SOLITUDE
Part OneI open a bleary eye, the pale moonlight coming in through the window the only light illuminating Lois’s bedroom. She’s cuddled against me, barely half awake herself, her head resting on my chest.
”You’re talking in your sleep again,” she mutters, her words coming out half as a tired groan.
”Is something up?””No, I’m…..I’m all right,” I say, my head still swimming.
”Just a weird dream, is all.””..’kay,” she half-yawns before rolling over.
”Just let me know if things go from normal-weird to dangerous-weird.””Will do,” I say as I lie back down, but even as I say it, I know I’m not going back to sleep tonight. I haven’t been sleeping well at all lately, which is strange, considering that it’s the first time in a long time that things have been relatively calm.
Since the day I put on the cape and made my presence known to the world, I’ve had people coming after me, trying to fight me, arrest me, dissect me, or kill me. At first it was the various crime syndicates and terrorist cells I’d been rooting out. Then it was the military, stirred into a paranoid frenzy by the likes of G. Gordon Godfrey that I was too dangerous to be left outside of their control. Then the Parasite, then Livewire, the Atomic Skull and so on. There’s
always been someone calling me out, someone trying to take me down a peg, someone wanting to make a name for themselves by becoming the Man Who Beat Superman.
Since Toyman was defeated, though, there hasn’t been much of anything. No coordinated black-ops teams trying to set up traps for me, no tragic results of science gone wrong spilling out into the streets, no psychopaths mutated by freak accidents and experimental technology. Even Godfrey has put his “Beware the Superman” narrative on the back-burner, shifting gears to instead praise Lex Luthor to high Heaven every chance he gets.
On
that front, Lois convinced me not to confront Luthor about what the Toyman AI revealed to myself and Batman: that ‘Brainiac’ is a fragment of a vast extraterrestrial intelligence, possibly from my own home world. At least, not until I found actual proof of any wrongdoing. For starters, because tipping my hand too early would give Luthor plenty of time to move his assets around and make any sort of incriminating evidence disappear. Secondly, because, as she put it, “Your Honor, I heard it from a malevolent AI that was based on the consciousness of a severely insane black-hat hacker who died months ago” won’t hold up in any court. And thirdly, because assuming guilt based on a personal distrust is just bad journalism. Tabloid hacks target people looking to connect crimes to them; a reporter worth a damn starts with a crime and looks for the people behind it. Even though my gut tells me Luthor is up to no good, I can’t break in and start tearing up his property without real justification.
Without any major conflicts or crises looming over the city, it feels somehow….hollow. I hate to say it, but even with all the daily bustle, the streets of Metropolis sound eerily quiet without the reverberating sounds of explosions and sirens. That might just be myself becoming too much of an adrenaline addict, something Lois has confessed to being herself-- as much as I want to strive for a better, more peaceful world, I don’t quite feel like myself if I don’t get to swoop in on some imminent catastrophe or another at some point during the day.
But there’s something else…..something…..
calling to me.
It started out back in Smallville, just before my excursion to Gotham. When I went home and found the artifact that Ma and Pa had taken from my pod: a silver ball that hummed with my touch. I could never figure out what it was supposed to be, but when I said the name ‘Kal-El’....when I said my
real name…..it sprang to life, filling my senses with images of an alien world and a strange civilization-- my home planet and people, I assume-- then shot out of the window like a bullet.
Since then, I’ve heard something like an echo of it, an itch in the back of my mind. It was too quiet for me to really notice during all the excitement with Toyman and Batman and the like, but now that things have calmed down, I’ve been hearing it more and more, louder and clearer every day. There’s always been something keeping me from following it to its source, someone in danger, some disaster in need of stopping, but now, in the peace and quiet of the night, it’s too strong to ignore.
I sit back up, then climb out of bed, fumbling in the dark for a moment before adjusting my vision to focus on the lower end of the electromagnetic spectrum, giving myself instant night-vision. I pull on a pair of pants and slip on a T-shirt, before Lois stirs again.
”Clark,” she mutters,
”Where are you going?””Just….out for a second,” I say, unsure of how to explain it.
”I just need to check on something really quick. I shouldn’t be gone long.””...all right….” she says with a sigh.
”Keep your phone on you. If you’re not back in time to make breakfast, it’s your ass, Smallville.””I’ll keep that in mind,” I say with a weak laugh, before climbing out the window and pushing off into the night sky.
