I Was A Hostage

by Lois Lane

Earlier today, I was held at gunpoint by a serial murderer.
I had been sitting in my office when I heard the news on TV: the Excelsior Academy had been taken over by armed men, and its students were being held for ransom.  Like every other reporter in town, I showed up at the school to try and "get the story."  But when I got there, all I could see was yellow tape and flashing lights.  Even though every sensible fiber in my being told me to stay put, my instinct told me otherwise.  I found an open air vent on the side of the building, and snuck inside when no one was looking.  I crawled my way through the ventilation shafts, trying to get even a small glimpse of what was going on.  By the time I got to a place where I could see anything, I was found.  A man reached up and pulled me right out of the vent, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.  I was dragged across the hallway, and I couldn't do a thing.
Eventually, the mercenaries decided to make an example of me, and their leader—Floyd Lawton, a man with at least thirty-five murders to his name—turned his gun on me.  In all honesty, I thought that I would die, right then and there.  Before the bullets could hit, however, a miracle happened.
It's been said that the youth of today is lazy, self-obsessed, and ignorant.  After today, I can honestly say that this is most definitely not true.  Today, I saw the youth of Metropolis fight back against injustice.  I saw young men rise up and beat back those who would threaten their peers—for no greater reason than their own moral fortitude and selflessness. Yes, they acted rashly.  Yes, they took a risk.  But I am alive today because of it.  In a situation that seemed devoid of all hope, hope surprised me.  In this modern age, so often filled with cynicism, we can take comfort in the fact that there truly are heroes in this world.

End.

Area 9 12:56:36 10/08/09

(My apologies for posting this chapter three days late.)

Two days after the hostage crisis, things were back to normal.  Luthorcorp was still under investigation, Deadshot was incarcerated in Stryker's Island maximum-security prison, and no one outside of the five teens and Alfred knew what had really happened at Excelsior.  Deadshot claimed to have fought a bulletproof boy and a warrior princess, and was quickly thereafter labeled insane and recommended for transfer to Arkham Asylum.  Lois had already published her first-hand eyewitness account of the incident—"I Was A Hostage"—in the Daily Star, and had already received several calls from high-profile newspaper publishers about possible internship.  Despite the relative horror of the hostage situation, the teens were enjoying a relatively happy time.  All except for one.

"So is Bruce still not talking about the whole thing?"
Diana's deep blue eyes were wide open with honest curiosity.  Lois, her head leaning sideways into the palm of her hand, barely opened her mouth to reply "no."

They were sitting alone together for lunch, which that didn't happen often.  Diana was almost ashamedly excited to have some time alone with another girl—after all, she had been raised on an island of only women, and therefore had a very sisterhood-centric upbringing.  After living in man's world for over a year, she'd begun to crave the simple sisterly relationships that she once had.
Lois, on the other hand, could care less about the sex of whomever she was talking to.

"It's because of Clark, isn't it?" Diana asked.
"A little bit, I think," Lois replied.
"Is Bruce always this mistrusting?" Diana asked.
Lois thought for a moment before responding.  "...Not exactly.  He just... well... Bruce is suspicious of everyone that he can't figure out or understand.  And when you're as literally alien as Clark is, then... well... you get the idea."
Diana nodded.  "Yeah, I suppose so. But look at what happened.  Clark saved both your lives; doesn't he deserve a little bit of trust?"
Lois shrugged.  "Tell that to Bruce. I don't know if he'll ever trust Clark completely, no matter what happens."
Diana let her eyes sadly sink toward the table. "That's... too bad. With Clark's powers and Bruce's resources, they could probably accomplish a lot if they worked together."


That night, Bruce sat alone at his computer, watching a security videorecording of Metropolis High's cafeteria.   One rather large line of text on the screen read "WayneTech hi-res sound zoom active."  On the recording, Diana and Lois's voices could be clearly heard above all the rest: "...they could probably accomplish a lot if they worked together..."
Bruce paused the recording.
He put his hand to his chin and leaned back in his chair, deep in thought.

