i make clark sterile and that passes without comment, but i make lois bisexual and i lose a subscriber. stay classy interwebs.
Anyways, this is probably the most "Man of Steel" inspired chapter in the bunch, in terms of headcanons for Krypton. I think I science'd everything right. I also played around with the Jewish naming schemes that Siegel and Schuster originally used to come up with "Kal-El". Given that Krypton is generally portrayed as having a dignified society of people, I figured there could be "formal" names and a shorter informal name.
Chapter Nineteen: Dramatic Announcements
Dr. Sullivan didn't treat the announcement like it was dramatic. Rather, he acted as though Clark's deceased parents had simply left him a journal or perhaps a video or a photo album. All the same, this was a dramatic announcement for someone who didn't have any connection of his birth parents.
As the engineer spoke, two holograms shimmered into being behind him, heavily pixelated at first but then the resolution cleared as they manifested fully. They were tall and dark-haired and blue-eyed, each wearing scarlet tabards over dark blue robes, belted in at the waist. The woman's hair was done up in an elaborate twisting style held in place with a series of hair-combs that appeared to form one continuous loop. The man wore a simple brass-colored circlet on his forehead. Most tellingly, though, pinned to their belts was a very identical shield-badge depicting the same stylized S sigil. If Clark hadn't seen the pictures earlier, he never would have guessed who these two holograms were modeled after.
He scrambled off the slab, holding the shirt to his chest. The features of each hologram seemed to stand out even more. The dark hair. The piercing blue eyes. The shape of the man's jawline that almost matched his own and the delicacy of the woman's fingers that that had always made his hands appear as though they belonged to someone else...
"You're my parents-- my birth parents. You're actually..."
Clark had to grip the edge of the slab for balance when his knees threatened to go. A dizzy feeling swept across him. Finally, after nearly nine years of only being able to imagine, he could see where he had come from. Finally, he laid eyes on the mother and father who had given birth to him. Even if they weren't real. Even if they were just merely shadows of the real things. It didn't matter much, because they were in front of him, standing as tall and proud as he had always hoped they would be.
Both of the A.I.s were smiling brightly at him, as if they were genuinely pleased to see him. The expressions were fabricated; they were really just long strings of programming designed to look like real people, but- were those tears in the woman A.I.'s eyes? Was that a proud smile from the man?
Dr. Sullivan turned far enough to put the A.I. holograms in his field of vision and smiled back in Clark's direction. "It's been a long twenty years since we were all in the same place." he said softly.
The hard-light construct of Lara appeared to frown in a slightly strained manner.
"We are not truly here, Father." she said in a tone of a daughter whose father had just made a particularly bad dad-joke. "To assume otherwise would suggest a delusion--"
"You are imperfect facsimiles, yes," Dr. Sullivan acknowledged, nodding impatiently. "And yet, you're all that's left of both of them and you're all that can be here for your son. If it's all the same to you, I think I'll keep my happy delusion for a little while."
"I imagine that we are less than you were expecting..." the Jor-El started, sounding very uncertain as he turned to Clark.
"No!" Clark shook his head, breaking out of his shock. "Nothing like that! It's more than I ever thought..." He found himself smiling despite the hot prick of tears in the corner of his eyes. "I just have a lot of questions and-- my grandfather gave me the impression he didn't know all the answers."
"It's true. That last year or so, I have no idea what happened." Dr. Sullivan agreed. He glanced at Clark. "I know this is more for you than me, but I have some questions of my own."
"I'm sure we'll both want to hear the answers." Clark said quickly, abruptly remembering just how little Dr. Sullivan had been able to tell him. The man's profession was mechanical engineering and when you spent so much time with soldering irons and scrap metals with the job of creating functional robots, it was easy to forget all those little details about history and culture and politics. When it wasn't your specialty, it didn't matter as much to remember it.
The Jor-El smiled. "Then ask your questions. We were created to assist you to the fullest extent of our capabilities."
Dr. Sullivan gestured for his grandson to ask first.
