Author's note:

I just realized it's been over a week, so you're all overdue for the next chapter. Here it is, enjoy!

* * *


Putting out raging fires and saving innocents from a blazing inferno was nothing new for Clark. In fact, the rescue that had called him away from lunch with Lori went off without a hitch. The situation was handled so quickly that he actually made it to the restaurant only a few minutes after Lois and Lori had. But before saying hello, he made a bee-line for the bathroom. Having spotted the soot stains in his reflection on the restaurant window, he brushed himself off in front of the restroom’s mirror. He splashed some water on his face, dried it with a handkerchief and called it a day.

Then, he made his way to the chair between the two women and sat down, greeting them before letting out a quiet sigh.

Lori turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Clark could swear that she had super-hearing just like him because she never missed a thing.

“Oh, nothing,” he assured her, “It was just… a bit of a hassle getting here.”

That was one way of putting it.

Lois shot him a questioning glance, but then piped up, “No wonder. Metro cabbies can’t drive to save their lives. And they always manage to make you carsick.”

Clark played into the ruse. “Oh, don’t remind me.”

Lois chuckled, the tension melting away from her face.

“Anyway,” Lori interjected, “Let’s get back to what we were talking about before good old Clark here decided to crash the party.”

Lois shrugged. “There isn’t much more to say. It’s as simple a story as they get… give or take a bit of mortal peril.” Clark furrowed his brow in confusion. “I’ve been telling Lori about how we met.”

“Well, then, that sounds about right.” Their first few days on the job together had included escaping an exploding warehouse and being thrown out of a plane. And that was only the beginning, of course.

Lori smiled. “It looks like he’s hardly changed at all. Still always getting into trouble? I would expect nothing less.”

“Well, enough about my story,” Lois said, “I want to hear about how you two met. Marine biology and journalism students don’t sound like they would end up in the same circles.”

“I didn’t think they would either, but Clark here always has a habit of ending up in unusual places. He kept managing to get lost in those enormous lab buildings on campus.”

Lois raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but quickly hid the expression.

“I asked her for directions, and then she ran over my toes.”

“It was an accident!”

Clark chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m just teasing you.”

“I’m just glad I didn’t break any of them.” Lori pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “Anyway, after that he kind of followed me around like a lost puppy. A very large… and strong one, but a puppy nonetheless. He used to come with me to Black Student Union and help hang up posters. They always called him their ‘favorite white boy.’” She laughed to herself as she reminisced. “Then he ditched me. I didn’t see him for weeks and I thought ‘Looks like he’s gotten tired of hanging out with the girl in the wheelchair.’ But then he called me—I still have no idea how he found my number—and he invited me to visit the school’s newspaper office… where he was the assistant editor.”

Lois chuckled. “He pretended to be lost just to talk to you? That’s kind of sweet, actually.”

Clark gave a sheepish grin. “I was just a little shy, that’s all.”

“There are other, much less time-consuming ways to ask a girl out.”

He shrugged. “We’ve all got our flaws.”

Lori rolled her eyes. “Anyway…” she continued, “I made something of a habit of visiting the newspaper after class. Clark had a makeshift office in one of those unused storage rooms. It was nice and quiet. The perfect place to write up lab reports. Some days, I’d finish my work long before him, so I’d write little short stories about Atlantis. You know, merpeople, ancient underwater cities, all that. It always fascinated me as a kid. But being a marine biologist is a bit more feasible than trying to find a fictional city. Besides, they were nothing too impressive, but Clark always insisted on reading them.”

“Don’t sell yourself short!” he interjected, “They were great. When you stopped writing them, we got angry letters telling us to bring back the Atlantis column. The freshmen nearly rioted on us.”

“That’s a very imaginative way of putting it, Clark! But I suppose you’re right. I did have my fans.”

“You really should have considered journalism, Lori,” Lois said, “It sounds like you were quite the writer.”

Lori shrugged her off. “It wasn’t for me. I don’t have Clark’s unshakable optimism, unfortunately. And besides, I couldn’t write those stories forever. I got a job at one of the biology labs junior year and that took up any free time I thought I had.”

“Is that why you stopped dating?” Lois asked.

