PREVIOUSLY FROM THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE...
“Well, I thought my wine tasted salty. I remember thinking it was weird.”
“Salty?” Charlie asked.
Lois nodded.
“I remember reading that GHB tasted salty, depending on what type of drink it was added to.”AND NOW...
“What type of work do you do, Charlie?” Molly suddenly asked.
“I... uhh... Nothing too exciting,” Charlie responded, suddenly looking very uncomfortable.
Lois tilted her head to the side, her reporter’s instincts, as she liked to call them, tingling at the obvious prevarication. “Where are you from, Charlie? You said something like... maybe date rape drugs weren’t a problem around here?”
“Oh, well... I’m just sort of passing through.” He glanced at his wrist. His watchless wrist. “Anyway, I really do need to get going. It’s getting later than I thought. So...”
He rose to his feet.
“Wait!” Lois said, worried that she had frightened him off. “Before you go, can I just ask you a couple of more questions? About these date rape drugs,” she clarified to his reticent look.
“Uhh... Okay,” he said cautiously, but didn’t resume his seat. “What do you want to know?”
“Could you write down the names of those drugs for me? I thought I just forgot how much I had to drink. I need to know if that’s what happened or if someone spiked my drink. And to do that, I think I should make a trip to the hospital to see if they can test for those drugs.”
“They can,” Charlie responded. “Just...” He looked around for something to write on.
Lois pulled her reporter’s notebook out and handed it to him, along with a pen. For some reason, he suddenly looked amused. There was something about that look that tugged at Lois’ memory. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“Well, you were all over him last night and we’ve been talking now for quite a while,” Molly said with amusement. “I should hope you know him. Or is this some sort of ongoing, short-term memory loss thing we’ve got going on?”
No. Last night wasn’t the reason he looked so familiar to her. She had absolutely no memory of last night. It was something about his eyes, the way they crinkled around the corners when he was amused. And the glasses... Now that she thought about it, she was sure she’d seen those glasses somewhere before.
“I don’t think so,” Charlie said, shifting uncomfortably.
She was right. She knew she was. She had met him previously. But she let it go. Right now there were other questions that were more urgent. She’d come back to that other matter later. “By the way, how did we meet... last night,” she added when he looked slightly uncomfortable. His expression cleared immediately, almost as if relieved to stay on the issue at hand.
Charlie quickly explained how they had met the previous night. She was being escorted out of the house by a couple of men. She’d wanted to go back inside to dance, but they insisted it was time for her to go home. At the time, he’d thought she was just being taken home by friends because she’d gotten too drunk. They’d disappeared into the night when she’d turned her attention on Charlie, wanting him to dance.
Lois’ eyes widened as she suddenly realized how close she may have come to having those date rape drugs fulfill their function. “Sounds like I owe you a lot more than I thought I did,” she said when he had finished. “Would you recognize those guys again if you saw them?”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed as he tried to recall. “Maybe. But I was sort of distracted by this beautiful woman who wanted to dance,” he said, his voice softening.
Lois could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.
“Anyway, I should really...” Charlie gestured towards the door.
“Is there some way I can get in touch with you,” Lois said. “I mean,” she continued, when his eyebrows rose at the sound of panic in her voice. No not, panic. Concern, maybe. Yes, concern. Concern was good. “I mean if I need to ask you any more questions. Or if I need you to identify the men you saw with me.”
“Uhh...” He looked uncomfortable again. “I really don’t have a place where I can be reached. And, like I said, I really don’t think I could identify them anyway. And I’m not expecting to be here that much longer,” he added, as if glad to have finally found an excuse not to tell her how to reach him.
“Oh, okay,” Lois said, trying to keep her suspicions out of her voice. “Well, anyway, thanks for all your help.”
She watched thoughtfully when, after a brief nod of acknowledgment, he turned and practically fled the kitchen.
“Do you want me to give you a ride to the hospital?” Molly asked as the door closed behind Charlie.
“Huh... Oh, right! Yes! Let’s go!” Without waiting for Molly to respond, Lois jumped to her feet and began dragging Molly towards the door.
