Thanks everyone for giving it a shot and I'm glad everyone has enjoyed it. I guess I was too subtle that it was set in 1991, before cannon. I'll put that in the summary for the archives.
Lynn - The story is set only from Clark's perspective and in his state of mind he has no idea that he should fear being studied or what their real intentions could be. There is no Superman yet so his abilities are unknown. I think part 2 will answer most of your questions, but it may leave you with new ones.
KatherineKent - For now I'll answer it is Clark and he's been missing for about two months.
LMA - The next part should be coming soon, maybe tomorrow, just working out some last 1st person kinks.
You're right, it's 1991 and he isn't Superman yet and has not been to Metropolis or met Lois. He's still out traveling the world before he moved to Metropolis. In ASU it was memories of him as Superman with Lois, mostly rescuing from what I can remember, that gets him to remember who he was. He Clark thoughts alone couldn't unlock his brain. He doesn't have those memories in this version, so what will cause him to remember?
Thanks for mentioning the flow. When I first sent it to beta, I was worried that it was going to be too raw and scattered, leaving everyone as confused as Clark. I wanted it to come across that he wasn't just lost in the world but that he was lost in every way.
In cannon he has Lois, Henderson, Perry, Jimmy and his parents all telling him who he is while he's also trying to discover that for himself. Here it's not just that he has no one and his parents can't exactly put out an apb on him and come to his rescue, it's that the people 'helping' him are crushing any thought that comes to him that might actually tell him about himself, delaying him from finding out who he is. He's so caught up in that, he's failing to realize they may have other motives for holding him.
It opens up a whole world of possibilities as to who 'they' are and what they are wanting to do with him and the information. You'll have to check back for part 2 to see if any of that get's answered.
