Nascence -- Chapter Five
"If you felt like a change in uniform, I'm sure some makeover people could have sufficed. To even your satisfaction."
The flex of muscles across his back was subtle, freezing for one millisecond before he turned. The motion was drunken, sloppy, and utterly bereft of Luthor grace. His features were somehow... soft -- in the sense of lacking their usual lethal focus. Dilys found her hands trembling. Fortunately, she had made good use of her pant pockets for sticking them in and out of the way. There was nothing quite as awkward as a pair of arms in an uncertain meeting.
"Branching out to wardrobe mistress, Ms. Chase? Or is it the deep dark secrets of unstable psyches that tempt you out of your lab these days?"
He came to stand too close to her. Lex Luthor maintained an all-but-visible personal sphere, except when it suited him to admit quarry into its perilous interior. Then again, Dilys did not need the coarse, ill-fitting blue cotton to remind her that the man before her was not quite Lex Luthor. Her shoulderblades itched under the Belle-Reve guards' stares, and the security camera above Lex's easel glared like a baleful eye. She wondered how many more of those malicious stares were hidden in the woodwork (or plasterwork, as it were).
"Just following the boss' example, Mr. Luthor."
A laugh rang out, the likes of which Dilys had trouble believing had ever troubled a Luthorian throat. After all, the species was bred for polite barings of teeth, sarcastic little smirks, and the very rare soundless chuckle.
Lex leaned conspiratorially closer. "File? Lock pick? Electronic scrambler? Plastic explosives?"
"Sorry, I heard that the money's all in nefarious world-domination plans nowadays."
He stared at her for a second that passed on to two, then light-colored lashes lidded over the blue of his eyes. Dilys has always thought that the need for the last word was hardcoded into the Luthor genome, but Lex simple shuffled away as if suddenly cut free from the tether of their somewhat-conversation. His feet rambled back to the easel, and she tentatively followed until she stood beside his stool.
"Glad to see you have a hobby," Dilys ventured as the minutes dragged on.
Lex ignored her, continuing to swirl his brush excessively through the primary-colored paints before inflicting a stroke or two on the masterpiece. Having lowered her eyes in an inexcusable bout of fidgets, the scientist froze when she finally noticed the slight solid lumps in the churned paint. She had to swallow hard against a sudden unclenching of her insides, relief not mixing particularly well with a new anxiety -- psychoactive drugs did eventually dissolve in acrylics, right?
"It's great," Dilys blurted. "Never imagined what you can do with paint."
"And where exactly do you wish this flattery to bring you, Ms. Chase?" Lex spoke over his shoulder, voice flat with disinterest.
"Insanity minus five months?"
"Careful, Doctor. Socially acceptable persons are a minority here."
She swallowed an immediate retort and murdered a nervous chuckle. The brush-strokes on canvas petered to a halt, ending with Lex staring vacantly at purple-coated bristles. It was heavier on red than blue, close to those lilac shirts even one Dilys Chase had managed to notice that the mogul-in-the-making favored.
"Mr. Luthor?" Her hands clasped and unclasped with the awkwardness of silence. "Mr. Luthor, are you alright?"
He was slow to turn, and blinked with lack of recognition. The paint brush drooped, severing one leg of the stool with a broad purple stroke. The furrows on his brow were a portrait of confusion, and altogether more emotion than Dilys had seen him express in the entire sum of their acquaintance. "Dr. Chase? What are you doing here?"
Dr. Foster had warned her that his memory had been spotty of late. "Just wondering about your, uh, sabbatical. Er, how do you feel?"
"I feel good." A smile stretched Lex's face widely. "Great. Neighbors are homicidal maniacs, but can't argue with the monotone decor."
Obliques upon the back of obliques. Then again, it wasn't so bad when one considered that Lex Luthor sparred as instinctively as he drew breath, and Dilys Chase had fallen in love with intellectual adversity at a very young age. A sotto voce "Lucky us" earned Dilys a strange look; apparently, non-sequiturs were supposed to be his role in this script.
She tried to compensate with, "It's, uhm, not quite a vacation spot I figured you'd pick. What happened?"
His shrug indicated utter unconcern. "I was discussing my return to Metropolis with my father. I... there was..." A hand rose to rub his forehead, a crescendo in viciousness. Then, on the downsweep, his expression cleared into placidity. "Dr. Chase? You are here?"
Suddenly, she couldn't get far away enough. There was something unforgivably morbid about witnessing Lex Luthor in this state, like watching a panther crippled and blinded.
"Erm, no, guess I'm not really, can't be, right," she stammered. "Huge coherent fluctuation in the quantum vacuum. Fluke event only possible under the anthropic principle. I'll just, uh, make like a good virtual particle and pay back the energy debt now. Disappear, you know. Going, gone, bye, thanks for the lovely alice-ian chat."
