Ch 15 Perspective
A/N- Thank you again for your faithful reviews and critiques. You know, I had meant to finish this a couple chapters ago, but it won't let me! This story doesn't want to end! I have the ending all planned out, it's the getting to it in a logical manner that's the problem. I'll have to have a good talk with my muse.
Goldstranger, I should have been using stream of consciousness to clarify some of the turns and twists much earlier. Hope this clears up some questions. Ginger, I agree. I do need to work more on my character and scene descriptions. It's a work in progress so please bear with me. Hope this chapter is better. BrennanMulwray, Loveconquers, EOG and Louise - thanks for the continued reviews and encouragement. It keeps me motivated. MW- you KNOW that I'd never permanently kill off our favorite character, in fact, if the show wanted to bring him back, they have at least 2 loopholes with which to do it …. ; ) Let's hear it for our poor 'departed' friends….. Season 4 YAYYY!!!
BWAHAHAHAHA…..
*************
Mr. Queu/Eckhart blinked slowly and smiled to himself upon awakening from his 'nap'. He had enjoyed exercising aspects of his self that he hadn't tapped into since Adam had destroyed his immune system nearly 15 years ago. Six months in stasis had brought everything into perspective. He needed to play; he needed to unwrap his unique gifts and more than ever, he needed to stop Adam.
Although for years after Incident X, Mason Eckhart had been aware of his own giftedness, he had been too preoccupied with the more pressing matters of running Genomex in his immune-compromised state to actually do anything with it. Freed from the confines of the stasis pod, Eckhart searched meticulously through endless files linked to Adam Kane and discovered the amazing connection between his nemesis and Lionel Luthor hidden underneath years and endless reams of encoded data. As an added bonus, he found some fascinating meteor rock research data linked to Lionel Luthor. He now had another case for the Tribunal to pursue. He hoped they wouldn't bungle this one too.
The Tribunal's arrest of Lionel Luthor, as Eckhart had expected, had brought Adam Kane to the rescue. It was too bad that the Tribunal had a bad habit of not following through all of his recommendations. If they had, Adam and Mutant X would have been tried and executed months ago, there would have been no survivors from the Double Helix crash, and Lex Luthor would not be on trial with his father today.
Eckhart's first attempt to bring Adam down failed when that self-important band of wealthy idiots, the Tribunal, failed to carry out his plan as he had originally outlined it months ago. They had chosen to arrest only Adam and ignore Adam's followers. Idiots. Eckhart mentally shook his head. The Tribunal had all the resources needed to take this band of renegades down once and for all. He gave the Tribunal a second chance when he gave them the Helix's trajectory and coordinates, resulting in the Double-Helix being shot out of the sky by Tribunal armed forces. Too arrogant to follow through and finish what they started, the Tribunal forces left Mutant X for dead. The rest was history. Well, he still had use for this head-strong group of rich boys and their toys. It was a good thing they had agreed to making Eckhart the prosecutor for the Luthor case. Eckhart, disguised as Lex Luthor's Chief of Research, Mr. Queu, had located the parties of interest and the Tribunal forces captured them. Disguised as Mr. Queu, Mason Eckhart was able to live right under their noses without them being the wiser. With the cybernetic interface that he had created for this facility, nothing would escape his notice. And if the Tribunal couldn't carry out something as simple as the execution of Adam Kane and Lionel Luthor, then perhaps it was time for him to arrange for this illustrious group to be terminated.
Queu/Eckhart reflected. During his job interview, Lex had unexpectedly seen through his disguise, acknowledged and perversely accepted him, a masked man, into his employ. That action intrigued Eckhart. He knew then that Lex already had acquired valuable information about him. The younger Luthor's unexpected acceptance of him made him wonder where he fell into Lex Luthor's plans to undermine his father. He wondered if Lex had drawn the connection between his unmasked face, which he revealed briefly 3 months ago during his interview, and the holographic image of Mason Eckhart. He remembered Lex's thoughtful expression and the quick glance his way when Lex viewed the hologram for the first time a couple hours ago. Then Mr. Warren made his unexpected appearance moments later, the events that followed his appearance would have prevented any further contemplation of his identity.
