Let me see. It went "friend's b-day" "site not working" and "didn't feel like it/got distracted" for the two Fridays previous. I got sucked into working on some original stories, which isn't actually a bad thing.
I'm also perfectly aware it's Saturday, but better late than never.
Chapter Two: Sensational Stories
"All right. Sofia Falcone Gigante, a powerful mafia queen and the only daughter of one of the greatest Italian mafia dons to grace the East Coast with his presence -- a ruthless brick wall who has crushed more competition than actual brick walls -- got spooked enough to decide that prison was the lesser of two evils."
That was Lois's summation of the interview once they had been deposited in front of Planet Square. The rest of the session had consisted of fact-checking, so Lois could clear up the information that didn't seem quite right and make sure everything was correct. What stuck out in their minds the most, however, was what Gigante had told them about her competition.
"Who is Bruno Mannheim?" Clark asked.
"You don't know?-- Nah, he's small potatoes." Lois reminded herself. "CEO of Mannheim Tech. Hardware manufacturer. Computers, phones, radios, music players. Makes a respectable donation to the children's hospital every year, but no big league competitor. It's all in the name, Smallville."
"The name?"
"Yeah, the name Mannheim has history in this town. Nineteen sixty-one, Moxie 'Boss' Mannheim led a mob-gang to take over Metropolis. It took sixty police officers to stop them. Boss Mannheim was acquitted of most of the charges for every reason you could imagine. Spent five years in jail. Whatever he got up to after that never made the papers. Our missus Mannheim could be the illegit daughter or she chose the name because of its history." She nudged Clark. "Any thoughts on that in your head, farm boy?"
Clark usually had good observations. He might have been a hayseed farm boy from the boonies, but he could read people almost as well as she could.
"The latter, I think." Clark replied, after a moment of thought. "If she's refusing to meet in person, then she must be fairly recognizeable. Maybe she's a public face. A spokesperson, a politician, maybe even an actress. But she wants a fake name that can generate some respect right off the bat. So she links herself to the Mannheim name because it might be enough to get her foot in the door."
"And what does it say about December Mannheim, if she can spook a Falcone?" Lois wondered.
"More spooked by the people she has working for her." Clark corrected. "I suppose if you took them away, Ms. Mannheim would have much less weight to throw around."
"If Gigante is telling the truth." Lois nodded. She reached the door ahead of Clark and held it open for him.
"You don't think she is?"
"Well, she didn't get this far in life by being truthful."
"Let's assume that she is being truthful. Just hypothetically." Clark suggested. "Hypothetically, why would Ms. Mannheim move in on Gigante's operations?"
"Easy. There's probably a bone to pick." Lois answered. "It's definitely easier to take shots at them when they establish away from Gotham. Ninety percent of that city sits in the Falcone pocket. Hypothetically, if you're a super-powered person, why would you team up with someone who's got the shadiness going on?"
"People turn to crime for a lot of reasons, Lois." Clark reminded her. The express elevator opened the moment he pressed the call button. "They have to eat. They need a roof over their heads. They're not always doing it for personal gain."
"Hypothetically, December Mannheim isn't motived by the bottom rung of Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs." Lois pressed the button for floor fifty-seven. "But hypothetically, her little gang of metahumans is motivated by that bottom rung."
"They're living on the streets, maybe. These powers are starting to emerge and they can't control them. They're scared, they don't know where to turn. Fear has driven them away from home. Maybe their parents actually turned them out." Clark guessed. He remembered exactly how he had felt when he'd first seen the ship that had brought him to Earth. He'd felt like his whole world had been knocked off orbit. "Then Ms. Mannheim comes along and offers them something. Shelter, food, control of their powers, and a safe environment. That's everything a teenager needs, right?"
"For the most part." Lois shrugged. "Stupid teenagers who don't see the difference between right and wrong. The question is, if Ms. Mannheim's morals are equal to or worse than Gigante's, and I'm voting on the latter, then why would the kids stick around once they've got her figured out?"
"Hypothetically, Ms. Mannheim convinced them she was doing the right thing." Clark suggested.
