Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HerePart 83Part 84Everyone in the newsroom was crowded in front of the bank of televisions showing LNN’s coverage of Superman’s mission. With a sigh, Lois glanced around, hoping to see Clark, but he was still out working on his ‘getting the pulse of the city’ story. According to LNN’s Frank Madison, Superman had only been gone a few hours. To Lois, it felt like forever.
Until Superman returned safely with nothing having happened to Clark in the interim, she wouldn’t be able to file that pesky feeling into her bad dream folder. She only wished she had been able to convince Clark to remain by her side, so she would be feeling a bit more optimistic about his chances.
Cat walked up next to her. “Thanks for relaying my message to Clark,” she griped under her breath.
“I’ve been busy,” Lois hissed back, throwing a hand towards the television.
“Too busy to talk to Clark in the last twenty-four hours? Doubtful,” Cat returned, insinuating that Clark had in fact told her about their more-than-work partnership.
“It’s hardly been twelve hours since you made me your messenger. Anyway, maybe he’s been working too hard to talk to you. I’m sure he’ll waltz in any minute, full of cute apologies and sorrowful eyes,” Lois said, still whispering. “You know Clark.”
“Yeah,
I know Clark. You didn’t tell him, which is why he didn’t call,” Cat said, calling Lois’s bluff. “
He always calls. Clark is Mr. Reliable.”
“Since when?” Lois retorted.
“Since forever,” Cat replied.
“Shhh,” their co-workers grumbled.
They both stared at the television for a minute in silence before Cat asked, “When is Superman supposed to get back?”
As if in answer to her question, Frank Madison the reporter on the television said, “I’m being told that we have a live transmission from Superman. We’ll take that live feed from Mission Control.”
Lois could hear Superman’s voice on the monitor, and her heart skipped a beat, despite feeling relief that he was still fine.
“I can see it now. In fact, it’s hard to see anything else,” Superman said. “It’s immense.”
Lois closed her eyes and thought,
It’s going to miss. Come home safely, Superman. We need you. I need you. Please.“Roger, Superman, we copy you on the ground,” Mission Control responded. “Do you have stress point acquisition and visual?”
“Yes, I do,” Superman responded.
“Stand-by for final briefing procedure,” Mission Control requested.
“I know what I have to do,” Superman interrupted. “Well, here I go!”
“Impact in five, four, three, two…” Mission Control counted down.
“Impact?” Lois gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “No!” It was going to miss. Impacting it could make this non-problem into a serious one. Why hadn’t Superman listened to her? Why couldn’t he have volunteered to push it out of the way? Where in the hell was Clark?
A loud explosion echoed over the television and cut off into static.
“This is EPRAD Control. We have lost transmission with Superman.”
Everyone in the newsroom started whispering nervously.
“Well, his microphone went out,” Lois insisted. “He’s
fine!” Her voice started to shake. “He has to be.”
Cat did something Lois never thought she’d ever do. She took hold of Lois’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. For some reason, the gossip queen was just as worried as she was.
***
The blast into the asteroid had smashed his headset. Clark hoped it was still transmitting, knowing how worried Lois would be.
“Most of the asteroid has been destroyed,” he relayed to EPRAD Control. “I’ll do some light house…er… space cleaning, and then I’ll be on my home.”
He didn’t receive confirmation or a response. It was possible that the impact had only damaged the speakers, but it was more likely that the mic had been affected as well. He removed the headset and oxygen canisters, letting them float off into space.
Clark would be sure to omit his littering from any details of this story he told to the Jaguar, he thought with a wry smile. He didn’t quite understand how EPRAD Control had expected him to speak into the headset while holding his super breath. If they had been so worried about his oxygen levels, shouldn’t they have fashioned him a helmet of some sort, so he could breathe and speak at the same time? He was glad they hadn’t, as he preferred to fly without one. He was sure that Carlos would point out that hypocrisy as well if the topic ever came up.
Although, safety wise, it would be setting a good example for the youngsters. He could just hear the article Clark could write up about it.
It’s a Super Idea to Helmet Up! Okay, even that sounded too cheesy for the Daily Planet. Yes, he would stick to his day jobs. Coming up with headlines was much harder than writing them.
With a shake of his head, Clark shook the debris from his hair, and then quickly got to work using his heat vision to zap any of the larger bits remaining from the asteroid, which could damage the space station or possibly make it through the mesosphere to Earth. There was one large chunk, roughly a quarter of the size of the original Nightfall asteroid, which had broken off, but it seemed to be floating off away from its original course. It would safely miss the planet with its new trajectory.
