Dreaming the Wolf - Chapter 7c and 7d
Chapter 7- Origins of the Wolf
Part IV- A Change Unwanted
“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”
Jack London
Everything in her life began an ended with Clark. He was her friend, confidante, crush, annoyance…he was all those things and so much more. At least that had been the case. It was a discomforting thought when she realized that somewhere along the way that fact was no longer true. Chloe could now see that her life now began and ended with the Luthors. She realized that fact when she begged Clark to use his heat vision to sear her skin and burn a tracking device out of her.
Her kidnapping had nothing to do with Clark and everything to do with her and one of the Luthors. She suspected Lex. Lionel was off playing a different game. Any last vestige of doubt or avoidance of that fact was burned away when she felt Clark’s heat vision for the first time.
She had to protect Clark. She had to prevent him from foolishly trusting Lionel. Chloe would never make that mistake again. She had to protect Clark’s secret; especially since he didn’t fully comprehend the subtle threat from the Luthors. Clark may have been paranoid when it came to Lex, but that didn’t mean that he truly understood the threat Lex posed.
He couldn’t define the true depth of Lex’s ability to hurt him. Or even Lionel’s. Clark couldn’t see the subtle weave of the plots that would bind and break him. That fact made him pure and able to summon a near inviolate faith in people. His capacity for goodness was limitless, but it made him a target of life.
Clark had to have discerning and wise people around him as guides. He had to have someone at his side capable of doing the things that he couldn’t. Capable of being the kind person that he could never be. Chloe could be that person for him at this time in his life. As his parents had before her and as someone would after her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Chloe knew that she was handicapping him, but he had to at least have the opportunity; and that would never come if the things that made him such a unique person were crushed before they could even develop. But this one time, this one situation had nothing to do with Clark. It was ironic and unfair to her that side-kicks got into more trouble than heroes.
Chloe thought that the worst of the fallout from the kidnapping was behind her. There was no way that it could get worse than being kidnapped, not remembering what happened, realizing that you were being tracked like an animal, and then having to beg your super-powered friend to use one of his more destructive abilities on you in a bid to survive. But it had gotten worse.
Chloe went to bed after a hard day’s work, working on a school paper, and thinking heavy thoughts.
********
Chloe bolted upright in her bed. She’d been awakened from one of the most bizarre dreams of her life. “What the hell was that?” Dreams weren’t something she remembered often; and when she did they were disjointed and nonsensical. Easily forgotten in the course of her day. But this dream was vivid and scary in its intensity. It began innocently enough, but then there was this drastic left turn at weird and disturbing.
She’d dreamt that she was some kind of potato that turned into a human and that she had this morbid fear of being eaten. During the course of the dream, however, she’d been eaten four times, which could’ve been fine. But to add to the freaky nature of the dream, she was the one eating her potato self. She’d been chased by Enrique, Lex’s butler, who had carried a potato peeler. It really made no sense that Lex’s butler was in her dreams. “How is that normal?” Chloe doubted that there was a dream book in existence that could decipher what that meant. And if there were, she didn’t want to read it.
The dream had given her a moment of pause, but she got dressed and headed off to meet her father for lunch. They hadn’t been able to spend much time together and she needed to see him. The dreams she could handle. It was something that was easily attributable to any number of stress factors. Work was getting heavy at both the Daily Planet and school. But something else was wrong. She’d been feeling odd. Chloe pushed those thoughts aside when she saw her father waving at her. He’d gotten a window seat and she could clearly see him. He must’ve been avidly watching for her car. She hurriedly parked her car at the little bistro her father loved to eat at.
Chloe walked into the restaurant and felt a flash of heat roll through her body. It stopped her in her tracks. She swayed and felt dizzy. Her nose was assaulted by the strong aroma of spice. Chloe convulsed and would have collapsed; but soon after she was bombarded by those sensations, they left her. It was only a momentary reprieve. The overwhelming external input was replaced by nothing. She didn’t hear, see, or smell anything. It was all darkness. A scream of panic was making its way forth from her chest, but then the world returned to normal with a burst of light and sound. It was disorienting as well as welcome. For that brief moment she was cut off from everything and she felt nothing.
