Hello everyone! I bring you the first chapter of the second part of the story about a gender-bend Superman: Superwoman. Born as Kala-El on Krypton and raised as Clara Kent in Kansas, and now defending humanity while trying to live as a reporter in Metropolis, at the hottest moment of the Cold War! This story is the second part of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERWOMAN: THE ETERNAL COURSE which is the presentation of the character and her fight against Lex Luthor, you can download it illustrated here https://www.deviantart.com/lordmallory/art/SUPERWOMAN-FROM-KRYPTON-FREE-ILLUSTRATED-FANFIC-996644682 , but you can read this story from scratch without reading the first part if you want, the facts are independent.
Not only is Superwoman here, but I have also included Roberta Lee (the teenager of Chinese origin who wants to be a journalist and stars in "SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN") as Clara's apprentice, Batman, Aquaman, Zatanna, the Luthor family, the Toyman...and well, a space threat that is looming over the Earth but we don't know what it is yet!
Leave your comments, criticisms or requests if you are interested! Which of the subplots would you like to see developed, which characters to include or take out of the story and how would you like them to evolve! Hope you enjoy the story and if not don't be afraid of being harsh and tell me your thoughts!
Tuesday November 15, 1949
[Roberta Lee's Diary]
Dear Diary!
Today was my third day at the Daily Planet. This place is so exciting and impressive! For my first assignment, I was asked to translate an old newspaper article from Chinatown that was published years ago, but the Mandarin was difficult for me. I wonder why he needs it. It mentions a couple of murders, but not many details! The people are still very friendly except for a horrible sports reporter named Steve Lombard, who must be famous, but I've never heard of him... I'll ask Tommy if he knows who he is! But he's a crumb, he calls me "Charlotte Chan" and thinks it's hilarious. I haven't done much more today. Jimmy Olsen is teaching me how to develop and file photographs. The rest of the time I've been trying to translate the Chinese article Mr. Mailer brought me. He is a charming man and has recommended me some books. Mr. Mailer addresses everyone with insults and very little manners, but with me he is very kind instead. Jimmy has told me that he is nice because he doesn't know me yet, that when he gets to know me and becomes fond of me, he will start insulting. Besides… I want to do more things apart from ordering files and translations! But I haven't been able to talk to Mr. Lane and Miss Kent yet. Ronald Troupe, who is with Jimmy, the nicest person in the paper, told me that on Friday we'll go lunching with Mr. Lane. Ronald told me also that Mr. Lane just doesn't hang around here very much anymore. I also have not seen the two big bosses, Mr. Weiss and Ms. Grant yet. I'm very nervous about meeting such important people. I'm told that Ms. Grant is writing her new novel, so she'll be out of sight for a few months.
I went back down to the World Magazine offices, but Mr. Lane was busy again. He has a very old and very unfriendly secretary whom I have failed to convince that I now work here and that I know Mr. Lane. The World Magazine office, although part of the same publishing house and in the same building, is a very different place. The people seem quieter and more uptight, the offices more elegant. I get the feeling that people only speak in whispers and hide talking on the phone. They all have their "highly sensitive sources" and their "leaks from politicians and diplomats". According to that nasty Steve Lombard, everyone is always handling serious things but Louis Lane, who only goes to the office "to sleep it off." I'm sure that's not true. I saw the chief editor of the World Magazine, Ms. Alina Barystoff-Baker or something like that. Jimmy says she is gorgeous and very famous in Europe, but for me she looked more like some kind of snake.
Most important: Miss Kent! She's the one who got me hired to come in for three hours in the afternoons three days a week after school, and who promised to teach me the job! But she doesn't show up! She phoned me two weeks ago to tell me the news. I didn't know what to give her as a thank you gift, so I brought her a Qingming ceremonial incense bowl that was my grandmother's and is very important to us, but I haven't met her yet. She is very busy now she is a Senior Reporter. Apparently, Miss Kent only shows up in the mornings, drops off articles, and goes off in search of more news. Besides, she was on vacation last week although nobody knows where. Jimmy Olsen adores her, but I've been told by a switchboard operator that Miss Kent's too weird, a two-faced person and that she has suspiciously moved up too fast… Tattletale! I've also been told by that tattletale that Mr. Lane and Miss Kent are no longer "special friends"... Oh how can you be so mean, you Tattletale! She started gossiping that Mr. Lane had left his wife for Miss Kent, and as soon as Miss Kent was promoted to Senior Reporter, she left him. I've stopped her, I didn't want to know anything about that story and of course I didn't believe it.
But I want so much to talk to Miss Kent! I don't think I'll learn much here without her, I'm no good for a photographer or a file clerk. There are only three women in senior reporting at the Daily Planet and it's a privilege to enjoy the friendship of one of them!
Anyways, every day I have seen Superwoman, splendid and heroic as always, flying with her long red cape. Today she flew very close and seemed to wave at us. She is impressive. I would very much like to talk to her again someday. When I told the people in the newsroom that she saved my life twice, they all laughed and asked me if I was the new Louis Lane.Apparently, Mr. Lane also had a habit of getting into trouble in the old days, and Superwoman was often the one who got him out of it. They didn't remember the Klan story and when I explained it to them, they all congratulated me on my bravery! I was embarrassed and I blushed a lot.
Tomorrow, even though I'm not supposed to work, I will try to go to the Planet to see if I can talk to Miss Kent.
People are still talking about the Toyman and wondering why he hasn't struck yet. Everyone says it's because he is afraid of Superwoman.
Ah! Ronald Troupe told me that Mr. Lane has a present for me. What will it be? I'm so nervous!
The Pentagon
Superwoman looked with outward calm, but inward sorrow, at the suspicious glances of the generals, admirals, Secretary of Defense, and others seated at the large table. A device emitted a radio distortion with a rhythmic tone, and a series of reports had been distributed to all present, as well as star charts. A wire recorder was taping the conversation.
"Really nothing?", a man in a general's uniform asked her again.
"No, General, I have spent three days surveying the surface of Titan and other moons, as well as penetrating as far as I could into the gaseous layers of Jupiter. I have seen and heard nothing," Superwoman answered with a resolved tone.
