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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Author’s Note: Unfortunately, I came up with the idea for this part too late to impliment it earlier. I apologize for the large chunk of non Lois or Clark POV. In the Archive version, the italicized sections will be sprinkled throughout the last thirty-five parts, making this chapter only the non-italicized sections and it will be much shorter before we return to our main characters.

To refresh you memory, you can check out Part 134 here.

Part 135

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New Dawn
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Kirk paced in Mr. Luthor’s living room, waiting for his benefactor to show himself.

This was the night. He was going to escape this hellhole. Mr. Luthor would surely let him out through the emergency stairwell. Nobody could be kept inside against his will. If he asked to be let out, Mr. Luthor would have to let him go. Besides, the others were counting on him to prove to them that topside was still there.

He had read back through his log that morning. It almost shocked him how thrilled he had been when he gotten the anonymous invitation last spring. He should have known then it was too good to be true.

Kirk Devlin, Physicist’s Report, New Earth, Day 1, Old Star Date 02281994:

I moved into my new lodgings for the next three years today. I share an ‘ark-room’, for lack of a better name, with three other guys. There’s a farmer: Chen. Brandon is in charge of supplies and provisions. Hector is a musician. I’m not sure what instrument, because we’re not allowed to ‘work’ in our ark-rooms, and he’s quite shy. Let’s hope none of them snore.

I took the first bus at the pre-arranged rendezvous spot at six a.m. this morning. It took us down a long tunnel to a non-descript area. From there, I finished descending five hundred meters under Metropolis via a service elevator. Upon my arrival at the ark, I was welcomed by a woman named Bethany, who brought me… well, all fourteen of us in that first group, to the common or dining room, where we deposited our ‘fees’ into the collective, and received our housing assignments. I had brought all my physics textbooks on applied physics and engineering for the ark’s library, and some of my own equipment I would need for my new lab; everything else was generously provided for. We were only allowed to bring one bag, which had been supplied to us, for personal items. After we checked in, we were issued a lock and a number to an individual footlocker to store our personal effects.

Clothing has been provided. I had my choice of khaki slacks and a button down shirt with a tie, or jeans and a t-shirt. I couldn’t choose, so I went with jeans and button-down Oxford. Actually, I took two uniforms of jeans and two of slacks and tie, two pairs of pajamas, a dinner jacket, a sweater, a white lab coat, a set of towels, and basic toiletries. I had brought my own socks, underwear, and shoes.

Since I’ll be spending most of my time in my lab, sharing an ark-room with three others doesn’t bother me. It reminds me of being back in college as a student, especially since we’ll be sharing a communal bathroom with three other men’s ark-rooms. In fact, I moved into my lab and office before I moved into my ark-room, which is how I ended up getting a top bunk. At least, I won’t be sharing my office or lab with anyone else. Okay, to be precise, there’s just the one lab with a desk in the corner, but it’s all mine! There’s just me. Solo mio. This is the life!

Greg Stone’s a chemist who has the lab next to mine. He was on one of the later buses that arrived this morning, and we had lunch together. Like me, he was recruited out of obscurity to be the ark’s sole chemist.

I can’t believe I was chosen out of all the physicists in the country to represent the fields of physics and engineering in the post Nightfall world. There isn’t even anyone from theoretical physics here. Just me, Applied Physics. All that “theoretical” stuff is okay for the old world, but in this new world, things will need to be practical. No time for just sitting around and thinking. It’s about time someone recognizes and appreciates my genius for what it is: irreplaceable. I can’t wait until we meet our anonymous benefactor tomorrow.

Kirk couldn’t believe how young and cocky he had been, and that was less than a month ago. Well, he could. He was a genius, after all. Out of all the lemmings in the L.U.C., he had been the only one to suspect that everything wasn’t what it seemed. Like the others, he didn’t want to believe that Luthor was lying to them and keeping them here against their will. Kirk hoped to discover that Luthor was as unaware of what was going on topside as everyone else. Surely, he would approve of Kirk’s request to go check things out and see how bad it really was, if only to prove Luthor correct. Kirk doubted Luthor would be correct though.

Kirk Devlin, Physicist’s Report, New Earth, Day 3, Old Star Date 03021994:

We finally met our benefactor today: Lex Luthor! Wow! I mean, I figured our benefactor would be someone big, but I hadn’t realized how big. This whole end of the world scenario we were told about never felt real until the moment he was announced.

