Every morning Lex Luthor woke up just before dawn. Quickly and silently, he'd dress in the dark because turning on the light would wake up his roommate. He didn't bother with shoes or socks. He just grabbed his towel and padded down the long dormitory corridor, down the stairs and out the door. He shivered. The dormitory of the Excelsior School was an imposing brick building, designed to impress rather than for comfort, and it was just as chilly inside as outside.
The lawn in front of the dormitory was the most likely place for him to be spotted. There was no place to hide. He forced himself not to run, knowing that a sudden movement was more likely to draw the eye, and walked at a regular pace towards the artificial lake in the centre of the school grounds. The lake was shallow and muddy. The lakebed supported a thick growth of reeds. At one point, the groundskeeper had introduced carp in an attempt to keep the plant life under control, but none of the fish had survived.
Lex undressed and stood before the water uncertainly. He had never been able to decide whether it was better to walk into the cold water step by step or to plunge in. Both were equally unpleasant.
Lex didn't like the water and he hated the cold. Swimming in a frigid lake was torture to him. But he wasn't a weakling – no matter what his father or the other boys at school said. He was strong; he was fearless. He could make himself do it.
Taking a deep breath, Lex plunged in, and knew as soon as he did that he'd made the wrong choice. The pain was exquisite. He gasped for air; his muscles cramping, his heart beating wildly. It would have been better to ease his way into the cold, inch by inch.
Ten lengths of the lake was Lex's goal. So far he'd been able to make it up to five.
Oliver Queen knew there was something dark and twisted about Lex Luthor. He'd sensed it from the first.
It was Oliver who had given him the nicknames that the entire school used – Chemo Kid, Chihuahua, Freakazoid – though Oliver had long since outgrown childish name-calling. Most of the time he ignored Luthor entirely, acting as if the other boy were invisible. Once in a while, he'd catch Luthor off guard – when the freak was absorbed in a book or lost in his daydreams of world conquest– and he'd whisper in his ear, "Do you hear that? It's a baby crying. It's Julian."
His reaction was priceless. Lex wouldn't have reacted in that way if he didn't have something to feel guilty about.
There were rules against hazing at the Excelsior School, of course. It was against the honour code. But the honour code also forbade snitching, and that part of the code was regularly and severely enforced. As long as he was careful not to say or do anything too extreme when a teacher was present, Oliver could do whatever he liked, and Lex couldn't tell on him or do a thing about it.
Oliver Queen did not believe in gentlemanly rules of conduct in any case. When you're fighting evil, you have to fight to win.
Two days ago, Oliver had gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom, and had spotted Lex. Lex was heading away from the bathroom and away from his room, doing something he obviously shouldn't have been doing, so Oliver had followed him from a distance. He'd watched him take his early morning swim though the glass pane of the front door. He'd later seen him repeat the ritual swim twice more on other mornings.
Lex Luthor was breaking the rules, but unfortunately the school's honour code protected the freak just as it protected Oliver. He couldn't tell anyone. He wasn't a snitch. He would just have to make sure they found out another way.
Oliver had been waiting for the better part of an hour in the bushes. The two boys he'd brought along with him, Brubaker and Welch, had lost interest after five minutes, and Oliver had had to bribe them with promises of comic books and cigarettes (both contraband at the Excelsior School and therefore much prized.)
He watched Lex walk toward the lake, strip, and plunge into the water.
"He's naked!" whispered Brubaker gleefully, and Oliver nudged him in the ribs to keep him quiet.
Oliver waited until Lex was in the centre of the lake before he acted. The three boys each took one of the old row boats that the school provided for what its brochure grandly described as "aquatic pursuits". They rowed toward Luthor.
Lex spotted them. He sped up, making toward the other shore of the lake. He wasn't quite fast enough though, and Oliver and his two thuggish mates surrounded him.
Lex tried to swim past them, through the gap between Brubaker and Welch, but they were two quick for him. They closed the gap. Welch raised an oar menacingly.
