Superman

by Matt De La Peña

  He had assumed that Montgomery had ordered the soldiers to shoot at him, but now he saw that he was mistaken. Because here was Bryan, speeding up the hill in a jeep under a barrage of gunfire.

  Montgomery had ordered them to shoot at Bryan.

  His own son.

  Clark swooped back down just as Bryan’s jeep skidded to a stop beyond the crest of the hill. There was shouting below, and more shooting, as the line of fighters in their brown uniforms continued to advance.

  Bryan threw open his door and called to Clark, “What now?”

  “The helicopter!” Clark grabbed a large plastic jug out of the back of the jeep and hurried toward the chopper. He set the jug inside the cab. “What happened?”

  “My dad saw me going for Structure A!” Bryan shouted. “And he knew!” He hopped into the cockpit, trying to catch his breath, and turned the key. The engine roared back to life, and the blades above them began to turn.

  Clark spotted blood trickling down Bryan’s forearm. “You’re hit!”

  Bryan shook his head. “It barely grazed me. Come on!”

  Clark hoisted the jug onto his lap. It had to contain at least three gallons of the liquid antidote. He peered through the back window and saw that the soldiers were now coming up over the crest, weapons drawn. “Can you fly over the top of them?”

  Bryan quickly lifted the helicopter into the air, spun it around, and started moving forward, directly toward the soldiers in brown, who all raised their weapons at once and began to fire.

  An onslaught of bullets peppered the bottom of the helicopter as Bryan made a pass over their heads. Shots pinged against the metal floor and the siding and punched into the belly. Several holes appeared beneath Clark’s feet as he unscrewed the plastic lid and attempted to pour a small portion of the sloshing antidote onto the men below. But he stopped immediately when the wind caught the liquid, carrying it into the side of the helicopter.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  Bryan adjusted the controls, and the helicopter lurched higher.

  “Bring it down again!” Clark yelled over the hum of the whipping blades. “I’m going to try going underneath!”

  As Bryan looped around, preparing for a second pass, Clark watched his friend’s fingers move gracefully over the control panel. A look of calmness had settled on his face. This was where Bryan belonged. This was where he was at home.

  Clark climbed beneath the helicopter with the antidote. He clung to the lone remaining landing skid, preparing himself to splash it over the soldiers’ heads.

  As they approached the men again, this time at a lower altitude, Clark saw several police cars pulling into the field in the distance. And he saw some of the men in business suits fleeing in large black SUVs. At the very least, he’d led the cops to the scene of the crime. But what if Montgomery turned his soldiers on the cops? They’d fire back. They wouldn’t know any better. And how many innocent people would get hurt?

  This had to work.

  The soldiers were now kneeling on the crest of the hill, leveling their weapons at the quickly approaching chopper, eyes trained on their target.

  Bryan flew right over their heads this time.

  Directly into the line of fire.

  Bullets seared into Clark’s back as he attempted to dump more of the antidote onto the brainwashed men. He saw the spray rain down on one of the men, who dropped his weapon immediately and sat on the grass. Then another man let go of his weapon. But the yellow liquid came out haphazardly. It touched only four of the men, and one continued to discharge his weapon. The other three soldiers had gone to the ground, clearly confused, while the soldiers around them fired at Clark and the battered helicopter.

  This wasn’t going to work either.

  The chopper was already badly damaged, and Clark worried about Bryan. He still had about 90 percent of the liquid left. Their only hope was to somehow create a mist that would rain down on all the men at once.

  But how?

  As Bryan lifted the helicopter into the sky, Clark climbed up the side and looked around for some kind of tool he might be able to use. But there was nothing.

  He studied Bryan. “You okay?”

  Bryan didn’t take his eyes off the battered windshield in front of him. “We have to go again, Clark!” he called over the roar of the helicopter.

  “You’re hurt!” Clark pointed at Bryan’s jeans, the right side streaked with blood.

  “Please, Clark!” Bryan spun to face him. “I have to do this. I can see that now.”

