"We have to get into that storage unit," Lucas shouted, as he paced back and forth across a small patch of carpet in my bedroom. "It's been four days! We know where it is. I can run in there, break the lock into thousands of pieces, and be gone before the security cameras even see me."
"No, you'll be in and out before they can identify you, but the image of something zooming all around the lot will appear on the screen, and if Dad knows anything about your background he will know that it's you. And even if he doesn't know about your abilities now, he will after he sees that video."
"So change the way the cameras work. Hack into the system and get it to play the same shot over and over like they do on TV." Lucas was more upset than he should have been in this specific situation. I think he was nervous more than anything, but didn't want me to know that. So, he used anger to cover up his fear.
"It's not that easy, or rather, I'm just not that good. Hacking into Dad's computer files is one thing, but what you're talking about—it's completely different, and here's something else you haven't considered. Isn't it convenient that we found exactly what we were looking for in less than a week? Maybe Lionel knows what we're trying to find and this is either a trap or a diversion, or maybe he's just storing old baby photos and toys and everything else Mom couldn't bear to throw away." I wanted to calm him down. I wanted to make him feel better. I wanted to rescue my carpet from being completely destroyed.
"Or maybe there's some clue hidden somewhere inside that will help us figure out who I am and where I cam from. What if we can…Don't you want answers? About the meteor shower, me, you, everything?" The answer came immediately, yes of course, who wouldn't, but I didn't say that. The kid wasn't thinking clearly. He was making decisions based on his emotions, without any calculation or forethought. He had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, nor had he considered the millions of things that could go wrong
"Yes I wanna know all that stuff and more, but if we don't go about this—if we don't plan everything out, and do it all perfectly, we will get caught and Dad will separate and destroy us." My little brother didn't ask how. It was the only question on his mind after what I had just told him, but he was too terrified of my answer.
'Remember what happened in the coffee shop"? he asked. I nodded. "Did he have something to do with it?" I didn't think so, and shook my head. "But something made me sick, and if Lionel ever figures out what that something is, we're really gonna be in trouble. He'll be able to do whatever he wants and I'm won't have a chance at fighting back. I sighed, turning away from my computer, looking him right in the face.
"We don't know what made you sick, but if Lionel had any idea about it, he'd have taken advantage of it, used the substance to hurt you a long time ago. Now listen, we have to be smart about this thing," I explained, running a hand over my head. We go at night, dress in black, wear ski masks, gloves, and shoes with no patterns on the soles. You run up and spray paint all of the camera lenses. Like with the computer files, we have to break into other units, smash stuff, paint gang tags on the walls and on people's things."
"Maybe we should steal stuff too?" he offered, trying to sound smart.
"No, that would be a very bad idea. The police are going to investigate the break-ins. If we have things from other people's storage units in our home, I go to jail or juvenile hall or something, and then he's alone with you. I'm going to think of everything. I'll go into our space while you run around and get deal with the other stuff. Then come back and we explore it together. Maybe we find something, maybe we don't. Worst case scenario, it gets us out of the house for a couple hours, and we find some old photo albums." My brother stopped pacing just long enough to stare at me as if to say, can we really do this? I nodded, stood up, walked to his side, and gave the kid a hug.
"I wanna go tonight," he said, in an extremely un-Luthor-like manner. "Why not? I wanna know what Da—Lionel is hiding, and I wanna know now!" This time he didn't scream as loudly as before, but we both checked to be sure no one had overheard us. Lucas was frustrated (not that I blamed him) and he needed to be calm to execute my plan without making a lot of dangerous mistakes. I told him this. "I can be calm by tonight. I can do this, really, and don't tell me we need more time; we went to Smallville ten days ago. If he knew what we were doing Dad would have done something by now, right?" The kid was partially right, but he didn't seem to know our father very well. There were a lot of reasons for him not to bring up our little field trip. 1. he knew it was harmless. Even if evidence from the meteor shower had once been in that town, he had long since snatched it up. Therefore, we could drive back and forth from Metropolis every day and still not find a single thing, 2. Even if we could find something there, we wouldn't be able to connect, for instance, a spaceship to Lucas, Lionel, or the farm couple, 3. Lucas could just as easily be one of those people with meteor rock induced powers, and 4. Lionel could always say he didn't know what we were talking about.
"Because he might be waiting to see what our next move is, and if he notices us sneaking out in the middle of the night and then finds your adoption papers or whatever, are missing, he's gonna put two and two together real fast."
