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LAST TIME ON EMII...

"But you have ideas, right? Hunches?" asked Lois hopefully.

CJ nodded. "Actually, it's a bit more than that. At least, I think it is. But... You know that stuff I said you wouldn't believe earlier?"

Lois nodded.

"Well, it has to do with that. Maybe if I tell you the story..."

Lois nodded again, this time almost smiling. There was something oddly beguiling about the edgy man in front of her. He was almost skittish, she mused. In an attempt to give him a chance to relax and compose himself, she said, "I'd like to hear it. But, if this is going to take some time, perhaps I'd better make some coffee first."


NOW READ ON


CHAPTER FOUR

CJ watched Lois carefully, searching for any signs of scepticism, as he told her about Mr Wells and his visit to another dimension, to another Metropolis. Once or twice he saw her mouth open, only to snap closed again as she forced herself to keep from protesting at the absurdity of his tale. He was certain that, had she not witnessed the fact of his powers at first hand, she would not have practised such restraint. Heck, if their positions had been reversed, he doubted that he would have shown any restraint at all!

Bearing that in mind, CJ was determined to convey the full import of his words to her as convincingly as possible. In his desperation to do so, he leaned forward, punctuating all his explanations with hand gestures as he spoke.

He told her that, in the other world, there was another Clark Kent and another Lois Lane, and that they were partners in every sense of the word. When she heard that, she looked at him with an expression on her face he was unable to interpret. Was the look she gave him scepticism or cynicism, or was it something else? he wondered. He wasn't sure.

He explained how the brighter sun of the other world had given him his powers. For a minute, he considered telling her about his extra-terrestrial origins, too, but he could see that Lois was already struggling to take in all the information that he had given her; that last piece of information could, he decided, wait for another day. After all, he had come to her apartment to discuss Luthor, not himself, and he had yet to address that particular issue. So he didn't tell her about Krypton. Instead, he moved on tell her that the other world also had a Lex Luthor, only that Luthor had died.

Finally he drew to a close, saying, "Their Luthor killed himself about three years ago. This material, even if it's accurate on this world, will be out of date, but it's a place to start. Right?"

Lois said weakly, "Right."

"And we both want the same thing here? I mean, I would like nothing better than to see Luthor behind bars. Forever. And you want that too?"

Again Lois agreed but CJ could see caution in her eyes. Nonetheless, she said, "Okay, so show me precisely what you've got."

CJ nodded and swung the briefcase effortlessly onto his thighs. Then he undid the combination lock and popped its catches open. Lois shifted along the love seat so that she could peek inside as soon as he lifted the lid.

Did she realise, CJ wondered, that their thighs were now almost touching? That he could feel the warmth of her body beating against his own? Or that the scent of her citrus shampoo, underlain by the scent of her, was filling his nostrils? He felt pleasantly light-headed and wondered whether this was what being tipsy felt like.

He resolutely pushed the thoughts away, determined to stick to business. That was, after all, why he was there. He began lifting things out, stacking them neatly into piles on the glass coffee table. "Okay. The computer disks contain every article Lane and Kent have written about Lex Luthor. This pile contains biographical notes on Luthor's known associates. I've got a summary of who they are somewhere."

"Let's see it," said Lois. CJ scrabbled around, found it and passed it over to her. While he continued dealing files into each of the stacks, she scanned the list, mumbling names under her breath. "Nigel St John; Asabi... No, never heard of them... Alan Morris, Dr Fabian Leek, Dr Mamba, Miranda..." She glanced up. "This Luthor really had a thing for scientists, didn't he?"

CJ glanced across at her and nodded. "I got the impression that if anyone was doing any unethical research, Luthor either was funding it, or wanted a piece of it."

Lois grunted an acknowledgement, then went back to her reading. "Women: Ariana Carlin; Gretchen Kelly; Mrs Cox; Miranda again... Oh, here's one you can cross off the list immediately."

"Which one? And why?"

"Toni Taylor. She's dead."

"Dead?"

"Yeah. I wrote a story about it for the Planet a while back."

CJ's hands stilled temporarily and he said, "What happened?"

"Ever heard of the Metro Club?"

CJ's brow furrowed as he tried to remember the name. "No... I don't think so? Should I have?"

"It was a club down in the West River district before everything got bulldozed to make way for Lex Harbour."

