The first time he heard the name "Superman," Richard White was playing five-card stud by candlelight in the blacked-out apartment that passed for a newsroom. There were seven American journalists left in the province; Federated Nations forces had left, and the nightly artillery shellings were no longer news. The seven men who stayed on – whether because their employers insisted, because they thought they could write a book about it in ten years, or (to quote certain uncles) "from sheer cussed stupid bull-pigheadedness" -- had long resigned to not making their own front pages unless a stray mortar hit the newsroom and killed them. In that case, they'd get a sidebar, praising their courage and misspelling their names.

That night, the seven squinted at their cards in the bare flame, huddled around the black market whiskey and lung-choking Russian cigarettes that served as ante. The fax machine beeped to life, and they all jumped. "We got phone lines back?" laughed Dan Tipton (Sun City Times -- paunchy, drunk, avoiding the inevitable divorce back home). He was getting his ass handed to him, anyway, so he slid to the machine, and pulled the paper as it rolled off. Richard focused on his cards. He was on a hot streak. He didn't even smoke back in Metropolis, but here, cigarettes were a commodity and so they were worth having.

It wasn't until Tipton snorted and chuckled that Grant Fowler walked over and yanked the fax out of his hand.
Fowler (gaunt, balding, covered every war since Vietnam; wrote sardonic, left-leaning dispatches that even the sardonic, left-leaning Town Crier was starting to throw in the kill drawer) leaned down to scan the sheet by the green light of the fax machine's on-button, then burst into laughter. Now everybody looked up, and Tipton choked out, "Faster than a speeding bullet. . .able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. . ."

"It's a bird –" said Fowler.

"It's a plane –" said Tipton.

They met each other's eyes, then said together, "It's Superman!"

"Come on, guys." Richard tapped the pile of the cigarettes. "Your temporary insanity is not going to distract me from winning all your cancer over here." He used to worry about cancer, and high blood pressure, and emphysema; in a war zone, there were more compelling and immediate forms of death.

"Somebody's insane, buddy boy, but it ain't us. This is front page news." Fowler pulled a new sheet off the fax, and brought it over closer to the candlelight. "What the hell is this guy wearing?" Ed Baxter (American Civic Radio, hadn't had an adequate link to file a report for three weeks) grabbed at the fax. Fowler flashed the top of the paper, which was enough to elicit a guffaw, then started to fold the sheet.

Richard had a sinking feeling about the evil grin on the other men's faces, but denial seemed like a good route for the moment. "Let me guess," he said. "More sensationalistic yellow journalism out of the Gotham Register? Caped Crusader not selling enough papers, so they've got to invent --"

"See for yourself, Flyboy." Fowler lifted the fax, now in the shape of an airplane, and sent it sailing at Richard's head. He managed to catch it, but half-tipped his chair in the process. He staggered to his feet – like maybe he meant to almost fall over -- and opened the fax. A scanned and resized front page of the Daily Planet stared at him. It's a bird, it's a plane . . . Good God, was that a cape?

Richard had to bite his lip to keep from saying, "Great Caesar's ghost!" in classic Perry-style – the guys wouldn't get it, anyway. Instead, he rubbed the giant globe on the letterhead and shook his head. "Good old Uncle Perry."

"Perry White and his one big ball," said Fowler. "Always got an eye on the important issues."

"Yeah," cracked Baxter. "Giving the reading public what they want. To pay for, that is."

"Maybe." Richard crushed the paper into his hand and walked to the window. He ran his hand over the duct tape that held the heavy black curtain to the wall. Sirens and the distant echo of gunfire sounded – miles away, but close enough to kill them, if someone had the will or lacked the aim. He thought of Metropolis with its green parks and restaurants and miles of upscale retail; he tried to remember what the hell its residents wanted saving from. "Maybe," said Richard, "it's what he thinks they need."

TBC