Story 12: The 20th Century Caper

LSH STORY 12: THE 20TH CENTURY CAPER

Page 1, Top: Bubble Boy, Mr. Music, Miss Anima, Future Boy

The Time Cube has settled down in a wooded space on the outskirts of Smallville, not terribly far away from the old quarry.

Three of the four Legionnaires are glancing outside as the door opens, getting their first taste of pre-spaceflight Terran air, with the crisp smell of Autumn corn and the whispering of the dying year in the leaves of the trees. The temperature is a crisp 12C and the area feels almost… serene. For the Wynathains on board, this is an experience of intense cultural import – shortly they’ll be meeting Superman!

Bubby Boy is likely the first down the ramp, his personal force field protecting him from anything unexpected that they might not be able to see. Gorvo bounces down the ramp, a spring in his step. This is a whole new world to explore!

Miss Anima is just outside the door way, with a sketchbook in hand filled with all the gear and people she thought might come in handy on this venture, and her eyes on the nearby tree cover that she could reach with a leap. At the door, Mr. Music can hear Future Boy behind him, still working on the controls and sensors, and can hear from the change in Tok’s breathing that something is very, very, wrong….

[BR: this is where you all can discuss how you’re 24 years too early, the Time Cube isn’t set up for anything other than a jaunt home, and the data from this trip indicates that this might be the only chronological space they can get it at all close to where they need. For better or worse, 1993 is their only chance.]

"Problem?" says Mr. Music.

"You could say that," Future Boy says. "We're not where I expected, and the sun's not in the right place either, so I checked the positions of the stars <ref>Letterer-Josh -- Yes, you can see stars during the day if you have advanced insturmentation like Tok's! Actually, you can see a star during the day with binoculars or a telescope if you know -exactly- where to look! Normally, the sun's glare blinds you to the presence of stars during the day, but looking at exactly the right spot with enough magnification will easily let you see a bright star!</ref>. And...we're 24 years to early. There is no Superman at this point -- Clark should still have his powers, but around our age, and he's not revealed them to the world yet!"

"I assume there's a reason you're not suggesting we just go home and retarget," Jinnjahl says, "but what is it?"

"Two reasons." Tok is clearly getting more agitated as he talks. "One, we're using an experimental time-travel device on its maiden voyage. We had a little extra in case we encountered some kind of issue like Robot Boy did on the first trip--and indeed we did; it's basically used up. So we've only got enough juice left to come back; that's it. On top of that, we didn't miss the mark randomly. There's some kind of temporal anomaly--or maybe series of interlocked temporal anomalies; I can't tell--around the time we were trying to get to; something like that, anyway, and there's basically no way for us to get there. Then.

"So that's it; we're never going to see Superman! We failed."

"Why can't we just go back and try again," asks Ode.

"I told you!" Tok says. "Temporal anomalies! It is, quite literally, now or never!"

Page 1 Middle: Superboy

Clark is coming back up to the house after his shift helping out at the Ben Franklin with his mom. After doing farm chores all morning and school all day. If he weren’t who... what... he was there’d be no way to keep up.

Another day of listening in to the NPR and BBC broadcasts while pretending to have a Walkman on. It’s not that the chores aren’t important, but the world is so big....

“Deep thoughts?” Jonathan Kent asks from the porch as Clark approaches. The prototypical American farmer was clearly waiting for him, reading a well-thumbed copy of an account of the Seven Soldiers of Victory , the costumed adventurer team in WWII....

“Not so deep, Dad.” Clark hops lightly up the stairs and settles into the Adirondack chair next to Kent's. “The guidance councilor gave a presentation today at school about signing up for the PSAT and the National Merit Scholarships. So I was thinking about that, and how Mom says that right now school is my job, and wishing I could….do more. Y’know, for other people."

Jonathan Kent smiles a rueful grin, and slides a bookmark into place. "You will. 'This farm ain't big enough for the two of us!'" he says, cocking a finger pistol at his son. "well, mostly just for you. What you can do, it's too big for a farm, or for Smallville, or Kansas. Hell, it might even be too big for the planet. And that's the worry."

"You remember the first time I showed you how to run the riding mower? And then you decided to drive it yourself and couldn't steer right and cut that gash into the paint of my new Ford?**" both men look over at the battered red truck that's been due to be replaced for a while, but that Jonathan insists still has some good miles left in it. "Right now, we have to focus on a way to get you better at being you, and figure out how you can be you..." he gestures with the book to encompass all the super-human stuff, "while still being..." he pokes the book at Clark's chest, "You."

"That could have been clearer," Jonathan admits after a moment.

Clark laughs. “It’s OK. I think I know what you mean.” He points at his father’s book. "But it would have been nice if those guys had written a *manual* or something."

"I don't think any of them ever anticipated someone like you would need it," Jonathan says, opening the book to one of the rare photos of the team. "Most of them look to be in their late 20's, early 30's when they were doing this. You've got some time to figure things out. It's not on teenagers to save the world."

Page 1 Bottom: Bubble Boy, Mr. Music, Miss Anima, Future Boy

"Well, I say it's now," exclaims Bubble Boy. "Can you smell that air? Look at this place; it's a paradise. Nothing's attacked me!"

He breathes in a big lungful of air.

"I don't want to turn around and head home yet. This is the past! And Superman is round here somewhere. We can't just bug out."

Tok, having done what he could at the controls, has packed up and starts heading for the ramp himself. "It's...well, it's very green. But sure. Lets see if we can find Clark Kent. He may not be Superman yet, but I'm sure he's still pretty Super already. Even if he's only 13."

