Lois leaned out as far out as she dared to stare at the street below. From this distance people were tiny splotches of color, but the street below was well lit, and there were numerous people walking down below enjoying the view of the Potomac River.
For a moment she almost imagined the shattered remains of a human corpse lying splashed against the ground, but it was only a homeless man who was even now being forced to move along by a police officer.
The streets were clean, and no one had fallen.
There were numerous cornices and handholds; like many buildings in the area, the facade of the building was ornate with many hand and footholds. However, the wind at this elevation blew strongly and the ledge was only a few inches wide.
Lois had heard of a few men who made a sport of urban climbing, of climbing tall buildings, sometimes only with bare hands. But at this distance off the ground, and with the wind picking up, someone would have to be insanely daring to even attempt to climb out a window, much less make their way around the building.
Of course, a man willing to drop out of a moving plane onto tarmac wasn’t lacking in physical courage. She’d already mentally compared Clark Kent to an action hero; this was just one more proof.
Lois hesitated as she went to close her window. She wouldn’t bother locking it; if Clark was hanging by his fingers just around the corner she wasn’t going to be the one sending him plummeting to his death.
She frowned for a moment as she stared at her window, and then she stepped into her living room to examine the window there.
Both windows had been cleaned from the outside.
************
The curious thing about this new world Clark found himself in was just how much faster paced it was than the one he’d left behind. It had taken him a while to notice; he’d been preoccupied with other things, but now it was quite clear.
Every city had it’s own distinctive sound; the sounds of thousands or millions of people going through the acts of daily living, with many or most doing things in unison. When Clark had first come to a large city it had been overwhelming, but now it was almost like music.
In this new world, that music was faster and louder. People who in Clark’s world would have walked from one place to another, not speaking or looking at their fellow pedestrians, instead spoke loudly, walking with portable telephones stuck to their ears. The music was different and jarring.
In Clark’s world thousands or millions of televisions would be turned on at the same time, but most would be split among less than twenty channels. Here the viewership was split among hundreds of channels, a cacophony of talking heads expressing views on politics, religion and every topic under the sun.
So when that din began to change, when those thousands of channels began to shrink as more and more televisions began to switch to a single station, Clark noticed.
What he heard left a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“It’s cold and dark and there isn’t a man here who isn’t afraid. Those who have cell phones are sharing them; attempting to get their last messages out to the people they love.” The man speaking had a deep, melodious voice. It sounded resigned, as though all hope had been washed away, and all that was left was duty.
“Have rescuers been able to hold out any hope?” The news anchor in the studio was oddly familiar to Clark. In his world she’d worked for Lex News, not something called MSNBC. For once she looked disconcerted, genuinely affected by whatever tragedy was being explained.
“The captain is keeping in contact with them. Divers have already made six attempts, some of which were just attempts to at least bring us oxygen, but visibility is poor and we are too deep for any easy rescue. The water is cold; even with wetsuits the divers can’t stay in the water for more than an hour without risking hypothermia. At this depth they also risk the bends.” The voice was silent for a moment. “Once the sun sets, it’s all going to be worse.”
The sun had already set in Washington D.C. two hours ago. This must be happening somewhere to the west.
Muffled sobbing and the sounds of breathing made rapid by fear were the only sounds on the line for an interminable moment.
“We’re sorry,” the speaker in the studio said. A moment later she sighed and gave the recap.
With a reluctant glance toward Lois, who seemed to be holding her own with the government men, Clark began to rise further into the sky.
He’d spent his life flying under the radar, avoiding anything that might lead anyone to even suspect that he was something more than what he appeared to be. He’d helped now and then when he could, but never where it would have jeopardized his secret.
This wasn’t some car accident on a country road where head injured survivors talked about being rescued by an angel. This was something that was happening in daylight in front of the media and the world.
It went against everything Lana had tried to teach him. He’d been attacked the last time he went flying; these people had the means and the motivation to track him wherever he went, unless he flew low enough to cause damage to buildings through his sonic boom, or possibly high enough to go above the reach of their satellites.
Every instinct was to lie low and hide, to let the world go on thinking he was just an ordinary man. This wasn’t even his world. These weren’t his people, his responsibility.
Yet hearing the fear hidden in the reporter’s voice…seeing the expression on the anchorwoman’s face when she didn’t think anyone was watching…there wasn’t any other choice.
These were people needing help that wasn’t going to come. He had a chance to change all that, to save the lives of what the scroll on the bottom of the screen said was eighteen survivors.
He’d been given his abilities for a reason. His mother had believed that, and he still remembered her calming words, soothing his fears about being a freak and different from everyone else.
She’d believed he’d make a difference.
The fact that this world had been telling stories about him for at least twenty years before he’d been born could only be considered a sign of what he was going to have to do.
Whatever the cost to himself, he had to do the right thing. There really wasn’t another choice.
************
When it became apparent that Clark Kent wasn’t coming back anytime soon, Lois slipped the battery into her satellite phone to check her messages.
Three were from Hilda. “Turn on your television. MSNBC.”
Lois hadn’t heard that amount of stress in Hilda’s voice in a long time. She felt her heart drop as she searched for the remote in the midst of couch cushions tossed carelessly on the floor.
They hadn’t been attacked, or it would have been on all the networks. Had she been scooped somehow? If she had, it would almost be a relief. It would mean that all she had to worry about was getting her sister out. She wouldn’t be responsible for the lives of almost two hundred stranded travelers….or cultists, or whatever they were.
