Misery by Yvonne Connell Rated: PG-13 Submitted: Nov 2002 ________________________ Chapter One: The History Lesson -------------------------------- My Dad once told me you should never take stock of your life when you're depressed or ill. He said that's how bad decisions are made. "Wait until the sun comes out," he'd say. Of course, as a kid, I thought that sounded kind of dumb, until I realised he didn't mean it literally. Dad said a lot of other stuff, mostly when I was a teenager and didn't want to listen, but I've learned over the years that he was right about most things. He's pretty clever, my Dad. Not in a flashy, university-educated sort of a way, but in a quiet, common-sense kind of way. Anyway, right now, I'm both depressed and ill, so I guess I'm ignoring his advice - sorry, Dad. You see, I've decided to write down a few things about my life and see if I can't get some kind of idea on where I'm going with it. Or not going with it, since that's about how if feels right now. So where do I start? Do you want to know where I was born and where I grew up? Would you like to read about my earliest memories - shall I paint you a rosy picture of sunny days and idyllic family life down on the farm? Do you want to know about my school days? Or shall I cut straight to the chase, and tell you why I'm sitting here at home, in the middle of a working day, with a laptop on my knees and feeling like hell? (Sorry, you're not getting me at my best. I don't usually swear.) Okay, I've decided. We're going the long way round, because that way, by the time I've finished writing this, there's a chance I might be feeling okay again. Just be prepared for a lot of blanks. Here's the first - I don't actually know where I was born. Mom and Dad told me once they thought I was an experiment gone wrong, which was understandable, given where they found me. Not many babies arrive in a spacecraft. Anyway, they were half-right; I'd definitely gone wrong - you'll see just how wrong when I get further into this - but I wasn't an experiment. I was an alien. *Am* an alien, actually. Okay, before you call the men in white coats to come and pick me up, let me tell you my name. Clark Kent. See? Now you believe me. Yes, I'm the guy who hit all the front pages a couple of years ago when that reporter from the Star found out about me. I still don't know how he got hold of my medical records, and I guess I probably have grounds for legal action against him for violating my privacy, but to be honest, I can't see the point. The damage has been done. Maybe if I wasn't sick I'd feel more like doing something, and it does bother me that he's gotten away with it, but I have different priorities right now. Anyway, I wandered off the topic there, didn't I? I was telling you about my early years. Mom and Dad found me in a snow-drift, in the middle of winter. I guess I'm lucky I didn't die of hypothermia, but by some miracle, I survived and turned into a bouncing, bubbly, baby boy. That's Mom's description, anyway. Much later, they found the capsule I came to Earth in, a few yards from the spot where they found me - it must have broken open when it landed and I was thrown free. They didn't know then that I'd arrived from another planet; with all the experiments in space flight around that time, they just guessed that I was some kind of guinea-pig the Russians had sent up. Now, Mom and Dad are very law-abiding people, but they figured that anyone who could send a tiny baby up into space didn't really care much about its welfare, so they never really considered trying to repatriate me back to Russia. No doubt the fact that they desperately wanted another child coloured their decision, too. So they raised me as their own, and because their farm had been snowed in for months before they found me, they managed to convince everyone that I was truly their child. So there I was, a happy, healthy kid, son of a Kansas farmer. It was when I hit my seventh birthday that the first symptoms began to appear. I can still remember blowing out the candles on my birthday cake when my eyes went all funny and I thought I could actually see through the cake to the table underneath. Well, I knew that couldn't be true, but something was definitely wrong with my eyes so I just told Mom and Dad they were hurting. Mom came up close and took a good look, saying I probably just had an loose eyelash caught in them. That was when it happened again and I could see her skull. Her skull! Well, that scared me so much I started crying. Looking back on things, I think they panicked a bit then. I wasn't usually a cry-baby, you see, so they knew something was seriously wrong. I got the full emergency first-aid treatment, which just scared me even more, and made me cry even harder. However, after several eye-washes and tearful sessions with my Mom telling me to look up, down, left and right while she examined me from about two inches away, my eyes settled down, and I could see properly again, albeit a bit blurrily after all the crying I'd done. They started playing up again a few days later, though, and my hearing began acting up too. Everything would suddenly sound really loud - painfully loud. I began imagining I could hear things I shouldn't be able to hear, like the sound of a fly crawling across the window ledge, or Mr Irig talking to himself miles away in his barn. I knew that wasn't normal, and I started to get really scared. I even wondered if I was going crazy. This went on for a few days, and although my parents did their best to keep things normal for me, I could tell that they were worried. You see, what I didn't know then, but know now, is that they'd had a child a few years earlier who had died of a rare neurological disorder when she was very young. I think that made things worse for them. When I started to exhibit strange symptoms similar to Sarah's, they got scared that were going to lose me just like they'd lost her. So when the muscle spasms began, they got really scared and took me straight to the local doctor. He was a new guy, and I don't remember much about him, except that I didn't like him. He tried to make out I was faking it all so I didn't have to go to school, and he was really nasty to me when Mom and Dad weren't there. But then one day I accidentally broke a paperweight on his desk. I'd picked it up out of idle curiosity, and he'd spoken sharply to me, telling me to put it down again. I had a muscle spasm, and it just seemed to crumble in my hand as if it were sand. He was completely different after that. He examined me all over and put me through all kinds of tests. He asked me all kinds of questions, and he asked Mom and Dad questions, too. I overheard some of it; enough to know that he wasn't being very nice to them. He wanted to know where I'd come from - for some reason, he seemed to be saying that I wasn't their child. Well, at that point, I didn't know I was adopted, because Mom and Dad hadn't gotten around to telling me all about the snowdrift and the capsule. So it shook me to hear him say that. I was pretty sure he was wrong, but I couldn't understand why he was lying to my parents and being so horrible to them. I hated the tests, and I hated him. He couldn't cure me, either, and the next thing I knew, I was being taken to some kind of special clinic, where they examined me all over again and did the same tests plus lots of new ones. It's all a bit hazy now, but I know they tried all kinds of different medications on me. Nothing really worked. Mostly, they made me feel sleepy and a bit like I was walking through treacle, but that was all. So I got sicker and sicker, and worst of all, Mom and Dad stopped visiting me. You see, by then, I was a full-time resident at this clinic, and it was a long way from our home in Kansas. They told me later that they fought hard to try and get me moved closer to home, but my doctor said I was too sick and that I needed the specialist care that only the clinic could provide. They were also told that I became very upset after their visits, and that being upset was bad for my health. Well, of course I got upset - I wanted to go home! Anyway, what with the cost of travel, and everything the clinic was telling them, they found it impossible to continue visiting me. I don't blame them for that at all; I know they tried as hard as they could, but officialdom had taken charge of me, and they were effectively blocked every time they tried to get close to me. As I said before, everything was very hazy around that time, because the medication I was on made me very drowsy and lethargic. I guess that was good in a weird kind of a way, because it stopped me thinking too clearly about Mom and Dad, and how lonely I was. In retrospect, I think the clinic were keeping me sedated most of the time, because it was the only way they could control my symptoms, especially the muscle spasms. Then one day they told me why I was so sick. It just slipped out casually, as if I was supposed to know already. They said I was an alien from another planet, and I was sick because my body just couldn't cope with living on Earth. I didn't believe them at first - I mean, who would? But then they pointed out that I wasn't being treated by just anyone, but by some very important doctors - did I really think an ordinary farmer's son from Kansas would get that kind of treatment? Well, I was just a kid, of course, and had taken the special treatment for granted; I thought anyone would be given the help they needed to make them better. So it was an eye-opener moment for me. It was the first time I really understood that we're not all born equal into this world. But did special treatment mean I was an alien? I thought about it a lot. My nurses started calling me 'their little alien', and one day I overheard one of them being chewed out by a doctor for not wearing her mask when she was drawing blood from me. Apparently they were scared of my alien blood; it might give them all sorts of unknown diseases and infections. I didn't like that much - it made me sound dirty. But overhearing it made me start to believe what they'd told me. And when I thought some more about all the things that were wrong with me, I decided they must be telling the truth - I mean, human kids couldn't see through things, could they? Human kids couldn't crush paperweights with one hand. So I slowly came to the conclusion that they were telling the truth, and I acquired a whole new outlook on life. I was alone. I was the only one like me in the whole world. I didn't have any parents, except my Mom and Dad, and they weren't around any more. No-one played with me; no-one laughed with me - I was just Clark Kent, the weird little specimen in a human boy's body. So I got pretty depressed. The tests went on and on, and lots of different men came to see me and poked and prodded their way around my body, and through it all, I just felt lonelier and lonelier. I hated being an alien - I wanted to be like the other kids I'd grown up with. I didn't want to be different, and I really didn't want to be an alien. A dirty, infectious alien. The weird thing was that sometimes, I really didn't feel sick at all - sometimes, I felt really strong and healthy. But the clinic said that was just remission; anyone with a long-term illness had short periods of time when they felt better. It didn't mean I was recovering. I guess they were right, because whenever they held back on my medication, the symptoms would get worse. I broke things a lot, and my eyes would go so funny I'd get dizzy. My hearing was probably the worst - I'd be constantly flinching because things would suddenly go very loud, like someone had just turned up the volume dial to maximum. So I didn't really like it when they lowered the dosage, but they said they had to sometimes so that they could see if I was getting any better, and also so that they could run tests they couldn't do when I was okay. By the way, I'm sorry this is such a dismal story, but that's how it was. Of course, that guy from the newspaper never wrote about all this stuff; he wasn't interested in dull, boring tests and a sad kid from Smallville, Kansas. So all you got to read about was the real, genuine alien living and breathing in Metropolis, hidden away in his penthouse apartment. Penthouse! Not on the money I earn. Don't get me wrong - I love my apartment, especially since Mom paid me a visit and helped fix it up with good curtains and stuff like that. But it's an ordinary place, not a fancy penthouse. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, I was giving you the miserable bit. I guess I owe you the happy bit now. One day, a new doctor came to visit me. He was nicer than the other doctors, and best of all, he didn't run any tests on me. He said a boy of my age ought to be at home with his parents, playing with his friends at school, and getting into mischief. I think I smiled for the first time in around a year. The catch, he told me, was that I needed to get better before I went home. Well, I knew that of course, but the way he said it made me feel like it was a real possibility. He said he had a new, very experimental drug he wanted to treat me with, and was I willing to give it a try. Was I willing? He was giving me a choice? I said yes. The first time he gave it to me was a disaster. I was unconscious for two days, he told me later. All I remember is a lot of pain and nausea when I woke up, and then loads of very unpleasant procedures. I'll spare you the detail; even I'm not feeling that maudlin. But when I was finally well enough to get up, I discovered that the symptoms were gone, *and* I wasn't drowsy or moving through treacle any more. I felt great. I could see normally, hear normally, and I didn't break things all the time. The drug wore off after a bit and I started getting sick again, so Dr Tempus - that's his name, by the way - asked me if I was willing to try again, and I agreed. This time he used a lower dose, and things weren't quite so grim. