THE LAST DAUGHTER
The faint smell of engine oil lingered in the air as Richard gave the engine compartment a final inspection. The sun had gone down an hour ago, and the moon cast its reflection across the calm waters. Richard wiped the last smudge of oil from his hands with a well-used rag. He carefully placed the oil-stained filter into a plastic bag, then began organizing his tools. The wrench went back into its designated slot in the weathered toolbox under the front seat, followed by the ratchet and sockets. He methodically wiped each tool clean, ensuring no residue remained, before snapping the lid shut with a satisfying click, making sure everything was secure and spotless.
"How long have you known?"
Richard stood up and turned around to see Superman standing on the dock next to the seaplane. He exited the plane and joined him on the dock, leaning against the railing.
"Almost a year now, I guess. Jason let it slip."
Superman puffed out his cheeks and exhaled deeply.
"Yeah," Richard continued. "You're lucky Lois wasn't around. If she finds out from anyone but you…." He shook his head but didn't finish the thought. "I had a talk with Jason. He hasn't slipped up again."
"Thank you," Superman told him gratefully. "And thanks for this morning."
"That was intense. Was Luthor bluffing? Were the bombs real?"
"Oh yeah," Superman nodded his head. "They were very real."
"We didn't hear anything about them, so I guess you got to them all in time."
Superman sighed and nodded again.
"I didn't know you could fly that fast." Richard was impressed.
"The actual flying is relatively easy. The hard part is weighing the urgency of the matter against the damage I might do if I fly too fast. But all the detonators were on twenty-minute timers anyway."
"He says you have 2 minutes when you really have twenty," Richard scoffed. "He just can't pass up an opportunity to mess with you."
Superman turned thoughtful. "Did I do the right thing, Richard? What would you have done if you were me?"
"I was just thinking how glad I am that I'm not you."
"Thanks."
"He put you in an awful spot, Super… Clark. What do I call you, anyway?"
Superman thought about it for a moment. "Better stick with Superman for now." He nodded toward the house. They both watched as Lois exited through the back door and walked toward them.
"If I were you, I would've killed him," Richard confessed. "Barring that, I wouldn't keep my end of the deal. As soon he hands Linda over, have him arrested the moment he climbs out of whatever rat hole he's hiding in and shows his ugly face."
"I can't do that."
"You're really going to try to get him a pardon?" Richard asked incredulously.
"There's no 'trying.' The president already had the ball rolling before I went to DC. Same thing in London, Jakarta, and Canberra... No one can seem to move fast enough or do enough trying please me and ingratiate themselves to me, no matter what it entails. This is never how I wanted things to be, Richard. I've always tried to stick to my principles, hoping to inspire others to do the same. But I folded this time, so why shouldn't they? Principles be damned."
"You don't need to keep your end of the deal because he's not going to keep his."
Lois arrived, having heard the last bit of their conversation. "Of course not. He'll never give up being a criminal."
"It's baked into the pardons," Superman told them. "The minute he does anything illegal… if he so much as jay-walks, the pardons get rescinded."
"He agreed to that?" Lois asked.
"I didn't know pardons worked that way," Richard offered.
"The attorneys said they would work it out."
"What could he be up to?" Lois wondered. "He's got to be up to something,"
"We'll have to wait till he shows his hand," Richard said.
"Did he say anything about Linda?" Lois asked.
"He said he'll release her as soon as the pardons are issued." Superman grimaced. "It's going to take a few days, unfortunately."
"If you need a place for her to stay, Richard and I already discussed it…"
"Thank you," Superman said gratefully. "But this is already a target-rich environment. I don't want to put you guys in more danger."
"You just told me this morning it's easier for you to protect us if we're in the same place."
"If an eleven year old girl suddenly shows up to live with you, everyone's going to know who she is. I have another place I can hide her, and no one will suspect anything, so there will be no need to protect her."
"She's going to need trauma counseling."
"I know."
Richard spotted Jason running toward them. "Hey kiddo, you're supposed to be in bed."
"I know an excellent therapist. Lillian Lucas."
"I couldn't sleep." Jason ran to Superman and jumped into his arms. They grinned at each other. "Mommy told me about Linda. Is she the Last Daughter?"
Superman's grin faded away as he turned to look at Lois, his usually calm gaze now flickering with a storm of conflicting emotions. She mistook his expression for anger directed toward her. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "He heard you and Luthor talking about her this morning, and I told him what you told me."
Superman consciously unclenched his jaw and tried to compose himself. He stared blankly at Lois for a few moments before shaking his head slowly and turning back to look at Jason. "No, no she's not," he told Jason quietly. "There is no Last Daughter." He gently put his son down and took a few steps back. "I gotta go," he whispered before flying away in a "WOOSH!"
