Lessons: 6/6 (not counting the epilogue)
by Nan Smith
Previously:
The thought of swallowing more pills on an empty stomach almost made her gag. She wished that she were thinking more clearly. Surely she could have managed this a bit more efficiently. Slowly, she returned to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
This was definitely wrong, she realized, as soon as the door came open. An unopened carton of low fat milk occupied the top shelf, along with a bottle of orange juice, and a full carton of eggs on the next shelf down hadn't even been opened previously, as far as she could tell. A pound of butter sat innocently next to the eggs, and in the vegetable crisper she found a head of iceberg lettuce, a small bag of cherry tomatoes, a cucumber, and several other fresh vegetables.
After a moment, she shut the door of the appliance and turned to her cupboard.
The cupboard was well stocked with canned food and several bottles of her favorite mineral water. An unopened can of the best ground coffee in the supermarket sat innocently on an upper shelf, with an unopened box of sugar next to it.
She closed the cupboard door.
This was unquestionably not her apartment. So where the heck was she?
**********
And now, Part 6:
An hour later, Lois sat on the sofa in the replica of her living room, staring around at this place in which she had been imprisoned. There was no other word for it.
The phone didn't work. The windows didn't open. The television and radio worked, all right, but they offered no way to communicate to the outside world. The door was locked and, although she could unfasten the chain and the hand-operated bolts, neither the main door lock nor the deadbolt would respond to her keys. She had covered every inch of the place and investigated every possible exit. She was locked in.
She was feeling somewhat better physically, but the fact that she was a prisoner in this place was giving her the creeps, and a case of claustrophobia. She wasn't given to such things, at least in ordinary circumstances, but this circumstance wasn't a bit ordinary, and her skin was crawling.
Why someone had done this to her she couldn't quite understand. True, there were plenty of people who had reason to hate her, but they weren't likely to kidnap her and lock her into a duplicate of her apartment. Plenty of them would certainly like to tie her hand and foot and throw her into the Hobs River, but that was a different story. This was totally outside her experience, and it definitely was freaking her out.
Well, the matter of who had done this was something she could figure out later. The thing to do now was to figure a way out.
Taking a deep breath, Lois got to her feet. The windows wouldn't open. She had nearly strained a back muscle while wrenching at them, and the glass wouldn't break no matter how she pounded on it, but how about the door? True, her keys wouldn't unlock the locks, but there had to be some way out, and the door looked like the best possibility. It was just the matter of finding a way to unlock them.
She went back into the kitchen.
Her purse was still sitting on the replica of her kitchen table, and, at least to all appearances, it hadn't been disturbed by anyone but her. True, whoever was behind this might have searched it, but no one besides herself knew all the secrets of her handbag. She retrieved her bag and returned to the living room.
Of course, there was the possibility that she might be under observation. True, she hadn't discovered any spying devices while she hunted for a way out, but she hadn't been searching for them. Leaving her purse on the sofa, she began to look carefully around the room.
Except for the two paintings that adorned the walls of her apartment, and that had been carefully reproduced here, the walls were blank, but, within fifteen minutes, she found the spy lenses.
There were five of them. One watched her bedroom, one her bathroom, one her kitchen, and two observed her living room. Of those, one of them covered the apartment door.
But, she guessed, they probably didn't function in the dark.
After several moments of thought, she went methodically through the place, snapping off the lights. Then, navigating by touch, and her knowledge of the apartment, she made her way back from the bedroom to the living room sofa and retrieved her purse.
And sure enough, under the inner lining of the bag, in the spot where she had carefully hidden it, she found her lock pick.
Whoever might be watching her was doubtless on the alert right now, she thought. But an hour from now he would probably be less so.
Without making any sound, she went over to the door and began to work on the lock. She was playing cat and mouse with an unknown opponent. She might as well get the preliminary work out of the way. And an hour from now, assuming that she could actually get the door open, she would begin her game in earnest.
**********
Clark Kent strode back and forth in Lois Lane's apartment, looking frequently at his watch. Why this felt so familiar he didn't know, but it was. Lois should have been back hours ago but she hadn't returned. He'd looked up the number for the Daily Planet and found that she wasn't there, and now he was certain that something had gone wrong. Lois was in some kind of trouble, but he had no idea what it might be. The only clue he could think of was that she had been speaking to "Lex" before she had left, apparently intending to see him. Who "Lex" might be, he wasn't sure, but the name somehow made his hackles rise.
