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Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.
Part 4 Part 5Jimmy leaned against Lois’ desk as she talked on the phone with the Daily Planet’s publisher. “Mr. Stern, Lois Lane here… Well, no, Perry isn’t in right now, because he had to… uh…” She looked at Jimmy wide-eyed, trying to think of an excuse to explain the Chief’s absence. “Had to…” Suddenly, an idea struck her. “Meet a source that would only talk to him.”
Jimmy gave her the A-OK hand signal with a big grin.
“Uh… No, we haven’t gotten any more on the Intergang connection, but we’re working on it,” Lois continued into the telephone as she watched Jimmy’s grin fade. “Well, yes, I know I speak for Perry when I say that it would be a bad idea to sell… Oh, sure, no problem… Well, say hello to the Eiffel Tower for me,” she said, trying to sound chipper. “Oh. You’re in Rome now. Ciao!” With a sigh, Lois hung up the phone.
“Why didn’t you tell him that Perry had been kidnapped?” Jimmy asked.
“Because that’s the one thing that would make him sell. One more crisis and BOOM! We all will be writing headlines about Oprah’s latest diet. We’ve got to keep this thing quiet,” Lois explained.
The travel editor ran up to Lois and Jimmy and held up two photos. “Bali or Seychelles?”
“Perry isn’t here now, Karl,” Lois told him.
“I need an answer now. The Sunday magazine closes in five!”
Lois looked between the two pictures with a shrug. “Well… Run both.”
“That means I need more copy,” complained Karl.
Lois’ eyes grew large as she realized that she had just doubled Karl’s workload.
“Oh, God!” growled Karl, who ran off.
***
The next morning, Lois was back on the phone with the publisher with more excuses. “No, Mr. Stern, I haven’t seen Perry this morning… Maybe he had car trouble… Yes, I realize that Multiworld Communications needs an answer in forty-eight hours… You know, you might want to reconsider your position on… Oh, of course… Well, I’ll tell him to call you as soon as I see him.” Her cheeks hurting from all her fake-cheerfulness, she hung up phone.
What was she going to do? Perry was kidnapped. The police had nothing but her sketch of the man who kidnapped him, but they had accomplished zip. She was running the Planet solo and trying to find her boss at the same time. This was exactly why she needed a real partner. Someone off whom she could bounce ideas.
[i]“You’re waiting for me to talk about it… to open up. See, this is exactly why I hate partnerships,” Lois stated the obvious to her new partner.
Clark put down his pencil and actually sounded annoyed when he asked, “Why?”
“Because your partner is always there for you whether you want them there or not. Because your partner is there to share your troubles. Well, I don’t feel like sharing,” she announced.
Clark held up his hands and paper in mock-defeat.
“Okay, so I don’t get along with my father,” Lois admitted. “Big deal.”
“No big deal.”
“I mean haven’t you met anyone so wrapped up in their work that they don’t have time for anyone or anything?”
“Is this a trick question?” Clark asked, apparently saying that those words could describe her.
“Okay. Okay. But at least, I don’t have kids.”
“Oh, Clark.” Lois sighed to herself. “Where are you when I need you?”
Jimmy walked up behind her and handed her a pile of photo sheets. Lois didn’t even look at them before handing them back to him. “Jimmy, I have to go out for awhile. Hold down the fort.” Then she walked out of the newsroom as he stood behind her, his mouth ajar.
“Isn’t that what they said to Jim Bowie at the Alamo?” he called to her.
***
Lois removed a message taped to her computer. The fresh air from her walk around the block had done her worlds of good. The hotdog sustenance hadn’t hurt either. Well, not yet, at least. She was ready to face the hell that was her life again.
“Jimmy!” she called out to her partner in crime, who came running. “Bobby Bigmouth called. He’s identified the police artist sketch of Perry’s kidnapper. Gene Newtrich. He’s a soil engineer.”
“Soil engineer and part-time kidnapper,” responded Jimmy.
She continued to read down the note. “We’ve even got a working address.”
“What are we waiting for?!” said Jimmy with enthusiasm.
Lois shook her head. “Sorry, Jimmy. One of us has to stay here.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes and lowered his voice. “You do realize that the Chief wouldn’t want me in charge, don’t you? I’ll go, and you stay.”
“You do realize that Perry isn’t going to care if I don’t find him,” Lois retorted, throwing the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder and heading for the elevators.
As she rode the elevator down to the street level she could picture the same type of conversation with Clark…
“Clark, I think I should go alone…” Lois said, grabbing her briefcase and putting on her coat.
