The Death and Life of Superman (50 page)

Lois looked full into his face, struck by sudden inspiration. “I’ve just thought of someone who might be able to help. Would you agree to see him?”

“Someone who could help me remember?”

“Perhaps. He’s run tests on Superman before.”

“I’ll try anything.” The Cyborg gently took her hand. “Please, take me to him.”

Emil Hamilton looked up in astonishment at the two guests in his laboratory. “Egads, Ms. Lane, what—who is this?!”

“That’s what we’re hoping you can tell us, Professor Hamilton.” Lois looked around. Much of Hamilton’s equipment was covered with huge sheets of plastic, and the air was heavy with the smell of fresh paint. “That is, if you’re up and running.”

“Oh, yes! Yes, the painters finished yesterday. We were lucky. This building sustained relatively minor damage from that Doomsday creature’s rampage. My most delicate apparatus escaped untouched.” Hamilton adjusted his glasses and stared unabashedly at the Cyborg.

The Cyborg returned the favor. “Professor Hamilton. Do I know you?”

Hamilton took a step back. “That voice—!”

He hears the similarity, too.
Lois frowned.
I hope that won’t prejudice anything.
“I realize how weird this must seem, Professor, but this man claims to be Superman.”

“Weird? Ms. Lane, it’s unheard of! What he’s claiming is the reanimation of dead tissue!”

“Yes, well, we need to run some tests to find out if there’s any possibility that he could be right. Can you help us?”

“Of course! Come, right this way.” Hamilton led them through a maze of scaffolding and over to a big Plexiglas sphere. “You know, I’ve probably studied Superman more thoroughly than anyone else on Earth. If this man is not the genuine article, I’ll find out for sure!”

Good,
thought Lois,
because I have my doubts.

The Cyborg regarded the sphere and the surrounding computer consoles with curiosity. “Begin your examination, Professor. I am confident of the results.”

The Cyborg patiently stood by as the professor attached dozens of electrodes to him and sealed him within the hollow sphere.

Hamilton flipped a series of switches, and his equipment hummed to life. “Please try to stand very still. The sensor scan is beginning . . . now!”

The sphere lit up with a soft glow, making the Cyborg look like a bizarre filament in a gigantic light bulb. Hamilton turned his attention to a large monitor screen which was producing a diagrammatic image of the Cyborg, color-coding his electromechanical and organic components.

“Extraordinary! This is most extraordinary!”

“What is it, Professor?”

Hamilton called up past data on a second screen and keyed the systems to begin correlating figures. “I have enjoyed the privilege of analyzing a few bits and pieces of surviving Kryptonian technology, Ms. Lane. And the bionic components of this gentleman appear to be constructed of alloys developed by Kryptonian metallurgists. Hmm . . . they also correspond to the areas of Superman’s body that were injured in his battle with Doomsday.”

As Hamilton pointed out the pertinent data to Lois, the Cyborg studied the main electrode on his robot arm. Curious, he traced the data pathway along to Hamilton’s computers.

Lois leaned in close to Hamilton, keeping her back to the Cyborg and her questions to a soft whisper. “He claims to have suffered a significant loss of memory, Professor. Can you see anything that would explain that? Please, keep your voice down.”

“Actually, Ms. Lane, amnesia is not uncommon among trauma survivors, and whoever this man is, he’s obviously suffered some severe trauma. Why, the entire left hemisphere of his brain is missing! It’s apparently been replaced with some manner of microbionic supercomputer. That he remembers anything at all, given the extent of his injuries, is what’s remarkable! Still, the brain is an astonishing organ. It is conceivable that this man, whoever he is, will recall more as time goes on.”

Their conversation was all but inaudible over the electronic hum of the equipment, but the Cyborg caught every word. “Professor, may I speak without disturbing your apparatus?”

Hamilton turned toward the Cyborg. “Yes, that should be safe. Is something the matter?”

“Not at all. This is all starting to seem very familiar to me. Your name is Emil, isn’t it? And I remember someone else being here . . . a woman . . . Mildred. Is she well?”

Hamilton’s jaw dropped. “Yes. Yes, very well, thank you.”

An insistent beeping sound came from the main console, and the professor rushed over to check it. “Astounding. The bioanalysis is complete, and in record time.” He pulled back a lever, and the sphere swiveled open. “You can come out now.”