Page 2 Top: Superboy

The cozy confines of the Smallville Ben Franklin is invaded by aliens (!) when young Clark Kent (oh…) enters to start his work shift. Due to extracurricular time spent at the Smallville High “Torch” <ref>Established in TV show _Smallville_</ref>, Clark’s shift starts later than Lana’s giving him a walk from the school to the store to contemplate just how… boring his bucolic small town is. After the excitement of breaking the story of Officer Hayes’ ‘speed trap’ behind the travel agency billboard <ref>Deep cut to the closing shots of Superboy (1994) Issue 8, where the “Welcome to Smallville, home of Superboy” billboard is replaced with “Visit Hawaii, Home of Superboy”</ref> the edge of town being used to disproportionately target out of state vehicles (picked up by the Sentinel <ref>Established in The New Adventures of Superboy</ref>, with a shared byline), there hasn’t really been much going on for the boy the Miss Taylor <ref>https://smallville.fandom.com/wiki/Truth</ref>, paper’s student advisor, has started referring to as “Crusading Reporter Clark Kent”.

Looking to fill column inches, Clark had been going through old “Smallville Stars and Celebrities: Do They Know Things?” <ref>Holy Anachronistic Netflix Show Reference, Batman!</ref> columns to see if any were worth revisiting. Police Chief Parker probably wasn’t going to want to grant an interview, the last time someone interviewed monks training service dogs at the Alano de Dios monastery made it sound all so deadly dull, he’d just done a review on the nearby inventor Phineas Potter (whose work populated many a late night ‘as seen on TV’) turning him from a butt of local jokes to someone with grudging respect in the school for how his work was focused on helping adults with disabilities… and then getting chewed out by Lana because her Uncle Phineas had preferred the anonymity of being the local eccentric. Any attempt to revisit those was scrapped for another piece on the football team. It’s not that there wasn’t enough going on in Smallville to fill the school paper, but that the walls of the school are just so confining.

There’s a small reassuring tinkle of the bell as Clark enters. The store came into his life two years ago, when his grand aunt Ciara passed and his mother and her best friend Laura took over the main street franchise. His mother, her hair starting the graceful slide from coppery red, letting her joke that soon she’ll bring the only silver into the farmhouse <ref name = “Superman The Movie”[1]</ref>, looked up from the register.

“Hi sweetie – truck came in today, Lana’s already in back breaking the shipment down. Can you give her a hand?”

“Sure thing, Mom. Is this the order with more Beanie Babies? I promised Miss Taylor I’d do a story about the fad.”

Clark sees several heads snap around at the statement, including one person popping up like a prairie dog from another row, at his casual mention of the new fad. His mom shoots him an exasperated look, “Just go help Lana, please”

As he enters the back room, he hears “Clark?”

[BR: as Diane and I discussed, the tenor of Clark and Lana’s long term relationship is defined by this exchange. I have no idea if she’s pining for him, he’s pining for her, they’re just good friends, they’re making out in the stockroom, whatever…]

“Hi Lana, what’s up? Besides,” he looks around at the half-opened boxes, “stationary, Warheads, and flannel shirts?"

Lana is struggling to fold together the cardboard “WE HAVE BEANIE BABIES” display.

She gives Clark a once over with a grin. “coming from Mr. Red Flannel Shirt Over Blue Tee, that’s rich. How does it feel, Clark, having the fashion world finally catch up with your tastes?”

Lana has abandoned her Smallville Crows sweatshirt in the stale air of the back room, and is now displaying her homemade silkscreen “Late Jurassic Park” Tee Shirt (bearing the image of the Archaeopteryx fossil and the phrase “worlds greatest bird sanctuary”)

“I honestly don’t know why we have to put this together - a magic marker sign in the window will lure them in and then we just chuck these little alien monstrosities at the ravening hordes.”

“Here, let me help you.” Clark takes the oversized piece of pre-cut cardboard from Lana and snaps it together with a few deft gestures. “These triangular displays are annoying, but I’ve had practice.” He grabs an under-stuffed platypus and a dolphin out of a box and holds them facing one another.

“Hey Patti, ready to get smushed by the Carson twins?"

“Oh noooooo, I just got the ice cream out of my fur, Flash!"

The last shot in this scene, regardless, includes a window where a pigeon is perched outside, looking in.

Page 2 Middle: Bubble Boy, Future Boy, Miss Anima, Mr. Music

The scene shifts to watching the holo monitor on the control unit for Miss Anima’s drone bird, which picked up Clark at the Torch offices and followed him to the local store. His working at both the school newspaper and at a local store corresponds with the bulk of the historical record (as opposed to him being a school sports hero, or him living in Hawaii, the latter of which is from a highly dubious source). The quartet are stationed nearby, out of sight.

Young Clark is in place. It’s time to activate the plan….

Watching Clark through the screen, Tok says "So, there have to be other aliens around. Other then Clark, I mean? Maybe the Terrans haven't figured it out yet, but nothing like this happens all at once."

Gorvo is occupied applying flesh-toned body paint and grunts. "Not if they have to go through this rigmarole just to go to the local store. I'm STICKY."

[BR: Lisa, with Ode’s knowledge of Mystery Novels he can name some early 20th century Earth Heroes who may or may not have been fictional – the Shadow, the Spider, The Vigilante, Congorilla – but not anything late 20th century. No one ever defined an Earth 10 Martian Manhunter, the Hawks are French and immortal and not aliens, there’s no Oa for the Green Lantern Corps to have come from. Superman will eventually meey a ton of aliens in space, but they are thin on the ground to Ode’s knowledge of the time period.]

"I'm sorry, but... not really," says Ode. "Not here and now." (What is Ode's understanding of current fashion? Lisa's isn't all that great. I mean, worst case, Ode probably knows blue jeans are always acceptable for informal occasions.)

