xparrot | Fic: All the Difference, part 9

Thanks to

gnine for the quick beta!

Smallville: All the Difference, 9/? {2,625 words}
PG-13, Clark/Lex, futurefic, AU (in a manner of speaking)
Lex Luthor wakes up in his own bed in his own penthouse, infinitely far from all he knows. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor wakes up in his own bed in his own penthouse, just as far from home...

All the Difference (9/?)

Lex Luthor was not one for casual swearing. There were more productive ways to express anger, and besides, crude English curses lacked creative range.

However, at this moment, Fuck was the only thing coming to mind.

Dismissing Mercy from this particular endeavor may not have been the best idea. Though, he conceded, staring at the gun, it might be a little late to be reaching that conclusion.

Last night's confession had done the trick. This morning, Mercy had accompanied him to various LexCorp facilities without question, only an apology for thus far having no leads on Carrefour. After lunch, when he had dismissed her to Whistlestop Observatory to oversee the decommissioning of the particle accelerator, she had only nodded obediently.

Even when Lex had told her, "Don't be surprised if you're back before me tonight; I may have a matter downtown to attend to," Mercy had only raised an eyebrow and asked, "Anything I could help you out with?"

"I hardly need a bodyguard for everything I do," Lex had told her, and she had said, "Of course, Lex,"--deferentially, or else just humoring her boss (with Mercy it was never easy to tell) but either way, that was that. The single look she shot him on the way out said that she damn well knew she wasn't superfluous, but that look was it, fortunately. While it was something of a consolation that at least one person in this universe knew him so well, he needed her out of the way.

Once she was gone, he called up the inventories, examining the warehouse records again for clues to the missing particle weapons. It was a calming break from other LexCorp business to sink himself in the mystery, to study the problem with a removed intellect, with a touch of regret that he couldn't call in Bruce. This was just the sort of intuitive deduction work Batman enjoyed.

All manner of arms had vanished from the warehouses, sometimes only a couple wide-range phase tasers, sometimes big-ticket pieces like the electron cannons. But the warehouses were tightly guarded, with no public access. There was no blackmarket trading evident onsite--of course not; he was too canny for that.

It was nearing the end of the afternoon when Lex pushed back his chair, rubbed his eyes and muttered, "Oh, you did not, you son of a bitch."

There were occasional, irregularly scheduled late-night shipments between LexCorp warehouses that were signed in and out, on time and without incident, and yet did not change the official inventories. Empty shipments, supposedly just shuttling delivery trucks. But from the timing of the deliveries, Lex would bet half his annual net that those trucks were not empty when they left the warehouses. The delivery driver would make a single stop, grab a smoke at an innocuous gas station, leaving the truck parked unattended in a flaunting of LexCorp security protocols. It would take only few minutes, and then the truck would continue on its way. Minus its unregistered cargo.

Simple, shrewd, and practically foolproof. But what else did he expect of himself?

Were a heist ever discovered, LexCorp could not be at fault; no crime had occurred on company property. The careless drivers would be fired, their unlikely severance bonuses wired to offshore accounts. Or else they might be more permanently dealt with--Lex had found in his private directory a few numbers for cleaners, and he wouldn't be personally hiring janitors in either universe.

As for payment, there were no financial transactions this significant. So, barter, not purchase; he was using the weapons to pay for services. Probably offering the small shipments as a guarantee and the larger deliveries upon contract fulfillment. Should his hires be apprehended, not only would there be no money trail back to him, but LexCorp could retrieve its stolen goods, a blameless victim in the affair.

He likely had been running this for years. Superman should have put a stop to it--though how could he have known? No one would call for help during a premeditated heist. If Batman had taken the time to look into the inventory discrepancies...surely it wasn't so difficult to deduce. A logical system. Lex would have set it up the same way himself, had he ever the need.

But then, that was the crux. He was Lex Luthor, here or there. The most significant differences he had found thus far were taste in sexual partners and the Captain Hook impression (he ought to look into how exactly he had lost the hand. He should have already, but every time he thought of the damn thing it would twitch like an electrocuted frog. Easier not to pay it any attention.)

According to the most recently edited inventories, six more particle beam weapons were scheduled to disappear this very night. Not cannons, only handheld artillery; plenty lethal, but the shipment was small enough to be only a guarantee, not the payoff. Which left the question of what service was being so purchased. All he knew was that Clark would hardly approve of clandestinely arming and contracting criminals, for any reason.

