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Clark pushed open the door and put his bag down in the hallway. The afternoon sun poured in through the windows in the living room. It had been a fairly cold spring thus far, but the warm rays seemed to heat the room by at least ten degrees or more.
“I can’t wait,” Lex was saying. Clark frowned at the silence that followed. Lex must be talking on the phone, he thought.
He wandered into the kitchen. Sure enough, Lex was standing at the counter, his back to the doorway, a phone at his ear.
“So, we’ll see you soon? Okay.”
He turned and started, placing a hand on his chest.
“Geez! I didn’t hear you come in.”
Clark shrugged. “Sorry. Who’s coming?”
“Bruce. He’ll be here in a couple of hours I guess,” he added, looking at the clock.
Clark went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of milk, tipping it up to drink from it. Lex grabbed a towel and swatted him with it.
“Were you raised in a barn, Kent?”
Clark smirked at his friend. “Not quite, but close.”
The bald man rolled his eyes. “You, my friend, are looking for some dire punishment.”
“You’d have to catch me first,” Clark bragged.
“Watch it, farmboy, or you’ll find yourself sleeping on the roof tonight.”
He pouted, thrusting out his lower lip in an exaggerated motion. Lex shook his head.
“What are you, five? That tactic won’t work on me either.”
“You suck!”
“Keep that up and I won’t,” Lex replied with a cheesy grin. “Now come on. I’ve got to go get stuff for dinner. You know how fussy Bruce is.”
Clark grinned. Alfred often complained that Bruce turned his nose up at many things the older man cooked. It had been worse since the Wayne heir had recovered from his pneumonia. He had put himself on a strict diet so he could build up lean muscle. He was obviously preparing for whatever he had planned for defending his city.
That was one thing that worried the two of them. Bruce had become very intensely focused on trying to drive out crime in his city and had been studying various methods of crimefighting. So much that it seemed to have become an obsession.
If that wasn’t enough, he’d been spending most of his time doing research; either into Clark’s origins or Lionel’s past. He was determined to prevent Lex from having to go to work for his father when they both graduated from Princeton in June.
As they took a cart around the supermarket, trying to figure out what to get for dinner, Clark thought about their friend. They had barely seen him since the winter break. He had decided when he’d returned from Asia that he wasn’t going to come back to the university, since he would have been forced to repeat his junior year. He had only been to see them once since the short time he’d been in Smallville.
With only a day of classes left before Spring Break, Clark wondered what reason Bruce would have for coming up, since they had all planned to take a trip to Miami Beach for the break.
He paused in the cookie aisle, picking up a package of Ding Dongs.
“We should get these,” he said.
Lex frowned at him and took the package, thrusting it back on the shelf. “No!”
“Why not?” he asked, his voice sounding more like a whine.
“Because it’s junk food. How you can eat so much junk and still look like you do I’ll never know.”
“It’s in the genes! C’mon Lex.”
“Stop acting like a kid.”
“Technically …”
“Technical Schmechnical. You’re a pain in the rear, Kent.”
“But a good pain, right?” Clark waggled his eyebrows.
His friend shot him a look, glancing behind Clark with an uneasy expression at two old ladies who were browsing the shelves.
“Behave yourself!” Lex hissed.
“Don’t wanna!”
The other man huffed. “Geez, the things I put up with.” He began walking away, shaking his head. Clark just smirked and followed him.
By the time they got back to the house and prepared the dinner, Bruce had arrived. Clark watched as Lex and Bruce hugged and kissed, feeling just a little left out. The Gothamite spotted him and pulled him into the hug, giving him a kiss on the lips.
“What’s with you, Farmboy?” he asked.
“He’s just upset because I wouldn’t let him buy junk food,” Lex explained. He rolled his eyes. “He’s been a brat all afternoon.”
“Well, there’s a newsflash,” Bruce replied, his lips quirking. “He’s always been a brat for as long as we’ve known him.”
“Tru dat,” Lex responded. “So, what’s your news?”
“It can wait until we’ve eaten. Dinner smells good.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve cooked to your specifications.”
Bruce looked at him incredulously. “You actually cooked something?”
Lex growled in response. “Don’t you start! I can cook you know!”
Dinner proved to be just as good as Lex promised. Bruce was groaning and rubbing his stomach.
“I take it back, Lex. That was excellent. I’m gonna have to run ten miles to work that off.”
Lex grinned at the praise. “Thanks. So what’s up? I thought we weren’t meeting until Sunday?”
“Change of plans. We’re not going to Miami.”
