PREVIOUSLY...
She deepened the kiss, needing to get closer as his hands slid beneath the open edges of her blouse. And then...
In an instant, everything changed. Whether he heard the gun blast or something else alerted him, one moment Kent was sitting on the couch, kissing her. And the next, the sound of breaking glass disturbed the silence and Lois looked up to see Kent standing in the middle of her living room, holding a missile.
“What?”
“One moment.”
And then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone. Had flown out the window. She jumped to her feet and rushed to the window just in time to see the missile explode high over the building and then... With a gust of air, he was again standing in her living room - the guilt on his face obvious to anyone with the ability to see.
“You can fly,” she whispered even as the world seemed to collapse around her. If he could fly, the way she’d been able to fly a month ago, he would have no problems being in Metropolis on the day in question even if he was working in Borneo.**
AND NOW...
* * * * * * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Five
* * * * * * * * *
“What could possibly have possessed you, Clark?” Lois asked, giving him a smack across the side of his head.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, rubbing the imaginary hurt.
“You had to have known that I’d figure out you could fly eventually - I mean, at least if you were as serious about me as some of your comments seemed to indicate.”
“Of course I was serious about you. I just thought... hoped that maybe we could get to know each other better. And then, when you really knew me, maybe you would accept that I could never do what you thought I’d done. So finding out I could fly... Well, it would really be a non-issue.”
“Well, as I recall, it wasn’t a non-issue.”
**“I think you’d better go,” Lois said, storming towards the door.
“Lane, please. Can’t we talk about this?”
“What’s to talk about?” Lois replied, furiously doing up her blouse. “I said that the only way you could have been in Metropolis was if you could fly. Oh, and guess what? You can. Just what type of fool do you take me for? God, I’m such a sucker. But, hey, in my own defense, I really couldn’t have been expected to know that you could fly? How can you do that, by the way? Some sort of advanced experiment in human evolution? Or...” Lois hesitated. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions again. Maybe the same thing had happened to him that had happened to her - only he was closer to the lightning strike, so maybe it had lasted longer with him. Maybe he’d only been able to fly since that incident at Smiley’s resort. And if that were true, then what he was telling her about being out of the country could still be true. “...is this a recent development?” she asked, spinning towards him.
“I’ve been flying since I was eighteen.”
And Lois’ world again crumbled into tiny pieces.
“Listen, I don’t know why I have these powers. But, Lane, please. You can’t tell anyone.”
“No?” she asked, quickly regaining her composure. “Oh, and why not? I can’t think of a single reason why I wouldn’t broadcast that information to the entire world. ‘Man Defies Gravity.’ Catchy headline, don’t you think?”
“You’d ruin my life. My parents’ lives. My friends’ lives. Paparazzi would be going through my trash to see what I eat. I’d be mobbed everywhere by people wanting to see the flying man. I wouldn’t be able to hold down a job. I wouldn’t have a life.”
She hesitated slightly. Would she really do that? Probably not. But at the same time, she had no intention of making him any promises at the moment. “They’d want to see the flying man who catches missiles, you mean. After all, that was pretty impressive, too. You could have had quite a career as a catcher for the Metropolis Mets.”
“Lane...”
“I think it’s time you left.”
Her hand landed on the doorknob when someone unexpectedly knocked.
“Lois, are you okay?” Jimmy’s voice from the other side of the door caused her to pause. “I just heard that someone saw Lisa Rockford fire a missile up here.”
Lois looked between the door and Kent and back again. No. Jimmy couldn’t find Kent here. Not now. Maybe if he had been telling the truth about everything... But now that she’d realized just how much of a fool she’d been... No.
“Come on, Lois. Are you okay?” Jimmy asked again, his voice sounding slightly frantic as he pounded again.
“Uhh... Just a minute!” Lois called before grabbing Kent’s arm and pulling him behind the door. Then, after taking a deep breath and whispering a hostile, “Stay,” to Kent, she opened the door.
“Oh, good. You’re okay. I was just coming back because I’d remembered something weird I’d found in one of those files...”
Lois looked frantically between Jimmy and the other side of the open door, to where Kent was standing, wishing she had some way to warn Jimmy not to say anything.
“...when I heard that Lisa Rockford fired a missile at your window.” He glanced around. “It seems that she missed. But you should probably call the police. Oh, and... Uhh... I’m not interrupting anything am I? You look a little... flushed.”
