SEVEN

Lois and Clark rode the final stages of the journey on the Metro in silence.

Clark's thoughts were preoccupied with everything he had learned about Superman. He had no doubt that he was learning about his future self. With the exception of flying (and, well, the part about tights) the connection was obvious. He was both surprised and relieved that no one seemed to ever have found out that Clark Kent was Superman, and vice versa.

The train slowed to a halt on its air cushion and lowered to the track. "This is our stop," Lois informed him, gesturing at the marquee declaring their arrival to Old Town Metropolis Amusement Park.

They exited and headed toward the escalator, both recognizing the station as the one they had attempted to use the previous night.

"Hey, we've got two more for Station 13…" A man spoke into a handheld device as they reached street level. "Second line to your right," he directed them.

Lois and Clark exchanged a glance. Lois shrugged and looked over her shoulder to see if the man could have meant to talk to someone else.

The man seemed to be perplexed by the fact that they were still standing there. "Lois Lane and Clark Kent, right?" At their surprised nods, he pointed over his shoulder again. "Second line on the right. Today, people!"

"He knew who we were…" Clark started as they walked in the direction they had been pointed. His speech faltered when he observed the different queues of people lining the street.

"This is so weird," Lois said as they arrived at the end of the line, second to the right. In front of them were look-a-likes, a veritable collection of Lois and Clarks in all shapes and sizes. "I mean, when I read that we were supposedly going to be featured in the festival… I didn't think that it would be like this."

A young woman directly in front of them turned around at Lois's comment. She seemed to be chewing on something like a pixie stick. Giving Lois a once over, she smirked. "Your hair's all wrong, Honey. Too light… and those streaks… Lois Lane wouldn't be seen looking like that."

Lois's jaw dropped and her eyes narrowed.

Clark noticed her hand tightening into a fist and grabbed her arm. "Uh… she doesn't know what she's talking about."

The faux Lois turned to him. "Now, that right there is a very good copy. You get a pair of glasses and they won't be able to turn you away."

Lois glared at her hard enough to bore holes in her head.

Faux Lois smirked and patted Clark's arm. "You'll need a better partner, though." She turned and moved as the line edged forward.

Clark held Lois back from following and pulled her away from the line.

"Did she really just say that I was a bad version of myself?" she asked him incredulously.

Clark bit back a smile. "No… of course not."

"Excuse me," a woman interrupted. She was holding a device similar to the one the man at the Metro station had held. She was looking at the two of them studiously. "Would you mind telling me your names?"

Lois glanced at Clark, wondering if they should go with the truth. He just shrugged.

"I'm Lois. Lois Lane."

The woman smiled, and turned to Clark.

"Um… I'm Clark... Kent."

"That's perfect. Your chemistry is outstanding. You're in. Congratulations." She handed them each a slip of yellow paper and pointed out the building they were to appoint to for orientation. With a wink, she headed back up the line, looking for her next auditions.

"What just happened here?" Clark asked looking at the paper.

Lois turned to look at the other people milling around them. Some were dressed in tight clothes with pointy-eared cowls, and some wore capes. "I think we just got jobs."

Chloe tapped the wall next to the door to her 'quarters', as she had heard her security escorts refer to it. She ran her fingers along the wall looking for a hidden crack behind the fabric covering. Finding what she was looking for, she smiled and removed the clip from her hair.

Wishing she had brought her bag along instead of stashing it in her car, she peeled the decorative plastic from the metal clip.

"I've always been a little claustrophobic," Chloe commented to the air as she inserted her new tool into the wall covering. Successfully making an indentation, she moved the metal clip in a sawing motion, trying to create a larger hole.

After a few minutes she stopped to stretch her fingers. They had gotten stiff with the intensity of the repetitive motion. Placing the clip on the floor, she used both hands to pull the tear open. Behind the fabric were wall panels made out of a hard plastic material. Relieved that she wasn't going to have to battle steel, Chloe picked up the clip and began prying at the lower corner of one of the panels.

"Damn!" she exclaimed as the clip bent backwards. With a sigh, she dropped it back on the floor.

Sucking on her teeth, she turned in a circle, looking around the room for another means of escape.

When her escorts had ushered her into the room, Chloe had listened with her ear to the door as they retreated down the hallway. Apparently, the security system was sufficient enough to keep her inside, so no one was posted outside her door.

The fixtures in her room looked relatively plain; not futuristic as she would have expected. Her quarters consisted of two living spaces separated by a half-wall. A bed took up most of the space in one of the areas, and the other was occupied by a table. A small bathroom, the size of a closet, was found in the room with the bed. All things considered, Chloe figured it was a pretty comfortable prison cell.

