Home: Circle of Fate 3/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
Clark glanced at his wrist talker, only half his attention on what John was saying. "I'd like to go check on her, if you don't mind. It will only take a minute."
John nodded. "All right, go ahead."
Clark started to turn toward the door, when the feeling crystallized suddenly in an intense burst of panic.
"Lori!" he screamed.
In an instant, he was out the window, leaving his civilian clothing in shredded rags on the floor of John's office, not even taking the time to dispose neatly of his outer wear. But even as Superman split the air of Metropolis, trailing a sonic boom that literally rocked the city in his wake, he knew that it was too late.
**********
And now, Part 3:
Superman arrived at the Kent apartment split seconds later, and almost immediately was joined by Superwoman, Tan-El, Typhoon, Cyclone and Blue Lightning, all demanding to know what was wrong. Clark wrenched open the skylight without answering and dropped into the apartment.
"Lori!" he shouted.
There was no answer. He hadn't expected to hear one. The indefinable trace that told him that Lori was somewhere around had vanished. All that he could feel was an aching void in his mind where her beloved presence had been split seconds before. Lori was gone. Slowly, he crumpled to his knees and began to sob.
**********
Lori signed her name carefully to the last of the thank-you notes and sat back with a feeling of accomplishment. The protocols were done. She gathered up the little notes, wondering abstractedly why emails weren't considered acceptable for the purpose, and stood up, stretching.
The vidscreen muttered in the background. PNN was showing the ceremony, held earlier in the day in Washington DC, of Superman, Ultra Woman and Black Raptor receiving an award from the President to honor the hundredth anniversary of the Superman Foundation. A hundred years ago, today, the small enterprise begun by Murray Brown and Superman had been transformed into the worldwide organization that promoted the principles of Superman, and begun its campaign to improve the health and welfare of the people of Earth. She took a moment to admire Clark's muscular body, outlined in the tight red, blue and yellow uniform. Today he was serving as a representative of the "original" Superman, as he stepped forward to accept the certificate and the small statuette that would subsequently be put on display in the Museum of the Superman Foundation. Lori smiled, watching him stride across the podium to accept the award. He shook the President's hand and turned to the podium to make his acceptance speech before a crowd of journalists and dignitaries. How were the people present at the ceremony to know that the Superman, who was accepting the award on behalf of his Foundation, was the man who had been its founder? Very few persons knew the real story of how all this had come about. She was one of them.
Lori giggled softly. Clark had told her all about it: how Murray Brown, the "artist's representative" had been after him to sign a contract so that Murray could "market" Superman. Clark had finally accepted, under the proviso that all proceeds of the organization were to go to charity. That had been in 1993. Six years later, they had turned it into the Superman Foundation at the suggestion of Lois Lane and Perry White, who had been Clark's editor at the Daily Planet. Lois and White had put a lot of time and effort into helping Murray set it up, and establishing him as head of the Foundation. The former talent agent had discovered that running such a prestigious organization was much more to his taste than his previous job had been, and in the end had turned out to be best president that the Superman Foundation could have desired.
Perry White, Clark's editor, must have been a pretty smart guy, she thought, watching the scene on the vidscreen as the band struck up and Superman stepped back to allow Black Raptor -- Ryan Kent, Lori's brother-in-law -- to take his place for his own prepared speech. White had figured out Clark's secret from many small clues and had apparently known for several years that his top male reporter was actually Superman, but hadn't let on until it had been unavoidable. For a great many years after that, he had been one of Clark's allies and closest friends in his work as Superman.
Her stomach growled, distracting her from the scene on the vidscreen. She dropped the little envelopes into the transport tube that would take them to the Mail Delivery Center and turned toward the kitchen. There was at least one homemade chocolate éclair left in the refrigerator from the ones that Clark had made for her two days ago, and she was pretty sure that she hadn't eaten all the watermelon.
She had finished the watermelon and was working on the eclair a few moments later when she heard a sound behind her.
It wasn't an identifiable sound but it definitely shouldn't be there. Lori turned, and froze.
It was exactly as if someone had sliced the air, leaving an open cut taller than her head in the very fabric of the universe. As she watched, the shimmering cut spread wide, leaving her staring into a rectangular, shimmering surface, through which she could see distorted images of whatever was on the other side. Out of the surface stepped a man.
He wasn't all that alarming in appearance, about forty-five, she estimated automatically, a little taller than Clark, reasonably good-looking, with brown eyes, wavy, reddish-brown hair and a short beard. In one hand he held something, some kind of control mechanism, she thought, judging by the buttons and small blinking lights on its face, and in the other he held a stunner. He smiled cheerfully at her.