The Cyborg hopped down out of the sphere, electrodes popping loose as he moved.

“Oh, this is amazing. Truly uncanny.” Hamilton keyed his equipment to double-check the figures.

The Cyborg laid his human hand gently on the professor’s shoulder. “Is anything wrong, Emil?”

“The genetic coding—!” Hamilton took off his glasses, cleaned them with a treated tissue, and replaced them on his nose. “You know, I was never able to obtain a complete scan of Superman’s DNA.”

“I remember.” There was a new confidence in the Cyborg’s voice. “You said that Kryptonian chromosomes were too complex for your equipment.”

“Y-yes. As you say. But the data I had compiled earlier matches quite well against the data I have just now collected on your, ah, organic half.” Hamilton darted a glance at Lois. “Yes, everything is comfortably within the limits of my expected experimental error.”

Lois looked back and forth from the Cyborg to the professor. “Then, what you’re saying is—?”

Hamilton nodded once, slowly. “Incredible as it seems, these results suggest—quite strongly suggest—that this man is indeed Superman.”

The Cyborg seemed about to heave a sigh of relief when he suddenly stiffened. “Listen!”

“What?” Lois demanded. “I don’t hear anything.”

The Cyborg tapped the metal disc where his left ear would have been. “Sorry. It’s a radio signal. There’s a ship in distress about ten miles out at sea. I have to go.”

The Cyborg Superman bounded across the lab and was airborne as the servomotors opened the big double windows for him. He waved back as he exited the building. “Thank you, Professor! Thanks, Lois, for all your help. With luck, maybe I’ll soon remember everything!”

Hamilton sank back into a battered old swivel chair. “Ms. Lane, I’ve seen some incredible things in my day, but I never thought I’d live to see a man return from the dead.”

Lois shook her head. “I’m still not so sure we have, Professor.”

Lex Luthor stood before the wall of monitors in his video lounge, studying endless replays of WLEX news feeds. At the moment, one image dominated half of the screens. It was an interview with a young woman who claimed she had been rescued from a burning building by Superman.

“It’s true! He carried me out of that building—he saved us all—and then he was gone.” Rosie Jakowitz’s face filled the screens. “Trust me, I’m a trained professional reader-advisor. I knew all along that Superman would return, and now he has. Not necessarily in the form people might have expected, but it was him. Listen, have you ever heard of a walk-in spirit? When a body has been abandoned by one spirit but is not yet uninhabitable, then another spirit can move in. Anyway, whatever he is, the cards tell me for sure that the man who saved me today is definitely the Man of Steel. For sure.”

Dr. Happersen entered the room, and Luthor wearily shook his head. “Every hour, it seems, there’s news of another Superman sighting. This is the weirdest one yet. Walk-in spirits! What rubbish. Happersen, were you able to learn anything about this case?”

“Not much, sir. The police have nothing but eyewitness accounts of this latest Superman. As usual, those accounts differed in details—estimates of his height vary from six to ten feet—but it is interesting that all the witnesses say that the man wore some sort of armor. The police feel they’re on firmer ground with the cause of the fire, however; they believe it was started by gang members.”

“Gang members?”

“Yes, apparently in retaliation against one Henry Johnson, a resident of the building. Johnson had helped police apprehend a young member of a gang known as the Sharks.”

“This incessant gang violence is becoming increasingly annoying, Happersen. I don’t like that sort of thing happening in my city.”

“Yes, sir.”
You would see it that way, wouldn’t you?
“The Sharks are becoming a particular problem to the police, what with the high-caliber firepower they’ve been able to acquire.”

“Ah, yes . . . the so-called Toastmasters. Where are those guns coming from, Sydney?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Then find out. If they’re as big a threat as they seem, I want their source cut off—preferably at the ankles.”

Jonathan Kent sat up in his hospital bed, zapping through the channels on the TV with a remote. “Infernal contraption. We get more channels than ever with the cable, but there’s never anything on that I want to watch!”

“Yes, dear.” Martha sat patiently by his bedside, knitting.
You’ve been nothing but a grouchy old bear these past two days.
“Would you like some more water?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

She gave him a peck on the forehead. “You just settle down now. The doctor said he might let you go home tomorrow.”