  Clark crouched there, frozen. Bryan had obviously been hit. More than once, by the look of it. He needed medical help. Now. But Clark also saw the conviction in his friend’s eyes.

  “One more pass!” Clark shouted. “If this one doesn’t work, I’ll try something else!”

  Bryan quickly spun the machine around. “Clark!” he called, without making eye contact. “I’m sorry!”

  Clark could feel Bryan’s words land deep inside his chest. “Me too,” he whispered. He wanted to say something more, but there was no time. Instead, he hauled himself and the antidote up onto the side of the helicopter, his head only inches from the violently whipping blades. The soldiers knelt on the crest of the hill, readying themselves for another barrage of gunfire.

  Clark didn’t know how much more damage the chopper could withstand. There were bullet holes in the bottom of the fuselage, as well as in both sides. The driveshaft was smoking, and the tail boom was slightly askew. The front windshield was so badly spiderwebbed that he wondered if Bryan could even see where he was flying.

  “Ready?” Bryan shouted up to him.

  “Ready!” Clark responded. He took a deep breath, and glanced up at the whipping blades.

  He knew he only had one shot at this. If it failed, it was over. And he didn’t know what would come next.

  He couldn’t think that far ahead.

  As soon as the chopper neared, the men in brown began to fire, and this time the barrage was relentless. Clark waited until the last possible second before heaving the entire plastic container up toward the spinning blades.

  Time slowed to a crawl as soon as the antidote left Clark’s hands, his brain registering several small details….

  The men beneath them, angling their weapons up toward the struggling chopper. The subtle kickback of their weapons after every shot fired.

  Bullets punching into his legs and side like firebrands.

  The plastic jug colliding with the whipping blades, exploding into a million little pieces, creating a great yellow mist that rained down on everyone and everything below.

  Bryan lifted the battered helicopter up into the air, and Clark leaned over the side, watching in awe. Dozens of men stopped firing at once. They dropped their weapons in bewilderment and stood around looking at one another.

  The air was thick with the antidote, but in seconds the cloud dissipated, revealing the ground below, coated in yellow, as if the soldiers were kneeling in a field of bright yellow marigolds.

  Clark was about to climb back into the cockpit of the helicopter to check on Bryan, when he spotted Montgomery jumping into one of the large trucks, trying to escape the cops who had him surrounded. They aimed their weapons at the vehicle as Montgomery sped directly at two police cruisers parked sideways. Bullets pierced the truck’s windshield, but Montgomery managed to crash through the small gap between the cruisers and sped down the old country road.

  Clark dropped off the top of the helicopter and extended his right arm outward, zipping through the air as everyone below looked up, audibly gasping. He crashed through tree limbs on his descent and flew to the driver’s-side window of the truck. When Montgomery spotted him, he panicked, cranking the steering wheel to the right, and crashed right into a tree. The front of the vehicle folded in on itself and the airbags deployed, trapp
ing a bloody-faced Montgomery in his seat as the car alarm blared.

  Two police cruisers screeched to a stop beside the truck. Officers flung open their doors and yanked Montgomery out of the cab and onto the ground, where they cuffed him on the spot.

  Clark looked up and saw Bryan’s helicopter now hurtling out of the sky.

  He sprinted a short stretch before taking flight again. With a desperate lunge, he made it to the battered helicopter just before it crashed. This time Clark didn’t even bother with the chopper itself. He yanked Bryan out the side door seconds before the machine hit the ground at a tremendous speed. It exploded on impact.

  The plume of fire that rose from the crash site caused Clark to tumble in the air while he clutched Bryan’s limp body in his arms. When Clark finally regained control, he saw several slick swatches of blood oozing through his friend’s shirt.

  He’d taken two bullets in the chest.

  One in the stomach.

  Clark hurried to the ground, laying Bryan down gently on a pale yellow patch of dirt. He immediately started CPR, pumping Bryan’s chest desperately. He pinched his friend’s nose and breathed into his mouth. Clark repeated this process again and again and again, his own heart racing, bile rising up into his throat.