[BR: yes he would know that. He would also know anything that comes up from a google search of 1990s Rock Fashion. And any era of Bowie is universal.]

[EC: We can always replay the drone's video to see how people are dressed.]

[LP: Oh come now, you can't apply that kind of logic to Ode's thinking process! He's probably wearing blue jeans, a white shirt, and a black leather jacket. And boots. I mean, those never go out of style. Now, whether he's looking like a rockstar wannabe, a juvenile delinquent, a normal person, or an alien trying to blend in? That's not my problem, though it may become Ode's.]

"We don't know that!" Tok protests. "They could be as well hidden as we are! Anyway, I guess we're not beong overheard"

Page 2 Bottom: Everyone

One of the many problems Clark has learned to live with is how well all sounds carry in the incredibly quiet Earth atmosphere. He tries hard to not overhear every conversation going on around him, but sometimes he just can't help it.

As he's quick stocking the Beanies into the new display before bring them out to the ravening hordes, and chatting with Lana who is sticking hangers into each of the new shirts that need hanging and folding the ones that don't, her conversation about Pete Ross' latest antic in Chemistry class fades out as he hears

(These are just free floating word balloons) "So, there have to be other aliens around. Other than Clark, I mean? Maybe the Terrans haven't figured it out yet, but nothing like this happens all at once."

"Not if they have to go through this rigmarole just to go to the local store. I'm STICKY."

"I'm sorry, but... not really, Not here and now"

"We don't know that! They could be as well hidden as we are!"

Clark stops, frog in one hand, lobster in the other… listening.

Other aliens? And…how would they know my name?

"Clark, are you OK?" Lana asks.

“I’m fine. Just…thinking” Clark risks a quick glance around the small storeroom, scanning with X-ray vision to see if he can spot anything out of the ordinary.

Small Inset Panel of Miss Anima raising a hand to let everyone know Clark has heard them and to not talk for a minute so they neither give away their location nor say anything that gives up the game.

Ode shifts into meditation mode. (I'm not saying someone _would_ mistake that for a battle trance or something sinister, but just noting someone _could_ make mistake...)

Gorvo buttons his lip with a 'my lips are sealed' gesture, smearing his face paint. Thought bubble: **Globular clusters! My facepaint!**

Tok turns visibly red [I assume Wythian blood is red so they blush red?] from the effort of staying silent, but, with difficulty, manages, eventually releasing his tension by starting a complex space game to distract himself while things cool off.

The sweep of x-ray vision reveals an incredibly complex - impossibly complex - mechanical construction wearing the skin of a pigeon. Literally. There's a small layer of skin and feathers over the construction. It's an avian Terminator. And it's looking right at him.

Small inset panel, Jinnjahl can see that he has spotted the mechanical pigeon. [Beth, you can discorporate it at any time you want. I'm assuming you pushed your ability in extremis earlier today to make the drone for 2+ hours; you'll be Tired for this scene but it's nearly over so not really an issue. The drone has about 30 minutes of 'life' left.]

Jinnjahl has the pigeon take another look around and then fly off to look at other things.

In a text box, she types, "If he follows, where do we want to lead Clark? Or, what direction do we want to aim his searches at? ... I'd rather *not* lead him to the quarry. If there's a problem I don't want him deciding to sabotage our spacecraft before we signal for reinforcements or something -- recreating it with current Terran tech would be a nightmare."

She steps back to let others at the main keyboard.

Gorvo types: Can you have the pigeon lead him away from the store? We don't want him on high alert when we show up. He'd easily spot us for strangers if he used his x-ray vision on us.

“Hey Lana, I’m going to bring this thing out front. I’ll be back in a few minutes, unless I’m buried by the hordes." Clark carefully hefts the Beanied-up display box and carries it into the main room of the store, finally setting it down next to the cash register.

“Mom, I heard something strange, so I’m going to take a quick walk around the store, OK?"

His mom gives him a funny look but nods “I’m really gonna need you later.”

Clark hustles at normal speed around the back. The pigeon has taken wing and is flying away from the store.

[DK: Clark will look around to make sure no one is watching; if he’s in the clear, he’ll run after the Terminatopigeon and leap up to catch it, then walk (normally) back to the rear of the store.]

[BR: beth are you actively dodging (Clark is guaranteed to grab it otherwise), just letting it dissolve, a combination of the two, or something else.]

[EC: Oh, by all means try to dodge. Jinnjhal doubts it will work. But she can let it go - or try to push it to dissolve early - if he catches it as easy as she can now. Doesn't actually care if Clark gets a good look at it. Doesn't want anyone else to get a good look at it. Well ... Clark's parents would be fine, but she doesn't know from her vantage point who else would know about aliens. ]

Clark confirms he’s alone and then sprints after the pigeon - his sprint is close to 100 miles an hour - and he closes the gap in a flash. The leap, not even backed by his flight, clears the upward distance easily. It should be simple. Except the pigeon doesn’t follow the laws of aerodynamics and it drops 4 meters under his leap as if it had no angular momentum at all. Clark has to continue his planned jump to make sure he stays out of sight.

By the time he lands the pigeon is fluttering innocently down Main Street.

[BR: Mechanics - Clark rolled a 17, good enough for a partial success and movement damage only. Damage roll was 18, but Miss Animas generic constructs have a move of twice her INT, or 30. So it burned a ton of movement on avoiding acrobatics and is now running away, slow enough for Clark to follow if he wants to travel at normal speeds down Main Street....]

The pigeon is not being obvious about letting Clark follow it. On one level it is seemingly just fluttering down Main Street and pecking at any garbage on the street. On another level it is never going out of line of sight of the assorted people around, and when its path would take it somewhere empty, it will use pecking at garbage as an excuse to hang around places until someone moves around so that it can keep going and stay in sight.