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we went through a lot of trial and error together, him and me, but eventually, we got the dosage about right, and I was just about as good as new. It was time to go home. Chapter Two: A New Beginning ---------------------------- I'll never forget that first hug. I could hardly wait for Dr Tempus to stop the car when we rounded the corner and the farm came into view. As soon as I could, I was out the door and running towards Mom and Dad. Mom caught me first, wrapped her arms all around me and held me so tight I thought she was going to squeeze all the air out of me. I didn't mind, and I didn't care that it wasn't cool to be hugged by your Mom; I just wanted her to keep me close like that for ever and ever. Then Dad put his hand on my shoulder, said a gruff, "Welcome home, son," and I was getting a huge hug from him too. Dad's an even better hugger than Mom - he just kind of envelopes you with his whole body, and you know everything's going to be all right now that he's your Dad again. You see, for a while I was scared that they wouldn't be my Mom and Dad any more. If I was an alien, then they weren't my real parents - just like that doctor in Smallville had said. They could be aliens, too, but I refused to believe that! I mean, aliens wouldn't set up home on a farm in Smallville, would they? Not when they've got the whole world to explore. I'd love to travel the world. Anyway, like I said, I was scared I'd lose them. When they stopped visiting me at the clinic, I was convinced they'd abandoned me, even though they had tried to explain why they weren't going to be able to visit me. After all, I was just a small kid without his Mom and Dad, and that was all I could think of for days on end at the clinic. And even when I knew I was going home, I was scared - maybe they wouldn't want me back now they knew I was an alien; an alien with a long-term illness. I wasn't cured, you see - Dr Tempus had already warned me that I was going to need to stay on the kryptomide for the rest of my life. Regular injections, just like a diabetic. But those first hugs told me everything I needed to know. Mom and Dad wanted me home, and they loved me. Of course, life is never quite that straightforward. My parents were very grateful to Dr Tempus for bringing me home, and for finding a medication to suppress my symptoms, but they were also worried. Money was tight, and they didn't know how they were going to afford to pay for my treatment. Oh, they could scrimp and save, and they could both get part-time jobs to supplement their income from the farm, but I was going to need long-term support. What would happen to me when they weren't around? Well, that was when Dr Tempus dropped his bombshell. He said that he'd pay for my care. He'd pay for a nurse to come visit me once a week, give me my injection, and a physical exam to make sure I wasn't developing any new symptoms or complications - and if I needed any further medical treatment, he'd pay for that, too. Mom said you could have knocked her down with a feather. After all the struggles they'd had with the clinic, here was a man who not only had made me better, and brought me home himself, but was offering to pay my medical bills for the rest of my life! It was a dream come true. They were suspicious and uneasy, of course. They wanted to know what his motive was, and were worried that he would expect something in return. They'd heard of other unusual children who had been exploited as freaks for mass entertainment. So, as an alien, was I to be turned into a circus act, or sucked into some kind of giant publicity machine? Why, of course not, was his reply. He wasn't interested in fame and fortune; he already had quite enough money, and fame was such an overrated, tiresome thing - the famous never had any privacy, did they? No, his reward would be in watching me grow up into a normal young man, free from the tyranny of my alien physiology. I could lead a normal life, and no-one need ever know that I wasn't human. I think they thought his choice of words was a little off; Mom said he almost managed to make being an alien sound like an illness in itself. I guess in my case it was, but surely that was just because I wasn't living on my own planet, wherever that was. Anyway, he always spoke a little strangely - still does, actually - so they decided that maybe he'd just expressed himself badly. However, it still all sounded too good to be true, and Mom and Dad took a lot of convincing that he was a genuine, squeaky-clean philanthropist. I think seeing how well he and I had hit it off together might have helped them decide in the end. Like I said, he was a little alien himself - oh, I don't mean he was a complete wacko, but some of his mannerisms were a little odd, and he didn't seem that familiar with our way of life, even though he had an American accent. I never did get around to asking him where he came from. Anyway, because he was a bit weird, I kind of identified with him, I guess. And so my future was secured. A trust fund was set up for me, from which the nurse was paid - still is, actually, and now and again, Dr Tempus himself would visit me to see how I was getting on. It was a new beginning for me. I started back at school, made new friends, caught up with some old ones, and generally began to lead the normal, ordinary life Dr Tempus had promised for me. Unfortunately, I was a year behind the other kids my age, which was tough at first because at that age a year makes a big difference. The kids in my class seemed young and babyish - and it probably didn't help that I'd had to grow up pretty fast when I was away from Mom and Dad. But I got over that; one advantage was that I was usually top, or near the top, of the class, and so I ended up becoming a kind of class-leader. Not in an arrogant way, you understand. It was just that I often found myself sticking up for certain kids - the ones who got picked on because they were different in some way. I hate seeing people victimised just because they don't conform to everyone else's idea of normality. I guess that's because I'm conscious of my own weirdness, so sticking up for other kids like me was my way of fighting back - showing the world that different doesn't equal inferior. It was only at sports that I had to be a little careful, because my illness meant that I'd get dizzy and out of breath if I ran around too much, especially if it was the day after I'd had my injection. But that wasn't so bad - I made up for my lack of strength with a pretty accurate eye for putting balls in nets, whether they were basketballs or baseballs, and that earned me points with the other kids. The weird thing was that I always seemed to have more energy when I was playing outdoor sports - sunny days really invigorated me and helped me keep going for longer. Maybe I have that thing - you know; SAD? It means Seasonal Affective Disorder, where the changing seasons affect how you feel. Maybe on my home planet, it's always sunny. I wish I knew where it was - my planet, I mean. I wish I knew who my real parents were, too, and why I'm not with them. Did they send me away, or was it all just a big mistake that I ended up here, and they're still looking for me? Should I be sending up some kind of interplanetary distress beacon so they can find me? And I wish I knew what they looked like - did they have two arms, two legs, and a head just like me? Or maybe I didn't even have parents - maybe I was hatched in a test-tube. Basically, I'm twenty-five, and I still don't know where I came from. I don't even know if I am twenty-five. That's how long I've been on this planet, but for all I know, I could be a hundred and two - who knows? Sometimes I stare for ages at the stars in the sky, trying to guess which one is mine. When I was a kid, I had one all picked out, and whenever it was a starry night, I'd search for it and try to imagine my parents living there. I'd make up stories about them - mundane things, like my Mom fixing dinner while Dad was working in his laboratory, or both of them sitting in front of their version of TV and laughing together. I don't know why, but I always pictured my Dad as a scientist - weird, really, since my Earth Dad is a farmer. So am I boring you yet? The guy from the Star didn't write about any of this stuff, of course, so maybe no-one's interested in an alien's real feelings - the longing to meet the parents he never knew, and the sadness he feels whenever he thinks about the people on a planet he never even lived on. Weird, huh? But hey - I'm an alien, so weird is what I do best. According to the Star. Anyway, that's pretty much it - Clark Kent: The Early Years in a nutshell. I grew up, I took my medicine, Dr Tempus stayed in touch, Mom and Dad were great; life was great (well, except for the occasional identity crisis, but I'm trying to be up-beat here). So let's move on to Clark Kent: The Middle Years. Chapter Three: The Dating Game ------------------------------ Did I tell you about Lana? She was my girlfriend for a while, until we split. We'd been friends for years, on and off, depending on whether we had classes together and whether she was travelling to school on the bus with me, or getting a ride from her folks. In other words, we weren't exactly inseparable, but we seemed to like each other. So when it came to senior high, when it was obligatory to have a girlfriend/boyfriend or there was something seriously wrong with you, she became mine - girlfriend, I mean. I think I was pretty good boyfriend material for Lana. I looked okay - I mean, I wasn't especially good-looking or anything, but I wasn't geeky, I wasn't spotty, and I didn't wear glasses (she had a thing about guys in glasses, for some reason). Oddly, considering I had this long-term illness, I'd actually beefed up pretty well, so I wasn't thin and sickly-looking either. I was good at my classes, and while I wasn't exactly a sports hero, I did okay. Basically, I was Mr Slightly-above-average, and that suited Lana just fine. I was predictable, dependable, and I wasn't about to be snatched away by any of her girlfriends - I wasn't hot property like some of the other guys. We had fun for a while, playing the teenage couple game. We went to the movies together, had lunch together at school, travelled to and from school together, and spent a lot of time at each other's houses - all the usual stuff. I even sent her crazy love-poems which made her laugh - she had a really nice, bubbly laugh, and I was always teasing her so that I could hear it. She looked really cute when she was laughing, too. And when we went to the prom together, I couldn't believe how beautiful she looked in her dress, with her long hair all piled up in a really elegant... - well, I don't know the technical term, but it looked great, anyway. It wasn't love, of course. Oh, we kissed and petted like you're supposed to, and I won't deny I really enjoyed all that, but I never felt like I just had to have her in my life, for the rest of my life. I cared about her, and I liked having her around, but that was about it. I think she felt the same - well, actually, I know she felt the same, because she dumped me. We were at my house, fooling around in my room on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Officially, we were helping each other study, which, in a way, I guess we were - we just weren't studying books, if you know what I mean. Mom interrupted things by knocking on the door and saying there was someone here to see me. When I asked who it was, she said it was Dr Tempus. This was bad news, because I hadn't told Lana about my illness. Oh, she knew I wasn't as good at sports as some of the other guys, but she had no idea that I was seriously ill, and she definitely didn't know I was an alien. Only Mom and Dad knew that. Why hadn't I told her? Pride, I guess. And embarrassment - I mean, who wants to tell their girlfriend that they need weekly injections just to keep them normal? But a visit from Dr Tempus was not to be ignored. He was paying for my health, so the very least I could do was be civil and welcoming towards him whenever he turned up; it wasn't as though he visited that often. That's mostly my Mom's line, by the way, but I know she's right. So there we were, in the living room - Lana and me, Mom and Dad, Dr Tempus, and Nurse Baxter. Yes, even my nurse was there, a day earlier than usual. I'd tried to make Lana leave, but Dr Tempus wouldn't hear of it; he was delighted to meet my friend, and wanted to know all about her and what she thought of me. Besides, he wasn't going to stay long, because he could see that we two love-birds (yes, he really used that phrase) wanted to be alone together. So we had this embarrassing conversation, where Dr Tempus kept asking me how I was, and generally saying more than I wanted him to about my illness, and I kept trying to shut him up, and meanwhile, Lana was beginning to look more and more uneasy. I already knew she didn't like being around sick people - I told you she didn't even like guys in glasses, didn't I? So for her to find out that her boyfriend had a long-term, incurable illness was seriously bad news. Our days together were numbered; I could see that already. Mom was on my side, of course, and kept shifting the conversation away to safer topics, but Dr Tempus wasn't interested in idle chit-chat; never had been. I ended up furious with him for spoiling things with Lana. She left straight after he did, and I was pretty sure she'd never be back. I ranted at Mom and Dad about Dr Tempus, not caring that Nurse Baxter was still there to hear it all. They tried to calm me down, but I wasn't interested in calming down, and finished by storming off to my room. Five minutes later, in walked Nurse Baxter with her medical bag. For the first time in my life, my patience snapped - I'd had enough of injections and medical exams, and when she picked up my wrist to check my pulse, I snatched it away from her and told her exactly what I thought of the whole business. She left the room, and next thing I knew, Dad was there giving me a stern lecture about politeness and common courtesy. It really felt like everyone was against me. Then I noticed Nurse Baxter loading up a needle with something. I asked her what it was, because it wasn't the usual very pale green of the kryptomide, it was very slightly pink. Something to help me calm down, she told me. I told her right back that I didn't need to calm down, and that earned me another severe reprimand from Dad. If Nurse Baxter thought I needed medication, then I should take it like the mature young adult he thought I was, not play silly games like some teenage kid - or words to that effect; parental-type words. So I let her stick me with the pink stuff, and I guess it did help. I stopped being mad at everyone, and later that day, Mom came in with Earl Grey tea and scones, and we had a long, long talk about Lana, and girlfriends in general. Mom's good at that. She told me some stuff about her and Dad which surprised the heck out of me - you never really think of your parents as having those sorts of feelings, do you? I ended up learning a lot that day, I think, and grew even closer to Mom and Dad than before. Lana and I didn't get any closer, of course. We drifted apart, or rather, she drifted while I pursued half- heartedly, until it was obvious that she didn't want to be near me any more. I went through a bad bout of depression around then, because it seemed to me I'd missed my last chance for a normal relationship with a girl. I was headed for a lonely life without a wife or a family of my own. And to cap it all, my health took a nose-dive just after that, so any chance I would have had to prove I wasn't the nasty, sickly guy Lana had seen that day was pretty much gone. Chapter Four: Misery Take Two ----------------------------- The kryptomide stopped working as well as it used to. A couple of days before my next injection, I'd start getting sick again - the funny vision, mostly, where my depth of focus would waver in and out so much I'd get dizzy, and then scary periods when my brain would be telling me I could see inside things, or even through them. Hearing would become its usual problem, and I'd have to be very careful when I was holding fragile objects, like mugs and glasses. At times it got so bad that I'd retreat to my room with all the curtains closed and my head under the pillow, just to block out all the noise and frightening sensations. After a few weeks of this, Dr Tempus came to see me. He recommended that I be admitted back into the Trask Clinic for a course of intravenous kryptomide. The idea, he explained, was to knock the symptoms right back with aggressive treatment; I'd be pretty rough for a while, but when I recovered I'd be clear again for a good long while. Now, the last place on earth (or any other