"Hi, Clark. It's Lana." She laughed nervously, a habit that had remained with her over the years. "I...I don't know what to say. It's, it's been such a long time...A lot's changed, well, you know...you look like the Clark we knew, well, not exactly, you're, we're all older, but..." She looked at the floor for a moment.
"I don't even know where to begin, telling you what happened since you left. In order, or the biggest things first, or what? Pete and I, well, we got married seven years ago. He's the youngest Vice-President in history, you know? I think you'd be proud of him. The big news he said about, well, we're having a baby!" Another gust of nervous laughter. "He's going to be a boy. We're still working on names. Pete took one of those lists and crossed out all the ones he didn't want and I crossed out all the ones I didn't want but there were still about a hundred. He'll be born in April, that's kind of a good month for a birthday, isn't it?"
She tried to look for any kind of response in his face, a movement, an expression, even a blink that looked spontaneous. There was nothing, and she felt her insides clench in pity and anger. His face had always been so readable, puppy-dog eyes, annoyance, happiness, sympathy, amusement, or even glassy-eyed boredom, during the middle of a class. Even the boredom was *there* to see, not just this blankness. If the occasional blinks had been even the tiniest bit more consistently paced, she'd have wondered if somehow this were some kind of Clark Machine. That the real one, the one she knew, was somewhere else, and this silent figure was the alien substitute. It was like a nightmare she'd had often after her parents died and then after she'd found out her connection with Henry Small: She'd run up to people who looked like her parents and then the figures would dwindle into nothing or change into something else, all the more terrifying for being ordinary, a crossing guard near the school, or just a stranger.
"Chloe's teaching journalism at Metropolis U. It's not really what she'd planned but it worked out great. She can really set them on fire, you know, the way she gets that determined look? She did some really big stories even while she was a student, some exposes that we were scared would really get her in trouble." She laughed again, remembering. "You'd have loved it, Clark. Well, you'd have been there, but Lex offered to hire bodyguards for her and she said no, they'd cramp her style. Can't you just see her saying that? So Lex hired them anyway and she pretended never to notice them. Instead, she just made sure that she lost them at least once a day, she said it was good practice. Pete says that there are probably a few of them still in the U basement, trying to find a way out. When it came to a story, Chloe wasn't scared of anything." Still no response from Clark
The Clark she knew had seemed so physically fearless. She'd often laughed privately, not at him, really, but at the idea that somebody that big and sturdy could be so shy, even tongue-tied. Even Pete, before he'd had five-inches-fifty-pounds spurt in his first year of college, exuded self-confidence. Well, most of the time. Not when she decided that if anything was going to happen between them, she'd have to initiate it, and asked him out.
"I think that rubbed off on Lex. You know the way that the Secret Service has code names for people? Anyway, they wouldn't tell me what they're using now, but they told me some of the old ones, since they change every now and again. When he was running, they called him Bart Simpson, and then once he was elected, they changed it to Brat. Well, you know Lex, he has issues about being crowded, and he really didn't do real well with having bodyguards right there every minute of every day. So finally, they put in a lot more techno-security things, he even wears what they call the baby monitor. If anybody who isn't already authorized gets near him, even twenty yards, he has to press a security code to let them know it's okay, or they come in. It's weird, he was the one raised with security all around and he hates it, Pete and I, well, we pretty much had *you*, and it wasn't a big deal getting used to it.
"Pete and I, we got together senior year. It was funny, I started feeling jealous of the people he dated. Sometimes I thought he did like me, other times I was sure he didn't. And then I finally just showed up at his house one Saturday and asked if he wanted to go out." She laughed again. "A bit like with Henry, I guess. Show up out of nowhere and scare 'em." Still no response.
"You'd be proud of Lex, too. Nobody thought he really had a chance if he ran as an Independent, but he did. Governor, then Senator, then off politics for a while, regrouping, building allies, and then President." She shook her head, grinning. "All the commentators said that it was only in the US that you'd get a grass-roots campaign for a multi-multi-billionaire. Pete was running his campaigns for a while but his own approval ratings were so high, and Lex said he was one of the people he could really trust, so he ran with Lex. I wish you'd seen him in the debates, he really was great. He just ruled the stage, you know? He was sincere, and it showed, but he also knew just how to say something, or ask a question, or even just pause for a second before answering, not clowning or anything, but just letting it sink in how pointless Montgomery's or Parson's answers were. You could see them, by the end, they weren't even debating each other, it was the two of them against him, and he was still winning, easily. They say Lex is a shoo-in for re-election and then Pete'll run. I don't think they'd really do it, but some of their cabinet were saying that Lex should run as *his* VP but Lex says Pete would have too many things to get even for."
Hearing a noise, she looked up. Carola Arkins was coming into the room, a faint frown on her face. "Is something wrong?" Was talking to him bad for Clark, or was she saying things that she shouldn't?
"His heart rate has been increasing slightly. Whether that's a good sign or bad, flip a coin." The older woman's anger seemed to show all the more clearly through her low voice and slow movements. Her expression was forbidding but Lana decided, somewhat tentatively, that the anger wasn't at her or at the motionless figure.