Tag Team

An air vent.  Yeah; nice one, Lois.  Normal people see an air vent on the side of a building and think "hmm; I should leave that alone." You see an air vent, and you think "Hey! A way to sneak inside a building that's been taken over by armed terrorists!"

Lois Lane sarcastically cursed herself as she crawled through a large ventilation shaft inside Excelsior.  Somehow, she'd been able to sneak past the police and onto the school grounds, quickly finding an opened vent cover near the ground that was just big enough for her to comfortably squeeze through.  At this point, however, she'd had to climb through an entire ventilation system—avoiding fans and other hazards along the way—and was shuffling along on her bruised knees through the shaft that ran along the ceiling of the building's second floor.
Most would call her choice to enter the building "foolish," "stupid," and/or "insane."  Personally, Lois preferred "daring."  If she'd played it safe and stayed outside, she'd have had to settle for getting her information from official police reports and outsider eyewitness accounts: the same as every other one of the dozen or so reporters that stood outside Excelsior.  For Lois, that simply wasn't good enough.  If she had to get a little crazy in order to get the real scoop, then so be it.

Eventually, she crawled near a vent in the shaft's floor, where she could see one of the gunmen patrolling the hallway beneath her.  Suddenly, the air conditioning turned on, and the school's very old and very loud fans started blowing air through the shafts.  The man below, noticing the unusually loud sound, casually lifted his head up to look at the vent.  With a slight gasp, Lois threw her head back away from the vent, so as not to be spotted through the slots.  Unfortunately, she threw her head backwards into the top of the shaft, making an echoing, booming crash.
Ohhhh... that's not good.
A few seconds later, Lois saw the vent cover fall away into the room.  The man's arm reached inside, grabbed her by the ankle, and forcefully pulled her out of the shaft, sending her crashing down onto the floor.
At this point, Lois resigned herself to the fact that she was probably nothing more than a walking bruise.  Before she could finish her thought, however, she was grabbed by the wrist and dragged along the hall.  Thinking as quickly as her aching head would allow her, she tried to twist the man's arm, thus putting him on the ground where she could knee him in the face.  Unfortunately, she quickly realized that actual muscle was required in order to do something like that, and she had very little of it.


Clark, Diana, and Bart stood in an alleyway where they could clearly see Excelsior.
Clark turned to Bart. "Are you ready?"
Bart nervously shrugged.  "Yeah, um... sure."
Clark gave him a reassuring smile.  "You'll do fine. Just remember the plan."
Bart nodded.
Clark took a deep breath. "Let's go."

Diana saw the two boys abruptly replaced by swirls of heavy wind.
Bart ran towards a building on Excelsior's Western side, faster than anyone on the street would notice.  Moving as fast as he was, he easily ran upwards along the side of the buildings, finally reaching the roof.  The building he was standing on was three stories tall, which equaled about two of Excelsior's extremely tall stories.  At this precise height, he could see straight into one of the school's windows.  He looked down at his watch, counting down the seconds until it was time.
Four... three... two... one.
He ran towards the roof's edge, jumping at the last possible second.  He zoomed across the distance between the buildings in only a few seconds, crashing through one of Excelsior's second-story windows.
He tumbled as he landed, feeling slightly stupid for telling Clark that super speed-jumping across a street and crashing through a window would be a great idea.

He took a few seconds to recover from his landing, only to look upwards into the eyes of two rather-surprised-yet-still-mean-looking thugs.  They leveled their weapons at him and fired.  He was up and off the floor in a flash, however, and zipped around their backs to give them each a super-speed punch to the back of the head.
As they slowly slumped to the ground, Bart felt strangely proud of his accomplishment.  As he stood for a moment in awe of his own skill, he heard gunfire coming from farther down the hallway.  His heart sank as he realized his mistake.
I... I wasn't fast enough...


