Intro/Disclaimers: Hi there! I'm Tara Farrago! You might remember from writing such stories as Scarecrow and Mrs. King: Best of the Brunettes or The X-Files: A Parody for Samantha! Today I'm here to talk to you about Lois and Clark and about my favorite topic: me!

No, seriously guys, enough bad Simpsons impersonations. This is my first L&C, my third posting (I've been on hiatus for a LONG time), and only one of hundreds of in-the-works stories. That being said, I have a tendency to get distracted by my other works, but I'm really happy with where this one is going, so I'd like to stick with it. So if you read it and think you'd like to read more, REVIEW IT and say so. And you know what, even if you don't like it, review it and tell me why! Or if you read it and are indifferent, review it and tell me so.

Basically, IF YOU READ IT, REVIEW IT. PLEASE.

And then insert your obligatory disclaimers here - I don't own the characters, someone else does, I'm not making money off of this, blah blah blah….

Finally, this story is for Indy Croft, who, although her writing skills I think surpass my own, is always willing to give my ego a boost, and is at this point probably the only reason I even looked at this story again. I also owe her much of the main idea for this story, which she had been developing into a Johnny Quest fic (I don't think she even remembers this) and then dropped it and I borrowed it for this. So thank you, Jules, and keep nagging at me to finish this, cause God knows what'll happen otherwise!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JACK~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hotter than hell was a cliched expression, and Jack had never been particularly fond of cliches, but at the present time he could think of no more suitable words to describe the environment around him. Hot and humid—my favorite combination, he thought sarcastically to himself.

A plant frond slapped him in the face.

"Hey," he complained, "you want to watch it up there?"

Another frond to the face.

"Hey."

"Sorry 'bout that, Jack."

"That's what your machete's for."

"And destroy the natural beauty of this tropical forest?"

"Doc, it's a couple of leaves here and there. I doubt if the planet if going to mind."

Before Macklan had a chance to respond, Carlson called back from further ahead of them, "Knock it off, both of you."

Jack looked around them, peering into the dense foliage and seeing the exact same scenery as he'd been seeing for the last seven hours.

James Macklan, commonly known as Macky, craned his neck and readjusted the shoulder strap of the heavy-duty backpack he carried. Macky, a naturally tan and lean man, normally wore a neatly-trimmed yet bushy dark moustache over his lip, but for this mission he'd had to shave it off, partly because of the heat, partly because of the bugs. Jack had known Macklan for several years now and enjoyed his company and his adroitness at casual banter. To Jack, Macklan was known as 'Doc', on a count of Macky's resemblance to the actor who'd played BJ Hunnicutt on the television show M*A*S*H.

Silence surrounded them in the form of buzzing insects, and Macky lifted a tired hand to swat one away. "How long has it been since we switched?" he asked. For this particular mission, they'd decided to share packs between two people, each taking turns carrying the pack for ninety minute intervals, so as to conserve energy in the draining heat.

Carlson, a slightly taller, burlier man than Jack, paused to check his watch. "Close enough," he said and quickly lowered himself to the ground. Macklan, Jack, and the two other men in army fatigues following close behind—Alan and Peter—dropped to the ground, exhausted.

"God, damn, my shoulders are sore," Peter complained.

Jack gestured to Macklan, "Hey, pass me the canteen." Macky took a moment to detach it from their pack. "Come on, Doc, hurry it up."

"Shut up," Mack said and passed the canteen with a wry grin. Jack took it and gulped the water greedily. "Hey, watch it there, pal."

"Shut up," Jack huffed and recapped the bottle, handed it back. "Hey, Alan," he said to one of the young men sitting behind him, "how close do you think we are?"

The young agent, who was sucking on a salt cracker, dug into his partner's pack and retrieved the map, then crawled over and sat himself down next to Jack. "Well," said Alan, as he unfolded the small map, "as near as I can tell, we're only another few miles from where we need to be." Jack looked down at the paper, which showed, for the most part, endless square miles of rainforest. A red dotted line connected the aerial view of a small village on the left over to the approximate center of the mass of forest on the right, where a small 'x' had been written. Underneath the path and the 'x' were the words, in scrawled block letters, 'The middle of Nowhere'. Jack studied the map for a moment and then nodded, pushed it away and began munching on his own crackers.

