- Chapter 19 - Just Breathe -

The Eradicator didn't wait for Clark to regain his composure. She didn't give him a chance to say no. She slid a finger under his dropped jaw and pushed his mouth closed. "Think about it." Impishly, she grinned and took flight.

"Hundreds?" Clark stumbled to his feet and stared into the sky where the Eradicator had vanished. "Eradicator? I don't need to think about it. No! The answer is a big solid definitive N-O. Eradicator?" Clark stared at the barn, his heart rate galloping forward, faster and faster. Those kids, that old woman, the Eradicator brought them for baby-making. The thought of fathering hundreds of children on a kid and a grandmother, left Clark choked, hardly able to breathe. His parents were going to freak out. It didn't occur to Clark that the hyperventilating he was doing on the porch might be construed as freaking out too.

The barn door creaked open and one of the aliens shuffled out. The old woman had a load of electronics in her arms. She made her way across the back yard and onto the porch. Clark stared at her, horrified at the thought of the Eradicator's plans. This woman couldn't know what that machine had in mind for her. Clark felt like a total pervert just thinking about it himself. He couldn't speak or even meet the poor woman's eyes.

Reo watched the Kryptonian, acutely aware of the jittery expression he was sporting. Could the Eradicator have enlightened him already? Did he know about the quirky quest? Was he imagining procreation with an old tired senior citizen? That had to be the image he was struggling with, and damn her stupid soul, her feelings were hurt. When she knew a man hadn't considered her as a woman or a potential mate, their lack of interest couldn't hurt her, but this blatant distaste was like a slap in the face. Marshalling her dignity, Reo ignored the boy's expression and pointed to the door. "I'm Reo. Would you mind demonstrating the door's mechanism?"

Clark opened his mouth to answer the older woman. He should be polite, introduce himself, open the door, but a strangled whisper of a syllable was all he managed to utter. His jaw working reflexively, Clark did the only thing he could think to do, he vaulted over the back rail and ran away.

Reo sighed and set her equipment down. It was quite heavy and there was no way she was going to figure out the door with her arms full. The Kents were trying to talk Luci through attempting to cross the yard, and Ford seemed to think the humans weren't to be trusted alone with his sister. She could conceivably be stuck on the porch all night.

The odd Earth-door issued a silent challenge, and Reo smiled at it. She pulled out her tool kit and started tapping at the alien structure.


A stone hull that used to be a home smoldered under the steady rain of firemen's hoses. Lex sat back and watched them work, already planning a new home. Whether this house was lost by attack or accident, Lex wasn't going to let a little fire chase him out of Smallville or even off his hill. He could reuse the stone; rebuild his mansion down to the last nook and cranny. The stars above shone down, soon to be replaced by the red hues of sunrise. He should really head into town and find a hotel room before the reporters found their way to the scene of the fire. A Luthor's house burning wasn't a crime or a tragedy. It was news.

At least the garage had been spared. His auto collection wasn't nearly as valuable as the art in the house, but he got more tangible pleasure out of it. Lex strolled into his garage, snatched a set of keys off the wall, and wandered down an aisle of classic mustangs. Many of his cars were new, slick and modern, but some of the best were antiques. Tonight, Lex was in the mood for an old car, a car with history. He slid behind the wheel of a black 1964 Mustang and inserted the key.

Without a word to the fire marshal or the police, Lex left them all behind in a cloud of dust.


Two children so pale they looked more like ghosts than flesh and blood, Luci and Ford were a mystery. Martha tried to imagine the life they had to have lived, inside a mine since birth, never seeing the sky. Would their skin pink up in the sun? Would they blister?

Would these children accept help from a pair of humans?

Perhaps most importantly, what did the Eradicator want with them?

"I'm ready to try," Luci said. Ford was pushed close to her, and he kept staring at the humans like they might rear up and bite. It wasn't fear he was projecting, just hostility and mistrust. "My head knows that it's safe. I just won't look up until I can be less irrational about it."

