You can find the
Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.
Where we left off in Part 18…“Huh?” Lois’ head was swimming with Old Clarks, New Clarks, and three, possibly four, hers – only one of which was actually her. Then who was the fiancée or was it the ex-wife that kills one of her?
The phone rang, jarring her spinning head back to normal. Lois went to her desk. “Hello?”
“Lois, I have some information on that druid mask that you asked me about,” said Patrick.
“You do? Terrific! Thanks for helping me out, Patrick,” Lois replied. [i]Finally, some headway on this robbery / ritual killing spree. She was so glad she got over all that
Indecent Proposal paranoia mess from the other day. As an antiques dealer, Patrick had kindly volunteered to help with getting information on the stolen artifacts.
“I hate do this, but can I ask you to meet me at my suite? All the information is here,” Patrick suggested.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll be right over,” the reporter told him, hanging up. She turned back to Star. “I’ve got to go.”
“Okay,” Star said, following her out. “Oh! Oh! Don’t open the cabinet with the glowing green eyes.”
“Right. The cabinet with the eyes,” Lois repeated, taking the advice with a grain of salt. “I won’t open it.” Truthfully, she was relieved to stop thinking about this whole New Clark, Old Clark, future returning to the past conundrum.
***
Part 19Lois turned away from the cabinet in Patrick’s suite. Besides the disturbing photo collage that Patrick had collected of her, what had initially had drawn her to the armoire was the green glowing gems in the eyes of an old silver mask. She sighed. “I don’t believe it.” Star had been right.
Run!~You heard Star. I’m not dying anytime soon, Clark. Stop worrying.~
A groan of frustration was his only response.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Patrick said, announcing his return to the room.
Lois spun around to face him. “Patrick, this is the mask that was stolen last night, wasn’t it?”
“The Mask of the Ancient Ones?” Patrick said, taking the mask away from her. “Yes. I told you I had information about it.”
She felt like rolling her eyes at herself. She fell into another trap, didn’t she? One of these days she would learn not to run into a situation like this without back-up.
You will?“Well, this is a shame.”
“What? That I’ve discovered my instincts about you were right?” Lois responded, edging towards the door. Patrick’s associate Shamus, grabbed her by the shoulders before she got half-way across the room.
Fight!She tried to pull herself free, but his grip was too firm. She leaned back against Shamus and kicked her old friend in the chest with a front kick using both of her legs, causing him to stumble backwards.
“
Hold her!” reprimanded Patrick.
Next thing Lois knew she was tied to a long glass top table. Patrick placed some hideous skull candlesticks onto the table – one above her head and two others down by her feet. How could she ever have described them as beautiful? He and Shamus had donned robes.
What was that about not dying any time soon?~Really? Now? Do you really think this is the time for an ‘I told you so’?~
“Maybe you can answer something for me,” Lois said to Patrick. “What is it about the filthy rich that makes you all want to kill me?”
“Hush, my sweet,” Patrick replied, drawing the hood of his robe over his head. “I love you.”
“
This…” Lois said, tugging on her bindings. “… isn’t love.”
Patrick shrugged. “You like to interfere where you shouldn’t?” he suggested an alternative reason with a nod to his associate, who also raised his hood.
“You used to call that ‘spunk’ and as I recall, you used to admire that about me,” Lois reminded him.
Patrick looked her over from head to shoes with unveiled interest. “I’ve always admired everything about you.”
I don’t think you’re going to talk him out of this.~Any brilliant ideas, then?~
Knock over a candlestick, Clark suggested.
Lois pulled on the ropes once more. Her wrists were too tightly bound to reach the candlestick holder between them. She turned her head and saw Patrick retrieve the large dagger from the side table. ~Any better ideas?~
Clark was quiet long enough for her to decide that he didn’t.
“Help!” she screamed as Patrick popped off the button from her suit jacket with the tip of the knife.
He leaned over her. “Lois, if nobody came when the other women screamed, what makes you think they will come now?”
“Superman! Help!” she shouted, thrashing around on the table. Patrick and Shamus exchanged a perplexed expression as Patrick passed the dagger over to his associate.