“What’s the hurry?” Molly asked, trying to keep her feet beneath her.
* * * * * * * * *
Clark was lost in thought as he walked back to his motel. He’d chosen to walk for a number of reasons. First, he thought it was probably best if he used his powers as little as possible while in this time. Less chance of changing the past that way. Second, it was only a short distance and it was a beautiful day. But most of all, he wanted a chance to review everything about that encounter, hoping he hadn’t done something that might change the time line.
He really shouldn’t have gone over in the first place. Or when he had run into Lois, he should have just made his inquiries and left. He never should have brought up a possibility she obviously hadn’t thought of. But surely that small slip shouldn’t change the past. Should it?
He’d been uncomfortable with the questions about where he was from and what he did. The less she actually knew about him, the better. And he thought she’d been satisfied... or at least distracted enough that she hadn’t pursued that line of thought. And since he would never have contact with her again - at least in 1987 - that should be that. No damage done. She might have questions, might even puzzle over it for a while, but since she would have no way to follow up those questions, it wasn’t as if it could make any difference to the time line.
When she’d asked if she had met him before, he’d felt a moment of panic. What if she remembered the incident from when she was nine? She would know everything. That he could travel in time and that he could fly. Still, it had been over ten years ago and, given that he had flown, she must have eventually dismissed the incident as the product of the over-active imagination of a nine year old child.
No, he was fairly confident that no damage had been done. Now all he needed to do was to direct his attention to fixing the time machine so that he could get out of this time and on to where he needed to go.
* * * * * * * * *
“Pull over. Pull over. Pull over,” Lois hissed frantically.
“Why?” Molly asked even as she followed Lois’ instructions.
“There he is.”
“Who?” Molly asked before scanning the street in front of them. “Hey, isn’t that...”
“Charlie,” Lois completed. “Just let him get a bit farther ahead before pulling out again. We don’t want him to know we’re following him.”
“We’re following him?” Molly asked. “I thought we were going to the hospital.”
“Once I find out where he’s going.”
“Why? Are you thinking that he might have had something to do with what happened to you - possibly trying to throw you off by pretending to help?”
“No, of course not. I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth about that.”
“Then why are we following?” Even as she spoke, Charlie rounded a corner. Molly checked her mirror before pulling back onto the street, carefully turning the corner after him.
“I just want to see where he’s going. Didn’t you notice how nervous he got whenever we’d ask him something personal?”
“Maybe he’s a private person,” Molly said as she again pulled over so that they wouldn’t be spotted. “People are entitled to private lives, Lois.”
After a moment of silence, Lois spoke again. “Sort of like when someone keeps her relationship with a man a secret from her friends?”
“How did you know?” Molly gasped.
“Why, Mol? Why didn’t you tell me about you and Ryan? And, for that matter, what exactly is happening between you and Ryan?”
“Rye and I have been... dating, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“That was...” Molly’s voice trailed off when Lois tapped her shoulder and pointed to where Charlie was disappearing around the next corner. “That was his idea,” Molly said as she pulled out into traffic to follow. “He said it’s hard enough to start a relationship without worrying about what other people think.”
Lois bit her tongue when the implications of that sank in. She and Ryan didn’t like each other. Neither had made any secret of that fact. He had to mean her. Or... did he? Was there some other reason that Ryan might not have wanted people to know about his relationship with Molly?
“Where’d he go?” Molly asked as they turned the corner, bringing Lois’ mind back to the task at hand.
Charlie had disappeared. She glanced around quickly. “There!” she said.
Spotting him going into the Cozy Motel parking lot, Molly quickly pulled the car to the side of the road. They watched in silence as he walked across the parking lot of the dingy motel, stopping in front of room seventeen.
“Did Ryan really say that he was only stopping the football players so that they wouldn’t disrupt my party?” Molly asked, breaking the silence.
“He said they had his blessing to get their revenge, only not at your party.”
