PART 2 - THE MAN OF TOMORROW, TODAY

CLARK KENT

I wake up to the sound of silence. It takes me a moment to remember where I am, wrapped in a sleeping bag inside a small one person tent. I can't hear anything outside, which comes with no surprise considering the blizzard that I had to run away from yesterday.

I take my backpack from underneath my head and sit up. I open it and look for something to eat. I'm not really hungry, during this journey I realised I can go a lot longer than regular people without food, but living with Ma and Pa has made me used to having three meals a day. Plus, if I don't eat anything, I can almost imagine Ma's voice in my head saying that I won't leave the house until I have breakfast. I settle with a chocolate and peanut butter bar. I open the package. The bar has frozen over night, it has ice all over it. Shouldn't really be a problem, but just because I have enhanced strength, it doesn't mean I should eat frozen food.

I focus my mind on my heat vision and immediately two red laser-focused lines leave my eyes. After two seconds, I stop and the chocolate bar has defrosted. Pleased with myself, I devour my breakfast in three bites.

"Come on, Clark, today is the day" I say, as I start to get ready to pack everything and leave.

And today has to be the day.

It's been four years since I left Kansas in hope of finding the ship that brought me to Earth. When I left, I had nothing to hold on to, no clues, no ideas. I mean, where do you go looking for an eighteen year old alien ship that crashed landed in the middle of the United States of America? I travelled to Metropolis to look into the archives of the Daily Star, I did the same thing with the Gazette in Gotham. Nothing. Two of the largest newspapers in the world and, yet, no news about any form of object impacting Earth. When I told this to Ma and Pa, they told me that the ship disappeared off the barn during the night, but that no one had gone get it.

And that got me thinking.

What if the ship was still operational? What if its instructions were to go as far as possible from humans? Pa always said that people will never be ready to know that they are not alone in the Universe. Perhaps whoever sent me here knew that as well.

At this point I had one clue, which was more than I had ever had. I started travelling across the world, visiting the furthest corners of it, sneaking to the most isolated parts, looking for my ship. I traversed the Sahara dessert, explored the Amazonian forest, ran through Devon Island climbed Mount Everest but still, couldn't find anything. The ship seemed to have disappeared.

I thought of giving up, of going back home, back to the farm. There was no evidence that the ship had even stayed on Earth. Or that it hadn't destroyed itself, or something. I thought of just turning my back on the right thing to do.

But I couldn't. That would be wrong. I had to keep looking, I had to search for something, anything, that would tell me who I am, who I really am.

And that is why I am in the North Pole.

Difficult to imagine a more isolated place than this. Even with my powers I can't sense anyone. Everything is quiet. The only thing I can hear is the ice slowly cracking beneath my feet. I feel completely alone. After I pack my tent, I close my eyes for a minute and enjoy the sense of solitude.

I hear a sound.

I open my eyes and look around me. Where did it come from? It was an instant, less than a second. A small beep and nothing else. Could it be my imagination? Or maybe I lost control of my hearing and listened to something far far away.

No, there it is again. It wasn't my imagination. I start to run towards the origin of the sound. It looks like it's beeping at irregular intervals, becoming more frequent the more I run. Can it sense me? Can it be? Can this finally be it?

The beeping has stopped and has been replaced by a constant high pitch buzzing of a sound. I stop running and look around, searching for something other than a white and blue desert of ice and water. Nothing. But the sound keeps ringing in my ears like a loud drill.

A drill.

It has to be underneath me. I look down but I don't see anything apart from ice. I get down on one knee and focus my eyes. My heat vision starts melting some of the ice, releasing a steam cloud. I need to be careful to not burn whatever is down there, if anything. Suddenly, a red ray comes out of the ice, towards the sky, just next to my hand. I get startled by it and close my eyes to stop my heat vision. I don't know any material in the world that can reflect those rays.

In this world, anyway.

With my heart racing in my chest, I start melting the ice in circular motions and, at the same time, I use my hands to take out chunks of it.

And that is when I finally see what I've been looking for.

Buried in the ice, completely frozen, is a four foot long oval object with three wings on one end. This has to be it, my ship. I break the ice surrounding it, pick it up and place it on the ground next to me. I study it. Each of the wings is coloured red whilst the ship itself is blue. On the side, there's a big red diamond with a red S in the middle carved on the hull. At the other end, there's what seems to be a yellow coloured window. This part of the ship seems to be some sort of cockpit. I grab one of the hinges and open it. The inside of the ship is empty apart from two things, a monitor and a bright red blanket placed in the middle of a bed. I reach for the blanket.

When I grab hold of it, the ship comes to life. It starts shaking and making noises, the cockpit closes and the ships starts hovering. I get up. The ship is matching my height. The cockpit opens once again, only this time there's a man's face on the monitor.

He appears to be around forty years old, he has medium long black hair and a beard. He's wearing a robe with the same diamond symbol that was on the side of the red He looks somehow familiar.