  But there was no pulse in Bryan’s limp body.

  No breath in his lungs.

  After several minutes Clark set down Bryan’s limp head and covered his own face with his hands and rocked back and forth, back and forth, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  How could Bryan be gone?

  He was just flying the helicopter.

  He was just asking Clark to make one more pass.

  Clark’s chest closed in on itself, and a kind of paralysis spread through his veins.

  All his life he’d longed to feel the way everyone else around him seemed to feel. But now it came crashing down on him at once, and it was utterly debilitating. He peered down at his friend’s slack face, his eyes open but devoid of life, and suddenly Clark was struck by the precariousness of this world. How quickly a life could end. Even Clark’s speed had not been enough to stop Death. Sadness filled his chest with a weight so heavy that it felt like he was sinking into the earth below him.

  A swarm of police cars and black SUVs were now pulling up in front of Clark. Men and women in blue FBI jackets were stepping out of open doors and starting toward him.

  Clark gently lowered Bryan’s eyelids and looked toward the hill, where the men in brown were now standing in the yellow field.

  They were going back to their families because of Bryan.

  Cruz was going home to Carlos because of Bryan.

  Across the field, Clark saw Lex get out of one of the back seats, gripping his handheld satellite device and pointing up the hill to where Corey and Dr. Wesley were. Several federal agents set off in that direction on foot.

  The two nearest federal agents raised their weapons at Clark.

  He reluctantly pulled away from Bryan’s side and stood, holding up his hands. “Leave the men in brown alone,” he said. “They’ve all been drugged and brainwashed by the Mankins Corporation.”

  A woman in an FBI jacket stepped forward, motioning for her agents to lower their weapons. “Just stay where you are,” she said, cautiously approaching. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

  A group of paramedics hurried toward Bryan with a stretcher. Clark watched them drop next to his friend’s motionless body and begin testing for vital signs.

  Down by the road Montgomery was being pushed into the back of a police cruiser.

  One of the agents came closer to Clark, an uncertain look on his face. “Who…are you?” he asked.

  Clark looked up at the man and shook his head. “I’m nobody,” he said.

  Then he rocketed back up into the sky.

  Everyone on the field stopped what they were doing to look up.

  They craned their necks to watch him shoot straight into the atmosphere. Even after he was nothing more than a tiny black dot among the distant clouds, they were still watching.

  “Can you believe this?” Lana shouted as they walked through the crowded school hall. She held up the newspaper again, shoving it right in Clark’s face this time. “Front-page story in the Daily Planet. By some junior reporter who just happened to be in Smallville covering the Mankins launch event. This was supposed to be my story, Clark!”

  He pushed up his glasses. “I’m sorry,” he told her, glancing at the headline now circulating in newspapers and online articles all across the country:

  A SUPERMAN SAVES THOUSANDS AMID MANKINS SCANDAL

  By Lois Lane

  Under the headline was a huge color photo of Clark in his suit. His face was turned away from the camera, but his family crest was clearly visible on his chest, his cape billowing behind him.

  It turned out that no cameras had been able to capture his face that day. In nearly every photo that surfaced in the aftermath, Clark’s face either was turned away or was nothing but a grainy, blurry smudge. Even in the one image taken straight on, no one seemed to see Clark.

  It was Monday, and everyone, including the teachers, was buzzing about Superman.

  “You’re still in high school,” Clark told his best friend as they stopped at the top of the steps outside. “Your time will come.”

  “Of course they made it all about Superman,” she said. “That’s the sensational angle, right?” She reached for his arm. “But Paul told me what you did for me, Clark. Thank you. I would have included that part in the story, too.”

  “It’s okay,” Clark said, stifling a grin.

  “There’s actually a lot of stuff I would have put in the article,” Lana said, lowering her voice as a group of freshmen walked past them.

  “Like what?” Clark asked.