"General Bradley, our scientists have already confirmed that although the signal appears to be moving at extraordinary speed, it is difficult to determine its source. It may be coming from elsewhere in the solar system right now, or it may be old and, well, repeating itself. It even may be from the 1946 invasion," a Navy man interrupted.
"Superwoman... I mean... Mrs. El... You've confirmed that it's not Kryptonian."
"It's certainly not Kryptonian language... But maybe it's encrypted," the superheroine answered.
Superwoman sighed. She was the only woman in the room. There was hardly a friendly glance, except from an unknown admiral. No, the signal probably wasn't Kryptonian. She had taken the recording of the strange, apparently accelerating signal from Jupiter to her robot Kelex, and he had been unable to decipher it and determine whether it was Kryptonian in origin or not. She had spent three days flying over the icy surfaces of Jupiter's moons, amidst the unbearable gas of the banded ochre planet, searching for any ship. Using her super-hearing to the fullest, even though her powers were severely diminished so far from the sun. Nothing, only gas and cold, muscle aches and headaches. Superwoman felt like she was returning empty-handed... Could it be an ancient signal from another civilization? A coded signal from Zod's now destroyed fleet she defeated more than three years ago? Kelex told her about Thanagar, Apokolips and New Genesis, those planets inhabited and once subjugated or colonized by Krypton. But according to Kelex, just before their destruction, the Kryptonians were sure such civilizations lacked the technology for interplanetary travel. Would it be them? Would she have to deal with another alien invasion?
"We have a theory," another scientist interrupted. "As we know from the Roswell incident, which Mrs. El is familiar with, some Kryptonian ships may have been abandoned in space during the failed invasion 12,500 years ago. Since we know so little about that ancient conflict, this could be one of those vessels. There is another possibility, however. During the Kryptonian invasion of 1946, our instruments detected a brief burst of radio waves and electromagnetic pulses from beneath Antarctica, under nearly a mile and a half of ice and below the ruins of what we believe was a colossal pyramid six times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Whatever activated there stopped transmitting before we could investigate. The signals were completely different from those emitted by the Kryptonian ship recovered from the Isle of Death last year… far more primitive, and perhaps even human. If our prehistoric ancestors had developed some form of radio technology before being exterminated by the Kryptonians, as our report suggests, then the transmission we're receiving now could simply be one of those ancient human signals, distorted after bouncing through space."
Everyone looked at Superwoman again. She noticed the tone with which the scientist had emphasized that Kryptonians had exterminated those civilizations. Since the event of Doomsday and the discovery of Luthor's treachery, the government had shared with the Woman of Steel a great deal of information they had kept from her. Information about experiments with Kryptonian technology, about Roswell, about mysterious ruined cities, ten or twenty thousand years old, buried under jungles and deserts, resting under the sea, or under the ice of Antarctica. The American government and its allies had tried to excavate those cities without success, because of the number of resources and technology required. The Maid of Might had eloquently explained her reasons for being reluctant to such excavations. She truly feared what might be there. Neither Kelex nor she had any real knowledge of what had been sealed by time, and it was clear that Kryptonian technology was uncontrollable and incomprehensible to humans. The Antarctic digs had been a failure. She was invited to help with the excavations. After traversing miles of melting ice she had only found debris and more debris, crushed by the frost. No sign of anything, only the silence broken by the wind and the cracking of the ice.
She wondered about what this antediluvian humanity had been like when it had interbred with the Kryptonians. No doubt advanced, but there was nothing left of it, and judging by the memory that remained in the various sacred texts of the peoples of humanity, it had not been very virtuous. She did not want to unleash another Doomsday monster or set off a bomb forgotten for eons. It was not wise. They did not understand her. If only the elusive Atlantean named Arturo Curry, also known as Aquaman, would talk to her for a moment. The Atlantean had told Bruce that he would not work with a Kryptonian under any circumstances. Perhaps she needed to explain to him the danger all of humanity could face again...
She looked around again in frustration. She understood their distrust, even if it hurt her, but they were wasting time she could not afford to lose. They knew nothing; they expected her to be the one with the answers, and if they truly knew something, they would take far too long to reveal it. Superwoman was needed elsewhere. The cries for help coming from around the world mattered far more to her than the cold stares of the uniformed people standing before her.
"I'm afraid I must leave, I'm needed elsewhere. If it's all right with you, I'll try to travel to Jupiter or Saturn periodically, on survey trips. Beyond is impossible for me, I wouldn't be able to return," Superwoman sat up and spread her cape with regal urgency.
A sharp voice from an old civilian-dressed man answered her. "Our Soviet friends who shared the signal with us will not believe you have returned empty handed, nor will the press to whom they leaked the discovery."
"Sometimes we have to admit that we don't know anything." The superheroine said, her annoyance impossible to hide.
Superwoman disappeared almost instantly, leaving behind a red blur and a light breeze.
Another civilian ran a handkerchief across his forehead, uneasy at the sudden bead of sweat. "We're only making things worse. This woman is becoming more and more unreliable."
***
Superwoman uncoupled the locomotive, which plunged into the void, as she pulled the engineers out at full speed and left them on the bridge. The passenger cars jumped off tracks and followed the locomotive in its downfall. Seven passenger cars, all filled with Mozambican miners returning from their season of work in the Transvaal. With her heart pounding with fear and excitement, the Woman of Steel managed in barely a second to bring three of the cars back onto the bridge with her super-strength while its occupants screamed and tumbled. Her super-breath saved the fourth and fifth cars just before they plunged into the water, but she could not stop them from flooding as they floated helplessly while she rushed to save the sixth and seventh cars. She managed to violently push the sixth into the riverbank, which landed noisily on its side, injuring many of its occupants. The seventh crashed into the water... My God, no! The murky river water shattered the glass as the wooden roof of the passenger car cracked.
