“I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength
to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
Christopher Reeve
Chapter
1
Superman tore through the sky, the friction for the air
igniting small bits of debris on his uniform, creating a flaming comet from the
man of steel as he hauled bank vault sized case, causing it to glow red hot.
“Superman. This is Doctor Hamilton from S.T.A.R.
Labs.” A voice came over an ear piece tucked away in his ear canal. “A
little…busy…doctor. What…do…you…need?” He said, his arms straining
against the intense violation of physics he was performing. The object
was only the size of a bank vault, but its contents were heavier than several
battle ships, and Superman pushed everything he had into getting it as far away
from earth as possible.
“I understand, but what I have to say is very pertinent to
your present situation.”
“If…you…could…cut…to…the…chase…please.” Superman
grunted.
“Of course, the object in the safe is going to detonate in approximately
sixty seconds, but I’m afraid you are not going to be able to get it to a safe
distance in that amount of time. You won’t be fast enough.”
“Don’t…have…to…be.” Superman knew how fast he was
going. He had reached escape velocity twice over but he knew he couldn’t
hold out against the strain of the contents. He just needed to get away
from Earth, halfway to something that could take the blast from it.
“Superman, your trajectory shows you heading towards New Krypton.”
He hated that name. The chunk of rock resting just
outside the orbit of the moon was laced with Kryptonite, one of the very, very
few substances in the universe that was known to severely weaken Superman.
“Oh my god!” Hamilton said from his headquarters in S.T.A.R.
Labs. “He’s going to throw that thing to New Krypton.”
“Wait…” said General Lane, a barrel chested man with a
graying beard “Won’t that rain down Kryptonite across the planet?”
General Samuel Lane licked his lips at the thought. He
was not a fan of Superman, he had never bought into the praise the hero had
received since his return from deep space. As far as Lane was concerned
the five years he was absent from earth were the best in human history.
He felt humanity should solve its own problems and not rely on a savior from
the stars, one who could easily wipe out humanity with his god-like
powers. The fact that his daughter, Lois, seemed to grow out of
fascination with Superman over the years helped, but the notion that the Earth
could become uninhabitable to the Last son of Krypton gave him a delightful
pause.
“Quite the opposite, General Lane…” Hamilton
interjected. Hamilton, a tall, thin man of science with wild, uncombed
dark brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, brought up a computer
screen “You see, if he lands that object…a Mother Box I’m told it’s called, on
New Krypton, when it detonates it will create a miniature wormhole capable of
swallowing all nearby matter. If it had detonated on Earth, it would have
wiped out the western hemisphere of the planet. If it had landed on the
moon, it would eliminate the very thing that commands our tides. Either
way, humanity would be wiped out. However if he lands it on New Krypton
it could take out the entire floating island with no harm to the planet.
My concern is that Superman won’t be able to escape the event horizon of the
wormhole and will be sucked in.”
“We can only hope.” Lane growled.
Superman spun hard and flung the mother box towards New
Krypton. There was spherical flash of light that lit up the sky, like a
second sun for just a few moments, then black. “Did it work?” Lane asked,
rubbing his eyes. “Is he…”
Superman’s voice came across the intercom “Dr. Hamilton,
please inform General Lane that I am just fine and heading back to Earth.”
Lois Lane-White raced across the office of the Los Angeles Times, bursting into
the door of editor Morgan Edge. “Mr. Edge…Superman just touched down
north of Houston.”
Edge, a man in his mid-sixties with greyish white hair and a
trim physique looked up from his meeting. “No.” is all he said.
“But…”
“This isn’t the Daily Planet, Lane. I’ve got better
things to do with this paper then fill it with fluff pieces about the hero of
Metropolis. If Superman touched down in LA, that would be something.
He hits the club scene, that would be something, but he’s from Metropolis, he’s
in Houston, what the hell does that have to do with LA?”
“Sir…”
“Lane, you wanna cover weird shit, fine.” He tossed her a
stack of blurry photos. “There’s been weird green thing seen near the
S.T.A.R. Labs satellite facility near Middletown. You want to get your
jollies chasing aliens, go check that out.” She snatched up the
photographs and began examining them. “Oh and if you could not make out with
this little green man, that’d be great. Unlike the Planet, we like our
reporters to have some level of distance from the stories they’re covering.”
Lois fumed as she stormed out of her office.
Approaching her car she let out a scream of rage, one that attracted the wary
looks of those around her. “Jeez, mom, you okay?” Jason said from behind
her. She jumped, startled “Jesus is the light…!” she exclaimed, having
made an conscious effort to curb her swearing habit over the last ten
years. “Why aren’t you at school?”
Jason shrugged “Early out.” She narrowed her eyes at
him. “Okay, I may have gotten into some trouble…”
“Gotten into or are going to get into?” He wouldn’t
meet her gaze. “It’s what, five days to winter break; I’m already ahead
of everyone literally in the entire school. I just…I get bored, you
know.”
