Disclaimer: As sad as it is, not all of these characters belong to me. The narrator does, as does Eddy, but Lex isn't. ::sniff:: Anyway, please don't sue me; I have no money. Enjoy the story! I love reviews!
The Test of Time
"Oh God!" I leaned against the booth...the time machine to catch my breath. It had worked. I had really been transported. Even if it wasn't through time, (and I had little enough reason to doubt that at this point) I had obviously traveled a significant distance in the last few seconds. The trip, although frightening, had not been sufficiently rough or long enough to have been caused by my being catapulted through the air or something.
I finally calmed my shaking hands and managed to get a grip. I know it sounds silly to someone who's never been though it that I was so disoriented and shaken, but the experience is more disturbing than you might expect. I shoved my hand in my pockets, and discovered the gun that I had brought with me to kill Luthor. What a distant dream that was turning out to be.
Or, was it?
Eddy had said that Luthor had lived around here, if here really was the place he had meant to send me, what had it been called? Littleville, or something. If I was lucky, (and my luck seemed bound to improve soon, seeing as it couldn't get a whole lot worse) now was the time that Luthor had lived here. I found to my surprise that I knew almost nothing of Luthor's early life.
I set off determinedly in a completely random direction, making sure to keep the sun to my left so that I wouldn't wander in circles. The walk felt long, but that was simply because my brain was feeling fairly overwhelmed with all the possibilities of this. Dozens of scenes from Back to the Future kept playing through my mind.
Finally, I found myself out on a little dirt road. It was empty, and there was nothing but corn in sight in either direction. I stood there, uncertain of which way to go. There wasn't even anyone I could ask. Then I heard a loud roaring in the far distance, and then in the not so far distance and then a Porsche slid by me at a pace that would have made any car-lover drool.
I'm not a car-lover, but I was happy to see that Porsche, because while I didn't know a whole lot about Littleville or wherever, I would've been ready to swear that there couldn't be too many people driving Porsches around there. I turned and began walking in the direction the car had gone. I hadn't gone too far before I saw the mansion. It was huge, dark, stone, and forbidding enough to make even Edgar Allan Poe speechless, for a moment at least. Mansion is really putting far too small a value on it. Castle would have suited it much more.
Tall iron gates fiercely guarded the entrance. I studied them carefully, then slid between. There was a bad moment involving my right leg, but I got through okay and in one piece, if a bit scraped and bruised. I didn't see any cameras on my way up, but that didn't necessarily mean much.
Inside, it seemed almost bigger than outside. It was the same old problem of not knowing quite where to go. I finally located him only by pure luck. I heard someone talking and followed the voice up a flight of stairs, around two corners, and into a large office.
The way stone carries sound is such a beautiful thing.
By the time I was in his office I could actually hear what he was saying. He was in one of those spinning computer chairs, and at the moment that I entered he was turned away, a phone pressed to his ear. It was definitely a rant, which was going something like this.
"Look, that system needs to be updated! No! I do not want to hear excuses! Anyone can just barge on in here, and-" At this point he completed his spin we saw each other's faces. I was amazed to see that he looked virtually identical to the Luthor of my time. Maybe the Luthor of the past wasn't quite as heavy and had a few less wrinkles, but I would have known him all the same.
"Excuse me a moment, yet another example of your incompetence has just wandered in with a gun. Hopefully, I'll call you back. If I don't, consider yourself sued." The phone beeped and he tossed it on his desk. "So, what can I do for you that doesn't end with a bullet located at some uncomfortable place in my body?"
It was at this unfortunate juncture that my conscience woke up, and began muttering about how killing a man AFTER he had committed a crime was one thing, but killing him BEFORE had some serious moral complications.
"I just...I want...wanted you dead..." I said brokenly.
He folded his arms across his chest and regarded me with a bored expression. "So are you going to tell my exactly why you want me dead, or should I just try to guess?" he asked sardonically.
When I didn't answer, he tilted back in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers together. "Well, the most obvious possibility is the usual: My father has screwed your family over in some way and you're here for revenge against him and/or the Luther clan in general."
"Your father's not involved," I answered quietly.
"Really." He seemed more intrigued than anything else. "That's unusual. I'm afraid I don't recognize you. Do you mind telling me, reacquainting me with the details?" His smile was bitter. "You can consider it a last request."
"You haven't changed a bit," I said softly. "Thirty years didn't change you."