Which was why at eleven o'clock that night, Lex Luthor found himself loitering outside a rundown all-night coffee shop cum gas station cum dealer-and-addict meet-and-greet in the middle of Metropolis's Suicide Slums, drinking black liquidized repugnance from a styrofoam cup while he waited. He had a knit cap over his notorious bald head and a leather coat and dark turtleneck over his silk shirt.

He also had a wide-field taser, his 9mm, and a knife in a spring-loaded sheath up his sleeve, the last of which Mercy tended to sniff at disdainfully, when she wasn't muttering apocryphal stories of billionaires who had severed their own digits. But the increase in personal confidence was worth the risk, and it never hurt to have an ace in the hole, especially one with an eight-inch serrated blade. Besides, if he did lose a couple of these fingers he could just stop by a robotics lab to have them rebuilt.

As implausibly terrible as the coffee was, there was a thrill to being here. Clark never would have allowed it. Or rather, he wouldn't have bothered trying to stop Lex, but he would have been hovering over a building right around the corner, just out of sight, the whole time. The adrenaline high of working without a safety net was one of those human pleasures that Clark never quite grasped.

It wasn't that Lex objected to his guardian angel, however deplorable his fashion sense; he wouldn't have made it to the ripe old age of twenty-two without him. But a man had a responsibility to himself, superheroic salvation notwithstanding.

As far as he knew, though, Superman was lightyears away, and Mercy was busy in the suburbs, and there was no one around to notice he wasn't who he had been the week before. The independence was as delicious as the burnt coffee was repulsive. Lex took a long swallow for the sake of the caffeine, dumped the rest of the cup out on the pavement, then folded his arms and leaned against the wall, taking what shelter he could from the biting autumn wind.

At half past eleven, a gray LexCorp van turned into the parking lot, backing into the narrow space between the windowless shop wall and a chain-link fence, well away from the lot's single spotlight. Two men in jumpsuits got out, talking to each other across the van's hood, and headed into the shop without looking back.

Lex pushed off the wall and ambled over to the van, positioning himself under the building's awning at an angle to see without being seen. A minute later four figures jumped the fence. They were in the finest burglar haute couture, black on black, complete with matching gloves and ski masks. They had the back of the van jimmied open in less than a minute, and two men climbed in while the other two kept guard.

He waited until they were in place to step out of the shadows. The two lookouts moved to block him, and the shorter one told him, with deep-voiced, professional calm, "Get out of here."

"Who's in charge?" Lex asked.

One of the guys inside the truck stuck his head out the open door. "Hey, what's up? Who's that?" Nasal, young voice; just a punk kid.

"Forget it, just get moving."

"It's okay, we got the stuff already." The kid leaped out of the van, a duffel bag slung over one arm. The fourth man followed him out with a matching bag.

"I have to ask you to put that back," Lex said. "This job's been cancelled."

"Yeah, and who the hell do you think you are?" demanded the young punk, pulling his piece. Deep-voice had already taken action, and the others followed suit. Suddenly four pistols were aimed at Lex's head.

Lex didn't bother with his own gun, just reached up and yanked off his cap.

It was disturbingly gratifying, the way they all drew back. He might have just uncovered something radioactive. No need to see through the ski masks to know their faces had paled. Lex was hard-pressed not to grin himself. Even standing beside Superman he had never gotten this reaction before. It was quite the rush; suddenly he had a far greater appreciation for Bruce's extracurriculars. Who knew hardened criminals could be this fun?

Three of the four guns lowered, and the deep-voiced man began, "Mr. Luthor, we didn't know--"

Didn't know who had handed them this heist, Lex was sure. He certainly wouldn't have incriminated himself by giving them his name. "I'm sure you didn't." He wasn't deliberately imitating Clark's crime-fighting voice, but then he wasn't not, either. "I advise you to return your spoils to the van."

The punk kid kept his bag slung over his shoulder and his pistol trained on Lex. A Glock 10mm, the old Feds classic. Maybe he had aspirations of joining the FBI. "You think you can boss us around?"

"Just friendly advice."

"Shit," swore the other man with a bag, and Deep-voice said, "You heard the man. Put 'em back."

"No way! Why we gotta listen to him? If we ain't getting the rest, I'm taking what's mine now."

"Are you loco?" The tallest man grabbed the punk's arm, yanked him back. "This is Lex fuckin' Luthor!"