Chloe dropped to the floor to see if there was anything under the bed and was surprised to see that it was bolted to the floor. Moving through the room, she found that everything seemed to be bolted or welded in place.

"That's odd," she remarked thoughtfully. Giving up on the hope of finding anything useful in the apartment, Chloe returned to the door to retrieve the bent hairclip from the floor.

With renewed vigor, she attacked the panel, finding that now that the clip was bent, she actually had more power. After a few good tugs, the bottom corner of the panel snapped free. Smiling at her success, Chloe pulled the remaining corners of the panel off.

Among complicated mechanical stuff and blinking lights, she found a number of multi-colored wires. Gently pulling them apart, she noted that they all seemed to stem from the door frame. She figured that disabling the security lock on her door started with these wires.

"Red means stop, yellow means slow down… blue…" she faltered, searching for a meaning to the color. She didn't remember MacGyver having to deal with blue wires. "Blue means wait… Green means go. Green it is."

Just as Chloe was about to give the green wire a strong pull, the doors slid open.

"Wow, I'm good," she remarked with a confused frown.

An older woman in a maroon jumpsuit entered the room, turning to secure the doors once again when they slid shut. She wore a cap of the same color over her shoulder-length brown hair. A bag was slung over her shoulder.

Startled, Chloe glanced up at her visitor. The woman's eyebrows rose with interest at the sight of Chloe beside the discarded panel.

"Impressive," she commented. "But I wouldn't do that if I were you. Green in this place is usually a bad thing."

Chloe removed her hands from the wire and quickly rose to her feet.

"They underestimated you," the visitor remarked kneeling to inspect Chloe's handiwork.

"Who are you?" Chloe asked warily.

"My name is Brynnan," the woman replied with a smile, rising to her feet. "But who I am is not as important as who I represent."

Chloe frowned. "Who do you represent?"

Brynnan reached into the front pocket of her bag and pulled out a small clear plastic card. "The Guardians," she said handing it to Chloe.

Chloe glanced at it with interest. It was blank except for a golden emblem in the center. A torch was embossed on in the center of a rectangle. Shrugging, she started to hand the card back.

"No, hold on to it. You're going to need it." Brynnan gave Chloe a sympathetic nod. "I know you are confused right now, and I promise that I will explain, but right now we don't have much time to get you out of here."

Brynnan pulled a jumpsuit out of her bag that matched her own. "Here, put this on."

When Chloe hesitated, Brynnan sighed. She should have known she was going to need to give Chloe some information before she would cooperate. "We've got to get to the surface and find Lois and Clark before the Centre does."

Chloe's heart rate jumped. "What… Why? I thought…"

"They're not the good guys." At Chloe's expression of horror, Brynnan shook her head. "The thing is, most of them don't know they're the bad guys either. As always, corruption is the crème of the crop. For as long as the Centre has been in existence, we've had someone inside, monitoring their actions."

"What about… Xavir? The one who showed up in Smallville… What side does he fall on?"

Brynnan scoffed. "The side that doesn't have a clue. Literally. He isn't aware of the trouble he's started. The Hyper Chronos Project has been something the Centre has been working on behind the scenes for a very long time. We knew that this would happen one day, we just didn't know when."

"You knew this would happen? What does that mean?"

"I'll get to that later."

"Wait, why are you telling me this… I thought it wasn't safe for me to know too much about what happens in the future." Chloe wanted to know more but was hesitant to buy the woman's story.

"We're at the point now where you have to know. It's not safe to leave you here."

"Why not?"

"One of the other projects the Centre has perfected is essentially a mind probe. Let's just say that certain people are interested in the secrets that the three of you hold." Brynnan gave her a knowing look. "And we both know that there's a really big secret you need to keep."

Chloe's eyes widened. At times she wished they weren't so expressive. She cleared her throat. "I'm not sure…"

Brynnan raised a hand to stop her. "In 2009, a man dressed in blue tights with a red cape flew into Metropolis and stopped a helicopter from falling out of the sky. The media named him Superman, and soon the city was being patrolled by a super hero who could see through walls, bend steel, and leap tall buildings in a single bound. In some circles, he's known as the Last Son of Krypton. Ring any bells?"

Chloe used great constraint to stop her jaw from dropping.

Brynnan smirked and continued. "There are very few people who know that Superman does not spend all of his time wearing a cape. We need to keep it that way."

Chloe's eyes shifted away from Brynnan's and back. "So this… Superman… is he still alive?" Having understood the other woman's hints, Chloe's mind shot back to the time when she and her best friend told one another about their greatest fears. Clark didn't want to live forever… he didn't want to outlive all the people he loved.