Gabe noticed that Chloe stalled at the entrance of the door. She looked like she was about to faint. He was just rising from his chair to go to his daughter when he caught her eyes. Her eyes…there was something wrong. They looked blank and vacant. Gabe stopped dead in his tracks. It was like he couldn’t move at all. The world faded away from him and there was only his daughter. There was only Chloe. But then she was moving again and the world came back to him. It was like his head was breaking the surface of water.
Chloe was moving before she even knew it. She sat at the table and watched as her father sat again. Everything seemed so far away; but if she focused on him then everything was o.k. again. A feeling of contentment and peace rippled across her awareness. Chloe was hyper-aware of her father. His heartbeat was strong and steady. His scent inspired something that she couldn’t even describe. It was like coming home. And more than anything, none of this made any sense.
Gabe opened his mouth twice to speak, “Chloe?”
Chloe tilted her head towards his voice. She didn’t know what was happening but she couldn’t find her voice to speak. Once again she was confronted with the unidentifiable. Her salivary glands were malfunctioning or something because she couldn’t swallow enough to remove the excess.
Gabe stood up and drew her out of her chair. They needed to leave because something was wrong.
The voice of her father was echoing in her head again, “Chloe, sweetheart, we need to leave. Help me out. Stand up, sweetheart. That’s it. Just stand up.”
Chloe felt the strong arms of her father and endeavored to burrow herself into him. He was a comforting presence. She felt him haul her out of her chair. And then she felt herself moving. Gabe didn’t know or understand what was going on. All he knew was that something was wrong with his baby girl. Uncaring of the looks they were receiving, he walked her to his car because he didn’t know where hers was; and maneuvered her into the passenger side.
After going around to the driver’s side, Gabe angled his body to face Chloe. He took her chin in his hand forced her to look at him.
“Chloe? Snap out of it. Tell me what’s wrong, or I can’t help you!”
Chloe heard the panicked voice of her father. She wanted to reassure him. She wanted to say something. To beg him to help her, but all she could do was blink at him. She felt like she was drunk or something. Chloe had been feeling better when she sat down at the table, but something about her father blanked out everything in her mind.
Then just like that, everything was a flurry of movement. In fact, Gabe was now speaking too fast. Chloe closed her eyes and counted to ten. The background was filled with the frantic voice of her father.
Chloe croaked, “Dad.”
“Chloe? What’s wrong. Talk to me.”
She couldn’t explain this to Gabe. She couldn’t tell him that she thought one of the Luthors had done something to her. Probably Lex. Two days and she was still feeling off kilter.
“Dad, I’m fine. I think. Work and school have stretched me a little thin and I think I just had a mini break down. Not a huge deal,” Chloe made herself sound strong. Cheery wouldn’t work this time.
Gabe searched her face. She was lying to him. Or maybe withholding something from him. He didn’t expect that she share all things in her life. She had her secrets and he had his own. But he just wanted her to be honest with him. To tell him if something was seriously wrong. Gabe turned away from her, blew out a harsh breath and raked his hand through his hair.
“No, you aren’t. You’re one of the most stable people I know; and I flatter myself when I say that you get it from me,” Gabe looked at her again, “Something is wrong. Especially when you can look me in the eye and lie to me.”
He knew he hurt her because her face told him so, “Chloe, just let me be here for you. I’m your father and I’m supposed to look after you.”
Chloe couldn’t tell him the truth or even what was happening. At least not yet. Not until she knew herself. Not until she could edit it for his ears. Chloe jerked the handle of the door. She was leaving. She could face his anger, but never his worry and fear for her.
Gabe’s voice stopped her cold, “Don’t leave.”
She had only heard that tone when he was fed up with her. It held traces of disappointment and anger. Chloe never did do well when confronted with it. Despite this, she was fully prepared to leave and storm off to her car. The problem was that she couldn’t get her body to move, and she desperately wanted to leave the car.
Two heartbeats of silence were all she could handle, “You’re right. Honestly, the last three days have been hard. Someone close to me got into a little trouble. It’s just been more difficult adjusting and trying to fix things. I…haven’t handled things well.”
Chloe wasn’t lying. Chloe happened to be very close to herself. She watched as her father started the car.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t even bother to look at her, “We’re going to the hospital.”
