Shayne - a late night, so perhaps a disjointed and irregular comment.
Firstly, thanks for posting again so quickly. It's great to log on and see another installment.
With her he felt like he could do anything. He felt like he really was Superman.
It's destiny! It's fate! It's Lois & Clark!
Doing the interview on a roof with a view of the Potomac River and the city strung out behind them like a sea of glittering stars was going to be a little more interesting than the plain white wall she had envisioned. The view would make a statement, telling the world a little bit about how this man saw it from above in all its beauty.
A great visual image! I can just see it.
“In 1978 movie producers told you that you would believe a man could fly. Tonight you will know he can. “
Excellent homage.
“I wear it because people know what it means,” Clark said. “I have seen the insignia in Myanmar, in Iraq in Turkey and Istanbul. People who have never seen a word in English still recognize the costume and they know what it means.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means I’m here to help.”
Oh wow.
Colonel Kwan tapped the arm of the private, forcing him to bring his weapon down. A gesture caused the men around him to do the same.
“I can’t do this without you,” the man said.
************
“I can’t do this without you,” he said, staring into the camera. “Without the help of ordinary people I can’t do what I need to do.”
“What exactly is that?”
“To help.”
Excellent segue from one scene to another. It flows naturally. I'm taking mental notes for later technique plagiarism.
Lois nodded. “We were one step away from having everything go to hell in a hand basket. There are things I haven’t even put in here because I signed some non-disclosure agreements.”
They were planning to stop any further experiments, Lois assumed and so downtown Denver ought to be safe enough. She felt a vague sense of guilt. This was exactly the sort of story she had been born to tell, and she was hesitating.
The fact that she needed the government’s goodwill to help her sister and Clark played more into it than the desire not to go to jail.
So Lois can be swayed. I would do the same.
He glanced at her. “Don’t tell anybody I’m helping you. I hear the food in Guantanomo is particularly bad.”
“This isn’t an anti-American thing we’re doing,” Lois said. “It’s our duty as journalists to be the watchdog, to give the people the information they need to make informed decisions.”
How did it get to be perceived as anti-American? That's the heartbreaking thing about our own world.
There was very little that he could remember ever doing that he regretted. It was the things he hadn’t done that pained him, the things he was never going to get to do.
So true. Why does it take a life-altering event for us to see that?
Behind his father floated a familiar figure in blue and red.
When his eyes finally focused enough to see what he was seeing, he knew that the drugs had already kicked in. He worried for a moment about the hallucination, and then decided not to mention it.
That was hilarious!
Shayne, everyone else has already made good points. I just hope that you continue with your excellent writing and that this story goes for many more chapters. Because it's so fun to read.
I'm still looking forward to Clark meeting with the government, and the reaction to Lois' interview, and what petty things the government is going to try to do to Lois (trying to get her on the non-disclosure agreements, maybe?), and how Lois has pretty much burned her bridges behind her with everything she's done, and what's going to happen with the passengers, and how will Clark get them back to their own world? Still a lot of questions.
Thoughts:
1) If Clark Kent is a reporter for the Daily Planet, and if time is passing in both universes, what's going to happen when he's been missing from his job for however many days it's been? How is he going to explain his lengthy absence?
2) If Clark gets back to his own universe, and his cover story is that he was on the plane, won't someone be checking the passenger manifest to see if this is true? The plane presumably filed a flight plan, but didn't make its destination. From Clark's world's point of view, LexAir 1013 disappeared in midair. This would cause a lot of flurry at the FAA. So everything about LexAir Flight 1013 will be investigated very thoroughly.
And, if all the passengers come back, and Clark Kent comes back too, and if there's no history of Clark Kent buying a ticket, then it'll become obvious that he must have been the one guy in the parallel world
with the plane that wasn't
on the plane - e.g., Clark Kent must be Superman. (I'm assuming he's going to go public in the other world, after seeing what power the "S" symbol and the Suit have.)
And another thing - presumably the airplane has been dissected! Lois saw the footage of it in a hangar. And she noted that half of one wing was missing.
So, if Clark and Lois manage to arrange the repatriation of all the passengers back to their original world, they're going to need a new jet. I can't see any sane pilot getting in LexAir 1013 which is missing half a wing. So, is it better to send the parallel universe one of our planes, or is it better to introduce the pilots to Superman and just let them know that he'll be doing the flying? ("Hey, I'm Superman...I'll be carrying you and all your passengers in this wounded jet....don't worry that it only has half a wing, I haven't let anything fall yet!")
Maybe Clark and Lois could spin Superman as having originated in our world. And then they could say that he decided to take up exile in Clark's world because he wanted to get the passengers home. Would this distance Clark from Superman enough? (I still want him to have the secret identity in his world). I'm assuming that no one has told the passengers that Superman is fictional in our world. Of course, now he's no longer fictional!
And (I'm on a roll now, Shayne) what about all the laptops the government confiscated from the passengers? Are they going to give them back? Or are they going to reverse-engineer them for their goodies? Why not pillage Nanosoft Corporation's intellectual property? The other universe patents aren't valid.
And from the passengers' point of view, this must have been the trip from hell. First, thinking they were going to crash. Then getting arrested and held incommunicado for days. They must feel they're in some Kafka universe. (Maybe Lois could interview some passengers about this when she goes back on the plane to Clark's world?)
And, in a total jump of topic, back to paying for Susan's lawyer services. You know, both in the comic books, and on the TV show "Smallville", Clark has been shown to have the power of squeezing a lump of coal really really hard until it turns into a diamond. Maybe he could do that for Susan? In front of all the diamond dealers, so there would be no doubt about the provenance? I know I'd pay extra for a "Superman diamond"! And I like the idea of leaving Susan with a diamond necklace to remember him by.
If Clark does this, however, it had better be right before he goes back to his own world. Again, once people see that he has money, he'll be a target for lawsuits.