Molly said nothing and Lois held her tongue - something she wasn’t good at. Still, it was obvious that Molly was thinking, troubled by the revelation. Maybe if Lois didn’t say anything, Molly would realize that Ryan wasn’t good enough for her. Using levels of self-control she hadn’t known she possessed, she changed the subject.
“Okay, I guess I know now where Charlie is staying,” Lois said when Charlie opened the door to room seventeen and entered, closing the door behind him. “Why don’t we head out to the hospital? Or... better yet. Let’s go see if my doctor can see me this morning?”
* * * * * * * * *
Clark walked into his room, shut and locked the door before unzipping his leather jacket. He had only taken one arm out of his jacket when another headache hit. He dropped to his knees, the jacket half on, half off as the headache spread from his head to every other part of his body.
He’d been wrong. This didn’t feel as if he was being torn apart by wild horses. This felt as if someone was taking all the molecules in his body and rearranging them. He hurt everywhere. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Pain, like he’d never known, coursed through his body. If he hadn’t known there were no nerve endings in his hair, he’d have sworn even his hair hurt.
He could hear a strangled whimper and after a moment of confusion realized the sound had come from him. Curling up in a fetal position on the floor, he struggled against the darkness that seemed to beckon him.
Still, as with the last time this had happened, soon the pain began to fade. The soreness in his limbs still lingered when he finally picked himself up off the floor and took a seat on the side of the bed.
Maybe he’d work on repairing the time machine later. Right now what he needed most was some sleep. Without even bothering to remove his shoes, he collapsed back on the bed and closed his eyes.
* * * * * * * * *
“I’m not sure I understand.” Dr. Maria Chives looked at Lois in confusion.
“I need to have a drug test done, Doctor Maria,” Lois said to her doctor, a woman doctor who her father had recommended when she’d gotten old enough to be uncomfortable having her father for a doctor. “I want you to check for these drugs.” She handed her doctor the page from her reporter’s notebook where Charlie had written down the names of the drugs.
“I understand that, but... Why? I mean... this one?” Lois looked to where Doctor Maria was pointing at ketamine. “It’s a hospital grade anesthesia. But I think it’s more common to see it used for performing emergency operations in a war zone. Or... Well, it’s common to see veterinarians use it, but why would you even think you might have it in your system?”
“I was told these are the three most common types of date rape drugs.”
“What? What are date rape drugs?”
“You’ve never heard of them?” Lois asked, surprised. It was conceivable Charlie might have heard of them being used somewhere else in the country when Lois wasn’t aware of them in Metropolis. But for her doctor not to have heard anything about them... Who was Charlie, anyway?
“Never. I can imagine what they are supposedly for, though - considering the name. So what’s the scam? How are they used? Are they sold as some sort of recreational drug and then, after the woman is under the influence, she’s raped?”
“No. Apparently, the guy slips them in the girl’s drink without her knowledge. Afterwards, she just thinks she must have had too much to drink. She might not even know that she was raped, making it more likely that the guy will walk away scott free.”
“You think this happened to you?” Doctor Maria asked, watching Lois carefully.
“Well, sort of, but...”
“When was this?”
“Last night.”
“Okay, the first thing we need to do is a rape kit. Now, it looks as if you’ve already showered today, but we might get lucky. You may have heard of this new DNA procedure that allows us to positively identify an individual with blood, hair or semen... Things like that. So we really need to check for samples. It would also be a good if you collected any clothes you were wearing last night. And then we need to put in a call to the police to...”
“No, no, no, no. You misunderstood me. I don’t think I was raped. I don’t think it actually got that far. I just need to know if somebody slipped something in my drink.”
Her doctor’s expression relaxed slightly. “Maybe you should start at the beginning,” she suggested.
Lois nodded before filling the doctor in on what she knew and what she suspected. “So,” Lois finally concluded, “if these drugs have shown up at New Troy University, I think it’s important that girls be warned not to leave their drinks unattended.”
“I agree,” Doctor Maria said. “But let’s worry about you first, shall we? Now, I know you don’t think you were raped. And I agree it does sound as if you managed to avoid that - even if only by a hair. But I still want to do an exam. I also want to test for STDs - particularly AIDs.”
