After Nightfall: The Return of Superman
Chapter 6: Distress
Clark continued to be amazed at how quickly the world adapted to Superman’s return. In the two weeks since the successful Nightfall Swarm mission, the new routine had come to seem nearly normal. When their role in facilitating the contact between Bernie and Superman came to light, he and Lois had been in the spotlight briefly. But the fact that Superman had insisted that they played no other role in the Swarm mission helped that pass quickly.
For Clark, things were very different. At first, once people knew that Superman was around, calls for his help had been common. However, he’d been able to deal with that issue. It was challenging, but he'd generally been able to stay within the rules that they had all discussed that night before the Nightfall Swarm was announced.
He and Lois had hit on the idea that when Superman had returned from the first Nightfall mission, he’d crashed in another city. There were people there who had helped him recover from his Nightfall injuries and that city – which would remain unnamed – was now his home. During the news conference that followed the Swarm mission, he'd stressed that he no longer lived in Metropolis. He’d only made this return in this city because of the presence of people that knew him from the time before he’d lost his memory. Of course, there was also the presence of STAR Labs and Dr. Klein.
That kept the calls of, “Help, Superman” to a minimum. After the first few days, they had stopped all together. He still did intervene from time to time in situations that were particularly dire, but whenever he did so, Clark made sure to make some time and fly to a few other cities in the world and do other rescues as well. This created the illusion that his Metropolis rescues were just a matter of his regular around-the-world patrols.
Still, every time he heard a call from somewhere in Metropolis, and chose not to respond, it ate at him a little. But even that one day of hearing an unceasing stream of calls for his aid had convinced him that it was an unsustainable existence. Lois had shown him the statistics and that first day had convinced him of the truth in her numbers. The calls for help in a city the size of Metropolis were endless. Even if he only tried to respond to a small portion of the calls that he heard, he’d never keep up. It was like the Santa Claus problem. There was so much to do that even if Santa only spent a second in each house, even to cover a city the size of Metropolis alone would take over a month. And that was with no travel time from one house to another. Clark had to concede that one man, even a super one, simply couldn’t save everyone by himself.
Lois had it right. He could do the most good by being there as a symbol of hope. There were times when he could make a difference like he did for the Nightfall Swarm, or saving a sinking ship, but for everyday crime, he just couldn’t help that much. At least not by trying to do the work himself. So his new focus was doing the big things. He had saved a few ships and helped out in fires. He would be that symbol of hope!
Lois held and reassured him each time he heard of a death that he might have prevented had he responded to a cry for help. Knowing what he did, he had to wonder how he’d handled those situations before he had Lois’s active support. And he now knew that however much he had run off to be Superman, he’d been only stopping a small fraction of the crime in this city. Unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately - the memories of those times and the decisions he’d made seemed to be lost forever.
This morning he was a few blocks away from the office with Lois and Jimmy. They were covering the demolition of LexCorp tower. The tallest building in Metropolis had come through the original Nightfall barrage unscathed, but by chance had been one of the few buildings hit by one of the smaller fragments that Clark had not diverted during the Swarm. The fragment that hit the building had come in almost perfectly vertical to the ground. It had only hit near the base of the building, but that had been more than enough. It had taken out three of the four primary support pillars in the main tower. Then it had expended its energy in the building substructure and compromised the foundation.
The building was still standing, but just barely. There was a genuine fear that at any moment it could topple into one of the other undamaged buildings nearby. The most visible tribute to the power and ego of Lex Luthor had become the most dangerous building in Metropolis. It had to come down, but due to the nature of the damage, there was no conventional way to bring the building down safely and without risking other structures nearby.
When they all arrived at the demolition site, Lois took immediate charge. “Jimmy, why don’t you work your way around the building and see what interesting shots you can get? Get some of the building, but look for good shots of the people making this happen. You know... Police, demolition support workers, bystanders, whoever you can see.”
“I get it Lois,” Jimmy answered. “What about you and CK?”
“I’ll come with you and Clark can go the opposite direction. We’ll interview people while you take the photographs.”
“Got it,” Jimmy said. “Should we get started?”
“You go ahead and I’ll be right behind you.”
Jimmy started off and Lois turned to Clark. “Are you all set?”
“I think so,” he replied. “Superman is due to meet with the demolition foreman. I’ve studied the plans and it should be very easy to take out all the supporting columns.”
“I still don’t like it,” Lois said. “It feels like you're bringing the building down on yourself.”
