It felt like a dream. Wearing a spacesuit, staring out the window…it was like her dreams of becoming an astronaut as a child. Of course, there was none of the thundering roar of rockets, none of the countdown…
There was only the silence of space and staring outside at the man who made it all possible.
She’d made fun of Clark for believing the painter, but this was exactly the scene that rested on Clark’s mantelpiece. The flying man, the underwear on the outside. It was exactly the same.
If a man could fly and lift spacecraft, and another man could draw the future, then anything was possible.
Even a man who could bend time and space.
Lois felt her mind racing, overwhelmed by the possibilities.
***************
“Boss, you’d better take a look at this.”
Glancing irritably at his underling, the man in the horn rimmed glasses signed off on several more orders, then turned to follow the other man. Primatech may have been a façade for something older and more sinister, but it was also a working paper factory, with work that had to be done.
The small television in his office was one. This was unusual in the middle of the workday. Mostly the television was just used to play videos after hours…videos of a secret nature.
Today, however, the screen was filled with news of the shuttle launch.
It took him a moment to realize what he was seeing. When he did, he felt his mouth go dry.
Forty five years of work to protect the public was being undone in the space of ten minutes by someone who had slipped their grasp.
He hadn’t even realized that level of power was even possible. He wasn’t sure how much the shuttle weighed, but he suspected that it was in the thousands of tons.
That put the fat man from New Mexico to shame. He’d barely been able to bench press a car. Even that hadn’t helped him avoid a bullet to the skull.
“IS he going into space without a suit?” He murmured. It was unusual for one of the others to have more than one ability. This one was already showing at least three or more.
Subject Omega.
He even had the symbol on his chest, just as Linderman’s precogs had predicted.
There had been indications of his existence throughout the world for years, stories of people being rescued, of spontaneous miracles. There had been sightings of him as recently as last week, in the fire nearby.
They’d never been able to catch up with him, and if he could fly as it was now appearing that he could, able to reach escape velocity while holding an abject as large as the shuttle, then they’d never be able to catch him.
They’d have to set a trap.
The public outcry was going to be harder to manage. The overwhelming outpouring of panic, of fear and rage was going to take everything they had to keep the country safe.
He picked up his heavy phone, dialed a number without taking his eyes from the screen, then said “Sir, we have a problem.”
*****************
It was worse than he thought.
They loved him.
Patient Omega…Superman as they were now calling him had been busy rescuing people all around the world. As a PR campaign, it was brilliant. Keep people focused on the good you can do so that they don’t consider the full implications of someone with the power to single-handedly topple entire countries.
That much power in the hands of one man terrified him, even without the fear that he might become drunk with his power.
He had to be stopped, and with the number of his powers now being suggested at fifteen and still growing, it was going to be almost impossible.
They needed to take him down as quickly as possible, before some of the others decided that it would be a good time to take advantage of the good press to also come out.
***********
Hiro pulled Ando by the sleeve.
“*Aren’t you excited about being here? Maybe we will finally get to meet him! The Superman! He can teach me how to be a real hero!*”
“*I thought we were here to stop Metropolis from exploding.*”
“*Maybe we just need to get Superman to do it. Then we can go to New York, see the statue of Liberty!*”
Ando nodded and sighed. He just wanted to see American strippers.
*******************
“Hiro Nakamura is the heir to a major Japanese Corporation, Clark,” Lois said. “I saw him teleport.”
“I’d have thought you’d have been all over the Superman story,” Clark said, feeling slightly miffed. Was it wrong that he’d been hoping she’d be a little bit impressed with his ability to fly?
“He’s promised me an interview,” Lois said. “He’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve already seen a man who can fly, a man who can paint the future, and another man who can teleport.”
“I haven’t seen that, “ Clark reminded her. “I’m still not sure…”
Lois waved off his objections with one hand while searching the papers in front of her. “There has been a huge upsurge in unexplained events over the past five years. People mysteriously being saved, people being lifted out of cars. My God, Clark. How many of them do you think there are out there?”
Clark shrugged, but Lois continued speaking.
“Are they mutants? Aliens? Part of some government experiment gone wrong…or gone right? These are the questions that are going to get me a Pulitzer.”
“Us a Pulitzer,” Clark said.
As usual, Lois ignored him.
**************
Mohinder opened the door and he was suddenly blinded by flashing lights.
A wave of humanity washed toward him, microphones outstretched.
“Did you know your father’s theories were going to be proven so spectacularly?”
One woman pushed forward with a microphone. “Have you found any of the others?”
“Are they aliens? Mutants? What does it mean for the rest of us? IS humanity an evolutionary dead end?”
The questions came fast and furious.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, dazed.
“Haven’t you been watching the news?”
“I don’t watch television.”
It wasn’t long before the news people answered his questions, and he realized that his life was never going to be the same again.
His father had been right, and he now had a mission.
.