Hmmm. Clark thinks, as he watches the pigeon stay just ahead of him. *Let’s see if this works.*

He turns around and starts walking slowly back toward the Ben Franklin, stopping often to see whether the pigeon follows and keeps him in sight.

[BR: Beth, I’m assunming you play along with this as it’s a clean transition that keeps everyone looking smart. Diane, please don’t let your non-confrontational instincts deny Myles his much desired hero identity confusion fight!]

Once he and the pigeon are in the alley behind the store and no one else is around, he’ll say to the air “I’m really curious about what I’d learn by following this bird around, but Mom really needs my help at the store today. I hope it’s still hanging around when my shift’s over at 5"

<ref> [BR my thought had been that phase 2 was Tok and Ode entering the store while Clark is out and asking after him. Maybe leave a card that says something innocent in normal ink where on the back there’s UV ink that has the House of El symbol and a time to meet? Then Gorvo can pass through but Clark won’t be able to chase after him because he can’t leave the shop again? And if he is somehow grabbed he turns out to be another Animation...? That ought to prime things for after work when you’re shining a UV light over the meeting place? Just thoughts. Feel free to develop something else.]

[JK: It depends. If Clark keeps following the bird, it may make sense to have an accelerated phase 2 (and it makes sense for that to be the plan; it's simple and relatively straightforward, so maybe something should disrupt it so that doesn't happen?) where Clark follows the bird to the meetings place and the group meets him there. Presuming plan "follow the bird" falls through, Yeah, leaving an innocent-looking card with a hidden message makes sense. Oh, I get it, the idea is that Clark can read UV so he'll be able to read the back of the card and see the light over the meeting place as a spotlight (albeit one that washes out colors)? Yeah, that makes sense--a a way to make sure the Boy of Steel can find the way(*).

Who am I? I am a boy who lives my township I'm the boy who loves the stars They call me I am the son of the Smallville Kents, I am descended from Krypton It calls me I can run faster than a speeding train, I can travel farther, I've learned justice, morals, heart and more, And it calls me And the call isn't out there at all, it's inside me It's like the grain, always growing and falling I will carry you here in my heart, you'll remind me, That come what might, I'll do what's right I'm Superboy!

What? Both stories have green glowing stones in them! ]

[LP: This all works for me, and while I know he wants to tinker with the lyrics to make them better, I'm fine with Josh writing Ode's band's lyrics. So, do we play out the giving the card scene or just take it as done?]

[JK: Play it out, surely! I think I had a bit that was the start of an appropriate scene at the bottom of an earlier post before we weren't sure how the bird thing was going to go? Um.]</ref> Seconds after Clark leaves to investigate the pigeon, Tok, dressed in something vaguely resembling local clothing (except on a molecular level, where it's pretty clearly some kind of pollimer weave and NOT cotton twill) comes strolling along with Ode, dressed in black skinny jeans, black boots, white open collar shirt and leather jacket, enters the local convenience store, and starts browsing the ancient goods idly.

Lana Lang is out stocking shelves when the pair enter and glances over at the bell. Her eyes lock on to Ode and she gets a look of almost predatory longing equivalent to Lea Thompson playing Loranne Baines in Back to the Future when she spies the almost ethereal beauty of the questing harmony monk. Ode can’t help but hear the sharp intake of breath and the emotional change behind it, and there’s a split second when he glances at the girl before she can compose her features into something more dignified.

She moves to put the clothes she's supposed to be shelving down but misses the shelf, sending things temporarily flying and her skittering to pick them up. Her hand encounters his as Ode has come over to help>her pick up. “Can I… help you find anything?”

Ode's thought balloons: oh dear. I should buy something.

"I --"

Ode's thought balloons: Wait. Money. They use money. We don't have any. oh dear.

“Lana!” She blurts out “I’m Lang. Lana. I’m Lana.” She’s struggling to keep her composure, not knowing that every inch of her fast blossoming teenage infatuation is etched into her voice for Ode to read.

She takes the clothes from Ode and lays them carefully on the shelf. “Are you new in town?”

Tok can see all of this and knows that they have limited time before Clark either catches the pigeon or gets bored. Both boys know that Lana is the person best positioned to get the card to Clark no questions asked.

"Yes we are," Tok says. "We're a bit short on cash--you don't take bitcoin, do you? I'd try to change it, but we don't have a lot of time." He gives a significant glance to Ode, hoping he'll get the message.

"Short on time? No!" Lana recovers, and is clearly taking a second to try to puzzle out Ode's accent "Wait, is that a credit card type? We do take Visa and MasterCard...."

"'Fraid so," says Ode. "We're just passing through. We were Hoping to... see Clark." He looks around, obviously not seeing Clark. "We could leave him a message?"

"Clark? Of course you can leave a message with me, he's my best friend. Why do you need to talk to Clark?"

... Ode's thought balloon is blank.

Thought balloons: ... ...he's a reporter. Reporters report on... stuff. News. What's news?... Picture of Ode's Band, with Lana in the audience and Clark with a notebook.

"...our band," says Ode. "He... Our band. He'll write the truth about it, even if he likes us. He'll tell us whether it's any good or we should... not quit our day jobs?"

“Oh," Lana says, her face working through the idea, "Clark is relentlessly honest, I'll give him that."

She takes the card from Tok, "I'll let him know you came by."

Clark is rounding the corner back to the storefront as Ode and Tok leave,and the two of them turn smoothly and walk in the other direction with no telltale signs of guilt or concern. He finds Lana staring at the door in something of a fugue state.

