“Comic books? That’s just creepy,” the other Clark said.
“That’s what I thought,” Clark said. “Once I’d had time to think about it. They had most of the details right…the Kents, Perry White, Lois…”
Once the other man had finally admitted his failings in the other world, he’d finally started to relax.
“Do you think they had a visit from another alternate universe?”
“Seventy years ago?” Clark asked.
“We’re thirty years apart. Why is seventy years any more unbelievable?”
“If I had a secret identity, I wouldn’t exactly be blabbing it to everybody in the first bar I came in to.” Clark paused. “Did you have a…”
“Ten years running,” the other man said. He smiled slightly. “It was the new facial recognition programs that got me…once they compared my face to my driver’s license picture in the system, that was it. I tried blurring my face for a while, but I got sloppy.”
“Blurring?” Clark asked.
The other Clark looked up and shook his head rapidly. To a human eye his features would have appeared blurry.
“I was getting too busy to keep my other alias anyway. Once they’d gotten around to tagging everyone, I’d have been caught one way or the other.”
“They tagged people…”
“Just government workers and prisoners. Eventually they’d have gotten around to everyone else.”
“So everyone you brought with you on the plane…”
“All of them are easily tracked by satellite. They have GPS locators implanted under their skins.”
The government was going to love that. The idea bothered Clark on a basic level, but the longer he talked to the other Clark, the more he realized that the other man was comfortable with things in the name of security that would have been abhorrent to the people of 1993.
If anything, it sounded like this Clark and Lois were going to find this world a breath of fresh air.
Clark decided to ignore the question. There wasn’t any point in arguing over something he couldn’t change.
“Ten years….” He said slowly. “The glasses thing really worked for you?”
The other man shrugged. “Nobody ever said anything…and I’d know.”
Given his hearing, Clark could believe it.
“There’s something I’ve been trying to figure out,” he said. “Where do you put the cape and the boots when you’re wearing a business suit?”
***********
“It’s over,” one of the men said. “The last of the rifts caused an explosion in Syria, but it’s being handled.”
“We’re sure that’s it?” Lois asked.
“It’s been two hours and there haven’t been any more sightings.”
“What are the Supermen doing, then?”
“Clean-up in China,” the analyst said. “Working the earthquake from what I hear.”
Clearing his throat, the man behind her said, “It’s time to go, Ms. Lane.”
The rest of the people who had been working the Situation Room had begun clearing out over an hour ago.
Apprehensively, Lois looked up. “Where am I going?”
She’d been in the middle of everything, and even if she was never able to report on it, it had been thrilling to be part of something bigger than herself. For the first time, Lois had thoughts of going into politics.
“Where do you want to go?” the man asked. “You aren’t a prisoner.”
At her expression he said hastily, “You can’t stay here though. The President is on his way back, and he’s blocking access to the press.”
“That’s a mistake,” Lois said.
There were going to be political consequences to all of this. Every single American had been made to feel vulnerable in ways that even 9-11 hadn’t begun to touch. This wasn’t something that occurred in a foreign country or even three thousand miles away in a city people might never visit.
This had happened in people’s home towns, in their living rooms and on their streets. Every person in the country had known what it was like to be afraid to leave your couch for fear that you might step into somewhere else and never be able to get back…or have something step through and come for you.
The other man shrugged. “Your sister has been asking for you. I can take you there if you like.”
Lois nodded shortly. She suspected that people around the country were trying to reconnect with family in the wake of all that had happened.
Lucy was the closest thing she had to family left in all the world.
*********
Despite her exhaustion, she ended up sitting up late with Lucy watching television. The coverage reminded her of a combination of election night coverage and what she remembered of her own time covering the collapse of the Twin Towers.
The eyes of the country were riveted to the screen, and it soon became apparent that the fallout was going to be severe. All three major candidates declared that an accident of this scope wouldn’t have happened on their watch. All of them were jockeying to take political advantage in a way that left Lois feeling disgusted.
Mass firings were expected by most of the talking heads, some of whom were quite angry and vehement.
The same You Tube video of the dinosaur sliding out of thin air in a Texas Ranch home and then running around panicked was played over and over. Six feet high and eleven feet long, the thing had skidded on floors and smashed into windows before being knocked unconscious my the father with a baseball bat.
