Lois: “Will you stop? You sound like Dad. Jeez, I’m only twenty-six.”
Lucy: “Twenty-six today. Thirty-six tomorrow.”
Foreshadowing
By HappyGirl
“Lois! Lois Lane!” Lois was on her way to work on a crisp October morning when the smooth baritone voice called to her from the recessed doorway of a newsstand just ahead of her. As she raised a questioning eyebrow in that direction, a tall, handsome man in a business suit approached her with a smile and an outstretched hand.
“John Doe, Ms. Lane. We’ve met before, but I doubt you’d remember. I have some information that I believe will interest you. If you’ll just step inside for a moment we can talk privately.” The man stepped into the building and turned to hold the door for her.
Lois glanced around her. She didn’t like the idea of being alone in an enclosed space with a strange man who’d given her an obviously assumed name. But she was young, strong, and trained in martial arts. And she hadn’t gotten to be the Daily Planet’s best investigative journalist without taking calculated risks on a fairly regular basis. The newsstand had a plate glass front; they’d still be visible to passers-by on the street. And Metropolis’s newest celebrity, Superman, was only a shout away. She hoped. Keeping her own body between her potential new source and the door, Lois took two cautious steps into the storefront.
Mr. “Doe” pulled two items from his jacket pocket. One was a business-sized envelope with her name and “Daily Planet” written in neat block letters on the front. The other was some sort of electronic device, about the size of a deck of cards.
“Everything you need to know is in the envelope, Ms. Lane.” She took the envelope from his hand. “And, I think you will be very interested in this device.” As he spoke, the man pressed a button on the tiny machine, and Lois was momentarily disoriented by a brilliant flash of light and a wave of dizziness. As soon as she could see again, she was out the newsstand door in two strides, ready to defend herself from the strange man---who was nowhere to be seen.
Lois shook her head and took a couple of deep breaths. When the dizziness passed, she took another look around her, and, seeing no sign of Mr. Doe, she resumed her walk toward the Planet, still holding the envelope in her hand. She had taken only three steps when she was stopped again, this time by two images in the newsstand window. One was her own reflection: she was wearing a different outfit—one she was sure she didn’t even own—and her hair hung down her back to her shoulder blades, the front sections pulled back from her face with a barrette. The second image which grabbed her attention was the stacks of newspapers; The Daily Planet, The Metropolis Star, The Gotham Gazette, The Washington Post. None of them looked the same as she’d seen minutes before. She stepped closer for a better look at the Planet. The headline read “Davis Recalled, Schwarzenegger Elected in California Special Ballot.” Grinning out at her from above the fold was The Terminator himself in a conservative business suit. Her mind in a whirl of confusion, she searched the banner for some clue. She let out a startled gasp when her gaze fell on the date at the top of the page: October 8, 2003.
Lois staggered to the bench of a nearby bus stop and looked around her. She felt utterly out of sorts, and she was trying to gather her wits and make some sense out of the last five minutes. Everything looked the same as it had before her run-in with Mr. Doe. Or mostly the same. Now that she was looking for them, she could see subtle differences. There was the usual parade of morning commuters, but the fashions were slightly different. For one thing, several of the professional women passing by were wearing pants suits rather than skirts. A bus came and went, and she noticed that the route number and destination were displayed on a lit-up screen rather than the printed roller-type sign she was used to. More than one of the pedestrians was talking into a mobile phone; and the phones were much smaller than the one the Planet sometimes issued her—they looked more like the communicators from the old Star Trek shows.
A woman in a business suit and walking shoes hurried past. In her effort to get around a slower pedestrian, the woman passed a little too close to Lois, grazing Lois’ knees in the process. Thus startled out of her daze, Lois noticed the envelope still clutched in her hand. She opened it and pulled out a type-written (or rather, computer-printed) letter.
My Dear Ms. Lane,,
You won’t remember our last encounter, but I do. Thanks to your interference, it led to several unpleasant months in a barbaric mental asylum for me. Turnabout is fair play. My lovely little toy has just erased the last ten years of your memory. Good luck getting it back. And, once you realize you can’t, have fun in the loony bin.
J.D.
What was this nutcase talking about? Nobody had erased her memory; she had a perfectly clear memory of the last ten years, from Junior year in high school right up to the toast and cream cheese she’d had for breakfast this morning. He had to be joking. This had to be some kind of sick trick. Only, something wasn’t right. The date on those newspapers…no…that couldn’t be right. The newspapers could be faked. But how could she explain her new suit, her long hair, the Star Trek Commuters, and, now that she thought about it, a few extra pounds on her own hips and a few tiny lines beginning to show on the backs of her hands. Her hands….one of which now sported a diamond solitaire and a gold band.
Doe wasn’t saying that she had lost her memory back to 1983. He was saying that she had lost it back to this morning…her “this morning,” anyway. Could it really be true that she had lost ten years? That the morning she remembered starting out today was actually ten years in the past? Then how did she remember Mr. Doe himself? Some kind of delay factor on that machine of his? This was too much. She needed to think. She needed to get her bearings. She needed to regroup. She needed to scream.
No. She needed to calm down and make a plan. She couldn’t sit here on the bus stop bench all day looking like a bewildered imbecile. She should get to the Planet and figure this out. No, not the Planet. Not yet. If she really had lost her memory, there would be too many people there who would expect her to know things. Things she had forgotten. She wasn’t ready yet to admit her apparent amnesia to anyone. She needed to feel more in control first. She needed a place where no one would expect anything of her, but where she could find some information, try to get her head on straight, figure out if things were really as they appeared, and decide on a next step. Picking up her shoulder bag (also new---she’d dig through that first thing), she headed for the public library.
****Well, FOLCs, what do you think? Want to know what happens next? Anyone willing to beta? This is my first story; should I keep going? Let me know.
