Chapter 20

Orange County, California

Morning

Diana Kent, once a Princess of Themyscira, now an exile, was occasionally (or, actually, frequently, if truth be told) plagued by the thought that she might forget the island paradise where she grew up. Although she was reluctant to acknowledge the possibility of forgetting her sisters and her mother, she feared it deeply nonetheless; it was a thing that she wasn't really ready to discuss with anyone, not even with her husband. This particular fear (which she was also loathe to admit) was in part suggested by her present life, consumed as it was with her work on behalf of the Justice League, her philanthropy ventures, and of course the care of her husband and child - the latter itself was practically a full time job. There were days in which she never even thought of Themyscira. Still, she wouldn't have changed her life for anything, yet she couldn't help but think that she was slowly, yet inexorably, drifting away from a...a certain something. Her roots? No, it wasn't quite that - she was still very much a warrior - but Diana couldn't quite put her finger on it. But it was true: she had talked to plenty of British expats who felt something similar, who felt more American than English as they grew older. It occurred to her that she now thought in English, rather than in her birth-language. These days, she even spoke Kryptonian more than her Themysciran dialect.

The dilemma was vexing, but there didn't seem to be any practical resolution she could think of. There was no way she could return to Themyscira. Therefore, Diana tried to dream of it instead, every night, her beloved isle of high cliffs, deep valleys, and jungles, a land as untamed as the women that lived upon it. Perhaps - she hoped - if she kept it in her mind, even if only in dreams, she could recapture that elusive 'something.' But usually she did not dream of it at all, or her dreams revolved around the mundane aspects of her present life.

But sometimes she succeeded: tonight, she made it back to Amazon Island. She was standing on the white sand beach at the edge of the surf, on the Western coast. She could feel the warm ocean water lapping at her feet, and smell the heady tropical flowers of the jungle forest. If she really tried, she could hear voices – the voices of her beloved sisters, laughing and shouting. How she missed them! She felt a tugging at her heart, and she wished to cry out, join in those voices too. It was paradise, here. She wanted to stay forever.

Then, the dream changed.

She was still in the dream, but it was the dream – no, the nightmare - from before. Somehow, she knew that. She was still on Themyscira, but it was no longer paradise. The white sands had turned red, soaked with blood, and she knew it for the blood of her sisters. It was as red as the sky, where black boiling clouds of smoke nearly obscured the fiery orange sun. There was a battle happening - no, the invasion was still happening, but she was standing there alone, absent armor, sword, her shield. She was in her civilian clothes, with not even her bracers on, like any other woman of Man's World. She was a woman of Man's World, now.

This was wrong, she knew. She ought to be in the thick of the battle, fighting. She could hear the war cries of her sisters. So what was doing, standing here as if frozen? Was she afraid? Diana felt as if she hardly move. She urgently needed to join her sisters, because...because...

The cries of her sisters were not victory cries - they were screams of terror.

Somehow, she forced herself to run. She felt her feet moving, slowly at first, and then she was flying through the jungle, racing past the curling green vines and towering trees, towards the horrible sounds. Accompanying cries sounded from her mouth, but what language it was she didn't know. Ahead of her she could see flickering light through the broad palm leaves. She felt herself drawn towards it, almost as if something else was pulling her, rather than her own motion. She couldn't have stopped even if she wanted to.

She burst forth from the jungle and emerged into a clearing to see…her home. But it was home on Earth, in California. It was on fire, flames reaching high into the sky from the burning rafters. She was too late: scattered around the building were the bodies of her sisters. In horror, she saw that they had been stripped of their clothes, lying in positions revealing their terrible fate before being slain. Standing around them, as if sculpted from black granite, were the black-garbed Alarian soldiers. They stood motionless, their shielded faces turned to the fire, their backs to her. The stench of death filled the air.

Diana stared at the vision in horror, with that paralysis that accompanies a nightmare. Then it broke and she ran towards her house, without thought, screaming frantically.

"Jon! Jon!"

Where was her son? She had to get to him, if he was still trapped in that raging inferno, Hera, please let him be all right...but then as if from nowhere hands grabbed her, arresting her movement. She struggled and cursed but from the moment the soldiers touched her, she felt as if all her strength was sapped from her, like water. She struggled still, but felt herself forced to her knees in the churned-up, bloody mud. Her mind whirled with confusion. What was happening? Wait...had...had this happened before? Yes, it had, she had...

