Author's note:Hello again! Thanks for all your patience. Exams have been absolutely kicking my butt and I totally forgot to post this.Happy reading!***
Clark followed Lori into the darkness. Her shimmering green scales gradually faded along with the rest of his surroundings. Soon, he was using sound alone to navigate, attuning his ears to the vibrations of the water. In the distance, he could make out whale songs, the roar of propellers and even beachgoers swimming near the shore.
They dove deeper. The bright blue expanse littered with schools of fish was replaced with a murky realm of shadows. His eyes had failed him sooner than expected. The constant static from his super-hearing became muffled, until only the strokes of Lori’s tail-fin were audible. Beyond them, the darkness was oppressive and the silence was beginning to unnerve him. Superman wasn’t used to things being so quiet.
Lori’s occasional gentle nudge into his mind kept him calm. Well, as calm as he could manage. He’d become so accustomed to the constant stimuli that a break from it made him nervous. What if someone needed his help? No, he reassured himself. This was where he was needed. He couldn’t be everywhere at once, after all.
Soon, the impossibly dark ocean depths birthed a faint blue glow. He used his telescopic vision to get a closer look. Geometric patterns that gleamed like moonlight on water spiraled out across the bedrock, weaving themselves into beautiful, fractal-like designs. In his mind, he heard something—
singing. The people were singing.
“We’re almost there,” Lori explained,
“I can tell from the navigation system.”“That’s the navigation system? It’s beautiful.”“I guess I never thought of it that way.” “You know what they say about a fresh pair of eyes, or I guess, ears, in this case.”In the center of the sprawling design on the seafloor, there was a hand-shaped imprint. He didn’t have to wonder about its function for long. Lori placed her hand there. The ring she always wore began to glow in the same blue as the geometric patterns surrounding them. Clark noticed her fingers were a bit more webbed than the average person. How many other clues had slipped by him? He had been so busy hiding his own secret, he’d never thought she might have one, too.
After the glow had subsided, a large cleft appeared in the rock below them. It looked wide and deep enough to be the boundary between tectonic plates. Pure light shone through the gap as it grew. When Clark’s eyes finally adjusted, he froze in awe.
The cavity below the sea floor stretched hundreds, maybe even thousands, of feet deep. The bottom was obscured by just the sheer amount of water between him and it. It looked like a layer of fog, except it hung close to the ground instead of blanketing the tops of the buildings. They’d been swimming downward for so long, it took him a few moments to realize that they’d reached the ground. For a moment, he’d felt like they’d swam so deep that they’d reached the sky on the other side of the world.
Once they passed through the gap in the bedrock, the stone doors rumbled shut behind them. On either side of them were towering stone structures, like giant stalagmites and stalactites, speckled with lights—
windows? Residents swam from one to the next, their scales glimmering in the glow.
After giving him a few moments to absorb it all, Lori swam onward. As they passed through lanes of traffic, he got a few stares, but not as many as he’d expected. After all, he was wearing red and blue spandex, along with a cape. Most acted like this was just a normal day for them. It reminded him of Metropolis. Even there, he usually wasn’t the weirdest thing someone saw in their day.
He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly clamped it shut, after getting a mouthful of seawater. Right, still underwater. The fact that he hadn’t needed to surface for air made him forget. Speaking of, when did he need to breathe again? He’d never actually tested how long could go without air. He’d taken an oxygen tank with him when he flew to space to deflect the Nightfall asteroid, but since then… It was a mystery to him.
Sensing this internal dialogue, Lori finally spoke to him. As she led them down towards a central tower, she asked,
“So… what do you think, Clark?”He looked around again. He was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around it all.
“It’s uh… it’s still pretty surreal. I can’t believe this has been here right under our noses.”She chuckled.
“People do have a hard time looking past their own noses sometimes.” Then, she added,
“But it’s not their fault. We did a good job of hiding.”They finally reached the floor of the great cavern and turned to face a giant door set back into one of the stalagmites. Much like the one on the seafloor, it was covered in geometric designs with a handprint-shaped keyhole in the center.
“It’s amazing what you all have down here. Just imagine what your people and humanity could do together.” He turned to her, trying in vain to read her expression.
“And that’s what they’ll do: imagine.”“You think your people should stay hidden?”She swam closer to the door, hand extended towards the keyhole.
“Let’s see what the council has to say.” When she placed her hand on it, it announced something followed by what sounded like her name.
The stone doors ground open, powered by some unseen mechanism within. Ahead, the council chamber seemed almost as vast as the rest of the place. Concentric balconies stretched up into the hollowed-out structure. A few observers were scattered amongst them, but the room was largely empty.
The central chamber was occupied by an older man and woman, who looked to be about his parents’ age. Each had dark skin and curly hair, similar to Lori, apart from the fact that their hair had grayed from age. Unlike Lori, they seemed better dressed for the aquatic environment. Their arms were covered in scales, blue for the woman and dark green for the man, stretching up towards their torsos which were themselves covered in skin-tight garments. In the deep sea darkness, he imagined the white fabric helped a lot with visibility. Or else, their eyes were just better suited to the ocean depths. For all his visual feats, Clark was never very good at seeing in the dark.
