Note: Arrows (i.e. <-- ) denote flashbacks.
~s
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[CHAPTER 2]
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it. – Roald Dahl
---
Lois and Clark spent the next few hours discussing their investigative options. Clark’s research showed that the chemical byproducts from the production processes were usually problem areas for chemical companies like Cyphren. Lois estimated that they would need to stay in New Troy overnight to ensure that they would have enough time to search the grounds for any stagnant water or runoff pools to get samples. She also figured that they would need to talk to hospital officials about possible side effects that the workers could be experiencing.
They finished a little before nine and Clark offered her a ride home. Lois had taken the metro to work that morning, so she gratefully accepted his offer.
“No, really. It’s okay,” Lois assured him as she closed the door to his rental car.
“I’d feel better if I walked you to your door… at least I would know that you got inside safely.”
“I hardly think anything could happen to me inside of the building, Clark. It’s just two flights of stairs and the halls are well lit,” she told him, amused at his stubborn good manners.
By that time, they had reached the top stoop at the outer door to Lois’s apartment building. Clark knew that she was probably right about her safety, and that it was highly unlikely something sinister would happen once she was beyond that door, but something inside of him wouldn’t allow him to leave her there. Mentally cursing his unfailing etiquette, he roughly ran a hand through his hair and watched her unlock the door.
Lois’s peripheral glance caught an expression on Clark’s face that she was beginning to recognize as evidence of his having conflicting emotions about something. Feeling benevolent, she decided to end his inner turmoil and allow him to walk her to her apartment door.
If he was lucky, she might even let him swat a fly out of the way, she thought with a chuckle.
Facing him, she smiled and invited him through the open door. “Well, you’re practically inside already, so come on up.”
Clark followed her silently up the stairs, keeping his attention on the shadows. Lois was convinced he suffered from a bout of paranoia and she was further puzzled when he stared intently at the door to her apartment before nodded as if satisfied with the wood grain.
~.~
Lucy Lane was in the bathroom brushing her hair when she heard the first key turn in the lock. After a few unsatisfied expose subjects had made their unhappiness known over the years, Lois had insisted on having seven different dead bolts installed on the door and demanded that they be locked at all times. The problem was that it took forever to find the correct key for each lock when you wanted to get in. Lucy laughed at the thought of what her sister would do if she were really being chased down the hallway.
“Probably run to someone else’s door because she wouldn’t be able to get this one open,” she muttered to herself as she jogged to the door and began unlocking the bolts from the inside.
“Lois! Where have you been…” Lucy’s words faltered as she noticed the well-built man standing in the hall behind her sister. “Hi, who are you?”
“Lucy!” Lois glared at the younger version of herself. “Sorry,” she offered, shrugging apologetically in Clark’s direction. “This is my little sister Lucy. Luce, this is Clark Kent from the US Daily. We’re working on a story together.”
“Hmmm,” Lucy murmured stepping back into the apartment and holding the door open. “So, Mr. Kent, do you want something to drink… or eat? I cooked.”
Lois raised her eyebrows in surprise and regarded her sister warily.
Clark made no move toward the open door, shoving both of his hands into his pockets. “No,” he answered, shaking his head. “I’m just going to get something at the hotel. I, uh, guess I should be going.” Taking a step back, he faced Lois. “I’ll be by to pick you up in the morning.”
“You really don’t have to pick me up. I can meet you at your hotel and we can take my car. It doesn’t make much sense for you to come over here when your hotel is on the way out anyway.”
“The car is already on my expense report and the miles are unlimited. It would be a waste if we didn’t use it. I don’t mind.”
“She’ll be ready,” Lucy interjected. “What time will you be here?”
Lois gaped soundlessly at her sister, wondering what had gotten into her.
Clark waited for Lois to look back at him. When she nodded agreement to his silent question, he replied, “Four-thirty?”
Lois groaned. “Make it five. We won’t hit any traffic and we’ll still make it in plenty of time for the meeting.”
He nodded and looked at Lucy. “Miss Lane,” he said in parting. He gave both women a curt wave and started down the hall.
Lois stepped through the open door and into the apartment as Lucy craned her neck to watch Clark’s retreating figure. Lois shook her head and dropped her bag onto the couch as she passed on the way to her room.
Quickly changing into some baggy sweats, she walked into the kitchen. “You cooked?” she asked disbelievingly.
