between the buildings across the street and bathed the library's front
entrance balcony in red-gold light. The steps to the main entry were covered with a wide red
carpet and roped off right to the curb. Some of the more curious library patrons were coming
around the side of the building to the front to see what was happening, if anything.
"Hey, Ms. Lane," a voice called from behind her. The new librarian's assistant came out of
the exit after her. "Let me help you with that."
Lucy stopped and glanced over her shoulder at the cute young man who spoke to her and
who couldn't have been more than twenty-one years old, if he was a day. She was fairly certain
he had a crush on her, and it made her happy to know she wasn’t really as old as she felt
sometimes. "Thanks, Stephen. I’d appreciate it.”
He smiled and as he took the handle of the stroller from her and maneuvered it in front of
him, a long, black limousine pulled to the curb in front of the main entrance to the library's
spacious lobby. "Ah," he said, looking toward the center of the long, narrow entry portico.
"The bigwigs are arriving. I'll bet it’s the first time they've ever set foot in the place!"
Lucy grinned. Obviously, she wasn't the only one who thought all the hoopla was simply
unnecessary. "Oh, come on. They’re our benefactors, Steve. Benefactors are our friends."
He snorted. "I'll bet I've given more to the place in late fees over the years than they're
parting with tonight."
Lucy bit back her reply when she saw who was getting out of the car.
A doorman had rushed down the steps and pulled the car's passenger door open and Lex Luthor,
the richest man in the city, third richest in the world as his press releases continually reminded
people, had stepped out and was presenting himself to the world. Smiling politely to the
gathering crowds of photographers and the onlookers curious to see the guests of honor
arriving, he posed politely, nodded to no one in particular, waved to the same no one, and
turned back to the car. He extended his hand to a woman dressed in a long gown of shimmering
silk and delicate lace who got out of the car and was quickly pulled to his side. Her make-up was
perfect, her hair elegantly styled and the cost of the dress might have been enough to send
Mara-mouse through two years of college one day. The simple looking jewelry would cover the
other two years and a year of grad study as well. The sparkle of the gems gave away their expense.
Lucy stared, not realizing her hands had moved up to cuddle the baby who was hearing the
voices at the other end of the terrace, and who wanted to see who was making all the noise.
“Shhhh,” she said absently.
She barely recognized Mrs. Luthor, the pale woman dressed in designer finery who smiled
dutifully for the flashing cameras and let her husband guide her across the sidewalk and
up the library steps.
Luthor, resplendent in a perfectly fitted tux with a blood red rose in the lapel, was leading
his wife inside. The center of the stairs had been roped off to provide a walkway for the
guests. It was lined on both sides by photographers, reporters and a curious public, calling
out questions and shouting to get the attention of the Luthors as they strode by, both of them
straight-backed and graceful.
At the top of the steps, Luthor paused and turned back to face the crowd, pulling his wife
around with him and they both smiled and posed and let themselves be bathed in brightly
flashing lights again.
Lucy closed her eyes against the glare and when she opened them, Mrs. Luthor was paused
in the act of turning to go inside the library. She was looking quizzically at Lucy. Then a glimmer
of recognition came to her and she looked as if she was going to call to her. With
that gesture the crowds seemed to vanish, leaving just the two of them facing one another -
and it was her sister, Lois Lane, not Mrs. Luthor, looking at her and Lucy began to smile,
trying without looking down, to calm Mara who was getting excited by the many shouting
voices: she could hear people but she couldn't see them and she wanted to right now, and
her tiny body was trying hard to turn toward the intriguing sounds.
Suddenly and inexplicably, Mrs. Luthor's expression changed to utter blankness and Lois
Lane was gone. When her husband gripped her elbow and leaned forward to speak to her,
she turned away quickly, her face wooden, and she rushed into the lobby well ahead of him.
The doors closed behind the Luthors and the moment of near connection between the two
women was gone.
Lucy felt her jaw drop in shock and her head and eyes lowered to face the baby without
really seeing her. Oh, surely she recognized me, she thought. Even after, what? Five...six
years...Oh god, has it been that long? Six years?

1993
"Oh, come on, Lois! A year isn't forever. I want to specialize in sports injuries. Ever since
Dana was hurt playing basketball in high school, I've been thinking of a career in sports
therapy and California actually has a course for it! Met U doesn't. My counselor said if the
course in California is successful, maybe Met U will start a program here in a couple of
years. Most college boards don't think a sports specific program is necessary, and California
has the only one of its kind. We'll actually be studying athletes, not just older people who pull a
muscle or hurt their knee falling or tripping."
The dining table in the apartment Lucy and Lois shared was covered with square white
containers filled with several different kinds of Italian dishes from the restaurant around
the corner. Lucy was hoping her good news would go down better if they were stuffing
themselves with good food. So far they were eating from the dessert box more than any
others.
"Well! Was Daddy glad to hear this?" Lois said sarcastically. "He's finally got one of his
children following him into the medical profession."
Lucy"s enthusiasm waned a little. "He knows what physiotherapy is, Lois, so he didn't ask,
actually. He just called the bank and told them to prepare a cashier’s check for me and we
went out to dinner and afterward he said good luck and drop by again before I leave."
"Wow! I’m jealous! You had a conversation." She stabbed at the stuffed shells in marinara
sauce and bit. "Ohhh! These are good! Try the shells."
"I guess all that matters is he gave me the money." She speared one on the end of her fork,
too, and bit into it. "Mmmm-mmm!"
"Typical Sam Lane. Buy us off so he doesn't have to fake a relationship with us."
"Yeah, there’s that, but when I talked to Dana about it, she said the last surgery she had
gave her more movement in her ankle. She wished they had micro-surgery when it first
happened. She might have been able to keep playing."
"How is she? I haven't seen her since she got married. I can’t believe she tried to set me up with
some insurance guy at her wedding!" She stabbed another shell and stuffed it in her
mouth and tried speaking around it. "She used to be th- on-y coushin we ha- tha- I could
shtand."
Lucy giggled. "Call her sometimes. She asked me to tell you she's so sorry. He was her new
brother-in-law, you know. Arthur's brother. You shouldn't have flipped him over your
shoulder when he tried to pull you onto the dance floor. "
"He had fair warning, Lucy! I told him I didn't want to dance. It was too cold! Who has a
wedding in March, anyway? So what if the cherry trees or the apple trees, or whatever they
were, are blooming? In March it’s cold at night!"
"Okay, okay. Enough. I'll never marry in March. The point is even Mom thinks if I really
want to do this, I should."
Lois nodded. "I’m sorry, Luce. I’m happy for you, but I’m just going to miss you so much.
We've always been here for each other. Who am I going to have to talk to?"
"It’s called a telephone, Lois, and computers can send email, pictures, all kinds of stuff.
The post office is still in business, too." Lucy opened another container. "Besides, you have
a friend, so I don't have to worry about you. I’d like to meet him before I go."
"I do not have a boyfriend, Lucy!"
"I didn't say boyfriend. I said friend. You talk about him all the time. Clark did this, Clark
said that, guess what Clark and I did today? Sounds like a nice guy."
"Clark?! He's a guy my boss makes me work with, against my wishes!"
"Well, he's still alive and still working with you. That means either he isn't afraid of you,
or you haven't seriously tried to instill fear into him yet, and that makes him a friend. If he
was just another guy, you would have driven him away by now."
"He's not my friend. Clark is a colleague. Barely a colleague."
"Barely a colleague? Lately you've been talking more about him than you have about Superman."
"Don't even put him in the same sentence, Lucy. It’s an insult to Superman!"
"I still want to meet him before I go."
"Superman? You already have."
"Don't be silly! You know who I mean."
"I thought you said after one date with Jimmy you didn't want to meet anyone else I work
with."
"Open that one, Lois. I know I asked for cannelloni. Okay, I changed my mind. I want to
meet Clark."
"What? Do you want me to look for the cannelloni, or not?"
"Yes! I meant I changed my mind about meeting the guys you work with, I still want the
cannelloni."
"Oh."
"So can I? Meet him?"
"I don't know. We work together once in a while. I can’t just invite him over. He's from
Kansas. He might get the wrong idea."
"I'll bump into you somewhere when you’re working on a story. Go somewhere for lunch
and I'll be there."
"Lucy! I can’t plan anything like that! It’s a day to day thing. I never know when Perry
will put us together on a story."
She started to laugh. "Lois! You don't want me to meet him! Why not? I’m not planning to
date him!" She paused at the effect her words were having. "Well, I mean, if he's cute, I, uh
might just steal him and move in with him and, you know. . .go with the flow."
The look Lois gave her should have turned the cannelloni to stone, and Lucy's smile only
widened.

1999
"Miss Lane? Miss Lane?" the librarian's assistant was saying from somewhere nearby.
"We’d better get out of the way before the security people come over and throw us down
the ramp. They don't look too happy with us being here."
Her face jerked toward him and it took a moment to realize what he’d said. "Oh, yeah. Sure.
Thanks. Stephen."
She took a step in his direction and realized she wasn't frozen in place after all, and she all
but ran down the ramp and along the street to the bus stop at the end of the block. Behind
her another roar of voices reached her as another pair of guests arrived and walked the red
gauntlet up the stairs.
She must have found her voice to thank young Stephen for his help because she was aware
of him smiling and waving after she got on the bus and sat down. One of them, probably
him, loaded the stroller into the back of the bus where an area for such things was located
beside the back door.
She adjusted the baby on her lap and opened a cookie for her to chew on.

1994
Lucy was celebrating with her friends the night she saw a news report featuring a photo of
her sister alongside one of Lex Luthor. She didn't catch the story over the music and loud
voices of the party, but she thought she saw the word "engagement" on the TV screen for a
split second just before a short history of Lex Luthor's life began to play. Aware of her high
alcoholic intake so far that night, Lucy was fairly certain she hadn't seen what she thought
she’d seen, and she dismissed the news report and returned her attention back to her own
reason for celebration.
Besides, Lois's relationship with Clark Kent seemed to be evolving beyond just working
together. Her emails and phone calls were filled with a growing respect and fondness for
a man who was "barely a colleague."
Maybe Lois finally got that in depth interview with Luthor that she was after for so long
and discovered something newsworthy. She’d find out later.
The next day, Lois Lane's photo with Lex Luthor was still all over the national news and
the morning shows. To say the wedding announcement came as a shock to Lucy was an
understatement. The third richest man in the world, and noted philanthropist - funny how
those two descriptions always accompanied the name - Lex Luthor was quite pleased to
announce his engagement to Lois Lane, two time Kerth winning investigative journalist
for the now defunct Daily Planet newspaper.
"Engaged? Now defunct newspaper?" Lucy repeated in disbelief. Despite a killer headache
from the celebration the night before, she dressed hurriedly and ran to the campus library,
and quickly reserved a computer for herself. An hour later, she left the first in a long string
of messages on the answering machine at Lois's apartment in Metropolis, another series
on her mother's machine and even some with her father. She sent emails to all of them,
too, demanding to know what was going on and why was she hearing about it on the news.
The day before, when she’d first seen the news, Lucy had been notified that she’d won a full
scholarship to study her subject in Seattle, Washington, where a new medical facility opened
with an emphasis on treating sports injuries with state of the art technology.
Before she received answers from her family, she and the six other students, who'd also won
scholarships, were on their way north for a year of intensive study and hands-on training. Though
she tried numerous times to get in touch with Lois, her schedule was unusually heavy and time
consuming, and she couldn't devote the time she needed to pursue contact with anyone in
Metropolis. Her mother replied once and said no more; her message to her father was never read;
Lois never replied at all.
Lucy tried to schedule a weekend round trip flight to Metropolis, but it was impossible. The
clinic was too busy and she would be throwing away her scholarship if she left.
She consoled herself thinking it wasn't as if Lois was in danger. She was marrying a wealthy man and
would be well cared for the rest of her life.
It was just that she wanted to be there!
Lucy saw the news accounts of the wedding as she ate dinner in the student's cafeteria in the basement
of the Seattle medical center. Brief glimpses of Lois in a bejeweled gown doing things like tossing a
bouquet into a crowd; Lois, Lex and Ellen Lane posing politely for a family portrait; Lois and Lex dancing
while surrounded by admiring guests; the couple boarding a small jet and flying away amid hints of a
month-long honeymoon in a tropical paradise. Many of the reports ended with aerial glimpses of a
mansion under construction in the Red Maple hills west of the city and statements that 'Lex Wood' would be
the primary residence of the couple when they returned from their honeymoon. Lucy wiped the tears
from her eyes and spent the night without sleep. Something was so very wrong back home, but she
couldn't put aside her studies and waste her scholarship to go back and demand answers. Much as
she wanted to, she just couldn’t throw away her own less secure future.
In time, Lois's telephone was disconnected and the number given to someone else, and her
email account lapsed and disappeared along with the Daily Planet's internet service.
When Lucy returned to Metropolis a year later, she learned her father had left town soon after she had,
her mother was in a West Coast rehab, and Lois - Mrs. Luthor, as she was now known, was well hidden
behind an army of aides, secretaries and interference runners who made it impossible to get near
either Luthor without a whole lot of patience and determination.

1999
Lucy rode the bus to her stop in silence, looking into the two tired blue eyes that solemnly
peered up at her curiously all the way across town. She’d spoken too soon. "The look" from
Mara-mouse was shining on her in full force. "Don't frown at me like that, sweetie," Lucy
whispered. "You look too much like my sister when you do." She brightened a little. "That's
called looking soul searchingly at someone, little girl, or pretty close to it for a baby."
She sighed and let herself relax while the bus trundled onward and she began to tease the baby and try to
make her smile.

2- Two

The evening had been horrendous, but somehow or other Lois Luthor had gotten through it
and played the part of third richest wife in the world well enough to impress her husband.
So pleased was he with her performance, Lex had even left her side on occasion instead of
hovering over her and watching her every move. She had mingled as if she’d been born to
make small talk, eaten as if she were starving, and danced until the terrace never stopped
spinning - all the while knocking back one flute of champagne after another.
In the privacy of their limousine, the soiree left to wind down without them, Lex hadn't
objected at all when she opened the bar and poured herself a glass of wine. He’d joined
her and spent the ride to their home bragging about the way they’d been able to stun the
crowd when he announced their personal donation of an additional large sum of money
to replace the library's old computer system with a state of the art set-up that would serve
well into the new millennium.
Lois listened to his chortling and pretended to remember the night as he did, laughing in all
the right places and agreeing with his gleeful assessments as if they mattered to her.
Enthralled by his own largess, Lex sipped his wine and relived his good deed as if he’d just
conquered enemy territory. Lois finished the bottle of wine alone long before they arrived
home. It was amazing how happy wine made you feel when you weren't, in the least, happy
without it.
Unfortunately, the high didn't last long. It never did when she had strong emotions warring
inside of her and the kind of thoughts that refused to be pushed aside for anything.
Lois closed the door of the master bedroom behind her and locked it, though she knew Lex
wouldn’t be coming up. He rarely did anymore so she undressed slowly, kicking off her
shoes and letting the expensive dress fall to the floor in a heap. Someone would pick it up
and send it to be cleaned in the morning, she sighed, and a few days after that she would see
it hanging at the back of the walk-in closet among all the other dresses that had been worn
once. The richest wife in the U.S. was never seen in the same dress twice. She made her way
unsteadily toward the bathroom door, and the lights within automatically turned on, but she
never went inside. She couldn't keep her sobering senses away from what she’d seen with
her own eyes. Turning abruptly, she went quickly to the bench at the foot of the large bed
and pulled a light robe from the compartment under the seat. She put it on and sat down on
the padded bench, leaning forward to put her head in her hands.
Lucy Lane was in Metropolis. She’d been at the library today with a man, a baby, and a pink
and white baby stroller.
Lois's little sister had a baby girl, possibly a husband, too, and they lived in Metropolis.
The glow from the wine was completely gone.

1996
"Ah, Lois, my dear," Lex Luthor had said cheerfully as he walked onto the side terrace for
breakfast shortly before their second wedding anniversary, a folder stuffed with papers and
pictures in his hand. "I have good news, at last, darling. Nigel's people have finally," he
stressed the word, "located your sister." He put the folder on the table next to her service
setting.
"I must confess, dear, I was getting a bit annoyed with their lack of success, knowing how
important it is to you to know of her whereabouts, but all's well that ends well, my darling.
It seems she is living quite happily in Alaska."
He leaned down to lift her chin and give her a lingering kiss before moving to take his seat
at the head of the table.
"She met a young man from Fairbanks just after her year at U.S.C. commenced, and when
the term was over, she followed him to Alaska where she has been living and working with
him ever since. All of the details are in the report, my dear. She seems to be quite happy
moving from oil rig to oil rig and to various fields all around the state providing her brand
of medical care for the workers and their families. Apparently that is the reason she was so
hard to locate. She has had no real permanent address for the past year, merely a post
office box provided by the company for which she works."
Lois grabbed the folder and read every page of the report twice over. The pictures showed
a smiling and affectionate couple in a variety of places that looked like different oil rigs
or drilling stations. An email address was provided instead of a telephone number, and a
schedule of where Lucy and her boyfriend were going to be in the next several months was
among the papers.
Over the following years, Lois and Lucy corresponded via email and each year a Christmas
and birthday card exchange was made through an Anchorage post office box. The last one
indicated they would be working the fields near the Arctic Circle this year and Lucy had
included a schedule so Lois would be able to look on the internet if she wished to see where she
and her longtime boyfriend would be. That latest email said she was in a place called Dead Horse
on Prudhoe Bay.

1999
As if in a dream, Lois went to the desk where she kept her laptop and turned it on. After a
short time, she was logging into her email account and finding the file wherein she’d saved
all of Lucy's messages. She clicked the last one. It was dated two weeks ago. Lucy was
supposed to be in Alaska, so what was she doing on the steps of the Metropolis Public
Library this afternoon? She opened the message and all the photo attachments and began
to scrutinize every word and image on the screen while memories began to come to her
unbidden.

1997
"You look decidedly chipper this morning, my darling," Lex said as he walked into the
dining room, the usual pile of newspapers draped over his arm. He kissed her forehead
quickly and touched the backs of his fingers to her temple in a light caress. "May I ask
what has brought such high color to your lovely face, my dear?" He put the papers on the
table and let the butler pull out his chair so he could sit.
Lois smiled and dipped a spoon into her bowl of fruit slices. It was several months since
she’d begun writing to Lucy. "I had an email from Lucy yesterday, Lex. She wrote a long
letter, and it was good to hear from her, and to know she's doing fine and she's happy
with her job."
"Of course. How delightful." He unfolded the top newspaper and perused the headlines
on the front page. "She and her young man have been together as long as we've been
married, haven't they? I imagine they'll be thinking of settling down soon. Starting a..."
He stopped abruptly and looked uncomfortable, mumbling his last words quickly, "...a
family, perhaps." He opened the paper and held it up blocking her view of him.
Lois's appetite disappeared with his words. She left the spoon in the bowl and rose from
the table to rush for the safety of the master bedroom suite. Lex found her there later, on
the bed, curled in a fetal position and apparently sleeping. She was awake, pretending
to sleep after hearing him enter the room, keeping her breathing even as he stood at the
bedside for a long time. When he finally left and closed the door behind him, she kept
up the pretense until actually falling asleep a long time later. There was no reason to do
otherwise. Unintentional or not, her husband managed to remind her of her own physical
shortcomings in a vocal way this time and, surely she hadn't imagined it, wasn't there a
hint of accusation in his tone?

1999
Lois stared at the words written on the laptop screen, the expression on her face hard and
angry, her hands in tight fists on either side of the small computer. She skimmed the many
sentences which were so full of Lucy's go-for-it enthusiasm and subtle humor. So like the
girl she last saw in person six years ago, before she left to attend a college in California,
the narrative sparkled with her intense determination to experience her life and her work as
completely as possible.
But...if Lucy was in Metropolis why was she sending joyful email stories to Lois about the
perfect life she’d found in Alaska?
The answer was simple enough. Lucy hadn't written those letters.
She began opening file after file, skimming through the text of each email, stopping to
scrutinize every instance of what made the writer appear to be her sister, studying every
picture.
'Remember when Mother took us... Do you remember the time when we were kids... I'll bet
you don't remember... It was like the time Daddy... I wished for a warm hat and gloves just
like that time Mom took us to see Santa'...and then, two years ago the personal references
became less specific.
Lucy was six years older now and, even without a baby, wouldn't she be more mature in
her outlook as her work brought her into contact with people and their problems and the
harshness of life in such remote places in Alaska? And. . .didn't her hair ever get longer?
Or shorter? Lois brushed her hand over her own hair that was growing out from a short cut
that Lex preferred last year.
Lois looked back through the letters again and was struck by how little Lucy revealed about
her relationship and the man with whom she was involved. When the two sisters shared an
apartment, she’d given chapter and verse on her latest boyfriend whether Lois wanted to
know or not, all the while urging Lois to get out more and meet more men. Letter writer
Lucy now used the Alaskan wilderness and descriptions of the places she visited to fill each
email with content and over time the pictures she sent were more and more of the land and
less of herself and her companion. What was his name? Lois had to go back more than a
year for the last reference to Adam Whitmill, the last time Lucy had written "Adam and
I' or 'Adam said' or Adam anything.
Between then and now the letter writer began to use the all-inclusive 'we.' We did this the
other day; We’re on our way to; We had a nice dinner; We'll be living in a log cabin; We
learned last week...
Lois closed her laptop, leaving it in hibernation, and after a while, got to her feet. She began to
pace the large bedroom with the dim illumination from the desk lamp and the bathroom's
muted glow showing her the way.
Three years! Who was writing the letters if not her sister? Why was this - this hoax being
perpetrated? Did Lex know about it? No, surely not! But...didn’t he say he’d been getting
annoyed at the lack of progress his people were having in locating Lucy three years ago?
Would they have come up with this scheme to stay in Lex's good graces and keep their
jobs?
Lex was a harsh employer when it came to his staff. Few people remained on the payroll
if he was dissatisfied with their job performance. It was a side of her new husband she'd
noticed almost immediately, and which she had never seen before the wedding. She’d seen
and knew how the household staff acted around him to keep their jobs. It wasn't difficult to
imagine his business employees doing the same.
On the other hand how did they know so much about the childhood events of the young Lane
family? Was it because Lex supported her mother through three relapses and subsequent
stays in rehab? "I’m happy to do it, my love. She was there for you at our wedding, so how
can I not be there for her when she needs family support now?" he told her just a few years
ago. "I've had her brought to the Cameron Institute in the mountains north of Metropolis. I
thought you might need to see her now, considering. . your. . .problems."
She hadn't, of course, and she dismissed the thought. She recalled the talk she had with her
mother on the day of the wedding. Ellen Lane had been sober for years and she’d seemed so
determined to stay that way. Were any of the relapses into alcoholism real? Could they have
been staged events to get her mother in a position wherein Lex's people could pump her for
information on her daughters and their relationship?
Did Lex know? No, no, of course not. He’d never let such a deception continue. She was certain of
that. He was too much a perfectionist for that. It would be a waste of money and Lex did not waste
money. He always got the value of what he spent in return.
She stopped pacing abruptly and threw her hands in the air. "That's a conspiracy, Lois!" she
told herself out loud. "You're becoming a conspiracy theorist! A lunatic conspiracy theorist
who talks to herself!"
Still, Ellen Lane was a recovering alcoholic and Lucy could have decided to come home
without telling her. "So she decided the nomad's life in Alaska wasn't the place for her baby
... no matter that the father... is from there." She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead
with one hand. No! I don't know how old her baby is, but she would have been pregnant for
part of last year and part of this year and she never told me! She never even hinted it was
possible. Besides, she would have sent a birth announcement through the post office box!
But if she did, why didn't I get it? Oh god! Does she know about... Does she know about me?
No, how can she? No one knows but Lex and me. Oh. . .Maybe she sent me a card, but Lex
intercepted it to protect my feelings?
She was near the double doors to the large balcony of the master suite, and she tied the robe
closed around her waist and opened the doors and stepped into the chill night air.
Most of the time, this was the best part of the suite. The wide, beautifully decorated balcony
ran the length of the east side of the mansion Lex had built for her. Her bedroom was at the
front of the house and offered a view of the Metropolis city scape. His separate bedroom was at
the other end of the balcony, at the back of the house, and it had a wonderful view of the
mountains to the north of the city.
The lights were still blazing in and around the fifteen car garage, and though her view of the
structure was well hidden by trees, she could see most of the cobbled courtyard at its front
and the ridiculously out of place fountain where the driveway met the courtyard.
Lois sank into a lounge chair next to the railing and closed her eyes. Her mind was racing in
so many directions that the beautiful view of the night time city seemed too bright to look at for
long. She tried to calm herself. She made herself relax and recalled her memories of Lucy's
totally mystifying presence at the library.
She’d looked so amazingly bright and fresh and beautiful standing there in the last rays of
evening sunlight. At first Lois hadn't recognized her. After all, why would her kid sister be
standing on the steps of the Metropolis library when she was so happily working at a job she
loved with a man she loved in Alaska? This woman certainly looked like her, older yes, but
still so strikingly Lucy.
It wasn't until their eyes met and Lucy's expression turned from a frown to a smile that Lois
knew she was truly seeing her sister in the flesh after six years apart. She wanted to call to
her, she wanted to call to Lex, she wanted to duck under the velvet rope and run across the
distance to her sister. She wanted to throw an arm up and block the flashing bursts of light
from the cameras and focus on Lucy, but a man behind Lucy pushed a pink baby stroller
toward the top of the steps and Lucy's hands moved upward to steady a squirming little
bundle attached to her chest by a bright yellow harness of some kind.
From that moment on, all Lois could see were two tiny arms and two little legs wiggling
and waving and kicking in excitement as a dark little head turned to one side and tried to see
what all the noise and lights were about behind her.
Lois crashed back to reality and the shouts from the photographers and the gathering crowd
filled her ears and she turned to look for Lex, to see if he was seeing what she was seeing, to
tell him Lucy was there, but he grabbed her elbow firmly and pulled her around to face the
library doors.
A man in a tux was pulling the doors open for them, and Lex gave her a firm push forward.
"We've spent enough time in front of the cameras, my love," he said shortly. She rushed
inside and hurried to her left, toward the entrance Lucy had used, but before she reached it,
she could see through the glass doors that the steps were empty. Lucy and the baby had gone
and so had the man with the-

Voices at the front of the house interrupted her recollection of the incident and Lois stirred,
turning her head to look over the railing. Lex and his head of security, Nigel St. John , were
walking from the front of the house toward the garage. As they neared the fountain, one of
the drivers pulled up to them in Lex's favorite convertible and got out. He nodded to both
men and walked away quickly after handing the keys to Lex. Their voices carried clearly in the
still night air. Looking at her watch, she saw it was well past 2 a.m. She must have dozed for a
few minutes.
Lex got into the driver's seat and looked up at Nigel. "I’m going to the penthouse, Nigel. Call
ahead and tell them to have Kimberly waiting for me in my private suite. I shan't be back
tonight, but have the blue limo sent to the penthouse in the morning, early, with someone to
drive this car back. I need to make a couple of appearances in town tomorrow and I'll make
them in the blue limousine."
"Certainly, sir. And what shall I tell your wife in the morning?"
Lex appeared to look up at the dark windows of her bedroom. "Tell her I left for the office
early and I shall be back in the evening as usual. Tell Chef Gaston to serve her breakfast on
the terrace whenever she rises. The special preparations, of course." He paused briefly. "My
dear, sweet wife over imbibed this evening and I’m afraid all of our guests at the library were
aware of it. It appears she might well have inherited her mother's predilection for alcohol when
faced with emotional situations beyond her control.”
"How unfortunate, sir."
"Yes, isn't it?" Lex said and started the car. "I fear for her future, her very sanity, if she
follows this path further."
"I know you do, sir."
"Well, I'll deal with that when the time comes, if the time comes." He paused a moment.
"One more thing, Nigel," he said, his mood changing too quickly, and his voice becoming
exigent, almost angry. "I want a report, with good news, on your lengthy investigation of that
ridiculous little rag, the Open Book, by the end of the week, or I will consider your lack of
progress a failure. You know how I hate failure from those I employ, and you know how I
deal with it when it happens. Do not consider yourself to be above reproach."
"Yes, sir. I do not."
"Good for you. I look forward to putting that tabloid trash out of business soon. I'll see you at the
office tomorrow, Nigel. Sleep well."
With the rising hum of the car's expensive engine, Lex drove away and Nigel St. John stood
looking after him for a long time.
From her concealment on the balcony, Lois stayed as still as possible until Nigel turned and
walked slowly to the house. After a few minutes, the lights in the garage went out and the
courtyard was dark.
Lois knew she should be angry, or disgusted, or hurt by what she’d heard, but she couldn't
pretend it mattered, or if it ever mattered at all. Kimberly, Lex had said. He wanted someone
called Kim-ber-ly waiting for him at the penthouse suite because his poor-dear-wife was
probably passed out cold by now.
Still, she had to admit to herself there was a sting to hearing from her husband's own lips that
he was leaving to meet another woman. She remembered the way her own mother discovered
her husband was seeing another woman. She suspected for some time that Lex had begun to
keep women in the penthouse again, but it was different knowing for certain. It did hurt. Even if
she didn't really care, it did hurt to face the truth that Lex no longer wanted her.
Lois rose quietly from the lounge chair and crept back into her room and returned to the desk
with her computer. After flipping up the screen, she ran into her large walk-in closet and
went to the rear cabinets where she dug into the lingerie drawers and gathered a couple of
chocolate bars, a can of jalapeno Vienna sausages, two bottles of water, and a bag of butter
pretzels to snack on while she worked on the computer. She had a lot of information to find
about something called the Open Book, and junk food was the fuel she needed to search.
She set the food on the desk and peeled off the top of the can of sausages. So Lex thought she
was developing a taste for alcohol, did he? A predilection just like her mother's? Ha! She'd
pig out on these unhealthy, but addicting, little things before she’d touch a bottle of whiskey
or wine to help her forget her problems. Why did he think she insisted on having a variety of
gym equipment in her bedroom? If he only knew how many bottles of expensive wine she'd
poured down the sink since they’d moved into this far too large mansion, Luthor Manor, (she
could never call it their home) he would be speechless at the money wasted.
She typed 'Open Book' into the search box at the top of the laptop screen and sat back to
nibble on a sausage.
Hmm. Open Book, 'rag', 'tabloid trash,' he called it. . . That means it’s probably a weekly, a
tabloid weekly in Metropolis. She scrolled down the list that opened on the screen. There! (click)
"The Open Book is an alternative weekly newspaper in tabloid format printed three times a
week and covering news and events in the Metropolis metropolitan area. First printed in November,
1994, the Open Book hit the stands with an explosive undercover investigation
of the murder of a local illegal explosives expert, John Black, while in the custody of the
Metropolis Police Department. Accused of carrying out the bombing of the Daily Planet
newspaper and framing a teenaged boy for the deed, Black was found shot in the head in his jail
cell three days after being arrested for and being charged with the crime. The Open
Book's information was responsible for the arrests and subsequent convictions of seven
corrupt officers within the department, ranking from uniformed patrol officers up to and
including a deputy commissioner. From that auspicious beginning, the Open Book became
the most widely read publication of its size in the city and the surrounding area.
Over the years the paper's in depth coverage of local affairs has won its staff of writers and
editors a wide array of awards, both local and national. Its unrelenting, in depth coverage
of local events has been compared to that of the late, great Daily Planet, bringing accolades as
well as disgrace to everyday life in the city. Disclosing corruption and scandal is the
primary focus of the investigative staff of the Open Book, but articles on the positive side of
the city have also been major award winners. A favorable mention in one of the many review
columns citing subjects ranging from restaurants and movies, to specialty businesses and
street venders is considered vital to the success of many new ventures.
Originally costing fifty cents per issue at the newsstands, the Open Book has been profitable
enough to offer two editions of its thrice weekly paper to the public at no cost.
The Saturday edition sells for $.75. Advertising revenue has enabled the weekly to meet
expenses despite the lack of revenue from sales of the Tuesday and Thursday editions.
Though the Open Book prefers to maintain privacy in reference to its staff and financial
backers, the weekly has earned a reputation for fairness and honesty, respect and concern
for the citizens and businesses of Metropolis. Speculation that key personnel from the late
Daily Planet are now staff members of the weekly has not been directly addressed by the
Open Book.
The official website features many of the articles the Open Book has printed over its five
year history, including their Kerth and Meriwether award winning coverage of the debut
appearances of the superheroes Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and the Green Lantern."

It was past dawn, nearly full daylight, before Lois pulled back the comforter and crawled into
bed. Her head hit the pillow and she sleepily reminded herself to find a copy of the Open
Book later when she went into the city to meet Lex. That little 'rag,' as he called it, popped
up within a year after the Daily Planet was bombed. Rag or not, it was giving the Metropolis
Star and the Metropolis Gazette, the biggest newspapers in town after the loss of the Planet,
a good dose of competition in the news business, both in breaking top stories and in snagging
advertising. She smiled as she pulled the comforter over her head. That was no surprise to
her- or at least it wasn't after reading several of the Open Book's articles.
Clark Kent was working for that tabloid trash, after all.
His name didn't appear in any byline. All the stories printed in the Open Book were simply
attributed as "By Staff Writers," but she’d recognize Clark's writing anywhere; and if Perry
White wasn't the rag's editor, she’d give up those disgustingly wonderful Vienna sausages
for life. She knew his style of biting, hard hitting, and often witty editorials - "The Opinions
of the Editorial Staff" - as well as she knew her own writing. What she didn't know, yet, was
why Lex was having the Open Book investigated by Nigel St. John?
Clark works there, she thought as she fell asleep. Does he know Clark and Perry both work
there?
For the rest of the morning her dreams were filled with the welcome presence of her former
partner.

3- Three

The press room of the Open Book was quiet. The small staff of writers and researchers was
gone for the day and only a few staff remained. Walking past the garishly decorated walls, one
wouldn't know this was the home of the small but esteemed newspaper. Super heroes, super
villains, heroic lawmen drawn with exaggerated body proportions swaggered and posed and
glared or sneered from the walls, ceiling, and support columns at the empty cubicles and desks.
To visitors and children's tours, World’s Finest Publishing was the home of WE Comics, the
most prolific and successful comic book publisher in the world, creators of the Majestic 39
crime fighting team (“the Maji” in fan vernacular) and their criminal enemies, the Lawless Band.
Under cover of the comic books, the Open Book was published three times weekly and distributed
to the city's newsstands in total secrecy.
Perry White, letting it be known he accepted the only job offered to him after the demise of the
Daily Planet, was listed as the editor of the WE Comics line of titles.
Clark Kent, a part-time stringer for the news services, whose articles appeared in newspapers
around the country every so often, was listed as head writer for WE Comics. He, too, had taken
the job as a last resort in the months after the loss of the Daily Planet.
Or, so they said.
Together they had made WE Comics the leader in its publishing niche.
At least the publishing world and the public believed it. In the basement of the building, there was
hectic activity. It was Wednesday, the evening before the next edition of the Open Book hit
the streets. The presses were running and the first copies of the Thursday paper were being
bundled and loaded and waiting for shipment.
At his desk in the press room, Clark Kent was working on his first draft of Saturday's lead
article but the phrasing wasn't working. For some reason everything he wrote was sounding
accusatory and the story wasn't about crime or corruption. How do you know when you’re in
a rut? he thought as he turned off his computer. When you write a story about the school
board preparing to give notice to 20 teachers city wide and you make it sound as if it was the
teachers' fault. He raised his head and found himself looking at the snarling visage of Big Duke
West, the most feared lawman in InterGLEN (Intergalactic Law Enforcement.) It’s your fault, he
told the drawing. How can anyone concentrate with you around?
He got up, grabbed his suit jacket and walked toward the chief editor's office. He rapped at
the door, and when the man at the desk looked up, he said, "I’m calling it quits for today. See
you in the morning."
Turning away from his monitor, Perry White looked at him and past him and frowned. "Is it
past quittin' time already? Alice is gonna kill me." He smiled and began to shut down his
own computer. "She has tickets for that new movie about the little kid seein' dead people or
something like that."
"The reviews for it are good, chief. The guys and I are going to see it Sunday."
"I won’t tell ya' about it tomorrow, then." He got to his feet and stretched his back. "I’d better
make myself scarce, too. Saturday's edition can wait."
"I’m going to stop by the Black Pier. I still don't have confirmation on the teachers cuts from
my sources. I'll have it by Friday, though."
"I know it, son. I know it." He closed the office door and they walked together silently to the
elevator. Perry pushed the button and glanced at Clark. "Lauren wrote a good piece on last
night's library fund raiser. Ray got some good pictures, too."
"I saw them. Jimmy showed them to me." He let Perry get into the elevator first. "Ray did
such a good job focusing on his main subjects you can’t tell Lucy and the baby are among the
blurs in the background of a couple of shots."
"My god! They were there? I don't suppose Lucy got to speak to Lois, did she?"
"No, but Lois did see her and knew she was there. Lucy was upset when she told me about it
later. There were a few moments when she thought Lois might come and talk to her, but it
didn't happen. She said Lois seemed to. . . close herself off all of a sudden and whatever
connection they made was broken and Lucy was hurt by it. I guess she hoped that after six
years, Lois would take the time to, at least, let her know how to get in touch with her now."
Perry shook his head slowly. "I don't know if it’s our doing or not. After the wedding, Alice
and I both tried to call Lois at LNN but we were brushed off like dust on a table. Of course,
after we started the Book and the investigations, LexCorp shut down tighter than a drum.
Maybe we made the walls higher and harder to climb over, going both ways."
Clark shrugged, smiling to himself. No one could mix metaphors quite like Perry in recent
years. The elevator doors opened on the ground floor of the office building. They walked
away from the reception area to the back entrance and the outdoor parking lot.
"Well, either way, we both thought Lucy should spend more time at the library for a while.
There was a moment of connection, and she said it should have been apparent she was there
as a patron, not just to try to get Lois' attention."
Perry stopped walking and looked at Clark with concern in his eyes. "Did he see Lucy?"
He shook his head. "No. Luthor was playing to the crowd, as usual. If nothing else, we're
turning him into an even better actor than he was before."
Perry barked a laugh. "We’re closing in on him and I'll bet he feels it coming. Just wish it
wasn't five years down the road already."
"He's had twenty-five years of practice on us, Perry. He knows how to hide in plain sight,
as Henderson likes to say, but he's beginning to make mistakes."
The back doors swung open as they approached and the heat of late afternoon rolled over
them. As they said good night and separated to walk to their cars, Clark let the tight control
of his senses go and he heard the sound of the offset presses running in the far section of the
warehouse he’d just left. Beyond that was traffic noise, a conversational hum from many
sources, but nothing that needed his attention as Superman. Today was just one of those too
infrequent days when all was right with the world.
He got into his car and followed Perry's out of the parking lot. He had to laugh at himself.
Another time, another place. It wasn't that long ago when owning a car was something he'd
never considered. It was easier to find a concealed spot, change into the suit and fly to his
next destination.
Kids.
His mother had been right. When he had told his parents what he was planning, Martha had
warned him no matter what age they were, bringing children into his life was going to change
it forever. Be that as it may, Clark had promised Jack he would find some way to get him and
his brother out of the foster care system long before the boy was accused of being the Daily
Planet bomber. Seeing him in jail for a crime Clark was sure he didn't commit made him
feel guilty for not doing more for the brothers.
After her wedding and the loss of any hope he would ever see Lois Lane again, Clark knew
he had to change his life and fill the emptiness left by the loss of the woman he loved with
another kind of love, another kind of commitment, another reason to carry on his life in the
city, because there was no doubt in his mind he was staying in Metropolis. He had to stay.
There was nothing he could do for Lois now, but he could still stop Luthor. Lois's feelings
were no longer holding him back. Whatever she discovered about her husband now would
be hurtful to her no matter what part Clark had in the process.
Clark was glad when Perry White returned to Metropolis. He approached Perry for advice on
two ideas he had: first, he wanted to petition for guardianship of Jack and Denny and give
them a chance to know life with a family before it was too late for them. Second, he wanted
to start a weekly newspaper for the sole purpose of investigating LexCorp and its founder
under the protection, limited though it was, of the fourth estate.
As he suspected, Perry was intrigued by both ideas, but he definitely came alive when Clark
explained the second one at length. It would get both of them back in the game and they’d be
doing something useful, and Clark knew his former boss missed the news game more than
he did.
What they hadn't counted on was Luthor's uncanny ability to sense danger and take himself
out of harm's way, thus prolonging the investigations to bring him down. Of course, they both
knew it was his network of spies that kept him ahead of the game, but try as they and Bill
Henderson might, they never completely broke that network.

1994
Perry White's retirement from the newspaper business in the spring of 1994 lasted for seven
weeks - or, for the length of time it took him to sail along the Florida Keys to Jamaica and
eastward to the islands of Bermuda and the Bahamas. He was fond of saying his wife knew
they were coming back to Metropolis as soon as they sailed away from the Caribbean. After an
extended stay with his in-laws in Miami, he told Alice he was going deep sea fishing and he
sneaked back to Metropolis.
Finding a friendly face was the hardest task of coming back. No one doubted his return was
going to stir up events best left undisturbed, and key players were careful to keep themselves
distanced from him.
The bombed out Daily Planet building was still in ruins. LexCorp had done nothing in six
weeks to either repair it for its own use or for sale to another owner. It was a sad sight but it
told White what he needed to know about trying to revive the Daily Planet as a business:
Lex Luthor was not interested in trying to save the newspaper he owned. The name and the
logo belonged to him and Perry knew he wasn't going to let them go.
His attempts to meet with former members of the Daily Planet's board of directors were met
with excuses, unreturned phone calls and outright lies and stonewalling.
Perry thought there were at least three people in Metropolis who would welcome him back.
Lois Lane was working for the LNN news channel and preparing for her wedding to her new
boss, Lex Luthor, which was to take place in a few days. Perry's many calls to her were not
returned and he suspected she wasn't being told of his attempts to get in touch with her. The
last time he’d seen her and spoken to her was at his retirement party, and he was certain
now he would not see nor speak to her again for a very long time. Still, he continued to try to
get in touch with her.
Jimmy Olsen, the young man who'd become like a son to Perry in the few short years they
worked together at the Daily Planet, had dropped out of sight in the last month. He no longer
had his apartment, nor a telephone number and his email address was no longer active, and
whether he was still in town was impossible to determine. The few former employees of the
Daily Planet Perry was able to find didn't know what became of him.
The third person on the list was Clark Kent, the young reporter who'd been with the Planet
less than a year when it was destroyed. He’d quickly become one of Perry's favorites, and
he was the only one of the three who was still where he was supposed to be in Metropolis.
Clark was happy to hear from him and invited Perry to stay at his loft apartment while he
was in town.
If he was honest with himself, Perry was a little surprised to find Kent was still in the city,
but he’d been wrong about the boy before. It couldn't be easy for him knowing the woman
he loved was preparing to marry another man. Perry didn't know what went on between
Lois and Clark after her engagement was announced, but he knew how Clark felt about both
Lois Lane and Lex Luthor - everyone knew except Lois herself - and his esteem for the young
man grew as he was welcomed into his home and made to feel at ease. As it turned out,
Perry wasn't the only one, besides Kent, who wanted to keep Lois from doing something she
just might regret later. Within a day, Jimmy Olsen, lately a resident of a room at the YMCA,
and young Jack Miner, the teenager accused of bombing the Daily Planet building, showed
up hungry, and homeless but knowing they could come to Kent for help. Of course, he didn't
turn them away, even after discovering Jack had walked away from juvenile incarceration.
The nucleus of the Open Book was formed that day.
Three days later, three former members of the Daily Planet's board of directors died in the
crash of a private jet and within days none of the other four could be found, dead or alive. The
most direct way to investigating Luthor's handling of the newspaper's demise was rendered
nonexistent.

1999
The long, seven floor building which housed the offices and print facilities of WE Comics and four
other local weeklies bore the name World’s Finest Publishing, Inc., and was located in what was
left of the Southside manufacturing area of the Metropolis waterfront.
A large part of the Southside area had been burned to the ground or was so badly damaged by
fire during the reign of terror by a gang called the Skins that the newly cleared land made
available was quickly purchased by numerous outside corporations eager to finally get a stable
foothold in the city. Though LexCorp had tried to buy the real estate for redevelopment, the
city owned most of the abandoned property due to unpaid taxes, and unexpectedly put the
land parcels up for bid. The out of town buyers easily countered Lex Luthor's original offers
and snapped up the property he wanted before his company could enter the bidding process.
Wayne Enterprises of Gotham City now owned forty per cent of the Southside area. WEGC
built a green industrial park where LexCorp and numerous local and outside organizations had
proposed building a casino and luxury hotels. Other developers were building apartment
complexes and retail businesses and the former manufacturing district was turning into a vital
and productive part of town. Even CostMart Inc. had snagged a precious parcel of land and built
a complex for its headquarters in the New England states.
WF Publishing was a long warehouse surrounded by wide, landscaped lawns and a small simple
sign out front. Solar panels on the roof provided most of the electrical power for day to
day operations.
Southside was now a quiet, clean and bustling home to new businesses and old firms coming to
WEGC’s modern industrial park for the first time.
The Open Book was far from being the Daily Planet and both Perry White and Clark Kent
were determined that the Planet would return to Metropolis one day B but it was a vehicle
they both believed in and worked hard to make a success. They also worked hard to conceal
the fact that it was also their primary weapon of attack against Lex Luthor and his empire
built around LexCorp Industries. Slowly but surely over five years, they had picked away at
the peripheral companies and small businesses that they discovered were fronts for LexCorp's
illegal activities. Piece by piece they were taking away Luthor's buffering wall, steadily
getting closer to being able to prove his humanitarian front was concealing a ruthlessly adept
criminal with a violent empire that spanned the globe.
Lex Luthor was not pleased. His attempts to infiltrate the staff or intimidate anyone he knew
to be affiliated with the publication were met with failure. Superman took an interest in those
people and even Luthor, after his failed attempt to kill him on the day of his marriage to Lois
Lane, knew better than to pursue that means of action. Calling attention to himself turned out
to be the wrong way of dealing with the superhero. Luthor had never gotten close enough to
harm him in any way since their confrontation on his wedding day.

1994
Perry was dispirited and ready to admit he was wrong about early retirement. Maybe he was
selling it short, not giving it a chance, but after a long, successful career as a newspaperman
it was hard to let go. He was also feeling depressed. Lois Lane, the best investigative reporter
he’d ever had the pleasure to work with, had married Lex Luthor and she had left behind her
career and three men, himself, Kent and Jimmy Olsen, who loved her in different ways, to begin
a life with a man the three of them were determined to destroy.
Lois would always be the daughter Perry wished he’d been blessed to have in reality. He was
sorry he’d been unable to prove Luthor's involvement in the destruction of the Daily Planet
in time to let Lois see what kind of man she was marrying. It wasn't meant to be.
He and Clark Kent had been unable to get the proof they needed to allow the authorities to
make the charges stick, but they did discover some members of the MPD, a special unit of top
investigators assembled and led by then Inspector Bill Henderson, who was now a Deputy Chief,
had been trying for years to break the facade of LexCorp and its charismatic owner.
It was no fault of their own that they couldn't stop Luthor, Henderson assured them, but all of
them working together, perhaps, might be more successful.
Clark had quietly accepted the inevitable after Lois Lane's marriage, though not without a
bit of self-indulgence he didn’t explain. He’d disappeared the day before the wedding and
when he’d shown up back home the afternoon of the wedding, he's been exhausted and had
fallen asleep on the sofa. Perry and Jimmy suspected a night of drinking was the weapon of
choice, and they didn't blame him a bit. Jack, who'd been more worried about Clark than the
others, was the most relieved to see his friend home and alright. He hovered over Clark like
a worried mother hen for days afterward as Clark recovered from his personal ordeal.
It would be a couple of years before White and Olsen learned the truth as to what happened
to Clark during those missing hours.
A few days later, Clark was himself again and making plans for the future, but it wasn't until
the murder of John Black while in police custody, that he and Perry began to work in earnest
to get the weekly publication started. The small tabloid newspaper began with the intent of
investigating LexCorp and crime in Metropolis. Financial backing came from Clark's friend in
Gotham City, billionaire Bruce Wayne, who was also interested in breaking through the facade of
LexCorp. Perry and Jimmy were the first ex-Planet employees to be hired by the publication,
and both spread the word to other ex-DP-ers that a new publication was starting and needed
a good newsroom staff. From there came the practice of hiring by invitation that was still the
norm currently.
It had been Bruce Wayne's idea to hide the small newspaper from the public behind the facade
of WE Comics and World’s Finest Publishing, and it turned out to be a good idea. Luthor was
spending millions a year trying to find the Open Book and its publishers even as he was losing
millions per year as the little tabloid chipped away at his empire.
Slowly but surely, life for the four friends settled into a normal routine.
Jack, along with his brother, Denny, for whom Clark had petitioned for guardianship, had to
graduate from high school before Clark would let them come to work for the publication but
they were a part of the birth of the Open Book, too. As it turned out, another person had an
influence on the project.
Dr. Lana Lang-Blake, an old friend, a childhood playmate, reentered Clark’s life and encouraged
him and helped him to put the past behind him. Perry, Jimmy and the young brothers couldn’t
help but approve as they watched their friend return to his old self slowly but surely with
Lang-Blake’s help.

1999
Lucy awoke and blinked quickly. Despite sleeping badly she was instantly alert as soon as the
baby's good morning wail came from the baby monitor. Still bothered by her close encounter
with her sister, she was at a loss to explain to herself what happened, and worry over it was
haunting her sleep. She sat up and swung her legs off the side of the bed and headed for the
door to the adjoining nursery, grabbing her robe along the way.
The baby was sitting up amid her bunched up blankets, rubbing at her eyes and yelling out, as
only a baby can, irritated short-vowel sounds to the world in general.
"Aaaa-aa! Eh!"
"Good morning to you, too, Mara-mouse," she said and untangled the little girl's legs from
the soft blankets. "How in the world do you do that? Do you roll around all night? What can
you be dreaming about, sweetie?" She lifted her out of the crib and moved her to the changing
table. "Auntie Lucy is running late today, baby. We'll get you dressed first and then me after
that, okay? Your daddy should have breakfast ready by then." She leaned closer to the baby
monitor beside the crib. "Did you hear that?" she said loudly. "Mara's daddy should have our
breakfast ready by the time we get downstairs!"
Forty minutes later, the baby balanced on her hip, Lucy descended the stairs to the ground floor
and the smells of cooking met them half way down. She was of the opinion that one of the
nicest things about her job as Mara-mouse's live-in nanny was that her boss believed in good
eating. Mara began to wiggle furiously, trying to look ahead to the voices, noises and smells
coming from the kitchen. They were going to be joining her daddy and her brothers and she
could hardly wait to reach their voices.
The residence, a four year old brownstone, wasn't too shabby either. While it wasn't billionaire
elegant, or old money understated, or even new money ostentatious, it was very middle class
and homey. And the company, frankly, turned out to be the best.

1997
Lucy hadn't had the opportunity to meet Clark Kent before she left for California all those
years ago. She returned to Metropolis more than a year after the Daily Planet was forced out of
business and she discovered the staff was scattered to the wind. Unable to find anyone who
could tell her what happened or why, she looked for Kent, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen, her
sister's closest friends on the newsroom staff, but never located any of them.
To add to the frustration of such dramatic changes in her home town, she found she had more
than just an unapproachable sister: both of her parents were unavailable to her. Her uncle,
Mike Lane, and her few cousins from the Logan side of the family, her mother's side, hadn't
had contact with either Sam or Ellen in years.
Her father's brother became her lifeline when she found it difficult to find a job on top of all of
her family troubles. Totally cut off from her immediate family, Lucy worked as a bartender
at her uncle's restaurant. Over the next two years, she worked her way up to manager after
Uncle Mike was able to get a loan and buy the vacant lots next door to expand the business.
Then, she finally encountered someone who put her in touch with Clark Kent. Why she hadn't
thought to ask Superman for help immediately after coming back to the city was still quite an
embarrassing thought to her. Of course, he’d branched out to patrolling the world as well as
Metropolis by then, so at least she didn't feel foolish as well as chagrined.
The south side neighborhood where the Americana Restaurant was located was enjoying a
long rebound from troubles that had emptied the buildings along the street the year it opened
for business. So, the fight across the street at the 'Spies R Us' store ("One of a dozen close,
convenient locations in downtown Metropolis!") was a curiosity to the patrons of the popular
restaurant. The al fresco terrace at the front of the Americana was now covered by a trellis
and it extended around the side of the building where a plant filled courtyard was built in the
two narrow, empty lots the 'troubles' had created. At the first sign of a commotion, the many
outdoor diners were at first curious and unalarmed, but their mood changed quickly when
someone spotted a gun and yelled, "Superman!" Before anyone could properly react, the
fight was over. To no one’s astonishment, the superhero was there in seconds and the youthful
brawlers suddenly found themselves bound and seated in a neat row in front of the 'SRU' store.
Ten people had footage on their cell phones of the fight starting and the gun being drawn, and
over twenty had Superman's intervention recorded. Oddly, only four people actually made
911 calls to the police.
When the police arrived minutes later, Superman stayed to give a statement and only then did
he seem to realize where he was. He had helped stop the violence in the area years ago which
helped the neighborhood recover.
He saw Mike and Lucy moving among their outdoor customers, urging them to return to their
tables with the promise of free dessert of their choice from the menu.
He came across the street to say hello.
Superman spent a few minutes talking to Mike Lane, discussing the positive changes that had
taken place in the neighborhood since the two first met. It was then that Lucy joined them and
thought to ask if Superman knew where Clark Kent was or how she could get in touch with him.
Three days later, Kent, accompanied by a pretty redhead, Lana, or Dr. Lang, and two
young men in their late teens, Jack and Denny, who now used the last name Kent, came to the
Americana for lunch.
It was a long lunch.
After the destruction of the Daily Planet, Lucy learned, Perry White retired to Florida, Jimmy
Olsen dropped out of sight, one of the boys with Clark was framed for the bombing of the Daily
Planet and Clark Kent spent the next six months working to free him from the juvenile justice
system. Evidence was found to lay the blame for the bombing on a known criminal bomb maker
named John Black. Charges against young Jack were dropped and he was freed.
Clark had started writing a novel after losing his job at the Planet and while he was trying to
absolve Jack of the crime, the book was published and became a best seller. He bought a new
brownstone in a family oriented neighborhood on the south side of the city, within walking
distance of the Americana, it turned out, and he and the brothers settled into life as the Metropolis
branch of the Kent family. Dr. Lana Lang joined them by this time, and within half a year, a request
filed by Clark and Lana to adopt the brothers was granted.
Lucy had been unable to bring herself to ask him what had happened between him and Lois
while his current girlfriend/partner was at his side.
He offered no information on his own.

1999
"Good morning," Lucy said, entering the kitchen. The baby's chair was beside the table, set up and
waiting for her, but Lucy went past it and approached the cook top where breakfast was nearly done.
"Good morning, Lucy. Clark had to leave, he'll be back. Give me that kid," nineteen year old
Denny said, grabbing the squealing baby and giving her forehead a big kiss. "Good morning to
you, little mouse." He took her to the microwave where a bowl of mushy oatmeal cereal waited
for her, and he carried both to the kitchen table.
Lucy shooed Jack, now twenty-one, away from the cook top griddle. "Go. Get started. Let me
finish this. Are you going to be late?"
"Thanks, Luce. No, I turned in my column yesterday. Mr. White said don't come in before
eight," he replied and carried a platter of eggs, hot cakes and bacon to the table, and went to
give the baby a hug and a kiss before he threw himself into a chair and began helping himself
to the food. "Mmm, baby girl, when you get old enough to eat Grandma Martha's pancakes, you will
never eat oatmeal again," he said and gave her a spoonful of cereal so Denny could fix
himself a plate of food.
"Mm," Mara Kent answered shortly in imitation.
Lucy finished cooking the last of the bacon and tomato slices and joined them, sitting across
from them so she could watch the brothers fuss over the baby, who was thrilled with all the
attention she was getting. She put a few things on a dish for herself and got up to get a cup of
coffee. She was going to have to take Mara jogging with her in the park this morning before
going to the library for a few hours. Those pancakes smelled good and she found out a long
time ago that she couldn't resist the darn things. Brown sugar and maple syrup were her mortal
enemies. . . but she couldn't help herself. She went back to sit down and fork three of them
onto her plate and cover them with butter and syrup.
Letting the boys tend to the baby, Lucy ate the meal silently, letting her mind wander back to
the thoughts that were still haunting her after nearly a month. Lois. Sometimes just thinking
about that encounter made her want to cry. There was no way she could have been mistaken
about Lois! They saw one another, they almost moved to call to one another, and then she was
gone. It was as if nothing had happened between them at all. Lucy relived the meeting over and
over but she was certain of one thing: Lois had pulled away, she’d backed off before Luthor
took her arm and spoke to her. She was already turning away from Lucy when he approached
her.
What did I do? I was so surprised I couldn't move! Was that it? I didn't wave or go closer to
talk?
No, nothing makes sense. She looked at her plate and saw she’d finished her breakfast without
enjoying it. It was something else that was happening more lately, and she couldn't help that,
either. Over two weeks had gone by and neither she nor her mother heard anything from Lois, and
both made sure their phone numbers were available in the white pages. Wasn't she curious
enough to look for them after so many years of separation?
Lucy's attention was brought back to the present. She looked up at the sound of voices. Clark
was back.

4- Four

The longest two weeks of her life had finally come to an end. Lois watched from the living
room window of Luthor Manor as the sleek, dark limousine disappeared down the long driveway.
As soon as it was out of sight, she picked up the phone and jabbed the garage extension.
"This is Mrs. Luthor," she said as soon as it was answered. "Bring my car to the front door
immediately."
From long experience she knew how much time she had before the car arrived, and she raced
upstairs to her bedroom and grabbed the laptop case and shoulder bag she’d prepared the night
before. She hadn't wanted Lex to see her getting ready to leave with them.
A quick look in the mirror and she rushed back downstairs. The staff knew she often left the
estate alone, driving alone and leaving her bodyguards to chase after her in a second car. What
they didn't know was how often she was successful in ditching them for hours at a time. There
were simply times when she needed to be alone. She knew by now that no one was going to
report her escapades to her husband. No one wanted to lose their jobs if he were to find out
how long they’d been protecting her secrets. As long as she returned at the end of the day and
remained silent herself, she and the mansion staff got along fine.
Her bodyguards were something else: two serious and stone faced men hired from what pool
of workers she could only guess, who were replaced at regular intervals. Lex didn't want any
of them becoming close to her or familiar with her in any way. His interest in her as a woman
may have waned to almost nothing, but she was still his wife and he was quick to dispel any
man's interest in her no matter how impeccant it might be. Lex's ongoing possessiveness did
not bother her anymore: she was long used to it. She used to think it was a measure of how
much he cared for her, how much he loved her, but in recent years she’d learned how empty his
declarations of love could be. In his own way she supposed the possessiveness meant he still
cared, and she was well aware of exactly when the disinterest with her had started and why, so the
game of eluding the bodyguards had become a diversion she played with herself to keep her mind
away from thoughts of her inadequacies as a wife, and Lex's inability to see beyond them.
Word had gotten around that Mrs. Luthor was going to be a regular visitor to the library for an
indefinite time. She’d convinced Lex to let her oversee the installation of the new computer
system they’d pledged to help bring the library up to date, and she was going to draw out the
process as long as she had to in order to see if Lucy would come to the library again. Together,
perhaps, they would be able to figure out who on her husband's staff had been keeping them apart
for so long.
The latest bodyguards were clever and not easy to lose under most circumstances. A year earlier,
one of her former bodyguards had the bright idea of riding in her car in the passenger seat when
she left the mansion to keep her from escaping their surveillance. She’d found a new use for a
collapsible umbrella just before stopping her car at the gate and literally kicking him out of the
door to fall groaning in the gravel beside the mailbox. The story was still told among the staff and
related to the new bodyguards when they started working for the Luthors. Of course, it meant she
had to be extra creative to get away from them now, but since they knew where she was going,
losing them would be a short Pyrrhic victory. All they had to do was go to the library and wait for
her to show up. Still, she had to do it. There were two things she wanted do and it was better that
her husband never find out what they were.
Her car shot down the driveway with a spray of gravel and what sounded like breaking glass
in its wake.

