Chapter Two
Gabriel Duncan pointed a gun at a guard in a missile silo.
"Take out your key," Gabriel said.
"You're out of your mind," said the guard.
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," said Gabriel. "Look, just take out your key."
The second guard was lying on the floor. He watched the other guard begin to remove his key.
"No, no!" yelled the second guard.
"Do it!" yelled Gabriel.
"Tom!" yelled the second guard.
"You know what to do," Gabriel said as he put his key into the slot.
"Don't do it, Tom," said the second guard.
Tom shook his head, and Gabriel pointed his gun at the second guard.
"I'll kill him," said Gabriel.
"Don't listen to him!" said the second guard. "We can't let this happen!" Tom moved to put the key into the slot. "Tom, no!"
"On three," said Gabriel. "One! Two! Three!" Tom turned the key at the same time Gabriel did. "I'm sorry."
He shot Tom and turned around, shooting the second guard. He then typed something on a keyboard and the computer screen said "access approved."
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Chloe Sullivan walked to her car behind the Talon, having just answered her phone.
"Hey, Gabriel!" she said. "I'm surprised MIT even let you converse with us pedestrian Met U-ers so early."
"Chloe, you have to get out of town," said Gabriel.
"I've been trying to since yesterday," said Chloe, gathering her things in the trunk. "I'm surprised that the necessities take so long to pack."
"Listen to me, Chloe. Pretty soon, it's all going to be over."
"I know it sucks to say goodbye, but if Smallville managed without their cyber wizard, then I'm sure they'll survive without their star reporter."
"Chloe, you are the one person who will understand why I had to do it. You have to make people realize it wasn't my choice. It was the only way."
"Gabriel, what are you talking about?"
"How much time did I spend at the Torch helping you chase the big story? Well, in an hour, you are finally gonna get it."
"What happens in an hour?"
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"Smallville's finally gonna be gone forever."
Gabriel hung up and pressed some buttons on the computer. On the wall, a digital clock read one hour. It began to count down.
"Countdown commencing," said the computer. "Defcon 1" flashed on the computer screen as a window opened and showed a missile poised for blast off.
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Clark Kent was sleeping in his bed, but stirred as the alarm went off. He turned over and looked at Lana Lang lying next to him.
"Hi," said Lana.
"Hi," said Clark.
"That was the best night's sleep I have had in weeks," Lana told him. They smiled at each other as the report came on.
"Thanks for listening this morning," said the announcer. "It's six-thirty on a—"
"Oh, gosh!" said Clark.
"Oh, my gosh!" Lana exclaimed. They jumped up and hurried to get dressed.
"How did we fall asleep?" said Clark.
"I told you we should've gone to the Talon!" said Lana.
"Geez, but—" Clark started, but hit his foot on the bed post. "Ow! Ow!" Lana tried to shush him as he hobbled over to the dresser. "Ow, that hurt so much! Alright, look, okay, my dad isn't going to be up for about fifteen minutes and we gotta get outta here. Well, you gotta get outta here."
"You sure? 'Cause sticking around for breakfast sounds like fun."
"What?!" Clark exclaimed. Lana smiled as he relaxed. She came over to him.
"Pass me my shoe," Lana said. He gave it to her as he tried to put a shirt on. "'I won't fall asleep. I promise.' What else are we going to do at three o'clock in the morning?"
"Look, you aren't mad, are you?"
"I'm furious," said Lana, and they kissed.
"Come on," said Clark. They snuck down the stairs, and looked up at the ceiling. Clark took Lana's hand as they made their way down the hall. Clark's elbow knocked a decoration off of the table, and they stopped at the sudden noise. Making sure it hadn't woken anyone up, they made their way into the kitchen…where Clark's parents were sitting.
"Hey, Clark," said Jonathan Kent as Clark and Lana froze. "What the—"
Jonathan and Martha Kent stared at the two of them.
"Mr. and Mrs. Kent," said Lana.
Clark put a hand out. "I can explain."
Jonathan walked menacingly towards Clark, and Lana stepped forward.
"Clark and I made this decision together," said Lana. "So, if you are angry, you should be angry at both of us."
"We're not mad," Martha spoke up, and Jonathan looked at her. "But this is, um…you're both in new territory."
"Lana, this is about a whole lot more than just you," said Jonathan. "So, if you don't mind, I would like to speak to my son alone, please."
Lana looked at Clark, who gave her a look that said "Get out while you still can." Lana quickly darted out the door towards her car.
