Part 8

In the public eye

"I WANT TO LEAVE!" Lana yelled exasperated at the bodyguards standing in front of her, blocking her access to the building's front doors. She tried to sound as hysterical, angry and superior as she assumed Isobel had acted with the "help", but obviously she had none of her dominating allure of power. She was just a helpless girl trying to run away.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Luthor, but Mr. Luthor was clear in his instructions. You are not to leave the building," one of the bodyguards told her calmly.

"Please, Mrs. Luthor, it's for your own protection," the doorman tried to convince her. "Your husband explained to us why you disappeared for a few days…"

"What do you mean?" Lana asked looking back at the doorman incredulously. What exactly had Lex been telling these people?

"Nothing, nothing," the doorman hurried to say. The first statement had slipped out before he had had a chance to think it over. Of course she wouldn't want to know the help had been told of her recent breakdown. They had, after all, been sworn to secrecy on the threat of various painful things if they ever divulged the information to the media. And he knew that if Lex Luthor made a threat, he intended to see it through if his conditions were not met. Hadn't he been there when Larry the bellhop had been shot right there in the building's lobby because he had revealed the name of a certain mistress to Mrs. Luthor? Of course, the mur--accident had happened in the middle of one of the Luthors' infamous fights. The lobby had been turned into a mess under Mrs. Luthor's wrath and Mr. Luthor had to pull his gun out and aim it at her to get her to stop destroying the surroundings. At that moment, he, who was hiding behind the front desk, had thought it was going to be the end of the Luthor reign, but the bellhop had taken that moment to scamper frightened across the lobby. Realization dawning on him, Mr. Luthor aimed his gun at him and shot. It was a direct hit to the head. Mrs. Luthor had looked at the body for a moment and then kissed her husband. Of course the whole thing had been sealed up and if someone asked him that day if he knew anything about that story, he would deny it vehemently.

"LET ME GO!" Lana continued to scream now held back by the arms by the two bodyguards. She struggled a bit more and then fell limp in the bodyguards' arms.

"It's all right, Mrs. Luthor, we're here for your safety," one of the bodyguards assured her. Lana sighed, leaned her head and then kneed the bodyguard on the right in the stomach catching him by surprise and pulled her arm away from the other roughly – she was sure she was going to have a bruise later – and ran as fast as she could for the doors.

"Mrs. Luthor, don't! The--," but she couldn't hear the doorman's last words as she had reached the doors and swinging them open, rushed out into the street. She was met by the blinding flashes of what seemed like a thousand cameras going off at the same time.

"Mrs. Luthor, Mrs. Luthor, can you tell us where you've been for the last three days?" a reporter asked her shoving a microphone in her face.

"Is it true that you fled to Rio de Janeiro with Quentin Terrane?" another one asked.

"How do you respond to the statements released by the prosecutors in the Lang Pharmaceuticals trial?" someone else asked. Lana, taken by surprise, backed up toward the doors, feeling like a deer in headlights and stumbling over the doormat, fell to the ground. The doorman rushed outside and helped her up as the mass of journalists before her didn't seem to be contemplating raising a finger to help her, but more hoping she'd stay down so they'd have something even more spectacular to report. Mrs Luthor having panic attacks? Mrs. Luthor fainting? Mrs. Luthor pregnant? The headlines were already spinning in their creative little minds.

"Get outta here, you jackals!" the doorman yelled at them as he guided Lana back inside. She was limping. He helped her sit down on the couch. "I told you not to go out," he said shaking his head. "Those people'll eat you alive," he added muttering, expecting her to start yelling at him at any moment. Lana Luthor was not told what to do. By anyone. Not even by her husband.

"I didn't hear you," she said still shaken.

"Best you go back to Mr. Luthor's apartment," he suggested. "I'll call a doctor to come look at your ankle."

"Thank you," she stood up and tried to head for the elevator, but her limp was pretty bad so one of the bodyguards immediately came up to her to help her.

Meanwhile, in another part of Metropolis, inside Little White Mouse Laboratories, Chloe was looking around the massive research facility impressed. It had the latest technology and machines, probably unlimited funding, everything a scientist's heart desired. It had probably been Lana - Isobel – Luthor's only good deed since she had gotten married.

"The Luthors have been good to us," the young man that was guiding her through the facility said. "They never interfered in our research. They've backed-up all our plans. Never asked us to built weapons."

