The Death and Life of Superman (25 page)

But not tonight.

Tonight, the store was empty, and Ruby felt more alone than she’d felt since the Mister had died.

Down the street, a lone pair of headlights came around the corner, and a big panel truck whizzed by the store, dumping its bundle of newspapers without even slowing down. That in itself was nothing new; it happened at least twice a day. It was, in fact, the subject of a longstanding joke between Ruby and her customers. “They always drop the papers and run,” she’d say. “I think they’re afraid we’re going to blame them for the news!”

Tonight, however, she wasn’t laughing. Tonight everyone had reason to be afraid. Ruby had had her radio on all afternoon, listening to the news, and she had dreaded this delivery. She pulled her sweater tight against the wind and trundled out to the curb to retrieve the bundle. Back inside, Kuby pulled out a pair of snips and cut the wire that held the bundle together. The wire snapped, and six dozen copies of the
Daily Planet’
s late-evening extra spilled across the counter. The front-page headline consisted of just two words: SUPERMAN—DEAD.

Ruby shivered when she saw it.
A headline that big you’d expect for nothing less than a notice of the end of the world.
She dabbed at her eyes with the kerchief she kept up her sleeve.
And maybe it is . . . maybe it is.

Miles away, in WLEX’s Studio Seven, anchorman Wallace Bailey felt his throat tighten as the floor manager held up a hand and began the five-second count to air. He’d been at the news desk most of the day without a break, and the strain was beginning to take its toll. The tally light atop camera one suddenly glowed red, and he swallowed hard.

“For those of you just joining us, much of Metropolis remains under a dusk-to-dawn curfew, following the—” Bailey took a deep breath. “—the death of Superman.”

The death of Superman. There, he’d said it.

Bailey took a second deep breath and opened his mouth, but no more words came out. He glanced nervously at his written notes, then at the lines on the TelePrompTer, but they might as well have been written in Sanskrit. In a panic, he tried to think of something—anything—to say, but all that came to his mind was an old videotape he’d once seen in journalism school. Among other things, the tape showed one of those rare moments when Walter Cronkite fumbled on-screen, an unsteady few seconds the afternoon that JFK was shot. It was another terrible day, not unlike this one, but he found the memory strangely reassuring.
See,
it seemed to say,
this can happen to the best of us. It’s no sin to get flustered. Somehow, we all manage to go on.
Miraculously, Bailey discovered that he could read his notes again, even as the silent, traitorous voice in his head reminded him that he was still a long way from being a Walter Cronkite.

“The world-renowned hero laid down his life today to stop a berserk monster called Doomsday, who threatened to level the city. The origins of the monster remain unknown at this hour. The final battle followed a several-state rampage that resulted in over five hundred deaths and left the Justice League in disarray.”

The camera cut from Bailey to taped footage of Superman and Doomsday punching each other across the parking lot of a suburban shopping plaza. No longer on-screen, the anchorman felt his voice steady a bit further as he began the voice-over. “Superman joined the battle at midmorning, but though he fought valiantly, he seemed unable to stop Doomsday’s odyssey of death and destruction. It was, tragically, a fight to the finish . . . that claimed the lives of both combatants.”

The on-screen images changed again, this time to clips of hustling paramedic teams working over Superman’s body. “Despite prolonged heroic efforts, the Man of Steel could not be revived at the scene. Resuscitation efforts continued as Metropolis’s paramedics rushed the Man of Steel to Metro General Hospital, where a trauma team headed by Dr. Jorge Sanchez labored for hours in an attempt to save his life.”

Bailey paused in his narration, tears coming to his eyes. “The final pronouncement came just ninety minutes ago.” On the studio monitors, he could see a slim, mustached man approach a makeshift podium outside the Metro General emergency entrance. Across the bottom of the screen, a superimposed caption identified the man as Dr. Sanchez. The clicking of camera shutters sounded like crickets chirping as the doctor stepped up to the microphones.

