Staring at her reflection in the cracked mirror for the last time, Lois straightened her business suit. Black, it was her one all purpose garment for interviews, funerals and other official events. Keeping it pressed and looking crisp after all this time had been a minor miracle in itself.
Lisa was already dressed, and for once Lois hadn’t had to prompt her. She was dressed, and for once her clothes had stayed pressed and clean. Her hair, usually somewhat unruly was for once combed and she’d actually asked Lois’s help in making it look good.
Lois only hoped she wasn’t disappointed. They were only going to meet the President of her father’s foundation, not her father himself…not unless things went much better than Lois expected them to.
They’d be lucky not to be thrown out on their ear. At that point their only choice would be to fake some sort of disaster and yell “help Superman.” Even then, if he was out of earshot they’d be out of luck.
“Remember what I told you,” Lois said shortly. Manners were different when you spoke to the rich, and many of them seemed to regard children as noisy, toxic annoyances.
Lisa nodded. Lois couldn’t make out her expression; it seemed to waver somewhere between anxiety and excitement.
For her this was the chance of a lifetime. Lois had no doubt that she’d always dreamed of her father as coming in on a white horse to save them all. It wasn’t all that different from her dreams when she was young, of a father who would turn his back on his work and spend time with his family.
How much worse it would be to look at every man who passed you by and wonder if he was the one. Lois hadn’t even been able to offer her the comfort of a name, or a picture, or even a description. She’d managed to keep the uglier details of the encounter from her daughter, but there had been questions she hadn’t been able to answer.
Why did her eyes have that slightly exotic cast to them? Was her father partially Asian, or was there something else going on? Was she going to grow up tall, or was she doomed to be short.
Did she have other grandparents, and what were they like?
There had been an endless parade of questions when Lisa had finally been able to realize just how different her life was than those of her friends.
It was a sign of just how good a child she was that the questions had trailed off over the last few years. Lisa had seen how much the questions had hurt Lois, and she’d eventually stopped asking them.
That didn’t mean that Lois didn’t see them reflected in her eyes sometimes. Every time a good father would be shown on television, Lisa was riveted. She watched the same shows over and over again.
Knowing the void she’d left in her daughter’s life made Lois want to cry sometimes.
Lisa stood and Lois brushed some lint off her shoulder. “It’s going to be fine.”
*******************
As Lois pulled up around the back of the building, near the servant’s entrance, she felt hideously self conscious. Her battered brown station wagon was an eyesore compared even to the vehicles driven by the servants. These tended to be late model sedans, mostly in dark colors.
A classic Rolls Royce that would not look out of place in a James Bond film was being washed by a heavyset man wearing a chauffeur’s outfit. He glanced at them and immediately glanced away.
Lois frowned. In her experience, you could tell a lot about someone by the attitudes of the people who worked for them. Sullen, secretive employees usually meant a sullen secretive master.
According to her research, he’d gotten the place for a quarter its value at action. Two hundred eighty acres, four trout ponds, horse paddocks, a gazebo and vast expanses of glass looking out onto the magnificent Colorado skyline.
The mansion was visible from below, seeming to sit on the side of the mountain. Access was limited to a single road, and the whole place seemed designed for isolation.
This was the place of someone who wanted to shut themselves away from the rest of the world.
Lisa’s eyes were wide. She hadn’t been exposed to much luxury in her life, and this place obviously impressed her.
She kept looking at the wide gazebo barely visible through the Aspen trees.
Lois straightened her shoulders and said, “Are you ready?”
Nodding somberly, Lisa fell into step behind her.
**************
Staring through the window, Clark wondered why she’d brought the child with her. That it was hers there was no question. The detective’s report had been quite clear about that. Yet it seemed irresponsible to drag a child all the way across the country just to get a news story.
For a moment Clark toyed with the idea of having a child of his own, but he knew it was impossible. Lana had been a healthy, fertile woman and all the tests had shown that he was genetically incompatible.
He was the last of his kind, and he was never destined to have children of his own.
It hurt a little, the thought that he was always going to be alone, but perhaps it was for the best. No one would want a father like him, someone afraid to go out into the world. He wondered what his parents would have thought of the lonely life he’d been forced to lead.
The strange feeling of excitement in his stomach only grew by the moment.
