Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Nighttime in the Daytime, 4/?

This is the tale of Nightfall in the Alternate Universe depicted in “All the Daytime and the Nighttime.” Thanks to Deborah Joy Levine and the pilot for parts of this.

Previously on Part 3: Clark emerged from the dining room and stood, arms crossed and legs apart, trying to look heroic - and succeeding.

Rita sucked in her breath. Now she really didn’t recognize her brother.

Pete’s jaw dropped. “Oh my god,” he said under his breath.

Clark turned to the full-length mirror on the door of the coat closet by the staircase and examined himself critically, then turned back to the pair. “What do you think?”

Rita swallowed, then said, “One thing's for sure. Nobody's going to be looking at your face.”

Clark blushed, shocked, “Rita!”

She shrugged. “Well, they don't call them tights for nothing. I call ‘em like I see ‘em. Besides, what I meant was, that they will be looking at the pretty gold shield on your chest.”

Pete laughed, “Well, you wore football uniforms on the playing field and Speedos on the swim team. Think of it as the same thing. A uniform. I’ve got to say though, it is great camouflage. Nobody will see the stern FBI agent underneath.” Pete had to suppress a laugh from the image of Clark reading a perp his rights in the uniform.

Somewhat mollified, Clark turned back to the mirror. “I still don’t know about the cape. Is it too long?”

“Well, historically, the cape is usually mid-calf like yours. Too short, it’s a capelet and won’t cover um…the essentials. Too long it’ll drag in the mud. I love it. It'll look grand when you're flying.” Rita pondered some more, while Clark examined himself in the mirror again. “You know what would be great is another shield on the back of the cape, maybe in a bigger size. Do you have another one?”

Clark shook his head, “No, I don’t.” He turned back rapidly and the cape swirled out majestically behind him, then he reversed direction and did the same. “Yeah, I guess it would work.”

“Well, I just basted the shield on the front. I’ll take it off and take it home to my surger with the computer system. I can make as many as you need with that.”

“As many as I’ll need?” Clark asked a little bewildered.

Pete interjected. “You need spares. That could get torn and wrecked.”

“I’m not sure about that. Tight clothes don’t get wrecked when I do things. I’ve proven that in my ah…escapades to date. But I do need some spares.”

Pete decided to play devils advocate. “Are you sure you don’t need a mask, say a red ski mask, to hide your face?”

Protesting immediately, Rita said, ”No a mask makes him look like he is hiding something. A bare face tells them he is honest.”

“And as Clark, I wear glasses.” Clark fetched his glasses from the sideboard, put them on and ruffled his hair. “See, it won’t be me.” The juxtaposition of the red, blue and yellow suit and the glasses was jarring and didn’t look like either person.

“Exactly why do you wear glasses anyway, Clark?”

To see how he would sit in the uniform, he came over to armchair opposite the sofa to tell them. As he awkwardly sat down, he realized the further utility of the cape in hiding a rather embarrassing posture.

“When I started to get my special vision, I discovered I could look through things even when I didn’t particularly want to. And I could burn things a little too easily. These glasses are leaded. I can’t see through lead, and it keeps my vision normal without having to consciously control it all the time.”

“You can’t see through lead?”

He shook his head no.

“I know you flew to the moon.”

Rita looked at Pete in surprise. Clark had flown to the moon?

Continuing, Pete asked, “Is there anything that can hurt you?

“Not that I’ve found on Earth.”

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Chapter 4. Kittens in Trees

Clark flew back to Metropolis openly in his new uniform, feeling like he was driving a hot sports car, all shiny and new. He now had comfortable boots, courtesy of a quick trip in black to El Paso and a visit to world famous Sergios Boots. They quickly made him custom fitted size 13 boots in a reddish calfskin. When he brought them back to the farm, Rita had dyed them a red to match his cape.

He felt encourage from his visit to the farm, the easy acceptance of his abilities from Rita and the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the Ross’, catching up on old times. He hadn’t made the trip there in several years, being busy with his training and work. He had always called and they had accepted both his excuses and his warm wishes.

The next plan was to do some kind of flashy debut and get attention so that he would be a credible person to attack the Nightfall asteroid. In the process, he could do some overt snooping on the weapons running consortium. Maybe his abilities would help locate their headquarters and links to shipment plans and dates.

As part of his plan to rush to the aid of people in need and not trample on the activities of the local police and rescue workers and thereby irritate them, he had reasoned that it would be very nice to be able to hear the police and fire radio traffic while he was in the air. While using his abilities clandestinely, he had usually been in the vicinity of an emergency radio and could hear the speakers. Now he needed to get a speaker for himself. He knew he could hear the “silent” dog whistles above 22 kilo Herz and that most young humans topped out at being able to hear at 20 kHz. But now he needed something up to 140,000 kHz.

