““The offer is just a gesture intended to embarrass the United States,” Agent White said. “It’s retaliation for our support of an independent Taiwan and Tibet.”
“You have no way to know that,” Lois said.
“We’ve hit them enough times on human rights violations that they’re enjoying this chance to turn the tables on us.”
Pulling into a turn, the vehicle changed directions.
“Maybe they just appreciate the gesture,” Lois said. “Maybe the offer is genuine.”
Agent White stared at her for a moment and then smiled slightly.
“What?”
“I didn’t think you’d have been able to keep your naiveté, given everything you’ve seen.”
“It’s not naïve to think that people might actually want to do something good for a change.”
“People have the luxury of compassion,” Agent White said. “Governments don’t. Governments are built around suspicion and paranoia and a lust for power.”
“Maybe your government…” Lois began.
The government she’d grown up with hadn’t been like that, except in little ways.
“All governments,” he said. “Why do you think governments exist in the first place? If we were able to really trust our neighbors to do the right thing, there wouldn’t be a need for government.”
“Government helps people who can’t help themselves…from things like earthquakes,” Lois said.
Agent White nodded. “There is that, I suppose. Something happens like that, your neighbors are in as bad a shape as you are.”
“So I don’t see how you can say-“
“What are the major purposes of government? It keeps your neighbors from hurting you, from taking things that aren’t yours. On a larger scale it does the same thing to people from other countries.”
“Well, there’s that, I suppose,” Lois said.
“It helps those who can’t help themselves- and then it devoted massive amounts of manpower to making sure that people can’t cheat the system. The main reason for
bureaucratic red tape is to make sure that people don’t get benefits they don’t deserve.”
“Nobody actually helps people then?”
“It happens sometimes, despite the best efforts of the bureaucrats.”
“That’s very cynical,” Lois said.
“It’s being a realist. The whole point of having a government is that it exists to be suspicious, to be a watchdog so that you can go about your business without having to worry about everything.”
“Ok,” Lois said. “I still don’t see why anyone would be so upset about Clark helping out in China. He’s not doing anything the Red Cross wouldn’t do. He’s just getting there faster, in time to actually help people.”
“We’ve been pushing China about Tibet and Darfur. We want them to put pressure on North Korea and Iraq to stop their nuclear programs; we want them to push the yuan higher against the dollar.”
“I don’t see how anything Clark does is jeopardizing that.”
“First, as terrible as these earthquakes are from a human standpoint, they are giving the Chinese government a chance to prove to its people that it’s doing what it promised to do….protect them.”
Lois nodded. After 9-11, even many liberal people who had always been suspicious of the government had been glad of the sense of security at the idea that the people in power knew what they were doing.
A lot of them had changed their minds in the intervening years, but the initial feeling had been there.
“This is the first time the people of China have been bombarded by these kinds of images. Americans remember where they were the day Kennedy was shot, when the Challenger exploded, when the twin towers fell. Those images are indelibly burned into the minds of those who see them.”
“I can see that,” Lois said.
Her entire television career had been predicated on the power of television to reach people on a visceral level that print just couldn’t attain.
“So if one point four billion people are seeing image after image of the People’s republican army saving people, it gives the government a major boost in its image.”
“Just like seeing people not being helped would tarnish it,” Lois said. She wondered if he saw the irony in what he was saying.
“So what happens when China announces that it’s acquired the one being on earth who can fly faster than any missile, who can break into any military base and who can presumably be the most effective spy in history, able to listen in on every secret conference, able to steal every piece of technology…a being who is reputedly so unstoppable that using him is nothing short of an act of war.”
“Clark wouldn’t do that!” Lois protested.
“How do you know?” Agent White said.
Lois opened her mouth, and then stopped.
“All we know of him and the other passengers is what they’ve chosen to tell us, and whatever evidence we’ve been able to find. We don’t really know anything about them.”
“Clark wouldn’t do that,” Lois said more firmly. “I’d know.”
“I want to believe that too,” Agent White said, “but there are people whose jobs are to examine every worst case scenario.”
“Clark wouldn’t get involved like that,” Lois said.
“That’s why I say the purpose of the Amnesty offer is to embarrass us. The Chinese probably don’t think he’d accept any more than we do. They make the offer betting on a long shot, and in the process they get to embarrass us. Even the threat of having him work for them increases their political clout.”
“All he wants to do is help people,” Lois said.
Agent White shook his head. “If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.”
****************
As night fell, Clark felt his frustration grow. He was fast, and he’d already freed three hundred people from spaces that would have been tombs. He’d focused on the most badly injured, thinking to leave the others for rescue later. Yet despite everything he could do, he wasn’t fast enough to save people, and the people he’d brought weren’t able to properly care for the people he’d already rescued. Even with his improvements to the main arteries of traffic, that sort of help was going to be days away.
The hospital had been a scene of horror, with only four survivors out of a staff of one hundred sixty. At least those doctors were attempting to put the horror of their situation behind them and help their fellow survivors.
