Chapter 11 - Lindsay

Even knowing Lex was going to be running the fingerprints on the teacup, Clark didn't sleep well that night. He felt like things were still unresolved with Lex, that he'd hurt his feelings without meaning to and for no good reason. And he couldn't stop thinking about Kara. Something about the way she had spoken reminded him a lot of Jor El. It might have been true that she didn't have any evidence of who she said she was, but there was something about her. He could feel it, like he had felt that the cave walls were somehow related to him.

His alarm woke him from a half-sleep the next morning, and he groaned, rolling over. Technically, he didn't really have to sleep—his powers kept him awake and alert throughout the school day even if he didn't sleep at all—but sleep settled his mind and made him feel more mentally prepared for the day ahead. He'd spent all night thinking about Kara.

Krypton still lives on in us, she'd said.

He'd heard that kind of phrase before, but he had no idea whether she meant it figuratively or literally—or somewhere in between.

I came from a passage in the cave wall.

Clark really didn't know what she meant by that. He'd spent a fair bit of time down in the caves; there were a fair number of different passages and sections, but he didn't know how someone could have come out of one. He had discovered a section to the cave when he'd accidentally fallen into it after an ATV flipped him off; could she be talking about a whole new section? New paintings to explore, new artifacts to discover, new symbols to read? Maybe there could be answers.

He could ask her to show him. If he had any idea where she was.

Then again . . . if she'd actually opened a new section of the cave, there was no reason she had to show him. He could just . . . go see it for himself. What was stopping him?

Clark pulled himself out of bed. He'd slept all the way up to his alarm, which meant he'd slept past both of his parents' wakeup times, and probably Lex's, too. There were leftovers from breakfast on the table for him, but he ignored them for the time being. He thought about checking in with his parents, but he wasn't going to be gone for long. He just wanted to check the caves. He sped over to the archaeological site and down into the twisting tunnels, through the sections on Kawache culture and history, through the legend of Naman and Sageeth—though he still hadn't figured out who Sageeth was, and he still sometimes worried about it—and then . . .

Kara was right. She hadn't been lying—she'd given him the information he needed right from the start.

There was a new section of the cave. It wasn't covered in symbols and paintings in the same way the others were; instead, a large stone table stood in the middle of the room. The surface of the table had a section carved out of it, a triangular indent—it must have been meant to house something.

At first glance, Clark had no idea what it was meant to store. But somehow, as he stared at it, the answer became as clear as day. He didn't know how he knew; he just knew, as instinctively as he knew how to read the symbols on the cave wall.

The stones. The same ones he and Lex were seeking out. They belonged in the table.

Clark wondered if Kara knew about the stones. If he could find her—and the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he could find a way to get a message to her, because wasn't he the reason why she was here?—he could ask her. She'd been telling the truth.

Well . . . maybe not the whole truth. She'd insisted he couldn't trust Lex or any of the rest of his family, or any human. Even if he'd been right the night before about Lex giving himself over to his darkness—and he was more sure than ever that he was wrong about that—there was no way his parents were untrustworthy or trying to betray him. They'd been taking care of him for too many years. He'd known Kara for all of twelve hours. For that matter, he'd only known about Jor El for a couple of years. And Jor El had physically tortured him to get him to take orders.

It was all too confusing. Clark didn't know which parts were real and which parts were lies, and which parts were trying to manipulate him. He was really thankful for that fingerprinting test.


Lex received the results of "Kara"'s fingerprint test the next day. He'd expected to find that she was an ordinary human; he hadn't expected this.

Lindsay Harrison.

She'd died in a car crash, years ago, but she didn't appear to have aged a day since then. Interestingly, that meant there was some merit to her story. She might not have actually been from Krypton, but she was a mutant of some sort. She might even have powers. It was even possible that she believed she was telling the truth. Clark hadn't gotten to tell Lex many stories about using his powers in any depth, but Lex picked up on smaller references now and then in conversations between the Kents. Apparently, there had been at least one kid who had managed to pick up a belief that he'd come from Krypton as a result of something related to the meteor rocks. Lex was fuzzy on the details, but this might be another case like that.

Lex drove from the mansion to the farm, Lindsay's file sitting on the seat beside him. He ended up finding Clark halfway between the farm and the mansion, jogging toward Lex's house. Lex pulled off to the side of the road and rolled down his window.

"Don't pull a muscle," Lex said.

Clark slowed to a stop. He wasn't sweating or breathing hard—he'd been running at a speed that was awfully slow for him, presumably to avoid exposing his powers if he accidentally ran into anyone, but it was still disconcerting to see him running without feeling the physical effects. "I was just on my way to you," Clark said.

"Same," Lex said. "Kara's a fake."

Clark's eyes widened. "I was just . . . coming to say she was telling the truth. What'd you find?"

"Her name is Lindsay Harrison. She died the year of the meteor shower, and she looks like she hasn't aged since then. What did you find?"

Clark climbed into the passenger seat of the car. "A new opening in the cave."

Lex blinked. He hadn't expected that. "Alright, let's check it out." He began to drive toward the caves. "What was in it?"

"This table with a triangular indent. I know this is going to sound crazy, but . . . I feel like those stones we've been searching for are supposed to go into the table."

"It doesn't sound crazy," Lex said. "You put that metal octagon in the cave wall, and it gave you the power to translate the symbols, right?"

"Right. Maybe this is something I'm supposed to do, too."

Lex nodded. "By the way, did you look over those photos I gave you to translate?

He smiled. "Yeah, but I can do even better. I've been working on a translation guide so you can start to learn the language for yourself."

"Oh, no. Clark, no!"

Lex grinned. His weakness had become, for lack of a better term, weaker and weaker over the past few days. He couldn't even feel its horror. "That's excellent, Clark."

They pulled up in front of the caves, and Clark led the way through the passages. Lex hadn't spent as much time down here as Clark had—claiming to be studying them for term papers he never actually wrote—but Lex still certainly knew his way around. Clark had been right. There was definitely a new section to the cave.

Lex glanced down at the table, then up at Clark. He took a deep breath—this was going to take some impressive acting. He wasn't as great an actor as he might have liked, but lucky for him, Clark was easy to fool. Clark was a bad liar himself, far too innocent and naive to have learned to be a good judge of character. "Listen, Clark. I have a bad feeling about this."

"About the cave?"

"No. About . . . Lindsay."

Clark frowned. "What about her?"

"Well, for one thing, she's clearly a meteor mutant. Died the day of the meteor shower, reappears now? Has that ever been good news?"

"Ah." Clark rubbed the back of his head. "No, it's happened a few times before, and it's always bad."

Lex nodded. "Meanwhile, she knows some things about this cave, and about you."

"You're worried about that."

"Can you blame me? After everything your parents have done to keep you safe?"

Clark was quiet for a moment, then he said, very softly, "Our parents, Lex."

Lex was going to have to get over his reservations over calling the Kents Mom and Dad. "Of course, Clark. Our parents."

"They're not your parents. They hate you."

Lex couldn't tell whether the anger he felt in response to that was his own, or a hint of his weakness's anger. He suspected a bit of both.

"Here's what we do," Lex said. "We leave her a message, asking her to meet you here. Then I'll talk to her and find out what's going on."

"So you'd meet her? Not me?"

Lex nodded.

Clark shifted his weight. "I dunno, Lex."

Lex made a show of sighing. "Listen, Clark. This girl's clearly out for you, but I don't think she's interested in me. I think we can beat her at her own game. Just let me find out what she really wants. After that, she's all yours."

Clark's brow furrowed, and Lex all but held his breath until Clark nodded. "Okay," he said. "I trust you."