Chapter 8

May 25, 2042

Metropolis

The clock hanging over the office door showed 10:11 PM and the two women sat drinking coffee at an eight-foot conference table in Lois' office at the Planet. Elle had flown them from the apartment to the Daily Planet. With glasses on and her hair pulled back, Elle had followed Lois into the lobby and boarded the elevator that took them to the top floor.

Large GUI screens were embedded in the glass top that sat inside the rich walnut conference table that sat in her office. At this table, Lois would meet with the Department heads and review the next day's stories, enabling her to reset the order in which stories were to appear simply by touch. Aside from the high tech conference table, little else had changed in the way the Planet looked. Even Lois had changed little in the Editor-in-Chief's office preferring to maintain the rich, old school appearance of the room.

The same could not be said for the atmosphere at the Daily Planet: it was eerily quiet. It had been quite some time since Lois had been in her office this late in the evening and the Daily Planet was like a tomb. It was not at all the way it had been back in the days of Superman, Jimmy, and Perry. Even at this hour in those days, things would be hopping at the paper.

Lois began displaying the front page of the Daily Planet beginning with the day that Elle appeared in the park; just after her second birthday in April of 2021. From the front page she moved backward through first ten pages of Section A and then the first ten pages of Section B. Elle followed along sitting in the seat to her right.

In the year 2028 the Daily Planet would end publishing its paper in hard copy print and convert to an all digital format. The digital Daily Planet would be the first major newspaper that made the complete conversion. Many papers had a reduced digital edition of their newspapers but the Planet had become fully digital, sending their newspaper to subscribers' personal enrichment devices, reducing the costs of operating a newspaper and saving all but those who once oversaw the automated printing presses. The all-digital Daily Planet was Perry White's final crowning achievement before he retired and handing the reins of the newspaper over to Lois.

Next to her lay a lined legal pad and pen. She decided that she would take notes in order to connect whatever dots might exist between the prospective event and other later events that led to catastrophic results. As she digitally flipped through the first archived images of the old formatted newspaper, Lois grew a bit nostalgic. The word, "Superman" was particularly hard for her to see as it evoked faded memories of a better time. She had to clear her throat before she said, "Section A is the world and national news, B is the local news, C is sports and D is finance. I think what we're looking for could be in any of those sections…except for the Sports section. I don't think the outcome of the World Series or Super Bowl would have an impact on the future," she said with a grin.

"And it has to be a significant event," Elle reminded. "Father said that it wasn't as simple as you turning right when you should have turned left."

"Right! And it has to somehow link back to Lex and his plan, I would think." She looked up. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Nodding without looking up, Elle answered, "I think so." Elle read text as Lois looked at article headers and tried to consider what link they may have to Lex and his plan.

After twenty minutes of scanning the pages, Lois sat upright. "This is going to take longer than I imagined." They had gone through only a week of Daily Planet papers. "At this rate, we'll be here for a week."

"We could use another set of eyes," Elle replied. "Someone who can speed read and comprehends complex things." She looked up at her mother. "Do you think someone from the JL would be available?"

She squint her eyes and looked at the clock above the door. 10:34 PM. Lois smiled and with an arched eyebrow, "I've got a better idea," she said. Sweeping away the newspaper image in front of her, she tapped the glass top and keyed in a contact name. "I hope that it's not too late for…" She halted her conversation when her cousin's face appeared on the GUI. "Hey Cuz," she said.

"Uh-oh. It must be a problem," Chloe replied, smirking. "What's the matter?"

"I need your help in a big way. Can you break free right now?"

"Sure," she replied. "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you when you get here."

"Okay but it's going to take me about forty-five minutes to get there."

"No it won't," Lois replied, "Can you be ready in five?"

"Sure…I take it you're at work pulling an all-nighter," she said with a cocked head. "I'll let Emil know he's 'on duty' tonight." For the last sixteen years, the two had been happily married after Chloe had given birth to their highly-precocious daughter; now 18-years old but still quite capable of getting herself into trouble faster than a speeding bullet.

"Thanks Chlo. I'll see you in a few," Lois said and tapped the glass, clearing the screen. She looked at Elle. "Do you know where Chloe lives?"

Elle made a face. "I used to know," she said. "Is she still at the place that Oliver Queen bought her?"

"That's the place!" Elle rose and headed for the door. "Take it easy on her though," Lois warned. "It's been a quite a few years since she's been blurred or flown and unlike your Mom, she has aged normally."

"That was exhilarating!" Chloe proclaimed as she entered the room looking slightly wind-blown but no worse for the wear. "I can't remember the last time I took Kent Airways."

"Well, it has to have been over twenty years ago; that's for sure," Lois said.

"So," she began, "dabbling in time travel again?" she asked with a half-smile.

