Enemies & Allies (18 page)

A
T ANY OTHER TIME, LOIS WOULD HAVE ROLLED HER EYES
if asked to report on an awards ceremony, even a presidential presentation, but since Superman was involved, she definitely wanted to cover the story. He had, after all, prevented an all-out atomic war.

All of the aspersions Lex Luthor had cast on Superman were instantly forgotten (not that the reporters had dug up any dirt on him anyway). Lois wished she could have seen Luthor’s face, but the bald industrialist hadn’t appeared in public for weeks. Probably sulking, she thought.

With the missiles miraculously diverted and destroyed, the people of Metropolis had celebrated in the streets, throwing confetti and cheering. Taxi drivers honked their horns. Restaurant owners gave out free food. Flower sellers threw blossoms up in the air. Old women and curmudgeonly men hugged each other. Even the Soviet premier was said to have collapsed into a chair, weeping with relief.

Judging by the number of reporters packed into the press corral on the White House lawn, Lois wasn’t the only one who recognized the significance of the story. For the official occasion, she wore a formal lavender dress and new gloves, and she was determined to portray Superman exactly the way he deserved: as a hero.

Superman stood there, handsome and muscular but clearly out of his element before the excited crowd. She thought it was charming. His bright blue and red outfit did not show a smudge, despite the fact he had recently wrestled with three Soviet nuclear missiles. Even the black curl on his brow was perfectly in place. But though he could bend steel in his bare hands and stop a bullet with his chest, he seemed endearingly…
shy.

Lois thought about how he had so easily swept her up in his strong arms as her car plunged off the Twelfth Street Bridge, saving her—if she could have, she would have found a way to save
him
now. However, accepting the adulation of an appreciative nation was an ordeal Superman would just have to endure….

Though he was the president of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower looked very small in his gray suit next to Superman. Eisenhower was himself a hero, having led armies in World War II, and had been reelected by a landslide along with his running mate Richard M. Nixon. Now, though, even the president looked intimidated in the presence of Superman.

To resounding applause, Eisenhower extended his hand, and Superman vigorously pumped it. The president tried to cover his flinch, obviously concerned that the other man might crush his hand, but the hero was perfectly restrained. A hundred flashbulbs went off to capture the moment.

Eisenhower stepped up to the podium, from which sprouted a bouquet of large microphones. “Today, Superman, America gives you our sincerest gratitude. As president, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and also from the heart of every U.S. citizen, and every citizen of the world. You saved us all.”

Lois was a bit starry-eyed herself, but that had more to do with Superman than the presidential honor he was about to receive. She found herself moved by his humility and sincerity; Lois realized she was even blushing, and she quickly lifted a white-gloved hand to cover her cheek.

Eisenhower continued. “Because of clashing political ideologies, the human race has been pushed to the brink of extinction. Such a thing must never happen again.”

Lois had heard the Communist leader speak virtually the same words after he had emerged from the UN fallout shelter, pale and shaking. Once the crisis had passed, his rhetoric was less vitriolic. He protested that the launch of the nuclear missiles had been neither intentional nor authorized. Why would he do such a thing, he demanded, when he himself was at ground zero at the time?

Two traitorous rogue generals had been identified and branded as criminals—Endovik and Dubrov. Both men, having disobeyed direct orders, had been removed from their positions and summarily executed. The premier insisted that there was no need for continued international tensions. He seemed to think the world should just forget about the whole affair. Lois didn’t believe it for an instant, nor did she entirely swallow his explanation.

Continuing the ceremony, President Eisenhower opened a velvet-lined wooden box and withdrew a finely worked medal suspended from a red, white, and blue ribbon. “For all you have done, Superman, this is the highest accolade our country can bestow—the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

Superman’s chest swelled with pride. He raised his square chin and met the president’s gaze with his clear blue eyes. “I accept it gladly, Mr. President.”

Eisenhower reached forward with the medal, fumbled with the pin, and attempted to attach it to Superman’s chest. He frowned. In an awkward moment, he tried again, to no avail. The pin could not penetrate the tough blue fabric.

Many more camera bulbs flashed. The onlookers waited anxiously.

Finally, Eisenhower took a step back, nonplussed. The pin was bent.

With self-effacing humor, Superman extended a hand. “Why don’t I just hold that, Mr. President?”

Eisenhower quickly handed it to him and returned to the microphone, eager to move on. “Superman, we are proud to have you as one of our foremost citizens. You are the defender of truth, justice, and the American way.”

Though her applause was muffled by the formal white gloves, Lois clapped more vigorously than her fellow reporters. She felt inspired, possibly more from her own heart than from the actual speech. She even had tears in her eyes. If only her father could see her now—tough little Lois turning into a girly, emotional mess!

From the podium, Superman caught her stare and returned Lois’s smile, blushing a bit himself. For a long moment, he didn’t seem to be seeing any other face than hers.

I
N THE MONTHS AFTER THE DISASTROUS SOVIET MISSILE
launch, the U.S. military-industrial complex went into high gear, devoting resources, manpower, manufacturing capabilities, and vast sums of money to the nation’s defense. Though President Eisenhower and the Soviet premier publicly reaffirmed their mutual commitment to peace, no one believed that the Cold War had thawed.

Since the unofficial shakeup of its board of directors, Wayne Enterprises had quietly become a new company, entering a veritable renaissance. Accompanied by a very pleased-looking Richard Drayling, who had been reinstated as a board member, Bruce Wayne toured the expanded production line at a Wayne Enterprises aircraft assembly plant.

