The Death and Life of Superman (46 page)

The Energy Man looked on aghast. “Dead? Discorporate?”

The last of the video screens showed a slow pan down the huge granite statue of Superman to a crowd of people gathered at its base. “Mourners continue to visit his tomb in Metropolis’s Centennial Park, leaving tributes to this Last Son of Krypton who grew up to become the most American of heroes.”

“No! It can’t end this way!” The Energy Man turned away from the screens. “The body! There must still be power in the body!” The Energy Man arose, passing through the ceiling of the Fortress like a ghost.

At 4:27 that morning, there were only three people to be seen around Superman’s tomb. A uniformed city policeman rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet near the edge of the plaza; it was his job to be there. A stoop-shouldered old bag lady who had nowhere else to go came pushing a shopping cart across the paving stones, muttering to herself. And a man stood before the tomb at that late hour; his grief had brought him there. He paused to secure a skullcap to his head and knelt amid the flowers at the base of the tomb and began to pray.

“O God, full of mercy, who dwells on high, grant proper rest on the wings of the divine presence—in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones who shine like the glow of the firmament—for the soul of Superman. May his resting place be in the Garden of Eden—therefore may the Master of Mercy shelter him in the shelter of His winds for Eternity. And may He bind his soul in the bond of life. HASHEM is his heritage, and may he repose in peace on his resting place. Amen.”

Tears in his eyes, the man rose and walked slowly from the tomb. The policeman watched the man leave, feeling a bit misty-eyed himself. He’d pulled park duty several times over the past two weeks, and in that time he’d heard prayers to every conceivable deity in more languages than he’d ever realized existed.
Everybody misses Superman. Just not as many tonight . . . too cold for ’em, I guess. There’ve been barely fifty people here since midnight. I hope they’re not starting to forget him already.

The officer was roused from his thoughts by an electronic squawk and a garbled voice from his walkie-talkie: “One-Baker-sixty-three . . . see a man at Bessolo and Park Entrance South . . . stolen car reported.”

“One-Baker-sixty-three. On my way!” The policeman turned and sprinted from the plaza.

The old bag lady looked around cautiously and then pushed her cart up to the tomb. “Uuhm. Pretty flowers.” She plucked a thornless rose from one of the bouquets that had been left in tribute. “Pretty, pretty. Never miss one.”

The bag lady was still sniffing her treasure when the Energy Man dropped down from the sky beside her. She seemed not to pay him any attention, and that gave him pause.
The Fortress robots could perceive me; why doesn’t she? Is she that lost within her own mind? Or is it simply that no human being can easily perceive me in this state?
He pondered the question for but a moment before turning and passing through the side of the tomb. So swift was his passage that his energies shut down the tomb’s security net before it could send a single alarm.

Dropping down into the crypt, the Energy Man hovered over Superman’s coffin; he could sense a raw power stirring within it.
Over thirty years of bioconverted solar energy is stored in the body. If I can’t reclaim it, I’ll forever remain an immaterial phantom.
He reached through the coffin and into Superman’s body.

A brilliant energy discharge crackled about the body, and the Energy Man shook as if in the throes of some seizure, his scream echoing off the walls of the crypt. Outside, the entire tomb began to glow, and this the bag lady noticed immediately. “Oh! I . . . I’m sorry! You can have the flower back!” She tossed the rose back onto the pile as tiny bolts of lightning crackled off the big statue, and scrambled off across the plaza, dragging her cart after her.

Back inside the crypt, the Energy Man was gone. A tall, powerfully built form arose in his place and stepped back from the opened coffin, clutching a long, flowing cape in his hands.
The cape! I can touch it . . . hold it! I’m alive again . . . alive! But I feel so strange . . . light-headed.

He staggered across the crypt, feeling unsteady on his feet, and set one hand against a wall to brace himself. He could feel a slight tingling in his palm and realized with a start that there was a gridwork of electrical circuitry buried within the walls.
There are control systems here . . . alarms coming on-line . . . I can somehow sense them. And beyond that wall lies some sort of passageway! Who would put such things in a tomb?
The idea disturbed him so that—almost without his thinking—a small surge of energy leapt through his fingertips and into the wall grid, effectively overriding the rebooted security systems.

“The air . . . musty in here. Got to get out.”

