- Chapter 25 - Show and Tell -

Eradicators destroyed, maimed, killed. Occasionally they tortured or spied. As a whole, they were aptly named machines. Of all the incarnations of Eradicator that had ever existed, the last was no exception to this rule. If asked to enumerate her successful missions, she could easily have numbered them though they were tens of millions dead.

She remembered them all perfectly. The intimate kills who she had stalked and tortured and finally terminated. They were no more or less important than the impersonal kills, the collateral deaths, the faceless millions that died for strategy in war. Destruction in all its flavors defined her.

After all the efficient, emotionless death of her existence, the last Eradicator finally went against her name and nature. At the request of Kal-El, she had tried to create.

His request had seemed strange at the time, asking her to make her own way, to do as her own will dictated. It was antithesis to her programming, but she had made do, creating a project and a plan. Reo and Luci and Ford were just the beginning of her creation, the New Krypton that might exist on Earth. Kal-El had played midwife to her dream.

She understood that it wasn't for her pleasure or reward that he had cultivated her and her mission. He wanted his Eradicator to grow past the ingrained fail-safes that prevented her killing him. He wanted to commit suicide using her hand.

He commanded death from a destroyer.

And for the first time since her initial activation, she failed to make an intended kill.

Thanks to Kal-El's influence, the Eradicator used her new found skills, and she created instead of destroying.

Protectively cradling the ingrained sphere of an AI, the Eradicator settled the device into its cradle. Blue lights appeared along the diagnostic monitoring device, and layers of liquid metal closed over the exposed black surface.

"Welcome back, Kal-El."


Martha stepped into the kitchen and found her son sitting at the table with a glass of orange juice. She felt anger prick at the casual way he had strolled in and was now having breakfast. Didn't he know how worried they had been? Didn't he care? "First you skip out on your date with Chloe and then you forget your curfew? Where were you? I thought the Eradicator had you again."

Without bothering to answer her questions, Clark pulled the lead box containing Lola off his lap and placed it on the table between them. The box was a test. He knew to the core of his being that Jonathan had been involved in Lola's imprisonment, but he wasn't really sure about Martha. From the guilty look on her face, they were both complicit. "The Eradicator is still gone as far as I know. I spent the night at the Care Inn; Lex lent me a bed last night."‑

Martha stared at the box, assuming that the blue stone was back in her son's pocket. They were backsliding. Things had gotten better in their family with Lola gone. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it had just been time for healing, but it hadn't felt like a coincidence. It had felt like Jonathan being vindicated. Somehow Clark had discovered their betrayal and now they had to face the fallout.

If Lola was really the divisive force Jonathan was certain she was, and she had returned to Clark's pocket, then they were in for a long confrontation. "Is Lola okay then?" Martha asked, hollowly. She expected Clark to remove the glowing stone from his pocket, to maybe rant or scream. Instead he shook his head at her, staring at the box between them. "Clark, talk to me."

"For all intents and purposes, you and Jonathan killed her. We can talk all you like about that tonight." Clark stood and slipped the lead box under his arm. "I have school."

His mother undoubtedly had more to say, but Clark didn't want to listen yet. He ran to school the long way, circling past the fertilizer plant, around the Mullen's farm, and finally through to the High School. No exhaustion followed a run for him. He wasn't even winded.

No human runner could ever even run a quarter of that distance without suffering some fatigue. I am completely inhuman, Clark thought desolately. For the first time in his life that he could remember, part of him was sincerely glad to be other than human. The lead box, the coffin, held securely under his arm left him sad to be stranded on a planet full of them.

A freshman girl from his first period, Shannon, stopped in front of him, blocking his way. She grinned, waving. "Hello Clark, do you know me? Who am I kidding, of course you know me-Shannon, Freshman Homecoming Princess. I wanted to make sure I got to you before you rented a tux. I haven't selected a dress and I want your cummerbund to match, so wait until I get back with you. Okay?"

