CHAPTER 11: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LOIS LANE
The world according to Lois Lane was relatively simple.
You had to have rules.
Secret Rules you had to follow - like a personal code of honour. There were other rules in the world of course but your rules were the ones that helped you get around all the others. The rules were an essential to what Lois called Lane's Guide to Survival in the Big, Bad World. Lois Lane lived her life by these rules, fashioned out of life as an army brat and all the lessons that came after which her shaped her being. No matter what she set out to accomplish in her life, the rules remained ingrained in her existence, occasionally warranting review for the changing times. However, the basic tenets remained the same because if you didn't have rules, you just wouldn't make it.
Rule No. 1 – Don't take crap from anyone.
Rule No. 2 – Guilt belongs to those who get caught.
Rule No. 3 – People let you down – get over it.
Rule No. 4 – Always clean up your own mess.
Rule No. 5 – Good boyfriends are hard to find. Take all steps to prevent dissection.
Rule No. 6 – Evil corporations must always be brought down.
Rule No. 7 – If someone is too perfect, they're usually hiding something. See Rule No. 5 and 6.
Rule No. 8 - Never underestimate flannel. On the right guy it can be hot. See Rule No. 5
Lois hated traffic.
Even though she was sitting in air-conditioned comfort while the outside world was baking in hot weather, Lois could feel her patience eroding away by the gridlock traffic she was enduring. Leaving Wayne Manor, Lois had been full of determination and drive to get some answers from the elusive DeSaad Industries. However, an hour in midday traffic had deflated much of her enthusiasm and inflated her growing annoyance at the whole situation. Her hopes of making a quick investigation of the company and returning to the Manor before anyone knew she was gone, seemed more and more unlikely. Furthermore, Lois suspected there might be some fallout from her loan of one of Bruce's vehicles.
Okay that was bullshit, he hadn't loaned her anything. However, if Daddy Warbucks was going to leave the keys to a gorgeous black Masserati just hanging around the garage, she couldn't be held responsible for what came next (Rule No. 2).
On this occasion however, Rule No.5 had her driving towards the imposing structure that was the DeSaad Tower. After her argument with Clark, Lois had needed to do something to put right the condition he presently found himself (Rule No.4). While she didn't regret helping Valerie, Lois did regret the consequences for Clark. By helping a stranger, Lois had inadvertently allowed Valerie's hunters to discover an even more valuable prize than a young woman with a sonic scream - an alien from Krypton.
With that one action, Lois had single-handedly destroyed the anonymity he had spent his whole life protecting.
The worst of it was that Clark didn't even blame her for it.
He was too kind and noble for such a mean thought and there were times Lois feared his faith in people as much as she admired it. A long time ago, Lois had reached the conclusion that most people spent their lives disappointing each other (see Rule No.3). She did not want Clark to learn that lesson the hard way. On the face of it, it may appear that kryptonite was Clark Kent's greatest weakness but Lois knew better. Clark's greatest weakness was his heart.
And these days, it was more fragile than ever.
Already irritated by how long it took to reach her destination, Lois' disposition did not improve when she caught her first glimpse of the DeSaad Building.
Pretty fancy for a branch office, she thought staring at the building through the windscreen of the car as she searched for a parking space. Like the Monolith in that Kubrick film, the tower that stood a modest fifty storeys high, covered in dark glass and showed no visible signs of life to the outside world. A cold shudder she could not explain ran through her as she took in the sight of it, wondering if the architecture was deliberate. To make visitors feel awe when approaching it for the first time.
If so, then their purpose was lost entirely because the only emotion it generated in Lois was a sense of menace. For an absurd moment, she found herself thinking it looked evil. Get a grip Lois, she rebuked herself as she continued searching for a space.
Finally, Lois opted to park the car in secure lot across the street out of sight of any security cameras that might be spying on her from behind all that dark glass. Unfortunately, her chosen mode of transport was conspicuous to say the least and the last thing Lois wanted was to bring any more attention to herself than necessary.
