Previously, in Chapter Five
“Clark Kent – it’s time to level with me. I may be a bit rusty, but my reporter’s instincts tells me that Superman doesn’t do this kind of thing very often. In fact, from what I read about you when I was at the newspaper today, after you broke off your engagement with the Lang woman, you’ve been keeping quite a low personal profile. So spill it.”
Chapter Six
“Wow, what they said about you is so true, Lois. You don’t mince words, you keep digging until you get down to the bare bones. Well, what I’m going to tell you may shock you, and you may think I’m crazy. But I can assure you, it’s all true.”
“I’m listening………”
“Okay. Well, you know how you were questioning exactly *what* picture I was showing everyone when I was looking for you? It wasn’t a doctored picture of your sister, Lucy. It was a picture of Lois Lane.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Have you heard of the the term ‘doppelganger’?” Clark asked, realizing that if he didn’t handle this conversation well, the rest of the evening could go downhill fast!
“Yes…they say that everyone, somewhere on this planet, has a twin.”
“How about if they’re *not* on *this* planet, Lois? Have you heard of a scientific theory that parallel worlds coexist right next to us, but we don’t see them because their vibrational frequency is different than ours?”
“That sounds like the stuff of comic books, Clark. Is that where your dead planet is? In a parallel universe?”
“No, Lois. This has nothing to do with Krypton. That was in this universe, but in a whole other galaxy. No, I’m talking about an earth that is mostly identical to this one…with people and cities that are nearly the same…”
Lois’ mind was whirling, attempting to take in what Clark was trying to tell her in order to form a cohesive sentence. “OK, another Lois Lane…doppelgangers…parallel worlds..so that picture is a Lois Lane from a parallel universe, an earth nearly identical to this one, and in that world she’s – I’m – thin?”
Clark nodded. “”Exactly. Wow. I can see why you were the valedictorian of your class at Met U.”
“You’re right, I *do* think you’re crazy,” Lois spit out. “Do you write science fiction in your spare time, Clark? Because – “
Clark grabbed and steadied Lois’ arm to stop her hand from waving around in the air at him. “Lois…I’m completely serious. Let me start at the beginning of this bizarre story. Try not to interrupt me until I get through it. If you still think I’m nuts after you hear me out, that’s your right, of course.”
Lois sighed. “Fair enough. I owe you that much for the flight, the clothes and this wonderful restaurant Better make it believable or I’ll be writing an expose on how Superman doesn’t *always* tell the truth.”
“Okay. Here goes. It began about four years after you disappeared, in 1996. Lana – my fiancée at the time- and I were planning our wedding. I was at the Daily Planet and she had just stopped by to remind me that we were having dinner with her parents that night. All of a sudden, this woman I’d never met – this *other* world’s Lois Lane – came rushing up to me, telling me how glad she was to see me - *and* Superman. Of course, I had no idea who she was, and there was no Superman at the time. Lana was ticked off when she gave me a big hug, so she immediately got in her face and introduced herself as my fiancée.”
Lois laughed. “It was like she peed on you to mark her territory. I know the type. Whoops, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Clark smiled. “Yeah, something like that. She *was* very controlling. Anyway, this Lois was with a short man wearing turn of the century clothing including a bowler hat. At the time, everyone thought that this woman was you – and they thought you had run off to the Congo to chase that story you were working on. Perry gave her a big hug, and I could tell he was surprised at her appearance, because he told her that she looked ‘emaciated’. The little man with her told everyone that she had just come out of a coma and she’d been at a mission for the past three years. Everyone bought the story, and Perry and James Olsen, the new owner of the Planet, offered her a job. Strangely enough, she asked to be teamed up with *me*. That didn’t go over well with Lana, as you can imagine.”
Lois nodded, taking it all in, as the waiter came with their appetizers. “I think I would *hate* your ex-fiancee. Go on…”
“Well, this Lois cornered me and told me that she knew about my abilities. I was flabbergasted because well, the only one that ever knew about the extraordinary gifts that I have was Lana. She was afraid that if anyone found out, they would capture me and use me for a lab rat. She made me promise that I wouldn’t use my powers in public. But there were times that I had to. I couldn’t let someone get hurt knowing that I could help. So inevitably we’d argue about it, and I’d reluctantly end up promising I wouldn’t do it again, knowing it was a promise I was never meant to keep.”
“Yep, I hate her. Keep going,” Lois urged. “So you teamed up with my twin from the other world and…”
“Well this Lois knew more about my origins - where I came from, etc – than I did. Then she told me that she and her associate, whose name was H.G. Wells, was from an alternate universe, where she was engaged to that world’s Clark Kent who had a secret identity of – Superman.”
