Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HereWhere we left off in Part 10…Perry waved Cat in. “Hey, Cat, did you need something?” he seemed only mildly curious as to why she was there. If he only knew what she was holding.
Cat had only been in the Chief’s office on rare occasions. She did her little gossip pieces and Cat’s Corner and Perry was happy, but he never expected anything real from her. Maybe her façade of unintelligent beauty worked too well at the office. Well, she could be throwing it aside for this opportunity to one-up Lois Lane once and for all. She closed the door behind her and sat down in one of his visitor chairs. She knew that with Clark’s super hearing, shutting the door was almost pointless, but at least it would stop the others from overhearing. “Sir,” she said, feeling foolish for addressing him thusly. “Perry,” she corrected. “I wanted to run my Superman story idea by you.”
“Oh?” Perry replied, even less interested. She could tell her boss believed she was going to do some fluff piece, some report on the style of Superman’s suit or something trivial like that. His gaze even went back down to the articles he was reviewing on his desk.
Cat took a deep breath and couldn’t find the words to tell Perry about Clark and his
big secret. She glanced back at Clark through Perry’s closed glass office door.
Clark seemed like a lonely sort of guy. Sure, he made friends easily and, hell, he had fallen in love with Lois Lane at first sight, but she was sure he didn’t have any close friends. How could he? He had only just arrived on the planet and at the Planet. Maybe she was wrong, maybe he had friendships that would outlast time, but that sadness she had seen in his eyes told her he didn’t. She had been watching Clark on and off all day. At times, he seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Cat didn’t know anything about the man, personally, but she knew she didn’t want to hurt him. She scoffed, according to Lois’ article, Superman had been holding the bomb when it detonated, so Cat bet not much could hurt this man, physically. That look that he got in his eyes when he gazed at Lois though, that expression of longing mixed with fear, misery, and love, proved to her that his heart wasn’t so invulnerable. No, she was reporter; as such she couldn’t let the emotional edge to a story burden her.
“Chief,” she murmured. “I know…”
“Dammit! Lois! Clark!” Perry interrupted, grabbing two stories off his desk and standing up. That was when he remembered she was there. “I’m sorry, Cat. I’ve got to yell at these two. Can we discuss your story idea later?”
She nodded, standing up herself. Lois deserved to be taught a lesson, but Cat wasn’t sure that this was the way to do it. What would happen if she didn’t out Clark? Ooooh. The possibilities danced in her mind. “It’s okay, Chief. I’ll get back to you.”
As she walked out the door, Perry shouted to his two pet reporters. She wondered what they had done now. Cat watched as Clark stood up and then glanced smugly at Lois, who was walking out of the conference room with her sandwich in hand and a scowl on her face. Hmmm. Clark seemed to know what was up. To be a fly on the wall of
that meeting. What was she thinking? Fly? Ugh. A ladybug, now there was an insect who knew about color coordination.
“Lane! Kent! My office now!” Perry roared again.
The two reporters shot daggers at each other with their eyes as they went into the Chief’s office, silently. Maybe the bloom was off the rose, eh, Kent? Maybe she had a shot after all.
Cat sat down at her desk and pulled out the photo she had stolen from the stack Jimmy had shown Clark the day before and shook her head. How come she was the only one who saw that both Clark and Superman had the same moonstruck expression on their face whenever they looked at Lois Lane. One new man in town enamored with Lois, possibly, but two? And both hot? The probability of them
not being the same man seemed slim and far between.
A large group of men in suits entered the newsroom; Cat’s radar was suddenly at attention.
“I have a warrant issued by Federal courts. Everyone step back from your desk!” one of the men announced.
Oh, crumb! Cat frowned. She wasn’t the only person to realize Clark Kent was Superman.
***
Part 11“Aw, dammit! Lois! Clark!” Clark heard his boss grumble from inside his office.
Uh-oh. It looked like their little game was up. He wondered how Lois was going to fare at being outted as a story stealer. That should be enough of a punishment for not paying him back the seven dollars she owed him. Maybe she’d learn not to push her way into another reporter’s story again. The fact that she had fallen for Friaz’s nutjob visitor was just an extra serving of his mom’s homemade applesauce.
