Chapter 29 - Mutants

It wasn't long before Clark and Lex hit a brick wall with the meteor experiments. Dr. Hamilton sent facts about the geometries within the molecular structure of the meteors themselves every week, but there just weren't any more patterns to be found in terms of the way they affected human cells.

Clark was kind about it, saying they'd done the best they could, but Lex kept thinking there had to be a better way. There had to be some way they could figure out more.

"Maybe we've been approaching this the wrong way," Lex said one afternoon while they were winding down from a training session with a pile of snacks in his dining room. "You've met a few more mutants recently, haven't you?"

"Three in the last couple of weeks. Four, if you count the visions Lana was having when Chloe got kidnapped," Clark said.

"Hm." Lex stood and rummaged through a few drawers until he found a notepad. He sat back down, beginning to take notes. "Tell me about the people you've met."

"Should I count Lana, or no?"

"Is she still having the visions?"

"No."

"Then let's leave her off the list for now."

Clark nodded. "Okay, so this last week, it was Justin Gaines."

"Telekinesis, right?" Lex wrote it down.

"Yeah. He was in a car accident and his hands were destroyed, and he was mostly using his powers to continue his artwork." Clark frowned. "Until he started trying to kill people. Now he's in a psychiatric ward."

Lex marked in a bold X to symbolize the murderous tendencies. "Before him?"

"I guess that would be Sasha Woodman."

"The girl who could control . . . bees." Lex shook his head as he wrote—it was so strange and random.

"She was stung over a thousand times by bees that had been infected by meteor rocks. I guess being able to control them was a kind of relief for her. She was always kind of a control freak, though."

Lex nodded slowly. "She tried to kill people too, right?"

"Yeah. She's in Belle Reve now."

Lex drew another dark X, beside Sasha's name. "Before that was Tyler . . ."

"Tyler Randall. He could kill people by touching them. I guess he tried to euthanize his mom, then fell out of a window and ended up getting bits of meteor rock lodged in his wrists."

"And he tried to kill people on purpose, right?"

"Didn't just try. Succeeded. Almost killed Whitney's dad, too. But he killed himself."

Another X. "Who else?"

Clark walked back through the rest, this time starting from the beginning.

Jeremy Creek, who could control electricity because he'd been put in a coma by a meteor rock strike. He'd killed a bunch of guys and made an attempt on everyone at the homecoming dance at Smallville High—he got a particularly bold X. Clark was pretty sure he'd lost his powers along with his memories in the end, though.

Greg Arkin, a nerdy kid who had become some kind of human-insect hybrid, for about the same reasons as Sasha. He'd been injured in the fight with Clark; Clark wasn't sure where he was now. Another X.

Coach Walt Arnold, who could control fire because of the meteor rocks in his sauna. Dead now. He hadn't killed anyone, but he'd been violent, much more so than before receiving the meteor rock sauna. Another X.

As Clark continued to go through the list, Lex started to note the things in common. The violence was a given—none of the people had been violent before their mutation, and almost all were violent after. Then again, Cassandra Carver, who could tell the future but had died after seeing Lex's, was an exception. Kyle Tippet was an exception as well, and Ryan James. Earl Jenkins was a borderline case—it was hard to say whether it was the mutation itself that had caused him to take a room full of kids hostage, or if it was just his desperation in the face of his terrible situation.

There was almost always an element of twisted wish fulfillment, too. It was usually the ability to use something that should have killed them in order to survive and kill others, but sometimes it was something else—like with Jodi Melville gaining the ability to eat anything she wanted without gaining weight, but also being so unable to satiate her hunger that she started sucking the fat out of live humans.

Of course, if meteor mutation was about wish fulfillment and violence, that made sense of why the effects on individual cells was random, erratic, and sometimes non-existent. Tissue samples didn't have desires, and they didn't have the opportunity to become violent.

Clark glanced over Lex's shoulder. "Is this list just for people who have powers, or is it for everyone who was altered?"

"Ah . . ." Lex shrugged, turning back the page of his notes. Clark had a point. There could be people who had been infected, with minimal or non-supernatural effects. When they'd subjected individual human cells to the meteor rocks, some had died or rapidly multiplied—but it wasn't going to be easy to determine how many people in Smallville had died of, say, cancer or other complications due to exposure to meteor rocks. "Who do you have in mind?"

"You."

Lex blinked. "I was injured, Clark. It had nothing to do with the meteor rocks."

Clark's eyes wandered up to the top of Lex's head. "What kind of injury leads to . . ." Clark lowered his head, cheeks growing pink. "I'm sorry, Lex."

Oddly, Lex didn't feel any offense at all. Snide remarks about his baldness still hurt after all these years, but he trusted Clark absolutely never to make fun of him in that way. "It's okay. And . . . maybe you're right." Lex had sometimes been teased about his hair when he was young, as well as for his asthma. The accident had removed both from the equation—that might be the wish fulfillment. Lex was pretty sure he didn't have any special abilities, though. As to the dark tendencies . . . he wasn't sure whether to mark that in for himself, either.

