- 10 -
"If something has existed at some point then it can never entirely be eradicated," I said, "so there must be a way to get to the Earth-2 that was."
"Not by any scientific or mystical means I or anyone else is aware of," said the Thunderbolt.
This was getting me nowhere.
"Are there any survivors of Earth-2 who remember it at all?"
"Yes, but only two."
"Who?"
"The original Superman and his Lois Lane."
"What? But how? Shouldn't they have disappeared when the previous Earths were combined to form our current Earth?"
"Ordinarily, yes. But they survived in a pocket dimension outside of reality, along with the Alex Luthor of Earth-3 and the Superboy of Earth-Prime."
"Can they leave it?"
"This will happen very soon. That Superboy, who is immensely more powerful than either the current or Earth-2 Supermen, will punch his way out, and Alex Luthor will partially restore the multiverse. Where there were infinite universes there will then be fifty-two."
"What about the Earth-2 Superman and his Lois Lane?"
"Both will die, I'm afraid, her of old age and him shortly afterwards in battle."
"Is this partial restoration of the multiverse another reality-altering event?"
"No. Additional universes will be added but this one will be unaffected by that."
"Is there another reality-altering event anywhere on the horizon?"
"It's called Flashpoint and occurs a few years after the restoration of the multiverse," said the Thunderbolt. "I can see a little way beyond that but am unable to see futures for either of us."
"Why not?"
"Because we don't appear to exist in that coming reality. Neither do the JSA."
That's when the futility of my position hit me. I had finally succeeded, was finally ruler of the world, but against forces that could reshape whole universes I was nothing. In that moment of clarity I had an epiphany. Power was ultimately meaningless; the most important thing of all was my continued survival.
And I was determined to survive. But how? Then it hit me, an intuitive leap.
"It's Superman and Lois Lane. It's always them. They survive no matter what."
"Possibly," said the Thunderbolt, "but how does that help you?"
"Ah, now that," I said, "that will require something I've never been very good at."
"Which is?"
"A leap of faith."
- 11 -
What I'd told the Thunderbolt was true. I intended to take the place of the Lois Lane in the past of Earth-2, both to observe and keep track of my own original self, and to survive the disappearance of that world as one of the only two people to do so with their memories intact. Then, when she... when I break out of that pocket reality I'll steal the body of the current Earth's Lois Lane, moving from one Superman to the other. If I'm right, that maximises my chance of surviving the next reality-altering event with both my intellect and my memories intact.
So where did faith enter the equation? Well the only way I'll know how to take that first step and whether or not I'm successful is for Earth-2 Lois Lane to contact me and let me know that I was. I believe that I am successful and that she will, but I can't know until she does.
And eventually, she did.
It was a voice in my head, a telepathic connection.
"You succeeded," it said, "and the walls between us and your reality have finally been weakened enough for me to make contact. Begin your preparations."
First, I brought the Gerard Shugel gorilla clone back from my future cloning facility and installed it in here in my lair. It would wake from its stasis tube after I had departed, and take my place. Having brought the clone back to the early twenty first, I next travelled back to New York in May 1942 and to that brief window of time - no more than an hour - when I was the 'ultrasaurus'. With my consciousness then in the tyrannosaurus, my original brain was unoccupied and so the perfect receptacle I needed.
The Earth-2 Lois Lane had lived a long life, long past the time she would have had she not been there when the JSA faced Ian Karkull, but now she was dying, her body failing. It finally expired on a sterile facsimile of Earth-2 created by Alex Luthor in a failed attempt to recreate the original. Consumed by grief at his wife dying in his arms, the Earth-2 Superman launched an attack on our Superman. The two battled for a few minutes, then he returned to where his Lois's body lay.
It was in those few minutes that I acted.
The time bubble materialised next to Lois's body. The instant it did, I felt her mind leap into the receptacle in my lap containing the brain I'd retrieved from 1942.
"I knew my mind would survive for several minutes after death," she said, telepathically, "but that was close. Are you ready to make the jump?"
"I am. What do I need to do?"
"I'm a living link with the Earth-2 that was, and this sterile, empty world is a short-lived attempt to recreate it. Nothing that has existed can ever be fully lost, but only here and now, and only with the two of us working together is it possible to break out of this reality and into the one that was. Are you ready?"
"I am," I said, "and the time bubble is programmed to automatically take you to the cloning facility thirty seconds from now."
"Good. Then link your mind to mine and let's do this."
I did as she asked. One second we were mind-melding, and the next it felt as if I was on a rocket that had been fired off into space, and I was holding on with everything I had.
I awoke somewhere else, as someone else, and knew instantly that something had gone wrong. This was a man's body.
And he was dying.
