A helicopter flew over the snow covered trees, swooping low between the mountains as it swings north-west, a military base revealing itself only a few moments later.
When the helicopter touches down an Air Force Colonel hops out, and is met by another military man the moment he is within earshot. "Sergeant."
"Colonel Wilson, Sir?" The man just off the helicopter nods and hurries by, forcing his underling to follow as he heads toward the command tower. "Though we have been preparing for your arrival we have to delay our deployment. This way please." Colonel Wilson says nothing as he follows the Sergeant inside.
When inside he is lead to a small office where another man sits, just putting the radio down. "Commander, this is Colonel Wilson." the Sergeant introduces.
The Commander sizes him up for a moment before saying, "Quite a lot of stuff you're taking north through my base. Anything you can actually tell me about it?"
"Black Ops." The Colonel replies, "I don't even know what I'm looking for."
"Surely you must have some idea."
"From the men and equipment, some sort of dig site."
"In the ice?"
"Orders are orders." The Colonel looks at him for a moment before pushing on, "I hear you're trying to delay my deployment."
"Not me, Colonel." he replies, "We've got a burning oil rig down south, and since there isn't much to offer from anyone else in the way of help..."
"You need all the help you can get." The man at the desk nods. "What do you need?"
"I've got the five helicopters being emptied as we speak, but currently only three pilots here and fit. And half a dozen men already loading up."
Colonel Wilson smiles for a response. "You've got five pilots now."
Only a handful of minutes later the five aircraft were in the sky, heading south-south-west toward a rising smoke plume out in the ocean. A dozen men are standing on the helipad, engulfed in smoke, nowhere to go. Inside six men are trapped on the bottom of a stairwell, thirty feet above them the room torn apart with no way up, and the door in front of them open only an inch but blocked by a fallen steel beam.
Colonel Wilson flew his helicopter around the oil rig, spotting a couple of men trapped in an upper room. He calls it out to the two men he has in the transport bay, then banks the aircraft through the smoke and brinks it into hover over a cross-beam. As the one of the two men he has is lowered down onto by a cable he sees the two trapped men start to inch out toward him, while down and to his left he sees people on the helipad flood back as the transport helicopter comes in for a landing.
In the stairwell one of the men has a broken leg, and another has broken down in tears, across them you can see the loss of hope. They all look at each other, well and truly believing that this is the end. When suddenly they all look up as they hear a steel screech, accompanied by a deep grunt of argh, and the door swings back a little bit before there is a slam.
One of the men gets up to push the door open the rest of the way as the oil rig trembles around them like an earthquake, threatening to throw him into the door frame as he does so. When the door is open they see that the steel beam is gone, and the hallway beyond is relatively clear, and though the fires are growing they are not overwhelming. The moment after it has sunk in that they might yet live, the man at the door turns, helps up the man with the broken leg as he shouts, "COME ON!" And with another man they lead the way down the suddenly clear route toward another stairwell where they can make their way up.
Outside, Colonel Wilson has nerves of steel as he holds steady while the oil rig begins collapsing around him. One eye constantly on the beams to his right, he sees them start to bent down toward his aircraft as the two trapped man are lead across the beams. "Better haul arse, we could be in serious trouble any second."
"Almost there." comes back across the radio. Not a moment later the Colonel glances down to see the first man getting lashed to the harness and pulled up. He looks to his right to see the beam tremble in his direction. The helicopter never moves as he looks behind him to see his second man pull the harness off the oil rigger and toss it back out. Down and to his left, beyond those waiting to get into his helicopter he sees the helipad, and the transport still waiting there with no one getting inside. "What's going on down there, transport?"
"Supposedly there's still men inside, Sir."
"This thing is gonna crumble any minute." he replies, turning from the second oil rigger getting pulled up to see the beams to his right tremble once again.
Inside, the steel groans and squeals around the six men as they make their way up the rig, the flames crackling and churning, burning hot as they surge and ebb. They somehow manage to stumble through the rig without another incident, and fill with relief when they reach the helipad to see the military helicopter waiting. The six men are halfway to the helicopter when the whole rig trembles and tips slightly.
Colonel Wilson hears the groan and quickly turns to see the beams to his right bend and fall toward him. All he hears in his ear is, "GO-GO-GO!" And he instantly pulls the aircraft to the side, flowing across and then dropping out through the smoke as the steel frame collapses and smashes into the building the two men were trapped in, already forcing that to crumple under the weight as it disappears from his vision, hidden by the smoke.
The six men on the helipad freeze as they see the frames come crashing down toward them. But at the last moment they hear it crash and groan as it comes to a stop, as one they look down to see why, and collectively still do nothing until they hear the man shout, voice strained, "I can't hold this all day!" and they jump into action, hurrying into the transport helicopter.
The moment Colonel Wilson has come clear of the collapsing rig he glances over his shoulder to see the man who had gone down onto the cross-beams just getting pulled aboard by the others. Breathing a sigh of relief he looks ahead and banks around the rig again to join the other helicopters and head back north, when he sees the transport only just lifting off from the helipad. And beyond it, the entire upper frames of the oil rig has collapsed on itself, all falling down onto the helipad, where there is a man standing there, in just his pants, holding it all up with his bare hands.
The man had his back turned to them, facing in toward the oil rig he was holding up above the transport as it pulled away. Shocked, as he was sure everyone else was, he and the other four helicopters just circled until the rig collapsed the rest of the way, falling in a crumbling, burning heap on the man that had appeared from nowhere and stuck around to help. And yet, Colonel Wilson only felt uncomfortable about it as he lead the helicopters back north, away from the smouldering ruin.
Clark lay in the water amongst the flaming debris for what felt to him to be the longest time. He found a calming sense of peace with his ears in the water, hearing the softening crashes and crumbles of the oil rig as it fell deeper and deeper. He even heard a few whale calls getting further away as the sun inched closer to the horizon.
At the Air Force Base, the Commander strolls through the temporary hospital that has been set up for the oil rig situation, not a man among the rescued being allow out of the building.
Colonel Wilson is in a room, typing away at a laptop. Some of it reads: "...only reason everyone survived is because of this man. Who, I repeat, was able to bear the weight of the majority of the collapsing oil rig, using only his bare hands." When the doors open the Commander appears, stepping inside.
Colonel Wilson looks over the top of the computer screen, clearly waiting for the Commander to speak. "Anything you would like to tell me about what happened out there?"
The Colonel goes back to typing on the laptop as he responds. "Zero deaths and no missing have been reported. Beyond that, I could not truly say."
"They say they saw a man."
"Did they?"
"It's from everyone. To a man, they all say that there was someone else." The Commander steps inside more, disappointed that the Colonel does not look at him. "He came out of nowhere, and held up the structure before it would have collapsed, allowing the transport to take off when it otherwise wouldn't have."
"People say a lot of things." On his laptop he opens up an email account and sends the report he just typed to his superiors, then closing the machine. "The trick is sorting out the fact from fiction, Commander. The problem is that people seem to want to blur the line more with each passing year."
"Could you imagine though?" The Commander says, wide-eyed, unable to comprehend, "If a man like that, actually existed?" He puts an arm out, leaning against the wall. "The strength to level a building, with only your hands. Fundamental to your existence, no tools." He looked at the Colonel, meeting his gaze, "Do you think he survived?"
"It is possible." Colonel Wilson said without hesitation, leaning back as he continues, "What concerns me though is that where there is one, there would be more." then after a pause his finishes contemplatively, "Cities would tremble. They would walk as titans."
"We would look so small."