“Uh… Earth to Lana… are you OK?

"What? Oh yeah. Hi Clark. Someone came by to see you. Wanted you to review their band for the paper." She hands him a business card.

The front of the card reads "LSH" and an address in town that Clark knows >to be fraudulent. turning the card over, he sees written on it in UV ink "7 PM. The Old Limestone Quarry." and the strange S shield image that was in the swaddling clothes his parents told him came from his crashed ship.

[BR: Legionnaires, feel free to change what's on the front of the card if you want it to read something else. I'm just trying to keep momentum. Diane, Clark's reaction to this?]

[JK: this works for me. The address is vaguely plausible--it's an address that's been being constructed, but which Clark -knows- hasn't yet been finished, much less been put up on the market yet. We might want to argue about the band name though. The Legionairres sounds too much like a marching band, and the Odettes or Futurians take too much from one member even if Ode will clearly be centerpiece in the band. Should probably be an injoke or whatnot. Could just call it "The Super Heroes?"

Clark’s thought balloon: *What the…?*

Slipping the card into his front shirt pocket, he frowns at his friend, closely examining her dreamy expression. “Lana, did they say anything that seemed….odd to you?"

“He was... dreamy.” Her eyes cleared. “They had accents. The pretty one sounded like David Bowie. The other one sounded... like he was from Central Europe?”

Page 3 Top: Superboy, Bubble Boy

Clark, regardless of how much he may want to chanse after these people, is confined to the store until 5. There’s a lot of business – every person bying a “limit 2 to a customer” Beanie Babies is picking up something else, plus helping the older customers get bags of gardening supplies out to their vehicles (“All part fo the service, ma’am”) and the watcheful eye of his mother keep him from doing more than the occasional sweep with his super-senses to see if there’s anything strange going on. > He catches the new figure seconds after he walks in.

Gorvo, the Bubble Boy, strolls into the store, looking decidedly shiny with all that stage makeup on to cover his distinctive blue and grey skin. Thought bubble: **Stay out from under the bright lights, Bubble Boy. Your makeup will run.**

He's dressed in a black tee-shirt under a shiny grey suit, much like Devo on the cover of Freedom of Choice (https://townsquare.media/site/295/files/2013/06/DevoFreedomofChoice.jpg). He lacks the red ziggurat hat, unfortunately, and scans the shelves for a suitable place filler.

No matter how normal he looked, no human had those organs in its torso – a central one off center just next to the heart connected with a half dozen more symmetrically laid out from shoulders to hips, all of them blocking his X-Ray Vision. Lead? Did he have lead in his chest?!?

Clark’s thought balloon this time: *“WHAT THE???** And after a second discreet scan to make sure he’s not imagining things. **OK, so, I’m not the only alien. Time to investigate, Boy Journalist.**

Picking up a stack of thank-you note boxes from behind the front desk for cover, he walks over to the stranger. “Can I help you find anything, sir?"

Bubble Boy freezes for a moment, his personal force field quivering so much it produces an ultrasonic hum that Clark is bound to hear. "Help? Me?"

He coughs. "Ah, yes. I wonder if your store has any CDs, those collectible disc things. My friend would love some classical music, like Van Halen or Strauss." Clark looks the stranger up and down again, while putting the stationary on the shelf. “We have a few — we can’t compete with the big CD store in the mall two towns over, but we do carry some novelty titles for gifts. They’re in the back of the store. Follow me.”

With that, he turns and walks to a half rack of CDs mounted on the wall at the back of the store.

Gorvo follows.

The rack contains an array of hard plastic boxes, each sporting a photo or a drawing on its surface. Some of the images are decidedly….weird. Gorvo can spot pictures of four Terrans in silhouette on a yellow square (a handwritten index card taped to it reads “POLKA ON!!!”), a bright pink flat-nosed animal on a bright green square, and what looks like a naked Terran man floating next to some kind of …pastry?" “This used to just be stuff like Elvis and Spike Jones and Weird Al,” Clark says, gesturing at the naked man box, “but the owners let me add some more eclectic stuff that the store in the mall won’t carry.”

“Let’s see,” he muses. “Someone who likes to mix Van Halen and…Strauss, might like this —“ The box he points at has a colorful collage superimposed with the words 'Archers of Loaf'. “So.. are you new in town? Have I met this friend of yours? "

Gorvo stares at the array of precious cultural artefacts, transfixed.

"Huh? Oh, yes. I'm new in town. Very new. Just visiting. I don't know if you've met my friend. He's very musical; he'd love this..." He gestures at the rack of CDs. "I'm not sure if we have a means of playing them, but I'm sure Tok would..."

He clams up suddenly, remembering who he's talking to. "I mean, he'd love this collection of music. It's Super... Boy, would he ever!"

Gorvo turns to leave. "I'd better get going. Places to see, people to be!" Clark moves to put a hand on his arm. “Wait a minute, is your friend the guy who did something to Lana? Why are you here, and what are you trying to do?"

Clark’s hand stops an inch away from the boys sleeve, as if blocked by a wall. Clark can temporarily see a blue double-line glow where he’s in contact with... whatever this is. The surprise on the Kryptonian’s face is unmistakable.

“How are you doing that? Where did you come from?"

"That would be telling. You'll find out soon enough. We have an appointment later today, I think. My friends are dying to meet you."

Gorvo contracts his force field and slips free of the Kryptonian's hand. "Don't worry; it'll be fun!" he throws over his shoulder as he leaves the store.

Behind both young men, from at the door of the stock room, a young woman in a custom screened tee-shirt watches the exchange, her eyes narrowing.