"Ms. Lyons, isn't it?" he said, almost courteously. "Mrs. Superman. I've wanted to meet you for some time. Stand up."
"Who are you?" Lori asked.
"They call me Tempus," the man said calmly. "You may have heard of me. Don't scream. I'll have to stun you if you do, and it might not be very good for your baby."
"If you kill me, it wouldn't be very good for the baby either," she countered, getting slowly to her feet.
"Oh, I'm not going to kill you," Tempus assured her mockingly. "But you see, I can't allow you to have that baby in this time period. It wouldn't be very good for ... my future." He smiled briefly. "Besides, I love irony. You, Lori Lyons, intrepid investigative reporter of the 21st and 22nd Centuries, wife and partner of Superman, and the woman who is destined to help complete the legacy of Lois Lane and Clark Kent, snatched from your rightful place and put where you can never utilize the potential of your talents. It's almost poetic. I love it."
"Why are you telling me this?" Lori asked. Stall, she told herself. Stall. Maybe Clark will know, with that strange telepathic talent of his, that something is wrong. Every minute gained was an asset.
Tempus grinned widely. "Surely he's told you about me, Ms. Lyons. He wouldn't have kept it from you that he's not merely a superman, but Superman, the muscle-bound original, pathetically dependent on a weak human female to accomplish the greatest advances in history for human civilization. To bore persons like me out of our skulls. Utopia must not be allowed to come to be, and it's up to me to stop it. And the best way for me to accomplish that is to attack its weakest link. That," he added, as if he were speaking to a two-year-old, "would be you. You are the weakest link in his chain, as it were. Without you, he lacks the willpower to do more than exist every day -- so it follows that you have to be removed. This way." He gestured with the nose of the stunner.
Lori moved as slowly as she dared. Could she get away with faking a fainting spell? Anything to slow him up and allow Clark time to get here. If only she had been wearing the earrings that Arnie Frazier had made for her, but they were lying on the glass tray on her dressing table. It hadn't seemed necessary to wear them in the apartment.
She allowed herself to stagger and start to fall. Tempus moved instinctively, grabbing for her, and as he did so, she struck for his stunner hand.
The stunner flew free and skidded across the floor, but Tempus ignored it, seizing her by the wrist and yanking her forward. Together they tumbled into the window. Into confusion.
The space around them was light. She could see Tempus beside her, as she regained her balance, but everything else was formless. She had lost sight of the weird, mirrorlike window through which she had been dragged, and twisted around, trying to locate it. There it was, a short distance away. She made a frantic lunge for it, and heard Tempus laugh mockingly, gripping her wrist almost negligently.
"Spunky little thing, aren't you," he remarked casually, the sarcasm coloring every word. "Superman seems to like spunky women. I don't. If you don't behave I might have to kill you after all." He yanked her against his chest, staring into her eyes, only inches from his. His were a light golden brown, she noted irrelevantly. "Last chance."
He was doing something with the thing in his hand, the object that must be the control for the strange time window, but her kidnaper evidently hadn't allowed for the desperation and ferocity of a woman fighting not only for herself, but for her husband and child as well. He definitely hadn't considered that she might be able to defend herself effectively. Maybe he was too used to the women of his future time, she thought, or maybe it was just sheer arrogance. Whatever the reason was, she didn't really care. Lori raised a foot and stomped as hard as she could on his instep. With her free hand she clawed for his face, aiming for his eyes with her fingernails. He jerked back, and she took full advantage of the automatic reaction to wrench her wrist free of his loosening grip. She seized the front of his shiny tunic and yanked him toward her, driving her knee into his crotch with every ounce of strength that she could bring to bear. He screamed, doubling forward, and she grabbed for the control device.
Feebly he hung on, stumbling forward a few steps and clutching at the injured area. Her own equilibrium was thrown off by the shift in her center of gravity, caused by the almost full-term baby, and Lori fought for balance as she yanked at the control. Tempus resisted, as she tugged, and then lurched clumsily after her. Together they tumbled from the window onto a grassy hillside.
She staggered as her feet hit grass and stones, and her hand encountered the rough bark of a tree trunk. She caught it, managing to stay on her feet, and pivoted clumsily around to see Tempus only feet away, still clutching the control device and grasping weakly for her. Her knee had obviously done some good, for his movements were weak and uncoordinated, which, considering her own condition, was a good thing. Taking advantage of her enemy's apparent lack of any scientific fighting skills, she slapped him across the bridge of the nose with the flat of her free hand and followed it up with a kick to the spot where her knee had already connected once.
