The next chapter, finally!
“Clark?”
The voice in his headset was that of his own Lois.
“Lois, I...um...” he said. He stepped quickly back from the older Lois.
“There are two of you,” the voice in his earpiece said. “Two of me, too.”
He glanced up sharply. “How do you know?”
“We’ve been watching everything,” she said. “The whole country has.”
It was then that he noticed the reporter and her camera crew rushing across the parking lot. He smiled weakly into the camera.
The Lois Lane on the screen was larger than life. She was older, but there was a certain elegance about her that Lois hadn’t realized she was missing until this very moment.
She was the first person Lois had ever hated on sight.
Sounds to me like a bad case a jealousy!
This Lois didn’t speak like a reporter. Instead she spoke like a politician, her words falling into a smooth, almost hypnotic cadence.
“My fellow passengers and I are refugees from a dying world,” she was saying. “A collection of the greatest minds our world had to offer.”
“It’s too good to be true,” one of the men beside her murmured, glancing at Lois.
Exactly my feelings about the whole scene! Too good to be true! Who is this Lois? A politician instead of a reporter? How much different is the world they came from? And how much different is their Clark?
Lois was gratified to see that her Clark had joined in; she didn’t want this Lois Lane to think her Superman was somehow superior to hers.
It was surprising how possessive she felt toward him. Usually she just felt this about awards and stories and family and…
She felt this way about things and people that were important to her.
It seems she finally has realized that she loves him...
Clark followed. He was beginning to get a little irritated. Somehow the other man had taken charge, and this wasn’t even his world!
Would irritate me, too! And again: how much different is this Clark/Superman?
As the other Clark shook the hand of the Chinese Premiere, Clark wondered how easy it had all seemed. The other man never said more than he had to, but there was something about the way he spoke that made people listen. He spoke with such assurance that it was almost impossible not to do what he said, and yet somehow he managed to do so without sounding threatening or arrogant.
This already sounds better regarding the other Clark.
The thought that this man had chosen to be a hero instead of being a coward and hiding bothered Clark. Was this who he might have become if he’d had a modicum of courage?
Oh, Clark! What makes you think you don´t have courage? Still such a low self-esteem? What do you think you have done in the last few days in our world?
The fact that the other man barely spoke to him at all made Clark wonder if he’d already been judged and found somehow wanting. This man was in the unique position of being able to know exactly how Clark felt, and yet somehow the other Clark could barely look at him.
Why is this new Clark not able to look at our Clark? I could think of a number of reasons...
As Clark floated around to face the other man, he realized that the other man had his eyes closed.
“It’s good to hear it again,” the other man said. It was the first time he’d spoken to Clark in hours, and Clark was a little startled.
“What?”
“Life.” The other man didn’t open his eyes. “I’d almost forgotten how good it sounds.”
Great!
The other Clark ignored him, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. “I’m starting to think I’m a bad omen. I skipped out on two dying worlds and here I am in a third. I should be better at this.”
Wait. TWO dying worlds? So he already has left another one behind? Was there no Superman in the second world he now came from?
And when he brought the plane trough he had to know exactly what would happen and in which place. So it had to be planned. This makes me think back to the terrorists in the CERN a few chapters ago. Were they sent by his world to trigger a rift big enough to bring the plane through it? Did he bring them through a rift and set them on the CERN? The other world´s CERN running at the same time makes this very suspicious. And there were people hurt! What kind of Superman is this to tolerate something like that?
“Business as usual, then,” the other man said. He sighed. “I’ve spent the last fifteen years dealing with exactly that sort of thing, and what have I accomplished really? Saved two hundred lives out of eight billion?”
200 lives in 15 years? Sounds a little too low...
“When people get desperate, they do stupid things. They started going to war over natural resources. A year ago, a billion people were dead. Six months ago, half the world’s population was gone. Plague and Famines, War and Death…the world didn’t end with a whimper.”
The two Clarks had obviously forgotten that their microphones were still on; Lois sat at the table staring at the other men and women around her. Generals and analysts, bureaucrats and professional soldiers, all of them looked stunned.
That´s the best thing that could have happened! Exactly the right people heard all this! Perhaps they will start to move their lazy butts right now! And I wish this would happen for real and not only in your story!
“We’ve got time that they didn’t have,” Lois said. She cleared her throat. “And we have the value of hindsight. Nothing is set in stone.”
I hope so...
What a chapter! I´m still not sure that this new Superman is entirely positive. And who are the people from the plane? Scientists, politicians, economic leaders...perhaps even Lex Luthor?
Most of them will have twins in our world, and how will they react? I could imagine that politicians would not be amused about having a twin... And is the new Lois really a politician? What office did she have in her old universe? This could get interesting! I´m very much looking forward to a meeting of the two Loises, and of course also the continuation of the talk between the two Clarks.
If the new Clark stays in our world, he has to know that there will be no secret identity for him. And perhaps he can tell our Clark how to handle his little cape problem!
