Biological Families
Author: duane at duaneaakre dot com
Disclaimer: As always I own nothing. Well I own a house, two cars, a pair of jetskis, and a lot of other junk, but none of these characters.
Story Rating: R The story may drift into the HBO range rather than stay in the WB range, so to be on the safe side, I am rating this R.
Chapter 12
Clark and Whitney stepped out of the dark passage of the train's interior corridor and into the brilliantly lit Dresden train station. Like the station back in Berlin, this one too had a high glass ceiling to provide protection from the weather while still allowing the space to be filled with sunlight on a beautiful summer day like today. However there were obvious differences in the architectural styles of the two stations which they probably would have noticed even without the English language guidebook, 'Dresden - The Baroque Capital of Northern Europe' that Whitney had picked up before they had set out from the Olympic Village.
Barely twelve hours had passed since they had returned to the village following the events at the chateau. It was three-thirty in the afternoon as they exited the station with Whitney carrying a newly purchased Dresden street map and Clark carrying one of the copies of the letter Lana had left for them. They had spent the morning attending the usual practice session for the track team while Indy had waited by the phone back at their communal house in the village. When they returned for lunch, Indy still hadn't received any calls regarding ransom terms for the return of Marion and Lana. Since most of the track team was being given the afternoon off for sight-seeing, they decided this was the right time for them to follow through on the suggestion in Lana's message.
The matching letters Whitney and Clark had both discovered under their pillows in their rooms when they returned the night before had been quite a surprise; obviously some of Chloe's philosophy of always having a backup plan in place had rubbed off on Lana. Although, annoyingly, some of Chloe's love for games and secrets seemed to have been passed along, as well. The message had been very terse, merely stating that if they should become separated, she had met someone who might be able to help. The letter had then given detailed instructions on how to reach one 'Aubrey Steenbergen' at 7920 Justinenstrasse, Dresden, Germany. But the letter had not given any details on who this person was or how they could help. And why hadn't Lana included a phone number for this 'Aubrey'? Certainly a phone call would have been a lot faster than a one hundred mile train ride, not that train service here in nineteen-thirties Germany wasn't the model of speed and efficiency.
The express train had taken only one hour and forty minutes for the trip south from Berlin to Dresden, which was located in the southeast corner of Germany near the border with Czechoslovakia. According to Whitney's guidebook, Dresden was the fourth largest city in Germany with a population in 1930 of just over six hundred thousand.
While Whitney had been locating the street map, Clark had placed a call to Indy back at the village. Clark had been prepared to turn around and head straight back, in 'speed-mode' if necessary, if Indy had received any word, but so far no luck. Perhaps the Nazis were postponing contacting him in an attempt to frazzle his nerves.
As they stepped out of the train station located on the western edge of the main central plaza of Dresden, they could easily see the two most prominent landmarks described in the guidebook: the Frauenkirche Cathedral with its three hundred foot tall dome, and the Sachsen Palace which had served as the Parliament Building when Dresden had been the capital of the Saxony Kingdom before the unification of Germany in the late eighteen hundreds. They also easily found the sight they were really looking for, a bright yellow street car with 'Route 17' prominently displayed in red. It was quickly becoming apparent the street map wouldn't be necessary to find their destination, but trying to take a page from Lana, they felt it was wise to get the 'lay of the land' in case things went wrong and they were separated again.
The instructions had said they would need to ride the number 17 for three miles and then transfer to the number 32 for two miles before a final walk of three blocks to reach the indicated address. But it wasn't until they looked at the map that it became apparent the address fronted right on the Elbe River.
As they walked across the plaza to the first streetcar, Whitney, who had been moving with such an exaggerated bounce to his step it looked like he was overdosing on Talon caffeine, turned to Clark and asked. "How can you handle it?"
"Handle what?"
"The feeling of strength and power. I have this almost overwhelming urge to run over there and see how far I can toss that truck."
Clark glanced over where Whitney had indicated with a nod of his head. A large German military truck was parked over at the side of the plaza next to a building which had a steady stream of men in uniform entering and leaving. He was still amazed with the amount of military activity that was on public display everywhere they went. Back home in Kansas you almost never saw any military vehicles except parked by the National Guard Armory or anyone in uniform except the lone Marine recruiter in the small office on Main Street. Had it been different in the States back in the thirties or was all of the military presence they had seen so far just a European thing?
"Well, control yourself. We don't want to attract any attention. For all we know, our descriptions could already be circulating through every Gestapo office in the country."
"Yeah, but how do you handle the feelings?"
Clark thought about it for a minute as they boarded the streetcar. "I don't know. I have always had my abilities so I guess I am just used to the feelings. You have only had the Samson hair for a few hours. Hopefully, it will get easier to handle with time." But even as he spoke he knew the words weren't entirely true. No, he suspected his own urges to fly must be almost as powerful as Whitney's sudden urges to use his new-found strength. When they had first discussed coming down here to Dresden, he had seriously considered just grabbing Whitney and flying down.
"But don't you just want to let loose and use your gifts sometimes?"
Quelling his own thoughts about flying, Clark answered, "Whitney, living in Smallville, there are plenty of opportunities to use my powers what with all of the meteor freaks around. You just have to learn to be discrete so no one ever sees you."
Whitney slowly nodded his head. He hadn't thought that far ahead. What if they brought the braids back to Smallville with them? Then he could have this feeling of power forever. And he could help Clark to protect the others. It wasn't until then he remembered he had to leave for Basic almost as soon as they returned. Would he be able to take one of the braids with him when he left for the Marines? Would taking one along be 'right'?
They rode along for the next couple of minutes in silence. Whitney continued to think about a future where he kept one of the Samson braids. Clark was thinking about a conviction that had been slowly growing in his mind during the train ride down here. He decided he needed to discuss his thoughts with Whitney. If he was wrong, no harm would be done. But if he was right, then the upcoming meeting would have to be handled just right to not risk messing up the timeline.
"Whitney?"
"Hmm?" responded Whitney absentmindedly.
"Whitney," started Clark again with a little sharper tone to his whisper. He needed to get Whitney's attention without attracting that of any of the other passengers. This wasn't ancient Rome, it was a definite possibility some of the others present in this streetcar could understand English.
Whitney's eyes slowly turned from the seemingly endless row of government-looking buildings, many built in the early seventeen hundreds when Dresden had been the capital of Poland as well as Saxony.
"I think this 'Aubrey Steenbergen' is Chloe," stated Clark, once he was sure he had Whitney's attention.
"Chloe?"