Clark frowned, not in the mood for incomprehensible teen girl demands. "I won't rent a tux until I hear from you, your highness. Why does it matter if we match?"

"You haven't heard? Look there." Shannon pointed a perfectly French tipped nail at a frilly pink display announcing the homecoming court. "You're the duly elected freshman beau. It is your duty to look smashing in a tux that does not clash with my dress, escort me onto the float, smile, and hand me off to my boyfriend Chad when he finishes winning the football game."

Shannon tapped him on the shoulder and smiled encouragingly. "Congratulations. I'll have a dress selected soon. Promise!" She strolled away, grinning and greeting other girls as she walked.

How had this travesty happened? Didn't a person generally have to accept a nomination before they could be elected anything? With an inaudible groan, he launched himself toward his locker. He thought he could get through today, but who could have predicted the homecoming nonsense. Skipping school suddenly seemed like the most appealing option. Books in hand he paused and listened.

Chloe was coming.

Clark recognized everything about her approach even in the crowded hall. He could pick out the cadence of her steps, the sigh of her breath. If he concentrated, he could hear the steady thumping of her heart.

"How are you holding up?" Chloe asked.

Slamming his locker, Clark shrugged. "I've been better. The hope was, today would be a quiet day of boring classes so I could try to get my head on straight, but it turns out I've been elected to the Homecoming Court, which gives strange freshmen girls the right to order me around."

"You won?" Chloe winced. "I really meant to warn you that you were up for that. I'm sure you could get out of it if you really wanted?"

"I'll probably survive. Do you mind if I come home with you this afternoon, for a bit? Make sure I'm not going to be stupid when I go home." Clark frowned, unable to imagine how to talk to his parents tonight.

"No problem." Chloe's lopsided smile managed to encourage and bolster him despite his general malaise.

"Thanks." Clark leaned over and kissed his favorite human on her forehead. Thanks for reminding me that human is not necessarily a bad thing.


Hiding behind a bale of hay in Clark's barn, two alien children conferred solemnly. "Humans are evil," Luci said in inflectionless Galactic Standard. Her solemn face stared into her brother's eyes, knowing he was too young to be burdened with such truths. But they were in the land of the enemy, aliens who would kill others out of fear because they were different. Such aliens had killed their parents. They could not afford to let their guard down on this world. "If they comprehended how different we are from them, they would be afraid of us and they would kill us too."

Ford stared at her, his face serious. "Okay."

"I don't know what to do, to get us away from this danger, but I promise to protect you." Luci leaned forward until her forehead rested against her brother's.

"Reo is building a ship," Ford shared shyly. "And she told me that we could come with her if we wanted to go."

"But Onlea, we can't leave here when she expects us to wait for her," Luci said stubbornly.

"We can't trust Onlea," Ford countered. "I don't like her or how she looks at people, us."

"And you suddenly trust Reo-Ra?" Luci asked. "The only reason she didn't flush us out an airlock was fear of Onlea. Onlea saved us."‑

Ford frowned, unsure how to explain his foreboding. "Onlea thinks she owns us. But she doesn't own us."

"She saved our lives. We'd be dead right now, suffocated but for her." Luci leaned back away from her brother. "She's owed something."


During his weeks attending school, Clark had come to believe in the possibility of anonymity. If he never drew attention to himself by action or dress or spoken word, he could vanish into the sea of human adolescents, no more notable than a shadow. But the freshman class had taken note of him, enough note to vote him onto a float and it seemed everyone wanted to congratulate him, or tell him that they'd voted for him, to touch him and know him.

It was too much and at the wrong time. Would they have voted him anything if they knew he wasn't really human? Instead of touching him and chatting at him, they'd probably be running for their lives or they'd be trying to kill him. Fight or flight. Humans were so predictable.

But that wasn't fair. He was a humanoid alien, too much like them to be really scary. It didn't matter that he was the most dangerous creature any one of these kids had ever met when it came to potential for destruction. They were more likely to attack an alien like Lola, no matter that her potential to do damage was almost nil.