Clark flew through what was left of the debris trail, satisfied with the job he had done, and then turned for Earth. He couldn’t wait to get home and to Lois. Tonight would be the night for truths!
***
It was already early evening in Metropolis when Clark landed on his patio. He knew that as Superman, he should check in with EPRAD Control first, but as Clark all he could think of was reassuring Lois of his safety. She had really been worried about how Clark would fare with Superman off planet.
Clark doubted Lois really had psychic powers, but he wondered how she would know that Nightfall would miss Earth, if
her Clark had been there to help. Had he been? He must have been if it caused this irrational fear of his non-super, but equally invulnerable, persona. If so, why hadn’t her True Clark stopped Nightfall? Had he somehow been waylaid? What could have been of more importance than the health and welfare of the population of Earth? Had someone like Trask stopped him from helping by using Kryptonite? Clark could just picture Trask doing something that would endanger his planet, just so he could blame Superman for not helping. Was that why she was worried that something might happen to Clark when Superman was off planet? He shook his head. None of it made any logical sense.
He spun out of his Superman uniform, preparing for a quick shower before he went into the Daily Planet to catch up with Lois. He glanced down at his cape and noticed that it had been damaged with minor holes from the flying debris when he had burst the asteroid. He set it aside to donate “the suit Superman had worn when saving Earth from the Nightfall asteroid” to the Superman Foundation. He would let the Foundation figure out the best place to have it displayed. He found the whole concept ridiculous, but Cat would be thrilled enough for the two of them.
After a one-minute shower, twice as long as his normal morning shower, he spun back into his business suit he had been wearing that morning when he had met Lois for breakfast. Picking up his uniform from the bed, he folded it and, wrapping it in some drycleaner plastic, he put it on the top shelf of his armoire, under some wool sweaters.
As Clark picked up his cordless phone to call Lois at the Daily Planet, he noticed that there were several messages on his machine.
The first message was from the night before while he was out in Smallville. In his rush that morning, he hadn’t seen the blinking light. “Clearly, Miss Smarty Pants didn’t relay my message,” Cat’s sharp voice softened as she continued, “I need to talk to someone, and you’re it, Clark. So, call me!” The machine beeped indicating the end of the message.
Clark smacked himself in the forehead. Her copier date had been yesterday. He wondered how it went. From the sound of Cat’s voice, and the fact that she had called him at all, he guessed not well. He felt bad for not calling her back the night before. He didn’t know what to do about the rivalry between Cat and Lois. They refused to be friends, or even friendly, and he was stuck between them like a fly in a Venus flytrap.
“Good morning, Mr. Kent. This is Scott Splodshow, and I’m calling from the National Bank of New Troy, in regards to your safety deposit box. Please contact me at…” and he left a phone number.
Clark’s brow furrowed. His safety deposit box? He had almost forgotten that he had rented one when he first had arrived in this dimension. It had some gold nuggets and his wallet picture of his deceased folks in it, but that was about all. He really didn't have anything of value, which he needed to bring with him from his dimension. Was his box coming up for renewal already? Either way, it was about time to clean it out anyway. He wanted to put his folks’ picture back into his wallet.
“Clark,” Lois’s voice from the next message erased these thoughts. “I haven’t heard from you since we got separated at EPRAD Control. I thought we’d be heading back to the Planet together. If I haven’t seen you by the time you get this message, call me.”
The third message had barely finished beeping before he heard Lois’s voice again. “Clark, where the hell are you? The afternoon edition has been put to bed, and I still haven’t heard from you. Partners mean we
work together. Get your butt down to the office now! You'd better have the scoop of the century to explain why you’ve disappeared on me today! I’m telling you right now, you’re getting a mobile phone for your birthday,” she yelled before slamming the phone down.
Well, at least she wasn’t angry.Clark sighed. Being two people really could be a pain sometimes.
The machine beeped again. “Clark,” Lois’s voice was soft now. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, since you’ve been out of the office all day, but Superman’s transmission went out when he hit Nightfall. All EPRAD Control would tell me is that they had technical difficulties. If you hear from him, call me. I’m getting worried.”
He dialed Lois’s direct work number.
“Hi, you’ve reached the desk of Lois Lane,” her voice said in the tone she used for her outgoing voice mail message. “I’m not taking any calls at the moment unless it has to do with the whereabouts of Superman, or the destruction of the Nightfall asteroid. This is my one and only story. So, if you’ve seen him, press 1 and have me paged; otherwise, don’t bother, I don’t have time for your call.” CLICK!