Back in his workshop in his rental at Independent Hill, Virginia, when he was training at Quantico, he had built a receiver to do just that. All that stuff he transported to the Farm in Smallville when he moved to Metropolis.

So he had asked Rita to sew the tiny scanner/receiver in the top of his cape near his right ear. Trying it out before he left the Farm, he found he could pick up all the local radio stations and the audio from the standard television channels and that he could tune out the noise from the wind passing his ears.

Clark did realize he was comfortable with his surreptitious use of his abilities and had some fears about going out in public, but, he reasoned, he had to put those aside to save the Earth. Well, that was a little pretentious, even in thought. He amended it to part of the Earth, most particularly Metropolis and the Eastern Seaboard.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Clark was flying leisurely at 20,000 feet, south of the Great Lakes and avoiding both low flying aircraft and commercial aircraft at higher altitude. He really didn’t want to scare a pilot and be listed as a UFO, albeit a colorful UFO. For situational awareness, he tuned his receiver to the aviation band, 118 to 137 MHz, and followed the chatter of air traffic control centers and responding aircraft.

Clark knew that FL 320 was 32,000 feet Mean Sea Level and that the Heavy designation after the flight number meant it was a large plane like a 747.

Oh, this was fun. Maybe he would follow below the plane just to practice. Searching above him, he located the contrails from the air traffic vectoring toward the east coast. After that he would find the ones going toward MIX, Metropolis International Airport.

Rising to roughly 28,000 feet, Clark followed the aircraft. He could see a large storm brewing ahead and the air traffic chatter turned to frequent weather reports. It sounded like Metropolis was currently in the center of the thunderstorm, but they controllers weren’t yet diverting aircraft. However, they were slowing them down.

Deciding to head more rapidly to Metropolis, Clark put on speed. The storm was very strong with roiling air currents. He let himself go with the currents like surfing of the North Shore of Oahu. The only difference was that he always knew which way was up. Clark finally broke through the cloud layer and realized he was somewhere around 40,000 feet.

Suddenly he heard an air traffic call in the eerily calm but strained voice of the pilot. “LexAir 120 Heavy declaring emergency landing at Metropolis airport. Severe turbulence at all altitudes. Descending rapidly, controls at max boost. Prepare runway.” There was a loud cry in the cabin. Another voice said, lost left wingtip. Repeat, lost left wing from engine out. Emergency, LexAir 120Heavy.”

“LexAir 120 Heavy, this is Metropolis Tower. Clearing runway 45 left. Can you make that?”

“…..try” was all Clark could hear as the pilots obviously struggled with the controls.

Another controller came on the frequency. “LexAir 120 Heavy, be advised we are having a severe rainstorm, mixed with sleet. The runways are already slick and we were beginning to close the airport.”

“Roger, MIX,” Clark heard faintly.

Now, or never, Clark thought as he dove down through the turbulent clouds, seeking out the aircraft with his vision. This time he didn’t roll with the flow, but flew straight as an arrow toward the disabled plane. He approached it head on, and saw it was starting into a death roll, not being able to maintain level flight with a missing wing section. Airplane control surfaces could compensate, but not for that much damage. Debating with himself the best place to put his efforts, he chose the obvious, the outboard side of the missing wing, right near the left engine. He came in on the bottom and pushed up, opposite the roll, leaving the power part of the flight to the aircraft itself.

Now he was close enough to hear the pilots talk between themselves. He also could hear the terrified screaming and audible prayers of the passengers, which slowed as they realized the aircraft was flying again. Something else he didn’t expect also happened. The plane was in level flight as if the turbulence had no effect on aerodynamics of the plane. Could he really influence something this huge? He certainly had never tried before.

As he looked into the cockpit through the side of the plane, the pilot and co-pilot turned to each other and asked simultaneously, “What just happened?” The navigator at the side console released his grip on the board and said to both of them, “I don’t know, but I’m happy it did.”

The command pilot asked him, “Where are we?”

Checking his board, the navigator answered, “About half an hour out at present rate.”

Keying his mic, the pilot called “Metropolis Tower, LexAir 120 Heavy. We’ve ah…come out of the turbulence, but still need emergency services on the runway. We may have injured passengers.” As he was saying “come out of the turbulence”, he scanned the angry roiling clouds ahead of him and looked through the side windshield. He saw a small figure in blue and red and exclaimed, “What the heck?” The small figure in blue and red gave him a wave with his free arm and fingers extended, pointing forward toward Metropolis in a gesture that said, “Keep going.” The pilot gave him a feeble wave of acknowledgement and turned back to his controls. The board was green, showing that the plane was flying quite nicely, thank you.