Lois mulled over that while the elevator car sped them up to the fifty-seventh floor. People turned to crime for a lot of reasons. They stayed with crime because it was paying off. Ms. Mannheim's team of not so hypothetical meta-kids had joined her because they'd had nowhere else to go. They stayed because it was better than leaving.
The elevator stopped and opened its door on the fifty-seventh floor lobby.
"The problem is, she's right. Gigante's right." Lois declared as they stepped out. It sounded like it pricked a little to admit it.
"How so?" Clark prompted.
"The suddenly dry-docked sailboat Gigante mentioned is a legit thing. The official story was a storm surge, but that was total crap, considering the boat was halfway up Hell's Gate Island and it was the middle of August." Lois explained. "August is always like this around here. We never get thunderstorms until the end of the month. There's no way that sailboat ended up in the middle of the island unless someone put it there."
They walked into the newsroom and its usual mid-morning mess of activity.
"So picture this: If there really are mobsters who can fling around thirteen thousand pound sailboats like they're baseballs, how are the police supposed to deal with that?" the dark-haired woman went on. "The SCU barely managed to handle the whole mess with the Hellgrammite and its babies. They've got procedure now, but for a while there, they were making it up off the top of their heads. They've got Detective Whammy-hammer, but he's their only one and I think his mind-whammy powers aren't exactly suited for handling super-strength. So how are the rest of them going to do it?"
The answer was: the police really couldn't deal with it. The average police officer didn't have the training to handle with metahumans, because for two decades, it had been rare to find metahumans actively using their abilities. It was why the Special Crimes Unit had still existed, but until recently, the department had been treated like a joke.
After that mess with the Hellgrammite, the mayor's office had wised up and began taking the SCU a little more seriously. The department had come up in numbers over the summer and the old D.E.O. handbooks had found their way out of storage, but it was a learning process for the veterans as well as the rookies, so it didn't necessarily increase their efficiency. For now, the SCU was limited in what it was capable of doing.
Maybe, one day, all incoming cadets would receive a standard education in the apprehension and detention of metahumans and the SCU would progress into a highly specialized and skilled branch within the department.
But that day was a nebulous point in the future.
"I suppose Superman deals with it." Clark guessed.
"He shouldn't have to." Lois snapped.
The harshness in her voice made Clark flinch. Lois had become one of his staunchest allies in the media in the last nine months -- saving her life, what, three or four times? had helped with that. And to hear what she was saying...?
"Are you suggesting that Superman shouldn't be helping people?" he asked.
"I'm not saying that! I'm saying..." Lois paused for a second to get her thoughts together. "I'm saying that we shouldn't expect Superman to deal with every single situation that looks even slightly left of center, otherwise we end up running straight to him for every problem and expect him to handle it. Metropolis is going to have to learn how to deal with the metahuman thing on its own, just in case one day Superman isn't there."
Clark gave her a somewhat bemused look, though what he felt was more amusement. "You honestly think there's going to be a time when Superman won't be able to be there."
"Smallville, c'mon." Lois rolled her eyes and dropped her bag into her desk chair. "Underneath that cape and those chiseled good looks, he pretends to be a normal human. I mean, I guess he is an American citizen, which means he's beholden to American law. And if he doesn't have any training in law enforcement, then he's technically not legally qualified in the same way the police are. And you know how people feel about superheroes these days."
Nail on the head, Lois. Clark thought. It was good to know that she felt the same way about the situation as he did.
A sharp whistle cut through the air and it took Clark until the instant it struck its highest pitch to realize that it was coming from the outside. He felt the impact through the soles of his shoes before everyone else heard the explosion.
There was a sudden crack like thunder overhead, the kind that shook entire houses and caused people to drop everything they were holding and scream. Lois nearly startled herself right off her own feet, grabbing onto handfuls of Clark's shirt.
"What the hell was that?!" she demanded, jerking upright.
"Over there." Clark surged forward, taking her elbow as he did.
