Chapter Seven: I Hope You're Wrong
Title: L'esprit de l'escalier
Note: The rest of the series can be found here.
Author: taro_twist (aka Tairona)
Timeline/Fandom: post-Superman Returns
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: DC and the WB own everything! I'm just temporarily messing with their creations ...
Spoilers: Superman Returns, Superman II, and I guess Superman: The Movie, to be on the safe side
Word Count: 3,302
Chapter Seven: I Hope You're Wrong
After asking Superman to put on some clothes himself and to turn on a light, Lois pivoted around on one foot to face the wall, and busied herself with getting dressed in the most dignified manner possible, which, thanks to her ankle, involved toppling over onto the mattress. Luckily, though, Superman was occupied with something on the other side of the room, and missed both her fall and her subsequent floundering as she finished pulling on her pants.
A second after she stopped grappling with her clothes, Lois heard the swick of a match being struck. Across the room, Superman was still standing with his back to her, but now his figure was silhouetted against a wavering golden light. Looking at him like that, Lois felt for all the world like she was witnessing the peak of a total solar eclipse. And like a solar eclipse, it was a fleeting vision. He soon turned around, a lantern in one hand, and the illusion was broken.
As he walked back to her, Lois opened her mouth to ask him why he was breaking out a lantern when she had only asked him to flick on a light. However, this thought was quickly pushed aside by several observations Lois was able to make now that she could see properly.
For one, she was finally able to get a look around the room they were in. Originally, she had thought that it was a bedroom, but now she realized it was a studio apartment-and the most spartan one she had ever seen. The walls were completely bare. The wooden floor wasn’t softened by the presence of a single throw rug; the sole window was like a lidless eye, without curtains or blinds. And aside from the mattress she was sitting on, the only other furnishings were a table and two chairs near the kitchenette.
Again, Lois found herself wondering what this place could possibly be. She had thought that the Fortress of Solitude was Superman’s only home, but it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps he had another home in Metropolis-after all, there had to be some reason why he was seen more frequently in the Big Apricot than anywhere else in the world. Was this where she was, then-at his Metropolitan “base of operations”?
Her mind didn’t give her much time to dwell on that possibility, though, because it was too busy noticing the other quirks and idiosyncrasies surrounding her. For instance, she realized that the clothes Superman had given her were not her clothes-or at least, they weren’t her clothes anymore. She did recognize the slacks and the blouse she was wearing, but she also distinctly remembered giving them away to Goodwill two or three years ago.
More remarkable than that, though, was the fact that Superman himself was not in his usual primary colored suit, but was wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead. That more than anything else took all of the words from Lois’s mouth as he closed the distance between them, and took a seat next to her on the mattress, setting the lantern down nearby on the floor. Strangely enough, seeing him in street clothes was more shocking than seeing him naked.
Again, Lois had the feeling that she had a snarl of traffic stuck in her throat. She had so many questions-where on earth was she supposed to begin? She was just starting to remind herself that she was a reporter and that untangling bizarre situations was her job, when Superman broke the silence that had fallen between them.
“You look different,” he commented, almost to himself, frowning at her and sounding somewhat dazed by his own statement. He lifted a hand and reached for her, his fingers nearly grazing her hair before he let his hand drop onto the mattress between them.
“I could say the same about you,” Lois said, the words coming easier now. The lantern was tossing loops and lassos of buttery light all over the room, one of which caught the side of Superman’s face, revealing a ridge that started at his temple and trailed down to his jaw. A scar? But that couldn’t be …
“Superman, where are we? And what are we doing here?” Lois finally asked, deciding to cut straight to the chase. She pitched the question with all the professional composure she could muster, trying her best to keep the edge out of her voice.
“Um … say that again?” the hero asked, his frown deepening.
“Where are we and what are we doing here,” Lois rattled off.
“No, the entire thing,” Superman instructed.
“That was the entire thing.”
“No, I … you called me Superman.”
