Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HereWhere we last left off in Part 152 …[/i] Cat stared at him. “I’ve got a new theory. You’re crazy.”
“Caaaaat,” he groaned.
“Of course,
you’re crazy. Why didn’t I see it before? You’re in love with a dysfunctional woman, who always has to be right, who
never makes mistakes, and who has to be the best no matter who she has to step on to get there. She finds out that the man she loves more than life itself was almost killed by her nutso stalker, who also happens to be a hugely wealthy, very powerful man in the most powerful city in America. So, she goes undercover to expose this guy, but doesn’t tell her sweet, loving boyfriend because she knows he would stop her, because he himself is a powerful guy, but in a whole different way,” Cat said, only pausing to take a short breath of air as she gestured wildly. “She ropes in his best friend, who can’t stand her, to be her lifeline, because
nobody would ever believe that they teamed up and because she knows the best friend would do anything to make him happy.” When she finished yelling at Clark, she was panting.
Clark could only stare at her.
Could Cat be right? He took a deep breath. “So, you think I should give fantasyland one more shot?”
“Sure! Why the hell not? What else do you have to lose?” she scoffed.
“My secret identity,” he answered.
“Well, okay. There’s that.” She smiled, which made him smile. Even though it wasn’t funny in the least, they both started laughing.
“You’d better take care of yourself, Cat,” Clark recommended, giving her a hug. “Because I can’t take any more losses here. I’m at the end of my rope.”
“Rotten luck comes in threes, Clark.” She held up her fingers, counting off. “Lois rejected your proposal and accepted Lex’s. Superman’s reputation is on skid row. And your best friend may force you to marry her, so she doesn’t end up a single mother. What more can go wrong?”
Clark closed his eyes and whispered a silent prayer that the universe hadn’t heard her. Then he looked her straight in the eye. From experience, he knew the truth. “Plenty.”
Part 153******
Three******
Mrs. Cox strode into Lex’s office and handed him a pile of papers. “The latest surveillance reports,” she said, turning on her toe to march out.
“Mrs. Cox, is there something wrong?” Lex asked, standing up.
Mrs. Cox gritted her teeth, hating that her feelings were so obvious. “You told me that she ‘wasn’t important’. You said ‘not to worry about her’. Now, you’ve given her a half-million dollar diamond ring and asked her to marry you,” she snapped. “I don’t like being jerked around.”
Lex pushed that button on his desk, which closed all the doors of his office and activated the soundproofing, and then approached her.
She knew he was going to try to seduce her, but she wasn’t going to fall for it this time.
“If I tell you why I’m pursuing Ms. Lane, will you drop this foolish jealousy act?” he asked, setting his hand on her shoulder and running it down her back.
“I’m listening,” she said stiffly, not allowing him to bring her closer. Just having his hands on her was causing her to flush under her clothes. She wished she didn’t have this weakness to his charm, but no other man exuded power and desire like Lex.
“Ms. Lane has attracted the attention of a certain one of my competitors and I am using her to get power over him,” Lex murmured, gently nudging her back.
Mrs. Cox allowed him to pull her against him. Now that she knew it was just one of his elaborate schemes, she could relax and enjoy their time together.
He kissed her lips briefly before traveling down her neck.
“Who?” she whispered, her breath getting ragged.
“Superman.” Lex shifted her around and pressed her bottom against his desk, his hand moving up her thigh and under her skirt. “She means nothing to me, Betsy,” he said, plunging his tongue deep into her mouth. “She doesn’t make me feel the way you do.”
“Oh!” Elizabeth Cox gasped as he spread her legs.
Lex hadn’t made love to her in the traditional manner in so long, she was beginning to feel as if he was just using her to get out his kink. She didn’t mind the variety and actually rather enjoyed it, but recently she had wondered if he would marry a woman he couldn’t love in the traditional fashion. He didn’t even like to use her given name, because he had always said it was hotter to think of her as another man’s wife, even if her husband was dead. Lex’s use of her given nickname meant their relationship had changed. Maybe he had finally started to think of her as she thought of him, as her soul mate.