A few minutes later, she was walking through the front door, prepared for anything.
Hank Cobb considered himself fortunate to be alive.
Currently exiled by his master, CEO Michael Canto of DeSaad Industries to the wilderness of Gotham, Hank knew that if Canto so wished it, his life could be forfeit at any time. Therefore, every moment he continued to breathe was a boon. Sending him to Gotham was a subtle way of getting rid of him that didn't require the expense of a bullet. Despite being a major metropolitan centre, likened to Metropolis or New York, Gotham was infamous for its underworld influences. The crime bosses ruled in Gotham and they did so with an iron fist. People were known to die violently for random, meaningless crimes that had no social boundary.
If socialites like Thomas and Martha Wayne could be gunned down in the street, what was to keep a mugger from blowing him away?
Nothing, that's what.
Until he regained his standing before Canto, Cobb was stuck like a rat in a maze, forced to run the labyrinth until his legs gave out or his master put him out of his misery for sheer boredom. However, Hank knew there was a way out, if he could just get a break. All he had to do was get Valerie on the phone and he could talk her right back into the fold.
And he was convinced that once they had Valerie, Canto would get the other specimen that had given him such a hard on and John Corben had failed to capture.
Valerie – what a needy bitch she was, he thought resentfully as he viewed absently the multiple screens showing the live security footage of what was happening around the building.
All the time Hank had wasted, preparing her, cajoling her with sweet words, performing a minor miracle by seducing her over the Internet and bringing her into the organisation. The first part was simple enough. Her loneliness and naiveté made her easy to drawn into his web. If it wasn't for the fact that she was as ugly as f**k, he might have even felt sorry for her.
The same mutation that made Valerie capable of knocking out a city block with her screen had also made her a deformed mess of flesh and bone. Her family had been wise to keep her away from prying eyes because she looked like the Elephant man's younger sister. On the Internet, it was easy to tease her and pretend that looks didn't matter, that he loved her for her mind, her gentle spirit.
What a load of crap, he remembered thinking as he typed his responses laced with romantic nonsense that was sure to enchant any sheltered virgin. He promised her a new life, moonlight and roses and every cliché riddled declarations of love he could think of until she was ripe to break free from her parents' gilded cage.
Hearing about her deformity and seeing it in person had been two very different things and it had taken every bit of composure he had, to keep from recoiling in horror when he first laid eyes on her. Later on that night when he had taken her into his bed, Hank had to down a bottle of scotch first before he could even stomach the thought. However, the stakes were high and he knew that one act of intimacy would be enough to bind her to him. Fortunately for a young woman denied all physical contact, Hank didn't have to engage in any lengthy foreplay to get the results he wanted.
After he had taken her virginity, she was malleable to anything he wanted and that's when the testing began. The eggheads went to work, under Canto's supervision, taking the deformed freak of nature that Valerie had been and transforming her into something beautiful. Using surgical skills and technology that would put any Beverley Hills plastic surgeon to shame, the eggheads carved Valerie up like a roast, slicing away all her deformities until she became the blond goddess that Hank was more than happy to service.
Unfortunately, despite her beauty, despite the amplification of her power, Valerie was as needy as they came and Hank had little patience for spoiled little girls who wanted to monopolize his attention. When she complained about the testing, his response was to sleep with her and by then, she was beautiful enough for Hank to actually enjoy it. However, the silence didn't last long and Valerie would be bitching again about the tests, until he needed a timeout to keep himself from beating the crap out of her.
Still, Hank hadn't suspected she'd run out on him but run she did and now she was out there, somewhere. An ugly duckling turned into a swan on his dime, making him look bad to Canto who questioned his ability to control the woman he was screwing. Somehow, he had to get her back.
Suddenly a face appeared on the screen that made Hank sit up straighter in his chair, forgetting the melancholy brought on by his exile. The woman who stepped through the main doors of the building had Hank swivelling around in his chair to face his computer screen in an instant. Pulling up the images that had been sent to him from New York, taken during their last failed attempt to retrieve Valerie, Hank found a smile sneaking across his face when he realised who he was looking at.
