This might be my record for posting. (only 4 days!) I hope to continue the streak.

Lois fought the blackness back, swimming to the surface of consciousness, refusing to be sucked back down into that helpless void. She'd made the trip once before, only to have oblivion forced upon her again. She stifled the moan wanting to slip past her lips.

Lord her head hurt. She didn't think the headache came from physical trauma, but she was having a hard time convincing the squirrels tap dancing in her head of that fact.

Squirrels?

Ok, she wasn't yet completely lucid. What kind of concoction had they used to send her back under? She concentrated on not letting anyone know she was awake this time.

She let awareness seep back into her soul. At least this time she was lying on a surface with some give to it rather than bouncing on the cold floor in the back of a van. Of course, she usually found it much simpler to escape during transport than after reaching her kidnappers intended destination, so she shouldn't be too happy about the soft, stable surface on which she was lying.

She found it bordering on the pathetic that she had been kidnapped often enough to work out typical escape protocols, rating the situation by the varying degrees of difficulty. Normal people didn't have a usually preferred method of escape. She dismissed that thought; it didn't matter, as long as she did always escape.

Of course, Superman factored in most of her recent escapades…Ok, even in a majority of her past ones too. Her heart twisted. Clark might not even know she was home. She was going to die, leaving him alone for the rest of his life. Tears burned behind her eyelids.

No, no, no! That wasn't her talking, er, she meant, thinking. She wasn't going to let the remnants of her captor's drug cloud her judgment and leave her weepy and maudlin. Ok, she told herself, think logically. Concentrate on the here and now.

Oh hell. She really had to use the bathroom.

Awareness of her new problem wiped out any room for sentimentality and spurred her to action. She lifted one of her eyelids just a fraction. Warm glowing light reflected evenly off curved walls.

"Hello Ms. Lane."

Lois flinched. So much for stealth.

She slowly opened her eyes all the way and turned her head toward the sound of the familiar nasal voice. "William Walldecker? You are my kidnapper?" After her last encounter with him, his simpering southern twang was unforgettable.

"Oh, heavens no Ms. Lane." The small white haired man exclaimed. "I'd never do something like that, well, not on purpose."

"You accidentally kidnapped me?" She levered herself up off the couch cushions and into a sitting position.

He looked sheepish. "Not exactly, but I never really thought they'd be able to catch you." He put his hands on his hips, shook his head, and made a tisking sound. "Really, Ms. Lane, or do you go by your married name now?"

"Does it matter right now?"

"My, you are getting snippy now that you have a ring on your finger. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you are no longer very good at this sort of thing. They say Superman wasn't even around. Maybe I made a mistake demanding you as my payment. He must be getting bored with you."

"He is not bored with me!" She snapped. "I was just coming back…Oh, never mind." She wasn't going to let this irritating little man get to her. She was not explaining herself to the former Resplendent Man.

This was the man who, while Superman was in the middle of rescuing him, was struck by lighting. The energy bolt transferred a copy of all Superman's powers to William Wallace Webster Walldecker. Did he use his newfound ability to help humanity, like Superman? Sort of, but only if they were willing to pay his fee. He'd returned his powers to Superman in order to save his sister Wandamae. Lois thought he'd given up on a life of crime, but she'd been wrong before.

Her groggy mind finally focused in on what he had said. Anger darkened her expression. "Payment? You demanded me as payment?"

"Now, now, Ms. Lane. No need for hostilities. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything. Hopefully you are right about Superman's affection remaining undimmed since your marriage to Clark Kent."

He nonchalantly plucked a piece of lint off his trousers and sighed. "This all would have been much simpler if you'd have had the sense simply not to let yourself get taken in the first place. However, I'm not judging, we all can get a little sloppy as we age. Well, not me, but I am sympathetic to your plight."

Frustration boiled in Lois. "Arrrgh!" She buried her hands in her hair, clenching her fists tightly on either side of her head. "William Walldecker, you tell me what is going on here! Why have you "accidentally" kidnapped me? What did you mean payment? Where are we? More importantly…Where is the bathroom!"

"Right through there." He pointed to a recessed door a few feet away. Lois jumped up and made a beeline. Her aggravation rose several more notches when she realized the bathroom was windowless. She made quick use of the facilities and then took her time splashing water on her face, rinsing her mouth, and rehydrating. A knock came on the door.

