Chapter 9: Today I Learned Something

“His nose was longer.”

Lois and Clark watched as the police artist interviewed the owner of the E-Z Rest Motel, which was just over the state line from Maryland, off Interstate 395. They’d hit pay dirt on their third try: she’d recognized the description of the car and remembered the man driving it.

They’d called Henderson. It was out of his jurisdiction, but he’d worked with the County Sheriff’s office to send an artist. A copy of the police sketch would be transmitted to the Met Police.

“No, his eyebrows were a little different…”

While waiting for the police to arrive, Lois and Clark had asked the owner if they could look around the room the man had stayed in. She was agreeable, but pointed out that it had been cleaned and occupied since that night.

Using his special vision, Clark had spotted a small scrap of paper fallen down behind the desk in the room. With long practice from working together, he’d signaled Lois to distract the woman while he retrieved the paper and pocketed it.

He hadn’t had much time to look it over, except to note it seemed to contain only some cryptic numbers. They’d check it out later before handing it over to Henderson, who’d no doubt lecture them — again — on disturbing a crime scene.

“That’s him. That’s what he looked like.”

The police artist looked up and called to the state officer. “Detective Cibilich? We’re done here. Oh, and Ms. Lane, Mr. Kent, if you want a look you can come over.”

Lois, Clark, and Detective Cibilich crowded around the sketch. Lois clamped down on the gasp that threatened to escape. They hadn’t seen this particular vermin in many years. He looked older, but there was no mistaking who he was. She turned away, along with Clark, and they looked at each other.

“Tempus,” whispered Lois, and Clark nodded.

• • •


They’d examined the paper the moment they were alone. It contained only two lines.

Lois frowned. “This makes no sense. Fishhook equals this, smiley equals that? What kind of equation has a smiley in it?”

“Actually they’re letters.” Clark pointed. “This one is the Greek letter tau, and that one is the Arabic letter teh. Tau equals +1098, teh equals -773.” Clark frowned. “They’re like coordinates of some kind. And they’d be time coordinates: tau and teh are versions of the letter t in other alphabets. But I don’t understand; there should be only one time coordinate.”

They both reached the same conclusion: they needed help. Which led to Clark watching his wife stalk back and forth in the living room of their brownstone.

“Where is that man? What’s taking him so long?” Lois fumed as she paced.

Clark, despite the seriousness of the situation, couldn’t help being somewhat amused. “Honey, I think this is the first time you’ve wanted a visit from Mr. Wells.”

Lois ignored him. “Tempus is pretty predictable. He either wants to destroy Utopia, take over the world, or both. So this time, he’s done it by kidnapping Kara. Since Utopia is supposed to be founded by our descendants that makes sense, kind of.” She frowned. “So where is he? If Utopia is in danger, shouldn’t H. G. Wells be here?”

“He should, but he’s not.”

“So what are we supposed to do? Go find him? We don’t have a time machine!” She stopped and regarded her husband. “I don’t suppose you remember how to build one?”

Clark frowned. He’d duplicated Wells’s machine during their first adventure with the time-traveling author, but those memories had been suppressed. Even though they’d partly returned, the detailed knowledge of how to build a time machine had not. He shook his head. “’Fraid not, honey.”

“He always struck me as a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy. You’d think he would have left us some way to contact him in an emergency. Did he ever… ?”

Clark shook his head.

Lois stalked over to the bookcase and leaned her head on it as she tried to think. “There must be a way…”

Clark stood and came to put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. She lifted her head, and blew her breath out. Suddenly her eyes focused on the item on the bookshelf in front of her: a DVD box set.

“Clark, that’s it!”

He followed her gaze. “We need to find the Doctor? He certainly has a time machine.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, England! If Wells left us a way to find him, I bet he would have left it in his house. In… London?”

“Well, that’s a problem. He lived in several houses in England during his lifetime, not all in London. Which one?”

Lois waved her hands. “We’ll check them all if we have to!” Clark looked skeptical. “Do you have a better idea?”

He thought a moment, then shrugged. “Not really, no.”

“So what are you waiting for?” She made a spinning motion with her finger. “You get changed, and I’ll grab a bag.” She dashed up the stairs.

