The Death and Life of Superman (43 page)

The Guardian’s jaw dropped. “Lord, did he come back to life?”

“Impossible!” Westfield snatched up a microphone. “Attention all posts, commence lockdown! Seal the Project!”

The Guardian grabbed the mike away from the hyperventilating administrator. “I already gave that order before you got here.”

“Oh.”

A speaker began to crackle, and the face of an uneasy security guard appeared on the monitor. “Guardian, this is post ten.”

“Guardian here. What’s your situation?”

“I don’t know exactly. We were lowering the blast doors when they suddenly stopped, as if something was jamming them. But there’s nothing there, and—hey!”

The guard suddenly went flying off-screen. There were a few more off-camera shouts, and then silence.

“Post ten, report!” The Guardian thumbed up the volume on the speaker. “Post ten! Is anyone there?”

There was an odd movement in the center of the screen, like heat rippling the air above a hot pavement. And then Supergirl shimmered into view.

She spoke but ten words: “Superman is coming with me. Don’t ever touch him again!”

And then the monitor went blank.

Lois headed for Centennial Park the moment she got the call. When she arrived at the memorial plaza, it was just before two o’clock in the morning. It was a crisp, clear night and a small group of the Superman cultists were holding a vigil at the base of the tomb. As per the instructions she had been given, Lois skirted the edge of the plaza and surreptitiously crept along the east retaining wall to a spot where a maintenance van sat parked in front of a partially opened ventilator grating. Suddenly the door in the back of the van swung open and a light was shone in Lois’s face.

“Hey!”

The light winked out and a big burly figure hopped out of the van. “Sorry, Miz Lane, I had to make sure it was you.”

Lois blinked. “Inspector . . . Turpin, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, ma’am.” Turpin tipped his derby. “Cap’n Sawyer’s busy tonight on another detail, or she’d’ve been here herself. She said to give ya her apologies for not being able to level with ya before.”

Lois looked around the side of the truck, watching the cultists. “How are we going to do this without drawing their attention?”

“Easy. We use the back door. The others are already down there, waitin’ for us. Just follow me.”

Moments later, Turpin ushered Lois through the underground access corridor and into the anteroom outside the crypt. Luthor and Supergirl looked up as they entered.

“Hello, Lois . . . Inspector.” Supergirl went over and gave Lois a supportive hug. Of the others there, only she shared with Lois the secret of Superman’s dual identity. And she could only imagine the agonies the reporter had endured.

The Girl of Steel took Lois by the arm and led her into the crypt for one last viewing. There, atop the marble slab, rested a new coffin, its lid open. In the half-light of the crypt, Lois saw the body of Superman in final repose. The sight of this man whom she had loved so much was almost too much for her. Lois gripped the edge of the coffin for support and bit her lip, using the pain to help her keep her composure.

“Are you all right?” Supergirl’s concern was a hushed whisper in Lois’s ear. She wrapped her cape around them both, lending support to the reporter, as Luthor and Turpin entered the crypt.

“Yes.” Lois raised her voice just enough that the two men would be able to hear. “Yes, I’m convinced that it’s him. It couldn’t be anyone else.”

Supergirl nodded, and they both stepped outside.

Turpin ran his hand along one wall, inspecting the new masonry. Luthor patted it almost affectionately. “Granite facing over steel-reinforced concrete—with a new electronic sensor grid embedded in there. If anyone tries to break through this wall again, we’ll have plenty of advance warning.”

Turpin nodded and, hat in hand, filed by the coffin to verify the identity of its occupant one last time. Then Luthor helped lower the lid into place and followed the inspector out. No one noticed the half-smile on his face as Supergirl resealed the crypt.

Paul Westfield was up all night assessing the damage that had been done. The only thing that had survived Supergirl’s rampage through Lab Seven had been the storage locker and the bewildered technician the security team had found inside. The computer files of Dr. Rodrigues’s electron-capillary scans had been broken into and wiped. All they had left were the copies he had pirated for Dr. Packard’s experimentation, and those were woefully incomplete.

Westfield was nodding off at his desk when the phone woke him. “Whoever this is, it had better be good!”

“Carl Packard here, Paul—and yes, it is very good!”

“You’ve found the key?”

“Well, not
the
key, perhaps, but certainly
a
key. It’s on the sixty-third strand—”

“Save the details for later, Doctor. The question is, can you give me results?”

“Why, yes, of course. We can begin implementation immediately. Lab Thirteen is all set up and ready to go. All we need is your approval.”

“My approv—?” Westfield choked off his laughter. “Did you think you had to ask?”

“Well, considering the circumstances . . .”

“Experiment Thirteen is green for go, Doctor. Give it all you’ve got—top priority!” Westfield started laughing hysterically as he hung up the phone.
Let Metropolis keep its dead hero. Within a month, I’ll have myself a champion who’ll make the entire Justice League look second-rate!
Westfield swung his feet up onto his desk, he could finally see his career on the rise again.

When Martha Kent woke up, Jonathan was nowhere to be seen. She’d been all through the house twice looking for him when she finally discovered him out behind the barn, staring off at the far field where they’d first found their son. The morning was cold, and the wind was bitter, but Jonathan’s windbreaker dangled from one hand as though he wasn’t aware he’d brought it along.

“Jonathan David Kent! What in heaven’s name are you doing way out here in your shirtsleeves?! It’s freezing!” Martha yanked the wind-breaker from his hand and flung it over his shoulders. “Land sakes alive, put on this coat before you catch your death of cold, and come on back to the house! I swear, the past few days, you’ve shown less sense than a day-old turkey!”

