Clark rapped his knuckles on the Chief Editor's door and waited for him and Chloe to be summoned inside. He looked at her anxiously as he heard some loud muttering from inside: "The Washington Post want it. ABC want it. Even that piece of trash The Daily Mail want it. Everyone wants our picture of Superman and we're not giving it up. Great Caesar's Ghost! Who wants to see me now?" The great editor opened his door with a look that would kill most people. Chloe beamed at him, not fitting into that category in the slightest.

"Morning Chief," she greeted brightly, knowing full well about his hatred of the nickname that Lois had given him. It had become a little game of theirs to see how many times they could sneak it into conversation.

"Morning Miss Sullivan. Stop calling me Chief," rebutted Mr White, walking back into his office while the pair of intrepid reporters followed.

"Sure thing, Chief," Chloe grinned. She turned and gestured at Clark, "Mr White, this is Clark Kent- our newest hire. Clark this is your editor and the man who from now on runs your life, Perry White."

"A pleasure to be working for you Mr White," Clark said, reaching out and taking Mr White's hand.

"Thank you for joining us Mr Kent. Miss Sullivan here raved about you before we hired you, so I hope you live up to your expectations," declared Mr White, breaking the handshake and returning to his desk.

"I plan to Chief," smiled Clark, looking at Chloe, who winked at him.

"Dont-" Mr White sighed, "what's the point? I'm sticking you with Miss Lane in the bullpen. She just wrote the infamous Superman article that caused our paper to sell out by 9:30 this morning across the country and could break it big if she carries on this way. But she tends to get herself into trouble and needs someone to keep her grounded and stop her running off into tricky situations that could get her hurt. That job falls on your shoulders Mr Kent. Do you think you could do that for me?"

Sounds like Lois. "Certainly Chief," Clark assured the editor.

"You're a brave man, Kent. She made her last two partners cry multiple times and one of them decided to leave Metropolis."

"A bit of a slave driver?" said Clark, knowing full well of her bossy, demanding ways.

"To say the least. She has balls and will run down anyone in her way if she has to. I quite like that about her, but don't tell her I said that. Can you handle Miss Lane?" Mr White dared his newest employee.

"Consider it done," replied Clark cooly, glad her Lois' boss respected her.

"Good. For now however, I need you at Lex Luthor's Press conference. I'm throwing you in the deep end with this one Kent; do not fail me or you'll be doing nothing more than photocopying and coffee runs for the rest of your career," Mr White challenged.

"Received and understood," said Clark, gripping his briefcase nervously and pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Get moving then, it starts in half an hour!" shouted Mr White suddenly, startling both Chloe and Clark.

"Yes Chief," Clark mumbled, making his way out the office as quickly as humanely possible.

"Great Caesar's ghost, even the newbies call me that now," the Chief muttered. "Ah, Sullivan, I see a confused look on your face."

"Yes," started Chloe, sitting down opposite the older man. "I thought that Luthor Conference would be right on my beat, considering my head of politics gig after all?"

"Yes that's true, but you already have something lined up for you this morning," responded Perry White, standing up and walking in front of his window dramatically.

Always one for melodrama is Perry White. "And what would that be Chief?" asked Chloe, her interest piqued.

"Queen Industries got in touch this morning, offering us an exclusive interview with their CEO Oliver Queen," Mr White continued.

"What would that playboy have to do with me?" Chloe wondered aloud, her eyebrows furrowing.

"They only offered the interview if you were the one conducting it, Miss Sullivan," Perry turned and looked straight at her, smirking.

"Oh," managed Chloe, surprised.

"Yes, so you better get moving because if were going to keep this contact open, we need you at your best. Go home and get ready for Star City's most eligible bachelor. You're going have to bring your A game to lunch with Mr Queen," the editor dismissed his reporter, turning away with flair.

"Certainly Chief," Chloe smiled, getting up and leaving. Such a drama queen, as she heard him proclaim to the Phantom of the great emperor Julius for the eighth time that morning.

xxXxx

Victor broke out of sleep, sat up and screamed. He couldn't see; he couldn't feel. Lines of coding ran before his eyes, suddenly making sense. He had never used a computer for anything other than school projects before and now he could see and understand the deepest levels of software. But I'm not on a computer. My eyes are shut and I'm lying in bed. The data was telling him that tubes were coming out of his body left, right and centre and there was an alarm blaring out loudly. That thing is too noisy, could someone please turn it off?

Before he had even finished that thought, Victor felt his mind diving into the nether. He seemed to brush his way through wall after wall until he reached a room that contained a single switch. He walked forward gingerly and stared at it. Nothing moved, all was still. It was just him, the alarm and that switch. Victor reached out and flipped it. The alarm stopped instantly and he felt himself being sucked back out of the cyberspace that he was consumed in. What the hell was that?

Victor's vision broke apart for a moment and then static fuzzed across his mind. Suddenly his sight was restored and the man saw for the first time. Before him stood a cyborg, his left arm still human but the whole right hand side of his body was metal. The flesh of his hand ran along his face, now made of metal. Dear God, that thing is me...

Cyborg's eye grew red and suddenly Victor could feel everything. His body was on fire and his head felt like it was tearing itself apart from the amount of information that it was processing. His emotions fought with the constant stream of data pouring through his conscience. Victor screamed again as his right arm transformed into a gun. The metallic man yelled as his vision changed to bright colours, three shapes of red and orange emerging from within the mirror that covered the whole of one wall. I'm seeing infrared. Those are people on the other side!

"What have you done to me?" Victor screamed at the mirror he now knew was a looking glass for the scientists. He fired his sonic cannon, shattering the glass. Shards rained down on him, not even scratching the cyborg as they bounced off his hardened steel. Victor heard the cries of horror coming from the lab as he tried to remove himself from the tubes that were anchoring him. I have to get out of here now.

Cyborg's strength died away and he fell to his knees. One of the scientist had cut off his power and Victor slowly felt himself shutting down. He fell on his side and waited for the darkness to come. A single tear of oil ran down his face as the man collapsed himself into the fetal position. "Why couldn't you just let me die?" he cried as his world turned midnight black.

xxXxx

Author's note: Thanks for reading! And to anyone who followed, favourited and/or reviewed, I am so grateful. Your feedback is everything in motivating me. I really enjoyed writing this chapter as I feel as though we are really starting to touch on the roots of Superman with Clark Kent's exploits at The Daily Planet. Also the more I write about Victor and Kara, the more excited I get about their characters and potential plot lines. And I'm sorry it's late, I had to edit it and I may have gone out thinking I would have time to do it later. I was wrong!

Anyway, thanks again and happy Easter even if I am a tad late on that too! It feels so good to be eating chocolate again after lent... Cheers!