"Ms. Lane? Ms. Lane? There's no sense in hiding in the bathroom. It's as much your fault we are in this predicament as it is mine."

She wrenched open the bathroom door, narrowed her eyes, and scowled down at him. "What did you say?"

"I'm not mad, really I'm not."

"Mm…mad?" She stuttered, abandoning any composure she'd gathered while in the bathroom. "You're not mad? Wonderful. How lucky for me."

William frowned at her sarcasm and put his hand on his hips once again. "Really Ms. Lane, I expected a more professional attitude from you."

"You had me kidnapped!"

"I told you, that wasn't supposed to happen," he whined. "They were supposed to try to kidnap you and naturally I assumed Superman would save you. Honey, really, the moron that brought you in, I could have escaped him!"

Lois had a vague memory of a rail thin man injecting her in the van. He'd been a wisp of a man. In a huff, she crossed her arms in front of her body. "He wasn't by himself you know. There were three goons…Oh, no, Chloe!"

"Hmm?" William looked up.

Lois gripped his wrist. "Chloe. When these goons jumped me, I wasn't alone; I was with a friend, Chloe Sullivan. Where is she?"

"Oh dear." William bit his thumb and wouldn't meet her eyes.

"What? What do you know?" She grasped him by both his shoulders.

"Well, now, how was I supposed to know?"

"What did you do?"

"Nothing!"

"Walldecker!"

"I didn't do anything, but I did overhear them talking about getting rid of some excess baggage they'd picked up along with you. I just thought you had an unusually large purse of something." He paused and tapped his finger thoughtfully against his chin. "Though I did find it odd that the one called Shark was so excited about tossing it off the roof."

He tossed his hands up in the air, "But have you seen him? He's a hulk, with a brain formed in decreasing proportion to his biceps. I just thought he was one of those men who get excited by explosions, demolition derbies, and well, tossing purses off twenty story buildings. Anyway, what could I have done?"

Lois sank down on the edge of the couch as icy horror clawed at her gut. Had she failed Chloe? Did she lead Chloe to the universe where her Clark was trapped, only to send her directly to her death? Lois clenched her fists into tight balls, slowly shaking her head in denial.

"Ms. Lane, now is not the time to sink into useless depression. If we don't act soon, we're going to be the next ones they toss off a building. Besides, just because Superman is tired of you doesn't mean he didn't reach your Ms. Sullivan in time."

Lois blinked back tears and nodded, holding on to that hope and trying to ignore the part of her that wondered if it would have even occurred to Chloe to call for Superman or if she would have even been awake to have the chance.

Lois pushed her doubts aside. "You're right. I have to focus on…" She turned to stare at the small man in front of her. "Why am I here again?" A second later, she held up a hand, cutting off his braying. "On second thought, just tell me why you are here."

William sat in the chair adjacent to the couch and leaned her direction in a conspiritory manner. "After I went out of business, you know the superhero business; I was working on writing a book. It was going to share all my heroic exploits and reveal my secrets. On day, I got an exclusive offer to sell it and it wasn't the kind of offer I could refuse."

"What did they offer you? Cash, gold, diamonds?" She asked wearily.

"Wandamae's life."

"Oh! I'm so sorry. Is she alright?" Wandamae was his sister and only family.

"Yes, yes she's fine. Still confused, still thinks she's Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and that your husband is Superman." Lois laughed nervously and he went on. "But they only finally left her alone at the sanitarium because I convinced them her life wasn't worth anything to me."

"I thought you loved your sister."

"I do! But I told them ever since Superman, you, and that other reporter interfered in my life; I was consumed by no other thought but revenge."

"They believed that? Wait, who are they exactly, and what do they really want from you. I mean, I know the publishing business is cut throat, but this is ridiculous."

"As far as I know, they are a group that was working for," he looked around and then whispered, "Intergang, but they didn't like it that a woman was calling the shots. They claim to be the ones that set up Mindy Church. Now that she's is going to jail, they want their first days as leaders of Intergang to be very memorable."

"Ok, but once again, what do they want with you?"

