"Lionel has nothing on us." He explained to Star and Lois. "But he is planning to fabricate something. You shouldn't really have turned him down, Lo."
Lois managed to punch his shoulder through the bars. "I will get you back for that."
"I am getting impatient. They don't have any security cameras so let's just break out of here and go home." He added. "I don't see the point in hanging around."
"Star, can we meet you back at your place in an hour or so. We will come and get the ring." Lois explained.
"Ok, I will see you then."
Star knocked on the door and waited for the deputy to come and let her out. As she went through the opening door she walked straight into the path of Lionel Luthor.
"Excuse me!" He said as he made contact with him. For some reason, he shook her hand. "I am so sorry to have bumped into you like that." He replied in a rare glimpse of niceness.
Normally she would have a flash of something from everyone she shook hands with, but from him, there was nothing except blackness. She looked at him and just knew he was not human. That was not Lionel Luthor. She needed to tell Clark and Lois. She headed back to her trailer to wait for them.
Meanwhile Lois and Clark were having a disagreement. "Just bend the bars like in the movies." She suggested.
"No, let me make it look like someone crashed a car through the wall. That would be so much better and more believable."
"But Clark, they will be looking for an accomplice."
He thought for a moment and sighed disappointedly. "Ok, I get it. I will just do it the old fashioned way."
"So is Lionel gone?" she asked him.
He scanned the building. "Yes there is only the deputy sitting outside."
She smiled. "I don't suppose there is any chance that he is asleep, like usually happens in the movies."
"No, but he is having a pretty intense conversation with his girlfriend…. Gross!" Clark screwed up his face. "He is discussing their plans for tonight, and it is not a pretty thought."
She grimaced. "Too much info, Smallville. Let's do this!"
Clark bent the bars so Lois could come into his cell, and then did the same with his cell. He replaced the bars before picking her up and speeding out the door past the chatting deputy.
They arrived at the trailer just as Star was approaching. She smiled at them. "You didn't give me much of a head start."
"We would have been here sooner but we had a disagreement." Lois smiled.
"Yeah Lois was being a spoil sport!" He smiled back.
Star's expression turned serious. "Come in! We have major issues." She climbed in the trailer and waited for them to join her.
They all sat down. "What's happened!" Lois asked.
"Lionel bumped into me, and then touched my hand. That is not Lionel Luthor! In fact it was not even human."
Clark knew immediately. "It is Brainiac! He must have jumped into this time again. I would bet that it was him driving that car outside the farm, and making me jump back to 2006."
"Who is Brainiac?" Star inquired.
"He is an android from the future. He was the one who originally impersonated my father so he could split my parents up. He must be in Lionel's body. I never thought I would say this but I hope that the real Lionel is ok, otherwise history is going to change beyond belief."
Lois could not work this one out. "How could he jump back? The Legion said he had been reprogrammed."
"He must have jumped at some point. The question is that we do not know why he is here. We need to find out, stop him and take him out of circulation."
"We could send him back to the future." She suggested.
"There is too high a risk that he would come back. No, we are going to have to kill him." Clark added.
"But you cannot kill him whilst he is in Lionel's form. From what you have told me he is not very easy to kill. You could put yourself in danger. Doesn't he not have all your powers? There must be another way. I wonder if there is a way we can reprogram him." Lois suggested.
"Lo, I wouldn't know where to start. In fact I don't know anyone who could."
"How about Dr Swann? Isn't he an expert in all things Kryptonian?" she commented.
"Yes, I suppose he is. But how can we approach him without telling him about the future, and without it having repercussions for us."
"I can find out for you." Star interrupted them. "I was approached by one of Dr Swann's representatives this morning. Apparently even though he is a scientist who deals only in facts; he has a fascination with things he cannot provide answers for. He wants a reading so he can try and disapprove it. So I am going to meet him his rented house, just outside Smallville."
Clark's face lit up. "Now that is just the coincidence we need. What time are you going?"
She looked at her watch. "Hell, is that the time already! He is sending a car in the next 30 mins or so." She explained. "Have you met him before?"
"Yeah I have met him a few times over the past few years, or should I say in between 2003 and 2004." He clarified. "He will intercept a communication from my home planet sometime this year, unless he already has, and this will lead him to become such an expert in all things Kryptonian. It was Dr Swann who has pushed me on my journey to fulfil my destiny, although I am still puzzled by what that destiny is."
"I will see what I can find out. Just make yourself at home." Star smiled, as she started to get ready for her meeting.
Clark took a deep breath and hoped they could come up with a plan. There was no way they could jump back to 1989 with Brainiac still on the loose…
The car – a massive stretched limo arrived on time. "Is that just for me?" Star asked the chaffeur, shocked by the display of grandeur.
Lois and Clark watched out of the window to see her drive off. "I hope she gets somewhere with Dr Swann."
"I just wish we knew what Brainiac had planned. Who would he need to be out of the way or what could he change?" Clark asked rhetorically.
"Maybe he is planning on killing Lionel, or already has?"
"I don't know how I know but I don't get the feeling he is dead. He might be trying to frame Lionel by murdering someone." He explained.
"Who has had the most influence on your life so far?"
"Well, my parents… but with my Kryptonian side, probably Dr Swann. He was always trying to push my relationship with Jor-el."
"So if you had never met him, do you think that you have taken a different path?"
"I think I would. I hated Jor-el and everything he stood for, as did my parents. Any contact I had with him seemed to end up with someone being hurt or even dying. It was Dr Swann who helped me reunite the crystals and build the Fortress. Jor-el and I still have a long way to go but we are definitely getting closer." He explained.
