Enemies & Allies (5 page)

Lois stared at him incredulously. “An
alien,
you mean?”

“Do I look like an alien?”

Lois recalled the rubber monsters she’d seen in the movies. If he was telling the truth, she had her hands on the story of the century. The hard part would be deciding which headline to use. No, she thought, the hard part would be convincing people of his claims. “Do you realize how preposterous this is going to sound to my readers?”

“Preposterous?” Superman crossed his muscular arms. “You mean like a man who can fly? A man with heat rays that lance out of his eyes or X-ray vision?” She couldn’t argue with that.

“X-ray vision? Does that mean you could see right through my dress if you wanted to?” The question had sounded coy and demure in her mind, but when she said it aloud, it sounded stupid. She blushed furiously, kicking herself for letting her guard down.

“Again, Miss Lane, that would be an improper use of my powers. I was raised better than that.”

Of course you were.
“Who raised you? Where do you come from?”

“I had good parents, a wholesome childhood, in an average but beautiful town, the real heartland of America.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“It’s better if I’m not. I have to keep
some
of my secrets, Miss Lane.” He just gave her a mysterious smile. “And now I think I should be going. It’s a big city. Somebody always needs rescuing.” He had such sincerity in his voice that she didn’t doubt him for a minute.

He had already started for the balcony by the time she jumped to her feet in alarm. “Wait—how do I get in touch with you again?”

“I’ll know when you need me, don’t worry.” Waving good-bye from the edge of the balcony as Lois followed him out into the open night air, he added cryptically, “And say hello to Clark Kent for me. I’m sure he’d love to hear your advice as a reporter.”

“I—wait…Clark?” She had struggled to think of a compelling last line, something that would make him remember her, something that would make Lois Lane sound like a person he’d want to know better. She certainly felt giddy and smitten—and embarrassed by it!—but he had rescued her from death, holding her firmly in his muscular arms, so she had good reason to have intense feelings about him.

But what did Clark Kent have to do with anything?

“Promise me I’ll see you again!” she called.

“That’s a promise,” he said with a smile, and then added teasingly, “unless you stop getting yourself in trouble.”

“I won’t!” She waved as he silently sprang from the balcony. Instead of falling, he shot up into the air, waved good-bye, and vanished into the night.

Lois stared after him, reeling, swept off her feet twice in one day.

Afterward, it had taken an unheard-of
three hours
for her to compile her notes and draft a story. The story of the century: “Superman: A New Hero for Metropolis.”

Lois Lane had always been a reporter to watch; after publication of the Superman article, she was the reporter every other newspaper envied. Suddenly every paper wanted to feature Superman, but he never stopped to talk with reporters after his heroic deeds. Lois hoped she hadn’t disappointed Superman with her article, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to talk with him again (though she did make a habit of leaving her patio doors open in the evening, just in case he decided to drop by).

In retrospect, she should have won the Pulitzer for that article, but mocking skeptics had laughed at her “absurd and undocumented claims” that Superman was a “strange visitor” from a planet called Krypton.

Now, as she thought about it, Lois remembered Perry’s cautions about following up the Lex Luthor exposé. The notoriety she had gained from her Superman interview suddenly put her in a different league, made her work even harder as a reporter, though it hadn’t yet earned her a raise.

This story would be different. Superman was clearly a hero, but Luthor came from a different mold entirely—she would have to approach her story with a certain amount of healthy trepidation. She could do it, though. After all, how could a story about Lex Luthor be any more problematic than getting the scoop on the greatest hero in the world?

I
N THE WAN SIBERIAN DAYLIGHT, THE STAIR-STEP LEDGES OF
the quarry excavation emphasized the crater made by the Ariguska meteor strike in 1938. Joseph Stalin had kept the Soviet Union under such a tight cloak of secrecy that very few Westerners knew about the devastating impact.

Lex Luthor was one of those few.

At around the same period, two decades ago, several large meteors had peppered Earth and astronomers were baffled as to what had caused the sudden spate of high-velocity space rubble. Here at Ariguska, where the Soviets had established a large gulag for political prisoners, General Ceridov had found fascinating and unusual mineral fragments that could only be attributed to the massive meteorite itself.