The family was apparently now hoping to find a breeding male, as they had an ostrich farm.
The experts were debating as to whether it was a Thescelosaurus or Parkosaurus, as though anyone actually cared. The paleontologists had to be excited of course.
Word was coming in of hundreds of isolated incidents of extinct animals coming through. Most had been herbivores, which one expert explained as being understandable, as herbivores outnumbered carnivores by a wide margin.
Even in the days of the buffaloes, the prairies had been mostly empty.
There were arguments over the disposition of the buffalo herd in Los Angeles. There were concerns for the cattle industry and fears they might have non-native parasites that would interfere with the beef industry.
As Lois finally fell asleep with her sister’s head on her shoulder, the debate raged on.
********
The next day was filled with more of the same. There were news of firings, unusual with this administration, and people on all sides of the issues were jockeying to divert the blame.
Church attendance was up, with people giving thanks or praying for people in those areas where communications had been lost. The true count of the missing still wasn’t known.
What news was coming from China suggested that two Supermen were exponentially more effective than one. Rescue and reconstruction work was taking place at an unheralded rate.
Various government agencies in California were arguing over who had custody of the buffalo in Los Angeles. Residents were complaining of the odor, which apparently stretched for miles when the wind blew the wrong way.
Bulletin boards were being set up for survivors. You tube videos of strange creatures encountered in people’s homes were all the rage.
One couple had registered to keep a turkey sized lizard as a pet, although local authorities were arguing that as a wild animal, it didn’t agree with city ordinances.
Mostly Lois spent the day finally talking with Lucy. It had been the first time in months that she’d really been able to relax. It was the first time in years that she’d been able to actually laugh.
In the middle of it all she realized that she’d been lying to herself about family after all this time.
It really was important.
**********
On the morning of the second day, Lois found herself in a limousine with darkened windows heading once again for the White House.
The crowd of protesters outside weren’t able to see her, and they slipped through a heavily guarded back entrance.
She was surprised to enter an almost empty conference room. Dr. Ledderman was there, as was Mr. Smith and Agent White. On one screen was another, identical Dr. Ledderman as well as the older Lois Lane. On another screen were several men she hadn’t met before.
Dr. Ledderman looked excited. “I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my counterpart. He and his people are from fifteen years in the future, and they have knowledge we haven’t even dreamed of.”
The other Doctor Ledderman smiled. “Our developments weren’t exactly the same, and the good doctor was able to find some theorems that my world hadn’t developed counterparts for.”
Trust Dr. Ledderman to fall in love with his own reflection. Lois couldn’t say the same. Staring up at the monitor at the other Lois Lane, Lois wondered why she felt jealous and catty whenever she saw the other woman.
“Why am I here?” she asked, glancing up at the older Lois. The woman had somehow managed to pack an exquisitely tailored burgundy outfit even in the midst of escaping a dying world. Apparently being the girlfriend of a super hero had its advantages.
“The new arrivals have had a little more time to work on the rifts mathematics, although they scrapped the program several years ago due to fears it was too dangerous and budgetary concerns.”
“So?”
“They say we need to be ready for an aftershock to happen tomorrow. We don’t need to worry about the smaller rifts, but the largest will reopen. It won’t last long, but they tell me they can accurately predict the time the rifts will open.”
“You’d just have to follow the ones opening across the Atlantic anyway,” Lois said faintly.
She sat back stunned.
“You’re telling me that Clark and the others…including my sister can go home?”
“Two who are in the hospital are still too critically ill to risk moving…but everyone else can go home,” Mr. White said.
The Doctor Ledderman on the screen said, “I won’t lie to you. There’s a risk involved.
The new rifts will be less stable and will collapse faster than the original set. According to our calculations there should be time to get the plane through…but there’s a margin of error.”
Lois closed her eyes for a moment as an image of a bisected pigeon came to her mind. If the rift collapsed while they were in transit…
“Maybe it’s too much of a risk,” Lois said slowly. “What right do we have…?”
“We’ve asked them already,” Mr. Smith said gently. “They’ve all decided to take the risk except for two more who want to stay…one has a version of his dead mother on this side and the other wants to stay with one of the cardiac patients.”
