Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Fanfic Quiz - Opening Lines II

Clark allowed his body to roll over several times as he hit the ground after being thrown from the car. He remained inert for a second or two until he was positive that the gangsters' car had gone, and then launched himself into the air.

He had no clear idea about where he should go. He drifted above the clouds and reflected on the intractable situation in which he now found himself. There seemed to be no way around it. Clark Kent was dead. Permanently, irretrievably, irrevocably dead. There seemed to him to be no plausible means of resurrecting himself without giving away the secret of his identity.

"Damn, damn, DAMN!" he yelled, safe in the knowledge that he would be audible to nothing except a few passing birds. *How* had he failed to see this coming? He had known, when Lois had suggested conning their way into the gambling den, that it would be dangerous. He was also well aware of the reputations of Clyde, Capone and the others. In the 1920s, no crime had been too extreme for them. Murder was, for them, an everyday activity. But he had assumed that his super-powers would be sufficient to protect Lois and himself.

Trask removed his sidearm from its holster, holding it up
as he paced around Clark's crumpled form. Exhausted from
the effort of destroying the Kryptonite, Clark lacked the
strength to defend himself.

"Now, let's see. Who should go first? You, or the human
traitors who have sheltered you all these years?" Trask
smirked down at his victim before turning toward the shed.

Suddenly his weakened state became immaterial. No force on
earth would keep him pinned to the ground while Trask
threatened his parents. Summoning up the strength
possessed by all creatures when facing certain death at the
hands of a merciless predator, Clark lunged at the man,
preparing for the impact of the metal slug that would no
doubt come speeding out of the barrel of Trask's handgun.
Instead, the only contact he felt was his own body
colliding with Trask's. The older man was sent tumbling to
the ground, but Clark was still in far worse shape.

Lois perched on the edge of her sofa, staring blankly at the video cassette sitting in the dead center of her coffee table. It looked harmless enough, yet she was terrified to touch it. Just gathering the strength to remove it from the box that Perry had thrust into her reluctant hands nearly two weeks ago had drained her. Now, feeling as leaden inside as the gray sweatshirt she'd not bothered to change in three days, she sighed. Making the decision to collect it from the box was one thing. Actually going through with viewing it was another.

An attractive blonde walked through the doors and onto the steps outside the Metropolis Insane Asylum. Stopping momentarily, she pushed her hair back over her shoulders and let the wind play with it as the words of the old spiritual ran through her mind.

'Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.'

It had actually been a brilliant plan. A small demonstration, by accident of course, was all it took to convince the jury that working with the substance day after day had made her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. The fact that no one had been permanently injured had undoubtedly gone a long way to help - not to mention her shameless flirting with juror number four.

Still, it was all behind her now. She had been pronounced healthy and released. And she had used her time inside well. She was sure that a little tinkering was all it would take to change her compound, making it suitable for her new purposes. Lex would certainly have to love her after this.

Valentine's Day. One of the crassest celebrations ever invented, Lois thought savagely as she fought her way through what seemed like armies of dedicated purveyors of romance at the mall. As if it wasn't enough that every single shop in the place had windows full of huge red hearts and pink bows and cute teddy-bears, casual traders were everywhere with their stalls and carts, huge helium balloons floating above them.

Lois hated Valentine's Day even more than she hated Christmas. It was just so crassly consumerist, she had decided in her teenage years. Simply another excuse for Hallmark and other such companies to make a fortune - and as for the florists who doubled the price of their flowers and tripled the price of red roses, they were simply opportunist rip-off merchants. In her first year at the Planet, she had written a piece for the Saturday supplement on the fourteenth of February as a cynical marketing device - heck, they even had *kids* sending each other Valentine cards these days!

<Ah, but your dislike of Valentine's Day wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you were never the one with lots of cards on the day when you were at school, would it?> the annoying voice of her conscience pointed out. She grimaced. She hadn't *wanted* them anyway - it was a stupid idea. But every year, reliable as clockwork, all the girls in her class would come into school boasting about how many they'd received and speculating on the identity of the senders... and even Lucy's count had extended into double figures by the time she was fifteen.

But she'd been at school then; somehow it seemed to her that adults should be more sensible, less prone to such childish stunts. And yet at work that day Cat had sidled up to her, a smug expression on her face as she'd smiled at Lois.

"So, Lois, doing anything special tomorrow?"