Chloe cut him off before he could continue, “I told you-“
Gabe returned the favor by speaking over her, “You’re going to have a check-up. We’ll leave when the doctor says nothing is wrong with you. We can talk about anything else, but this is not up for discussion.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gabe watched his stubborn and beautiful daughter cross her arms and huff like she used to do when she was younger. A pang of nostalgia shot through him. “Some things never change.”
It took them an hour to reach a hospital, fifteen minutes to fill out paperwork, another hour to be seen, and yet another hour for a full check-up. Gabe was irritated with both the situation and his daughter. “She never takes care of herself.” But he made sure to project calm and good humor. If Chloe saw even a small crack in his resolve, she’d exploit it. He held no illusions about her disposition. His daughter was a good person, who was endlessly forgiving; but when she was finally moved to anger it was never pretty to be on the receiving end. It was barely even fun to watch; although there were occasions. Chloe was tough and her words were cutting; even her silences served as a weapon. “At least she has morals and ethics.”
The doctor, Kevin Masters, walked into a room full of tension. If this wasn’t the quintessential picture of parental irritation and child annoyance, he didn’t know what was. He was going to make this quick, no need to draw it out.
“We didn’t find anything wrong. There are still some standard blood tests that are being performed, but we won’t have anything to tell you for a couple of days. It sounds like you may have had something of an anxiety attack. Maybe a few days off from work or cutting down on caffeine might help.”
Her father may have forced her to come on this little trip to the hospital, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. Something had been done to her. Chloe only hoped that whatever it was wouldn’t reveal itself to doctors. “How can I possibly explain anything weird?”
On the heels of that thought, the sound of the doctor’s voice penetrated her awareness. Her father and Dr. Masters were still talking and she had the occasion to listen. His voice was even. The kind of cultivated voice that all physicians had to have to soothe patients. It was a nice baritone. His voice made her hyper-awareaware of everything about him. He looked like a man who was rushing from one place to another with few breaks. His shoes were made for comfort and he smelled strongly of antiseptic. Chloe hadn’t noticed it before, but now that smell was all she seemed to be focused on.
Then her father said her name and whatever fugue she had been in vanished. He hadn’t called her name, or had otherwise given any indication that he was speaking to her. The doctor and her father were still engaged in conversation with each other. Gabe stood to leave and Chloe took her cue from him to do the same. Chloe thanked him and left with her father.
They were halfway to the car before she spoke, “Are you satisfied now?”
Gabe expected her words. He expected any number of variations of “I told you so”. He even expected the sarcasm and the little bite of anger, but he didn’t care.
“Not really. But since the doctor seems to think everything is fine I’ll let it go. For now. I’m still hungry. Are you still up for eating with me?”
Chloe sighed, “Of course I am. I don’t actually want to eat at the bistro, but I need my car.”
He didn’t answer her until they were settled into the car, “There’s a burger place not far from there. We’ll eat and then I’ll drop you off to pick up your car. Sound good?”
“Sure.”
********
Their meal was tense, and their conversation was superficial. It would blow over quickly. Chloe and her father had arguments and then they were forgotten. This would be the same. She just had to figure out why the hell her mind had been scattered lately. It could just be the stress. It might not even have anything to do with the Luthors. “And pigs fly.”
Chloe had believed that. She believed in spite of the weird dreams. She believed it in spite of the fact that she was tired a lot and had been taking naps more often. Her belief remained in the face of the fact that she was always hungry and always eating. At least it seemed that way. It was enough for Lois, Jimmy, and even Clark to comment on it. Chloe forced herself to believe it when she’d have random joint pains and general aches despite the doctor assuring her that nothing was wrong.
She believed it because things kept coming up and she had to deal with them. Clark had gotten himself in trouble at a quarry. He never did tell her why he was there or what he hoped to accomplish. It had annoyed her, but she told herself that it didn’t matter. She was in the middle of her own crisis storm.
Whatever lie she told herself was shattered two days after her tense lunch with her father. Chloe was driving back from Metropolis. It was a long day and she had been feeling nauseous for the better part of it. She was finally getting home and was looking forward to resting. It was past 9pm and there weren’t any other cars on the road.
