Suspects

Susan watched as the authorities questioned Clark and the young man who had "almost" hit him, though she knew that he had actually collided. Of course if she hadn't witnessed the accident herself she might have believed the report the young men gave them too, as Clark had no visible injuries the tears of his clothes could have any number of explanations. None of them asked her anything, however, due to her observing them while hidden up in a tree. Rather than putting her civilian attire back on, Susan had stripped off her last layer and activated the stealth function Dr. Cockroach had upgraded her Ginormica uniform with (with the assistance and advanced technology provided by their newest ally, and Dr. Cockroach's newest crush, the alien technician Arinn Lonjubh who had defected to their side after helping Drac "convince" her former commander to abandon her efforts to conquer Earth.) She wasn't sure she fully understood the technical aspects of how it worked, but apparently the "cloaking" technology took the image of what was behind her and projected it on her suit's front, rendering her effectively invisible to the casual observer. Of course this effect is dramatically lessened if she moved too much or too often, and it did nothing for the exposed parts of her body (like her face and, if she removed her gloves, her hands) but she figured that with her laying on top of the branch clear up here it wasn't likely that anyone would notice. From the look of envy that General Monger gave her as she began it Susan wondered if he wished that he could go on this assignment himself just so that he could use the suit. However, they both knew that was impossible as Monger was as subtle as a sledgehammer to the head. Besides, the suit's technology was powered entirely by the excess energy given off by the Quantonium flowing through her body, which meant that nobody else could possibly use it anyway.

Susan lost track of how long she had been watching the authorities before someone new showed up. Focusing on the newcomer with her binoculars (which were equipped with a microphone powerful sensitive enough to listen in on conversations just as distant) she saw a greying older man getting out a red truck that looked as well cared for as it was well used. Dressed in an unbuttoned brown denim jacket, a multicolored flannel shirt (also unbuttoned) and a white t-shirt, the man ran down the slope so fast that he skidded a bit when he stopped at the bottom where he looked both ways along the riverbank until he spotted Clark apparently shivering where he squatted wrapped up in a red blanket.

"Clark!" the man hollered as he ran up to him looking concerned, "Son, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Clark assured the man who must be his father. Looking at the two of them, how alike they were in appearance and mannerisms, Susan concluded that Clark MUST be his son (in other words, human) and she felt really silly for thinking even for a minute that he was an alien. Unless, of course, Clark had the ability to change his appearance too, but that seemed a strange amount of trouble to go through for so little reward. If he could make himself look like anyone, then why a clumsy, awkward teenager instead of someone large and in charge? Also, if he were an alien, then why did he risk exposure by not only rescuing the driver but also waiting around there until the place was swarming with emergency workers? If he wanted to remain hidden all he had to do was let the boy drown.

Maybe he's one of the good aliens, like Arinn? Susan reasoned with herself, but her musings were cut short as she heard Clark's father ask the sheriff somewhat angrily, "Who's the maniac that was driving that car?"

"That would be me," the young driver (with a similar red blanket draped around his shoulders) introduced himself from the opposite direction of which Clark's father was glaring, "Lex Luthor." This wasn't the first time Susan heard him say his name, as she had witnessed as the two young men made their reports to the Sheriffs earlier, but she was no less shocked the second time around. Neither she nor Monger had come across the infamous Luthors during their initial investigation, who were equated with modern-day robber barons and apparently had interest in the lands around here, but after looking for information online she was glad that they never crossed paths: Lionel Luthor looked very much like he could be twirling his mustache and cackling evilly as he tied a maiden to the railroad tracks, or like someone she'd encounter at the crossroads as he offered her her heart's desire in exchange for her soul. Maybe it was the lack of hair or the look of gratitude he gave Clark, but to Susan Lex looked as much like a Luthor as Clark looked like an alien (i.e. not at all.)

Clark's dad look as though he recognized the name, but he ignored Lex's outstretched hand as he stripped off his jacket and said curtly, "I'm Jonathan Kent. This is my son."

Susan didn't know if he was still in shock over what happened to him, but Lex apparently ignored the off-handed insult as he turned to Clark and said, "Thank you for saving my life."

"I'm sure you would have done the same," Clark told him as his father started to walk him to the truck. As they started to climb up the embankment, Lex asked them, "You have an extraordinary boy there, Mr. Kent. If there's any way I can repay you?"

At this, Mr. Kent stopped, turned around and, in a tone that sounded more like a stark criticism, replied, "Drive slower." Lex nodded in acknowledgement as what appeared to Susan to be a wry smile crossing his face, and as the Kents drove off Susan let the binoculars hang from her neck as she relaxed on her perch. I really jumped the shark on this one, Susan admonished herself with a silent laugh, It couldn't be more obvious that Clark Kent's no alien, he's as human as they come. It must have been the tension and anxiety from the heat of the moment that had me seeing the Luthor kid hit him dead on at 60 mph. Most likely he just grazed him, the side mirror possibly getting snagged on one of the straps of Clark's backpack or something. Susan heard the whirring whine of the crane fishing Lex's car out of the river, and when she turned to look her eyes goggled and her mouth fell open as she thought, Then again...