“Lisa Rockford just fired a missile at me. Of course I’m flushed.”
“Oh right. Anyway, I came back here to tell you that a couple of years ago there were a string of burglaries where the thieves all spoke German. Weird, hey?”
“Yeah, weird.”
“So... are you going to call the police?”
“Why would I call the police?”
“Because Lisa Rockford just fired a missile at you!”
“Oh, right. Uhh... No. No. I think we should go down to the street and check things out ourselves first.” She grabbed her jacket as she spoke, quickly pushing Jimmy out the door.
She stepped out of her apartment and then, at the last moment, when she was certain Jimmy was far enough away that he wouldn’t hear her, she stepped back inside far enough to look at Kent. “Be gone when I get back,” she hissed. Without waiting for his reply, she closed the door and followed Jimmy down the hall.**
Lois sighed as she concluded her tale.
“Well, I guess that explains how we both got the story about the Nazis,” Clark said softly.
“Thereby proving Perry’s theory that getting close to someone from a rival paper can cause leaks.”
Clark reached over and rubbed her shoulder.
She closed her eyes for a moment before shaking off his sympathy. “So... what’s next?”
“Well, I can tell you that I lived in fear for quite a while after that.”
“Fear?”
“Of you printing the story about a flying man. I searched the paper every day - even told my folks that a reporter for the Daily Planet had seen me fly. I can’t tell you how relieved I was that you didn’t write the story.”
“Oh, but I did write it.” She shrugged. “I just didn’t print it. I couldn’t. It just seemed... I don’t know. Like maybe it was nobody’s business. After all, I didn’t want everyone to know when I had your powers so...” She shrugged again.
“Thank you,” Clark said, leaning over and giving her a kiss.
“Yeah, well, I think you owe me a little more than just a kiss,” Lois said, wiggling her eyebrows at him. “After all, that story was worth a Pulitzer.”
“Ooo, honey, now that’s one debt I’ll be more than happy to pay.”
When he reached for her, however, she batted away his hands. “Later,” she promised.
“I’m going to hold you to that. After all, never let it be said that Clark Kent doesn’t pay his debts.”
Lois smiled. “Still... I can remember thinking a lot about what happened. I mean, I’d just watched a man catch a missile, fly it out my window so that it would explode above my apartment building and then fly back in. Actually, I think I handled it pretty well... everything considered. The question was... how was it possible? Problem was the only one who could answer that question for me was the one man I was determined never to talk to again. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about it a lot.”
“Did you come to any conclusions?”
“None. Or at least none that I can remember right now.”
Clark sighed. “Okay, well, let’s keep looking.”
Lois and Clark turned their attention back to their computers, searching for more headlines that might trigger memories.
‘Virtual Reality Virtually Incredible,’ by Clark Kent and Linda King.
“Wait a minute,” Lois said when Clark read off the headline. “Does that mean that Jackson... or ‘X’ as he wanted to be called, didn’t trap me in his virtual world?”
“Why would he? After all, I very much doubt that you and Luthor ever talked about having children - and Jackson wanted the names of Luthor’s children in order to get passwords.”
“That’s true. So... what else do we have?”
‘Crime Wave Hits City,’ by Lois Lane.
‘Handyman Fails To Rebuild Intergang,’ by Lois Lane.
‘Never On Sunday,’ by Clark Kent and Linda King.
‘Trevanian Plot Against NIA Revealed,’ by Lois Lane.
“Oh, you’ve got to see this one,” Lois said after another moment.
Clark rolled his chair over beside Lois. His eyebrows rose when he read the headline.
‘Luthor Leads Religious Revival In Prison,’ by Lois Lane.
“That would have been about the time that our Luthor was inventing a clone to break out of prison,” Clark said.
“I guess believing that he was prevented from jumping off that balcony by God did him some good.”
“Maybe. On the other hand, when they were carting him out, he was claiming to be the new Messiah. Something tells me that his theology might be a little...”
“...twisted?”
Clark nodded.
“Probably, knowing Lex.”
With a sigh, Lois and Clark returned to their computers.
‘Death By Rocket Propelled Grenade,’ by Clark Kent and Linda King.
‘Mendenhall: Doctor Of Death,’ by Lois Lane.
‘Vibro Whamny Makes City Wacky,’ by Lois Lane.