"Thirty years?" Now he frowned. "I don't think that's possible kid. I haven't been around for thirty years, and I doubt you have either."
My conscience made up its mind at this point, and I flicked the safety off. "No, but you will be, or rather, you would have been."
That was about when time stopped. I'm pretty sure I hit the trigger, or tried to. But Eddy was standing there, his hand over mine. "You can't kill him without destroying our future."
"It's a terrible future!"
"Think of what you're doing! If he dies, who will fund my research? If I never invent a time-machine, you will never come here, and he will live, and he will fund my research, and you will come here, and you will kill him, and he won't fund my research, and I'll and never invent a time-machine, you will never come here, and he will live, and he will fund my research, and you will come here, and you will kill him, and he won't fund my research, and the circle would go on ad infinitum!"
"Ad nauseam is more like it," another voice broke in. I turned and saw Luther, the one that I knew. He stepped past Eddie and me and looked at his younger self, frozen in time. "How unhappy I look," he commented casually. He might have been looking at a photograph.
"Well, you did just have a gun pointed to your head," I explained, struggling to get it back from Eddy.
He smiled then. That was when I became truly afraid of Luther. The man had compassion for no one-not even himself.
"Come along Eddy. And bring your little pet. I'm afraid we can't have it running about the city trying to kill various people."
"Only you Luthor." Eddy had the gun now, and one of my arms was being firmly held in his massive paw. Maybe if I had been the hero type I would have done something, but I'm not, and from where I stood, it didn't look like there wasn't much to be done.
Eddy brought us all back in his time machine. Naturally, he never explained to me how he had managed to actually stop time, but not me. Presumably, Luthor remembered the incident, and when he saw me on the security system, remembered his murderous, vanishing visitor, and had sent Eddy to intercept. Or maybe there's no such thing as free will, and it was all fated. For you see, what I planned to do, I had already done, so did I ever even have a choice? The problem is too complicated and difficult for me. Besides, what's the point in working it out? As soon as my usefulness to Eddy is gone, I will be too.
It doesn't matter anymore. My life isn't worth much now; I'm too full of hate. Hate for my own stupidity and inability to complete my task. Hate for Eddy, who brought me so close, then took it all away. And most of all, hate for Luthor.
May he rot in Hell.
Amen.
FINIS
Review! You know you want to! Please?
The Test of Time
"Oh God!" I leaned against the booth...the time machine to catch my breath. It had worked. I had really been transported. Even if it wasn't through time, (and I had little enough reason to doubt that at this point) I had obviously traveled a significant distance in the last few seconds. The trip, although frightening, had not been sufficiently rough or long enough to have been caused by my being catapulted through the air or something.
I finally calmed my shaking hands and managed to get a grip. I know it sounds silly to someone who's never been though it that I was so disoriented and shaken, but the experience is more disturbing than you might expect. I shoved my hand in my pockets, and discovered the gun that I had brought with me to kill Luthor. What a distant dream that was turning out to be.
Or, was it?
Eddy had said that Luthor had lived around here, if here really was the place he had meant to send me, what had it been called? Littleville, or something. If I was lucky, (and my luck seemed bound to improve soon, seeing as it couldn't get a whole lot worse) now was the time that Luthor had lived here. I found to my surprise that I knew almost nothing of Luthor's early life.
I set off determinedly in a completely random direction, making sure to keep the sun to my left so that I wouldn't wander in circles. The walk felt long, but that was simply because my brain was feeling fairly overwhelmed with all the possibilities of this. Dozens of scenes from Back to the Future kept playing through my mind.
Finally, I found myself out on a little dirt road. It was empty, and there was nothing but corn in sight in either direction. I stood there, uncertain of which way to go. There wasn't even anyone I could ask. Then I heard a loud roaring in the far distance, and then in the not so far distance and then a Porsche slid by me at a pace that would have made any car-lover drool.
I'm not a car-lover, but I was happy to see that Porsche, because while I didn't know a whole lot about Littleville or wherever, I would've been ready to swear that there couldn't be too many people driving Porsches around there. I turned and began walking in the direction the car had gone. I hadn't gone too far before I saw the mansion. It was huge, dark, stone, and forbidding enough to make even Edgar Allan Poe speechless, for a moment at least. Mansion is really putting far too small a value on it. Castle would have suited it much more.
