Previously
Nevertheless, was there even something that she could do to help Superman to wake up when even his doctors, among the most renowned of the country, didn't understand why his state wasn't showing any improvement?
Maybe that was the problem. The doctors who looked after him. It was the first time they treated somebody who wasn't human. Maybe they weren't open minded enough to understand how an alien biology could work? Maybe what Superman really needed at the moment was a doctor used to investigate less usual science fields? Somebody who would keep the mind open to every possibility?
Lois wasn't in speaking terms with her father, but she knew that he was a very bright doctor, and that he had investigated numerous parallel fields to the conventional medicine. She could forgive him everything if it was what would cost her to help Superman.
She took her phone and called her father. While she waited that he picks up, she hoped that Henderson wouldn't make too many problems to sign all the necessary papers so that her father would be granted access to Superman.
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And now:
Part 5: A New Hope
During a dozen days, the Dr Sam Lane ran again all the tests which the other physicians had already run, but it didn't help him to be closer than the others to find a solution. He dreaded the moment when he would have to say it to his daughter, but he couldn't hide that to her either.
Since she had called to ask him to be a part of the doctors team who treated Superman, he had seen his daughter sinking more and more every day into the depression.
At the beginning, she was well. She was as determined and stubborn as he had always known her. Then the former premises of the Daily Planet had reopened, and all the team had repossessed the building. Slowly, he had seen her withdraw into herself. She seemed constantly lost in her thoughts, forgetful of her surroundings.
Worried, he had discussed with the editor in chief of his daughter. He knew that she was very close to him, that she perceived him a little as a surrogate father, the father that he hadn't known how to be for her. And this man had explained to him that Lois had realized that she had fallen in love with her partner the same day when this one had disappeared, that she had made a short depression, which she had managed to overcome only by plunging completely into the search for this man that she loved. The problem being that, now, she had no more lead to follow, nothing to keep her mind busy, and she was sinking again. The return to the former premises, those where she had so many recollections of him, hadn't helped her.
Sam had met his daughter's partner, Kent, only once, while they were investigating into the cyborgs which he made, but the guy had made a good impression on him. He had quickly realized that this Kent was in love with Lois, but she didn't seem interested. Apparently he had been mistaken.
He really hoped that Lois would find his partner. She was feeling so bad that her editor in chief had finally put her in forced leaves, and had given her the phone number of one of his friends, psychologist. At the beginning, she didn't want to hear about it, but he had managed, with the help of this man, Perry White, to convince her to consult. She was really in a bad state.
And he knew that she was placing all her hopes in the possible wake up of Superman. He would have so wanted to help his daughter, and to do that for her. Find a means to save Superman to help her to go better. But he had failed. A bad father up to the end. He wasn't able to do whatever it was to arrange things. He felt guilty to have failed. He wanted to succeed, for her.
But he didn't know what to do, and now, he had to go and tell her.
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Everything was over. Her father had just told her that he had tried about everything, but that he had failed. He had found no means to cure Superman. And if Superman never woke up, she would never find Clark.
During weeks, she had refrained to cry, and had wiped her tears away as soon as they were beginning to flow, repeating to herself that it wasn't the moment to lament, that there was still hope. But now, there wasn't hope any more. It was over. The time to cry had finally come, so she let her tears pour freely.
It was her only answer to her father's words. She began crying harder than she had never cried in all her life, because every time she had cried before, she knew in her heart that things will go better after a while. But today, it wasn't the case. It was the hope to see Clark again someday which she had lost. She had lost Clark. And after that, nothing could go well ever again.
She was crying so hard she had difficulty to breath. Through her tears, she saw how much her father seemed distraught to see her like that, and contrary to what she had told him years earlier when she had left the familial house, she knew that he loved her. And she also loved him. For him, she tried to show herself strong and retain her tears until he couldn't see her anymore. But she was incapable of it. Now that she had allowed her tears to pour, she couldn't stop them any more.
After some moments of hesitation, her father got up from the armchair where he was sitting and came to join Lois on the sofa. He embraced her and comforted her. It was something that he had never done before, not even when she was a child, and Lois was very touched by the gesture. Although she has already cried so hard, a new ball of emotion came to tie up her throat.
