Chapter 4
Fugitive

The young man had a plan; one he knew would either work or be a complete mistake. Always being one to take chances, at approximately 10 P.M. he would arrange his long-toiled-over dummy in the cell bed so that it appeared he was sleeping soundly as if nothing had happened. Then he would go around a corner in the main room and wait until the night lay upon the Belle Reeve Asylum. Once the guards were checking the cell rooms, he would make his move—a daring attempt to escape. He had the most precious of his belongings, including his sharp shooting gun which he had repossessed from the locked room where firearms and other weapons that came in with the inhabitants of the asylum were kept after locking up. He also had a backpack full of clothes and his most important possession—meteor rocks which made up the majority of the mail he had received lately. He had ordered them over the internet during the small amount of free-rime he had between workouts and the scheduled time to take medications, which he had faked taking for the last month.

He knew the cops were familiar with his method of signature for each of his murders—a small meteor rock labeled "freak," placed next to the body. He decided a new signifying mark was necessary so that the police wouldn't recognize his handiwork: the removal of all meteor freaks. Now, he decided, he would use meteor rock bullets, which he had used once before to kill Clark Kent. He had seen Clark was bullet-proof, but later found out that he was immediately weakened when he was near the meteor rocks. He had devised an earlier plan and had made meteor rock bullets to shoot the invincible Clark Kent.

When he had successfully shot Clark and had then gone after Lana, he had been sure his plan had worked and that Clark had died, but he soon found out that his scheme had a fault—Clark had survived the shot and had come to Lana's rescue. Together, they had taken him out, which is why he was now in the asylum for becoming so intent on making the "race" of meteor rock affected people extinct. He had only been this way since his own father, Lt. McNulty had been killed by one. A girl his age named Tina, who could morph into whoever she wanted, had killed his father when he had been one of the officers assigned to capture her and take her to the nearest asylum—most likely his own prison like asylum, Belle Reeve.

The man went to his hiding spot and waited for what seemed like an eternity, when finally, the guards left the room. He knew he didn't have much time, and went through his plan quickly. Once he was outside, he took out a pair of wire clippers he had taken from the weaponry and began to cut through the chain link fence. The alarm had sounded when he had exited the building, and the adrenaline was fueling him to work faster.

Finally, he was through the fence and running, running, running. He heard officers and the guards rushing out through doors all around the building, communicating with walkie-talkies and shouting orders to each other, and the man knew he wasn't home free just yet. He kept running and then doubled back into a clump of trees which he hoped provided enough cover to hide him. The officers ran past, oblivious to his presence, following the tracks which led to a small stream, where they got confused and proceeded to wade through and continue on their trek—fighting a losing battle. The man ran off into the woods near the Morley Reservoir when he took out his laptop to begin his search anew.


Later that night, Chloe sat in the Torch Office, trying to find a more current informative site on Ellen McKenzie. She scanned the list on the search page, all of the sites now in a purple text, indicating they had all been viewed before. Tired and frustrated, she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes with a sigh. A pop-up appeared on the computer screen with a small ding, informing her she had one new e-mail from someone only known as –Determined. Curious, she maximized her e-mail inbox and looked at her latest e-mail, the subject reading, "Winged Wonder Article." The journalist in her motivated Chloe to open the e-mail and read on, too curious to let it slide. It read,

"I have recently read your article titled 'Winged Wonder: Smallville's Newest Hero?' and have some information for you: I can provide you with more updated information on any topic of interest to you regarding this article, if you can give me all the information you have discovered about the Winged Wonder.

–Determined."

As soon as Chloe had read the e-mail, a sudden "blink!" from her computer brought up an IM box with –Determined as the sender. Odd, Chloe thought; her IM hadn't been open at the time, and she didn't recognize the address as one of her favorites, but she was too interested to not reply. The first IM from –Determined read "Do you accept my offer?"

"How can I trust you?" Chloe typed back, as she attempted to determine the e-mail address of –Determined. When she tried however, it informed her that the address was not available. Even with her highly advanced hacking skills, she couldn't bring up the address, and finally gave up.

"I can give you the most recent information on anything you need and help you figure out who the Winged Wonder is," –Determined replied almost instantly afterwards.

"Prove it," Chloe now typed, becoming more suspicious and inquisitive at the same time.

"I know of the car that went off of the bridge had the license plate number QKU 491, Kansas," appeared on the screen. Chloe blinked in surprise. –Determined could turn out to be more intelligent than she thought, as they had correctly identified the plate number of the Mustang Clark had seen crash the other night.

She continued to IM the mysterious person: "Who are you?"