Tall iron gates fiercely guarded the entrance. I studied them carefully, then slid between. There was a bad moment involving my right leg, but I got through okay and in one piece, if a bit scraped and bruised. I didn't see any cameras on my way up, but that didn't necessarily mean much.
Inside, it seemed almost bigger than outside. It was the same old problem of not knowing quite where to go. I finally located him only by pure luck. I heard someone talking and followed the voice up a flight of stairs, around two corners, and into a large office.
The way stone carries sound is such a beautiful thing.
By the time I was in his office I could actually hear what he was saying. He was in one of those spinning computer chairs, and at the moment that I entered he was turned away, a phone pressed to his ear. It was definitely a rant, which was going something like this.
"Look, that system needs to be updated! No! I do not want to hear excuses! Anyone can just barge on in here, and-" At this point he completed his spin we saw each other's faces. I was amazed to see that he looked virtually identical to the Luthor of my time. Maybe the Luthor of the past wasn't quite as heavy and had a few less wrinkles, but I would have known him all the same.
"Excuse me a moment, yet another example of your incompetence has just wandered in with a gun. Hopefully, I'll call you back. If I don't, consider yourself sued." The phone beeped and he tossed it on his desk. "So, what can I do for you that doesn't end with a bullet located at some uncomfortable place in my body?"
It was at this unfortunate juncture that my conscience woke up, and began muttering about how killing a man AFTER he had committed a crime was one thing, but killing him BEFORE had some serious moral complications.
"I just...I want...wanted you dead..." I said brokenly.
He folded his arms across his chest and regarded me with a bored expression. "So are you going to tell my exactly why you want me dead, or should I just try to guess?" he asked sardonically.
When I didn't answer, he tilted back in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers together. "Well, the most obvious possibility is the usual: My father has screwed your family over in some way and you're here for revenge against him and/or the Luther clan in general."
"Your father's not involved," I answered quietly.
"Really." He seemed more intrigued than anything else. "That's unusual. I'm afraid I don't recognize you. Do you mind telling me, reacquainting me with the details?" His smile was bitter. "You can consider it a last request."
"You haven't changed a bit," I said softly. "Thirty years didn't change you."
"Thirty years?" Now he frowned. "I don't think that's possible kid. I haven't been around for thirty years, and I doubt you have either."
My conscience made up its mind at this point, and I flicked the safety off. "No, but you will be, or rather, you would have been."
That was about when time stopped. I'm pretty sure I hit the trigger, or tried to. But Eddy was standing there, his hand over mine. "You can't kill him without destroying our future."
"It's a terrible future!"
"Think of what you're doing! If he dies, who will fund my research? If I never invent a time-machine, you will never come here, and he will live, and he will fund my research, and you will come here, and you will kill him, and he won't fund my research, and I'll and never invent a time-machine, you will never come here, and he will live, and he will fund my research, and you will come here, and you will kill him, and he won't fund my research, and the circle would go on ad infinitum!"
"Ad nauseam is more like it," another voice broke in. I turned and saw Luther, the one that I knew. He stepped past Eddie and me and looked at his younger self, frozen in time. "How unhappy I look," he commented casually. He might have been looking at a photograph.
"Well, you did just have a gun pointed to your head," I explained, struggling to get it back from Eddy.
He smiled then. That was when I became truly afraid of Luther. The man had compassion for no one-not even himself.
"Come along Eddy. And bring your little pet. I'm afraid we can't have it running about the city trying to kill various people."
"Only you Luthor." Eddy had the gun now, and one of my arms was being firmly held in his massive paw. Maybe if I had been the hero type I would have done something, but I'm not, and from where I stood, it didn't look like there wasn't much to be done.
Eddy brought us all back in his time machine. Naturally, he never explained to me how he had managed to actually stop time, but not me. Presumably, Luthor remembered the incident, and when he saw me on the security system, remembered his murderous, vanishing visitor, and had sent Eddy to intercept. Or maybe there's no such thing as free will, and it was all fated. For you see, what I planned to do, I had already done, so did I ever even have a choice? The problem is too complicated and difficult for me. Besides, what's the point in working it out? As soon as my usefulness to Eddy is gone, I will be too.
It doesn't matter anymore. My life isn't worth much now; I'm too full of hate. Hate for my own stupidity and inability to complete my task. Hate for Eddy, who brought me so close, then took it all away. And most of all, hate for Luthor.
May he rot in Hell.
Amen.
FINIS
Review! You know you want to! Please?