Lucy was leaning against the kitchen counter waiting for her. Lois peered into the pot on the stove and laughed. “Mac and cheese? That’s dinner?”
“Hey! You know it’s my favorite meal! Besides, it’s one of the major food groups when you’re in college.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lois agreed with a laugh. “This is starch. What about the vegetables? The bread?”
“See - I knew you would say that. There’s a spinach salad in the fridge and I can make you some toast if you want.”
Lois carried her bowl of pasta to the table and set it down next to a large manila envelope. “What’s this?”
“Oh, Jimmy brought that by earlier. He said something about researching a story for you… Where are you going tomorrow?”
Lois pulled out a chair and sat down. She opened the envelope and spread the papers across the table. “Ilium Heights – but only for tomorrow and tomorrow night. I’ll be back some time Friday,” she answered around a mouthful of cheesy noodles.
Lucy’s head spun around from where she was making Lois’s salad at the kitchen counter.
“On the story,” Lois said without turning around. She instinctively knew what kind of look her sister was giving her.
Lucy turned back to her creation. “It’s a shame he had to pay for a hotel room for just one night. He could have stayed in my bed.”
“Lucy!”
“I would have bunked with you, of course,” Lucy added dramatically. “Unless… you’d have wanted a different arrangement? *Your* bed perhaps…”
“Lu-cy!”
Lucy giggled and walked behind Lois, reaching over her sister’s shoulder to set the salad on the table. She glanced at the papers Lois was reading. “You’re investigating *him*?!
The younger woman walked around the small table and sat heavily in the opposite chair.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Lois contested with a grimace. She had no reason to feel guilty about her project but she was beginning to anyway.
“Do you investigate every guy you’re interested in?” Lucy asked, crossing her arms on her chest.
“I’m not interested in him. We’re working together. That’s all.”
“You know, sometimes it makes for a better relationship when you don’t know all the details about the other person right off the bat. Have you ever heard of the whole ‘getting to know you’ phase?”
“Luce, I told you, this is just about work. I have to trust my reputation to this guy and I need to know who he is - what he’s about. Besides, you might want to do a little more research on some of your dates,” Lois threw back at her, using her fork to point in emphasis. “He’s not my type.”
“He is *so* your type. Tall, dark, fabulous body, dreamy eyes… courteous. Heck, he’s everybody’s type!” Lucy sighed, “Lo- I just want you to be happy. You never date, and when you do, you have interviews.”
“I do not have interviews!” After a beat she said, “Okay, maybe I do. But I’m not upset about where my life is at right now. We’ve been over this. I put everything on the side so that I could get my career together. I still have friends. I still go out and have fun. I’m just not ready to complicate things with the whole dating scene right now. My type is more than looks, Lucy. I don’t want to fall in love.”
“Tell that to your heart when it happens,” Lucy retorted under her breath. Aloud, she mused, “I wonder if he’s married.”
“He’s not,” Lois quipped. “What? There was no ring and no tan line. A reporter notices those things!”
“Um hmmm. A *woman* notices those things too. Did you happen to notice that he’s very attractive?”
“He’s quite good-looking,” Lois agreed. “But there’s something else about him that I just can’t put my finger on… He’s quiet and closed one minute, but open and expressive the next. His manners are archaic… but flattering in a way.”
Lois picked at a piece of lettuce. “I wonder what he’s hiding beneath all those layers…”
“A-ha!” Lucy said, smiling.
“A-ha, what?”
“You’re an onion.”
Lois frowned. “I’m an onion?”
“Lois Lane cannot stand not knowing the answer to any puzzle. I think our Mr. Kent has tapped into something beneath *your* layers and you’re intrigued by it.”
“What is all that psycho-babble supposed to mean?” Lois asked teasingly. Lucy was a psychology major at the University of Southern California. “I don’t have layers. What you see is what you get.”
“So, what happened with Paul?”
“Paul?! I can’t believe you are bringing him up. That was years ago! You know exactly what happened with Paul. It just didn’t work out – we were both too young.”
“And Claude?”
“Lucy, what is this, the Royal Inquisition? I told you, Claude was a bit too aggressive – he wanted to get serious before I was ready.”
“You’d been seeing him off and on for over two years.”
“Mostly off,” Lois reminded.
“Perspective,” Lucy countered.
“He was a fun date, but I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.” Lois was starting to get annoyed with her sister’s line of questioning. “What does this have to do with my investigation?”