"That is not important. All you need to know about me is that I can crack codes on almost any computer and I can easily find information that others cannot. Now it's your turn: What information have you discovered so far about the Winged Wonder that was not been displayed in the Torch?"

Chloe hesitated only a moment before replying, "The owner of the vehicle is named Ellen McKenzie from Smallville." She felt as if she were stalking Ellen, but knew that the person could have easily figured out the same information on their own, but most likely wanted to know if Chloe was worth the effort. Even so, she left out the information about Andy, just in case. At first, there was no reply, and Chloe began to think that she'd gone too far with the amount of information that she had provided for –Determined. Then another message came up; it was a website address.

Chloe clicked on it, and it came up with a newer document with information about Ellen, only this Ellen's last name was Falcon. Chloe maximized the previous document of Ellen McKenzie and compared the pictures—identical. Even though one document was newer, the author failed to provide a current photo, which must have been done after Ellen had married. Chloe's intake of breath was sharp—this meant that Ellen must be Andy's mother! If that was true, then Andy must be the Winged Wonder, didn't it? But Falcon was a common name. Luckily, –Determined didn't know about Andy…yet.


That night, Clark's parents asked him if he found out anything more about the winged wonder and the car. Feeling oddly protective of the mysterious person, Clark lied, saying he didn't know anything more. Lying had become second nature to him, having to do it constantly to protect his secret. Still, he was a terrible liar, and his parents could tell something was going on.

"Clark, are you alright? You seem worried about something," Martha asked her son, already convinced there was something he wasn't telling her.

"I'm fine mom, I'm just gonna go to the loft," Clark said, not wanting to lie any more than he needed to.


The next morning, Clark woke up and stretched in the early morning light. He had to get up early today and do his chores before school, which he planned to leave for earlier than usual today to continue his search to discover who the mysterious winged wonder was. Hopefully Chloe had figured something out last night when she was at the Torch office, he thought as he groggily got up out of bed and dressed while he was still half-awake. He stumbled out of his bedroom to the bathroom, and finally out into the fresh morning air to feed the cows and bail hay. When he was finished, he made his way back inside, now fully awake and with an empty stomach.

"Good morning, Clark, you're up early this morning," Jonathan greeted his son as he walked into the kitchen from the back door.

"I just wanted to do my chores early so that I can help Chloe at the Torch before school," Clark said, walking over to the refrigerator and pulling out the milk. His mother sat at the kitchen table with his father,

"Uh, uh, Clark, use a glass," she said suddenly, causing Clark to lower the raised milk carton from his lips with a small smirk. He opened a nearby cupboard and took out a tall glass, pouring himself a generous amount of milk. He then opened another one and took out a box of cereal, adding more milk to his breakfast. Greedily eating his meal, he looked at the clock; 7:14.

"Whoa, I've got to get going; Chloe's expecting me at 7:15," he said, dumping the rest of the cereal down the sink and grabbing his backpack.

"Have a good day," Martha told her son. With a small wave, he super-sped out the door to the school, arriving with only 10 seconds to spare. He jogged into the hallway, and finally slowing to arrive right at 7:15 in the doorway of the Torch Office.

"So, any new news on the latest Wall-Of-Weird contender?" Clark asked when he saw Chloe was already there.

"Actually, there's a huge part to our mystery that I solved last night—the site I looked at was over 17 years old, but I couldn't find a more recent one. Then last night, when I was, uh, searching, I found another one that was from '99: apparently Ellen used to be married to someone called Charlie Falcon. Unfortunately, Falcon seems to be a popular name, so we have no idea if Ellen and Andy are even related, though it seems that would be the case…it also said Ellen was born and raised in Smallville, and continues to work here today as a photographer," she said, clearly intrigued herself by the whole concept.

"But didn't you tell me that Andy said she was new here?" Clark asked.

"I checked Andy's school file, and it says she's from Metropolis. Maybe she skimped on the papers and was actually home schooled up till now in Smallville, but the question is, why?" Chloe said, excited to be solving yet another one of Smallville's mysteries. Clark looked at her critically, only slightly surprised that she didn't mind the privacy laws of looking through other people's files—something he found very intriguing about Chloe; intent on solving any mystery no matter what costs. "I guess we'll just have to get the information from the source… By the way, I had a friend of mine inspect that sweatshirt you left here yesterday? He said nothing could have done that in that amount of time without some sort of machine, unless Andy's a lot stronger than we think. Who'd know with the clothes she wears…"

"Uh, Chloe, could I have that sweatshirt back?" Clark asked suddenly, an idea coming to him.

"Sure, I didn't know it was that important to you," Chloe said speculatively. "Why?"

"I just got an idea, I'll see you later," said Clark, as he practically ran out the door.