My spirited attempt at NaNoWriMo has lost some momentum, but I'm still hanging in there. We're at halfway, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm in too deep to back out now.
Chapter Twelve:
Saturday morning came on bright and strong and sunny, the highs projected to soar into the upper eighties. A positively blistering day for Metropolis. But a wonderful summer day meant more people out and about to the LExpo.
Quite deliberately, it was being held in the newly-opened West River Park (around which the newly bulldozed property plots were being sold for the construction of townhouses). Saturday was just as much as the grand opening party for the new park as it was for the LExpo. It had the intended effect. The West River Park was half a square mile large, centrally located on the island. The trees had only been in the ground for three months, since Arbor Day. The flowers were in full blown and the grass had a weird sort of newly-minted appearance. The grounds had been seeded later than planned, so the grass still looked like it hadn't seen much sun. There were still a few bare patches, but they had been covered today.
It really was a delightful place, or at least it had the makings of one. The paths were clean and swept, dotted with benches and waste-bins and most of those new trees. There was an enormous lake with a small population of fish and an artificial canal cutting a winding path through the park. There was an outdoor amphitheater; a brand-new venue for concerts and performances. There were soccer fields and baseball diamonds. A classy glass and concrete pavilion was the center-point of the LExpo, where Luthor was going to unveil his new technology.
All around the pavilion were booths and tents and trailers. Some were food trucks to cater to the inevitably hungry people and a three-piece band provided ambient background music to the proceedings. But the rest were the aspiring inventors, the amatuer roboticists, the young engineers and mechanics, and the hopeful scientists with grand ideas in their heads. This was the first time many of them had had the chance to put their brain-children and their skills forward to an interested audience.
The LexCorp event wasn't scheduled to begin until eleven o'clock sharp, so Clark and Lois had taken to wandering the booths and doing the reporter thing in order to kill time effectively. Many of the young people behind the booths were all too eager to talk about their accomplishments and their future accomplishments. Some were so verbose that Clark had to ask them to summarize it down to a short paragraph, so he could include it in the article without going over the word-count.
They came in all forms. There were the wrench-monkey mechanics who fiddled with side-projects even as they talked about what was on their tables. The inventors and engineers with far too many ideas and had notebooks overflowing with all of them. There were the perpetually nerdy scientists who couldn't string a full sentence together without at least one stutter. There were those who had only had one idea their entire lives and their whole reason for being here was for that one thing. Others were simply here for the exposure or the chance to talk science with like-minded fellows.
Clark made an effort to get around to all the booths and tables at least once to see what was being offered.
The ideas weren't radically new and breath-taking. At this point in progress, it wasn't a question of: "Did I discover something new that no one's ever seen before?" It was more like: "How can I improve this out-dated idea and make it more efficient?" and: "Did I find a solution that no one's considered before?"
Nonetheless, it was fascinating to see what the movers and shakers of tomorrow were up to.
Through the din of noise, Clark heard his phone ring and he fished it out of his suit pocket.
"Clark Kent." he said briskly.
"Mr. Kent, this is Captain Sawyer." said the equally brisk voice on the other end.
Clark smiled. "Good morning, Captain. Is there something I can help you with?"
"No, I just have something I think you'd like to hear. Do you remember Martin LeBeau?" Maggie asked. "He was arrested six months ago for swindling money out of construction companies on the West River project."
"Yes, I heard he got out of jail earlier this week." Clark nodded. Lois had been downright incensed. "What about him?"
"He's dead." Maggie replied, in a tone of finality. "We got the call around six o'clock this morning."
"What happened?" Clark asked, rubbing his neck absently. It must have been something obviously strange at first sight, if any member of the SCU had been called in. He opened to a fresh page of his notebook to take notes.
"We're not sure yet. We haven't started piecing together the timeline." the captain admitted. "The neighbors reported that they heard shouting, thumping, and groaning around one o'clock last night, so you can imagine what they thought was going on. But we're over here in the Suicide Slums."
