A well-dressed man in his late thirties was standing in Lex Luthor’s mansion office. Despite the daylight streaming in through stained glass windows, the office retained a church-like dimness. Without moving from his place, a few feet away from the desk, he studied every object in the room carefully. His sharp glittering eyes didn’t miss anything.
Lex came down a narrow stairwell and entered the office. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Louvain." He said as he crossed to room to his desk.
The man made eye contact with Lex. "What is it I can do for you, Mr. Luthor?"
"I want you to look into something for me." Lex said. He sat down behind his desk, unlocked a drawer and pulled out a file folder. He dropped it on the desk-top and looked up at Louvain.
Louvain stayed where he was--three steps away from Lex’s desk. His face was expressionless. Years of experience had taught him to touch nothing until he saw some hint of permission to do so.
"This is extremely confidential." Lex said, leaned forward in his chair. "I don’t want anyone to know anything about this investigation. You’re to make no contact with the family."
"Understood."
"Is it?" Lex asked darkly.
"No one will know anything about this investigation." Louvain said in an icy tone. "What’s this about?"
"The adoption of a kid by the name of Clark Kent." Lex said and motioned at the folder.
Louvain stepped closer to the desk and opened the file. He scanned the papers quickly. "You want me to find his real parents?"
"His adoption is a fake." Lex said softly. "I want to know why."
"I’ve been a Private Investigator for ten years." Louvain said quietly. "I’ve handled cases like this one before. Usually the kid in question turns out to be the result of some forbidden affair. Small towns like this have a habit of keeping dirty little secrets."
Lex smirked very tightly. "Mr. Louvain, Clark’s parentage isn’t what concerns me, although that obviously is an important factor. There’s something more going on here, and I want to know what it is." Louvain nodded.
Lex dropped a yellow envelope on top of the file folder. "For your expenses." Louvain picked up the folder and the envelope. "Contact me when you find something worth my time." Lex ordered. Louvain nodded his head and walked out of the office.
~*~ SATURDAY EVENING ~*~
Lana Lang was sitting on her heals in front of her parent’s gravestone, talking to them quietly. "I was kind of hoping that Clark would ask me to the dance tonight, but he asked Chloe..." Lana told the gravestone.
A presence hovered yards away from her, too far off to hear that private and one-sided conversation. It looked at her from one side of a Sycamore tree. Lana’s voice carried, but her words were unclear to the listener.
A car went by on the road a half-mile away, and Lana lifted her head to look at it. She could only see a pair of red taillights fading off into the darkness, but she knew it was Chloe’s car.
There was a noise of rushing wind to her left. When she looked in that
direction, there was nothing more than a Sycamore tree standing there.
Lana turned her head the other way, and stared in the direction of the road. She felt certain that something had just left the graveyard and gone in the same direction as Chloe’s car. "I better go get ready. I didn’t know it was this late." She told her parents and rushed to get home.
~*~
Chloe’s car whooshed past a street sign, and a few seconds later, a rushing sound of a small wind could have been heard in the same place. The sign rattled, but nothing could be seen that might have hit it.
~*~
Inside the car, it was warm. Chloe was driving and talking to Clark who was in the passenger seat. She was nervous about trying to go to another dance with him. Rather than acting that way, she released her tension by cracking jokes. "...and then Pete sneezed so I called him a pig."
Clark listened to every word she said very intently, but he was too nervous to really concentrate. He stared at the road, then glanced at Chloe. Why had she called Pete a pig?
"You’re not laughing." Chloe said, looking away from the road just long enough to glance at him.
"If he sneezed, you should have said bless you." He said looking at her innocently. "I don’t get it."
Chloe glanced at him again, scowled and then burst out laughing. How could he not get that? It was so simple! "You’re not supposed to get it, Clark There’s nothing to get! It was a joke!"
"But...jokes have a punch line." He whined at her.
"Some jokes are punch lines." Chloe laughed at him.
~*~
A racing spirit chased Chloe’s vehicle. The distance closed and the spirit slowed down as it approached the rear window. For a few seconds it matched the speed of the car, following very closely. Then, it focused on the barrier of the window, and forced itself into the car. The impact of the spirit’s passing through the rear windshield made the car bounce violently on its shocks.
~*~
Inside the car Clark gasped as it rocked, and he turned around to look into the back seat.
"Thought someone got out here and fixed the potholes on this road. You okay?" Chloe asked, but watched the road as she turned.
"Yeah. Fine." He said in a shaky voice.
"That’s not a convincing tone, Clark." She said, and glanced at him, looked again at a very pale face and wide-open nervous eyes. "My driving bugging you?"
"No! Not at all. Just...nervous about the dance."
"Afraid you might ditch me again and I’ll beat you over the head with my laptop?" She wondered in a jovial voice, but there was really nothing funny going on in her head.
Clark turned his head and gave her a wide-eyed nervous look. Maybe he’d detected a tiny note of roughness in her tone which she hadn’t meant to put there. Chloe grinned and then looked over at him.
Clark smiled back, relaxed into his seat and then looked at the road through the windshield. "Nah. You wouldn’t hit me with your laptop Chloe."
"True. I wouldn’t want to break it. I’d just borrow one of Lex’s cars and run you over, then reverse to make sure I’d done the job right."
Clark’s eyes popped open wide and he turned his head to stare at her.
"Relax, Clark! You take everything too seriously. I was kidding!"
He laughed hollowly, cleared his throat and peaked backwards, and gulped because he felt something looking back at him.
Chloe glanced away from the road at him, and saw him looking backwards again. That was the third time she’d noticed him doing that. Was he that nervous? "What? You think the Sheriff’s chasing me?"
"Uh...no..." He said and snapped his head around to look at the road again.
"Right. Sheriff chasing me." Chloe smiled brightly. "We’ll jump a gorge, shout out a Yee-haa, and leave him in a tree when he tries it, right?"
"Ha-ha." Clark said, and he didn’t let himself look in the backseat again. He could feel something looking at the back of his head.
~*~
The school’s parking lot was lit up brightly, and a banner was stretched between two light poles. Music drifted over the loudspeakers all around the grounds. Gangly boys dressed handsomely in dark tuxedos, and starry eyed girls in colorful flowing dresses meandered uncertainly toward the school’s main entrance.
A powder blue car with a ripped fender and rust spots marring the paint job squeaked to a halt in a parking space, and groaned as the engine stopped. A young man with a lot of pimples got out of the driver’s side, rushed around to help his date out of the passenger seat. He got the door open just fine, but when he reached his hand out to help her, he accidentally hit her in the head.
"OW! YOU IDIOT!" She hollered and rubbed the spot on her head.
"I’m sorry!" He whined, and his face turned bright red. He made a forward move to help her.
"Back off nerd-boy! I’ll get out by myself!" she ordered and glared at him.
He backed up too fast and almost fell over backwards. "I’m really sorry, Heather!" He whined at her again.
She got of the car, and this time, he just stayed out of the way. The door was left open, and he closed it. His date marched across the parking lot, and he jogged after her.
The girl he followed was a strawberry blond beauty in sparkling pastel green, but her attitude was sickening. She touched the arm of a dark haired girl in a pink dress.
The girl in pink turned around, put her hands on her hips and glared at Heather. "What?" She demanded.
"You have got to be playing a trick on me! I cannot be seen with this acne infested, micro-chip chomping dork!" Heather said in a scalding tone and motioned at her date.
The boy stiffened, backed up, turned around, and walked away. He didn’t hear anything else the girls said to each other.
~*~
"We had a deal." The girl in pink said darkly to Heather.
Heather glared at her, and watched the girl in pink put a hand on the arm of her own date. He was a big husky boy with a square head and a brush cut, far from handsome. At least he wasn’t a dork, Heather thought.
Patty scowled at her, and the look turned her pretty face, ugly. "You want to stay in my popularity club then you do what I say. Go get him before he leaves!"
Heather exhaled furiously, but went off to find her acne infested date. She spotted him walking dumbly across the parking lot, and she didn’t think he was paying attention to what he was doing. A car was coming! She cringed and almost screamed, certain it would hit him. But then the horn blared and scared him. She thought he did some kind of stupid looking--dorkified, leaping--convulsing--heart attack maneuver to get out of the way. At least he didn’t fall in the mud, she thought, and rolled her eyes and walked toward him very slowly.
~*~
The boy felt like a complete moron because he couldn’t even leave this miserable night behind in a dignified fashion. A car almost hit him when he started to cross the lot, the horn blared, and it scared the hell out of him. He jumped to get of the way and into a safe space between two parked cars. He leaned against the antique red car, which belonged to Chloe Sullivan, and felt grateful for his life even if it was miserable.
~*~
Something inside of the car that could not be seen by human eyes was looking at the kid. It rose upwards, focusing on its intended target, and then glided through the closed window. The window rattled.
~*~
The boy shuddered and inhaled deeply as the spirit penetrated his body. For a second his body and eyes glowed a soft shade of blue. When the glowing stopped, he breathed and blinked as though clearing his head after sleep. He turned around and bent to look at himself in the car’s window, touched one of about a hundred huge zits on his face. "Now here’s a square if I ever saw one." He said, then looked just to the right and saw a strawberry blond girl coming his way. His left eyebrow lifted and the right side of his mouth grinned. "What the heck?" He looked back at his reflection, noted the bow tie was all-wrong, pulled it apart and fixed it.
He was giving it a final tug when the girl approached him, walked by him, and kept going. "Let’s go, Drew!"
He caught her hand before she was two strides away from him, tugged her close, and spoke in a voice that wasn’t whiny at all. "What’s you’re hurry, gorgeous?"
Heather raised her brows. "Can we please just get this over with?"
He grinned suavely, and lifted her hand in his, locked his eyes to hers. She couldn’t help but to stare back at him. Something was very different about him.
"We’re here, and we’re dressed and you’re a beautiful lady. This night will never happen again. Let’s have a good time, okay?" Drew said in a warm tone.
"uh..." She stammered, suddenly feeling nervous. "Sure." Eyes still locked on hers, Drew pulled her hand into the crook of his elbow, and
walked her slowly toward the school’s main entrance.
~*~
Streamers, colored lights, scattered balloons, lunch tables clothed in pink and topped with roses in slender vases, all transformed the school’s gymnasium into a Homecoming Dance fantasy.
Chloe was glad that she’d given the photography duty of this event to other Torch employees. This left her free to enjoy Clark’s company. She leaned on him and together they danced slowly even though the music was fast and pumped full of a heavy beat. She got a tighter hold around him. Just to be on the safe side, she wasn’t going to let go of him. She wanted to be sure nothing would ruin this night for her.
Clark wasn’t feeling so comfortable. Every so often, he felt something prickling at his neck. His head felt like a bowling ball on a gangly spring. It was the same feeling he’d had in the car and he wanted it to go away.
His eyes were drawn to another dancing couple again and again. They were waltzing, and the boy moved with the kind of suave confidence that oozed from people like James Bond and Lex Luthor. "Drew’s here with...I think that’s Heather." Clark told Chloe.
She lifted her head up and looked to the other side of the gym, and saw them waltzing gracefully. "Wow! I thought you were kidding."
Clark shook his head and watched while Heather went back into a dip over the arm of her very suave boyfriend.
"Never thought he’d have the nerve to even ask a girl to go on a date with him." Chloe said looking at the couple.
"Maybe someone made her to go out with him." Clark suggested.
Chloe gave him a confused look. "Huh?"
"Nothing. Just a joke." Clark said and smiled innocently, and locked his eyes to hers.
Chloe smiled up at him. Whatever the joke was, she didn’t care. His big blue eyes were sappy and beautiful, and she knew he was about to kiss her, and she’d been waiting for this moment since school had started.
Clark’s lips parted and he let his head go down toward Chloe’s. The onset of the kiss was much faster than it had been at the Spring Formal. He was afraid if he didn’t move quickly, there’d be an interruption and he’d feel obligated to run off and save Lana’s life. When their lips touched, he let it all slow down. Clark Kent forgot where he was, and didn’t hear a single note of the wailing music, and neither did Chloe. For both of them, the kiss went all the way down and made their toes tingle.
When they parted, both of them smiled stupidly. They were both moving in the gentle wave of slow dance but neither of them knew it. Clark could still taste sweet lip-gloss and feared he’d set something on fire with his heat vision. So, he focused upwards at non-flammable pipes.
~*~
Everyone settled at tables, and quieted to whispering. The class president walked onto the stage wearing a serious expression and introduced last year’s Homecoming Queen, and her escort for the evening.
Music played, and a red carpet was rolled out quickly. Young photographers leapt into good places. The main doors of the gym opened, and a lovely lady in white wearing the silver crown of the Homecoming Queen entered the gym from the door furthest away from the stage. Her white gloved hands rested delicately on the arm of a young man who looked extremely shocked to be in that position as he escorted her over the red carpet. He walked slowly with her on his arm, all the way to the podium before he released her.
Lana Lang stepped up to podium, thanked the class president and then introduced herself as last year’s Homecoming Queen. She made a pretty speech while ballots were passed around the room. She mentioned that the Homecoming King was unavailable because he was serving in the Marines. Lana talked about Whitney, and important events which had taken place since last year’s Homecoming dance. While she talked, people drank punch and voted for the next Homecoming Queen.
