Wonder Woman 1938 – Episode 1 – The Superman
Chapter 1
The crisp springtime air of 1938 whipped across the deck of the RMS Queen Mary as it glided into Metropolis harbor. Diana Prince, her dark hair pulled back in a sophisticated style, stood at the railing, her gaze fixed on the burgeoning cityscape. The towering skyscrapers, a stark contrast to the Parisian architecture she'd grown accustomed to, pierced the sky, a testament to American ambition and ingenuity. For fifteen years, she had immersed herself in the world of art restoration at the Louvre, a quiet life of meticulous work and quiet contemplation. But the whispers had begun: comments about her unchanging appearance, hushed inquiries about her "secrets." It was time to move on, to find a new corner of the world where she could fade into the background once more. And after two decades of mourning Steve, of remaining in the shadow of the war that had claimed him, she knew she needed a fresh start, a new continent, a new life.
It was during the transatlantic voyage that the news had reached her, crackling through the ship's wireless: "The Superman." The initial reports were brief, bordering on the fantastical. A man in Metropolis, possessing impossible strength, had been seen lifting an automobile as if it were a child's toy. The details were scarce, but the implications were clear: something extraordinary had arrived in this city.
A shiver ran down Diana's spine. The only beings she knew capable of such feats were the gods of Olympus. Had Ares somehow returned, his essence surviving the blow she had dealt him? Or was this the work of another Olympian, perhaps the boastful Heracles or the brooding Hades? The thought of facing another divine conflict filled her with a weary dread. She had hoped for peace, for a respite from the endless struggles of the mortal realm. But it seemed destiny had other plans.
Her immediate priority shifted. Before she could even begin to build a new life in Metropolis, she needed to understand this "Superman." Was he a threat? An ally? Or something else entirely?
The Queen Mary nudged against the pier, the groaning of the ship's massive hull mingling with the sounds of the bustling dockworkers. As the gangplank was lowered, Diana scanned the crowd gathered on the pier. Among the sea of faces, one stood out: a familiar, beaming face. It was Etta Candy.
Even from a distance, Diana could see the passage of time etched upon her friend. Etta's once fiery copper hair was now streaked with silver, her youthful roundness softened into a matronly figure. The years had been kind, but they had not been as forgiving as they had been to Diana. A pang of both joy and apprehension struck Diana's heart. She hadn't seen Etta in over fifteen years, not since her last visit to London before accepting the position at the Louvre. How would Etta react to seeing her unchanged, a living testament to the passage of time that she herself had escaped? Diana descended the gangplank, a mix of anticipation and trepidation filling her as she prepared to face her past and an uncertain future.
Chapter 2
Etta's booming laughter echoed across the pier, cutting through the din of the bustling harbor. "Diana, darling girl! It's really you!" she cried, rushing forward and enveloping Diana in a bear hug that nearly lifted her off her feet. "I can't believe it! Fifteen years! It feels like only yesterday we were… well, never mind that now! You're here! In Metropolis!"
Diana returned the hug warmly, a genuine smile gracing her lips. "It's wonderful to see you, Etta. You haven't changed a bit," she said, quickly realizing the irony of her words.
Etta chuckled, patting her now-ample stomach. "Oh, hush! I've got enough changes to fill a whole wardrobe trunk! But you… you look exactly the same. Honestly, Diana, it's uncanny."
As they made their way through the crowded streets of Metropolis in a hired taxi, Etta chattered excitedly about her life, her work with a local women's charity, and the latest gossip. Diana listened attentively, her eyes taking in the sights and sounds of the vibrant city.
Etta's flat, a cozy space in a brownstone building on the Upper East Side, was a testament to her warm and generous nature. It was filled with comfortable furniture, overflowing bookshelves, and the aroma of freshly baked cookies.
"Make yourself at home, darling," Etta said, gesturing around the living room. "The spare bedroom is all yours, for as long as you need it. Until you find a job and a place of your own, of course."
"Etta, I couldn't possibly impose…" Diana began, but Etta waved her hand dismissively.
"Nonsense! It'll be just like old times, only without the…well, you know," Etta said, winking, referring to the more dangerous aspects of their past adventures.
Later, over cups of tea and a plate of Etta's famous ginger snaps, the conversation inevitably turned to the elephant in the room: Diana's ageless appearance.
"Honestly, Diana," Etta said, leaning forward conspiratorially, "you haven't aged a day. What's your secret? Are you using some newfangled European cream?"
Diana hesitated. In her early days in man's world, she had been more open about her origins, but experience had taught her the value of discretion. The world was not always ready to accept the truth.
"It's…a combination of good genes and a healthy lifestyle," Diana replied smoothly, offering a carefully crafted half-truth. "Living in Paris, surrounded by beautiful art, it's…conducive to a certain…preservation."
Etta raised a skeptical eyebrow but decided not to press the issue. "Well, whatever it is, it's working! You look absolutely radiant."
Etta then pulled out a thick scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings. "Speaking of extraordinary things," she said, pointing to the most recent series of articles. "Have you heard about this 'Superman' fellow?"
Diana leaned closer, examining the clippings. The headlines screamed of incredible feats of strength: "Man Lifts Car with Bare Hands!", "Superman Saves Cat from Burning Building!", "Mysterious Hero Stops Runaway Train!" The earliest clippings dated back about six months, but the recent incident with the car and its accompanying photograph had catapulted him into the public spotlight.
"It seems he's been active for a while," Etta explained, "but he's mostly kept to smaller rescues, preventing accidents and such. The car incident was the first time he really made a public spectacle of himself."
Diana studied the grainy photographs accompanying the articles. They were blurry and indistinct, but they showed a figure with a powerful build, capable of seemingly impossible feats. There was no denying it: this was no ordinary man.
"This…Superman," Diana said thoughtfully, "he's unlike anything I've ever encountered."
"Well, we aim to find out exactly what he is, don't we?" Etta declared, a spark of her old adventurous spirit rekindling in her eyes. "Where do we start?"
Diana considered for a moment. "We need more information. We need to find someone who has seen him up close, someone who can give us a firsthand account." She looked at Etta, a plan forming in her mind. "Etta, you have so many connections in the city. You're involved in so many different circles. Perhaps you could make some inquiries, discreetly of course."
Etta grinned. "Leave it to me, darling. I know just the people to talk to. We'll have the lowdown on this Superman fellow in no time."
As they began to formulate their plan, Diana felt a sense of purpose returning to her. The quiet life she had sought had been interrupted, but perhaps this new challenge was exactly what she needed. The world, it seemed, still needed Wonder Woman.
Chapter 3
Etta Candy, a whirlwind of energy and enthusiasm, threw herself into the task of gathering information about the Superman with gusto. She utilized her extensive network of contacts, from society matrons to dockworkers, gleaning snippets of information from every corner of Metropolis. She frequented bustling diners, attended charity functions, and even spent an afternoon at the police precinct, charming officers with her infectious personality and extracting details about the mysterious hero.
While Etta was busy navigating the social landscape, Diana explored Metropolis, immersing herself in the vibrant energy of the city. She visited museums, art galleries, and libraries, absorbing the cultural landscape of her new home. She observed the people, their hurried pace, their diverse backgrounds, their hopes and dreams. She saw the best and worst of humanity, the same spectrum of light and darkness she had witnessed on the battlefields of Europe.
One afternoon, as Diana returned to Etta's flat, she was met with a surprise. Etta was not alone. Sitting on the sofa, a notepad and pencil in her lap, was a young woman with striking dark hair and intelligent, piercing eyes.
"Diana, darling, you're back!" Etta exclaimed, beaming. "I want you to meet someone. This is Lois Lane, from the Daily Planet."
Lois looked up, a warm smile spreading across her face. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Prince. Etta has told me so much about you."
"The pleasure is mine, Miss Lane," Diana replied, taking a seat opposite her.
"Please, call me Lois," she insisted. "And you must be Diana."
Etta bustled off to the kitchen to prepare tea, leaving Diana and Lois to converse. The conversation flowed easily, as if they had known each other for years. Diana was immediately drawn to Lois's sharp wit, her unwavering determination, and her genuine passion for uncovering the truth. Lois, in turn, was intrigued by Diana's quiet strength and her worldly perspective.
The topic soon turned to the reason for their meeting: the Superman.
"Etta mentioned you were also interested in this…phenomenon," Lois said, her eyes narrowing slightly. "As a reporter, I'm trying to get to the bottom of this story. He's been performing these incredible feats, but he's so elusive. No one knows where he comes from, or what his motives are."
"I share your curiosity," Diana replied. "I've seen things in my life that defy explanation, but this…this is different."
"He saved my life, you know," Lois confessed, her voice softening. "A few months ago, a runaway car nearly hit me. He…he stopped it with his bare hands. I barely got a glimpse of him, but I'll never forget it."
Diana nodded, understanding the profound impact such an experience could have. "It's clear he possesses extraordinary abilities," she said. "We need to understand the source of his power."
"I agree," Lois said. "And I think we should work together."
"Work together?" Diana asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes," Lois affirmed. "We both want the same thing: the truth. I have access to information through the Daily Planet, and Etta tells me you have…unique insights of your own." She paused, a thoughtful expression on her face. "If we pool our resources, we might be able to uncover who this Superman really is."
Diana considered the proposition. Working with Lois could be beneficial, providing access to information she might not otherwise obtain. And she felt a genuine connection with the young reporter, a shared sense of purpose.
"I would be honored to work with you, Lois," Diana said, extending her hand.
Lois grasped it firmly, a determined glint in her eyes. "Then it's settled. We'll share everything we find. We'll uncover the truth about the Superman, together."
As Etta returned with the tea, a sense of camaraderie filled the room. Two women from different worlds, united by a common goal, had formed an unlikely alliance. They were both driven by a desire to understand the extraordinary, though their motivations differed. Lois sought a story, a scoop that would make her career. Diana sought answers, a way to understand the new threat, or perhaps the new ally, that had emerged in the world. And as they sipped their tea and discussed their plans, they both knew that their lives were about to change forever.
Chapter 4
The rhythmic clatter of typewriters filled the vast, open newsroom of the Daily Planet. On the 45th floor, overlooking the bustling streets of Metropolis, reporters hunched over their desks, chasing deadlines and the next big story. Clark Kent, however, sat hunched over his own typewriter, his brow furrowed in frustration. His fingers hammered the keys with unnecessary force, the machine protesting with each violent strike. He was working on yet another puff piece, this time about the annual Metropolis Dog Show, a far cry from the hard-hitting investigative journalism he yearned to pursue.
Six months he'd been at the Planet, and six months he'd been stuck with the fluff. City council meetings, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, even a Boy Scout award banquet – these were the assignments that landed on his desk. Lois Lane, a rising star at the paper, had offered him some sage advice: "Great reporters make their own opportunities, Kent." But so far, those opportunities had remained stubbornly elusive.
In an attempt to find a story, any story, Clark had taken to keeping a police band radio hidden on the floor beneath his desk. The volume was turned so low that only his super-hearing could pick up the faint transmissions, a secret he kept carefully guarded. But even this tactic had yielded little reward. Most of the calls were mundane domestic disputes or petty thefts, hardly front-page news. The few genuinely urgent situations, fires, accidents, and the like, had forced him to act as Superman, rescuing people and averting disasters. But by the time he returned to the newsroom as Clark Kent, some other reporter, either from the Planet or a rival paper, had already scooped the story.
His thoughts, a frustrating mix of ambition and self-doubt, were abruptly shattered by a sudden flurry of activity on the police band radio. Multiple calls, all converging on the same location: a large fire at the LuthorCorp chemical plant on the western edge of Metropolis. The dispatcher's voice was strained, reporting explosions and, crucially, reports of trapped workers.
This was no mere puff piece. This was a crisis.
Clark's frustration instantly transformed into focused action. This was his chance, not as Clark Kent, the bumbling reporter, but as Superman. He quickly rose from his desk, his chair scraping against the floor, and headed towards the supply closet. It was a small, cluttered space, but it offered a degree of privacy and, more importantly, a window that provided a discreet exit from the towering skyscraper. It was where he could turn into Superman away from prying eyes.
He took two long strides, his powerful legs eager to propel him into action, then abruptly stopped. He was in a crowded newsroom. He couldn't just vanish. He forced himself to slow his pace, adopting the familiar slouch and shuffling gait of his Clark Kent persona. He even bumped into a nearby desk, muttering a quick apology, a carefully crafted performance designed to conceal his true nature.
Chapter 5
Clark reached the door to the supply closet, quickly closing it behind him. The transformation began. With practiced speed, he shrugged off the bulky, oversized suit, the ill-fitting fabric designed to disguise his powerful physique. The suit was carefully folded, and along with his plain brown shoes and thick-rimmed glasses, placed into a hidden pocket sewn into the inside of his large red cape. He had learned early on the importance of having his Clark Kent persona readily available should he need to blend back into the crowd before returning to the Daily Planet.
Beneath the disguise, the familiar blue and red of his Superman costume was revealed. He moved to the tall window, carefully unlocking and raising the lower sash. He was always mindful of minimizing any unnecessary damage or attention. The supply closet window faced west, and as he peered out, a plume of thick, unnatural green smoke billowed into the sky, a stark contrast against the clear blue. He estimated the fire was about three miles away.
From this vantage point, the 45th floor of the Daily Planet building, he knew his Kryptonian physiology allowed him to leap nearly a mile. A ground-level jump would only carry him about half that distance. He'd need at least four more leaps to reach the chemical plant. He could always resort to super-speed once he was on the ground, but he decided to postpone that decision until necessary.
He perched on the windowsill, gathering his strength for the initial leap. But a flicker of doubt crossed his mind. His thoughts drifted back to the previous night's encounter with the two thugs. He had been investigating a pattern of violence and intimidation targeting the city's taxicab drivers, a story he felt had potential but lacked solid evidence. He had stumbled upon the two men attempting to shake down a driver and, in his interrogation, had pushed them hard for information. They had named a man: Jackie Reynolds. He had almost resorted to using his full strength to get the information.
The near use of force had shaken him. He knew his own power was immense, capable of inflicting unintentional harm if not carefully controlled. It was a constant struggle, this delicate balance between using his abilities to help and ensuring he didn't inadvertently hurt anyone. He could never forget the lessons of his youth, the constant reminders from his parents about the importance of restraint and responsibility.
He had to keep that in mind at the chemical plant. People were in danger, and he had to act quickly, but he also had to be careful. Every action, every movement, had to be measured, controlled.
With his mind firmly refocused, Superman took a deep breath, gathered his incredible strength, and launched himself forward. He exploded out of the window, a blur of red and blue against the Metropolis skyline, beginning his race against time to reach the burning chemical plant.
Chapter 6
Superman soared through the air, the wind rushing past his face, a familiar sensation that still filled him with a sense of awe. During his first giant leap from the Daily Planet building, he angled his trajectory slightly downwards, his keen eyes scanning the ground below. He was aiming for a large park, a wide expanse of green that would provide a relatively soft landing. As he descended, he swept the area with his vision, confirming that no one had spotted his dramatic exit from the skyscraper. Satisfied, he landed softly on the grass, his feet barely disturbing the dew-kissed blades. Without pausing, he gathered his strength and launched himself into another enormous leap.
