Taking charge of the short distance between Lois' apartment and the lab with long strides, Clark knew he was being followed. It was too much to expect that Lois would lose her natural curiosity along with her memory, and Clark feared that he'd provided her with more questions than answers. He didn't turn to look at her, but he could feel her lurking. A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he imagined her peeking around corners and ducking behind trash cans, the theme from Mission: Impossible stereotypically punctuating an imaginary somersault behind a parked car - probably more theatrical that what she was actually doing, but it amused Clark nonetheless.
Clark didn't stop, or even pause outside of Kim's Handmade Furniture and Antiquities. He continued down the street until he came to a convenience store. He ducked in and bought a PowerAde for Dr. Ripley, then waited patiently while sipping one of the coffees he'd purchased earlier with Lois.
"Caffeine deprived much, Clark?" Lois seemed to address everything he did with suspicion.
"Yes, very," came Clark's sarcastic reply as he loaded a cardboard tray with cups of coffee. "And one latte for the… uh, is 'lady' an appropriate label?"
"Not for me, and I hate labels. So don't call me a 'lady.''"
"Wasn't even tempted to."
"Another zinger from the cow-town kid! Is there more where that came from, or did the frost come early this year and whither the quip crop?"
"It's almost harvest time, I'll be stocked for the year. See you later, Lois."
Clark had exited the shop feeling very satisfied with himself, especially after she'd ambushed him with the inquisition about the night before. Not that she wasn't justified in doing so, but Clark couldn't suppress the need to bristle just a bit. Now he watched the front window of the convenience store, knowing she'd be framed in it any moment.
He didn't have to wait long. She approached the tinted glass, feigning interest in a hand-made sign in the window advertising Hostess pies at two for a dollar. She moved to presumably check her reflection in the window, but was really scanning the store's interior for Clark. She was startled to find his eyes met hers directly, and he raised his cup to her as if toasting her effort, adding insult to injury with a deliciously wicked grin.
Lois' jaw dropped and she scowled, smacked the window with her bag and stalked haughtily away from the store. Clark laughed to himself and started back to the lab, momentarily forgetting the weight of what could happen there.
"Sorry it took me so long," Clark addressed upon his return. "Lois sort of cornered me, asking about last night, and then I had to make sure she didn't follow me again."
"Were you able to satisfy her?" Dr. Prescott asked.
"What?"
"Her curiosity - that's what you meant, right Andrea?" Marin clarified.
"Yes, curiosity," Dr. Prescott nodded. "Did you explain to her satisfaction?"
Clark shook his head dejectedly. "I did the best I could, but I don't think she bought it. She's going to keep digging even if she did buy my part of the story, because I couldn't tell her what happened to her in the two hours before she thinks I found her."
"You're sure she didn't follow you here?"
Clark smiled. "Yeah, she tried but I let her know I knew what she was doing, and I took a weird route coming back just in case."
"Nevermind that now, Clark." Dr. Crosby interrupted, making an otherwise silent entrance into the lab's hub. "It seems we may have found something."
The whole group filed into Dr. Prescott's diagnostics lab.
"Marin did a terrific job with the imaging on this thing, it gives us an incredibly complete rendering of your middle and inner auditory structure." Dr. Prescott hit a series of keys in front of one of her many terminals, bringing up what looked like a CGI version of an ear canal. "Now, naturally the probe couldn't enter your inner ear or we'd puncture the tympanic membrane, but the otoscope we've developed is advanced enough to scan beyond the view of its own lens and assemble a near-perfect graphic representation of the tissues we wouldn't even be able to see with a standard scope. It also collects different types of data in different streams, so that we can view the structure in different ways." Dr. Prescott pressed another series of buttons, altering the image. "For example, we can study only the thermal scan of your ear, or only the electric impulses, or only the acoustic - well, there's a lot to it that I'm excited about, but nobody else would be, so we'll move on."
Dr. Prescott opened a file containing an internal video feed of the procedure performed on Clark that morning. "We can record the various data streams in real time, so Marin and I were able to form a fair postulation of what caused the seizure." She drew a telescoping pointer from her pocket and indicated a tiny portion of the image. "This is the organ of Corti, which is the sensory organ of hearing. It changes vibrational energy into neural energy and transmits it to the brain via the auditory nerve. Now, if we isolate the image with the electric impulse grid and play back the moment the seizure occurred, we see something interesting. Obviously we didn't stimulate the organ of Corti directly, but at one point it seems the probe jabbed - for lack of a better word - into the tympanic membrane, which, I'm assuming because of your weakened state, over-stimulated the Corti, and as you can see from the electrical surge along the auditory nerve, it basically short-circuited your auditory sensors and off-set the fluid in the Eustachian tubes, which help control balance."
Clark looked somewhat disappointed. "So you're saying this was a fluke?"
Dr. Prescott grinned. "Not necessarily." She went to a different computer and called up another series of images. "We were also monitoring your brain activity, as you know. Prior to the seizure, your brain was functioning at a capacity comparable to that of humans. However, when the seizure occurred and long after it passed, your brain activity was at both a higher rate and higher capacity than is normal for anyone, including you."
Clark looked alarmed. "Couldn't that be dangerous?"
"For a human, yes - overactivity of either excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters will lead to conditions like epilepsy, but for you - we think it was supposed to happen. Dr. Swann?"
Dr. Swann, who had been sitting silently throughout Dr. Prescott's presentation, cleared his throat. "I've formed a theory, Clark, and I wanted to be the one to tell you."
Clark stood silently and waited.
"Your brain was functioning at human capacity, I believe, because the key to fully becoming who you are is buried in some part of your subconscious that Jor-El does not yet want you to access. Your re-birth as Kal-El flipped the switch, so to speak, and while you were able to do and know things that Clark couldn't, you also had no knowledge of the life you lead as Clark, and no concern for it." Dr. Swann regarded Clark expectantly, and the weight of words not yet spoken laced the air with electric anticipation.
Clark rubbed a hand over his face and considered what this might mean. "You're saying that I've somehow tapped into Kal-El?"
"Momentarily, yes. And I think you can do it again."
"Why would I want to do it again?" Clark cried. "Kal-El is cold and destructive!"
"And powerful."
"I don't want that power! Not if it means putting people I care about at risk!" Clark was growing frantic, fearing that he may already have done that.
"Not even if it means being powerful enough to defy Jor-El? Bypassing the plans he has for you?"
Clark stopped and stood still, letting that notion wrap him in its promise. "He's keeping me weaker until he can break me - until I'm ready to be his warrior."
"I'd hesitate to make Jor-El a pure villain, Clark," Dr. Swann advised. "But I think it's safe to assume that if you could bridge this gap - if you could do all the things Kal-El can do, but with your own heart to guide you - then maybe you can resist Jor-El and you could choose your destiny."
Clark swallowed and spent a long interval staring at the bleak, gray floor, and then finally looked up at Dr. Swann. "So what do we do?"
Dr Swann smiled, and spoke with the rapt fascination of a man at the summit of the greatest aspiration of his life. "We build a bridge."