Bruce could only watch as Davik fired on his beloved Lois.  Lois could only clamp her eyes shut as her death moved ever-closer.  Before the bullets could strike her, however, she heard a strange sound.
*PANGPANGPANGPANG*
She slowly opened her eyes, and looked up to see Clark standing over her, his fists clenched and his stance firm.  Davik almost jumped back in surprise, giving Clark a wide-eyed stare of bewilderment.  Clark took two steps forward before backhanding Davik square in the chest, sending him flying across the room and into a wall.  He limply sank to the floor.
Bruce was—for once—relieved to see Clark.  As he looked over at Lois, he saw her eyes filled with tears.  Clark turned to her for a brief second, as if to say "are you alright?"  Lois's eyes responded with a "thank you."
Bart suddenly appeared in the doorway, snapping everyone in the room out of their overdramatic trance.  Clark's head snapped upward to meet Bart's gaze, then, remembering their task, they both sped out of the room.
Lois's scrunched her face confusedly.  Was that Bart Allen?
Bruce nearly rolled his eyes in frustration. How many of these people ARE there?!

Clark and Bart split up, running through each and every room of the entire building, knocking out each and every one of the gunmen.  Within a few seconds, they met back in the main second-story hallway, pausing to hear the combined sound of all thirty-four men slump to the ground in one collective thump.

Walking back to the room where they'd left Lois and Bruce, Clark and Bart found the couple sitting on the floor, with Lois's arms wrapped lovingly around Bruce.  Clark moved behind Bruce, bending down and snapping the plastic tie on his wrists by pinching it between his fingers.

*BAM*
The front door of the school could be heard busting open.  The police were now spreading through the school, and would be upstairs in a few moments' time.  "Well, I guess it's time to get outta here," Bart said.  Before Clark and Bart could speed away, however, something caught Lois's attention. "Wait!  Where'd he go?!"
The four of them looked over at where Davik had been shoved into a wall by Clark, but he was nowhere to be found.


What the **** was that?
Davik audibly cursed himself as he ran through the sewers below the school.  He clutched his chest slightly, feeling very sore.  Tearing away his shirt, he looked down at the skin-tight chrome-weave armor that he'd been wearing underneath it.  It was made of strips of metallic fabric, tightly wrapped around his body.  Normally he used it simply to stop bullets, but apparently it did a decent job of padding against super-strong teenager slaps as well.
No matter where he was or what job he was doing, Davik always had an escape plan.  He'd been able to slip away from Clark and the rest by faking unconsciousness and sneaking out the classroom's corner door while no one was looking.  From there, he's made his way down to the basement, which had an old pipe that lead to the sewers.

He made his exit through a manhole in a quiet alleyway.  Taking a quick look back in the general direction of the school, he gave a quick "whatever" shrug, then turned back around to walk away.  He stopped abruptly when he saw a girl standing in his way.  She was tall, beautiful, black-haired, and wore thick silver bracelets on her wrists.  Her feet were planted firmly on the ground, as though she were ready for a fight.
Davik casually gave out a single chuckle, then pulled out two large silver pistols from holsters on his sides.  "Look, babe, you really don't wanna get in my way right now."  He got an arrogant smirk on his face. "Though maybe later, if you like."
"You must be Floyd Lawton," Diana said calmly, her expression serious.
"Aww, c'mon! They figured that one out already? Ugh. I liked being called Davik.  Kinda sounded more respectable, don'tcha think?"
Diana didn't respond, but kept staring him down.
Floyd rolled his eyes.  "Fine. Be that way."
*BLAM*
Floyd's arm was casually extended outward towards Diana, the gun in his hand smoking from the shot it had just fired.  Diana's arm was in front of her face, and a black mark from a bullet was smeared across her bracelet.
Floyd was surprised, and slightly frustrated.  He quickly realized something, however, and smirked at her.  "You're not bulletproof like the other guy, are you?"
Diana shifted her stance slightly.  "I don't have to be."
Floyd laughed at her.  "You really don't get it, do you?  Floyd Lawton's the name my mother gave me..."
Floyd reached behind his neck, pulling the full-mask hood of his metal armor tight over his face.  With it on, his face resembled that of a metallic mummy, with a glowing red targeting eyepiece set into the mask's right eye socket.  "...my real name is the one they gave me in Gotham. The one that people really know me by.  My name is Deadshot."