Lucas's eyes were wide and sad, when he said, "how long are you gonna make us wait before we can go see what's in that room?"
"I looked over his schedule. Father is heading off to Tokyo this afternoon. As of right now, he has no plans to bring you or me with, and he won't change his mind. It's tough to get laid when you have to explain how come your 8-year-old is still sharing a bed with you, or why he's bleeding, curled up in the fetal position. Even the most egger young woman wouldn't let that go." Lucas stared at me oddly. "What you thought he brought me on business trips so I could learn how Daddy does his job?" I asked, with a fake little kid lisp.
"Well, yeah, I mean…you're gonna be the one that he's gonna give the company to, eventually. Lex, I go to public school. Do you really think he expects me to do anything?" he asked, and suddenly I knew that he really meant it.
"Okay, first of all, Brightfield Academy is not a public school—hence the blazer, and ridiculously well funded art programs, and second, I'm out at Excelsior because I managed to get myself kicked out of every exclusive prep school in the state, and Mom said she'd leave him if he sent me to London, or Chicago, or Gotham city. Lionel expects us to fight to the death for control of Luthorcorp. That's why he treats us so differently. We talked about this before."
"He doesn't actually have a favorite, he just gives us both special privileges, so that we'll think he likes the other one better, and work really, really hard to get on his good side?" I was proud of the kid; two weeks ago I never would have believed him capable of such extrapolation. "What do you think we're gonna find?"
"Honestly, I have no idea," I admitted, turning back to my computer. "Wanna play chess?" He sort of laughed, but also blushed, at the same time. "What about Zombie Nightmare? Do you now that one? Come on, I'll show you. The game's connected to the Internet so we can play against people all over the world." Lucas took the controller from nervously. "You could watch the first time, see how it's done."
"I dunno," he whispered, standing up, sitting back down, and standing once again. "I think I was doing a lot better when I was pacing," He got up once more and went to the window, staring outside. "You never said when we're gonna leave to go to the storage unit."
"His private jet goes wheels up at 11:30 am," I explained, leaving the game and standing at his side. "Lucas, stop. You're going to wear a hole in my carpet, and he's gonna figure out that you aren't normal." My brother stopped, looking down, then running a hand through his hair. "You're scared. I get that, I know, because I get scared too, all the time. It hurts, very badly, but—that's something you'll learn to live with."
"I don't care about that! I mean, of course I care, but that's not what I'm freaking out over. We don't know what we're going to find, or who I am. What if there's something wrong with me, Lex? I could be one of those meteor freaks, or something a lot worse!" I grabbed my little brother, wrapping my arms around him in a tight hug. I squeezed him, rubbing his back and rocking slowly.
"You wanna go over there now, don't you, kiddo?" I asked and he sobbed into my shirt. "Okay," I whispered, kissing his hair, like Mom used to do when we were sick as kids—or when I was sick as a kid anyway—in an attempt to comfort him. "We'll go tonight, okay?" He nodded solemnly, and then looked over at the computer, like a typical twelve-year-old. It may have been just before 12:00, but it didn't matter. We had to do it now before he freaked out completely, and lost it. "Go get changed, black clothes, I've got the masks, we have to walk or else…he'll know and do something. I dunno what, but it won't be good." Lucas zoomed out of the room and was back—dressed from head to toe in black before I was able to start taking off my pants. "I um—would you mind not watching me, I get weird about stuff like this. He hates that about me—okay, I'm ready to go," I announced, and then, all of the sudden, he lifted me up and started to race off again. We must have been going at least 60 miles an hour. "Stop!" I screamed.
"What?" he asked, innocently. "I was just—I was trying to get us out of here as quickly as possible," Lucas explained, watching sadly as I shook my head. "What? What did I do wrong?"
"Not inside the mansion, you can't just show off like that. We're gonna get caught. If Lionel finds out what you're capable of, he'll turn you not a murderous, world- conquering monster. And he…I don't, I'm sorry, I didn't wanna scare you, just don't want him to be able to hurt or control you."
"Do you remember when I was in kindergarten, and that fifth grader tried to beat me up? I pushed him so hard he went flying across the playground, and he went through a door?"
"Vaguely," I whispered, gently placing my finger over his lips. "We gotta be quiet, don't wanna disturb—if he's awake and hears us, I'm gonna hafta do some fancy tricks to explain what I'm doing here," I told him.