“Are you going by something else these days?” Lois asked, quirking an eyebrow, irritated that it was taking so long to get an answer to what should have been a simple question.
“And before, you said I have super hearing,” he went on, definitely talking to himself now, a look of concentration on his face, as if he was doing some sort of mental arithmetic. “And you really don’t know where we are?”
“If I knew, would I be asking you?” Lois reasoned.
“Lois, where is it that you … think you’re supposed to be?” Superman inquired.
“Hey, I asked my question first,” Lois reminded him, wincing after the fact at the way she was sounding like Jason when he threw one of his rare tantrums. With an effort, she toned it down. “Why don’t you give me some answers, and then I’ll see what I can do for you, okay?”
Superman ducked his head, his face clouded, the thumb of one hand absently rubbing the knuckles of the other. Not for the first time since she had awakened in this apartment, Lois got the impression that the man next to her was not the Kryptonian superhero she had come to know over the last several years of her life. Could it be that he isn’t Superman? she found herself wondering. That would certainly explain why he’s so taken aback by me calling him that.
But that didn’t make any sense-not that sense seemed to be playing a role in much of anything that was going on here. Even if this wasn’t Superman sitting beside her, though, it wasn’t some stranger either. If anything, this man felt more familiar to her than the Big Blue Boy Scout. Every time that he did something that seemed uncharacteristic for Superman, it still thrummed a chord of recognition in her. What was she recognizing, though? It was so frustrating, like having a word on the tip of your tongue, and she knew that she could figure it out, but at the same time it felt like she was banging her head up against a wall and-
“Lois, we live here,” he finally said, although he sounded a bit uncertain, his words moving as slowly as a person wading into dangerous waters. “This is our home.”
“We live here,” Lois repeated in disbelief, already feeling like she had heard enough. What kind of game was he playing with her? “Okay, first of all,” she took in the barren room with a sweep of her arm. “I don’t think anyone could live here. Second of all, I definitely do not live with you, and you know that as well as I do. My home is with Richard and Jason, and I should not be here, and-”
“No, you’re right. I don’t think you should be here either,” Superman murmured. He tilted his head as he peered at … where were his eyes wandering, anyway?
“May I?” he asked, although before Lois could respond, he had reached over and pulled her collar back to expose most of her left shoulder. His fingertips brushed Lois’s neck, and as they did so, she felt like a tranquil pond that’s had a stone thrown into it. Ripples of heat shimmied across her skin, expanding outwards from the epicenter of his touch, and it took much longer than it should have for her to raise her hand to swat him away. Thankfully, though, he pulled back on his own. When he looked up at her again, the confusion had cleared from his face, and now-with that solid look in his blue eyes-now he looked just as Superman should, even without the uniform. Lois wasn’t sure how she could have thought that he was anyone else.
“So … good! We agree that I don’t belong here. Why am I here, then?” Lois pressed forward, determined not to be diverted by … whatever the hell that had just been.
“I don’t know,” Superman answered after a long pause. “But you-you can’t be the Lois I know. You don’t know who I am. You’re not as thin as before. Your hair’s at least six inches longer than it should be. And you don’t have this-“
Superman swiveled around to face her head on, and tugged at the neckline of his t-shirt, revealing what looked like a diamond-shaped scar at the juncture where his left shoulder met his neck. Leaning forward, Lois realized that it was actually a brand, made up of strange characters the likes of which she had never seen before. They were all circles and squares and dots and more diamonds, except … one of them. One of them looked familiar. An irregular pentagon with the number eight inside of it. It was almost the same as the iconic shield that Superman bore on his chest.
“What is that?” Lois asked. “Is that … Kryptonian?”
“Kryptonese,” Superman said, covering the mark again. “It’s sort of a … bar code. Compliments of General Zod.”
“Zod? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know about Zod, either?” Superman asked, sounding intrigued.