She sat in her car for a long time beside the empty lot where a familiar five story apartment
building once stood on Clinton Street. There were more bars and empty buildings in the old
neighborhood than she remembered. The last time Lois had driven past, without stopping, was
more than two years ago and sometime between then and now the building and those around it had
been demolished. The empty space was strewn with trash and weeds growing in the bare earth
that remained.
It was even longer since the last time she had caught a glimpse of Clark Kent on the streets of
the city. She wondered if he’d still been living here when the building was razed. Did he lose
his home? Did he lose everything? Was there an accident? Was he hurt? She couldn't bear to
ask herself if he was still alive- of course, he was! What was she thinking? She’d been reading his
articles in the Open Book lately, hadn’t she? Get your head on straight, Lois! She simply hadn't
known the buildings on half of the block were gone, that’s all.
She couldn't stop the tears when it became clear how far removed she was from her former
life. She should have known this had happened! She should have known that Jimmy Olsen was
no longer at his apartment, and that his friends had no idea where he had gone after he lost his
job. She should have known! They were her friends! She should have helped them!
Lois dabbed at her eyes, had a quick look in the rearview, and started the car.
"Hey! Fancy meeting you here!" a cheerful male voice said from the passenger side of the car.
"So what is Mrs. Moneybags doing cruising the extremely less affluent parts of town?"
Lois turned her head slowly, knowing who she was going to see from the voice and the damned
cheerfulness alone. Daniel Smith, one of her former bodyguards was standing on the sidewalk,
leaning toward her with his hands on the top of the car door. He no longer wore a black suit and
tie but his insanely happy smile still greeted her.
"None of your business, Smith." She put the car in gear and peeled away from the curb.
"How many times do I have- " he began to say. She was gone. The smile fell away and Agent
Daniel Scardino's expression became thoughtful. He looked to his left and raised his hand to
signal to a man in a car down the street. As it came up, he quickly got into the passenger seat.
"Follow that convertible, Wallace. That was Mrs. Luthor."
The man driving pulled into the empty street and sped up. "I know it was!” he yelled. “Why’d you
let her see you? You’re supposed to be dead!”
“Obviously, I’m not! Come on, go! You’ll lose her!”
“You let her see you!” the driver stressed again. When he got no answer, he calmed himself. “She's
pretty far from her part of town."
"Yeah, and no bodyguards tailing her. She didn't want Luthor knowing she’d been here."
"You sure you know her as well as you think you do, Danny? If her husband is responsible for
blowing the building she was looking at, makes her visiting it look suspicious."
"I know."
"Look at you! Disappointed, huh?"
"No! Just. . .surprised."
"Face it, Scardino. She was the best investigative reporter in the country and she married the
dirtiest piece of garbage in the world. How did she not know? How can she not know? After
five years? You’re still stuck on her if you believe she's not aware he controls the criminal
element in this town. The guy tried to kill you, for pete's sake, Danny! Twice! Yet you revealed
yourself!"
Scardino stared out the window. "Drive. Don't lose her." He took his phone from his pocket
and hit speed dial. "Hey, it’s Scardino. Look up the addresses 340 and 344 Clinton, two of the
apartment buildings that blew last year. Find out who lived there going back five years. . . Yeah,
that one. . .No, just leave a list on my desk. See you later." He stuffed the phone back into his
pocket and kept looking out the window, ignoring his partner's attempts to make conversation.
Lois, Mrs. Luthor, had been crying. He was sure of it. And he needed to know if it was for him
because if it was, then she knew he was supposed to be dead, and, maybe, she didn’t know her
husband had ordered his death.

The head librarian was expecting Mrs. Luthor and greeted her effusively and took her on a tour
of the staff only area where she would have an office at her disposal throughout the work on
the computer system update. The library staff was aware the establishment was in profound
need of a new computer system from top to bottom to improve their internet capabilities and
to aid in their program to transfer their entire archive online. The Luthor donation was a godsend
and putting up with Mrs. Luthor overseeing the project for LexCorp was a small price to pay.
They would give her an office, make her feel useful and come away with a set-up that would be
the envy of every major library in the country.
Besides, it was better than having Lex Luthor himself dropping by unannounced to check up on
the project. He wasn't a man who tolerated waste and overspending, and you didn't cross him
in any way, shape or form. LexCorp had financed the renovation of the basement a few years ago
and all of the longtime employees remembered his tight fisted and performance demanding brand
of oversight. The staff was on high alert to keep the missus happy and give the husband no reason
to visit the library in the near future.
Lois followed along, noting every entry, exit and window in the private, staff only area of the
huge building. Storage rooms were in the basement, and on the partial second and third floors,
but most of the basement was given over to workrooms where a small group of volunteers and
other employees toiled to put written material into the computers.
She suddenly realized the seriousness of the Luthor donation and what it meant to the library, and
though she felt a bit of guilt, she still wandered toward the main room of the public section
on the pretense of looking at the present display of computers available for the public to use.
She scanned the open seating areas and saw her bodyguards had set themselves up to watch the
front and rear exits and the emergency exits, too. She was so intent on looking for Lucy and
wondering if she came to the library this early in the day that she didn't see her former
bodyguard and another man looking at books in the Occult and Paranormal section; didn’t see Smith
was arguing into his phone, his back to her, and punctuating his words with wide sweeps of
his arm.

Conversation turned to the coming week, but Lucy's mind was on other things. It was so hard
to concentrate when she was feeling so frustrated with the situation concerning Lois. With no real
idea what was going on, she found her mind planning outrageous ways to see her again. She
tried to listen to the others.
Registration at Metropolis University had been held the last week in July and both Jack and Denny
had already quit their summer jobs at the Open Book to get ready for classes to start
next week.
Lucy would be attending evening classes at the medical building and had signed up for the few
subjects she planned to take only a week ago. Neither of the boys would be available the next
week to help care for the baby and so Lucy would have little or no free hours during the day,
and she was disappointed. And she was feeling guilty about resenting her job for getting in the
way.
She wanted to use each free hour to try to see her sister again. If Lois didn't come back to the
library, Lucy supposed she could drive to the suburbs and plant herself outside the Luthor
estate if she had to, and run into the street if and when Lois ever left without her husband. Just
seeing Lois in person for the first time in such a long time was making her feel guilty for not
trying harder to get through the layers of security that kept them apart since the marriage.
It wasn't as if Lucy's life had been too hectic to really try, it was just that Sam Lane had been
forced to leave town to continue his research and it took her a long time to find him in Gotham
City. Ellen Lane seemed to have disappeared into rehab centers, but Lucy could find no real
evidence of her mother needing to be there. Interest in the subject of Dr. Lane's research had
supposedly disappeared and funding sources suddenly went dry; the hospital where Ellen was
working as an RN was closed after a new hospital was built nearby, but not everyone on the
staff was transferred to the new facility and Ellen found herself unemployed in a profession
that was always short of qualified personnel. From what Lucy could discover, Ellen had lived
on her savings for a time before finding a position in a retirement community.
Shortly after that, her first relapse into alcoholism occurred and she was hospitalized for close
to a year in California.
Of course, Lucy had problems of her own. Despite her training and degrees from a prestigious
University program, she couldn't find a job in Metropolis. It didn't take long to realize it wasn't
that no one was hiring people in her profession. It was that no one was hiring her.
If not for her uncle, Mike Lane, and now Clark Kent, she would have had to leave the city, like her
father had, to find a job. Not about to be run out of her own hometown, she worked hard to help
Mike Lane make his restaurant a success and, now, she was working for Clark Kent so she
could take classes at night and keep her certification as a physical therapist up to date. She
would find a job. In Metropolis. Someday. Really.
Voices were rising again accompanied by laughter. She really had to stop dwelling on this so
much. Her luck was going to change. It was.
Lucy got up from the table and took her dishes and utensils to the sink. The boys were leaving
and Clark was holding the baby, giving her a bottle of juice. He walked to the front door with
them so they could wave to the baby, and when he returned to the kitchen, Lucy was loading
the dishwasher. The sun was shining through the living room doors and windows and the light
brightened the open living area and the kitchen.
"I’m sorry," she said. "I’m still out of it. I can’t help worrying about Lois. Mom is coming
over to talk this afternoon, so I’m going to hang around the library this morning for a couple
of hours. I’m four term papers ahead of myself from all the time I've spent researching the last
few weeks. I should ace my courses this semester." She walked back toward the table and
stopped and leaned back against the counter top of the utility island a few feet away.
"Is Mara going to be in the way?" Clark asked, glancing up at her, and by his slight frown, she
knew he was seeing how tired she was. "You can drop her off with me if you’d like. Perry
won’t mind if she's in the newsroom for a few hours. Hell, he'll probably take her into his
office and play with her the whole time."
She laughed. "No, I'll take her with me. The librarians know her and have a little box of toys
for her to play with if she fusses. They let me use the staff lunchroom to feed her and when I
go in alone they ask where she is!"
Clark smiled, looking down at the baby cradled in his left arm. At nearly six months, she was
getting big. She could roll over, push herself up to sit by herself, and she was experimenting with
lying on her stomach and pushing herself up from the floor onto her knees, and it was
just a matter of time until she figured out how to crawl. Jack and Denny had been trying to
show her by crawling around on the floor when they played with her, and that was a truly
entertaining show in itself. Super laid back Jack, a street smart young man with a girlfriend,
demonstrating to a baby how to crawl. She was just waiting for a reason to start.
"Do you have enough money for this week?" he asked Lucy. "Don't worry about taking taxis if you
have to, I'll leave some cash in my desk if you need it. I wish you’d let me get you a car."
Lucy laughed. "Clark! There is a bus stop practically right outside the front door, and the buses are
always on time! I appreciate the offer but I don't need a car of my own to care for the baby!
The library and my apartment are both on the same bus line as the one outside. Besides, Jack
or Denny will let me use either of theirs any time I need a car."
He looked at her sternly. "Well, you are going to drive mine this year to and from your classes
when you start. No bus riding after dark, no waiting for taxis on campus after dark."
"Yes, sir!" she answered, knowing she wasn't going to change his mind about that, and to be
honest, she was pleased he worried about her safety. The boys rolled their eyes at him, but like
her, they understood it was a habit of his they had no hope of breaking. It was a part of who he
was.
"Nah!" Mara said, pushing away her empty bottle.
"That's my baby girl. All finished," Clark told her. "Your appetite is certainly growing right
along with you, angel."
"I noticed that, too. In fact, my mother thinks she's ready for finger food, and do you know if
Martha is planning to send us another box of her homemade baby food? Mara loves the sweet
potatoes and the apple sauce. We’re running low on both."
"I'll tell her Friday. You can have Friday off, by the way. I’m taking Mara to stay with Mom
and Dad at the farm. The boys and I are going to Gotham over the weekend, so my parents are
going to keep her both days. She knows them so she shouldn't be too upset if we aren't there."
"You've been talking to my mom!" Lucy accused delightedly. "A couple of weeks ago she was
telling me some babies can experience separation anxiety as early as four to seven months, if not
younger. I asked because Mara is starting to get upset if she sees you leave."
Clark shrugged. "It pays to know a nurse." He smiled. "She mentioned it to me the other day."
He got up from his chair and carried the baby into the living room. "I’m going to change her,
but after that, I have to be going. I’m meeting a source in an hour."
"Okay. I'll run upstairs and pack her little duffel then. Can you drop us at the library? I think
I'll go in early and walk Mara when Mom comes over. They both like it."
"Absolutely."
"See how it works?" she called over her shoulder, as she left the kitchen. "No car for Lucy, so
you get to spend a few extra minutes with your daughter." She could hear him laugh as she
started up the stairs.

If he could do the practical thing, Clark Kent would have given Lucy this car a long time ago
and gone back to his old style of traveling around the city - walking and flying - but having a
family was more than just life changing. It also changed what other people expected of you.
You couldn't appear out of nowhere with two teenaged boys and all their book bags and other
things at a school where the nearest city bus stop is three blocks away. You didn't pick up and
take a sick boy home from the school nurse's office the same way either. You needed a car to avoid
suspicious questioning. That was just the way it was.
Hailing a taxi or riding a bus was fine for running errands, going out to eat, or even going to
work, but when it came to taking kids to games, school functions, or a baby to the doctor, one
needed personal, automotive transportation.
So Superman drove a car.
A four door sedan with a baby seat and toys and plush animals scattered on the back seat.
Clark called Perry before leaving the library parking lot and heading out to meet his source in
one of the less reputable parts of the city.
A year and a half after the Open Book's first issue, he’d received a visit from Louie Walta,
who'd been Lois Lane's source, and personal friend, and owner of a pool hall on the outskirts
of Suicide Slum.
The man was paying close attention to the articles written in the OB and one in particular had
caught his attention and he moved heaven and earth to find out who'd written it.
He wasn't really surprised that Louie was able to find him. After all, he did indeed "know
guys who know guys," and Clark wasn't exactly successful at keeping a low profile back then.
He’d finally accepted an offer for his book to be turned into a movie and it was a big deal for
a week or so while various media outlets tried to make him tell them for how much he’d sold
the option. One of his stipulations had been that the amount was not to be revealed by the option
buyers. His favorite coffee shop had been an ambush point for a few days, at least until he finally
got it across to the dogged reporters he wasn't going to comment. Personally, he thought they’d
given up much too easily.
After the attention died down, he’d gone in one morning and found Louie waiting in line just
ahead of him. A nod passed between them, and Louie had lingered on the sidewalk for a few
seconds and fell into step beside Clark when he came out and walked toward the bus stop on
the corner.
From that day on, Louie, and other former Lane sources, began coming to Clark with information
on OB investigations. Clark was under no delusions that they’d become his friends. He knew they’d
decided to trust him because they didn't like how Lois was slowly disappearing into the labyrinth
of LexCorp and Lex Luthor's tightly controlled world. After two years of marriage, her job at LNN
was becoming secondary to her duties as Mrs. Luthor.
Her job as a producer at LNN was low profile, but word still got around. She and her husband were
traveling for business reasons more and more and Lois's presence at LNN was becoming less
and less important. She wasn't calling her sources for tips as often as in the early months of
her employment, and their calls to her were going unanswered. Since their second anniversary
bash, the Luthors were out of the country more frequently than ever before. Speculation ran
high, but her sources weren't interested in rumors about her. They were surprised that the news
business and her job were no longer priorities in Lois Lane Luthor's life. The change was too
abrupt and it worried them. It was their business to know these things ahead of time and word
of Lois from inside was going cold.
Louie in particular was doing all he could to help the Open Book take down Lex Luthor's
empire one company at a time. His relationship with Lois had been more personal than it was for the
other sources. His pool hall became a frequent stop for the Kent family when they felt the need
for a game of billiards or darts amid an atmosphere of thick tobacco smoke and the aroma of
frying potatoes, beef and onions.
Or for information.

Only the neighborhood regulars were in the pool hall at the early hour that Clark arrived. The
boxes of pastries and bagels he brought in with him had Louie sending one of his bouncers into
the back room to serve coffee as soon as he’d seen him walk through the door.
"Bar is closed," Louie announced, but this was a frequent occurrence and the regulars made no
objections. The comic book writer guy, and his foreign style breakfast food, was welcome here any time.
Besides, the bar wasn't open anyway, and wouldn't be until lunch time. No loss.
Clark put the boxes on one end of the nearest pool table and opened them and everyone began
to gather around. Thankfully, the small kitchen was closed but for brewing coffee and no one
was smoking: not as much as usual, anyway, and the atmosphere of a morning pool hall
was easier on the senses. Clark helped himself to pineapple scones and a few packets of fake
butter. His mother would never approve, but he wasn’t ever going to tell her.
Louie grabbed a few croissants, some bagels and condiments and beckoned him to follow him
to a poker table at the back of the long main room. "I see you're startin' another series," he
said, motioning Clark to a chair and sitting down himself. The latest edition of the Open Book
was on the table top, several pages folded back to reveal an inside article.
A small SD card was tucked into the fold.
"I think I can help with it. Pier Fifteen up east of here has a bad rep for injuries. It’s hard to get
workers to stay. Even the unions won’t send in their people so a private firm supplies workers to
load and unload freight from the ships that dock there." He stopped talking while two steaming
cups of aromatic coffee were put on the table. After the bouncer left, he continued. "Word has it
the private firm is run by a woman. I never paid much attention to it 'til I read your story there."
He nodded at the newspaper. "That woman you wrote about sounds a lot like the woman owner
of the temping firm supplying the dock workers. Seen her from a distance once but the description
is so close, Miss 'Private Firm' popped right into my head when I read the description." He tapped
the paper with a little finger.
The strong, dark coffee was a blend Clark especially liked, but he never asked Louie where he
got it. It was a treat he came out of his way to the pool hall to get. He picked up the paper and
the flat memory card slid into the palm of his hand. "The woman in the story is able to provide
personnel for a variety of fields. We’re looking into dangerous and hazardous occupations. Our
information came from the families of people who believe she sent workers into places that
endangered their health in ways they were never warned might happen."
Louie nodded. "Yeah, there’s that. High pay for unwanted jobs. No one wanted to work Pier
Fifteen, so she sent guys in. Funny thing is, since she's been providing workers there ain't been
no more bad accidents. I checked into it after I read the article. No more accidents and no more
high pay, either."
"She's privatized what used to be a public or union dock?"
"Without a fight."
"Thanks, Louie." We need to dig deeper into investigation of Mrs. Cox and Pier Fifteen, not
just the business itself. It might be a smoke screen to hide the dock takeover.
The older man shrugged. "You know who she is, don't you? And where all of this could lead?"
"Yes. I do."
He snorted. "Thought so."
Clark finished his coffee and got to his feet. "Great coffee, as usual. I’d better get to the office
before the chief puts a price on my head."
"Yeah, see you, Kent. Oh, hey! How's that little girl doin'?"
"Thought you’d never ask, Louie." He grinned and slid his hand into an inside pocket of his
suit jacket. He brought out a photo of Mara with a big gap toothed smile sitting inside an open
cardboard box, and handed it to Louie. "She'll be crawling any day."
Louie allowed himself a rare half smile as he looked at the image. "Sure is gettin' big, Kent."
"She certainly is. Keep it," Clark said.
Louie carefully put the picture in his vest pocket and looked up, but Kent was gone. "Damn,
that guy can move fast when he wants to," he muttered, getting up and going over to see what
was left in the boxes on the pool table. "Didn't get a chance to thank him."

5- Five

Mara was asleep as Lucy lifted the carrier out of the stroller and put it on the table beside her
laptop. The computer tables were in the center of the main room and the quiet whoosh of fans
in the ceiling high above them was the only sound to be heard. There were a handful of people,
guys in suits milling around in the aisles between the bookshelves that lined both sides of the
computer area and another handful were spread out using the computers. She put a thin blanket
over the carrier, leaving an open space on the side facing her so she could see the baby inside.
She folded down the handle of the stroller and pushed it under the table. Looking around one
final time, Lucy connected the laptop into the docking station and turned it on.
Her mother had suggested researching back sprains the last time they'd talked. Doctors in
eastern Europe had written a paper with a new approach to treating sprains in athletes and the
paper was getting a positive buzz in US medical circles. She might not be working at a hospital
anymore, but Ellen Lane was staying current in her field, and since returning to Metropolis, she
was pushing Lucy to do the same. For the first time in her life Lucy didn't mind, and she
wasn't sure if that was because she’d grown and matured, or if her mother had modified her
approach and was less vociferous and pushy than she once was. She certainly seemed to have
more of a sense of humor these days. Or, maybe I‘ve forgotten that she always did.
"Miss Lane?" a voice said softly.
She’d been making notes for over an hour when she caught a whiff of perfume and looked up
and the head librarian, Doreen Something-or-other, was standing beside her table with what
looked like a plastic tray in her hands. "Yes? Is something wrong?"
The woman smiled. "Oh, no. As you've probably heard, we’re about to begin upgrading our
computer system with an entirely new set up."
She nodded. "I've heard."
"The supervisor of the project is here and she would like to ask you a few questions about the
current system and what you might think needs improvement the most."
Lucy didn't try to hide her surprise. "Me? Doreen, I know very little about computers. If they
turn off and on, I'm happy! If I could bring one of the baby's big brothers in, he could talk
your ear off, but me. . ."
"She wants to talk to some of the people who use our computers the most. So far, you're the
first of our regulars to come in today."
She? and his wife were making a personal donation of one million dollars to the library for a new
computer system. LexCorp was footing the bill. She assumed Luthor would oversee the job.
Whoever the supervisor of the job was, maybe she might be able to tell Lucy something about
Lois. She nodded and smiled. "Alright. I'll talk to her. I just need to shut down my laptop."
Doreen lifted the plastic tray. "All you have to do is close it and let it hibernate. With this lid I
can cover it and lock it down and it will be safe to leave it. We have the key at the front desk.
We'll unlock it when you come back. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes."

Perry White stared at the pictures on his computer screen with disgust. He’d come to recognize
Mrs. Cox, who was Lex Luthor's "executive assistant," on sight over the years.
The photos on the memory card Louie Walta had passed to Clark were high resolution and the
enlargements were clear as day. He could see the smirk on her perfectly made-up face, the tiny
diamond pin on her lapel and even the license plate on the white, stretch limousine from which
she’d just emerged. The photographs might have been taken from the equivalent of several city
blocks away, but the photographer could have been standing ten feet away from her, the shots
were that clear.
"Luthor has control of a union dock," he muttered.
Jimmy Olsen, seated at Perry's desk and loading the photos into a file the editor could encrypt
later, nodded. "Sure looks that way. He could be bringing anything in and out of the country
through that dock. He's gotta have someone from the government on his payroll."
"Yeah, or someone so incompetent they’re too lazy to be thorough in checking shipments.
He'll run just enough legitimate business through to smokescreen whatever illegal activities
he's got going."
"At least we know the operation is new."
"It would be my guess that her employment business was founded just to take over this dock,"
Perry said. "The whole thing is cover for possession of an import/export dock at Luthor's damn
disposal."
"CK thinks maybe we found the way he's bringing drugs in and out the country now, Chief,"
he said. "The accidents on the dock started days after the Feds started moving on the triple state
drug ring early last year and shut it down. Hell of a coincidence."
Perry nodded. "I talked to Henderson this morning and we thought the same thing. He told
me that new warehouse being built in the Mountain View industrial park is registered in Lois'
name. It’s a subsidiary business of the charity she founded three years ago to feed and clothe
the homeless, but the place is bigger than anything short of what a major supermarket chain has
built. He's starting to use her name more openly now."
Jimmy was horrified. "Chief. . .I’m positive Lois isn't involved in any of this! I mean, hell! I’m
sure she doesn't know!"
Perry nodded his head. "I know it, son. I’m not accusing her of anything and I know Henderson
wasn't either, but there are Feds working with us who have their doubts." He sighed. "The
longer she's with him and they’re a happy couple, the more they’re going to get suspicious.
Just so you know, and I don't agree with them, but she's going to have a tough time proving to
them she's not a collaborator in his crime syndicate. But, I know her. I think she just fell under
his spell and he's been able to keep her snowed one way or another. She’d have got word to us
somehow if she wanted out." Hell,just yelling for Superman would do it.
"I know," Jimmy said quietly as he finished what he was doing and got up. "That's it, Chief.
Just add a password and that file is accessible only to you. Jack's program will encrypt it
after that."
Perry nodded and took the seat Jimmy had just vacated. "Did y'all trace that license plate?"
"It’s registered to Quality Personnel and Temporary Staffing. I need to verify the VIN number
to trace the car itself, but I'll bet you anything it can be traced straight to LexCorp's fleet of
cars. The VIN on record lists QPTS as the owner. No way a two year old business can afford
a car that expensive free and clear. Clark says she's making a profit but not in the millions, and
believe it or not that's a car worth a quarter of a million dollars. The rental could be nearly ten
grand a month."
"That makes my head ache. A damn car?” He shook his head. “Where is Kent, by the way?"
"He and Eduardo are meeting a source on the safety inspectors article they’re doing. He was
going to ask Superman to check that VIN for me, too."
"Call them. Tell them to bring back lunch." Perry laughed. "That's the best use for these here
newfangled little cell phones I can think of." He made a derisive sound. "What the hell were
they thinkin'? We all want to play like we're on Star Trek?"

The head librarian led Lucy into the administration wing of the library and along a hallway
leading toward the back of the building. They entered an empty outer office with a desk and
chair for a secretary and Doreen finally stopped and knocked on the side of the open door to a
large office with windows overlooking the rear parking lot. Lucy recognized what part of the
building they were in.
"Mrs. Luthor?" Doreen said politely, and behind her, Lucy's eyes widened in surprise. "One
of our most frequent visitors has arrived and agreed to speak with you."
"Fine," answered a familiar, but now brusque and lifeless, voice from somewhere out of sight.
"Show them in, Mrs. Long, then leave us to talk."
It was all Lucy could do to keep from shoving Doreen Long out of the way and running into
the room. As it was, she rushed around the woman and took three steps into the large room.
Two chairs with a low table between them were next to the door and Lucy placed the baby carrier
on the table. She lifted a part of the blanket and left it open for ventilation. The baby was still
sound asleep.
The office, easily thirty by twenty feet, was empty of anything but a large desk, a laptop, a chair,
a high drafting style table covered with rolls of paper, and the furniture by the door. Two large,
double doors with glass panels opened onto a small area meant for potted plants overlooking
the larger, wider elevated walkway at the back of the building. Seated at a desk along a bare
wall twenty feet away was her sister. Lucy was frozen in place, afraid to speak or make a move
until she knew what reception her sister would give her. It had been almost three weeks after all.
Only after she heard the door click shut did Lois Luthor minimize the screen on her laptop and
look up to see who'd been shown into the room. Immediately, her heart began to hammer even
as her mind seemed to go blank. She could feel herself rising to her feet and stepping to the corner
of the desk.
The woman with the golden tan and sun-lightened hair from the day of the library benefit was,
again, standing a few feet away from her.
"Lucy!" she said in a high pitched voice. "It was you!"
"Lois!"
And somehow or other, they were meeting in the middle of the room and grabbing onto one
another and hugging each other as tightly as they could.
"Oh, Lucy! That was you! That was you I saw!"
"Well, of course, it’s me! I can’t believe it’s you!"
"What? Why wouldn't it be me? Who else do you think would be here doing this?"
"I don't know! What are we talking about anyway?!" Lucy pulled back from Lois and looked
into her eyes. "It’s so good to see you, sis! I was afraid I’d never see you again!"
They embraced tightly again, pulling away slowly.
"Don't be silly!" Lois said. "All you had to do is call. I've sent you my phone numbers almost
every week, hoping you would come home soon, or at least call me."
Lucy felt her eyes fill with tears. "I don't know where you've been sending them, but they sure
haven't been coming to me."
Lois looked shocked. "Oh, god. . . Luce." She pulled away from Lucy but kept her hands on
her sister's upper arms. "We need to talk, but I need to sit down first because I know I’m not
going to like this. I need to know exactly what you've been doing since you left for college in
California. I tried to get in touch with you, I wanted you to come to the wedding, but I couldn't
seem to connect with you and the university said you weren't there anymore, and no one could
remember you so no one knew where you might have gone, and they said after your course was
cancelled for the term, so many students transferred out at the same time, and the records were
incomplete-"
"Wait, stop! You’re losing me," Lucy said. "They told you that? Do you mean the university told
you that garbage?"
Lois turned toward the two comfortable chairs beside the door and started to lead Lucy toward
them but, just as the she did on the library steps nearly a month ago, she saw a baby carrier
with a tiny body in it and the expression on her face froze, the color draining from an already
pale complexion, and she didn't know what to say next. She could only stare.
Lucy saw her stop and was puzzled by her reaction. "Lois? What exactly did the college. . ."
She realized Lois was staring at the baby carrier. Oh, the baby! "Lois, this is Mara, the baby
girl I take care of. I work as a nanny. I can’t seem to get a job as a physical therapist anywhere
in Metropolis, so I've had to take odd jobs to stay solvent. So far, being Mara-mouse's nanny is
the best job I've ever had." She smiled and went to the table and slowly pulled the carrier
around and lifted the blanket away from it. She lowered her voice. "Would you like to see her?
She's adorable!"
Lois suddenly didn't know what to do with her hands. She stepped closer to the low table and
chairs.
Inside the carrier was a sleeping child dressed in a bright pink T shirt and bibbed, denim
shorts, pink socks and one tiny white sneaker. Shiny brown hair, about two inches long,
hugged her head in a mass of nearly straight, but still noticeable, curls.
Lucy was laughing. "She keeps pulling her shoes off because she loves to play with the laces.
Isn't she beautiful? She looks like her daddy. Her eyes, her little ears! She's spoiled crazy by
her older brothers, but I just adore her so much." As she spoke, she found the other shoe
between the baby and the side of the carrier and put it back on the sleeping child.
"You know what? Mom, our mother, Ellen Lane is crazy about her, too!" She grinned up at her
sister and was instantly on her feet, her expression changing to worried and puzzled. "Lois?
What's wrong?"
Lois closed her eyes tightly for a moment and let Lucy ease her into one of the chairs. As she
sat, the sleeping baby moved, shifted position and curled up on her side and Lois watched her
rub her eye with a tiny fisted hand and settle back into a deep slumber.
She drew in a breath and looked at her sister. Lucy was dragging the other chair closer.
"I’m fine," Lois said in a small voice. "It’s just for a moment there I thought the baby might be
yours. . .but, you would have sent me an announcement if she was, wouldn't you? Or, if you got
married?"
Lucy frowned and looked at her questioningly. It was an odd question to ask considering the
circumstances under which she’d learned of the Lane-Luthor wedding. "Lois! Of course, I
would have told you about that kind of major event in my life." She shrugged. "I would have
tried, anyway."
Lois made an effort to keep from jumping up and pacing. "What do you mean? You would
have tried?"
"Lois, you aren't the easiest person to communicate with, you know."
She frowned and spread her hands. "Meaning?"
Lucy got up abruptly and walked away a few steps before turning back. "Maybe we shouldn't
talk here, Lois. I have a lot to tell you and it’s going to be hard for both of us." She pointed to
the curtained, double doors beside the desk. "Do those doors open?"
Lois stared at her for a long time. "The librarian said there are alarms, I think."
Lucy smiled and pointed at the baby. "Watch the mouse. I'll be right back." She winked. "You
need a personal assistant - a secretary - and I know just who it should be."

A short time later, Lucy Lane pushed the baby stroller across a downtown street and entered a large
park two blocks from the library. Every now and then since they’d sneaked out of the library, Lucy
could see from the corner of her eye that Lois would turn and look at her for a long time
before looking away again. She wondered what she might be thinking with each look, but Lois
said nothing, just followed her lead without saying a word. Just as well, Lucy thought. She was
having a hard time keeping her face straight at the change from Mrs. Lois Luthor, designer
mannequin, to the woman in mismatched clothing her sister had undergone.
From the moment Lucy returned to the office of Mrs. Luthor with Stephen Sully, her sister
seemed to give herself over to whatever Lucy had planned without asking questions. Stephen
had disarmed the security system in the two room office and opened the doors next to the desk,
then he’d run down to his locker and returned with a baseball cap, one of his extra T-shirts
and a pair of tight leggings he used when riding his bicycle. Lucy had given Lois her running
shoes she had in the baby's duffel pack and left her to change clothes in the office's small,
private half bath.
Lucy went back to her desk in the main reading room, collected her laptop and left the library.
She pushed the stroller around to the back of the building, careful to avoid detection from the Luthor
bodyguard who was just inside the door, keeping an eye on the back entrance of the building. A few
moments after she reached the parking lot, she saw Lois climbing over the stone rail of her plant
balcony and running down the nearest steps to join her in the parking lot.
Walking along a wide concrete path that led toward the center of the park, Lucy pointed ahead
toward a sandy baseball diamond with a rusting backstop and wooden bleachers painted a
dull, weathered pink color that might have been red decades ago. "Mara's father and brothers play
baseball games here on weekends in the Office Workers' League. I bring her sometimes to watch
or I bring pizzas and we eat on one of the picnic tables after the game. There is a little gazebo over
there where you and I can talk."
Lois nodded and looked around. There were playgrounds with parents and children using the
equipment, people walking, jogging or sitting on the grass just getting some sun. She pushed
her sunglasses up her nose and saw the gazebo ahead. It was small, with room for six people
and it was surrounded by flowerbeds and bushes and it had only one entry/exit. Children were
playing close by on one side and city traffic was noisy on the other side due to a five-way
intersection with a traffic officer on duty directing with a very shrill whistle. She looked down at the
'mouse' but she was sleeping through the noise and she had rolled over onto her tummy along the way.
Lucy stopped the stroller at the foot of the steps of the gazebo and leaned down to unfasten the
carrier from it. She went up the steps. "This is a private place to talk, sis. My boss sometimes meets
with people here. No one is paying attention to us with this much racket going on and even if one
of your bodyguards followed us he couldn't hear anything even with the best long range equipment.
I have Superman's word on it."
Lois followed and gave her a surprised look. "You know Superman?"
Lucy put the carrier on the floor at her feet and sat on one of the benches along the edges of
the hexagonal gazebo. "Lois, I've been trying to get in touch with you for five years. Yes, I
even asked Superman to help me, but he politely declined. When you became Mrs. Luthor,
even Superman couldn't help me get in touch with you. He would never cross that line."
Lois was almost afraid to ask. "What line?"
"He refused to do anything that might be considered coming between a husband and wife.
Even though he understood that Mom and I were worried about you, he wouldn't cross that
line." She smiled a little and shrugged. "He's loosened up a little about some things since then,
as you might have noticed, but I've never asked him to help us again, so I don't know if that
line is still there." She shrugged. "It probably is."
Taking a deep breath, Lois knew she had to go for it. Why was it so hard? She was - she used
to be an investigative reporter, for pete's sake! She could do this. "Lucy, what happened to you
after you went to California? Did you ever know a man named Adam Whitmill? Have you ever been
to Alaska?"
Lucy was surprised. "Adam? God, I haven't thought about him in years! Why are you asking
about Alaska? I mean, Adam Whitmill was from Alaska, but no! I've never been there. We
were in the same PT program in California, and after the first year we both, along with a lot of
other people, got all-expenses-included scholarships to continue our studies at a new clinic
that opened in Washington state. We were friends, study partners, and we stayed close during
that year." She shrugged, a smile crossing her face. "Last I heard he and his partner - Adam
was gay - were living in Hawaii and were adopting a baby. How do you know about him?"
Lois took off the baseball cap and ran a hand through her hair. "Lucy. . . Someone has been
sending me email in your name for the last four years from Alaska where you’re supposed to
be living and working with your boyfriend, Adam Whitmill." She looked away, out over the
park. "I had no reason to doubt they were from you until I saw you on the library steps two, three
weeks ago. I’d received one of the emails just a short time earlier from you in northern Alaska,
saying you would be there for the next several months."
Lucy looked appalled. She grabbed her sister's hand and squeezed it. "Listen to me, Lois. I
came back to Metropolis a year after you and Luthor were married. I tried to get in touch with
you, I left message after message at LexCorp, LNN, and at the charities you were handling. I
tried to sneak into the fund raiser for the children's home at Christmas four years ago. I was
pretending to be a reporter in the press pool, but security must have been on the look-out for
me because I was spotted and escorted out. I couldn't get past LexCorp's security to see you or
even to just have a note delivered to you. They stonewalled me at all turns. By then I couldn't
find a job and I was running out of money. Daddy and Mother had gone from the city and no
one knew where they were. I went to see Cindy and Dana and found out all the Logans were
still angry at you because they weren't invited to your wedding."
"Yes, they were!" Lois protested. "I made sure they were all on the list of guests! I had Dana
to get even with, after all!"
Lucy laughed, then shrugged. "They didn't get invitations, Lois. They didn't know where Mom
and Daddy were, either, but they sent me to Uncle Mike's restaurant to see if he knew anything."
"Uncle Mike has a restaurant? He left the service?"
"Yeah," she said, nodding. "The Americana, on the South Side. He opened it a few months
after your wedding, I guess. Even a year later it was barely more than a café, but it’s grown
over the years. He hired me after we both figured out Mom and Daddy had been driven out of
town and someone was trying to force me out, too."
Lois looked stunned. "Driving you out of town? What do you mean? Mother went into rehab,
Luce. She’s at the Cameron Institute. Lex is taking care of her treatment. What happened to Daddy?
I knew he left but I never knew where."
"The laboratory where he worked closed and funding for his research was stopped. Uncle Mike
and I finally found him in Gotham City where he’d gone to continue his work. The hospital
where Mom worked closed and she couldn't find a job. She was on her way home from a job
interview in a nursing home when a car rear ended her. She wasn't hurt, but being a nurse, she
went to the hospital anyway, just in case, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in a
rehab clinic, accused of drunk driving."
"No,” Lois said. “The police told Lex she caused an accident. She was drinking again after losing
her job. She drove into some parked cars."
Lucy shook her head. "Not according to Mom. Uncle Mike and I found her in California and
she was livid, thinking you had her committed. I was able to prove I was one of her daughters, too,
so I was able to sign her out of there, and we brought her back to Metropolis. We did some digging
and we had to conclude, that someone was deliberately trying to isolate you from us by driving us
out of town - literally, if they had to. Mom got that nursing home job, even after all that time, and
I stayed on with Uncle Mike as the restaurant’s manager so he could concentrate on the job he liked
best - being the baker."
Lois shook her head slowly, thinking it over. "Lex can be pretty hard on his employees. I know
that, I've seen it. He abhors incompetence, and he'll fire people on the spot if he has to. Still, why
would anyone want to keep my family away from me? No one would be so afraid of losing their
job to do that! Lucy, I’m sure someone just misunderstood what Lex's people told them to do
regarding you, Mother, and Daddy. I mean, Lex has always been concerned about Mother. We've
talked about all of her relapses. . . every time. . ." Her words trailed off and she stared at Lucy.
"Where is she now?"
Lucy looked sympathetic. She squeezed Lois' hand. "Daddy bought her a little brownstone on
Johnson Drive after Uncle Mike told him what happened. She's working part time for a
nursing home and for a private practice on the upper west side. Mornings, she's the nursing
administrator at the retirement home, and afternoon's and evenings, she's the head nurse at the
clinic." She looked closely at her sister. "Lois, honey, I don't know what your husband and his
people have been telling you, but Mom is not in a rehab facility and I’ve never been in Alaska. We’ve
both been here in Metropolis for the last three years trying to get in touch with you any way we can.
Meeting on the steps of the library was a freak accident. Normally, I can’t get even that close to you
at a public event, and believe me, I've tried."
"Who is doing this to me?" Lois whispered in a shaking voice. "And why doesn't Lex know
about it? How could he not know about this?"
Lucy closed her eyes and let her shoulders sag. "Lois, please don't get mad at me. Promise me
you'll think about it, okay? Maybe not now, but later. Sweetie, there is only one person who
could possibly want such complete control over your life, and that is Lex Luthor. He started
taking control of your life long before you married him."
Lois jumped to her feet. "No, he didn’t! You’re starting to sound like Clark Kent now! He was wrong
then, and you’re wrong now! It might not be so obvious now, but Lex cares for me, he
loves me now as much as when we were married. He did love me, Lucy. He told me, he showed me,
he was there for me when no one else was, when my life started falling apart. He kept me together,
he was there for me." She whirled on her sister and glared at her. "Why don't you believe that!
Even after five years how can you not believe that?"
Lucy jumped up and returned her hard look. "Because I wasn't allowed to be there to see it,
Lois! I've been barred from being a part of your life for five years, and I don’t know why! What
employee would do that on their own? None! Whoever wrote those letters pretending to be me,
was doing what they were told!"
"Oh, that's right! By Lex! By the man who moved heaven and ear-" She stopped short and
swallowed. "Only his people didn't find you in Alaska, did they? And the progress reports on
Mother from the Cameron Institute are. . ."
"Sis, Mom is alive and well and as sober as can be. She's running two offices with an iron fist,
right here in Metropolis."
"Ooooh!" a third voice cried from the floor beside the women. "Aaayye!"
They both looked down and the baby was trying to push herself up from her stomach, but a
safety strap across her mid back was holding her down. She rolled to her side and turned her
head to look up and her lip shook and big tears formed in her eyes.
"Oh, Mara honey! I’m sorry, baby, we woke you up!" Lucy quickly undid the strap and lifted the
little girl into her arms. "Little one, you are so cranky when you wake up!"
Mara made an annoyed sound and two little fists rubbed at her eyelids and then two sleepy
looking blue eyes focused on Lucy and the baby's irritated look was replaced with a smile
as Lucy covered her little face with kisses. The baby giggled and ducked her head when the
kisses tickled, moving from side to side as she leaned back and away.
"That's my Mara Jade! I’m sorry we woke you." Lucy looked apologetically at Lois and tried
to smile. "Lois, I’m sorry to be dragging you all over town. It’s almost eleven and I need to feed
and change Mara. My apartment isn't far from here. Why don't we go there and have lunch? I
can feed and change the baby and then we'll call Stephen at the library and tell him we're
coming back, okay?" She reached over and gave her sister's shoulder a squeeze. "I think we
both need to finish talking. Quietly, I promise. It'll just be about you and me. How are you,
how am I, where are we going from here. No one else has to be mentioned. Okay?" She paused
and wrinkled her nose. "Well, maybe we should talk about Mom's iron fist and how it still wants
to tan your backside for having her committed. (“I didn’t!”) Doesn’t matter. She said neither of us
is too old that we can’t give up sitting down for a month."

6- Six

Deputy Chief Bill Henderson, stepped off the elevator and looked across the newsroom of the
Open Book weekly toward Perry White's office. It wasn't as big as the Daily Planet's old
newsroom had been, but at least there were no steep stairs or ramps with useless rope handrails
with which to contend. It was just as noisy, though, and you wouldn't think it could be with
the quietness of modern computer keyboards. It hummed with the sound of printers, copiers,
ringing phones and other devices in use. The TV monitors mounted on steel support columns
all around the room were on low with a constant showing and re-showing of stories on the
twenty-four hour news channels. The mixture of voices was almost hypnotic, he thought. Now
and then people would stop to increase the volume and watch an event unfolding somewhere
in the world and then rush to their desks to call, page or email someone for details.
After more than six years, a Superman appearance at an accident scene or other chance event
was still fascinating to people, even though there were other superheroes to share the limelight.
There was just something about the big guy dropping out of the sky in a streak of red and blue
that was just plain nice to see.
So there, he thought and started across the room.
The long, narrow room was littered with desks in little cubicles and the back wall was lined
with offices and conference rooms. He nodded at the young woman behind the information
desk as he strode past her, and without looking he knew she pressed the buzzer keys to White's
office and to Clark Kent's cubicle.
Ahead, he saw White look up from his desk and stand, doing something at the computer
before coming around the side of the desk to meet him at the door. Looking to his right, Bill
could see Kent's desk was empty, but Eduardo Friez, Kent's investigative partner was at his
desk a few feet away.
Perry White had his door open and was standing aside to let Henderson pass. He closed the
door after he had. "Come on in, William. Have a seat." He returned to his chair and looked
at his guest curiously. "To what do I owe two visits in one day? I'll bet it’s my rapier wit!"
"We got a heads up on the Feds a few minutes ago," he said, dropping into a seat and starting
to unbutton his jacket. "Our listeners learned two of their agents ran into Lois Luthor over on
Clinton Street, checking out the three hundred block, and they started following her. She went
to the library immediately after. She's going to oversee the installation of the new computer
system LexCorp is funding. After she lost them, her bodyguards went straight there to wait for
her. The agents following her suspect she's up to something and requested clearance to tail her.
They got it, but there’s been no call to us to share information."
"They’re going behind our backs on this," Perry said.
"Seems so."
Perry smiled. "Do they know about Lucy?"
"No," Bill said with a shake of his head. "We didn't share that information with them. We couldn't
think of a reason they needed to know." He shrugged. "It evens out."
"Do you know what made them suspicious of Lois? Maybe we can get word to her through the
library that the Feds might be looking for evidence on her."
Now it was Henderson's turn to flash a rare smile. "We think that's why they aren't sharing
information with us. One of the agents who requested permission to follow her is the guy who
worked as her bodyguard two years ago, Scardino. He was Smith, the one fished out of the river
the night after Luthor fired him, and blew up his apartment building, for being too familiar with
his wife. The other agent is Rich Wallace. He's been assigned to Metropolis about five years."
Perry stared, lost for words. Then he started to nod his head. "They’re embarrassed."
"Maybe a little."
Both men started to laugh.
"Anyway, I thought you should know. Also, you should know I sent a team of UCOs inside the
library weeks ago, just to be safe, right after the Luthors made the announcement about the new
computers. They'll be able to tell us if the work being done is a legit donation to the library, or
a way for Luthor to use the library's resources for his own ends."
"We have someone working that angle, too," Perry admitted, and paused, then pointed a finger
at Henderson. "Not Lucy."
Henderson nodded and was silent for a moment. "Perry, this is going to bring up the subject of
collusion on Lois' part. I know you don't like to hear it, but the longer she's on the inside, the
more it looks like tacit approval on her part. You know the Feds have always been suspicious
about how much she knows."
Perry looked away, shaking his head slowly. "I just don't see her a part of it, Bill. I’d stake my
life he's got her snowed somehow. I don't like what that says about her, but I just can’t believe
she could know about him and not try to get away."
"Just be prepared," Henderson said. "If the Feds turn up anything, it might not be good news.
Plus, we don't know why Agent Scardino wants to go after her. Personally, I think the guy is
still in love with her, but his superiors aren't. Anything he turns up will probably be used to build a
case against her."
They talked about the Federal investigation of Luthor a while longer, a subject neither man felt
was being taken as seriously as it should be, this development being a prime example of the
shoddy way the G men were running their probe, in their opinions.
"Sometimes I think, everything we tell them goes in one ear and straight out the other," Bill
said, rising from his chair and straightening his suit.
Perry nodded and got to his feet wearily, walking his friend to the door. "So she went over to
the Clinton Street apartments, huh? There could be any number of reasons. . ." But his words
trailed off as if he didn't quite believe it, despite his faith in her. It just bugged him that she
would do that at all. "Bill, no matter who she was looking for, it means she had absolutely no idea
what happened there. She was expecting to find whoever it was."
Henderson shrugged. "Could be, but let's worry about it if and when the time comes. I hope
you’re right, anyway, but the Feds aren't guaranteed to agree."
Seeing him out, Perry White went back to his desk and sat down, leaning back in his chair and
swiveling it around to look out the window behind his desk. Normally, he was satisfied with
the view - treetops among the tops of other buildings on the next block, some of them new
apartment buildings with flower decorated balconies, and then, taller structures beyond them
with the tops of the downtown skyscrapers dominating it all. Metropolis was his city. There was
blue sky and clouds above it, but today all he could see was haze dulling the colors and shapes.
"Aw, Lois, honey," he muttered aloud. "What were you doing there? Looking for Clark? Or
Jimmy? Or someone else?"

1997
The six a.m. explosion was heard throughout downtown and the smoke from the resulting fire
was seen in the farthest north and west of Metropolis' suburbs. Windows were broken within
a seven block radius of the old apartment building on the 300 block of Clinton Street, and the
buildings to either side of it and across the narrow alley were destroyed by the blast.
Forty-four people had died instantly, seven later from their injuries, nine were unaccounted
for. Superman had been on the scene within minutes, just ahead of the first firefighters, but
the damage had been done and couldn't be undone.
Perry knew it was bad news when Clark stepped off the elevator a few hours later. He came
straight to the morning staff meeting in the conference room next to Perry's office and closed
the door. "Spill it," Perry had said.
"The explosion this morning. . . It originated next to Jimmy's apartment building, under what was
342 Clinton, an older structure. It was centered in the basement and brought it all down."
"Dear god!" Perry exclaimed. "It’s a good thing Jimmy was already here this morning when
I came in, or I'd have gone straight to the scene myself."
Jimmy Olsen was sitting quietly in a chair next to Perry. "I wasn't home. Superman took me
to photograph the saving of the beached whales in Portugal yesterday. We were on our way
back, close enough to see it happen. He dropped me off here and went to the scene. He knew
when the TV coverage announced the address people I know would worry."
Clark's expression stayed serious. "The blast took out five buildings in all, and two more will
have to come down. Sorry, Jim. It's a total loss. I stayed until the last body was removed and,
by then, the area around for a full block was being evacuated." He shook his head. "At that
hour, people were getting up, getting ready for work."
"How many?" Jimmy asked quietly.
Clark knew what he meant. "Forty-four from five buildings, seven with severe injuries, none
look good, and many who were treated at the scene and evacuated. The Red Cross is putting
residents up in the old library building down the street here." He placed a hand on Jimmy's
shoulder. "You should go down there and identify yourself before they release a list of names
of the missing. Superman and Inspector Wolfe said you were safe, but it wouldn't hurt to let
the authorities see you in person."
"Go ahead," Perry told Jimmy, waving him toward the door. "I'll fill you in later."
When the staff meeting ended, Perry motioned for Clark to stay and led him to his office. "Was
there a preliminary cause? A guess as to what caused it?"
"A gas leak was mentioned, but the rubble was still too hot to start an investigation. As usual,
Superman didn't want to compromise evidence by cooling it down instantly. He did tell the
investigators to sift through a specific part of the blast area. There was a suspicious item in
the debris."
Perry drew in a deep breath and closed the door to his office. "Comes damn close on the tail
of your article on drug running. Henderson said the Feds are following your leads into a fifth
state. Fifty some people arrested already, including four police officers. Ten million in cold cash,
bank accounts? Eduardo is writing it up for Thursday's edition."
"I don't see how anyone could identify me as the co-writer of the articles, Chief. Anyway, everyone
knows I don't live there anymore. The publicity about my first novel made that common knowledge."
He shook his head. "No, Perry. I don't think either Jimmy or I were the targets. If it wasn't a
gas leak, it wasn't because of us. Not many people know he moved into my old place after I left
and he's in no way tied to the Book."
"Someone may suspect. Someone has eliminated people on less."
Clark shrugged. "It’s always possible, of course, Perry." He paused. "Someone else may have
recognized my writing style and said something to. . .someone."
Perry grimaced. "Y'all think so?"
"Not really. My writing for the wire services is a good cover. No one is associating me with the
Open Book." He spread his hands. "I'm a novelist and a comic book writer."
"But it might not be an accident, you say?"
"Perry, I’m sure it wasn't, but Jimmy wasn't the target and I sure as hell wasn't being warned
about anything. I’d bet the target was someone else living in the building where the explosion
originated. The blast took down five buildings! That was more than just a warning to a reporter
who doesn't live next door anymore, nor to a photographer who does, but who may or may not
work for the Open Book. It was more specific than that."

1999
"And that very night Superman pulled Agent Scardino, all but dead, from the Hob's River,"
Perry said, still talking aloud to himself. We know now that Scardino lived in a ground floor
apartment and the explosion was meant to kill him because of the rumors he was getting too
close to Lois on a personal level, and when it didn't get him, he was beaten and shot and tossed
into the river. Now he has approval, permission, to follow Lois' every move. What's the matter
with that man? Does he have a death wish?
Perry straightened up and swung his chair around. Naw. Just a killer crush on Lex Luthor's wife.
Why else would he have come back to town? To get her outta there, is why. To get her outta there.
Damn fool idiot.
He tapped the mouse on his desk and the computer screen went from its screensaver to the story
he’d been editing when Henderson arrived. "Damn," he said aloud. "I better warn Lucy. She’d do
best not take Mara to the library anymore." He sighed. "Then you gotta quit talkin' to yourself,
you crazy old man, and get back to work before someone catches you at it."
He opened his email and clicked compose.

Waiting for the elevator, Henderson heard a buzz of excitement behind him. He turned and saw
something on the TV screens was attracting attention and the news staff was on their feet to
watch and listen. He looked at the nearest monitor and raised an eyebrow in interest, and he
didn't hear the elevator door open. Crossing his arms, he stood still and watched the coverage
of a Wonder Woman appearance somewhere out west. Superman might still be a marvel to
watch after all these years, but there was quite a bit to be said about his Amazonian counterpart.
The elevator doors closed quietly without him, intentions of returning to MPD
at 10100 4th Street pushed to the back of his mind,
Across the newsroom, Perry White burst out of his office. "Why’s everyone standin' around lookin'
up at the ceilin’?" he shouted. "We got a newspaper to get out! What do you think this is? Some
second rate weekly tabloid?"
"Yes!" his staff replied, and reluctantly turned away from the monitors and went back to their
desks.
Henderson watched until the end before pressing the elevator button again.

Lucy Lane was throwing her hands in the air in exasperation for the third time in minutes."Lo-is
Joanne! You are making me crazy!"
"Well, I’m not!" Lois said emphatically. "No one is controlling me, least of all, Lex! I have always
been my own woman and I always will be!"
Despite her best efforts at being understanding, Lucy was losing all patience with her sister. She
grabbed Lois' arm and pulled her toward the bedroom of the little L shaped apartment she used
on her days off from her nanny duties. "Okay, come with me and explain this."
She opened her closet and pulled Lois to stand in front of a full length mirror on the inner side
of the door. "Look at you. When you came to the library this morning you were wearing a dress
that probably cost three thousand dollars, and a pair of what? Eight hundred dollar shoes? I told
you I was going to hire an assistant for you, sight unseen by you, which I did, and I gave you this
joke of an outfit to dress in so I could sneak you out of the library by climbing out a window!
Now, you’re standing in my apartment letting me drag you around by the arm like a child!" Lucy
pointed at her sister's mirror image. "When in our entire lives have you ever let me take charge
of anything, or let me tell you what to wear?"
Lois stared at her reflection for a short time, her face blank until color started to rise in her
pale complexion. She was wearing tight lime green leggings with a black stripe down the sides,
a dark red Harley Davidson T-shirt that had seen better days, and she held a tan baseball cap in
her hand. She promptly threw it on the floor. "So help me, Lucy, you’d better have something
decent for me to put on because I’m not wearing this crap a moment longer!"
Lucy hooted with laughter. "That sounds more like my sister!" She waved her hand around the
room. "You won’t find anything better than thrift store Calvins here, I’m afraid, but they’re clean
and they’re mine. Help yourself."
"I can’t believe you let me walk down the street in this clown suit! I rode a bus like this! Who
dresses like this, anyway!?"
Lucy giggled. "No one recognized you. Biker punk doesn’t scream Mrs. Big Bucks Luthor. "
"Ah?" A little voice came from the floor. Mara was crawling slowly toward them, looking up
and clearly wondering what the heck was going on with the big girls. Yelling, laughing, yelling
some more, now more giggling - her little face was definitely puzzled.
Lucy dropped to her knees. "Baby, you're crawling! Look at her, Lois! She's crawling! Come on,
baby! Come to Auntie Lucy."
"Don't babies do it all the time?" Lois grabbed a blouse from a hanger, draped it over her arm
and went to the dresser to look for jeans. Lucy liked hers folded, not hung on a hanger.
"They have to learn how first and Mara just did! Clark and the boys are going to be so happy to
see she's started crawling! Come on, baby girl, you can do it!"
"Clark?" Lois said sharply, turning from the dresser drawers she was pulling open. She frowned.
"Clark who? What boys?"
As soon as she’d said the words, Lucy wished she could unspeak them but it was too late. She
reached out and scooped up the baby. "Oh, sweetie, I’m so proud of you!" She got to her feet
and turned to Lois, deciding to act as if she’d been engrossed in Mara's new accomplishment and
didn't hear her questions.
"You know, it’s half past twelve, Lois. If you were at the library what would you be doing about
lunch? Would you send out for it? I’d better call Stephen and arrange something. Even the great
venerated Mrs. Luthor has to eat. Do the bodyguards eat, too? Or just guard? Should I send him
to the deli on the corner for sandwiches? Just you and him, or the muscle heads, too?"
"Venerated? I know big words too, you know." Lois made an exasperated sound. "Where's your
phone? I'll tell him what to do, but don't think you've changed the subject, Auntie Lucy!"

Dropping onto the roof of the abandoned Daily Planet building, Superman went to the southwest
corner and sat down, swinging his legs around to hang over two sides of the raised ledge, to view
his section of the city. The south side, the west end were the parts of the island he’d become so
familiar with in the last five years. With most of the tallest buildings in Metropolis north of the
old Planet home, he had a view of his work and home neighborhoods and the suburbs across the
river. This corner was a nice place to relax and think over the day's events, to unwind a bit after
a difficult rescue or other event and put the matter into perspective.
He liked keeping an eye on the old building, too. It was still standing after five years of virtual
neglect by LexCorp because of his repairs and improvements. The Daily Planet would return as
the greatest newspaper in the U.S. - perhaps, the world - someday soon, he hoped, and he wasn't
going to let long ago bomb damage frighten potential investors away.
There was no doubt at all in his mind, the building should have fallen that day. The bomb, a
powerful little device that gutted the printing/shipping floors and collapsed walls and floors all
the way to the tenth, was supposed to kill more than just a handful of people. The perpetrators,
of course, couldn't have known Superman, as Clark Kent, was in the building and had the ability
to limit the damage so dramatically. Still, the bombing ended the newspaper, ended lives and
jobs, and lost upper floor businesses that should have been destroyed, too. The resulting fires
should have killed people trapped higher up and further weakened the structure. If he hadn't been
there to quickly put out the fires and to stabilize the gutted areas, the damage would have been
catastrophic.
As it was, demolition was recommended, but for some reason LexCorp, or Luthor personally,
chose to leave it standing and watch it fall apart. Perhaps he liked the statement it made that
nothing and no one mortal was beyond his reach, that nothing and no one, mortal or not, could
stop him when he wanted things to go his way.
Fortunately, Luthor's days were numbered. In just the way he had conducted business for thirty
years, so, too, were the Open Book and the Henderson MPD task force relentlessly bringing him
down one piece at a time. The companies he’d caused to fail or fall in disgrace, and which he then
bought for pennies to add to his crime syndicate, were being taken away and he was forced to
scramble to keep his place in the markets they represented.
A sudden blare of sirens caught his attention and Superman turned his head to one side to listen
. . .routine traffic stop. He listened for a while in case the driver decided to do something out of
the ordinary, but there was no need for his services.
He’d missed lunch, having sent Friez back to the Book with the deli food they’d bought earlier.
Maybe someone else in the press room did, too. He decided to stop at Mike Lane's place, the
Americana, and pick up something to take back to the newsroom. Leaning forward, he fell from
the corner of the building and was in flight a few seconds later.
Jack and Denny were hunched over a table in the break room when Clark returned to the Open
Book newsroom half an hour later with a large bag of sandwiches and dessert items from Lane's
kitchen. The red, white and blue bag was a giveaway as to what it contained.
They both leaped to their feet and grabbed for it.
Clark quickly raised it in the air. "Not so fast. I expect something in return, you know." They
knew he was teasing because he dropped it to the tabletop as he spoke. “Give me your best Bobby.”
"How about: Henderson was in to talk to Mr. White an hour ago?" Denny said. "I saw him leaving,
and Eduardo said he sat down with Perry for about a half hour, then left."
Clark got a cup of coffee. "Perry would have told me that, but I'll take it as a tip," he said
over his shoulder.
"No one was home, so we came here," Jack said, unwrapping a sliced key lime pie. "I
thought we could go out to eat, but this is just fine. Sugar! Lots of it!"
"Take the roast beef sandwich, too. Split it," Clark said. "I better let the chief know I'm
back."
"Okay! Thanks, Dad-Dad-Daddio. Mike makes the best roast beef sandwiches in town."
Clark and Denny exchanged a silent look of amusement. It still caused them to smile to hear
Jack address Clark that way. They both knew it was the baby, Mara Jade, who made Jack open
up so much. She’d changed him more in the last six months than Clark had been able to do
in the last five years. Denny, the boy who, at nineteen, still combed his hair exactly like
Clark Kent did, always found it easier to relate to Clark as a father figure than his brother
had. Mara had simply reinforced the connection for him. Still, they knew "Dad-Dad-Daddio"
was as close as Jack was likely to ever get. It was good enough.
"What?" Jack asked, looking at them and misinterpreting their smiles. "I'll split it evenly!"
Clark took his coffee and headed into the newsroom. Behind him he heard a blast of guitars
as a ring tone begin to play and Jack's voice answered after a bit, but Perry spotted Clark
immediately and waved at him to come to the office, and he left the boys to their lunch.
"Hi, this is Jack. . . oh yeah, Lucy! What's up? You need my car?"