Clark’s jaw dropped. Clearly, he
should have checked in with EPRAD Control before coming home, and he should have told Lois where he was going today. His hindsight was again better than Superman’s foresight. He pressed “1” and was passed through to Joe at the Information Desk.
“Hi, Joe. It’s Clark. Lois in?” he asked. The line was full of static. Joe could hardly hear him. “Is Lois in?” he repeated.
“Lois? No, she’s out of the office. Is it regarding Superman?” Joe inquired, clearly not hearing Clark well enough to recognize his voice.
“I’ll call back,” Clark said, and pressed the ‘end’ button. There was no point in trying to talk to Cat either with such bad static. He dialed Lois’s home number. This time the reception was crystal clear as Lois’s phone rang off the hook. She must not have arrived home yet.
“Hi. You’ve reached the home of Lois and Claus Lane. Leave a message,” Lois’s voice said happily over the line.
A grin slipped onto Clark’s face. She always added a fake male name to her outgoing message, so strangers wouldn’t know she was a single female, living alone. He didn’t think she’d use as her ‘roommate’ the Teddy bear he had given to her when he was Super Santa.
“Hi, Lois. I tried to reach you at the office, but Joe told me you were out. Don’t worry about Superman; he’s invulnerable. I’m sure he’s fine. I don’t think EPRAD Control is expecting him back until late tonight, anyway. I’m guessing you’re on the way home. I’ll meet you there. I’m on my way, so I’ll see you in a few and, yes, I have quite a story to tell you. I love you,
minha.”
Clark clicked off his phone, picked up his winter coat and scarf, and headed for his new front door. He was about to open it when someone knocked. He pulled it open, “
Lois! I can…” he started to say, when a sweet smelling rag was pressed over his nose and mouth. He dropped his coat, and swung his arm in self-defense. He had gotten enough of a look to see that there were two of them, before a black velvety sack dropped over his head. A bag over his head didn’t stop
him from looking at his attackers or fighting them.
“The chloroform isn’t working. Hit him with the back of your gun, but don’t kill him. The Boss wants him alive,” a deep voice told his partner.
Clark decided that fighting these men was risky. If the gun discharged and the bullet hit him, bouncing off, or if they hit him with the butt of the gun and it shattered, it would cause questions he didn’t want asked. He stumbled forward onto his knees, pretending that the chloroform just had a delayed reaction.
“Get his wrists!” the talking thug told his accomplice.
They handcuffed his hands behind his back.
“Uuff. This guy weighs a ton,” the silent man finally spoke in a voice very similar to the first.
Clark was glad about the hood. He could continue to watch without having to fake unconsciousness with his eyes closed.
With some difficulty, the men dragged him down the stairs.
It was the first time Clark wasn’t happy that his neighbors weren’t the nosy sort. They didn’t pass anyone in the stairwell. Clinton Street was deserted. Either the residents were glued to their televisions, out celebrating the end of Nightfall, or preparing for Armageddon. The men dragged Clark from the blue front door of his building and dumped him into the back of the van without anyone noticing.
Now, he
really had a story to tell Lois. So much for tonight being
the night.
***
It was late, and Lois couldn’t sit around the office, waiting for Superman or Clark, any longer. Today, for the first time, she hated being right. She stopped by the information desk.
“Joe, I’m heading home. If anyone calls about Superman, or if Clark checks in, can you give me a buzz?” she asked.
“Did that guy ever call back?” Joe asked.
“What guy?” Lois probed.
It was just like Joe not to pass on a message on the most important of nights, she thought bitterly, even though it wasn’t true. Joe was usually good about messages.
“Some guy called while you went for dinner. He said he’d call back, or at least I think he did,” Joe explained very poorly. “I could hardly hear him. The line was so bad.”
“With today’s luck, he probably ended up calling the
Metropolis Star instead,” she grumbled.
Lois wondered where Clark was. Sure, she had joked with Cat that he wasn’t Mr. Reliable, but Cat was right. Even though he had a tendency to disappear to ‘call something in’ at the worst of moments, he normally came right back. Something must have happened to him.
She hoped to find him sitting on her front stoop as she walked up the stairs to her apartment building. No such luck. She hoped he would have called on her mobile phone, stopped by the office, or something! He hadn’t even returned to give Perry his ‘person on the street’ story, which wasn’t like Clark at all, especially on a day full of news as today had been. She didn’t know what was up with him.
Lois opened her locks, flipped on her lights, and fought the feeling that her apartment felt incredibly empty without Clark there.
He isn’t usually here, she reminded herself to no avail. She shut her door and dropped her briefcase on her coffee table, heading straight to her answering machine, hoping beyond hope for some message at all from Clark. Before she could press the button and hear the message blinking on her machine, her phone rang.