“Of course I know about Zod,” Lois huffed. “I haven’t been living in a cave. Not that I remember much about Zod, seeing as how you were so kind as to erase my memory of that … period … in our lives.”
“Seeing as how I … what?”
“Never mind. Forget I mentioned it,” Lois groaned, not really wanting to go back over the issue of the memory wipe when she had only found out about it two days ago. “Let’s stick to this bar code thing right now-when did Zod ever do that to you? And what does that have to do with us being here, or the length of my hair or … or any of what you just said? What do you mean that I’m not the Lois you know? Is there a troupe of Lois Lane clones running around with bob hair cuts? And what do you mean that I don’t know who you-“
“Lois, slow down,” Superman said. He wasn’t laughing, but something in his eyes, like sunlight sparkling on the ocean, suggested laughter. “I’m not even sure what I mean. As far as I know, there is only one of you. And yet …” he trailed off, shaking his head and smiling to himself, before sprawling back across the mattress like a kid who’s about to make snow angels. “This is crazy. Maybe I am just dreaming.”
“Hey, if this is anyone’s dream, it’s mine,” Lois argued, for no particular reason except that she was somewhat unnerved to hear him suggest that. Part of her was still hoping that this was a dream, but if Superman was voicing that very same thought, then it seemed that much more likely that this situation was reality.
“I have always wanted you to grow your hair out,” Superman remarked, his eyes swelling with that suggestion of laughter. “It looks nice.”
“Great,” Lois tried to sound sarcastic in order to cover the buzz of pleasure his compliment had just given her, but she didn’t quite succeed. “But assuming that this whole thing isn’t just a result of your sub-conscious fulfilling your desire to mess with my hairstyle …”
“You were wondering about how I got the mark on my shoulder?” Superman suddenly blurted out, swinging back up into a sitting position, the glimmer in his eyes having hardened into the lightning flash of anger. “Lois, you said you know about Zod, but I don’t think you do. He has Earth completely under his control. He’s branded nearly every person with one of these diamonds, and through them he can regulate our entire lives-where we go, what time we go there-down to the inch, down to the second. He’s all but turned the human race into a machine to produce whatever he needs: mostly weapons or space ships. He kills off anyone who can’t work-the crippled, the elderly-”
“Okay, hold on a second,” Lois held up a hand to stem the flow of words that was suddenly pouring out of him, feeling somewhat dazed as she tried to absorb it all. “Superman, what are you saying? How can any of that be possible? You defeated Zod, you-”
“Did I?” Superman inquired, his tone one of genuine curiosity.
“Yes,” Lois insisted, beginning to think that maybe she wasn’t the only one in this room who’d had their mind messed with. “You stripped him of his powers, and now he and his minions are spending the rest of their lives in some maximum security prison. At least, that’s how things were fifteen minutes ago. If what you’re saying is true … how could it have all changed so fast? I mean, what you’re describing sounds like an entirely different world.”
Superman’s eyes widened as if she’d just hit him over the head. “How else were things fifteen minutes ago?” he pressed, leaning forward with something that might have been excitement.
“They were normal,” Lois replied with a mirthless laugh. “As far as I know, humans were in control of the earth, for whatever that’s worth. There was fighting in the Middle East, government coups in South America. I was at The Daily Planet. You were probably off saving someone. We certainly weren’t living together. I had-”
“What year was it?” he asked.
“2005.”
With that, Superman jumped to his feet, and began to pace back and forth with his arms crossed.
“What are you thinking?” Lois inquired.
“What you said-that to you, this is like a different world, and that you remember things as being … normal,” Superman stopped his pacing and leaned back against the kitchen table. “Lois, have you ever heard of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?”
“Um … maybe?” Lois offered, feeling like it was something that she should have seen on the cover of a National Geographic or in the “Science and Technology” section of the Planet. “Care to elaborate?”
