The Man of Steel: Superman and the Poisoned Planet
CHAPTER 1 GOING GREEN WITH IVY Danny was sick of walking He’d been lugging his heavy backpack for nearly four hours now The air was so humid in the jungle that he had started sweating the moment he left his cabin He’d been sweating ever since Another thick entanglement of vines blocked his path Danny paused for a moment and took a deep heavy breath Keep moving up there came his boss voice from behind him Danny sighed and wondered why his boss didn’t ever seem to need a rest It was like she thrived out here in the wild Let’s go kid said the man standing directly behind Danny Ron nudged Danny forward with his elbow as if to make his point You heard the lady Danny weakly reached into his backpack He felt around for a moment or two Then he slid a long machete out of its outer pocket He raised the long knife in his hands and focused on the vines No screamed his boss Danny turned around as his boss pushed her way past the other men to the front of the line How many times do I have to tell you she said You will not harm any plants The woman slid past Danny He glanced over at Ron who was smiling He seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much Danny turned back to face his boss Surprisingly she had somehow parted the tangled vines In fact she was already a dozen or so yards ahead of him Danny slid his machete back into his backpack Move it said Ron from behind him Okay okay Danny said He looked back at his older partner He had worked with Ron for years now and every time it was the same Ron was always grumpy and rude He never cut Danny any slack After all the jobs they’d done together Danny assumed
they would be friends by now But if Ron even had any friends Danny was certainly not one of them When Danny turned back around his boss was nowhere to be seen It was as if she’d just disappeared into the thick brush of the jungle Where did she Danny started to say under his breath Then he thought better of it He decided his time would be better spent trying to catch up to his employer So Danny started to jog The path was just too overgrown with weeds and ferns for him to move very quickly Nevertheless he did his best The last thing he wanted to do now was get his boss even more annoyed with him This was the first job he had had in months and he didn’t know when another would come along Danny pushed past a particularly sharp thorny tree of some kind Then he stopped In front of Danny was a clearing The sun’s hot rays hit his face and neck He squinted in the bright light There a few feet ahead of him was a trench several feet below ground level Danny walked over and peered down into the hole His boss had already beaten him to the punch She was down in the crater kneeling in front of a strange glowing rock She had taken off her hat Danny noticed her long and flowing red hair It looked out of place there surrounded by all the green vegetation and the green stone in front of her Even her skin seemed to have a greenish tint to it Danny had never noticed that before Is everything okay he asked His boss laughed But it wasn’t a laugh like something was funny It was a dark little chuckle Like she was up to something Then she said Everything is perfect It was hard to see in the bright sunlight but Danny could make out something in his boss hands She was holding the end of a long vine The vine was growing right out of the earth under the glowing rock in the crater Just like the strange stone the plant was glowing bright green I think we found what we were looking for said Danny’s boss She stood up and faced him Danny could hear the rest of the men spreading out behind him in the clearing It was time to get to work And even in the heat and humidity no one was about to protest