Page 3 Middle: An Interesting Aside

On one of the few promontories outside town, there’s a dusty track that currently holds a beaten-up, decade-old pick up truck, a incredibly generic Econoline van, and a saddled horse. Lever readers will spot the same symbol on the horse’s saddle as the side of the van, a ‘brand’ reading GR. Standing beside the horse is a thinly built stereotypical ‘cowboy’ with an antique design flat brimmed cowboy hat and a revolver openly carried on his right thigh. Standing beside the van are three other men in generic boots, black jeans and black tee shirts covering their muscular frames, all wearing the classic brimmed cowboy hat. Finally, next to the pick-up truck is a man whose features would place his family somewhere well south of the border, likely of Nuahu ancestry. He’s wearing blue jeans, boots and a green flannel shirt that, like his truck, were designed weather a lot of hard work. His air and demeanor make it clear that for all he’s a field academic, he’s still an academic.

“You want to explain this crazy scheme again, Doc?” asks one of the men by the van.

“As I said when I contacted you, there was a treasure hidden when Spain ruled this part of the new world. I think it’s here.”

“That’s plum loco,” the man replied, but glancing over at the cowboy by the horse, “When did the Spanish rule Kansas?”

The academic dons a set of wire frame, round rimmed glasses and then pulls out a small leather-bound journal, undoing a strap before opening to a page almost randomly – it’s clear he’s got the placement of the journal’s contents memorized. “With the Treaty of Fontainebleau in November of 1762, France secretly ceded control of the Louisiana territory to Spain. They had lost control of Canada, you see, and didn’t see the point in staying in the Americas. King Charles III accepted the offer, but it was at the urging of the Spanish Inquisition that the treaty be kept secret, which it was until April of 1764.” He looks over his glasses at the man who question him, “Now why would they do that?”

Waiting a beat, he goes on “The day the treaty was signed the Inquisition emptied one of their secret vaults of antiquities onto a ship to the Americas. That ship, el Último Recurso, the Last Resort, landed in Louisiana on New Year’s Day. Four of the crew entered a seminary in New Orleans over the next week. The Inquisitor who oversaw the transfer hired an all Catholic crew and went North. I located a journal of one of those men in a monastery in California where he included a sketchy account of the journey. They made it as far north as the River of the Padoucas, what the natives called the Chetolah. The US Geographic Survey calls that the Smoky Hill River.”

He points to the winding, looping line at the south end of Smallville. “That river” He puts the journal away, takes off the wire-rims. “The Spanish Inquisition was moving something so important that they made sure they had years of secrecy that the place in the empire they buried it was even in their empire. Something that put the fear of god into the men carrying it that most of them joined the priesthood.” He looks back at the man who questioned him. “It’s out there. And I want it.”

The questioner swallows, then looks back the cowboy, failing to cover his fear with a sneer “Beau, are you buyin’ this? That the Spaniards hid the _holy grail_ out here?”

Beau finishes rolling his cigarette, and lights it, considering, and the flare of the light shows us his timeworn face. “Yup. Prof’s done his homework. I know this land. Been here before. Comanche and Kiowa used to hunt here, pretty well travelled trail in the gold rush and by the Indians centuries before that. It ain’t the grail, and I ain’t sayin’ it’s a lock, but it’s a good gamble.”

He looks over at the professor, “Well, Professor Tlayolotl Rivera, Gatling Recoveries is convinced you ain’t wasting my time. But why here? Why Smallville?”

Professor Rivera nods, satisfied, “The journal of the Californian Monk, Brother Joseph, he mentioned some geographic features and travel times. The river used to wind all over before the Army Corps of Engineers dammed it up after World War II, but the hills remain in the same place. If they buried it anywhere, they buried it” He points to the old limestone quarry, with which made use of the river-cut tunnels. “There.”

“You sound obsessed.”

He looks back at Beau, “So what obsession pushes you to be a treasure hunter, Mr. Beauregard Gatling?”

We can just see Gatling’s smile under the shadows cast by his hat. “Well, ain’t much call for gunslingers these days. Treasure hunting fills the years.”

“No,” Rivera, “I think there is more to it than that.”

“Anything else is between me and the devil, Professor. Saddle up, boys. That quarry ain’y active now, but it’s still private property. I want a nice clean insert and recovery, and you know how I hate surprises.

<ref>[BR: OK, so this is a wildly deep cut in my own imagination, but Professor Rivera will be a foe of the Earth 10 Green Lantern when he eventually finds what he’s looking for – a Aztec Jade Mask with the same green energy wishing powers as the Magic Ring/Lantern and the Axe used by the Green Knight, another Earth 10 GL villain. People who read widely in the Earth 10 DC comics would catch this reference, so I’m passing it along here.]</ref>

Page 4: Everyone

Clark slips out of the house at 6:30, going for another one of his familiar nightly rambles, and makes his way towards the old limestone quarry. He's been up there countless times, not just with the rest of the kids slipping in to swim in the cold water during the heat of summer, but also to interview Ted Bogucki, the night watchman up there for “Smallville Stars and Celebrities: Do They Know Things?” Mr. Bogucki was a Vietnam vet whose recent heart condition moved him off the Smallville PD, and who saw his job at the quarry as a line of defense to keep the kids from getting themsevles killed swimming unsupervised in the sometimes ice cold quarry pools. Hopefully these... aliens?... hadn't done anything to him.

Clark looked up and saw a bight beam lancing into the night over the quarry. It took a couple seconds for him to realize that no one was reacting to it because it was in ultraviolet. Birds, moths, and him, all being drawn to this glowing, possibly deadly, light.

