It's a Christmas miracle!
I totally meant to have this chapter uploaded on Friday, but stuff happened and now I think I'm coming down with something. I have orange juice and plenty of tea and the family stuff isn't until Friday, but man. Sick over christmas? Gonna suck. If I follow the usual five-day pattern, I'm going to start feeling like garbage tomorrow so if there's gonna be an update, it's gotta be before I go to bed.
Anyways, chapter 26 of this story is almost finished. It's been a little bit of a slog, but it will definitely be finished before the end of the week. I will expound my future plans in an update, probably this coming weekend.
Happy holidays y'all!
Chapter Fifteen:
The sun was well below the horizon by the time Luthor left his office. He had rounded off some loose ends, did have at least one PR meeting to tidy up the dust from the afternoon, and power-napped until dinner in preparation for the long night ahead of him. There was a lot that could only be done under the cover of darkness.
He swung by the R&D floors on his way down the building to retrieve a very particular item and then stopped at one of the employee break rooms a few more floors down. At nearly ten o'clock at night, it was largely uninhabited. Luthor fancied himself a family man and so encouraged his employees to be out of the building every evening in order to be at home with family or out with their friends. Very few remained in the building after six o'clock and fewer still this late.
The few people in the break room were on the exact opposite side Luthor had entered and they barely glanced up when he walked in. He had no concern about being interrupted. No one walked over and just started a conversation with him, especially not when his personal assistants and bodyguards were around.
Mercy Graves and Hope Taya. Luthor had found them on the streets some years back. Hope couldn't have been more than twelve at the time and Mercy only a year or two older, though she had stoutly claimed to be eighteen and to this day, continued to maintain the illusion of the six-year age gap between her and Hope. An aggressive personality had kept anyone from trying to take advantage of them, but desperation for a better quality of living had allowed them to take his hand.
He didn't know much about them. They didn't know much about them. Retrograde amnesia, possibly trauma induced. They were half-sisters, presumeably with different fathers. That was as much as a DNA test could tell them. When he had finally gotten them to talk about it, they had admitted to finding themselves on the streets with no idea how they had gotten there or where they had come from. Only their names and a vague knowledge of their ages left in their heads. To them, it was like they had walked out of a fog-bank and found themselves in Metropolis.
Luthor had seen to their education and their combat training, despite his father's wishes, which had only served to fuel his desire to put them on the company payroll. They had been strong and fast and very efficient, even as teenagers. Fast enough that Lionel hadn't had the time to process their presence before they had helped him off the balcony four years earlier.
They were his most formidable bodyguards. Few dared to cross them and fewer still walked away.
"Mercy, Hope." Luthor called softly when he was still six feet away. They were loyal to him and him alone, but he had learned very quickly not to approach them from behind without announcing his presence first.
"Yes, Mr. Luthor?" they asked.
"I have a task for you two." he said, gesturing for them to stand. "One that is going to require delicacy and the greatest discretion. I trust you recall our purple friend from this afternoon. I require his presence at a secure location."
"Site B?" Mercy suggested. "That should be sufficient for such an individual."
"Hmm, no. Site C. Have someone clear out the old hydroponics lab and set an electrical current through the window." Luthor instructed. "I do not plan on keeping our purple friend there. We won't need to hold him long. Just until we've obtained his cooperation."
"Yessir."
"You will need this." Luthor presented the lead box he had picked up from R&D. "Unless I'm mistaken, our purple friend still has in his possession a chunk of Superman's powers. The content of this box does efficiently render Superman ineffective so I would imagine that it would have the same effect on anyone in possession of his powers and therefore, his weaknesses as well. But if for some reason it has no effect, do not get yourselves hurt. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Mr. Luthor." Hope and Mercy said, performing the chest-tap head-bow gesture. Hope took the lead box.
"Good. And do be discreet. I don't want to alarm anyone." Luthor said. "And is General Lane still in the building?"
"Yessir, he has not left."
