Oh wow, Hasini, what a fascinating, harrowing, mysterious chapter!
Gary Westlake sat sprawled on the big armchair, looking very much removed from his role of New Troy senator, and more like a rakish college boy with his tawny hair in disarray and his tie askew.
Gary Westlake - doesn't he sound like the perfect kind of Caucasian Protestant American good guy with Anglo-Saxon roots? I'm not saying that is what he necessarily
is, but that is what his name makes him sound like.
His wife Asha sat ramrod straight on the couch, gazing steadily at Clark as he leaned against the mantelpiece. She looked every inch the socialite and ornamental political wife - pristine and unrumpled even at ten in the night. The firelight seemed to transform her into Greek statue; her wheat-colored hair a river of gold.
But now Asha - she seems like a totally different creature. That name doesn't sound Anglo-Saxon or European at all to me. If her name reminds me of anything at all, it reminds me of Aisha, the Prophet Muhammed's favorite wife. And she looks like a Greek statue. There is definitely something mysterious, strange or perhaps magical about Asha.
“They want me to pull the plug,” ground out Clark, staring unseeingly at the fire. “They don’t think Lois is going to wake up.”
...
“You don’t mean that.” Gary’s eyes were steely with a hint of an emotion deep within their grey depths that neither man cared to name. Clark was reminded, for the first time in many long years that this man had loved the same woman he did, once upon a lifetime.
So Gary Westlake is Lois's former boyfriend. And Asha is... the woman he married instead of Lois.
“Clark, how many times has Lois got herself into these situations and still pulled through at the eleventh hour?” interjected Asha with conviction. “It’s one of her specialties, you know that!”
“You’re one to talk,” said her husband wryly, “It’s not like you’re far behind in that respect. The pair of you together are about as unpredictable as a mobile C4 factory.” Clark felt the corners of his mouth tug upward in a ghost of a smile, despite himself. Gary had a point. As close as Clark was to the Westlakes, his wife’s friendship with the Englishwoman hadn’t always been a reason for delight to him.
Hmmm. You had me say that Asha's name doesn't sound Anglo-Saxon. For all of that, she is an Englishwoman. And she and Lois have obviously been great friends, doing dangerous things together.
“He said…” Clark gritted his teeth, not wanting to say it aloud. “He said Interpol’s looking for a body now.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and looked at his friends in desperation. How would he face Lois once she woke up, only to let her know he had let her little sister die?
Oh, the horror. But honestly, why have both sisters Lane been attacked at the same time?
The Westlakes looked up at him with something akin to consternation. “You just got home!” said Asha disapprovingly. “Where’s the fire?”
“No fire. I put it out earlier,” rejoined Clark wryly and was rewarded by a slight smile from her. “It’s just…”
Do the Westlakes know that Clark is Superman? If so, is it a good thing that they know?
Clark looked at the earnest faces of his friends and hesitated. “Call me crazy, but I didn’t feel great about leaving her side tonight. Maybe it’s because of what Andy told me today. I don’t know. I just want to know for myself that she’s safe.”
Oh-oh. This kind of premonition makes it seem certain that Lois is going to be attacked tonight!
“Clark, you’ve been practically living at that hospital for weeks now, and you’ve just started showing your face about your own house again,” said Ash, although her eyes were sympathetic. “Lois has been under guard by our best people since she was admitted. Surveillance, stake out teams, you name it. Travis is on duty tonight. She’s perfectly safe.”
But Asha doesn't want Clark to spend the night at Lois's side. Why not?
“Just like Carmen was perfectly safe?” said Clark, bitterly. Her murder was just one of the things that had made him feel like the universe had spun completely out of his control.
“We don’t know that it was Carmen, Clark...”
“Ash!” both Clark and Gary exclaimed in exasperation.
“Sweetheart, her boyfriend ID ed her body…” began Gary.
Someone named Carmen has been killed, but Asha doesn't want to admit that Carmen is dead? Why not?
“Nobody’s dead until I see a body!” shot back Asha.
“Well, you did see Carmen’s body, and you’re still not convinced…” Gary rolled his eyes. Clark could never doubt that Gary Westlake loved his wife, but even he couldn’t deny that she redefined the meaning of “paranoid”. Which was probably why she had lived as long as this - a fact which she kept reminding them both.
