35
"All right, Perfessor," said Joe as he puttered around the geology lab, looking at various exhibits and projects in progress. "I'll bite. What exactly are we waiting for?"
Chester looked up from the soil sample he had been working on. "We're waiting for the electronics boys to give me a modified ELMA to re-check the quake site. And meanwhile... I'm playin' in the dirt."
Joe laughed with that quiet little laugh of his that meant he thought the remark funny, but that there was still serious work to do. "How different is it from the other gizmo you were using?"
"I asked them to see if they could modify it to specifically sense this mystery element, and to amplify the range of the sensor so we can tell just how deep this stuff goes. If my neighbor is right, and if it goes deep enough into the Earth, we could have ourselves one nasty little problem."
"Your neighbor... Is she really related to Superman?"
"Her husband is. He's a direct line descendent of the hero of Metropolis! Nice fella, too. You'd think somethin' like that would really go to his head, wouldn't ya? But George is one fine guy. He's raised his kids right, too. Ya oughtta meet his son, Jimmy. Now there's a real pistol for ya! Resilient, too. Gets teased and beat
up by the bullies at school, but keeps comin' back for more every day."
"The descendent of Superman gets beat up at school? That's kinda funny."
"Yep. George - uh, that's his father's name, George - George doesn't know much about it. Jim won't tell him and I've been sworn to secrecy. He came home from class one day not too long ago when I was out in my yard cuttin' the grass and he had one heck of a shiner. Told me he ran into a door, can you believe that? I told him he's better come up with a better story than that or cause his dad would never buy that one. He fessed up. Some big kid with more muscles than brains had it in for him just because he was one of 'those' Kents. And then he said it had been going on since he was in grammar school. Said he needed to tell somebody about it but didn't want his parents to know, especially his father. I promised I wouldn't say anything, but I said he needed to get over his pride and talk to his dad."
"Did he?"
"I don't know. George never said anything about it and I kept my word... and my mouth shut."
"I see. Well, how's the dirt?"
"The what?"
"The dirt. You said you were playing in the dirt."
"Oh... yeah." Chester took his hands out and strated wiping them off with a towel. "Well, My neighbor said the stuff was pretty unstable. I'm trying to see if I can agitate it into a reaction of some kind."
That remark annoyed Joe ."You mean like an explosion? Isn't that a little dangerous?"
"Naw, I don't think there's enough here to do any real damage. But I probably should be wearin' some sort of eye protection, now that you mention it. Tell ya what, why don't ya hand a pair of those goggles over there and I'll just... uh..." Joe obliged his friend. "There ya go. Thanks, Joe."
"Sure, no problem."
About that time a young man in a long white lab coat entered the room with what looked like an ELMA, but with an external sensing arm attached.
"Dr. Carr, I think you will like this. My associates and I have managed to create a setting that is especially sensitive to your mystery element. We have it internally set so there is no chance of accidentally changing it. The arm is used just like you would use any metal detector. Just slowly swing it back and forth and the ELMA should sense the compound."
"How about the depth of sensitivity?"
"I can't guarantee that it will reach to the core but it will sense deeper than any ELMA ever has. And of course, there's no way to test it but to put it to use. Best we could do, I'm afraid."
"Then I guess we'll give it a workout. Thanks."
The young man looked back at Joe and Chess as he went out the door. "You're welcome and... Good Luck."
Chester examined the new contraption he had been given and said under his breath, "Yeah, we'll probably need it." He looked at the cop with a smile and winked. "Okay, Joe. Let's get back to the quake site. I wanna give this thing a shakedown. Cover that dish for me, would ya?"
Joe found a glass cover and placed it over the dish of purple dirt. "Okay, but what about your 'agitating?' This stuff gonna cause any problems while we're gone?"
"Naw, I don't think so, but you know what they say."
"What's that?"
"A watched dish of purple dirt never explodes. Come on..."
"So, how've you been, Sweetheart? Did you miss me?" Jennifer beamed as if she were a tot opening a Christmas present. "You know I missed you! Well actually, I missed my runabout... and technically, it's not really my runabout, but never screw up a good story with facts, I always say."
"Jennifer." George said once again, dumbfounded.
"You know, I just love it when men whisper my name like that. In fact, I might just let you live just so that I could hear you say it to me again. Oh wait. No, I can't."
