The room was solid white and the chairs, the only things the room contained, were white. It was meant to be intimidating. Kal-El and Lois were the only ones standing up. Lois' parents and aunt sat on the left side, Clark's parents sat on the right, the three school officials were in the front, and Kal-El and Lois were in the center.

"Lois Mas-La, this is not the first time you've been in here and it's not the first offense you've committed against there halls of learning," said the official in the middle.

"I know it."

"Explain yourself," he said.

"It's pure and simple. I don't like school. I'm suffering through the same junk I did last year and I don't see the point. I went to get some fun and real life experience. Nobody else had anything to do with this."

"Your aunt did not pretend to be your mother giving her permission?" he asked, looking over at her mother's twin, "Kal-El did not accompany you?"

"I take the full blame. Anything they may have done was at my persuasion."

"I'm just as guilty, if not more," Kal-El said.

"And I too," said her aunt.

"I like that you all are taking responsibility," the official said, "we have weighed this into the deciding your punishments. Mora Amb-Dol, for impersonating your sister, Tora Mas-La, you will do 12 hours of community service at the council building. There you will be able to see just how important the truth can be. Kal-El, for skipping school and knowing about the deceit taking place, we give you a warning. This is your first offense and may it be your last one but you will catch up on your school work by tomorrow. Lois Mas-La, for leaving school without parental permission and involving others in lies and danger, we have decided it best that you leave school on a permanent basis," Lois couldn't help but smile at this part, "but you will have a job. We have taken into account your mental abilities and alien background. You will file new information with their proper planets at The Hall of Worlds, a musuem.

They all left the room.
---

Lois was sitting before a hologram. She was touching and dragging information to their places with her finger. She had been surprised to find she had her own office.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," she called.

"Hi, Lois."

"Kal-El? What are you doing here?"

"I haven't seen you in a whole week. I wanted to see how the new job was going."

"It's very boring but at least it's not manual labor."

"They wouldn't make you do that. Work like that is only for robots."

"I'm just lucky it's against the law for any sort of living creature to do manual labor. I'm sure they thought this simple task was too much for me."

"Have you learned anything interesting?" he asked, pulling a chair over and sitting beside her.

"I don't read it. I just look for key words that tell me which planet it goes with."

"Have you seen any information about Earth?"

"I only categorize new information. Earth was destroyed, so how can there be anything new?"

"Aren't you curious about your heritage? I'm sure, if you scroll through these maps of the universe and select Earth, there'll be information on it."

"I'm not interested. Krypton is my home, end of story."

"You're dying to know more about Earth, I can tell."

"Fine, Kal-El. I'll make a deal with you. We'll look up some stuff about and then you go home."

"Deal," he said.

"It looks like scientists only got strong enough telescopes and sound devices to start Earth studies, 5 years before its destruction. Read and enjoy!" she said, rolling her chair back from the hologram.

"They're not sure how the planet came into existence. There were a lot of theories floating around near the end."

"Like?"

"Well, it looks like they had their own Rao and get this it seems like He is identical to our new Rao. This Rao also created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. He sent His son to save the world."

"Didn't do a very good job."

"To save their souls, Lois. It looks like there was a newer and more popular theory toward the end."

"What was that?"

"Well, apparently they thought people evolved from the same kind of apes we have."

"You're making this up," she said rolling closer.

"No, it's right here. I still don't see how that explains where those first organisms came from. Rao makes more sense because He's a whole other being. However, Kryptonians are confused about their origins too but we don't come up with outlandish theories until we have all the evidence to back it up."

"Who cares about origins and history? Look and see how the world was destroyed and how I managed to escape."

"It says here that America, a nation on earth, discovered that the world was going to end from old age. They kept it a top government secret from their own people and the rest of the world. So apparently each nation had its own government instead of a one world government like Krypton. The person in charge of working on a way to escape the impending doom was a Sa-Sam-uel La-ne. That's hard to say! Kryptonese has more sounds and is a harder language but it's the only language we have on Krypton. Earth had 100s of languages. That must have been confusing. No wonder Earth was divided into those separate nations. Anyway, this man finally came up with a rocket that could leave Earth and travel billions of light-years with someone in it. The problem was that it was too late by then and it could only hold a small baby. He launched his daughter into space in hopes that some sort of alien life form would find her and care for her. Obviously, that baby was you."

"Obviously. Is that a picture of him?" she asked.

"Yep."

"He looks violent. Was he a scientist?"

"No, it says that he was some sort of military leader. They still had wars on this planet."

"What's that stick thing hanging out of his mouth?"

"Hold on and I'll look it up…it says it was a ci-ci-gar. They lit them up and inhaled the smoke from it."

"That's stupid. What did they get out of that?"

"It destroyed lungs and everybody knew it but apparently it was addicting once you started. Teenagers were their biggest market because it was a way of rebelling."

"That makes sense. If somebody told me not to do it, I'd do it."

Kal-El smiled and said, "Krypton saw the destruction coming but didn't have the technology to help them at that time."

"Okay. We've learned. Now leave."

"Wait, I had an ulterior motive for coming."

"Lois looked at him suspiciously. Was he going to admit that he only hung out with her because his father wanted to study her?

"Well, you know how our school is having the dance that's designed to meet and get to know your betrothed?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, Zara can't come because she's attending her sister's wedding and I was wondering if you would go in her place?"

"I hate to tell you this but I'm not allowed to go anywhere near the school and there's no way they would let me stand in place for your bride-to-be."

"But if they would, would you," he said with puppy dog eyes.

If she wanted to be truthful, the answer was no. Dances were not really her idea of fun but why tell him that? He looked pitiful and he had saved her life, so she said, "sure, Kal-El but they wouldn't."

He grinned a little too brightly and said, "then it's a date because they've given their permission."

He left and Lois stared after him. He had just tricked her. He was more devious then she had given him credit for. She was going to the dance whether she liked it or not.

She broke the hologram's on and off button that was on the desk by coming down too hard. It was because of all her extra gravity. She had been distracted and she knew the cost to fix it was coming out of her paycheck. Oh well, at least she had gotten a job no matter how bad it was.

TBC