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Joe Ross swung his old blue truck into the gravel parking lot of the factory. His son, Mark, stood in the doorway, as did several perplexed looking employees. Across the lot sat a much larger truck, marked Interstate Moving and Shipping. Joe chewed on his lip for a moment. His son's nearly hysterical phone call had pulled him away from breakfast, and Joe had rushed out to the factory before he'd remembered it wasn't his anymore. But, of course, he was still Mark's father, and if his son needed him…
Hopping out, Joe hurried over. "What's all this, Mark? What's going on?"
They stepped through the doorway on to the factory floor, and Joe was immediately struck by the silence. Normally the place rang with the sounds of assembly lines and employee chatter. Now the employees stood in twos and threes near motionless machinery, glancing at him nervously.
"Over this way, Dad." Mark led his father past the labeling equipment and through the swinging doors to the canning lines. A group of four men were hard at work dismantling the steam sterilization equipment.
Joe forgot all about his private pledge not to remain so personally involved with the plant.
"What in the sam hell are you doing?" He bellowed. "You can't take this equipment out of here. Every second we're off-line we lose money!"
One of the group, a burly man with a goatee whose nametag read "Carl", shook his head.
"Look, old man, I don't know who you are, but I got orders. Like I told that guy, " he pointed at Mark, "I got all the paperwork right here. This rig's been sold to Kramer Canning up in Central City. We get paid extra if we can get in there by tomorrow, so if you don't mind…"
"We do mind! Without sterilization equipment you can't can food. We'll have the FDA down here in a flash, and Mr. Luthor won't like that one bit, I tell you!" Mark responded hotly.
Joe held out his hand. "Let me see that paperwork." He thumbed through the sheaf of brightly colored papers the other man handed him.
"Well, Pop? It's a mistake, right?"
Joe could hear the tinge of desperation in his son's voice, and he sighed.
"Afraid not, son. According to this someone over at LuthorCorp signed off on the sale."
Behind him employees began to whisper loudly.
"But I'm sure it's all a mix-up." Joe tried to smile. "Mr. Luthor's only had the plant a few days, and I'm sure with everything that's happened this got overlooked."
"Maybe so, bub," Carl responded, "but we still got a job to do here. So if ya'll will just step out of the way we'll get back to work."
Mark stepped forward again, but his father laid a hand on his arm.
"Don't, son. Let's go back to the offices and get LuthorCorp on the phone."
Nodding grimly, Mark followed his father to their former offices. Joe's secretary (ex-secretary now), Mabel, greeted them in the doorway.
"Mr. Ross, thank goodness you're here! The workers are asking me all sorts of questions and I don't know what to tell them." She looked at him with fearful eyes. "Is Mr. Luthor shutting us down?"
"We don't know anything yet, Mabel," he soothed. "Just tell 'em Mark and I are working on it."
The two men went in to Mark's office and closed the door. Joe glanced around; his son had started packing boxes. Since Mr. Luthor had not promised to keep Mark Ross on as plant manager, his son had been busy scouting other opportunities. Joe had figured Luthor would know a skilled manager when he saw one, but maybe not.
"Pop, I didn't want to say anything out on the floor, but I tried calling LuthorCorp as soon as the tuck pulled up. No one there would give me a straight answer about anything."
"Did you ask to speak to Luthor?"
"Of course I did." Mark grimaced. "Some flunky told me he wasn't in and transferred me to his secretary. I left a message but somehow I don't think I should hold my breath until he calls back."
"Mark, try and calm down. You know the terms of the sale don't allow Luthor to sell the plant on. Maybe he's upgrading. You know some of that equipment is ancient."
"Upgrading without having the new parts standing by? Pop, we can't get back on line without it, and until we're back on line there's no work for anyone." Mark kicked one of the cardboard boxes. "I can't even send everyone home because I don't know if I'm their manager anymore or not."
The older man leaned on his son's desk. "Transitions in business are never smooth, son. There's bound to be some choppy water. LuthorCorp's never been in the food processing industry and I doubt they know how to run things out here."
"That's just it, Dad." Mark softened his voice at the distressed look on his father's face. "I know everything in that contract seemed on the up and up. But I'm still wondering why a corporation that specializes in pesticides wanted this factory in the first place." He gestured at the closed door. "Those people out there depend on us for their jobs. What if we've sold all of them out?"
Joe shook his head. "That isn't going to happen, son. We won't let it. I'll speak to Luthor myself and make sure he doesn't renege on our deal."
Looking at his father, Mark felt a little sick. His dad had always been so strong, so proud of the business his family had built, even as it struggled. Joe Ross had greeted Luthor's offer as a blessing, a way to preserve Ross Creamed Corn from death at the hands of its creditors. But Mark wondered now if all his father's hard work had done was ensure the factory's much slower and more painful death at the hands of Lionel Luthor.
p
Jonathan set the last book aside and sighed. After the events of the night before he had decided he'd better come up with some answers, fast. He'd driven over to the community college in Lowell first things in the morning, and pulled from its library shelves everything he could find on aliens and extra-terrestrial research.
