Note: All right reserved to Warner Brother Studio and/or DC Comics and it’s rightful owner, except for the Emerson family, the Carbon Dioxide and Monoxide breathing aliens, and the Wingfoils; that is my own creation. I claim the rights to these three cultures. (This story was originally written on 8/14/01) #21 of 23.
“Winged Wingfoils.”
It’s been years since the camping trips with the Grobecks, Lois woke up and turned around to wake Clark up but felt that his body was icy cold.
“Clark?”
She hunched over unto Clark’s chest to listen, no heartbeat. She calls Emerson. Emerson JR hops over through his portal.
After the exam, Emerson said, “Sorry, Lois. He’s dead.”
40 Years later, Huber cars and flying cars were a norm. Lois had seen the development of the flying cars and even has seen her grand children and son fight to keep developers from flattening the last of the United States’ national parks. Even despite the attempts, many places on earth was now very polluted and uninhabitable and so was the hole in the atmosphere was getting bigger. There were ten to twenty scattered huge cities with thousands and millions of million humans crowded into each city. Lois was standing there listening to Jimmy’s story about Mr. Wells giving him the time machine and how he had time traveled into the past with an alternate version of Clark had taken him hostage a few weeks ago. Lois remembers it quite well. But all the memory of the episode they had gone through had made her miss Clark even more. Jimmy had also explained about how the alternate Jimmy Olson had captured the alternate version of Clark called Ted with the help of Clark.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later, that Lois had come to visit Jimmy’s new headquarter for a few minutes to hear about how a descendent of the Klein and Kent’s had made the time traveling watch for him when he had traveled into the future a few years. As Lois got bored with the story, she turned around to see Clark coming out of a time portal’s doorway with a man being restrained in his arms. Lois recognizes the Trideekian that was also coming out of the same doorway as Clark. The Trideekian went to put the criminal he had with him away as another time cop came up behind Clark and took hold of the criminal that Clark was holding unto. Clark hands the man over to the cop. The Trideekian was working for Jimmy.
“Hello Clark, It’s nice to see you again.” Jimmy greets Clark and gave him a tour of the place while Lois followed but didn’t want to reveal any future events to Clark. Otherwise she would risk altering the future. Two other cops took the time traveling device and arrested the criminals, first before the tour had begun.
“So, you own this place.”
“Yeah, I always wanted to make a difference. Now I can help people who are in any time, space, or dimensions. Clark saw Lois and decided to go and talk to her. He spends two days with Lois.
When Clark finally had left to go back to his current time with the help of a Trideekian, Lois slumped back into the couch in her living room and cried. She sure has missed Clark. Her memory wonders back to the last times that she held him in a warm loving embrace. Their last kiss, “Oh, Clark. I miss you.”
50 yeas later, Lois had been alone for a while now and was starting another new life again. She so far had gone through two more secret lives since Clark’s death. Her only frequent visitors were some of her great-great…and great grand sons or daughters.
The next day, Lois had tried to get over the fact at having seen Clark again but it was hard. She heard on the news about a huge space ship that had crash-landed on earth, 40 miles out of Metropolis’ suburbs causing some deaths. Lois didn’t feel like watching the news and was about to shut it off when she saw that one of the five crash victims from the ship seems awful familiar to her. She walked up to the TV to take a closer look in hope that the cameraman would give her a closer view. And surely enough the cameraman did so, Lois looks carefully at the TV screen and became shocked as she saw that the man inside the rubble had his face and chest cocooned in some sort of thin layer of see through cocoon which was almost invisible, “Can it be?” Lois look at the TV intensely, ‘Clark?’ Lois thought to herself with all the hope that had shown in her face. But she had also noticed a little bit of detail in the news broadcast that no one else had noticed. Somehow the flying particle wasn’t even hitting or hurting the man’s face. But Lois wasn’t interested in that instead she listened to the news for the information on where the crash victims were being taken.
