Chapter 24

Jessica Bradley's fingers flew across her keyboard, her eyes glued to the multiple screens before her. News feeds, social media updates, and grainy cellphone footage of Superman's latest heroic act filled every inch of digital real estate in her dimly lit messy apartment.

"It doesn't make sense," she muttered, pushing her glasses up her nose. "No one with that much power should be so... good."

Jessica had been studying Superman since his first public appearance. As a genius in her own right, she found him utterly fascinating. And perplexing.

She pulled up footage of Superman saving a school bus full of children, freezing the frame on his face. The genuine concern, the lack of arrogance or showboating – it went against everything she knew about power dynamics.

"Why?" Jessica wondered aloud. "Why do you care so much?"

Her walls were covered with charts, timelines, and photographs – a tangled web of information all centered around the Man of Steel. To an outsider, it might have looked like the work of a conspiracy theorist. But to Jessica, it was the key to understanding the most powerful being on the planet.

He was everything she loved and wished 'heroes' actually were, now add the fact that he's clearly not human. It's like he was fated to be her main obsession. She was so engrossed in her analysis that she almost missed the breaking news alert. Almost.

Knocking over the shelf of books to grab the remote, she turned up the volume. "This just in," the newscaster's voice cut through Jessica's concentration. "A hostage situation at Metropolis Central Bank has taken a tragic turn..."

Jessica's heart raced as she listened, and smiled in sheer delight. Her eyes never leaving the screen.

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Miles away, in the heart of Metropolis, Clark Kent hovered above the bank, his super-hearing tuned to the chaos inside. The situation was dire – a group of heavily armed men had taken dozens of hostages, and negotiations had broken down.

"I repeat, we have confirmation of at least one explosive device inside the building," the police negotiator's voice crackled over the radio. "We need to move now or we're looking at mass casualties."

Clark's mind raced, calculating angles, assessing risks. He could hear the terrified heartbeats of the hostages, the steady tick of the bomb's timer. There were too many variables, too many ways this could go wrong.

In a blur of motion, Clark burst through the bank's roof, landing between the hostages and their captors. Time seemed to slow as he took in the scene – the wild-eyed desperation of the gunmen, the terror on the faces of the hostages, and the blinking red light of the bomb's detonator.

"Stop now," Clark said, his voice firm but calm. "Let these people go, and we can end this peacefully."

The leader of the group, a man with a scarred face and dead eyes, sneered. "Peace? There's no peace for men like us. Only death." His finger tightened on the detonator.

What happened next occurred in the span of heartbeats. Clark's heat vision lanced out, not at the bomb, but at the leader himself. A precise, surgical strike struck the man's skull, vaporizing his brain before his finger could complete its deadly press.

Another group member's scream of agony was cut short as Clark's fist connected with his solar plexus, dropping him to the ground. The other gunmen, shocked by the sudden turn of events, pissed and shit their pants. Long story short, they were quickly disarmed and subdued.

As the dust settled and the hostages were led to safety, Clark stood amidst the chaos, his mind reeling. Staring at the chunks of brains scattered across the shiny floor, Clark was in a complicated position. He had taken a life. Justified or not, necessary or not, he had crossed a line he had sworn never to cross.

But as he emerged from the bank, expecting condemnation, he was met with something else entirely. Cheers erupted from the gathered crowd. Camera crews with reporters and people pressed forward, reaching out to touch him, to thank him.

What...?

"Superman! Superman!" they chanted, their faces alight with adoration.

"Superman! Why did you kill that suspect?" One reporter asked from VNN. "Was he gay?"

An older woman wearing an American hat and a DIY Superman t-shirt with 20 crosses around her neck repeated the prayer, "He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. He lives through Superman..."

Clark felt a chill run down his spine. This wasn't right. He had killed someone. Shouldn't they be afraid? Shouldn't they be questioning his actions?

As he took to the sky, desperate to escape the adulation, Clark caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd. It was the girl who he had saved from committing suicide all those years ago. And unlike the rest, looking at him as if he was the messiah, she was staring at him in terror. Why? He hated it...

Then he was gone, leaving behind a city that buzzed with excitement, and a woman, sitting at home in Detroit Michigan, who was viewing the televised event, just had her obsession kicked into overdrive.

....

...

....

Back in her messy apartment, Jessica's fingers flew across her keyboard once more, but this time with a new urgency. She had seen something in Superman's eyes, a flicker of doubt, of fear. It was the missing piece she had been looking for.

"He's afraid of himself," she murmured, the realization dawning. "Something's happening to Superman..."

He actually killed someone, this was progress in her mind. All he needed was a little push. She would be the catalyst of it, this was it. Everything in her life that had gone to shit because of humans and their nature, would finally be repaid in full....

Her mind wandered back to when she stayed up for three nights researching a cure for her grandmother after they refused to care for her. Finally. Phase 1 would begin.

She opened another encrypted document with the title: Project Injustice.

As Jessica delved deeper into her analysis and grand plans, across the country in the gleaming offices of Vought International, a different kind of analysis was taking place.

"This is it," Ashley Barrett, Vought's director of talent relations, said excitedly. "This is how we take him down."

The conference room was filled with executives and PR specialists, all gathered around a large screen displaying footage of Superman's actions at the bank.

Stan Edgar, Vought's CEO, leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable. "Explain."

Ashley's grin was sharp enough to cut glass. "He killed someone, Stan. Superman, the big blue Boy Scout, took a life. We spin this right, and we can turn public opinion against him overnight."

"But the public is praising him," one of the PR team pointed out. "They're calling him a hero."

"For now," Ashley countered. "But what happens when we start asking questions? When we plant seeds of doubt? Today it was a bank robber. Who will it be tomorrow? A jaywalker? A kid who looked at him funny? A black man that had simply been jogging?"

Stan nodded slowly, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "I like it. Start the whisper campaign. Social media, fringe news sites, talk radio. I want every conspiracy theorist and concerned citizen questioning Superman's judgment by morning."

As the meeting dissolved into a flurry of activity, Stan remained seated, his eyes fixed on the frozen image of Superman on the screen.

"What will you do now, Clark Kent?" he mused, looking at the image of a New York Times newspaper, with Firecracker on the front page. "When the loved ones, and the world you've sworn to protect begin to fear you?"

Outside, the city continued to celebrate their hero, unaware of the forces aligning against him. And high above it all, Clark Kent floated in the silence of the upper atmosphere, grappling with the weight of his actions and the terrifying adoration of those he had sworn to protect.