7- Seven

Ellen Lane sat in a window seat of the Number Eighteen bus and wondered what her daughter
was up to now.Come to the apartment downtown, Lucy said. I have a surprise for you. Then she
hung up. Lucy's idea of a surprise was very different from what Ellen would consider a surprise.
She knew her daughter well enough to always expect the unexpected, the scarier the better. The
girl never did hold back when she did anything, be it falling in love or deciding what her latest
favorite anything was. Who could forget that pink fright of a hairdo when she graduated from
high school and decided that was the perfect thing on which to spend the gift of money from her
uncle? Seeing that for the first time did more to keep Ellen from drinking again after the first
symptoms of empty nest syndrome hit her than anything else going on in her life. Who needed
alcohol induced visions when real life was more entertaining without having to endure a
hangover? She's probably going to tell me she's going over Niagara Falls in a barrel for vacation
this year, Ellen thought and made herself smile. She looked out the window of the bus as a
Metroliner streaked by on the elevated rail above the middle of the street. The draft from it's
swift passing rocked the bus lightly and blew litter about in the street.
The news Ellen really wanted to hear, even though she knew it was wishful thinking, was
that Lucy had started dating Clark Kent. Not that Ben Hillen wasn't a nice young man, no, but if one
daughter didn't want Clark Kent, the other one should at least try him on for size. In a manner of
speaking, of course, she thought, making herself smile again. Just think of the beautiful grandchildren
that pair could give her. Lucy's lovely, laughing eyes, Clark's engaging smile, Lucy's spirit of fun
tempered by his level headedness. . . her hypothetical, imaginary grandchildren would be simply
awesome- in modern vernacular. Heaven knew, she already loved Mara Jade as a surrogate
granddaughter.

Earlier in 1999
The Randall Fields Family Clinic and Outpatient Treatment Center on the north side of the
city was a private practice unaffiliated with any of the major hospitals or health centers in
the metropolitan area; therefore it was outside the circle of influence Lex Luthor had over
the city of Metropolis. The facility's retirement home, in another part of town, was also
independently owned and operated.
When Ellen Lane returned to the city after more than a year in a west coast rehab facility,
she suspected her oldest daughter's husband was behind her inability to find a job to
support herself. It was a suspicion she would never be able to prove, but she knew. He was
cutting her off from Lois and there was nothing she could do about it.
Luckily, Ellen was not without friends, and she had a good background as a nurse despite
her past problems with alcohol. The senior partner in the Fields Clinic was an old friend
who had hired her immediately for both the nursing home and the clinic - before and after
her unfortunate ordeal in rehab. Even so, she had added her maiden name, Logan, to her
application, to throw Luthor's dogs off the scent if she was right about him. She was certain
she was, because Ellen Logan-Lane's employment status in the nursing profession had never
been questioned nor investigated. Hiding in plain sight could be accomplished so easily.
She was at her desk in a little cubicle at the back of the waiting room when the opening of
the front door caught her eye. The sun was overhead and at this time of day the reflection
of the sunlight on parts of the moving door always caught her eye and made her look up. A
tall, dark and handsome young man was entering the clinic with a baby carrier in one hand.
"Christmas is here," one of the receptionists at the sign-in desk whispered to the other.
Ellen had to agree. On a scale of Halloween to Christmas, he was definitely the latter. Too
bad he was probably half her age. As he approached the reception desk, she found herself
staring and wondering if she didn't know him from somewhere.
"Hello," he said to the nearest of the young women behind the desk, lifting the baby carrier
to place it in an empty place on the desktop. "I’m here to see Dr. Schuyler. My daughter is
a new patient. We have an appointment. I’m Clark Kent and the baby is Mara Kent."
Stop staring, you're acting like a fifteen year old, Ellen! she told herself, but she still felt
herself getting to her feet and walking briskly to the desk. Clark Kent. She definitely knew
that name.
"Is there a problem, ladies?" she asked the younger women before either could answer
Kent.
"No, no problem, ma'am! I’m just looking for a new patient form for Mr. Clark to fill out."
"Kent," the man said to Ellen with a smile. "I’m Clark Kent, and this is my daughter, Mara.
We’re here to see Dr. Schuyler."
"I'll take care of this, ladies." Ellen gave the younger women a stern look and turned to the
man with the baby. "Mr. Kent, please sign your name on the clipboard sheet, just there,
and then follow me. There are some forms new patients must supply for their record before
you see the doctor the first time." She looked into the carrier at a sleeping baby and she
had to fight to stifle a gasp of astonishment. Surely, she couldn't be mistaken! The child
looked so much like. . .well, she looked like . . .oh surely not!
"So this little one is going to be our new patient, is she? She's beautiful, Mr. Kent."
"Thank you, ma'am. I think so, too."
The baby appeared to be about six weeks old and she really was a beautiful little girl.
She was wearing what looked like a hand knitted cap against the early spring chill. It was
slipping a little to reveal wisps of dark brown hair. A matching scarf curled away from her tiny
shoulders. Ellen wondered who knitted them; her mother? Mr. Kent had no wedding ring.
A grandmother? Perhaps.
"What a lovely cap and scarf set. Does the child's mother like to knit?"
"I wouldn't know," Kent answered. "Mara is adopted. My mother made the set for her."
Ellen nodded. Just as she thought. Oh. . . Lois didn't have children, even after almost five
years with that husband of hers. It was a long time to wait before having a child. She'd
have thought Luthor would have wanted an heir as soon as possible, a son to carry on his
name and empire, a daughter to spoil and indulge, maybe. Not that she would have been
allowed to see any child Lois might have had, but, oh well, wishful thinking again. . . she
was getting good at it. What if Lois had followed her heart that day five years ago? What if
she hadn't believed it was too late, what if she hadn't chosen to keep her promise to Luthor?
This little girl might be the latest grandchild to join a brood of Kents she could almost
picture in her -
Kent had quickly signed the sheet and checked the appropriate boxes, then grabbed the
baby carrier and smiled at Ellen expectantly. Her thoughts interrupted, she smiled back
and led him to her desk.
A few hours later, she was with Lucy Lane in her cluttered office at the Americana
restaurant and Lucy was giving her an annoyed look. "Clark Kent needs a nanny?"
she asked. "Mom, I've met Clark and his boys who are both in college. Neither
of them needs a nanny, and even if they did, it wouldn't be me!"
"Of course, it isn't for them! He has an infant girl, and he has to hire a nanny to care for
her."
"Clark has a baby? An actual baby?" she asked, unable to fully believe what she was hearing.
"Yes. He's going to be bringing her to the Fields Clinic for her check-ups. Dr. Schuyler will
be her doctor. I met Kent and his family today, just a few hours ago."
Lucy was shaking her head. "Me, a nanny? I never babysat in my life, never been around
kids, let alone an infant. I’d be a disaster waiting to happen."
"Don't be ridiculous, honey. You're twenty-six, you’re smart, you’d be a natural, and if
you’re not, Mrs. Kent agreed to stay a little longer to make sure you’re going to be alright.
So come on, let's go talk to them! Mike said it was okay for you to leave early. He'll close
up for you."
Lucy shook her head. "Mom, I've been dating Ben, one of the cooks here, and we've got
something planned for tonight. I'll go with him to see Clark before we go to the movies."
"You’re going with me, Lucy dear." She dangled a set of keys between them. "Your uncle is
loaning us his car. We'll be back in plenty of time for your date. It's just as easy
to have dinner before you have sex, you know, dear."
"Mom! That's- That's-"
She grabbed her daughter's arm and pulled her out of her chair. "Mr. Kent is planning to
start interviewing candidates from an agency tomorrow, so you need to speak with him now."
Lucy was still looking at her in surprise and tried to pull her arm free. Ellen had a grip a
wrestler would envy. She stopped struggling. "Okay. . . okay," she said as Ellen’s words
began to sink in. "Did you ask about salary, hours? Will my responsibilities be for just care
of the baby?" She shook her head. "Clark Kent has a daughter? Wow!"
She shut down her computer and followed her mother to the back door of the restaurant.
"And, Mom, we’d better get back before Ben is off duty. He's really the first guy I've dated
since. . . since I got back from California. I've been so worried about Lois. Until I can sit down
and talk to her and know she's okay. . ." She made a shrugging motion. "I don't know. . .
friends, going out . . .things have changed. They’re just not so important anymore, but Ben
really is a special guy."
"I know, honey. I was just trying to get you moving. Your uncle Mike told me you don't date
as much as you used to, and even your cousins have noticed and wondered about you."
Lucy snorted. "Oh, right! I'll bet they have. They wouldn't know a decent party from a
crowd on a street corner waiting for a light to change! And how often has Cindy been married
now?"
"Oh, forget them! Come on, I can’t wait for you to see that baby!"

Ellen looked up at the third floor windows of Lucy's small apartment. Above the always
busy coin-op laundry in the middle of the downtown block of small businesses, it was a nice
location for a single woman. The manager of the laundry and Lucy's landlord, gave her a
wave as she walked by the open door of the laundromat. She and Ellen had known one
another in high school.
"Good to see you, Ellie."
"You, too, Izzie. I'll see what my girl wants and maybe we can talk later."
"Certainly. Hold on a minute. I have something here for Lucy. The Kent boys left their car
for her around the corner on Folger Street." She rushed to the doorway and handed Ellen a set
of keys.
"Thank you. She told me she had a surprise, maybe she's taking me somewhere." She waved
the keys. "We'll have lunch next week, Izzie."
The other woman nodded. "Okay. Just stop by when you're free. I always am."
Ellen nodded and opened the door to the separate lobby for the apartments above Izzie's
business. On the third floor, she got out of the elevator wearily to cross the small lobby to
Lucy's apartment door. She would much rather have met her at the Kent house as planned.
She loved seeing the baby and Lucy rarely brought her here. Oh, admit it, Ellen. You like the
cooking there, too. She rang the bell and the door was opened almost instantly.
"Hi, Mom, come in, come in," Lucy said, giving her a quick hug. "I actually have two surprises
for you. Mara started crawling today! We've been chasing after her all over the place, and
then, um. . . Well," she pointed into the room, "Lois is here."
"Oh, my god," Ellen whispered, staring at her eldest child. Mara saw Ellen and squealed
with joy and began awkwardly crawling toward the two women in the doorway, and Lois
slowly got to her feet from where she’d been kneeling on the floor with the baby.
"Mother. . . It's. . .so good to see you. You're okay!"
"Lois, dear. . . Oh, I saw your pictures on the news . . . I was hoping it was a wig!"
Lucy sighed. "Oh, Mom...no!" She turned to close the door and hide her smile.

Stephen Sully was picking over the elaborate lunch that had been delivered from the most
expensive restaurant in town. Steak sandwiches that melted in your mouth, baked potatoes,
an assortment of vegetables, cheese and fresh fruit, and a chocolate cake straight from the
chocolate gods themselves.
"Hey! Stephen Sully? You in there?" A voice called quietly from the open balcony doors.
He swallowed the chocolate covered strawberry he was savoring and looked to see two
young men, one about his age and the other a little younger, both wearing backpacks and
leaning over the balcony railing and looking inside the room.
"Yeah," he said and walked over to them, wiping his mouth as he did. "I’m Stephen Sully,
and you're. . . ?"
"Jack Kent. Lucy Lane sent me. This is my brother, Dennis."
Sully nodded. "The back door guard didn't see you, did he?"
"Naw, we came up at the corner," the one called Dennis said. "Lucy said to be careful and
we know how to do that."
"Okay," Stephen said. "You have to climb over the rail. This is how she sneaked Mrs.
Luthor out of here. Come on. The desk is over here."
"Mrs.Who?!" Jack asked, his voice breaking in a squeak, swinging over the railing, and
crossing the small balcony into the large office. Lucy hadn’t mentioned that when he talked to
her! "Lois Luthor is the one in charge of the new computer setup?"
"Better her than her husband," Stephen replied. "Yeah, that's her laptop over there. I'm
going to bring in a PC this evening and have it up and ready for her in the morning. Ms.
Lane, uh, Lucy, got me promoted this morning to be Mrs. Luthor's assistant. For now, I
have the telephones independent of the grid, and the alarms have been neutralized for this
office suite. I have to turn them back on before the head librarian locks up this wing
tonight."
"You know your electronics?" Denny said.
"My old man and all my brothers install this stuff for a living."
"It'll only take me a few minutes to do what I have to do." Jack said. "Do you think you can
bring that PC in now? There is a program I need to put on it, and I don't think it would be
safe for me to make another trip over here if I have to climb in and out of balconies. And
this one ain't no balcony as far as I’m concerned."
"It’s for show," Sully said with a grin. "Back in the day, this building used to be city hall.
This was the mayor's office." He indicated the lunch leftovers. "Look, help yourself to
what's left of lunch while I get the other computer." He left and closed the door behind him.
Jack nodded and sat down at the desk. The laptop was in hibernation, a stroke of luck, so
he went to work. Mrs. Luthor's password was easy to figure out. It was still Superman.
Having been part of the student team in charge of doing a similar update of the computer
labs at Metropolis University the year before, he set up a series of appointments with some
of the better companies in town to meet with Mrs. Luthor with proposals for updating and
outfitting the library, then did the same with other contractors that would be needed for
additional work. Lucy told him to be thorough but not hard to understand.
She was going to have a busy week, but he respected Lucy enough to write out a list of
things Mrs. Luthor should ask and expect from each meeting to help in hiring the right
people for the job.
He wasn't planning to snoop in her computer, but it was a potential Luthor information gold
mine . . . "Hey, Den? Get me a handful of CD-Rs from my pack, will you? I can’t pass up this
opportunity. We might be able to hack Luthor Industrial and LexCorp if this laptop is usually a
part of their net."
"Sure." Denny said from the drafting table where a feast had been laid out. "You gotta try
this chocolate dip, Jack. Even raw broccoli and celery tastes good with chocolate on it."
Jack gave him a disgusted look. "No way! You just had half a sandwich and dessert from Mike's
and you’re eating again? Come on, before the Sully guy gets back."
"The smaller half of a sandwich, you mean." Denny handed him two blank CDs and
watched as he began to transfer all of the files from Lois Luthor's laptop onto them. Denny
remembered her, just barely, from the post-Nightfall days. She was a reporter then, for the
same paper Clark worked for, and he remembered her as being very angry at Clark for an
article he wrote about her future husband, Lex Luthor. She’d been angry, but then got over
it after a while and they were friends until the bombing of the newspaper, the Daily Planet.
Of course, back then Clark wasn't his dad yet, but Denny had felt close to him from the
beginning and he knew how Clark felt about Mrs. Luthor when she was still Lois Lane. He
remembered how deeply hurt and disappointed he was when she married the creep, Luthor.
If Denny had any qualms about ethics as he watched his brother remove the second CD
from the computer and stash it in his pocket, those memories were enough to wash away
any guilt.
The brothers were savoring the cake when the door opened and Stephen returned with a cart
carrying a large flat monitor and a big hard drive tower. They both rushed over to help
with the set up.
They soon had it booted up and Jack was checking it out, installing his disk.
Stephen looked at him skeptically. "Should I really be letting you do that? I mean, you came
in through the window, hiding from the Luthor bodyguards, and this is library property."
Jack smiled. This guy was no fool. No wonder Lucy liked him.

Ellen didn't know when she’d been in such a situation as this before, so this was a new
one on her. She was sitting on Lucy's sofa and surrounded by her girls. On her right
shoulder she held baby Mara, who'd decided she wasn't going to share Grandma Ellen
with the new big girl, so she’d cried until she was securely snuggled against Ellen's
shoulder, her tiny arm curled around her possessively, with her forehead against Ellen's
neck so she could still peek out and see what was going on around her. Lois sat beside her
mother, clinging to her hand and leaning against her with her head on Ellen's other
shoulder. Lucy was kneeling on the floor between their feet and holding their clasped
hands in hers. Now and then she would reach up and brush tears away from Lois' face, or
her own, and Lois would do the same.
After some initial tears at seeing her daughter after their long separation, the nurse in Ellen
had made her calm down to comfort Mara - who was empathetic to the sudden weeping, but
feeling left out of all the Ellen hugging - and to soothe her daughters, who were either
charmed or surprised by the baby's apparent jealousy, and who were able to laugh a little
about it and get their wits together.
As nice as it was to feel so loved and needed, her daughter was weeping and Ellen wanted
to know why. "This baby is sleepy, Lucy," she said. "Would you bring her a bottle, please?
I think I can put her down and she'll go right to sleep, and don't be surprised if she's down
for a long time. She'll be tired from all the new exercise."
While Ellen fussed over the baby and took her to the bed, Lucy made a pot of coffee and warmed
some muffins from the freezer. Lois stood beside the kitchen table and watched her mother
quickly change the baby and bounce the bed gently to encourage sleep while she sat at the
edge of the mattress and talked or hummed softly to Mara.
This was an Ellen Lane she couldn't recall ever having seen before - and then she had a sudden
memory of watching her mother with a baby,( Lucy?) humming softly as they looked out a
window at the world. The song she was humming now. . .that was familiar, the same as in the
memory.
Before the coffee was finished, Ellen was bringing a half filled bottle to the kitchen and
putting it into the refrigerator. "She was tired. It took only one verse of Down in the
Garden and she was snoozing." She touched Lois' face. "That's the one you liked, too,
when you were her age."
Lois didn't remember it nor recognize the title. "Down in the Garden?"
"Yes," Ellen said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table. "The tune was Red Is
the Rose, but I had to make up words about the garden in the back yard because you didn't
like the words to Red is the Rose. If I hummed, you loved the tune, but not the words."
She looked at her thoughtfully as Lois sat in a chair next to her. "You were fussy about
words even then. Of course, you've lost that now, too late to do me any good. Heaven
knows how many lullabies I had to make up for you."
Lucy brought the coffee over and joined them. "I’m sure that was just awful, Mom," she teased.
"You were a lot easier to please. Whatever Lois liked, you liked." She took a muffin and
looked around. "And, I would like some butter." She got up and went to the fridge.
"Oh, sorry, Mom. I forgot. Anyway, Lois has been letting me be in charge today."
"I have not," Lois said. "I’m just letting you have your way."
"Liar. I've been leading you around like a puppy. Sit, Lois! Speak, Lois! Follow me, Lois!
Heel! Beg! Roll over!" She smirked at Lois who glared back but said nothing.
"Be that as it may," Ellen said, sitting down. "I’m assuming the two of you met up at the
library today?"
They finished the muffins and the pot of coffee, but Ellen and Lucy both noticed how Lois
danced around any questions about herself, how she gave vague answers or brief replies
when they questioned her. She let nothing slip and after their cups were empty, neither
of them had any idea why Lois was uncharacteristically weepy and clingy. She seemed well,
but she was hiding a lot from them. She worked hard to make them believe she was a woman
happy with her life and her marriage, but any attempt to make Lex Luthor a topic of
conversation was immediately put at an end. She was good. She still had her questioning
skills and her ability to lead a conversation, and in the interest of keeping her accessible to
them, Ellen and Lucy silently agreed not to push her - at least, not yet. They wanted to see
her again.
Lucy rose and cleared the table while Ellen held Lois' hand and watched her facial expressions
carefully. Lois had become a good actress in the last five years, but not good enough to fool her
mother and her sister, who both knew her much better than Lois ever suspected they did.
here was so much - pain? guilt? - hidden just under the surface. It broke Ellen’s heart to see the
fiery personality held so closely in check.
Her daughter had changed, quite a bit, thought Ellen, and it wasn't for the better.
"She's Clark Kent's daughter, isn't she?" Lois asked, breaking the silence and looking past
her mother toward the bed where the baby was turning onto her side and settling back into
deep sleep, the movement having caught her eye.
"She's adopted, Lois," Lucy said, coming back to sit down. "Her father was a cousin of
Clark's. He and his wife died in a car accident when she was just a week old. They left a
will stating they wanted the Kents to take her and raise her as their own in case anything should
happen to them. He and the boys went to visit and Clark thought raising another baby would be
too much for his parents at their age, so he decided to take her and adopt her himself. Mrs. Kent,
Martha, Clark's mother, came back to Metropolis with them to teach him and the boys how to
care for her." She looked at her mother and spread her hands. "She was born in Smallville, and
her parents wanted someone to take her who would let her know Smallville as she grew up."
"How did you get hired as her nanny? I can’t believe Clark would hire you."
"Well, why not me?" Lucy said, her expression turning into an indignant frown. "You're the
Lane he would have issues with!"
"Me? Issues? What do you mean by that? We were friends. We worked together."
"Girls! Please, let's not wake Mara. Lois, honey," Ellen said and squeezed her hand.
"Someone recommended Trish Schuyler, one of the doctors at the clinic where I work,
to the Kents as a good pediatrician for the baby. The day they brought her in for her first
appointment, I recognized the name. We, you and I, talked about a Kent the day you were
married and at the time I assumed you meant Clark Kent from the Daily Planet. So, when he
showed up at the clinic with an infant daughter I knew who he was and I helped him fill out
the paperwork for Mara." She shrugged as if it was nothing and went on to tell how she’d all
but bullied Lucy into interviewing for the job that very same day.
"That's how we became Mara Mouse's foster aunt and foster grandmother," Lucy said.
"Who is her mother?" Lois said. "That redheaded bimbo he's been with all these years?"
Lucy's eyes widened. "You know about her?"
Lois took a deep breath and shrugged. "I've seen them around. They do a lot of things with
that homeless boy, Jack, who was blamed for the bombing. Who is she?" She was proud of
the steady tone of interest in her voice.
Lucy watched her sharply. She wasn't fooled. "Dr. Lana Lang-Blake - oh, I guess she's just Dr.
Lang now, a psychologist. She was Clark's high school girlfriend, Lana Lang. She and her
husband broke up just before you got married, and she went home to Smallville to get over
it. After your wedding, Martha Kent told her to come to Metropolis and cheer up Clark.
You know what they say. The best way to get over a woman - or a man - is with another
woman or man." Her voice took on a teasing tone. "It took four years to get over you, Lois.
And her husband, of course. She and Clark broke up last year and she's touring the world
teaching her psychology course to gullible students everywhere. Books and infomercials to
follow! Met U makes a big deal about how she developed the course while teaching here."
She looked at Lois quizzically. "Lois, do you know that Clark adopted the boy you mentioned?
Jack and his brother, Denny?"
Lois was surprised. "Did he? When?"
"He became their legal guardian just before Thanksgiving, the year you got married. He
petitioned for adoption just before the new year and it was granted eventually. By then he
and Dr. Lang were together as a couple, so she added her name to the petition and she and
Clark are the proud adoptive parents of John William and Dennis Eric. . . Kent. They skipped
over the dull childhood years and went straight to the fun of raising street smart teenaged boys!"
"No. . . I never knew that. I knew someone else was arrested for the Planet bombing and Jack
was cleared, but I never knew that about Clark." Lois shook her head slowly. "I just . . .
lost track of everyone after the bombing, after Perry retired. At first, settling in at LNN took
up so much time, I. . ." Her voice trailed away and there was a brief silence before she spoke
again. "She's the mother to all of his children, then?"
Lucy nodded. "Yes, but she isn't Mara's mother. I mean biologically. She had her name put
on the new birth certificate as Mara's adoptive mother after Clark decided to take her."
"Sweetie," Ellen said, squeezing her hand again. "It’s true. Clark adopted the baby. She isn't
his daughter. Her parents were his cousins who died in a car accident."
"Oh, don't try to give me that bull! It’s a good story if you don't know him," Lois said, "but, I
can see with my own eyes," she pointed at the bed, "she is Clark Kent's daughter!"
"Well, take another look at her, dear," Ellen said in a lower tone. "Clark isn't her father.
Superman is!"

8- Eight

"I don't think she's in the building anymore," Dan Scardino said and took another bite of
his sandwich at the sub shop down the block from the library. He and his partner had stayed
inside looking at books for as long as they dared. Neither wanted the librarians nor the
bodyguards to become suspicious of them so they left at noon to get something to eat. From
the front booth of the sub shop they could see the front of the library. "I'll bet after the lady
with the baby left, Mrs. Moneybags slipped the goons somehow and got out of the building.
We should have been watching from outside. Front and back, just like the goons."
"As a former goon you would know this, right? So how come you never thought about it
before? I mean, we started out finding her because she gave the goons the slip, right?" The
partner chuckled at his own evaluation. "No wonder you never got anywhere with her.
You’re stupid."
"Shut up. She's probably sneaking back in as we speak. Tomorrow we watch from outside,
Wallace. Opposite corners."
"I’m not sitting in the hot sun all day so you can moon over the one that never was, but got
away anyhow, Danny." He rolled his eyes and shrugged at Scardino. "Come on, you gotta
know the AIC is probably laughing at you, right? Everybody knew you fell for her, buddy! Everybody
knows you pulled every string you had, called in all your favors, promised God
you’d start going to church again to be reassigned here. You had the benefit of the doubt,
you know. We thought it was to bring down Luthor for almost killing you. There won’t be
any doubt left after you begged the AIC to let us tail her, man. You’re just here for the Missus.
What? You think you can save her or something?"
Scardino stared at him in surprise.
"You think you have us fooled, right? Wait'll we get back to the office. You'll see."
"No. . .I don't think. . .it’s not like. . ."
"Look, Danny. Do you really think she isn't going to mention to her scumbag husband that
she saw one of his former employees today? The annoying one who tried to hit on her?"
"She won’t tell him," Dan said and gave a shrug. "They don't talk like that. They talk business,
the arts, social events, their charities. They don't even watch TV unless it’s news on LNN or
something on one of Luthor's other networks."
Wallace got serious, putting down his sandwich and leaning forward, arms on the table.
"Look. So far the jokes are going to be flying only in your direction, okay? So don't do
anything stupid to screw up this investigation any more than you have. That reflects on me. I like
it here in Metropolis, my family likes it here. If you get me transferred to Death Valley or somewhere
above the Arctic Circle, I'll kill you myself and send the bill to Luthor. He'll know who I’m talking
about, since you're back here in Metropolis and you're tailing his wife, so it’s just a matter of time
before someone notices and reports you to him." He shook his head. "If she doesn't tell him,
one of her goons might see you hanging around and talk. Don't get me killed either, man. Then
you have my wife and four teenage boys to face."
They both ate in silence for a while, but in light of Wallace's questions and his warning,
Scardino had a sudden moment of revelation. She wasn't surprised to see me. She doesn't
know her husband tried to kill me. He felt his shoulders slump as he hunched forward over
the table. That means she wasn't there for me. I lived in 342, but she was parked in front of
344. She was looking for someone who lived in 344. Aw, crap! Why didn't I notice this
earlier?
Funny how losing hope affected your whole body. His favorite sandwich, pulled pork, didn't
taste so good anymore. Oh, man, what have I done? I can’t call off the tail now. They'll think
I know something and I’m trying to protect her. I just doubled whatever suspicions Washington
has of her. Damn, damn, damn! Why do I do these things on impulse? Why didn’t I just shut up
and follow her?
He bundled his sandwich in the paper wrapping along with the last of his onion rings and
started to get up.
"Hey!" Wallace said. "I’m not done."
Scardino grabbed his drink and headed for the door, dumping the food and drink into the trash.
"I have to get back to the office. There was a list I asked for. I need to see it."
Wallace chuckled, getting up and taking his food. "Yeah, let's go. Hope you have a thick skin.
You drive. I’m finishing my lunch."

It was turning into a long day. Eduardo Friez had come back from meeting a source from the
docks who turned out to be a no-show. The guy had let his cell phone lapse so there was no
way to get in touch with him and find out what happened. He hadn't been to his usual haunts
in days and Friez wasn't the only one puzzled by his behavior. A call to another source was
met with stonewalling. He sat at his desk and played with his computer, looking over other
notes and messages to find something to write. Without his source, his major story was at a
dead end and that wasn't good news. He swallowed the last of his coffee and got up to get a
refill, passing his partner's desk on the way and wondering where he was.
It didn't sound like good news to anyone, so after Friez got back to the office, Clark decided to
do some eavesdropping. He left the newsroom, ostensibly to look for one of his sources, but as
soon as he reached the parking lot he was in the air, streaking away as fast as he could without
announcing his presence to anyone within earshot of the office park. Bruce Wayne's company
was kind enough to landscape the park in such a way that Superman could come and go as
quickly and quietly as possible when necessary.
"Trees return to the riverside" was how the Sunday supplements usually phrased it when
printing articles about the turnaround of the South Side, from decaying warehouses and
abandoned factories to the open spaced office park it was now. It wasn't the only part of
the city to show changes.
The old downtown airport was now a landing place for small, private planes and the control
tower was nothing more than a landmark as a new, modern building housed the tower now.
New runways made of modern materials had been built closer to the water where the pleasure
boats and small yachts rented space. The old runways were crumbling and allowed to be
overgrown but the tower itself was maintained by the city, though it received few visitors. It
suited Superman fine. The roof of the tower was painted bright red, and when seen from the
sky it was a splash of bright color amid the returning sea grasses and wildflowers covering the
old runways. He could land atop it, wrap his cape around himself and blend into the paint so that
only the most sophisticated cameras could tell he was there. From the top of the tower, the
main harbor ports were all visible to him and he could concentrate his hearing on the entire
length of the docks, listening to every kind of conversation or activity that happened.
Sometimes he came just to relax by watching the tugs bringing ocean going vessels into port
and taking another back out to sea.
Just now he wanted to see if he could hear anything interesting about what might have
frightened Eduardo's most reliable source into hiding. It had to have something to do with
Pier Fifteen as that was where their investigation was going now that they knew the toxic
waste clean-up was a smoke screen to hide the activities at the wharf. They were still looking
into the worries of the families about hazardous conditions imposed on the workers in that
area, of course, but it seemed that a nerve might have been hit when they started asking
questions about the harbor, too.
Superman settled back against the cupola at the very top of the tower roof and looked toward
the eastern end of the wharfs and began a slow scan of the busy waterfront from end to end. It
didn't take as long as one might think. The busy workers weren't doing any talking, the idle
ones generally were. So, find the ones taking a break and eavesdrop.
He heard opinions on a variety of subjects and amid work day conversations an occasional
gem would surface. It was the wait between the gems that had to be filled with rambling
thoughts . . .

1994
It was early December, mere days after Thanksgiving, and Clark and Lana Lang-Blake were
walking through a light snow in downtown Metropolis. The streets were still busy with
shoppers even after the late movie let out.
"What are a couple of small town kids like us doing in a place like this, Clark?" she said,
sweeping her arms in an expansive gesture before hooking a hand around the crook of his
elbow. "Back home only the bars out on the highway are still open and they’re an hour
behind us. Here, the whole city is still going strong and will be all night."
"Literally? We’re picking up the pieces of our lives and you're spying on me for my mother.
It’s what all small town kids do in the city." He moved his hand in a circular motion. "It
could be the other way around, too. I could be spying on you for your mom."
"I'll bet you are. I report to Martha, you report to Mom."
"I think you answered your own question, Red," Clark said. "We’re here because only the
bars on the highway back home are still open. Your life can be in a spectacular mess but here
there is always somewhere to go to forget about it for a few minutes and find the will to go
on."
"But you were here before that, and I was in Los Angeles before that. Did we really think we
could come to places like this and make a success of our lives?"
"Absolutely. That's optimism. Kids have it in spades. Things didn't go the way we wanted
them to or expected them to, but we’re going to make it, anyway. That's drive, Lana. You
and I have had it all of our lives."
Lana smiled up at him and slid her hand down his forearm and into his coat pocket where
she grasped his hand. "You’re making me feel optimistic again, Number Seventeen. I went
home to Smallville thinking I would never feel this way again. Did Martha tell you what
happened?" She paused a moment and he said nothing.
"You know I was twenty-two when I married William. He didn't want kids right away. We
were starting out new so we agreed he would re-establish himself at a different college and
I would begin a practice and build it up before we had a baby. We did both and when I was
ready for a baby, I told him. That was when he said he didn't want any more kids. The three
with his first wife were more than enough children for one man to have. They got along fine
with me and I enjoyed having them to stay, and he was right. I loved his kids but I told him I
wanted one of my own, too. At least one. That was when he told me after his third was born he
and his wife talked and agreed he would have a vasectomy. I realized then, when it was way
too late, it not only freed him from having another child, it also freed him to have affairs with
his students. I just happened to be the one his wife found out about and why she divorced him.
I wondered aloud if he’d been faithful with me. He didn't answer. Throughout the whole
conversation, I don=t remember seeing any sign of regret, remorse, guilt. . . He felt perfectly
justified doing what he did, and I knew it then. It wasn't a revelation that came later. I knew it
then. I packed a bag and left for home, for Smallville, immediately. I never went back." There
was a brief pause and a one shoulder shrug. "I wonder what he did with my clothes."
Clark looked down at her. She was looking at the ground and he couldn't see her face, but her
tone of voice had conveyed her sadness despite her attempt at humor. She had also shown
some anger, and a bit of resignation, he thought and wondered what he could possibly say
to her.
"Clark? I've been thinking. When you file for adoption of the boys, I’d like to be a part of it.
I get along with them, we all seem to like one another. I think it will be a way to fill that hole
in my life for now. I don't know if you and I will ever decide to have a child together, or even
if we can, considering, but if we don't. . . Well, we'll have the brothers in common."
"Lana, that's great of you to offer, but this is a huge responsibility. I promised to keep them
in school and see to it they went to college or learned a trade to establish a career, whichever
they wanted. I mean, parenthood, even through adoption, is for the rest of our lives. I'm
promising to be there for them even after they leave and go out on their own. They'll always
have a home to come to in the future. They’ll always be able to come home to me."
"I know. I was ready for a baby, and I would have welcomed one, but I've been watching you.
Just the way Martha and Jonathan took you into their lives, you've done that with those boys.
I enjoyed my relationship with Bill's children. I didn't mind the responsibility. When you
mentioned adopting the boys, I thought if I adopted them with you, it would give them two
parents, two people to share responsibility for them. They'll have a father and a mother.
They'll have two people with whom they'll always be welcome. And I can’t think of anyone
else with whom I would rather share parenthood than you."
He looked at her for a long time as they walked along. "We'll talk to them, then with the
lawyer. If you still want to, and Jack and Denny are willing, I won’t object."
They walked in silence until they reached the corner and waited for the light to change.
"Over here, Lana," he said and pointed to his right, along the cross street looking north.
The LexCorp tower, bright with light for the holidays, soared above the skyline, dominating the
other buildings at close to eighty floors and more than 1400 feet in height. Bright lights ringed
the top, like a crown, illuminating the helipad and making sure the building could be seen
for miles in all directions. The old clock tower, 800 feet high, was a smaller beacon in the
sky in comparison.
"She married the top of the tower," he said and made a helpless gesture accompanied by a
short bark of laughter. "How is that for a symbol to have to see, to have reminding you every day!"
"I’m sorry, Clark," whispered Lana. She dropped his hand and stepped in front of him to face
him and wrapped her arms around him. "You wouldn't happen to know of a big red barn
around here with nice private hayloft, would you, One-Seven?"
He looked down at her upturned face and gave a teasing half smile. "It just so happens I do,
Miss Winter Queen, tenth grade."
She laughed for the first time since she’d come to Metropolis, since they’d started seeing one
another romantically. It was a real laugh, not just a forced sound meant to convey amusement
she didn't really feel. She reached up to pull him closer for a kiss, right there on the street
corner, where anyone who passed by could see. The light changed a third time before they
crossed the street and left the sight of LexCorp tower to someone else.

1999
Clark shifted his position and began another sweep of the docks.
By Christmas, Lana was the fourth member of his new family, and they started the new year
with the understanding that what they had was special but maybe not permanent. If it ran its
course eventually, they could still enjoy each other's friendship afterward and be there for the
times when each would need the support of someone who cared. They would always be there
for the brothers.
Lana was gone from his life almost a year now, traveling the world and teaching a post-graduate
course she had originated here at Metropolis University to students in many countries. She
was in Europe at the moment, but soon she would be back in North America for a while,
taking her eleven week course to many U.S. colleges and universities, and she was thriving in
her new career. He wouldn't have blamed her if she’d simply moved on after they broke up,
but that she hadn't, meant a lot to him. When she heard he was adopting another child, an
infant girl, Lana had immediately offered to go on record as the baby's adoptive mother. She
still played an active, though long distance, role in the lives of Jack and Denny and Mara.
She visited frequently, and the boys had been to see her many times wherever she was in the
world. Between the two of them, Clark and Lana were showing the brothers the world.

"I tell ya, there was a ship at Pier Fifteen last night and it wasn't there when we were here
yesterday." The voice interrupted Superman's thoughts. He was concentrating on the big
warehouses behind a handful of piers that were closed and under repair. He zeroed in. . . A
group of five: three men, two woman, in hard hats were taking a break at a large cooler on the
back of a pick-up parked in the shade of an idle crane.
"I was down here, two o'clock," one man was saying. "My kid got up sick after midnight,
and I filled his prescription yesterday but I left it down here in my locker, so I had to come
down and get it. It weren't a big ship, maybe half the size of the ones you see out there now,
but two tugs were pulling it. Took it right out of the berth and it didn't turn on its lights
until they passed the deep water markers. Took just a few minutes and the tugs headed east
toward the palisades. Didn't see no chop behind it so it wasn't using its engines while
close in, props weren't turning. What do you think?"
"Pier Fifteen's bad luck," said another. "I know a guy who lost two fingers there when the
scissor lift he was working lost pressure and fell. They have a lot of accidents like that on
Fifteen. I hear they work temps out there now. Unions don't want their people going in
unless they deem it safe."
"Yeah, that's what I heard. It’s privately owned and it passed federal inspection, state
inspection, so the union can’t force the issue," one of the women said.
"Working temps in the dark?" the first guy said. "They’re asking for trouble. That isn't bad
luck. It’s carelessness. The almighty buck, huh?"
"Yeah, what's a couple of fingers compared to that?"
"Here’s the cement trucks, finally."
They tossed aside the paper cups they were using and started pulling on their gloves as a slow
parade of trucks came around the corner of one of the warehouses.
Just over a quarter mile inland, across the downtown airport, Superman got to his feet, looked
around and shot upward into the sky.

Perry was still lamenting the loss of the Friez story and the main slot leading off the Metro
News section of the next edition of the weekly, when movement in the newsroom caught his
eye. Kent was back and he and Jimmy were crossing the room together, talking about
something. Jimmy would shake his head and say a few words, and Clark would speak again,
and Jimmy would lean his head to one side and reply - obviously not telling Kent what he
wanted to hear. He got up and went to the door.
"Kent!" He made an "inside!" motion with his hand and turned to go back to his desk. Clark
came in and closed the door.
"We talked earlier about Lois being at the library this morning," he began and motioned for
Clark to sit. "I got hold of Lucy through email. She called me. I guess these little phone gizmos
are worth something after all. Seems Lois volunteered to oversee the new computer set-up just
so she could find Lucy. They sneaked out of there, past the bodyguards, and they’re at Lucy's
apartment now."
Clark was alarmed. "She's got Mara with her. Did the Feds follow them? Do they know where
Lucy's apartment is?"
"No, no, they’re fine. The baby's safe," he assured him, waving his hands for emphasis. "Lucy
asked for pictures of the agents, so Jimmy pulled a couple out of the system, god knows where
he found them, and I sent them over to her. She said both Scardino and Wallace were in the
library before she got there. She noticed them right off. They were wearing suits and they were
looking at books about ghosts and witches. They were still there when she left. She's sure she
and Lois weren't followed. She took Lois to the gazebo park before they went to her apartment.
If they were followed, someone would have warned her."
"Maybe I should send the boys over to get Mara, anyway."
"Lucy has it covered. She had Jack drop his car at her place. Ellen is with them now. They're
going to sneak Lois back into the library and then take the baby straight home." He paused and
spread his hands. "Lois is going to be at the library as often as she can and Lucy will just
keep going to do research like always. She promised to be careful."
Clark didn't relax at all. "It won’t take long for Scardino and Wallace to identify Lucy if she
seems to be friendly with Lois. I don't need them staking out my place."
"Clark, we’re talking Lois Lane's little sister here. The one who went into a rehab clinic and
swiped her mother out from under Lex Luthor's nose, and kept her out nigh over four years
now."
"Only because, as far as we know," he pointed out, "the people he's paying to keep Mrs. Lane
there have never let on to him that she's gone. When I hired Lucy, it was to care for my
daughter when I couldn't. I wasn't planning to turn Mara into a undercover spy."
"Lucy wouldn't do anything to put that baby in danger. She and Ellen know what Luthor's
long arm can accomplish." He paused. "Even if Lois doesn't."
Clark nodded. "I trust them, Perry, but I don't trust Lois. If, as you believe, she doesn't know
anything about Luthor, then she trusts him, and in a marriage like that there are few secrets
between man and wife. Especially a man so skilled in getting what he wants out of the people
around him."
Perry winced, but said nothing.
"Well, I'll be talking to Lucy tonight, maybe Ellen, too. Do you think we should get them in
here with Henderson to figure out how to handle this new situation. I have to put my
daughter's safety first, but at the same time I don’t want to lose Lucy."
Perry nodded and sat back in his chair. "I'll see if I can arrange that, sooner the better."
"Thanks, Chief."
Perry waved it away as if it needn't have been said at all. "What y'all get from your sources?"
"I think Eddie and I need to set up a stakeout. I heard there was a ship moored at Pier Fifteen
last night. It came and went under darkness. It wasn't there when the five o'clock whistle
blew, but it was there at two a. m., apparently brought in and towed back out by tugs coming
over from Connecticut. It stayed silent until the tugs had it past the deep water markers and
then it started the engines. It was described as a small freighter, but by the time I heard about
it, it had been at sea too long for even Superman to find it with only that to go on."
Perry was silent for a long time. "That man has got to be stopped. Whatever he's bringing in
or shipping out under cover of darkness, it can’t go on. You got any idea where you’re going
to find a safe place to set up surveillance? Pier Fifteen is surrounded by legit docks."
Clark smiled. "There is also a public wharf a quarter mile from it, on the other side of the
river, and Bruce Wayne has a yacht moored there. We'll need Jimmy to do video and set up
a link back here."
"Okay. You got him. Ray's a good kid, he can cover photography for a while."
"We'll need Tate and Paige, too. Go in as couples and alternate nights."
Perry nodded. "Jenny did a good job on the Ferris stakeout and Abbie has worked with Eddie
before on the Aspen Cleaners stakeout. You have 'em. I'll clear it with the suits."
"I'll get together with Ed and Jimmy, then, and make some plans." He got up and started for
the door.
"Clark?" Perry called.
He turned back, his hand on the doorknob.
"We all love Mara. She's safe with us."
"I know." Clark nodded once and left the office. I know that, he thought, walking to his desk.
Mr. and Mrs. Luthor are the problem.

Ellen Lane waited in Jack's car in the parking lot of the library. She could see her daughter's
bodyguard walking in a small circle at his station at the back door, looking around inside the
building, outside and down at the floor as he paced. She supposed she ought to be grateful he
was watching over her daughter, but she knew when push came to shove, his loyalties were to
Luthor, not to Lois, and he would turn on her in an instant. Besides, how good could he be if
both of her daughters just slipped back into the building after Lois was gone all day, and he
didn't know it? Collecting a paycheck and doing one’s job were two different things and she
knew of too many people who did the former at the expense of the latter.
After what seemed like hours, she saw Lucy climbing over the rail of the plant balcony of the
office she and Lois had both entered a few minutes earlier. Lucy looked toward the back
door, saw the guard's back was to her, and ran down the steps closest to where the car was
waiting. Ellen pulled the car up to the bottom of the stairs and Lucy ran around to the
passenger side and got in.
At the first stop light a block away, Ellen looked at her. "I guess everything went all right?"
Lucy nodded. "Yes. As far as anyone knows, she's been in the office all day. Steve Sully, the
guy I told you about, handled everything. I knew he would. But, Mom. . . The phone numbers
Lois gave us - don't try to use them. I tried to put her home phone number on my speed dial
but I was blocked from connecting with it. I couldn't get through to her cell, either.
Something is filtering out certain numbers. Stephen was able to call her cell with the library
phone and the call went through, her phone rang. I guess you and I are on the undesirable
list."
Ellen made a waving gesture with her hands. "It figures. I’m sure Luthor has all bases
covered."
At the next stoplight she pulled into the turn lane. "Do you think she believed us about
Mara?"
"I don't know. I hope so. We’re kind of playing with fire here, you know. If she mentions
it to Lex. . . Oh, Mom, maybe we shouldn't have said anything. What would Lex do if he
heard of something like that?"
"We have to get Lois out of there, Lucy. She tried so hard to be herself, but she just isn't my
daughter anymore. Not that hotheaded little girl who grew up to be the best at her chosen
career." She looked in the rearview mirror at the baby and adjusted it slightly. "Baby’s sound asleep."
She turned the car onto a side street. "Sweetie, Lois has to figure this out for herself, and if she can’t,
then Luthor has a stronger hold on her than we can break. We just have to hope we gave
her enough clues to come to the realization herself. She's always had a soft spot for Superman
and she would never reveal that Superman might have a child to anyone, not even to a
husband she trusts."
Lucy grinned. "Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when you blurted out
that Superman was Mara's father, and Clark was raising her for his friend!"
"I’m glad you caught on quickly. The way she was acting, I didn't need to have to start
signaling you in any way. If she had already noticed the similarity herself, instead of a similarity to
Clark, I’m sure she would have given it away, don't you think?”
“She was shocked by the suggestion!” Lucy said.
“But, what does it matter? Either way, her opinion of me is less than stellar. It would be just like an
old drunk to be so stupid."
“Mom!" Lucy said, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm, but the look Ellen gave her was far
from offended.
"Honey, I know what your sister has thought of me since she was seventeen years old and
stormed out to go live with your father. Barbara has helped me come to terms with my relationships
with my daughters and exactly how much of it is my own fault. I have no time to be wallowing in
self-pity if I want to make things right. And you know that Lois is my last amends."
Lucy said nothing, just looked at her mother and saw strength, resolution but not one sign of
the weakness that had driven her to alcoholism when Lucy and Lois were children. Turning away
to hide her own expression, she changed the subject. "Well, Lois certainly took a greater interest in
Mara once she thought she might be Superman's daughter and not Clark's!" she said with a
giggle.
"Oh, don't laugh at her!"
"Me? You’re the one who wished her hair was a wig!" Lucy fell into peals of laughter. "I can’t believe you
said that, Mom!" She doubled over, giggling.
"Don’t tell me you like her hair! It looks perfectly awful this way! Doesn't she have a personal staff?
A hair and make-up consultant? It isn't the length, just the style that doesn't suit her. You would
both be beautiful no matter what length your hair was if the style suited you."
"It’s growing out, but last year Luthor liked it short, Mom."
"Ooohhh!" Ellen groaned in disbelief. "My daughter would never give that as a reason! We have
to find the real Lois Lane and get her the hell out of there!"

9- Nine

Clark Kent. Jimmy Olsen.
Scardino stared at the names. Before her marriage, Lois Luthor was a colleague of both men,
though Olsen would have been little more than a teenager at the time, eighteen, nineteen, around
there. Kent was an occasional writing partner of hers and he’d lived at 344 Clinton in the loft
apartment until shortly after the Lane/Luthor marriage. He’d sold a book he’d written, bought a
house, and young Jimmy Olsen had taken over the lease on the loft until the night of the bombing
two years later.
Olsen was a man of luck, he’d been out of the country when it happened and survived, just as
Dan himself did. Olsen dropped out of sight for a while but began resurfacing from time to time
taking pictures of major events around the world. Since the bombing on Clinton Street, he’d
been renting a small apartment above a garage from Kent.
Both men were, no doubt, old friends of Lois's, Mrs. Luthor's, whatever, but they must have
lost touch after the wedding, and judging by Luthor's possessive streak, that was an easy guess to
make. She was there this morning to see one of them, and Scardino guessed it was Kent.
At the time of the wedding and for three months afterward, Kent was living there. He felt a
pang of jealousy as the thought occurred to him. She was coming to see Kent. . .and she sat
in her car and wept when she saw the building was gone.
Why was she going there after so many years had passed? Why the need now to see her old
writing partner, or the kid? It was possible she was looking for the kid, but unlikely. So he could
tell her where Kent was?
He tossed the list down on his desk and sat back in his chair, running his hands through his
hair.
The door of the small office he shared with his partner opened and the sound of laughter
entered along with Wallace. He looked up bleakly and the other man grinned at him.
"Washington is keeping us on the case. For the time being we all still have jobs. They aren’t
going to hold that boneheaded stunt of yours against us.” Wallace sat down at his own desk
and swiveled his chair around to look at him. “You look like you lost your best friend. Buck up,
Danny! I’m still here." He nodded towards him. "So what did you get from the list? Anything we
should be looking into?"
Scardino shook his head. "No. A photographer for the wire services, and a writer for the wire
services who’s also a novelist on the best seller lists. You want a Clark Kent autographed book?
A James Olsen photographic print? Go investigate them."
Wallace's eyebrows went up. "Clark Kent? The wife and boys liked his books. Rumor has
it he's writing a third. I remember him and Lane as a writing team just getting started before
the Daily Planet was destroyed. They had the first big stories on Superman, if I remember
correctly. A few other big stories, too."
Dan shrugged. "Kent used to live at 344 Clinton. A few months after the Planet folded, he
sold his first book, moved out, and Olsen moved into the apartment. They were probably
friends of Mrs. Luthor's."
Wallace looked at him and a smile slowly crept across his face.
"What?" Scardino asked. "Why aren't you jumping up and down and celebrating?"
"Why should I?" He rubbed his eyes and when he put his hands down, Wallace was still
grinning at him. "What?!"
"My man, you've got it bad," Wallace said, shaking his head. "You just scored a point for
your girlfriend. She went looking for one of her friends, right? She thought she was going to
find one of them there, and that means she didn't know the buildings were gone." He smiled
again. "You know, a smart agent would be looking into where Mrs. Luthor was during the
time the explosion took place. There must be a reason she didn't know about the tragedy and
that it involved one of her friends. I mean her real friends." He stopped talking abruptly and his
eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the other man’s reaction.
"Scardino. . ." he started out slowly, "you. . .you didn't think she was looking for you, did
you? I mean, I believed you when you said nothing happened between the two of you, that the
slime ball overreacted when he went after you. I might joke with you, but I don't ride you like
the guys out there, do I? Did you think she was looking for you?"
Dan was already beginning to protest before his partner finished speaking. "It’s nothing like
that, Rich! Honest! We were just friends, barely got on speaking terms and Luthor thought it
was more. Hell, I wish it was more, but it never went beyond talk!" He shrugged, trying to appear
casual and keep his secrets from his partner. "You know, I thought 'maybe Washington is
right, she's checking out the scene of the crime,' but no. Sure, she wasn't shocked to see me,
but she was surprised the buildings were gone, though." He made another shrugging gesture. "I was
wrong. There’s no reason to be following her. She doesn't know anything. We’re wasting the
task force's time."
Wallace shook his head. "Too late for that. AIC just talked to Washington. They want to
know if we can slip a couple of bugs on her. GPS and a transmitter."
"Aww, no!" he exclaimed derisively. "I told them before, Luthor sweeps everything for
bugs every damn day! I had to go over her car every night before I went off duty. They'll
spot anything that isn't their own."
"He bugs her car?"
"He's got all the cars wired, even his own, Luthor Manor, most of the Lex Wood estate, LexCorp
Tower, even the LNN studios are under constant surveillance. Not a phone call goes out of his
empire unrecorded for later scrutiny. I reported it at the time, for Pete's sake! Didn't anyone read
my reports?"
"Can you get close enough to her to slip a couple of dots into her hand bag?" Wallace asked.
"What good would it do?" said Scardino. "You ever notice her wardrobe? Everything
matches, everyday new accessories to go with the current outfit. Talk to Jewel Leitner once in a
while. She can give you chapter and verse going back to the wedding."
"Leitner’s a geek. Okay, give Mrs. Scumbag a token of your undying friendship."
"And have Luthor come after me again? Forget it. If he sees it, he won’t stop until he finds out who
gave it to her, and as far as he's concerned, my body was never found and I’d like to keep it that
way."
Wallace stared at him open mouthed. "Then why did you reveal yourself to her? Why are we even . . ."
He closed his mouth and shook his head. "You're trusting your girl too much. She ever spots
you tailing her, she'll tell her scumbag husband."
He shook his head. No, he thought. She went looking for one of her friends from the newspaper
and she ditched her goons to do it. She didn't want her husband to know. "She won’t tell him. I
told you. They don't talk about stuff like that."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not in front of you. Rich people talk in private, away from the hired help. No
selling juicy secrets to the media, you know." He sighed. "Washington wants her bugged, partner."
"Then Washington can do it!"
Wallace leaned back and raised his hands behind his head. "Chicken."

Lucy wasn't sure what to expect after the call from Perry White telling her that Clark was
worried about the safety of the baby if meeting secretly with Lois at the library was going
to be a recurring thing. After they’d had a long talk about Lois and the impressions Lucy and
Ellen had come away with, Perry broached the subject of Clark's unease, and Lucy had to
admit she had been worried about having the baby with her, too. After Ellen joined them, she
felt better having someone else to look after Mara while she and Lois went back into the
library and made tentative plans for the rest of the week. Lois would be busy, but she now
had Lucy's phone number and would call when she could sneak away. Lucy was sure they
could arrange something that would safely include Mara's presence.
At the brownstone, Jack and Denny were gone, driving Ellen to work at the clinic, and Lucy
was in the kitchen feeding Mara and, between spoonfuls of Martha Kent baby food, was
letting her eat Cheerios and puffed rice from the tray of her high chair. The deli down the
street made puffed rice every day as a salad garnish. Since the baby started eating finger
foods, whenever Lucy took Mara by on one of their neighborhood walks, they would stop
in for snacks and the owner would give the baby a little bag of puffs sprinkled with a light
powdered sugar coating. Of course, playing with them and throwing them on the floor was
an option, too, and Lucy learned to put just a few on the tray at a time.
Lucy was, understandably, still feeling elated that she’d gotten to see and talk to her sister
after such a long time apart. She didn't think any objection Clark had for putting Mara in the
middle of all the subterfuge was going to lessen the feeling. She just wished her mother was
here. They could compare notes on so much of Lois' baffling behavior, and maybe make
Clark understand something was very wrong in the Luthor marriage, though, the truth be told,
Lucy wasn't sure he would care. He would do nothing to interfere, either, and she knew that
for certain.
When Clark arrived, coming through the basement door, he saw her at the table and raised a
hand to forestall any explanations on her part. "Perry told me he talked to you and Ellen," he
said, going to the chair to pick up the baby, who had seen him and threw her arms in the air
in his direction to be picked up as she laughed excitedly. "I've thought about it and I know
you and Ellen would do nothing to endanger the Mouse. I do trust both of you with her safety.
I just don't trust Luthor, and because of that I can’t trust Lois." He took a breath and shook
his head slightly.
Lucy grimaced and nodded, staying in her seat while father and daughter greeted one another.
"I guess that's as good a place to start as any. Mom and I didn't really trust her, either. I hate
to say it, but she worked so hard to leave us with the impression she is in a happy marriage,
that we were careful what we said around her. Half of what she was telling us, half of what
we were telling her - well, we all bent the facts a little."
Clark put the little girl back in her chair to finish her dinner and sat next to her, watching as
Lucy resumed feeding her.
"Something is wrong," Lucy said after a short silence. "Lois thinks she's still in charge of
her own life, she actually thinks she's doing what she wants to be doing. She's so different,
though. I tried to start fights, arguments, with her, Clark, and while I got a little spark in
return, she never responded like my sister. She didn't even react to Mom the way Mom
expected of her. She's been fed a pack of lies, for who knows how long, but even seeing the
truth of it in front of her didn't get a reaction out of her. Everything that made her Lois Lane,
the best investigative reporter in town, as they used to say, is gone right out of her. I can't
imagine what he's been doing to her all these years to fool her so completely." She went on
to explain what Lois had told her about the bogus tales of Ellen's need for institutionalized
treatment for alcoholism. "Clark, Mom and I were with her for almost two hours and she still
believes Luthor has been lied to about Mom, just as she has."
"Luthor's been fooling the world for thirty years, Lucy," he said and got to his feet. He went
to the refrigerator and began bringing food out to cook. "One individual living in close
proximity to him day after day - she’d be the ultimate challenge. To change her and control
her under the watching eyes of the world with no one catching on to his manipulation, least
of all her - it’s all a game to him. Whatever he has planned for her started long before they
were married."
Lucy's eyes were filled with worry as she looked at him. "Mom wants to get her out of there.
Now, so do I."
Clark washed his hands and put a couple of pans on the stove. "You have to be subtle or she won't
want to leave. Push at her too hard and she'll cut herself off from you as completely as Luthor
did."
"How do we do it then? How do we get through to her?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. None of us seem to know her anymore - if I ever did. Be careful,
though. If she still believes in Luthor, she still believes in being honest with him. This
little act of subterfuge to see you is probably as far as she's willing to go to defy him."
Grimacing, she had to admit to herself he might be right. Lois had refused to hear any kind of
comment or criticism against Lex and loudly defended him if she did or expected one. "I’m not
sure what to do now in any case. Perry warned me today that the Feds are following her, and I
saw pictures of the agents. They were in the library when I got there and I know they saw me."
"I heard about it." He filled a pot with water and put it over a stove burner and went to the kitchen's
large center island and began to cut up vegetables, facing her as he worked. "It’s the main reason
I’m worried about the baby's safety."
"It’s even worse, Clark. Luthor had his people sending her email supposedly from me.
They have me living in Alaska with an ex-classmate from Southern Cal. Until we saw one
another on the library steps, she had no reason to doubt the emails weren’t the real thing."
He drizzled oil into the frying pans on the stove and began cooking the chopped vegetables.
"Lucy Lane working as the nanny to Clark Kent's daughter - even Luthor has probably heard
about this by now, but it means nothing to him if he feels his manipulation of Lois is
unbreakable. He will take an interest in you and your presence in Metropolis if he learns
you're a frequent visitor to the library."
"I can’t stop going, Clark! She's my sister, and that monster has had her believing I’m living
happily in Alaska with a gay man for the last four years! Plus, I have to study somewhere
after my classes start. I need to use the library."
"Then I would suggest you not do anything until you and Ellen have had the opportunity to
discuss the situation with Perry White and Bill Henderson. Perry is arranging for all of us to
get together, and I think Ellen should ask her bridge partner to attend the meeting."
"Barbara Friskin? She's retired, you know."
"It won’t be long term and I can get the suits at the Open Book to pay her for her services."
"You are one of the suits, but I'll tell Mom." Lucy wiped at the baby's face, starting the battle
to wipe food particles from her chin while Mara squirmed and fought and turned her head this
way and that to avoid it. She laughed. "It isn't that bad, Mouse! If you’d just stay still I’d be
done in a microsecond compared to this!" She lowered her voice to issue a challenge. "Oh,
I’m going to clean that little face no matter what you do!"
Clark glanced up and smiled at his daughter's annoyed attempts to avoid the washcloth.
"Something tells me when Jack was that age, he was a hell of a lot worse."
She giggled. "Oh, that goes without saying! And, speaking of Jack. . . Remember this morning
when we talked about me having a car of my own and I said I could always borrow his or Denny's?"
Clark nodded.
"You were right. I need a car."
His smile was much happier than it really needed to be, Lucy thought. And how the hell did
her sister ever resist it and prefer Luthor's?

