"yes. yes, yes." "i realize that your division has been trying very hard, but unfortunately, this isn't grammar school." "efforts don't count." "you only get an "a" for results." "well, you know, if i give you more time, that will continue to reflect negatively on luthorcorp's balance sheets. so i, um... i wish you and your people much success with a less demanding company." "yeah, well, thank you." "hello, lionel." "alex !" "what are you doing ?" "!" "sorry." "alex is a little busy right now." "what the hell are you doing ?" "who are you ?" "you're used to being in control." "if you want to regain it, you're going to have to play a little game." "the 11:35 from smallville to metropolis is running on time." "win the game, or you'll be catching a ride the hard way." "what game ?" "hangman." "call out a letter." "guess the phrase." "lose the game, your life follows." "hurry, lionel." "you'll only get an "a" for results." "uh, "a."" "too obvious." ""e."" ""o."" "lucky guess." ""t."" "wrong again." "um, "g."" "sorry." ""s."" "no." "would you like a hint ?" "it's a lesson i learned from you." ""m."" ""c."" ""r," "y," "n." no mercy !" "the answer is "no mercy" !" ""Mercy"" "lionel's at my house constantly, acting like he belongs there." "and from what you're telling me, it sounds like your mom kind of invited the wolf to come on in." "i know we've tiptoed through these tulips before, but what if you're wrong ?" "what if lionel doesn't know your secret ?" "the things he says to me, the look in his eye... he knows." "then he's probably using your mom to get closer to you." "he's always there, helping her, offering advice." "she's trusting him more and more." "she wouldn't if she knew the truth." "i know i need to tell her." "i was going to right after i found out." " so what stopped you ?" " she's been through so much... since my dad died." "i don't want to give her one more thing to worry about." "well, by not telling her, you could be putting her at risk of a lot worse." "chess." "you haven't played chess in years." "why the sudden interest in such a complex game ?" "a friend of mine wants to learn the finer points." "i used to dismantle your two-dimensional assaults with alarming regularity, remember ?" "maybe you should teach your friend something a little less complicated." "what about a game of hangman ?" "that's always fun." "thanks." "i'll stick with chess." "you'll lose, as always." "i'm not playing to win." "i'm playing to instruct." "no mercy ?" "what are you talking about ?" "it was you, lex." "i know it." "what ?" "disabling my limo in the path of an oncoming train." "that kind of melodrama went out of style with silent movies." "wait." "someone tried to kill you ?" "oh, is this the part where you feign innocence ?" "i brought you in to help run luthorcorp again." "profits have never been higher." "why would i want you dead ?" "not so long ago, i tried to take luthorcorp away from you." " the apex takeover." " right." "please." "seeing you fail miserably was retribution enough." "all right." "all right." "so it wasn't you." "i may not like you very much, dad, but you're a valuable asset to luthorcorp." "killing you would hurt the bottom line." "your concern is truly touching." "i am concerned." "a threat against you is a threat against luthorcorp." "i have been fending off attacks on my life since before you were born." "i think i can handle one more." "oh, clark." "what do you think about this as a closing ?" ""it isn't enough to simply give when we can." ""upholding the principles of truth, justice, "and the american way isn't a matter of convenience." "it's a matter of conscience."" "sounds like words to live by." "let's hope the deep pockets at the civil liberties fund-raiser think so, too." "there's something i need to talk to you about." "can't it wait ?" "i got to get to metropolis." "lionel knows." "knows what ?" "lionel knows about me." "about my secret." "i don't know how." "i think i might." "a while ago, i found a package on our doorstep." "inside was a video of you surviving an explosion." "who sent it ?" "i'm not sure, but lionel took care of it." "he said he wasn't interested in why i was being blackmailed. he just wanted to help." "and i believed him." "why didn't you tell me about this ?" "you were still in so much pain about your father." "i guess i... i just wanted to protect you for a change." "lionel's gonna be at this fund-raiser tonight." " when i see him..." " no, you can't say anything." "we have to handle this the same way dad would." "stick to our regular routine. give nothing away." "not until we know what lionel's up to." "i better get going." "i'll go with you." "no, no." "if you start guarding me all the time, he'll definitely know something's up." "don't worry." "i can handle lionel." "bye." "well, there are no concealed electronic devices here in the office anywhere. sir, the office is clean." "i hope so, for your sake." "or you'll find yourself working in a convenience store, watching hot dogs spin." "thank you." "watching hot dogs spin ?" "that wasn't very nice." "but then again, that's the way you treat all the people who work for you, isn't it, lionel ?" "what do you do... read lips ?" "i see everything." "911 !" "hello, lionel." "how does it