"You sit down," warned Jonathan.
Clark went to the chair to sit down, skirting Jonathan's glare. "Just remember…I am eighteen, and I've been in love with Lana since I was seven, so it's not like we rushed into something here."
"Please tell me you were at least safe," said Martha.
Clark and Jonathan looked up at her in shock.
"Yeah, Mom," Clark muttered sheepishly.
"Safe?" said Jonathan. "Safe has got nothing to do with this. You shouldn't be doing anything like this, especially under our roof."
"What, like you didn't do it?" said Clark.
"Clark!" said Jonathan. He leaned forward. "There were a lot of conversations I didn't have with you because I didn't think I needed to have them."
"Because you guys always think I'm not normal," said Clark.
"No, no, no," said Martha. "It's just that…you're so much more vulnerable without your powers."
Chloe opened the kitchen door. "Knock, knock! Okay, I just passed Lana flying out of here. What would she be doing here at six-thirty in the…" She saw Clark in his pajamas. Clark tried to get up, but Jonathan placed a hand firmly on his shoulder, forcing him to sit down. "Oh…"
"So, Chloe," said Martha. "Um, Clark said you were off to Met U today. Looks like you're getting an early start."
"Not without one last why-me moment," said Chloe. "I just got a cryptic call from Gabriel Duncan."
"The tech guy from the Torch?" asked Clark.
"Yeah, well, I guess today is my lucky day," said Chloe, "because he said that Smallville is going to be history in exactly…fifty-three minutes."
"Have you spoken to Sheriff Adams about this, Chloe?" asked Jonathan.
"I think I've used up my limit of cry wolves with her," said Chloe.
"Why don't you find Gabriel?" Jonathan told Clark and Chloe. "I'll speak to the sheriff myself."
As Jonathan left, he gave one last threatening glare at Clark.
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Lana entered the Talon apartment to find Lex Luthor standing there.
"Early morning or late night?" asked Lex.
"What the hell are you doing here?" asked Lana. She looked at her drawings of the spaceship on the counter.
"I've been admiring your sketches," said Lex. "I didn't mean to pry."
"No, of course not," Lana said as she gathered them up. "You were just going through my things to get better acquainted. You can't just come in here like this!"
"Lana, I didn't mean to rattle you. There was no answer, so I started to get concerned."
"Lex, I'm fine."
"Are you sure about that? Look, I just want to talk about what you saw that day."
"I'm sorry. Weren't you the person who told me I was hallucinating last time I mentioned a spaceship?"
Lana opened the door, wanting Lex to leave.
"Lana, I might have appeared skeptical, but I still believed in you. That's why I sent an expert to the site. Whatever caused that crater was not a meteor. Have you talked to anyone else about this? Like Clark?"
"You know, when you start rambling about spaceships and aliens, people kind of look at you funny."
"Well, they must not have the same faith in you that I do. You're not crazy."
He left as Lana stood there.
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Jonathan walked up to the sheriff on the highway. The police had the road blocked off.
"Sheriff Adams," said Jonathan, may I speak to you for a minute?"
"Nothing to worry about, Mr. Kent," said Adams. "It's just a routine drill."
"It's a routine drill at the Hamstead Farm, huh?" said Jonathan. "Wouldn't have anything to do with the missile silo in their back field, would it?"
"Why don't you go on back to your truck, Mr. Kent?"
"Look, it's no secret that the government put dozens of these things out here, but I just thought they'd decommission them after the Cold War."
"Look, Mr. Kent. Thank you. We have it all under control. Thank you very much. Why don't you relax, sir, and let us do our job?"
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Gabriel was typing on the computer, and the clock read "00:43:48."
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Military personnel entered the hallway to the missile silo. They were armed and ready. They entered the control room to find it very much empty. Sheriff Adams entered as well.
"All officers can stand down," the sheriff said. She walked over to the window. "There isn't even a missile in here. This is a false alarm."
"Not exactly," said one of the military officers. "That signal did not come from in here. It was rerouted through at least fifteen silos that are still active in the county. He could be in any one of them."
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The computer said, "Enter coordinates for revised destination."
Gabriel typed "Smallville" into the keyboard.
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Clark and Chloe walked up to a house, and Clark knocked on the door.
"Gabriel!" he called. He tried the door to find it locked. "It's locked."