In a split-second, his twin pistols were ablaze with fire.  Diana did her best to deflect all the bullets, but it was quickly becoming difficult.  There were only so many ways in which she could move her arms, and he was quickly finding all the angles that were the most difficult.
*BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM*
Diana could feel herself slipping up a little.  One of the bullets grazed the inside of her lower leg, and she fell to the ground with a slight scream of pain.  A few idle drops of blood fell to the ground.

Deadshot paused for a moment, eyeing his wounded prey.
"Heh. Not good enough, princess."
He aimed his gun right at her forehead.
*BLAM*
She was ready for him.
She deflected the bullet with her left bracelet, sending it ricocheting straight back into Deadshot's forehead.  His metal-weave mask protected him, but the sheer force of the high-caliber bullet was enough to nearly knock him out.  He fell backwards to the ground, barely managing to catch himself and stay sitting up.

Police sirens began to creep closer to the alley. Diana lifted herself off the ground and floated upwards, gently flying over a rooftop and out of sight.  Deadshot, still stunned, turned toward the street, only to see the back end of Maggie Sawyer's pistol slam into his face.

Notes

Hey there, readers. (all three of you)

I know that TJ's publishing schedule has been kinda all-over-the-place as of late, and I apologize.  As the stories get more and more massive, they require a lot of planning, so they can't be written on a whim like they once were.


I've now added a music playlist to the blog (UPDATE: that playlist is now gone, since the site that kept it running no longer provides that service), and filled it with several songs that I think act as a good soundtrack for the story.


My Hero - Paramore
Good for the quiet, gentle moments, like the bleacher scene in "After Class."

Introduce A Little Anarchy - Hanz Zimmer (The Dark Knight soundtrack)
Good for the darker, tense, action-filled moments, especially those that involve Bruce. ("Revealings" is the only place where it might fit as of yet, but there'll be more to come.)

Arise - Flyleaf
It's basically the theme for the entire story.  The last section (starting at about 2:55) is pretty much the central idea behind the characters:
"Arise and be / All that you dreamed."
Since TJ is a story about the power of youth and the growth of the young potential-heroes, it fits pretty perfectly.

All I Wanted - Paramore
As overdramatic as can possibly be.  Perfect for scenes with lots of teen angst and longing. (that'll come later)

Everything - Lifehouse
It's the song that was used for pretty much every tender moment in Smallville (the TV series), and I think it fits nicely.  Very genuine and romantic (though there's not really much romance in the story yet.  I'll work on that. ;) )


Rest assured that I'll do everything to keep the story moving at a brisk pace.
Oh, and PLEASE leave comments.  I don't care if you leave five comments on every single post; I'd be more than happy with that.  Tell me what you liked or didn't like, what you thought was cool or what confused you.  Tell me what you want to read more about, or what's annoying you in the story.  The more feedback I get, the better!

Red Flash

.

   One Hour Ago

"Wait! Clark!"

   Diana was struggling to catch up with Clark as she squeezed through the crowd surrounding Excelsior.
   When she finally got through, she grabbed his arm to stop him.  "Wait!"
   Clark stopped and turned back around to face her.
   Diana looked around to make sure that no one else was paying attention to them, then spoke in a hushed tone. "Clark, who are you talking about? Who's faster than you?"
   Clark gave quick glances to his left and right, then leaned in a little closer to Diana. "Not here. C'mon."

   They walked back to the Daily Star office, not saying a word.  When they walked through the door, Clark sat down at his computer and began busily began sorting through various files.  Over his shoulder, he explained the situation to Diana.  "You remember a few weeks ago? The first day we met?"
   "Of course," Diana said, still slightly confused.
   "Well, that's when I first found out about him."


