The basement of the Talon was a symphony of low-voltage hums and blinking status lights. Jeremy sat at his custom terminal, the glow of three monitors reflected in his cold, emerald eyes. He had the Talon Surveillance patched into the Smallville PD dispatch and the highway traffic cams.
He didn't need to meet Ryan to know the wolves were at the door. Two black SUVs had been circling the perimeter of the Kent farm, their plates pinging back as "Registered to a Private Security Firm" out of Metropolis. Bounty hunters.
Jeremy tapped a rhythmic, impatient beat against the Refined Shard on his desk. He couldn't block the boy's mind, but he could certainly move his body.
…
"Clark is too sentimental," Jeremy whispered, his fingers flying across the keys. "He'll try to hide the boy in the cellar. He'll wait until they're surrounded. He'll turn it into a tragedy."
Jeremy didn't want a tragedy on his doorstep, and he certainly didn't want a telepath within five miles of his "Architect" persona. He pulled up an encrypted VOIP line, masking his IP through a dozen LuthorCorp bounce-servers.
He sent the first "Anonymous Tip" to Clark's cell phone—a scrambled text that looked like it came from a panicked source inside the Sheriff's office:
KENT. THEY HAVE THE FARM SURROUNDED. THEY'RE MOVING IN FROM THE CREEK SIDE. GET THE BOY TO THE COUNTY LINE SUBSTATION. IT'S THE ONLY BLIND SPOT IN THEIR RADIOS.
Jeremy watched the GPS ping on Clark's truck. Within seconds, the icon began to move. Clark was taking the bait, his hero instincts overriding his caution. He was driving Ryan directly toward the North County line—away from the Talon, away from Lana, and most importantly, away from Jeremy.
Jeremy shifted his focus to the black SUVs. He didn't want the bounty hunters to lose the trail; he just wanted the confrontation to happen in a "dead zone" where he could control the narrative.
He opened a secondary window, tapping into the county's automated traffic signal grid. As Clark's truck sped toward the North, Jeremy turned every light green in his path. For the SUVs, he did the opposite—triggering a "System Malfunction" at the main intersection that created a three-minute bottleneck.
"Give the Boy Scout a head start," Jeremy murmured, a dark smile touching his lips. "Give him enough room to feel like he's winning."
He then sent a second ping—this one to the bounty hunters' encrypted tablets, disguised as a "Source" leak from the Metropolis head office:
TARGET HEADING NORTH. ROUTE 15. COUNTY LINE SUBSTATION. INTERCEPT AT THE TOLL PLAZA.
By the time the sun set, Clark and the telepath would be fifteen miles outside of Smallville's city limits, locked in a high-speed game of cat and mouse that Jeremy had designed from the comfort of his basement.
…
Upstairs, the floorboards creaked. Lana was closing up, her footsteps light and rhythmic. Jeremy closed the surveillance windows, leaving only the "Maintenance Logs" on the screen.
"Jeremy? Are you still down there?" Lana's voice drifted down the stairs, sounding tired but warm. "Clark called... he sounded panicked. He said he has to take Ryan out of town for a few days. Something about a 'safety risk'."
Jeremy stood up, pocketing the Shard as he walked toward the stairs. The "Static" in the room felt settled, the threat of the mind-reader successfully pushed into the periphery.
"It's for the best, Lana," Jeremy said as he emerged into the dim light of the cafe. He reached out and brushed a stray hair from her face, his touch steady and grounding. "Clark lives for the crisis. He's in his element when he's running. We stay here. We keep the lights on."
Lana leaned into his hand, sighing with relief. "I'm glad you're not like him. I don't think I could handle two people who disappear every time the wind changes."
"I'm right where I'm supposed to be," Jeremy promised.