“Well, I am,” Clark answered cheerfully, trying to lighten the tone. “But I'll be gone before the building falls.” He waited for an answering smile form his wife that never came. She was clearly not in a joking mood about this. Clark moved forward and took her in his arms. “Honey, I'm going to be careful. After the Nightfall Swarm mission, this should be easy. I did a few practice runs and based on the timer I wore, I never had any trouble at all staying ahead of the projected collapse.”
She seemed to find his more serious tone more acceptable. “I know. But I still don't like it.”
Clark looked at the time. “I need to meet the demolition supervisor.”
She released him and stepped back. “Okay. I'll be with Jimmy when you're done.”
As Lois turned to follow Jimmy, Clark hurried to a nearby building. He entered the stairwell as Clark Kent and exited the underground parking structure as Superman. A moment later he was descending to the center of demolition planning area.
“Hi, Superman,” he heard as soon as he touched down. It was Jerry Foster, the demolition expert that he'd been working with. “Hi, Jerry,” Clark said. “Are we about ready?”
“We are,” Jerry said confidently. “We've been on a five minute hold for the last twenty minutes.”
“Am I late?” Clark asked.
“Not at all,” Jerry reassured him. “We had extra time built into our plan in case anything came up. Since things went per plan earlier this morning, there was extra time left over in the schedule.”
“Is there anything we need to do before we go ahead?” Clark asked.
“Part of that is up to you,” Jerry answered. “We have to wait five minutes after we sound the first demolition warning. That means that we have to wait at least that long before you can do anything. If you want more time to review the plan, we can spend some time on that before we sound the five minute warning.”
“Do you have those cards we talked about?” Clark asked.
“Sure,” Jerry said as he turned to the table behind him. He picked up a small stack of laminated plastic cards and offered them to Clark. “They're in order from the highest floor to the lowest per the demolition plan. Each card has the number of the floor or floors that are covered by that card.”
Clark looked the cards over. Every card had a red line indicating a path for him to follow for the demolition of each floor, and a red X on the columns that he was to remove. There were only seventeen cards since most of the cards covered many floors. These cards were going to be invaluable in the proper demolition of the building. “I'm ready,” Clark said. “Sound the five minute warning.”
Jerry hesitated. “Superman, are you sure? There are nearly a hundred floors in that building. Once you start you'll only have ten seconds to finish and get out. We can still go with the plan where you plant explosives and we implode it the regular way.”
“Jerry, we've been through this. That would take a lot longer. Every hour this building remains standing increases the chance that it could fall in an uncontrolled collapse. That's an unacceptable and unnecessary risk. Besides, based on all my practice runs I'll be done in just under four seconds. That gives me a hundred and fifty percent safety margin.”
“I'd feel better personally if your hundred and fifty percent safety margin was a little longer than six seconds. You're sure you don't need to study the levels any more?”
“I'll study them between now and when I start. Go ahead and give the five minute warning.”
Jerry turned and headed for a group of men nearby. As Clark started reviewing the cards, he heard a loud siren. One thing that Clark liked about these cue cards was that not only did they show the columns that needed to be removed, they showed the path for the most efficient destruction of each floor.
Clark had finished his second pass through the card deck when another siren sounded. This one was followed by a booming voice announcing, “One minute to demolition.”
Clark was wondering if there was going to be a start signal when Jerry approached him once more.
“Everything is clear,” he said. Then he checked his watch. “If you're ready, it's time.”
“Then let's do this,” Clark said and took off. He headed for the window on the top floor that had been designated as his start point and entered. This part of the building looked completely undamaged. Clark glanced once more at the cards he was carrying, gathered himself and shifted to super speed.
The world got still and quiet. That was one of the things he liked about super speed. Since he knew that timing was especially critical for this task, he made an extra effort to be sure he was as accelerated as his super speed would allow. After a few seconds – probably about a micro-second in real time – Clark decided he was ready. He shot toward the first column and hit it as he went by. At this speed, it offered as much resistance as a thin piece of Styrofoam. He followed the route on the card and took out the rest of the supports. His route ended at a wall with a missing window. During planning they'd decided that the best way to go from one floor to the next was the outside of the building. To prevent knocking windows out at super speed, yesterday Clark had removed the sections of glass on each floor.
At first it seemed easy. Clark could tell that he was staying well ahead of the collapse. In fact, a glance toward the top of the building confirmed that he'd taken out twenty floors before the collapse of the top floor had really gotten underway. It was around the fortieth floor from the top that he began to get worried. Suddenly he was feeling a noticeable strain to keep his speed up. By the time he worked his way down to the thirtieth floor, the strain was starting to get to him. What was worse, it looked like the collapse was catching up to him.