"Of course not," she said as she analyzed a few white mice in a tank that seemed to be levitating on thin glass ellipses and added in her mind: You just built untraceable communication devices for them.

"But…," he looked back at her and added after a moment of hesitation: "Off the record, there was some small stuff, you know, a little hacking, things like that."

"It'll be our little secret," she replied with a smile. He was trying to impress her. She knew very well that the Luthors had one of the finest hackers – Andrew Miller aka RottenBionicVirus aka TheVirtualDemolitionMan – on their payroll. She didn't know how they had gotten him given he was one of those hackers that rejected any sort of proposals because he could always steal more money, but word on the street was they had threatened to kill his mother. "So, these uhm…"

"Molecular Transcommunicators," he repeated the term as he showed her inside one of the labs.

"Right. You gave Mrs. Luthor some?" she asked.

"She said it was some sort of surprise present for her husband," he explained. "I told her we were still in the prototype phase, but…you know how insistent she can be."

"Yeah…," she nodded. She sighed. She wasn't going to get anything out of him or anyone else at LWM. They were being kept in the dark and were blissfully naïve when it came to their employers. She noticed something in the back of the lab they were in. A few scientists were working at a large table. Above it, the image of Lana Luthor was projected, her lips moving as if she was speaking. The image scrambled now and then and it suddenly dawned on her what it could be. "Hey, is that from the cube I brought you earlier?"

"Yeah, they started working on it as soon as you got it here," he said excited. "You have to understand we've never had the opportunity to repair or reconstruct any of our work. We couldn't afford to break one just to fix it. The costs would've been…enormous."

"And did you manage to recover the recorded message?" she asked and she felt her blood rushing in her veins. It was the same sensation she had when she felt she was on the verge of uncovering a great story.

"Only partially," he said. "Some of the shards were too small to be pieced back together. Whoever tried to destroy it did a banged up job at it."

"Can I see it?" she asked.

"Sure," he nodded and guided her toward the back of the lab. He spoke to the men there shortly and then he gestured for her to near the table. One of the scientists pressed a few buttons and the recording – the part that had been saved so far – started playing. The voice of Lana Luthor made itself heard:

"If you're seeing this then it means….," the image scrambled and when it reappeared the voice had skipped over a segment: "…slightest clue as to where I am." The image froze for a moment so the scientist could explain:

"It jumps over the segments we weren't able to retrieve."

"If you're hoping this message will give you any hints as to where I might be, I'm sorry to disappoint you…," the recording jumped again. "Going to be very mad about it. Anyway, since – hopefully – I'm…What the hell I've been up to…entitled to know…my husband, Alexander…Lang Pharmaceuticals was never meant to be…probably noticed…ridiculous child's play…instead the drugs induce…I never told you because…they'll never know what hit them…stupid little insects…heel of my boot…it all fits in…Sergio actually had a vital piece of…I never thanked you for killing him, you did me a favor...China was essential…he had the third element… that's why the new factory has to be in France…the nexus…my powers – or lack of – are of course a problem, that's why…Clark Kent...had him enough for yourself…afraid you no longer have a say in it, it's been set into motion…paperwork will prove that…undeniably mine…you've played a good hand, Lex, but I'm afraid you lost…next time we meet…rule the world…your beloved wife, Lana."

"We might be able to reconstruct another 10 of it, but it's going to take more time," one of the scientists told her and gestured toward the sand grain sized shards left on a piece of dark glass.

"Well, if you manage to do anything more with it, have Kevin call me. He has my cell number," she told him distracted. What she had heard had disturbed her greatly. Sergio, China, France, Clark Kent's disappearance, all tied in together somehow? Could it be possible? Her cellphone suddenly started ringing and it took her a few moments to realize it. She answered it still lost in the implications of everything she had just heard: "Hello?"

"She showed up!" an excited fellow reporter from the Daily Planet practically yelled in her ear snapping her out of her reverie.

"Who showed up?" she asked confused.

"Mrs. L, who else!" the man told her frustrated.

"What? Where? When?" she asked catching on that he was referring to Lana.