Oh god, where to start? Clark steadied himself on the edge of the slab. Ever since finding out, all sorts of questions had been building up in his head. But the most pressing ones -- the ones that he had wondered about the longest -- rose up to the surface.
"Th-The planet. Krypton, right? What happened to it? Why did you send me to Earth?"
"Krypton was dying." the Jor-El replied.
As he spoke, the crystalline walls and floor took up images of a desert world that didn't look like it had started that way. Black plant-life was wilting under an orange sky, the sun burning an angry red instead of yellow. The image of the ground under Clark's feet was like a cracked clay-bed, long jerky furrows carved into a sand-blasted ground, and the sight of it made him jump a little before he realized the temperature of the floor hadn't changed. Desolate mountains reared in the distance and Clark got the sense of a hot, grit-filled wind beating the landscape like a whip. The environment looked harsh and unforgiving and dying in every way. Even the clouds threatened to fall out of the sky.
Dr. Sullivan made a quiet "Ah..." of remembrance, like he had managed to forget about this in the past twenty years, surrounded by the comparative lush-ness of Earth with its fertile soil and green grass.
"I-- I was sent away so I could..." Clark trailed off, uncertain of how to finish that thought.
"So you could live." the Lara finished.
The images shifted, taking him away from the rocky, dying landscape and into a city constructed entirely from crystal. A myriad of different shapes and colors, though the growth appeared to have been more controlled, to ensure that each building did not overtake its neighbors. It would have been vibrant for the red sunlight glinting off the tall spires and the hundreds of robed Kryptonians strolling the streets with vehicles darting past and tubed trains shooting by overhead. It looked like a marketplace, with vegetables and clothes and livestock and jewelry and the merchants calling out prices and enticing a fat purse to come over and have a look at their product.
It should have been vibrant, but there was something distinctly flat about it. it was as if everyone there was just going through the motions, like they were waiting for something.
"Once, Krypton was a powerful society. We were not war-like, but we were arrogant. We thought too highly of ourselves. It began to show in bad ways, that inflated sense of entitlement. We began to believe that everything was due to us simply because we existed."
The Jor-El wore a disgusted look, obviously mirroring the disdain that the real Jor-El would have felt.
"Over time, our society became decadent and overreaching. And that was when it started to rot." he went on. "The Council of Elders, who ruled over Kryptonian society, soon proved that they cared more for the rattle of coinage than the affairs of the people, particularly those who lived by lesser means. And especially those who did not agree with them."
"They were corrupt?" Clark asked.
"In their own foolish ways, yes." the Jor-El nodded. "Their overconfidence, the public's unwavering trust in them, and not enough fact-checking is what led to our society's demise."
"The Council had ruled with very few problems for over a millennium. We abolished war, domination, capital punishment. We forcibly did away with the destructive aspects of society and believed ourselves superior for having done so." the Lara said. "When you create and control a world where there are so few flaws, the people grow complacent and quite unwilling to believe that anything might disrupt it. Our people trusted the Council's judgment too much to listen otherwise."
"They were fools." Dr. Sullivan muttered, his arms crossed, his voice tinged with bitterness. It sounded like this was a topic he had expounded time and again until there was nothing more to be said.
"We suffered an energy crisis. In an effort to correct it, we began mining material from the planet's core. This caused the core to stop rotating." the Jor-El said. "Additionally, Krypton's age was beginning to catch up with it. It was already an old planet and destabilization happens. Our actions with the core only hastened the process.
"A third factor was our sun, a K-type, class three red giant. Due to a stronger gravitational pull, it is very common for orbiting planets to become tidally locked. We were losing our night sky while the other side of the planet was losing daylight hours. Our seasons didn't change at the same pace they used to. Plants and animals begun to die due to poisonous gases escaping the mantle. It was clear that due to our own destructive practices, and the simple march of time, that Krypton as we knew it would become a memory. And a tomb if we did not escape it."
"But if everyone listened to the Council and they weren't convinced..." Clark started, but he could take a stab at what had happened next. No one had escaped.