Which meant that no one was going to go barging in to check on their neighbors. LeBeau had probably been occupying something very low-rent with an even lower reputation. Somewhere he could put his ear to the ground.
"Any idea what might have killed him?" Clark wondered.
There was a breathy huff from the other end of the phone before Maggie said: "They Veitch'd this one because LeBeau's a desiccated husk. I'm leaving this one to the coroner."
"Desiccated?"
"Like a cicada shell."
There was a grim note in the captain's voice, as well as something that sounded resigned, like she had been expecting this.
"I think one of our local meta-humans just showed an ugly side."
"Any idea on who might have wanted a crack at him?" Clark asked.
"Nothing so far. People like Martin LeBeau tend to leave others very unhappy. There's too many possible suspects to choose from. But his bags were packed when we got here, so he was about to run." Maggie explained. "Also, I've got an officer down in the hospital and S.T.A.R. Labs reported both a theft and a fire last night, both about an hour before Mr. LeBeau's estimated time of death. We're looking into that next."
"Sounds mighty suspicious." Clark commented, while the captain hummed in agreement. "Who's the officer down?"
"Ah... You're friends with Colletta, right?"
"Mostly, is she okay?" Clark asked, worry tingeing his tone. Colletta was a good friend.
"I think so. She's responsive to stimuli, but the doctors aren't sure what the hell happened to her and she's not awake to tell us. She's not physically injured as far as anyone can tell." Maggie admitted, briefly biting her lip. "All I know for certain is that she was attacked and I'm starting to think whatever got her also got LeBeau. The location's just too much of a coincidence."
"I'll let you know if I hear anything on my end." Clark offered. "Could you keep me posted on Colletta's condition?"
"Absolutely. Just don't share the story with Ms. Lane. I've got enough on my plate without her snooping around." Maggie said firmly. More than enough. Tyler Jones was a beaurucratic nightmare.
"That won't be a problem." the man assured her, flipping back to his LExpo notes when he spotted a familiar face making a way through the crowd. "Thanks for the call."
He hung up just as Lois popped up at his side.
"Who was that?" she asked curiously.
"Captain Sawyer."
"Ah, a scoop?"
"No, Colletta's in the hospital."
Lois's face went from expectant to petrified faster than he'd ever seen it. Her heart-rate jumped like a jackrabbit and her pupils constricted in fear. Then her expression slid cautiously into concern and a sort of controlled panic.
"What-- What happened?"
Clark shrugged. "She was attacked by something last night. She's not injured physically, but she's also not awake yet to tell anyone what happened." he said, keeping his tone sympathetic. Colletta was Lois's only former girlfriend and they were still good friends to this day.
"But-- she's all right?" Lois asked tentatively.
"Captain Sawyer didn't sound too worried," Clark said. "But I can call her back and ask what hospital Colletta's in, and we can visit after we're done here."
Lois nodded, looking a bit pale and lost for a moment. She and Colletta would never get back what they used to have, but they were still friends. They still chatted and met for drinks and lunch and went clubbing if their schedules aligned and watched the latest television crazes with popcorn and pizza.
Lois didn't have many friends and the thought of losing any one of them was like an icy hand on her heart.
"Okay..." She took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. By the time she released it, she had recomposed herself. "There's still a job to do here, Smallville. So! Anything interesting? Eye-catching?"
"Uh... There are a lot of people here." Clark said. He wasn't going to tell her about the scoop that Captain Sawyer had given him. Even he wasn't that safe from Lois's habit of out-scooping everyone
Lois frowned at his reply. "I really didn't notice." she muttered sarcastically. "But yeah, more than I thought, for a bunch of science egg-heads." Lois agreed. But when it was LexCorp behind the planning, people crashed the flood-gates.
"Most of the tech companies in the city have booths. Even Atlas Industries." Clark said, nodding vaguely in the direction where he had seen the company's booth. It seemed strange that they would show up at a well-attended event like this, but in light of their recent troubles, some good PR could go a long way.