Finding a quiet spot in a secluded corner, Jonathan poured though the books, but soon realized he wasn't going to find what he was looking for here.
Most of the books were clearly written by quacks, describing encounters with big-headed aliens who performed terrifying experiments on abducted humans. Clark's head didn't seem much bigger than that of a human child of his size, and the kid had a hard enough time using a knife and fork, let alone wielding a scalpel. Although some of the authors suggested that extra terrestrial life could be similar to humans, Jonathan suspected that they meant two arms and two legs, not similar enough to pass off to a whole town as a human child.
The more scholarly journal articles seemed equally full of speculation. Scientists argued with each other in the pages about how alien life might evolve. Would they breathe oxygen or something else? Would they be carbon-based, or made out of something else? Not one them would put their butts on the line and say that alien life existed; all they would say is that it was "possible."
Jonathan snorted. Sure, it had seemed "possible" to him, too, until he'd brought a miniature spacecraft and its miniature occupant home. Then it had made the fantastic leap from "possible" to "definitely real."
There was certainly no way he could in good conscience hand Clark over to any of these people. Whatever he was, Clark was definitely still a child, and he would need people who could see past his origins and his abilities to his very human, very child-like needs.
Jonathan gave up and returned the items he'd selected to the reshelve cart. On a whim he headed over to the newspapers neatly hung on wooden rods. The library carried the Ledger, and Lowell's own Gazette, as well as the Daily Planet out of Metropolis. They also had American papers from as far away as Star City out on the west coast. There were a few international ones, too, and each and every one featured the meteor shower somewhere on its front page. He grabbed a few and started scanning their pages for any scientific news about the shower.
Most seemed to prefer more sensational stories of tragedy and disaster, and Jonathan saw the same photos of ruined buildings, injured people, and public officials over and over again. He wondered if any of the newspapermen knew or cared that these were his friends and neighbors they were splashing all over their pages. And if a meteor shower got this kind of coverage, what would they do with Clark? Jonathan instantly added another requirement to his list: whoever took the child would have to understand the importance of secrecy, for little Clark's sake.
The scientific articles, buried on the middle pages, featured lots of charts and diagrams of meteors and how they struck the earth. A few featured action shots of meteors falling from the sky, and Jonathan found himself engrossed in an article that featured discussions of other know meteor strikes around the world. None came close to Smallville's in terms of loss of life or damage, but he was surprised by just how many meteors fell to earth every year. The problem with the Smallville meteor strike, the article argued, was simply that those meteors had not burned up in the atmosphere. They had remained large enough, even through reentry, to hit with devastating force. Which was odd, but not unheard of. After all, some scientists believed an even bigger meteor may have wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago.
Scanning the by-line, Jonathan saw that the author was affiliated with someplace called S.T.A.R. Labs. He hastily thumbed through the other papers around him, and saw that most of the other good articles had come from there, too.
He rubbed a finger across his chin, and after a moment stood and approached the librarian's desk.
The woman looked up though cat's eyes glasses.
"May I help you?"
"Yes—I'd like to find out everything I can about a place called S.T.A.R. labs, but I don't know where to start."
"Ah, yes. Do you know what the initials stand for?"
"No, sorry."
The middle-aged woman glanced over her shoulder at where a pink-haired girl arranged books for reshelving.
"Stacy, do you know what the initials in S.T.A.R. labs stands for? Stacy's a chemistry major when she's not working for us," the librarian explained to Jonathan.
"Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories," the young woman confided. "They're out of Metropolis." She glanced at Jonathan. "What do you need to know?"
"Well, I'm not sure. I've just been seeing their name a lot in the papers since the meteor strike and I was curious. Are they part of Metropolis University? I thought they had their own labs."
Stacy grinned, showing off her braces. "They do, really good ones. S.T.A.R. is independent, but they do contracting work. For the government, mostly. You know, hush-hush kind of stuff."
"Like meteors?" Almost against his will Jonathan was intrigued.
"Like anything unusual—meteors or mutations or psychic anomalies…anything weird and freaky."
Jonathan frowned. "They're not one of those outfits that talk about bug-eyed aliens, are they?"
Stacy laughed. "No, they're legit. You pretty much have to be a genius with, like, six degrees to work for them. But I guess if there are any bug-eyed aliens out there they'd know about it. Heck, they've probably got one on staff."
The librarian frowned at the girl's banter.
"And where might this gentleman go to find information about it?"
"Oh, right, sorry. Well, there aren't any books, but you could
try the major science journals. Nova,
OMNI, that kind of thing. I'm sure
they'll give you an idea what S.T.A.R works on."
Jonathan nodded. "Great. Thanks, I really appreciate it."
As he headed back into the stacks, Jonathan thought he could just make out a light at the end of the tunnel. If they specialized in the strange and unusual, the people at this lab might be able to understand how special Clark was. And if they were used to dealing with government secrets, surely they'd know how to keep Clark's.