Involuntarily Lois shivered. AIDs was the one term that could strike fear into the heart of any college student these days. She nodded her agreement. Better to know for sure.
A few minutes later, she was remembering vividly just how much she disliked this type of exam. She noticed Doctor Maria smile when, finishing much quicker than Lois had expected, she pulled off her rubber gloves with a snap.
“What?” Lois asked suspiciously.
“Well, I can say unequivocally that you were not raped. Congratulations. You’re still a virgin.”
Lois collapsed back onto the examining table, closing her eyes as relief swept over her. She hadn’t thought she’d been raped, but to get confirmation... It was as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
* * * * * * * * *
“Hey,” Molly said, coming into the study at the sorority house to see Lois, books spread out around her, a notepad in front of her as she scribbled on it. “So this is where you disappeared to.”
“Hi, Mol,” Lois responded, looking up from the books. “Sorry I haven’t been more of a help today with clean up.”
Molly waved her off. “Personally, considering everything, I think what you’re doing could be of more benefit to every girl in this house than washing tables and straightening furniture.”
Molly stepped into the room.
“Could you close the door behind you?” Lois asked. “It’s just that after what happened with Linda...” She shrugged.
“Oh, of course.” Molly closed the door before walking over to where Lois was half hidden behind stacks of open books. “I haven’t said anything to the girls. And I won’t unless you give me the okay. But I have to say that I think we need to say something soon.”
“I know,” Lois responded. “If this wasn’t just an attack on me...”
“...then we’ve got a real problem.” Molly took a moment to mentally review her words. “Not that I’m saying that someone slipping drugs into your drink isn’t a problem. It’s just...”
“I know what you mean. And I agree.”
“Have you heard back from Doctor Maria yet about your drug test?”
Lois shook her head. “She said she’d do what she could to put a rush on it, but I think she was concerned about whether all of those tests were even available.”
“So you decided to... while you wait... take up a new major?” Molly asked, her eyebrows going up when she picked up a big book off the pile and read the title. “Klein’s Medical Drug Reference.”
“You got me. I’ve suddenly decided to give up journalism to go medical school. My father’s thrilled.”
“Yeah, right,” Molly said skeptically. “So why have you taken down every medical textbook every medical student has left at the house over the years or every alumni has donated?”
“Not to mention the journals and medical books Doctor Maria lent me. Or the ones that I picked up from the university’s medical library,” Lois added.
“Uhh... so that’s what you were doing with my car this afternoon. My guess is that you’ve suddenly got a hankering to find out everything you can about those date rape drugs Charlie told us about.” She sat down on the other side of the table. “So... how can I help?”
“This isn’t your problem, Mol.”
“No? We learned today that all of us might be vulnerable to a new way to attack women. How exactly is that not my problem?”
Lois smiled at her friend.
“So, Lois, what do you want me to do?”
“These are the books I’ve gone through.” Lois gestured to the larger stack. “These are the ones I have to go.”
Molly reached over, picking up the pad of paper sitting in front of Lois to see a few lines of writing. “This is it?” she asked in disbelief when she looked at pitiful amount of information Lois had obtained. “This is all you got by going through all those books?”
“That’s it. Nothing, Molly. Or almost nothing has been written about these drugs. Certainly nothing that talks about them being used to facilitate rape. So how did Charlie know about them?”
Molly looked at the notes, focusing on what was actually written.
“Rohyphnol... trade name for flunitram or flunitraxepam... or however you pronounce it... is used for short-term treatment of insomniacs...” She looked up at Lois. “A sleeping pill?” she asked.
“Seems so.”
“...in France and the United Kingdom...” She looked back at Lois. “No mention of it being used in the United States?”
“Not that I’ve found so far.”
Molly glanced back at the list. “GHB or gamma hydro...” She stared at the rest of the word in disbelief. “I guess I can understand why they call it GHB. Uhh.. It’s also used to treat insomnia.”
“But that’s not the best part. Read on.”