"Yeah, Chloe. Who else could Lana have gotten to know and trust in the couple of days we have been here? Particularly someone way down here in Dresden. But Chloe could have told her sometime during the week between our return from Rome and our departure for here, all of the dates and places where she could be found, in case of a situation just like this."
"What are you talking about? Chloe is back in Smallville. That's the whole reason we are back here."
Clark thought Lana had explained all of this to Whitney before, but obviously it hadn't sunk in. But then the whole situation was getting so unbelievable and convoluted, he really couldn't blame him. Particularly since Whitney hadn't been along on the adventure to Rome.
Dropping his voice even further, Clark started explaining. "Whitney, remember how we were stranded back in ancient Rome?"
Whitney nodded.
"We had no way of opening a portal home from that end as the equipment there had been destroyed. The only way back was for someone to open one from the future. But in the future, only the 'bad' guys knew about the time machine and they certainly weren't going to open one for us. Chloe was the only one to come up with a viable solution. Since she could live forever, she would just live through the past two thousand years a second time so she would be there to open the portal for the rest of us.
"After we got back to our own times, Chloe explained some of the intervening events to me, particularly how during her second time through the past two thousand year, she was actually the one who caused the time machine to be built, not the Professor who took all of the credit. Doing it herself was her way of ensuring it would be built and the time loop would be closed and the rest of us would be retrieved from the past. And, so, in one of those weird, time paradox sort of things, it was the time loop which caused the time machine to be developed, as it couldn't have been developed on a simple shoe-string budget like the 'build it in the garage' type of project the Professor was running. No, she spent over a hundred years ensuring several whole new branches of Physics were developed to have the necessary knowledge in place.
Clark paused for a moment to make sure the logic of his theory was clear in his own head. "Remember how so many of the greatest scientists in the early part of the twentieth century seemed to be German? I think Chloe is here in Germany recruiting scientists and arranging to get them out of Europe before the war."
Whitney thought about what Clark said and he guessed it did make sense. But since he had only become aware of Chloe's true nature after the encounter with the tornado and since he had not talked to her since then, it was still a little hard to comprehend that she was thousands of years old. Oh, he had twice experienced the miraculous healing powers Lana had received from Chloe and he had even met Laura in that virtual world by the Sphinx, but living for thousands of years was still almost impossible to believe.
And equally hard to picture was Chloe as some shadowy figure who had been manipulating civilizations down through history. He still had a hard time thinking of her as anything but the overzealous, somewhat nerdy girl who ran the school paper. Chloe being the driving force behind the development of the time machine still boggled his mind.
Not coming up with any real flaw in Clark's logic, Whitney asked "Do you think Lana has been in contact with her? If she has, I would have thought Chloe would have joined us up in Berlin by now."
Clark shook his head. "I don't think Lana has been in contact with her. I think she just left the information in case of an emergency. You need to understand how careful we must be to not screw up the time loop. If we tell Chloe what is going to happen to her sixty years in the future, she wouldn't go down into the storm cellar and touch Lex. If she doesn't touch him and get hurt, then she would have come back here with us to save Lex. But she did get hurt, so we have to make sure everything ends up the way it is supposed to."
Clark's inability to explain the situation to his own satisfaction really frustrated him. It probably meant the whole time loop concept wasn't that clear in his own mind either. Finally, he just jumped straight to the conclusion he was trying to make. "Anyway, the important thing is that it is very dangerous for a person to know too much about what is going to happen in their future. We need to get her help without explaining anymore about what caused this situation in the future then is absolutely necessary."
Whitney nodded. Not having been involved since the very beginning of all the events surrounding the time machine left him at somewhat of a disadvantage, but he had seen enough old sci-fi movies about time travel to get the intent of what Clark was trying to say.
After Clark's potential revelation about Chloe, they descended back into silence; each running through in their own mind how this upcoming meeting might play out. In only a couple more minutes they arrived at the transfer location and with less than a five minute wait, they were moving forward once more along Route 32. This route quickly left all of the governmental-looking buildings behind and moved into a residential area, a very upscale residential area. Soon the track the streetcar was following curved over onto a street which ran parallel to the river. After the indicated two miles, they reached a streetcar stop after which the track turned away from the river to begin its loop back towards the center of town.
Clark and Whitney exited the trolley and started walking down the street which continued to follow the waterfront. As they went, they watched the numbers on the curbs in front of the large houses steadily climb.
Finally, after about five minutes of walking they reached their destination, a large gray stone house with numerous windows and a dark blue metal roof. Many of the windows had semi-circular transom windows above the main rectangular sheets of glass. Similarly, the several balconies visible from the street side of the house were enclosed in matching semi-circular Roman arches. According to what they had read in the guidebook, this unifying theme of the semi-circle was a classic example of the baroque style common in Dresden in the early seventeen hundreds. While a two-hundred year old house sounded positively ancient by twenty-first century American standards, in Germany this was not uncommon and this house had obviously been well maintained down through the years.
As they walked in through the open front gate and up to the main entrance, Clark continued to study the house and grounds, trying to see if there were any clues that this was where Chloe currently lived. The house was nice, but nothing specifically set it apart from any of its neighbors. Certainly, it was not remotely on the scale of Chloe's palace back in ancient Rome, or even of Lex's castle back in Smallville. However it wasn't extremely modest like the house Chloe shared with Gabe back in Smallville either. No, it definitely proclaimed its owners were wealthy, but without the 'hey, look at me, I'm rich' brashness of Lex's place. If its essence was distilled down to a single concept, it was that the owners were 'old' money.
Clark's musings had kept him occupied until they reached the massive double-doors with the large brass knocker shaped like a lion's head. Clark remembered how the lion seemed to figure into many of Chloe's stories of her ancient past, but this could easily be just a coincidence. With a small flutter in his stomach, Clark lifted the knocker and gave it several solid bangs. As he waited for a response, he tried to image what it would feel like to see Chloe suddenly restored to full health and vigor. It had been so scary when he had last seen her with her body wracked with tremors and her green silk evening gown covered in the muck of the destroyed root cellar.
After a seemingly eternal wait that actually wasn't more than twenty seconds, they heard the door being unlatched from the inside. Half expecting to find Chloe on the other side of the door, Clark was disappointed to see an elegantly attired butler instead.
"Guter Nachmittag, meine Herren. Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?" asked the middle-aged man as he took in the two tall, youthful strangers standing at the threshold.
"Ah," began Clark at a sudden loss for words. "I hope you speak English. We would like to speak to Aubrey Steenbergen."