When the Ariguska object had hit, the dense pine forests had been flattened outward for miles, like ripples in a pond when a rock is thrown into it. In the two decades since, the regrowth had come in stunted and twisted, as though the soil itself was tainted. Fish caught in the forest lakes were often horrifically mutated and always poisonous. Crops did not grow. Even the small garden plots planted outside the gulag fences yielded only inedible horrors.

The impacting meteorite had tunneled deep and shattered, spraying fragments of itself throughout the strata. Now, in an ever-expanding pit, the workers quarried out the dirt and discarded the bulk of the useless rock, sand, and soil, searching for the core meteorite mass.

Luthor stared at the quarry operations, at the hundreds of sweating workers who were watched over by guards in olive-green woolen uniforms. Each guard carried a workhorse Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle. The sullen prisoners toiled with picks and shovels, filling rusty metal carts. As the diggers worked their way toward the main mass, they left a wide corkscrewing ramp. Debris was hauled away and dumped in ugly piles of naked rock in the tainted forest.

“Impressive, is it not, comrade Luthor?” Ceridov made an expansive gesture.

“This operation has been under way for…” Luthor calculated. “A year?”

“Seventeen months. And in that time we have excavated a substantial amount of meteor mineral.” They walked to the edge of the open pit, and Luthor looked down at the pathetic wretches laboring in it.

“How long do the slaves last?” Luthor asked.

“They work until they die, then are replaced by others who also work until they die. We have a large enough pool of replacements. Look at how much they have dug out!”

“Such a large open quarry is a bit obvious,” Luthor warned. “Some high-flying spy plane could easily photograph it.”

“They will see nothing more than a large quarry. However, our workers are about to begin constructing a dome to cover the bottom of the quarry when we expose the main meteorite mass.”

Luthor observed a commotion among the scrawny captives. Guards rushed to a man holding a jagged green lump that gave off a faint intrinsic glow.

Ceridov signaled the guard. Red-faced from both excitement and exposure to the cold air, the man came puffing up and saluted smartly to the general as he extended a glowing emerald fragment about the size of a baseball.

Ceridov held it in his hands. “Give that worker an extra cup of water tonight as a reward.” He offered the fragment to Luthor, who did not move to take it.

“That glow…it could be a form of radiation.”

“You are a cautious man.” As if to show his bravery, Ceridov squeezed the lump, holding it up. “Prolonged direct exposure to the meteorite emanations
does
have unpleasant effects on human physiology.” He shrugged. “Small exposures, though, are harmless…to the best of our knowledge.”

“The best of your knowledge!” Luthor accepted the meteor fragment with lingering reluctance and prodded the rock suspiciously. “What sort of physiological effects?”

Ceridov guided Luthor away from the quarry edge to a low bunker with extremely thick concrete walls, not far from the steaming coolant tower and containment dome for the camp’s power reactor. The bunker’s windows were reinforced with bars, its doors covered with two-inch-thick metal sheeting.

“A fallout shelter?” Luthor asked. It looked as if it could withstand an A-bomb blast.

“It is not to protect those inside, but to
contain
them. Listen. They are restless today.”

Luthor could hear a roaring, thudding sound like a blacksmith hammering an anvil. But it wasn’t a blacksmith. Something pounded on the metal doors while growling loudly enough to be heard through the thick concrete walls.

The KGB general explained, “When certain workers are heavily exposed, they
change.
Their bodies grow. They become much less human. They have extraordinary strength. Our geneticists are investigating the effects for our eugenics program. Some of the best Soviet minds have come to study them. You Americans have your Superman, comrade—the Soviet Union needs its own.”

Luthor could hear clear evidence of amazing strength just by listening to the damage the former workers were doing to the reinforced bunker. His mind was racing with ideas about how to exploit the properties of the odd green meteorite: as a power source, a medical treatment, a means to transform workers into a superpowerful force of his own. He would have his LuthorCorp labs run a full analysis on the specimen. “And?”

Ceridov seemed embarrassed. “Unfortunately, these mutants burn up a lifetime of strength within only a week or two, and then they die.” He added, as if it was an afterthought, “Our studies remain incomplete, since the beasts have also killed four of our best researchers.”

