Part 4: OddSuperman entered S.T.A.R. Labs for the third time in less than a week and went to Dr. Klein's lab.
"Superman, come on in!" Klein said, seeing him before he could knock on the door frame. Klein grew nervous. "Has something else happened?"
"You could say that," he said as he closed the door behind himself.
"What happened?" Klein asked, as curious as he was concerned.
"We have a . . . doctor - patient confidentiality, right?" Superman asked, suddenly hesitant.
"Absolutely," Klein immediately reassured.
"I had another . . . bout of sleepwalking last night. And a few hours ago I slipped into speaking Kryptonian instead of English, and let's just say that is even stranger than it already sounds," Superman said, sighing.
"How can it be stranger? Have you never spoken it before?" Klein asked.
Superman stared at him for a long moment, clearly trying to decide how much he could or should say.
“I don’t want anyone knowing this,” Superman stated.
“I take confidentiality very seriously, Superman. If you don’t want anyone else to know, it will stay between us, and if you don’t want me to know, that’s perfectly fine. I know you haven’t known me for very long,” Klein said understandingly.
Superman slowly exhaled and spoke, knowing how much he would be revealing by answering. "Before today, I didn't know a single word of Kryptonian. Now I could probably get by speaking it like an immigrant."
"Can you show me?"
"Et shalhe Krypton," he said before he translated. "I am from Krypton."
Klein looked extremely honored.
"What?" Superman asked.
"I'm the first human to know a bit of Kryptonian, am I not?" Klein pointed out happily.
Superman blinked before giving a soft smile. Maybe he would eventually be able to talk to someone in Kryptonian. "I suppose you are."
"Well, has anything else happened? Have you determined if there is a trigger? Are you aware when you are in the sleepwalking state, as in, can you make conscious decisions or are you on autopilot?'
"Uh. A mixture, I suppose. It feels like I'm in a dream when it's happening, but I suppose I'm aware enough to make decisions - sort of."
"And a trigger?" Klein prompted.
"Not really, although maybe sunlight? The first one happened when I was watching a sunset and I started speaking Kryptonian after a beam of sunlight shined into my eyes."
"Hmm. It is something to keep in mind at least," Klein said thoughtfully. "As for what started all of this, I have only just started my analysis but I can tell you it is definitely a kind of kryptonite but its crystalline structure is more rigid and orderly than the red and much more than the green.
"I don't have the equipment here yet that'll let me do any deep scans, but the radiation it gives off is very interesting. It's different - as we'd expect considering it doesn't affect you like the other two, but it's not constant, nor does it pulse like the green.
"It does seem to have a musical quality like you described, which is extremely intriguing. I wonder if your senses are so sensitive that you have a degree of synesthesia."
"Synesthesia? Like hearing a color or feeling a word?" he asked, baffled.
"Yes, only you are hearing radiation. Granted, this is just a theory. I could be completely wrong, but this makes the most sense with what we know so far," he said.
Superman nodded. "Well, thank you for looking into this and helping me. I hope the sleepwalking is over now."
"Oh, here. If you need me but the lab is closed, you can call or find me here. I don't care how late or early," he said, giving him his card with a handwritten address and home phone number on the back.
Superman stilled as he read the back. "Thank you, Dr. Klein. I appreciate this."
"It's my pleasure," he said happily.
O o O o O
Lois decided to treat herself, so a bit after Clark had headed home, she went out and grabbed something to eat.
Chocolate pastry in hand, she began walking down the street but suddenly noticed the people around were looking up at something. She shifted her attention to where they were focusing, quickly finding what, or rather who, everyone was staring at.
Superman was standing in midair, two or three stories up, gazing intently at something in the sky as his cape danced in the breeze.
Lois, being her typical bold and daring self, went closer and then called out to him.
"Hi, Superman! What are you doing?" she asked loudly.
Superman startled slightly, losing a foot in altitude before looking down at her.
"Oh, just floating," he answered.
To the bewilderment and excitement of those on the streets, he came down and landed before Lois.
"But I suppose I can walk. Are you going back to the Planet?" he asked, stepping beside her.
"Walk?" she asked, confused.
"I could use a walk I think," he said, before looking around and appearing to enjoy the bustling city, unbothered by the curious looks he was receiving.
"Oh, okay then," Lois said as they began walking to the Daily Planet side-by-side.
She glanced up at him as they crossed the street, which must have been quite the sight. Normally people only saw glimpses of him shooting across the sky. Now he was walking right along with them, even waiting for the light to turn green like everyone else.
"So, uh, how is your day going?" Lois asked.
"Oddly," Superman stated.
"Oddly? What does that mean?" Lois asked, stifling a chuckle at the rather obscure description.
"It's hard to explain," he said as they continued down the block, passing by several awestruck people.
Superman smiled and waved at them.
"I should walk more often," Superman said. "But flying is still better."
"You won't get any argument from me," Lois said with a smile.
Superman smiled back before taking a step onto thin air and suddenly walking on nothing.
"Is that really flying though? You're just walking on air," she said.
To her surprise, Superman laughed. "I suppose that's true."
He stopped moving his feet but continued going forward at her pace.
"And I suppose this is just gliding?" he asked, garnering some laughter from passersby.
She laughed as well, wondering how much stranger things could get. He had never been this talkative or playful before, but she liked it.
"You know, flying backwards is actually easier than you'd think. The trick is knowing where you're going," he said, dropping back down and resuming his steps as if he had never stopped. "Skipping is what's hard."
"Skipping?" she asked, now really bemused. "Is that skipping on the ground or in the air?"
