Second challenge accepted. Now that KSaraSara made it official, I had to deliver. This one's for you, SuperBek.
Inside A Blank Mind
While the people all around the world were watching the news with bated breath, Superman was alone in space. His only companion was the scratchy voice from ground control talking him through his mission. Superman was approaching the giant asteroid at top speed. During his flight, there was a lot going on inside his mind.
Five emotions stood around the console, each of them tense as the gray mass in front of Superman was gradually filling the screen.
Fear stood in the middle and pressed a button. “I can see it now. In fact, it's hard to see anything else. It's a mess.”
Disgust pursed his lips. “I still don’t understand why you’re steering him now of all moments.”
Fear wrinkled his nose. “Because as far as I can tell, there’s no one here called ‘Courage’. Is anything about this whole situation sad, joyful, disgusting or infuriating?”
“Well, I could go with infuriating,” Disgust muttered. “Don’t you think a little Anger might be good right about now?”
“Clark needs to keep a cool head if this is supposed to work,” Joy explained. “And - don’t get me wrong - but Anger is not exactly known for his level-headedness.”
Disgust grinned. “Gee, you just invented that word. He needs to strike the asteroid at full force. Maybe Anger…”
“Yeah, yeah, when the moment comes, Anger and I will push the button together,” Fear whispered. “Not sure I could do it on my own, anyway.”
A static crackle resounded in the Headquarters. Then a voice spoke, “Roger, Superman. We copy you on the ground. Do you have stress point acquisition and visual?”
Fear reacted. “Yes, I do.”
The reply came prompt. “Stand by for final briefing procedure.”
Fear looked at Anger. “Okay, are you ready?”
Anger rolled up his sleeves and stretched his fingers. “As ready as I’m ever going to be.”
Joy let his gaze drift over his fellow emotions. “Shouldn’t we say something meaningful?”
Sadness nodded. “Maybe a few last words. We might never see Lois again.”
Disgust groaned. “Yeah, right. And if we succeed, then the whole world will know that Superman has the hots for Lois. That is so going to blow up in our faces, boys. Better we stay quiet. We’re just Clark Kent from Smallville, not Neil Armstrong. Don’t forget that.”
Before any of the other emotions had a chance to stop him, Disgust’s hand shot forward and he pushed the button. “I know what I have to do. Well, here I go.”
Then he slapped both Anger and Fear on their shoulder. “Now it’s up to you guys.”
The two emotions looked at each other and heaved a sigh, then nodded simultaneously. “Okay, on the count of three.”
Ground control chimed in. “Impact in five, four, three, two,...”
“I thought we were going to count down,” Anger grumbled.
Together with Fear he pushed the button and Superman sped up. The five emotions embraced each other and tried to hold onto the console while they approached the asteroid at an insane speed. Then everything went dark.
***
Fear was the first to come to. He looked around, confused. The Headquarters lay in darkness.
“Hello? Is there anyone?” he asked meekly.
He held onto the console and scrambled back to his feet, trying to find out what was going on. A few feet from him, Joy opened his eyes and adjusted his glasses before he stood up.
“What are you doing here?” Joy asked.
Fear crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What do you mean, what am I doing here? I live here, same as you.”
Joy let his gaze drift across the Headquarters. “Yeah, but you’re not supposed to be here, yet.”
“Huh?” Fear furrowed his brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Joy made a wide gesture, indicating their surroundings. “Everything’s dark. There are no core memories, no islands. Everything is blank. It’s quite obvious that this person has just been born. That means I get to be here, and Sadness is going to join me in a short while. But you are not supposed to be here until later, Fear.”
“Oh my, you knocked your head pretty good, didn’t you?” Fear asked concerned. “Clark has not just been born. We just steered into an asteroid. Though the missing core memories are pretty odd.”
A low groan filled the Headquarters as Anger picked himself up and stomped toward the console. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Apparently, we flew into an asteroid,” Joy explained.
Anger threw each of them a look with deadly potential. “And whose stupid idea was that?”
“Would you stop shouting like that?” Disgust complained. “I’ve got a headache.”
Sadness was the last to join them, seeming just as shocked as the others. “What happened? Where are the memories? And who pulled all the shutters down? Shouldn’t we be able to see the islands from here?”