There were panoramic walls of windows on each side of the fifty-seventh floor. The reporters on the floor had had a nearly uninterrupted three hundred and sixty degree view of the city. Hob's Bay to the south. Midtown to the north. The business district to the east and more of Downtown to the west.
They gathered now at the east windows, seething up to the glass like salmon trying to swim upstream with about half the luck. They pushed and jostled each other trying to get a better look.
"There's a building on fire!"
"Which building is it? I can't see!"
"I can't see either! You're too tall! Get out of my way!"
"Yeah! Make some room for the short people, you fucking giant!"
Clark cut a path through the heaving crowd, Lois following eagerly in his wake, until they were both up to the glass. Black smoke was rising over the business district, just ten blocks away.
"Did anyone see what happened?" Lois called, only to get a general murmur of negatives in return. No one had been staring out the window. The skyline hadn't been important until now.
"Shit, you don't think it's another Twin Towers thing, d'ya?" Steve Lombarde asked no one in particular. He tried to keep his voice quiet, but it was deep and rumbly and carried rather well. The words sent an uneasy ripple over the crowd.
"No way! Maybe someone's air-con blew up!" a reporter denied shakily. A thick New York accent poured out of his voice. Lois recognized him as Freddy Jones who had closed out his Manhattan reporting career with the booms that had been 9-11.
Clark felt the fear settle into a knot in his chest, accompanied by ballooning uncertainty and a horrible sense of insecurity that took the bottom out of his stomach. He had been in Russia when terrorists had flown airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He hadn't heard about the event until over several months later, when he'd finally walked into a town large enough to field international news in a language he could understand.
But he had the same feeling now as he did then. Even now, six years later, America still wasn't as safe and secure as anyone wanted to believe. It wasn't untouchable and some people just wanted to prove that.
"Hey! I think it's the Future World building that's on fire!"
"Yeah! With the big spire up there, right?"
"How can you see that? That's practically on the other side of the strait!"
"Damn, it's not LexCorp." Lois muttered. Now that she thought about it, the smoke was too close to be LexCorp; on the far eastern tip of New Troy. The Future World building was much more centrally located in the business district.
"What's going on!?" Perry White waded into the mass of people by the window, the crowd parting for him. "Have we heard anything yet? Who's on the phone with the police? Who's getting pictures of this clusterfuck?!"
With sheepish expressions, several photographers ducked away to retrieve their cameras.
Something shot by the building, so fast it was a blur and so close it made the windows flex. The reporters trampled back from the glass like it had suddenly heated, screeching in fright and stumbling over one another. A sonic boom thundered past a second later, rolling over the city.
In the time it took to dissipate, another explosion burst into the air. A plume of fire rose briefly above the rooftops before dissolving into thick black smoke, precisely alongside the first and something veered back along the skyline.
"That's an MQ-9 Reaper A predator drone! Packing heat!" Lois exclaimed, practically throwing herself back against the glass. Her voice was veering towards hysterical excitement. She hadn't been allowed in the aircraft hangars unsupervised so she had never gotten to see the fun stuff very much. "Hellfires or Sidewinders, I bet! Both of those can go supersonic!"
Perry whipped around so fast he might have given himself whiplash.
"What the hell's a UAV doing over Metropolis?! Lane! How the hell do you know what that is!?"
"I'm an Army brat, Chief. Some things just rub off on you."
"But what's it doing over Metropolis?!"
"Beats the hell outta me." Lois commented, grinning eagerly. She never channeled her adrenaline into fear or anger. Always action. She couldn't afford to lose her head whenever chaos erupted.
Her fingers itched. She wanted to run back to her computer and take down preliminary notes as much as she wanted to keep watching to see what would happen next. There was a story happening here and it was bound to be a doozy. Predator drones couldn't just launch themselves and start firing missiles. There was someone within a thousand mile radius typing in orders and working the controls.
"Holy shit, betcha don't get excitement like this in Tiny Town, Kansas, eh Smallville?" Lois asked, watching the drone circle around to line up its next attack run. "Though after meteors and doomsday cults, bet this is like coming home."
