We're at sixty-plus reviews and the hit count is nearly at 4000! I think my shameless self-promotion over on tumblr is beginning to show some return.
Contrary to how the last chapter read, Superman is not here to save the day just yet.
In related news, story 3 is coming along nicely, if a little slowly. There are quite a few balls in the air, plot-wise, and I've got to make sure that nothing gets dropped. If you plan on sticking around for the very long term, you're going to see that I do a lot of set-up and foreshadowing for the future installments, so not everything is going to be completely followed through on right away.
Chapter Twenty-One: Between the Devil and Lake Superior
Lois was rapidly adding too many near-death experiences to her record and half of them seemed to involve water one way or another. Maybe that was just due to the sheer amount of it around them, what with Lake Superior on three sides.
Colletta's poor bullet-flecked and certainly totaled Honda Civic plunged backwards into Hob's Bay, hitting the water trunk-first. The heavy engine block up front didn't immediately drag them down which gave the young police officer enough time to raise the gun and shoot out the windshield, putting a spider-web of cracks in it that would make it easy to break.
"Hold your breath." she said, smashing out the window beside her with the butt of the Beretta. Gordon did the same on his side, using the ice scraper.
"Hilarious." Lois drawled, as the water rushed up the sides of the car. She inhaled two lungfuls of air and unbuckled her seat belt.
She nearly lost those lungfuls when the water gushed over the rim of the broken windows and poured down on them, as icy and bitterly cold she had imagined it would be and she hadn't closed her coat before getting into the car.
I think I'm going to need another coat. She realized, annoyed that this was twice in a span of five weeks.
Through the water trying to pour in through her ears, she heard another *bang!* of the gun, the last time Colletta could fire it before the water made it useless, and the windshield split open fully, a jagged hole appearing to blossom in the glass. That was when the car sunk fully beneath the water and the vaguely orange-colored night sky turned dark, only the headlights cutting through the gloom. The water swirled in earnestly, soaking into her clothes and into her skin. She tried hard not to gasp.
Ahead of her, silhouetted against the beams of the headlights, Lois saw Colletta kick out the last of the glass and push herself through the hole of the windshield with Gordon following her quickly. She just barely saw Steve make an stupidly chivalristic 'after you' gesture like he wasn't in any danger of drowning. All the same, she heaved herself out of the back seat and hurriedly swam upwards before the cold ate too far into her muscles.
It was hard going, between the cold and the weight of her coat. Lois was reluctant to shed it to make swimming easier, because she didn't want to lose yet another winter coat (the good ones were expensive). But she made it to the surface, breaking through the small waves with a loud gasp. The night air stung bitterly at her face and her hair tried to plaster itself to her eyeballs and the water seemed to pull on her limbs as she tread it. It was even worse than when Clark had pulled her out of the water, but then again, Clark had been a lovely furnace of body heat.
Steve surfaced a couple of feet away beside her, his first breath of air no less loud and gasping.
"Everyone all right?" Gordon called out, a little closer at hand than Lois thought he was.
"Peachy! My car isn't, but I'm good! Lois?" Colletta inquired.
"Alive and kicking." the reporter replied.
"I'm good too." Steve added.
"Good. Let's get to shore."
There was a distant pop-sound and Lois almost felt a sizzle of air just past her face. Something small and unidentifiable zinged into the water just behind her ear. It only took her a split-second to realize that it may have been a bullet.
Gordon had the same thought too, even as another small possible-bullet whizzed past, and he looked up to the platform of the bridge where at least three men were vaguely visible, pointing what had to be guns down at the water.
"They're shooting at us!" he shouted, jerking away from another bullet aimed in his general direction. "Get to shore!"
Lois didn't waste any time trying to say anything. Though it went against everything she wanted to do right now, she gulped in a deep breath and dove back beneath the cold water. It was murky and nearly impossible to see where she was going, but she knew the bridge was on her right and that was the first direction she swam in. Get beneath the bridge and they wouldn't be able to shoot her anywhere near as easily.