“You’re the only one I love, Betsy,” Lex whispered, taking her there on his desk, face to face, mouth to mouth. It felt like heaven.
Betsy arched back on his desk, careful not to disturb his neatly arranged items. “So, you’re not going to marry her?”
He kissed down her chest, nibbling at her through her blouse, causing her desire to explode. “If I do, she won’t survive the honeymoon night,” he promised. “She’s a virgin, and I want to take that away from him before she dies.”
Betsy reached back with her hand, until it enclosed around his letter opener. She brought it to his throat. “I’ll only let you have that one time with her, nothing before and nothing after,” she informed him. “You belong to me.”
The knife at his throat didn’t seem to scare or slow Lex even fractionally. If anything, he seemed more turned on by her actions. He pressed his lips harder against her. “There really is no one like you,” he panted before finishing.
She never lowered the knife.
***
A shadow darkened Clark’s desk, and he glanced up to find Chip Peterson standing there. “Mr. Kent.”
“Mr. Peterson,” Clark replied just as formerly.
“There seems to be some discrepancies in your personnel file,” Chip informed him.
Clark leaned back in his chair. He had worked for the Daily Planet for almost a year and suddenly, now that Luthor owned the paper, there were ‘discrepancies’. Big surprise. “How so?” he asked.
“Apparently, when you filled out your I-9 form, proof of citizenship or work status in the United States, photocopies of your driver’s license or passport weren’t taken,” Chip explained. “I’ll need you to come with me and have those taken now.”
Of course. Although, thanks to his powers of memory, Clark remembered distinctly having his driver’s license photocopied when he filled out his new hire paperwork. It would be an easy paper to mislay though.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr. Peterson,” Clark replied. “My passport was stolen from my apartment when it was broken into six weeks ago. My wallet was lost when I was abducted during Nightfall. I haven’t had a chance to apply for a new driver’s license.”
Chip crossed his arms. “How convenient.”
“Actually, it’s been very
inconvenient,” Clark said, mimicking his crossed arms.
“Well, then, I recommend you get yourself down to the Department of Motor Vehicles and get yourself a new license, A.S.A.P., Mr. Kent. We’ll give you until Friday to produce it; otherwise, we’ll have to let you go. You understand,” Chip said with a gloating smile, as if he knew Clark wouldn’t be able to produce it, before heading towards the elevators.
Clark had no idea what to do. His driver’s license and passport had been from his former dimension. He had never applied for the documents here. His old identification cards weren’t going to expire for many years and he had thought that he would have time to know whether he would make a permanent home here, and if so, create some kind of identity for himself. To be honest, Clark hadn’t given a second thought to needing to create an actual ‘Clark Kent’ identity when he decided to move to this dimension. His mind had been completely and totally filled with thoughts of Lois, of having a real life again, and a chance at his own happily-ever-after.
Now, because of his carelessness, he would lose his dream job by the end of the week.
***
“I hear ‘congratulations’ are in order,” Bobby said, when Lois handed him his plate that night at the Mission.
“Don’t remind me,” she muttered.
Lex had replaced her usual guard with Nigel St. John that morning. The Englishman wasn’t as subtle as Mitch was. Nigel had actually knocked directly on her door and informed her that he would be driving her to work. Lois had insisted it wasn’t necessary. Nigel had said that it was.
Therefore, not only did she have to deal with kowtowing co-workers at LNN who, now that the Daily Planet had announced her engagement to their boss, treated her like a queen… okay, Anne Boleyn in any case, and she had all the privacy of royalty as well, which meant ‘none’. She stopped at allowing Nigel access to her office… well, after he insisted on doing an unnecessary security sweep of the room, she had informed him that she wouldn’t get any work done with him there. It wasn’t as if he was going to find any bugs that hadn’t been placed there by his boss. Instead, Nigel had gotten himself a chair and a newspaper and planted himself outside her office door. Peachy.