Clark smiled after his wife, shook his head, and started to spin.

• • •


Watching Superman Returns was a very strange experience for Kara.

Her parents had decided to let her start watching selected PG-13 movies only that year, so she hadn’t seen many yet. Having a seven year old in the family meant they seldom got to watch them at home, so her chances were limited.

Still, she’d seen a few superhero movies. Since it was PG, they’d all seen The Incredibles on video, and last spring she’d gone with Mom and Jordy to see Thor while Dad took Laura to Brownies. She and Jordy also got to watch most of Warrior Angel at Uncle Jimmy’s apartment one night after Laura had fallen asleep early.

However, she’d never seen such a movie about her parents, the people they worked with, and the city she lived in.

Though she knew it was fiction, it disturbed her to see her Grandpa Jonathan dead and her mother engaged to a man who was not her father. Even though none of the actors bore any resemblance to the people she knew, these depictions bothered her.

Even Metropolis looked wrong. Everyone knew the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building were in New York!

She tried to see it purely as a film but that was impossible: Clark Kent was Dad and Lois Lane was Mom, and that was that. They and the other people she knew were constantly in her mind when their counterparts were on screen, and that made everything weird.

She liked the music, though. And the parts in Smallville. And Jason, who reminded her a little of Laura when she was that age, though Laura wasn’t quite as shy.

She learned that Superman’s Kryptonian name was Kal-El, and his Kryptonian father was Jor-El. Jordy’s full name was Jordan Ellis Kent. That couldn’t be a coincidence either. Laura was Laura Vanessa Kent; Kara wondered if she was named for someone, too.

She wondered if her dad had an awesome crystal palace in the Arctic. She sure hoped so!

Watching Superman in action was weird, because she now knew that Superman was her dad. His uniform, which had seemed iconic before, was looking kind of sketchy. Really, underwear on the outside? And was her dad’s outfit that… tight? Eww.

Also, given the developments of the day, for the first time she was seeing the things he did as things she was able to do herself. She followed along, trying to imagine what it would be like to use her powers to help people. It began to sink in that she could be a superhero, like her dad. She could be Supergirl. That was a little exciting, but mostly it was terrifying.

She found herself leaning forward every time Superman went into action, wanting to reach out and help. She got so into the scene where Superman was rescuing the airplane that when he used his heat vision to free the trapped space shuttle, she felt an abrupt warmth in her own eyes. She had to shut them tight and cover them with her hands for a few seconds to avoid burning a large hole in the middle of the Tong family’s large-screen television.

“This part isn’t even scary!” chided Kevin, cheerfully unaware that Kara’s closed eyelids were glowing a dull orange.

At the scene where Lois Lane told Richard White she didn’t love Superman, Kara couldn’t help crying. Superman looked so forlorn it broke her heart; she wanted to reach out and hug him, and tell him he wasn’t alone. To her, the movie felt like it should be titled Mom and Dad Got Divorced.

If the real Lex Luthor had been anything like the character in the movie, Kara was glad he was dead. She felt guilty having feelings like that, but she couldn’t help it.

Emily arrived towards the end of the second act, and joined them on the sectional to watch the last forty-five minutes or so. She put an arm around Kara, which the girl gladly accepted. Emily was not her mom, but she was really nice and was taking good care of her.

She was very glad Emily was there when Superman was beaten and stabbed with Kryptonite.

Kara stared at the screen, horrified, tears dribbling down her face. Emily, realizing what she was feeling, enveloped the girl in her arms. Kara mostly kept her eyes closed until it was over, but even just the audio was awful.

Emily burned with guilt. She should have known a Superman movie might have scenes that would distress a girl who believed her father was Superman. She felt like the world’s worst mother, even though Kara claimed to be OK once the bad parts were past.

Finally the movie was over. Kara watched the credits roll in a kind of daze.

“So what did you think?” crowed Kevin. “The CGI was pretty amazing, huh? It’s like it was all real!”

• • •


Kara was deep in thought on the way home. The last rays of the setting sun made her skin tingle, and her mind went to the scene where Superman had flown above the clouds to recharge.