Pulling out her binoculars for a better look, Susan saw the front end was crumpled somewhat and the hood popped open. That was only to be expected from an accident like this however. What she was NOT expecting, though, was the damage to the windshield and the roof of the car. If part of the side railing had flew into the windshield and broke it Susan could understand that. Instead the windshield remained largely intact save for a small section towards the middle of the top which was missing. Susan had replayed the accident many times in her head, mainly due to her regret that she let her need for secrecy keep her from preventing what could have been a very tragic accident, but what all those reexaminations revealed to her was at no time before the car hit the water had the roof suffered damage like that. Even if there was something in the riverbed that could have peeled the roof back like a sardine lid, what Susan had learned in her required Physics class told her that hitting the water's surface would have killed much of the momentum the car would have had left after smashing though the bridge's siderails, and therefore there wouldn't have been enough left for said object to pop the car's top. Of course Susan could have performed such a feat herself, and she had been planning to do earlier when she had raced down the embankment to save Lex. However, she would have needed to go most of the way Ginormica to do so, and the transformation would have caused more damage to the windshield than what she was seeing (as her fingers would have been bigger.) That only begged the question: Who, or more appropriately what, could have done that?

Unfortunately she had no opportunity to find out if her conclusions were correct, not with the Sheriff's Department swarming around the area. Even if she maintained her suit in cloaked mode her face would be visible to all, not to mention that it's hard to maintain invisibility while moving (as she'd appear to be a rippling in the air.) She wasn't even able to follow Lex Luthor to find out what he knows because the place was still busy when a limo came to pick him up (of course a kid like Lex would have a limo as his other car.) In fact by the time the sheriffs wrapped up their investigation and cleared out enough for Susan to slip out unnoticed her legs had fallen asleep from being up in the tree for so long, and considering that the Quantonium flowing through her veins gave her above-average stamina even in her human-sized form that's saying something.

The trail on her only leads gone cold, her mind filled with more questions than answers, Susan walked back to her car before driving to the hotel she was staying at. She had no solid evidence that Clark Kent was an alien, only coincidence and her own witness which may have been mistaken, and those could just as easily point to Clark being a monster like her. After all the meteorites that blasted this community do indeed emit a radiation much like the Quantonium meteor that turned Susan into Ginormica a lifetime ago. Therefore it wasn't unreasonable to think that the meteors around here might have given Clark Kent his own fantastic abilities, but she would have to wait for the results of the meteors' analysis from either General Monger's people or from Dr. Griffin to find out for sure if that was possible. Also, if Clark really WAS an alien then wouldn't his "father" Jonathan Kent know? With a sigh, Susan locked the room's door behind her and did her best to quiet the questions in her mind as she settled into her bed to go to sleep.

Susan wasn't sure how long she had slept, but it didn't feel like it was long enough when she was woken up by the sound of her phone ringing. From the ringtone she could tell that it was General Monger calling her from an encrypted line that won't show up on any official phone records (even the phone was set up to erase the call from its own history.) Susan groaned, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, then rolled over and grabbed her phone and hit the answer button as she said, "Susan here."

"Morning, Ginormica," General Monger said in an upbeat tone, "How are we today?"

"Alright, I suppose," Susan told him, "and it's 'Susan', sir. I'm supposed to be undercover after all."

"Oh it's fine, Ginormica," Monger responded dismissively, "This line's encrypted after all, nobody can possibly overhear us and blow your cover."

"But it's still good practice to not break character, sir, as…" Susan sighs as she pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration before continuing, "Anyway, what was the reason you were calling today, sir?"

"I was wondering if you've had any luck on your mission yet, Ginormica?" Monger asked her.

"Nothing solid," Susan told him more than a bit reluctantly, "It's little better than a hunch, but I may have a lead on where to look for our needle in this haystack."

"Well as it turns out I may have something a bit more substantial for you, Ginormica," Monger informed her, "It seems that last night some former jock-turned-grease monkey got himself put into a coma. The investigating authorities apparently believe that it was an accident, electrocution by faulty equipment or some such, but I got them to agree to let you take a look so long as you take care to not mess up their crime scene."

"If they've already decided that it was an accident then why do they still consider it a 'crime scene'?" Susan asked him in confusion.

"That, Ginormica, is the million dollar question," Monger responded heavily.

"You don't think that it was an accident, do you sir?" Susan said in realization.

"Not on your life, Ginormica," Monger told her, "The guy wasn't found near any electrical equipment or outlets, not to mention that the guy apparently was a player in the Homecoming game, and was in the victory parade, the day of the meteor shower. I'll bet that there's a possibility the guy saw something back then, something our alien wants kept quiet."

"But why wouldn't he, she, or it have gone after the guy back then?" Susan asked him, "Why only silence him now?"

"If you recall, Ginormica, things were pretty crazy back then, and I bet that they were even more chaotic during the meteor shower itself," Monger reasoned, "The place was crawling with emergency workers as well special investigators like ourselves, the alien would have exposed itself for sure if it went after the guy back then. It's possible that by the time things settled down that it could come out of hiding it had lost track of the guy it took this long for it to track him down again, though it's just as likely that something else had spooked it into going after the guy now."

Susan doubted that it was Clark, partly because it didn't fit in with what she believed she witnessed the other day but also because if he was as old as he appeared to be he wouldn't likely remember the guy from back then. Of course that was assuming that he even was the alien they were looking for. "You don't suppose it was me, do you sir?" Susan asked in concern, "That it might have recognized me from back when we were asking around for information back then, that my return spooked it into cleaning up its mess?"

"Hope not, Ginormica. That would make tracking it down a bit more problematic," Monger told her, "For now I just want you to check out the crime scene, find out if it was our ET who'd done it. We can think about the whole 'Why now?' question later."

"Affirmative, sir," Susan agreed.