He worried his lower lip between his teeth, trying to think of what he should do. There should be something, he was sure. Somewhere in the back of his mind the notion that there was something that he should be doing was dancing elusively. Surely, this wasn't the first time that Lois had wound up in probable trouble. He had to do something, but *what*?
A glance at his watch for the tenth time in as many seconds told him that it was a few minutes after four A.M. What was he going to do if she didn't come back? Calling the police didn't seem that useful. In the first place, the police were pretty busy with this asteroid thing. And besides, wasn't there some sort of rule that they didn't start a hunt for someone until the person had been gone for two days, or something like that? By the time two days was up, the Nightfall crisis would either be over or the thing would have hit and the police would have other things to do than worry about one missing woman. Besides, anything could happen to Lois in the meantime.
But what was he going to do?
Going to the window, he opened it, oblivious to the icy breeze that wafted through the open portal. Where *was* she? Frustrated and worried, without being consciously aware of it he strained outward with his senses, searching for any indication of the whereabouts of Lois Lane.
**********
Lois glanced at the glowing dial of her wristwatch. It was just after four A.M.
Quietly, she sat up in her bed and slid her feet to the floor. Previously, she had turned the glowing dial of her alarm clock face down on the nightstand to make the room darker than before. It had been over an hour since she had lain down in the bed, and, if anyone were watching now, perhaps he would be less alert than an hour earlier. There might not be anyone, of course. It was entirely possible that the cameras were simply recording her activities on videotape, or something, but she didn't want to count on it.
Moving slowly and silently, Lois crept across the floor, feeling her way, careful to make no unnecessary sound. The carpet under her bare feet absorbed any noise, and she moved with deliberate caution across her living room toward the door.
There was the couch. Quietly, she scooped her bag from the spot where she had left it and her shoes, and circled the piece of furniture. A few more steps brought her to the door and she paused, listening. Her jacket hung on the coat rack, and she pulled it off. It wasn't heavy, but there was a good chance that she would need it.
She had made a number of preparations before she had gotten back into bed, all designed to made her escape more possible. She didn't know what might be beyond the door, of course, but a thin line of very dim light was leaking beneath it. It would be bound to show up on the spy cameras when she opened the door, if she didn't prevent it. That had brought the Doublemint gum that she habitually kept in her purse for the occasional use in breaking and entering into play. She had chewed a couple of sticks and, by touch, had carefully covered the tiny lenses with gum. As long as no one came in here and checked in person, that should cover her tracks for the short time she needed to make it out the door.
Both the regular door lock and the deadbolt were now unlocked. Pausing only a second to slip on her shoes, she grasped the doorknob. Cautiously, a millimeter at a time, Lois turned it. The latch came open with a tiny click that sounded like a gunshot to her straining ears, and then the door swung softly open.
Beyond the door, not to her surprise, the scene was nothing like the hallway of her apartment building.
It was a long, sterile hallway of white metal. Fluorescent tubes in the ceiling illuminated every surface in hard, cold light. The temperature was at a level that she would normally have considered comfortable, but now she shivered.
Quickly and quietly, she shut the door behind her and moved swiftly down the hallway toward the doors set in one wall. It looked like a bank of four elevators, and just possibly the door beside it might be an emergency stairwell. It would probably be wiser to take the stairs if she could, she thought. Operating an elevator in this place might alert someone to the fact that someone was using it who shouldn't be.
On the wall beside the elevator doors was a schematic drawing of some sort. She squinted at it, trying to make sense of it, but decided that time was not on her side. As quietly as she could, she opened the door in the wall beside the elevator doors and slipped inside.
A set of metal stairs wound both up and down. From below, she could hear the faint hum of machinery and for a moment she paused, irresolute.
On the door, through which she had just entered, were the markings B-82. That sounded as if it were a basement level, but 82 levels? Still, this whole fantastic scenario was nearly impossible on the face of it, and a lot of her escape depended on luck. If there were noises below, then she would go the other way. She removed her shoes and began to climb.
**********
Some half an hour later Lois paused for the fiftieth time, breathing hard. She hadn't realized just how much the chloroform, or whatever it had been, would affect her this long after she had awakened. Her stomach was still slightly queasy and her knees had a tendency to wobble. She had climbed nine flights of steps, and there were plenty to go. There had to be a better way than this, she thought. How much more time did she have before someone noticed that she wasn't in her apartment?
Cautiously, she leaned forward to peek through the tiny but thick, glass window that broke the surface of the door.
Outside was another sterile, white hallway, illuminated with cold, fluorescent light. No one was visible.