“Lane! Kent!” Perry shouted, slamming open his office door. Cat slipped out the Chief’s office and suddenly Clark wasn’t sure what their boss was angry about. Had Cat told him something? What could she have said that would make Perry so angry with him and Lois? Maybe he should have taken a moment to talk to Cat earlier when she asked to speak with him.
Lois stomped out of the conference room with a scowl, and Clark raised a hand to his mouth to hide his laughter as he guessed she had figured out Mr. Cleveland was one mind short of a sane man. Double scoop of his mom’s applesauce.
“Lane! Kent! My office, now!” Perry repeated.
Oh, right. Oops. Clark stood up and headed to their boss’ office. He met Lois at the door and she looked at him as if she wanted him to be a big pile of ash. Good thing she wasn’t the one born with heat vision. He returned his best ‘gotcha’ look, and her expression turned darker. God, she was even more beautiful when she was mad.
She shut the door behind them and turned on Clark. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew that guy was a load of crock, didn’t you? And you didn’t warn me!” Lois poked him in the shoulder with her fingernail.
Clark couldn’t help the satisfied grin that spread across his lips. “I tried to, Lois, but you didn’t listen.”
“Hmmmph,” she harrumphed, crossing her arms and plopping down in a chair. He sat down next to her. He couldn’t resist and reached over, patting her cheek. “Life lesson, Lois, no charge.” Great, now he was channeling his dimension’s boogeyman ‘Mad Dog’.
She grabbed his thumb and twisted it backwards.
Clark imagined that to a human man that would be excruciating, so he whined, “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
“Lois, darlin’, Kent’s going to need that thumb to type up his articles, could you be a dear and leave it attached to his hand?” Perry said. He stood behind his desk with his arms crossed, his face set like stone.
Lois let go of Clark’s hand and shot him an expression that he didn’t need translated. He was dead to her. He sighed. Well, he always knew this romance would be an uphill battle; what was one more river to cross? It had been worth it though.
As soon as Perry was sure he had both of their attentions, he set his fists on his desk and leaned towards them. “Could the two of you explain why I have
two articles on my desk about the two suicide jumpers this morning? Two articles with roughly the same information in them.”
“Two articles?” Clark feigned disbelief, and turned towards his colleague. “That was
my article. Lois, is
that why you gave me your cab? So you could steal my story?”
Lois’ eyes went huge as she gulped. Yep, he had tossed her under the bus. There was no getting out of it now, missy.
“Another life lesson, Kent. Never! Never, let anyone get else get there first. You should have called it in. Trust no one!” she retorted.
“Uh-huh!” Perry said, turning to Lois. Just as he was about to speak, a loud voice out in the newsroom interrupted him.
“I have a warrant issued by Federal courts. Everyone step back from your desk!”
Clark looked at Lois and they both turned to Perry with curiosity.
“What in tarnation?!” he grumbled and marched over to his office door.
They followed him.
Perry took in one sweeping look around the bullpen and, spotting the man with the paper, he went straight up to him. “Nobody comes busting into my newsroom like this,” he told the man.
The man snapped open the warrant and handed it to Perry. “Take it up with Washington.”
Their boss looked down at the paper. “Ordered to produce evidence, compel testimony… Lois Lane? Clark Kent?” He returned a confused gaze to the man.
What had they done to deserve this? Clark wondered. The Messenger wreckage explosion at the warehouse? The bomb on the Prometheus transport? No, wait, he hadn’t worked that story. Lois and Clark exchanged a look. She must have been thinking the same thing he was. That was when they noticed one of the government men unplugging her computer.
“Hey! Stay away from that!” she yelled and went over to pull him away.
Clark saw the head agent’s hand go into the air and saw him gesture to his men. Two of the men grabbed Clark and another set took hold of Lois.
“Wait a minute! Get your hands off me!” she shouted as she struggled to get free.
