Don't faint guys, but...

This is the long-awaited and oft despaired of sequel to An Extraordinay Man (available here ).

Various people have read and commented on various bits and pieces of this story, and I hope to acknowledge all of you properly when this gets to the archive. For the moment, let me just say a huge thank you to both Jenni and Pebbles, who both volunteered to read the whole thing. (Where is the line between brave and foolish? wink )

If you haven't already done so, I strongly suggest that you read An Extraordinary Man before reading this, but in case you don't want to (or can't remember what it was about), here is a recap:

PREVIOUSLY, ON EXTRAORDINARY MAN: Even by Assistant District Attorney CJ Kent's standards, Wednesday, 30 April, 1997, turns out to be a spectacularly bad day. He's having flashbacks to a traumatic event several years in his past, he's on the verge of a breakdown and, thanks to the machinations of Lex Luthor, the case he is prosecuting is going down the toilet. Then he witnesses a shooting on the steps of Metropolis's courthouse... just as he is pushed by a meddlesome H G Wells into an alternate reality.

CJ meets his alter-ego, a journalist called Clark, who, CJ quickly discovers, masquerades as a superhero in his spare time. He also meets Clark's wife, Lois Lane. CJ learns that H G Wells' purpose in removing CJ from his own world is to enable CJ to acquire powers like Clark's so that he can return home and prevent the death of his own world's Lois. The only problem is that CJ isn't sure that he wants to go back.

Over the course of ten days, CJ comes to know Lois and Clark better. He learns how to control the strange, and sometimes frightening, powers he's developing. He begins to put the worst of his past behind him, and with it his depression. It takes a lot of soul-searching, but he finally decides to go back to his own world and save Lois's life.

But saving Lois is only the first of the tasks he sets for himself: he also wants to bring Luthor down. CJ returns home carrying with him copies of Lois and Clark's Luthor files, the key, he hopes, to dethroning the criminal mastermind who holds the whole of Metropolis in his grip.

Now read on...


AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN II: TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS

By Chris Carr


CHAPTER ONE

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Wednesday, 30 April 1997
**********************

"No, Lois! Absolutely not! I told you already: it's either going to talk to Saxon about those fish or it's the Allen trial. Nothing else!"

"But, Perry—!" Lois placed her hands palm down on her editor's desk and leaned across it to lend force to her protest. She knew it was useless to argue with him but she was Lois Lane, so she was going to argue anyway. "It'd be a great piece!"

They were arguing about an article she wanted to write. She'd come to Perry White with the idea, saying that the fourth anniversary of the Council of Nations' withdrawal from the space programme was a timely opportunity to consider the ramifications of LexCorp's virtual monopoly on space science. Perry had immediately vetoed the idea and suggested that, rather than in op-ed pieces, her talents would be best showcased through the investigative work of which she was so fond. The real reason for his refusal remained unsaid by, but known to, both of them: he didn't want to have to pull the piece after she had written it, something which would almost certainly be necessary if she ground her axe as she was wont to do where Luthor was concerned. If Perry didn't nix the piece, the paper's lawyers undoubtedly would. Then they would recommend that Lois be suspended.

Perry refused to be intimidated by her fervour. He stared her in the eye and, exasperated, said, "I'm sure it'd be a great piece, but you know as well as I do that I couldn't print it!"

She screwed her lips together, straightened up, folded her arms across her chest, then plonked herself down in Perry's plaid arm-chair. Petulantly, she said, "Why not?"

"Now you're just being obtuse."

She had to admit that was true, if only to herself. She knew things were bad at the Planet – worse, in fact, than Perry let on. The paper was haemorrhaging money; the only reason it had stayed afloat for as long as it had was that Franklin Stern was prepared to throw resources at it, just because it annoyed Luthor that there was still one part of Metropolis's media he couldn't control. But Stern's pockets weren't bottomless and, in a war of attrition, Luthor would eventually come out on top simply because he was the second richest man in the world; Stern barely made it into the top one hundred.

Defeated, Lois scowled and said, "Okay, okay... I'll take the Allen story."

Perry evidently recognised that the last of the fight had left her because when he spoke again, it was in a much more sympathetic tone. "Well, that's great, Lois. Now, don't you think you'd better get a move on if you're to get to the courthouse before the trial starts?"

Lois sighed and nodded. As she left his office, she threw Perry one last, slightly reproachful glance. She was only slightly mollified when he said, "I'm sorry, honey. I really am."

"I know," she answered him softly. He hated Luthor almost as much as she did; he was just much better at not letting it cloud his judgement.

*****

Perry's warning notwithstanding, Lois arrived early at the courtroom, and she applauded herself for managing to get a seat in the front row of the gallery. From there she had a good view of the benches below. She made herself comfortable and, to fill in time before the trial began, decided to browse through that morning's edition of the Daily Planet. However, after scanning the first few pages, she found her thoughts beginning to wander.