"Excellent. Contact me when the asset is secure." Luthor turned on his heel and left the break room. Hope and Mercy would get the job done by midnight, he was sure. They were extraordinarily clever like that.
He rode the elevator down to the thirty-ninth floor, the hospital wing. Even with the safety protocols, injuries were all but inevitable. Having a hospital wing meant that the minor injuries could be treated on-site at no cost to the employee and for the major ones, the patient could be stabilized quickly for an airlift to a proper hospital in New Troy. A few minutes meant all the difference between life and death.
When the doctors were not treating the various cuts and chemical burns that often came with working in laboratories, they spent their days improving on medical advancements, so that LexCorp was ahead of the curve. They were quite skilled individuals, but there was a limit to even their expertise.
Sergeant Corben looked like he might shuffle off the mortal coil at any second.
He had been out of surgery for just thirty minutes. Bones had been reset, the internal bleeding capped off, the ruptures in his intestines closed. A machine did the breathing for him. Another machine kept his heart going. His body was in too bad a shape to expect the heart and lungs to keep it up for long on their own. He had been taken straight in an intensive care room and where his body didn't have bandages, there were sensors monitoring every vital output.
"He's going to die." General Lane commented from where he stood beside Luthor at the viewing window. "Your doctors have an optimistic estimate of forty-eight hours, but he could kick off any time before then."
"You sound very much like your daughter, General." Luthor noted.
He'd had an exceptionally hard time initially believing that this man was the father of Lois Lane; the two couldn't have been more different. General Lane stood for order and decorum while Lois thrived on chaos and calamity. General Lane lived by the rules whereas Lois bucked them when she could get away with it ("She gets it from her mother." General Lane would wearily tell anyone who inquired).
And then there were the moments that pointedly reminded him that Lois was indeed the general's daughter.
"Sergeant Corben is made of tougher stuff than the average person." Luthor added.
"Maybe so, but even if he pulls through on some slim miracle, paraplegia will be the least of his worries." General Lane pointed out. "There's so much swelling all down his spine. Your doctors were certain there's a break somewhere, but they won't be able to tell until the inflammation is gone. They were also discussing the possibilities of permanent brain damage, among other forms of impairment. Corben might pull through, but he won't be the same."
"Then we will mourn the loss of a great man."
"Well, there's a problem if he dies. As of this moment, he was the only trainee who qualified for the program. The other hopefuls are still undergoing preliminary evaluations."
"Ah, that is a problem." Luthor agreed. The evaluation process for the program was three months long, with a further eight months of training. Any new cadets wouldn't be on the scene until this time next year.
"I want him to survive." General Lane stated. "Even if they only thing we can save is his mind."
The businessman nodded. "We have several options available to explore. I have already sent for the least invasive one. I don't know if it will work, but it might keep him alive long enough for us to implement the more invasive ones." he explained. "It will take some time to gather the required materials for the first option, so you had best hope that the sergeant makes it through tomorrow night."
General Lane raised a singularly skeptical eyebrow, which made his resemblance to his daughter that much more pronounced.
"You'd best hope Sergeant Corben survives, Mr. Luthor, or this is on your head." he said. "Or I may just be inspired to vote against the renewal of your contracts."
"I understand, General, I understand, but you have nothing to worry about." Luthor said calmingly.
"Luthor. I'm going to make one thing unerringly clear." General Lane began in a very no nonsense tone. He wasn't done driving this in yet. "Project: Metallo. John Corben has been at the front of this from day one. From the very second we conceived this, Sergeant Corben was the clear man for the job. It was approved because of his involvement. We save Corben or Project: Metallo goes under like it never was."
"I do know what that means for me, General. You have nothing to worry about." Luthor assured him. "What I am most interested in with regards to the sergeant's condition is how he came to be in this state. I saw what happened, but that's only half the story."
"I've been having my people look into it." General Lane said. "As far as I can tell, it was just a series of unfortunate events."
"Do tell."
