Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Empty creches budded as the Genesis Chamber came online. Zod’s patriotic heart filled with pride as he envisioned a new generation of Kryptonians spreading forth from this Arctic fortress to claim a virgin world.

“You should thank me, Jor-El,” he gloated. “You dreamt of rebuilding Krypton. I’m making that dream a reality.”

The hologram disagreed.

“You’re perverting the dream,” it said. “Our people can coexist with them.”

“Why should we?” Zod countered. “So we can suffer through years of pain, trying to adapt like your son has?” He scoffed at so dismal a future. “That’s not existing. I want to breathe the air of Krypton again. I want to feel the solid weight of our world beneath my feet.”

Jor-El’s hologram reacted with predictable self-righteousness.

“You’re talking about genocide!”

“Yes,” Zod answered without regret or apology. He started to justify his agenda, but realized how pointless that would be. “And I’m arguing its merits with a ghost.”

“We’re both ghosts, Zod. Don’t you see that? The Krypton you keep clinging to is gone. It failed… just as your desperate actions will.”

Despite himself, Zod was shaken by the hologram’s dire prophecy. He wanted to concentrate on the future, not dwell on the events of the past. Things would be different this time, on this world. No matter what this annoying simulacrum said.

“Ship,” he said, raising his voice. “Have you managed to quarantine this invasive intelligence?”

The scout ship’s computer, now slaved to his control, responded promptly.

“Yes, sir.”

He made a mental note to reprogram the computer to address him by his proper rank of general.

“Prepare to terminate it.” He cast a contemptuous look at all that was left of Jor-El. “I’m tired of this debate.”

The hologram seemed undaunted by the threat of deletion. He shook his head reproachfully.

“Silencing me won’t change anything,” it responded. “My son is twice the man you were. And he will finish what we started. I promise you that.”

Zod’s temper flared. How dare this bodiless apparition compare a true Kryptonian patriot—genetically crafted to defend and preserve their people—to a misbegotten traitor who should have never been conceived?

“Tell me,” he said with deliberate malice. “You have Jor-El’s memories, his emotions. Can you experience his pain?”

The hologram’s silence spoke volumes.

“I will harvest the Codex from your son’s corpse,” Zod promised, wielding his words as a weapon. He twisted the knife as he had back on Krypton, when he had killed Jor-El the first time. “And I will rebuild Krypton atop his bones.”

Then he slammed his command key all the way into the central control port, asserting his authority over the scout ship and its systems. The computer purged the rogue A.I. from its memory banks, causing the image to abruptly dematerialize. Zod savored the sight of “Jor-El” dissolving into random photons before blinking out entirely.

This time around, he experienced no regret at executing his old friend.

Perhaps killing Jor-El gets easier with practice.

Turning away from the Genesis Chamber, he strode onto the bridge. Ice melted away from a frosted viewport, allowing him a clear look at the frigid wastes outside. A pilot’s seat descended from the ceiling and he took his place before the navigational controls. He had found what he sought, and exorcised Jor-El’s hectoring spirit once and for all, so he saw no further reason to tarry in this desolate wilderness.

Unlike Kal-El, he did not intend to hide from humanity.

He fired up the dormant engines. Thrusters on the underside of the scout ship flared brightly as it tore itself loose from the mountaintop. An avalanche thundered down the rugged slopes as he took to the air.

Zod set a course for Metropolis.

Exerting all his strength, Superman broke free from the World Engine’s crushing grip. He zoomed in a corkscrew pattern around the massive machine, taking evasive action to avoid the flailing tentacles. He mentally kicked himself for not anticipating the Engine’s attack.

I should have known this thing would put up a fight.

Despite its size, the Engine was faster than it looked. A tendril whipped out, snaring Superman in its punishing coils. Energized matter jolted him as the machine flung him beneath its belly, directly into the gravity column.

The overpowering force slammed him down onto the exposed bedrock of the island, pinning him to the Earth with wave after wave of g-force. The weight and pressure were so intense that he could barely lift his head, let alone fly. Was this what the gravity on Krypton had been like? Small wonder he felt light as air on Earth.

Until now.

The C-17 circled the Black Zero, unable to get close enough to deliver its unearthly payload. Indeed, as the energy fluctuations intensified, they were forced to widen their circle, taking them further and further from their objective.

The remaining F-35s stubbornly engaged the levitating spaceship, but to no effect. Their guns and missiles couldn’t get past the distortions that were surrounding Zod’s ship.

Hardy barked into the radio urgently.

“NORTHCOM, this is Guardian. Any word on that gravity field being taken out?”

“Negative, Guardian,” Swanwick reported. “Return to Alpha hold-point. Keep circling.”

But for how long? Lois wondered. Buckled into her jump-seat, she toyed anxiously with the Kryptonian command key. The symbol on its head caught her eye and she clung to its true meaning with all her heart.

“Come on, Kal,” she whispered. “You said it wasn’t an ‘S’.”

There had to be hope, as long as Superman was still alive.

Perry was breathing heavily by the time he and the others reached the ground floor of the Daily Planet building. He ushered the staff out of the lobby and onto the street, where the shimmering column could be seen advancing like a tidal wave.

Parked vehicles, streetlamps, fire hydrants, and news kiosks were flattened beneath the oncoming wall of gravity. Debris was everywhere. Neighboring buildings and parking garages were leveled. A vacant city bus was compacted to a paper-thin sheet of metal.

“Keep moving!” he shouted. “RUN!”

Up in the sky, a daring jet fighter banked too closely to the alien ship’s protective halo. Snared by a pulsing wave of gravity, it spun out of control and crashed into a nearby office building. Shattered masonry and flaming wreckage rained down on the streets and sidewalk, hitting the pavement like missiles.