"Do we even know what we're going to find there?" asked Alan.

He glanced up at the young man. Jack could have easily been his father. There was a look in Alan's eyes that reminded him of his own son back in the city, and he would have liked to get to know this agent better, perhaps to come to regard him as a surrogate son. Though Jack doubted his biological son would much appreciate that.

Carlson commented from his spot ahead of them, "So, Junior finally got up enough courage to ask a question."

Macklan was the one who answered Alan, "Are you kidding? The head honchos back at Naval Intelligence telling us why we're on a mission? They're not smart enough for that."

When Alan remained dissatisfied with their responses, he turned to Jack. "Come on, Jack, even you don't know what we're looking for?"

Jack shook his head, lowered his voice. "Nobody knows. Not even the people back home who assigned us this mission know."

Alan covered his incredulity well. "Well, then, forgive me for asking, but just what exactly are we doing out here? How are we supposed to bring this thing back if we don't even know what we're looking for? We could walk right past it, not knowing what it is."

"Well, if worse comes to worst, we'll just bring them back a stack of palm fronds," said Macky. "Give them a taste of their own sick humor."

"What?" balked Jack. "And destroy the forest's natural beauty?"

"Maybe you were right about the world not minding so much."

Carlson called from the front that it was time for them to get moving again. Jack took the pack he was sharing with Macky and slung it over his back. As Alan and Peter did the same, Jack bent over and murmured in Alan's ear, "I'm pretty sure when we find it, we'll know it."

Alan glanced over his shoulder at Peter, who gazed sullenly back at him.

Two hours later, they were still trekking through the thick undergrowth. "Okay, I'm getting really tired of all these..." Macky slapped himself in the face, "...damn insects."

"Welcome to the Great Outdoors of the Tropic of Capricorn," Jack quipped.

"Jesus, did you see the size of that spider back there? It's not poisonous, is it?"

"Calm down, Doc," said Jack coolly. "Just relax and enjoy the scenery."

"Scenery my ass," Macklan complained again. "Trees here, bushes there, bugs, birds, green, green, green. I swear when I get back home, if I never see another tree again for as long as I live, I'll die a happy man."

Carlson rolled his eyes. "This from the man who not two weeks ago couldn't wait to take his girlfriend camping, to, 'experience life without modern-day conveniences, to witness the wonders of Mother Nature.'"

"I was referring to a secluded campground in the forests of Northern Maryland, not hiking fifteen miles though endless tropical rainforests in South America. And at this point," he went on to say, "Mother Nature can kiss my ass."

"So much for the natural beauty of the tropical forest," said Alan from behind. Jack allowed himself a slight smile and shook his head while the others around him chuckled.

At the head of the group, Carlson checked his compass. "We should be nearing the site in a short while," he announced, "so everyone keep your eyes open."

There came a sickening gasp, and suddenly Jack was no longer among them. "Jack?" exclaimed Alan, who rushed to where Jack had been and promptly disappeared as well.

"Get down and stay where you are!" ordered Carlson harshly, and they all flattened themselves to the mud. "Jack?" Carlson called. The underbrush here was so thick that from their vantage point, none of the men could see the spot where Jack had fallen. Pulling himself on his elbows, Carlson made his way over to where Jack had stood. "Jack?"

The others heard a choked cry, and suddenly Carlson was no longer among them. The remaining two poked their heads up over the grasses. "Carlson!" Macklan called tentatively. "Carlson..."

Jack felt himself sliding down a long, twisting tunnel of mud. His voice was caught behind the gasp of air in his throat, and his long, quick descent was silent, until finally he felt the ground drop out from under him again and he was falling through open air. Only then was he able to cry out, a pitiful shout that lasted all of three seconds before he hit the ground below.

Where Jack was, it was completely dark. The fall had knocked the wind out of him, and as he laid on his back he fought back the panic that inevitably took hold of a person unable to breathe.