This time, his trajectory would take him towards a busy thoroughfare, a street teeming with pedestrians, streetcars, and automobiles. He knew a conventional landing would draw unwanted attention. As his feet touched the pavement, he exploded into motion, his super-speed blurring his form into an indistinguishable streak. He moved faster than the human eye could follow, a phantom wind whistling through the street as he sped past startled onlookers who only felt a sudden gust of air as he went by. He didn't slow until he was within half a mile of the chemical plant, the acrid smell of burning chemicals stinging his nostrils.
He decided on one final, powerful leap, angling his trajectory upwards this time, so he would approach the burning facility from above. He wanted to maintain his anonymity for as long as possible. Dealing with the police or other authorities would only slow him down when every second counted.
As he descended towards the plant, the air grew thick with the choking green smoke. It stung his eyes and made it difficult to breathe, even for his Kryptonian physiology. The sight that greeted him as he landed was grim. Numerous people lay sprawled on the ground outside the facility, some motionless, others weakly coughing in the toxic haze. Were they unconscious? Or worse?
He activated his x-ray vision, his gaze penetrating the twisted metal and concrete of the burning building. Deep within the facility, he spotted them: the trapped workers. They were huddled together in a small, relatively undamaged section, desperately trying to shield themselves from the smoke and flames.
The situation was critical. People needed help both inside and outside the plant. He was going to have his work cut out for him. He needed to act fast, and he needed to be smart. He couldn't afford to make any mistakes. He took a deep breath, steeling his resolve. It was time for Superman to go to work.
Chapter 7
The kitchen in Etta's flat was a scene of organized chaos. A large map of Metropolis dominated the table, crisscrossed with lines and marked with eight prominent red X's. The previous day, Diana had spent hours meticulously plotting the locations of the most credible Superman sightings. Now she stood beside the map, her brow furrowed in concentration. Etta hovered nearby, offering cups of tea and words of encouragement.
Lois Lane arrived, breathless from a quick taxi ride across town. "Sorry I'm late," she apologized, joining them at the table. She examined the map, her reporter's eye quickly taking in the details. "So, these are all the confirmed sightings?"
"The most reliable ones, yes," Diana confirmed. "We've cross-referenced eyewitness accounts and newspaper reports to ensure their accuracy."
"And you were hoping to find…a pattern?" Lois asked, tracing the X's with her finger.
"That was my initial thought," Diana admitted. "Perhaps a central location, indicating where he might live or operate from. But I don't really see one. The locations seem relatively random. Perhaps if we had more data."
"So, what was the next step?" Lois inquired.
"Etta and I canvassed each of these locations," Diana explained. "We spoke to shopkeepers, residents, anyone who might have been in the area within the hour preceding each Superman appearance."
"And?" Lois pressed.
"We found something interesting," Diana said, a hint of satisfaction in her voice. "At six of the eight locations, the local beat cop had used a police call box to request additional manpower from their precinct."
"Call boxes?" Lois repeated, a flicker of understanding in her eyes.
"Yes," Diana confirmed. "Those public boxes connected directly to the police station. The beat cops didn't carry radios. They had to use the call boxes to summon help. The two exceptions were your own encounter, Lois, and another incident at the Metropolis Museum of Art."
"So, in those two cases, he just happened to be in the area?" Lois surmised.
"That's our working theory," Diana replied. "He simply responded to a situation he encountered. But the other six…it suggests he's monitoring police activity somehow."
"You think he works for the police?" Lois asked, a skeptical look on her face.
"It's a possibility," Diana conceded. "But there's another explanation." She gestured towards a large, boxy device sitting on the kitchen counter, emitting a low hum of static. "This," she explained, "is a wireless set, tuned to the police band. I picked it up at a local shop. It's how the squad cars receive their dispatches. The beat cops use the call boxes, but the squad cars have radios."
Lois's eyes widened. "You think…he's listening to the police radio?"
"It's the most logical explanation," Diana said. "If he's monitoring police activity, he would know where help is needed before anyone else. It would explain his seemingly instantaneous appearances."
Just then, the static from the wireless set intensified, followed by a burst of excited voices.
"…major fire…LuthorCorp…chemical plant…west side…multiple explosions…reports of trapped personnel…" The dispatcher's voice was strained, barely audible through the crackling static.
A sudden tension filled the kitchen. Diana, Lois, and Etta exchanged a quick, knowing glance. This was it.
"Looks like we have our next opportunity," Diana said, her voice calm and resolute.
The three women moved with practiced efficiency. Lois grabbed her notepad and pencil, Diana retrieved her coat, and Etta, ever prepared, snatched a large, sturdy umbrella from the stand by the door, despite the bright, sunny day outside.
"You never know when it might rain," Etta declared with a wink, as they hurried out of the flat. They knew they were racing against time, hoping to witness the Superman in action and perhaps, finally, uncover the mystery behind his extraordinary abilities.
Chapter 8
Diana, Lois, and Etta burst out of the brownstone, their eyes scanning the street for a taxi. Only one was in sight, parked across the street. To their surprise, the driver stood outside his cab, his back pressed against the vehicle, looking terrified. Two towering figures loomed over him, their posture radiating menace.
"Mike!" Etta exclaimed, recognizing the driver. This was her neighborhood, and she wouldn't tolerate anyone bullying one of her friends. With a determined glint in her eye, she marched across the street, her sturdy frame cutting between the thugs and the cowering driver.
"You go," she said to Diana, a quick glance passing between them. "I'll deal with these two."
Diana hesitated for a moment. She'd witnessed Etta's formidable spirit in action before, even during the war. Though Etta was now in her fifties, Diana trusted her judgment. With a nod, she turned her attention to Mike Larson, the driver. He was still trembling, clearly shaken by the encounter. He was in no condition to drive.
"Lois, you drive!" Diana shouted, quickly ushering the driver into the backseat and sliding in beside him. She could have easily taken the wheel herself, but Lois would be far more familiar with Metropolis's intricate street layout and traffic patterns.
Lois, ever quick on her feet, hopped into the driver's seat, slammed the car into gear, and sped away from the curb in a screech of tires.
Chapter 9
Etta stood her ground, her large umbrella held horizontally in front of her like a shield.
"Lady, get out of the way," one of the thugs growled, his voice thick with menace.
"Mike is an old friend who is just trying to support his wife and six lovely children," Etta retorted, her voice firm. "You need to leave him alone."
"Lady, I swear–" the man began, but Etta cut him off sharply.
"I don't like swearing," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
The man, clearly losing his patience, threw a wild punch at Etta. With surprising agility, she used the hooked handle of her umbrella to deflect the blow, redirecting it into his companion's face. The fight quickly devolved into a chaotic, almost comical melee, reminiscent of a Buster Keaton silent film. Every punch the thugs threw was met by Etta's unwavering umbrella, the hooked handle deflecting blows with unexpected precision. For every attempted strike by the thugs, Etta managed to land three of her own, using the umbrella as both a defensive and offensive weapon, poking, prodding, and occasionally whacking her assailants with surprising force.
The bizarre battle raged for nearly a minute before the thugs, realizing they were outmatched by a middle-aged woman with an umbrella, attempted to flee. But Etta was not finished. With a well-timed sweep of her umbrella's hooked handle, she tripped both men, sending them sprawling onto the sidewalk, groaning and panting.
Just then, a police officer came running up the street. "Trouble, Etta?" he asked, recognizing her instantly.
"Joe," Etta replied, not even slightly out of breath, "these…these hooligans were harassing Mike Larson, and then they tried to assault me."
"Assault her?" one of the thugs exclaimed, his voice muffled by a bleeding split lip, three cracked ribs, and a dislocated knee. His companion wasn't in much better shape. He had a black eye which was almost swollen shut, three broken fingers, and a sprained ankle. Less visibly, both men were covered in welts and bruises. "She's the one who assaulted us!"
"Yeah," the second man added, "She's scarier than Superman."
Etta's ears perked up at the mention of the Superman. She turned her attention back to the thug on the ground. "You've had an encounter with Superman?" she asked sharply.
The man nodded weakly. "Last night. We work for the Cab Protective League," he mumbled. "He was trying to find out who runs our operation."
Etta shot a quick glance at Joe, the cop. He had his handcuffs out and was moving towards the thugs, but he paused, a look of understanding dawning on his face. "The Cab Protective League," he said, "is a new protection racket trying to muscle in on the Cab Driver's Union, to skim off the profits."
Etta turned back to the man lying on the sidewalk with the swollen eye and gave him a sharp rap on the nose with the handle of her umbrella. "I think you'd better tell me your boss's name," she said, her voice dangerously low.
The thug looked beseechingly at Joe, the cop. Joe simply shrugged and said, "I suggest you answer Miss Candy, or I might just take a stroll around the block before hauling you two in."
The thug, his face a mask of pain and resignation, finally relented. He knew the game was up. His boss's name would likely be public knowledge soon enough, and enduring further punishment from the formidable Miss Candy seemed pointless.
"Jackie Reynolds," he mumbled, his voice barely audible above the city's ambient noise.
Etta's brow furrowed slightly. The name was vaguely familiar, a whisper in the city's undercurrent of rumors and whispers. She didn't know much about Jackie Reynolds, but she knew enough to understand he was someone to be reckoned with. It seemed it was time to learn more. She didn't appreciate people taking advantage of her friends, especially not on her own doorstep.
With a curt nod, she gestured Joe, the beat cop, forward. "Alright, Joe," she said. "Time to take these gentlemen downtown."
Joe, ever efficient, quickly handcuffed the two thugs together, the clinking of the metal a stark contrast to the earlier cacophony of the fight. He hauled them to their feet, the pair wincing with every movement.
"I think we need to have a little chat down at the precinct, boys," Joe said, his voice firm but not unkind. "And we'll get the police doctor to have a look at you. You seem to have…acquired a few bumps and bruises."
As he started to lead the limping pair away, Joe shot a final, amused glance back at Etta. "Have a good day, Etta," he said, a chuckle rumbling in his chest.
"Thanks for the help, Joe," Etta replied, a faint smile playing on her lips.
Joe chuckled again. "Like you ever need any help, Etta," he retorted, shaking his head in mock disbelief. He then turned and marched the two thugs down the street, their moans and complaints echoing in the air.
Etta watched them go, a thoughtful expression on her face. This incident, though unexpected, had provided a valuable lead. The connection to Jackie Reynolds, the mention of the Cab Protective League, and even the offhand comment about Superman – it all added another layer to the unfolding mystery.
With a sigh, Etta turned back towards her brownstone. She had definitely earned a cup of tea. As she climbed the steps to her flat, she thought about Diana and Lois, hoping they had reached the chemical plant safely and were making some progress in their own investigation. She also knew she had some investigating of her own to do. It was time to find out more about this Jackie Reynolds and his so-called "Cab Protective League." She had a feeling this was just the beginning of a much larger story.
Chapter 10
Lois Lane, behind the wheel of the commandeered taxi, drove with a ferocity that would have made even the most seasoned race car driver envious. She weaved through the bustling Metropolis traffic like a needle through fabric, dodging cars, streetcars, and delivery trucks with a combination of skill and reckless abandon. More than once, the cab tilted precariously onto two wheels as she took corners at breakneck speed, causing the occupants of the backseat to lurch and slide against each other.
While Lois expertly navigated the chaotic city streets, Diana focused on Mike Larson, the still-shaken cab driver. He was slumped in the corner of the backseat, his face pale and his eyes wide with fear.
"Mike, it's alright now," Diana said gently, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We're safe now."
It took a few moments, but Mike finally seemed to snap out of his daze. He blinked, focusing on Diana's face. "They…they were going to…" he stammered, his voice trembling.
"Who were they, Mike?" Diana asked, her voice calm and steady.
"From the…the Cab Protective League," he managed to say. "They've been…pressuring us. Trying to force us to join."
"Tell me about them," Diana urged.
Mike took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. "They're…tough guys. They go around…intimidating drivers. Threatening us. Some guys have even been…beaten up. They want us to pay them protection money, so we can…operate without 'interference,' they call it."
"Do you know who's in charge?" Diana asked.
Mike shook his head. "No. No one's ever seen him. They just…send these guys. They're all the same. Big, mean, and they don't talk much."
He trailed off, his gaze fixed on some unseen point in the distance. "I…I don't know what to do," he whispered. "I have a family to support…"
He was just beginning to regain some composure when the cab screeched to a halt, throwing everyone forward.
"We're here!" Lois announced, her voice filled with a mix of excitement and apprehension.
Chapter 11
The proximity of the LuthorCorp chemical plant was immediately apparent, even before Diana looked out the window. The air was thick with a foul, acrid stench that burned her nostrils and made her eyes water. The sky above was choked with the unnatural green smoke, casting an eerie pall over the surrounding area. The sounds of explosions, though less frequent now, still echoed through the air, adding to the sense of urgency.
Diana quickly exited the cab, her senses heightened, scanning the scene. The plant was a sprawling complex of metal buildings, now engulfed in flames and smoke. Firefighters were battling the blaze, but the intensity of the fire made their efforts seem almost futile. The injured and unconscious lay scattered around the perimeter, a grim testament to the disaster.
Diana scanned the chaotic scene, her eyes searching for any sign of Superman. But her attention was immediately drawn to Lois, who was now gripped by a violent coughing fit, her face turning an alarming shade of red. It was clear the toxic fumes were taking a toll. Then, her gaze swept over the prone figures scattered around them. They were in immediate danger; the noxious air could cause lasting damage, or worse. Superman would have to wait.
Acting swiftly, Diana hoisted the nearest unconscious man over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. She then gently but firmly grasped Lois around the waist, supporting her as she moved them both to a safer location. About a hundred feet away, a small brick outbuilding offered some protection from the worst of the smoke, acting as a makeshift windbreak. Once they were settled, Diana kicked off her impractical high heels, the action revealing her bare feet. She dashed back to the edge of the smoke cloud and began ferrying the remaining victims, carrying two at a time, one slung over each shoulder. She moved with surprising speed and strength, making trip after trip until all twenty men were safely behind the building.
By the time she returned to Lois, her friend had mostly recovered from the initial shock of the toxic fumes, though she was still coughing intermittently.
"Diana, how…how can you carry all those big men?" Lois demanded between coughs, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Before Diana could formulate a plausible explanation, a loud crashing sound echoed from the heart of the fire. Both women turned to see something launch into the air from the burning facility, arcing high into the sky before descending rapidly to land about one hundred and fifty feet to their right, near another small outbuilding. As the dust settled, they saw a figure in a red and blue costume, a man with two other men slung over his shoulders in the exact same manner Diana had been carrying the injured workers.
The Superman.
He gently lowered the two men to the ground and, without a word, leaped back into the air, disappearing behind the thick smoke and flames.
"It's him," Lois whispered, her voice filled with awe. "It's really him."
Diana's own feat of strength was momentarily forgotten as they watched Superman make four more trips, each time carrying two more survivors to safety. By now, Lois had pulled a handkerchief from her bag and was holding it over her mouth and nose. She started to walk towards the area where Superman was depositing the rescued workers. She had covered about half the distance when Superman reappeared, this time carrying only one man. It was clear to both Diana and Lois that this was the last of the trapped workers.