Luthor gave a big speech at dinner tonight in the common room, about how we all need to work together for the New Dawn, which is what he calls our new society, or at least, the new society that we will be after we return topside in three years. The service elevator, which had brought us here, has a time lock, and won’t open again until March 1, 1997. Three years. Suddenly, that date seems really far in the future. Whoa. Have I really signed up to be underground for that long?

After his welcome speech about the different occupations and areas of expertise he had gathered in his ark, the Luthor Underground Community (or L.U.C.) as he called us, and how each and every one of us would be necessary for the rebuilding of America, Mr. Luthor stepped aside and let Mr. St. John answer questions. I asked about an emergency exit. With all 189 of us – including Mr. St. John, head of ark security, Asabi, Mr. Luthor’s personal secretary and liaison with the community, and Luthor, our benefactor – in the common room at once, the walls seemed to be closing in on me. I could also start to feel the five-hundred meters of earth between us and Metropolis, bearing down on me.

Mr. St. John reassured me that there was an emergency tunnel, which led from Mr. Luthor’s apartments to the surface. He then went on to say that they didn’t anticipate any emergency larger than the one that brought us down here in the first place. It feels good to know that we can get out of here if we need to. The meeting ended with a performance by Hector on the cello. He’s really good, but made me doubt anyone here is versed in rock music.

It didn’t strike me until we got back to the ark-room that Mr. St. John had said ‘Mr. Luthor’s apartments’, as in plural.

When I mentioned this to Brandon, who sleeps on the bunk under mine, he said, “Of course, Mr. Luthor has a multiroom apartment here in the ark, Kirk. He built the place. Why wouldn’t he want to live comfortably? Anyway, the man is like the richest man in the world.”

So, much for equality among the classes in the New Dawn. Anyway, what would Luthor’s money be worth three years from now since the world as we know it is now gone, including financial markets and governments? I’m guessing it’ll be worth the same as the $61.72 in my footlocker: nada.

At first, Kirk had tried to talk to a few other members of the ark about things that felt less than right with their underground community. After someone called him paranoid, he decided to not only limit the number, but also prescreen the people with whom he shared his doubts. He didn’t want to be branded ‘disturbed’ or a ‘troublemaker’; he merely had questions without answers. Deep in his heart, he knew he couldn’t be the only one in the L.U.C. who hadn’t drunk Luthor’s ‘all or nothing’ brand of Kool-Aid. This really couldn’t be their future, could it? Had all of the old civilization really been killed off? Optimism wasn’t his strong suit; actually, it wasn’t a skill he knew he had until Superman had come to Earth.

Kirk Devlin, Physicist’s Report, New Earth, Day 5, Old Star Date 03041994:

I’ve checked my data over and over, and I keep coming up with the same answer. The explosion registered by the seismograph in my lab on Impact Day just wasn’t strong enough to black out the sun with Earth’s debris kicked into the sky from Nightfall’s impact. I mentioned my findings to Greg, the chemist in the lab next to mine.

I like Greg, and I thought he was a free thinker like me. I knew he would know what I was suggesting without me spelling it out when I told him that my data’s off. He pulled me to the side of the corridor and told me not to rock the boat. He actually used that phrase: “Don’t rock the boat.” He totally missed the pun on the ark theme, but from his tone and expression, I didn’t think it was the right time for me to point it out.

“We’ve got it good here, Dev. For the next three years, we’ve don’t have any expenses or worries. We can work without distraction. We get three meals a day, a bed, free medical, free entertainment, and an exercise room.”

As Greg spoke, I wanted to remind him that many prisons had similar amenities. Again, I chose to hold my tongue.

“Our student loans and debt have been wiped clean with the New Dawn,” Greg went on. “When we come topside again, we’ll be the best and brightest, healthy and fit, with a plan, the means, and the tools to rebuild America. Anyone left topside will look up to us as their saviors from their terrible fate. This is everything I’ve wanted without spending twenty years clawing my way to the top through corporate hierarchy or academia. Don’t stir the pot.”

On second thought, maybe Greg isn’t who I had thought he was. Everyone here has seemed to have bought this whole ‘the New Dawn is a good thing’ line like some kind of cult. Nobody but me is curious what really happened topside. They just want to talk about how good it will be when we emerge. I believe they’re deluding themselves.

That was yesterday. This morning, I had breakfast with Chen, who seems to have a more level head on his shoulders. He’s an early morning person like me, so we often have breakfast together. I guess that’s pretty stereotypical of his profession as “agrarian agricultural engineer”. I asked him what that was, when he used the term on Day One to describe his job within the ark community. He had grinned and said, “You commonly call us ‘farmers’.”

