Recovery (Superman Returns) 6/?
RECOVERY
RATING: PG-13 (for now)
PAIRING: Eventual Lois&Clark.
SUMMARY: Lex Luthor's plotting anew while Lois, Richard, Jason and Clark come to terms with changes to their lives after Superman returns. (Ch.6: 2,900 words)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Apologies for the long, dry spell between installments! Thanks to beta-queen htbthomas for catching my typos.
CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER TWO | CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR | CHAPTER FIVE
The roar of the seaplane taxiing towards the dock was drowned out by Jason’s yelp of excitement. He thundered down the stairs from his room while Lois slowly made her way up from the laundry room, a large basket of clean clothing balanced against her hip. "Careful!" she shouted to Jason as he wrestled with the back door. "Wait until the engine’s stopped before you run out there. And it’s cold out so put on your coat. You know the rules."
Her son sighed dramatically as he dropped his hand from the knob, his eyes never leaving the plane that was slowly maneuvering up to land. "But, Mom, it’s Dad. He’s finally home!"
"Rules are rules. Wait!" she ordered sternly, but then put down the basket to give him a hug and help fasten his jacket. Silence suddenly loomed and Jason looked up at his mother excitedly. She nodded and he was out the door in an instant. "Dad!"
Lois stayed inside while Richard and Jason caught up. It had been almost a week that her fiancé had been in Washington covering the summit on African issues and the long absence had been hard on Jason. For her part, the days without Richard had been filled with work as she’d teamed up with Clark both to try and track down Luthor as well as provide Perry with the front page stories he’d demanded. But the nights when she hadn’t immediately fallen into an exhausted sleep had been dogged with worries and recrimination as Lois had mentally replayed Richard’s sad question.
"When are you going to admit to yourself that you’re still in love with Superman?"
Her guilt was compounded by the secrets she still kept. How could she tell Richard that not only might his fiancée still be entranced by her old flame, but that the son he’d raised and loved was also that man’s child? Her life felt like something out of a soap opera but worst of all was that she didn’t know what to do. For Lois Lane, used to tackling life as she tackled stories, head-on and relentless, this was almost unprecedented.
Her introspection had to be put aside; Richard had secured the seaplane and grabbed his suitcase while allowing Jason to carry his well-traveled attaché. Together they made their way to the back door. Lois opened the door as they approached. "Welcome back," she managed.
Richard raised an eyebrow at the stilted phrase, but bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek. "It was a long trip."
"Daddy got to meet a prince who’s my age."
Lois smiled indulgently at Jason’s awed tone. "Sounds neat! You’ll have lots of time to hear all of his stories after you get ready for bed."
Jason opened his mouth to argue, but saw equally determined expressions on both of the adults’ faces. He settled for dropping Richard’s attaché on the kitchen table and racing to his room as fast as he could.
Lois leaned back against the kitchen counter, feigning a relaxation she didn’t feel. "So, how was your trip?"
Richard shrugged. "It went well. Perry will be pleased. I got some great interviews and we’re pulling together some extended coverage for the international section. Anything to eat? I skipped dinner so I would be back before Jason’s bedtime."
Lois nodded and busied herself with reheating some leftovers, happy for something to do. She accepted the glass of wine Richard offered her after she laid out his plate, but refused the chair at the table. Richard opened his mouth as if to speak, but the sound of Jason’s feet thundering back down the stairs caused him to pause. "This isn’t over, Lois. We need to talk."
As Jason skid into the room, clad in his flannel pajamas, Lois nodded silently. She took refuge in slow sips from her wine glass and tried not to let her disquiet show. Soon Richard was laughingly taking Jason’s hand to tuck him into bed.
Lois drew out the kitchen clean-up for a long time but Richard didn’t return. She tracked him down in the living room where he was watching the news with a wry grimace on his face. Without being able to see the screen or hear the announcer, Lois nevertheless knew that Superman was on the screen. Only the last son of Krypton evoked such a mixed reaction from her fiancé.
Cocking her head to one side, Lois braved the inevitable. "Are you ready to talk, now?"
Richard turned off the television and nodded. "Yes, Lois."