"Hello Kal." His voice is deep, full. The voice of a wise man. I look at him and wait for the recording to carry on. The man smiled and said "I am not a recording, Kal. I'm here, you can speak to me."

This catches me off guard. I clear my throat and speak.

"Uh...hello. Who...who are you?"

"I am your father, Kal, or, at least, an image of him. I'm part of his consciousness. I am here to help you answer any questions you might have."

If there's something I have is questions. Mainly how my father's consciousness is inside a computer. It all seems so surreal. But there are other pressing matters I want answers for.

"You called me Kal. Is that my name? My real name?"

"Kal-El, yes." The man, my father, smiled. "You are the son of Jor-El and Lara-El."

I have so many questions burning my brain, I don't know where to start. I decide to go for the most direct ones.

"Where are you? Where am I from?" I have to bite my tongue in order to stop myself from asking every single question I have.

"We are not alive anymore, Kal. About twenty two years ago, Krypton, our home planet, was consumed by the sun it revolved around of. Unlike everyone else, I was able to foresee that event and, together, your mother and I built this pod in order to send you to Earth. Everyone else in Krypton died with the planet." Father looked calm, like he was telling me a bedtime story.

"Why Earth?" I ask. Why would my parents send me to a place where I would be so different from everyone else.

"We chose Earth of all places because humans have the closest physiology to kryptonians than any other species in the Universe, so we knew that Earth's atmosphere wouldn't be hostile to you. We also knew the yellow sun of this planet, younger than our own, would give you extraordinary abilities. Just how extraordinary, remained to be seen."

"But I am so different from them. They are so fragile, weak."

My father looked at me as though he was expecting this.

"They struggle, Kal. They are a young species. They've made mistakes and they will continue to make them. But you can help them. Earth has welcomed you, you can now repay its welcoming. You look like the humans, Kal. You are a god shaped in their image. You can give them something they can rally behind. You are the last son of Krypton, but you're also a son of Earth. You can be the best of them, the best of us."

This is the moment. The moment my parents, back in the farm, told me would come. The moment I ran away from for years. The moment I decide whether to embrace the right choice or run away from it. I look at my father on the screen, happy for finally seeing his son, smiling for, he himself, having made the right choice.

The right choice.

"What would the people of Earth rally behind?" I ask, ready to make my decision.

My father's answer is a simple word.

"You."

For a moment, I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. The rest of the ship detached itself from the cockpit and, what had previously been a hard metal able to deflect my heat vision, was now a floating material stuck between being a liquid and a gas. This material pulled the red blanket from the cockpit and mixed itself with it. It then started floating towards me. I looked to my father on screen. He nodded as if he was saying everything was going to be okay. I dropped my backpack on the floor and reached for the substance.

The material started to wrap itself around my arm and shoulder. It had a soft feeling, warm to the touch. Soon, it wrapped itself on to my chest and legs, as well as my other arm. The blanket was falling on my back, like a cape. The substance solidified, giving me a layer of clothing.

A suit. I looked at myself. The suit, blue as the ship, was simple, plain, my feet were wearing boots that came up to just below my knees. The sleeves came down to my wrists. On my chest, a big red diamond with a red S over a yellow background was showing. The same symbol the ship had, the same symbol my father has on his chest.

"The coat of arms of the House of El." He says, after seeing me looking at it.

"It looks like an S" I say, touching it. "What does it mean?"

"The House of El believes that its coat of arms is personal to every member. We have always believed in making our own choices and believing our own principles. This symbol will mean something to you different than what it meant to me. To me, it meant knowledge and freedom. To you it means..."

"Hope." I interrupt. "It means hope." My father looked at me. Proud. "What am I to do now?"

"It is your choice, Kal. It will always be your choice. I will always be here if you need me." He looked at me one last time and said "Your mother would be proud. I know I am."

The screen turned itself off. The cockpit of the ship was still intact, I should keep it safe. I decide to bury it back in the ice so no one can find it apart from me. I place it, together with my backpack, on the crater I created and blow cold air in order to form a wall around it. After it is disguised, I look up to the sun.

So you are the source of my abilities. You are the reason why I can do all these things. You are younger than the sun I was born under. Your radiation gives me these...superpowers that I should put to good use.

So be it.

I jump up in the air, ready to leave this place. The cape flies bright on my back, giving me more stability during my time in the air. I start falling when the words that Pa told me years ago come to my head.

"You can do anything you want, you hear me? You put your mind to it, Clark, and you can do anything you want."

I start to think about staying in the air, maintaining stability. I face the floor like a diver who's ready to enter the water, and reach my arm out, extending my body. Like a plane, I try to pull myself up in the air. After an enormous curve, I'm back up with the wind blowing on my face and the sun shining on my suit. I reach my other arm out and I think of going faster. Just like back in the farm, I test my ability, I try to see how far I can go, how fast I can go.

It wasn't until I heard the noise of the sky cracking open that I realised.

I can fly.