Previous Chapter: Chapter 7Chapter 8
Superman stepped into Dr. Klein’s laboratory, quickly scanning the room. The scientist wore his usual white lab coat and glasses pushed up on top of his head and looked up sharply from a messy pile of papers, a bite of his pastrami sandwich hanging out of his mouth. He hastily chewed and swallowed as he stood and moved around his desk toward the superhero.
“Superman, I see you got my message, good, well . . .”
“Yes, Dr. Klein. Clark said it was urgent,” Superman stated formally, crossing his arms over his chest.
Dr. Klein looked momentarily lost; his hands flew first to his face, sliding his glasses back into place, and then to his desk again, where he rifled through a stack of papers and notebooks.
“Yes, well, it is. But I called hours ago,” Dr. Klein mumbled. He pulled a page out of one notebook and then moved from his desk to the lab bench. He opened up another notebook and began scanning the page, his finger landing on a set of numbers scribbled into a table. He set the page in his hand down and turned to face the superhero, who still stood in the doorway to the laboratory. With a sigh, Dr. Klein sank down onto his stool and motioned to Superman. “Please, Superman, come and sit down. We have a lot to discuss.”
Superman carefully fixed a neutral expression on his face, even as his stomach lurched. Dr. Klein’s demeanor was not of the “good news” type, and he immediately flashed back to Lois’s face as he’d left the house a few moments before, tears sliding down her cheeks as she’d begged him to talk to her, to not leave her. He needed good news right now. But he could tell good news wasn’t coming.
“If it’s all the same to you, Dr. Klein, I’d prefer to stand,” he said bluntly. He shut the door behind himself and then turned back to Dr. Klein, who had nodded and was wringing his hands together nervously.
“Okay, Superman, sure, just . . . Well, okay. So if we can just take a minute to, um—”
“Dr. Klein, please, I can handle whatever it is you’re going to tell me.”
Superman crossed his arms back over his chest and clenched his fists to hide their shaking. Definitely not good news at all.
Dr. Klein nodded again. He then took a deep breath and pushed his glasses back up onto the top of his head. His troubled brown eyes had dark circles underneath, suggesting he hadn’t been sleeping well.
“Okay, Superman. Here it is. Bad news first, maybe, and then the possibly-not-so-bad news, although it’s still not great, which is the definition of bad, I suppose.”
“Bernie, please,” Superman interrupted.
“Your body is dying, Superman, even without more kryptonite exposure,” Dr. Klein blurted out, his hands gripping his knees anxiously. He seemed to regret the words as soon as he said them, and he immediately turned away from Superman and grabbed his notebook. His fingers skimmed the pages, filled with handwritten numbers and sketches.
Superman felt all the air leave his lungs, and he grabbed onto the table next to him for support. Deep down, the words didn’t terribly surprise him. In fact, his experience this afternoon made more sense now. The bone-chilling cold of the Helheim Glacier in Greenland had stopped him in his tracks as he’d traveled north, and he’d barely managed to pull himself out of the snow and ice after his crash landing had burrowed him more than two hundred feet deep. His fingers had become numb with the effort, and a deep throbbing pain had grown in his chest as he’d gasped for breath. He’d never felt anything like it before; it was different from the pain he experienced during kryptonite exposure. And with uneasy certainty, he realized Dr. Klein was serious.
“H-how long do I have?” His voice was hoarse and shaky, and he dropped his confident façade as he took Dr. Klein up on the offer to sit.
“Well . . . I don’t know. That’s, uh, hard to hypothesize. I—I’ve been . . .” Dr. Klein trailed off, swiveling in his chair to face Superman. The older man took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself. He started again. “Superman, so, here, let me tell you how I reached this conclusion and what I found. First, my experiments showed that your newer cells are no longer self-healing. The longer they grow in cultures, the more they deteriorate. This isn’t true of your cells I’ve been culturing for years, before you’d had much kryptonite exposure. These older cells are resilient and remain strong and healthy, regardless of any cellular stresses—heat, injury, et cetera—whereas the newer cells, which we collected just a few months ago, are now, uh . . . dying off. In fact, about sixty percent of these newer cells have spontaneously died.”
Superman’s eyes focused on the floor, and his hands remained clasped in his lap as he sat and listened.
“So, I did some more in-depth experiments,” Dr. Klein continued. “I found that cell survival time was reduced when the cells were exposed to stresses that your healthy cells would have resisted.”
Superman’s jaw clenched as he considered Dr. Klein’s words. Exposure to stresses caused the cells to die faster. Did that mean . . . ?
