(I won't be home tomorrow, so I thought I'd better post it today.)
Part 3
Clark settled into an aisle seat near the back of the room. A few minutes later the mayor called for quiet as he began the press conference. “Now, as you all know, there have been concerns by some taxpayers about spending cuts. As you all are here to find out, I’m going to explain some of the…”
Clarks heard a distant ticking. His eyes widened and his head turned to the side as he pinpointed the sound. Reluctantly he stood, trying to listen as he left.
He stepped through the door to the empty hallway, then morphed into a small gust of wind, missing the announcement. He landed near the bomb in the basement of a crowded office building a few blocks up the street. He had five minutes to get rid of the bomb. It was a simple device. He could eat it, lie on it, or fly it into the sky before it went off. He looked around, found a spot at the right height on a stack of boxes and put the camera down, checking to see that it pointed at the bomb. Then with the remote in one hand, the hand that would be out of sight of the camera, he began taking photos as he approached the bomb, studied and removed it carefully. Quickly retrieving the camera and heading up through the stairwell to the roof, he set up the camera and tossed the bomb upward, catching himself and the exploding bomb on a background of blue sky.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he retrieved the camera and zipped back toward the conference, trying to hear what was being said. However, he noticed a scruffy teenager with a gun, confronting a shocked elderly woman who was slowly backing away. He took a shot of the situation as he landed in front of the boy. If these photos weren’t blurry, they could be useful to the police as evidence. He removed the gun from the boy’s hand despite his angry protests. Superman wrapped a parking sign around the feisty teen and gave instructions to a passerby who was already consoling the shaking woman. There hadn’t been a way to covertly snap a photo of the rescue in progress.
He had to get back to that conference. If he were late with this story, Perry would have his head, or more likely, his job.
Those first photos wouldn’t be any good. How would Clark Kent explain being in the basement when he was at a press conference. It was another thing if he’d been on some obscure errand.
As he flew between the tall buildings near city hall, he heard a familiar low rumble ‘This better not be what I think it is,’ he worried aloud as he paused in midair to x-ray the earth. He could go the conference and keep his job, or deal with an earthquake. Was there really a question in his mind? So much for the life of Clark Kent. He wished Lois had gone to the conference with him. However, Perry was right, it didn’t take two reporters to cover a conference, especially if one were Superman. He didn’t have time to make a phone call.
He turned and flew over the Atlantic, then dove into the ocean bed, trying to still the movement of the earth. The pressure was too intense to halt. Superman could slow it down, and hopefully avoid a tsunami’s formation, but it would mean staying underwater for quite some time.
He wasn’t familiar enough with the physics of an earthquake to know how to let one move slowly. It wasn’t as if there were a handle he could hold onto. Could tunneling through the earth cause enough backward friction to slow the plate’s movement without reversing it?
He prayed for guidance, then tunneled along the point of greatest pressure, wondering if it would work. A gap between the plates would cause faster movement, but then again, the friction he’d create would slow the earthquake. Would a tsunami result if the plates weren’t scraping one another? He was really out of his league. He had always responded to earthquakes on the news, he’d never heard one in progress before.
He stopped tunneling and stood on the ocean floor accessing what was happening in response to his efforts. He could feel the tension in the earth beneath his feet. A moment later he realized he’d made a big mistake. The eastern plate jerked a foot along the crack. Clark could feel his heartbeat stop. He sped along the crack, trying to correct the turbulence the quake had caused in the deep water above it.
He should have just dug into the ocean floor, gotten in and pushed against the pressure. That would have slowed the movement! What an idiot he was.
He had to surface for air, then returned to stop the waves. The trouble was, the quake was still spreading. The affected water didn’t appear to have calmed by his tunneling through it. If anything, he was upsetting it more. He shot up into the air again to watch what would happen, glad to get another chance to breathe. Perhaps it would be easier to stop waves as they began to move away from the epicenter.
****
It was noon when Lois looked at her watch as Perry stormed out of his office. “KENT!” Perry swore. “I told that boy I needed his story before deadline. Where is he this time?”
She stood up as he approached her desk. “He’s still at the conference, Chief.”
He turned and headed to the city desk, “Did Kent phone in his story?”
Lois watched as Perry turned back to his office, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the glass. Jimmy reached out and put a hand on the window to keep it from shattering, deciding to approach his editor later.
“What’s up with CK, Lois?”
“He didn’t get his story in by deadline…again.”
“Ut oh,” Jimmy whistled, shaking his head. “What’s up, you think?”
“Who knows? This is Clark we’re talking about…the disappearing reporter.”
“You think Perry will fire him?”
“I don’t know. He’s pretty mad.”
“He’ll cool off.” Jimmy ventured.
He’d better. Lois added silently and returned to her work.
Lunch hour came and went before Lois asked Jimmy to bring up a sandwich for her from the lobby. She decided she’d better get started with the interviews they needed and began booking them from late afternoon forward, hoping she’d be able to talk to Clark before she had to leave the office. Eventually, Lois left him a note saying to page her when he returned.
But Superman was still busy doing damage control. The waves had traveled in all directions before he realized that the quake had hit land. He left to halt the fall of several buildings, rescue some victims and put out gas fires before he returned to the ocean to find and calm the waves that had already traveled many miles from the site.
It was three p.m. by the time Clark Kent returned to the office, straightening his tie as usual.
Perry stood as he saw Clark walk through the newsroom. “KENT! GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE.”
All eyes in the newsroom were on alert as they watched the friendly reporter they’d all grown to respect respond to their boss.