As fast as she could, Superwoman grabbed all the bodies she could find and deposited them, soaking wet and coughing, on the riverbank. Then, like a hurricane wind, she pushed the two remaining cars into shallow waters, where they were left half submerged, filled with the screams of the passengers as they came out of the car, soaking wet and splashing. All this had happened in just four or five seconds, which seemed like an eternity to her.
The Maid of Might spent several minutes pulling people and their luggage out of the water. There were several injuries, but fortunately no fatalities among the nearly five hundred passengers on the train. Applause and tears of gratitude covered some insults from those who feared the superheroine or somehow considered her the cause of the accident or their injuries. It took her nearly an hour to fly the sixty injured to a Hospital in Pretoria, and then she was lost in the firmament. This was horribly close, hundreds could have died, and I injured many of them... I couldn't do otherwise... Thank God no one died this time. I hate those train derailments, far more difficult than planes and ships!!
Just two weeks earlier, Superwoman was a few seconds late for the crash of a military plane and a DC-4 passenger plane. She had managed to save the latter from crashing to the ground and rescued forty people, but the DC-4 had been badly damaged in the crash with the other plane and some passengers had been killed. She had been unable to save anyone from the military plane. As the Woman of Tomorrow flew through the clouds, she thought again of the Atlantean, who was also a Chilean citizen, the son of a human and an Atlantean, a man between two worlds, like herself. Clara understood with pain why he hated the Kryptonians so much, but she had to know what his people knew about those events thousands of years ago and what technology they were guarding.
In Metropolis, she touched down gracefully in the middle of a park and, still dressed as Superwoman, casually wandered over to buy some flowers. The evening was beginning to fall, casting long shadows across the city. A crowd of children quickly gathered around her, cheering with delight. Some of them let go of their kites and balloons, a playful game that they often used to lure Superwoman to come and get them, a ritual she found charming. As usual, after a few moments with the children, she soared toward the towering Art Deco building of the Daily Planet, its iconic gilded globe gleaming in the twilight. She entered at super speed through a random window, unnoticed by anyone inside. Now dressed as Clara Kent, complete with her large round horn-rimmed glasses and a dark green suit, she hurried toward her office. Before she could make it, she was stopped by Alma Blankenship, the secretary she shared with nearly half a dozen other journalists.
"Miss Kent, I have a written message from Mr. Lane," the woman with thick glasses like her own held out a piece of paper.
Clara's heart skipped a beat. It was the first time in weeks that Louis had communicated with her after what was probably their last bitter argument. Nervously, she unfolded the paper.
Dear Clara,
This Friday, Ronnie and I are having lunch with Roberta Lee, your apprentice. I'd like to have a brief chat with her and give her a small welcome gift. I haven't been able to talk with Roberta at all this week, and I hope you don't mind the initiative. Please confirm whether you plan to attend the luncheon. Personally, I'm more than happy to let things proceed smoothly and politely, so it's not a problem if you wish to join us. However, if the lunch doesn't seem particularly relevant to you, it might be preferable for just Ronnie and me to meet with the girl.
Clara crumpled the paper with anger she could barely hide from Mrs. Blankenship.
"Yes, tell Mr. Lane or his secretary that I won't be coming to the Friday lunch."
Clara knew she needed to meet Roberta. After all, she was the one who had brought the young woman to the Daily Planet and promised to mentor her. Yet, in the two or three days since the girl had started, they still hadn't crossed paths. Both Clara and Superwoman had been swamped with work. Even so, her thoughts drifted back to her painful breakup with Louis. He had finally decided that Clara's double identity was something he couldn't accept. Despite reading the countless letters she'd written through the years, explaining and justifying herself, Louis came to the realization that he couldn't live with the truth. What hurt most, though, and filled Clara with a mix of anger and sadness, was his confession. Louis had admitted that he strongly resented her for keeping her double life a secret from him for nearly four years. That lingering bitterness had driven a wedge between them, one that not even Clara's love or her attempts to explain could bridge.
Clara approached Jimmy, "Is Roberta here?"
"No Clara, she left half an hour ago."
She sighed sadly.
"She left you a present last Friday and asked today if you said anything," Jimmy continued.
"Great Scott! I forgot to open it!" Clara felt like a careless person and hurried into her office.
***
In an elegant room of what had been Lex Luthor's Long Island manor, an older, solemn woman dressed in black, Alice Luthor, Lex Luthor's official widow, listened sadly and wearily to the rage of her daughter, Leda Luthor, who paced irately around her.
"Mercy Graves is missing, probably kidnapped." Leda insisted.
"No, she is not missing, she has contacted her relatives, but no one knows where she is."
"I must find her."
"Leda, that's enough..."
"She knows something, I'm sure."
"Mrs. Graves was on vacation, your father's death devastated her… The destruction of the company. She lived for TELCORP and for your father. She won't understand what has happened."
"You refuse to see reality..."
"Your father asked us to leave Metropolis... He knew he was playing with fire. He knew something could happen with those experiments."
"Why did he do it? Do you think Dad was a madman? What would he have done alone, without backup? Who was with him during the experiment? Why was Meredith Island sealed off for months before that monster appeared? Nobody knows who was with him. No TELCORP employee or scientist is missing except Mercy Graves. It was the damn government. And I'm not going to let them blame my father and destroy all his and Nikola Tesla's legacy."
"Your father made a mistake, an experiment went wrong, a freaking alien monster came out of it, and hundreds of people died. It could have been hundreds of thousands or millions if Superwoman hadn't stopped the creature. We must face the truth."
"IT WASN'T MY FATHER! I'M SURE HE WAS FRAMED!"
"Maybe Superwoman was involved, someway… You know your father hated her."
"Dad was always right about her, always. I'm sure this is a trap."
"Leda, please..."
"Don't you understand, Mom? How can you let them trample on the legacy of a good man? The most brilliant scientist and philanthropist in the history of this country?"
"Your father was a brilliant man... But he had his faults."
"Stop, Mother, he faced the world and the truth without fear and accepted it as it was. He was a brave and an admirable man."
Leda collapsed on a green sofa as she burst into tears. "I will find Mercy Graves; the government must have threatened her. I will expose the government and Superwoman. They can't prove my father is a criminal. You know it. Just look how the expropriation of TELCORP has stalled in court."
