Iron Heights Federal Penitentiary
Keystone City KS
Testimony in Consideration of Parole
Evan McCulloch, MBE
Partial transcript—intercepted by the Department of Extra-Normal Operations, July 30 2002:
"[...] I see the looks on your faces. You're thinkin does he really want parole? Nae. Nae. I need to tell you what I saw. Luthor and the others [REDACTED] anti-life. Anti-life and the end of the world and if that doesn't terrify you I don't know what will. Ask him about the [REDACTED] up in space. Ask him how he found out [REDACTED]. God almighty. Our whole lives we're runnin around thinkin you bloody people are looking over our shoulders and you're just not. You're not paying attention. [REDACTED] is."
Tuesday November 7th.
Election Day.
At five in the morning, Mike Engel and his GCN crew were wading through sleeping bags outside the Schonenfeld's flagship Department Store there on the corner of Siegel and Fifth. A few people were awake, huddled over Colemans and enjoying their small fellowships. Engel asked if they wanted to come over to the booth for interviews.
At seven in the morning, Paul Gustavson of the Metropolis Post was first in line at his local precinct out in Frankford. He walked in, flashed his license to the attendants and they handed him his ballot. He punched a hole for Luthor and turned around, handed it to another attendant, and walked right back out. He didn't bother voting for another damn thing on the ballot.
At eight in the morning, Lois Lane was at her desk in the bullpen, eyes fixed on her PowerBook, staring at a white screen, a blank Word document. Her fingers were curled on the keyboard and did not move. On one side of the desk was a rumpled and overstuffed manila envelope. On the other side of the PowerBook was a glass mug, green tea within, steam curling away from it. She cupped it and took a long drink. Then she flung the manila folder open. She knew the contents well. Almost as well as she knew herself. She looked at the screen and started typing: "Luthor Lied..."
On the moon, three in the morning on the East Coast, Superman sat alone in the Monitor Womb. A high tower of holographic screens surrounded him, feeding information from all around the globe, the anti-matter universe, sentries on Thanagar, Rann, and New Genesis, as well as an open channel to the planet Oa—the very Centre of Everything. He watched it all. The planet-side news stations had already started their election day coverage in earnest, reporters parked out at the LexCorp Plaza, at Bush headquarters in Crawford and at Gore HQ in Washington. Clark had volunteered for it, and Bruce had asked, "Are you sure?" Superman had said, "Everyone we know is holding their breath and watching this. By nine tonight, I think we'll know the lay of the land."
He was almost right.
In Gotham City, six pm on the East Coast, in the manager's office at the Sionis Steel Mill, the Joker was halfway through field-dressing the corpse of the last Arkham guard that had pissed him off and watching Vicki Vale shake her tail feathers on the TV. Whenever she said Luthor's name the Joker laughed and drank from a nearby bottle of gin and fed some to where the guard's jaw used to be. He asked the corpse if Baldy would call and Corpsy said nah and the Joker said what do you know and slapped Corpsy upside the head.
Two in the afternoon in Keystone City. In an abandoned movie theater that looked across the river to the Flash Museum, crouched in an abattoir of a men's room and halfway down a line of cocaine, the Mirror Master, Evan McCulloch, was listening to NPR on a crystal radio. It was barely white noise to him but for Luthor's name, when it came up. He stole glances at the radio every few seconds through angry, wide eyes, and thought Lex would call, in spite of everything. Someone would. They had to. Everything was finally happening.
Up in space, far above Saturn's ecliptic, a spaceship in the shape of a skull reverted to realspace in an infinitesimal green flash. Inside, its sole inhabitant screened information from the twenty-eight known galaxies, the anti-matter universe, and a pirated signal from the Justice League Watchtower. It was watching the humans. It preferred them over other races of roughly equal intelligence—Thanagarians for instance. It did not know pride or greed. It had long ago excised those extraneities and so did not care about their temporal concerns or dialectic existence. But it knew the future. It noted the local earth time in the city of the Kryptonian, seven in the post-meridian, and turned the vessel around. Towards Pluto, and a new imperative.