With great caution, she shoved the door open. The white hallway stretched in both directions. Moving on tiptoe, Lois stepped into the hallway and peered first one way and then the other.
No one. The row of elevators beside her beckoned invitingly. Were they likely to be watching for someone on this floor, nine stories above the place where her prison had been located? Well, maybe.
Another door opened some twenty feet down the hallway, and she hurried toward it. No sound broke the stillness except the faint swish of air through the vents located on the wall above her head. The silence was intimidating in its own right and she felt the skin between her shoulder blades crawling with nervousness.
She plastered her ear to the door, listening.
Nothing. Very cautiously, she turned the knob and eased the door open a crack.
The room was dark and empty of human life. She pushed the door wider and stepped inside. The little penlight that she kept in her bag came into play now, and she flashed it around, trying to determine what sort of place this was.
It looked like some kind of storeroom. There were pieces of equipment on all sides, and huge wooden crates. Lois flashed her light over them.
The crate nearest her was labeled "Canned Tomatoes".
Canned tomatoes? What the dickens was a crate of canned tomatoes doing in this unlikely place? She flashed her light over another crate, to discover that this one apparently held canned spinach, and a third that purported to contain powdered milk. This whole, huge room was apparently some kind of food storage warehouse.
An idea that was too impossible to contemplate was floating around in the back of her mind. Lex had said he had some kind of bunker large enough for two hundred people, with supplies for three years. But surely, this couldn't have anything to do with Lex!
Slowly, flashing her little light before her, she moved farther into the room. A metal desk came into view, and on it a clipboard held a sheaf of paper. Some kind of inventory, she thought. In the top left corner was the logo of LexCorp.
Lois felt as if she had been hit a sharp clip in the stomach.
Lex? Could this possibly be the place of which he had told her -- his ark, intended to preserve humanity, even in the face of impact by Nightfall? A part of her mind wanted to deny it, but the facts and circumstances painted a picture that was mercilessly clear.
He had invited her onto his ark, and pretended to accept it when she had refused. But he had never intended that she really have a choice, she thought. When she had refused, he had taken steps to be sure that she joined his ark.
And, for him, it had probably been no more than a calculation. With Superman gone, she wasn't likely to be rescued. If Nightfall didn't hit, she could be freed as anonymously as she had been captured, but if it did, he would have time in three years of waiting, and in the aftermath of a destroyed civilization, to convince her that it had all been for the best. It made so much sense she didn't know why she hadn't realized it before.
And if he realized that she knew who was behind it, she was in trouble. The sudden knowledge hit her like the proverbial thunderbolt. If Lex Luthor would stoop to kidnapping, what else would he stoop to?
She had to get out of here in a hurry. Clark had to be made to remember, or Lex and his chosen ones would shape the future of man. Of course, Lex would have a good explanation for this, but she was just as sure that she didn't want to be part of any future where Lex Luthor led the survivors of Nightfall's impact. And she definitely didn't want him to catch her now, knowing what she knew.
The faint rattle of the door to her rear made her snap off her light and duck into the aisle between two rows of the huge crates. Peering around the edge of one crate, she saw the door open, and then the lights blazed on. She ducked quickly back out of sight.
"-- Until the fugitive is captured," a voice was saying. "She mustn't get away. He'll be very upset if the target manages to find out too much. Stay alert."
"Yes, sir," a voice replied.
That first voice, Lois thought in dismay. That had been the voice of Nigel St. John. Any doubts that might have remained in her mind were vanquished at the sound of the all too familiar English accent. Quietly, she moved backwards, trying to conceal herself deeper among the crates. How was she supposed to get out of here now? Especially since they seemed to know that she had managed to get out of her so-called apartment.
The sound of the door closing put a period to that thought. Somehow she had to figure out how to escape this prison or she was going to wind up an involuntary member of Lex Luthor's ark.
The sound of whistling cut across her thoughts. The man left to guard this place was whistling softly between his teeth and the echo of the whistle had an eerie edge to it, at least to her jumping nerves. Clutching her shoes in one hand, so as not to make noise, Lois tip-toed toward the rear of the room.
How large *was* this place, anyway? The diagram she had seen in the hallway came to mind. It had been of a city, she thought. A city of two hundred people and storage places for the food and supplies that they would need to survive. And this was one of the storage units.
Only, there was no way they had been able to get these huge crates in here via that little, tiny door through which she had entered this room. Which meant there was another way in and out. All she had to do was find it.
