“So how does it work?”
Clark glanced at his wife; They’d gotten some information from Cadmus, and it had been helpful. The consultation with the JL scientific consultant, too.
“What do you mean?”
Lois’s brow wrinkled and he glanced up at the man he was lying on top of. “Your powers. There’s no way what you do obeys the laws of physics.”
So it was that kind of talk. No doubt the earlier matters had brought this up. “Oh, they do. In fact, I think Earth is close to catching up, at least to some of it, based on what I read at Cadmus. But,” at this point, a touch of worry crept into his voice, “It’s pretty alien and science-y. Are you sure you want to hear?”
Lois scoffed, “Please. I married a science alien. Writing about visitors from afar is practically my main job. ‘Writes about weird aliens’ is in my resume.”
Lois sighed, “I remember when it used to be a conspiracy theory, now I’m just reporting on the latest invader”.
They lived in a complex world. Clark mentally shrugged. “Remember how I used to just sort of run and leap around?”
“Sure, tall buildings and all of that, but then you got over it.” She groaned, that was a terrible pun. “But you stopped and learned to fly, and how does THAT work?”
Clark smiled. “I could fly even back then, sort of. It was just not very efficient or safe. So I just sort of… gilded sideways. I’d run out of power too fast if I’d tried to fly using what I knew back then”.
Lois, again, looked suspicious, “Like I’ve seen you run out of power”.
“You have. I just recover fast. Anyway, learning about aerodynamics was a big help”.
“Flight in thin atmosphere and gravity is just fairly expensive, energy-wise, if you brute-force it. I still jump when I can, but to a degree where it doesn’t crack the pavement, and THEN start flying proper. You’ve noticed the air flow when I leave?”
”I’ve certainly noticed the way it messes my hair. So, so, very many times.”
“Sorry ‘bout that. That’s me manipulating the air flow with my ‘flight aura’ or ‘bioenergy field’. I used the cold in my lungs and my heat vision to generate some extra lift, and my field can sort of wiggle charged particles in a very specific way. That’s the ‘flight aura part, I guess’”
“I’m pretty sure I coined “Flight aura” and I know what ion thrusters are. They’re not all that great in atmo, very inefficient and aside from your eyes, you don’t usually glow”
“Would you believe if I said I glow on the inside? I actually rotate ions mostly through my body and rarely throw them away. Even glowing ions, if they’re not at the frequencies of visible light, can be quite discreet to humans. Initially I only knew about the ion thrust thing, and that wiped me out fast.”
“That still doesn’t explain it. You must be using oodles of energy!”
“Sometimes I am, but generally quick bursts and a lot of inertia will do the trick. But you’re right. The ions do flow out of my body, and I use those flows to create turbulence. The cloak actually helps there, it creates a natural region where the wind shear doesn’t just scatter them.
“Even then… Jumping when I can, just saves a lot of strength.”
Lois interrupted, incredulous. “You? But don’t you have infinite strength?”
“I really don’t. I am pretty strong,” Lois barked at that, “but I can actually only lift maybe around 50 tons with pure muscle strength, and even then I need grip and leverage.”
Lois cracked at that. 50 tons was a large truck. That was nothing to the Man of Steel.
“Please. I’ve seen you lift way heavier loads than that with worse grip, and don’t tell me that doesnt’ break the laws of physics!”
“It would if I just used my physical body alone.” He paused, how to put this, “A kevlar rope as thick as my arm could probably endure around 4000 tons before snapping. My tissue isn’t, fundamentally, much stronger, and parts of it are weaker. But, my bioenergy field can enhance that.”
Lois rolled her eyes. “Bioenergy field is such comic book nonsense. I think I came up with that. Still doesn’t explain your strength”
“Magnets,” Clark said, deadpan.
Lois rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope,” Clark continued, “each cell in my body is like a little electromagnet. They generate a field that boosts my strength. They also also double as a battery or a capacitor.”