“Well, not till I see a DNA test, then,” said Asha resolutely, “Which we never got to do, seeing as she was buried post-haste…rather strange for a high-profile murder case, don’t you think? And you didn’t help matters…”
“Ash, you wanted to exhume her! Quite apart from the fact that I’m not going to be the state senator that pulls strings to have random bodies dug up to run DNA tests, we shouldn’t have any visible interest in the case!”
Hmmmm. Was Asha serious about wanting to exhume Carmen? Did she honestly expect that the body would turn out to be someone else? Or was Asha just trying to make people doubt that Carmen is dead, since she knew that the body wouldn't be exhumed anyway?
“What are you doing out of bed, sweethearts?”
“We were waiting for you, Daddy,” said Lara. She scooped up her teddy bear and bounded down the stairs to be picked up by her father. “Are you goin’ again?”
“No, he isn’t,” said Asha decisively, coming out of the sitting room. She picked up her coat from the hall closet and allowed Gary to help her into it. “Clark, I’ll go and check up on Lois for you. Andy knows me as well as any of you.”
Asha makes the decision for Clark that he isn't going to the hospital. Hmmm. I don't think I like it.
“You need to spend some time with the kids, Clark,” said Asha. “They need you more than anybody. Even Lois. I’ll go to her. You trust me, don’t you?”
Was it just Clark’s imagination or did that question seem loaded?
Maybe it was loaded, Clark. And maybe you shouldn't trust her.
“Good.” She reached up and kissed Lara on the cheek. “I’ll call you from the hospital.
So did she? Call from the hospital, I mean?
Nightie night, chickabids.”
She bent down to kiss the top of Marta’s head. To Clark’s surprise, the child dodged her and hid behind Clark.
Now that is what I call scary!
Clark’s surprise was mirrored in Gary’s face, but Asha simply seemed resigned. What was that about, Clark wondered.
Before he could ask her, Asha had shepherded her husband out the door.
And Asha makes sure that she and her husband leave before Clark can ask her any questions.
“My turn! My turn!” declared Lara, as she disappeared into the library. Clark could only pray she wouldn’t come out dragging D. H. Lawrence again.
“Madame, Operation Sargon is successful. Over and out.”
What? What? Operation Sargon? And who is Madame? Asha Westlake?
“Welcome to the future: Westgate.”
“Live, Lois! Live!”
Asha Westlake. Roland West. Westgate. What's all this "West" about?
“Clear!” Dr. Sanders pressed down with the paddles as though he were pouring every ounce of his own remaining energy into that last jolt. Lois’ upper body arced backward with the force of the shock.
And flopped back down lifelessly.
One eternal millisecond of stunned, disbelieving finality.
A screaming, spasming gasp for breath erupted from her mouth. The horizontal line on the heart monitor spiked upward sharply, its screeching bleep breaking into a pulsing staccato of life.
Yes! Yes!
Yess!!! “I’m not going anywhere, and that’s a promise! Got that, Kent?”
“Lois, if I lost you, I would lose myself.”
“Come back to me, Lois.”
“Wake up, Lois!”
“LOIS!”
She stared at the blackness beneath her eyelids for a moment.
And her eyes snapped open.
White.
Blinding white.
Thank god, she is awake... but that blinding white is worrying.
Kudos to anyone who can guess at the symbolic significance behind Lois’ room number – 786.
I googled 786, and this is what Wikipedia told me:
786 is a sphenic number. 50 can be partitioned into powers of two in 786 different ways (sequence A000123 in OEIS).
786 might be the largest n for which the value of the central binomial coefficient is not divisible by an odd prime squared. If there is a larger such number, it would have to be at least 157450 (see A059097).
Did you get that? Me either.
Okay, Wikipedia said this, too:
The Arabic letters of the opening phrase of the Qur'an (the Bismillah phrase Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim "In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful") sum to the numerical value 786 in the system of Abjad numerals.
Okay, if I got it correctly, 786 symbolizes the opening phrase of the Qur'an, which is "In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful". However, according to another interpretation, 786 could also symbolize the Hindu god Krishna!
Interesting! Are you sure Asha's name isn't the same name as Aisha, the Prophet Muhammed's favorite wife?
I, too, wonder if we are meant to believe that Asha is really the villain of this story - that would be so easy to believe right now!!! - only to find out later that she really is some kind of heroine?
Great story, Hasini! I love it!
Ann
