- - - Chapter Fifteen
Jason sat at his desk, kicking one of the bars that supported the desk in front of him and getting annoyed looks every now and again from the girl, Jenna, in that desk. He'd decided to stop after she first gave him that look, but kicking the desk was more fun. Today they were learning about the planets, but somebody had asked about Superman, being an alien, so now they were talking about Superman.
At first it had been cool to hear his Dad's story, but now he was getting really uncomfortable. Mrs. Peterson had just finished telling them about how Superman was from a different planet, called Krypton, and how he had arrived out of nowhere after that planet had blown up and begun saving people in his blue suit. Jason had wanted to correct her, tell her that Superman had arrived when he was a very little boy and had been raised by his Gramma Martha, but he held his tongue, kicking the seat a little harder.
"And I'm sure some of you have seen the Daily Planet is going to be doing an interview with Superman soon," Mrs. Peterson said, suddenly sounding excited. "Our class will be one of those that gets to write questions for Superman and give them to Lois Lane, Jason's mom," everybody turned to look at Jason, who had frozen in his chair. "If everybody wants to take out a sheet of paper, we can start on those questions now; Miss Lane will be coming by this afternoon."
Desks popped open, and notebooks were brought out. Kids were chattering happily, asking each other what good questions were and trying to make sure they didn't all have the same question.
"Hey, Jason," his friend Matt asked, poking him in the back to get him to turn around. "You've seen him around, right?"
"Yeah…"
"Right, 'cuz he and your mom are friends, right?"
"I guess," Jason said. He didn't like lying to his best friend, but he wasn't really lying, just keeping secrets. He didn't like that either, though.
"Well, you much know more about him than anybody else, I mean, you can just ask him anything you want when he visits to get interviews."
"Not really," Jason shrugged, pulling out his notebook.
"Oh," Matt sounded disappointed. Jason wasn't sure if he should feel glad that he had kept his secrets, or sad that he couldn't tell his friends just how special he was.
"Are you okay, Jason?" Mrs. Peterson asked, coming up beside his desk and noticing that he'd just gotten out his notebook and now was staring at a blank page.
"Mhmm," Jason said, looking up at her and putting on a Clark-worthy smile.
"Okay," she said, smiling back warmly.
Jason returned his thoughts to the paper in front of him. There were plenty of questions he had for his dad, but most of them could be answered that night when they went flying together. They weren't really normal questions for this sort of thing: Are you going to be home for dinner tonight? Will you bring me pasta from Italy again sometime soon? Or maybe Chinese from China, that'd be cool. Will you take me to see the Eiffel Tower? Can I get glasses like you? How come your planet was destroyed? Am I an alien too because I'm your son? But that last one was part of the secret. He definitely couldn't ask that one.
Jason started kicking Jenna's seat again. She turned around and glared at him. "Jason, stop kicking my seat!"
"Sorry," everybody in the class was looking at him and he turned bright red.
"Ah, the trials of childhood," a familiarly arrogant voice came from the back of the classroom, near the door. Jason stiffened in his seat, turning around slowly. The color drained from his face.
"Lex Luthor…" Mrs. Peterson said, her mouthing hanging open slightly.
Lex strode into the room confidently, a handgun held comfortably in one hand, an imperfect cube of kryptonite in the other. Jason felt the usual sensations that usually came up when he was exposed to kryptonite; the air rushed from his lungs, his joints hurt, he felt like he might throw up, and his head hurt. This time, though, he didn't pass out; there wasn't enough in Luthor's palm for that, and Luthor seemed to know it.
"Young Mr. Lane, I do believe you'll be coming with us, now," Luthor said, smiling and coming toward him. The gun wasn't pointed at anything specifically, but it was still threatening. Nobody moved. "C'mon then, Jason."
"No," Jason whispered, pushing himself out of his desk and going to hide behind the teacher's larger desk. Mrs. Peterson was still frozen in place between the desk and Luthor. Luthor leveled the gun at the desk and Mrs. Peterson had the presence of mind to move away, rushing to the far corner as Luthor fired three bullets straight through the desk.
