Jeremy leaned back, the green light of the monitors casting long, sharp shadows across his face. He watched Clark—the most powerful being on the planet—pacing the small basement like a caged animal. The panic in Clark's eyes was a beautiful, chaotic thing. It made him malleable.
"Calm down, Clark," Jeremy said, his voice dropping into that low, resonant frequency that acted like a sedative. "If Lex is as far along as you say, then he hasn't just seen the truth. He's digitized it. He has backups, cloud servers, and physical evidence. A simple conversation won't fix this."
Clark stopped pacing, his hands clenched. "Then what do I do? I can't just let him keep a file on me like I'm some... some experiment."
Jeremy stood up, the Refined Shard in his pocket pulsing with a cold, steady rhythm. "I can help you. My systems can scramble his digital data, and I can use the Shard's frequency to create a localized surge—enough to fry his hard drives and, if we get him close enough, cloud his perception of those specific memories. But there's a problem."
"What problem?" Clark asked, his voice desperate.
"The Mansion," Jeremy said, stepping into Clark's space. "Lex has turned that place into a fortress. Motion sensors, thermal cameras, off-site backups. If I try to 'edit' his files or his mind while he's sitting in his study, a dozen alarms will go off in Metropolis before the first byte is deleted. We need him away from the tech. We need him isolated."
Clark looked toward the ceiling, as if he could see through the miles of earth toward the mansion. "He won't just leave. He's obsessed."
"He'll leave for you," Jeremy countered, a thin, dark smile touching his lips. "You're the bait, Clark. If you call him—tell him you're ready to show him everything, but it has to be somewhere private—he'll come running. He won't bring security. He won't want to share the discovery."
Jeremy walked to a map of the county pinned to the wall. He pointed to the Loeb Bridge—the site of the accident that had started it all.
"The bridge," Jeremy commanded. "It's the anchor of his obsession. To Lex, that's the place where the world stopped making sense. If you invite him there at midnight, he'll see it as the ultimate moment of closure. He'll come alone because he wants to believe you're finally ready to trust him."
Clark hesitated, a look of guilt crossing his face. "The bridge? Lex still has nightmares about that place."
"That's exactly why it works," Jeremy said, his voice smooth and persuasive. "His adrenaline will be high. His mind will be focused on the memory of the crash, not on the technical 'static' I'll be projecting from the shadows. While you talk to him, while you keep his focus entirely on you, I'll trigger the Shard. It'll feel like a flash of vertigo—a massive spike in electromagnetic pressure. By the time it's over, the files back at the mansion will be 'accidentally' wiped by a power surge, and his conviction about your powers will feel like a fragmented dream."
Clark swallowed hard. He hated the idea of using Lex's trauma to lure him into a trap, but the image of Lex's secret lab was a much greater horror. "How much time do you need to get into position?"
"One hour," Jeremy said, already reaching for his gear. "Call him now. Tell him you want to meet where it all began. Tell him to come alone."
…
As Clark blurred out of the basement to make the call, Jeremy turned back to his monitors. He had no intention of "helping" Clark for free. He wasn't just erasing a secret; he was harvesting it.
He wasn't going to simply wipe Lex's memory. That was too clean. He was going to use the Static to ensure that when Lex looked at Clark on that bridge, the friendship would be poisoned by an instinctual, bone-deep fear. He wanted Lex terrified of Clark, and Clark isolated from Lex.
Most importantly, Jeremy wanted Lex's data.
"The bridge is perfect, Clark," Jeremy whispered to the empty room, his eyes glowing a vibrant, predatory green. "It's the place where you saved his life. It's the perfect place to make him wish you hadn't."