TOC Part 7 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOURNAL ENTRY #8
JUNE - OCTOBER, 1994
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Yeah, I know. That's a long span of time to cover in one entry. It's not like it wasn't a busy time, either. Thing is, while a lot happened, there isn't much I can specifically point to as being worth writing about. If you know Superman's history (and, if you're reading this, it's probably a safe assumption), you probably think big things were happening just about every week. But, you see, for the Shadows, things moved more slowly than that. The sort of things we faced, they take a lot of planning. Months. Maybe more. And, sure, we did other stuff, too, but do you really want to read about the kids sitting around with Alan, doing their homework (can't escape that, even in the sewers, it seems)? Or all the little cases? The muggings and the petty thieves and the purse snatchers? Oh, the purse snatchers. Dudley loved messing with them. Sticking his invisible foot out and tripping them up. And yeah, it was kind of funny sometimes to see their reactions, but really... you had to be there.
So, what did happen? Well, Jack moved in with us. That was good. It was nice to have someone else on the team with a less than perfect record. Someone who'd grown up on the streets. Sure, he was still a kid and he had a mouth on him, but, all things considered, I liked having him around.
And that's something else. Things started to feel different. I can't say how or when it happened, but I started to feel more like I belonged. Partly it was that we had newer people. Eugene and Cat were associates, but not really part of the group. Jack was a full member, but also the newest. It made me feel like less of an outsider. That was only part of it, though. The bigger part was that we got used to each other. We were very different people, but we lived together and worked together and hung around together. We were a family. It had taken me a while to accept it and to feel accepted, but there it was.
Speaking of changing relationships, Gina and I started spending time together outside of the few minutes here and there when I was picking up or dropping off her kids. We weren't dating or anything like that, but we were taking time to be together. We were... friends. It was a new thing for me. I mean, I'd had friends before, but they were all jocks. It was different with Gina. More... mature.
Then, there were the not-so-good changes. The bad guys. With Lex's death, a lot of things went into chaos. His whole empire crumbled. Bureau 39 quietly picked up a few pieces for itself. So quietly that even we barely saw it. They were being careful, and it felt good to us to at least be able to take credit for that much. Still, it was frustrating. We didn't know where they were or what they were up to. All we did know was that they'd recruited some of Luthor's top scientists, including the guy who'd cloned Superman. They'd also absorbed parts of the vast criminal organization Luthor had built. It wasn't much, not compared to what Intergang snapped up when they moved in, but it was enough to change them. They grew, and branched out. And they started calling themselves something new: Cadmus.
I guess I should mention a couple of other things that happened during that time. One of them was pretty much a routine job. Superman had stopped a villain with a sound weapon from... I don't know. Taking over the world or something. As usual (and as Wells had warned us), Superman had left the scene after he'd turned the bad guy over to the cops. He assumed they'd take care of the rest. For some reason, he didn't stop to wonder about what could happen if the wrong people got their hands on the deadly new machine. So, we took the liberty of claiming the thing for ourselves. Phillip and Alan were very impressed with its design, and quickly turned it into a force field projector to help defend the Fortress in case of emergency. They also started looking for ways we could use it in the field. That would take longer, though, both because they needed to understand it better and because they needed to find a way to use it without damaging the invisibility suits.
The other thing that happened is, in a way, something I already mentioned. Intergang moved in. They were a large criminal organization, but it seemed that Luthor had been keeping them out of Metropolis, which he'd claimed as his own territory. With him gone, all bets were off. They tried to get a toehold in the city by moving in on the South Side first. We'd been quietly slowing their progress, but hadn't been able to do much more than that. When it came down to it, they were a world-wide organization and we were just a handful of people with a few cameras and a couple of tricks.
One thing we did manage, though, was to help convince a cop to step forward. He was one of the few good cops left in the area, and he didn't like what he was seeing. Bobby helped nudge his conscience in the right direction and promised that there would be people who would look out for his family. Bobby also suggested the names of a pair of reporters whom he thought were trustworthy and effective. The cop, it turned out, had worked with Lois a couple of times before. He gave her what information he had, along with more that we'd gathered.
Around the same time, Intergang made a move against Superman. They targeted the people near him with some kind of new "smart bullets" they'd invented. They warned Superman that if he interfered with their operations on the South Side, one of his friends would die. We couldn't do anything about that, but Wells had told us to trust that Superman would be able to take care of this sort of thing himself. In the past, it had proven to be true, for the most part. What we could do, though, was step up our own activities in the South Side. If Superman wasn't going to be able to help the people of that neighborhood, we'd do everything we could for them.
Of course, Superman did find a way to pitch in. He disguised himself as a cop and single-handedly stopped a gang from burning down a restaurant. He may have also stepped in a few more times, but it was hard to be sure. Still, there were plenty of bad guys to go around, and we ended up doing a lot of good.
Ultimately, what made the biggest difference was the information. Lois and Clark put it to good use in a series of articles which got national attention. The situation in the South Side turned around almost faster than it seemed possible. Intergang went back underground, dirty cops cleaned up or got kicked off the force, and the city government saw a lot of changes, too.
I walked around the neighborhood, and I felt it for myself. People who had been scared to leave their homes at night were out walking freely. Gang graffiti was painted over or turned into murals. Everything seemed cleaner and brighter. It was a complete turnaround, and we had helped make it possible. We'd made these people's lives better, safer. Not just a few people, either. The whole South Side. We'd done some real good, and I realized... I liked that feeling.
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