Metropolis - Convergence (part 4B)
Brainiac emerged from the Fortress at the entry point atop the Daily Planet building and gazed down upon the city below. The downtown regions had been cleared of human life; the populace gathered together into a designated area. Now it was time for its work to begin.
Spreading its arms wide the armored behemoth rose into the sky. As it did, the circuitry running across its metallic hide began to glow with a sickening blue-green fire that in a wave raced out from it to envelop the city below. Where it touched buildings and vehicles and plants began to warp and reform into the shape of its beloved Krypton. Massive crystalline towers rose into the sky until they truly scraped the low hanging clouds.
Brainiac looked upon its creation and found it to be good. Energy continued to pour forth as the wave transformation expanded further and further out into the city.
“Cease fire!” Sam ordered through the radio from the command center. On his monitor he watched as the twenty Abrams tanks and their 120mm cannons ceased their fire upon the energy barrier. Clearly nothing was going to be able to get in or out of that energy field. Nothing physical anyway.
Thankfully transmissions were still getting through, though they were laced with static. The reports were not good; Superman had been sighted and was attacked just after the energy barrier went up, though he did not engage those troops. Shortly thereafter though alien robots had begun swarming the city and gathering up the populace for what purpose God only knew. They were advancing methodically from the center of the city, going from building to building and clearing it of people and slaying any who even attempted to resist; which had included a large number of his soldiers until he’d ordered them to fall back to the edge of the energy barrier. It was clear that those in the city were hopelessly outgunned by what their reports indicated were hundreds, perhaps thousands of the robotic soldiers.
Sam also kept praying that he’d hear something, anything from or about Lois, but there had been nothing. Indeed, no one had so much as seen her or Clark Kent leave FortSchuster and no vehicles were missing. Yet he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his niece was now inside that alien prison and there was nothing he could do about it.
“Sir?” a Lieutenant queried as he entered the CommandCenter. “We’ve got a reporter outside who says he’s got some information from inside the barrier.”
“Who is it?” Sam asked.
“He said his name was Perry White, sir!” the Lieutenant replied.
Perry White. Lois’ boss. “Send him in.” A moment later Perry walked into the room holding his faded jacket in one hand and a cell phone up to his ear with the other.
“Mr. White,” Sam began. “You said you had information from the inside? Is it Lois?”
“Lois?” Lex blurted out from behind him, concern in his voice. “I though she came here with you?”
“I thought so too,” Perry replied. “You mean she’s not here?”
Sam felt his chest sag. “No,” he replied. “She left a note in my quarters explaining that she had to go back into the city.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Lex exclaimed. “What does she think she’s doing?”
“She said she thought they’d be able to make a difference,” Sam answered.
“They?” Perry asked, not missing the comment.
“Clark went with her.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Perry told Sam, and from his look he meant it. “But my contact is with another reporter; James Olsen.”
Of course it was too much to hope that he might as least get to hear Lois’ voice one last time before the end.
“What does Mr. Olsen have to say?” Sam asked mechanically.
“He said the people are being rounded up into groups and being taken to city’s central park and that the area is being guarded by at least a hundred robots of some kind with crests similar to that of Superman’s uniform.”
“That much we knew,” Lana Lang replied.
“He also said that from where he’s been taken he can see Brainiac. He just rose up into the sky and started to fire off some kind of energy field that’s transforming the city into some sort of weird alien architecture.”
“That sounds like some of the reports from Brainiac’s first appearance,” Lana Lang commented. “Last time it was only temporary and in a small region of the city, however.”
Perry again put his ear to the phone. “Mr. Olsen says it’ll probably cover the entire city inside of five minutes,” he said after a moment.
“Then I think it’s time,” Lana Lang said simply from behind Sam causing all eyes to turn to her.
“Time for what?” Sam and Perry asked in an awkward unison.
Lana turned to the communications officer. “Get the President on the line,” she ordered.
“Sir?” the officer asked as he turned to Sam.
“Do it,” Sam agreed. What was he supposed to say? No, don’t contact the Commander-in-Chief?
There was a moment’s pause and then, “This is President McKenzie.”
“Mr. President,” Lana Lang began. “I presume you’ve been kept up to speed on the energy barrier and our failure to penetrate it?”
“I have.”
“Beginning approximately ten minutes ago an invasion force of hundreds of robotic constructs began massing within the city limits,” Lana explained. “Conventional forces are ineffective. I believe it’s time.”
“Time for what?” This time the question came from Dr. Irons.
“Time to resort to unconventional weaponry,” Lex Luthor replied. “Am I correct Mr. President?”
“You are.”
Sam knew that there was only one type of unconventional weapon in America’s arsenal.
“Mr. President,” he interjected, “There are still over a million people trapped in Metropolis. There’s no guarantee that a nuclear weapon will even penetrate the energy field and even if it did there’s no guarantee that it will actually take out the alien forces. You may be condemning a million people to death with no guarantee of it actually working.”
“Wait a minute,” Perry exclaimed. “Are you seriously considering dropping a nuke on Metropolis!?!”
“Sir, best case scenario we kill over a million of our own people,” Sam exclaimed. “Worst case scenario it doesn’t even scratch the energy barrier and we drop fallout all over the Midwest and still have to deal with the alien city being constructed on the other side.”
“I know what this means, General,” Lex Luthor told Sam. “What it will cost you. It will cost me just as much.”
Sam doubted that very much… Lex Luthor stood to lose buildings. This was his niece… Gabe’s daughter, he was referring to.
“But you can’t let your personal feelings interfere with what has to be done,” Lex continued.
“I’ll grieve for the loss of the innocent,” Lana Lang said, “but against a force of this magnitude we have no other option.”
“I can’t condemn those people to death,” Sam exclaimed. “Not when there’s still a chance.”
“Do you have a better suggestion at this point, General?” the President asked.
“There’s still the hope that Superman is really on our side,” Sam answered.
“Then that’s no hope at all,” Lex Luthor replied bitterly.
“I have to agree,” President McKenzie said.
“Mr. President,” Sam said. “For the record, I can not object strongly enough to this course of action.”
“Noted,” President McKenzie said. “I’m ordering the strike. May God forgive me.”
“What type?” was all Sam could ask.
“An LGM-30,” the President replied. “Expect arrival in T-minus thirty minutes.”
Sam’s face went the color of parchment as the blood drained from it. It was all he could do to keep standing. A Minuteman missile with a yield of almost one and a half megatons. Metropolis would be vaporized. His niece was going to die in a ball of fire and this time her father would not be there to save her.