“It’s got to come off,” the medic said.
The teenage boy was only partially conscious, unable to see the shattered ruin of his leg trapped under a ten ton piece of rubble.
“I can lift the building off the leg,” Clark said. “It’s not going to collapse anything.”
“Is there anything under there left to save?” the man asked.
Clark stared into the rock and then winced.
“The seal is all that’s keeping him from bleeding out. It’s going to be messy and it’s going to take time. There are major arteries involved and…”
Clark hesitated, and then glanced at the other medic, the one who’d brought him here. He stared at the man who nodded slightly.
Clark grimaced. This wasn’t what he’d envisioned when he’d set out to help people. “Hold onto him,” he said.
The first medic did as he was told, although Clark could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn’t understand. Clark closed his eyes for a moment, and then let out the briefest puff of air. He hated doing this.
Unfortunately, every moment he spent debating this was one less moment someone else had to live.
He glanced down at the juncture of leg and rock.
The smell of sizzling flesh made Clark nauseous.
As the man fell away unconscious with a scream, the medic stared at him.
The man around him had already gotten used to the idea that he could fly, but the idea that a man could become his own scalpel still astonished them.
When he found the second medic gesturing toward him, Clark said quietly, “I can’t do this again…not so soon.”
This was the third time he’d had to do this; Clark wasn’t sure he’d be able to bear a fourth.
“There is no need…yet,” the man said. “Corporal Kwan wishes to speak with you.”
Clark found himself looking anywhere but at the medic, even as the men behind him sprang into action. Cauterizing a wound was sometimes the only treatment for bleeding, but burned flesh was susceptible to infection, and in this environment, that was only going to be worse.
The boy was going to be lucky if he kept as much of the leg as Clark had left him.
Clark had never imagined that rescuing people was going to involve maiming them. The thought of just how easily the heat he projected had cut through vulnerable flesh was making him nauseous.
His mouth still tasted like bile. Twenty minutes earlier he wouldn’t have imagined himself as ever doing anything like this.
Yet when faced with a woman who wouldn’t stop bleeding no matter what heroic efforts the medics made, he’d made the only choice he could. Cauterizing wounds was the oldest yet most effective method of staunching wounds, and he was able to make a more perfect cut than anything human short of a laser.
He’d followed the instructions precisely and he’d managed to keep himself together for almost a minute.
It had never occurred to him just how humiliating it was to throw up. It was the one human experience he had never had, and it was one he never wanted to have again.
The looks of sympathy from the soldiers had only made it worse.
These were people who regularly made the hard decisions, decisions that not only saved lives but often came with horrible costs.
Feeling his stomach turning, he quickly turned and said, “There are three people alive in the school three hundred yards northwest.”
He wouldn’t humiliate himself again if he didn’t have to.
Clark felt a touch on his arm. He turned and looked at Corporal Kwan.
“There are forty patients already who will die if we do not get them to a modern hospital,” Corporal Kwan said. “We are running out of supplies rapidly, and we need more men.”
“I can’t leave the people who are still buried,” Clark said.
“You have already been freeing those who were in the most danger.”
“And if there is an aftershock?”
“It is dark,” Kwan said. “You may be able to work without lights, but we can’t. You need to bring more equipment if we are to do our jobs, and more men. If you are going to do this, you might as well take the patients out with you.”
It wasn’t quite true. Clark could fly much faster with just material. Bringing truckloads of people back and forth would require him to fly at an excruciatingly slow pace, conscious every moment that people were dying.
But there wasn’t time to argue. He could see that the men around him were already flagging. He hadn’t slept in almost three days, but he didn’t need to sleep as much as they did, and he didn’t tire nearly as easily.
“Tell me what I have to do.”
**********
The images on the screen were identical to the ones she’d been shown on the plane, except for the CNN logo and the scroll of news running by underneath it.
“I didn’t have access to this footage,” Lois said. “I very specifically didn’t report on it in my story.”
“We know,” Agent White said. He looked almost as tired as Lois felt. “And we’ve been keeping a close track of your friend’s location this whole time.”
So they didn’t suspect Clark either. That was comforting in a way. Lois wondered if she should mention the man who had contacted her in the parking lot, pointing her to the You Tube site with the pigeons.
She decided against it. If there was a leak in the agency, they’d find it on their own. Whoever it was had their own agenda, and they’d made their own choices.
Besides…reporters protected their sources.
“Then why are you locking me up?”
“You’re being held under protective custody,” Agent White said. He didn’t look at her.
Glancing at the other screens on the wall, Lois could see that it had made all the 24 hour networks. It explained why Agent White had been so irritable.
It had kicked the footage of Clark off the air. Despite the allure of his being Superman, this was a story that hit closer to home.
“We’re tracing how the video was distributed,” Agent White said, “But it’s going to take time, time we don’t have.”
A picture of one heavyset man flashed on the screen with a quick sound bite. He was claiming that he hadn’t been informed about the danger to his constituency and that he would do his best to get to the bottom of it.