It had been raining for hours now. Lois absently watched big raindrops
forming into long, asymmetrical lines that searched their way on the cool
glass, meeting and crossing other lines, then finally being stopped in
their tracks by the white frame of the huge windows and dropping down on
the window-sill outside. There the rain had already built a little puddle
and it was no wonder, because it had been raining constantly since Lois had
landed in London this morning. She grimaced. The weather here really was
just as bad as its reputation.

She sighed and looked around in her room. Perry had been generous with her
budget this time. The hotel was one of the best she had ever stayed in. She
had a big, well lit room with tasteful furniture and a huge white bathroom
with a whirlpool inside. She sent a longing glance to the kingsized bed in
the middle of her room. The long flight had been tiring and the thought of
taking a nap after soaking in a hot bubble bath was all too tempting. But
she knew from experience that the time difference was much easier to bear
if you tried to accept the other country's hours as soon as possible. The
bed and the whirlpool would just have to wait a little while longer. What
was she going to do instead? Okay, she could take another look at her notes
about Simon, her contact here in London, but to be honest, she didn't
really feel like it right now. She already could recite her notes in her
dreams, so well did she know them after all the preparations she had done
these last weeks.

Suddenly she felt her stomach contract slightly in excitement, as she
thought about the reason why she was here. Nothing could go wrong and Lois
was determined to make this investigation a success. Anyway, she wasn't
going to meet Simon before tomorrow evening and she didn't need to get
nervous in advance. The weather was of course horrible, but suddenly she
felt the urge to go outside. Otherwise she knew she would give into
temptation and go to sleep after all. Maybe there was a nice, warm and dry
place somewhere in the neighborhood, in a cafÈ or in a tearoom, where she
would be able to get something hot to drink and where she could take in the
atmosphere of the city a little bit. Without any more hesitation she took
her purse and slid into her coat.

A single light was burning in Clark Kent's apartment. In
the muted glow, in the middle of the living room, Lois Lane
was standing gazing at the object she'd just discovered,
her jaw slowly dropping.

After a long moment she sat down abruptly on the couch and
swallowed hard. "I just can't believe it!" she muttered.

Her voice rose steadily as her soliloquy continued. "How
*could* he? He always seemed so caring - so trustworthy!
Yet he's been keeping *this* hidden all along?" By this
time she had risen to her feet again, a militant light in
her eyes. "Boy, when I get hold of him, is he *ever* gonna
regret this...!"

Lois Lane pushed herself closer to the dirty brick wall of some nameless alley as she crouched behind the rusty dumpster in a less than delightful part of Hobbs Bay. She winced in pain as she jostled her left shoulder against the cold steel of the trash bin. She glanced down at her offending appendage. Even in the dark, murky shadow cast by her hiding place she could see the dark wetness leaking from her shoulder. She could tell from the pain every time she moved, even a little, that the bullet was still in there. Damn, she hated getting shot!

Clark licked his lips as he stepped up to the doors of the post
office. He hadn't had his mom's cooking for more then three weeks and
was looking forward to the prospect tonight. While traveling, Clark
always tried to call before going home. He maintained he was calling
to ensure that he wouldn't show up when his folks had company and
part of him really believed that, but when he was brutally honest
with himself, Clark knew his mom went all out with her cooking when
she had advance notice that he was coming home for supper. So here he
was at the post office in Eilat, Israel, planning to make a phone
call that was guaranteed to give him a good home-cooked meal.

He pulled open the door and stepped inside. There were about a dozen
phones, but only one was currently being used. He ignored the dark
haired woman with her back to him and stepped up to one of the free
phones.

He had just picked up a phone when he heard the woman mutter, "What's
wrong with this stupid phone?"

Clark glanced over and saw the woman fumbling with various coins,
attempting to use one after another in an effort to place a call. He
fished in his pocket for a moment before stepping up beside her.

"I think you need these," Clark said. He held an open hand towards
the woman, revealing a half dozen or so circular tokens with holes in
the middle.

The woman pushed her hair over one shoulder, turning slightly towards
him. She studied the contents of his hand as he continued to explain.

"These are telephone tokens. Money doesn't work in these phones."

"So where do I get one of those?" the woman asked, finally looking
him in the eyes.

Clark swallowed hard. He was suddenly, inexplicably, at a loss for
words. In front of him was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.
There was something about her eyes. He couldn't seem to pull himself
away. She cocked her head to the side when he failed to answer,
studying him. He suddenly realized he was staring and felt a blush
begin creeping up his neck. Fortunately, most of it was hidden behind
the soft beard that covered his face. He quickly diverted his eyes,
and cleared his throat. Now that he was no longer looking at her, he
found that speech came back to him - albeit, only marginally.