"But he would—if we—you're telling me that you're gonna let him hurt you, right?" I wasn't completely sure how to answer that question, mainly because the only real response was, well yeah, of course. "Maybe we should take turns letting him do stuff, so that neither one of us gets too messed up."
"Lucas, I'm your big brother, I'm supposed to protect you. It's my job. If I let Lionel turn you into me, into somebody who feels the way I do, thinks the way I do, who hurts like me—I'll never forgive myself. You're special. You're gonna be somebody one day."
"I don't want to talk about this anymore," he cried softly, and the two of us walled out of the mansion together. Then, I let him pick me up and carry me to the storage lot.
"Okay, um…wow," was all I could think of to say when my little brother put me down. "Now if you were to say—swing me around by my wrist like you do with a little kid…no—don't actually do it! I was just thinking that you're sort of like a human rollercoaster. It's cool." Lucas smiled, and started to stare very intensely at the buildings ahead of us. He would look towards one for several seconds, then shift his gaze slightly, and watch the next one. "What are you doing?" I asked, nudging him in the ribcage. A sudden, horrific pain exploded from my elbow, as if I'd hit a brick wall. Even though it was only Lucas, I tried to prevent myself from screaming in agony.
"You need to warn me if you want to try and do something like that. I could really hurt you." Lucas focused in on me. "It doesn't look broken…I was looking through the different garages so I could figure out which one is ours." I rolled my eyes. "What?"
"I already know which unit is ours. Its number 331. I think we should put the ski masks on now, and no more super speed. Could be security cameras all over the place. And don't use my name. If you hafta—call me Red."
"Red?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Oh and call me—um…I dunno. Can't think of a good nickname for myself." I smiled, patting the kid on the shoulder, much more gently this time.
"That was my nickname when I was a little kid. They used to call me Wheezy too…because of my asthma. Of course, after the meteor shower, it…well they both went away."
"I'm sorry," Lucas said, pulling the hat over his face. I looked at my brother there, and for a second, I almost didn't recognize him. "I'm kind of scared," he admitted, walking with me. "And you never gave me a nickname."
"I could call you Skywalker, like in star wars…you know?" He shrugged. I don't think I like it. "We could be Red and Black, like in checkers." Lucas giggled but nodded. "Truth be told, I'm scared too. Maybe we'll find a spaceship in there and it'll shoot a laser beam at me when I open the door."
"Well I can go first, if you're too chicken," he offered. I pushed him, not all that hard or anything, but pushed him all the same. We reached the locker, number 331, and stood staring at it for a long time. "I'm sort of nervous. Maybe you should do that thing with your eyes."
"I already am." I may never have liked Lucas much before all of this, but I sure as heck knew him, especially his moods. When he was nervous, he talked, a lot. When he was depressed he yelled. When he was mad he got sarcastic. When he was worried about school or something less than important, he'd tell jokes, but I knew that if he got really quiet, he was terrified. This was how he acted when he came to me after the first time—I think it was the first time—Dad ever molested and raped him. I considered hugging or touching him on the shoulder, but worried it might make things worse. So I offered up my hand for him to squeeze my fingers.
"What do you see?" I wondered how hard I would need to concentrate in order to be able to look through the door on my own. "Black, whatever it is, you can tell me." My little brother shook his head. "Oh come on, Kid. It can't be that bad." Carefully I reached into my pocket, for the lock picking stuff. Lucas took my hand, pulling it away from the door.
"Wait," he called out. "We can't do this. We can't go in there. I'm so scared. I mean—look. I saw it. I know what's in there. Why do we hafta open the door?" he asked, tugging on my shirt. "Let's leave."
"In the comic books, Warrior Angel came to Earth in a spaceship and there was a—a...hologram, a message—an important message programmed inside. There has to be something there. We should go in. If Dad ever finds out we were here, I'll say…just don't touch anything and stand behind me. He'll never know we were both doing something bad."
"There is something in there that I can't identify. What am I? Did I come here in that? Where did? I—how did I get here? What am I?" Lucas sobbed, clutching onto me. I held him for twenty minutes before he was relaxed enough to look up at me sadly.
"You okay?" I asked, massaging his shoulders, and arms. He rubbed his shirtsleeve across his face, sniffling slightly. "I don't know how exactly to answer your questions. I'm not sure. We'll learn something when we go in there, I promise."