“Okay,” Clark replied, taking a step back.
“It’s just that he would be more comfortable…” she continued, explaining.
“More comfortable talking to someone he knows. I get it. Go.” He nodded, sending her on her way alone.
Lois stood there speechless. Clark had agreed with her? “Sometimes, you surprise me.”That would be a nice change: a partner who backed her up and didn’t argue when she was clearly in the right.
***
Lois walked up to the door of Gene Newtrich’s office and looked at the security keypad to open the door. “There must be a zillion combinations to that thing,” she mumbled to herself. How in the hell was she going to get inside? She tried to look through the smoky glass of the door, but no such luck. It was just too dark. Then, she tried to type combinations into the keypad, hoping that some random mishmash of numbers would work.
Five minutes later she was still standing there, typing away. Nothing.
She heard someone coming, whistling. She went around the corner of the hallway and hid. A janitor came to Newtrich’s door and opened it. She watched which numbers he plugged into the keypad and then gave herself a fist-pump ‘all right!’ gesture.
A few minutes later the janitor left and Lois typed the same numbers into the keypad.
Success! Ha! Who needed a partner with computer know-how, when she had brains, tenacity, and dumb luck?
The sixty-four thousand dollar question was why a soil engineer was in on a plot to kidnap Perry. She went through drawers randomly. She saw maps and files. Nothing of interest jumped out at her. Over by the door she found some building plans. “Newtrich has got to be tied to some larger organization,” she told herself. She flipped over some papers and underneath found the substructure plans for Cost Mart. “Newtrich works for Cost Mart! Cost Mart is run by Bill Church, Jr., which means that Newtrich might work for Intergang.” She folded up the plans and snuck back out of Newtrich’s office.
Now, it made sense who had kidnapped Perry. This was the type of stuff they needed down at the police department. Only she couldn’t tell them without disclosing her act of B&E.
Crap. She would have to visit Cost Mart on her own. First though, she needed to study these plans.
***
“What are you writing?” Clark inquired, sitting down next to Lois at her desk.
“The story,” Lois stated the obvious.
“Saying what?”
“Dr. Sam Lane is performing these surgeries secretly,” she said, reading off her computer screen as she typed.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“Well, I’m not so sure we were at your father’s office last night,” Clark told her.
Lois turned to look at him. “What?”
“Maybe I was home asleep. And you were watching a late movie on TV,” he suggested.
“What is with you?” Lois gazed at Clark like he had lost his mind. “We took those pictures?”
Clark put the photos taken at her father’s office of the mechanical body parts into his inside jacket pocket. “What pictures?”
“Clark, this is the biggest scandal in boxing history.” There she went, stating the obvious again.
“No doubt about it,” Clark agreed with her. “Look. We print this, whoever killed Allie is going to want your father out of the way, too.”
Lois swallowed, realizing what he said could very well be true.She sighed. Clark had been right, she thought to herself as memories of her dream distracted her from the Cost Mart plans again. Unlike what happened in reality, in her dreams it had been Clark who had found her father’s secret office behind his bookcase instead of her.
Strangely though, when she had gone to her father’s office with Clark, there had been an earthquake; yet, there hadn’t been one when she had gone there by herself. Must have been some weird component of the dream state. True, when she had been there alone – in real life – she had almost been caught by Max Menken and one of his boxers. Although, luckily for her, they hadn’t seen her duck into her father’s examination room and out another door.
Lois knew that Clark’s suggestion had been right, because that was exactly what had happened to her father when the article had been published, instead of buried as it had been in her dream. Her father had gone underground and ended up in witness protection after he had agreed to turn state’s evidence against Menken and his boxers.
She hadn’t seen her father for longer than five minutes before he was relocated. Five minutes to tell him she loved him, and five minutes for him to tell her – for the first time in his life – that he was proud of her, despite all that had happened to him because of her article. She wondered if she would ever see Dr. Sam Lane again. Some of the cyborg boxers had been taken into custody, some disappeared, so her father still had a reason to hide.
Was that what her dreams were? Wishful thinking? Or was it something else? Was it a window into another life?
Lois went back to studying the plans. And back to coming up with bupkis. She wished Clark were real; she could use his input. Of course, if Clark had been real, she would have ended up in Perry’s doghouse for pulling her punches on her father’s involvement with cyborg boxers.
Lois stormed out of Perry’s office past a whistling Jimmy. “I’ve seen it before, but I’ve never been in it.”
“What’s that?” Jimmy asked, following her back to her desk. They passed Clark, who joined them.