feel to be helpless ?" "i'll let you know if it ever happens." "now, that's that winning spirit that made you a billionaire." "let's see if it can keep you alive." "so... what do you want ?" "i want to play another game." "hello again, lionel." "where am i ?" "in a hell of your own making." "who are you ?" "just another one of the many faceless people your greed has destroyed." "that narrows it down some, doesn't it ?" "you may not know me, lionel... but i know you." "you're a man above it all... commanding your workers to carry the burden of your empire." "they toil while you profit." "it's called running a business !" "that's how it works !" "not anymore." "now you're gonna have to get your own hands dirty." "bright, isn't it ?" "Yeah." "oh, well, now." "what do we have here ?" "take a closer look." "go on." "not exactly springwater, is it ?" "a good story always needs a hook, wouldn't you agree ?" "all right." "so what happens now ?" "now we're gonna play another game." "would you like to see how it's played ?" "yeah." "show me." "these are the scales of justice." "fill the buckets with the liquid from the tap and balance them on the pole." "succeed, and the door to this room will open." "alex, he didn't do too well." "did i forget to mention that the liquid is flammable ?" "he was my driver." "an innocent man." "no one connected to you is innocent." "ready to play ?" "no." "no. lionel luthor doesn't jump through hoops." "in 10 minutes, flames beneath your feet will consume this room." "balance the scales or burn for your sins." "take your time." "the key to mastering chess is to anticipate your opponent's moves and keep him on the defensive." "lex, what are we doing ?" "i thought we were enjoying an evening of chess." "i think i have monopoly." "you know what i i'm talking about." "we've spent the last week avoiding what happened." "i was kind of waiting for you to bring that up." "you kissed me." "and then you kissed me back." "god, after all that talk about friendship and not wanting to ruin what we have... we really don't listen very well, do we ?" "are you asking me to forget what happened ?" "because short of a serious blow to the head, i think it's a memory that's gonna linger for quite a while." "you should get that." "i'm gonna go back to metropolis." "i'll call you later." "what ?" "get a security team and meet me at luthorcorp plaza, and keep this internal." "i don't want anyone to know my father's missing." "getting a little warm ?" "how does it feel... the flames licking at your heels, every step blistering pain ?" "i'll bet a pair of those $1,000 italian shoes you favor would really make a difference right about now, wouldn't they ?" "i understand how hard it must be for a man who's not used to breaking a sweat." "i grew up in suicide slum." "sweat's something i'm very familiar with, my friend." "i know all about your underprivileged youth, but that all changed when your parents died in the fire you set." "did i hit a nerve ?" "i didn't kill my parents." "tell a lie long enough, you'll believe it to be truth." "you're running out of time." "do you want to tell me what you've learned from this game before the flesh is seared from your bones ?" "yeah." "you talk too much." "shut up." "careful... careful... remember what happened to your limo driver." "the scales of justice are hard to balance with blood on your hands, aren't they ?" "congratulations on your acquittal." "Lionel ?" "what ?" "another game ?" "yes." "but this time, you're going to need a partner someone to help you through the dark times." "martha !" "Lionel, please... don't...don't... don't..." "don't panic !" "martha ?" "lionel, what's going on ?" "!" " someone is playing a very sick game." " who ?" "!" "i don't know." "how did you get here ?" "i don't know." "i was i was in the parking structure at the plaza, and i... i heard this noise behind me." "i don't know. please get us out !" "all right. all right." "martha, stand back." "all right !" "all right !" "she's got nothing to do with this. let her go !" "she has everything to do with this." "you use your wealth to buy influence, controlling the halls of power." "you're the man in the shadows pulling all the strings." "and your puppets... they're as guilty as the master." "and they deserve a similar fate." "all right. all right, so what's this game ?" "how do i get her out, huh ?" "you use words as weapons, twisting them to your purpose, obscuring truth with double meaning." "now it's my turn." ""a toad like fever" ?" "i don't understand this." "shift your perceptions." "shift...your... her life is in your hands." "what ?" "no, wait, wait !" "i need more." "i understand the whole acting normal thing, but ferreting out the truth is acting normal for me." " chloe..." " clark ?" "you're not the only one lionel's been playing." "he fed me information about fine being in honduras because he knew i'd come to you with it." "why don't you let me use that as an in, to find out what he's really up to ?" "what if he finds out what you're up to ?" "it's too risky." "oh, and waiting for darth luthor to hatch his evil plan isn't ?" "hey, lois." "no." "she left hours ago." "all right, i'll let you know if i hear anything." "what is it ?" "my mom never showed up at