Lois Lane…in Gotham City.
If she was here, was Valerie?
Still grinning, he reached for the phone and used the speed dial to get the connection he wanted. When the caller picked up, Hank wasted no time getting to the point.
"Corben, this is Hank." He said quickly, almost with glee. "I think I've located your missing farm boy."
For what seemed like the hundredth time today, Clark Kent found himself on his ass.
His body ached and he could feel every muscle groaning in protest. While he had experienced pain before, it went away quickly enough however, the prolonged variety that that lasted hours was something new and Clark couldn't get over how uncomfortable it could be. Even when he was the star quarterback of Smallville High, he was shielded from the injuries that came with the game and a part of him felt a little guilty about having that advantage. However, now that he was experiencing the aches and pains associated with a contact sport, Clark was rather grateful to have been spared all that.
The blows he sustained during his training session with Bruce were delivered through padded gloves but Clark could still feel them. Clark knew Bruce wasn't intentionally out to hurt him but their sparring had been tough and while he had admired Bruce's ability before, now he truly understood how dangerous the man could be. If this were what it felt like to be an opponent of Bruce Wayne when the gloves were on, what would it be like when those same gloves were off?
Worse yet, what was Bruce capable of when he really wanted to hurt somebody?
"You okay?" Bruce Wayne asked as he looked down at Clark, who hadn't moved from place he had landed after failing to avoid Bruce's use of a leg sweep.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Clark grumbled, taking the hand offered as he picked himself up off the mat.
"You're getting better," Bruce pointed out, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "You're staring to anticipate."
It was true. While Clark's skill level was still very much in the novice range right now, he was beginning to use his normal senses beyond their known limits. While Clark's powers were something to admire, Bruce also felt that they would be terribly distracting, allowing normal abilities to atrophy from lack of use. Clark Kent had a keen mind and his prowess on the football indicated that he could be well coordinated, he just had to learn to do it without the powers.
"You think so?" Clark asked recalling the last few instances when he had managed to avoid being hit by Bruce (though not for long) and had to concede the point. Although secretly, Clark suspected that no amount of anticipation was going to prepare him to hold his own in hand to hand combat with Bruce Wayne. Having seen the man in action against men who had the skill, Bruce was in a class of his own.
"You've only been at it a day," Bruce threw over his shoulder as he walked to the small refrigerator in the corner of the room. "Most people have to practise for months, years even to get good and even then, it may not be enough."
"So where did you learn to fight like this?" Clark asked, starting to pull off his gloves. He had never really asked Bruce about his skills except in passing.
"I spent a few months with an elite bad of ninja assassins in Tibet who had some interesting views on crime and punishment."
Clark rolled his eyes, "okay don't tell me."
"Seriously," Bruce retorted, upon reaching the refrigerator and removing his own gloves. "They recruited me, trained me and finally wanted me to join them but I didn't like their idea of justice so we parted company."
Clark suspected there was more to it than that but he was fascinated. "So how long did it take you to learn all it?"
Bruce tossed his Kansas visitor a bottle of water. "About seven years," he answered finding it liberating to have a friend he could trust implicitedly with such truth about himself "Thanks to an old friend, I had an epiphany so I decided to go see the world, minus my identity. I picked up a lot of things from a lot of different people."
"What does that mean," Clark asked with a raised brow before taking a sip of his water. "Minus your identity?"
Bruce smiled faintly to himself, as if he was enjoying a private joke, "I had to find out who I was beneath everything I felt. Back then, I wasn't thinking straight. I was angry and dangerous. I could have gone either way so I needed to go out there and find myself so to speak, without the baggage of being Bruce Wayne."
There was no need to ask what had been the result of his anger, Clark thought. The reason for it was carefully preserved in every room in Wayne Manor. Lex's mansion had been no less opulent but there was a life to it, even if the walls were soaked with hidden menace. In Wayne Manor, there was nothing but emptiness. The only proof that the place had ever been anything different was the diminishing memory of happiness he saw in Bruce's eyes.
