Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization (16 page)

Easier said than done,
Clark noted. Terrified drivers and passengers alike dashed back to their cars, but they weren’t going anywhere. The traffic was hopelessly snarled. Clark looked around for shelter. A solid building or structure was the best place to be during a tornado.

“Go for the overpass!” his father shouted, pointing at a concrete structure several yards up the road.
“Take cover
!”

Most people had the same idea. A tide of panicked humanity swept the Kents toward the overpass, even as hailstones continued to rain down on them. Chunks of ice, some as large as fists, crashed into the parked vehicles, denting hoods, cracking windshields, and setting off car alarms. A hailstone bounced harmlessly off Clark’s scalp, but others weren’t so lucky.

He saw people stumbling as the hail assailed them. A little girl, who had somehow gotten separated from her family in the crush, cried forlornly. Jonathan scooped her up before she could be trampled.

The funnel cloud touched down, turning into a full-fledged tornado. A vortex of spinning air churned up a thick cloud of dirt and debris, and was bearing down on the highway at terrifying speed. Trees and highway signs whipped back and forth. Sparks erupted as power lines were ripped loose. The twister looked like it was an F-4, maybe even an F-5.

Clark knew that a tornado could travel thirty miles an hour or faster, which meant it was going to hit them in a matter of moments. Could they reach the overpass in time? And would it be enough to protect them? He wasn’t worried about himself, but the danger to everyone else was all too real.

His mother froze and looked back at their Wagoneer. A look of dismay came over her face.

“We forgot Shelby!”

Clark remembered the puppy sleeping the back of the SUV. He heard the terrier barking frantically.

“I’ll get him!” he shouted, turning back.

“No!” Jonathan thrust the scared little girl into his arms. “Get your mom to the overpass. You have to protect her.”

Clark watched as his father raced toward their truck. He wanted to chase after him, but he had to protect the girl, and his mother, too.

The tornado was almost upon them; he could hear it roaring like a runaway train. Flying grit bounced off his face. The wind whipped his hair. He had to get the others to safety

Hurry, Dad,
he thought anxiously.
It’s coming!

Along with dozens of others, they reached the overpass and crowded beneath it. Clark looked back, hoping his father was right behind them. He saw his dad reach the truck and reach inside for the panicked terrier. Jonathan tucked Shelby under his arm and started to back out of the truck.

Hurry!
Clark thought, still holding onto the lost toddler.
You have to get out of there!

A compact car, caught up by the swirling vortex, fell from the sky onto the Wagoneer, crushing its cab. Shelby escaped from the crash, running for the overpass as fast as his four little legs could carry him, but Jonathan was trapped inside the smashed SUV.

He struggled to free himself.

“DAD!”

Jonathan managed to wriggle free from the wreck. He made it onto the shoulder of the highway—just as the tornado touched down on top of him. A spinning cloud of uprooted dirt and debris whirled around him at hundreds of miles an hour, while the sky-high funnel cloud stretched overhead, all the way to a looming black thunderhead. Lighting flashed across the funnel, from one side to another.

The air was gassy and hard to breathe.

Clark spotted his father inside the twister. Handing the crying girl over to his mom, he shoved his way through the packed crowd, determined to rescue his father before it was too late. If he could save an entire school bus of kids from drowning, surely he could he snatch his dad from a tornado.

But Jonathan must have guessed his son’s intentions. He locked eyes with his son, and shook his head grimly. The message was clear.

No. Don’t expose yourself.

Not for me.

In that moment Clark hesitated, torn between his instincts and his father’s wishes. The lesson Jonathan had tried so hard to teach him—to hide his true nature from the world—slowed him a moment too long.

The twister swept Jonathan up, carrying him away.

“DAD!”

* * *

“I let my father die because I trusted him,” Clark said, standing before Jonathan Kent’s grave. “He was convinced that I had to wait, that the world wasn’t ready.” He lifted his gaze from the tombstone and looked into Lois’s eyes. “What do you think?

She didn’t know what to say. She was no stranger to sob stories, having interviewed more than her share of refugees, political prisoners, and victims of crime, but she was deeply moved by what she had just heard. This man was carrying a lot on his broad shoulders. Maybe more than she could possible imagine.

Then he walked away, leaving her alone with her thoughts—and a dilemma.

What was she going to do with his secret?

“Y
ou better watch out, Lois.”

Steve Lombard cornered her in the
Daily Planet’s
hectic bullpen. Rows of cubicles stretched all the way to the elevator banks. Framed front-page headlines, mounted on the walls, paid tribute to the paper’s illustrious history. Reporters tapped away at their computers while working the phones and internet. Deadlines and caffeine produced a constant buzz of activity.

“Perry’s gunning for you,” Lombard said. An aging ex-jock, he had parlayed a brief, undistinguished career in the NFL into a cushy stint at the sports desk. His dark hair was thinning, while his once-toned body was losing its battle against junk food, booze, and Father Time.

“He knows you’re Woodburn’s anonymous source and he can’t wait to rip you a new one.” He grinned at the hot water Lois had landed in. And for once, Lombard probably had his story straight.

Lois approached Perry’s office like a condemned prisoner walking the last mile. Jenny, the chief’s new intern, was posted at a desk outside the office. She was a pretty brunette studying Journalism at Metropolis University.

“Good luck,” Jenny said, lowering her voice. “Don’t listen to Lombard. He’s an ass-clown.”

The girl clearly had the instincts of a born reporter.