Clark flew up, straight up, then still further up, the cold air doing little to soothe the burning turmoil within him. The sprawling cityscape of Metropolis quickly became a distant blur as he ascended.
He flew still higher, seeking solace in the quiet of outer fringe of the Earth's thermosphere, a favorite perch for contemplation, meditation, or simply solitude. An unfortunate happenstance made his heart sink as a nauseating green mass caught his attention. New Krypton, Luthor's twisted creation, orbiting serenely between Mars and Jupiter, was directly in his line of sight. Profound regret and shame washed over him. It had been Clark's thoughtless decision to leave his crystals unguarded that had left the Earth vulnerable to the highly volitile alien technology, and had he returned just a few days later, billions would have died and the Earth would have been doomed. He lamented for the thousandth time his inability to fling New Krypton even further into space, away from the sun's gravitational pull, away from the fragile world he swore to protect, and far enough away so that even his telescopic vision couldn't reach it.
But there it was, the colossal grotesque reminder and testament to his grievous mistakes and the dire consequences resulting from his foolish decisions.
Why had he been so foolish to return to Krypton? Jor-el had warned him not to. He should have listened! Oh, why, why hadn't he listened!
Abruptly halting his upward movement, he pivoted to face his adopted planet as Jor-el's words echoed in his memory.
"The Last Son will return to Krypton and redeem it. The son becomes the father, and the father becomes the son."
His journey to Krypton seven years prior had been fueled by a glimmer of hope, a desperate desire to be the prophesied Last Son who could somehow redeem the planet. The desolation that greeted him on Krypton shattered his hopes and exposed the fallacy of the prophecy. And worse still, the consequences of his absence were painful not only in the loss of his crystals and the near destruction of Earth, but also the loss of his relationship with Lois and the first five years of their son's life. The hindsight of neglecting Jor-el's counsel gnawed at him, and the realization of his own folly was a bitter pill to swallow.
But swallow it he had, and even digested and expelled it, long ago. Ma and Pa had instilled in him since childhood the importance of not dwelling on the pain of the past, but forging ahead with resilience and hope. And that's what he had thought he had done and succeeded with in regards to his brief delusion of being the Last Son and all that had wrought. He had long ago accepted he had been grievously deceived and vowed he would never again entertain such ridiculosities as ancient prophesies and redeeming dead planets.
But ever since he had found out that Kara was on Earth, a gnawing dread had taken root in his heart, one he couldn't easily shake. The notion that she might be the fabled Last Daughter from those same Kryptonian prophecies tormented him. He kept pushing such thoughts into the deepest recesses of his mind, only to be brought to the fore after his mother mentioned the Last Daughter earlier that day. Again, he pushed such thoughts away, but now Jason had brought it up yet again. Like a stubborn weed that persisted in resprouting in the garden he tended as a boy, unbidden and relentless, the dread surged back with a vengeance, refusing to be ignored. Unable to find relief from his racing thoughts, Clark's heart pounded as waves of denial, foreboding, and impotence washed over him.
"The Last Son will return to Krypton and redeem it. The son becomes the father, and the father becomes the son."
"Is that all?" Kal-el inquired.
"That was the entire prophecy. But there was other, apocryphal information. Most of it was secret and only known by the intergenerational society of the keepers of 'Kara's comb.' Your cousin, my brother's daughter, Kara Zor-el, was the last Kara to have the comb passed down to her, and I assume the information as well."
The AI programming brought up an image from Jor-el's memory to share with Kal-el. The hologram showed a happy little girl, who looked to be the equivalent of about 7 Earth years old, with thick blond curls and eyelashes, a freckled nose, rosy cheeks and pouty lips. The little girl was bouncing up and down on a lounge, acting silly and giggling. She abruptly stopped her antics and reached out her arms. An image of Clark's birth mother, Lara, entered the hologram. She was holding a baby.
Kal-el remembered.
Much like most facets of Kryptonian existence, Kryptonian memory was crystalline—clear, sharp, precise, and resistant to degradation. On Krypton, memories from infancy would appear somewhat cloudy due to the considerable energy required to access them. Bringing the relevant "neurons" to crystallize and resonate was necessary to bring these early impressions into focus. In Kal-el's Earthly environment, he possessed an abundance of energy and strength, enabling him to bring any memory into sharp clarity.
Nevertheless, memories from his infancy remained perplexing. As a baby, Kal-el had not comprehended much of the unfolding events around him. Important conversations might have taken place across the room, but in his infantile state, his focus was attuned to whatever was mere inches away from his face and within his immediate reach. The confusion of those early memories stemmed from the limitations of his understanding as a baby, leaving gaps in the recollection of significant moments.
Kal-el remembered that day, but watching it now from Jor-el's perspective, he was now able to make sense of it.
