Chapter 9: Pulitzers
Today was a really big day for us. Tonight, Lois is going to receive her Pulitzer Prize for the 'Why the Word Doesn't Need Superman' article. Even though both Clark and I really hate that article, we're still happy for her. Lois dragged me to the dress shop to help pick out a dress. Then we drove to Jason's school to pick him up.
"You're late, Mommy." Jason greeted us.
"I know, Sweetie, I'm sorry." Lois apologized. Then she faced me, "Before I take you back to the Planet, I need to stop at '6 Springwood Drive." She looked up from her notepad with an address scribbled on it.
"Okay, but what for?" I replied.
"Remember the blackout?" She began to explain. I nodded a yes. "Well, I've been doing some research, and according to the power plant grid, that house was the first building in the city to go out." She then drove across town to the house. Well, actually, it was a mansion.
"Where are we? Is this the Pulitzer?" Jason asked innocently.
"No, baby, I just need to ask these people a few questions and then we can go," Lois answered. Her cell began to ring and she pulled it out, looking at the number. She silenced it and set it aside.
"Lois," I asked, "do you hear that?" I cocked my head a little to the side listening for the noise. Someone was playing opera music very loudly, but it wasn't coming from the house.
"Yeah, I hear that." She replied distantly as she stared across the yard. Lois got out of the car listening for the source of the music.
"Can I stay in the car?" Jason asked.
Lois was hesitant. "No, Honey." She replied. I helped Jason out of his booster seat and we followed her to a yacht.
"Are we trespassing?" Jason asked as we climbed on the yacht.
"No," Lois spoke. "Yes. Shhh…" The opera music got louder as we followed it down a fancy corridor. "Hello?" We reached a room that looked like a wardrobe.
"I like the curly one." Jason pointed to a wig on a stand. There were many wigs. Fear flooded through me when I realized this was a bad decision.
"Oh no," I said in a small voice.
"Let's go. This was a bad idea." Lois turned. When we reached near a door, a deep rumbling filled our ears. We found a window and the yacht was pulling away from the docks. SHIT, Lois exclaimed mentally. We ran back down the corridor only found it to be blocked by a bald man in a white bathrobe brushing his teeth.
Oh my God, I panicked, it's the man from my nightmare. Lois let out a gasp.
"Lex Luthor," Her eyes went wide.
"Lois Lane?" Luthor asked in surprise with a mouth full of toothpaste and a toothbrush. He stared from Lois, to me, and then Jason. Since when did she have kids, He kept staring at us. The boy and the girl have the same eyes.
"You're bald." Jason broke the silence. Luthor pulled his toothbrush out and narrowed his eyes at us with a frown on his face.
We were dragged to a room that had a grand piano sitting on top of a glass floor, a pool table, maps, hundreds of books, and pieces of artwork. One thug standing at the pool table dressed in black with a black beanie on his head was smirking at us. A woman in a spring dress with curly dark brown hair who was holding a dog stood near him, fear in her eyes.
Luthor, now dressed in a suit, was slowly pacing across the room, and kept his eyes on us. "And what is your name?" He stopped in front of us and asked Jason.
"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers." Jason replied.
Luthor chuckled once. "Cute kid and smart,"
"Thanks." Lois said flatly.
"But we aren't strangers. This is more of a little reunion. Heck, I love your writing." He said to Lois, "And your dress."
"I love your boat," Lois replied. "Where'd you get it? Swindle some poor widow out of her money?" Luthor began to laugh.
"She's good isn't she?" He turned to the woman and then back to us, "Didn't you win the Pulitzer Prize for my favorite article, 'Why the World Doesn't Need Superman'?"
"Didn't you still have a few more years to go on that double life sentence?" Lois icily asked. He glared hard at Lois. Now I remember why I knew him. Besides being from my nightmare, he tried to kill Clark years ago.
"Yes, well, we can thank the Man of Steel for that. He's really good at swooping in and catching the bad guys," Luthor turned to the pool table and pushed a ball hard to one end, "but he's not so good at the little things: remembering your court date, Miranda Rights, Due Process." He faced us again.
"Did you have to do anything with the blackout?" Lois suddenly asked.
"Are you fishing for an interview, Miss Lane?" He asked.
"Well, it has been while since your name has been in the headlines." Lois said, "So why don't we turn this boat around, call a cab for my son and Sarah, and you can do whatever you want with me."
"No, I'm afraid we won't be able to turn around, so we do have some time to kill. First, I need to ask your little friend a few questions."
Oh God, I squeaked internally, Clark, help me please!
"You," Luthor pointed to me, "Come over here." He beckoned me, "Can you wait for a few minutes, Miss Lane? This won't take too long. I promise I won't hurt her at all."
"Go." Lois quietly said in my ear. I gave a tiny nod and followed him. Luthor led me to another room that was right next door. He pulled a chair out and motioned me to sit.
"So, my quiet friend, what is your name?" He asked after he closed the door.
"Why do you want to know?" I replied with a hard gaze.
"You look familiar for some reason. Have we met before?"
"Maybe," I replied, trying not to let any fear show.
He let out a sigh. "You're not being very cooperative with me, kid."
"My name is Sarah Kent." I finally answered. Luthor looked like someone had poured ice cubes down the back of his shirt.
"You're Sarah Kent?"
"No, I'm Mary Poppins!" I answered sarcastically, "Yes, I'm Sarah Kent. Why do you want to know?"
"How are you related to Clark Kent?"
I gave him an icy stare. "He's my brother."