Her day had just gone downhill from there. Nigel drove her to EPRAD where she was rebuffed by her sources there. Personally, she thought it might have been more because Nigel could be quite intimidating as he stood three paces behind her as a vulture or a viper ready to strike. Nigel then followed her to the M.U.T. campus where she went to talk to Eugene Laderman about the Nightfall virus. She had refused her new bodyguard access to their private interview though. The last thing she needed was Nigel learning of Eugene’s involvement in acquiring an identity for Clark.
Laderman agreed to corroborate her story about the virus found on the spreadsheet diskette at her apartment, but refused to do so on the air. She helped him write out a statement describing how he found the virus on the diskette and the nature of said invasive virus. Knowing that she herself would never be able to get a copy of Laderman’s statement to Clark without Nigel finding out about it, she hastily jotted down a note to Eugene to fax a copy of his statement to Clark at the Daily Planet.
At lunchtime, she was more than ready for a breather, but Nigel had brought her a meal prepared by Lex’s personal chef. Heaven forbid she chanced getting ill, food poisoned, or attacked while eating at one of her usual haunts. She hated nothing more than being treated as a dainty china doll.
When Robertson, the LNN news director, had come to discuss her progress on her Nightfall Virus angle, Nigel had frisked him before allowing him entrance into Lois’s office. Lois felt humiliated for him and annoyed by Nigel’s actions. Robertson had tried to send Nigel packing, but after the Englishman had informed him who and why he had been given his assignment of guarding Robertson’s newest employee, the news director had been so flustered that their conversation had lasted less than a minute. So much for her new job.
She telephoned Lex to inform him that he needed to curb Nigel’s enthusiasm or she wouldn’t have a job by the end of the week, but a smug-sounding Mrs. Cox informed Lois that her boss would be in meetings all afternoon.
At four o’clock, Lois had left the office to meet up with Mayson Drake to hand in her time worksheets from the Mission and update her on what she had learned about Lex during her previous week’s investigation. Sadly, the latter equaled close to nothing. Nigel had insisted on driving her. Lois had refused and jumped into a recently vacated cab.
Mayson had kicked Lois out of her office, claiming that Lois had wasted her time with lies about an investigation of Lex Luthor and his criminal antics. She refused to believe that Lois would get herself engaged to the subject of her investigation as a way to get more information out of him. Lois left the D.A.’s office feeling as if she had lost her law enforcement backup.
Nigel had been waiting outside the building when Lois emerged. Without a word, he opened the door to the limousine and drove her home, despite her insisting and then demanding that he drive her to the Fifth Street Mission.
“You are now the fiancée of Mr. Luthor, Ms. Lane. It isn’t safe for you to visit that side of town,” Nigel had coolly informed her.
As soon as she had left the car, she had stormed inside without waiting for Lex’s manservant to follow. In her apartment, she changed into jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes went down the back stairs and a block away, and caught the taxi she had called. When she stepped out of the taxi at the Mission, Nigel was standing outside waiting for her.
“Mr. Luthor doesn’t want you coming here, Ms. Lane. It is too dangerous. There are a rough sort who visit this place,” Nigel had said, blocking her path.
“I don’t care. I’ve been around rougher guys. Lex may be my fiancé, but he has no right to tell me to whom I may speak, where I may go, or what I may do. I’ll be fine. I can protect myself. Your services aren’t needed,” Lois had said, trying to get past him.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Lane,” Nigel had returned, refusing to budge. “But I’m not here only to protect you, but also the diamond engagement ring upon your finger. Mr. Luthor specifically requested that I guard it with my life as it’s worth a small fortune.”
“Fine,” she had replied, pulling the ring from her finger and tossing it to the Englishman. “It will be much easier for you to protect it from inside Lex’s penthouse. You may inform
Mr. Luthor that if he expects me to live in this way, he’s sorely mistaken. Good day.” She had ducked past his shocked expression and into the Mission.