“I learned about it while I was training at the Fortress, but I don’t remember it that well anymore,” Superman confessed. “Basically, though, it’s the theory that every possible outcome to every possible event exists in its own world or universe. So if there’s a universe where Zod conquered Earth, then there’s also one where he was defeated. And I’m thinking that you must be a version of Lois that lives in a universe where he was defeated. I suppose there’s no way to really prove that, but aside from this being a dream, that’s the best explanation I can come up with for your changed appearance and the different memories that you have.”
“Interesting,” was about all Lois could manage to say to that.
“It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds,” Superman continued, smiling in a self-conscious way that, again, left Lois feeling like she had a word on the tip of her tongue, a memory peeking around the edge of consciousness. “Before Krypton was destroyed, scientists-well, my father actually-had already devised a way to project people into other dimensions. That’s how they sent criminals into the Phantom Zone. But I don’t think you’ve been hit by the Phantom Zone ray, because it reduces people to a non-corporeal form. And besides-“
Superman cut off abruptly, a spasm of terror racing across his face.
“What is it?” Lois asked, her stomach tightening with anxiety as she tried to think of what could have made Superman look scared. Even when he was talking about Zod, he hadn’t shown any sign of fear. But now-
He squeezed his eyes shut, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. It was a long minute more before he had collected himself enough to go on. “From what I understand,” he began. “Inter-dimensional travel was made illegal on Krypton, because if alternate versions of you exist in other universes, then when you travel to another dimension, the alternate versions of you get forced out of their home dimensions and into other dimensions as well. It’s like pulling on one bead in a string of beads: you can’t move one without moving all the others. The only time this doesn’t happen is when you enter the Phantom Zone.”
“So then … is that what happened to the Lois who lives here? She got sent into another dimension as well?” Lois asked, trying to work her mind around this theory of multiple universes that Superman had just thrown at her, even though she still felt like it was so much hocus-pocus.
“Yes,” Superman nodded after a long minute, wringing the word out like water from a dish rag.
“But you can get her back! Can’t you? Because if she can’t be brought back, then that means that I can’t go back home, and if I can’t go home … I have to go home. I have to …” Lois trailed off, her heart pounding at the mere suggestion that she could be stuck here forever.
“It isn’t that,” Superman sighed, shaking his head. “It’s Zod’s mark. Remember how I said that he uses it to control everyone’s lives here? Well, the way it works is that there's a nano-computer embedded in the skin beneath the diamond brand, and there are transmitters all throughout the city-all over the planet, really-that can send signals to this computer whenever you’re in range of them. As long as you’re within range of the right transmitters at the right time, then you’re fine. But if the computer senses that you’ve entered a restricted zone, or that you’ve stepped outside the boundaries of your assigned area, or if you even don’t go to work on time, then it kills you by generating an electrical shock.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “It also kills you if it isn’t able to pick up a signal from any of the transmitters. So if my Lois ended up in another dimension … no transmitters, but the nano-computer would still be … a-active …”
Voice shaking, he turned his face from her, eyes closed tight as if to shut out a particularly awful sight that had suddenly materialized in front of him. Lois wanted to close her own eyes, too. She couldn’t bear to watch his display of raw emotion-it was like looking at someone who’s had their skin peeled back to reveal the bloody mess of muscle and fat underneath-and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away, either. He definitely wasn’t Superman now. Just a man with a grief so powerful that Lois could feel it from across the room, could feel it dragging at her, as if gravity had just increased one hundred fold and was determined to crush her to the ground. At this moment, she was certain that she wouldn’t be able to breathe again if she couldn’t make things right for him.
But the only words of comfort she could find to offer were, “I hope you’re wrong.”
-----
A/n:
All of the stuff about multiple dimensions in this chapter (aside from the Phantom Zone, obviously) is a combination of fuzzy Wikipedia-based science and The Chrestomanci Chronicles by Diana Wynne Jones. I hope it wasn't too confusing ... I'm horrible at explaining stuff like this in stories (or through any medium, actually ;p). I literally rewrote the dialogue in this chapter eight times trying to get it to make sense, but I finally gave up and settled for this in favor of not going insane. :)
Note: The rest of the series can be found here.