“Perry’s doghouse.”
“Police academy graduation,” Clark said, telling her of his ‘doghouse’ story.
“Nice.” She went to get a cup of coffee. She had some auto show crap. Clark went along with her and she told him, “I guess we’re not partners anymore.”
“Guess not,” he agreed.
“I’m sorry, Clark. Really.” She actually was being honest with him. She liked working with Clark.
“It’s just as well.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s just as well. You don’t want to be partnered with a hypocritical reporter who talks a good game but backs off the minutes things hit too close to home.”
Clark smiled. “Yes, I do.”This Clark fellow better stop saying things like that to her or Superman might have competition for her heart. She grinned for the first time all day. Who was she kidding? Superman
had no competition.
Eduardo walked up to her desk and looked over her shoulder at the plans. “What’s this?”
“Cost Mart substructure plans. I found them…” She cut herself off. No need to spread her evil deeds around. “Never mind.”
He glanced at her knowingly, and then took another look at the plans. “This might be something, Lois. There are two full basements in these plans,” he told her.
“They need lots of room for excess merchandise?” Lois guessed.
“Look,” Eduardo said, pointing at what he was describing. “The loading docks line up to this first level basement. But this second basement is only accessed through this one passenger elevator.”
“Which means they don’t use the sub-basement for storage. What do you think is down there?” she asked him.
“How in the hell should I know? Cost Mart’s your story, Lane.” Eduardo shrugged.
“Thanks, Eduardo,” Lois called to his departing back as her phone rang. She picked it up and, still focused on the plans, said, “Lois Lane.”
“Lois!” she heard Perry’s voice whisper to her over the line.
“Perry!” she gasped. Jimmy walked by, and she caught his eye. “It’s Perry.” Back into the phone she asked her boss, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m a prisoner. Bill Church, Jr. has me. He’s head of Intergang,” he said.
“I knew it! I knew it!” She turned to Jimmy. “Bill Church is the head of Intergang. He’s holding Perry prisoner.”
“That’s great!” exclaimed Jimmy. “Ask him where he is.”
“Oh, right. Perry, where are you? Perry? Perry?” She set the phone back down. “We got disconnected.”
“At least we know he’s alive,” Jimmy reminded her.
“Yeah,” Lois agreed with him, her eyes drawn back to that sub-basement on the Cost Mart plans.
For the moment.***
Lois wasn’t sure how to get that sub-basement elevator door to open. Jimmying it with a paperclip took time and wasn’t working. The elevator door opened and there in front of her stood Perry with a couple of thugs behind him.
“Lois! Run, honey, run!” he barked.
She turned to run and one of Bill Church’s men cocked his gun and shouted, “Stay where you are!”
Lois froze and turned back to Perry, Bill Church Jr., and his two henchmen. Some heroine was she.
“Ms. Lane,” Bill Church, Jr. said with a sigh. “Your timing couldn’t have been worse.” He turned to the man Lois recognized at Gene Newtrich and asked, “Is there room for two in that landfill?”
Perry pushed his elbow into the henchman behind him and then karate chopped him on the back. With this distraction Lois tried to run again, but Gene followed her. Taking her boss’s example in stride, Lois used one of her martial arts moves to knock Gene in the neck, flooring him. As she turned to run off, Bill Church Jr. grabbed her, holding her against him at gunpoint. By this time, Perry had the other henchman’s gun and was pointing it at them.
“Nobody get excited and Ms. Lane might live to see another sunset,” Church told them, his gun pointing at Lois’ neck. “Perry, put the gun down. This gun has a delicate trigger mechanism, and I wouldn’t want it to go off accidentally.”
With a defeated shake of his head, Perry did as he was told.
“How about us?” said a voice behind them.
They all turned around to find Inspector Henderson and a couple of uniformed police officers standing behind them. Lois took the momentary diversion to punch Church in the gut and get him to drop the gun. After a small scuffle, the officers had the billionaire in custody.
Lois embraced her boss and then turned to the inspector. “How did you know we were here?”
“I got an anonymous tip from one Jimmy Olsen,” replied Henderson with a smirk. “He told me I might want to check out the sub-basement at Cost Mart, because otherwise Ms. Lane was going to make the MPD look bad again.”
The reporters laughed. “At least he did it anonymously,” Lois said with a wink to her boss.
***
Perry’s laughter caused Lois to peer into the Chief’s office. She saw Jimmy standing by her boss’s desk.
“Lois, get in here!” Perry called to her, waving her inside.
