Chapter 7
Metropolis, March 3, 2019. Al, Martha, Jim and Chloe sat around the Kent's dining room table while the last remnants of a fine dinner were being swept away by their hosts; all four also waited for the children to clear out of the room before addressing the pressing topic that had brought them together that evening.
"I'll be back later!" Jason called out over his shoulder as he grabbed his jacket and backpack and headed for the door.
Lois poked her head out through the breakfast bar that connected the dining room and kitchen. "Wait! Whose house are you going to again?"
"I'll be at Sean's hanging out with the guys."
"Ok. Don't stay out too late—you know it's a school night."
"I know," he replied, shutting the door behind him.
Chloe lifted up the little boy sitting on her lap and placed him beside her on his feet. "Chris, Sweetie, why don't you go play with the older kids for a little while, ok? The grown ups want to talk for a bit."
"Ok." He toddled off down the hall toward Haley's room where the three older children had retreated after dinner. Only the occasional sound of laughter and play punctuated the silence around the table.
Al looked at the anxious faces surrounding him before turning to Clark as the tall man re-seated himself at the head of the table. "So, what's the news from out west?"
"First things first, Al; not everyone here knows what's been going on."
"Clark!" Martha cried out, all astonishment, "You haven't been keeping secrets, have you?"
"Not exactly," Lois replied as she entered the room with a coffee carafe in hand. "We've been waiting for information to pan out."
"You all remember what Luthor created when I came back from trying to find Krypton..." Clark started.
"You say that like any one of us here could forget," Chloe responded as she passed Jim the milk pitcher.
"Well what many of you don't know is that he had a girlfriend at the time, a woman by the name of Katherine Kowalski."
"Ok…"
"Kitty escaped with Lex before I launched New Krypton into space. We didn't know that then and even after he resurfaced we had no way of tracking her down. Only recently was she apprehended."
"Very recently," Al reiterated.
"So that's the story you two were chasing out in Arizona then? Interviewing her?" Jim surmised, turning to his friends for confirmation over their recent absences.
Lois nodded her head. "Yes, but that's only part of it."
The tall man heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, his glasses sitting innocuously on the table as the conversation came to a head. "Luthor made the island out of Kryptonite but he jump-started the process by using crystals that were sent with me to Earth."
Martha inhaled sharply, not having known before what created the giant land mass; she'd been too consumed with worry in the aftermath of it's removal to question the means that brought it into being. "These weren't ordinary crystals," Lois hastened to add. "They were like—well I don't know how to describe them. They were like organic hard drives, I guess; they held all sorts of information about Clark's home world, other galaxies, his biological parents..."
"I kept them up north in the Fortress even after I left for Krypton; I assumed that since they were stored so deep in the Arctic they'd be safe. Clearly I was wrong. Luthor somehow managed to steal them shortly before I returned and he was able to discover the power that they held." Clark looked around as the news sunk in to those present at the table, the dejected looks on their faces speaking volumes, and he took a small sip of coffee before proceeding. "It only took one crystal to create New Krypton, but he stole all eight, robbing the Fortress of it's power and me of a large part of my history. Over the years I wondered what had happened to the remaining seven but with Luthor dead and gone there was no way to know for sure..."
"Until now," Chloe finished for her friend. "So what'd Kitty tell you?"
Lois locked eyes with her husband knowing how overwhelmed with emotion he still was over the events of the last few days. "She told us that she dumped them on the island shortly before she and Luthor escaped. They're floating out in space."
"And now we know for a fact that they're gone," Clark concluded sadly.
"Oh Clark..." Martha bemoaned. The rest of them stared down at the tablecloth looking very somber.
Jim, ever the optimist, thought about it for a few moments before asking, "Isn't there a back-up or something? At the Fortress, I mean, isn't there some way of retrieving the information? Like an extra hard drive with most of the information still on it? Maybe Chloe can take a look, she's good with computers, maybe she can..."
"I can't, Jim," she interjected. "I wish I could, but I can't. I've seen the Fortress before and the technology up there is way out of my league. I wouldn't even know where to start looking for any back-up information let alone know how to pull it up so Clark could access it."
Clark nodded in agreement with Chloe. "Not only that but the crystals were the Fortress' power source; there'd be no way to recover it without at least one crystal remaining."
"Oh."