  “Well, for one thing, officially the strange chemicals that the Mankins Corporation had been developing were recovered from the company’s various facilities,” Lana said. “And are now in the possession of proper authorities.”

  “But unofficially?” Clark asked.

  She shook her head and looked around to make sure no one else was listening. “From what I heard, LuthorCorp bought out what was left of the Mankins Corporation immediately. Rumor has it they obtained some files that had yet to be recovered by authorities. Protected by some obscure trade law.”

  Clark nodded. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “But I think it goes beyond Lex having ulterior motives,” Lana said. “Apparently, his father sent him out here to investigate Project Dawn. He knew Mankins was behind it all along. And now that LutherCorp has the Project Dawn files, who knows what they’ll do with them. I wouldn’t put it past them to make a deal with a dictator.”

  Clark shook his head. “I definitely don’t think we’ve seen the last of Project Dawn. Lex and his dad are smarter, too. Which makes it even more dangerous.”

  They both went quiet for a few seconds, Clark realizing there would always be another evil to contend with.

  “But I don’t want to dwell on that right now,” Lana said. “What matters is that the soldiers all lived. Thanks to Bryan and Superman.” Lana shook her head. “Not that the Planet disclosed exactly how. They kept that part weirdly vague.”

  “So that’s what everyone’s calling him, then?” Clark asked. “Superman?”

  “I guess so,” Lana said, clearly irritated. “I would have come up with something much better.”

  “I just wish they’d highlighted Bryan more,” Clark said. “He was the real hero that day.”

  Lana squeezed his wrist. “Losing Bryan was hard.”

  Clark nodded, looking at the floor. It killed him that he couldn’t scream from a mountaintop about the tremendous sacrifice Bryan had made for Smallville. But, of course, Clark wasn’t supposed to have been there,
witnessing Bryan’s death. Unable to save his friend. “I keep expecting him to text me,” Clark said, meeting eyes with Lana. “You know, to go get food at All-American or something.”

  Lana nodded and squeezed Clark’s hand again as a bunch of other Smallville High students moved past them, toward the parking lot.

  “We’d better go, Clark.” Lana pointed to her watch. “We don’t want to miss the march of the scumbags.”

  They continued to her car and drove downtown, where they were just in time for the march. From the back seat Clark grabbed the poster he and Lana had made the night before in the library. When they arrived at the courthouse steps, there was a swarm of people out front. A handful of reporters fought their way to the front of the anti-Mankins protesters. This time there were as many white people protesting as Mexicans. Everyone in Smallville had seemingly come together to denounce the Mankins Corporation.

  Cameras flashed as Montgomery Mankins was led out of the building in handcuffs. Reporters shouted questions, but he ignored them all. He held his head high, trying to hold on to his air of authority and dignity even in the face of defeat. But it was impossible. The man would never see another day outside jail. And that, Clark reasoned, was justice.

  As Montgomery neared, Clark and Lana unfolded the poster and held it up over their heads. The man slowed to read the message as he walked past Clark and Lana. FOR BRYAN. Montgomery paled as he made eye contact with them before being pushed along by Deputy Rogers.

  Lana turned to Clark as he folded their poster. “It’s pretty satisfying to see the once-mighty fall.”

  Clark stared up into the clouds. “If only it could bring Bryan back somehow.”

  Lana nodded. The two of them turned to watch Montgomery be loaded into a police van, then started back to Lana’s car.

  * * *

  —

  They made it back to school just in time for their final class with Mrs. Sovak. Clark shifted uncomfortably in his creaky wooden seat, trying to focus on her lecture. Instead of a final this semester, she simply wanted to talk about current events. But unlike all Clark’s other teachers, who wanted to talk about Superman and the Mankins Corporation, Mrs. Sovak wanted to discuss immigration. “As you know, several community members and I have been pounding the pavement, collecting signatures to try and kill the stop-and-search issue before it even goes to a vote. Well, I’m thrilled to announce we ended up with more than twice as many signatures as we needed. It has officially been dismissed as of two o’clock this afternoon.”