-- Chapter 6 -- Havok --
An amphitheatre built to accommodate every variety of alien, the Under Council's meeting room had changed over the last weeks. No longer was the government building filled to overflowing. The Vorians were gone and with their ousting a large chunk of the other Under Council races were missing in protest or downright anarchy. If the government couldn't protect them or their constituents, why were they members? The empty seats weren't quite as many as Kal-El might have hoped, but they were a good start. With a somewhat satisfied sigh, he abandoned his voyeuristic glimpse into the physical branch of government and returned to his center to view his strategy from a more distant perspective.
His model of the galaxy seemed dimmer and redder than it should ever have been. The clear blue strips of trade routes were simply gone, and so many of the worlds were registering red. Red designated highest priority crisis. Most of those worlds were simply non-self-sufficient. They didn't have the food to feed everyone, or the authority to enforce their government without the threat of the galactic military. Some of those worlds didn't even have an atmosphere capable of sustaining life without supplementation. Those red worlds signified suffocation, stagnation, rebellion, and death. Even more heartening was the preponderance of yellow. If there was a lot of red, the yellow dominated the model. Yellow worlds were surviving, but not well or efficiently. The yellow worlds were teetering on the edge, ripe to rebel.
And the lonely blue? You had to really search for blue worlds. A galaxy in crisis will not sport many peaceful, unthreatened places. Most of those worlds were isolated biospheres, uninitiated into galactic society for one reason or another. Unaware of the turmoil boiling up in the heavens, those worlds shone on obliviously, only their ignorance allowing them to flourish.
"Strangely beautiful, isn't it?"
Kal-El nodded to his now familiar visitor, the original Over Council ascendant. Kal-El just thought of her as the glow-worm. Her physical form was nothing short of caterpillar-like, and the tip segment of her body tended to glow when she was excited. He'd checked his knowledge base, and the glowing tail was just another way her people communicated amongst themselves. He wasn't expected to understand it or respond. It only really happened when she forgot herself. "It looks like change is finally alive in this stagnant pond, Evy. It's good to see you," Kal-El purred. Everyone living referred to this particular ghost as the eldest ascendant, as though she'd lost all name and identity outside of that designation. She did have a name and an identity, and it had little to do with wisdom or objectivity.
"The semblance of restraint will soon vanish, and we'll start to see real fighting," Evy said. She scurried around the display, grunting and sighing. "Do you have anything else planned or are you going to let this take its own course now? Things have begun to snowball, you know."
"I'm not ready to let this take its course yet, but for the next phase of operations, I need muscle I can trust." Kal-El encouraged his guest to join him at the Librarian's checkout desk. Instead of an ink stamp and pencil, the desk contained his doorway to the world. A simple holographic screen came to life with the cool expressionless face of the Eradicator. "There's a 400 microsecond lag on this. What black hole of a sector are you in?"
The Eradicator's studied cool expression fell away. Sticking her chin out, she narrowed her eyes in a good imitation of a glare. "Sector Zeta Aught Four."
Kal-El grinned and his eyebrows shot up. Either the Eradicator was acting, or she was starting to embrace her burgeoning emotions. "Are you angry? I believe you're near to losing it, pet."
Was she angry? There was a hard bundle of pain in her processor, a jumble of shame and fear and anger, knotted so tightly together that she couldn't distinguish the individual parts. In her more confusing moments, when her emotions flared like this, she forgot herself and her role just a little. She forgot to attempt to treat everything with logic. Like a ship coming out of the fog, the Eradicator managed to wrestle her emotions back and respond with the cool professional tone she should never have lost. "I am not angry, though I must chastise you. You very nearly caused my destruction when the Trade Routes were destroyed. There would be no one left to aid you should I cease to function."
"I almost caused your destruction? Well, I had no idea when the plant would take down the system, so I couldn't very well have warned you. Could I?" Kal-El wished he could actually see what was buzzing inside the pretty head of that machine. He'd entered that mind once and left his mark. To see if it had grown and changed would have been...educational.
"I suppose not. How may I be of service?" The Eradicator asked the question with a different question dancing unasked in her neural net. Weren't you worried? Are you checking on me?
"I do need you, and as you seem to be making some progress with embracing life – I loved the show of temper there – temporarily disturbing your current mission shouldn't be a big deal. Follow the coordinates I'm sending, and proceed back to Azar post haste. You're transportation has been arranged. The Thelosians assured me that you could use the translocator freely." Kal-El would have ended the transmission without another word but the Eradicator shook her head at him. No? The Eradicator was saying no to him? "What was that?"
"There will be a delay. I'm involved deeply in a mission, but I will accelerate things as much as possible. With a bit of luck I can be at your coordinates in forty-eight hours," The Eradicator said. "No sooner, possibly later."