Clark pulled away from the men who had him to go help her. As he reached her, he heard them cock their guns. What was going on? They weren’t criminals.
“Put them away,” the head agent told his men, regarding their guns. “He’s just a reporter.”
The men let Lois go, but Clark positioned himself between them and her, just in case they got trigger happy.
“Yeah, a reporter, as in protected by the Constitution…” Lois retorted.
“Impressive document, the Constitution. It enables the courts to issue warrants, like this one, that says ‘I get what I want’,” the man replied.
Clark stepped forward, now wanting to be between Lois and this man. “What exactly is that?”
The man walked up to him. “Mr. Kent, I presume?”
“That’s right,” Clark agreed, standing to his full height.
The man looked him straight in the eyes. “I want Superman, and I’m not leaving here until you tell me where I can find him.”
Clark swallowed and he heard Lois’ intake of air behind him. What in the hell had he walked himself into in this crazy dimension?
***
Lois was looking through the blinds and out the window of Perry’s office door to what was going on in the bullpen. “Do they honestly think that if we could contact Superman, we’d be hanging around this place?”
Clark sat in one of the office’s comfy chairs, his elbows on his knees as he wrung his hands. It was just like his father and Lana told him it would be. They’ve come for him. They want to dissect him like a frog.
Maybe having a secret identity wasn’t a good thing. This had never happened in his own dimension because Superman was close personal friends with the mayor of Metropolis, who was close personal friends with the former president, the King; his government wouldn’t dare touch him. Now, he was stuck in this dimension by himself, no allies, no one knowing his true identity, and no H.G. Wells to rescue him for almost three months. Some vacation this was.
He raised his gaze up from his hands and to Lois. He knew, if he had it over to do again, he would. The last ten days of working, talking, laughing, and – okay, he was going to admit it – arguing with Lois have been some of the most satisfying days of his past year, not to mention the last twenty-four hours of being able to fly with Lois. He only wished it wouldn’t have to end. If there was some way they could make it through the rest of this afternoon without those government men knowing that Clark Kent was also Superman, maybe it would all work out.
Clark stood up. He needed to do something. All this sitting around, waiting, was driving him nuts. He started to pace.
Lois turned around and studied him, her arms folded across her chest. “What are you so nervous about? It’s not like you know anything more about Superman than I do.”
He was never going to make it. If Lois knew he was nervous, those government men would too. Time for some deflection. “I’m not nervous, Lois. I’m mad.” Yeah, anger, that would work. “You stole my story!”
“What? You’re still mad about that? Come on, we both know that Superman is
my story. Perry was wrong to let anyone else cover him,” she grumbled, picking up easily on his anger and running with it.
“So, you’re saying you’re
proud of stealing my story?” he asked.
“No, I’m not
proud, but it’s not like I go around stealing stories…”
“Really? You could have fooled me,” Clark returned. “Not only did you steal my story, you tried to steal Eduardo’s, and you even stole my seven dollars.”
“Grow a couple, Kent. So, I suckered you…”
He threw his hands into the air. “Suckered me? I bet you’re one hell of a candy maker, Lois. Do you do this to all the new guys? Pretend to be friends with them only to steal their stories. Is this what
really happened with Claude? You stole his story instead of the other way around? Back where I come from, they call someone that sneaky and manipulative a ‘Mad Dog’; maybe we should start calling you that too.”
“Yeah, well, too late, buster. They already call me ‘Mad Dog’ around here,” Lois spit back, pointing her finger into his face. “And you promised never to bring Claude up again.”
Clark stopped pacing and stared at her, all the fight driven out of him as this new information made the room start to swim. “They call you ‘Mad Dog’?”
She shrugged, trying to appear as if it didn’t bother her, but something about her expression told him it did. “Yeah, well, not to my face. I do have a tendency to not let go when I bite into a juicy story, like a mad dog with a bone.”
Lois Lane was the “Mad Dog” in this dimension? In his dimension Mad Dog was hated and despised by the other reporters at the Daily Planet because of his cut-throat tactics, tendency to break not only the rules, but also laws; he was well and truly feared. What if Mad Dog wasn’t a he but a she? What if
his Lois was known as Mad Dog, too? What had Eduardo said?