   Four Weeks Ago

   Clark and Diana were sitting out on the bleachers, about an hour after their first meeting.
   It was getting late.  Diana looked at her watch. "I should be getting home," she said with a sigh.
   "Yeah, I should too–" Clark suddenly stopped in mid-sentence as something caught his eye.  The world around him slowed as his mind automatically sped up to perceive what he was seeing: a boy was running across the football field—at roughly seven hundred miles per hour.
   Clark's eyes were perceptive enough to recognize the boy's face—it was Bart Allen, one of his classmates.  Bart was somewhat short—only about five-foot-six—and wore mostly red, which left a crimson streak through the air when he ran.  He looked over his shoulder and saw that Clark had somehow recognized him.
   Bart ran around and underneath the opposite side of the bleachers.
   I should follow him, Clark thought.
   Barely remembering Diana—and his earlier unfinished sentence—Clark gave her a "see you later, Diana," and walked toward where he'd last seen Bart.  He felt bad about leaving Diana there so rudely, but he figured that it was better to be perceived as being a little odd than to lose track of Bart's position—after all, the kid could probably run a mile in a matter of seconds; it was important to keep up with him.
As Clark neared the other side of the bleachers, he caught a glimpse of Bart's red shirt between the metal panels.  When he walked down the stairs and got underneath them, however, Bart was gone.

   Meanwhile, back in the present...

   "I kept trying to find him and talk to him, but he kept avoiding me," Clark explained.
   Diana was surprised and intrigued by the story. "He has super-speed like yours?"
   "I think he's faster than I am, actually," Clark replied.
   Diana's eyes went a little wider with surprise. "So... you think he can help with the hostage situation?"
   "Yeah," Clark said. "If I can find him."
   Diana went into deep thought for a moment. "Clark... why do you think we're all here?"
   Clark stopped what he was doing and turned to her.  "What do you mean?"
   "I mean why are we here?  You, me, Bart? I mean, it's not like there are that many people with powers in the world."
   Clark thought for a second. "Well, maybe there's more people like us than we thought," he said with an optimistic smile.
   Diana shook her head.  "No, I don't think so.  On Themyscira, we have libraries that chart all known history dating back thousands of years.  There have always been heroes with power greater than that of mortal men, but never more than a few dozen at a time.  The chances of you and I meeting by chance like we did were already astronomical, but now a third person?  Something's going on, Clark.  There's a reason that we're all here together."
   "Well, that's all the more reason to find him."
   "Don't bother," a young voice said from the doorway. "He's right here."
   Bart walked through the door and into the office.  He was dressed in his usual red shirt and black pants.  He looked a little embarrassed to be the center of attention.
   The three teens stared at each other in silence for awhile before Bart spoke up again. "Yeah, um... I was listening in on you guys just now... Sorry, Clark, for runnin' earlier. I was just a little worried that you might, y'know, try to tell the whole world about me. Bein' a reporter and all."
   Clark smiled jokingly at him.  "Hey, I'm a reporter so I can try to help people, not exploit them."
   "Heh. Yeah, I gathered that," Bart replied.
   "So..." Bart awkwardly started. "That 'hostage situation.' You talkin' 'bout the one over at Excelsior?"
   "Yes," Diana replied.  "Can you help us?"
   Bart looked a little confused.  "Um... yeah, about that... what exactly do you want me to do? All I can do is run real fast."
   Clark stood up.  "There are at least thirty-five men with guns all over the school.  They say that if they get even a hint that the police are trying to take them down, they'll start killing hostages.  I'm pretty sure that if I try to run in there and take them all out, even at super-speed, I won't be able to stop them all."
   Bart tilted his head back a little in understanding. "So you think if we work together, you and me can take 'em all out?"
   Clark shrugged. "Maybe? I think so."
   Just then, Alfred walked in, looking very worried and out of breath.
   Diana and Clark were surprised; they hadn't seen him since that night four weeks ago.
   "I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion," Alfred said, "but frankly, I don't know who else to go to."
   "It's okay," Diana said, gently taking his arm and leading him over to a chair to sit down.
   Noticing Bart, Alfred stopped and looked inquisitively at Clark and Diana.
   "He's okay," Clark said. "Bart, this is Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler." Bart held out his hand casually to Alfred, shaking his hand.
   "A pleasure to meet you, young man," Alfred politely said despite his weariness.  Turning back to Clark and Diana, he began explaining the situation. "I've just been talking with the police, they say that they're doing everything they can, but things are not going well."
   "Don't worry; we'll get him out. We're working on a plan right now." Clark said reassuringly.
   Alfred smiled out the side of his mouth. "I thought you might be."  Reaching into his pocket, Alfred pulled out a USB flash drive and handed it to Clark.  "This contains all the information that Master Bruce has on the school.  He is a rather... paranoid individual sometimes, but, as it would seem, he is also often correctly cautious."
   Clark took the flash drive and plugged it into the computer.  He opened one file—"floorplan.pdf"—and saw a complete multi-floor floor map of the Excelsior Academy.  He looked up at his companions and smiled.  "I think we can do this."
   Diana turned on the TV.
   "...once again, reporting live from Metropolis, where an entire school has been taken hostage by a group of armed gunmen.  We're getting reports that the leader of these men is calling himself Davik Holton, a name that has recently been revealed to be an alias of the mercenary Floyd Lawton.  Lawton single-handedly murdered five police officers and two young men in a similar incident four months ago in Gotham, and has evaded capture ever since..."
   Clark turned to the others.  "Alright; let's get this plan nailed out. We need to get in there. Now."