Lois pulled the handkerchief from her mouth and began waving it like a flag. "Superman, can I get an interview?" she shouted, before another coughing fit seized her.
Superman turned in their direction. To Diana's surprise, he seemed to focus his attention on her for a moment, his gaze lingering before he crouched down and launched himself into another mighty leap. This time, however, he wasn't returning to the burning plant. He was heading east, towards the center of Metropolis, leaving the remaining firefighting efforts to the authorities. It was clear he had determined that everyone who needed saving had been saved.
"He heard me," Lois said, still coughing, "but he just…left."
Diana's brow furrowed. She had felt the intensity of his gaze on her, a strange feeling she couldn't quite explain. But there was no time to dwell on it. The immediate danger had passed, and the firefighters were now gaining control of the blaze.
Chapter 12
Superman landed gracefully in a quiet residential neighborhood almost a half mile from the chemical plant. He quickly ducked into a narrow alleyway, ensuring he was out of sight before reverting back to his Clark Kent persona. The transformation was swift and seamless. The blue and red suit vanished, replaced by the familiar brown suit, glasses perched on his nose. He knew he wouldn't make it back to the Daily Planet in time to write a story about the fire. The other reporters would already be filing their reports, and any contribution from him now would seem suspicious.
He began walking back towards downtown, the afternoon sun warming his face. He stopped at a street vendor for a quick hot dog, having missed lunch in the rush to respond to the fire. But as he ate, his thoughts kept returning to the mystery woman he had seen at the chemical plant.
She had been carrying grown men, two at a time, with an ease that defied explanation. He knew firsthand the strength required for such a feat. Only the largest, most powerfully built men could manage such a display of physical prowess. Yet, this woman, while tall and athletic, couldn't have weighed more than 140 pounds. How had she done it?
A thrilling possibility suddenly sparked in his mind. Could she be…another Kryptonian? He had always believed he was the sole survivor of his doomed planet. The thought that another might have escaped the cataclysmic destruction filled him with a surge of hope, a feeling he hadn't experienced since arriving on Earth. He had to find out.
He chided himself for his hasty departure from the scene. He had practically bolted, like a frightened child. But Lois Lane had been there, and that changed everything. If Lois had gotten a good look at him, there was a chance she might have recognized him, even in his Superman guise. He absolutely could not risk his secret being exposed, especially not on the front page of the Daily Planet.
Still, the mystery woman was too intriguing to ignore. He needed to learn more about her. Perhaps he could subtly question Lois, glean some information without revealing his own secret. The thought put a new spring in his step. He quickened his pace, eager to return to the Daily Planet and speak with Lois at the first opportunity. He had a feeling this woman, whoever she was, was going to be an important part of his life on Earth.
Chapter 13
Clark returned to the newsroom, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts about the mystery woman. He tried to focus on his work, attempting to formulate the right questions to ask Lois without arousing suspicion. He even drafted a few possible scenarios in his head, rehearsing the conversation like an actor preparing for a play. But his thoughts kept drifting back to the scene at the chemical plant, to the image of the woman effortlessly carrying two grown men. The possibility that she might be another Kryptonian was both exhilarating and unsettling.
The afternoon dragged on, and there was no sign of Lois. The newsroom, though never completely deserted, began to thin out after seven o'clock, leaving only a handful of reporters and editors working late. Clark knew Lois could disappear for hours, even days, when she was on a hot lead. By eight, he was ready to concede defeat and head home when, just as he was gathering his things, the newsroom door swung open and Lois Lane walked in.
She moved with her usual brisk efficiency, heading straight for her desk. Clark knew he should wait a respectable amount of time before approaching her, but he couldn't contain his eagerness. He found himself standing beside her desk just as she was feeding a fresh sheet of paper into her typewriter.
He hesitated, the carefully rehearsed questions about the mystery woman suddenly feeling awkward and intrusive. He opted for his backup plan. "Lois," he began, "I was wondering if you might have some time to…talk about a story I've been working on. The Cab Protective League. Jackie Reynolds."
Lois, preoccupied with her own thoughts, barely registered his presence at first. Her mind was still replaying the events at the chemical plant, specifically the incredible strength displayed by Diana Prince. Her excuse about an adrenaline rush was flimsy at best. Lois couldn't shake the feeling that Diana's abilities, while not as overtly superhuman as Superman's, hinted at something extraordinary. Could they be connected? Did they share a similar origin?
Then, Clark's words finally registered. She snapped back to attention, her reporter's instincts kicking in. "Jackie Reynolds?" she repeated, her eyes narrowing. "You're working on that, too?"
"Trying to," Clark admitted. "But I haven't been able to get much beyond the initial reports of intimidation and violence."
Lois's expression shifted from distracted to focused. "Funny you should mention that," she said, a hint of excitement in her voice. "I've been chasing the same story, but from a different angle. I've heard rumors of a big meeting tonight, a pow-wow of the League's top brass. It's supposed to be happening at a warehouse down by the docks, around midnight."
She began typing furiously, her fingers flying across the keys. "I just stopped in to type up some notes before heading out." Then, she looked up at Clark, a surprisingly warm smile spreading across her face. "You know, Kent," she said, "maybe it's time I helped you get your first big break. Want to come along?"
Clark's heart leaped. A byline, even a shared one with Lois Lane, would be a huge step in his career. And a stakeout with Lois would provide the perfect opportunity to casually bring up the subject of the mystery woman.
"I'd…I'd like that very much," he stammered, trying to maintain his composure.
"Great," Lois said, returning to her typing. "Be ready to go at ten-thirty."
Clark retreated back to his desk, a wide grin spreading across his face. He spent the next two hours trying to appear busy, but his mind was racing with anticipation. He was finally getting a chance to prove himself, and he might just get some answers about the mysterious woman at the same time.
At 10:30 PM sharp, Lois straightened her desk, slipped on her coat, grabbed her notebook, and gave Clark a curt nod. It was time. Together, the two journalists walked out of the now bustling newsroom, the staff responsible for the Early Edition had been trickling in over the last fifteen minutes. The pair headed into the night and towards the docks, unaware of the dangers and discoveries that awaited them.
Chapter 14
Diana and Etta moved with practiced stealth through the labyrinthine stacks of crates that filled the south end of the warehouse. Etta, fueled by righteous anger at the thugs' harassment of Mike and the other cabbies, had wasted no time in activating her network of informants. Within hours, she had learned of this clandestine meeting at the waterfront. Diana, equally disturbed by the blatant disregard for the city's citizens, had readily agreed to investigate. She had no personal experience with gangsters, her knowledge gleaned from Hollywood films featuring the likes of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, where Tommy Guns blazed and chaos reigned. If things turned violent, she needed to be prepared. Beneath her trench coat, she wore her full Wonder Woman attire, her sword and shield secured to her back.
They crept forward, using the towering crates as cover, until they had a clear view of the warehouse's central area. Bright lights illuminated the scene: at least twenty men, many armed with handguns, Tommy Guns, and other automatic weapons, milled about. But it was the four men bound to straight-backed chairs that immediately seized their attention.
"Oh, dear!" Etta whispered, her voice laced with concern.
Diana glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.
"I recognize one of the bound men," Etta explained, her voice low and urgent. "Second from the left is Brian Lutz, the president of the Cab Drivers Union. I bet the others are union leaders, too. Reynolds must be making his final move to take over the union right now. I have a bad feeling about this."
Diana's expression turned grim. Tying up your negotiating partners was never a good sign. "Do you know which one is Reynolds?" she asked, her voice calm and focused.
Etta scanned the faces in the brightly lit area. After a tense moment, she whispered, "I'm pretty sure it's the man in the black pinstriped suit with the yellow pocket square. Why?"
Diana's response was chillingly calm. "If things go crazy, I want to know which one to question."
Etta stared at her old friend, a flicker of apprehension in her eyes. She hadn't been present for the events that led to Steve's death, but she had heard stories from Sameer and Charlie afterward, hushed whispers of seemingly impossible feats. A sudden, chilling realization washed over her. She suspected Diana was about to do something…extraordinary.
The focus of Reynolds and his men shifted to the bound captives. "You will sign over control of your organization to me, Mr. Lutz," Reynolds stated, his tone almost bored, as if discussing the weather.
"Never," Lutz retorted, his voice filled with defiance. "We won't bow down to gangsters."
Reynolds held up a finger, slowly moving it between the four bound men. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," he sang, his voice devoid of any real mirth. On the word "moe," his finger pointed at the man sitting next to Lutz. "Lutz, you have thirty seconds to agree, or I shoot this man. I have no qualms with shooting all three of these men in turn, if that's what it takes."
Chapter 15
Etta gasped, a sharp intake of breath. But Diana was already in motion. She couldn't stand by and watch an innocent man be murdered. With a fluid motion, she shrugged off her trench coat, revealing her Wonder Woman costume beneath. She pulled her shield from her back and secured it to her left arm. Then, with a swift, practiced movement, she drew her sword from its scabbard. One quick flex of her knees, and she launched herself across the hundred and twenty-five feet separating her from the cluster of gangsters and their helpless captives. The air crackled with energy as Wonder Woman entered the fray.
Diana landed lightly in the center of the largest cluster of gangsters, her arrival so silent that for a moment, they didn't even seem to notice her. The quiet shattered as Diana moved with blinding speed. She thrust her shield to her left, slamming two men in the chest and sending them tumbling backward, taking down three more in a domino effect. In the same fluid motion, she pivoted on her right foot, delivering a powerful roundhouse kick that sent another three men flying. She spun to a stop, her back to the bound union leaders, facing most of the remaining gangsters and the warehouse's massive fifty-foot-tall doors.
The gangsters were still too stunned to react. Seizing the opportunity, Diana sheathed her sword and hung her shield on her back. With her arms now free, she raised them and slammed her bracelets together, unleashing a fraction of Zeus's divine power. A blinding flash of light erupted, followed by a concussive wave of force that ripped the massive doors from their hinges. The doors cartwheeled across the dock, disappearing into the dark waters of the harbor. The men standing between Diana and the doors were sent sprawling onto the dock, while at least half the warehouse lights shattered.
A few men to Diana's sides, however, remained on their feet. Diana heard the distinct click of a trigger being pulled, a sound she remembered all too well from the war. Before the first bullet could leave the barrel, her shield was back on her arm, deflecting the barrage of gunfire. But the brief exchange reminded her: this wasn't war. This shouldn't be a fight to the death.
She left her sword sheathed and drew the Lasso of Truth from her belt. The moment it was in her hand, it began to glow with a brilliant golden light, radiating the power of Aphrodite. It was a light no mortal could bear to look at directly. Still using her shield to deflect the machine gun fire, Diana flicked out the lasso. The far end snaked out, looping around three gangsters. With a snap of her wrist, she tightened the lasso, launching the men out through the now open doorway, across the dock, and into the harbor.
Suddenly, she was under fire from two directions. She flung her shield, taking down two men on one side, then raced towards the other gunmen, using her bracelets to deflect the incoming bullets. Reaching them, she grabbed a machine gun in each hand, crushing the weapons into useless metal. She then seized the two shooters, slamming them together before tossing them out onto the dock.
Only three men remained somewhat mobile: the two she had knocked down with her shield and Jackie Reynolds. Diana covered the forty feet to the downed men in a single bound, retrieving her shield and delivering swift knockout blows. Now, only Reynolds remained conscious.
Diana flicked her wrist, the Lasso of Truth wrapping tightly around Reynolds, pinning his arms to his sides. She restowed her shield on her back and then with another flick of her wrist, pulled Reynolds towards her. She caught him easily in her left hand, holding him aloft by his collar, his feet dangling above the floor.
Chapter 16
"This is the Lasso of Truth, given to me by the goddess Aphrodite," Diana said, her voice clear and commanding. "No one can tell a lie while it is in contact with their body. Tell me, Jackie Reynolds, are you working alone, or are you acting at the behest of someone else?"
Reynolds struggled for a moment, his eyes wide with fear and confusion. Then, the truth burst forth. "I work for…a…a scientist," he stammered. "I don't know his name, but everyone calls him…the Ultra-Humanite. He is by far the most brilliant man I've ever known."
At that moment, Diana heard the distant wail of approaching sirens, undoubtedly drawn by the bright flash of her bracelets. She didn't want to involve herself with the police. Time was of the essence.
"Where can I find this Ultra-Humanite?" she demanded.
Reynolds, still under the lasso's influence, could only offer a helpless shrug. He didn't know. Satisfied that he was telling the truth, Diana swiftly headbutted him, rendering him unconscious. The final act felt surprisingly good to her.
She then drew her sword and with four deft strokes, cut the ropes binding the union officials. "I don't think these men will bother you again," she said to Lutz, who stared at her with a mixture of awe and terror. "But if you need help in the future, just spread the word on the street, and it will get to me." She didn't want to leave a trail leading directly back to her or Etta.
Lutz, still reeling from the sudden appearance of this warrior woman in an outlandish costume who had single-handedly defeated twenty armed men, could only nod dumbly.
Diana turned and leaped into the stack of crates at the south end of the warehouse, ready to retrieve Etta and disappear before the police arrived.
Chapter 17
Clark trailed Lois as she confidently navigated the maze of streets leading to the docks. Her pace was brisk and purposeful, suggesting she had a solid lead. Only when they neared their destination did she hesitate, her gaze fixed on a massive warehouse looming before them. Clark followed her line of sight and spotted two men stationed by the main entrance, their postures suggesting they were guards.
"We'll have to find another way in," Lois whispered, pulling Clark back into the shadows.
They circled around to the north side of the building, where they found a series of smaller, pedestrian-sized doors. Lois tried the first, but it was locked.
"Let me try the next one," Clark offered, stepping forward. He gently tested the handle of the next door. It was also locked, but with a subtle application of his super-strength, he manipulated the locking mechanism without causing any visible damage. He was careful to shield his actions from Lois's view. The door swung open with a soft creak.
"After you," Clark whispered, gesturing Lois through the opening.
The north end of the warehouse was shrouded in relative darkness, illuminated only by faint reflections of lights further inside. They moved cautiously, staying close to the walls and using the shadows as cover. As they neared the source of the light, Clark assisted Lois in climbing a stack of crates, providing them with an elevated vantage point overlooking the central area of the warehouse.
From their perch, they could see eight men busily arranging chairs and clearing a space in the center of the vast warehouse. Over the next few minutes, more men began to arrive, filtering in through the pedestrian doors adjacent to the big sliding doors used for cargo. It was clear they had some time before the meeting officially began, providing Clark with an opportunity to broach the subject of the mystery woman.
"Lois," he whispered, "I was surprised you didn't file a story about the fire at the LuthorCorp plant. I thought that would have been right up your alley." He hoped his tone sounded casual, not overly eager.
Lois's thoughts were immediately drawn back to the chaotic scene at the fire and the incredible things she had witnessed Diana Prince do. The image of Diana effortlessly carrying two grown men at once had been replaying in her mind ever since.
"I…I was there," Lois admitted, her voice slightly distracted. "But I…I was so focused on…seeing Superman in action that I didn't even think about filing a story until it was too late."
Clark wanted to press further, to ask if she had been with anyone, but just then, the scene below shifted dramatically. Four men were marched into the center of the warehouse at gunpoint and forced into chairs, their hands quickly bound behind their backs.