planet) I wanted to go was back to that clinic; I had this idea that once I went there, I'd probably never come back out again. Plus, they were horrible at that clinic. Even though I was older now, and better able to cope on my own, I still dreaded submitting myself to their cold, impersonal treatment. So I lobbied for treatment at home, or preferably, no treatment at all. I was all for the optimistic approach: leave it alone, and it'll go away. Dad reminded me of the toothache I'd left alone, and how I now had a crown where the tooth used to be. Thanks, Dad. And Dr Tempus said that I'd need very careful monitoring, so home just wasn't the right place for that kind of treatment. I, on the other hand, was beginning to wonder whether the cure wasn't actually worse than the illness; I knew how wretched I was going to feel, having been through all that when I first started on the drug. But Mom asked which was worse - a few weeks feeling ill, or the rest of my life feeling ill? So I went. I won't bore you with the details. Basically, I had 24 hours of sheer misery, hooked up to an IV which hurt, machines which beeped constantly, and a blood- pressure cuff which automatically inflated, squashed my arm, and checked my BP every single hour. That was followed by a couple of days in so much pain I couldn't think straight, and then about a week with so little strength I couldn't even sit up without help. All this to be able to see and hear properly, and not be so clumsy as to break everything I laid my hands on. It didn't really seem worth it at the time, but Mom's words came back to me, and I told myself that this was only a few weeks out of my life, and then I'd be back to normal again very soon. It seemed to last for ever, actually. But at least I escaped. Well, sort of. I was as weak as a kitten when I came out. This time, when the car drew up outside the farm, there was no bursting out of the door and running into Mom and Dad's welcoming hugs. No, this time, Mom and Dad had to come to me. This time, there weren't hugs and kisses, there were practicalities, like how to get me out of the car, up the two steps to the door, and inside the house. Sound pathetic? It was - I was. Mom and Dad had to do everything for me those first few days - I couldn't walk more than a couple of paces before my knees would buckle, so Dad had to take me to the bathroom, help me get dressed, and generally look after me like an over-grown baby. I'd lost weight, and I also had the appetite of an anorexic mouse, because the kryptomide had made me very nauseous. Not that I was ever actually sick, thank God, but I spent a lot of time thinking I was going to be. My parents were pretty good at keeping cheerful whenever I was around, but I still overheard the occasional hushed conversation in worried tones which told me how upset they really were. But I was determined that I wasn't going to be beaten by this thing. I refused to stay in bed, and I continued with my school work as best I could without actually attending classes. It was getting near graduation, you see, and nothing, except maybe death, was going to stop me from graduating high school. I had plans; or at least, aspirations. I didn't want to live the life of an invalid - I wanted to have a career, with the kind of job that made a difference to people's lives. I hadn't any idea what that job might be, but I knew I'd need a good education to get me started. Nurse Baxter didn't help much on that front. Don't get me wrong - I liked her a lot, and she'd certainly seen me through a lot of ups and downs over the years, but this was one time when I could have done with less of a heavily protective attitude from her. You see, Dr Tempus had arranged for her to visit every other day for a while, until I was back on my feet, and every time she came, she told me I should rest more and study less. She especially didn't approve when I sat out on the veranda to study; she said that I could easily catch a chill because my resistance to germs was so low. A chill, she said, would be dangerous in my weakened state of health. I could never get her to understand how much better I felt when I was outside sitting in the sunshine; that I could almost feel my body soaking up power from the sun's rays. Her answer to that was that I'd obviously been reading too much sci- fi, and if I wanted to get better, I'd listen to a qualified professional like her instead of believing everything I read in trashy magazines. And didn't I think that my health was more important than a few books? A few books! She was talking about my livelihood. Mom and Dad, on the other hand, were just great. They encouraged me to study, and they even managed to persuade a few of my teachers to come out to the farm after school and tutor me. It was tiring at times, but I was slowly beginning to get my strength back so it became easier as the weeks went by. So despite Nurse Baxter's best endeavours, I finished my studies, got the necessary grades, and finally graduated from high school. I even managed to make it to the ceremony and totter on stage to accept my scroll. Hey, I just realised I called this chapter Misery and I actually ended on a high note. I guess I've managed to have some good times along with the bad after all. Chapter Five: Independence -------------------------- The long summer began. All I wanted to do was rest and relax after all the excitement of graduation, so I took to sitting outside in the sunshine, reading books and listening to music. That was when I first began to write. I wrote short stories at first, about anything and everything that came into my head. Some of them, especially the early ones, were pretty awful, but one or two weren't so bad. I let Mom read one; the only one I wasn't embarrassed to show her, and she said I should send it to the Smallville Gazette, our local newspaper. Well, being a Mom, she always had a lot of confidence in my work, so I thought this was just her parental pride getting the better of her again. I didn't bother to send anything. I couldn't imagine the Gazette wanting to publish the ramblings of an immature teenager. Unbeknownst to me, Mom took matters into her own hands - that's typical of her, by the way. The first I knew that she'd sent my story in was when I got the letter from the paper thanking me for the story, and enclosing a cheque in payment. Not only that, but they wanted another story for the Sunday edition in two weeks' time. I couldn't believe it! Someone had actually paid me for a story I'd written just to while away the long summer days - me, the sickly no-hoper from nowhere! Well, I wrote the next story, and another one after that - and the rest, as they say, is history. By the time I went to college, I had a regular weekly spot in the Sunday edition, and by the time I left college, it had been picked up by the Kansas Messenger and a couple of other medium- sized papers, and I was half-way through my first full- length novel. Who would have thought that stories about a small farming community in rural Kansas would be so popular? I guess I make the characters pretty piquant, but they're all based on real people I've known. In fact, folks in Smallville generally have a good laugh at their own expense when they read my stories - although I've also ruffled a few feathers inadvertently once or twice. Anyway, nowadays I have a couple of best-sellers to my name, and I finance my long-term writing projects with a series of columns in the local and national press. I moved to Metropolis a couple of years ago, but I take regular trips back home to see my folks and all my friends, and to catch up with the latest gossip. Of course, because of my illness, none of this was as easy as it sounds. It's just as well I'm a pretty fast learner, otherwise I'd have never have got through college, what with all the time I had to take off for kryptomide treatments and other stuff. Not to mention the fact that Nurse Baxter followed me to college and was a constant companion - not so great when you're trying to lead a normal college social life. I didn't keep any girlfriends for long. Living in Metropolis isn't so easy, either. I'm pretty much on my own, so if I'm sick, I just have to cope as best I can. You're probably wondering why I didn't stay in Smallville with my parents - at least they could help when I have an attack. Well, I guess college gave me a taste for independence of a kind, and while I love Smallville dearly, I discovered when I moved back there after college that I felt stifled. Everything was very safe and predictable in Smallville, and I wanted more than that. I wanted to go out and meet new people and see new places; live a little dangerously after all the years I'd spent being cosseted as a semi-invalid at home. Mom and Dad were against the move at first, as you can imagine, but they also understood that I needed some independence, so they came around in the end - and as usual, once they'd made up their minds, they were wonderfully supportive. So here I am. I moved into this new apartment a year ago, Mom and Dad have visited twice to help me fix it up, and Nurse Baxter has finally retired, to be replaced by Tilley. Actually, her full name is Attila the Hun, but I call her Tilley for short. She's a lot more aggressive than Nurse Baxter (who didn't put up with any nonsense but at least had a heart) and I could swear she's more man than woman. I don't know where Dr Tempus finds these women, but sometimes I wonder if he's secretly breeding a new race of androgynous human beings in his spare time. So why am I depressed today? Aside from the obvious, I sound pretty successful, don't I? Well, the main reason is that I'm sitting here staring at Dr Tempus's shiny new present to me. The wheelchair. Chapter Six: Depression ----------------------- You see, I'm getting worse. It takes higher doses of kryptomide to keep my symptoms in check these days, and Dr Tempus says it's only a matter of time before I'll be too weak after treatment to get around without mechanical assistance. He said I may as well get used to working the controls now, while I'm relatively healthy, so that when I really do need to use a wheelchair, it's second nature. Well, that's a great theory, but he's not the one sitting staring at his own living death. I hate it. I want to pick it up and throw it out the window. I'm just not that sick - I don't need a wheelchair, and don't ever intend to need one. I mean, when I'm not having an attack, and I'm not recovering from a treatment, I'm really healthy. I feel fine - I eat well, I'm strong, I can run upstairs three at a time, and my senses are completely normal. Why would I need a wheelchair? But Dr Tempus says I'll need one, so here it is. The beginning of the end. I'd almost prefer to go back to the Trask clinic, hook myself up to a kryptomide drip, and slip slowly into oblivion, than be stuck in that thing for the rest of my life. Almost. Tilley tried to make me sit in it when she was here earlier, but I refused. I said the wheels would mark the wooden floor where it was parked if I sat in it, and I'd need to get some rugs laid first. She bullied me for a while about it, but I didn't budge. I'll have to think up another excuse for next time. So the wheelchair is one reason I'm depressed today, but I'm not finished yet. Oh, no, you're going to get all my misery vented on you today, my gentle reader. I've got two more reasons for you. The first is probably going to sound ungrateful, considering I'm reasonably successful in my chosen career. You see, that's the problem right there. I didn't actually choose this career; it chose me. Okay, so I encouraged it by writing more stories and getting them published, but it's not actually what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to make a difference; do some good in the world, and I'm pretty sure that writing novels and short stories about rural life in Kansas just doesn't cut it. I guess people get some enjoyment from reading my books, otherwise they wouldn't keep buying them, but that's not enough. I want to help people directly, not just by giving them a few hour's escapism away from their daily problems. I do help out at a homeless shelter a couple of days a week, but even that doesn't seem like enough. So what do I do? I can't hold down a regular job because of my illness, yet there are jobs out there that I think I could do well in. For example, with my talent for writing, I think I'd make a pretty good reporter. I know it sounds na‹ve and idealistic, but I really do think you can make a difference to people's lives if you're the right kind of reporter - the kind that investigates injustices and brings them to the attention of everyone. Not the kind of reporter that guy from the Star was, of course - all he wanted was a superficial, juicy scandal to earn him brownie points with his editor. Yes, I know that writing novels is a very different skill to writing for a newspaper, but I could learn. I've read a few journalism textbooks, and I'm sure that with a little practice I'd be able to adapt to the appropriate style. I can write pretty fast, too, which I guess is important if you're working to tight deadlines. Plus, if that idiot from the Star can do it, surely so can I? Which brings me to my third reason for feeling depressed today. Don't ask me why, but I just agreed to let another reporter interview me. She phoned me just after Tilley left so caught me with my guard down. She said the Daily Planet was running a short Where Are They Now? series, and that they'd like to do a follow-up piece on me. I refused outright, of course, but she was very persistent. She said that it wouldn't be like the story in the Star, but would go behind the flashy headlines and tell the true story of what it was like to be alone in the world - the only one of your kind on the whole planet. Well, that caught my interest, because she'd gone straight into my soul with that issue; no-one else seems to understand just how lonely it feels to have no idea where or who your biological parents are, or what sort of culture you come from. I still didn't trust her, though, and told her so. I said I didn't want my private life cracked open for every single Daily Planet reader to laugh about over their morning coffee - I'd already been through that once, and I wasn't about to let someone else do it to me again. She asked me if I was happy with everything the Star had printed - was it accurate, for example? Well, of course it wasn't. He got just about everything wrong, including even my Mom's name; he called her Marta the whole way through. So this Planet reporter said this was my chance to set the record straight; she said I could have final veto over the article, and anything I didn't like, she'd remove. I said jokily could I have that in writing, and to my surprise, she said yes, no problem. She was very persuasive, but I think the thing which finally made me give in was when she said dismissively that the Star article was a very poor piece of journalism and was only fit for lining trash cans. That made me laugh, even if I thought privately that it was a little unprofessional of her to malign the opposition so blatantly. I guess I liked her for that. So I said yes. Tomorrow morning, Ms Lois Lane of the Daily Planet will be arriving on my doorstep ready to delve into my innermost secrets. Now do you see why I'm depressed? Once she writes her article, the circus will start