Martha offered Luci her hand and smiled reassuringly. "We won't let you go. Just remember to breathe."

Reluctantly, Ford allowed Martha to take his sister's hand. The humans were annoying, acting like they cared, acting like noble loving savages. His sister could hold their hands and let them lie to her, but he knew better. Aliens were dangerous. You had to watch them all the time.

Jonathan led the way out of the barn and refrained from gasping, despite the sight that greeted him, as any show of shock might scare Luci and set her off. Reo, the older refugee, had taken the back door complexly off its hinges and seemed to be tinkering with it. Jonathan shared a strained smile with Martha and headed forward. "Reo, isn't it? Was something wrong with the door?" Jonathan asked.

Reo glanced up from her tinkering long enough to shrug. "Your son needed some air. He left before he could show me how to work the door, so I decided to figure it out for myself."

"As long as you put it back," Martha said with surprising aplomb. Getting Luci, the hysterical alien, inside was priority number one. She could deal with a doddering alien that liked to take things apart second. As for Clark taking off and abandoning his parents with three new aliens and an Eradicator on the farm, that would be a whole other discussion.

"Martha, do you think you can get Luci settled in the guest room? Ford and I will head back for their things," Jonathan said. Ford redoubled his grip on his sister, now convinced that humans were trying to separate them. "Or I could help Reo get the door back up?"

Nodding acceptance of his plan, Martha bundled the children in front of her up the stairs. As soon as the children were out of earshot, Jonathan addressed Reo cautiously. "So, Onlea rescued you and those children. I suppose you're pretty grateful to her."

Reo didn't answer at first, instead finishing the tracing a pattern over the white-washed door. "I know what she is, and what she pretends to be for those children's peace of mind. You should know that I'm not particularly fond of my savior. She has a nasty tendency to attach strings to her helpful rescues. Not to mention her tendency to intimidate others into her schemes. We aren't friends."

Good, Jonathan thought. Any enemy of an enemy was fast-tracked to friendship. "You know why she's come back? You know what she wants?" Jonathan asked. "It would be good to know."

Reo scanned the human male critically, trying to sum him up with her eyes. He was tall enough, blond enough, handsome enough; an exceptional human specimen according to the standards the Eradicator supplied. Not that Reo particularly cared what kind of specimen the human was. His adoptive son took the concept of exceptional specimen to a new level, and that was the male the Eradicator had her penciled in to seduce. Reo managed not to cringe or choke on the thought. "Actually, I think you'd be happier not knowing the whole truth, but that's just me."


Cruising down Smallville's deserted main street headed for the other side of town and the nicer hotel, Lex couldn't have missed the lone figure pacing in front of the closed Talon. Gliding to a smooth stop, Lex watched Clark's nervous circuit speculatively. Did his friend start a fire tonight? Sliding out of the car, Lex let the door slam to announce his arrival. "If you want coffee, you still have several hours to wait here. I'd invite you to my place for a cup, but the old house went up in flames."

Clark spun on his heel, obviously shocked to see Lex. "Lex, your house, I'm sorry about that." Once the apology was out, his mouth snapped shut. Amnesiac idiot, Clark scolded himself. He was so terrible at keeping secrets straight. Aliens did not apologize for setting fires that they were pretending not to have set. Groping to cover his lapse, Clark ad-libbed. "I didn't do anything to help, or stay behind until you got home. I'm a terrible friend."

"What were you going to do, put the fire out single-handedly? Sticking around to hold my hand was thoughtful of Chloe, but I'm a big boy," Lex replied. Clark had the uncomfortable look of a young man who was tap-dancing in a conversation. "Pacing downtown in the wee hours of the morning, what's wrong, Clark? Did something happen?" Did you burn down my house? Are you worried about the dead mutant?