This was not what Clark had expected. He had assumed it would be a simple meeting, something he and Lois could observe and report on. This was something far more sinister. He glanced at Lois, who was rapidly scribbling notes in her notebook, capturing the scene unfolding before them. He probably should be doing the same, but his attention was riveted to the scene below.
Once the four men were secured, another group of five entered the warehouse. "There's Reynolds," Lois whispered, pointing to a man in a black pinstriped suit with a distinctive yellow pocket square.
Clark noted Reynolds's appearance, but his attention was drawn elsewhere. His enhanced hearing, honed by weeks of deciphering faint police radio transmissions through the din of the newsroom, picked up the subtle sounds of movement coming from the south end of the warehouse. He initially feared Reynolds might be positioning lookouts, perhaps with more approaching their own hidden position. But then, using his telescopic vision, he spotted two women moving among the crates. One of them was the mystery woman from the fire.
From that moment on, Clark's attention was divided, his gaze flickering between the unfolding drama in the center of the warehouse and the two women concealed among the crates. But when Reynolds began to speak, his voice cold and menacing, and the conversation turned to threats of murder, almost all of Clark's focus snapped back to the scene below. He was about to witness something terrible, and he knew he might have to intervene.
Chapter 18
Clark knew he had to act. But how? He was trapped, literally shoulder to shoulder with Lois, and any overt display of his powers would immediately expose his secret. Could he create a diversion, a loud noise or some other distraction, that would disrupt the scene below and allow him and Lois to slip away unnoticed? He wrestled with the dilemma for a few agonizing seconds, frozen in indecision.
Then, the mystery woman moved. Clark's attention had been so focused on Reynolds that he hadn't even registered her leaving her hiding place among the crates. One moment she was there, the next she had landed in the midst of the armed gangsters. And then, she erupted into action.
Even with his super-speed, Clark struggled to keep up with her movements. Men were sent flying by her shield and more by an impossibly fast roundhouse kick. In what felt like the blink of an eye, her shield and sword were back on her back, and she slammed her forearms together, metal clashing against metal. A blinding flash of light and a powerful gust of wind erupted outward, tearing the massive warehouse doors from their hinges and sending them careening across the dock. The men standing between the woman and the doors were swept away like bowling pins.
Clark was astounded. He had never witnessed anything like it. None of his own superhuman abilities resembled this display of power. He watched in awe as some of the stunned gangsters began to recover, one of them raising a machine gun and opening fire.
Too fast for Clark to even perceive in his enhanced state, the woman's shield reappeared, intercepting the stream of bullets. Then, she drew a rope from her belt, and it suddenly blazed with a light so intense that Clark had to squint. The rope snaked out, wrapping around three men and launching them through the gaping doorway.
More of the gangsters were now reacting, and the woman was under fire from two directions. She flung her shield at one group, then charged towards the other two gunmen, deflecting a hail of bullets with her bracelets. Clark counted fourteen shots before she reached them, all deflected by the bracelets. She then grabbed the machine guns from their hands, crushing the metal into mangled scraps, before slamming the two men together and tossing them through the doorway.
Then the woman followed this with a mighty leap, a distance of at least forty feet, back to the men she had initially knocked down with her shield. She quickly knocked them into unconsciousness, leaving only Jackie Reynolds standing.
And that was when Clark realized something else: the woman had incapacitated twenty armed men without killing a single one. He wondered if he could have done the same. When he had considered intervening earlier, his only thought had been to whisk the bound men to safety using his super-speed. He hadn't even considered a direct assault against so many armed opponents. He had stopped runaway cars and saved people from burning buildings, but he had never engaged in anything that could be considered combat. This woman, however, clearly had.
Who was she?
Then, the woman used her glowing rope to ensnare Reynolds. "This is the Lasso of Truth, given to me by the goddess Aphrodite," she declared, her voice ringing through the warehouse. "No one can tell a lie while it is in contact with their body. Tell me, Jackie Reynolds, are you working alone, or are you acting at the behest of someone else?"
Goddess Aphrodite? Clark thought, his mind reeling. Like the Greek gods of myth? Could it be true, or was it a carefully crafted story to conceal her true nature?
Reynolds, clearly compelled by the lasso, began to speak, his words tumbling out against his will. "I work for…a…a scientist," he stammered. "I don't know his name, but everyone calls him the Ultra-Humanite. He is by far the most brilliant man I've ever known."
At that moment, Clark heard the approaching wail of police sirens. The light show from the woman's bracelets had clearly attracted attention. She seemed to realize this at the same moment, giving a slight tilt of her head. After one final question and a quick headbutt to knock Reynolds unconscious, she swiftly cut the bonds of the four tied men and spoke briefly with Lutz.
Then, as quickly as she had arrived, she was gone, leaping into the stack of crates at the south end of the warehouse, presumably to retrieve her companion and disappear before the police arrived. Clark found himself staring at the empty space where she had stood, his mind buzzing with questions. He had to find out who she was.
Chapter 19
Lois and Clark carefully climbed down from their precarious perch atop the crates. Lois, ever the seasoned reporter, immediately made her way to Brian Lutz, the union president, to get his firsthand account of the night's events. She knew time was of the essence. With a story this big, competition from other reporters would be fierce. Superman wasn't the only one monitoring the police band; other journalists had undoubtedly heard the commotion and were likely already converging on the warehouse. The thought made her briefly wonder why Superman hadn't made an appearance, but she pushed the thought aside. She had a story to file.
It didn't feel right to reveal Diana's secret without her consent, but her dramatic entrance and actions had been witnessed by multiple people. She couldn't simply ignore her presence. She would have to refer to her somehow. For a moment, "Super Woman" crossed her mind, but that felt too derivative. Someone else had given Superman his moniker. Diana deserved her own. Lois ran through a few options in her head before settling on one: Wonder Woman. Superman and Wonder Woman. It had a nice ring to it. She mentally began drafting interview questions for Diana, then forced herself to refocus. The story came first.
Meanwhile, Clark had wandered over to the discarded Tommy Guns the mystery woman had crushed. He picked one up, turning it over in his hands. The imprint of fingers, or rather, the impression of fingers, was clearly visible in the twisted metal of the barrel. He could replicate the feat, but he had never seen anyone else, human or otherwise, possess that kind of strength. The sight reignited the burning question in his mind: was this woman Kryptonian, or something else entirely?
He was still lost in thought when Lois approached, her notebook clutched in her hand. "Come on, Kent," she said, her voice brisk. "We need to get back to the Planet and file this story before anyone else beats us to it."
Clark was surprised, pleasantly so, that Lois was including him in the byline. Given the dramatic turn of events, he had assumed she would want to keep the story for herself.
"Did you hear what Reynolds said?" Lois asked as they walked towards the warehouse entrance. "He mentioned someone called the Ultra-Humanite."
"Yes," Clark replied.
"That's our next lead," Lois declared. "We need to find out who this Ultra-Humanite is."
Clark stopped dead in his tracks. "Shouldn't we be focusing on…on the woman?" he asked, gesturing back towards the warehouse. "She just took down twenty armed men without killing anyone. That's…extraordinary."
Then, a realization struck him. He had seen Lois and the mystery woman together at the chemical plant. Of course, Lois already knew who she was. "You…you already know who she is, don't you?" he blurted out.
Lois simply smiled, a knowing glint in her eyes. "That part of the story," she said, her voice playful, "still belongs to me."
Chapter 20
The next morning, the early edition of the Daily Planet hit the newsstands, its front page dominated by Lois Lane and Clark Kent's explosive account of the warehouse raid. The headline screamed: "Wonder Woman Foils Gangster Takeover!" Lois had cleverly crafted the story, focusing on the thwarted takeover of the Cab Drivers Union and the mysterious Ultra-Humanite, while carefully omitting any details that might directly identify Diana. The moniker "Wonder Woman" was used throughout, adding an air of mystique to the already incredible events.
Later that morning, Lois arrived at Etta's flat, a copy of the Daily Planet tucked under her arm. Etta, sensing the need for privacy, quickly excused herself, leaving Lois and Diana alone in the living room.
Lois, never one for pleasantries, got straight to the point. "Alright, Diana," she said, her voice firm. "It's time for some answers. Who are you? What are you?"
Diana took a deep breath. She had anticipated this confrontation. She briefly considered refusing to say anything, but she knew that would only prompt Lois to dig deeper, possibly exposing her secrets in a far more public and uncontrolled manner. The story had already used the name Wonder Woman, but that was just a name, not her true identity. She also considered concocting a plausible, yet fabricated, backstory, but she knew that such a deception would be difficult to maintain in the long run, especially if she intended to stay in Metropolis.
There was only one real option: the truth. But she needed to protect herself.
"I will tell you my story, Lois," Diana said, her voice steady, "but only under one condition."
"And what's that?" Lois asked, her eyebrows raised.
"You must promise me, on your honor, never to reveal my secrets to anyone," Diana stated. "And I need that promise to be…binding."
Lois frowned. "What do you mean, 'binding'?"
Diana reached into her handbag and withdrew the Lasso of Truth. The golden rope shimmered in the morning light. "This," she explained, holding it out, "is the Lasso of Truth. Anyone who touches it cannot tell a lie. I need you to hold it while you make your promise."
Lois stared at the lasso, a mixture of apprehension and fascination in her eyes. She had seen it being used on Jackie Reynolds the previous night, but never expected to be under its influence herself. The weight of the situation settled upon her. She desperately wanted to know Diana's story, but the price was high. If she made this promise, she would be bound by it, unable to publish the biggest scoop of her career.
After a moment of tense silence, Lois reached out and took the lasso in her hand. The golden rope glowed even brighter and felt warm to the touch, a strange energy pulsating through it. She looked at Diana, her expression serious. "I…I promise," she said, her voice clear and resolute. "I swear, while touching this…lasso, that I will never reveal your secrets to anyone."
A sense of relief washed over Diana. With the promise secured by the Lasso of Truth, she felt safe to finally reveal her true origins. She began her story, recounting the history of the Amazons, their creation by the Olympian gods, and their secluded existence on the island of Themyscira. She spoke of her own birth, how her mother, Queen Hippolyta, had sculpted her from clay and how she had been brought to life through the combined gifts of Zeus and Aphrodite.
She told Lois about Steve Trevor's arrival on Themyscira during the Great War, the first man she had ever seen. She explained how she had left the island with him, venturing into the world of man and forfeiting her ability to ever return home. She recounted the horrors of the war, the sacrifices made, and the tragic loss of Steve, who had given his life to save countless others. Finally, she described her life in Paris, her years spent in quiet contemplation and art restoration, a period of mourning and reflection.
As Diana spoke, Lois listened intently, her eyes wide with wonder and disbelief. The story was fantastical, almost unbelievable, yet the sincerity in Diana's voice and the tangible presence of the Lasso of Truth left no room for doubt. It was all true.
Chapter 21
Lois sat in stunned silence for a moment, absorbing the incredible tale Diana had just recounted. The story of Amazons, gods, and a hidden island was beyond anything she could have imagined. Finally, she found her voice. "Thank you, Diana," she said softly, her voice filled with awe. "Thank you for trusting me with your story."
Then, her reporter's mind clicked back into gear. "So," she began, shifting the conversation, "what about Superman? Do you think he's…from the same place as you?"
Diana shrugged. "It's possible," she conceded. "There are several of the old gods who could manifest abilities similar to his. There was Ares, for example, although I'm fairly certain I killed him."
Lois paled, her eyes widening. "Killed a god?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "How…how is that even possible?"
Diana shrugged sheepishly. "On Themyscira," she explained, "I always heard hushed rumors about the 'God-killer.' I always assumed it was the name of the sword I took when I left the island. It turned out…it was me."
Lois paled even further, her breath catching in her throat. "Only a god can kill another god," she whispered, her voice laced with a mixture of fear and wonder. The thought of sitting in the same room with a being capable of such a feat was almost overwhelming.
Diana gave a small, almost apologetic shrug. "I am what I am," she said simply.
She then steered the conversation back to the topic of Superman. "But," she continued, "this Superman…he doesn't quite fit the mold of any of the Olympians I knew. They might occasionally intervene in the affairs of mortals, but they would never do so without making a grand spectacle of it. They would be boasting from the highest mountaintop. Superman, however, seems to prefer to remain in the shadows."
"He's definitely not one for the spotlight," Lois agreed.
"We may never know for certain until he chooses to reveal his own story," Diana concluded. "But since he seems to be using his abilities for the common good, it would be…beneficial, even if we don't learn his secrets, to have some way of contacting him in case of an emergency."
"You're right," Lois said thoughtfully. "Right now, our only hope is to be in the right place at the right time."
The conversation then shifted to the more immediate threat: the Ultra-Humanite.
"Speaking of emergencies," Lois said, "Clark and I are trying to find out more about this Ultra-Humanite. Reynolds said he works for him. We need to find out who he is and where he's hiding."
"Etta is also making inquiries," Diana replied. "We should pool our information. If either of us finds a lead, we'll share it."
Lois nodded in agreement. Since Diana wasn't competing for the story, sharing information was a logical move. "That sounds like a good plan," she said. "Two heads are better than one, and with Etta's connections, we might just get somewhere."
As the two women discussed their next steps, a sense of shared purpose solidified their unlikely alliance. They were both determined to uncover the truth, whether it was about a mysterious super-powered being or a shadowy criminal mastermind. And they were both prepared to face whatever dangers lay ahead, together.
Chapter 22
A large, dark-gray armored vehicle, longer and taller than a typical 1930s street bus, rumbled down Market Street in the financial district two miles north of the heart of Metropolis. Its only windows were at the driver's position. A glance inside would reveal the driver was a large metal-headed robot with oversized, bright yellow sensors for eyes. The vehicle halted abruptly in front of the Metropolis Diamond Exchange, a squat, single-story marble-fronted building occupying the entire block between MacDougal and Sullivan Streets. Across the street lay the small Tompkins Square Park.
As the vehicle came to a stop, nine heavy metal doors along each side slammed open, and eighteen seven-foot-tall robots emerged. They all looked identical with stout tree-like legs built for power more than speed. Their upper bodies were more lightly built with long arms that almost looked spindly in comparison to their legs. The arms ended with metal hands which only had two fingers and an opposable thumb each. Their heads, like that of the driver, looked like oversized Campbell soup cans stripped of their labels with bright yellow sensors where the eyes should be – sensors looking more than anything like slices of lemons. The heads had no nose or ears and just a simple speaker grill where a mouth should be.
Like two squads of soldiers on parade, they moved in synchronized steps before dispersing to their designated positions. The nine robots on the side closest to the Diamond Exchange marched towards the building. Eight of them crashed through the heavy front doors without hesitation, while the ninth took up a sentry position outside. Of the robots on the other side of the vehicle, three robots blocked the street, four positioned themselves at each corner of the building, and the final two ascended the emergency ladder on the building's right side to take positions on the roof.
Once the eight robots inside were fully within the building, they paused.
A loud, booming mechanical voice emanated from the first robot. "No one will be hurt if you follow orders," it announced.