up again. I'll get constant phone-calls, reporters will come banging on my door, Mom and Dad will get hounded to death, and knowing my luck, there'll even be a demonstration outside my apartment block saying 'aliens go home'. I'm thinking of cancelling. I could phone her right now and tell her the appointment's off. No interview, no story, no nothing. But first I think I'll throw a blanket over that wheelchair so I don't have to sit here staring at it any more. Chapter Seven: I'm Back ----------------------- Yeah, yesterday I thought I was just writing a few pages as a way of taking my mind off how lousy I felt, but I have some more to say today, so here I am again. Ms Lane just left and I think I'm in love. Okay, I'm just kidding, but the interview went a lot better than I thought it would. It didn't even seem like an interview after the first few minutes; more like a pleasant chat over coffee. I suspect Ms Lane is very good at her job. Mind you, I got the distinct impression she'd rather have been somewhere else. I realised that when we were talking about writing and my plans for the future. Taking a bit of a risk, I said jokingly that what I'd really like would be to exchange writing novels for *her* job, except I'd want to be the kind of reporter who investigates crime and corruption and such like. She gave me a withering look and said that actually, that was what she normally did; this was just an assignment that her editor had given her because he said it would be good for her. "Not that I'm not really interested in your story!" she added hastily, obviously realising her faux pas too late. That made me smile. I mean, I was under no illusions about how important I was; she was just there to grab a few column inches for her paper, so it didn't bother me that she had just made me sound like the least interesting thing on the planet. It amused me, though, that it bothered her. I raised an eyebrow. "But a good juicy corruption story down at City Hall would be a better use of your talents." "Yes. No! I mean, yes, it would, but this is good too. Really." She flicked over a page of her spiral notebook, although I was pretty sure she hadn't written much yet. "Let's get back to your childhood. The Star article said you didn't tell the Kents that you were an alien; they had to figure it out themselves." She looked at me directly. "I'm guessing, of course, but that sounds like an unlikely story to me. Want to tell me what really happened?" Her frank use of that word - 'alien' - made me flinch a bit. The guy from the Star had used it liberally, and I hadn't like it at all. I mean, *I* know what I am, but I'm not overkeen on other people reminding me constantly that I don't belong here. That said, Ms Lane didn't look or sound like a bigot, so I let it pass. I shook my head. "That guy...well, I guess he was half- right - but the real truth is, I didn't know myself until the people at the Trask clinic told me." She scribbled on her notepad and then looked up. "Trask clinic?" "Yeah, that's where I was sent for a while when I was a kid. They're some kind of specialist clinic over in Colorado." "'Some kind of'?" she repeated. "Don't you know?" I frowned, having never really thought much about what they actually got up to when they weren't pumping kryptomide into me. "Well, I think they specialise in treating people with unusual or rare disorders," I said. "I've never heard of them. Are they government-run or private?" Again, I hadn't really got a clue. "I've only been there twice...I'm not sure why, but I think they're run by the government. Why do you ask?" She shrugged. "I guess if it was me, I'd want to know exactly who was treating me and how they were funded." She smiled ruefully. "Occupational hazard. Anyway, so they were the ones who told you who you really were?" "Yes." She learned fast; she'd avoided the dreaded 'a' word that time, which meant she must have noticed my unease last time around. I was beginning to warm to Ms Lane. However, I wasn't very comfortable talking about those nightmarish days at the Trask clinic, so I left it at that and hoped she'd move on to another topic. But she didn't. Instead, she looked at me directly with a gentleness in her eyes I hadn't noticed before, and said softly, "That hurt, didn't it?" "I..." She confused me with her concern; I hadn't been expecting that. I took refuge in a shrug and a weak smile. "I got over it. It's not like it wasn't true." "But how old were you?" "Seven. Old enough." She was shaking her head, though. "Why didn't they tell your parents first and get them to tell you?" I shrugged again. "I don't think they were used to dealing with little boys. Anyway, my parents were back home on the farm." "They weren't with you?" she asked incredulously. "They couldn't afford to be," I said quickly, to squash any ideas she might be forming about Mom and Dad and what kind of parents they were. "I just meant I was surprised the clinic didn't make arrangements for at least your mother to stay with you. I guess this all happened before they had mother and child units at hospitals." "Yes." "So what happened after that? How long were you there for?" So despite myself, I told her all about Dr Tempus and the kryptomide - not in too much detail, you understand, because I didn't want her thinking I was a complete invalid. I don't really like talking to complete strangers about my illness either. "He sounds like an amazing person, this Dr Tempus," she remarked. "Oh, he is!" I replied. "Without him, I'd hate to think what would have happened to me. In fact, he made all this possible." I gestured at the apartment around us and my modest pile of books over on the desk. "And you say he still pays for all your care?" "Yes, and before you start reading anything into that, it's all above board. He puts money into a trust fund and everything gets paid out of there. I hardly ever see him, except when he finds time to drop by." "How often is that?" "Oh, about twice a year, if that." "He must be a very busy guy." "Yeah." Building all those androgynous human beings, I thought sardonically, then immediately told myself off for thinking so meanly about my benefactor. Granted, he was a bit strange, but I'd never got the impression he was into anything sinister. On the other hand, Ms Lane was making me uncomfortable with her questions about him. On the surface they were innocent enough, but there was something in her tone of voice which made me think she had some reservations that she wasn't voicing. I guess to an outsider Dr Tempus' philanthropy might seem suspicious, but I'd been under his care for long enough to know he didn't have an ulterior motive. Ms Lane simply didn't understand him. "Is this okay, by the way?" I startled; she'd interrupted my wandering thoughts. "I'm not tiring you out with all these questions?" "I'm fine," I said. To be honest, I didn't like her asking that particular question; I mean, I'm not an invalid. Not yet, at any rate. I must have sounded a bit tetchy. "Sorry," she said. "I just thought..." I saw her eyes stray towards the wheelchair and immediately felt a twist of annoyance. Damn Dr Tempus and his misguided generosity. "Do I look tired?" I asked, now definitely sounding tetchy and not really caring that I did. "No, you look fine - I'm sorry if I shouldn't have asked. Look, I think I've got everything I need, anyway. I'll write the story up and then bring it back for you to check - okay?" she said, standing up and stuffing her notebook into her purse. I'd driven her away. Feeling guilty and oddly disappointed that she was leaving already, I stood up with her. "That would be fine. When should I expect you?" "Same time tomorrow, if that's convenient?" I nodded. "I'll be here." She held out her hand. "Thank you for talking to me - it's going to be a good story, I'm sure." I took her hand; she had a firm, assured grip. "Because you're writing it?" I said with a smile. She looked as if she liked that. "Because I'm writing it," she agreed with a faint upturn of her mouth. "And because it's about you." I raised my eyebrows. "Why, thank you." She rolled her eyes. "I can't believe I just said that. Quick, let me out before I say something even more cheesy." We laughed, then I noticed we were still holding hands. Embarrassed, I let her small hand slip from mine and instead found myself staring into her dark brown eyes. Suddenly we weren't laughing any more. I don't know precisely what happened at that moment, but *something* happened. Then the moment passed and she was turning to leave. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said, and was gone. Chapter Eight - Research ------------------------ I've been thinking about what she said about the Trask clinic. She's right. I should know more about them than I do, considering I've put my life in their hands more than once. I mean, I know Dr Tempus has connections there, but I don't know if he works for them, or if they work for him. I don't know for certain that they're government-run, and if they're not, who pays their wages? What happens if whoever owns them goes bust? And what if I needed to contact them in an emergency? I guess Tilley knows how to contact them, but what if she wasn't around? I'd have to go to a regular hospital, and they wouldn't have the right drugs to treat me. So I've decided to undertake a little investigative work. Something tells me that Tilley wouldn't be very forthcoming if I rang her up and asked her to give me their address and telephone number, and anyway, I'm only supposed to phone her in an emergency. I'll have to be a little more devious. If they're a government facility, then someone in the government must know about them, right? Maybe even Information will have heard of them. Two hours later... Okay, maybe they're not a government facility after all. No-one has heard of them at any of the health organisations I rang. Information hasn't got any entries under Trask which sound remotely medical either, so I guess they must be unlisted - which is odd for a clinic. How do their patients, or relatives of their patients, contact them? Further research is required... Three hours later... I don't think I'm very good at this. I've just come back from the library, where I drew a complete blank. They're not in any of the company listings you'd expect to find them in, which means that either I was wrong, and they are a government organisation after all, or they're too small to be included in the publications I was looking at. So now the problem is that the information I need to look at isn't all in the same place. I'm sure it would be a lot easier if I could access the Internet and conduct some research there, but I don't have that luxury. They say that in a few years' time, everyone will have the Internet at home, but that's no good to me right now. Maybe if I worked for a company, I'd be able to use it - I bet the Daily Planet has access, for example. I wonder... I was thinking of phoning her anyway. I was going to suggest I went down there tomorrow morning to read her article, instead of making her come here again - kind of as an apology for being a bit rude to her today. All right, if I'm being completely honest with you, I've always wanted to visit a newspaper and see how they work, so this would be the ideal excuse. But I do want to be nice to her. She had a cute face and I think I like her. Which reminds me - I haven't told you what she looks like, have I? Well, she has straight, shortish brown hair and brown eyes, she's very slim, and she's just about average height for a woman. Her face - well, I'd say she has very fine, classic features, except that makes her sound like a Greek goddess, and there's a lot more character in her face than that. She's strong, for a start, but she's also delicate and maybe even a tiny bit vulnerable. Pretty isn't the right word for her, because pretty is for girls, and she's definitely more woman than girl. Beautiful doesn't seem quite right either, but she's certainly very nice to look at. Oh, and I'd guess she's around the same age as me, but I could be wrong on that one - I'm not very good at judging women's ages. Who am I kidding, though? She's a bright, attractive young woman with years and years of life in front of her, and I'm a sick alien looking at spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Women don't exactly find that a turn on. Still, a guy's got to try. If I don't keep trying, I may as well be dead. And maybe while I'm there I could persuade her to let me borrow one of their screens for a while. Chapter Nine - The Daily Planet ------------------------------- Well, that was interesting. I've got lots to tell you, so where do I start? I guess the first thing you need to know is that it's the day after my interview with Ms Lane and I just got back from the Daily Planet. Wow! Forgive me for being so childishly enthusiastic, but I really, really loved it. The place was buzzing with activity - the phones ring constantly, people come and go all the time, and the reporting staff don't seem to think twice about shouting to each other halfway the newsroom. It's organised chaos. Sometimes they were yelling about stories, but a lot of the time it was banter - loads of in- jokes which went straight over my head, but I got some of the references. I have to say, they're a pretty well- informed, intelligent bunch of people. There was a fantastic atmosphere, too. I got this real sense of urgency; of people chasing after breaking news, of journalists always alert for the latest developments on the stories they were following. You know, sometimes I'm nervous going to new places, because if I have an attack, it can be pretty grim if I don't know my way around. At the Daily Planet, though, I didn't feel nervous at all. I felt like I belonged there. I even got to meet the editor, Perry White. He's not a bit like I imagined him. I mean, his editorials are always intelligent, incisive, and kind of pithy, so somehow I'd formed this mental image of a tall, thin guy with glasses who was probably a little reserved. I hadn't really expected the huge, larger-than-life man I met, who barks at his staff one moment and then is charmingly avuncular the next, and uses the same laconic Southern drawl to address everyone he meets. In fact, I heard him before I saw him. "Lois, where the heck's my story on hospital closures?!" Ms Lane leaned over her desk and yelled back, "Nearly done, Chief!" She started to apologise to me for the interruption, and then he yelled, "Nearly done's not good enough. I need-" And then he stopped, because he'd reached her desk and discovered me sitting opposite her. I don't know why, but I stood up automatically. He's a big man; slightly portly with well-worn features and thinning hair. If you glanced at him in a crowd, you'd probably categorise him as an affable but unremarkable family man, but when you're up close, you see the intelligence in his eyes and the hint of steel behind them. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said to Ms Lane in a quieter voice. "I didn't know you had company." "This is Clark Kent, Chief," she said. "He's here to check over that feature article you assigned me to." He thrust a hand towards me, and we exchanged a hearty handshake. "Pleased to meet you, son," he said warmly. "I hope you like what we write about you more than that hogwash they printed in the Star." "I'm sure I will, Mr White," I replied. "Ms Lane asked some very good questions yesterday." He raised his eyebrows. "Now that worries me - if you thought they were good questions, then they were probably the wrong ones to ask." "I..." I was sure there was a diplomatic answer to that, but I was darned if I could think of it right then. He gave a gravely laugh and patted my shoulder. "Don't worry, son, I'm only funnin' with you." He looked at Ms Lane. "I look forward to reading the answers to these good questions, Lois." He paused, and then added pointedly, "Soon." Ms Lane crossed her arms over her chest. "Chief, I can do ten things all at the same time. Eleven is pushing it." "Now, Lois - you know I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think you could do it." He turned to me and grinned. "She works best when she's under pressure. Nice meeting you." "And you, Mr White." I really meant it, too. You couldn't help liking him, even if he was pretty overpowering. I sat down again. "You seem to have a pretty good working relationship with your boss," I commented. Her lips twitched. "Don't be fooled by his 'Uncle Perry' act. He's as tough as they come." So she thought I couldn't see past his friendly, jokey exterior, did she? It seemed to me that she was the one who wasn't reading people very well. I nodded. "That's what I meant - you're a good match for each other." Score one point for Kent: she looked taken aback for a moment. She covered her surprise well, though, coming back almost immediately with, "So you think I'm tough, do you? I'm not sure that's a compliment." I shrugged, keeping my face straight. "Wasn't meant to be." "Wasn't meant...?" She pointed an accusing finger at me. "You, Mr Kent-" "Call me Clark," I interrupted, feeling suddenly reckless. "I'm sorry?" "Call me Clark. 'Mr Kent' is too formal." This was getting to be fun. I actually had the upper hand in this conversation, and I was enjoying it. It wasn't often I got to take part in a verbal sparring match these days with someone around my own age. She was shaking her head at me, though. "I don't think so. If I call you Clark, then you'll have to call me Lois, and you don't know me well enough for that. We'll stick to surnames, Mr Kent." Darn. Score one point for her. "Okay, *Ms Lane*," I said, emphasising her name with a touch of impish irony. "So when are you going to show me that story you got me down here for?" I asked with a grin. She swivelled her screen around for me. "Here. Use this to scroll," she said, demonstrating with her mouse. I read the article. I'd expected a fairly dry, factual piece, relating my history and then talking about the present and maybe touching on my aspirations for the future, but she'd done much more than that. Actually, I was embarrassed by the time I finished reading. "Well?" she asked. "What do you think?" What I really thought was that she'd made me sound like a much better person than I actually am. What I said, though, was, "You misspelled 'philanthropist'. It doesn't have a 'y'." Foot in mouth time. Don't ask me why I said that, instead of what I meant to say, but that's what came out. She gave me a look. "That's it? That's all you've got to say? Was it that bad?" "No, it was...it's very good." "But?" "No, really. I'm sorry - I wasn't expecting it to be so...so complimentary." I laughed awkwardly. "You've embarrassed me. I don't know what to say." "I just wrote down what you told me." "I didn't say I was..." I scanned the article for the exact phrase. "'...the most human person you've ever had the pleasure to meet'." She shrugged. "It's a feature article, so I'm allowed to express an opinion." "So you meant it?" "Well, I wanted to challenge a few assumptions, and that phrase was the most efficient way of doing that." "So you didn't mean it?" "I told you, I was just stating the facts as I perceived them." I plunked both my elbows on her desk and stared straight at her. "You're not going to admit whether you meant it or not, are you?" I said with a grin. "No. So do you have any other comments to make, or are you just going to sit there and correct my spelling?" I frowned. "Well, there is one thing - I don't think Dr Tempus will want to see his name in print. He's never wanted any publicity for what he does, so I think he'd prefer to maintain his anonymity. Perhaps you could just call him that - an anonymous benefactor." She nodded. "Okay, I can do that. Anything else? What about the Trask Clinic - would you prefer me to leave them out of this too? Personally, I don't see why they would mind, but you know better than I do." That was tricky. I'd always had the impression that they were a pretty discreet organisation, and after my failed research, it was obviously that they didn't go out of their way to advertise themselves. On that evidence, it would probably be prudent to keep them out of the story. On the other hand, they'd never told me not to mention them to other people, and to be honest, I didn't much like them, so I was very tempted to leave their name in the article just to get my own back at them a little. Call me spiteful, but that was how I felt. "Leave them in," I said. "They deserve the publicity." She raised her eyebrows. "Now, what does that mean? They deserve the publicity because they do a good job, or they deserve the publicity because they do a bad job?" I met her eyes. "You decide." That thing happened again - like when we were standing at my door the previous day and I remembered to let her hand go. Time stopped and the noise of the newsroom faded away momentarily, so that there was just me and her and the air in between us. In that moment, I saw in her eyes that she understood instantly how I really felt about the Trask Clinic. She nodded. "I'll leave them in. By the way, I hope you don't mind, but I did a little digging into their background." "You did?" You could have knocked me over with a feather. So much for me asking her if I could borrow the Planet's facilities for my own research - it sounded like she'd already done it for me. Mind you, once I got over my initial surprise, I wasn't entirely happy that she'd started delving into my private life like that without asking me first. "You didn't tell me," I observed. "I'm telling you now." She pulled out a notebook from under a pile of papers. "They're hard to trace, your Trask people-" "I wish you'd asked me first," I said bluntly. She paused, then dropped the notebook carelessly on to her desk. "Okay, I understand that you're not pleased that I did this without consulting you first, but I don't understand why you're not curious about your own treatment facility." "I didn't say I wasn't curious. I just said I wished you'd asked for my permission first." She looked exasperated. "Mr Kent, I don't have to ask your permission to investigate a medical facility just because you happen to be one of their patients." "Maybe so, but how far were you intending to take this? Would you have asked to see my medical files if you'd thought they'd give them to you, for instance?" "Hospitals don't turn over medical files to journalists," she replied impatiently. "That's not the point. How far were you prepared to go delving into my private life without telling me? That's the point." "Mr Kent." She drew in a deep breath. "If you don't mind me saying so, I think you're overreacting. It's perfectly understandable, after what the Star did to you, but I can assure you, I don't work like that - the Daily Planet doesn't work like that. We treat people like human beings, not cartoon cut-outs." "I don't think I'm overreacting. You have no idea what it's like when the press come into your life and start turning it upside down. Do you realise, for example, that I had to change my phone number after the Star had finished with me? It was the only way I could stop the abusive phone calls - and I still get the occasional poison pen letter even now." To her credit, she looked shocked. "People write to you? What do they say?" "It's not important. The point is, I'm already taking a big risk by letting you write this article. You've given me some control by letting me come here today and check it over, but I see that control slipping away when you start behaving like this. I do think you've got good intentions, but all I ask is that you check with me first before chipping away even more at my privacy. I think that's reasonable, don't you?" She looked like she was about to object, and then thought the better of it. "All right, Mr Kent. I'm sorry I overstepped the limits you're comfortable with, and I'll try not to let it happen again." Her expression made it apparent that she didn't believe she'd actually done anything wrong, which irritated me, but I also got the sense that she understood my point of view, so I decided I'd have to settle for that for now. I pointed at the notepad she'd discarded. "So what did you find out?" "Are you sure you want to know?" she asked sardonically. "Look, I'm trying to be nice here. Help me out, will you?" She sighed and picked up the pad. "There's not much to tell. They're not in any of the standard publications, and I haven't even been able to find out whether they're a government facility or not." Well, that made me feel a whole lot better. If Ms Lane, a professional investigative reporter, couldn't find out anything about them, then maybe I wasn't quite so useless as I thought I'd been. "What about the Internet? You do have that here, don't you?" "Yes, we do, but this sort of information is a bit patchy on the Internet - maybe it'll be better in a few years' time, when more organisations get around to making their records available, but right now, I couldn't find a thing." "So what do we do next?" "We?" I shrugged. "Well, I decided you were right - I should know more than just the name of clinic which treats me." She stared at me incredulously. "Then what was all the fuss...?" She shook her head slowly. "I guess you're going to say there was a principal at stake." "Exactly. So what do we do?" "*We* do nothing. With your permission...?" She paused for emphasis, and I nodded. "I'll hand it over to Jimmy to deep background." "Who's Jimmy?" "Relax, Mr Kent. Jimmy's our researcher-cum-officer-gofer. He's only a kid, but he's very good at digging out this type of information. And before you ask, you can trust him completely." Great. Now she thought I was completely paranoid, when I'd just asked who he was out of curiosity, nothing more. "That sounds fine." "Do you want me to add Dr Tempus to Jimmy's list?" I frowned. "Why would I want you to do that?" "Well, what do you really know about him?" "I know enough to know he's completely trustworthy and a very generous person to boot," I retorted, annoyed that she was trying to place him in the same category as the Trask clinic. He might have some sort of association with them, but he was nothing like as austere and chillingly uncaring as they were. She held up her hands. "Okay, okay. We'll leave the good doctor out of this." "Dr Tempus saved my life, Ms Lane," I said quietly, wanting her to understand that this man really was one of the good guys. "It's that simple." "Okay, Mr Kent," she said placatingly. "I'm sorry I suggested he was anything but a well-intentioned, guileless philanthropist. Heaven knows, we don't see many of those these days, but I guess they still exist." "They do, and Dr Tempus is definitely one of them." "All right. I'll file him under good guy." "Good. That's where he belongs," I said emphatically. Chapter Ten - Famous For Five Minutes ------------------------------------- How I wish it was only five minutes of fame! The article came out today, and so far I've had four people ringing my doorbell and one barely-literate letter shoved under the door. At least I knew the Planet was publishing today, so I took the phone off the hook as soon as I got up, having warned Mom and Dad first. I guess I'm getting to be a pro at this publicity game. Mind you, it's pretty quiet compared with last time. I suppose the article is old news, in a way, and there's nothing sensational in it, so it's not provoking such a strong reaction as the first time around. And perhaps Daily Planet readers are also a more civilised bunch of people than Star readers. Anyway, like I said, I phoned Mom and Dad earlier. I'd faxed them a copy of the article, and I was keen to find out what they thought of it. "I think she likes you, Clark," was Mom's opening remark. "Is she pretty?" "Mom!" I exclaimed. "I hardly know her. Besides, she's a professional." "What's that supposed to mean?" "It means she's just doing her job to the best of her ability," said Dad calmly on the extension. "Looks to me like she's doing more than that," said Mom. "It's not all complimentary," I pointed out. "She says I'm stubborn and defensive about half-way down the second column." "Yes, but she also says why. You're excused on compassionate grounds." Mom laughed. "Honey, you may as well accept it - you've got a fan." I snorted. "You wouldn't think that if you'd seen us together at the Planet. We argued and disagreed all morning." "Then she definitely likes you," said Mom. "Otherwise she'd have been polite to you." Mom was incorrigible. I knew she'd like nothing more in the world than for me to find someone I could love and be loved by, and she wasn't above giving me the occasional shove in what she thought was the right direction in order to achieve her goal. It was all good-natured, of course, but now and then I wished she'd cool it just a little. At the back of my mind was the suspicion that because of my illness she tries harder than she might otherwise. I'm sure she and Dad are anxious that I have someone to care for me when they're gone. I don't want that. I don't want to marry someone just so they can become my carer. I also don't someone to marry me because they want to look after me - I don't want pity, I want love. Anyway, back to Mom and Dad. "Okay, she likes me," I said. "What else do you think about the article, apart from that?" "It's very frank, Clark," said Dad. "People are going to know a lot about you after they've read it." Typical Dad, worrying about people knowing too much about me. Ever since they found me in that snowdrift, it's been ingrained in him to keep my real origins a secret - Mom and me too, of course, but Dad was always chief keeper of the secret. He still hasn't got used to the fact that the whole world knows about me these days. "I know, Dad," I replied, "but at least it's accurate. And it's about the real me, not some fictitious character with green skin and pointy ears who lives in a penthouse apartment and who might just be the vanguard of an imminent alien invasion," I finished, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. "I think he's done a very brave thing, Jonathan," said Mom. "He could have kept quiet about a lot of these things, but then people wouldn't have been any wiser than they were after the Star article." "I'm not saying this isn't the right thing to do, Martha," said Dad. "I'm just saying there's a lot of unscrupulous people out there, and he needs to be aware of that." "I am aware of that Dad - I'm not a kid any more." "I know you're not, son," he said. "And I know you'll cope with this, just like you've coped so well with everything else - you're a strong young man, Clark. I just want you to keep an eye on your back." I sighed; it was easier to give in than argue. "I will." "How are things otherwise, honey?" asked Mom. "How's the new book coming