"Should I leave him alone now?"
Carola's massive shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. "Either you're upsetting him or he's enjoying the company. Or it's something else altogether, sometimes it happens for no reason." She closed her eyes in a gesture of resignation. "There might be ways to figure out which, but we've not been willing to gamble that finding out would be worth what it would inflict on him. I tried, after three months, to see if his brain shows activity in the same areas that it does in humans, in response to pleasure. That way, we could test different things, see what he preferred, instead of guessing almost blindly, perhaps make him feel he was in a comfortable and comforting environment." She clamped her lips together before continuing. "It's a simple test, put something sweet-tasting or bitter in the mouth, see which part of the brain responds to each. In humans, there are two very distinct and separate areas for pleasure and displeasure. The meters I had are tiny, a patient barely notices that they're on. Except that when I put the first on, telling him what I was doing and why, his heart rate and blood pressure became so high that it would have killed a human in ten seconds. That was enough to make me stop. Even if I hadn't sworn to do no harm, I might have been able to go on if I knew that I'd learn something that could help him, but I couldn't even count on that."
Lana had dozens of questions, but only an incongruous one came to her mouth. "How did he end up with you?"
"Thanks to the woman I'd thought the most imbecilic trophy wife on the entire East Coast. William had met her at various social functions, and I'm still not convinced she knows that he's an astronomer, not an astrologer, or even that there's a difference. But when her husband and his son died in an accident, she found out that her inheritance included him. Unlike all the scientific and business genius wonder-workers who had had possession of him, what she saw wasn't a fortune but something unspeakable. Since the...processors told her that he was an alien, after she ordered them to leave him alone, she came to find William, since he'd know what to do. Being an astronomer. Or possibly an astrologer." She almost smiled. "When William saw how unresponsive he was, and read in the various notes that he'd interacted intelligently before, he called me in. Since then, this is the progress he's made."
***
*if I go there then they won't find me down in the bottom very quiet and dark where things are quiet and dark like when time stops and nothing moves because time won't move and then I can breathe*
*something's coming in something slanted and strange stranger than what they call me why can't I touch light if I can see it and feel it's warm"
*it's a fire but it's drawing light to itself not throwing it off*
*what was it I can't remember if a tree falls if a tree falls I don't know how it ends*
*see I'm being quiet I'm being good I'm being good*
*don't take me out of this see I'm all gone and nobody can dig into what's empty what's been emptied like a bucket trickling through the cracks everywhere and nobody can put it back*
*if there's a bird singing does it feel its own singing in the air it flies through*
"I don't even know where to begin, telling you what happened since you left. In order, or the biggest things first, or what? Pete and I, well, we got married seven years ago. He's the youngest Vice-President in history, you know? I think you'd be proud of him. The big news he said about, well, we're having a baby!" Another gust of nervous laughter. "He's going to be a boy. We're still working on names. Pete took one of those lists and crossed out all the ones he didn't want and I crossed out all the ones I didn't want but there were still about a hundred. He'll be born in April, that's kind of a good month for a birthday, isn't it?"
She tried to look for any kind of response in his face, a movement, an expression, even a blink that looked spontaneous. There was nothing, and she felt her insides clench in pity and anger. His face had always been so readable, puppy-dog eyes, annoyance, happiness, sympathy, amusement, or even glassy-eyed boredom, during the middle of a class. Even the boredom was *there* to see, not just this blankness. If the occasional blinks had been even the tiniest bit more consistently paced, she'd have wondered if somehow this were some kind of Clark Machine. That the real one, the one she knew, was somewhere else, and this silent figure was the alien substitute. It was like a nightmare she'd had often after her parents died and then after she'd found out her connection with Henry Small: She'd run up to people who looked like her parents and then the figures would dwindle into nothing or change into something else, all the more terrifying for being ordinary, a crossing guard near the school, or just a stranger.
"Chloe's teaching journalism at Metropolis U. It's not really what she'd planned but it worked out great. She can really set them on fire, you know, the way she gets that determined look? She did some really big stories even while she was a student, some exposes that we were scared would really get her in trouble." She laughed again, remembering. "You'd have loved it, Clark. Well, you'd have been there, but Lex offered to hire bodyguards for her and she said no, they'd cramp her style. Can't you just see her saying that? So Lex hired them anyway and she pretended never to notice them. Instead, she just made sure that she lost them at least once a day, she said it was good practice. Pete says that there are probably a few of them still in the U basement, trying to find a way out. When it came to a story, Chloe wasn't scared of anything." Still no response from Clark
The Clark she knew had seemed so physically fearless. She'd often laughed privately, not at him, really, but at the idea that somebody that big and sturdy could be so shy, even tongue-tied. Even Pete, before he'd had five-inches-fifty-pounds spurt in his first year of college, exuded self-confidence. Well, most of the time. Not when she decided that if anything was going to happen between them, she'd have to initiate it, and asked him out.