Brynnan seemed to falter a bit at the question. "Yes. Superman still lives. Now, please hurry. We've got to go."

Chloe quickly though about her options and decided that she would follow Brynnan. The woman knew Clark's secret, and seemed intent on keeping it, so that was a point in her favor. Chloe knew that if she stayed, she would be locked in the room… away from the action.

If she had anything to do with it, her place wasn't out of the fray… it was right smack dab in the middle of it.

Xavir sighed as he reached the door to Chloe's quarters. He had been reassigned.

According to the Professor, he would be less trouble if his only concern was keeping Chloe unaware of the future. He realized that he had screwed up pretty badly with this incident, but how could he hope to fix it if he wasn't allowed in the lab?

He pressed the spot on the wall that would activate the door chime and waited for a response. When he didn't get one, he stepped forward and knocked.

Xavir figured that she was asleep. Hell, he thought wryly, if he had been isolated after the day he was having, sleeping would have been the first item on his to-do list.

He pulled out his Padd and pressed a button, connecting to the public mainframe. "Computer, please report vitals on the occupant in this room."

"There are no occupants in room 8-v76."

Xavir jumped to attention at the announcement. In a panic, he typed a string of digits into the panel next to the door frame. When the doors slid open he rushed inside, turning in a full circle as he noted the wall panel on the floor leaving the wires exposed. Turning to the bed, he saw the clothes Chloe had been wearing earlier.

Cursing silently to himself, he debated whether or not to contact the Professor. He knew that if he did, there was a good chance he'd be reassigned… permanently.

Xavir dashed back into the hallway, swiveling his head wildly as he looked for a potential witness to Chloe's escape. Finding none, he forced himself to calm down. The Centre was a remote structure. There was no way to freely come and go. She wouldn't get far.

"Computer, isolate any vitals that do not correspond with Centre records." When a worker was hired, their vitals were entered into the main network so that their location could be determined at any time. Xavir figured that the best way to locate Chloe was to find the one person whose vitals had never been documented.

After a short pause, the mechanical voice responded. "Vitals located."

"State the location, please."

"The unknown identity in question is on deck 5 heading west."

Taking off in a sprint, Xavir closed his Padd to end the conversation. There was only one thing of interest on deck 5. The Shuttle Bay.

"Okay, we're going to have to free-fall for a few seconds so we can clear the station before I start the engine. Hold on tight. It will be over before you know it," Brynnan cautioned as she fiddled with the controls of the shuttle.

Chloe nodded but didn't trust her voice well enough to say anything. She was still in shock from learning that the Centre was located on a space station. Earlier, Brynnan had explained how she had bypassed the security on the shuttle bay, making sure that the computer would not alert anyone of their departure. She was confident that it would take her colleagues a while to figure out how and by what venue Chloe had escaped.

The shuttle lifted from the floor and Brynnan expertly maneuvered the craft through an opaque window that opened just as they approached. Chloe's first sight of space was brief, as the sudden plummet caused her to squeeze her eyes shut.

As soon as it had begun, their descent ended, and Chloe sighed in relief as Brynnan continued to steer.

"That wasn't too bad," Chloe commented shakily.

Brynnan glanced at her and smiled. "You can open your eyes now."

When she did, Chloe was astounded by the sight of the space station they had just left. The massive structure seemed to float against the black backdrop. The beige metallic finish was bright in areas where light reflected off of the stars. Chloe fought the temptation to pinch herself. She knew this was really happening… she just couldn't believe it.

The shuttle dropped below the station and continued to descend. When Brynnan felt they were a safe distance away, she programmed the auto-pilot and leaned back in her chair.

"What do you think you are doing?"

Chloe and Brynnan spun around at the sound of a voice behind them.

"What's going on?" Xavir took a look at Chloe in her change of clothes and turned to Brynnan.

Xavir suddenly remembered where he knew the other woman from. "Brynnan Remmer, Scientist H-Class," he identified. She had been working on a different sector of the Hyper Chronos project. "You need to turn the shuttle around right now."

Brynnan's eyes narrowed but she didn't respond verbally. Instead she pulled her arm from the side of her chair, revealing a gun-shaped weapon. "Who did you tell?"

Xavir eyes widened. "No one," he replied, his eyes drawn to the weapon. He had reached the shuttle bay in time to see the women enter the craft and followed. Hiding, he had hoped to learn what Brynnan was planning, but when the craft left the ship, he had panicked. Now, he wasn't sure what to do. "I'm responsible for her…"

Brynnan frowned. "You're responsible for a lot more than that."

