This didn’t make sense.
Lois had been worried that her younger self might have found her savings account and rifled through it. At that age, $5000 would have seemed like an invitation for an upgraded car or a shopping spree.
Apparently, she had. But instead of a spending spree, there was too much money….far more than 17 year old Lois could have ever earned, even if she’d made good money freelancing stories. Somehow, she’d managed to add thirty thousand dollars to the account.
Uneasy, Lois looked around and carefully slipped the paper with her balance on it into her back pocket.
Teenage Lois couldn’t have made this kind of money honestly. It didn’t make sense; even when she was this young, Lois had known better than to risk jail time for the sake of a few dollars…or even more than a few dollars.
She put people away, she didn’t commit crimes herself.
This was going to mean trouble.
If she didn’t find a way to stop these periods of being submerged and unconscious, she’d wake up to find Clark dead again, and all of it would have been for nothing.
At least she remembered the name of the man who had developed the technology. She’d met him once. He was an older man, in his early sixties. Bearded, and with a bitter and defeated look, the man hadn’t seemed to like anyone. John Templeton had been a irritable old coot, but from the reports, he’d been working on his theories for years, looking to get a major governmental agency to sponsor his work.
He’d been living in Metropolis for 15 years at least, so he should be somewhere she could reach.
Maybe he would have some answers as to what was happening to her.
****************
Lois missed Jimmy. John Templeton wasn’t in the phone book, and without access to any sort of internet records, she had to search for information the old fashioned way.
The last thing she wanted to do in the afternoon before the big game was to be pouring through physics journals hoping to find out which university or organization he was affiliated with. She’d been doing this for hours with little more than a three or four year idea of when he might have made his discovery and published his first paper on it.
Lois flipped through one more section of microfiche when the stopped. The title was right before her eyes.
“Practical Time Travel.”
Most of the titles Lois had been reading for the past three hours had been nineteen words long, followed by four or five different researchers and their assistants. The simplicity of this one stunned her.
The paper that followed wasn’t any better than the others though, filled with esoteric jargon and words she couldn’t understand.
What she could understand was that the doctor apparently worked for a local think tank, one that was one of the laboratories that had been assimilated to form Star Labs later in the decade.
She had a company name. Finding the scientist himself would be easy. Lois could only hope that he could help her.
In the meantime, she had a ball game to go to.
***************
Lois felt a sense of anticipation she hadn’t felt for a football game since she was a teenager. Although she’d followed the games religiously, at the time it was mostly because she was competing with Linda King for the editor of the school paper.
She had a weird flash of memory of herself making bets on the telephone. It wasn’t something she’d ever do, of course. One or two long shot bets could be explained away as luck. Winning every game, or even most of them would arouse suspicions.
Louie was a nice guy, sort of. The people he worked for weren’t.
Grimacing, Lois tried not to think about the money hidden away in her bank account. That money was going to be hard to explain away to the IRS. Five thousand dollars could have been gifts, or summer working money. Thirty five thousand dollars was going to raise some flags.
Her younger self was an idiot. This was something that should have been apparent from the romantic choices she’d made back in the day.
The overcast skies weren’t auspicious. The game could be called on account of the weather, and Lois didn’t want that.
Seeing the waving hands several rows across, Lois headed for her sister and her friends. This was Lucy’s first game at the college, and she was playing the big shot with her friends.
Lucy had found them a nice spot less than halfway up the bleachers. Sitting down, Lois smiled at her sister and said, “What do you think? You think we have a chance?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I hear their running back is something exceptional. Kent something.”
“Clark Kent,” Lois corrected absently. “He’s a sophomore. They say he’s being scouted by the NFL.”
It amazed Lois to think that she’d sat here for this same game the first time, and had never known that one of the players on the field was going to have such an impact on her life.
Lois frowned as she noticed a figure sitting nearby. She excused herself and worked her way down a few seats.
“Bobby?” Lois asked, tapping him on the shoulder. He had two hot dogs and a container of nachos in the seat beside him. “What are you doing here?”
He startled, and the hot dog went flying. “Get away from me Lois. If the wrong people see me talking to you, they’d assume I was your source.”
“Source,” Lois asked, feeling a little stupid. As far as she could tell, her alter ego hadn’t continued her newspaper career.
“Nobody’s been able to figure out how you always pick the winners, but if I was you, I’d quit doing it. If people see me talking to you, they might think Mr. Vincenti was rigging the game…which he’s not, today at least. So scat, vamoose. Leave a man to his dog in peace.”
Stung by his rejection, Lois returned to sit near her sister.
It wasn’t long before the game started, and Lois finally appreciated Clark Kent’s athletic side. He was just a little faster an more agile than the best of them, but the way he moved was poetry in motion.