Shamus held the dagger above his head to stab her abdomen.
“I can’t believe you aren’t man enough to murder me yourself, you coward,” Lois hissed at Patrick.
He held up a hand to stop Shamus. “Coward? I’m no coward.”
“Sure you are, Patrick. Any man who has to strap a woman down to have his way with her isn’t going to win any awards for bravery,” she informed him. “You’re pathetic.”
Not helping here, Lois.“I’m pathetic?” roared Patrick. “I’ll show you pathetic!” He stepped over to his desk and put on the Mask of the Ancient Ones.” The mask fused with his face, and she could see a green ghostly figure arrive and inhabit his body.
“Still pathetic, Patrick,” she taunted him as he stood over her again, this time holding the dagger himself. “You need some magical being to be man enough to kill me. I thought for this offering to be real, you needed to sacrifice the one you most love? Well, I don’t love you. I’ve never loved you. Some sacrifice I’ll be. An insult to the druid gods is more like it.” The knife hesitated over her.
What are you doing?~If he derives pleasure from killing me, it isn’t much of a sacrifice, is it?~
You are nuts. You’ll be dead!~So, you’re dead. Star said once I’m dead we can be together again. It doesn’t look like I’ve got much of a choice here.~
No, Lois, not like this. You need to fight. Live!~Fine! But if I end up falling for New Clark, I’m blaming you,~ Lois retorted, starting to use her entire weight to rock the table. This table was quite sound, heavier than she thought, and didn’t want to budge.
“Hold her!” newly possessed Patrick ordered to his henchman.
Shamus went to hold her down and Lois was able to get in a good head-butt. Thankfully, he wasn’t expecting it and slipped to the floor. She heard Patrick roar with anger, and she rocked the table over, knocking one of the candlesticks onto Patrick. His robes caught fire as if he had been covered by a silent flash powder, and he started to holler as the door of the suite burst open.
“Housekeeping! I’ve got towels,” announced the same maid who had kept barging in on her and Jimmy’s stay at the honeymoon suite, as she popped into the room.
The maid saw Shamus passed out on the floor, Lois tied to the upturned table, and Patrick on fire nearby, and rightly flew out of the room screaming. A few moments later, Lois heard the fire alarm go off down the hall.
Lois had to love the Lexor Hotel for its excellent customer service in lack of guest privacy.
***
Jimmy wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and handed her a cup of bullpen coffee.
Lois smiled up at him. Detective Wolfe had called Jimmy after he had found her tied to the table. Her partner had picked her up from the Lexor and taken her back to the office. They were now sitting in the conference room. Actually, the detective had wanted Jimmy to take her home, but she had a story to write, so Lois had insisted that they return to the Planet. Wolfe expected her down at headquarters first thing the next morning for more questioning. “Thanks, Jimmy. I don’t know why Wolfe called you; I’m fine.”
Her partner knelt down in front of her. “Lois, he said that you were hysterical and calling out for Superman to rescue you.”
“I
was not!” Lois defended her actions and then mumbled, “I only called out for him once.”
Not helping your case here.Jimmy raised a brow. “I thought we had discussed this. There is no such thing as this Superman.”
“A girl can dream, can’t she?” Lois grumbled. “Anyway, I can believe in flying superheroes, if you’re allowed to call my neighbor and tell her to check out my future.”
“What?” Jimmy’s face was a picture of disbelief.
“Star. My neighbor, the psychic,” she reminded him. “You called her and told her to check out my future. You were worried I wasn’t listening to you, so for some strange reason you thought I’d listen to her instead.”
His jaw dropped open for a long moment before he said, “Lois, I didn’t call your neighbor.”
“Of course you did. She said my partner sent her. Who else could …?” The words caught in her throat. Who else, indeed? “Clark,” Lois breathed, her hand covering her mouth.
Yes, honey?“Clark? This Clark – CK fellow – isn’t your partner, Lois, I am. Are you saying that he contacted this Star woman on my behalf? That he’s impersonating me?” he sputtered. “Sarah was right; he isn’t good for you.”