Captive

   Bruce Wayne was on his knees, hands tied behind his back.
   In the room with him were three men, each with MP5 submachine guns.  Bruce kept his head low, but did his best to listen to everything that was going on.  From what he could tell, the head of this operation was on the phone with the police.
   "No! I want clearance for our helicopter to land! We'll take Wayne with us, and once we're far away, we'll drop him somewhere nice and safe.... well, you don't have a choice, now do you, Inspector?"
   Another one of the armed men walked in, dragging a dark-haired teenage girl behind him.  "Hey, Davik, we found this girl crawling through the air vents.  Her press pass says that she's a reporter for..."—he looked at her press pass—"...The Daily Star.  Name's Lois Lane."
   Bruce's eyes suddenly widened, but he kept his head still.  He didn't want to give away the fact that she was important to him.
   Davik frowned. "Never heard of it."
   The other man looked at the pass again. "Says here that it's a high school paper."
   Something clicked in Davik's memory. "Wait. Lois Lane? Reporter for Metropolis High's Paper?"
   The other man nodded.
   Davik grinned and looked down at Bruce. "Well then, kid, looks like we've got your girlfriend." Turning back to his subordinate, his face went a little more serious. "Put her right here."
   Lois struggled against her captor, but made sure to keep her mouth shut—she knew better than to make stupid comments when both she and her boyfriend were held at gunpoint.
   Squatting down next to Bruce, Davik spoke quietly.  "Now, see, I know that you can get the money. You've got connections. Tell me who to contact."
   Bruce didn't say a word.  He didn't want to voluntarily finance the schemes of a terrorist group, and was still trying to figure out a way to escape.
   "Fine, then," Davik said flippantly. You don't think this is real? You don't think that we'll actually kill any of you?
   Bruce suddenly realized what Davik was getting at. He looked at Lois.  Her normally-perfectly-brushed hair was disheveled, and she had a look of helpless fear in her eyes.
   Bruce's mind raced back nearly a decade.


   Crime Alley.
   Gunshots.
   Not again.

   Davik pointed his gun at Lois.  Bruce's calm was shattered.
   "HEEEAAARGH!!"
   He jumped at Davik, desperately trying to do anything possible to stop him.
   Davik flipped his gun around and slammed Bruce in the head with its back end, knocking him to the floor.  Bruce could only watch through blurred vision as Davik turned his gun back on Lois and opened fire.

Metropolis S.C.U.

