16

June 21, 2000

I failed ! Never before have I ever felt so powerless against a foe as the one I faced in the last few days. He calls himself Brainiac, and as evil as any enemy I have ever faced. It began when Lois and I were covering the space shuttle's latest trip. Lois had the honor of being the first reporter in space.

Her training had her on a rigorous schedule for months, and when the time came for the launch, she was more than ready to go. I had told her how worried I was that she was on the trip and of course she thought I was being silly. She said, "Clark, you've got to stop being so afraid all the time. It's sweet of you to worry about me, but what good is it to be alive if you don't live ? Chance is a challenge we have to live with every day and I wouldn't be me if I didn't meet it head on. Oh, I don't mean taking stupid wild chances, but calculated ones where the odds of success are enhanced. I've been training for this for a long time ever since NASA picked me for it, and I'll be darned if I pull out of it now just because some mild mannered reporter got a little antsy about it."

As Clark Kent, I reluctantly agreed but as Superman, I decided to keep a closer watch over the project. I'm glad I did. The launch went smoothly and the shuttle reached orbit with no problems. I imagine Lois was pretty excited about being aboard as the spacecraft soared above the Earth. I've seen my adopted planet many times from that vista, but each new time is as awe inspiring as the last.

They continued orbiting the first day and even got in a spacewalk. Lois was tethered safely to the ship, but she was outside of it. She said later that she got lots of pictures of Major Robert Maxwell as he retrieved a small communications satellite that needed repair. They probably could have used the robotic arm in the cargo hold, but as the Major said, "Any excuse for an E.V.A.!"

"What's an E.V.A.?" asked Noel.

"Extra-vehicular-activity," answered her mother.

"Where do you get this stuff?" queried Jim as he looked on, astonished, at his mom's quick response.

His mom was a little surprised at herself, too. "I... don't know. It just came to me, that's all. Maybe I read it somewhere sometime."

The kids looked at each other with that "I don't know her, do you?" look and then went back to the journal of Clark Kent.

The next day was spent docked with the new space station that our country and others are building. That's one place I haven't been, yet, It must a great place for keeping a long distance eye on the world. The only place that might be better would be the Moon. I think I'll remember that for later reference.

On the third day, the shuttle left the space dock and began its trek back home, when an alien spacecraft emerged from behind the Moon and began firing some sort of weapon at the shuttle. I was flying near by just to check on Lois and saw the attack. Fortunately, I stepped in front of the onslaught before any real damage could be done to Earth's space vessel, and I began to engage the alien craft in battle. The most that could be said about my effort was that it was a stalemate. Every thing I threw at the ship was deflected by what the pilot of the ship called his "ultra-force barrier." He even landed on a large meteor and exited his ship for a short time, and I attempted to subdue him while he lounged outside. Same story! His ultra-force shell kept me at bay until I had to admit the futility of the situation. My efforts, however, were not completely in vain as the shuttle was able to escape Brainiac's notice until it was in position to re-enter the atmosphere and land.

Lois is safe and we are both back in Metropolis now, but the strange alien is not through with his mischief. Two great cities of the world - Paris and Rome - have disappeared from the face of the Earth after a strange light was reported shining on them from above. There's no trace of them and no signs of rubble, ruined building parts - the usual leftovers from mass destruction. It almost looks as if someone took a giant shovel and dug up the cities.

It seems to me that I recall something like this from somewhere. Of course! It's a memory that I received from the green crystal when I absorbed the knowledge it possessed of my father, Jor-el. I recall something about a great city of Krypton vanishing in a similar fashion. Yes, I'm sure now that this Brainiac is behind it all - and perhaps he may know something about the Kryptonian city, too. I must find a way into his ship! But how? I have not found a way to penetrate this ultra-force of his.

June 22

The number of missing cities grew to six - Paris, Rome, London, Moscow, New York - and now Metropolis ! The strange light reported before each disappearance was some sort of transporter beam that reduced each city in size. We found ourselves imprisoned in some sort of bottle. Some panic did ensue, but surprisingly, it wasn't as widespread as one would think. I'm not sure that many people realized that we were trapped.

I assumed my Superman identity and flew to the top of the bottle - prison and used my super strength to open the cork and escape. I found my size to be about the equivalent to a gnat, but I used my tiny size to my advantage. How often I've heard the expression, "I'd like to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation !" Well, that's just what I was as Brainiac examined some of the structures in the bottles such as New York's Washington Bridge and Paris' Eiffel Tower. This was how I ascertained each bottle's contents - Paris, Rome, Metropolis, London, Moscow, New York. I took it upon myself to memorize each structure Brainiac toyed with so that if I could restore each city to Earth, I could also later do whatever repairs to completely return it to normalcy.

It was when he opened a seventh bottle that I became a little too careless and allowed my presence to be discovered. Fortunately, Brainiac thought I was no more than the aforementioned fly and tried to swat me. While I knew my invulnerability would keep me from harm, I also knew that Brainiac would continue looking for the "insect" as long as I flew around in his ship. I decided to hide inside the bottle he had just uncorked.

