Chapter Six
Clark had hoped for the drive to Metropolis to be quiet, and give him a chance to think. But Pete had so many questions, and he was extremely talkative. At one point, he seemed to be just talking to fill the silence, which Clark found he was actually glad of in the end, because awkward silences were not at the top of his to do list, no matter how much thinking he had to do.
It was actually quite funny, for the first hour anyway, how Pete would ask a question, Clark would answer, Pete would ooh and ahh then stress, repeat and assure him that he was completely not freaked out at all, and that he was totally fine with Clark being a girl.
"I'm not a girl, Pete." Clark said for the hundredth time. "Chloe's a girl. I'm -"
"Just a guy in a girl's body." Pete finished. "I know. I got it. But you know what I mean."
"Yeah." Clark said. He still didn't like being called a girl, though.
"Look, Clark, I have to know," Pete started. "Have you, checked out Chloe's, er…"
"No!" Clark exclaimed. "Pete, it's Chloe! And she would never do that to me."
"Hmm." Pete said, focusing his attention back on the road. He wasn't so sure.
They did little else on the trip apart from stopping for a late lunch at McDonalds. Clark made Pete promise to keep what he ordered quiet. Chloe would freak, even she was loading his body up with caffeine. Not that it mattered. She could smoke weed and chug gasoline for all he cared. It couldn't hurt him. He just hoped she didn't figure that out. Looking back, it probably wasn't the wisest idea leaving Chloe alone with his body.
Once they finally reached Metropolis, it didn't take them long to locate Bernie's Auto Electrical. Pete pulled the car up outside and they both hopped out.
They spotted him almost straight away, kneeling beside a car, tuning something on the wheel. There was no one else around; it looked like he operated the place on his own.
Clark cleared his throat. Trey turned around.
"Hello." He said in his heavy Irish accent.
"Um, Trey Thompson?" Clark asked.
"If you like." Trey answered. a hint of regret in his voice, standing up and wiping the grease off his hands with a cloth. "What can I do for you?"
"Mr. Thompson, we heard that a few years ago, in your senior year at Smallville High, you caused a riot in the school cafeteria," Clark said. "Claiming that you were somebody else?"
"Well, you heard right." Trey replied. "So have you come to haul me back to Belle Reve, or just provoke me with insinuating questions and accusations?"
"No, Mr. Thompson, it's not like -" Pete started.
"Please, no need for niceties." Trey interrupted. "But if we are on first-name terms, please call me Roy."
"Ok, Roy." Clark said. "We believe you."
Roy stopped.
"You do?" He asked, stunned.
"Every word of it." Pete said.
Roy slowly walked over to a small table and started sipping a glass of water he had on there. Finally, he spoke.
"That would make you the first." He said. "So tell me. Why?"
"We… sort of have the same problem." Clark said.
Roy looked them up and down.
"You're an extremely unfortunate pair." He said. "I almost consider myself lucky."
"Uh, no, not us." Pete said.
"Just, me." Clark said. "And a girl called Chloe Sullivan."
"I thought I recognized you." Roy said with much less sympathy in his voice than Clark had hoped. "She's the editor of the Torch, right?"
Clark nodded.
"So who are you really?" Roy asked.
"Clark Kent." He said, extending his hand.
Roy shook it.
"No way!" He said. "The scarecrow? You're the kid who saved that rich guy from drowning!"
"Yeah." Clark said, surprised that people still remembered that. But he was made a little uncomfortable with how lightly Roy was taking this. "And this is my friend, Pete Ross."
"Hey Pete." Roy said, leaning forward and shaking his hand. "So, you drove all the way up from Smallville. What do you need me for?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Clark asked. "We need you to tell us how to switch back."
"What makes you think I would know?" Roy asked.
"Because it's happened to you." Clark replied.
"Not the switching back part." Roy said. "But you're right, I do know how to do it."
"You do?" Clark asked, his heart leaping.
"I do." Roy said.