"The stock has lost 90% of its value, creditors are taking control of the production units. There is nothing we can do. Your father only owned 12% of the company. The truth is we only have now this house and what is inside. We'll have to sell the patents registered by your father to avoid any litigation. That's it. Accept it." Alice insisted.
"You and Dad started from nothing. You were not like the others. The son of a Czech grocer and the daughter of a village doctor... Mother, we must fight!"
Both Alice and Leda ignored the fact that more than fifteen hundred miles away, Lex Luthor was tossing and turning in his spacious bed in a Nebraska prison camp cell. A prison camp that held only one prisoner with no name or known identity until the government decided what to do with the man who nearly killed Superwoman and was the greatest spy the U.S. government had ever suffered.
***
Gradually everyone left the Daily Planet office until Clara was left alone. Roberta! I'm a disaster! She quickly phoned the girl's house.
"Good evening, sorry about the hour, may I speak to Roberta? This is Clara Kent from the Daily Planet."
"Good evening, Clara! It's me!"
"Roberta honey! How are you? Please forgive me, I'm sorry, I wasn't in Metropolis on Friday… Yesterday and today I had a lot of work, a real madness. Roberta, the bowl is wonderful! It is beautiful! What is it? You didn't leave me a note!"
"It's a Qingming ceremonial incense bowl Miss Kent. It's used for ceremonies honoring ancestors. We have some inherited from my grandmother. It is a very important symbol!"
"Roberta, you shouldn't have bothered, how sweet... Tomorrow do you want to come by the office, have a little chat so you can explain it to me? I loved it. Thank you very much, you really didn't need to..."
"Don't worry Miss Kent! My parents are complaining about me talking on the phone so late. Can I come to the office tomorrow at three o'clock?"
"No doubt! I'll be there! You must tell me in detail about your first days here! Are you enjoying the Planet?"
"Yes, I love it! Tomorrow, I'll tell you everything. Good night, Miss Kent!"
"Good night, Roberta."
Clara hung up and looked sadly at the empty desk where Louis usually sat. A wave of sadness and nostalgia swept through her body, but she also felt some kind of relief. The game of shadows and lies that had lasted almost four years with that severe man, sometimes careless, sometimes charming, had distracted her a lot. Maybe Louis was right, love couldn't conquer everything. She missed him, and Louis' daughter, Emily. But as Superwoman she felt more powerful than ever and fully dedicated to her mission to protect others... Her Eternal Course. And that mission gave her hope and happiness. She was afraid to stop being Clara Kent as Louis and Luthor had mischievously warned her... But she loved flying, and it made her happy to help others.
Clara slowly removed her glasses and took off her green jacket and white shirt, revealing her blue tights and the red and gold crest of the House of El. The long, thin, bright red cape she always wore folded almost imperceptibly across her back unfolded across her body. She undid her bun, letting her wavy, tousled hair loose as she removed her skirt and stockings. Now she was back to being Superwoman, a night of hard work awaited her. She flew out the window.
The cold and rain caused more car accidents and falls of passersby, and with the darkness the few criminals left in Metropolis redoubled their efforts, however the city hardly gave the Last Daughter of Krypton any work anymore, it was barely a safe city on a huge globe that she could travel around in a quarter of an hour if she made her maximum effort.
***
She stopped by Smallville to see her mother and Krypto. Clara could no longer take care of the dog all the time, so she left him with her mother during the week and tried to keep him in Metropolis at the weekends. But it was cruel to have such a big dog in such a small apartment, and Clara did not want to abuse the hospitality of her neighbors, with whom she left the animal in the morning and some afternoons.
Despite the cold, the sky was clear, and a carpet of stars covered Superwoman and Martha, her mother.
"You know, Clara? The night you were born... Well, the night you arrived, but to me it's like you were born then because you were a baby just a few days old... There was a sky like this. It was much colder and there was some snow, but it was a beautiful night. Your father and I looked at the sky until late. Then, just before dawn, but still very dark, you came in. As a huge beep and then a roar. We saw fire in the distance in the field, but it soon stopped. As soon as dawn broke, we gathered our courage and went till the smoke clouds. Your father, well, he didn't want me to go... Oh Clara! How often have I told you this story!"
"No, Mom! I love you telling me this story."
"What a tiny thing you were, look what you have become."
Superwoman smiled and hugged her mother.
"I didn't find anything, Mommy."
"Where, Clara?"
"On Jupiter and its moons, where the government sent me. I didn't hear any signals; I didn't see anything. It's an absurd idea to send me there… Gigantic distances and so far away from the sun my powers are very weak. I told them I could go as far as Uranus, but I don't think I really can."
Martha stroked her daughter's cheeks with a touch of anxiety.
"You're not a goddess, Clara, you told me yourself you're mortal, and I think I knew that since you were a sick child. You can't carry the weight of the world on your back."
Superwoman smiled and sat on the porch steps, stargazing. She spent several minutes thinking about the wondrous colors and shapes she'd seen on Jupiter and Saturn, but which still couldn't compare in the slightest to the wonders of Earth, including the wonders of Smallville.
"Clara, Pete and Lana, well, they're pregnant again. They had this baby girl, and it looks like they're going to bring the third one!" Martha cheered.
"I know, they wrote me!"
"I didn't know you corresponded with them."
"We write from time to time, they've been in touch recently," Superwoman answered warily.
"And what do you think?"
"It makes me very happy; I don't know… I think I should visit them soon."
Distress calls from hundreds of miles away interrupted her thoughts.
"Mother, I must go, someone needs me!"
"Don't worry Clara…"
Superwoman stood up, shaking her long red cape, and lost herself in the stars as her mother looked at her with admiration.
