Chapter 4 Revised and expanded. I added more activity to the dialogue. I reworked Trish's part make her appear more perceptive. Just because she represents the audience here, doesn't mean...well actually it means she must be highly perceptive, right. I have the smartest fans in fandom, right guys and gals. Lets have cheer for all of us fans!
DC Comics and Bad Hat Harry Productions own the sandbox. I get to play in it. And one day, I will be good enough to make some money off of stuff like this.
Back in the newsroom Jimmy, Trish and Jason were crowded in the darkroom developing old fashioned photographs. "Whyn't you use your digicamera, Uncle Jimmy?" Jason sloshed prints around in the developing solutions, with a huge smile on his face. Anyone who looked would have thought the five-year-old was just playing, but Jimmy and Trish knew that this kid was quite adept at coaxing the image out of the print.
"My digital camera, Jason?" Jimmy looked over from where he was working with the negatives.
"Yeah, the one you hook up to the computer and send your pictures up on the screen through a cable, like Trish does with her music." Jason passed two prints up to Trish who clothes-pinned them up to the drying line
"I just had switch back to old fashioned film to cover Superman. I never got anything but a blur of pixels when I tried to photograph Superman with the digital. But with good old fashioned F-stops and photo chemistry, I get crystal clear black and white pictures every time."
"What about your developing team?" Trish punched Jimmy playfully in the shoulder.
Olson's face grew ashen with mock horror as though Trish's punch had caused him to foul up some prints. All three cracked up with laughter.
"Of course, I couldn't do it without you guys." Jimmy passed another sheet of photo paper to Jason.
Jason took the photo with his tongs and began rotating it through the solutions. His process looked completely haphazard and he never quite did it the same, but the pictures always came out looking fantastic. "I get why you use these kind of pitchers for Superman, but why not use the dig-i-tal camera for these pictures of buildings?"
"The lad has a point there, Mr. Olsen." Trish chimed in, "if you use the black and white for Superman pictures, why not use the digital for these pictures of the rich oceanliner guy's house?"
"Because this is part of a Superman story."
"How do you know?"
"May I borrow these?" Jimmy took an extra set of tongs off of Jason's solution table and pulled an 8x10 out of the last solution. He held it proudly in front of the red light. "This picture right here makes it a Superman story."
"Ooo-oh" said Jason.
"I don't get it," said Trish. "What does that huge crystal splitting apart the model train set and cracking the basement floor have to with Superman?"
"The crystals look like the ones from Superman's temple up in the mountains and like the ones out in the ocean, the ones he picked up and lifted up into or-bit." Jason commented wide-eyed.
"So why did Superman put his crystals in the basement of the oceanliner guy's house?" Trish asked. "I'm sure that you're not telling me everything."
"It wasn't him," Jimmy processed the last of the negatives as Jason handed more prints out of the developing solution up to Trish added them to the group already drying.
"It was the bad bald man," added Jason as he deftly transferred partially developed prints from one pan filled with developing chemicals to another.
"Okay, tell me more," Trish encouraged Jason to continue. That couldn't possibly be the whole of the matter.
"The bad bald man stole the crystals from Superman's Temple up the mountains. And he tried a spearmint in the basement."
"Lex Luthor, and he performed an experiment, Jason," added Jimmy
"Thanks Uncle Jimmy," Jason switched the prints in the solution again. "The bad bald man did one of those in the basement of the house to see how it would work before he tried in the ocean."
"I get it, now" Trish brightened up. "I remember reading in the Society Pages of the Daily Planet, how Lex Luthor married the widow of the oceanliner guy. You're saying this crystal split the basement of her house, right before the black out last week."
"Yes. These before-and-after pictures from Google Earth confirm it. And I think Miss Lane and Jason here" Jimmy mussed the tyke's hair gently, "can place Luthor at the house around that same time can't you, big guy?"
Jason crossed his arms and stomped over to the corner. "Don't want to talk about that day. Not till I get a chance to talk to Superman about it first."
Trish stooped down and put a hand on Jason's cheek, "Why not Jay Jay?"
"Jay Jay is a jet plane on a TV show for babies. I'm a big kid. My name is Jason. I hafta talk about it with Superman. He'll understand."
Jimmy ran the last print through the solutions as he listened to the exchange between Trish and Jason. "Well, that about wraps it up. Let's go see if Mr. Clark and Mr. Richard are down off the roof. Mr. Clark needs to pick his photos for the story."