Greg Cox - Man of Steel

“Can I help you?” the priest asked.

Clark looked up to see the priest gazing down on him with a concerned expression on his face. Memories of Smallville retreated, as his present-day dilemma descended on him like the alien ship hanging in the sky.

“I’m sorry, Father,” he apologized, reluctant to burden the man with his troubles. “I just… needed someone to talk to, I guess.”

“I’d be happy to sit with you, if you like.” He joined Clark in the pew. “What’s on your mind?”

Clark doubted the priest had ever heard a confession like this before.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Wherever you want.”

Clark began cautiously, keeping things vague.

“In my work… I often have the opportunity to save people.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“It is. But sometimes I have to make choices —”

Father Leone nodded as if he understood.

“Every time a doctor has to triage a patient, or a dispatcher has to decide where to send a squad car, they’re choosing , he said. “It’s part of life. That’s what makes us human.”

Clark took the plunge.

“What if I’m not human?”

The priest’s eyes widened in surprise. An uneasy expression came over his face. Clark heard the man’s pulse speed up.

“The ship that appeared last night,” he said. “I’m the one they’re looking for.”

Clark half-expected Father Leone to run for help, perhaps shout for the authorities, but the priest stayed where he was. Although his body language was considerably warier than it had been before, the father kept on talking to him.

“Do you know why they want you?”

Clark shook his head.

“No,” he admitted. “I’ve lived here my whole life. Until last night, I thought I was the only one of my people left. But this General Zod—” He decided to spare the priest a lesson in Kryptonian history and politics, which he still barely understood. “Even if I surrender, there’s no guarantee he’ll keep his word. But if there’s a chance I can save earth by turning myself in, shouldn’t I take it?”

Father Leone regarded him with obvious sympathy. He seemed to understand the tremendous weight of Clark’s dilemma. There was so much at stake—including, perhaps, the fate of two very different peoples. How could even a superman know what was best for the world?

“You want me to make the choice for you,” the priest said gently. “I can’t.”

Clark’s shoulders slumped. For the first time since learning to fly, he felt trapped. Was this what Krypton’s terrible gravity felt like? He wished his human father was still alive to counsel him.

“What does your gut tell you?” the priest asked.

“That Zod cannot be trusted,” he replied. Zod had launched a civil war on Krypton, and Clark shuddered to think what he had in store for Earth. “Problem is, I’m not sure the people of Earth can be, either.”

He realized how harsh that sounded. He hoped Father Leone didn’t take it the wrong way, as a threat or a rebuke. Fearing he’d said too much, Clark stood up and started to ease his way out of the pew.

“Look, I’m sorry I bothered you.”

The priest waved away Clark’s apologies. Then he offered the best advice he could.

“Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith first,” he said. “The trust part comes later.”

How much did Clark trust humanity?

And how far did he have to go to earn their trust?

“Where is the alien, Ms. Lane?”

General Swanwick leaned across his desk at NORTHCOM HQ. Colonel Hardy and Dr. Hamilton— whom Lois remembered from Ellesmere—were also taking part in the interrogation. A pair of federal agents stood guard by the door, just in case she tried to make a break for it.

Fat chance, Lois thought. She knew better than to try to get past an army of soldiers on high alert. She’d have better odds breaking out of a supermax prison.

“I told you,” she said irritably, “I don’t know.”

“The FBI have your hard drive, your emails,” Hardy said, playing bad cop. “They know you were tracking him. Keeping silent doesn’t benefit anyone.”

Except maybe Clark, she thought. And everyone who’s depending on him.

“We believe the ship you discovered transmitted a signal that guided the visitors to Earth,” Emil Hamilton stated. “The question is, why is this particular individual so valuable to them. Did he ever discuss a motive for his people’s journey?”

Lois kept silent, unwilling to reveal anything that might be used against Clark. She stared back at her interrogators without flinching. She wasn’t about to let anyone intimidate her—not even a five-star general.

“Be reasonable, Ms. Lane,” Swanwick said. “If you’re found guilty of treason, you could be given the death penalty.”

“I’ve been threatened with death before, General,” she responded. “It doesn’t scare me.”

“Then what about the aliens that levied this ultimatum?” he countered. “Because they sure as hell scare me .”

Lois knew how he felt, but she held her tongue. Clark wasn’t like them—he wasn’t the enemy, of that much she was sure.

“He’s not human, Ms. Lane.” Swanwick pounded on his desk in frustration. “Why are you protecting him?”

“I’m not!” she blurted. “He doesn’t need my protection. We need his.” She tried her damnedest to make them understand. “If we give him up, there’s no one left to stop them. They know that. That’s why they want him!”

The general’s aide, Captain Farris, rushed into the office. She was breathless, and very flustered.

“Sir, we’ve, umm, got a situation out at the North Gate.”

Swanwick had read the leaked accounts of Lane’s experiences in Arctic. He had been briefed on the alien’s alleged superhuman abilities. Even so, as his Humvee pulled up to the gate, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

A caped figure, clad in red, blue, and gold, hovered in the air above the base’s main gate, brazenly defying gravity. A stylized “S” was emblazoned on the chest of his uniform, while his crimson cape flapped gently in the wind. A dark-haired Caucasian male, the man matched the description of the alien who had infiltrated the base at Ellesmere—and absconded with the buried spaceship.

He looked surprisingly human.

Battle-clad soldiers scrambled in response to the incursion, bringing their weapons to bear, but the floating stranger appeared unconcerned by the battery of automatic rifles, handguns, and missile launchers that were targeting him. Swanwick wondered what he knew that they didn’t.

He and Hardy got out of the vehicle. He approached the intruder.

“All right,” Swanwick said. “You’ve got our attention. What do you want?”

“I want to talk to Lois Lane.”

Swanwick hedged, testing the intruder’s intel.

“What makes you think she’s here?”

“Don’t play games with me, General,” he said without hesitation. “I’ll surrender. But only if you guarantee Lois’s freedom.”

Swanwick weighed his options. Taking the alien into custody seemed worth the risk. He nodded, and the figure descended to the pavement, touching down as lightly as an army chopper—or a dancer.

An armed security team cuffed the prisoner and marched him toward the compound. Experienced military personnel, most of whom had seen combat, nervously watched as he passed by. Nothing in their training had prepared them for a close encounter like this.