along?" "Slowly. I've been a little distracted this past week or so. I'm hoping once this thing settles down I'll get some more written." "Well, don't forget to send me the next chapter whenever you're ready." Mom's kind of my test reader. She's pretty good at it - she doesn't hold back if she thinks something doesn't work, and she'll make comments that often spark off new ideas in my head. "I won't." "And look after yourself." "Yes, Mom." "Talk to that reporter again, too." "Bye, Mom." "I can tell by your voice that she's pretty," she said, and I could just picture her winking at my Dad and wearing one of those impish smiles of hers. "Dad, help me out here," I pleaded. Dad laughed. "I wouldn't dream of interfering." "Thanks a bunch! Remind me not to interfere next time Mom nags you about your waistline." He laughed again. "Love you both," I said. "And we love you," said Mom. "Bye." I'd nearly replaced the receiver when I heard Mom's distant voice shout, "Buy her some flowers!" You had to laugh. Chapter Eleven - Phone Calls ---------------------------- Well, it's been a week, and guess what? The Star rang me up and offered me a huge sum of money in return for the serialisation of my life story. It seems Ms Lane's article whetted their appetite, and now they think the world deserves to know the full, unabridged version. I am, after all, a very special person and totally unique. I think you can guess what I said. Otherwise, it's been a pretty quiet week, all things considered. Since I put my phone back on, I've had a few more nuisance calls, and some awful cable TV company wanting to feature me on their freak show, but that's about it. Except for one thing. Ms Lane phoned me yesterday and said she wanted to see me. No pleasantries, no introductions; just a blunt "Mr Kent, I need to talk to you." Well, as you might expect, I was a bit reticent at first - I mean, I like her, but I don't like being ordered about. But then she said, "It's about the clinic." So Jimmy had finished his research? I asked eagerly what news she had, but she refused point blank to tell me over the phone. She invited herself over, and half an hour later, she was sitting on my sofa, full of nervous energy and looking just great. Oops, did I just say that? Well, I guess you already figured out that I find her attractive, so there's no point in hiding it. Anyway, she definitely had news. "I had a very strange phone call last night at home," she enthused. "It seems someone doesn't like the article." "Oh?" I said, a bit alarmed that readers would actually phone her at home. I suppose it's an occupational hazard, but given the type of work she does, surely it must be dangerous for her. "What did they say? Nothing threatening, I hope?" She grinned. "That depends on your interpretation. It was a man's voice but he didn't identify himself. All he said was, 'stay away from the alien'." What?! I stared at her, but she looked amazingly calm, considering what she'd just told me. Well, I suppose she looked fairly excited in a contained sort of way, but she didn't look at all alarmed. Maybe she gets phone calls like that every day. "Stay away from the alien?" I repeated incredulously. "Yes, so of course I had to come and see you." That figured - someone tells her not to do something; she does the exact opposite. I had a feeling Ms Lane did a lot of that. "But first," she continued, "I chased Jimmy up about the clinic." She leaned forward. "He hadn't found much, which in itself is suspicious, because Jimmy is very good at this type of thing - don't ever tell him I said that, by the way. Anyway, working on your gut feeling that the place is government run, he tapped into some kind of central database of government employees. He did a search on Trask and found a few people with that name, but not as many as you might think. After-" "But who's to say that anyone called Trask is anything to do with the clinic, whether they work for the government or not?" I interrupted, impressed by Jimmy's ingenuity but completely mystified by his thinking process. "That's what I thought, but just hear me out, okay?" she said a little impatiently. I sighed. "Go on." She gave me a disapproving look, and then continued. "As I was saying," she said, "after ignoring people who were obviously nothing to do with clinics, like postal workers and so on, he ended up with just two Trasks. One of those turned out to be dead - it's amazing how many dead people the government has working for it, apparently - which left one Jason Trask, Head of Operations. Didn't say where he was head of operations, and get this - this guy's personal details are so classified, Jimmy couldn't see anything more than his name." She looked triumphantly at me. "That, to me, absolutely reeks of intelligence agency." Was she serious? It seemed to me that she'd just gone way off the deep end with that particular leap of logic. And she was watching me expectantly, as if I was supposed to be impressed by all this. I drew in a deep breath. "And?" I prompted. I got a look which implied I had all the intelligence of a goldfish. "Isn't it obvious? We could be looking at a major government conspiracy here!" I gaped at her. "You're kidding, right? You think this Trask guy, who may or may not work for an intelligence agency, might have something to do with my clinic - just because he shares the same name and your Jimmy can't find out where he works?" She pulled a face. "Okay, it's a bit thin, but I haven't finished yet. Whenever I get a whiff of intelligence agency, I check it out with a guy I know. He's ex-military intelligence, but he knows something about other government-sponsored covert operations as well. I drew a blank with the Trask clinic, but when I mentioned Jason Trask, he said I should I should watch my step if I'm thinking of going anywhere near the loosest cannon the NIA has ever employed." She gave me that triumphant look again. I shook my head. "Ms Lane, I can see that you'd just love this to turn into a big conspiracy story instead of a boring old human interest piece, but it's not going to happen. What would the government want with me?" "Do you seriously need me to answer that?" she exclaimed incredulously. For a moment I was tempted to force her to explain. She'd hit a raw spot and my immediate reaction was to lash out in return. Oh, I was well aware that there were plenty of reasons why the government might be interested in me, the amazing living alien. But there was little point in taking out my bitterness on her, and I caught myself just in time. "No," I said quietly. To her credit, she looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said. "That wasn't a very kind thing to say." I shrugged. "It's true. I'm an alien; the only one on the planet, as far as anyone knows, so of course the government could be interested in me. But I see no evidence of that here - all you've managed to dig up is an operative in the NIA with the same surname as the clinic which occasionally treats me." She nodded. "Okay, but do you mind if I take this further? I'd like to see if I can link him to the clinic." "If you like," I said. She obviously thought she was on to something, and as I've already admitted, I like her. It wasn't her fault other people couldn't see past the freak alien. I could have done without her pointing that particular fact out to me, but it wasn't like I didn't already know. Also, she had a passion for her work I'd not seen before, especially in a reporter. She wasn't jaded or heavily cynical; maybe that would develop with age, but right now she was enthusiastic without being embarrassingly na‹ve - and that enthusiasm was catching. I was also mindful of her anonymous phone call, which gave some credence to her theory that she'd stumbled over something which people wanted her to stay out of. Who would want a reporter to 'stay away from the alien'? She smiled. "Thanks. I'm sure there's a connection there; I just have to dig deep enough." "Well, don't do anything dangerous," I said. "I wouldn't want you getting hurt on my account." She gave me a haughty look; this had obviously been entirely the wrong thing to say. "Mr Kent, just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I can't take care of myself," she said stiffly. "I never said that!" "No, but that's what you were thinking." "Ms Lane, I can assure you, I couldn't care less if you were a man or a woman," I retorted. "Oh, really?" "Yes! Well, no. I mean, I do care, because...because, well, who wouldn't? You're very..." I waved my hands in her general direction. "You know - very..." "Very what? Fat? Thin? Tall? Short?" she demanded. Just shoot yourself now, Kent, I told myself. You've dug yourself a deep hole, and you're just going to dig an even deeper hole if you attempt a cover-up operation now. You've insulted her, and now you're about to tell her the last thing she probably wants to hear. "Nice," I said, finally settling on the only safe word I could think of. "You're very nice." So much for my writer's vocabulary, I thought ruefully. "Nice? You think I'm nice?" She pronounced the word as if it was an insult. "Yes," I said, trying to show what I really meant with my hands without getting too specific or insulting. "Nice." She stood up. "That's a tough description to live up to, but I'll do my best," she remarked sardonically. "And don't worry, I won't get into anything I can't handle." Probably not a good idea to ask her to expand on that, I decided. I showed her to the door. Fix it, Kent. Don't let her leave thinking you're a complete idiot. "Thank you for caring," I blurted as she stepped into the corridor. She turned around, and those big brown eyes of hers looked surprised. "I'm just doing my job." "I know. But thank you anyway." I offered my hand to her, ready to feel even more stupid if she refused, or worse still, gave me one of those awful, cursory handshakes which mean the person opposite you would rather be miles away, preferably in the next state, with someone far more interesting and attractive than you. After a brief hesitation, she clasped my hand firmly and gave a confident, warm handshake. I was so pleased, I got this sudden wild urge to lean across and kiss her. Crazy, I know, but it would have been so easy. Just bend down, press my lips to hers, and show her how I really felt about her. Luckily, I didn't. And anyway, what feelings did I really have? Just a vague idea that she looked nice and had an attractive personality. That was all. We'd only met a few times. She smiled. "I'll be in touch when I've got news." "Okay." And she was gone. But maybe I should have bought her those flowers after all. Chapter Twelve - Progress ------------------------- I guess by now you're wondering why I didn't just phone my parents and ask them for the address and telephone number of the clinic. I mean, when I first went there as a kid, they would have insisted on a contact phone number, right? And they wrote to me while I was there; even visited me a couple of times, so they should know where it is, shouldn't they? Wrong. They did have a phone number, but when I tried it recently, it was dead. When I called Information to get the phone number to match the address Mom and Dad had, I was told there was no such address. I asked them to describe how they got there, and then phoned the post office in the nearest town - you see, the clinic was way out in the country somewhere. The post office said there was no such place, or if there was, they never delivered mail there. So either the clinic has moved since I was last there, or someone's hiding something. I decided enough was enough, and that it was time to ask Tilley herself. She'd probably give me the brush-off, but at least I'd have tried. Besides, I was feeling pretty stupid for not having asked the kinds of questions Ms Lane had asked as soon as she'd walked through my door. It was as if I'd been going through life wearing blinkers, and Ms Lane had suddenly breezed in and whipped them off. There I was, staring myopically into the bright sunshine, trying to figure out what on earth had been going on for most of my life. Dr Tempus would have sorted things out, of course. He'd have been able to explain about the clinic, and why I couldn't trace them; no doubt there was an innocent explanation to all of this which just hadn't occurred to me. Unfortunately, Dr Tempus wasn't an easy man to get hold of. In fact, I'd never even bothered trying in the past, because he always seemed to turn up when he was needed anyway - not to mention the times he turned up when I'd have preferred him not to, like the Lana incident. Oh, we got along fine when he was here - as I've said before, I kind of felt I had something in common with the guy - but one visit from Dr Tempus was good value for money. You didn't feel like you wanted another one for a good long time. And I guess if you'd asked me before this week, I'd have assumed I could phone the clinic if I really wanted to contact him. Did I mention feeling incredibly stupid? So it was Tilley or nothing - which is how I ended up sitting in that darned wheelchair. It was a few days after Ms Lane had tried to convince me that the NAI had something to do with my clinic. Tilley had finished her examination and was over at my desk, packing up her medical bag. I was sitting on the sofa, buttoning up my shirt, and reflecting as usual that Tilley really didn't suit white at all. Her nurse's uniform stretched awkwardly over her manly bulk, and its colour just seemed to emphasise all the places where it strained to fit. There was a belt around her middle, but she didn't really have a waist, so the belt just made her look even more shapeless. She had a bosom, but you'd have been forgiven for thinking it was just over- developed pectoral muscle. White tights were definitely a mistake, too - you could see her hairy legs through them. Hadn't she heard of women's razors? I wondered idly what she'd look like in something a bit more flowing, maybe in navy, and with her hair down instead of scraped together into the tight bun she habitually wore. Probably still like a man. "Have you used the wheelchair yet?" she asked. The evil instrument of torture? "No," I replied with a touch of sullenness. "Clark, Dr Tempus has spent a lot of money on that - it's a top-of-the-range model, you know. The least you can do is learn how to use it," she admonished. "It can't be that difficult," I said. "I'll learn if I need it." "*When* you need it," she corrected. "And when you do need it, you certainly won't be in a fit state to learn how to operate complicated electronic controls." She strode up the stairs to where it was parked and pulled the blanket off it. "I want you to get in right now," she barked, positioning herself behind it with her hands on the handles. I eyed it balefully. "It probably needs charging up or something." "Nonsense! Get in, Clark. I won't ask you a third time," she said in a warning voice. I wondered sourly what she was intending to do if I refused again. Given her size, she probably stood a fair chance of pushing me into it, but she'd never get me up the stairs in the first place. I'm pretty strong for a sick man. And this was ridiculous, anyway. She was treating me like a five-year old kid, and I was thinking like one. Which was when I had the idea. Sighing heavily, I stood up reluctantly, trudged theatrically up the stairs and lowered myself gingerly into the chair. Even though I had