Guapo Méndez
02-24-2009, 06:39 PM
Geez, my last post here was about 3 reboots and another screen name away.
This idea came to me during a very dull meeting, so I wrote the outline between Powerpoint frames.
During the weekend I had to work on my thesis and whaddayaknow, the story comes out.
Enjoy.
“Yes, Pearl?”
“It’s your two o’clock interview with The Planet.”
Lex Luthor remained silent for a second. “Send her in. And tell Markinson to go ahead with Scenario 2.”
“Yes sir.”
The massive oaken doors of his office opened and Lois Lane entered. The sound of her footsteps on the cool marble floors made her sound smaller than she was. Lex greeted her warmly and motioned her to a chair.
“I’m always happy to give an interview to The Planet;” He said and sat down, “tell me, Miss Lane, what do you want to talk about? The new line of bulletproof LexVests? Perhaps our limited edition line of industrial drills, which reduce oil drilling time by 70%?” A warm, ingratiating smile “Anything, really. My time is your time.”
Lois sat down at took out her recorder, Lex could see she never flipped it on.
“Few things interest me, mister Luthor…for instance, how about the nosedive Lexcorp stock took six months ago? Rumor has it you had to sell everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“Interesting terms, but it was hardly a nosedive. Yes, we renegotiated a few deals, moved some key elements in my organization and yes, I was sandbagged like everyone else with that Madoff fraud.”
“Sandbagged? I refuse to believe that the man who has profited from every financial fiasco in the past 20 years got sweet-talked out of 2.2 billion dollars.”
“I wish it hadn’t gone that way, but I consider it a life lesson.” He shrugged. “If you check our balance sheet you’ll see that Lexcorp not only recovered from that loss, but we made a tidy profit this quarter.”
“To the tune of 7 billion.”
“Is that the sum? After your first billion rolls by, the next few tend to blur together.”
“Analysts predict another 3 billion dollars profit once you unveil the Golden Argosy, but the prototype hasn’t moved from LexAir’s hangars. Any comment on that?”
“Developing eco-friendly, supersonic aircraft capable of carrying what two Hercules can is somewhat tricky. We’re working out the kinks and I’m confident we’ll have it ready for the general public by the end of the year.”
“Interesting…now how about…” Lois looks down to her notepad, as if choosing her next question, but her will falters. “Enough of this, Luthor…where is he?”
Lex had examined Lois Lane when she came in. She looked desperate. True, she had done a remarkable job of primping herself up, but the signs were there: her eyes were bloodshot from too little sleep, her face riddled with frown marks, her gestures were strained and he could see her hands tremble…even her wardrobe was poorly chosen.
Lex leaned back on his leather chair and picked up a crystal globe from his desk. As he toyed with it, Lois could see there was something encased in it.
“Miss Lane, I have no idea of whom you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. You goddamn know.”
“Manners, Miss Lane…and I thought you came to talk about business.”
“I don’t care about you, I don’t care about your stupid company or all of your eco-friendly bullshit. WHERE IS HE?”
Lex Luthor stood up and walked towards his office’s massive window. He looked down at the city and spoke. “I love this city. I love what it is and what it can do. It has talent and potential and yes, it can be great if the right man is there to steer it.
“There already is a great man to steer it.”
“No, Miss Lane, he is not a man. He may look like one, but he is not one. He’s an alien.” He turned around to see Lois and the back light gave him an eerie aura. “Unwanted and unneeded. I was here to care for this city long before he decided to show up.”
“Care? You’ve blackmailed, you’ve killed, you’ve framed and murdered your way through…”
“ah-ah-ah, Miss Lane, it’s only fair to remove the weak elements so the herd can survive. And some people need to be persuaded, prodded…or dealt with, so progress can keep marching on.”
“Where is he, Lex?” Her voice was small and weak and Lex could barely make out her words “No one has seen him in eight months.”
“I wouldn’t know. I never had the desire to look up in the sky and pick him out among birds or planes.”
She continued, as if she didn’t hear him “Not even the other heroes…please tell me…” She looked down, perhaps to cover her tears. “I’ll…I’ll do anything…” Or her shame. “Did you hear me? Anything. Just tell me.”
