Okay, my apologies for taking so long between the last chapter and this one. I'm still very new to publishing fanfiction, so bear with me and my experiments. I'm not going to wait a full month for each installment anymore, but I'll put a new chapter up every half-month, so y'all can expect another one around the 16th. I'm not sure how long I can keep this pace up, though I think I'll manage, but don't be surprised if I'm a day or two late (I like to have both my Betas' Go-Ahead before publishing, and sometimes that takes some time for additional edits). Nonetheless, from now on I promise to try to be as close to the deadline as possible, so that means new installments every 1st and 16th unless something big comes up in real life. Thank you so much for your patience guys!

Chapter 23: The Reporter

Lois Lane considered herself to be an elite investigative reporter, undaunted by even the horrors of war and stopping at nothing to document the story that just might earn her a Pulitzer. That is, up until about two hours ago when she had left the luxury of a heater back at the helipad. Now she was freezing to death in the cargo hold of what the female pilot called 'a beaut', but Lois thought it looked a bit more like a Sikorsky S-61 chopper with no heating. Her thick parka and snow boots helped to retain most of her body heat and provide a degree of protection against the cold, but she still couldn't help but feel some regret that the story hadn't been somewhere warm.

Sitting in the confined compartment among the boxes of food and equipment being shipped north to the research encampment, her two duffels at her feet, she had a pretty good view out the opposite window of the ice floes dotting Ellesmere's coastline. They were a glaring white against the dark water, completely barren and devoid of life, but somehow had a harsh beauty all their own. The island itself was visible through the small window at her back, and every time she looked through it she was met with miles and miles of windblown ice and snow frozen solid as far as she could see. It was pretty enough, but cold as hell and the conversation wasn't especially lively, not to mention that all the food had to be heated.

Lois just hoped the damn story was worth it.

She did not usually pick up minor pieces like this one, scratch that, she never took stories like this. This was third-page fluff at best, just something about someone finding something of historical value and certainly nothing that would get her reporter's instincts tingling. But the moment she caught wind of the U.S. military stepping to block almost all public access to the seemingly innocent research site, Lois knew there was nothing on Earth that could keep her away. Of course, NORTHCOM had tried and hilariously failed to retract Canada's invitation for the illustrious Lois Lane to come and write a piece on the discovery. Winning the injunction had been great at the time, but ultimately initiated the series of events that had led her to her current situation: freezing her toes off in helicopter flying through the Arctic Circle, on Thanksgiving of all days.

"Landin' soon, Miss Lane," the pilot yelled above the roar of the engine, speaking up for the first time since they had taken off. Lois nodded that she understood and zipped her coat up a little tighter to brace herself for the wind.

Keeping her right hand on the joystick, the Arctic Cargo flyer carefully maneuvered the helicopter towards the snowy landing zone. The blades whirred furiously, kicking up small clouds of powdery snow as the landing skids touched down and she reduced the power to the engine. Her passenger stood up from her seat, pulling a wool hat over her strawberry-blonde locks before giving the pilot a polite nod in thanks. Lois slid open the cargo door to let herself out only to be stopped in her tracks by a pair of the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen looking up at her expectantly.

The man smiled shyly, adjusting his heavy coat with one hand before reaching up with both arms towards her. Lois hesitated a moment, unsure what he wanted before realizing that he was offering to help her down, and leaned forward enough for him to lift her out of the helicopter. The man lifted her with ease and carefully set her down in the snow.

"Thanks..." Lois muttered above the wind, noting the Arctic Cargo nametag on his jacket, "... Joe."

Joe Hunt simply nodded, flashing her another bright smile and pointing her towards an older man a few paces away who greeted her with an exuberant handshake before introducing himself as Eubanks.

Watching her go, Joe the Arctic Cargo employee turned back the dark-haired airwoman in the cockpit, who happened to be going over the post-landing checklist at that moment.

"Hey."

"Hey," she replied, not looking up from the list. "Did you find anything?"

Joe glanced over his shoulder at his coworkers unloading the chopper to make sure no one was listening in before he nodded. "The ice is thinner on the north-east side of the glacier. It's still a bit far, but I think I can melt it."

The pilot didn't reply, her pen pressed to the flight notebook mid-word as she stared down at it with a blank look in her eyes. Sensing something was wrong, Joe touched her knee to get her attention. "Hey. Darcie- I mean Sammy, are you doing okay?"

'Sammy' blinked, coming back to reality and saw him looking up at her concernedly, still waiting for a response. She nodded quickly, replacing the checklist and notebook in their compartments. "I'm fine. That's great, about the ice I mean. When do you want to check it out?"

He grinned in response. "Once the sun sets no one will be outside, so we can leave then. I have a good feeling about this-"

"Joe!"

Jed Eubanks, the northern branch manager of Arctic Cargo, waved him over and Joe glanced back at the pilot.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked and she gave him a small smile, squeezing his gloved hand. "I told you, I'm fine. We can talk later."