an ulterior motive, I still experienced a cold shudder of fear at that moment. This was my worst nightmare come true. Tilley's hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. "Sit properly," she commanded. I settled back further, feeling the chair mould itself around me; welcoming me into its dread embrace. "And put your feet on the footrest, for heaven's sake!" she added. "Come on, Clark - this is the easy bit." I did as I was told, hating that final loss of contact with the floor. Without that, I felt as if I'd relinquished all control to the chair and whoever was steering it. Okay, so that was supposed to be me, but I still felt helpless. This probably all sounds totally irrational, but that's how it seemed at the time. "At last!" she said. "Now, I'm just going to push you along a few paces so you get the feel of it." "Okay," I replied, gripping the armrests tensely. And so I took my first brief voyage aboard the Good Ship Wheelchair. There were better ways of spending a Tuesday morning, but it wasn't so bad. We arrived back where we started. "There," she said, fussing with the chair until it was parked exactly where it had been before. "That wasn't so bad, now was it?" "No." I took a deep breath and tried to make my next words sound sincere. "Thanks, Tilley. I really had this stupid fear of getting into this thing, but you've helped me overcome that." "So you'll practice using the controls?" "Yes." I clambered out of the hated contraption, glad to be back on my own two feet. "I'll be ready to wow you next week with my amazing skill and dexterity on four wheels. Dr Tempus's money won't go to waste." She picked up the blanket and started arranging it over the chair again. "I should think not!" she retorted. I eyed her very carefully as I went on. "By the way, talking of Dr Tempus, have you ever met Jason Trask - personally, I mean?" She froze for a second, and then smoothed out the blanket and straightened up to face me with a puzzled frown on her face. "Who?" Now, call me cynical, but if she really hadn't recognise the name, I don't think she would have frozen like that. I felt a small thrill of triumph, and pressed onwards. "You know - Jason Trask; Head of Operations at the Trask Clinic. I wondered if you'd ever met him. I hear he's quite a maverick," I added with a knowing grin. At least, I hoped that's what it was; I'm pretty new at this game. She shook her head quickly. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Clark. I've never met anyone called Jason Trask." I shrugged. "Maybe he's too senior. I just thought, as you work for Dr Tempus, and he works at the clinic...maybe he'd have introduced himself to you or something." "There's no-one of that name at the clinic," she insisted emphatically. "I don't know where you dreamt him up, but I've never heard of him." Then she frowned again. "Are you feeling all right? You're asking some strange questions." She reached up and laid her hand on my forehead. "Maybe I should take another look at you." I ducked away from her. "I'm fine, Tilley. I was just curious - forget I mentioned him." She continued to frown at me. "If I were you, I'd stop wasting time asking about people who don't exist and concentrate on learning how to control your wheelchair." That thing again! Honestly, she was like a stuck record sometimes. "Yeah...I don't suppose you've got an address for the clinic? My parents had one from years ago, but it looks like they've moved since then." "Clark, why on earth do you want an address?" she exclaimed impatiently. "What are you going to write to them about?" "I just thought...in an emergency..." "You call me. Then I arrange for you to be admitted if it's necessary." "What if you're not around?" That was my trump card - I couldn't see how she'd be able to argue her way out of that one. I thought I'd caught her out, too, because she definitely hesitated for a second. Then she started buttoning up her coat, saying, "You phone Nurse Baxter." "But she's retired!" "She still has the means to contact the clinic in an emergency." "I don't see why you can't just give me the number," I said in frustration. "Because you don't need it," she replied. I felt like screaming by this point, but instead I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and tried again. "Is the phone number classified, or something?" "Don't be silly," she snapped, and crossed to the door. "I don't understand why you're suddenly so interested in contacting the clinic, anyway. You've never shown any interest in it before today." Time to try the sympathy angle again. "It's just...using the wheelchair for the first time...knowing that one of these days I could be too ill to walk...I could fall..." I drew in a shuddering breath, which wasn't too difficult to fake since I was starting to frighten myself. "I got scared, Tilley," I said. "Panicked a little, I guess." I gave her a beseeching look. "Couldn't you just give me the phone number? It would really set my mind at rest." I'd never realised until that day just how duplicitous I could be, if I put my mind to it. I'd always thought I was a pretty straight-up guy. It seemed Ms Lane was slowly corrupting me. Mind you, I was already starting to feel guilty about trying to trick Tilley, and was on the verge of telling her not to worry, when she sighed heavily and reached into her purse for a piece of paper and a pen. "If it worries you that much," she muttered, scribbling a number down. "Here." I glanced down at the number immediately, but didn't recognise the area code. "Thanks, Tilley," I said. "You don't know how much this means to me." "Just don't go phoning them every time you've got a tooth ache," she said. "Now, I really must go." She opened the door and left. I rushed down to the phone and dialled. "Switchboard," said a flat, unemotional female voice. "Is that the Trask Clinic?" I asked. The line went dead. I dialled again. "Can I speak to Jason Trask, please," I said after the woman answered. "Please state the extension number you require," said the woman. "Does Jason Trask work there?" I asked. "Please state the extension number you require," she said again. "Five nine seven," I said, thinking I may as well go for a lucky guess. "That is not a valid extension number." The line went dead a second time. Darn. So much for Tilley giving me an emergency number - I'd be dead before this lot did anything for me. I considered play-acting a little; phoning as myself and saying I was on the verge of collapse but couldn't contact my nurse. But I didn't want to give myself away yet, so I decided to reserve that tactic as a last resort if nothing else worked. Next stop was Information, but they wanted something more specific than a phone number and a possible state before they could give me an address. It was all very frustrating. I was sure the phone number was correct; the circumspect way that woman had answered the phone was one clue, and the fact that the phone had gone dead as soon as I'd asked for the clinic by name was another. I flopped down on the sofa, thinking hard. I'd started out with the idea that the clinic weren't very nice people, but were basically legitimate and as publicly accountable as any other substantial US institution. Then Ms Lane had asked some awkward questions, and I'd realised I didn't actually know very much about the clinic and didn't even have a contact number if I needed them in an emergency. Now I seemed to be chasing after an organisation which was secretive, unhelpful and possibly not even registered anywhere. Ms Lane had produced this shadowy character called Jason Trask, and when I'd tested his name on Tilley, she'd definitely recognised it. So just who had been treating me all these years? Yet when I'd been under their care, they'd seemed real enough. They'd been professional and efficient, and while I'd hated all the tests, I'd eventually realised that they'd been a necessary evil - otherwise, how else would the doctors there have known how to treat me? Looking back, I supposed one thing which was odd was that I'd never seen any of the other patients at the clinic. I'd assumed there were others; the place was obviously big enough to cater for several more. Yet, apart from one time, I'd never seen another soul. I closed my eyes, remembering the boy I'd glimpsed through an open door. He'd been older than me; maybe around ten or eleven. His wheelchair had been one of those big, padded ones with a headrest, and there'd been a strap across his chest - to hold him upright, I'd assumed. He'd turned his face towards me, and gaunt, sunken eyes had stared out at me from dark sockets. His forehead had been dotted with electrodes, and I'd experienced a sharp stab of fear, because I, too, had sat with wires attached to my head - but I didn't yet need to be strapped into a wheelchair, and I didn't look as if I hadn't slept for a month. A male voice from within the room had said, "You're not concentrating hard enough. Try again." A brief flash of pain had crossed the boy's features, and then the door had slammed shut, blocking my view. The nurse with me had tugged my hand to move me on down the corridor, but not before I heard a muffled voice say, "Concentrate, dammit!" I asked the nurse who the boy was, but she told me not to be nosy. I didn't ask again, and I never saw him after that. I had my own set of troubles to cope with, and soon I stopped thinking about him altogether. A sound outside in the street brought be back to the present day with a start. I opened my eyes and hauled myself off the sofa to fetch a glass of water. I'd forgotten most of the incident with the sickly-looking boy until today, and in light of all the new things I'd been learning recently about the clinic, it all seemed very sinister. In the kitchen, I gulped down the water, glad of the familiar shock of cold liquid running down my throat. I had a horrible sense of the world turning and shifting around me; that nothing was what it seemed any more. Chapter Thirteen - Unlucky For Some ----------------------------------- I asked her out. On a date. Yep, Clark Kent, the guy with the wheelchair and little green men for parents, asked Lois Lane, the woman with bags of personality and a cute face, out on a date. I figured I may as well. Living with a chronic condition gives you a certain outlook on life - kind of a 'seize the day' attitude, because tomorrow you might be too sick to ever see her again. Besides, I needed to see her. I wanted to share what I'd learned about the clinic, and find out if she'd got any further with Jason Trask. So why not combine business with pleasure? And you know what? She said yes! I couldn't believe it. I nearly dropped the phone, I was so surprised. I mean, I'd made sure it was easy for her to say yes, by making it sound more like a meeting with a movie tacked onto the end rather than an actual date, but I never expected my tactics to actually work. I just hope it's not because she feels sorry for me. After she'd agreed, she said grudgingly, "I guess this means you'll have to call me Lois." I grinned. "I guess it does. And you'll have to call me Clark." "Just don't go getting any ideas that this changes our relationship. *I* am still a professional reporter, and *you* are a member of the newspaper-buying public. Got that?" Only Lois Lane could make being a member of the public sound like the lowest of the low. "I think so," I said. "What you mean is I pay your salary." There was a pause. "You think you scored a point there, don't you? Well, you're wrong, you know. The paper gets most of its revenue from its advertisers," she said with a note of triumph in her voice. "Yeah, but they wouldn't advertise unless people like me bought the paper in the first place." One to me, I reckoned. There was another pause. "You think you're so smart, don't you? I'm not sure I want to spend all evening with such a smart guy," she said. She didn't really sound like she meant that, but I decided not to push my luck too far. I didn't want us to fall out before we'd even got to first base. "I promise I'll be on my best behaviour. I'll come over to the Planet around six?" I said. "Okay - the conference room should be empty around then." So I turned up on the dot, surprised to find almost as many people still at their desks as had been there the other morning. I remarked on it to Lois, who shrugged. "The news doesn't stop just because it's the end of the working day." Well, I knew that, of course. I suppose I just had a pre- conceived idea of office life, having never worked in one myself. Anyway, we took a couple of cups of coffee into the room Lois called the conference room - basically a rectangular room with a big table in the centre, chairs arranged around the table, and a TV plus video in one corner. "Is this where you have editorial meetings?" I asked, taking a seat and looking around curiously. "Yes, and interviews, reviews, shouting sessions...you name it, it happens in here. So what have you got for me?" I told her about Tilley and the clinic's phone number; also about Tilley's reaction to Jason Trask. "I told you he was connected with the clinic!" she said. "And remember I told you about that ex-intelligence contact I know?" I nodded. "He said Trask was a loose cannon." "Well, I found out some more. Apparently when my guy knew him, Trask had a reputation for using pretty unorthodox methods to get the results he wanted, and had a habit of getting his own way even if his superiors didn't approve of what he was doing." "I'm surprised he didn't get thrown out," I remarked. "The military don't like people who don't follow the rulebook." "My guy thinks he has friends in high places," Lois said, the disgust clear in her voice. "Anyway, get this - Trask was also apparently obsessed with the paranormal. He thought it was a huge untapped resource, and that the intelligence services should invest more money in harnessing that power. Don't ask me what kind of power he thought he could tap into," she added dryly. "The paranormal?" I said. "We have people being paid by the government who want to spend our tax dollars on ghosts?" Lois shrugged. "Doesn't surprise me one bit." The thing was, it all made a grim kind of sense. It was only a short step from the paranormal to extra terrestrials, which is where I obviously came in. And if Trask had wanted to conduct research, and he didn't much care how he did it or whether his superiors minded that he was spending government money on his obsession, then it was faintly possible that he could have set up some kind of lab behind their backs. What was Lois getting me into? Staring at her, I had a sudden flash back to that gaunt, sick-looking boy at the clinic, and the rough voice ordering him to concentrate. Concentrate on what? I'd seen movies; horror movies, mostly, where people were kidnapped by sinister organisations and forced to use telepathy to move objects and people, usually with evil intent. Surely that sort of thing didn't happen in real life? Yet the voice I'd heard ordering the boy to concentrate had been harsh. He clearly hadn't wanted to do whatever was expected of him, and he'd looked miserable and lifeless. Had he been the subject of an experiment? That sense of shifting sands, of the familiar becoming unfamiliar was back again. I looked down at the cup in my hand and took a sip of coffee. "Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised either," I murmured. "What do you mean?" But this