Lori and Clark – The New, New Adventures of Superman – MMC V 6 01/32
By Ken Janney
Warning: This story is rated PG-13.
Disclaimers: The characters in this story are property of DC, December 3rd productions and Warner Bros. No Copyright infringement is intended. I have just borrowed the characters for a short time.
Authors note:
This is a direct sequel to Borrowed Time – Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 2. If you haven’t done so as yet, please read the previous Volume. You will have a better understanding of the fundamental premises of the set if you do. I wish to express my thanks to my Beta readers Ray Reynolds and Artemis for their invaluable help. This was a VERY rough draft when it first landed in their hands.
By trade I have been a scientist for 30 years and now have been involved in Computer network admin for 10 years. I try not to use ‘techno-babble’. I will attempt to substantiate the science I cite although there may be some cases where I need to extrapolate for future discoveries. I promise that I will not simply try to ‘snow’ you with a bunch of hand waving and gibberish. My ‘hard science’ as much as is possible is just that science fact.
One absolutely critical point: In this entire series I will be dealing with time travel and multi-universe travel. It is therefore critical that you have the concept of alternate universes and be aware of which one the story is currently in at all times. I try to make sure you know where you are by using the “Universal Locator Designation”. Some of the differences in ULDs will be very slight, changing only at the Tau value. If you don’t keep this in mind you will easily become confused as to what is happening and think I am simply changing the story already presented in an earlier volume when it is actually another universe. As far as times, I will attempt to insure that time markers are always present.
This particular story takes place during and immediately after Family Hour.
* * denotes emphasis
< > denotes thoughts
(#) footnotes
/ denotes telepathic communication/
[ playback of a recording or TV Commentary]
For reference purposes the following will hold true throughout.
Universal Locator Designation
Alpha 023 x Gamma 004 x Tau -120 - Canon Lois and Clark universe also called – Prime
Alpha 023 x Gamma 004 x Tau -124 - future Lori and Clark universe also called – Alt-Prime
As always comments are welcome. (ken.janney@kjanney.com)
The children have been introduced in earlier stories and their spouses were introduced in the “First Love” series of stories in the archive.
http://www.lcfanfic.com/stories/2012/firstlov.txt OK, so you’ve already read a book and you haven’t even started the story yet. Thanks for your patience. Now, without further ado I present for your enjoyment:
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Prologue – 2086
Final chapter of Volume 2 titled Borrowed Time
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Alt-Prime should not be confused with the canon Alt universe. Alt-Prime is a continuation of the Prime universe created when Lois Lane’s life was not extended by her exposure to the Kryptonian aura. In Alt-Prime she lived a normal Earth human life span, dying of old age. In this new universe her soul essence moved to a new vessel, Lorelei Lois Lane.
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Universal Locator designation
Alpha 023 x Gamma 004 x Tau -124 – Alt-Prime
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In 2086 Lorelei Lane started working with her husband, Clark Kent at the Daily Planet in Metropolis. Lori, since she technically had not had a large portfolio of major stories, had started as office gofer and then moved to research assistant. Clark had requested that she be detailed to assist him on an investigation into foreign nationals overstaying their visas which had blossomed into quite a story involving Islamic extremist terrorists. Since they had been the ones that had tipped off Homeland Security they had been given an exclusive on the story. When the story had been broken …
The leaders, who were unarmed, both put their hands up. However, one of them held a small object in his upraised hand and shouted, “I have a detonator and if you don’t throw down your weapons I will trigger the bomb, now! We are willing to become martyrs are you? I will give you ten seconds and then I will detonate the bomb!”
Clark and Lori were still in hiding. They had been directed to remain concealed until given the all clear by Mr. Jacobs. Clark said, “I need to handle this.”
“Go!”
Clark spun into the suit and took off straight up so that it wouldn’t be obvious where he was coming from and swooped back down from a different direction. He snatched up the bomb and sped away again, straight up until he hit the ionosphere and launched the device out into space as fast and as hard as he could.
He then reversed course so that he could avoid as much of the effects of the detonation as possible. He’d hoped that he could get the device out of range of the detonator so that it wouldn’t go off but, unfortunately that didn’t happen and the weapon detonated. Fortunately, Superman was far enough away that there was actually not much of a compression wave due to the extremely thin atmosphere. He quickly returned to Metropolis and landed at pier 75.