Lex looked at her for a little while, the hum of the air conditioning barely drowning her tears. He walked towards his desk and pressed the intercom. “Pearl, hold my calls.”
“Yes, mister Luthor.”
“So, you want to know.” He said as he nodded magnanimously. “Fine, I’ll tell you.”
He walked towards a bookcase and stood next to it. “Alexander Luthor, plus one. Code Sigma User Pi Epsylon Rho Mi Alpha Ni. ”
A retinal scanner took his readings while the voice identification software processed his voice.
“**Access Granted. Good Day, Mister Luthor**” The bookcase opened inwards, revealing a long, well lit corridor, leading to an elevator.
“Come, come, miss Lane.” Lois stood up, dumbfounded. Was Lex about to show her? She’d keep her JLA signal device close in hand to give the alarm if needed.
She joined him at the entrance of the corridor and they walked towards the elevator. The bookcase swung close.
“Ah, where to start? Well, I might as well do it from the beginning.”
“You spoke about the 2.2 billion loss we had six ago. You were right, I am not an idiot. I saw through that glorified Ponzi schemer the second he uttered a word. No, I needed a convenient way to show why Lexcorp’s balance sheet wouldn’t show a profit for the first time in years. You see, miss Lane, six months ago I needed an obscene amount of money to finally get rid of Superman.”
His casual mention of his name made Lois feel a cold, sharp shock in her chest. She pressed the JLA emergency signal.
“It required a bit of planning, because his powers would tip him off in case there was a trap. Everything had to be perfect. He’d have to be lured to an emergency so dire that his other powers would need to be focused on the task at hand, and thus unable to alert him. Throw in a few good-natured scientists working for the betterment of mankind and the kryptonian would fly there faster than a speeding bullet.”
“…the fall of the Shooting Star. That was his last confirmed sighting.”
“Exactly.” He pressed the elevator button and the doors opened. “After you.”
“I got the Shooting Star a few years ago, after a couple of mergers. Lexcorp needed another orbital lab and it was cheaper to take over the company than to ordering them to build me one.” He pressed the only button in the elevator and it moved downwards.
“Once I had the lure, I worked on the trap. It took some work and I had to…dispose…of several scientist and minor criminal masterminds to procure a working red sun lamp. The cheapest part of the operation was a three-inch thick steel booth. My people put the red sun lamp inside a lead-lined box, to be activated when the doors closed. The booth was taken to the Shooting Star and installed over the likeliest place someone would use to shore it up…in case happened to fall from orbit.”
“You didn’t…”
“I did. He’s been missing for months, remember?” She looked into his sinister eyes and shivered. “Now where was I? Oh, yeah…the trap. Booth installed, engines sabotaged and down it goes. It was pretty dramatic to see the station plummet down to Earth…a fiery ball about to hit Metropolis when out of the blue the kryptonian sap flies to the rescue. He maneuvered himself into position and the booth got him. After that, emergency thrusters made it splash on the nearby ocean and no-one suspected he never flew away.”
“But the red sun lamp wouldn’t have time to take all his powers.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I neglect to mention the half a kilo of green kryptonite I also put in the booth?”
“You bastard.”
“The Shooting Star crashed somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and my people brought the booth to this lab.” He recounted with relish as the elevator doors opened. “His lobotomy took us eight hours.” He walked out.
Lois Lane did not move, unable to believe what she just heard.
“Miss Lane? I got the video if you want it.” Lex said as he popped back into the elevator. “For now, come. Down the corridor, to the right.”
“You see, we could not go willy-nilly into his brain and cut-cut-cut, much as I would’ve liked; that’s why it took so long. But once I had the kryptonian under anesthetics I wasn’t going to let him recover…ever.”
“I had the pleasure of beating seven shades of shit out of him during the first week. Then I had some of my men join in the fun. Nothing that would permanently damage him, no, but enough to let me release a lot of pent-up pressure.” He smiled as Lex stopped to use the fingerprint/retinal scanners of the massive door that barred their way.
“You’d be surprised to know that the man of steel broke down after 9 days of treatment. Man of zinc, really.”
Lois walked into the chamber, barely saying a word. “Once that was out of the way, I turned him over to my teams of scientists. They studied him twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for two months. When that was over, I knew everything there was to know about kryptonian physiology. That’s when we really started to bleed Lexcorp dry.”