Four of the eight robots then raised their right arms over their shoulders and pulled large bulky weapons from holsters on their backs. These weapons were attached to their bodies by woven steel hoses. The weapons were flamethrowers! The robot who had previously spoken triggered a blast of flame, sweeping it over the heads of the employees, who screamed in fear. The flames ignited a few small fires, but the robot seemed indifferent.
The four robots with drawn flamethrowers herded the occupants into a tight group, ignoring the store manager's attempt to trigger the silent alarm. The store's guard fired a wild shot from his revolver, which ricocheted off a robot and hit another employee in the arm. The speaking robot calmly stated that guns were useless against them and proceeded to herd the guard with the others, ignoring his weapon.
While the four robots controlled the employees, two others began emptying display cases, stowing the diamonds in compartments within their bodies. The final two robots moved into the open vault, it being the middle of the business day, and began loading the diamonds there into similar compartments. The fires started by the robot's initial demonstration began to spread, threatening to engulf the entire building.
Outside, two beat cops noticed the commotion and approached one of the street-blocking robots. The robot responded with a warning blast of flame over their heads. As the officers retreated, they saw two even larger flamethrowers emerge from the top of the armored vehicle, swiveling to point in their direction. They immediately raced to the nearest police call box, urgently requesting reinforcements.
Chapter 23
Clark slumped at his desk, his fingers hammering away at the typewriter keys with a practiced, yet unenthusiastic rhythm. Ten days had passed since the warehouse incident, ten days since he and Lois had exposed Jackie Reynolds and his connection to the mysterious Ultra-Humanite. The article had been a success, earning him a few more respectable assignments, but he was still stuck with his fair share of fluff pieces. Currently, he was wrestling with an article summarizing his interview with the winners of the annual barbershop quartet competition. How could he possibly make something so inherently dull even remotely interesting?
His frustration was compounded by the lack of progress on the Ultra-Humanite case. Clark had taken to shortening the cumbersome name to "Ultra," finding it easier to say and think. And the mystery of the woman from the warehouse, Wonder Woman as Lois had dubbed her, continued to plague him. Lois had practically admitted she knew Wonder Woman's identity but refused to divulge any details, becoming even more tight-lipped about the subject after their initial conversation.
Suddenly, a flurry of activity on the police band radio beneath his desk snapped him out of his doldrums. An emergency call, urgent and frantic, crackled through the static. "In-progress heist…Metropolis Diamond Exchange…robots…armored vehicle…" The dispatcher's voice was strained, barely audible over the growing chaos. Then came more details: "Shots fired…flamethrowers…fire…hostages…" The call directed every available police unit within a two-mile radius to the scene.
Robots? Clark's brow furrowed. This was a new development. He hadn't encountered anything like that before. But the mention of fire and hostages immediately galvanized him. He hadn't donned his Superman costume since the LuthorCorp fire almost two weeks prior, but it was clear that another emergency had arisen. It was time for Superman to make his reappearance.
Chapter 24
Etta had thrown on her jacket, grabbed her trusty umbrella, and was just reaching for the doorknob, intending to go out and search for Diana, when the woman herself opened the door and stepped inside. "Thank God, you're here!" Etta exclaimed, relief evident in her voice. "There's another situation that's likely to draw Superman's attention."
Diana, who had been at the Public Library reviewing old newspaper archives in hopes of finding a lead on the Ultra-Humanite, looked concerned. "What is it? Where?" she asked, trying to remain calm.
"Someone's robbing the Diamond Exchange," Etta explained, her voice quick and urgent. She relayed the details from the police radio broadcast: robots, an armored vehicle, fire, and hostages—all elements that seemed practically designed to summon Superman.
Diana had passed the Diamond Exchange numerous times on the trolley and knew it was only six blocks from Etta's flat. She didn't know where Superman might be coming from, but the proximity meant she had a chance to reach the scene first. "How long ago?" Diana asked Etta, knowing her friend would understand the urgency of the question.
"The call for reinforcements went out barely sixty seconds ago," Etta replied.
Diana's expression turned determined. She raced to her room to change into her Wonder Woman costume, quickly retrieving her sword and shield. She exited through the bedroom window, climbing onto the building's fire escape. Using the roof, she minimized the risk of anyone connecting Wonder Woman to Etta's apartment.
Then, she began her rooftop sprint towards the Diamond Exchange, leaping from building to building, clearing entire streets in a single bound. The city looked different from five stories up, the height of most buildings in this residential area, but she quickly spotted a thin column of smoke rising in the distance. It was nothing like the thick, green cloud from the LuthorCorp fire—not yet, at least—but it served as a beacon, guiding her towards the unfolding crisis.
Chapter 25
Diana leapt from the rooftop of the five-story building, initiating the four-story drop to the Diamond Exchange's roof. She was already committed to the jump when she spotted the two large robots stationed there. One of them noticed her descent and raised its right arm, revealing a bulky weapon. In an instant, Diana instinctively pulled her shield from her back. Fortunately, the robot triggered its flamethrower while she was slightly out of range.
Reacting quickly, Diana tucked her legs up, forming a tight ball and used the shield to protect herself as she continued her descent. She had intended to land on her feet, but the sudden attack forced her to adjust, transforming her falling motion into a series of somersaults. As soon as she rolled to a stop, she was on her feet, shield raised, crouching low behind it for cover.
With her left hand firmly gripping the shield, she drew her sword and hurled it towards the first robot. Her aim was precise. The heavy, sharp blade sliced through the twin hoses connecting the flamethrower to the robot's back, severing the fuel supply. She had encountered flamethrowers during the Great War and knew this was the quickest way to disable them.
But the second robot had now turned its attention to her, raising its own flamethrower. Diana swiftly reoriented her shield, just in time to block the second blast of fire. Her sword, however, was now lying over a hundred feet away on the opposite side of the roof. Great.
Just then, the entire roof shuddered. Diana glanced to her side and saw Superman standing beside her, having landed with a resounding thud. They hadn't been formally introduced, but there was no time for pleasantries.
"Superman!" Diana shouted over the crackle of flames. "Sever the hoses to the robot's back! It will disable the flamethrower!"
Superman nodded, his expression grimly determined. Ignoring the intense heat and flames licking at his chest and face, he dashed towards the second robot. In a matter of seconds, he reached it and ripped the hoses from the flamethrower's housing, cutting off the fuel supply. The flames sputtered and died, leaving a brief moment of relative silence on the rooftop.
Then, the first robot, the one Diana had disabled, spoke in a loud, mechanical voice, "This robot will self-destruct in fifteen seconds. Get clear. Get clear."
Four seconds later, the robot Superman had just disarmed repeated the same chilling message.
Diana quickly restowed her shield on her back and sprinted towards the robot she had disabled. The robot was helpfully providing a verbal countdown, currently at eight seconds. She glanced at Superman and said, "I have no idea what it means by 'self-destruct,' but I think it's best if we get these things well clear."
With a burst of superhuman strength, she grabbed the robot, one hand at the joint between its head and body, the other at its "crotch." She hoisted the heavy machine over her head, flexed her knees, and leaped straight up, using every ounce of her Amazonian power. She rocketed upwards, one hundred feet, then two hundred, then four hundred. When the countdown reached three seconds, she judged she was at least six hundred feet above street level. With a powerful shove upwards, she launched the robot even higher, using the principle that "physics is still physics" to propel herself downwards with an equal and opposite force.
She was falling rapidly, now about four hundred feet above the street, when Superman shot past her on his way up. He reached approximately six hundred feet just as her robot detonated with a deafening explosion. Fortunately, her final push had sent the robot to an altitude of nearly a thousand feet before it blew, keeping Superman well out of the immediate blast radius. Diana, however, still felt the massive shockwave buffet her, accelerating her descent. She landed feet first on the rooftop with a jarring thud just as the second robot detonated far above.
She retrieved her sword, just as Superman landed forty feet away. He seemed completely unaffected by the explosions. "Somebody doesn't want anyone getting their hands on these robots," Diana remarked, moving to join him at the edge of the roof, where he was looking down at the street below.
"The police report I heard talked about an armored vehicle," Superman replied, "but I'm not seeing anything like that down there. Just…more robots."
Just then, two of the robots on the street turned and began spraying their flamethrowers at them. Superman added, "I wonder if all these robots are just a delaying action while the vehicle gets away."
The street in front of the Diamond Exchange was one-way heading south, while the street on the other side of the park was one-way heading north. Diana, using her enhanced vision, glanced south along the street. She spotted what had to be the armored vehicle turning right out of sight about eight blocks away.
"I think you're right, Superman," Diana replied, lowering her shield after blocking the brief burst of flames. "But it's either save the people here or go after the diamonds."
"There really isn't any choice," Superman replied, his voice firm. He then vaulted over the edge of the roof, leaping down to the street below.
Diana now had confirmation: Superman was indeed listening to the police radio calls, just as they had suspected. A small smile played on her lips as she drew her sword and jumped down to the street, ready to face whatever remained of the robotic threat.
Chapter 26
As Diana landed on the street, Superman was already disabling the flamethrower on the robot that had been targeting him. Holding her shield defensively, Diana moved towards the robot that had been firing at her, only to see it abruptly lower its weapon. She cautiously lowered her shield and noticed that the other four robots within her view had done the same. The robot Superman had disarmed began its self-destruct countdown. Barely five seconds later, all the remaining robots began blaring the same warning simultaneously. They had clearly received a signal indicating the armored vehicle had escaped, rendering their delaying action unnecessary.
A dozen robots were about to explode at once. Superman, likely having only heard the first robot's warning before acting, had already launched himself into the air to dispose of it. But with twelve robots about to detonate, their previous strategy of handling them one at a time was no longer viable. Diana recalled the previous explosions; they had been powerful, but not so large that they required a thousand-foot altitude for safety. Two hundred feet should be sufficient. She briefly considered tossing them over the park across the street, but the presence of civilians made that too risky. She would have to launch them above the Diamond Exchange itself. The fires already raging inside meant the building was likely a lost cause anyway.
Diana grabbed the nearest robot—the one that had been firing at her—and heaved it into the air with all her might. There was no time to check its trajectory. She raced to the next robot, grabbed an arm, spun quickly, and launched it cartwheeling upwards. Moving with superhuman speed, she sprinted around the perimeter of the building, tossing robot after robot skyward.
She spotted four more robots inside the building, still arrayed in a loose circle around the employees. There wouldn't be time to get them out and then launch them into the air. With only four seconds left on the countdown, she dashed inside and spotted the large vault. It would have to do. She shoved the four robots through the open vault door, then slammed the heavy door shut and spun the locking wheel.
Not a moment too soon. The seven robots she had tossed into the air and the four she had shoved into the vault detonated simultaneously. The building shook violently, but the structure held. The vault walls and door bulged ominously, but they also remained intact.
Just then, Superman reappeared. He explained that while carrying his robot aloft, he had pried off its chest plate. Inside, he found a mess of gears, mechanisms, wires, and a stick of dynamite, stenciled with "Dunlap Construction." There hadn't been time to disarm it, but the name might be a useful lead.
Diana shook her head. "While you were doing that," she said, "I had to deal with eleven other robots about to explode at the same time."
Superman grinned. "Yeah," he replied, "but you managed it."
The store manager then approached the two superheroes, his face pale and drawn. He hesitantly explained that there had been four more robots—the ones that had been collecting the diamonds—and they had boarded the armored vehicle and left shortly before their arrival.
"How much did they get away with?" Diana asked.
"Sixteen million," the manager replied, adding that a new consignment from South Africa had arrived just the previous day.
"Inside job?" Diana asked.
The manager stated he trusted his people, but the timing was suspicious. It was too much of a coincidence that the robbery occurred on the day they had the largest diamond inventory in the past month.
Superman shook his head. "Sixteen million dollars," he said grimly. "That'll buy a lot of replacement robots."
Chapter 27
Superman led Wonder Woman outside the building looking for a semblance of privacy amidst the chaos of police, reporters, and onlookers. Finding a secluded spot was difficult, so he gestured upwards before launching himself upwards with a moderate leap, landing softly on the rooftop. Once Wonder Woman joined him, Superman turned to her. "Do you think Ultra is behind this?" he asked.
Diana briefly wondered how he knew about the Ultra-Humanite, then realized that if Superman was monitoring police radio frequencies, he had likely also read Lois's headline-grabbing article from the previous week. "It's certainly possible," she replied. "Jackie Reynolds admitted, under the influence of my lasso, that Ultra is some kind of scientist. Designing and building these robots would certainly fall within a scientist's purview, but it's not conclusive."
Superman nodded. Then, it was Wonder Woman's turn to ask a probing question. "Where do your abilities come from?" she asked, her gaze intense. "At first, I thought you were a god, or perhaps a demigod, but it feels…different."
"Demigod?" Superman repeated, a slight frown creasing his brow.
"Yes," Diana explained. "The offspring of a god and a human."
"Is that what you are?" Superman asked.
Diana shook her head. "My situation is…more complicated. But effectively, I am the daughter of Zeus and Aphrodite."
"As in…the Aphrodite who gave you the lasso?" Superman asked, his eyes widening slightly.
Wonder Woman realized there had been no mention of Aphrodite in Lois's article. How did he know about the lasso's connection to the goddess? Then she remembered that several people had witnessed her declaration at the warehouse. Superman could have easily questioned one of them later. "Yes," she replied, then added, "My bracelets are from Athena's shield, my shield is made from the hide of the she-goat Amalthea, my sword was forged by Hephaestus, and my tiara was a gift from the Amazons who raised me." She paused, then turned the question back to him. "Now you know many of my secrets. What about you?"
Superman nodded. If she was being so open with him, reciprocity seemed only fair. "You might find this hard to believe," he began, "or maybe not, given your own…fantastical story, but I'm a refugee from another world. The last survivor of my kind."
Wonder Woman stared at him, her mind reeling. He was from another world? She had been taught that the gods had created this world. Why would they create another, populated by superhumans, and then send one of them here? It contradicted everything she knew. But Superman stood before her, a living testament to the impossible. He was clearly no ordinary god or demigod.
Just then, a gout of flame erupted through the roof, no more than thirty feet from them. The fires the robots had started, whether intentionally or accidentally, were beginning to consume the building. It might collapse in minutes, perhaps even seconds.
The introductions and explanations had to be put on hold, save for one crucial detail. If they were both committed to protecting Metropolis, they needed a way to contact each other in an emergency. Speed was essential.
"Superman," Wonder Woman said quickly, "if you need to contact me, this is the phone number of my friend, Etta. If I'm not with her, she'll know how to reach me." She rattled off Etta's number.
Superman nodded. He then stared off into space for a moment, a look of contemplation on his face, before sighing and speaking. "I don't really have a…permanent phone. Here's the main number for the Daily Planet. Ask for Clark Kent. He can get a message to me. If he isn't there, leave a message for him and say it's for Kal."
Wonder Woman's eyes widened slightly. Clark Kent. That name was familiar. He had been listed alongside Lois on the byline for the warehouse story. Everything seemed to be somehow connected to the reporter, Lois Lane.