"Climbing to ten thousand, levelling off at zero, seven, zero, mark
three," the pilot said into his headphones. Lois and Clark were
seated near the rear of the small plane, which was devoid of the
standard passenger accommodations. Trask and his men were for the
most part busy with their plans, leaving the two alone. Lois had
spent some time wondering just why Trask hoped Superman would come to
save the two reporters, and didn't like any of the possibilities she
had come up with. At length her mind had drifted in other
directions, and the grimness of their situation had begun to weigh
rather heavily on her.

"It's a romance novel," she suddenly told Clark morosely, staring off
into nothingness.

A tall man in a dark overcoat stepped out of the darkness and produced a lead-lined box from his pocket, from which he retrieved a syringe full of a gleaming green liquid. The shadow of a sly grin passed across his face. The Boss would be happy, *very* happy. He'd heard the worry hidden behind his threats over the phone, but making sure that this young homeless man couldn't talk about what he now knew would ensure them some tranquillity. Of course the incriminating computer disk that the company's vice-president had created was still out God knew where, but tracing it back shouldn't be too much of a problem. But that would come later. For now, what was important was to make sure that none of the information contained in it was spread, and the best way to do that was to get rid of any witness who could become a real nuisance.

George Thompson checked his watch for the fifth time in a
few minutes and let out an annoyed sigh. He'd always hated
waiting, and he thought he'd made that clear to Trask the
last time he'd seen him. The head of Bureau 39 was under
*his* command; technically, he was under him in the
hierarchy, at least according to the papers back in D.C.
Yet every time they met, Trask bossed him around as if he
didn't care at all about whatever orders Thompson or anyone
in Washington gave him.

The creation of Bureau 39 had looked like a good idea at
the time. He'd supported it so enthusiastically that
Everett, the head of the F.B.I., had placed him in charge
of the newborn secret department. Sometimes he wondered
what had gone through his head when he'd accepted the
assignment - it hadn't turned out to be as easy as he'd
expected, especially since Trask had arrived on the scene.
But the Secretary of the Interior had insisted that his
young protege be hired for the job, and no-one had found a
sufficiently good reason to contradict Lloyd Tempus's will.

Lois Lane stood out in front of the Lex Corp. Tower, her wedding dress was torn and stained from the frenetic activity of the past hour. She stared in horror as the body of Lex Luthor was loaded into the coroner's van to be whisked away to the morgue. She started to shake. Where was Clark? She needed Clark right here, right now. Perry tightened his arm around her shoulders.

Even though I've seen the first 40 or so pages and they're excellent!

Lois Lane relaxed in Centennial Park, reading a pile of stories written by fans of her favorite TV show. She read on and on, thoroughly absorbed in the pages. Reading was pleasantly addictive (though in a better way than a field of poppies), but Lois soon found herself tiring. Soon, despite the enthralling nature of the fanfic, Lois fell asleep.

She awoke to find herself being spun around by a tornado, the pages of fanfic flying around her. Just as she was wondering what a tornado was doing in Metropolis, the wind suddenly died down. She fell, landing atop a pile of printouts.

People amuse me. I guess they always have. Walking on two legs, no hair, huge noses (that don't smell very much, I've noticed), and no tail, what could be more humorous? OK, the lion cut Himalayan in 503 is pretty funny, but Himmies are known for brains, especially in my world. Give me a yellow tabby anytime. The one in 502, ohhh I can still remember the softness of her fur. Hard to believe that was so long ago.

"The Nightfall Asteroid is on a direct course for Earth. This piece of space rock is seventeen miles across, traveling at close to thirty thousand miles per hour. If nothing stops it, it will hit the Earth in a little more than four days." Professor Daitch, Chief Scientist at the EPRAD command and control center based in Metropolis, paused at the end of his announcement and added, almost under his breath, "The sky, literally, is falling."

"What kind of damage could this asteroid do?" The inquiry came from Phil Morrison of the Star.

Daitch took a deep breath. "It could knock the Earth off its axis, even throw us out of our current solar orbit. It's far larger than the meteor that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. The crater alone will throw enough dust into the air to start a new ice age."