"Dinner will be served on the terrace, madam," said the head housekeeper who met her at the
door of the mansion, and Lois Luthor realized how late she was getting back from the library.
She simply hadn't wanted to let Lucy go. As long as her sister was there, she was Lois Lane
and she felt as if she was at home. It was an overwhelming feeling and one she had never even
realized she missed. So full were her days as Mrs. Luthor, with so many things she had to
attend to as Lex's wife, that Lois Lane had become a stranger from her past with whom she
had lost contact. Lucy brought her back, and walking into the mansion and being greeted by
the maid was turning it all into a dream. The mansion was reality. Lucy's little apartment was
a dream, and the time she spent there with a mother and a sister who'd changed so much in
six years didn't seem real. They’d become so close. She found that she envied the way they
talked so easily with one another, no arguing, no accusations, smiles instead of glares, teasing
sarcasm and understanding glances, and such devotion to a tiny baby girl who looked like one
man but was the child of another.
No, don't go there, she thought. Not yet. Not yet. Don't think about that yet.
She’d changed back to the dress and shoes she’d worn to the library and left Lucy's borrowed items
hidden in one of the desk drawers at her office. She wished she had something from that outfit
now, something she could look at and be reminded that Lucy was real, as real as this big house that
had never felt like home, as real as this busy life she was living within these walls. There was no
time to rush upstairs to change, and when she slipped into the powder room under the stairs to look
at her make-up, she felt a stirring of surprise at the image of herself she saw in the mirror. Who
was that? Who am I? Do I know anymore?
A few minutes later she walked onto the terrace and shook her head at the young man standing
beside her chair. "See if Gaston is ready to serve," she told him and seated herself at the table,
aware, all of a sudden, that her life had become a game to her, and she waited for Lex to make
his move.
Her husband, trailed by his ever present shadow, Nigel St. John, as usual, made an entrance.
He enjoyed sweeping into the dining room or onto the terrace, just a tad fashionably late, no
matter that Lois was his only companion for dinner. Lois had no choice but to raise her eyes
and wait while he approached the table. Lex looked at her with the smallest frown and she
remembered to smile in greeting.
"There you are, Lex dear." It was her usual way of recognizing his presence, and that was the
reaction he was anticipating.
"Good evening, my darling," Lex said and reached out to gently brush his fingertips along her
cheek before allowing Nigel to draw his chair out for him to sit. "I asked Chef Gaston to serve
us out here in the fresh air. After being shut away in the library all day, I thought you would
welcome the view as we dine." A meeting of eyes and a flick of his hand sent St. John quietly
from the terrace.
"That was considerate of you, Lex. Thank you." She watched Nigel enter the dining room and
disappear into the dark interior, then returned her gaze to Lex. The view from the terrace over
the meticulously landscaped and trimmed back garden and beyond to the distant mountains
was beautiful, but Lois was seated with her back partially turned to it. Her view was of Lex
and his was of her and the panorama over the terrace rail. For five years this was how they ate
their meals on the terrace.
Of course, it was. Lex had the better view and she had to turn in her chair to see it, but that
would have been rude and one was never rude to Lex Luthor. Not even his wife.
Apparently it had become second nature to feign an interest in Lex's dinner conversation. At
some time in their five years together, they had gone from discussing her job at LNN, world
events, his business achievements and her daily activities, to Lex regaling her with stories of his
day at the office and at whatever appearances he’d made in the city at various functions. Lois
listened with disbelief and an awakening feeling of anger stirring in the pit of her stomach - so
that when the dishes were cleared and dessert was placed in front of them and Lex finally
asked her about her day at the library, she jabbed her fork into the slice of cake on its delicate plate
hard enough to hear a tiny 'snick' as the china cracked.
She took a deep breath and kept her gaze away from her husband. "It was productive," she
replied, steadily. "I have a series of appointments to interview representatives from the major
contractors we'll need to do the job. My first week is already filled. I expect the actual work
to begin installing or updating the current wiring will be within two weeks."
He smiled and sipped from his glass of wine, looking at her thoughtfully. "You are an amazing
woman. I have always known that and regarded you accordingly. I’m not surprised you have the
task well in hand. I would have been disappointed had you asked for help."
She met his gaze this time, being careful to keep her emotions from showing. "Overseeing a
job like this will take organizational ability, Lex. I did have a career once, remember."
If he saw impertinence in her reply, he gave no sign. "Of course. The library donation will be
left in your capable hands, my darling." He raised his glass to her with an indulgent smile,
and Lois thought she heard quick footsteps receding on a hard surfaced floor. Before she
could turn her head to find the source of the sound, her husband was speaking. "Is there
something wrong, my love?"
Hysteria! she thought as she composed her face and her reply. Disassociation! I’m losing my
mind, that's all, Lex.
"Unfortunately," she said with an apologetic look, pushing her dessert plate away, "it’s been
too many years since I stopped working at the network. I’m tired, Lex dear, and the day was rather
long. I think I'll have an early night, if you don't mind."
Lex was immediately solicitous and understanding. "Not at all, darling. This is the first time
in years you've worked outside the home. Forgive me for not seeing how tired you are." He
got up to offer his hand as he had countless other times, and walked with her to the open
living room doors. Not the dining room . . . with its wood floor. . .
Movement inside the darkened room caught Lois' attention and she was aware of a scent of
familiar perfume, but when Lex turned on the lights, they were alone in the large room. She
politely held his arm as he led her through to the foot of the stairway in the entry hall and she
offered her cheek for a quick, dry kiss, and they bade one another good night.
"I'll send an after dinner drink to your room, my love. Nigel and I have business to discuss and
I’m afraid I shall be in video conference for a time. I won’t disturb you, darling. I'll see you
in the morning." He lifted her hand for another dry, quick kiss and he walked away with a
small smile on his face. "By the way, I left a surprise for you on the sofa."
In her bedroom suite, Lois dropped all pretense of not being angry and stormed into the
dressing room to prepare for a hot bath. Throwing her clothes and shoes aside without
notice, she was horrified with herself. How could she allow herself to be living like this?
This marriage was a game! And she and Lex were both playing it like masters of the art.
The question was: were they opponents or were they partners? Until today she’d thought they
were partners - indifferent to one another, but still husband and wife, still partners.
The water was getting cold before she remembered where she was. Lois wrapped herself in a
robe and slowly walked into her sitting room. A cart with a bottle of wine on ice and a long
stemmed glass were placed beside the chair closest to the fireplace. A single rose lay on a
white napkin beside the glass. She was lifting the wine bottle to look at the label when she
noticed the "surprise" Lex had mentioned on the sofa a few feet away.
Long, flat but thick, white boxes with a discrete display of origin in one corner were piled on
the cushions. Clothing from one of the most exclusive designer houses in Europe. She let out a
breath and dropped the wine into the ice bucket. It was one of the expensive brands Lex had
bought at auction last year and raved about to anyone who would listen. Lois hated the taste
of it and wondered if people only pretended to like it because of the label's reputation and the
expensive price tag. She would pour it down the bathroom sink later, she thought with a smile.
Mythical underground beasts were all that were fit to taste some of the awful wines and
brandies Lex bought at exorbitant prices through the years, so the alligators in the sewers
would have to wait for their dose of cheap tasting fine wine tonight. Lois regularly cleaned
the tiny wet bar in the corner of the sitting room by pouring the contents down the plumbing
and bemusedly wondering what would replace them each time - more of the same or
something new and equally unpalatable.
Stepping closer to the sofa, Lois opened the top box and brushed scented tissue aside.
Oh, god . . . Business suits. The kind of work a day fashions the wife of Lex Luthor must be
seen wearing if she meant to report to the library every day to "work outside the home." She
fingered the soft, expensive fabric of the jacket. Skirts and pants, scarves and handkerchiefs in
matching and contrasting colors were neatly laid out beside the jacket. Eight such boxes on the
sofa - he’d ordered her a working wardrobe as a surprise.
Staring at her fingers stroking the cleans lines of the smart suit, she pictured Lucy's closet and
the bureau drawers she’d rifled for a change of clothing.
"You won’t find anything better than thrift store Calvins here, I’m afraid, but they’re clean
and they’re mine now. Help yourself."
"When you came to the library this morning you were wearing a dress that probably cost
three thousand dollars, and a pair of what? Eight hundred dollar shoes?"
Turning away quickly, Lois grabbed the wine bottle and the glass and started toward the
bedroom, pouring a bit of the wine as she went. At the side of the bed she took a sip,
grimaced, and marched straight to the bathroom and poured the whole bottle into the sink.
She didn't need Lex's horrible tasting fine wine to feel better, she didn't need his expensive
surprises to cheer her up, either. She had a walk-in closet full of his surprises and she had
never felt happier nor less alone for having them. They weren't what she needed to be happy
with her life.
Returning to the bed, she put the empty bottle on the table beside the lamp and she crawled
onto the plush surface. She didn't need anything from Lex to make her feel better. She needed
Lucy, because Lucy was her sister, and because she was in a position to grant Lois access to
the one person she wanted to see most in all the world. Lucy could take her to Clark Kent, and
there was no doubt in Lois's mind that seeing Clark Kent could make her feel happy.
Lucy, she thought as she closed her eyes against the tears starting to well in them, I can
dress myself. I really can still dress myself.

10- Ten

For some reason he couldn't identify, Superman was feeling restless. After his patrol around
the city of Metropolis, he just didn't feel like going home and that was a startling discovery.
His small family was important to him and normally he spent every minute he could spare
at home. He was going to be staking out Pier Fifteen in the coming days. His time at home would
be short because he wouldn't be able to cut back his regular patrols as the Man of Steel.
Still. . . still. . . well, he couldn't stay still. He flew over his neighborhood, scanning the
brownstone, before turning and heading east, out to sea. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted
to meet the sunrise and feel the rays of the sun engulfing his body. He wasn't tired, he
certainly wasn't weary, but he felt as if he needed to do this, and do it now because if the
opportunity got away from him, he would regret its loss soon.
He felt as if something was in motion, something that had been idle for a long time, and was
now waking up, raising its head and looking around and wondering what it had missed. That
wasn't quite the proper analogy, but until he knew what the something was, it was the best he could
do.
Perhaps it was time. It could be as simple as that. Perhaps being able to directly tie Mrs. Cox,
Luthor's personal executive assistant, to the temp agency and the activity at Pier Fifteen was
going to be the turning point in the LexCorp Industries investigation. No matter what other
projects or investigations he’d carried out in the last five years, finding the key to unlocking
the Luthor crime empire was never far from Clark's mind.
In the beginning, it was about Lois and keeping her away from making the mistake of
marrying Luthor, but it was five years later now and the occasional glimpses he’d had of her,
either as Superman or as Clark, showed him a woman who was willingly working at her
husband's side in his philanthropic endeavors. He detected no hint of nervousness nor
unwillingness on her part to carry on her duties as his wife. After a few years, he could no
longer tell if she was truly happy or not, but he could tell she was not trying to deceive anyone
with her charities, or her public appearances. She believed in her causes and the good they
were doing. The Luthor marriage appeared to be a strong one, and he had to admit, a happy
one. Perhaps Luthor did love her after all and was shielding her from his other life as best he
could. And. . .perhaps. . . and this had been the hardest possibility to face. . .perhaps she had
come to love him, too, as she must have hoped she would. He supposed he should be glad for
her that his own predictions and Luthor's own gloating hadn't come to pass and she was
happy. It was all he had ever wanted for her. As time passed, he realized he was glad - she'd
proved him wrong - but it never weakened his resolve to bring Luthor to justice for his
crimes. She didn't deserve the pain and humiliation that would come with the revelations,
but Clark knew it wouldn't stop him or Perry or Bill Henderson from going ahead and
destroying Lex Luthor.
Maybe the time had come.
Maybe fate, the gods, or an alignment of the right planets, something deemed the time was
right and moved a few pieces into place. Lucy and Ellen were back in Lois' life. If this was
the end of the chase, she would have her family to buffer her from the scandal and the
accusations that would be directed at her when the media frenzy began.
Overflying the terminator, he found an area high in the upper reaches of the atmosphere that
would be clear of satellite surveillance for three hours or so and turned his face to the sun.
With his body positioned as if sunbathing, he closed his eyes and let himself relax.
Eduardo and Jimmy were making the move onto the Wayne yacht and setting up their
equipment for the stakeout. Jimmy wouldn't be a permanent member of the team, but he was
invaluable at the technical side of setting up surveillance equipment and choosing the right
cameras for a particular job. Not bad for a one time copy boy/gopher. Bruce Wayne's
skipper/mechanic would be acting as their security officer as much to let them work without
interruption as to watch over the yacht. The man on the dock said the mystery ship he’d seen was
being moved silently in the early hours of the morning. He supposed until the yacht was ready he
could keep a close eye on the harbor from the air, but his time wasn't his own when he was in the
suit. As Clark he felt more freedom to decide if a call was serious enough to merit a Superman
appearance. Personal cries for help always did, but sirens and alarms weren't always serious
problems. In the suit, even if it meant missing a personal appearance of Luthor or Mrs. Cox
on the dock with a mystery ship being loaded or unloaded, he had to respond to an emergency.
There were few places Superman could go to completely get away from it all.
He was where the atmosphere was thin and sound didn't reach him unless he let it. Of course,
he let it. Jack, a young man in his own right; Denny, still a teen but as capable as his brother;
and Mara, the little light of his life, of all of their lives, were all important to him and he was
never far from them, mere seconds, no matter where in the world he was. Lucy Lane had
become a good friend, too, but Ellen Lane was still an enigma. He wasn't quite sure how she
had blasted her way into his life and that of his family, but she was there, a good friend and
an alternative, but more impatient, voice of reason to Martha Kent. All Clark could say as an
explanation was "It just happened."
As he let the rays of yellow sunlight relax him and lead him to an almost meditative trance,
he could hear Perry White's low chuckle and mumbled comments when he’d discovered
Ellen Lane decided Mara Jade was probably the closest she was ever going to get to having a
grandchild, and the baby being Lucy's charge was good enough for her. "Lane women,"
Perry muttered. "Y'all just have no defense against them, Kent."
It wasn't long after this that Perry and Alice were introduced to the new little Kent and fell for her,
too. Perry filled the vacancy of second grandpa and Alice became as much a spoiling grandma as
Martha and Ellen had.
No, the fact of the matter was no one had any defense against his tiny baby daughter. Did he say
light of their lives? More like the center of their universes. And that reminded him. He had to get
plastic plugs to insert in all the electrical outlets throughout the house now that his little girl was
getting around under her own power.
He may have napped a while, but Superman's sixth sense or intuition, whatever served him
in that capacity, awakened him and he scanned the heavens above him. He was drifting near the
closest satellite that he had to worry about, and he let himself drop through the atmosphere, rolling
to face the planet before streaking toward home, where it would still be dark, but where someone
was waiting for him.
"Leave the light on in your office," Jack suggested, a year ago, after Lana moved out, "so we'll
know you’re out on patrol. If it’s off, we'll know you're asleep or downstairs working."
When he’d taken his last flyover, Lucy was there, of course; Mara was safely in bed and
sleeping; Denny was home and working on his computer; and Jack would be home by
now, too. Though he’d gone to a movie with his girlfriend, he made it a point to always
be there if Clark needed to talk. In five years, that boy had never been far away if he could
help it. Clark had a good, close bond with both brothers, but the one he shared with Jack
was deeper, more trusting. Jack had known his secret longer than anyone else and kept it.
Superman knew he would find Jack sleeping on the sofa in his upstairs office, waiting for
him to come home, send him to his room, and turn off the light.

Lois awoke the next morning after a troubled sleep. At some point she had awakened to the
sound of voices speaking loudly, seeming to come through the open doors to the balcony.
Her tumultuous state of mind, which seemed to prevail even during sleep, prevented her
from moving to investigate or to close the doors and muffle the sound. She’d turned away
from the noise and went back to sleep, too deep in self-pity to care what was going on
around her. She hadn't wanted to think anymore, she’d just wanted to sleep and forget.
The bright light of the low morning sun bathing the room through the open doors to the
balcony banished sleep from her mind as soon as she turned over and faced the brilliant light;
and with wakefulness came a clarity of mind she hadn't experienced in a long time.
Physically she was tired and weary, but mentally, her troubled dreams had worked to find
some kind of sense in everything that happened yesterday while she was with her sister and
their mother.
She sat up slowly, her muscles stiff and tingly from being in one position for too long, and
she remembered sitting up during the night and shaking with sobs. She’d thrown the wine
bottle across the room, hadn't she?
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and looked at the end table as she got painfully
to her feet. The bottle was gone. What had she been so angry about? Something had clarified
itself in her mind but now she couldn't remember what it was. She stumbled to the bathroom.
She needed to leave for the library by nine. She hadn't set the alarm. Thank goodness, the
mid-August morning sun was still over the horizon before seven.
Walking, moving around wore off the lethargy and the aches and pains and by the time she
was ready to go downstairs - not in one of the new suits, she couldn't bring herself to look at
them - she had a plan.
Lex would be getting ready to leave soon and was no doubt in his downstairs office waiting
for her to come down for breakfast. His bedroom suite would be empty, waiting for the
housekeepers to come upstairs and straighten up after he was gone.
She put her laptop bag on the table beside the bed and went to the small, narrow hallway
linking her suite with Lex's. The doors at either end were closed and she didn't remember
when they’d started doing that. There was a time when both were left open and they moved
freely between one another's bedrooms. Or Lex did, anyway. She had never spent a night in
his bedroom. She opened the door tucked discreetly in a corner of her bedroom and stepped
into the dimly lit connecting passage. At his door she stopped and stood close to it, listening,
but after several minutes she heard nothing to indicate anyone was inside. She stepped back
and put her hand on the knob and began to turn it carefully. It moved soundlessly and then
stopped. It was locked.
She stared at the door angrily. Locked?! Since when did Lex start locking the door between
their suites? Had he been doing this for all three years since he’d stopped coming to her
bedroom? Why? Was he that repulsed by her? Or. . . Did he think she was going to come to
him begging for sex?
She spun around and went back to her room, running into the closet to look in one of the
back wardrobes. In the top drawer, hidden among her best lingerie, she found the silk
handkerchief in which she’d wrapped her lock picks and the magnets Jimmy Olsen had
given her a long time ago to open card swipe doors.
It took a few seconds to pick the lock to Lex's bedroom and she opened the door slowly,
poking her head inside and listening. He was gone. She quickly ran through the bedroom
to the sitting room, the doors were open, and she stopped, looking around. It smelled of
perfume. Cigars and perfume. Both rooms did, come to think of it. She would consider what
that meant later.
Lex's sitting room was different than the last time she’d seen it. . .more than three years ago,
but what she was looking for would not have changed. By accident, during the first months of
her marriage, she’d heard an unusual noise in this suite and come to investigate. She’d seen
Lex and Nigel St. John in front of an open wall safe, taking bundles of what looked like
money from small plastic bags piled on a metal cart that creaked with the weight of its load
being removed and stacking them inside the safe. It was a scene she’d never forgotten.
Lois located the painting that hid the safe and felt around the edges and pulled it away from
the wall. After a few tries with Jimmy's safe cracking tools, the door to the safe was clear and
she pulled it open. Her mouth dropped in shock at the amount of cash inside.
She lifted a bundle and flicked one end with her thumb. Nonsequential bills, old and new
together, each bundle inches thick and divided by denomination. After a moment staring
and trying to calculate the impossible amount that was before her, Lois took five bundles each of
100s, 50s, and 20s, and restacked what remained inside to hide the missing money, and as she
did so, she saw a few thin folders stuffed between the left side of the safe and the stacks of
money near it. Taking them out, she looked at each and saw they were business and
production reports. LXTrinity Warehouse, QPT Staffing, Excel5 Enterprises. She put them back
and closed the safe, spun the dial and swung the painting back into place. It locked in place
with a soft click.
Going past the bed to the connecting doorway, a glint of light on the floor at the foot of the
bed caught her eye, and she changed course to go nearer. There was a woman's watch in the
deep pile of the carpet and she leaned down to pick it up. It was gold with tiny gemstones
decorating the face, and she recognized it. It belonged to Mrs. Cox. She walked to the side of
the bed and looked down at the rumpled blankets. They had been pushed aside toward the
center of the king sized mattress on both sides of the bed, and both of the pillows showed the
impressions of the heads that had rested the night on them.
She was staring in shock, wanting to turn and leave when her hand seemed to reach out on its
own accord and touch the knob on the drawer of the bedside table. Pulling it open slowly,
Lois looked down and her feelings of shock turned to anger. Inside the drawer was a hair
brush, a jewelry tray holding earrings, necklaces and bracelets. For a woman.
She looked at the nearest bureau, then the closed doors to Lex’s walk-in closet, and she was
tempted to look inside the drawers, go into the closet. . . There wasn’t enough time. She
didn’t want Lex coming upstairs to look for her.
The bastard.
Lois looked at the watch in her hand and dropped it to the floor, where she put the heel of her
shoe on the face and ground against it until she heard the glass snap. She applied more
pressure. The gems wouldn’t be affected, but maybe the inner workings would be ruined.
In her own bedroom, the doors between her suite and Lex’s closed and locked, she vented
her anger by dropping onto her bed and screaming into her pillow until her throat was raw.
She straightened her clothing, fixed her hair and makeup, and went downstairs to breakfast
and she didn’t care what Lex or the kitchen staff thought of her brusque behavior.

Dying to go to the library, but knowing she couldn’t, Lucy managed to keep herself occupied
by getting the baby ready for, perhaps, a walk in the neighborhood park and then a jog
through the river side park later. Lois would be engaged with her job at the library most of the
day, and both had agreed she would call Lucy if she was able to slip away for an hour or two
and Lucy would come and get her. As soon as Clark and the brothers were out the door, she
called her mother to make a lunch date, and while the baby played on the floor in the living room,
she turned on the television to watch the local news. If Lois’ presence at the library
garnered any media attention, it would be impossible for her to sneak out of her office if the
press was going to be watching her. They would have to get creative if that happened.
There was no news item mentioning the richest wife in the city, working or otherwise,
so Lucy played with Mara until she got tired and cranky, then took her upstairs to change her
and put her down for a nap.
Free for a couple of hours, Lucy went downstairs to use Clark’s computer in his office to
check her email and do some research on games and toys to keep a newly mobile baby
entertained and curious.
Perry White had set up the meeting for her and Ellen with Deputy Chief Henderson for later
in the day, and Lucy remembered Clark’s suggestion that Ellen ask her bridge partner, Dr.
Friskin, to accompany them. She also recalled Ellen’s comment that the doctor had been a big
help with Ellen coming to terms with her alcoholism and how it affected her relationship with
her daughters. Maybe she could do more than just offer advice. Maybe she could also meet
Lois and help her take an objective look at her life as Mrs. Luthor. . .and maybe she could tell
Ellen and Lucy if Lois was really happy and this was something they should just let be.
She wrote back, keeping her wording as neutral as Perry’s had been:
"We’ll be there and Mom might be bringing a guest. Ask my boss to explain. We can decide
then how much to reveal to her. She’s a doctor and will keep confidences - and Mom trusts her.
Bridge partners. You know."
Ben Hillen, the young chef working at Mike Lane’s restaurant, who Lucy had been dating for
almost a year, sent a note suggesting plans for Friday night, and she spent some time crafting
her answer, wanting it to be just right. This was a relationship she wanted to nurture. Ben got
along surprisingly good with Ellen; he and Clark had a mutual interest in world cuisine and
both liked to try to recreate dishes from the various restaurants they visited in the city; and he
and Jack and Denny shared an interest in the Metropolis University sports teams: he cheering
on Denny who was the kicker on the football team, and he attended games of both brothers
who were on the baseball team. Ben knew Lucy had an older married sister named Lois, but
since he was from Michigan and had been in Metropolis just a year and a half, he never made
a connection between Lois, sister of Lucy Lane, and Lois, the wife of Lex Luthor.
With Clark and his family being out of town over the weekend, she felt the time was right to
tell Ben a little more about her family than she had revealed so far. She hoped he would
understand why she never mentioned it before, and why she would have to ask him not tell
anyone else about it. She knew she could count on her uncle to back her up, but she still
worried about how Ben might take the news and the few facts she felt could safely be
revealed. Would he be full of questions she couldn’t answer? Would he accept her
explanations? She hoped so.
Ben was a good man, and she wanted to keep him.
It was nearing ten a.m. when she heard sounds over the baby monitor. Mara wasn't crying,
she was making sounds of inquiry and happiness and outright laughter.
Lucy went to the stairway and started up, wondering if Superman might have dropped in
while flying over the neighborhood. He often did and his was a presence to which Mara
needed to get accustomed. She opened the door to the nursery as quietly as she could and
looked inside. The baby was sitting up in the crib and reaching upward to a large and
brightly colored mobile hanging above her. It was too high for her to reach, but waving her
hands trying to touch it activated something and it would begin to move in a circular motion,
offering different views of the various shapes swinging slowly as it rotated. Soft music played
as it moved.
"Hey, baby girl, what have you got there?" she said and went to the crib to look at the new
toy. A note on the top said,

"Lucy,
This should be interesting for MJ for a while.
You told CK how she liked watching the fans on
the ceiling of the library. I literally looked the world
over for it. Found it in Norway.
S
P.S. I placed plastic plugs in all the outlets in here and
downstairs while you were on the computer."

She smiled and lifted the baby out of the crib. "Did Mr. Superman come to see you, baby
girl? I like the presents he brought you."
Lucy held her and waved her hand under the mobile and they watched it spin and listened
to its soft jingle for a few minutes, until an emergency siren going past on the street at the
front of the brownstone drew the baby’s attention away.
Half an hour later, Mara was secured in her jogging stroller and they were going for a run
in the park along the river. It wasn’t so hot today, this late in August, but it was still going to
be a scorcher, and she thought how she and Mara were both going to miss this activity when
the weather started getting cold in a couple of months. They couldn’t go too far today.
They had a lunch date with Ellen and Lucy was anxious to talk to her now that both of them
had a while to think about Lois’ visit of the day before.
Lucy wished she’d been able to talk more openly with Clark, tell him more than she had,
but he was holding back. She was positive he’d known Lois much better than he was willing
to admit. She’d never felt comfortable asking him what went on between them, and he never
volunteered any information beyond an occasional comment if Perry White or Jimmy Olsen
mentioned her. Whatever it was, something happened to make him think he’d never known
her at all. She shook her head. Lucy had been so certain, way back when, that Lois and Clark
had been falling in love, and she left town thinking her sister was in the best of hands.

Perry White sat back in his chair and half listened as Friez and Kent went over the material
they’d amassed in their investigation of the temp service and its possible ties to questionable
business at the docks, bringing their new partners, Abigail Paige and Jennifer Tate, up to
speed with their work. Tate and Paige were good at their jobs and more than willing to take
on any assignment to add experience to their resumes. Sometimes he thought they were trying
too hard to be the next Lois Lane - not that he thought either had a chance at such a high goal.
Neither had Lois’ nose for news. She never wasted her time and energy on just anything. She
could spot the big stories and those were the ones she wanted, those were the only ones she
considered worth going after. Small stuff wasn’t for her. It was padding she never needed for
a resume filled with potential Kerth nominees. These two, good as they were, just didn’t have
that particular talent. It was fun to watch them try so hard, though. They could jump, he
thought.
He glanced over when laughter erupted from the group. Jimmy had joined them to explain
the camera and recording set-up he’d installed on the yacht, but Perry had missed the joke.
He looked away again. He’d considered partnering Clark with each of the women in turn
at one point, but the boy had too much charisma, enough to catch Lois’ attention and that was
something Perry thought would never happen so soon after her, well, he just called it ’painful
misadventures’ with men. He’d been glad to see it, rooted for them to make something of
their partnership, but it wasn’t meant to be. Didn’t mean the same would hold true for Kent
and one of these ladies, though. They didn’t have Lois’ fears or painful memories to hold
them back if an attraction happened, and he knew it would, between one of them and Kent.
Truth was, he simply didn’t want to see something like that work out. Hopeless as it might be,
he still believed in Lane and Kent. Besides, not just any woman could be the stepmother of
that beautiful little granddaughter of his. That woman had to be special.
Clark was speaking to him and he looked over and spun his chair to face them. ". . .will be
our contact man for the duration. Jimmy’s met him and can coordinate his visits. He’s
known at the marina and coming and going at odd hours won’t be unusual for him."
He waved his hand and said, "Set it up whichever way works for you. Jimmy, you handle it,
get Paige’s partner to help if you need him. As long as you keep me posted with news I can
give the boys upstairs - or down the damn hall, wherever they are now - y’all have no
problems with me. If we can give something to Henderson as well as get a good expose’
for the Book, everyone will be happy."
Perry leaned forward and put his forearms on the table. "I haven’t told Bill anything. If it
ain’t got a court order he don’t want to know, and as far as the Feds, I’ve never told them
anything and I ain’t startin’ now. Eduardo, give your current files to Paige’s partner, and Kent
give yours to Bobby Burns. Jimmy, Ray will be taking over your duties. I want you on this
case helpin’ out as much as you can. Keep your eyes open and be sure I get anything relevant
to show to the suits. Now, get outta here and get started. I got a paper to get out, and looks
like I’m doin’ it all by myself with four of my best reporters off the streets for a while!"
Jimmy grinned, heading for the door. "Come on, Chief, you make it sound like this is some
big metropolitan newspaper--"
"Didn’t I say get out?" Perry bellowed and fell back in his chair. "I should never have let that
joke get started. Kent, hold on."
Clark hadn’t moved when the others headed for the door, but he came to attention anyway.
He gave Perry a questioning look.
"I had a pretty restless time last night, Clark. I can’t help worrying about Lois. When we get
what we need to bring Luthor down, his empire is going to crumble right along with him, and
the repercussions will be felt all over the world, wherever he has a base of operations. No
matter how I look at it, I can only see a lot of hurt and betrayal for her, and you know she
wasn’t the strongest person emotionally before she married him. We know what he did
and how he did it, and I understand how she must have seen him as the only stable thing in her
life back then. When we take that away, I’m just worried how she’s goin’ to see that. We’ll be
ruining her life. We’ll be the former friends who spent five years plotting to ruin her life."
He made a sharp gesture with his fist. "I just hate the thought of it, but she must be happy
with him if he’s really been good to her. What’s she going to think of me? Of you, of
Jimmy?" He looked up. "Clark, the world is going to hate her husband. What will it think
of the best investigative reporter of her time who married him and lived happily with him
while he committed countless atrocities the world over? She’s going to be a suspect in this!
Who’s going to believe a three time Kerth winner didn’t know?"
Looking at the floor, Clark folded his arms and walked slowly toward Perry’s desk. "Are
you going to be able to do what you have to do when the time comes? If it makes you
uncomfortable, I can go alone with Henderson to take our evidence before the judge. He
hasn’t said it in so many words, but I know he isn’t going to waste time taking the Feds
along."
Perry shook his head. "No, no. I’ll be there. After they serve the search warrants and drag
that monster to jail, I’m going to write the editorial to end all editorials, and I want to see
his face when it happens." He took a deep breath. "That girl got as close to me as my own boys,
and I’m going to hurt her worse than anything anyone else ever did. How do I live with
myself after that?"
"Don’t think you’re alone with this, Perry. In the beginning, when we accepted Bill’s
invitation to work jointly with his task force, I thought about it every day. Then Henderson
and I were coming back from chasing another dead end lead, and he started talking, telling
me what you just did. He wanted to know how I lived with it. Knowing I was going to be
a part of destroying Lois’ life." He turned and started for the door. “Neither of us had an answer
then, and we don’t now, but we agreed on one thing. It has to be done, Perry. It’s already
killing me that so much time has passed and I haven’tstopped him. Imagine how it is for Bill
who’s been investigating Luthor Industries longer than we have. We wish we could protect
her, too, but we can’t. I can’t." He put his hand on the doorknob. "It comes down to one
thing: it has to be done."
Watching him open the door, Perry steepled his fingers in front of him and spoke softly. "Are
we going to be successful? Five years is a long time to chase a goal as elusive as this one is."
Clark looked back and smiled. "Things are falling into place, Perry. Can’t you feel it? When
we meet with Bill this afternoon, you’ll see."
When the door closed, Perry stared at his hands for a long time. When he turned back to his
computer, he was smiling as he wrote an email to Lucy.

Don’t make plans for the weekend.
Tell you about it after the meeting.

He was still smiling as he started reading the first article submitted for his approval by his
staff. Bill and Clark can’t compromise their positions, but I can. I can get her out of there
or I’m not the guy who sent my staff photographer to snap the only pictures of Elvis and
Ginger on the beach on the big island when the damned paparazzi was looking for them
in Key West! That boy liked Hawaii, and I know a few other things no one else does.

11- Eleven

Stephen Sully nodded and stretched a corner of his lips to simulate a smile after the three
sales reps from CR Data Services exited Mrs. Luthor’s office and stopped in front of his
desk. Two of them looked irritated, as if they had been dismissed in mid-sentence. The third,
the only woman, seemed to be irritated at them.
The young woman gave him a sunny smile and handed him a brochure. "If you would give
this to Mrs. Luthor before she leaves today, I’d appreciate it so much," she glanced quickly at
his name tag, "Mr. Sully." She was gone as soon as she’d finished speaking, taking the sunny
smile with her and leaving her colleagues to catch up to her in the hallway.
Your sincerity enthralls me, ma’am, he thought and placed the brochure in his out basket.
He was getting good at conveying answers through head nods, he told himself. Steve Sully,
English Lit major in early American literature - now an assistant librarian turned secretary
and ace head nodder. He got up and picked up the paperwork of the next company and took it
into the larger office, closing the door behind him. He approached Mrs. Luthor’s desk and
handed the file to her. "This is the last group, another three person team. Mr. Kent’s notes say
their company did a good job for the university library. They’re the only company in town
that doesn’t use Dellex Technology Ltd. for their systems and software. They buy wholesale
from Austin Technology, in Texas, on a job by job basis. Highly recommended. They’ve been
called to replace bad equipment at the university exactly zero times in the last year." He
raised his eyebrows and shrugged, "Mr. Kent says thumbs up, according to his notes."
Lois Luthor nodded, surprised at how annoyed she was that Jack the homeless boy, the petty
thief, was the ’Mr. Kent’ Sully referred to, though she had to admit he would be about twenty-
one or two now and he couldn’t be called "homeless boy" forever. "Thanks, Stephen. Send
them in. Oh, wait. How is the rest of the week arranged? Did you get hold of everyone? At
least weed out the ones Jack - Mr. Kent thought were unreliable?"
"Yes, I cancelled the appointments for this afternoon and rescheduled most of them for the
rest of the week. You have three appointments each day for the next three days, all
scheduled for the mornings. Six companies dropped out but wanted to know if they could
arrange interviews for next week. I told them it’s now or never. Don’t be surprised if some
of them call LexCorp directly and try to have your husband intervene for them. They
threatened me with as much when I wouldn’t reschedule. You should be free by one p.m.
each day - unless one of the other companies uses LexCorp to strong arm an appointment.
Tomorrow will be the last of the computer companies, and after that you’ll be interviewing
contractors for wiring and construction." He cocked his head to one side. "Do you want me to
take this group on the tour? I can, if you want to do something else."
Lois shook her head. "No, but thank you for offering." She glanced through the file. She was
beginning to know what to look for from each company proposal. She rose from her chair.
"An interview is an interview, and I used to do them for a living." She marched to the door
and Stephen hurried after her. "Send for lunch from the same place as yesterday," she said
over her shoulder, "same thing for me, but order the house specials for the guards
and whatever you want for yourself." She put her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him.
"Tomorrow, I’ll have LexCorp send over take-out menus from all the restaurants and cafés
downtown. You can surprise us from then on.” She paused to think about something, then
came to a decision. “Sully? I really miss pizza from Pizza North. I lived on it in college, and
later when I worked for. . .a newspaper."
He smiled and followed her out the door.
It was nearly two in the afternoon before Mrs. Luthor could slip away. She’d held a brief
meeting with the librarians and then she’d asked to be left alone, no disturbances and hold all
calls. Stephen was quick to make it happen. After just two days, he was beginning to see that
Mrs. Luthor and her sister were a lot alike. Who taught them to be so precise? he wondered.
Nothing seemed to faze either of them, and he wondered how long he’d live afterward if he
ever said "That can’t be done" to either of them.
He wasn’t the least bit surprised when Mrs. Luthor summoned him into her office and she
greeted him dressed in her sister’s clothes from the day before. She still had his cap and she
told him Lucy would give him back his T shirt and leggings after she washed them. She put
the cap on and pulled the bill low over her face. She handed him a piece of paper.
"I’m going to be out for a while," she said. "I have some errands to run and I don’t want the
muscle heads to know I’m gone. I won’t be long. If anything comes up call my sister’s
apartment, the number is on the paper, and leave a message. I’m going there after I finish my
errands. I’ll hear it but I won’t answer."
Stephen nodded and held a hand up to forestall her. He went to open the balcony doors and
stepped out to look around. A freshman year spent sneaking girls and alcohol into his dorm
taught him to check out his surroundings with care.
To the rear of the library was a huge parking lot, taking up half the entire block on which the
building was located. Most of it would disappear to make room for the new wing, but for
now he could see over the cars from end to end where trees permitted, knowing the trees also
blocked the view of him from the other side.
"Looks clear," he said, "There’s a guy at the bus stop over on Cook." He stretched his arms as
if he’d been in one position for too long. Just a guy taking a break and getting some air. “If
you’re ready, there’s a delivery truck at the light that will block his view in a few seconds.
The bus is due in five minutes or so."
He turned and came into the office, going toward the door to his desk in the outer room.
When he looked back to close the door Mrs. Luthor was gone. It was said Lex Luthor was
harsh in dealing with employees who fell short of his expectations. Stephen had a feeling
Mrs. Luthor might be able to give him a run for his money, but there was the possibility her
victims wouldn’t have to leave town to find another job. Not that she had anything to worry
about as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t going to say anything to anyone, but he did
wonder why the wife of the richest man in town had to sneak around behind the backs of her
bodyguards just to spend time with her sister or to ’run errands.’
He closed and locked the hallway door and raised the shade on the sliding glass window in
the wall next to it. Now he was going to get to play doctor’s office for a while. Who said
assistant librarian sounded like it was a dull and monotonous job?
He worked on his computer for a while, and decided to check Mrs. Luthor’s office every hour
while she was gone. At three-thirty he went a few steps into the room and looked at the door
of the half bath. It was open so she hadn’t returned yet. He was about to go across and look
out the open balcony doors but he froze and didn’t move for a long time. From where he
stood he could see over the tops of the cars in the lot to the bus stop on the street behind the
library. The man he’d seen earlier was still at the bus stop.
Now. . . Now, that didn’t necessarily have to mean anything, but. . . But, what? Obviously he
didn’t see Mrs. Luthor leave, or if he had he didn’t follow her, but it’s more likely he doesn’t
know she’s gone.
He rushed to the desk and picked up the phone receiver. No matter who he was, watching the
library or not, Mrs. Luthor needed to know someone suspicious was there.
He punched in the extension for the front desk. "Hi, Lil," he said when one of the
receptionists answered. "This is Steve. Mrs. Luthor just got a call from her people warning
her that a couple of tabloids have sent reporters to watch the library and to try to talk to us
about her. She wants to know if any of you have noticed anyone loitering out front or
watching the library steps from a car, or across the street, at bus stops, places like that. We
just spotted a guy at the bus stop over on Reeves who’s been there for a while."
"As a matter of fact," the receptionist replied, "we were wondering about that. One of the
men who was in here yesterday morning was across the street at the metro platform until
about an hour ago. We thought he was watching the library, but then he left in a hurry. Some
people got on the number four bus and he ran across the street and tried to grab the back step,
but he was too late. He jumped in a taxi and it went after the bus."
"Thanks," he answered in a worried voice. "If you see him again let us know. Talk to you
later." He picked up the note pad on which Mrs. Luthor had written Lucy’s number and
started pushing numbers on the keypad.

It was fun for a few hours now and then, Jimmy Olsen thought, but taking care of a baby full
time was an experience he just wasn’t ready for yet. Of course, they said all of that changed
when the baby was your own, but he thought that was a pretty damn high price to pay to see if
’they’ were right. He held Mara Kent on his lap and glanced down to make sure she was still
nibbling at her cookie and not pulling her shoes and socks off while he sat at his desk and
checked his email. He glanced toward Perry White’s office and saw the big confab was still
going on in there. The third woman in the meeting, who he’d never met or seen before, was a
close friend of Mrs. Lane and seemed to be asking a lot of questions. Jimmy figured she was
either going to be important to the investigation of Luthor or she was going to be helping in
some other way. He knew Lucy and Mrs. Lane had seen Lois the day before and talked to her
for the first time in years, and he couldn’t wait to hear all about it.
Clark had come out once so far to check on Mara and to change her diaper and show him
what to give her if she got hungry. Jimmy played with her a while, actually enjoying the game
of chase they had with him crawling after her around and around his desk. Too bad it tired
him out more than her. He ended up rolling her over and tickling her until she was out of
breath and then picking her up and carrying her around the newsroom to say "Hi" to
everybody, before sitting down at his desk and giving her a cookie to gnaw on.
It was getting well into the afternoon now and it was with a feeling of relief that he saw
Deputy Chief Henderson was getting to his feet and buttoning his suit jacket. He looked
grim. Well, okay, when did he not look grim? He looked grimmer than usual as he spoke to
the others in the room and pointed at something on Perry’s desk.
Then everyone got to their feet and milled around while Clark and Henderson came out of
the office together, pulling the door closed behind them. They were still talking about
something in low voices.
Curious, Jimmy looked into the office. Lucy Lane - god, he had a crush on her at one time,
her mother and the older, professional looking woman, Dr. Friskin, were still inside, gathered
in front of Perry’s desk and listening to something he was saying. Jimmy tried to read his lips,
but the baby started bouncing around on his lap and he looked down. She had either heard her
father's voice or seen him walking to the elevator with Henderson, either way she was
making the sound of what Jack called "the giggle-laugh of happiness," a sound he said only
babies could make. Jimmy chuckled and turned his chair so MJ could watch her father and
wiggle around with glee, waving her arms and kicking her legs excitedly to get his attention.
"I’ll take her. Thanks for being so patient, Jimmy. I know you weren’t expecting this, and the
meeting took longer than I expected." Lucy Lane’s voice startled him and he looked up, still
laughing at the baby who was now directing her giggle-laugh at her nanny.
"No problem, Lucy," he said, lifting the little girl to her. "I thought letting her crawl around
would make her tired and want to sleep, but, heck, I’m the one who ran out of energy first!"
"Crawling is her favorite thing right now," she told him. "She can follow us around, she can
make Jack and Denny chase her, she can hide under tables and make them and her daddy
look for her. She had a lot of fun showing off last night and this morning. I’ll need roller
skates when she starts to walk."
"Lucy, dear," Mrs. Lane said, coming up to where her daughter was standing. "Barb is going
my way so she's going to take me to the clinic. We’re leaving now."
Lucy turned and looked at her. "Oh, alright, Mom. Call me later if you have a chance."
"I’ll try," Ellen said and reached for the baby. "Let me say good-bye to my little sweetie girl."
Jimmy took the opportunity to get up and walk away. He grinned at Clark, who was
returning from walking Henderson to the elevator. Clark shrugged and turned to go to his
desk and Jimmy fell into step with him.
"The yacht will be ready to go tomorrow," he said. "I called SRU and they had to order a
couple of things for me and they’ll be here first thing in the morning. I’ll have them set-up
and tested by evening. Paige and Eddie can start moving in sometime tomorrow afternoon."
"That fast? Great! I’ll go in alone at first, Jim. Ed and the ladies were expecting another
day to get ready." Clark was pleased with the news, obviously.
"I can show you what I have tonight," Jimmy offered. "I’m going out to monitor the cameras
until you guys move in. I can teach you the set-up and you can show the others. That way I
won’t be seen around the marina too much. I already told Captain Keith not to go too far
down the bay when you take the yacht out. SRU has good stuff but the range on them can be
limited." He shrugged. "If you want recognizable faces, license plate numbers on tape stay
close to the docks. Our computers can clean up only so much and the quality of images from
the security cameras on the docks are never good to begin with. Outdated equipment."
"Don’t worry. We aren’t going to blow this," Clark assured him, stopping at his desk to turn
and lean back against the front edge.
Jimmy took a similar stance beside him. Lucy and the baby were walking Ellen Lane and Dr.
Friskin to the elevators. "CK? You ever figure out how Luthor got onto us three years ago
when we were so close to having something concrete on him?"
"Three years?" Clark repeated. "Has it been that long already?" He shook his head. "No.
Perry, Bill and I went over it and over it - hell, we reviewed the case as recently as ten months
ago, but no. We don’t know how he found out. He just seems to plan for every eventuality
that might come up and if he sees a warning sign, no matter how trivial, he cuts his losses
and gets out. The Feds, of course, are a different matter. He had eyes and ears in their task force. I
wouldn’t be surprised if he still does and is feeding them information even today, just
stringing them along and then yanking it all away when they think they’re getting close." He
shook his head. "If that’s the case even Superman hasn’t heard anything, and believe me. . ."
"Yeah,” Jimmy agreed. “Luthor’s a snake. Slippery as a snake." Then he laughed and waved
his hand at Lucy and Mara as they walked away from the closing elevators. Mara’s unhappy face,
watching Ellen Lane wave and vanish from sight in the elevator, scrunched up as she
began to cry. "How do you guys resist that face? Man, she’s so cute, I could eat her up!"
Clark smiled. "She’s catching on to the true meaning of bye-bye, and she doesn’t like it."
"Man, I should be filming this! Where’s my camera?" He jumped to his feet and rushed to
his desk. He grabbed his camera and waited for it to power on, then waved at Clark and
zeroed in on Mara. “Ah, what’s the matter?” he said. “Why is Uncle Jimmy’s little pumpkin girl so sad?”
Lucy wiped away her tears and assured her she would see Grandma Ellen tomorrow - "I
promise! We’ll talk to her on the computer, okay?"
"We’re leaving, too, Clark," she said, walking to his desk and letting him take the baby.
"She’s acting tired. I think she’s ready for a good long nap. I need to stop at my apartment
and get her walking stroller, too. We left in such a hurry yesterday to get Lois back to the
library, I had MJ in the carrier and forgot to grab the stroller."
Clark could tell she was right about the baby. She loved all the attention she got but was still
upset over Ellen leaving. "Take her straight home," he said. "I’m going to see a source in
Chinatown and I’ll go right by your place. I’ll get the stroller. I have Denny’s car."
Lucy smiled. "Are you going to get another car for yourself? Or, just use public transit?"
"Actually I have a Jeep TJ ragtop in mind. No roof unless the weather is bad. It’ll be just
like," he shrugged, "flying."
Jimmy chuckled at the joke, focusing his lens on the baby as she grabbed her dad’s tie and
stuck it in her mouth and started giggling when he pretended to fight her for it. Yeah, he
thought. They sure are cute as long as they belong to someone else.

Picking the two locks on Lucy’s door was easier than getting into the elevator without
anyone in the laundromat downstairs seeing her. She was loaded down with plastic bags
filled with various items she knew she would be needing - the most important of which
were half a dozen cell phones all activated on something called a family plan with what
was called a "low" family rate, but what Lois considered to be highway robbery. Still, she’d
paid for it in cash, and then paid another arm and a leg to have the phones, under the name
Logan-Lane at this address, and the account activated immediately. Like that hadn’t been
done before. They certainly knew what to do to make it happen fast for such an "unusual
request."
She locked the door behind her and carried her bags to the bedroom and dropped them on
the bed. Spies ’R’ Us was such a handy store.
She took all the phones and put them on the kitchen table and grabbed an instruction booklet
and began to read through it. They were all the same, but different colors, and after studying
the booklet and playing with one of the phones, Lois followed the directions to find the
numbers assigned to each phone and wrote them down matching them to their colors. She
would take the blue one and leave the rest with a note to Lucy to keep one and give one to
Ellen and anyone else she thought might need one. She would find out who had what color
later. She began dialing each phone to make sure they worked. They did, so she opened the
instruction booklet again and figured out how to set the ringer to its various settings and
practiced sending herself something called ’text’ messages for a time before fiddling
around with the camera.
A telephone with a camera. Hmm.
The phones flipped open to use like something out of Star Trek, and folded flat when not in
use. Lois realized she could carry hers on her person all the time. She wondered why Lex had
never given her one before to replace the chunky monstrosity with a retractable antenna she
carried in her purse. Everyone seemed to be using them. Satisfied she would be able to use
the phone correctly, she slipped the blue one into her pocket and got up to return to the
bedroom.
Inside the other bags were various surveillance and spying devices - all much more
sophisticated than the stuff Jimmy loved playing with five years ago. She didn’t really
understand how they had been improved, but the demonstrations she’d asked for proved
they were far superior to Jimmy’s old toys. Microphones disguised as pens and pencils
that really worked, motion detectors, tiny cameras and little TV monitors you could carry
in a pocket or a purse. Even the latest state of the art electronic bug detectors were small
enough to stick into a hip pocket. Headphones were slimmed down, and long range sound
detectors looked like small radios or pagers.
Putting one of everything into a pack she’d bought, Lois put the rest in a drawer of the
bedside table, dumping them on top of a legal pad and an address book. She picked it up and
opened it, flipping through the pages quickly. Several Kent entries caught her eye: two for the
farm in Smallville and three for an address on the South Side of Metropolis. This was Clark’s
address. She dug for a pencil and scribbled it onto the legal pad and ripped off the sheet. She
folded it carefully and put it into her back pocket, and got up and carried the empty packages
from her purchases to the kitchen trash can.
She sat at the table again, lining up the phones and staring at them. Life had passed her by
while she lived safely protected and tucked away like the prize item in a collector’s
showcase. The mansion was the buffer Lex had erected around her to keep her away from
her old life. It was the safe place she stayed inside for comfort when she learned it was her
own fault that Lex would never look at her and see a desirable woman ever again.
These little telephones on the table in front of her showed her how much she had missed
when she let her physical shortcomings dominate her self-worth and turn her into a docile
housewife.
Lucy and her mother were wrong, though. Lex had nothing to do with the disappearance of
Lois Lane. She had lost herself. She had let herself be swallowed up by her marriage, the one
thing she had always feared would happen to her if she married. Lex’s disappointment wasn’t
why she’d quit working and turned into a society wife. Her own disappointment in herself
was the reason Lois Lane was replaced by Mrs. Luthor. Lucy had been the first person in
years to call her Lois instead of her honorific, her title, her station in life. Even Lex called her
nicknames instead of her name. She was that thing she had always secretly despised when she
was a working woman: she’d become a decoration, a trophy her husband could display to the
public, a doll he draped in expensive, tasteful clothing he picked out himself.
Tears formed in her eyes and Lois put her head on her arms which were crossed on the table
before her and felt her tears dropping onto her forearm and flowing down the side to the
table.
She sniffled loudly and didn’t hear the sound of keys turning in the locks on the door. She
didn’t see it swing open wide, nor did she see the man who came inside, leaving the door
open while he walked quietly across the carpet to the folded baby stroller next to the sofa.
The sound of the metal frame striking the legs of the coffee table brought her head up
instantly and she stared at the figure lifting the stroller over the table and turning for the door.
"Cla-hhrk?" she said, her voice breaking halfway through and ending in a kind of hiss. She
drew in a breath and repeated, "Clark?"
The man glanced up and quickly back down as a loose strap hooked on the corner of the
coffee table and stuck. "Dana? What the hell have you done to your hair this time?" said a
very familiar voice. "What are you doing here? Have another fight with Artie?"
Dana? Artie? Lois thought, as she rose from her chair and stepped to the side of the table
and started toward him. How does he know Dana and Arthur? Whydoes he know my cousin
and her husband? "Clark? What are you doing here?" Her voice rose in pitch as she spoke.
The man’s head came up quickly and he looked at her now and his inquisitive expression
turned to surprise. Then he squinted and leaned his head to one side. If he wasn’t so surprised
he would have laughed. "My god . . . Lois?" What on earth had she done to her hair? He
straightened his stance and he had to purse his lips to keep from smiling. Mara had more hair
than she did!
Lois was running, covering the distance between them in seconds. "Clark!" she screamed
and threw herself the final few inches and locked her arms around his shoulders and pressed
her tear stained face into the crook of his neck.
He barely had time to drop the stroller before she connected with him, and caught by
surprise, he stumbled back a step, one hand coming up to touch the middle of her back and
the other grabbing the side of a bookcase next to the sofa to keep from stumbling another step.
"I’m not Dana!" an indignant voice squeaked against his shirt collar and her body began to
shake with sobs, wailing cries muffled against his neck, though his enhanced hearing picked
up the nuances of joy and relief before they turned to empty cries of pain and loneliness.
Clark stood there, one hand on Lois’s back, for a long time, not sure what to do. He had
never seen a woman cry like this who was not grieving over the body of a loved one, or
looking upon the mind numbing devastation of a natural disaster. To say this was unexpected
was an understatement to end them all.
After a while- he had no idea how long- she seemed to be gaining control of herself as a
hiccup interrupted her weeping and she seemed able to draw a deep breath. Her hold on
him hadn’t slackened, though, and he looked at the sofa just inches away. He tried to guide
her to it and realized there was no resistance. They were both actually holding her in place
against his shoulder, her feet off the floor. There was sufficient room between the sofa and
the coffee table to maneuver her and then lean over for her feet to touch the floor. She
wouldn’t let go.
"Hey, come on. We should sit down."
"No!" Her hands gripped the material of his suit jacket and gathered it tightly in her fists.
She shook with sobs again, and he raised his gaze to the ceiling.
"Tell me what to do then. What are you doing here? Lucy wasn’t expecting to see you
today."
She sniffled and her muffled voice answered. "Why did you call me Dana?"
He patted her back with one hand and lifted the other to massage his forehead wearily. "I
didn’t look closely,” he said, trying to keep the humor out of his tone. “Dana has short hair,
too, and she comes here when she and Artie, her husband argue."
She must have heard the smile he was trying to keep off his face. "It isn’t that short- Why do
you have keys to my sister’s apartment?" She drew away from him a little, her voice
indignant, her body gaining tension.
"She’s my daughter’s nanny. Dana has keys to this place. Cindy has a key. Your mother calls
it everyone’s pied a terre." Clark looked at what he could see of her head still buried against
his neck. "Lois, what are you doing here?" He looked at the sofa. "Damn it, I’m sitting down.
If you want to talk, you can join me."
He knew he was in trouble when he sat down slowly and instead of sitting next to him on
the comfortable sofa, she slid onto his lap and didn’t let go of his jacket as she began to weep
again.

12- Twelve

Jack and Denny were already at home, huddled together in front of the computer in Clark’s
downstairs office, when Lucy and the baby arrived. Whatever the guys were looking at
was so interesting that neither looked up at the sound of the door opening and closing. Not
wanting to awaken Mara, who’d fallen asleep in the car, Lucy didn’t announce her presence,
but hurried up the stairs to put the baby in her crib and to drop her own things in her
bedroom.
They were still preoccupied with what they were doing when Lucy came downstairs twenty
minutes later. She went to the doorway of the downstairs office and stopped. "What’s so
interesting?" she asked, and both young men looked up guiltily, startled by her interruption.
"Oh, hi, Lucy," Denny said and stood back.
"Okay," she said, folding her arms and walking slowly toward them. "What are you up to? If
you’re looking at anything illegal, you know Clark will find out and kill both of you. Twenty-
one or not, Jack, you’re still dead meat."
He smiled and shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by illegal."
She raised her eyebrows. "It’s all the same to him. Well, almost, but he’s still got very little
gray area."
The brothers gave each other a look and Denny flopped down on the sofa, waving an arm at
Jack. "Yesterday when we went to the library to help your sister, we. . .kinda. . .took the
opportunity to, uh. . ."
Jack rolled his eyes at his brother’s reticence. "We got into your sister’s laptop and I copied
her hard drive."
Lucy frowned. "Why?" she asked, her tone a mixture of shock and bewilderment. "Why did
you do it?"
"I thought we might be able to find a way into LexCorp’s computer system using one of the
programs she has," he said, leaning back in the desk chair and swinging it around to look at
her. "but I’ve been looking through the files, and the passwords are easy to figure out - she
uses the same one over and over with just slight variations - but I have to go online through a
LexCorp owned server to do anything. His servers are so heavily encrypted. . . Well, the
programs Jimmy and I have made can’t even find their encryption program, let alone get past
it. Even the cops and the Feds haven’t been able to crack it."
"We’ve been careful," Denny added from where he lay on his back with his hands clasped
behind his head. "We used the university computers, the ones the hackers use, and tried to
get into the LexCorp system but you need something other than a password to get in. We
were just searching again to try to find what Luthor’s people use so their system’s software
will recognize them and let them enter."
“Wait a minute," Lucy said, still mystified as to why they would jeopardize so much on their
own. "Can you use what you have to hack LexCorp? Assuming you can find the information
you need?"
"I think so." Jack shrugged. "I’ll have to talk to Jimmy, maybe to the MPD guys on the task
force, too. I can’t do anything with this copy of the hard drive. I’m missing something that
your sister’s hard drive has to let her use the LexCorp servers. I mean, she can login and she’s
on the internet with her laptop. I have the same information she has on this one but those
servers know I’m not her laptop and they won’t recognize me at all. Instead of instant access,
they’re telling me I’m not authorized to use them, so get lost."
"What if they can trace you here?"
He shook his head. "I’m not online here. I never have been. I’ve only tried to do that at the
university where the hackers have their setup. I didn’t stay connected long enough for them to
track me. They’ve got themselves routed through so many different places it will take months
to trace anything back to the university."
"Maybe it’s the location," Denny said. "LexCorp knows Mrs. Luthor is at the library every
day to work on the computer project. Maybe we have to get online through the library."
"Maybe," his brother agreed. "It could be a tracking program of some kind. If she tries to
access the LexCorp servers from anywhere other than the library, she’ll be allowed in but
they’ll be alerted that she’s not at the library anymore."
Too late, he saw the effect of his words on Lucy and he looked at her with embarrassment
and apology giving him a sick expression.
More concerned than ever for her sister, Lucy uncrossed her arms and leaned forward
against the edge of the desk. "Are you certain LexCorp can’t find you if they noticed an
unauthorized request to join their server? Clark and Mr. White have been working a long
time to build a case against Luthor that he can’t refute."
"I’m positive," Jack assured her. "This is a new hard drive. I took this laptop to the university
because of the safety of the hacker setup, and I stayed online just long enough to know I
wouldn’t be able to get into LexCorp. I saved the session and logged off. I’m not online now. I
was just reading the code with the encryption busting program Jimmy and I created." He
took a breath. "We’re talking LexCorp, remember? They probably have a hundred thousand
unauthorized hits a day from hackers and ordinary people making an honest mistake."
"You’d better tell Clark, anyway, and then call Deputy Chief Henderson. It would be safer
to let the police do it." She straightened up and crossed her arms again, giving him a severe
look. "I just found my sister after five years of separation. I don’t want to lose her. If Luthor
finds any reason to pull her back behind the walls of his fortress, I’ll never see her again. He’ll
never let her out if he discovers Clark and Perry White are investigating him. She might not
be a hostage now, but she would be if Luthor knew that."
"I know," Jack nodded. Damn if she didn’t take her role as nanny too seriously at times! He
felt like he’d just had a spanking for sneaking a cookie or something, and he glanced at
Denny. He was looking at the ceiling as if he’d never seen one before. Fat lot of help he was!
"We’re waiting for him to come home so we can show him what we have." He turned his
head to look and waved a hand at the laptop beside him. "I haven’t read her personal files or
anything. I’m looking at the programs themselves and they seem to be original to LexCorp or
software you can buy at any computer store, but that’s been modified and changed to fit what
Luthor needs them to be. There is a disk washer program for covering your tracks online. I
have it on my computers as is straight from the company who made it, but your sister’s laptop
has a version that’s so heavily modified I almost didn’t recognize it. It’s doing things the
program’s creator probably never dreamed of having it do!"
She went to the sofa and made a sweeping motion with her hand, and Denny swung his legs
off the cushions and sat up to give her room to join him. He leaned forward and clasped his
hands in front of him, elbows on his knees. Lucy sat down and leaned back, trying to relax.
She took a deep breath.
"You just scared the liver out of me, guys," she said. "It never occurred to me that my sister,
herself, might be bugged or under closer surveillance by Luthor than just having bodyguards
accompanying her everywhere. I took her to my apartment! We talked about - wefought
about Luthor! I was so worried about the Feds following us, I never even thought of him
bugging her! I wish there was some way to get in touch with her without going to the library.
She needs to know Lex might have her tagged."
Jack thought for a moment and indicated the telephone. "Have you had any messages today?
Your mother’s friend at the laundry would call her tenants if anyone was snooping around
the apartment building, wouldn’t she?"
A smile slowly settled on Lucy’s face. "Yes. Yeah, she would. In fact. . .Jimmy sent me some
pictures of the two Feds who were following Lois yesterday. Maybe I should send those
pictures to Mrs. Di Pesto and tell her to call the police if she sees either of them hanging
around."
Jack jumped up from the desk and held the chair for her. "Be my guest, Ms. Lane," he said with a smile.