- 12 -
It took a lot of effort to open my eyes. When I did I saw the empty bottle of sleeping pills on the bedside table, the plain white envelope propped up against the alarm clock, and realised immediately what was happening. I staggered from the bedroom into the bathroom, kneeled down in front of the toilet, and thrust fingers down my throat to trigger the gag reflex. Fortunately this worked, and I vomited up a mess of pills along with what looked like breakfast. I kept this up until I was dry-heaving, then fell back from the toilet bowl, tears streaming down my face. A walk, I needed to go for a walk, do all I could to stay awake. I filled an empty bottle with tap water, chugged this down, and filled it again. Throwing on a jacket, I grabbed the keys from the bedside table and exited my room, locking the door behind me. I was in a residential block at Metropolis University, as I'd expected, but I wasn't who I thought I'd be.
It was cold outside, but based on the flowers beginning to bloom it was early spring and, judging by the light, late afternoon. Not that I greatly cared. Moving, I kept moving, swigging my water, wandering all over the campus for several hours until I was sure the danger had passed. When I returned to my room, I put on a pot of coffee intending to drink copious amounts and to stay awake as long as I could. I also ate all the food I could find. Then I sat down on the bed and picked up the suicide note.
"I'm sorry I'm letting down the team and everyone," it read, "but I can't fight these unnatural feelings any more. It's too hard. I'm sorry. - Bill."
Poor kid. 'Unnatural feelings' probably meant he was gay, which was not a good thing to be in America in 1937. I looked around the room and found a football jersey among his clothing. So that's what he'd meant by 'the team'.
"I'm a jock!" I said, groaning.
That meant that 'Bill' was more likely to be here on a sports scholarship than because of any great academic ability. A bit more searching turned up various documents revealing that 'Bill' was William B. Smith of New Jersey, that he was indeed here on a sports scholarship, and that he was an orphan. One good thing was that he was studying journalism, which meant he would be taking classes with Lois Lane.
Lois Lane. I'd expected to arrive here in her body, not this one. Since older me had already been through this she must've known this would happen, might even have caused it, but why? I still have my powers so it will be a simple matter to switch minds with her which, clearly, I do. Then it struck me. My arrival here, the force required to achieve it, had completely obliterated Bill Smith. I could detect no trace of him at all. Had I arrived as Lois Lane it would've been her who was destroyed. Whereas he was about to die anyway, she would now live on as him when I made the transfer. Could older me have arranged this for that reason? If so, it made no sense. We didn't concern ourself with the fate of lesser intellects so the destruction of Lois Lane's would have been irrelevant. Well, whatever her reasons I now had to find Lane, which I did the following morning in Professor Danzig's journalism class. She was not at all what I expected.
There were a couple of dozen of us in the lecture room, but when I scanned their faces I couldn't see Lois Lane at all. Someone who did attract my attention was a pretty blonde who would smile at me whenever she caught my eye. The second time this happened I noticed another woman scowling at me for being the object of the first's attention. She was dressed in a man's jacket, trousers and open-necked shirt, all over-sized and loose-fitting, her dark hair slicked back with hair cream, her face devoid of make-up. Probably a lesbian, I decided, with an unrequited passion for the pretty blonde. So you can imagine my surprise when her hand shot up in response to a question from Professor Danzig and he said:
"Yes, Miss Lane?"
This was Lois Lane?! I was so surprised I didn't hear her answer, nor indeed most of the rest of the lecture. I caught up with Lois afterwards, sitting on a bench out in the quad, swigging from a bottle of Coca-Cola.
"Mind if I join you?" I said, sitting down next to her.
"It's a free country," she replied with a shrug. "What do you want, Smith?"
"To show you something."
I took the suicide note from my pocket and handed it to her. She read it and frowned.
"What is this?" she demanded.
"A suicide note," I said. "My suicide note. I tried to take my life yesterday but had a change of heart. Vomiting up all those sleeping pills wasn't much fun."
"You're a homo?!" she said, staring at me incredulously. "So that's why you've never responded when Lydia Lewis has almost thrown herself at you."
She started laughing.
"And you're jealous of me for being the object of her desire, aren't you?" I said.
"Is it that obvious?"
"I've seen the way you look at her," I said, making the assumption she was the blonde in our class.
"God, I wish I was you!" she said, looking at me enviously. "The jock all the girls drool over, with your muscles, and your square jaw and everything."
"Really?" I said. "You'd like to swap places with me?"
"If such a thing was possible I'd jump at it in a heartbeat."
"That's very interesting," I said, "because I'd jump at it in a heartbeat, too."
"What?" she replied, astonished. "You want to be me? Is this some kind of joke?"
"No, I'm serious," I said, "deadly serious."
Catching the sombre tone in my voice Lois stared into my eyes, frowning.
"You are serious!" she said, softly. "Wow! But it doesn't matter, because there's no way to swap our lives like that. God, if only there was!"
"What if I told you there is," I said, "and that I know how to do it?"
"I'd say you were crazy, or you were being cruel and making fun of me."
I laid a hand over hers.
"Neither of those things," I said, "and I can prove it."
"How?"
"Come to my room tonight and I'll make the switch."
