Be Fruitful And Multiply

The woman shouted the words into the screaming heart of the dark mother, and felt them engraved on her soul, coded in her genes. There was a terrible sense of pressure then, of motion. She curled felt herself squeezed through some tight, dark passage, Ishniggarib's song growing faint, a terrible hunger growing inside her own womb.

The reporter clawed her way through the final membrane, spilling out into an alley behind the club. She was assailed by all the night-smells of the city—ugly petrochemical odors, various cooking smells, faint traces of excrement and urine—and all the millions of human beings, packed so closely together. Her senses were awoken to all the subtle tastes and odors that she normally blocked out and ignored, savoring them completely.

Lois Lane opened her eyes and stood in awe of all the colors of darkness in the night.

She smiled as her womb rumbled. Reborn now, she knew only one purpose...to serve her true mother, the mother of them all. Knowledge blossomed inside her mind like a flower, a gift from the Dark Mother to a favored daughter. The one person that could stop them...the alien element that could resist this natural order. Lois smiled and whispered the name of the one she must convert to their cause...her mission in this cold world.

"Superman."

Feeling as though she was floating, Lois Lane walked through the city. She had to get his attention. None of the weak seed squirming in the balls of the mortal creatures was worthy of her womb. The Dark Mother had consecrated her uterus for a single task.

The nighttime predators of Suicide Slum avoided her, some instinct telling them this was not their mark. Dogs bared their teeth but held their barks, cats slunk into shadows, rats and cockroaches fled at the sound of her footsteps. Like the tiger through the jungle, silence followed Lois Lane and the unnatural aura exuding from her skin.

Her feet carried her to the Daily Planet. She ignored the tiredness in her legs as she rode the elevator to the top floor. down the corridor and up the stairs to the roof. To stand beneath the great brazen globe. Totter over to the edge, staring down at the street far below, wind whipping at her clothes.

She raised her arms up and howled his name at the leering moon.

"Superman!"

Lois Lane fell.

The wind stole her words.

The pavement raced toward her.

Windows whipped past too fast to see inside them.

Lois screamed in joy and fear and exultation, his name on her lips.

A red and blue blur flashed.

And she was in his arms.