“Really? H.G. Wells, the science fiction writer? He died in the 1940’s! And she’s engaged to Superman in that world?”
“Actually, they’re married now. And the H.G. Wells of that world not only writes science fiction, but he was an inventor as well. He built a time machine that also had the ability to cross over to alternate universes as well.”
Lois grabbed a stuffed mushroom and, chewing slowly to make it last, rolled her eyes at Clark. “Mm-hmm. Go on….”
“Well, when Wells first built the machine he traveled to the 22nd century and met a guy named Tempus. To prove to his contemporaries back in his era that he had actually found a way to visit the future, he took Tempus back with him in the time machine. It turned out that in the era Tempus was from, called Utopia, there was no war or crime. It had been banished by the descendants of that world’s Lois and Clark. The two of them stopped in 1995 to find Superman and his future wife, because the flux facilitator which runs the machine was fueled by 14k gold and he was counting on that’s world’s Clark/Superman to help him locate some more so he could get back to his own time. Tempus was supposed to wait by the time machine while Herb – that’s what I call H.G. Wells now – came inside the Daily Planet to find Clark and Lois.
“Instead, Tempus decided to wander around Metropolis. Apparently he witnessed a mugging and was enthralled with the lure of violence and greed. He robbed a jewelry store to obtain fuel for the time machine and planned to go back in time to Smallville, 1966 to kill Clark just as his spaceship landed. In this way, there would be no Utopia.
“Ultimately, Clark built a duplicate of the time machine and the three of them ultimately saved the day and trapped Tempus in an 1866 insane asylum. They thought they had heard the end of him, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
Lois eyed Clark with suspicion. “I hope you know how ridiculous this sounds. If I hadn’t seen you fly – flown with you – myself, I’d be writing myself a front page expose right now with the headline: ‘Super-Crazy-Man claims parallel universes exist!”
Ignoring Lois’ comment for the moment, Clark continued. “So now Lois and Wells were telling me that Tempus had kidnapped both of them and they had been taken from their own dimension and brought to *our* world. Tempus had managed to build his own time machine and added the ability to transcend dimensions as well. He was running for Mayor against Perry, and he would travel between this world and his own, robbing banks and then using his machine to return here, where he wasn’t wanted for larceny. He felt that bringing the other world’s Lois to our world would give me the incentive to become Superman, and he was right. Whereas Lana made me promise not to use my gifts to help people, your twin from the other world showed me a picture of her and *her* Clark and she even fashioned me this costume, exactly like the other Clark’s. Eventually, Lana and I broke up because she couldn’t handle me being Superman. Tempus exposed me as Clark Kent when he tried to kill me with Kryptonite at the debate. In the other Clark’s world, no one knows that Clark Kent is Superman. Apparently a pair of glasses and a change in mannerisms does the trick. Personally, I don’t see how it works, but…
“There must be a bunch of stupid people in that dimension,” Lois remarked, snacking on another stuffed mushroom while she rolled her eyes at him again.
“The other Lois had to leave to go back to her world once Tempus was arrested for attempting to kill me and Perry White. After hearing that the Clark and Lois of that world were responsible for creating a future Utopian society, I began looking for you in earnest. Somehow, I knew you were still alive. I felt you inside of me, somehow. And that’s the ‘Reader’s Digest’ version.”
“Were you in love with her?” Lois asked, looking Clark square in the eyes.
“What? Why would you ask that?” Clark responded, feeling flushed all of a sudden.
The wait staff came to deliver their entrees, providing a momentary reprieve for the suddenly man of jello.
“Oh, well, let’s see,” continued Lois as soon as they were alone again. “You carry a picture of her around, supposedly because there wasn’t any really taken of me. The children told me that you looked love-sick when you showed them the picture. You break up with your childhood sweetheart, and then don’t date anyone else. You find out that she’s engaged to the ‘you’ of the other world, and our twins over there apparently will have quite a brood of descendants, a virtual dynasty of do-gooders that form this ‘Utopia’. You fell in love with *her*, and you’ve been looking for *me*, hoping that lightning will strike twice in one lifetime. That about sum it up, Superman?”
<God, she’s good. *Too* good>. Clark’s body language gave him away. “Do you want to hear the truth?”
“Well, I might not *like* the truth, but yes, if we’re ever going to work together back in the States, we need to come clean with each other. So, yes, Clark Kent, I want you to be brutually honest with me.”
