-Chapter Two-
World Eight-two-one.
A panoramic view of the high-rises and skyscrapers of the central business district sparkled, glass and chrome against a rich blue sky. Including him, there were seventeen associates, from five different countries, sat around the table at the meeting in Sydney. Anything under twenty, Clark found, was a good number for establishing a sense of inclusion and cutting through any star-struck nervousness, and made it easier to work quickly. At Clark's back, the quay, and then the harbor, and beyond that, the ocean, glistened, bejeweled by the sun.
Clark was smoothing down his tie, listening with interest to a two-handed presentation reviewing the pilot scheme of an ecology project he was helping to fund. He was aware of a below-surface bristling of approval and enthusiasm in the room. For him, this stage of a project was always an exciting, invigorating time although he was hardly ever directly responsible for whatever success had been earned and it was a vicarious kind of thrill. He was under no illusions about that. He was a catalyst; that was his gift, that was his role. He was a man without personal stakes and that made him powerful. Because of who he was, he had more than people's respect- he had their trust. And no doubt there was pity. But he traveled alone, no entourage, no yes men. No bombast, or hidden agendas or bias. Nothing getting in the way of results, of progress, of promises to be better, to do more. It was amazing, Clark thought. What humanity was capable of if only they would place faith in their humanity.
The presentation finished, the two gentlemen from the Angolan government retook their seats and the lady chairing the meeting gave Clark the floor. Clark stood and thanked her and addressed the table. "It's a privilege to be part of this and I think everyone involved on the ground should feel immense pride at the difference their hard work has achieved at the Benguela site." Intuitively he allowed space for the warm round of applause. "On behalf of the institute I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that the scheme has been greenlit by the governments of Belize, the DRC, Georgia, and Pakistan to be replicated on sites in San Ignacio, Kinshasa, Tbilisi, and Lahore." More happy mumblings backwashed and rolled around the room. Clark nodded. "It represents a real commitment, from all vested parties, and one that is both long-sighted and self-sustaining; two of my absolute favorite words when discussing-"
He didn't finish. Although no one had said anything, although nothing had happened, he felt as if he had been interrupted. His brow drew together and furrowed, "Um, when discussing..."
It was like a layer had been added to his perception, a layer that was within range, but outside of his full attention, like peripheral vision, and he was unable to access it. He couldn't understand the distraction and he couldn't identify it. "Sorry." He shook his head, "Lost my train of thought."
Only a few seconds had passed but everyone present was now hanging on his words. An agitated unspoken excitement had risen around the table as people caught each other's gaze and shared quick glances. He recognized their looks, felt the frisson, the anticipation, could guess what they were all thinking. It was the Madame chair who ventured, a little breathlessly, "Do you have to leave us?"
He waved a hand. "No, no. It's fine." It was almost ludicrous but there was a tangible sense of disappointment and deflation within the room. Clark felt ridiculous and a little embarrassed. He smiled and frowned and re-found his focus, "When discussing environmental targets."
...
As soon as her vision cleared and she could orient herself she ran through the protocols- no longer because of procedure but simply out of habit. Head, arms, legs. Wristband, sidearm, belt. She looked around. The lab was of a standard design and typical layout but it was empty and gloomy and that was unusual. It was late in the evening, but that rarely made a difference. And it was not just that there was no personnel; there was no equipment in the room either. Instead, the desks and work surfaces were sheathed in large white dust sheets and plastic protective covers. Low-level ambient lighting, she held her breath and listened... no trigger alarm, she found a pocketlight on her belt and swept its UV beam over the floor. And no trip lasers; the lab was clearly not in use.
Frowning, Lois went over to the nearest desk, peeled back the corner of one sheet. There, underneath, the table was not empty or bare. It was covered with pieces of paper, large and small. Some of the papers were computer read-outs; graphs and bar charts and long lines of binary code. Some of the papers were torn pages out of a notebook, covered with crossed and re-crossed math equations. Some of the papers were crumpled, or screwed up into tight balls.