“What did you see?” the co-pilot asked.

“A guy in a blue suit and cape holding up the wing.” The pilot was in apparent shock.

“Jim, you’re kidding me. This is not the time for your jokes!”

The navigator wanted to be part of the action too, so he unstrapped and walked up the now perfectly level cockpit to look out the left windscreen. “Well, I’ll be dammed. It is a guy in a blue suit with a red cape. I hope he keeps doing what he is doing. It isn’t Christmas just yet, but I’ll take this as my Christmas present!”

Clark laughed as he heard this and waved at the face peering through the window. He now noticed passengers on his side of the plane looking his way and waved at them too.

Turning back to the face at the cockpit window, he pointed down in a repeated gesture. “I think he wants you to land,” the navigator said wonderingly.

“Anything he wants,” the pilot answered as he called the tower to start his base leg to the runway. “I wonder if I can still turn this thing.”

Still at the window, the navigator said, “He is nodding his head yes and making a sweeping gesture with his free arm.”

“God, he can hear me!”

“He just gave a thumbs up to that and did the sweeping gesture again.” The navigator left the side window and gripped the pilot and co-pilot seat backs and said, calmly, I’m sitting back down again.” The navigator then returned to his station and strapped in, still in a state of shock.

As the plane slowed and banked, Clark went with it, just keeping it stable.

“Jim, what are you going to do?” the co-pilot asked.

“Just fly like it is a working airplane, that’s all.”

Outside, Clark nodded and smiled, but nobody in the cockpit was watching him. Passengers at the windows smiled too. He could hear the standard pre-landing announcement, but the passengers were already strapped in and their tray-tables were in the upright and locked positions. Maybe their hearts weren’t quite so locked in fright any more. Suddenly, Clark decided this was all worth it, no matter what else happened to his life. He felt good and really satisfied. But they weren’t all safely on the ground yet.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Lois had just returned from Thanksgiving dinner with her parents. Lucy was with her family in Los Angeles and they had all had a friendly phone chat with each other. Lois had noticed that her father was more closed off than usual. He never talked about his work and that said work consumed most of his time. But either he was working more or really had nothing to say except to extol the efforts of his wife. He had asked what Clark was doing for Thanksgiving, showing some interest in his daughter’s life, but that was about it.

As was her habit, Lois turned on the LNN news channel as she entered her apartment and went to the bedroom to change.

The trumpet fanfare on the sound announced the Breaking News Bulletin.

The announcer said in a grave voice, “The severe thunderstorm over Metropolis caused a LexAir flight arriving from Denver to declare an in-flight emergency. We have no word on the cause of the emergency, but a runway has been cleared and emergency trucks and crews are at the ready. The runway has been foamed in case the landing gear is the problem, but the severe rain and hail weather is washing the foam away.”

“Rain is right,” Lois said as she emerged from her bedroom in jeans and a sweater. It had been a hard drive from her folks’ place to her apartment. After she got inside, it had started coming down in sheets.

“Here are the first pictures of the airplane as it is approaching the airport.” A fuzzy, dancing picture of a dot increasing in size was on the center of the screen. The wind was blowing violently down the runway, but also giving lift to the approaching aircraft.

Shortly, the picture showed more of the aircraft. The wheels were down, but there was something wrong with the general look of it. The left wing outboard of the engine was missing and there was something hanging from it. The startled announcers started speculating wildly on what the hanging blue and red thing might be, none of them even coming close to a rational explanation.

They fell silent as the plane touched down quite gently. Suddenly, the blue hanging thing was gone, then it appeared at the nose of the aircraft, just below the radar dome, seeming to push on the aircraft to stop it. Meantime the brakes were making some headway on the slick runway.

“Here’s our aviation expert, Rob Winters to explain what’s happening.”

Rob’s voice came on over the picture. “Frankly, I don’t know. But I think it is a person, strange as that may seem, now slowing the aircraft down. The left wing is clearly missing and it is practically impossible to control a plane with that much wing missing, let alone fly it. But, here it is in a successful landing.”

Sure enough, as the plane came to a full stop, the figure dropped from the front of the airplane and landed lightly on the tarmac. The figure turned and faced the crowd and began walking toward the media.

The pilots and the navigator watched through the window as the figure emerged from under the nose and walked toward the crowd of cameras and reports. “Turn on the cockpit TV and let’s see who this guy is,” the Captain ordered. “At least him appearing in public will make our report to the FAA credible.” After a thought, he added, “Oh, and send it to the passenger cabin so they can see who saved them.”