Clark wasn’t staring at Lana Lang for once, thank goodness. Chloe didn’t care what he was looking at, so long as it wasn’t Lana. A pair of ballots arrived at their table, and Chloe saw the name Patty Vandalla on the ballot. She wasn’t about to pick her, even if she knew that girl would win. She checked a different name without even reading whose name it was. Cameras were flashing madly, and music played at a low volume while Lana finished her speech. Everyone clapped, and the Torch’s photographers went leaping around to get pictures of Lana and her date as they descended to the dance floor.
"Clark, are you okay?" Chloe wondered.
"Fine." He told her, but his voice was far from even. He kept glancing over at Drew who was sitting at the next table behind Chloe.
"That was some kiss, Clark Kent." She said and beamed a smile at him.
She got one of his best puppy looks in return, and then a broad smile. Neither one of them noticed it when someone came along and collected their ballots.
~*~
"BRADFORD TAMMOND AND PATTY VANDALLA ARE THE NEW ROYAL COUPLE FOR THIS YEAR’S HOMECOMING DANCE!" Lana Lang called out and clapped her hands wildly.
People burst out into screeching applause. A dark haired girl in a pink dress rushed up onto the stage with her large square headed boyfriend. Camera’s flashed insanely while Lana Lang retired her crown, and passed it on to the new Homecoming Queen. The moment Lana set the crown onto Patty Vandalla’s head, music burst into the gym. Sparkling confetti and balloons rained down onto the stage. After a quick speech, the new Homecoming Pair went to the dance floor and Lana went to the dance-floor with her date as well.
Chloe and Clark went to the dance floor with the rest of the crowd when the next song began to play. Clark felt a shivery sensation roaming up and down his spine. He felt like something was watching him, and he didn’t like that feeling. The sensation made him turn around to look at Drew, who was looking directly at him and Chloe over the shoulder of his own green clad date. It was a look which made Clark feel very nervous.
~*~
The Kent farm felt like a quiet sanctuary to Clark after all the crowded noise and confusion of the Homecoming dance. He and Chloe climbed the front steps of the house. Clark rarely used the front door of his own house, as it was reserved for special occasions, and important company. He and Chloe stood facing each other, knowing what was to come, but they stumbled over silly small talk. Neither one of them understood why they felt so nervous, or why they said so many silly things. They both quit talking, and leaned in for a kiss. Love, innocence and curiosity burned between them in a sweet and gentle moment. They felt the earth spinning in its orbit, and heard the stars singing lullabies to them.
Chloe smiled brightly at Clark, who stared back at her, slightly cross-eyed and smiling idiotically. Poor Chloe feared she’d fall on her butt while she made the journey down the stairs, and then worried about hitting her head while she got in the car, then worried about crashing the car as she drove off, waving to Clark. She wondered if there was such a thing as driving under the influence of a kiss. The silly smile didn’t fade off her face until long after she’d passed the border of the Kent’s farm.
~*~
Clark had no idea at all how long he stood on his front porch staring at the settling dirt left behind by Chloe’s car. He hadn’t remembered to tell Chloe thanks for giving him another chance. He hadn’t remembered to tell her he’d meet her somewhere tomorrow to help her go over the pictures of the dance. He was too preoccupied by the memory of that last kiss to even remember to feel stupid.
He turned to go into the house and walked into the door with a loud thump, he bounced off it and flopped backwards onto his butt with a louder thump. Now he felt stupid.
~*~
A powder blue car with a dent in the fender pulled into an alley in Smallville. The driver was Patty Vandalla and she still wore her Homecoming Queen crown. Drew was in the backseat of the car with Heather, kissing her. She pulled her head back to look at him. "You’re not such a dork after all."
"Thank you, Miss Heather." He said, and resumed kissing her.
A greasy man came out of the shadows, and took a wad of money and a list from Patty Vandalla. He walked away with the money, and twenty minutes later, he returned and delivered three brown bags. Patty looked through them. She selected three bottles of liquor and handed them to the greasy man as a reward. Before he could complain and say his payment wasn’t good enough, she hit the gas pedal and drove away.
Drew helped himself to one of the bottles, opened it and guzzled down hard liquor. Heather was shocked to see someone like Drew drink like that. "Hey, slow down!" She gasped, and grabbed the bottle from him. She was about to say more, but Patty interrupted.
"Maybe you should save some for the people who paid for it." Patty sneered, looking at them both through the rear-view mirror.
Drew lifted his brows, ready to say something to put the brat in her place. Heather saw it coming, and cut him off. "Where we going, Patty?"
"The barn." She said sounding annoyed. "Like Duh!"
His hand found the zipper on the back of her dress, and pulled it down easily. Heather made no objections to what he was doing, but he got no further. He stiffened, and gasped in pain.
"What’s wrong?" Heather begged. He choked on a cry of pain, and doubled over. "DREW!" Heather cried anxiously.
He threw his upper body and arms upwards, mouth opened wide. His body glowed in a pastel blue haze for a second and he screamed. Heather screamed with him. Drew fell over on top of her, and passed out.
The old man grunted, closed his eyes. After a moment, the bird glowed again, and the old man smiled softly. A wind rushed through the room, and then the window rattled in its frame.
"Coffee, Chloe?" Lana called from behind the counter.
"Regular extra large, with a shot of espresso." Chloe said.
"What do you want, Clark?" Lana asked while she loaded donuts and cups of coffee onto a tray.
"Chocolate Cappuccino, extra syrup." He called to her as she walked behind her counter.
Lana got the Cappuccino machine busy and then walked off to another table to deliver a tray full of hot cups of coffee.
"I have got to show you something really weird." Chloe said excitedly and took some pictures out of her bag and put them on the table.
The first one he saw was from last night’s dance. There didn’t seem anything wrong with it except for a glitch around Drew. He lifted the picture into the sunlight coming in through the Talon’s window. "Looks like the film messed up."
"I thought the same thing at first. Look at the rest of them." Chloe said and pushed more pictures toward him.
He shuffled through almost forty other pictures, some were of him and Chloe. He noted that the only ones which seemed to be flawed were the ones of Drew. Every single photo of him showed a blue halo of light around him. No other object in any of the pictures had been effected the same way. "Chloe’ve you been playing with your photography software again?"
"No. I swear Clark, this is not a joke! I can prove it and let you see the negatives if you want." Chloe motioned with one hand toward her bag.
Lana came along and put a tray down for them, unloaded three coffees and a plate of donuts and slid into the seat next to Chloe. "You guys have fun last night?" She asked as she pulled her coffee cup close.
"Great." Clark said and smiled at Chloe.
"Yeah. Very good time." Chloe said with a smile. She took the lid off her coffee cup, and poured in a little cream and a little sugar. "How was your date?"
Lana’s lips spread into a grin while she stirred her coffee. "Steven’s a better dancer than I thought he’d be."
"I needed a date, Clark." Lana said, oblivious to the fact that Clark was overdosing on sugar. "If I’d waited for him to ask, I’d still be waiting. I would have had to borrow you from Chloe for a few minutes."
Chloe turned her head to look at Lana, one brow was up, and the other down. Lana grinned and her eyes sparkled with humor. She leaned over the table to whisper into Clark’s ear, but loud enough for Chloe to hear it anyway. "Something tells me she wouldn’t have liked that very much."
Chloe laughed at that, and so did Clark, who was stirring yet more sugar into his cappuccino.
Lana looked down at the pictures on the table as she resumed her seat. "Funny you should have pictures of him, Chloe."
"Funny how?" Chloe asked. "Weird funny, or humorous, or..."
"Coincidental." Lana said. "You gonna do an article on him?"
"Why would I do an article on him?" She asked and looked very intrigued.
"I thought you already knew." Lana smiled and wagged a finger at Chloe. "It’s not something I should be repeating, and you know..."
"Out with it, Lang!" Chloe joked at her.
"Okay. Fine!" Lana scowled down at her coffee. "Drew’s sister found him in the car this morning, in the driveway. He was in the back seat passed out drunk."
"So, he had a little too much fun. That’s no big deal." Chloe said and looked and sounded disappointed.
"Not until you find out he drank so much they couldn’t wake him and that he’s in the hospital right now." Lana said, brows raised.
Clark almost choked on his coffee. "He okay?"
"He’ll probably be fine." Lana said and turned her head in time to see Lex had coming through the front door. She had to giggle as he was nearly trampled by a waitress.
"Nice to see the place so busy." Lex said strolling to the table.
Chloe looked up at him, and Clark turned his head, both grinned at him.
"It is." Lana agreed with Lex and smiled.
"Nowhere to sit though." Lex looked down at Clark, who slid over in the booth seat to make some room for him.
Lex watched the Talon’s waitresses roaming around with beverages and plates full of donuts and other baked goods. One of them came straight at him, put a cup of coffee down for him and rushed off before he could thank her for it.
"Homecoming game got everyone out of their houses, and then brought them all here." Chloe said.
Lex nodded. "Community events always kick up business."
"Now I see why you sponsor them so much." Lana said resting her chin on one fist. "I think we should have more school dances."
Lex bantered to Lana about what events were the most likely to succeed in luring people into shops. Lana was eager to learn and she absorbed every word he said.
Chloe and Clark both sat back wishing they even knew what the two of them were talking about. After too much of it, they quit caring.
Clark heard the door open, then shut. Immediately, he felt a tingle in the back of his spine, which became an icy sensation. It was the same feeling he’d had last night when Drew had gotten anywhere near him. He wanted to turn around and look behind him, but was afraid if he did, he’d see Drew giving him a creepy look.
"What’s wrong?" Lana asked.
He snapped his head up to look diagonally across the table at her, ready to answer. She wasn’t looking at him though, but at Lex, who’d stopped speaking in mid-sentence.
Lex had completely forgotten what he’d been talking about. He felt a horrible icy sensation creeping along the back of his neck, and knew someone was walking up behind him.
"Hey, Lana." A blonde boy about Clark’s age stepped close to the table and looked down at Lana.
Lex suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable and avoided looking at the boy
standing within arm’s reach of him.
"Hi Steve." Lana said looking up. "Didn’t even see you coming. Want some coffee?"
"Sounds good." Steve told her, and glanced at the others at the table, but took no real notice of them.
"Hey, Steve." Chloe said.
"Hi." He said quickly and looked back at Lana.
Clark gulped and forced himself to not shudder.
Lex wrapped one hand around his coffee cup and stared at his reflection in the dark surface of the liquid and hoped he didn’t look as scared as he felt. If that kid didn’t move soon, he’d have to make an excuse to get out of here.
"Lana can I talk to you?" Steve wondered.
"Sure." She told him and got up from the booth seat. Clark repressed a shiver.
"You okay, Clark?" Chloe asked, brows raised with concern.
Lana looked up at him, concern in her expression. "You sure?" she wondered. "You’re face is really red."
"Too much fun last night with a lovely lady," he told her and grinned
lopsidedly.
"Flattery." Lana smiled.
"Could you get me something?" He asked, turning his head.
"Anything that’s on the menu."
He smiled as though she’d just told a cute little joke. "Chamomile tea, a double and put six bags in the cup."
Lana made a face at him, but went behind the counter. "Little strong, don’t you think? One cup of this is enough to put you to sleep." She put a large cup on the counter, then dropped six tea bags into it.
"Well, you my fine lady got me pepped right up. I need something to bring me back down to earth." He said and his eyes sparkled as he looked down at her.
Lana pushed the beverage toward him over the counter. "Steve, you didn’t get the wrong idea last night. I thought I made it clear that..."
"I had a really good time last night." He interrupted and looked a little hurt.
Her mouth opened, and she sighed. "Steve, we need to have a talk."
He snatched her hand and smiled. "You’re right. Let’s go for a spin."
"She must have shaken him up last night. Usually he says more than ‘hi’ to people." Chloe commented as she sipped at coffee.
Clark looked over Chloe’s shoulder to watch Lana and Steve talk. He’d seen Lana give Steve an odd look while she pushed a beverage toward him.
"Chloe," Clark said. "let me borrow your camera."
"What?" She gave him a look suggesting he was a nut.
He lifted his brows at her and gave her a puppy eyed look. Chloe reached into her bag and handed her digital camera to him. Clark turned it on and aimed it at Steve. He didn’t even have to snap a picture, because the boy’s blue glowing image showed up on the screen of the digital camera.
Lex looked at the screen of the camera in Clark’s hand, saw the aura effect around Steve and looked up at the real version of him in front of the counter. Then, he noticed pictures on the table of a different kid with the same aura around him. His hands tightened around his coffee cup. He might have asked what was going on, but didn’t get the chance.
"Chloe, something’s going on. Take a look at this." Clark said brows up in surprise.
Chloe leaned over the table careful to not block the camera’s view. "That’s really weird." She looked up at Clark, expression bright. She was intrigued. "How’d you know that..."
Clark gave her an innocent look and shrugged. "Hunch."
Lex hadn’t said a word since Steve had gotten three feet from him. Something about that kid was all wrong. He could draw numerous conclusions, but only one fit. He didn’t want to mention to anyone though that he thought the kid was possessed.
He heard Lana hiss, and looked up at her. The blonde kid grabbed a hold of her wrist and said something only Lana could hear.
"Chloe...?" Clark whispered, and gave her a pathetic look.
Chloe looked at him, then turned her head and looked back at Lana, and sighed. "Go ahead. Save her life again. I’ll just...sit here and play with my camera." She told him and took it out of his hands.