Martha scooped up the water pitcher and disappeared into the bathroom. Jonathan went back to zapping through the channels, finally landing on the evening satellite news from superstation WLEX. The picture was jumpy and grainy, and the announcer sounded slightly breathless, rushing his narration.

“A WLEX mobile-cam crew got these dramatic shots just minutes ago, when they came upon the scene of a shoot-out between rival gangs. As you’ll see in a moment, the so-called Man of Steel suddenly dropped into the middle of this firefight . . .”

“Martha? Martha, come here! You gotta see this!”

A dark red cape swirled across the screen as the huge metal-clad form of the Man of Steel stepped between the warring gangs, bullets bouncing off his chest. He swung his long-handled hammer in a wide arc, knocking the weapons from the hands of the young gunmen. Then he trod upon the guns, crushing them under his weight. A voice that sounded like a cross between Orson Welles and James Earl Jones boomed from the television. “These weapons are illegal. They won’t be tolerated on the streets any longer!”

“Did you say something, Jonathan?” Martha came back into the room with a full pitcher.

Her husband stared openmouthed at the television.

“Jonathan, whatever is the matter? What did you see?”

“I—I’m not sure, Martha.” He let the remote control drop to his lap. “But it wasn’t what I expected—not what I expected at all.”

It was just after four in the morning when the alarm Klaxons began to blare in the Cadmus Project. Instantly awake, Jim Harper leapt out of bed, pulling on his working clothes and jumping into his boots. He was fitting his helmet into place when he reached the central lab complex and found his night security team clustered around a huge metal door at the end of a long corridor.

“What’s the situation?”

One of the uniformed men snapped off a quick salute. “We’ve got a code red in Lab Thirteen, sir. Power surge of unknown origin caused an explosion inside—and the door’s jammed shut. We’re trying to force it now.”

Footsteps echoed behind them. “Guardian! What’s going on?”

“Westfield . . .” The Guardian’s voice took on a decidedly cool edge. “What’re you doing up at this hour?”

“That’s my business, mister. Right now, yours is making sure nothing happens to Experiment Thirteen.”

“We’ll do our best.” He nodded to his team. “Take out the door.”

Shaped explosive charges were quickly set all around the frame of the entryway. Within moments, the door lay smoking on the corridor floor.

The Guardian started into the lab, Westfield and the security team close on his heels. “Let’s take this slow and easy. There’s no telling who or what we might find in here.”

Lab Thirteen was a smoking, steaming mess. Equipment was strewn from one end of the chamber to the other and torn cables were scattered everywhere. In the middle of the lab sat the remains of what looked like a gigantic test tube. Three and a half feet in diameter, it stood over eight feet tall; its walls were of three-inch-thick Plexiglas, and over a third of its surface had been smashed out, apparently from within. A thick, viscous liquid oozed from the rupture.

One of the guards looked the tube over uneasily. “What was in this thing?”

“Good question, soldier.” The Guardian turned and speared Westfield with a look. “Care to explain this, Paul?”

“This was all approved, Guardian. Washington agreed that we needed—”

Westfield’s explanation was suddenly interrupted by a voice from on high.

“Will someone get me down from here?”

They all looked up to see Carl Packard hanging from the ceiling. Several lengths of stainless steel tubing had been ripped from their mountings and bent around the scientist like a pretzel.

“Carl?” Westfield looked dazed. “Carl, what happened?”

“It was those infernal Newsboy clones. Oh, Experiment Thirteen was giving me some trouble—he’d started resisting the increased input we were feeding him—but I could have dealt with that.” Packard squirmed within his steel bonds. “But then, those bastard clones came tearing through the place. Before I could stop them, one of them shut down the restraining fields, and Thirteen just exploded out of the tube! He twisted this steel around me, and then they all ran off through the air ducts. We have to find him immediately.”

The Guardian reached out and grabbed Westfield by the arm, even as he tried to reassure the dangling scientist. “Don’t worry, Dr. Packard. I promise you that we’ll get to the bottom of this. Won’t we, Paul?”

“You don’t understand the urgency, Guardian.” Packard shifted awkwardly, trying in vain to free up an arm. “The code words—the subliminal instructions—hadn’t yet been implanted in Experiment Thirteen. We have absolutely no control over him.”