"It was Jor-El who first put all the signs together. He went to the Council about the very instant he had confirmed his findings. He asked for a planet-wide evacuation, while they still had the time." the Lara said. "As you may suspect, the Council did not believe him."
"Why not?" Clark asked.
"Because they considered Jor-El a foolish man with silly notions, crippled by grief and driven mad by loss!" Dr. Sullivan spat suddenly, his fists clenching and his jaw tightening.
"Father." the Lara whispered in a vaguely admonishing tone.
"But they did." the Jor-El agreed. "Strong displays of emotion are not something we Kryptonians were inclined to indulge in. Passionate emotions were frowned upon. Repeated displays were often considered the symptoms of an unbalanced mind. It had been concluded long before even Sul-Van's time that violence was perpetuated by allowing one's emotions to rule their heads. Thus Jor-El's prominent displays of grief and anger served to discredit him in the eyes of the Council.
"When he approached them, they had two replies. First they said that they could not coordinate the logistics for a planet-wide evacuation. Then they claimed that other scientists had crunched the numbers as well, but came up with negative results. They did not believe that Krypton would die under their feet."
"Did anyone?" Clark wondered. Did anyone survive, other than me? Other than my grandfather? Other than Dr. Essex? A planet full of people! Surely there was more than just the three of us!
"Some did." the Jor-El nodded. "But the rest blindly, foolishly, arrogantly chose to follow the Council's statement. They carried on as though they couldn't see what was happening."
"And that is why you were jettisoned to Earth." the Lara said.
"But why just me? Why did my parents stay behind if they knew Krypton was a goner?" Clark wondered.
"They wanted to." the Lara assured him, smiling sadly. "But they were out of time to grow a large enough capsule that would safely accommodate the three of them, and calibrate it properly. They had to use the data transmitted from the prototype which, as you may have guessed, was lost over an event horizon. Father has told us that it arrived here on Earth some years ago, so you are aware of how much weight it was calibrated for. They couldn't save their own lives, but they could save a life that was most precious and dear to them, more than all the stars in the sky."
The tears that had been threatening Clark's composure for the last few minutes finally dripped down his cheeks and he wiped at them hastily, feeling a bit embarrassed to be crying at all.
Even though it was justified.
His birth-parents had saved him from a dying world in the only way they knew. They had assured him a full life by sending him to Earth. They had literally put their hope for the future in a little pod and then blasted it past orbit into the depths of space, praying that everything would turn out for the best.
Clark wished that he could tell them. Actually tell them that he was okay. That he had grown up into a pretty decent person who tried his best to be a good person. That they had not prayed in vain.
"Wh-What about other? Other survivors?" Clark asked, shifting tracks. He had to know. "Is there any other Kryptonians out there, besides myself and..." He trailed off, glancing over at Dr. Sullivan.
The two A.I.s shared a long, considering look with each other. Clark had a sudden sense of what it might have been like if he had grown up with his birth-parents. He was sure they would have given each other the same look if he had asked an awkward question.
"It is a longshot." the Jor-El said. "Any launches that occurred would have been done in secret, as there was no evacuation order. Thus it would have been seen as treasonous. As such, there would be no record."
"Zor-El and Allura?" Dr. Sullivan asked hopefully. "They were the first to take Jor-El at face value."
"And they are...?" Clark prompted.
"Your aunt and uncle." the Lara replied. "Jor-El and Zor-El were brothers."
The image on the walls shifted away from the bleak city-scape to instead display a video clip of a strong-shouldered man with black hair and a thick, trimmed beard who looked quite a lot like Clark himself, standing beside an eerily beautiful woman with shining blonde hair. The woman was smiling that strained smile a person got when they were really trying very hard not to laugh; the man laughing uproariously. There was no sound, but Clark didn't need sound to see that the man had just witnessed something he thought was hilarious and was not arsed about showing it.
Then into the frame skipped a small munchkin of a girl, not much more than seven or eight years old, with a shoulder-length hair, the same shining blonde as her mother's. There was no doubting the parentage, though she was splattered with what looked like gray mud and looking rather unhappy about it.