In Star City, nestled in northern California where the girls are warm, Oliver Queen was on duty. He had already cast his vote this morning—Gore, gladly—and now he stood on the roof of the City Building and watched the screens in the window of Schaumans television repair shop down there across the street. Evening coverage on KGRL—"K-Grell, the good neighbor to the great northwest!"—of the election. Exit polling in Luthor's favor. He looked up and saw a grey sheet of a cloud rolling in. His ear buzzed. It was Roy: "I'm here. I see Tim and Bart too." "Leave em be," Oliver said. "You sure?" Oliver said, "as cancer."
And in Metropolis, at the LexCorp Plaza, it was a party.
The confetti was in full tilt. Charlie Gibson and the Good Morning America crew remarked that it had been flowing since seven am when polls opened on the East Coast. Four grand screens were draped around the plaza, two on either side of the LexTower itself, one on the northwest corner of the plaza, on the facing wall of Schonenfeld's flagship; another on the southeast, on the corner of Stagg Industries. Every screen showed a different network's coverage. The idea, said Wolf Blitzer, was that as states came back for Luthor a cheer would go off, they'd set some fireworks off out in the bay, and once a plurality was declared, they'd cut loose. Play Luthor's stated favorite, "Fly Me to the Moon"—Sinatra, very appropriate, Blitzer said, for the science-minded candidate who among other things wanted to advance space exploration in the new millennium.
And in a shallow horseshoe around the plaza, was the media. CNN, NBC, ABC, Fox, MSNBC, WLEX, WGBS, GCN, all safe and sound with their cameras and pundits. Plastic and made-up, and wedged between Woodburn and Vicki Vale, Cat Grant sat on GCN's panel: "…Well, you know, I can't comment on anything yet, Vicki, I'm part of Mister Luthor's campaign but, you know, no one knows what's going to happen, we're all just excited to be here."
"Oh come on," Vicki said and leaned toward her. "Look out there, people are having the time of their lives. The tower is open, they're playing basketball, there's a band out by the redwood. Even if it wasn't an election, this is a heck of a party. Don't you think it's just a little premature?"
"Look," Cat said and felt a bit of honesty creeping in. "The world's unpleasant enough as it is, and we all know election years are full of uncertainty, why not just live a little tonight. I'm going to get a martini, Glenn are you in?"
By noon Lois Lane was walking down from the Planet building with Jimmy Olsen. She didn't have a notepad or a tape recorder. She was on the hunt for a moment, or so she told him. A real, authentic, actual human moment. He asked her if she liked all those redundant words and she sneered and told him to zip it. He said, "Y'know, Lois, it really is nice to see you in better spirits. I know the last couple of months haven't been great with the campaign and all, but I'm happy to see you back in the world." She gave him a real, authentic, actual human smile and said, "thanks Jimmy, that means a lot. I'm trying." "Hey me too," he said. They walked on. Eventually the crowds coalesced at the end of Fifth Avenue where Siegel crosses it and it all became the LexCorp Plaza. Jimmy was surprised at how little security there was. It wasn't some campaign event, or at least it didn't feel that way. It felt like Summer in the Park. Deejayed music from somewhere in the distance. He heard—is that?—Fleetwood Mac drifting across the crowds. He got his camera up and ready. They were here from all over. Townies and the burbies, WASPs from Whitehorse come over the bridge to see a thing and be close to it and know it in their hearts. He guessed he felt it too.
Tim Drake was there, with Conner and Bart. He was hanging out at a hot dog stand by the juvenile redwood. He had his phone cradled between a crunched shoulder and one ear, and did his best to manage it between the hot dog and soda. Ostensibly he was taking it all in, a young voter, pretending to be eighteen and newly enfranchised—Tim was barely fifteen in those days—could hide under any Team Luthor plainclothes guard that happened to be watching. And the phone was the latest bit of Bruce's ingenuity too. Like a one-way mirror, every word that went across kicked back a scrambled vox that no receiver could crack. It was good like that. Bruce was good like that. He was always better than Luthor. Bart and Conner were in plainclothes around the plaza.
Tim said, "How we look?"
Bart said, "MFggffff."
Conner said, "Uh, what?"
"I'm sorry," Bart said. "They have these things over here by the tower, can-apes?"