Outside Gotham, Batcave (5:00 am)
Bruce Wayne was still dressed in the wetsuit he wore under his Batman armor. After a night of work, making five arrests while escaping his own, and causing a raid on a brothel, he was now trying to stay awake while listening to a wire recorder with military headphones. The tape was playing an interminable female monologue in Bulgarian. He wrote down the words that were repeated the most and the ones that seemed to rouse that female voice, which was rarely interrupted by another male voice that sounded frightened. The tape lasted three hours. A yawn made him almost fall asleep when he felt someone gently removing his headphones. Bruce jumped out of his chair almost immediately in shock and surprise, only to relax when he saw Superwoman standing before him with an amused look on her face, wrapped in her red cape and holding a box in her hands. With her blue friendly stare already so familiar to him.
"Good night, Bruce."
"Clara, for God's sake! Don't you know how to knock?"
"Great Scott! Last time I checked, the Batcave didn't have a doorbell."
"God bless you, what a scare."
"Doesn't Alfred wake you up and put you to bed?"
"He's suffered my bad reaction when he's scared me. So, he throws a blanket over me when he sees me sleeping in here. That's the thing about my training, in my own way I'm always alert..."
"Well, how are you? Good patrolling tonight?"
"How are you! You've been gone a week!"
"I'm sorry you've had so much work these days that I've been away," Clara replied, emphasizing the word "away".
The superheroine told Bruce in detail about her entire journey to Jupiter and Titan. The desolation and cold, how she had confirmed how much her powers weakened when she moved away from the Sun, and the absence of any signs that might indicate the presence of a spaceship or any kind of life. The Woman of Steel also told him about the unpleasant meeting at the Pentagon and the theories about the mysterious radio signal.
"I brought you the report we received at the Pentagon and a copy of the radio signal. As I told you, Kelex finds it incomprehensible. I don't know, maybe you or Lucius Fox can look at it. Perhaps you'll find something the Pentagon scientists couldn't. As usual, I'm violating my confidentiality obligations."
"Oh… Your confidentiality obligations to the government that hates you... Of course I'll take a look at it, Clara. It's probably nothing, it's either a trace from the Zod's fleet you destroyed three years ago or a recent human signal that was bounced back, or sent by those prehistoric civilizations... Are they going public with these issues, by the way?"
"They will not be releasing any archaeological findings for the time being, just as they will not be releasing the truth of Roswell or the real dimension of Zod's attack and his plans to wipe out all of humanity. They will only recognize they held Kryptonian bodies from the 1946 invasion and that Luthor was "unlawfully" experimenting with one of them..."
"And they did not provide you with any documentation?"
"Well, according to them, Citizen Kala-El has no archaeological or technical training, nor is she a decision-maker or elected official. They will only provide her documents that have to do with Kryptonian technology and alien menaces, if those documents have been produced by the U.S. government. In other words, we still will not have access to the Nazi and Soviet documents the government held. They've only shown me the Antarctic tunnels to the destroyed city, but it's hopeless, as I told you. The only thing remaining are just huge piles of rubble crushed by a mile of ice."
Bruce sighed. "We're still blind to whatever threat is coming down that way."
"We are not blind."
"We're not?"
"Bruce, I need to talk to your Atlantean friend!"
Bruce dropped heavily into an armchair as Superwoman approached him with her arms crossed.
"Clara, I have a tentative pact with him. Arturo Curry is a quite traditional man and very... stubborn. Dear God, try to picture him. He is the half-breed son of a princess from a lost civilization that lives underground or under the sea and a lighthouse keeper who is half Scottish and half Huilliche Indian. For him, it's all traditions and unbreakable pacts, battles, loyalties signed in blood... And well, the only time he's communicated with me lately is to ask me if I have a plan B in case you reveal yourself as a Kryptonian invader."
Clara sighed sadly.
"Bruce, I really need to talk to him. I can fly to Chile in five minutes. I need to know what he and his people know about what happened twelve thousand years ago. I need to confirm that they don't have Kryptonian technology that could cause millions of deaths or attract unwanted visitors."
"According to Arturo, the Atlanteans live in about a dozen underground cities linked to the ocean. He wouldn't say where and warned that his mother reaching Chile doesn't mean they're nearby. He says their civilization is collapsing, down to a few hundred thousand, roughly a tenth of what it was a thousand years ago. Most are fading away, and some try to escape to the surface, as his mother did. He insists they're no immediate threat: they neither want nor are able to rule or settle the surface. They regard humans with wary respect, but the Bomb has shaken them badly, splitting their elite into factions. Arturo goes down often to mediate and advise.
"You told me about all that, but what about me?"
"That is the problem. They hate you. They are ten times more afraid of you than of the atomic bomb or submarines. And Arturo the most. Not only does he have a kind of Atlantean pride, but he also has a "human" pride very similar to Luthor's. They believe that you are probably an outpost of an invasion that will take place decades or centuries from now, when you'll already dominate Earth. The Atlanteans also believe Krypton did not explode, and that Zod's invasion was staged to gain our trust. I told him about your life without revealing your identity, your struggles, your sacrifices, how you defeated the last survivors of Krypton to save all of Humanity... He doesn't believe it. To them, Kryptonians are devils. They really see you as a holder of a satanic role. Atlanteans practice some type of fuzzy monotheism, very Manichean with good and evil... And well, to them, Kryptonians are essentially possessed by evil. And in this case Arturo has mixed this with his father's Christian beliefs, you are an anti-Christ. According to Atlanteans, genetic experimentation and technology caused Kryptonians to lose any essence of goodness. Irredeemable. Understandable, considering the Kryptonians nearly wiped out the world and their ancestors."
"And how did they get their powers?"
"Uh… I don't know, but well, they are very limited, and only a few special people have them, not necessarily the elite. They have high technology for some things, although I don't know to what extent. Arturo wouldn't tell me. He is not a fully enlightened man, but he gave me to understand that they do some have robotics like our electromechanical computers and calculators, but they do not practice genetic experimentation like the Kryptonians. Arturo is fast, can channel electricity, is strong, and has that trident... But if you take away his resistance to cold and water depths, from what I've seen, he's no match for you in terms of power. He's not a threat."
"His trident hurt me, it didn't wound me, but it hurt me. It may have some Kryptonite traces."
"I forgot you met him on the coast of Peru."
"He was rescuing a fishing fleet in the middle of a storm, I wanted to help, and he tried to kill me."
