Lois was as still as a statue.
She didn't move. She didn't blink. She was even holding her breath.
The lights had been off for at least thirty seconds.
The room was pitch-black. Lois could no longer see the floor to ceiling room length mirrors. She couldn't see the camera or the floor lamps. So couldn't make out the contours of the foam covering the walls and ceiling. In fact, she couldn't have seen her hand if it was an inch from her face.
There was only darkness.
Lois silently waited for one of three things to happen; to get shocked; for Jeremiah to come in and subject her to some other horrible cruelty; or for the lights to just simply come back on.
And as the seconds ticked by, nothing happened. No shocks. No Jeremiah. No lights.
Lois exhaled.
Her mind was racing frantically. If Jeremiah was watching her before, this sudden darkness was the opportunity she needed to free herself. He couldn't see her make her escape.
The only question was how.
In the time Lois had spent testing the restraints, she realized one indisputable fact: her hands were too big to slip the straps.
There was no chance of freeing her right hand. The strap was too tight and she didn't have any leverage or play between her wrist and the leather.
Her left hand had a little play, but still not enough to snake free. She wouldn't get her hand past the strap without breaking something in the process.
And the second she thought it was the second she decided to do it.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
And she pulled.
With every muscle in her strained, tired, exhausted arm, Lois tried to pull her small, delicate, dainty, left hand out from under a thick leather strap.
And she broke her thumb.
There was a loud snap in the blinding darkness of the room, followed by a blood curdling scream of agony.
Tears erupted from her eyes as the pain shot up her arm, but still she pulled.
She pulled and screamed and cried and tugged and wiggled and screamed some more.
And finally, in a final act of utter desperation, her hand slipped free.
Lois cried silently through labored breaths as she pulled her aching appendage to her chest. Her entire left arm was one big ache that throbbed with every beat of her heart.
She tested her dexterity. Her fingers all moved normally, albeit, sore and tender.
Her thumb was destroyed. The metacarpal was broken and the metacarpal joint was completely dislocated. She tried to move it and felt nothing but pain.
Lois steadied herself quickly, whispering "The hard parts over." in her head. "Now for the rest of the straps."
And with four fingers and a broken thumb, Lois Lane-Kent began freeing herself.
Jeremiah was cursing silently to himself.
"How could I have forgotten to activate the generator?" he thought to himself.
He was walking down a thin hall that ran beside the small room that held his captor, a small beam of light illuminating his path. "At least I didn't forget the flashlight."
In fact, he did remember the small flashlight, but took several minutes to locate it in the darkness and the clutter of his desk drawers. Now, torch in hand, he was making his way down the hall to restore the power.
He stopped next to the door that lead into the sound proof room and placed his head close to it. He could just make out the faintest sound of screaming coming from the other side.
"Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark…" he whispered to himself, knowing Lois couldn't hear him.
He continued down the hall and headed left at the first junction. At the end of that corridor, nestled in the corner, was a large gas generator. Jeremiah knelt beside it and pressed a small rubber button to prime the engine three times, and then pulled on the lawnmower style ignition cord.
It took him four tries, but finally, the engine roared to life in a small cloud of exhaust and the stench of gasoline.
The lights blinked a few times and slowly returned to life.
Jeremiah clicked off the flashlight and set off back down the corridor. The first order of business: getting his computers back up and running.
The lack of power had concerned him for three reasons: One, the monitoring program he was running that allowed him to "listen" in on all emergency chatter and updates, including everyone from the MPD and the MFD, to the FBI and MHD. When the power went out, it left him blind and deaf as far as they were concerned.
The second reason was his need to maintain power to his laptop. The batteries gave him up to three hours of life, but nevertheless, he wanted to ensure nothing happened to the programs running on it; specifically, the redirect program. It ensured that the transmission he had broadcast earlier could never be traced, but would appear to have originated from a seemingly endless series of satellite relays.
The final reason was the Psionic Dampeners. As long as they were activated, no telepath could detect their thoughts and pinpoint their location, and while he wasn't sure how telepathy worked, he was certain that the few minutes it took him to restore the power wasn't enough for anyone to find them.
He was back at his desk in moments, powering up the CPUs and turning the monitors back on.
It wasn't until after he checked to make sure the redirect program was still running uninterrupted that he realized the sound proof room was still bathed in darkness. The floor lamps that had previously illuminated the space were off.
Jeremiah cursed again and snatched up his flashlight.
And as he walked down the hall towards the locked door, a sense of dread fell over him.
Jeremiah thought about Lois, and the smile she had given him.
A chill ran down his spine.
"Pull it together!" he told himself. "Just go in and turn the lamps back on. She's tied to a chair and completely helpless. What's the worst she can do?"