"It's pronounced canapé," Conner said. "Oh my god."
"Oh bite me," Bart said. "Come this way and get some."
"Freaky food," Conner said. "No thanks. Tim, can I go back to Hawaii now?"
"You asked to come along."
"Oh yeah."
"Hey," Bart said.
"What?"
"What about pizza?"
"In a minute, there's this girl handing out Sundollers coffee, I'm gonna get one."
"Ah that's so crash," Bart said. "I'll come to you. Sit tight."
"Guys," Tim said and sighed. "How are you doing otherwise, do you see anything that looks out of place?"
"Jesus, Tim, why don't you just put the phone down and yell out 'I'm a Narc!' Be cool. God."
"No."
"Come on, Tim, let's go get pizza, I'm dying."
"Alright. Half an hour. Then we need to get back to patrols."
"Permission to speak freely, O Great Leader?"
"Why start now?"
"Is this what he makes you into?"
Tim rolled his eyes. "Dude, just don't. I'm over by Stagg. Meet me here."
Roy Harper walked past him and gave a how-do-you-do nod. He was snaking through the crowd and stood out like a sore thumb—look for the one carrying himself like plainclothes security. He walked past Tim Drake and they gave each other a how-are-you nod. Perfect strangers in any other universe. Tim looked after him only for a moment. pulled out his phone and dialed home: "So Roy's here." The shadow on the other end said, "Same team. Different approaches. Leave him be." "If you say so," Tim said and hung up.
Jesse was there too. He was inside the Sundollers Cafe on the Stagg end of Siegel, right in the window. He peered over his sunglasses into the crowd across the way. He had Roy marked instantly. Hurly burly. A brown leather motorcycle jacket, holy jeans and muddy shitkickers, silver aviators on his face. His hair, burning orange, was close on his skull and did not look foolish. Come to think of it, Jesse thinks, everything I've learned about him is serious. Is this what the Green Arrow does to people? Roy was carrying an open Dixie cup in one hand and keeping the other open for splitting between groups and loiterers and what have you. Jesse knew him only from the profile Luthor had provided but so far the intel was on point: Roy Harper was dreadfully serious, a horribly dour man in his natural life—the life before, the life with Oliver—and now here post-Speedy, post-addiction, he maintained that seriousness. No wonder he started doing drugs: you act so hard for so long eventually you're bound to crack. Still. That body. That hair. That prideful swagger. Jesse imagines for a moment they are together and kissing.
He smiled and watched Roy pass, then shot out of Sundollers and went the opposite direction. He stuck one hand in his pocket and fingered the pill there, dug his nail into one side of it. And he walked. He walked past three boys about his age whom he did not recognize: two black haired guys, one skinny and the other a little more farm-fed, watching the third, a younger looking brunette, scarf down pizza slices. Jesse passed them and after a while stopped before the juvenile redwood. He sighted Roy again. Coming his way on an opposing circuit. Jesse started again. He kept it slow, wandering and stealing glances at the redwood and pretending it enthralled him. He bumped into Roy and swung his arm out. "Oh I'm sorry dude, sorry." Roy smiled and said it was okay and kept walking. He didn't notice Jesse slipping the pill in his cup.
He kept walking and resisted the urge to turn around, watch Roy stroll off, and see the way his ass looked in those jeans. He pulled out his phone and dialed.
"Yes?"
"Guess what I did today."
"I'm very grateful. Soon the nation will be as well."
"Does this make me like your pal now, your very own Jimmy Olsen?"
"Rather."
"I'm better looking than he is."
"Humble, too."
"Alright, I have a train to catch. Hey, thanks again for letting me come out this early, I know you said inauguration—"
"It's fine. Thank you for everything. We'll see each other again."
Jesse looked up at the LexTower. "Oh?"
"In four years. Your freshman year of college. The University here will be waiting for you. Our work must continue."
"Ten four good buddy."
Jesse closed his phone and walked away. He checked Jimmy Olsen in the shoulder as he passed him, and smiled again, imagining Olsen laying in his bed. Jesse disappeared into the crowd.