“Okay, get back there before they notice you’re gone and
I’ll come up and sign you out. I may need your help on this one anyway.”
“Really, what is it?”
“Could be nothing, could be another strange visitor from
another planet.”
The car ride out to Middletown was exactly what Lois needed. She rolled
down the windows and let her amber hair blow in the country breeze. Edge
may have thought the assignment was a dead end, but even if it was, it was a chance
for her to get away from Los Angeles, if even for just an afternoon.
Despite how horrible he was to her, she valued the job. At her age it
wasn’t easy to get reporting jobs for an actual newspaper anymore. Most,
like the Daily Planet, were becoming “media outlets” with an actual newspaper a
distant thought. There didn’t seem to be many old school reporters left
in the world of news, just her and Clark and a handful of others. Her
mind drifted briefly to Clark. How was he handling things at the new and
improved Daily Planet? With Lacy Warfield taking over for Perry White
after his retirement, she imagined it was uncomfortable for him, but his work
was holding up. Apparently he was given the Superman beat. The fact
was that she knew Morgan Edge wasn’t going to send her to Houston, but her
asking the way she did was a sure-fire way to get out of the office for a
while; he’d send her away to “teach her a lesson.”
Jason on the other hand stared out at the vastness of the
California country side. Flat and desolate with tufts of trees here and
there. He allowed his vision to extend out across the expanse. He
could see past the horizon, past where the Earth started its gentle curve, the
tops of buildings waiting for their chance to rotate into place as the planet
turned. “I like the wide open.” He said softly. “I can see for
miles and miles. There’s a plane taking off from Mexico right now.
It’s just, drifting into the air…”
“I know son. The city is hard to grow up in. Its
tight, it’s packed…”
“There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to fly.”
“Jason, we’ve talked about this. If you use your
powers…”
“People will expect things of me like they do
Superman. I get that…but why shouldn’t they? I mean, I have the
power to help people, like he does. Why can’t I use that?”
“Son…”
“Mom, turn the car!”
“What…?” But Jason was already moving. He yanked the
wheel hard to the right, sending their small SUV into a skid. The vehicle
started to roll and he launched himself out of the passenger door. Life
was going in slow motion for him, he felt like he had all the time in the
world. He grabbed the vehicle by the frame and carried it off the road and into
the air as an invisible wall of sound slammed into them. He allowed the
vehicle to spin in the air so it wouldn’t be crushed by the shockwave. He
landed it a split second later mentally calculated the launched debris in the
air and made sure it slammed down on the asphalt where the car had been.
Another chunk of rubble threatened to crash down on where he stopped but he
backhanded it away and it spiraled off into the desert. He ran to the
passenger side of the car. “Are you okay, mom?” Lois was still
disoriented from the event but faintly nodded. Jason helped her out of
the vehicle and scanned her body. “Nothing broken, nothing ruptured,
physically you’ll be fine.”
“What was that?” she asked looking at the pillar of black
smoke rising into the air.
Jason took her GPS from the car. “Near as I can tell
mom…” he said looking into the distance “Its Middletown.”
Rescue crews from Los Angeles County and surrounding areas descended on
Middletown. Superman himself swooped down and sifted through the heavier
debris and aided rescuers in finding people trapped under rubble. “It’s
him, mom. It’s really him.” Jason whispered to Lois.
“Honey, we’re here to work.”
“Got it.” Jason moved to assist with the relief
efforts, moving to a solid piece of wall that was tilting towards rescue
workers. He calmly edged his way to the wall, placing his back against it.
He could feel the tangible weight of it, how the structure was fundamentally
week, so he placed a hand on it. A trick he learned was that, if he
thought about it clearly enough, he could hold a structure together even though
all of his super strength was actually applied to one single point. He
called it “tactile telekinesis”. As far as he knew, Superman couldn’t do
it, or maybe never thought to do it. As soon as they were clear, he moved
away from the wall and it collapsed into rubble. Every stood and looked,
some crossing themselves that they weren’t hit. Superman looked directly
at Jason and gave a single, knowing nod. A helicopter swooped in with the
S.T.A.R. Labs logo. Dr. Hamilton hit the ground and sprinted towards
Superman. The helicopter moved away as to avoid hindering the workers any
further and once it was clear Jason could hear their conversation. He
relayed what they were saying as Lois took notes.
“Any idea what happened here?” Superman asked. “The
point of origin for the blast was S.T.A.R. Labs.”
“We’re still going over data that was being transmitted to
our main office. It appears that there was a surge of unidentified energy
that ruptured space and time, but became unstable.”
“Hamilton, it wiped out an entire town. I was assured
that S.T.A.R. Labs had over site to avoid this kind of thing.”
“Yes, we do. The lead researcher at this facility was
Dr. Saul Erdel. I’m afraid his lab was ground zero for the explosion.”
“Hopefully the data you retrieved will provide some
answers. Do you know what Erdel was working on?”