Later after the accidents was all cleared, Joey had called his mother and explained in detail about how he was helping with the crash when he was lifting a rubble to free one young man in his 30's who was pinned under the huge metal plate. When Joey looked down at the young man who had looked so much like the younger version of his father. He said, “Dad!” and then later at the hospital, he had met up with the people that he and his sister had rescued.
“Hi, my name is Zor-Deek. Decedents of the house of Ra, I want to thank you for freeing us.”
“Your Welcome.” Joey said to the man in front of him that looks so much like the younger version of his father.
Ms Klein soon came in and told Zor-Deek-Ra that he could leave the hospital.
“Do you guys have a place to stay?”
“Actually, no.” Zor-Deek-Ra said, “I was on my way to pick up my new shuttle when our engine failed.”
“We have room for two.” Lois volunteered.
“And we can ask if Emerson have room for two.” Joey said.
That evening, Joey asked Emerson if they had room.
The next morning Zor-Deek-Ra and Joey contacted the appropriate authority in helping the four stranded aliens to rebuild their ship. Joey takes Zor-Deek to the place where his shuttle had crash-landed. Zor-Deek wanted to see what he could salvage from the crash.
“Um, D…” Joey began to call Zor-Deek, ‘dad’ but corrected himself and said, “Zor. What are you trying to find?”
“My communicator. I need to call the Epsilons that I wont be able to get there in time to pick up my order.”
“Why don’t you have them deliver it?”
“Because it’ll cost another million dollars to pay for the shipping cost.” Zor-Deek finds the radio/communicator. He picks it up and dusts it off.
“How long do you think it will take you to get another shuttle made?” Joey asked as Zor had found his other belongings. His other shipmates had also found some of the salvageable items of their own, their personal items.
Later on in the day, Zor-Deek was at the headquarter of NASA, talking to the head leader and trying to strike up a bargain. “It will take at least three years to complete it but if you give us the technology to build the ship we will gladly let you have the first ship.” Says one of the representatives at NASA.
Every one of the aliens had agreed. But Zor-Deek wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave earth just yet. He arranges with the US government to give him land on earth instead of gold as a trade commodity or trade agreement. Somehow he had felt that he had belonged on earth, but he didn’t know why he felt this way. It’s almost as if his quest for a home planet has finally ended. Zor-Deek didn’t want to stay on his home planet because it had felt alien to him. He was ½ Wingfoils and ½ Trideekians. They were great parents but he had told his parents when he turned 18 that he wanted to travel to find his place in the world. Zor spend twelve of those years traveling on other ships. Working on different ships heading to different areas of the universe. He had finally earned enough money three years ago to get his own shuttle, which he was going to purchased the used ship but the sales man and a friend had given it to Zor for free.
Zor-Deek was in the guest room with a towel around the waist, he had just gotten out of the shower when Lois had accidentally come in thinking that he was already gone.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to walk in on you like that.” Lois left but stopped after she had closed the door. She couldn’t get the picture out of her head. Lois had only saw his back but Lois was still shocked. She thought, “He has wings!”
Two days later, the four aliens were still helping NASA build the ship but all of a sudden one of the alien man had started coughing and then collapsed while working. He was immediately brought to the hospital that specially treats aliens. Xenon was an alien that could change form according to his mood. Xenon had talked to Dr. Klein JR that he was fine. “It’s just a cold.”
“Colds don’t make a Gates past out cold.”
Zor-Deek said but staid a few feet away from the bed, “Xenon, I took you unto the ship is because you told me you had no illness. We didn’t want to pass illnesses to other species. I’m sending you back home.”
Dr. Emerson JR. Was at the door way and was observing the scene and thought it was odd and not very normal. He had noticed Zor’s reaction to Xeon’s colds. He knew for a fact that a Gates’s, as termed by Zor, colds was not harmful to a lot of aliens with the exceptions of the Wingfoils.