“I don’t understand it,” Nan said, pulling Lois back to the present. “We have hardly any guests today.”
Lois knew why. Nigel St. John still stood outside the entrance to the Mission. She had hoped to be able to send another note to Clark tonight, but the chances of Rat showing up with Lex’s right hand man standing guard were slim to none.
***
As Clark climbed the stairs of his apartment building that evening, he passed Floyd descending.
“Oh, Kent, good. I just slid another piece of mail under your door. It was from last week’s pile. I just found it. It must have slipped off my side table. It looked official,” his landlord informed him. “Next time you head out of town, you should put your mail on hold.”
“Thank you, Floyd. I’ll try, but being a journalist, sometimes I have to leave with little notice. I appreciate all your help,” Clark said.
Clark wondered about the ‘official looking’ letter. Were they about to deport him (to who knew where), sue him, or call him for jury duty? He knew the hammer was going to fall down soon, and he just didn’t know if the fates would wait until Friday to issue his newest form of bad luck.
He opened his front door and found the letter on his landing. His brow furrowed. “‘Department of Motor Vehicles’?” he read the return address again aloud, and scratched his head.
How in the world…?He tore the side off the letter and pulled out the form letter. It was from dated two weeks earlier, 30 of March 1994.
Dear Mr. Clark Kent:
During the recent Ides of Metropolis computer virus outbreak, our computer system was breached and some of our data threatened. While our records remained intact and the virus was eradiated from our system, we are doing a spot check on random individuals to verify that our data is still secure and the information accurate. We need you to come in and validate your information.
At your earliest convenience and within the next thirty days, please call to set up an appointment to have your photograph taken and your license re-issued. You will need to bring a copy of this letter, as well as your birth certificate, current driver’s license, or passport as proof of your identification. If we do not hear from you, we will assume that the information in your file has been compromised and will suspend your license.
We apologize for any inconvenience, and we’re working diligently on our security protocols to make sure that this never happens again.
Sincerely;
Howard Dennis, Director
New Troy Department of Motor VehiclesClark read the letter three times before he set it down. Then he lifted it back up and read it again. How could it possible for the DMV to have his non-existent records corrupted?
Herb?Had the time traveler learned about his troubles with the Daily Planet verifying his identity and gone back into the past to give him a history? If he had, why hadn’t he done something to stop Lois from becoming engaged to Luthor? It didn’t make any sense.
Clark lifted the letter and read it again.
You will need to bring a copy of this letter, as well as your birth certificate, current driver’s license, or passport as proof of your identification.Clark walked into his bedroom and scooted his wardrobe away from the wall. From his secret compartment, where he kept his uniforms, he removed the letter from Jonathan Kent. His substitute father figure had sent Clark the original birth certificate of his dead son, this dimension’s Kal-El. “Just in case.”
It was too weird, too much of a coincidence, and worst of all, it was good luck. Clark didn’t have good luck. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in it, other people seemed to run across it from time to time, but it just didn’t exist for him. It never had. Then, again, he wasn’t supposed to exist in this dimension either, and yet, the DMV had a record of him. Was his luck turning?
No. It must be some sort of trap. Although, what kind it could be he had no idea. Were they going to take his fingerprints and compare them to Superman’s? The DMV in his old dimension had never asked for fingerprints, and he doubted this less-paranoid dimension would. Anyway, the only people in Metropolis who knew he was Superman were Cat and Lois and if neither of them had turned him in by this point… The letter was dated from prior to when he had proposed to Lois, so before he had ruined any chance of a relationship with her.
The letter and explanation looked and sounded official and on the up and up. He would take the letter into the office tomorrow and investigate. He sighed with a groan. It sure would be easier to investigate if Luthor would let them have their researchers back from the Printing Department.
Clark looked at the letter again.
Weird.***
Lois walked out of the bathroom in her heavy robe, rubbing her damp hair with a towel. She sat down on her bed and picked up the phone extension. “Hello?”