Someone was walking towards her.

An Alarian general - not their cursed King, but someone else - approached her. Diana gritted her teeth, ready to leap up and fight the moment the moment he was close enough. As he came closer she could saw his features: a youngish man approaching his middle age, with thinning blond hair receding from his scalp, pitiless blue eyes set deep in his face. He was familiar to her, but couldn't remember. But she knew she had seen him before. Where?

It didn't matter, he was the Enemy. She lunged at him, nearly breaking the grip of her captors, but they continued to hold her immobile, their inhuman strength preventing her from rising to her feet. She snarled.

The soldier gripped her chin and forced her to look up at his face, close to hers. It was a hard and powerful face, conditioned by war and cruelty. A man's face. She knew him, she had seen him before, but she couldn't remember. Who was he?

He said something to her, she saw his lips move. She couldn't hear him over the roar of the fire, but it didn't matter, the meaning of his words were clear. The words of all ruthless, evil conquerors throughout history.

Your husband is dead. Your child is dead. You will be dead too, and all that you cherish. We will clear the earth.

She spat in his face.

The man's face contorted in anger at her defiance and he grabbed her, threw her face-down on the blood-soaked ground. She felt his hands on her thin clothes, ripping and tearing. The stripped bodies of her sisters reminded her of the grim fate of women trapped in war. Furious with rage though she was, it felt like she was moving through thick sludge, but she would not be violated without putting up a fight. She fought fiercely even as she felt the monster's hands on her skin, his breath on the back of her neck, the press of his rhombos against her thigh. Horror swept over her, a blind panicky terror, this would not happen to her again...

Again?

With all her strength she slammed her elbow back, felt itself strike flesh, and herself momentarily free of his hands. She rolled away to her feet, leapt up and around, prepared to fight bare-handed if necessary, to rip out his throat with her teeth if need be.

The Alarian general - whoever he was - was gone. She was no longer on Themyscira. She didn't know where this place was, but it was still a place of war, but the war was over. All that was left was detritus: torn-updebris and burnt foliage littered the scorched earth, the bodies of her sisters were unidentifiable, charred black. Smoke rose from a despoiled forest, massive deep trenches criss-crossed the ground like unfilled graves. The smell of cordite hung heavily over a thick odor of foul decay. The sky above her was filled with constellations she didn't recognize. She stood there motionless, shocked. Where was she?

Then, as if she had only just noticed, was another man in front of her, and this one she recognized. But she did not expect to see what she now did. She stared in incomprehension.

Clark?!

The thing before her wore her husband's face, but his familiar, beloved features were different somehow. Something else looked out of his eyes. He was not in his blue-and-red Kryptonian armor but wore a plain military uniform of dark green.

As before she was unfrozen, uncharacteristically uncertain what to do. She tried to speak, cry out his name, but nothing came out. Then he was upon her, bearing her down to the ground, too strong to fight against. Her husband's face was closed to her, it wasn't him. She knew it! It was...

"I know you!" she gasped. "You're not my husband! You're NOT CLARK!"

His - its - hands reached for her...

NO!

In horror and disbelief, she willed herself away from it, away and up…

Diana opened her eyes wide.

For a moment, she didn't know where she was. She was stupefied with sleep, and not entirely certain that she was not still in that place of death. She needed a moment to realize that she was in her bedroom in Olivos Canyon, in California, not on Themyscira or the...the other place, that she was no longer in the nightmare. Her muscles, tensed in sleep, relaxed and her racing heartbeat slowed, in the relief that one experiences when awakening from a bad dream. The sheets beneath her were soaked with sweat, and she had thrown her coverlet half off the bed.

She had not had such a nightmare since the dream when she saw Bruce, but this one had been so much, much worse. Yet there was something else wrong. She noticed - and heard - it immediately, and it put the dream out of her mind for the time being.

There was the sun, for one thing.

First, she almost always awoke before sunrise. Warriors did not sleep in. But the sunlight was shining directly on her face through the open bedroom window, meaning that the sun was already well above the horizon. She quickly glanced at the digital clock beside her bed. It read 7:05AM.

Then, there was the high, loud and extremely persistent wailing coming from the nursery room. It was the sound of an unhappy infant bawling for his attention and his breakfast. That should not have happened either – she always woke before Jon did, to prevent exactly this sort of thing.

