The thing about super-hearing most people never realized was the high level of concentration it took not only to use it properly, but to also keep from losing your mind.
It was like sitting in a room filled with a hundred radios, each one tuned to a different station. Some played music, some talk-radio, some the news, and some, just static. And each and every one of them were turned to the highest volume setting possible!
The trick was to learn how to first pick out the radio that was playing what you wanted to here, and then tune out everything else, until all that remained was what was important.
That was what Superman was doing.
He hovered two miles up, the bright lights of the city laid out like a blanket beneath him, the dark vale of the clear night sky above. To the east, he could see the first traces of dawn; black giving way to a purplish hue as the sun beckoned its approach.
He had been here all night. Ever since he left the company of his nemesis, he had taken up his "listening" post here in the sky, his eyes closed, his ears open.
It was a long shot, he knew. Hoping to catch a tell tale conversation, a whisper, the barest mention of a plot against him or the city. He listened hard to the sounds of the night; the cars on the expressway, the mingling of the nocturnal creatures as they bar-hopped and socialized, babies crying, couples arguing, couples making up.
But more often than not, throughout the course of the night, his highly sensitive ears had followed the squad of officers; five sets of two, as they went about their unfortunate duty: Notifying the next of kin.
From home to home they went, knocking on doors, ringing door bells, preparing to give the type of news that destroyed lives, broke families, and crushed hearts.
And he listened to each and every one.
"Is there a problem officer?" one woman answered?
"Are you Mrs. Henderson?"
"Yes. What's this about?"
"Ma'am, I'm afraid there's been an accident. Your husband was killed in an explosion…"
Another home;
"Dad! The cops are at the door!" a small boy shouts.
"Is there something I can help you with?" a man says a few moments later.
"Mr. Knowles?" the officer asks.
"Yes. Is David in some kind of trouble?"
"I didn't do anything!" the boy shouts.
"Was Angela Knowles your wife?" the officer asks.
A long silence passes.
"David, go to your room." He says, his voice cracking slightly.
"What's wrong with mom?" the boy asks.
"GO TO YOUR ROOM!" the man shouts.
Footsteps, followed by the sound of a door slamming shut.
Then the sound of a man crying.
That's how they all end; in tears. Some curse. Some scream and yell. Some ask God "why?" But end the end, they all cry.
And Superman listens. And he cries with them.
The morning is upon him when next he opens his eyes. The sun is well on its way into the sky. The sounds of the day have grown. The traffic below has doubled, tripled, and doubled again. The morning commute is in full swing.
Despite the events of the previous day, life, for some, goes on.
And with the surge of life, so surges the sounds. Car stereos blare and compete with horns and roaring engines. Semi-trucks, school buses, pedestrians walk and talk, joggers hum with the music from their headphones, birds sing, and dogs bark; life fills Metropolis.
And Superman listens.
His ears and eyes sweep over the city. Telescopic vision joins super-hearing in his search for answers: A woman in a brown two door yells at here daughter to hurry even as the child races down the steps of the house. A man on his cell phone makes plans to rendezvous with his lover, assuring her his wife thinks he has to be at work early. A woman shouts and runs towards the bus stop just as the double-length bus begins to pull away.
X-ray vision joins the effort.
In an office building, a man pours a healthy amount of whisky into his morning cup of coffee, and then hides the bottle back in his desk under a pile of files. Two buildings over; a couple kiss in the copy room. Down the block, a pair of warehouse workers talk about last night's game, saying how much of a nail bitter the ending was.
In another building, a woman is running frantically through the obstacle course of her office. She is holding a small manila envelope. She passes men in suits and men in uniform alike. Officers… and federal agents.
She burst into a large office filled with suits and breathlessly shouts "We got another one!"
That's when Superman realizes it's the Metro-One broadcast building.
"When?" Agent Davison asks.
"Arrived this morning with the mail." The woman answers, catching her breath.
"Have someone detain the delivery man. I want him brought in for questioning!" Davison shouts.
A uniformed officer begins talking into his shoulder mounted radio as he leaves the room.
Agent Davison takes the envelope from the woman's hand and begins to open it.
"Wait!" this from a small round man with balding hair. He's in a green tailored suit and matching tie. "What if it's a bomb?" he asks.
"It's not." Superman answers.
Every eye turned towards him then. They all look at him as if he just appeared out of thin air, which, as appearances go, is close. Super-speeding into an office building in less time than it takes to blink has that effect.
"I've scanned it with my x-ray." He continues. "There's nothing inside but a CD."
Agent Davison is the first to blink. "They don't knock where you're from?" he asked with a dry smile. Superman didn't answer; only continued to stare intently at the envelope.
Agent Davison shrugged, and then opened the envelope. The CD rolls easily out into his hands. He flips it over and looks at both sides. Both are completely blank.
He hands the envelope to a nearby agent. "Bag it and tag it." He orders. "Have the lab run it for prints, DNA, even air samples. "It'll come back clean. Do it anyway."
He looks at the small man in the green suit. "You got something to play this on?" he asks.
The small man, his forehead now covered in beads of sweat, his skin pale, raises a shaky hand and points at an expensive looking piece of stereo equipment mounted on the wall behind the desk.
Agent Davison walks over to it briskly and eyes it. It's the type that holds five CDs at once in a glass encasement. Agent Davison tries to pull the glass open, but it doesn't move. He searches for a button or switch, but finds none.
"You gotta push the little button in the side…" the small man says, but it's too late.
Agent Davison pulls free his firearm, and holds it by the barrel. Using it like a hammer, he shatters the glass with the butt of the weapon.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" the small man shouts. "That thing cost me four thousand dollars!"
"Yeah?" Agent Davison asks, taking out the five CDs held in the stereo and gentle placing the new one inside. "I got a boom-box in my trunk. Only cost me twenty bucks. Great sound."
He presses the small button with the "Play" icon.
Silence filled the room. Long, tense moments passed.
"Innocents have suffered because of you." the same distorted, bass filled voice said at last. "How many victims have died because of your actions, Superman? How man families have been destroyed? How man lives have been shattered? Only now do the people of Metropolis begin to see what I have known for far too long. You are not our savior, Superman. You are our curse. Our demon. Our false God.
"You ignored my warnings, didn't you, Superman? You tried to save the people on the tram. You thought yourself above the warnings, above the consequences! You ignored me, didn't you?! And now, how many paid the price for your arrogance? How many now lay dead because of your pride?"
"But you will learn. All of Metropolis will learn, as I have. My next lesson… my next lesson is harder; harder to teach; harder to understand. And for that Metropolis, I am sorry. But you will all see that he cares not for you, this lion among lambs; but for his own glory and self-righteousness. He doesn't care who lives or who dies, so long as he is praised in the end.
"The children… they will teach him. Those who sit on rooftops and look out of windows in hopes of catching a glimpse of blue and crimson wings in flight… those who tie towels around there necks and paint "S"'s on their tee's… the will teach him. For what teaches us more than that which is lost?
"There are currently one hundred and nine grade school, middle school, and high school busses in service in Metropolis…" the voice continued. "All one hundred and nine of them have been wired with explosives. One hundred and eight of them are decoys. The real explosive device is scheduled to explode at precisely 7:38 the morning of this transmission."
"No…" Superman whispered.
"While I have no doubt that the combined effort of the Metropolis Police Department, Fire Department, and perhaps even the FBI, will have little trouble getting all the students to safety in time; I also have little doubt that Superman will intervene. But I warn you, Superman: Your involvement in this will be at the cost of bloodshed. The lives of the children are in your hands. Accept that you cannot save us. You can't even save yourself!"
Silence followed.