Clark frowned at him. “We’re not? How come?”
“I found something. In Egypt. Something I think you’ll be interested in.”
Bruce got up from the table and grabbed one of his bags. It looked like a briefcase which caused Clark to frown even more. Since when did Bruce use a briefcase?
His friend placed the case on the table and opened it. Lex peered with interest at the contents, watching as the young billionaire took out a folder. He spread the documents out on the table. Clark saw there were a few photographs.
“Some archaeologists unearthed a temple outside of Cairo. Nowhere near Gisa, mind you. They found this symbol on the wall of the temple’s inner sanctum. Now the locals have no idea what it means, but …”
He looked at Clark, who shook his head. “I don’t know.”
It looked strange but similar to one of the symbols on the disc Lionel had been keeping at Cadmus. Clark had been studying it, along with the ship, but hadn’t been able to figure out what the symbols meant.
“Anyway, the dig has been sponsored by the Wayne Charitable Foundation and I get reports on a fairly regular basis. When I heard about the symbol, I contacted the team and told them to stop digging until we’d had a chance to see it for ourselves. There is one problem. A team working for Luthorcorp has also been nosing around. If we’re to go, we need to go now. Tonight.”
Clark looked at his friend and lover, then at the photograph. As much as he was curious about where he had come from, the thought of actually discovering something that might bring him closer to the truth scared him.
“Clark, you need to do this,” Lex said quietly. “You have to. Or else you will spend the rest of your life wondering.”
“We can’t just up and leave. I don’t have a passport here. It’s at the farm.”
He’d had to get a passport last summer when his parents had decided to take a mini vacation up north.
Bruce opened his briefcase and pulled out a small booklet. Clark stared at him.
“How did you …”
“I convinced your parents it would be an educational trip. You only have one class tomorrow. Trust me, the professor won’t miss you.”
Biting his lip, Clark agreed. Within hours they were heading on Bruce’s private plane to Cairo, Egypt. Once security had checked the plane and allowed them through, they were met by a Doctor Helena Sandsmark.
“Mr Wayne,” she said, holding out a hand. He shook her hand.
“Dr Sandsmark. These are my … associates. Lex Luthor, Clark Kent.”
She looked puzzled. “I wasn’t aware you were bringing associates, sir.”
“Bruce, please,” he replied with a smile. Clark studied the woman. She was at least fifteen years older than Bruce, her thick dark hair tied up in a ponytail. She wore khakis and a white shirt with a scarf to protect her neck and a wide-brimmed hat.
“The landrover’s this way,” she said, gesturing. She spoke with an accent which Clark couldn’t identify.
He followed his friends to the vehicle, looking around at his surroundings. Cairo was not quite as he expected. Of course, he knew it wasn’t just ancient buildings and desert surrounds, but he hadn’t expected such a modern city with so many tall buildings.
He sat in silence as the archaeologist drove out of the city, stretching his legs a little. While Bruce’s plane had been fairly comfortable, they had spent nearly twelve hours in the air, give or take half an hour or so for landing and taking off. They’d left New Jersey around eight the night before and it would be eight in the morning back home. While he didn’t need as much sleep as the others, he still needed some and he had found the long plane trip exhausting.
“You okay?” Lex asked. He shrugged.
“Fine, I guess.”
“You know why we’re doing this, don’t you?” his friend said quietly. “So you can learn more about who you are.”
“I know, Lex.” He just couldn’t put into words how he really felt about all this. He didn’t think Lex would understand. Hell, he didn’t even really understand it. All his life, he’d never really considered what was out there. Being a child genius and graduating college while kids his age would be graduating high school hadn’t really changed any of that. He knew what he wanted to do with his life, just as he knew Bruce and Lex wanted to do something to help others. He just couldn’t picture himself becoming something like Warrior Angel, like in Lex’s comic collection.
His parents thought he had a destiny beyond the farm. So did Bruce and Lex. Clark just wasn’t sure what that destiny entailed and that scared him more than he liked. He had never really admitted to his friends that sometimes his strange abilities scared him. He knew all about power and corruption. What if somehow he became controlled by someone like Lionel? Imagine the pain and destruction he would cause. Rather like the meteors that had caused so much destruction the day he landed on Earth. As much as his friends tried to tell him that none of that was his fault, he still couldn’t help wondering if they would still have come if his ship hadn’t landed here.
The truck came to a shuddering halt and the archaeologist got out, leading the way to a group of small tents. She spoke briefly to a man who Clark assumed was one of the Egyptian workers, gesturing toward them. Bruce moved behind him and gently nudged him forward.