Once again, Clark felt singularly privileged to be the son of Jonathan and Martha Kent. They had filled a small, country farmhouse with all the warmth in the world, while this large sprawling house never had the chance to be anything more than a mausoleum for the dead.
"Is that when you did your famous disappearing act for seven year?" Clark inquired, somewhat fascinated because he needed to look at the possibilities for himself if his powers didn't return.
"That's it," he nodded. "I travelled the far east, spent some time in jail, learning how the other half lives."
"Well considering you came back with serious ass kicking abilities, I guess it worked for you."
Bruce chuckled at Clark's description. "I suppose that's one way to look at it."
"Maybe I need to do that…" Clark mused. "If I don't get these powers back, maybe I need to find out who I am without it." Or at the very least, take Jor-El up on his training, Clark thought silently. The few minutes he had spent after raising the Fortress had opened up an entire universe to him but Chloe's presence there and everything else that happened since, kept him from going back to complete that training.
"Don't model yourself after me Clark," Bruce said quickly. "I'm a poor choice."
"Chloe seems to think otherwise," Clark remarked. "Besides, you just need to lighten up a bit." A small smirk crossed Clark's face.
"Says the man everyone calls Boy Scout," Bruce snorted when he paused at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Another thing that Clark had learned since the loss of his powers was the fact that Bruce could hear things well before he did. Quite remarkable when you remembered he didn't have super hearing. Small, delicate footsteps against the parquet floor soon became audible to him and the stormy, broody expression on Bruce's face dissipated like the sun emerging from behind the clouds as Chloe appeared.
Clark watched the change and smiled inwardly. Whatever reservations he had about Chloe and Bruce vanished whenever these two were near each other. Chloe brought much needed light to Bruce's dark and tortured soul.
"Sorry to intrude on the male bonding," Chloe replied entering the gynamsium.
"I was giving Clark a break," Bruce tossed Clark a cocky smirk.
"Gee thanks," Clark threw back at him sarcastically, making a face at the same time.
"Wow, no issues here," Chloe laughed. "Actually, I wondered if you two have seen Lois around."
"Lois?" Clark remarked, a hint of guilt creeping into his voice as he remembered how he had left things with her earlier. "She was in our room the last time I saw her but that was a while ago."
Bruce walked to the intercom for the system installed in the house. A place like Wayne Manor was simply too big not to have one. "Alfred," Bruce spoke into it, confident that wherever the butler was in the house, he would answer soon enough. "Have you seen Lois anywhere?"
The response came almost a minute later, "apologies for the delay in answering Master Bruce, I am in the process of preparing dinner with a little assistance from Miss Valerie. I believe I saw Miss Lane heading towards the garage earlier on. I assumed she was going into town."
"Oh hell," Clark groaned, now fully cognizant of where Lois was. He should have known by now that she wouldn't take no for an answer and even if she did, would figure out some way to do it on her own. "She went to DeSaad Industries."
"Alone?" Chloe blurted out. "With no idea if DeSaad is involved with what's been happening to you and Valerie?"
"That's our Lois," Clark said through gritted teeth, with no small amount of exasperation in his voice while he started towards the door. He loved that woman but sometimes Clark suspected that even Gandhi would strangle her.
"What are you doing?" Chloe demanded, looking at Bruce for support. "Clark you can't go out there… not in your condition. Bruce," Chloe stared at her lover. "Tell him."
Bruce met her gaze with an unreadable expression on his face. He knew Chloe was worried for Clark and Bruce had to admit feeling a little apprehension as well. However, Clark may very well be his best friend and Bruce was not about to let him do anything stupid alone. "Clark, wait."
Clark halted long enough to look over his shoulder. "Don't try and talk me out of it Bruce, I'm going to get her."
"I know," Bruce sighed giving Chloe an apologetic look before he started walking towards Clark. "I'll drive."