“I can’t wear this,” he said. “It’s too valuable.”
The thought of destroying something like this through accident or misuse made his chest tight.
“This is what my father would have wanted,” Lois said. She stared at him, and for the first time he realized that there was something brittle in her expression.
Coming here, seeing all this must be difficult for her. It would have reminded her of just what she’d lost with her father. In giving this, her father’s prize possession, she was making herself vulnerable to him.
She was afraid he would reject this, and in a way reject her.
Clark had felt that way about flying. When he’d discovered that Lana would never share his enjoyment, that flying frightened her and made her think of him as less than human…he’d wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
“Ok,” he said.
The gratitude in her eyes was worth the humiliation of wearing the suit.
********
“Are you sure about this?” Jim leaned close to Lois and said, “Those suits aren’t just spandex knock offs.”
Lois knew more than she wanted to know about the Superman suits. Her father had gone on often enough about them; she’d spent much of her childhood trying to ignore his constant attempts to share this thing he was interested in.
“I know,” she said. “Made by Bermans and Nathans costumiers of London out of special fabric that nobody makes anymore.”
“Made off a single loom in Germany that doesn’t even exist any more. Every one of these is a one of a kind, and you’re giving it to your boyfriend to wear?”
Lois shook her head. “You have no idea what’s going on.”
“All I know is that you have that man in there putting on a costume worth eighty to a hundred thousand dollars-“
There was a crashing sound from the dressing room and Lois said, “Be quiet! He can hear us.”
“From this distance?”
“He’s got really great hearing.”
A moment later Lois heard a sound from the tiny bathroom.
“Um, Lois…”
He stepped out and Lois had to smother a laugh. The Superman costume had four parts. The cape, the leotard, the leggings and the belt.
The leotard included the red underwear, and it fit magnificently. Lois could remember her father talking about how the suit had been built small, to accentuate Chris Reeve’s muscles.
Unfortunately, the leggings bagged at the bottom.
“Christopher Reeve was six four,” Jim said smugly. “Your man here is maybe a little over six foot.”
He was four inches too small for the leggings.
“I don’t suppose we could buy a pair of leggings in this style,” Lois asked.
“If you’ll leave the original here,” Jim said.
“And a cape,” Clark said.
Lois looked sharply up at him.
He looked embarrassed. “I don’t think I’d be very good at taking care of the cape.”
Jim looked horrified. Before he could say anything Lois interrupted him. “We’ll take several of those. Give me the ones from the TV show. I always liked those better, and the length will fit better.”
“We’ve got capes in all sizes.” Jim said mildly.
Lois made a shushing motion. She’d only watched as much of the series as she’d been forced to, but she knew what she liked.
As Clark handed the cape back to Jim, Lois said, “We’ve got a deal.”
Jim gestured for them to head back toward the store at the front of the museum. He stayed behind to shut off the lights for a moment and they moved ahead.
Clark leaned close to her and said, “Eighty thousand dollars?”
“If things go the way I think they will, it’ll be worth a lot more before you are done with it.”
If he stayed, Lois had no doubt that designers all over the world would be falling all over themselves to make him new costumes. As much as costumes worn by Chris Reeve were worth, a costume worn by Chris Reeve and the real Superman would be priceless.
In truth, the money didn’t matter. This was something her father would have wanted, and that was enough.
*********
“He’s just going to wear it outside?” Jim said as they stepped out of the museum.
The statue still stood on the other side of the square, but for some reason Clark no longer felt as intimidated. There was something about wearing the suit that made him feel taller.
Perhaps it was the weight of sixty years and more of history. The store and museum behind him were shrines to an ideal.
“We’re going to need it,” Lois said. She stepped toward Clark and glanced up at him.
If they were going to make a show of things, there was no time like the present.
“I think your memorabilia is going to get a lot more valuable over the next few days,” Lois said. “You may get some Federal Agents visiting. Don’t try to lie to them. Tell them everything you know. By the time they get here it won’t matter.”
For the first time there was a look of uncertainty on the tall man’s face. “What have you gotten involved in?”
“I never did introduce my friend,” Lois said. “Jim, I’d like you to meet Clark Kent.”
