The Death and Life of Superman (8 page)

Lois looked down at the wheel. It was a question she’d put to herself many times, even before she’d learned his secret. “Probably the same thing.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Uh, what was that, Lois? Did you say something?”

“You heard me, Mr. Super-hearing!” She playfully elbowed him in the ribs and instantly felt an electric tingle shoot up her arm. “Ow!”

“Honey, are you all right?”

“No! I hit my funny bone on you!” Lois gingerly rubbed her arm. “Might as well have tried to elbow a brick wall!”

“Here, let me.” Clark moved closer, gently rubbing her elbow and applying pressure to certain nerves.

“Oh, that’s good!” The pins and needles feeling faded. “You’re very good at that.”

“My back rubs aren’t bad, either. They’re almost as good as yours.”

She looked into his eyes. His glasses had a dulling effect, muting the color of his irises so that they looked more gray than blue.

“I love you, Lois.”

“And I love you.” She sighed. “That’s why it’s so infuriating! If you hadn’t scooped me with the Superman story, we might not have become such rivals. And then we might have gotten together a lot sooner.”

“Maybe . . . maybe not.” He planted a little kiss on the tip of her nose. “Things might have been different, but there’s no way of knowing for certain that they’d have been better.” He kissed her right cheek. “As it was, there was competition between us, sure, but we also got to work alongside each other . . .” He kissed her left cheek. “. . . got to know each other better . . . and fell in love.”

Clark gazed into her eyes. “Besides, anticipation makes the heart grow fonder.”

“I thought that was ‘absence.’ ”

“No, absence just makes it sadder.”

Their lips met, and no further words were exchanged.

4

Days passed,
but they might as well have been minutes to the imprisoned Creature. As he flailed away at the wall of the vault that held him, he seemed neither to weaken nor to tire. Again and again he struck at his prison wall. And with each strike, the heavy gauntlet that encased his free hand gradually began to shred and fall apart.

Bony spurs, protruding from the huge knuckles of the Creature, began to emerge from the tattered glove. With each succeeding impact, the spurs scored deeper grooves into the thick metal wall. Although ever so slightly, the metal began to deform under the assault of his ceaseless pounding. Trailing strands of cable whipped about like maddened snakes as the Creature continued, his huge arm working like a trip-hammer.

And then, finally, the tips of his bony knuckles pierced the wall. Four tiny little points, none bigger than the tip of a finely sharpened pencil, broke through solid alloy.

A satisfied growl rumbled beneath his hood, and the Creature redoubled his efforts.

Northwest of Metropolis, far beneath the surface of Mount Curtiss, another heavily fortified structure lay buried, far bigger than the vault that held the Creature. This structure was a sprawling underground complex of research laboratories and test facilities of the federal government’s top-secret Cadmus Project.

On this particular morning, Project Security Chief Jim Harper was, as usual, in the middle of his calisthenics. Every day without fail, Harper started out with five minutes of stretching and thirty minutes of sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, and jumping jacks, followed by another thirty minutes of working out with weights. The other men and women on his staff might use the more high-tech workout equipment, but Jim preferred the old standbys. He’d first begun his daily regimen over fifty years ago, while working with the Metropolis Police Department. The regimen had stood the test of time.
Better than I have,
thought Harper. Though he prided himself on staying fit, time and circumstances had eventually taken their toll.
I’d be long dead, if not for the boys.

The boys . . .
Harper set down his hundred-pound weights and walked across the room to where an old framed photograph sat on his desk. The photo was yellowing around the edges, but it still brought a smile to his face. There he was in his old police uniform with four boys clustered around him. They were grown men now, each one of them near the top of his chosen field, but in Jim’s heart of hearts they’d always be his boys.
We’ve all come a long way from Suicide Slum. Hard to believe that it’s been so long.

Over half a century ago, Jim Harper had been a young rookie cop, newly assigned to the precinct that encompassed Suicide Slum. Then, as now, it was the toughest neighborhood in Metropolis. That point was driven home one day when, after going off duty, Jim was beaten by a band of hoodlums who had lain in wait for him. Satisfied that they’d taught the rookie a lesson, his attackers left him lying bruised and battered in an alley. But Jim Harper was a stronger, far tougher man than they’d realized. His clothing in tatters, he pulled himself to his feet and lurched down the darkened street after the hoodlums. Leaning against the threshold of a local costume shop to catch his breath, he was surprised when the door, left unlocked by a careless cashier, swung open. Harper’s eyes settled on a prominently displayed crash helmet. Seized by a sudden inspiration, he cobbled together a mystery-man outfit complete with gloves, boots, and mask. Easing the helmet onto his aching head, he topped off the look with an ornamental metal shield that he found hanging on the wall. Leaving behind cash to cover his late-night purchase, the disguised Harper secured the storefront and ran off in pursuit of his attackers.

He found them in a neighborhood pool hall. With the protection of his helmet and shield, and the advantage of surprise, Harper made fast work of the hoodlums. Checking their wallets for identification, the masked man discovered thick wads of cash, bearing serial numbers identical to the numbers on the money paid in the ransom of a recent kidnapping. As he tied up the groggy thugs, one of them stared at him in disbelief.

“Who
are
you?”

“Why, I’m . . .” Harper hesitated. The question surprised him. The mask worked better than he’d thought; they really hadn’t recognized him. “I’m . . . sort of a . . .
guardian,
I guess. Yes, that’s it. I guard society from the likes of you!”

And then, as the wailing sirens of approaching patrol cars grew louder, the Guardian slipped away into the night.

The next day, back in his normal uniform and back on duty patrolling the streets, Harper was still mulling over his Lone Ranger-like adventure of the night before. He could almost have dismissed it as a dream or perhaps an hallucination if not for the costume he’d hidden in the back of his closet.