Warily, she sat down in the chair across from him and waited. Richard seemed to be searching for words: not a problem the expressive newsman often faced. But when he caught her eye, Lois shivered in apprehension. His gaze seemed sorrowful yet firm. Without hearing a word, she knew what he was going to say.
"Lois, it’s over." As she opened her mouth, wordlessly, Richard raised a hand to stay her protests. "Look, I don’t want to have a long, drawn out fight over this. I don’t want to fight at all. But after six years together, more or less, I’ve come to the realization that this is never going to happen."
Richard looked away, over his shoulder, off to the night-dark city skyline, then back to Lois across the coffee table. "I said before that I don’t want to be your second best. And I don’t mean Jason, there. I know he’s your first priority, mine, too! But I’ve known, ever since Superman came back, ever since we went back to rescue him, that he’s the reason why you couldn’t commit to our relationship. And even if you did, it would be a lie. I don’t want to live a lie, Lois."
Richard laughed, hollow and helpless. "I was prepared to give you all the time in the world because a marriage certificate doesn’t mean all that much in the end. And though I know you’d be faithful to me because you’re that way, I don’t want to keep you tied down when your heart belongs elsewhere."
Throughout his speech, Lois was shaking her head in negation. When he paused to take breath, she stormed in. "Richard, I’ve told you, I’m not involved with Superman. I’m not going to be involved with Superman. I have a son, a fiancé, a job and a life that I’m happy with. I don’t want to see things change."
As she spoke, her stomach churned. Richard’s expression was sweetly sympathetic but distancing. Inwardly, she knew that change was inevitable, especially when she eventually broached the subject of Jason’s real parentage. Richard would always love Jason as his son, she knew this, but this revelation, coming as it would on the heels of Richard’s own feelings of displacement by Superman, would be one heartbreak too many. Helplessly, Lois closed her mouth and blinked back furious tears. No matter what she did, change was coming and coming fast.
Richard interrupted her musing when he laid a hand on hers. "Hey, Lois. I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t just be your security blanket. If you’re not going to be here with me but out there whenever he’s around, it’s not something I can take, at least not easily."
"You’re leaving us, then?" Lois glanced up towards Jason’s bedroom. She trusted he was already deeply asleep, but still, she worried that he’d somehow overhear his parents’ conversation.
Shifting uneasily in his seat, Richard nodded. "It’s not going to be a rush but I’ve been talking with Uncle Perry. The Planet’s looking to expand our international bureau again with a real, onsite editorial presence. I’ve been talking with him about whom to recommend or recruit to this position for months but, really, there’s nobody internally who’s qualified for the position, except me."
Lois closed her eyes, hoping to shut out what she knew was following. As she listened, Richard explained the position which, she had to admit, seemed tailor-made for his expertise. And she knew that, even without Superman’s return, they might well be sitting here in this very room, right now, talking over the pros and cons of his accepting the overseas posting. But with they way things had changed, the list of cons that Richard mentioned came up short except in one area.
"Jason. What about Jason?" Lois demanded.
"He’ll understand. Heck, I was even going to suggest that he could come spend March break with me after I’m settled there. He could meet that young prince we were talking about earlier." Richard smiled indulgently.
"No, I mean, what are we going to tell him about us?"
Her fiancé blinked and looked away again. "Nothing right now, I’d suggest. We can play it by ear and just start by telling him that I’m going to be posted abroad for the next several months. He’s used to both of us traveling. This will just be a bit bigger."
***
Lois tapped her fingers on the wheel as she waited at the red light. Clark hunched over in the passenger seat, flipping impossibly quickly through a file of papers they'd picked up from the courthouse.
"Well?" Lois demanded as she sharply accelerated the car as the light turned green. "Anything useful in the Vanderworth lawsuit?"
"The money essentially disappeared when it was transferred out of the Metropolis banks after Gertrude Vanderworth's death. Untraceable movement to numbered accounts in amounts small enough to not attract notice, but it drained the coffers dry within weeks. It's a dead end, though. There's not enough to go with to Perry," Clark explained.