She didn't usually bother to follow the legal process beyond the indictment of malefactors; she preferred to tell the story of how people were caught rather than to cover the drier aspects of the trial process. That, she felt, was beneath her dignity; she usually left such stories to her more junior colleagues. Today, however, she had been forced to make an exception to that rule, not just – or even mainly – because it wasn't often that anyone as prominent as Sean Allen found himself in the dock. No, she was here because Perry thought that keeping her in the courtroom would keep her out of mischief. The trial would undoubtedly run for a few days, by which time the anniversary would have passed and with it the last vestiges of Lois's hopes of writing her story.

At least it was, as she'd hinted, a better option than writing about declining fish stocks and the poor health of the aquatic life in the rivers and bays around Metropolis. Moreover, with Assistant District Attorney Kent prosecuting, the trial promised to be good theatre.

Lois gave up on the paper, folded it, and laid it aside. Then she focused her mind on Kent. There had been a time when she had been firmly convinced of his corruption, and that bias had been reflected in some of the articles she had written soon after Elyse's death. Over time, though, her opinion of him had become increasingly ambivalent. Now she was no longer quite so sure about his dishonesty.

Lois Lane knew quite a lot about Clark "CJ" Kent, partly due to the things that Elyse had told her, but mostly because of things she had learned subsequently in the course of her research. She knew, for example, that his lifestyle was not what one would expect from a lawyer in receipt of bribes. She was also aware that the man she bumped into from time to time in the course of her work was not the same man who had graduated from Harvard. It had only taken a few phone calls to find that out. Lois bit on her lip thoughtfully. According to her information, Kent had been a popular student: confident, outgoing and sociable. He had been a hard worker with a lot of friends and even more admirers. Yet, despite the opportunities that presented themselves, he had always stayed a little aloof; he had treated relationships as he had done anything else: with a measure of humour that belied the seriousness he attached to them.

None of this accorded with his current reputation. These days Kent gave the impression that he was someone who worked too hard and had a dour personality.

And therein lay the paradox, thought Lois. She had all the facts she could muster about Kent, but she couldn't make them mesh into any kind of sense. He worked hard. He looked honest. And yet...

The Luthor trial had fallen to pieces on a technicality. A mistake had meant that the monster walked free. Since then other cases Kent had been involved in had similarly fallen apart or had not even made it to trial. The acquittal rate of those cases that were completed was astonishing also. So, either Kent was a far worse lawyer than his performances in court would suggest, or he was supremely unlucky. Or he was, as she had once believed, an actor, whose performances masked a wicked duplicity.

"Hello, Lois."

Lois suppressed a grimace as she recognised the mellifluous voice, coming from a point about six inches behind her right ear, as belonging to Robby Roberts. She slowly turned her head towards him. "Robby," she said coolly. "I didn't expect to see you today. What are you doing here?"

"Same as you. Covering the trial." He rearranged his lips into an approximation of a smile. However, there was no sincerity to it; all it served to do was reveal a row of perfect white teeth – which Lois knew for a fact were the result of cosmetic dentistry. "This isn't your usual kind of story, is it? You wouldn't be in Perry's doghouse, by any chance, would you?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, Robby?" she said, her tone rendered even chillier than it had been before because his gibe cut perilously close to the truth.

"Now, now," he chided her. "No need to be unfriendly, is there? After all, we are colleagues."

Lois tilted her chin fractionally upwards. "We were colleagues, Robby. As I recall, you jumped ship." She had never liked Roberts much – he was too smooth and full of his own self-importance for her taste – but her opinion of him had dropped precipitously when he'd decided to hand Perry his resignation. To her mind, Robby's actions smacked of disloyalty, something she hated.

"I didn't see any reason to wait for the ship to sink. By the way, how is the advertising revenue at the Planet these days?" When Lois didn't deign to answer, Robby asked snidely, "Want me to put a word in for you at LNN before you all drown?"

Lois's eyes narrowed. "No, thanks, Robby. I don't need any favours from you or from anyone else." She wondered what he would say if she told him that LNN had approached her first and had only gone to him after she'd turned the job down; probably he would think she was lying. She hadn't believed it herself when she'd first received the offer. Given her outspoken dislike of LNN's proprietor, she'd been more inclined to think it was an elaborate practical joke. If she hadn't been able to take the offer seriously, how could she expect anyone else to?

The fact remained, though, that, second choice or not, with his perfect cheekbones, expensive coiffure and carefully cultivated voice, Roberts had quickly carved himself a niche at the news station. Now he was on prime time every evening and media pundits were tipping him to be the next anchorman.