CJ nodded. Over the last year or so, he, like everyone else in Metropolis, had seen the area undergo a startling transformation from a rundown neighbourhood into a Mecca for big business interests. The regeneration project was widely reported to be providing a boost for the city, both economically and in terms of the image Metropolis projected to the rest of the world. Only the Daily Planet had seen fit to criticise the project on the grounds that the area's original community had been decimated in the process.

"Go on," he said.

"Her father used to run the club, along with all the rackets. When he died, her brother Johnny inherited everything. Toni Taylor didn't like the way her brother was running things – she claimed that he was trapped in the past, and that he couldn't see beyond all the nickel and dime stuff. She said that organised crime had moved on, that to be a player you had to move in corporate circles."

"Any idea what she meant by that?"

Lois shook her head. "Not really. I just assumed that, like the economy more widely, organised crime has changed over time. Anyway, she staged some sort of coup d'etat, and Johnny was ousted. She took over the Metros until she was killed, execution style."

"So, who runs the gangs now?"

Lois raised her eyebrows. "No one, as far as I know. The whole area was cleared not long after that. No club. No gangs. Just lots of big business."

"Okay," said CJ. "Cross her off."

Lois nodded, reached for a pen, and did exactly that. Then she looked at the other piles CJ had created and said, "What's the rest of this stuff?"

CJ began doling out the information again and explained as he did so. "This one is Luthor's business interests. That one is bank accounts. That's investments and that one is hobbies and pastimes. And these last two are, respectively, random bits of information that don't neatly fit into any of the other categories and my own, pitifully thin, files on Luthor."

CJ was conscious that Lois's eyes were growing ever wider as the piles of information laid out in front of her grew. Rather than looking delighted, she was beginning to look dismayed – overwhelmed, even – at the sheer quantity of material. He watched as dismay segued into resolve. "So, where do we begin?" she said.

"I thought," said CJ, "that we should start by seeing how much of Lois and Clark's information matches up with our own world."

"In that case," said Lois, "I suggest we start by comparing lists of LexCorp's holdings. All that information is in the public domain. We should be able to get what we need quite easily from Dun and Bradstreet and from Who Owns Whom. I'll do that: we have all that information at the Planet. Tracking down share holdings, private investments and bank accounts is going to be trickier, though."

CJ nodded. "We ought, also, to look at the people. Some of them, at least, will be in the phone book – we've got last known addresses for most of them."

"Agreed. Now, how are we going to divide up the people?"

CJ shrugged slightly. "Alphabetically?" he suggested.

Lois opened her mouth to answer but was forestalled by the phone, which chose that moment to ring. CJ watched as she scrambled to her feet and crossed the room. Not for the first time, he noticed that she had long legs and an attractive figure, and she moved with the grace of a dancer.

Lois grabbed the receiver and answered the call with a brusque, "Yes?" Her face quickly grew serious; for the most part she simply listened to whatever the person at the other end of the line was saying, though, at one point, she grabbed for a notepad and pencil and began scribbling furiously, occasionally asking her caller to repeat something, or merely grunting to indicate she was still listening.

When Lois finally put the receiver back in its cradle, she turned around to CJ and said, "I guess you heard all that?"

CJ shook his head.

"But the police were miles away from you in the square this morning, and you heard them okay," she said. "How could you not have heard this?"

CJ shrugged. "I don't like to eavesdrop. Not if I can help it. But sometimes the hearing just... switches on. I can't always control it. That's what happened this afternoon."

Lois raised her eyebrows, though whether it was an expression of surprise, approval or disapproval, CJ wasn't quite sure and he didn't like to ask. He was simply grateful that she wasn't pursuing the matter any further because he was all too aware that he'd only given her a partial explanation. He hadn't told her that just now he'd been too caught up in watching her for the thought of eavesdropping to even enter his head.

"Then I'd better tell you what that was about," she said. "Since it involves you."

"Me?" he asked blankly.

"Yeah, you. That was Jack. He works at the Daily Planet. He does a lot of the research. Stuff like that."

CJ nodded. "And?"

"And... After our conversation earlier – the one about the jury? – I asked him to look into a few things for me." She looked very pleased with herself as she went on to say, "Did you know that all the jurors for the Allen trial have paid large quantities of cash into their bank accounts over the last couple of days? Fifty thousand dollars each, to be precise."