Jason quaked below it, feeling one of the bullets bounce off his back and another skim narrowly past his elbow. Luthor was getting closer, and so was the kryptonite. Somehow, Jason knew that if the kryptonite got any closer the bullets wouldn't bounce off of him. "Daddy!" He whispered, hoping that his father's ears were tuned to him.
"Idiot human!" He heard an unfamiliar voice say, presumably speaking to Luthor. "The son of Krypton is sure to have heard that! We must leave at once!"
"Not without the prize," Luthor said closing the distance between himself and the desk. He came around and stuck his hand underneath to grab Jason before hastily pulling it back and crying out. "The little menace bit me!" he growled, sticking his hand under again and avoiding Jason's teeth, pulling him out by the elbow instead.
"No!" Jason yelled, desperate tears reaching his eyes. "No! Lemme go! Superman! Superman help!"
"Shut it," Luthor commanded, sticking the cube of kryptonite into Jason's breast pocket and watching smugly as the boy finally passed out.
"Imbecile," the bald man who had accompanied him said, pulling out a strange glass controller and typing in a code. There was a popping noise and the two bald men disappeared taking Jason with them.
The silence in the room was finally broken by Jenna's terrified screams. Teachers from nearby classrooms came running to find out what was wrong and the Principal wasn't far behind. Mrs. Peterson, shaking, had the presence of mind to call the police. Superman arrived seconds later, having heard the gunshots and his son's whispered pleas.
"What happened?" He asked as police sirens approached outside. He walked over to the desk, examining the bullet holes and finding one of the bullets crushed flat; he immediately knew who had been hiding under the desk, who had been shot at. He stood up, focusing all the intensity of his gaze on Mrs. Peterson, ignoring the terror of the other students.
"There were two bald men, Lex Luthor and one I didn't recognize," she stammered, looking at her desk.
"Where did they go?" His voice was full of calm that he didn't feel.
"I- I don't know!"
"What do you mean?" His frustration began to eat through his stoic façade.
"The other bald man, he had this glass device," she said, not looking at Superman. "He pressed buttons and all three of them just disappeared!"
"A glass device?"
"Yes, it was made of clear glass. I could see the sparks traveling through it," if the room weren't full of children Clark would've sworn under his breath. Instead, he just glared all the more intently at the desk, catching himself just before he set it on fire.
"Thank you, Mrs. Peterson," he said, just as the police were entering the classroom. They looked relieved to see Superman there, but only for a moment, until they saw his dark expression.
Clark flew out the window he'd come in through, pulling his cell phone off his belt as he did and dialing Lois's cell number.
"Clark, what's going on?"
"Luthor has Jason."
"WHAT?!"
"I-"
"What happened, Clark? What's going on?!"
"I'm coming back to the Planet. Meet me on the roof."
"No! You should look for him! You have to find him, Clark!"
"We need to talk first, Lois. I need you to look some things up for me while I'm out looking."
"Clark-"
"Meet me on the roof," he hung up and put the phone back on his belt. A few seconds later his ringtone played again, but he ignored it, landing on the roof of the Daily Planet and waiting for Lois. He looked through the roof and ceilings down to the level of the bullpen and saw that Lois was waiting for the elevator with her cell phone glued to her ear. She was trying not to panic or alert the other Planet staff members to what was going on, but most of them were already staring at her. She had her coat and purse and was practically in tears; Jimmy and Perry were on their way to see what the matter was, but she didn't notice them.
The door to the elevator closed before the two men could catch up to her, but Clark saw them turn towards the stairs, knowingly making their way to the roof as she ascended in the elevator.
"What the hell, Clark!" Lois said, marching off the elevator and looking like she'd like to hit him. Clark was too preoccupied, though. He had his eyes closed, listening desperately for the familiar beat of his son's heart.
"I can't hear it, Lois," the desperation and loss in his voice was enough to redirect Lois's anger.
"Can't hear what?"