Clark had wanted to go to Chloe when he ran away from the insanity at home, but Chloe might trigger another hormone induced fire so he'd stayed away. He considered heading to Pete's house, except Pete was hospitalized. Visiting Lex's smoldering rubble hadn't even crossed his mind, but this friend found him, and he was asking friendly speculative questions. "Yeah, lots of stuff happened, but nothing you can help with," Clark said. "I should go home."

Lex looked up and down the street for a parked truck. "Maybe you'd like a ride home?"

It was unthinkable bringing Lex home tonight with all the aliens and the Eradicator. Clark shook his head and massaged his temples briefly. "I can make it, thanks." Instead of walking past Lex and heading for home, Clark met Lex's eyes and held them for the first time in the conversation. The hairs on his arms rose and Clark had the strangest feeling that Lex knew...that he knew everything. "Bye." Clark walked past, but he couldn't help himself. He turned back and apologized again, this time for lying constantly and for refusing a simple gesture of friendship. He apologized for everything without explaining anything.

"Sorry."


Martha set three steaming cups of coffee onto the table and joined her husband with their new houseguest. The kids were tucked into bed, and it was time that they tried to get a few things straight. "I have milk and sugar," Martha offered.

Shaking her head, Reo eyed the black fluid she'd been offered. The aroma wasn't offensive, but she wasn't about to just drink the stuff. She fished a twig-sized silver probe out of her pocket and dropped it into the beverage. "Thanks for the use of the couch, and the..." Reo removed the silver probe out and scanned the readout. "...mildly addictive stimulant."

"You're welcome, I guess," Martha said. "Now, maybe you can help us. Jon says you know why the Eradicator is back. Any information you have would be invaluable."

"Unfortunately, I'm sworn to secrecy. If you aren't aware, it isn't healthy to defy an Erad...Onlea." She looked around the room as though someone might be lurking in the shadows. Reo sipped tentatively at the black liquid, smacked her lips lightly and downed the entire cup. "Tasty. What do you call it?"

"It's coffee," Jonathan said. He glared across the table at the elderly woman and her eerie silver eyes, the only feature that would keep her from passing for human. "Can we have a hint, anything?"

Reo looked between the humans and sighed. "What would you do if I said Onlea was going to dress you all as Bzner dancers complete with rows of fuscia gron hats, and that she was going to make you dance the seventh moon dance three times a week? You couldn't do anything to stop her, except say no. And when you say no, you accept the consequences." Reo looked between the two humans, wondering if they understood those consequences. "You're going to want to say no. Her requests are unreasonable, tasteless, and usually frightening, but you need to think about the consequences when you do."

"We have a good understanding of her consequences," Martha said. "The last time she was here, that thing threatened our lives, stole our son, and when she sent him home, he'd been hurt so badly that he couldn't even remember us."

"We'd like to minimize consequences this time. You could help us if you would," Jonathan added.

"I can't help you," Reo said. She stared into her empty cup and frowned dispiritedly. "I can't even help myself."


Upstairs, tucked safely under cotton blankets, two siblings reclined but only one of them slept. Luci stared up at the ceiling and the safety it was supposed to imply, but she didn't really feel safe. The blankets here were too scratchy, completely unlike the smooth synthetic materials from home, and it was too warm. Not to mention the pretty Kryptonian that she'd wanted to make a good impression on. He probably thought she was completely insane. Luci let Onlea's mission fill her mind, distract her from all the horrible facts of her reality.

Luci groped under the covers for her brother's hand and gripped it. She was going to do exactly what their savior asked whenever she asked it. Onlea was going to be happy. They were going to have a home. When Ford figured out how perfect everything had become, he was going to feel safe and secure. He was going to let himself be okay. Hopeful if not completely secure, Luci drifted into sleep.


Home was in front of him, but Clark didn't rush forward and head inside. The Eradicator had desecrated his home, filled it with aliens that she expected him to procreate with...a lot. How was he supposed to tell his parents about the machine's grand scheme? How were they going to thwart the Eradicator today when they failed miserably the last time she showed up?

