Wonderful as ever. This part paints an interesting picture of Clark doing good works and getting metaphorically kicked in the teeth in response.
Gently it set the container down on the ground and stood. It ignored the bullets being sent at it until a Burmese soldier crouched with a submachine gun and sprayed it.
You try to do something good, and what happens? You get shot at.
Also, in this section, I liked the way you referred to Clark as "the figure" or "it". Good way to represent the POV of the Burmese soldiers and other onlookers.
Then it stepped forward, moving directly toward the Burmese sergeant who just moments before had been refusing to give the MSNBC crew an interview. To the man’s credit, he rose stiffly and stood at attention as the garish figure stood less than three feet away from him.
In a few words, you let us know of the strong character of the Burmese sergeant, facing a...
whatever...that has certainly demonstrated that the Burmese weapons are ineffectual against him. The sergeant must have been wondering if he were about to be killed by this strange figure. Obviously he decided to meet his fate bravely. Just in the little phrase about standing at attention, you told us much about this minor character. Good work.
MSNBC was running footage of a brightly colored figure being fired upon by Myanmar troops.
Agent White was gritting his teeth. “Your boy just caused six separate diplomatic incidents, including accusations by the Chinese and Russians that the United States is launching missiles toward Asia.”
He turned to her and said, “Since when did he think it was ok to start world war three?”
Again, no good deed goes unpunished.
We keep these secrets because we have to,” Agent White said. “At this moment we have no idea when these phenomena will reappear, or whether they will ever reappear.”
This is sounding more and more serious. It's not fun and games anymore, if it ever was. From everything you've been saying, Shayne, it's as if the problem could destroy the entire world. Or maybe our entire universe.
“It’s only going to get worse,” Dr. Ledderman said. “Between the first test and the second, the number of rifts increased geometrically. If they come into full operation, there will be even more rifts and each new one has the risk of bringing just this kind of thing across.”
“I think the rifts were bigger too.” Lois said.
Cue the ominous music.
“We’d like to bring him in,” Agent White said. At her expression he raised his hand. “Not to lock him up. Anyone capable of carrying a passenger jet and surviving being hit by a two thousand pound missile isn’t likely to be containable.”
Glad to see they're realizing just who came through the rift. And maybe they're realizing that he's their only hope for dealing with universe-damaging dimensional holes, traveling eurypterids, and worse. Time to get Clark on board. Who else can handle it? This is a job for Superman!
The irony, of course, is that they didn't need to fire missiles at him and chase him throughout the country. All they'll have to do is ask him. Just ask him for his help. You'll know he'll give it.
In slightly accented Persian, the man said, “I believe this belongs to you.”
For the first time it spoke. It spoke in Burmese for a moment and stared at the sergeant, who nodded.
Clark is using some of his 347 languages! You know, I forgot - did this alternate Clark also travel around the world in his earlier days before starting at the
Daily Planet?
They are more advanced in some things than they should be,” Agent White said. “Which we consider to be possible evidence of mad scientist types. According to the passengers, both Star labs and Luthercorp are organizations known to work on what there world considers to be the fringes of science.”
I love this! That's why the L&C world had primitive computers but human cloning!
Also, on a more serious note, it shows that we need to put more money into basic research.
The explosion was hot enough to be felt even from a hundred feet away. They ducked and ran for cover, only to stop and stare. As the fires died away, the man in the Superman costume still stood in the same position, although the lower part of his cape had burned away.
You know, it's a good thing that he didn't take the Christopher Reeve cape from the Superman Museum after all. Although that maybe might have added to the value...
Shayne, other things I'm wondering about:
I know you're not showing the Metropolis world right now, but I'm hoping later on you'll tell what happened there when the plane didn't show up. If we had a scheduled flight with 200 people on it that just disappeared, there would be a fuss. To put it mildly. And if they found half of a wing....
Does the Metropolis world have a Hadron Collider? Are they using it at the same time? Or is the problem caused solely by our world?
What about the diplomatic incidents? How is the State Department going to explain those? Everyone in the world knows of Superman, but certainly everyone also knows Superman is American - after all, he grew up in Kansas! So the USA has to do some fast diplomatic soothing here.
And, with reference to your last post, where Clark said that he'd given the full interview to Lois Lane - are we ever going to get to see that interview? I hope that we can.
