End: The Baby Is Coming

Lois Lane had never gone to a Lamaze class. Hadn't kept track of her contractions. Yet as the worst of the cramps hit her, Lois felt something leak from her pussy. For a moment, she thought she had pissed herself...except it kept coming. Warm, thick but runny...and Lois realized her waters had broken.

The pregnant reporter staggered toward the doorway as her body tried to tell her to bear down, push—and Lois ignored that instinct, as best she could.

The revealed doorway looked decidedly more high-tech than anything else Lois had seen in this hospital so far...almost like an airlock, complete with a window. The reporter waddled toward it and stared through.

There were five mechanical chairs. Four were occupied by naked, very pregnant women. Lois could recognize their features, knew their names and faces from social media. Mara de la Cruz, Jenny Dunlap, Diana Reynolds, Tonya Wong...but these women all looked ready to give birth. Very ready. Their muscles visibly flinched during the contractions, the pussies were bare and dripping amniotic fluid. None of the babies were crowning yet, but it was only a matter of time.

As with Lois herself.

Their feet were up in stirrups, knees bent. They stared forward, eyes open but vacant, electrodes on their head. The whole process seemed automated; Lois saw mechanical arms gently spread the labia and probe, measuring the dilation of cervix and body temperature. As pain wracked her own body, Lois looked at the empty chair...and realized she had a difficult choice to make.

The baby was coming. She needed medical attention. The reporter still didn't know how to get out of here, much less how to get to a hospital before the baby came. If she tried to escape...the baby could die. Beyond this door was some sort of automated birth facility. If she...filled the empty chair...

The reporter gnawed at that thought. Her first thought was to reject it—to dose herself with the venom, and hope the extra strength would let her make it out of here, to where she could call 9-1-1 or the Justice League. Yet the next contraction made her knees bend and grasp the door for support...and Lois swore she could feel the head crowning, moving through her like a cannonball...and then the door slid aside.

She stumbled forward. Mechanical arms descended from the ceiling and caught her under the armpits, just as her legs gave out. Carried her forward to the empty chair. By the time the robotic arms had turned her around, others were already cutting her clothes off of her body. The cold metal of the stirrups pressed against her swollen, aching ankles...and though Lois instinctively tried to rise, something stabbed into the base of her spine...manacles cinched around wrists and ankles...and as numbness and lassitude spread throughout her arms and legs, Lois realized that there was **** now.

Cameras were focused on her. On either side of her, the women grunted and moaned. It was like a little chorus. Small sensors were strapped to the reporter's distended abdomen. Needles slid into her arm, IVs that fed her fluids and probably ****. The reporter could only press down, gritting in pain as her child made its slow, aching passage through her body.

She screamed as something tore in her body. Blood splurted and dripped onto the floor...and yet Lois remained awake, as with that final effort, a small, pink, blood mass with black hair was pulled out of her. The reporter, exhausted, cored out, wished she could raise her arms to hold her child as the robots measured, washed, and wrapped it in a white blanket. It cried out, once, a sound that pierced the reporter's heart.

Except the robots didn't give Lois her baby. The reporter stared with dull eyes as the mechanical arms handed the newborn to an imposing, bald figure in a labcoat.

"Lex..." Lois said, agony stabbing her in the heart.

Luthor gave her a rare smile. "Congratulations, Lois. A healthy girl."

Questions rang through the reporter's mind. Things she wanted to ask. Yet darkness was closing in. Drowsiness. In between her legs, a surgical arm was sewing shut her torn perineum.

"The first of many."

Darkness took her. Dream, the brother of ****, welcomed Lois into his domain. As far as she was aware, her night out was over. In her dreams, she could relive all the choices that led her to this point. Explore some of the other paths she might have taken. Yet when she awoke the next day, she would still be in the chair. And the process would begin again. Trapped in the mad web of Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, the Daily Planet's greatest reporter, was about to become the greatest breeder in LexCorps Surrogate Corps...and her daughter would play their part in Luthor's plot to destroy Superman.

Yet that is another story.