"And Ginormica? You may want to wear the other outfit we'd put together when you go," Monger suggested, "While we may not want to clue the alien or anyone who might be working with it that 'Ginormica' is back in town, neither do we want anyone to associate 'Ms. Gail the schoolteacher' with the one investigating these incidents."

Susan looked over at the bag in question, doubt that it would serve as an adequate enough disguise to serve that purpose creeping into her mind, but she did her best to chase those doubts away as she said "Yes sir!" before hanging up the phone.

A couple hours later Susan was walking into the mechanic's shop, the officers still standing outside barely giving her a second glance after she flashed her badge at them, but that didn't stop Susan from feeling rather ridiculous in this outfit. The suit itself was a little stiff though otherwise alright, but the mirrored shades felt like an unnecessary addition that, in her mind, made her stand out like a sore thumb. The glasses with the clear non-prescription lenses she wore at school were only marginally better, and yet nobody here or there seemed to recognize her as Ginormica. Could a simple piece of eyewear truly be so effective as a disguise?

Of course there was more to the disguises than glasses and the outfits. At school she wore her hair up in a tight do, while here she had it bound in a simple, unbraided ponytail that hung straight down between her shoulder blades. In addition she did her best to present herself with her expressions and posture as warm and caring, someone that the students can trust in enough to come to her for anything, the instance where she had to reign that first class in being the sole exception (Susan cringed at how close she came to going too far and completely blowing her assignment here). Here, however, she chose to let the stiffness of her suit be her guide, her stance and gait echoing that of General Monger. She just hoped that those differences would keep others from realizing that Smallville High's newest substitute teacher was investigating these incidents in her off hours.

Looking around the area it appeared to be a mechanic's garage like all the others, though some of those in the bigger cities like Metropolis had more high-tech diagnostic equipment in theirs. The main thing that detracted from the others was the trailing scorch marks waving over one wall and a third of the surface of the nearby floor and ceiling, signs that would indicate a severe electrical failure of some sort. Following one of those trails found that the cord connecting one of the car lifts to its remote had its insulation burned through and its wiring exposed. Now to the untrained eye it would appear that this was the source of the catastrophe, But Susan could tell (thanks to the "required" extracurricular classes she had to take to graduate) that the burn patterns were completely wrong. The insulation here was burned from the outside in, whereas in an faulty cord the insulation would be burned worse on the surface closest to the break. In addition, while she didn't know much about the specs of this equipment she was sure that the lift's remote wouldn't carry enough current to do this much damage, and even if it did the damage would be radiating out from here rather than leading to here.

Returning to the wall that seemed to be the focal point of the electrical burns, Susan saw that there was indeed nothing there that could have caused this, just as the General suggested. There was a drill press and some odds and ends on either side of the epicenter of this disaster, but none of them would have carried a high enough charge to do this. She supposed that there could have been something here before that's gone now, but why would someone steal a faulty piece of equipment?

Bending low to one of the scorch marks on the floor, Susan first looked around to make sure that none of the officers were looking in on her, then she pulled up on the right sleeves of her suit and her undershirt to expose the sleeve of her Ginormica outfit and the scanner that was recently added to it by their alien ally. While it was rather high tech and low profile, not even causing a bulge when she was wearing some of her more tight-fitting garments over it, it also had a regrettably short range of about 4 feet. Still Susan found no reason to complain as it, like the cloaking system she employed the other day, ran off the excess energy radiated by the Quantonium in her body. Looking at the readout that appeared on top of her arm, she saw the scanner confirm that the scorches were caused by electrical burns. However, what she found most curious was that the scorches also seemed to contain what appeared to be traces of human DNA. Given that the former jock was electrocuted here that wasn't too surprising, but Susan believed that if he was shocked so badly that his DNA was burned into the walls and floor that he would be dead rather than in a coma. She doubted that she would be able to see whether or not the DNA was his, though. While Monger might have been able to pull some strings to get Susan into the crime scene, she was sure that getting her permission to visit the victim at the hospital was beyond even his capabilities, so she saved the data and uploaded it to the cloud servers in the event that the opportunity presented itself later.

Standing up to take one last look around Susan finds her gaze drawn towards some shelves mounted on the wall, just left of the scorch pattern. There wasn't anything electrical on them that she could see, mainly just some slightly dusty trophies and medals (an ex-jock's shrine to his glory days), but Susan felt the urge to take a closer look anyways. There, amongst the narcissistic keepsakes, was a framed photograph. The picture within was hard to make out due to the badly fractured glass, but there was still something familiar about it as she passed her wrist scanner over it. Watching as the system analyzed it and made adjustments for the distortions caused by the broken glass, Susan took a sharp breath between her teeth as she suddenly recognized where she saw it: it was the same photograph in the school's trophy case that one creepy kid was staring at, the photo that was stolen after the case was broken into. The frame was definitely different, but the picture was exactly the same! What was that picture doing here? On a hunch she had the analyzer compare the faces of the kids in the picture with the photo General Monger had sent her of the victim. The analyzer confirmed with 99.47% certainty that the victim was one of the boys in the photo. Fingering the communicator in her hear, Susan said softly, "General, this is Susan. Are you there?"

"I'm here, Ginormica," Monger confirmed, "Tell me you've got something good."

"It looks like your hunch about this not being an accident may be correct," Susan reported, "It's a little soon to tell if the culprit is alien or monster, but the damage here doesn't look to be caused by any of the devices here at the scene, nor by any human technology that I'm aware of existing."

"You think the attacker might have been a monster?" Monger asked her.