Diana groped about, still dazed by sleep, and with an atypical soreness throughout her body, including her head. It took her another moment to recall what had happened last night, which was still hazy. Her hand felt something hard and muscular next to her. She turned her head and saw it was Clark, still asleep beside her, on his stomach. His mouth had fallen half open, a trickle of saliva staining his chin and the pillow as he dozed, not exactly attractively. She stared at him for a moment, allowing her heartbeat to slow; just for a second, she had almost been ready to strike him in his sleep. But for what reason? The dream (nightmare) lingered on in her mind like an unpleasant memory, or afterimage.

This was another surprise too. Usually, Clark got up very early too, even earlier than she did. Farm living, he once explained, it was the ingrained habit of getting up before the crack of dawn to take care of the cows and the other livestock. But here he was, still in bed, just like her. Jon's cries hadn't woken him up yet. He must be very deep, she thought, if that noise hadn't roused him. That rarely happened. The the memory of the activities of last night came to her. Last night had been very...what, strange? No, that wasn't exactly the word for it.

"Clark," she said loudly, shaking his broad shoulder. "Clark, wake up."

"Whaa-?" Clark murmured, only slowly awakening. "Wha issit?"

"Clark, it's morning."

"What?" Clark opened his bleary eyes, raised his head an inch of his pillow. He stared at Diana quizzically for a moment, blinked once or twice. Then full wakefulness seemed to descend on him like a hammer. He also turned to look at the clock, with growing dismay.

"What...oh, shit," Clark groaned, rubbing his face. "I'm going to be late!"

"Clark?" Diana sat up, rubbing her temple, which continued to throb strangely. If her husband swore, it meant he was really upset. "What-?"

He didn't answer her. Instead she felt a swoosh of wind, and then she was alone in their bed. The next second she heard the shower turn on. Almost immediately after that, Clark re-appeared in their bedroom, towling off his damp black hair and muscular body. She sat up and winced, this time at the soreness between her thighs. Once again, she was reminded of last night's wild bout. She was surprised their bedroom furniture was still intact.

It was odd - she felt as if she was hungover, but that surely wasn't possible. The only time she had ever been hungover was when she had drank a full amphora of uncut Themysciran wine, but that had been when she was 15 and had sneaked (broke) into her mother's personal cellars in the palace. Oh, how furious Hippolyta had been! But she had not had any wine so strong for a long time, certainly not the mouthwash Bruce had brought to dinner last night.

"Clark," Diana muttered. "About last night-"

"Dammit, I thought I set the alarm," Clark grumbled, throwing on an unironed khaki shirt and fumbling with pulling on his light-gray slacks. "I should have been on the road by now."

"What are you talking about?" Diana swung her legs over the side of the bed, stared at her bare legs. The bruises on the inside of her thighs were almost faded away. "Where are you going?"

"I have a contact to meet for my article, and I told him I was going to meet him at this diner in Victorville. He's my link to the whistleblower I've been talking about. If everything goes well with him then I will get a chance to meet him. I've waited weeks for this," Fully dressed now, Dressed now, Clark hurried into his office, gathering up his papers and his keys. She heard him bustling around in there. He called out impatiently, "Do you know where my phone is?"

"It's in the kitchen, I think," Diana tottered to her feet, and reached for the nearest item of clothing. It turned out to be one of Clark's old, discarded XXL shirts. She pulled it over her head, brushing her dark hair out of her eyes. It hung down to less than mid-thigh. Her hair fell into her eyes again. I must look a mess, she thought, I feel like it too.

Diana walked on unsteady legs to the hallway, catching a glimpse of Clark shoving papers into his briefcase. He was too distracted to talk, she realized. She tried to find the words to say to him, but they wouldn't materialize in her head, or her mouth, and Jon's crying hadn't let up. Leaving Clark to get his things together, she made her way to the nursery. There hadn't been the slightest break in Jon's crying. He was standing up in his crib, and Diana some with some dismay that the metal bars were bent slightly outwards, like he'd been kicking at them. The crib had been specially made by her husband just in case an ordinary one failed to keep him from falling out. What had he done? Jon saw her and began howling louder, as if in reproach at his mother's tardiness.

