Part III: Lex

The Talon was bustling as usual. The couches were filled with people sipping coffee and chatting amiably while a light radio station played over the speakers. In the corner there was a TV tuned to a football game: the Metropolis Sharks versus the Gotham Knights. Clark glanced around the room, it was full all right, he though, but there was no Lana in sight. Disappointed, he checked the room one more time and spotted a familiar face sitting in at one of the back tables. Making his way through the crowds, he sat down opposite him.

"Lex," Clark smiled at him. "Here for the weekly reports?" Lex looked up at him absently and shook his head. He put a book down on the table and smiled at his friend.

"Actually, no," he admitted. "I came here for a cup of coffee actually," he said, pointing at his cup. "Just a nice cup of coffee and a good book, no other reason." He smiled ingeniously at him.

"Right," Clark said slowly. "So what really chased you here?"

"Oh God," Lex sighed, holding his head in his hands, his happy front collapsing, "guess."

"Your dad?" It was no secret that Lex and his father had never gotten along well. Truth be told, they couldn't stand the sight of the other. And that had been before Lionel's injuries and blindness had literally forced him into Lex's care. Their relationship hadn't changed though, on the contrary it had gotten more strained than ever.

"And your mother," he remarked.

"My mom chased you out?" Clark asked, surprised. He knew that Lex had been against his father hiring Clark's mother as an assistant, but he didn't think it was this bad. "Why? What did she do?"

"She's convinced my father to rearrange his old office and work out of that. It does keep the two of us from tripping over each other, so I'm all for it, but they're having a hard time deciding what should stay or go. He's been using it as trophy room ever since he moved to Metropolis and he's got a lot of sentimental ideas about some of the things in it."

"Like what?"

"Well, let's see," Lex said, thinking back. "When I left, my father was making his last stand on keeping little Lexie Jr. in the office."

"Lexie Jr.?" Clark stared at him. "What, you have a younger bother in there chained to the wall?"

"No, but I wouldn't put it past my father," he remarked. "My father went on a safari to Africa a number of years ago. One day there he managed to shoot a young lion outside of camp. He said that it's red mane reminded him of me, pre-meteor shower of course, so he had it stuffed and mounted, for sentimental reasons you understand. He calls it Lexie Jr. and it's been in his office ever since."

"Your father has a stuffed lion in his office." Clark repeated in disbelief.

"That he named after his own son," Lex finished for him and sipped from his coffee. "Isn't that sweet of him? I have to wonder whether he thought of the name before or after he shot it."

"Growing up in the Luthor household has its dangers, I guess," Clark commented.

"You have no idea." Lex glanced at him oddly, putting his cup down. "If you're looking for Lana, she's not here today," he remarked.

"Oh," Clark said, trying to sound casual about it.

"Called in sick, I think," he answered. "I've been telling her she's been working herself too hard, what with balancing a business and school."

"Maybe I'll go check up on her," Clark started to say, getting to his feet. Lex reached out and pulled him down firmly though.

"I think the lady needs her rest," he laughed. "Sit, talk with me a bit. I've been too wrapped up with my father for a while, I need to talk to someone who won't dissect everything I say." Reluctantly, Clark sat back down and began to idly toy with a small menu.

"So how are you and Lana doing?" Lex asked him. The menu slipped out from between Clark's fingers and tumbled to the floor. He quickly retrieved it and put it back in its holder.

"Fine, we're fine," he said quickly. Lex nodded at him, obviously not believing a word of it.

"And fine means that you two are barely talking these days, I suppose," he said. "What happened? I thought you two were doing great for a while."

"Things got complicated," Clark said slowly, unsure of how to begin.

"Not the way I heard it," Lex smiled at him. "Supposedly you walked right in here and kissed her, you can't get more direct than that."

"I really wasn't myself then," he started to protest.

"Then maybe you ought to not be yourself more often, seeing how Lana was quite taken with your evil twin."

"Too bad he, I mean, I," he stumbled, "I was a jerk about it."

"You're young," Lex said, "you took things too fast and got burned. She'll forgive you, don't worry. Just learn from it, both the bad and the good."

"What was good about it?"

"I can think of two things offhand. One," Lex said, holding up a finger, "you learned that she likes strong men. Be confident and decisive. Whitney might have been many things, but he was very decisive. He said what he meant and he went after what he wanted. Two," he said holding up another finger, "you at least had some fun with her. A little action to tell your friends about"

"No! I didn't, I mean, not in that way or anything," Clark said quickly and Lex burst into laughter.

"I know, I'm just kidding," he said. "You're too easy a mark not to hit. I just meant that sometimes you two carry on like it's the end of the world or something. You're both kids, relax and enjoy yourselves. The planets and stars may revolve around Lana Lang right now, but trust me; you'll discover other solar systems some day." He glanced down at his mug and then signaled one of the waitresses for a refill.

"So, I was scanning the Torch the other day," he said, changing the subject, "and what did I come across but that Jim Harper paid your school a visit. The old Guardian himself. How'd you like him?"

"It was great," Clark said eager to be talking about anything other than Lana. "He's such a fantastic guy, I mean, so funny and smart. He let us ask him anything."

