7.- Best Laid Plans...
"My name is Clark Kent?" He remained afloat, pondering the question. "Who is Clark Kent?"
Outside this world, Richie Adler stared at his computer monitor, trying to keep his hands from shaking. He wanted to shout "You are, you stupid git. YOU ARE!" but he was in the Vault, working on the code, and although he had tampered with the video feed monitoring his work, he had to keep his reactions in check.
C'mon…
c'mooooon…
react…
reaaaaaact…
don't do this to me again….REACT!
But maddeningly, Clark remained as he was. Richie banged the table with his fist. The time window he had for his attempt was fast expiring.
He resumed typing, sending lines and tweaking the code as far as he dared. It was a slow, time consuming effort…creating algorithms that could search every corner of cyberspace, tagging and pulling untold thousands of pieces that made Superman/Clark Kent's memory and personality. He'd create a construct with enough memories and he'd hope it would hold together just enough to allow him a way back to his brain and escape.
He had tried everything and he had been doing this for months. It was a task fraught with peril: there were hundreds of programmers actively trying to keep his mind adrift in a jumble of information. He knew it wouldn't be simple, because new locks, barriers, gates, and scramblers of the highest technology were put into use by the other programmers. Currently he had a 180 second window and each week it became smaller and his prep work became lengthier. He checked his notes…it took him 8 weeks this time? He checked his watch and grimaced. He had less than 20 seconds now, and if Superman didn't follow the virtual path he laid for him, he would need to spend another 8 weeks, maybe more.
He knew he was playing with his life and his family's. Luthor's tone never rose from friendly and conversational. When he was given full access and the "where did Superman go" speech, he just asked how his wife was doing and commiserated about Ginny losing a baby sister. By all rights, he should have kept his mouth shut, his nose to the grindstone and collecting his very fat paycheck.
But every time he was at home and saw the door that led to his little girls' room, he knew he'd keep trying, risks be damned.
Superman would have saved her, he thought as his eyes watered. Had he been around, he would have saved her and there'd be no need for parents to bury their children.
He came out of his reverie in time to see that he had failed once again.
Clark shook his head and muttered "I don't think this is real."
Clark's shape glowed brightly for a second and then, it split into thousands of points of light spreading in every direction, until nothing remained. The virtual mind was empty once more.
He sighed.
He rested his head in his hands and rocked back and forth for a few minutes, tension gripping him in the neck muscles and holding tight.
He would have to start the process again, but with the cumulative difficulty that the pieces of his personality and memories were getting smaller and smaller, due to the fact that the virtual pool where his essence was submerged grew larger by the second. Images of Lois, of children, of his parents, childhood friends, hopes, dreams…they were not enough to hold him together. He'd disbelieve the illusion at first, prompting him to seek more answers, but he kept on disbelieving; thinking the way out was a more elaborate trap. "Your name is Clark Kent", "You are Superman." "You need to find Lois"; "Luthor is behind all this." He could be lead to a certain point, but after that, it all came crumbling down. And when the time was up and he was still stuck in the magical dreamland, his memories simply pulled a big bang and went back to being lost in cyberspace. It was like a bad virus that rebooted the computer before he had time to upload the cure.
He remembered when it had taken him three days to get a few dozen memories and ran a Superman scenario, where he rescued his little girl. Back then he just said "Nice try, Luthor" and flew completely away from his path, searching for crimes to stop. He did a dozen Superman scenarios until he realized "Clark" would have a better chance of success. Superman was always busy, flying around, but Clark…oh, Clark would have better tethers to the world. And for a time, he dared to hope.
But he disbelieved.
And his once plentiful memories were harder to put together. At one time, he could form a complete Superman, and now, he was lucky if he could get enough memories to sit together to manifest a pair of red boots. He tried to whip up fake memories to bridge the gaps, but he saw through it immediately and in some cases, reacted very violently.
He knew another attempt would take 8...no, 9 if he was being realistic. 9 fully loaded weeks of work, with virtually no time to go home. He knew he needed to spend all the time he had on his wife and daughter, walk away from this project, tell someone about it and yet…he couldn't just leave it alone. He couldn't tell anyone. Who'd believe him? It was all over the news that Superman was dead and there was no way in hell he could sneak out any evidence. And plant it online? He'd be dead before he knew it.
He had to get Superman back. He'd protect him.
All right, he thought. Once more, unto the breach.
Six Months Later
Lex looked around the conference room, pleased at the attendance. He had been busy –very busy- this past few days and he needed to cleanse his palate with the latest reports and discoveries from his top scientists and researchers.
"Ingersoll, you have the floor."
"Sir, we're not pleased to report that we've overhauled the spy satellite's software, but we've failed to discover why it's taking so long to fire."
Lex's face did not betray emotion. "What's the percentage on speed loss?"
"22%"
"So now it takes more than 2 seconds to fire? Do you know how many miles it can cover in 2 seconds?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you know how, even with all our recalibrations, it still misses by inches?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you manage to increase the power in the beam?"
"Not really, no. The power couplings cannot handle more stress and even if they did, the energy to beam conversion cannot be improved. We're literally getting everything we can from the material."