“Nothing. Just that for the first time, *you* are the one doing the pursuing.”
“I’m not pursuing anything but a story!” Lois exclaimed, flustered.
Lucy’s attempt at choking back a laugh ended in a coughing fit. Catching the menacing look Lois was sending her way, she decided to press a few more buttons. “So, this overnight trip… Are you going undercover?”
Relieved that her sister was changing to a safer subject, Lois shook her head. “No, actually we’ve got a couple of meetings and some looking around to do.”
“That’s too bad.”
“What is?”
“The undercover thing,” the younger woman said, rising to stand behind her chair. “Ilium Heights is an amazing vacation spot. You guys could have pretended to be newlyweds at one of the vineyards… You know, taken advantage of those fabulous Honeymoon suites. Imagine that man in nothing but black silk boxers – Even Lois Lane wouldn’t be able to resist that!”
“Lucy!” Lois burst out laughing, searching for something to throw, all while trying to remove the imagery that Lucy had painted from her mind.
Lucy ducked as a wadded up napkin sailed past her head. Laughing, she raised both hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay, I’m done.” When both women had calmed down, Lucy sighed. “You’re going to miss me when I go back to school.”
“You’re wrong,” Lois challenged. “I’m missing you already.”
Lucy rounded the table and wrapped her arms around Lois from behind, pulling her into a tight hug. “I’m going to go take a shower,” she whispered, releasing her big sister and walking out of the kitchen.
“Why couldn’t you hug me *after* you were clean?” Lois called, hearing Lucy laugh as she entered the guest room.
Every time Lucy stayed with her for the summer, it was just like old times. They’d been really close when they were younger, but now the geographical distance made it hard for them to see each other as much as they wanted to. Her baby sister was also her best friend, and it felt good to be able to tease her and be teased back without hard feelings.
Clearing the table and heading into the living room so she could settle in front of the television, Lois became lost in her memories.
<--
Thirteen year old Lois Lane was sitting at the dining nook reading through a copy of the Daily Planet. Her father’s career had just taken him to Germany for a three-year project and her mother hadn’t wanted to take them out of school again. They had finally found a place to settle – Metropolis.
“Sweetie,” Ellen Lane started, coming to the table after finishing the breakfast dishes, “I’m going to need your help.”
Lois looked up from the paper and glanced over into the living room where nine-year-old Lucy was watching Saturday morning cartoons. She figured that her mother was going to ask her to braid Lucy’s hair or something.
“With Daddy gone on his trip, and with you girls in school all day, I’ve decided to go back to school to get my doctorate degree. I would like to be able to get into administration.”
Ellen had been an Army Corps registered nurse when she and Sam Lane had first met. They had continued working together after they married, but Ellen took leave when Lois was born. She had been so excited over the birth of her first child that she’d stopped working to ensure that she would be there for every waking moment.
As a nurse, Ellen had seen first hand the consequences of homes where the parents were too preoccupied for their children, and she felt it to be a privilege to be with her daughters.
Lois blinked, frowning. Her mother had always been there when school let out and she was always planning or hosting some dinner event for her father and his colleagues. She couldn’t quite understand what it would be like without these standards she’d grown up with.
“Well, if you’re going to school too, then we’ll all get back home at the same time, right?”
Ellen laughed and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind Lois’s ear. “No, honey. See, my classes will be at different times. There will be days that I’ll need to leave really early, even before your school starts, and then, some days I will have to come home late.”
Lois nodded. It didn’t sound too bad to her.
“So, we’re all going to have to chip in, okay?”
“We’re Lane girls, Mom,” Lois said, repeating what her father always called the three of them. “We can do it. We can do anything.”
“I know, hon. You girls are getting bigger now and you don’t need me like you used to. With Daddy being gone, there are no parties to plan so my days are long and kind of boring.”
She smiled conspiratorially at her oldest daughter. “Besides, with nothing to do, I’d probably resort to drinking out of boredom, and I have a feeling that I would make a lousy drunk.”
-->
Chuckling aloud at the memory, Lois recalled that life for the Lane Girls had changed considerably in the following years. Her father’s project was extended from three to five years, and his visits home were never long enough for any of them. Her mother graduated after three years but instead of returning their schedule to normal, it heightened in uncertainty as she held a position at Metropolis General and taught a class at the university.