It took him a moment before he realized the truth in front of him. "Oh, Sarah, now I know why you look familiar." I narrowed my eyes in a 'How do you know' way. "I lived in Smallville, Kansas the same time Clark was in high school and you were just an infant."
"You're lying."
He chuckled. "No, Miss Kent, I'm not. Your brother and I had a temporary alliance. It started out when I was driving my car on a bridge and I accidentally hit him off the bridge sending the two of us in a river below. He saved my life. And that's how our alliance began. I paid my debt by helping him down from a scarecrow perch in a cornfield that some stupid kid tied him up to." Luthor explained, "I know all about your brother's secrets. And, your family has some secrets of their own."
"What secrets?"
"Your mother, Martha Kent, used to work for my father, Lionel Luthor, before you were born. My father ran a company that had branches of lab companies. Like Arcon, for example. You should be familiar with that, Miss Kent." He explained smugly, "I know what you can do."
"You know I can play the piano?" I stalled him, but I was still clueless what he was talking about.
"I know that you have abilities. You can read minds, control water, and you have incredible hearing like Clark."
"How do you know this?" I demanded.
"I saw your name in a file on my father's desk. Your mother was kind enough to donate an egg to my father's research. He was very interested in your brother's abilities, so he was wondering if it was possible to give unborn humans abilities. That's where you come into this little tale. Scientists inserted special compounds into the amnion sac while you were developing, one day, hoping that you would have abilities."
"When you were born and he kept you for a few months in the lab, you didn't show any signs of power. Thinking that he failed, my father was kind enough to give you back to your mother. He had no use for you and he didn't want to kill something that he thought it turned out to be a waste." Luthor explained.
"So I'm an experiment?"
"Yes, a successful experiment. But, we were too late once we received new that you developed your abilities. You were already living here in Metropolis with your brother when we found out."
"I have one more question to ask." I replied, "Is Jonathan Kent real father?"
"Yes he is. Your mother was able to find a healthy sperm sample of your father's and she gave it to my father to fertilize the egg she donated." I sat there in shock. I didn't know exactly how to describe how I felt at that moment.
I'm an experiment, I thought with dread, but I'm also still an actual Kent. The thought of me still being a Kent shed some light on this situation. Luthor got up and held the door open.
"We're finished." He said. I went out quickly and sat down next to Lois. "How about that interview, Miss Lane?" I gave Lois an 'I'm fine' look. I sat Jason on my lap and she walked to Luthor to the room and they began the interview.
An hour later, Lois finished her interview with Luthor. She sat Jason on her lap again like she did before she interviewed Luthor and I sat next to her. Jason was eyeing some crystals that were sitting on the oak wood desk that was next to us.
"What do you know about crystals, Miss Lane?" Luthor asked.
"They make great chandeliers." Lois sighed with uncertain.
Luthor chucked in amusement. "This may seem unremarkable, but so is the seed of a redwood tree. It's how our mutual friend in tights made his arctic getaway. It's cute, but a little too small for my taste." He went to a map that hung above the fireplace mantle and pressed a button on a remote. Another map slid down on top of it, only, a small piece of land was off the coast of New York.
"You're building an island?" She asked.
"Let me enlarge it for you." Luthor pressed the same button again. The little piece of land was bigger on this map he pulled up. "Not just an island, but an entirely new continent. An extinct world, rebuilt on our own," Luthor said.
"But, why?"
"Land, Miss Lane. I mean, Kitty, what did my father say to me back then?" Luthor replied. He turned to the woman holding the dog.
"'You're losing your hair.'" Kitty said with a dull tone.
"No, before that,"
"'Get out.'?" Kitty replied. I stifled a laugh.
Luthor let out an angry sigh before he faced us. "He said, 'You can always manufacture diamonds, print money, and people are a dime a dozen, but you can never make enough land.' There's never enough land in the world."
"But the United States-" Lois began. Luthor pulled up another map.
"Will be underwater," He finished, "It's simple physics, Miss Lane. Two objects cannot occupy the same area."
"And the rest of the world will let you keep it?"
"The rest of the world will be begging to buy a piece of high-tech beachfront property. I'll be years ahead in our technology with Kryptonian technology. And eventually, the rest of the world will follow suit."
"But millions of people will die." Lois said with a look of terror on her face.
"Billions," He grinned, "Once again, the Press had underestimated me. This is front page headline news." He danced over to us, "Come on. Let me hear you say it."
"You're insane." I offered.
"No! Not that, the other one. You know it's dangling on the tip of your tongue. Just say it. Please, please, please." Luthor begged.
"Superman will never-" Lois said with confidence.
"WRONG!" He bellowed, scaring us all. He walked to the mantle and opened a box. He pulled a green cylinder-like object out and walked back to us.
"What is that?" Lois' tone was demanding.
"Oh I think you know what this is." He waved it in front of us, "Mind over muscle, Miss Lane. Mind-" He stared at Jason, to the piece of Kryptonite, and back at Jason. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see why he was looking at Jason. Jason's face was pale and he wasn't looking too good. "Who is that boy's father?"
"Richard." She whispered.
"Mr. Luthor, we are approaching the coordinates," The PA system informed.
"Are you sure?" Luthor asked Lois.
"Yes sir, forty degrees latitude north and thirty-seven degrees longitude west," The PA system replied. For a few moments, Luthor was silent.
"Don't let them leave this room." He spoke to the intimidating thug who nodded once, "Kitty, come with me. You don't want to miss this." The woman, Kitty, stared at the map for a moment, but followed Luthor up the stairs, leaving us with Scary thug.