• All right, Clark — use reason,* he thinks. *They know, somehow, that I can see in the UV. And all that rigamarole with the card in the store tells me they also know that other folks around here _can’t_. Do they know anything about my other…gifts? Clearly, they’ve got some of their own.*

About a quarter mile away from the light, Clark is positioned to be able to see but not be seen, hear but not be overheard, and it turns his attention to the source of the light.

[BR: assuming that Gorvo is keeping up a force field and Tok erected a hologram curtain, and the UV spotlight is coming through a small hole at the top of the force field - please correct if wrong. Alternately the spotlight might be right outside the field.]

Instead of seeing what he expected to see - the strange boy he met, and the two people Lana described - there's... nothing. The light is starting about 10 feet off the ground, and otherwise there's no sign that anyone is there, just forest. He focuses his hearing and there's a dead spot in the night surrounding the light. Switching to his IR and UV vision doesn't produce anything else of note. Shifting to X-rays and... there's a wall there. A solid hemisphere, impervious to X-rays.

• And there you are. Now what? Walk up and knock?” He squares his shoulders. *Why not? They said they wanted to meet here, let’s meet.*

The last panel in this sequence shows Clark heading down the road toward the beacon. (Or is it…destiny?)

Inside the bubble:

Ode looks at the others. If no one else does it, he moves to, er, answer the door.

"Ooh!" Bubble Boy stifles a squeak of delight. "Superboy, for real. He's right outside my force field. "How are we going to introduce ourselves? Who goes first? What if he gets startled?”

"C'mon Tok! Don't keep him waiting!”

"Me?" Tok asks. "I mean, surely one of the older--I mean, more mature--I mean, higher seniority members should speak first?

"But if nobody minds -- we need to drop the bubble, right, and the illusion? He can't hear us...right? Well, here goes nothing.”

With the flick of a switch and a nod to Gorvo, the Legion drops their hologram and force field, and stands before Clark Kent. For two of them it is meeting the young form of the literal savior of their race.

Lisa: I think Ode's looking like he is in that picture on his character sheet, possibly strumming a guitar. I mean, we're not expecting a fight, right? The players are genre savvy, not the characters.

Josh: I was thinking that we would have done something stupid but in-character, like building a giant Superman statue in the quarry out of available materials (I mean, we have to be hiding -something- behind the big "no peeking" present box!). But to play more into the less-silly vision, maybe we've made a superhero podium, with an empty spot, just sized for Clark, if he wants it (and close to the center). In which case, yeah, Tok's in his Future Boy jammies, his staff out and dramatically in it's most iconic form (which probably looks like a wizard's staff, only all in orange with a twist up towards the top into an hourglass shape).

Myles: Gorvo is dressed in his best suit, which unfortunately has more than a passing resemblance to a high collared, grey military uniform, complete with collar insignia indicating membership in the Tallag Cadets, the Young Science Explorers Society and the Mickey Mouse Club. Disney is eternal.

Beth Jinnjahl is about the size of a human child, thin enough to be malnourished if she were human. She doesn't look like a human child, however: the joints are in subtly the wrong places, the fingers are much too long, and she has ultra-fine tentacles in place of her hair and coming from the tops of her feet.

She's sitting on a rock in front of a keyboard that looks vaguely like a typewriter, accompanied by a pair of video game controllers and a large bizarrely thin television, one hand on a video game controller, the other hand on what looks like a perfectly normal pencil. There's a sketchpad in her lap. She's looking at Clark, rather than at the television - which is rapidly cycling through scenes from nearby areas - or at her sketchpad.

She's wearing a white shirt, a multicolored pleated skirt, and a very wide belt.

To X-Ray vision: her bones are hollow like a bird's, the tentacles have some musculature but very little and no bones, each pleat of the skirt contains a pencil, there are several miniature sketchbooks and part of a first-aid kit in the belt, and a metallic something [30th C cellphone] tucked in her shirt.

"Welcome Clark Kent," Tok says, his voice amplified many times by his science and the microphone in his staff. "We are the Legion of Super Heroes, who have travelled through time and space to meet you. The people of Earth may not yet know you, but to us, you will always be..." Tok trailes off for a moment, remembering that Clark isn't Superman yet.

"Superboy," Tok says. "To us, you are Superboy.

“Superboy?” Clark exclaims. “Wait. You’re ALL superheroes? From different planets? And you’re kids?” (A beat passes as he parses Tok’s tatement.) “And you’re from the…future?"

"Yup," Ode says.

"Got it in one," Tok says. "You really are Super. I'm Future Boy. Because I can invent things, like time travel, and also see the future. He's Mister Music. Because he does special things with music.

Gorvo pipes up. "I'm Bubble Boy, force bubbles and derring do. Sorry about the cloak and dagger stuff at the store earlier."

"Miss Anima," Jinnjahl says, in a voice much more human than her appearance, "I can make my drawings temporarily real." She flips to a drawing of a pigeon -- which just looks like a pigeon, albeit possibly a familiar one, but with an arcade joystick and a television screen in the background. "I'm sorry I worried you, but I wanted to see for myself, and I didn't think it was a good idea to *go* for myself."

“Yeah, I understand,” Clark answers, “I hate to think what would have happened to me after the crash if I hadn't looked human.”

He turns to Tok. “When are you from? And you said you’re the *Legion* of Superheroes. Are there more of you? Where are they?"

"2990," Tok shoots back. "Give or take a few months. There are more of us, and growing, but not here and now. The time machine could only carry four at the moment...well, six at a pinch, but five would be safer. Plus....well, it's not our first test, but it's the first time we've gone back this far, or sent more than one person. But don't think we're, like, a Roman legion or something. It's just a name. I didn't choose it; I was the first recruit, not a founding member, but I think the idea is to show that the Legion is willing to accept anyone willing and able to live their life like a superhero of old."