With Alfred acting as go-between again, Bruce had invited Drayling to the manor for a private luncheon and a heart-to-heart conversation, during which he showed the older man the incriminating files he was holding over the heads of the other nine directors. He also explained how he had hamstrung the guilty men, how he was using them to get back at Luthor, and how he had effectively removed them from any real power in Wayne Enterprises. Drayling was quite gratified at how Bruce had handled the situation, and the old man now appeared to be much younger than his years. “You have more of your father in you than I thought, Mr. Wayne,” he said. “Perhaps I misjudged you.”

By now, several former directors had been reassigned to probationary positions, where Bruce knew they could cause no further harm; the others held jobs that carried no responsibilities at all. LuthorCorp would get nothing more from them. The new board members—drawn from the most successful project managers in each research division—were entirely loyal to Bruce’s vision for the company, now that he had begun acting like a real administrator.

Many eyebrows had been raised at Bruce’s seemingly abrupt transition from lightweight playboy to responsible businessman, and some people had expressed open skepticism about his abilities in the corporate world. Analysts, however, made the assumption (which Bruce did not correct) that he simply surrounded himself with “good people.”

Now the fabrication lines had begun producing a new series of state-of-the-art fighter jets for the USAF. These exotic designs had been in development at Wayne Enterprises for more than a year, but Bruce had accelerated the production timeline. The first deliveries were well ahead of schedule.

Surrounded by the clamor of the assembly line, the rolling belts, clanging tools, and hammering rivets, the two men strolled along on their inspection tour. Bruce’s expensive business suit seemed incongruous with the bright yellow hard hat he wore. Smiling, he greeted supervisors and line foremen, then shook the hands of several workers who had been busily welding fuselage skins together.

Bruce raised his voice to the jumpsuited work crews. “Things have changed around here. I’ve been taking a more direct role in this company.”

Drayling nodded, adding his support. “And I intend to be seeing you all more often, in person.”

Thanks to several major new defense contracts, the price of Wayne Enterprises stock had soared, improving the profitability of his company. Again and again, Wayne Enterprises successfully outbid LuthorCorp for new government contracts, and Bruce knew the real reason. Without his spies copying the best Wayne Enterprises work, Luthor no longer had the edge he’d once taken for granted.

In the last two months, given full creative freedom, Bruce’s research teams had developed amazing designs, innovative weapons, and vehicles that were not just refinements of tried-and-true existing technology but genuinely new approaches. Every breakthrough, every report, every prototype was channeled directly through him.

Naturally, he made a point of keeping the most daring advances for his “personal testing.”

INSIDE THE CAVE, BRUCE DIDN’T MIND GETTING HIS HANDS
dirty. Engine grease covered his knuckles, darkened his fingernails. He slid beneath the black automobile, inspecting the axles, the transmission. Its lines were predatory, its paint coat polished to such a high gleam that it looked like a clear midnight sky.

Straightening, Alfred raised his welding helmet and extinguished the blowtorch. “I neglected to install the minibar and magazine rack, sir, but you’ll find everything else quite in order.”

Lying on his back, Bruce rolled out from beneath the chassis, wiping his hands on a rag. He hauled himself to his feet. “And the entire body is bulletproof?”

“Doubly armored, sir. Would you like me to take a few potshots in order to demonstrate?”

“We’ll test it soon enough, Alfred. And the windshield glass?”

“Triple-sandwiched transparent polymer, along with a strong, virtually invisible wire grid to help maintain integrity. This is the best vehicle that money can buy—as you well know.”

Bruce raised the hood and inspected the high-powered engine, which made the largest American V8 look like a windup toy by comparison. A rocket nozzle above the rear exhaust ports could provide emergency thrust.

He had made most of the modifications himself, diverting R&D developments from Wayne Enterprises before they could be released to government contractors. Naturally, such extraordinary breakthroughs had to be demonstrated in the field, and he looked forward to doing the testing himself.

Though the car’s design was functional, it also displayed a flair for the dramatic—swooping fins, armored tires, gadgets to respond to any conceivable situation…something James Bond would have envied. Anyone who glanced at the vehicle would immediately know that it belonged to the mysterious Batman.

However, Bruce still found it maddening that he could not reproduce Superman’s powers. Their encounters at the Luthor mansion and in the Area 51 hangar had only heightened his interest. He knew how challenging it had been to penetrate the incredible security at Groom Lake, but Superman had gotten in without even breaking a sweat. And later the other man had flown high enough and fast enough to stop all three Soviet missiles, hurling them away from Earth. That was no parlor trick, and it could not be explained by the technology Luthor had stolen to design his bulky battlesuits.

Even so, this new rocket-powered car was quite impressive.

Opening the door of the vehicle, Bruce slid into the biodynamically designed seat. Alfred, with his perennial dry wit, had taped a note to the front control panel:
BATMOBILE
.

“Stand clear, Alfred. I’m going to fire her up. Are the tires secure on the rollers?”

“Indeed they are, sir. I wouldn’t want your first test drive to terminate prematurely against the cave wall.”

Alfred primly inserted earplugs and stood against the rock wall, waiting as Bruce started the ignition process—atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed. The engine purred, hummed, then roared to full power. And he hadn’t even engaged the rocket booster yet.

The vehicle shuddered, tires screaming on the rollers like fractious thoroughbreds in the starting gate. The dashboard gauges inched toward red fields as he increased power. Bruce ran diagnostics that continually monitored the vehicle’s systems. Thus far he was very pleased.
Batmobile
indeed!

When he finished his tests, Bruce climbed reluctantly out of the black vehicle. A smile showed beneath Alfred’s pencil-thin mustache as he removed his earplugs. “It seems adequate, Master Bruce. The Wayne Enterprises scientists have produced another miracle.”

Bruce drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. In spite of the car’s armor, engine power, built-in weaponry, and evasive devices, Superman trumped all of it. “Yes, miracles, Alfred…but they’re not yet miraculous
enough.
”