The butler smoothly shifted to English with a distinctive British accent. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No," answered Clark with a surge of relief at being able to communicate. Before they had left the Olympic Village, he had toyed with bringing Gretchen along to translate. But finally he had decided not to, in case this really was Chloe and they ended up needing to discuss things best spoken of without witnesses. "We didn't have the telephone number and decided to just take a chance she would be in."
"Your names?"
"We are some really old friends and we were kind of hoping to make this a surprise."
Edwin looked over the two men again and tried to imagine where Frau Steenbergen could have met them. He had been with her for almost ten years since she had first hired him during a visit to London and he was certain they had never been to this house before. With their American accents, it must have been on one of her trips to the States on business with her optical company. But her last trip over had been almost five years earlier and these men would have been only boys at the time. Still, they didn't look particularly dangerous and Frau Steenbergen was always stressing the importance of good relations with her overseas customers.
Edwin finally nodded, "If you will follow me."
Clark and Whitney entered a large foyer that shouted 'money' and 'class'. Clark expected they would be told to wait there while the butler went to fetch the woman, but instead he led them down a wide hallway to the back of the main floor. At the last door on the left side, the butler opened it and gestured for them to precede him.
They found themselves in a large living room with a wall of windows overlooking the river. As they paused to take in the room, the butler spoke up once more.
"If you will kindly wait, I will inform Frau Steenbergen." Then Edwin pulled the doors to the hallway back shut before heading upstairs to her private study to announce the guests.
The room Clark and Whitney found themselves in was large, at least thirty by forty feet. It had three distinct seating areas each of which was designed to comfortably handle eight to ten people. The entire room was paneled in a rich, dark wood that just made you want to relax. After the wall of windows, the room's next most prominent feature was the large fireplace on the opposite wall. This being the middle of the summer, it was unlit, but Clark's attention was still drawn to it. Or rather to the row of framed photos aligned on the mantelpiece. Excitedly, he moved over to give them a closer inspection; they might provide the answer to whether Aubrey Steenbergen was really their Chloe.
As soon as he looked, he had his answer. The hair was different, but there was no mistaking that smile.
"Whitney, come take a look at these. It is definitely her."
But then taking a closer look at the other people in the photos, Clark couldn't help but flinch a little inside. Most of the photos had been taken at a lakeside or oceanside resort. And they were most definitely photos of a very happy family. In some of them, Chloe was wearing a very old-fashioned swimming suit and playing at the water's edge with two small children. In others a well-built man, who looked about forty, was playing with the children. One photo was a standard posed family shot with Chloe and the man standing behind the two children.
But the hardest one for Clark was an extreme close-up of Chloe with the two children, a boy and girl of about five or six. The children's faces were pressed tight up against each side of Chloe's and she had the happiest expression on her face he could ever remember seeing.
Clark had never really asked her about the two thousand years she had spent waiting to return to their present. In his head he had had this now obviously naive image of her just patiently waiting that whole time for him. But he suddenly realized how unreasonable that was. She was a real person and would have led a real life during that impossibly long time. He just never imagined during the train ride down here that they might find her happily married. How would she feel when he and Whitney just showed up out of the blue? How awkward was this going to be?
Clark continued to stare at the photo of Chloe with the two children. God, she looked so happy as a mother. Would they have children someday in the future? Could they even have children? Seeing the expression on Chloe's face, Clark suddenly wished that they would.
-
Aubrey Steenbergen set down her pen and pushed her chair back from her desk. Everything was finally ready for the big trade show coming up in three weeks. The first shipment of the new compact single-lens-reflex cameras they had been secretly developing was complete. A sufficient stock of the new 35 mm format film was available to meet the demand for at least the next three months. Now it was simply a matter of getting the cameras out in front of the public. She was certain the new pocket-size format would take the market by storm. And hopefully, it would take some of the wind out of the sails of her competitors over at 'Zeiss-Ikon'. Ever since their merger four years earlier, when they had surpassed her own 'Ihagee Kamerawerk Steenbergen & Co.' in combined sales, they had been rubbing her face in it at every trade union meeting. But now, with the new camera line, they might just find the tables turned.
Leaning back in her chair, she let her eyes drift to the painting on the far wall. A painting she had commissioned almost exactly one hundred years earlier. It showed the ribbon cutting ceremony at the first commercial railroad in Germany. That event had occurred on April 17th, 1837 and inaugurated train service for Leipzig to Althen, a total distance of nine kilometers. It would be another two years before the line would be extended all of the way here to Dresden, but as she rode the slow, noise, stinky train that first day, she knew the age of technology had finally returned.
She had made several additional fortunes in the early decades of the railroad era before its true impact on modern society was felt. Germany had long been separated into a number of petty kingdoms, duchies, and republics. However the coming of the railroad and its ability to move both people and goods quickly and in large quantities began to change everything. When entire independent states could be crossed in less than an hour, it became a major stumbling block to progress to have such frequent stops for passport checks and border tariffs. Many reasons were given for the unification of Germany in the late eighteen hundreds, but the true driving force had been the railway system.
However one of the first acts of the unified government had been the nationalization of the railway companies. Oh, she had gotten a fair price when her various railway ventures had been stripped from her, but it had ended a very lucrative cash cow.
Now, with the Nazis in power, they were trying to do the same thing with every industry in the country, even such unlikely targets as the camera industry. It had taken years of hard work to build Dresden into the camera capital of not just Germany, but the whole world. And now they wanted to nationalize all of them and place them under the jurisdiction of some bureaucrat. Perhaps it had been the right thing to do with the railroads to ensure consistent track widths and rolling stock throughout the country. But with other industries, like cameras, it seemed likely to just stifle creativity and hurt them in the global market. And the global nature of the market was important to modern day success. It certainly had saved her company several times. Back in the twenties when Germany was staggering under hyper-inflation, the market for cameras had been strong in America. The steady flow of dollars had helped her weather a time when many companies dealing solely in deutschemarks had gone under. And now in the thirties while the American camera market was suffering the ravages of on-going depression, the German market had picked back up with the new prosperity of Hitler. To thrive in the technology age, a global market was essential. But if the Nazi plan for the camera industry played out as she expected, the global market would end up dominated by one of her American competitors like Kodak or Polaroid.
Audrey slowly shook her head. She had made her argument against nationalization at numerous trade union meetings between the companies and the government, but to no avail. She had even had several conversations about it with Johan, but again without success. Of course, he was the most hardcore Nazi around and loyally supported every suggestion Hitler and his cronies up in Berlin made no matter how stupid or short-sighted.