“You don’t have to simplify it for me, Smallville, but even if you did, ‘magnets’ is a bit much. Doesn’t explain why boats, planes and buildings don’t crumble in your hands, either.”
Lois frowned. "Half the things you lift aren't even magnetic. That cruise ship last month was mostly aluminum and composite materials."
Clark nodded, sitting up slightly against the headboard. "That's where it gets interesting." He reached for the glass of water on the nightstand, holding it up. "Watch."
A faint shimmer appeared around the glass, barely visible in the bedroom's soft light. "I can generate a kind of a charged envelope - think of it as an invisible magnetic 'glove' that can grip non-magnetic materials. The same principle lets me exert force without damaging things. The field spreads out the pressure, almost like having giant, invisible hands."
The glass settled back onto the nightstand with barely a sound. "It's actually pretty similar to how I fly - creating fields that interact with the atmosphere itself rather than just solid objects."
“So it sort of IS a sort of bioenergy aura. Except it’s actually just transparent plasma, and I didn’t hear THAT as one of the things you could manipulate in the ‘early days.’ One of the first things you did was catch a falling plane.”
Clark smiled. Nothing got past her.
“That was by no means easy. Back then, I could barely have lifted it while it was on the runway.”
“So?”
“So, I used my brain. Use heat vision to create updraft and bursts of plasma clouds. Try to create electrostatic charge. Things like that. A lot of the way I just acted as a support in place of the missing engine. I also cooled the belly to further improve aerodynamic lift. “
“But your arms didn’t go through the skin of the plane when you finally landed. “
“Oh, yeah, and that was a doozy. I spot-melted a small area in the ground, and utilized the iron in the buildings and under ground to generate a repulsive electromagnetic landing pad. For a few moments, I was the core of that magnet, and that carried the plane, and that’s what people saw. “
Lois shot him a look. “That sounds dangerous, and possibly like committing an act of vandalism.”
Clark looked sheepish.
“But if you have all these force forces and ions in your body, wouldn’t that be dangerous? And disrupt… radio, cellphone signals, Wi-Fi?”
“It’s not dangerous to me, and generally speaking, I can contain the effect inside my body by, according to what I read at Cadmus, what I’ve managed to gather from my father’s - Jor-el’s - legacy, by blocking the photons from exiting.”
“No way.”
“Yes way, Human science has also caught on. Apparently there’s a thing where you can take any photon and nudge or turn them around.”
Clark thought about Krypton. What had ACTUALLY gone on there? People omitted a lot of things they thought were obvious or common sense, and it wasn’t like he could use microscopic or x-ray vision to see more detail in a holorecording.
“My cells are fine-tuned to keep energy from the sun IN. And that includes magnetic fields. It’s really no different than having mirrors for more than just the visible light region in the electromagnetic spectrum.”
“Rrrright. You’re a whole science show. Should have gone with quantum nonsense instead. This is really rattling my emotional spectrum.” Lois took a few moments to calm herself. This was Clark, and it wasn’t April the first. “Yet, I don’t see you sticking to spoons, nor to… any other bits of metal I can think of.”
Clark smiled. “Spotted that, huh. And you’re right…I don’t. My cells work almost like you’d expect a magnet would. Manipulating magnetic fields, attracting each other. They can sort of… squeeze my body tighter, make my blood flow faster or slower, or add to the strength of moving my limbs. Even more if I use my energy storages. But outside my body, the fields only reach a few millimeters away. Usually.
“It’s never been more obvious to me that your biological parents were scientists. But wait…”
“The energy,” Lois did a quick math, “Where does it come from? No way the sun provides enough”.
“Give it sixteen years, and it is a bit.”
“Nonsense. Some of the things I’ve seen you do—”
“Sure,” Clark placated. “It’s really mainly a catalyst. Not sure why and how it’s needed so much, but based on Krypton being so close to a red giant, they got a whole lot more sunlight there. Maybe it worked better then. Anyway, it comes from food, sun, all sorts of radiation, and electrostatic charges. You can charge quite fast if you fly into a storm cloud.”