She walked up to the desk.
“I was just telling Jimmy how I stopped one of Church’s henchmen with a karate chop. You know, Elvis was into karate.”
“It was impressive,” Lois backed up Perry’s story.
“Almost as impressive, I’m sure, as your story, Chief,” said Jimmy, unfolding the paper revealing Perry’s story,
Billionaire Church Revealed as Head of Intergang.“Well, I haven’t had a byline in seventeen years,” Perry told them proudly. “It’s nice to know I still got the juice.”
“Nice to know that Mr. Stern’s not selling the paper,” Lois agreed with her boss.
“Oh, I think we’re safe for a while,” he told her.
Lois nodded and headed back to her desk, where she found a message from Dan, saying he wouldn’t be back in time for their date that night. She sighed. Guess she was spending another night celebrating with her old friends: Ben & Jerry.
As she started straightening up the papers on her desk, her mind began to wander.
“This is terrific follow-up,” Perry told Lois and Clark, reading their copy. “By the way, Kent, where were you when all this went down?”
“I went for help,” Clark replied, but Lois could hear the hurt in his voice at their boss’s implication.
“No criminal charges against Dr. Lane… oh, that’s great,” Perry continued reading, ignoring Clark’s response. “Oh, this is nice, Lex Luthor offered to testify as a character witness before the medical ethics board. Well, good for Lex,” said the Chief, turning to his reporters. “You know he carries a lot of weight in this community. Well, it looks like my instinct was right… you’re a great team. Circulation should hit the roof with this piece.”
“So, I guess that means we’re partners full-time now?” Lois asked, reading between his lines.
“No, no, no. Let’s not overdo a good thing. Only when the time is right,” said Perry, tapping his head. “And only on special stories.” Their boss tossed back their copy and headed for his office.
“What did he mean, ‘where was I?’” Clark asked her almost whining.
“You were looking for help,” Lois said, supporting him. “Come on. Let’s get something to eat.” She headed towards her desk to grab her briefcase, but for once Clark didn’t follow.
“I’m not hungry,” he said, clearly moping. She could tell it had hurt his pride, what Perry had said.
“Clark, if it makes you feel any better, even Superman got there too late,” Lois told him, turning back to her desk. He still didn’t follow. “Are you coming? Or are you going to stay there and sulk?”
Clark tossed down his pencil, set his jaw in his palm, and pouted, glancing at her with puppy dog eyes. Did he want her sympathy? Please! She rolled her eyes, tsk-ed him, and walked away. She wasn’t going to beg, and she could do without a celebration dinner with a surly partner.Lois sighed and went to pull on her coat. In her dreams, holding off on the story had allowed her father to get the goods on Menken. Her father didn’t get his medical license suspended. He didn’t need to go into witness protection, because Superman had caught all the cyborg boxers and they ended up in police custody.
It was weird though. Lex Luthor shot Max Menken both in reality and in her dreams. It had been because of that incident that she really started to care for the billionaire. She didn’t understand why Superman wasn’t the man to rescue her in her dreams. He had arrived, but only
after Lex shot Menken. Sure, Superman was busy dealing with and catching the cyborg boxers at the time. Why were her dreams showing him in less than favorable light when they had never done so before? Superman was her hero. Shouldn’t he always be heroic?
Picking up her briefcase, she thought again how Menken had taken her at gunpoint into the alley. Lex had come out the back door of the Daily Planet building and Menken had
turned his gun on Luthor. “You double-crossing…” he had said, before Lex had shot him.
A cold chill dripped down her spine. Lois hadn’t been in danger. The only gun pointed towards her at that moment was Lex’s.
Lex hadn’t saved her; he had shot Menken to shut him up. Why did Menken call Lex a “double-crossing” something or other?
How had Lex double-crossed Menken? It didn’t make sense.
Had Lex been involved with the cyborg boxers? Lois knew that Lex had kept his fingers in many, numerous pies. How had Menken financed her father’s research? From where had the money come? Sure, he had money from boxing and his gyms, but
that much? Was that why Lex volunteered to speak on her father’s behalf with the medical ethics board, before her father had gone into witness relocation? Or had he done that because of her?
She set down her briefcase. Lifting up the receiver of her phone she called MPD. “Inspector Henderson? Lois Lane. Is there any way I could take a look at the evidence in my father’s case? Menken’s gym and the cyborg boxers?... Yes, I know it’s closed, but something doesn’t feel right.” She rolled her eyes at his questioning her curiosity. “I was just wondering, where did Menken get the money to finance the surgeries?” She sat down in her chair and shrugged out of her coat.