Looking up to see Lois' furrowed brow and dangerously pursed lips he dug through the pile for another folder and quickly elaborated. "However, if you put together the with these phone records you finagled, matters get a bit more interesting. It appears that calls were placed to the Grand Caymans just before every series of bank transfers were run."
"The Caymans?" Lois braked and spun the wheel to sharply corner the vehicle as they moved into the industrial district outside the Metropolis docklands. "Where that company that bought out Roscoe's prototype is located. The company under the direction of Kitty Kowalski, who went out with Lex and his goons on that yacht that Jason and I almost died on."
Clark nodded emphatically as he shuffled the papers together. "It doesn't prove that Luthor's alive and involved, but somebody spent a lot of money to acquire that device and that was after the whole. . ." his voice trailed off as searched for a word to encompass the chaos Luthor had brought to Metropolis and nearly all of earth. Involuntarily, Clark sighed and dropped his head lower.
"Disaster?" Lois supplied, maneuvering her car into a slushy lot. She cut the engine, then turned to glare at Clark. "Don't waste our time on the past, Clark. I need you with me on this investigation, especially since Perry's not authorizing it. Having to work it around all our other stories is hard enough. Having to work around a partner is not going to help. At least this follow-up about Roscoe's invention lets us kill two birds with one stone. But not if we're late to meet with his old teacher!"
Following Lois's lead, Clark got out of the car and headed towards the service entrance of the somewhat shabby university building. Soon they were welcomed inside the overcrowded laboratory of Professor Philip Schmidt, a wiry, white-haired scientist who regarded them both with a penetrating gaze.
"You're not here to sling mud, are you?" The elderly academic regarded both of the reporters in turn before closing the heavy door behind them. "Met U security is just a phone call away if you're only interviewing me to try and ferret out some scandals about Jacob Roscoe. All these vultures from the other papers have been calling me since Jacob was murdered, wanting to know if he was a cross-dresser or stalked co-eds or something. Sensationalism, bah!"
Clark stood a bit taller as the older man spoke. "No, sir. We want to know about the science behind all of this. What was so different about his invention? How does this relate to your own research and investigations?"
Schmidt cocked an eyebrow at that. "Buttering me up?"
Clark stammered a shocked negation and continued to stutter his assurances to the professor, who smiled slightly as he indicated they should follow him further into the complex.
"It's okay, Mr. Kent. I believe you. I just have to make sure you two're worth my time." With that, the professor was off and running, taking them on a whirlwind tour of the laboratory site, rattling off information about his former student's related research program and achievements. The reporters peppered Professor Schmidt with questions about the science involved and the older man joked that he should recruit them to his research team.
Stopping before a darkened doorway, he turned to regard the reporters with a gleam in his eye. "You've been remarkably patient. I guess you really do want to know about this stuff. So I've got something special to share with you. You know how the one prototype disappeared from his business?" Lois and Clark nodded in unison and the professor's smile broadened. "Well, that wasn't the only prototype in existence."
He flicked on a switch and punched in a passcode to the lock. "Jacob developed his scanner after he left Met U, but he needed our help, my help, to bring his vision to life. The two of us spent weeks in this lab, trying to make it work. It took all our ingenuity, but in the end, we developed this."
With a sweep of his hand, Professor Schmidt directed their attention into the dimly lit room where a long table held a haphazard contraption incorporating a monitor, keyboard and small sensor dish.
Lois breathed her excitement. "You have a working model of the scanner?"
Professor Schmidt shrugged. "It works, yes, but it's not in any shape to be transported out of the lab. Jacob refined this design and built it into a case that was hardened for transport. But all the important elements are right here." Reaching over, the researcher flipped a switch on the machine and the monitor flicked to life.
While the screen flickered with a series of cryptic messages, Schmidt moved over to a cupboard at the end of the room and began to rummage around. "Jacob's genius was that he figured out how to combine both visual and microscopic levels of scanning into one machine. This detector not only maps what we can see, but provides a wealth of information about the chemical and physical makeup of the materials. For instance, let's scan some of these rock samples." He pulled a large piece of dull, grey stone and laid it in front of the detector. Immediately, the monitor began to flash until an image coalesced.