   As soon as Clark could get out of class, he rushed over to the Star office.  Lois and Diana were already there, watching the news on TV.
   "Clark! Excelsior's been—"
   "I heard, Lois," Clark interrupted.  "Are you okay?" he asked her.
   She gave him a quizzical look before finally getting it.  Why should I be not ok—Oh! Because my boyfriend's been taken hostage! Right.
   "I'm fine. They want Bruce for something, so I really don't think they'll hurt him."
   Diana didn't avert her eyes from the TV screen.  "Someone needs to stop them."
   "Who? You?" Lois asked. "You might be able to handle a few bullets, but can you seriously take on a whole building-full of them?"
   Clark took a deep breath. "I can stop them," he said firmly.
   Lois and Diana looked at him silently for a moment.  "Clark... are you sure?" Lois asked.  "Do you really think you can take them all down with your super-speed?"
   Clark gave a half-hearted smile.  "I... think so."
   Lois stood up from her seat, and started looking around for her purse.  "Alright then.  Let's go."
Clark immediately moved between her and the door.  "Lois, I think you should stay here," he said in his best "caring-yet-authoritative" voice.
   Lois gave him a flippant expression and put one hand on her hip as she spoke. "Smallville, it's not that I don't appreciate the attempt to keep me safe, but this is the number-one story of the year for Metropolis's youth, and there's no WAY that I'm letting some farmboy keep me away from it!"
   With that, she squeezed past Clark and walked out the door.  Diana gave Clark a smile and a shrug, as if to say "hey, that's Lois," and walked out after her.

   When the Star reporters got to the Excelsior Academy, they could barely see past all the crime scene tape, police cars, and heavily-armed officers from the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit.  Being right in the middle of the city, the Academy was surrounded by buildings filled with onlookers staring out through windows at the busy scene.
   Lois moved next to Clark and pointed towards a rugged-looking man in his early fifties and a slender blonde woman with a slight scowl.  "That's Dan Turpin and Maggie Sawyer; they're the top inspectors for the S.C.U.  See if you can hear anything from them about what's going on."
   Focusing his hearing as best he could through the noise, Clark managed to pick out their conversation.  Diana was listening in as well.  She didn't nearly have Clark's level of hearing, but Amazons were gifted with very sharp ears nonetheless.  The male inspector spoke with a rough Brooklyn accent, while the woman had a notably deep and commanding voice.
   "So what's it gonna be, Maggie?  We goin' in?"
   "No way, Dan.  They've got at least thirty-five gunmen at multiple points all throughout the building.  If we try to jump in there and don't manage to take all of them out at once, they start shooting hostages."
   A slender man wearing a business suit stepped underneath the yellow tape and walked over to the inspectors.  It was Lionel Luthor.
   Clark's eyes burned.  He didn't know why, but he often felt his eyes burning when he was angry.  Lois looked up at him and nearly gasped.  His eyes were glowing a deep, bright red.  "Clark! Your eyes!" she whispered.  Clark snapped out of his anger, and looked down at her.
   "What?"
   His eyes went back to their usual blue, and she decided to leave it alone for the moment.
   "...nevermind."
   Clark was confused, but he went back to his surveillance.
   Inspector Sawyer gave Lionel a slight grin as he walked up. "I'm pretty sure a crime scene is the last place you wanna be right now, Mister Luthor."
   "My son has been taken hostage, Miss Sawyer," Lionel firmly responded.
   Maggie regarded him for a moment, as if trying to judge his true motives.  "Fine," she said.  "So what do you want us to do, exactly?"
   "What do they want?" Lionel asked.
   "They want 50 million dollars each for your son, for Bruce Wayne, and for Oliver Queen."
   "Then they'll have it," Lionel said without hesitation.
   Turpin jumped in.  "You're just gonna let them have their money and get away?"
   "My son's life is of the utmost importance to me, Inspector."
   When Diana heard this, she was surprised: Lionel was—at least partially—being sincere.
   "Alright, well, we still need to get the money for Wayne and Queen," Maggie said.
   "I'll pay for them; just get those boys out of there," Lionel said.
   "Well that's very generous of you, Mister Luthor," Maggie said with an edge in her voice, "but they very specifically want fifty million from each of the boys' families, not just from one."
   Lionel frowned in frustration. "What? Why?"
   Maggie rolled her eyes.  "Hell if I know.  But those are their demands. We're talking with the Queens now; their money should be coming along soon. The Wayne boy's the difficult one, though.  His parents are dead, and he hasn't inherited their wealth yet, so—"
   Lionel interrupted.  "Lucius Fox, the current C.E.O. of Wayne Enterprises, was a close family friend of the Waynes, and he treats Bruce like a member of his own family.  He won't hesitate to hand over the money."
   Maggie nodded in acknowledgment.  "Lucius Fox. Alright; thanks."
   As she turned aside to try to contact Lucius Fox, Lionel turned around to walk back across the yellow tape.  He stopped, however, when he caught sight of the Star reporters.  Standing still and staring at them with contempt, he eventually broke his gaze and kept walking.

