"Using finger puppets was not excessive! He'd lost the money and I was just
pointing out the consequences!"
Lex heard another voice, but too faintly to make out the words.
"That's just his dirty mind. It's not like I had a choice. I didn't come into this world with the extra fingers module. Besides, it's the tallest finger. Anyway, gotta see Lex now. We'll have coffee sometime tomorrow, okay? I can tell you about the IRS."
With the force and assurance of a espresso-addicted and very determined tornado, Chloe Sullivan came into the Oval Office. "Hi, Lex," she tossed over her shoulder, and then began the usual ritual of locking her briefcase, putting it into another locked bag, and putting it into a file drawer reserved for this purpose, then locking that. As she sat down, Alecto climbed into her lap. Lex had given up on commenting about the bond between the nosiest--Martha called it adventurous--of the cats and Chloe Sullivan, newly appointed director of the Government Accounting Office, the department that investigated and reported on all the other government agencies' doings.
"Who's gotten skewered today?" There was a reason that since Chloe's appointment, the "Recent Reports" page on the GAO website was nicknamed "The Obits."
"Well, the Pentagon's procurement office is on notice that if they don't find the missing four billion dollars from last year, and bring it all back this week, I'm going to start looking." After getting her due petting, Ally jumped off Chloe's lap.
Lex nodded. His platform plank that cutting government waste and internal fraud would eliminate the deficit without cutting services was working out.
"Did you put Clark out of his misery?" The NASA chief, seeing how busy Chloe was, had decided that the best way to track down waste in his own department was to do it himself. Fortunately, Lex had found him hunkering over Effectiveness and Efficiency for Dummies with an increasingly wretched expression on his face and had assured him that Chloe would work it into her schedule. Clark had looked terribly guilty when Lex put it that the waste in NASA was probably in the millions, not the billions, so it could wait a bit longer, so much so that Lex tracked down Earl Jenkins and asked him to sing "Turn, turn, turn," to Clark over the phone.
"Yeah, we'll be going over things in May. That's my girl!" Ally had let out a triumphant "Maowwwww!" to announce that she had gotten into the file drawer, the outer case, and the briefcase, and returned to Chloe's lap. "Hey, what happened to her collar? One of the stones is gone."
Lex rolled his eyes. "That's a remarkably unobservant question. Ally is doubtless what happened to her collar."
Chloe, in response, narrowed her eyes. "No sneaking to the Hall of Gems and borrowing a replacement."
"Certainly not!" After a pause, Lex added, "I can get better from Colombia if this one doesn't turn up."
After an incident involving a photograph that Clark was, in Lex's opinion, far too gleeful about having taken and far too prone to share, he'd decided on a Luthorian type of revenge. He'd had Colombia's best emerald dealers come to him with their very best and largest stones, and selected the most vivid and brilliant, then sent them to Greece's best goldsmiths. The result had been three stunningly crafted collars for the cats.
Clark's expression when he saw them headed towards him, with huge, gleaming, green stones adorning their necks, had been more than worth it.
Lex heard another voice, but too faintly to make out the words.
"That's just his dirty mind. It's not like I had a choice. I didn't come into this world with the extra fingers module. Besides, it's the tallest finger. Anyway, gotta see Lex now. We'll have coffee sometime tomorrow, okay? I can tell you about the IRS."
With the force and assurance of a espresso-addicted and very determined tornado, Chloe Sullivan came into the Oval Office. "Hi, Lex," she tossed over her shoulder, and then began the usual ritual of locking her briefcase, putting it into another locked bag, and putting it into a file drawer reserved for this purpose, then locking that. As she sat down, Alecto climbed into her lap. Lex had given up on commenting about the bond between the nosiest--Martha called it adventurous--of the cats and Chloe Sullivan, newly appointed director of the Government Accounting Office, the department that investigated and reported on all the other government agencies' doings.
"Who's gotten skewered today?" There was a reason that since Chloe's appointment, the "Recent Reports" page on the GAO website was nicknamed "The Obits."
"Well, the Pentagon's procurement office is on notice that if they don't find the missing four billion dollars from last year, and bring it all back this week, I'm going to start looking." After getting her due petting, Ally jumped off Chloe's lap.
Lex nodded. His platform plank that cutting government waste and internal fraud would eliminate the deficit without cutting services was working out.
"Did you put Clark out of his misery?" The NASA chief, seeing how busy Chloe was, had decided that the best way to track down waste in his own department was to do it himself. Fortunately, Lex had found him hunkering over Effectiveness and Efficiency for Dummies with an increasingly wretched expression on his face and had assured him that Chloe would work it into her schedule. Clark had looked terribly guilty when Lex put it that the waste in NASA was probably in the millions, not the billions, so it could wait a bit longer, so much so that Lex tracked down Earl Jenkins and asked him to sing "Turn, turn, turn," to Clark over the phone.
"Yeah, we'll be going over things in May. That's my girl!" Ally had let out a triumphant "Maowwwww!" to announce that she had gotten into the file drawer, the outer case, and the briefcase, and returned to Chloe's lap. "Hey, what happened to her collar? One of the stones is gone."
Lex rolled his eyes. "That's a remarkably unobservant question. Ally is doubtless what happened to her collar."
Chloe, in response, narrowed her eyes. "No sneaking to the Hall of Gems and borrowing a replacement."
"Certainly not!" After a pause, Lex added, "I can get better from Colombia if this one doesn't turn up."
After an incident involving a photograph that Clark was, in Lex's opinion, far too gleeful about having taken and far too prone to share, he'd decided on a Luthorian type of revenge. He'd had Colombia's best emerald dealers come to him with their very best and largest stones, and selected the most vivid and brilliant, then sent them to Greece's best goldsmiths. The result had been three stunningly crafted collars for the cats.
Clark's expression when he saw them headed towards him, with huge, gleaming, green stones adorning their necks, had been more than worth it.