Mr. Jacobs approached and introduced himself. “Superman, Tom Jacobs, Homeland Security. I don’t know how you happened to be here when you were needed, but you just saved the entire city.”
“Well Mr. Jacobs, I was nearby when I heard gunfire and decided to investigate. I saw ‘Homeland Security’ on the vests and knew that this was a government operation and determined not to interfere. When I saw what appeared to be a detonator being held up by one of the individuals I knew that I needed to help out.”
“That was a nuclear device, but I guess I don’t need to tell you that. What did you do with it?”
“I sent it into space. Fortunately I was able to get it high enough that the compression wave was almost non-existent and also high enough that there was no EMP effect, here at ground level. You probably saw the flash a couple of minutes ago. It was probably a couple of hundred miles up when it went off. I don’t think that it will be a rainbow bomb but I think that there are a couple of satellites that might have been affected by the EMP and will need to be replaced. Geosynchronous orbits aren’t all that high but they could have been within the zone of EMP effect. There may be communications or GPS outages until replacements are made. If called upon I am willing to offer my services as a launch vehicle and I’m sure that the other supermen and superwomen would be willing to help as well.”
Mr. Jacobs replied, “Thank you Superman. I’ll pass that along to the upper echelons.”
Lori had been approaching as Superman had been talking to Mr. Jacobs. Lorelei had come out of concealment when it went down and had been using her Reporter’s Assistant taking pictures of the action including Superman taking the bomb away. She had been recording the interaction between Superman and Mr. Jacobs. When he had finished she approached Superman and asked, “Superman, would you be willing to allow me to interview you?”
The ‘Reporter’s Assistants is a combination still camera, minicam, voice recorder and personal assistant with solid state memory and internet capability. It can be used to edit and file their stories within the device to send directly to the editor or upload the doc to their workstation for final editing.
Superman replied, “I might have time for a question or two. Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“Lori Lane, I work for the Daily Planet.”
“Well, Ms. Lane, what would you like to know?”
“Are we to assume that you are now back with us permanently or will you be returning to New Krypton?
“As far as I know I will be here for the foreseeable future.”
“How will we be able to get hold of you when you are needed?”
“Oh, I’ll be around. I’m sorry to have to cut this short, but, I need to go now.”
“Thanks for the interview, Superman.”
“Happy to oblige. Bye.”
Superman took off and disappeared into the darkness.
A few seconds later Clark came out from their previous hiding place. He approached Lori and asked, “What did I miss? I finally got my assistant working.”
“If you hadn’t been trying to repair your assistant you would have been here to interview Superman.”
“Oh, which one?”
“No, not one of the supermen, Superman! The original one.”
“Oh, he’s back?” Clark started looking around as he said, “Where’d he go?”
“He said he had to go and he just flew off.”
Clark turned to Mr. Jacobs. “Did Superman say anything to you? Can we get a quote?”
“Superman said that the device was nuclear and that he launched it out into space where it wouldn’t do any harm when it exploded.”
“Thanks, Mr. Jacobs. Can we do some more interviews?”
“Sure, help yourselves.”
Seeing that the threat of the bomb had been removed the leaders both surrendered. All those alive were taken into custody.
Mr. Jacobs used a communicator to call in the police, emergency and Coast Guard personnel that had been on standby at another location. They all arrived, code 3, lights and siren, and took custody of the perpetrators. Emergency personnel treated the wounds of the injured, placed them on stretchers and loaded them into ambulances for transport to the hospitals, each accompanied by a police officer. A group of police accompanied Coast Guard personnel as they boarded the ship and took the crew into custody. All the unwounded perps and the crew from the ship were loaded into detention vehicles and taken away.
Lori identified her previous ‘acquaintance’ as one of the leaders, in fact he was the one with the detonator.
Clark was by her side as she approached him. He recognized her and in a threatening tone said, “You are a worthless female who should be confined in your husband’s home and beaten by him until you are more submissive.”
Lori retorted to his rhetoric with a confident, “I work for the Daily Planet. Can I quote you on that? Oh, and by the way, this is my husband and he would never do that to me!”