"I see you made the front page again," he said.

Lois quirked an eyebrow, surprised not because her story was the morning's lead – she'd known that already, of course – but because he had noticed. She had assumed that he had given up reading printed news when he'd made the sideways move into television.

She felt a momentary satisfaction that her story about Myerson Construction had been given the treatment it deserved. Somehow she doubted that she was going to be on the company's Christmas card list this year, always supposing that there would still be a company come December. Hopefully Myerson would be making license plates by then. Lois didn't dwell on the satisfaction the story's prominence engendered, however. She had had it drummed into her that a reporter was only as good as his or her next story. Myerson Construction was the past; Sean Allen was the future.

And her Lex Luthor story was nowhere. She pursed up her lips with frustration and turned away from Roberts before he could pick up on her emotions. Dammit, but Luthor was the biggest story in the city, and she couldn't write about him! In fact, she was fairly surprised that Perry was allowing her near Allen; he was, after all, allegedly one of Luthor's associates.

It crossed her mind to wonder why LNN would see the need to follow the trial in the first place, let alone give it the high profile that Roberts' presence suggested. Why would a LexCorp company want to give bad publicity to one of its own? Suddenly the trial seemed vastly more interesting than before.

Her musings were interrupted as silence descended. She cast her eyes around, finally letting them alight on the clerk of the court.

"All rise! Court is now in session! The Honourable Angela Diggs presiding!"

As one, all those present scrambled to their feet as the judge entered from a door set off to the rear and towards one side of the bench. Lois smiled involuntarily as she stood up. At least she didn't have to wonder about the morals of the judge: Diggs was as straight as they came. Lois both respected and liked her.

The command "Be seated!" was followed by a loud rustling of fabric and scuffing of feet as everyone hustled to obey.

The clerk remained standing just long enough to call out, "Case number 97-67361! State of New Troy versus Sean Allen!"

Peering over her glasses, Judge Diggs asked, "Is counsel ready to proceed?"

Lois watched as Kent stood up and indicated that, yes, he was. Looking down on the proceedings below her, it crossed Lois's mind to question whether three defence attorneys against one prosecutor made for a very fair fight. Then she found herself wondering whether it was preference or necessity that made Kent work alone.

"Very well," said Diggs, pulling Lois's attention back towards the unfolding action. "Counsellor Kent. You may present your opening statement."

"Thank you, your honour." Kent stepped around the table and looked around the room. Then he began to speak. "Your Honour, members of the jury. My name is CJ Kent. I will be representing the people of the state of New Troy in the prosecution of Sean Allen for kidnapping, corruption and first-degree murder. Over the next few days you will hear..."

Lois was a journalist, not a lawyer. In a perverse way, maybe it was that fact which allowed her to realise as quickly as she did that Kent's performance lacked something. Her brow furrowed as she groped around for an appropriate word and eventually came up with one: theatricality. It lacked theatricality. Was that, Lois wondered, why Roberts was there? Luthor – through LNN – would be more than happy to propagate the fiction that Allen was an honest man. Roberts was here to cover the acquittal. And Kent was going to make sure that he got it. Kent, the showman, wasn't even bothering to go through the motions of giving a performance. He was presenting, in a very bland way, the mere facts of the case. He was making no effort to explain why the crime had been a heinous one, or why the perpetrator ought to be punished to the full extent of the law.

So much for her earlier doubts about his dishonesty!

By contrast, when it was the turn of the defence, their lead lawyer, Rosemary Tierney, turned in a polished performance. Speaking slowly at first but building up into an impassioned crescendo, she explained how she and her three associates would illuminate the weaknesses in the prosecution's case and would force the jury to acquit "this fine, upstanding member of our community". At that last phrase, Lois almost choked from holding back her laughter; from what she knew of Allen, he was more of a devil than the angel the defence were portraying him to be.

Rosemary Tierney sat down.

CJ stood up.

Diggs said, "You may call your first witness."

CJ nodded. "The prosecution would like to call Debbie Morgan to the stand..."

*****

Lois deliberately stepped into Kent's path as he exited the courtroom, making it impossible for him to ignore her. She planted her feet six inches apart, placed her left hand upon her hip, and thrust a tape recorder under his nose with her right. "Counsellor Kent!" She was meanly satisfied to notice that he flinched in response to her salutation. "Would you care to—"

"No comment," he said sharply, cutting her off as he pushed past.

"Now, just you wait a darn minute!" she called after him. "Don't ignore me!"

Lois's irritation blossomed into anger as Kent carried on moving towards the exit. He pushed through the rotating door and began the long walk down the majestic steps to the plaza below. Lois, muttering softly under her breath, ran after him.

"Wait!" Lois cried after him desperately, fearing that, in her heels, she wouldn't stand a chance of catching him up.