"Fifty thou—" CJ could feel his mouth fall open in surprise. He forced it shut with an almost audible snap. "How did you find that out?"

She shrugged. "Jack hacked into their bank—"

"Lois!" he exclaimed, instinctively outraged by what she was saying.

Lois stared at him. CJ got the distinct impression that his reaction was not what she had been expecting. Her eyes narrowed slightly, her stare turning into a glare. Then she said, "Don't tell me that you're not pleased about my information because I won't believe you."

"Well, sure, I'm pleased! But that's not the point!"

Lois's enthusiastic good humour shifted into something with a harder edge. "Oh?" she said sharply, "and what is the point, then?"

"The point is... What you did? Hacking into bank records? It's illegal! If you'd told me what you had in mind, I'd never have—"

"And that's precisely why I didn't tell you, Kent!"

That brought him up short. His mouth flapped once or twice before he managed to get any words out. He hadn't considered the fact that Lois, an apparently honest person, might not be above flouting the law to suit her purposes. Shocked, he finally managed to say, "You mean you knew what you were doing was illegal, but you did it anyway?"

"Well, yeah," said Lois. CJ thought she seemed a little bemused and a lot angry by his attitude. If so, that made them quits because that was pretty much what he was feeling about hers.

"Why?!" he asked.

Lois shook her head and raised her eyebrows in disbelief. She muttered, loud enough for CJ to hear, "And to think I thought you were dishonest!" Struggling to sound reasonable, she continued, reverting back to a more normal volume. "What did you expect me to do? I mean, you had no hard evidence to go on, so you weren't going to get the warrants you needed to investigate the jury. I, on the other hand, work in a profession where..." She searched around for appropriate words.

"Where you think the law is an irrelevance? You cut corners?" suggested CJ sharply.

"Well," said Lois, sounding slightly embarrassed, "I wouldn't have put it as crudely as that, but, essentially, yes. And, when you get down to it, you got what you wanted: a mistrial. And hopefully next time you'll get an honest jury."

"So," said CJ, "what you're saying is that the end justifies the means?"

"Yes. No! Well, maybe." She thought for a moment, then said, "Okay, let's look at this another way. The jury had been bought off, right?"

"Right."

"The legal process was being corrupted. Right?"

"Right," said CJ again, more hesitantly this time.

"So, whose crime is worse? The one that sought to pervert the course of justice, or the one that would see that justice gets done?"

CJ stared at her. Then, very carefully, he said, "I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that I like it. I stand – try to stand – for the truth."

"Oh, and I don't?" The bite was suddenly back in Lois's words. "I got you the truth!"

"Yes, you did," conceded CJ. "But through dubious means."

"Don't be such a pompous idiot, Kent!"

"Pompous?"

"Yes. Pompous! You know what your problem is?"

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"Your problem," said Lois, accentuating "problem", "is that you want to live in a black and white world." Miming the weighing up of contrasting concepts in her two hands, she continued. "Good. Evil. Guilty. Innocent." Then, leaning in towards him, she pointed an accusatory finger at him, "But it's not a black and white world, CJ! It's shades of grey!"

"In an ideal world—"

"It's not an ideal world! And until you realise that, you're going to find it a damned difficult one to live in!"

It was the vehemence of her reply as much as her words that make him pause. She was right: theirs wasn't an ideal world. And he did find it incredibly difficult to live in; wasn't that, after all, at the root of his recent depression?

They sat in a stunned and strained silence for a few minutes. Finally, CJ said tentatively, "Lois, about the jury..."

"Yes?" She sounded wary.

"I'm sure you meant well, but I can't use your information."

"Why not?"

"Because... The information you gathered, because of how you gathered it, is inadmissible."

"Oh," she said softly.

Her voice was small and disappointed, and he couldn't resist saying, "Sorry," sympathetically.

She nodded her head jerkily. "I'm sorry, too, CJ. If only..."

"Yeah," he murmured. "If only."

They lapsed into silence again. This time, however, it was more thoughtful than uncomfortable.

"CJ," said Lois eventually, "how long did you say those powers of yours will last for?"

He shrugged faintly. "I'm not sure. A few days. A week at the most."

Lois nodded. "Then we've got no time to lose."