“You can’t get cold feet now, Clark,” he said. “Come on.”
Reluctantly Clark followed the archaeologist down into the dig. The temple had obviously been buried. It seemed odd to him that what might be an artefact from his own planet had been placed in a structure that would have been buried for probably at least two millennia. Would a Kryptonian have really travelled back in time two thousand years? As improbable as it sounded, Clark couldn’t figure out any other explanation.
Dr Sandsmark led them down a series of dark corridors. There were lit torches mounted on the walls, giving the corridors a flickering, spooky kind of glow. Clark spluttered as he walked into what felt like a cobweb of some kind. The archaeologist smiled apologetically, lifting her hand to remove the dusty threads.
“I apologise, Mr Kent. Many of the workers here are not substantial in height as yourself.”
He shook his head and tried a smile at her, without success. He didn’t want to be here, but he’d had no choice but to go along with it.
Dr Sandsmark spoke to one of the workers, who nodded and spoke in some kind of language. Clark guessed it was Arabic. The man showed them where the symbol was marked.
He studied it. Bruce laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you see anything?” he asked in a low voice. Clark understood what he meant and x-rayed the wall. There was definitely something behind the symbol, wrapped in some kind of fabric. He nodded at Bruce, who then spoke to Dr Sandsmark.
“Can we dig in the wall?”
She spoke to the man and he replied in quick Arabic. From the tone and the way the two exchanged words, Clark guessed the man was not happy about it. He glanced at his friends before checking the archaeologist and the Egyptian were not looking then thrust his hand into the wall. The stone crumbled into dust.
“Wow, guess the wall had a weak spot,” Lex observed for the benefit of the archaeologist. There was more arguing in Arabic but the damage was done.
Clark pulled out the wrapped package and quickly undid the bindings on the cotton wrapping, staring in dismay at the statue. He couldn’t figure out if it was meant to be Anubis or something else. Either way, it looked like a cheap souvenir someone would buy at the market rather than an ancient artefact. Which made it even odder to him that it would be buried inside the temple wall.
Dr Sandsmark examined the hole Clark had created and remarked that the stone did indeed seem weaker at that point. Which left Clark with a lot of unanswered questions.
He studied the statue as they left the dig site and headed back to the airport. It was made of some kind of clay which had clearly been baked in a kiln and then painted. And badly.
Lex took it from him. “What kind of handmade crap is this?” he asked.
Clark shrugged. “Dunno.”
His friend looked at the symbols. “Do you know what these are?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t know how to read the language.”
Bruce was equally confused as they got back on the plane and headed back to the States.
“Why would your people go to all this trouble? And how could it be left inside the wall of a temple that’s probably been buried for two thousand years? This looks like something you’d buy at one of those tacky souvenir places. What were your people thinking?”
“What are you asking me for? I don’t know how to read the minds of people who have been dead for eighteen years.”
“You’re right. Sorry. That was dumb.”
Lex took the statue back. “There must be something in these symbols that tell you what you’re supposed to do with it.”
Clark sighed and shook his head. “No clue. I don’t think a Kryptonian dictionary came with the ship.”
Lex snickered. “Guess not.”
The plane lurched slightly and the statue slipped out of Lex’s hands, smashing on the floor of the plane.
“Oh now look what you’ve done, butterfingers!” Bruce exclaimed.
“It’s not my fault,” Lex began, staring at the floor. “What the hell is that?”
He knelt on the floor and picked up what looked to be some kind of crystal. As soon as his hand touched the outer surface of the crystal, Clark heard a loud screeching sound in his ears, almost like feedback. He covered his ears with his hands, screaming in pain. It felt like someone was drilling into his head.
“Clark?” Lex dropped the crystal in shock and immediately went to his side. “Clark, are you okay?”
The noise stopped as suddenly as it started. Clark stared at his friends in confusion. Bruce bent to pick up the crystal but Lex thrust out a hand.
“Don’t touch it!”
Compelled by some unknown urge, Clark retrieved the crystal. It glowed for a moment, as if hit by an energy surge. The stone was warm in Clark’s hand, feeling as if it belonged there.
“Hmm, I guess they used the statue as some sort of camouflage,” Bruce said.
“It’s like the toy surprise at the bottom of the cereal box,” Lex replied with a cheesy grin. “You okay Clark?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. We need to get this thing back home.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He had the feeling that whatever the crystal was, or what it did, he wasn’t likely to find out anytime soon. There were at least two more artefacts out there from what his birth father’s avatar had told him. It was just a question of figuring out where.