"Jon, quiet! I'm here!" Diane heard the irritation in her own voice, and rubbed her head again. She felt a twinge of guilt as she saw him. He was clad only in his diaper (sometime during the night he had pulled off his pjs, where he had flung them she didn't know), and tears and snot were smeared down his face. He clutched his plush beat-up doggie (Clark had given it the name Krypto, after the stray dog he had befriended on Themyscira, at the Getai farm) to his chest. Diana's reproach didn't have any effect, and he began stamping his little feet, still crying.

"Jon!"

Plucking the boy out of his crib, she tucked him unceremoniously under her arm, and entered the living room just as her husband did. Clark's tie was poorly knotted, his glasses were perched awkwardly on his face, and he clutched his briefcase to his chest, like Jon with his toy. He seemed unusually agitated, even if he was late for a meeting, which actually happened quite a bit. He brushed past her. It was like he couldn't wait to get out of the house.

"You're leaving, now?" Diana asked, puzzled. "Can't you have breakfast first?"

"If I drive fast, I'll only be a little late," Clark murmured, fumbling his keys from the drop-leaf table by the door. "I'll eat later."

"Why aren't you flying then?"

Clark shook his head. "I might have too, if I don't get going! This evening, don't save dinner for me, I'll get something on the way there."

He was halfway out the door before Diana's shout halted him. "Clark, wait! Aren't you forgetting something?"

He glanced back at her in annoyance. "I said I'm late! What?"

Diana stared at him. "You forgot to give Jon his kiss."

The irritation left Clark's face, replaced by a blank look, then just as quickly followed by remorse. He hurried back to where Diana stood in the middle of the living room. Diana held Jon out to him, but the boy squirmed in her grasp, burying his face in his doggie instead of turning his face to his father as he usually did. Clark didn't notice.

"I'm sorry," Clark gave his son a quick kiss on his tear-stained cheek. "I'm just in such a hurry, I can't stay."

"When are you going to be back?"

"Tonight, or maybe earlier. Depends if this all checks out. Call me if you need anything."

He gave her an equally quick peck on the cheek. Then, like that, he was gone before she could say anything else. She heard the engine start up and their car reversing and then speeding down the road away.

Diana then stood alone in the living room confused, and irritated. She had the unpleasant sensation of feeling like the stereotypical abandoned housewife, left to clean up the house while hubby was at work. The only sound in the house was now Jon's crying, which at least had mercifully had subsided somewhat. She was thinking how Clark never forgot to kiss Jon goodbye whenever he left; not that he never got distracted, but he was never too rushed or busy for that. It must be the scoop of his career, Diana thought, only that still was no excuse. She had hoped to talk to him - she should have made him wait - but it somehow seemed to her that maybe that was exactly what he had wanted to avoid. Why though?

Shaking her head, which didn't exactly clear it, Diana took Jon to the bathroom. Clark had at least thoughtfully left the shower on, so she and Jon could wash up. Steam poured out of the bathroom. Perfect. Maybe it would do the trick of getting the fog out of her head.

Only, it didn't. She went through her morning routine of washing and feeding her child, then herself. Mercifully, Jon had stopped crying once he was properly cleaned up and fed (there was still a pint of camel's milk left in the fridge), but she could tell he was still distressed and out-of-sorts. The last thing she wanted him to do was start crying again. She put on a video of his favorite cartoon - Clfford the Big Red Dog - and brewed herself some strong coffee and fixed herself a granola-and-yogurt bowl. The cartoon animals seemed to do better at calming Jon down than she did. He settled down on the floor and watched his show, entranced. It was only when she was sitting on the sofa with her cup, that she started to think about the strangeness of the past 12 hours or so.

Diana was never one to refuse her husband his 'marital rights' as he sometimes - teasingly - put it. She certainly enjoyed her marital rights as much as he did, maybe more. She had always teased Clark that he was too gentle in bed, and sometimes tried to engage him in rougher play (among the Amazons, it would have been nothing out of the ordinary for a little wrestling and biting, especially with the Getai), but he always refused to fall for her goading. At heart he was still too much of a country boy to do anything like that. He would always either start laughing or act confused at what she wanted him to do, until she just gave up. Until last night, anyway. The way he had...had handled her had surprised her. He didn't exactly hurt her, no nothing like that, not from him, but he had been rough enough. If she had been an ordinary woman (Lois somehow popped into her mind) she would have had more than just bruises. He had never been like that with her before, so what had brought that on? It was almost as if he had been pretending to be someone else, someone who liked being forceful with a woman. Maybe he had decided to give it a shot, to see what would happen. Only, it just didn't seem like him.