"I'm not playing stud for that machine," Clark whispered. "She can't make me."

He might as well get the worst over with, and tell his parents what the Eradicator wanted. Maybe then they could figure out how to dissuade her. Clark strode onto the porch feeling slightly less panicked than when he had run for the hills. At least his heart wasn't beating out of his chest anymore. Hopefully his parents wouldn't be too upset with him for running off, but he had needed the space, a minute to breathe, a moment to think.

His parents and Reo were huddled together around the kitchen table, cups of coffee at hand. Clark grimaced, unsure if he really wanted to talk about everything in front of one of his prospective... Partners? Lovers? Brood mares? Clark shuddered, unable to find an appropriate title for Reo's role in the production of those hundreds and hundreds of children the Eradicator had planned. "I'm home. Sorry about running off. Did everything go okay?"

Martha smiled and rose, enfolding her son in a quick hug. She was more than a little paranoid about her son vanishing with the Eradicator around, and just seeing him after a brief absence was enough to cause a rush of euphoric relief. "Disappearing is never a good idea, but you're going to give your old parents a pair of heart attacks if you try that stuff right now. Understood, mister?"

"I really am sorry. I panicked," Clark said. He glanced at Reo out of the corner of his eye and steeled himself to have this conversation in front of her. He could do this, couldn't he? "You may as well know that the Eradicator has big plans involving me and her refugees. Big scary plans that she saw fit to share with me tonight."

Jonathan nodded, simultaneously relieved and worried to finally hear what was going on. Reo was blushing bright scarlet and she had pushed her chair back. "Tell us about her plan, son," Jonathan said. "We'll figure out how to deal with it."

"Good, unless you're ready to be grandparents we really need to deal with it." Clark took the seat next to his mother, fixing his gaze on her decorative haystack salt and pepper shakers. This was too embarrassing, and he couldn't bear to see his parents' expressions. Reo wasn't the only one at the table blushing. Clark felt his face burning while he tried to find the right words to explain. "She wants me to have children, a lot of them, starting right now. Reo and Luci are the ladies she's picked out to have those children."

"You're kidding," Martha said. Dealing with the Eradicator usually meant death threats, physical attacks, and kidnappings. Martha was taken off guard by Clark's unexpected statement. She couldn't contain a semi-hysterical laugh. Even though the situation wasn't funny, even though it was horribly twisted, Martha couldn't quite believe it was really the Eradicator's plan. "Reo has to be sixty and Luci is just a child. God, you're just a child. What is that machine thinking? You can't be serious. She can't be serious."

"That damn thing is always serious. The only question is how do we say no to her without anyone getting hurt?" Jonathan whispered. Judging from the pale skittish look on his son's face, Jonathan wouldn't need to give his son the safe-sex talk. An alien machine requesting your sperm for a few hundred children would scare anyone into understanding the value of birth control. Control...that was their issue really. They had no control when it came to the Eradicator, and that made a silly plan so crazy that it was laughable, remarkably chilling. "She can't expect you to just accept that kind of directive. You're a teenager."

"Yeah, a teenage endangered species to her way of thinking," Clark replied. "It all sounds pretty logical when she's explaining it, except that I'm not a Siberian tiger or a bison, and I'm not ready to sign my life over and become a full time sperm donor." There was a high-pitched note of panic in his words that Clark couldn't restrain. "I can't even wrap my head around being the father of one kid, much less hundreds." His mom had laughed earlier, but she was crying now, crying and shaking her head. "What are we supposed to do?"