was crazy. This was real life, not some movie director's idea of a good plotline. People just didn't get spirited away to some government hideaway, or made to develop telepathic abilities and forced to use them against their will. People weren't telepathic, period. I shrugged. "Nothing." I took another sip of coffee. "No, I think you know something," she said. "What is it?" I shook my head. "Really, it's nothing." "Come on, Clark; don't go all coy on me. If you know something, just tell me." She smiled. "Trust me, I'm a reporter." "I'm not being coy." Just letting common sense reassert itself. I sighed. "I just think if I tell you this, you'll put a certain interpretation on it, and it might not be the right one." "Well, you don't know that for certain until you try me." She cocked her head on one side. "How about you tell me, and then you can tell me what you think it means? I'll keep quiet." Well, that sounded reasonable, although I knew she'd still end up reaching her own conclusions. I sighed; that was why I'd come here, I supposed - to get her opinion about all this. She was used to connecting disparate pieces of information together to form a bigger picture, and I wanted her to help me figure it all out. So I nodded. "Okay." I took a deep breath. "I remembered something the other day about the clinic." By the time I'd finished telling her about the boy, she was staring intensely at me. I could see from her eyes that she had reached the conclusion I'd expected her to reach. "You don't know who he was?" she asked. "No. I wish now that I'd tried harder to find out more about him-" "But you were only a kid, right?" "Yes, but still..." "What about the voice? Did you ever put a face to it?" I thought, sifting through all the doctors and technicians I remembered from my two visits to the clinic. "No, I don't think I ever met him." "Still, you know what this means, don't you?" I stood up restlessly. "It could mean any number of things," I said, walking over to the TV to fiddle with the knobs. "Such as?" "Such as maybe he'd had some kind of brain trauma, and they were helping him regain his cognitive processes." Lois snorted. "'Concentrate, dammit' doesn't sound like helping, it sounds like haranguing." I prodded one of the buttons on the set. "You don't know that. Perhaps he had behavioural problems and needed a firm hand. These things are easily misinterpreted out of context." "True, but then why didn't the nurse who was with you just tell you that? Why did she refuse to tell you anything about him?" "I was only seven. Maybe she thought I was too young to understand." "Maybe." She shrugged. "Everything you say is plausible, but you know and I know that there's another explanation." I turned to face her. "I thought we agreed you weren't going to interpret this for me." "I'm not. But you're not being honest with yourself if you don't consider all the possibilities." I pulled out a chair at the other end of the table and sat down. "That's easy for you to say, but this is my life we're talking about here. As much as I hated everything they did to me, the fact is I probably wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if it wasn't for the treatment the Trask clinic gave me." She frowned. "Okay, I can't argue with you there. But don't you think they way they operate is strange, if they're supposed to be completely legitimate? They took a small boy away from his parents and didn't even let him see them. You said yourself they were cold and impersonal - not exactly ideal carers for a young child. And have you ever wondered what else they did to you while you were under their care?" I laughed weakly. "What - you're suggesting they brainwashed me or something?" "Who knows? Maybe they tried." "No," I said emphatically. "I refuse to believe that. Dr Tempus wouldn't let them." "Oh, yes, the good Dr Tempus. I forgot about him." I looked at her sharply. "Sorry," she said. "It's just that you seem to think he can do no wrong. I have a problem with that concept." "He's not perfect," I said, frustrated by her negative attitude towards him. "No-one's perfect. He's just a basically good guy, okay?" She held her hands up. "Okay. I'll try to remember that. Let's get back to the boy. Are you going to admit what's on your mind about him or do I have to say it for you?" "No, you don't have to say it for me, because it's a crazy fantasy." I pushed my chair back and stood up. "Look, shouldn't we be going? The movie starts in an hour and we haven't eaten yet." "Clark, you can't run away from this," she said. "There's nothing to run away from," I retorted. "Come on, I'll show you my favourite pizza place." The fact was, I was scared. Terrified, even. I don't think she'd really understood me when I said this was my life we were discussing. She was asking me to accept that the clinic which had been a routine, if distant, part of my life for nearly 20 years was not the place of healing and medical expertise I and my parents had believed it was. She wanted me to accept that it had been an evil place intent on exploiting me and people like me. She wanted me to believe that the boy I'd seen all those years ago had been the subject of a cruel experiment, not a sick child in desperate need of expert treatment. How could I accept that? How could I accept that I'd been exploited for nearly 20 years? And as I'd told her, the fact was, the clinic had made me well again. I simply couldn't reconcile Lois's hints and assumptions about the clinic with the bald facts as I knew them. Dinner was a subdued affair. There was an atmosphere between us which hadn't been there before. All the other times I'd been with Lois, our conversation had flowed freely; we'd laughed, exchanged crazy banter, and had some darn good discussions. This time, we were polite. I almost suggested we skip the movie. As it was, I half- expected her to find an excuse not to go, but she didn't. In the end, I suspect we went because neither of us wanted to let the other down. Or maybe neither of us wanted to back down first. Afterwards, we made our way out of the movie house without exchanging a word other than where the exit was. Outside, I led her down the street a few paces to get away from the crowds and then turned to say goodbye. "Thank you for coming tonight," I said. "Thanks for asking me," she replied. "I enjoyed it." I nodded. "Good. Maybe we can do it again sometime?" That is, if you want to spend a stilted evening eating pizza with a sick alien... "Sure!" she said with false brightness. "I'd like that." Yeah, just about as much as she'd like to have her appendix out without anaesthetic. She looked down the street and pointed. "I go this way." The opposite direction to me. How fitting. I did a quick weighing up of pros and cons - should I lie and say I was going the same way? No point; no sense in flogging a dead horse. "Well, then I guess we say goodbye here," I said. "Yes." "Goodnight, Lois." "Night, Clark." We smiled emptily at each other, then turned and went our separate ways. I dug my hands in my pockets and trudged down the street to my bus stop. What a way to end an evening. I was walking away from a woman I really liked, having hardly said a word to her all night. Dinner had been a waste; I'd hardly noticed my pizza while I was eating it. I could have been chewing cardboard for all the difference it would have made. I'd enjoyed the movie, but as soon as it had finished, reality had kicked back in and I'd remembered the rift between us. Why couldn't I have bent just a little; let her talk about the clinic like I knew she really wanted to? "Clark!" I swung around to find her jogging towards me. Wondering what she'd forgotten, I closed the distance between us until she was standing in front of me, slightly out of breath. "I forgot to ask," she said, panting. "Is it okay if I carry on with the investigation?" I frowned. "I'm not sure..." "Clark, you can't back away now! Not when we're getting so close." Well, here it was - the conversation I'd refused to let her have before. Yet even though half of me was glad we were talking at last, the other half of me - the speaking half of me, apparently - still felt bruised and recalcitrant. "Close to what?" asked my argumentative half. "Close to Jason Trask? As far as I can see, you've only got a few rumours from a guy who hardly knew him." "That's why we need to dig deeper - to convert the rumours into facts. Look, I know this is hard for you-" "No, you don't," I said, a little more forcefully than I had intended. "You don't understand at all." At her hurt expression, I relented a bit. "I'm not blaming you for that, it's just a fact - you can't possibly understand what it's like for me." She pursed her lips. "You're right - I can't ever know what it's like. But are you going to go through all your life doing that? Shutting people out because they don't understand? Life must get terribly lonely for you up there in your martyr's prison." "I'm not a martyr-" "You sure act like one. How about stepping down from your prison and letting someone help you - letting someone actually care about you?" She cared about me? "Because..." I floundered on the rocks of indecision. "Because what, Clark?" She grasped my upper arms and looked me straight in the eye. "Look - I know you've got your own suspicions about the clinic. Why else would you have tested your nurse with Jason Trask's name, or tricked her into giving you their phone number?" "Yes, but-" "No buts, Clark." Her intensity was very compelling, and I found myself almost ready to agree to just about anything, she was so persuasive. Yet all my instincts were screaming at me not to dig deeper; that I wasn't supposed to investigate further into the clinic. They had never encouraged openness, and I'd lived my whole life keeping secrets; Dr Tempus had always encouraged confidentiality and had strongly shunned publicity. Basically, my life was settled, if difficult. Lois wanted to tear it apart. But *I'd* forced Tilley to give me that phone number, hadn't I? "Come on, Clark," she urged. "Don't give in now - I know you're not a quitter." Those dark brown eyes staring up at me held a lot of strength for one so slender and graceful. They burned fiercely, telling me I was being a fool for hesitating; for refusing to see what was right in front of me. They also told me I was a fool for keeping her at a distance when all I wanted was to hold her in my arms. Whatever she might believe about the Trask clinic, I knew I didn't want to lose her. If only I wasn't so scared... Suddenly, before I even knew what I was doing, I was wrapping my arms around her and hugging her tightly, resting my head on her shoulder and breathing in her sweetly-perfumed hair. I sensed her frozen shock immediately, and a voice in my head was busily telling me what an idiot I'd been and that I should let her go, when her arms came up around my back and she was holding me just as tightly as I was holding her. Oh, how I'd missed this closeness; embracing a soft, warm, feminine form in my arms. I hadn't held anyone like this since Lana and I had split up, and until this moment, I hadn't realised just how much I missed it. Mom and Dad gave me hugs, of course, and even old Nurse Baxter used to hold me when I was little, but that was different. I felt like I'd finally made contact with the rest of humanity. I came to my senses, of course, and let go after a few moments. "I-I'm sorry," I stammered. "You must think I'm a complete wacko." "No...no, it's okay," she said, but she definitely looked stunned and not at all certain of who she'd landed herself with. And if she was stunned, I was totally horrified with myself. What on earth had gotten into me? It was like another person had stepped into my body and made me wrap my arms around her. Someone with a lot more nerve than I had. "It was crazy of me - I don't know what got into me." I said. "I don't usually go around hugging people in the street." She raised an eyebrow. "Boy, am I glad to hear that," she said. "No, really. I'm sorry - it won't happen again, I promise." She shook her head. "It's okay, Clark," she said with a lot more calm than I was feeling. "You obviously needed it. Are you all right now?" I groaned inwardly - now she was humouring me. Quite sensibly, I supposed, she was treating the deranged patient with kid gloves in case he did something even wackier. "I'm fine," I said. "Look, you'll probably never want to see me again after this, but just for the record, I think you're right. I should go on with the investigation, and if there's anything you can do to help me, I'd really appreciate it. You don't have to meet me again; we can do everything by phone." I dared to look straight at her. "Is that okay with you?" She shook her head, and my heart sank. "Clark..." "That's okay," I said quickly. "I understand-" "No, you don't," she said. "Of course I want to see you again." Huh? "You do?" "Yes. It's not often I get gratuitously hugged in the middle of the street by a good-looking guy." "You...you didn't mind?" "Well, you took me a bit by surprise, but no, I didn't mind. I might even have enjoyed it," she said with a coy smile. "Might have?" "Yeah, there was only one problem," she said seriously, and she closed the short distance between us, pressed her body against mine, tipped her face up and walked her fingers slowly up my chest. I gulped. "What was that?" She was so close, I could smell her hair shampoo again. Coconut, I thought. Definitely coconut. "I couldn't understand why you didn't..." Her fingers walked across my shoulder, while I just stood there helplessly and stared into her deep brown eyes. They'd lost their fire, but not their intensity or their ability to capture and hold me with their power. "Didn't...?" I whispered. She was right there; right there in front of me, just inches away, her face looking up at me so seriously, yet so softly. Her eyes were inviting me, telling me it was okay- Suddenly a car swept by and honked its horn at us. I caught a glimpse of a young lad grinning broadly and making a very graphic and suggestive gesture through the windscreen at me. I looked back at Lois, and we both knew without saying a word that the spell had been broken. I smiled ruefully. "I guess we should be heading home." "Yeah, it's getting late. We'll meet up again soon?" she asked. I nodded. "I'd like that very much, Lois. And I meant what I said about the investigation. There's not much I can do without your input though, and I guess you must have other work you need to do too..." She shrugged. "Well, I'll give Jimmy the phone number for the clinic and see what he can do with it. And I'd like to sit down with you and go through absolutely everything you can remember about the clinic. Even insignificant things could give us important clues. But you're right; I do have some other stuff I need to work on. How about I phone you in a couple of days?" "Sounds good to me." She smiled. "Night, Clark." "Night, Lois." As I walked back to my bus stop, my mind finally decided to process something she'd said earlier: 'It's not every day I get gratuitously hugged by a good-looking guy.' Lois thought I was good-looking! Chapter Fourteen - Parents -------------------------- I could hear the concern in their voices when I told them. Dad, in particular, didn't think it was a good idea to start upsetting the status quo. So what if the clinic was a little secretive? Up until the Star article, that ha