She was halfway home when a sudden cramp seized her entire body. It was severe enough for her to jerk on the steering wheel and send the car into a spin. She regained control of the car and pulled over onto the shoulder. Chloe wrestled with her purse to pull out her cell phone, but her hands wouldn’t work the way she wanted them.
Her body tensed again and she was forced back into her seat. The pain was intense. The car was cramped and if she kept flailing around, she’d injure herself badly. She’d already flung her purse to the floor. Between the pain and her possession scattering, she wouldn’t be able to reach her phone.
Chloe opened her door and got out of her car. The pain had receded to a dull ache. She was going to walk to the passenger side. She’d be in a better position reach under the seat, where her phone was.
Chloe was about to open the passenger side door, when a wave a pain hit her. She fell to her knees. Raising her hand, Chloe saw it elongate. Distantly she heard the bones of her hands break. She felt intense discomfort, but she couldn’t focus on that. Her face felt like it was on fire and her throat closed. She opened her mouth to scream, but found that she was unable. She couldn’t breathe.
Chloe clawed at her throat and felt blood coat her hands. She realized that she was panicking, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. It was then that she felt her ribs bend and then break. Her heart beat was fast and furious and she could almost imagine that it would rip out of her chest. She’d give anything to not feel this. There were plenty of stories she’d read where the mind went off to another place when confronted by intense pain. She wasn’t so lucky. She felt it all and it was an overload.
The bones of her knees bent backwards and her spine bowed. A flash of human insight asserted itself when she realized that what was happening wasn’t random. There was a purpose. She was changing into something. When she was finally able to give voice to her pain and panic, it was the deep echo of a howl. It sounded inhuman to her ears. But Chloe finally got her wish when she fell into unconsciousness.
********
Chloe was awakened by a cold breeze. It was still winter in Kansas. It was still early morning and the sun still hadn’t made an appearance. She ached all over and her mouth was dry. Her throat felt raw and abused. But those aches didn’t matter in face of reality. She was lying in the dirt on the side of the road next to her car wearing the tatters of what had once been her clothes. The time to panic was fast approaching, but she had to get home.
Chloe recalled that Lois had left her workout clothes in her car. “She won’t mind.” She was trying so hard to keep it together. “For 30 more minutes.” Chloe was doing so well until she settled into her car and realized that everything was in shades of gray. There were no colors. Her breath picked up and she began hyperventilating. The control that she was hanging onto by the merest of threads snapped. This was too much. She gave herself over to the full blown breakdown.
Fifteen minutes later she was finally on the road again to her apartment. Chloe ran inside and promptly collapsed. Exhaustion, terror, and something indescribable had overwhelmed her taxed body.
********
It was a little over a week later and Chloe still hadn’t been able to reconcile what had happened. She’d been able to figure out that she had turned into some kind of wolf. Her dreams became even more violent and she knew that they preceded a change. Chloe forced herself to adapt to this new reality because it was one that would kill her if she let it. She’d taken pictures of her tracks to determine that she was a wolf. Not to mention that she had clearly heard herself howl.
She gradually became aware of herself as a wolf. The first few times of her change she couldn’t remember anything. There was only a vague essence of Chloe. It was a bitter pill to swallow when she had tried to comfort herself with chocolate ice cream and then found herself vomiting up the contents of her stomach. She was really and truly a dog.
It was even more painful when she had to modulate her food intake. Her sense of taste was heightened and it was hard to eat the rich foods or the overly spicy foods. It had taken time, but she had learned to enjoy them once more. All of her senses were still wonky but they seemed to be stabilizing. She could only hope that whatever changes still to come would finish soon. Being in a weird metamorphic limbo would drive her to insanity.
Chloe thought she was adapting well if slowly when the news of Lionel’s death rocked everyone in her world to the core. And she wasn’t exempt. Lionel had been a large part of her life at one time. Thinking of him still left her breathless with fear and anxiety. Not that she would ever show such weakness to him, but it was there nonetheless.
She had attended his funeral. Chloe had to know if he was truly dead and that this wasn’t some elaborate ruse he was perpetrating on the world. Seeing Lex had invoked a myriad of emotions within her, most on the darker end of the spectra. He stood there with Lana and a host of lackeys at his back.