Clark's jaw dropped into a slowly-forming grin. He had an aunt and uncle! And a cousin too! Look at that!
"Zor-El and Lara collaborated on the blueprints of the shuttle that brought you to Earth." the Jor-El said. "They lost contact in the weeks leading up to Krypton's end, but it seems likely the three of them might have made it off."
Dr. Sullivan breathed a sigh of relief, slumping. "Good. My beacon is still in orbit. If they're locked on to that, if it's still transmitting..."
"It is still transmitting." the Lara assured him. "Nonetheless, it is a longshot." she added, as though she was making sure they both understood that.
"What's her name?" Clark asked, pointing to his blonde cousin.
"Kara." the Jor-El replied.
"Kara." Clark repeated, savoring the name. He had a cousin. He had an aunt and an uncle. And maybe they had survived. The odds were something like a trillion to one, but there was a sliver of a chance of a hope.
"What's my name?" he asked, wondering why it had taken him so long just to ask it.
The Jor-El and the Lara actually turned to Dr. Sullivan and glared, frowning in disappointment that the older man actually hadn't told him. The engineer shrugged helplessly, silently admitting that he really didn't have an excuse other than that Clark just hadn't asked him.
"You are Maz'al Kal-El." the Jor-El replied. "The second-born son of the House of El and the third confirmed survivor of the destruction of Krypton."
"Wait, second-born?" Clark felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Second-born, of course, meant that he had had an older sibling. An older brother, at least, if he was the second-born son. How many siblings had preceded him?
How much family had he really lost?
The video segment on the wall continued to play and the camera pulled out to reveal that Zor-El and Allura were standing on a balcony. A set table was behind them, but the dishware was being cleared away by a robotic busboy and Clark got the feeling that they had been celebrating something. Kara was visibly shouting in outrage, shaking tiny fists like she was commanding her father to do something, when another glob of mud slapped into her shining hair and slid down onto her shoulders in a gloopy sort of way. She whirled around, her cheeks reddening, and charged out of the frame with what Clark imagined was a battle-cry.
The camera caught up just a second later and Kara's equally mud-splattered opponent was revealed. A young boy about the same age as she, with the same black hair and blue eyes as Clark, looking nearly identical as he had been at that age. Kara met the boy head-on, but he wasn't prepared to absorb the momentum of her charge, so they both went tumbling down a shallow slope towards another mud puddle, looking like they were having loads of fun in the process.
"Or'shel Hayl-El." the Lara said. She looked sad. "He was lost two years prior to Krypton's end."
"Dead?" Clark asked, barely daring to voice it.
"Death would be kinder than what happened to him." Dr. Sullivan said quietly, looking as sad as the image of his daughter.
"No, not dead as such, though it indeed would have been a kinder fate." The Jor-El shook his head. "Allow me to explain. Two years before Krypton's destruction, a militia general named Dru-Zod attempted to wrest control of Krypton away from the Council. After failing to secure a seat on the Council through legal means, he staged a coup d'etat. He was one of the few who saw the societal degradation that our people suffered from and believed that he alone would change it. He sought to end Krypton's self-enforced isolation and stagnant society. Bring around a new era of expansion and innovation, and send us back among the stars. He had grand dreams, but he executed them in ways that did more harm than good."
The wall image had changed again, showing a battle-hardened man clad in heavy armor. A scar ran down the side of his otherwise handsome face. He had an aquiline nose and short-cut dark hair. He looked like he might have once been a Roman from the days of Julius Caesar.
"You talk like you knew him." Clark observed. Even for an A.I., the Jor-El spoke with a certainty that made Clark wonder just how much of his parents was embedded in their programming.
"Jor-El and Zod were friends once. But Zod's ambition to help Krypton under the guise of ruling it outweighed and eventually overcame any sort of loyalty he felt for Jor-El." the A.I. construct explained. "Zod often spoke at length to Jor-El about his revolution and sought to have Jor-El's backing. The House of El was a powerful noble family in Krypton's final years. The combined push of their influence most certainly would have tipped the scales in Zod's favor."