Trying not to look too shocked, Kal-El nodded. "Acceptable, come quickly as you can." The communication link was severed, but he kept staring at the blank screen. "Can you believe she's an Eradicator?"
The eldest ascendant snorted and glowed some indecipherable response at him. "Eradicator's go a little batty the longer they linger. That one should have been shut down a few centuries ago judging by your interchange. Stability has been lost."
"Stability is boring. I like what she's becoming."
Off in a field of corn, isolated from everyone and everything, Clark Kent sat and watched his home. The thick army of stalks protected him from the prying eyes of the world, but for him they melted back and made a safe one-way window. His parents were just arriving home from the Farmer's Market, slowly unloading their leftover produce. He should go help them. The job would take him fifteen seconds even if he took his time.
"You aren't going to help them though, are you? You're going to sit out here on the cold dirt and sulk a while longer," Lola said.
"I'm not sulking anymore. I'm thinking and watching. From a distance they look so happy," Clark said. "I wish they looked like that up close, and...I wish Pete would leave already." Pete, sort-of-best-friend-extraordinaire, strolled out of the barn and helped his parents with their unloading. "He's probably telling them about my meltdown."
"And you just hate the thought of them standing around talking about you and worrying about you. This song is getting old, Clark."
"If you think I'm going to stroll down there and apologize and start a group hug, you're kidding yourself. After Pete bails, I will go down there and I don't know..."
Pete settled the last bushel of cucumbers onto the porch and turned to face the Kents. He'd been sidestepping their questions about his little surprise for that last couple of minutes, and now there was nothing left to distract them. There wasn't any point in postponing the inevitable. It was getting late, and their son was MIA. "Okay first off, Clark didn't go on the surprise blind date. We barely got through the front door, and he got mad and stormed off."
"He got mad?" Martha asked. "Why would he get mad? It was just a little game, a friendly surprise." She could feel herself smiling quizzically, but was she really surprised? Something had been building up in Clark, buzzing around beneath the surface, and she'd been waiting for the explosion, hadn't she?
"He was really annoyed," Pete said. "When he comes home, have him call me all right? I want to apologize for ambushing him, and that's his word for it, not mine. He assumed you guys were in on everything, and I didn't lie to him. He's probably a little upset with you too."
Jonathan shook his head and threw his hands up in mock surrender. "That's just great, Pete. Why don't you head on home, and we'll give you a call later." It was all Jonathan could do to hold his tongue until Pete was in his car and driving away. "I don't get this, Martha. What did we do wrong here? I'm so..."
"Frustrated? Confused?" Martha took her favorite seat on the porch steps and smiled at Jonathan. "I bet Clark comes home good and mad. It would tickle me to death to see him just lose it with us and start a huge fight."
"What?" Jonathan asked. "You want to fight?"
"Wouldn't it be better than the polite pseudo-silent dance we've been doing all summer? I hope he's so steamed that he can't stand it." Martha waved Jonathan over and pulled him down beside her. "I hope he yells so loud that he wakes the neighbors."
"It's three miles to Nell's place. That would be some impressive yelling," Jonathan said. Maybe Martha was right? A good fight might be good for them. "I've never been guilty of looking forward to a fight, but when you're right, you're right."
From the corn, Clark watched his parents settle in on the porch steps. "I'm going to talk to them. I'm going to tell them what I feel. What do you think?"
"It sounds suspiciously like the advice I've been giving you for two months, and I think it's about time you listened to me. I have several hundred years' life experience to my credit."
"Know-it-all," Clark quipped. The short run to the back yard didn't exactly give Clark a chance to organize his thoughts, but an hour sitting in the corn hadn't helped either so why dawdle. His parents didn't exactly look surprised to see him, but they did look a touch wary. "Pete told them how I acted."
"It isn't like you weren't expecting it. Next time, you can act like an adult and then there won't be anything to tell," Lola said.
"Stop being so smug or I'll stop listening to you altogether." Abandoning his conversation with Lola, Clark couldn't seem to find the words to begin with his parents. They weren't saying anything either. Why were they waiting for him to start? He almost resorted back to Lola. She'd just tell him to stop acting like an infant and open his mouth though. "We need to talk about things. I'm not going to lose my temper like I did earlier, or at least I'll try not to."
Martha nodded and shared a hopeful look with Jonathan. It wasn't exactly a hot screaming fight, but if they were really going to talk, this might be good. "I have tea in the kitchen?"