“And what happens to the bodies after the mutants die?”

“If we can remove the cadavers before the others tear them to shreds—not a trivial operation, I assure you—the specimens are dissected.”

“I would like to see one. Just how…extreme are the physical alterations?”

“Quite extreme.” General Ceridov took him to a nearby building made of concrete blocks, and he shoved aside a metal door. The interior was dank and full of shadows, kept at a very cold temperature. Wisps of steam curled around two large misshapen bodies lying on slabs, waiting to be autopsied.

Luthor stared.
Extreme indeed.
They no longer looked human at all. Seeing the horrific changes, he looked uneasily at the glowing green rock in his hand. “I would like a lead-lined box to contain this, please, for my journey home.”

T
HE HEADQUARTERS OF THE LARGE CORPORATION WAS A
shining steel tower, a gleaming monument in the heart of Gotham City. Wayne Tower’s modern architectural design stood out amid the downtown’s lesser, yet still imposing, Gothic monstrosities.

On Tuesdays, Bruce attended the main board of directors meeting in the glass-enclosed boardroom. Wayne Enterprises was so widespread, with so many divisions, investments, interests, and facilities, that no single discussion could cover all aspects. But once a week the ten directors were supposed to discuss the most important issues that concerned the company as a whole. Although the administrators expected little from him, Bruce insisted on sitting in nevertheless. Because he owned the controlling share of the company, they had to tolerate his presence.

Bruce took care to pretend a certain lack of interest at each meeting. Outside of these Tuesday gatherings, though, he watched the men far more closely than they realized. They would have been very surprised to learn how much he already knew about them.

“On today’s agenda, Mr. Wayne,” began Scott Thomson, vice president of administration and marketing, “is the redesign of the Wayne Enterprises logo. Our corporate logo is the face we show to the world. It symbolizes all we do, and we have received input from all the division heads. But now we very much need your input.” With his smooth, deep voice, he made the matter sound exceptionally important, to mollify Bruce.

Sitting at the head of the long conference room table, Bruce could think of many matters that were more vital, but he simply smiled. “Show me the designs. I assume the marketing department has narrowed the field down to the best?”

“Of course, Mr. Wayne,” said Larry Buchheim, vice president of the propulsion systems division, with a nod. Buchheim rarely had good news to report, always insisting that he needed a budget increase (though whenever Bruce secretly inspected the ledgers he found surplus funding).

Thomson stepped over to four easels at the far end of the room, which his underlings in marketing had prepared. As though he had rehearsed it for a scene, he unveiled the potential logos one at a time.

The first design was a complicated affair with ornate and virtually unreadable letters that spelled out the entire phrase “Wayne Enterprises—Hope for Gotham City and the World.” The next was a confusing amalgam of a missile, a medical caduceus, a sheaf of wheat, a lightning bolt, and a clockwork gear—which apparently symbolized the diversity of Wayne Enterprises. The other two designs were equally unimpressive and even less memorable.

Bruce frowned. “Do we want people to stare in confusion whenever they pick up one of our products? Our company logo should be an
icon,
something streamlined and memorable that people instantly associate with Wayne Enterprises. The choices you’ve given me are all muddled.”

“Simple, you say?” scoffed Paul Henning, the VP of manufacturing. “Would you prefer a big
W
perhaps?”

Bruce shook his head. Though this was purportedly the most prominent item on the agenda, he knew they had most likely concocted it only for the purpose of making him feel “useful” during his weekly appearance.

For the last several years, he had cultivated his public persona as a dashing playboy, the rich heir who loved cocktail parties, beautiful women, and the nightlife. Clark Kent’s recent profile in the
Daily Planet
had bolstered that perception. Bruce flaunted his riches, all the while being generous to the point of childlike innocence. Unfortunately, though the disguise successfully kept people from thinking of Bruce Wayne and Batman in the same sentence, it also gave him an air of incompetence. Though he was chairman of the board and the sole heir to his parents’ vast fortune, the ten directors had taken it upon themselves to “shelter” him from the day-to-day business.