The first time around she’d been busily writing own game information to impress what’s his name…the one Linda had betrayed her for.
She refused to think about any of them right now. She found herself hungrily watching for times when he’d take his helmet off, and there were times she felt a thrill as he seemed to scan the seats, looking for a particular face.
Toward the end of the fourth quarter, his eyes met hers and she felt an electric jolt.
If Lois hadn’t felt that she was being watched, it would have been perfect.
***********
Lois had just reached her car when she felt a hand on her arm. She spun, trying a throw she’d learned in judo. The figure behind her didn’t fly over her shoulder. It didn’t move at all.
Clark had always had an usual solidity to him.
She stepped back and stared up at him. He’d already slipped out of his uniform, and though he should have smelled of stale sweat and dirty socks, he smelled fresh and clean.
Idly, Lois wondered about the effects of 17 year old hormones on a 28 year old mind. He looked really good. He’d trimmed his hair, and he was already looking a little more like the Clark she’d once known.
“Aunt Opal never met you,” he began. “And the way you ran out on me the last time…was it something I did?”
Lois shook her head, then leaned back against her car. “I just realized that things weren’t the way I’d thought they were. Sometimes just wanting something doesn’t make it yours.”
“How did you even know about me?” Clark asked. “It’s not like I’m famous enough to encourage someone to come halfway across the country to meet me.”
Looking up into his eyes, Lois said “What if I told you that I’d known you in another life.”
“I’d say it sounded a little kooky,” Clark said. He leaned against the car as well, invading her personal space a little. Lois didn’t move away. “Then I’d ask what we were to each other.”
“Best friends,” Lois said. She hesitated, then said, “More, maybe.”
They were both silent for a long moment, then Lois spoke again. “I’m not sure how long I’m going to have.” Given how unstable her consciousness was now, she couldn’t afford to leave him in the dark. What if her next shift took her to the day after he died. “There are some things I have to warn you about. You have to watch out for a man named…”
At that moment, Lois felt the first drop of rain hit her nose. It was quickly followed by many more; in the space of a few seconds, it was a torrential downpour.
She fumbled for her keys and jammed them in the lock, gesturing for Clark to head for the passenger’s side.
She struggled with the door handle. It tended to stick, but as she rarely had passengers, it hadn’t mattered much.
The door opened, and Clark slipped inside quickly. He seemed larger than usual within the small confines of the car, and Lois noted that the windshield was fogging up quickly.
“Clark,” she said. There were so many things she needed to tell him…not just about what he was going to have to watch out for, but about how she felt. She felt an urge to open herself up, release all the guilt and grief and pain that had been her whole existence for so long.
She couldn’t, of course. It was going to be hard enough for him to remember the things he needed to hear without listening to the ramblings of what seemed to be a love sick school girl.
Hesitating, Lois found herself at a loss for words. How do you tell someone that they were going to fall in love, be betrayed, and die without ever having their love returned.
“You need to watch out for Lex Luthor,” Lois said.
“The millionaire?” Clark stiffened. “Why?”
“He’s a billionaire,” Lois said absently. “I don’t think he’s a threat to you yet, but he will be.”
There was a flash of something in his face, of fear and uncertainty.
“You’ll be ok, Clark.” She said quickly, reaching out and covering her hand with his.
It was a mistake. Lois’s hands were cold, and his were warm, and she was acutely aware of the sensation of her flesh on his.
“Why would Lex Luthor know anything about me?” Clark’s voice still seemed tense.
“He doesn’t yet. But in the future, you’ll fight over a girl…”
Clark visibly relaxed. With an explosive sigh, he grinned at her. “You had me for a minute there. You ought to take up fortune telling; people will believe anything you say.”
“What? No!” Lois felt bewildered. What had she said?
“The idea that I would be competing for the sort of girl that Lex Luthor dates is flattering, but I’m just a farm boy from Kansas. The sort of women Lex Luthor would date would be way out of my league. The next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that I’ll be going out with a supermodel.”
“No,” Lois said, irritated. “Just learning ball room dancing from a Nigerian princess.”
Clark’s expression froze, and he pulled away from her. “How did you know about that? Even my parents don’t know.”
Confused, Lois looked at Clark. “I didn’t think you did that until after you started traveling the world.”
“I went to England this summer. I met Amadi there. She was ten.” Clark scowled. “There’s no way you could know that.”
Lois closed her eyes for a moment. This was all going wrong. It wasn’t how she’d envisioned it.
“Who are you, and why have you been following me? Who do you work for?”
The anxiety in Clark’s voice was mixed with anger. For the first time Lois wished the darkness would come and carry her away, but it didn’t.