"Both! And no, there will be no demonstrations," Superman clarified firmly.
"Don't worry. I'm not a fan of skipping either," Lois chuckled as they came to the entrance of the Daily Planet.
"Well, I suppose I'll continue walking," Superman said, still appearing oblivious to the reactions of people around him.
"Or you could come inside. Perry would kill me if I didn't attempt to get an interview," Lois said hopefully.
"With who?" Superman asked, confused, which frankly confused her.
"You, of course!"
Superman looked down at himself, as if expecting to find himself wearing something else, but then he looked back up and shrugged.
"Alright," he said.
She inwardly frowned. Something was a little . . . off with him. Outwardly, she smiled and led the way.
They entered the Planet and she headed to her desk. Superman meandered over, looking a little bored if she was honest. Lois glanced at her coworkers who were excited to see Superman so close.
"Let's go to the conference room, Superman," she said, deciding that would be the best place. Less distractions.
"Superman! To what do we owe this pleasure?" Perry asked, intercepting them between the bullpen and the conference room.
“An interview, Perry,” she answered as Superman’s gaze panned to the right, as if distracted by something unseen. Super hearing?
"I think it's happening again," Superman said plainly.
"What's happening again?" Lois asked, now a fair distance away from the rest of the Planet's employees, in part because of Perry’s presence.
"I apologize now if I say or do anything odd. Do you prefer pies or brownies?" he asked.
"What?" she asked, shooting a baffled and slightly worried look at Perry.
“Why don’t you conduct the interview in my office?” Perry proposed, his reporter instincts screaming at him to get Superman out of view as soon as possible. Lois looked grateful.
“Sure,” Superman said, following him and moving away from curious eyes.
Perry closed the door and thankfully the blinds were already closed.
“Are you okay, Superman?” Lois asked after a moment.
“Uh . . . not sure,” he frowned. “Am I sleepwalking? This feels really weird. Hard to focus.”
“Do you know what’s happening to him, Lois?” Perry asked.
“No, but I think it started that day at the park. When he drew with the chalk,” Lois theorized.
“Horses.” Superman frowned. “Krypton had H’Raka, but those were more like mutated dragons. Horses are prettier, but they can’t fly.”
“Superman, let’s sit down and try to figure this out because it’s clear something is going on,” Perry said, motioning to the plaid couch.
Superman immediately sat on the middle of the couch and sighed in relief. “Okay.”
“So you mentioned this has happened before?” Perry asked, taking a seat by his desk while Lois sat in the chair closest to the couch. “You feeling this way, I mean.”
“Yeah, but it was worse. Only afterwards did I know it was real. Slept-walked," Superman answered. "At least now I know it's happening. I think anyway."
Lois’ eyes widened in alarm.
“Do you know what’s causing this?” Lois asked.
“Purple. Purple chimes. No. I mean Kryptonite, but it’s purple. It made me hear chimes.” He rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.
“Kryptonite?! When were you exposed? How bad was it?” Lois asked quickly.
“Not bad. Sort of good. I’m remembering Krypton.” He smiled softly.
“Remembering?” Lois asked, noting he didn't seem with it enough to answer more than one question in a row.
“Forgotten memories and things I never knew. Write. I need to write,” he stated, growing abrupt.
Perry quickly grabbed a pen and a notepad off his desk and offered them to him. “Here."
“Thanks,” he said, taking the pen and jotting things down too quickly for them to see before he went to the next page, and then the next and the next.
Perry and Lois looked at each other as Superman became immersed in whatever he was doing.
“Malkagap trelits etal lo anidyugam,” Superman muttered to himself.
“Superman?” Lois asked, concerned.
He put the pad and pen aside and slumped -slumped- back against the couch, closing his eyes. Before Lois and Perry could believe what they were seeing, Superman was fast asleep.
"What do we do?" Lois whispered.
"Let him sleep. It's clear whatever is happening is taking a lot out of him," Perry surmised.
"Should we call a doctor?" Lois asked.
"Do you think they could help?" Perry asked grimly.
"Good point," she sighed as she took the notepad and looked at it. "Whoa."
She turned it around and showed Perry.
"It's more of the writing he did at the park, although this portion looks like a diagram of something," he said, before flipping through the pages.
"What's that?" Lois asked.
The page was a well-drawn sketch of something pill-shaped with a hinged door and other features, each with a line to a word they could not read.
"Looks like a . . . spaceship," Perry said.
"For one person?" Lois wondered aloud before they turned to the last page which revealed a front view of what had to be the same vessel.
It was drawn with the hatch door closed, but what immediately had their attention was the crest at the nose of the craft. It was Superman's emblem.
"Do you think . . . ?" Perry asked.
"Must be the ship he came here in," she whispered reverently, sliding her fingers over it.
They looked back at Superman who was still sound asleep, and they were both struck by the surrealness of the moment.
"Do we just leave him to sleep?" Lois asked.
"I think we should, but let's make him more comfortable," he said, getting up. "Don't bother removing his boots. They seem clean enough anyway," he said as he eased Superman's head and shoulders down to the arm of the couch. Lois got his legs, a little surprised by how heavy they were.
After a little struggle, they got him flat on the couch.
"People are going to expect an article of some sort after this," Lois warned.
"We can hold off a bit," Perry assured. "There's plenty of excuses I can tell the people upstairs if they push, though I doubt it'll be an issue. In the meantime, I'll stay here with him."
Lois hesitated, not wanting to leave just yet, but then she stood up. "I'll check back in an hour."
Perry nodded before she quickly left, thankful, not for the first time, that the couch was out of view from the door.
O o O o O
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