***********
Leaving Lisa behind felt wrong, even if she was just through the door. She’d be able to hear anything that was said anyway, and Lois knew she was strong enough to take care of herself from anything short of Superman.
Compared to the other rooms in the house, this one was almost sparse. There was a huge desk, heavy leather chairs and the entire back wall was one gigantic window looking out over the mountain.
The view was impressive. One could almost imagine that you were suspended in mid-air, flying over a landscape that was majestic and beautiful.
A man was standing with her back to her, staring out the window. He was wearing an Armani suit, and Lois guessed that his shoes alone cost more than everything she was wearing.
“I understand that you want to talk to Superman.” The man’s voice was a pleasant tenor with a light Midwestern accent.
“Mr. Kent?” Lois asked.
The man turned and Lois felt her stomach drop. There was something indescribably familiar about him, as though she’d seen him every day for years without even registering it. Dark hair, exotic eyes, tanned complexion…she couldn’t put her finger on it.
He nodded and stepped forward, offering his hand.
Lois kept her grip firm, and she was surprised to find that his handshake was both warm and firm. He held her hand for a moment longer than was polite, and her hand tingled a little after he finally released her.
“I’d like to make an appointment to speak with Superman,” she said.
Mr. Kent gestured for her to take a seat. He waited until she settled into the plush leather chair before following suit.
“It’s not the policy of the Foundation to arrange interviews with reporters, Ms Lane.” The man on the other side of the big desk sighed. “We’d be overwhelmed with requests in less than a month, and the work we’ve been commissioned to do would never get done.”
“He’s given interviews to reporters before. Linda King for example…”
Lois hadn’t been able to get hold of Linda to find out how she’d gotten the interview. Apparently, Hollywood had already gone to her head.
Lois had always hated how smug and sanctimonious she’d always been about having a “real job” in journalism anyway.
“Kal El may decide on a case by case basis to make exceptions to the rules, but we can’t afford to. He’s provided us with the opportunity of a lifetime to make a real difference in the world. We can’t afford to lose his goodwill.”
He sounded more like a lawyer than a maverick businessman. Lois scowled.
“I’m not planning to do an interview with him. This is personal.”
“Oh?” Mr. Kent leaned forward.
“We’re old friends who just lost contact with each other.”
“I highly doubt that. He’s only been on the planet for…”
“Tell him that I know he’s been on the planet in disguise a lot longer than most people think. I met him more than ten years ago, and I need to talk to him.”
******************
Clark froze. He’d thought she’d been unconscious when he’d flown her home all those years ago. His memories were fuzzy, tainted by the red poison, but he’d been sure.
Old familiar feelings of panic clutched at him as his mind raced. Had she known about him all this time? Was she toying with him?
How much was she going to want to keep his secret?
The Superman experiment was a mistake. He’d known it from the moment it had been proposed to him. Coming out in public, even if he was in disguise was just going to make it easier for him to be identified and hunted down.
All the money in the world wouldn’t protect him if the government became involved. They’d freeze the assets they knew about, and it wouldn’t take them long to find out about the other, more deadly poison. He’d never be able to sleep soundly again.
He’d be hunted, and the friends he’d managed to make would vanish into the wind or they’d be used against him.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” He said, hoping that the quiver in his voice wasn’t as audible as he thought it was.
“If he just arrived a few months ago, where is his spaceship?” Lois Lane stared at him intently. “What was he doing before he rescued the President’s plane? Where does he live when he’s not off doing rescues?”
“None of those are questions people haven’t asked before.” Clark said. “Of course, most people consider them to be conspiracy theorists.”
“I have incontrovertible proof,” Lois said.
He could hear the rhythm of her heart, the pace of her breathing…he could see the pupils of her eyes. She wasn’t lying; she really believed that she had proof of what she had said.
“How much do you want?” he asked.
Lois Lane stared at him for a moment, as though she didn’t understand the question.
“What?”
“How much would it take for you to go away and pretend that you’d never heard of Kal El?” He reached into his pocket for a checkbook.
The woman scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“Life has got to be tough on a proofreader’s salary.” Clark said. “Living paycheck to paycheck, never quite being able to make ends meet. Wouldn’t you like to be able to buy a nice house and an education for your daughter? How would you like to be able to afford some of those things you always dreamed about?”
He glanced through the wall behind her, where the daughter had been sitting quietly in a chair.
To his surprise, she seemed to be staring right back at him.