"What about the accuracy issues? There've been a few times when the systems have the target down cold and the beam misses by inches."
Ingersoll consulted his notes. "We couldn't find errors in the programming. The algorithm works as intended and there are no bugs. We're adding a subroutine that will force a recheck between the intended target, the targeting computer and the satellite visuals. We're confident it will work."
"Confident?"
"100% sure, sir. I'm monitoring the development myself."
"Good. Miller?"
"We were not able to produce neither the contact lens lasers nor the x-ray specs, sir. Every simulation we ran returned with disastrous results to the wearer's eyeball. We tweaked it as far as we dared and, we built a model for a test…"
Lex's eyebrows shot up. "You mean the charred remains pictured on page five?"
Miller looked apologetic. "Yes; had it been in someone's eye, it would have turned the skull into a pressure cooker and the steam inside the cranium would've…." Lex waved a hand and Miller trailed off.
"All right, move on to the next project. Williams, what is going on in Site One?"
"You have the latest inventory, sir; along with our best guesses as to what is the purpose and function of the objects. We divided them in several categories: weapons, armor, gadgets, gizmos, trinkets and…
"…too scary to know? Your guys seem to have a flair for the dramatic."
"Ah, yes: the chest-sucking plant. Holland was caught by it and when we separated them, he became a raging maniac, trying to get attached to it again."
"I remember; you moved him from your service and into the psych ward. Be careful with the plant, but let me know if we can synthesize whatever enzyme it injects, either for inducing or controlling rages. The possibilities are interesting."
"We're mass producing the energy sources from the guns and the military is very pleased. Major Holden keeps telling us they want them like hell needs icewater."
"Good, this should take the heat off our spastic satellite. How are we doing regarding the cleaning robots?"
"They are surprisingly simple. We're testing them in our Wichita facility, ironing out the power source kinks, but they're going to be big moneymakers."
Lex took another file and leafed through it. "Malucci, how's the medical research?"
"We were beating our heads against the wall with the healing matrix, but we came up with a workaround. We're ready to test it on live subjects."
Lex made a note to call his agent in the FDA. "Remember: I want the common cold, cancer, asthma, AIDS and Alzheimer gone. And that's just my starter list. Lorne, how fares the Vault?"
"We had a bit of a hard time replacing Adler, but we're confident Dr. Wheaton will perform as expected. Adler did no damage and he never knew we tweaked his memory locating algorithm into doing the opposite, keeping the memories as far away from each other as possible. In many ways, he did us a favor that helped us plug the breaches in our security.."
The meeting carried on for a few more hours and when it concluded, Lex went back to his office. Pearl had left the latest reports from his agents and he was eager to read them.
The projected earnings were unbelievable; the patent teams were filing them around the clock and after a while he briefly considered taking a break and watching the videos, just to relive the exhilarating feeling of holding his head by the spitcurl and punching his face until his fist hurt…
He felt a buzz in his front pocket. He grabbed his special phone and answered.
"Yes?"
"This is Pitkin."
Luthor had people in every level of government and Pitkin was his agent inside the Department of Justice. She was a serious, dour woman with a serious gambling problem that enabled Lex to keep abreast of their work and investigations, get very important tips and warnings, all for a modest fee.
"What do you have?"
"The capes case.. they're going to subpoena you."
Lex smiled. All hell broke loose in the months after the Batman-Superman fight and the destruction of Wayne Manor. There was no denying anymore that Superman was gone: they recovered enough pieces to pronounce him dead. The media and the law enforcement communities–human and metahuman- had gone berserk, trying to find out what happened. There were hundreds of costumed interlopers and the stupider ones wanted to take a shot at him. Veiled threats from Green Lantern, vandalism from the Flash and even a stern talking-to from Captain Marvel…well, he assumed it was going to be one of those…he walked away while Captain Marvel was saying "You see, Mr. Luthor…"
He'd suffer no idiocy from a pale imitation.
"When?"
"48 hours, maybe less."
He let the line go silent for a while and then he said in his iciest voice. "Why am I hearing this just now?"
"They brought people from outside and they used anti-surveillance shit that found every bug I planted. I had to stop it or they would have found me. But they left one of their tablets in the room and I went in via the tunnel and downloaded everything. I'm dropping it at the usual spot."
"No. Use the third alternate. We need to be too careful. Who is in charge of this?"
"AUSA Timmons."
"I know of him. He's a good lawyer...bit of a glory hound. But no, this is not Timmons' doing, not by a long shot. Who's the cape behind this? Who's bringing this mess to my front door?"
"The Woman."
"Ah…" Lex stroked his chin. "The third of the Big Three. Now it makes sense. Good job, Pitkin. You're getting the usual payment and if the goods are useful, I'll double it."
He hung up and dialed a number. A voice answered by the second ring.
"Jonah." Lex liked him; he didn't waste his time with idle chat.
"I need an update on the gold project."
"It's ready. We just need to calibrate it."
"Will it work?"
"On paper the numbers look fine, but we don't have access to the item, so our best guess is to turn the dials all the way up. It may cause damage if there's prolonged exposure."
"Get it ready, I'm on my way."