Chapter 28
With her characteristic brashness, Lois Lane marched up to the Dunlap Construction trailer, parked at the base of the still-under-construction LuthorCorp Tower in the heart of downtown Metropolis. After the previous day's events at the Diamond Exchange, she had spoken with Diana, who had relayed Superman's discovery: the dynamite used to self-destruct the robots had come from Dunlap Construction. They had no way of knowing if the dynamite had been stolen or if Dunlap was complicit in the heist with the Ultra-Humanite, but Lois was determined to find out. A little digging had revealed that the company's owner, Warren Dunlap, was on-site at the LuthorCorp construction site. Start at the top, had always been her motto.
She banged on the trailer door, then proceeded to harangue the foreman who answered. After some grumbling and complaining about reporters sticking their noses where they didn't belong, the foreman admitted that Dunlap was indeed on-site, but up on the uppermost level of the building. To get rid of her, he instructed one of his workers to escort Lois up there. After being issued a hard hat, the worker led her to one of the main construction elevators.
As they ascended, Lois's mind wandered to the towering structure surrounding them, the soon-to-be 120-story LuthorCorp Tower. The stock market crash of 1929, which had occurred during her high school years, had brought the skyscraper boom of the late 1920s to a screeching halt. The projects already under construction had been completed, but for the next nine years, not a single new skyscraper had been started in Metropolis. Now, with the Great Depression still gripping the nation and thirty percent of the city's existing office space sitting vacant, Lex Luthor had decided he needed this new tower. Why? Why not simply utilize the already available space? Perhaps there was another story here, a story about Luthor's motivations, his ambitions.
The thoughts of the stock market crash and the collapse of the world economy brought her own situation to mind. She had been fortunate. Her father's military career had provided a stable income, shielding her family from the worst of the Depression. Unlike many of her friends, she had been able to attend college and complete her four-year journalism degree. And then, she had gotten lucky, talking her way into a job at the Daily Planet. Of course, the fact that Perry White and her father were old poker buddies probably hadn't hurt. But she had proven herself time and time again, justifying the risk Perry had taken in hiring her.
Her thoughts were abruptly pulled back to the present as the elevator dinged and her escort opened the heavy door. It was time to put her game face back on.
Stepping off the elevator, Lois was immediately hit by a blast of frigid air. The late spring day had been almost pleasant at street level, but over a thousand feet up, on a floor where the windows had yet to be installed, it was bitterly cold. Lois shivered, regretting her lighter jacket. But she was Lois Lane, legendary for her tenacity in pursuing a story. A little wind and chilly temperatures weren't going to deter her.
The worker escorting her gestured forward. They proceeded down several unfinished corridors before rounding a corner and finding a group of men gathered around a worktable covered in blueprints. Three wore construction coveralls, while the fourth was dressed in a sharp suit. It wasn't hard to deduce which one was Warren Dunlap.
Lois marched straight up to him. "I'm Lois Lane with the Daily Planet," she announced, her voice ringing out in the cavernous space. "Are you working with the Ultra-Humanite, Mr. Dunlap? Were you in on the Diamond Exchange heist?" It was her usual tactic: go in swinging, hoping to catch her subject off guard and elicit a spontaneous reaction.
Unfortunately for Lois, Dunlap, a man in his sixties with a hard face and steel-gray hair, was no stranger to dealing with reporters. "Miss Lane, was it?" he replied, his voice cool and controlled. "I think you need to be more careful about what you say. These accusations of me being in league with a villain like the Ultra-Humanite are libelous. I believe I would be well within my rights to sue the Daily Planet for damages."
"Freedom of the press," Lois shot back, unfazed.
"I hope you have evidence to back up your accusations," Dunlap countered.
"The dynamite used to blow up those robots had your company's name stamped on it," Lois retorted, pointedly omitting the fact that Superman was the one who had seen the markings. He wasn't exactly someone she could call as a witness in court.
Dunlap shook his head dismissively. "We had a shipment of dynamite stolen three weeks ago. We promptly reported it to the police."
Damn, Lois thought. Perhaps she should have checked with her contacts at police headquarters before rushing over here.
Just then, a radio sitting on a small side table crackled to life. "U-H calling Dunlap. Is everything ready? We will be there in three minutes. Over."
Lois's eyes widened. "U-H" could only mean the Ultra-Humanite. Dunlap was working with the villain!
Dunlap walked over and picked up the microphone. "We've got a slight complication at our end," he said into the device. "Lois Lane of the Planet is here."
An almost immediate reply came back over the radio. "Bring her along," a distorted voice instructed. "We should probably have a member of the press as a witness."
Before the voice had even finished speaking, Dunlap turned to his men. "Grab her!" he barked.
Lois instinctively tried to run, but she barely managed three steps before two large, burly men seized her by the upper arms. They roughly marched her back to Dunlap.
"Bring her," he commanded, then turned and strode off towards the far side of the unfinished floor, the two men dragging Lois along behind him.
After trudging down several more corridors, Lois was led through an opening in the stone wall and out onto a wooden platform that jutted out from the side of the building. The platform, about thirty feet wide and twenty feet long, had protective railings along the sides, but the outer edge was completely open to the yawning chasm beyond. For a moment, Lois had the terrifying thought that they were going to make her walk the plank, like in some pirate movie, only instead of dropping into the ocean, she would plummet a thousand feet to the unforgiving pavement far below.
But her thoughts were quickly diverted by something even more alarming. A quarter of a mile away, approaching rapidly, was the prow of an enormous airship. Lois remembered the Ultra-Humanite's earlier instruction to "bring her along." They were going to take her aboard that airship!
She wasn't an expert on airships, but even she knew they were flying deathtraps. In this decade alone, the British had lost the R101, the Americans had lost the Akron and the Macon, and, most famously, the Germans had lost the Hindenburg. The fiery destruction of the Hindenburg, barely a year earlier, had been captured on film and played in newsreels in every cinema in the world. That tragedy had supposedly been the final nail in the airship's coffin.
And yet, here was another behemoth, headed straight for them. They were going to force her aboard and take her…where? She hadn't told anyone where she was going. It would probably be hours before anyone even realized she was missing. She was royally screwed.
It only took a couple of minutes for the mighty airship to close the remaining distance. As it drew near, a large doorway opened beneath its nose. Several men appeared, tossing a thick rope across to the men waiting on the platform, securing the airship to the tower. Then, a large, nine-inch diameter rubber hose was fed across the gap. As the workmen on the platform grappled with their end of the hose, Dunlap handed Lois a bulky garment.
"There shouldn't be any danger," he explained, his voice clipped, "but better safe than sorry."
Dunlap proceeded to strap a similar device to his own head. It was then that Lois realized it was a gas mask. She donned her own mask, tightening the straps behind her head. Looking through the clear glass eye protectors, she saw the workmen were attaching the hose to a large tank with a prominent poison symbol stenciled on the side. They paused to don their own gas masks before opening the valve on the tank and then began working a hand crank, transferring whatever deadly poison the tank contained over to the airship.
What was going on? Lois wondered, a chill running down her spine.
While two of the workmen struggled to transfer the mysterious gas, the other two worked with the airship crew to rig a portable gangway. The gangway looked incredibly flimsy, consisting of widely spaced wooden slats and simple rope handrails spanning the thirty-foot gap.
It was barely finished when Dunlap grabbed Lois's arm and forced her onto it. The thirty-mile-an-hour winds at that thousand-foot height buffeted and shook the makeshift bridge as Lois made her way slowly across.
Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down, became her new mantra.
It seemed to take a lifetime to cross the treacherous gap, but finally, hands from inside the airship grabbed her and pulled her the rest of the way aboard. These men, too, were wearing gas masks. After helping Dunlap aboard, one of the men led them down an enclosed corridor, heading deeper into the mammoth airship.
They walked for over a minute and descended three separate staircases before reaching what was clearly the control deck. Only a handful of men were working on this level, while many more controls were being manned by…robots!
Lois hadn't personally seen any of the robots involved in the previous day's Diamond Exchange heist, but the Planet had bought photos from a tourist who had been in the park and splashed them across the front page. The tourist had been a surprisingly good photographer, capturing numerous shots of the robots, as well as Superman and Wonder Woman in action.
Lois had no trouble recognizing these robots as identical to the ones from the day before, although these probably weren't equipped with self-destruct mechanisms like their unlucky counterparts from the diamond job.
"Ah, Miss Lane, it is so nice to finally meet you. I've enjoyed many of your articles," said an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair, his voice muffled by the gas mask he and everyone else present were wearing. He pushed a control stick on one arm of the wheelchair, and it glided silently in her direction. "I'm sure you've guessed by now that I'm the Ultra-Humanite," he continued.
Lois looked at him more closely, or at least what she could see of him around the gas mask. He looked at least seventy, mostly bald with just a fringe of white hair around the sides. It was hard to tell through her protective lens and then through his, but his pale blue eyes didn't look particularly insane. He was wearing what seemed to be the uniform of every mad scientist – a white shirt, dark tie, and a white lab coat, its pockets bulging with pencils, pens, a slide rule, and a plethora of small gadgets.
"Surely, your name isn't really Ultra-Humanite?" Lois asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
The man shrugged. "I no longer think of myself as a normal human, so why continue to use a human name?"
Lois couldn't come up with a response. Regardless of what his eyes might suggest, he was clearly insane.
Lois moved to the expansive windows, taking in the rare sight of Metropolis from such a high vantage point, as the great ship slowly gained altitude, having undocked from LuthorCorp Tower. Her work rarely took her beyond the East Coast, and for those distances, train travel was more convenient and, frankly, safer. Passenger planes of the era were still a bit too experimental for her liking. And she certainly had never been in an airship before.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the Ultra-Humanite. "Alright, everyone," he announced, his voice now much clearer, "any gases that might have leaked during the transfer should have dissipated by now. You can safely remove your gas masks."
Lois turned to see him stowing his gas mask in a side pocket on his wheelchair. She pulled off her own mask, hanging it from her shoulder via its strap. It seemed wise to keep it close at hand; she might need it again, and quickly.
"So, Miss Lane," the Ultra-Humanite said, a hint of pride in his voice, "what do you think of my airship? It was originally intended to be a sister ship to the USS Akron and the USS Macon. They were going to call it the USS Dayton, but after the loss of those two, the Navy scrapped the project and let the Dayton go for a pittance, even though it was virtually complete. Of course, I had to rename it. Now, it is the Silver Witch."
Lois was tempted to make a flippant remark about how perhaps the Navy had been right about getting out of the airship business, but she decided against it. It probably wouldn't go over well with the Ultra-Humanite. Instead, she settled for a simple, "Silver Witch?"
The Ultra-Humanite explained that the "silver" came from the hull's color, and the "witch" was a reference to his mother.
Lois was at a loss for what to say next. She should be trying to extract information for a future story, assuming she survived this ordeal, but she wasn't sure what to ask without pushing the man completely over the edge. Thankfully, they were interrupted by the helmsman reporting that they had reached the requested altitude of 5,000 feet.
"Sparks," the Ultra-Humanite called out. "Is the radio equipment ready?"
"Everything is ready when you are, sir," the radio operator replied.
"Very good," the Ultra-Humanite said. He maneuvered his wheelchair over to a large microphone mounted near the radio workstation. At a nod from the operator, he began to speak, his voice booming through the airship's speakers.
"This is the Ultra-Humanite speaking to you on all radio frequencies. Yesterday's events at the Diamond Exchange were merely a first act to gain everyone's attention. Today, my robots will arrive at the Metropolis Mint in five minutes. The Mint employees will assist my robots in loading four thousand bars of gold onto my trucks. You have one hour to complete this task. At the end of that hour, my trucks must be allowed to depart freely. If their departure is delayed or hindered in any way, I will release enough mustard gas to kill everyone within a two-mile radius of the Mint. Since my robots are impervious to mustard gas, any action against them will only delay things, not stop them. And understand, one hour is not enough time to safely evacuate everyone in the danger zone. Therefore, to the mayor, the police commissioner, and the city council, it is in your interest, and the interest of everyone in the city, to expedite the activities of my robots. The clock is ticking, people. Ultra-Humanite out."
Lois stared at the Ultra-Humanite in shock. The Great War had been before her time, as she had only been six years old at its end, but even she knew about mustard gas and its devastating effects. Was mustard gas really what they had loaded onto the airship? Would he really use it? Then she remembered the events at the Diamond Exchange. If Superman and Wonder Woman hadn't intervened, the self-destruct mechanism in the robots would have killed many people. The Ultra-Humanite seemed perfectly capable of unleashing tons of poison gas on Metropolis. Lois was at a loss for what to do. There was no guarantee that the Ultra-Humanite wouldn't release the gas anyway, even if his demands were met.
Chapter 29
The phone rang, its shrill tone cutting through the tense silence of Etta's flat. Etta, who had been listening to the police radio with Diana in the kitchen, walked into the living room to answer it. After a brief "hello," there was a long pause before a hesitant male voice finally spoke, requesting to speak to Wonder Woman. Etta silently mouthed, "Superman."
Diana walked over and took the receiver. As Etta moved to give her some privacy, Diana gestured for her to stay, holding the receiver so both women could hear. "Yes, Superman," Diana said calmly.
"I didn't expect to be contacting you so soon," Superman began, then asked, "Did you hear the Ultra-Humanite's broadcast?"
"I did," Diana replied, "and I was surprised it was broadcast on the police band."
"It was apparently broadcast on all frequencies, commercial and governmental," Superman explained. "I suspect the Ultra-Humanite is on that large airship hovering over the city or at least using it as part of his plan."
Diana walked over to the window, taking the phone with her. She looked up and spotted the large, silvery, teardrop-shaped airship cruising at a high altitude. She hadn't been outside and hadn't even been aware of its presence. "Why do you suspect it's involved?" she asked.
"Mustard gas, used during the Great War, is significantly heavier than air," Superman explained. "Delivering it from above would be the most effective way to cover a large area."
Wonder Woman's thoughts flashed back to the small French village she had seen, devastated by mustard gas during the war. The horrors she had witnessed there made it clear: they had to stop him. "Do you think he'll really use it?" she asked, her voice laced with concern.
"It's a strong possibility," Superman replied. "He might even use it as a diversion, even if the gold is handed over, just like the exploding robots at the Diamond Exchange."
"Or," Diana added, thinking aloud, "he might keep it to blackmail other cities, like Gotham or Washington, or anywhere else with high-value items he wants."
"The problem," Superman said, "is the airship is at least five thousand feet above the city. I can't reach it with a single leap."
Wonder Woman realized it was likely beyond her jumping range as well. Just then, the ever-resourceful Etta spoke up. "I know a pilot at the Metropolis airport who has a plane. He could probably get you close enough." She turned to Diana. "Can Superman meet us out there in, say, fifteen minutes?"
"Make it ten," Superman replied. "Every minute counts. We need as much time as possible." Eight minutes of the Ultra-Humanite's hour-long deadline had already elapsed.
Chapter 30
Diana descended gracefully, her last superhuman leap bringing her to the sprawling Metropolis Airport. She had aimed her final jump toward the north end of the facility, where their ride awaited. Superman had joined her three leaps prior, and they had been soaring through the sky together ever since. Etta, understanding the urgency, had remained at her flat, knowing Diana could reach the airport faster on her own. This also allowed Etta time to coordinate with an old acquaintance from her time in London during the war.