When she was sure that she was under the bridge, she surfaced just briefly to get her bearings and heard the ping and pop of bullets hitting the water to her left, then dove again and started swimming. At the speed with which they had been moving across the bridge, they had made it nearly three-quarters of the way across before Trask and his fellows had knocked them over the side. They were closer to the Pelham shore rather than the docks of Hob's Bay.
Being closer did not make the swim any easier, however. Lois had always been a decent swimmer -- not a distance swimmer, it wasn't like she really hit the pools or the beach regularly. But she was decent. Swimming had never been particularly difficult for her.
Except now.
She was going to make this instance an exception to the usual, given that she was dragging her body through thirty-something degree water in early November while being sixty miles south of the Canadian border.
Swimming was always harder when the water was practically trying to freeze around you.
She surfaced again underneath the span of the bridge when she felt the scrape of the sandy bottom against her legs and tried to stand upright, but the more of her body she exposed to the winter air, the harder she shivered. The cold air nipped at her exposed skin and she cursed herself, once again, for wearing a goddamn skirt.
That's fucking it, I'm wearing pants in the winter from now on.
Not far ahead of her, Steve was briskly shaking the water out of his hair and Gordon was already standing on solid ground, rubbing his hands almost furiously up and down his neck in an effort to warm both parts.
"Lois, body heat!" Colletta said in a manner that was way too cheery for the fact they had just crawled out of Hob's Bay. She splashed through the shallows and then wrapped herself around the reporter. She wasn't the furnace of body heat that Clark was, but Colletta had always run a little hotter than most and so the intrusion was quite welcome.
"Get out of the water, at least." Lois grumbled, staggering forward with the cop all but hanging off her shoulders. They were still-knee deep in the Bay and she didn't have much feeling left in her toes. "L-Let's go over there." she added, nodding her head towards the anchor tower of the bridge.
At the foot of the tower was a few members of Metropolis's homeless population -- an unfriendly-looking bunch who had seen some very hard days and harder drugs, but they had a fire going in a metal trash can and its flickering lure of warmth was too hard to ignore.
Getting warm enough to stave off frost-bite was the immediate priority, so the four of them made their staggering and listing way over to the trash can fire. The vagabonds scattered around it took one look at them dripping water everywhere and kindly moved away to make some room. The fire had been burning strong for a few hours now, so the immediate area around the can was toasty warm and it was a little like stepping into a sauna. They huddled as close as they could without actually setting themselves on fire.
When the teeth-chattering slowed and they could feel the tips of their fingers again, it was Steve who spoke first.
"So, now what?" he asked.
"Well, they're obviously trying to kill because we know too much and have said too much and we're probably in a position to stop them." Gordon replied. "We need to get off the grid before they can try again."
"Duh, but there's a problem there. Anyone could rat us out." Lois said pointedly, making a vague gesture that still encompassed the dark area beneath the bridge where a good dozen homeless degenerates had found shelter from the elements. "That brick wall we're up against has stoolie canaries all over the city and they're always looking to win her favor. We're stuck between the devil and Lake Superior here."
"I know we're not going to make it to the Slums from here." Colletta commented.
"What do you suggest we do, Miss Lane?" Steve asked.
"Fuck if I know! Isn't that what we're trying to figure out right now?" Lois demanded, wondering why the former agent thought she was the one with the plan. "C'mon people, let's get a group-think going. Brainstorm! Plot, plan, scheme. We've got two cops, an Air Force sergeant, and me, the Daily Planet reporter. I'm sure none of us got that far by not being clever and intelligent. I know I didn't."
The two cops in question shared an uncertain look. Gordon had come out of the starting gate a detective with a Master's degree in criminology under his belt and Colletta had had the experience of growing up in the city's absolute worst area. Though their experiences had been very different, their opinions on the mafia queen were the same.