"There was a fire last night at S.T.A.R. Labs that killed one guard and badly burnt another. This morning, the lab performed a security check -- standard procedure. They checked the labs, they checked the storage rooms, etcetera, to make sure the fire wasn't set as a diversion. Surprise, surprise, an item was missing from one of the storage rooms."
"Do they have any suspected culprits?"
"A night janitor named Rudolph Jones. He'd been assigned to that sector of the complex since the beginning of the month." General Lane explained. "And surprise, surprise, he's missing as well. It's been presumed that he's since skipped town, but I think you and I both know that's not true."
Luthor nodded. Rudolph Jones, most likely the man behind that purple behemoth. The only person unnaccounted for. "And the missing item?"
"You're probably already aware that the government has used STAR to store a few out-dated experiments that are nonetheless still sensitive. They're safer there than a government store-house because no one would think to look for them there." the general replied. He plucked the cap off his head and ran his fingers through his hair before re-settling the cap. "A vat of experimental chemical gel. It was developed in the late eighties by STORM as an anti-metahuman measure."
"Obviously not successful." Luthor had been young during the Scare, but he had been connected. He had heard nothing of chemical agents being used against metahumans. Just other metahumans.
"Obviously." General Lane agreed, somewhat sourly. "If the formula had been perfected, it would have replaced Ignus and Fatuus."
"You know, General, I have heard their names many times before, but I still don't know who they are." Luthor commented. He would have gone fishing for information on the deep web if he thought there was something to find. Information like that had been scrubbed long before the internet had launched.
"Does it matter? They were first cousins married to each other with a host of inbred children and vile people to boot. They both practically killed themselves. Ignus had a heart attack because he loved grease and fat too much, and Fatuus drank so much that she died from liver failure." General Lane replied, scowling. "They were metahumans themselves. They had the ability to absorb metapowers. Long enough exposure and they could permanently strip the power away."
"Fascinating. No one else in the family had this power?" Luthor wondered.
General Lane shook his head, but the true answer was the opposite. The bulk of the family was still very much alive. All of them had had that power and they had done their best to keep it "in the family", hence why Ignus and Fatuus were first cousins. Both had been a little inbred themselves, resulting in vague stupidity and a pair of cruel minds.
The first time he had gone to visit them, to assess and evaluate their usefulness, had been years ago. Nineteen eighty-six, as he recalled. A crumpled, ramshackle house on the edge of town, nowhere near big enough for the family of eight who had occupied it. Window frames falling out, the door askew, the front path less a path and more a tract of spiny weeds. He remembered doubting the presence of hot water and electricity, and sincerely doubting the rickety structure's ability to withstand anything stronger than a light breeze.
Ignus and Fatuus had initially panicked at the sight of him and had kept him waiting on the cracked doorstep for five minutes while they had made no secret of tearing around the house screaming at the top of their lungs. He had watched six kids be shuttled out the side door into the overgrown yard, ranging from thirteen years old to roughly two years old.
Once he had had the opportunity to explain his presence at their hovel (dimly lit, horribly decorated, a bit dusty, but otherwise remarkably clean having had four children under the age of ten in there) and outlined the potential job for them, the parents had proudly introduced him to their inbred spawn. General Lane had been greeted by three boys and three girls. Five pairs of dull, stupid eyes had stared at him with utter disinterest and the sixth a bit more lively, once he had gotten the youngest boy to meet his gaze.
Looking adults in the eye, apparently, had been against some manner of rule that the others weren't beholden to. General Lane hadn't even looked away before Ignus had slapped the toddler so hard that the boy was knocked off his feet and dragged back into the house for being "disrespectful to the army man". Fatuus had waved it off in an alarmingly unconcerned manner, stating that the boy was too young to come into his power anyways and then had cheerfully prompted the other children to show the army man what they could do.
The ability certainly ran in the overly incestuous veins of the family. The four oldest children had produced dull blue-bottle flames of varying size and intensity, while the fifth child had managed a handful of sparks. Too young to really do it properly, General Lane had been informed, but he was showing promise.
