Part Two
THE NEXT DAY
"Jarod has slipped through my fingers once, I don't intend to let him slip again," Miss Parker said to Broots. "Now this..." she pointed to the computer screen. "Is current?"
"Yep," Broots said. "Jarod Cronkite, working for a newspaper in Metropolis."
"I see," Miss Parker nodded and did an about face on her heels.
"Do you want us to come with..." Broots began, but he was too late.
Miss Parker was well on her way to Metropolis.
Miss Parker stepped from the taxi and looked up at a large metal logo, shaped like planet Earth which read, "DAILY PLANET."
As she stepped up onto the sidewalk she noticed a familiar-looking figure disappearing through a revolving door into the building.
"Jarod!" she cried and gave chase.
Just as she reached the door, she toppled into a smartly dressed woman coming outside, who was carrying a briefcase. The latch of the briefcase broke and its contents spilled onto the sidewalk. The papers blew around in the gusts from the revolving doorway.
"Where do you think you're going so fast?" asked the woman, sharply.
A man who looked like a mild-mannered reporter walked up and spoke softly, "Um, Lois. I'll help you." He bent down to pick up the briefcase.
"You don't know what's going on. It's urgent," remarked Miss Parker quickly. She moved to go through the door, but the aforesaid Lois, now irate, blocked her way.
The man straightened again, adjusted the glasses on his nose and looked at Miss Parker in puzzlement.
"I, Lois Lane, top reporter for the Daily Planet, not know what's going on? Give me a break! There's nothing urgent that I don't know about." The brown-haired, dark-eyed woman glared at Miss Parker and shook some of the papers in her hand, which she had managed to rescue from being trampled on the street. "And one would think you would at least have the common decency to say, "I'm sorry" or "excuse me" when you scatter someone's work all over the sidewalk."
"Lois..." the man began.
Lois continued as if he had never spoken. "I don't know where you're from lady, but the people of Metropolis pride themselves on manners and those that don't, should."
"Lois..."
"Shut up, Clark! And furthermore anyone who would be so inconsiderate to be thinking only of themselves and not..." Lois was now waving the papers in front of Miss Parker's nose.
"LOIS!"
"What is it, Clark?" asked Lois, turning to look at her partner in investigative reporting with annoyance.
"You're holding up the flow of...um...the flow of..." stumbled Clark.
Lois glanced around and realized a crowd of people had gathered around them. A human traffic jam had formed, for progress both for those going in and coming out of the building had been halted.
People had been standing in groups simply watching the scene.
"Oh my goodness!" gasped Lois. "Clark! Why didn't you tell me..." Lois began, as moved out of the way.
Miss Parker took this moment's distraction and bolted past Lois Lane and into The Daily Planet.
"I'm looking for a man," Miss Parker started, after she had gotten through the door.
"Aren't we all?" replied a woman, standing by the water cooler in the lobby. "Hi, I'm Kat."
"No," Miss Parker corrected, holding up a picture. "I'm looking for this man."
"Oh," Kat replied and pointed to an elevator.
Miss Parker ran to it and rode to the office level where most of the Daily Planet reporters worked on their stories.
A young man strolled over to her. He was carrying a camera. He noted the photograph she carried. "I take photos too," he began conversationally. "And do a lot of other stuff around here. Jimmy Olsen's the name. Can I help you, miss?"
Miss Parker looked furtively around the room, but she could see no sign of Jarod.
She was about to ask him a question, but a thundering voice interrupted her.
"Great Balls of Fire! Jimmy! Why haven't you left yet?" asked a man, stepping out from an office, the door of which read:
Perry White. Editor 'n' Chief.
"Sorry, Chief," Jimmy began to stammer.
"Don't just stand there. Lois and Clark just left for City Hall. I want photos to go along with their story on the mayor's speech."
"I'm on it!" replied Jimmy and ran for the elevator.
Perry White turned to look at Miss Parker. "Can I help you, miss?" he asked, obviously annoyed that she had been distracting his employees.
Miss Parker plunged right in. "I need to speak with a man you hired recently. He calls himself Jarod."
Mr. White looked worried. "Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Not if I can find him," Miss Parker replied.
"Well, the only Jarod I know of was one who was consulting with Lois and Clark on a story. And The Daily Planet doesn't give out information on its sources. I'm sorry. Now, if you'll excuse me, I run a busy office."
Lois! That was what the man outside had called the reporter she had run into. And Mr. White had just mentioned that they were heading for City Hall.
THE STEPS OF CITY HALL
"Jarod!" Miss Parker cried, idly wondering why she felt compelled to call out his name whenever she spotted him in the distance. Surely, it would be easier to simply sneak up on him.
Jarod sprinted away through the crowd that had gathered for the mayor's speech and was around the corner and out of sight.
It took several moments for her to turn the same corner and discover she was in an alleyway, running full tilt into a man who blocked her pathway.
"Let me pass!" she cried, reaching into her belt, but quicker than lightning the man had grabbed it before she could, and she once again found herself clutching thin air.
"You must be new in town," said the man, who blocked her path. The lunatic was wearing a red cape and blue tights!
He dropped her weapon on the ground and melted it with rays that shot from his eyes.
"Who are you?" Miss Parker demanded, having the vague feeling that she had seen him someplace before. But then again, maybe not, she would have remembered that.
The man of dark hair and brown eyes smiled cheerfully. "People call me Superman. Jarod happens to be one of my friends. Why are you chasing him?"
"It's for his own good," Miss Parker sputtered, still reeling from the shock that this man melted metal with his eyes.
"His good? Or your good?" Superman asked, raising an eyebrow.
Before she could answer, Sam came rushing around the corner and balked when he saw the muscular Superman.
"Well, what are you looking at Sam?" questioned Miss Parker. "Get him!" Perhaps Sam could distract this Superman long enough for her to get on with chasing Jarod!
As Sam began the attack, Miss Parker ran off down the street.
Sam rushed at Superman like a bull, but found suddenly that the man was no longer there. With a sickening sense of déjà vu, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see the man was behind him.
"I'm faster than a speeding bullet and I can leap tall buildings in a single bound," Superman informed him.
Sam picked up a rock on the pavement and moved forward once again.
Superman shook his head. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Sam scowled and lifted the rock. In the next instant, Sam found himself seized by the shirt collar and lifted into the air. But it didn't stop there--Sam felt the wind whistling in his ears and looked down to see the ground rapidly receding. "Did I forget to mention it? I fly too," Superman chuckled.
Miss Parker didn't get very far in her renewed pursuit of Jarod. A puff of air knocked her over and then the flying man in tights caught up with her easily and set her sweeper on the ground beside her. "Give up?" he asked.
Sam looked at her without much hope, Miss Parker wasn't one to give up, and he wasn't sure how many more of these extraordinary encounters he could take.
Miss Parker sighed. "I do today," she said, then nodded to Sam that it was time to depart.
Miss Parker took no note of Sam's utter amazement.
Jarod was long gone and it would be good procedure to report back to the Centre in any case.
Besides--there was always tomorrow.