She sighed. She was quickly approaching her normal self-imposed limit of fifteen years in any one place and persona. Perhaps it was time to work harder towards preparing her next life. She would miss Dresden, it had been more or less her focal point for the past few hundred years much like Rome had been the city she had orbited around two thousand years earlier. Perhaps it was time for a bigger change than her normal loop of Dresden - Warsaw - London - Dresden. Maybe America or the Pacific, hmm, how was New Zealand this decade?
As she sat there pondering the logistics of a relocation, this time with the complication of two small children, she heard a sharp double-rap at the study door. Recognizing the cadence as belonging to Edwin rather than one of the maids, she called out in German, "It's open, Edwin, come in."
After stepping through and pulling the door closed behind him, Edwin came immediately to the point. "Madam, there are two young men downstairs requesting an appointment. They refused to give their names, saying they wanted to surprise you. They are Americans."
In the moment before his words fully sank in, Aubrey sat there wondering if it would be possible to bring Edwin along when she relocated. He was definitely one of the best butlers she had had in what seemed like centuries.
"American?" she answered, suddenly a little intrigued. She wasn't expecting any of her American distributors until after the trade show. "Can you describe them?"
"One blonde, one brunette. Very tall, they both are at least one ninety five centimeters and very fit. Young, I would guess they are around seventeen, give or take a year. Reasonably fashionable Windsor double-breasted suits, but not custom-tailored."
Hmm, the descriptions didn't ring any bells with Aubrey. And the descriptions definitely didn't fit any of her American marketing agents. But there were a lot more Americans in town this summer with the Olympics starting this weekend.
Oh well, she did have an extra hour before she needed to see to the children's dinner and then start preparing for this evening's excursion to the Semper for the inaugural performance of Verdi's La Traviata. This opera seemed like an unusually light-hearted choice and she had serious doubts its run would be very long before they would be forced to pull it in favor of something by Wagner.
"Thank you, Edwin. I will be down directly. Please arrange to have tea served in about twenty minutes."
"Very good, madam," answered Edwin before retreating from the study.
Aubrey took a moment to put away the documents she had been working on and to straighten her desk. Once she was finished, she stood up and walked from the room. As she descended the staircase, she couldn't help but wonder who the strangers were and what they wanted from her.
When she reached the doors to the living room, she quietly opened them and found the two men standing with their backs to her as they studied the photos on the mantel.
"Those photographs were taken with one of our new 35mm cameras. The camera is very compact and will easily fit into a jacket pocket; yet you can clearly see the excellent quality of the resulting pictures."
She spoke with a very strong British accent, but Clark instantly recognized that voice anyway. Momentarily forgetting the details of her present life and family, a large grin broke out on Clark's face as he turned to look at her. Somehow her hairstyle, clothing, posture, and attitude conspired to make her look like a youthful thirty rather than her true perpetual sixteen.
"Chlo . . ." was all Clark got out when he realized there was no recognition of him in her eyes. None. Zero. Nada.
Clark stood there frozen in shock. Just like he had never expected to find her happily married, he had never imagined this would be the original Chloe. Of course, she wouldn't recognize him; Smallville was still more than sixty years into her future. He had been certain Lana would have left them the address to the Chloe who was reliving the past two thousand years for the second time and who would remember all the adventures they had shared in ancient Rome and before that in the pre-portal Smallville. But the 'Chloe' he thought of as his must be in some distant part of the globe, if Lana thought this original 'Chloe' was their best choice in an emergency.
But the woman standing in front of him had never heard of him or Whitney or Lana or even 'Chloe Sullivan'. And any mention of Chloe or Smallville or even his and Whitney's names could alter the course of future events. With her 'bot enhanced memory, any comment he made would be remembered.
Clark actually cranked his body up into 'speed mode' while he stood there to give himself some extra time to think about the whole situation and how to get her help without giving away too much information about the future.
-
Whitney was only half a step slower in turning to greet Chloe than Clark. He was just starting to speak when Clark threw up his hand in a gesture that made him halt.
Clark turned his head towards Whitney and said as quietly as he could, "It's not her. It's the original one. Don't say anything, just follow my lead."
Aubrey watched the strange interplay between these two young men. The dark haired one had turned towards her first with an expression of excitement and delight on his face. Then he had started to say something and abruptly froze. When the blonde haired youth had turned and started to speak the first one stopped him and then quietly made the strangest remark. Oh, her hearing was only slightly better than normal, but she had long since mastered the art of lip-reading.
What the hell did he mean, she was the original one? Who else were they expecting? Something very strange was going on here. Normally, she would have been merely intrigued, but the children were in the house. She had to be ready to act at a moment's notice, if necessary. In the meantime, she had best take charge of the situation.
"Excuse me, but Edwin said we knew each other, but that is obviously not true. Who are you? What do you want with me?"
Clark took a deep breathe. He needed to find the right thing to say quickly, as he could read the alarm in her face. It wouldn't take much for Chloe to bolt from the room and call for help. No, he had to stop thinking of her as Chloe, now she was 'Aubrey'. Chloe wouldn't exist for another sixty years.
"Ah, Frau Steenbergen, this is suddenly a lot more complicated than I had anticipated. For the moment, it is best if you refer to me as C.K. and my friend as W. Perhaps it would be best if we all sat down. I am afraid what I have to tell you is quite shocking."
Clark gestured for Whitney to precede him over to the nearest couch. Whitney did as instructed, but he still had a very confused look on his face.
Clark then followed suit by taking a seat next to Whitney while trying to maintain the least threatening posture possible.
Aubrey's natural curiosity was stronger than her sense of fear. She selected the armchair with the clearest path to the door and then gracefully slid into it.
"We need your help," began Clark. "A couple of friends of ours are missing and we hoped you could use your resources to help us locate them."
Aubrey slowly shook her head. "I run a camera factory. I don't have any 'resources' to locate missing individuals."
Clark took a deep breathe. He didn't see any way to secure her help without revealing at least a part of the truth. "This is going to sound insane, but we are travelers from the distant future. One of the missing women will one day be your best friend."
Aubrey wondered what game they were trying to play on her. Even back in her original civilization, which was so far advanced over this one of 1936, time travel had been impossible.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, I'm afraid not. And I have knowledge about you that I think you will find convincing."
Aubrey's face erupted into a big grin. "Okay, I'll bite. What possible information could you have about me that would convince me you are really time travelers?"
"I know you are seventeen thousand two hundred and some odd years old."