One of the men on the other screen spoke. “It’s a win-win situation for everyone. We won’t be stuck footing the bill for a couple of hundred people with skills that are fifteen years out of date, and the people we do get will be paying their own way.”
“They brought a database with them,” Dr. Ledderman said. He grinned. “From what we’ve seen so far it’ll be worth a fortune. They’ll pool the proceeds to pay for their re-integration into society.”
As scientists and doctors, they’d have had an easier time being naturalized than a group of average people with average skills in any case.
The other Lois spoke. “I was hoping to at least see Lucy onscreen before she goes back. In my world…I wasn’t any luckier than you were. I won’t be out of quarantine early enough to see her in person, but…”
“I’ll arrange it,” Lois said numbly.
The thing about joy in life was that as quickly as it came they could be taken away.
***************
“You didn’t really see him.”
“I did. I swear!” Jacob said. He coughed a little and wondered why he was feeling even worse these days. He hoped it wasn’t anything serious; he couldn’t bear to see his parents looking any more afraid. Their faces had become more drawn and distant over the last few days.
“You just saw a guy in a suit,” the boy in the bed next to him said. “They’re hiring them out for birthday parties now, like they used to do with clowns.”
“He promised to fly with me,” Jacob said stubbornly. “Said everything was going to be all right.”
“You can’t ever depend on what…” The other boy stopped suddenly, his jaw dropping a little.
Jacob turned to look. Floating outside the window was the familiar figure of Superman. In his arms he held a Chinese woman in a business suit.
He grinned through the window, and Jacobs smile suddenly lit up the sun.
**************
The bed was empty. Janice looked wildly around the room, and seeing that her son wasn’t there, she felt her knees go weak. It wasn’t time for his treatments, and if he wasn’t in his bed, it could only mean that something wrong.
The other children were gathered around the window, staring longingly outside.
She sagged back against her husband. The fear had been a daily companion for so long that the feeling of tightness in her chest was an old familiar feeling. She choked back a sob, and they backed quickly out of the room. No reason to alarm the other children.
They walked slowly to the nurse’s station, dreading the answer they were going to get.
“Where’s Jacob?” Janice asked slowly, dreading the answer she was sure to hear.
The nurse smiled. “He’s outside. You can see him through the windows in the children’s ward.”
Janice felt her pulse suddenly racing again, and she rushed along with her husband to the window.
Her pulse began racing again and she gasped at the sight of her son being carried by the man in the blue suit, flying in graceful curves over the parking lot. Jacob saw her suddenly and his face widened into the sort of gap toothed grin she hadn’t seen in a long time.
A moment later they were gone.
“Where did they go?” she asked. “They can’t just give my son to a strange man without our permission.”
“My client can be quite persuasive if he wants to be.”
At the sound of the voice behind them they turned. A professional looking Asian woman was standing behind them.
“My name is Susan Nyugen, and I represent the Superman Foundation. My client is offering to pay for your son to see a specialist In Washington D.C.”
“They’ve already consulted with everyone. There isn’t any hope.”
“There’s always hope,” Susan said. “Among the newcomers from the plane in Denver are a pair of skilled surgeons who have knowledge of techniques that haven’t been developed here. My client wants to see that happen.”
“Why? Why is our son any different than anyone else’s?”
“My client is good at finding buried treasure,” Susan said, smiling slightly. “He made a promise to your son and he thinks he’s something special.”
When Jacob returned from his flight, flush with excitement, he was surprised to see his parents crying. Yet as they turned to him, he saw that there was life in their faces that he hadn’t seen in a long time.
He smiled brightly at them and as they hugged him he was sure everything was going to be all right.
It was a good day.
**********
Once the plans were made, things proceeded with remarkable efficiency. One of the things the United States Army was good at was logistics, and it was known that everyone had to be back in the remains of the plane before the rifts manifested themselves.
The weather had finally changed, the cold patch from before being replaced by muggy heat. She didn’t welcome the change. Her hair felt matted to her face, and the business suit she’d chosen had her sweltering.
Why she felt she had to look her best she wasn’t sure. She’d hadn’t even seen Clark in more than two days and Lucy was too excited about getting to go home to care.
The gathering crowd of passengers was murmuring to themselves as they stared at the wingless plane.