"It's possible," Susan told him, "If the radiation from the meteors here have similar properties to the one that changed me, then it's possible that some kid empowered by them might decide to use his new-found gifts to get some payback on this guy and his mates."

"A kid, Ginormica?" Monger asked her in confusion.

"Yes, sir, I believe so," Susan confirmed, "Yesterday, on my way to meet with Principal Kwan I saw a young man staring at a photo in the school's trophy case, and not in an adoring way. After the meeting we found that the case was broken into, the picture apparently the only thing missing. I found an identical photo here at the scene, and the scanner identified the victim as one of the kids in it. I'm going to transmit it to you now, can you have your people identify the other kids in it? If I'm correct about this attack being motivated by revenge, then there's a chance one of the others could be next."

"We'll get on it right away," Monger assured her, "Any idea as to who that boy is?"

"Afraid not," Susan told him, "I didn't see him in any of my classes yesterday, nor had I seen him again after my initial arrival. At this point the only lead we have on him is that photograph, that his sense of 'justice' won't be satisfied with just the one assault."

"Well we'll get it done as quickly as possible and get back with you," Monger told her, "What will you be doing in the meantime?"

"I was going to head back to the hotel to go over the data I gathered today as well as to work on my syllabus for this coming week," Susan informed him, "Then tomorrow I'd planned on following up on another possible lead."

"Wasn't Dr. Cockroach helping you with your syllabus?" Monger asked her in confusion.

"He is, but I need to go over it to make sure that it fits in with the class's current curriculum, that it doesn't contain any 'mad scientist' quirks that might make the students and their parents wary of me," Susan explained, "That's the whole point of me going undercover, isn't it? To get them to trust me and lower their guard?"

"That's correct, Ginormica," Monger confirmed, "In that case I wish you luck, but keep your line open. I'd rather get this thing taken care of as quickly and quietly as possible."

"Me as well," Susan agreed, "Susan out." She then tapped the disconnect and turned to exit the garage.

By the time she had gotten back to the hotel her enthusiasm for going over the class syllabus had pretty much drained away, for even though she had found the task of teaching the students to be more fun and engaging than the homework she had to do in collage to learn how to do so, preparing or even reviewing a prepared syllabus to do the same proved to be as dull and boring as the aforementioned homework. Therefore she found it to be a great relief when she saw no problems with the syllabus Dr. Cockroach had faxed her earlier. In fact his syllabus looked to be so well prepared that she wondered if he wouldn't have been a better pick to go undercover as a teacher (if his head wasn't that of a giant cockroach, that is.) Of course she shouldn't have been surprised by this, Dr Cockroach had been a well accomplished human scientist before the fateful experiment that gave him that cockroach head. But the thought that he might be good with kids still seemed rather out there to her. At the very least he was good at filing lesson plans for those who taught kids.

With her night freed she took a look at the data her scanner gathered for her of the DNA found at the scene. Upon closer examination Susan found that it appeared ALMOST human, with certain areas distorted and looking rather inhuman. However, whether that was because the radiation detected within the sample had caused a mutation within the human DNA or because alien DNA was altered to more closely resemble human she didn't know. She figured that only someone who devoted their life to science like Dr. Griffin or Dr. Cockroach had would know for sure. This made Susan curious as to what her own DNA looked like now. She pushed up the sleeve on one arm and aimed her wrist-mounted scanner at it, but before she activated it she froze. She didn't know why it mattered to her as she thought she made peace with who she is now, but suddenly Susan wasn't that eager to see how much her own DNA did or did not look human nowdays, so she pushed her sleeve back down and crawled into bed.

The next day Susan found herself with nothing to do as school didn't resume until tomorrow and she was still waiting on the results from Monger's people, so Susan decided to proceed with the investigation of her own lead. Of course she hadn't had a chance to contact Principal Kwan, and even is she had she hadn't yet come up with a reason for wanting to find out Clark Kent's address that didn't unnecessarily paint him in a bad light. Fortunately for her the young man who "almost" hit Clark, Lex Luthor, was much easier to locate, so it wasn't long before she found herself staring in disbelief at the huge mansion the young man was staying at. It wasn't as big as Drac's hotel, certainly wasn't as tall, but the castle-like hotel fit in better with the Transylvanian landscape it was situated in than this piece of architecture did here. Also Drac had no shortage of monstrous guests at any time staying at his hotel. Although this residence was listed under Lionel Luthor, however, other than the servants the only one apparently living here was his son Lex. Susan couldn't even imagine what she would do with a place this big or to have that many people working for her: maybe she would turn it into an orphanage or perhaps her own classy hotel like Drac's (though she knew little about running either.)

As she stood there, Susan tried to come up with a reason for her visit to give the young master of the house. Neither she nor General Monger had been able to question either young Lex or his father Lionel Luthor during their initial investigation as they were notoriously unavailable at the time. Reflecting back Susan realized that she shouldn't have been surprised. After all, it turned out that Lex himself had been one of the victims of that meteor shower, apparently been too close to one of the impact sites. She didn't know if it was the trauma of the event or if it was because Lex had been exposed to the meteor's radiation, but Susan had discovered that the boy had a full head of hair before that day and he ended up bald (and stayed bald) mere days after. Of course if Lex had been radiated by the meteors then it was possible that he had abilities that for some reason hadn't manifested themselves yet (or that their immense money had been successful in covering up,) but she couldn't think of a reason that he might have attacked that has-been jock or to pretend to have nearly drowned in his crash, and to ask him about the crash itself might have struck him as odd or suspicious as the local authorities had already questioned him thoroughly that day.

