"Was there any result with the change? Hmm."
Lionel Luthor stood in his office, overlooking the silvery peaks of Metropolis that rose in deliberate defiance of the ground, reaching valiantly towards the sky. In man's never-ending quest to elevate himself above the rest of nature, he thought, this was certainly one of his greatest accomplishments.
And yet, he noted, despite all of his attempts to fly, man could only break the law of gravity for as long as his fuel was able to keep the air rushing over the wings that he had created. And even if he did manage to go far enough to lose the need for atmospheric pressure to keep him aloft, he was still a slave to oxygen. And if he tried to get too close to the sun that he had always envied, he would suffer the fate of Icarus, who, unable to control his curiosity, decided to push his limits. He pushed them too far, and the unforgiving hardness of the ground was the price he paid for getting himself involved in something he couldn't even begin to understand.
These were idle thoughts of course, half-formed concepts swimming in the back of his head as he continued his conversation. "Uh, alright, do it again." He laughed at the other party's reply. "How long will that take? All right. Call me when you're done." With that, he hung up.
"I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to cough suggestively?" said a voice behind him, and he smiled. "You know, I don't have any new information on Clark."
He slowly pivoted around to face the new arrival in his office, a young blonde who had recently decided to stray a little above her maximum altitude. He grabbed his mug from the table and began to pour himself some coffee.
"And even if I did," she continued, "I would have happily e-mailed it to you sans three hour drive."
"Would that have been before or after you spoke to Lex?" His voice was laced with a deceptive calm similar to the eye of a hurricane. All she had to do was move a little left of center and she would find herself at the mercy of the storm.
Her eyes went wide. Not, he noticed, with the horror of being found out, but one of the most basic human emotions: confusion. "What are you talking about?"
It didn't matter how innocent or guilty the girl was. He'd had enough of her thinking she could play a game that was far beyond her level of understanding. "You know, Miss Sullivan, these coy evasions may work when you're wheedling information out of a high school librarian, but up here, you're out of your league."
Striding over to the couch, he sat down. "Mr. Luthor, what's this about?" Chloe repeated.
"We had what I assumed was a private conversation, but imagine my surprise to have Lex throw my very own words right back in my face. You led me to believe, Miss Sullivan, that, ah, you were no longer in communication with Lex."
Her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched as she prepared to stand her ground against the assault. "Well, I'm not. But thank you for the wildly offensive insinuation. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm on a deadline." She started to leave.
"Not anymore," he said with immense satisfaction. "Your column at the Daily Planet's been cancelled."
Chloe froze. "What?"
He looked her in the eye. "All right, all right. Here's the deal. You tell me everything you fed to Lex, I'll let things stand."
Once more she adjusted her face into an impenetrable defense against his onslaught. "I told you I'm not Lex's source," she said with effort. "And while I'm sure you could kill my column, this is not the only piece I'm working on for the Daily Planet. I know I could interest them in a story about an eccentric billionaire with an obsessive interest in a Kansas farm boy."
Lionel glared at her as though he wished that she would burst into flame. "You threatening me?" he said quietly.
She gulped.
He chuckled maliciously and stood up, producing a crumpled sheet of paper from his desk. "I'd be careful whom you accuse of having an 'obsessive' interest, Miss Sullivan."
"What do you mean?" she nearly whispered, her eyes narrowed into slits.
"'I want to let you in on a secret,'" he read, eyes glimmering with menace. Chloe's, on the other hand, were filled with the terror one feels when their biggest secret has fallen into the hands of their worst enemy. She felt as though some unknown giant was stamping on her lungs.
"Where did you get that?"
"'I'm not who you think I am,'" continued Lionel, ignoring her. "'In fact, my disguise is so thin, I'm surprised you haven't seen right through me.'" He laughed out loud when he read the next line: "'I'm the girl of your dreams, masquerading as your best friend.'" He looked up at her. "That last line was exactly fourteen syllables, Miss Sullivan. Beautiful rhythm it had, too. I didn't know you were such a gifted poet."
Chloe stood there, trembling. After a few moments she returned her face to its former expression of cool rage. "Clark knows how I feel about him," she said. "And he knows about all…" she gestured around the office, "this. There's not a damn thing you can do to me that you haven't already done."
He grinned. "Really? So you're telling me that Clark wouldn't be upset to hear that not only have you been researching him all these months, but that you've actually been keeping… romantic photographs of him and yourself since your freshman year? I'm not sure how he'd deal with a stalker."
"I'm his friend," she corrected him. "My personal life is none of your business."
"And my son is none of yours," Lionel snapped.
She just stood there, breathing like a bull preparing to charge. "What do you want?"
"Tell me what you fed to Lex, or Clark gets an anonymous e-mail with a rather large attachment."
He waited for several moments. "Well, Miss Sullivan?"
Chloe managed to sigh regretfully, when all she really wanted to do was break down and cry. "All right," she said. "Here's what I know."