He went past the walls that usually consisted of windows, but that now were hidden behind massive blinds.
He turned to his fellow emotions, his complexion a pale blue. “This doesn’t look good, guys.”
Joy rushed to the console. “Let’s try to retrieve some memories from the long-term memory. Maybe the core memories got stuck in there. If we can get them out, we might be able to get everything back to normal.“
But when he had a look at the console, his usually so giddy face fell. “What’s this?”
He pointed at the console that was dark safe for a single blinking light.
Disgust had a closer look. “Auto-pilot?” he read. He looked up and glanced at the other emotions. “Did anyone of you know that Clark could run on auto-pilot?”
Sadness blushed. “I…uh… I might have accidentally pushed that switch once - after Lois had done this dance of the seven veils, shortly before she came to her senses.”
“You mean, that’s why he asked her to sleep with him, after we painstakingly made it through a whole night of erotic torture?” Anger fumed.
Sadness nodded meekly. “Thankfully I realized my mistake before-”
“-before Lois would have disemboweled us,” Disgust finished the sentence for him.
“Uh, yeah,” Sadness whispered. “Now, maybe we should try to focus on the more pressing matters instead of indulging in old mistakes, what do you think? If we switch off the auto-pilot, maybe we can get Clark up and running?”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Fear asked, his voice trembling. “I mean, we just crashed into an asteroid. Maybe there’s a reason he switched himself off?”
“We can’t continue to sit in the dark,” Joy decided. “Let’s give this a try.”
He flipped the switch, but for a moment nothing happened. Then slowly, one after the other light on the console started to blink. The screen came back to life, showing the interiors of the Daily Planet.
“This is your desk. Look familiar?” Lois asked.
“Well, of course it does. We’re here every day,” Disgust grumbled. “Why is she talking to Clark like that?”
“Dunno.” Joy shrugged. He pushed a button, but nothing happened. Blinking in confusion, he stared at the console. “Looks like I can’t ask her that.”
Most of the reply buttons were offline.
When Sadness pushed the one button that was still lit up, Clark said. “I'm sorry. No.”
Fear let out a soft squeal. “What the heck is going on here?”
“My guess is that the missing memories are affecting Clark’s ability to reply in the usual manner,” Sadness said quietly.
The five emotions watched Lois as she pulled Clark with her, showing him around the newsroom.
“You always come in and grab a donut from the coffee area.” Lois took one of the pastries and held it out for Clark. “You usually like the cake things with the frosting.” She sniffed at the donut in her hand and pulled a face. “They're a little stale now. Are you hungry?”
Once again, there was only one blinking button. Sadness pressed it. “I can't remember anything. I'm not starving. I'm fine.”
“This is getting annoying,” Anger commented. “Clark’s beginning to sound like a broken record.”
On the screen, Lois watched Clark a little helplessly. She took in his appearance. The way her lips were becoming small, she didn’t seem to like what she was seeing. She darted back to Clark’s desk and pulled out his spare pair of glasses.
“You keep a second pair,” she said.
"At least she cares about Clark enough to not let him run around looking like a fool," Disgust stated. "Have you seen how the others are looking at us?"
He pushed a button and Clark pulled off his glasses to put on the spare ones.
"Uh oh, something's seriously wrong here," Fear squealed. When the others looked at him dumbfounded, he added. "The alarm! There should be an alarm blaring whenever Clark takes his glasses off. I adjusted the parameters just yesterday.
"Don't tell me that's the reason why there was a damn alarm going off when you tugged Clark in yesterday!" Anger growled.
Fear's face turned an even deeper shade of purple. "I like narrow parameters. I'd hate to screw up on my shift."
"Quiet guys," Joy intervened. "She's talking to us again."
"Now look at me, Clark," Lois said, sounding concerned. "You mean you really don't remember anything?"
"What does it matter whether we pay attention or not?" Anger growled frustrated. He pointed at the console, where once again just a single button was blinking. "She's finally showing that she cares about Clark and all we get is a single button to react." He was about to smash his hand on said button when Joy beat him to it just in the nick of time.
"We're a reporting team, isn't that what you said?"
Lois nodded. "I'm more like the... 'senior partner.'"
Disgust grunted in disapproval. "I should have known she'd take advantage of the situation. Why are we in love with her, again?"