"Lex, let me out." Clark said already shoving his way out of the booth seat.
He grabbed her other wrist and pulled her to him. "Don’t be like that, Lana!"
"I told you! No!" She said angrily and tried to trick him by twisting around. His hands kept a firm grip on her wrists though.
Lex’s eyes opened wide and he, along with every other male in the coffee shop, cringed with sympathy for Steve.
"You don’t know the half of it." The old man told Steve, holding him up by his upper arm with one hand, he grabbed the Chamomile tea off the counter with the other. The kind stranger helped Steve to the door, gave him his beverage and a firm shove suggesting he should leave now. Everyone in the Talon watched the man return to his table where his wife was waiting for him. A few people whispered, and conversation slowly picked up again.
"You okay, Lana?" Chloe asked in a teasing voice.
"I’m fine." She said, but looked a little mad.
Lex finally picked up the coffee cup in front of him to drink, but he’d
forgotten he’d moved, and that was not his. It was Clark’s cappuccino.
Lana looked at Lex and spoke very frankly. "Just hoping that playing knee-ball is one of those community events you were talking about."
Lex clamped his mouth shut, fought to not spit coffee flavored sugar all over while he tried very hard to not burst out laughing.
"...clutched his chest and collapsed." The EMT said.
The doctor leaned over Steven to listen to his heart for a moment.
"His girlfriend here found these in his car, but didn’t know if he’d taken any."
The EMT said and handed a bottle of prescription tranquilizers over. "Also he might have ingested a strong dose of chamomile tea."
"What’s her name?" The doctor asked looking up at the EMT while he continued to listen to Steve’s heart.
"Lana Lang." She told the doctor and stepped forward.
"Lana, how strong was the tea?" The doctor asked her, while he checked Steven’s eyes with a little flashlight.
"Six bags of tea in two cups of water." Lana told him.
"This is getting really weird." A nurse said as she walked by.
The doctor lifted his head to give her a dark look, which the nurse ignored.
"Anything else you can tell me?" The doctor wondered at Lana.
"Only what I already told him." Lana said and motioned at the EMT. "Steve came over to my house about an hour ago. He was acting really strange, and he looked like he was sick or hot. I asked him if he was all right, and he kept telling me that he felt just fine." She trailed off and chewed at her lip as though considering some private thought. She sighed uncomfortably. "We were..." She looked down at the floor and blushed. "...kissing. Then, he stopped and grabbed his chest and collapsed. He screamed before he fell on the ground, then he was awake for a few minutes more before he passed out."
"How was he acting after he fell but before he passed out, Lana?" The doctor asked while taking Steve’s blood pressure.
"Confused." She nodded her head. "He kept asking me how he got there."
The doctor’s eyes sparkled with insight. He nodded his head at a nurse, then looked to Lana. "Can you stick around in case we need more information?" He asked as he motioned at the EMT’s.
"Sure." She told him.
"Get him in two." The doc said, and handed the tranquilizers to a young intern, and told her to count how many were left, and call the kid’s mother.
Lana was left in the waiting room, and she sat down in a vacant seat. She didn’t know exactly what had happened to Steven, but she knew the doctor already had some idea about it.
...but his reaching hand convulsed. Pete Ross gasped and struggled and glowed a soft shade of blue. Books and notes tumbled to the floor. A moment later, he breathed deep and started looking frantically through the papers scattered around him. His hand found a little book in a black backpack, which he opened and studied. "Erica Fox?" He smiled broadly and tucked the little book into his pants pocket.
Pete was standing at the top of the stairs, and looking down at him. Clark almost tripped over his own feet when he glanced up the stairs. He took one step backwards, and his feet were on the ground again. The base of his spine felt like it’d been turned to ice, and the sensation rushed upwards into his neck. His head felt heavy, and the hair on the back of his neck stood out. One mug, held only by its handle, swung down lazily and hot coffee spilled to the ground. He didn’t even notice the mess he was making.
Pete walked down the stairs, stopping at the last one, and he was four inches from Clark’s face. He reached out one hand to right the cup in Clark’s hand which was tipped and spilling. Clark felt ice shooting up his arm, and he startled at the touch and dropped both cups. One broke on the step. The other thumped on the hard packed dirt floor.
Pete blinked at him. "What’s the matter with you?"
"Nothing!" Clark yipped.
Pete stared at him hard, and took a small step forward. Clark felt a thudding in his chest and icecubes were zipping up and down his spine. Words stuck in his throat. He wanted to scream, but nothing more than a weak little whimper came out of him. He backed away from Pete, and he meant to take only one step back, but his feet had other ideas. Now that he was moving, he couldn’t stop himself. His backwards steps didn’t stop until he’d backed up into the work bench, and knocked something off it. The noise made him jump a foot in the air.
"You’re a real Jibberony." Pete told him and headed for the door. "I gotta go."
Clark’s eyes popped open. The word Jibberony was said all the time by a certain wrestler whom he knew Pete hated. He certainly wouldn’t quote the man.
"Bye." Pete said.
"Pete, don’t leave!" Clark said anxiously. "We gotta finish our paper."
Pete stopped and turned around. Dark eyes met Clark’s and he saw a hunger in them that made him shiver. "There’s something wrong with you!"
Pete smiled broadly. "You’re the one doing the square act."
"Lemme give you a ride." Clark said nervously.
"I’m gonna jog." Pete said with a shrug as he walked toward the barn door.
"Pete, it’s a long way home and its dark out!" Clark objected.
"I’m not going home." He said as though that was a silly idea. "Don’t worry about me, I’m covered."
"Where’re you going?" Clark begged and pushed away from the table he’d backed up against. He shivered with cold and nerves.
"Just to Erica’s." Pete called.
"I thought you broke up with her!" Clark complained.
"I’m going." Pete insisted, and dashed off down the driveway, leaving Clark behind feeling very bewildered and chilled. It took him a minute to recover, and all kinds of wild thoughts chased around in his brain. He had to do something! But he didn’t know if he could get close enough to Pete to do anything. The horrible feelings which had overcome him didn’t feel anything like exposure to meteor rocks. There was no real pain. All he could think to call it was a ‘feeling’ that wasn’t good. He wondered what was happening to him, and what the feeling meant.
"DAD!" He ran into the house to get help.
He drove on down the night dark road, feeling frustrated because he knew Clark was confused and frightened of something he couldn’t explain.
"There he is." Clark said and sat forward.
"Left." Clark said but pointed to the right.
Mr. Kent turned the truck right down the dirt roads that lead into the heart of the south end of Smallville. Through the windshield and in the light of high-beams, they could see Pete on the road ahead, running as fast and as hard as a person could run.
Clark shouted out the window. "Pete, what’re you doing? Stop!"
"Why you following me? Go home!" He shouted and dashed off the road, leaping over a narrow ditch, and into a corn field. The truck couldn’t follow.
Clark jumped out and chased after his friend. "PETE STOP!"
"CLARK!" Mr. Kent shouted after his son and slammed on the breaks.
They crossed the cornfield. Clark shouted at Pete to stop. He shouted back at him to leave him alone. One after another, the shot out of the cornfield, and into the woods.
Clark knew that Pete was in good shape, but he’d been running too fast for too long. He should have stopped a long time ago. Saplings and thin gray tree trunks rushed by him, and he crashed into branches, and leaves.
"What is your problem?" Pete shouted at him from the darkness. "Leave me alone!"
"Something’s wrong!" Clark cried out into the darkness, and he shoved branches out of his way rather than breaking them.
"Nothing’s wrong!" Pete’s voice echoed, and branches snapped and rustled as he ran through them.
"Pete!" Clark cried out, chasing, and decided he was going to grab him no matter what the contact might do to him. He didn’t think that would be anything but a cold chill, and rushed forward to catch up with him.
Clark felt the cold seeping up his arm as he reached out, but ignored it. He got a small hold on Pete’s jacket.
"BACK OFF!" Pete screamed at him and ran faster.
Clark grasped more of the fabric of Pete’s jacket, and almost had him stopped, but he fell to his knees, gasping. He’d expected to feel ice shooting through him when he reached out for Pete. This feeling was entirely different. It was pain, and nausea and weakness and soul wrenching anxiety. At first he was confused by it. Even as his mind faded, he grasped the stupid thing he’d done.
The pain and vertigo had nothing to do with Pete. He’d made the mistake of not paying attention to where they were going. The area was full of meteor fragments and now that he remembered to look for them, he could see the green rocks glowing softly all around him.
He collapsed into the stale leaves, lacking the strength to even crawl away from the meteor rocks. His clothing absorbed cold dampness, and he became sicker and weaker, and desperate for help.
"Pete..." He begged and tried to reach a hand out to him. He wasn’t thinking of his friend’s predicament anymore though, but his own, and hoping for help.
"Leave me alone!" Pete shouted and kept running.
Clark slipped into a stupor of nausea and mental numbness.
"mmmm..." Clark groaned.
"Can’t carry you anymore, Son." Dad said tiredly.
Clark felt himself reclined, his back leaned against something warm and he knew it was his father. He looked up and saw the tops of tall corn stalks, and black sky dotted with stars. He wondered how far his father had carried him. "Dad...where...where’d Pete go?"
"You all right?" Dad’s voice begged, and a hand petted one side of his face.
"I’m gonna...I...ugghhhh..." Clark groaned and threw himself forward onto hands and knees and let his stomach heave. He was really glad it was too dark to be able to see what was coming out of him. He spat, and coughed.
Mr. Kent grabbed a hold of his son just before the poor kid fell face first in the mess he’d made. "If you got the strength for that, then you can walk on your own feet!"
"No...no, gotta...find Pete." He complained.
"We’ll worry about him, later, Clark." Dad ordered. "I’m taking you home."
Clark grumbled, but he was too weak to fight his father’s wishes. He was barely strong enough to stand even with a lot of help. Walking was nearly impossible. He didn’t understand what was wrong with him. He wasn’t anywhere near the meteor rocks anymore, but he could still feel the effects.
He was barely aware of the trip home. He remembered Dad shutting the door, and then a moment later, he felt the truck stop. He heard voices, and a few times his mother called his name, but he couldn’t answer her. Motion made him wonder if he was being carried. What little consciousness he had, was mostly used to alert him to the stinging, painful effects of the radiation from the meteor rocks.
"Jonathan, what happened to him?" His mother’s voice came.
Dad’s voice mumbled and droned down into the darkness in which Clark hovered. He hurt all over, and whined about it.
"Shhhh..." Someone said, and he felt a feather light touch to his forehead.
"...shouldn’t be sick like this anymore." Dad said huskily.
"He’s wet." Mom said. "Jonathan, the radiation from the meteor rocks probably contaminated the water he got into. That could be why he’s still sick."
"Hadn’t thought of that." Dad said.
Clark muttered a few words which even he didn’t understand as he felt his wet clothes come off him. A few minutes later, he started to feel better, and realized he was in his own bed. Both his parents were seated on either side of him. Neither one of them would hear of him getting up, no matter what he tried to tell them about Pete. Mom at least promised to call Mrs. Ross. They wouldn’t listen to crazy stories about pictures of auras, and he knew they probably thought he was raving and hallucinating due to meteor rock induced confusion. He wasn’t so certain that he was in his right mind either. He started to think about running off to find Pete, but before the thought finished itself, he was asleep.
People began to whisper to each other, and he heard Pete’s name mentioned. Just a few moments ago, Erica Fox had been called to the office. He looked at the empty seat to the left and up a row where Pete usually sat, and felt a pang of worry for his friend. He wondered if his friend’s absence had anything to do with the people who were being called the office.
The loud speaker chimed a minute later. "Clark Kent, please report to the main office." He stiffened in his chair. Now he knew it was about Pete. His teacher waved at him to go.
"Clark, we need to know..." The Sheriff started.
"If you two don’t mind, I’d like to handle this!" A black woman said coming in from an adjoining office.
"Mrs. Ross!" Clark said relieved to see her. "Where’s Pete?"
She grabbed a hold of his arm, then pulled him over to sit with her on the office sofa. "That’s what I was hoping you could tell me." She said gently.
"Last night, your mom called me and told me what happened. She told me that you said maybe he might have gone to Erica Fox’s house. Neither one of us thought anything of it last night, but I do now." Mrs. Ross explained to him while she squeezed his arm. "Pete didn’t come home last night. He got to Erica’s house, but her father threw him out. After that we don’t know where he might have gone. We need to find him, Clark. I need you to tell me everything you can think of."
Her familiar mannerisms and gentle voice made him feel calm. "I’ll tell you as much as I can. It isn’t much though. We were working on our paper in my loft. I went in the house to get some coffee for us. When I came back he was acting real strange."
"What do you mean by strange, Clark?" The Sheriff cut in loudly.
Clark looked up at him, eyes wide. "He...he...was..." He trailed off, hunting for words to use to explain what’d happened. He’d tried to describe something to the Sheriff in the past, and hadn’t been clear. If Ethan had to ask another question to make an answer more clear, he’d ask it very loud.
"Clark, look at me." Mrs. Ross ordered in a ‘mom’ tone. "You tell me how my son was acting."