"Alright." Lucas finally surrendered. There was a craft—thing—inside, this weird, saucer shaped object that seemed to be made out of metal but I couldn't tell how to get into it. The thing was completely solid except for a small octagonal hole, near the rim.
"Holly crap," was all that he could say. I nodded. "What goes here?" He reached out to feel the shape with his fingers. I had no idea, and signified such with a shrug. Do you thing—it looks like it's lock. Maybe this is where the key goes." I nodded, because I couldn't think of anything else to do. Unfortunately, when we left that night, we didn't
When we got back, Lionel was standing in the living room, talking to his driver, surrounded by his briefcase, and travel bags. I sighed and pushed the kid out of the way, hoping that whatever my father was waiting for, it had nothing to do with him.
"Lex, what are you doing up so early?" he asked, patting his leg, as if to say, come here. "I'm fairly certain this is the first time I have ever seen you out of bed before 2:00 in the afternoon since—well since you were a very little boy."
"Maybe if you stopped coming into my room in the middle of the night, I'd be able to get to sleep before 4:00 am, and then I'd be able to get up early," I replied, coolly. Lionel chuckled, his eyes roaming all over me.
"That will be all, Darnel," he said, dismissing the limo driver, who then left, the room completely empty save for me, my father, and his briefcase. "Come here," he ordered. I walked up to the man, my eyes facing the ground, pretending to be a well behaved little angel. Dad checked to his left and to his right, before grabbing me by my lapels, and lifting me up off the ground. Then, he smacked me, hard, right across the face. "Don't you ever disrespect me in front of them help, or anyone else for that matter! Do you understand?" He still had me by my shirt, but we were at a far more uncomfortable position now. He was holding me close to him. I felt myself starting to make a soft, pathetic sound, and although I tried to control it, tried to stop, I still whimpered, and was dropped. Lionel threw me onto the sofa, looked down at me disgustedly, picked up his case, and walked away. "I'll be back in a week. Don't get into any trouble while I'm gone."
I wanted to tell him to go to Hell, but could only bring myself to lie on the ground where, weakly. It was all I could do not to start crying. You stupid baby! Loser! Dumbass! No wonder he thinks he can treat you like crap; you are crap! Lucas raced in after less than a minute, dropping to my side, and shaking me slightly.
"Lex, Lex are you okay? I'm so sorry. I shouldn't of left you alone with him. I—" He cut himself off, seeing my reaction. "So, what do we do now?" he asked, kindly, but also scared, unsure of himself. I stood up, and shrugged. It was an uncommon action for me, but one I had been doing more and more ever since my brother had come to me with his secret. "Dad is gone; I watched his limo drive off. They're all the way on Parker Avenue by now. Pretty soon he'll be at the airport, and we are gonna have the whole forty rooms to ourselves. We should start looking for that octagon thingy." I nodded, dusting my clothes off self-consciously.
"You saw him and me, just now? You were watching?" I asked, running my hand over my head, nervously. Lucas tried to explain that he was worried about me, but I saw something strange in his eyes, in the way he was looking at me, something I couldn't completely understand. "Look, we don't even know that Dad was the one to find the octagon. If it broke off the craft, it could have gone anywhere. Maybe he has it; maybe he doesn't. It could be in his office, in his bedroom, or any one of another hundred million locations. For all we know it could be in that castle in Smallville." Lucas looked up at me sad, with those big, brown, puppy dog eyes. "I'm not saying we shouldn't look. It's just like before. I'm trying to prepare you for the possibility that we might not find anything."
"Lionel would wanna keep it close to him. He might have even tried to use it to open the ship, but in one comic book I read, only Warrior Angel could get into his special floating fortress—Devilicus tried to get in; he even had the key, but it wouldn't open. Maybe that ship is the same way."
"That is entirely possible," I suggested, but the kind already knew what I was thinking. That's just a comic book. Some of it is based on things that might happen in real life, but most of it is made up. You're probably just a meteor freak. I mean, come on…that ship thing could be a new age coffee table for all we know. "Look, we shouldn't be worrying about any of that right now. There's no way we can be sure of anything just yet. I hope we can find the "key" thing, I hope it makes whatever it is open up. I hope we get some answers from inside it, but you have to be prepared to understand that we might not learn anything, just like this morning. It could be a dead end. It could have all the answers we could ever want. I just don't know. There's nothing we can do yet. I want you to go to your room and try to get some sleep. I'm gonna do some more research online."