Eckhart sighed mentally. Lex Luthor, he thought. The young man was much like himself at that age, highly intelligent and charismatic, a man with a mission. Would he become protégé or opponent, he wondered. Was there, like himself, some major mishap in store for Lex; something that would destroy his trust and compassion? For now, Lex Luthor was a young man worthy of his protection and tutelage. It was corrupting influences like Lionel Luthor, Adam and Mutant X that had to be stopped.
Queu/Eckhart sensed someone near him. Opening his eyes, he turned his head with an inquiring look and found Clark Kent sitting on the cot adjacent to his leaning back against the wall, knees pushed up against his chest, hands clasped together in imitation of his own posture. The hazel-eyed youth was studying him with a mixture of puzzlement and curiosity. Mr. Queu raised an eyebrow.
"Well?" he asked in a voice momentarily lower than Queu's normal tone.
Clark hesitated, not wanting to start out with an accusation, not wanting to deny what his x-ray vision had just shown him.
"Um, Mr. Queu," he said hesitantly, noticing that Lex's researcher had bore a slight resemblance to Albert Einstein.
"Yes," the grey-haired man's dark eyes studied him intently.
Clark took a deep breath. "Are you a Mutant?" he asked. Mr Queu cocked his head at Clark and smiled an unbelieving smile.
"No. What makes you ask a question like that?" Queu responded, yet something about his manner had become defensive. Clark understood that manner all too personally.
Not wanting to offend the man, Clark continued, "What if a person was wired inside, you know, like a machine, with contacts along the fingers, the spine, the back of the neck? Do you know of technology like that?"
Mr. Queu/Eckhart looked thoughtful and rubbed the back of his neck where the interface node disguised as a sub-dermal governor was imbedded. He stared at the younger man trying to read something in his expression and body language, then leaned forward intently. "I might have heard of something like that," he replied, his dark gaze holding Clark's, "Young Mr. Kent, what laws of physics are defied when a person can move within a stasis field, see through walls and emit a heat ray? Do they teach that kind of stuff to you kids in school?" As Clark's greenish eyes widened, the gray haired man nodded slowly. "Some questions are best left unanswered, don't you agree?" He half-whispered.
Clark nodded, unconvinced then eyes betraying his alarm added, "What about Lex?"
"Sometimes ignorance is indeed bliss, Mr. Kent." Mr. Queu replied, glancing quickly away at the sound of approaching footsteps. Clark's thoughts flew. Here was a man like himself with exceptional gifts, close to Lex Luthor, yet as secretive as himself where Lex was concerned. Perhaps it was wise after all not to reveal too much to his likeable millionaire friend.
Adam stood before them, his black business suit looking worn and unkempt. The tall dark-haired scientist had bags under his eyes and worry set his mouth in a grim line.
"I hate to disturb your conversation," he acknowledged Queu with a brief nod, "but I need to pull Clark into one of the strategy groups."
"Is there anything I can do," Dr. Kane?" Queu asked, standing now. "Where young Mr. Luthor is concerned, I will spare no effort in recovering him."
"That goes for me too," Clark replied. "Lex is my best friend."
Adam's gaze softened a little. "Mr. Queu, I have some thoughts on where to put you. You may call me Adam, if you wish." He looked the older man over appraisingly. "Can you fight?"
Mr. Queu looked down at his own thin frame, clad in laboratory white. Looking up at Adam, Queu answered in his best British accent, "I am barely in league with those young ladies over there, Dr. Kane. Have you considered negotiation?"
"There is no room for negotiation," Adam replied seriously. "The Tribunal, Warren and Eckhart have all of us where they want us. Despite their opposing stances as Defense and Prosecutor, they both undoubtedly intend to kill us all after they finish playing their games. That is where we intend to make our move." Adam replied gravely.
"Indeed!" Mr. Queu was all interest.