"Let me just say this." Sucking in a deep breath, Clark let months of frustration take the rein of his mouth. "I am Clark Kent. Maybe my memory isn't so hot right now, and I don't really know what that used to mean. You both have this notion of who your son was and who I need to be. Well, it doesn't matter who you think I am. Telling me who to be is just driving me crazy. Can you understand that?"
"We're driving you crazy?" Jonathan had never been a man to hold in his own frustration and he'd been holding this in for as long as Clark had. "You hardly talk to us. You treat us like strangers. It's like you don't even want to know us or about your life here. We're burdening you with our memories?"
"I want to remember," Clark snapped. "How can you think I wouldn't want to remember? Your memories aren't a burden. Your expectations are...I'm sorry about not talking to you and holding you at arms length, but you are strangers. Aside from some disjointed hallucinations, I don't have any memory of you at all."
"You want us to bury the Clark we remember and let you be," Martha whispered. "I don't know if I can just give up on my son, because he's in you, and if we could just coax him out it would be like it was..."
Clark shook his head, stepping away from his parents. "I know what you lost. You lost your son, a boy you raised from infancy. If you can't find anything of him in me, I can leave, but I can't keep acting the part you want me to play."
"We don't want you to leave. We want things to change!" Jonathan barked. "It's that damn rock. She puts these things in your head. That thing doesn't want you to remember your life because you wouldn't need her anymore."
"Attack Lola. It makes things easier if you can blame her, doesn't it?" Clark could feel tense anger coursing in him tightening his muscles and making it harder to stay clear and cool. Lola was his friend, his center, and it was time these people understood that. "Your best friend is that rock. She pleads your case with me, begs me just talk to you, tells me that this is my home, and that I need to find my place here. If you'd just talk to them, she says. Well, we've talked and I don't see that it helped."
Martha nodded to herself, and let go just a little. She wasn't going to stop looking for the boy she raised in this Clark, but she could stop pushing so hard. "It helped...me."
As though he hadn't heard his wife's statement, Jonathan responded angrily. "That rock has you brainwashed. She's whispering in your ear twenty-four seven. You can't know your own mind when that thing is in it."
"Lola isn't a thing," Clark said. "I'm not human either. Am I a thing? Just because I have a face you see me as a person. Lola is a person too, a good person." Clark could feel the heat, anger, pumping through the veins in his face.
"Stop it!" Lola burst through Clark's pocket and vibrated the declaration aloud. First she zoomed toward Jonathan. "You are a family. Clark needs you, and you need Clark. He isn't some stranger who fell out of the sky. He is your son." She turned back to Clark, hovering just under his nose. "And you...you are acting like a child again. I don't need you to defend me, and I will not come between you and your parents. I would like to be put away. If you consider me a real person, you will respect my wishes. Find a sunny spot and leave me there until things are better." Without another word she dropped to the ground and the shimmering light inside her died down to a faint glimmer.
"Lola..." Clark dropped down to his knees. All his anger was gone replaced by fear. She couldn't just shut him out. He needed her. "She won't talk to me. Are you happy now? I'm alone now."
Martha saw the tears streaking down Clark's face and she tried to find words to make this better. He was gone though, like a ghost in the wind he vanished into the corn. Walking forward, Martha scooped Lola off the ground and turned to Jonathan. "Things are going to have to change around here, starting with us." Looking down at the rock in her hand Martha made a decision to try and understand. "If you can hear me, Lola, I'd like to talk."
Jason Fisk made himself comfortable in the room Lex had given him for the night. The place was uncomfortably large and decorated in shades of blue. It gave the impression of being under water, maybe in the Mediterranean. With a sigh he fell backwards onto the king-sized bed and stared at his ceiling. Tomorrow would bring Cadmus Labs and waiting, but tonight had brought healing. His fear finally died when he shook hands with the young man, Clark. A ghost of pain had haunted him for months, but this kid had felt that pain first hand. He felt it, survived it, and he didn't even seem damaged. The hand shake had taken every bit of courage he had, but with the touch he understood that whatever the pain was, it was over. The job for Lex wasn't going to drive him insane.
His undeniable relief was followed up quickly with curiosity, and before Clark could end the handshake, Fisk tried to explore. He could almost visualize the scars running through the kid's mind, but there wasn't any hurt left. The scars were old and dead, walling off bits of viable mind, sealing away bits of memory and knowledge. And there was something else, a snowflake, a crystal, a hint of blue. It hovered at the periphery, neither part of Clark's mind nor separate from it. Jason would have loved to hold on and explore more deeply, but the handshake ended and he had to walk away.
"This is not ethical. It isn't how I do business. My little girl would be very disappointed." Relaxing onto the soft bed despite himself, Fisk yawned and pulled one of the pillows down under his head. What choice did he really have in all this? Lex Luthor's threats weren't something he could afford to ignore.