Dr. Sanchez cleared his throat. “It is my sad duty to inform you that Superman was declared dead at approximately 6:23
P.M.
eastern daylight time.” On the pretaped segment, the doctor blinked, apparently dazzled by all the television lighting.

In the studio, Bailey was cued to continue his narration. “For more on this story, we go now live to Scott Harris.” The cameras abruptly cut to a rugged-looking, dark-haired man with a microphone standing outside a nondescript municipal building.

“Wallace, Superman’s body was brought here to the city morgue just minutes ago. As Superman has no known relatives, there is apparently some controversy brewing over who has rights to the—” Suddenly there was a loud electronic squawk, and the picture broke apart to snow.

“Scott, can you hear me?” The screen cut back to the anchor desk and a noticeably surprised Wallace Bailey. “Well, we seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties.”

Back outside the morgue building, Harris turned, startled by the sound of gunfire. “Wallace, are you there? Someone is shooting—” He looked up and knew it was pointless to say another word; armed soldiers were being deployed from a troop carrier just a few yards away, and one of them had just shot apart the microwave uplink dish atop the WLEX broadcast van.

Harris had spent time overseas covering a number of brushfire wars, and he could tell at a glance that there was something odd about these troops; they weren’t dressed in standard army-issue uniforms. He located a soldier who was wearing officer’s bars and started screaming at him. “What’s the big idea of shooting out our dish? You can’t get away with this! What’s going on here?”

The officer gave Harris and his news crew a cursory glance and turned to an aide. “Arrest that man . . . arrest them all!”

Police Captain Maggie Sawyer and Inspector Dan Turpin stood at the head of a squad of heavily armed Special Crimes Unit police, blocking the path of Paul Westfield and an equally armed squad of soldiers wearing the shoulder patch of the Cadmus Project. Turpin was fit to be tied. “Westfield, I advise you an’ yer pack of ghouls to turn ’round and goose-step outta here!”

“I’d listen to Inspector Turpin if I were you!” Maggie slipped the safety switch of her automatic.

“You and your Special Crimes Unit don’t impress me, Captain Sawyer.” Westfield coolly pulled a folded set of papers from his coat. “I direct a
federal
project. And under section twelve of the Executive Emergency Act, I am authorized to collect for study the bodies of any alien decedents, which includes Superman and that monster he fought!”

“Yeah.” A soldier at Westfield’s side had his rifle pointed directly at the police line. “So you and your boys better step aside, or things could get real messy!”

“You can’t be serious!” The Guardian emerged from a doorway behind the police, astounded at finding troops of his command involved in an act of force outside the Project. “What do you think this is, the Old West? There’ll be no shoot-out with local authorities! Lower your weapons!”

“Ignore that order!” Westfield scowled. He hadn’t expected the Guardian to still be here.

“B-but, Mr. Westfield,” one soldier wavered, “the Guardian
is
our security chief.”

“And I’m Project administrator!”

“Pulling rank, Westfield?” The Guardian defiantly folded his arms. “I’d say you’ve already exceeded your authority.”

“That was out of line, Guardian! You of all people must realize how important this is to us. There’s no telling what we could learn from Superman’s body!”

“You’re exposing the Project to further public scrutiny!”

“Not at all.” Westfield’s face twisted into a nasty smirk. “My troops have the entire area secured. Only one television crew was set up when we arrived, and they’ve already been dealt with. The good people of Metropolis won’t learn anything about the Project that I don’t want them to.”

“What do you mean, there’s a news blackout?” In his quarters atop the LexCorp Tower, Lex Luthor had phoned his news director the moment that WLEX’s remote crew was knocked off the air. “A blackout by whose authority? A federal agency? What federal agency? Well, find out! We are not going to stand for this!” Lex slammed down the phone.
We are most definitely going to do something about this.

Luthor stalked into the next room, where Supergirl sat staring blankly off into space. The bruises she’d sustained in her battle with Doomsday had already faded, but she’d been deeply emotionally affected by her failure to help Superman.
A little mission now might do her a world of good.
“Supergirl . . . love?”