*** ****** *
Lex sat strapped down to a metal chair under an intense spotlight as he faced the Tribunal panel. Three pale faces suspended above him in the balcony gazed down upon him without emotion. Sweat poured off Lex's head as he waited for the Defense and Prosecutor to face off. Lionel stared hard at him from his place by the Counsel's side, his expression forbidding him to stray from the plan that they had prepared earlier.
Mr. Eckhart, the Prosecutor approached Lex. His shoulder-length, white hair rippled with every turn of his head; his pale complexion contrasted sharply with the long black robes he wore, giving him an austere expression. His gaze never left Lex as he towered over him, pacing restlessly, scrutinizing the younger man for signs of fear or weakness. Lex stared back stonily, comparing Eckhart's pale face with its intense, haunting gaze with all the other faces he had memorized. A moment later, Lex, stunned at the similarity between his memory of the emaciated countenance of the unmasked Queu and the powerful one that gazed down at him, blinked and gazed warily at Eckhart. Mason Eckhart nodded slightly, in a way that Lex found unnervingly familiar. He raised an eyebrow in return, keeping his face expressionless. This man couldn't be Queu. The older man was with the others. This one was either a twin to his esteemed Chief of Research, or another hologram…. Queu's doing? Lex was intrigued at the thought.
"Is this your device, Mr. Lex Luthor?" Eckhart asked gently, holding a small device in his black-gloved hand. Lex looked at the cell phone that Mr. Queu had made for him.
"May I look at it?" Lex asked, wondering if the phone was an illusion too. The white-haired man nodded and released the band restraining Lex' right arm. Lex reached for the small phone and 'accidentally' knocked it from the Prosecutor's hand. "I'm sorry," Lex apologized, his blue eyes calculating. Eckhart deftly recovered the phone with his other hand. He scowled at Lex, and then forcibly pressed the device into Lex's hand. Lex looked down at the phone, deciding that the man towering over him was not a hologram, and wondered about Queu, left back in the holding cell. Lex one-handedly opened the phone and examined it. His photographic memory verified that everything was in place. He pressed a playback button and replayed the phone threat.
"Would you care to play that back again, young Mr. Luthor?" The Prosecutor asked, looking mockingly at the Defense Counsel, Mr. Warren. Lex kept his gaze fixed on the phone, but inwardly started at the familiarity of the address. It could have been Queu with a much lower voice speaking; the intonation and inflection were the same.
Mr. Warren had already stood up and shouted, "Objection. This is irrelevant to the case."
"I believe that any interaction between the subject of the investigation and his Counsel is relevant to the investigation. The voice recorded here is yours, is it not?" The Prosecutor said accusingly.
The gavel pounded loudly. "Sustained. Keep your line of questioning directed to the subject, Mr. Eckhart." The Chief Justice commanded sternly. Eckhart challenged the Chief Justice with a prolonged stare over his dark-framed glasses, then heaved a sigh.
"Very well, then. Mr. Alexander Luthor, is it not true that you have agreed at the bidding of the Defense Counsel and your father to give false testimony at this hearing?" Eckhart asked pointedly.
The chamber suddenly went wild with murmurs of speculation from the Tribunal and the few guests that sat hidden in the shadows. Lex stared hard at the white-haired prosecutor. How could he have possibly known? As Lex opened his mouth to answer, Mr. Warren leaped out of his chair shouting "Objection, your Honor. Conjecture! The Prosecutor is leading the witness, your Honor!"
"Order!" The Chief Justice pounded the gavel on the podium several times and frowned angrily at the Prosecutor. After the murmurs and buzzing conversations had stopped, the Tribunal put their heads together for a moment.
**** **** ****
Queu/Eckhart had been monitoring the trial from another part of the building. He fine-tuned into the private conversation of the Tribunal.
"He hasn't come out and said it, but I think Eckhart is trying to acquit the son of Luthor." "The man is making a mockery of our trial with his insinuations of our employee, Mr. Warren."
"We will not allow this outsider to have his way. While his goals and ours were the same, we could afford to be magnanimous and allow him to think he was controlling the trial."
"What about Mr. Warren? He has to defend that which he wanted to Prosecute."