The sound of knocking caused Susan to instinctively duck back into the bushes behind her, and she gaped in disbelief at what she saw. Just what was Clark Kent doing here? As she watched, Clark opened the door and called out, "Hello?" Looking down the fence-line Susan spotted what looked like a brand-new, cherry red Ford truck parked just outside the still closed gate. It looked like the latest model too, not to mention a bit too expensive for any of the struggling farmers around here (who haven't been bought out by someone like Lionel Luthor) to afford, let alone some high-school student like Clark. So how they did they get here, and for that matter how did Clark get inside?

When she turned back Clark had already entered the house, the door closing behind him. Cursing herself for her inaction, Susan quickly stripped down to her jumpsuit, feeling her face burning as she remembered the ribbing Dr Cockroach gave her (and she could have sworn she saw Arinn stifle an amused smile, though it was difficult to determine it the expression meant the same thing to her species) when Susan had told them why she was stuck up in the tree during the investigation of Lex's Porsche. How was she supposed to know that the hood they added to her outfit was able to zip all the way up the front, that she'd be able to see through it and she'd be provided total invisibility? It's not like things like that existed back before she became Ginormica, back when she still dressed "normal". Drawing the zipper up over her face she found it a little stifling as the space inside quickly grew warm from her breath, but she found that she was indeed able to see through it just fine and that she was able to breathe okay too.

Taking a moment to activate her suit's cloaking feature, Susan concentrated and grew until she was large enough to gingerly step over the fence, not because she was afraid of hurting herself on it but because she didn't want to damage it or leave giant footprints in Lex's yard. Once over she shrunk back down to human size again, as she didn't exactly trust the cloaking effect to effectively hide a 40-foot tall woman or to muffle the footsteps of the same, then she got relatively close to the mansion before pulling out her binoculars again and activated the special feature Arinn told her about.

Like her suit's added invisibility she didn't know exactly about how it worked, something about how the binnoculars combined ultrasound mapping and infrared technology, but before she knew it she was seeing through the walls and following the movement what she soon recognized to be Clark walking through and calling out in the mostly empty mansion until he entered a room occupied by two other people. From the metallic clicking sounds and the rapid movements of these two figures, Susan figured out that they were fencing. It didn't last very long, though, as one of them soon got the better of the other, with the loser taking the foil and hurling it like a javelin. Susan winced as she saw it embed itself into the wall mere inches from Clark's head.

"Clark?" the man who nearly impaled Clark called as he removed his protective headgear, whom she recognized from the voice as being Lex, "I didn't see ya."

"I, uh, buzzed, but no one answered," Clark said uncomfortably as Lex pull his foil out of the wall.

"How'd you get through the gate?" Lex asked him, to which Clark answered, "I kinda squeezed through the bars."

Yeah, right, Susan thought in disbelief, I'm technically skinnier than you, farmboy, at least when I'm human sized, and I couldn't fit through them. Susan resisted the urge to check that she hadn't put on any weight as she focused again on the conversation as Clark started to say, "If this is a bad time," before Lex interrupted, "Oh, no, no. I think that Heiki has sufficiently kicked my ass for the day." Lex then tossed his headgear to his opponent, who had removed her headgear as well, as Clark commented, "This is a nice place."

"Yeah?" Lex said ironically, "If you're dead and in the market for something to haunt."

"What?" Clark said in confusion, "I meant, it's roomy."

Susan saw Clark follow Lex into another room, where he stripped off the rest of his fencing gear and asked Clark, "How's the new ride?"

"That's why I'm here," Clark told him, and Susan thought that he sounded a little down.

"What's the matter? You don't like it?" Lex asked him as he draped a towel around the back of his own neck. Suddenly the new truck at the gate made sense to Susan: it must have been a "gift" from Lex to Clark. Of course a rich boy who drives a supercar like a Porsche like Evel Knievel would think nothing of giving a shiny new truck as a thank you present.

"No, it's not that, I can't keep it," Clark told him, and Susan shook her head as realization came to her. It occurred to Susan then that they were talking about the truck by the gate. Of course a rich boy like Lex would think nothing of giving a brand-new truck as a thank-you gift.

"Clark, you saved my life. I think it's the least I can do," Lex said he turned and faced Clark who said nothing in response, just looked down at his own shoes. Lex must have read something in Clark's expression as he guessed, "Your father doesn't like me, does he? It's okay." Lex then turned and looked at what Susan guessed must've been a mirror, running a hand along his head as he said, "I've been bald since I was nine. I'm used to people judging me before they get to know me."

"It's noting personal," Clark assured him, "He's just not crazy about your dad."

No wonder, considering all the things I've heard about Lionel Luthor, Susan thought to herself as Lex replied, "Figures the apple doesn't fall from the tree? Understandable." He then looks over his shoulder and asks, "What about you, Clark? Did you fall far from the tree?"

For a moment nobody said anything, then Clark hands over what looked to Susan to be a key ring as he said, "I better go. Thanks for the truck. As Clark starts to leave, however, Lex asks, "Clark? Do you believe a man can fly?"

What? Susan turned her entire focus to the conversation, her interest peaked as Clark said, "Sure, in a plane."

"No, I'm not talking about that," Lex clarified as he fully turned back towards Clark, "I'm talking about soaring through the clouds with nothing but air beneath you."

"People can't fly, Lex," Clark told him, to which Lex countered, "I did. After the accident when my heart stopped. it was the most exhilarating two minutes of my life. I flew over Smallville, and for the first time I didn't see a dead end. I saw a new beginning."