"Wait." Pete interrupted. "If you know how to switch back, how come you never did it?"
"Check the obituaries. May 15th 2002." Roy said, taking another sip from the glass of water." Roy Barker passed away. Suspected suicide."
"Wow." Clark said. "I, uh, I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Roy said. "The pressure may have been too much for Trey, but I'd rather live this life any day of the week than switch back into a corpse. I'm not even sure it's possible."
"Roy, can you just tell us how to do it?" Clark asked, hoping he wasn't coming off insensitive.
"Ok, well, first of all, do you have any idea how it happened?" Roy asked.
"Not a clue." Clark said.
"Well, I worked out that what caused my switch was -" Roy looked up when a young blonde guy walked into the garage.
"I'll be with you in one minute." He said, holding up a finger, then led Pete and Clark into his office, closing the door behind them.
"At the time, if you remember, everyone in the school was getting tetanus shots." He continued. "I did some researching and found out that the recent vaccination fluid contained very small amounts of liquid meteor rock, to decrease pain levels or something."
"Like a drug." Pete observed.
"Exactly." Said Roy. "Anyway, they thought it was ok, because, it was a different sort. Only about one in ten thousand had a reaction to it."
"But they must have known that this was going to happen." Clark argued.
"They didn't test it thoroughly enough after they added the meteor rock." Roy explained. "So tell me. What've they been injecting you with?"
"Flu vaccination." Clark said, slowly realizing that Roy was right. It all made sense. Except for one thing. "But a lot of people didn't get it. I didn't."
Clark was careful not to go into the details of why he didn't get it.
"Well, did your friend?" Roy asked.
"I don't know." Clark said, then remembered he could check. He rolled up his sleeve and looked at Chloe's upper arm. There was a tiny scab there, like a pinprick. Clark sighed.
"She got it." He confirmed. "But why me? I had nothing to do with it."
"The way the rock works is, you transfer into the first person you tough after the mineral enters your body." Roy explained. "But it takes a while. You go home that night feeling fine, and then…"
The first person she touched. Had it been him? Clark thought back to the day before.
Clark stood outside the gymnasium, waiting for Chloe. Neither Pete not Lana were here today, as they had been vaccinated when they were little. Clark had only come along for moral support for Chloe. He had offered to come in, but Chloe had drawn the line at that.
The doors swung open, and Chloe came stumbling out, in mock weakness. She grabbed hold of Clark's arm, as if to help her stand.
"Oh, Clark! She said, trying not to giggle. "I have been wounded. Wounded! Let me lean upon you, lest I collapse from weakness!"
'So it didn't hurt, then?" Clark asked, smiling at Chloe's wacky sense of humor.
"Nah," Chloe replied, straightening up. "I don't know what I was so worked up about."
"Maybe the giant sharp-"
"Shut up!" Chloe said, hitting him playfully. "And why, may I ask, did you not get it?"
"I, uh, have a thing about needles." Clark replied.
Chloe faked surprise.
"Whaddya know?" She said as they started off down the hallway. "Needle boy is teasing me about needles. that would be a first for you, wouldn't it Clark?"
"Yeah." Clark said. "It was me she touched first."
"Ok, then at least we know that this is going somewhere." Roy answered.
"So what do we have to do?" Clark asked.
"You have to get some of that flu vaccination, and inject yourself with it. Both of you." Roy said.
"But wouldn't that just start this all over again?" Pete asked.
"With this particular mineral," Roy explained. "A second party counter-acts the other."
Clark's heart soared and plummeted at the same time. on one hand, what Roy had just told them sounded ridiculously easy. but on the other hand, not so easy when the girl trapped in your body has no idea that her skin is impenetrable. No needle could pass through it without… aid.
So he had a choice. He could either stay like this forever, him as Chloe, and Chloe as him, who would soon enough discover his abilities anyway. Or he could tell her the truth, and get them back to normal.
The decision seemed obvious.