“Hello? Clark?” she asked, her heart jumping for joy, unable to keep the enthusiasm from her voice. “Finally!”
Nobody responded. She wasn’t surprised. Her partner must know that she would be angry with him.
“Clark? Is that you? Come on. Don’t act like this. You know I’m just happy that you’re alive. I bet you’ve got a killer of a story,” she repeated. Her doubts rose with the continued silence. “Clark?”
Still nobody spoke, but she could hear someone breathing.
“Superman?” she whispered before remembering that he
never called on the phone. “Hello? Is someone there? Hello?”
Lois heard the receiver on the other end hang up with an ominous click, and felt a chill ricochet down her spine.
*
Lex set down the phone. He held the small photo retrieved from Kent’s safety deposit box in his hand. A couple thousand dollars worth of gold and an old photo of a couple were all that his team had found. He hated that Kent remained an enigma.
Nigel knocked on his door, and Lex waved him in. “What do you have for me?”
“This is the article from the Daily Planet about Superman retrieving his missing ship from that couple in Kansas,” Nigel explained.
Lex compared the photos. It was the same couple. They were a little bit older now, but the appearance clearly showed the same people. “So, this confirms that he
is their son?” he asked.
Nigel shook his head. “There is no record of the Kents having any children.”
Lex tapped his fingers on his desk, turning the photo around in his other hand. “You mentioned that it was thought that Kent was the illegitimate child of this farmer, is that not correct? Any leads on that front?”
“If he was, Jonathan Kent’s name wasn’t on the birth certificate,” Nigel said.
Lois said she had seen Kent’s birth certificate. If so, where was it? Nigel had searched Kent’s apartment personally, and didn’t find it. The safety deposit box, while a good idea, had nothing of real value in it. Lois claimed to know his true identity, but then again Kent already had gained her affections. She could have lied to Lex about it. “Float him,” Lex ordered. He had already spent more than enough time on this man.
“Sir, he’s already on the way to the manor house. Perhaps you’re in the mood for some hunting?” Nigel suggested.
Lex considered this. “No, with him and Superman gone, Lois will be more susceptible to my suggestions,” he explained. “It was genius to replace Superman’s reserve oxygen tanks with carbon monoxide gas. By the time he needed them, he would be too far from Earth to make it back. He may be invulnerable, but everyone needs oxygen to breathe, even Superman apparently. Everyone will give him a hero’s death or guess that he deserted the planet in its hour of need. Frankly, I don’t care which. He’s gone, and I won.”
Sadly, this victory felt anticlimactic. Would his desire for Lois wane without being able to rub Superman’s nose in it? Lex thought of what it would be like to take control of Lois, as he couldn’t see her submitting meekly. His libido felt as if it had received a shot of adrenaline, and caused a slight smile to emerge on his lips. He would just have to make do.
“Sir, isn’t there a risk that the asteroid might actually strike Earth?” Nigel asked.
The billionaire leaned back in his chair. “It could, but according to my data, it has a higher than sixty-five percent chance of coming close, but still missing us.”
“But our man at EPRAD said that Professor Daitch…”
Lex smile grew to a grin. “Professor Daitch’s data was inaccurate. Our man at EPRAD uploaded our data into Daitch’s computer to replace his initial, and correct, findings. Everyone will panic. Lois will willingly move into my bomb shelter ark, and never be heard from again. Should Nightfall actually strike, we’ll be prepared,” he said, feeling very much the master teaching his subject. “So, float Kent. I don’t have time to be distracted by him any longer.”
Nigel nodded and left the room.
Lex looked down at the photo in his hand.
Yes, Kent certainly wasn’t necessary in the grand scheme of things. He stood up and walked to his fireplace. He stared into the flames for a minute before tossing the photo into its heart and watching it burn.
***
Clark was sitting inside the cabin of some kind of boat.
A cruiser, he thought. The Boss’s manor house must be across Hob’s Bay. He wondered if this “Boss” was the same one, who had killed his friend Jimmy, the cousin of the now-owner of the Daily Planet James Olsen over in his old dimension, but doubted it. “Boss” was a common enough title in the underworld.
He wondered whom he had ticked off this time. Did Rourke have associates who didn’t like his and Lois’s coverage? Someone must have figured that the day of the asteroid would be the perfect time to scoop Kent up because of all the chaos in the city, and whoever it was, had thought right.