By the time he reached the twentieth floor, Clark wasn't sure he'd be able to finish. Of course, one of the reasons for starting at the top was that if enough of the building was collapsing, the lower floors would simply be crushed. The key floor was the thirteenth. Once he took out that floor, then he could safely get out of the building and leave the rest to gravity.
The problem happened on the seventeenth floor. He was about half-way through the floor when he ran into a wall that shouldn't have been there. Well, the wall was supposed to be there, but it was supposed to be a nonstructural divider wall. There had been several of these on every floor. Even when not at super speed, he could tear through them like tissue paper.
This started out as one of those no-resistance walls, but in this case, on the other side of the nonstructural wall, there was a very thick wall of concrete and reinforced steel. It had to have been at least six feet thick and was heavy with rebar. In this place at this time, Clark was unprepared for anything like this. When he hit that wall, the first several feet shattered and exploded into a thousand fragments of concrete and steel. But the wall was very thick and the impact stopped his progress. He never had a chance to try to go around because before he could recover, the building fell on him.
~~~***~~~
For Lois, the demolition had gone from an intellectual curiosity to a major news event in a flash. Of course, most of the public didn’t know what was wrong nearly as quickly as Lois. She'd been standing with Jimmy when the siren sounded marking the beginning of the demolition.
At first she'd been disappointed. The first building ever being imploded by Superman should have looked or felt different. But except for the lack of the rapid pop-pop-pop that marked the beginning of most demolitions, this looked just like the others she'd seen.
Shortly after the siren sounded the building started to collapse on itself. She knew that Clark was inside going as fast as his super speed would carry him knocking the building down one level at a time, but the only thing visible from the outside was the collapse.
Once the top of the building started to fall, it just kept on coming . Within a few seconds the dust started to billow up obscuring the view but it was clear that the bundling was coming down as planned. Seemingly before any time had passed at all, LexCorp tower was no more.
It wasn't until about ten minutes later that she started to worry. The plan had been for Clark to meet them with the excuse that he'd gotten stuck on the other side of the access street when they'd closed the fence. But once the path had been open to the public and Clark was nowhere to be found, she started wondering.
A few minutes later, the activity around the debris picked up. There was still a lot of dust in the air and Lois was surprised to see anyone trying to work in that mess. She worked her way over to the demolition planning center to find it abuzz with activity.
She stopped one of the workers as he hurried by, “What's all the excitement?” she asked.
“The foreman thinks Superman may be in there somewhere.”
Lois's mouth fell open. Based on Clark's absence, it seemed all too likely that the supposition was correct. “Do you know what they're trying to do?”
“You'd have to ask the foreman. We've all been told to be ready to go in once the dust settles a little. I think they are trying to figure out how to locate Superman if he's buried in there. I'm sorry, but I need to get going,” and the worker turned and hurried on his way.
“Do you really think Superman got caught in the collapse?” Jimmy’s voice startled her. She'd been so caught up in the moment she'd completely forgotten that he was right behind her.
“It's possible. If something went wrong... well, that building came down awfully fast.”
“But wouldn't Superman just break out on his own?”
She turned to face her young colleague, “I don't know,” she barked at him. “All I know is that he isn't here.”
Jimmy was taken aback at her tone. “I... I just mean, well, he's Superman. Besides, how do they know he just didn't hear another emergency call?”
Lois had to remind herself that she couldn't be too distressed about his condition. For the rest of the world, he was Superman, not Clark. She couldn't react as if it were her husband that might be buried in the rubble. “You're right. We need to see what the foreman knows.” She started to turn away but realized she needed to do one more thing. She turned back to Jimmy and said, “And I'm sorry that I snapped at you just now. It's just... well, he's my friend and we only just got him back.”
“I understand,” Jimmy replied. “You and CK were always the closest to Superman.”
It only took a moment to work their way to the command post. It was easy to see who was in charge from the swirl of activity around him and the orders he was giving. She rushed right up to him and inserted herself into the fray. “Excuse me. I'm Lois Lane of the Daily Planet. Can you tell me what's happened?”
He paused as soon as he heard her name. “Lois Lane,” he asked. “You're a friend of Superman’s, aren't you?”
“Yes. I heard some of the talk on the way in. Do you believe he's under that?” she asked, pointing in the direction of the collapsed building.
“I do,” he said. “Superman had promised that he'd check in as soon as he finished the demolition. I can't think of any other reason that he didn't keep that appointment.”
“Perhaps he heard an emergency call,” Lois offered, echoing Jimmy.