Lara sat next to Kara on the couch and gently placed the baby Kal-el in her lap. The little girl bent down and wrapped her arms around the delicate infant and looked at him quietly for a while. Abruptly, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to bring him closer.
"I can hold him," the little girl insisted as she gently tried to pull the baby away from Lara.
"I know you can," Lara chuckled, "but I'm just a little selfish, OK?"
"But I can't…"
"You can," Lara encouraged her. "I'm sure you can. Just give it a few more moments. Be still. Be quiet. Don't give up. Concentrate."
Kara's face scrunched up even more. Kal-el let out a little grunt as his tiny hand came to rest on her nose. Kara opened her eyes and giggled.
Everyone else in the room except Lara stood back, silent and still, to prevent their own crystalprints from mingling with those of the baby. Given the infant's small size, his signals were faint, making it challenging for Kara, who was also quite young, to pick them up. Consequently, Kara's father, mother, and Uncle Jor-el refrained from approaching, aiming to create as clear a space as possible around the little girl and her baby cousin.
Observing the holographic projection of himself, his mother, and Kara from Jor-el's perspective, Kal-el discerned the subtle nuances reminiscent of a skilled movie director shaping the ambiance in a scene. The overall tone, visual flow, and audio qualities of the hologram conveyed to Kal-el that Jor-el took pleasure in those moments, harboring a profound affection and closeness with everyone in the room. As he integrated this perception with his personal memory of the gentle hums and vibrations of the crystalprints enveloping his younger self, Clark gained a profound understanding of what family felt like on Krypton.
Kara squeezed her eyes shut again and took a deep breath and concentrated. After a few moments, a huge smile broke out on her face. She had pinpointed little Kal-el's crystalprint. She lifted him up a bit to bring his cheek up to her own. Her eyes were still closed, but they were now relaxed. The baby let out a quiet "coo" and then he, too, closed his eyes and was silent and still. They remained in that way, cheek to cheek, exploring each other's presence.
They both opened their eyes and gazed at each other, both still cognizant of the connection they had just made. "He knows me too." Kara whispered. Kal-el let out another "coo."
Kara reluctantly let Lara pull the baby back into her own arms. The little girl leaned over and placed a kiss on little Kal-el's head. "You're so cute. You're the cutest baby in the world. And your voice is so sweet. It's sweeter than the forest melodies. Isn't it Daddy?" She looked up at her father for a moment and then back at Kal-el. "When you come visit us Argo city, I'll take you to the Singing Forest so you can hear them. It's too bad you don't have crystals like that in Kryptonopolis."
Jor-el's focus shifted to his brother, who was standing next to him. "Like father, like daughter," he mumbled teasingly.
This was the first and only time Jor-el ever mentioned Kara and this was the only image of her he ever showed him. But it had been enough to help him understand that memory from his infancy. It was enough to enable him to recognize Kara in the photos Lois had taken. And when he approached her in the playground of Midvale's Girls' School, even though her physiology was now more Earthling than Kryptonian, his super strong senses could still make out a somewhat fuzzy crystalprint, the same that had been etched in his memory when Kara held her cheek to his own.
How did she get here? How did she… exist… at all?
Jor-el continued. "But all that died with her when she was obliterated,""
"Obliterated?"
"Assassinated by obliteration, mere days after the memory I just shared with you. It was a terrible matter, made even more terrible by that I was unable to comfort my brother. I reached out to him, but received no response. We were not on speaking terms at the time."
After just witnessing such a beautiful and serene family scene, Kal-el was all the more perplexed. "Why not? What happened?"
Jor-el returned to the subject of the First Father as if the AI programming had not heard Kal-el's questions.
"There were a few other matters related to the prophesies that were not secret. But no one knows their provenance and there is no way to ascertain their validity. Were these also from the First Father, or were they added later on by generations with overactive imaginations? One of these matters was that there would be not just a Last Son, but a Last Daughter as well. It was never made clear, but it was assumed that the Last Daughter was referring to a keeper of "Kara's comb."
"So Kara Zor-el was the Last Daughter, since she was the last to have the comb?"
"Unlikely, given the manner of her death."
"Who would assassinate a child?" Kal-el wondered.
"During her visit to Kryptonopolis, a scene of which I just shared with you, Kara was exploring The Council Halls and somehow ended up in one of the secure chambers. She witnessed a very sensitive communique between the Inner Circle and our liaison Palm-ek. The information in that communique would have compromised Krypton's security if it fell into the wrong hands."
"What information?"