Clark and Lois stepped closer to the monitor, reading the information. A visual scan of the rough rock surface was accompanied by an analysis of the elements in the sample: silicon, iron and other elements were highlighted. A flick of one button switched the screen and Professor Schmidt demonstrated how the machine used satellite technology to link into databases to provide detailed information about the origins of the sample.
Never taking her eyes from the screen, Lois asked Schmidt, "How does it do the more detailed scans like I saw at the harbour?"
Schmidt smiled impishly and flipped another switch. The monitor displayed a topological image of the rock sample in its bare, metal tray. Almost dancing, he hurried over to a large cabinet beside the doorway. "It'll look even more impressive when I switch sample trays. We have one that's rather heavy, filled with water to simulate the underwater scans as you've mentioned but that's probably too much for us to move without my assistants. However, Jacob and I set up another to simulate a lunar surface as he hoped to license the technology to NASA or a commercial company. It demonstrates the full power of the scanner in great detail!"
Schmidt huffed with effort as he opened the cabinet. "Heavy," he explained, "lead-lined to reduce any contamination of the scanner results." Clark staggered slightly in the dim room as the cabinet door clanged against the wall. Professor Schmidt continued his explanations as he maneuvered a tray out of the cabinet but Clark didn't hear a word as he focused on the feeling of weakness that threatened to overwhelm him.
"Clark? Clark?" Lois's voice sounded thin and tinny so the feel of her hand on his shoulder was disconcerting. Clark lifted his hand to forestall any more inquiries and started to move towards the exit. He was stymied when Professor Schmidt rushed over from the scanner. "Is there a problem, Mr. Kent, Miss Lane? We have our extraterrestrial simulation almost ready to go. Of course it's not moon rocks but some meteorites we got from the Geology Department here at Met U. There's this absolutely beautiful great big hunk of green meteorite that shows up beautifully on the monitor. . . ."
But Clark heard no more as Professor Schmidt shoved the rock sample closer for their admiration. His eyes were rolling back in his head as the pure, unadulterated kryptonite sapped all the strength from his body.
RATING: PG-13 (for now)
PAIRING: Eventual Lois&Clark.
SUMMARY: Lex Luthor's plotting anew while Lois, Richard, Jason and Clark come to terms with changes to their lives after Superman returns. (Ch.6: 2,900 words)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Apologies for the long, dry spell between installments! Thanks to beta-queen htbthomas for catching my typos.
CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER TWO | CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR | CHAPTER FIVE
The roar of the seaplane taxiing towards the dock was drowned out by Jason’s yelp of excitement. He thundered down the stairs from his room while Lois slowly made her way up from the laundry room, a large basket of clean clothing balanced against her hip. "Careful!" she shouted to Jason as he wrestled with the back door. "Wait until the engine’s stopped before you run out there. And it’s cold out so put on your coat. You know the rules."
Her son sighed dramatically as he dropped his hand from the knob, his eyes never leaving the plane that was slowly maneuvering up to land. "But, Mom, it’s Dad. He’s finally home!"
"Rules are rules. Wait!" she ordered sternly, but then put down the basket to give him a hug and help fasten his jacket. Silence suddenly loomed and Jason looked up at his mother excitedly. She nodded and he was out the door in an instant. "Dad!"
Lois stayed inside while Richard and Jason caught up. It had been almost a week that her fiancé had been in Washington covering the summit on African issues and the long absence had been hard on Jason. For her part, the days without Richard had been filled with work as she’d teamed up with Clark both to try and track down Luthor as well as provide Perry with the front page stories he’d demanded. But the nights when she hadn’t immediately fallen into an exhausted sleep had been dogged with worries and recrimination as Lois had mentally replayed Richard’s sad question.
"When are you going to admit to yourself that you’re still in love with Superman?"
Her guilt was compounded by the secrets she still kept. How could she tell Richard that not only might his fiancée still be entranced by her old flame, but that the son he’d raised and loved was also that man’s child? Her life felt like something out of a soap opera but worst of all was that she didn’t know what to do. For Lois Lane, used to tackling life as she tackled stories, head-on and relentless, this was almost unprecedented.