CJ frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Luthor, of course. If we're going to bring him down, we need to get ahead of the game, and the best way we can do that is to use your powers. The more evidence we can gather now, the better. We'll build up a dossier; we can go through it later and build our case then. After your powers are gone; you won't need them for that. Just your keen legal brain."

"And your imagination."

"Yep. So... Just before the phone call, we were wondering just now how to split up the tasks..."

"I suggested we might do it alphabetically."

Lois shook her head. "Not a good use of resources. I suggest we do it geographically: you take all the out-of-towners. I'll take the Metropolis residents." She smiled at his look of questioning surprise. "Come on, CJ. It makes sense. After all, you're the one who can fly."

He nodded. She had a point.


*********************
Thursday, 1 May 1997
*********************

Lois closed the door after CJ, bolted it, then leaned against the cool wood for a few seconds. Eventually, however, she levered herself upright and padded into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of orange juice, returned to the living room and sat sideways, with her feet up, on one of the love seats. She sipped her drink and idly glanced across the room at a little clock on a side table.

It was five past midnight. She hadn't realised that it was so late; time with CJ had certainly passed quickly. Did that mean that she'd been having fun? On balance she decided that, yes, it probably did. Certainly, the evening had been most... illuminating.

It wasn't just because of the information that CJ had provided; it was also because of CJ himself. The person she had met tonight, she thought, was the person he must have been back in his more carefree Harvard days. Certainly, the congenial, almost laid back, man who had just left was very different to the one she had met on previous occasions. It had been quite a revelation to discover that CJ, when he forgot to be uptight, could be excellent company. He also was as quick as she was at exchanging banter; inside that gorgeous body, she realised, was a mind that was just as appealing.

There it was again, she thought: the stomach flutter that told her she was attracted to CJ Kent. This time, however, she didn't find the realisation quite as unsettling as before. Instead she felt... excited? More alive than usual? What? She shook her head, unable to explain better, even to herself, just what it was that she was feeling. All she knew for sure was that it was a peculiarly pleasant, almost heady sensation.

She found herself wondering what the other Clark Kent was like. It was obvious from the things CJ had told her that the other world's Lois and Clark were married. She wondered what that meant exactly. Did it mean that she and CJ...? Were they supposed to be together? Was that why she felt so attracted to him? Was that why he'd come to her for help? Because it would force them together?

Did it mean that he wanted them to be together, or that he was going through the motions – bringing her flowers and dressing up – because he thought that they had to be together?

She shook her head, not wanting to believe the latter. She hated the idea of predestination, of fate. For Lois, who wanted nothing less than to be in full control of her life, the very idea of preordained destiny was anathema.

Maybe she was worrying over nothing, anyway. Spending a pleasant evening in the company of some gorgeous eye candy was a whole lot different from walking down the aisle.

Besides, hadn't CJ also told her that there were differences between the two worlds? That the material he had brought back with him might not be reliable? If they were working together, it was because they were choosing to do so, not because they were being forced into it.

If she got involved with CJ on a personal level, she vowed silently, it would also be because she chose to do so, not because he, fate, or a dapper little Englishman in a bowler hat decreed it.

She was too keyed up to sleep. Her mind was too full of wonders for her to be able to relax. However, there was work to be done; she might as well get on and make a start with it.

Lois pulled out her laptop, plugged it into the wall socket and switched it on. As soon as it was ready, she accessed her ISP, loaded her browser software, and accessed the phone companies' databases, looking for numbers for Luthor's associates.

*****

CJ pummelled his pillow in frustration then rolled onto his back and stared wide-eyed and alert at the ceiling. He couldn't sleep.

It wasn't just that his thoughts were full of Lois and how much he had enjoyed his evening with her or because of the task ahead of them, although those things were churning around in his mind, demanding his attention. It was also because the sounds of the city kept intruding upon his consciousness.

As he'd explained to Lois, his super-hearing switched on from time to time of its own volition. If there was a way for him to stop that happening, he hadn't found it yet. He suspected that there was no way to stop it; he remembered the way he'd seen Clark tilt his head once or twice and vanish in response to something he had heard. Surely that meant that Clark, too, had been alerted to happenings across the city when his hearing had switched on.

CJ gave up the idea of sleep as a bad job. He groped around on the night stand for his glasses, put them on, climbed out of bed and, dressed only in his sleep shorts, wandered out onto the balcony. Although it was a chilly night, CJ, protected by his invulnerability, didn't feel cold.