Larry "Tex" McAllen, a pilot in the Army Air Corps during the war, had spent years barnstorming the country, performing shows and giving rides at county fairs. He later worked in Hollywood as a stunt pilot. Now, he ran a small charter flying service in Metropolis, mostly ferrying urgent medical supplies. Etta had described his hangar as white, located near the north end of the airport, with "McAllen Air" emblazoned in large red letters.
Diana's aim had been true. She and Superman landed only a couple hundred feet from the hangar. A Ford Trimotor sat out front, its three propellers already spinning. A man lounged outside the open side door of the plane, wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and a rumpled khaki flight suit. He had to be Tex.
For Superman's benefit, she gestured in the plane's direction and then raced over, moving at a blur and materializing almost out of nowhere in front of the man. The man gave a startled jump at her sudden appearance. And then he gave a second smaller jump when Superman appeared only a second later.
Diana extended her hand. "I'm Wonder Woman, and this is Superman. I presume you're Tex."
"Yes, ma'am," the man drawled, his accent thick with the flavor of East Texas. He had quickly recovered from their shockingly abrupt appearance. "Etta said some special people needed a quick ride, but I wasn't expecting the famous Wonder Woman and Superman."
"We can exchange pleasantries once we're in the air," Superman stated brusquely. "Can you get us up there?" He pointed at the airship, still floating serenely above the center of Metropolis.
Tex spat out a wad of tobacco, gazing upwards. "Yep. Well, I can get you close. I can't actually land on top of it unless it's rigged for such a stunt."
"Close is good enough," Superman replied. "Just get us above it, and we'll jump down. What's your best rate of climb? Time is of the essence."
Tex was already climbing aboard as he replied, "Gertie isn't as young as she used to be. Her best rate these days is about eight hundred feet a minute. Call it eight or nine minutes for the climb and another three minutes to cover the distance from the airport to the airship."
Superman nodded as Tex climbed into the pilot seat while Wonder Woman closed and latched the door behind them. They had already used eighteen minutes of the Ultra-Humanite's sixty-minute deadline. If Tex's estimate was accurate, they should arrive at the airship with a good thirty minutes left to stop the Ultra-Humanite from releasing the mustard gas.
Chapter 31
"Sir!" shouted the radio operator, his voice tight with urgency. "The upper lookouts are reporting an aircraft approaching from aft starboard at an altitude about five hundred feet above our own."
"Military?" demanded the Ultra-Humanite, his voice sharp.
The radio operator murmured into his headset, listening intently for a few moments. "No, sir," he reported. "It appears to be an old Ford Trimotor. They watched it take off from the Metropolis airport. It's on a course that will pass directly over us in about thirty seconds."
The Ultra-Humanite pondered the situation for less than five seconds. "I'm not willing to take any risks," he stated decisively. "Have the upper aft electro-ray mount take it out."
Lois gasped. The mention of a weapon confirmed her suspicions. The giant airship needed some form of defense, or it would be a sitting duck against modern aircraft. Even during the Great War, airplanes had sent many airships down in flames, forcing them to fly higher and higher to avoid attack. It had been a race to see which could master high-altitude flight faster. Since the Ultra-Humanite wasn't flying at an extreme altitude, it was obvious he had some kind of defensive measures.
Lois tried to get a glimpse of the approaching aircraft. From a couple of sailing trips with her father and little sister, she knew that starboard meant right when facing the bow of the ship, or airship in this case. She tried to look aft in that direction, but the position of the control deck on the lower surface of the airship meant the curving hull completely blocked her view.
Suddenly, all the lights in the control cabin momentarily dimmed. A few seconds later, a loud buzzing sound filled the airship, followed by sparks that danced briefly along every metallic surface. Lois assumed an aft upper weapons emplacement, perhaps a hundred feet above their position and five hundred feet aft, had just fired. The weapon's power had to be immense if it was that noticeable here. And the dancing licks of electricity were unnerving.
"Sir," Lois asked, her voice trembling slightly, "aren't these electrical discharges a risk to the airship?"
The Ultra-Humanite shook his head dismissively. "Do I look crazy? I would never use that kind of weapon if my airship was filled with hydrogen. But we don't. We use the much safer helium."
Lois didn't reply, but in her mind, she couldn't help but think he was crazy if he was willing to attack Metropolis with killer robots and poison gas.
Chapter 32
Diana, scanning the sky through the airplane's windscreen, spotted movement atop the giant dirigible, about five hundred feet below and three hundred feet ahead. It took a moment to register: it was a weapon, resembling a five-inch artillery gun on a rotating mount—but the barrel looked strangely different. And it was rotating in their direction.
"Tex!" she exclaimed, her voice urgent. "I think we have a problem. You need to start jinking!"
But it was too late. A massive white bolt of energy surged from the weapon, somewhere between a beam of light and a bolt of lightning, striking their plane almost instantly. Lightning danced around all three engines and the instrument panel. Barely two seconds later, all three engines sputtered and died.
"Shit!" Tex yelled, wrestling with the controls. After another ten seconds of struggling, he declared, "The engines are fried. I'm going to have to try to dead-stick it back to the airport."
Wonder Woman gauged the angles and distance. "Tex," she said urgently, "turn to port. We'll jump from here."
"Are you crazy?" Tex exclaimed. "You can't possibly make it!"
But Superman had already pushed the passenger door open and immediately leapt clear. His sudden exit caused the plane to lurch violently to the side, throwing Tex off balance. It took him several seconds to regain control.
Once the plane was stable again, Diana moved to the open door. She took one final look at the airship, then carefully fell away from the plane without pushing off like Superman had. She immediately flared her body, positioning her arms and legs in an "X" to slow her descent, using small hand movements to adjust her course.
Superman was already several hundred feet below, plummeting much faster. He hit the airship near the center, punching straight through the thin skin. As she lost sight of him, Diana hoped he had managed to grab onto something structural; otherwise, he might pass clean through the airship and fall all the way to the ground.
She then focused on her own descent. Her later departure from the plane meant she was going to hit the airship much closer to the tail. She corrected her course as best she could, angling to hit the tall vertical stabilizer. At the last moment, she drew her sword and swung it into the tail's surface. As she slid down the stabilizer, the sword tore a deep rip in the fabric. Finally, the sword caught on an internal stiffening rib, bringing her to a stop, dangling from the outside of the tail.
She glanced around quickly. The weapon that had fired at their plane, mounted about a hundred feet forward of the tail, was now rotating, pointing directly at her. She hoped they wouldn't shoot off their own tail to get to her.
Chapter 33
"Sir!" the radio operator shouted, his voice strained. "The upper observers are reporting two people leapt from the aircraft shortly after it was hit by the electro-ray. Based on their attire, the observers believe it is Superman and Wonder Woman. Superman crashed through the upper hull midway between the forward and aft electro-ray batteries. They have no idea of his current location. Wonder Woman landed on the aft vertical stabilizer and is making her way down to the hull. The aft upper battery has its weapon trained on her. What are your orders, sir?"
Lois's heart leapt. Diana and Superman were here! They would undoubtedly thwart the Ultra-Humanite's plans, just like they had at the Diamond Exchange. And, hopefully, they would rescue her. Not that she would ever admit she needed rescuing.
"Tell them to hold their fire, you fool!" the Ultra-Humanite commanded, his voice sharp with irritation. "If they shoot at the tail, they could destroy the whole airship. We'll have to deal with them once they get here. Query the lower observers to see if they have seen Superman. If we're lucky, he might have shot clean through the ship and is plummeting to the ground."
While the radio operator relayed the Ultra-Humanite's instructions, the Ultra-Humanite turned to four robots standing at strategic points around the command center but not operating any equipment. "Units S1, S2, S3, and S4," he began, his voice clipped and precise, "arm your electro-ray weapons and prepare to fire on my signal at anyone who enters the command center who is not already designated in your memory banks as friendlies."
After a few seconds, all four robots responded in unison in mechanical voices devoid of any emotion, "Understood, sir." They then pulled weapons from behind their shoulders. These were clearly different from the flamethrowers used the previous day. Lois could only hope these new weapons wouldn't be any more effective against Wonder Woman and Superman than the flamethrowers had been.
"Sir," stated another robot, its voice was identical to the others, but this one was stationed at a control board covered with pneumatic valves. "Gas bags six & seven are starting to show slow but steadily increasing pressure losses."
The Ultra-Humanite looked up and Lois followed the direction of his gaze. A large schematic of the airship was located above the sprawling windows. The locations of the twelve giant helium bags that provided the airship its lift were clearly labeled. Bags six and seven were located midships, about where Superman had reportedly collided with the airship.
"Is the leak critical?" asked the Ultra-Humanite. "Do we need to start dropping ballast?"
"No, sir. At the current rate, it won't become critical for another forty-seven minutes," replied the robot calmly, like the news was of no concern.
"Tell me, if the rate accelerates, otherwise remind me in forty minutes."
"Yes, sir."
To Lois, who had no experience with airships other than watching the Hindenburg crash and burn, this sounded extremely alarming. If the airship plummeted to the ground from this great height, it would surely kill them all. She began scanning the command deck for any signs of parachutes.
Chapter 34
Diana reached the base of the giant vertical stabilizer. The weapons platform had tracked her descent but, sensibly, hadn't opened fire. Not far forward of the stabilizer was a hatch leading inside the airship. For a moment, Diana considered disabling the weapon before venturing inside, but ultimately decided against it. After the weapon had fired on their plane, she realized the purpose of the other five similar mounts she had seen. Three were located forward, and three aft, with one mounted on top and lower ones on both the port and starboard sides, providing the airship with all-around defense against aerial attacks. Unless she was going to take out all six, there seemed little point in disabling just one.
The hatch led to a catwalk that stretched forward into the dim interior of the airship. The outer covering was almost opaque, making the interior space dimly lit, except where interior lights had been installed or where there were openings in the hull. She could see a lit area about a hundred feet ahead, likely where the aft weapons mount was located. Near her entry point, a stairway led deeper into the ship. Diana suspected her ultimate destination was somewhere along the bottom, where the main crew areas were usually located on airships. She took the stairs down, hoping to avoid the aft upper gun crew.
The airship was enormous. It took Diana almost ten minutes to reach her destination. Several times, she had taken stairs that led to dead ends, forcing her to backtrack. Twice, she encountered robots who were out on some assignment. They didn't appear armed, but she didn't want to leave any potential threats behind her, so she dispatched them with her sword.
Finally, nearing the control deck, she encountered a couple of robots that had already been disabled, ripped limb from limb. Superman had to be on the ship, ahead of her.
Just as she descended a stairway into the aft end of the control deck, she heard unfamiliar weapon fire. Then, she saw Superman midway along the length of the control deck caught between the beams of two weapons, similar to the one that had hit their plane. Two brilliant white lightning bolts played over his body simultaneously, causing him to jerk and spasm before collapsing to the deck.
As Diana rushed forward to help Superman, she came under attack from two other robots wielding similar weapons. She raised her shield just in time to block the energy blasts. The two robots that had fired on Superman turned their attention to her, adding their fire to the attack. The four robots were too widely separated for her to block all the beams with her shield.
Diana threw her sword at one of the robots. It slammed straight through its torso until the tip protruded from its back. The sword severed the robot's power source and abruptly its weapon cut off. But the fourth robot's beam hit Diana squarely in the chest. She felt the electricity ripping through every cell in her body. She collapsed to her knees, her shield falling to the floor. Now, three beams were focused on her. She fell to the floor, her body jerking spasmodically as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Chapter 35
Lois stared in shock. She had expected Superman and Wonder Woman to handle the situation with ease, but now they were both lying on the deck, unconscious, possibly dead. What was going to happen? What would the Ultra-Humanite do next?
The Ultra-Humanite nodded in satisfaction. Ten thousand volts were usually lethal to a human, and his weapons packed three hundred thousand. He didn't know what these superpowered beings were, but the weapons had at least knocked them out. It would be preferable if they were dead, but he wasn't willing to gamble his life on that assumption. Next time, if there was a next time, he might not be so lucky. It was time to move on to the next phase of his master plan. They were close enough to the end of the sixty-minute deadline he had set. If the robots at the Mint weren't finished, they soon would be.
He flipped a switch on the control panel in front of him that had been under a protective cover. A large clock on the wall began a five-minute countdown. "Implement Plan Gamma," the Ultra-Humanite said in a loud, clear voice. The nearest robot grabbed the handholds on the back of the wheelchair and began pushing it briskly toward the aft exit of the control deck, moving faster than the wheelchair could manage under its own power.
"What's going on?" demanded Warren Dunlap, who had been standing near the forward end of the control deck with his four subordinates.
"Nothing to worry about," the Ultra-Humanite replied smoothly. "I just need to move on to the next phase of the plan."
"What about that big timer that just appeared?" Dunlap asked, his voice laced with worry.
"When it reaches zero, the poison gas will be released," the Ultra-Humanite said casually. "But you'll be perfectly safe up here in the airship." And then, the Ultra-Humanite was gone, and one of the robots with a lightning weapon was stationed in front of the door, preventing anyone from following.
Lois didn't know if Dunlap believed the Ultra-Humanite, but she certainly didn't. She still had her gas mask, but would it be sufficient if they were exposed to a lot of the gas rather than the possible trickle when the loading operations were going on? Why leave alive a bunch of people who might know too much, when they could easily be eliminated now that their part in the current operation was over? She suspected the Ultra-Humanite had a way of escaping the airship that he hadn't shared with them. But that didn't matter now. What mattered was stopping the release of the gas. Even if the Ultra-Humanite was telling the truth and those on the airship were safe, hundreds of thousands of people on the ground would die if it was released.
Quickly, Lois raced over and knelt next to Diana. She felt for a pulse and, thankfully, found one. Knowing Diana needed to be up and moving in the next minute, not in ten minutes or an hour, Lois pulled her hand back and slapped the other woman across the face with every ounce of strength she possessed.
While Lois was focused on Diana, Superman began to stir. He lay still for a moment, gathering his strength, his eyes scanning the control deck. Noticing the Ultra-Humanite's absence, he correctly deduced that the villain was making his escape. Superman's path through the airship, after crashing through the hull, had taken him past a surprisingly large internal hangar containing a twin-engine plane. He assumed this was the Ultra-Humanite's intended escape vehicle.
Before anyone else on the control deck realized he was awake, Superman used his superspeed to launch himself upwards, effortlessly passing through the ceiling to bypass the robot guarding the exit with the electro-ray gun.
Lois had just slapped Diana for the second time, hoping to revive her, when Superman, barely visible in her peripheral vision, abruptly vanished. A fraction of a second later, bits of the ceiling rained down. Lois had no idea where he had gone, probably after the Ultra-Humanite, but he hadn't waited long enough for her to warn him about the impending release of the poison gas.
Lois turned back to Diana, shaking her shoulders hard. "Wonder Woman, you have to wake up! It's an emergency!" she shouted. But instead of her normal rich contralto, the words came out in an extremely high-pitched squeak. More than anything, she sounded like Minnie Mouse from the cartoons shown before movies at the cinema. She instantly realized the change in her voice was due to the presence of helium. Clearly, Superman must have punched through the giant airbag directly above them during his speedy departure, and the gas was leaking into the control deck.