Clark was glad to have left that message on Lois’s phone, so at least she’d know that something happened to him. Would she though? Maybe she would think otherwise. She could think that he stopped by and when she never returned home, left in a huff. He wouldn’t put that possibility past Lois. It was also likely that Lois wouldn’t notice his disappearance until the next morning. Clark hoped not to let this abduction last that long. If he were still missing come morning, would Lois be too distracted by the fact that Superman never returned from exploding Nightfall to notice? No, her messages showed that it was Clark, whom was on her mind.
This kidnapping had already lasted longer than he had thought. He never suspected that the way to the Boss’s manor house would be via a long boat ride through Hob’s Bay. It also wasn’t as if he had the best vantage point. He hadn’t been set in a chair, but thrown on the floor of the cabin, face down. He had been able to shift his position enough to be able to x-ray through the bag and side of the boat at water level. It wasn’t the best view of where they were headed, since it was all conjecture on his part, being that he was faced back towards Metropolis.
Clark hadn’t been able to move his position enough to face the other direction, because one of the two men was actually guarding him. Chloroformed and handcuffed with a bag over his head, and they still considered him enough of a threat to require a guard. Whoever ‘The Boss’ was, he wasn’t taking any chances with Clark.
He heard the crackle of the boat’s CB radio. “Manor House to Boat Six,” a voice said over the scratchy radio.
Thug A, the leader of the two thugs, picked up the handset. “Boat Six here.”
“Change of plans, Boat Six. Boss says float him,” the voice ordered.
That didn’t sound good, Clark thought. Guess he wouldn’t be learning about the owner of the manor house, its location, or why they had taken him in the first place. Too bad. As it was, he would have to swim back to Metropolis, so that the thugs wouldn’t see Superman taking off from the water… not that he could since Superman had left his uniform back at Clark’s apartment and hadn’t put on a fresh one, since he was going to Lois’s apartment. Perhaps that trip into space had tired him out more than he thought, because he clearly wasn’t thinking rationally. Wouldn’t Lois want to see his uniform after he confessed his secret to her?
“Copy, Manor House, will do. Over and out,” Thug A said, returning the handset to the radio. “Jones, the Boss wants us to float him.”
Jones, really?“Why didn’t he say so before? We could’ve dumped him off the docks at Metropolis Harbor and saved ourselves a trip,” grumbled Jones, aka Thug B, stepping inside the cabin from his watch at the door. “Let’s get a drink at the Anchor, after this. I’m half-frozen,” he called back to Thug A.
He slipped his gun back into his holster and grabbed Clark’s ankles, dragging him up the stairs so that Clark’s head hit each of the three steps.
Thanks, Jonesy.Jones got him to the top of the steps and Thug A came to help him, and between the two of them they dragged him over to a crate on the edge of the boat, sitting Clark down.
“You ever wonder what these guys do to the Boss to make him want to drown ‘em?” Jones asked.
“Probably ask too many questions,” the first thug retorted.
With a shove, Jones pushed Clark overboard.
“Jones! What did ya do that for?” yelled Thug A. “We were supposed to take off his hood and bracelets first.”
“Sorry,” Jones replied, before Clark’s head disappeared under the cold water.
Intrigued as he was on the underworld’s politics, Clark would much rather be over at Lois’s apartment being warmed up by his girlfriend than stick around listening to these two any longer. He broke the chain off the handcuffs and pulled the hood off his head. Then he continued swimming towards Metropolis. He knew he had a good twenty minutes before he needed to come up for air, and therefore, he would not give away his position to the Boss’s thugs. Using his super speed, Clark figured he could be easily back on land with time to spare.
A few minutes later, Clark used his telescopic vision to see how much further he had to go. He saw something red glowing in the water ahead under the wharf. It looked almost like the light of a radio switch, half buried in the silt. Had someone set a timer bomb at the base of this dock?
As Clark neared, he felt a tightening of his chest alerting him that his twenty minutes must be close to being up. Strange, it hadn’t felt like that much time had passed. He must be more tired from his trip to space than he thought. He came to the surface, gulped a quick dose of air and plummeted down to check out that red light. As soon as his hand shot out to take hold of what turned out to be some sort of jewelry with green and red glowing stones, he realized his mistake. His muscles tensed, his head began to throb, and the air inside of his lungs felt like liquid iron. Kryptonite!
He dropped the bracelet and kicked as hard as he could to get himself to the surface. He must have over calculated, because that one soft kick shot him out of the water, striking his head on the dock above. He literally saw stars. He glanced down to his foot where shooting pains were radiating from up his ankle towards his knee and saw that the bracelet had hooked over the toe of his shoe. The world around him blurred and went dark. The last thing he heard was himself splashing once more into the now frigid waters of Hob’s Bay.
***End of Part 84*** Part 85 Comments ?
