Superman: Dawnbreaker (DC Icons #4)(78)
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.”