"You ready for this? Coming out of Lex Luthor's twin tower!" he told her and it was obvious he was still in front of the building among a lot more journalists. "Think this might've been some sort of set-up and they've been actually having a three day sexcapade? I mean she's been missing, he hasn't been seen…that whole he-was-brooding-at-Luthorcorp business sounded phony to me since the get-go anyway. I gotta go, that bitch from the Inquirer is attacking our photographer. She's hell bent on destroying all pictures of Mrs. Luthor but the ones she got." And with that he hung up.

So that's where he was keeping her. In plain sight, in his penthouse apartment. At least she had one problem less to worry about now.

In Lex's apartment, the doctor had just left. Lana was sitting on the couch with her bandaged ankle leaned on the cushions on a chair when Lex burst into the apartment, looking extremely worried.

"I got here as soon as I heard," he said and it was obvious by the way he was breathing that he had hurried there.

"I just sprained my ankle," she told him and gestured toward her injury. "It hurts when I try to walk on it, but the doctor said I'll be fine in a few days," there was an awkward pause before she went on: "How did the media know I was here?"

"They didn't," he said sitting down in an armchair opposite the couch. He would have sat down next to her, but he was afraid the closeness would have made her even more uncomfortable. "They were waiting for me to show up. Word got out I was back home."

"Didn't they see you when you left earlier?" she asked frowning.

"There's a ton of ways to get out of this place without going out the front doors," he said and smiled, adding: "I never had to sneak out of my house growing up so I suppose this is life compensating for lost teenage thrills."

"I never thought about it…," she realized though she should have, given everything she knew about her life for the last two years. She blamed her mind for being too busy contemplating a solution to the Lang Pharmaceuticals problem.

"We only use front doors for special events," Lex explained. "When people know we're supposed to leave and we can't ridicule ourselves by jumping out the kitchen windows to avoid the ever-vigilant eyes of the press."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said with a smile. The idea Lex Luthor was going around jumping out through kitchen windows was enough to make her want to chuckle, but she managed to repress the urge.

"I swear the person that did this to you is going to regret it," he said standing up.

"That person would be me," she said a little embarrassed. "I tripped. They caught me off guard."

"They're such animals," he said grimacing. "They'd kill for a good story."

"And I guess I gave them a pretty good one, huh?" she chuckled nervously.

"I'm afraid the speculations will be endless," he admitted, but didn't add the fact the press was probably going to chalk it up to yet another violent/sexual make-up the Luthors had become so infamous for. "Where were you planning on going?" he asked after a moment of hesitation.

"I just wanted to see if I couldn't shut down Lang Pharmaceuticals," she explained. "There are some things I remember…from Isobel and there are these random things that pop up in my mind occasionally and I thought…maybe…"

"You'd get enough flashes to get through the wall of safety procedures Isobel put up?" he smirked. "That's very noble of you, but I'm afraid quite impossible."

"You don't know that!" she protested. "It could work."

He stared at her for a moment. Yes, it was possible that it would work. But a nagging question wouldn't leave him alone: if she actually managed to remember how to pass through Isobel's entire safety procedure system, would that effort force her to regain more of Isobel's memories? And even worse: was this something Isobel had planned all along? For her plans to come through, Lana would have to remember some vitals things that had happened in the last two years. Things no one but the two of them knew of. He blinked, chasing away his dark thoughts and concentrated on Lana. She was expecting an answer to her plea. And the way her hands moved nervously in her lap, how she forced herself not to bite her lip and the hope in her eyes she tried to hide behind a firm gaze, made him instantly say:

"Okay." When had he been able to say no to her anyway? "But you're taking the bodyguards with you and you're going with a car," he told her standing up and nearing her, instinctively kissed her on the forehead before he even realized what he was doing. "I'll see you tonight," he said and headed for the apartment's door.

"Yeah, see you," she muttered. She knew she probably wouldn't have a chance to escape the bodyguards and even if she did, where would she go? She had a face everyone recognized and going back into the crummy part of Metropolis to hide out didn't sound like such a good idea either. There was one thing she could do though, it occurred to her and she struggled to reach the phone on the table.

Picking it up, she dialed the downstairs number. The doorman instantly picked up and she asked him:

"Could you please get me the number for the Daily Planet?"

"Right away, ma'am," he replied. Had Mrs. Luthor actually said please?

"Call me back when you got it," she said and after the doorman assured her he would she hung up. The bodyguards could probably keep Chloe from coming inside the building or up to her apartment, but they couldn't stop her from meeting her outside Lang Pharmaceuticals.

End Part 8