A sequel to Game, Set, Match
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Lois lingered as long as she could in that half state between sleeping and waking. She was in a bed that smelled of detergent and bleach. It was a good smell, a comforting smell. Like when she was little and her mother was still okay and had put fresh sheets on the bed.
Other smells and sounds intruded, breaking into her comfortable half-dream. Disinfectant smell intermingled with the sound of beeps. She let her mind linger over the odd dream she had. Lex Luthor had been trying to convince her that they’d been lovers and he wanted them to disappear together. Then the dream morphed into something horrible – Luthor had a gun that could kill Superman and he’d used it to kill him. Luthor had killed him. He had killed Clark.
The dream morphed again and she was trapped inside a glass canister watching Luthor as he gloated over his victims. She pounded on the canister - only the hands doing the pounding weren’t hers. They were large – as large as Clark’s, only… Clark was dead on the floor.
But it was only a dream, wasn’t it?
She stretched before opening her eyes but her body felt heavy and a little ungainly but she wasn’t in any pain. Slowly she opened her eyes and looked around. She was in a hospital bed, but she had no idea which hospital.
She sat up to get her bearings, looked down and had to stifle a gasp of astonishment. Her breasts were gone, replaced by a broad chiseled chest that matched the muscular arms sticking out of the hospital gown.
A horrible suspicion coalesced in her mind and she checked under the sheet and gown to confirm it – she was now male.
Lois cast her mind back to her dream. Luthor had a gun that could kill Superman and he’d used it to kill him – no Luthor hadn’t killed him, not just then. She tried to stop Luthor only he threw her aside. Then… Her thoughts shied away from what had to have come next. Luthor had turned his weapon on her for defying him. That or she had tried to shield Superman from Luthor’s weapon. Either way, it seemed that Asabi’s soul transfer trick had worked.
Lois Lane was alive, but in a different body.
She climbed out of the bed, teetering unsteadily on large feet as she made her way to the adjoining restroom. A look into the mirror confirmed it. She was not only male, but the body was that of the male that Mamba had created for Luthor himself – the genetically perfect Arian male model, blond, blue-eyed, perfect teeth, perfect body.
“The bastard did it,” she murmured. Her voice sounded weird in her ears. It was far too low. An errant thought flitted through her mind. Had Mamba given his creation a good singing voice? Her own voice had been pretty good and she enjoyed singing. Had she lost that as well?
Then another thought crossed her mind. Mamba’s other creation had been female. Had she survived? And if she had, whose soul had taken her? Clark or Lex?
She felt a chuckle rising into her throat. Lex would be horrified to be in the wrong body. It was odd – her memory was still patchy in some areas – but she clearly remembered Luthor’s snide little comments concerning the ‘fairer sex’. She suspected that Lex saw women as little more than sex toys and baby factories. He certainly would hate waking up as an ‘innie’.
And Clark? Lois wasn’t sure how Clark would react if he woke up in a woman’s body. He was normally pretty level-headed but this was a seriously mind-blowing concept. And that didn’t include Superman – how would Clark react to losing Superman on top of everything?
-o-o-o-
His first impression on waking up was that everything was muted. The sounds were softer and more distant and his sense of touch seemed almost gone – he didn’t feel numb so much as he felt there was a barrier between himself and the world. He also felt weak, as weak as he did when exposed to kryptonite but without the pain. His sense of smell was muted – he should have been able to identify where he was just by the scents but all he could smell at the moment was detergent and bleach.
He opened his eyes. Even they weren’t working quite right. He could see but again it was like he’d been exposed to kryptonite – his special vision was gone.
Clark took another moment to access the situation. His surroundings indicated he was in a hospital room but he had no idea how he had gotten there.
He remembered Luthor attacking him and kidnapping his mother. He remembered tracking Luthor to his lair. He remembered the searing pain when Luthor turned his disruptor on him. Then nothing, except…
He was sure what he remembered next was a dream. He had opened his eyes to find himself in a glass canister, looking down on his own brightly clad body. Lois was sprawled over Superman’s body and it was obvious that they were both dead. He heard a scream and then gunfire. Luthor slumped to the floor, his dead eyes staring at Clark trapped in the canister.