It was the first and last act of abuse General Lane had witnessed on that sixth child. It was also the first and last time he had seen that sixth child. As if suddenly embarrassed, Ignus and Fatuus had taken to making their youngest boy vanish whenever General Lane made any further visits. After the paychecks of the first few missions had been cashed and the family had moved into a bigger house, he suspected the boy had been spending his visits in the basement.
He hoped the boy had gotten himself into a better life as an adult.
Their utter inability to sympathize with other metahumans had been made them ideal for the job -- indeed, they had believed themselves superior due to the nature of their powers and every other metahuman was so far beneath them that even ants looked down upon them. But the cloying arrogance and pride, and the short tempers had made them very difficult to work with. Compounded upon the fact that they had kept bringing their eldest two children along on most of the jobs. General Lane didn't approve of child soldiers, but firing the adults would have been impossible. They were just too valuable and they had known it without question.
So the eldest two kids had kept showing up at the briefings and their parents gleefully taught them how to properly use their powers to hurt a person.
It had been a glorious day indeed when General Lane had been able to stroll up to their house and inform them that the Scare was over and the government had no more use for them. One generous severance check later, he had walked away with a lighter spring in his step than ever before.
Ignus, Fatuus, and at least three of their eldest children were dead now, the latters' causes of death unknown. General Lane didn't know how many members of the extended family were left, but he'd rather not give Luthor any incentive to hunt them down and bring them into his employ. That was the best choice for everyone.
"So, this formula," Luthor began, bringing the general's thoughts back around to the matter at hand. "It was not perfected in time?"
"No, the formula wasn't perfected at all. The few metahumans it was tested on caught fire. The chemicals were too volatile and we couldn't figure out how to balance it in time." General Lane shook his head. "And if what it did to Mr. Jones is any indication, it was never going to work."
I wouldn't say that. Luthor thought. It could slow down Superman. There was opportunity there!
"I have my best men out searching for Mr. Jones right now." General Lane went on. "Once he has been brought into custody, he will be interrogated, studied, and executed for dissection, if need be. Either way, he is too dangerous to be permitted to wander freely. I trust, Mr. Luthor, that you take no issue with this."
"Of course not. Thank you for indulging my curiosity." Luthor said sincerely. If there was anything left of that gel that could be salvaged, the modern-day advancements might make it viable. Humanity would want a defense against the metahuman threat. Something that he could market as a deterrent would do wonders for their confidence.
Because the general's men were never going to find Rudolph Jones or whatever he had become. Mercy and Hope would be quicker, more silent, stealthier. Their ability to track was second to none. They would pinpoint the purple beast's location long before the general's men even had an idea what direction they should start heading in.
They operated so quickly and efficiently that Luthor was willing to put money on the estimate that they would return, with Rudy Jones in tow, in five hours or less.
He was right, of course.
At a quarter to midnight, he received a text from Mercy that simply read "Site C".
Hope and Mercy were far too efficient even for the likes of General Lane's so-called "best men". In the ten years since Luthor had taken them in, the ladies had never let him down.
Luthor made his way down to Site C, which was down the peninusula more than forty minutes away from Metropolis by helicopter. It was one of four shadow sites less than two hours from the city. He had established them years ago, as to have somewhere away from the prying eyes of his father. He had other sites, further out across the United States in unobtrusive places such as down old mine shafts and missile silos. Places that were secret and hidden, where the average person was not permitted to tread.
It was good to have a few bolt-holes to run to, if things got hot.
Site C was located up the waterfront towards Wisconsin, more than two hundred feet underneath a lake-house that Luthor had purchased as a vacation home. The site itself was somewhat defunct - formerly a lab for the cultivation of genetically modified vegetable crops until they had proven their theories enough to go public with the discoveries. The site had been mostly empty ever since, but it could be fixed up at a moment's notice.