***
“You know you should have discussed this with me before you took this on,” Clark told Lois, setting down his coffee on her desk. “I mean, we’re a team.”
Yeah. Sure. Right. That was what he meant. Men! “Sometimes players have to wait on the bench while other players run with the ball.”
“You’re in over your head in this one, Lois,” Clark replied.
Thanks for the vote of confidence there, partner. Lois picked up her coffee. “If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the story.” She took a sip of her coffee. It burned her tongue. That was strange. A minute ago, her coffee had been cold. She shrugged it off. “Besides, I’m first and foremost a professional. And I would never do anything to compromise my personal safety or the integrity of my work.”
Jimmy walked up behind her with a suit bag in his hand. “Lois, this just came for you. The dry-cleaner said he had a terrible time with the… uh…” He unpacked the ‘outfit’ – a yellow leotard with bright yellow feathers around the neck and wrists, as well as a feather tail. “… the feathers.”
She grabbed her costume away from Jimmy but not before seeing the smirk across his and Clark’s face. Great. So much for her integrity.***
Lois walked down the street outside the Daily Planet. There was music, balloons, and joy in the air. It was the Daily Planet Carnival for charity. She had been looking forward to this for months. Why didn’t she feel happy to actually be there? She was eating cotton candy, the best fair food available... well, next to caramel apples. She sighed. Was it because she was there alone? Or that her life felt empty for some reason?
Her dreams had progressed to her time at the Metro Club. Instead of backing her up at the office, Clark had invaded her undercover turf, because he felt she couldn’t handle the assignment on her own. What was with her subconscious anyway? She
had handled the undercover work just fine on her own in real life. Why, suddenly, did it think she had needed the backup of her partner?
“Step right up! Step right up, folks,” hollered Jimmy. “And have you futures told by Madam Blavatsky. She knows all, she sees all, and she tells all.”
She couldn’t help but smile at Jimmy’s sales pitch. “How much of my dollar is going to charity?” she asked him with mock suspicion.
“One hundred percent! One hundred pennies of your dollar will go to charity. See your destiny with Madam Blavatsky!”
Lois chuckled, taking a bite of cotton candy. “Okay, I’m sold.”
“Lois, is that you?” Perry asked hopefully, emerging from the tent dressed… well, dressed up as a carnie fortune-teller, a female one: dark wig, turban, and long red nails. “Honey, I cannot keep these fingernails on. How in thunder do you women…” He adjusted his falling boobs. “… put up with all of this is beyond me?” He grabbed a man passing on the street. “Come on…” He pulled the man into his tent. “Come on, Lois!”
A man with dark hair, glasses, and a flannel shirt passed by on the street. “Clark?” she murmured and automatically went to follow him.
Perry returned at that moment and took her shoulders, guiding her towards the tent. “Lois, I’m about to lose a customer,” he said, it his female Madam Blavatsky voice.
She nodded and entered the tent with him to fix his nails.
Less than a minute later she heard shouting, “Look out! Look out! I can’t hold this!”
Lois dropped Perry’s hand and stepped back out of the tent to see a man on a crane over the stage, teetering with a huge speaker. He was yelling for another man, playing guitar below him, to move. The other man couldn’t hear him due to his headphones.
It’s too dangerous, Lois could hear Clark tell her.
A sudden chill gripped her. “Clark?” she whispered, looking around. Why had she heard his voice? It must have been in her mind. Clark didn’t exist, she reminded herself, and yet, she found herself looking to the sky and hoping to see a flash of blue and red from another man whom she didn’t expect to see either. “Superman,” she said aloud, but her call went unheeded in the din.
“Hi, Lois,” said Dan, suddenly appearing out of the crowd with a grin. “You call?”
“Look out below! Get out of the way,” the man holding the speaker hollered, but the guitarist continued to ignore him. “I can’t hold it! Look out below!”
Lois gasped and turned into Dan’s chest as the speaker fell and flattened the guitarist.
“Great shades of Elvis!” Perry shouted, pulling off his wig. “Somebody call the EMTs! Come on, Scardino, Olsen, and you there…” Their boss pointed to a burly man, waving him to follow. “Let’s see if we can move that speaker off that man!”
There was a blonde woman standing at the side of the stage and screaming, “
Calvin?!”
Lois just stared at the scene unfolding in front of her as Dan went with Perry and the others.
Superman hadn’t come. He didn’t exist. Why couldn’t he exist?
*** End of Part 5 *** Part 6 Comments