When I mentioned my findings to Chen, he suggested that Nightfall must not have been a direct hit. “You’re the physicist, Kirk. Calculate how far away the asteroid would have had to hit to get your readings this far below Metropolis.”

I didn’t correct his terminology. Once Nightfall struck Earth, it was no longer an asteroid, but a meteorite. Oh, my God! I just realized something. Luthor didn’t bring in an astronomer or an astrophysicist. There’s just me, and my background is applied physics and engineering, not astronomy. It’s a completely different discipline. Was Luthor’s astronomer one of the missing eleven people? Or did he not think an astronomer would be necessary in the New Dawn? This is too weird.

Kirk knew what all the naysayers were trying to tell him. Lex Luthor billionaire philanthropist, who had recruited all of them for the New Dawn Project, wouldn’t bring them here just to trap them and hold them hostage. Kirk knew it was an insane theory. He didn’t want to believe it of Lex Luthor either. His ilk didn’t do crazy stuff like that. He was a good man, who had given back to Metropolis and the world whenever he could. Anyway, Luthor was down here just like the rest of them. If they were trapped, so was he. If the world hadn’t ended, chances were he didn’t know it either. Something inside Kirk told him that Luthor wasn’t exactly everything he purported to be if he was clueless about what really had happened topside.

Luthor was a mover and shaker. Movers and shakers don’t hide underground without proof that world was destroyed. Yet, the only proof he had given them was his word, and for Kirk, that was no longer enough.

Kirk Devlin, Physicist’s Report, New Earth, Day 10, Old Star Date 03091994:

Tonight I went to the science department’s dinner party at Luthor’s mansion-sized apartment. My old Metropolis apartment could have fit three times in just the rooms that I saw. Okay, true, I’ve figured that Luthor isn’t living “like us” in any way, but how many more people could have been saved if Luthor lived as modestly as the rest of us?

The dinner party was elaborate affair, set to impress us and impress us it did. I had gone and knocked on lab doors during my first few days, so I already knew the others at the party and their disciplines: Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Oceanography (believe it or not!), Meteorology/Climatology, Geography/Cartography, and Mathematics. Also included were the librarian and the K-12 teacher.

I still cannot believe that Luthor didn’t bring an astronomer on board. I asked Luthor about that specifically tonight, and he said that Martin Solsvig was supposed to have joined us, but he sadly hadn’t arrived by the time we needed to lock the doors. So, our astronomer was one of the missing eleven. That makes me feel better, but at the same time, it also makes me feel worse. Why hadn’t Dr. Solsvig showed? Was he just late, or did he know something that the rest of us didn’t?

Greg was bowled away by the party, big surprise, raving about how wonderful a benefactor Luthor is, eating everything up... literally. How did I ever think Greg and I could be friends? He’s such a brown-noser.

The weirdest thing, though, was that Luthor served us fruits and vegetables that couldn’t possibly have remained fresh since Impact Day.

I asked Chen about it when I returned to our ark-room. He said they might have been canned, frozen, or stored in a cool room, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“Even I know that fresh lettuce doesn’t come from a can,” I told him.

He laughed, and said that they started harvesting micro greens this morning. Okay, maybe it isn’t the smoking gun I was hoping for, but I’m going to keep looking. Something is off about the L.U.C. I just can’t put my finger on it.

Chen had told me in confidence one morning last week that the L.U.C. chickens in the farm quad had stopped laying eggs when they were relocated underground, so all the scrambled eggs in the cafeteria would be either powdered or egg substitute until the hens got used to their new environs. Then he discovered earlier this week that someone had been turning out the natural lights too early at night, to conserve energy, so the chickens weren’t getting enough time under their simulated sunlight.

“Luckily, the chickens are too young to molt,” he had said.

Having grown up in the city, I had no idea what that meant until I looked it up. He said he had fixed the problem, but that the hens still hadn’t adjusted to the move to their new indoor pen, and that he wished he had thought to raise them in an indoor pen. A part of him must have thought that Superman would save us. We all think that, but it’s kind of an unwritten taboo to mention Superman’s name.

Getting back to the dinner party, and why I brought up the chickens…Luthor’s personal chef (and I know Luthor must have the personal chef because nobody has ever seen Luthor, St. John, or Asabi eat in the cafeteria) had put chopped hardboiled eggs on the salad and had deviled egg appetizers. From where is Luthor getting his fresh food, if not from topside? Or did he serve us ten-day-old hard-boiled eggs at his fancy party?