He's talking about a near-death experience, Susan realized, coming to the understanding that she wasn't going to learn anything pertaining to her mission here today. And she had such a strong feeling about coming here today too. Suddenly feeling intrusive and yet unable to stop eavesdropping, she Heard Lex tell Clark, "We are the future, Clark. And I don't want anything to stand in the way of our friendship."

Finally putting the binoculars down, Susan heard General Monger call out in her suit's communicator, "Ginormica, can you read me? Come in."

Turning her focus away from the mansion, Ginormica fingered the communicator behind her ear and said, "I'm here, General, what's up?"

"I just received a report of another resident being attacked this morning. Same m.o. as the previous one," Monger told her.

Dammit! And I've been wasting time here! Susan admonished herself. As she made to rush off, however, Susan stopped and asked, "Wait, the exact same m.o.? Is he in the photo too?"

"Uh, yeah," Monger told her, sounding a little surprised, "Billy Richards, he was found in a coma this morning behind his diner. The sheriff is baffled as to how he got electrocuted just by touching his door."

"What about the third guy in the picture?" Susan asked him quickly, not wanting to be overheard by Clark or Lex when they should come out.

"Michael Sommers?" Monger said, "Guy runs a little pawn shop in town, should be there now."

Susan nodded, almost forgetting that he couldn't see her, then she sprinted towards the gate, pulling up short just as Lex and Clark stepped outside.

"What are you going to do?" Monger asked her.

"Get ahead of this guy," Susan told him, keeping her voice low so as to not be overheard, "For whatever reason two of these guys have been attacked, and I don't think they'll simply spare the third. I'm gonna get there and catch this guy, hopefully stop anyone else from getting hurt." Susan then waited until Clark walked out the opened gate and past the truck (apparently Lex hadn't talked Clark into taking the truck back) then she slipped through before it could close again and raced off towards town."

It seemed like it took forever for her to get here, and even with the extraordinary stamina she got from the Quantonium Susan still felt somewhat winded, but Susan made it to town and was standing before the pawn shop owned by Mr Sommers. Susan had hoped that if she got here during the day, when they were likely to still be open, that this guy wouldn't attack until later and Susan would get a chance to warn him or perhaps set a trap. However, Monger informed her on the way here that the pawn shop doesn't do that much business this time of year, and indeed as she caught her breath she saw no activity inside and even the traffic (both auto and pedestrian) on this street was rather scarce right now. Then, as she watched, she saw the flickering of lights, Susan saw the flickering of lights, detected the smell of ozone, and heard the sounds of screaming coming from inside.

Dammit! I'm late! Susan silently cursed as she ran inside. There she saw the same young man she saw standing in front of the display case the other day behind the counter holding up a man easily a head taller and nearly twice his body weight, and from the rictus of pain on the older guy's face and the arcs of electricity flowing over them both it soon became apparent that the same thing was happening to him as what happened to the others.

"Stop!" Susan called out, and the young man dropped the guy at his feet, looking at her in confusion as he said, "Who are you?"

Susan couldn't see what weapon he was using. Was he like her, then: empowered by a meteorite? At any rate she needed to diffuse the situation before it got any worse. "My name is Susan," Susan told him, "I don't know why you're doing this, but I can't let you keep hurting these people."

"Don't know why?" The young man responded, "They deserve it! They had this coming for a long time."

Susan saw the pain in his eyes along with the anger, so she spoke calmly and held her hands up placatingly as she approached him very slowly, "I know that you feel that way, but you can't take these things on yourself. Hurting others only serves to make things worse."

"I'm doing this to stop people from being hurt, the way I was," the young man told her, "I wasn't the first, either, but once word gets out now that I've finished hopefully we'll have seen the last."

Susan was baffled as to what this kid was talking about. She had figured that he was probably getting revenge for something that had happened to his folks, but this was sounding more personal than that. Also, from what he was saying something had been going on in this town before even the meteor shower, something that was continuing to this day. Whatever this kid had done, whether it was justified or not, Susan needed answers regardless. reaching out towards him, Susan said gently, "Look, you need help. If you just come with me..."

The moment she made contact with his shoulder her vision lit up, every fiber of her being screaming with pain, but even if she wanted to scream out she wouldn't have been able to with her jaw clamped involuntarily shut. Since she first started over as Ginormica Susan had been dealt all kinds of blows, from alien death rays to high-tech stun batons to actually being stuck by lightning, but nothing affected her like this.

After a couple of seconds that seemed to stretch out for eternity went flying back, as if repelled by a magnet, smashing into some shelves of products near the ceiling an the wall to her right before sliding along it to the floor. Wow, that smarted, Susan thought ironically. The young man looked rather bemused himself as he came to stand before her and said, "You're lucky I don't have anything against you, miss. Now you should do yourself a favor and not follow me. Next time I won't hold back." Then the boy turned and went out the door in the back, the emergency door alarm going off as he did.

Susan didn't follow after him, though she very much wanted to. Unfortunately her arms and legs were still feeling rather rubbery. She could have stood up just fine, but she wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight and would likely have been just smacked down again. The fact that his power was able to work on her so effectively seemed to support her theory that this boy was a meteor-affected human rather than an alien, but she had no evidence to prove it conclusively. Around the time the tingling in her limbs died down she started to hear people milling around outside and the sounds of sirens approaching, and so feeling rather humiliated she picked herself up off the floor and activated her cloak (which flicked a couple of times before staying on) and she limped out the back door.