Over in an alley between the Stagg building and the Metro-Housing Authority, Roy Harper was on his hands and knees dying. Barely coherent, barely conscious, half-blind and pounding his chest to rally, to summon strength, anger, anything. He had crawled off feeling something burning. Something—a slow release. Not like the quick burns, the old days, nothing that interesting. This was. Death. He laid on the scummy asphalt and pressed one side of his face into it. Oh but it felt nice.
In his last moments, through the pain, Roy Harper thought he saw a wall. A wall. But.
Full of people.
So high you can't go over, so wide you can't go around. The only way—
He looked up and saw a statue of a woman over him. She looked—
"Jade?" he said as his vision began to fade.
"You wish," said Mercy Graves. She produced a holdout pistol from one sleeve and shot him in the forehead.
On the moon, Superman was still watching the news. It was eight o'clock on the East Coast and polls had been closed for an hour. And one by one they said the same thing. Anybody's game. And no one's game. Exit polls this. Exit polls that.
He felt—
He turned his head to one side.
"You came back?"
"Yes. I wanted to check on you."
Superman stood and turned around. In the moment before she spoke, he took stock of her.
Diana. Wonder Woman. In magnificent golden armor, a winged helmet tucked under one arm. Dressed for war. Or diplomacy.
"Going somewhere?"
She breathed. "The information I'm getting…"
"Says he'll win."
She was silent. Looked around the chamber and finally said, "Yes."
He looked at the screens. "Sleep mode, please, Kelex. Audio and visual, but bring them back if there's an alert. Give me the Earth." The tubular holographs faded and the blackness of the Monitor Womb tessellated into a seamless view of the planet. This blue dot.
Father.
"And you're going to pay congratulations?"
"In my official capacity as ambassador, yes."
He stayed looking at the planet. What to say. What not—
"He's waiting for you. His car just pulled up to the Tower." He turned back to her. "This is not going to go the way you think, Diana."
"How do you know this?"
He looked away. "Just a feeling."
"I have to treat him with some amount of deference. Doing so may mitigate some of his more extreme positions. Wouldn't you agree?"
"What if it was you."
"Excuse me?"
"If he was one of yours. Doctor Minerva or some scheme of Circe's. If he tortured your loved ones. Kidnapped your family. If he found out every last thing about you—"
"Kal—"
"Like everything else in his miserable life, this is another way to get rid of me."
"Kal—"
"That is not my name!"
He took a deep breath. He shrunk into himself. Superman always carried himself strong and proud, and Clark Kent was somewhere under that. Hunched and hidden. He had the same sunken body language in this moment as he did when he left Lana at the station all those years ago. His first great moment of weakness. He had, he supposed, always hoped it would be the last.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Every time I feel like I've accepted this something else happens and I'm back to square one."
"I understand," she said. Then she was by his side, observing the planet.
"Lois," Superman said. "Also suggested I stop him."
Diana considered it.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
Luthor wouldn't go without a fight. They both knew it too well; better perhaps than Wally or Kyle did, not having the long experience with the Luthors, the Circes, the Jokers of the world. Such a fight, she knew would result in one thing. A war of retaliation. Everyone against everyone. Apocalypse. Death. Iliupersis.
She tells herself she's seen such an ending before, in the mutual annihilation of Trojan and Achaean, in the sundering of a civilization and the ending of the world. Still. She tells herself the Justice League could do it. The public would understand, eventually. They could set themselves as gods upon this earth. If only they had the wisdom to make the first action. She tells herself that if it came to it, she could make the choice and live with it. And then she tells herself she's lying.
Mother, she thinks. I fear we've created something terrible. The idea of sedition. Rebellion. Resistance. Ideas cannot be killed. They can only transform. So what are we becoming?
She looked at Superman and saw the same look in his eyes. The same thoughts. Remove Lex Luthor. There are ways. Even ways to make him disappear and to make it look like an accident. Despite the dangers. Make the choice. And live with what follows. If they could. If they would.
After a moment he said, "How did it come to this."
She was silent. After a moment she said: "you know, I know Persephone."
He looked at her.
"This all reminded me of her. For all that her life is not what she imagined and for all that she can't stand him, she resolutely believes Hades is not evil. I'm inclined to agree, you see. He is living his function, as all things must. And so they continue the cycle, year after year." She looked away.
