Man of Tomorrow

Contact

Lex stands in his office, looking out of the massive twentieth floor window. The window looks over the city of Metropolis. The Luthorcorp building towers over every other in the city. Lex stares across the Metropolis skyline, remembering a moment that happened many years ago.

*         *        *

A Young Lex Luthor steps in a pile of horse excrement by accident, "Eww."

"Son? Son are you all right?" someone calls out.

Young Lex steps away from the pile of horse excrement and tries to scrape it off on the ground. Lionel Luthor, Lex's father, makes his way over to his son.

"What's wrong?" Lionel asks.

"This place is gross." Young Lex responds.

Lionel watches Young Lex clean off his shoe.

"This place isn't like Metropolis. It's dirty, and it's gross." Young Lex complains.

"That's true Lex."

Young Lex and Lionel begin making their way towards the Baker residence.

"But I brought you here to remind you that is not a bad thing." Lionel insists.

Young Lex continues to scrape the excrement off his shoe as they walk up to the house, "I don't see how it could be anything good."

"That's because you haven't considered how important such humble beginnings can be son." Lionel explains, "Some of the greatest minds in human history came from such beginnings. Leonardo Davinci, Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy. They all came from humble beginnings and found greatness."

Lionel stops and faces Young Lex, "You must not look down on the simplicity and humility of your surroundings, whether you live with them or not. You must see them as a challenge. Something to motivate and push you towards greater things."

Lionel puts his hand on Young Lex's shoulder, "Now come with me. I have a business transaction to complete."

A sudden loud noise is heard in the sky. Lionel looks up to see the cause but there is nothing.

"Dad? Dad, what's going on?"

A ship with a flaming tail of ash and soot goes barrelling through the air towards the Baker residence.

"What is that?" Young Lex asks.

"Something powerful." responds Lionel.

The ship crashes through the roof of the Baker residence, sending debris everywhere and narrowly avoids Lionel and Young Lex before crashing into the Baker's field.

Young Lex wakes up under a pile of rubble from the Baker residence and looks around.

"Dad?" Young Lex says as he gets up and starts looking for his father.

He eventually finds Lionel buried under a lot of debris. Young Lex begins clearing away the pieces of the Baker residence only to find a large piece of wood lodged deep within his father's heart.

"Dad." declares Young Lex.

Lionel Luthor lays motionless, dead.

* * *

Lex stands at the window contemplatively for a few more moments before moving towards his desk.

Lex presses a button on his computer, "Bring up the files on trajectory analysis assessment."

The computer brings up a list of files which Lex looks through, "Begin running the scenarios again using satellite imagery from Kansas state weather satellites and bring their projections up on the main screens."

Lex's windows overlooking Metropolis suddenly become dark and computer screens take their place, bringing up a full-sized image of Earth as seen from space.

"Project potential trajectories for objects landing in Baker's field, Smallville Kansas on June 19th, 1985." Lex declares.

The window screen begins animating trajectories that Lex watches intently. Suddenly, the buzzing of the office intercom breaks him out of his study.

Lex presses a button on his intercom system, "What?"

"Sir. We think we have something." Mercy says through the intercom.

"I don't pay you for potential results Mercy." Lex fires back.

"We may have received a transmission of unknown origin." Mercy says.

"What kind of transmission?"

"The kind that didn't come from this solar system." suggests Mercy.

Lex pauses for a moment.

"Record every piece of information you can get on this transmission and I'll be there before you can finish." Lex says,  taking his finger off the intercom.

He presses the same button as before on his computer, "Continue with calculations but retract visual display."

The computer screen overlapping the windows disappear. Lex makes his way to the elevator in his office.

* * *

Lex is sitting behind his desk with Mercy in front of it. Lex is looking through analysis papers on his desk.

"Is this it?" Lex questions as he shuffles through the papers in his hands, "Seven days of work with the linguistic and mathematician departments and this is all you could come up with? A language that doesn't exist?"

Mercy explains, "The linguistic department has confirmed with the military communications department that it's definitely not any kind of code that was developed on Earth. The mathematicians believe there to be some kind of mathematical code in the message that would unlock the message but it doesn't appear to be a binary system so they're having trouble cracking it.

Lex drops the papers on his desk.

"Have all the data sent to me. I'm going to look it over and do it myself." Lex insists.

"Sir?"

Lex looks at Mercy, "I didn't just create this company out of thin air Mercy. Every one of these
departments exists today because of an invention that I came up with in the field. I don't care if the message came from a civilization long since dead and this is a cry for help. It's alien, and we're going to crack it. Send me everything that you have on the message and everything the departments have done to decode it."

Mercy puts down the file folders in her hands on Lex's desk.

"Yes sir. I'll have everything on your desk in an hour."

"See that it is." Lex says as he starts picking up the new file folders on his desk and Mercy turns around towards the elevator.