If there was one thing he could do well, if he did say so himself, it was remember a good
pair of legs and to who they belonged. The woman in the baseball cap and faded jeans who
came around the far end of the library didn’t catch his notice until she reached the bus stop on
the corner and stopped to look at the schedule on a corner pole of the overhead shelter.
The bench was full, so she stood to one side and that was when Dan Scardino’s memory
went into overdrive. Spend a year following those two legs all over town, up and down
stairs, in and out of elevators and limousines, and they’re burned into your mind forever.
That’s her, he thought and looked to his right. The bus was coming, right on time. Without
thinking he was in motion, racing down the steps from the elevated Metroliner platform. The
bus had stopped with a hiss of air brakes and doors opening. As soon as he hit the sidewalk,
Scardino was running across the street to where the bus was pulling away, gaining speed as it
crossed the intersection with a green light. He was reaching for the corner post on the back
platform, but at eight feet away, a figure from the sidewalk on the next block moved quickly
in front of him and swung up, blocking his way. Swearing loudly, Scardino stopped and spun
around, spotting a taxi and whistling shrilly to catch the driver’s attention. It screeched to a
stop in front of him.
"Follow the bus," he said, scrambling into the back seat and slamming the door as the vehicle
jerked into motion.
The driver was chuckling. "Figured you’d need me after that missed catch!"
"Yeah, stay with the bus, pal." He was reaching for his phone in his back pocket to call
Wallace.
"You want me to pick it up, buddy, show me some green."
He pulled out his badge instead of the phone and leaned forward to hold it to the side of the
driver’s face. "I said stay with the bus, pal."

1997
"Pick it up, Smith," Miles Moore whispered into Scardino’s ear, and gave him a rough arm
slam as he went past him.
"View’s too good," Dan "Smith" answered, the smile evident in his voice, but he quickened
his step and followed.
Mrs. Luthor was leaving the fund raiser early, slipping out the back door while her guests
and the press were still preoccupied with the giant check being presented to the recipients by
the mayor of Metropolis. As usual, she was walking briskly along the hallway and leaving
her bodyguards to jog behind.
Moore stopped short and spun around, one large hand coming up to grab Dan at the base of
his throat and stop him short in his tracks. "Don’t get me in trouble, Smith!"
Scardino frowned and stepped back, evading the other man and hurrying after Mrs. Luthor.
What an idiot, he thought. Looking out for a woman like that was a treat, not a freaking job!
Behind him he could hear Moore speaking into his walkie-talkie, alerting the chauffeur to be ready.
With another admiring look at Mrs. Luthor’s backside and her silk encased legs, he managed
to fall into step behind and to the right of his object of responsibility, and he was right there
to reach forward and open the door for her and wave her through with a smile.
Tillson, the chauffeur, was ready, opening the back door of the sleek, black limo and putting
his body between Mrs. Luthor and the street just beyond the front of the long car. A few
flashes of blinding camera lights turned the alley bright as day for a few seconds, but the
chauffeur and the open door with its darkened window kept the photographers from getting
usable images of Lex Luthor’s wife.
Scardino scuttled forward and leaned down to climb into the back seat with Lois Luthor. The
door closed. Moore opened the front passenger door and got in, but the addition of his bulk
barely upset the car’s suspension. A short time later, the chauffeur got in behind the wheel
and the limo moved forward.
Scardino thought her a striking woman when he’d been introduced to her; a bored, annoyed,
and pampered woman, but striking nonetheless. It was just a matter of days before his
attraction to her became the talk of the servant’s quarters at Mount Luthor mansion. He knew
it wasn’t smart to draw attention to himself when he was supposed to be quietly undercover,
but man, the woman was really something else.
Over time, as he knew he would, he had gotten to her. They’d begun to talk across the space
between the seats at the back of the limo. Grudgingly at first, she’d study him for a short time
before answering a question he’d asked, the answer short and dismissive, but eventually, that
had given way to short conversations. Now and then, a smile or a quiet laugh at one of his
jokes, or even a hand placed in his to help her out of the limo, though they both knew the
chauffeur was looking on disapprovingly.
Looking back, he guessed it was inevitable that someone would talk, and the talk would
reach the wrong ears, and then the talk would be relayed to the one person an undercover
federal agent should have been smart enough to avoid. He was working as a bodyguard
to infiltrate the Luthor LexCorp organization, but he had fallen head over heels for the man's
wife instead, and he royally screwed up the first and, so far, only time law enforcement had
been able to put an agent inside the Luthor business empire.
There was no proof Lex Luthor had given the order to kill Daniel Smith, but two attempts
had been made on his life and the second one was believed to be successful.

1999
Agent Scardino stood concealed behind a dumpster in an alley beside a small laundromat
and looked up above the business at the windows on the side of the old building. The ground
floor held the laundry and a travel office with a glass walled lobby between them. The upper
floors were obviously apartments because a sign announcing the vacancy of two units
was posted on an inverted V sign on the sidewalk outside the lobby doors.
Mrs. Luthor had led him on a fast but prolific shopping trip that left her burdened with
several plastic bags hanging from her arms. Spies ’R’ Us, for who knew what, he couldn’t
get close enough to see; Means and Porter’s, a mid end clothing store for women; and
Airspace, a consumer electronics store known for its wholesale prices. He was tempted
to break his observation and pretend to run into her accidentally so he could offer her a hand,
but the way she’d shoved a couple of young toughs out of her way at a bus stop was a
surprising move on her part. The guys went slinking away as fast as they could without
attracting attention. He had to hand it to her since all she wanted to do was redistribute the
weight of the bags she was carrying. She didn’t need help, and he was glad. If he blew this
cover, he’d be assigned to Alaska for the rest of his life. Well, he was disappointed, actually,
but hated having to admit it even to himself. He grinned as he followed her. It had completely
slipped his mind to call Wallace.
Arriving at the laundry in a less busy part of downtown, Mrs. Luthor waved to the older
woman attendant inside the business and headed straight for the elevator. From across the
street, he saw the number board above the doors light up one by one three times. Watching
the windows, he saw the curtains move as if by a breeze in the apartment on the right side
of the building. Odds were that’s where she’d gone.
Unfortunately, the laundry attendant was a busybody in addition to running the business.
She’d noticed Scardino across from the building and came outside to yell at him to get a
move on or she’d call the police. Moving to the steps of an apartment building half a block
away, he sat down and took out a cigarette and tried to look like a tenant outside for a smoke.
The older woman had come outside a bit later and looked around, spotted him immediately
and started yelling at him again.
Damn! Some days were just out to make a guy’s job miserable, Scardino thought and went to
the corner to pretend to get on a bus. He was sure Mrs. Luthor hadn’t come out of the
building yet, and he had no choice but to let the front of the building out of his sight long
enough to dash across the street and around the end of the block to get into the alley that ran
beside the laundry.
A fire escape hung from the side of the building. He looked around trying to find a way to
reach the second floor landing without having to pull down what looked to be a rusty, noisy
retractable ladder that would give away his presence.

When the phone began to ring, Clark was hopeful he’d found a way out of the situation with
Lois on the sofa. She had buried her face in his shoulder and continued to quietly weep,
ignoring his attempts at getting her to stop and say something to him. A lot of time and a lot
of life had gone by in five years, but having her settled on his lap with no sign yet that she
ever intended to move away, was beginning to make him uncomfortable. No matter what was
the cause of her need to give way to so much venting of pain and sadness, she was a married
woman. Though no one could see them, she was a married woman whose husband was,
arguably, the most dangerous and deadly criminal on the planet, and their current positions on
the sofa certainly begged for explanations.
Then, the telephone interrupted the sounds of her crying. A bright recording of Lucy Lane’s
voice greeted the caller and invited them to leave a message.
"This is Stephen Sully from the library. Mrs. Luthor, if you’re there call me before you come
back to the library. The guy we saw at the bus stop before you left is still there. He’s been
moving from the bench at the bus stop across the street to the stone wall at the other end of
the library parking lot, but he’s definitely watching the back of the building. I don’t see a
camera or anything like that, so I don’t think he’s a photographer. Either the bodyguard at
the back door hasn’t seen him or he’s only concerned about the people coming and going
from the library and not. . ."
The voice of the caller stopped as the machine reached its recording time allotment. There
was no call back to continue.
Sully’s voice barely concealed his excitement at such mysterious goings-on at the library,
but the content of the message managed to penetrate Lois’ emotional state and bring her
head up so she could draw in a deep breath.
The deep breath brought with it the familiar scent of cologne, fabric softener and nice
perspiration she remembered over the years as being uniquely Clark Kent. Her hands relaxed
their grip on his jacket and her fingers felt stiff and jerky when she straightened them, like
they felt after that old squeezing trick she’d done as a kid in school. Just pulling back and
meeting the concerned eyes of the dearest friend she had ever had caused her to crumple
again and she felt the tears slide down her already numbed face. His hand resting lightly on
one of her knees, moved up and pulled a light blue handkerchief from his breast pocket and
raised it up between them. She took it and let it unfold from her loose grip and she wiped at
her face.
"I’m sorry," she said quietly. "I’ve always wondered how it would be if I ever saw you
again. . . you know, face to face." She felt a fresh flow of tears on her face and wiped them
away. "This isn’t what I imagined I’d do." She pressed the cloth against her eyes. "Now I
can’t stop!"
"Sure you can," Clark said and while she was distracted, he started to rise, grabbing her
waist and pushing her to a standing position in front of him. "Come on. I know Lucy must
have something to drink in the kitchen." He gave her a gentle push toward the other end of
the room and was relieved when she went ahead of him without a protest.
"She doesn’t. We had it all yesterday when my mother was here." She turned around and
pressed her face to his shoulder and slid her arms around his waist. "Oh, Clark!"
He patted her shoulder. "Come on. I’ll find something." He got her walking again and as
they neared the table, he frowned and unbuttoned his jacket to put his hands into his pants
pockets. "Why are there five cell phones on the table, I wonder?"
Lois turned and looked, dabbing at her eyes again. "I bought those today for Lucy and my
mother, and whoever else might need one." She wiped at her face again. "LexCorp blocks
certain numbers from reaching me. My mother and Lucy have never been able to reach me
because some- because he-" She broke off as another flow of tears started. "I put the account
in Lucy’s name and paid ahead as far as I could. I have the sixth one so she and Mother can
call me."
She reached for him and buried her face against his chest again. "Oh, Clark, I’ve missed
you so much!"
He stood there awkwardly, not moving at all as she shook with quiet sobs, her arms wrapped
around his waist. "Lois, come on. You don’t mean that. You’re a happily married woman
now."
This wasn’t exactly what he thought he’d be doing if he ever saw her again, for his part. He
figured they’d see one another from afar, at a news event, at a fund raiser, hopefully at
Luthor’s trial, or at his arrest at the very least and . . .
"No, I’m not! I can’t have children."
. . .they would exchange a look, a small nod from across a large room, divided by the velvet
rope between the social gentry and the press. His thoughts vanished as her words penetrated
his mind, and he looked at the top of her head.
"What? What did you say?"
She was shaking again, her breath raspy with crying. He raised a hand and gently patted her
shoulder. She sniffled loudly. Her voice was quiet, high pitched and terribly sad. "I can’t ever
have kids. Never!" She sniffled again, pressing the handkerchief to her face with one hand.
Clark took advantage of her slackened grip to firmly guide her to the nearest kitchen chair.
After she sat, he grabbed another and swung it around so he could straddle it backwards,
putting the back between him and her. She grabbed one of his hands and looked down at it
between her own.
"I never wanted kids before I. . .before. Not until they told me I never would!" She was
racked with weeping again, doubling over her lap and holding tightly to his hand.
He got up and moved to lower himself to one knee beside her chair. "Who told you this,
Lois?" he asked gently. "Are they certain of it?"
She nodded, turning to throw her arms over his shoulders and lay her head on one.
"Ev-every fer- til- fertility specialist in the world!" Her voice broke, but she took a deep
breath and went on. "All the t-tests were the s-same." Her arms tightened around his neck.
"Oh, Clark! I’ll never be able to have kids!"
"I’m. . .I’m sorry, Lois. I don’t know what . . ." he said, letting his voice trail off.
"Just before our second anniversary," she said in almost a whisper. "He said we should have a
ch- child and I always knew the sub- subject would come up sooner or later because he told
me before that he wanted a large family. I’ve never liked children and they don’t like me, but
what c-c- could I do? I didn’t w-want one but he said- he said he wanted an heir. And then
nothing happened. After our second anniversary he suggested we see a specialist. The first
series of tests said it all, but he insisted on another opinion. The results were the same, and he
just kept arranging more tests, one more opinion, and then one more when he didn’t hear
what he wanted to hear!" She started sobbing again. "It was awful, Clark! Two years of
traveling all over the world to one specialist after another. Tests, surgeries, more tests, so
many different doctors, so many different tests." She began to wail against his shoulder,
her voice muffled. "So many humiliating things they did to me!"
He patted her shoulder, rubbed her back, let her cry, and wondered what she was doing here
seeking comfort from him and not her mother or her sister.
Lois turned her face toward him and he felt her breath against his neck as she went on. "All of it
was the same. He can have children, but not with me. I can’t conceive. They suggested in
vitro, but he was angry, he refused. He said if anyone found out his son was conceived
artificially, the press would have a field day with it. He refused to consider surrogacy, he was
disgusted by adoption." She breathed in the scent of Clark’s skin and his aftershave
and pushed herself away from him, sitting up and turning her face away. "The only good thing to
come from all the humiliation is he. . . He doesn’t want me anymore. He hasn’t touched me
since that second anniversary. He moved into his own bedroom suite, and he has his women
living at the penthouse waiting for him to visit them at night." She started to cry again. "I
don’t care about that. I really don’t. It just hurts so much to know all he ever wanted from me
was an heir and now that he knows I’ll never be able to do that, he can’t even pretend to see a
woman anymore when he looks at me!"
Clark got to his feet and looked down at her as she huddled in the chair. Of all the abuses he
would have expected from Luthor to the women in his life, intolerance of a physical
imperfection never entered his mind. Luthor was the most unbiased criminal he had ever
investigated. Lois was the woman Luthor wanted. Lois was the woman he had. If he didn’t
want her as a wife, why was he keeping the illusion of a happy marriage alive?
What has been going on for the last three years?
He started walking around her chair. "Do you want me to call Lucy? She can be here-"
"No!" Lois said, shaking her head. "No, please. I can’t. . .I can’t tell her."
"Well, Lois, I’m at a complete loss." He walked a few feet away and turned to look at her. "I
have no idea what to say to you. What is it you expect me to do?"
"You’re m-my friend, C-Clark." She got up and approached him. "I need a friend."
"I think your mother and Lu- "
"No! I can’t tell them. Not yet." She dissolved into tears again and leaned against him, sliding
her arms around his waist. "Could you, please, just hold me, Clark?"
"Lois, let me call Lucy or Ellen."
"Not Now. Please."
Lois felt his arms enclose her slowly, reluctantly, and she relaxed against his chest. After a
long time, she pulled back and raised her arms to encircle his neck.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She raised her face and found his eyes to be wary. She pulled
his head closer and stood on tip toe to touch her lips to his.

13- Thirteen

Ten feet back from the front of the building, it didn’t take much to pop open the bars on the third floor
window of the apartment he assumed Mrs. Luthor was visiting. If people knew how easy these things
were to crack, Scardino thought with a smile and opened them a few inches at a time, stopping when it
began to squeak. The inner screen had swung away with the bars a good two feet before sticking. He
could get his arms easily inside and coax the slightly open window up a bit further. Luckily it was a new
window and balanced, the sash went up with barely a sound. He flattened against the wall in case it was
seen, ready to scramble down the side if he had to. The two trash cans, one atop the other, that got him
here were still leaning against the side of the building in the alley below. He heard nothing. He leaned
closer, risking a look around the side of the window. He couldn’t see anything but his own reflection
because of blue plastic mini blinds raised to just below his line of sight, but he could hear hushed voices.
He held his breath, concentrating, crouching down to get a look under the blinds. Whispers, soft
laughter, moaning, a ragged intake of breath and-
Oh great! He fell back against the wall again. If that was Lois Luthor in there, she had come to meet
someone! Oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god, Scardino chanted inside his head, until he realized he
was matching the rhythm of the bed springs, a soft but persistent squeak coming clearly- Oh, jeez!
Where was a Metroliner going overhead when you needed it?!
Didn’t this street have traffic?!
What kind of neighborhood was this that no one drove by, getting away from the busy streets?
Just my luck, Scardino moaned and moved as far from the window as possible. I follow the most
unattainable woman in town where? Straight to her lover’s apartment! He raised his eyes skyward.
Please, let this be the wrong apartment!
Thankfully, a door opened somewhere below and toward the back of the building with a jingle of bells
and the air conditioner for the laundry clicked loudly and began to hum. He looked over at the little
chain linked area behind the building where the unit was singing away and saw a young man with a
basket of folded laundry on his shoulder walking down the alley to the next street over. The woman
attendant was calling good-bye from the back door. He waved an arm in reply, but didn’t turn around.

Bless you, Bruce Wayne, for being such a sybarite, Lucy thought as she soaked in the water of the hot
tub on the second floor balcony outside her bedroom windows. She knew the story of how the Kents
had been able to move into this large brownstone because of Clark’s friendship with the reclusive
billionaire of Gotham City. Meant to be his headquarters when visiting Metropolis on business, the four
story building was built to house a live-in staff and provide rooms for Wayne and his entourage away
from the city’s hotels. He’d sold it to Clark for a song when he filed for guardianship of Jack and Denny.
Wayne’s one restriction was that he be allowed to stay with the family when he was in town. There
were hot tubs and Jacuzzis and gigantic bathrooms on all four floors, plus a sunning deck on the roof.
Martha Kent had taken one look at it and decided if the roof could support something like that, it could
support a greenhouse, too.
Lucy let the underwater jets massage her while she relaxed. With the guys out of town this weekend
and the baby with the elder Kents during that time, she and Ben would have that rooftop all to
themselves for the last days of summer. Sorry, Martha, but organically grown vegetables will be the last
thing on my mind. She smiled to herself. Of course, the swimming pool in the basement will get some
use, too.
Water splashed in her face and she frowned, opening her eyes to see Denny pulling his hand away from
the water and standing back quickly, grinning. She turned her frown into a glower, or what she hoped
was a glower. She was never as good at this as Lois was. “I don’t hear Mara on the monitor, so this
better be good! “ she said.
He looked at her with a frown of his own. “Who are you supposed to be? The queen? Your landlady
called and talked to Jack. Said she called your cell but you didn't answer. “
“It’s off. I didn’t want to be disturbed, “ she answered and stood up, letting the water splash where it
wished. “What did she say? “
He picked up her towel and handed it to her as she stepped out of the tub. “Your sister was at the
apartment with a load of shopping bags, was there a couple of hours. She saw a guy hanging around
across the street after your sister arrived. He left when she went outside and yelled at him. After you
sent her the pictures of the Feds she went back out to look around and saw the guy had just moved over
a block. He was one of the Feds. She chased him off, but she’s pretty sure he’s still in the area. She
thought she saw something in the alley an hour, hour and a half ago, but when she went to look there
was no one there. Just a few minutes ago she noticed the bars on your fire escape window were open.
Jack told her to call the police. He gave her Henderson’s number. You’ll probably get there before they
do. Want one of us to go with you? “
Lucy wrapped herself in the towel and went past him. “No, better not. You and Jack stay here with
Mara. The Feds will figure out it’s my apartment soon enough and link me to Lois and LexCorp. That
won’t distract them for long. They’ll link me to Clark after that. Let’s not give them a head start with
one of you arriving with me. “ She looked over her shoulder. “While I change will you do me a favor?
Call the library and talk to Stephen Sully. Find out if he knows what my sister is doing at my
apartment. “

Dan Scardino climbed into the bedroom and looked around. The bed was empty, thank god, but still
rumpled and mussed from the activity that had taken place on it for almost an hour. As his eyes adjusted
to the dimness he saw a man’s tie on the floor near the closet door, in shadow, but a splash of wild
colors against the wood of the floor. Mrs. Luthor's lover boy was walking the streets bare necked
apparently, he thought disgustedly. He stretched his leg muscles, loosening them up a bit after two
hours of crouching in the corner of the fire escape while Lois Luthor - well, he was in here to find out
who Mr. Lucky was, not to relive every sound they made while having sex all afternoon, dammit!
Passing the bed and the dresser on the other side of it, he stopped and frowned. A woman lived here.
Going closer, he pulled open one of the drawers, then another and another. He went to the closet and
looked inside. Dresses, blouses, shirts, pants, skirts, shoes- definitely a woman’s apartment. But not
Mrs. Luthor’s. The clothes were inexpensive but not cheap or bargain basement. Designer jeans, a few
silk blouses and some of the dresses were mid end, not knock-offs. Hardly the stuff Lois Luthor was used
to- wait. What had she been wearing? Those tight jeans that had shown off her legs, a shirt like this. He
touched one of the blouses with his fingertip. Maybe this was her nondescript hideaway where she
could go to spend a few hours hitting the sack with someone behind Luthor’s back. She did stop at
M and P.
He looked down at the shoes and saw the colorful tie at his feet. He gave it a kick to land across the tops
of the shoes and slammed the closet door shut as a wave of anger coursed through him. What an idiot
he was! He fell for her! He fell for the unattainable woman, the gorgeous wife of the most evil man on
the face of the planet. The beautiful doll on Luthor’s arm, so perfect and. . . nice. The woman he’d spent
months trying to coax a smile from, and when he’d finally done it, he felt as if his whole world had come
alive. He’d been attracted to her before, but when she’d smiled and laughed at his joke- finally, after so
many stupid jokes! That was when he’d fallen in love with her, completely, utterly and hopelessly. His
paragon of beauty, his unattainable goddess- the woman he’d treated with respect, the woman he’d
almost died for twice- she wasn’t so perfect after all.
He swung around sharply and left the bedroom, going into the kitchen and pulling open drawers and
cabinets and doors. Most of the apartment was a long room divided into kitchen at one end, the living
room at the other, running the length of the building. He saw a computer and started toward it-
opening drawers along the way and letting them hang open.
At the computer Scardino pressed the on button and waited. The monitor woke up and revealed a
password protected system. Piece of cake. He dug into his back pocket, pulled out a small leather case
and took a small modem-like device from it and stuck it into an open USB port. He was so angry, so
determined to find out who the man was he didn’t hear the key open the locks, but from the corner of
his eye he saw the door swing wide and he turned, his hand coming up for the gun under his armpit.

Denny was right. Lucy arrived at the laundromat before the police. She swung her car into the alley next
to the building, not wanting to waste time looking for a parking space. Mrs. DiPesto came rushing out of
the laundromat. “The police are on the way.”
Lucy got out but stood beside the open door and looked up at her fire escape window. She leaned back
into the car and reached for the baseball bats Jack had put on the passenger seat before she left the
brownstone. “Use ‘em'" he’d said.
She pulled them out of the car and handed one to Mrs. DiPesto, closing the door quietly.
“Is my sister still here?"
The older woman eyed the bat in her hands and shook her head. “She left about twenty minutes ago,
just after I called Mr. Kent’s number and talked to Jack."
Lucy heard the sound of sirens, far off but coming closer. She hoped it was Henderson. “I’m going up, “
she said, and quickly cut off Mrs. DiPesto’s, “Oh, I-“
“I’ll be careful," she said and walked briskly toward the lobby. “I think I know who’s up there.”
“That’s probably the police,” the landlady said, and let out a breath. “Oh, I’m going with you! Ellen will
kill me if I let you go alone." She laughed. “She’ll probably kill me when she finds out I let you go at
all." She entered the lobby and stood beside Lucy at the elevator. “We know what we’re doing, don’t
we?" “Yeah, but stay behind me, anyway. He’s a federal agent and probably has a gun, but he won’t shoot
us, just threaten us. He’s following my sister for a reason but he has no right to enter my apartment
without a search warrant!"
“What if it isn’t who you think it is?"
“I’m sure it is. I called a friend at the library and one of the two agents watching there left in a hurry
when my sister did. Believe me, he’ll go inside to find out who lives here. It’s a part of following my
sister around." She motioned for the other woman to be quiet as they stepped into the elevator and
went up.
Lucy crept across the third floor lobby to her doorway, never being this frightened of opening her door
before. After five months of staying here only on weekends or days off, she had never been afraid to
enter her apartment even once. She slid the key into the first lock and turned slowly and carefully and
heard the small click from inside. She didn’t wait to listen for noises on the other side of the door. If the
agent was inside and slipped out the window, so much the better. She knew the deadbolt would make
more noise so she put the bat in front of her, handle up and turned the key at the same time as she
turned the doorknob. She shoved the door open and grabbed the bat swinging it up as she rushed into
the room. Her eyes went wide as soon as she saw the man standing in front of her computer. He was
turning around and crouching into a low position at the same time. She slammed the bat down on the
arm of the big easy chair a foot away from him.
“Don’t move!" she yelled. “Put your hands in the air! Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my
apartment?!" She swung the bat at him with a rush of wind and he jerked back.
“Watch where you’re swinging that thing, miss!" Dan Scardino said belligerently, holding his empty
hands out on front of him. “Look, I can explain this! I have identification in my pocket."
“Don’t move!" she yelled again and raised the bat for another swing.
Outside the sirens were getting closer and Mrs. DiPesto looked toward the kitchen at the front of the
building. “Don’t take your eyes off him, honey," she said and moved behind Lucy. “I’ll look around."
“I’m a government agent," Scardino said in a calmer tone. “If you’ll let me get my ID, I can explain
this."
“Shut up and keep your hands above your head! Unless you have a search warrant with that badge, I’d
wait for the police to get here."
Mrs. DiPesto came back, bat at the ready. “He searched everything, bedroom and kitchen." Her voice
was odd, but Lucy didn’t let her attention waver. They had him cut off unless he decided to run straight
at one of them and try to get out the door or go for the bedroom window. With the sirens getting closer,
now was the time he would try to make an escape. Mrs. DiPesto had cleverly stayed at the end of the
coffee table so he’d have to get around that before he could knock her down in a straight out charge.
Lucy was more vulnerable but stronger. She figured she could hold him long enough for the older
woman to get in a few hits with her bat.
The sirens were in front of the building, now, stopping and they heard car doors slamming and voices
speaking in short, curt tones.
The older woman was giving him an odd look and Scardino thought he knew why. She saw Mrs. Luthor
come into the building, but maybe not the other guy. He almost laughed out loud. Like I’d be so lucky.
He leaned back against the computer desk and watched the elevator doors open and two officers, guns
drawn, rushed out and into the open door of the apartment. Behind them Deputy Chief Bill Henderson
had come out, too, gun drawn.
Scardino grinned, standing up. “Henderson! Good to see you! Tell these nice young ladies I’m a federal
agent."
“Stay where you are!" Lucy commanded.
“We’ll take over, miss," one of the officer’s said and stepped in front of Lucy, his gun still on the
intruder.
Thankful, she lowered the bat and turned to the door. Henderson came in calmly, putting his sidearm
away. “It’s okay, Lucy," he said. “I know this man. He’s what he says he is."
Lucy stepped back and looked around, There were drawers hanging open all over the room. “If he
doesn’t have a search warrant, I’m pressing charges. Look what he did to my place! And what is he
doing with my computer! How did you get the password?!" She would have run forward, but
Henderson laid a hand on her arm.
“Take a look around." He turned to the intruder, who was again sitting on the edge of the desk, slowly
opening his jacket to reach into his shirt pocket. “You heard her, Scardino. If you don’t have
authorization, we’re taking you in."“
“Oh, come on! I’m on a case, a stakeout! I followed the sub here!" He was holding out his badge.
Lucy left to look in the other sections of the apartment. Nothing broken or spilled. Just open drawers
and cabinet doors and the dresser was. . .searched. She’d caught sight of the rumpled, hastily
straightened bed and turned to find herself looking into Mrs. DiPesto’s curious eyes.
She whispered, “I saw only your sister come and leave. No one else, but there might have been
someone. “ She shrugged and indicated with her eyes the man arguing with the tall, thin policeman.
Lucy closed her eyes and shook her head. Oh, Lois, what are you doing? She put her bat on the end of
the bed and hastily straightened the blankets and pillows more, the other woman immediately coming
to help her. Satisfied no one would know, they walked slowly into the living room while more officers
appeared, and came into the room with black bags and rubber gloves on their hands.
Henderson looked at Lucy. “We’ll take him to Ten-One Hundred if you want to press charges. Feds will have
them dismissed, but we’ll get him out of here. We’ll have to treat this as a crime scene."
She stared at the intruder, Scardino. She nodded. “Yeah. Do I need to follow you? I don’t care if he’s
freed, I want to sign the papers." She looked Henderson in the eye. “Is he the one? From two years
ago?"
He nodded, knowing what she meant. “Yes."
“That explains the bed, “ she said in a low voice. “I’m going to kill my sister."
Henderson’s eyes widened, but he spun around. “Book him." He looked at Mrs. DiPesto, while
Scardino protested loudly as he was taken out the door.
“You’’ll have to come to Ten-One Hundred to give a statement, too, anytime in the next twenty-four hours."
“You can come with me, if you want," Lucy said. “I’m going now before the government can step in."
She nodded. “Yes, I’ll go with you. This is my building and I don’t want my tenants to feel unsafe. I
want to be able to say I did all I could."
Henderson walked away, allowing himself a small smile. Perry and Clark aren’t going to believe this!
Baseball bats and a rendezvous?

They’d gotten him all the way through fingerprinting and were waiting for the photographer to get back
from the ‘crime scene’ to do his mug shots before Scardino saw his scowling and tense task force
leader, the Agent In Charge, stalk into the waiting area with two lawyers behind him. He gave Scardino a
withering look and barely stood still while the sergeant at the desk informed Bill Henderson of his
presence. Then the three of them stalked off down a long hallway to the deputy chief’s office. Dan
raised the cup of cold coffee in his cuffed hands and pretended to drink.
He hadn’t bothered to call for him, knowing his commander would get the news of his arrest directly
from the police scanners a good twenty or thirty minutes before he would be allowed his one phone
call.
Lucy, the young tenant of the apartment, and her landlady, who turned out to also own the laundromat,
were true to their word about a search warrant. They’d signed off on every charge Henderson could
think of and he made sure the paper work was copied and sent to several departments before the task
force commander arrived. All of the charges would be dropped, of course, but it didn’t make Dan feel
any better, though he appreciated Henderson leaving the mug shot for last so it wouldn’t get done. No
picture would accompany the paperwork so any spies or plants LexCorp might have in the police
department wouldn’t be able to ID Agent Scardino as Smith, former bodyguard for the Luthor family,
who was supposed to be dead.
He sighed. The police had confiscated his computer pass key, the latest government technology, and he
still had his partner to face. He’d completely forgotten to call him. Still. . .
“Oh, damn it, Moneybags," he whispered into his coffee, sighing in disappointment.

It was late in the day when Lucy and her landlady returned to the apartment building.
She and Mrs. DiPesto cleaned up the apartment, had a falling down laugh over what they must have
looked like swinging the baseball bats around like wild women while being so frightened, but they said
nothing about hiding evidence on the bed. Lucy pulled the bedding off and they replaced it all quickly.
The land lady gathered the bedding and took the load downstairs to wash. Lucy looked around, feeling
apprehensive about leaving her things for the first time ever, and she drove away without looking
forward to coming back as she usually did.
The boys were in the living room playing with the baby. Clark wasn’t back yet, they said, having called
from the OB to say he’d be late, and to order out for dinner. Lucy warmed a couple of slices of pizza and
some spaghetti from her uncle Mike’s restaurant, and sat at the table but the food, usually among her
favorites, wasn’t as appetizing as usual. She pushed the spaghetti around and nibbled the pizza.
Jack came into the kitchen, Mara following him as fast as she could along the floor. “How did it go?" he
asked, coming to the table to sit across from her.
She shrugged. “Henderson arrested him - it was one of the agents from the federal task force, but he
was freed within an hour of me and my landlady signing the complaints against him." She sighed. “It
was Smith. His real name is Scardino." She grimaced. “I think my sister might have led him there. On
purpose."
Jack’s eyebrows went up and he studied her expression carefully. “On purpose? As in . . . hooking up?"
She looked angry. “I think so."
Jack nodded and looked down. Mara reached him and was trying to climb up his leg. He lifted her and
settled her onto his lap.
Lucy felt a little of her anger dissipate. The baby’s happy smile as she reached up trying to grab Jack’s
nose was funny and she had to smile. “Did she sleep long? What did she eat?"
“She’s fine, but we’re running short of Grandma Martha’s homemade baby food," he said. “I gave her
only a few spoonfuls of sweet potatoes because it’s the last jar. We let her have some spaghetti and
playing with it distracted her from not having a lot of sweet potatoes."
Lucy giggled. “What a girl! Imagine a baby loving health foods over commercially prepared food like the
rest of us eat."
He grinned down at his baby sister, and thought how easily she had changed Lucy’s mood, letting her
forget her anger at her sister for a few minutes. Lucy - and Ben - would make good parents someday, he
thought.
The front doorbell rang, and Lucy, finished with her meal, waved for Jack to stay where he was. “I’ll get
it."
She was back at the table in few minutes with a small package that bore the colors of a private
messenger service. “It’s from the library, “ she said, gripping the perforated strip for opening and
pulling it off. She looked inside, puzzled, and carefully dumped four cell phones, all different colors, onto
the table beside her empty plates. A note fell on top of them, which she picked up and read.
“They’re from Lois; communication that Luthor can’t monitor and control. Smart girl." She grabbed
one and opened it. “Excuse me." She marched out of the kitchen and through the living room at the
back of the house, and opened the sliding glass doors to the enclosed courtyard outside. She held the
phone to her ear for a time and said something into it. She closed it and paced in a small circle for a
while. She looked at her watch and sat down in one of the deck chairs where she fidgeted for a long
time before getting up and walking in circles again. Nearly a half hour later the phone must have rang
because she opened it and started talking rapid fire into it, gesturing with her hands and pacing and
stopping alternately, and repeatedly rolling her eyes to the sky.
Denny, watching a baseball game in the living room, looked toward Jack. “What’s wrong with her?”
Jack laughed, carrying Mara into the living room and sitting beside his brother. “I think she’s giving her sister hell.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask!”

14- Fourteen

Clark had insisted Lois take the car he was driving and leave it in the parking lot across the street from
the library. He would get it later. For the time being he would take the Metro back to his office. She
didn’t argue.
She was sure she was never going to figure out how they’d gotten as far as they did as fast as they did,
but Lois guessed it didn’t matter. Whatever had possessed her to kiss Clark Kent was something she
couldn’t control. From the moment she had looked up and seen him inside Lucy’s apartment, nothing
was going to keep her away from him. Five years of emptiness in her life had overwhelmed her. He was
the closest thing to a friend she had ever had and she had missed him so much. How wrong she had
been to think she had learned to live with it.
Safely inside the small half bath in the library office, Lois changed her clothes and fixed her hair and
make-up, carefully donning the look that she’d cultivated for herself as Mrs. Lex Luthor. She looked at
her image in the mirror, trying to imagine the changes in her appearance since the last time she’d seen
Clark. He doesn’t like my hair! He’d thought she was her cousin, Dana - someone from her mother’s side
of the family! Not only that, but she knew he was trying hard not to laugh whenever he looked at her
hair.
She felt and saw the tears fill her eyes and blotted at them with a piece of paper towel. Why does what
he thinks matter so much? It didn’t stop anything, did it? She made herself presentable again and went
into the office. Sully was in the outer area, talking on the phone, looking as if he was running out of
patience with whoever it was.
Putting her purse and shopping bag on a corner of the desk, she noticed a PC with a printer had been set
up for her. Sully was certainly efficient. Lois sat down in the chair and opened her laptop and then
closed it quickly. No. She couldn’t use it here anymore, not if unusual actions might be reported to Lex’s
people. She wanted to see if she would get anymore email from phantom Lucy in Alaska. Whoever was
perpetrating the hoax had no idea Lucy was in Metropolis and had been actively trying to get in touch
with Lois in person. It was this more than anything that convinced her Lex knew nothing about it. She
switched to the library computer and used it to create an email account independent of LexCorp’s
private network. The Logan side of her family was coming in handy after all, she decided, using it as the
name for her email. It still irked her, though, that Clark had thought she was Dana!
Not that it made much difference after she’d kissed him, pulling him back so fiercely when he’d tried to
pull away, surprising herself with the intensity of her need to be kissed and held by the one man in her
life who, she was certain, had ever truly loved her. He hadn’t a chance against that onslaught, she
thought, closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair. She felt the tears come to her eyes and she
didn’t want Sully to see her like that. She dabbed at her face with a tissue. No, she reminded herself,
Clark had no chance against her when she wanted something. She bit her lip. She had no chance against
herself when it came right down to it. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair, feeling the smile
form on her face.
What happened was so wrong on so many levels, but even though she was opening herself to guilt and
regret just by thinking about it, she couldn’t seem to feel anything but a sense of slowly fading euphoria,
a sense of coming down from a high as her muscles began to tense and her shoulders and back
straightened against the padded back of the chair.
Oh, this was insanity. If she thought she’d felt insanity after returning to the mansion the day before it
was going to be raving madness when she went back today.
Lois reached for her shopping bag and pulled the telephones out of it and placed them in a line beside
her laptop. Looking up she caught Stephen Sully’s eye and beckoned him inside.
“Does the library use a twenty-four hour messenger service?” she asked as he reached the desk. “I want
to send a package to my sister at her work address as soon as possible. I’ll need a large packet,
preferably padded.”
He was looking at her with a strange expression on his face, but he looked at his watch and answered,
“Yes. I can have someone here in ten minutes. I’ll get some envelopes and labels from the front desk.”
Writing a quick note, she opened her purse and pulled out the sheet of legal paper with Clark’s address
and began to tidy up the desk while she waited for Sully to return.
When he returned and put a small selection of chipboard envelopes on the desk, he was looking at her
oddly again.
Lois started preparing the package, but couldn’t ignore the young man’s scrutiny. “Is something
bothering you, Stephen?”
“I assume,” he began speaking slowly, “you’re leaving for the day, Mrs. Luthor?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.” She handed him the finished package. “I’d like that to get to my sister as
soon as possible.”
“Of course,” he said and quickly glanced away from her face. She looked like his college French teacher
looked after a long lunch with her husband.
“What?”
He made a small grimace. “No offense, ma’am,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “but . . . you look
like . . . you’ve . . . been . . . ex-er-cising.”
“What?!”
He shrugged, looking embarrassed and avoiding her eyes. “You have a lot of color in your face, and. . .
uh. . . well, you don’t usually.” She stared at him for a second, then grabbed her purse and stalked
across the room to the small rest room.
He watched her go. She looked happy, but how could he tell her that? She was even walking happy, if
there was such a thing. Stephen turned back to his outer office and smiled. Brave woman.

Clark Kent found quiet, if not solace, and a place to think at his desk in the newsroom. It was a good
place to sit and try to sort out what happened at Lucy’s apartment. Never in a million years would he
have thought himself capable of such insanity- and that had to be the word for it: insanity- no, sheer
insanity. Lois was married to the most dangerous man in the world, certainly the deadliest in
Metropolis. If anyone was off limits to men and women, it was Lex Luthor’s wife. Men had been killed
for – well, a man was thought to have been killed for getting too close to her. Knowing that, how on
earth had he let himself be so careless?
It must have been the shock of so many unexpected events happening at once. He had to admit he’d
been floored by what he had learned of Lois’s marriage. Everything he knew about Luthor was telling
him the situation was all wrong. The man was pure evil, but it was an evil completely without bias. The
people of Earth were here for Luthor to exploit and use to his advantage and as long as their money
ended up in his coffers he didn’t care a bit what race or nationality they were. All that mattered was the
better the exchange rate the better he liked taking advantage of the victims.
Furthermore, as much as Luthor craved the accumulation of money and power, it was in direct
counterpoint to his indifference to children. Unsubstantiated rumors said he had at least two male
offspring, possibly a daughter, too, with whom he had no personal contact at all; who lived comfortably
though not surrounded by wealth, and were not connected to Luthor and his empire in any way, though
both males were said to be over twenty-one and well educated.
“He can have children, but not with me. I can’t conceive. They suggested in vitro, but he was angry, he
refused. He said if anyone found out his son was conceived artificially, the press would have a field day
with it. He refused to consider surrogacy, he was disgusted by adoption.”
It didn’t add up. The man had two sons, according to reputable sources. Sons he didn’t want, sons who
meant nothing to him. Sons. The progeny of choice of successful men.
Hmmm. He needed to dig a little more on that.
Clark leaned back in his chair and reached to turn on his computer. He didn’t believe in the practice of
leaving a computer running 24/7 and always turned his off at the end of the day. He watched the screen
as it booted.
Lois Lane . . . Lois Luthor was a beautiful woman, always had been . . . He had to suppress a smile. She
still was, despite the short hairstyle she was now sporting that made her look remarkably like her cousin,
Dana. Of course, on Dana the style looked pretty good. On Lois- well, it made her look like a stranger.
He hadn’t been kidding when he thought Mara had more hair than she did. He grinned. I have more hair
than she does!
He realized he was laughing aloud and stopped with a throat clearing cough. The normally loud and
bustling newsroom was muted, the only sounds coming from the far end of the room where the comics
section was still busy with people from second shift getting the next editions ready. The night staff for
the Open Book were in their offices one floor down and the janitorial staff hadn’t begun cleaning yet.
Well, there was nothing he could do about the day’s events now except wonder what he was going to
say to Lucy if she ever found out. He supposed he could bluff it out, pretending to be aghast at such a
notion. What do you mean, did I sleep with your sister? Do you mean that literally? Your sister? Before
or after she got married? The one without hair? He held in a laugh. He really had to get over that hair!
No, that wouldn’t work. It was ridiculous, but he just couldn’t get away from it. He was holding back
laughter again. What on earth possessed her to cut off all her hair?!
It was then he realized that though he wished the intimacy hadn’t happened, though he should have
been more insistent and respectful of her status as a married woman, he had changed in five years. It
bothered him, very much, but he wasn’t exactly dwelling on it, was he? Giving in was more than a friend
should have done under the circumstances, but it was what Lois had needed at that one time, what she
had demanded and accepted and allowed to strengthen her self-esteem after years of self-pity. It wasn’t
going to happen again, but, my god, she had needed the physical contact after so many years of
indifference from her husband.
Moreover, their friendship had survived the long separation, though he wasn’t sure what would happen
to that friendship now. Sex had a way of magnifying discomfort and inviting embarrassment where
there had been none before. It had a way of destroying friendships, too, especially tenuous ones.
The realization struck a chord, and he was a writer. It gave him an idea. Clark pulled out the keyboard on
its retractable shelf and clicked open the story idea files for the Duke West line of comic book titles.
One of the most popular story arcs in the last year featuring the legendary lawman of InterGLEN was
when he teamed up with Earthsider agent Shara “Jo” Johansson to backtrack illegal alien laser weapons
that found their way onto Earth and to its lunar colonies.
He opened a new doc and started typing. Maybe it was time for Johansson to become a recurring
character. His fingers flew over the keyboard and when he finished his outlines and back story, he sent
the file to all concerned and shut down the computer, and got up to leave.

The task room was oddly quiet as Scardino entered behind the AIC and both walked through to their
individual offices. The boss slammed his door behind him, and someone in the room laughed shortly and
that started a low buzz of conversation around the break area. Scardino continued to the small office he
shared with his partner.
Wallace was fuming. “MPD picked me up and brought me back here,” he said through gritted teeth as
soon as the door closed. “They wouldn’t let me get the car. It’s probably been towed by the city. You
might remember you parked it on a Metro route.”
Dan sank into his chair. “Things happened fast. First, there was no time, then I-”
“I asked for a transfer over to import/export,” Wallace interrupted angrily. “If they offer it to you, too,
turn it down. Don’t follow me. You’re not getting me killed, and you’re not dragging me down with you
any further, either. We’ll both be lucky if Washington lets either one of us stay in Metropolis.”
“Look, I’m sorry-”
“Don’t even say it! You left me hanging in the wind! You made me just as much a joke as you are! Until I
get my walking orders, we are no longer partners. I’m not backing you up.”
“Oh, come on, Rich!”
“That’s the way it is!” he yelled and jumped to his feet. “You blew this operation as badly as you blew
the last one you worked on, and I’m not going down with you! I’m going to be long gone!”
“I haven’t blown anything!”
“You’re supposed to be dead, Danny, but you let the wife of your killer see you alive and well outside
the building where you were supposed to have died! Washington almost pulled the plug yesterday- god,
I wish they had pulled the plug yesterday! The AIC talked them out of it. You don’t think the brass isn’t
going to pull the plug now?!”
“I told you!” Dan yelled back, getting to his feet, too. “She won’t tell Luthor! They don’t talk about things
like that!”
“So what?! You compromised this investigation the minute you went running up to her car expecting
her to jump into your arms and praise the heavens you weren’t dead!”
Scardino put his hands on his desk and leaned over them, forcing himself to calm down. “It’ll work out.
Like I said before, we’re wasting our time following her. We just have to cut back, let her go-”
“Don’t you get it? We’re done!” Wallace told him angrily, waving his arms and walking to the small
window overlooking the next building’s rooftop. “We’re off surveillance, you and me. They’re sending
people in to tag her tomorrow, people they can trust, people who think with their heads not their
crotch. The AIC is trying to save his ass. If they can get bugs inside the mansion compound, the task force
will move out to the towers and start over. He’ll take some of the other agents with him, but not us. This
stage of the task force is history. Those guys out there are emptying their desks and that’s what we
should be doing, too.” He turned away from the window and he and Scardino scowled at one another
for a long time. “So what did you do to get arrested? Might as well tell me why you threw my career
down the drain along with yours.”

I look like a drag queen! Lois thought as she assessed the make-up she’d applied trying to hide the blush
in her cheeks, the rosiness of her whole complexion. I can’t go back like this! Lex will notice the
difference.
She started jamming her things back into her purse and grabbed a paper towel to wipe most of the
make-up from her face. Her mind was in overdrive trying to think of a way out, and then . . . she had it.
It was easy to lose the bodyguards once she’d merged her car with evening traffic on the expressway. If
she remembered correctly, there was a little mall on the right side of the highway three stoplights from
the bridge across the river. All she needed was ten minutes to stop at the liquor store at the south end
of the row of shops and duck inside for a bottle of wine and a couple of cheap wine glasses and a
corkscrew.
That accomplished, Lois got back to her car and quickly opened the wine and poured most of it onto the
cracked tarmac of the parking lot. She poured a little into one of the glasses and took a sip. She took
another, then stared at the label on the bottle. Twenty dollars. It was heavenly compared to the five
thousand a pop garbage Lex stocked the bars with at the mansion. She sipped again. Mmmm! Maybe
she shouldn’t have wasted so much. It was way better than the swill the kitchen sent to her suite every
evening and the stuff with which they replenished her private bar.
Private bar. Why do I have a private bar in my suite? She finished the glass and started the engine. She
looked around but didn’t see a black minivan anywhere. She reentered traffic to the bridge. She would
let the muscle heads catch her on the other side of the river in the Red Maple
Hills. She smiled as she pulled into line to turn toward the bridge. A few hours
with Lucy and the guards are the muscle heads now.
The minivan was waiting on the side of the road at the turn-off to the parkway leading to the Lex Wood
estate and the newer estates that were springing up around it. She slowed down to let the guards catch
up to her and turned into the gates of Lex Wood a few minutes later. She parked at the front door,
pausing to half fill one wine glass to take inside. She left the nearly empty wine bottle and the other
glass on the passenger seat and got out.
Having her mother’s “predilection for alcohol” could be a handy weapon if she used it just right.
Lex was waiting in the living room, dressed for dinner in his usual tailor-made splendor. He saw the glass
in her hand and smiled. “Ah, home at last, my dear. It’s a new experience for me being the one waiting
for one’s spouse to walk through the door at the end of the day.” He took the wine glass from her and
placed it on a small table against the wall. He lifted her chin gently and gave her a lingering kiss on her
lips. His smile was brighter when he pulled away. “I think I’m going to like greeting my beautiful wife at
the door. Having a job suits you, darling.”
“Thank you, Lex. It’s going to be a few days until I get used to it, and by the end of next week, I’ll have a
set schedule. Hopefully I won’t be getting home at odd hours after that.”
He took her arm and guided her toward the back of the house, as if she wouldn’t know the way if he
didn’t. “I shall enjoy it as long as it lasts, sweetheart.”
Lois walked beside him quietly while he described the dinner Chef Gaston was preparing. He’s seeing
what he wants to see, what he expects to see. He’s telling me what I want to hear, what I expect to
hear.
Lex began to tell her about his meeting with the mayor, who sent his regards, by the way. . .
One of the errands for which he needed the blue limo, no doubt, she thought.
They were approaching the terrace doors when she felt the new cellular phone begin to vibrate with a
barely audible buzzing noise in her blazer pocket. She slipped her hand over it and pressed it against her
hip and they walked onto the terrace where soft music played and the table was set for two.

Leaving World’s Finest, Clark flew to the pleasure craft pier across the river from the commercial docks
on the south side of the city. He saw a secluded spot to land and spin into his civvies and had a quick
look around the area. Jimmy Olsen’s car was parked close to the clubhouse, so he wasn’t as late as he
had thought. He hadn’t missed his tie until arriving at the newsroom, but there was nothing he could do
about it now. He left his jacket off and rolled up his shirt sleeves before walking along the planking
between berths to the Wayne yacht.
As he walked along, he admired the view of the city across the river. He could see the Watchman’s Pylon
clock tower standing straight and tall over the buildings around it, silhouetted against the northeastern
sky. The taller buildings, the skyscrapers that dwarfed the clock tower were far enough north to give it
an unobstructed presence in the southern cityscape. After dusk, when it was lighted and the piercing
white light was blinking at the top, it reminded him of Kansas City’s old Channel Five TV tower. When he
was a boy it was lighted at night and it could be seen for fifty miles.
When he visited his Uncle Ian and his family at their home near Topeka, he would stand on their back
deck on clear nights and look at it. He discovered he could telescope his vision on that deck one evening
when he was looking across the Earth and seeing something brightly lit from fifty miles away.
He smiled at the memory. It was weeks before he had the courage to look at the moon. It felt as if the
tower was rushing at him that first time, and he experienced vertigo for the first time in his life.
Afterward, he had imagined himself freaking out if it seemed that way with the moon.
Jimmy was waiting at the top of the gangplank, two frosty bottles of beer in his hand. He offered one to
Clark and turned to lead the way aft. “Just got here myself,” he said. “Traffic on the bridges was already
crawling when I came across. I might sit it out here for a while after we get settled. Captain Keith had a
meal sent out; they delivered it a few minutes ago. Seafood platters from the clubhouse.”
Clark followed him to the main cabin, along a narrow deck walkway. Inside the spacious cabin, Olsen
had a couple of laptops, two large monitors and a PC tower operational on a desk on one corner.
“Tapped the feed from the dock’s surveillance cameras and spotted you coming,” Jimmy said, indicating
the monitors. “Security covers every inch of the marina. One hell of an expensive system.”
Clark took a long drink of the cold beer and looked at the equipment in the corner. “That was fast,” he
said, impressed, nodding toward it. “You carried those monitors from your car?”
“No. Just the laptops,” Jimmy said, taking a swig of beer, too. “The captain had the other stuff hooked
up when I got here. The monitors are seeing through the cameras on the yacht. The laptops will show
just the feed from the marina’s surveillance cameras. I’ll bring the rest of the DP stuff out tonight. We’re
going to mix it in with a grocery delivery expected later tonight. I’m still waiting on a couple of minisats
from SRU to grab signal from the cameras across the river.”
“I would have thought there would be some onboard you could use. Wayne is a gadget nut. He has the
latest everything. His company makes the latest everything.”
Jimmy shrugged. “What he has here is good but not powerful enough to steal a signal from Pier Fifteen.
The captain was surprised when I checked and couldn’t lock on to anything without breaking up. What I
did get was lousy quality. He thought this was the latest stuff, too. Said Mr. Wayne was going to have a
cow when he heard SRU has better equipment than he does!” He sat on the sofa and helped himself to
the food laid out on the coffee table. “I’ll get you set up, though. You’ll be able to see all traffic that
comes into the harbor and where it goes. If there is another late night visit to Fifteen you won’t miss it.
There is a fantastic telephone system here, CK. Encrypted out the wazoo! It goes through Wayne
Enterprise’s private satellite. I already have a line straight through to my desk and Perry’s office at the
newsroom, and to the task force downtown.”
Clark looked at the soft shell crab sandwiches, grilled tuna, and lobster salad and took out his cell phone
to text a message to tell the boys to order out for their dinner. Then he sent one to Bruce Wayne to look
for a leak in his tech manufacturing division. He shook his head as he put his phone into his pocket.
Crime was everywhere. If the billionaires weren’t controlling and profiting from it, they were the victims
of it. And new kinds were popping up every day. Cybercrimes, the foremost among many; and the latest
breakthroughs in technology were surprisingly easy to pirate.
Job security for someone, he thought and smiled to himself. “Where is the captain? I’d better tell him
I’m here.”

Lois was still furious as she got ready for bed. The nerve of that sister of hers! Accusing her of using the
apartment to meet her old bodyguard- Smith, of all people!- that afternoon and leaving him there to
snoop around her computer. If she wasn’t so angry, she’d be burning with embarrassment. She had
planned on returning to straighten up the apartment tomorrow afternoon and have Lucy be none the
wiser about what happened. Now, she was wondering how long it would take her to put two and two
together. Clark was there to get the baby stroller Lucy left yesterday, and sooner or later she was going
to remember that, but Lois wasn’t going to share that experience with anyone, least of all Lucy. It was
nobody’s damn business but her own. And Clark’s, of course. If she ever saw him again she wasn’t sure
she would be able to explain what was behind her behavior. Don’t think about him! Think about anyone
else-
Smith! What the hell was he doing following her, and who was the second man Sully saw watching the
library? It wasn’t Smith. He would have been at the apartment when Lois got back to the library. The
second man was still at the bus stop and she had to be careful slipping back into her office. Worse than
that, how much did Smith know about how she spent her days? If he had been following her since she
saw him on Clinton Street, he knew things she didn’t want Lex to know yet. Worst of all, he knew about
Lucy and her apartment and that meant she couldn’t go there anymore.
How had he gotten into the apartment? Lucy just assumed he walked through the front door with Lois.
Oh, that little brat was asking for it! How could she think such a thing?! Smith was-
Smith was a diversion. His attraction to her at a time when her husband’s attention was limited to the
odd occasion or circumstance was an interest she didn’t discourage as she should have. It was all ego on
her part. Her life had settled into a routine she had been happy with at the time. Seeing the results of
her charitable works and traveling for appearances at events LexCorp supported were rewarding in a
way her marriage was not, in a way it had never been.
Lois stopped what she was doing and went to sit down on the side of the bed.
She had never grown to love Lex as she hoped she would. He wasn’t the kind of man who nurtured a
relationship or worked to keep a relationship from stagnating. It almost seemed as if he didn’t know he
had to work at it. Without affection and closeness between them, it was impossible to let her feelings of
admiration and respect grow into love; and so, Smith’s obvious interest was like a shot in the arm at the
time. Of course, he had been fired after being idiot enough to let Nigel St. John become aware of their
friendship. He’d been grinning ear to ear as he took her hand to help her out of the limo- deliberately
stepping in front of St. John before he could do it.
She’d known the moment it happened she would never see Smith again, and until he’d approached her
car on Clinton Street, she’d never thought of him at all.
As she gathered what she needed for a bath, her skin still reacted to touch, no matter how slight, and
the warmth of the water as she submerged was unbelievably sensuous. It was impossible to keep her
thoughts away from the man who’d awakened the sensations.
Reluctance, resistance, pleading, reasoning, dismissal, more reasoning, pulling away, demanding,
urgency, reluctant compliance, incredible submission, enraptured joy, don’t go, not yet, just a little while
longer. . .
Five years, Clark, she thought, letting the tears that had been threatening all afternoon squeeze out of
her closed eyelids. What else have I been missing?