Author: taro_twist (aka Tairona)
Timeline/Fandom: post-Superman Returns
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: DC and the WB own everything! I'm just temporarily messing with their creations ...
Spoilers: Superman Returns, Superman II, and I guess Superman: The Movie, to be on the safe side
Word Count: 3,302
Chapter Seven: I Hope You're Wrong
After asking Superman to put on some clothes himself and to turn on a light, Lois pivoted around on one foot to face the wall, and busied herself with getting dressed in the most dignified manner possible, which, thanks to her ankle, involved toppling over onto the mattress. Luckily, though, Superman was occupied with something on the other side of the room, and missed both her fall and her subsequent floundering as she finished pulling on her pants.
A second after she stopped grappling with her clothes, Lois heard the swick of a match being struck. Across the room, Superman was still standing with his back to her, but now his figure was silhouetted against a wavering golden light. Looking at him like that, Lois felt for all the world like she was witnessing the peak of a total solar eclipse. And like a solar eclipse, it was a fleeting vision. He soon turned around, a lantern in one hand, and the illusion was broken.
As he walked back to her, Lois opened her mouth to ask him why he was breaking out a lantern when she had only asked him to flick on a light. However, this thought was quickly pushed aside by several observations Lois was able to make now that she could see properly.
For one, she was finally able to get a look around the room they were in. Originally, she had thought that it was a bedroom, but now she realized it was a studio apartment-and the most spartan one she had ever seen. The walls were completely bare. The wooden floor wasn’t softened by the presence of a single throw rug; the sole window was like a lidless eye, without curtains or blinds. And aside from the mattress she was sitting on, the only other furnishings were a table and two chairs near the kitchenette.
Again, Lois found herself wondering what this place could possibly be. She had thought that the Fortress of Solitude was Superman’s only home, but it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps he had another home in Metropolis-after all, there had to be some reason why he was seen more frequently in the Big Apricot than anywhere else in the world. Was this where she was, then-at his Metropolitan “base of operations”?
Her mind didn’t give her much time to dwell on that possibility, though, because it was too busy noticing the other quirks and idiosyncrasies surrounding her. For instance, she realized that the clothes Superman had given her were not her clothes-or at least, they weren’t her clothes anymore. She did recognize the slacks and the blouse she was wearing, but she also distinctly remembered giving them away to Goodwill two or three years ago.
More remarkable than that, though, was the fact that Superman himself was not in his usual primary colored suit, but was wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead. That more than anything else took all of the words from Lois’s mouth as he closed the distance between them, and took a seat next to her on the mattress, setting the lantern down nearby on the floor. Strangely enough, seeing him in street clothes was more shocking than seeing him naked.
Again, Lois had the feeling that she had a snarl of traffic stuck in her throat. She had so many questions-where on earth was she supposed to begin? She was just starting to remind herself that she was a reporter and that untangling bizarre situations was her job, when Superman broke the silence that had fallen between them.
“You look different,” he commented, almost to himself, frowning at her and sounding somewhat dazed by his own statement. He lifted a hand and reached for her, his fingers nearly grazing her hair before he let his hand drop onto the mattress between them.
“I could say the same about you,” Lois said, the words coming easier now. The lantern was tossing loops and lassos of buttery light all over the room, one of which caught the side of Superman’s face, revealing a ridge that started at his temple and trailed down to his jaw. A scar? But that couldn’t be …
“Superman, where are we? And what are we doing here?” Lois finally asked, deciding to cut straight to the chase. She pitched the question with all the professional composure she could muster, trying her best to keep the edge out of her voice.
“Um … say that again?” the hero asked, his frown deepening.
“Where are we and what are we doing here,” Lois rattled off.
“No, the entire thing,” Superman instructed.
“That was the entire thing.”
“No, I … you called me Superman.”