When she’d first learned that Superman was her dad, she’d been disillusioned. Superman was just an ordinary guy in a costume, not the noble alien everyone believed in.

But after watching the movie she was starting to reconsider. The Clark Kent in the movie wasn’t much like her dad but she understood the idea: Superman was who he was because he was Clark Kent. Maybe her dad wasn’t ordinary, after all.

This led to another thought: what about herself and her new powers? Should she tell Emily about them? On the one hand, Emily was the closest thing she had to a parent at the moment. On the other hand, Emily and Dr. Penny thought she only believed that her dad was Superman. As long as she didn’t do anything super, no one would know. But would she need to do something super while she was here? She didn’t think so, but wasn’t sure.

She didn’t feel ready to be a superhero. She didn’t know if she’d ever feel ready.

She wished her parents were here to advise her, but if her parents were here she’d be going home and it wouldn’t matter. Would it be a problem if her foster family knew she wasn’t crazy? Questions were buzzing around in her head like angry bees.

“Hey,” said Emily, stroking her hair then putting an arm around her. “I’m so sorry you had to see that scene.” She didn’t need to specify which one.

Kara shivered. “That’s OK. I know it’s just a movie.”

• • •


Kara’s eyes snapped open.

She’d had terrible trouble falling asleep. Lying in the dark, the full weight of what she’d learned about herself had settled on her like a heavy, smothering blanket. The thought I’m an alien with superpowers had echoed through her head over and over, like rumbles from a summer thunderstorm, accompanied each time by a small lightning strike of adrenaline.

She hadn’t thought she could feel like more of an outsider than she already did, but you couldn’t get much more outside than being an alien.

Even if her family managed to keep their secret, she would always know how incredibly different she was. She was Kryptonian, or half-Kryptonian; either way, she was not fully human. She hated that. At least she had her family. She couldn’t imagine how her dad must have felt growing up.

She wasn’t the person she’d thought she was; she felt as if she were a stranger to herself. It left her feeling adrift, confused, disconnected. If you didn’t even know who you were what could you count on?

She was too young to know what she’d be when she grew up, but she was old enough to start wondering about it. She’d daydreamed about how she might like her life to go, though the teasing she’d gotten at school had made her doubt some of it. Now all of it was out the window.

Those thoughts and more had raced through her head for what had seemed hours before she’d finally fallen asleep; now she was awake again. It was the middle of the night, though she felt rested and not at all sleepy. She turned over to look at the clock on Caitlin’s desk and stifled a shriek.

She was hovering in midair, three feet above her air mattress. The blanket had slithered off her and was piled on the bedding below.

The clock read 3:18 AM; she’d slept maybe five and a half hours. Caitlin stirred restlessly in her sleep and Kara held her breath. If Caitlin woke now…

Desperately she thought, Down! Down! Nothing happened. She tried to swim through the air but stayed firmly in place, her arms and legs flailing uselessly. “…Wingardium Leviosa?” she whispered tentatively, but that didn’t do anything either. She rolled her eyes.

She still felt gravity, just as she’d felt the jab when she stabbed herself with her compass. In both cases it just… wasn’t having any effect on her.

She must have floated up in her sleep. Could it have been something in a dream? She tried to remember if she’d been dreaming before she woke, but couldn’t recall anything.

Caitlin mumbled something incoherent and turned over.

If only this were like gymnastics, where she knew how to control her body. She thought about doing handsprings, how that felt…

She rotated upside down, her feet pointed at the ceiling and her blonde hair hanging straight down. She huffed in frustration, then glanced quickly at Caitlin. Still asleep.

Kara realized that despite the unwanted result, she’d managed to move. She’d kind of felt what she wanted her body to do. She tried to capture that feeling again.

She rotated end over end so her feet were pointing at her bed. After a moment’s more thought she drifted slowly sideways, then descended gradually until her feet touched the floor. Her gymnastics training led her to a graceful landing without even thinking about it.

Her face was lit up with a slightly manic expression of glee.

Kara lifted up again, then landed. Up again, then landed. Up again, then onto her side, then spinning around in a full circle, then upright again and… down. Each time, it was easier. It was like learning to ride a bike: it seemed impossible to start with, but once you got it, it quickly became second nature.