"Yeah, I saw Ms. Furie a little bit ago. Her hair was down and she was wearing blue jeans; I almost didn't recognize her." the reporter commented.
"I hope she isn't walking around alone." Clark said, concerned. They were far from the only reporters here and some in attendance had even less journalistic integrity. If any of them recognized Ms. Furie, chances were good they would mob her relentlessly.
Lois smiled. "Don't worry, Smallville. Her coffee-hating friend hasn't left town yet." She still scowled like Barry Allen had personally insulted her with that hot chocolate. "C'mon, it's almost eleven. Luthor's ego-stroking is going to start soon. Rickards!"
She yelled the name over her shoulder, the name of the photographer most recently assigned to follow them. Poor Danny hadn't lasted until the end of the year. They had been through Dylan, McCaulley, Jerry, Stephanie, Pat, Linda, Beckers, and Robards since then. Each one of them had left for the same reason: Lois was too insane to work with. Rickards had been on the job two weeks now and it seemed Lois was actively attempting to get rid of him (three dog-fighting circuits, a drug operation, and way too up close with a bank robbery).
"He's on his way." Clark reported, spotting the mousy photographer trying to sidle through the crowd without getting noticed.
"LexCorp's coming up! Polish your zoom lens! I wanna see the gradients on Luthor's bald head!" Lois shouted. She tugged Clark's arm, prompting him to follow her to the new pavilion.
"So how was dinner with your father?" Clark wondered conversationally.
Lois frowned. "Didn't I already tell you?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
She got up in his face on the 'sure', looking highly skeptical that he hadn't heard about it already. Clark tried to ignore the squirmy feeling in his gut.
"I'm positive, Lois." he said.
Lois turned away abruptly. "Nope, I'm still not playing along with this." she declared, throwing out her hands like she was shaking something off.
The squirmy feeling in Clark's gut intensified and he suddenly felt very guilty for no reason. It was obvious to him that Lois strongly suspected that he was secretly Superman. He had honestly tried to give her no reason to think that, but let's be real. This was Lois Lane. This woman had a bullshit detector better than any polygraph. She probably had a latent meta-power that was mind-reading or lie-detecting. She could get blood out of a stone.
His disguise was paper-thin at best. Different hairstyle. The tint of his glasses darkened his eye color to a muted blue and he squinted pathetically when they were knocked off. He slouched too, hunched his shoulders in, hovered over his keyboard like a vulture. A different posture and a too-big wardrobe did wonders to hide the details. He also played at being clumsy. Deliberately tripping over your own feet was a lot harder than it looked.
He never thought the disguise would hold up under close observation, it was so thin.
Lois had written the interview in such a way that it didn't sound like Superman could have a civilian identity. No one was really looking for connections between Superman and nameless Metropolis citizens.
But Clark spent nearly all of his free time around Lois. If anyone was going to notice when he started disappearing to go be Superman and showing up in all the right places, it would definitely be her.
But telling her?
Nine months on and Clark still didn't know how he felt about it.
Maybe I should just tell her. She's right anyways, and it'll mean less trouble in the long run. He tried not to bite his lip. She's too suspicious to take any lies at face value. And I hate lying.
Shaking his head and still mired in indecision, Clark trailed after his partner into the pavilion. Maybe after this and after they'd visited Colletta, he'd take her to lunch at a place that didn't serve hot beverages and tell her everything she already knew (his skin didn't burn, but man it still hurt to get scalding liquid right to the face).
Lois entered the pavilion alone. It was a broad, airy building with skylights over half the ceiling, the construction so newly completed that she could practically hear the timbers settling. There was an exterior hallway between the doors and the auditorium, which didn't appear quite finished yet. There were no chairs and the floor was still bare concrete. There was a stage on the far side, set up with a podium, a row of chairs, and the curtains closed. The auditorium was filling up with people from outside, many of them detouring over to the table of refreshments that Luthor had had set up, to nibble on whatever was over there.