“Darling,” Lex purred over the line.
“Hi, Lex,” she said without much affection. “I’m so glad you called. We need to talk.”
“Yes. Nigel says that you’ve been giving him a rough time. He’s only there for your protection,” Lex replied.
“I don’t need protection, Lex. I’m a black belt in Taekwondo. I’ve been helping at the Mission without incident for over a week now. Stop being so paranoid. I’ll be fine,” she insisted, turning her head upside-down to continue rubbing it with the towel, which made it very difficult for Lex to see her facial expression.
He scowled, hating the limitations of his surveillance. He had installed a much better system in her apartment down in his bunker. “Perhaps you
were fine a week ago, but now as my fiancée, you look like an easy billion-dollar kidnap victim. I would hate it if something were to happen to you because you were now wearing my ring. Nigel said you removed it before going into the Mission. Is there a problem with it?”
Lois flipped up her head. A drip of water crept down her cheek to her jaw, where it dangled for a moment before dropping down to her chest, where it continued southward. Lex let out a ragged breath. Oh, to have the viewpoint of that drop of water or, better yet, to lick it off her body. He cleared his throat.
“Nigel said that he was there to protect the ring, so I figured it would be safer with him. I even told him to take it back to you at the penthouse, where it would be the safest,” she said.
Lex could tell from her tone that she was angry with him. He loved the way her cheeks flushed and bosom heaved when she was mad. He could imagine her as a tigress, using her claws to fight him off, and again had to exhale slowly to calm his voice. No woman had ever made him lose control as Lois could, and he hadn’t yet bedded her.
“I don’t need some half a million dollar ring, Lex. I’d much prefer something smaller and more intimate,” she continued.
He’d test that claim when he had her sign that pre-nup that Bender was drafting as they spoke.
“A woman such as you deserves the very best,” he replied.
“I have you. That’s enough,” she said. “If you want Nigel to be my chauffeur, fine, but I can’t have him frisking my boss. I swear Robertson almost slugged him when Nigel started down his body with his hands.”
Lex chuckled. He would have liked to have seen that. Robertson was a bit too independent in Lex’s opinion. “I’ll speak to him,” he conceded.
“Thank you. Lex, I enjoy you and the freedom being with you brings, but if you put me in a cage, I’ll never be happy,” she said.
“Hmmmm.” Lex murmured, wondering what Lois would be like after three months chained to the wall of his manor house’s basement guest chamber. Would it even take her three months to break her spirit, as it had with Monique Kahn? Or would she cave before then? Was Lois all bluster and no bite, he wondered. He could have her kidnapped and brought to the manor house, where he could starve her, only feasting occasionally on the servants’ rancid leftovers. After a month, he could ‘rescue’ her, take her back to his penthouse and ply her with bubble baths, massages, gourmet food, and plenty of bed rest. Oh, yes,
plenty of bed rest. He could see Lois folding quite quickly under those circumstances. So quickly, in fact, he might not even have to marry her to bed her.
On the other hand, he could play both her captor and her rescuer. He could tie her to the bed and wearing a mask, do as he pleased with her. Then he could rescue her… teach her how pleasant life with him could really be, and then bed her again as his wife. He wondered if she would recognize him as the same man. It would make the experience all the more worthwhile and pleasurable, if she did.
“Lex?” Lois asked.
“I’ll keep that in mind, darling,” he said quickly, realizing he’d let his desires cloud his concentration. “I worry about your safety. Be careful.”
“I always am, Lex,” she replied, hanging up.
He continued watching her as she combed her hair. It was finally getting long again, almost to her shoulders. Not quite long enough for his pleasure, but better. She reached under her pillow and withdrew the plaid flannel pajamas she had worn the night before. He grimaced. He hated her nightclothes so much; he wanted to tear them off her body. That thought excited him more. Perhaps he should put that kidnap scenario into play. He doubted he could wait until a stupid wedding to touch her as he wanted. If kidnapping was the only way to move things along faster, so be it.