At the end of each fiscal year, the corporate balance sheet was healthy, and thanks to the advent of the Cold War, many subsidiaries of Wayne Enterprises had landed government contracts to provide urgently needed military supplies, services, armor, and vehicles. Only LuthorCorp had a greater number of direct contracts with the U.S. military.

Paying little attention to the new logo designs, Bruce gazed around the table at these men. After the death of Thomas Wayne, the original set of directors had been excellent regents to watch over the company. Bruce’s father had been a well-known surgeon as well as an innovator and inventor. He had created a new type of iron lung that saved the lives of tens of thousands. The money from those patents had gone directly back into medical research.

Vivid in Bruce’s memory was the time when the head of one of Gotham City’s well-known crime families had been shot and severely wounded. Thugs in business suits had brought the bleeding man to Wayne Manor, pounding on the door late one night and pushing their way in when the door was answered. They didn’t want to be seen at a hospital.

Understanding the wounded man’s need, Thomas Wayne did not hesitate to operate, no matter who he was. Instead of viewing the men as criminals, instead of noticing the threatening bulge of handguns beneath the blood-smeared business suits, Thomas saw only an injured human being. He worked using the expensive dining room table as an operating surface and succeeded in saving the crime boss. He urged the thugs to take the man to a hospital for further treatment, but they had carried their boss away into the night with only grunts of thanks.

Some months later, an anonymous two-million-dollar donation had been made to the Wayne Foundation. Bruce remembered how upset his father had been, claiming the money was dirty, since he knew exactly who the donor had been. But as he wrestled with his conscience, Thomas had also realized how much good he could do with the untraceable money. Therefore, he built a new cancer wing at Gotham General Hospital. His father found it ironic and gratifying to think of how many lives the crime family was inadvertently saving. Once, when he didn’t know Bruce was listening, Thomas had told his wife, “I don’t like using money from such people, Martha, but I suppose it’s better for their souls than simply lighting a candle in church.”

As a skilled surgeon, Bruce’s father had an acute awareness of how capricious death could be. He had loved his son and his wife ferociously, and he had made certain his family was well cared for. He’d left very detailed instructions in his will, and his ironclad testaments and codicils had directed Wayne Enterprises for years.

The original handpicked board of directors had been close friends of his father, men who owed their lives to Thomas Wayne in one way or another. Newly orphaned and alone, young Bruce had gone off to boarding school for years, and those directors had carefully and honorably watched the company.

But Bruce had been gone for a long time, wrestling with his own demons, learning how to become more than just a man, building his skills, his mind, and his body—paying little attention to his fortune. More than twenty years had passed. Directors, and whole departments, had changed dramatically. These men now were two or three times removed from the ones Thomas Wayne had hired. The directors thought more about profit than about the great dreams of a skilled surgeon gunned down in an alley long before his time.

Several years ago, Bruce had returned to Wayne Manor to dust off the cobwebs, pull the sheets from the furniture, and turn the long-empty house into a glorious mansion once again. But he’d still needed time to prepare himself for his real work—to develop his armor, his weapons, his entire plan.

Obsession was not enough. With Wayne Enterprises, he had resources as well. Although he spent his nights protecting the innocents of Gotham City, becoming a caped and masked avenger—like Zorro in that last wonderful movie, at a time when Bruce had been so young and innocent—he also had to protect his parents’ legacy.

While the board members assumed they had the time and freedom to run the company as they wished, Bruce was watching them. Always watching. This was the only thing he could do for his parents now. Wayne Enterprises was
his,
and the directors would be reminded of that—when the time was right.

The oldest of the directors, a thin, quiet, and extremely intelligent man named Richard Drayling, sat silent during the meeting. Come to think of it, the man had said nothing the previous Tuesday either. Bruce pretended to ignore him but quickly picked up on Drayling’s mood of simmering anger and discomfort. He occasionally cast a sharp glance at Bruce, his disappointment palpable. A great battle seemed to be going on in his conscience.

Although Drayling, the director of materials science, had worked with Thomas Wayne and respected him greatly, it was abundantly clear that he did not approve of Bruce’s aloof playboy behavior. It was also clear that Drayling had no great love for the other board members.

Bruce interrupted a droning report from the director of chemistry applications. “Mr. Drayling, I sense that you have something to say.”