Clark didn't reply, which was unusual, because when it came to his hometown, he tended to have something to say in return, even if it was just the feeble defense that Smallville was just a farming community and the only exciting thing that had ever happened was when all the cows wandered into the middle of town or something like that.
And she didn't feel his sometimes hulking presence at her back.
"Hey, Clark?" She turned and found an empty space where she was sure the other reporter must have been standing. "Clark?... Clark?"
She looked left and right, standing on her toes to peer over the heads of the crowd rushing back up to the windows, searching for his profile, but Clark was nowhere to be seen.
"Look, look!" Connie, one of the interns, screamed so loud her voice cracked. "Look! It's Superman!"
The mysterious whereabouts of Clark Kent forgotten, Lois flattened herself back against the window for the closest look she could get. Superman moved too fast for her to really get a good look at him, but there was no mistaking him. Lois saw the red cape and the muscled body emblazoned with that stylized 'S', powerful arms outstretched as he flew towards the flaming building.
Then she frowned. Clark was gone.
Once again, Clark Kent had mysteriously vanished just before Superman showed up.
How... odd.
How coincidental.
Even before he'd gotten out the roof access door, Clark was able to smell the burning fuel from the launched missiles. The acrid stench hit him like a punch to the nose the second he threw himself out the door, tearing off the last of his clothes. The silk tie was the last thing to hit the rooftop and the crimson cape unfurled behind him as he took to the air like he had been shot out of a cannon. The city-scape blurred under him as he flew to the Future World Industries building.
The building looked as though it might have been ripped straight from the pages of a pulp sci-fi novel. A broad sweeping structure of steel and reflective glass, taking up an entire city block by itself (in this city, one hundred sixty-eight thousand, one hundred square feet). The pyramidal base housed forty floors of labs and offices and testing rooms. There was a visitor friendly observation deck that overlooked Hob's Bay. The interior was sleek lines of chrome and steel and the color white, smooth and polished and sterile. The executive tower was another ten floors and it twisted in a spiral like a Phillips-head screwdriver.
It was hard to tell if the tower itself or the pyramidal structure had been the target. The first missile had struck about three quarters of the way up the pyramid. The second missile had likewise struck the pyramid, higher up than the first. Smoke poured out of the craggy gashes and hot flames licked at the edges. The city was already lighting up, sirens piercing the air and there was the distant sound of a chopper warming up. He heard the wails of fear from inside the building.
Superman swept his x-ray vision up and down the skyscraper as he circled it. It was Friday, mid-morning, coffee break time. There was a large break room that took up most of the thirtieth floor and the majority of the people streaming off that floor in droves. Everyone below floor thirty-three was making tracks down the emergency stairs and the elevators were quickly zooming down on their final descent, carrying a load each. But the missiles had been sleek little things that hadn't detonated immediately upon impact and they had gone deep enough into the building to bust out the elevator shafts and the doors to the stairs, effectively trapping everyone else between floor thirty-four and floor forty-five.
There were people clustering at the windows now, shouting and pointing at him, arms thrusting out frantically as they shouted for help. The people above floor forty-five and up in the executive tower could probably be rescued by chopper. It was the people stuck between the impact points who really needed the help and he needed to get them out before they were overwhelmed by the smoke and the fire. He quickly counted up the people and winced when the number exceeded five hundred.
"This isn't going to work a few at a time." he said in dismay. More people would just suffocate before he could get to them.
There had to be something big and flat he could borrow, just for a moment, to get everyone possible out of the afflicted area. He looked around for a frustratingly long second, finding nothing until his search landed on an empty garbage scow anchored in Hob's Bay. He regarded it for a moment. How much weight was that, several tons? Well, it didn't matter how much it weighed. It was large enough to carry those five hundred plus people.
A deep breath in his lungs, he shot towards it and under the water, snapping the anchor chains before moving to the crusted underside of the scow and heaving upwards with it. Muscles bunched and bulged and strained. Superman felt his whole body go into the effort of lifting the several ton hunk of metal out of the water and bit by bit, it rose up. The moment it was freed of the water's pull, it seemed easier to hoist the scow into the air. He pushed upwards, back towards the burning building.