With that she stepped toward Clark and he took her by the arms. A moment later they began to rise into the air.
Lois was grinning at Jim’s expression, and Clark found himself grinning as well. The man had spent the majority of his life devoted to Superman.
“I think the museum is going to be a lot more popular in the near future,” Lois called down.
Clark intentionally took a long, slow swoop around the square before rising into the sky.
The parts of the costume that hadn’t fit had cost a couple of hundred dollars. Jim’s expression, though, that was priceless.
**********
“How does it feel?” Lois asked.
Lois had purchased a Superman dufflebag for his clothes and her purse, and so he had to fly slower than he normally would have.
“What?”
“How does it feel?”
“Ridiculous,” he said. When he saw her face fall a bit he grinned. “It’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever worn and I feel like I’m naked.”
He could see her cheeks reddening and she looked away.
For a moment he wondered if it had been his comment about being naked, but he chided himself. He had a girlfriend and he wasn’t allowed to ask that sort of question, even in his own mind.
He shifted his grip on her anyway.
“I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
They were flying over Canadian airspace as Clark didn’t want to be risked being attacked while he was forced to fly at speeds almost within range of human technology. He was keeping his eye out nonetheless.
“When we get to Las Vegas I’ll do the talking,” Lois said, changing the subject. “He may recognize me, and if he’s really got an agenda relating to this project in France he’ll want press coverage.”
Clark nodded slowly. He suspected that it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone to get the professor talking; devoting years to a specific project took a certain amount of obsession. That usually translated into talking about it to anyone who was willing to listen.
Years with Lana had taught him that it was better not to argue, however, and truthfully it didn’t matter who spoke to him as long as they got the information they needed.
*********
“If you don’t have ID you can’t get in.” The guard at the door was adamant.
Lois scowled. “Do you really think HE’S a minor?”
The guard was a hugely muscled black man in a black suit. He shrugged. “I just do what they tell me. The rules today are that nobody gets in without an ID. You might try tomorrow, but I can’t guarantee that it’ll be any different.”
Lois tensed to argue, but Clark touched her on the shoulder and shook his head.
“He’s playing blackjack,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll meet up with you later.”
Clark would be able to see and hear everything that went on anyway, although Lois wasn’t sure if the din of the casino would interfere with that. She took a deep breath and then nodded.
She stepped inside even as Clark was turned away.
They’d landed on the top floor of the seven story Paris parking garage and had taken the elevator down. Now Lois stepped into a long hallway filled with shops. The gift shop was to her left; a jewelry store was to her right. Shops selling flowers, crystals, and nuts were on every side of her. There was a video arcade and a spa. The system was designed to drain money in any way possible even before the gambler set foot in the casino.
At this hour of the night, nearly two in the morning most of the shops were closed and Lois moved quickly past them.
Now she was taking a set of escalators up into the casino proper. Signs were conveniently placed overhead to lead her where she needed to go and a minute later she found herself stepping down a set of steps into the casino.
For a moment Lois allowed herself to imagine that she was here on vacation. She’d always liked to gamble, and she suspected that Clark would be a fun person to gamble with, even if he didn’t use his abilities to cheat.
The casino was quieter at this hour of the night, although the slot machines still made their usual assortment of noises. Lois moved through row after row of slot machines until she came upon the table games.
At this hour of the night, many of the tables were closed. The few that were open often had only a few players. This was going to make her task easier.
Slot machines encircled the table games, but Lois knew that these machines paid more poorly than the rest of the games in the casino. Card game players disliked the noise of a slot machine paying off, yet their spouses often played while waiting with little expectation of winning.
This meant that the area around the card tables was almost quiet.
Lois pulled the crumpled picture from her pocket and glanced at it before shoving it back in. There weren’t that many players to choose from.
After several moments she found him. Thomas Ledderman looked older and less angry than he had in his picture. Mostly he looked tired. He was alone at the table and his shoulders were slumped. He looked worn.
From the meager pile of chips in front of him, it looked like he might not be at the table much longer.
Lois pulled a fifty dollar bill from her pocket. She’d pulled her ID and some pocket cash and left the rest with Clark. She hadn’t wanted to bother with her purse in the casino. Setting it down on the green velvet of the gaming table she took a seat, leaving one seat between herself and the older man.