“Are you going by something else these days?” Lois asked, quirking an eyebrow, irritated that it was taking so long to get an answer to what should have been a simple question.
“And before, you said I have super hearing,” he went on, definitely talking to himself now, a look of concentration on his face, as if he was doing some sort of mental arithmetic. “And you really don’t know where we are?”
“If I knew, would I be asking you?” Lois reasoned.
“Lois, where is it that you … think you’re supposed to be?” Superman inquired.
“Hey, I asked my question first,” Lois reminded him, wincing after the fact at the way she was sounding like Jason when he threw one of his rare tantrums. With an effort, she toned it down. “Why don’t you give me some answers, and then I’ll see what I can do for you, okay?”
Superman ducked his head, his face clouded, the thumb of one hand absently rubbing the knuckles of the other. Not for the first time since she had awakened in this apartment, Lois got the impression that the man next to her was not the Kryptonian superhero she had come to know over the last several years of her life. Could it be that he isn’t Superman? she found herself wondering. That would certainly explain why he’s so taken aback by me calling him that.
But that didn’t make any sense-not that sense seemed to be playing a role in much of anything that was going on here. Even if this wasn’t Superman sitting beside her, though, it wasn’t some stranger either. If anything, this man felt more familiar to her than the Big Blue Boy Scout. Every time that he did something that seemed uncharacteristic for Superman, it still thrummed a chord of recognition in her. What was she recognizing, though? It was so frustrating, like having a word on the tip of your tongue, and she knew that she could figure it out, but at the same time it felt like she was banging her head up against a wall and-
“Lois, we live here,” he finally said, although he sounded a bit uncertain, his words moving as slowly as a person wading into dangerous waters. “This is our home.”
“We live here,” Lois repeated in disbelief, already feeling like she had heard enough. What kind of game was he playing with her? “Okay, first of all,” she took in the barren room with a sweep of her arm. “I don’t think anyone could live here. Second of all, I definitely do not live with you, and you know that as well as I do. My home is with Richard and Jason, and I should not be here, and-”
“No, you’re right. I don’t think you should be here either,” Superman murmured. He tilted his head as he peered at … where were his eyes wandering, anyway?
“May I?” he asked, although before Lois could respond, he had reached over and pulled her collar back to expose most of her left shoulder. His fingertips brushed Lois’s neck, and as they did so, she felt like a tranquil pond that’s had a stone thrown into it. Ripples of heat shimmied across her skin, expanding outwards from the epicenter of his touch, and it took much longer than it should have for her to raise her hand to swat him away. Thankfully, though, he pulled back on his own. When he looked up at her again, the confusion had cleared from his face, and now-with that solid look in his blue eyes-now he looked just as Superman should, even without the uniform. Lois wasn’t sure how she could have thought that he was anyone else.
“So … good! We agree that I don’t belong here. Why am I here, then?” Lois pressed forward, determined not to be diverted by … whatever the hell that had just been.
“I don’t know,” Superman answered after a long pause. “But you-you can’t be the Lois I know. You don’t know who I am. You’re not as thin as before. Your hair’s at least six inches longer than it should be. And you don’t have this-“
Superman swiveled around to face her head on, and tugged at the neckline of his t-shirt, revealing what looked like a diamond-shaped scar at the juncture where his left shoulder met his neck. Leaning forward, Lois realized that it was actually a brand, made up of strange characters the likes of which she had never seen before. They were all circles and squares and dots and more diamonds, except … one of them. One of them looked familiar. An irregular pentagon with the number eight inside of it. It was almost the same as the iconic shield that Superman bore on his chest.
“What is that?” Lois asked. “Is that … Kryptonian?”
“Kryptonese,” Superman said, covering the mark again. “It’s sort of a … bar code. Compliments of General Zod.”
“Zod? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know about Zod, either?” Superman asked, sounding intrigued.
“Of course I know about Zod,” Lois huffed. “I haven’t been living in a cave. Not that I remember much about Zod, seeing as how you were so kind as to erase my memory of that … period … in our lives.”