Something caught her attention. She lifted the sheet back a couple of inches further to reveal a pile of laminated technical diagrams and exploded drawings. Pulling them out and spacing them on the table with her fingertips, she was intrigued. She rotated the bezel on the pocketlight to a normal setting and directed its circular ray over the blueprints to inspect more closely. Then she lifted her gaze and regarded the empty lab again, then back at the desk. She half-knew what she was looking at. Half-understood. And she was puzzled- this kind of thing really wasn't Bruce's style.
She dropped the sheet back and checked the ceiling. She couldn't see any cameras, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. The beam of the flashlight followed the edges of the ceiling searching for a telltale red blinking light. When she found the small white box shape of a motion sensor away in the upper left-hand corner of the room she scrunched her left eye to aim, reached across to her hip, and, in one fluid motion, pulled out her gun and fired.
...
Alfred's shirt sleeves were rolled up past the elbow. An old double page of the Gazette was opened and spread out over the desk. Elgar was playing in the background and Alfred was humming softly along to the da-da-daa-de-dum of Nimrod and polishing Bruce's favorite set of bat-shuriken ninja knives. He held one up to admire his work and its beauty and behind the blade he caught Robin executing a flawless kick-punch-roll combination. Like a connoisseur, he interrupted his humming to murmur in appreciation.
The phone began to ring. On the screen Dick, now goofing around with an orange ring lifebuoy, had his legs knocked out from under him by the swipe of a crowbar. Tutting, and still watching, Alfred wiped his hands, muted the Enigma Variations and picked up the handset.
He listened to what the voice on the other end of the line had to say and, although there was no outward change to his appearance, Alfred was perturbed. "Where is she now?"
On the information, Alfred flicked a dial and the bank of monitors in front of him left Dick and Bruce and became the repeated wallpaper picture of a nondescript multi-storied redbrick building. At the bottom of the screens, the image carried the legend, 'WTech, Met'.
"Which laboratory?"
Alfred keyed another button and the screenshot building disappeared and was replaced by the grainy black and white cube of a large foreshortened room. There was some initial relief. He had almost been expecting a catsuit.
The voice on the other end of the line belonged to the head of security at Bruce's Metropolis WayneTech building. When the voice relayed the intruder's stated intentions, Alfred relaxed. He could even smile at the cheekiness of the request. He watched the figure on the screen. The resolution was poor and the intruder's back was turned to him but he could see she was a woman, long dark hair tied back, dressed sleekly in black military-style cargo pants and a close-fitting jacket top. She was sat up on a table in the middle of the lab, heavy combat boots swinging free. Summarily not the usual air of the arch criminal. "Mr Wayne is currently indisposed. Call Gordon and you can inform the young lady I'd be delighted to pass on a message on her behalf."
The security chief informed Alfred that the intruder was insistent on this particular matter. Alfred switched back the monitors to Gotham shipyard. Bruce had one smuggler by both arms and was spinning him in a circle around his head. When Bruce let go, the assailant crashed into a charging huddle of other ski-masked gentlemen, sending them scattering like bowling pins. "I'm afraid that's not possible at this moment."
The security chief said that if Alfred said that, he was to tell Alfred that the intruder's birthday was October twelfth, two thousand and one.
The silence was almost too long. "You're quite sure?"
Yes, sir, the other man said. He repeated the date in full, and added, she's a grown woman- it doesn't make sense to me either.
Carefully, precisely, Alfred produced a pen out of his breast pocket, removed the cap and down one margin of the newspaper he noted the numbers, ten, twelve, zero one. As he did this, with the requisite put-upon boredom in his tone, he advised the security chief, "It's gibberish. This is all some kind of prank, no doubt. It's well-known that Mr Wayne's birthday is in a couple of weeks. This is probably another stunt dreamed up by the media."
The man on the other end of the line began to say something but Alfred cut him off, "To err on the side of caution, clear the building. I'll personally alert the relevant authorities and have someone come down there, immediately." Alfred thanked him and gently replaced the phone back onto its cradle.