Finally she found the remote and switched the television on. A quick touch of the button and she was on MSNBC.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
The picture on the screen was of two tugboats and a collection of other boats in choppy waters filmed from a distance. The voice that replaced the other was a familiar one.
“That was Johnny Moran, age eighteen. This was going to be his first fishing trip, a way to earn money for college.”
“What are conditions like there now?”
“It’s getting colder. The batteries on some of the cell phones are running out, and most of the men have said their good byes. Most of us are huddling together for warmth, but some of the men are getting sleepy.”
The voice was that of Kendall Brooks, one of Lois’s contemporaries. She’d met him the first time in Iraq and had seen him at various events and fund raisers since then. She’d competed with him for the Peabody that she’d eventually won.
According to the scroll at the bottom of the screen, he’d been doing a segment about the decline of the Alaskan fishing industry when the fishing boat they’d been in, the Celeste Marie, had collided with a Russian fishing scow off the coast of Alaska. The boat had rolled and sank. The entire surviving crew was trapped in an air pocket.
“I’ve been told that we have a reporter from a local affiliate who has just arrived topside. Stay on the line, Kendall, while we see if we ca get any further updates on the situation.”
Lois absently grabbed a couch cushion and slowly sat down, unable to tear her eyes from the screen.
“This is Michael Anguta with KTUU out of Anchorage.” The reporter was a heavyset Inuit man wearing a parka.
“Have you learned anything Michael?”
“Both Russia and the United States are sending Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles, but it will be hours before the closest one will get here. It’s not known how much time the trapped men have left.”
Grabbing her phone, she dialed her producer’s number.
“Do we have anyone on this?” she asked.
“We don’t have anybody close enough to get there in time.”
“What aren’t they telling people?”
Her producer was silent for a moment. “They’re going to start dying soon, if some haven’t already. How long it’ll be depends on a lot of factors, but it won’t be long.”
Lois was silent for a long moment. “You knew him, didn’t you?”
“He worked here before you came on board.” The strain in her producer’s voice was finally audible.
Lois sighed. “I’d like to contribute to whatever you all have planned.”
“I’m editing his tribute piece as we speak.”
“I’ll let you get to it then,” Lois said. “I’m sorry.”
She unmuted the television as she noticed that men were scrambling around on the boat behind the reporter, who looked befuddled.
“What’s going on?” he asked a passing sailor.
“Some damn fool just launched a torpedo. Nobody knows where it’s going to hit. Brace yourselves.”
All Lois could do was stare at the television.
***********
It had taken longer to find the site than Clark would have liked. Over populated areas, he could always read road signs, but finding a few ships in the middle of thousands of miles of desolate wilderness was harder than he had expected.
Taking a deep breath, Clark plunged into the water. The water below was murky, with sediment creating an impenetrable wall making visibility almost impossible.
Although his special vision allowed him to see through it, the sand and accumulated sediment floating in the water darkened everything, casting the area around him in a perpetual twilight which was only going to get worse when the sun set.
He could see the darkened mass of the ship half buried in the sand. Three hundred feet down, with three hundred feet of sand and water and other debris between it and the sun, the ship was a pitiful sight.
The men inside were even worse. Even with his special vision he couldn’t see them now; there was no light inside the ship. They were cold and lightless and alone. He could hear their breathing though, fast paced and shallow as their bodies tried to process what little oxygen was left in the stale, fetid air remaining to them. They didn't have much time left.
As he reached the ship he realized that there was no time for decompression stops or anything similar. Without air, these men were going to die.
Hopefully, the water inside wasn’t pressurized.
Clark’s greatest fear was that by moving the ship he was going to somehow break a delicate seal and force icy cold water to flood into the hold, killing the men inside almost instantly.
He closed his eyes for a moment as he touched the hull and did something he hadn’t done since he was a child. He prayed.
*********
The voices on the other end of the line had gone silent at last, and even the people in the newsroom were somber.
After no explosion had occurred, there had been conflicting reports by crews of the different ships, but even those seemed to have died down by this point.
As drama, it was every newscaster’s dream. Lois had no doubt that the ratings were going to be enormous. Yet the people in the newsroom looked stunned.
Kendall had been one of their own, someone they’d known personally.
Lois frowned and reached for the telephone. She’d send flowers to the studio as a gesture of respect. Kendall had struck her as a good man, and she knew he’d been well liked by his peers.
She didn’t know any of the camera crew who had been with him, but the MSNBC people likely would know them.
She couldn’t find the telephone book in the mess the agents had left. She spared a thought for Clark Kent, who still hadn’t returned, and she wondered if he’d made his way into an outside hall.
It was the shouting by the Alaskan reporter that alerted her that something unusual was happening.
The camera rushed to the edge of the boat, where crew were standing and staring over the port bow.
Below, through the darkened water, could be seen a massive shape. Born along on what looked like a massive bubble of air was the form of the Celeste Marie.
It exploded out of the water and somehow managed to flip before coming to float on the choppy seas.
The crews on all of the ships rushed into action, leaving the Alaskan reporter slack jawed in amazement. He recovered quickly however, and turned to the camera. This was going to be his moment to shine.
“I…don’t have any explanation for all this,” he said. “But seeing is believing. What we are seeing now is a rescue operation in action. There is no way to tell what condition the men inside the Celeste Marie may be in, but they are likely to be suffering from hypoxia, hypothermia, and possible injuries relating both to the initial accident, and to this recent miraculous reemergence.”
He was silent for a moment as his cameraman got footage of men scrambling down into rescue boats that were even now racing toward the newly righted ship.
“All we know right now is that somebody’s prayers were answered.”
***************