This idea came to me during a very dull meeting, so I wrote the outline between Powerpoint frames.
During the weekend I had to work on my thesis and whaddayaknow, the story comes out.
Enjoy.
“Yes, Pearl?”
“It’s your two o’clock interview with The Planet.”
Lex Luthor remained silent for a second. “Send her in. And tell Markinson to go ahead with Scenario 2.”
“Yes sir.”
The massive oaken doors of his office opened and Lois Lane entered. The sound of her footsteps on the cool marble floors made her sound smaller than she was. Lex greeted her warmly and motioned her to a chair.
“I’m always happy to give an interview to The Planet;” He said and sat down, “tell me, Miss Lane, what do you want to talk about? The new line of bulletproof LexVests? Perhaps our limited edition line of industrial drills, which reduce oil drilling time by 70%?” A warm, ingratiating smile “Anything, really. My time is your time.”
Lois sat down at took out her recorder, Lex could see she never flipped it on.
“Few things interest me, mister Luthor…for instance, how about the nosedive Lexcorp stock took six months ago? Rumor has it you had to sell everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“Interesting terms, but it was hardly a nosedive. Yes, we renegotiated a few deals, moved some key elements in my organization and yes, I was sandbagged like everyone else with that Madoff fraud.”
“Sandbagged? I refuse to believe that the man who has profited from every financial fiasco in the past 20 years got sweet-talked out of 2.2 billion dollars.”
“I wish it hadn’t gone that way, but I consider it a life lesson.” He shrugged. “If you check our balance sheet you’ll see that Lexcorp not only recovered from that loss, but we made a tidy profit this quarter.”
“To the tune of 7 billion.”
“Is that the sum? After your first billion rolls by, the next few tend to blur together.”
“Analysts predict another 3 billion dollars profit once you unveil the Golden Argosy, but the prototype hasn’t moved from LexAir’s hangars. Any comment on that?”
“Developing eco-friendly, supersonic aircraft capable of carrying what two Hercules can is somewhat tricky. We’re working out the kinks and I’m confident we’ll have it ready for the general public by the end of the year.”
“Interesting…now how about…” Lois looks down to her notepad, as if choosing her next question, but her will falters. “Enough of this, Luthor…where is he?”
Lex had examined Lois Lane when she came in. She looked desperate. True, she had done a remarkable job of primping herself up, but the signs were there: her eyes were bloodshot from too little sleep, her face riddled with frown marks, her gestures were strained and he could see her hands tremble…even her wardrobe was poorly chosen.
Lex leaned back on his leather chair and picked up a crystal globe from his desk. As he toyed with it, Lois could see there was something encased in it.
“Miss Lane, I have no idea of whom you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. You goddamn know.”
“Manners, Miss Lane…and I thought you came to talk about business.”
“I don’t care about you, I don’t care about your stupid company or all of your eco-friendly bullshit. WHERE IS HE?”
Lex Luthor stood up and walked towards his office’s massive window. He looked down at the city and spoke. “I love this city. I love what it is and what it can do. It has talent and potential and yes, it can be great if the right man is there to steer it.
“There already is a great man to steer it.”
“No, Miss Lane, he is not a man. He may look like one, but he is not one. He’s an alien.” He turned around to see Lois and the back light gave him an eerie aura. “Unwanted and unneeded. I was here to care for this city long before he decided to show up.”
“Care? You’ve blackmailed, you’ve killed, you’ve framed and murdered your way through…”
“ah-ah-ah, Miss Lane, it’s only fair to remove the weak elements so the herd can survive. And some people need to be persuaded, prodded…or dealt with, so progress can keep marching on.”
“Where is he, Lex?” Her voice was small and weak and Lex could barely make out her words “No one has seen him in eight months.”
“I wouldn’t know. I never had the desire to look up in the sky and pick him out among birds or planes.”
She continued, as if she didn’t hear him “Not even the other heroes…please tell me…” She looked down, perhaps to cover her tears. “I’ll…I’ll do anything…” Or her shame. “Did you hear me? Anything. Just tell me.”
Lex looked at her for a little while, the hum of the air conditioning barely drowning her tears. He walked towards his desk and pressed the intercom. “Pearl, hold my calls.”