Okay, Walking around town as a human pretty much blows, Susan thought to herself as she pulled into the school staff parking lot, wearied by the whole day. Fortunately she had the foresight to park her car at the edge of town before walking the rest of the way to Luthor's that morning, which wound up saving her the embarrassment of explaining to the estate's security why it was left there. Unfortunately, however, that still meant that she had to walk clear back to where she had parked it before throwing on her civilian clothes again (though she only did one layer this time, just enough to hide her suit, as she figured she might need to change again rather quickly.) Susan had considered driving back to the hotel, but she needed answers now about this kid and she wasn't going to get them there. So after asking a couple of staff where the best place to find information on previous alumni was Susan was directed to the rooms that served as the classroom for the Journalism courses and production area for the school paper and the yearbooks too.

Susan had been prepared to hunt through the yearbooks starting from the year of the meteor shower up though today, but as soon as she entered Susan saw that one yearbook had been left open on one of the tables already. She saw that it was one from the year of the meteor shower, and there on the edge of the page was the young man she'd encountered today. According to the caption his name was Jeremy Creek. and the boy today didn't just look similar to the one in the album, he looked exactly the same. But how could that be? Was the radiation from the meteorites here affecting him in a similar manner to how Dr Griffin theorized the Quantonium was affecting her, slowing down the aging process in addition to providing them their abilities? Or was what she encountered the alien making himself look like, and standing in for, the real Jeremy Creek? Susan needed to find out more.

As she pondered her next step, Susan heard voices approaching, and from the sound it wasn't any of the staff. Feeling like an intruder, Susan once again activated her cloaking as she quickly stripped off her civilian attire (making a mental note to talk with her team about finding a way to cloak that too) and stuff it into her pack, managing to zip it closed and strap it on her back (which cloaked it as well) before the door opened. In came a pair of students, which from her classes with them she recalled being named Pete Ross and Chloe Sullivan, Clark Kent's two friends that she say her first day at this school, who right now seemed to be having a rather spirited discussion.

"Sorry, Chloe, but I think your weirdar is off on that one," Pete was saying to her.

"No way," Chloe disagreed, "She hit her desk hard enough to rattle the windows."

"Sounds like you guys really pissed her off," Pete said with a smirk, "When Mr. Arnold gets upset he can make our desks jump and I swear that it gets ten degrees warmer in the room."

"Ms. Gail isn't a football coach," Chloe argued, "Besides, she left a crack in her desk."

Susan groaned silently to herself, grateful that neither of them can see her as Pete reasoned, "Are you sure that the crack wasn't there before?"

Chloe huffed and said, "You're saying that you saw nothing odd about her?"

"She was oddly hotter than the substitutes that we usually get around here," Pete admitted, which had Chloe rolling her eyes.

Susan heard a knock at the door, and she turned her head to look to see Clark Kent enter as he said, "You guys call?"

"Clark!" Chloe said cheerfully, "What's your take on the new English teacher?"

"Ms. Gail?" Clark guessed, "Tough but fair, kind smile. Rather strikes me a bit like Mom."

"Thanks, Clark. Really needed that image in my head," Pete groaned into his hands.

"What's up with him?" Clark asked Chloe.

"Pete has a bit of a crush on Ms. Gail," Chloe stage whispered to Clark, to which Pete protested, "Do not!" which Clark starts laughing. Susan found herself stifling a chuckle too, though she also cringed inwardly at the thought of being the target of teenage hormones. Eventually Pete let a reluctant smile show, and Chloe said, "Sorry for teasing you about the 'hot teacher', but you at least have to admit that the guy this morning was totally weird."

Pete sighed and said, "Yeah, I'll give you that one Clo. Totally Twilight Zone material there."

"What are you guys talking about?" Clark said, looking between his friends.

Chloe went over to the table with the open yearbook and set her laptop next to it, then she pointed her finger at the young man's profile and said, "His name is Jeremy Creek. This is a picture of him 12 years ago," then she pointed at the photo showing on her laptop and added, "This is one I took four hours ago." Susan looked over Pete's shoulder at the laptop and saw that, indeed, the photo was of the young man she caught attacking the former jock at the pawn shop, and the identical appearance to Jeremy Creek's photo in the yearbook cemented her belief that they were one and the same. But why were these kids investigating him? Also it looked like the photo was taken in front of the scene of the crime, but Jeremy had exited out the back. It baffled Susan as to why he would circle back around, then she remembered how Jeremy basically said that he was sending a message with these attacks: did he return to see how people were taking it?

Clark looked baffled as he said, "That's impossible. He'd be like 26 today. Must be a kid who looks like him."

"My money was on the evil-twin theory," Pete told Clark as Cloe walked over to pick up a paper, "till we checked this missing persons."

"Jeremy disappeared from the state infirmary a few days ago where he'd been in a coma for 12 years," Chloe said as she walked back over to them, handing the paper to Clark, "They said he suffered from massive electrolyte imbalance."

"That's why he hasn't aged a day," Pete added.

"So you're telling me he just woke up," Clark asked, to which Chloe answered, "Well, no, there was a huge electrical storm and the hospital's generator went down, and when it came back up Jeremy was gone."

"The electricity must have charged him up like a Duracell," Pete reasoned.

"And now he's back in Smallville putting former jocks into comas. Why?" Clark asked.

"Because 12 years ago today they chose Jeremy Creek as the scarecrow," Pete answered him, the unease Susan heard in his voice telling her that whatever that was wasn't good. Was that how he was hurt, the pain that he was avenging?