But she hadn't tried to resist him when he had grabbed her, not even when he kept racheting it up. She remembered him forcing her legs open, touching her down there, then finally roughly pressing his rhombos into her. It had been more painful than she had expected - even in play - but instead of making him slow down, she had goaded him further, recklessly and then,...she couldn't even remember exactly what had happened, and that bothered her. At some point, everything had just dissolved and faded into a blur, and she guessed they must have just fallen asleep eventually, and they had overslept.

Perhaps it had brought that awful nightmare one, and then...Clark running out of the house like that. She wondered if he remembered his behavior and was embarrassed. But if that were so, he would have said something, apologized (he even apologized when he beat her at sparring although she had tried to make him stop with that too).

No, somehow, she knew it wasn't that. But she could find no explanation for it.

Diana sighed, drained her coffee cup, went back for another. Jon was still focused on his TV show. After her second cup she changed the DVD, but by now Jon wanted to play. She found some picture book or other and read to him for a bit, but she couldn't find the energy to put into it to make it interesting enough for Jon, who started fussing again. She snapped at him again and he began whimpering, which didn't help her mood.

"What in Hades is wrong with you?" Diana muttered, though whether to Jon or to herself she hadn't made up her mind. She picked Jon up and went outside, perhaps the fresh air would help clear her head.

It was bright and warm, though with no breeze. She missed the sea air, the only drawback of living so far inland. For a moment, she thought she could smell smoke and she froze: no, it was just her imagination. She rubbed her forehead. She walked around with Jon for awhile amongst the few flowers that had managed to sprout up in her restored garden, but it still looked too bare for her taste. More rocks than mums. Jon had stopped whimpering but he still gazed at her mournfully, as if she would scold him any second again.

"What's the matter, my little duckling?" Diana wondered aloud. She crouched and set Jon on the ground. He promptly sat down on his butt. "Come one, you need to walk. Take exercise."

Jon didn't move. He clutched his toy and stared at her face.

"Can you talk to me?" Diana continued hopefully. "You were so good last night. Can't you speak again?"

Jon shook his head furiously, and he clutched Krypto even harder.

"Dada!" He cried. He slammed his plush doggie on the ground a few times in petulance. "Dada!" he said again, sulkily. It was clear he didn't regard Clark's absent-minded kiss goodbye as adequate.

She grunted in exasperation. Now, she was beginning to think Bruce had spiked the wine, somehow! She wouldn't put it quite past him, although the notion was clearly ridiculous. But no matter the reason, she couldn't go on all morning like this. She thought about calling Clark, just asking him if he felt all right, but somehow she knew he wouldn't answer his phone. Jon continued to smack his toy on the ground.

"Jon! Stop that!" Diana snapped again, a little more sharply than she intended, and Jon stopped banging his toy against the dirt. He clutched it back to himself, whimpering at the uncommon rebuke from his mother.

"I'm sorry, Mama's sorry," Diana said soothingly. She picked him up off the ground, gently rocking him in her arms. This wasn't working. She felt just as crappy as she had when she woke up. She couldn't stop thinking about the events of last night, or the dream. What was the point of being a warrior for truth and justice when she just succumbed to a man the way she had, even if her husband? That did not give him any special 'rights' to treat her like his sex slave. For that matter, why had she thought bonding herself to a man was good idea? She was really no better than a slave, she ought to-

Strike off his head and that will fix everything, a voice inside her head abruptly announced. Strangely, it was a man's voice, but interwoven with the other, familiar voices of her lost sisters. Cut off the little brat's head too and leave it for him to find before you do that, that will be a proper lesson for one who would defile an Amazon...

Images of blood and violence swam though her head with such force that she gasped, her knees buckling, and she collapsed to the ground. Jon cried out, and dropped Krypto. She realized she was squeezing him, hard, and he was staring at her as if she was another person. She had felt like another person just for that moment. Her head throbbed again, almost unbearably, then just as quickly as it had come, the hungover-like pain subsided.