“Are you suggesting that I could
die if I use my powers, Dr. Klein?” he asked quietly, not meeting the scientist’s gaze.
“That’s my conclusion, Superman, yes. Although, it’s of course a preliminary deduction based on rather rudimentary cell experiments. And, it’s more that you could accelerate your already deteriorating condition. Unfortunately.”
“I see.”
Superman stood and started pacing the room, his cape billowing out behind him. He crossed his arms over his chest as though it would help him think, which it of course didn’t. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to get his brain to work.
Think, Clark, think. There has to be a solution, he argued to himself. But Dr. Klein’s words just echoed in his head, drowning out all other thoughts.
“Your body is dying . . .”“I may have some not-so-bad news, Superman, but I need you to understand my work is all very preliminary,” Dr. Klein explained as he stood.
Superman stopped pacing, and his head shot up.
“Tell me, please, Dr. Klein.”
Dr. Klein nodded, and Superman swallowed hard, his chest constricting almost painfully. His legs trembled as well, and he moved back to the chair near Dr. Klein and sat slowly, pushing his cape out from underneath him. He watched the older man settle back in his swivel stool.
“So, I’ve been trying to figure out what we could do to reverse the effects of the kryptonite poisoning as it were. And of course, I considered that the sun gives you your powers, so maybe we could use a combination of energy types similar to the radiation emitted by the sun. I tried several combinations of different types of radiation and applied the radiation at different intensities and for different exposure times. Short exposure to a combination of visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light plus X-rays, gamma rays, and radio waves seemed to restore some of the cells’ viability. However, the cells quickly lost their viability after the radiation was removed.”
“Oh,” Superman sighed, his hands wringing in his lap. All the hope drained out of him. His throat felt dry, and a wave of nausea hit him.
“Well, I didn’t stop there, Superman,” Dr. Klein assured him. He opened his notebook again to a separate page and reviewed a few notes. “I tried longer exposures and more intense exposures. And, well, the cells were all killed by the heat that the radiation caused. So I used another combination of supercooling and intense, long-term radiation exposure.”
“That sounds promising,” Superman said hesitantly.
“Yes, in fact, it restored the survival and integrity of about ninety percent of the cells and seemed to return them to their original, healthy, invulnerable state,” Dr. Klein confirmed, nodding emphatically.
Superman let out a deep breath, his head dropping to his hands. He wanted to be optimistic, but it sounded too easy.
“Will it work? For me, I mean.”
Dr. Klein didn’t answer right away. He absently tapped his pencil on his notebook. Superman looked up at him, the muscle in his jaw twitching.
“Well, I—”
“Will what work?”
Both men turned abruptly to the door, and Superman jumped to his feet as he recognized the angry, scowling woman standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips and her blazing eyes trained on him.
Of course she’d followed him.
He suddenly couldn’t breathe, and his task of understanding his condition so he could plan how to tell her about it now seemed infinitely more difficult.
“Lois, what are you doing here?” Dr. Klein questioned, looking nervously from Lois to Superman and back again.
“Clark said Superman would be here, and I needed to see him,” she replied simply, her eyes drifting to Superman again. He looked down, unable to meet her gaze. “So, what’s going on, Dr. Klein?”
Silence filled the room, and Superman snuck a glance up at Dr. Klein, who stared back at him expectantly. He knew the doctor would keep his information confidential unless given permission to share. He wasn’t ready; she’d jumped into the conversation at the wrong point, and he needed more time to plan what he was going to tell her. His arms crossed over his chest, and he cleared his throat.
He was going to get in so much trouble for this later.
“Lois, Dr. Klein and I were discussing a personal matter, and I would appreciate if you could wait in the hallway for me if you need to see me. We should only be a few more minutes.”
He tried to make his voice sound confident and self-assured, though he felt anything but strong right now. Her anger was palpable, and growing—rapidly. She pursed her lips as she stared at him, and her mouth opened slightly but then snapped shut. Mimicking him, she crossed her arms over her chest and planted her feet more firmly on the ground. He recognized her look—determination and hurt, yes, but he also saw a hint of fear, and he closed his eyes briefly as his heart pounded in his chest.
“Please, Lois,” he said quietly, opening his eyes again to meet hers. “I need you to trust me on this. Please.”
Superman held his breath as he waited for her answer. Her eyes hardened and her lips trembled as she opened her mouth slightly and shook her head.