"But he refused, didn't he. Jor-El refused to help." Clark concluded. Though he knew little of his birth-father, he just didn't see the man joining sides with a would-be conqueror.
"Yes." the Lara nodded. "Jor-El did not agree with Zod's military tactics and refused to take sides, even if it meant sacrificing his friendship. Zod perceived this as a betrayal. In a misguided effort to secure Jor-El's assistance, Zod condemned Hayl to the Phantom Zone."
"What's the Phantom Zone?" Clark wondered. Whatever it was, it didn't sound pleasant.
"The Phantom Zone is an inter-dimensional plane of existence that was discovered by a scientist named Raz-Em, who unfortunately trapped himself inside upon discovery." the Jor-El explained. "His assistants were able to retrieve him using his notes, but it took the better of a year for them to decipher the mathematics required. Krypton might have done away with 'undesirable aspects', but there was still trouble with law-breakers. Minor offenders were put to hard labor, house arrest, and community service to pay their debt to society. Others, such as murderers, were condemned to the Phantom Zone. And it truly was a condemnation."
"Time does not pass in the Phantom Zone. If it passes at all, then it does so very slowly." the Lara went on. "For their treasonous crimes, Zod and his closest allies were imprisoned there. They are likely still alive--"
"Wait, wait- You're saying..." Clark sucked in a breath between his teeth and tried to marshal his thoughts into order. "You're saying that maybe-- just maybe Hayl is still alive? If he's in the Phantom Zone and-- and not aging... Is he still alive?"
The A.I.s shared another long, considering look again, including Dr. Sullivan in it as well, as if they were silently debating just how much to tell Clark.
"It is not beyond the realm of possibility." the Lara said. "But the Phantom Zone is a dangerous place. There are nine centuries worth of Krypton's greatest enemies imprisoned there, from both the planet and far abroad. And Zod, as well. A young Kryptonian of Hayl-El's age may not have survived very long."
Clark winced. Zod just looked like a highly unpleasant person. A man who might hold a grudge for years on end, just because he could. And if he blamed Jor-El for his failure in the misinformed revolution, then he might take his anger out on the nearest person; to hurt Jor-El in any way he could even without being able to lay a hand on the man himself. Clark's own brother- brother! - might have taken the brunt of Zod's anger against their father.
"I-Is there anything... Anything I can do?" Clark wondered. There was a sharp ache in his chest; he had a brother who may or may not have been alive. It made him shiver to think on it. As the only child his parents would ever have, Clark had thought of siblings in an abstract kind of way, always watching Pete raise hell against his younger siblings and wonder vaguely what it was like to have a brother or a sister. How massive the fights would have been, if they both had the same powers. Heat vision burns, super-strength punches, ground-shaking wrestling, whispering insults at each other below the threshold of human hearing.
And up until he was thirteen, he had believed himself to be of his parents' flesh and blood.
"Yes, you can get the Phantom Zone projector away from Nam-Ek. Dr. Essex." Dr. Sullivan said. "Get it away from him without him making you activate it and get it somewhere safe."
"What?"
"You were sent to Earth with a projector, a doorway to the Phantom Zone." the Jor-El said.
"And it was stupid to put it so close to the Phantom Drive." Dr. Sullivan added.
"Yes, yes, but we didn't have time to work out the logistics." The A.I. construct actually rolled its eyes. "All Zone prisoners are fitted with a beacon tag prior to being sent through the doorway. The tag is a must for entry or else the doorway does not recognize them as prisoners. The frequency of the beacon that Hay likely still has in his possession was unknown to Jor-El or his wife. Zod was the only one who knew the frequency and he would not give it up. The projector is attuning itself to the frequency even as we speak, attempting to locate the beacon tag. Jor-El believed until the moment of his death that Hayl could be retrieved, but he estimated that it would be thirty years, give or take, before the projector creates the correct retrieval frequency."
"But-- he could still be alive." Clark said, searching for confirmation on that. "My brother could still be alive."