Lois felt something off about that “You lose your powers in red sunlight.”
Clark hesitated. “And isn’t that weird? Yet, I don’t lose my powers at dusk or dawn, and red suns are bright. Very bright, if you’re close to them. Honestly, I have no idea what that’s about. Maybe the ratio of infrared or red to blue light, and sufficient intensity?”
“I could go for some sunlight right now.”, Lois mumbled.
“Oh. Should we get up?”
“Don’t wanna”.
Clark thought grumpy Lois looked adorable.
Lois buried her head into a pillow and mumbled something. She had dug a small pen and notebook from somewhere.
“I think ‘science fair potato battery’ is a bit unfair, Lois”, Clark mock-chastised, “But…”
What could work as a reference? Right, “You know electric eels, right? They can release charges of several hundred watts, and I’m a lot larger.”
Lois’s head popped out.
“Even if you’re an electric eel, Clark, you’re still a giant science potato.” Lois joked, “But even then, that can’t be enough.”
“You’d be surprised. I have roughly the same amount of cells as humans, so an electric eel my size might release a shock to the tune of 4.5 gigawatts, hypothetically”.
“While that could be three trips through time in a DeLorean, that’s nowhere near enough. The math doesn’t check out.”
Lois drew herself into a crouch, so she could write better. Clark could do shorthand, of course, but Lois’s was somewhere between art and cryptography.
“I think that’s quite a lot, but you’re right.”
“I usually am.”, Lois bragged.
”An eel’s cells can hold around point fifteen volts per cell. Mine, around six. That’s forty times more, which I wouldn’t call terrible. My cells are also unbothered by orders of magnitude more amps.” Clark glanced at Lois. Hopefully she wouldn’t be off-put by snuggling next to a super-electric eel.
Should she order fish, Lois wondered, idly. Or beef. She indulged a look at Clark.
“So that comes around to something like” — “Nineteen teravolts, I can count. Better, but still not that much, and tells us little about the watts. But why aren’t you a fried eel, if you actually obey laws of thermodynamics?”
“Freeze breath.”
“Freeze breath?”
“Freeze breath.”
Well, that cut off THAT train of thought.
“Elaborate.”
“To compensate for heat, I need to hold a lot of cold inside of me. I condense gasses from the air into liquid. Blowing them out works out fine for freezing, but drains the cooling supply for a while.” Clark shrugged. “Also, my body is just really efficient.”
“Magnet, plasma jet, solar panel, electric battery and a fridge. Check. What’s next, Smallville?”
Clark grinned. That was a perfect opening. Now, how to phrase the next part for maximum impact. Maybe…
“So anyway, I’m partially superconductive”
“Super- SUPERconductive?”
Success.
“Partially.”
“Oh, this just keeps getting better. Should I start calling you Superconductive man instead?”
“Please— please don’t”, Clark groaned.
“Ha! I’d like to see you stop me, Smallville!” Lois smirked. “But with all that, you’d still run out. If you’re draining your “battery” to power a freezer, you’re not saving any for flying or heavy lifting.”
“Very true.”
“So, explain.” Lois tapped her pen.
“Every power needs a share of energy, yes. Additionally I use a part to reinforce my body and to cool myself. This is fairly autonomous and intuitive, so it’s not that bad. Took some time to adapt and grow to get here.”
“Alright. But if you’re soaring around all day, wouldn’t that still run you down?
“It might. But there’s a surprising number of ways to save power. I can force ions together to generate pressure waves. Like when I “clap” to create a ‘thunderclap’. During more languid cruising, what I do is falling with style or if I go high up, I can visit the ionosphere or Van Allen belt. I am after all, a giant magnet, just moving tends to generate a lot of power.”
“So why don’t you? Act like a magnet?”