"It’s...hard to describe." He said, relieved that she was the one asking the questions. "He didn’t stick around long enough for me to really know what was different about him. I just know he was different, and something was wrong and his eyes were glossy." Clark said realizing it now that the words were out of his mouth. Now that he thought about it, he remembered Drew’s eyes had been glossy too. He saw something click behind Mrs. Ross’ eyes and he knew that she knew something.
"We have to find my son, Ethan!" Mrs. Ross said looking at the Sheriff.
"We’re doing our best." He said gently.
"I suppose you’re doing your best by standing there?" She demanded in a quiet voice and got to her feet. "My boy’s out there, and I think he’s got that virus that’s going around!"
"I’m not a doctor, Ethan, but I am a mother and I know sick when I see it. This has been going on too long! We should have done something about this weeks ago!" She gestured wildly and the volume of her voice grew. "My son’s probably got it and he could be laying in the middle of the road somewhere!"
"Mrs. Ross, the doctors are pretty sure..." Ethan started, and kept on talking. Mrs. Ross started to argue with him, and neither one would listen to each other.
Clark looked from one person to the other, listening to them argue about
something he knew nothing about. The Principal who’d been quiet until now tried to stop the argument, but neither Mrs. Ross or the Sheriff took notice of him.
It went on too long for Clark’s liking and he felt his stomach twist with
nausea. He had no idea what they were really arguing about, but didn’t think it was really about Pete. "What’re you talking about?" Clark asked and his voice broke. Youth, uncertainty, worry, and inexperience all made his cool go flying out the window. This was his fault. He shouldn’t have been so stupid to have walked into a nest of meteor rocks. He should have been paying attention. He shouldn’t have let Pete go like that. "How’s this helping Pete?"
Mrs. Ross and the Sheriff stopped instantly, and looked very ashamed of
themselves. The principal looked relieved. Mrs. Ross resumed her seat next to him on the sofa and put a comforting hand on his arm. "Clark, your dad told me that you ran after Pete all the way from Ester’s road to the woods on the other side of the corn field and he found you there. He said you were so tired, that he had to help you back to the truck." Mrs. Ross explained.
Clark nodded, glad he knew what near lie he’d have to use to keep himself
covered.
"You chased him all that way?" Mrs. Ross asked.
"Yes ma’am." He said with a nod.
"You know why he ran away from you?" She said looking at his face.
"No." Clark shook his head.
"He say anything to you about where he might have gone other than to Erica’s house?" She questioned.
"No ma’am." He said and couldn’t keep a tiny note of anxiousness out of his voice. "I’m sorry. Mrs. Ross, I’m sorry, I lost him and..."
"Clark!" She said and put her hands on either side of his face and made him look at her. "This is not your fault! I don’t want to hear you blame yourself about any of this."
Mrs. Ross was sincere and direct and for once he believed that something hadn’t been his fault.
She let go of him. "Go on back to class, okay?" She directed in a gentle tone.
He nodded, and left the office.
He didn’t mean to stare as he walked past them, but he couldn’t help it. Either by accident, or otherwise, he tightened his focus. The odd world of X-ray vision burst into clarity for him, and he could see the boy’s heart beating furiously in his chest. Clark knew very well what a good kiss could do to a person, but no kiss had ever made his heart beat like that! Maybe if the kid was running as fast as he possibly could, then his heart would beat that fast.
The couple detached themselves from each other, and Clark walked past them. He could feel eyes on the back of his head, and icy fingers roaming his spine. He dared a glance back and saw the girl leading the football player to a silver car.
Clark turned his back on them, and kept walking. He heard a giggle, and two car doors opened then closed. A few seconds later, the silver car passed him, but he could only see the football player in the driver’s seat. He didn’t dare to X-ray that car. The football player met his eyes, and the look Clark saw was a hungry one which he didn’t like. He looked away from the kid, but watched through peripheral vision as the car turned out of the parking lot. As soon as they were gone, Clark went to the right and started to run.
In a spiraling pattern, he ran and he scanned and hunted for any possible clue. There were hangouts both old and new which Pete might have gone too, but Clark had a hunch that his friend hadn’t gone to any of them. When his roaming circles intersected with those old places of childhood fun, he already knew Pete wouldn’t be there.
He found Pete at the edge of the gorge, which was a place he wouldn’t dare to approach. The area was so full of meteor fragments that he could feel the effects fifty feet away from it. He wanted to rush to help Pete, but there was no way he was going near that gorge. "PETE!" He called, and didn’t get an answer.
He hadn’t expected one though because he knew Pete was unconscious. He had to be, or he would be lying there like that. Clark X-rayed his friend and knew he was in trouble. His heart didn’t look like it was beating right, and he was curled up into a tight ball and shivering hard.
He rushed up a hill to the road to get someone’s attention. He’d have to use some silly fear of the ground collapsing as a reason for avoiding the gorge.
He waved down the first car that came along; Chloe’s. She gave him a very curious look but didn’t say anything. "Chloe, I found Pete!" He said and pointed over the field toward the gorge.
"Is he okay?" She asked frantically, climbed out of her car and looked in the direction Clark had pointed, but she couldn’t see anything. "I don’t see him."
"He’s by the gorge." Clark said looking backwards. "I think he’s unconscious."
Chloe reached into her car for her cell phone and called for help.
Chloe stared at Clark. She thought that she’d left him behind in a classroom! She’d heard his name called, but that’d been after she’d told Mrs. Ross everything she’d known, which was nothing. There was no way in hell Clark could have gotten to the gorge first! Even if he’d known exactly where Pete was to begin with, there was no way he could have gotten here first! No way!
She watched Mrs. Ross wrap Clark into one of her big warm hearted hugs, and Mr. Ross pounded his shoulder. How many times before today had Clark gotten somewhere on his feet faster than she had on four wheels, she wondered. How many times had things like this just slid away as something inconsequential? Chloe’s thoughts rambled on.
The Ross family wanted Clark to ride with them, and he shot a look in her
direction. Chloe nodded and went to her own car, thinking it was good that she didn’t need to think about where she was going. She could barely convince her brain to recall how to start the car.
She watched Clark climb into a car with one of Pete’s brothers while wondering; is Clark a meteor freak?
When the Ross’ cars moved down the road, she put her foot down on the gas and followed it. At least her brain let her control the car enough to follow the one in front of her.
"Over here." A weak voice said from the second bed.
Chloe walked past an occupied bed, around a dividing curtain and found Drew. Dark circles under his half open eyes gave away deep fatigue. An I.V. line disappeared under way too many blankets which were tucked right up to his neck, and he wore an oxygen tube under his nose.
"You...run the newspaper, don’t you?" he asked tiredly, and shivered.
"Yes, I do. Chloe Sullivan." She introduced herself while showing off a bright smile. "Can I talk to you?"
"Not much to tell." He said almost too quietly for her to hear. "Nothing worth an article."
"I didn’t actually come here to write a whole article on you." She told him. "Friend of mine was just brought in a little while ago. Pete Ross."
"Football player, isn’t he?" He asked after a second’s thought.
"Yeah." Chloe nodded.
"You were bored and decided to find someone to pick on?" He asked in a dull tone.
Chloe scowled, but shook her head and put a smile back on. "Okay. Yeah. I came here to pick on a guy in a hospital bed."
"Sorry. Guess I’m turning cynical." Drew said flatly and grinned
apologetically.
"S’okay. I know how boring it can be to have to lay in a hospital bed." She said with a small roll of her eyes. "Can I ask you some questions?"
He blinked and shook his head in confusion. "I thought..."
"I smell a story, Drew. Not about you, but you’re a part of it." Chloe said. "Can I interview you?"
"Sure." He told her with a grin.
Chloe took her tape recorder out and set it on the tray table in front of him.
"So...um...can you tell me what happened to you on the night of the Homecoming Dance?"
"Don’t really know." He squirmed under the blankets to sit up a little better. "I remember going to the dance, hitting my date in the head accidentally and then she stormed off, called me a Micro-chip chomping dork to one of her friends. I was just gonna leave, and I started to cross the parking lot. Then, I remember a car coming at me. When I woke up here, I thought it’d hit me or something."
"That’s not what happened though?" Chloe asked.
"No. That’s just what I remember." He sighed. "I have no idea what really went on after I saw that car. I think the whole night was a big joke no matter which way I look at it."
"How do you mean?"
"I kind of..." He looked away from Chloe. "...did some favors for Patty
Vandalla’s popularity club. In return for those favors, she got me a date for the Homecoming Dance."
Chloe’s brows climbed up her forehead toward her hairline. She waited for him to continue. "I don’t know how well you know those girls, but they can be really nasty. After I found out that I hadn’t gotten hit by a car, and people told me what I’d been doing, I thought one of them had slipped me something. Doctor told me I’m suffering a case of acute exhaustion, and that I overdosed on some heavy liquor. I’m still kind of confused."
"You remember dancing with Heather?" Chloe wondered.
"No. You were there. Did you see us?" He asked and shivered.
"Yeah. I saw you and I have pictures of..." She trailed off eyes opening wide, and a smile spread out on her face.
"Was I really dancing with her most of the night?"
"Yes, you were." She said as she dug through her bag. "You were quite good."
"I’ll believe you when I see for myself."
"Okay." She said pulled an envelop from her bag and took some pictures out. She set them down in front of him on the tray table.
He was very hesitant to take his shaking hands out from under the blankets to look at them. He didn’t even bother to pick them up, but spread them around the tray table. He slipped his hand back into the safe warmth of the blanket, and was noting the aura effect around him in all the pictures. "I know computers, Chloe. If you were gonna make fakes you should have done a better job."
"These are not fakes." She told him. "I know that aura thing looks strange, but I promise these pictures are not faked. You don’t have to believe these, because I can give you the negatives."
"I’ll take you up on that when I get out of here. I need proof to believe this one." He told her. "It’s not like me to dance. I have a serious klutz complex. I might try to dance with her, but I’d never dare to dip her like that." He said, and motioned at one picture with his chin. "I still think someone slipped me something."
"If someone slipped you something and the doctor knows about it, he might be keeping it from you for a reason." He gave her a confused look, which prompted Chloe to keep going. "You remember anything else? I mean...if you were drugged, you could have had some bizarre hallucinations."
"Bizarre isn’t a strong enough word for the dream I had."
"Tell me about it." Chloe insisted.
"It was so realistic is was scary. I was an old man and I was strapped into a bed. I kept trying to get a nurse to help me, and I could grunt and moan, but I couldn’t talk. I could see people’s faces, and smell the soap they’d used. There was a window and curtains and a whole shelf lined with wooden carvings. I had a television in front of me, and a remote control in my left hand and I remember watching MTV. There was something in my right hand, but I couldn’t open it to see what it was. The top of it looked like the head of a bird. It had blue gems of some kind for eyes and they were glowing. I’ll be convinced until I’m dead that someone either slipped me something, or I really was an old man."
"That’s really weird." Chloe said sounding quite happy.
"It’d be perfect Torch material if we could discount the drug theory." Drew said softly.
Chloe touched the stop button on her tape recorder. "I’ve got some idea about what kind of favors you must have been doing for Patty’s snob club. I know you’re a big-time hacker."
"If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you didn’t talk about Patty’s club." He groveled and sank down an inch into the bed.
"Okay. I won’t." She smiled. "Not what I’m after anyway. See, I’ve got a hunch that I’ve been following, and I came to see you to try to get a little further on it."
"Did you?" He wondered. "Get further into your hunch?"
"By a few steps." Chloe said, and grinned at him. "Something is going on here, and it’s really strange. You aren’t the only one I’ve gotten a snapshot of who had an aura like this." She said and tapped one of his pictures.
"I’m getting lost here, Chloe." He told her.
"I don’t have enough to explain anything yet, not even to myself. But, if I could break into...say a medical database, then I could get a lot more information. I could at least discount the possibility you were drugged."
"Do it then." He said wide eyed. "I really want to know what happened."
"Hacking medical databanks is pretty hard." She whispered to him.
"You need me to help you break in, right?" He asked.
"M-hm." She said with a grin.
"You’re right about it being hard." He told her. "It’s kind of illegal too."
Chloe gave him an innocent look.
"You’re not one of Patty’s club members, are you?" He wondered in a gentle tone.
"NO! No way in hell!" Chloe said with a shake of her head.
"Okay." He nodded. "It’s a deal. I show you how."
Chloe smiled happily and set her laptop up on the tray table in front of Drew.
When a doctor finally came into the area, they all got to their feet as though someone had blown a whistle and ordered them to stand. Clark wasn’t included in the conversation though, and neither were any of Pete’s siblings. Mr. and Mrs. Ross went down a hall with the doctor, and Clark fell back into his seat, bored. He was worried about Pete, but he could worry about him just as much at home while raiding the refrigerator.
Footsteps coming down the hall made his head lift. He saw Chloe and lifted his brows up at her. "Where’d you go?"
"I was talking to someone," She said walking closer, one hand holding the strap of her shoulder bag. "How’s Pete?"
The Ross’ heads turned, and brown eyes sparkled. None of them said anything, and looked to Clark to give the answer to Chloe whom they didn’t know that well. "Haven’t heard anything new," He said softly.
Chloe was at a loss for words, and she looked at the empty seat next to Clark, ready to plant herself in it.
"What is it?" Chloe asked, brows up, eyes bright.
He sat down on the bench, facing her and let his brows lift a half inch or so. "Mrs. Ross and the Sheriff mentioned something about a virus that’s going around."