Lois waved that idea out of the air. “No, Clark contacted her on
his behalf.” Her mind was still trying to grasp the truth that Clark had talked to someone other than her. She wasn’t crazy.
“What? Why would he call himself ‘your partner’ then?” Jimmy asked.
“Because he
is my partner, in an alternate reality,” Lois said absently, letting the blanket fall as she stood up to start pacing. Clark was real. She had seen his grave. She had spoken with his parents and, now, he had contacted someone other than herself! She felt so relieved. Not that she had been nervous or anything. She had known the whole time she wasn’t crazy.
“Lois!” Jimmy said, grabbing her shoulders.
“Huh?” She shook her head and tried to focus on him. “What?”
“You’re starting to act really weird. Clark isn’t from
this reality?” he asked incredulously.
Other realities? Dimensions? Was that what Star meant by the other her and the other Clarks? “No, Clark
is from this reality, but from another time,” Lois tried to explain. From Jimmy’s stunned expression she clearly wasn’t doing it well. “Clark is meant to be alive. He’s supposed to be my writing partner at the Planet. We…” She paused as she realized that Jimmy wasn’t one of the partners. “— the three of us – work together to uncover the truth. Understand?”
Jimmy shook his head. “No.”
“I know this sounds crazy…”
“Yes, Lois, it sounds very crazy. This is just the type of thing that Sarah warned me to be on the lookout for,” he told her.
“What?! No,” Lois said, gesturing that theory of her lack of sanity out of the conversation. “Sarah just thinks he’s from my dreams because that’s what I told her. That was before I realized my dreams aren’t dreams, but repressed memories.”
“Lo-is,” Jimmy groaned. “I did research on this CK guy. He doesn’t exist. There is no reporter with the name Clark Kent that has printed an article in the past ten years in any newspaper.”
“Of course he doesn’t exist, Jimmy; someone, somehow went back in time and killed him off before he became a reporter, so Clark doesn’t exist now. Only, he’s supposed to. That’s why I have these repressed memories.”
Duh! Lois froze. That word sounded familiar and not because she was apt to speak it often enough. It meant something else. It was there on the tip of her tongue, on the edge of her memory, yet still not within her grasp. Damn! She needed to figure out a way to get access to those memories.
“Lois,” Jimmy said, picking up the phone. “I know it’s late, but I’m going to call Sarah and ask her for a referral. You
need to talk to a professional about this.”
“A professional?” Lois scoffed. Who was a professional in time-travel? Repressed memories? A psychiatrist?! “
No! I’m not nuts, Jimmy.”
He covered up the mouthpiece of her phone, sending her an expression of concern. “Lois, you’re telling me that you believe in flying superheroes, time-travel, and your dreams are repressed memories of an alternative life. What do you expect me to believe?”
“Me,” she said simply. “You know I’m the last person in the world to believe in any of these things.”
“Which is why I’m worried about you,” he explained, dialing.
Lois took the phone out of his hand. “Jimmy, these past few months alone we’ve dealt with you being brainwashed, someone who wanted to do a head-transplant, that insane machine that can super-fry an entire city, and now Patrick and his mystical druid mask – give me the benefit of the doubt here. I know I sound bonkers, but what I’m saying isn’t any more off-the-wall than those things.”
He held out his hand for the receiver. “Those other things were verifiable, Lois. Your hypothesis about CK isn’t. You’ve lived through enough stress to make an average person certifiable. Either way, I’m still going to ask Sarah for a referral. You’ve been acting really odd lately.”
Lois hung up the phone rather than handing it back to him. “By the way, I know Superman isn’t real. A man that pure of heart, who also looks that hot in a skintight suit, isn’t going to fall for someone like me. He’s definitely just a fantasy.”
“Eww, Lois,” Jimmy said as an expression of horror crossed his face. “Too much information.”
She shot him a beaming grin and headed out to her desk.
A few minutes later, Lois sensed Jimmy standing behind her as she typed. He reached over her shoulder and pointed at the screen. “Perry’s not going to accept that, Lois. Hearsay. You’re the only one who witnessed Sullivan catching fire and disappearing into a cloud of ash.”