"Something like that. Here's what's going on." For the next thirty minutes, Lois explained the entire scenario to Chloe who sat nonplussed at the revelations her cousin made about timelines, divergence points and alternate futures. Elle occasionally chimed in whenever her mother's details of alternate futures and pasts went askew or were vague. When finished, Chloe sat silently, nodding slightly and piecing the saga together.

"None of this seems to surprise you," Elle said. She smiled curiously, "You don't find this all a bit strange, do you?"

Chloe chuckled. "Lara, if you knew all that I've lived through with your Mom and Dad, you wouldn't bother asking that. I was surprised thirty-three years ago when your Mom ended up on an elevated train wreck in Metropolis after being missing for two weeks and learning she had spent a couple days a year into the future. After experiencing that, nothing is surprising." She looked at Lois. "So you want me to help skim the news and find an event you think will change the course of history; is that it?"

Nodding, Lois added, "It will have to tie into Lex Luthor and his plan to become President for life. The problem is that it will probably be so vague an event that it won't be apparent if you don't follow all the possible leads."

Frowning, Chloe said, "Log me in to your archive access, Lo. I'll make this easy for all of us." Lois did and her younger cousin who now looked like an older Aunt began furiously tapping on the glass top in front of her. "It's pretty simple to create a linking routine based on certain constants and variables and their known or predicted outcomes using a simple algorithm."

"Of course," Lois declared sarcastically. "Why didn't I think of that in the first place?" She rolled her eyes and looked at Elle who was unsuccessfully trying to suppress a smile.

After about fifteen minutes of tapping and muttering, Chloe raised her head. "There," she said, "I think it's ready to run."

"Hit it!" Lois said. The GUI display flickered a couple times and began with an initial display. "What's with the red number at the top? Tell me that's not the number of events we have to review."

"No. It's the probability percentage that the event produced an outcome that was favorable to Lex achieving his plan of reshaping the Supreme Court makeup that would allow him to repeal the 22nd Amendment. The higher the number, the more likely the outcome was a component of Lex's plan. The events will be ordered from the highest percent to the lowest."

The highest number was logically attributed to the murder of Justice Hough; that number being 100. The second event that was displayed was the foiled assassination attempt on Pete Ross and the First Lady of Taiwan, Madam Yu; also assigned a 100. From there, the red number at the top of the screen began to drop. As the number fell below 50, a yellow page icon appeared. "What's that?" Elle asked.

"It's the link sequence," Chloe replied. "Tap it." Elle tapped the yellow icon and a chart was displayed with circles and lines connecting to know outcomes and predicted outcomes had the chain of events not been interrupted. "Each circle represents a corresponding outcome that furthered a favorable path to Lex achieving his goal. Tap any of the circles and it will tell you what that predicted outcome was or would have been."

"Wow!" Lois cried.

"Yes," her younger cousin replied. "But it's just the start. Now comes the more difficult part: trying to choose which event caused the divergence of timelines." She paused and looked at the women. "There are twenty-six events that have more than a ten-percent probability of being tied to Lex's plan. We have to go through each one of them…closely."

"We'll need more coffee," Lois offered and rose. "I trust everyone else will want a cup?"

"Or a quart!" Chloe replied. She frowned as Lois moved to the large coffee machine that was situated in the far corner of the office. "Remind me again why we're starting with the date we did? How did you choose that day as a starting point?"

"That's the first date I arrived in the past to talk to Mom," Elle replied. "I was apparently the cause of Mom telling Father about what happened to her in the Fortress."

Chloe's head jerked and she swiveled around in her chair to face Lois. "What happened to you in the Fortress?"

Lois kept her back turned and head down, focusing on preparing each a mug of coffee. "Oh, just a…private audience I had with Jor-El that I always regretted," she said nonchalantly. "Do you want cream, Chlo?" Chloe declined.

Frowning, her younger cousin pressed as Lois returned to the table and handed her a mug. "Thanks. Something tells me that there was more to it than just a private audience. What did you talk about with Jor-El?" She glanced at Elle who now realized that her mother had never told her cousin about the events in the Fortress that day. She felt embarrassed and took the mug of steaming coffee from her mother and sipped it, avoiding making eye contact with Chloe.

"Well," Lois began. "It was a long time ago," she began and sat down in her chair. "But after Lara was born, Clark took us to the Fortress so that Jor-El could analyze her physical makeup. We thought it would be useful to know what percentage of her biology was Kryptonian so that we'd have a better understanding of what to expect as she grew up." Chloe nodded. "And while we were there, Jor-El said he wanted to speak to me privately so Clark took Lara into the bedroom and they both fell asleep on the bed. Jor-El told me that because my physiology was changing from of the influence of Clark's DNA, any additional children would have a greater percent of human characteristics. He convinced me that they would pose a significant danger to humanity since humans had not evolved enough emotionally to handle having super powers. So he gave me a choice to either quit having physical relations with Clark or submit to a sterilization procedure." She sipped her coffee.