"There’s always bugs going around, Clark." She said, dismissing his comment and started to get up.
"No, this is different." He said and put one hand on her shoulder to keep her on the bench while he thought about what to say.
"I’m listening." Chloe said impatiently looking up at him.
"Mrs. Ross was talking about it with the Sheriff," He explained to her. "The way they were talking about it and the look Ethan gave Mrs. Ross made me think she let something slip."
"You think there’s a virus going around that’s being kept quiet, and that Pete’s got it?" Chloe wondered.
Clark lifted his shoulders, shrugging and gave her an innocent look. "I don’t know what to think, but Mrs. Ross thinks Pete’s got it."
Chloe’s eyes were sparkling, and she nodded her head. "You want me to look into it?"
"If you could," He said with a grin, hand still on her shoulder.
"Okay." She gave him a direct look. "Did Mrs. Ross or the Sheriff happen to mention the name of this mysterious virus?"
"No," Clark said and met her eyes. "Last night Pete was in my barn. He was acting real strange. I think whatever’s wrong with him is the same for Steve Miller and Drew."
"Coincidentally, the very people who were glowing in their pictures." She said looking down at the floor, and then up at Clark. "If something’s going on, I’ll figure it out."
"Thanks." He said with a little grin, then kissed her cheek and got up. "I’m gonna stay with the Rosses. I’ll come find you later, okay?"
"Sure," She nodded and watched him go. She knew that Steve Miller was here in the hospital, so went to a nurse’s station to ask where his room was.
"I was just talking to Clark." She said softly and stepped closer to the bed. "He’s still unconscious." She motioned at Steve. "How’s he doing?"
"Starting to wake up." She said, and gave him a shake. "Steve?"
Steve opened his eyes, looked at Lana, and then he fell back under. Chloe watched Lana try again, with the same result. She wouldn’t be able to get anything out of Steve, but maybe she could get something out of Lana. "You wanna go get something to eat?"
Lana looked at Steve in the bed, and then back to Chloe. "I...kind of promised his mother I’d stay with him."
Chloe chewed at her lip, thinking of the best way to get Lana to talk to her. "He’ll be okay for ten minutes. I’ll buy. You talk?"
Lana raised her brows at Chloe, then got up from her chair. "I’ll be back in a few minutes." She told Steve, who blinked his eyes open. Chloe lead the way out.
"Okay." Chloe said and dug through her bag, for pictures which she handed to Lana. "First, I want you to look at these."
Lana took the photos, glanced at the first one, then up at Chloe, eyes wide.
"What is it?" Chloe asked with a little turn of her head.
"Not sure." Lana said.
Chloe scowled and let Lana look at the other picture. One of them was of Steve at the Talon, another one was of Drew at the dance. Both boys looked like they were glowing in those pictures. "I’ve got eleven other pictures of Drew from the night of the dance. In all of them he’s glowing blue like that, and it’s not a glitch."
"What’s going on?" Lana wondered and put the pictures down on the table.
"You’ll have to wait until I puzzle it out." Chloe said. "But I’ll let you in on things when I put it all together. Just a few minutes before I found you, I went to ask the Rosses. Clark pulled me aside and told me he overheard someone say something about a virus that’s going around but is being kept quiet."
"Virus?" Lana wondered.
"Whatever it is, they think Pete’s got it, and Clark thinks it’s the same thing Drew and Steve got. That’s pretty much all I know about it."
"Think they’re keeping it quiet to avoid a scare?" Lana whispered nervously.
"That’s what I’m trying to find out." Chloe said.
"You need me to help you?" Lana asked and sipped at her soda.
Chloe grinned and nodded. "I heard you were with Steve when he collapsed."
"I was." Lana admitted but didn’t look comfortable.
"Not to be nasty, Lana, but I wouldn’t expect you to have been within a mile of him after what happened at the Talon."
"I probably shouldn’t have been anywhere near him." Lana said looking down at the table. "It’s all so strange, I don’t even know what to think. When I got home from work, he was waiting for me. At first, I told him to stay away from me, but then he apologized for the whole thing at the Talon. He asked if we could talk somewhere and..."
Chloe waited, brows raised, grinning softly.
"He was acting really strange." Lana said.
Chloe smiled. "Strange how?"
"Not himself at all." She said with a shake of her head. "He said that after he left the Talon he’d been driving all over the county. That’s not like him. He’s not the joy riding type. He’s the walking type."
Chloe’s brows climbed her forehead. "Okay. So, how else was he acting weird?"
"Hard to define." Lana said looking away from Chloe. "He was using all kinds of slang that had to be at least fifty years old, like Jibberoney and square. His voice was different. His eyes looked different. He was just different. I don’t really know him all that well, but I know when something’s not right." Lana said as she motioned with one hand.
Chloe nodded. "So, what’d you guys talk about?"
"We didn’t talk very much." She said and looked away from Chloe. "He kissed me."
"Steve?" Chloe said and scowled, shook her head and then smiled brightly. "Steve Miller kissed you?"
Lana nodded her head just once. "Not like him is it?"
"You’re blushing." Chloe accused.
Lana didn’t move to hide her face and her blush got deeper. "Chloe, off the record, that was...it was..." She scowled. "I have ‘Never’ been kissed like that before."
"Like how?"
"Like unexplainable that’s how!" Lana whispered giving her a wide eyed look. "That was...it was...intense. He had me hypnotized into it. The kind of, pushy guy thing was going on. He wasn’t forcing me, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer either, and I got caught up in it and couldn’t make myself make him stop."
"You didn’t!" Chloe said, eyes wide as she smiled.
"No! No, we didn’t do..." Lana blushed hotly.
"Oh my gosh!" Chloe gasped. "You barely know him!"
Lana didn’t say a word, but gave Chloe an expression that suggested she was in shock and didn’t want to discuss what had happened.
"Lana!" She objected.
"Chloe, this is a little personal!" She said, brows raising, eyes full of nervousness.
Chloe nodded. "Okay. So what was it? Just a really crazy make out session?"
Lana closed her eyes, nodded her head. "Yeah."
"Any clothes come off?" Chloe teased.
"CHLOE!" Lana shrieked, blushed very hotly, but laughed at her.
"Okay, okay." Chloe surrendered. "But one of these days I’m gonna get it out of you."
"Just don’t try it anytime before graduation."
"Where’s the fun in waiting that long to find out?"
Lana looked away grinning, and shrugged a shoulder.
"Okay." Chloe said, seeing her friend’s discomfort. She changed the subject. "How about you tell me what happened when he was passing out?"
Lana gathered her thoughts for a few seconds. "While he was kissing me, I couldn’t help notice that he was out of breath, and his heart was going way to fast and he was all sweaty."
"Normal while kissing." Chloe teased.
Lana shook her head. "Having your heart rate go up a few notches while you make out with someone is normal. This was more like the kind of thing you’d expect to feel if you hugged someone who’d just run a marathon. I was thinking he was just way to excited. I didn’t say anything, but now I wished I had. He hunched over and grabbed his chest, and he kind of screamed and then he..."
Chloe waited.
"I’m not crazy, okay?" Lana said looking at her nervously.
"Okay." Chloe agreed with a smile. "You’re not crazy, and you’re talking to the girl who’s got a wall of weird."
Lana sighed relieved and nodded. "He fell to his knees, and then he screamed."
She inhaled deeply. "It was the most horrible scream I have ever heard. While he was screaming, he glowed for a couple seconds."
"He glowed?" Chloe asked with a scowl.
Lana tapped the picture of Steve that was still on the table. "Like that. He glowed."
Three cups of coffee later, Clark took a seat at the table, and she didn’t even notice him. "I knew you’d be somewhere madly hacking into this."
She looked up at him. "Clark! I didn’t even see you sit down!"
He grinned innocently at her.
"How’s Pete?"
"He’s still out." Clark told her.
"You get to see him?"
"Family only." He shook his head. "You find out anything about that virus?"
"Nothing about that, but I do know why Mrs. Ross is suspicious of one." She said softly and motioned at Clark to come and have a look. He pulled his chair closer so he could see the screen of her laptop.
"I started out looking at what’s in common between Drew, Steven, and Pete." She said. "All three of them, teenage boys, acted weird for a few hours, and then they collapsed. In Drew’s case, he drank about a quart of hard liquor, possibly more. Steve took four valum on top of a very strong cup of chamomile tea. Pete had nothing in his system. There’s little notes in all three cases that the doctor suspected all three of them had gone into extreme overdrive, and that they might have had an attack of Angina which caused them to collapse. There’s no real evidence to support that theory though."
"What’s Angina?" Clark wondered.
"In the case of these three guys it’s like their hearts got overworked and spazzed out because of it. Angina’s hard to detect unless some serious testing is done. Once the attack is over anyway." Chloe explained.
"That’s scary." Clark said. "What else you got?"
"I found more cases that match up with Drew’s almost flawlessly. All the
victims of this are male, between the ages of fourteen and thirty. All of them acted weird for a few hours. Most of the them had some kind of tranquilizing substance in their systems. A few of them did have actual verified attacks of Angina. The ones who were seen passing out, were always grabbing at their chests. They were all unconscious from anywhere between ten and forty-eight hours. Aside from the effects of whatever drugs they’d taken, they suffered symptoms of extreme exhaustion when they woke up. It varies from case to case, but most of them had the inability to maintain their body heat, shaking muscles and listlessness. A few of them were so bad off they couldn’t even contain their bodily functions."
Until Clark had heard the part about the victims losing control over their bodily functions, he’d been interested. Now, he looked scared to death.
"That kind of exhaustion is very rare." Chloe said. "You’d have to really push yourself to get that tired. One doctor made a note that this is the kind of exhaustion women feel after they give birth."
Clark’s eyes got round. "What’s this all lead up to, Chloe?"
"I have no idea whatsoever." She shrugged.
"You gotta have a hunch." Clark half begged.
"I have a hunch that this isn’t a virus." She told him.
"Chloe, you’re not a doctor." He informed with a wry expression.
"No, but I am capable of logic. If this was a virus, you’d have more than one victim at a time. This has been going on for at least four months that I know of, and there’s never been more than one case of it reported at a time."
"But Pete and Drew..."
"I mean that no one started at about the same time." Chloe said and motioned at her computer. "There’s something else, but I don’t know if it means anything. Drew told me he had a very realistic dream that he was an old man stuck in a hospital bed."
"Probably just dreaming while he’s half awake."
"There’s notes for three other victims of this thing that they also dreamed they were old men." Chloe said reading the laptop screen.
"This sounds way out there." Clark commented.
"This is Smallville, Clark." She said looking up at him, brows raised.
He grinned to that. "You got any theories?"
"Not really. You?"
"Maybe they’re being possessed." Clark joked.
"Sounds ridiculous, but I’m willing to go along with it." Chloe said seriously.
"If there’s a virus of some kind going around, Lex might know something." Clark said softly. "He always knows it when something’s being covered up."
Chloe blinked at him. "If he did know, you think he’d tell you?"
"No, but it’s worth a shot." He told her, picked up the two pictures of the aura inflicted Drew and Steve. "Borrow these?"
"Yeah." Chloe said.
"I’m gonna head for his place." Clark said and got up.
"Call me, let me know, okay?"
"Sure." He told her, and walked out of the cafeteria. Chloe saved the file she was working on, and tucked all her things back into her bag.
She almost caught up to Clark. She almost told him to wait up and she’d drive him over to Lex’s place. He was too far off though, and she didn’t want to shout in a hospital corridor. She saw him go out the door, and got to it just before it closed completely. When she walked out into the almost empty parking lot, Clark was nowhere to be found.
There was nowhere he could have gone, and nothing he could have been hiding behind. There were a half dozen cars in the lot, a field, and nothing to block her view of him. Either he’d disappeared into thin air or he was on the roof. "What the hell?" Chloe wondered.
Lex was waiting for him in the seat on the other side. "Mr. Louvain, I didn’t expect to see you so soon." He got up from his desk chair and went to the bar. "Drink?"
"Scotch." Louvain said and stood stiffly.
Lex smirked, poured the drink and handed it over. "What’d you find?"
"I got proof that Metropolis United Charities was a fake agency," he said and paced a few steps. "and I went through the local records. I figured Kent would probably turn out to be the result of a very messy affair."
"Did he?" Lex smirked. Louvain was quiet. "Mr. Louvain?" Lex scowled and straightened his spine.
Louvain guzzled down his drink, and then dropped a file folder on Lex’s desktop, set the glass down, empty. "That’s what I dug up so far out of local archives. It’s the only thing I could find in this town that could relate." He studied Lex a minute, and saw a kid. A rich kid, but still a kid. "Mr. Luthor, if what I found is what you’re looking for, it might be best if you leave it alone. Digging in any deeper could put that kid in danger. If he is who I think he is..."
"Why? Who is he?" Lex asked, but didn’t pick up the file folder.
"He’s a kid. A nobody." Louvain said softly as he made a dismissing motion with one hand.
Lex narrowed his eyes at the man. "Something you’re not telling me, Mr.
Louvain?"
Louvain’s jaw twisted, and he stood for a moment thinking, and motioned at the file. "It’s all there. I have two more sources to check for in this town. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions, and keep mine to myself."
"That’s fair enough for the time being, Mr. Louvain, but I think there’s more, and I want the rest of it, whatever it might be," Lex said. He walked closer to Louvain and took a yellow envelope out of his pocket. "Expense money."