“Fine,” she spat, her eyes locking with his. She turned on her heel and left the room in a flurry, slamming the door behind her.
Yep, he was going to pay for this later.
He let out a long breath and turned back to Dr. Klein, who still looked shell-shocked. Swallowing, he stepped back to the chair and sat heavily, his shoulders hunching slightly as he listened to her pace outside the door. Her heart raced, and she muttered unintelligibly to herself. His eyes closed as a pressure began building behind his eyes. He reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose, a gesture he usually only did when he had his glasses on.
“I don’t envy Clark,” Dr. Klein mumbled. “She’s a firecracker, that one.”
“He’s got his hands full,” Superman agreed. “But, back to what we were talking about, Dr. Klein . . .” His voice trailed off as he sat up a bit straighter and blinked several times in an attempt to distract himself from his growing headache.
“Yes, Superman, of course,” Dr. Klein replied, shifting in his seat. “So, your question was, will it work. And, as I suspect you have, uh, suspected, the answer is really, I don’t know.”
Superman nodded slightly, setting his jaw in frustration.
“I could just fly close to the sun,” he proposed. “That would work, right?”
“Well, normally, I’d agree with that,” Dr. Klein said, tilting his head slightly with concentration. “However, given your deteriorating condition . . .” The scientist’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he scowled. “I mean, you haven’t said any more about it, but I am assuming, since you didn’t express any disbelief in my theories, that you have continued to experience declines in strength, speed, and stamina. Is that accurate?”
Superman simply nodded in response.
“Right, then, normally, I’d agree, and that was my initial thought, that you could fly to the sun, and it should essentially give your cells a hard reset. However, I suspect that your body could no longer handle the vacuum of space or the heat of getting that close to the sun and that you may not be strong enough to resist the sun’s gravitational force.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Superman conceded. He rested his elbows on the top of the lab bench and lowered his head to his hands, rubbing his temples. “Could we use the same approach you used for the cell experiments then? The, uh, mixed radiation and supercooling?”
Dr. Klein smiled for the first time since Superman had arrived, and the older man nodded vigorously.
“That was my plan, Superman,” he said. “And it’s definitely worth a try. But I used huge doses of radiation. The amount of power we’re going to need for whole-body irradiation plus the supercooling unit is massive, and I haven’t yet worked out a way to do it, that is, without causing a city-wide blackout.”
“I see. So, what do you need from me?”
Dr. Klein’s smile faded, and he stood and started pacing, much like how Superman had earlier.
“Well, Superman, I actually do need something from you, but it’s not going to be easy. And I hate to even ask, because, well, I’d like to think I know you pretty well after all of these years, and—”
“Dr. Klein, please, to the point. I still have to talk to her”—Superman motioned toward the door—“and the longer I make her wait, the angrier she’ll be.”
“Right. Well, Superman, remember when I said I suspect you using your powers at all will speed up your deterioration?” The superhero nodded, his face contorting slightly in confusion. Dr. Klein stopped pacing and locked eyes with Superman, his expression dead serious. “What I need from you is for you to not use your powers
at all. I need you to give me as much time as possible so I can figure out the power problem and run more tests. And any time you use your powers, even just a little, Superman, I fear you’ll be shortening our timeline.”
“Oh, right.” Superman clenched his jaw and nodded solemnly. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
“Nothing at all—no flying, no heavy lifting, no heat vision, no x-ray vision, no freezing breath—
nothing,” Dr. Klein expounded.
Superman lowered his eyes.
“Okay.”
“I’m going to get right on it though, and I swear, Superman, I’ll do my best to get you back up and flying again as quickly as possible.”
The scientist hesitantly moved closer to the dejected superhero and awkwardly placed a reassuring hand on Superman’s arm. Superman took a deep breath and squared his shoulders in an attempt to reset himself. He placed both his palms on the lab bench and pushed himself to stand.
“Thank you, Dr. Klein. I truly appreciate your help with this,” Superman said. He turned to Dr. Klein and gave the man a half smile. “So, no flying . . . Well, at least since Lois is here, I should have a ride home. I mean—hopefully, she won’t mind giving me a ride.”
“I dunno, Superman, it may be safer to walk,” Dr. Klein teased, patting Superman’s shoulder gently before turning back to his desk.
“You’re probably right. Wish me luck.”
Superman grinned at him and then turned and strode toward the door, his smile fading quickly. He hoped she’d give him a chance to explain himself before she killed him, especially since all of this was about him trying to avoid dying. He swallowed hard. This was going to be another long night.
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