By their expressions and gestures, it looked like the pair was arguing. Obviously, he didn’t have a clue what they were saying. He could only pick up bits and pieces at the edge of his mind and it wasn’t in English, or any other language he knew. He pressed his lips together worriedly. Hopefully, Lori wouldn’t mind being his translator.
***
Her parents’ argument seemed to take a momentary recess when Lori swam into the room. Her mother crossed her arms and huffed. She and Lori’s father took a moment to glare at each other before turning to acknowledge their daughter.
“Lori! We weren’t expecting you back soon.” Her mother’s tone shifted abruptly to a cheery one, as soon as she saw that her daughter wouldn’t be the only one entering the conversation.
“Or at all…” her father griped.
“Hush, now.” The older woman turned back to her daughter, but her eyes looked past her to their red-and-blue-clad visitor.
Lori fought the urge to follow her mother’s gaze. Even when he wasn’t actively trying to get her attention, Clark’s thoughts were loud, even distracting. They were already entering this discussion at a disadvantage. Clark holding his cards a little closer to his chest would help. She hoped, though, that her mom’s knowledge of English was as sparse as she remembered. That way, even if she could hear him, at least she wouldn’t be able to understand.
“As much as I’m sure you want to catch up, I came home because I have to tell you something important.” She didn’t wait for either of her parents to butt in before adding,
“The surface-dwellers are going to discover the city tomorrow.”Her father scoffed.
“That’s ridiculous.”“You both sent me up there for a reason. I know what I’ve seen and I know where this is going. We need to do something quickly, or else we won’t have a choice. You need to convene the council to decide the fate of the city.”“What have you seen exactly?” her mother inquired, each word pointed.
“A submersible. It’s being sent by a scientist from the surface who claims to have knowledge of our city and our people. I’ve seen his files for myself. Most of it’s nonsense, but he’s gotten enough right that he could do some serious damage. Either we allow ourselves to be discovered by the humans and see where that takes us, or we stop this from happening altogether.”“Why hasn’t your super-friend over here done anything yet?” Lori grimaced. It seemed her mother had remembered her English, after all.
“Clark doesn’t want to sabotage a scientific mission. And frankly, I understand.”The older woman raised an eyebrow.
“This is Clark?” she asked, her words tinged with vitriol.
“Yes, but that’s not important, Mother.” The last thing she needed right now was an argument, which her mother seemed all too eager to provide.
“We need his help. Whether you personally approve of him doesn’t matter.” For once, her father decided to be helpful, cutting in to say,
“It looks like we're finished here. I’ll call a meeting of the council.” Her mother frowned, but kept her mouth shut.
Lori drifted away, back towards Clark’s side. She sighed. Well, that certainly could have gone worse.
“What’s the verdict?” he asked, crossing his arms in the way he always did when he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands.
“I’ve convinced them to take the issue to the council. Though, who knows if the rest will take us seriously. I mean, you’re alien to them, in both senses of the word… and I’m essentially a traitor. I left without a word, then I’m dragging myself back here warning of their imminent discovery.”Clark took a moment to process, then replied,
“So when they said they weren’t expecting you back—”“They meant it.” She shook her head and chuckled.
“To be completely honest, I hadn’t planned on coming back. I mean, originally, years ago, I thought I might, but…” Gazing out into the middle distance, she contemplated telling him the whole truth. Would that change anything? With her luck, it’d probably make the whole situation much worse. With a sigh, she finally said,
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”“Did you miss them?”“Sometimes.” “When you started talking about them in past tense, I always assumed that meant they were dead.” Lori shrugged.
“It would have been easier if they were. I wouldn’t have had that whole complex about what they wanted for me. Maybe I’d have done things for myself instead of for them, for a change.” That sounded familiar. Clark was sure Lois could attest to that.
It was quiet for a while. Clark watched as the door to the grand chamber ground opened and a few merpeople swam inside. He was about to ask himself how they knew to come here, but of course, that was what the telepathy was for, wasn’t it?
“What do you think you’ll do?” he asked. She just looked at him funny, so he added,
“I mean, if they decide they don’t want to become buddy-buddy with the surface. What will you do, then? Stay here?”She shook her head and chuckled.
“God, no. What do you think I’ve been doing all these years?”“Fair point.”“I can share my people’s knowledge with the humans… in little ways. After all, it’s not a coincidence that I became a marine biologist.”“Well, I guess it’s no coincidence I became a reporter, either.”“No better place to hear about a job for Superman than a newsroom, I suppose.” And it was nice to be able to help people in his civilian identity, too.
“You know, I always did wonder why you chose journalism as a major. You were so good with languages. I thought you’d go into international studies, maybe become a diplomat or something like that.” “Well, I traveled around for a while.”“What made you stop?”Clark took a moment to think about it. Why had he stayed in Metropolis? Superman hadn’t needed to set up a home-base there—he belonged to the world. But Clark? He had always needed to settle somewhere eventually, if not for his own sake, then his parents’. Then he realized what had held him in Metropolis. It was the most obvious thing in the world. He’d known it only a few moments after entering Perry’s office for the interview that fateful September morning four years ago.
“Lois. I stayed for her.”Lori chuckled.
“Aw, that’s sweet. Real romantic.”“She certainly didn’t see it that way, at first. For a while, she absolutely resented me, but she came around, eventually.” Sure, there was her near-marriage to Lex Luthor, followed by plenty of threats to both of their lives. But they got there in the end. That was what mattered.