“Mm-hmm.” Lori sighed amusedly. “He said he would wait for me. It was an honorable gesture, really, but I wouldn’t make him do that. So I broke up with him, let him down as nicely as I could.”

“I always thought it was because you were worried your parents wouldn’t like me.”

Lori shrugged. “Well, that too, I guess.”

“I never did meet them.”

“They were… awfully conservative. They thought anyone I met in Metropolis would somehow brainwash me. It’s best that you didn’t meet them.”

Lois cringed. “Yikes…”

With an amused eye roll, Lori replied, “They were quite the characters.”

Just as Lois was about to open her mouth to reply, her and Clark’s pagers beeped simultaneously. It seemed Perry had another assignment for them already.

“Duty calls?” Lori asked.

Lois rolled her eyes. “As always.”

Clark managed an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry we have to leave you like this, Lori. It was really wonderful to see you.” He glanced around. “Do you have a way of getting home?”

She tapped the armrest of her trusty wheelchair and replied, “I’ll figure something out. I got here, didn’t I?”

“Are you sure?” The pager in his pocket beeped again, sounding almost angry this time. He gritted his teeth. It didn’t feel right to just leave her there, especially with how inaccessible a city Metropolis could be. “I hate to cut things short like this.”

“Don’t worry, I’m in town for the rest of the week. I’m sure you’ll see more of me. Now, go.” She shooed him away. “Before your editor decides to come here himself.”

As Clark waved his goodbyes, Lois was already outside on the sidewalk flagging down a taxi. He shook his head—typical Lois. It wasn’t personal, of course. She was just never one for niceties. But he had a feeling that, with her seemingly infinite insight, Lori already knew that.

Lori smiled, as little flecks of sea green shone in her deep brown eyes. Even now, getting lost in them was second nature.

* * *


Before long, Lois and Clark were climbing out of a taxi cab in front of a large warehouse. The inside of the building looked a whole lot smaller than it appeared on the outside. The walls were lined to the ceiling with metal shelves overflowing with scientific instruments and mechanic’s tools. Any shelf space not already occupied was stuffed to the brim with papers, file folders and binders.

Lois nearly slipped on a stray piece of paper when they entered. Clark caught her arm, stifling a laugh.

“Careful,” he said, with a chuckle.

Lois gave him a little shove. “It’s not my fault it looks like a bomb went off in here—” Clark shot her a look and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “This Dr. Timaeus could do with some organization, that’s all I’m saying.”

Far above their heads, a submarine hung by cables from the vaulted ceiling. A few panels on its underside had been removed, exposing the craft’s mechanical anatomy. It was an unusual design, one Clark hadn’t seen since he had read a book about it as a child—It was almost completely round, barring the propeller at its rear. It was a bathysphere, or, more accurately, a modern approximation of one.

Suddenly, a head popped up from behind a pile of tools on the other side of the room. The man’s wild blond hair was tied back in a short ponytail and an oil stained rag was draped over his left shoulder. Beneath it, he wore a simple army green shirt. “Greetings!” he cried out, a little too excited for Lois’ liking, judging by her expression. Clark nudged her when her expression drifted towards a scowl.

She forced a smile and replied, “Dr. Timaeus! Mr. Kent and I are here for the interview.”

“Right! I’ll be over there in just a moment,” the scientist said, as he stepped gingerly through his crowded workspace. “This is all very delicate equipment so I must be careful.”

“Of course,” Clark added, trying to take some of the pressure off Lois. He reached out to shake the scientist’s gloved hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“No, no, the pleasure is all mine.” Timaeus then gestured to two fragile-looking plastic folding chairs. While rifling through the papers on his desk, he said, “Please, take a seat.”

“Thank you…” Lois said, as she glanced at the clock. The interview had barely begun, and the seconds were ticking by slower than she would have liked. “Do you mind if we start now?”

“That’s quite alright.” He furrowed his brow, then a lightbulb went off behind his eyes as he uncovered a manila folder wedged underneath a lamp on his desk. It was labeled in large black text—Evidence. That looked ominous.