“Seeing as how I … what?”
“Never mind. Forget I mentioned it,” Lois groaned, not really wanting to go back over the issue of the memory wipe when she had only found out about it two days ago. “Let’s stick to this bar code thing right now-when did Zod ever do that to you? And what does that have to do with us being here, or the length of my hair or … or any of what you just said? What do you mean that I’m not the Lois you know? Is there a troupe of Lois Lane clones running around with bob hair cuts? And what do you mean that I don’t know who you-“
“Lois, slow down,” Superman said. He wasn’t laughing, but something in his eyes, like sunlight sparkling on the ocean, suggested laughter. “I’m not even sure what I mean. As far as I know, there is only one of you. And yet …” he trailed off, shaking his head and smiling to himself, before sprawling back across the mattress like a kid who’s about to make snow angels. “This is crazy. Maybe I am just dreaming.”
“Hey, if this is anyone’s dream, it’s mine,” Lois argued, for no particular reason except that she was somewhat unnerved to hear him suggest that. Part of her was still hoping that this was a dream, but if Superman was voicing that very same thought, then it seemed that much more likely that this situation was reality.
“I have always wanted you to grow your hair out,” Superman remarked, his eyes swelling with that suggestion of laughter. “It looks nice.”
“Great,” Lois tried to sound sarcastic in order to cover the buzz of pleasure his compliment had just given her, but she didn’t quite succeed. “But assuming that this whole thing isn’t just a result of your sub-conscious fulfilling your desire to mess with my hairstyle …”
“You were wondering about how I got the mark on my shoulder?” Superman suddenly blurted out, swinging back up into a sitting position, the glimmer in his eyes having hardened into the lightning flash of anger. “Lois, you said you know about Zod, but I don’t think you do. He has Earth completely under his control. He’s branded nearly every person with one of these diamonds, and through them he can regulate our entire lives-where we go, what time we go there-down to the inch, down to the second. He’s all but turned the human race into a machine to produce whatever he needs: mostly weapons or space ships. He kills off anyone who can’t work-the crippled, the elderly-”
“Okay, hold on a second,” Lois held up a hand to stem the flow of words that was suddenly pouring out of him, feeling somewhat dazed as she tried to absorb it all. “Superman, what are you saying? How can any of that be possible? You defeated Zod, you-”
“Did I?” Superman inquired, his tone one of genuine curiosity.
“Yes,” Lois insisted, beginning to think that maybe she wasn’t the only one in this room who’d had their mind messed with. “You stripped him of his powers, and now he and his minions are spending the rest of their lives in some maximum security prison. At least, that’s how things were fifteen minutes ago. If what you’re saying is true … how could it have all changed so fast? I mean, what you’re describing sounds like an entirely different world.”
Superman’s eyes widened as if she’d just hit him over the head. “How else were things fifteen minutes ago?” he pressed, leaning forward with something that might have been excitement.
“They were normal,” Lois replied with a mirthless laugh. “As far as I know, humans were in control of the earth, for whatever that’s worth. There was fighting in the Middle East, government coups in South America. I was at The Daily Planet. You were probably off saving someone. We certainly weren’t living together. I had-”
“What year was it?” he asked.
“2005.”
With that, Superman jumped to his feet, and began to pace back and forth with his arms crossed.
“What are you thinking?” Lois inquired.
“What you said-that to you, this is like a different world, and that you remember things as being … normal,” Superman stopped his pacing and leaned back against the kitchen table. “Lois, have you ever heard of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?”
“Um … maybe?” Lois offered, feeling like it was something that she should have seen on the cover of a National Geographic or in the “Science and Technology” section of the Planet. “Care to elaborate?”