"If Mr. Warren succeeds in getting Lex Luthor to lie at the request of the father, we will have all the justification we need in condemning both Luthors; and if Lex Luthor does not give the fabricated story, he has condemned his father to death and a son like that doesn't deserve to live." The three men smiled evilly.
Inside the holding cell, Mr. Queu paced thoughtfully. They thought they had played him for a fool. This little group of self appointed god lets had been useful while they played according to his rules. It was obvious that he would have to take Adam down another time; in fact, some Tribunal files that he had recently decrypted indicated that Adam might still be of use to him, not that he needed him. And then there was this fellow, Nicholas Fox, Shalimar's father, who might be of service….
It was time to take out the Tribunal, and what better way than to allow Mutant X to do it. MutantX would save Lex because they had befriended him; no, Lex would somehow survive this with or without MutantX. Eckhart would leave him his encrypted legacy, just as Adam had left him his almost 2 decades ago. If Lex succeeded in decoding the information he'd leave about Lionel Luthor and his holographic system, Lex would become extremely powerful. Eckhart looked forward to a future meeting with Lex Luthor.
Adam would save his old friend, Lionel Luthor. Queu/Eckhart shook his head, bemused. He found it difficult to imagine his old friend-now arch-enemy, Adam Kane allied with the likes of Lionel Luthor. He shrugged. Life certainly dealt strange hands.
***********
"Sustained." The gavel came down with a decisive blow. Mr. Warren grinned victoriously. Lionel nodded approvingly. Lex looked up at the tall, powerful figure next to him.
"Your Honors," Eckhart said in a calm, reasonable voice. "I simply wished to build a foolproof argument that would indict Mr. Lionel Luthor beyond reasonable doubt in accordance with the wishes of the Tribunal. The testimony of young Mr. Luthor would accomplish that."
"The Prosecutor may approach this bench." The Chief Justice said.
Eckhart approached the bench of the Chief Justice. The light glinted harshly on his formidable countenance as he gazed down at the Prosecutor. "It is the assessment of the Tribunal that you are trying to protect the son, contrary to the will of the Tribunal. We advise you to stick to the job for which you have been hired." The Chief Justice spoke severely.
Mr. Eckhart stared darkly at the Justice without responding. Suddenly he shrugged briefly, as if he had come to a decision.
"Have it your way then," he said lightly.
**************
The holding cell that held MutantX and the small group of Smallville residents suddenly lost its faint source of light. In the blackness, Shalimar whimpered in pain then growled in frustration as she tried to use her Feral night vision only to be delivered a painful shock from the subdermal governor for her effort. Clark looked around carefully using his x-ray vision. Everyone was there except Queu. A hand grasped his right forearm. Clark hissed in surprise. Despite his xray vision, in the blinding darkness, he couldn't see who was holding his arm.
"Who's there?" he half-whispered. Clark relaxed slightly as Queu's familiar voice chuckled amusedly, "It's just me, Mr. Kent." Clark stared narrowly toward the voice in the pitch blackness. Despite Mr. Queu's hand on his arm, Clark couldn't see the skeletal signs from the man that he had observed a half hour ago.
"You're full of surprises, Mr. Queu." Clark said quietly so the others couldn't hear.
He could feel the man's breath as he replied in his ear, "You're very perceptive, young Mr. Kent."
There was a loud clicking noise somewhere in the basement and the light came back on. Clark gazed sharply at the older man, utilizing his x-ray vision. Still, he could see nothing. It was as if the man had suddenly turned into a hologram. Clark looked at his arm, remembering the firm grasp. No hologram could do that, could it? Was he human?
*************
In an immaculate, Spartan room somewhere else in the building, a tall, wiry, grey-haired man in a white lab coat smiled then carefully peeled the mask from his head, exposing paler, leaner features and short, brown wavy hair. The man looked up slowly and closed his eyes. Safe in his private sanctuary, Mason Eckhart relaxed and sighed as if to shed the last several hours from his presence. As he renewed the protective bio-membrane on his body, he studied the activities of Adam, Lex and friends from a bank of monitors that displayed three views of activities in the holding cell along with three different views of the Tribunal chambers through the eyes of his holographic servants. Eckhart reflected.