The wail of a siren cut through the darkness, causing him to flinch. Back on the other world, he'd decided not to create a Superman for his own planet. He hadn't wanted to offer his people a symbol of hope only to be forced to snatch it away from them in a week's time. The decision he'd taken was logical. It was also, in a way, considerate.

What he hadn't realised, however, was how difficult it would be for him to live with.

Even though he'd felt frustration back on the other world, he'd never felt as bad about it as he did now. Back there, while he hadn't been able to help, Clark had, and that, although CJ hadn't been aware at the time, had undoubtedly done much to relieve his anguish.

Here, though, there was no Clark and, because of the decision CJ had taken, there was no Superman, either. CJ could tell himself that the things he could hear now had always been there and always would be – that the world had somehow managed to muddle along without a superhero to meddle in its affairs before he'd developed his powers and that it would be forced to do so again when he lost them – but it didn't help. Each siren was a cry for help, tearing at him, demanding his involvement.

"Help! Fire! Fire!" The cry, coming from five blocks away echoed through the night. The accompanying screams of "Call 911!" and "Gabby! No! Gabby! Stay with me! Don’t go back inside! Gabby!" made CJ shudder.

Decisions, resolutions and logic notwithstanding, he could not ignore the pleas for help. How would he be able to live with himself afterwards, if he did?

CJ sped into the apartment and, less than a second later, dressed in the jeans and shirt he'd worn to Lois's earlier, flew out.

The fire was easy to spot from the air. It was in an old apartment building, probably made of too much wood to be safe. Certainly, the flames were spreading fast, licking the exterior of the building as they curled out of the windows and doors. Beyond the panicked screams of the residents gathering in the street, CJ could hear the cracking of timbers and the shattering of over-heated glass. And beneath that he could hear the whimpers of a trapped child.

I'm coming, he thought. I'll save you. It'll be okay. Everything will be okay.

He cut through the air, diving into the inferno. The smoke billowed around him, thick, black and acrid, blinding him. He focused his hearing and allowed himself to be guided by the sound the child's voice. "Mommy... I want my mommy... Mommy will save us, Suzie... Mommy..."

It was a young child, he realised, probably a girl, though sometimes at that age it was hard to tell. He wanted to call out to reassure her, but he dared not because he wasn't sure he had time to do so. It was more important that he concentrated all his energy on finding her before she succumbed to the smoke. He could already hear her spluttering as she struggled to breathe.

And then... as the smoke cleared for a split second, he saw her. She was right in front of him, curled into a tight, panic-stricken ball in one corner of the room. She was crushing a puppy in her arms as she tried to prevent it from escaping.

"Come on," said CJ, reaching down to pick up the child and her beloved pet. "Let's get you out of here."

The child turned her head towards him and said, "Mommy always told me not to go anywhere with strange men."

Under the circumstances, the comment was absurd, and CJ had to suppress a desire to laugh. He forced himself to sound reasonable and said, "At any other time, I'd agree with your mom. However, I don't think it would be a good idea for you to stay here, do you?"

The girl shook her head emphatically and coughed. Time, CJ realised, was fast running out. He gathered the girl and the dog into his arms, prayed his aura would protect them, and levitated, flying them to safety.

An almost deafening sound of tearing alerted him to the imminent collapse of the building. Then there was a rumble worse than any Mid West summer thunder CJ had ever heard as the roof caved in.

In the eerie hush that followed, CJ heard a woman suddenly cry out to the heavens: "Gabby!" Then, almost hysterically, she began explaining to anybody and everybody. "We were almost out. I was carrying Mickie and she went back inside... I told her not to, but she said she had to get the damned dog! Oh... Gabby..."

"Mommy!" The girl in CJ's arms wriggled in response to the woman's voice. "Mommy!"

Wonder warring with hope, the woman's' voice echoed towards CJ. "Gabby? Oh, my God... Gabby?! Where are you?"

CJ landed lightly at the back of the crowd and called, "She's right over here, ma'am."

Heads turned in his general direction then passed over him as their owners searched for the little girl. As Gabby's mother, holding a baby – Mickie, he guessed – in her arms, pushed her way through the crowd, looking for her daughter, CJ shrank back into the shadows. By the time anyone thought to look for Gabby's saviour, he had disappeared.


TBC