Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or locations, but some of the ideas are my own. I owe much to Donner, Singer, Hackman, Spacey, Siegal, Schuster, and Speakfire

It only took a flare gun to get Lex Luthor and Kitti Kowalski off the tiny deserted island where Luthor's helicopter had run out of fuel the day of the Metropolis earthquake. Or more accurately, it took four signal flares, a Coast Guard helicopter and a Coast Guard vessel with aviation fuel to get them back to Metropolis.

Back in Metropolis, it only took a press conference on the steps of Police Plaza for Lex Luthor to get himself free. Or more accurately, it took that, plus all the evidence being at the bottom of the ocean or up in orbit in space, to get Luthor and Kitti out of Police custody. Luthor denied knowing that the crystals would grow with such force as to cause an earthquake in Metropolis. With the seagoing yacht, The Gertrude, at the bottom of the ocean and with Luthor's henchmen and their incriminating video documentation crushed under tons of crystal and lifted into space on New Krypton, the DA had no evidence to hold Luthor.

Thus Luthor was free to begin acquiring genetic engineering companies and medical research firms. And free to appropriate the piece of kryptonite and the blood and tissue samples removed from Superman at Metropolis General Hospital on the day he fell from orbit.

Luthor was amazed at the wide array of medical and genetic researchers who wanted to join his work. He was not amazed by the amount of money the Pentagon, Langley, MI-6, the KGB and Chinese Red Army wanted pour into his venture as well. Weaponizing Superman's DNA: invulnerable soldiers, spies with X-Ray Vision, etc. would be very valuable to the free world's militaries and of course to their adversaries as well. But all of this would just raise capital for the next land venture.

Eve Tessmacher had once observed that it's always about real estate and yes, indeed it is. If I can't do nuclear remodeling on the western coastlines of the USA or grow my own continent in the North Atlantic, then I'll just have to take the moon! Yes the Moon. Commercial Flights! Vacation Resorts! And of course a theme park where Neil Armstrong first set foot: Donald Trump, eat your heart out.

His first batch of Superman Clones was out of the growth and incubation sacs and into the memory implantation phase already, next would come the yellow sun power charging phase. The military and intelligence agencies were pressing for human trials on the superpower DNA grafts. For a mere three weeks on the project, things were moving with amazing swiftness.

And then, late one night, Lex's computers began to act strangely. Luthor had jusat finished reviewing the reports on his various biological research enterprises and Kitti was begging him to come to her room and talk. Suddenly, the antivirus programs on all of his terminals overloaded and the systems began to crash. Luthor cursed as he hit the control-alt-delete combination several times trying to reboot the systems. Nothing seemed to work. Then, just as suddenly as they went down, all the systems came back online and the antivirus and system diagnostics showed 100 across the board.

Lex breathed a sigh of relief and began to close the screen of his laptop when an email chimed. He looked at the sender and noted that the message had come from the central mainframe of the Very Large Array, that set of gigantic satellite dish antennas in the western deserts, the one that had received the supposedly Kryptonian message. Luthor was sure he clicked on the delete key for that message, but it opened anyway and produced a video player.

"Greetings, Lex Luthor." The white outline of a face spoke out of the black screen.

"I know you are ambitions. I can see from the news reports that you are working on several genetic engineering projects involving the son of Jor-El. These may gain you wealth and revenge upon the son of Jor-El but has it not always been about land for you?" The message paused and looked thoughtfully out of the screen at him as though waiting for a response.

Luthor turned in his chair, steepled his fingers and looked away into the middle distance. "Why should I talk to a computer screen?" He said to himself, under his breath.

"Why indeed? Do you not recognize me?"

The resolution sharpened and the image in the message came into better focus.

Luthor turned back to the screen.

"Professor Fine?" Luthor looked up again into the middle distance of memory and, still not actually addressing the image directly, he though out loud, "Whatever cockamamie scheme he's got going, I want no part of it. I loved having superpowers before, but being possessed by Zod was… well it wasn't a walk in the park."

"Yes, all that Milton Fine was is still a part of me. I am far more than that. I am the Brain InterActive Construct. My mission to bring Zod back into the world of the living appears to have failed but at least the two of us can have our revenge upon the son of Jor-El!"

"Here's to that!" Luthor said raising an imaginary cup in toast, still not actually addressing the image.

"Yes, in due time. I see that you already have some clones of Kal-El in the works. Those will prove useful, especially with the false documentary my newsman has put together about him. If one of the clones were to escape in the coming forty-eight hours…"

"What does this thing mean its own newsman? I gave Randal Dather much of his material, and even appeared in some of the interview and discussion segments!" Luthor thought out loud as though talking back to the TV-set. Then he turned to the screen of his laptop, "Wait a minute. Is this message trying to talk with me?"

