A/N: I know I missed last week's chapter, and you all aren't going to love my timing here, but . . . for some reason, I've been having a really hard time rebuilding a queue on this one, and it's getting to be more stressful than fun, so I'm going to scale back the updates for a bit until I can rebuild my queue (and, well, my health).

Chapter 56 - Insurgence

Pamela and Lionel were dragged (or in Lionel's case, rolled) out of the office, down the hall, and into another room. Adrenaline kept Pamela alert; at the moment, she didn't feel the fear. Clearly Lionel hadn't sent these people. Whoever had sent them . . . well, they must have been a piece of work, to go after LuthorCorp so directly like this. She had to admire their bravery, though she couldn't imagine that level of stupidity.

The new room was the one with the vault, which didn't surprise Pamela in the least. A woman was working at the vault with a blowtorch, trying to burn through the door. One man stood in front of the vault with a gun. Another man was tied down—maybe he had decided he didn't want to go through with their reckless plan.

"Hey, Pine, I got a little present for you," the gunman who had dragged them there said to the man in front of the vault. "Lionel Luthor."

"Good. He just saved us a whole lot of time. Get him to open the vault."

"It's too late, genius," the bound man said, "you already burned the plate."

The gunman in the room—Pine—glared back at the bound man. Pamela took the moment of awkward silence to try to catch her breath and take stock of the situation. She couldn't run; she'd be shot before she made it far. They couldn't fight; Lionel couldn't even walk. Maybe she could somehow call for help.

She highly doubted any of the people in this room really had any intention of shooting anyone. They were thieves; they probably hadn't even intended to run into Lionel or Pamela in this building. They'd just meant to steal whatever was in the vault and get out, and it had seemed easier to get Lionel to do it than to break into the vault themselves.

"You're wasting your time, you know," Lionel said. "There's nothing in there of value to any of you."

Just then, the security alarms started blaring.

Pine hurried over to a control panel. "How the hell did the cops get tipped off?"

Pamela glanced down at Lionel, whose hand had shifted, a blinking red light just visible. She almost smiled. Leave it to Lionel to be prepared.

Unfortunately, Pine saw it, too. He ran over and grabbed Lionel's wrist. "What do you got in your hand?" He pried Lionel's fingers open, revealing a little silver cylinder with a flashing red light.

"Panic button," the bound man said. "State of the art."

Lionel grinned. "A man in my position can never take too many precautions."

The bound man started shouting. "We should've gotten out when I said! If you'd kept to the plan, none of this would have happened!"

Pine sighed, pulled his gun from his waistband, and calmly shot the bound man in the chest.

Immediately the room broke out in shouting, the people turning their guns on each other. Pamela wasn't sticking around to be caught in the crossfire, and even if a SWAT team arrived in time to save them, she knew she was a nobody whose life would be worth nothing in comparison with the CEO of the state's largest corporation. There was a good chance she'd be found and shot if she tried to escape, but she couldn't see any chance of survival if she stayed.

So she ran.

Lex had a mountain of work to get through that weekend—overseeing the meteor rock research was like having another part time job on top of his very full time one—but he couldn't focus on anything. He was thinking about the surveillance team he'd sent into LuthorCorp. It had been over an hour since they'd entered the building; he didn't know exactly how long to expect them to take, but he couldn't help but worry that something had gone wrong.

He knew it was a huge risk to send people in like this. Maybe it wasn't ethical, either. Part of him wished he'd run his plans by someone before he carried them out. It wasn't like him at all to do that, or to even think of doing that, but ever since he'd left his father to die, it was as if his conscience had been left on high alert, not quite trusting his judgement. Not that he could blame it, but he'd always made his own decisions without worrying what anyone else thought of him. Now he had Pamela to worry about, and Clark, and Clark's parents. They were like a family to him; he doubted any of them would approve of what he'd hired that surveillance team to do.

Lex shoved down his guilt. He'd been doing this to protect Pamela. As much as he trusted his family members' judgement about every day morality, perhaps more than his own, they couldn't know what it was like to run a corporation.

Finally, he made up his mind to tell Pamela what he'd done, but not until it was all over. He knew it was a case of asking forgiveness rather than permission, but he wanted to talk out his decision with someone. Even if she was upset with him for a little while, he'd feel better in the end.

Settled in his resolve, he was just getting ready to call Kern, the man he'd hired, when his cell phone started to buzz. It was Pamela.

He picked up. "Hey, I was going to call you, I—"

"Lex. You have to send help."

Lex stood from his desk. "Where are you?"

She took several heavy breaths—it sounded like she was running. "I'm at LuthorCorp headquarters. With your father. Men came in . . . with guns . . . someone got shot . . . I ran . . ."

"Wait, wait, slow down."

"They're going to come looking for me."

"Who?"

"Some men got into the building. I don't know how, someone must have sent them. They're trying to get into the vault."

Lex felt the blood draining from his face. It must be his team. He'd given them the tools they needed to get into the building; they were already breaking the law by following his guidance, so what was it to them if they broke into the vault while they were there? "Are there any security alarms going off?"

"Yeah, your father had a panic button."

A small measure of relief washed over him. "A SWAT team should be coming."

"They're not here yet. You have to send someone, local police or—or . . ."

Clark. Clark could get them out safe, if he was there. In the meantime, he had to help her escape. "There's a secret elevator out of the building. I can direct you to it, but you have to stay calm and—"

"He's found me." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "Alexander, he found me."

"Just hang on, I'm sending help."

The line went dead.

Cold beads of sweat broke out on Lex's forehead. He reattached his voice modulator and dialed the number for the surveillance team.

The reply came before the second ring: "What."

"I hired you to bug an office, not create a media circus!"

"Yeah, well, we ran into a little snag."

Lex frowned—that wasn't the same voice he'd dealt with before. "Who is this?"

"Tell you what, Mr. Green. You show me your caller ID and I'll show you mine."

"I want to talk to Kern. Now."

"Yeah, well, Kern's definitely not in charge anymore."

Something about the way the man said it sent new chills down Lex's spine. He was absolutely certain that Kern was dead. "Listen to me."

"No, you listen to me. We don't take orders from you. Don't call this number again. Are we clear?"

"Do whatever you want to Lionel, but don't hurt that woman."

"Oh, you know her? Maybe we'll use that to trace you down."

Lex scrambled for a lie he hoped was believable enough. "I make a habit of knowing my enemies and their associates. That woman is new. She's innocent."

"So she's nobody. That's good to know." With that, the man hung up.

Lex almost threw his cell phone across the room. He settled for sweeping the contents of his desk onto the floor. Then he dialed Clark's cell.

Clark took four full rings to pick up. "Hello?"

"Clark, have you seen the news?"

"No. Why?"

"Some men broke into LuthorCorp headquarters. They're holding Pamela hostage. How fast can you run to Metropolis?"

"Ah, five minutes?"

Five minutes was eternity. "Can you push it any faster?"

"I can try."

"Please."

"Don't worry, Lex," Clark said, and he hung up.

Lex's next call was for his helicopter. Because even if it was going to take him a little longer to get there, he was not going to watch this one from the sidelines.