After the excitement this morning, the last thing Clark wanted was a difficult interview or a combative interviewee. He broke the silence that was quickly beginning to stifle the room. “How long has this expedition been in the works?”

“My team built the first prototype about three years ago,” Dr. Timaeus explained, “But the project’s been going on for longer than that.”

“Your team?” Lois asked.

“I had a few research assistants and other collaborators who helped in the construction and preliminary testing of the craft. All but one has left me, I’m afraid. I was a bit too eccentric for their tastes.”

“What kind of eccentricities?”

The scientist pursed his lips and attempted to change the subject. “I’m sure you have more pressing questions, Ms. Lane.”

Clark shot Lois a subtle “we’ll come back to that” look, then said in a friendly tone, “I was wondering what got you interested in deep sea exploration in the first place. Was it a childhood dream of yours? Or was this mission someone else’s brainchild?”

He could see the slight release of tension from the scientist’s wiry frame as he replied, “Oh, it’s all mine. When I was a little boy, I read—did you ever read Jules Verne? 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?”

“I think so.”

“Wonderful!” Timaeus enthused, clearly thrilled at the prospect of another Vernian. “Anyway, from the time I read it, I wanted to build my own Nautilus, maybe find my own Atlantis.” He finally opened the manilla folder. It was chock full of scribbled notes, ripped book and magazine pages and, much to both Lois and Clark’s dismay, a sketch of a merperson.

The former let out a disappointed sigh. So much for Perry’s front page material, she must have been thinking. Even to Clark, it seemed like this guy was just another crackpot. Then again, they’d thought the same about Dr. Platt—and look where that had led them.

“Doesn’t that seem a bit farfetched?”

“The science says otherwise!” Timaues gestured to a diagram, nestled among the other contents of the folder. “Sonar technology has revealed a cave system off the coast near Metropolis. It could be home to undiscovered species, beyond what we surface-dwellers could possibly imagine. And that’s not all—” Handing a photo of the ocean floor to Clark, he explained, “There’s evidence of advanced technology here on the ocean floor, unlike any civilization known on Earth.”

Lois raised an eyebrow, then leaned in to inspect the grainy photo. “Looks like a bunch of rocks to me. Even so, if it is ‘advanced technology’ like you claim, who’s to say it didn’t fall off a boat and sink down there?”

“Well, Miss Lane, it’s the subject of further research.”

“I’m sure it is…”

Glancing over her shoulder, Clark spotted her writing Advanced tech? Probably BS. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t blame her for her skepticism, but he couldn’t stop glancing back at the photo. With his enhanced vision, he could tell there was some truth to the scientist’s statements. The mechanism poking out from the sediment looked alien. He swore he had seen that sort of design somewhere before. Could it be Kryptonian? He shook his head internally. That was just wishful thinking. Either way, it begged the question—who was down there? Could there be some truth to the Atlantis myth?

Before he could ask any more questions, Lois once again took the reins. “Is there anything else you’d like the public to know about any further research?”

“Over 90 percent of the ocean is yet to be explored, Miss Lane. Think about that! How many undiscovered species, how many mysteries are down there, just waiting to be found. I intend to be the one to find them. The underwater caves that my submarine will explore are right on Metropolis’ doorstep. Who knows what else is out there? Maybe we don’t need to travel the stars to find intelligent life. It could be much closer to home. Does that answer your question?”

“I think so.” Lois looked up from her notepad, expression still tinged with skepticism. “Now, about your former assistant—”

“If you’ll excuse me, I really must get back to work. Time marches on and I have plenty to do before the launch later this week.”

Clark nodded. “Thanks for your time. We really appreciate it.”

Lois shot him a glance. It seemed she didn’t take kindly to being lumped into we. Right after they were out of earshot, she made her feelings known.

“That guy’s nuts,” she said, “I mean, seriously, aliens in the ocean? That’s a bit far, even for us.”

“Well, they wouldn’t be aliens, being as they’re from Earth,” he corrected, “Not like me.”

“Oh, right, how could I forget? I’m married to the planet’s resident Space Alien.”

Clark chuckled. “Speaking of the Planet, Perry’s gonna be expecting us back soon. Should I get us a cab?”

“It’s a nice day out. Why don’t we fly?”