15- Fifteen

The next few days were busy ones for Lucy. With the Kents getting ready for the Gotham City trip and
with the waiting for more information from Perry White for what he was planning to do on the
weekend, she was pressed for time and couldn’t visit the library. Her responsibilities to the baby came
first and now that she was about to start her courses at Met U, she kept busy making arrangements for
the boys who would be taking care of Mara in the evenings. Though they rolled their eyes at her
preparations, she made sure they knew her routine and, more importantly, the baby’s routine, which
was much more strict than her own.
Lucy was able to talk to Lois fairly regularly, thanks to the cell phones Lois bought and sent to her. She
never brought up the subject of Smith/Scardino again, but she was still miffed about her sister leading
him to the place, because it meant the feds investigating Luthor knew about her now and where she
lived. She never told her mother what happened, how badly she was frightened by the stranger in her
apartment. She assumed her landlady would spread the gossip about the incident, and she was
pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t the case. Instead, Mrs. DiPesto was obsessed with making her
properties more secure and all of her attention was on that project.
Lucy would tell Ellen herself . . . someday. She was planning to have it out with Lois first, even though
her sister’s shock at the news “Smith” followed her to the apartment sounded genuine even over the
cell phone, something had happened in that apartment, and Lucy was determined to find out what and
with whom if not him. One of the muscle heads? Yuck. She hoped not. So maybe, she’ll go a little easy
on her, just give her a good ribbing and see if she could get a reaction from her- a real Lois Lane volcanic,
bird scaring, sky darkening, high mushroom cloud reaction. Just like the old days. That way she was
bound to let something slip.
The thought made Lucy smile. Ellen was right. They had to find the real Lois Lane and get her the hell out
of there.
She took the baby on walks and jogs through the park, but she wasn’t able to arrange a trip to the
library no matter how she tried to cut corners. Receiving Lois’s phone calls regularly, of course, made it
easier.
She went to the university one morning to meet with a guidance counselor and went to visit her mother
once to give her one of the cell phones from Lois. She and Ellen agreed to let Lois call them to avoid
Luthor discovering his wife had a secret cell phone. Lucy’s call to her during dinner earlier in the week
was a careless mistake made out of shock and anger, and she and Ellen didn’t want to do anything to get
his attention by doing it again.
And, Lucy was surprised to discover she appreciated having a car at her disposal. As proficient as she
had become at taking the city bus and the Metroliner, knowing the routes she traveled by heart, having
a car cut a lot of waiting time from her trips around the city.
Her boyfriend, Ben Hillen, had come to dinner twice and they’d gone to the movies one of those times,
and the second time, she’d taken him to her apartment, at his insistence, to look it over and see what
Mrs. DiPesto was doing to improve security. The first thing they noticed were motion detecting lights
and cameras being installed on the outside of the building and along the alley where Ben parked his car.
Seeing the apartment again made Lucy angry and ashamed of herself for not coming back sooner. There
was no reason to be afraid after the break-in. This was her home. As she and Ben checked out the new
fire escape window gate and motion detecting lights on every fire escape landing, she was determined
no one would ever disturb the peace for her again. She had a right to be and feel safe in her little
apartment.
The next jerk, she told Ben fiercely, who entered this place unwelcome would actually get hit with a
baseball bat if she was here. She would buy one and leave it by the bed . . . maybe a second one in the
kitchen. Were aluminum bats better for hitting than wooden ones? She wondered.
Looking around the bedroom as they straightened up the apartment, she found the clothes, a mini
wardrobe Lois said she bought, neatly folded on a shelf in the closet. She touched the material and
smiled. Not exactly biker’s leggings and a baggy T shirt, but more Lois Lane as she used to be before
becoming the third richest fashion plate in the world.
She didn’t check the shoes and so missed the bright splash of color lying across her snow boots on the
right side of the closet floor.
Ben came around the corner. Tall, sandy haired, thin and serious, he pointed a thumb over his shoulder.
“Your computer seems okay, babe. I ran Jack’s program and it cleaned out a program for busting
passwords. That’s how the guy got into it when he was here. There were no other strange programs or
viruses or strange cookies but I cleared the cache anyway. You can use it safely. If I did anything wrong,
Jimmy or Jack can fix it.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“I guess we’re finished here,” he said. “I won’t worry about you being here now.”
Going back into the living room, she pulled Ben by the hand to sit beside her on the couch. Turning to
him, she looked at his handsome face and smiled. “There is something I need to tell you about my sister.
There is a complicated reason why I never told you anything before. I hardly know where to start.”
The concern in his expression as he firmly gripped her hand and looked into her eyes was like a balm for
her soul, and she knew without a doubt he would listen and ask questions, but he would understand.

Most of the yard around the Kent farmhouse in Kansas was still green in the heat of late August. The
south pasture was dotted with large round bales of brome hay, and two forked bale loaders were
systematically gathering them one by one and bringing them to the long row of pre-fab shelters behind
the barn. It was getting late in the day but the moving was going fast and would be done before dark.
“It’s the second cutting from that field,” Jonathan Kent said, removing gloves from his hands as he
walked along the gravel path towards the back porch of the house. “It’s the last we’ll get this year. We’ll
get bedding bales before cold weather, though. I’ll move the livestock in next week and let them have
some of what’s left.”
From under the porch came the sound of movement as the family’s three dogs awoke to the sound of
Jonathan’s voice, shaking themselves noisily and slowly making their way out from the cool dirt and
shade into the hot late afternoon sun. The two greyhounds shuffled over to greet him before yawning
and throwing themselves on the cool gravel, dappled with sunlight through the trees, where the collie,
Cora, had already flopped down.
Clark and his mother were sitting in the shade of the porch. On a small table between their chairs was a
tray holding a pitcher of iced tea and three glasses. Martha Kent was holding the baby and giving her a
bottle while Mara tried to turn her head, while continuing to drink, and see who was talking and making
crunching noises at the same time.
“Good to see you, Dad.” Getting up to greet his father, Clark indicated the loaders in the field. “Who
have you got working for you this year? I don’t recognize them.”
Taking the chair Clark vacated, Jonathan turned to pour a glass of tea for himself. “I’m not surprised.
They’re Harley’s grandsons, down from Manhattan. Both of them grew at least a foot since last year. I
wouldn’t have known them either if Harley hadn’t been with them when they came out looking for
work.”
Martha looked up briefly. “How did we do this year, dear?”
“Three hundred and seventy-nine bales in all from both pastures, not counting the twenty we’ll keep.
Not bad considering the only rain we’ve had this year has been from bad weather. High winds, hail-
gotta do better than that to kill good Kansas Brome.” He exchanged a pleased smile with his wife and
turned to Clark, who was now seated on the top step and watching the small loaders making their ways
back and forth across the field. “You’re here early, son. We weren’t expecting you ‘til early tomorrow
morning.”
“I gave Lucy the evening off, and the boys are at sports try-outs at MU. We’ve had an eventful week.
Getting away to Gotham is going to do us good.”
“Aah!” the baby said and pushed away the empty bottle and struggled to sit up.
Martha put the bottle aside and bounced the little girl on her lap. “Well, getting ready to go back to
college was always a busy time for you, too. And you were just one boy. Or one and a half boys. Pete
Ross was always here in that old Mustang of his.”
Jonathan laughed. “Saw him in town last week when he came to get his girls and take them back up to
Lawrence. He and Kathleen are going to be in Metropolis for a conference in September.”
“Yeah, he sent me an email the other day,” Clark said. “I invited him to stay at the house since the boys
will be in class most days and probably at practice most evenings. Haven’t heard back, yet.”
Martha was looking at him closely. “Is there a problem with Jack and Denny going back to school? Is
Denny still planning to apply to medical school? I think it’s ambitious of him to want to go into
forensics.”
“He is, but it’s more than that, Mom.” Clark turned away from the view of the last hay harvest and
watched as she handed the excited baby to her grandfather. “Lucy and Ellen were finally able to talk to
Lois face to face. They got together at Lucy’ place on Monday and found a way to stay in touch without
going through regular channels. She tried to convince Lois that Luthor’s people are controlling her
communication tightly. Lois refused to believe Luthor had any part of keeping Lucy and their mother
away from her all these years, but she believes his security people are capable of doing it to protect
their jobs.”
Martha and Jonathan listened as Clark recounted the events of the week, minus one, with growing
looks
of concern.
“Perry is arranging a meeting this weekend but I don’t know what it’s about. If I could have canceled the
Gotham trip, I would have. As it is, I’m leaving Eduardo to handle our stake-out without me for a few
days.”
“Clark, is Mara going to be safe?” Martha asked. “Maybe you should leave her here, out of harm’s way. I
know Lucy would never knowingly put her in danger, but she doesn’t seem to be as careful as she should
be where Lois is concerned.”
“I agree, son. If the slightest thing goes wrong . . . If Luthor catches on to anything . . .” Jonathan let the
possibilities hang in the air.
“I’ve thought about it, believe me, Mom, Dad. I don’t want Mara involved but I don’t want to disrupt her
life too much. At the first sign of danger, I’ll get her here to you as fast as I can, but until then I’m going
to trust Lucy. I have to trust her to put Mara ahead of her own interests.”
Martha smiled at the little girl who was trying to grab the shiny pearl snaps on Jonathan’s shirt. “Well,
we’re happy to have her with us while you and the boys are in Gotham. She’s growing so fast and we
don’t want to miss too much of her growth.”
“Don’t forget she’s mobile now,” Clark said. “She chases the cat at home, but Max tolerates her, so the
dogs will have to get used to her all over again, too.”

As soon as she reached her office at the library on Friday morning, Lois changed from the business
suit she was wearing to a simpler outfit from Means and Porter’s that she kept in the little half bath.
The business suits Lex had made for her were beautiful, she had to admit to herself the designers
who made them were the best at what they did, but she couldn’t wear the outfits any longer than
she had to before changing into something she chose and bought for herself. It was still an
embarrassing thought to realize how long it had been going on, to realize how quickly and quietly
she’d fallen into her role as the wife of Lex Luthor.
1994 . . .1999
Returning from the honeymoon- itself a sensory numbing experience in many ways- and moving
immediately into the new house had been overwhelming. The tastefully decorated rooms, her choice of
luxurious cars, and a bedroom suite with an amazing view of her city day and night: the surprises didn’t
end. The island villa had been prepared for the long stay of the famous newlyweds; and the mansion in
the hills west of Metropolis was prepared for their lifetime together.
Lex intended to pamper his bride: from the beautiful tropical clothing waiting for them at the immense
private island complex, to the large walk-in closet of her bedroom suite at their new home. The
exquisite wardrobes waiting for her in both places left her speechless.
With the clothing enhancing her appearance, showing off her best attributes, came the first changes in
attitudes, the initial changes in behavior, a new way of thinking. It couldn’t be helped. She saw it now,
looking back through Lucy’s observations and comments.
For two years, Lois Lane fought to survive. She resisted as long as she could, going to work at LNN every
day, staying in the news business, missing the challenge of reporting for print but settling into the
producer’s role which was all that was left for her. But it was a losing battle. The Luthor way of life
tugged at her time and conscience. The news stories she chose, the investigations she oversaw, the
results her investigating teams made happen, were being orphaned to work on their own as her duties
as Mrs. Luthor kept her more and more at her husband’s side.
She’d seen his carefully hidden arrogance by then, his need to be the best and start the new trends that
others would follow, the childish glee when he succeeded in stunning his rapt audience. He encouraged
her interest in charities and agreed generously with the idea of giving back to the community, and
effectively made her an ambassador of the Luthor empire. Whatever she did, others followed. Helping
the homeless, sheltering victims of abuse, fighting disease, honoring the best in all fields, providing
scholarships for the poor- similar programs sprang up in her wake no matter what she did. But no one
outdid the Luthors. Lex was always ready to take anything she did a step further.
By the time Lex brought up the idea of having a child, the thrall of great wealth had enclosed her.
Walking away from LNN to have a baby was easy, but the outcome was disaster.
After meeting with the staff of the library to go over the schedule which was planned to begin the
following Monday, Lois left Stephen in his small office and closed the door to her own. The meeting
hadn’t taken nearly as long as she would have liked, and, truth be known, overseeing the work didn’t
warrant her presence at the library for more than a few hours each day, and loathe as she was to do it,
she was thinking of leaving the house a little later in the mornings. Lex would be gone, but the idea still
didn’t appeal to her. It was an empty house, it had never been home and she never enjoyed living there.
Since reestablishing contact with her sister, the mansion was even emptier than ever.
Beginning the same following Monday, Lucy was going to be busier than she had been with the baby in
her charge, and her mother’s two jobs kept her busy, and there was no one else to turn to for
companionship.
Well. . . there was. . . but it was dangerous territory for a woman as lonely as herself. . . if only there was
a reason to seek out her former partner. . .

The little phone in her back pocket vibrated and Lucy looked around for a place to sit down as she
reached back and pulled it from the pocket. It was either Lois or Ellen and that meant a long talk.
With all of the Kents out of town, Lucy was spending her Friday doing some personal shopping and
planning what to prepare when Ben came to dinner this evening. Cooking for a chef was a challenge and
she rose to it every time. After a late movie they planned to spend the night at her apartment and cook
a casual breakfast before he left to oversee the opening of weekend hours at the Americana. She
spotted a small sidewalk café across the street on the corner of the block with small umbrella covered
tables and two padded chairs at each table. She flipped open the phone and tilted it to see the screen
out of the bright sunlight. A row of dollar signs were on the screen and she raised it to her ear while she
followed the crowd across the street. She made a beeline for the nearest empty table.
“Hi, sis,” she said, sitting down and putting her two stuffed plastic bags on the sidewalk at her feet.
“Where are you? What’s up?” She took a menu card from its rack and scanned it quickly.
“Lucy, I need some alcohol. Wine, maybe some brandy,” Lois’s voice answered crisply. “Can you get
some and send it to me here at the library? I don’t care who sees it delivered. Just get lots of it! Crates!”
“You need what?!” she said and looked up in surprise as a young woman in a black and white uniform
appeared by the table. “Crates of it?! Why?”
“HowcanIhelpyou?” the waitress asked, running the words together with the speed of an auctioneer.
Lucy pointed at the tall latte and lemon zucchini bread combo on the menu, and the girl nodded.
“It’llbejustafewminutes,” the waitress said.
“Can you get it? Today?” Lois demanded, sounding very Lois Lane-ish.
“Why do you need so much of it?” she said into the phone, as the waitress spun around and headed for
the door to the little cafe. “Don’t you have a wine cellar stocked to the ceiling at home? Just bring your
own.”
Lois paused a second, as if considering a new idea. “No. Long story,” she said quickly. “I’ll explain later. I
have electricians and cable installers due any minute, and the people from the satellite dish place,
whatever it’s called, are already here.”
“Ooo…kay,” she said, deciding to play along. “How much is lots of it? A few bottles?”
“At least a few cases. It has to be noticeable. The muscle heads have to talk about it.”
“Lois, do you know how crazy this sounds?” Lucy asked.
“Lucy, can you do it ?”
“Of course, but why can’t you do it yourself? You’re the richest wife in the country, sis. Call Fifty-Four
Degrees and place an order. I’ll bet they’ll send it over for free when they realize who it’s for!”
“Fifty- what?”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Jeez! You really do live in a bubble, don’t you? Haven’t you seen the TV
commercials? Fifty-Four Degrees is a liquor store chain in the city, the newest and most popular at
the moment. They have amazing wine tastings. Ask Stephen to help you.”
“Oh!” Lois sounded surprised. “Stephen! Sure. Maybe I should just get a bar cabinet installed, too.
Where can I get a minibar and have it delivered?”
“Okay, Lois, this is too weird! Now you have to start explaining this, damn it!”
“Don’t talk to me like that! I need this as soon as possible!”
Lucy smiled. Now you’re starting to sound like Lois Lane. “Or what? You’ll send the muscle heads after
me? Get Stephen and tell him what you need. You’re going to be tearing up the library anyway, so
putting a minibar in your office probably won’t even raise an eyebrow with him or the rest of the staff.”
“But I want the muscle heads to see it and talk about it when we get back to the house.”
“Oh. Well, tell Stephen to make sure one of them helps unload it and move it into your office. Lois, what
are you up to?”
“I’ll explain later. What are you doing? Will you be coming to the library today?”
Lucy laughed. “It’s my extra day off, remember? I wasn’t planning on it, but to get an explanation for
this, I’ll gladly crawl in through the window to get it!”

“Is that how Mrs. Moneybags is getting in and out unnoticed?” a familiar sounding male voice asked
while setting a capped container of coffee and a small, square Styrofoam container on the table before
Lucy. “Crawling through a window?”
She looked up in surprise and saw the man from her apartment break-in pulling out the other chair and
sitting down to join her. “I have to go, Mom,” Lucy said into the phone. “I’ll call you back and we can set
a time for lunch then.” She closed the phone and dropped it into her purse. “Get away from my table or
I’ll start yelling for the police.”
“Is that any way to thank me?” Agent Scardino said with a smile. “After I single-handedly got the federal
task force investigating your brother-in-law disbanded, and I did it without telling them your name and
your relationship to the Boss? Not only that, but I paid for your order, too. Coffee and the pastry in that
thing on me.”
“Get away from my table or I’ll start yelling for the police!”
“Obviously good deeds and favors mean nothing to you.” He gave an exaggerated sigh and leaned back.
“Okay, Miss Lane, here’s the deal. The task force that was investigating Luthor Industries has been
disbanded, but the core personnel are regrouping to continue the job. They’re going to try to plant bugs
on your sister, try to get devices inside the Lex Wood compound. It’ll never work, but they won’t listen
to me.” He raised his hands. “I admit, it’s all my fault. I never should have turned my team on to her in
the first place, but I’m trying to make up for it here. It was a bonehead thing to start following her and
bring the whole team into it. I was just so surprised to see her where the bombed out buildings on
Clinton used to be. I thought I’d been wrong about her. That, maybe, she does know her husband is the
Boss.” As he spoke he averted his eyes to hide his lie and reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a
business card. He held it out to Lucy. “Here, take this. I can help. I’m between assignments and I have no
reason to report any of my activities to the agency from now on, but I still have access to the team’s
information. I’m collating whatever information comes in from our undercover ops and task forces.”
Lucy leaned down to grab her shopping bags and stood up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.
What’s the boss? The boss of what? Stay away from me and from my sister. You’re bad news.”
Scardino jumped to his feet, too. “I made some mistakes, okay? I know I did, and now I want to make up
for it. Just take it.” He reached out quickly and dropped the card into one of her bags, then spun around
and walked away, saying over his shoulder, “You know what I’m talking about.”
Maybe I do, Lucy thought and put her bags next to the coffee on the table, but you shouldn’t know that!
She dug through the bag he’d dropped the card into and looked it over carefully when she found it
before pulling up one side the top of the coffee cup and dropping the card inside. She picked up the
Styrofoam box and put it in her bag and carried the cup in her hand as she walked away from the table.
It looked like a regular business card, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She dropped both coffee and
box in a trash can.
Stopping at the crosswalk, Lucy looked around. The nearest Metroliner e-rail was on the next block
ahead. She crossed the street and hurried toward it. She didn’t look back to see if the agent was
following her until she was at the top of the stairs on the elevated Metro platform. He wasn't.
As she watched the people on the streets below, she hit the speed dial number for Deputy Chief Bill
Henderson’s private phone.
When he answered, she gave him a brief rundown of what had just taken place with Agent Scardino.
“I’m taking the Metro back to my apartment. I left Clark’s car parked in front of the Thirty-Fifth Street
Flower Garden. If it’s been bugged I don’t want that Fed creep following me back to the brownstone.”
“I’ll send someone out to get it and leave it at the laundromat for you,” Henderson told her. “We’ll
sweep it for bugs. What he told you about the task force is true, though. We just got word that
Washington dropped it. They’re going to set up surveillance on the mansion without Scardino being
involved.”
“I don’t think it stops there,” Lucy said, apprehension in her voice. “I think he might have bugged my
apartment while he was searching it. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he said he
thought I did. The only person I’ve talked to about everything, aside from my mom, Clark Kent, Perry
White and you, is Ben Hillen, my boyfriend. I told him about my sister the other day. I told him
everything when we were at my apartment. It’s the only time I’ve talked about Lois and Luthor with
anyone without Clark or Perry present. I thought it was safe there.”
She could hear the smile in Henderson’s voice. “I hope he did leave a bug behind. I’ll send some of my
people to sweep the building. If we find anything, I can arrest him and make it stick this time.”
“I don’t like where this is going. I thought I understood the consequences of what we’re doing, but this
guy, Scardino, keeps making mistakes, and now he can draw attention specifically to me. He can get me,
or Mara and me, killed!”
“He won’t,” Henderson said emphatically. “I won’t let it happen. Superman won’t let it happen. We’ll
keep him away from you.”
“My train is here. I have to go. Will you be at Perry’s meeting?”
“I will. And don’t worry. We’re close this time, Lucy. We’re not going to lose Luthor again.”

16- Sixteen

The grounds around Wayne Manor were expansive and simply landscaped. Trees,
singly and in groves, flowerbeds, an occasional bench, one large ornate gazebo
and a stone driveway were the only things marring the green lawns surrounding the
mansion. This far north and in the midst of the mountains in northern New Troy,
the leaves were starting to change color as cooler weather settled in.
Reminiscent of the farm in Kansas, a small tractor pulling a wide cutter was
trimming the grass to the east of the manor house. The grounds were so big, the
upkeep of the lawn was ongoing with the groundskeepers continuously circling the
house on the tractors from spring to fall to keep it trim.
Gotham City bordered the estate on three sides, the closest entry being at the
end of a mile long driveway.
Clark stood at the window of Bruce Wayne’s ground floor office and looked out on
the back yard and watched Jack and Denny playing catch with a couple of the
chauffeurs on the household staff. Behind him and to his right, Wayne was
leaning forward and tapping at a keyboard and pulling up screen after screen of
information on the many monitors covering one small wall of the office.
“This is what I wanted you to watch, CK,” Wayne said and straightened from a
stoop, one hand indicating the screens. “We found the images after you asked us
if we could determine where the Luthors were at the time the attempts were made
on the life of the undercover Fed who’d infiltrated the mansion. They were on the
island of Hokkaido, at an event honoring Luthor in Sapporo. They were about
twelve miles away when this was going down. They left for Hawaii immediately
after the dinner and were in the air when the news broke on local television.”
Clark turned and looked at the screens. Several were linked to form one large
aerial image of a manufacturing complex, and others showed additional scenes or
information. “It looks familiar,BW,” he said, stopping beside the other man. “Is it
a Kumi-Masaharu facility?”
Bruce smiled. “It was. Watch this.” His fingers moved on the keyboard and
pictures began flickering one after another to produce a jerky semblance of
movement, like an old time movie.
People rapidly flowed out of the buildings and entered cars in the parking lots
which, in turn, streamed away from the facility and out of sight. Night settled
quickly over the land but the building complex stayed brightly lit with
artificial lighting but leaving the outer edges in semi-darkness.
“Note the time stamp,” Bruce said, “and watch this area here.” He pointed to the
lower left monitor, at a spot just beyond the farthest parking lot from the main
building. “We missed it before. Can you see what they’re doing? How?”
A barely noticeable, long, black shape moving through semi-darkness approached
the largest building, the main warehouse storage unit, in the complex. Driving
close to a single railroad line, the vehicle reached the edge of a loading dock
and a flurry of activity began as people exited the vehicle and scattered around
the large building in a preplanned assault.
Clark lowered his glasses and watched what happened. “It’s a semi with an
extra-long trailer. Twelve people, men and women. I assume this building is protected
by the corporation’s own system, so I’d say this team had inside help. They’re
getting into the building too fast.”
Bruce pointed to the opposite corner of the screens. “This was the facility on
the western coast of the country that was attacked by the eco-terrorist group
coming from the sea.”
As he spoke, several smaller vehicles stormed the front entry to the complex,
which was at the top of the bank of monitors, and began exchanging fire with the
handful of security guards on duty, getting past them with no problem to launch
an attack on the main buildings of the company. As explosions and fire dominated
one part of the complex, the team attacking the warehouse worked undisturbed.
“They’re unloading the trailer of the truck and taking pallets into the
building,” Clark said.
“While the Clean Sea extremists were at the gate, this group must be planting the
contraband drugs the authorities found the next day.”
“I don’t know how we missed it. Just like the old man, the former owner said. It
was a set-up to get the company away from his family.” He tapped at the keys
again and moved the mouse cursor on one of the large screens. “When the oxygen
tanks in the manufacturing buildings blew, we were able to get this image of a
man for a second or two. He’s wearing a hat and he never looks up, but he does
raise his right hand to take a cigar or cigarette from his mouth. There is a
faint reflection of the light from his fingers. We’re certain he’s wearing a
large ring on his third finger.” He moved his head in a curt motion, like a
shrug. “Can you tell if it’s Luthor?”
In the bright flash of light occurring elsewhere on the grounds, a lone figure
could be seen standing next to the front of the dark vehicle, one hand raised.
Clark concentrated on the image. Digital images were amazing, he thought.
Especially these, made with a camera aboard a small, private satellite in high
earth orbit.
He shook his head slowly. “He’s wearing two rings, BDub. One is a class ring from
a British boy’s school, the other is a signet ring with a dark stone. The light
is catching small stones around the centers.”
Bruce was already typing, bringing up commercial images of rings as fast as he
could. Clark stopped his progress twice and both men stared at the two rings he’d
chosen on the screen. After a long time, they looked at one another.
“Nigel St. John,” they said in unison.
Wayne quickly stepped out of the way and began to pace as he said, “I think we
have our first real piece of evidence, Seek.”
Clark drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Yes, they did.

The Downing Towers apartment buildings were considered exclusive real estate on
the northern end of the island on which Metropolis sat. While the Southside,
Riverview Harbor and the West End were the hotspots with plenty of new
residential buildings and complexes, the upper north end still had its charm and
stately old buildings in one of the regions of the city with the lowest crime
rates. People who could afford to live there vied to attain any vacancy that came
to be.
Downing Towers, not skyscrapers by any means, were only one hundred years old,
give or take, but designed by a forward thinking team of architect and
contractor. The two top floors of the towers held the heating and cooling
equipment that kept the buildings comfortable. It was there, just below the
service floors of the west tower, that Perry and Alice White were able to snag an
apartment in the city soon after returning from his failed attempt to retire back
in ’94. Open end lease, rent control, good neighborhood, on the bus line, nearby
subway stop- it fell into their laps when three of the Daily Planet’s board of
directors died in a plane crash and the Downing apartment belonging to one of
them came on the market.
As soon as the building super, who was showing the Whites the unit, pulled open
the drapes covering the west facing windows of the living room, Perry knew he had
hit pay dirt. While the super and Alice admired the view of the West Hobbs River
and the opposite bank, he looked beyond the other side of the river and realized
he could see nearly straight into the grounds and windows of Luthor Manor, the
recently completed mansion where Lex Luthor and his new bride, Lois Lane, were
going to start their married life together. As the crow flies, the hilltop
mansion and its surrounding outbuildings (“Fifteen car garage? Who in Sam Hill
needs fifteen cars?!”) couldn’t be more than a mile and change away as the crow
flies.
Luthor loved the high ground, loved looking down on his criminal empire, on the
people who lined his coffers. That fancy new home of his was probably wired for
safety and protected from outside surveillance, but there was no way he could
stop plain old eyesight from seeing in. A smile crossed Perry’s face. He’d have a
paparazzi’s perch of the ostentatious place from this building.
Every day since then, he was thankful that young Jimmy Olsen was a member of his
closest circle of friends. If they had never met, Perry would never have known of
the treasure trove of gadgets, contraptions and thingamajigs to be found on the
shelves of that wonderful, multi-location-ed place known far and wide as Spies
‘R’ Us.
Perry wished Clark could be here, but his frequent visits to his friend in Gotham
City always seemed to super-charge the boy’s batteries, so to speak. He always
came back relaxed and renewed in his determination to further the LexCorp
investigation. His friend was an asset to the case in many ways, and Perry
accepted all the friendly help he could get, whether he knew them personally or
not. In any case, he was going to send Kent a lengthy email detailing what was
discussed here and give him all the information he’d gathered.
Kent had his friend in Gotham to help analyze and sift through evidence, and
Perry had this apartment on the top residential floor of Downing Towers to help
himself do the same.
Bill Henderson and the Lanes arrived within minutes of one another, the doctor
friend of Mrs. Lane was with her. Friskin, wasn’t it? Perry ushered them into his
home office as they arrived and urged them to have a drink or a snack from his
small wet bar, and he watched as three of them chose a small amount of wine to
go with the cheese and crackers Alice had prepared earlier. Ellen Lane chose a
bottle of water. He had a feeling she might regret being unable to have a glass
of wine before long.
After a few minutes of small talk and hors d’oeuvres, he indicated the seating
area around his desk, and slowly led them away from the bar.
“Please, be seated. I’m glad you all could make it today,” Perry said, as the
women sat together on the sofa next to his desk, and Henderson chose a chair next
to the other corner of the desk. “I have some information to share with you. It
isn’t pleasant news, but then everything we know about this investigation is
unpleasant. It isn’t going to be easy to hear, but I think you’ll understand why
I haven’t mentioned it to any of you before today. Every bit of it is hearsay,
gossip, and downright illegal. It’s going to be up to you, Deputy Inspector,
whether you’ll be able to share anything you learn with your team.” He gave a
quick laugh and stood beside his desk. “It’ll be up to you whether you arrest me
and take me away in handcuffs after you learn how I got the information.”
Henderson, giving nothing away, nevertheless felt his pulse quicken at the use of
his title instead of his name. He put his wine glass on the coffee table and sat
back, alert all of a sudden. “This is my day off, White. I don’t remember
everything I hear when I’m on my own time.”
“I don’t either. That’s why I have com-pact disks.” Perry picked up some folders
on the desktop and handed them around, one for each guest. He gave a brief
history of why he chose to buy the lease on this apartment.
“Right above us are two floors of heating and cooling units. When I realized Lex
Luthor’s ego gave me a clear view of his blight on the Red Maple Hills,
I found a way into the upper floors and set up some equipment to watch what
went on out there. Over time, my equipment has gotten better and so has my information.”
He sat on the corner of his desk and watched as they opened the folders
and began to look over the printed pages within.
Henderson glanced up at him. “Clever idea. If Luthor security is looking back-
and they are- they won’t see unusual heat signatures among the heating and
cooling units. Or anyone using a camera with a telescopic lens. Good camouflage.”
Ellen Lane looked at him sharply. “Luthor’s security is watching back?”
“Not here, specifically, but all around the mansion, its grounds and the LexCorp
tower from inside from the ground and from the sky,” Bill Henderson answered.
“It’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to get solid evidence against the LexCorp
organization. They’re good at covering their tracks because they know they’re
being watched.”
“So, what is this, Perry?” she asked, turning her attention back to the folder.
“Well, we’ve been talking the past week about how hard it was for you and Lucy to
get Lois to talk more openly about her life, to confide in you. She believes in
her marriage, she trusts her husband, but she doesn’t know what is going on in
her own home, nor that all of it is under orders from her husband. What you have
are transcripts of conversations that have been recorded over the last three
years between Luthor’s head of security, Nigel St. John, and various household
staff. Once it became obvious Luthor wasn’t going to let anyone from her old life
anywhere near Lois, I started looking into ways of getting to the only people who
were allowed daily access to Mrs. Luthor- the household staff at the mansion. It
took some time, but I eventually befriended Gaston Tulane and Eli Morgan, two
members of the household staff. Tulane is the chef at the mansion and Morgan is a
mechanic and one of the drivers. Long story short, they don’t like Luthor, but
they do like Mrs. Luthor. Thanks to Jimmy Olsen, I was able to give both men
recording devices to wear when they are around both Lois and Lex. Told them I was
researching a book. Since these things are for recording only, they are never
picked up by the daily sweeps for bugs and other things Luthor’s security
meticulously looks for. I hear what the staff talks about and what orders St.
John leaves for them. The men would leave a specific pattern of lights on in the
windows of the staff quarters of the mansion when they wanted to meet and hand
over a disk with conversation they thought would interest me.” He waved a hand
toward them. “I know! It’s all illegal as hell, but I needed to keep track of
Lois after the walls went up around her, so I flat out spied! As you read, you’ll
see a progression of events, beginning three years ago, as the staff is ordered
to start preparing the food and beverages served to Mrs. Luthor- and her only-
using special ingredients. I looked up what product names I could ascertain from
the tapes and none of them are poisonous, but they are only to be used when
preparing Mrs. Luthor’s meals when she is eating alone at the mansion. They are
told the stuff is meant to help Mrs. Luthor’s health problems.”
“Health problems?” Ellen said suddenly, looking up from the papers in her hands.
“No! No, this can’t be right. What is this ridiculous gossip about my daughter
being unable to have a child? How can the staff know this? It can’t be true. I’m
a nurse- a damn good one, if I may say so myself- and my ex-husband is a doctor-
a damn good one despite his faults. Both of our daughters are physically healthy
and normal in every way, and both are capable of having children if they so
wish.”
Lucy looked at her in surprise. How do you know that? she thought, but then
turned her attention to the third woman. “Dr. Friskin? Do you recognize any of
the- the ingredients that are mentioned? Do you have any idea if they are related
to infertility in any way?”
The doctor shook her head. “The only one I recognize is atralensonine. It’s used
to help addicts break a chemical habit, but as is the case with strong
medication, Lensil- the product name- can promote addiction if used in too strong
a dose. The rest are unfamiliar to me.”
“Well, that answers one question,” Perry said. “I’m a news man, not a doctor. I
couldn’t make head nor tail from why this was being done, but I think I know now
what the purpose of the specially prepared food was. I’ll betcha Luthor is trying
to get her hooked on something, alcohol or whatnot.” Perry looked at them with a
smile. “It ain’t working. Keep reading, but long story short: the household staff
at the mansion likes Mrs. Luthor as I mentioned before. Lois and the housekeeping
staff get along just fine. Gaston, the chef, only uses the-” he made air quotes
with his fingers- “special ingredients if he’s being observed by St. John or Mrs.
Cox, Luthor’s personal assistant. He’s been pouring the stuff down the drain when
they ain’t around.”
Ellen Lane looked up with murder in her eyes. “I’m getting her out of that man’s
control if I have to die trying.”
“Mom!”
“I mean it, sweetie! That monster had her thinking I was locked away in a drunk
tank! If he thinks he can maneuver her into one, he’d better think again!”

“You don’t play golf?” Jack asked disbelievingly, looking up from where he was
sitting on the top step of Wayne Manor’s rear veranda and drinking a bottle of
water. “You’re a spoiled brat billionaire. You were supposed to grow up picking
your teeth with silver golf tees!”
“He’s right,” Clark said, waving his arm in a wide gesture. “You could have built
eighteen actual holes around this place- not just nine! All eighteen. What is
this thing you have against sports? Not intellectual enough for you?”
Bruce Wayne looked out of the corner of his eye at Clark. “Well,” he began
carefully. “that may be so.” He paused a while. “I mean, I’m friends with you,
aren’t I?”
A small smile lifted the corner of Clark’s mouth - the corner facing away from
Wayne- and he and Jack exchanged an amused look.
Ice face is really trying to be a smartass! Jack thought.
“Actually, that was a good thing, BDub,” Clark pointed out. “It gives me hope
for you. I’m going to teach you to play golf. It’s my social obligation of the
year. Phil Mickelson would be proud.”
“Who?”
“Oh,” he shrugged nonchalantly, “just a guy, a pro golfer, who gave me pointers
once at a driving range in Metropolis.”
Bruce looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I should know who that is, shouldn’t I?”
Jack looked up at him, squinting against the bright sky. “Don’t you pay any
attention to sports at all?”
He thought for a while. “Does hide and seek count?”
“No.” They said at the same time.
“I guess not then.”
“The guys and I will teach you one on one basketball,” Clark said. “Ever heard of
European football? American football? Grass sports?”
Wayne shrugged. “Alfred played croquet with me when I was little.”
“Wrong kind of grass sport.”
He turned his whole body slowly and faced Clark straight on. “Do you even know
how hard you have to hit those damn little solid wooden balls to get them to
cover distance at all even on a flat lawn? Don’t be so quick to knock it!” He
frowned when Clark and Jack laughed.
“Trust me, BDub. There is a reason croquet isn’t an Olympic sport.” He slapped
Bruce on the shoulder. “But you know the basics of putting, at least.”
From the lawn, Denny called to his brother, “You gonna sit there all day, Jack,
or play some catch?”
Jack capped the bottle, put it on the step and got to his feet. “Throw me some
grounders!” he said and jogged away from the house, pulling his glove from his
back pocket and putting it on.
“Actually, I do play golf, Seek. I learned last winter.”
“Well, cool. That makes my job easier. Did you use lead weights or sand for your
handicap?”
“Well. . . lead. You know it’s. . .”
“Uh, huh.”

Martha Kent came down the stairs from Clark’s old bedroom and joined her husband
on the living room sofa. She leaned against him and felt his arm rise and curl
around her shoulders.
“All three of the dogs are upstairs sleeping under the crib,” she said. “Mara
didn’t wake up at all while I changed her diaper and put her pajamas on her. I’ll
give her a bath first thing in the morning.”
Jonathan was laughing quietly. “She wore herself out chasing the dogs and letting
them chase her. She had a good time,” he said, “and the dogs loved her.”
“She cried just once all day,” Martha said. “That was after lunch when she fell
asleep and woke up and the dogs were gone. They followed you out when you went
back to the shed. I sent Clark the pictures I took with my new phone of her
napping with them this afternoon.” She laughed at the memory. “They’re going to
miss her when she goes home.”
He laughed again. “Oh, they aren’t going to forget her, that’s for sure!”
Martha smiled and turned her attention to the TV which was tuned to a twenty-four
hour news channel. “Oh! I missed the local news. Was there anything more about
the missing teenagers from Baker?”
“The police are pretty sure they ran away to the big rock concert at Arrowhead
tonight. So the Kansas City PD is watching the gate for them or their car.”
“I hope they’re alright, even though it’s a silly thing to do. To get there and
miss the whole thing by being taken in by the police.”
“Ah, Martha, kids never change. They’ll always act without thinking and do silly
things. Like Clark and Pete and their hike upriver; Jack and Denny running away
from social services in Metropolis. One day that baby upstairs will do something
that’ll scare the wits out of her dad, like he did to us.”
Martha laughed lightly. “Normally, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but I still
don’t understand how those boys imagined they could walk to the Elbow Dam to fish
and return in one day.” She reached a hand up to grasp his at her shoulder.
“It was lucky they built a fire to roast some of their fish or they might have
ended up walking all the way home after all.”
She nodded and turned her head a little to give her husband a glance. “So what do
you think about what Clark said? Lois Luthor is out from inside the wall her
husband put around her.”
“I heard. I was right there when Clark told us.”
“Is that all you have to say? I don’t believe you!” She swatted his hand.
“Well, Martha, all we know is she’s in touch with her mother and her sister after
five years, and after the meeting her family is having with Perry White today
she’ll probably be in touch with him again, too.”
“Honey, it was only a matter of time before she and Clark would meet again,” she
said confidently.
Jonathan frowned as he looked at Martha beside him. “I’d say that’s a given,
considering you hired Lucy Lane to be Mara-girl’s nanny over Clark’s
protestations! And what makes you think they already have been in touch?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling.”
“Martha Clark Kent, I would think, in this matter, you would have accepted a long
time ago your feelings can be wrong!”
“I’ve done no such thing! My gut feelings are always right. The time it takes to
play out makes no difference.”
Jonathan laughed and removed his arm from her shoulders as he leaned forward to
grab the TV remote control. “If you say so, dear. Don’t you interrupt ‘Early
Edition’ or spoil ‘The Pretender’ with your feelings now. I want to watch my
shows in peace.”
“Well, considering who Mara’s parents were, I’m surprised you can’t see the way
the fates brought everyone together as soon as Clark and the boys took the baby
home to Metropolis,” she said with enthusiasm. “We took her to the best
pediatrician in the city and Ellen Lane, Logan-Lane, happened to be working in
the same clinic.” She tapped him in the chest with the back of her hand. “It was
fate, honey, admit it.”
“Well, if fate is that close to us, I hope it’s in the kitchen right now making
the popcorn. ‘Early Edition’ is about to start.”
“Oh, my gosh!” Martha exclaimed and scrambled to her feet. “I forgot! I got so
caught up sending pictures of the baby and the dogs to Clark that I completely
forgot . . .”
Her voice faded as she rushed into the kitchen.
Jonathan clicked the channel selector and put it back on the table. “That’s going
to make for one hell of a cell phone bill this month, family plan or not,” he
muttered to himself, and got up to go help her.

17- Seventeen

Lucy let her life settle into a routine even though she was dying to go straight
to her sister at the library and blurt out what she had learned from Perry White.
Luckily, holding her mother back from doing the same thing was hard enough to keep
them both occupied. Though they both wanted badly to just hand the transcripts of
Perry’s snooping over to Lois, both knew the damage that might cause if Lois’
trust in her husband was absolute. Neither wanted to lose contact with her again,
so they held back and quietly planned for Barbara Friskin to meet and observe Lois
as soon as possible. Besides, if any fragment of the Lois Lane they remembered
still existed inside Mrs. Luthor, her anger might cause her to confront him with
the conversations and alert him to the household staff’s spying for Perry White.
In the meantime, Lucy gave one of the cell phones to White and she sent a text to
Lois telling her which one it was.
After her classes started, Lucy spent as many mornings as she could at the library
and arranged to meet Lois for an hour or two whenever she could sneak away from
the work that was starting to pick up in the library. So many modifications were
being made to the interior of the building that Lois was meeting with an architect
and a contractor almost daily for two weeks. Getting away was becoming harder for
both sisters. They were reduced to idle chitchat with the librarians in their
break area, but Stephen Sully was often able to draw the librarians away for a few
minutes to give Lucy and Lois time to themselves. Keeping secrets was hard for all
of the Lane women, but all felt their reasons for doing so were sound.
With Clark gone at night for the harbor stake-out, Lucy was responsible for the
house as well as the baby on nights when she didn’t have classes. Jack and Denny
helped out as much as possible, and Ben dropped by after closing the restaurant
every night, bringing food and baked goods that Mike didn’t want to throw away,
but Lucy knew Ben was bringing the food so she wouldn’t have to cook in the
evenings, just being thoughtful and making things easier for her. She and the guys
had many a late snack from the restaurant leftovers, and finished them off the
next day.
Mara finally fell asleep and Lucy turned on the baby monitor before going to her
room next door. They’d been to the university to see Denny in a dress rehearsal
of a play one of his clubs was to perform on three consecutive nights the
following week. Lucy enjoyed the production because Mara slept like a log through
it all, and even though she was wide awake after getting home and refused to be
put in her crib after her bath. Unable to resist the tear drops and tiny arms
reaching for her, she let the baby wear herself out chasing after every battery
operated or wind-up toy she could find and put into motion on the living room
floor.
Lucy found the book she was reading and settled onto the bed to read a few pages
before Jack and Denny got back from their outings. Ben wouldn’t be by until after
eleven. She opened the book, but before she could start reading a muffled chiming
sound from her back pack at the foot of the bed got her attention. It took a few
seconds for her to realize it was coming from the phone Lois had given her. It was
the text ringtone she’d selected and forgotten because she and Lois usually called
one another and kept their phones on vibrate.
She scrambled to get it from the bag and flip it open. The screen was brightly
lit.

Luce, are you there? I
hope I’m doing this right.

yes im here u finally
figured out texting!
gr8 ;)

I tried earlier but the
message said my text
was undelliverable.

sorry hon turned it off
at a play at uni. u ok?
1 L in deliverable.

I’m having trouble trying
to sleep, but I can’t talk. I
decided to try this.

oh. ok

I missed talking to you.
Too busy to come to the
liberary?

took mj to doc n had
lunch w/mom @ clinic.
no e in library.

Why are you writing like
that? It’s anoying!

text charges r by
character xtra to the
phone bill. Annoying.
2 ns

They already charged me
way too much for this service!
They’re going to fleece me
for not spelling badly too?

speaks the woman
who couldnt spell to
save her own life. u r
a natural 4 it

Well stop it! I’m paying and
I don’t like it. Though I could
have used it back when I was
writing for the Daily Planet,
come to think of it.

Great! I hate text speak
anyway. It’s leaking into
internet text, too, Writing
is wrong. It’s ryting. :p

Shut up.

What happened? Why can’t
u sleep?

I’m at the penthouse in town.
Tonight was the Meriwether
announcemnts for TV and
radio. LNN received

one forbehind the scens
technical accomplishments.
Lex wasn’t happy non of the
stories were nomminated.

He called a meeting with the
production staff. Why is that
breaking up?

U must be limited to 100
or so characters. Thus the
text speak.

For all it costs??That’s a cheat.

Tell me about it.

LNN has been getting
fewer nominations the
last three years.

They have been going for
sensational stuff over hard
news lately.

Really? I haven’t paid
attention since I stopped
working.

Why did you stop working?

Long story. Too long for
100 charactures.

Okay. So why can’t you
sleep, sis?

We’re at the penthouse.
I hate it here. I wish I coud
come see you. I can see
your neigherhood from
the balcony.

Will you let me network
Mom?

Let you what?

We can get Mom on the line
and have a family chat. She’ll
be overjoyed to get rid of
text speak for a while.

Okay. I still can’t talk
though. No one can
overhear this but I can
hear anyone coming.

Not a prob, sis. I need to
cut the connection, but
we’ll get right back to you.

Lucy wasted no time calling her mother on the house’s land line, but jumped up to
pace as she waited for Ellen to answer. It wasn’t that late, just past ten-thirty,
and even if she was already in bed and watching Letterman, she would want to be in
touch with Lois.
“Mom!” Lucy said as soon as Ellen answered. “Listen. Lois is texting me from
LexCorp Tower. She can’t sleep and is in the mood to talk. I’m going to set up a
three way text between us using the phones Lois gave us. No matter what she tells
us, Mom, don’t say anything about what we know, okay? I know we have to get her
out of there, if we can, but we can’t do anything to alert Luthor to how close
Henderson’s team is to finding a crack in his armor. I’m putting you on speaker so
you and I can talk to each other over the land line.”
“You know I hate this texting thing, but just do it! Maybe we can arrange a
meeting with Barbara.”
“Don’t force her, Mom. We can’t force her or make her angry enough to confront
Luthor before the task force can move on him.”
“I know, kiddo. I won’t charge in. I want my daughter back safely, even if she
still wants nothing to do with me. At least she’ll be out of that environment.”
Lucy closed the door to Mara’s room and went back to sit on the bed before setting
up her three way text. At least the Luthor money was useful in Lois’ choice of
phones and the plan that she bought for them.
“Okay, Mom. Put me on speaker and I’m connecting us on cells now.”

The night was warm for mid-September. Lois pulled a chair close to the doors of
the bedroom suite and was sitting facing the interior. She had her laptop turned
on and open to her email program to help hide her use of the little phone that no
one on Lex’s staff knew she had. The things were so small they were easy to hide,
and once again, she wondered why Lex had never updated her satellite phone to one
of these much more capable (and fun!) units.
The nominations ceremony for the Meriwether awards was held in the huge banquet
hall located on the ground floor of LexCorp Tower, and after being humiliated in
his own building when his news network was denied a single nomination for its
reporting, Lex called a meeting of the network staff and informed Lois he would
be busy and they would stay the night in the penthouse. Telling her he was going
to be in conference most of the night, he’d kissed her good night and sent her to
the top of the tower. Out of sight, out of mind, as usual. He’d even dismissed her
offer to sit in on the meeting and help if she could.
“No, my darling,” he’d answered and kissed her cheek. “You have the library
project to keep on track. My network is my business. I’ll be up as soon as I can,
but this looks like an all-nighter, my love. I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll
have breakfast on the balcony. Just like old times!”
As if she knew nothing about the news or running the network! The news had been
her life at one time, and for the two years she’d been in charge, the news
division of LNN had won numerous awards, including a Meriwether.
She’d been dismissed like a dutiful little, empty headed wife while Lex stalked
off with Mrs. Cox ever at his side.
Feeling as alone as she’d ever felt in her life, Lois wandered through the
penthouse, hardly recognizing the lavish dwelling anymore. She’d started her
married life here while she and Lex waited for the mansion to be finished, but
this place had never been home to her either. Like the mansion, the penthouse was
another showplace, a grand show of expense displaying the Luthor wealth and
perfect taste in decoration- but both homes were all Lex. There wasn’t an ounce of
Lois in either décor, and even after five years, there would never be anything to
say she had ever lived in either place.
Going to the bar across the room, she grabbed a wine glass and two half-filled
bottles from the cooler. Carrying to the bed she put them onto the bedside table
and opened one of the bottles and tipped it to pour into the glass. She noticed
the label and grimaced. She spun around and took both bottles to dump into the
bathroom sink. It was the expensive stock Lex bought in France last year. The
brand that tasted as bitter as lemonade. She went back to the bedroom and tossed
the bottles onto the foot of the large bed.
Getting on her laptop to pass the time, she had discovered an email from “Lucy” in
Alaska waiting in her inbox! She’d felt a surge of anger tempered with relief.
Another email meant whoever was perpetrating the hoax was unaware that Lois had
reconnected with her family and knew very well that both her sister and her mother
were in Metropolis. No one knew.
The email was a bland few paragraphs of getting ready for another winter in the
frozen north and a few pics of where “Lucy” and her boyfriend would be staying.
The anger gave way to loneliness again and she needed to connect with her real
sister, to replace the false Lucy with the fire and energy of her real little
sister just across town.
When the phone vibrated, the screen lit up and she touched the message icon. Lois
looked at the two greetings and tears flooded her eyes. It was time to bring her
mother and her sister back into her life and explain why it had been turned upside
down.

Hi Mom
I found out I can’t
ever have children.

Neither Ellen nor Lucy needed to see Lois to know she would be crying and too far
away for them to comfort.

So far the stakeout of the freight docks was coming up empty. Eduardo Friez and
Jennifer Tate were out for a couple of hours, ostensibly taking in dinner and a
movie, and maintaining their cover as one of the two couples living aboard the
yacht for a few weeks. Both were actually spending a few hours with their families
and friends while Clark and Abigail Paige stayed on board to monitor the
surveillance cameras focused on a particular section of the city docks. No unusual
activity had been observed in or around the docks they were interested in, but it
was noted Pier 15 was as active as most around it. If Luthor controlled it, as
suspected, he, and his bogus owner, were careful to make operations look normal as
the docks around them. Though the kind of activity they were looking for was
likely to happen in the middle of the night, they were careful to log all of the
doings on Pier 15, right down to the designations of the tugboats used to move the
freighters in and out of the docks. One of the tug captains was taking money from
X15 Enterprises, the company leasing Pier 15 from the city.
Clark didn’t have to guess who owned XE. He didn’t have to waste time tracing it
all the way back to LexCorp. He knew Henderson’s team was doing the tracing, time
consuming as it was, and while they all knew not all companies with X or L
prominently in their titles was owned by Luthor, X15 was in business with QPTS and
he didn’t need to know anything more. He knew Henderson suspected the truth, too,
but had to go through the motions to make charges stick.
A clicking noise followed by a whirring noise interrupted his thoughts and Clark
looked at the monitors on the desk beside him. One of the recording units was
starting its cycle again, recording over old data which Jimmy assured him was
about one hundred hours’ worth of date stamped observations of nothing of
importance.
Getting up from the chair in which he lounged, he turned the speakers up a little
and went to the galley to pick through the leftovers of dinner. The weather was
still warm so he and Ed fired up the grill and decided to cook everything outside.
The result was good in some ways, interesting in others and better left untried
but edible in others.
Paige was seated at the table sipping a cup of tea. From the aroma, Clark knew it
was chai from the canister his mother had sent him. His travels around the world
notwithstanding, everything he’d ever needed to know about tea and coffee he’d
learned at home from Martha before he’d even left to explore. It had been a
revelation of the best kind when he was far from home and missing his parents.
Looking up, Paige smiled. “Hi, Clark. I just made a pot of tea and was wondering
what to warm up for a snack.”
“My idea, too, but that chai tea smells good. Mom would give me some when I wasn’t
feeling good or if I couldn’t get to sleep.”
“Mm. I think it’s my favorite now. Jenny and Ed will be back soon. I was wondering
if I should warm enough for them.”
“Nah! Let them do their own cooking! They got to leave for the evening, after
all.” He opened the refrigerator and poked around through the plastic containers
and foil covered dishes. “How about some fresh corn salsa with tortilla chips?”
“Boy, I’m glad you can cook!” Paige said. “What can I do?”
He tossed her a bag of flour tortillas. “Put a little oil in that red frying pan
and cut those into triangles. You should have them crispy and drained on a paper
towel by the time I’m finished making the salsa. Spicy hot or kid stuff?”
“Hot! What’s the point of south of the border with no heat?”
“Good answer. So, Abbie, did you get anything useful from the pictures Jimmy sent
over? I don’t like him using toy drones. People might think they’re still just
kids’ toys but it only takes one to be captured and Luthor’s security will close
ranks.”
“I’m surprised those things aren’t being used for surveillance by everyone. I’m
sure Jimmy isn’t the only one to think of hiding a camera on one.” Paige covered
a platter with paper towels. “The flyby of the library showed Mrs. Luthor’s guards
are still in place when she’s there, and so is the fed. He varies his hiding
places but Scardetto is persistent in observing the lady.” The crackle of the oil
sounded as she dropped tortilla wedges into it. “I called Henderson and sent him
some of the pictures, but if he hasn’t stopped the guy from spying by now, I don’t
see how he ever will.”
Ignoring the wrong name, Clark snorted. “The feds know he’s a loose cannon, but as
long as he does his spying on his own time, even their hands are tied. They don’t
want him blowing their cover either, but the man won’t give up.”
Paige looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Would you?”
Clark considered the two words. “No, but I’m after Luthor. If Mrs. Luthor goes
down with him, all I can do is try to help her get through the fall-out.”
Abbie was aware of the history between Lane and Kent and she wondered how true his
answer was. Of course, Kent was nothing but truthful about his life in most
matters, but she was sure he had his secrets, too. Didn’t everyone?
“Well, I wish someone would put the fear of discovery into that damned fed,” she
said and slid the last of her chips into the hot oil. “Hanging around the library
in a city where he is supposed to have died, still following the woman who was the
reason for his death who happens to be working at said library- the man is crazy
and he’s going to destroy another operation! Maybe ours, too!”
Clark smiled. “There was a time, you know, when I could understand exactly what
his obsession was about. Of course, I was only literally shot down, but I got the
message.”
“Well, I’m guessing you felt love. The fed wants what he can’t have. Once he has
it, he’ll get tired of it pretty fast.” From the corner of her eye, Paige saw Kent
pause for a moment before resuming his preparation.

By the end of the conference call/text with Lois, both Lucy and her mother were
emotionally tattered. Lucy pulled a bottle of water from her small backpack and
swallowed it in small sips, just letting the liquid soothe her raw, irritated
throat. She hated doing it, yelling at her mother to say nothing, when every
thought in her head told her to get Lois out of that marriage before it was too
late, but she knew only her sister could make that break. Only her sister had a
right to make that break.
“Mom?” she said to her still open line with Ellen. “Are you alright? I know you’re
there. I can hear your music playing.” She took a bigger drink from the bottle.
“We couldn’t tell her anything, Mom, you know that. The police are so close to
proving Luthor is a criminal this time. We couldn’t tell Lois anything that would
send her on a rampage against him that could alert him to the investigation.
There’s no way to know what will be a warning sign to Luthor and his people, but
telling her what we know that she doesn’t will certainly be a red flag!”
Ellen held a cool bottle of water of her own against her forehead and drew in a
deep breath. “Lucy honey, you have to go to the library as soon as possible.
Promise me! Lois needs physical contact and she’ll accept it from you without
feeling she has to look strong and in control like she acts with your father and
me.”
“I will, Mom. I’ll get there early tomorrow.”
“Thank you, sweetie. She’ll open up more to you without me in the way. Don’t deny
it! We both know it’s true! There is a lot she hasn’t told us that she will tell
you.”
Ending the call a minute later, Lucy stared at the phone for a long time. She was
torn between her mother and her sister. She loved them both and she never
understood the tension between them, or the tension between Lois and their father,
for that matter. Lois and Ellen were both hiding a lot of hurt from each other and
it brought tears to her eyes that neither woman was open to sharing with her. Of
course she also knew the only forgiveness each could find in their relationship
had to come to one from the other. She could help them make it right, though, if
it was possible.
Lucy double checked the baby monitor in the nursery, and went downstairs to wait
for Ben’s arrival.
Lois wasn’t the only one who needed human contact.

18- Eighteen

Lois wasn’t sure what awakened her, only that she came awake suddenly and knew she
wasn’t alone in the main bedroom suite. The quiet murmur of voices came from the
direction of the sitting room. Someone had put a blanket over her without caring
where it fell. Her head was covered and she was becoming aware of how uncomfortable
she was feeling. She was still in the curled, side position she was in when she’d
been able to stop crying and fall asleep. The pillow was damp and cold against her
cheek.
A voice whispered from a distance closer than before, making her start and she was
glad the blanket covered her head when her eyes snapped open at the same time. She
felt herself freeze in shock. It was Lex.
“When I asked you to put the blanket over her, Julianne, I assumed you knew I meant
to shoulder height. Covering her like a corpse wasn’t what I had in mind."
“Why not?” Mrs. Cox whispered back, indifferently. “It’s time you were rid of her.
What good is she doing you?”
“Keep your voice down,” he hissed sharply. “I see she managed to drink herself into
oblivion.” His amusement was evident. “As expected, of course.”
“As expected, of course,” Mrs. Cox repeated with a sneering tone. “Lex, this charade
has gone on long enough. Get rid of her and let me do my job!”
The sharp sound of skin striking skin was followed by a gasp of pain.
“You do not give me orders! Mrs…. Cox.” Lex replied, pausing after the honorific
before completing her name, barely audible but clearly furious. “She stays until I
decide it is time for her to go. She stays until I have tired of her presence in my
life. She stays until it no longer amuses me to have complete control over the woman
Superman wanted. She stays until the game in play is finished. She stays until I am
satisfied she will never be Lois Lane, top journalist, ever again. If that doesn’t
suit you, my dear, the length of your continued presence in my life can be
determined instead.”
Mrs. Cox sounded appropriately contrite. “You know where my loyalties lie, Lex.”
“Good answer, darling. Nigel’s failures with the Open Book are aggravating enough
without having to wonder how true your answer is.”
“I was referring to the library project, Lex, not your marriage.”
Footsteps began moving away.
“The library is no longer your concern. It was an ill-conceived project to begin
with, much too ambitious for something that will be as closely watched as this.”
“Only because she decided to take-”
“Enough!”
“Lex, I have good connections through the temp agency. Give the project back to me
and I can make it work.” Her words ended with an indrawn breath and a barely
controlled squeal of pain.
Lex’s whisper was harsh. “I repeat, the library is no longer your concern! I have
changed the plan.” He drew in several deep, calming breaths, aware of how close he’d
come to shouting. “Be patient, Julianne. You’ll like what I have in mind.” There was
a silence, followed by what sounded like a kiss being broken. “All of my lovely
wife’s work will be for nothing. The project will be a spectacular failure. I’ve
seen to it.”
Mrs. Cox gave a hissing chuckle. “Tell me more.”
“Austin Technology, of course. I will be the owner of Austin Tech by the end of next
week. And then. . .” Soft footsteps neared the bed and the bedside lamp went off
silently as one of them touched the base. “. . .things will start to go very wrong.”
The bedroom door opened, soft footsteps receded and the door latch clicked quietly
as the couple left the room and locked the door behind them.