They stayed like that for a long time, and Lois eventually calmed down. When the torrent of tears had become simple spaced out sobs, her father spoke again. While he was holding his daughter in his arms, he had had the time to think of the situation, and he had had an idea.
«Princess, listen to me. I thought of something. I ignore what to do to help Superman, but I know someone who could. Maybe. It was one of my friends at the university. He's not really a physician. He's rather a physicist. I hadn't seen him for years, but our paths crossed accidentally a few months ago and we talked a little. He told me that he was working at trying to discover how Superman's powers worked. He thought that if he could understand how Superman could break certain laws of the physics, it could lead to enormous scientific progress. I ignore how advanced he is on his work, and maybe he won't be able to help Superman either, but it's worth a try. His name is Bernard Klein, he works for STAR Labs.»
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When Lois had calmed down enough, she placed a phone call to Henderson to repeat him what her father had told her about Dr Klein, and to ask the policeman to do the preliminary investigation on the scientist to grant him the access to Superman.
«No need, Lois,» answered Henderson by the phone. «We have already made our investigation on Bernard Klein. We can trust him. I am going to prepare for him the papers and warn him. He's going to be ecstatic! He had been asking the permission to work on Superman for weeks!»
«How's that?» Lois wondered. «Why have you already investigated into him if you haven't allowed him to approach Superman yet?»
«It's a physicist, Lois. One of the best. Thus he's the one we entrusted the cage of kryptonite to, to study it and discover how a rock could hurt Superman. And, of course, we investigated him pretty thoroughly before giving him the kryptonite! But he wasn't allowed to approach Superman because he's not a physician. And nevertheless, how he asked for it!»
«Oh. And did he discover why Superman becomes ill in the presence of kryptonite?» She asked.
"No," answered the policeman. «He had uttered the hypothesis that it would be because of the radiations emitted by the meteorite, which would affect only kryptonians and not human beings, but Superman's doctors said that it wasn't that. Apparently, he doesn't have any of the symptoms of an irradiation.»
Lois turned to her father, who could hear the conversation because Lois had put the loudspeaker in, and he shook the head negatively, confirming the diagnosis of the other doctors. Further to an irradiation, the elements of the blood deteriorate and are destroyed. In the case of Superman, he had effectively noted that his blood had very little white globule and plaques, but their account remained stable, while in case of irradiation, their deterioration should continue even after the victim was taken away from the radioactive source. No, it's simply looked as a difference of blood composition between the human and the kryptonian races.
«Okay, Inspector. Give Dr Klein his chance all the same. We never know. At the point we are...» Lois concluded.
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It was already pretty late when Henderson called Dr Klein to tell him that he was finally allowed to work on Superman. The wisest thing would have been to wait until the next day morning before going at the laboratory, but he was too impatient for that.
It had been 41 days since Superman was at the hospital, in a room transformed into a real safe, with policemen everywhere to insure his security. And it had been as much time since Bernard Klein had asked the authorization to work with the team who was looking after Superman.
Although he has diplomas of medicine, he had never practiced it. He had preferred to use his diplomas of physics to do research in this domain. So he didn't think he could be of a big help as a physician, but he had spent all the year trying to understand the functioning of the powers of the superhero, and he had elaborated numerous theories, and it was perfectly possible that one of them would allow the other doctors to understand the kryptonian biology and save Superman. He thought that his knowledge could help, but he had been refused the access at every one of his demands.
So now that he was allowed to work on it, he didn't want to lose a single minute and got ready to go to the hospital immediately.
He arrived at the hospital over half an hour later. It was already night. He went through the required controls and was finally able to enter the room where Superman was laying.
And he had to admit to himself that the term of "safe" was not so exaggerated. With the armored shutters which blocked the windows, the two policemen armed in front of the door, and two others inside the room, and all the security checks he went through to arrive there, Klein really had the impression that Superman was guarded as strictly as the national treasure. Well... Maybe not, but all the same, they hadn't skimped on the security.
The superhero was lying on the hospital bed, in a simple hospital gown. His suit was nowhere to be seen. A monitor allowed to see the beatings of his heart, and he was receiving in intravenous injection which he needed not to suffer dehydration…
Dr Klein began at once to take some samples of tissues, blood, saliva, hair, skin, which he planned to examine during night to forge himself a better opinion of his state of health. Naturally, all these tests had already been run by all the previous doctors, but he preferred to redo the tests himself rather than to content with the results which they had obtained.