Who wouldn’t want to believe the message L.U.C. was feeding them? Kirk wanted to believe he was special: one out only two hundred individuals specifically chosen for his abilities to survive and teach a new generation how to rebuild America. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks makes good. Why wouldn’t he want that?

Kirk didn’t remember his father. He had left Kirk’s mother before Kirk was two, if he had stuck around even that long. After that, his mother had a long string of men – “uncles” his mom made him call them – coming in and out of their basement apartment. As soon as Kirk was old enough, he spent as long as he was allowed in the library after school, just to avoid them. His neighborhood was definitely blue collar industrial, and Kirk’s story wasn’t unique, only instead of hanging out on the streets or joining a gang, he read. He knew it was truly the only way to escape his personal hellhole.

In middle school, he joined the engineering club run by the math and shop teachers. They built cool stuff like robots, model airplanes, and radios. It was fun. It was his ticket out of the dirty streets of Columbus. He applied himself and got a Luthor Foundation scholarship to Ohio State, and then another to Penn State’s graduate program in Applied Physics and Engineering. He thought he was on his way up.

The University of North Carolina hired Kirk as an Adjunct Professor, after receiving his doctorate from the University of Texas: Austin. When no full term positions opened up after two years, his contract expired. Kirk had applied to and accepted another Adjunct Professorship at the Metropolis University: School of Engineering in their Physics department. That was the dead-end position he had been in when he had received the invitation from an anonymous think-tank. They were seeking candidates for a secret long-term project with goals on the success of America. Kirk Devlin, PhD, had been specifically requested to interview to the project. Kirk knew it was an honor. All he needed to do was to submit to a medical examination and fill out a multi-page questionnaire about every little aspect of his life, thoughts, ambitions, opinions, and personal habits. It was like a dream come true.

Kirk Devlin, Physicist’s Report, New Earth, Day 14, Old Star Date 03131994:

Hector isn’t shy! Well, not really. You’d think I would have tried Spanish before today, but you would have been wrong. Maybe Brandon is right. Perhaps I’m an idiot. (No, Brandon’s the idiot; I’m still a genius). Hector, on the other hand, is a Mozart-esque prodigy when it comes to music. What I had assumed is shyness on Hector’s part, I discovered tonight is limited English language skills. He’s shy because his English is really broken. Apparently, Karen, the K-12 teacher, is giving him and a few other non-native English speakers, like those twin Japanese dancers, ESL classes in the afternoons. Once Hector realized that I know some Spanish – from high school and Ohio State – he opened right up and became another person.

In fact, Hector doesn’t play just one instrument. He can play any musical instrument just by having watched someone who had studied for years to play. Once. Literally, once. He can write symphonies despite never having learned to write music until the Luthor Foundation had found him in Ecuador. He was displaced during the civil unrest there and landed in an internment camp after an earthquake struck. Then guerrillas shut down the schools and he misplaced his family. Literally, misplaced them. He doesn’t know if they’re alive or dead. He said that Mr. Luthor has someone searching for them and promised to keep looking, even when he brought him to the States to study formerly and perform at the Luthor Conservatory of Music. It was the only reason he agreed to come, because Luthor promised to bring his family to join him when they were found. Then Hector went silent, realizing what we all did from time to time. His family was dead for sure now due to Nightfall.

Kirk hadn’t known at first that he was signing up for the New Dawn Project to be the human race’s only hope if Nightfall actually hit. My God! Nightfall had defeated Superman, someone who was supposed to be invulnerable, and Kirk and 188 other people had survived.

Superman. That was the worst part of the whole new world thing. Kirk had been excited about this new being from another planet. Not just a ‘being’, a benevolent super powered being, like Spock, only cooler. Kirk preferred Superman to Luthor. Superman had confirmed every one of Kirk’s boyhood hopes about life in the universe. He had actually thought he would never hear from the ark project again after Superman had made his appearance. Life would be better. Life had been better.

Superman had lowered crime in Metropolis, helped around the world during natural disasters, and never asked for anything in return. He couldn’t always save everyone, but he gave Kirk hope with every person he did save. Kirk had heard people scoff and say “some Superman. There are twenty-three people dead because he didn’t get there in time.” He would yell at them… well, at least in his mind. He had never been good at confrontation. In his mind, Kirk would ask “if they could’ve done any better?” Then he’d remind them “there’d be 293 people dead if Superman hadn’t arrived to help.”