“Yes, Lex?” She sounded hollow.

Lex gently laid his hand on her shoulder. “Time to call out the dogs, love. There’s work to be done.”

The Guardian drew himself up, standing tall and blocking Westfield’s path with his own body. “Have you lost all decency? Show some respect for the dead!”

“There’ll be time for that later!” Westfield was becoming impatient. “We have to act quickly before the bodies start to decompose! Now, are you going to do your duty and help or—”

“No, Westfield.” The Guardian looked him square in the eye. “If you want Superman, you’ll have to go through me!”

Westfield’s face and lips paled visibly.

Uh-oh.
Maggie Sawyer could feel her stomach clenching. From hard experience, she knew that when the blood drained from the face, the bluster was over and the body was committed to action.
It’s fight or flight, and I doubt that Westfield has the grace, the brains, or the guts to back down now.
She also knew without needing to spare a glance in their direction that Turpin and her men had read the situation the same way.

Suddenly, before anyone in that corridor could make another move, two armored figures crashed through the walls on both sides of them. A highly amplified voice bellowed, “SURPRISE!”

“Holy Geez! It’s a couple o’ Team Luthor’s armor boys!” Dan Turpin sounded a lot less annoyed than he ordinarily would have been at a civilian commando raid. Maggie was far from displeased herself. Luthor’s men had broken the impasse nicely.

As one, the Guardian and the SCU dove for cover as Westfield’s troops opened fire on Team Luthor. The Cadmus soldiers were heavily armed, but for all the effect their assault rifles had on the intruders’ glistening body armor, they might as well have been throwing popcorn.

“Nuts!” Turpin’s pleased surprise was swiftly giving way to embarrassment “That’s
our
fight they’re fighting!”

Sawyer grabbed the inspector by the arm and held him back. “All things considered, Dan, I don’t really mind.”

The Guardian brought his shield up as a seven-millimeter bullet whizzed by his head. “Keep your forces down, Captain. Team Luthor seems mainly to be drawing fire. They must have something up their sleeves.” He peered at the nearer wall, through one of the gaping holes left by Team Luthor. “And I think I see what it is!”

The first Cadmus trooper who saw the blue-and-red-caped figure come through the opening was so shocked that he felt his heart skip a couple of beats. He looked again and elbowed his superior officer. “Uh, Sarge—?”

“Keep firing, McIntyre! Don’t stop for anything!”

“Anything? What about
her
?”

Supergirl landed among them, and the fire fight stopped as abruptly as if someone had thrown a switch. “Good start.” Supergirl looked them over sternly. “A very good start. Now put down your weapons or I’ll take them away from you.”

Westfield dashed toward her, nearly tripping in his haste. “Supergirl, no! You’re making a big mistake. We’re an authorized federal agency!”

“Don’t trust ’im for one minute, li’l lady!” Turpin’s voice boomed as if he still needed to shout above gunfire. “He an’ his goon squad are tryin’ to take Superman’s body!”

“They’re
what
?” Supergirl’s eyes went wide, and she thrust her hands out at Westfield and his troops.

They never knew what hit them.

Paul Westfield was the last to regain consciousness. As he came to, he thought he could hear someone calling his name. When his eyes finally focused, he saw the Guardian crouched over him, offering a helping hand. If a sudden wave of nausea hadn’t hit him, he would have been sorely tempted to slap the hand away, or maybe bite it.

“Is he going to be all right?”

Westfield turned his head—slowly—to look for the source of the second voice. He gaped.
It’s Supergirl, and she has the consummate gall to look concerned.

“I think so. He’ll be sore for a few days, though.” The Guardian also looked concerned, Westfield noted.
Charming. If only these people showed half the regard for my authority that they did for my health.

“Paul? Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”
What hit me?
Westfield had to force himself to listen to the Guardian.