Sofia Gigante was no dumb thug. She was very intelligent and an excellent strategist. She had been working Metropolis over for the better part of twenty-five years and she had built herself a very solid foundation. There hadn't been so much as a flicker of destabilization when her husband Rocco had died in a shoot-out with the declining Gazzo family ten years earlier. The Gigante crime family had weathered the rough times and had come out stronger for it. The mafia queen wouldn't let herself be brought down even by two cops, a former Air Force sergeant, and a reporter, no matter how tenacious and determined they were.
While Steve didn't know much about Gigante, he did know Trask and how Bureau 39 operated under his command. For what reason Trask had started working with Gigante, there was no way of knowing without asking. But Trask was obviously going to get something that he sorely wanted out of the partnership and thus he had every reason to fight for it. He had been chasing his alien, codenamed 'Prometheus', for almost seven years now and showed no signs of flagging. He was not a man who knew how to give up.
Lois, on the other hand, was stubbornly optimistic in her own way.
"Well?" she demanded.
"I suppose," Colletta started slowly. "We could hide out on the college campus tonight and raid the lost'n'found bin for dry clothes. I know how to get into the service corridors and no one checks the boiler room until about six."
Gordon shook his head. "The campus two or three miles from here and our clothes our wet. We'd never make it." he reminded them. It was also below freezing tonight. The only reason ice crystals hadn't formed in their hair was because they were around a hot fire and slowly drying out.
"My apartment is a five minute walk from here." Lois told them.
"Yeah, pretty sure they're going to have that under surveillance." Steve pointed out.
"Have you got a better idea?" Lois shot at him, scowling. "Sofia knows I'm not stupid enough to go back to my apartment if she's looking for me, so it's probably not under close watch. I know what I'm suggesting is a really bad idea, but we also just can't hang around here in these wet clothes. Sooner or later, we're going to be spotted by the wrong people if the frostbite doesn't get us first."
There was a contemplative sort of hum that went between the other three, interrupted by pop and crackle of the fire. Lois's apartment was easily one of the first places that had been placed under watch when Trask and Gigante had teamed up to hunt them down. It should have been the only place they wouldn't think about going, no matter how dire their straits were. That was like spotting a bear trap in the woods and stepping on it anyways.
But if Lois was right and there was a chance that her apartment wasn't being watched very well or at all...
"I don't have a better plan than the college." Colletta admitted, shrugging.
"I don't know the city well enough to be of any help." Steve said. "If we were in D.C., I'd be all over hiding places, but we're not. So like I've said before, I'm open to any suggestions."
It was three against one but they glanced at Gordon anyways to see if he had anything to say. The detective huffed up a resigned sigh.
"Only if we're there long enough to dry off and change clothes, and then we'll hide out at the college like Officer Kanigher suggested." he conceded. Getting warm and dry again was a distinct priority and the sooner they could take care of that, the better. "Lead on, Miss Lane."
Lois looked both men up and down for a second. "You two might have to wear a pair of my longer skirts. I don't think I've got sweatpants that'll fit you."
Steve and Gordon exchanged looks that were just this side of mortified. Colletta sniggered and hoped her phone still worked.
They broke away from the fireside and set off through the neighborhood at something of a jog, Lois leading the way. It was a weird one that seemed to have been built out of suburbia, modified and restructured after Metropolis city limits had expanded to include it. It still contained many of the weird curving streets that turned back on themselves instead of following a sensible grid-like structure that ensured no one occasionally got lost trying to find their own homes.
But it was a calm neighborhood, populated largely by young adults who were fresh out of college and the aged refugees from Racine, many of whom were too wrapped up in their lives to make actual trouble. There was quite an alarming number of coffee shops and specialty cafes (from vegan to gluten-free) and tiny music venues that served only assorted nuts and designer beers and featured aspiring musical artists who could either strum a guitar or write song lyrics but couldn't do both with equal skill.
There was a kind of rivalry between the perennially broke artsy hipsters and the DINK yuppies whose shit was so together everyone else looked like a hot mess; sort of like the Greasers and the Socs, but it never broke down like West Side Story. Fewer knife-fights, more aggressive finger-snapping.