She had been so willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. To give him her belief that he didn’t kill his own father or orchestrate the devastation of her own life and many others. Chloe knew that he lived in a world of gray. She knew that he bent and broke rules, but it was too much to believe that he could have his father killed this way and ruin lives like this. She still believed him to be a decent, if flawed, man.
But when she looked in his eyes and felt nothing, saw nothing, she could no longer lie to herself. She believed him guilty of both. Chloe wouldn’t stop until he was brought low. Until his life was a wreck like hers was. Lex had so many intrigues. So much to answer for and he wouldn’t get away with it.
It wasn’t too terribly difficult to track his handiwork. She had her sources as well and she knew that he had the medical examiner’s report. Chloe was able to get the report herself. Lex was a sick and twisted bastard if he could do this to his father. He had to be stopped.
“This is only the beginning.”
Part V- Night Terrors
Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.
Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
Serena Edgler woke from a dead sleep. Abrupt. Pained. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her eyes darted across the room frantically. She was panting. She couldn’t catch her breathe. But under all of that was the deep hatred and loathing of the people who made her weak like this. Even deeper still was Serena’s hatred of herself. The abiding self-loathing that never went away no matter how hard she tried to force it gone. The discontent and restlessness that burrowed its way into all aspects of her life. Serena had no peace. No solace. It was always with her. Staring at her. It was a weight that settled on her chest like the torture press of old. No relief.
She felt a burning sensation in her throat and ran to her restroom. Serena just barely made it to her toilet before she vomited. The contents of her stomach emptying in a torrent. The burning low in her gut migrating to her throat. She felt the tears trail down her face as she stared at the mess she had made. “Pathetic.” With trembling hands Serena wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet. Days…nights like this had worn her down. Made her remember everything that she wished she could forget. Made her feel the weakness…the helplessness…the violation all over again. They were monsters and they did this to her.
The worst part had been their eyes. The way they had stared. Assessing her. Making her feel less than human. As if she was nothing. They had all the power and knew it.
Serena Edgler had been normal. She had a promising career as an accountant waiting for her. Her life was boring, but it was hers. Serena was raised in the WASP tradition. She was a debutante. Her life charted and well on its way to fulfillment, but she was happy with that. Serena wanted to be a simple accountant. Numbers were her life. Serena saw them in everything she did. They were poetry. She wanted to marry a man named Chet and have her 2.5 children and a dog. That was her vision for life. She made her place in life, but then all that was changed. In the span of a heartbeat, it had changed.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. It was wrong, all wrong. Her hair should’ve been brown not red. Her eyes should’ve also been brown, but they were green. An unnatural green. Whatever they had done to her, the long buried attributes of her Irish ancestry had come out for all the world to see. There was no way that her family would be able to recognize her. Nothing was her own anymore.
Yelling her fury and pain into the mirror, she lifted her fist and rammed it into her reflection. Serena didn’t stop until her mirror was demolished. That person should not have been her. That person was created by them. She had nothing of her father and mother. She had nothing of her twin. Serena was alone.
Serena stared at her hands and watched as the cuts healed. She watched them become claws and sprout red hair. With another inarticulate cry of fury, she left her restroom and proceeded to destroy every mirror in her apartment. She had to focus this and not change. She couldn’t control herself while changed. Serena knew that the more she changed, the harder it would be to join the human world. She’d read their reports and she had to find a way to stabilize herself and the others. No doubt it would come at a high cost, but this was survival.
Lex Luthor had gotten far too close. She could only shield him from their eyes for a short time. He was too useful to be lost to them. His project was the key. They had so completely subverted key aspects of it that Serena knew that it was only a matter of time before she knew everything, but she had to fly under the radar. Her chances of success depended on it.
Serena knew Lana was also key to them, but she didn’t know why. All she knew was that Dr. Langston had been communicating with her enemies for quite some time. It was time for Lana to be turned to her cause.
When Serena had first devised this plan of hers, it became paramount that she find someone that could be ruthless and work independent of her plan. An outsider, who had their first loyalty to her or at the very least, her money. She was fortunate enough to find it in Samuel Kale.
He could never know that his last few jobs were orchestrated by her. She needed to weigh and access his value. The man was a virtuoso in his field. Kale had killed Chase and his family with an uncanny precision and utter lack of morality. Serena had been awed and terrified. She had mourned those lives taken. They were innocent, but the end game was so very important.