Provided with these samples, he went to the laboratory of the hospital. It wasn't worth STAR Labs' laboratory where he usually worked, but that would do it perfectly for the tests which he wanted to run.
He immediately settled to work. The first thing which he verified was if, effectively, Superman wasn't suffering from irradiation. All the doctors had refuted this hypothesis but he was sure that it was it. He had spent over a month studying the kryptonite that they had sent to him and it was the only theory that he had succeeded in elaborate which seemed valid.
But when he studied the cells of Superman, he had to face the evidence. He didn't seem irradiated. Unless the irradiation has other symptoms on a kryptonian body. It was very well possible that his cells were destroying themselves only in the presence of the radioactive source but that the damages stopped as soon as he was taken away of the said source.
It could explain why the account of his globules and plaques was so weak. Maybe it wasn't the normal composition of a kryptonian blood. It could be the result of his exposure at the kryptonite. And that would also explain that the account remained stable since he had been brought to the hospital. He should make some other tests to be sure of it. He resolved to bring a sample of Superman's blood to STAR Labs to expose it to the kryptonite which he had over there and see the reactions.
And even if his hypothesis was false, this test was important anyway. It hadn't been done, and yet that could allow them to understand how the kryptonite acted on his system. And this information was vital. Without it, nobody could envisage any treatments against the effects in question.
In the meantime, he continued to run a whole range of tests, envisaging and rejecting most of the theories that he had elaborated during the past year on the way Superman's powers could indeed work. It was frustrating to notice that all the theories which he put in the test showed themselves false, but at the same time, it was also a progress. He knew now in which direction he shouldn't waste his time.
He was so absorbed by his work which he had not seen the time fly, but the morning had come, and the first employee of the team of technicians of laboratory of the hospital had arrived and got himself a coffee before beginning to work on his side.
While drinking his coffee, he opened the curtains to let the daylight enter into the room. Silently, he settled down to his desk and began to make the tests which the doctors had required for the other patients of the hospital.
Dr Klein was so lost in his notes that he hadn't noticed what took place around him in the room. Having stopped writing some of his observations on his pad, a new idea came to his mind, and he turned again to his microscope to look at the sample of blood of Superman on which he was working.
As soon as he looked in the microscope, he noticed the change. The sample at which he was looking counted much more globules and plaques than earlier. But what the hell was happ--?
He turned to the laboratory, and noticed for the first time the presence of the other man.
«What did you do to my sample?» Dr Klein asked, slightly angry.
«Absolutely nothing!» The man answered the man on the defensive. «I just arrived one minute ago!»
«Really? And what did you do since you arrived?» Klein insisted on a very suspicious tone.
«Nothing, I told you! I took my coffee, I opened the curtains, and I was about to begin the analysis of the blood of err… Mister Johnson,» he said verifying the name of the patient on the file opened on his desk in front of him.
«I opened the curtains»
Dr Klein turned to his microscope, bathed in the sunlight which entered by the big windows. He smiled. He had to run some other tests, but he could have found the solution.
He remembered vaguely of the theory that another scientist had exposed a few months earlier, while Superman was accused of causing an unprecedented heat wave on Metropolis in full winter. It had been envisaged that the powers of Superman worked with solar energy. When it had seemed evident that the cause of the heat was due to a leak in the nuclear power plant of LexCorp, everybody had abandoned the hypothesis of Superman feeding on the sun.
But the opposite had never been proved. Maybe the solution was there. Maybe he just needed sun to invert the damages created by the kryptonite on his system. It could be why he hadn't already woken up, after almost one and a half month of coma, thought Klein by remembering the hospital room in which Superman was kept. Windows were blocked by shutters, to guarantee his safety against a possible sniper or something like that.
He needed to make more tests.
He returned again to his microscope and seen that the account of cells had continued to increase. It was a very good sign. An excellent sign. He called immediately the other doctors who treated Superman to speak to them about his theory and show them the sample. He hadn't spoken to them yet, but they were a team, and he had to inform them before proceeding to the necessary tests to prove his theory.
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