"And you agreed to that?" She nodded. "I can't believe you would let anyone talk you into that," she exclaimed incredulously. "Especially Jor-El!"

"Chloe," she began, "you have to understand that we felt so blessed that we even had Lara and Jor-El was so convincing; he made it sound like the future of mankind hung in the balance. I admit, it wasn't my finest hour but I knew what the future held for all of us and I wasn't going to allow anything to take that away from us."

"But you did!" Chloe cried. She stared at Lois and then looked at Elle. "Don't you see? That was the significant event that changed the course of history!"

Lois made a face. "How could us having more children change the course of history when Lex was at the center of everything that happened? Come on, Chloe; that doesn't make sense. In the scope of mankind, it's hardly significant."

"What happened after that?"

"Nothing," she replied. "We moved on with our lives up until the moment that Clark ran into Darkseid." She paused and Chloe frowned, trying to connect dots. "And I don't even know for sure that the future I learned about the night I had Lara has actually changed. Maybe Clark regains his memories and we continue on from there and things turn out just the way he said they would."

"Mom was killed when I was eight, Chloe," Elle offered. "In my past, Mom was killed after China had launched a nuclear counterstrike against the US in retaliation for the one that Lex Luthor had launched against it. But now Mom's alive because that attack never happened and Lex was caught ordering the murder of Justice Hough before he could arrange things to take that step." She looked at her mother. "I know there is a divergence in the timeline between the moment I showed up and the time Mom was visited in the hospital on the night of my birth. But I'm with Mom; I'm not sure how her having more children would disrupt Lex's plan to reshape the Supreme Court and overturn Constitutional limits on Presidential terms."

She shook her head furiously. "It doesn't matter that you don't know how it impacts," she said strenuously. "The fact that your Mom made that decision changed the future for her and your father. That change somehow affected something that otherwise would have disrupted Lex's plan." Chloe tapped the glass table top in front of her and images of the Daily Planet's front page appeared and she began rapidly sweeping through page after page. "All of these things that are linked to Lex's plan…one of them is disrupted in some major way because of something your mother or father did or didn't do. Lex's plot never came to fruition because of something linked to your parents having more children, Elle. One of these events is altered somehow or there could be hundreds of others with a lower probability that are affected. There might even be some that are not in this group because they should or shouldn't have happened in the first place."

In a calm low voice, Lois said, "But Chloe; when Clark visited me the night Lara was born he never mentioned more children. In fact, he only talked about Lara and how the two of them worked together in the future. I think he would have mentioned it if we had more children. He would have said, "Our kids" or something like that; don't you think?"

She made a face. "He didn't even tell you what gender Lara would be and he knew that was going to happen within a couple hours. Do you really think he would have told you that you were going to have more children?" Lois shrugged her shoulders. "I'm sure he told you what you needed to hear right then and there and nothing more."

"Chloe; how sure are you that Mom's decision that day is the divergence point?" Elle inquired. "That happened about two weeks after I was born. If that's not the divergence point, I can't influence things again because there is no earlier point I can go to; there won't be a window of opportunity left unless I directly change it." She paused. "If that happens, there could be significant repercussions."

"Can't you go back and just warn your father about what will happen if he takes your mom to the Fortress? It seems that her being left alone with Jor-El that day was the cause of all the problems."

Elle sighed. "That's assuming I can pinpoint the right time to arrive in the past to intervene and that I'll be able to convince them not to go or not to let Jor-El sterilize Mom."

"I don't think the last part would be hard to do," Lois chimed in. "But whether or not you can make it back at the right time is the big question."

"And each time I go back, there's always the risk that I'll interact with someone and accidentally influence something that will cause other events to be affected," Elle added. "Even if I did hit it at the right moment, what if telling Father about Jor-El causes him to do something to the Fortress that impacts him or all of us later on? If it changes him and the relationship he had with Jor-El at that time, it could set other events in motion that never would have occurred if I hadn't intervened."

"You mean like Jor-El warning your father about Darkseid?" Chloe groaned softly. "I see what you mean."

They all sat silently for a few moments and sipped their coffee. Lois looked at the clock and it was now 1:18 AM. Finally she spoke. "Chloe; I think we've found what we were looking for. You should probably let Elle take you back home now while we figure out what to do."

Hugs were exchanged and before she left with Elle, Chloe turned to her older cousin. "I never understood why you and Clark never produced another child. I always figured that Lara's birth somehow prevented you from immediately having more children. Then, when Clark went into 'altered states' mode, I knew you wouldn't have the opportunity once you told me about your sleeping arrangements." She stared sadly at Lois. "I understand why you made the decision, Lo. Don't beat yourself up about it. Whether it was the right decision or the divergence point, you did what you thought was right at the time and I admire the sacrifice you made."