The dark streak appeared out of nowhere. It headed straight for
Metropolis. Anyone looking at the sky would have screamed in fear thinking
that a meteor was about to hit. But no one was looking. The streak headed
straight for downtown Metropolis and came to earth in an alleyway across
from the Daily Planet newspaper. There was no earth-shattering impact or
any other indication that anything unusual had taken place. Nothing except
for the young man who walked out of the alley a few seconds later. He
straightened his tie and looked at the hubbub on the city streets around
him. It was different than anywhere he had ever been -- and he had been to
Paris, London, Beijing, Tokyo and most other major and minor cities in the
world -- but somehow this one was different. He knew why and he sighed.

Yes. He sighed. A long, deep sigh. If only he knew how to find *her*.
She was the reason that he had come here, to Metropolis. He didn't even
know if she still lived here. It had been over ten years. Even if he
could find her, would she remember him? Probably not. Why would she? She
had been beautiful and she, no doubt, had many suitors in the last ten
years. She was probably married, maybe even with a child or two by now. He
ran his hand over his tie, a normal gesture to anyone else, but he was
really feeling for the small circle hidden there. He did it almost
unconsciously; he had been doing it for so long. The feel of it there
brought back the memories that he treasured.

Superman hovered briefly over the brownstone on Hyperion Avenue, then shot to a nearby roof, dropping to a sitting position and pulling his cape around him. Drawing his knees to his chest, he huddled with his back to the raging wind while he stared sightlessly at the rooftops below.

Something was wrong, terribly wrong, in Metropolis. It wasn't just that the city was suddenly more violent and chaotic than Clark had ever seen it, or that no one seemed to remember Superman, his every appearance engendering panic and hysteria. Or that far from being grateful for his assistance, the police and other residents of Metropolis were uncharacteristically hostile and surly.

No, the terrible wrongness in Metropolis, the wrongness that caused that tight knot in his stomach, stemmed from the fact that *strangers were living in the house at 348 Hyperion Avenue.*

It's tough finding a good place to hide -- especially one from where you can watch, plan, wait for an opportunity to strike. To make things right... to get even. Justice and revenge.

It's even harder when you don't have any resources, any contacts, money, a home. When you're not sure if you're being watched as you scramble in the chaos to escape a city ripped apart by corruption and civil war. The only contacts she'd had were also her partner's, and she wasn't sure if she could trust him not to betray her once again. Finally, long after he'd made his own comfortable departure, she too had got out.

"This is Clark's room," Martha told Lois, opening a door near the head
of the stairs. Lois followed her in and looked around.

"It looks like him," she said, surprising herself. The room had
obviously belonged to a boy, later a young man. On the dresser was a
picture of a much younger Clark, standing between his parents and
grinning at the camera. The walls were decorated with posters, pennants
and framed awards for both academic and athletic excellence. Several
trophies were arranged on a shelf situated on one wall, along with
several carefully assembled plastic models of planes and cars.

Martha chuckled. "We keep it like this. When he visits, he likes to
see it the way it was when he lived here." She stepped out into the
hall once more. "Just make yourself at home, Lois."

Sometimes things are not what they seem.

It wasn't until it was all over that Lois understood that this was so. Sometimes, the lie is the truth. And who you thought was there is not.

Lois Lane pulled a sweater over her thin blouse to guard
against the chill of the evening and raked a cursory comb
through her hair. She took her wallet out of her purse and
slipped it into her pocket before heading out the door. She
needed a good, long walk, with time to think things through.
She had no idea what Clark wanted to discuss in the morning,
but she had more than a few things to "discuss" with *him*!

Lois ran lightly down the steps of her apartment building and
turned right, setting off at a brisk pace. As the dusk deepened
into full night, Lois walked restlessly through the streets,
trying to get her whirling thoughts into some semblance of
order. She'd said her final good-byes to Dan, and proposed that
she and Clark take the "next step." Yet he still backed away
from her, still disappeared at the oddest moments and most
infuriating times. Now he'd invited her to breakfast in the
morning, but for what reason? When he called her on the phone,
he seemed too purposeful for this to be merely a casual
breakfast date. No, he had definitely had something in mind.
But what?

Maybe some chocolate would help... Her hand reached for her
wallet as she scanned her surroundings, trying to determine her
exact location. She smiled as she saw she was only half a block
away from Lincoln Street, which meant there was a 7-11 right
around the corner. She felt desperately in need of some
gratuitous calories right now.

"Lois."

Startled out of her thoughts, Lois turned her head and blinked
at the revolver pointed at her nose.

"In here. Now."

"I can't *believe* you dragged out me to this, Lucy," Lois complained as she entered the flea market. "I hate these things. All these people, all this junk, it's just a money pit for fools."