Her introspection had to be put aside; Richard had secured the seaplane and grabbed his suitcase while allowing Jason to carry his well-traveled attaché. Together they made their way to the back door. Lois opened the door as they approached. "Welcome back," she managed.
Richard raised an eyebrow at the stilted phrase, but bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek. "It was a long trip."
"Daddy got to meet a prince who’s my age."
Lois smiled indulgently at Jason’s awed tone. "Sounds neat! You’ll have lots of time to hear all of his stories after you get ready for bed."
Jason opened his mouth to argue, but saw equally determined expressions on both of the adults’ faces. He settled for dropping Richard’s attaché on the kitchen table and racing to his room as fast as he could.
Lois leaned back against the kitchen counter, feigning a relaxation she didn’t feel. "So, how was your trip?"
Richard shrugged. "It went well. Perry will be pleased. I got some great interviews and we’re pulling together some extended coverage for the international section. Anything to eat? I skipped dinner so I would be back before Jason’s bedtime."
Lois nodded and busied herself with reheating some leftovers, happy for something to do. She accepted the glass of wine Richard offered her after she laid out his plate, but refused the chair at the table. Richard opened his mouth as if to speak, but the sound of Jason’s feet thundering back down the stairs caused him to pause. "This isn’t over, Lois. We need to talk."
As Jason skid into the room, clad in his flannel pajamas, Lois nodded silently. She took refuge in slow sips from her wine glass and tried not to let her disquiet show. Soon Richard was laughingly taking Jason’s hand to tuck him into bed.
Lois drew out the kitchen clean-up for a long time but Richard didn’t return. She tracked him down in the living room where he was watching the news with a wry grimace on his face. Without being able to see the screen or hear the announcer, Lois nevertheless knew that Superman was on the screen. Only the last son of Krypton evoked such a mixed reaction from her fiancé.
Cocking her head to one side, Lois braved the inevitable. "Are you ready to talk, now?"
Richard turned off the television and nodded. "Yes, Lois."
Warily, she sat down in the chair across from him and waited. Richard seemed to be searching for words: not a problem the expressive newsman often faced. But when he caught her eye, Lois shivered in apprehension. His gaze seemed sorrowful yet firm. Without hearing a word, she knew what he was going to say.
"Lois, it’s over." As she opened her mouth, wordlessly, Richard raised a hand to stay her protests. "Look, I don’t want to have a long, drawn out fight over this. I don’t want to fight at all. But after six years together, more or less, I’ve come to the realization that this is never going to happen."
Richard looked away, over his shoulder, off to the night-dark city skyline, then back to Lois across the coffee table. "I said before that I don’t want to be your second best. And I don’t mean Jason, there. I know he’s your first priority, mine, too! But I’ve known, ever since Superman came back, ever since we went back to rescue him, that he’s the reason why you couldn’t commit to our relationship. And even if you did, it would be a lie. I don’t want to live a lie, Lois."
Richard laughed, hollow and helpless. "I was prepared to give you all the time in the world because a marriage certificate doesn’t mean all that much in the end. And though I know you’d be faithful to me because you’re that way, I don’t want to keep you tied down when your heart belongs elsewhere."
Throughout his speech, Lois was shaking her head in negation. When he paused to take breath, she stormed in. "Richard, I’ve told you, I’m not involved with Superman. I’m not going to be involved with Superman. I have a son, a fiancé, a job and a life that I’m happy with. I don’t want to see things change."
As she spoke, her stomach churned. Richard’s expression was sweetly sympathetic but distancing. Inwardly, she knew that change was inevitable, especially when she eventually broached the subject of Jason’s real parentage. Richard would always love Jason as his son, she knew this, but this revelation, coming as it would on the heels of Richard’s own feelings of displacement by Superman, would be one heartbreak too many. Helplessly, Lois closed her mouth and blinked back furious tears. No matter what she did, change was coming and coming fast.
Richard interrupted her musing when he laid a hand on hers. "Hey, Lois. I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t just be your security blanket. If you’re not going to be here with me but out there whenever he’s around, it’s not something I can take, at least not easily."