"Lois, I think the coffee shops around here are reproducing at an alarming rate." Colletta said as they jogged past the fifth coffee shop she had seen in just two blocks and it appeared to be some hybrid of the first three.
"Is the city running some sort of experimental breeding program for them? Cultivating them like flowers to produce as many variations on the themes as possible?" Gordon asked, eyeing a sixth at the end of the street that looked like it was featuring some sort of garden theme.
"Is the coffee even any good?" Steve wondered. He was thinking it had to be, if there was going to be so many of the shops competing for business.
"They call this area Beantown. The explosion is inevitable. It's just a matter of time before the coffee grounds hit the fan." Lois replied, essentially answering both questions at once. The coffee related infrastructure around here was due to collapse when people finally worked out what they did and did not like and they would be down to only a few coffee houses instead of two on each block.
Fortunately, Lois's apartment was situated outside of Beantown where the smell of fresh brew didn't saturate the air at all hours of the day and night. It was a matter of minutes from the water's edge and at the jogging pace, they reached the entrance to the complex in just three minutes. Steve slowed them down as they approached the drive and gestured for them to go lurk in the ornamental bushes.
"Where's your building?" he asked.
"Down that road, when it takes a hard left. We could cut through the yards and get in through the back door." Lois said. He was probably worried about being spotted under the street lights. The back yards would afford them a better measure of safety and their tracks would hardly be the first to crisscross it.
"Alright, I don't see anything that looks like a surveillance team." Steve declared. The parking lots were clear of anything particularly tell-tale.
"Still need to be careful." Gordon said softly.
"Still can't stay out here." Colletta reminded them.
As if to further expound that point, the wind chose that moment to pick up just enough to send a shiver through the quartet, which reminded them that their clothes were still quite damp. Steve and Gordon chose not to mutter on about safety any further and gestured for Lois to take the lead through the backyards.
She was correct in her assessment that they were not the only ones tromping around back there. Half the boot-tracks were accompanied by paw prints and the other people were heading to their night-jobs. Down from the back door was a sidewalk that led to the bike/pedestrian path. There was still snow coming down; their tracks would be largely filled in by morning.
They got inside without anyone noticing, as far as Lois could tell. The interior hallway wasn't heated, exactly, but just getting out of the chill breeze (however faint) was a relief. They went up the stairs (Lois was on the third floor) and checked the lock on her apartment door to determine whether or not it had been tampered with. It showed no signs of having been forced open so it was probably-- probably safe to go in.
She had a pretty good apartment -- and seriously, she wasn't going to pay four hundred and fifty a month for a hole in the wall -- with a washer and dryer, and a balcony that faced towards Downtown and gave her picturesque view of the Queensland and Ordway Memorial Bridges.
The reporter ushered her companions over the threshold, but before she could turn on any lights, Colletta asked: "Lois, you didn't happen to take up smoking, did you?"
Oh crap...
A feeling that wasn't quite dread crept over Lois. It had the same weight as dread, but it was more in the flavor of resignation, like she should have expected this. She turned around to face the rest of the apartment and a lamp clicked on. Sofia Gigante sat in one of the armchairs, her massive frame filling it up past capacity. Her legs extended too far to the coffee table and her wrists hung over the end of the arms. Standing on either side of her were two lackeys of thug-like proportions. One had a buzz-cut and the other was bald. The latter was the source of the cigarette stink pervading the apartment. Both of them carried heavy automatic rifles. They were not there to protect Sofia but rather to ensure that no one got any cute ideas.
"Miss Lane." Sofia greeted her in that deep, throaty voice that purred like a distant rumble of thunder. She smiled at the other three. "And the great detective who has been sniffing after my operations." she added, favoring Gordon briefly with a nod. "I will not pretend that I recognize you two."
"No one was expecting you to." Colletta muttered, crossing her arms.
"Okay, I have to ask. What made you think I'd come back here?" Lois asked, assuming by now that the mafia queen actually hadn't been at the police station.