Lois gave her an appreciative look before heading in to face the music. She didn’t have to wait long. Perry let her have it with both barrels.

“I
told
you not to run with this,” he growled. “And what did you do? You let Woodburn shotgun it all over the net.” He paced back and forth behind his desk, too worked up to sit still. Each time he stopped, he glared at her accusingly. “The publishers want to sue you!”

Lois glanced through the glass partition at the bullpen, where a smirking Lombard drew a finger across his throat. “Ass-clown” was putting it mildly, she decided.

Then she concentrated on calming her boss.

“Well,” she said, “if it makes any difference, I’m dropping it. The alien, Ellesmere Island. Everything.”

Perry hadn’t been expecting that. He stopped pacing, and peered at her over the tops of his glasses, making no effort to conceal his skepticism.

“Just like that?” he asked suspiciously. “What about all your leads?”

Lois shrugged.

“They didn’t pan out. The story’s smoke.”

“Really?” He still didn’t sound convinced. “Or did it just not gain traction like you hoped it would?”

She didn’t comment, knowing she was already on thin ice.
Please, Perry,
she thought.
Don’t press me on this. I have my reasons.

Trust me.

He scrutinized her for what felt like forever. Then his expression softened somewhat, and he sat down behind his desk, like a judge preparing to pass sentence.

“Two weeks’ unpaid leave,” he pronounced. “That’s your penance. And if you do something like this again, you’re done.”

Lois tried not to look too relieved. She figured she was getting off easy.

“Fine,” she said.

His eyes narrowed.

“Make it
three,
then. Since you were so quick to agree.”

“Perry—!”

He shut her up with a look.

“I
believe
you saw something, Lois,” he said, and she could tell that he meant it. “And I’m not buying for a second that your leads ran cold. But whatever your reasons for dropping this, I’m glad you’re doing it.”

Now it was her turn to be baffled. Perry was an old-school newsman with printer’s ink in his veins. Yet he wanted her to turn her back on the story of the millennium.

“Why?”

A pensive expression came over his face, replacing his usual hard-ass routine. His sober tone conveyed years of hard-won experience, and too much firsthand knowledge of what human beings were capable of doing, when frightened.

“Can you imagine what it would mean for Earth?” he asked her. “Knowing that someone like him was out there?”

Then she knew what he meant. Maybe Jonathan Kent was right.

Maybe the world wasn’t ready for a superman.

* * *

Clark found his mother on the front steps of the house, planting geraniums in a window box. Dusty, the Border Collie who had succeeded Shelby some years ago, heard him coming a mile way, and started barking.

“Hi, Mom,” Clark called as he headed up the walk to the house.

Dusty bolted to greet him. Clark knelt to pet the excited canine, who gave him an enthusiastic lick across the face.

“More geraniums, huh? I could never stand the smell of them.”

“Me neither,” she confessed, “but they’re hard to kill.”

He glanced around at the once-familiar setting, feeling guilty that he hadn’t visited more frequently. He scanned the venerable farmhouse, which was showing its age. His eyes narrowed as he studied the eaves above the porch.

“There’s dry-rot in the joists up there,” he reported. “You want me to fix them? I can get it done in a day.”

His mother shook her head.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means it’d look suspicious, getting done so fast.” She stripped off her gardening gloves and put them aside. He could tell from her worried expression that the time for small talk was over. “A reporter showed up here.”

“She’s a friend,” he replied. “Don’t worry.”

Calling a Lois a friend was probably a bit of stretch, but she had kept his secret—so far. He felt as if he could trust her.

His mother frowned. She seemed less than thrilled by the prospect of Clark sharing his secrets with a “friend.” And he couldn’t blame her. She’d spent most of her adult life guarding those secrets—and Dad had given his life for them.

But he hadn’t come here to talk about Lois.

“Mom, I have to tell you something.”

His tone let her know right away that this was serious. She waited apprehensively, visibly bracing herself for whatever he had to say.

“I
found
them,” he said. “My parents, my people—” He tried to contain his excitement, deliver the news gently, but it burst out of him. “I know where I come from now.” As he spoke, she relaxed, and a new look crossed her face.

“That’s wonderful, Clark,” she said softly. “I’m so happy for you.”

She hugged him warmly, yet he could feel her trembling, too. He knew she meant it, that she was truly happy for him, but he couldn’t miss the fact that she was clearly troubled, as well. Her anxious eyes gazed nervously into the distance.

“What?” he asked her.

“It’s nothing,” she insisted. “I just... when you were a baby, I used to lay by your crib at night, listening to you breathe. It was hard for you at first. You struggled. And I worried all the time. The doctors thought it was asthma, but your father and I knew the truth. You were adapting to our world.”

Clark remembered Krypton’s red sun and emerald magma. His homeworld had indeed been very different from Earth. He tried to imagine the challenge they had faced, raising a child from another planet.

“So what did you do?”

“We prayed you wouldn’t get sick,” she said. “And when you did, we never took you to the same doctor twice. We wouldn’t let them x-ray you or take blood. God knows what they would have found if they had.”

He nodded. “You were worried the truth would come out.”

“No,” she said forcefully, making sure he understood. “The truth about you is
beautiful.
We saw that the moment we laid eyes on you. And one day the world will, too.” She wrung her hands. “I just worry they’ll take you away from me when they do.”

Clark could feel the love radiating from her like the rays of the sun. He pulled her close.

“I’m not going anywhere, Mom. I promise.”