He shoved open the crypt’s vaultlike door, only to recoil as the antechamber’s automatic lighting switched on. He threw up his arms and drew the cape around him to shield his eyes from what was to him a blinding glare.
Something is wrong. I have stared into the sun before without ill effect; how could any artificial light source induce such pain? Something has changed within me. I’m not safe here—I must return to the Fortress.

Henry Johnson was awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of an exploding car. He threw on a pair of pants and ran out into the street just in time to see a teenage boy dancing gleefully around the burning wreck of what had just moments before been a late-model Cadillac. From the smell that drifted up the street, Henry knew that there’d been someone alive inside. He bent over and just managed to keep the contents of his stomach down.

When Henry looked up again, he saw that the boy had in hand a gun about the length and width of a car muffler. The gun looked ludicrously huge in the boy’s hands, but the sight of it drove the big man wild with anger. Henry charged forward, grabbing hold of the gun barrel, and yanked the weapon away before the youth knew what hit him. Enraged, the former engineer slammed the gun down hard against the pavement, cracking its plastic and aluminum stock.

“Hey, man, leggo my Toastmaster!” The boy jumped on Henry’s back, punching and clawing.

“Toastmaster?” Henry whipped around and grabbed the boy by the front of his baseball jacket. “Toastmaster?! Where did you get this—this piece of filth?!” Henry shook the boy until his teeth rattled. “Answer me!”

“N-no way. I’m a Shark. Sharks don’t have to answer to nobody!”

Henry stared hard at the boy under the glare of a streetlight.
My God, he can’t be more than fifteen.
He nodded back toward the burning wreck. “Why?”

The boy grinned. “ ’Cause I’m a Shark. An’ ’cause I could!”

The words were still ringing in Henry’s ears long after the police had taken the boy away.

“. . . ’cause I could.”

Those were the words of someone with nothing to lose; of someone who knew no hope and saw no future.

“. . . ’cause I could.”

John Henry did not bother returning to his room. He knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep.

He went down into the basement and got to work. He had to put an end to this madness. At the very least, he had to get those big guns off the street.

In his second-floor walk-up, Bibbo had risen unusually early and begun rummaging through a battered old chest of drawers. He stopped to sniff various items of clothing, tossing some onto the bed and others onto a growing pile of laundry in the corner. After a few minutes of furious sorting, Bibbo had a clean pair of blue sweatpants, a brilliant crimson pair of satin boxing trunks, and a blue sweatshirt laid out across his bed. He looked at his ensemble for a moment, then nodded his approval and started to get dressed.

Bibbo paused for a moment after pulling on the sweatpants and gazed up reverently toward a grimy skylight in the ceiling.

“Hullo, Sooperman? This’s yer ol’ pal Bibbo. I hope God don’t mind if we talk awhiles. We all miss ya, Sooperman—we miss ya terrible bad. I been thinkin’ ’bout ya a lot, pal. It just ain’t the same here without ya.”

Bibbo picked up the sweatshirt—his official Superman sweatshirt—and stared at the pentagonal emblem. “These shirts . . . ya coulda made a mint from merchandizing but ya never kept a dime! Ya always gave your part to charity . . . a real share-the-wealth kinda guy . . . jus’ like me!”

Atop the chest of drawers, an old clock radio clicked on: “Radio-Nine news time is six-o-two. Violent crime continues to worsen in all parts of the city. And in a related story, doctors report a sharp increase in cases of clinical depression in the wake of Superman’s death.”

The tavern owner reached over and turned off the radio. “Y’hear that, Superman? Things’re fallin’ apart down here. Supergirl’s been workin’ real hard but somehow it just ain’t enough.”

Bibbo pulled on the sweatshirt. “Now, what I got in mind might strike some folks as disrespeckful—but I sure hope you don’t think so, Superman. Ain’t nobody in this world I respecks more’n you . . . you were my fav’rit! I know I’m not man enuff to fill yer boots, but I’m still gonna give it my best shot!” He pulled the trunks on over his sweats and pulled a pair of red high-tops out from under the bed.

“The way I sees it, we all gotta pull together—do everythin’ we can to help each other out. I know that’s the way ya’d’ve wanted it, and I ain’t gonna let ya down. I’m gonna help everybody I can, pal—an’ I’m gonna do it all in yer memory!”

Bibbo finished lacing up his sneakers and stood up to survey his appearance in the mirror. He brought his big hands together and cracked his knuckles. “If it’s a Sooperman that Metropolis needs, it’s a Sooperman they’re gonna get!”