   The three teens looked at each other to break the tension, then quickly remembered their task.
   "Clark, do you still think you can stop them all in time?" Lois asked. "I mean, are you fast enough to take them all down before any of them gets a clue that they're being taken out?"
   Clark thought for a moment.  I don't know where they all are, and I don't think I can search the entire school before a single one of them pulls a trigger.
   "No... I'm not that fast."
   The three of them stood in silence for a few seconds.
   Clark looked up with a slight smile, however.  "...but I think I know someone who is."

Math Equations

Clark couldn't be more bored in math class.  It wasn't that he didn't like math, or that he wasn't good at it.  He could finish an average geometry problem in the time it took an average human to read a sentence.  He always got perfect scores, and actually had to slow down when taking tests so as not to arouse suspicion.
   In Smallville, he'd spend most of his time in math class staring out the large windows that were placed in every classroom in the school.  Here at Metropolis High, however, Clark was stuck in a classroom with no windows, and nothing to do but listen to his teacher drone on.
   "So that's all I think that's all the new material we'll go over today," Mr. Frank said.  The students breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief, and hurriedly began reaching for their bags.  "No, no, wait a minute. I didn't say we were done for today," Frank said with a slight smile.  "We should do some review. After all, we do have a test coming up in a couple weeks; we might as well take this time to make sure we've all got everything down thus far. So! Any questions? Anything you're unclear on?  Anything at all?"
   A tall boy who wore a letterman jacket and slouched back in his seat responded.  "Yeah, I've got a question."
   "Yes, Nelson?"
   "Why do we have to learn math anyway?"
   The room had a few muffled giggles.
   Mr. Frank relaxed a bit as he sat on the front of his desk.  He spoke calmly, almost like a father explaining the facts of life to his children.  The students actually felt somewhat like he was treating them like his children, which made them slightly uncomfortable.
   "Quite simply, math is everything.  Every single thing in the universe can be quantified with math.  To be even more specific, everything in the universe is math.  It's a series of facts and informational existences that not only define the world and everything in it, but actually create and sustain it."
   Frank could see that he'd lost his students somewhere around "informational existences."  He began again.
   "It's like this: everything in the world can be defined by numbers, algorithms, and calculations. not just things that we can see and understand in a concrete way, but even things that we have yet to fully comprehend.  The keys to life and death may be held within some unknown equation that one of us may yet discover."
   The entire class was fixated on him, and every face had an expression of either "wow," "you're crazy," or "what the hell did he just say?"
   Clark, meanwhile, was only halfway paying attention.  His eyes were shut as he listened intently to something else.  He could hear a gathering of adults a hundred feet down the hall, in the Teachers' Lounge.  They were talking about something that Clark could only hear small bits of—after all, his super-hearing wasn't very precise, and he had a lot of trouble distinguishing different sounds from one another.
   "How could this have..."
   "Where did..."
   "...harmed any students yet?"
   Clark's eyes shot open.  Harmed any students?
   He listened closely, doing his best to aurally "scan" the building.  He heard nothing out of the ordinary: no commotion; no loud noises.  Whatever was going on was apparently not in this school.
   He was getting frustrated with his hearing and its imprecision, when finally he had an idea. If he focused his hearing very specifically, he might be able to pick out the humming electronic noise of a TV speaker. After a few seconds, he found it, clear as a Kansas summer sky.
   "Live from Metropolis, the Excelsior Academy—a famed private school for the wealthy—has been taken over by armed gunmen. All of the building's occupants are being held hostage, and, while the captors have made no demands as of yet, it is believed that they are holding individual students for ransom, including the heirs to the Luthor, Queen, and Wayne fortunes."