Louvain wanted off this case already, but he needed the money, and Luthor was loaded. What could it hurt to get him some more newspaper clippings or copies of old police reports? He sighed and took the envelope, then tucked it into the inner pocket of his suit-coat. "You’re the type who’d open Pandora’s box even if you knew what was in it."
"Is that a threat?" Lex asked. His voice was dark, and his expression was dangerous.
"No. It’s a warning," Louvain said calmly and looked Lex in the eye. Looks didn’t scare him, not even from a guy like Luthor. "You’re messing with the life of a minor. I can be careful. I can do my best to make sure no one knows I’m looking into this, but not everything goes unnoticed. We dig too much and the wrong person could get a whiff of what’s being uncovered. I wouldn’t want to see that kid back where I think he started from."
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Lex asked, relaxing his posture, but his guard had gone up long ago.
"It’s in the file. You figure it out." Louvain told him, and walked out of the office in a hurry.
The intercom beeped. "Sir, Master Clark is..." Lex closed the file. "...on his way to your office," his Butler’s voice said.
Lex tucked the file into a drawer and locked it. For the first time since he’d met Clark, he wouldn’t be delighted to see him.
His butler came in a moment later behind Clark bearing a very heavy tray of ‘healthy’ snacks and chocolate milk. Lex decided to have some chocolate milk for a change while he listened to what his friend had to tell him.
"...and then that dream that Drew had." Clark said from his seat on the sofa. "Chloe said a few other people had that same dream with the same symptoms."
"Interesting story." Lex said with a humored smirk. "Why are you telling me though?"
"Hoping you could shed a little light on it." Clark said hopefully.
Lex walked around the pool table and took a seat in a chair facing Clark. He thought that Clark must have been able to sense something from Drew at the Talonyesterday, just as he’d sensed it. He knew that his friend didn't like to admit to anything. He didn’t need Clark to admit to anything--not about this. Perceptive abilities of the paranormal were extremely rare, but they did exist. Lex knew that from his own experiences.
About a year ago he’d stopped his car on a dark road and he’d seen a kid running out of a cornfield. He could barely see the boy’s face, but the feeling of recognition had been overwhelmingly eerie. That kid had run away and disappeared into the darkness. Lex still wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen anyone at all, or if the entire thing had been an apparition of some kind. He’d been prepared to leave, but then he’d heard someone call out for help. It’d only been a soft whispering in his ears, but he’d felt the intense anguish of the person who’d been calling for him. He’d gone in search of the source of that call, and he’d found Clark tied to a scarecrow’s pole.
He’d had other experiences similar to that one, and didn’t like to admit to anyone he had a sixth sense at all. He knew from his own experiences why people kept the knowledge of that particular ability to themselves. It had a lot to do with words like, ‘freak’ and ‘nutcase.’ He’d learned a long time ago to never mention to people that he could ‘sense’ when someone was in pain, or that a room was haunted, or that he felt cold because something ‘not human’ was nearby.
"I’m sure there’s thousands of anecdotes and legends about wandering spirits, out of body experiences, and possessions woven into the history of the world. It’s not the kind of thing they leave in high-school history books." He lectured dully to Clark.
"You think this thing is a ghost?" Clark asked, eyes wide.
"Just a hypothesis," Lex said and leaned back in his chair. "What do you think it is?"
Clark shrugged one shoulder. "Not sure. How could I even prove such a thing?"
"Divination rod?" Lex smirked.
Clark rolled his eyes. "I thought you’d know something about this whole thing."
"Not a subject I ever got around to researching," Lex said, but that wasn’t quite the truth. He really hadn’t ever wanted to research the subject.
"You? Not able to quote at least one philosopher about a whole subject!"
Clark’s eyes got big. "For you, that’s weird."
Lex smirked again. "I don’t know anything about bovine digestion either, and never wanted to. But I still make use of the by-product." Clark chuckled.
Lex glanced at the clock and was sorry to see the time had gone by way to fast. "Almost your curfew. You better go."
Clark scowled a little, but looked at the clock. He got to his feet and grabbed his backpack.
"Need a ride?"
"Nah." Clark said and went out the office door.
A teenage girl had found a little boy on the edge of Hob’s pond and called for help. The Sheriff had gone to investigate, and had found a very thin and badly bruised, male Caucasian child. He’d been about three years old, and had a dark hair color. The Sheriff had thought the child was dead, and he’d called an ambulance to verify his theory, and forensics people to have a look. While waiting, the Sheriff had taken a few pictures of the child’s body.
But no one else had ever gotten a chance to see anything. The meteor shower took place not long before the ambulance had been due to arrive. A particularly large meteor had struck that very location and it was presumed that the body had been destroyed by the impact.
He went to the next item in the file, which was the report done by the Sheriff. There was a much more detailed description of the child’s condition than there had been in the paper. As Lex read through it, he knew there could not have been any doubt in the mind of the Sheriff that the child had been dead.
He picked up the next paper, which was a coroner’s report on the photos the Sheriff had taken of the scene in question. There was no certificate of death, and no identity could have been made from the pictures. No theories had even been made on a possible cause of death. The coroner had simply listed out the obvious injuries, and described the child’s most obvious characteristics such as weight and possible age. Lex read through the autopsy report, wondering at the meanings of the medical terms and phrases used to describe the child’s condition.
He turned the page and found a photo copy of one of the photos the Sheriff had taken of the child. There were more pictures behind the first, but he’d seen enough already. He hadn’t expected it to be pretty. The image of the naked child he saw was so gruesome he had to fight to keep his coffee inside of himself.
"What the hell does this have to do with Clark?" He hissed and looked away from the picture.
The words of the detective he’d hired came back to haunt him. "I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions, and keep mine to myself."
Lex went back to the coroner’s report, placing it safely over top of the color photo copies he did not want to look at. Louvain hadn’t brought this without a reason. He had to be good to have gotten these papers. He must have broken into the local morgue offices to get them. He wouldn’t have gone to that trouble if he hadn’t thought it was worth something.
He couldn’t get any more information from the papers in the file. The rest of it would be in books, which he happened to have here in his office. He wanted to know what the long term effects of physical child abuse were. He roamed through his library, located some medical books and brought them back to his desk.
Time had given him a chance to brace himself and get used to looking more
carefully at the morbid pictures of the child from Hob’s pond. Notes from the coroner, and his own research had drawn him to the conclusion that the child had been horribly beaten not just once, but many times before he’d finally been found in the woods.
He’d also concluded that it was possible the boy may not have been dead. The body looked terrible, but there was no sign of decay. There were no wounds visible in the photos that looked obviously fatal. He wondered; could that child have been Clark?
The door opened and his butler walked stiffly into the office. "Master Lex. I am surprised to see you at this hour, sir."
"Morning Wil." Lex said.
William went around the room, collecting used coffee cups from the end tables, suit jacket, shirt, tie and loafers from the floor. "Can I get...?"
"Coffee." Lex interrupted without looking up from his reading material.
"Yes sir," the butler said patiently and walked out of the room carrying the mess away with him.
Lex went back to his laptop and started to type out an E-mail. Something made him look up a moment later. He felt cold and focused on the empty space in front of the door. No one was there, but it felt like someone was looking straight at him. Fear rushed through him, and the groggy fog of sleep fell away. His heart thundered and all the coffee he’d guzzled down was swirling around inside of him.
Something cold had taken the place of the warm air in his office, and now he was shivering. There was something there, and his eyes followed a blot of air which shimmered so faintly that he wasn’t sure if he really was seeing anything at all. He thought it was more like a feeling, than an image which he followed. It meandered over his head and just a few inches below the ceiling. It wanted him, he thought.
THUMP!
Lex jumped in his seat, and looked out of the open doorway at the maid. "Mrs. Kifler!"
"Lord bless you this good morning which He has granted to us, Mr. Luthor," she said and avoided looking at him.
Lex suspected she was startled to see him there at this hour, and was probably even more thrown off by his appearance. He looked around for his shirt, and then remembered his butler had carried it away. Mrs. Kifler wouldn’t say so, but she probably thought he was committing some heinous sin by sitting in his own private sanctuary naked from the waist up. If he wasn’t her boss, she’d probably suggest he should suffer through some horrible penance.
Mrs. Kifler recovered the vacuum cleaner which she’d dropped. "Cleanliness is that which the Lord loves. I’ll be back another time to clean your office." She was gone before he thought of a response. Mrs. Kifler was one of the few people who could leave him speechless.
Something moved, and he saw it in his peripheral vision. When he looked
straight at it, he couldn’t see it anymore, but it was still there. It was rushing toward him, and he tried to vacate his desk chair and run from a thing that looked at him without real eyes.
He got halfway across the room to the door, and felt ice shooting through his body, thrusting through the middle of his spine and spreading upwards to his skull. There was a sensation of air hissing into his very bones. He let out a cry of anguish, and fell forward onto the carpet.
"Lex Luthor." He smiled very happily, and he liked what he was looking at. The kid was bald, but he was good looking and rich. That meant he could get certain things very easily. "This should be a lot of fun."
A rattling sound disturbed him, and he turned to see a butler in the doorway, carrying a fancy coffee mug on a silver tray. "Your coffee, sir," the butler said.
"Nevermind," Lex said and looked back at himself in the mirror.
"Sir?" He questioned in a bewildered tone, and stopped in his tracks.
Lex ignored him and went to the wet bar on the other side of the room, lifted a topper off a crystal bottle and sniffed the contents. Whatever it was, it was strong. He poured himself a double shot, and gulped it down. "Do I have a girlfriend?" he asked the butler.
The coffee cup rattled on the tray. "Not that I am aware of, sir."
"Pity," He said and sighed. "How about a Delorean? Do I have one of those?"
The bewildered man gaped at him for a second before answering. "Yes sir."
"Get it ready and get me some clothes." Lex said with a dark smirk and a wave.
"Yes sir," the butler said and walked off.
Lex put the glass down, picked up the crystal bottle and gulped down a good quantity of liquor. He gasped and wiped his mouth and looked around the room.
There was a wallet and keys and a watch on the desk which was overloaded with books and a few stray papers. Carrying the liquor bottle with him, he went to the desk and reached for the wallet. But something else caught his attention. There were color pictures of a little boy laying in the woods, and after taking a closer look, he flopped into the desk seat and shook his head.
"Crazy Jibberoney," he hissed, and shoved all the papers into the file folder, prepared to destroy it all. But it occurred to him that Luthor would only get more intrigued. He found a pen in the drawer and scribbled a message on the inside of the file folder. The pen dropped from his fingers, and he closed the file, hid it in a desk drawer underneath a stack of other papers and locked it.
The butler walked in the room carrying a dark suit on a hanger. Lex looked up at him, eyebrows rose and then went down into a scowl. "Just back up with that thing, I’m not going to a funeral."
William’s voice was a note to high as he tried to answer. "But sir, this is your usual office..."
"I’m not going to the office." Lex said smirking.
"Might I inquire sir," William asked and folded the suit over his arm. "Where you are going?"
"Shopping, Alfred." Lex grinned and leaned back in his desk chair.
The butler gave him a startled look. His name was obviously not Alfred, but Lex didn’t care to ask him what it was. "Shopping. Of course, sir. I shall fetch something appropriate for you."
"Something that isn’t black and isn’t a suit." Lex said and guzzled down more booze.
"Yes sir." The butler said miserably and walked out of the room.
Lex Luthor stepped out of the car. He was wearing leather boots, very tight faded jeans, a white T-shirt, a faded denim jacket, dark glasses and a tiny smile. Women of all ages who noticed him stared helplessly. They stared a little harder when he stretched upwards to reach the door. It seemed he stretched too far and lingered in that pose. Some smooth and lean abdominal flesh complete with a view of his naval was seen as the T-shirt slipped upwards and waist band of jeans slipped down just a bit.
The image of him was like something that should have been on a poster. Lex knew it and grinned back at women who were watching him. He slammed the car door shut with a flair of masculine grace. More than one woman stared and gawked at him while he made his way from car to mall doors.
The girl turned around and gave him a look of utter shock. "Get a job, loser!"
"I don’t need a job. I got millions. Anything you want? Coffee? Lunch? Diamond tiara?" He smiled at her.
She gave him a dark look, swore at him and went on her way. Lex shrugged and kept on walking around through the mall. He made sure to flirt with all the pretty young women he saw. One of the women he saw happened to be a third grade teacher, and she was leading her class toward an educational store.
He pushed his way into the scene using his famous and extraordinary name and wealth and bought them all ice-cream. Twenty-nine eight year old kids loved him, but one pretty school teacher was anything but receptive.
He moved on--or rather, limped onwards because that cute little teacher had kicked him in the knee. Undaunted, he found a young saleswoman to pick on and bought sixty of the best televisions in the store from her. For that, she gave him the courtesy of not injuring him--badly. One lovely lady in denim and white cotton walked into a department store, and he just had to follow her.
"Get AWAY from me, you slimy little spaz!" she grouched.
"Nothing little about me, sweetheart." He said with a grin. Unfortunately for him, the woman had a can of pepper spray. He spent some time in the nearest men’s room soaking his face in cold water.