The grin on her face felt frozen for an instant. How could he possibly know her true age? Certainly with a great deal of effort someone could uncover her past life, possibly even her last couple of lives. But she hadn't told anyone her true age in almost five hundred years and that information was most definitely not written down anywhere.
Before she had time to consider any options, Clark continued.
"I visited the Flavian palace in Rome in the spring of 37 A.D. I know you were in Egypt at the time, but I did meet Rogerus. And I am sorry to say, I was accidentally responsible for the destruction of the stain glass windows in the Solarium. You know the ones with the hunting scene and your face on the Sphinx. I do hope you were able to have the windows restored."
She hadn't thought about Rogerus or those windows in years. Quickly she checked her memories of those distant times. She had been in Egypt at the time the man stated. And she had received a letter from Rogerus several months later. The windows had been destroyed and it was about the same time as the mysterious destruction of the arena and the Praetorian Camp.
Time travel had to be impossible, didn't it? All the theories she had seen said the potentials for disruptive paradoxes made the concept of time travel impossible. But all of the facts the man had rattled off had been correct. How else could he know those kinds of details about a time almost two thousand years in the past?
Before she had time to ponder things further, the twins came racing into the room.
"Mamma, Mamma," they yelled after discovering she was done with her work for the day and therefore play-hour was finally here.
It wasn't until they had almost reached her that they noticed the strange men in the room. As children so often can, they instantly sensed the tension in the room. And tension was something they almost never felt from their mother. No, not with THEIR mother. Some of their playmates' mothers would occasionally get mad or angry or cry or scream, but never their mother. She was always calm, collected, in control. So, if their mother was tense, they were immediately a little scared.
Moving at a speed which almost made Clark proud, they quickly vanished behind Aubrey's chair until only a small face peaked out on each side with a hand extended forward to maintain physical contact with their mother.
Aubrey looked over at the two strangers for a moment. They both looked so young and earnest. Suddenly she had a good feeling about them. Oh, she still wasn't convinced she believed their story, but she simply 'knew' they didn't pose any danger to her or the children. Perhaps the children could help put everyone at their ease. And give her a little more time to think.
"Patrick, Maddie," began Aubrey in her best mother's voice. "I have some new friends I would like you to meet. They are American."
"Amerikanisch?" said Patrick excitedly. Then momentarily forgetting he was supposed to be afraid, the boy stepped out from behind the chair to where he could get a better view.
"Speak English, Patrick, like we practice."
"Yes, Mamma, ah, Mother," responded the boy, before he turned back to the men and blurted out, "Have you ever fought Injuns?"
Aubrey laughed. "You know cowboys no longer fight Indians that is just in the cinema. And where are your manners? You haven't even been introduced yet."
Almost unnoticed, the little girl had also stepped out from behind her side of the chair. "My name is Maddalyn."
"So it is, little girl. Now come here." And Aubrey pulled the children around in front of her chair until they stood side-by-side facing the men. Then she leaned forward between them, unknowingly mimicking the pose from the photo on the mantel. She happened to be looking at 'C.K.' at the time and couldn't help but notice the expression on his face. Why, when she leaned forward, did it trigger such a look of longing? One more question for her to ponder. Hopefully as the information, facial expressions, and body language accumulated, her 'bot system would start recognizing some patterns and make some useful extrapolations.
"Patrick, Maddie, this is C.K. and W."
Whitney could understand Clark's desire not to give away their names. But having himself referred to as W. was totally lame. C.K. had an interesting ring, but W. or W.F. wasn't quite the same. And if you drawled it out, it started sounding too much like George 'Dubya' Bush. Not that being associated with Bush was necessarily a bad thing; the Fordmans had always been Republicans. But still, being referred to as W. was lame.
"Actually," Whitney said, "The name is Will."
Aubrey looked at him with a little smile. "Okay, Will and C.K. These are my children, Patrick and Maddalyn."
Then she turned back to the children. "And when do you turn six?"
Immediately they both shouted back, "In nine days!"
Whitney grinned. "Well, in case we don't see you on your big day, Happy Birthday."
The twins grinned back at him, feeling steadily more at ease.
Clark glanced over at Whitney, grateful he was taking the lead with the children. But then since Whitney's little sister, Sara, was seven, he had a lot more practice dealing with young kids than Clark. Plus, it wasn't Whitney's girlfriend who was sitting across from them. Clark had to fight a strong urge to go over there and give her a hug. God, how he had missed Chloe since they had been back here in Nazi Germany.
Aubrey wanted to continue the now interrupted conversation with these two men, but it wasn't something appropriate in front of the children. If they overheard something interesting, they might innocently pass it along to some inappropriate party.
"It is such a beautiful afternoon, why don't we move out onto the terrace? And Patrick and Maddie, maybe you could show Will and C.K. what you have been learning in tumbling class."
With shouts of 'Me, first! Me, first!' the twins raced over to the door leading out onto the patio.
Rising to her feet, Aubrey took a step forward and then gestured towards the open door. As Clark and Whitney stood, Aubrey's hand came close to touching Whitney's arm. Abruptly, Clark grabbed her hand and jerked it back. A hint of alarm returned to her face as she looked from her hand up to Clark's face.
"Sorry," apologized Clark, as he regretfully let go over her hand. "Will has a set of your 'bots in his body. I am afraid it is very dangerous for you to know too much about the future. And if you touch him, you will definitely know too much. We don't want to create a paradox, which might change history."
Aubrey numbly nodded her head while her mind went into overdrive. They knew about her 'bots! She never, ever, ever had told anyone about her 'bots. Not that anyone since the fall of her original civilization would even understand the concept of nanotechnology. No, when she used the 'bots healing powers on herself or others or she used the gift to read other's minds, she always claimed it to be a magic trick or one of her mysterious powers when she was play-acting as one of the gods.
She certainly would have remembered if she had ever used her 'bots on him. So, if he really had a set of her 'bots, she must have done it some time in the future, which would certainly help support their time travel story. The big question was - why had she introduced her 'bots into his body? The reasons she had done it in the past fell into three main categories. First was to save a desperately hurt or dying friend. Second was to ensure the loyalty of her vassals. Third was to extract some information from a foe.
If Will had been a foe, it seemed unlike they would have come to her looking for her help. It had been millennia since she had used her 'bots to coerce the behavior of others, so it seemed unlikely she would start doing that again in the future. Besides, if she had used those methods on Will, his attitude towards her as they stood there would be way different from how he was behaving. So that left the first option as the most likely; in the future, Will would turn out to be an important friend. This would certainly tie in with C.K.'s original statement that they needed help locating a missing woman, who would one day be her best friend.