The reporter found herself rolling her eyes. Even if Luthor didn't understand young people quite as well as he claimed to, he did understand the goodwill that could be incurred from a plate of food.
"Miss Lane!" called out a nasally voice that really wanted to be British.
Lois rolled her eyes and didn't bother with a smile as she turned around to find Sergeant John Corben approaching her. He was dressed in his combat fatigues this time, but he looked no less obnoxious and overbearing than the last time she'd seen him.
"I was hoping to run into you before we started. I was hoping that you'd accept an apology for my behavior the other night." the sergeant said. He frowned. "You're still not happy to see me."
"What gave it away? Was it the frown? The eye-roll?" Lois questioned dryly.
"Yes, I have realized my error." Corben said, going on as though she hadn't said anything. He snapped to attention, everything short of a salute. "I recognize my poor behavior and my lack of empathy. I failed to consider your feelings and for that, you have my sincerest apologies. I wish to make it up to you. Perhaps a cup of coffee later this afternoon?"
"Can't, on more than just the principle that an apology isn't going to cut it. I'll have a rough draft to polish and no time for anything else. My editor wants this in the Sunday paper." Lois said, not apologetic at all.
Corben blinked. "I don't understand?"
He was obviously trying to sound totally confused, but Lois knew he wasn't dumb. Nonetheless, she was going to have to spell it out for him.
"You fucked up and you fucked up hard. Normally, I'm approachable after twenty-four hours, but you left such a bad impression on me that I still haven't steamed off all the bad feelings I have towards you. An apology at this stage isn't going to cut it." she explained. "Either way, I'm still going to be chained to my computer all afternoon. See this press badge?" She tapped it where it was pinned to her lapel. "This means I'm here on official press business. I'm on the clock. I have a job to do. No time for casual coffee dates."
"Ah..." The sergeant nodded. "A later time then. Perhaps just a kiss on the cheek for good luck?"
Lois scowled. "I haven't driven my heel into your ballsack yet. Don't push your luck." she warned.
Corben made a visible effort not to shuffle back, but that may also have been partially due to Clark's arrival. Lois didn't have to look around to know he had come up behind her. He was suspiciously light-footed for someone who could trip over thin air, but he had a presence just distinct enough that Lois could all but sense it.
"Hello." he said pleasantly. "Am I interrupting anything?"
"Yes. Who are you?" Corben asked. If he had been an animal with a visible dominance display, the spines or the feathers would have been going up.
"Clark Kent, Ms. Lane's partner." Clark said, thrusting out a hand.
Aaand cue the Alpha Male Ego display. Lois thought, watching Corben reach back with the full intent of squeezing as hard as he could. As far as Corben has been led to believe, this was the man Lois was dating.
"Sergeant John Corben, United States Army."
His strong hand clamped down over Clark's and squeezed, but it wasn't Clark who flinched. The farm boy stood there with that absurdly pleasant smile that seemed half-vacant. Corben fought to hide his startled expression and withdrew his hand.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kent." he said. "Really, Miss Lane has told me so much about you."
"Oh, I doubt that." Clark said pleasantly. "Lois barely talks to the people she does like, so never mind the ones she actively dislikes. She grunts, you see. It's a fascinating linguistic capability of hers to put five shades of meaning into one incoherent noise. It does take some time to parse out, but she's capable to saying quite a lot without saying anything at all."
"You seem to know her very well." Corben commented.
"Oh, well, we have been working together for almost a year now." Clark agreed. "You really can't hang around one person that long without picking up the nuances of their body language."
"She told me you and her are dating." Corben said, eyes narrowing.
"Are we?" Clark let out a very fake gasp. "Lois, you should have told me sooner. I would have brought you flowers the last time."
Lois bit down on her sniggers and patted her partner's shoulder. "You can bring them next time, darling." She beckoned him closer with two fingers. "Give us a kiss, sweetie."