"Because she's absolutely gorgeous," Joy gushed.
Disgust pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed the single blinking button. "Oh man, let's get this humiliation over with. I really don't know why we switched off the auto-pilot. The only difference seems to be that we get to witness the whole ordeal."
"So you call the shots?" Clark asked.
"You could say that," Lois replied.
Five emotions gave a resigned sigh, before Joy pushed a button. "Okay. What should I do?"
"Why did you have to do that?" Anger fumed. "She takes advantage of us and you absolutely have to stay polite about it?"
He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants and stomped off with an angry huff.
Lois sagged a bit. "We're full partners," she conceded. "Nobody works for anybody. Although, for the immediate future, you may want to follow my lead."
Joy beamed. "That's why staying polite is the right call. Occasionally, it pays off."
"Yeah, ocassionally," Disgust stressed. He sighed and motioned at Sadness to push the button. "Go ahead."
"Probably a good idea," Clark said.
A female voice resounded in the Headquarters. “Clark, what's the fashion statement here?”
It was Cat. Disgust and Anger groaned in unison.
Before any of Clark’s emotions had a chance to react, Lois replied. “The statement is: Clark has amnesia.” She turned to Clark and introduced him to the woman who was standing next to him. “This is Cat Grant. She writes a gossip column for the paper. We write news.”
Cat frowned. “Is there a punchline I'm missing?”
Disgust smiled as he patted on Sadness’s shoulder, encouraging him to press the button. “Ah, for once this is going to be fun.”
Sadness gave into his fate and let Clark speak. “She's telling the truth, Miss Grant. I don't remember much of anything.”
With her brows raised, Cat turned to Lois. “Excuse us just a moment.”
She pulled Clark with her. Disgust tore at his hair. “Wait a moment, that’s not how this was supposed to go.”
Cat sounded crestfallen as she spoke. “Oh, honey, it's me, Cat. How can you not remember what we've meant to each other?”
Anger rushed back to the console. “Is she seriously hitting on Clark? Now?”
Disgust threw up his hands. “Apparently.” He shrugged. “Let’s find out what Clark’s got to say to this.” He pushed the button.
“I guess we work together, huh?”
Disgust grinned and fondly patted the console. “Way to go, Clark.”
Cat's voice switched to sultry. “We do a lot more than that.”
Disgust shook his head. “Yuck. We certainly don’t! Do I want to know what comes next?”
Joy and Sadness both shook their heads.
“But I guess we have no chance but to find out,” Fear said with trepidation.
He initiated Clark’s reply. “We do?”
Cat made a sobbing sound. “We've kept it a secret. You're so worried about what people think. Especially her. Now you don't even remember 'us.'”
Disgust buried his face in his hands. “Uh oh, I think I know what this amnesiac moron is going to do next.”
Sadness looked at him helplessly. “Well, we’ve got to react somehow.”
He pushed the single blinking button and Clark put his arms around Cat. Immediately, she pulled him into a sensual hug. “Does this refresh your memory?”
Disgust gagged. “Oh, I knew this was going to happen.” He threw a murderous glance at Sadness. “Now, see to it that she gets her hands off of Clark before I have to file a sexual harrassment suit.”
“Doing what?” Joy deadpanned. “Pushing the one button that’s available to us? It’s just a little hugging. We’ll get over it.”
Anger growled. “Oh, you and your tender heart.”
“Exactly,” Disgust nodded. “That always gets us into trouble. Admit it, you actually enjoy that this minx is falling all over Clark. Next thing we know is you find us some buxom blonde that is head over heels in love with Clark but hates Superman.”
Joy pouted. “Now you’re being unfair.”
“He’s being realistic,” Anger fumed. “Come on, Disgust, let’s go find some core memories. I can’t take this any longer.”
“Finally a good idea,” Disgust agreed. “And while we’re in the long term memory, maybe I find the Memory dump. There has to be a way to forget this ever happened.”
Joy snorted. “Good luck with that. Clark’s got an eidetic memory.”
“Good grief, can’t anything about this guy be normal?” Disgust groaned.
"Yup." Sadness smiled. “He’s a lunkhead. That’s as normal as it gets.”
Last edited by bakasi; 03/04/23 04:05 PM.