"You’re leaving us, then?" Lois glanced up towards Jason’s bedroom. She trusted he was already deeply asleep, but still, she worried that he’d somehow overhear his parents’ conversation.
Shifting uneasily in his seat, Richard nodded. "It’s not going to be a rush but I’ve been talking with Uncle Perry. The Planet’s looking to expand our international bureau again with a real, onsite editorial presence. I’ve been talking with him about whom to recommend or recruit to this position for months but, really, there’s nobody internally who’s qualified for the position, except me."
Lois closed her eyes, hoping to shut out what she knew was following. As she listened, Richard explained the position which, she had to admit, seemed tailor-made for his expertise. And she knew that, even without Superman’s return, they might well be sitting here in this very room, right now, talking over the pros and cons of his accepting the overseas posting. But with they way things had changed, the list of cons that Richard mentioned came up short except in one area.
"Jason. What about Jason?" Lois demanded.
"He’ll understand. Heck, I was even going to suggest that he could come spend March break with me after I’m settled there. He could meet that young prince we were talking about earlier." Richard smiled indulgently.
"No, I mean, what are we going to tell him about us?"
Her fiancé blinked and looked away again. "Nothing right now, I’d suggest. We can play it by ear and just start by telling him that I’m going to be posted abroad for the next several months. He’s used to both of us traveling. This will just be a bit bigger."
***
Lois tapped her fingers on the wheel as she waited at the red light. Clark hunched over in the passenger seat, flipping impossibly quickly through a file of papers they'd picked up from the courthouse.
"Well?" Lois demanded as she sharply accelerated the car as the light turned green. "Anything useful in the Vanderworth lawsuit?"
"The money essentially disappeared when it was transferred out of the Metropolis banks after Gertrude Vanderworth's death. Untraceable movement to numbered accounts in amounts small enough to not attract notice, but it drained the coffers dry within weeks. It's a dead end, though. There's not enough to go with to Perry," Clark explained.
Looking up to see Lois' furrowed brow and dangerously pursed lips he dug through the pile for another folder and quickly elaborated. "However, if you put together the with these phone records you finagled, matters get a bit more interesting. It appears that calls were placed to the Grand Caymans just before every series of bank transfers were run."
"The Caymans?" Lois braked and spun the wheel to sharply corner the vehicle as they moved into the industrial district outside the Metropolis docklands. "Where that company that bought out Roscoe's prototype is located. The company under the direction of Kitty Kowalski, who went out with Lex and his goons on that yacht that Jason and I almost died on."
Clark nodded emphatically as he shuffled the papers together. "It doesn't prove that Luthor's alive and involved, but somebody spent a lot of money to acquire that device and that was after the whole. . ." his voice trailed off as searched for a word to encompass the chaos Luthor had brought to Metropolis and nearly all of earth. Involuntarily, Clark sighed and dropped his head lower.
"Disaster?" Lois supplied, maneuvering her car into a slushy lot. She cut the engine, then turned to glare at Clark. "Don't waste our time on the past, Clark. I need you with me on this investigation, especially since Perry's not authorizing it. Having to work it around all our other stories is hard enough. Having to work around a partner is not going to help. At least this follow-up about Roscoe's invention lets us kill two birds with one stone. But not if we're late to meet with his old teacher!"
Following Lois's lead, Clark got out of the car and headed towards the service entrance of the somewhat shabby university building. Soon they were welcomed inside the overcrowded laboratory of Professor Philip Schmidt, a wiry, white-haired scientist who regarded them both with a penetrating gaze.
"You're not here to sling mud, are you?" The elderly academic regarded both of the reporters in turn before closing the heavy door behind them. "Met U security is just a phone call away if you're only interviewing me to try and ferret out some scandals about Jacob Roscoe. All these vultures from the other papers have been calling me since Jacob was murdered, wanting to know if he was a cross-dresser or stalked co-eds or something. Sensationalism, bah!"
Clark stood a bit taller as the older man spoke. "No, sir. We want to know about the science behind all of this. What was so different about his invention? How does this relate to your own research and investigations?"