Clark picked up a newspaper clipping and began to read aloud, "Comatose boy found in field 20 yards from meteor strike."

"The exposure to the blast must have done something to his body," Chloe guessed. This sounded in line with what both Dr Griffin and Dr Cockroach had theorized about the meteorites' properties, that while the radiation did have mutagenic properties, it still required a catalyst for changes in the DNA to occur (like being electrocuted in a lightning storm.)

"No, this can't be right," Clark said in disbelief, and Pete tapped Chloe on the shoulder and told her, "I think you ought to show him."

Clark looked back and forth between his friends and asked, "Show me what?"

Susan followed as Chloe led her friends into the darkroom, where she saw one wall had been taken over by a huge collage of newspaper articles, many with some rather bizarre and disturbing images and headlines, and Chloe told them all, "It started out as a scrapbook and just kinda mutated."

"What is it?" Clark asked, mirroring Susan's thoughts.

"I call it the Wall of Weird," Chloe answered, "It's every strange, bizarre and unexplained event that's happened in Smallville since the meteor shower. That's when it all began. The town went schizo."

All of this...since the meteor shower? Susan thought in shock, looking from one horrifying article to another. She knew of the devastation the celestial bombardment caused those who made a living on the land, not to mention the property damage and loss of life, but to think that they might still have resulted in these horrors even years after...

"So what do you think?" Chloe asked as she approached her friends, an anticipatory smile on her face.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Clark asked in an accusatory tone as he made his way around Chloe to get a better look at the wall of horrors.

"Do you tell me everything that happens in your life?" Chloe countered as she walked back around to Clark's side, "We all keep secrets, Clark."

This was all getting to be too much for her, the room itself becoming stifling. While a portion of the articles on the wall were likely made up tabloid tripe, Susan couldn't help but think that more than half of the terrible (and quite possibly true) stories might not have occurred had not Lionel Luthor cock-blocked their efforts to clear the area of the now-obviously harmful meteorites. Monger might still have managed to do so, using his contacts with the heads of state to push on even in spite of the great-and-terrible Luthor's opposition, but the General thought that the search for the suspected alien lifeform and/or artifact was more important, and she...she...

I went along with it, Susan thought in despair, her gaze fixed on a Time Magazine cover featuring the tearful, soot-dirtied little girl in the fairy costume that she saw the day she arrived in Smallville, I should have insisted that Monger fight Luthor back on it and clear the meteorites anyways, but I let myself get talked into an alien hunt instead! This...all of this...

"It's all my fault," Clark said so softly that Susan wasn't sure at first that he'd actually said it, as it echoed her thoughts precisely. Susan knew what fault she had in the stories on that wall, but why would Clark think that he had any responsibility to shoulder here? Then Clark suddenly turned and left the room, and Susan barely managed to get out of the way before he could collide with her cloaked form. Pete and Chloe looked at each other in silence, apparently just as baffled by Clark's words and actions, so Susan took the moment to follow Clark unobtrusively out the door.

Susan had just about caught up with Clark, who'd exited the school behind a crowd of cheering students (with everything that was going on, Susan had pretty much forgotten about the Homecoming game today.) Clark then turned and started to head down the parking lot when he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. "Chloe, just leave me alone," Clark said as he turned around, but it wasn't Chloe or Pete that stopped him: it was a blond boy in an letterman jacket, one Susan recognized to have hung out with Lana Lang often around school, and the look he was giving Clark was not a friendly one.

"Congratulations, Clark," the boy was saying as he gripped the front of Clark's shirt in both fists, "You're this year's scarecrow."

The word rooted Susan on the steps. Was this guy planning to do to Clark whatever had been done to Jeremy Creek? Apparently Clark was having none of it, however, as he knocked the boy's hands away and said in an irritated tone, "Don't mess with me right now."

The other boy must have had a bone to pick with Clark, however, as he angrily hit Clark in the chest with both hands and yelled, "Come on, bring it on!" as he stripped off his jacket, revealing the dark shirt underneath, looking ready for a fight. This provocation seemed to be one too many for Clark, who came back with a right punch. Before the blow could land, however, Clark inexplicably pulled back at the last instant, and the young man took advantage of Clark's hesitation to throw him to the ground and get on top of him. Susan felt that she should intervene here, but she was still cloaked in her Ginormica outfit, and she didn't see anywhere around here where she could change unobserved.

The angry young man grabbed Clark by the front of his shirt and pull up as he demanded, "What's going on with you and Lana?"

Clark looked as though something was causing him pain, but he kept a defiant tone in his voice as he said, "Nothing."

He didn't look as though he believed Clark, and as he glanced down Susan thought she spotted a glint on the boy's neck. Then her suit's sensors alerted her to the presence of the meteorite's radiation and Susan realized that the boy was wearing Lana's necklace just as he yanked it off and put it on Clark, saying, "You like her necklace? Huh? Good, 'cause this is as close as you're ever gonna get to her." Then two of the boy's lettered buddies came over and helped him throw Clark bodily into the bed of a pickup truck driven by a third. Susan though she spotted someone lurking nearby, but she had no attention to spare them as the boys were preparing to drive off and Susan needed to know what was happening in this town. Taking aim, Susan fired a tracer dart from her sleeve into the truck's fender-well before it roared out of the parking lot. Then, after checking on the GPS display that the tracer was active, Susan hurried over to her car, making sure to de-cloak after she climbed inside, then she started it up and followed after them.