Luthor's private chopper landed on the pad and the businessman made swift tracks up to the cobbled path to the house itself. It was a modern confection of glass walls and concrete reinforcement. Opulent, sumptuous, because he was used to living in luxury.
He didn't even bother to take in any of the sights and crossed the main rooms to the master bedroom in record time. The secret elevator was hidden in a linen cupboard in the master bathroom; the last place anyone would think to look for secret elevators. He let the scanner investigate his handprint and the shelves full of towels and bedsheets slid down into the floor and out the way. The wooden panel backing parted, revealing the gleaming steel doors of the elevator. They dinged open, reveaing a singularly non-descript interior. Luthor stepped inside and pressed the bottom-most button on the panel.
The ride down was short, but he took the opportunity to straighten his tie, brush imaginary dust from the sleeves of his suit, and ran his hands over his bald scalp as though he still had hair. He used to -- long lustruous lock of fiery red that his mother would stroke lovingly until she had succumbed to the clinical depression she had tried to deny having. He had lost it all one day when he was nine, when an explosion of chemicals had showered him. Experimental pesticides, proven harmless to humans, and the lab techs had gotten him scrubbed down within ten minutes of the accident, but his hair had still started coming out in great big clumps. Lionel had had his son's hair sheared down to nothing so the sudden bald patches didn't look so odd. They would "wait for it to grow back in".
It never had.
Luthor had long since grown used to his look and he wore it well. It made him distinguished and perhaps stately. He didn't have to worry about the routine of hair care and certainly dandruff was a thing of the past.
The elevator deposited him on the upper-most level of the underground facility. It was three floors deep, but with a skeleton crew, only the top floor was in full use. Mercy was waiting for him in the lobby. She looked ruffled, her short hair a bit askew, streaks of dirt across her clothes, and her military surplus boots crusted in mud.
"How did it go?" Luthor asked
"It was an interesting challenge." Mercy replied, gesturing for him to follow. "We found the creature attempting to flee down one of the old copper mines. Hope encouraged the collapse of a structural support beam."
"Creature? Hmm, Mercy, I think we will need to find a different description for this fine new associate of ours." Luthor suggested. "'Creature' is such a... a primitive word. It implies too much instinctual mindlessness."
The blonde-haired woman made a thoughtful face.
"Did the item work?" Luthor inquired.
"Yes." Mercy replied in a vague tone of surprise. Clearly she had been doubting its effectiveness.
"Excellent."
They made their way down the corridor, passing the empty labs and the break room where the half-dozen scientists had been shooed to. At the end of the corridor was the old hydroponics lab where Hope stood guard outside the door. She was similarly ruffled and the splashes of mud went up to her knees. Unlike her half sister, she sported several scrapes that had yet to be cleaned.
"Hope?" Luthor raised an eyebrow.
"Sir, I'm uninjured." Hope informed him. She opened the door and gestured him in.
The lab hadn't been cleared of its equipment, but left covered in dusty tarps. On the far side was a sealed room that could be climate controlled, mostly for the purpose of tropical fruits that couldn't be grown at this northerly latitude. It had solar lights which weren't on, but Luthor could still clearly see the mutated thing that Rudy Jones had become, sprawled out on the floor in an unconscious heap. Luthor strolled over to the viewing window, noted the faint scent of ozone in the air, and then flicked the exterior switch for the lights.
There was no immediate reaction, but after a good twenty seconds of the lights gleaming hot and yellow, the purple monster's flat eyes snapped open. Groaning, it lumbered to its feet, a hand to its head. Then it turned around to see what the room was about and saw the businessman on the other side of the window.
"Luthor!" it rumbled and made an additional noise like a bulldozer being dragged across gravel.
"Good evening." Luthor said pleasantly.
"You'll pay!" the monster bellowed and threw itself at the window, only to bounce right off amid a sharp crackle of electricity.