Reo watched the humans coddle and commiserate with their adoptive son, but she couldn't restrain herself from speaking up. "As distasteful as the machine's prerogative is, can you afford to defy her?" Reo headed for the stairs and the bed the Kents had shown her earlier. She couldn't just walk away though. Reo spun on her heel and returned. She wanted to tell the humans and the Kryptonian about the possibilities that had been buzzing in her head for months. She had plans for stalling the Eradicator, deceiving her, and avoiding her without suffering physical harm. She wasn't foolish enough to think the Eradicator had withdrawn so far that she couldn't hear every word they said. Without privacy, she couldn't enlist these aliens' aid. "I can't openly oppose my savior. I can't say no to what she asks. Resisting her is not healthy." Reo took the well of white powder Martha had called sugar and poured it out on the table. Using the granular substance like a black board, she scribbled a quick note.

Fortunately, I know how to lie, steal, cheat, and deceive.

Reo would have been shocked to learn that her cautious, inventive use of human condiments was completely unnecessary. The Eradicator hadn't retreated far, and though she had chosen her resting place with every intention of spying on the humans and her Kryptonian, her entire central processor was focused more than a million miles away.

"Kal, what is it that you need today. I'm occupied," the Eradicator purred. She waited with anticipation for the rich deep tones of the voice that called her from her quest. As deranged as her Kal-El had become, she relished their time together. She recognized the dangerous patterns his logic followed these days, but those patterns didn't frighten her. Kal was exciting. "It will take me time to come to you. I'm in the middle of something."

"Time? I want you here now, yesterday. You will come with all haste," Kal-El commanded. "This cannot wait."

"Whatever this is, it will have to wait," the Eradicator replied. "I will come soon, as soon as I can."


Staring up at his bedroom ceiling, Clark blinked at the almost imperceptible brush strokes that white-washed the plywood. Counting the miniscule imperfections that a human eye would have a hard time picking out was usually mind-numbing enough to put him right off to sleep, but tonight there was just too much background noise. Too much had happened today. He and Chloe started the day with a mission. They went out there to expose a dangerous mutant.

Now the mutant was dead, Lex's house was burned, and the Eradicator wanted to harness his genetic potential. When you laid it all out, you almost missed the kiss, the potential disaster or miracle that happened between himself and Chloe. Would it affect their friendship? Would it start something deeper? Could he even let that happen with the Eradicator back in town? The last question chilled him. The Eradicator's plans for his genetic future hadn't included Chloe or any other human girls. As complicated as dating him might have been before the Eradicator returned, now it might be deadly. How was he supposed to keep Chloe safe? The answer was so simple it made his stomach turn over. He couldn't keep her safe, not with the Eradicator running around, not if he was dating her.

Clark wasn't so caught up in his own internal monologue, that he missed his door squeaking open. He propped himself up in bed and squinted at the figure silhouetted against the hall light. Ford, the youngest alien kid, entered quickly and shut the door behind him.

The pad he had carried about like a security blanket was clutched under his arm. "I need your help," Ford said. "You're the only high being here. My sister and I aren't safe here. Low aliens, aliens like humans, can't be trusted. We have to make sure that they can't hurt us."

High beings? Low aliens? Clark frowned at the kid quizzically. "No one is going to hurt you or your sister. You're safe here. The humans don't even know you aren't a human."

"Low aliens can be stupid. They can hurt you for no good reason." Ford opened his book, his manifesto. He felt tense and taunt like the cool detached river he floated on was about to overflow its banks. "These are my plans, so we can be safe."

Clark looked into the book, childish drawings and notations filled the pages with bizarre scenarios, some of which made sense and others that just didn't. One looked like a plan to build a society underground complete with stick figures illustrating the concept. Another seemed to depict Ford and his sister conquering the world. If Ford weren't frowning at him so seriously, Clark might have laughed out loud.

"You don't need to worry about the humans or anyone else," Clark said. "I'll protect you. I promise. Nothing is going to hurt you." It didn't occur to him that he was spouting a lie that adults had been telling children for more than a million years. No one could guarantee safety. No one could protect a child from everything.

But it was a lie Ford needed to hear.

The shock-induced objectivity crumbled, and Ford began to cry.