And perhaps, if Will really had a set of her 'bots, it would be the conclusive proof she needed to know they were telling the truth.
"Will, if you could give me a tiny sample of your blood, it would be proof you are who you say you are. And if it is small enough, I shouldn't be able to extract any dangerous memories."
Aubrey watched as Will glanced over to C.K., who after a couple of seconds gave a small nod. Will certainly looked to be the older of the two, but C.K. was apparently in charge. Why? One more bit of data to feed into her 'bot database.
"Okay," responded Will. As they stepped out onto the terrace, he fished out his pocketknife. Looking around for a good place to work, he finally walked over to the heavy stone railing which separated the terrace from the gentle grassy slope leading down to the river.
Without giving himself time to think about it, Whitney jabbed the sharp blade into his left index finger. As the blood rose to the surface, he transferred the tiniest possible bead to the knife. Then he smeared the blood on the flat, upper surface of the gray stone railing.
Pulling his handkerchief to wipe the remaining blood from the blade and then to stop the bleeding of his finger, Whitney took a step back and away to allow Aubrey to reach the sample without risking touching him.
Aubrey reached down and touched her right index finger to the trace of blood smeared on the stone. Instantly, her 'bot network brought the 'bots in the sample on-line. At this point Aubrey wasn't particularly surprised to find they were really were present; what would have been the point of the others lying about something that could so easily be tested?
The several hundred thousand 'bots available were too few to store any complete memories of Will's, but they did provide the information that the 'bots had been introduced into Will's body only four days earlier. Four days? That was strange, she would have guessed, if he had them at all, they would have been introduced months or years earlier.
Aubrey looked at the men. "How long have you been back here in 1936?"
At first Clark took her question to mean she had the proof she needed to believe they truly were from the future. "Four days."
At this comment Clark saw her eyes flick rapidly back and forth between him and Whitney as though thoughts were racing through her head. Then he realized she must have gotten at least some data from the 'bots in Whitney's blood, like maybe how long they had been there. He was going to have to explain a little more of things to clarify, and to ensure she understood the urgency of their task.
"There was, or will be, an accident up in the future. Your 'bots had to be introduced into Whi . . . ahh Will, to save him, but that wasn't the end of it. No, we only discovered when it was almost too late that there was something back here we needed to retrieve before things in the future became irreversible. I only found out we needed to come back here to 1936 Germany three minutes before we left."
Clark shook his head before continuing. "Three minutes. There wasn't time to learn the language or even find appropriate clothes. We just had to go. At least I had the experience of having been back to ancient Rome, so I had a little idea what to expect. Since we didn't have any time to prepare before we left, we were fortunately able to set our arrival here for a week before the events of interest, so we could do a little preparation at this end instead.
"Unfortunately, when we got here, we discovered one of the locals we must deal with was being held by the Gestapo."
At this point in Clark's explanation, he was interrupted by a muttered, "Fucking Gestapo," by Whitney.
"Yeah," continued Clark, picking up and amplifying some of Whitney's sentiments. "Not just your everyday, garden variety Gestapo, but some fucking crazy off-shoot branch that is on some 'glorious' mission to find ancient relics with mystical powers to ensure the Third Reich will last the thousand years Hitler keeps boasting about."
Calming back down a little, Clark went on. "Sorry. Anyway, did you hear about the destruction of the chateau on the outskirts of Berlin last night? The one where the cliff collapsed and the whole building slid down into the river?"
Aubrey nodded. She had heard it mentioned while she had been listening to the radio during lunch.
"That was one of the bases of operation for the 'occult' branch of the Gestapo. We managed to rescue the man from back here that we need, but the chateau was destroyed in the process. And, unfortunately, the girl who came back with us was captured. We have no idea where they have taken her or the local woman who was with her. We have less than three days to get her back before the events, which are the real reason we came back here, come to fruition. That's why we had to come to you for help. We have no idea where to look next."
Aubrey had to wonder if the missing girl was a future version of herself. It sounded like she had introduced her 'bots into Will just minutes before they had traveled back in time. Was that why they were being so cagey and revealing so little about what was going on or even their 'real' names? If this truly involved a future version of herself, she was definitely going to have to help.
"Okay, I will try to do what I can to help locate your 'friend'. Do you have any more information to go on? Names? Descriptions? Anything that will give me a place to start?"
Clark let out a small sigh. If Aubrey was going to help, things had to get better. "Will, what was the name of the officer who took the girls away?"
Whitney remembered the name Lana and Laura had given him while they had been in the virtual reality place, but why hadn't he thought to ask for a description? Or as the girls were being dragged from the ballroom, why hadn't he taken a quick look? If only he could remember what had happened right before he had been shot to death. But then maybe not remembering being killed was a good thing.
"Major Biberach. Unfortunately, I never got a look at him."
"And the two women you are looking for?" asked Aubrey in almost morbid fascination, wondering if she was about to hear a description of herself.
Clark hated to provide anymore information about the future than was absolutely necessary, but Lana's and Marion's names might show up in records which Aubrey could access. Hopefully, both of their names were common enough to not be too memorable to her fifty or sixty years in the future.
"The names you will want to look for are Lana Lang and Marion Jones. Lana is sixteen with long black hair, a little shorter than you, and has a more petite build. Marion is about forty with shoulder length black hair and she is tall, five nine or five ten."
Aubrey nodded, but had to wonder if this 'Lana' was really her. She did sometimes live as a brunette, and the slightly shorter, more petite comments could just be C.K.'s way of trying to keep her from learning too much about the future.
"Okay, I will try to make some quick, quiet inquiries. How can I reach you when I get some information?"
Clark gave her the phone number back at the Olympic Village, but Aubrey was barely listening, not that it mattered with the 'bot network's total recall abilities. No, she was already thinking about how best to start a search. Johan was the obvious place.
And then, as though thinking about him was enough to make him magically appear, the terrace door from the living room opened again.
"Ahh, there you are Aubrey," began a man's deep baritone voice in resounding German. "I hope I have made it home in time to have dinner with the children before we must get ready for the opera."
Aubrey, Clark, and Whitney turned from the railing where they had been watching the children play down below, while they had had their private conversation. Clark and Whitney found themselves facing the tall man from the photos on the mantel. Aubrey's husband. Only now he stood there wearing the crisp black uniform of a high ranking member of the Gestapo. For a moment they were both dumbfounded. How could Chloe, or rather Aubrey, be mixed up with the Gestapo? Had she truly believed their story and was she going to help? Or had she merely been stalling them until he arrived? Were they going to have to fight their way out of her home?