“Superman and I talked about that possibility. He promised that if he heard of an emergency, he would leave a note before he left the area. See that chalk board?” he asked, pointing at a large, blank chalkboard. “The only reason that is here is in case he needed to leave a note quickly.” Then he walked over to the board and pointed at two pieces of chalk. “Those have not been touched. I wish I had an alternate explanation, but I have to believe that Superman never made it out of that building.”
“If he's in there, do you have any idea how to get him out?”
“We're going in as soon as we can get the equipment here. Our best hope is to start digging through the rubble as quickly as possible. My biggest fear is that we may hurt him more if we go in too aggressively. I'm not sure what to do.”
Lois thought for a minute. “Superman is invulnerable. The biggest risk for him will be if he is deprived of air for too long. My suggestion is that you go in with the most powerful equipment you have on site and start digging.”
“I'm not sure,” he said doubtfully.
“Listen to me,” Lois flamed. “My husband and I know Superman better than anyone. Your equipment isn't a threat to him. Besides, that whole building just fell on him. A piece of excavation equipment can't do any more harm than the falling building. So get that equipment moving now!”
The man seemed taken aback at her attitude. But to his credit he knew what to do when he faced a determined Lois Lane. “Yes, ma'am,” he said. Then he turned to the audience that had gathered during their talk, “You heard the lady. Get every piece of digging equipment in there now. Charlie, call the equipment yard, have them send everything they have that can dig. Bill, contact MPD and ask for their help in clearing the streets to bring in the equipment.” The men seemed to be frozen in shock and hesitated. “Move, people,” Jerry yelled, “We need to start digging through that rubble.”
~~~***~~~
Less than ten minutes after Jerry had sent out the call, the heavy equipment started arriving. Ten minutes after that they'd had to send out a second call that no more equipment would fit in the area. There were front-loaders and bull dozers all around the building. There simply wasn't room for any more to operate without getting in each other's way.
And the people... Every piece of equipment that was working near the building carried a few extra people watching for any sign of red or blue. Lois knew from exposes on construction safety that these people were violating every rule in the book, but that didn't matter right now. This was a rescue operation and everyone involved thought that rescuing Superman would be worth the risk.
“Lois?”
She turned to find Jimmy coming up behind her. His voice was muffled by the filter mask he was wearing because of all the dust being stirred up. Everyone in the area had to wear them or get kicked off the site. “Hi, Jimmy. Did you see anything on the other side of the site?”
“No, just more digging.” He held up a note pad she'd given him. “I've been talking to the workers. I never realized how hard it is to come up with different questions to ask. I've got some good stuff here, but most of it is more about how everyone feels looking for Superman.”
She managed a weak smile. “Touchy-freely stuff. Clark will love it,” she said, her voice catching at the end.
Jimmy obviously noticed his distress. “Have you heard from CK yet?”
“No, but I'm sure he's fine,” she lied. “You know how he gets an idea in his head and just takes off sometimes. I can't imagine where he went but I will definitely be giving him a piece of my mind when I see him.”
She watched Jimmy digest what she'd said. Jimmy was smart enough to see that she was scared. Fortunately, he was also smart enough to see that he shouldn't call her on Clark's current whereabouts. “So how is the Superman search going?” he asked.
Lois turned back to face the work area. “They're making incredible progress. All we can do is hope that they find him soon.”
Jimmy glanced at his watch. “It's been twenty minutes. How long do you think he can survive buried under all that?”
“I don't know,” she replied, holding her voice steady. “Superman once told me that he could hold his breath for over twenty minutes, but I don’t think he ever had to go longer than that.” She took a second to compose herself before continuing. “They've moved more than half of the rubble so far. I have to believe that they will find him soon.”
As if on cue Lois noticed a sudden commotion on one side of the zone. “Come on,” she shouted over her shoulder to Jimmy. Without waiting to see if he was behind, she took off at a run. Thank goodness that she'd chosen to skip heels today. She hadn't gone far before she could make out shouts of, “We've found him,” echoing around the site.
By the time Lois reached the recovery spot, paramedics had arrived and Clark was on a gurney. The colors of his red and blue uniform were barely visible under the white concrete dust. She rushed up to his side only to be held back by the police that had established a quick perimeter. “I need to see him,” she shouted. “I'm Lois Lane of the Daily Planet.”
“I'm sorry, Ms. Lane. Everyone wants to be there. We need to let the paramedics do their work.”
“But I have information that might help.”
He looked at her for a second. Maybe he knew her history with Superman, or maybe he saw something in her eyes, but whatever he saw, he released her arm and let her through.
“How is he!” she barked as soon as she reached the gurney.
“Who are you?” one of the paramedics asked.