Lex laughed and held his cup out for the waitress. "I met him once at one of my father's 'charity' tax-write off's. I wasn't too impressed with him, but then again, I was still in my rebellious phase. I looked at him like he was just another cop and he took me as just another rich punk. We had a very interesting conversation," he remarked dryly.

Clark smiled and then paused as he thought of something. He'd never get a better chance to bring it up, he decided. "Lex," he said slowly, trying to make the question sound as innocent as possible, "did you ever hear him talk about meta-humans?"

Lex stared at him from over the rim of his cup and then put it down, frowning absently. "Meta-humans," he said slowly. "I don't think so, but I remember hearing the term before."

"It means someone with different abilities than a normal person. Special powers, you know?" Lex frowned again and sat back, nodding.

"Oh, right. I remember now," he said. He smirked then and shook his head. "There's a lot of crack-pot theories that have come across my desk about people with special powers, most of them from Dr. Hamilton before he died. Some people believe in them, some don't," he shrugged.

"Harper believes in them," Clark said. "He told us that there was a new age coming, where meta-humans are going to be more and more common."

"That's a little too religious sounding for me," Lex said. "'A New Age'. People start talking like that; they're usually a little disconnected from reality."

"So you don't believe in them, meta-humans? Even after everything that happened last year?"

"I didn't say that," Lex pointed out quickly. "I've read about a few of Harper's meta-human's over the years, mostly in such well respected papers as the Inquistor. I've even met a few. But I don't agree with Harper."

"What do you mean? If you've met a few, how can you say that?" Clark asked him.

"I don't agree with that 'New Age' idea of his," Lex said firmly. "It frightens me in more ways than you'd believe. The idea that normal people have to hand over our destinies to a bunch of freaks," he paused with a look of disgust. "It makes me wonder how much longer we'd have."

"I don't think they'd have anything against us, Lex," Clark said quickly, trying to keep from sounding too nervous. "Why would they?"

"Because we'd hate them," he replied. "We'd resent them every time we saw them do something we couldn't. Soaring so far above us while the rest of humanity had to toil in the mud," he muttered into his coffee. "We'd make them hate us. They'd have no choice." Clark was speechless.

"You know the story of the Cro-Magnon man and the Neanderthal, right?" Lex asked him absently. "The Neanderthal lived for thousands of years all by himself, when all of a sudden, this new race, the Cro-Magnon popped up. Maybe they were the sons and daughters of the Neanderthal, born special just like your meta-humans. Maybe they drifted away from their less evolved parents to form their own tribe, smarter and more organized. Regardless, now you had these two groups of people in the world. They both hunted the same food, needed the same shelter, you can see how they would be a threat to the other. It was competition. Who knows if it was gradual, or just a war, but in any case, the Cro-Magnon won, and what do you think he did?"

"Instead of simply letting the Neanderthal go to seek greener pastures, they butchered them to the last man, woman, and child. They eradicated a species, Clark. A species. Think about that and then ask yourself this: have we really come that far from those days? Are we any less savage? I'd like to think so, but I doubt it," he said sadly.

"But what if it didn't have to be that way?" Clark asked him, desperately trying to bring him around. "It's not the dawn of time, we could talk things out. What if we could find a way to live together?"

"It'd never happen," Lex smiled sardonically. "I wouldn't, couldn't feel safe knowing there were people like that walking around. I'd never be able to trust someone with that much power over me. Maybe living under my father has disillusioned me, but I have learned one thing about power from him. If you have it, you use it."

"What would you do if you had those kinds of powers, Clark?" Lex suddenly asked him, smiling. Clark almost fell out of his seat in alarm. He laughed nervously for a moment, thinking quickly.

"I don't know. I guess I'd try and help people," he said finally.

"Of course you would," he said. "You're a good person. But even you'd have to admit that the temptation would be there; to use your powers for yourself, mm?" Clark shrugged worriedly. "How long could someone last?" Lex wondered out loud. "Bearing up under that? Holding back and never having a little fun with those powers? Not very long, I think."

"Well, what if they did use their powers to help people, what then?" Clark asked him. "Could you accept them then?"

"Accept them? Maybe, but I'd never trust them," he remarked. "When you start putting all your faith in some benevolent, super-person, then you're ignoring the fact that they're fallible. It's a fine thing to put all our problems in the hands of a perfect man, but what happens when the perfect man gets a bellyache?" he joked. "What happens if this protector wants to take a vacation, or a day off? Or if he makes a bad decision or a mistake and someone dies? Can you prosecute someone like that? Put them in jail? Or do we draw up another set of laws for meta-humans?"

Clark hesitated, unsure of how, or even if he could answer. "So what happens then, Lex?" he asked finally. "If they are coming, what do we do with them? Accept them or what, hunt them down?"

"I'm not suggesting some kind of 'final decision'," Lex remarked, shaking his head. "I don't know what's going to happen. If Harper's right, and there is a new age coming, well then, we'll have to find out together I suppose." He sat back in his chair and smiled at Clark.

"A brave new world," he said, shaking his head ruefully. Then he lifted his mug and nodded to Clark. "To all of it, to meta-humans and poor shmucks like you and me. Assuming there's still a place for us," he added. All Clark could manage was a weak smile.