"Oh...Jon," Diana realized she was kneeling on the ground, holding Jon loosely. He took some stumbling steps away from her, fetching his doggie back. He pressed its ear into his mouth, watching her warily. What does he see? Diana thought. She must look like a crazy woman, kneeling in the dirt, her eyes wide and staring.

It was the dream, she decided. This was more than just post-traumatic stress she was experiencing, she was certain. Something was pressing into her brain, forcing in those horrible images and thoughts. Talking to the curandero had helped, but she realized she needed to do more. There was only one way to do that. If she had been on Themyscira she would have gone to Cyanna or one of her healers, or even to the Sybil, but now she had none of that. There was only one thing she could use.

No, she would have to use the Lasso, on herself. She wondered why she had not thought of it before. Perhaps domestic life really had dulled her edges, and made her vulnerable. If so, she would have to remedy that; she had always told herself she wouldn't fall into the ways of Man's World, bound to a man or not.

She stood up slowly, carefully picking up her son, who didn't resist. She suddenly became aware of how quiet it was outside. In the distance came the faint drone of an airplane, the sound was diffuse and faraway.

Diana glanced at the granny cottage where David was staying. No sound came from there either. Perhaps he was still asleep, or maybe he had gone for a walk. A sense of disquiet filled her once again. It was about time she investigated further, she thought.

But first things first: she would get Jon settle, and then the Rope of Hestia.

David Kent sat quietly before the TV, although it wasn't exactly quite a TV anymore; although it utilized components from the old box set he had found in the little room under the granny cottage where they'd put him, he'd added a few other parts from here and there. There had been a couple of old radios there too, probably from the old owners. He couldn't imagine that they belonged to his nephew and his wife, they didn't seem the type to own such old-fashioned junk, but just as well. He'd cannabalized them for the part, following the instructions from Dr. Djaktu-Klein, or really, the guidance she offered. The result was that now it created a different kind of show than the crap they showed on the TV now - it created the power.

It functioned very well in that regard, although how exactly he didn't quite know, though he suspected some part of him deep down did. If he meditated on it, he found that the unsettling headaches and dreams he'd had ever since he...he regained his consciousness subsided. Also, with the proper meditation before the box (he didn't know what else to call it) he didn't really need to sleep, or he didn't remember sleeping, anymore. These days, he just sat before the black box, and meditated on it, as the little Oriental social worker had instructed him to do. He'd sat up all night, not needing to move or to think. He didn't know exactly how it worked himself, and he suspected she did not as well, but it had a pleasing effect, no matter what. Things weren't quite going to be the same for him, as with other people, no matter how much his nephew tried. Dr. Djaktu-Klein had advised him to wait, so he did, but he felt he wouldn't need to for much longer. There would be no more waiting. It was almost time.

They were very...intriguing though, his nephew and his wife, he mused. Clark Kent had surprised him. He had not expected much, from anyone raised by Jonathan Kent, his useless younger brother. Always, he'd been something of a wimp, an easy target for his bulling. He didn't really care that the Smallville farm was gone, he had not really wanted it despite the tradition of the eldest son inheriting the homestead. He had not cared very much for farming, it was something for dullards, and who the hell wanted to spend all day milking cows? Jonathan was welcome to it, but he had failed even at that, it had seemed. Why Martha had been more interested in Jonathan than himself had always been a point of puzzlement and anger to him. He had tried to persuade Martha that he was a much better choice than that useless brother of his, no one could say he hadn't done his best to help her. Even at their wedding, he had attempted to make her see reason, that he would be a much better choice.

Come on, Martha, you know I'm much better for you.

The hell you are! Get away from me! You should have never come back!

Don't worry, darlin', dear Jonathan won't even know, will he? Just as stupid as ever. Come here and give me a kiss.

Leave me alone!

Martha had tried to play hard to get, but before he could put an end to her little game, demonstrate to her how much better he was, Jonathan had butted in, hit him in the face, taking off guard for the moment. He had not been quite so amused.

Get the hell out of my house, David! If you ever come near Martha again, I'll kill you so help me God!