"Like I said, it's understandable. Atlanteans hate you. Arturo won't talk to you. I think he's only nice to me because he found me amusing after he nearly broke my arm, and because he sees me as a way to keep control over you and watch what you're doing. On the other hand, because of his strict moral code, he will never attack you from behind. Arturo will challenge you first or inform you of the breakup of hostilities. I also had a hard time convincing him Barry was no Kryptonian."
"I need to talk to him, show him Kelex, show him the house where I grew up... I'm sure my life has been very similar to his."
"I don't recommend it."
"Tell me where he lives, please."
"Clara, I must convince him little by little. Carefully show him who you are. Get him to agree to a meeting. Let him set conditions... But for now it's impossible. If you go there, he'll react quite violently."
"Does he have a family in Chile?"
"His father, his paternal cousins. He's a boat carpenter and sells pots and pans when he's on shore... And he's tired of drinking. I don't know much more. His father is sacred to him."
"Like my mother is to me."
Bruce hid a grimace of pain... Clara understood and regretted not having measured his words more. Bruce never verbalized his pain.
"And did he tell you anything about what happened 12,000 years ago?"
Bruce laid the story out as a worldview built from myth rather than history or science. Arturo's account cast the Kryptonians as mortal beings manipulated by "Evil" into exterminating humanity through catastrophic forces… Lightning-like strikes that triggered earthquakes, eruptions, tsunamis, and even continental shifts. In the Atlantean framing, it was a mistake to blame God for the Flood; they treated the Old Testament version as flawed and argued instead that humanity, having grown corrupt in the Kryptonians' image, became vulnerable to a war engineered by Evil, one humanity could not win. "Good," or God, could not directly rewrite mortal events, only inspire individuals within them.
From there Bruce summarized Arturo's claim about Noah: the Ark story was true and divinely inspired, but there had been many "Noahs," multiple survivor groups who built arks underground in different places. Arturo even implied his mother descended from one of those survivor tribes. Bruce stressed that none of it sounded systematized, at least not at the level Arturo was willing to share, suggesting Arturo's inner circle likely possessed more advanced knowledge and was withholding it. The practical conclusion, as Bruce framed it, was patience and careful courtship of Arturo's trust, coupled with absolute secrecy: this could not be allowed to reach any government.
The Bat observed a look of concern and sadness on Clara's face, who mumbled something inaudible after a while.
"I didn't hear you, Clara."
"I don't know why everyone distrusts me… This has happened all my life."
"That's not so, Clara."
Bruce began to rummage through his mountains of papers and photographs and pulled out a copy of LIFE magazine. He started flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for and held it out to Clara. It was a picture of her levitating and handing a kite to some children in a random park.
"For most people you are this. You are a symbol of kindness, sacrifice, hope, bravery and even love. Almost everyone believes in you. But terrible things have happened in recent years… The Atlanteans are traumatized by the events of twelve thousand years ago that are the cornerstone of their beliefs. It takes a huge leap of faith to believe that someone who may look like us, but is a stranger, can have such extraordinary powers and be nothing but goodness..."
Clara blushed, "Oh Bruce!" Then she pulled herself together and spoke with authority.
"Bruce, let him hate me, all right. But you must explain everything to him. Zod, Roswell, Doomsday, the radio signal from Titan. The Atlanteans must be aware that there may be something out there. And that Humanity may need their help, even if they want to stay hidden. And if they are so afraid of atomic bombs, they should check also their arsenal. Arturo Curry must understand that we need to know what happened and what they know."
"All right, I will do that. We've agreed to meet soon at a neutral location, offshore."
"That's great... Well, what were you listening to?" Clara tried to change the subject, sounding exhausted.
"Ah, this," Bruce looked back at the wire recorder and started the tapes up, "It's a rather spooky case I'm investigating. A Bulgarian magician and his daughter, who came here in '46, and were making a living with magic acts between Gotham, Boston, Pennsylvania, and Metropolis. With some success indeed. I believe they were of gypsy origin and had a hard time in the war. He called himself Georgi Kzatara and she called herself Zatanna. Two weeks ago, the father disappeared here in Gotham, and his dressing room was found covered with strange, blowtorch-like burns. The daughter refused to cooperate. At first the police doubted she was the daughter and suspected Foul Play, but she seemed extremely sad, and they released her. A week ago, there was an explosion in an old manor in Gotham's East End. Presumably there lived some kind of rich esoteric Serbian madwoman named Selena and several servants. In the rubble they found alive... Zatanna. She claimed that Selena was holding her father and that when she went to free him, Selena blew up the house. The strange thing is that there were hardly any traces of fire, no human remains, and it was a very big house and there was hardly any debris. It's as if the building imploded and was swallowed up by the earth or disintegrated. One witness said the explosion was green. Very disconcerting. Gotham Police have seen some very strange things, more so than their counterparts in Metropolis. They had Zatanna locked up for a couple of days. Only a Bulgarian Orthodox priest came to see her. They talked for three hours, and the priest came out looking pale. Soon after the magician was released and then she disappeared. This is the recording of the conversation."
"How did you get it?"
"Sergeant Blake, one of the few in Gordon's group not on trial or at home on vacation. He found out another officer was taping the conversation, reprimanded him, and pretended to destroy the recording and got it to me. You know, let Batman help us with the strangest things."
"I'm very sorry about Gordon, Bruce."
"He'll come out of it. It really hurts that it's my fault, but it's political payback. D.A. Harvey Dent has no case against him and his men, no evidence of collaboration with me. Only the Bat Signal, but no one is going to testify that I went to those meetings. Gordon's men are upstanding and clean; they can't be pressured with anything. The Gotham police department has already been purged several times since the Prohibition and now it's on fire. Dent will have to drop the case and focus on me. He's humiliated. I hope they reinstate Gordon soon."
"The Metropolis police don't inform me of anything. From now on, I'm just an ordinary citizen. They are panicking that Morgan Edge is going to open a case against them. The prosecutors Luthor got elected are terrible."
"Talking about weird things… How's it going with the Toyman, Clara?"