Already hurt and off balance, Tempus gave a groan and doubled forward. The control flew free and hit the rocky ground. She heard something break as the thing skittered across the rocks, but she would have to deal with that later. She gave him a second kick for good measure, but he almost certainly didn't feel it, for he was unconscious on the ground.
Her head was swimming. Breathing hard, she bent forward, leaning against the tree and resting her hands on her knees. Keeping one eye on Tempus's recumbent form, she lowered her head until the dizziness subsided. The control device lay on the ground a few feet away, and she went to pick it up.
The little glowing lights on its face had gone dark, and behind her what must be the time window had disappeared. She stared at Tempus with hatred, wishing for a moment that she had less conscience, then stuffed the control device in her pocket and began to take in the scene around her.
She and Tempus were on a gently sloping hillside, littered with stones and dotted with small trees and bushes. In the distance, she could see the grey ribbon of a road and beyond that were the towers and spires of a city. Well, that meant she was still in civilized times. Maybe Tempus hadn't managed to move them from her own time after all. In any case, the first thing to do was to get away from this character and find help. If she was still in her own time, she could tell Clark what had happened, and he and the others could start looking for Tempus. Without his control for the time window, he was stranded here until he could figure out how to make himself another time traveling device. And if she wasn't -- well, she'd deal with that when and if she had to.
She glanced once more at the time traveler, but he showed no sign of regaining consciousness. Resisting, with difficulty, the base but very understandable urge to kick him a third time, she started down the slope, picking her way with care, toward the road that she could see perhaps half a mile away. Once there, maybe she could flag down someone who would help her.
And if, as she feared, she was no longer in her own time, maybe she could still get some help. Perhaps she could find someone who could fix the control device and help her get back home.
**********
"Someone's been here," Superwoman said. She held a small stunner in one hand, protected by a handkerchief. "It was in the kitchen, and there's half a chocolate éclair sitting on a plate on the table. I found the fork on the floor. Whatever happened, it happened without warning."
"The doors and windows are all locked," CJ said. He dropped onto the sofa beside Clark, who was staring blankly at nothing. The other superheroes had scattered to scour the city, looking for Lori, but CJ and Lara had remained with their father. "Dad, you've got to snap out of this. We'll find her, but you're going to need to help us."
Clark shook his head numbly. "You don't understand," he whispered. "The link is gone. The bond. She's not here anymore."
Lara and her brother looked at each other. "Dad, how can that be?" CJ asked. "You told us that even after Mom died you could feel her presence."
"It's not here," Clark repeated, trying to force his numbed brain into action, to try to understand what could have happened, but the void where Lori's presence had been made it hard to think. "She's not here."
"Then where is she? What could possibly have happened? What did you sense? Did you feel her ... die?"
"No." Clark shook his head, beginning to feel a tiny shred of hope. "She just ... blinked out. Like a door closing." He straightened up, realization beginning to dawn. This had happened once before when Lois had been kidnapped by Tempus and taken to the alternate universe. "Tempus!"
"What?" Lara said.
"Not what; who. Tempus, the time traveler I told you about years ago. It's the only explanation."
"The one determined to destroy the future?"
"That's right. He must have decided that if he couldn't destroy Lois and me, that he would attack Lori. She must be part of what makes the future what it's supposed to be. "
"One of the critical parts of Wells's Utopia?" Lara asked.
"That's right," Clark said. "It would explain why there's no sign of any of the doors or windows being forced. If he had a time machine, he could have gotten in here without needing to go through one."
"If that's what happened, what do we do?" CJ asked.
Clark shook his head. "I'm not sure."
"You told us that Wells gave you the plans to build a time machine," Lara said. "Could you still do it?"
"Probably," Clark said. "I remember the blueprints clearly enough. The problem is, he could have taken her anywhere. The times -- and places -- to search are literally endless."
"If he took her somewhere in time, wouldn't she find a way to let us know where she is?" Lara asked, although Clark thought she was grasping at straws. "Lori's smart, Clark. As smart as Mom was. She'll figure something out."
"Maybe," he said. "Unless he took her to the future."
"Well, let's hope he didn't," Lara said. "If he did, she'll still think of something. I know Lori. Tempus won't know what hit him. In the meantime, let's get busy and build the machine. Maybe something will turn up that will give us some kind of clue where to look for her."
"If it doesn't," Clark said grimly, "it won't matter. I'll use it to search for her until I find her, one way or another."
"In that case," CJ said, "let's get over to STAR Labs. Arnie ought to be able to help us."
**********
tbc