When she had given him vague orders to cause a distraction with the same mine, he had been even more masterful if that was possible. What sane person would target Lionel Luthor? And in such a fashion? But it had yielded the results she wanted. That singular act of Kale’s had propelled her plan forward like nothing she had done prior. Kale played his version of intrigues with a deft touch. Serena wondered what he could’ve been if he hadn’t been so ruined by his past. She sat on her bed and realized that she couldn’t live with this but she had too.
His ignorance would not make him a more useful tool. It was a delicate tight wire she walked. Samuel had to be a player in this game. He had to have specific pieces of knowledge, but she couldn’t be the one to direct him there. Samuel’s mind had to be allowed to work to its fullest. She couldn’t let her own biases cloud his judgment. He had to see this puzzle through his own, unique lens. Only then could Serena see what she had missed.
Oh she knew that he was investigating Smallville and the major players of the town. She also knew that he had harbored the thought that Lex Luthor had hired him and she was just a cover, but he had to work out why he was wrong on his own. Serena was glad that he took the initiative. He came highly referred and now she knew why.
Serena felt her claws prick her temples. She felt and smelled the sweat produced from her earlier exertion. She sighed and stood. There would be no sleeping tonight. Hard-wired for movement and restless, she decided to get her day started. If she wasn’t going to sleep then many of those in her employ wouldn’t either.
She picked up her phone and didn’t wait for an answer, “Kale, meet me at noon.”
Serena hung up before he could say a word. She didn’t have time for pleasantries and he didn’t require them. Once again she dialed, “Langston, step up plans with Lang.”
She would’ve hung up on him as well, but his fearful protestations could not go ignored. She was tired of him thinking that he actually had a say in the matter. Serena was also tired of the fact that he feared the Luthor brat more than he did her. It was time to disabuse him of the notion that he was irreplaceable.
“1710 North Summerville Drive. Let me speak plainly. You work for me and I did not ask you what you wanted to do. I told you what you were going to do. There is a very important difference. You are valuable to me inasmuch as you follow orders. Luthor will only kill you. I’ll keep you alive. Now, get it done before you become more than an irritant and I am forced to hurt you.”
She hung up before he could say anything more. If he didn’t do what she wanted, or if he gave her any problems, then Samuel Kale would be paying that address a visit. She knew Samuel’s particular brand of psychotic and no one at that address would live. Serena did not want to do it, but Langston and those he cared for were not her concern.
Serena hadn’t actually had a face to face meeting with Kale since they had attended Lionel’s funeral. She had wanted to see the aftermath. The consequences of her actions had to be seen. Serena needed to ground herself. She could never become inured to the horror she caused. There would be a special place in hell for her and she knew it. A small part of Serena hoped that one day the people she did this for would understand. The rest of her hoped that they forgot her and what she did. That they remembered her the way she was and not how she ended.
“I wish I were a stronger person.”
********
Noon saw Serena in her penthouse preparing for Kale. Ostensibly, it was being rented by a stockbroker, Timothy Salinger, and she was only the secretary. The credentials were flawless and the men who had made them were dead. There couldn’t be a trail; and there wouldn’t be if she didn’t do anything extravagant under his name.
She heard Kale long before she saw him. He buzzed her office and she let him in. He unnerved her because it was so easy to dismiss him; but then with one action, he could become dangerous. This was a man who could talk endlessly about the weather and then kill you with the same bland expression.
Serena was typing away on her computer when he walked into her office. She heard him sit down in the only comfortable chair in the room. He smelled nervous. No doubt it was because his back was to the door. People like Kale couldn’t stand even the hint of a cage and she hated the fact that she was now someone like Kale. He must’ve been a child that enjoyed the outdoors. It probably had little to do with his actual home life. There were times when she was sure that he showed the classic signs of attention deficit disorder. His muscles would give minute jumps as if he were holding himself in tight check to prevent himself from moving like he wanted.
At any rate, she was about to dump exposition on him. She wished that she had the time to properly detail this, but her creativity was running low. Drawing this out any further would probably serve to squander whatever good will she had accrued with him. He may play the patient snake in the grass now, but it was probably wearing thin.