Drayling sat up stiffly, looked at Bruce, swept his gaze slowly over his fellow directors, and sighed. “Very perceptive, Mr. Wayne. Yes, I do.” He reached inside his suit jacket, paused for just a moment with eyes closed, as if gathering his strength, then withdrew an envelope. He set it on the table in front of him.

“This is my letter of resignation from the board of directors of Wayne Enterprises.” He stood as if carrying a great weight on his shoulders. “This is no longer a company I can believe in. It is better if I’m not a part of it, and it’s time for me to retire.”

Bruce was surprised by the brash move. Despite his careful study of the actions of the board members, he had not expected Drayling to leave. Something else was at the root of it. “No further explanations?”

“Not at this time. As you’ll note in the letter, my resignation is effective immediately. I’ll be going now.”

The remaining directors expressed their surprise and disappointment, but not too convincingly. The tenor of the overlapping conversations sounded more like relief and farewell rather than any attempt to persuade Drayling to change his mind. The old man didn’t seem to hear any of it as he turned and left the meeting room with pride and dignity.

Disturbed, Bruce pocketed Drayling’s letter of resignation. He would read it in detail later. Right now, he studied the reactions of the other board members, and he learned from them.

“We should get back to business,” Henning said into the awkward silence, glancing down at the agenda, as if resignations were a weekly occurrence.

“The dinosaurs are finally extinct,” someone muttered with a snicker; Bruce couldn’t tell who had spoken.

“We should get him a retirement gift,” added Frank Miles, one of the research VPs, to a chorus of muttered approval.

“We have prepared the annual report for you, Mr. Wayne,” said Terrence McDonnell, the chief financial officer, with a smile. He proudly handed over a glossy report that boasted impressive color photographs and a specially commissioned painting on the cover: a handsome Bruce Wayne standing in front of the monolithic Wayne Tower. The design and printing of this one report had probably cost enough to feed Gotham’s poor for almost a year.

He remembered to remain aloof, despite his troubled thoughts. “Thank you. I’ll glance at it when I get a chance.”

“We’re very pleased you’ve decided to devote your energies to charity work,” said Shawn Norlander, VP of pharmaceuticals and medical applications. “Not only does it put the best public face on all our activities, it’s also closely in line with what your father would have wanted.”

Norlander sounded sincere, but Bruce knew that most of the directors looked upon his charity work, extravagant society functions, and huge donations as a ball and chain, despite the tax deductions—unnecessary expenditures that could have been better used to build new factories, make more extensive investments, or provide bonuses to management. Nevertheless, the directors let Bruce manage his charities without complaint, as if they were throwing him a bone.

Bruce slipped the flashy report into his briefcase. “I have to cut this short today, gentlemen. I’m holding an important charity gala at the manor tonight with quite a few celebrities. We expect to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for polio research, and Eleanor Roosevelt has promised to come. Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller may even be there.”

“Interesting. I’ll try to make it,” Buchheim said, but Bruce knew the directors usually made excuses.

“I’ll expect to see some of you there,” Bruce added with an undertone of warning, which he then turned to a flippant suggestion. “Draw straws if you have to.”

“You know you have our full support for your humanitarian activities,” Thomson said in an irritatingly sycophantic tone, trying to mollify him. “In any case, you are the best spokesman for the company, Mr. Wayne.”

“I suppose I am,” Bruce answered, lifting his chin. “And it’s quite a full-time job. Please be sure to show me a list of candidates for Mr. Drayling’s replacement. Thank you again for the report, and”—he gestured gravely toward the easels—“let’s try a little harder on those logos for next week.”

AS THE CHAUFFEUR DROVE HIM HOME FROM WAYNE TOWER,
Bruce went over the flashy report the directors had given him. None of the information was new to him. Though they believed Bruce to be an indifferent manager—an impression he had actively cultivated—he familiarized himself with every department, scrutinized every project, analyzed every budget.

Two questions continued to weigh on him:
Why
had Drayling resigned? And why
now
? Bruce had tried to intercept the man to talk to him before he left Wayne Tower, but Drayling was gone, his desk cleaned out beforehand, his office dark. He would have to dig deeper, seek out the man so they could have a real conversation in private.