As it turned out, Lois had become a surrogate parent for Lucy as more and more time was spent with just the two of them. On the days when their mother had an early class, Lucy would ride the bus to the high school with Lois and sit through part of her first class with her. When it was time for the middle school down the street to start, Lucy would walk the short distance. When the Journalism Club held meetings after school, Lucy would lounge in another part of the library doing her homework until it was time for them both to ride the metro home.
Lucy had been Lois’s taste-tester over the years as she learned to cook, both to feed them their after school snacks, and to prepare dinner on Ellen’s late nights. Lois had learned to add a little extra milk and a slice of cheese to the boxed macaroni mix, just like her little sister liked. Some nights, when they both were feeling lonely, they would end up sharing the bed in one of their rooms.
Of course, acting like a parent to Lucy had caused some tension. They’d had their share of fights, especially when Lois had to be the authority figure, but thankfully, the anger had never lasted too long. They still laughed about the time when Lois, a college junior, had to go to the high school for Lucy’s parent night.
Sam’s stint in Germany had since ended and he moved back to work on a project based in Metropolis. Finally, he and her mother were back together again.
Lois finally blinked to attention as she caught sight of the face of the clock on wall. “Crap!”
Frantically flipping through the papers Jimmy had given her, she finally found the post-it note she had seen earlier but set aside. Leaning from the place on the floor she was using as her command post, she grabbed the cordless phone and tapped in the phone number Jimmy had found for Metropolis Public Transit.
She was silently praying that it wasn’t too late for someone to be in Maintenance when a teenage voice answered the line.
“This is Lois Lane from The Daily Planet. I need some information on one of your busses.”
“The Daily Planet? Is this for some type of drug bust?” the kid asked excitedly.
Lois rolled her eyes. “No, I’m looking to see if there was a distinctive mark reported on bus 306.”
“Hmmm. 306 is a route number. Any bus could have been on that route. Did you get the bus id number?”
“I thought that *was* the bus id number. 306 is all that I saw. Where would I have seen its id?”
“It’s on the back of the bus.”
Lois’s head dropped back and she glared at the ceiling. She hadn’t gone around to the *back* of the bus. “Look, it was around 4:30 this afternoon. Do you think you could look it up?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess I can. Ha!” He sounded amazed that he could do something with the computers. “Uh, give me a sec.”
Lois sighed impatiently.
“Hey, I got it!” the teen yelled, causing Lois to pull the phone away from her ear. “Yeah! The id number is 8508761! Sweet. I didn’t know I could do that.”
“Okay. Great – hey, what’s your name?” Lois asked, trying to redirect the kid’s enthusiasm.
“Ted.”
“Okay, Ted. Now, how about you see if bus number 850… whatever, was brought in yet?”
“How would I know that?”
Lois held her breath for a few seconds. “Ted… do drivers sign their busses in when they bring them back to the station?”
“Sure. Oh! I’ll check the list… Yeah, it came in after the day shift. It was scheduled to go out on route 425 this evening, but was held back.”
Lois sat up a little straighter at that piece of information. “Why?”
“Uh… it says here that the driver requested a brake check.”
Lois nodded. Now they were getting somewhere. “Does it say anything about a dent?”
“Nope, only that it underwent ding removal.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “How about the ding? Is there a description – maybe something about it being out of the ordinary in location or size?”
“No. Busses come in with dings all the time. They wouldn’t think that was strange.”
“This one was in the middle of the hood. It would have had to be caused by a battering ram.”
“Maybe that’s what happened,” Ted replied helpfully.
“Thanks. I guess that’s all I need,” Lois replied with some disappointment.
“Are you going to quote me in your article?”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, shaking her head. “Hey, Ted?”
“Yeah?”
“Stay in school. It’s good for you.”
Hanging up, Lois tossed the phone onto the couch behind her and turned her attention back to the papers spread around her on the floor. Grabbing the remote, she turned the television on for some background noise while she worked.
~.~
Clark sat a desk in his hotel room dressed in boxers and a T-shirt, massaging the back of his neck with one hand. His other hand was holding the telephone to his ear. Both of his parents were listening on the other line.
“Yeah, we’re headed north in the morning. We set out at five.”
“So, what is she like?” his mother asked.
“I don’t know. She’s different… complicated. Stubborn, tenacious, and demanding. I can never tell what she’s going to do next but she has everything calculated. Like when we were brainstorming tonight… it’s hard to explain. I’m going to have to be careful around her. She’s… really sharp,” he ended, diffused.