the fund-raiser in metropolis." "oh, my god." "pull the security vids for the last 24 hours." "see if you can find anything else unusual." "yes, sir." "it's okay." "clark, what are you doing here ?" " looking for your father." " where is he ?" "i wish i knew." "he's missed a couple of meetings and never showed up for a fund-raiser at the plaza." "neither did my mother." "lex, if you have any idea what's going on, you better tell me right now." "clark, earlier today my father accused me of orchestrating some bizarre attempt on his life." "you think someone's giving it a second shot ?" "all i know is that he was taken from this office." "how do you know that ?" "i found his cellphone on the floor." "the last call he tried to make was to 911." "the time stamp on it matches an unexplained gap in the building security tapes." "what about the cameras in here ?" "there aren't any." "my father liked to have a place where he could conduct certain transactions without any electronic records." "would that be the less-than-legal kind ?" "lex... has this always been chipped like that ?" "my father wouldn't tolerate a flaw in his prized collection." "nice catch." "whoa." "this isn't your standard issue." "this was homemade by somebody who really knew what they were doing." "high res, wireless carrier... is it transmitting ?" "no, it's powered down." "but if we juice it up, i might be able to piggyback the transmission and trace where it's located." "let's try it." ""a toad like fever" !" "fever. it doesn't..." "it doesn't make any sense." "it has to mean something." "have you ever heard it before ?" "no." "wait." "why aren't they all the same ?" "the first letters of the words." "the "t" and the "f" are capitals, but not the "a" at the beginning and the "l" in "like."" ""t," "f." right, right. he said it was a..." "what did he say ?" "he said it was uh... shift... shift... shift your perception !" "uh, uh... it's an anagram. it's an anagram..." "where the true meaning is scrambled..." " a word puzzle !" " a word puzzle... it's transmitting on a rotational code." "i'll see if i can hack the sequence and locate the termination point." "hurry." "it's a shame, isn't it ?" "takes a crisis like this to get us in the same room together." "look, clark, maybe when this is all over, we can try to find our way back to some common ground." "excuse me." "i got to take this." "is there anything i can do to make this go faster ?" "not unless computer skills are one of your abilities." "signal's strong, minimal degradation, which means it must be local." "got it. 8320 vermont avenue." "five miles from here." "great." "find something ?" "an address not far from here." "great. take my porsche." "it's a lot faster than your truck." "let's go." ""v," "i," "l." "evil." "to dare fake evil."" "it's gibberish." "there's meaning in it... there has to be !" "no. there's... you want me to fail, don't you ?" "you want me to watch her die ?" "!" " is that what you want ?" " lionel !" "he wants me to fail." "to...fail." "fail. fail." "fail. he said the truth is obscured with double meaning." "double meaning. no mercy." "uh...greed." "grab. take." "take. take, take." "do take. over... takeover." "failed takeover !" "failed takeover !" "the answer is "failed takeover !"" "failed takeover !" "apex. apex !" "it's apex." "martha." "martha." "martha." "you're all right." "it's all right." "genuine concern for another human being ?" "i suspected your relationship with the senator was more than just political." "all right." "all right." "all right, we won your game." "now let us out." "as you wish." "martha." "wait. wait." "what's up here ?" "freedom or death, depending on the outcome of your final game." "you expect us to walk right into another trap ?" "you could stay right where you are and wait for the floor to be electrified." "come on !" "what happens now ?" "i don't know. no !" "i'm sorry that you got dragged into this." "dragged into what ?" "who is that man ?" "i don't know." "apex ?" "a failed takeover ?" "what does that mean ?" "apex group was an asian consortium." "i used it to try to take back control of luthorcorp from lex." "lex found out and made a very compelling argument for me to pull out." "apex funded hundreds of companies. investors were ruined." "a lot of people lost everything." "because of you. because of your greed." "no. this wasn't about me. this was about lex." "lex ?" "about hurting him ?" "you hate him that much ?" "i was trying to teach him, martha, lessons." "hard lessons." "i thought that if i removed the temptations that power and money gave him, maybe then he would be able to rediscover his own humanity." "did you ever think of just talking to him, father to son ?" "that might work in the kent family, but lex is not clark, and i'm not the father jonathan kent was." "it's never too late to change." "unless you're dead." "lionel luthor, you've destroyed so many lives without consideration, all to win your own games." "let's see if you can do the same when the life in the balance is someone you so obviously care about." "one bullet." "kill senator kent... win your freedom." "or she kills you." "winner goes free." "no !" "we're not playing any more games." "there's an explosive charge attached to the