Chapter 7: Discovery
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes." -- Marcel Proust
Area 51, New Mexico
A head of the Area 51 Department approached a doctor, a clipboard in his hand. Staring at the file that read Lois Lane, he looked at him inquisitively.
"How's our patient, doctor?"
"Recovering quiet well, but I do have reservations though. Do you think it was wise to bring her back here?" She was previously held in a cell lined with lead and all other kinds of protective materials.
Going over the file beforehand, the explosion at LexCorp had a lot to do with Lois Lane's circumstance. Unbeknownst to the public at large, LexCorp has been developing bio-weapons for black market distribution. The patient in the white closed room was digging too deep, and when it was too late, she was swallowed by it.
Swallowed didn't mean death, but life, life elsewhere.
When the explosion took place, it inadvertently opened a hole to a whole other universe, reality, and she was sucked right in the middle of it. Like the rest of the world, they thought she had died along with everything else, so twelve years after the facility was sealed and closed off, that very same portal opened once again.
That was three months ago.
"How long until she's conscious?"
"Soon"
High above Earth's atmosphere
Clark, as Superman, focused his hearing on the familiar sound, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. Whoever it was, it couldn't be her. But what if it was? Then, the sound became constant, a pulse of calmness.
It was there, present and it refuses to disappear.
He reached down to his belt, pressing a couple of buttons as he did so.
Com lines turn on.
"Bruce, do you hear me?"
"Superman, yeah I'm here. What it is?"
"I'm hearing sounds"
"That's um… usual my friend"
"No, I mean… I'm hearing her, Lois, my wife," he clarified.
A disjointed cough came out of the other line. His friend was having a hard time hearing the implication just as he had.
"Do you mind repeating that to me again?"
"I'm telling you, Bruce. It's her. It's Lois"
"Clark," he says through the secure line. "Lois is dead"
"Then I must be going crazy. Dammit, Bruce, I hear her heartbeat. That hasn't happened in twelve years; don't tell me I'm wrong about this"
"Have you checked the source? Whatever it is, I don't want you flying blind"
"I need you to head to the Fortress and be with my son. If it really is her, I don't know how he would react. I need you to be there for him, Bruce. Can you do that?"
"Of course"
"Thank you"
"Clark"
"Yes?"
"Be careful"
"I will thanks." As the line went silent, Superman hovered above the United States, using his x-ray vision to break through the layers of dirt and rock through the crust of New Mexico.
And that's when he saw it, a body. The heartbeat wasn't a fake, it was real and it's beating. He kept that image in his line of sight, and faster than a speeding bullet, he disappeared towards it.
To be continued…