Schmidt cocked an eyebrow at that. "Buttering me up?"
Clark stammered a shocked negation and continued to stutter his assurances to the professor, who smiled slightly as he indicated they should follow him further into the complex.
"It's okay, Mr. Kent. I believe you. I just have to make sure you two're worth my time." With that, the professor was off and running, taking them on a whirlwind tour of the laboratory site, rattling off information about his former student's related research program and achievements. The reporters peppered Professor Schmidt with questions about the science involved and the older man joked that he should recruit them to his research team.
Stopping before a darkened doorway, he turned to regard the reporters with a gleam in his eye. "You've been remarkably patient. I guess you really do want to know about this stuff. So I've got something special to share with you. You know how the one prototype disappeared from his business?" Lois and Clark nodded in unison and the professor's smile broadened. "Well, that wasn't the only prototype in existence."
He flicked on a switch and punched in a passcode to the lock. "Jacob developed his scanner after he left Met U, but he needed our help, my help, to bring his vision to life. The two of us spent weeks in this lab, trying to make it work. It took all our ingenuity, but in the end, we developed this."
With a sweep of his hand, Professor Schmidt directed their attention into the dimly lit room where a long table held a haphazard contraption incorporating a monitor, keyboard and small sensor dish.
Lois breathed her excitement. "You have a working model of the scanner?"
Professor Schmidt shrugged. "It works, yes, but it's not in any shape to be transported out of the lab. Jacob refined this design and built it into a case that was hardened for transport. But all the important elements are right here." Reaching over, the researcher flipped a switch on the machine and the monitor flicked to life.
While the screen flickered with a series of cryptic messages, Schmidt moved over to a cupboard at the end of the room and began to rummage around. "Jacob's genius was that he figured out how to combine both visual and microscopic levels of scanning into one machine. This detector not only maps what we can see, but provides a wealth of information about the chemical and physical makeup of the materials. For instance, let's scan some of these rock samples." He pulled a large piece of dull, grey stone and laid it in front of the detector. Immediately, the monitor began to flash until an image coalesced.
Clark and Lois stepped closer to the monitor, reading the information. A visual scan of the rough rock surface was accompanied by an analysis of the elements in the sample: silicon, iron and other elements were highlighted. A flick of one button switched the screen and Professor Schmidt demonstrated how the machine used satellite technology to link into databases to provide detailed information about the origins of the sample.
Never taking her eyes from the screen, Lois asked Schmidt, "How does it do the more detailed scans like I saw at the harbour?"
Schmidt smiled impishly and flipped another switch. The monitor displayed a topological image of the rock sample in its bare, metal tray. Almost dancing, he hurried over to a large cabinet beside the doorway. "It'll look even more impressive when I switch sample trays. We have one that's rather heavy, filled with water to simulate the underwater scans as you've mentioned but that's probably too much for us to move without my assistants. However, Jacob and I set up another to simulate a lunar surface as he hoped to license the technology to NASA or a commercial company. It demonstrates the full power of the scanner in great detail!"
Schmidt huffed with effort as he opened the cabinet. "Heavy," he explained, "lead-lined to reduce any contamination of the scanner results." Clark staggered slightly in the dim room as the cabinet door clanged against the wall. Professor Schmidt continued his explanations as he maneuvered a tray out of the cabinet but Clark didn't hear a word as he focused on the feeling of weakness that threatened to overwhelm him.
"Clark? Clark?" Lois's voice sounded thin and tinny so the feel of her hand on his shoulder was disconcerting. Clark lifted his hand to forestall any more inquiries and started to move towards the exit. He was stymied when Professor Schmidt rushed over from the scanner. "Is there a problem, Mr. Kent, Miss Lane? We have our extraterrestrial simulation almost ready to go. Of course it's not moon rocks but some meteorites we got from the Geology Department here at Met U. There's this absolutely beautiful great big hunk of green meteorite that shows up beautifully on the monitor. . . ."
But Clark heard no more as Professor Schmidt shoved the rock sample closer for their admiration. His eyes were rolling back in his head as the pure, unadulterated kryptonite sapped all the strength from his body.