"No advances. I think I need to dive into the history of the case. I don't want a maniac blowing up restaurants, banks, and toy stores in Metropolis. I let it go because I had too much to worry about everywhere. But now I'm going to take care of it. Especially as, well, a journalist. I think the police will talk to Clara Kent before they talk to Superwoman."
"Too many things... Angry Atlanteans, signals from outer space, the Toyman, this Bulgarian magician case, and the mysterious explosion... We're just getting busier and busier. Clara, you don't understand Bulgarian, do you? I can't take this tape to a translator."
"I think maybe Kelex can help us."
Sentinel Hill, Border between New York State and Miskatonic State
The rain pelted a somewhat rickety wooden house that stood in a clearing surrounded by cottonwoods and willows. The house was on the side of a hill with a steep peak. It was not so far from the village, but the forest hid it. Despite its secluded location and sinister appearance, there was no legend or dark rumor surrounding it. However, the house had changed hands many times. The last time was five years ago, when a kind but scrawny-looking man called Mr. Sebastian arrived. Although he looked like a benevolent person and was very helpful to the village charity, he had a hard time expressing himself, did not interact with anyone, and his body movements seemed very awkward and sick. There was a theory in the village that he was seriously ill. However, he politely refused any help. Some of the women who had come to clean the house said that it was full of electric gadgets and toys, something which increased the small town's curiosity about the kindly, sickly-looking stranger. Of course, the people of the village could not imagine what was going on inside the house.
A fat, grey and red-haired man, dressed in horrible pajamas and a bow tie made of cardboard, was whipping with a cane the kind Mr. Sebastian, who was bleeding from the head and crying on his knees on the floor.
"Coward! Idiot! Ridiculous! Sick! Half a man!"
"Please! I beg you! I beg you, Winslow!"
"No begging! You will do as I command. You've been doing so well all these years without working uh… And you forgot about me while I was in jail! Do you think Dr. Quinzel hasn't told me everything? I even know that you had a girlfriend! You! Such a sick and incompetent man!"
"Winslow, please..."
"Fifteen years in prison! Fifteen years! And you along with your toys and your girlfriends!"
The fat man turned to a teddy bear that seemed to be walking slowly, propelled by some mechanism, and began to lunge at him with the cane.
"Please don't, Winslow! Winslow, no! Please, Winslow! I'll do anything you want!"
"I've been very patient for many weeks. I don't want to hurt you or your imaginary little friends, but we have a lot of work to do."
"Please, I'm just begging you, don't hurt children, I'm begging you. Don't do what you did last time. Do whatever you want to the politicians, the police, the bankers... but please, no children."
"Oh! I never wanted to kill children! But Metropolis needed to understand... And still doesn't! I need to make them understand. I will be more careful this time. You will help me, Sebastian. We will make much more intelligent and effective toys together. Just like when we were toy makers."
Sebastian looked at the fat man as he tried to hold back tears and wiped the blood from his head with a pillow. He looked at Winslow Schott, the man who had taught him his job, the job that had been all he had in his life and had kept him from ending up in a mental institution. But also a man who had gone on to become the most horrible and cruel criminal of the 1930s in Metropolis: the Toyman.
Monday November 21, 1949
Daily Planet
Louis Lane was puffing on his pipe while he calculated the distances on a giant map of Albania left to him by the Un-American Activities Committee. He compared the distances and the relief with the testimony of a person under investigation. But it was impossible to know whether a testimony was plausible or not just by looking at a map, madness. Even a man as anti-Communist as Louis Lane began to doubt that the Committee's methods were logical or valid. In any case, he was only the Committee's ethical advisor and international analyst, he had no other job on the Committee. It was the only job he could combine, non-disclosure agreement notwithstanding, with his new role as book and international events columnist for World Magazine. His days as a reporter were thankfully over, and now all that remained was to find a way to reconnect with the University, having given up any political adventure. The door opened and the unpleasant, unfriendly secretary the Chief Editor had forced him to accept poked her head in.
"Major Lane, Miss Kent is here."
Louis was startled. It was the first time in months that Clara had stopped by his office. What could she want? He carefully folded the map.
"Let her in, please."
Clara came in immediately. Louis felt a pang in his heart, it was still her. A tall, elegant woman, with jet-black hair always tied back in a sleek bun and large round eyeglasses that distorted her features. Now he fully understood why she wore them. He recognized the gray pinstriped suit and the pearl necklace the woman wore as gifts he had given her in the past. Louis felt a wave of melancholy and suspected she wore it on purpose.
"Good morning, Major Lane…"
"Good morning, Clara, please sit down."
"It's very quick, it's just two things…"
"Of course, how can I help you?"
Silence fell between them, and they stared at each other. It was very strange to have such a distant and tense relationship with the woman who had been his assistant reporter, his partner, his lover, almost his wife. But he could not see her as he had always seen her before he discovered that Clara was also the Maid of Might, Superwoman. Since he knew, it was like seeing someone else disguised as Clara, as if Clara was only there at times as a ghost. He could not miss the red cape, even though it was hidden under the reporter's jacket and silk shirt.
"I wanted to thank you for taking Roberta to lunch on Friday and taking care of her. She really liked the silver pen you gave her. You were very kind. Was a very nice gift."
"It was nothing, she is a very bright and very nice girl. Still a teenager with a long way to go, but who knows?"
Clara smiled slightly. "Did everything go well at lunch?"
"Of course, everything was normal."
"She complained about some comments."
"Well, Lombard cracked in front of her that we'd be the Ku Klux Klan's worst nightmare; a black guy, a Chinese gal, and a Catholic son-of-a-Jew all together. She took offense, naturally. But hey, if she wants to make it here, she's gotta roll with the punches. You did the same."
Clara replied with a grunt of discomfort.
"Louis, the other thing... I'm going to take care of the whole Toyman issue."
"You mean, as a journalist, I understand."
"Yes... Exactly. I mean… It's a big risk and I want him caught soon. And well... I need my official job to be related to his pursuit."
"I understand."