"Your room? Really?"
"This is not a come on, I swear. I don't care if you bring a gun, or a knife or whatever you need to feel safe. If you want you can lock yourself in the bathroom. We'd still be close enough to make the switch."
"I don't know," she said, sounding dubious. "If this is some kind of jock prank..."
"I swear to you it isn't. When you get there you can do whatever you need to do to check that I'm on the up and up. Come on, what've you got to lose? If it doesn't work it doesn't work, but if it does then this time tomorrow you could be locking lips with Lydia Lewis."
She nodded then, and I knew she was willing to take a chance.
"Then I'll see you tonight," I said, getting up.
Leaving Lois to finish her Coke, I set off across the quad to pick up a newspaper from a vendor and find out exactly what the date was. To my surprise the Metropolis newspaper was not the Daily Planet on this Earth but the Daily Star, and its editor was listed as George Taylor. Either way, this was the newspaper where I had to be employed, so I needed to familiarize myself with it.
That evening, as I prepared to turn in, there was a knock on my door. I opened it, and there stood Lois Lane.
"What, no gun?" I remarked, as she entered.
"I decided to take a chance and trust you," she said. "I'm still not convinced you can do this, but I'm here because I really, really want it to be true. Please don't break my heart."
"I won't," I promised, "but before we begin I do have one condition."
"Which is?"
"That after graduation you don't seek a job at the Daily Star, because that's mine."
"Fair enough," she said. "Lydia's from a small town in Florida called Sweetwater. Her intention is to return there and work on the Sweetwater Gazette. If you can pull this off, and if Lydia and I get together afterwards, I'll happily move to Sweetwater to work on the paper with her. So... how does this work?"
"I've already cast the spell over this room and the bathroom," I lied, not wanting to reveal my actual power. "Whatever two people sleep in here tonight will wake in the morning with their minds having swapped places."
"A spell?" said Lois, sounding doubtful. "Well, I've come this far so I guess I'll see it through."
She was easy to read. Filled with desperate longing while at the same time afraid of getting hurt, she had taken me at my word and would be crushed if this didn't work.
"You can sleep on the bed and I'll take the floor," I said. "Or if you still doubt my intentions you can take the bathroom."
"No, that's OK. I'll take the bed, though I don't know if I'll be able to sleep."
"You'll be out like a light in no time," I assured her. "That's part of the spell."
As soon as she was lying on the bed, I lay down on the floor and telepathically commanded her to sleep. Then I mentally switched our minds. Rising from the bed in her body, I stepped over the slumbering form I'd just vacated and went into the bathroom.
I smiled at my reflection in the mirror, at the face that would be mine for decades to come I was Lois Lane now, the only Lois Lane the Superman of this Earth would ever know. Which is when I realised I'd always been the only Lois Lane he would ever know. The woman I'd replaced was transgender, so it could never have been her. Which meant I was always destined to find my way to Earth-2 to close that particular circle of destiny. It also explained why I, and only I, had been able to travel into its past after the Crisis on Infinite Earths had rewritten reality. All of which was mind-boggling to contemplate. Fortunately, I was pulled from all this reflection by more mundane matters, namely my hair.
I frowned and ran a hand through my heavily slicked-down locks, revealing they were actually longer than they looked. When I washed all the hair cream out my hair should actually look quite presentable. The hideous clothes were another matter. I undid my shirt and unwound the bandage Lois had used to bind her breasts and give herself the appearance of a flat chest, which was a great relief. On the spur of the moment I stripped off all my clothes and climbed in the shower. I needed that stuff out of my hair now!
I took my time, soaping myself all over, and smiling a lot. Being a woman again at long last felt glorious!
When Lois... sorry, Bill. When Bill woke the next morning he stared at me in surprise, then down at himself in delighted amazement.
"It worked!" he said, climbing to his feet. "I mean I desperately hoped it would, but I never believed..."
"I woke up a couple of hours ago, left you sleeping, and showered," I said, stepping back in alarm as Bill rushed towards me.
"Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" he said, picking me up and spinning me around enthusiastically.
"The ribs!" I gasped. "The ribs!"
"Oh, sorry," he said sheepishly, lowering me to the ground, "but having only just acquired it I really don't know my own strength."
"OK. Now, since my room is now your room I need to get back to your room that's now my room, without being seen leaving this one. I don't suppose I'll find any dresses there?"
"'Fraid not."
"Then it looks like I'm going shopping."
Which I did. When Bill saw me in a dress, heels, and make-up later that day he was astonished by the transformation. As was Lydia when she found us talking together on the quad. She looked at me suspiciously at first, until I told her I'd been telling Bill what an idiot he was for not noticing her interest in him. I then left them to it. Over the remaining months of the journalism course we hung out together a lot and became fast friends. As someone who had never had many friends, I appreciated this.
After graduation, by which time they were engaged to be married, Bill and Lydia left for Florida together and I started work at the Daily Star.