He responded with a threat, “May Allah destroy you and your house!” he cursed as he was dragged off.
After things had calmed down they each interviewed some of the people involved. The perps all refused to comment but they did get some good quotes from the HS personnel, the Emergency personnel, the police and the Coast Guardsmen.
When things had all been wrapped up Mr. Jacobs said, “Well, there you go Kent. There’s your exclusive.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jacobs. You’ll see it in the morning edition.”
Mr. Jacobs said, “By the way, Kent, how were you so easily able to get a recording of that meeting? We had one heck of a time bugging that apartment.”
Clark laughed and then said, “I guess that will have to remain a trade secret.”
“Okay, but if you ever decide to change vocations, keep HS in mind. We could use people like you and your partner.”
Lori replied with a laugh, “We’ll keep it in mind.”
Lorelei and Clark went straight to the office and finished the write-up of the story and Clark was about to submit it to the night editor when Lorelei stopped him.
There on the screen was a full color photo of Superman taken as he grasped the bomb preparatory to launching into space with it followed by the headline.
“SUPERMAN RETURNS – SAVES METROPOLIS FROM NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION”
By Clark Kent and Lorelei Lane
“In the early hours of the morning while most of the inhabitants of Metropolis were either in bed or preparing for slumber, Homeland Security was protecting the citizens of Metropolis. A plot to detonate a nuclear device under the city had been uncovered and an operation designed to capture the perpetrators and prevent the disaster was underway when one of the leaders attempted to perform a suicide bomb attack with the nuclear device. The only thing standing between the city and total destruction was Superman. Superman swooped in at the last second and launched the bomb into space. In an exclusive interview your reporters were told that the ‘original’ Superman had returned from his mission and would again be protecting the city.” (Story continued pg A2)
“You’re sharing your byline with me?!?! I’m not back in the reporter ranks yet; I’m your research assistant.”
“I’m sure our editor; Frank, will agree that you deserve it. You did just as much work on this story as I did. Besides you’re the one that got the interview with Superman. Maybe this will move you from research to reporter.” He gave her a wink.
“Wow, Okay but, that byline, there’s just something wrong with it. I don’t like it - By Clark Kent and Lorelei Lane. I think I’ll use a ‘professional’ name.” She thought about it for a few seconds then snapped her fingers and said, “I know, I think I’ll go with my middle name. I didn’t know it until I started doing some family research that I *was* named after a famous relative.”
She reached over and deleted the name on the byline and then retyped it as:
By Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
“There, that more accurately reflects who I am now.”
Clark smiled. He hadn’t known what her middle name was. It just hadn’t seemed important. It was almost like old times and he looked forward to the day when she insisted on top billing.
It had been early in the morning when they had arrived at home and since they had been out on the story they had left word with the night editor that they would be in later in the morning the next day.
The next day when they arrived at work Lori and Clark were talking over what had happened the previous night as the elevator took them from the lobby to the newsroom floor. A ding sound announced their arrival and the doors parted. That ding had alerted everyone in the bullpen that someone was arriving and they had all turned to see just who it was. Knowing the hour everyone in the newsroom expected it to be the Kents since they had worked late the night before. As usual Clark was dressed in a neatly tailored business suit and today Lori was also dressed in a well tailored women’s business suit in an off white color with matching pumps. When they exited the elevator Clark allowed Lori to precede him and as they did so there was a round of applause. Their front page story of the attempted terrorist strike and the save by Superman was the buzz of all the newsnets. It had been picked up by all of the agencies and their byline had gone worldwide.
Inevitably there was a backlash to the story originating in the Middle East. Lori and Clark weren’t too concerned about it because no one knew what they looked like and they would just keep a low profile until a later news cycle knocked them off the front page.
Clark was not terribly surprised to see that Lori had her own name plate and that it was situated on the desk near Clark’s. He said, “I told you that you wouldn’t have to wait too long before you moved up to reporter again.” He started chuckling as he finished, “All it took was a front page byline.”
Lori walked over and just ran her hands over the top of ‘her’ desk. She sat down in the chair, pulled out a drawer and propped her feet up on it and leaned back. She said, “Feels just like old times.”
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