elevator cable above your head." "if one if you isn't dead in two minutes, you both lose." "your decision." "clark, how close are you ?" "we're in the building." "i think we found it. hold on." "you want to wait for the security team ?" "no." "me neither." "chloe... there's no one here." "they must have re-routed the signal in case we found the camera." "clark." ""Game Over"" "mom." "i'm sorry, martha." "please forgive me." "only one of us is gonna walk out of here." " lionel..." " no, don't talk." "take it." "you're good, martha." "so many people depend on you... especially clark." "and we both know that he... what a special boy he is." "and now, because jonathan's gone, he's going to need you more than ever to become the man this world so desperately needs." "do it." "and go home to your son." "i can't... i can't... i'd hoped that... i'd always" "hoped that things would end differently with us, martha." "don't blame yourself." "your life is truly important." "no !" "chloe ?" "what happened ?" "the feed was terminated at the source." "i'm trying to back-trace the location. the signal's bouncing all over the place, trying to throw us off." "a selfless act from lionel luthor." "life is full of surprises." "So is death." "i got it. they're somewhere across town. where ?" "where ?" "it's gonna take a minute to narrow it down." "start heading west." "i'll guide you in." "clark, we should... there's no escaping, lionel." "the charges have been primed." "one more touch of a button, and the luthorcorp empire mourns its founder." "you were never gonna let us go, were you ?" "you're the master manipulator, lionel." "you should know that some games are rigged." "why didn't you just kill me ?" "because i wanted to watch you suffer like i did." "you're...you're the... i stood right in front of you today." "you didn't even know who i was." "you didn't see the house i lost... the wife..." "children." "an entire life gone because of your little game with apex." "i'm no one." "just another piece of lionel luthor's collateral damage." "this is between me..." "and you." "let her go." "does it hurt, lionel ?" "knowing you're gonna watch her die ?" "the one person you would have sacrificed your life for." "let her go." "this is my fault." "all of it." "i'm sorry." "that's all i wanted to hear." "that...was miraculous." "thank you... son." "oh, sweetie, thank you." "you're sure you're okay ?" "i got some bumps and bruises, but i'll live." "no thanks to lionel." "what happened was the work of a very disturbed man." "lionel's no saint, but this wasn't his fault." "maybe not directly." "he was willing to sacrifice himself for your future." "lionel never does anything that doesn't benefit him in the end." "we can't trust him." "if we want to protect your secret, we might not have a choice." "lincoln cole." "that was the name of the man who did all this." "you found him." "in a bar around the block." "he was toasting your demise." "didn't care if he was caught, as long as you were dead." "the authorities had to sedate him when he found out you weren't." "powerful men, son." "we attract the occasional lunatic." "it wasn't insanity that drove him to that, dad." "it was you." "we all make mistakes, son." "and yours almost cost martha kent her life." "well, i'm just thankful the elevator safety brake slowed us down enough to survive the fall." "yeah." "you should be." "especially since cole disabled them." "that's enough to make a man believe in miracles." "isn't it, son ?" "i, uh, don't suppose clark had anything to do with that divine intervention." "clark... i heard what you said over the video... about what a special boy he is." "what'd you mean by that ?" "i meant that he's the kind of son a father could be proud of." "one minute he's standing in the same room with me and the next, he's across town." "you're still obsessing over him after all these years." "clark kent's a simple farm boy." "let it go, lex." "let it go." "i've been expecting you... kal-el." "how long have you known ?" "from the moment i held in my hand the crystal that helped to form your fortress of solitude." "the one that put you in a coma." "coma ?" "i'd like to think of it as a... a state of... contemplative repose." "you've known my secret for almost a year." "yes." "why haven't you done anything ?" "what ?" "expose you to the world ?" "some strange visitor from another planet ?" "i've tried to tell you... i am not your enemy." "to reveal your secret would change your destiny." "and it would harm someone i care about very deeply." "you had a choice... to kill my mother or to kill yourself." "i could never harm your mother." "there was no choice." "yeah." "unless you knew the gun wasn't loaded." "you have no reason to believe anything i say." "i realize that." "but i hope eventually you will come to trust me." "i only want what's best for you and your mother... son." "you don't call me that." "jonathan kent was my father." "no." "i'm not trying to take his place." "you couldn't." "my mother seems to think there may be some good in you, but i'm not so sure." "it takes time, clark." "maybe you will be." "or maybe you'll just show your true colors." "secret or no secret, you stay away from my mother," "or you'll wish i never saved your life."