“...clinical depression...alcoholism... narcolepsy...” Suddenly, Molly’s head snapped up and she looked at Lois.
Lois nodded, knowing what had caught Molly’s attention.
“...improving athletic performance and enhancing muscle definition,” Molly finished before returning her attention to Lois. “You’re thinking... football players.”
“I think they’re the most likely suspects to have access to this stuff.”
Molly nodded, deep in thought. “I still think you should be careful not to narrow it down to the football players just yet. There are lots of other candidates.”
“You’re right,” Lois said. “Just because they might have access to GHB doesn’t automatically mean they’re the culprits here. There’s Russell... Linda’s brother. I turned him down. He might have thought this was the way to... convince me otherwise. And he was left alone with my drink when I left the table. And I suppose Stafford wasn’t too pleased with me.”
“And Ryan,” Molly added quietly.
The silence following Molly’s addition was almost palpable.
“Are you okay, Mol?” Lois asked softly.
Molly gave her a wobbly smile. “Not really. But I guess your comment has got me thinking that maybe I don’t know Rye nearly as well as I thought I did. The guy I thought I knew would never have said what he did to you. And thank you for not rubbing it in. I know you’ve wanted to. I appreciate your restraint.”
Lois nodded briefly, unsure what to say in response.
Molly looked back down at the paper. “Oh, look. You found potential side-effects for GHB. Euphoria, disinhibition, enhanced sensuality and empathogesis. Well, that certainly fits with your behavior last night. Oh and ‘may induce nausea’ - well, I can certainly attest, as can the bushes outside, that you experienced that one. So what else? Dizziness, drowsiness, agitation, visual disturbances, depressed breathing, amnesia, unconsciousness and death. Wonderful.”
The phone ringing interrupted their research..
“I gave Doctor Maria this number,” Lois said, jumping up and grabbing the phone. “Hello,” she said into the mouthpiece. “Hi, Doctor Maria,” she added when she heard the person on the other end of the line. “Yes, this is Lois.”
* * * * * * * * *
Clark studied the blueprints for the time machine with growing frustration. The part of the plan he’d spilled coffee on appeared to be the part that dealt with the controls for determining the time one traveled to, all right. But even using every visual power available to him, he still couldn’t see what he’d done wrong. There had to be something in there that he had missed. A time stabilizer or something. But without understanding the theory behind how the time machine even worked, how was he to figure out what exactly was missing?
He needed more information. The theory behind the machine maybe. Problem was, Wells wasn’t here to explain it to him. Too bad Wells hadn’t left behind a book explaining his theories about...
Clark’s thought trailed off and suddenly he was sitting up straighter.
Of course! Maybe Wells had done exactly that! It had been years since Clark had read H.G. Wells’ book called The Time Machine. Yes, it was fiction. But Wells had based the concept on something he was already doing - traveling in time. So any theories about time travel in that book...
Clark jumped off the bed and grabbed his jacket. The university library was only a few blocks from here. He could be there, read The Time Machine and be back here to fix the machine in no time.
* * * * * * * * *
“Well, that was interesting,” Lois said as she hung up the phone.
“What? Did she find something?”
“Yes and no. Yes, the lab found GHB in my system but no ketamine. As for Rohypnol... They don’t even have a test for it here in the States. If I want my blood tested for Rohypnol, she’s going to have to contact a hospital in Europe to send a test over.”
“So what did you tell her?”
“Not to bother. I think I have my answer. If I tested positive for GHB, that must have been what was slipped in my drink and why slip two drugs in my drink? Besides, isn’t GHB the drug Charlie said tasted salty?”
“I think so.”
“Doctor Maria did say something else interesting, though. She said she asked around, made a few calls to colleagues and even a police officer friend of hers and none of them have ever heard the expression ‘date rape drugs.’”
Molly’s eyebrows rose. “So how did Charlie...”
“That’s exactly what I was wondering.”
“Well, maybe he was in Europe recently. It might explain about the Rohypnol. Maybe it’s something they’re having a problem with there.”