Her feet were backing up, not quite retracing their earlier steps. Fortunately, technobabble was an excellent people-repellent even in the esoteric Belle Reve. The inmates gave Dilys a five-foot berth, and some minor miracle arranged for her to collide into none of them. Then a thickly solid palm grabbed her upper arm, jolting her heart into overaction before she recognized the guard who had escorted her in.
She couldn't resist one last look over her shoulder. Lex stared after her wake, elbows resting on his knees, brush dangling between his left fingers. But his eyes were more gray than blue, and saw nothing of her person at all.
"Alexander. Your parents call you Lex, don't they? May I call you Lex?"
Silence.
"Well, Lex, wouldn't you like to draw? You can have as much paper as you want."
The young boy, not quite twelve years of age, had already been staring down at the large sheet of construction paper set before him. His posture is prep-school correct, his dress so impeccably formal as to make the plain black baseball cap on his head reek red herring. His eyes, when he raises them, are blue-gray and brimful with contempt for the talk-down-to.
"Alright, you don't have to draw if you don't want to. Lex, do you remember Julian?"
The silence is long, but there is no change in the flat blue stare.
"You know that Julian is gone, don't you, Lex?"
Quirkily shaped lips tremble for the briefest moment, but that is all.
"It's alright to cry, Lex. You can cry when bad things happen."
The weakness of vulnerability evaporates like a dewdrop in a desert. The contempt returns, augmented by a sneer.
"Do you remember what happened, Lex?"
Silence.
"What happened, Lex?"
Silence.
"What happened to Julian, Lex?"
Silence.
---((( Fast forward )))---
The wide wooden table is the same, down to the mahogany highlights in the lacquer. The rectangular construction paper is the same. The jar of thick crayons is the same, brightly-colored but for one glossy black. The boy is superficially the same, collared shirt, tailored slacks, baseball cap.
There is a dullness to the dark blue eyes. Previously, they have unfailingly been too sharp, too old.
"Why hello, Lex. And how is my favorite patient feeling today?"
The smirk is hundred-fifty percent disbelief, yet muted in some ineffable way.
"You're a very bright young man, aren't you, Lex?"
"Big pity you're not."
This time, the usual silence is tinged with unusual shock. "Surely you understand that your father would have entrusted his only son only to the best."
"Luthors can't be seen with anything but the best." The curl of the boy's lips is lazy, predator toying with prey.
"Lex, I only want to help you."
"And your pocketbook, and your resume."
"No, I want to help you. Losing a brother is a traumatic experience, Lex. You don't have to go through it alone."
Silence.
"You don't trust me. That's quite alright, Lex. Trust has to be earned."
Silence.
"How's this? I'll make you a deal. We'll call it an end for today's session, shall we? Let's take a walk in the park instead. It is beautiful this time of year."
Silence.
---((( Fast forward )))---
There is hardly a difference in the quality of the video, though the setting makes it obvious that it is recorded by a portable (even Luthor-funded psychiatrists do not own wired neighborhood greens). It is evening, the harsh rays of sun having softened enough to lure families into the lush, well-manicured park. The boy sits straight-backed on the bench, staring resolutely at a bush though his eyes dart occasionally towards the latest source of shrieks, shouts, and laughter. A slightly portly, middle-aged man sits by him, but there is at least ten inches between their legs.
"Ah, this is much better than that stuffy old office, isn't it, Lex? This has always been my favorite spot, but I must admit that it's been even nicer these past few days with company."
"You seem right fond of all that Bauhaus art and architecture."
A chuckle. "Quite, quite. But nothing beats Nature's sculptures, don't you think?"
There is very little of Nature's hand in their beautiful surrounds beyond its providence of raw material, but the boy does not point it out. Under the shadow of lashes, his eyes track a toddler who runs on short stubby legs across the lawn before tumbling into the safety of waiting arms.
"Have you ever been to a park with Julian, Lex?"
"It's not safe for Julian in the park."
"I see. But if it had been safe, would you have liked to play with Julian in the park?"
"Julian is just a baby. And playing is a waste of time."
"Julian was, Lex."
Silence.
"Julian is gone, Lex. I know it is hard to accept, but it is the truth."
Silence.
"If you remember what happened, Lex, it will help you put it behind you."
Silence. But the blue eyes were no longer coy in their interest, and were pinned on the flailing limbs of a squalling one-year-old. "Julian always cries. Julian cries too much."
"What happened to Julian, Lex?"
Silence.
"Lex, can you remember what happened to Julian?"
Silence.
---((( Fast forward )))---
The park has not changed, despite the changing roster of actors that populate it. Every day some time between dusk and twilight, a bevy with spades and scissors are paid to whisk past the flowering hedges, fancifully shaped trees, and tiered fountains, as invisibly effective as any army of gnomes.
The boy is different, though. His shoulders are not as squarely set as they used to be, and one hand fidgets with a crease in rather too-loose pants.
"Lex, tell me about Julian."
"Julian is my brother. He's two months old. He's to be christened soon."
"You know that Julian's not here anymore, don't you, Lex?"
The hand's agitation increases, but the capped head bows once, twice. It does not raise from the second dip.
