Tuesday, 4:52 PM
23 Hours Missing
Lois Lane was a wreck. There was no real question about that fact. Her partner was AWOL and not even Bobby Bigmouth could turn up any inkling of where he had gone. Admittedly he had only been gone a day, and if it was any other journalist she wouldn't be that worried. But this just wasn't like Clark.
She idly clicked around on the document that she had open and was supposedly editing. It was just a fluff piece meant to keep her busy while Perry called around to his sources, trying to see if anyone had heard anything from Clark. She'd long ago gone through his computer and come up with nothing. Unless the United Steel Workers wanted revenge for Clark writing a puff piece on their upcoming rally then there was nothing in his files to even hint at any bit of foul play. She'd called Martha even, only to learn that she hadn't heard from her son in almost a week. Two individuals in dark suits appeared at her desk and pulled her out of her contemplations. "Can I help you?"
Vivian pulled out her ID to show it to the reporter, "Yes, I'm Agent Johnson and this is Agent Taylor, we're from the FBI. We understand that you've filed a missing persons report for your parter, Clark Kent?"
Lois sat up straighter, "Yes, he's been missing for almost twenty-four hours now. Why don't we go into the conference room and talk about this?"
The two agents nodded their consent and followed Lois into one of the side conference rooms where they took a seat around the table. Once they were all settled Danny spoke up first, "Now Ms. Lane, can you tell us why you are so concerned about the disappearance of your partner. We get dozens of calls a year about missing journalists and 99 of them end up being closed after the reporter turns up after a week long stakeout of some sort."
"Clark isn't like that!" Lois burst out. "I understand how reporters work and I know this isn't the case. Clark always checks in with either the Chief or I if he goes out on a stakeout on his own, which he rarely does. Sure, he randomly disappears sometimes in the middle of the day, but never for 24 hours at a time..." Lois trailed off, mentioning Clark's random disappearances weren't going to win her any help with these Federal goons. She supposed she was lucky they showed up at all, and probably only because Perry put some heavy pressure on them to find one of his star reporters.
Vivian and Danny exchanged a look. Random disappearances. Could be a sign of something, or maybe nothing at all. In any case it was something to keep track of. Vivian paused to take a stake of Lois before continuing the questioning. The small brunette looked nothing like her reputation had built her up to be. She was genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of her partner, if her jittery twitching was any indication. "Okay, we already have your statement of the last time you saw Mr. Kent, but can you tell us a little more about what you've been working on for the last week. It would give us a better frame of reference to know where to start looking."
Lois nodded slightly, "We've been workng separately for the last week or two, nothing big has come up requiring both of us on an assignment. He's had a smattering of happy little touchy pieces, one on a new park down by the Bay, a few Superman rescues, a charity auction, and I think maybe a few other things that Perry threw his way. I had Jimmy pull up everything he'd done for the past six months a few hours ago to check through, and while there are some significant incidents, all of the parties involved are either dead or in jail." A large stack of papers was pushed toward the two FBI agents to page through, "Jimmy's working on putting together a list of people released from jail in the past three months that has any connection to Clark."
Danny took the stack of papers out of Vivian's hands and motioned for her to continue talking, while he looked through for anything interesting that they might want follow-up information on. The questioning continued for another half hour, with Lois going through everything she knew about Clark, including their relationship with Superman, and all of Clark's quirkly habits, from random absences to his boy scout attitude toward life. Lois continued to get more agitated the longer the conversation continued. The time for action had come and gone and she was getting tired of sitting around with the crackerjack black suits. "Okay, I'm done here, I have a job to do, and you need to go do whatever it is your do." With that she stormed out the door, leaving a mildly surprised Danny and Vivian behind to just look at each other. It was time for a new angle.