"You have many admirable qualities, Lois, and your penchant for being unpredictable is one of them." Sofia said. "But I know you quite well. I did help mold you into what you are. Likewise, you should know that I am no fool. I am of Gotham stock. We do not, as you might say, fuck around when it comes to precautions and taking them."
Lois crossed her arms. "Look, if you're going to haul us off to ominous and poorly lit places to beat our faces in, can we change our clothes first? We crawled out of Hob's Bay, the water was cold, and there's just something incredibly undignified about dying in wet clothes. Plus, I am this close to getting these two into a pair of my skirts." she said, jerking a thumb at Steve and Gordon.
"No. There are dry towels in the van." Sofia said shortly. She started to stand up. "Burgess, Duncan. Escort them out, please. And Lois?"
"Yes?" Lois asked with a kid of gritted teeth polite-ness.
Sofia stepped up very close to the reporter in order to better loom over her and use her height to intimidate.
"I have not yet made up my mind about killing you or your companions. Please do not endeavor to make that decision for me."
Lois would never admit to the feeling of liquid fear that poured out of her stomach and down to her knees, making them wobble ever so slightly. That made her feel like she didn't have any handle on this situation, not in any capacity. Up close, the mafia queen was rather majestic to behold. The best had been made of her masculine features, from the thick brow bones to the heavy jaw and the sharp nose that jutted like a beak. In a world dominated and ruled by men, her manly features had helped her win a great deal more respect than what she might have gotten had she been a pretty face. It was said that no one really got close enough to Sofia Gigante to appreciate the way she looked, and if they did, they didn't live long enough to tell anyone.
And just like that, Lois remembered why most people were afraid of this woman.
And she wondered why she was never afraid enough.
Lois, Colletta, Steve, and Gordon were shuttled across the city in the back of a van with the windows blacked out and no view out the front. They were indeed supplied with dry towels once they had been shut in the back and that was definitely more generosity than Lois would have expected from the mafia queen. But she probably didn't want them to freeze to death before she had the chance to grill them on their knowledge or hand them over to Trask.
The van took too many turns for any of them to properly trace their route and they spent long enough in it that they could have easily left the city, but the reporter had strong suspicions about where they were going.
Almost forty-five minutes later, the van finally halted and the engine was turned off, and the silence in the back finally became too oppressive to ignore,
"Where do you think we are?" Steve asked softly.
"The Slam, probably." Lois shrugged. "It's where Sofia sends all the people she hates too much to kill."
"Oh, joy." Colletta groaned, rolling her eyes.
"Don't worry, you won't die with us." the reporter told Steve. "Sofia will probably turn you over to Trask and you might at least get the comfort of a federal prison, if you're lucky."
"Ah, well..." Steve crossed his arms grumpily. "Something to look forward to."
Gordon raised an eyebrow. "And the rest of us?"
"Ask her if you can write down instructions for your funeral."
The detective scowled. "Delightful."
The back doors were unlocked, revealing the grim and grinning visages of Burgess and Duncan, baldy and buzz-cut, respectively. Beyond them, Lois saw the interior of an underground parking garage where the lighting was just this side of gloomy. She had only been to the Slam twice as a guest, but she had never forgotten how it looked.
"Let me guess. Welcome to hell?" she questioned.
Both men nodded.
They needed no prompting to get out. Such was the position they were in, they would not get the upper hand if they tried to fight back and run for it. Duncan and Burgess were far from the only armed thugs hanging around in the garage. From her vantage point by the bumper of the van, Lois counted some ten or so lackeys unloading a food delivery truck but the noise in the garage told her there were a lot more of them.
Sofia came striding across the concrete towards them, the top of her head looking like it would brush against the ceiling for how tall she was. She had long, powerful strides. Commanding ones. Even someone who had never seen her before would have no doubt that she was in charge.