The impact knocked Perry to the curb, but he scrambled to his feet and sprinted away from the crumbling building. Powdered stone and ash dusted his face and clothing. Lombard pulled out ahead of him as Perry tried to take a quick mental inventory of his people, who were scattering in disarray.

“Everyone okay?”

The widening column was hot on their heels. He heard steel and concrete being crushed to bits behind them. Looming high above their heads, the coruscating wall of gravity was bulldozing its way across Metropolis, razing the entire city to the ground.

Suddenly collapsing buildings and densely packed vehicles hemmed them in, cutting off their retreat. Glancing about desperately for the nearest escape route, Lombard spied a narrow alley that ran between two endangered skyscrapers.

“I see a way out!” he hollered.

Perry stopped to look around. Where was Jenny? In the clamor and confusion, he’d lost track of the young intern. He called out for her.

“Jenny!”

A weak, muffled voice responded.

“…here…”

Her battered hand reached out from beneath a pile of rubble. Part of the building’s façade had apparently broken loose and buried the girl. Perry dashed to her side and frantically began clearing away the heavy slabs of masonry. Adrenaline gave him the strength to uncover her face, which was bruised and bleeding. Sheer terror contorted her features. Tears streaked the dust coating her cheeks.

“I’m stuck!” she exclaimed. “I can’t get free!”

Perry tried to excavate her, but some of the slabs were too big for just one man to lift. His desperate eyes searched for Lombard, whom he spotted several feet away, seemingly paralyzed with fear. The reporter’s petrified gaze darted back and forth between the trapped intern and the towering gravity column advancing implacably toward them.

The crushing beam was less than twenty yards away now, and roaring loudly enough to rattle Perry’s teeth. Unless they moved quickly, Jenny would be pulped in a matter of moments. They all would be.

“Lombard!” Perry shouted over the din. “Help me!”

The jock wavered, unable to tear his gaze away from the oncoming column. He looked like he was on the verge of abandoning them.

“LOMBARD! Get your ass over here!”

Perry’s sharp tone jolted the man into action. Finding a core of bravery that probably surprised even him, the reporter raced over to assist Perry. Together, they started heaving massive chunks of stonework aside, slowly uncovering her. She struggled weakly to liberate herself.

“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “Please.”

But Perry wasn’t going anywhere. He glanced briefly over his shoulder, to see the looming column creeping relentlessly toward them. He lifted another heavy slab, but while they were making progress, it wasn’t fast enough. There was no way they could dig her out before the gravity column turned them into greasy smears on the pavement.

Lombard knew the score as well. He glanced sheepishly at Perry, clearly wanting to run, but Perry’s stoic gaze shamed him into staying. The jock nodded and took hold of Jenny’s hand, comforting her in the face of annihilation.

At that moment Perry was proud of the man, who had proved that nobody had braver reporters than the Daily Planet.

We’re in this together, he thought. To the last deadline.

“Oh, God,” Jenny murmured, and she seemed to be going into shock. “Oh God…”

“It’s okay!” he assured her. “We’re going to get you out of here.” Reporting the truth was Perry’s business, but he figured he could be forgiven one little white lie at the end.

Foot by foot, inch by inch, the gravity column crept toward them. It passed over an abandoned food cart, crushing it like a hydraulic press. Lombard cringed, but stayed by Jenny’s side. He closed his eyes, though, probably not wanting to be an eyewitness to his own demise.

Perry kept his eyes wide open.

The gravity beam pressed Superman to the Earth. Blinding light and a deafening rumble accompanied the extreme pressure weighing him down. Solid bedrock cracked beneath his prone body. Compressed matter swirled around him.

It felt as if a giant was stepping on him, grinding him beneath its heel, even as the World Engine continued to spew its toxic gases into the air. Gravity waves penetrated the Earth, increasing the planet’s mass. Soon the entire world would be fit only for people who didn’t belong there.

No, Superman thought, I can’t let this machine win.

He remembered all the people who were depending on him, all the souls he’d touched and been touched by in his travels—his mom, Lois, Pete, Lana, Captain Heraldson and the crew of the Debbie Sue, the roughnecks on that oil rig, Chrissy the waitress, Colonel Hardy, Father Leone…

And he remembered those who had sacrificed everything to give him the chance to make a difference: Jor-El, Lara Lor-Van, and Jonathan Kent. He couldn’t let them down, not with seven billion human lives depending on him.

Billions of years of terrestrial evolution, millennia of human civilization and progress, generations of men and women fighting to make a better life for themselves and their prosperity, stood to be wiped way unless he came through now—and became the hero his fathers and mothers had dreamed he could be.

“You just have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be, Clark. Because whoever that man is… he’s going to change the world.”

Or save it.

He raised his face from the gravel. Incredibly, impossibly, he staggered to his feet. The crushing force of the column made just standing upright a Herculean feat, but that wasn’t good enough. He lifted off from the flattened island, rising slowly against the pressure, then gaining speed.

The gravity deformed his face, making his skin ripple, as he stared up into the infernal heart of the World Engine. His pupils glowed red.

Crimson energy shot from his eyes, meeting the gravity beam head on. For a moment the two forces appeared evenly matched. Then, screaming from the strain, Superman broke the stalemate and drove himself upward into the belly of the World Engine. Turning his own indestructible body into a weapon, the Man of Steel burst through the crown of machine and shot into the churning alien clouds.

Suddenly brain-dead, the World Engine tottered upon its monstrous legs. Its magnetic tendrils went limp. Flames erupted from its perforated head. Unsteady legs gave out as the entire structure collapsed in on itself, crashing down onto what was left of the volcanic island, which suddenly resembled Krakotoa.

The blast from the Engine’s demise knocked Superman from the sky.