As I flew into the new environment of the mysterious bottled city, I could see this was no Earth city, but was strangely familiar to me nonetheless. I also noted my power of flight was beginning to fade away. Realizing that if this power were disappearing, then all my other powers, including invulnerability, would go away, too, it became imperative to reach a landing before it was too late. I was about ten feet from the ground when I completely lost my flying powers, and was able to make a harmless, if clumsy, landing. I was now trapped!

But what city was this? It looked very much like the visions of Krypton I had "seen" in the green crystal back in Smallville during my college years. Was this the great city of Krypton that vanished off the face of my birth planet a lifetime ago?

The buildings and other surroundings were of a futuristic nature like nothing seen on Earth, but I immediately recognized the language used by the natives of this tiny prison... Yes! Kryptonese! I had never spoken it - never heard it before with my ears - but the ancient dialect was imbedded in my brain thanks to my liaison with my father's crystal. This had to be the lost city of Krypton! It must be Kandor, the former capital city of my doomed planet. The details were too similar to be a coincidence.

I decided to see if I could speak the tongue as well as I could understand it. Speaking to passersby, it became obvious from their reactions that I had something of an accent. Somehow, though, I managed to make myself understood, In the course of my conversations, the location of a prominent scientist - a Professor Kimda - was brought to my attention. I decided this was the person I should confide in and hurried to his home.

"Who calls?" He asked in the Kryptonian tongue.

"Kal-El, son of Jor-El," I answered. My accent was still there, but I was getting the hang of it now and becoming more understandable.

"Jor-El? Why, I knew Jor-El back in my academic years. You say you're his son?" Professor Kimda was an amiable though aged sort. "Let me have a look at you." He stared at me from inside the doorway of his home for quite a while, but then abruptly narrowed the opening to a crack. "Go away! Go away, whoever you are! I may be old, but I am not senile! I know as well as anyone - better, in fact - what has happened to our city and you didn't just stroll over from Kryptonopolis this afternoon! You certainly have the family resemblance to Jor-El, but we both know it would be quite impossible for you to be his son!"

"Professor, please hear me out! I really am who I say I am, but no, I didn't come here from another Kryptonian city."

"Oh, and I suppose you've been here ever since the... the... kidnapping of Kandor? Please, I know where Jor-El and every member of his family were the night it... happened. And none of them were in Kandor!" With that, Kimda slammed the door.

"Professor Kimda," I firmly averred, "what would you say if I told you I came here from Kryptonopolis... by way of Earth?"

Nothing but silence came from behind his door for a few moments and then it slowly opened. He appeared skeptical but intrigued.

I continued, " I was in the Earth city Metropolis when it incurred the same fate as Kandor. Please let me in. There are several cities that have been stolen and I believe you may have the keys to getting them all back to normal."

Kimda began to close the door again, but then changed his mind and allowed me to enter. "You know," he said, "You have your father's annoying knack of knowing just what to say at the right time. Come in, but if anything you say does not have the ring of truth..."

"I assured you, sir, everything I am about to tell you is completely true..." Kimda turned out to be an amiable sort once I had won him over. He told me about himself and how he knew my father in his earlier years and consulted with him on many an experiment. He had been the first Kandorian to figure out what had happened to the city and who was behind it. From that moment on, he made it his life's work to learn all he could about Brainiac's terrible shrinking ray so that someday the city could be restored to its original size and returned to Krypton.

It surprised me at first to hear him say that, but then I realized that - of course - these people had no idea that their home planet no longer existed. They had been violated - stolen away in the middle of the night, literally - before the explosion that took so many lives and led to my escape to Earth.

"All right, young man. Kal-El or whoever you are, how is it you came to be on Earth - in one of the cities that madman just stole in fact?"

It took more courage than I have ever had to muster up to give him the sad facts. I explained how the planet Krypton met its end - how my father foresaw this and managed to save me by rocketing me to Earth, where I grew up with great powers on this new planet and became known as Superman. And I told him how I had engaged Brainiac in battle, only to be defeated. I told him how later I was shrunk and imprisoned with the rest of Metropolis, but my super powers allowed me to escape until I found my way into Kandor.

"And that's when you lost these... super powers, right?" He had that look again and I was certain he was going to shoo me out the door again.

"Yes, sir. Look, I know this all sounds like something out of a comic book, but..."

"A what?"

"Never mind - not important. The point is... You must believe me! the fate of Kandor and all of the other bottled cities depends on it!"

"Actually... I do believe you. Your father is the only Kryptonian besides myself that has ever even heard of Earth. That's the only reason I let you in. In fact, you are looking at the man who discovered the existence of the planet Earth. Jor-El learned of it from me. Of course, Jor had a curiosity like no other and made it his task to find out everything there was to know about your adopted home. I suppose that's why he pointed your vehicle towards that water world you've been living in.

"And you say that Krypton is... no more?" Sadly, I nodded my confirmation as he sort of slumped just a bit at the revelation. "Well, it's no longer a concern then. We have work to do...Kal-El!"