“No, Zor please. I only said it so you’ll take me off of that horrific planet. Please don’t send me back.”
Zor-Deek pulled his arm free of Xenon’s grasp. But that night Zor-Deek had felted odd, it’s as if his two sides are contradicting each other again. He didn’t know why, he hadn’t felt like this since he was ten. He consulted his diary and found out why. His very cell structures were destroying itself. The last person that had treated him back home was another alien from another galaxy who has a unique ability to travel through space they were the Taballians.
“Oh, great! I’m 20 billion light years away from the Taballian’s home galaxy and this has to happen. It must be Xenon’s illness that triggered this.” Zor shuts down the handheld and put it down next to him before putting his head back to rest. Soon he had fallen asleep in tirdness.
But unknown to Zor-Deek-Ra, Dr. Fredrick E. Emerson JR was a descendent of Dr. Emerson and he was working at the alien hospital and had learned everything from his grandfather. Lois soon walked into the living room while Zor-Deek had finally decided to flip through Lois’ family photo album instead of dwelling on his trouble. He sees a photo of a man who looked like him. He immediately has a flash back and remembered what the vows were in the wedding photo.
It was now six years after the aliens had crash-landed on earth. The shuttle had taken longer then usual to finish building, but it was now almost finish.
Zor-Deek-Ra had enjoyed Lois’ company. It was strange for him to actually feel that he knew her for a long time for some odd reason. The past whole months he had been getting déjà vu, over and over again.
But one night as Zor-Deek-Ra came back from assisting NASA with the building of the space ship. He collapsed onto the sofa in exhausting with no outer evidence of any Wingfoil illness or any other kind. Lois saw him lying on his stomach napping with his wings draped down both side of him.
She sees him loose three more feathers off of his wings. Lois picks it up. She had noticed that Zork-Deek had lost twenty feathers just in the past week alone. But now there was only about ten or more feathers left, Lois didn’t know why but somehow she had noticed the feathers loose it’s shine. Lois expects the worse.
The next day, Lois went to the special hospital to ask Dr. Emerson SR about this. Lois shows him the feathers.
“Lois where did you get this?”
“From Zor, the feathers had been dropping from his wings like mad.”
“Oh, oh.” Emerson said, “That’s not good.”
“Why?”
“Wingfoils never look sick but they do loose their feathers. My dad had always told me that is how you tell how sick a Wingfoil is because they had a natural ability to never look tired or pail when their sick.”
“But you saw him once, how come you didn’t know he was a Wingfoil?”
“Just briefly. Anyhow, it’s sort of like humans can’t see BeLights. Tabloanians can’t see a Wingfoil’s wings unless they let us. Tell me how many feathers did he loose?”
“Twenty plus what he lost today that makes it twenty-three.”
“That is not good. Do you mind I keep this?”
“No, I don’t mind but do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“Not yet but I will be after I do some test on these feathers. According to what you said it would mean his system has already started a self destruction.”
“Self destruct?” Lois said in shock at his reply and became concerned.
“Yes, that only happens when a Wingfoil has a child with another race. Their genetic makeup is not compatible to be mixing with other species.” But Emerson SR then remembers something that his father told him once; he asks, “Do you know his last name?”
“Ra.”
“Hum, I thought so. There are only two cases of this on their home planet and it all happens to only that two family. Do you think you can get him to the hospital?”
“Sure, why?”
“Most Wingfoils that I know of are very stubborn, there kind of like my dad’s friends back on Tallo. They don’t usually get sick so they think they can never get sick. I’m not saying that Zor-Deek will be like that but all the Wingfoils’ that I’ve met when I was younger they don’t like hospitals.”
Dr. Emerson Senior went to his lab right away and did his test on the feather. Miss Klein soon walked in and talked to Emerson about his research, “Hum, there is a human disease that is kind of similar to it. It’s called Lupus.”
“You do! Do you think the same cure would work on Wingfoil?”