“Hooligans! Thieves! Stop them!” The angry cry roused Patrolman Harper from his reverie. He bolted down the sidewalk and ran right into four young street urchins who were in the act of fleeing a hardware store with stolen goods.

The four were a motley crew of orphans who had banded together to live on their own, in defiance of continued attempts by authorities to find them foster homes. The boys—the soft-spoken, athletic Tommy, talkative Gabby, short and feisty Scrapper, and tall, thin Big Words, the thinker of the group—tried to make ends meet by hawking newspapers on the corner and occasionally supplementing their income with petty theft.

When Harper brought the boys before Judge Charles Benjamin Collins, the jurist was not happy to see them. “According to past records, you boys have stolen radiator caps, tires, and other goods. And now this!” Collins paused to remove his pince-nez glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. “I have no recourse but to find you guilty. These crimes brand you as potential enemies of society. As you have no families, it is my sad duty to commit you to the State Institution for Boys, where you will remain until you reach the age of twenty-one.”

“W-w-what?” stammered Big Words. “Institution—? Imprisonment—?”

“Till we’re twenty-one?!” Tommy couldn’t believe it.

“You can’t do that to us!” yowled Scrapper.

Gabby strained to hold him back. “Holy geez, Scrap, don’t go startin’ nothin’ now. We’re in enough trouble as it is!”

“Your Honor?” Harper stepped forward. “I’d like to say a few good words on behalf of these boys.”

“We don’t need your help, copper!”

“Scrapper! Geez!”

Judge Collins gaveled for silence. “Well, Patrolman?”

“I know these boys, Judge Collins. Just about everyone in Hob’s Bay does. They’re basically good boys. They’ve had to fight and steal their way through life to avoid starving. If you send them to that reform school, they’ll associate with tougher, more hardened offenders . . . and become more hardened themselves. I wish you’d reconsider your decision.”

The judge gave Harper a quizzical look. “I take it that you have another plan to help these boys, Patrolman?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Jim Harper looked at the boys. He’d been an orphan himself, not so different from them. Jim knew that he might just as easily have grown up to be a criminal as a cop, if not for a few good breaks. Now he saw a way to pass those breaks along to a new generation. Harper looked back at the judge. “I ask that you release the boys into my custody. Give me a chance to prove that they can become useful, productive citizens.”

Judge Collins stroked his mustache. So many officers who appeared before him were hardened and cynical about life in Suicide Slum. The judge was frankly astounded by the young patrolman’s plea. Here was obviously an idealist! “I’d like to see you in my chambers, young man.”

Alone with the judge in his paneled office, Harper again made his case.

“Do you know what you’re asking, Harper? Do you realize the responsibilities involved?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, your point about the State Institution is well-taken. It probably breeds more young criminals than it reforms, and it’s horribly overcrowded. And, at this point, so are the orphanages.” The judge studied the young rookie. “Normally, policy prohibits assigning the guardianship of a child to any single man or woman who is not a blood relative, but our state law does allow me a certain amount of leeway. Still, all
four
of them—?”

“They’re all the family they know, sir. Breaking them up would be a mistake.”

“A mistake is probably what I’m about to make, but . . . all right, Harper. They’re yours for now. But I don’t ever want to see them in my court again! Is that clear?”

“Absolutely, Your Honor.”

In the years that followed, Jim Harper saw to it that his ragtag “Newsboy Legion,” as he came to call them, stuck to the straight and narrow. Often, he used his other identity as the Guardian to help them out of rough spots. They eventually caught on to his double life, but they’d never betrayed Harper to another living soul. In time, the boys grew up and moved out of the old neighborhood, and the patrolman put his Guardian outfit away.

Harper had done a good job in helping his boys turn their lives around. Big Words graduated from the University of Metropolis to become Dr. Anthony Rodrigues and gained fame for his expertise in quantum mechanics. Scrapper dropped his street name long before he became the much-sought-after engineer Patrick MacGuire. John “Gabby” Gabrielli’s talent for public speaking contributed to his success in the business world. And Dr. Tommy Tompkins’s research in genetics led to the creation of the Cadmus Project, which had ultimately brought them all together again.

Along with the renowned geneticist Reginald Augustine and his eccentric colleague Dabney Donovan, Dr. Tompkins had founded the Cadmus Project after decades of independent research. The idea of the founders was to launch a study of DNA and the human genetic code with the same degree of intensity and support that the Manhattan Project had garnered during the Second World War. When, after years of lobbying, they finally got government funding, Tompkins called upon his three boyhood friends for assistance in making the Project work.

It was Pat MacGuire who remembered an old, abandoned aqueduct, stretching from far beneath the streets of Metropolis to distant Mount Curtiss, and developed the underground site plan for what became the Cadmus Project. Tompkins and his friends became so involved in the design and construction of Cadmus that they all stayed on the job, eventually becoming high-ranking department heads within the Project.

Years after the four friends got the Cadmus Project up and running, they received word that their old mentor, Jim Harper, was dying. Pulling every string available to them, they had Harper brought into the Project. Utilizing still-experimental processes developed by Cadmus’s amazing genetics laboratories, they cloned him a powerful new body, literally giving him a new lease on life.

Jim picked up his weights and continued with his reps.
Not bad for an old man,
he thought. It felt good to be strong and vital again. And, of course, after all the boys had done for him, he could hardly turn down their offer to head the Project’s Security Team.

As it turned out, there’d been considerable problems brought about by some controversial experiments started by Dabney Donovan. Before his death, the eccentric geneticist caused a major scandal, which the department heads were still trying to put behind them. They’d desperately needed their old mentor’s help in getting the Cadmus Project back on the up and up.