To her surprise, however, he stopped short, spun around on his heel to face her and angrily asked, "What, exactly, should I wait for? For you to ask me about my links to organised crime again?"

"No. I... Look. I need a quote for the afternoon edition."

CJ shook his head and glowered at her. "Why should I give you a quote when I know full well what happened last time I was stupid enough to allow myself to be interviewed by you?"

"That was almost four years ago, Kent!" protested Lois. "Besides... I'm sorry about that."

"Are you? Somehow I doubt it, given what you've written about me since."

"Yes, actually I am." And she was. It wasn't just that she feared she might have been wrong about him; she knew that she hadn't been fair. She'd tried and convicted him without even attempting to see things from his point of view, and that realisation never ceased to gall and grate. Lois, who took great pride in her work, found it hard to live with the self-knowledge that she had been anything less than professional in her dealings with him. It was odd, she thought, how he had the power to bring out the worst in her; that thought made her feel guilty, and her guilt brought her anger to the fore again. "Okay, Kent," she said, suddenly. "Let me be frank."

"Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."

"I think that Allen should pay for what happened to that poor woman. But that's never going to happen so long as you're prosecuting the case. You didn't put any effort into your opening statement in there. You didn't even try to sound convincing. And your questioning was a joke!"

His eyes narrowed and he said, "As it happens, I agree with you. Allen should pay for Melissa Keene's death. And you're right; that's never going to happen inside that courtroom. Not when the jury's been bought off!"

Lois was taken aback by his response. "Already?" said Lois sceptically. "Even before the first witness took the stand?"

"Yes. Justice is not going to be done here, and it's gotten to the point where I'm fed up with even trying to see that it is!"

Lois shook her head, stunned. "You're incredible," she said quietly, disbelieving. "At least before you've always made some pretence of prosecuting your cases. I can't believe that you are being so... so... blatant..."

She stepped away still shaking her head, wondering what, precisely, was going on. Kent's behaviour was making no sense to her. She'd thought he had deliberately set out to be ineffectual, wanting Allen to be acquitted, but the man she had just talked to didn't seem like someone who was happy that his trial was going to heck in a hand-basket. Rather, he seemed genuinely frustrated with his failures; he had been angry, as much, she suspected, with himself as with her. And if she was right about that, that meant...

She wasn't sure what it meant.

She moved off down the steps, putting distance between herself and Kent, but glancing back once or twice.

She didn't understand what had happened in the courtroom and, given their past history, she thought it most unlikely that Kent would explain if she pursued the matter further. Were it not for his anger, she doubted he would have told her anything at all. He didn't trust her motives. That was fair enough, she supposed. After all, she wasn't sure that she trusted him.

Even so... Maybe she should go back.

She turned around, only to see that Kent was now locked in conversation with a small man who was wearing, of all incongruous things, a bowler hat. She shook her head, decided that her impulse to go back was foolish, and began to walk down the steps once again.

"Lois!" A panicked cry behind her made her twist around towards Kent. Then she turned forwards to see what had prompted him to yell like that.

"No!"

She didn't know who was responsible for that last cry. Before she could look around to identify its source, she caught sight of the gun pointed towards her. She tried to throw herself to the ground but it was already too late. Far, far, too late.

The crack of the gunshot echoed around the square. The punch of impact pushed her and she screamed. She scarcely had time to realise that it was not the bullet which had hit her body, but an arm pulling her to... safety? The ground rushed away from her. Instinctively, she screamed again, this time louder than before. Then, with indignation, she cried, "Let me go!"

"I don't think you'd want me to do that," a warm voice said lightly. "We're fifty feet off the ground. Besides, you wouldn't really want our friendly neighbourhood assassin to finish off what he started, would you?"

Fifty feet!

Instinctively she glanced down, towards her feet. She took in the way they were flailing about in the air, the way the trees and tarmac below were rushing past in a grey and green blur. For a moment she was too stunned to think, let alone to do or say anything. However, her paralysis was fleeting and soon thoughts were tumbling through her head. She was in the arms of someone who could fly! Who was it? Why was he doing it? How had he known to grab her at that critical moment? How was he doing it?

Lois tried to twist in her rescuer's grip, wanting to see his face. However, the way she was being held, her back to his chest, prevented that. All she could make out was the sleeve and trouser legs of a charcoal grey suit and a pair of polished black shoes, and she was not really in any state of mind to take in the details of either of those.

Her rescuer deposited her on the flat roof of a nearby high-rise. Then, after saying, "Don't move. I'll be right back," he took off again. He moved in a blur, but not quite so fast that she didn't get a general impression of dark hair and olive skin.

"Stay here?" Lois muttered to herself. "I don't think so!"

.....

TBC