TOC Part 16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOURNAL ENTRY #17
JANUARY, 1995 TO
MAY, 1996
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We had a bit of a scare in early January. Actually, two. The first was when Lois and Clark got mixed up with a bunch of spies. It turned out that Jimmy's father was actually a secret agent, a fact which we filed away in case we ever needed it. The scare came when some people decided to try to spy on Lois and Clark... and Clark noticed. He cleaned out the bugs at the Planet, in his apartment, and in Lois's apartment. He even got a few of our older ones.
Luckily, we'd gradually upgraded our equipment over the years, sometimes specifically because of Clark. He didn't catch our more recent plants. Still, we were all on edge for a while. Gradually, it became clear that he'd assumed all the bugs had been planted by the same people, and that there were no more. At least, we were pretty sure that was how he saw things. That didn't stop us from walking around on super-thin eggshells for the next week or two, though.
Somewhere in there, we got a jolt from an entirely different direction. Lois and Clark had gotten engaged in November, about a month after Gina and me. After talking to Bibbo, the Shadows, and a couple of others, we'd picked the weekend before Valentine's Day for the wedding date. It was as quiet as any other time of the year, and it seemed romantic. After Lois and Clark got engaged, they took a while before they even started looking into dates. They had a lot of friends and relatives to consider, too, and a lot of planning. With our relatively short engagement, we figured we'd be fine.
We were shocked when we found out that Lois and Clark had chosen the same day! It was too late to change things. Bibbo had already gotten his license from the city, and changing the date on it would be a huge hassle. We didn't know what to do. We knew we wouldn't be invited to the wedding, of course, but we'd kind of wanted to be there in spirit (and maybe electronically, though there was some discussion about the morality of that). We were also worried, given Lois and Clark's collective track record, that something would go wrong.
When things got close to The Week, we went into high gear. Or, as much as we could with the President scheduled to come into town. We made sure that things were so quiet that even Superman noticed. Our software tripped when it heard Lois calling Clark in a panic. It turned out to be nothing more than a case of pre-wedding jitters (which I certainly could sympathize with), but, before we turned the microphones off, we heard Clark assure Lois that there wasn't a villain in sight.
There had been something the week before about Lois disappearing, but even Clark admitted that it was only for ten seconds. We weren't sure what the big deal was, but with so much else going on (including our own wedding preparations), we decided not to worry about it.
Faster than I'd thought possible, The Day came. It was beautiful. The whole week had been unseasonably warm. Possibly due to Hamilton's work with Smiley's weather control device. We were never sure. In any case, we went out into the harbor on a bright clear day. The city stretched around us in all directions. Light glistened off the waves. We stood, surrounded by our closest friends, and exchanged simple but heartfelt vows. It was probably the best day of my life.
It wasn't until much later, after my honeymoon, that I found out what had happened to Lois that day. Replaced by a clone. Only Lois. And, apparently, the President of the United States, but Lois and Clark had taken care of that. The rest of the Shadows, trying to give Lois and Clark their privacy, didn't find out for another day or two. Gina and I were in blissful ignorance at the Lexor Hotel, where Bobby had paid for a suite for us. I wasn't far in case they needed me, but they decided to leave me out of it. In fact, they checked the encoded database Wells had left and found out that history was going according to plan. It was probably a relief to them, in a way, but it also meant that they had to sit back and watch with a minimum of interference.
At least the situation did finally take care of itself, even if it did involve a surprising number of detours along the way. Lois even showed up at Bibbo's place, The Ace o' Clubs. It was when we'd all lost track of her, when she thought she was Wanda Detroit. Bibbo took good care of her, but it made me wish we'd told him at least something about Lois and Clark along the way. He had no way to recognize her and no way to know that whatever "Wanda" had told him, Clark was the good one.
That whole period was a confusing mess. Phillip checked several times to make sure that things were going according to history, and still couldn't quite believe it. The Shadows did step in to make sure that Cadmus didn't get their hands on Doctor Mendenhall, a scientist who had been brainwashing hypnotherapy patients into becoming unwitting assassins, but otherwise, it was pretty much hands-off.
Things even stayed quiet for us for a while. We picked up a shrink formula, figuring it might be useful some day. Did a bit of clean-up work here and there. No big deal.
And then... aliens invaded.
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