She also liked that he wasn’t going to speak until she did. He’d probably learned that at the hand of his father. “What would you be, Kale, if life had not ruined you so thoroughly before you had a chance to be a man?” Serena wondered if he ever asked that question or if it was too hard for him. Or even if he knew to ask that question.
She looked him in the eye and spoke, “How is your investigation into the seedy underbelly of Smallville coming?”
Kale cocked his head. He should’ve known that his boss would know what he was doing.
“Confounding and nonsensical. These people are a…contradiction.”
Serena laughed a little. Kale was like a little boy when confronted with something outside of his frame of reference, but she could understand where he was coming from. Common sense was lacking all around. It was mind boggling. She did realize that it was easy for her to pass judgment since she wasn’t deeply and hopelessly entangled with their odd brand of drama.
“Yes, they are.”
Kale wished that she would expand her answer, but she was the type of person to keep her mouth shut just to spite him. With anyone else he would’ve called it petty, but he recognized it as the strategy of someone with a deeper game. Serena was a deliberate and methodical person.
Serena raised an eyebrow. His mouth pursed ever so subtly.
“I suppose you finally believe that I am your boss? Tell me, did the funeral confirm it?”
Kale raked his hand through his hair, “No. The day I told you about Clark Kent was when I knew for certain. Until then, every order you gave me could’ve easily been delivered by a lackey. Telling me to do whatever I want with the mine was something that only a person with full command of the situation would’ve done.”
Serena had figured that was when he believed her his employer. His voice tone on every correspondence after was more deferential. Kale had also become more interested and excited.
“Now that you have been confronted with the reality of Smallville, it probably makes no sense that our government has been uninterested, right? Well, they aren’t exactly uninterested. They’ve just outsourced their interest,” at his nod of understanding she continued, “Even if the meteor rocks did not bestow mutation; imagine other scenarios. The value in meteor rocks isn’t just what they can do. It’s also what they bring. They have traveled in space and with them they bring things that don’t exist on Earth. Microbes, random dust, or maybe a new element on our Periodic Table. How valuable would that be?”
Kale realized that he had thought of the rocks in too small terms. He was blinded by what they had been doing to people and not what they would and could do to the Earth itself. It meant so much more than life on other planets. But there was definitely no way that the government, The United States or any number of others, would not find a way to market this. “Unless this town is one, giant laboratory.”
“May I call you Samuel? You may, of course, call me Serena. We’ve committed crimes together and standing on formality is nothing but pretension.”
At the inclination of his head, Serena continued, “Smallville has to stay small. Luthorcorp has done well, but not so well as to attract other businesses. The trick is to minimize what the meteor rocks represent. You don’t lie about them per se because such falsehoods would be spotted immediately. You simply call them rocks and people do the rest; especially if the United States hasn’t published any reports on them. If the United States doesn’t care, being the opportunistic bastards that we are, why should any other entity care? By outsourcing interest, we can honestly say that we aren’t doing anything with them. And no one can trace it. So what do you do?”
Serena stopped speaking and Kale realized that she wanted him to participate. He realized that she valued him.
“It only works, Serena, if you hijack what someone else is doing. Private researchers don’t have the resources of the government and they’ll be limited without funding. So you plant people in an organization, misdirect people you can’t trust, and collect the data. It leaves the original designers of the project in the lurch; especially if they don’t even consider that their project could be compromised. Luthor was the unlucky victim wasn’t he?”
Serena smiled broadly. She struck hit-man gold with Samuel Kale, “Yes, he was. He provided the route to them. Other researchers limited themselves to the land and general environmental impact. He targeted the meteor infected themselves. This town is unusually healthy and the conclusion was reached that everyone in affected. Not everyone will manifest a strong mutation, but they are all infected. The hospital reports less actual illness and more things with physical problems. That is, broken bones and the like are more common.”
She wasn’t telling him everything. Samuel got the feeling she was waiting for the correct question from him. When he finally found it, he could’ve slapped himself. It was so obvious.
“What did they do to you?”
“Finally! He asks the money question.”
“I am meteor infected. But I and a few others were the first the government mucked around with. They messed with our mutation directly. I don’t know how, but as a result we are unstable.”
“What is your mutation?”
Serena looked away from him for a moment. This was difficult and her bloodlust was so easy to arouse.