“How are we supposed to get home in that?” one man asked irritably. “Flap our wings?”
Lois felt a sudden surge of optimism. Perhaps the paranoia of the United States government had done Clark a good turn for once. These people had obviously been sequestered for the majority of the time they’d been in custody.
“We’ll be getting a boost,” Lois heard Lucy say confidently.
She heard another woman mumbling something about the whole other dimension explanation being a government hoax, some sort of twisted psychological experiment.
“There’ll be a thousand conspiracy theories on the Internet as soon as you all get home,” Lois said.
“The Internet?” Lucy asked blankly.
Lois shook her head. This Lucy, at least wasn’t technically minded. The Internet existed in Clark’s world she was sure, it just wasn’t everywhere.
She saw Mr. Smith and Doctor Ledderman approaching from the door to the hangar. Both were pulling large suitcases.
“What’s going on?” Lois asked.
“I’m going with them,” Dr. Ledderman said.
“Why? I thought you were getting along great with your double?”
“He knows everything I do now, and I really don’t want to have to compete with him. Besides, he’s got this disgusting thing going with my ex-wife, and…”
“I thought they were still in quarantine?”
He shrugged irritably. “They fell in love by telephone. The other version of me lost his wife before she revealed how evil she was. The fool…”
“He wants to be the one to give fifteen years worth of scientific knowledge to the other world.” Mr. Smith said.
“I always wanted to be a celebrity,” Dr. Ledderman said. “Well, here’s my chance.”
“Are you going too?” Lois asked.
Mr. Smith shook his head. “The other planeload of passengers gave me the idea. We haven’t had time to interpret their information yet; the systems are quite different than ours. However, I’ve spent the last two days putting together a quick reference library together. I included advancements in solar power and renewable energy, the latest on treatments for AIDS and the solar satellite plans…and anything else I could throw in given the time I had allowed.”
“Why?” Lois asked.
“We’re moving forwards on rifts research,” he said. “And one day we’ll be visiting. It’d be nice if the people on the other side had something to offer us. Once they catch up, maybe they will.”
“Are you crazy?” Lois hissed. “We just saw what can happen…”
“And what happens if someone one universe over starts everything up? According to the reports from CERN, there were at least two other universes involved in this last fiasco. We need to know how to stop it, and the only way to do that is to do the research.”
“I…” Lois said.
She didn’t complete her thought because that was the moment that Clark made his entrance, hovering over the entryway to the air hangar.
The gasps of the crowd around her and the pointing fingers were reassuring.
“It’s time,” he said.
Lois reached out for Lucy, who hugged her tightly.
“I wish you could come,” Lucy said. “Mom and Dad would love you.”
“They…” Lois said, then stopped. She couldn’t say they wouldn’t really be her mother or father, because that would mean Lucy wasn’t her sister.
“It’s time,” Mr. Smith said gently. “Everybody needs to be on board before this thing hits.”
Reluctantly Lucy pulled away and Lois felt a sudden sense of emptiness.
What did she really have to look forward to when Lucy left? A cold, empty apartment and a life that was going to feel just as empty without Lucy in it…or Clark.
Worse, she’d see Superman every day on the news, and it would be a constant reminder of what she’d lost. The other Lois had the other Clark Kent wrapped around her little finger. From what little she’d heard of him, he seemed colder and more distant than her Clark, hardly the same person at all.
The polite cough behind her made her turn.
Clark was staring at the ground. “I’m sorry I didn’t come by,” he said. “They didn’t tell me we were going back until this morning, and I thought we were going to have time…”
“You’ve been busy,” Lois said. “Lives take priority. If I didn’t understand that, I wouldn’t have put you in the suit in the first place.”
“I…I’d hoped that we could…”
“Me too,” Lois said. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “You have someone at home.”
“Lana was there for me at a time when I needed someone…anyone. But she’s not healthy for me. I just didn’t realize it until it was too late.”
Staring up at Clark, and seeing that the passengers were already loaded, Lois pulled Clark to a spot under the plane, where nobody could see her.
“Kiss me,” she said.
He looked at her for a moment and then said, “I…”
“Just do it,” she said.
He only hesitated a moment more before leaning down to kiss her.