"I wish we could find a way to cure people," Clark said.

Lex swallowed. "I don't see a way to do that, except maybe . . ." He shook his head. Clark wouldn't like it.

"Maybe what?"

"By collecting samples from live meteor mutants."

Clark frowned. "How would we get that?"

Lex ran with the fact that Clark wasn't shutting him down right off the bat. "Ah . . . there are a few people on this list who might be willing to make a donation. And Belle Reve has dealt with enough of these people, we might be able to cut a deal."

Clark squirmed. "I don't know if I like that."

Lex breathed in to respond, but his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen—it was the number for the hospital where Pamela was staying. "Sorry, Clark, I have to take this."

Clark nodded, and Lex slipped out of the room.

"This is Lex," he said.

"Hi Lex."

His heart sank. Pamela's voice sounded even weaker and smaller than when he had gone to visit her. "Hey. Is everything okay?"

"I just . . . I wanted you to know I filled out a DNR form, and I've asked to be unplugged."

Lex hung his head, a weight dropping onto his chest. "I understand," he said softly. "I'll be right there."

"Lex, you don't have to."

"I don't want you to die alone."

It was quiet on the other end.

"I'll see you in a few minutes."

"You're a good man, Lex."

Lex didn't have anything to say to that. He hung up and turned to Clark.

Clark gave him a sympathetic look. "Was that your old nanny?"

Lex nodded. He'd only told Clark about her briefly; he really didn't want to worry his younger friend with it. "There's, ah, there's no hope of recovery for her. They've made her comfortable, but . . ."

"I'm so sorry, Lex."

Lex looked away, blinking a couple of times. "I wasn't with my mother when she passed. I need to be with Pamela. You should go home, Clark."

"You shouldn't have to go through this alone."

"Clark—"

"I could go to the hospital with you."

"You really don't have to do that," Lex said. "There's nothing you can do, anyway."

"Lex, you . . . sat with me, when I accidentally killed that guy who broke into your house. That was what I needed. Be honest with me." He looked Lex right in the eyes. "Would it help if I came to sit with you?"

Lex took a deep breath. If he was honest with himself, he was more embarrassed at the thought of Clark seeing him cry than he was concerned about Clark's mental state. But looking into Clark's eyes, he knew he didn't have to worry about whether Clark would judge him.

"Yeah," Lex said finally. "It would help."

Lex debated about actually bringing Clark into Pamela's hospital room. They didn't know each other, and it didn't seem like an appropriate time for them to meet for the first time; it would be better for Clark to sit in the waiting room, ready to sit with Lex when he came back out. But Clark followed him through the hallways of the hospital, and Lex didn't have the heart to tell him to leave. When they reached the door to Pamela's room, though, Clark whispered, "I'll wait for you outside?"

"That's fine, Clark. Thanks so much for doing this."

"Of course," Clark said, but then he frowned, squinting at the door. "Um, actually . . . I need to check something."

Lex raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"Can I just . . ." Clark pushed the door open. Lex's breath caught in his throat, and he followed close behind him.

Pamela was sitting up in bed, reading the last page of the book Lex had brought her the week before. "Oh, hello. Are you a friend of Lex's?"

"Yeah. I'm Clark. It's nice to meet you." Clark's brow furrowed.

Pamela smiled weakly. "It's nice to meet you, too."

Clark turned to Lex. "Can I talk to you outside for a minute?"

Now Lex was starting to get frustrated. "Um, can it wait, Clark?"

"It's important."

Lex resisted the urge to groan. "I'll be right back, Pamela."

"Of course."

Lex stalked back out into the hallway, glaring at Clark as he closed the door behind them. "What was that about, Clark? She's about to die, have some respect—"

"She's infected."

"She's what?"

"It's faint, but . . . her cancer."

"What about it?"

"I think it was caused by the meteor rocks. I can feel a trace of them coming from her. It's not enough to hurt me, but I feel a little weaker."

Lex felt like he'd just been punched in the gut. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely positive."

Adrenaline coursed through Lex's veins. He glanced toward the door of the hospital room, then back at Clark. "You think she's a mutant?"

"When Dr. Hamilton tested the effects of meteor rocks on the cells, some of them rapidly multiplied, right? Isn't that what cancer is?

"But that means . . ."

Clark nodded. "If we can find a way to cure the meteor mutations, there might be a way to cure her."

Try though he did to suppress it, a warm flicker of hope arose inside of Lex. There were so many unknowns. He didn't know if it was possible to cure a meteor rock mutation. Even if it was possible, it might not cure Pamela. The damage the cancer had done to her system might be irreparable, and she might die anyway. And all of this assumed that Pamela would even be willing to put off her plans to unplug herself, to subject herself to experimental treatment.

Still, there was hope now. Five minutes ago, there hadn't been.

"Well, then," Lex said. "We have our work cut out for us."