Beside the numbers on the newspaper he scribbled the corresponding letter from the alphabet. A simple substitution cipher. A child could break it. They used it, not because it was secure. It was a distress signal.
He switched the screens back to the Metropolis lab. The woman was still turned away. Perhaps it would have been better if she was wearing a cat suit, or a jester's hat, or had leaves threaded, madly, through her hair. The letters on the newspaper spelled out J L A. Whoever she was, this was suddenly much more complicated.
...
Before being dismissed themselves, security had moved her to a holding cell. Now that the building was empty, they had gathered, down the hall, in the security team's office. All eyes were fixed on the figure on the tv feed. Left alone again, they watched the figure hop back onto her bunk.
They glanced around at each other, ashen faced and trying to comprehend what they were witnessing, what they had just heard. Wally was the first to break the silence. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. "I guess you can scratch that codeword off the list."
Bruce and Diana opened the door and walked in. To a room of unanswerable questions and five glassy-eyed expressions of concern Bruce held up a hand, "Before we do anything I want Hamilton contacted and his assurances that everything she just said are," he paused, still struggling and coming to terms himself, "theoretically possible."
"Forget theory." Dick raised an open hand to the screen, staring at Bruce first, then Diana, "You just looked her in the eye. You had your lasso." He looked stricken. "Do you believe her?"
Diana's sapphire gaze was clear. "I do."
It rocked them back once more.
Sat on a swivel chair, touching the ring on his closed fist gently to his lips, John said, "Superman dead. My God. Can you imagine?"
Coolly, Diana responded, "And how different, exactly, would that be from this world?"
At her side, Bruce growled, "I'm going to assume you can still see the woman on this screen and pretend you never said that."
Diana was unmoved. She snapped, "Don't be so obtuse. Don't you get it? Lois is alive." She implored the others with her eyes, "We could get him back. This could change everything."
"I don't know what this does. But Lois is dead. Nothing changes that."
"The woman he loves is standing in that room." Diana pointed, "Lois Lane is standing in that room."
"She's not his Lois!"
John, Dick, Wally and Kara found separate spots of interest on the walls and floor and avoided eye contact. A new tension had been introduced to the atmosphere- it was sometimes how it was with Bruce and Diana.
From his screen, in lunar orbit two hundred and thirty-thousand miles away, J'onn said, "Bruce. The implications. There're who-knows-how-many parallel realities out there where my people still exist, where Dick's parents are alive. Where your parents are alive."
Bruce was steady. "None of that matters. This is our reality. This is Clark's reality."
To no one in particular, Kara said, "Losing her destroyed him."
"Gaining her- what would that do?" They all turned to Diana. She had her eyes on Bruce.
He returned her gaze. Truthfully, he said, "I have no idea."
Dick spoke up again and his tone was plaintive. "She looks exactly the same."
Failing to sound convincing even to his own ears, Bruce practically pleaded, "She could be completely different."
Everyone was looking at the woman on the screen.
"She deserves the right to be heard," Kara said.
Diana finished, "And he deserves the right to hear her."
...
Out of the corner of his eye, over by the door, Clark could see the young man growing desperate and having increasing difficulty keeping still. The meeting had overrun anyway, but it was often this part that took up the most time.
Clark could be holding talks with the most powerful people in the world, the great and the good, the feted and the celebrated, Presidents, Chancellors, Kings. Media magnates, oil barons, captains of industry. And still, afterwards, they would want an autograph, a quiet word, a recorded message for a new ring tone. It was frivolous, and ancillary, and it drove the aides crazy, but he didn't regard it as beneath him or a chore. On the contrary, it was an important part of it.
Clark exclaimed, "Wombats," and beamed. In the short gap between the lady holding the camera steady and the flash, Clark noted the aide rechecking his watch.
Chuckling, the representative from Andorra handed over the camera and swapped places with her colleague, the man who had just posed shoulder to shoulder with Clark. As she came to stand by Clark's side for her turn, she said, "'Wombats!', Mr Kent?"
He grinned, "An old friend of mine tells me saying something unexpected is better than 'Cheese'. According to him, it provokes a more spontaneous, natural expression of the facial muscles."