The mafia queen snapped out a harsh-sounding command in Italian and two more thug-guards seemed to swoop in out of nowhere. They descended on Colletta, Steve, and Gordon and hustled them away to a door on the far side. Duncan grabbed Lois's elbow in a mockery of a gentlemanly escort and pulled her away from the van and towards the main entrance.
"Am I getting the VIP treatment?" the reporter asked snarkily.
"Hush." Duncan suggested.
Lois made a face, but Sofia looming up in her wake, she felt it wiser to keep her mouth closed.
The reporter was taken to a private room that had the decorating scheme of an airport lounge complete with a large picture window that overlooked the Siegel River and the rail yard on the other side. Two couches that were upholstered in soft imitation leather with knitted afghans draped over the back, plush chairs, inset lights, and yes, that was definitely a wet bar on one side of the room.
Lois was pushed down on to one of those couches and she grimaced when the damp material of both her skirt and her coat squeezed out a little excess water out onto her legs. As soon as Duncan gave her the room, she started shucking off her coat.
Sofia waved a hand dismissively and the thug promptly vacated from the lounge, closing the door behind him. The mafia queen seated herself on the couch opposite and sat there like a statue, watching the reporter wrestle her coat off.
"So," Lois started, once she had set the coat aside. "When are you gonna stick me in front of the next stupid initiate to be executed?"
Sofia's expression flickered and she suddenly reared back with a petrifying anger and her large hand swung at Lois's face. The smaller woman flinched and cringed reflexively, squeezing her eyes shut, not enough time to get out of the way, just brace for impact-- but the only thing that brushed up to her skin was a puff of air. Cautiously, Lois opened her eyes and found that Sofia's hand had stopped merely an inch from actually touching her cheek.
"Hush, Miss Lane. You have tried my patience enough for one day." She tapped the reporter's cheek lightly. "Please do not make this worse for yourself."
"What's to make worse?" Lois asked, squashing the need to scoot down the couch even as the hand withdrew from her personal space. "Only one of us is getting out of this place alive and it'll be the one who axes redwoods with her shins, not the plucky intrepid reporter."
Sofia frowned. "The fact you can call yourself a plucky intrepid reporter without openly vomiting is both horrifying and admirable. Mostly horrifying." she drawled. She shook her head in dismay. "You have truly sunk into mediocrity."
"I resent that." Lois muttered, crossing her arms. "I've done everything but go mediocre."
"I'm going to help you restore some of your dignity." the mafia queen went on, as though Lois hadn't spoken. "Quite frankly, Lois, I want you back in the fold. Not as a gang grunt, but as one of my lieutenants."
Lois blinked.
Then blinked again.
Had she heard wrong?
She must have, because there was no way Sofia had just declared she wanted Lois back...
But that was exactly what the woman had said.
"What? Why?!" Lois demanded, doing a double-take when the words sunk in. "Why the hell would you want me back in the gang knowing I'm potentially a risk?"
The million dollar question, because surely Sofia knew exactly what Lois had done in order to get out of the Suicide Kings. She had betrayed the gang by calling the cops on the rally. There was just no way that Sofia didn't at least suspect what had really gone down that night!
"You are a reporter. And more to the point, you are a reporter who appeals to a very wide audience both through the newspaper and the internet." Sofia answered. "You wield the power of the press and I will not deny that you do it very efficiently. As such, you are ideally placed to help me build the foundation that Metropolis will need if it's expected to thrive beyond all expectations."
For the second time that day, Lois burst into loud and inappropriately timed laughter.
"You're fucking with me, right? Hah! Get over yourself! There's no way Sofia Gigante and the Gotham connection could ever help this city positively! You'd only ever bring Metropolis to ruin!"
"Quite the contrary," started a man's voice and Lois stiffened. She whirled off the couch onto her feet just in time to see her father, General Sam Lane, step out of an alcove by the door, where he must have been lurking since she was brought in.
"Fuck you, General Dad." she snarled.
"Lois, do we need to have another discussion about your language?" General Lane chided.