In Kansas, Martha Kent shot an amused glance at her husband, Jonathan, who returned a look of disapproval. The look that Martha followed with cautioned him to keep quiet.
In response, Jonathan sighed. “Did anything else happen today?”
Clark knew what his father was really asking. “Well, I stopped a bus outside of the Planet.”
“You did what?!”
“We were getting ready to cross the street and this bus was about to hit an elderly lady.”
Clark mentally kicked himself. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t use his abilities ever again. Especially not in a public place, but he couldn’t very well have ignored the bus, could he? He couldn’t have let the lady die right in front of his eyes.
Yet, if her were honest, he had to admit that he hadn’t even thought about it. He had simply found himself in position to stop the vehicle instinctively. Placing an outstretched arm forward when the bus was within reach, he’d brought it to a stop. Seeing the print left from the impact, he’d had to think quickly, and moved his hand in a clockwise motion, denting the metal in an attempt to camouflage the impression. Yes – he was going to have to be careful.
“Was Miss Lane there?”
“Yes, she was next to me on the curb when I saw the bus but I don’t think she noticed anything unusual. Her phone had just rang and her attention was on that.”
“Clark, you know you can’t do those things in public,” his father began. “And now that you’ve got that reporter tailing you around…”
“Dad, I know. I’m a reporter too. I know what kind of danger it is. I’ll be careful. I hadn’t wanted her to work with me but I had no choice.”
“What happened with the bus?” Martha asked.
“I didn’t even mean to do it. I saw the bus. I saw the lady, and immediately, without even thinking about it, I was there,” Clark answered. He kept the information about the dent in the hood to himself, knowing that it would only serve to make his father anxious.
“How did it make you feel?” Martha asked, already knowing the answer.
Clark sighed. “Good. It felt really good to help like that. I probably saved her life. I… It’s just so hard sometimes to… I couldn’t watch that happen knowing that I could do something to prevent it.”
Martha nodded, looking pointedly at her husband.
“You’ve got a lot at stake here, Clark. I just want you to be careful.” Jonathan sighed again. “Well, I better go shut down the barn. Watch yourself, Son.”
“I will,” Clark replied softly, but his father had already hung up his extension. After a moment of silence, he asked, “How is he?”
“Oh, Honey,” his mother replied sympathetically, “he’s doing fine.”
“Has he… Has he had any more of his episodes?”
“Well,” Martha started. She considered lying but knew that Clark would be able to tell. “He had one a few hours ago…”
Clark sat up straighter in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I should come home. I’ll just cancel the trip tomorrow and I’ll be there as soon as…”
“No, Clark,” Martha interrupted, “Everything’s fine now. He’s okay. You go on your trip. Besides, you know that it is the first one he’s had in weeks.”
“I *do* know that, but they used to not come for moths at a time,” Clark said. He let out a slow breath. “They’re getting closer together, Mom. I should… I mean… you know.”
“No, what you need to do is stay there and keep working. You can get to the bottom of this, Clark, I know you can.”
Clark rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Okay,” he mumbled. “I guess I should go.”
”I love you, Sweetheart. Go ahead and get some rest.”
“I love you too, Mom.” He paused, knowing that he was supposed to say something else. “Could you tell him for me… tell him that I, uh…that I…”
Martha sighed, and Clark could sense her disappointment. “I’ll tell him.”
Clark sighed as well. It was so easy to say the words to his mother, but to anyone else... “I’m sorry.”
“I know, Honey. Have a good night.”
After bidding his mother goodnight, Clark sat and listened to the silent line until the dial tone sounded. He replaced the phone to its base and stood, walking over to the window and staring at the stars.
He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides, feeling restless, helpless, and a little bit claustrophobic. He opened the window and closed his eyes, taking a moment to inhale the crispness of the night air. Slowly, he turned back into the room and plopped onto the bed, flipping on the television in an attempt to divert his attention from what was happening in Smallville.
The end of a news report caused him to sit upright with a start. There was nothing he could do about what was going on at home, but there was somewhere in the world where he could make a difference. Seconds later, he was leaving the hotel through the rear entrance dressed in faded jeans and a dark t-shirt.
~.~
Lois frowned and searched through the various papers around her for an article with a picture. Jimmy had pulled together an amazing amount of information considering the short time she had given him. She made a mental note to thank him – he was invaluable to her, but she knew that she didn’t always express how much she appreciated him.