It had to be a dream, right?
He started to climb out of the hospital bed. Depowered or not, he didn’t want some overly curious doctor examining him and discovering that he wasn't human.
But his center of gravity was wrong and his body just didn’t feel right. He looked down to see what was wrong and saw… breasts?
His hands and wrists were wrong – they were small and feminine with manicured nails. His feet and legs were wrong as well. They were shapely legs and feet but they belonged to a woman a little taller and heavier than Lois. He brushed absently at something on his shoulders and discovered his hair was past his shoulders. He held a lock of it in front of his face and stared at it – his new body was a blonde and from his first inspection, the collar and cuffs matched.
Clark had no idea how Luthor had managed it but he had no doubt that Luthor was at fault. He also knew that if he told anyone what had happened to him he’d end up in a padded cell.
Clark had no intention of landing in the psych ward and he knew he would never find out what happened to him from inside a hospital room.
He mulled over his dream, realizing it probably hadn’t really been a dream at all. Lois was dead. She’d been sprawled across his body, her chest blown away by that monstrous weapon. Luthor killed her.
Lois was dead.
-o-o-o-
Lois looked up as the door to her room opened and a familiar face showed itself – Bill Henderson, MPD. Another officer followed him in.
“My name is Henderson and this is Wilkerson and we’re with the Metropolis police. If you don’t mind, Mister Alexander, we’d to ask you a few questions about what happened to you and what you may have seen.”
Mister Alexander? Lois was so caught up in the revelation of her body’s name that she almost missed the first question.
“Can you tell us why you and your wife were sealed inside bullet-proof air-tight glass tubes in Lex Luthor’s hideout?” Henderson asked.
“I honestly have no idea,” Lois said. “In fact, I’m a little fuzzy on a lot of things.”
Henderson grimaced. “The doctors found some interesting drugs in your system. The lab’s still trying to identify some of them. But you have no idea what Luthor was planning?”
“Only that he claimed he had a way to kill Superman, and he had some idea that he’d get away scot free,” Lois said. “Something about ‘soul transference’.”
“Do you know how he planned to kill Superman?” Henderson asked.
“Some sort of gun. A ‘disruptor’ I think he called it. I have a feeling it was something like a military prototype,” Lois said. “I’m pretty sure that what he used to kill Superman and Lois Lane.”
Henderson raised one eyebrow and Lois realized she had mentioned something that she shouldn’t have known – the real name of Luthor’s female companion.
“I recognized her,” Lois explained quickly. “From her photograph. I guess her fiancé must be pretty upset.”
Henderson simply nodded.
Lois decided to ask some questions of her own. “You, um, found our ID and clothes and everything?”
“All packed up like you were planning a trip,” Wilkerson said. “Where were you planning on going?”
“We had no plans to go anywhere, at least not that I remember.”
“You weren’t planning on flying to Paris in the morning?” Henderson asked.
Lois shook her head.
“How long had you known Lex Luthor?” Wilkerson asked.
“As far as I remember, I didn’t know him at all,” Lois answered.
“And you have no idea why he had you and your wife in those tubes?” Henderson insisted.
“No idea at all,” Lois lied.
“Do you remember your wife’s name?” Henderson asked.
Lois’s mind spun. Was Henderson suspicious of her, or just naturally cautious? And what name would Luthor have put on her passport?
“Louisa,” Lois said. Close enough to ‘Lois’ for her to remember, different enough not to raise suspicions if she slipped up.
Henderson seemed almost satisfied. “The doctors want to keep the two of you here overnight for observation. We’ll want to talk to you again when your head’s clearer.”
A woman stuck her head in. Lois recognized her – Betty Reed, an MPD detective.
“Mrs. Alexander has flown the coop,” Reed announced.
“I ordered a guard on her,” Henderson growled.
Reed shrugged. “We’re searching the building, but we think she got some clothes from the nurses’ lockers and maybe even some cash. But no credit cards are missing.”
“Mister Alexander, why would your wife run away?” Henderson asked.
“She has a really serious aversion to doctors,” Lois suggested only half joking.
Henderson was not amused. “And where would she run to?”
“I have no idea,” she answered, honestly this time.