Clark visibly hesitated and his cheeks colored pink. Navy blue eyes widening, he mouthed 'are you sure?' Lois just grinned back and popped her eyebrows twice as if to reply: 'i wanna see him squirm'.
Another second passed without Clark moving, but then he bent down until he was level with Lois's face and pressed a light kiss to her cheek. The touch of his lips was electric. Lois nearly jolted away. The only thing that held her in place was the satisfying sight of Corben's face twisting in ways that the human face was normally not capable of. Clark pulled away after only a second, looking quite dazed that he had been allowed to get that close.
"I see." Corben said sourly. "The exhibition will be starting soon. I have to go take my place."
Then he was hurrying away across the auditorium.
"Creep." Lois grumbled, crossing her arms.
Clark blinked, still staring into the middle distance. "So... that just happened."
"Yes it did."
"Lois, I have feelings for you."
"I have suspected that for a while." she admitted. "You blush way too often around me not to."
The pink blush turned red.
"Relax Smallville." Lois thwacked his upper arm lightly. "I'm not gonna think any differently of you for having a crush-- Which does not mean I'm dismissing your feelings!" she added hastily. "I acknowledge you have them. I'm actually very flattered you think of me that way! I just think this is not something we should pursue at this time because... I'm not ready..."
"You're not ready?" Clark said incredulously. Did that mean she would be ready to return those feelings one day?
Lois shook her head. "Absolutely not. I haven't dated in... three years? Four years? That's a long time to be out of the saddle."
"Yeah... I really haven't been on a date since high school." Clark admitted, running his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry, this probably wasn't the best time for me to say that... What with Colletta..."
"No, no, I get it. There's never really a good moment to say something like that." Lois assured him. "Can we just... maybe leave things as they are right now?"
"As friends?"
"Yeah, since we can acknowledge that we are indeed mature adults who can handle a platonic friendship with right amount of awkwardness and a healthy dose of shame."
"Shame?"
Lois blushed a hot red color. "If we're being honest with each other right now, I have wanted to bang you from the moment I saw you in your pajamas." she said quietly, mostly into her fingers. "I'm a grown woman with a working libido, Clark. It happens."
Clark blinked in her general direction, his mouth opening and then closing like he was reconsidering his next statement every single time. Finally, he managed to get out: "I'm asexual."
"That's cool too!"
And it explained a fair bit, mostly why Clark wasn't dating his way through the available female population in the city like any good-looking bachelor in his position. With little to no interest in sex, that was bound to curb his interest in dating to a greater extent.
Lois became very aware that the moment between her and Clark had boiled into something very awkward. Clark had fixed his eyes on a point somewhere above her head, the pink blush persisting in his cheeks. However he had imagined this conversation to go, this was definitely not it.
"W-Well, I do feel a little better for having gotten that off my chest." Lois managed to say with only a little stuttering. "Confession is supposed to be good for the soul and I-I think it's good for us, as friends, to be able to share things like that with each other. It displays a level of trust. And understanding. In each other."
She hoped the words spilling out of her mouth actually made sense.
"Yes." Clark said, a little too brightly like he was just latching on to the word in order to make this conversation end much more quickly. "I like being your friend."
"Ditto."
And they shook hands like they were sealing a deal.
They held eye contact with each other over the handshake for a few seconds until Clark's composure broke first and a snort of laughter escaped him. Lois sniggered in response, and just like that, things felt back to normal.
"I don't know what happened just now." she commented.
"Me neither, but we don't have to talk about it for a while." Clark offered, essentially putting the moment behind him. He had gotten the words off his chest and there was nothing more he could do about it now. "So that Corben. He seems charming."
"Oh, very. As charming as a papercut."
"And your dad tried to match-make you with him?"
"Yeah-- hey, what?"