Closing her eyes, Lois felt the world move. She’d known how she felt about him for days already, and she’d been lying to herself all along. Deep down, she’d made her decision the moment she’d heard they were all going home.
When she opened her eyes she realized that they were both floating a foot above the floor.
Clark was looking at her and smiling sadly. “I’m sorry…you just make me…”
Lois cleared her throat and looked up at him. “Smallville,” she said, “I’m starting to think you need serious help.”
“What?”
If she was going to live as Lois Lane, she might as well start getting into character now. Lois smirked slightly.
“You need someone to watch your back. Now that I’ve put you in the suit, I can’t just let you go off by yourself.”
He stared at her for a moment, and then he started to smile.
She leaned closer to him and whispered in his ear. “Put me on the plane and let’s get going.”
**************
Flying in a plane without wings was unnerving. The usual sounds of flight, the roar of the engine, the vibration of the plane, the sounds of the air filtering through the vents…none of it was there. There hadn’t been time to reconstruct the plane completely, and so all the systems were turned off.
The only sounds were those of the people inside shifting quietly in their seats. No one spoke. They all understood the danger they were in, although none as vividly as Lois did. The image of the pigeon cut in two still haunted her.
If Clark was on one side when the rift closed, the plane would be cut in two and the people in the front half of the plane would fall to their deaths.
If he was in the front when it happened, it would happen to the people in the back.
There was every chance that the people in the middle would be cleanly cut in two as well. The chances of disaster were huge, and as they silently moved through the night, Lois felt her stomach clench.
She’d been through Iraq and yet she’d never felt so helpless.
Everyone around her was staring out the windows at the suddenly gathering clouds. The others had apparently been briefed about what was going to happen, despite what anyone believed.
The land below was utterly dark, the last light of the fading horizon doing nothing to illuminate the ground below.
As the last people on the plane, Lois and Dr. Ledderman were sitting in the front seats.
The transition, when it came was smooth and seamless. One moment Lois was looking outside at an empty field of darkness below. The next, her window exploded into a field of stars below as an unfamiliar city sprang into view below.
It was more beautiful than she would have imagined.
Glancing back she could see the location of the rift by the differences in the windows. Those on the forward side were brightly lit from below, while those on the other side were shrouded in darkness.
It wasn’t until they heard the scraping sounds that they realized they were in trouble.
The plane lurched forward as the sound of metal screaming could be heard. Lois’s heard dropped as she realized that the rift was collapsing and they were only two thirds of the way through the rift.
The people behind her began crying and praying as the noise grew louder and louder.
************
The Metropolis Meteors were having their worst game of the season when the pitcher Paco Escobar stepped off the mound. He was heading for the batter, who had just winged him with a ball. The expression on his face promised hell to pay, and the crowds perked up. A fight on the field couldn’t help but make the game more entertaining.
Leaving the mound saved Paco’s life as a huge piece of twisted metal and rubber fell onto the mound.
A moment later people in the crowd were pointing upward, where a plane seemed to be hovering in midair a thousand feet or more above them in defiance of all known laws of physics.
When the plane began to fall, the crowd sat frozen in horror.
********
The opening of the rear of the plane to open space seemed like the end. No one was lost, although the people in the rear seats began to scream.
The plane began to fall forward, and everyone was yanked forward in their seatbelts. Lois felt herself lifting off her seat as the whole plane went into free fall.
It only lasted a moment, and then the plane began to right itself. They continued to drop rapidly, but this was a controlled drop.
The baseball stadium below reminded Lois a lot of Wrigley field.
“He wouldn’t,” Lois said.
“He may not have a choice,” Dr. Ledderman said quietly. “If he’s scraped off enough of the hull, he needs to get us on the ground before the whole thing falls apart like tissue paper.”
The ground rose rapidly, and a moment later the heard the sound of the hull hitting the ground. The plane began to tilt; without the wings or the inflatable ramps, the only way to leave the plane was going to be through the doors. By tilting the plane he was leaving them close to the ground.
Dr. Ledderman struggled free of his seatbelt first, then he turned to help Lois.
A moment later he was staggering to the front doors, which the flight attendant was opening.
The lights on the other side of the door were blinding. Dr. Ledderman blinked, then grinned. He stepped onto the field and raised his hands into the air.
The crowd roared.