Lois rolled her eyes, crossing her arms."I'm a grown-ass woman; I can swear however damn much I want to, fuck you very much." she snapped. "On that note, what are you even doing here and why am I not actually that surprised to see you?"
The lack of surprise to the fact he was here actually surprised her more. Her dad did have a bad habit of turning up unexpectedly like a case of the hiccups or an itchy rash. Everything from Trask to Gigante; what else did he have his fingers in?
"Stop thinking so dramatically, Lois. You always seem to look for the worst in everything." General Lane said, sounding disappointed by his daughter's thought process. "Metropolis isn't going to become a ruin. Mrs. Gigante's influence will only help the city."
"Really? Tell that to Gotham, which is controlled more by the crime families than a legitimate government." Lois said acidly. Gotham was a prime example of what happened when the system utterly fell apart and was rebuilt without supervision from a neutral party. There was a reason no one had ever been able to dislodge the mobs from their lofty perches. It was because they had built the system to support them. "How the fuck do you expect someone from the Falcone family to help Metropolis? To my knowledge, that's not even possible."
"Then your knowledge is limited. You still have a lot to learn about the world, Lois." General Lane told her, his tone a touch patronizing. "Metropolis is at a crossroads. It's a critical juncture that will determine the city's future and we must choose carefully. Mrs. Gigante will help us make the right choice. There are people in this city's highest offices who have no idea what they're doing up there and should disaster strike, it is their incompetent hands that will ruin us. It will take a necessary evil to remove them before they can incite a disaster of their own making, however accidently... Are you done rolling your eyes at me?"
"I'll be done when they fall out of my head." Lois replied, for she had been rolling her eyes and mouthing 'oh my gawd...' the whole time her father had been speaking. "That's some grade-A horse-pucky coming out of your mouth, Pops. And you wonder why I split from the happy homestead at light-speed.
"First!" She put up a finger to emphasize the first point. "You're not talking about a better future or even a brighter tomorrow, but preserving a toxic status quo that very nearly did sink Metropolis into the lake when Berkowitz got his grubby paws on things. Second, I think it says quite a lot that the people threw their vote at the inexperienced sewage official over yet another rich white male GOP asshole who believes menstruation is a fem-nazi myth, among other things. Do you want Metropolis to end up like Gotham or something? Because with what you're proposing, that's the only outcome."
"We're doing this so Metropolis doesn't end up like Gotham!" General Lane barked.
"Funny way of goin' about it." Lois muttered, giving herself another eye-roll. "Yeah, no. You don't solve a problem by creating another one and you certainly don't help Metropolis by getting rid of the one good mayor we've had in almost a decade. You can go ahead with your little plan if you want, but don't come crawling to me when it blows up in your face. Because it will blow up in your face, I'll make sure of it. I am under no obligation to help you in any way, somewhat because I'm expected to be impartial, but mostly because I don't want to."
"Lois, family has to stick together." General Lane said.
"No, no! Don't you dare, General Dad! Don't you dare play the only card in your hand!" Lois snapped, her hands clenching into fists. "The last time you tried to play happy families, you pulled me out of college and dragged me halfway around the world to Corto Maltese where I nearly got my knees shot out from under me by a bunch of would-be revolutionaries!
"What about Lucy? Gonna drag her into this so-called 'family affair' and stick her on a corner handing out leaflets? I thought you didn't want her turning out like me." she snarled. "And to think I expected better of you!"
General Lane's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"What do you think I'm talking about? You, big stern army man, by the book and everything, just shat on your own integrity by aligning yourself with a Falcone." Lois sneered. "Jeezus Christ, Dad, everyone as far as San Fran knows the Falcones are bad news because they're out of Gotham and Gotham is the worst of the worst! How do you think it got that way? There's crime in plain sight, corruption bursting out of every rotting inch, and a city government at the beck and call of the mob families! And all because somebody let them get their hands on the lynchpin!