That had been the last time he had seen them, no great loss, or so he had thought. Probably just as well, he would no doubt have gotten bored of the old bitch eventually. Off to Vietnam, then, just like the song said. Months passed in a series of pointless skirmishes in the jungle. The 'war' was as good as lost, he'd known it even then. You didn't kill the enemy and take their land, only to give it back the next week. He'd lived one day at a time, from mission to mission, not really thinking, just in a simmering state of anger, over things that were pointless now. Drugs and alcohol were plentiful back in the base, so he'd spent most of his off-duty time getting stoned or drunk. He'd tired of the hookers long since, and none would take his money anymore, after he'd cut the last one up for making fun of his American accent. What the hell, they were a dime a dozen anyway. Even the officers were scared of him, and were right to be - he'd frag them in a heartbeat if they gave him shit. Still, he'd have probably been killed himself, or cashiered out one way or another, until he'd met Colonel Robardin and his world changed. Now, that was a man to follow! The stories he told were incredible, and he'd been inclined to write the man off as a lunatic, but then he'd proven the truth of his words. He'd been shown things.

Join us, and we'll make your service worthwhile. We need men like you, men with nothing to lose. The rewards will be beyond your wildest imaginings.

He didn't know about all that - he wasn't big into mystical bullshit - but it was true: what did he have left to lose? Nothing to return to in Smallville, that dying hick town. So he'd signed up with the Colonel.

That was when his memory really started getting hazy. He had been re-assigned from his Green Beret unit, to the special unit commanded by Colonel Robardin. He and several other soldiers, other men like himself, had been sent on a mission, go to this remote mountain village rumored to be a holdout of the Vietcong. They belonged to some ethnic group he'd never heard of. He remembered the village, the inhabitants who had been expecting them, they'd walked straight into a planned ambush...or had they? After that...

He couldn't remember anything much after that, until waking up in some laboratory. Or had that been later? They'd killed the other men but let him live, in order to...what?

He couldn't remember.

Goddamnit, he ought to remember!

At times he felt his temper rising, other times, he felt much calmer, able to rationalize and think, as he'd used to. But more often he'd felt as if he were two people, the soldier and the other...a person like a scientist, more detached and cold. Maybe he'd developed a split personality. The thought strangely amused him rather than upset him, although he found it odd he couldn't remember when the 'other' personality took over.

Then, he'd been delivered here, to this little place in the middle of nowhere. He hadn't wanted to go, he'd wanted to go back and join his old unit - wherever it was - but General Lane had insisted he'd get some "proper R&R" instead, with his family. That was a laugh - he didn't have any family left. Jonathan and Martha were dead, and this Clark Kent was no real blood relation, not that it mattered. Neither was his wife, Diana, although she was attractive enough to look at. Maybe she would be amenable to some real R&R, when her husband was out. Yet, something had kept him from paying a visit her in the house when he was gone, there was something weird about the two of them. David could read people very well - it was a part of his special military training - but somehow he could not read them. He had tried to, several times, last night he thought he almost had...there was an interesting tension going on with them.

Then there was that dinner last night, that Bruce whatshisname, and his girlfriend. That was the first time he had met any of his nephew's friends. Something about 'Bruce' bothered him, he guessed that the man was checking him out. Was he a queer? Possibly, but he sensed something else, something dangerous about him. Paranoia welled up in him, and he suspected perhaps this was all another trap set by the...

Tcho-Tcho? Where had that word come from?

David Kent stirred, for the first time in hours. The box was activating, a low humming coming from it. It began to glow from within. His eyes widened. Strange, it had not done that before, unless he was in intense meditation. He could sense invisible waves of radiation, energy, emanating from it, like tendrils coming out and reaching for his mind. Whenever this happened, it calmed the angry, emotional man inside him. The first time that it had happened (when was it?) he had been terrified, but then a voice - maybe it was the Djaktu-Klein's - advised him to let it happen. It was useless to fight it anyway.

Yes, he thought. Don't fight it. Allow the transition. The transition must be complete. Only then, you can return to Pnakotus.

That word, David thought. That was the name of the mission he'd been on. Operation Pnakotus. What had it meant?

Someone was coming.

David Kent stood up. The box withdrew its invisible tendrils and stopped its humming.

"Diana," he murmured. "Come in."

To be continued...

A/N: Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, but I was delayed by end of semester finals, holiday stress, and the flu! The perfect trifecta of procrastination! But things should be moving really fast from here on out! What will Diana discover when she finally uses the Lasso of Truth? Will she be in time? What's going on with Clark? What is David hiding? When will the new Game of Thrones novel be out? All these questions (except one) will be revealed in the upcoming chapters ;)