"What happened to Julian, Lex?"
"He, he was crying. Julian is always crying."
"What happened then?"
Silence.
"Lex, did Julian stop crying?"
Silence.
"Do you remember what happened, Lex?"
Silence.
---((( Fast forward )))---
The creamy white of the construction paper is stark against the mahogany wood. In one corner is a sketch -- round baby cheeks peeking from between swaddling clothes. Only the black crayon has been permitted to mark the sheet. The lines are clumsy with a child's lack of refinement, but the crudeness of execution does not quite conceal an underlying raw talent.
"Lex, what happened after Julian was crying?"
The boy continues rubbing the waxy tip over the matte surface, not looking up. His voice is a little slurred, from a face that is half parts vacant. "He... stopped."
"Why did he stop, Lex? Why did Julian stop crying?"
"He stopped."
"Did something happen to make Julian stop, Lex?"
The crayon broke, but the boy pressed on with the lower nub. The lines it makes are thicker, harsher, less precise.
"Tell me what happened to Julian, Lex."
"I don't... I don't remember."
"Are you sure?"
"I don't remember!"
"Alright. It's okay, Lex. It's okay to not remember."
Dilys stabbed the "close" button with unnecessary vehemence, and the characters vanished in an anticlimax of terminated window. It had been a lucky break for the two fugitives that the records of Lex Luthor's first psychiatric treatment were in digital storage. Otherwise, she would have had to add "break-in and illegal entry" to that pending lawsuit (expected any day now). Then she would have been pressed to digitize plus destroy the tapes herself -- grand and conveniently recorded confessions were so passe for the modern villain(ess). As it were, her laptop was probably a 100 Sv radiation threat now, to be buried in the deepest lead-lined bunker at the earliest opportunity.
Nobody had seen fit to inform Dilys that criminal activity was three-fourths thumb-twiddling. In the meanwhile, she could help replaying over and over her handful of pieces in the olympic-pool-sized puzzle that was Lex Luthor. She managed enough self-control -- this time -- to not punch up the statement of medications prescribed throughout those long-ago sessions. Her memory ensured that she could conjure it up in her mind much more easily, but there was something appalling/comforting in the more physical act. Like poking at a weeping wound.
"Damn!"
The expletive made Dilys swing halfway around, though the voice had come over the headphones plugged into her laptop. The cursor darted to a small window in the top right corner, and the video expanded to encompass the entire screen.
"Devious bastard," the starring african-american woman muttered, no doubt by intention under her breath. But Belle-Reve had nothing but the best in surveillance technology... and Dilys was running the pilfered feed through an audio enhancing filter. As she watched, Dr. Claire Foster a.k.a. Lex's psychiatrist buried her face in one hand, an uncharacteristic indication of despair.
There were no more words in next minutes, just the occasional tap of fingers on keys. It was not particularly difficult to peek at the document Dr. Foster was working on, not with the back door into the Belle-Reve network Dilys had installed during that carefully-planned visit half a week ago. The access was only to the occasionally quick-saved version, not the most recent contents in memory, but it was sufficient and more.
Though pre-warned, confirmation of the bad news earthquaked Dilys' hard-won hope. Dr. Foster suspected either an unprecedented ability of Lex's body to neutralize the prescribed psychoactive drugs, or an unplanned-for cunning on Lex's behalf in avoiding his daily dosage. There were clear indicators of which hypothesis she preferred. Dilys rather thought that there was no surprise there, what with that history of inability to take responsibility for her own mistakes.
The physicist had been careful to alter the half-weekly blood composition reports on one Lex Luthor, even if it was more or less a guessing game as to which numbers to push up and down to make it seem as if he were progressing as Dr. Porter expected. The CAT scans were even more of a feat. Still, Dilys could not begin to compare such tasks to the monumental effort of acting as if you were slowly losing your grip on reality, twenty-four hours times seven days times four-and-a-half weeks. And counting.
Whatever could have gone wrong? Which of them had slipped? Had the psychiatrist somehow expected a progression vastly different from Lex's eleven-year-old self? Even the completed version of Dr. Foster's report provided no clues. Anyway, it was a moot point, for the pressing need now was for damage control.
Fingers hovered, instinctively prepped to wipe the report out so thoroughly, no physical trace could exist. Her mood being a particularly vicious one, Dilys further contemplated infecting the doctor's computer -- nay, why not the entire Belle-Reve? -- with a concoction of viruses. Yet all the paths unfurling in her mind screamed disaster: Dr. Foster would be suspicious, and that would avalanche all the way up to the dread Lionel Luthor.
Perhaps she should take hacking up as a hobby. Dilys could imagined nothing more satisfying right now than to be able to bring the whole LuthorCorp computing crashing down about its electronic auditory organs.
Idle mental pacing.
In the dimly-lit (she had forgotten to turn on the lights again) confines of her work-cum-living-room, Dilys Chase stared at her laptop screen. Then she began to systematically panic.