Aubrey quickly moved across and pulled her husband into a hug. Then with an arm still wrapped around him, she turned back to Will and C.K.
Speaking in English, she said. "Johan, this is the son of one of my distributors in Chicago and a friend of his. I met them when I was in America five years ago, but they have certainly grown up a lot since then. They are traveling through Europe for the summer and happened to stop by this afternoon."
Well, she appears to be playing along thought Clark as he stepped forward and offered his hand. "It is nice to meet you sir. My name is Calvin Klein, but my friend's call me C.K."
Whitney couldn't suppress his laugh and when the others looked at him, he tried to turn it into a cough. Only Clark would figure out a way to pay tribute to the most famous time-traveler of the twentieth century, Marty McFly. For a moment Whitney wondered if Clark actually had a pair of underwear back home with the name 'Calvin Klein' on the waistband.
Once he had his grin more or less under control, Whitney stepped forward and offered his hand. "Will," hmm, if Clark was going to go the famous name route, he could to. "Will Smith."
"Johan Steenbergen," responded the man in the black uniform with only a modest German accent to his English. "It is always nice to meet one of Aubrey's associates or at least sons of associates from America."
As Aubrey kept her arm wrapped around Johan and carefully avoided touching Will, she took in the uneasy expression she had seen on Will and C.K.'s faces since the moment they had seen her husband's uniform. They had obviously run a foul of some splinter group of the SS, but then every large organization always had a few crazies. The SS had an important job to do and they had rules to follow like everyone else. Or at least that was how she thought things were in 1936, a time long before the atrocities of World War 2 would come to light or even yet occur.
"Johan is the head of the Waffen-SS for the entire Saxony district," began Aubrey hoping this information would help Will and C.K. to understand she had access to Gestapo information at the highest levels to help in her search for their missing friends. But all she saw was how the unease in their eyes grew even more. Why did they so fear the SS?
Having just met the two boys, Johan didn't realize how much his presence in his uniform disturbed them. "You must stay for dinner. I, for one, and I am sure Patrick, for another, would enjoy hearing all about life in the States. And if you like, I am sure we can arrange a couple of extra tickets for the opera."
Clark was getting very mixed signals from Aubrey; was she really going to help them or not? Everything had been going so well until her husband showed up. And it was suddenly hard to be certain of his own feelings. Was it that Johan was a ranking member of the Gestapo that bothered him the most? Or was it meeting one of Chloe's former husbands which caused these sudden feelings of hurt and betrayal? Would he have felt the same way towards any of the hundreds of others, even if they weren't Nazi bastards?
"I'm sorry, it would be fun to have some more time to spend together, but we are just on a short lay-over on our way from Prague to Berlin. We have to be heading back to the train station shortly to make our six-thirty train. Will's father is expecting us on that train and is meeting us at the Berlin station. One of our friends from High School is a swimmer on the America Olympic team, so we are going to be in Berlin for the games."
Johan nodded his understanding, he knew about keeping to schedules while being on vacations.
Aubrey could see C.K. and Will were uncomfortable in her husband's presence and she had gotten the information she needed, so perhaps it would be best to end this meeting now.
"Johan, why don't you go play with the children, they will be so happy to see you in daylight for once. I will show Will and C.K. out and then join you."
Johan nodded and headed towards the stairs leading down to where the children were still practicing their tumbling and cartwheels.
As Aubrey put her hand on the handle to open the door back into the house, Clark remembered something Chloe had told him long ago in a massage room in ancient Tolosa on the day he had finally revealed his secrets to her, and had to ask, "Are Patrick and Maddie really your children?"
Aubrey paused and looked at him for a moment. Perhaps the truth would help her to re-establish their trust. "No. Their mother was a good friend of mine who died in childbirth. But I hate to see children grow up without a mother. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, it was just related to something you will tell me one time up in the future. It's not important." As they walked down the hall towards the front door, Clark knew he shouldn't reveal any more about the future than what was absolutely necessary, but he felt compelled to give her a warning. "I can see you really care about the children and, though I shouldn't, I want to give you a warning about the future."
At this Aubrey paused and looked up into C.K.'s eyes. They had been so careful not to give her any information about the future, and now he was about to knowingly violate that restriction. And it appeared to involve her kids. Perhaps she hadn't given birth to Patrick and Maddie, but she felt as close to them as any of her own natural children.
"There is a big war coming. Oh, you have some time. I am not good at ancient history, but in August or September of 1939, Hitler will invade Poland and start a second great war. Only this time the casualties won't be limited mostly to the military. No, the civilian casualties in Europe will be in the range of one hundred million. And ultimately, Germany will bear the brunt of the deaths and destruction."
Aubrey was almost paralyzed with shock. One hundred million dead, how was that possible?
But Clark wasn't finished yet. "And this beautiful city of Dresden will not escape the destruction. They will even coin a new word for what happens here: firestorm. The city will bombed from the air for three days and nights. The fires that will be started will all grow together into one massive conflagration. The fire will be so intense it will begin to draw all of the air and oxygen from the surrounding areas, which will just feed the fire and at the same time suffocate everyone around. By the time it is over, the death toll will, I think, approach one hundred thousand with most of the deaths by asphyxiation. After the war, for much of the world, the name of Dresden will come to be synonymous with death."
Aubrey could suddenly do nothing but stare at C.K. and watch him try to give a small smile.
"Obviously, I will know you in the future, so you will survive. But I don't know about the fate of the children. If you care about them, please get them out of Europe within the next couple of years. They should be safe somewhere in the Americas or maybe Australia."
Aubrey nodded as she continued to look into C.K.'s face. She knew his fear of a time paradox and what it must have cost him to give her this information. Why did he decide to do it, she wondered? He had only known Patrick and Maddie for twenty minutes, so why should he care so much? And then she realized he wasn't doing it for the children, he was doing it for her; to keep her from going through a potentially painful loss. And then suddenly all of his words, facial expressions, and body language 'clicked'. She and this C.K. would be together in the future. How painful was it for him to see her currently married to someone else and raising someone else's children as her own? And yet he was trying to put their happiness and safety first.
For a moment longer Aubrey just stared up into the face of this man, trying to burn every nuance into her fantastic memory. Suddenly, she had this vision of them doing great and important things together in the oh-so-distant future and she couldn't help but throw her arms around him for a quick hug.
C.K. returned the hug with such ferocious strength she thought he was going to crack a couple of her ribs even as it convinced her that her deductions had been correct. All she could do was whisper 'Thank You' for the warning about the possible fate of her children.