She couldn’t resist. She lifted ever so slightly off the floor, glided silently over to the bedroom door, and closed it gently behind her. She drifted to the front door, unlocked it, floated outside, and quietly pulled it shut.

Kara could tell it was quite cold outside, but she felt fine. There was no moon out but she could see everything. Without a moment’s further thought she lifted effortlessly into the sky.

The ground fell away from her, the trees and houses easily visible by starlight, the streets bathed in the glow of the street lamps. The higher she went the larger the world grew; it spread out like a tapestry being unrolled. A short distance away she could see the bright lights of Milford Memorial Hospital. Around the horizon the lights of distant towns and cities glowed. Everything was quiet and peaceful.

She could see a lone car driving along the Route 1 bypass a mile away, hear the radio station the driver was listening to. Milford was laid out below her like a picture from a storybook.

She hung there, poised a couple of thousand feet in the air in her pajamas, and marveled. She felt like Wendy in Peter Pan.

Thinking of flying in a movie brought to mind the scene from Superman Returns where Superman and Lois Lane had flown together. Taking a moment to note the location of the hospital, a well-lit landmark in the darkness, she darted off towards Delaware Bay, her arms at her sides; it was a few moments’ travel to reach it. She swooped down, racing along just above the surface of the water, reaching down occasionally to trail her fingers in it as her mother’s counterpart had. She laughed with delight.

She curved back up into the sky in a lazy loop, her arms held out like wings, the world rotating majestically around her. She smiled as she spotted a boat anchored off in the distance, its cabin lights off.

She looked up and gasped: the sky was so different it was unrecognizable. It was filled with vastly more stars than she’d ever seen before, even in Smallville. Galaxies and nebulae she’d only ever seen in pictures were everywhere. There was a sense of enormous depth and scale that took her breath away. It didn’t look flat at all; she was peering out into the cosmos. It made her feel tiny.

A bright red star caught her eye. Her vision zoomed in on it and it was Mars, looking larger in the sky than the moon normally did. She could pick out one of the polar caps.

She looked down and watched the surf breaking two thousand feet below, illuminated by starlight; her hearing picked up its stately, soothing sound. She could see the sea creatures beneath the waves, many of them asleep.

She looked all around her one more time. The world felt brand new, wondrous and infused with magic. If she had to be an alien, this made it worthwhile. There was no other feeling that could match flying. She would have to find a way to do this again.

Right now, though, she needed to get back in bed before anyone noticed. She easily found the hospital’s lights and flew towards home, awash in the most amazing euphoria she’d ever experienced.

Once back over Milford she dove down towards the cottage, stopped fifty feet up, and started to descend feet-first. Her hearing then picked up a panicked, “Oh my God, she’s not in the house!” She froze. The lights were on inside.

“The door’s unlocked!”

The front door swung open and Emily and Caitlin emerged in their robes and slippers. Emily shone a flashlight around, whispering urgently, “Kara? Kara, honey, are you out there?”

“Em, what could’ve happened to her? Maybe she ran away?”

“It doesn’t look like she took anything… I hope the kidnappers didn’t come back for her!”

Kara tried frantically to think of what she should do. She considered darting behind the cottage and coming around, but couldn’t think of an explanation for going outside in the middle of the night. The Jordans were blocking the only door, so she couldn’t sneak into the house and pretend she’d been there all along. Her thoughts were still tripping over their own feet when Emily moaned, distraught, “Oh God, we’d better call 911!”

Kara couldn’t help herself: she squeaked, “No!”

“Kara? Was that you?”

Kara winced. “Y-yes…?”

Emily blurted out, “Oh thank God!” then whispered angrily, “Kara Zoe Kent, what are you doing outside at this hour? And where are you? You’d better come here this instant!”

Kara hesitated a moment more, then resigned herself to the inevitable. “I’m up here.” She started to descend.

“‘Up’?” echoed Emily. They looked puzzled for a moment; then both sisters looked up. Kara must have been silhouetted against the stars: the flashlight found her quickly. The sisters gasped.

The flashlight followed her all the way down, like a spotlight; barefoot, she hovered just above the ground. She and the Jordans regarded each other silently.

• • •