Her voice still squeaking like Minnie Mouse, Lois shouted, "You men, open windows, or break them! The space is flooding with helium, and it might asphyxiate us!" She then swept her gaze around the room and spotted a nearby brass fire extinguisher. Grabbing it, she flipped it upside down to activate it and pointed the nozzle straight at Diana's face. The stream of pressurized water brought her around, coughing hard.
Lois dropped the fire extinguisher, knelt, and grabbed Diana's shoulders to get her attention. "Wonder Woman," she squeaked, remembering just in time not to use her real name, "we're in big trouble. The Ultra-Humanite has set a timer that's going to release the mustard gas in…" Lois paused to look up at the large timer on the wall, "…in two minutes and fifteen seconds. You need to do something!" Windows were shattering in the background, and by the time Lois finished speaking, her voice was returning to normal. Lois grabbed Wonder Woman's shield and thrust it into her hands. "The Ultra-Humanite has left the control room and took most of the robots with him. Only one armed robot is left, and it's at the aft door."
Wonder Woman was still groggy, but Lois's words were penetrating. She grabbed the shield in her left hand and pushed herself up to her knees, raising the shield defensively. She was reaching for her lasso, her only remaining weapon, when a man shouted, "Wonder Woman, catch!" She turned her head just enough to see a man in an expensive suit—Warren Dunlap—had retrieved her sword from where it had been embedded in the robot she had destroyed earlier and tossed it to her. In one smooth motion, Diana caught the sword, executed a half turn, and launched the weapon at the remaining robot. Even still half-dazed, her aim was true, and the sword slammed directly into the robot's chest, causing it to collapse to the deck.
Chapter 36
Diana's head was finally clearing from the effects of the electro-ray weapons. She glanced up at the timer, which now showed one minute and fifty-eight seconds.
"How do we stop the countdown?" she demanded of the assembled group, which included Lois, the man in the expensive suit standing to one side with four other men in coveralls, and four men in a uniform that appeared to be a variant of the standard U.S. Navy dress whites. Diana still didn't understand how Lois was present, but that explanation could wait.
After a long ten seconds, one of the men in uniform shook his head. "I don't know how. And even if I did, I'd assume the Ultra-Humanite included some kind of anti-tamper mechanism that would immediately trigger the release of the poison gas."
Diana shook her own head. The simple solutions never seemed to be possible. "Where is the poison gas held?" she asked. "I'll have to try to deal with it at the source."
The man turned to the schematic of the airship mounted on the wall. "The tank is mounted between the second and third airbags, here," he explained, pointing to a spot about fifty feet forward of the control cabin. "And just so you're aware," he added, "it appears Superman has ruptured bag three directly above us, as well as bags six and seven further aft. We're losing helium at a rate that means we'll need to take action within the next twenty minutes to stay aloft."
Diana stared at the schematic. The only solution she could see was to use her bracelets to destroy the tank, vaporizing the poison gas in the process. But using that much power would destroy everything in front of her. If she was positioned directly behind the tank, the blast would destroy the two forward gas bags and likely cause the airship to crash. But if she tried to destroy the tank from any other angle, she risked blowing apart the entire airship.
Another glance at the timer showed they were down to one minute and twenty seconds. "Get everyone in the airship moving as far aft as you can," Diana directed. "And when the countdown reaches ten seconds, grab onto something solid. I think the ride is going to get very rough."
She then took off running at superspeed, first towards the back of the control deck to retrieve her sword, and then towards the forward stairs.
Chapter 37
Diana paused in front of the large cylinder holding the mustard gas, thankfully marked with the familiar skull-and-crossbones symbol. She quickly assessed her surroundings. She was on a ladder between the second and third giant gasbags, each filling the near one-hundred-foot width and height of the airship. A ten-foot gap separated the two gasbags, designed for support structures and other systems. Luckily, the six-foot diameter, twelve-foot tall gas cylinder was recessed into the second gasbag, leaving nearly a ten-foot gap between herself and the device. By her internal count, twenty seconds remained until the gas would be released.
The aluminum ladder seemed to be the sturdiest structure nearby. Diana used her lasso to secure herself to it, hoping to avoid being flung into space when she unleashed her power. She closed her eyes for a moment, whispering a quick prayer in Ancient Greek, beseeching her father Zeus to reinforce her powers, as thousands of lives were at stake. Then, allowing righteous rage to fill her—rage at men like the Ultra-Humanite, who recklessly endangered countless lives—Diana screamed out her fury as she slammed her bracelets together with all her might.
An impossibly powerful wave of energy surged from her bracelets. The poison gas tank and its contents were utterly vaporized, as was everything in front of her. The first two airbags were shredded. The nearer support structure was also torn apart. However, the spars and ribs of the outer hull mostly held, though badly twisted and warped. Unfortunately, the blowback from the powerful blast also shredded the forward face of the third gasbag. The forward three of the twelve gasbags were gone or useless, but much of the weight of the supporting structure remained.
Almost instantly, the airship pitched nose-down as the unbalanced structure overrode the remaining nine gasbags. And with the loss of a quarter of the airship's lifting capacity, they were going down fast! Diana knew the only hope was to cut away as much of the now-useless structure as possible to slow their descent to a survivable rate. They were descending directly over the heart of Metropolis, and she was going to have to rain debris down on the city, but it would be even worse if the airship impacted at speed, with heavier pieces like the engines and exterior weapon mounts tearing loose and flying around.
Grabbing a handhold on the ladder, she freed the lasso and whipped the free end out, looping it around a piece of structure at the perimeter of the hull. She was grateful the lasso automatically stretched to the length she needed. Normally coiled at her belt, it was only twenty feet long, but now it stretched sixty feet. Once the end was secure, she leapt into the void. The lasso swung her out in a wide arc until she landed up near the juncture between the third and fourth gasbags. Everything that was forward of the fourth gasbag was now useless weight, dragging them down. She drew her sword and began hacking at the structure. Her strength allowed the sword to cut through the lightweight aluminum structure like a hot knife through butter.
Diana worked with savage efficiency, dropping giant chunks of structure onto the city below. She worked hard and fast, but at first, it was impossible to tell if it was having any effect. The airship had started five thousand feet above the city. The nose was less than two thousand feet above the ground, and barely one thousand feet above the tallest skyscrapers, when she heard the cadence of the airship's eight great propellers change. Someone had thrown them into full reverse to help slow the descent. Still, Diana worked tirelessly to remove more and more dead weight. They were beginning to slow, but would it be enough?
Chapter 38
Superman raced through the airship, hot on the trail of the Ultra-Humanite. In previous adventures, he had been shot numerous times, barely feeling the impacts. And the flamethrower fire from the previous day had felt like a warm breeze. So, what kind of weapon had these new robots used? His muscles were still spasming erratically. Nothing had ever affected him like this before. And he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. It seemed unlikely to have been more than a few minutes, but he didn't know how much of a head start the Ultra-Humanite had gained.
It only took a few seconds to reach the airplane hangar he had spotted earlier. And it was empty!
Scanning the skies below the airship, he recalled the brief glimpse he had caught of the plane earlier. It had twin engines and twin tails. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that it had been a Lockheed Electra. That plane had been all over the news the previous year when Amelia Earhart had disappeared over the Pacific in hers.
His eyes finally spotted an aircraft matching that description far below. The airship still lingered over central Metropolis, and the airplane was heading due west, doubtlessly towards some secret airfield in the remote countryside. Superman judged the distance and then leapt. The plane was almost a mile away but at least three thousand feet lower. It should be within his best leaping range.
His previous jump from Tex McAllen's plane had been his first attempt at leaping from an aircraft, and it had almost ended disastrously. He had hit the airship going so fast that he had crashed straight through its thin skin. He had been lucky to snag a spar as he was about to exit the lower surface. If he hadn't managed that, he would have plummeted to the ground.
And it might be the same again. The thin aluminum skin of the Electra was no more likely to stop him if he came in too fast than the fabric skin of the airship had. He spread his arms wide, trying to maximize his surface area and increase drag. He was slowly drifting off course and looked like he might miss the relatively small target of the plane entirely. He waved his arms around, trying to alter his trajectory. It seemed to be working, but now he wasn't slowing down as much as he needed to. He was constantly switching between being spread-eagle and swinging his arms around.
In the end, he hit the airplane, but he was still going too fast. Using his x-ray vision, he saw the Ultra-Humanite in his wheelchair but missed him by fifteen feet. Instead, Superman slammed straight through where a robot was sitting near the aft end. He and the robot tumbled out of the bottom of the plane. He swung wildly around, his arms and legs tangled with the robot's. When he was oriented to look up, he saw the tail of the airplane rip away, and the remainder of the plane go into a flat spin. Without its tail, the airplane was definitely going to crash.
As Superman and the robot tumbled towards the distant ground, Superman ripped off the robot's arms and legs, disabling the machine. This was one of the robots armed with the weapon that had caused him so much harm, so Superman was careful not to damage it. He might want to study it later to understand how it worked and how he might defeat it in the future.
As they fell, he kept watching the damaged plane. He and the robot were falling much faster and would hit the ground well before the plane. At the last second, he kicked the remains of the robot clear and landed hard on the pavement. He flexed his knees to absorb most of the shock, but it wasn't enough, and he ended up on his hands and knees before coming to a stop. His impact left several deep divots in the soft asphalt.
He quickly looked up. The airplane was going to crash almost two blocks away, but he still had a little time. He grabbed the robot's torso and weapon and deposited them in a nearby dumpster for safekeeping. Then he raced off towards where the airplane was going to hit.
He wouldn't shed any tears if the Ultra-Humanite died, but a quick death seemed too good for someone who had caused so much havoc. No, it would be much more satisfying if the man rotted in jail for many years.
The airplane was about fifty feet above the spot where it was going to impact when Superman arrived. He immediately leapt up and grabbed the bottom of the fuselage where the wings attached. When he and the airplane reached the ground, he again flexed his knees to absorb most of the energy of the impact.
He lowered the airplane to the ground and then raced around to the left side of the fuselage and ripped off the passenger door. He raced into the airplane at superspeed, intent on disarming all the robots before any of them could use their weapons. Like a whirlwind, Superman ripped off arms and heads and slammed his fist through torsos. But the whole time, he kept one eye on the spot where the Ultra-Humanite had been earlier.
The wheelchair was still there, but it was empty!
After all the robots had been destroyed, he carefully swept the entire airplane with his x-ray vision, looking for secret compartments where the man could be hiding. But the man was simply gone. Superman raced back outside and scanned the sky, thinking perhaps the Ultra-Humanite had gotten out by parachute. But, again, he found nothing. The Ultra-Humanite had somehow simply vanished.
Superman was still staring up at the sky when he saw a brilliant flash in his peripheral vision.
He turned at superspeed in that direction and saw it had come from the airship. He realized it was like the flash he had seen at the warehouse by the docks when Wonder Woman had slammed her silver bracelets together. Only this flash was at least a hundred times as bright, maybe a thousand times.
And, as he watched, the forward quarter of the massive airship exploded into a giant cloud of debris.
Superman simply stared for a moment as the mighty airship sagged by the nose until it was hanging vertically. But "hanging" was too optimistic a term. With the forward gasbags gone and much of their supporting structure remaining, the airship was sinking towards the ground at an alarming rate.
Superman kicked himself into action. Using his telescopic vision, he could see Wonder Woman on the outside of the airship, cutting away useless weight. Giant sections of twisted aluminum ribs and spars were falling from the airship towards the ground. And the airship wasn't over some benign, mostly empty field like where the Hindenburg had crashed in Lakehurst, New Jersey. No, the large pieces of the airship were falling into the heart of Metropolis.
He was nearly a mile away, but he immediately launched himself into a prodigious leap in the direction of the falling airship.
He arrived just before the first giant piece of debris landed on top of a group of pedestrians. He caught it and then moved it to lean against the side of a building where it would be mostly out of the way. Then he raced out into the street, leaping up into the air to keep the next piece from impaling a group of passengers on the upper level of a double-decker bus. And so, it went for the next couple of minutes as he protected people on the ground from the steady rain of debris Wonder Woman was cutting away from the stricken airship.
But it clearly wasn't enough, Superman realized. The airship was still descending, nose down, and looked like it was going to impale itself on the spire atop the LuthorCorp tower. If that happened, the spire would undoubtedly pierce the remaining gasbags, and the airship would collapse, killing any survivors still aboard.
Superman leapt for the tower. It was so tall; his best leap only carried him halfway to the top. A combination of smaller leaps and climbing in speed mode quickly brought him to the top, barely in time.
He grabbed the stoutest piece of dangling debris on the airship and started pushing up, holding the airship away from the tower. Looking up, the vertically oriented airship stretched nearly seven hundred feet above his head.
Groaning from the hundreds of tons pressing down against him, he watched as Wonder Woman leapt from the airship and landed a couple of levels below him on the stepped peak of the tower. She quickly used her lasso to capture a sturdy piece of structure near the bottom of the airship. Bracing her legs against the parapet, Wonder Woman began to pull the lower edge of the airship closer while Superman held the upper edge in place, returning the airship to its normal horizontal orientation.
Chapter 39
Wonder Woman quickly pulled her lasso free and tossed it again. This time, the almost lifelike magic rope shot to the upper right corner of the airship, looped around a piece of structure a couple of times, then shot across to the upper left corner, looping around another piece of structure. From there, it shot to the bottom center of the gaping wound in the airship, looping around several times before finally connecting the three sections of rope. With this clever arrangement, Diana could maintain the airship's position with one hand.
She looked up to where Superman still stood several levels above her. He still held the airship with one hand, though it wasn't strictly necessary anymore.
"What happened to you?" Diana asked. "Where did you disappear to when the most important thing was stopping the poison gas from being released?"
Superman felt his cheeks redden. Back at the dockside warehouse, he had simply watched from the shadows, dumbfounded, while Wonder Woman single-handedly took down twenty men. Then, at the Diamond Exchange, while he had dealt with one robot, Wonder Woman had been forced to handle a dozen more, moments away from exploding. And now, he had chased after the Ultra-Humanite, ignoring the immediate threat they had come to the airship to neutralize. And he hadn't even managed to catch the man. Every critical task in this entire situation had fallen on Wonder Woman's shoulders, while he had mostly just floundered around.
"Sorry," Superman said, his tone subdued. "I've just never come up against anything remotely like this before. I've only ever dealt with petty criminals or simple accidents." He hesitated for a moment before adding, "But I suspect you have."
Diana thought back to the battle against Ares, when they had been tossing army tanks at each other. That had been the last time she had seen action on this scale. "Yes," Diana replied, "but not since the Great War."
Superman's eyes widened. "How is that possible?" he asked, incredulous. Wonder Woman barely looked twenty years old. "You could have barely been born back then."
Diana smiled. "I'm a lot older than I look," she replied.
She then felt the tension in the three loops of the lasso begin to shift. "Go find some stout rope or something so we can tie off the airship and release my lasso," Diana directed. "I'm not sure how much longer the airship is going to stay aloft, and there are people aboard we still need to rescue."
Superman nodded and disappeared at superspeed. Diana felt a small smile play at the corner of her mouth. With some mentoring, this Superman might turn into a useful ally.
End of Episode 1
Author's Note: I decided to call this episode 1, as I might do a sequel in this same time period. If you enjoyed this story or have any suggestions of what you might like to see in a sequel, drop me a review.