"My powers are fairly difficult to demonstrate unless you were to set up a very large shell game," Tok says, but I did invent this," he gestures with his staff, and it shifts and flows, extremely quickly but slowly enough for the Teen of Steel to see it's movement, reforming in the shape of two sticks as the platform below 'Future Boy' rises up into a set of humps and spines that if squinted at, vaguely resemble a drum kit invented by futuristic coral. Future Boy taps and kicks out a rhythm, and it does, in fact, sound like a drum kit--an advanced electric one, by where the sound is coming from. "Well, I suppose we did promise you a band. On the cards." He smiles wryly.

Ode, delighted, starts playing his guitar. Joy pours out of the instrument.

Clark has a moment where absolute joy washes over him. He’s six and it’s it’s Christmas morning the year that Santa put all the presents in a lead lined box. He’s 11 and it’s the end of harvest dance where he and Pete and Lana are dancing with absolute abandon to some 60s rock tunes they would find embarrassing now. He’s 15 and it’s the first time he flew.

He’s not alone in the universe. Regardless of what happens he knows he never again has to feel alone.

"I'm afraid the extent of my musical abilities is limited to percussion," Bubble Boy shrugs. He fires off a quick succession of popping force bubbles to produce a reasonable facsimile of "Shave and a Hair Cut, Two Cents".

“That’s all….amazing. I have a million questions. I never expected I’d ever meet anyone else like me,” Clark says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how I could help other people with the things I can do. So…how do you do that?"

Bubble Boy grins. "We generally bumble along and help where we can. No, I'm joking. We're members of a sort of club, who do go and use our powers to help others. Sometimes it's rescuing people from danger, sometimes it's rounding up escaped animals, and occasionally it's time travel to meet ... well to meet you!"

"You're going to be really important to a lot of people back in our time. Or is that forward in our time? Whatever. I think you'll figure out how to help lots of people. Lots and lots of people."

Before Clark can respond, both he and Ode hear someone approaching. Single person, approaching through the woods with some degree of stealth. Ode can hear in his clenched breathing the irritation of an adult knowing he's about to deal with teenagers. Clark can quickly scan with his x-ray vision to confirm it's Mr/ Bogucki, the old quarry's security guard.

Clark holds up one hand and hisses through his teeth “Miss Anima, Bubble Boy, hide! Everyone else — start playing something, anything, NOW!"

Miss Anima powers down the computer with one hand, tucks her notebook away with the other, leaves the pencil she'd been using where it is, grabs the overcoat she'd be wearing if she *had* gone out into human society, and sprints for a crevice in the rock face, throwing the overcoat over her shoulder jumping straight up and proceeding to climb rapidly. The tentacle-hair on her head and feet doesn't seem to be loadbearing, but she uses it to probe for handholds. Assuming she can reach the first ridge before anything else happens, she gets behind a rock or into a crevice, and throws the overcoat on top of herself. (She can slave the pigeon to her phone and find out what's happening that way, and she does NOT want to get seen by a potentially-unfriendly persistence hunter of distant brachiator lineage! Humans are scary.)

Ode starts playing something mellow (possibly The 59th Street Bridge Song).

Gorvo nods and sets off at a sprint for the nearest hiding spot behind a big rock or fissure in the cliff face large enough to squeeze into. He tucks in, hunkers down and thinks 'I'm a rock. I'm a rock,' really hard.

Clark looks meaningfully at Future Boy and his futuristic drum kit, moving his hands in an invisible drumroll. With a quick glance in the direction of Mr. Bogucki’s approach, he plucks a notebook and a pen out of the front pocket of his flannel shirt, brushes back his hair, and relaxes into the stance of an interested-but-otherwise-neutral observer.

“So,” he says, pitched loudly enough so Mr. Bogucki can hear him, “are you planning to be a cover band, or will you write your own songs, too?"

Future Boy taps a hidden button on the side of his "drum kit", and almost as if he has planned ahead for exactly this eventuality, the drums reshape themselves to match the dimensions of a contemporary drum kit, all while the hologram projector starts up again, this time completing the look for the drum kit and also covering the gaps in the bits of scenery that Bubble Boy and Miss Anima are hiding behind, as he strikes up a basic but solid 4-beat behind Ode's song.

"Oh, we'll definitely want to do originals," he says. "Ode's written lots of them, so we just need to find the right ones. Are you interested in joining us? We're starting small, but I think--I hope--we have a great future."

"What the fudge are you kids doing up here?!" Bogucki yells as he comes out of the shadows behind Clark. He's a big man, broad shouldered, former footballer, going a little to fat. (If you want a visual reference, imagine Sheriff Hopper from Stranger Things) There's a slight redness around his that reveals his irritation bordering on anger.

"This is..." his face calms a little as the perfect calming tones of the 59th Street Bridge Song wash over him, "Now Clark Kent. You were the last kid I expected to find up here. You know this quarry isn't a playground."

"Sorry, Mr Bogucki” Clark replies. “These are….” he pauses for a second, realizing that he doesn’t actually know Future Boy’s name, “…Todd and Otis. They’re new at school, and they’re putting together a band for the spring Battle of the Bands contest. I guess they didn’t want anyone to hear them practicing, so they hauled all their stuff up here. I got wind of it and came up here to make sure they didn’t get into trouble. And then I _heard_ them — they’re pretty good, don’t you think?"

Bogucki smiles, “Pretty good’s an understatement.” He waves at Ode, “I’ve seen them in concert, you know. Back in the day, and this may be the best....”

He smiles “you kids just keep it down, OK? I don’t want to hear anything for the rest of the night.”

He points at Tok, “and this is only because I know Clark here knows how to be careful.”