“Don’t know, a couple of scientist out in California just found the cure about five years ago. I could look up the research and see if I can make a batch myself.”
“Will you please.”
“Sure. I’ll be right back in one hour.”
That evening, Zor-Deek was packing up his bags when Lois got a phone call. She was in the kitchen while Zor was packing.
“Hello.”
“Lois, this is Emerson. Do you know where Zor is? You need to get him down here ASAP.”
“Did you find anything in your test?”
“Plenty. Xelon had an advanced stage of the virus much like a flue is an advanced stage of the common cold. Anyhow, I did the test and the cells are destroying each other at an alarming rate.”
“It’s serious then.”
“Yes, if you don’t get him down here in two hours; he can die from it.”
The shuttle was finished but Zor-Deek was reluctant to go. “Only if I knew where the closest Tablloanians are located.” Zor-Deek said to himself.
But Lois walked in as Zor-Deek picked up his bags, “Zor, you can’t go. You have to stay.” Lois also noticed that the wings weren’t visible.
“I have to Lois. You’ve been a great help and a good friend.”
“You told me you didn’t want to leave.”
“I have to go.”
“Zor, I know all about why you have to leave. You wont make it to Talloanian.”
“I have to try.”
“We have doctors that can treat you.”
“They wont be able to help. Only a Talloanian can help.”
“I know. We have a Taballian on this planet.”
Zor-Deek was surprised as the reality sank in, “You do! And all the equipment too?”
“Yes.”
Zor-Deek sits down. Lois all of a sudden was able to see Zor-Deek’s wings. She couldn’t believe how sickly it looked as if it were a tree at the beginning of winter, but only five feathers had remained. She had also noticed a few patches of discoloration of the skin of the wings.
“Come on Cl…Zor, we better get you to the hospital.”
“I think we should.”
Lois helps him to the car.
On the ride to the hospital, Zor-Deek had fallen asleep. Lois put the top on when she saw Zor-Deek starting to shiver in the cold air. Emerson SR met Lois at the entrance to the Emergency room at the special ward. He does quick examinations before a stretcher was brought. “Careful, don’t wake him.” The paramedics transferred Zor to the stretcher and noticed that he was very light compared to what he looked likes, big and muscular. Wingfoil’s molecules are light.
At 10 PM the next day, Dr. Emerson SR, did the procedure on Zor-Deek. Emerson finishes within four hours. The DNA scans had taken longer then the actual cure. Emerson leaves the hospital at 2 AM. Zor-Deek woke up at 7 AM to see Lois visiting him. Zor-Deek however was having a Déjà vu again. This room seems familiar to him.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, I just needed one feather to do some test,” Said one nurse. Nurse leaves.
“Hi, how are you?” Lois asked Zac.
“Better.”
Later, after the lab report came back from the lab, Klein walked into the room as Lois asked. “Okay. So, how did it go?
“The procedure went very well.” Said, Nancy Klein as she walked in looking at Zor-Deek’s file. “Do you mind we call you Zac?”
“No.” She then flips a few pages on her pad. She sets the pad down. “Sit up for a second for me.” Zor-Deek did so.
Klein checks him and to see if the feathers were growing back. When all checked out fine, Nancy Klein removed the instrument, Lois immediately saw Zor-Deek’s wings disappears from view. “Okay, go back to bed, and that’s an order. I’m releasing you this afternoon. If you don’t, you’ll have to stay another night.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Zor-Deek salutes out of habit as he did many times in high school to his higher commander. But then he gets a flash back of what his sergeant said, “This is a school not a military.”
“So, Zac. What are you going to do now that you don’t have to leave earth?”
“I’m going to stay, what else. I’ll just have to appoint a new captain.”
Lois left Zor-Deek-Ra’s side for him to sleep but out of curiosity Lois ask Dr. Klein if she knew what the symptoms are to Zor’s conditions.