“He knew,” Agent White said. He glanced at Lois. “He and the others are going to be looking for scapegoats in all this.”
“None of this is my fault,” Lois said. “I just reported…”
“Oh” she said finally.
If they were looking for a scapegoat, Agent White was a likely candidate. He’d participated in the cover-up, he’d been in charge and he was presumably more easily disposed of than some of the other candidates.
“They ordered that the whole thing be kept concealed,” Agent White said. “They thought it would lead to panic.”
A flicker on the screen to her right showed MSNBC showing pictures of a major traffic jam in Denver.
A certain portion of the population had suddenly decided to take a vacation all at the same time, despite repeated government statements that the situation had been contained. Unfortunately, the people in the affected areas weren’t the ones who were leaving. People living in the shadow of oil refineries usually didn’t have the resources to go anywhere else.
“There have already been twelve deaths attributed to the congested traffic,” Agent White said. “And people are talking about resignations and criminal charges.”
Fox news was showing pictures of long lines at the gas pumps, with motorists turned away as tanks ran empty.
“Everyone wants to fill up with gas in case they have to leave quickly,” Agent White said. “People are getting stranded by the side of the road and people are getting into fights over supplies.”
“You’ve got the rift thing covered, right?” Lois asked.
“The French have agreed to halt all testing until further investigation looks into the potential for damage. Unless there’s another aftershock, or the thing really is triggered from the other side, we ought to be fine.” Agent White said. “We’ve already assigned a crisis unit on standby nearby to help with any needed evacuation, and city officials are running through disaster preparation drills.”
**************
Night had fallen over the city of Beijing, which on the surface didn’t look to have suffered any damage.
“Are they sure he’s going to be here?” Nelson asked.
“He’s been distributing the wounded out to hospitals in major cities that weren’t much affected by the earthquakes. He’s certain to come here sooner or later.”
His assistant Mihoshi was staring at her blackberry as though it had the answers to the mysteries of the universe. Half Japanese, she stood out almost as much as the other members of the MSNBC crew.
“I don’t like waiting,” Nelson said. “If things are as bad as people are saying we need to be out there getting footage.”
At least the Chinese authorities were a little more accepting than the Myanmar juntas had been. They’d been lucky to only be kicked out of the country after sending out footage of the Superman making fools of the local military.
“I can’t believe they’re going to give us the kind of access they’re promising,” Mihoshi said.
Nelson had reported from China before, and in previous years the government had kept a tight lid on news stories and foreign journalists. The promises they were making now seemed too good to be true.
Only time would tell how sincere they were.
“If they do, this’ll be the opportunity of a lifetime,” Nelson said. “And we’re stuck waiting in a hospital parking lot.”
“We just got here. The story isn’t going to go away.”
There was a crowd already in the parking lot. It was reassuring to see members of the Chinese news media, because it meant that something was expected to happen here.
The other members of the crowd seemed to be civilians. They’d been filing in slowly in groups of three or four at a time. Most of them were young, college age, but there were some oldsters as well.
“I guess they decided to dress for the occasion,” Mihoshi said.
It took Nelson a moment to realize what she was saying. At least half the crowd was wearing some sort of Superman insignia on their t-shirts. The rest were dressed more normally, but the shirts, mostly white stood out in the dimness of the night.
“Tell Joe to get some footage of this,” Nelson said when several people began handing out candles.
They were lit, and Nelson saw that the crowd had grown even more than he had thought. Almost a thousand people were standing around the parting lot talking quietly among themselves.
When one man pointed into the sky, the whole sea of faces began to turn and stare in one direction.
Nelson looked and then hissed, “Tell me Joe is filming.”
The lights from the hospital were enough to illuminate the descending truck. Paramedics shouted at onlookers below, and a circle appeared on the pavement free of humanity as people backed away.
A moment later he was down, setting the truck onto the ground and the paramedics were rushing forward.
Superman…in Nelson’s mind anyone who was literally faster than a speeding bullet pretty much had to be Superman stared as the crowd pressed forward. Nelson watched as he glanced behind him; if the crowd got too close they’d start to impede the paramedics.
He stepped forward into the crowd.
In America that sort of mob would have been screaming, loud, raucous. This crowd was eerily silent, a sea of faces and grasping hands that reached out to touch him as though to assure themselves that he was real.
He didn’t flinch. Instead he simply moved forward until the crowd began to part in front of him and they turned away from the truck and paramedics pulling out its human cargo.
Reaching the end of the crowd, he turned and spoke for the first time.
“Be good to each other,” he said.
A moment later he was airborne and out of sight.
Somewhere someone began a slow chant, and the gathering turned into some sort of prayer for the dead.
At the cameraman’s curt nod, Nelson relaxed. It hadn’t been the interview he’d been hoping for, but they had the government’s promise of a helicopter ride further inland.
The world was changing, and he planned to be there to document it all.