Hours later, the newly resurrected Kryptonian stood in an upper chamber of the Antarctic Fortress, freshly clothed from head to toe in a dark blue and black bodysuit. Over his eyes rested a smoky amber-colored visor.

Before him, a huge crystalline egg, some eight feet tall, hung suspended in midair via various electromagnetic fields. Clusters of transmission fibers snaked up through the Fortress and the ice above, channeling solar energy down into the egg, suffusing it with a warm glow.

“Bless Krypton and the House of El.” The man gently ran his fingers along the surface of the crystalline egg. “Their legacy—the technology of this Fortress—has given me new life!”

A robot drew near. “Is all well, Master?”

“Yes, Unit Six, all is very well. This glorious Regeneration Matrix has ensured that the heart of Krypton’s Last Son will keep beating! It channels life-giving energies to me—now that I can no longer absorb them directly from the sun and stars.”

“And your vision, sir? Is the visor satisfactory?”

“It serves its purpose, Unit Six. But . . .” The Kryptonian turned from the Matrix, his hand reaching up to trace the rim of his visor. “. . . once I could see to the ends of the Earth, if I so desired, and now the dimmest light blinds me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.”

He frowned darkly and raised one clenched fist to his chest. “I must not give in to despair. I may have lost the gift of supernormal sight, but I am alive! My senses, my body may have changed . . . but I am still strong! I still can fly free of gravity’s hold. I still possess powers and abilities far beyond those of normal men!” To underscore his point, he thrust out a hand and sent a beam of raw energy blasting into the far wall.

Unit Seven automatically assessed the damage to the Fortress wall. “Sir? Might I suggest caution in the exercise of those powers within these confines?”

“Your suggestion is noted. See that the wall is repaired, and reinforced.”

“At once, sir.”

As Unit Seven set out to effect the repairs, his master flew from the chamber and headed for the monitor bank. For a solid hour, the Kryptonian stood and absorbed the news of the world. The news was not good.

Metropolis had suffered its fifth bank robbery in as many days, and incidents of violent crime were up dramatically in the city.

A fire in an office tower had claimed thirty-seven lives, while the intense heat of the blaze kept fire fighters at bay.

One commentator cited a growing general malaise in urban centers worldwide in the days since Superman’s death and reported that public health officials feared a dramatic rise in the incidence of suicides and suicide attempts.

But the images that kept drawing the Kryptonian’s attention were from reports taped on the scene in Centennial Park: “A surprising number of people have joined a cult that gathers daily at Superman’s tomb, awaiting his resurrection.” A hint of weary sarcasm crept into the reporter’s voice. “Members of the cult worship the late hero as a messiah and maintain that he will rise from the grave to carry on what they refer to as his never-ending battle.”

The Kryptonian did not notice the reporter’s sarcasm. His eyes were on the faces of the hopeful. His ears were filled with their prayerful cry: “Superman! Superman!! Superman!!!”

He turned away from the monitors and called out to his robots. “Unit Four! Unit Nine! Bring me the cape and shield!”

In response, two metallic servitor units came flying in, carrying a bundle of red cloth. “Here they are, sir. Everything has been prepared and ready, as per your orders of this morning.”

The robots unfolded the cape from around the thin metal alloy of the pentagonal shield. Amazingly, the cloth had been bonded to the upper corners of the shield so exactingly that not a seam showed. Moving as if they had spent years as personal valets, the robots lowered the cape over the Kryptonian’s shoulders, affixing the shield electrostatically to his chest.

One of the robots fussed with the draping of the cape as the other hovered solicitously beside his master. “Sir, you returned to us just sixteen-point-seven hours ago. Wouldn’t it be wise for you to recuperate more fully from your ordeal before you again leave the Fortress?”

“No. I cannot rest while the world is in such a desperate state.”

The caped man flew up out of the Fortress, carving a new exit out of the ice. “The people cry out for Superman! I must be their champion!”

In Metropolis, Patricia Washburn had just entered her apartment building’s laundry room when the door was slammed and locked behind her and she was grabbed by a man wearing a ski mask. Patricia was so tired after a long day’s work that her first thought was that this must be one of her friends trying ineptly to be funny. She pulled away in anger. “There’s nothing funny about trying to scare people. Who is that? Barry, you creep, is that you?”