"If you follow through and let Sofia have her wicked way with this city, we could very well end up like Gotham. It could take a decade, but do you really want to be looking back on this day and realizing you're the one who let Metropolis fall ass-first into hell where it burns in the sulfur pits right alongside Gotham?"
"Lois, you don't understand our position." General Lane started in a would-be calm tone, though Lois did hear the underlying tinge of frustration.
"No, I understand that your position is threatened. I understand that you're afraid of no longer being the most important thing in the world." the reporter put in before he could say anything. "But toxic is toxic and I'm not going to have anything to do with it. So you know what? Get off my ass, let me and my friends go, and come back once you can emote like an adult human being with sensible reasoning and logic."
"Don't speak to me like that!" General Lane roared suddenly, angrily. It was a magnificent, slightly frightening sight, because he didn't get visibly angry very often. "I didn't raise you to be so disrespectful!"
"You barely raised me at all! Mom did most of the work!" Lois shouted right back.
General Lane flinched back like she had taken a swing at him, but Lois felt no remorse about playing the Mom card. It was true; her father hadn't had much to do with her upbringing. When he had gotten involved, it was mostly to lecture her on acceptable behavior in front of the brass and the occasional treatise on independent thinking. The actual part of instilling her with morals and ethics and integrity had been taken up by Ella. Lois was much more like her mother than she could ever be like her father. It was something the man always forgot.
Sofia clapped her hands suddenly and the sound made Lois flinch.
"Well, your family dynamics could use some work, but you have also strayed away from the purpose of this conversation." the mafia queen remarked dryly. She could really see why Lois had chosen a gang over staying at home. It was a bit odd to think that this military general had produced a daughter like Lois.
"General Lane," Sofia settled a large hand down on Lois's shoulder. "We have dropped a considerable bombshell on your daughter. I do believe she will need some time to think it over in peace and quiet. The sooner she realizes that it is the only option, the sooner we can begin."
"Oh please..." Lois groaned. To her, there was no such thing as just one option. There was always at least two. It was just a matter of choosing which one was bad and which one was better.
"Of course." General Lane nodded, recomposing himself very quickly. "Lois, you are confined to this room until further notice. There's a washroom over there if you need it. I imagine you'll find some chips under the wet bar, if you're hungry. And do try and get some sleep. We'll need you bright and alert by morning."
"I'm twenty-four, not four." Lois groused.
General Lane said nothing, as was his custom when people tried to argue with him, but Lois already succeeded at riling him up. She had always been able to push his buttons, most of the time unintentionally. He had always treated Lois like she was one of his soldiers, despite that fact that she was most assuredly a civilian who just happened to live on a military base. Sometimes, she deliberately mashed his buttons just to watch him react. To see if there was any chink in his armor that she could exploit. General Lane was very good at holding his temper outwardly, but inside, he had to be boiling.
But he still said nothing. He turned on his heel in a perfectly executed about-face, clicked his heels together, and literally marched off like he was on the parade grounds. Sofia patted Lois's shoulder heavily in what almost passed for a gesture of solidarity or comfort as though they shared common ground on the subject of upset family dynamics. But the small, satisfied smile on the mafia queen's face, the one Lois caught a glimpse of when the woman passed, said that she was more amused than sympathetic.
The door swung shut behind Sofia's departure and the click of the lock followed immediately after. Lois stared at the closed door for a moment, unable to believe they were actually treating her like an errant, misbehaving child instead of a grown woman who knew perfectly well what she didn't want to do.
And her father especially. She had thought he was a little more respectful of adult autonomy.
"Oh who the fuck am I trying to kid?" Lois asked herself rhetorically. She threw her hands up in exasperation and fell back on the couch. She tossed her coat onto the other couch, then grabbed the afghan from the back and burrowed under it. If she was going to be locked in here for the next several hours, then she might as well try and get in some sleep.
Perry would want her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning when she dropped the story in his lap.
-0-
The chapter title is a variation of "Stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea". I would have used that one, but I plopped Metropolis on the shores of Lake Superior so it didn't really work.