His arms were starting to shake by the time he brought the scow about level with the longest swathe of broken windows. It was heavy; he had never carried something this weighty for this long! He had to bury the edge of it into the wall a little ways just to steady it. In the time it had taken him to transport the scow up to the burning floors, the employees had gathered in a terrified cluster of humanity, coughing and crying, but there was sense of salvation and relief. Another few windows were smashed open by chairs.
Surprisingly, they didn't push or shove their way out the windows. They stayed relatively calm and orderly, jumping out one a time. The leaders of the pack, probably the managers, hurried them on, bellowing encouragement and generally being cheerleaders.
A whistle sounded in his ears.
The UAV!
Superman turned his head just in time to see the predator drone fire another missile and break off. Shit! He couldn't do anything! Employees were still filing out the windows and he couldn't move he couldn't leave them to die!-
Gut-wrenching horror seized him when he realized he could calculate the trajectory of the missile. It was either going to hit the scow or himself. The scow wouldn't make it and neither would the people climbing aboard, that was for sure. But he had to wonder:
Could I survive that?
"Krypto!" Superman screamed in such a high pitch that it was inaudible to human ears.
Then time itself started behaving funny, like it always seemed to do when situations got bad. The launched missile appeared to slow down to a crawl, moving a mere inch at a time. It oozed forward inexorably, trailing heat and condensation like streamers. He didn't know if he could survive the impact. Blunt force trauma, bullets at point-blank, even half a building had collapsed on him at one point. He had fallen through hundreds of miles worth of atmosphere and hit the south Atlantic without much more than a sprained wrist and sore back to show for it. He hadn't been exposed to much else. For all he knew, a forty-pound tank-busting warhead exploding in his face could be the very thing that did him in.
But today, he wasn't going to find out.
A white blur streaked across the skyline and caught the missile in powerful, clamping jaws. Krypto, arriving in a timely manner as usual, for he was never that far away. The wolf-like Kryptonian dog wrassled with the missile for a moment, its thrusters pushing it forward. But alien strength won out and Krypto sped off with his target. He dropped it several miles out over Lake Superior. It twirled away crazily into the water to explode, sending a fountain spewing into the air.
Tail waving jauntily, Krypto flew back to Superman to see what else he could do to help.
"Good boy. Such a good boy. I owe you a steak." Superman praised through gritted teeth. The scow was heavier now with over five hundred people on it and he was feeling the strain all down his shoulders and back.
But there was just a few people left.
"See the flying thing over there?"
Krypto's ears pricked forward as he watched the UAV circle again, summer sunlight glinting off its hull. It was a threat. His hackles started to rise and a subsonic growl rumbled out of his vocal cords.
"Get the flying thing." Superman instructed.
Krypto whuffed an affirmative and flew to intercept. The UAV began to line up another pass. It had one more missile left. But Krypto was faster and he detonated in an explosion of teeth and claws, bearing down on the drone exactly like a very savage attack dog. His knife-like teeth tore at the wings and engine, claws ripping open the hull.
That would keep the controller busy for a bit.
Superman peered up through the scow to the five hundred plus people huddled on the deck and then looked into the building. Two managers hauled the last person out the window, cradling a broken leg and then they were all aboard. Once they were settled, he dug his fingers into the metal and started to pull away from the building.
It was agony to move slowly; he had never carried something to heavy before. The scow threatened to tilt and waver as he struggled to keep it steady. But he literally had five hundred lives resting on his shoulders and he could not afford to let the scow tilt too far, the quivering of his muscles be damned.
Slowly, carefully, he hauled the scow back to the water.
The return flight to Hob's Bay was ridiculously slow. Superman reminded himself every other second about the people on the scow. Five hundred of them depending entirely on his ability to put it down safely in the water.