Lois stayed in one position for a long time after the sound of the door locking.
She was shaking but she wasn’t sure if it was from cold, fear, or anger. She was
feeling all three in equal measure. She’d broken out in a cold sweat as she listened
to the tone of her husband’s voice, started to tremble with fear as she heard her
husband abuse his assistant, and began to feel rage when he revealed his plan to
destroy all her work at the library.
Why? She wondered, her mind still reeling. It’s only updated internet service for
the library and some new computers!
Slowly, she pushed the blanket down to uncover her head and shoulders and she looked
around. The suite was softly lit by the many lights on the outside of LexCorp Tower
that illuminated the exterior and made it visible for miles. It had been so long
since she’d spent the night in the penthouse she hadn’t remembered to draw the
drapes. She’d been looking out the southern windows toward the Southside, where Lucy
lived while working, before collapsing on the bed in tears, mourning her loss for
the first time since receiving the news more than two years ago.
Ellen had flat out refused to believe any evidence Lois cited and Lucy’s skepticism
was nearly derisive as she tried to keep herself between Lois and Ellen and make
sure neither of the three said anything they might regret later.
“Lucy,” she whispered to herself. “How could I have believed that email faker was
you?”
Lois threw the blanket aside and swung her legs off the side of the bed. The bedside
clock read 1:29 am as she stood and marched toward the bath room. She needed a good,
hot shower.
So Lex believes he has complete control over me? She fumed, as he tossed her
clothing aside and pulled open cabinet doors to grab towels and other items and
throw them in the direction of the shower unit. He thinks he is succeeding in
stopping me from being Lois Lane? He thinks he’s going to ruin my project and make a
fool of me? Oh! You have another think coming, buddy! Both you and your fat hipped
assistant!
She tapped a code into the panel on the wall beside the shower and the door slid
open as the water burst forth from the showerhead, pre-programmed for just the right
strength, pulsations and temperature that she liked.
Long ago, Clark Kent has warned her many times that Lex Luthor was untrustworthy,
that there was more to him than met the eye, and she had brushed away everything he
said as jealousy. It was no secret Kent was attracted to her back then, though she
was positive she had given him no encouragement nor even hinted that she was
interested in him in any way. They were friends and partners, and while he was a
great friend, a talented guy, he was just another guy. He just wasn’t that special.
Or so she thought at the time.
How she could have been so stupid she would never know. In more ways than one, she
knew now her younger self had been no one for Lex to fear, no one to silence, if
that was indeed the “game” he mentioned to Mrs. Cox. She had worked with Superman
day in and day out for months, joked with him, insulted him, fought over phrasing
and relevant facts with him, sent him out on blind dates and fell asleep more than
once on the sofa in his apartment. . . and never once put two and two together
regarding the secret he kept from her. It took her mother and Lucy to hint at the
blatantly obvious. And it wasn’t until after the. . .completely out of the blue, but
magical afternoon at Lucy’s apartment that it all began to click into place for her.
It had opened her eyes, all of it: seeing Lucy again, working on her library
project, seeing Clark at the apartment, watching her mother and her sister so
comfortable with one another. There had been no time to be angry nor to feel
foolish. The freedom coming back into her life eclipsed all of that.
She reached a hand for the shower unit’s door handle and the water stopped. Grabbing
a towel, she flicked it open and swung it around her and stepped onto the bathroom
floor. Lex is NOT going to undo any of the good I’ve done in the Luthor name the
last three years.
Twenty minutes later, Lois stood on the balcony outside the suite and looked upward
into the sky. She leaned against the balustrade and looked over to the street far
below and felt the downdraft effect moving her damp hair. Behind her, the bedroom
suite remained in darkness, lit only dimly by the outdoor lights on the building.
“Clark Kent!” she called once and waited as the ever constant breeze rising up from
the side of the building carried her voice away. “I know you can hear me. It’s Lois
Lane and I need to talk to you! I’m on the terrace of the LexCorp penthouse master
bedroom suite. Alone. The doors are open.” She let a quick smile cross her face.
“Oh, all right. Help, Superman! And don’t call me Dana when you see me!”

As stakeouts went, watching the busy harbor for suspicious ships from the luxury of
a yacht made the long stretches of inactivity somewhat bearable. Clark was stretched
out on the sofa in the main cabin and playing word games on his Wayne Enterprises
“Atlas3” cellular phone or we-phone as it was commonly known. It had a larger screen
than the CostMart StarCom series, or “church-phones,” and it didn’t need a tiny
antenna like the cheaper Data phones that were flooding the market. And who could
afford the LexCom cream-of-the-crop L-phones? True, they had more features and
service almost as good as the church phones but they were hardly worth the price!
Huh! Leave it to Luthor---
Yes. He was bored. He turned off his phone and put it in his pocket before he
started singing the praises of one brand over the others. That was another perk or a
disadvantage, depending on how you looked at it, of having kids. Superman needed a
personal phone even though. . . yeah, you got it.
Clark had slipped out earlier for a short Superman patrol over the city but there
was nothing going on in the city, nor in the vast surrounding area of New England,
that required Superman’s attention. A few fender-benders, a few bar fights, nothing
the locals and the police couldn’t handle. Not a single burglar alarm nor a natural
disaster anywhere in the world. He sighed. Some days were just like that. No one
felt like misbehaving.
Jimmy had logged off and presumably gone to bed in his apartment at the townhouse
after a few hands of video poker earlier, Ed and Clark were manning the monitors,
and the women were getting some sleep before relieving them in a couple of hours.
The captain was snoring in his stateroom. And. . . there he went again. Listing and
comparing.
Clark got up from the sofa and lowered his glasses a little to scan the harbor and
zero in on Pier Fifteen for a closer look than anything the cameras could give him.
Busy during the day, the pier was empty now, but after seeing the sat footage Bruce
Wayne showed him, Clark knew how quickly that could change. Anything coming out of
the ship’s hold could be moved in under an hour. He supposed anything going out with
the ship would be moved just as fast. They had clocked the tug boats from various
companies and knew how quickly a cargo ship of any size could be gotten in and out
of the harbor on a busy day, and they’d discussed how much faster they might be able
to do it at night- especially when laws were being broken.
He walked across the cabin and looked over Ed’s shoulder at the monitors.
“Pretty fun looking party at the other end of the dock here,” Eduardo said, shifting
in his seat and motioning with his head to the south. “There’s more action going on
around us than on the docks over there on the city side of the river. Night crews
don’t work as fast as the day shifts.”
Clark thought about what he saw when he scanned the docks himself. “I imagine the
people responsible for getting out the proper paperwork are slower when the main
offices are closed for the day.”
“Unions and the government, they go by the book,” said Eduardo with a nod. “Leave it
to Luthor to somehow find a way around them.”
“Hmm. All he had to do is injure and maim a few people. Superstition appears to have
taken over then.”
“Don’t forget over confidence on Luthor’s behalf. No one was supposed to get a look
at, let alone pictures of, his personal assistant posing as the owner of the temp
service doing the staffing over there now.”
Clark nodded. “That was the kind of risk he’s been so careful to avoid in the past.”
“Makes you wonder what’s happening in the cesspool to cause that piece of crap to
make a mistake.”
“Well, what we think is a mistake, anyway. But, why would he be setting her up for
something? He can so easily make people disappear.”
“Could be she’s just that loyal.”
Clark opened his mouth to reply, but stopped as his hearing picked up something
unusual among the night sounds of the city.

“Clark Kent! I know you can hear me. It’s Lois Lane and I need to talk to you! I’m
on the terrace of the LexCorp penthouse master bedroom suite. Alone. The doors are
open.” Pause. “Oh, all right. Help, Superman! And don’t call me Dana when you see
me!”

He turned his head to the north and looked over his glasses. Holy -
“I’m going to take a walk, Ed. I almost fell asleep a while ago. If anything happens
send me a text.”
“Will do,” the other man said as he rose from his chair and crossed to a large
coffeemaker on a sideboard behind the monitor table. “If you happen to pass a
twenty-four hour bakery, I wouldn’t say no to a sugar hit.”
“See what I can do,” Clark called back , already out the stern doors and on the
deck. It didn’t take long to reach a blind spot on the periphery of the marina and
leap into the sky.

She paced in front of the open glass doors for a while, then stepped inside the
bedroom suite and began to pace across the doorway. What was taking so long? Lois
thought. Fifteen minutes? He’s certainly gotten lax lately.
She turned and went to the bed and sat down on the linen bench at its foot.
In the next instant Superman appeared with a rush of air in a part of the room away
from the doors and windows. “I had to be sure it was safe for me to enter. There are
cameras everywhere except in here.”
She folded her hands on her lap. “I was expecting Clark.”
He nodded and disappeared into a spinning blur, appearing seconds later in faded
jeans and a T shirt. He gestured widely with his hands. “This is the only safe spot
for me. There are cameras on the spires and cell phone towers in the power and light
district that can see into the room as they revolve and sweep the city.”
Lois slowly rose from her seat, eyes wide with awe. “Oh. I never thought of that.”
She shot a quick glance toward the open doors.
“Well, your husband hasn’t either, or I’m sure they wouldn’t be there.”
She frowned. “I’ve heard him complain how they mar the view of the city from the
eastern balconies.”
He laughed lightly. “This is still the tallest building in the city, and you asked
me to come here, Lois. What did you want to talk about?”
"Is this room safe?"
"Yes." He didn't tell her the cameras and microphones in the suite were
disabled.
Now that her friend and former co-worker was in the room with her, she forgot how
she wanted to bring up the subject she’d been thinking about for weeks. Reconnecting
with Lucy, spending that unforgettable afternoon with Clark at the apartment,
getting out of the mansion every day- all of these things had been forcing her to
wake up from her long period of lethargy, to push away the comforts of this life
that were such a safe place in which she could hide and never face the sadness, the
devastation in her heart that had been brought about by the discovery she would
never be able to bear children.
She walked slowly toward Clark, clasping her hands at her waist and looking down at
them. “I, uhm. . .Something happened earlier tonight,” to her surprise she felt
tears fill her eyes and roll down her cheeks, “I . . . I was asleep and something
woke me, and it was Lex and his assistant, Mrs. Cox who were in the room and
whispering about me, and he was hitting her, he was hurting her. . . I could hear
him choking her, I think. . .”
In seconds she was across the room and throwing her arms around Clark and like the
time in Lucy’s apartment, she was crying, another dam breaking loose within her and
letting her emotions break free.
Again, Clark let it go, more at a loss for words and what to do next than anything
else. He patted her back helplessly. Should he say something? What? Saying he was
sorry meant nothing. He looked down, then away and patted at her shoulder again.
What is wrong with me? Why do I do this when Clark is around? Lois thought miserably
as she struggled to control herself. She’d wanted to be strong and decisive and
present Clark with her plans to beat Lex at his own game, but clearly, his anger
with Mrs. Cox was more frightening than she realized.
Lex was capable of hurting her, his wife, if she crossed him- and she was planning
to do more than just cross him. Eventually, she planned to leave him.
After a while Lois pushed away and took one of Clark’s hands in hers. “Lex told Mrs.
Cox by the end of next week he’ll be the new owner of Austin Technology, the company
that’s been providing the computers and accessories for the library refit. He’s
going to ruin the project, make all of my work worth nothing.”
Clark frowned. “Why would he do that? LexCorp has been getting praise from all over
the world for what you’re doing for the library.”
“I know, but he said it was ill-conceived, it’s being watched too closely. He wants
me to fail at it.”
“That makes no sense! It will all reflect back on him.”
She squeezed his hand. “Can you stop him? I want to save my work. I want the library
project to be the best thing ever planned and carried out in this city.” She looked
up at him with the determination, resolve and strength she meant to show him at the
beginning. “Then I’m going to leave everything Luthor behind me and never look back.
You tried to tell me a long time ago that Lex was not what he seemed, and my sister
has been trying to tell me things about him I wasn’t ready to hear. I’m ready. I
want to know what I can do before I walk out of that damned mansion for the last
time and leave that lying bastard running for cover!”
A small smile tugged at Clark’s lips, but he looked for the nearest place to sit and
motioned her to it. “You’d better sit down. It’s good your sister told you who I am.
It makes explanations so much easier.”
She went to the small bench in front of the vanity. “Lucy and my mother dropped
hints, but I knew. . .I knew for a long time, but I never wanted to think about it.
Back when. . .”
1996
Clark Kent had broken both stories for the wire service handling his freelance
material, and Lois watched from the sidelines. As one of the many executive
producers of the news at LNN headquarters, she’d itched to be on the streets
alongside the throngs of reporters shouting questions at the new superheroes. Seven
months earlier, the headlines on newspapers around the globe had carried the news:
THE BATMAN: GOTHAM CITY’S CAPED CRUSADER - and LNN was scrambling to get video or
first person accounts of sightings of the new crime fighter, alone or with Superman.
Lex had spent a fortune getting his hands on any kind of footage his people could
find.
Then, days ago, when the woman made a surprise debut appearance to help Superman
apprehend Caribbean pirates holding hostages, the newspapers were already on the
streets with an exclusive Kent byline on the introduction of Wonder Woman to the
world: WONDER WOMAN: A HERO FOR THE WORLD.
The amazing scenes played out on the monitors covering the wall of the planning room
of the LNN studio. Lois Luthor stood at the back of the room, right elbow in the
palm of her left hand, her fisted right hand pressed against her lips.
There were three figures at the top of a short flight of steps: two men and a woman.
The men were standing back and the woman was in front of them and in front of her
was a sea of reporters for all branches of the media, many bodies crowded together
and holding out microphones toward the woman.
Wonder Woman. (Yeah, really, Lois thought with a small shake of her head) . . . and
the media, including LNN, was eating it up. Since her first appearance as a crime
fighter in a major American city, Wonder Woman was as much an object of fascination
as the men behind her.
Superman, his eyes scanning the crowd and the area beyond the press conference site,
leaned toward the black costumed man at his side. He appeared to be saying something
and Batman, the recently revealed champion of law enforcement in Gotham City, was
listening. With a swirl of his glistening black cape, he turned and walked toward
the door at the back of the wide verandah on which they stood.
Attention pulled away from Wonder Woman, the throng of reporters began shouting
questions to Superman, who took a step forward and said something to the woman.
Vaguely aware that Wonder Woman was addressing the crowd, Lois watched the image of
Superman on the monitors. He was different, lately, since the arrival of Batman into
the world of crime fighting. Now, introducing another ally with powers beyond that
of ordinary humans, he seemed less tense, more comfortable, perhaps, in his
behavior. The crossed arms gesture he used to separate himself from others was one
he rarely used anymore. Batman, new at dealing with the crush of media that followed
his exploits, had adopted it as his way of limiting access to himself in
public.
Wonder Woman was turning away and walking with Superman toward the door where Batman
waited. As they neared the door, Superman paused and turned slightly to face her,
gesturing her ahead politely and reaching out his other hand to place it on her
lower back and usher her through the door. Together, the trio disappeared into the
building.
The gesture, so simple, so polite, rattled Lois Lane Luthor so much, she whirled
around, looking for her chair and she sat down quickly. What had she just seen? What
about that gesture was so familiar?
It was. . . Someone called her name loudly, and she turned her head quickly toward
the person who stuffed something into her hand, and she became aware the room was in
an uproar. Her colleagues were talking excitedly into telephones, grabbing for
remote controls to replay the short press conference, gathering to listen and
discuss what was on the screens.
She looked back at the wall and the large, individual screens were all showing
something different from various points in the meeting, and her eyes found the one
replaying Wonder Woman’s exit with Superman at her side with his hand placed on the
small of her back as he let her go on ahead through the door and out of sight.
Lois was aware her husband and his usual retinue of aides had strode into the room,
and he was barking orders and people were scrambling to obey, but she sat frozen in
her seat. One of the remote controls had been put into her hand and she was
replaying that short walk again, stopping the scene when Superman’s hand appeared to
settle on the woman’s back.

1999
“I was stunned, but I’d managed to do my job over the next weeks. No matter my own
research had been into the subject of Superman and not the woman who’d captured the
world’s attention as his newest colleague. I never knew how many hours I’d sat in my
office going over the data, wondering how I had missed something so simple. Clark
Kent, a farmer’s son from Kansas, and Superman were one and the same.”
He shrugged, standing before her. “It’s not something I shared with too many people
back then.”
“Especially not someone who thought Lex Luthor was exactly what his public image
said he was and who defended him against any accusations.” She moved her head a
little to her right. “I think you can still see where the empty wine bottle
shattered against the wall the night I realized that was why you never trusted me
and I threw it across the room.” She took a deep breath. “Can you stop him, Clark?
Can you keep him from doing whatever he has planned for Austin Technology and
destroying the library project?” She gestured widely with her hands. “I don’t even
know why he’s doing it!” A pause. “Well, not really. I mean from what I’ve learned
talking to the contractors and my assistant, all those expensive servers we had to
put hundreds of thousands of dollars up front for will be worthless in a year!
Technology is changing so fast, even the new computers will be all but obsolete not
long after, but the project is worth the good publicity we’ve been getting!” She
jumped up and started pacing again. “It’s personal! That’s it! It’s personal! I
heard him arguing with that Clock woman!”
“Cox. Her name is Cox.”
“Clox, Clux, who cares! She was supposed to be in charge of the project, but Lex
gave it to me, and I’ve been doing a good job with it. She wanted it back, she
wanted him to take it away from me and give it back to her so she could do it right-
whatever that means- but he said no because it’s been so closely watched and he’s
planning to do something that involves buying Austin -!” She felt a hand on her
shoulder and stopped to look at it. “What?” She raised her eyes to look at Clark.
“Keep your voice down.” He motioned to the bench. “Sit down. We need to talk. Tell
me what you want me to do.”
She looked him in the eye. “I need you to help me save the library project. Then. . .
Well, then I want you to tell me whatever it is you know about Lex and LexCorp
that you were trying to tell me six years ago.”
Oh, boy.

A plastic bag plunked down on the table next to the chair where Eduardo Friez was
watching the TV monitors and wishing one of them was showing a movie or a
documentary, hell, even an old sitcom rerun- and jolted him out of his reverie.
“Best I could do,” Clark told him. “Only the mini mart is open all night around
here.”
Ed opened the bag and smiled. “Peanut butter cookies from their deli? I’ll take
them.”
“Peanut butter cookies are always better the next day,” Clark called over his
shoulder as he walked through the room and headed for the galley. He pulled his
phone out of his pocket and hit speed dial as he opened the fridge and reached
inside for a bottle of beer. His call connected. “Hey, BDub. I need to ask a favor.
We just got a major break in the Man of the Year case.” He listened a few seconds.
“Yeah. If you can spare the time, come to town for a few days next week, but right
now I need to ask that favor.” Another pause to listen. “Okay. Can we borrow Darth
Vader for a few days?”

19- Nineteen

Slouched in the back seat of the unmarked MPD car, Agent Scardino looked forward at the
backs of the heads of the two detectives who had plucked him off the bench in the little park
behind the library and practically threw him into the car.
“Vagrancy!” he muttered. “I can’t believe you’re picking me up for vagrancy! I’m on a DEA
task force stake out, for crying out loud!” There was no reaction from the detectives but
Scardino could see the tall dark edifice of the Metropolis Police Department ahead. “I’m on
the job, damn it!”
Unfortunately, he no longer had a partner to back him up. Rich Wallace had gotten his
request to transfer to import/export harbor division and Dan hadn’t seen him since.
Scardino had plenty of spare time to kill. Collating information from UCUs and the task
forces – not all of them pertaining to Luthor, was a dead end assignment. The higher ups
were letting him know what he was missing out on by screwing up. And, jeeze! He did screw
up big time. He lost his head and all professionalism went out the window with it when that
little, stinking, stupid ray of hope opened in his brain. Was it really months ago already? Why
did he ever approach that car on Clinton Street? Not one good thing came of it.
To be honest with himself, Dan Scardino didn’t know why he’d gone to the library today
anyway. Habit, he guessed. Proving something, anything, to himself about Mrs. Luthor’s
activities was something he supposed he still had to do. Overhearing her sister’s intriguing
comment at the coffee shop and going through the little apartment where that rendezvous had
taken place months ago were some things for which he still wanted answers. Who, how long,
why take such a chance?
Without even knowing it, she’d played him, and the thought itched like hell. What if she’s
just like her damned husband after all?
He climbed out of the car when it stopped in front of the MPD building, known by its address
Ten-One Hundred, 10100 4th Street, and walked between
the two detectives as they guided him into the main lobby and led him straight to the
elevators, bypassing the automatic doors that led to booking and interrogation. Feeling his
spirits rise a little, Scardino straightened up and tried to look as if he was supposed to be here.
Maybe this wasn’t just another perp round up.
On the seventh floor, the agents motioned him out and guided him straight ahead along a
corridor lined with offices and what were probably empty and darkened conference rooms.
They turned right at a junction and stopped at a door amid windows with blinds closed and
“Situation Room 1” stenciled on the glass in the upper half of the door. One of the detectives
knocked, opened the door and stepped aside while motioning Scardino to enter. He stepped
through and looked around while the door closed behind him.
It was a situation room alright, and it had been in use for quite a while. Boxes of files were
stacked everywhere, the computers, chairs and tables had all seen better days, and the ever
present white boards were graying nicely from repeated erasing and reuse.
Deputy Chief Bill Henderson half turned from one end of the long conference table in the
center of the room and beckoned Scardino closer. In turning, Henderson revealed another
figure standing next to him and Dan couldn’t conceal the surprise on his face as he
recognized the red cape cloaking the still figure.
The other man turned his head and nodded to the newcomer. “Agent Scardino. After our last
meeting two years ago, I never expected to see you in Metropolis again.” Superman tuned in
a swirl of color and faced him. “You do like playing with fire, though, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Henderson agreed. “Agent Scardino is still able to call himself an agent by the skin of
his teeth.”
As he spoke, two other men, who were seated at the table, got to their feet and stood beside
Henderson. One was young, mid-twenties, perhaps, and the other, older man with graying
hair seemed as if he should be familiar for some reason, but Scardino didn’t recognize either.
His shoulders sagged a little as he wondered what he’d done now. Still, he managed to smile
and extend his hand to Superman and step forward.
“I wasn’t thinking of coming back to Metropolis as playing with fire, sir,” he said as the two
of them shook hands briefly. “I had unfinished business at the time.” He pulled his hand back
and clasped it with the other in front of him. “It cleared itself up nicely, though.”
“Good. We don’t need no loose cannon runnin’ around drawin’ attention to himself.” The
older man spoke forcefully with a southern accent, his manner telling Scardino he was used
to being in charge and speaking his mind.
Henderson had never taken his eyes from the now nervous agent. “Relax Scardino. You’re
being recruited by Man Of The Year, which is my personal task force investigating Lex
Luthor and the LexCorp criminal mpire. We’re separate from Operation Third Man, the
official MPD task force. LexCorp is aware of the official task force, but they don’t know we
exist.” He nodded his head toward the older man beside him. “This is Perry White, former
editor of the old Daily Planet newspaper, and beside him is Jimmy Olsen, also an ex-
employee of the Daily Planet.”
White nodded but made no move the shake hands; Olsen, however, stepped forward and
reached out.
“Agent Scardino,” he said, looking Dan over curiously, as if he was expecting something
more from him.
“Uh. . . recruited?” Scardino asked.
“Yeah, recruited,” White said impatiently and tapped the back of his hand on Olsen’s arm.
“Get the man some coffee, son. Black straight up. Come on, come on!” He waved Scardino
closer and indicated he should sit down. “You’ve been inside LexCorp. No matter how that
turned out, you were inside long enough to see what you wanted to see, and what you don’t
know you’ve seen or what you forget you saw when other matters made you blind to them!
We need you to work with one of our team’s best investigators.” He waited for Scardino to
sit, then took a seat himself and turned to look at him, leaning forward with his forearms on
the chair arms. “This ain’t exactly a choice for you. We’re borrowing you from your bosses to
get inside your head and find out just how much you know about LexCorp. If you had been in
the room at the time, your bosses would have thrown you at us and hustled us out the door as
fast as they could!”
Henderson pulled a chair to himself and sat back in it casually. “You’re officially assigned to
us. You get a chance to fix your career. We just got a big break in the MOTY investigation
and we need anything you can tell us about the time you infiltrated Luthor’s upper echelon
and the mansion itself.”
Olsen came back and handed Scardino a large cup of hot, black coffee. “You’ll need it. Take
my word for it.”
Scardino put the cup on the table beside him and looked at Henderson in bewilderment.
“Upper echelon? No, no, it wasn’t like that. I was just a bodyguard! I followed his nibs
around, her nibs, too, but I hung out with the other guards, the drivers, mechanics, household
staff, you know. I was never on a par with Asabi or St. John or Bender or Dr. Carlin and Dr.
Kelly. That was the upper echelon.”
Henderson sat up straight and looked at Superman, who shook his head. “Who is Dr. Carlin?
Kelly is one of Luthor’s personal physicians. We know her, but I’ve never heard of Dr. Carlin
associated with LexCorp before now. Who is he?”
The agent was shaking his head. “Dr. Carlin, the author of the self-help books. Ariana Carlin,
the psychologist.”
“Ariana Carlin?” Superman repeated. “What does she have to do with LexCorp? Or is it
Luthor himself she’s associated with?”
“They’re friends,” Scardino confirmed. “”Closer than just friends, actually. At the time I was
inside there were rumors that she and his nibs used to be married to each other. She lives at
one of his homes in Southern California, and when she’s here in town, she has the penthouse
at the Lexor. Some of the older guys still, sarcastically, called her ‘Mrs. Luthor’ behind her
back. It was more of a joke for them, though. When she acted too uppity for them, ordering
us around, for instance, they laughed at how he married and divorced her within just a few
months.”
Olsen spun around and rushed across the room. “On it!” he called over his shoulder.
“So am I,” Superman said, “but first. . . Agent Scardino. You were in a very opportune place
two years ago. When you got careless and blew that position a lot of people died or found
themselves homeless, and a lot of people found themselves at a dead end. A federal
investigation and an MPD investigation both came to a sudden halt when LexCorp killed you
and dumped your body in the Hobbs River. Years of work became useless when Luthor
realized he’d had a federal informant infiltrate his company. He covered his tracks so fast and
so thoroughly, we were all left at a standstill. I saved your life that night, and now I find you
are not only back in Metropolis, but also responsible for bringing another investigation into
LexCorp and Lex Luthor to a halt because you revealed yourself and the fact that you are still
alive to Lex Luthor’s wife! Causing your own team to head for cover!”
“Not only that, as if it isn’t bad enough,” Henderson added, “you’ve been continually
drawing attention to yourself and to Mrs. Luthor by hanging around her place of work and
following her around town.”
Dan shrugged and gestured with his hands. “The reorganized task force is under orders from
Washington to plant bugs on her and her bodyguards. I’ve been. . . I’ve been. . .” He trailed
off as he realized no excuse was going to be good enough for these guys.
Henderson shook his head. “We’ve had an interesting talk with your former partner, Agent
Wallace. You’re lucky the bodyguards haven’t noticed you sitting outside the library every
day. How do you think I knew where to send my detectives to pick you up? Everyone in law
enforcement knows where you spend your afternoons. It’s sheer luck the media hasn’t noticed
you!” Henderson stepped closer and towered over him. “You will stay away from the library
from now on because you’re working for me now. Do not draw attention to Mrs. Luthor ever
again. I won’t allow it. And my friend in the blue suit and I have the clout to see you spend
the rest of your career at a desk declassifying mermaid sightings.”
Superman started for the door. “We could have put a stop to your games a long time ago, but
dammit, Scardino, when you do your job right, you’re good at it. By bringing you into this
investigation, we are trusting you to use the opportunity to set your career back on course and
not to screw up the work we’re doing here. Don’t make me regret saving your life.” One
moment he was giving Dan a stern look and the next moment he was gone.
Scardino looked at the two men before him and sank a little lower in his seat. Their
expressions were harder to take than Superman’s. He’d been making a fool of himself and it
looked like everyone knew it. He reached for his coffee and took a deep swallow.
From across the room, Jimmy yelled and waved them over to his computer terminal. “Got it!
Someone went to a lot of trouble to cover this up, but he’s right. Luthor was married before
and the proof was buried pretty deep.” He worked away at the keyboard and tapped at the
mouse. “Whoa! Looks like he’s been married twice before.” He typed away at the keyboard.
“Holy cow! He really does have kids!”

Everybody’s pied a terre was a hub of activity today. Lucy stood by the kitchen table
alternately watching what was happening there, and keeping an eye on baby Mara who was
playing on the rug in the tiny living room of the apartment. At eight months, Mara had
started climbing onto anything low enough to help her stand and lean on, then swing a leg up
and pull herself onto ottomans, sofas, easy chairs, coffee tables, and even low shelves were
new places to explore. At the moment she was surrounded by her current obsession- little peg
figures and all the things that came with them that had little holes in which to fit the peg
people. She wouldn’t go anywhere without one or more to hold in her hands and chew on.
“No, no, no,” Jack said suddenly, drawing Lucy’s attention back to the kitchen table.
“Remember to put the ribbon cables back on correctly. Someday these things will probably
just snap in and out but for now remember the numbers on the ribbons.” He was leaning on
the table with his arms crossed.
Lois, who was frozen in place, said, “Okay. I forgot.” She looked at the connector at the end
of the ribbon and saw the number 1 was on the left instead of the right and flipped it around
before sliding it on the computer component and pushing it to make a secure connection with
the tiny row of pins on the hard drive. “Be sure to match up the numbers when putting the
ribbon things back on.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Do it again, all four. I think you have it, but just don’t get ahead of
yourself. Be fast, sure, but stay cool.”
“Right. Stay cool.” She began again to exchange the hard drives on the two computer towers
on the table, then did the same on the two laptops next to them. Afterward she reconnected
the power cords to one of each and turned them on. When she finished this time, Jack gave
her a thumbs up.
“Okay, you got it. Now, just pick a day to swap them out with computers at the big house
when you’ll have plenty of time to do it.”
Lois curled her lip and huffed a laugh. “I know just the day to wait for.”
He sat back in his chair. “All of these hard drives have the virus loaded so use either one for
the laptop and the computer. LexCorp’s people won’t be able to trace it back to whichever
units you swap out. It’ll look like it came from the internet. LexCorpNet probably gets hit
with a virus ten times a week.”
“But just their luck their boss’s computer gets hit this time?” Lois asked with some
skepticism. “Is that really likely?”
“It’s been hit at least once before,” Jack said, “or there wouldn’t be such measures to protect
their network.” He didn’t mention the virus was developed after he copied her laptop’s hard
drive weeks ago in her library office, and the MOTY investigators knew a lot about LexNet
that they never knew before, including how many times it was attacked from outside and how
many attacks were partially successful. And why they failed.
Jack started gathering his things together, a few tools and put them in a small case. “You can
keep these for the job,” he told Lois. “Keep them with the hard drives. The computers at your
house will be older models than these and you might need a different tool, a bigger or
smaller Phillips head, but any differences will be small and there are tools of all sizes in
here.” He looked up at Lucy. “I’ll be going now, Lucy. You want me to take Mara Mouse
with me? I’ll stop at the park and get her tired and sleepy playing on the swings. She won’t be
able to do that once the weather gets really cold.”
Lucy smiled. “Yeah, that-
“Wait a sec, Luce,” Lois interrupted. “I have a few more things to buy before I go back to the
library. Two women with a baby are one sight Lex and his entourage will never notice let
alone pause for a second look.” She shrugged and smiled ruefully. “Lex is making
appearances around town today.”
“Maybe I oughta stick with you three,” Jack said, looking worriedly at the baby playing
quietly on the floor.
“No,” Lois said. “Thanks for the offer, but Lex and Nigel St. John know you. Or, they did six
years ago. Clark told me about the orb.”
Jack wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. Forgot about that.”
Lucy was looking at her sister curiously. “Okay,” she said.
He got up from the chair and lifted his jacket off the back. “I’ll see you later, then, Nanny-
Fanny.” (“Stop calling me that!”) He smiled as he put on the jacket and walked toward the
baby. He leaned down and scooped her up to give her a hug and kisses. “I’ll see you later,
little mouse. I’m going home, but you-oo-oo get to go shopping! Bye, bye, Mousie!”
Lucy followed them to the door where she took the baby and let her wave to her big brother
as he got into the elevator and waved back while the door closed. She walked slowly back to
the table, watching her sister, who was carefully packing the hard drives and tools into her
carry-all.
“I can do this. I can do this,” Lois was muttering to herself.
“Sis? You okay?”
“No, I’m not!” She covered her face with her hands. “I’m going to try to bring down the
most powerful and evil crime lord in the world by stealing information from right under his
nose!” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Not only that but this monster is my husband! Someone
whose been right under MY nose for five years!”
Lucy swung the baby onto her hip and grabbed Lois’ arm and led her into the living area to
sit on the sofa. “Honey, you don’t have to go back there. You can just leave right now and
move into the safe house –” She put Mara on the floor with her toys and sat next to her sister.
“No, I can’t! I want to, believe me I want to just get out of that mausoleum right now, but I
can’t!” Lois swiped at her face and looked horrified. “What is wrong with me?!”
Encircling her with her arms, Lucy laid her head on Lois’ shoulder. “You haven’t had time to
process everything, Lois. Give yourself time!”
“What is there to process? I’ve only been married to a monster for five years and now I’m
going to do something he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me for doing when he discovers it! I used
to do things like this all the time! It was my job! Why am I so damned scared now?”
Lucy gave her a quick squeeze. “That’s just it, Sis. You’re scared because you know what
Luthor is capable of doing. Before, when you were doing your job you were scared, of course,
but you were also angry. You were always so ticked off that anyone would dare to think they
could get away with breaking the law and hurting people for their own gain.” She shifted a
little and took one of Lois’ hands in her own. “Your classmates, your colleagues, your readers
thought you were fearless, but I knew you were just so angry at the gall of the criminals: you
had to expose them, you had to stop them, and it made you determined, it gave you focus.
You haven’t had to be a firebrand in a long time, Lois. You’ve lost that focus. Give yourself
time to get it back” She lifted her head and straightened up, keeping one arm draped across
her sister’s back and gripping her hand firmly in the other. “Mom and I noticed you were
drifting that day the three of us sat at the kitchen table and talked.”
Lois drew in a deep breath. “I’ve been holding back a lot of things, Lucy. I haven’t told you
everything.”
“If you need to, you will in time.”
She glanced at Lucy. “I watch you and Mother. I kind of envy how you laugh and joke. Do
you get along as good with Daddy?”
“I’ve never been mad at Daddy, Lois, thanks to you. You shielded me from all that strife
when their marriage was breaking up. He did come to see us, you know. It’s just that I was
the only one home when he did. You were always out with your school activities and visiting
the library annex. ”
“I know.”
“You took care of me, Sis, and I’m grateful you did, because in doing that you taught me how
to take care of Mom on the bad days. It wasn’t all an endless haze of drunkenness. She was
an alcoholic, yes, but she cooked us breakfast, she took me to school so you didn’t have to,
she did her share of taking care of me. You were more fun as a caregiver, I’ll admit, because
she was still Mom and could give orders that had to be obeyed, and I did rebel in high school,
you remember, got a little wild, but it wasn’t me. I mean, it was fun, but it got old. Mom says
I grew out of it and I guess I did. I was close to the cousins then, especially Dana, one of the
greatest young athletes to ever go to Metropolis North High School. When she got hurt and
her dreams of making it to the Olympics were dead, I wished so much I could help her. I let
that become my goal. You had the Lane single focus firebrand-ism that Dad has, and I had
the Logan and Lane medical genes sitting dormant just waiting to be discovered.”
Lois laughed a little. “You make it sound so simple.”
She patted Lois on the hand. “Life is only as complicated as you make it, Mrs Luthor. I could
have gone off the deep end and blamed Mom and Daddy, but if I did I would be dead by now,
and who knows where they would be?! Luckily, I have the Logan slash Lane desire to help
people, too.”
Lois took a deep but slightly shaky breath, and it hurt Lucy to see her sister sitting so
slouched and little and sounding so unsure of herself. “And you suspect Lex and his people
are keeping you from working in your field?”
Lucy shrugged. Luthor and his people were responsible for everything the Lanes were
experiencing right now. “Someone knows I’m in Metropolis and is keeping me from getting
hired as a physical therapist. As long as they think you still believe I’m living a nomad’s
existence in Alaska, I’m insignificant. They won’t try to hurt me, though heaven knows how
many people there might be out there who want me dead or living a drug addicts life or
drinking my life away looking for love in all the wrong places, and being a drag on you!”
Lois turned her head a little and looked at her. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Lucy laughed. “Never mind. Sometimes I just feel as if there are people out in the universe
who expect me to be the loser sister to your shining star, and they would love to kill me if I
succeed at anything.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I have my self-doubts, too, sometimes.” She
started to rub her sister’s back. “Come on, let’s get you back to the library.”
“But. . .” Lois was thinking. “Something isn’t right because Lex doesn’t know Mother is back
in town. He still thinks she’s at the Cameron Institute. Someone is withholding information
from him.”
“An either very brave or very foolish someone, or someones. Either that, or we’re just lucky
to live in a universe where simple disguises like hyphenating Logan to Lane, work.”
That got a small smile from Lois, but she quickly got serious again. “Luce, could there be
another mole in LexCorp? I mean, a better trained one, this time? One who actually knows
and cares about what they’re doing?”
She giggled. “One who is letting us meet at and leave the library together without telling your
significant other instead of doing his best to draw attention to us?” She nodded. “We’ve
thought of that. It’s possible, but from whom or where, Perry White and Henderson haven’t a
clue.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“It’s past noon, Lois. We’d better get that shopping done and get you back to the library
soon.”
“Do you really think I can still do this, Luce? Look at my hands! I’m shaking.” She looked
almost near tears. “This isn’t me! I’m not like this!”
“Of course!” She gave her a quick squeeze. “You’re just out of practice. You need to let the
lava flow again. You’ve been the perfect little wife Luthor wants you to be for so long, a
massive eruption of Lois Lane, investigative reporter, is just dying to happen inside of you!”
Lois sat up straighter and looked at her with a smile tugging at her lips. “I never said this, but
when did you get to be so insightful and smart, little jellybean?”
Lucy smiled at the use of one of her less annoying childhood nicknames. “I’ve always been
insightful and smart. You’ve always been under the erroneous impression that you’re more
insightful and smarter.” She shook her head. “Uh, uh.”
Lois glared at her. “You’re right, Lucy-Beans. I can do this.”
She gave her a frowning look, then went on. “In case you have any doubts when the time
comes to make your getaway, Wo-wiss, you have more allies in that mansion than you
realize. The household staff has been keeping an eye on you. Gaston Tulane and Eli Morgan
are friends. They all look out for you.”
Lois’ face slowly brightened as five years of tiny events and puzzling happenings inside the
mansion suddenly made sense. “By the way, don’t call me Wo-wiss.”
“Don’t call me Lucy-Beans.”
They took turns making faces at each other until they heard a thunk, followed by the sound of
something rolling across the kitchen floor and a squeal of delight as little palms slapped
against the tiles in hot pursuit.
“Mara!” they both exclaimed and leaped off the sofa.
They saw her as she rounded the corner into the bed room, following the rolling sound which
came from under the bed before it stopped. Mara was sitting in front of the open closet door
and reaching toward the row of shoes on the floor.
Lois reached her first and picked her up, swinging her upward as a blaze of color flew with
her. The baby was clutching a brightly colored ribbon of cloth that swung out like a whip, and
Lois turned the baby to face her and settled her in the crook of her left arm.
“What has she got there?” Lucy asked.
“Um. . .” She looked at the little fist raising up toward the baby’s open mouth and stopped it.
Lucy saw it was a necktie and reached for it. “What have you found, sweetie-girl? This looks
like one of your daddy’s ties, but what is it doing in my closet?”
“Ah-eh!” Mara protested as the tie was gently tugged from her hand.
“Oh, yeah?” Lois gave it one goggle eyed glance and fled into the other room with the baby.
Lucy stretched it out between her hands. “Now when did he ever. . . ?” Her eyes widened as a
thought occurred to her and her mouth dropped open. “Oh!’ She looked at her sister, who
wasn’t beside her anymore. “OH!” She charged toward the other room. “OH!”

It was the last night of the stakeout on the pier. After talking it over with Perry and
Henderson, Clark made the announcement as the four reporters gathered for an evening meal
on the Wayne Enterprises yacht.
He was plating another seafood order from the marina’s clubhouse. “We’ll pull out
tomorrow, but we’re going to leave the cameras set up to record and Jimmy will check them
every morning, but this looks like a dead end. Whatever sixth sense Luthor has for danger, it
must be warning him about this part of his smuggling ring. The guy is just uncanny when it
comes to sensing danger to himself. Every ship that’s come in since we started surveillance
has been legit.”
“Or he’s been sidetracked by whatever he’s going to do to get his hands on that Texas
company,” Eduardo suggested as he looked over the food choices and tried to decide where
to start first. “He must have set something in motion weeks ago so he can capitalize on it
now.”
“Wayne Enterprises is looking into Austin Tech,” Clark said. “Darth Vader will find
whatever it is Luthor sees as a weakness of which he can take advantage. Jeeze, listen to me.
I only mentioned Vader and I’m trying to speak in perfect English.”
Laughter circled the table. “From what I’ve seen of Vader. . .” Abby Paige said and shook her
head. “I’ll deal with reluctant or hostile interview subjects instead.”
“Same here,” Ed admitted while piling shrimp and steamed vegetables on a plate. “Well,
Luthor’s specialty is picking up the pieces after a company he wants conveniently crashes and
burns, but if anyone can figure out how he’s going to grab Austin Tech by the end of the
week, Vader will.”
Clark smiled and took a seat. “Let’s not talk about Vader. Let’s enjoy our last meal on the
Book expense account.” He let out a breath and shook his head. “This seemed like such a
promising lead. I mean, it definitely is a good lead, but . . . for some reason LexCorp is being
cautious.”
“One more night,” Ed said. “Here’s hoping we get lucky. I hate to think that bastard is too
slick to be caught.”
Clark said nothing. If Lois Luthor had anything to do with it, Lois Lane would be making a
big comeback soon and the Open Book would be the biggest beneficiary of her return. He
looked at his companions.
That was a conversation for another day.

20- Twenty

After an exhausting day, physically and mentally, Lucy left Mara in the care of her brothers,
and tried to keep her mind off her sister and how uncertain and self-doubting she had
become. If Luthor could do that to someone with as forceful a personality and as volatile a
temperament as Lois had (- has! She still has it, she just has to find it again! Lucy reminded
herself-) without her even noticing it?! Well, no wonder the man was so successful and so
deadly a criminal for such a long time.
On the other hand, Lucy had let out a snort of laughter as she remembered how she ran out of
her bedroom with the brightly colored tie in her hands to confront her sister about her
suspicions: Only to be stopped dead in her tracks by the most determined and angry
expression on her sister’s face that she’d seen yet since reestablishing contact with her.
“None. Of. Your. Business!” Lois said to her in a dangerous tone. “I’m serious, Lucy! Don’t
say a word!” Then she started getting Mara ready to go outside.
Well, Lucy hadn’t said a word but for the rest of their time together whenever their eyes met,
Lucy would smile. Oh! She could hardly wait to get the story on this one. She’d weasel it out
of her sister somehow.
Leaving her car parked in front of the brownstone, she took the bus to the South Side and
walked the short distance from the bus stop to her Uncle Mike’s restaurant. She could have
walked from the Kent house as she usually did during the day, but the weather was getting
colder as Halloween approached and despite daylight savings time for a couple more weeks,
it got darker earlier in the evenings. It wasn’t freezing cold yet, just jacket or sweater weather
for now. The bitter cold was coming, though. You could feel it in the mornings.
The streets were well lighted and businesses all along the street where the Americana
dominated one block were open and still doing good business. She’d been lucky to be here
for the area’s renaissance, and she had enjoyed coming to work every day and seeing all the
new businesses coming to the south side year after year, and seeing many of the old buildings
demolished and/or converted into apartment complexes. There was definitely enough people
moving into the area to help the businesses thrive. Somewhere she’d heard the loft
apartments in the renovated buildings were going for an obscene amount of money but were
being snapped up left and right as soon as they became available.
The area for street food vendors below the Metroliner platform was empty and all the
converted mobile RV units and wheeled carts gone for the night, maybe even for the season,
and she had to smile a little sadly. That meant Mara’s favorite pumpkin funnel cakes were
gone until spring, too. Only the newsstand beside the staircase going up and down from the
platform was still open and would be for another hour maybe. Even in blizzards and fierce
rainstorms they would open for a few hours for the hardy types in the neighborhood who
needed their news from papers and magazines if power was out.
Lucy saw billboards, one for a new Pizza West, best pizza place in town for as long as she
could remember, touting a new location down the street from the Americana. The second
billboard simply said “54” with a date under it. Good! She could drag the boys down here for
an education in fine wines as soon as Fifty Four Degrees was open for business, wherever it
was going to be located. And that Chinese place farther down and closer to the harbor was
probably the best restaurant of its kind in all of the city of Metropolis. Every paper in town
gave it five stars. It’s food was almost as good as the stuff Clark brought home from
somewhere he wouldn’t name.
He could be such a dork some times.
The open air terrace at the restaurant was closed and chained off and the tables and chairs
stowed for the winter, but the Americana still had a line at the door and inside smelled
heavenly. Lucy entered through the staff door and used her card key to enter the office area.
She knew that Mike and Ben took their breaks together on days when both were working.
Mike’s office door was open and he and Ben were inside devouring steak sandwiches, sliced
potatoes and mixed vegetables.
Mike jumped up and rushed to greet her with a hug. “Hey! Haven’t seen you in a month of
Sundays, kiddo!” he said with a wide smile. “Your ma was in a couple of days ago all
worried about you and your sister. You look fine to me.” He patted her shoulder as she and
Ben greeted one another with a bigger hug and a kiss.
She smiled. “You know Mom only needs a good excuse to come here for your strawberry
cake!”
“That’s exactly what she had for dessert, too!” Mike said, making them all laugh.
“It’s been her favorite since she was a kid.”
“Yeah, I remember loving those early ones, too. Back when flavored gelatin was invented,
strawberry cakes were just about everyone’s favorite. I hope mine is an improvement on
them.”
“Oh, it is! Mom said so.” Lucy motioned for them to continue eating. “Go on, finish up. I’m
feeling a little restless, so I came down to try to use up some energy, walk off the stuffed
shells from Pizza West.” She removed her jacket and draped it across the back of a chair
before sitting down. “I wanted to talk to you both about Lois.”
She’d told everything she knew about Luthor to Mike, but withheld a few things from Ben,
promising to tell him more when the time came. This was the time, and she was nervous.
There was only so much Henderson was willing to let her relay to the two men, but they were
going to be in danger just by association with Lois, and she didn’t want either of them hurt.
Or worse.

Across town, on the lower east side, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen were out on the streets of
Metropolis, too, but they were in an area that rarely changed if it did at all. Suicide Slum
resisted all efforts to return it to its former glory- if it ever had a former glory. There were no
new businesses coming to the Slum. Literally across the tracks from the rest of the city, three
lines of railroads still in use between the main docks and the east side’s smaller piers buffered
the Slum from the rest of the city. It suited the criminal element that made its rundown,
abandoned buildings, vehicles and junk piles a safe haven from the authorities. There were
some places that people avoided and never stopped during a drive through, but the Slum had
its business districts during the day and a thriving nightlife the rest of the time. As far as the
residents were concerned, there was no need for change or a return to its past heyday. As long
as the residents minded their own business, they were left alone and used the bus stops and
taxi stands inside the area as neutral or safe zones.
On the outskirts, just three blocks from the tracks, was Louie Walta’s pool hall and home of
possibly the best coffee in the city. There were other lighted signs and windows nearby and
the street lights worked, so it was safe to park a car for a few minutes. A Metroliner passed
overhead as the two walked toward the bar. It made no stops in the Slum, just blew the trash
around on the streets below it as it streaked past overhead.
Opening the door let out a mix of cigarette smoke, fragrant cooking from the small kitchen
and the sounds of country music- not the modern stuff or current hits. Louie only played the
classics in the evening. Young Willie and Waylon, young Loretta and Dolly, and a large dose
of Hank and Patsy, and Kitty and Johnny, and other voices from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
As they walked in, it was the sexy voice of Crystal Gayle starting her 70s classic, Don’t It
Make My Brown Eyes Blue.
“Nice,” Perry admitted as they stopped just inside the door and surveyed the sparse mid-week
clientele. “When’s he gonna wise up and play more of the King? That’ll get this place
hopping!”
“I don’t know, chief. I like this song.” Jimmy shrugged, knowing this was a long standing
game Perry and Louie played. “Besides, it’s a pool hall. It doesn’t need to be hopping.” He
motioned towards the pool tables. “Those guys need to concentrate.”
“Then he needs to add more darts boards! And one of them big TVs that they show sports on
nowadays. Only he shows the concert in Hawaii and some of the movies!”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. Here we go.
Louie was behind the check in window and heard the comments. “DOB and DOD,” he said,
and buzzed open the door to the little room where he was so the two could come inside.
“That’s all the interest he’ll get around here.”
Perry grinned and clapped his hands once. “There you go! I knew you could get a crowd for
something concerning the King!”
“Surprised the hell outta me, but yeah, could,” Louie admitted. “Seems out in Kansas City
and some other places they have an Elvis parade in January. Everybody dresses like Elvis and
parades down the damn street! Damnedest thing I ever heard of.”
“Yeah!” Jimmy said. “Clark was telling me about that!”
“And you thought you’d have to play only ‘Jailhouse Rock’ on a continuous loop!”
“Like I said: Surprised the hell outta me.” Louie motioned for one of the bartenders to take
over, then led Perry and Jimmy through an inner door and up a flight of steps to offices on the
second floor. His office had a large array of snacks and beer from the kitchen and a huge pot
of coffee on the desk waiting for them. One of the bouncers was just leaving for the back
stairs after delivering it.
All three helped themselves to the food and drinks and sat down to talk as they ate.
“Louie, you’ve been straight with Kent and me regarding our investigation of Luthor for a lot
of years now. I’m sure you know or suspect that we, that is Lucy Lane and her mother, have
found themselves back in daily contact with Lois since July. That was when the LexCorp
project began at the main city library.”
Louie nodded. “That Lucy is a smart kid. She took Lois to the ballparks to have a chat at the
gazebo back then. I told Kent if he ever needed to get word to me secretly, to go to the
gazebo and I’d get back to him fast. Kent must have mentioned my cousin to her, the only
guy in the family lives on that side of the tracks, he saw them from his food market across the
street and got in touch with me. He knows Lois and my girl were like sisters, and Kent’s kids
are like family to me. We looked after them brothers back when they was livin’ on the streets
here and we’d do the same for that little girl a his, too.” He topped off his coffee cup. “Got
word to all the snitches who trusted Lois and they been keeping watch over her and Lucy and
the baby, the mother, too. Been reportin’ to me.” He sipped the coffee. “I tell you what, they
was hard pressed to keep from offin’ that idiot that calls himself a federal agent, though.
Damn that guy can’t take no hint! No matter what we threw at him, he wouldn’t take a hint.”
Perry and Jimmy both guffawed and grabbed for their drinks to clear their throats.
“Too bad we couldn’t help the kid sister get a job,” he continued, eying them with
amusement. “But she’s doing good looking after the baby for Kent. And her uncle and the
boyfriend are safe, too. Missed the apartment break in but it won’t happen again.”
“Well, never mind that. Things are coming to a head now, Louie,” Perry said. “Lois is ready
to make the break from Luthor. Something happened that opened her eyes to him and it
scared her. She’s going to leave him and file for divorce. MOTY is helping her. When she
makes her move we’re going to need a safe house for her. Someplace she and her family can
go and be safe from the blow out sure to follow. Luthor will pull out all the stops to find her
even as we’re moving in on him. It’s going to be that big. We’re finally taking that son of a
bitch down!”
Louie stopped in mid chew. He finished quickly and swallowed. “You mean somewhere here
in the Slum?” He nodded his head. “You know, that’s genius! Luthor might think he’s the
boss over here, too, but there ain’t nobody here that didn’t have someone close killed or
ruined or sent to the big house by him. He has his people here, sure, but there are more of us
who don’t owe him loyalty or respect of any kind.”
“Superman’s idea,’ said Jimmy, finding his voice at last, “Luthor will expect government
protection for Lois, and we’re going to play that up, but Kent suggested hiding her right here
in this building. He thinks she’ll be safer with you than with himself.”
“We all agreed with the plan,” Perry added, making another potato salad and sliced tomato
sandwich. “You’ve proven your loyalty to her many times over, my friend. The Boss’ people
will be looking everywhere but in that bastard’s own back yard.”
Louie was momentarily speechless. “Damn right she will be,” he said a shaky voice, looking
at Jimmy. “Damn right she will.”
Perry pretended not to notice his emotions. “Good! That’s settled and out of the way. Now,
come January, I’m going to be over with my collection of movies and music of the King.
Jimmy and young Jack have been kind enough to transfer all my old tapes and LPs onto those
shiny new CD things where a dozen of ‘em fit in your hip pocket. . .”
“Don’t expect no parade,” Louie managed to get in edgewise, still a little weakly.
Jimmy giggled and Perry paused just a second. “We’ll work on that. Anyway, I got all the
songs he ever recorded and even some bootleg recordings of live concerts that cost a pretty
penny but are worth it for the history and the evolution of the artist, how he related to his fans
and . . .”
It was hours later before White and Olsen left the pool hall. Every detail of making the pool
hall a safe house was discussed and every eventuality they could think of was gone over and
over until they were certain there was a way to deal with it or prevent it altogether. Luthor
was unpredictable but Louie’s friends and colleagues in the Slum were resourceful. They’d
avoided his takeover attempts successfully for a lot of years. They feared him, but they were
not afraid to pull the wool over his eyes. They’d been doing it for decades, after all.
Louie saw them off and went back upstairs to straighten up his office and call the bouncer to
take out the leftovers. He stepped inside the door and nearly jumped out of his skin, swearing
loudly.
A thin, lanky man with thinning, curly hair was piling all the leftovers onto six slices of
bread to make three enormous sandwiches.
“Good goddam, Bobby!” he exclaimed. “Where the hell did you come from?!”
“Schenectady, New York. I thought you knew that,” a grinning Bobby Bigmouth replied,
sitting at the desk and happily helping himself to the leftover food there. “How did I miss a
confab with snacks from the Americana? Next time get the orange cranberry muffins. They
melt in your mouth. I woulda been here earlier, too, and got more of the roast beef before I
disappear for a few days.”
“Bobby, what the hell you doing here? You disappearing? Why?”
“Don’t happen often but I got a question for you, Looz. Was at the downtown airport,” he
said, his voice muffled as he spoke while chewing a mouthful, “saw a big black limo at the
curb waiting for someone. Got me curious, so I hung around. Never guess who’s off a
Wayne Enterprises Lear jet.” He pointed toward the front of the building. “Did White
happen to mention why Darth Vader and entourage is in town? Can’t be nothing good for
folks like us when that much law enforcement breezes into the city. Thought maybe I’d visit
my mom a week or two.”
“Vader?! Ehhhhh. . .No. . .unless. . . Oh, that’s gotta be it!” Louie picked up the phone and
barked into it. “Bring up some more food.” Darth Vader be damned, he needed Bobby’s help
on this one. He would send him across the Slum to The Ace o’ Clubs to arrange a meeting
with Bibbo Bibbowski. He might as well start gathering the troops now as tomorrow.

If the dispirited reporters had been careless or indifferent, the three tugs running without
lights as they pulled a dark and silent mid-sized cargo ship toward the empty berths of Pier
Fifteen, might have left their prize there unnoticed and slipped away, unless they were needed
to help it make it’s exit. Their activities might have been clean and unseen, and they fully
expected the job to go smoothly with no need to go back. Each member of the three crews
were already looking forward to the envelopes of cash they would find in their work lockers
by the end of the day tomorrow.
Eduardo was watching the screens, sipping at a cup of coffee and chewing on cherry gummy
shields- superhero symbols from a large bag of gummies Abby Paige always brought back
from an evening away from the stakeout. Sometimes they were grape bears, orange dinosaurs
or mixed berry fish, but this was something new, but just as packed with vitamins C and D.
So the stakeout was a bust, but he’d had fun hanging out on the yacht, visiting the clubhouse
and lounging around the deck and generally pretending to be an idle rich guy. He knew the
others had, too. Bruce Wayne was understated as far as men of his station in life went and the
yacht bore this out. Nothing over the top or just there because it was cool or the latest thing
everyone had. The accommodations were comfortable and lived in.
“What was that?” he said aloud.
Jennifer Tate looked up from the game she was playing on her phone and scooted her chair
closer. “Where?”
“Holy crap! Get the others! There’s a midsize freighter on Pier Fifteen!”
She jumped up and ran for the stairs to below decks while Eduardo grabbed the telephone by
the monitors and speed dialed MOTY’s headquarters. After several agonizing seconds a
female voice answered, her tone indicating what she thought of protocol. “ Met- Thank you
for calling Speed-X customer service. How can I help you?”
“There was a package delivered to 1515 Riverside this af-”
That was it, silly as it sounded, and Ed hung up, careful to cut himself off as if by accident.
Remembering what Olsen showed him in the early days of the stakeout, his fingers flew over
the keyboard and he smiled as the images from Pier Fifteen appeared on the big TV on one of
the cabin walls. Or bulkheads. Whatever walls were called on yachts.
Tate returned and looked at the laptop screens. “Did you make the call?”
“Yes. MOTY knows. I think I woke them up.”
She snorted. “Maybe we’ll get there before they do.” She started working at another
keyboard.
Clark arrived next and went straight to the big TV. As much as he wanted to be away as
Superman, he had to let Henderson do this by the book. They had to link this activity to
Luthor. “Have a loop yet?” he asked.
“Coming up,” Tate said slowly as she worked. “When Jimmy does this it looks so easy.
There, I got the feed from the pier’s cameras on loop. I’ll get ours next.”
As she spoke, the slightest vibration went through the yacht and a few minutes later, it
slipped slowly from its berth.
In real time the tugs were leaving, and Clark managed a quick look as he turned his head and
questioned Jennifer. He saw the three tugs slipping away and the numbers painted on their
sides were plain as day to him. He saw the faces of the captains and their crews just as
clearly.
“Got ours, too.”
“Wait on that. Let’s watch this.”
The four of them watched the replay of the tugs and the cargo ship glide into a berth at Pier
Fifteen and figures dressed in dark clothing raced onto the dock to secure the small ship and
ready it for unloading. The dock crew moved like clockwork. As the tugs sped away, the
dock workers were already manning winches, starting forklifts and swinging the arm of a
crane over the cargo ship’s deck.
Literally within minutes, they were pulling containers from the ship and carting them away to
three 18-wheeler flatbeds waiting to carry it away.
In real time, the work was going smoothly, and as the yacht approached an empty Pier
Seventeen, the reporters saw three shapes move away from a nearly full Sixteen and head
toward the activity on Fifteen. They could feel the yacht slow suddenly.
“Damn!” Eduardo said. “Lucky they didn’t see us!”
The intercom speakers beeped and the voice of Captain Keith spoke: “The first three tugs are
gone, but my radar has them headed straight for Connecticut. Another three are already
heading in to bring the cargo ship out and away and we’re only half way across the channel
. Transponders are off. All six are running silent. I’ll go in as close as I can on Sixteen and
drop you there. The freighters in the docking berths will hide us nearly all the way. The first
MPD units, running silent, too, will be arriving momentarily. Good luck to you, Kent. This is
one hell of a well-run operation. Very professional.”
Clark went to the nearest intercom unit and turned it on. “The tugs will likely run when the
police arrive. Ed and I will get off on Sixteen but Paige and Tate will stay aboard. Captain,
take them to follow the tugs. I’ll bet they’ll head straight to wherever the others went.”
“Will do.”
“By now, MOTY will have called the Connecticut authorities and alerted the Coast Guard
over there. Paige, call MOTY to have them be on the lookout for and expecting you, too. Jen,
look on the tapes and call Jimmy for instructions if you have to, but get the IDs on the first
three so you can find them if they run or try to hide without turning their transponders back
on.”
“On it.”
“Unfortunately,” Ed added, “no Superman to help us. Darth Vader says this has to be solid
police work.”
“Yeah,” Clark agreed. “Come on, Eddie. Let’s grab our stuff and get ready on deck.”
“See you guys back at the Book,” Abby Paige called as they left hurriedly.
Jennifer looked at her. “If you call MOTY with the update, I’ll start on the tapes.”