"So how about we consider Dr Swann as the primary target? I wonder if Brainiac knows we have busted out of jail. He obviously knows his plan to get you back to 2006 did not work otherwise he would not have tried to frame us."
Meanwhile, Star had arrived at the rented house, or was it more a mansion. It was big. The chauffeur climbed out of his car, where she was met by a slightly neurotic looking woman. "I just want you to know that I am not happy about this. I don't like Dr Swann being stressed."
Star was taken aback by the greeting. "Happy about what?"
"I do not like the idea of Dr Swann being taken for a ride like this by some con woman. For an eminent scientist, he does not show very good judgement sometimes." the woman continued her rant.
"Ms… " Star replied, waiting for a name before she continued.
The woman just looked at her. "It is Dr Crosby. I am one of Dr Swann's team and his main carer, and I do not appreciate you being here."
Star stayed calm. "I get the message but I did not ask to come here, and it is easy enough for me to climb back into the limo and go back to Smallville."
Just then they were interrupted by a young red haired girl. "Bridgette, daddy wants to know if his guest is here. I told him that the limo had just pulled up."
"Trish, tell him his guest is here, and I will show her through." Dr Crosby put on a false smile and voice.
Star could not help but smirk at the change in her expression. Star did not need to be psychic to realise that the doctor was not a pleasant woman.
Star was led through the house to a large oak panelled room with large windows and full shelves adorning every wall.
"Come in, please." She heard a voice say from the other end of the room.
She could see a figure in a wheelchair behind a large desk. He spun around to reveal who she assumed was Dr Swann.
"Thank you for coming, Ms…" he started.
"It is just Star. No one ever uses my second name anymore, even my parents. In fact it has been so long, I can't even remember what my second name is." She laughed trying to break the stiff and formal atmosphere being created by the size of the room.
Dr Swann smiled, and directed her to the seat at the other side of the desk. "I bet you are wondering what you are doing here."
"I was told by your employee that you wanted to challenge my abilities." Star replied.
"That is what I told him, but it is not true. The word around town is that your abilities are beyond belief and cannot be disapproved. As a scientist, I look for an explanation for everything. But I have encountered enough unexplained phenomenon over the years to realise that you cannot explain everything. There will always be mysteries in this universe." Dr Swann suggested.
"So what do you want me to do?" she asked.
"I would be honoured if you could provide me a reading of my future. I have recently made a break through and I need to know that I am headed in the right direction. This breakthrough could change the world for the better but I have suspicions that there are dark forces trying to work against me. I need to know who I can and cannot trust. I want to be around for my daughter."
"Of course I will, Dr Swann. Your daughter is lovely, you can see the resemblance. How old is she?"
"She is 9 going on 29. She is one strong willed little girl. She comes here with me every summer, and I think because she is with her mother most of the year, I think she tries to wrap me around her little finger. And to be honest she manages most of the time." Star could see his face lighting up when he talked about her.
"So if you can give me your hands, I will see if we can get some kind of connection." She took hold of them, and closed her eyes.
And then waited for the visions to come…
It was dark, and she (or at least Dr Swann) was trapped in some sort of warehouse. She could hear a voice echoing through the building, just as a small spot light went on to blind Dr Swann.
"Why have I been brought here?" she heard Dr Swann demand to know.
"Because you are a threat to the future."
"How is that? My work has only ever been for the good of humanity. I would never endanger it."
"I cannot allow you to help him become what he becomes." The voice replied.
"What are you talking about?" Dr Swann continued.
"The Traveller, The Kryptonian… whatever you call him, he will still become the same."
"But Lionel, you swore to protect the Traveller. You know that we need to protect him. That is why we founded Veritas."
"I am not Lionel."
"Who are you?" Star could hear the anxiety in his voice.
"I am what you would call an android, but far more advanced than you could ever imagine. I was built on Krypton before it was destroyed."
"So why is the Traveller a threat?"
"He becomes Earth's saviour…the only one who can defeat me, and I will not allow that to happen. He has not even reached Earth yet and you are already heralding such hope for him."
"Where is Lionel? Have you killed him?"
"Lionel is unconscious over there with the gun already in his hand. He will take the blame for your demise. Then I can jump back to the future, the future I have planned all along. Anyway I would love to stay and chat but…"
Suddenly there was a loud bang and her vision went black.
She jolted out of it, and realised she was in the library looking at a very confused Dr Swann.
"I can see by the look on your face, and the fact you have almost jumped ten feet in the air means that things do not end favourably for me. What happens?" He asked.
Meanwhile, Lois and Clark were in the nearby woods, in case of any problems. Star had asked him to listen in.
Star smiled at him. "Is this room secure?"
He sat up in his chair. "If you mean, are there any surveillance devices…no there aren't. You can say what you need to say."
"Your breakthrough involves the arrival of the Traveller on Earth, doesn't it?"
Dr Swann's expression changed to one of profound shock. "My god, your powers are real, aren't they? What do you know about the Traveller?"
"I know that you have probably recently intercepted a transmission from another planet, and that you are awaiting his arrival at some time in the near future." Star explained.
"Who told you all of this? I am sure you have not gleaned all this from your reading." He challenged.
"Dr Swann, let me introduce you to someone who may be able to answer some of your questions."
"Now would be a good time." Star announced in a different tone.
Suddenly there was a whoosh, and Clark appeared in front of a shocked Dr Swann. He had Lois in his arms. He placed her down.
"Who are you?" he asked.