Although she wanted to talk to him, she didn’t want to arouse anyone’s suspicions.
He was looking at her appraisingly. Lois knew herself to be an attractive woman; she never would have made it into television journalism otherwise. While it didn’t matter in print, television network executives expected pretty faces to deliver the news. So she’d had more than her share of being ogled by men. This was something different.
She played a couple of hands, losing one and winning the next.
Dr. Ledderman continued to stare at her and a moment later he leaned over and said, “Excuse me, but aren’t you Lois Lane?”
Lois looked up at gave him her brightest smile. “Why yes, yes I am.”
“I’ve been following your work in Iraq,” he said. “I’ve been an admirer for years.”
Although Lois could detect a hint of male interest in his expression, she sensed that most of his interest seemed genuine.
“When did you get back?” he asked.
“Just a few days ago,” Lois said. “I was owed some down time.”
She’d been fired instead of getting the leave she deserved, but that was partially her own fault. She could have stopped and taken a vacation.
Tapping the green felt table indicating she wanted another card, Lois said, “I take it you aren’t a reporter.”
He shook his head. “I’m a physicist. I teach at Cornell University when I can’t get T.A.’s to do the work.”
“So you get to do things with Super-colliders and things like that?”
“I’m more of a theorist,” he said, grimacing as the dealer gathered his chips. “I get to play around with ideas about other worlds and other dimensions.”
“So you write science fiction?” Lois asked.
“Not at all,” he said. “Quantum physics has shown that a single particle of matter doesn’t exist in just one position. It exists in several positions at once. It can exist as a particle and a wave at the same time. Because we’re all made up of those particles, it means that…”
At her expression he stopped and said, “Let’s just say the jury is out, but there are some promising leads. There was a paper back in September describing the possibility that the collision between universes may leave visible marks, things that we can actually look for.”
“So it might be possible to go from one universe to another,” Lois said.
“If the barriers between worlds were to collide, there would be material ejected into both sides, a transfer. Whether it would be survivable by a human being, I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“What happens if the conditions on the other side weren’t survivable? I’d imagine that being ejected into the vacuum of space would be rather unpleasant. The transfer could even be catastrophic for the people left behind.”
“Oh?” Lois said. She’d unconsciously been accumulating a small stack of chips and Dr. Ledderman hadn’t been doing badly either.
“The greatest mass extinction in history occurred two hundred fifty million years ago. There is a theory that a series of methane gas explosions caused firestorms and global warming that destroyed ninety five percent of marine species and seventy percent of land species.”
Lois shook her head.
“In 1986, a gas explosion from Lake Nyos in Cameroon killed eighteen hundred people. Carbon dioxide was held mostly to blame, but there is evidence that methane was involved as well.”
“Why are you worried about methane?” Lois asked.
“Because there are four hundred billion tons of methane frozen in the arctic tundra. It would only take a global temperature change of about ten degrees to release it and start a chain reaction to destroy everything.”
“But you’re talking about gas from the ocean, or the ice or something. What does that have to do with alternate worlds?”
“Methane could move very easily across a rift, and with enough pressure differential it might move rapidly. The least you could expect was a massive firestorm…if it happened over a populated area the death toll could be massive.”
“So you think something like this could really happen?”
“I think something like that might very well happen. There’s a project in France I’m concerned about…”
Lois felt someone sitting down beside her.
“I’d like to hear all about that, Doctor Ledderman.”
Lois felt herself stiffen at the sound of the familiar voice. Slowly she turned to stare at the man sitting beside her.
Agent White was sitting calmly in the seat beside her, and behind him she could see at least six other men in black suits.
“Lois!” Agent White said. “I’m surprised to see you here. The last I heard you were in Georgia.”
“I thought it might be a good time to take my vacation,” Lois said weakly.
“It’s a little late for that I’m afraid. I’m going to have to ask both of you to come along quietly.”
The agents were unobtrusively surrounding them, and Lois could see more coming from the rows of slot machines.
From what she could see they had every exit blocked and there was no way to escape.