“And I’m too batty to use my observations as fact anymore?” she retorted. “And the maid saw him on fire. Why do you think she pulled the fire alarm?”
He sat down next to her desk and Lois continued to ignore his presence. After a while, he sighed heavily. “Sarah said that she takes a seminar with Dr. Maxwell Deter of the Metropolis Neuroscience Center. She really likes him.”
“Uh-huh,” Lois replied with no enthusiasm. “Good for her.”
“Maybe he can help you,” Jimmy suggested. “He’s apparently top in his field with repressed memories, amnesia, and memory loss.”
She shot him a skeptical raised eyebrow. “By doing what? Electroshock therapy? Hypnosis? Thank you, no.” She turned back to her computer as she continued typing. “After what happened last time I got hypnotized…” She wouldn’t risk her connection to Clark by giving some psychiatrist, whose only goal would be to rid her of this voice inside her head, a back-stage pass to her mind.
“Well, I’m going to do some research on this Dr. Deter and see if he’s on the level. See what kind of techniques he uses,” Jimmy said, standing up. “Maybe you’ll come to your senses.”
“Doubt it,” Lois responded, continuing to type. “Since I’m still sane.”
As she waited for the printer to spit out the hard copy of her article, she reviewed what Jimmy had told her. No, she wouldn’t give that Deter fellow a call. Maybe she could find someone else instead – someone she could trust – to see if she could access more of these repressed memories. The more information she had about her past with Clark, the quicker she could figure out who wanted to kill him enough to go back in time. Her memories were trickling too slowly into her conscience as it was; she needed a flood.
Star! Lois wondered if the psychic did that sort of thing. Why hadn’t she thought of her before? Probably because she didn’t trust psychics, but Clark obviously had, since he had contacted her. Lois could trust anyone Clark trusted, couldn’t she?
“What’s going on here?!” Perry said, stomping out of the elevator and over to Lois’ desk. “Darlin’, you okay? Jimmy said that I needed to come in to stop the presses and add the story to the morning edition that some psycho tried to kill you.”
Same plot, different day, new psychopath.“I’m fine, Chief,” Lois informed her boss, trying not to both smile and scowl at Clark’s words. Smile, because every time she heard his voice she knew Clark was still around. Scowl, because he was once again moaning about her lack of forethought before rushing into danger. “My old buddy Patrick was behind the robberies and ritual killings,” Lois informed the Chief, handing him the copy.
Perry didn’t speak for a minute as he read. “Honey, this isn’t the
National Whisper. I can’t print as fact that Patrick Sullivan was embodied by a green spirit who seemed to give him mystical powers. Not even with outside corroboration, which it doesn’t look like you have.”
“But Shamus…”
“Detective Wolfe said he didn’t come to until after Patrick disappeared,” Jimmy reminded her, approaching them. “And he’s not talking.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said, taking back her copy and crossing that part out. “We’ll change it to, ‘Sullivan
thought the Mask of the Ancient Ones would embody him with the spirits of his druid ancestors, giving him mystical powers’.”
“Better,” Perry said, taking the copy back. “And ‘Sullivan disappeared in a puff of smoke and ash’?” He shook his head. “No, Lois. How about we change that to ‘Sullivan caught fire from the lit candles and disappeared before MPD arrived on the scene’?”
Lois grabbed the copy back. “Yes, it’s better to let the city of Metropolis believe that this deranged lunatic is still at large, even though I
saw him disappear, and all that remained was a pile of ash? How about the part where he tied me up and was going to stab me through with a dagger? Or how about this part where he confessed to killing the other women? Can I leave that in or do we need outside sources on those facts as well? No one who’s talking witnessed either of those things.” She pulled a red pen off her desk and started crossing out sentence after sentence on her story. “I’ll just get rid of the part where he was sacrificing me because of some deluded idea that I was his true love. I only have his wall of photos of me to prove that theory. How about ‘Lois Lane’? Maybe I wasn’t there after all, since my word isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” She threw her copy back at her boss and tossed the red marker back on her desk before she picked up her briefcase.