“I’m not really at all that familiar with a Wingfoil’s physiology but according to Emerson, he told me at one time that at the advanced stage the condition, extreme fatigue, Skin rashes by the wings, fevers and seizure may result in later stages.
Emerson soon appeared and said, “Yes, I’ve seen a Wingfoil die that way. At the advanced stages a Wingfoil would usually go into seclusion. Sort of like waiting to die.”
“Why would they hide themselves like that?”
“Don’t know. I was only a kid when I saw my dad trying to help this Wingfoil to get out of the self induced isolation area. My dad only managed to get the medicine into him when the seizure stopped.”
“How many doses did your dad give him?”
“Two. Once in the arm and then in this sensitive spot between the wings.”
“Why?”
“Have you try inserting a syringe into a fully healthy Wingfoil?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s like trying to use a scissor to cut steel paper. Unfortunately, my dad was hit in the face several times by the teenager’s wings that’s why I thought Zor was going to be resistance to it.”
Emerson still could picture the fighting teenager before his parents came along and held his wings down to the floor.
“Mom! NO! Honestly I’m fine now.”
“Jake, hold still.” His mother commanded.
“Mom!”
“Fortunately, the procedure had been more advanced now, since my dad first used it on that teenager a long time ago.
The next day, Zor-Deek had a meeting with all his fellow shipmates. He appoints a blue skinned, carbon monoxide and dioxide-breathing alien to become the next captain but she had refused. She wanted to stay on earth too because she could thrive on earth’s polluted atmosphere.
She took in one deep breath, “Smell that fresh carbon dioxide filled air.”
Lois however just got sick by her remark knowing the small fact that the commander’s species thrives in a highly polluted planet and can drink toxins.
The next in line to take the position was his third in command. He willingly took the position to take the remaining crew to where they wanted to go. “Don’t worry, Zor-Deek, I’ll bring the ship you were going to pick up for you.”
“Thanks.”
“No, problem-o.”
The next day, Zor-Deek was sitting in the living room looking over the classified ads when he felt someone touch his back. He turns around to see.
“Lois what are you doing?”
“Oh, nothing.” Lois said, but in reality, she was checking to see the number and textures of the feathers. She sees the feathers were indeed looking healthier and shinier. She makes a note in her mind as she thought, “Yesterday were 21 tinny feathers, and today I see 21 large and three new smaller ones.” She settles down into the chair and said to Zor-Deek, “So, Zac. Are you looking for a job?”
“Yes. Then after if I get enough cash, I can have a place of my own until my shipment comes in..”
“We’ll still be able to see each other?”
“Sure.”
Lois waited a while before she stated her next question, “How’s your second in command?”
“Jazeek? Oh, she’s fine. She got a job at the auto shop. She also found out that humans breath out Carbon dioxide. She’s their carbon monoxide detector.”
“Hum. Perfect job for her.”
“Yeah, especially when she inhales carbon dioxide and monoxide. She exhales pure oxygen.”
“Really!”
“Yeah, just don’t try and light a cigarette in her presence. She just might go up in smoke.” He looks at her and saw that Lois had taken her seriously, “It’s just a figure of speech on my home planet.”
Lois was indeed enjoying this conversation. In the past six years since Zor-Deek had come to earth their relationship had blossomed to a wonderful friendship but how can Lois tell him that she thinks he’s her soul mate. He might think she’s crazy. But one thing she’s sure of is that Zor-Deek did indeed possess Clark’s soul. But how will she convince him of this fact, or does she even need to be worried about this. Lois then got around to more serious matter, Nancy Klein had asked her to collect one feather each day for her to see how Zor-Deek’s recovery was progressing.
“Zac do you mind if I take one feather for Klein.”
“No, go ahead.” Lois took out a scissor when Zor-Deek saw that look on her face.
“Lois, it’s not like your cutting off my arm.”
Lois proceeded to walk behind of Zor-Deek and picked a feather to be cut off at the stem.
The End