“I'm Lois Lane. I'm one of the few people that have any knowledge of Superman's medical background.”
He immediately changed his attitude. “Thank God. I was scared to do anything. I'm Carl, and that's Cindy and Jacob,” he said indicating the other paramedics. “What can you tell us?”
“First of all, what's his condition?” she asked.
“He's alive, but if he were a human I'd say just barely.”
“Have you tried to start an IV?”
“We tried, but the needle won't penetrate his skin.”
Lois smiled. If he was invulnerable, it probably meant that Kryptonite had not been involved. And best of all, he was alive. “That's a good sign,” she said. “Except for a few differences, like the invulnerability, you can treat him like a normal person. All of his internal organs are the same and his vital signs mean pretty much the same as for a normal person. What is important for right now is that you give him as much oxygen as possible.”
“We already have him on straight oxygen,” Carl said, cutting her off.
“I just wanted to make sure,” Lois offered. “The other thing he needs is direct sunlight.”
“Sunlight?” Cindy asked.
“Yes,” Lois said, glancing around at the bright blue sky above and the sun shining down. “You need to keep him in the sun as much as possible. In fact, do you have any scissors?”
Jacob reached into a supply bag and brought out a pair. “Here,” he offered.
“Cut off the uniform,” she said. “Just leave enough to... protect his modesty. And remove his boots. We want to have as much of his bare skin exposed to direct sunlight as possible.”
Cindy produced another pair and tried to cut the uniform. Unfortunately, the scissors wouldn’t cut. After struggling for a few seconds, the young woman looked helplessly at Lois. “I can't cut this. His uniform seemed to be as invulnerable as he is.”
Lois thought for a second. “Try lifting the cloth away from his skin and then cutting the material.”
Cindy tried and once she got the material approximately an inch away from his skin, the scissors were able to cut the cloth. “That does it,” Cindy said. “How did you know that would work?”
“Um... Just something Superman told me once,” she said vaguely. “Please, let's just focus on getting the uniform off.”
Fortunately, the paramedics were more concerned about helping the fallen hero to worry about the source of Lois's valuable information. Lois helped Carl pull off the boots while the other paramedics cut away the Superman suit. They finished with his top and Jacob started to cut away the legs of his pants. Lois caught Cindy admiring her husband for an extra few seconds, but before she could comment the younger woman had gone to work on Clark's other leg. In less than a minute Superman was wearing only those red briefs that she teased him about sometimes.
“Now what?” Carl asked once the clothes were off.
“Now we wait,” Lois answered.
“Shouldn't we transport him?” Jacob asked.
“Not unless you have a way to move him and keep him in the sun. Direct sunlight will do him far more good than being in a hospital room.”
Cindy had been checking his vitals. “She's right. His heart beat is stronger.”
Carl looked at the position of the sun and the surrounding skyline. “Ms. Lane, I don't think we will be able to get more than about another hour of sunlight. Normal procedure would be to transport him as quickly as possible.”
Lois was still relishing Cindy's report that Clark was growing stronger. For that alone she had forgiven the young woman for ogling her husband. But Carl needed an answer. “If this were any normal patient, you wouldn't be listening to me in the first place. But he's not, so you have to.” She took a breath to calm herself. “Carl, I guarantee that when Superman regains consciousness, he will support everything I've told you.”
“Are you his designated next-of-kin?” he asked.
“No. Superman never thought he needed that. But I will be after he wakes up. In any case, all I'm asking you to do is wait here for as long as we have sunlight. As soon as we lose the sun you can take him to the hospital. Okay?”
Carl took only a moment to decide. “Fine. But if he starts getting weaker, we go.”
“Agreed,” she replied.
“So who is Superman's doctor?” Carl asked. “We need to inform him and have everything ready at the hospital.”
“Dr. Bernard Klein,” she answered. “He works out of STAR Labs.”
“Does he have admitting privileges at Metropolis General?” Carl asked.
“I doubt it,” Lois answered. “He's more of a Superman scientist than a medical doctor.”
“Then Superman will get the admitting physician at Met Gen. That's where I have to take him and his doctor needs to be someone with hospital privileges.”
Lois thought for a minute. “What would have to happen for you to take him somewhere else?”
“You mean another hospital?”
“No. I mean Star Labs.”
“I'm sorry, but I can't do that.”
“What would have to happen?” Lois insisted.
“I'd need to get direction from both the hospital and my supervisor at the ambulance agency.”
“Expect a call,” she barked, as she reluctantly turned away, leaving her husband, for the moment, in the hands of the paramedics. Now what was the President's phone number?
TBC