"If you don't stop scowling, you're going to offend your fans," Chloe said. "They don't know you're grieving. They didn't do anything wrong," she added in a whisper only Clark could be expected to hear.

Refusing to smile, Clark shrugged. "I don't want fans. Are you ready to go home then?"

"Come on." Chloe led Clark to her parking space. She waited for Clark to fold his long limbs into her compact car. He looked rather like a perfectly folded sardine. Chloe twisted the key, enjoying the healthy rumble of the engine. "So, have you had a chance to think about what to do?"

"Yeah, first priority is not hurting Lola any worse until I can help her," Clark said. "I was hoping you wouldn't mind babysitting. Since I don't know what kind of affect she would have on me in her current state, I can't afford to help her with her energy needs."

"She can't feed on me though?" Chloe looked away from the road long enough to fix Clark with a nervous glare. "I don't think I'm up to being lunch."

"She couldn't feed on you if she wanted to," Clark said. "I wouldn't ask you to do this if you were a potential biological fuel for her. You just need to find her a sunny place to store radiant energy. It will keep her from starving while I get ready."

"It sort of sounds like you might have a plan," Chloe said. "Want to fill me in?"

"It's complicated, but I was practicing something, trying to learn how to convert Kryptonite into Kryptonium. Lola was showing me." Clark kept his explanation purposefully vague. Chloe didn't need to know the intimate details or risks to such attempts.

"That's wonderful." Chloe smiled. "You can fix this. I don't know why you were so worried when this was something you knew how to deal with."

"It's not like I've ever actually tried it before. And I have no idea what effect red kryptonite is going to have on me while I'm attempting the shift," Clark explained.

Her instincts clanged and Chloe's grip tightened on the steering wheel. Clark was being evasive. There was more to be concerned about that he wasn't elaborating on, she'd stake her editor's chair on it. "Should I be trying to talk you out of this?"

"There's risk, but it will be okay," Clark said. "Trust me."


Parking the tractor in the machine shed, Jonathan finished his day's work. Martha had warned him that Clark knew about Lola, but waiting in the kitchen for a confrontation with his son, didn't make sense. Better to work the fields through the day and face the consequences of his decision in its time. He wiped the sweat and dirt from his brow and set out for home. He didn't have an explanation planned or an escape plan if Clark were to lose his cool like he had the first day of his rock's disappearance.

If someone had to be blamed, if Clark had to hate someone, Jonathan just hoped he would reserve that animosity for him, absolving his mother. Martha hadn't been party to his decision, and hopefully, Clark would at least let him explain that much.

Even if Clark hated him for it, Jonathan still didn't regret his decision. His son was free, and that was worth the fallout.

"We need to talk," Clark said.

Jonathan turned back toward the south fields and his son's voice, not surprised that Clark could sneak up on him. "Son, let's talk. I understand you found the Kryptonium where I put it away. Your mother said that it had died. It wasn't my intention to kill it, her."

"I know." Clark stood quietly, face placid. "I even understand why you put her away. You love me and you were afraid. Mom didn't know at first, did she?"

"No, I didn't consult your mother," Jonathan said. He had expected anger, accusations, shouting. Clark's quiet regard was unexpected, chilling. He doubted Martha's report that the rock was dead in that moment. Lola was back in his pocket, chilling his son's emotions. "Are you okay? Clark, talk to me. I understand if you're angry."

"No, I've had time to think, and I'm not angry. You still don't understand what you did, who she was, and I know that I can't explain it to you. Maybe it's my damaged brain that can't find the right words. I don't actually blame you." Clark sighed and walked in a purposefully slow shuffle toward the house, unwilling to engage Jonathan further on the tragedy of fear and love and misunderstanding that had so damaged his friend. He should have buffered the relationship between Lola and his parents. At the time he had been too damaged and self involved to help them coexist. A gentle creature without inherent defenses suffered the repercussions for his inadequacy.

At least he would have a chance to set things right.