The ghost of Mad Dog will get you. Oh, God, Mad Dog was dead, just like his Lois.
A shiver danced down Clark’s spine as he blanched, stumbling backwards. Was
his Lois really that kind of person? He didn’t want to believe it. Was
this Lois? He couldn’t believe it. He bumped into the padded chair and dropped into it, continuing to stare at Lois.
This Lois didn’t seem to have any close friends on the Daily Planet staff; everyone seemed to admire her reporting skills, but they didn’t really like her as a person. Well, everyone but him and, possibly, Jimmy. Of course, Clark was a tad bit biased in that respect. Was she really cut-throat? Had his Lois been? Did they really break laws to get stories? Bend them, yes, he could see that, but
break them? Who was this woman with whom he had fallen in love? Was she the antithesis of everything Superman represented?
“You
are nervous,” Lois said, focusing on him as much as he was focusing on her. “What do you have to be nervous about, Chuck? It’s not like either of us knows how to contact Superman.”
Clark gulped, and her eyes widened.
Lois knelt down in front of him, lowering her voice. “
You know how to contact Superman?”
Self-preservation took over. He automatically shook his head. “You’ve gotta be kidding, Lois. How would I know that?”
“Oh, God, Kent, you are the worst liar I’ve ever seen,” Lois said, rubbing the back of her neck in disbelief. “Why in the hell would he ever trust you?” she mumbled to herself. “Okay. Okay, back on point.” She looked at him again and kept her voice barely above a whisper. “How do you know how to contact Superman?”
“I don’t…” he tried to say, but she just rolled her eyes.
“Really, Kent. Don’t lie, it’s pathetic.” Lois stood up and started pacing as she thought. She stopped and asked him, point blank, “Okay, how do you contact him?”
Clark gave her a sheepish smile. Should he tell her the truth? That the man she was obsessed with was the same man she just called a pathetic liar?
Lois held up her hand. “No, don’t tell me. The less I know right now the better.” She started pacing again in thought.
He released a breath. Well, that hurdle was easier than expected. She was right about one thing – well, more than one thing actually, but that was beside the point – the less she knew about Superman the better.
“Why would he tell you how to contact him? Unless…” She stopped and knelt in front of him again, her voice low. “Is it because of me? When he asked you to watch over me, did he tell you in case you needed to contact him about my safety?”
Clark looked away from her penetrating gaze, so that she wouldn’t see the truth in his eyes, the truth that he could never have spoken face to face with Superman because he was Superman.
Lois put her hand on his forearm, and his gaze shifted to where she was touching him. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you, Clark, the best that I can. Okay?”
He raised his eyes to hers, and he smiled, hoping she couldn’t see how much her words affected him. Clark knew that he still loved her, probably even more in that moment than before. She wasn’t some crazy boogeyman, she was Lois Lane, his soul mate. “You will?”
“Uh-huh.” She patted his arm and stood up. “By protecting you, I am protecting Superman, Clark,” Lois reminded him.
Right,
that guy.
“No, Lois. He wouldn’t want that. He wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger for him,” Clark told her in no uncertain terms.
“He puts his life in danger for me,” she retorted.
“He’s invulnerable!” he snapped.
Lois’ brow furrowed. “He is? Did he tell you that?” she questioned, and Clark realized that he had said too much.
“Well, that bomb at the Prometheus… I just assumed…” he sputtered.
“Oh, well, we don’t know that for sure,” she said, brushing that event aside. “No one is invulnerable, Clark, even Superman. Everyone has a weakness.” She glanced over her shoulder towards the bullpen where the government men were still hanging out. “But let’s keep that little factoid between us. We wouldn’t want those guys getting any crazy ideas into their head.”
Clark nodded. Superman actually had two weaknesses he didn’t want those men to find out about: Kryptonite and Lois Lane.
Perry walked into the office and shut the door behind him. “Okay, kids, here’s the deal. They want the two of you to take a polygraph test.”