"See, I was shopping my book around with the promise to reveal the secret of how I got my powers…and I hinted that I could, if I wanted, get them back."

"Oh, William."

"It's not true, you know that. I don't even remember how I became Resplendent Man, I mean the abilities, of course I remember making the costume. I really do think chartreuse was the only was to go."

Lois rolled her eyes. "And now the new leadership behind Intergang wants you to…"

He interrupted, "Transform several members in to a Supergang."

"You told them you could?"

"It's not like they left me much choice."

"So you…"

"Promised to give them what they want in exchange for you as my payment. I thought if they tried to kidnap you, Superman would rescue you and then you and Clark Kent would track down those who tried to snatch you and come save me. I guess when Superman comes to your rescue now; it could still all work out."

Lois ran a hand through her hair and muttered, "If he even knows I've been taken."

"Wouldn't he or at least your husband notice?"

She sighed, "I'd…ah…been away and had just returned unexpectedly." She shook her head. "Clark didn't know I was back in town."

Walldecker's gnome like face fell. "We're doomed!"

"Now, now, this is not the time to sink into useless depression," It boosted her spirits, turning William's words back against him. She looked around the circular room and commented. "I haven't noticed any guards. What's to stop us from leaving and finding Superman ourselves."

"They don't need any guards. We're underground and the only way I know out is past a 2000lb blast door."

"What?" William nodded morosely. Lois sighed and then pointed to a spiral staircase in the center of the room. "Where does that lead?"

"Only to the lower level. That door over there opens to a hallway that connects us to the exit stairs and to the silo shaft. This area used to be the command center for a missile silo built to withstand a nuclear assault. We're doomed!" Lois ignored him.

"What about a phone or radio to communicate with the surface?"

Walldecker shook his head. "When I call Wandamae once a week, they have to bring a phone with them for me to use and I've never seen a radio."

"Once a week! How long have you been down here?"

"Oh, going on a month. I keep busy though, I had a lab to set up in the old missile silo area, right at the top. They've had me down here before they ever set up Mindy Church. Lovely women, and I think a lot brighter than people gave her credit, she had the most wonderful highlights in her hair."

"William, try to focus. You're not a scientist, why a lab?"

"They don't know that. I was putting it in order in preparation for the day my payment-that's you Ms. Lane- arrived. If you had done your job right, then that day would never have come. Now they expect me to do my trick. Candidates are going to start parading in and I'm supposed to suped them up tonight. It's to be the grand finale' to all their planning."

The little man rocked on his heels and swallowed hard. "If I don't come through, then they are going to see if I can fly. I heard them. Ms. Lane, the silo shaft is over eighty feet high, I don't want to die and I certainly don't want to have time to think about dying on my way down!"

"It's going to be alright." She patted his hand absently. Something about Walldecker's tale wasn't sitting right. "Wait a minute. Why would anyone think you could give them Superman's powers if you can't escape this place? Why wouldn't they expect you to just power up and bust out of here?"

"Did I tell you that the men I've come in contact with haven't been very bright? That Shark one, he's the baby brother of the leader of the group. His brother maybe older , but he's not much wiser, just a thug in the boardroom instead of on the street. They're all thugs."

He thought for a moment, before getting excited, "Oh, they also weren't worried about me escaping because they think I want to be here. You know, for the revenge. After I make Shark super, he is supposed to take you and dispose of your body so it looks like an accident," he told her gleefully.

"What!"

"Don't worry; you know I don't know how to transfer Superman's powers to anyone."

"That's entirely too bad." A bulky man, stocky, but still showing a hint of his former physique through his tailored suit walked the rest of the way up the spiral staircase coming up from the middle of the round room.

William Wallace Webster Walldecker took one look at the man with a heavy gun in his hand, slid out of the chair, and fell to his knees. "We're doomed! We're doomed!"

"Would you just shut up?!" Lois shouted.

The man with the gun smiled predatorily, showing his teeth. "Don't shut him up now Ms. Lane, Walldecker finally knows what he's talking about."

Author's note: There really is an extreme home built not too far from Lake Placid in New York that is constructed on top of an old missile silo. A house constructed on top makes the place look totally normal from above and the control center was converted in to a two level apartment. In addition, William was a character from the second season of Lois and Clark. Go Resplendent Man!