“I learned about it while I was training at the Fortress, but I don’t remember it that well anymore,” Superman confessed. “Basically, though, it’s the theory that every possible outcome to every possible event exists in its own world or universe. So if there’s a universe where Zod conquered Earth, then there’s also one where he was defeated. And I’m thinking that you must be a version of Lois that lives in a universe where he was defeated. I suppose there’s no way to really prove that, but aside from this being a dream, that’s the best explanation I can come up with for your changed appearance and the different memories that you have.”
“Interesting,” was about all Lois could manage to say to that.
“It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds,” Superman continued, smiling in a self-conscious way that, again, left Lois feeling like she had a word on the tip of her tongue, a memory peeking around the edge of consciousness. “Before Krypton was destroyed, scientists-well, my father actually-had already devised a way to project people into other dimensions. That’s how they sent criminals into the Phantom Zone. But I don’t think you’ve been hit by the Phantom Zone ray, because it reduces people to a non-corporeal form. And besides-“
Superman cut off abruptly, a spasm of terror racing across his face.
“What is it?” Lois asked, her stomach tightening with anxiety as she tried to think of what could have made Superman look scared. Even when he was talking about Zod, he hadn’t shown any sign of fear. But now-
He squeezed his eyes shut, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. It was a long minute more before he had collected himself enough to go on. “From what I understand,” he began. “Inter-dimensional travel was made illegal on Krypton, because if alternate versions of you exist in other universes, then when you travel to another dimension, the alternate versions of you get forced out of their home dimensions and into other dimensions as well. It’s like pulling on one bead in a string of beads: you can’t move one without moving all the others. The only time this doesn’t happen is when you enter the Phantom Zone.”
“So then … is that what happened to the Lois who lives here? She got sent into another dimension as well?” Lois asked, trying to work her mind around this theory of multiple universes that Superman had just thrown at her, even though she still felt like it was so much hocus-pocus.
“Yes,” Superman nodded after a long minute, wringing the word out like water from a dish rag.
“But you can get her back! Can’t you? Because if she can’t be brought back, then that means that I can’t go back home, and if I can’t go home … I have to go home. I have to …” Lois trailed off, her heart pounding at the mere suggestion that she could be stuck here forever.
“It isn’t that,” Superman sighed, shaking his head. “It’s Zod’s mark. Remember how I said that he uses it to control everyone’s lives here? Well, the way it works is that there's a nano-computer embedded in the skin beneath the diamond brand, and there are transmitters all throughout the city-all over the planet, really-that can send signals to this computer whenever you’re in range of them. As long as you’re within range of the right transmitters at the right time, then you’re fine. But if the computer senses that you’ve entered a restricted zone, or that you’ve stepped outside the boundaries of your assigned area, or if you even don’t go to work on time, then it kills you by generating an electrical shock.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “It also kills you if it isn’t able to pick up a signal from any of the transmitters. So if my Lois ended up in another dimension … no transmitters, but the nano-computer would still be … a-active …”
Voice shaking, he turned his face from her, eyes closed tight as if to shut out a particularly awful sight that had suddenly materialized in front of him. Lois wanted to close her own eyes, too. She couldn’t bear to watch his display of raw emotion-it was like looking at someone who’s had their skin peeled back to reveal the bloody mess of muscle and fat underneath-and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away, either. He definitely wasn’t Superman now. Just a man with a grief so powerful that Lois could feel it from across the room, could feel it dragging at her, as if gravity had just increased one hundred fold and was determined to crush her to the ground. At this moment, she was certain that she wouldn’t be able to breathe again if she couldn’t make things right for him.
But the only words of comfort she could find to offer were, “I hope you’re wrong.”
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A/n:
All of the stuff about multiple dimensions in this chapter (aside from the Phantom Zone, obviously) is a combination of fuzzy Wikipedia-based science and The Chrestomanci Chronicles by Diana Wynne Jones. I hope it wasn't too confusing ... I'm horrible at explaining stuff like this in stories (or through any medium, actually ;p). I literally rewrote the dialogue in this chapter eight times trying to get it to make sense, but I finally gave up and settled for this in favor of not going insane. :)