Jonathan wasn't exactly happy, though, and he knew Martha would take some convincing. But still, they had no choice. All the could do was choose the facility best equipped to handle Clark's unusual abilities and hope for the best.
p
The sky was blue, and all around the boy corn stalks reached far over his head, reaching for the sky. He was walking forward, walking through those tall stalks…
There was a scarecrow, a living, breathing scarecrow. Tied up on its stake it looked down at him with a boy's face, gibbering, moaning…
"Help me," it had said. Then the sky had lit up with fire, and he turned and ran as fast as he could…
But it wasn't fast enough. A sea of blackness rushed up behind him, whirling within it corn, scarecrow, and finally the boy himself…the sea closed over his head, and everything went dark….
With a shriek of terror the boy sat upright in bed. He panted for a moment and felt around frantically for his asthma inhaler. But he couldn't find it, and he realized with a start that although he was breathing fast he wasn't having an attack. His chest didn't have that terrible, suffocating sensation of an asthma attack.
A handful of white-coated figures rushed into the room. They seemed almost as surprised to see him as he was to see them.
The boy glanced around him quickly. There was lots of equipment with blinking lights, and the bed he sat up in had metal rails on either side of it. He glanced down and saw a piece of plastic tubing running down from a bottle of clear fluid into the back of his left hand. He tugged at the piece of tape holding it in place. There were funny little round pads stuck to his chest, too, with little wires in them.
"Go and get Mrs. Luthor…she should be arriving just about now," one of the white-coated figures whispered to another. He approached the bed.
"Now, now, young man, don't pull out that IV. You still need it. How do you feel?"
"Feel? I feel…" The boy wasn't sure how to respond. For a moment he wanted to mention the scarecrow and the black tide and the terrible feeling he was about the die, but then he glanced up at the doctor's face and shut his lips tightly. He hated doctors—they always wanted to stick him with needles and couldn't do anything for his asthma except give him more inhalers. He had a whole drawer full of them at school.
"Now, Alexander." Once more the doctor tried to look friendly as the other ones whispered to each other. "I'm your doctor; it's important you tell me how you feel."
Lex sat up straighter. "I feel fine." He glared across the room. "What are they whispering about?"
"You've been a very sick little boy, Alexander. Do you know where you are?"
Rolling his eyes, the child shook his head at the stupidity of the question. "I'm in a hospital." He fixed the doctor with a stare. "And you're not my doctor—my doctor is Dr. Prince and she's a lady."
The doctor cleared his throat. "I'm Dr. Samsara—I'm a specialist. Your father had me come down from Central City to take care of you."
"My father?" Lex glanced around the room suspiciously. "Where is my father? I want him."
"We've called him and he's on his way. Now, if you'll just answer my questions…"
Lex was not in the mood to humor this new doctor. He felt tired and hungry and oddly cold even though there were blankets covering his legs. The tape on his hand and on his chest itched and he hated that there were people in the room whispering. He hated being left out of anything, because he so often was.
He blatantly ignored all the questions, choosing instead to watch the machines by his bed. He'd seen enough television to know that one of them must be his heartbeat, and another what was going on in his lungs, although he wasn't quite sure which was which. If the doctor would ever shut up, he'd ask him…
"Lex? Lex!"
The boy heard the joyful cry from the doorway and swung his head around. His mother stood there, looking beautiful in a blue suit and the new fur coat his father had given her. Tears were streaming down her face, and Lex felt something must be terribly wrong for her to cry like that. He couldn't stand it when she cried.
"Mom!"
In a second she was next to his bed, kissing his face. He was instantly enveloped in the warmth of her coat and the scent of her perfume. Sometimes he thought he could spend hours just being near her like this—no one had a more beautiful mother than he did. Of this Lex was certain.
She took his face between her soft hands.
"Baby, I'm so glad you're awake! I've been so scared!" She glanced over at Dr. Samsara. "Is he all right?"
"He seems to be, but he hasn't been answering my questions," the doctor frowned.
She turned her attention back to her son.
"Alexander, Dr. Samsara helped you get well—you should be nice to him."
Lex still didn't care what the doctor wanted, but since his mother asked him he was willing to oblige. "O.k."
She kissed him again. "That's my good boy." She pulled back, and he felt suddenly bereft. It was easy to forget about the nightmare with his mother standing right there, but without her it all came back and he shivered.
"Mom, I'm cold," he complained.
His mother and the doctor exchanged a strange look, and Lex again had the feeling he was being left out of something important. Impatiently he scratched his chin, which felt scabby and itchy, and then his right ear. His hand froze.
"Mom?"
His mother had a terrible look on her face, like she was about to burst into tears again. The doctor just looked away.
Lex felt a wail building up in his chest as he carefully touched his scalp, all over, ear to ear and back again. He wasn't exactly sure what he was feeling, but something was very wrong and the adults weren't talking. As he sat there in their silence he got angrier and angrier until finally he let out the pent-up wail as a full-blown scream.
"Mom? Where's my hair?!"
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