There was a sound above him of fabric against slick mud, and a few moments later a body hit the ground next to him with a cry of either pain or alarm or probably both. Jack rolled onto his side in the dark and felt around to discover who was with him. He finally managed to pull air into his lungs, which turned out to be a rather unpleasant experience — the air tasted and smelled of dank moisture mixed with an old musty smell of attics that hadn't been opened in a century. Jack coughed and gagged, but forced himself to ignore it.

Now that he could breathe again, he concentrated on discovering where exactly he was. His attempts to strain his eyes were useless in the pitch black surrounding him on all sides. "Hey," he said hoarsely, groping in the dark at the body near him. "Who is that?"

The body was coughing now. "It's Alan," the young man answered. "Jack?"

"Yeah."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." He flexed all his muscles, didn't feel injured except for the bruises that he guessed were forming all over his body. "How about you?"

"Fine," came Andy's voice. "What is that smell? Did something die?"

Just then a third disembodied voice came from above, shouting, "Look out!" as Carlson fell through the air and landed at Andy and Jack's feet.

"Carlson, dammit! How many more of you are there?" Jack scolded.

Jack could hear Carlson sit up in the dark, wheezing — he'd had the wind knocked out of him, too. While Carlson waited for his breath to return, Jack stared hard into the dark. There was no source of illumination to be seen aside from a barely distinguishable trickle of light from the hole they'd fallen through.

"...arlson? Alan? Jack?" Macklan's distant voice drifted down to them.

"Hey there, Doc!" Jack called up to him. Carlson pushed himself to his feet and pulled a flashlight from Alan's pack.

"Jack! Jesus, are you three all right?"

"I think we're all okay — a little worse for the wear..."

"Look at that," Carlson said, venturing away from Andy and Jack. "Holy God, look at that!"

Jack rolled out of his pack and found his own flashlight. With Alan next to him, he followed Carlson to their right.

"Hey! What's down there? What the hell did you fall into, anyway?" called Macky.

The three men ignored him for the time being. Their attention was absorbed by what their flashlights had found. "Does that not look like a mud wall to you, or did I hit my head too hard in the fall?" Jack asked.

"If you hit your head then I hit mine," Alan assured.

Carlson said, "If it's not mud or dirt or... roots... what is it?" He squinted and approached it.

Macky's voice came to them again. "Hey down there! What's going on?"

Jack ran back to stand beneath the hole. "Doc! Has someone got a copy of the map up there?"

"Yeah!"

"Check and see how far we from our destination!"

There were several moments of silence from above. Jack heard Carlson and Alan discussing their discovery.

"It's solid.... Holy... there's writing!"

"Here, shine the light over this way, sir."

"Can you tell what it is?"

"Yeah. It's cuneiform!"

"Incredible!"

"Cuneiform was the written language of Ancient Mesopotamia. What the hell is it doing in South America?"

Again, from above, "Hey! Peter says we're pretty much in the vicinity of where we wanted to end up."

"Well I think we may have found whatever it was we were supposed to find."

"No kidding!"

"Shut up," ordered Carlson, unexpectedly tense.

"Hey," Macky asked, "what'd you find down there?"

"Tell him to shut up, too," Carlson barked.

"Macky, shut your trap!" Jack called up. And suddenly the cave was filled by a heavy silence once more. Carlson's flashlight was no longer pointed at the wall of the cave, but to somewhere off to the left. Jack followed his gaze and pointed his own flashlight in the same direction.

Silence.

And then, a quiet rustling.

Up above, Macklan listened intently to the hole in the soft soil beneath his head. Next to him, Peter was absolutely still, but he still heard nothing.

"Oh— shit! Shit!" came Jack's voice from below.

"Jack!"

"Doc, find us a way out of here now!"

"What's going on?"

"Shit, get us out!"

He heard the shouts of Carlson and Andy, and another kind of noise. A rumble, a growl. Gunshots, more shouting.

And Jack's muffled voice from beneath the ground. "Get us out! Doc!"

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