There it is again, stronger this time. I drift through the air, all but oblivious to the rooftops I’m skimming. Gradually, I climb up above the city skyline, higher and faster, until before long I’m above the clouds, the air splitting in a white Mach cone in front of me.
North.Whatever this itch is in my head, it gets that much stronger the further north I go. Within a minute, I’m well out of the city, crossing the state line and across the bay, over Gotham and Blüdhaven, up through New York State, then into Canada.
Five minutes later, the air around me is so thin it’s almost impossible to breathe. Below me is a maze of blue and white, glaciers and icebergs adrift in the deep-freezing waters of the Arctic Circle. Above that, ribbons of green and purple lights dance along the curvature of the Earth, the aurora borealis a surreal view from low orbit.
Even so, I can’t bring myself to stop and take in this beauty. I have to keep going. I have to find this voice.
I push on, the signal now getting stronger the closer I get to the ground. As I pass back down into the troposphere I see something: dark clouds, whirling with hurricane force. Were there any buildings in that storm, it would knock them down as if they were made of cards. Any vehicle that went into that maelstrom would be swept away, then smashed to bits on the ice likely miles from where it went in.
Whatever this place is, it’s certain death for any normal man.
And yet, I know this is exactly where I’m being called. I ball up my fists, clench my teeth, and I plunge headlong into the heart of the storm.
KRA-KOOOOM!
I’m greeted with a deafening clap of thunder, a bolt of lightning arcing through the clouds so close to me it makes my hair stand on end. Flying this far into the storm is like slamming into a concrete wall, the wind so strong it nearly pulls me out of the sky immediately.
”Hnnngh!” I grunt, straining to keep airborne.
”Have to…...keep…...going!”I force myself deeper into the storm, the air moving so quickly now the sheer friction starts to shred my shirt away and rub my skin raw. The gravitational field that provides my flight, strength, and invulnerability is starting to waver under the strain, slowly stripping away like dirt from a building being hit with a sandblaster.
I can take a hit like probably nobody else in the world. Missiles, lasers, bombs, even a nuclear blast. But those hits are all sudden, all momentary. You can’t destroy a landmass just by dropping a big enough bomb on it. Run a river through it, though, and over time you can effectively cut a continent in half. Just flying in and out of this storm would be one thing. But staying in it, enduring the eroding winds hitting me from all sides without letting up, is beginning to wear me down.
Eventually, I’m forced to the ground, trudging forward on foot, putting every bit of strength I have into keeping my invulnerability up. I’m in too far to turn back now. I have to find the eye of the storm, or I’ll be broken down and lost in the storm.
”Who are you?!” I call out, my voice lost immediately in the deafening winds.
”What do you want from me?!”I don’t expect an answer, and I receive none. Nevertheless, I push forward.
Every step I take is a battle now. Every inch I gain, I have to fight for as if my life depends on it. Every stumble is a catastrophe.
I don’t know how long I’m in the storm. Minutes, hours, days. Time starts to lose any sort of meaning.
Still, I keep going.
…...and then…..it stops.
I stagger forward, the wall of impenetrable wind suddenly giving way as if it weren’t there at all. Dazed and confused, I turn to see the storm raging just inches behind me, but it’s as if I’m watching it from the other side of a window. Above me, stars twinkle in the deep blue.
I’ve reached the heart of the storm. Or, more accurately, I’ve reached an area that seems to be unaffected by the storm completely.
Ahead of me is a tall cliff, walls of rock and ice reaching up to a treacherous peak. I curl my fingers into claws and dig into the rock face, then I begin to climb. My muscles ache, my bones creak, my body begging for rest after braving the storm.
But I can’t stop now. Not when I’m this close to…...I don’t even know. I have no idea what’s waiting for me at the summit. Answers about my home world, perhaps. Or maybe a trap, luring me to my death. All I know is I
have to reach it.
The rational part of me knows this is insane. It’s possibly suicidal, in fact, and at the very least it’s irresponsible. But the rational part of me isn’t in control right now. There’s something else, something primal in my mind, pushing me forward, even when common sense has been screaming this entire time to turn around and go back to bed, back to Lois.
My entire life, I’ve felt there’s been something missing, a piece of myself scattered somewhere in the world. And now, here, at the top of the world……
…...I may have found it…...
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