“What?!” Lois gasped. She still faced Perry, but her eyes darted towards Clark for a moment in fear.
“Limited to national security concerns about Superman,” Perry continued.
“A lie detector?” Clark clarified, his throat suddenly dry.
“I told them to stuff it,” their boss reassured him, and Clark exhaled with relief. “Not my two reporters.”
“That’s right,” Clark nodded, glancing at Lois.
She was nodding too. She shot her colleague a supportive smile. “Good for you.”
“I told them if they were so bound and determined to take your computers and your notes to just get on with it and get the hell out of my office, so I can start suing their butts off into the next century.”
“Take my computer?” Lois echoed in anger.
“Well, you talk, they walk. You don’t, well, they’re going to confiscate the whole shebang,” the Chief explained.
“Perry, everything I’ve ever done or thought about doing is on that computer,” Lois insisted. “All my notes, my contacts… my novel.”
“Novel?” Clark repeated in surprise.
She shot him a ‘shut up’ glance.
“But don’t you back up onto floppy disks?”
“This is no time to discuss your compulsive behavior, Chuck,” she returned sourly.
“Now, look, what’s it going to be, folks? I’m with you either way,” Perry said.
Clark scoffed and shook his head. No way was he going to talk to them.
Lois wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes wide as she stared at Clark, torn.
He realized he was making her choose between her life’s work and protecting Superman. He couldn’t force her to make that decision, not if he truly loved her. He knew she’d end up regretting whichever choice she made; she’d feel damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. Clark turned to Perry, and asked, “What about the First Amendment, Perry?”
“To them the First Amendment is a pesky little detail,” Lois answered for the Chief.
“I can’t do…
We can’t do this!” he reminded her.
Her eyes brightened as she beamed, reaching out and touching his arm for a moment. “Yes! Yes, we can, Clark.” She turned to Perry. “
I can take the polygraph. It would be like taking one on the ring tailed lemur.” She shrugged.
“Well, see, she’s right. We don’t know enough about Superman to lie,” Perry agreed with her.
“And they can take Clark’s computer,” Lois continued to Perry.
“What?!” their boss retorted, turning towards Clark, comprehension dawning.
Lois scoffed with a dismissive wave. “Clark’s been here what, two weeks? He doesn’t have anything of value on there, do you, Chuck?” she asked, turning to Clark.
His nervousness melted away as he smiled. She was brilliant. “No, nothing at all.” Anything he had on there, he could recreate anyway, better that than risk the lie detector.
“See?” Lois said to her boss. “Six of one, half dozen of the other.”
“Uh-huh.” Perry glanced between them. “Kent, do you know something that you haven’t told us?”
Clark and Lois exchanged a look and both turned to Perry at the same time. “No,” they said together.
Perry held up his hands. “Okay. Got it.” He winked at Clark. “Need to protect that source at all costs, eh?”
He never could pull one past the old Memphis Yodeler.
***
The head government man fastened the last wire into place around Lois’ chest. Then he walked around the conference room table to sit across from her, next to the man operating the lie detector.
“You’ll answer ‘yes’ to these first two questions; we’ll use this to calibrate the machine,” he told her. “Is your name Lois Lane?”
“That is what my byline says,” Lois responded.
The men didn’t say anything, but they exchanged a look.
Fine! She would play by their rules. “Yes.”
“Are you also the President of the United States?” the man asked.
Lois rolled her eyes. “Yes!”
The machine started to beep. Gee, she guessed she lied that time. So much for the first female president, Lois Lane.
“Do you have any reason to believe that Superman is an agent of a foreign power?”
“Yeah,” Lois retorted, leaning forward. “And Leprechauns are agents of the IRA.”
“Is Superman from another planet?”
She leaned back in her chair. “If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, chances are pretty good, it’s a duck,” she replied. A stray thought crossed her mind as she caught sight of Clark watching her from out in the bullpen. That night that he had brought Chinese food while they were deciphering Platt’s notes, she had described Clark as a ‘strange duck’. What was up with her and duck metaphors lately? She knew that Clark couldn’t hear a word she was saying, but he was staring at them as if he could. Did he know how to lip read? Too bad he was only getting half the conversation.