Clark Kent had certainly turned into a surprise. He was obviously a Meteor Rock Mutant like his friend Lex, but with vastly different powers. What a team they could be!
Eckhart glanced at a selection of garments that hung neatly on the nearby rack and exchanged his lab coat for a black, business casual attire that would match his dark, short-cropped hair.
Clark and Lex were like brothers, raised in totally different environments. They were kindred spirits, compassionate and generous while jealously guarding his own secrets. Lex fought against becoming like his father while secretly longing for his father's approval. Eckhart had observed the epic father-son conflict close up as Queu. He wondered if Lionel Luthor had already won. It was all too clear to Mason Eckhart that Lex was an extremely complex individual; while he exhibited kindness and compassion, each action was calculated beforehand for its potential value and outcome, just as Lionel would do. Like his father, Lex was motivated by his intellect and his need to control, while Clark was motivated by his heart. Eckhart smiled wryly. How so much like him and Adam. He shook his head, amused. Both young men had secrets that they kept from each other. He wondered if these secrets would later drive the two friends apart.
With a movement of a wired finger, Eckhart tuned in to the computer interface one more time and called up the address of Naxcon, photographs and profile of Shalimar Fox's father, and the layout of his small business. As he digested and memorized the information, Eckhart smiled. With a couple short movements of his wired hands, he sent his final instructions to his holographic servants and then he wiped the databases.
******************
In the holding cell, Clark was feeling stronger, despite his close proximity to his meteor rock-contaminated friends.
"Hey kid, uh, Clark," Frank Thorne called quietly. "Can you try to deactivate this thing again? I have a feeling you don't need your pocket-knife to do it. I won't tell anyone." Clark looked warily at Lana, Chloe and Dr. Bryce who were still working with the Emma, Shalimar and Brennan several feet away. Thorne looked at them and a look of understanding swept over his face. He looked questioningly at Mr. Queu, who was perched on one of the cot-tables, gazing at the training group, but obviously lost in thought. Clark looked down. He still didn't know what to make of Lex's employee.
"I think with all of our lives on the line, secrecy shouldn't matter much any more," Thorne said gruffly.
Adam appeared from behind them. "We're not at that point yet, Frank." He said quietly. "Leave him alone." Frank Thorne stood up to Adam for a moment, then thought better of it.
"I hope you're right, Kane." He mumbled as he rejoined Emma and Helen Bryce. Lana glanced over toward Clark and excused herself as she headed his way.
Adam gently clapped Clark on the shoulder. "I understand your fear that what you did before may have been a lucky shot, and that you don't want to chance hurting anyone, but keep this in mind Clark, you may be our only chance to free those people from the Controllers and save this mission."
"Adam," Jesse who was standing nearest to the elevator pointed. "Trouble."
The elevator door opened. About 15 Tribunal soldiers marched in, guns pointed. Jesse was flung back into the cell with the others. All activity in the holding cell stopped as the commander singled out Adam.
"NO!" Clark stood between Adam and the soldiers to shield him. Lana grasped Clark's arm and tried to pull him away. Clark slumped as his body weakened at the close proximity of meteor rock in Lana's touch. At that moment, one of the Tribunal soldiers raised his gun and shot Clark in the shoulder. Clark collapsed in pain. The group started to move toward Clark and the commander snapped, "That was a warning. If anyone else resists, they too will be shot." Clark lay there with tears welling in his eyes from the bullet wound in his shoulder.
Adam signaled his people to stand down.
"Adam, they're going to kill you," Shalimar protested.
"They're going to kill all of us, one by one," Mr. Queu said softly.
"Then I'll do my best to dissuade them," Adam replied quietly. "You people do what you're trained to do."
The tall, dark-haired scientist straightened his rumpled black suit and ran his hands through his short wavy hair. He nodded calmly as the group of soldiers closed ranks behind him and the elevator door slammed shut.