“Maybe,” Lois said, rising to her feet. “Either way, I’m going to find out.”
“You’re going to talk to him?”
Lois nodded. “Do you want to come?”
“Are you okay to go alone? You don’t think he’ll be a threat to you if you start asking all these questions, do you? I mean, one logical explanation for him knowing about these drugs is if he was the one who slipped something in your drink.”
“True. But I don’t believe that. After all, he didn’t need to come looking for you last night. And I know I wasn’t raped... Why drug me if he wasn’t going to take advantage of it? And why put me onto the topic in the first place if he was involved?”
“To get close to you, maybe.”
“If that were true, he wouldn’t keep running away. No, Mol. He might not be happy with my questions...”
“Or the fact that you trailed him to find out where he was staying,” Molly added.
“Or that. But he’s not going to hurt me.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, then. I’ll stay here. Ryan’s coming over this evening.”
That caught Lois’ attention.
“We’d planned to get together today before all of this happened,” Molly said. “And, don’t worry. I’m not going to mention any of this to him. After all, if he is the one who spiked your drink...”
Lois put a comforting hand on Molly’s arm as a tear leaked out of the corner of Molly’s eye. Molly quickly brushed it away.
“So what are you going to do?” Lois asked.
Molly shrugged. “If he did spike your drink, then if I break up with him now, he’ll suspect we’re on to him. But... I don’t know. I’ll come up with some sort of excuse. A headache, or something.”
She gave Lois a wobbly smile at the attempt at a joke, which also served to notify Lois what Molly meant when she said Ryan was coming over. They weren’t planning to go out. They were staying in.
Her heart ached for her friend with this new evidence of the seriousness of Molly’s relationship with Ryan. Because unlike Linda, Molly just wasn’t the type to engage in sexual activity with a man she wasn’t serious about.
* * * * * * * * *
The sun had just set over Metropolis when Lois arrived across the street from the Cozy Motel.
Slipping back into the shadows, Lois waited. If Charlie was inside that room, he would have to turn the light on soon. Given that the curtains were drawn, it must be even darker inside. Part of her hoped he was there. Another part told her that it might be smart if she searched through his stuff, got some idea of what he might be hiding, before confronting him directly. Either way, she wanted to know which approach she would be using before crossing the street.
As she waited, her thoughts drifted. The look on his face, around his eyes in particular, when he’d been amused... What was it about those eyes that had seemed so familiar to her? Why was it that she felt safe in his presence? Not once, and she’d had several opportunities to be suspicious, had she felt he was any sort of danger to her, that he would do anything to hurt her. No. In spite of her normal skepticism and her belief on several occasions that he’d been lying to her, she couldn’t seem to find it in her heart to distrust him on that most basic of levels.
It made no sense. To know he was lying to her and trust him at the same time. So what was it about him? Why did she trust him? If only she could remember where she’d seen him before...
When ten minutes later, darkness still engulfed room seventeen, she checked up and down the street before crossing.
The room was embarrassingly easy to break into. All it took was her university ID, slipped between the door and the frame, and the door opened as easily as slicing a hot knife through butter.
Once inside, she closed the door and gave her eyes a moment to adjust. The problem with breaking in after dark was that it was not exactly easy to see. All she could make out was some very strange shadows. And she was obviously new to this subterfuge. She had forgotten to bring a flashlight.
She pondered the problem for a moment. No point in being here if she couldn’t see anything. And if Charlie came back and saw the light, might he not just think he had left it on? No one else at this place would spare the issue a second thought.
Reaching over, she flicked on the light switch, blinking momentarily while her eyes adjusted to the change.
The place was clean, which surprised her given the general condition of the motel. However, she spared this realization only a moment’s notice as her eyes found the large... thing sitting in the center of the room, all the furniture pushed back to accommodate it. She pulled off the tarp covering it and stared at it in confusion.
Slowly, she circled it, regarding it from every angle, but was still unable to figure out what it was. In many ways, it resembled a horseless carriage. Well, other than the lack of wheels or skis on it. It seemed to consist of a platform, covered by a rug. Two chairs. A control panel of some sort. And an old fashioned lantern.