Perry’s hand rested gently on her shoulder. “Lois?”
She shook off Perry’s hand. “I’m going home and, no, I don’t need an escort. Let’s just assume I’m still sane enough to catch a cab in this town.” Lois shot Jimmy a nasty glare and marched out of the bullpen. She bypassed the elevators – not wanting to stand still for one to arrive – and slammed open the door to the stairwell, smashing it into the wall as went down the stairs.
That went well, Clark said dryly.
~Very funny, Farmboy. I’ll be lucky to have a job or any flesh and blood friends left in the morning,~ she retorted.
I’m sorry.~For what?~
Ruining your life.~You haven’t ruined my life, Clark. I’m just fine doing that on my own.~
But…~Do you love me?~
From the very first moment…~Then stop apologizing to me. We’re in this, through thick or thin.~
I don’t deserve you.~Hey, you’re the one who fell in love with the delusional woman,~ Lois reminded the voice in her head with a half-smile. There was something about Clark that always seemed to calm her occasional bouts of anger.
Occasional?Lois pressed her lips together. ~You better be worth it. You better not hurt me. You better not make me regret this.~
Clark didn’t respond for the several minutes it took for Lois to stomp through the lobby, pass through the doors to the street, and flag down a cab.
I love you, Lois, with a pure heart. As much as I wish I could say otherwise, I cannot guarantee anything else.Those words weren’t very reassuring.
***
“Are you sure about this?” Star asked Lois the next morning. They were sitting on the sofa in Star’s apartment.
After what one could say was not a good night’s sleep in which Lois had dreamt of catching Clark in a lie, she couldn’t wait any longer to know exactly what was going on with that man inside her head. Star knew about Clark and Lois’ future and even that cabinet with the green eyes. Lois knew she could trust her.
“I’m sure,” Lois replied, switching on her mini-cassette recorder. If she was going to ruin her life for this man, she better have as many of the facts as she could collect on him. And as all the facts were buried deep inside her head,
this was her only solution.
Star held up a black and white swirling disk that spun around and around and around. “Now I’m going to ask you a few simple questions, just to put you at ease. First, what’s your name?”
“Lois Lane,” Lois responded, staring at Star but strangely not seeing her. All she could see was that spinning disk, even though she didn’t think it was there anymore.
“And where do you live?”
“1058 Carter Avenue.”
“If you could be an animal, what type of animal would you be? Excluding invertebrates, viruses, and certain classes of phytoplankton?” Star rattled off.
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Now, remember, you are in a warm secure place. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, you can emerge from this session by your choice,” said Star with a calm even voice. It made Lois feel relaxed. “I want you to think back to the Clark dreams you’ve been having lately. If they are repressed memories, no longer repress them. As soon as you remember one dream the next one will be available for you to access. Now, let’s start with the dream you had last night, what did you see?”
Lois felt her eyelids grow heavy and shut.
She was standing in Clark’s trashed apartment, arguing with Inspector Henderson about law enforcement’s inability to do their job. Then Lois and a pouty Clark sat at her desk as she tried to piece his burglary into her article. Clark didn’t seem that appreciative.
Lois felt bad – well, okay, not really – about using his painful experience for her story. As compensation she decided to rub his shoulders. He seemed so tense – stiff like iron. She could feel those muscles she had witnessed all those months ago at the Apollo Hotel when he had been draped in only a towel. When did this man find time to work out? she wondered. She hugged him from behind, leaning against that strong back of his and running her hand down his arm. More muscles! Man, had this guy bought them on sale or something?
That image faded, and Lois now found herself standing at Louie’s pool hall. Clark had run out after that rabbit-quick thief who had stolen his stuff. She picked through Clark’s things on the pool table and found a couple of Polaroid photos. One was of a glowing globe with red continents; the globe was about the size of a large softball. And the other was of a ghostly white-haired man in a white tunic with a white-on-white Superman ‘S’ crest on his chest. Was this a photograph of a hologram? Suddenly, she wasn’t too thrilled at having comforted her partner earlier.“Clark lied to me,” Lois told Star. “He had found something of Superman’s and he hadn’t told me about it. How could he keep that from me?”