“I think they were messing around with animal DNA or something. Meteor rocks just don’t follow our scientific principles and something unexpected happened I think. I don’t know why I was chosen. I think it was a random thing. At any rate, I’m as close to being an actual werewolf as you’ll ever get.”
Kale was shocked. He’d seen some weird things, but a werewolf was something else. The meteor infected looked normal. Her change was unnatural. It didn’t seem like it was following the admittedly crazy blue print of the meteor rocks.
“So what are you trying to do?”
“Whatever Lex Luthor was doing, the government took the next step that he didn’t. What do you think of Lana Lang?”
Her last question was random. “Why would she bring up that girl?”
“She’s a pitiful excuse for a human being.”
Serena chuckled, “Yes, she is. She isn’t pregnant.”
She saw him become angry and held up her hand, “No, she isn’t faking it. She genuinely thinks she’s pregnant.”
He didn’t believe her. No woman was so clueless as to think they were pregnant when they weren’t. If she was, then he would kill her on principle. Someone that simple was a waste of resources that should go to someone else.
“Before you condemn her to a painful and torturous death, know that she’s being duped by the best. Her doctor is giving her a slew of drugs to keep her in the dark. He’s probably got a very impressive faked sonogram and such. I think that she is a key to what’s happening.”
“A key?”
His quick mind was such an asset. She liked that he picked up on the important part of that, “I think Chloe Sullivan is the other. I wasn’t sure before, but her base scent has altered. It’s closer to what mine smells like. I think she’s like me.”
It was Samuel’s turn to quirk his eyebrow, “Like you and these others you keep mentioning?”
“Yes.”
“So what does this mean?”
“Samuel, it means we continue to watch and wait. It means that you can’t kill the meteor infected anymore. I need to decipher them. Before you got here, many of the infected were retrieved by whoever is shadowing Luthor’s project. I want them alive. They don’t deserve the death you’ve been giving them.”
“Then why am I still here?”
“Because you want the challenge. It’s not going to be easy, Samuel. Clark Kent will be a factor and a few of his friends. Luthor is a factor. I need you to be more than a hit-man. I want you to be my eyes and ears. My focus needs to be elsewhere.”
Kale could accept that. He did need the challenge; and he wasn’t so twisted and bloodthirsty that he would kill just to kill. He considered her. There was one more thing that he needed to know, “Why the drama around the mine?”
“Luthor needed to be distracted. I covered a few tracks and planted a few false leads if he or anyone else should discover something. Chloe Sullivan has already been making waves. Luthor is a useful cover, and the people shadowing his project must believe that they are clever. They must believe that they are in full control. Besides, I could not pass up creating such chaos for Wayne and Luthor. It’s satisfying to know that they are in turmoil because of me,” Serena continued, “I need you to involve Lana Lang somehow. Get her to plant bugs or something. I need to keep track of her and Sullivan. Dr. Langston has been turned to our cause. He doesn’t know the reasoning behind his orders from his other bosses, but he’ll tell me what I need to know.”
Kale recognized the name of Lang’s doctor. “I guess he is the one fooling Lang.”
Serena gazed at Kale for a moment. She had to know one thing as well, “Why did you shave him?”
Kale cocked his head. He considered not answering her, but he would respond to her honesty with his own, “My grandfather was a barber and he used to have a straight edge razor. It was very ornate and beautiful. Far too decorative for the task. He passed it on to my father. There were times when it was calm in the house. In those times, my father would pull out his razor and sit in front of my mother, who would shave him. Her hands were always steady. The only time her hands were gentle. She never cut him. Not even once.”
Of all the things he could’ve said, that was unexpected. She thought it had to do with proving a point to Lionel. While it had shown Lionel a point, it wasn’t the one the man died with and it wasn’t the one that Serena thought. Serena took in his relaxed posture, the slightly glazed eyes lost to memory and the fond smile on his face. It was such a departure from what was previously known of the man. He had shared something highly personal. Samuel Kale was still someone special.
Serena stood, “Let’s go to lunch. I’m hungry.”
Samuel stood as well and offered his arm. They both realized that this was a time for waiting and setting plans. She could do that and had no doubt that he could as well. Trouble would find them soon enough; but until then, they’d prepare as best they could.
Back to Chapters 7a and 7b
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