Lois watched transfixed as the figure dropped from the front of the aircraft and approached the cameras. It was a man in skin-tight blue suit and red shorts, boots, and cape with a gold “S” on his chest. “He’s a superman,” she breathed.

He stood in front of the cameras with a calm expression on his face. With his slicked-back black hair he was devastatingly handsome, not to mention clearly well built and fit. “Hello. I was flying to Metropolis,” he began casually as if it was a regular commute, “and I found this airplane having a bit of trouble, so I helped out. That’s why I’m here, I’m here to help people who need it.”

The television reporters starting calling questions out to him, but he held up his hand for silence, which they reluctantly gave him. He repeated his message in Spanish, French, and German, and then in Mandarin Chinese. When he switched languages the American media became instantly confused until someone recognized it and called out, “It’s Spanish.” When he switched again, another one called out, “French.” The same person called out, “German”. Silence followed the last one until a timid voice said, “Unh, I think Chinese.”

Lois rapidly threw on her raincoat and hat and grabbed her keys and purse. She had to interview this man and find out what he was really after. LNN would be playing this tape all night and she wouldn’t miss anything. She locked her five locks and rushed down to the garage. Thank God her car was indoors. At least it would be dry getting in.

Quickly backing her car out of the garage, Lois headed to the nearest onramp to I-95 and the airport. She was surprised at how slick and treacherous the road surface was. “Be careful, girl. Even the story of the century isn’t worth your life.” But in the back of her mind, a small part disagreed with that common sense sentiment.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Clark faced the onslaught of media as calmly as he could. This whole thing was more than the rescuing of kittens in trees that he had planned.

He had hoped to buy time by repeating his message in several languages, because he really didn’t have an after game plan. He couldn’t really divulge the type of trouble the airplane had been in because that was the purview of the FAA. If nothing else, he knew the rules of the government game.

“I think these passengers would really like to get off this airplane. Why don’t we move and let them get to a gate or disembarkation area?” On the word, an aircraft tow tug began backing up to the front wheel of the aircraft undercarriage where the hitch was. It started beeping as it backed and the police moved the crowd backwards, Clark following.

Clark noticed Henderson to the rear edge of the crowd and had a moment of panicand had a moment of panic. ‘I hope he doesn’t recognize me!’ Then he squelched it. He wasn’t acting like Clark, therefore he wasn’t Clark. People see what they are accustomed to seeing.

For a time the press corps continued to shout questions at him. Finally, the question that he was dreading came. “What’s your name and where are you from?” After Cindy Lou from LNN broke the ice with the question, other reporters chimed in and repeated variations of it.

Clark didn’t have an answer. The ‘Heroman’ that Pete called him didn’t really seem to be a great name and not very modest or helpful.

From the police car radios he heard a call about a major wreck on the rain slicked northbound lane of I-95 on the route from the city to the airport.

Shamed that he was relieved he could ditch the question for now, he started to lift slowly into the air. The crowd immediately backed away further. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but there’s an emergency and I have to go help. That’s what I’m here for, to help.” As he increased speed leaving, he thought, ‘And I need help with a name.’

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Lois could barely see through the driving rain, but she determinedly pushed on and could see the lights of the airport in the distance. Suddenly, without warning, she plowed into a stopped car and the world went dark.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Lex Luthor had been alerted that one of his aircraft was in trouble. Normally, he didn’t care about the daily workings of his airline, but this one had some special cargo from Denver designated for some of his clandestine activities. He had even called in Nigel St. John to listen to the reports with him.

When LNN showed that the plane landed successfully, he released the breath that he didn’t realize he was holding and gestured to Nigel. “Go get the cargo we want.”

Obediently, Nigel turned and left with a nod.

Lex then saw the figure drop from the wing and start stopping the plane. “Well, well, what have we here?”

Avidly following the exploits of what appeared to be a super being, Lex waited impatiently for the newshounds to get some information from him. He brightened when Cindy Lou asked her question. “Good girl. Here it is.”

When the super being didn’t have an answer or wasn’t prepared to give one, he felt disappointed. “I’m here to help,” he mocked. “Maybe this fellow could be useful to me, depending on how much about modern society he doesn’t know. Just because he can speak five languages doesn’t mean he is wise in the ways of this Earth.” Lex had even understood his flawless Mandarin.

“But,” he conceded, “All in all it was an astonishing debut. And saved me a bundle of money. Maybe, he should be awarded just recompense.”

*+*+*+*+*+*+
tbc

Artemis