"Hades," he said. "Pluto in the Roman tradition. The god of wealth."
Her eyes seemed to light up. "You studied."
"It grabbed my imagination as a kid. All that sort of thing did. Plato, Aristotle." A smile came across his face. It was a fond memory, despite everything, sitting in the bed of Pa's truck reading Plato. Of course then Whitney would usually come along and haul him out and give him shit but that was by the way. Whitney had changed. Clark certainly had.
"I knew them," she said. "When I was young. They would have liked you, Clark."
"I would've loved to meet them."
"We could do it," she said. "I know where Wally keeps his time machine."
They shared a laugh, and it seemed to stretch on for an eternity. In those strange days, you took what you could get. Like most things, it was here and gone.
"You stopped calling me Kal."
"You yelled at me," she said.
He scratched his head. "I'm so sorry, Diana."
"Your feelings are valid, Clark. You have friends that love you. We are here for you. And we are here for them." She gestured toward the planet.
They shared a smile and a moment. Or at least it seemed like a moment. A held gaze. And something more between—
The chamber chimed to life. Kelex spoke:
"Alert. Alert. Alert."
Superman said, "Give it to me."
The feeds tessellated back into existence before them.
"You wished to be informed, sir. Major media outlets are declaring Alexander Luthor—"
"Enough," he said. "Audio and visual only please."
Superman and Wonder Woman watched in silence.
Blitzer and CNN for Luthor—
Engel in the GCN booth—
ABC.
WGBS.
FOX.
MSNBC.
LEX WINS.
Pundits talking to themselves, to each other, over each other. Like New Year's Eve, the confetti billowed from the LexTower in great bursts. They were playing Sinatra. Vicki Vale and Glenn Woodburn looked angry. Cat Grant, sitting between them, was drinking champagne from the bottle. The crowds were alive. Geraldo walking among them getting reactions. Baby Boomers. College kids. The old and the young side by side welcoming a millennial change.
Superman looked at Wonder Woman.
"Clark—"
A cold wind scoured past her.
She held out one hand. Bowed her head. Her heart—her voice—sunk.
"Clark…"
In Metropolis the celebrations continued into the night. Luthor HQ, as the tower was, was agog with commotion. The crowds stayed strong. The pundits kept at their commentaries. The campaign eventually rolled out two floodlights and put them on either side of the LexTower and lit them up. The beams shone in the night, confetti flew through them, and the party kept going.
From his office Luthor saw them.
He was standing, a glass of Macallan in one hand, at the window and looking down. A hundred and ten storeys. Low-power lamp disks on either corner of the desk were the only source of light in his office. Behind him the floodlights cast opposing bright angles into the night and bathed him in proximal shadows.
He was quiet.
Everything was finally happening.
The first evidence that the work he put into improving this miserable planet would be rewarded. He thought of Lois, who asked him straight out once why he wanted to be president. The Ted Kennedy question. Of course he had a suitable answer: to better the lives of as many Americans as I can. To promote better living, more robust health. Among other things, to end our slavish devotion not only on foreign oil but on oil period. In fifty years time when the final crisis comes and our oil reserves are gone we will lament that loss and in turn be lost. Without a means to continue as a people on this planet. Another way is necessary and to that end, on day one in the White House your new president will recommend a combination moratorium/vector conversion on fossil fuel usage. He borrowed a line from Gore he liked it so much: don't let them tell you we're gonna go live on Mars. We have one planet and one chance. But environmentalism was such a small part of it. Such a bullshit line. Such a mechanical prospect.
He was more interested in the conceptual victory, from which came all other victories.
Yes Superman, your greatest enemy, the greatest criminal mind of our time, the greatest mind on this or any other planet, became President and what's more you'll never even know how. You'll never know if it was real or bought. If I rigged the system like I've rigged so many others or if they believed me.
