The late afternoon sun bled through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Luthor mansion, casting long, skeletal shadows across the polished mahogany of Lex's desk. The room was silent, save for the rhythmic, digital pulse of a high-end surveillance suite humming in the corner.
Lex sat motionless in his leather chair, a glass of untouched scotch sweating on a coaster. For weeks, he had been a man possessed, chasing a ghost that didn't want to be caught. He had been convinced that Clark Kent was the center of every anomaly in Smallville—the boy who had somehow survived a high-speed plunge into the river, the boy who had, in Lex's fractured mind, somehow stolen his memories.
But as he stared at the primary monitor, the conviction that had burned in his gut was flickering out, replaced by a cold, clinical disappointment.
…
"Status report," Lex murmured, not looking away from the screen.
In the corner of the room, Jeremy leaned against a bookshelf, his presence almost invisible in the dim light. He had become a fixture in the mansion lately—a silent observer who seemed to understand the "Static" better than any of Lex's high-paid analysts.
"The field observers just uploaded the footage from the Kent farm," Jeremy said, his voice a low, soothing frequency. "It's... uninspired, Lex."
Lex clicked a key, and a window expanded. The grainy, long-lens footage showed Clark Kent in the north pasture. The boy was trying to move a fallen fence post. In the past, Lex's subconscious had imagined Clark as a titan, someone who could move mountains. But on the screen, the reality was pathetic.
Clark gripped the wood, his face turning a dark, straining crimson. His boots slipped in the mud. He groaned, his shoulders shaking with effort, before he finally managed to heave the post a mere few inches. He stopped, doubled over, his hands on his knees as he wheezed for air.
"He looks... frail," Lex whispered.
He toggled to another file from earlier that morning at the school. It showed Clark tripping over a loose piece of linoleum in the hallway, his books scattering across the floor. He had looked genuinely embarrassed, his movements slow and clumsy as he scrambled to gather his papers.
"There is no grace there, Jeremy. No hidden strength," Lex said, his voice tinged with a strange kind of mourning. "I spent a fortune on blood drives and surveillance teams, all to prove that a farm boy was a god. And all I've found is a teenager with a weak back and bad balance."
Lex stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the sprawling green of the estate. "The 'Static' I felt... the gap in my memory. I was so sure Clark was the one who edited me. I thought he was protecting a secret that defied physics."
"The human mind hates a vacuum, Lex," Jeremy noted, stepping into the light. The Refined Shard in his pocket was silent, its work done for now. "When you lost those memories on the bridge, your brain filled the hole with the most convenient mystery available. You turned a friend into a monster because you couldn't handle being a victim of chance."
Lex turned back to his desk, picking up a silver letter opener and turning it over in his hands. "Perhaps. It's almost a relief to realize I was wrong. It's exhausting, being the only one who sees the truth. It turns out the truth was simply that I had a concussion and a vivid imagination."
He hit a button on his intercom. "Cancel the 24-hour detail on the Kent farm. Pull the observers back. I'm tired of wasting money on hay bales and high school drama."
…
Lex sat back down, his eyes scanning a new set of police reports that had come in an hour ago. His disappointment was already being replaced by a fresh, sharper curiosity.
"However," Lex said, a familiar, predatory spark returning to his gaze. "Just because Clark Kent is a disappointment doesn't mean Smallville is empty. Look at this."
He slid a tablet across the desk toward Jeremy. It showed a photo of a local basketball hoop near the park. The heavy steel rim hadn't just been bent—it had been torn off the backboard and twisted into a literal knot.
"Witnesses say a kid did it," Lex said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous purr. "A kid who was angry because he missed a shot. A kid named Eric Summers."
Lex pulled up Eric's school file. "His father is a teacher. Eric was always a nobody. A shadow. But since the electrical storm at the hydroelectric plant, he's been... expressive. Violent. Impossible."
Jeremy looked at the photo of the mangled steel. The "Static" had worked. Lex was no longer looking at the sun; he was looking at the fire.
"You're shifting your focus," Jeremy observed.
"Clark Kent is a closed book with nothing but blank pages," Lex said, a cold smile touching his lips. "But Eric Summers? He's a headline. I think it's time I offered the boy a 'LuthorCorp Youth Outreach' scholarship. I want to see what happens when that kind of power is given a proper... education."