He had learned to keep his mouth shut about Superman in the ark; no one seemed to consider the hero a hero down here, self-sacrifice or not.

Kirk Devlin, Physicist’s Report, New Earth, Day 17, Old Star Date 03161994:

Chen has fallen in love with Bethany. Okay, I know this is old news, since Chen has been in love with her since Day 4. She’s a vet, and they work together with the animals over on the agro side of the ark. Chen told me earlier this week that Bethany had heard through the grapevine about a bedroom set aside over in the medical wing for people who want to have sex. You have to request the key in advance from Dr. Muldoon, the Ob/Gyn doctor, otherwise you can’t get access to it, but that it has a king sized bed and a private bathroom with a sunken tub. Apparently, it was set up so people wouldn’t hook-up in the shared ark-rooms, offices, or other public areas.

Truthfully, sex was the last thing on my mind when I signed up for the ark… well, it’s not really an option for me with the things the way they are here bunking four to a room. Not like it had been much of an option for me topside either. I seem to have diamagnetism to women, naturally repelling them. Until Chen mentioned it was possible and even encouraged (by the setting aside of a special room for that very purpose), I figured sex would have to wait until we were topside again.

As I lay here on my bed, I’ve been wondering if I had met anyone in the ark for me. I recalled the angel with the golden touch, who cut my hair this afternoon. I’ve been grumpy lately and so worried about everything that Hector told me I needed to break my routine. The way Mona massaged my scalp… no, I better not let my thoughts drift that way. With Brandon sleeping in the bunk under mine, I don’t need to add fuel to his fire.

When Chen told me about the sex room, I wondered if he had lied to me about the chickens and had secretly been selling black-market eggs to Luthor’s household for extra perks, such as a night in the sex room. Chen hasn’t come home tonight, so either I’m right or Bethany told him about the room because she’s open to sharing it with him. Maybe he’s there right now with her. Ew. I don’t want to picture that.

I feel bad thinking that about Chen. He’s a good guy, and normally I wouldn’t think he would go against the collective, but what would I do to get a night in the sex room? Oh, God! The Collective? Have I joined the Borg? What’s wrong with me?

Kirk had imagined that this whole new world would include equality for all. That was a joke. There were still four classes of people here in the ark, five if you counted Luthor’s team as elite.

There were the ‘professional people’: the doctors and administrators of the ark. Then there were the intellectuals, such as himself, Greg, Hector, the teachers and people with high intellectual skills. The third class of people in the ark was the “skilled laborers”, which included plumbers, electricians, the chef in charge of the food hall, skilled farmers, such as Chen, or barbers like Mona.

The fourth set of people was the “menial workers”, otherwise known as the people who actually made this community possible. Without these people, all the rest of them would lose a big chunk of ego as they attempted and failed miserably at doing what they usually took for granted. The worker bees made and served the food cafeteria, cleaned the floors and the dishes, worked in the dirt doing back breaking tasks with Chen in the underground produce farms, shoveled manure in the barn, changed broken light bulbs, and even distributed supplies as Brandon did. They did the jobs nobody else wanted to do, and they rarely complained.

Brandon thought the world (old and new alike) rose and set because of Mr. Luthor, and for his worship, Mr. Luthor often treated him as his personal messenger or delivery person. Brandon didn’t see that this wasn’t a perk; it was exploitation. But, far be it for Kirk to tell Brandon anything that he might construe as an insult, even if Kirk was really trying to help him. Brandon wasn’t thrilled that Luthor had given him the note to deliver to Kirk, announcing their special meeting. It was obvious in the way he threw it, literally, in Kirk’s face.

Kirk Devlin, Physicist’s Report, New Earth, Day 22, Old Star Date 03211994:

There’s supposedly space for two hundred in the L.U.C., but only 189 people came. There have to be empty apartments somewhere. I asked Brandon, which I knew at the time was stupid, but I did it anyway, because I keep hoping he has a soul. He told me I’m being a paranoid idiot, again. Big surprise. He’s like those jocks in school, who’d pull your pants down in gym and think it’s funny.

It’s a pipedream, I know, but I’m seriously thinking about asking Mona, she’s the barber/ hair stylist I went to last week, to pretend to want to have sex with me. I know that a beautiful goddess with gentle hands such as her isn’t the type to hook-up, secretly or not, with a tall geek as myself. I’m getting ahead of myself and her rejection of me, which hasn’t happened yet, because there’s no way I’d ever get the courage to ask her out for real.