Lois blinked and turned to confront him directly (that was less a slip and more like an indication that he was about to throw in the towel), but the lights of the auditorium dimmed and the microphone on the podium was tapped to get everyone's attention. Standing on the stage was Hope, Luthor's secretary at the front desk and the first official face people saw when they entered his building. Hope was a perky blonde ray of sunshine who typically preceded her employer in PR events.
Hope was also an auxiliary bodyguard who was trained in various forms of armed and unarmed combat, and Lois had once seen the stiletto-wearing woman take down a would-be assassin with her thighs.
"Ladies and gentlemen, members of the press," Hope started in the manufactured cheer of a Miss America pageant girl. "This is the moment you've been waiting for. Please welcome the man of the hour, Mr. Lex Luthor!"
The auditorium broke into wild applause as Lex Luthor emerged from the wings, striding onto the stage exactly like his suit was made of a million bucks, to the tune of the Metropolis University fight song. The choice of music was like he was trying to reassure the city that he was indeed one of its native-born sons.
Thirty-one years old, bald as a baby's backside since the age of nine, and strangely dashing, Luthor was a man of the decade. He was an astute businessman with a keen mind and a bright vision for the future. He had a deep baritone voice that made him easy to listen to and he spoke well at public events. He resonated better with his own age group rather than the young adults he hoped to inspire. They were young, middle-class Millennials coming out into a world that barely had room for them; something Luthor had never been and couldn't fathom experiencing.
It was part of the reason Lois didn't like Lex Luthor. He assumed too much about the generation she was a part of. Then again, she also acknowledged that her bias sometimes got her seeing problems that weren't actually there and reading too deeply into his body language and tone of voice. Certainly the law had not actually caught him doing anything wrong.
On the other hand, she knew Luthor was that deceptive sort of evil. Very skilled at hiding the fact that he was morally bankrupt and wrapped up in too much money for it to be seen from the outside. A lot of people gave him the side-eye, but for the most part, they glossed him over because his villainy wasn't overt. He was a business man who protected his assets. Being slightly ruthless came with the territory and it was something that people accepted. He was a large cog in the machine of Metropolis. Just there. Ever-present and inevitable.
Luthor made a gesture to cut the music and stood behind the podium with a great flourish of his hands. The crowd quieted on command.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Lex Luthor Technology and Innovation Expo!" he said grandly, prompting further applause and cheering. "Before we get to what you all came here to see, I would like to thank everyone who made this happen."
He clapped his hands to lead another applause.
"The project I'm going to unveil is a culmination of a year's dedicated work. I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the project director, Mr. John Henry Irons, who could not be here today due to prior family commitments, but he sends his best regards and wished for me to extend his deepest gratitude to you all for coming out to witness this monumentous occasion. And his team, of course!" Luthor made a grand gesture to the group of a dozen or so people clustered to one side of the stage, who waved their hands and grinned broadly at the audience. "Without them, what you will see today would not have been possible."
There was another round of applause.
"Nine months ago, our eyes were opened to a world that was far wider than the one we were raised in, and I felt Metropolis tremble." Luthor began dramatically. "We became aware of our own mortality, our own humanity, our fragility. How do we fight a force that has proved to be so much greater than anything we have ever seen? How do we defend our home and our way of life against god-like strength?"
Lois jolted. "He's talking about Superman!" she hissed to Clark.
Clark frowned and regarded the man on stage with greater scrutiny. If he had been suspicious of Lex Luthor before, it was because of Lois's own concerns. But maybe now he had to give the man a harder second look.
"It is my very great pleasure to give you that answer." Luthor said. He stood aside from the podium and made gesture to the wings. The curtains started to part. "Today I unveil the newest technological advancement from the minds at LexCorp--"
The curtains opened fully.
"The Lexosuit one point oh!"
For how quickly the applause resumed, it was like it had never died.