Lois scribbled down in short hand what Jason translated for her. “Why
would he be working on an interstellar communication device?” Jason
shrugged “They don’t know, but Superman wonders if maybe the destruction is
someone’s reply.”
She shook her head. “I need to talk to him
directly. I appreciate the assist, but…”
“Lois.” Superman said suddenly standing in front of her.
She stammered for a second. “Jason, how are you
doing?”
Jason averted his eyes “Doing alright.”
Superman nodded. There was an awkward, pregnant pause
between the three of them.
“We really should find somewhere to talk.” He finally
said. “The crews can handle the rest from here, mostly triage and
patching up the wounded survivors. Luckily the damage was mostly cosmetic
to the town, most of the outlying buildings, where residents live and work,
were heavily reinforced in the event of something like this. The central
hub of town was the Star Labs building, which was wiped out.”
“Are there any survivors from the lab?” Jason asked, looking
past him. “That’s part of the mystery.” Superman replied grimly.
“The only staff on duty was Dr. Erdel, apparently he had given the rest the day
off. It’s a satellite lab so it’s critical that people stay on the clock
or in the building.”
“There’s a diner about a mile back that way.” Lois
pointed. “Let’s meet over there. Do you have anything less
conspicuous?”
“I’ll meet you there.” Superman said and was gone in a blur.
Arriving at the diner, Lois took a quick glance at the crowd. She found
him in the back, at a table in the corner far away from the crowd. He was
wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. “Huh…” she said absently as she and
Jason sat down. “What?” Superman asked, honestly. “Just…you look a
lot like Clark in that outfit.”
Superman and Jason looked at each other, both fighting the
urge to smile. “So…” Lois said “How has training been going?”
Superman nodded “He’s amazing, really. He’s far more
advanced than I was at that age. I mean he can already fly, I didn’t
master that for another year.”
“Yeah, and there’s this other thing I can do to.” Jason
volunteered “I call it ‘tactile telekinesis’. You know how when you lift
something, you risk breaking it because it’s not designed to hold together
against your strength?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when I focus on it, I can actually…I don’t
know…channel my strength through the whole object. Like that wall back at
the site.”
“That’s…amazing.” Superman was wide eyed.
“No.” Lois said, glancing at the menu.
“No what?” Both Jason and Superman asked. “No, you are
not putting on a costume and flying around. I don’t care what new power you
find.”
“Mom…”
“No, Jason, she’s right. It takes a lot out of
you. A lot of effort and time away from the things you really want.
These things we can do, they’re a gift, but you have to be careful when and
where to use them.”
Jason just shook his head. The waitress came
over. Lois looked at Superman “You paying?”
“I’ve got it.” He nodded. They ordered and waited.
The diner wasn’t busy at all, it was well past lunch time
and with the events only a mile away, nobody was really thinking about
eating. Jason picked at his chicken basket, Superman sipped his coffee
and Lois examined her turkey sandwich skeptically. “I don’t get
this. You are like the most recognizable person on the planet, how can
that waitress look right at you and not know who you are?”
Clark shrugged “People see what they want to see.”
“It’s not that hard…” Lois volunteered “Just keep your head
down, don’t make direct eye contact, his looks are good but they are pretty
common, plus no one thinks Superman needs a secret identity son of a bitch
you’re Clark Kent.”
Jason nearly chocked on his soda, Clark just kept staring at
her evenly. “Twenty damn years you stood beside me. I had your
child…” she motioned to Jason “and I never knew. You never told me but I
never thought…” She just stared at Clark for a long moment. She jumped up
from the table and ran outside.
Jason moved to follow but Clark told gently to sit.
“Lois…” he found her by her SUV “I’m sorry.”
“No…” she shook her head. “No, you don’t get to be
sorry. You don’t get to ask for forgiveness because…I need to.”
“What?”
“Look…twenty years. Twenty years, Clark. All
that time, I never looked at you. I looked…through you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shook her head, wiping tears away with the back of
hand. “No…no you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t because you see everything,
everybody.” She shook her head. “It…it doesn’t matter. Look, I…can’t
tell you how sorry I am.”
He nodded, then looked away. “What’s wrong? You
hear something?”
“No…more like I feel…something.” Jason came out of the
diner, he was looking towards Middleton, the same direction Clark was
inadvertently looking “You feel that too, right?” Jason asked.
For both of them, it passed. Both turned their heads
north east “Nuclear reactor near Metropolis.” Superman said, his form becoming
a blur.
Lois looked at Jason “No…no you don’t.”
“Mom, people could be hurt. You don’t understand…I can
hear them…they’re scared. They need help.”
“Superman…”
“Nuclear, mom. I read the stories…I know what nuclear
means to Superman.”
She looked off in the distance, following the path Superman
went. “Be careful, baby.”
“I will. I love you mom.” Jason was gone in a blur
just as fast.
Lois fought against the tears in her eyes. Her phone
rang, it was Morgan.
“I’d let it go to voice mail.” Said a voice from behind
her. A hand firmly gripped her shoulder.
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