He went into a store which specialized in mattresses, put in an order for three hundred beds, and then spotted a lovely lady sitting down on a mattress. He offered her a Mercedes if she’d help him test the new Seally pillow top mattress. He earned a very painful bruise in the vicinity of his appendix for that omment. It was a good thing he’d tried to move, or her fist would have made contact with a much more sensitive portion of his anatomy.
He made the horrible mistake of flirting with a woman who was beyond religious. She followed him around the mall for fifteen minutes, quoted scriptures at him and demanded he repent his sins and throw himself into the merciful hands of the lord. I’d much rather be in your hands." He told her and tried to kiss her knuckles. She hit him upside his head with her bible so hard, he almost passed out.
"You can sense me, can’t you?" Lex asked watching his expression.
"What are you?" The kid asked, sounding and looking apprehensive.
"Nothing you need to be afraid of. I’m not out to hurt anyone, if that’s what you want to know," he said softly.
"What do you want?" The kid demanded nervously.
"What does anyone want?" Lex asked the young man.
The stared at him with direct anger, but didn’t answer.
"What’s your name?" He asked using the tone a friendly teacher reserved for a shy first grader.
"Clark." The boy said hesitantly.
Now it was Lex’s turn to feel a jolt of surprise. Was this kid the one from that folder in Luthor’s office? These two knew each other, and yet Luthor was investigating this kid! "Clark Kent?" He nodded, eyes wide.
Lex turned his head, and wondered if he should spill the information about the file he’d seen in Luthor’s office. It was possible the kid knew about it already, and it wasn’t his place to say such a thing anyway. He spotted a bar/restaurant. "Hungry?"
"No." Clark said sounding annoyed.
"I am." Lex said and headed for the restaurant. He wasn’t really hungry at all. Actually, he wanted a drink.
"Wait!" Clark objected. When Lex didn’t stop, he followed him.
"Pop?" Clark asked him.
"Before your time. Soda used to be called pop." Lex explained and waved his hand to dismiss the menu the waitress tried to put down in front of him. She gave it to Clark instead and then walked off.
"Oh," Clark said, ignored the menu. He scowled at Lex from his side of the table. "What...exactly are you?"
"I’m a person." He said defensively.
"Not what I mean," Clark shot back.
"I know what you meant, and I gave you the answer to that question. What do you want me to say?" He asked testily.
"You’re some kind of a ghost that goes around possessing people." He accused.
Lex saw a glass in the hand of the waitress as she was setting it down on the table. He snatched it, guzzled it down, then set it back on her tray. "Keep ‘em coming, sweetheart!" He said flashing a grin at her.
She smiled back and blushed, put Clark’s soda down, and walked away quickly.
Clark looked at the glass full of cherry soda. Apparently, this version of Lex thought he was six. "I don’t understand."
"You’re a baby. How can you understand?"
Or maybe he thought he was two, Clark thought. "Explain it to me then."
"Don’t want to," he said in a dark tone.
"Tell me about the others. Pete, and Drew and Steve, and the football player, and now Lex. You possessed them all. Why?"
"Why not?" Lex asked.
Clark let out a frustrated sigh. "Are you gonna give me any answers at all?"
Another drink arrived, and Lex brought it to his lips. Clark reached across the table and looked pained to touch Lex, but he did, and he took the drink and set it down on the table. "No more!" he said to the
waitress. She rushed off.
Lex’s wrist was still in Clark’s grasp and he could feel his speeding pulse under his fingers. "Your heart."
Lex pulled his arm away. "S’why I drink and pop pills. Slows the heart rate down."
Clark let go of his wrist and sat back in his seat. He stared at Lex’s chest, looked at his heart through a T-shirt and skin and muscle, and watched it beat far too fast. That couldn’t be good. Lex was healthy, but no man could take that kind of stress for long. "Let him go. You’re killing him."
Lex picked the drink up off the table, and guzzled it down. Clark didn’t bother to stop him this time. He shot a look of annoyance at the waitress who was already bringing another one.
"You gonna order something or not?" Lex asked and motioned at the menus.
"Why are you possessing people?" Clark insisted.
The waitress set another drink down in front of Lex. "How about you just bring me the bottle, sweetheart?"
She shook her head, and was about to say something, but Lex slipped a one
hundred dollar bill into her hand. Clark glared at him. "No. I’m not gonna let you kill him by..."
The poor waitress thought Clark was talking to her, and she rushed away,
frightened.
"Kid." Lex said in a tone of annoyance. He pulled money out of his pocket, didn’t even count it and put it in Clark’s hand. "Go play some pinball or something."
Clark scowled and threw the money back at him. Twenty dollar bills fluttered all around Lex, who picked up what was in his reach. He leaned over the table and shoved it into the pocket of Clark’s shirt. "Go find yourself a girl and take her to see a film."
Clark glared at him. "You’re not getting rid of me."
The waitress brought a bottle, hiding it nervously under her apron. She set it down in front of Lex and then rushed away before she could be caught. Clark grabbed the bottle before Lex could.
"Gimme that, boy!" He demanded and leaned up and over to the table to reach for it.
Clark held the bottle just out of Lex’s reach. "I want answers."
"Fine." He settled in the booth seat. "I’m an old fart in a hospital and there’s nothing left of me. I can leave my body, and use someone else’s for a little while. So, I do. Now gimme that!" He said and reached for the bottle.
Clark pulled the bottle further away from Lex. "They all pass out when you’re done with them. They all go unconscious and they’re so tired and exhausted that it takes them a whole week to recover. You said before you weren’t out to hurt anyone, but you are hurting people." Clark objected.
"Little time in bed never hurt anybody." He grouched and stared at the liquor bottle.
"Why don’t you just pick one person or something?"
"I can’t. Possession takes a lot of energy out of my host." He said, patted his chest. "There comes a point when I have to leave. Stronger a body is, the longer I can stay. When their ticker gets overloaded, that’s my cue to leave."
"So you drink and take tranquilizers to make it slow down so you can stay
longer?" Clark asked, amazed.
"Right." Lex said, leaned forward and snatched the bottle from Clark’s hand, guzzled down the liquor, and gasped.
"Angina. That’s an angina attack." Clark said softly. "Or at least that’s what the doctor’s think it is."
Lex laughed. "What do you know about angina, boy?"
"This isn’t a health class!" Clark slammed a fist down on the table just hard enough to make Lex jump. "Let my friend go. You’re hurting him!"
"I won’t keep him forever, boy. I’m just out having a day, walking around in the shoes of a billionaire. Wouldn’t you like to be here?"
"Wanting to do it, and doing it are two different things. What you’re doing is stealing," Clark said directly.
"I’m not stealing nothing!" He insisted and drank more liquor.
"You’re stealing a day out of Lex’s life." He told him. "Just tell me why? What reason could you possibly have for going around possessing people and making them sick?"
"Just wanted to have a few last flings before I die. That’s all." He told him and picked at the label on the liquor bottle. "All I can do in my own body is lay there and watch television."
"Flings?" Clark wondered, gaping at him. "You mean, you’re possessing people so you can have sex?"
"Exactly," Lex said with a smirk.
"Have you broken anyone’s virginity?" Clark asked, quite innocent of the true meaning of his words, or the impact they caused.
Lex heard it differently. The wise man who occupied his body heard ‘Have you stolen anyone’s first time from them? Have you taken a moment they can never get back?’ He glared at the kid. The young eyes in Lex’s face turned dark and sparkled with age and sorrow, and anger. "Finish yer soda boy, and go. I’m done with you."
"The only way you’re getting rid of me, is if you let Lex go." Lex looked back at Clark and grinned. He didn’t like that look at all, and sank an inch in his seat.
"Finally. There you are!" Chloe said, and spotted Lex in his bad boy outfit. She smiled toothily and batted her eyelashes at the young billionaire. "WOW!"
"Chloe!" Clark hissed a complaint.
"I can look!" She objected and took her camera out.
"I don’t think you really need to bother with that." Clark told her.
"Maybe I just want to," she said, and noticed that the image of Lex in her digital camera’s screen was glowing blue. She snapped a few photos. "Since they never remember anything after, I guarantee he’ll want to see this. Least he’ll get to see for himself why he should wear jeans more often."
"Chloe!" Clark complained.
She smiled mischievously. "Sorry. I am after all a journalist. I have no control."
"I don’t think he does either. He’s been flirting with everything female he gets within a mile of, and he’s gotten a lot of attention." He motioned at a group of curious people, security guards, and a couple of people who looked like newspaper reporters. They were all standing in the mall’s main hall, and just outside of the store they were in.
Chloe looked away from her camera, to look up at the gathering. "How long have they..."
"Since before I got here," Clark said and turned back to check on the young billionaire. "Lex...or whoever he is, told me he’s an old man. And he goes around possessing people so he can....so he can..."
"What?" Chloe asked looking up at him curiously.
"So that he can have sex a few last times before he dies." Clark sighed and rolled his eyes.
Chloe gaped, then looked over at Lex who was madly flirting with a saleswoman. "As ridiculous as that sounds, I guess I have to believe you."
Clark explained the rest to her, but it didn’t seem like she was paying
attention. She aimed her camera at Lex every so often and snapped photos of him.
"Would you stop that!" Clark complained and made a reach for her camera.
"Oh, come on, Clark!" She said pulling it away protectively, grinned and
snapped another shot.
Lex finally got kicked in the ankle, and so he gave up on the woman he’d been flirting with, and went on the move again. He left the store, and the two teens, the mall guards and the newspaper people followed.
Lex passed by a young woman walking in the opposite direction. He turned around and flirted openly, then rudely, and then grabbed the girl’s hand to stop her from walking off. Clark didn’t bother to stop it. The woman slapped Lex across the mouth, and stormed off. "Wow! What a woman!" Lex said with a goofy smile.
He grinned at her, and then glanced around casually, and walked away. She followed him all around the men’s department, and into the private back corner without even realizing what she was doing. He lead her right into a corner full of male mannequins in underwear and then she lost track of him.
"What’s your name, beautiful?" Lex asked from about three inches behind her head. She spun, and gave a tiny shriek of surprise. Lex caught a hold of her. "You’ve been following me," he said in a smooth tone. "You’re a great improvement on that mopey kid. So what’s your name?"
"Chloe Sullivan, Torch reporter." She said and decided maybe she’d not done such a smart thing by following him there.
Lex looked at her directly, and his eyes turned soft and warm.
Chloe couldn’t help but stare back. "Ummm...Lex... maybe we should go find..."
Lex reached for her hand, and kissed her fingers one at a time while watching her eyes, and then pulled her closer...and closer.
"Ohhh-uhhh..." Chloe tried to wriggle away, but his grip was firm. Then, she stared into a pair of bright eyes three inches from hers and felt immobilized.
Lex’s arms went around her, and his lips pressed to hers. She tried to push him away, but after a few seconds worth of ‘that’ kissing, she lost her will to fight. It was a kiss like none she’d ever had before. Experienced motions and passion like that was alien to her. The kiss lacked all the familiar sweet but innocent awkwardness of kissing Clark or some other boy her own age. That in itself was too much, and she didn’t want to stop.
"mmmm..." She moaned, and that was all she could do. She wondered if maybe Lex was controlling her mind somehow to get her to acquiesce so easily. She could feel him breathing, and she could smell ‘man.’ This was what Lana had been talking about. Lana hadn’t kissed Steven Miller, she’d kissed this person, and he knew very well how to give a kiss!
When the kiss broke, she gasped and felt limp and exhausted and all she wanted was for Lex to pick her up and carry her away. The palm of his hand swept her hair from her face. "Chloe Sullivan, you’re beautiful." He whispered, and held her hand directly in her line of vision and kissed all her fingers again. This time she watched him do it and was fascinated by it. "I will give you anything your heart desires if you would come away with me to my castle right now."
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!" Clark said testily from behind Lex and startled him.
Chloe squeaked as she escaped easily and went to hide behind Clark. If that man looked at her again with those eyes, there was no telling what he might get her to do.
"I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone," Clark growled.
"Oh, lighten up, kid!" Lex said angrily. "Like I said before, I don’t wanna hurt no one. I just want to..."
"Shut up!" Clark ordered. "I’ve had enough of this!"
"Whoah!" Lex tried to back away from Clark, but he was too slow.
"CLARK!" Chloe squealed in surprise.
Clark picked Lex up and threw him over his shoulders.
"HEY!" Lex howled angrily and struggled uselessly. "PUT ME DOWN!"
"No!" Clark said and carried him easily toward the store’s exit.
"YOU CRAZY JIBBERONEY! PUT ME DOWN!" He howled and fought viciously to break free.
"No. I’m talking you to a hospital." Clark said in a dull tone and carried him away. "Or maybe a church to get an exorcism."
Lex kicked and punched madly at the kid, but it was useless. "HELP! SECURITY! I’M BEING KIDNAPPED!"
A television camera looked on as Lex Luthor was bodily carried out of the
department store. Three security men and a group of gawkers stared with mouths open as Lex screamed and fought to get free from Clark. No one stopped him.
"DAMMIT, LET ME GO YOU UGLY JIBBERONY!" Lex screamed and pummeled at Clark’s back with his free fist, but the big dope didn’t even take notice.
"This way," Chloe said and lead Clark around the side of the mall. She
listened to Lex’s sputtering rage and walked as fast as she could walk, but wasn’t going nearly fast enough to match Clark’s impossible stride.
