Superman: The Ark of Krypton
Chapter 90
by
Jason Richard
Edward Lytener, the man who had begun to call himself Luminus, had programmed his hologram well. The holographic projector that floated inside the fake Lois Lane scanned Luthor and Mercy and detected experimental magnetic vests that would deflect bullets. The gun in the hologram's hands wasn't very useful because of this, and Luminus hadn't programmed it to use laser technology. That would have been a dead giveaway that he was the real person behind this.
Luthor, meanwhile, knew immediately what was going on, especially once he looked at scans on his computer. No doubt it was clearly impressive technology, but Luthor knew that in order to frame Lois Lane the hologram would have to use the gun, and the fact that the gun was useless right now explained why the hologram wasn't doing anything. Despite that flaw in Lytener's plan, Luthor found himself impressed by the technology he was seeing.
Clearly, Luthor had made a mistake underestimating Edward Lytener, and he didn't make mistakes often.
"Mr. Lytener," said Luthor in his smoothest voice. "I know full well you are behind this. Lois Lane can be brash, but she's not this careless. What exactly do you think you will accomplish here?"
The Hologram didn't say anything, and Luthor quickly figured out what that meant.
"Lytener tried to take on Superman," he said.
"How do you figure that?" asked Mercy.
"This thing clearly doesn't have any agency of its own," said Luthor. "Luthor probably gave it a set of instructions that didn't account for our vests. Doubtless, he'd issue new instructions..."
"But the hologram isn't responding," said Mercy, catching on. "Which means something must have happened on his end. He would have had to get Lois Lane out of the way to prevent her from having an alibi..."
"Yes," said Luthor. "And Superman must have caught wind of it with his excellent hearing."
"Couldn't' Lois herself have incapacitated Lytener?" asked Mercy. "She's been annoyingly resourceful in her attempts to get dirt on us."
"It's possible," said Luthor. "But if Lytener is as smart as I'm beginning to suspect he is he would have realized that this solid hologram is virtually indestructible. Surround himself in that and there wouldn't be much an ordinary human could do to stop you, even someone as tenacious as Miss Lane. I'm still thinking Superman got involved."
"So what do we do now?" asked Mercy, a sly grin appearing at the corner of her mouth. "I mean if it were me, letting someone as annoyingly resourceful as Lois Lane get framed would be a pretty sweet deal."
"Why my dear Mercy," said Luthor, grinning back at her. "You read my mind."
…
Superman carried Lois as he flew through the air...much more slowly than he would have liked. He was still regaining his energy from the red sun radiation the newly minted Luminus hit him with. As such he was barely faster than a car.
"How long will this take?" asked Lois as she held onto his neck.
"A few minutes," said Superman. "I've learned to absorb solar radiation pretty fast."
And indeed, despite his slow pace, he did seem to be getting faster every minute. Suddenly, however, Superman came to a complete stop, hovering right outside Metropolis city limits.
"What's wrong?" asked Lois.
Superman, in frustration, said, "Luminus came prepared."
He kicked, and his foot hit an invisible force field.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me," said Lois. "Another one?"
"He must have set up a device before," said Superman, looking around.
"Superman," said Lois. "I'm going to be framed for murder in a few minutes. We have to get in there."
"I know," said Superman. "Just...let me think."
…
The preparations only took a few minutes. Luthor reprogrammed his experimental body armor to deactivate the electromagnets in the center of his chest, that way the bullet would strike the armor itself rather than getting deflected off the magnetic barrier. It was a little dangerous, but Luthor was confident the armor would hold once Lois's holographic duplicate shot him.
It did...though it still hurt like nothing Luthor had ever felt before.
As Luthor fell, Mercy pressed a button the desk, activating a short range emp which deactivated Lytener's device. As the hard light hologram disappeared the device generating it fell and clattered to the ground. Luthor got up unsteadily, knowing from the pain in his chest that the bullet hadn't gone through the armor, but he would still have a bruise...and it was bound to be an ugly one. Still, that wasn't his first concern when he stood.
"Did we get footage?" he asked.
"The best kind," said Mercy, looking at Luthor's computer, which was still operational despite the emp.
The footage showed Lois Lane shooting Lex Luthor. The footage became static before anything else could be seen, which was just fine with Luthor. Both he and Mercy grinned, knowing exactly how incriminating this was.