"Do not give up hope." The Lara tapped the sigil-badge on her belt. "The House of El chose this symbol as their house crest for a reason. It is the Kryptonian hieroglyph for 'hope'. The House of El has always believed that all things are possible, with a little bit of faith and a lot of effort."
It sounded like the exact same thing his adoptive parents had extolled. Both Johnathan and Martha believed in doing the heavy lifting yourself. They didn't find much reason to respect someone who wanted to accomplish something, but only wanted the magic pill solution. They believed that if you weren't willing to put in the hard work and effort to get there, then you didn't deserve the benefits.
They also knew that, even when you put in your very best, sometimes all you could do was hold your breath and pray that it all paid off.
"However, Nam-Ek's currently got the thing. He just can't use it. The projector is locked to your biometrics, Clark." Dr. Sullivan said. He looked grim. "He's going to come after you again and when he catches you -- it's not a matter of 'if', he will -- he's going to make you open the door."
"Why does he want to open the door?" Clark asked.
"To retrieve General Zod and the rest of his followers." the engineer answered. "Nam-Ek was party to the cause and loyal to Zod from the start. He just wasn't on-world when Krypton went. A conference on Daxam, I think?"
"Yes, the ethics of gene-splicing crossbreeds." the Jor-El nodded. He turned to Clark. "You will need to stop Nam-Ek. Let him open the doorway."
Clark blinked, his jaw dropping. "What?"
"I thought the point was not to let him--!" Dr. Sullivan sputtered, throwing his hands up. "I knew you were a little mad, Jor-El, but opening the doorway-"
"And then throw him in." the Jor-El finished, silencing the older Kryptonian with a severe look. "The fabrication machines here in the Fortress are creating a beacon tag. Attach it to his clothes and push him through the doorway."
"But that'd be-- cruel." Clark protested. Everything they had just told him about all the worst criminals and the lack of passing time and the comments that death would be a kinder fate...
"Do you think you could kill him?" the Jor-El wondered. "If you do not want to put him in the Phantom Zone, then the only other option that would ensure that he does not harm the people of Earth would be to kill him."
"I don't like either option." Clark stated. His shoulders sunk. "But I know I couldn't kill him."
He had never taken a life before and he knew that he never would. At least, he had never been in circumstances that might demand that he take a life and frankly, he hoped that he never would find himself in them.
The Jor-El nodded. "The beacon tag will be completed and programmed in approximately three hours."
"But what if he lasers me in the chest again?"
"The fabrication machines are also creating this." The Lara made a gesture with a hand like she was pulling something up and a new hard-light construct appeared beside her. "Kar-treated rethm armor. There is enough in the Fortress's stores to create at least two more suits. It should withstand the temperature and intensity of the heat-beams, though we will not have a chance to field-test it. It will likewise be ready in three hours. It's not as complicated as the tag."
"It's colorful." Clark said, not sure if that was exactly complimentary. Because it was very colorful and it didn't look particularly practical for armor. Form-fitting, really. Armor really wasn't supposed to be that form-fitting.
"The House colors. It's important." the Jor-El said, a bit proudly.
"Is the cape important too?"
"Yes." the Jor-El said, just as the Lara said "No." and he looked at her like she had just insulted him.
"Ugh." Dr. Sullivan turned away to face-palm in private. "I'm starting to think they ran an imprint and spliced it into sequences. Lara never would have let him program in his fashion sense."
Clark smothered a giggle. "He likes capes?"
"Your father was a dandy. When he wasn't mucking around in his lab, he was quite the fashionista. Always on top of the latest trends, swanning around in his everyday best. It was embarrassing." The engineer shook his head like he thought this was a failing. "The last I saw, he was trying to bring capes back into style."
"So I should just wear the cape to make him happy?" Clark asked, almost too amused to reject the idea.
"You don't want to deal with a pouty A.I." Dr. Sullivan said darkly, seeming to recall personal experience.
The Jor-El suddenly clapped his hands briskly (while the Lara shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose in dismay). "Do you have any other questions?" he inquired.