“Yes, mister Luthor.”
“So, you want to know.” He said as he nodded magnanimously. “Fine, I’ll tell you.”
He walked towards a bookcase and stood next to it. “Alexander Luthor, plus one. Code Sigma User Pi Epsylon Rho Mi Alpha Ni. ”
A retinal scanner took his readings while the voice identification software processed his voice.
“**Access Granted. Good Day, Mister Luthor**” The bookcase opened inwards, revealing a long, well lit corridor, leading to an elevator.
“Come, come, miss Lane.” Lois stood up, dumbfounded. Was Lex about to show her? She’d keep her JLA signal device close in hand to give the alarm if needed.
She joined him at the entrance of the corridor and they walked towards the elevator. The bookcase swung close.
“Ah, where to start? Well, I might as well do it from the beginning.”
“You spoke about the 2.2 billion loss we had six ago. You were right, I am not an idiot. I saw through that glorified Ponzi schemer the second he uttered a word. No, I needed a convenient way to show why Lexcorp’s balance sheet wouldn’t show a profit for the first time in years. You see, miss Lane, six months ago I needed an obscene amount of money to finally get rid of Superman.”
His casual mention of his name made Lois feel a cold, sharp shock in her chest. She pressed the JLA emergency signal.
“It required a bit of planning, because his powers would tip him off in case there was a trap. Everything had to be perfect. He’d have to be lured to an emergency so dire that his other powers would need to be focused on the task at hand, and thus unable to alert him. Throw in a few good-natured scientists working for the betterment of mankind and the kryptonian would fly there faster than a speeding bullet.”
“…the fall of the Shooting Star. That was his last confirmed sighting.”
“Exactly.” He pressed the elevator button and the doors opened. “After you.”
“I got the Shooting Star a few years ago, after a couple of mergers. Lexcorp needed another orbital lab and it was cheaper to take over the company than to ordering them to build me one.” He pressed the only button in the elevator and it moved downwards.
“Once I had the lure, I worked on the trap. It took some work and I had to…dispose…of several scientist and minor criminal masterminds to procure a working red sun lamp. The cheapest part of the operation was a three-inch thick steel booth. My people put the red sun lamp inside a lead-lined box, to be activated when the doors closed. The booth was taken to the Shooting Star and installed over the likeliest place someone would use to shore it up…in case happened to fall from orbit.”
“You didn’t…”
“I did. He’s been missing for months, remember?” She looked into his sinister eyes and shivered. “Now where was I? Oh, yeah…the trap. Booth installed, engines sabotaged and down it goes. It was pretty dramatic to see the station plummet down to Earth…a fiery ball about to hit Metropolis when out of the blue the kryptonian sap flies to the rescue. He maneuvered himself into position and the booth got him. After that, emergency thrusters made it splash on the nearby ocean and no-one suspected he never flew away.”
“But the red sun lamp wouldn’t have time to take all his powers.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I neglect to mention the half a kilo of green kryptonite I also put in the booth?”
“You bastard.”
“The Shooting Star crashed somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and my people brought the booth to this lab.” He recounted with relish as the elevator doors opened. “His lobotomy took us eight hours.” He walked out.
Lois Lane did not move, unable to believe what she just heard.
“Miss Lane? I got the video if you want it.” Lex said as he popped back into the elevator. “For now, come. Down the corridor, to the right.”
“You see, we could not go willy-nilly into his brain and cut-cut-cut, much as I would’ve liked; that’s why it took so long. But once I had the kryptonian under anesthetics I wasn’t going to let him recover…ever.”
“I had the pleasure of beating seven shades of shit out of him during the first week. Then I had some of my men join in the fun. Nothing that would permanently damage him, no, but enough to let me release a lot of pent-up pressure.” He smiled as Lex stopped to use the fingerprint/retinal scanners of the massive door that barred their way.
“You’d be surprised to know that the man of steel broke down after 9 days of treatment. Man of zinc, really.”
Lois walked into the chamber, barely saying a word. “Once that was out of the way, I turned him over to my teams of scientists. They studied him twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for two months. When that was over, I knew everything there was to know about kryptonian physiology. That’s when we really started to bleed Lexcorp dry.”