On the stage were three of what could only be described as mecha suits. They were about eight feet tall. Two of them were heavily armored and bristling with weaponry. The soles of the boots were spiked, the vambraces featuring a razor edge, shoulder-mounted Gatling guns. They looked like they could take a bomb blast and get right back up. One was painted in military camouflage while the second was decorated with the colors and the decals of the Metropolis police department. The final suit was painted in the bright colors of Search and Rescue, instead featuring a winch and a tow cable in place of the Gatling guns. It was sturdier than the other two, far better designed for tromping around the wrecked places of the world looking for lost and missing people.
Lois frowned harder. "I don't like this." she whispered. "I don't know why. I just don't like this."
"I don't think I blame you." Clark admitted, leaning down to her ear. "I think he meant for those things to be able to match up to Superman."
"Worried now, Kent?"
"Made from a patented alloy, the Lexosuits are virtually indestructible." Luthor went on, proud of his new babies. "The test footage will be made available to anyone who wishes to view them in action. I do not think of them as weapons of war, but weapons to end war!
"As you can see, I mean to supply the Lexosuits to not just the military, but to the local law enforcement as well. The shape of crime is changing and Metropolis P.D. must be able to stay on top of the wave if they are to get ahead of it. The Lexosuits will allow them to do just that.
"Are there any questions?"
Lois thrust her hand into the air.
"Ah, the inevitable Miss Lane." Luthor commented. He seemed to smile fondly. "What is your question, Miss Lane?"
"There has been a four percent rise in violent crime every year since you took over LexCorp and many people attribute that to the growth of your company's weapons division. How do you respond to these accusations and how would you respond to the distinct possibility that the wrong people will get their hands on these suits? Particularly if you supply them to a place like Gotham." Lois inquired.
Luthor smirked. "As with any successful venture, you meet critics along the way. There are always individuals such as yourself, Miss Lane, who seek to discredit me because they don't feel my success has been earned."
Lois ground her teeth audibly. He hadn't even answered the question.
Clark raised his hand. "Mr. Luthor, it's worth noting that LexCorp has never made a venture like this before, nor has your company insinuated a venture like this in the past. You've implied that the impetuous was Superman, but would you still have gone through without him?"
"An excellent question, Mister-- I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name." Luthor commented.
"Kent. Clark Kent, Daily Planet."
"An excellent question, Mr. Kent." the businessman nodded. "This was actually in the development stages for quite some time, though Superman's arrival did catalyze our decision to move up the time-table. Without him, perhaps we wouldn't have unveiled it this year. But next year certainly."
"But your reason for it has absolutely nothing at all do with Superman otherwise, am I right?" Lois pressed. It wasn't a coincidence; he had already said as much.
"Now, now, Miss Lane, let's not make assumptions." Luthor chided, waggling a finger.
"With everything you just said, what kind of assumptions do you expect me to make?" Lois wondered, just a hint of annoyance in her tone. "You all but said it. You moved up the time-table because of Superman's arrival. You're rolling out virtually indestructible battle suits in order to combat Superman. You mean for those things to be able to take on Superman toe to toe."
Luthor smiled. "I wish nothing but the best for Metropolis, Miss Lane--"
The auditorium doors burst open-- thrown open by barrel-like arms attached to an enormous purple monster that didn't even pause. It knew exactly where it wanted to go. Its round mouth gaped open in an eardrum-shuddering bellow. Legs like telephone poles shook the floor as the monster charged across the room, its mighty arms swinging wildly and knocking over anyone who was unlucky enough to not get out of the way in time. Lois jerked back as the purple and foul-smelling monster passed so close she felt the breeze of its swinging arm.
But Clark took the fist right into his chest, the air whooshing out of him as his body instinctively curled around the large knuckles. The expression on his face didn't suggest pain so much as surprise. The beast noticed him and paused just long enough to heave the reporter away like a softball. Clark was thrown far enough to hit the wall. And he hit that wall hard enough to go right through it.
Smashed through it, leaving a jagged hole and a shower of gray dust.
It was only then that someone started screaming and Lois realized that it was herself.
-0-
he's fine