"Yeah." Clark nodded, wondering why they were even asking. Of course he had questions. He still had a lot of questions, about himself, about his family, about Krypton, and there were three hours to kill. He might as well make the most of it. "I just hope you know the answers."
North of the city was the district of Bakerline. It contained the boroughs of Vernon, Racine, and the much-reviled Metrodale. Anyone with an eye for symbolism doubtlessly would have noted the sheer contrast between the two former and the latter. Metrodale lurked like a puddle of dirty, oily rainwater on a pristine paved parking lot; its tract housing and collapsing sidewalks a sharp contrast to the green lawns and middle to upper class homes of Vernon and Racine.
It didn't take an eye for symbolism to see that Metrodale was a "black" neighborhood. That was, it was the unfortunate home for many black people driven out of better areas by institutionalized racism and currently lacked the means to move back to those better areas. So in that way, it also contrasted sharply with the other two boroughs.
Racine had once been the haven of artists and musicians and the like, but the allure of low rent living had attracted residents from a higher tax bracket and thusly driving the cost of living higher than the artist community could afford. The artists had migrated south to Pelham and Little Bohemia, settling in around the college in Mount Royal. Racine became the home of the wealthy and influential, of the business class and the politicians of Metropolis. Lex Luthor kept a Scottish Baronial mansion, transplanted brick by brick from the Scottish moors, though it was said that he preferred the luxury penthouse in Midtown, as to not be far from his work and his upper-level security system that repelled even the most intrepid of intruders. The Scottish manor functioned as little more than a status symbol.
As a result of so many wealthy individuals buying out the lots and building god knew what on them, the houses were a bizarre mixture of colonial and modern and various forms of renaissance and revival architecture. That being said, the driveway that Colletta brought them to led up to a sleek modern house that must have been built just around the time that ultra-modern had started to appear. The walls were largely insulated glass, reinforced at the corners with white-washed concrete columns and there was a significant proliferation of stainless steel, from the few interior walls to the appliances.
"Your detective lives here? There is no way he affords this on a cop's salary. You guys only make about thirty dollars an hour." Lois complained.
"That's still a lot of money." Colletta pointed out. "I mean, it might get you into Vernon if you live in a crap place for a year or two, so it's not that weird."
"Yeah, but I only make twelve bucks an hour and I live in Pelham." Lois said softly, leaning forward to get a better look. "A good area of Pelham, but still Pelham. No way this guy lives alone."
"Nope, he moved in with his fiancée. She owns an art gallery or she's a model... Or both. Something expensive, for sure." Colletta looked at the house with vague envy. She was a West River brat, born and raised, and she had moved right back in after the first round of renovation three years earlier. It was a better area than where she had grown up, but it was hard to ignore the state of the rest of the island.
"Are you sure he can help?" Steve wondered skeptically. There was something off-putting about learning that a cop lived in a shiny glass house on the rich side of town. Like it made them seem less trustworthy.
"Oh, he can. I think it's just a matter of if he's going to." Colletta admitted. She gave the front door a thoughtful look, like she was doubting for a moment that the detective would indeed help, but then she shrugged and started to get out of the car.
Lois shared a quick questioning look with Steve and then decided to herself that there was nothing else for it. If Colletta thought the detective could help, then Lois just might be able to convince him to.
She was good at convincing people without openly threatening them.
But if he really wanted to bring Sofia Gigante in...
Steve was still having a few misgivings about this, but he couldn't see any other course of action. If they were going to throw Trask and Gigante off their scent, they needed all the help they could get.
They joined Colletta at the door when she was ringing the doorbell, doing so incessantly until a light snapped on over the stairs inside and then the porch light followed suit, bathing them in a white mercury glow. There was a series of frustrated-sounding stomps across the foyer until the door was yanked open by someone who looked deeply unhappy about being woken up.
"Officer Kanigher, do you have any idea what time it is?" Detective Jim Gordon demanded from the depths of his dressing gown. He looked to be only thirty years old with brown hair cut short -- like a military haircut that had grown out -- and dark blue eyes. Currently, there was a five o'clock shadow on his chin.