Moving as silently as she could on bare feet, Lois made her way between the rows of crates, working her way toward the back of the room. She had to move slowly and quietly because of the possibility that the guard, or whatever he was, would hear her, and it took time. The sound of whistling echoed around her until she was sure that if she ever heard that tune again she would probably destroy the source. Through the sound of the little tune, she could hear the footsteps as the man made his way slowly about the huge, echoing space. He was moving around, making a circuit of the room. Once, it seemed that he was coming right toward her, and she flattened herself against one of the crates, hoping that the shadows in the place would conceal her presence as he passed by.
He was a small weedy man, dressed in a shapeless, white coverall. Lois remained frozen for over a minute after he passed, unable to force her muscles to respond to the urging of her brain. But, at last she reached a place where the crates ended. Some ten feet of space separated the last crate from the rear wall.
For minutes, she crouched in the shadow of the nearest concealing crate as she took in the lay of the land. The sound of footsteps echoed off the walls, but she was certain by the distant whistle that the room's other occupant was some distance from her. A closed door broke the blandness of the wall and, hanging from a hook imbedded in its surface, she saw a coverall exactly like the one that the room's guard was wearing.
Without hesitation, she crossed the room in six long strides and appropriated it. It was too large, but that was all to the good. Two minutes later, she was zipping up the front over her clothing and jacket, and feeling slightly more secure. Looking down to survey her disguise as well as she could, she noted that she now appeared to be somewhat chubby, which could only help her disguise. She pulled up the white hood, pulled the strings tightly around her face, covering her hair, and paused. Carrying a purse in this get-up was certainly out of character. The purse was a new one, and the thought of parting with it cost her a slight pang, but she had to get rid of it. She slipped her wallet and several articles that she was likely to need into the pocket of the coverall, tucked the purse between two of the crates and looked around.
In one corner was what she had reasoned must be here. She headed on tiptoe for the closed doors of a freight elevator.
**********
The whistle of the guard told her that the man was some distance away. Lois took a deep breath and punched the call button for the freight elevator.
And waited, her nerves thrumming with tension. One minute, two...and with the soft ding, the doors rumbled open. Lois jumped inside and punched the button for every floor. She was taking a big chance, of course, but they were going to guess pretty quickly that she had called the elevator.
The doors rumbled shut and the car began to rise. It slid to a stop on the next floor up and she stood to the side, out of the view of anyone who might be waiting outside.
But there was no one there. She exited into another storage unit and ducked into the shadow of more piled crates. The doors of the elevator closed again and the car rumbled upward. Lois listened, straining her ears for any sound, but there was none. On tiptoe, she hurried toward the front of the room.
A glance at her watch told her that it was now nearly five in the morning. The sun would be up in another hour and Clark was probably wondering where she was. He had always fretted about her somewhat, she knew, back when he knew that he was Superman. Now, considering his present state of mind, he was bound to be worried sick, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Here in this man-made rabbit warren, all she could do was to try to keep the searchers confused until she could manage to get to the surface. But she was dealing with a man who had been clever enough to thoroughly mislead her, she acknowledged with a good deal of chagrin. If the world survived, she was going to have to investigate him a lot more thoroughly than she had done before. Interviewing a handsome, charming and philanthropic man who pandered to her ego was not an investigation. It was time that she looked more thoroughly into the real Lex Luthor. If he was truly behind what had been done to her, then finding out what lay behind that charming façade was even more urgent than her investigation into Clark Kent's masquerade as Superman had been. Clark, she acknowledged, had turned out to be a good guy. She doubted that she could say the same about a man who would kidnap and imprison her, even if he had convinced himself that it was for her own good. The very fact that he had apparently decided that his wishes were more important than hers raised every red flag in her arsenal.
As she approached the front door of the storage unit, someone rattled the panel. Lois mastered her instinct to hide. Misdirection might work better at this point. Without hesitation, she ran to the metal desk, seated herself before it, switched on the desk light and pulled one of the papers that lay on its surface toward her. As the door opened, she looked up questioningly.
A man stepped inside and paused, looking at her in some surprise.
Lois laid the paper down on the stack and pushed her chair back. "You're a little early, aren't you?" she inquired, yawning slightly in the middle of the sentence.
"What are you doing here?" the newcomer asked.
"They sent me here last night," Lois said. "What's going on?"
"Have you seen anyone in the last hour?" he inquired. "Has anyone tried to come in here?"
"I heard the freight elevator a couple of times, I think," Lois said. "You're the first person I've seen, though."
He nodded. "Good. I'm taking over for you. Lock the door when you leave."