Chloe looked between the two. "Brynnan feels that I can help find Lois and Clark," she explained.

Xavir didn't look pleased. "Our Away Team is already working on that. You shouldn't have involved her. This could be detrimental…"

"It's a little late for that," Brynnan cut in. "The Away Team is going to have enough trouble with the Festival going on right now. I'm just doing what needs to be done… and this is too important for me to let you get in the way."

As she finished speaking, Brynnan squeezed the trigger, sending an arc of electric blue light toward Xavir. It happened too quickly for him to react, and he slumped to the floor like a discarded rag doll.

Seeing him fall, Chloe yelped and rushed to his side, feeling his neck for a pulse. "Is he…?"

Brynnan shook her head and returned the gun to its holster. "No. It's non-lethal. He'll wake up in a few hours." She rose and went to Chloe's side.

Chloe sighed in relief as the hand on Xavir's neck found a strong pulse. She didn't see any markings on his chest from the weapon Brynnan fired, so she felt confident on Brynnan's answer. Together they lifted him under the shoulders and dragged him toward the rear of the craft where the sleeping quarters were located.

As they retreated from the sleeping area, Chloe glanced at Brynnan curiously. "You don't like him very much," she observed.

"I don't trust him. That's different. I think he's too young for his post as Junior Scientist. His actions of hijacking the project so he could take a time machine on a joy ride only prove how immature he is."

"How was he able to get his hands on something so important?" Chloe asked.

"He's brilliant, I'll give him that. But sometimes people can be too smart for their own good. Rumor has it that he bribed his way into the Centre. That, or his family has really powerful connections."

Brynnan reached for the bag she had brought along and pulled out a thermos and a couple of wrapped bars. She handed one to Chloe.

"This is a full service flight," Brynnan joked. "Complete with refreshments, although probably not the kind that you're used to."

Chloe inspected the bar, noting that is was a meal supplement.

Brynnan gestured toward the chairs they had been seated in during take-off. "Are you ready for a flash course in the history of the world as we know it?"

Chloe dozed off and on in her chair for the remainder of the journey. She could have gone back to the sleeping quarters and stretched out on one of the bunk beds, but she was feeling a bit wary of being in the back with Xavir. Mostly, she didn't want to miss anything.

Her mind reeled with the amount of information Brynnan had shared with her about the future… or what Brynnan called 'history.' The explanation had picked up with Superman; the point they had left off at back on the station. Superman had appeared in 2009, and for years had been the protector of Metropolis. Crime had gone down, and it had seemed as if the world was headed toward realizing the dream of utopia.

Unfortunately, there were some people who hadn't wanted utopia to come about. In 2028, the administration of President Stryker began an attack against the members of the Justice League, a group of superheroes like Superman who had pledged themselves to protecting mankind.

As Brynnan gave her explanations, she had been careful not to mention Clark and Superman in the same context. When Brynnan had silently gestured to the rear of the craft, Chloe had understood that she didn't want to take any chances in Xavir overhearing.

The first of the Dominion Wars had followed Stryker's weakening of the JLA's defense. The bio-chemical agents that had been used during the wars had decimated the country's agriculture industry. It saddened Chloe to know that the people in the once great country had been victims of famine.

Chloe had learned that Lex Luthor had become the next president, after he led the charges to remove Stryker from his post. Lex had put great amounts of money towards a number of research projects to help rebuild society... Bio-genetic foods and supplements to feed the masses with limited resources was the project that bolstered his platform the most.

For years, Luthor helped his people mourn the loss of their super class. Publicly, he applauded their efforts and wished they could return. In addition, to show his support, he instilled an annual Festival in their honor.

Even with Luthor in power and leading the restoration of peace, the country had still been vulnerable. 2038 marked the last year of Luthor's second term as president. It also marked the year the Second Dominion War began. In a time of chaos, the stricken citizenry were more than happy to amend the Constitution to allow Lex to remain in office. And for a while… peace had returned.

Then, the inevitable happened. In 2084, America had been attacked once again by enemy forces that had only grown stronger, and this time, they didn't have Luthor to save them. When the world needed a hero, Superman returned. No one knew where he had disappeared off to for fifty years, but they were happy to see him all the same.

After imparting that information, Brynnan had taken a look at Chloe's glazed eyes and declared that Chloe had heard enough for the time being.

Chloe shook herself out of her thoughts and pushed herself up in the chair as Brynnan called to her and pointed out the shuttle's front window.

Taking a breath to steady herself, Chloe took her first look at the blue, green, and white swirls of her distant home planet. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was about to enter a brand new world.

TBC