Clark Kent was indeed from Kansas – Smallville, Kansas in fact; she couldn’t have made that name up. His birth date made him a few months older than she was, and he had attended college at a large public university in Manhattan, Kansas. He had been a star player on the football team, although he had gotten into the school on an academic scholarship. For all of his accomplishments, Lois found it odd that none of the articles showed a clear picture of him. Even his athletic profile from the school’s website had claimed that no photo had ever been available.
It just didn’t make sense.
A few years after college, Clark had become a international freelance journalist for the New York based US Daily News; all of his submissions coming from remote corners of the world. He’d been everywhere except for the United States up until two years earlier. Still, with all of that information, there were no clear images of his face, and he wasn’t even in the US Daily staff photo.
She picked up another Xeroxed article showing the Kansas State University football team in celebration after a win. The caption told her that Clark Kent was the player in the foreground, but his face was turned so that all that was visible was his left profile. She leaned closer to the photo for a better look, but the grainy texture of the black and white image made getting closer to the image worse on its clarity. Frustrated, Lois sat back, irrationally wondering if Clark was purposely dodging the camera.
Putting down the photo, she picked up another report of several pages. Jimmy had dutifully run an airline charter search. Clark hadn’t been lying when he said that he traveled a lot. Going through the list of flights he’d taken in the last five years, Lois tried to mentally flag the cities on a world map. An idea struck and she began simultaneously flipping through the Xeroxed articles and matching the settings with the charter listings. In contrast to what she would have expected, the dates of Kent’s flights were sometimes a day after, or the day of, the event the article chronicled.
She narrowed her eyes in thought but was suddenly distracted when a loud burst of canned laughter erupted from the television. Grimacing, she grabbed the remote and changed the channel to LNN.
“…danger. We now turn you over to our Central American LNN affiliate for more details on this impending tragedy.”
“Thank you, Carmen. As you can see, the greatest damage was done here when the Casitas volcanic crater that towers over the city spewed ash earlier today. That toxic emission mixed with the nonstop downpour is creating a very perilous situation.”
As the camera panned to show images of the destruction, Lois turned her attention to the message ticker that scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
‘Mudslide hits Caribbean coastal region in the wake of Hurricane Marco.’
“The rains have not yet died down enough to allow additional resources into the area. International aid agencies have promised to send workers, but many are being delayed due to the storm. Kevin Sarimento is live at the scene. Kevin?”
The black-haired reporter’s response was a bit delayed as the news anchor’s words were transmitted across satellite waves. “Yes. This is a picture of Mount Casitas before the storm. You can see here that at the base of the mountain there are a number of villages - It is the fear now that the mudslide has destroyed these homes. I’m here at the closest position available to the actual site without being in direct danger. This is also where the rescue attempts are being based. Many of the workers are actually residents of nearby cities who were able to evacuate during the early onslaught of the storm.”
The affiliate news anchor broke in again, “Kevin, can you tell us what the casualty rate is at this point?”
“We can’t be sure, but there are more than 2,000 people unaccounted for. I want to emphasize that it is still early and people are continuing to be pulled out as we speak, much due to the tireless work of volunteers like this one.”
The reporter pointed to a mud-covered man who was carrying another man toward a wind blown aid tent.
“Sir! Sir, can we talk to you?” he called when aid workers intercepted them and took the victim away.
“The man yelled something indistinct back that was obviously in a different language and gestured over his shoulder. The camera zoomed in to get a better shot of the rescuer, but he turned away right before the shot cleared.
Lois gasped as she watched the man run back toward the flooding water. The LNN anchor then came on the screen saying that this was likely to top the record as far as devastation from a hurricane in that part of the world. They then began to detail past disasters and their casualty rates.
Lois pushed papers aside furiously as she searched for the photo of the football team. The television had missed the man’s face, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because it was covered with mud. The side profile, though, was remarkably similar to the one of Clark Kent in the newspaper photo. The build of the rescuer on television couldn’t be compared as well since the football pads in the newspaper article exaggerated everything.
Lois knew she was reaching at strands. “This is crazy.” She sighed and shuffled the papers into a stack before standing up. “Just a slight resemblance, that’s all… and I need to pack.”
Leaving the television on so she could hear the continued reports, she headed into her room.
~.~
tbc