"Oh, careful there." Luthor warned, giving a little smile. "This is a transparent aluminum hybrid. Just conductive enough that we can put a current through it. Very helpful for containing belligerant or naturally aggressive subjects."
"Subjects?!" the monster repeated, eyes bulging. "Is that what I am to you!? A lab experiment?!"
It would have banged a fist on the window, but it remembered the electricity, so it hit the wall instead.
"Oh no, you see, I had nothing to do with the accident that turned you into this." Luthor said assuringly. "But I am very intrigued by your transformation, so I believe that you may be able to help me. Just so I'm clear, you are Rudolph Jones?"
The monster snorted. "Not anymore."
"But you were Rudolph Jones, yes? Once upon a time?"
"It's the name I woke up with on Friday, but Saturday..."
"I see." Luthor nodded, the picture of sympathetic understanding. "What would you like to be called now?"
The monster thought for a moment, looking at its huge hands apparently for inspiration. "Call me 'Parasite'."
"Very well." Luthor cleared his throat. "Now, like I said, I was not responsible for your condition, but I am very intrigued by it. It is my understanding that you were doused with an experimental chemical gel that was meant to strip a metahuman of their power."
"I'm not a metahuman. Never was." Parasite said. "Would of known if I was something that special."
Luthor hadn't had much time to do research on Rudy Jones, but what he had been able to uncover was telling enough. Bad student, stellar athlete, and rejected by every college in three state states. A low-paid janitor since he was twenty-one. Desperate enough to help a thief into S.T.A.R. Labs.
Desperate enough to help him.
"Yes, on you it seemed to have had the opposite effect. With no power to strip, it gave you one instead. You have been imbued with the ability to temporarily absorb another metahuman's powers." the businessman went on. "What I want is to study your new abilities and help you understand them in order for you to use them more effectively. And then, perhaps, a cure?"
"A cure?" Parasite laughed, a rough rocky sound. "I don't wanna be cured! Look at me! I stole Superman's powers! I turned him into a sniveling weakling!"
"Yes, you did. But it won't last." Luthor said, cutting that grating laugh short.
"Wha...?"
"That cop you attacked Friday night is well on her way to full recovery. She has regained her strength and will be released in the morning, back to work on Monday." Luthor elaborated. "It would seem there is a limit to how long this weakness lasts. I imagine that Superman will be back to full strength by tomorrow morning as well."
"Fine. I'll just drain him again." Parasite declared, crossing his arms.
"I don't believe Superman will be caught off guard like the first time." Luthor pointed out. The Man of Steel acted a bit naive, but no one who played at superhero was really that dumb. "Let me re-phrase my offer. Perhaps not a cure in full, but a way to reverse the physical mutation? To get you looking like your old self again while still keeping the absorption ability."
"Hmm..." Parasite rumbled, judging the merits of looking like himself again. He didn't exactly blend in and he was already lamenting that there was no way he could go see a movie without getting the cops called in.
"I wanna keep the powers." he said at last. "I finally got a way to get back at the world and everyone that fucked me over and I'm not losing that. But if I'm gonna sit around and let your eggheads poke me, I want my compensation. I want Superman."
"Then we have much in common." Luthor lied flatteringly. There was some ego-stroking to be done. "Superman owes me my pound of flesh as well, but it's been hard to get it from him. There are just too many people who fawn over him."
Parasite grunted. "Tell me about it."
"Bring me Superman, I'll take the one little thing I need from him, and then you can have him as a meal ticket to your heart's content." the businessman offered. "If you'd like to hunt him down, the thrill of the chase, we'll let him go and you can terrorize him across the city. If you want him chained up on the wall in your accomodations, we can do that too."
Parasite chuckled. "Sounds fun, but kinda creepy. Let him go afterwards. It's more fun when you get to watch the big ones squirm. Think they're so powerful and then they find out they're not."
"Indeed it is." Luthor agreed, gesturing for Mercy to go unlock the door. "There is a lot you and I need to do, if we are to bring Superman down to earth where he belongs. We should get started right away."
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