TOC Part 6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOURNAL ENTRY #7
LATE MARCH TO
MID MAY, 1994
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While I slowly healed, the others tried to follow up on the aftermath of the fight. There was no sign of the Kryptonite. Bureau 39, surprised by our interference, had gone even further underground. The lab we'd bugged was abandoned, as were most of the meeting places we'd been monitoring. They hadn't found the cameras (which the kids were quick to remove), but clearly they suspected something. Meantime, the Planet building exploded, surprising us all and adding to our failure. We watched, disheartened, as the staff scattered.
Then, as seemed to be his wont, Wells showed up out of the blue. He was even more fidgety than usual. He'd come armed with a newspaper. Of course, it wasn't the Daily Planet. It was their rival paper, the Metropolis Star. "
SUPERMAN DEAD," the headline boldly declared in large letters.
The story explained that the hero's body had been recovered from Hobb's Bay. There'd hardly been a mark on him. The reporter, Linda King, speculated that Kryptonite, the substance rumored to be able to harm the Man of Steel, had been the cause of death. There was little more to go on, and Wells assured us that little more would surface.
The date on the paper was about a month away. No one was certain, but the guess was that he'd been dead for a few days before the body had been found. The only thing we really had to go on was Wells's suspicion that Lex Luthor, who had been due to marry Lois Lane on around the same day that Superman had likely died, was somehow involved. Wells assured us that Luthor was an "unimaginably vile villain" and that, according to history, Clark and some of the Planet's staff had stopped the wedding and exposed his criminal activities to the world. Clark was not supposed to die, and Lex was not supposed to win. The Steel Shadows would have to step in and fix things.
Phillip added Luthor and his known associates to the list of people for Eugene's program to watch. Bobby started gathering whatever information he could get off the streets. I talked to Bibbo, and also used my fists to back Bobby up when he needed it. Eugene did some digging of his own. Information came in, slowly but surely. It was what we were good at, and we were all eager to make up for what had happened on our last mission. We started piecing things together about Luthor.
We channeled what we had to Clark and the others, who had gotten back together and started their own coordinated investigation. Bobby talked to Clark directly. I made sure Jack heard the right things off the streets. Eugene quietly helped Jimmy through his computer. We helped get them what they needed, and their investigations helped us find angles we might otherwise have missed. It was all coming together nicely, but we still didn't know anything about the Kryptonite or what was going to happen to Clark.
We got our first clue from a bank robbery. An alarm was set off, and Superman rushed to the scene. He seemed to stumble a bit as he left, though. It got our attention. The cameras spotted Luthor's aide, Mrs. Cox, in the background. Looking carefully, we noticed a small chunk of green crystal around her neck. It looked suspiciously like the one that had been attached to the canister of liquid Kryptonite.
It still wasn't much to go on, though, and Luthor's wedding was approaching rapidly. Things got even worse when Clark suddenly disappeared the next day. We left Perry, Jimmy, and Jack to finish up the investigation on their own and put all our efforts into trying to find Clark.
It was Bibbo who brought us the vital bit of information. He'd been listening for any news about Luthor. I hadn't told him why, and he hadn't felt the need to ask. He told me that he'd heard someone complaining about a job. Seemed Lex had wanted a cage made in a hurry and installed in his wine cellar, of all places. Not only that, but he'd wanted the bars coated with a special glow-in-the-dark green paint. Pressed for time, the dockside metalworker had converted a shark cage to suit Luthor's needs. As soon as the task had been completed, however, he'd gone straight to his favorite bar to tell the story. Given that it was the night before Luthor's wedding, the odd request had sparked off a series of wild speculations.
Not realizing the importance of the story, Bibbo didn't contact me until the following morning. I, on the other hand, jumped when I heard the news. Aymee, Dudley, Karen, and I suited up and rushed across town. Invisible, we slipped past Luthor's security and found our way to the wine cellar. We weren't sure exactly what we'd find or what we'd be able to do, but we had to help. Even if it meant exposing our existence to him — something Wells had informed us was never to happen and should be avoided at all costs.
When we got there, Superman was still conscious, but looked to be in extremely bad shape. He was lying on the floor, surrounded by glowing green bars, clearly in pain. All of his attention was focused on a key ring sitting perched on a nearby cask. He was desperately trying to use his breath to get a strip of white cloth to go through the ring. It looked like an impossible task.
It was a difficult scene to grasp. This was
Superman. The Man of Steel. Hero to the world. A man capable of doing or surviving just about anything you could imagine, generally without breaking a sweat. I wasn't his biggest fan, but seeing him like this — weak, pained, brought low — it affected me more than I would have ever expected. It was wrong. Profoundly wrong. On every level. He was supposed to be flying above us, not trapped down here, barely able to hold his head off the floor. It was disturbing, and, in a way, almost embarrassing, as if I'd intruded on something private, something I wasn't supposed to see.
Part of me, the part which saw him flying overhead and thought it made him distant and superior, the part which still resented him for having everything (including his reputation) come so easily, the part which was still angry about our last encounter and its aftermath... Part of me saw him lying there, struggling just to move a little strip of cloth, and wanted to crow, to shout out, "How does it feel to be stuck here with the rest of us?" Even that part, though, knew it wasn't right. He didn't deserve this.
Before I could decide what to do about it, Aymee dashed over. She took the cloth in her invisible hands and threaded it through the key ring. Superman instantly tugged on the rope, pulling the key off the cask. It landed near him, but not close enough to pick up. He tried to use his breath again, but was barely strong enough to get it to move. Aymee rushed over to a better position and, just as Superman tried to inhale again, she kicked it over to him. It landed out of his reach. Painfully, Superman got up and rushed at the bars. The cage jumped a little closer to the keys, startling Aymee, who had gone over to try to help again. The cage moved, but not far enough. He rushed the bars again, despite the pain it obviously caused him.