"Thanks, Chlo," she replied. "A lot of good it does now, right?"

Smiling she answered, "Only time will tell, Lois." Looking at Elle she added, "Keep the faith."

After depositing Chloe at home and bidding her farewell, Elle flew back to the Planet but slowly. She looked at the sparkling, serene city below; a city far different than she had ever witnessed before. It was a city so improved that she feared any further change would reset it back to the versions of Metropolis that she had previously known or glimpsed in her time travels. The magnitude of her choices began weighing on her. She knew that orchestrating another change in the past could have unexpected effects on her family but also have a tumultuous impact on the rest of the world. Elle also realized that she was running out of options. Going back so far in the past with only a two-week period between her birth and her mother's decision was an extremely narrow window of time to meet up with and change her parents' actions. Two weeks was a sliver of time and any change that resulted in disastrous outcomes for her family or mankind would make the window of opportunity to reverse it almost infinitesimal.

She was convinced that her mother's decision was indeed the divergence point in timelines given all the evidence at hand. In her mind, Elle ran through the few options available to her and with whom she risked interaction. Should she seek to convince her mother, her father, or someone else who could intervene without creating a dangerous ripple in time?

Landing on the roof of the Daily Planet, she stared out at the city and then looked up at the moonless sky above. Settling on a plan of action, she resolutely walked through the roof access door and down the stairs. "I'll take you home now, Mom," Elle said as she entered Lois' office.

"Not just yet. We have to talk first." The tone she used implied that the elder Lane-Kent had been weighing options as well. Elle walked over and joined her mother at the table where she sat viewing old digital images of the Daily Planet during its heyday. "What I wouldn't give to be back in these days, Elle. It was fast-paced and furious at times but it was the pinnacle of my existence; personally as well as professionally. Things were so different then, Honey. Even as great as Metropolis has evolved since these times, I would still prefer this version over what we have now." Her eyes grew watery. "I had you, I had a full-throated career…I had Superman by my side." She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "But sometimes you have to let the chips fall where they land, Honey. I made a bad decision that affected lives beyond just mine and as a result, our family has paid the price." She looked into the deep blue eyes of her daughter. "Our family has always been about sacrificing personal comforts and needs to ensure a better world. When I grew up, my family sacrificed having a father for what we all knew was the greater good. It didn't make it easy but we knew it was necessary." She paused, searching Elle's eyes. "The present we live in now isn't perfect, Elle, but mankind is evolving the way your father told me it would so many years ago. Even though it's not exactly the way I hoped it would unfold, it seems that fate has stepped in and allowed you to step in to your father's shoes and make a difference in the world."

"What are you saying Mom?"

Looking back at the images of Daily Planet front pages, Lois replied, "I think you've done enough, Sweetheart. Maybe it isn't perfect but civilization seems to be on track. Your continued influence in this time can push it ahead and we can still enjoy making a world where mankind is respectful of differences and unified in the belief that we are all in this together." She paused and looked up from the images before her. "I'm saying that you should take off the ring and live in this timeline; make the best of it and we can always hope that your father recovers his memories at some point."

Elle reached out and put her hand on her mother's forearm. "But what about you? I know you have to be lonely, Mom. I know that every day you see Father and hug him before you leave for work that your heart aches inside for more. I know that because I saw how amazing you two used to be. I know how deeply you loved one another on every level and most of those levels have been taken away from you and Father." She began to feel her eyes pooling. "I can't let you live like this for another 600 years and I know Father might recover some day but I also know there's a chance he won't. Leaving it like this could mean sentencing you to 600 years of heart ache and loneliness. I can't let that happen when I have the power to change it."

"Changing it will change you, Elle."

"Maybe for the better, Mom. Maybe it will give me a childhood in which I had parents who were in love with one another and that is the difference between civilization seeming to be on track and definitely being on the right track." She twisted the ring on her finger. "If I took this off now, all the memories of this lifetime will flood in and overtake those I have now. I won't know there's a difference and only you will know what the future might have held if I had just tried again." She looked down at the images her mother had been looking at. "Changing it will make this time in your life more meaningful and maybe make the years after it more fulfilling, Mom. I have to try one more time."

"Even if it's at your own peril, Sweetheart? If you make a change and something happens to you, you won't get another chance; your window of opportunity will be shut. I suppose you've considered that, right?"

"Yes," she replied. "I know that there's a distinct chance of that, Mom. But as you said, our family has always been about sacrifice and if I must make one for my family's future and the future of mankind, then it's a risk worth taking and a small price to pay."

Lois smiled sadly, looking at her strikingly beautiful daughter and nodded slightly. "And that's exactly the reason why I made the choice I did so many years ago in the Fortress." She lunged over and hugged her daughter, whispering through her tears. "Your father and grandfather would be so proud of you."