Lex was caught. Now what? Oliver hadn't thought that far ahead. It would be great if the whole school got to see Luthor climb out the lake buck naked, but everyone was still asleep. The morning bell wouldn't ring for at least half an hour. Brubaker and Welch looked at him, awaiting instructions. Oliver didn't know what to tell them.
Lex was tiring. He was treading water, keeping out of reach of Welch's oar, but he could not keep it up much longer. The cold was sapping his strength.
Taking a lungful of air, Lex submerged into the cold, murky water. He swam under the nearest rowboat, feeling the slimy touch of the reeds against his bare skin, almost scraping the lakebed beneath him. He could feel one of the reeds wrap around his ankle, and for a second he felt a moment of panic. If he thrashed around, he'd just tangle himself further in the weeds. He forced himself to be calm, to slow down, even though his lungs felt like bursting. He managed to get himself free.
Lex didn't know which direction he was going in, but the lake wasn't that big. Shore couldn't be too far away. He lifted his head above water long enough to take a breath, hoping his tormentors would not spot him, and then went under again.
Brubaker and Welch were cat-calling and hurling insults at their prey, daring him to come up and face them. Welch swung his oar around his head with an enthusiasm that threatened to tip over his boat.
When he didn't come up again, they fell silent. They looked at the ripple of water where Lex had been.
"Shit," Oliver said.
If Lex actually drowned, he'd b be neck deep in trouble. Excelsior's honour code wouldn't protect him against a police investigation. Brubaker and Welch would squeal like piglets.
Oliver kicked off his shoes and dove fully dressed into the water.
Lex had made it to shore. He was only visible for a moment before he took cover in the bushes and trees. Fortunately Brubaker and Welch were watching Oliver, so they did not spot him. He couldn't get to his clothes without being spotted, but being cold and naked in the bushes was a huge improvement over drowning.
Oliver searched the reedy bottom of the lake for Lex, his frantic efforts making the water even muddier. The reeds twisted around his limbs, and Oliver fought to free himself. He burst out the water, sputtering.
"I can't find him," he said. "Help me find him!"
His confederates, who were not strong swimmers, shrugged their shoulders helplessly. Oliver swore at them, and then plunged under the water again. He dove in, again and again, searching, even though he knew that it was too late – Lex couldn't have held his breath this long; he had to be dead.
Finally, Oliver gave up. Brubaker and Welch had to drag Oliver into one of the rowboats; he was too exhausted to climb in by himself. Oliver lay at the bottom of the rowboat, shivering, his mind and body both utterly depleted. He looked up to the clear morning sky. Oliver's life was utterly ruined, but at least it was going to be a beautiful day.
Lex took advantage of their distraction to dart out of the bushes and grab his clothes and towel. He dressed quickly and then sprinted across the lawn towards the dormitory. He'd almost reached the door before Welch spotted him.
Brubaker and Welch rowed toward the lake's edge, jumped out of the rowboats, and raced after him.
Lex, Brubaker and Welch made it into the building and back to their rooms before the bell rang. Oliver wasn't as lucky. He was climbing the stairs, soaking wet and covered in slimy reeds, just as Mr. Price, the dormitory monitor, was coming down.
"A boyish prank," the headmaster ruled.
Because he'd started the whole thing by skinny-dipping in the early morning hours, and because he'd cruelly tricked Oliver into thinking he'd drowned, Lex was given the same punishment as his tormentor. Both of them had to spend all their Saturday afternoons for a month doing whatever chores the headmaster could think up.
While his friends played touch football on the front lawn, Oliver was stuck washing windows. Lex had bagged the easy job, of course. He was polishing the school's trophies. It wasn't as if Lex had anything better to do anyway. If he hadn't been cleaning the silver, he would have just been up in his room, boning up on the periodic table or memorizing French verbs. Lex was actually smiling, looking at his reflection in the shining silver as if he enjoyed the work.
Oliver's grandfather, a retired general in the U.S. Army, had told him that the war against evil is eternal. You can never back down, never retreat, never relax. When you give up the fight, evil wins.
Oliver would not give up.