Chapter 53 - Numbers
Clark stepped back from the wall, and his eyes skimmed over the paintings. Some of the symbols were still really just symbols. Some were more like numbers. But a lot of them were words he knew. He could make out the names of Naman and Sageeth, and labels on many of the other paintings, and little comments and bits of story all around.
It was more than that, though. He could envision the whole language in his head. Any word he could think in English, he could imagine in the cave language—in his language.
In Kryptonian.
"Are you okay, Clark?"
"Krypton." The word felt so foreign and yet so familiar on his tongue
"What?"
"It's the planet I'm from."
Silence for a moment, and Clark looked over to find Lex gaping. Lex quickly gathered himself and stood up straight. "Ah. Is that with a K or a C?"
"K." It felt right. There wasn't exactly a direct translation of the spelling, but Crypton felt wrong to him.
Lex nodded slowly. "What happened?"
"I don't know." Clark struggled for the words to explain it. "It's like . . . there was some kind of connection between me and the caves, and the key was the link." He looked up at where the octagonal indent had been; it was gone now, and he didn't see the key around, either. "Where's . . ."
"Oh. Here." Lex reached down to the ground and picked up the metal octagon. "What do you mean, a connection?"
Clark took the octagon and slipped it into his pocket. "It's like my brain . . . downloaded something. And now I can read the walls."
Lex's eyes widened. Clark could see him struggling to contain his excitement. Clark would be feeling the same way, but he still kind of felt like he'd just been hit by a truck, like the wind had been knocked out of his lungs. "What do they say?" Lex asked
Clark began to pace. He gestured first to the painting Mr. Willowbrook had talked about: "This is Naman and Sageeth. There's, um, there's a bit explaining their story." He went over to another portion. "This part is about . . . the history of the Kawache people? I think."
"You think?"
"Well, it's hard to make everything out. Some of the symbols still look like drawings to me, and it's not like there are blocks of text. Just words and phrases here and there, and not all of them translate to words I've heard."
"I wouldn't expect they would. It's from another culture. Maybe an alien culture. They wouldn't have all of the things we have."
"Like the meteor rock." Clark stared at a point on the wall.
"Exactly," Lex said, then his eyes fell on what Clark was staring at. "Is, ah, is there any information on the meteor rock here?"
"It's called Kryptonite." Clark squinted. Some of the illustrations on this part of the wall looked like they could be diagrams, but he really didn't know what it was. It was too hard to decipher without knowing more about the background, and not all of the words quite translated into English. For some of them, he could have pronounced a word, but the word didn't mean anything. "I don't know, Lex, it's kind of hard to read."
"That's understandable. You've known the language for less than five minutes."
Clark gave him a slight smile. "It's cool, but I don't know if it's going to help us."
"What about this part?" Lex gestured to a part of the wall that was covered in lines of symbols.
Clark hadn't looked closely at that part, but as he squinted in the dim light, he was able to translate some of it. The trouble was that it wasn't words. It was more like . . . "Numbers."
"Numbers?"
"Six of one six with two eights and six of two ones and two eights makes one of . . ."
"What? Clark, slow down."
"It's a bunch of numbers. They probably don't mean anything."
"Clark, you never ignore a bunch of numbers."
"Oh." If Lex hadn't been there, Clark would have done just that. "What do you think it is?"
"It could be an ancient calendar, it could establish their mathematical system, it could be a cipher that will give us information they didn't want just anyone to have."
"I dunno, Lex, it looks pretty jumbled up."
"That first sentence you were reading. Can you read it out slower?"
Clark did, and Lex took out his phone, entering the numbers into it. "What are you doing?" Clark asked when he was finished reading.
"There's a calculator on my phone, I was just checking to see if the equation was correct."
"Is it?"
"It is." Lex frowned. "I agree with you, it feels pretty random, but . . . I don't know, for some reason the numbers feel familiar."
"It could just be someone's scratch work. There's another equation beneath it."
"Does it follow? I mean, does it look like someone was trying to simplify the equation?"
"No, it looks random to me."
Lex's eyebrows knitted as he stared at the wall. "I'm going to bring you a notepad. I want you to translate as many of the equations as you can."
"Why?"
"Just a suspicion. Humor me."
Clark shrugged. He liked being down here; it was comforting, familiar. Like home, but in a different way than the farm was home. This would give him a good excuse to spend as many hours as he wanted to.
6(1x6+2x8)+6(2x1+1x8) = 1(6x6+12x1+6x8)+6(2x8)
That was the first equation. Both sides came out to 192, but that number didn't mean any more to Lex than the equation did. The statement, 192 = 192, was as true as the one that came after it, and the one that came after it. Some of the equations had variables in them, but it wasn't possible to solve for them; they resolved every time to x = x. Or, as the case might be, K = K. That was how Clark translated the variables. Lex had be thinking to himself that some of the number sequences seemed familiar, like he knew them very, very well, but then some of the other sequences meant absolutely nothing to him, and it all seemed so random that he had no idea what to do with it.
Lex kept going over the numbers, hoping something would jump out at him and become unexpectedly clear, but he couldn't dwell on the cave symbols all day every day. He had other things on his mind. LuthorCorp was far more than a full time job to manage, but it was more than that, too. His father's condition was improving.
Lex would have loved to simply avoid visiting his father in the hospital altogether, to leave that relationship behind him forever, but it wasn't an option. The doctors called him with updates nearly every day, and his father called him a few times a week as well, not about Julian or anything else he remembered, but about LuthorCorp. He called about operations at the Smallville plant and at other factories; he called about employees and managers who were asking questions or disobeying orders; he called to request meetings and updates on various financial reports.
It didn't feel to Lex as though his father was making up excuses to speak with him, though the thought crossed his mind, somewhat wishfully. It felt on par with the amount of communication Lex had with his highest level managers at the plant on an average work day.
At the start, Lex had told his father that the plant was his, but the documentation didn't show it. It was all too clear that there had been a power struggle, and since Lex had merged LexCorp and LuthorCorp while his father was in a coma, it wasn't easy to separate the two. Lex had drained most of his resources saving the plant the first time; he didn't have what he would need to fight for it again.
The bitter reality was that he had to fight his battles.
Like when the doctor suggested that Lex's father might come stay with him at the mansion. Besides, Lex's father still didn't know anything about Lex's friendship with Clark; he hadn't known very much before the tornado, and now, Lex was fairly certain his father didn't even know the name Clark Kent.
That was, until he found a bug in the phone in his office.
A/N: I'm going to be very, very impressed if anyone recognizes the sequence of numbers. Feel free to guess. Or just to leave your regular comments. I always enjoy hearing from you, it keeps me motivated :)