Lois covered another yawn. "Sure. What's the matter?"
The man shrugged. "Some kind of alert. None of our business."
"All right." She rubbed her face. "These early hours are getting to me."
"Yeah. Me too." He slid into the chair. "'Night."
"Yeah." Lois yawned again and ambled toward the door. "I'm going to get some breakfast."
As soon as the door closed behind her, however, she took a deep breath. That had been too close. Fortunately, the average occupant of this place didn't seem to really know what was happening. Two or three other persons in the white coveralls were moving here and there about the white, sterile corridor. Lois set her pace to match theirs, and made her way toward the regular elevator.
It took some time to arrive and when the doors opened several men and two women emerged. Lois stood back as they exited and then entered the elevator to join three other persons. It moved downward again, and she stayed quiet. A couple of floors farther down, it came to another halt and two of the occupants exited, only to be replaced by four others. Lois moved to a rear corner and leaned against the safety rail, trying to look bored and sleepy. The doors closed and the car moved downward again. Four floors later, it came to a halt and all but two persons exited. Then there was a long drop. The car came to a halt on floor B-83. She was one floor farther down than when she had started.
The last two occupants got out. As the door closed, Lois moved forward and pressed the button for B-4 and held her breath.
After a pause that seemed hours to her straining nerves, the car moved upwards.
It took several more stops, together with the entrance and exit of numerous passengers before the elevator reached B-4. Lois's heart was beating hard as the doors slid open and she stepped out into another sterile hallway.
A number of persons were present, several in the white coveralls and three in regular street clothes. Lois kept her face down as she moved slowly down the corridor toward the door to the steps. Walking deliberately, trying to avoid any hint of stealth, she opened the door and stepped through.
There was no one in the stairwell, although it was no longer silent. Over the hum of the machinery, she could hear the sounds of human occupation. Aware that the most dangerous part of her escape was now before her, Lois began to climb.
**********
A light dusting of snow coated the streets and sidewalks of the city this morning as Clark Kent made his frantic way toward the Daily Planet. It was nearly six A.M. and he hadn't been able to stand the suspense of waiting another minute.
Perhaps Lois's editor would have some idea of what to do, he thought desperately. Lois still hadn't returned to her apartment. If she had been delayed she would have at least called, and evidently the lines had cleared up enough for that call last night to have gotten through. But she hadn't, and he was now absolutely convinced that she was in some kind of serious trouble.
It was as he approached the doors of the great metropolitan newspaper that he heard Lois's scream.
**********
As she reached the landing of B-2, Lois glanced at her watch. It was quarter to six on the morning of the day scheduled for the destruction of civilization. She paused to rest for a moment in preparation for the last part of her climb, and the final and most dangerous part of her escape. The stairwell was a few degrees below her comfort level, and she had been exercising. The sweat on her skin felt dank and clammy in the chill.
She waited until her breathing grew less labored. The more normal she looked, the less she was likely to be noticed.
But they were bound to be on the watch for her. She needed to have some way of concealing herself, or a distraction, though what that might be she had no idea. If there were time, she would find a place to hide until they became convinced that she had managed to get away, but time was running out fast. Getting back to Clark was absolutely essential if he were to have a chance of remembering who he was in time to do any good. Taking a deep breath, she set her foot on the first step.
She reached the next landing, the one that gave onto the first basement level more quickly than she would have believed and stopped to gather her courage, still searching her mind for a way to engineer some kind of diversion. There had to be some way to create enough confusion to give her a chance to get away. In the faint hope of thinking of something, she went to peer out the little glass window into B-1 level.
And there it was. And it was simple, too.
Quietly, Lois pushed open the door. It was a genuine basement level, not the sterile white corridors that she had previously seen in this fantastic structure. The basement of whatever building this was, was dimly lit and devoid of personnel, but it wasn't empty. Against one wall was a wine rack, and a number of barrels of some sort were placed here and there around the dusky and very large room. A wide flight of stone steps against one wall ran up to a door in the wall, situated perhaps ten feet above her head. Peering around in the gloom, various unlikely articles, such as the mounted head of a deer, a huge swordfish on a massive wooden plaque, a set of bamboo armor, a pair of marble arms, an enormous scimitar-like sword and what appeared to be a flintlock rifle of about the Revolutionary War era, met her startled gaze. There was undoubtedly a good deal in here that she couldn't see, but she had no time to examine the contents of the place too closely. How long she might have before someone discovered her she didn't know, but it didn't seem to be a good idea to linger. Above her on the ceiling was an extinguisher for a fire control system. Now all she had to find was something flammable.