Clara found it hard to speak, then she looked sideways at the map.
"And this map?"
"Oh, it's Albania, history stuff."
"I see... Well, Cat passed all her articles and notes on to me. She was the one who did all the follow-up on his crimes and his first capture. But well, in '40 you tried to write a book about him. You did quite a bit of digging into his past according to Cat: his relationships, his life in prison… Do you keep the notes?"
"Yes, Clara, I have five notebooks. I have them at home. I will send them to you if they can help you. Also, if you have any questions about the case, let me know and I'll see what I can do. But I, well, mostly I was trying to understand how a normal man, a successful and shy businessman, an inventor, could have gone almost completely insane. I don't know if my notes will be of any use to you. It's a very dark and unpleasant case, Cat must have told you well."
"Yes, she did, she's brought me all the way in."
There was silence again, which Clara broke trying to sound nice.
"Did you know that the Toyman's psychiatrist, Dr. Quinzel, has disappeared? She was also the psychiatrist of some other very dangerous criminals. She disappeared five weeks before the Toyman's escape. Well, she left her job and her apartment, and now she's nowhere to be found."
"No, I didn't know that. Well, I interviewed her. She was a very beautiful and intelligent woman, but also very strange. The only woman with a psychiatric degree in Arkham, at least in those days. She was a little younger than I was. When I interviewed her in '40, she was not a tenured doctor, just one of the assistants to the prison psychiatrist. She struck me as extravagant...probably leftist or communist, judging from some of her comments. I don't think she's disappeared. Maybe, because of the political stuff nowadays, she has decided to stay out of the way for a while... I'll send you my notes tomorrow."
"Thank you very much, Louis."
"You're welcome."
"How's the Committee coming along?"
"I don't think it's going to last long. They're going overboard."
"I agree. It looks really out of hand, at least for me. I liked something you said the other day, "The answer to the Red Terror can never be the White Terror.""
"Oh yes, they want to crucify me for that. I was supposed to be the most conservative person among the Committee's analysts and advisors."
Clara looked at the floor. She felt anger at the chasm that had opened between them, and the burden of guilt weighing on her conscience, yet she could not shake the feeling that she was being treated unfairly.
"How is Emily?"
"She is very well; she asks very much about you."
Clara looked increasingly agitated and found it difficult to articulate.
"Do you think... Maybe... Maybe... I could see her one afternoon? Take her to the movies or out for a snack?"
Louis sighed in frustration.
"I'm very fine with it, and grateful... The girl is very fond of you. And the situation is confusing for her. But it must be... in a few weeks. I don't know if you know this, but Pat and I have finally started the annulment process. It's a long and difficult process, overseen by a cardinal, and Pat didn't want to start it, now that we were both in very similar situations. I had a hard time convincing her that this was the best thing for her, for the child, and for me. My guess is that she wouldn't be in favor of the fact that you've been with her daughter. It's a sensitive subject for her. Let's wait a little."
"Okie dokie…" Clara seemed so shy and uncomfortable now that Louis could hardly believe she was also the world's strongest being.
"Clara, that was impressive what you did with the volcano in the Pacific."
"Thank you... It was nothing. I must go, Louis."
"Thanks for your visit, you'll have all my notes on the Toyman tomorrow", Louis lowered his voice, "Clara, please be discreet about the Toyman investigation. It's okay for the Daily Planet to run out of headlines on this case, and it's okay for Clara Kent to go through the Toyman case without a peep. The important thing is that you can help us stop him."
Clara nodded in silence and left his office, trying to close the door carefully.
Louis sunk his head in his hands and went back to measuring distances on the map of Albania.
Fortress of Solitude
Northern Alaska
Superwoman floated effortlessly, wrapped in her red cape, her knees drawn to her chest. Before her, Kelex projected a series of bluish, slightly distorted images. It was a real recording, lost across the ages, of her mother. Not one of Kelex's holograms, in which artificial intelligence reconstructed her parents' faces, thoughts, and words, but the record of an actual moment of her mother's life.
Lara was playing an instrument somewhat like a harp, with a soft yet resonant tone. Along its neck were several mouthpieces that produced different sounds, and which her mother would occasionally blow into; it seemed a marvelous and intricate instrument. Lara was singing the Romance of the Jewel Mountains, as Clara had translated it. It told the story of a bandit who, after stealing a cache of jewels and fleeing with his beloved into the mountains, discovered the ruins of an ancient Kryptonian civilization, one of those unknown cultures that vanished with each cyclical destruction. There they had lived happily, attended by the robots that inhabited the ruins, until the army of a local nobleman found them, murdered them, and turned the robots to its own advantage, using them to enslave the peasantry. According to Lara, the romance was three thousand years old. It dated from Krypton's last "recovery" after its most recent cyclical destruction, and it was understood as marking a rupture: the passage from an archaic, rural society to the recovery of a forgotten technology that nevertheless brought greater exploitation and the foundation of the new caste system. The Romance was a lament for that lost, freer, more archaic society symbolized by the bandit and his lover.
Her mother's voice, speaking in Kryptonian, sounded utterly different in that recording from the way her artificial double sounded when speaking to her in English. These days Clara devoted an hour or two every day, whenever her superheroic duties allowed it, to learning Kryptonian and everything she could about Krypton's history and nature. Ever since reformulating the "Teke-Li-Li," her "Eternal Course," she had felt an intense desire to reconcile herself with her world of origin, with everything in it that might still be admired or redeemed. The time she had spent rejecting everything Kryptonian except her parents and Kelex now struck her as a betrayal, or perhaps cowardice, and she felt she had to make amends.
And the deeper she delved, the more Krypton and Earth seemed to her analogous. "Nothing human is alien to me," a Roman had once said; Clara, Kala-El, shared that sentiment. But now she also felt: "Nothing Kryptonian is alien to me." Zod, the castes, imperialism, the technological wars… everything that had horrified her about Krypton still horrified her, and yet it also seemed extraordinarily similar to humanity. In this way, Clara, or Kala, tried to unite her two worlds into one: what she hated, what she feared, what she loved, and what she dreamed of.