But... what was its purpose? If it had wheels, it might serve as some sort of entry for a soap box derby except there was no steering wheel.
She sat down in what appeared to be the driver’s seat and reached out to touch the panel before hesitating. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. But then how...
Spotting a large, crinkled piece of paper on the bed, she rose to her feet and stepped over to pick it up. Unfolding the paper and turning it over, she stared at the image on the other side. Obviously the blueprints for the machine. But... Her mouth fell open when she read the title scrawled across the top. ‘A Mechanism For Travel Through Time.’
She tossed the paper on the bed and headed for the door. She’d seen enough. Obviously this guy, whoever he was, was a genuine, honest-to-god wacko. He was planning to travel through time. Had even invented a machine to do so. Well, he would probably blow up both himself and the machine the first time he tried it.
She was so out of here. Exiting the room, she began walking down the street lost in thought. He was a wacko. Walking away was the right move. The only move.
So why was there still part of him that, in spite of how crazy it might sound, made sense to her? Where had she met him before? Because she would swear, she would really swear, that she’d met him before. And by his reaction when she had asked him about it, he knew exactly when and where.
“Who are you, Charlie King?” she quietly asked herself as she walked towards the dorms.
* * * * * * * *
Finding The Time Machine by H.G. Wells had taken Clark longer than it had actually taken to read the book. One of the advantages of being a super speed reader. He supposed the book had been interesting enough. But it was a little light on how the time machine actually worked.
Clark wasn’t entirely certain what to do now. Oh, he had a few ideas. Maybe if he took apart the mechanism for determining the destination date and tried reassembling it. Maybe it was just an issue of a short somewhere in the system.
If that didn’t work, he could try to find someone who might be able to figure out the theory behind the mechanism. One of those egg-head types, most likely. Perhaps someone at Star Labs or Gendell Labs.
Problem was if he did that, if he let someone from 1987 know that time travel was possible, would he change the future? Would he be promoting research into time travel at a time when such research would not have been happening if not for his interference?
The other option was for him to study physics and whatever other disciplines were necessary to have a better understanding of those issues himself. Oh, he could do that quickly enough. Or at least a lot quicker than other people given his ability to speed read and his idyllic memory. But it would still take weeks, months or even years.
The temptation to sink into depression was great. To be stuck here, where he couldn’t make any changes, so close to the one great love of his life, being unable to pursue her, for weeks or months...
He quickly pushed those useless thoughts away. He’d only been here a day. He couldn’t give up yet.
What he needed right now was a distraction, something else to think about so that he could go at the problem again with a fresh mind.
But what could possibly take his mind off... He smiled, leaning back in the library chair as images of Lois came to the forefront of his mind. She had been... everything he’d ever dreamed of. Smart, beautiful, sassy. His smile faded as he thought about what had happened to her. By her description of last night, it sure seemed as if someone had slipped something into her drink.
But surely, she couldn’t be the first to be a victim of this sort of crime. She might not be aware of other examples, but surely they must exist.
Sometime later, Clark was searching through past copies of the Daily Planet. He’d been caught off guard when the librarian informed him that past copies of the Daily Planet were kept on microfiche as opposed to computer files. Searching them was a lot slower, even for him, than simply typing key words into the computer.
Still, it was a lot quicker for him to do such a search than it would be for anyone else.
He started ten years back and began searching forward. He was surprised to find that what he was looking for was found, not on the older microfiche files, but in a hard copy of the paper from only a couple of months previously - one that had not yet made it onto microfiche.
He couldn’t know for certain that this was connected to what had happened to Lois. But it had all the earmarks to set off alarm bells in his head. A young woman, Angelina Wesley, a college co-ed, found dead behind a well-known college party spot. No signs of trauma. No signs of a struggle. No indication of foul play.