"As you know, my colleague, Vond-ah, and I were tasked with studying the recent changes in Krypton's orbit that would cause a premature syzygy of Krypton with Rao, Koron, and Agoron. We disagreed bitterly on the effect this would have on the stability of our planet's core. Vond-ah perceived the orbital shift as a cyclical occurrence. She believed that Krypton had weathered similar cosmic phenomena throughout its past and had survived the ebb and flow of celestial cycles countless times before. I was convinced this was a unique phenomenon that would put extra strain on Krypton's core with increasing pressure, heightened seismic activity, anomalies in Krypton's electromagnetic fields, gravitational fluctuations, etcetera, and this would all lead to a cataclysmic consequence."
"In order to try to settle the matter, we requested historical data from the galactic observatory of the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle is an intergalactic organization with its headquarters located nearly at the very center of the known universe, hence its name. Their scientists were assisting Vond-ah and myself with data, as well as assisting with analyses and recommendations."
"At the same time, teams within other Inner Circle divisions were researching and laying foundations for contingency plans in the event evacuation of Krypton was deemed necessary. The communique Kara was privy to related the precise identity and location of a suitable uninhabited planet that we hoped could become our refuge in the event of such an evacuation, as well as security codes and procedures enabling the ongoing communications between Palm-Ek and the Inner Circle. The discovery of either or both of these by criminal elements, most concerningly by General Zod, would have put all our plans in jeopardy. With this information, Zod could have proceeded us and established military outposts that would have enabled him to seize power were we unaware of his movements, or dissuade us from relocating there had we been. Such planets are a rarity, so we could not risk the identity of this one being discovered. Even Palm-Ek himself was careful not to expose himself to the information as it was being transferred into the Council's secure systems."
"But Kara had no such inhibitions and was now in possession of this critical and highly sensitive information. We had long suspected that Zod was spying on the goings on in the Council and that he was or would soon be aware of this vulnerability. There was only one course of action to be taken. I voted with The Council to protect Kara's memory with a mermex crystal."
"She was a child!" Kal-el shook his head in disbelief his father would vote to subject his niece to such a drastic measure.
"I had to do what was necessary for the greater good," Jor-el offered in self defense. "Zor-el pleaded with me to dissent. That was the source of the rift between us. The mermex implantation was a surprising success, with very little loss of peripheral memory, and my brother and his family returned to Argo City. But a few days later, we discovered that indeed there was a spy within our ranks, and he had, before the implantation procedure, secretly switched out the crystal we had intended for Kara with an immature one from the nursery. Immature mermex crystals are volatile, unpredictable, and insecure. We had to correct the error without delay. Palm-Ek travelled with a security detail to Argo City to retrieve Kara. They arrived just as Zod's forces were kidnapping her. Our forces were hopelessly outnumbered and Kara would have certainly ended up in Zod's possession had Palm-Ek not made the quick decision to obliterate her, killing himself as well in the process."
"The apocryphal prophesies relate that in order to redeem Krypton, the Last Son would be compelled to kill the Last Daughter. The circumstances surrounding Kara's death fueled much speculation about her identity as such. But Palm-Ek was not of the house of El, so he could certainly not be the Last Son. Furthermore, Kara's death brought about no observable redemption of Krypton. In fact, Krypton's demise occurred shortly after these events."
"Perhaps there is a Last Daughter, but it someone other than Kara Zor-el. Perhaps the traditions concerning the Last Daughter were not authentic. Perhaps none of the prophesies are authentic. Certainly, they are at the very least erroneous. Krypton is gone. It cannot be redeemed. These prophesies are a part of our heritage, which is why I am telling you about them. I do not intend that you try to use them to inform you of the future. There can be no redemption for Krypton's destruction. Do not return there. Nothing will be left. It will be a graveyard."
Jor-el had been right about Krypton, but he was wrong about Kara.
She hadn't been obliterated.
She was alive, and she was here.
Clark's thoughts raced, desperately trying to dismiss the prophecies as mere legends, convincing himself they were nothing more than fables, as he had believed for the past two years. Yet, the knowledge that Kara, of all Kryptonians, the one rumored to be the Last Daughter, had survived and ended up on Earth as he had, was too significant to chalk up to mere coincidence. The alignment of these events gnawed at his sense of reality, forcing him to confront the disturbing possibility that the prophecies might hold some truth.
And what then?
Was it possible that perhaps on his trip to Krypton, he had failed to fulfill his destiny, since Krypton was not redeemed? Would he be compelled one day to return there again to successfully complete the mission.
No!
The idea that a destroyed planet could be redeemed was absurd. What could that mean anyway? How could a destroyed planet be redeemed, and how would returning to Krypton or killing the Last Daughter bring that about? It was foolhardy and conceited of him to think he could in any way help Krypton now, and he certainly knew even more for certain there was no reason to ever return there again. Clark vowed never to leave Earth again, and he swore to himself that he would never hurt Kara, no matter what any prophecy said.