“You have to ask to get rejected,” Hector would say. Like he’s one to talk. It’s not like he’d ever ask anyone in the L.U.C. out. His missing family in Ecuador is his wife and son. I never would have guessed. One of the requirements to be accepted for the New Dawn Project was that you had to be single with no kids or anyone whom you’d miss. There was my mom, but we don’t miss each other.

Anyway, back to my fantasy, Mona and I could spend a peaceful night sleeping in the sex room. I bet she’d love to bathe in a sunken tub. I merely want a night away from Brandon. I know that’s a horrible reason to hook-up with someone, or pretend to, but the man smells, kicks my top bunk in the middle of the night, and snores. It’s worse than college. There’s no transferring out, here. Sure, I’d love to do more with Mona, but I’m trying to be realistic here… and right now, I’m craving a good night’s sleep over sex. What’s wrong with me?

I had my appointment with Dr. Rogers, the L.U.C. psychiatrist, today. We’re all required to meet with him once a month, because apparently living underground after the world as we know it has ended, is stressful. Imagine that. Doc Rogers is okay, but I want to call him Mr. Rogers, and he doesn’t like that. If he doesn’t like the comparison, he should stop wearing the slippers and the cardigan and talking to me as if I’m a three year old.

I didn’t want to tell him about my fears, and what my seismograph data might mean, until he reassured me that whatever I told him would be just be between the two of us, unless I threatened to kill or hurt someone, or do damage to the L.U.C. structure, which would endanger others. I reassured him that I wasn’t the violent type. I’d seen enough of gang violence to have a healthy dislike of blood and guns. After my hour was up, I have to admit it feels good to have gotten those worries off my chest.

Kirk had cooled his heels for a half-hour in Luthor’s fancy living room with that blurry painting of the tropics, which probably cost Luthor more than a million bucks, before Mr. St. John had moved him into Luthor’s private study. Then Mr. St. John had discussed with him about his data. He had heard about Kirk’s data discrepancies somewhere. Kirk guessed it was Brandon or Greg.

Happily, the telephone rang and interrupted their conversation; Luthor’s chief of security always gave Kirk the creeps. Mr. St. John actually seemed just as surprised that Luthor’s phone rang. Apparently, it was some kind of an emergency, because Mr. St. John’s stoic face turned scary mad, and Kirk was only glad it wasn’t aimed at him.

Kirk looked at his watch with a sigh. When would Luthor arrive for this meeting? What was he thinking? Where else could Luthor be? The ark was big, but it was self-contained. He couldn’t really go anywhere. That was a big part of the problem, and the reason Kirk had been excited about the summons he had received yesterday. Mr. Luthor had requested that Kirk submit his data this morning and what he had concluded from it, and then show up at Luthor’s ark-apartments to discuss results with the man himself after dinner hour. Instead, Kirk had been shuffled off to Mr. St. John. Kirk would much rather talk to Mr. Luthor, their benefactor. He was less scary.

Their benefactor. Ha! he scoffed. Kirk began to wonder if Mr. Luthor had stood him up on purpose just to prove to Kirk that Luthor had all the power and control, and that Kirk was just a nobody. This type of head game wasn’t new to Kirk, so he usually didn’t fall for it.

Mr. St. John set down the phone slowly, and turned his fiery eyes to Kirk, before resuming his previous demeanor. “It seems, Professor Devlin, that there has been a change of plans. Mr. Luthor has been delayed. I hope you don’t mind waiting.”

It was only at that second that Kirk’s eyes returned to the telephone. He hadn’t seen one of those since he had arrived in the ark, which was one of main reasons it had startled him so badly when it had rung. That was a nice perk if one had it. He raised his eyes back to Mr. St. John’s.

“Shall I get you something to drink while you wait, sir?” Mr. St. John asked, sounding more like a butler than Luthor’s head of security.

Then another thought crossed Kirk’s mind. Who else in the ark had a telephone?

***End of Part 135***

Part 136

Comments

Spock, The Borg Collective , and the Physicist’s Report (based on the Captain’s Log) are all borrowed from the television shows “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” created by Gene Roddenberry. The Borg Collective was introduced during S2, Episode 16: “Q Who?” written by Maurice Hurley. (Tempus always reminded me of Q.)

Kool-Aid is a powdered drink whose brand is owned by Kraft Foods. In 1978, the Jonestown cult killed themselves by adding poison to the mixture (or a similar product) and drinking it.