"His heartbeat. I can't hear Jason's heartbeat," his voice caught in his throat and he turned to face his fiancé. Her face was pale and she looked like she might fall to the ground; he grabbed her elbow before her knees collapsed.
"Is he… does that mean… Clark?"
"It doesn't mean he's dead," he said, looking into her eyes. "He could just be too far away for me to distinguish between his and anybody else's, or he could be surrounded by lead…" the gears in his head kept turning but he couldn't put a voice to his thoughts.
"Clark, you have to go look for him. You have to get to where you can hear his heartbeat around the others," she had tears in her eyes but she refused to let them fall.
"I know, but… Lois," he made her look him in the eyes. "I need you to go and look through all the old files on Luthor and anybody he was ever in line with."
"Clark, what, no! I want to come with you!"
"No, I need you to look for places for me to look at," he explained. "Last time I didn't even know where to start looking. It was complete chance that Luthor had only gone downtown. I was lucky to find them as quickly as I did… I've already checked all of Metropolis. They aren't here. Now, I don't know how they got so far away so fast, but they did. I need you to do some research and find out where they could've gone. I don't care how far away it is, or how ridiculous it seems."
"Clark…"
"Lois, I don't want to be flying blind up there," he could feel her shaking in his arms.
"Fine, but I want you to stay on the line with me," she held up her cell phone in between them.
"I can do that," he said, dialing her number. She hit the 'talk' button so that they were connected. Lois sighed, stepping back from him, towards the elevator.
"Clark," she hesitated. "Just kill him this time, stop him for good."
"Lois, I can't…"
"I know, just…" They were interrupted when Jimmy and Perry burst out of the stairwell, both completely out of breath.
"Whatsgoingon?!" Jimmy gasped, looking between them with some confusion when he saw the cell phones. Lois let out a whimper, backing towards the elevator again.
"I'm going to start in Metropolis and work my way out, do the same with your research," Clark told Lois, leaping into the sky and quickly disappearing into the clouds.
Lois backed the rest of the way into the now open elevator, and punched the 'door close' button. Perry and Jimmy slipped inside before the doors closed, not wanting to brave the stairs again.
"Lois, what's going on?" Perry asked after he caught his breath.
"Jason," Lois said, her voice cracking. "Luthor has Jason again."
"Oh no," Perry muttered.
"What can we do to help?" Jimmy asked.
"I don't know," Lois said quietly.
"Just find where he might be," Clark said through the phone. Lois was still shaking, but made it to her desk in record time, booting up the computer and immediately putting Luthor's name into the search engine both for the internal Planet archives and for the internet.
- - -
"The Caribbean, check the Caribbean," Lois said into her phone. It was late; everybody but she, Perry, and Jimmy had gone home for the night. Perry had ordered take-out a few hours ago, but most of it was left untouched. Lois had been searching nonstop and relaying the information to Clark as she found it, knowing he would remember every single word she said. They had long since gone through all the likely places he could be hiding, running out of Metropolis hideouts and accomplices within minutes. Now they were onto the extreme possibilities. Anyplace Luthor had ever hidden money, committed crimes, or vacationed was relayed and Clark checked every single one.
They had thought they'd come close when they'd discovered that he'd come into possession of a resort in South Africa, but it was nothing but a resort. Lois was near exhaustion when Clark finally came back to the bullpen looking emotionally, if not physically, drained.
"Saved you chow mein," Lois said, handing him the sealed white take out box. He took it, picking up chopsticks and eating distractedly while he looked at the results on her computer screen. He set the box aside when it was empty and his hand trailed up and down Lois's back absentmindedly while they continued to look.
- - -
"I hear you play the piano," Luthor said as Jason came around. The young boy blinked, looking around with wide eyes. It looked like they were back on the Gertrude. The room was exactly the same; even the piano was where it had been before he had pushed it across the room to save his mom. The only thing that didn't quite fit was the lack of motion. There was no gentle rocking that was usually present when on a boat, but that didn't register in Jason's young mind.