“Lois, who’s Superman?” Star inquired.
“Oh!” Lois could feel a big smile come to her mouth as it did whenever she thought of her Man of Steel. “He’s the most fantastic guy. I love him. I mean, I’m
in love with him. We are meant to be together forever and ever. It’s destiny. I felt it when he first held me in his arms. I just knew. Kismet. Fate.”
“Okay,” Star said hesitantly. “Lois, you didn’t answer my question.
Who is Superman?”
“Oh, he’s this super fast, extremely strong, flying superhero from the planet Krypton who has come to Earth to fight for truth and justice,” Lois explained. How could Star not know who Superman was? Everyone knew Superman!
“Krypton? No, I’m not familiar with Krypton. I’ll have to ask my friends from the Pleiades… or maybe the Cassiopeians will have heard of …” Star’s voice faded into the background.
Lois found herself at the break table with Clark and Jimmy. She had just confronted Clark about lying to her, but he had just evaded her once again. After she had scared him and Jimmy off, Perry sat down and tried to weasel the truth the matter out of her. He didn’t even offer her a pathetic Elvis analogy! Thanks; thanks a lot, Perry. Her boss didn’t accept her reasoning that it was okay for her to lie to Clark, because that was what she constantly did, but it wasn’t okay for Clark to lie to her. Men never understood her logic.
She did as Perry suggested; she confronted Clark – told him flat-out that she knew he had lied to her and showed him the photographic evidence. Clark had the nerve to say that because he had grown up on the farm in Kansas, and she had grown up in the bustling city of Metropolis that their standards should be the same. Typical! He had stolen the globe from Superman’s ship at Bureau 39 – all those months ago – and had never told her about it. Now, he expected that she would still be his friend, his partner no less. She couldn’t believe him. Then to top it all off, he ran off on her. Again! Told her to go babysit some pre-teen source down at the Twelfth Precinct. Why did she ever listen to him?
A couple of hours later, Lois had been sitting with Denny, eating donuts – she really needed to find out who supplied the donuts for the Twelfth because they were a whole lot better than the ones they got at the Planet – when Superman arrived with Jack. She had already wormed out of the kid that Denny was Jack’s brother. No wonder Clark had been so interested in the thief; the kid had stolen Superman’s globe from him. Had held the precious artifact in his hand, watched the holographic messages from Krypton. It was a piece of history. Superman’s history.
How could Clark have kept this from her? Sure, he claimed that it only recently started displaying images, but he had lied to her once – how did she know he was telling the truth about that too? Lois realized, she probably would have done the same if she had come across the globe first; so, reluctantly, she had forgiven Clark again. Him giving her the sole byline for the hidden artifacts found had helped put her in a forgiving mood.Star’s voice broke into her conscience. “Did Clark explain why he lied to you? Did you ever forgive Clark for lying to you?”
“Of course,” Lois admitted grudgingly. “I always forgive Clark. There’s just something about him that’s innately trustworthy. I thought we were on the level and then a few weeks later, do you know what he did?”
“No, what?”
“He dumped me!” Lois roared. “For Linda King! Of all the low-lying snakes in the grass…”
“Clark dumped you?” Star echoed with confusion and shock. “For another woman? Clark?”
“Professionally. He left the Daily Planet to go work the Metropolis Star!” Lois said as if the man had stabbed her in the heart.
What was she thinking? He had stabbed her in the heart. Perry, on the other hand, was strangely nonchalant about the whole matter, like he hadn’t been betrayed by a man the Chief had brought into the fold of the Daily Planet family, treated like a son, and heaped praise upon. Lois couldn’t believe that Clark had done that to Perry. And over a woman, no less!