The government men didn’t say anything. They didn’t even react to her duck joke. Had they checked their sense of humor when they had gotten their badges? Did they even have badges? They hadn’t flashed any, not to her at least. What set of initials were they with anyway? Who
were these men? Her brow furrowed in thought. She didn’t remember them introducing themselves. Weren’t members of the government supposed to identify themselves and show badges or other such IDs when issuing warrants?
“Ms. Lane?” the man finally reminded her.
“Huh?” she asked, having forgotten the question.
“Is Superman from another planet?”
“Oh, right. He looks like a man to me,” Lois replied, unable to stop the smile that spread across her lips. ‘I’m all man,’ Superman had told her. Oh, yeah.
“During the time the two of you were alone, did Superman discuss his mission here on Earth?”
“Mission?” repeated Lois skeptically, then shrugged. “He told me he was here to help.”
The man leaned forward. “Help?”
“Yes,” Lois reiterated.
“Can you elaborate?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yes.” But she didn’t say anything further.
“Ms. Lane?”
“Well, make up your mind. Do you want me to form my answers in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ format, or not?”
“Answer the question,” the man demanded.
“Superman wants to assist us with natural disasters, fires, crime, that sort of thing…” Her smile grew as she thought about his response to her ‘cat in a tree’ comment.
The lead man turned to the man operating the machine. “He’s trying to soften us up, make us become dependent on him.” The other man nodded in agreement. Who were these men again? They sounded paranoid.
“What else did you speak about?” he demanded.
Lois shrugged, not really wanting to give these men any more information. No matter what she said, they would turn it against Superman. “We flew; we didn’t really talk. We didn’t have to.”
The questioner whispered to the man next to him, “Nonverbal communication.” Then he returned his focus to Lois. “Does Superman have any telepathic powers?”
Like mind reading? “I hope not,” she murmured more to herself than them.
“Do you have a romantic attachment to Superman?”
She scoffed, but refused to answer.
“Yes or no?”
“I don’t see what business that is of yours,” Lois snapped haughtily.
“Yes or no, Ms. Lane?” he repeated.
“No,” she finally replied, under protest, and the machine began to beep, indicating that she was lying. She shrugged again. So, what if she did. That was
her business, not theirs.
The men exchanged another nonverbal look.
“When you left EPRAD with Superman, you were wearing a Prometheus colonist jumpsuit,” the man said, sliding a photo of her from a grainy security camera. “But when you arrived here, an hour later, you were dressed for work.” He slid the front page of the Daily Planet with the photo of her and Superman’s arrival into the newsroom, across the table. The two pictures now sat in front of her side by side.
“Where did you go between leaving EPRAD and arriving here, Ms. Lane?” the man asked.
“That’s none of your business,” Lois responded, feeling as if the nature of the questioning had turned personal.
“Answer the question,” he demanded.
She ground her teeth together. She could see Clark on the other side of the conference room windows gazing at her. He looked as irate as she felt. She took a deep breath and tried to exhale her anger. She was doing this to protect Clark, to protect Superman. “No; you didn’t ask it in the form of a ‘yes or no’ question.”
“Did you take Superman to your apartment?” the man inquired.
Lois’ jaw dropped. “Excuse me?” He didn’t just ask that question, did he?
“Answer the question.”
“No!” she insisted and the machine started beeping again. Well, of course, it was; she was feeling quite emotionally furious at the moment. There was no way it could get an accurate reading on her. She stood up, and went to unfasten the wires around her chest. “It’s lying. He never came into my apartment.” The machine continued to beep. “I’m not answering any more of your asinine questions. This isn’t about national security! This is a witch-hunt.”
“Did you and Superman engage in sexual relations?”
“Bug off!” she exploded, pulling the wires off her chest and fingers. “That’s none of your business.”
The two men looked at one another. “I’m accepting that as a ‘yes’. We need to take her in.”
***End of Part 11*** Part 12 Comments