"Can I sleep in your room?" he asked, shyly. I was stunned. Not by his request, but by the way he asked it. Go easy on the kid; he's just scared, and you know what that's like. I nodded, and we went upstairs.
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Later, Lucas and I walked around the mansion, carefully searching each room, going through it at normal speed, looking for loose floor boards, going trough cabinets, drawers, closets, boxes, and whatever else we could find. We passed Lionel's bedroom three times; avoiding it for obvious reason, while claming that he wouldn't keep anything of importance in there. While we checked the place where my mother had spent the last few months of her life, the kid sat down on her bed, picking up a pillow, and hugging it close to his chest, inhaling sharply.
"The pillows don't smell like her anymore. They haven't for months. I stole one, right after she died, slept with it like a teddy bear for weeks, but then it just..." I sighed "I guess everything fades, eventually." He dropped the item, but didn't get up right away. Instead, he sat there, staring at me.
"How come Dad—Lionel—got rid of all her stuff? He took down her pictures, pt all her jewelry, clothes, knickknacks, perfumes, make up—well everything—into boxes. He even took off his wedding ring the day after the funeral. He did everything that day. I know 'cuz I was with him, when he put all the stuff away. He made me help him pack."
"He made you?" I asked, half shocked. Our mother had been gone less than a year, and based on Lucas's statements about his abilities e could have ripped the bastard apart even back then. I found it hard to believe he could tell the kid to do something like that and Lucas would actually listen. At least, I did until I realized exactly why our father—for lack of a better term—had the kid under his thumb. "When did he start….when did…I'm sorry." We checked all over Mom's sick room, and finally came to the last part of the house, the lion's den. We turned the doorknob, pulled it open, and stepped inside. We started searching through his stuff, as much as the idea disgusted and horrified us. I picked through his dresser, pushing his clothes around, checking for false bottoms, or a fake backing. I still didn't find anything. Next we started going trough a small filing cabinet. "Damnit! This last drawer is stuck, and I can't get the leverage to…" Before I could finish, my sentence, he was at my side, popping it open, like a bee tab.
"The octagon's not in there, Lex. I looked all over with my x-ray vision. That's sort of a lame thing to call it, isn't it?" Sounds like what're you're doing, seems okay to me. "We already checked every room, and every closet. There's nowhere else to look! It's not here!"
"I know," I said, quietly standing up, and kicking a metallic bin, watching as the contents spilled out all over the rug. "I hate this fucking room, and I hate this fucking house, and I hate being a Luthor, and I hate my life, and I hate him!" I slammed my foot into the bin over and over, even after my toes turned bright red and started to ache.
"Lex stop it,"" the kid cried, pulling me away, and hugging me. "Stop, you're gonna break your foot, and you don't hate him. Neither of us does. We can't because if we give up, he'll know, and never give us what we want." I know, I know, I thought helplessly, and nodded.
"What if this thing is in the beach house or in Smallville, or at his office, or in his fucking pocket?" I asked. The kid looked away sadly. I bit down on my lip, feeling guilty, but at the same time we knew that this was a possibility. We had been afraid to say it until now, but we both had been worrying.
"I dunno," he admitted, as he started to scan the room again, checking for something he or I may have missed. I gave Lucas the space I would have wanted if I were the one hacking into a computer, or doing my thing. After a few minutes he turned his face away, and took my hand. I hugged him.Then he started to cry hysterically, pressing his face into my shoulder. Fifteen or twenty minutes went by before he was calmed down enough for me to feel like I could start talking to him.
"It's okay. I don't know what else to tell you, but we are going to figure this out. We are going to be alright. He lifted his head, eyes red-rimmed, and wet. He looked so sad, like he was much, much younger than he really was. I started to clean up the room, and tripped, landing on my stomach, face to face (so to speak) with a small metallic box. I picked the thing up and turned it over in my hand. It was had been in the drawer, a small gray thing, probably made of led or nickel, about 6"X8" plain, probably boring, but I hadn't seen it earlier. When my brother shrugged, I gave him an odd look. "There's nothing in there?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't see through it. I don't know. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before! I don't understand." I looked up at him. I wanted to say, I'm sorry, or it's okay, but I was too nervous, and a little excited.
I touched the lid, carefully, feeling for the edges, the place to push up, and open it. Lucas kneeled down beside me, and put his own hand on the box. I couldn't help but notice tat my fingers were shaking when I reached down, popping the top off. Then, we looked inside.