Lex suddenly quit howling and punching and stiffened over Clark’s shoulders. "Lex?" Clark questioned.
Lex gasped for breathe and held back sounds of pain, but was not succeeding. Chloe, saw the look of agony on his face, and grabbed Clark’s arm to stop him. "Think you better put him down." She said worriedly and urged Clark to follow her
~*~
There were about thirty teenagers making out and getting drunk in the barn. Drew and Heather were off in a quiet corner by themselves. They were hidden behind bales of hay in the loft. Their bodies were pillowed by a thick layer of hay, and an empty bottle stood in a corner. Drew didn’t seem to be the least bit drunk though. He was doing an excellent job of kissing Heather’s lips, and neck.
~*~
A sickly old man opened his tired eyes, and let out a sound of utter
disappointment. He was strapped to a hospital bed, wearing an I.V. and an oxygen mask. In his right hand, he clutched at an object that glowed a soft shade of blue, then faded. The object was practically buried in his old fist. All that could be seen of it was the head of a carved wooden bird, which had a pair of inset blue gemstone eyes.
~*~ SUNDAY AFTERNOON ~*~
Chloe walked into the Talon, and found it was a lot busier than usual for a Sunday. The whole place was full of murmuring voices, occasional shrieks of some little kids, and plates and spoons clicking together. Almost every table was occupied and it looked like Lana had called all her waitresses to come to work. She found Clark in the usual booth and settled into the seat opposite from him and matched his bright eyed greeting with an even brighter smile.
"Kind of surprised me when you asked him to go with you." Clark said with a teasing grin. He ripped five sugar packets open and dumped them into his cappuccino. Chloe noticed it and made a face at him.
~*~
"I’m fine, Miss Lana." Steve said and leaned against the counter.
~*~
Lex didn’t pick up his coffee cup because he feared he’d drop it. Steve wasn’t close to him anymore, but he still felt chilly and nervous.
~*~
"Steve, I can’t go with you!" Lana said, loud enough for half the people in the coffee shop to hear it, then tried to tug her arm out of his grip. She failed. "Let go of me!"
~*~
"Lex! Move!" Clark ordered and pushed him.
~*~
"Steve, let me go or else!" Lana growled as she struggled to get her wrists out of his grasping hands.
~*~
Lex got up too fast, startled by Clark’s tone. His coffee spoon went to the floor and clattered on the tile. Clark went past him too fast and almost knocked him over. If Chloe hadn’t shot her hand out to steady him, he would have fallen on his face.
~*~
Clark went toward Lana and Steve, ready to break up the fight.
~*~
Chloe had her hand on Lex’s arm, and she could feel him shaking. That startled her into looking up at him. There was a thin veil of sweat on his pale face. Something was up with him. He wasn’t the type who got scared by anything, and she knew he wasn’t sick. "You don’t look so good." She whispered and urged him back into the booth seat. He slid over to where Clark had been sitting, and then she sat down next to him.
She picked up her camera and watched the action through the screen. She knew very well that Lana didn’t need Clark’s help out of this one.
~*~
Clark felt a little bit colder for every step he took toward Steve and Lana and his progress was slowing.
~*~
Steve pulled and tugged at Lana. "Just a little ride."
~*~
Chloe knew damn well that Clark wasn’t going to get there in time. She watched through her camera and kept her finger ready on the button.
~*~
"I SAID LET GO OF ME!" Lana shouted angrily and brought her knee straight up into Steve’s crotch.
~*~
Chloe snapped a picture of Lana shoving her knee up hard and fast. "Now that’s one for the front page!"
~*~
Steve let out a howl and he fell to the floor.
~*~
Clark was just three micro-seconds too late to do anything for Lana. Steve landed at his feet groaning and holding his crotch. The whole shop had gone quiet. Men were making faces, and little girls were staring at the sight with eyes wide open.
~*~
Steve lay on the floor groaning until a man in his sixties took pity on him and came along to help him to his feet. "They’re...they’re a lot meaner than they used to be." Steve squeaked and hunched over.
~*~
Clark was very glad that Steve was gone, because he no longer felt cold. He guided Lana back to the booth, and slid into the seat first, now sitting where Chloe had been, and Lana was back in her original place. He took a sip of coffee and almost gagged on it! That was Chloe’s coffee! It tasted like motor oil!
~*~ SUNDAY EVENING ~*~
The doors of Smallville Hospital’s ER crashed open, and a pair of rugged
emergency medical technicians guided a gurney into the hospital. Steven Miller was on the gurney, unconscious, pale and shaking. Lana Lang came through the doors behind them, hoping she could be of some help. She stood out of the way, and tried to not listen to the EMT ticking off medical facts to the doctor on duty. She didn’t know what it all meant, but she heard it said that his vital signs were up way to high when they’d gotten to him, and now they were going down. His temperature was down to ninety-six, and still falling.
~*~
Over the harvest ripe green fields of Smallville, a ghost moved in the sky. There were no physical restraints for it, and so it glided freely where it pleased to go, for as long as it pleased to roam. Wide open spaces, rolling green hills, spaces both wild and tame were explored.
But freedom and roaming weren’t what this spirit wanted for itself. It wanted something else. It found the Kent farm, and rushed toward the barn. The spirit thought that there would be enough time for roaming later. Right now, it wanted to live again.
~*~
Pete Ross was sitting by himself in Clark Kent’s loft on the sofa copying a paragraph from a reference book. He reached over to the table to pick up another already opened book...
~*~
Clark walked casually into the barn with cups of coffee in each hand. "Pete, I got the coffee." He said and started to walk up the stairs.
~*~
Mr. Kent was in the driver’s seat, asking Clark all kinds of questions as he steered down the road. All Jonathan could get out of his son was that he got an icy, creeped-out feeling when a boy named Drew had gotten near him. He’d felt it again from Steve Miller. Just moments ago, his son had sensed the same eerie cold sensation from Pete. None of his other questions could be answered. Clark said ‘I don’t know.’ too many times, and finally Mr. Kent had quit asking. He wondered if his son was
developing another new ability. If he was, then maybe it was too new for him to be able to explain it, otherwise Jonathan was sure he would have heard something about it by now.
Mr. Kent couldn’t see anything, but he trusted his son’s eyes better than his own. "Which way?"
~*~
Pete ran hard and fast, trampling stalks of corn, and flattening them to the ground. Clark ran after him and he could stay just a few feet behind his friend, but couldn’t catch him. He was afraid to touch him. Being as close to him as he was made him uncomfortable. It didn’t hurt, or make him ill, but he didn’t like the feeling either.
~*~
"CLARK! DAMMIT! WAKE UP!" Dad called to him.
~*~ MONDAY ~*~
"Chloe Sullivan, please report to the main office." Clark heard the
announcement, and looked up from his desk at Chloe. He gave her an expression suggesting he thought she was lucky to be getting out of class, then went back to his work.
~*~
He walked into the Principal’s office through the open door and saw the
Principal, and the Sheriff. The two of them weren’t unfamiliar to him, but together the authority figures were an imposing pair. He nervously greeted them.
"Mrs. Ross, we don’t know if it’s really a virus." The sheriff said giving her a brows up look suggesting she’d just let something slip.
~*~
Clark didn’t go back to class. Instead, he went out the back door of the
school. Before the door had a chance to sigh shut behind him, he felt a deep cold sensation climbing up to his neck from the base of his spine. The feeling made his head turn to the right and he saw a boy whom he knew was a member of the football team. There was a girl with the kid, and the two of them were furiously making out in an inconspicuous corner of the parking lot.
~*~
Chloe Sullivan, in her car, was just turning left out of the school parking lot. Mrs. Ross had told her to go back to class, but she was determined to help look for Pete. She saw a red blur in her rearview mirror, but other than to dismiss it as a bird, she didn’t even think about it.
~*~
Clark wasn’t going to be stupid enough this time to walk into the middle of a bunch of meteor rocks. Starting almost at the front door step of Erica Fox’s house, he began to run in a circular pattern while x-raying every inch of what passed within his sight. There were police, dogs and volunteers searching all over the area, but he was much faster than all of them combined.
~*~
Pete was loaded onto a gurney. Police cars were parked sloppily all over the road, in the field, and some half in and half out of the field. A pair of EMT’s lifted the gurney into the ambulance. The doors were slammed shut and it drove away down the road, siren wailing.
~*~
After a long time of boredom, Chloe meandered away from the waiting room,
leaving Clark behind with the Rosses. She had wanted to talk to him, but there just wasn’t an opening, or a proper moment for it. She found room 214 in the men’s ward and knocked on the open door. "Drew?"
~*~
The waiting room was boring, and twenty minutes felt like a year to Clark. The Ross family were all waiting just as anxiously as he was to hear news about Pete. The only thing anyone had heard so far was that he was unconscious and in shock. Clark willed himself to not use his x-ray vision again to look through the walls and see if Pete was still breathing. He’d been doing that too often and he was getting a headache from overworking his eyes.
"Chloe, I got a question," Clark said, stopping her. He gave the remaining Rosses a look of apology both for leaving and for not wanting to talk with Chloe in front of them. He tugged the sleeve of her shirt and went down the hall and motioned for her to sit on a bench.
~*~
Lana looked up from her chair next to a bed with Steven Miller in it when
someone walked into the room. "Chloe." She said without bothering to keep her voice low. "Anything more about Pete?"
~*~
Chloe settled into a chair at a table with Lana seated across from her, both with a small snack and a soda. Lana met her eyes over the brim of her soda glass, put it down, and wagged a finger at her friend. "You’re in reporter mode." Chloe smiled at her. "Ask away." Lana said.
~*~
Long after Lana had returned to Steven’s room, Chloe was still sitting at the table in the hospital cafeteria. Drew had given her a lot of information on how to hack into a medical database. What she found was definitely approaching wall of weird material.
~*~
Mr. Louvain walked into Lex Luthor’s office, striding casually over the carpet toward the desk.
~*~
Lex stared at Louvain’s retreating back until he walked out the door and turned down the hall. He wasn’t dangerous, but he was good. He wasn’t the type who’d turn on him. That warning had not meant he’d hurt Clark. That had meant something else.
Lex pushed away the annoying comments the private detective had shot at him and picked up the file folder. The first papers about Metropolis United Charities were expected. It had been a fake agency, and now he had proof of that. He also had proof that Clark’s adoption had been a fake. Now, he wanted to know why. He spotted a newspaper clipping and started to read it.
~*~
Lex studied two pictures which Clark had handed to him. One was of Steve Miller at the Talon, taken a second or so after Lana had brought her knee up between his legs. The second was of a kid dancing with a girl in a pastel green dress. Both pictures showed the two boys shooting off a blue aura, and Lex knew that was no photo flaw. He’d heard too many details about this whole issue from Clark and he’d been at the Talon and seen the evidence for himself. He’d felt those awful chills when Steven had gotten to close to him.
~*~
Clark was gone, and Lex Luthor was studying the file which Louvain had brought to him. Coffee cup in hand and papers in front of him at his desk, he was reading a copy of a newspaper article.
~*~ TUESDAY ~*~
The dull light of early morning coming in through the stained glass windows found the young millionaire still awake. The top of his desk was covered with piles of books, papers, floppy disks and CD’s. His laptop computer sat right in the middle of the whole mess. Lex himself was red eyed, and a bit disoriented from lack of sleep. Otherwise, he was intrigued.
~*~
A moment later, he climbed to his feet. He still looked like Lex, but his eyes were glossy, and his normally pale cheeks were rosy. His breathing was quicker, and his grin was eager. He scanned the room and found a mirror, and stood in front of it. Watching his reflection, he stretched and ran his hand over his naked chest and neck and bald head.
~*~
A very dazzling silver Delorean rolled down a town road at a slow pace, and turned into the busy parking lot of the only mall in Smallville. The flashy futuristic vehicle stopped in a space close to the main exit. The gull door on the driver’s side swung upwards on a hinge connected to the car’s roof. Not many didn’t recognize what kind of a car that was, but everyone who saw it stared in awe. One little boy thought it was a space ship.
~*~
Lex knew that people were watching him go from the car to mall door, and he enjoyed every second of it. A pretty young lady in a fluttery pink blouse and a dark skirt walked by him, and he made sure to turn around and pear over the top of his sunglasses to watch her walk by. "Looking good, buttercup."
~*~
Lex was just leaving a glassware store, when he heard a youthful voice which made him look up. "I been looking all over for you! People at school are talking." said a dark haired overgrown boy. He knew that kid could sense him, just like Luthor had sensed him. The overgrown mopey dope slowed down as he got closer and then stopped a good three yards from him and stared. Lex walked closer. The boy’s spine got stiff, eyes got round and bright, but he stood his ground.
~*~
They sat down on opposite sides of a table, and Lex ordered a strong drink for himself, and pop for Clark.
~*~
Clark stood by feeling very helpless while Lex handed two credit cards over to a clothing store manager and told her he wanted it all to be sent to a certain nursing home. The manager began to give orders to her people to take everything off the racks.
~*~
Somehow, Clark got dragged away by a couple of people working for the local news. Chloe was sure he was just trying to divert them from catching Lex and plastering him all over the news. She snapped a picture of Lex while he was looking over men’s clothing, and the flash caught his attention.
~*~
"Chloe where’s your car?" Clark asked, still carrying a very angry Lex over his shoulders.