He returned the squeeze, resisting the urge to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, and jogged over to where Eubanks and the lady journalist were conversing. Jed pointed to two duffel bags in the back of the helicopter's hold, gesturing for him to grab them.

"Take Miss Lane's bags! We're heading down to the station!" he shouted above the blustering wind. Joe nodded, moving to retrieve the baggage.

"Careful with those, they're heavy!" Miss Lane warned him, but he simply smiled and easily hefted one onto his shoulder, steadying it with his hand. Lois barely stopped herself from staring in amazement at the show of strength, quickly averting her gaze from the husky baggage handler and returned her attention to Eubanks.

"I gotta confess, Miss Lane," the branch manager was saying above the wind, "I'm not a fan of the Daily Planet, but those pieces you wrote when you were embedded with the 1st Division were mighty impressive!"

She smirked. That had been an interesting trip, certainly better than the one she was on now, but she didn't tell him that and chuckled at his reluctant praise. "Well, what can I say? I get writer's block if I'm not wearing a flak jacket."

Eubanks chortled at her witty remark and they descended the hill to the camp, overlooked by a towering wall of ice containing what Lois had already dubbed 'The Anomaly'. Not far to the east laid the Arctic Ocean, and even above the wind, she could still hear waves crashing against the icy slopes.

The branch manager led her down among the makeshift buildings, greeting a few of his employees along the way to one of the large insulated tents with Joe patiently following close behind, Miss Lane's bags in tow. Eventually, Jed sent him to drop the heavy duffels off somewhere before they arrived at their destination.

"The Colonel will be your main contact from now on," he informed her, his hand on the tent flap, "Though I must warn you, he can be a little… rough, to say the least."

"Believe me, Eubanks, I've dealt with some tough customers before. I'll be fine," Lois smiled confidently, and Jed shrugged.

"Good luck, Miss Lane."

He pushed the flap open for her and Lois stepped inside the insulated space. At first glance, it appeared to be a base of operations of sorts where multiple military and research personnel were typing diligently at computers. More staff were talking on phones or hastily scribbling down notes, and Lois could not help but smile at how similar it was to her bullpen back at the Daily Planet, though admittedly much colder.

"Miss Lane!" a voice barked, and she turned to find herself suddenly confronted by the man in charge.

"Colonel Hardy, U.S. Northcom," the tall officer introduced himself with a frown. Lois reached out to shake his hand only for him to purposefully ignored it, instead turning to indicate his companion, "This is Dr. Emil Hamilton, from DARPA."

The doctor, a balding, bespectacled man in his sixties with a well-kept goatee and shy demeanor gave her a bewildered smile as he was summoned from a nearby table, but he at least he shook Lois' hand despite the Colonel's looming dislike.

"You're early," Hardy declared with thinly veiled annoyance as soon as the pleasantries were over, his stern military disposition clearly visible, "We were expecting you tomorrow."

Lois simply shrugged, putting her shoulders back and decided that she wasn't going to let him push her around.

"That is exactly why I showed up today." she countered curtly. "Let's get one thing straight, okay, Colonel? The only reason I'm here is because we are on Canadian soil and unfortunately for you, the appellate court won't let you keep me away. I was invited, Colonel, and now that we're done measuring manhoods, can you have your people show me what they found?"

Dr. Hamilton had humor enough to chuckle at her ferocity while Colonel frowned, looking for all the world like he would rather order a firing squad to shoot her on the spot. But he was under orders, so Hardy politely refrained from doing so.

V*V*V*V*V*V*V

The main research center was a small structure on the northern edge of the camp, a bit larger than most of the other buildings, but still mostly comprised of repurposed shipping containers raised a few feet above the hard-packed snow. Once inside, Lois was introduced to more DARPA and NORTHCOM scientists, including a Staff Sergeant Sekowski who was one of the few people in the camp seemingly unaffected by the cold and perfectly happy to show her around. Recording app at the ready, Lois listened in earnest interest as he talked about the cooperation's findings.

"NASA's EOS satellites pinged the anomaly first." he explained eagerly, tapping a few keys on his computer to bring up a sonar map of the camp's surrounding area, "The ice shelf plays hell on the echo soundings and we've had to repeat the process multiple times, but there's definitely something down there."

Another tap pulled up a sounding image, blurry and inarticulate, but one could still distinguish a large, streamlined anomaly among the static.

"A submarine, maybe? Soviet-era?" Lois inquired, examining the results curiously as Colonel Hardy shook his head.

"Doubtful, that thing's 300 meters long," he explained, "Considerably larger than anything we know they built back then. Not to mention that this thing is over a hundred feet above sea level in a tidewater glacier while a sub would usually be buried in the seabed."

"Could an earthquake have moved it?" she suggested and Sekowski shrugged.

"Maybe, but that's not even the spookiest part. We ran some bore tests, and if this is correct, the ice surrounding the object…" Here he paused for dramatic effect, earning a stern glare from Hardy before continuing, "It's nearly twenty thousand years old."