But there were a few odd things. When she’d been found, she hadn’t been wearing panties, indicating that sexual activity may have taken place shortly before death. The police had also recovered a semen sample, which backed up this assumption. No one had come forward to say that they had been with her for the evening. Drug tests had come up negative - but Clark doubted that they had been testing for the drugs he suspected. Alcohol was found in her system, but not in quantities high enough to explain her death - in fact, had she been caught behind the wheel of a car, her blood alcohol level wasn’t even high enough to be considered criminal. Police were asking that anyone who had seen her in the hours before her death come forward.
The story ended by saying that there was to be a coroners inquest into her death, but since there was no follow-up story, he could only assume that no such inquest had yet taken place. His eyes returned to the top of the story. It had been written by Serena Judd.
He’d never met the woman personally. She’d left before he’d arrived at the Planet. He knew her reputation, of course. She was a good reporter. Maybe one of the best reporters the paper had ever had. If there had been a follow up story, he had no doubt she would have written it. It wouldn’t have simply slipped through the cracks like it might with another reporter.
Still... what should he do with this information now that he had it? It was a question he simply could not answer.
* * * * * * * *
Lois was digging into her backpack for the key to her room when she was distracted from her task.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Lois turned. “Excuse me?” she asked when she saw Linda standing in the doorway to her room.
“I called and called last night. You never answered.”
Since saying ‘I was drugged by someone with something called GHB for reasons I have yet to determine and so was sleeping the sleep of the dead’ didn’t seem like a good idea, Lois simply responded with, “And what would you have said if I had answered? Sorry about stealing your story. Sorry about moving in on a guy I knew you liked. Sorry about trashing your room.”
“You can’t still be mad at me about that!”
“Can’t I?”
“I had to trash your room!” Linda exclaimed. “If I hadn’t, you’d have figured out it was me before I even submitted your story. It kept you off my back - made you suspect it was the football players until it was too late. That’s just the way the game is played. It has nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with our being friends. That was just business. It wasn’t personal. Last night was personal. Last night I needed my friend! I was in jail! I needed you to bail me out. But no, you had to be out doing...” She gestured with her hands, indicating ‘whatever.’
“Jail?” Lois was unable to resist asking even while pushing Linda’s skewed ideas about friendship and the news business to the back of her mind.
“The club Paul took me to was raided. The cops arrested me for using a fake ID. I eventually had to call my mother to come bail me out because you were out doing... whatever. Do you have any idea how much grief my mother and step-father gave me?”
Lois turned back to the door to her room, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from twitching - enjoying the image of Linda, instead of spending the night in Paul’s bed, sharing a cell with a bunch of women in black fishnet stockings and stiletto heels, all reeking of alcohol and sporting tattoos.
For some reason, the pain of Linda stealing Paul was not nearly as sharp today as it had been the previous day. Lois wasn’t sure why. It was almost as if Paul had been magically erased from her heart and mind. In fact, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t even thought about Paul all day.
On the other hand, if Linda thought that things were going to go back to normal after stealing Lois’ story, she had another thing coming. Linda might not think she’d done anything wrong. But to Lois, she had violated the sacred bonds of friendship. So without another word, Lois opened the door to her room and stepped inside, closing the door on the muttered protests of her former friend.
Flicking on the light as she removed her coat, she groaned. She still hadn’t taken the time to clean up her room since Linda had torn it apart. Right. So much had happened since she’d discovered her trashed room, she’d completely forgotten that she hadn’t yet cleaned it up.
Well, no time like the present. After taking a moment to hang up her coat, she sat down on the side of her bed. She’d tossed everything in her footlocker the other day, so the first task was to go through it, properly putting things back where they belonged.
Only a moment later, Lois’ world turned upside down as she stared down at the small Polaroid snap shot in her hands. Everything she’d believed about the reality of her existence lay shattered around her. She’d have sworn such a thing was not possible, but in her hand was absolute proof that it was.
She knew where she had seen Charlie King before. Ten years ago. Her guardian angel. And he hadn’t changed a bit - right down to the style of his glasses, the cut of his hair and his leather jacket. Regardless of how impossible it might seem, Charlie King was traveling through time.
END OF PART TWO
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART THREE...
ML