“I sort of can’t.” Clark leaned towards Lois, his hand absently tracing patterns on her arm as he considered how to explain.
“It’s a bit like a dive reflex. The body does it, but only under specific conditions. Usually I need to at least touch something to do a lot of blatantly magnetic things. That’s part of how I can lift things or gain leverage, or stand on building walls. I worked a lot on this in the early days.”
“Alright, it sort of tracks. But let’s be honest—lately, you’ve done more than just stick to buildings. People think you’re manipulating gravity. That’s actually what most people assume your power is.”
Clark looked intrigued. “Maybe someday, if it’s even possible, but no.”
Clark leaned on an elbow, eyes on Lois. “I’ve learned things. After finding out about the photon shielding, I started to figure out vibrations. I have a pretty good sense for it, and you can do pretty wild stuff with them.”
“I bet.” She could think of a few wild uses for vibrations. “Like what?”
“Redirect kinetic energy. Transfer heat. Cool things. Create vortices and laminar flows.” Clark paused, trying to not get too into the details. “I have close to eidetic recall, so I remember most of the science behind it.”
“Clearly.” Lois drawled. “I suppose you’re using your ions and magnets to vibrate things a bit farther away, too. ”
“Got it in one. I can extend this effect to anything I’m touching—just a little slower. Makes things a lot easier, though.”
Lois turned towards him. His eyes were so incredibly vivid blue.
“Thought so. But how do you recharge? We both know you’re not getting it from sunlight, we went over that.”
Clark grinned. “From all sorts of radiation, and clouds, and cosmic rays, and from magnetic fields. I can pull in few kilojoules per second, depending. Also food, plenty of food.”
“Yea, I’ve seen you eat, Smallville”
Both smiled. Then Lois’s stomach grumbled. “You had to mention food, didn’t you?”
“Breakfast?” Clark's eyebrows rose hopefully.
“Breakfast,” Lois agreed.
Soon, the smell of fresh coffee filled the apartment. Lois sat by the kitchen table, writing to a small notebook in shorthand, sipping on coffee.
“So, the nonsense about flight auras and bioenergy fields and even tactile telekinesis were sort of true. I have a few more things I made a note of, but that’s the gist of it?”
Clark braced himself. They’d tested everything to make sure there were no problems, but he had an inkling Lois wouldn’t take this revelation quietly.
“Most, but there are a few big things. My suit, the Kryptonian one, makes everything easier, and there is some sort of a strange organ behind my breastbone”
“You mean your heart?”
"No. Frankly it's a bit worrying, finding out you know less about biology than you thought. Then there's maybe a kilogram of plutonium and uranium—"
"The WHAT NOW?!"
Clark winced at Lois's volume. "It's perfectly safe," he hurried to explain. "Remember how I mentioned my body can stop photons from exiting?” He pointed to her notebook where she'd underlined that detail earlier. “That means the radiation doesn’t leave my body. Heck, it doesn’t even leave the cell that contains it.”
He paused, gathering his thoughts, then reached for the salt shaker. "Think of each cell like this—completely sealed." He cupped his other hand around it. “It's part of why radiation doesn't hurt me - my body's already managing controlled nuclear reactions constantly."
"So you're telling me," Lois said slowly, "that you're not just a flying magnetic eel, you're also a walking nuclear reactor?"
"More like a walking nuclear battery," Clark corrected. "The reaction rate is incredibly slow and controlled. It's probably why Kryptonite affects me so strongly - it disrupts the containment system." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "Actually, that explains a lot about Krypton's technology level. They must have figured out safe biological nuclear containment before they even reached space."
Lois was quiet for a moment, processing. "You know what's crazy? That somehow makes more sense than 'solar-powered alien.'" She poked him in the chest. "But we're not done talking about this. I want to know everything about how this 'containment system' works."
Clark smiled. "Well, it starts with some very interesting cellular structures..."
”