“The
world
doesn’t make any sense, Martha. Don’t you see?” Jonathan gestured out toward the back field. “That’s where the rocket brought Clark to Earth. He seemed so helpless then. I swore I’d protect him. I swore I’d keep him safe.”

“And we did our best, Jon. That’s all we can ever do. No, it isn’t fair when parents have to bury their children, but we’re not the first couple that that’s happened to, and we won’t be the last. We’ve got to go on, Jon. Do you think he’d want you to give up?”

When her husband didn’t reply, Martha’s anger flared, and she roughly shook his shoulder. “Answer me, Jonathan! Do you think he’d want you to give up? There are other people who need us.
I
need you!”

“Martha, I failed him. I keep thinking how he said, ‘They all wanted a piece of me!’ ” Jonathan shook his head. “And now he’s lost to us. He’s lost to us all! He’s gone, Martha! He’s—”

Jon’s eyes seemed to go out of focus. He clutched at his chest and crumpled to the ground. Martha tried to catch him, falling to her knees as his breath wheezed out.

“Jonathan? Oh, Jonathan! Not you, too!”

18

Martha was never sure
what happened next. She knew that she must have gotten to the phone and called for help, and she had a vague memory of riding alongside her husband in an ambulance. The next thing she knew, she was standing in the emergency entrance of the Lowell County Hospital, and Eugene Lanning, their family physician, was running up to her.

“Martha, I just got a call that Jon has been brought in. What happened?”

“Oh, Gene, I don’t know.” She hugged the doctor’s arm as if it were a lifeline. “The paramedics said it was his heart.”

“Well, don’t you worry, Martha. I’ve been doctoring Jonathan for a long time, and if anyone can pull through this it’s him! He’s healthy as an ox!”

“I hope so, Gene. I dearly hope so. Jonathan hasn’t been himself for days! What with Clark gone, and all . . .”

“Yes, yes, I know. You just have a seat there. I’ll do everything that I can.”

Lanning slipped through the curtains of the emergency OR. The emergency room intern, he saw, had already connected Jonathan to the hospital’s oxygen system and was hooking him up to the heart monitor. The farmer’s shirt had long since been ripped open; he looked as pale and worn as old linen.

The intern glanced up at the doctor. “Your patient?”

Lanning nodded. “What’s his status?”

“EMTs reported a fibrillation when they found him. They bagged him, shocked his heart back to a normal rhythm, and set up an IV.” The young woman shook her head. “His pulse is very weak; respiration is shallow.”

Jonathan muttered something, his voice all but unintelligible through the breathing tube.

“Now, you listen here, Jonathan Kent!” Lanning grabbed his patient’s hand. “You and I have been friends too long a time for you to check out on me like this! I want you to fight with me, Jonathan! Fight!”

Jonathan’s eyes fluttered and his lips moved weakly. “C-Clark . . .”

The heart monitor began to show a wild pattern of beats and then a straight, flat line.

“Shoot some epinephrine into him!” Lanning centered his hands on Jonathan’s sternum and began to pump. “C’mon, Jon, you old cuss—live!”

From Jonathan’s point of view, the world had become a bright but misty place. It was as if he’d stumbled into an iridescent fog. The light was brilliant, almost blinding white straight ahead of him, and he could swear that he saw Clark standing there, as if waiting for him.

“Clark? Is that you, son?” Jonathan grasped the other man’s hand tightly, not in a handshake, but in a firm grip, the way you would reach to pull someone away from terrible danger.

“I can’t stay long, Pa.” Clark stood unmoving in the light.

Jonathan held tight and pulled along the other man’s arm, clutching at his shirt. “Clark, it
is
you! I’ve found you at last.” A look of relief filled the old farmer’s face. “Hold on, son, we’re going home.”

Clark shook his head and abruptly pulled away.

“Son, wait! Come back!” Jonathan tightened his grip on Clark’s shirt, but the fabric tore and came apart in his hands. The rest of Clark’s street clothes swiftly fell away in tatters until he stood revealed in his Superman uniform. He removed his glasses and spoke slowly, patiently, as if Jonathan were the son.

“I have to go, Pa. The light is pulling at me, compelling me to enter.”

“No! Don’t leave me, Clark!”

“I must. Clark is already gone. These glasses . . . these scraps of cloth . . .” Superman gestured to the shredded clothing drifting around him. “They are all that remain of Clark Kent.” His voice changed—becoming lower and deeper, as Clark’s voice always did when he spoke as Superman—but now it was different, detached. “From here on, the journey must be made by Kal-El, the Last Son of Krypton. Go back and rejoin the living, Jonathan Kent. The voices whisper to me that your time has not yet come.” Superman pressed Clark’s glasses into Jonathan’s hand and began to drift away.

“Not my time? It isn’t your time either, son!”

But Superman had turned his back on Jonathan and was already some distance away. Before the farmer’s eyes, two shrouded figures emerged from the mists to escort the Man of Steel on toward the light. “Do not delay, Kal-El. Your destiny awaits.”

Jonathan desperately swam through the mists after them. “Clark, listen to me—don’t go! Let me go in your place!”

Superman half-turned back toward his father, but one of the figures restrained him and thrust a wraithlike arm toward the farmer. “You cannot exchange places, Jonathan Kent, and you cannot cross over with us.”

“That’s right, Jon.” Superman seemed more distant than ever. “Martha needs you back home. She needs you now more than ever.” The other wraith pulled at Superman’s hand. “We must go on.”

“Good-bye, Pa. I love you . . .” Superman turned away again and the three of them were engulfed by the brilliant whiteness.