Lucy sighed in exasperation. "Lois, can't you quit being so negative for one afternoon and just do something silly?" She turned to face her sister. "It's just a fun way to kill an afternoon."

"I can think of better ways to kill time," Lois muttered as she picked up a farm implement pillow and examined it.

"Yeah, like cleaning the grout in your kitchen. Lighten up." Lucy shot back. She gave a shout of joy as she headed to a doll display. Lois threw the pillow back on the pile as if it had cooties and followed her sister.

Sunlight filtered in through the heavily tinted windows of
the office, rare streams of light that only appeared in
late morning as the sun cleared the building across the
street, before it continued overhead and masked the office
in shadow once again. Even though those rays appeared for
only a few hours a day, they were the one thing that had
made this particular office, above all others that had been
available in the vast concrete jungle that was Metropolis,
attractive. The sunlight was a symbol, a sign from above
that even the bleakest of lives could have some brightness
in them, and that was comforting somehow.

The brunette woman who called that office her own leaned
back in the large leather chair she sat in, letting the
rays send light across her face. Her life was the kind that
had seen far too little sunshine, mired more in shadows and
darkness than anything else. A distant, bleak pain, a pain
that had been present almost as long as she could remember,
penetrated her whole being, and not even the invigorating
rays of the sun could drive that away. That pain had
consumed her, driven her, led her. In and of itself it was
almost soothing, a reminder of what she had in her life at
one point, a memory of the happy times. But those happy
times had only made the aftermath that much more bleak.

A single light was burning in Clark Kent's apartment. In the muted glow, in the middle of the living room, Lois Lane was standing gazing at the object she'd just discovered, her jaw slowly dropping.

After a long moment she sat down abruptly on the couch and swallowed hard. "I just can't believe it!" she muttered.

I will not be defeated. I have survived teenage boys, John
Travolta in *Grease*, and Prom nights. I will not let one
tights-wearing, underpants-showing, flying man beat me!

The tall, blond man laughed heartily. Unbelievable. This was just unbelievable!

Life was funny. And fun. Very, very fun. To think this all started because his grades in high school had been rather uninspired. They would have been better, but there had always been so many other things - fun things - to do that took precedence over studying.

And it was because he'd had such a good time in high school that he'd ended up at UNW. UNW had been lots of fun, too, but let's face it--it wasn't known for the quality of its diplomas. But who cared? He'd kept his paterfamilias
happy, and with all that lovely inheritance at stake, that had been important. Too bad his father hadn't left as much as anticipated upon croaking. But he had plans to make up for that shortfall.

In the darkened newsroom, Jimmy Olsen shut down his computer for the day and
sighed. It wasn't a tired or a depressed sigh; more a heavily wry one. This
morning he had uncovered a major fraud which was being perpetrated by one of
Metropolis's most respected dot.com companies. It was a fraud which was creaming
off large amounts of money from the company's shareholders, as well as denying
the company's customers value for money. In effect, the company promised a
service which it did not deliver in full, charged more for that service through
a series of 'hidden' costs and additional extras which shouldn't have been
necessary, and then did not declare the full value of receipts from these
extras, so the shareholders lost out - as did the IRS.

Lois Lane stared out of the window of the 727 winging its way
across the United States: destination Metropolis. In the
distance, the cotton candy clouds appeared to hang in the sky by
strings, it wasn't evident that the plane was moving by their
standards; but by judging the speed against the feathery
confections that were brushing the plane wings, time was not
standing still in the sky. She took a deep breath and tried to
relax but her misgivings increased by the mile in anticipation
of the plane finally landing.

The decision to return to the large city had not been easy, the
prospect of starting over unsettled her, but Metropolis was in
her blood. Even more so than the action packed city, journalism
was in her soul; working briefly at a small paper on the West
Coast didn't compare to the way she felt while working at the
Metropolis Star. She tried to separate the two, but it took her
four long months to finally sort out that it wasn't journalism
unless she was working in Metropolis.

"That new kid they hired downstairs still has a lot to learn. Would you believe he doesn't know his alphabetical order backwards? *I* had to help him with the research for Harrington's background. He couldn't even find his way through Who's Who. Anyway, I've got pretty much all I need on him now, and it looks like Harrington's past is way too clean." A gulp of coffee was swallowed in great haste before another flood of words hit Clark. "Too clean for a politician anyway. Makes me suspicious right away, and from what I saw the other night I'm sure I'm right. Clean politicians don't take cash from guys with police records as long as Hobb's River. Jimmy!!"