You imagined for years that your way wasn't just different from mine, you believed it was better. You believed Lex Luthor, the greatest humanity had to offer, was the worst threat to humanity. And you believed humans, basically good, could achieve their hopes and dreams if only someone could show them the way, hold their hand and take them into a nanny state of a future where Superman and his friends maintain moral arbitration. Your teleology is a culture of sick dependence, Man of Steel, and it holds us back. If this miserable planet is ever going to come down from the trees they're going to have to start getting hurt, getting broken, rising above it. They're going to have to stop waiting for Superman to pick them up. You used to believe this.
They had a choice and they chose me.
They chose a New God.
Let that burn in your heart, Man of Steel.
I'll spend the rest of my life making sure they choose me, the rest of my life making sure you never forget it.
He breathed and finished the Macallan in one go. He sat at the desk and flipped open his PowerBook. Began typing: "My friends, the good people of Metropolis, and the United States of America—"
His phone vibrated in his jacket and he plucked it out.
"It's Luthor."
"Mister Luthor," came that flat Tennessee drawl. "This is Al Gore."
"Mister Vice President."
"I'm calling you from the Naval Observatory, Mister Luthor. The results are in and they are clear and I hereby concede the race. Congratulations, Mister President-elect."
"That's very kind of you, Al, thank you."
"Thank you, Mister Luthor." His reply sounded so forced. So created. "I've enjoyed working with you these past few months. We differ on a lot of things but I'm confident we share the same goals and passion to see this country thrive."
"That we do, Al," he lied. "If it's alright with you and once we clear the proper channels I'd like to discuss possible positions where your talents might be best put to use."
"That'll be fine, Mister Luthor—"
"Lex," he said. The old lure. "You must call me Lex."
"Lex it is. Thanks again for your kindness."
"Thank you, Al. Have a good evening. My love to Tipper."
He closed his phone and slid it back in his pocket. Went back to typing: "...I spoke with the Vice President a moment ago and he offered me a gracious concession. Now our work can continue—"
He stopped.
And breathed.
And felt the shadow.
"So."
"You have something I want."
"I very much doubt that."
"The ring."
"The obsidian? It was my grandfather's, but give me a price and we'll talk. Family is overrated, don't you agree."
The shadow spoke. So far it didn't have a body but he knew it was hiding out there. "You set green Kryptonite into a ring. You wanted to keep him away. Give it to me now."
Luthor looked at the approaching shadow. Not quite man, no, but something more. And less. Fear. In the shape of a bat. He wasn't impressed.
"The Bat-Man," he said and made a crooked smile. "Or do you prefer a different name? The Caped Crusader. The World's Greatest Detective?"
It started walking toward him.
"Lex—"
"Bruce."
It stopped.
Luthor smiled. "Bruce. Thomas. Wayne."
"Give me the ring," the shadow said.
Luthor made a face and clapped his hands together. "All these years and it's you. I'm disappointed."
The shadow pounded two fists onto the desk and growled like a professional: "this isn't a debate."
"Oh," Luthor said. "I think it is. Ask yourself something, Dark Knight. Are you upset that I've won because of who I am, or because I want a world without Superman? Would it really be that bad. You, I'd let you continue. With conditions. But Superman? The rest of them? Gone. Imagine what we could be without them. I can taste it, Bruce, it's so close to happening. You know it as well as I do. And you want to see a future as well as I do. This is the only way."
"I'm not asking nicely."
"Neither am I," Luthor said. "The ring is mine."
"Lex—"
"I'm done with this conversation, Bruce. The Secret Service is on their way up here. I think I'll have them unmask you and put a bullet between your eyes. Just like your parents, you little—"
Then the shadow was upon him. He throttled Luthor and threw him into the window, which split into a million spiderwebs. The shadow threw him on the floor and put a boot on Luthor's neck.
"Give it to me or I'll kill you."
Luthor choked the words out: "Leave...now..."
He heard the lobby elevator ding open and suddenly the pressure was off his neck. The Batman was gone. Luthor propped himself up, coughing, and watched the agents pour in. They spotted him on the floor rubbing his neck and fanned out. The lead agent crouched by him.
"Sir, are you alright?"
Luthor glared at him.
"It was Batman. Find him."
The lead agent rounded up the others and they stormed back out. Mercy passed them on her way in. She rushed to his side and helped him into his chair. He looked at her.
"Call the others. Everyone."
Continued…