Clark didn't want to release her now that he had found her again, but knew that he must. This Chloe's future was here, not with him. Still, the hug had managed to raise his mood from the depressing conversation about wars and death. He only let his fingers linger in hers for a moment before stepping back.
Aubrey stepped past the two men and opened the heavy front door. "I promise I will get word to you as soon as I find out anything about your two missing friends."
Clark nodded. He now knew she was on their side even if she was married to a Gestapo officer.
"It was nice meeting you," Clark said as he turned to go.
"And I am looking forward to seeing you again in the future," answered Aubrey with a smile. She would most definitely be watching out for an encounter with this 'C.K.' somewhere in the distant future.
As he walked down the front steps beside Whitney, Clark couldn't help remembering the first time he had met Chloe on the first day of eighth grade. Over that summer he had shot up from five six to five nine and was still growing fast. He felt so awkward and gangly on that first day. He was just trying to get down the hallway, mostly looking down at his feet to keep from tripping over them, when he heard a squeal and the sound of books hitting the floor up ahead. When he looked up, he found this strange girl just staring at him with her mouth hanging open. She wasn't dressed like any of the other girls in eighth grade but looked like some strange refugee from the big city all lost in rural Smallville. But after only a second she had closed her mouth and grown the giant smile he would get to know so well. Then she had marched right up to him and stuck out her hand, introducing herself as Chloe Sullivan.
As they passed out through the heavy, black wrought iron gate, Whitney couldn't help but notice the big grin on Clark's face. "What you thinking about, Clark?"
"Oh, I was just remembering the first time I met Chloe. It was the first day of the eighth grade and when she saw me, she dropped her books and her mouth fell open in shock. I never understood why until just now."
"Ah, and here I thought you were thinking about your alter-ego, Marty McFly."
Clark looked at Whitney and grinned. "So why did you pick Will Smith? You don't look very black and you have never struck me as musically inclined."
Whitney put a momentarily hurt expression on his face before breaking back into a grin. "When we were standing on the terrace, it suddenly occurred to me that we are the two 'baddest boys' around."
Then Whitney threw his arm over Clark's shoulder and started whistling the theme song to 'Cops'. When he got to the chorus, they both shouted out the words:
'Bad boys, bad boys. What'cha gonna do when they come for you. Bad boys . . .'
End of Chapter 12
Author's Notes:
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. A special thanks to 'BeyondLSD'. Several others have requested I bring back Chloe, but somehow the way he stated his comment triggered a new direction in my head.
BeyondLSD - I hope you like the way it turned out. I know it is somewhat different than what we discussed in the e-mails, but I thought this was more fun - Let Clark think he knows who it will be and then change it to the original Chloe instead. I like the awkwardness between the characters that resulted. At first I thought using the original Chloe would mess up the time line of the whole story, but I went back and looked at the early part of 'The Portal', and saw I had given myself an out. When Clark and Chloe first kiss in the pool in the Professor's canyon, Chloe thinks to herself how it seemed like she had been waiting for this moment almost forever. At the time, I meant it to be about her 'yet-to-be-revealed' long life and her never having met someone who was truly her equal. But it works equally well if she had first met Clark over 65 years earlier in Nazi Germany. Even for Chloe, waiting 65 years for a kiss would seem like almost forever.
Limar - Not a teacher or student or before I started writing, not even that avid a fan of history, just a long-time reader with wildly varied tastes. When I first decided to try my hand at writing, I spent several hours sitting out on my deck on a Sunday afternoon with a pencil and a tablet and scribbled out a bunch of potential ideas. When I realized that almost no back story had been given about Chloe's character during the first season except she had arrived in Smallville a couple of years earlier, I knew I could do something completely different with her. And once I decided she would be from some long lost ancient civilization, then a time travel story where her secret would be revealed in the most shocking manner was the obvious way to go (Although looking back, I can see my writing skills back then are nowhere near what they are now, and I could do that part of the story so much better.) When I was sitting there trying to decide on a time period for the story I happened to be in the middle of listening to audio book version of 'I, Claudius' in my car. I think listening to that book is why I decided to set the story during the early months of Caligula's reign. Anyway, since the basic plot line of the story is so preposterous, it seems important to get the details as correct as possible to make the story seem more real. Over the past couple of years I probably spend almost as much time on research as I do writing. Of course, just like the internet, you shouldn't necessarily trust my facts about history. Probably sixty percent of my facts are true, thirty percent are slightly twisted to fit the needs of the story, and ten percent are things I just make up. Hopefully, if I am good enough, you can't tell which are the sixty percent and which are the ten percent. In this chapter, the camera company which Aubrey owns, 'Ihagee Kamerawerk Steenbergen & Co.', was a real camera company that existed in Dresden and which did develop the 35mm SLR camera and did introduce it in 1936. The owner, Johan Steenbergen, has an interesting story of his own. He was actually Belgian. His company was 'nationalized' by the Nazis in the late 1930s. He was married to an American woman of Jewish ancestry. In early 1942 after Germany declared war on the United States, he and his wife were allowed to leave Germany and traveled via Lisbon to the U.S. where they spent the remainder of the war. After the war, Dresden ended up in the Russia sector and he spent years trying to regain control of his former company from the communists. Very interesting stuff.
About your question about Lana/Laura. I don't yet know how their story will ultimately play out. But it is not particularly about gay vs. straight or even about sex. It is about a seventeen thousand year old mind which has seen and done everything suddenly trapped into sharing the body of a sixteen year old girl. Plus there are some things going on with Laura's situation which will come more fully to light in the next chapter (Think Patty Hearst). Truthfully, I see the situation sort of like an arranged marriage in the good old days; two total strangers have to find a way to live with each other. Plus Lana and Laura's situation is even more tightly woven than any simple marriage. I think it will be awhile before they find a true equilibrium that is comfortable for both of them.
Rebel Goddess - I don't have any specific plans in mind for the Gretchen character at the moment, but I am open to suggestions by you or anyone else. I am learning it useful to thrown in some extra characters from time to time. Sometimes they just disappear forever and sometimes they resurface a few chapters later. Sort of like the old Latin instructor in the first story and how he ended up playing a role in the climax of events in Rome. If you have plenty of story threads going, when you pull a bunch of them together it suddenly makes the story look more planned than it really is. Of course, my stories are more about the journey than the actual destination.
Anyway, I am always open to suggestions which will enrich the story. Although I will admit, I am more responsive to suggestions that fit into the story.
Until next time,
Duane