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crack_van2011-09-23 12:03 am
beatrice_otter) wrote in crack_van2011-09-23 12:03 am
Veritas by ShayneT (FR13)
Fandom: DCU--pretty much every Superman incarnation you can think of.
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Length: 136,226
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: TTH, FF.net,
Why this must be read:
An alternate Clark Kent finds himself flying a planeload of passengers from 1993 Metropolis into real world post-9/11 2008 Washington DC. How will he deal with this new, darker world?
It took me a while to decide which of ShayneT's fics I was going to rec, particularly since I missed crossover day. Shayne has done some great humor fics, but in the end I decided to go with something serious (and long). This fic is a visit-to-a-weird-planet-revisited type story, with a Clark Kent who was never Superman finding himself in a world where Superman is a comic book character. And this fic is also a look at a post-9/11 world through the eyes of a pre-9/11 person. But nothing is exactly what it seems at first.
It's a story about destiny, and hope, and figuring out what Superman is all about. And it's an engaging story that pulls you along for 136k words to find out what happens in the end. Both Clark and Lois have some growing to do before they can become the heroes they were meant to be. Shayne does a great job of making us feel for them, and care about what happens to these two who are different than any version of them we know.
The lights of the Washington airport were a welcome relief to Clark. The people inside the airplane were growing desperate.
Air traffic control was being strangely hostile, demanding that the plane turn around and leave Washington airspace. They seemed curiously unmoved about the medical emergencies the pilots were claiming, and kept demanding that the pilots identify themselves and the plane.
It was the sound of the jets that alerted Clark that something was really wrong.
Fighter planes were approaching from the distance. Clark had done articles on the military, and he had never seen planes like these. They were lethal looking and from the speed they were flying clearly more advanced than the planes he was used to.
The threats to shoot the plane down if it did not leave the airspace were a shock.
It wasn’t until a moment later, when fighter planes dropped from above to both sides of the commercial jet that Clark realized he was in trouble.
One of the pilots was looking him directly in the eye.
**************
Scowling, Lois stared at the conveyor belt. Security was getting more and more onerous with the passing of every year, especially when someone was coming from someplace as contentious as Iraq.
She felt the buzzing of the satellite phone in her pocket.
“Jerry,” she said. “It’ll take a while to get my luggage, but I’ll be back in the office as soon as I can.”
She froze as she listened to the voice on the other end of the connection.
“What? Here?”
An unidentified airplane heading for Washington was ominous. There were no records of this commercial jetliner leaving from any airport in the world, and given what had happened six and a half year before, no one was willing to take any chances.
“Do you think they plan to shoot it down?”
An unidentified plane was a weapon in and of itself, but it could be carrying anything, from biological contaminants to dirty bombs to
Russian nuclear weapons.
Grabbing her bag as it swung by, Lois’s mind raced as she began dialing numbers. With the equipment in her luggage she could transmit a news story from almost anywhere in the world, with anything from pictures to video.
All she would have to do was somehow find her way back through security to the areas where all the action was happening.
It was a tall order.
*************
To Clark’s shame, he let the plane drop almost a hundred feet in his shock and anxiety about what the fighter pilot had seen.
The screams of the passengers above him reminded him quickly that he needed to keep his mind on what he was doing or people were going to be hurt.
The sick passengers didn’t sound like they were doing well.
He began to head as quickly as he could for the runway. One of the fighter planes was threatening to shoot the commercial jet down if they didn’t land, which was what everyone needed anyhow.
The other plane was oddly quiet.
Scowling, Clark began to drop through the clouds. As soon as he got the plane on the ground, he planned to be gone. He’d have done it anyway before, but with the way things were happening now, it was twice as important.
The world had changed, and he was going to find out what had happened to it. It wasn’t just the disappearance of Metropolis. It was everything. The attitudes of the air traffic controllers, the threats of blowing an American plane out of the sky. This was a scary new world.
The sky was filled with the sound of thunder.
Veritas
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Length: 136,226
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: TTH, FF.net,
Why this must be read:
An alternate Clark Kent finds himself flying a planeload of passengers from 1993 Metropolis into real world post-9/11 2008 Washington DC. How will he deal with this new, darker world?
It took me a while to decide which of ShayneT's fics I was going to rec, particularly since I missed crossover day. Shayne has done some great humor fics, but in the end I decided to go with something serious (and long). This fic is a visit-to-a-weird-planet-revisited type story, with a Clark Kent who was never Superman finding himself in a world where Superman is a comic book character. And this fic is also a look at a post-9/11 world through the eyes of a pre-9/11 person. But nothing is exactly what it seems at first.
It's a story about destiny, and hope, and figuring out what Superman is all about. And it's an engaging story that pulls you along for 136k words to find out what happens in the end. Both Clark and Lois have some growing to do before they can become the heroes they were meant to be. Shayne does a great job of making us feel for them, and care about what happens to these two who are different than any version of them we know.
The lights of the Washington airport were a welcome relief to Clark. The people inside the airplane were growing desperate.
Air traffic control was being strangely hostile, demanding that the plane turn around and leave Washington airspace. They seemed curiously unmoved about the medical emergencies the pilots were claiming, and kept demanding that the pilots identify themselves and the plane.
It was the sound of the jets that alerted Clark that something was really wrong.
Fighter planes were approaching from the distance. Clark had done articles on the military, and he had never seen planes like these. They were lethal looking and from the speed they were flying clearly more advanced than the planes he was used to.
The threats to shoot the plane down if it did not leave the airspace were a shock.
It wasn’t until a moment later, when fighter planes dropped from above to both sides of the commercial jet that Clark realized he was in trouble.
One of the pilots was looking him directly in the eye.
**************
Scowling, Lois stared at the conveyor belt. Security was getting more and more onerous with the passing of every year, especially when someone was coming from someplace as contentious as Iraq.
She felt the buzzing of the satellite phone in her pocket.
“Jerry,” she said. “It’ll take a while to get my luggage, but I’ll be back in the office as soon as I can.”
She froze as she listened to the voice on the other end of the connection.
“What? Here?”
An unidentified airplane heading for Washington was ominous. There were no records of this commercial jetliner leaving from any airport in the world, and given what had happened six and a half year before, no one was willing to take any chances.
“Do you think they plan to shoot it down?”
An unidentified plane was a weapon in and of itself, but it could be carrying anything, from biological contaminants to dirty bombs to
Russian nuclear weapons.
Grabbing her bag as it swung by, Lois’s mind raced as she began dialing numbers. With the equipment in her luggage she could transmit a news story from almost anywhere in the world, with anything from pictures to video.
All she would have to do was somehow find her way back through security to the areas where all the action was happening.
It was a tall order.
*************
To Clark’s shame, he let the plane drop almost a hundred feet in his shock and anxiety about what the fighter pilot had seen.
The screams of the passengers above him reminded him quickly that he needed to keep his mind on what he was doing or people were going to be hurt.
The sick passengers didn’t sound like they were doing well.
He began to head as quickly as he could for the runway. One of the fighter planes was threatening to shoot the commercial jet down if they didn’t land, which was what everyone needed anyhow.
The other plane was oddly quiet.
Scowling, Clark began to drop through the clouds. As soon as he got the plane on the ground, he planned to be gone. He’d have done it anyway before, but with the way things were happening now, it was twice as important.
The world had changed, and he was going to find out what had happened to it. It wasn’t just the disappearance of Metropolis. It was everything. The attitudes of the air traffic controllers, the threats of blowing an American plane out of the sky. This was a scary new world.
The sky was filled with the sound of thunder.
Veritas