She had that same sexy smile but her outfit was decidedly different. Now she was wearing something that looked like it came straight out of a bad twentieth century sci-fi movie, a cherry red corset-style outfit with pointed sleeves that looked like wings on her shoulders and a train in the rear. Dark lace stockings ran the length of her slender legs down to her red stiletto high heels. On the third finger of her right hand was something else that was new: a ring with a good sized green stone.
George felt a little tense as the barrel of her energy pistol lowered towards him. She smirked just a bit as she prepared to pull the trigger. But then she pulled the pistol back and said, "You know, I really hate this killing stuff? Especially when the person I'm going to kill just looks back at me with dreamy eyes like yours, George. Couldn't you like, beg for mercy or something? It would make me feel so much better, like I was doing you a favor. Kind of like I was putting you out of your misery or something like that. You know?"
"I know that you say 'you know' an awful lot! It can get pretty annoying. How did you know my name?"
"I watch holovision way too much. Actually, one of your commercials came on as you were leaving and your name was on the bottom of the image. Are you really related to Superman?"
George was not amused. "You want an autograph or something?"
"Oh, this is marvelous! It's Kismet, fate, destiny all rolled into one! George, we're old family friends! My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather knew your great-great...whatever-grandfather! They knew each other since they were kids! I can't believe it!"
"Does this mean you're not going to shoot?"
"Oh no! I'm definitely going to shoot. But I thought we could catch up with family histories first. You see, my full name is Jennifer Alexis Luthor."
Luthor? thought George. That explains the ring and why Guer-on seems to be missing in action. He can't go near enough to Jennifer without being effected by the stone in her ring - a kryptonite stone.
Jennifer noticed George staring at her ring. "Like it? It's a family heirloom. Handed down from generation to generation til it found itself around my finger. Of course, I had to have the stone reset for my dainty digit. I don't wear it all the time, though. The kids in our family get taught at an early age how Grandaddy Lex lost a hand to the radiation. But when I realized who I was going after and your family background... Well, it just wouldn't be right to not wear it, would it?"
"I thought that bomb would've pretty much destroyed your ship. It made a big enough bang. How did I miss?"
"Well, actually you didn't darling, but you see, there were two ships after you. The one in front of mine was the one that blew up. I was far enough behind that mine was relatively unscathed. Lucky me, huh?"
George noticed that one of the lead bomb casings behind Jennifer was seemingly moving under its own power slowly towards her. He needed to keep her attention on him for a few more seconds. Fortunately, she seemed to really enjoy hearing herself speak. "How did you find me after the first ship blew up?"
"Simple, really. The very first hit on your ship while you were being chased was a locating transmitter. We had one inside but you must have found it. By the way, I'm really ticked at you for that explosion trick. All my men were aboard that ship. Most of them were no big loss, but I really liked Francois! He was a funny guy!"
"Sorry. I guess I get a little carried away when I'm fighting for my life."
"Well, don't let it bother you. You also managed to take out Doug, too. He was with the people that wanted to use the explosives. He was probably going to have me killed for letting you take this vehicle. So I guess you did me a favor by blowing him up. Now my turn. Who are you working for; the FBI or the Martian Crime Authority maybe? You don't seem like the type to be working with any kind of crime syndicate."
"Crime syndicate? I thought crime was pretty much dead on Earth and Mars these days."
"How naive! You really are descended from the big blue Boy Scout aren't you?" The casing was almost right behind her now. It was time to act. George's vision powers were not nearly as powerful as his famous ancestor, and he hadn't used heat vision since he was twenty years old, but things were getting hot right now and he needed to make things even hotter. He focused on the ring on Jennifer's hand.
"OW! OW! OW!" She involuntarily dropped her weapon and frantically ripped the red hot kryptonite ring from her finger, throwing it to the floor. Guer-On threw the lead casing atop it, trapping the deadly rays emanating from the stone. George leapt forward and grabbed the pistol before she could recover. Guer-On, about the size of a gnat, rammed himself into the spiked heel of Jennifer's right stiletto, sending her toppling to the floor of the bridge. In the blink of an eye, literally, the tense situation was reversed.
"I don't suppose you'd like to tell me just what the heck happened just now?" asked a puzzled Jennifer as she looked up at her gun in George's hand.
"I confess, Miss Luthor, that I did inherit some powers from my super ancestor, and they are all in my eyes."
"Heat vision?"
"Heat vision!"
"Okay for that. But I know I saw that lead casing fly through the air by itself and cover my ring after I threw it. What's up with that?"
"Uhhhhhh... Mice?"