Chloe held up a credit card. "Call it plan B. It's for those of us who can't crush metal with our bare hands." Chloe used the credit card to unlock the door, and they entered. "Hello? Gabriel? Is anybody here?" Clark went over to a shelf. "Find anything?"
"Does the fact that Gabriel's father was a not-so retired military colonel count?" Clark said, looking at documents. "These briefs are only a few weeks old."
"A colonel with an aerospace engineering degree from Purdue?" said Chloe, coming over to look. "Do you think that he might be the lighthouse keeper for the local nuclear missiles?"
They opened a set of double doors, and found a room covered with pictures and newspaper clippings.
"Whoa," said Chloe. "Wall of Weird times a hundred."
"Looks like Gabriel is giving you a run for your money," said Clark as they came inside the room.
"Um, yeah, I'd say he lapped me a few times," said Chloe. "Why would he be so interested with meteor freaks?" Clark gave her a look. "Oh, come on. Journalistic curiosity is one thing, but paper mach eying your walls with them is another."
"Call me conventionalist, but shouldn't this have been a red flag for Gabriel's father?"
"I just—if Gabriel was so determined to go atomic on the meteor epidemic, then why didn't his dad stop him?" Chloe asked as Clark stared at something in the other room.
"Looks like he tried," said Clark. Chloe came over and saw Mr. Duncan's corpse on the floor.
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Lex walked around the spaceship with a scientist. "I expected results by now."
"That laser has technology so cutting edge that even the military doesn't know about it," said the scientist. "We've tried every option."
"Luthor Corp. doesn't believe in finite solutions," Lex said.
"I'm not sure you understand, sir. We've used every chemical compound that exists, every alloy of metal, every method known to man."
"Which would clearly suggest that this craft isn't known to man. I recommend that you and your team start thinking out of the box."
"I'm trying to explain—"
"For every question in this universe, there is an answer. Now, if you find that task too challenging, I'll recruit someone who doesn't." Lex knelt down to look at the underside of the ship. "Find a way in." The scientist started to walk away, but Lex stopped him. "Wait—I didn't see this before."
The scientist knelt down and saw the Kryptonian symbol for Zod. "That's because it wasn't there."
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Clark and Chloe started to walk back to her car.
"I don't know how they're going to check fifteen silos in forty minutes," said Clark.
"Well, neither can you anymore, Clark, if that's what you're thinking," said Chloe. "It's kinda rough being regular flesh and blood, don't you think?"
"Never stopped you. You know, of all the people in Smallville, you are the only one he warned to get out."
"He just wants me to tell his story."
"Either way, he trusts you. Maybe we don't need to search every silo."
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Gabriel's phone rang, and he picked it up.
"Hello?" he said.
"Gabriel, hi," Chloe said. "I, uh, I need your help. I started to leave town like you said, but then I was really freaked out when I was driving and then this dog ran out on the road and I—"
"Chloe, slow down. What happened?"
"And I guess, I guess I must've over cranked it and I ran my car into a ditch. And I can't get it started now and I'm really scared. Can you help me?"
"Where are you?" asked Gabriel.
"Uh, Route 87, near the Old Mill."
Gabriel looked at the clock, contemplating. He had thirty-three minutes. "Okay, just hang on. I'll be there as soon as I can."
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Lex slammed his father Lionel Luthor up against the padded cell wall.
"Tell me what the symbols mean!" Lex yelled. "I'm not buying it, Dad. You're in there. You've been obsessively drawing these for weeks. They are identical to the markings on the ship."
Lionel turned and fingered one of the symbols. "They'll never open it. Only he can open it."
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Chloe opened the door to her red buggie. She had just driven into a ditch in order to draw Gabriel into their trap. Chloe got up to the road as Clark hid behind the tractors on the other side of the road. Within a few minutes, Gabriel rode up on his motorcycle. Chloe started putting on her act.
"Gabriel, I'm sorry!" said Chloe as Gabriel got off the bike. "Everything happened so fast. I didn't know who else to call."
"It's alright, you can come back with me," said Gabriel. "You'll be safe there."
"Gabriel!" Clark yelled as he came out. Gabriel turned in surprise. "Which silo did you activate?"
Gabriel turned to Chloe, crestfallen. "I trusted you…"
"You have your reasons for doing this, but killing everyone's not the answer," said Clark.
"You're wrong, Clark!" said Gabriel. "It's the only answer."
Before Chloe could react, Gabriel pulled out a gun, turned toward Clark and pulled the trigger. The shot rang out as a gunshot wound appeared on Clark's side.