“I think it was about this time that Carpenter really went off the deep end,” Clark said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think about it, Lois. How many of the last few stories did you get? And how many did I get? And even when I got a story, you seemed to get the better story.” He pointed at two of their recent stories. “My story is about someone launching a rocket propelled grenade through someone’s window. Yours is about the man who ordered it.”
“So I take it Carpenter didn’t like that.”
Clark shook his head before commencing his story.
**“Okay, people. Listen up!” Carpenter said to the crowd in the conference room. “Rules are changing. The Daily Planet has been scooping too many stories and that is going to stop right now or heads are going to roll! So from now on I want to know where every one of my reporters is at all times, day and night. You will all be issued a cell phone so that I can reach you if need be on any breaking story. And if you forget your cell phone... Well, let’s just say that you might want to make sure your resume is up to date.”
With that, Carpenter turned and stormed from the room.
“Oh, boy,” Clark breathed.
Linda turned to look at him. “He’s not a happy camper, is he.”
“Well, I might not trust his motives, but you can’t really blame him for being angry. He’s right. The Daily Planet has certainly been proving why it’s called the Greatest Paper in the World.”
Clark sighed as he gathered his notes together. He knew, at least part, of what the problem was. He’d been obsessing about Lane ever since that night when she’d discovered he could fly - and it was affecting his work. It seemed she didn’t have the same difficulty. Problems in her personal life seemed to make her more focused, more determined to get the story. Either that or she hadn’t been nearly as devastated as he had been that night.**
“How could you even think that?” Lois asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as devastated as I was that night. It made everything that had happened with Claude seem like a day at the beach. I’d told you I loved you. I’d have been willing to take on Perry and even my mother to be with you. And then you turned out to be everything I’d been telling myself you weren’t.”
“I guess I knew that - even then. After all, after that night, I went out of my way to avoid you. I think I figured that there was no hope of us ever getting together and that further contact would just be too painful for both of us.”
Lois nodded slowly. “Anyway, go on with your story.”
“Well, at first I thought Carpenter’s strategy was working. We had a rash of stories.” He scrolled through his computer screen, reading off headlines as he went.
‘Crooks One, Cops Zero,’ by Clark Kent and Linda King.
‘Remarkable Rescue in Hotel Fire,’ by Linda King.
“Why is only Linda’s name on that story?” Lois asked.
“Well, I sort of became part of the story,” Clark said. “Linda had received a phone call from Carpenter telling us to get over to the hotel. When we got there, the hotel was on fire. A woman was trapped inside and the fire department’s ladders wouldn’t reach her.”
**Clark clenched and unclenched his fists when he saw the fireman standing at the very top of the ladder, reaching out for the woman standing on a ledge while the building burned behind her. It was never going to work. But for some reason, the fireman couldn’t give up.
Well, neither could Clark. He couldn’t just stand there and do nothing while that woman either burned to death or leapt to her death. He just couldn’t.
He slipped under the police barricade.
“Where are you going?” Linda asked, grabbing his arm.
“I have to help,” Clark said, jerking his arm away and dashing towards the hotel.
“Hey! You can’t go in there!” yelled a fireman just as Clark disappeared through the front door.
The smoke was blinding. It took Clark a moment to activate his x-ray vision in order to cut through the haze of the fire. Finally getting his bearings, he dashed towards the door marked as a stairway.
The smoke was even worse in there. Quickly inhaling, he managed to clear most of the smoke before dashing up the stairs. After all, he’d need an escape route once he reached the woman.
The floor was consumed with flames when he exited the stairwell. He had to duck, avoiding a burning beam a fraction of a second before it would have hit him. He turned towards the wall and x-rayed it, quickly finding the woman standing on the edge. Okay, well, at least she hadn’t done anything stupid yet - like jumping off. Still, it wasn’t as if she’d survive these flames - so maybe jumping off that ledge wasn’t quite so stupid.
He looked around before using a small blast of freezing breath to damp down the worst of the flames before jogging towards the window. The floor gave out as he took a step and he had to float to keep from going through the collapsing floorboards.
Finally, reaching the window, he looked out.
“Miss?” he said.
The startled woman nearly lost her footing at the surprising sound of a voice behind her. Fortunately for Clark’s secret, she managed to hang on.
“I think I’ve got a way through the flames,” he said, reaching out a hand to her.
He knew people were shouting and staring from the ground below, having obviously noticed a man in the window, but he ignored them as he encouraged the woman to take his hand.
She hesitated for a moment before doing as he’d requested. He quickly helped her back in the window. He heard her gasp and looked around. He had to admit, it did look pretty bad.