Thankfully, she found out that it had just been a ruse. That he was undercover at the Met Star to investigate Linda King’s sudden jump in reporting skills. Lois sighed a breath of relief. She had been afraid that Clark’s brain had been stolen by Martians or something. Worse, a blonde!Lois grumbled. “He’s supposed to be
mine!” She coughed. “My
partner. Mine. Between the not telling me his biggest secret when I was hiding Eugene Laderman at my apartment, lying to me about Superman’s globe, and then going behind my back to go undercover at the Star, I don’t know if I can trust Clark anymore.” She sniffled as she choked back a sob.
“Remember, Lois, you are in a safe, warm environment. Nothing can hurt you here,” Star repeated.
Lois took a deep breath and seemed to relax. “Do you know what the worst part is? When I had seen him at the press conference with Linda King, I realized… I knew…” The sobs returned with force.
“What, Lois?”
“That I still have feelings for Clark!” she gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.
“The real you, Lois. Or the you in your dreams?” Star asked.
“What’s the difference?!” Lois shouted. “I’m jealous. I thought I was over him after he didn’t return my love after Nightfall, but I was so terrified that I had lost another man to Linda. And not just
any man, but Clark! Clark’s special. He’s mine! He has always been mine from that very first day! True, he’s made me mad on more than one occasion… almost on a daily basis, as a matter of fact. Yet, nobody makes me feel like he does when he smiles at me.” She sighed. “Clark looks at me like I’m the sun and he’d be happy to orbit around me for the rest of his life and that scares me. No one has ever looked at me that way before – like I was the center of his universe. Actually, most men are intimidated by me. A woman with brains playing what they think is a men’s game at a men’s club…” Lois shrugged. Men’s attitude towards her had always been a given. “But Clark isn’t like that, so when he left me… the Daily Planet, that is… I felt like someone had pulled my foundation out from under me.”
“Okay, let’s leave your dreams for the moment, Lois,” Star said, reassuring her. “Can you come back to the present for a minute?”
Lois took a deep breath and released it. “Yes.” A moment later she was calm.
“You said that you only discovered Clark recently. I want you to search your mind for the first dream, the first inkling you had about Clark’s existence. Let me know when you have found that,” the psychic requested.
“Okay,” Lois replied.
“Okay, you understand or okay, you’ve got it?”
“Both,” the reporter answered.
“Oh, okay then. Tell me about this earliest memory of Clark,” Star suggested.
“I’m in the woods. There’s another man there… two other men in fact. One has a mustache and glasses; he’s dressed funny like in a costume from a period play or something. He’s tied to a chair... only, not just a chair. It’s more like a chair on a sled. That’s just plain odd, because it isn’t winter but late spring, and there’s no snow. The other man has a beard and is also dressed strangely, but more like ‘Star Trek’ than ‘Little House of the Prairie’. Crap! He has a gun! He’s trying to shoot me.” Lois started to shake as her breath became labored. “There’s a baby in a bassinette... no, not a bassinette…” She could smell the dampness from the nearby creek, feel the warm breeze despite her goose bumps, and hear the silence where there had recently been crying. “The bearded man wants to kill the baby,” she gasped. “I have to stop him. We fight. The man tied to the chair cheers me on.”
Lois could feel the soreness in her muscles as she kicked the gun out of the bearded man’s hand. Finally, she picked up a large stick and hit future man with it, knocking him out. She untied the man in the chair and threw the rocks off the baby. The green glowing rocks. Only, the rocks weren’t glowing anymore. She picked up the baby and cradled him in her arms. She could taste the tears running down her cheeks and lifted her hand to wipe them away. The baby in her arms was still, unmoving.She started to hyperventilate. “Oh God! Oh, God! It’s Clark. The baby is Clark! And he’s dead. Oh, God! I was there when Clark was killed. It was the bearded man. He killed Clark!”
“What about the other man?” Star asked calmly. “Who is he?”
“H.G. Wells.”
“The author?” Even Star seemed skeptical.
“Yes. Tempus killed baby Clark by covering him with green rocks. Green glowing rocks, only they’re not glowing anymore.” Lois shook her head. “No, that can’t be right. No. No! That doesn’t make sense. If Clark died due to green rocks…”
***End of Part 19*** Part 20 Comments