"That's it, I am outa here." The last man tossed his duffel back inside the van, threw himself at the fence and scrambled up it. The chain link rattled as he flipped over the top and disappeared down the alley.

Small matter; Lex only needed one of them to answer his questions. The city's finest would be here shortly as it was. He must have this finished up before then; somehow he doubted that the police of this world would take to Lex Luthor as Metropolis's latest vigilante. Indicating Deep-voice, he said, "I know this heist was a deal. What were you hired to do?"

Certain tones could make even a street tough jump to attention, and this man had military training, to judge by his bearing. He automatically drew his back straight, rapped out, "Not LexCorp, Mr. Luthor. Witkens Pharmaceuticals. Sabotaging the main storage units. We're going in tomorrow night, already have the guards bribed."

Lex nodded. Witkens was a small biomedical research firm with a good reputation. His LexCorp had bought them a couple years before, but knowing Madeline Hicks, it would be a cold day in hell before she sold out to this LexCorp. Not unless a forced bankruptcy gave her no choice.

"You're crazy," spat the punk, shoving his more sensible comrade away. "You gonna listen to this dude just 'cause he's got no hair?"

"Martin, put the bag down," Deep-voice ordered.

"Martin?" Lex repeated inquiringly.

"Oh man," the tall man moaned, backing up until he was against the fence. "Oh man, he knows your name, you are so dead, oh man--"

"Shut up!" Martin was wild-eyed behind the ski mask, shrunk back against the van. The pistol in his fist was shaking, his other hand convulsively clutching at the bag over his shoulder. "I ain't afraid of no skinhead zillioinaire!"

"Dude, you batshit? You can't kill Lex Luthor! He takes on Superman, you ain't even a piece of gum stuck under his shoe!"

Lex watched this drama unfold, intrigued. What a fascinating mythos had apparently developed around his name. There were unconsidered benefits to being Superman's nemesis.

Though not everyone subscribed to the legend, apparently. "So do the bullets bounce off him, too?" Martin shrieked, and enough was enough. He had what he needed. Deep-voice started moving toward the kid to stop him, as Lex pulled out the taser and hit the panic button.

The taser was set to high power at its widest range, full-area protection. The electricity surged out in a wave, a sparking circle four meters in diameter that flashed and faded almost the same instant it appeared. Deep-voice and his comrade both gasped and collapsed with meaty thumps.

Martin, however, stayed upright, cowering back against the van staring and shaking, but unstunned.

Lex frowned at him. A metahuman? No, he looked too startled for this to have been his own power. Still clutching the duffel bag--the bag with the particle weapons, finely tuned and calibrated electromagnetic equipment, shielded against electrical feedback. The lucky son of a bitch. He must have played with one of the weapons as he packed it up, turned it on by accident. Had he been holding it in his hand it would have done him no good, but the metal zipper of the duffel pressed between that field and the van's steel frame had effectively grounded him against the taser's charge.

Fuck. It was a little too late to wish he had brought Mercy along.

The kid was staring at his two fallen comrades now, the fear of God in his eyes. The mad kind of epiphany that comes when a man suddenly believes himself invincible.

"They're not dead," Lex said hastily, "just stunned," but Martin wasn't listening to him. He sighted along his pistol, aiming between Lex's eyes.

"You ain't gonna get me," he muttered, "not like them, ain't going down, not to anyone--"

Lex reached for his 9mm, far too slowly, and what was he going to do anyway, shoot him? This was just a punk kid, a scared, stupid kid who was in over his head. Lex empathized. Deeply. So much for independence.

Time slowed, adrenaline extending perception until everything moved as if through transparent molasses. Like Clark always described his super-speed, though the delay did Lex no good, as he could no more achieve superhuman acceleration than he could fly. Or bounce bullets. The kid was pulling the trigger before Lex had the safety off, and what an ignominious way to go. No one had dared shoot at him for years.

What would happen to him, dying in a world not his own? Lex had one moment to hope that just as he had been misplaced in life, a procedural error might send him to the incorrect afterlife, because if Clark ever tracked down his spirit, he would never, ever hear the end of it.

He didn't mean to, but at the flash of the gun muzzle he found himself whispering, "Clark." Not this universe's Superman, however many star systems away; but his own angel, infinitely more distant though he was. Not a cry for rescue. Only a request--forgive me?

And the bullet was coming at his head, faster than the sound of the shot would reach his ears, and there was no time left to be delayed.

tbc...