"I think that rubbed off on Lex. You know the way that the Secret Service has code names for people? Anyway, they wouldn't tell me what they're using now, but they told me some of the old ones, since they change every now and again. When he was running, they called him Bart Simpson, and then once he was elected, they changed it to Brat. Well, you know Lex, he has issues about being crowded, and he really didn't do real well with having bodyguards right there every minute of every day. So finally, they put in a lot more techno-security things, he even wears what they call the baby monitor. If anybody who isn't already authorized gets near him, even twenty yards, he has to press a security code to let them know it's okay, or they come in. It's weird, he was the one raised with security all around and he hates it, Pete and I, well, we pretty much had *you*, and it wasn't a big deal getting used to it.
"Pete and I, we got together senior year. It was funny, I started feeling jealous of the people he dated. Sometimes I thought he did like me, other times I was sure he didn't. And then I finally just showed up at his house one Saturday and asked if he wanted to go out." She laughed again. "A bit like with Henry, I guess. Show up out of nowhere and scare 'em." Still no response.
"You'd be proud of Lex, too. Nobody thought he really had a chance if he ran as an Independent, but he did. Governor, then Senator, then off politics for a while, regrouping, building allies, and then President." She shook her head, grinning. "All the commentators said that it was only in the US that you'd get a grass-roots campaign for a multi-multi-billionaire. Pete was running his campaigns for a while but his own approval ratings were so high, and Lex said he was one of the people he could really trust, so he ran with Lex. I wish you'd seen him in the debates, he really was great. He just ruled the stage, you know? He was sincere, and it showed, but he also knew just how to say something, or ask a question, or even just pause for a second before answering, not clowning or anything, but just letting it sink in how pointless Montgomery's or Parson's answers were. You could see them, by the end, they weren't even debating each other, it was the two of them against him, and he was still winning, easily. They say Lex is a shoo-in for re-election and then Pete'll run. I don't think they'd really do it, but some of their cabinet were saying that Lex should run as *his* VP but Lex says Pete would have too many things to get even for."
Hearing a noise, she looked up. Carola Arkins was coming into the room, a faint frown on her face. "Is something wrong?" Was talking to him bad for Clark, or was she saying things that she shouldn't?
"His heart rate has been increasing slightly. Whether that's a good sign or bad, flip a coin." The older woman's anger seemed to show all the more clearly through her low voice and slow movements. Her expression was forbidding but Lana decided, somewhat tentatively, that the anger wasn't at her or at the motionless figure.
"Should I leave him alone now?"
Carola's massive shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. "Either you're upsetting him or he's enjoying the company. Or it's something else altogether, sometimes it happens for no reason." She closed her eyes in a gesture of resignation. "There might be ways to figure out which, but we've not been willing to gamble that finding out would be worth what it would inflict on him. I tried, after three months, to see if his brain shows activity in the same areas that it does in humans, in response to pleasure. That way, we could test different things, see what he preferred, instead of guessing almost blindly, perhaps make him feel he was in a comfortable and comforting environment." She clamped her lips together before continuing. "It's a simple test, put something sweet-tasting or bitter in the mouth, see which part of the brain responds to each. In humans, there are two very distinct and separate areas for pleasure and displeasure. The meters I had are tiny, a patient barely notices that they're on. Except that when I put the first on, telling him what I was doing and why, his heart rate and blood pressure became so high that it would have killed a human in ten seconds. That was enough to make me stop. Even if I hadn't sworn to do no harm, I might have been able to go on if I knew that I'd learn something that could help him, but I couldn't even count on that."
Lana had dozens of questions, but only an incongruous one came to her mouth. "How did he end up with you?"
"Thanks to the woman I'd thought the most imbecilic trophy wife on the entire East Coast. William had met her at various social functions, and I'm still not convinced she knows that he's an astronomer, not an astrologer, or even that there's a difference. But when her husband and his son died in an accident, she found out that her inheritance included him. Unlike all the scientific and business genius wonder-workers who had had possession of him, what she saw wasn't a fortune but something unspeakable. Since the...processors told her that he was an alien, after she ordered them to leave him alone, she came to find William, since he'd know what to do. Being an astronomer. Or possibly an astrologer." She almost smiled. "When William saw how unresponsive he was, and read in the various notes that he'd interacted intelligently before, he called me in. Since then, this is the progress he's made."
***
*if I go there then they won't find me down in the bottom very quiet and dark where things are quiet and dark like when time stops and nothing moves because time won't move and then I can breathe*
*something's coming in something slanted and strange stranger than what they call me why can't I touch light if I can see it and feel it's warm"
*it's a fire but it's drawing light to itself not throwing it off*
*what was it I can't remember if a tree falls if a tree falls I don't know how it ends*
*see I'm being quiet I'm being good I'm being good*
*don't take me out of this see I'm all gone and nobody can dig into what's empty what's been emptied like a bucket trickling through the cracks everywhere and nobody can put it back*
*if there's a bird singing does it feel its own singing in the air it flies through*