Several choppers had launched in the interim. Two were rescue choppers that landed daintily, one at a time, on the helicopter pad to ferry out the people in the executive tower and upper floors of the pyramid. The other two were news choppers, both from Galaxy communications. One buzzed around Krypto who was still busy savaging the drone. He had reduced it to the point of uselessness, tearing off the wings and the propeller. He had put deep holes in the engine and the whole thing was sputtering and coughing smoke. However, he avoided damaging anything that looked like an identifying mark and dropped the savaged drone right on the front lawn of the city court-house.
The second helicopter dropped in through Superman's peripheral vision and hovered around in front of him like a great dragonfly. The lens of camera flashed briefly in the indirect light from the chopper's open side door. At that moment, Superman was sure that everyone was going to have a good look at his gritted teeth and strained expression.
That was going straight to the internet to be meme'd. He was calling it now.
The back end of the scow dropped.
The sudden tilt seemed to drag his stomach with it and the accompanying yelps made his heart leap. A swear on the tip of his tongue, Superman fought to lift the back end, but he could feel it dragging down more and more--
Krypto whooshed past him and then the strain of lifting the back end of the scow lightened. A cheery bark in his ears reassured him of what was happening. Krypto wasn't nearly as strong as the other Kryptonian, but he could bear some of the weight.
Definitely steak. A side of beef, if I can manage it. Superman thought, nodding to himself.
Lightly like a feather, they sunk into Hob's Bay and finally let the scow settle back onto the water's surface.
"Hell of a Friday, Smallville."
"You're telling me."
"Why do my Fridays with you always end up like this?"
"Lucky shoes." Clark commented.
"Heh." Lois tapped the heels of the shoes in the question of the leg of her desk. "Not so lucky today. I didn't even get the story."
"Sorry, Lois. I suppose you'll have to be faster next time." Clark said, not so apologetically even under the strength of his partner's glower.
His official excuse for disappearing was that he had run downstairs and outside to go get the story from ground level. One advantage of being Superman was that people were usually very eager to talk to him, so it wasn't like it had been difficult to go around to the Future World employees and ask if they were okay, what they had seen, if there had been any rumors about an attack or what might have incited this, etcetera.
He and Lois were partners, but they didn't share the byline all the time.
Lois let a grumbling noise and dropped her glower, since it was half a cover for a sense of pride. Only the early reporter got the story and Clark had leapt right into action without waiting even a second. She had taught him well.
"Remember to keep it in perspective, Smallville."
"I know, Lois."
"I know you know, but every time Superman pops onto the scene, everyone gets so excited they lose focus. They want that sensational story!" Lois held up her hands like she was framing something.
'Sensational' was what happened to every Superman story if neither Clark nor Lois wrote it. Occasionally, someone else got the scoop first and they did the journalistic equivalent of purple prose and literary cheese. It wasn't yet an editor's mandate that all Superman scoops go straight to Lois Lane and Clark Kent, but Perry had called them the superhero beat. There was a tacit understanding that all superhero stories were in their territory.
"It's been nine months. I know how to write an objective article by now." Clark told her. "I won't sensationalize it."
"Speaking of sensational stories... Someone turn the TV up!" Lois yelled into the general din.
Someone did and the voice of the Planet's own news-anchor Angela Chen filled the newsroom. She had a botox smile and more enthusiasm than the evening news typically required. Relegated to puff pieces and gossip, she normally didn't turn up on the six o'clock news. To see her on the tube any earlier than eleven was a sign that the news staff was either short-handed or that her face was the only one that went with the story.
Activity came to a halt.
"...predator drone that bombed the headquarters of Future World Industries this morning has been identified. It was manufactured at a LexCorp facility right here in Metropolis. LexCorp denies any involvement with the attack, stating that the drone is one of six drones that were reported stolen last April by a still unidentified party."
"Oh, that's ballsy, stealing from Luthor." Lois commented softly.
"Thanks to the quick actions of the Metropolis emergency responders, and Superman," Angela allowed herself a little smile. "The final numbers are far lower than they could have been. Of the fifteen hundred employees who were in the building at the time of the attack, only hundred and fifty are dead, missing, or so far unidentified. In response to the attack, Future World Industries CEO Deirdre Merlo had this to say."