"Did you miss the word "Interactive" a moment ago?" The image of Fine asked.

Lex smiled, laugh lines appeared. He thought this was funny.

"I am talking to you, Luthor." The image turned toward Lex.

Lex pointed at himself and leaned toward the screen, his smile widening.

"Yes. You." The image appeared to look directly into Lex's eyes

"There's no one else there. So, I Must. Be Talking! To YOU!" Fine's image nearly shouted out of the screen at him.

"Alright then, you have my attention." Lex Luthor looked at the screen of his laptop, wheels clearly turning in his mind.

"Alright then," said the image of Professor Fine. "If one of your Kal-El clones were to escape, half-formed, into the City of Metropolis in the next few hours, would it not wreak havoc?!? Would it not stain Kal-El's reputation?"

Luthor considered for a moment. "It wouldn't work. Superman would come and fight it in public. It would be on TV. He would be confirmed as a hero."

"How could he fight it here in Metropolis, if he were on the other side of your planet?" The image of Fine looked smugly at Lex.

"You have a suitable distraction arranged?" Luthor asked, excitement crawling into his eyes.

"Indeed. A terrorist organization calling itself Mossad is taking care of that for us as we speak. Mossad are in the process of destroying the nuclear weapons research and development facilities of the Sovereignty in Persia."

"You mean you've got the Israeli national covert operations agency in your pocket? Luthor pressed forward, his excitement building.

"Certainly not." Fine looked as though such an act were beneath him.

"But still," Luthor leaned back in his chair and looked over at the image in his laptop, "you maneuvered the world's best covert operatives into exploding Iran's rogue nuclear weapons program?" He gestured pointing at the screen with an open palm giving credit to the program on the screen.

"These terrorists on your primitive planet act on their own volition, with the precise information to prompt their actions." The image of Fine spoke with apparent humility.

"Mossad are not terrorists; they are professionals, the best in fact." Luthor said wistfully, but also with great respect.

"And I believe the appropriate term is meltdown, nuclear meltdown." Fine's image finished its thought.

"That would keep the son of Jor-El busy" and maybe that new friend of his with the green power ring, too, Luthor thought but did not say. Having dealt with Fine before, Luthor wanted to keep an ace up his sleeve. He hoped that the thing's single minded obsession with Superman, an obsession which exceeded even his own, would prevent it from noticing others wielding superpowers. Or, at least that it wouldn't notice them until hit in the face with a boxing glove.
"Whatever." The image looked intently at Luthor and spoke with finality, "Kal-El and terrorists do not concern us right now. Land concerns us now."

"Do tell." Luthor leaned back slightly and touched his finger tips against each other.

"I have searched the historical records and determined that since our earlier meetings regarding Zod, you have tried some land schemes?" The image of Fine appeared open and enquiring

"Yes, I first tried nuclear redevelopment on the coastlines of California and New Jersey. Then I used some of the crystals from Kal-El's arctic fortress to grow my own continent in the middle of the Atlantic…well actually 100 mi off the U.S. Eastern Seaboard."

"But Kal-El foiled your plans?" Fine's image encouraged Luthor to continue.

"He did. He got me sent to prison, too. But he failed to appear in Court as a witness for the prosecution during my appeal, some business about being off in space, searching for his fabled homeworld. The U. S. Attorneys had to release me."

"I can offer you something better." The image stated flatly.

"What could possibly be better than land?" Luthor leaned back openly chuckling

"World Domination!" Professor Fine's image exclaimed.

"Now you're talking!" Luthor declared with genuine excitement.

"The economies of the nations on this miserable mudball you call a planet are still powered by fossil fuels, by petroleum. I can teach you to tap into the energy of your planet's gravitational field. Provide them with limitless energy, and the world will bow at your feet." The image took on the aspect of a wise sage sharing a secret koan.

"How can this be done?" Luthor asked concealing his greed.

The image spoke matter-of-factly, as though it were saying something as mundane as, 'Look both ways before crossing the street.' "All it will require is a black hole smaller than an atom, positioned in the center of you planet."

Acknowledgements: The flare gun and press conference ideas came from Speakfire. I have just summarized them here. Her version is much more richly detailed and takes up two or three chapters. Please read it. The black hole smaller than an atom idea came from Wil McCarthy, who uses it to great advantage in the Queendom Series (The Collapsium, The Wellstone, Lost in Transmission and To Crush the Moon) featuring Bruno de Towaji, et al. If you like dry wit and intellectual space opera painted on a canvas spanning a corner of our Galaxy, read the Queendom Series. It also has some very engaging heroes, and quite vile villains.