Another smile, another flash for another picture and, finally, the aide was moved to step in. Forehead shining and weighed down with apology he came over to Clark. "Sir. I've been given strict instructions from the Metropolis office. Miss Manguel-"
Clark reached and patted him warmly at the elbow, "I know, I know, I'm late." From his jacket pocket he retrieved his cell, "I've buzzed myself twice."
The young man was gripping his own smartphone in both hands. In a rush, he gabbled, "It's just that it's tricky to reschedule and you can't make up time with His Holiness afterwards because of the-"
Clark opened his hands that it was okay, "Coronation, right." He pushed his fingers off his eyebrows, saluting, "Tell Hong Kong I'm on my way."
But Clark was stopped, mid-stride, heading for the windows, his path blocked by the most beautiful-looking secretary Clark's aide had ever seen. Golden hair that seemed spun from the sun itself was neatly combed back and pinned in a tight no nonsense bun. A pair of thick-framed glasses complemented cheekbones that could have been carved out of stone. The woman had not noticed the aide, though. Her gaze was concentrated only on his boss. And she looked very, very serious.
She told Clark, "That's all going to have to wait."
...
While they were still in the air, they could see the giant oak doors of the front entrance being opened for them. It was coming up to midnight in Gotham and the widening rectangle of yellow light from inside the house cast an expressionistic zigzag pattern where it fell down the portico steps.
With Kara on his heels, Clark breezed past Alfred and through the vaulted-ceiling expanse of the hall and they arrived at the grand drawing room of Wayne Manor. Clark strode in. "Okay, I'm here. And I just snubbed brunch with the Dalai Lama. What's going on?"
Five faces turned to him. Wally, Dick, John, Bruce and Diana. They were all sat together on the couches in the middle of the room. "Oh," Clark said. "Everyone." Leaning back on his heels he looked at Kara, "I feel like I should've brought a bottle or something." But his cheerfulness struck a discordant note that seemed to linger, unwelcome, in the air. He reconsidered. "Or not."
Warily, slowly, the group stood. Clark eyed the semi-circle they created. "We've still got a couple of weeks, right?" He thumbed at Bruce as if to alert everyone else to his presence, "Guys, this is, like, the worst surprise party ever."
Bruce's face seemed to fall. He stepped forward, looking even grimmer than normal. "As your friend, what I'm about to tell you may be upsetting or unbelievable," in the air, his fingers were crouched, "but the important thing is," he took a breath,
"- Don't freak out."
At Dick's interruption Bruce said nothing but there was a jaw-clenched pursing of lips and a flaring of nostrils.
Addressing Dick, Clark nudged his head at Bruce, "Him. Being so melodramatic- that's what freaks me out."
Pained, Bruce said, "I'm trying to do this the right way."
For the first time, Clark really tuned in to the atmosphere around him and he was unnerved. Everyone was still staring at him. "What's going on?"
Dick wetted his lips. "Shall I get Alfred to get some Scotch?"
Kara's eyes rolled in disgust. "In the name of Rao. The man's a Kryptonian."
Diana also treated Dick to a withering once-over, "And he has the heart of a lion."
Dick's palms were raised, "This is some pretty heavy stuff, that's all!"
Clark's eyes scanned their faces, "Okay. Now you really are freaking me out."
"Lois is here, Clark."
Bruce's words sliced through the room, cleaving it, abrupt and unflinching. It left a heavy, harrowed silence.
All brevity was gone, fetched away. Clark was still. They could only watch his reaction, helpless to prevent the skewering that a careless mention of her had the power to inflict.
He looked drained. His voice was deep and imposing. "Lois, who?"
"Lois Lane."
Now Clark was the one that was staring- at Bruce. His eyes had come alive again, but not with lightness or humor. It was as if someone had poked at something, and disturbed it. And now, inside, it burned white-hot. He scratched out, "That's not funny."
Diana looked so sad. She clarified, "She's from a parallel earth."
Wearing the same expression, Bruce told him, "She wants to see you."