It was Saturday morning and something was wrong.
She left her bedroom suite and walked along the wide hallway to the main staircase and Lois
immediately noticed the quiet. Since beginning her work at the library, weekends were her
time to get caught up with her charity duties and to go over her calendar of appointments with
her longtime staff of six competent individuals she’d hired away from various agencies and
foundations with whom she’d done business over the years. Normally, her staff was present
every day as they planned her monthly engagements, but the library project was an excuse to
get away from their constant presence, and they seemed to like the break in routine, too. They
continued their jobs at home during the week and discussed matters with her during their
Saturday and Sunday meetings.
Weekends were usually free of Lex and his retinue of hangers-on, and the staff took
advantage of his absences by watching TV or listening to music as they worked. The huge
ground floor was usually filled with the aroma of cooking as Chef Gaston and his kitchen
staff prepared meals for everyone working on the estate that day.
Golfing in Scotland, tennis in London, fishing in the Caribbean, wine tasting/buying in
France, yachting in Australia, endurance driving in Tunisia- in the early years of their
marriage, Lois had accompanied Lex on numerous weekends away, but, after his interest in
her waned upon discovering they would not have children, both were happy to end her
participation in his adventure weekends.
The reason for the quiet morning was apparent when she reached the head of the stairs and
heard voices shouting somewhere on the ground floor. No, it was one voice shouting: Lex
was on a major rant. She knew he must be in his office with his staff, and she knew the smart
thing would be to go straight back to her suite, but she didn’t.
She’d taken only a few steps down when the shouting stopped and the sound of hurrying
footsteps trooped along a hallway, and Nigel’s voice spoke quietly but urgently into his
phone, presumably, arranging for cars to be brought to the front door of Luthor Manor
immediately.
Lois stepped closer to the wall and stood still. Below, Lex marched resolutely into view,
ahead of Nigel, Mrs. Cox and Sheldon Bender , who was accompanied by three aides from
his law office, none of them looking anywhere but at their own feet, and they all followed
Lex out the front door in silence and let the door close behind them. She could see the tension
in their rigid bodies and stiff gaits, and she wished she had turned on the television or logged
on to her laptop when she woke.
Lately, she’d been avoiding the TV as well as her computer because she wasn’t sure
anymore how she would react to finding another email from fake Lucy in Alaska. She knew
she mustn’t get the writer suspicious, but the messages and her own short replies were
annoyances that were growing on her.
Lois stood on the stairs and looked out of the half-moon transom above the front door and
didn’t take another step until she saw two of her husband’s favorite limos, with a black SUV
in the lead, drive away.
Lois entered her ground floor office at the south end of the mansion and interrupted her small
staff standing in a close huddle, whispering, in front of her desk. They stepped away from one
another and turned to look at her.
“Good morning,” she said and strode to her desk and sat down in the chair. “Let’s try to get
something done while we have the opportunity. I’m not sure what’s happening but I’m not
cancelling any appearances this weekend. Let’s take care of our business and prepare for the
events we have scheduled for today and tomorrow. Where do we stand on arrangements for
the holiday food drive?”
As her staff settled in and began opening briefcases and shoulder bags, Lois picked up the
telephone and dialed the servant’s wing. Remembering what Lucy had told her, she identified
herself to Eli Morgan and listened while he told her what little he knew about the situation all
had heard that morning. He promised to keep her updated.
Later, Lois would never quite grasp how she did it, but she managed to conduct her business
as usual, even as she desperately, impatiently wanted to get in touch with Clark or Lucy or
both and demand they tell her whatever they heard or knew. After an awards luncheon, a
charity tennis match and the screening of a children’s movie at an orphan’s home she
supported, she returned to the mansion and wearily went to her suite, seeing or meeting no
one along the way.
The mansion was still quiet but there were sounds of activity coming from the kitchen and
servant areas downstairs. No music, but voices talking.
She came out of the bathroom after a shower and found a tray holding a pitcher of iced tea
and a single glass on the bedside table. Next to it was an “extra” edition of, The Open Book
with a headline that sent chills down her spine. Pier Fifteen? She was certain she had seen
reference to a Pier Fifteen somewhere here at the mansion.

On Saturday morning, Lucy awakened in her apartment alone in her bed but with the smells
of bacon and toast filling the room and the sounds of voices, males and females, talking on
low volume on the television. Ben was up and cooking and watching the news, apparently.
She rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He let her sleep in. She loved when he let
her sleep in.
Twenty minutes later, she walked into the kitchen, pulling her T shirt down and roughly
tucking the hem under the waistband of her jeans. Ben was eating at the coffee table and
watching the TV.
He smiled at her and pointed at the stove. “In the oven. I made you a couple of burritos.
Come on in here. There was a big raid on a ship at the west end docks last night. Lots of
arrests and enough illegal drugs and other contraband to keep the police busy for weeks.”
She stared at him for a moment, then grabbed the towel hanging on the oven door and pulled
her breakfast from the oven. “Isn’t that what Clark and Jimmy were doing? Watching the
harbor the last several nights?”
“Could be. CK didn’t tell me the details, just stakeout on the harbor and don’t mention it to
anybody.” He indicated the TV. “DC Henderson gave a press conference but he didn’t reveal
much information except to deny human trafficking rumors.” Ben poured her some coffee
and pushed a bowl of corn salsa with the coffee cup to her end of the low table. “They’ll
show it all again from the beginning in a few minutes.”
“Is it on all channels?”
“Yep. Well, LNN is showing the details on the half hour, but the other news networks and the
local channels are doing full coverage. This is pretty big. They’re even raiding some
companies over in Connecticut. Wait’ll you see how much drugs they pulled off that ship!
Plus, those jokers were reloading the ship with guns and electronics as they were taking off
the drugs!” He shrugged. “Really professional operation, actually.”
Lucy felt a chill and wondered if it had anything to do with Luthor. If it did, would he cover
his tracks again and lay low as MOTY was afraid he would? Would the task force lose
another opportunity to take down the Luthor empire? What would that mean for Lois? She
needed to get away from him!
Lucy wondered if she should dare to call her, but hesitated. Normally, weekends were Lois’s
days to carry out her duties as Mrs. Luthor with Mr. Luthor away from home, but if this was
connected to his criminal activities would he have gone out of town at all? No. It was more
likely he was still in town to see what damage control he needed to do.
The risk was too much. She couldn’t get in touch with Lois. She would have to hope Lois
could text or call her at a safe time if this had anything to do with Luthor.
She took a burrito and went into the kitchen to get her cell phone off the charger on the
counter. The Open Book was directing callers to their normal week day business hours or to
the news desk to talk to a reporter on desk duty or to leave a message on the tip line. Clark
and Perry White didn’t answer their phones, but at the brownstone, Denny did.
She leaned against the counter and chewed her burrito between asking questions. “Yeah, Den.
I’m trying to get in touch with Clark and Perry White but neither is answering, and the news
has me worried. Do you know what’s going on?”
“Naw. Clark didn’t tell us anything when he called this morning from the Book and said he
was going to be late because they’re getting a special edition out this afternoon and then
working on a new front page for tomorrow’s edition. Jack went with Jimmy to nose around
the docks and take pictures. The aftermath of the raid for tomorrow’s follow-up.”
“Is Mara okay? Do you want me to come back?”
“Oh, no, have your days off, Lucy, she’s okay. My friend Katie’s here. We’re getting her
ready to take her to your uncle’s for lunch. Mike said he would make a pumpkin funnel cake
just for Mara!”
She laughed, and they talked for a few more minutes about the baby (“Be sure you dress her
warmly. The TV says it’s only forty degrees.”) before Lucy rang off and stared at her phone.
Somehow she resisted the urge to send a text to Lois, but this was going to be a long day. She
tucked it in her pocket and got the other burrito out of the oven and went back to where Ben
was intently listening to what was being reported on the TV.

21- Twenty-One

Luthor Manor remained silent overnight. An apologetic Mr. Luthor called to say he would be
staying at the penthouse for the next few days as he tended to business at LNN, and
unknowingly, letting the household staff relax and enjoy the remainder of the weekend. He
explained he was disappointed in the news channel’s lackluster coverage of the raid on the
cargo ship and the subsequent investigations into the alleged illegal activities of a handful of
tug boat operators based in another state who were linked to the ship’s arrival at port. He was
furious when the Open Book’s special edition on Saturday provided better coverage of the
MPD’s breaking of the smuggling activities than the television networks. Once the special
edition hit the streets, all of the networks based their coverage on quotes and information
obtained from the pages of the Book, including LNN.
It was a good excuse, but Lois didn’t believe it. For one thing, it was too much of a
coincidence that Lex and Shelden Bender were conferencing at the same time the Metropolis
Police Department was putting an end to a well-organized smuggling ring. Plus, LNN’s
coverage of the entire story was still as sketchy as it was from the beginning. It’s half-hourly
updates fell far short of the nearly constant coverage from the other networks. She was
astonished at the low quality of the stories that filled the majority of the network’s airtime.
LNN was a ratings leader because of the fluff and sensationalism they were reporting. She
switched the channel to see better coverage, only turning it off when the intercom buzzed and
announced her assistants had arrived.
At mid-morning, Lois pored over the newspapers her staff brought with them for their
Sunday conference, putting them all aside after she read one small article on page one of the
Open Book’s business section. It was barely newsworthy compared to the enormous amount
of drugs and stolen artifacts and works of art the MPD and a phalanx of newly arrived
federal agents were processing at Pier Fifteen.
The brief article stated Wayne Enterprises of Gotham City had acquired a fifty-five percent
interest in a Texas based firm called Austin Technologies, a prestigious manufacturer and
supplier of computer components throughout the country that had been experiencing financial
difficulties recently. The new partnership sent Austin Tech’s stock soaring.
Clark had come through for her.
. . .and she wondered what connection he had to Wayne Enterprises of Gotham City that
could get results to her problem so effectively. WEGC was a longtime rival of LexCorp’s and
Lex was consistently annoyed by Bruce Wayne’s lack of interest in any business dealings
with LexCorp.
The thought stayed prominently at the back of Lois’ mind as she spent her day attending
charity events and a luncheon benefitting a women’s center. Her hand kept straying to her
pocket where she carried her silenced cellular phone, but she was reluctant to let anyone
know she had one. She was certain her aides could be trusted, but she was still wary of
anyone letting it slip to Lex or Nigel, Asabi or that Clock woman, that she had acquired one.
She continued to use the bulky satellite phones when in the limo, though she wanted badly to
text- what a great invention text messages were!- Lucy and Clark. There was so much they
needed to tell one another.
Her name was announced, and Lois rose from her seat with a smile and walked to the
microphone amid fervent and consistent applause.
She was undercover, she thought as she neared the front of the room, and she had been
undercover before to get a story. The coming days would be no different from infiltrating a
car theft ring or the chorus line of a seedy nightclub. The library was safe from who knows
what Lex had planned and now he was distracted by something that demanded his full
attention. If he was involved with the smuggling activities, and she was certain he was guilty
of that. though as yet she had no idea of how far the scope and magnitude of his illegal
activities went, it was time to bring this undercover operation to an end. She needed to gather
her evidence and plan her break.
She reached the podium and spread her handful of index cards along the lectern, took a deep
breath and began to speak.

The Sunday edition of the Open Book sold out so fast, Perry White convinced “the suits” to
authorize a second printing. The printers were just finishing the second run when things
began to settle down in the newsroom. It was midafternoon and the tired staff- most of whom
had been on the job since early Saturday morning- were beginning to straggle home and let
the night shifts take over. Nothing newsworthy of this magnitude had happened in Metropolis
since the appearances of the superheroes earlier in the decade.
Clark was starting to feel the lack of rest, too, and he was anxious to get home to check on his
family and spend some time with his little girl. Mara was home with Jack and Denny, both of
whom insisted Lucy take her usual days off, and Clark told himself he wasn’t worried, just
concerned how they were getting on with Jack going in and out a couple of times to help
Jimmy on his photography assignments. He’d concentrated his hearing and listened in on
what was going on at the house many times. Things were going fine, judging by the baby’s
giggling fits over the things the boys did that only a baby could find funny. He had to quit at
those times because her laughter always made him laugh along. Denny pretending to bobble
hot toast in his hands was side splitting to Mara.
He shut down his computer and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms overhead and
bringing them down to lace his fingers behind his head. He looked up at Big Duke West
swaying back and forth in the breeze of the air conditioning in the middle of the aisle
between his desk and Friez’s. “Where were you when the story was breaking?” he asked the
poster with a yawn. “We could have used you when everyone scattered across the docks.”
The comic book hero continued to silently sway in the breeze.
He got up and looked around the room as he turned and pulled his down jacket off the back
of his chair and draped it over his shoulder. He looked toward Perry’s office just as the door
opened and the overhead light went off.
Perry came out pulling on his coat and looking anything but exhausted. He was a newsman
through and through and the last two days anchored him firmly in his element. It wasn’t the
Daily Planet, but for the older man, it was close enough.
They walked to the elevators together and Perry pushed the button, then both turned at the
same time to look over the quiet newsroom hidden beneath the gaudy disguise of comic
books and trade paperbacks.
“I saw the numbers,” Perry said with a sigh. “Big Duke’s romance is a hit with readers
sixteen and up. Sales went up across his three titles. Bringing in a new member of the Magi
took the fans by surprise, and they like it.”
Clark smiled. That quickly, the Pier Fifteen news was old and the last two days were in the
past. “Cool,” he said. “Duke and Shara made a good team investigating their smuggling ring.
How can we get the tweens and other young demographics to get interested in Duke and
Shara?”
“I don’t know. Both of them already carry big guns and Johansson’s got the biggest pair of
kumquats I’ve ever seen on a cartoon woman since Jessica Rabbit. Personally, I liked the
banter between them in the first issue. If you can keep that up, I’ll bet even Alice would buy
an issue or two.”
“Oh, come on! That’s way too optimistic!”
“Naw, it isn’t!” Perry said as he turned and entered the elevator. “She bought the TPB of the
smuggling arc when Shara first appeared. I saw it hidden in the bottom of her night stand.”
“Really?!”
He chuckled, pointing at Clark’s expression. “I’ll bet that’s what my face looked like when I
found it!”
They walked across the lobby in silence, walking out into the cold air and feeling the bite of
winter closing in. “It’ll be snowing soon. I can feel it,” Perry said and pulled his collar tighter.
“Well, go get some rest, son. All we can do now is wait and see what the cold front blows in.
Now we see if Luthor is going to throw his personal assistant under the bus to protect
himself.”
“I hope Henderson can use this to get things started at MOTY, and maybe Lois can bring it
all home.” Perry veered off toward his car. “Here’s hoping, son. We gotta catch a break sometime.
We’re due for one.”

The next morning, Lois got to the library early. Without Lex to insist on the two of them
having breakfast together at the mansion, she was able to leave early, ditch the muscle heads
for a few minutes, and make a few stops before putting in an appearance at the library. She
was met by her young assistant, Stephen Sully, and by Sam Cooley, her head computer geek
in charge of a small team of his fellow computer whizzes who were waiting for the arrival of
the actual computers and monitors that would replace the old ones currently in use.
She had dragged out the project for as long as she could to increase the time she had to spend
with her sister, but the job was coming to an end. The rewiring was done and the architect
and the contractor were finishing their work and Lois was pleased with the results.
Disrupting whatever plans Lex had slated for Austin Technologies meant the first shipment
of new computers was expected by mid-week.
Cooley proposed starting exchanging the equipment immediately, closing one section at a
time to minimize disrupting the library patrons as they did when doing the rewiring and the
construction that went with it, then spending a few days working out whatever glitches the
users might encounter.
Sully added that all of the old computers were going to be restored and refurbished if
necessary before being donated to various schools and other small agencies and he had
contracted with a moving company to deliver them to their new homes as they became
available. Most of the new owners had tech savvy people to set up the equipment, but
Cooley’s people would donate their time to help out those who didn’t.
Lois was proud of the work they were doing but she couldn’t help thinking of all this
expensive equipment, especially the new insanely expensive servers, that would begin aging
in dog years as soon as they went online. It would all be outdated so fast! Even the phones
she bought last summer would be replaced by a newer model next fall! But that was the way
of the business and the new equipment would be an improvement over the old, no question,
Cooley assured her.
Giving permission for the work to proceed as planned, Lois nodded to Sully and the two of
them walked to her office. “You know,” she said in a low voice, “you deserve as much credit
for getting this job done as anyone, if not more. I do appreciate all you’ve done.”
Sully smiled. “Thank you. It’s been a learning experience for me. I don’t think I’ll be happy
going back to being just a librarian’s assistant. I’m ready to move on.”
“So am I, Mr. Sully,” she said, smiling back. “When you’re ready to leave, let me know. I’ll
have some recommendations for you.”
“For real?! Thank you! I’ll see the job through, of course, but then I planned to start looking
for another job.”
“Okay. I’ll give you a list of some people I know by the end of the week. None are affiliated
with me or LexCorp in any way.”
“Working with you wouldn’t be a dealer breaker.”
“Thank you, Stephen, but after I’m finished here, my life is going back to normal for a good,
long while.”
Normal? thought Sully. What would be normal for Mrs. Luthor? Back to servants and
secretaries and liverymen? Must be nice living at the top of the city, even with that husband
of hers. I wonder how many of the rumors about him are true? Probably none. A woman like
Mrs. Luthor wouldn’t be a part of that. At least, not this woman I know.
After stopping to speak to the librarians Lois and Stephen continued on to her office.
Normal? thought Lois. Normal will begin as soon as I’m out of Lex’s house and safely with
my sister and my mother. Wherever Clark and Henderson decides to put us, we’ll be safe. It
won’t be forever. We’ll never agree to that.
She felt a vibration in the pocket of her blazer and slipped her hand inside to wrap her fingers
around her cell phone.

As soon as Mara started dropping her cereal on the floor and watching it roll around before
stopping, Lucy took the food off the high chair tray and lifted her out of the seat. “Oh, no,
little mouse,” she said. “Or should I say, big heavy mouse? Oof! I’m not cleaning up a big
mess today.” She took her to the living room and put her on a rug next to some toys, then
went back to the kitchen and cleared the last of the breakfast dishes away. As expected, the
little girl followed her, pulling along a little teddy bear by one of its ears. She zeroed in on
Lucy to watch her pick up the cereal with a broom and dustpan and dump it in the trash.
Lucy wiped down the highchair, the table top and washed her hands after throwing away the
paper towels she used. She took out her Lois phone and texted a short message. Can u get
away? Can u meet me at the coffee shop half a block south of you? In two hrs? We’re invited
to lunch.
She lifted Mara from the floor and carried her toward the stairs. “Come on, baby girl. Let’s
go upstairs and get ready to go out for a while. We can look for a costume for you to wear
for Halloween and then go see your daddy for lunch. Is that a plan or is that a
plan? Huh?” She tickled her tummy and got a smile.
“Gah.”
“Gah! The all-purpose baby word! I guess that means we’re good to go.”
“Gah.”
“Well, I’m glad you agree with me. I don’t want to feel like I’m forcing you into a situation
you don’t want to experience.”
“Gah!” Mara reached for the phone still in Lucy’s hand.
“No. Sorry sweetie. No talking on the phone until you can say something more than gah. Not
everyone understands you the way I do.” She stuck the phone in her pocket.
The little face began to get red and the little lip trembled. “Ah-ah!” Mara cried, pointing
toward Lucy’s pocket.
“Ohhh! Don’t cry! We’ll get you a phone of your own, okay? You can talk to it and chew it
up all you want.”
Lucy, with the baby on her hip, was packing Mara’s duffel when the Lois phone began to
chime and she grabbed for it. Putting the baby on the floor, she sat down on the rocker beside
the window and turned on the phone. As usual, Lois got right to the point.

Yes! We need to make plans.
Are you sure Clark has one of
the phones I gave you? He
doesn’t answer when I text him.

When he’s this busy he usually
just calls to check on MJ.

OK. Busy? With what? Is the
case still going? I haven’t seen
any newspapers today. TV news
is just follow up items.

We’ll talk about that at lunch
later on. First meet me at the
coffee shop.

Right. See you for coffee.
Missed you, Lucy-Beans.
Lucy-Coffee-Beans

Me too. On my way. Bringing
you a fat lip.

:P

The call was cut.
Lucy laughed and looked down at Mara. “Somebody taught my sister about smileys!” She
scooped the girl up to finish getting her ready to go outside. “Come on, honey. Let’s see if we
can find you the cutest costume ever. How about a little geek girl with a cell phone always in
your hand instead of a calculator?”
“Gah.”

They drove through the midday traffic at a steady pace, going from midtown to the west side
and then south on Callan Street which ran parallel to but above the busy and cleverly named
West River Drive which carried interstate traffic through the city from north to south and vice
versa.
There were still abandoned factories and warehouses along the way but most had been
demolished to make way for apartment buildings or storefronts and the occasional hotel or
office building. Metropolis would never return to its heyday as an industrial area. The
warehouses, packing plants, assembly lines and shipping businesses no longer extended all
the way up both sides of the island to the Northside.
“Where are we going?” Lois asked after a long silence. She’d been looking around wondering
if this was the area where Lex had wanted to build a casino and a luxury hotel to rival the
Lexor. In the early years of their marriage, she had accidentally heard Lex in mid rant about
the subject to the silent figures of Nigel, Mrs Cox and Sheldon Bender. Looking at the factory
and warehouse conversions standing alongside blocks of row houses and small shops and
office buildings, as well as small parks and sports fields. There were even fields of urban
garden plots, closed up for the winter but already advertising plot rentals for next spring. She
was glad his plans had fallen through. It was hard to imagine giant hotels and a casino and the
necessary parking areas both would need covering an enormous part of the scenery.
“Just up ahead,” Lucy replied. “You can see the building over there. The one set back from
the street a little.”
They got closer and Lucy flicked on the left turn signal and slowed to a stop as a few cars
went past in the opposite direction.
“World’s Finest Publishing,” Lois said, looking at the small, but ornate sign at one side of the
driveway.
“Home of WE Comics.” She looked at the smaller print. “A division of Wayne Enterprises of
Gotham City.”
“That’s right, but that’s a mouthful so most people just say ‘we’ for WE. WE of Gotham.
Home of the Majestic 39: Crime Fighters of Tomorrow. They’re called the Magi, for short.”
Lucy pulled into the driveway and went to the back of the building where a small but nearly
filled parking lot nestled right up to the building.
“What are you talking about? Comic books?!” Lois asked incredulously. “Oh! Wait! That
search engine said something about Perry White writing comics or something. I didn’t really
believe it.” She shrugged. “It’s so. . . not like him.”
Lucy parked in a visitor’s parking space and looked at her sister. “I hope you can keep a big
secret. This is also the home of a three times weekly newspaper called The Open Book. The
editor has invited us for lunch and a tour of one of the most successful comic book publishers
in the English speaking world at this time.”
After a moment, she repeated slowly. “The editor? Of both?”
Lucy smiled and reached over to squeeze her sister’s arm. “Yeah. Let’s go in.”
Lois got out of the car and stood staring at the building. “Lex has his head of security looking
for this place,” she said, more to herself than to Lucy who was getting the sleeping baby out
of the back seat of the car.
“Mr. White knows. That’s why secrecy is so important,” she answered.
“I’ve only texted with Perry a couple of times.”
“Don’t worry. Remember I told you Chef Gaston and Eli Morgan were looking out for you?
They’ve been doing it for Perry. To hear him tell it, he has a whole secret agent thing going
with them. Secret signals, information drops, the while shmeer.”

“It ain’t The Daily Planet, but I’m still hopin’ someday The Planet will be back,” Perry was
saying as he stood next to Lois in his office and indicated the activity going on outside the
glass walls on three sides. He was in full blown southern gentleman mode after their
emotional reunion. “Since we’re playin’ hide and seek, it can hardly be as open and
accessible as, say, the Star or the News. Our reporters double as the comic book staff except
if there is breaking news. Then they go out and investigate posin’ as stringers. All of our staff
have built up good relationships with the wire services to keep from being too closely ID’d as
possible Book employees.”
“And you absolutely do write and publish comic books, too,” Lois said, shaking her head. It
was hard to ignore the life-size cut-outs and posters adorning the walls, and pillars and
hanging from the ceiling throughout the huge main room.
“We let in school tours anytime they ask and we schedule one day a week for tourists and the
like to come through so we gotta look the part. We got some good people here, Lois. Nobody
as good as you and I mean that, but the best I could hope for, nonetheless.” He patted her
back. “So we fill three floors here in the middle of the building. This is our main floor, the
news room here on five, the evening and overnight shifts on the floor below and HR, research
and the tombs are on three. The administrative offices are up top on seven. I think a law firm
takes up most of six.”
Lucy was standing a few feet outside the door, talking to a female reporter while Jimmy was
taking Mara around to say hello to everyone. “Hey, look here!” he was greeting each section
of the room, “Look how big my little pumpkin girl is getting!”
After greeting Lois with a hug but few words, Jimmy had hurried away to grab Mara before
getting too emotional, leaving Lois to say hello to Perry and both to fall apart in private. Or,
as privately as they could in a glass walled office.
Lucy looked over her shoulder and saw Lois nod at her. She spoke to the woman she was
with, excusing herself and went into the office. “You guys okay?” She went to her sister and
took one of her hands in her own and gave her a reassuring squeeze.
“Oh, yeah,” Perry told her and waved his hand. “I was just pointing out the places where the
Open Book is hidden. You can almost see it stickin’ out right over there!”
“I recognize some of the reporters and associate staff from the Planet,” Lois said.
“We hired on as many of the old Planet staff as we could. It was going on four months or
more later, and a lot got other jobs here or out of town.”
“Are any of them actual comic book writers or whatever?”
“Oh, yeah. This is a legitimate business. We have artists, inkers, people who have nothing to
do with the news side. They’re the ones that made WE Comics what it is today. I had no clue
what the comic business was about but I learned and you know what? An editor is an editor.
We look for the next big story even if it’s just make believe and up in outer space.” He
paused. “It’s all about the sales.”
“I know Clark writes for the Open Book- I recognized his writing right off as soon as I read a
few articles online- but what does he do here?”
“He writes storylines,” Perry said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking around the
room with pride. “Everyone does a storyline proposal and if it’s picked up, they follow it
through, but writing the news for the Book takes precedence for the reporters and the news
staff. Kent turned out to be pretty damn good at both. Eduardo Friez, too. I’ve partnered them
on both sides of the business.”
“I don’t see either of them. Where are they?”
“MPD is holding another press briefing at Ten-One Hundred to update the smuggling case.
Seems to be expanding beyond the tug fleet based over in Connecticut and might even have
ties in Boston.” He glanced at Lucy, who returned a surprised look.
He extended a hand toward the door and said, “Enough of this. We can take a tour later if you
want to, Lois. Why don’t the two of you go on over to the break room and start helpin’
yourselves? I had your uncle bring over lunch from the restaurant and set it up in there. I’ll
go round up Jimmy and that little grand-girl of mine and we’ll join ya’.”
“Grand-girl?” Lois repeated, raising an eyebrow with a half-smile.
“Well, until the real thing comes along for Alice and me, of course.” He set off between the
cubicles with a smile as he located Jimmy and Mara across the room. “But, probably longer
than that.”
“Mara is a grandparent magnet,” Lucy said and led the way in the opposite direction Perry
went and toward the break room. “The break room is this way. Mom, Mr. and Mrs. White,
a pool owner in Suicide Slum, Mr. Silverman, the bakery owner down the street by the
townhouse, Mr. and Mrs. Fellows, who run the farmer’s market at a hundred-tenth and
McClure, and the Kents, of course. Jimmy Olson and a guy called Bobby Bigmouth are her
only surrogate/foster uncles so far. She’s got goofy-acting, baby-talking grannies and
grampas coming out of her ears!”
“Bobby?! I don’t believe it!”
“He makes her laugh- a lot!”
“Bobby does?!”
“Well, she has to give him a drink from her bottle now and then . . .”
“That’s the Bobby I know!” They started to laugh and continued on to the break room.

Clark had not been completely open with her the night they talked in the penthouse suite of
LexCorp tower. He hadn’t gone into detail and Lois was wishing that Perry would do the
same. Much of what he was telling her was unbelievable even in the wake of what she had
already been told and deduced on her own. If not for Lucy and little Mara anchoring her to
the spot, Lois would have told Perry to stop long ago and left the room.
How could he have hidden that side of himself from me so completely? Not just me, but all of
his friends, the entire circle of people who flock around him day after day? How can no one
see this? I am not that blind!
“Wait!” she said and put her hands over her face. “Don’t tell me anymore, please, Perry! I
won’t be able to be in that house with him if I know any more! It’s bad enough as it is! Let me
find out the worst afterward.” She drew in a deep breath and lowered her hands to the table
top. “It’s already hard enough acting as if all is normal. I’ve been lucky that Lex and his staff
are so distracted by what happened at the shipyard.”
Lucy put a glass of tea in her hands. “I wish it was a little stronger, sis, but it’s just passion
fruit tea. I find it very soothing when I feel stressed or antsy. Uncle Mike and his head chef
brew it themselves from tea leaves every day at the restaurant.” She was talking to soothe her
sister’s nerves and they all knew it, so she chattered on about taking her to the Americana one
day soon, when this was all over.

When Clark and Deputy Chief Henderson arrived, the tension in the room had dissipated and
Jimmy was talking amiably about visiting his mother at Thanksgiving and hoping to talk her
into coming to Metropolis for Christmas. Lucy and Mara were not at the table, but Clark
could hear them in the restroom down the hall: Lucy talking to try to keep the baby’s
attention as she changed her diaper and Mara giggling and, he knew, waiting for a moment
when she could pull her legs free and try to make a getaway.
Clark followed Henderson to the table with food, and with heaping plates, joined Perry, Lois
and Jimmy at their table.
Bill Henderson nodded at Perry and looked at Lois. “It’s been a while, Mrs. Luthor. It’s nice
to see you again.”
“Thank you, and I’m still Lois,” she answered. She was feeling nervous. These men
could
tell her who knew how many horror stories about her husband, more than she had ever
suspected, imagined or guessed.
Perry gestured with his hands and looked briefly at the others. “We’ll spare you as many
details as we can, Lois. There are a few things we’d like to talk to you about, but the most
important thing we have to know is, when do you think it will be safe for you to make your
move? We’re not trying to rush you, but time is not on our side where Lex Luthor is
concerned.”
Henderson took a sip of coffee and said, “His organization is supremely skilled at spotting
threats to their network and just as equally skilled at covering their tracks and at planting
false leads. We know LexCorp is affiliated with Quality Personnel and Temporary Staffing
because Luthor’s executive assistant, Mrs. Cox is posing as the owner. Pier Fifteen where the
raid took place this past weekend has been filled by employees brought in by QPT Staffing. If
we had solid proof that LexCorp is the real owner of QPT, we could get subpoenas and make
a move.”
“One way in,” Perry said, sitting back in his chair and stretching his arms. “All we need is
one door to open.”
Lois drank her tea. Mrs Cox? she thought. What was it about that clock woman that was familiar?
Lucy came back into the room and handed the happy baby to her father and she turned her
attention immediately to her sister. It was heartbreaking to see Lois sitting across from Perry
and looking so small, so carefully hidden within herself. Over the weeks since they’d
reconnected, Lucy knew Lois was coming out of that cocoon of negative emotions Luthor
had woven around her, but something was keeping her from breaking out completely. Lucy
had done all she could think of, tried to help Lois get her confidence back, but there was
something inside her mind that kept her doubting herself, a place where she kept returning no
matter what.
“Is this something you still want to do, sis?” Lucy asked and sat in the chair next to her.
“Of course, I do!” She gave Lucy a hard look, but her sister was never one to scare easily.
She looked past her at Clark who was letting Baby Mara stick her fingers into his marinara
sauce and suck it off one by one while he speared the ravioli for himself.
“Then help us! You and I talk about it every time we see each other and you say you’re going
to leave, but you avoid making plans about when! You say you know the right time, but you
never tell me when that is. I know it’s a hard choice, honey, but right now or someday very
soon would be a good time.”
“Lois, we aren’t going to force you to leave your home,” Henderson said quietly.
“You won’t be forcing me to do anything.” She rose from her chair, taking her tea with her
and going to the table behind them where she opened the baby’s duffel and rummaged for a
lock top packet of disinfectant wipes. She turned and pulled out a chair across the table from
Clark and Mara and sat with the tea and wipes in front of her. Pulling two wipes from the packet
and holding them out to Clark, she said, “She’s going to get tomato sauce on her overalls and
probably on the sleeve of your suit. It’s hard to get out.”
He took the wipes and put them beside his plate. “Not if I blot and don’t wipe. I have it on good
authority.”
“If you wipe her face and hands now, it won’t matter.”
“She likes tomato sauce. If she wants to have a little, it’s okay. We do it”
All the time."
Lois stood up and leaned forward. “Give her to me. Lucy, did you bring a bib? Or a towel?”
She fluttered her hands at Clark. “Pass her over before she ruins all your clothes.”
Lucy got up. “Uh, yes, I’ve got something,” she said, unable to hold back a
little laugh as she spoke.
Between the two of them, they cleaned up the baby and gave her a bottle of juice instead of
marinara sauce. Lois settled Mara on her hip and looked at Henderson. “When I come to
work at the library on Wednesday be ready to process the hard drives I bring out and get me
to someplace safe. You’ll have just the one day to go over them. By evening, when the
muscle- when the bodyguards realize I’m not at the library, they’ll alert Lex and he and Nigel
will descend on the library like a hurricane.”
“Gah!” Mara added her two cents, imitating Lois's expression and tone.
“Yes! That fast!” Lois agreed, and turned back to Henderson and Perry. “I need to ask one
thing of you. Take Stephen Sully into hiding, too. Maybe he can call you when he and the
mus- bodyguards discover I’m gone. You should get there before or at the same time as Lex
and keep him from mistreating the librarians and patrons. Sully was my executive assistant
and when Lex finds out, he might not be safe anymore.”
Henderson nodded and took out his phone as he rose from the table and walked a few feet
away to make a call.
Lucy reached out to rub Mara’s back. “Do you want me to take her?”
“No. We’re fine. Have a rest. Drink some tea.”
“Gah.”
“See? We’re fine.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll get some tea. Do you want a refill?”
“No. I like the stuff, but bring me some coffee instead. Thanks, Beans.”
Clark stood up. "Excuse me, ladies, but she is my daughter."
Lois gave him a dismissive look. "And you and her brothers spoil her terribly."
"Because she's my daughter." He held out his hands. "I'll take her."
"She's fine with me. She needs to be around sensible women more often."
"Gah!" Mara said, imitating Lois's tone again.
Lucy brought her sister's coffee to the table. "Don't look at me," she said with a
smile. "I'm just the hired help."
Lucy turned toward the other men with a smile. Jimmy was trying not to.
Henderson and Perry looked at one another ("She's back!" Lucy mouthed
silently)and all three men spoke at the same time, “Darth Vader . . .”
“. . .has competition!”
“. . .better look out!”
". . .ain't the head honcho anymore!"

22- Twenty-Two

The aroma of brown butter cookies filled the generous A frame cabin on Milford Lake in
north/north-east Kansas. It pushed back the closed-for-the-season smell of dusty tarps and plastic
sheets that had met the Kent family members when they arrived in the early morning hours of
the day. The furniture covers were folded and put away and the central heating had brought the
temperature up to a comfortable degree. Martha and Jonathan Kent cleaned the kitchen and
Martha decided to bake some cookies and put up some bread for dinner to give the cabin a more
homey atmosphere. The floors were all being mopped or vacuumed, and fresh linens would be
put out in the bedrooms before evening. There was no telling how long they would be here so
Martha was insistent that the floors be ready for the baby to play on before she was allowed out
of her playpen, and before the dogs were let into the house.
The cabin belonged to her younger brother, Ian Clark, an engineer married to an RN and the
father of four; and the cabin was built for his large family as well as for the extended families he
and his wife had. Martha and her family were familiar with the place, having spent many weeks
during past summers at the lake.
Ian had met them here that morning and turned the keys over to them, staying long enough to
show everyone around the place before reluctantly leaving. He knew better than to ask questions
where Martha and Jonathan were concerned. If Clark wanted them off the radar for a while, he
was going to cooperate in any way he could.
It was late afternoon after an unexpected and hectic day and the cabin was finally in a state of
cleanliness of which Martha approved. She was tired and she knew her husband was, too, but the
baby and her brothers were the important thing right now. It was time for supper. The cookies
were on a plate in the middle of the table and the bread smelled and looked as if it was done so
she turned off the oven and brought the loaves out to cool.
She and Jonathan sat at the table and passed the time looking at the pictures on their phones that
Clark and the brothers had sent them the night before when they dressed Mara in her little cat
costume and took her around their neighborhood for Halloween. Nanny Lucy had found a gray
and white cat outfit matching the coloring of Mad Max, the family cat in the city.
Denny, carrying Mara, came into the kitchen area. “Dad and Jack just drove in,” he said,
grabbing a cookie. “I saw the headlights through the trees.” He took Mara to her high chair and
settled her in.
A few minutes later, Jonathan’s pickup stopped alongside the rear deck and the horn sounded
once. Denny went to open the kitchen door and help bring things in if needed. In addition to a
week’s worth of groceries, Clark and Jack brought back take-out for dinner, and with Clark,
there was no telling where the take-out really came from but it was always good.
After supper was finished, Clark dipped a cookie into his coffee and took a bite. “I’ll be
returning to Metropolis tonight. Tomorrow evening, Thursday definitely, all hell is going to
break loose when the MOTY task force makes its move. You’ll all be safe here-“ he held up a
hand to stop Jack from speaking- “You’re staying here, Jack. Luthor knows you and if he knows
how closely you’re associated with me, there is a very high likelihood he’ll come after you. I
want you and Denny to stay here with Mom and Dad to protect Mara. If I don’t have to worry
about you, I’ll be able to help Bill without distractions. Remember, we’re going after Luthor
without Superman. We don’t want Luthor’s law team to try to get anything we do thrown out for
any reason. You should all be safe here. If you have to go into town before the weekend, use the
credit cards I gave you. They’re drawn on an account Bruce Wayne set up for me. Wear hats.
Don’t take chances. And use the new cell phones I gave you for all calls while you’re here.
Bruce says they’re untraceable. Smallville PD and the sheriff’s department are keeping an eye on
the farm and Bruce’s people are watching this place. Don’t ask me how, but he says they are. As
soon as I leave today, they’ll start monitoring the grounds.”
“We could help Jimmy, you know,” Jack said. “We’d be at MOTY’s HQ and safe.”
Clark shook his head. “I know you’re old enough to make your own choices about this, Jack, but
there will be enough people to help him when we get the hard drives. Bill is gathering his people
now, but we don’t know if there are spies for Luthor inside the MPD. We know he’s had cops on
his payroll before and I’m not taking chances with your lives. The two of you protect Mom and
Dad and your little sister. Uncle Ian showed you where the wine cellar is. Use it for a safe room
if you have to.” He looked at his parents. “And you two, take care of them. Hopefully this will
all have been for nothing.”
Jonathan nodded. “Don’t worry about us, son. Go do what you have to do.” He looked at Martha
with a small smile.
“We still have a few moves left, so don’t count us out,” Martha assured her son, looking at the
boys also.
Clark smiled, too, and rose to give them both a hug. He never underestimated his parents and he
wasn’t going to start now. He embraced and said good-bye to his children: the brothers and the
baby.

Lucy spent the morning at her apartment getting ready to go into hiding, packing a few basic
things and a few clothing items. Gone was the light and fun feelings of the night before as she
and her boyfriend, Ben, had watched as Clark, Jack and Denny enjoyed Halloween with the
baby. She had taken plenty of pictures and sent some of them to her mother and to Perry White,
with Clark’s permission.
Early that morning came the good-byes for Lucy and Ben and Uncle Mike, both of whom
refused to leave the restaurant even for short vacations. Once Mike decided to stay, Ben
announced he would stay, too.
Most of what Lucy was taking had been at the Kent house and was already packed and whisked
away to the safe house. Afterward, she spent the afternoon at Ellen’s brownstone, helping her
pack a few bags. Neither tried to hide how frightened they were. Lex Luthor was a powerful and
dangerous man, something they found out too late, and both knew the danger they might be in
paled in comparison to what Lois faced should Luthor be able to thwart her plans to escape from
their marriage.
Two officers from the MOTY task force were with them and they were now going through the
house to lock doors and windows and to unplug appliances, just as they had done at Lucy’s
apartment.
“Do you know anything at all about the safe house where they will take us?” Ellen asked, as she
surveyed the pile of bags and totes beside her kitchen door. “I’d almost prefer to take my chances
here. Lois did say Luthor thinks I’m still in that California hell hole they put me in, after all.”
“Mom, we are already being used as weapons to control Lois. If or when he finds out we’re both
here in town, you know he’ll try to find us. If he already knows, then he knows exactly where to
come.”
“I’d prefer to die here than be back in that man’s clutches. I’d rather not see your sister’s reaction
if he tries to influence her choices by threatening my life. You and I both know she’ll most likely
laugh in his face and let him kill me, kidnap me, torture me, whatever.”
“Of course, she wouldn’t, Mom!” Lucy said and went to hug her mother. “Lois loves you. She’d
give her life for yours without a second thought.”
Ellen embraced her, too. “Then they’d better get in here and get us out of here now before I
change my mind. I don’t want to be the reason that monster gets his hooks into my daughter
again.”
Lucy pulled back. “Okay. I’ll tell the officers we’re ready to go. I don’t know where the hiding
place is but Clark said it was the safest place in the city. Luthor would never imagine looking for
Lois there, let alone us.”
One of the officers, a young man, tall and thin with a friendly face, came into the kitchen. “Miss
Lane?” he addressed Lucy. “We’re finished securing the residence. We put some of the lights on
timers so it will look lived in at night.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “We’re ready.” She and the officer started picking up Ellen’s things.
“Come on, Mom. Lois will be joining us tomorrow morning. Just look forward to that.”
Ellen managed a smile. “I haven’t been cooped up in the same house with both of you since you
were children. I don’t know if that’s actually something to look forward to or not.”
Lucy laughed. “It won’t be so bad, Mom. If all goes according to plan, there will be plenty on the
news to keep us riveted to the TV screen. Adult Sesame Street.”
The second officer helped Ellen lock up the house and carried some of the bags to the black SUV
Deputy Chief Henderson sent, and within a few minutes they were driving away from the quiet
neighborhood and into the business district.
When the SUV bumped across the railroad tracks after passing the TDWelling Office Towers,
Ellen gasped in surprise. “Lucy! That’s Suicide Slum over there!” She leaned forward and
grabbed the seat ahead of her. “Are you sure you’re taking us to the right place?!”

Stephen Sully had a lot to think about. With his last days as an executive assistant coming to an
end, he and Mrs. Luthor had a long talk about his final days as they related to her future plans.
What she’d told him was shocking, but it was also no surprise. Stephen and his brothers were not
troublemakers or criminally inclined, but they were boys who grew up in Metropolis with
friends from across the island. While Lex Luthor was a much admired man all over the world,
there were those in the city who saw a different side to him. No one talked openly, but the
stories, rumors and accusations made the rounds to anyone receptive to hearing them. He’d been
apprehensive about meeting him when the library project was announced, was a little
disappointed when he didn’t, and relieved he didn’t have to do either. He liked Mrs. Luthor and
admired her spirit and he was sorry to hear it had taken such a long time for her to realize the
truth about him. She was way too good for him.
True to her word she had given him a list of people interested in interviewing him for a job and
her letter of reference was now a part of his resume. What he had to decide was . . . go into
hiding for a while or go somewhere of his own choice for an indefinite vacation. Either way he
was going to meet Superman. Thank you, Lucy Lane!
With the computer project winding down- he had to laugh to himself. When he realized Mrs
. Luthor was looking for excuses to prolong the job, he was ready, willing and able to make
suggestions and drag it along as long as he could. Even so, in the last week or so, he had started
picking up his usual duties as an assistant librarian, picking up the slack his absence had caused.
It was time to transition back.
Someone had donated a collection of travel books to the library and he was putting them on the
shelf and straightening the books that were already there. Australia, Stephen thought, holding
one and flipping through the pages. I’ve always wondered what the night sky looks like in the
southern hemisphere. Maybe go cycling up the east coast for a while.
Pushing the cart he was using to a back room, he passed his small anteroom office and stepped
inside to look into the larger office at Mrs. Luthor’s desk. She was there and had been since after
lunch, and she was working at the computer, typing tirelessly, and stopping only to refill her
coffee cup from a carafe on the minibar.
He was going to miss this job, but he was sure he wouldn’t be away from Metropolis too long.
He went to the larger office door and knocked. He would tell her the first stamp in his passport
was going to be Sydney, Australia, and was she really sure Superman wouldn’t mind flying him
there personally?

The idea came to mind while Lois was explaining her situation, and how it might- well, most
likely would- affect him, to Stephen Sully. She wanted to do right by him, for Lucy’s sake, too,
because he was her friend, originally, and because he proved himself to be an invaluable
assistant on this project. During their talk the realization hit her that this was a conversation she
was going to have to have again, possibly numerous times, after the authorities successfully
made their move against Lex and LexCorp as a whole. She needed to get the story straight in her
own head and in more detail than she’d shared with Sully
. She needed to face the reality of her life as the wife of Lex Luthor and how thoroughly he had
manipulated her. It shook her to admit it, but hindsight was always more clear than the
experience itself and in the past few days she was seeing her marriage in more detail than she
ever would have wanted to otherwise.
She opened the word processing program on the library computer and started to write.
The first two years were the kind of marriage she’d imagined it would be. She was protected, she
felt loved, she felt a companionship with Lex. Perhaps it wasn’t as close as she would have liked
it to be, but Lex was a man whose attention was spread across his entire empire at once. He
oversaw every detail himself and his wife was another detail on a long list to make successful
and bring positive attention to LexCorp, although she didn’t see it that way at the time. It would
be years before she realized she was an acquired object, little different than any other business
acquisition.
Lois’s career as a news producer flourished at LNN and at all of Lex’s satellite media
organizations. She wrote about the successes, the awards, the accomplishments achieved by the
news network, and how despite it all she missed doing the investigative work herself, how
exciting but at the same time unfulfilling it was to watch her efforts pay off to such success only
to watch the reporting accolades go to the people who worked for her. Not even Lex’s pride in
watching her take the network to the top could make her as happy as she should have been. Even
in that glorious time, when Lex was attentive and encouraging and proud of her, she had never
come to love him as she thought she would. There was another face, another voice, another
touch, an ever present shadow in her mind every day of those two years, from the honeymoon to
the months that followed at the beginning of the third year of their marriage. Whenever her
husband reached for her, she reached for the shadow and let her imagination fill in the spaces, let
her imagination be happy, let her imagination be in love, let her imagination have no doubts and
no regrets.
To her surprise it wasn’t as hard to write of that time as she thought it would be. Opening up to
Clark and Lucy and her mother about that devastating third year eased the pain, and putting it all
into words was difficult, but she did it without pause, letting the tears flow down her face, and
when she finished, she pressed enter and typed a single, three letter word on a line of its own in
quotation marks and with an exclamation point.
So there, she thought, wiping her face and blowing her nose. An emptiness would always be
there deep within her heart for the children that would never be, but that one little word was like
a bridge across the chasm. She had found solace since reconnecting with her family and friends.
When the knock came at the door, she turned and smiled and beckoned young Sully to enter.
“How are things going out there? Is the main computer area open yet?”
He came to the desk and sat down across from her. “All of it will be open by the end of the day
and people will be able to begin using them then or the first thing in the morning. By tomorrow
afternoon all of the offices will be finished. There won’t be a grand opening, but the staff will
have coffee, tea and soft drinks with cookies and cupcakes for whoever comes in tomorrow.” He
pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the back parking lot. “The board of
directors is planning a ground breaking ceremony for the new wing a few days after
Halloween and that will kind of combine the two for the bigwigs.”
“Good idea. Are you all set for tomorrow?”
The young man smiled. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

Superman flew over Metropolis in a wide patrol pattern covering the suburban areas on both
sides of the river, and then the island from north end to south end. Pier Fifteen was still brightly
lit and he found a place where he could alight and spin into his civilian clothes. He walked
towards the Number Fifteen main warehouse, across the empty parking area and toward the
nearest canopy covered door where a young, warmly dressed police officer stood guard. There
were two other doors on the façade of the building, each being guarded by lone sentries. Two
smaller buildings, one for equipment storage, the other for maintenance. This officer had a
walkie and was talking into it as he watched Clark coming closer.
“Clark Kent, International Wire Service,” he said, holding up his press credentials. “This place is
still lit up like a Christmas tree. What’s going on?”
The young man stepped in front of the door and hooked a hand over his service weapon, the
other still holding his walkie. “The Feds came back today so the deputy chief assigned a detail to
insure their privacy. No one goes inside without authorization.” He watched him put away his
press ID and clipped his walkie back onto his belt. “From the Feds, I mean. Authorization from
the Feds.”
“Got it. So. . . what? No scuttlebutt going around?”
“No comment.” Smugly.
Clark tilted his head to one side. The sound of a jack hammer was coming from inside the
building and a quick adjustment of his glasses showed three men in identical suits and ties
outside a concrete walled room inside which a man wearing a hardhat was breaking up the floor.
The sound of the jack hammer was muffled by the concrete walls. One of the agents was pacing
impatiently. He swung around to face the others. This is a waste of time! he said. The floors and
foundations were checked by Superman! “I heard a rumor the Feds brought in tools to do some
digging.”
“No comment!” Way too fast.
“Digging for what? There are no basements or sub-basements to the warehouses here on Fifteen.
I was here when Superman checked. ”
“No comment.” Smugly again.
“Thanks. You’ve been very helpful,” Clark said and turned to leave. He paused. “If you don’t
want any more members of the press nosing around here, you should turn off the exterior lights.”
He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “I could see the lights from the Metro and farther away.
Unless you want TV trucks and reporters nosing around, trying to get in.”
“No comment.” Irritated. Definitely irritated. He looked past Clark and his expression relaxed,
cycled back to smug.
Clark turned to look, too, but he had already heard the approaching hum of a car engine.
“You need to leave, Mr. Kent,” the officer said and came forward to open the rear passenger side
door of the MPD squad car that stopped close to them. He leaned down a little to look inside.
“Take him to the Metro Stop and see that he gets aboard.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Clark got into the car and let himself be driven away. One of the
smugglers must have said there was something hidden in the floor but another quick look just
before the car drove away revealed nothing but a wild goose chase. A few minutes later, he
climbed the steps to the Metroliner platform and waited for the next train to come. Looking back,
the lights at Warehouse Fifteen were out save for one above each door where the three officers
stood quietly, barely visible from this distance to normal eyes.
The next time they played racquetball, he was going to razz Henderson a little about his rookies.
As he waited- the MPD car was still on the ground at the stop with the officer inside watching so
he couldn’t find a nearby safe spot and fly away- he took out his cell and opened the contact list,
tapping the IWS icon to speak to the wire service tips desk. He identified himself to the
recording device that answered and stated what he had seen and what the officer told him and
added he thought it was nothing, just a wild goose chase one of the smugglers had set in motion.
He was finished well before the beep.
He would let the service decide if it was a newsworthy story, he thought as the next train glided
smoothly to a stop a few feet away and handful of night crew at nearby buildings got off.
Speeding past the Metropolis Police Department at 10100 Fourth Avenue downtown, he peeked
into the MOTY series of rooms and was pleased to see that neither Bill Henderson nor Perry
White were there. He hoped they had gone home and weren’t just out for a meal somewhere
nearby.
He took the Metro to within walking distance of the brownstone. His hearing was alert to
everything, but the city was having a fairly quiet evening.as far as needing his help went. The
MPD was busy, not all officers were standing guard in obscure places, but no one was calling for
Superman.
He knew all of the safe spots in his neighborhood and when he passed the alley between a deli
and a dry cleaners, he walked inside and under cover of darkness, spun into the suit and rose
swiftly into the sky. No one was home at the brownstone so patrolling the skies over the city,
over the nation for that matter, was more appealing than going home to an empty house.
His parents were right. Family changed everything.

The TV in the living room of the cabin was tuned to the local news, but the TV in the loft, where
Jack and Denny were going to bed down, was displaying a video game. It was an older game
from a couple of years ago but the brothers were familiar with it. What they weren’t familiar
with was being beaten on level after level by their adopted grandfather, Jonathan Kent.
Extreme Boot Camp: Privates In Hell, popular in its day, was a game both young men had
played through every level with online opponents, but they had never been as badly trounced as
they had been in the past three hours by a chortling Jonathan whose character, a new recruit,
(“I’ll represent the little guys!”) was saving the day time after time against Jack’s colonel gone
mad and out maneuvering Denny’s Special Forces soldier who was supposed to be protecting the
raw recruits from annihilation by Jack.
“I’ve been there, you haven’t,” was all he would say as he won each level and whooped with
glee. The game had promoted Jonathan from just-off-the-bus Private to Lieutenant, to his delight
. He was loving the game. “If I knew it was this much fun, I would have bought it a long time ago
and invited Henry, Wayne and Harley over to play it with me! As soon as I get home that’s what
I’m going to do.”
Jack waited for his character to regenerate for the next level and grabbed a handful of popcorn.
“It gets harder after we take the battle into open ground, away from the barracks. Then we have
to use what’s at hand after we run out of ammo. You won’t be able to kill me so easily.”
Jonathan took a drink from the can of beer in front of him. “Oh! Survival training wasn’t so hard,
you know. I knew edible plants from growing up on the farm, saw how beavers built dams on the
river so how to build strong shelters. It was hard, but, heck, it wasn’t impossible like some of the
guys made it.”
Jack got up and walked toward the stairs. “Want another beer, Grampa?”
“No, thanks anyway, but I’ll call this one my limit. I’ll have one of Denny’s sodas.”
“Okay. I’ll bring back the last of the cookies.”
“Have one of the non-alcoholic beers, son,” Jonathan said. “We’ve both had enough for
tonight.”
Downstairs the lights were off, the TV silent, and it was just after 11 pm. A light was on in the
bedroom where Martha and Jonathan would be staying. The room across from it, Mara’s, was
dark with the door open. In the kitchen, Jack found the cookies and took a bottle of water out of
the fridge, leaving the no alcohol six pack untouched.
He went down the hallway and looked into the makeshift nursery and three dog heads popped up
from under the crib to look at him, yawning and eyes shining in the dark, and he laughed quietly,
then stepped across the hall and peeked in at Martha, tapping his fingertips against the wood.
She was sitting up in bed, reading a book and she stopped to look over at him. “You boys about
ready to toss that gray haired teenager out of the loft yet?”
Jack laughed. “Maybe another hour. I want to beat him at least once!”
“You do know both of my boys have been playing video games with each other going all the
way back to Pong, don’t you?”
“Uhhh. . .” He had no idea how long ago that was, what that was or what it meant.
“How about Pac Man? Ms. Pac Man?” she added.
“Yeah, sure! When I was really little we used to play that when the foster parents took us out for
pizza.”
Martha smiled. “That was my game. My initials were number one on every game console in
Hunter County! And a couple in Topeka, too.” She wrinkled her nose and waved a hand
dismissively. “Ms. Pac Man was too easy.”
He smiled. “I will remember that.”
“When the café at Three Mile Corner in Smallville put in a couple of Tron games Jonathan and
Clark would be gone all Saturday afternoon playing that game for a whole summer.” She turned
back to her book. “I’m turning the light out when I finish this chapter. That old teenybopper
better not wake me or the baby when he comes in.”
Jack smiled and sauntered over to give her a one armed hug. “I’ll tell him. Good night, Gram.”
“Good night, sweetie. Say good night to Dennis for me.” She patted his arm as he straightened
up.
“I will.” He walked back to the living room, shaking his head with a rueful smile on his face.
When did I become such a nice, obedient boy?

Lois spent her last night studying the mansion in a way she never had before. The overwhelming
size had never impressed her and exploring the grounds with a bodyguard trailing after her was
something she never tried twice. She knew that from the city the house was an impressive sight.
With the white stone façade of it and the attached garages and other buildings shining in the sun,
Luthor Manor resembled an old world castle high on a hill overlooking the city. She had always
imagined that was exactly the effect Lex had in mind when he had it built.
It was well decorated, tasteful despite the expense, but it was impersonal without a hint of either
Lex or herself. She had never tried to make an imprint on the décor, not even in her bedroom
suite. One framed wedding picture stood on her dressing table, and the bench at the foot of her
bed held an album containing pictures of the wedding, the honeymoon and early days after
moving into the mansion. She didn’t know who put it together and she remembered looking
through it only once. None of her personal possessions from her apartment had made the move to
the mansion with her and Lex assured her everything was being kept in storage.
Even if she’d had children, Lois knew she would have never used more than a handful of Luthor
Manor’s many rooms daily. She treated her bedroom suite as an apartment or a hotel suite within
the enormous place. This was never her home. It was Lex’s home and she pretended it was hers,
too.
After that third year, it became her refuge, the place from which she conducted her charity work
and scheduled her social appointments. Her office suite, across the hall from the kitchen, and at
the opposite end of the house from Lex’s home offices, were the only rooms she spent more time
in than her bedroom.
She had informed Lex before going to work Monday morning, the library would be finished at
the end of the week and she would be late getting home in the evenings because she wanted to be
sure of meeting that deadline.
Still distracted by the weekend’s events, he seemed glad to hear it. Neither of them had to go
through the polite evening meals that were their custom when both had so many other pressing
matters to attend to. When she got back to the mansion in early evening, Lex was holed up in his
office with Nigel St. John and Sheldon Bender and during her solitary dinner she heard the latter
two’s voices raised in argumenta more than once only to be silenced by Lex. Mrs. Cox did not
seem to be present.
Telling Chef Gaston she was going upstairs early, she entered her sitting room and opened her
laptop for a while before getting ready for bed. There was nothing from Lucy, the fake one nor
the real one, in her email. She opened the library’s website to see what updates the librarians had
made to the “news” page, but even looking through the entire website passed little time. She
couldn’t restlessly pace the rooms without drawing attention to herself. There was a routine in
place.
One of the housekeepers came in each night to get the laundry from her and Lex’s suites and to
turn their beds down. Lois gave up a long time ago trying to stop her. It was a part of the
housekeeper’s duties and she would do it anyway. And every evening at 10 p.m. Eli Morgan
brought bedtime drinks upstairs: wine for her, brandy for Lex- from his personal stores no one
else ever sampled. Some nights, when the wine was good she took it outside and sat on the
balcony for a few minutes.
She rarely stayed up later than midnight. She read a book or watched a movie after the late news,
sometimes catching Letterman if a guest interested her.
Normally, she was careful not to do anything out of the ordinary, but tonight was different,
tonight was crawling by way too slowly. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and restarted
it.