“Here,” he said, pulling off his jacket and putting it over her head.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist so that he could keep her partially floating as they crossed the dangerous floor. Arriving at the stairwell, he opened the door to a rush of smoke.
Damn.
“Okay, wait here for a second,” Clark said. Without waiting for her response, and counting on the limited vision she had with the his jacket over her head, he dashed back into the hotel room, grabbed a pillow case and... spotting a glass of water sitting on a nearby table, he poured the water onto the pillow case and sped back to the woman.
“Put this over your mouth and nose.” As she did so, he picked her up in his arms. “It will be easier if I carry you.”
“But...”
Her voice trailed off as they begin to move faster than humanly possible down the stairs. She coughed into his chest the entire way, preventing her from seeing how fast he was moving. A few moments later, he was opening the door at the bottom of the stairs and carrying her through the lobby to the front entrance.
There were gasps of relief and astonishment when the two of them emerged into the sunlight. As he set the woman down, he spotted Linda, along with a number of firemen rushing in his direction. He sighed. He really didn’t want this story to be about him. But at this point, there was not much he could do to prevent that very scenario from playing out.**
“I remember that story,” Lois said softly. “I got there after you’d already rescued the woman. All I knew was some man had rushed into the building to rescue the woman. But I didn’t know the details. So I was stunned when I saw The Star the next morning and realized it was you.”
She gave her head a shake. “Anyway, while you were rescuing women, Perry was on the war path. The Star was out-hustling us on the streets. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him so furious. I think part of it was because of the way Carpenter had already tried to destroy him so to see him now trying to destroy the paper....”
Clark nodded slowly. “I think it was during the next story that I started to realize that something was not quite right. Linda got a call from Carpenter during our lunch break and moments later we heard sirens. We rushed out of the restaurant. An elevator cable had broken, and the car was dangling from the single remaining cable.”
“What did you do?”
“What could I do?”
At Lois’ raised eyebrows, Clark relented. “Okay, so I snuck into the elevator shaft and floated up to the top of the car. I managed to hold onto it, without being seen, until they got everyone out. Then I let go and the car crashed to the bottom of the shaft. I couldn’t do anything else without giving away my secret. It damaged the shaft, but at least the people were safe. So... anyway, it got me thinking.”
**Clark leaned back in his chair and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Uh oh. I smell rubber burning,” Linda said, coming over to take a seat on the edge of his desk. “So what’s got you so lost in thought?”
“Have you seen this?” Clark held out the paper to the editorial page. “Carpenter has an editorial demanding stronger building codes in light of the elevator accident, calling for a criminal investigation into the manufacturers.”
“So?”
“So he’s a fast writer. It’s in the same edition as our scoop on the elevator accident.”
“Clark, you know Carpenter. You’ve been working for him for over almost two years now. He always has an opinion.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Clark said, still not convinced.
“What?”
Clark let out a breath, tossing the paper on his desk. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Okay, well... I've got a hot date tonight so I’m out of here. Wish me luck.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him.
“Good luck,” Clark replied absentmindedly. He watched as she picked up her coat and walked to the door before returning to his previous musings. Something was going on. He just couldn’t quite put his finger on what that was.
He sat there for a few more minutes before deciding to call it a night himself. He had just picked up his coat when he heard voices coming from Carpenter’s office.
“Well done, Mr. Stark,” Carpenter said. “Don’t you love the news business?”
“This one wasn’t easy.”
“If they were easy, I wouldn’t need your services, would I?”
“How many more?”
“As many as it takes to kill the Planet. Because then, Stark, I will control over eighty percent of what the American people read. And when you control what they read, you control what they think. And when you control what they think, you can really begin to make things happen.”
Clark froze in his tracks. Suddenly, his previous suspicions that somehow this was all connected to Carpenter didn’t seem quite so crazy. Not that he knew anything, but... Still, even if he did get to the bottom of it, it wasn’t as if The Star would ever run it.
Maybe he should run his theory past Linda. Maybe they could... No. No, he couldn’t do that. After all, if he was wrong, and if Carpenter realized that he and Linda were looking into a connection between the last few ‘accidents’ and Carpenter, Linda would lose her job. So would he, for that matter. But that was his choice. He wouldn’t make that choice for Linda.
So who could help him find out... His thought trailed off as one person leapt to the forefront of his mind.**
TO BE CONTINUED...