"Time and crime wait for no one, detective." Colletta said shamelessly. "Are you busy?"
"I was asleep." Detective Gordon growled, almost literally. He stepped gingerly over the threshold to shut the door, his bare toes curling on the cold concrete under them. "What's going on that so important you try breaking down my door at midnight?"
"First of all, this is Lois Lane." Colletta said, gesturing to the reporter. "She's our favorite reporter around the SCU because she doesn't mush facts. Seriously, if you don't want to be mis-quoted for the drama, go to Lois because she's s got more moral fiber in her work ethic than most people have in their diet.
"And this is Steve Trevor. I met him five or ten minutes ago." She gestured to the former agent. "I'm formally taking these two into police protection because they're being hunted down by this government fuck-wad agent named Jason Trask and he might be working in conjunction with Sofia Gigante and I want your help in keeping them safe."
If Detective Gordon hadn't been entirely awake before, he was now. Lois saw the man shift from being disgruntled to vastly interested. His grumpy face persisted and he didn't seem to like that they had his attention now. His eyes flicked between Steve, Colletta, and Lois's faces for a moment, doubling back over them once before returning to Colletta.
"Officer Kanigher, is this another effort to lure me over to the SCU on Lieutenant Sawyer's behalf?" he asked.
"Hahahah, why would you ask that?" the young police officer asked, like it was ridiculous to even consider that. "No, no, nothing like that. I'm totally acting of my own initiative this time and it's not to seduce you into the SCU--"
Lois stepped in front of Colletta to shut her up before she dug a nice hole for herself.
"Detective Gordon, Lois Lane." the reporter said. Introducing herself was automatic, as was the handshake. "Lieutenant Sawyer might be fishing to get you into the SCU, but this has nothing to do with that. What Colletta is trying to say is I can help you take Gigante down. And I mean down. So far down not even Papa Falcone could get her back on her feet. Not for a few years, at least."
Detective Gordon canted an eyebrow. "What do you think I've been trying to do for over a year and a half, Miss Lane?"
"Well, it's different this time." Lois said confidently. "You've got me."
"How does that make it different?"
"I used to work for her."
Because that was exactly how far afield Lois's rebellious teenage years had taken her. Catalyzed by her mother's death and exacerbated by her father's absent parenting, she had cut herself loose and disappeared into the streets of Metropolis. Within weeks, she had been picked up by one of Gigante's gangs and had spent the next two years doing things she had never imagined herself doing, on the mafia queen's orders. Lois had never been the straight-laced child, but there were lines she hadn't crossed until then. But once it had become clear how deep down the rabbit hole she had been expected to go, she had let herself get caught by the police in order to get out.
Lois had been trying to make up for those two years ever since.
Detective Gordon blinked, his mouth opening up a little in surprise. Lois knew what that was about. Few people who left Gigante's employment did so in one piece and even when you still had all of your fingers, there was usually a disfiguring scar or a permanent limp. She had gotten ridiculously lucky.
"Not directly, I admit. But the gang I was a part of worked pretty closely with her most times. We were her favorites." Lois added, to assure him that all of her information would be valuable.
The detective inhaled sharply and appeared to buoy up instead of looking overwhelmed by the sudden chance of jumping on leads he had never seen. It was rare for anyone to come forward with information on a mafia queen as notorious as Sofia Gigante. She was a bull, but her father was the horns. No wanted to mess with that.
Except for Lois Lane.
"The relevant files are downtown; Elle doesn't like me bringing work home." Gordon said, reaching for the doorknob. "Let me get dressed first."
-0-
The idea of Superman having a brother comes from the Silver Age character Mon-El, who crash-landed to Earth and displayed an identical power-set. It turned out that Mon-El was actually from the planet Daxam and not related to Superman at all and also spent a very lengthy period of time in the Phantom Zone so he wouldn't die of lead poisoning, which is also where I got the idea that time passes very slowly there or not at all (this pre-dates CBS Supergirl). All the same, I figured why not run with the idea and I fiddled with it until I got Hayl-El out of it.