Well, that thing that looked like an ornate Egyptian sarcophagus would probably burn. And those crates seemed to be made of some kind of light wood. They would probably catch fire without much difficulty. Lois fished in the pocket of her coverall for the cigarette lighter that she carried in case the need to start a fire arose. A good fire alarm was probably as efficient a method as any for causing a lot of confusion in a big hurry.
But she couldn't allow it to be put out too quickly by the fire control system. She appropriated the flintlock and proceeded to strike the sprayer nozzle until it was bent sideways and leaking a thin stream of water. Quickly, she treated four more nearby sprayers in the same fashion. Then she went to the sarcophagus and examined it more closely.
It appeared to be made of wood, all right. And there seemed to be enough wooden items here and there that she should be able to kindle a decent fire. Determinedly, she set to work.
Shortly, she examined her pile of wood and kindling. That should do, she thought. She stuffed another piece of bamboo from the armor under the sarcophagus and struck her lighter.
The light wood of the crates caught quickly and blazed up, bright and hot in the dimness. Within a very few moments the flames were licking at the bamboo armor, and the wood of the sarcophagus was beginning to scorch. Lois retreated to the door of the basement steps, watching her bonfire to be sure it showed no sign of going out.
And so suddenly that she nearly jumped, the fire alarm went off. Several sprayers came on, but none of them were in the area where she had set her fire. Avoiding the spray of water, Lois ducked back behind one of the barrels, which she now identified as wine kegs. If she were right, things in this room were about to become very lively.
It was less than five minutes before the doors to the elevator a short distance to her right opened and several men in fire-fighting gear rushed into the room. A second later, the door to the stairwell was shoved unceremoniously open and more men hurried through, dragging various fire extinguisher tanks and pieces of fire fighting equipment. From above, the door at the top of the stone steps opened and a third group of men charged down the flight of steps, dragging hoses. Rapidly, the room filled with mist and smoke, and men rushed here and there, beating at the flames. Lois stepped quietly from behind the barrel in back of the laboring men, picked up the nearest discarded fire extinguisher and ascended the stone steps.
The door at the top swung open easily and she stepped out into a thickly carpeted hallway. Someone yanked the door open as she stepped out, and several men, dragging more fire fighting equipment dashed past her. Lois moved out of the way and dropped her exhausted fire extinguisher to the carpet.
In the confusion, no one appeared to be looking at her. She turned her back and walked away.
The building looked disturbingly familiar. In fact, this place looked very much like Lex Tower, although she didn't see many of the business-suited individuals that normally populated its premises. If it was, the nearest side door was almost certainly somewhere to her right. But first, it would probably be a good idea to ditch the coverall. There was a restroom a short distance ahead and she had no hesitation in entering and shedding the garment.
The fire had probably thrown off whoever was waiting for her, but she couldn't believe that someone hadn't been posted to watch for her, should she manage to make it as far as the surface. She straightened her clothing and ran her fingers through her tousled hair, and then extracted the small comb that she had included with the other items from her purse. Quickly, she transferred the things to the jacket pocket, finished combing her hair and drew a breath. Now for the final dash.
She stepped from the restroom and continued down the carpeted hall. A glance at her watch surprised her. It wasn't quite six o'clock in the morning.
The side door that was her goal was some ten feet ahead of her, and here came one of the security men who patrolled the hallways of the great center for Metropolis's commerce and trade. She increased her pace slightly, just as the guard spotted her.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Stop!"
Lois hit the bar that opened the door. Somewhere an alarm shrilled, and the guard came towards her at a run. She burst into the cold, morning air of pre-dawn Metropolis and ran for her life.
Heavy footsteps behind her told her the guard was gaining. Several other shouts told her that other men were converging on her. Nowhere around did she see any other signs of life.
The footsteps behind her were gaining rapidly. Lois sucked in her breath and screamed at the top of her lungs, well-aware that the chances of help arriving were extremely small.
"Help! Superman!"
The whoosh of air heralding the arrival of Superman seemed almost unreal. She tripped over the curb and fell onto the street, tearing her slacks and skinning both knees. Then a pair of powerful arms scooped her up in a tight embrace, and she was aware that she was no longer on the ground.
"Lois," Clark's shaken voice said. "Are you all right?"
She nodded against the blue spandex that covered his chest, trying unsuccessfully to bring her trembling voice under control.
"Now I am."
**********
Stay tuned for the epilogue.