All the guests sat still, feeling the supreme weight of Clark's decade-old loss.
"Looks like Jor-el and I were both wrong in assuming that the single set of crystals would be safe on this planet."
Lois heard the key in the door as she sat on the sofa with Clark watching a movie, his arm wrapped around her shoulder, while Haley slept in her room down the hall tuckered out by her visit with the cousins. She turned around and watched her eldest slip in, his shaggy hair in his face and his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, and watched as he set his backpack down carefully beside the hall tree.
"Did you have a good time at Sean's tonight?"
"Huh?" he asked dumbly, looking up and seeing her for the first time. "Uh yeah, fine."
Clark turned around to study their son as well. "You boys do anything in particular?"
"No, just hung out. Nothing special."
"Did your nothing special happen to revolve around talk over a certain Maggie Dillinger?" Lois asked impishly, knowing the crush he had developed on that particular brunette cheerleader.
"No, it didn't. Well I'm beat...good night!" Jason ducked swiftly down the hall without another word.
Alarm bells went off in Lois' head. He didn't even blush when I mentioned Maggie, something's wrong. She turned to her husband who had resumed watching the movie with little fanfare. "Did any of that seem strange to you?"
"Hmm? Did any of what seem strange?"
"Just now, with Jason, did any of that seem strange to you?"
He crinkled his brow as he looked over at her. "No...he seems fine, why?"
But Lois couldn't pinpoint any one phrase or signal that made her uneasy and so she dismissed her apprehension. "Nothing, never mind."
Jason waited until his bedroom door was safely closed behind him before exhaling in relief. His limbs trembled with tension and he turned around to take a good long look at himself in the mirror.
His cheeks were sallow and he could've sworn he saw dark circles developing under his eyes as he held the bangs up off his forehead. This trip had not been so easy and it showed on his face but he stubbornly chose instead to forge ahead with his cockamamie plan rather then back down. Defeat simply wasn't a word in his vocabulary.
Slipping out of his shoes he crossed the clothes-laden floor over to his bed and flopped down stomach-first on the coverlet, gripping the pillow tightly under his arms. He slept heavily the entire night and well into the following morning.
Daily Planet, March 4, 2019. "So, kids, how was your vacation?" Perry called out to his ace reporters. He'd been standing by Ralph's desk with a copy of an article in his hands and he eyed the pair eagerly over the tops of his glasses.
"Vacation? You call following a story to Arizona and working a vacation?" Lois asked as she made a bee-line for him. "I'd hate to see what kind of holiday you'd take if you ever took one, Old Man. And those seats on that flight, oh Lord…"
He dismissed her with a wave of his hand and turned his attention back to the article. "Hey, don't bitch to me, take it up with travel. You don't like flying coach you tell them and see if they can get the big wigs upstairs to increase the budget. Now tell me what you were able to learn from the Kowalski woman; I hope it was worth it."
"Depends on who you ask," Clark answered his Editor-in-Chief sullenly.
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh, we were able to learn a good deal," Lois cut in, giving her husband the death glare while smiling at their boss. "The extent of her involvement with Luthor, how he got the idea to create New Krypton, all sorts of interesting stuff."
"Good. I want a piece for the front page by early afternoon…by the way, any word from Superman on his feelings about this yet?"
She looked back over her shoulder and took in her husband's cheerless image to see if he wanted to respond. Clearly, he didn't. "He's pretty disappointed, Chief, but at least now there's closure. He's glad that justice is being served for all involved."
"Good, good, now get me that article by two at the latest, ok? I want to be able to give you two time for a re-write if need be..." His voice trailed off as he walked back to his office, Ralph's article in hand, and closed the door behind him.
Clark pulled away from his wife and made his way over to his desk, flicking the computer on AND lifting up the telephone handset to check his voicemail.
"Just hang in there, Honey," Lois whispered encouragingly from across the way. He continued entering in his password and nodded along so she knew he'd heard. "After tomorrow this will all be just a memory."
Deep down he knew she was right but he wished his heart would hurry up and get the memo—the ache he felt over his loss was almost comparable to all his past exposures to Kryptonite.
A/N: Sorry this chapter is so short but I promise you I more than make up for it with the next two! And remember, all reviewers get a sneak peek of the chapter to come so don't forget to let me know what you think of the story thus far!