Lois walked to her closet and shimmied out of her robe, or at least, he assumed she shimmied. His cameras weren't angled properly to see her when the closet door was open like this. He flipped between the two bedroom cameras and by the time he chose the better one, she had already put on her nightshirt and hung up her robe on the hook inside her closet.
Lex slammed his fist down on his desk. “Damn!”
The bathroom had been filled with steam and fogged up the camera lenses, so he couldn’t see her properly either in the shower or when she went from towel to robe. He was quite frustrated and wished he could volunteer to have her bathroom fan fixed without her suspecting how he knew it was broken.
Lex wondered if Superman could see through steam and bet that
he could with those x-ray eyes.
He slammed his fist onto the desk a second time as he realized the fatal flaw in his ‘kidnap and seduce his fiancée’ scenario. Lex had forgotten that while he kept her captive, Superman would be searching for her. Lois was the woman Superman desired after all, so the chances were good that he wouldn’t give up until he found her. Lex could easily retrofit the torture chamber at the manor house with lead panels, but it might be a dead giveaway that her captor was hiding her more from Superman than from Lex. If Superman found Lois in Lex’s torture chamber, it would be the Man of Steel who benefited from her ordeal and not Lex.
Also, if Superman saw how easily she could be hurt, it might persuade him to drop his honor and duty stance for a little tension relief. Then Lex would have lost all opportunity to have her, and he
had to possess her. He doubted Lois really was as inexperienced as he had led Mrs. Cox to believe, but with Superman’s ethics, he knew it wouldn’t take much to beat the hero to that conquest. And what a conquest it would be.
No, Lex couldn’t have Superman take Lois away from him, especially now when he was so close to his goal. He would need to get Superman out of the way, somehow. The smear of Superman’s reputation was a nice start to ostracize him, but as he recalled from last November’s campaign, Superman was not easily dissuaded. Lex had already put his other contingency plan into play, but he hated to rely on only one failsafe. Additionally, it would be nice if Superman were broken before he died. It made for a much more satisfying ‘win’. Perhaps if Lex were able to convince Metropolis’s hero of the passions Lois had for her fiancé over him… Hmmmm. That scenario might take more time and effort to set up than he wished to take, but it would be a nice garnish for Superman’s death. Lex would have to think on this subject a while longer.
With a stroke down Lois’s face after she climbed into bed, Lex switched off his monitor and turned to the surveillance report Mrs. Cox had delivered to him earlier in the day. It was a pity that his assistant wasn’t working late that night. On the other hand, he was curious what was being said about him on the Daily Planet’s newsroom floor, and what better way to find out than from the camera still installed over Lois’s old desk.
He hadn’t wanted to waste the time watching the videos himself. Since Lois wasn’t in them, what was the point? He had assigned some mid-level flunky to do the job for him, and to jot down any interesting conversation points.
Ten minutes later, Lex flipped back on his computer monitor and with a few clicks of his mouse, found the conversation the surveillance cameras had picked up. Interesting. It seemed Kent had supplied him with the perfect distraction tool needed. Lex picked up his telephone and called Nigel.
“Yes, sir?” Nigel asked.
“Good work today, Nigel, but let’s tone it down tomorrow. I wouldn’t want Ms. Lane to feel suffocated,” Lex instructed.
Nigel paused before his usual, “Yes, sir.”
“I have a new assignment for Mitch Gordon. Could you have him report to my office as soon as possible for the details?”
“Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?” Nigel asked.
“Yes,” Lex said. “It seems as if I may need to borrow some of your old MI-6 skills again, if you don’t mind?”
Lex could picture the smile forming on Nigel’s lips. “I would enjoy it, sir. What shall be our intended target?”
“Kent and his colleagues the Daily Planet are getting a little too close to discovering something best left buried. Let’s make sure they don’t find it,” Lex instructed. “Take any means necessarily.”
***End of Part 153*** Part 154 Comments