“At the time, I *thought* I was in love with her. In fact, Wells recently asked me to fill in for her husband in the other Metropolis. He was missing, again at the hands of Tempus, and my presence there was necessary in order to protect his secret identity. That was really hard for both of us. She missed her Clark, and since I look just like him, it would have been easy for her to transfer her feelings for him to me. And I’ve been so lonely since Lana and I broke up and she left. Lois showed me what my destiny was – to help people. She helped give me direction. I’ve had no inspiration in my life since she went back to her own world.”
“Is that what you’re doing now, Clark? Transferring your feelings for ‘thin Lois’ to me? Because I may have lost some weight, but I can tell you, I’ll never be thin. The way I look right now is probably as good as it will ever get, buster! Deal with it!”
Clark couldn’t help but crack a smile at Lois’ rant. “No, Lois, that’s not what I’m doing. I believe that you could be my soul mate. You, not the other Lois. Your weight doesn’t matter to me.”
“Bullsh*t!” Lois spit out. ‘’You said that you would be honest with me, now be honest with yourself. There’s not a red-blooded man alive that *really* likes an overweight woman. Oh, we can be friends, because fat girls make the best friends for good-looking guys. We can give you a woman’s insight, help you land the woman of your dreams, we’ll listen when things aren’t going well, but you’ll never get the hots for me like you probably had for her –“
Clark impulsively placed his hands around Lois’ face and kissed her passionately. Lois fought it at first, but then kissed him back.
They came up for air after several minutes. “Wow,” said Lois. “I suppose I *could* be wrong, even though it doesn’t occur very often.”
“Lois…there is more to the story. Recently, Wells and I went back in time to try to find out where you disappeared to back in 1992.”
Lois’ eyes widened. “Omigod. So you know what happened to me?”
“Sort of. I was floating outside your bedroom window the night of May 16, 1992 around 7:00pm. You were out cold on the bed. Did you take some kind of drugs that night?”
A little embarrassed, Lois admitted, “Don’t hate me for it, but back then I kind of had an understanding with Perry. After Claude had made me the laughing-stock of the office, every now and then it would all build up inside of me and I’d have to leave work early with some lame excuse, and come home and crash for the rest of the day. It was my way of coping with my lack of a social life. I would take a low dose of tranquilizers and some herbal sleeping pills. Usually the next day I’d be as good as new. Well, that was one of those days. I’d had a little run-in with Claude in regards to my gun-running story in the Congo and I just had to get out of there!”
“Wow,” Clark responded. “I’m sorry, Lois. It sure sounds like you needed a good friend back then.”
“So…finish the story. You went back in time, you were floating outside my window while I was sleeping. What did you see?”
“Tempus. He just… materialized right in your bedroom for a split second. Using some type of device, he touched your face and you both disappeared – right in front of my eyes. Tempus has vowed to stop Utopia and he keeps targeting the Lois and Clarks from both dimensions. He pulled you out of 1992 and apparently just dropped you in the jungle, 3 years later. This way, when I moved to Metropolis, I wouldn’t meet you. It made both of us miserable, since, apparently, we’re supposed to be together.”
Lois looked like she was going to freak out. “Omigod! He came into my bedroom – snatched me out of my life – dropped me off in the middle of Africa – just so the two of us wouldn’t meet? Then why did he bring the other Lois over here?”
“Because he knew she would make me into Superman. That would ensure that Lana and I would break up, and I’d be alone, pining for a woman that wasn’t mine to have. He’s a dangerous psychotic, Tempus is. He’s a lover of irony.”
“Where is he, now?”
“The elders of Utopia finally were able to bring him back to his own time, where he will hopefully be incarcerated. He’s the only criminal of that time – it’s apparently a pretty perfect world.”
“So we’re safe?” Lois said hopefully.
“One thing, I’ve learned, Lois….when it comes to dangerous madmen, you’re never *really* safe. But I can assure you, now that I’ve found you, I’ll do everything in my power to protect you from harm,” Clark replied with sincerity.
“So where does all of this leave us…you and me? I’m not exactly the same as this other, thin, Lois.”
“You’re both impulsive, obstinate, brilliant, pig-headed, beautiful, warm-hearted….believe me, there are enough similarities,” Clark joked as Lois tried to slap him.
“Can I meet her? This other Lois? Can you reach this Wells guy? I want to see a thin version of me. Please?
“Lois…I never know when Herb is going to pop in for a visit, but the next time he comes around…I will ask him.”
“Fair enough,” Lois replied. “Let’s finish our dinner. I need to digest not only the food, but all of this information. To say it’s a bizarre story is quite the understatement…”
“I know, Lois. I’m sorry to lay all of this on you,” Clark empathized, placing his hand on her arm. “It will get better from this point on.”
Lois looked around at the glittering lights of Paris and remarked, “It’s pretty good right now, actually.”
TBC….Sunday…