Lois made a groaning disgusted noise as the newsdesk was replaced by the Future World CEO. Deirdre Merlo was as photogenic as they came. She was the type of person whose appearance one would most certainly apply the description "exotic" to. Large, almond-shaped eyes with irises the color of black ink; they looked solemnly into the camera. Her glossy black hair had been pinned up with delicate hair comb accessory that fanned out above her head like the tail of a peacock. Her ethnicity was an indistinct Middle Eastern/Indian but it had given her an enviable golden skin tone that was well complimented by her dove-gray suit jacket and low-cut black blouse.
She was, quite frankly, a gorgeous young woman. Lois had a stronger preference for men than she did women, but even the likes of Dierdre Merlo could make her do a double-take. However, personality-wise, she was shallow and insipid and everything Lois hated.
"I am shocked and outraged by this despicable act of terrorism." Ms. Merlo said in a honeyed but strangely child-like voice. "I'm horrified that it was aimed at my company. Future World Industries has done nothing to harm anyone. We have only the best interests for the future at heart. Our mission statement is to make the world a safer, healthier, and more secure place for everyone. I cannot believe anyone could find reason to take offense at this.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of the victims. I am deeply sorry for the losses we have suffered and I will personally see to it that every funerary expense is paid for, out of my own pocket if necessary. I am grateful that the number is as low as it is. Superman saved the lives of many of my employees and though I owe him a debt of gratitude, I still do not condone his presence in our fair city. Perhaps this would not have happened if he had not revealed himself..."
"Oh bitch please." Lois sneered. "You've got enough enemies you don't need to go using Superman as an excuse." She looked over at Clark and knocked a thumb at the television with an expression that read 'can you believe her?'.
Clark just shrugged. He had no real opinion about Ms. Merlo, as he didn't know enough about her to have an informed opinion. And as much as Clark trusted Lois, he had also learned to take her observations of people with a grain of salt. She was not a naturally trusting person and she tended to look for the worst right off the bat. It could just be that Lois disliked Ms. Merlo because everyone else thought the female CEO was the bee's knees.
It also could be that Lois was seeing something no one else had noticed. It had been like that with Luthor, but there was some contextual evidence around Luthor that suggested he'd gotten up to no good a few times in the past; those lawsuits hadn't come out of nowhere. Ms. Merlo, on the other hand, had nothing of the sort, which was probably what had incited Lois's feeling of "general ill will that springs from no discernable source". No one's record was that clean, she would argue.
Either way, Clark was just trying not to jump to a conclusion.
"Once His Majesty, King Chrome Dome chimes in personally, the circle of evil will be complete." Lois muttered.
"Two people do not a circle make, Lois." Clark said absently.
"Fine, the straight line of evil." the dark-haired woman corrected.
She turned away from the television and spun her chair around to face Clark properly. His attention had been mostly absorbed by his computer and his fingers tap-tap-tapped away at the keyboard a hundred words a minute. He was a stellar touch-typist.
He sat less hunched these days; Lois had managed to exorcise the worst of the bad posture habits out of him. But today, there was a stiffness in his shoulders that hadn't been there a few hours ago and every so often, he would crack his neck this way and that like there was a kink in it that just wouldn't go away. He also stood up slow, like his lower back was giving him some trouble.
This was a recent development. Clark had been perfectly fine this morning.
It made Lois frown.
"Hey Clark? If you ran all the way down to the Future World building for the story, how on earth did you not manage to get any video?" she asked.
Clark glanced away from the screen, navy blue eyes flickering around the surface of his desk for a moment before he made eye contact with her.
"I forgot my phone." he replied, and then went back to typing.
Did you now...
A phone that he routinely kept in his pocket. A phone that he always kept charged. A phone that Lois had never seen him forget. Not once. This from a man who never misplaced his belongings.
And he had forgotten his phone.
I'll believe that when some equally farfetched thing happens. Lois thought. I've got an eye on you, Clark Kent.
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