It was amazing. Even in his condition, he was still fighting. I knew a lot of people who wouldn't have had nearly that much willpower. It made me pause. Maybe things weren't always as easy for him as it seemed. Strength of will is like any other kind. It helps to start out with a good frame, but (yellow sunlight aside) developing it to that level takes exercise.
He reached out, straining, and finally managed to get the ring. He stopped to rest, but not a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. Soon, he got the door open. He stumbled out, looking almost delirious. Quietly, Aymee and Karen moved in to support him. It was a risk, but he clearly needed it. By then, he was far gone enough that he didn't notice. If he did, he probably put it down to his imagination.
He wasn't strong enough yet to make it out of the room. Even with the kids helping him, he could barely stand. They helped him find a place to rest, away from the cage and out of sight. It seemed to help. Alan told us later that water is good at deflecting radiation. The wine inside the huge casks he was hiding behind had most likely shielded him from the worst of the Kryptonite's effects.
He was still recovering, too weak to escape, when Luthor burst into the room, looking to finish off his victim. Luthor grabbed an axe off the wall, then rushed down the stairs. If he found any of us, it would be a disaster. There was no time to worry about it, though. I took up a defensive position in front of the cask, ready to do whatever I had to.
He froze when he spotted the empty cage. The shock and disbelief on his face was quickly replaced by frustration, hatred, and, most of all, rage. He roared, then smashed the axe through a nearby barrel. I watched, tense, ready in case he decided to investigate further.
Suddenly, a noise came from upstairs. I wasn't sure what it was, but it startled Luthor out of his anger and sent him racing, panicked, out of the room.
Clark's sigh of relief covered my own. Soon, he tried to stand. Aymee and Karen moved in to help him again, but he managed on his own. They followed him closely as he made his way up the stairs. They kept twitching, starting to reach out to support him, then pulling back, knowing that they mustn't let him know they were there. They helped him a time or two anyway, holding their breath, hoping he wouldn't notice.
Once Clark and the girls were clear of the room, Dudley and I set about dismantling the cage. We took it out in pieces and brought them over to the Fortress to keep them out of the wrong hands until we figured out how to dispose of them.
Later, we found out what had happened. Perry, Jimmy, and Jack had managed to put together enough evidence to get a warrant for Luthor's arrest. The wedding had been stopped, and, in the end, Luthor had chosen to jump off the balcony rather than face the consequences.
Aymee and Karen had watched Clark leave the building. Much to their relief, he'd improved rapidly in the sunlight. He'd made his way into a nearby alleyway, then started to change clothes. Embarrassed, the girls had left him then, secure in the knowledge that he would survive. We never did find out where he'd kept his other clothes.
Lois and Clark took some time to recover from their respective ordeals, Perry found a backer willing to rebuild the Planet, and things returned to normal. Mostly. Jack decided that working at a newspaper, particularly one he'd been convicted of helping destroy, wasn't really for him. He also couldn't afford to wait until the reconstruction was finished before getting a new job. On the other hand, he clearly admired Clark and was reluctant to leave him. We were surprised to discover that Jack knew Clark was Superman. We talked about it, and, all things considered, decided to take him in. We'd seen his work, and he was obviously capable of keeping a secret. With us, he'd have a home, food, something to do, and the opportunity to help his hero from time to time. He was quick to take us up on the offer.
Things with Cat, however, were a little different. She'd felt like she was of little use to us in Metropolis. She'd hardly done anything for us in months. She told us she'd been thinking of moving since the Planet had been destroyed. She'd looked around, and had managed to get herself hired at the Washington Post. There was always plenty of gossip in DC, she told us, and she'd be in a good position to put her skills to use if we needed information about government activities.
One other person's life changed at that time, too. It was because of the newspaper Wells had left. We'd celebrated when we'd seen that the headline had changed, but, one night, I'd decided to read further. As I was doing so, something caught my eye. It was a little box at the bottom of the front page which I usually ignored. It contained the winning lotto numbers from the day before the paper had been published — a date which was still in the near future. I rushed out to buy a ticket.
Once I had the ticket in hand, though, I realized that it wouldn't do me much good. For one thing, Bobby's money already provided for me. For another, I'd been lying low, literally and figuratively, since joining the group. Winning the lottery would call attention to me, which was the last thing I wanted. But... I had a winning ticket in my hand. I couldn't just let it go to waste.
Then I remembered. There was someone I owed. Someone who had taken care of me when I needed it most. Someone who watched out for a lot of people. Someone who had provided critical information at the last second. If anyone deserved the ticket, it was Bibbo. So, I made my way down to the harbor. I told him I'd picked it up for him on a whim, as a thank-you. I'd just had a good feeling about the numbers, and figured maybe his lucky find on the information front deserved to be paid back. He took it smilingly, clearly not thinking anything would come of it but appreciating the gesture.
He was surprised by the win, and tried to split the money with me. I told him I'd have none of it. It was his ticket. He tried to press me, but I insisted. So he told me about his plans to open up a restaurant and bar. A good, safe place for the community with clean food and fair prices. Since it had come from luck, he was going to name it after a card. The Ace O' Clubs. I told him it sounded like a good idea, and that he'd need all the money to make it work. Reluctantly, he agreed. He thanked me. A lot. Then he left to go pursue his dreams. I went back to the sewers, smiling at having done something right.
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